Michael Ashcroft’s latest comment on the Ukraine War, published both on his website and in The Daily Express (3^rd March 2025), is a plain exercise in ruling class delusion—wishful thinking lacquered over with the usual justifications for a failed war that should never have begun. He tells us that Ukraine must hold firm, that a bad ceasefire is worse than no ceasefire, that Putin must be stopped. This is not analysis; it is the desperate repetition of talking points that have long since lost their force. The reality is that Ukraine has lost, the West has failed, and the only question now is how much more unnecessary suffering will be inflicted before this is acknowledged.

To believe Mr Ashcroft’s account, one would think Ukraine’s troubles began in 2022, when Russia launched its invasion. He does not mention—because he cannot mention—that the real story begins in 2014. Ukraine’s last legitimate government, that of Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown in a coup, openly backed by the United States and the European Union. Yanukovych had been elected in 2010 in an election deemed fair by international observers. His crime was rejecting an EU trade deal that would have left Ukraine as a bankrupt dependency of Brussels. In response, the West orchestrated street protests and finally forced him to flee. Parliament then removed him in a process that ignored every constitutional requirement. This was not democracy; it was the installation of a puppet regime by foreign powers.

Mr Ashcroft writes as if Ukraine’s government represents the will of its people. But the government installed in 2014 was chosen not by Ukrainians, but by Washington. The leaked calls between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt made it clear that Arseniy Yatsenyuk was selected to be Prime Minister before any election had taken place. This new regime immediately pushed for NATO membership, banned Russian as a regional language, and waged war on Ukraine’s own Russian-speaking population. It was not Russia that began the war in Ukraine—it was the regime in Kiev, which sent nationalist battalions to suppress dissent in the east. The war in the Donbas did not begin in 2022; it began in 2014, when Kiev’s forces bombed and shelled their own citizens for eight years.

Crimea and the Donbas did not “fall to Russian aggression.” They rejected an unelected regime that had seized power illegally and was openly hostile to them. Crimea voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia in a referendum. The Donbas attempted negotiations, but after the Odessa Massacre—where dozens of pro-Russian demonstrators were burned alive in a Trade Union building by Ukrainian nationalists—it became clear that resistance was the only option.

As for NATO, Mr Ashcroft tells us that Ukraine’s pursuit of membership is natural, that it is a sovereign choice. He does not mention that, before 2014, Ukraine’s neutrality was enshrined in law. Polls showed that most Ukrainians opposed joining NATO, particularly in the east. It was only after the coup—when neutrality was repealed without a referendum—that NATO expansion became policy. Even Volodymyr Zelensky, the current regime’s figurehead, was elected in 2019 on a platform of peace with Russia. Yet once in power, he did the opposite, banning opposition parties, shutting down media outlets, and intensifying Ukraine’s NATO push.

Mr Ashcroft, like all those still clinging to the fantasy of a Ukrainian victory, refuses to face reality. Ukraine has suffered crushing losses. Its army is running out of men. Western money and weapons have not turned the tide. Russia, despite every Western prediction, is stronger now than it was at the start of the war. Sanctions have backfired. Ukraine’s economy is broken. The country is conscripting teenagers and the elderly because there are no fighting-age men left. Even the Western media, so eager to trumpet Kiev’s triumphs, now admits that the war is unwinnable.

And so, we arrive at Mr Ashcroft’s central claim—that a bad ceasefire is worse than no ceasefire at all. This is nonsense. What he means is that any peace that does not involve total Russian capitulation is unacceptable. But Ukraine is in no position to dictate terms. The West is not in a position to dictate terms. The fantasy that Mr Putin will be overthrown, that Russia will collapse, that Ukraine will somehow drive Russia out of the Donbas and Crimea—these are the delusions of men who have lost, but refuse to admit it.

A ceasefire is not the problem. The problem is that the West cannot accept the consequences of its own failure. Ukraine was used as a pawn in a Western game of geopolitical chess. The aim was never to help Ukraine; it was to weaken Russia. The ultimate goal was not merely to contain Russia, but to break it apart entirely, so that NATO bases could be stationed along the northern coast of China. The war was only incidentally about Russia—it was the first step in a broader campaign to humble China. This, too, has failed. The only thing left is to find some plausible form of words to cover the full scale of the disaster. Mr Ashcroft and his kind will demand more weapons, more money, more dead Ukrainians—anything to postpone the inevitable reckoning.

The reality is that the only way this war could ever have been avoided was by not starting it in the first place. The West could have respected Ukraine’s neutrality. It could have honoured the Minsk Agreements, which provided a framework for peace in the Donbas. It could have sought cooperation rather than confrontation with Russia. Instead, it chose escalation. Now, as Ukraine collapses, the only remaining priority for men like Mr Ashcroft is saving face.

A bad ceasefire is worse than no ceasefire? No, a bad war is worse than no war at all. The war in Ukraine was unnecessary and unwinnable from the start. The West has lost. The only question is how many more Ukrainians must die before men like Mr Ashcroft admit it.

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