Retired U.S. Colonel Douglas Macgregor claims Ukrainians are ‘dying for nothing, pointlessly’

Ian Miles Cheong
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Retired U.S. military officer Col. Douglas Macgregor has put forward his perspective regarding the misunderstood objectives of Russia in Ukraine.

In a conversation on October 30 with Stephen Gardner on YouTube, Macgregor, who previously served as an adviser in the Department of Defense, brought forth his viewpoint, the Western Standard reported.

Macgregor, 76, is a regular on various talk shows and believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is engaging with the West with a clear but restrained agenda. According to him, Putin's goal is to maintain Ukraine as a neutral territory and prevent it from becoming a stronghold of U.S. and NATO influence.

“[Putin] would like to see Ukraine as a neutral state. He's certainly not going to sit there and put up one more time with what we did over the last 10 years or so in Ukraine. He's not going to allow Ukraine to become this fortress for American imperial influence and NATO influence,” Macgregor said.

“He doesn't want Russia living under threat just as JFK didn't want us living under the threat of nuclear missile attack from Cuba. Anybody that imputes anything else to the man is just lying. There's no appetite for war anywhere else. He wants to do business with everybody.”

Describing Putin's strategy as one of considerable caution, Macgregor dismissed the speculations surrounding Putin's health and claimed that Russia's current territorial occupation has historical ties to the nation and houses Russian-speaking populations.

“He's sitting on territory right now that is historically Russian with Russian-speaking populations. He's going to move and take Kharkov; he will take Odessa, but he doesn't want to war with the West or with NATO or with anybody. He just wants to get those territories under his control, get the Russians in them inside Russia.”

Addressing inquiries about Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko's call for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Macgregor pointed out the dire circumstances of the conflict, mentioning a high casualty rate among Ukrainian forces and severe injuries, as well as civilian suffering.

He painted a bleak picture of the Ukrainian military situation and described corrupt practices for receiving medical evacuation. He also suggested that the Ukrainian military's structure is designed to prevent mass dissent against the government.

“We're talking about an army [of Ukraine] that is falling apart, where if you want to be evacuated by an ambulance to a reputable hospital, you have to bribe the ambulance driver and the people on the ambulance to take you there from the battlefield,” Macgregor alleged.

“You have soldiers that are kept in small groups and no more than three or four together and then sent in as replacements because they're afraid if they try to replace platoons and companies, they'll end up with a rebellion against the Ukrainian government.”

Turning to domestic concerns, Macgregor warned that the United States is nearing a financial crisis, with the international community losing interest in purchasing U.S. treasury bills, limiting America's ability to continue deficit spending, especially in terms of military support to Ukraine.

“This government has chosen implosion and destruction over embracing the truth and becoming rational. A rational man would say, wait a minute, we can’t do this,” Macgregor said.

“This war is over, but we won't let it die because the regime in Washington wants to maintain the fiction that there is something good happening in Kiev. There isn’t,” he added. “There's nothing there but corruption and criminality. That's the truth. Ukrainians are dying for nothing, pointlessly, in a war that should never have been fought.”

Ian Miles Cheong

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Ian Miles Cheong is a freelance writer, graphic designer, journalist and videographer. He’s kind of a big deal on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/stillgray

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