“Mr. Churchill says, Mr. Johnson says, and Mr. Starmer says, ‘We have to fight this bloody battle to the bitter end’ …” (Adapted from Mr. Churchill Says by Ray Davies)

It seems that Britain is intent on prolonging the war in Ukraine that the United States, under President Trump, is attempting to wind down. It is doing this primarily in alliance with Germany forming Keir Starmer’s European Grand Alliance or “coalition of the willing.”

The objective is freely admitted by the BBC as being one of “keeping the Ukrainians in the field and continuing to fight Russia.”

British Defence Minister, John Healey, pledging a further 450 million pounds to Kyiv, as part of a much larger European subvention, said:

“We cannot jeopardise peace by forgetting the war, which is why today’s major package will surge support to Ukraine’s frontline fight… 2025 is the critical year for Ukraine. Our job as defence ministers is to put into the hands of the Ukrainian war fighters what they need.”

This confirms what we have long been writing about – that Britain, rather than the United States, was all along, the driving force behind the war in Ukraine. It was the US’s role to supply the treasure while Ukrainians supplied the blood.

The Times of 11^th April informed its readers that British troops had been sent into the Ukraine in small numbers on several occasions throughout 2022 and 2023, operating discreetly. They were deployed to fit Ukrainian aircraft with British Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles and train pilots and ground crews in their use. Previously, the UK had delivered thousands of NLAW anti-tank missiles to Kyiv and sent instructors to train Ukrainian soldiers in their use from as long ago as 2015. Britain correctly anticipated that the Russians would be ultimately drawn into the Ukraine by the situation that was being created there by Kyiv and Western ambitions.

British troops were pulled out of the Ukraine shortly before the Russian Special Military Operation in February 2022, while Nick Robinson and the BBC moved in, covering the events from 5-star hotel rooftops. The BBC seemed to know that the Russians would not attempt to take the city by force, despite all the palaver about Ukrainian citizen-volunteers resisting them in the streets. The BBC is, of course, very close to British Intelligence.

UK military personnel were redeployed quietly alongside fresh supplies of missiles, The Times reported, when the war settled down to one of attrition after Boris Johnson subverted a peace settlement at Istanbul.

The Times also reported that London played the key role in preparing the Ukrainians for their much-touted 2023 counter-offensive against Russia – and in mediating between Kiev and Washington when the operation failed to meet US expectations.

According to The Times article, Ukraine’s counter-offensive, initially set for March 2023, was postponed due to expectations of additional weapon supplies from its Western allies – a delay that allowed Russia to strongly fortify its positions. The strange decision to openly advertise the offensive also did not help.

The Ukrainians were concerned that they did not have the equipment necessary for success, but the British urged them forward, telling them time was of the essence since Washington was impatient for success: “Ukraine kept waiting until they would have all the kit, we kept saying you need to just go, Russia is not strong. You need to challenge them, you’ve got enough kit,” a British military source told The Times.

The same source told The Times that after the disastrous counter-offensive “relations between the Ukrainians and Americans hit rock bottom.” The British feared that Washington would give up on Kyiv after they were repulsed – with nothing to show for the high casualties and loss of expensive equipment. Much effort had to be put into convincing the Americans to continue their support for Kyiv before the British persuaded them to keep the faith.

The newspaper claimed that “behind the scenes” the Ukrainians referred to Britain’s military chiefs as the “brains” of what they called the “anti-Putin” coalition, organised by the West. Former UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was even reportedly nicknamed “the man who saved Kyiv” by Ukrainian military officials. This added to his reputation as “conqueror of the Falls.” (Wallace’s major military achievement which saw his rapid promotion up the ranks was in single-handedly capturing an entire IRA unit. Police subsequently released the “ASU” without charge after the IRA unit turned out to be a few local lads going about their normal business).

“The Americans went to Ukraine only on rare occasions because of concerns that they would be seen to be too involved in the war, unlike Britain’s military chiefs who were given the freedom to go whenever necessary,” The Times reported. “Sometimes their visits were so sensitive they went in civilian clothing.”

Kit Klarenberg has also recently written about the subject of British meddling in the Ukraine.

