This article is the product of visits to Russia I made in June and September 2026 where I met with senior Russian leaders, leading academics, and specialists in military and security issues
There has been a spate of irresponsibly aggressive rhetoric from within Europe strongly posturing for a conflict with Russia by the end of the decade. This rhetoric comes in the context of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which is well into its fifth year, a conflict which both Europe and the United States openly acknowledge operates in the form of a proxy war between the collective West and Russia. The Russian response has been to accelerate its military efforts against Ukraine while putting NATO on notice that any effort to threaten Russian territory, and particularly the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, would see Russia responding with the full compliment of military capabilities, including nuclear weapons. The current situation in Europe today in many ways replicates the conditions that existed on the continent in the summer of 1914, where military mobilization and war preparations created a momentum that produced a war no politician was seriously looking to prosecute. The consequences of war in 1914 were a disaster for Europe; the consequences of a war today would be fatal to civilization as we know it.
In examining the geopolitical map of Europe/Eurasia today, one can assess four points of military friction between Russia, the United States and Europe. These are Ukraine, the Arctic, Kaliningrad, and Outer Space. While each represents a physically distinct problem set politically and militarily, they are all four inextricably linked through a common Russophobic mindset in Europe and the United States which treats Russia as a singular security issue. Moreover, both Europe and the US operate from a strategic mindset driven by zero-sum thinking, which postures Russia as being structurally motivated to bring harm to both Europe and the United States, thereby stifling the possibility of cooperation with Russia that could resolve many if not all of the underlying issues which are collectively construed by the West as presenting a threat. For its part, Russia operates from a mindset derived from the psychology of perpetual victimhood dating back centuries, and a historical foundation of resistance to aggression which seeks diplomatic resolution until which point military confrontation becomes the only solution
Ukraine: The (perceived) chink in the Soviet/Russian armor
The current conflict in Ukraine between Russia and the West did not begin in 2022 with the Russian invasion but rather represents the logical conclusion of a posture on the part of the United States and NATO which sought to exploit the ultra-nationalism of Western Ukraine in order to create a framework of instability designed to weaken the Soviet Union, and later Russia, from within. To understand this mindset, one first must delve into the psychology underpinning the concept of Ukrainian nationalism. For Russia, Ukraine represents part of a larger family of Slavic peoples which include the Russians and Belarussians; indeed, this notion is shared by millions of Ukrainians as well. One only need to look at the integration of Ukraine within the cultural and historical roots of Russia over time to understand the reality of this sentiment.
For the West, this reality presents a problem, since it lends itself toward the existence of a singular Slavic state possessing tremendous geographical advantages and unmatched natural resources which in turn creates massive economic penitential that competes with Western notions of global supremacy. Nazi Germany sought to nullify this Slavic potential through the implementation of Generalplan Ost, the literal cultural and physical genocide of the Slavic race. The United States and the United Kingdom (and later, NATO, inclusive of a newly militarized West Germany), continued this policy of Slavic nullification by promoting anti-Soviet resistance on the part of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), including military support of partisans operating in Ukraine loyal to Stepan Bandera, a former ally of Nazi Germany whose forces perpetrated large-scale atrocities against Jews, Poles and Russians during the Second World War. When the war ended, the German intelligence organization responsible for managing the OUN operations was taken over by the US military and later, under the auspices of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), used to direct anti-Soviet armed resistance up until 1954-55. The CIA continued to provide active support for the OUN, using the Ukrainian diaspora, through the 1990’s.
The role of western intelligence, led by the CIA and the British Special Intelligence Service (SIS), in post-Soviet Ukraine was singularly focused on promoting Ukrainian nationalism at the expense of Russia. The political campaign waged against the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine by western intelligence emerged front and center when the two-term President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, stepped down in 2005 after carrying out policies designed to improve Ukraine-Russian relations. Kuchma threw his support behind the Russian-speaking Viktor Yanukovych. For the West, a Yanukovych presidency would undermine their strategic goal of stripping Ukraine away from Russia. The result was the so-called “Orange Revolution”, which saw Yanukovych’s electoral victory overturned in favor of Ukrainian nationalists who promoted a distinctly anti-Russian policy which saw Ukraine pivot toward the European Union and seek NATO membership. The latter development was seen by Russia as a red line which, if pursued, would inevitably lead to a military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Yanukovych’s election in 2010 was deemed a setback to the Western designs on Ukraine, leading to the West supporting a violent coup in February 2014 that saw Yanukovych driven from power, replaced by pro-western Ukrainian nationalists.
