France and Britain’s efforts to escalate the Ukrainian conflict stem from them being “worried about their relevance” and refusing to “accept that the conflict is lost,” former British MP Matthew Gordon-Banks tells Sputnik.
“I do have a fear that President [Donald] Trump may need to fully pull out of support for Ukraine in order to make the point that this conflict is over,” says Gordon-Banks, a retired research fellow of the UK Defense Academy & international relations consultant.
Whereas Russia and the US are willing to set aside their differences and negotiate to avoid WWIII, “many Europeans are just simply set in a continuing Russophobic mindset,” he remarks.
“But the Europeans themselves are nothing without the U S military, and the United States has made it quite clear that it will not back any so-called peacekeeping hand-holding exercise by… any European countries in Ukraine or on its borders.”
Earlier, Volodymyr Zelensky practically confirmed a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry that said that the Ukrainian attack on a Russian gas metering station in Sudzha, which clearly violates the terms of ‘energy ceasefire,’ was coordinated by the UK and France.
Commenting on this development, Gordon-Banks says he finds it surprising how there was little Western European media coverage of the events in Sudzha, even though BBC is normally quick to back the Ukrainian narrative in such instances.
“This is not the Russian Federation breaking an agreement. It is the Ukrainians,” he says.