In his article Klarenberg refers to a recent New York Times (29 March) investigation which “highlights London’s principal role in influencing and managing Ukrainian – and by extension US – actions and strategy in the conflict. Both direct references and unambiguous insinuations littered throughout point ineluctably to the conclusion that the war is of British concoction and design” and is effectively a “conspiracy to exploit American military might and wealth for its own purposes…” (It’s Official: Ukraine Conflict Is British ‘Proxy War’)

From even before the launch of the Special Military Operation of February 2022 a noticeable feature of the conflict in Ukraine was the leading role of the UK government in encouraging the government in Kyiv to wage war against Russia and the facilitating of the escalation of the fighting as well as obstructing any attempt at resolution.

Aside from the substantial military supplies Kyiv has received from the UK, it is from London that the Zelensky government received the strongest and most unrelenting moral support. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the first Western leader to pledge lethal aid to the Ukrainians, the first Western leader to address the Ukrainian parliament and one of the first to visit Kyiv – once it was known that the Russians had no intention of capturing it.

It is from the British government that there has been the greatest encouragement to Kyiv to fight on until the end, regardless of the cost. Johnson was deeply involved in dissuading Zelensky from continuing to negotiate with Russia at Istanbul to find a solution to the war. Liz Truss, as British Foreign Secretary, made it clear early in the war that she supported British volunteers going to Ukraine to fight the Russians and said that Russia should be pushed out of Crimea – defining Ukrainian war aims in the most grandiose and unrealistic terms which Moscow would never accept short of complete defeat.

In Kyiv the Ukrainians reciprocated the full British embrace and developed a cult of Boris Johnson and his Churchillian rhetoric.

The British then established a Joint Expeditionary Force, NATO-aligned, non-EU military grouping embracing the UK, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands which gave the UK a military expression in Europe on the premise that “defence” was a necessity against the “Russian threat.”

This was the same Russian army that the British regularly proclaimed had been defeated by Ukrainian resistance in Kyiv and Kharkiv, but which, any day, might suddenly spring upon Europe. The “European army” that the EU talked about for years, but never managed to organise, was now being led by Brexit Britain!

In May 2022 it was reported that Prime Minister Johnson had proposed establishing a new political, economic and military alliance as an alternative to the European Union. The new alliance would have Great Britain as its leader and would include Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (as well as potentially Turkiye at a later date) according to an Italian newspaper, Corriere Della Sera. This Grand Alliance, on the British initiative, was made up of countries which Britain identified as “jealous of their national sovereignty, liberal in economy and determined to counteract Moscow’s policies.”

The British Prime Minister shared his idea with President Zelensky during his visit to Kyiv on April 9^th 2022. Zelensky said he would take up Johnson’s initiative if the EU did not recognise Ukraine’s status as a candidate for accession to the bloc when its leaders met for a summit the following June.

Having left Europe, it was clear that Global Britain was not prepared to leave Europe alone to rest in peace.

Klarenberg notes that a particularly revealing section of the New York Times probe gives details of Ukraine’s lone successful counteroffensive (August 2022) which targeted Kharkiv and Kherson. Unexpectedly finding limited Russian forces in these areas, Lieutenant General Christopher T. Donahue of Task Force Dragon (the body set up by Washington to coordinate the various intelligence services directing Kyiv, particularly in targeting Russian assets) urged Ukraine’s field commander Major General Andrii Kovalchuk to advance and keep advancing. Kovalchuk resisted, despite senior US military officials pressuring the head of Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny to override his reticence.

Klarenberg notes:

“Irate, British defence minister Ben Wallace asked Donahue what he would do if Kovalchuk were his subordinate… At his direct demand, Kovalchuk was duly defenestrated. As the New York Times explains, the British “had considerable clout” in Kiev and hands-on influence over Ukrainian officials. This was because, “unlike the Americans,” Britain had formally inserted teams of military officers into the country, to advise Ukrainian officials directly.Still, despite Kiev failing to fully capitalise as desired by London and Washington, the 2022 counteroffensive’s success produced widespread “irrational exuberance”. Planning for a follow-up the next year thus “began straightaway.” The “prevailing wisdom” within Task Force Dragon was this counteroffensive “would be the war’s last”, with Ukraine claiming, “outright triumph”, or Russia being “forced to sue for peace.” 

Klarenberg further relates:

“There was one last perceived ace up London’s sleeve to keep Washington invested in the proxy conflict, and potentially escalate it into all-out hot war with Moscow. The New York Times reports that in March 2023, the US discovered Kiev “was furtively planning a ground operation into southwest Russia.” The CIA’s Ukraine chief confronted General Kyrylo Budanov, warning “if he crossed into Russia, he would do so without American weapons or intelligence support.” He did so anyway, “only to be forced back.”