It should be clear that a physical confrontation between Ukraine and Russia has always been the goal of the collective West. Efforts to take control of the Russian political space had, by 2014, failed. The so-called “reset” of 2009 was little more than a political cover for a regime change operation designed to replace Vladimir Putin, who had ruled Russia since taking over from Boris Yeltsin at the end of 1999, and in the intervening decade taken Russia down the road of economic and national recovery that the West, operating in full zero-sum mode, simply could not tolerate. The concerted efforts of President Obama to interfere in the Russian parliamentarian elections of 2011 and the presidential election of 2012 failed to remove Putin from power. The actions in Ukraine in 2014 and afterwards must be viewed in this light; nothing happens in a vacuum.
The Ukraine conflict was never avoidable, despite Russia’s concerted efforts to engage in diplomacy designed to do just that. The defeat of the Ukrainian army in 2014-15 at the hands of Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas led to the adoption of the Minsk peace accords. It is now established fact that neither Ukraine, its two European partners (France and Germany), nor the United States ever had any intention of following through on the Minsk process. Instead, the Minsk process was designed to buy time for NATO to build a new Ukrainian army capable of holding its own against Russia. Indeed, from 2015-to 2022, the United States and NATO did just that, training over 80,000 Ukrainian forces, including thousands of Ukrainian nationalists labeled as neo-Nazi by the United States Congress, to NATO military standards. The stated purpose of this training was to enable Ukraine to take physical possession of the Donbas and Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014 following the CIA-backed coup in Kiev. When Ukraine began amassing these NATO-trained troops in the Donbas region in early 2022, Russia launched a pre-emptive action which, more than five years later, has become an openly acknowledged proxy war with the collective West, inclusive of the US and NATO.
The stated goal of both the US and Europe in pursuing this proxy conflict with Russia is nothing less than the strategic defeat of Russia. What does this mean in practice? First of all, the proxy war was never intended to result in a Ukrainian military victory against Russia. Rather, the goal was to draw Russia into a conflict which would exhaust its military potential, break its economy, and collapse its society to the point that the government of Vladimir Putin would be removed from power. This entire policy is postulated on the understanding that Vladimir Putin must be removed from power. As such, and solution that does not attain that objective is rejected out of hand, a pattern of behavior reflective of the zero-sum mentality that drives western policy making. As a result, every potential off-ramp that Russia has been willing to consider, from the Istanbul communique of 2022 to the Anchorage compromise of 2025, has been rejected by the West, exposing the reality that for the West diplomacy is just a tool to buy time to further strengthen Ukraine militarily in order to draw the Ukraine-Russian conflict out to its desired conclusion—the collapse of Russia. In short, Minsk on replay.
Russia has proven to be surprisingly resilient in the face of this concerted western effort designed to collapse it as a viable nation state. The Russia economy not only has survived in the face of western sanctions but, in concert with effective Russian diplomacy that has exploited western diplomatic miscues to build a large and supportive global constituency, thrived as it has found foreign markets in the Global South that have largely replaced the lost European and US markets. Russian society, blindsided by a war it was not prepared for, has rallied solidly behind President Putin, as the results of the recent parliamentarian elections underscored. And far from exhausting Russia militarily, the Ukraine conflict has enabled Russia to fine-tune its defense industrial base, producing significant quantities of advanced military equipment and weaponry that for the most part far exceeds that being produced by the collective West in both quality and quantity. When this material is matched up with a combat-hardened pool of manpower, the result is that Russia today possesses the most combat-capable military force in the world, far exceeding anything either NATO or the United States can put into the field.
In short, the western gambit targeting Russia has failed—the Russian military is stronger today by an order of magnitude, its economy far more diverse and self-sustaining, and its population far more unified than it was in 2022. Moreover, Russia shows no signs of faltering on any front—economically, diplomatically, socially, or politically.
