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Does Anyone Understand the Actual Situation?
Paul Craig Roberts
Professor John Mearsheimer, one of America’s more realistic foreign policy experts, has just returned from a few days in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In this 46 minute video he reports his discussions with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Russian foreign policy experts, and provides his reading of the impact of the war and sanctions on Russia: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/09/no_author/the-russia-i-saw/
Mearsheimer reports seeing scant signs of the war’s impact except for gasoline lines at a few stations, and no sign whatsoever of any impact of sanctions on the Russian economy. He did not visit locations of Russian oil production and refining where apparently there is damage from drone attacks. The main effect of the sanctions is to inconvenience Americans who travel to Russia. There are no longer direct flights, so Mearsheimer had to go in via Turkey. When he got there he found he could not use his American credit cards or American currency and was therefore without funds.
Given the habit of Western media to confuse propaganda with facts, 46 minutes with Mearsheimer will leave you with a more balanced picture of the situation and its likely outcome.
I have another reason for posting Mearsheimer’s report. I am going to use it to show that even those rare American foreign policy analysts capable of thinking on their own and not merely repeating the official narratives, miss a lot. I am not picking on Mearsheimer. I admire him and Professor Stephen Walt as they alone among upscale American academics had the courage to expose the Israel Lobby in their book of that name in 2007. They could have been harder on the Israel Lobby, but they knew their exposure of the lobby would result in them being branded antisemites and if they were too trenchant the book might be recalled or never published.
What follows are the points where Mearsheimer’s understanding of the Ukraine conflict and its implications has problems.
First, let’s try to define Ukraine. This is important, because Mearsheimer says that when the war is over and Ukraine consists of the western part, the Ukrainian nationalists will want their territory back. But is it Ukrainian territory?
Indeed is any territory Ukrainian? Historically, the answer seems to be NO.
Ukraine originated when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 as the result of the Soviet Politburo arresting Soviet President Gorbachev. Washington serving the Wolfowitz doctrine of American hegemony broke Ukraine off from Russia and created for the first time in history an independent Ukrainian state, now 35 years old, a brand new country created by Washington for use as a weapon against Russia.
During the Soviet era, Soviet authorities attached Donbas and Crimea, Russian territory with Russian population, to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic for political and administration reasons. It made no difference at the time as Russia and Ukraine were two provinces of the Soviet Union, like Massachusetts and New York are part of the United States.
From the 14th century until 1664 when the territory again became part of Russia, the territory of Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian union. In fact, Russian historical tradition regards Kievan Rus, established in Kiev by the Viking Prince Oleg of Novgorod in the year 882, as the beginning of Russian statehood. Kievan Rus fragmented in 1240 when Russia was occupied by the Mongol Empire.
It is unclear why Russians are thought of as Slavs when the country was founded by Scandinavians and then ruled by Mongols. Prior to the US coming into existence, Ukraine was already part of the Russian state and remained a part until the Soviet collapse in 1991.
When Washington overthrew the pro-Russian Ukrainian government in 2014 and installed an anti-Russian regime, Crimea and Donbas voted almost 100% to be reunited with Russia. Putin accepted the Crimean vote but refused Donbas. Instead, he concocted the Minsk Agreement that left Donbas in Ukraine but gave Donbas some autonomy to protect the Russian population from Ukrainian police and judicial discrimination. It was from this fatal blunder by Putin that the conflict in Ukraine began. Instead of observing the Minsk Agreement, Washington built a powerful Ukrainian army to invade and reconquer the break-away Russian provinces in Donbas. It was the pending slaughter of the Donbas Russians that forced Putin’s hand. He had no alternative to intervening, but Russia was unprepared for war because Putin had stupidly relied on negotiation with his real enemy–Washington and NATO–and not on building up Russia’s strength.
Mearsheimer presents the Ukrainian conflict as between Russia and Ukraine, but that is false. The war is between Washington and Russia, with NATO or Europe allied with Washington against Russia. Ukraine is the proxy. Instead of fighting her enemies, Putin is fighting the proxy for her enemies.
Mearsheimer blames the failure of the Anchorage Agreement to end the conflict on Trump’s inability to stand up to Europe’s and Ukraine’s opposition. But this is nonsense. Ukraine is a Washington creation. It has no independence from Washington. Europe has no weapons other than the ones Washington allows them. If Washington can discipline Russia, Iran, India, and China with sanctions, it can discipline Europe with sanctions For Mearsheimer to pass the buck to Europe is nonsense. Neither the American foreign policy community nor any US administration has repudiated the Wolfowitz Doctrine of American Hegemony.
Mearsheimer does not say why Russia at the Alaska meeting relied on Trump to settle the conflict when the conflict is the product of Washington’s attempt to weaken Russia and remove Russian constraint of US unilateralism.
Mearsheimer says that about three months ago in June, 2026, Putin after 4.5 years of conflict finally decided to use sufficient force to bring the conflict to an end. But why did Putin wait 4.5 years to begin fighting a real war. All that Putin achieved for 4.5 years of war was to present current day Russian military capability as ineffective, as the conflict continued twice as long as it took Stalin’s Red Army to clear the powerful Wehrmacht out of Russia, Central Europe and arrive in Berlin. Little wonder Europe thinks preparing for war with Russia is no big thing. If Putin is incapable of defeating Ukraine, how can Russia stand up to all of Europe and, if the NATO agreement holds, also to the US?
Mearsheimer says it would be foolish for Russia to conquer all of Ukraine. Why? Mearsheimer himself says if western Ukraine is left as a rump state, it will be a hostile state to Russia because of Washington’s support for the followers of Stephan Bandera. Why should Russia leave a hostile state on its border? Perhaps Russia needs a Stalin to deal with the hostile Ukrainians. Short work would be made of them. If Putin’s Russia is too weak to deal with present day followers of Stephan Bandera, Russia hasn’t any future.
Mearsheimer presents the conflict as being between Russia and Ukraine. This is false. The conflict is between Russia and Washington. Ukraine is nothing but Washington’s proxy, as Washington is Israel’s proxy in the conflict with Iran.
For 4.5 years Putin has refused to acknowledge that Russia is in military conflict with the United States and Washington’s European empire. Washington even blew up the Nord Sea Pipeline and neither Russia nor Europe were willing to acknowledge Washington as the culprit. Putin pretends that the drone attacks deep inside of Russia are acts of terrorism, not of war. In other words, Putin has imposed a false narrative on the conflict to avoid the fact that the West has gone to war against Russia.
Instead of showing Russian strength and determination, Putin has shown for 4.5 years a pusillanimous Russia fearful of decisive action, thereby creating the image of a paper tiger that has assured Europe in its growing aggression against Russia.
This is Putin’s fatal blunder that is the Road to Armageddon.