Rather than deterring further incursions, Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Bryansk region was a dress rehearsal for Kiev’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region on August 6, 2024. The New York Times records how from the US was opposed to the incursion and from Washington’s perspective, the operation “was a significant breach of trust.” For one thing, “the Ukrainians had again kept them in the dark” and “they had secretly crossed a mutually agreed-upon line.” Kiev was using “coalition-supplied equipment” on Russian territory, with the encouragement of Britain, breaching “rules laid down” by Washington months earlier.

Ukraine’s Kursk incursion was, indeed, largely British inspired. London was central to its planning, provided the bulk of the equipment deployed, and it again explicitly advertised its involvement. As The Times reported at the time, the goal was to signal Britain’s formal involvement in the war with the intention of drawing the US in deeper, before Biden left the White House.

It was noticeable that US officials initially distanced themselves from the Kursk incursion. The Washington journal Foreign Policy reported that the Biden administration was not only unhappy “to have been kept out of the loop,” but “sceptical of the military logic” behind the “counter invasion”. They understood that valuable Ukrainian forces needed for defence in the east would be bottled up by the Russians and whittled away at leisure. But the British who were media driven believed its moral effect would override the military illogicality of it all. It was of a kind with the Churchillian “set Europe ablaze” special military operations during World War II when Britain launched provocative attacks by small forces upon German assets.

In a rebuke of this, on August 16, President Biden prohibited Ukraine’s use of British-made, long-range Storm Shadow missiles into Russian territory.

On 15 October 2024 the Sunday Times reported that “five former British Defence Secretaries and the ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson have urged Sir Keir Starmer to supply Ukraine with long range Storm Shadow missiles to strike deep inside Russia, even without US backing.”

This joint statement was preceded by a week or so of high-profile media interviews on the BBC conveying the impression that British pressure was going to convince the Americans to satisfy Ukrainian demands for the long-range missiles. Britain was aiming to claim credit for shifting Washington from its position of restraining the war within the limits it prefers, on behalf of Kyiv. The Sunday Times reported one of the former five, Ben Wallace, suggesting that “those who fail to act now would-be appeasers of the Kremlin.” Gavin Williamson described it as “a dereliction of duty” if Britain and the US failed to support an immediate escalation through supply of the missiles. Grant Shapps argued that Britain “should not wait” for US formal approval but should supply Kiev with the weapons it wants today.

The US National Security Council, however, stated there would be no change to their policy on not allowing the use of long-range missiles on Russian territory. Despite Sir Keir Starmer then flying to Washington for talks with Biden to seal the deal and pleas from Zelensky for permission to use the British made missiles the British Prime Minister had to leave central command empty handed. The US was forced to show Britain who was the real master of the war.

The United States was not against supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles and the technology for them to find their target accurately, but it did not want to do this at such a sensitive time as in the run-up to the very important US Presidential election in November 2024. The Biden/Harris administration was keen not to exacerbate the situation in the build-up to the election which it hoped would elect Kamala so that business as usual could be resumed come the new year. It was understood that a serious provocation of the Russians at this point could easily lead to a de-stabilisation that could be fatal for Harris and lead to the return of Donald Trump as President.

And then what?

Therefore, the United states curbed the British escalation drive – much to the chagrin of Zelensky and the British warmongers. When Harris lost, the Biden Presidency took up the British policy in an attempt to subvert the incoming administration’s intention of stopping the war “in a day”. The giving of the ATACMs to Kyiv by the Biden administration was an act of extraordinary recklessness. It meant that NATO was attacking Russia directly because these long-range missiles were given by the US, operated by non-Ukrainians, and guided by US intelligence to their selected targets. The decision was made without debate in Washington and without the consent of Congress and it was meant as a spoiler on peace.

Even before the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine in February 2022 the UK was projecting itself, unshackled from the EU through Brexit, as Global Britain, with a new ambitious agenda in the world involving direct intervention in Ukraine’s affairs and fishing in troubled waters in the Black Sea.