The same cannot be said for either Europe or the United States. Despite the war-like rhetoric coming out of Germany and Poland and backed up by statements made by US military officers, both active duty and retired, the reality is that the proxy war between the collective West and Russia was always meant to be just that—a proxy war. There has never been a realistic plan for the conflict to become a direct clash between Russia and NATO, if for no other reason than NATO simply lacks the capacity to generate sufficient forces capable of high-intensity conflict for any sustainable period. NATO’s military power has largely atrophied in the decades since the end of the Cold War, requiring an infusion of investment over time to recover which Europe currently does not seem capable of providing. The United States is itself in a posture of global retrograde, seeking to withdraw from Europe rather than resume a Cold War-like posture that is neither politically or economically viable.
With Russia seemingly closing the door on the possibility of a negotiated settlement with the west over Ukraine, Europe and the United States are confronted with the uncomfortable reality that their strategic objectives in Ukraine will not reach fruition. Russia will continue to press for a military solution which meets all its stated objectives, including the kind of concerted de-Nazification which would make extinct the very virulent Ukrainian nationalism which has always fueled the western efforts in Ukraine against Russia.
In short, there will be no war between Europe and Russia over Ukraine. Europe will support Ukraine until Ukraine has exhausted its resources—manpower and economic—and then watch helplessly as Russia consolidates its position in what is left of the Ukrainian nation. “To the last Ukrainian” appears to be a concept that both Ukraine and its western supporters have taken to heart
The Arctic: The economic trigger of potential conflict
In a rational world, the collective West would regroup after its pending defeat in Ukraine and seek to repair its considerable losses. But in a zero-sum world, this is not possible. A Russian victory in Ukraine requires, in the minds of those Russophobes in the west still dreaming of the collapse of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a “win” which will level the geopolitical playing field. Given the reality that one of the consequences of the west’s failed Ukrainian gambit is the economic decimation of Europe, issues of economic import, not surprisingly take on increased importance when configuring a post-Ukraine geopolitical posture in opposition to Russia.
One of the main issues confronting Europe today is discerning a coherent economic and foreign policy when it comes to China. European diplomacy in this regard has been disastrous, resulting in the collapse of critical sectors of the European economy (car manufacturing, for instance) as a result of ill-conceived notions of “de-risking” (an American-origin term designed to camouflage the real intent of such policy, which is “de-linking.”) But one cannot possibly speak of “de-risking/de-linking” when there are no viable alternative markets to replace that which one’s policies seek to vacate.
Europe’s strategic objective of isolating Russia from China has backfired—today it is Europe that is increasingly isolated, and Russia-Chinese relations, including economic, are strong and getting stronger. One of the critical areas of Russia-Chinese cooperation is the development of the Northeast Passage or, as it is often referred to in China, the “Ice Silk Road”, a 5,500-kilometer stretch of waterway running from the Bering Strait in the east to the Barents Sea in the west. Use of this waterway has become increasingly possible—and profitable—enabling container ships to make the journey from East China to European ports such as Rotterdam around 20-days faster that the current Suez Canal route used by most shipping companies.
The Northeast Passage operates exclusively in Russian territorial waters. It also transits the Arctic zone, meaning that for much of the year its functionality is dependent upon Russian icebreakers. The passage also operates under the umbrella of Russian security and legal norms. The economic potential of the Arctic used to the sole purview of the Arctic Council, who members used to meet on a regular basis to coordinate policies impacting on the economy, security, and ecology of the Arctic region. However, in 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine, Russia was kicked out of the Arctic Council. And, following the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO, the Arctic Council has assumed a NATO-only posture, with its policies reflecting the strategic goals and objectives of its collective membership, namely being the strategic defeat of Russia.
Climate change has altered the geopolitical realities of the Arctic region, with melting ice caps not only opening sea lines of communication previously denied and/or restricted because of weather but also making economic exploitation of significant mineral resources exposed by the retreating ice physically possible and fiscally viable. Normally, the Arctic Council would seek to regulate access to the Arctic to balance economic and ecological concerns within a security framework where all parties’ interests are taken into consideration.
But in the zero-sum world, the Russo-Sino economic penetration of the Arctic space is deemed a threat to the collective West requiring a military response. This reality was underscored during the recently convened European Arctic Summit, hosted by Finland in mid-September. The European Union leadership, citing unsubstantiated claims of “significant and long-term threats” from Russia to Euro-Atlantic security, committed itself to strengthening its Arctic security posture—i.e., the militarization of the Arctic, focusing on military mobility, cross-border connectivity and necessary infrastructure in the northernmost regions of the Arctic.
