Currently, with intense diplomacy taking place to – perhaps – end the Ukraine conflict, questions surrounding Kiev’s domestic politics may seem secondary. However, in reality, they are as important as the search for peace.

There are two reasons: First, Ukrainians have a right to finally be released from their perverse bondage to what is, in effect, a long-ago failed Western proxy war against Russia. Those still in denial about this fact should check out a recent interview with a former Biden administration policy official. Amanda Sloat has casually admitted that much now: The war could have been avoided if the West had not insisted on NATO membership prospects for Ukraine, which never really existed anyhow.

Observers not blinded by Western propaganda – including this author – were warning that, for Ukraine, this fake NATO perspective was a road to catastrophe. But the Sloats of this world refused to listen. Why then did the West want the war? To diminish Russia by using Ukraine as a battering ram and Ukrainians as cannon fodder.

Secondly – and more practically – no peace will last without an end to Ukraine’s ultra-corrupt current authoritarian regime. Talk about defending “democracy” in Ukraine is absurd. Under Vladimir Zelensky, there is no such thing left. By now, even some Western mainstream commentators are starting to admit Zelensky’s authoritarianism. Yet the former entertainment........

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