Three years ago, at the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I wrote a blog saying that since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1989, the USA had been baiting the Russian bear and now, under its appalling despot, Putin, the bear was biting back and the cost was being borne by Ukraine.

When NATO was founded in 1949, it was a pact between 12 states, dominated by its one super-power member, the USA. NATO was intended to provide north Atlantic countries with collective defence against the Soviet Union, but it has been dragged into whatever dispute the USA was inclined to engage in, ranging from Afghanistan to Syria, Libya, Iraq and Serbia.

At the time of German reunification  in 1990, when the political map of Europe was being re-drawn, the NATO member states gave assurances to Yeltsin and Gorbachov, successive presidents of the new Russian Federation,  that there would be no eastward expansion of NATO beyond the eastern border of Germany. Telling lies comes easily to most politicians and there have been numerous denials that any such assurances were given, but the record is clear.

At first there were approaches from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Iceland, Portugal, Norway, Turkey, Greece and the Baltic states seeking membership, but they were rebuffed until Clinton (dim enough and misogynistic enough to be a US president) stepped in and the rest of the NATO members caved in. NATO now has 30 member states.

Thishas left Russia completely encircled to the west. Were the NATO states so naive as to think there would be no reaction from Russia?

Trump, whose cognitive powers are very limited and whose grasp of even recent history is clouded by his restricted concentration span, recently blamed Ukraine for starting the current war.

In fact, the proximal guilty party is Putin, but the distal guilt is owned by Trump’s predecessor, Bill Clinton.

The baited bear was readying for war like a wound-up spring, led by an autocrat who models himself on Peter the Great and Stalin. It was the emergence of a distinctly democratic and pro-western government in Kyev which brought the bear-baiting to a head. Intent on embodying Ukraine within Russia, Putin launched his war.

Russian forces now occupy 20 per cent of Ukraine, with as many as 3.5 million Ukrainians living under occupation.

Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced within Ukraine or to other countries. Much of the country’s infrastructure and housing has been blasted to smithereens. Ukraine has suffered up to 130,000 military casualties and over 12,000 civilian deaths.

When this bloody war is over, who is to be responsible for reparation?

I would argue that Russia, as the proximal guilty party, should bear a major part of the burden, but so should the NATO states, as the distal guilty party.

In Trump’s world of make-believe, in which Britain has chosen to live, the USA is at least as deserving of reparation as Ukraine, in compensation for the armaments supplied to the Ukrainian army, Trump demands $500million of reparations from war-ravaged and bankrupted Ukraine.

Accordingly, the US would get 50 per cent of the revenues from Ukraine’s oil and gas reserves and 50 per cent of the money made from its mineral resources, including its lithium, uranium, heavy metals and rare earth elements, in all valued at something like $11.5 trillion.

This raid on Ukraine’s resources by US big business makes Ukraine virtually a colony of the USA, exploited as colonies usually are and left to rehabilitate itself on whatever money Trump is prepared to dole out.

During his recent sycophantic visit to Washington, our pathetic prime Minister gave his blessing to this rape of Ukraine.

We, the British people, will have opportunity to show our displeasure at this Trumpian robbery plan during the orange Donald’s projected State Visit, when we can show how even more blisteringly unwelcome he is than last time he darkened our door.

This blog was written on 2nd March, 2025, a few hours before the memorable televised argument between presidents Trump and Zelensky and US Vice President Vance.