The fact is, however, that NATO is non-competitive with Russia when it comes to Arctic security issues. What the European Arctic Summit gave lip service to about the militarization of the Arctic, Russia has already fully implemented and continues to improve. While NATO nations are capable of engaging in acts of provocation, such as the recent seizure of a Russian research vessel off the northern Norwegian island of Svalberg, the rapidity in which the Norwegian government most to ensure similar actions are not undertaken in Norwegian territorial waters underscores the fact that Norway is not keen of provoking any sort of direct confrontation with Russia in the Arctic. The real threat to the West in the Arctic is not Russia’s capable military forces, but the fact that Russia, together with China, are imposing a new transit-based economic reality which will provide extraordinary leverage going forward by making traditional shipping carriers and routes non-competitive with the new “Ice Silk Road” Russia and China have already implemented. The ability to sustainably ship containers to Europe at half the cost of the current shipping routes is a game changer in every way and creates a new reality that the West will not be able to catch up to for some time, if ever
Kaliningrad: low-hanging fruit, or impregnable fortress?
The psychosis of the zero-sum trap the West has set for itself when it comes to Russia requires that NATO manufacture a victory—perceived or otherwise—capable of off-setting its failures in Ukraine and impotence in the Arctic. In this regard, the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad has emerged as a perceived Russian Achilles Heel. The former commander of NATO ground forces in Europe, US General Chris Donahue, openly bragged this past July that NATO forces would be able to overwhelm Russian defenses in Kaliningrad in short order. Germany and Poland have argued for intensified NATO military exercises near the borders of Kaliningrad, the goal of which would be to generate sufficient concern within the Russian leadership to cause them to pull troops out from the Special Military Operation zone to Kaliningrad in response. Several western military and security analysts have articulated assessments which indicate that Russia’s actual military posture in Kaliningrad is much weaker that publicly acknowledged. And numerous western politicians have made declarations indicating that Russia is preparing to carry out acts of aggression against NATO using the Kaliningrad exclave as a base of operations.
But the reality is that while Russia is more than capable of defending Kaliningrad from any NATO aggression, the Russian military is not currently postured in the Kaliningrad exclave to carry out any sustainable offensive operations of any scale against any of its NATO neighbors—any contention to the contrary is simply rhetorical propaganda. Both the Russian 11th Army Corps and the Baltic Marines—the core ground combat forces stationed in Kaliningrad—have extensive combat experience in Ukraine and have developed a skill set with combat drones that would most likely disrupt and defeat any NATO offensive operations directed at the Kaliningrad exclave. The Russia military has likewise created an active reserve Rifle Regiment, BARS-39, which draws upon veteran soldiers possessing active-duty combat experience, especially in drone warfare.
But the real threat to Kaliningrad doesn’t come from any potential ground offensive launched by NATO. Rather, it would emerge in the form of a naval blockade of the exclave. Since 2022, the railway lines that connect Kaliningrad with Russia have been subjected to severe restrictions by Lithuania when it comes to the transit of good to and from Russia; the issue of compliance with European Union sanctions of Russia lays at the heart of this matter. Russian-registered vehicles are likewise not permitted to transit Lithuania and Poland. Russia has compensated for this loss of connectivity by increasing the scope and scale of water ferry service between Russia and Saint Petersburg. While Russia has been able to sustain economic growth through this resupply effort, the fact is that this ferry-boat lifeline is very expensive, and many goods, such as gasoline, are subsidized by the Russian government to keep prices under control. If NATO were to impose naval restrictions on shipping into and out of Kaliningrad, as some of its members have suggested, the economic viability of the exclave would be threatened. It is because of this vulnerability that the Russian government put NATO on notice that any effort to subject Kaliningrad to a naval blockade, or any other act of military aggression, would be responded to with the totality of Russia’s military capability, including nuclear weapons.
