Ukraine is the largest of the Eastern European nations that all became independent, sovereign nations when they were released from the grip of the Soviet Union due its collapse on December 26, 1991. Ukraine’s government has been struggling in recent years in its fight against corruption in order to meet European Union standards for membership acceptance, which Ukraine desperately wants. Ukraine is an important nation regarding commerce since it has significant petroleum reserves and it is a large exporter of wheat. Ukraine also borders on the Black Sea, giving it access to oceans.
Ukraine also has an important relationship with the U.S. It just went through a crisis with the U.S. when President Donald Trump made a famous phone call to Ukraine’s President Zelensky, asking him to get political dirt on Joe Biden’s son who did business in Ukraine, and Trump illegally was withholding almost $400 million in U.S. government aid to Ukraine for this as leverage over Zelensky. The U.S. House then impeached Trump for that misbehavior but the Senate acquitted him.
Russia and its ally Belarus are immediate neighbors to each other and Ukraine, on the eastern and northern borders of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia’s military invaded Ukraine and annexed its plum to Russia–The Crimean Peninsula–while the West, headed up by NATO, let it happen. Last year, Russia’s President Putin again began amassing Russian troops on Ukraine’s eastern border, which now count about 120,000 troops. Putin says he does not have plans to invade Ukraine. But he is demanding changes from NATO that go against its foundation principles. Putin wants NATO’s removal from Eastern European nations that used to be in the Soviet orbit. Putin said decades ago that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst political tragedy of the 20th century. It appears that Mr. Putin wants to restore the Soviet Union.
The U.S. is the leader of NATO–the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that was created in 1949 in the aftermath of WWII. It consists of 30 members. They are all 27 European nations that are members of the European Union plus Greenland, Canada, and the U.S. The U.S. is by far the leading member of NATO both politically and militarily. But President Trump purposely injured the relationship between the U.S. and NATO and at the same time strangely cozied up to Russian President Putin. Many political analysts claim that Putin, who formerly headed up the KGB, helped engineer Trump becoming the U.S. president mostly with cyber attacks and who knows what else, maybe including money laundering.
All of this appears to have emboldened Mr. Putin in marshaling troops along Russia’s border with Ukraine and making such demands on NATO. I suspect he had these plans when Trump was still president, thinking Trump would approve of Russia taking over Ukraine. No matter what happens in this crisis, many analysts are claiming that this second aggression by Russia against Ukraine could backfire by causing the European Union and NATO to become stronger, politically and militarily, as a result of this crisis. But Germany is the laggard so far. While France, Spain, and other European nations are expressing their support of Ukraine against Russia, and proving it actions militarily, Germany is withholding. Germany claims it is doing so because of its principles not to move toward military aggression due to its Nazi-WWII past. But it also seems to be because Germany is so beholden to Russia for liquid natural gas shipments and a new NLG pipeline about to be opened from Russia to Germany that goes through Ukraine.
For example, Germany announced yesterday that it would send Ukraine’s military “5,000 helmets.” Germany’s Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said of this gift, “It’s a clear signal: we are on your side.” The Internet then lit up, mocking Germany. “One Twitter comment came from Marina Weisband, an author and former politician who was born in Ukraine, who said, “The plan is obviously for 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers to run across the border and head-butt the Russian troops deployed there.” Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, said, “What support are they going to send next? Pillows?” Yeah, I’m sure Germany could talk that crazy pillow guy Mike Lindell, the most prominent Trump sycophant in the business world, to send them.
[In my next book, I go into more detail than I did in my book, Warrior from Heaven, about how Bible prophecy, especially Daniel 2, indicates that the last, great empire. It will exist in the end times and be located in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and it will consist of ten kingdoms as two halves, with five kingdoms existing in Europe and the other five kingdoms existing in the Middle East and North Africa. I surmise that these two, geopolitical regions could join together partly due to oil, that is, the abundance of petroleum and LNG in the Middle East and North Africa and the need for it in Europe.]
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