Britain was involved in one of the most provocative incidents during the period after it signed an agreement to support the enhancement of Ukrainian naval capabilities on the Black Sea on 23 June 2021. This agreement was signed onboard HMS Defender, which was in the port of Odessa as part of the Carrier Strike Group deployment ahead of the Sea Breeze naval exercise. Co-hosted by the US and Ukrainian navy, it involved 32 countries, 5,000 troops, 32 ships, 40 aircraft and 18 special operations units.

Onboard HMS Defender were senior Ukrainian and British government officials, including Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Defence and the British Minister for Defence Procurement. They signed a naval agreement providing for substantial military aid by Britain for the Ukrainian navy and the creation of new naval bases in the Black Sea in opposition to the Russian ones.

Contractual work began on the sale and delivery of missiles and the development and joint production of eight missile warships; the creation of a new naval base on the Black Sea as the primary fleet base for Ukraine and a new base on the Sea of Azov; the sale of two refurbished Royal Navy minesweepers to Ukraine and a further project to deliver a modern frigate capability to Kiev.

The context of the Black Sea confrontation that occurred between Britain and Russia is significant: In February 2021, the Kyiv government announced plans to “recover Crimea” as well as the Donbass. In May, NATO staged the large Defender 2021 exercise in the Balkans and Black Sea region, which involved non-NATO members Ukraine and Georgia.

On the same day as the signing of the military agreement between Britain and Ukraine HMS Defender undertook “a freedom of navigation patrol” through the disputed waters around the Crimean Peninsula. The Russian Ministry of Defence fired warning shots from coast guard patrol ships and dropped bombs from an attack aircraft in the path of HMS Defender after the British warship provocatively hugged the coast of Crimea within range of the Russian naval facilities.

There was a BBC TV crew and a Daily Mail reporter on board the British warship, suggesting the voyage of the Defender was a deliberate, stage-managed act of provocation by the British government anticipating a reaction from the Russians. According to British government planning documents, reportedly found at a bus stop in Kent and subsequently leaked to the BBC, the decision for the HMS Defender to take this particular course rather than one outside of disputed waters, was made at the highest levels of British government. It was hoped in London that there would be an international incident.  

‘Global Britain and the Black Sea region’ is a policy document issued by the Council for Geostrategy. It is signed off by Sir Michael Fallon (UK Secretary of State for Defence, 2014-2017) who emphasized that the UK saw the Black Sea as a vital British and NATO interest that Washington was ignoring.

The Council for Geostrategy is a British development from the Henry Jackson Society combining hostility toward Russia and China with a universalising environmental agenda directed against those two countries. It is what is known as an insider pressure group – having direct access to the British parliament and government, and frequently has given “evidence” to UK Select Committees engaged in the formation of defence policy.

The Council for Geostrategy’s seminal policy statement, ‘A Crowe Memorandum for the twenty-first century’ argues for “a robust deterrence strategy” aimed at “authoritarian powers” like Russia and China, and “expansion of the geographic vision of the free and open international order” and “assertion of red lines unflinchingly”.

It calls for a more assertive British foreign policy based on the 1907 thoughts of Eyre Crowe, the major hawk in Sir Edward Grey’s Foreign Office. It rejects the Cold War policy of George Kennan of containment in favour of a more assertive movement of roll-back of Russia’s hinterland:

“Sir Eyre Crowe’s famous Memorandum of 1907… is said to have influenced the thinking of the then Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. Sir Eyre argued that Britain had to deter threats to the peace in Europe and could not isolate itself or act as an impartial bystander when weaker nations came under threat. His strategy is better for our times – times of growing great power competition… At the very least, NATO allies have a clear interest in preventing the Black Sea from becoming a Russian ‘lake’ or a Chinese franchise. Besides being connected to the Mediterranean Sea, developments in and around the Black Sea also bear on the Baltic Sea, not least as any failure on NATO’s part to show resolution in resisting Russian adventurism in one region may encourage challenges in the other.”

It is, therefore, not surprising that the pain and anguish over President Trump’s desire to shut down the war in Ukraine is felt most in the British political elite, who were happy to goad Kyiv to “fight to the last Ukrainian” facilitated by US dollars and weaponry.

The second coming of Trump, committed to peace in Ukraine, has produced a major contradiction within the British policy of being the US’s junior, but more warmongering, partner in Ukraine. Britain’s staunch opposition to any diplomatic settlement with Russia over Ukraine, and its advocacy of war until military victory were complementary under Biden’s Presidency, but with Trump signalling a realignment of US foreign policy, Starmer has had to proceed in the manner of a snake.