This nuclear muscle flexing appears to have dampened the enthusiasm on the part on some of the most vociferous NATO proponents of plucking what they thought would be low-hanging fruit; now that it is clear that any conflict involving a NATO attacks on Kaliningrad would not be treated in isolation, but rather constitute a conflict of existential proportions, the war drums have been muted
Space: The final frontier
The last topic on the list of potential points of conflict-generating friction between Russia and the US-European collective is outer space. Space-based sensors have played a critical role in the collection of intelligence used to support military operations in Ukraine and, in the case of Ukraine, to strike strategic targets in the depth of Russia. Likewise, the US commercial Starlink satellite communications system has assumed an essential role in Ukrainian military communications, to include playing a critical part in enabling Ukrainian long-range drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.
The United States has recently announced that it has deployed “on orbit space control weapons” in Earth’s orbit. While the technical characteristics of these weapons has not been detailed, evidence suggests that these weapons are non-kinetic in nature, using reversible technology such as electronic warfare to temporarily “blind” a targeted satellite. US President Donald Trump has alluded to the use of a space-based weapon operating in support of US military strikes on Iranian nuclear-related targets in June 2025.
Russia is in the process of deploying its own Starlink analog satellite constellation, known as Rassvet. When fully functional, Rassvet will provide Russia with satellite-based communications capability on par with Starlink. Ukraine, recognizing that Rassvet will enable Russia to more effectively guide its drones to their targets, has requested the United States to disable the Russian satellite network. Russia has indicated that it would take down the entire Starlink system in retaliation, using kinetic means which could threaten other satellites operating in earth orbit.
The weaponization of space represents a dangerous point of escalation, especially given the US capability of temporarily blinding satellites. In the zero-sum world that the US and Europe reside in, the need to be seen as offsetting a Russian win in Ukraine, and Russia’s stymying of NATO escalation efforts in the Arctic and against Kaliningrad, may prove too much of a temptation in the minds of western leaders unable to structure a behavioral model in relationship with Russia that isn’t premised on Russophobic goals and objectives requiring Russia’s strategic defeat.
Conclusion
The United States and Europe have, over the course of the past several decades, built a policy trap centered on using Ukraine as a vehicle for achieving the collapse of Russia and the government of Vladimir Putin. The “trap” is the zero-sum mentality which governs implementation of this policy, linking the political and economic viability of those pursuing such policy to its successful implementation. The looming failure in Ukraine has created a need for finding new vectors capable of furthering the policy objective of achieving a strategic victory over Russia, including options to expand the zone of conflict between the US-European collective and Russia into the Arctic, the Baltics, and Outer Space. Russia has effectively countered each one of these efforts which, when viewed in isolation, appear to be manageable problem sets with limited escalation potential. However, when viewed in the aggregate, the potential for a misunderstanding and/or miscalculation driven by domestic political imperatives existent in the nations comprising the US-European collective. Here, nations possessing considerable influence over the decisions being made by the collective, such as the US, France, and Germany, are undergoing political transformations that could alter the existing political posture, including policies related to the strategic defeat of Russia as a desirable outcome. The enemy in all of this is not Russia, but rather the zero-sum thinking of the collective West which leaves them married to a policy model that is incapable of being successfully implemented, and which, if pursued aggressively, will lead to their collective demise.
Note: I was able to visit the Special Military Operation zone, the Arctic region, oil fields, and Kaliningrad, in addition to participating in high level forums and meetings in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The views expressed here are my personal assessment based upon these meetings, and are not meant as a formal expression of official Russian policy.
This article is the byproduct of the independent journalism I have been undertaking for the past several years, traveling to Russia for the singular purpose of capturing the Russian reality and bringing it to the attention of a western audience held hostage by Russophobic corporate media. I cover all of my expenses, which means that the trips necessary for the production of this article could not have taken place without the generous support of subscribers and followers who have provided donations for that purpose. I will continue to write articles and release videos about these past visits. I will also continue planning and preparing for future visits to Russia, including one scheduled for November where I will attend a conference on humanitarian issues and continue to meet and interview interesting and knowledgeable people. I thank everyone who has contributed to this work, past, present and future [end]
The original article
65-year-old Scott Ritter is a former intelligence officer within the US Marine Corps (USMC), then inspector of the United Nations in Iraq. When in 2003, the US and their British minions were about to invade the country under this false pretext, Ritter was claiming that there was no weapon of mass destruction (WMD) there. He was right.
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