British policy is committed to the New World Order project of extending Western liberalism and enforcing the “rules-based international order” by confrontations with surviving autocracies. But President Trump cancelled the New World Order project and begun to engage in carving up the world into civilisational spheres with “the autocrats”. Where does that leave Britain?

Sir Keir Starmer seems to think he can build a European alternative to the US New World Order – under British leadership – which commits armed forces to dangerous theatres of war, without the guarantee of Washington’s support.

Britain is aware that Europe is incoherent. It took the United States to give it coherence, peace, stability and prosperity by its engagement after 1945. It was able to metamorphose fascist Europe into liberal democratic Europe as well as saving it from Communism. The US then gave it economic development and prosperity, starting with the Marshall Plan.

Giving Europe coherence is beyond Keir Starmer and beyond Britain. British interventions in Europe have always been disruptive and destructive. This one is likely to go the same way.

The US presence represented an American protection for Europe against nefarious British intrigues but its withdrawal has re-enabled British meddling in Europe.

From the very beginning, the deployment of UK and European forces to the east has been predicated on the existence of what Starmer calls a US “backstop.” This refers to the provision of American air support, logistics, and intelligence, at the very least. But one of President Trump’s closest aides, Steve Witkoff, a key figure in efforts to broker a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine, dismissed Starmer’s proposal as “simplistic” and “a posture and a pose.” Witkoff also told Tucker Carlson that he did not believe that Russia wanted to invade Europe or even absorb most of the Ukraine: “There is this sort of notion that we have all got to be like Winston Churchill. Russians are going to march across Europe. That is preposterous by the way.”

If the UK and EU become emboldened and provoke the Russians with the hope of embroiling the US in a war Europe becomes a major strategic liability for the US – and a nationalist America may not intervene in favour of the globalist Europeans.

According to the Economist the British nuclear deterrent is leased from the United States and drawn from pooled stocks held in Virginia to which access can be denied by Washington. The British Army can only function as an auxiliary unit of US forces, and the Royal Navy has refashioned itself, at some expense, as a supplement to American power projection into the Pacific, at Washington’s command. With its dependent on a logistics chain it does not control, Britain is not the master of its own destiny. Its security establishment, including think tanks and policymaking organs are heavily funded by America.

The Trump administration has taken a benign approach to Britain so far. The explanation given is that this is the result of Starmer’s political skill and personal charm (grovelling). Time will reveal if there is, in fact, another explanation.

If Starmer’s project is played out to the full it would result in a Europe that does not rely on America’s defence umbrella, that develops its own military-industrial base, its own surveillance and target acquisition capabilities, its own nuclear shield and reliable sources of energy. It would be a sovereign Europe, under British leadership, whose interests would of necessity diverge from those of Washington. It would not be a vassal but a rival.

And where would this leave Brexit Britain?

In the shorter term the risk for Europe is that Trump walks away from peace negotiations with Putin, failing to secure an improbable ceasefire, and leaving Starmer and his European “coalition of the willing” committed to a confrontation with Russia for which they are entirely unprepared.

Is it Starmer’s aim to place the Europeans in a position of peril with the hope that a Russian dusting of them secures a new US intervention?

As Aris Rousinnos has written:

“The hour of Europe’s independence has dawned, but there is no Bismarck or Mazzini to meet it, merely Von der Leyen and Kallas, regional HR managers for Washington’s soon-to-be-wound-down European operation. Macron excepted, Europe has no great men waiting in the wings: but the conflict between a truly sovereign Europe and an imperial America presents challenges that have not yet been articulated, let alone planned for.”

As far as the European political elites are concerned their political survival is dependent upon the continuation of the war against Russia. They staked all on a good result in Ukraine and now hunker down in their bunkers in the hope that the Ukrainians can sustain the war beyond the presidency of Donald Trump. Perhaps China will cut him down to size or all will return to normal after 2028 and Von der Leyen and Kallas etc. will be able to sustain their careers and big salaries.

But then again the people of Europe, seeing what Trump is doing, might catch up with these incompetents who have ruined the continent before that happens.

Kallas has already fallen out with the UK Defence Secretary over her unwillingness to be a fully willing part of the “coalition of the willing”. Europe has a British problem again – only a few years after it thought it had seen the back of its disruptive neighbour.

How it must wish for a Nigel Farage to take hold of Britain – if Europe had a coherent mind, that is.