In A New Report, Ukrainian Academic Exposes The Ukraine Proxy War.

In A New Report Ivan Katchanovski Exposes The Proxy War In Ukraine.

Ivan Katchanovski, the Ukrainian-Canadian professor of political science at the University of Ottawa and expert on the proxy war in Ukraine, put out a new academic study of the proxy war that exposes how the West used Ukraine as a proxy to bleed Russia.

In this article, I will review some of the most important revelations from the study.

Ukraine As A Proxy War.

Katchanovski, in the study, quotes several Western and Ukrainian officials admitting the war was a proxy war, including that:

-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated that ‘we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.’

-Former US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said in March 2022 that the US is in a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine

-Philip Breedlove, the former commander of the U.S. European Command and the ex-Supreme Allied Commander of NATO’s armed forces stated: ‘I think we are in a proxy war with Russia. We are using the Ukrainians as our proxy forces.’

-The former British prime minister Boris Johnson also admitted that the West/NATO is waging a proxy war in Ukraine and that the Ukrainian military and leadership is a proxy (saying) ‘We’re waging a proxy war! We’re waging a proxy war, but we’re not giving our proxies the ability to do the job.’

-Marco Rubio, the US State Department head, said explicitly that ‘frankly, it’s a proxy war between nuclear powers – the United States, helping Ukraine, and Russia – and it needs to come to an end’

-Zelenskyy de facto admitted the proxy war. He stated that ‘the U.S. Army now does not have to fight protecting NATO countries. Ukrainians are doing that.’

-Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov in an interview with the 1+1 TV channel said that ‘we are fulfilling NATO’s mission today without them shedding their blood but with shedding our blood’

-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba also de-facto admitted the proxy war and its benefits to the US, while omitting the costs to Ukraine, in particular, the loss of Ukrainian lives. He stated that the Zelenskyy government ‘offers the best deal’ to the US because in exchange to weapons and money to ‘finish the job’ the US saves ‘the most important,’ lives of the American soldiers

Katchanovski also noted that Ukraine became a “US client state” after the U.S. Maidan coup in the country in 2014, including by installing government officials, controlling Ukrainian policy against Russian separatists in the Donbas region, and funding Ukrainian media and NGOs that opposed an end to the Donbas war.

As he wrote:

Various evidence shows US administration involvement in appointments and dismissals of top Ukrainian government officials and in key policy and military decisions in Ukraine since the Maidan.

The Ukrainian media, Ukrainian and US officials, and a declassified transcript of a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine also revealed that the US and other Western governments told the Maidan government leaders not to use military force during the Russian annexation of Crimea in order to avoid a war with Russia.

Similarly, the Maidan leader of Ukraine, Oleksander Turchynov, declared in April 2014 “anti-terrorist operation” in Donbas and ordered the use of force against separatists and the Igor Girkin-led unit right after a secret visit of the CIA director. A former Ukrainian official stated that he witnessed that the CIA director during his secret visit to Ukraine in April 2014 pressed the Maidan-led Ukrainian government leaders to use force in Donbas.

The Western governments and foundations, such as Soros foundation, funded all but one of about two dozen Ukrainian NGOs, which initially issued in 2019 a collective statement that any talks with Donbas separatists were impermissible after the head of the Zelenskyy’s presidential administration supported creation of a consulting group with representatives of the separatist-controlled Donbas during the Minsk negotiations.

The nearly perfect alignment of the Ukrainian and US government policies after the Maidan is also consistent with Ukraine becoming a US client state and remaining during the Ukraine-Russia war.

He also noted that Western backing prolonged the war and stopped a potential peace deal from being reached, writing, “Without massive Western military, financial, and humanitarian aid, Ukraine would have lost the war much sooner and would have been forced to reach a peace deal with Russia largely on Russian terms. Zelenskyy admitted during his US visit in September 2023 in the US Congress that ‘if we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war.’ Josep Borrell, the EU chief for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, also stated in October 2024 that ‘if we stop supporting Ukraine, the war will be over in fifteen days and Putin will achieve his goals.’ The prolongation of the war without real prospects of Ukraine winning the war also meant large military and civilian casualties, economic and other damage, and much worse conditions for Ukraine for any future peace deal.”

He also noted that “Various evidence of US and UK direct involvement in planning, training, intelligence gathering, arming, and financing of the Ukrainian forces, in particular, for the Kherson and Kharkiv counter-offensives in 2022 and the summer 2023 counteroffensive, is also consistent with the proxy war and Ukraine as a US client state”.

Blocking The Peace Deal In 2022.

Katchanovski also cited the overwhelming evidence that Russia and Ukraine reached a peace deal in Istanbul, Turkey, in April of 2022, but the West blocked it in order to use Ukraine to bleed Russia.

He quoted the many leaders at the peace talks that confirmed this, including:

-Naftali Bennett said that the US and other Western leaders blocked the Ukraine-Russia peace deal, which he negotiated with Putin on Zelenskyy’s request in March 2022 when he was prime minister of Israel, and which according to him had about 50% chance of being reached, because they wanted to ‘continue to strike Putin’

-Davyd Arakhamia, the head of the Zelenskyy’s party faction in the Ukrainian parliament and the head of the Ukrainian delegation in the Ukraine-Russia talks independently confirmed that the peace deal could had been reached in spring 2022 if Ukraine agreed to neutrality and that the British prime-minister (Boris Johnson) blocked it. Arakhamia said that Russia was ready to end the war in such a case and that Ukrainian neutrality was the main Russian condition. He also said that Western countries knew everything concerning peace talks and told Zelenskyy not to sign the peace deal.

-Mevlut Cavusoglu, the foreign minister of Turkey, which hosted the peace talks in Istanbul, said on April 20, 2022 that Turkey ‘did not think that the Russia-Ukraine war would last that long after the peace talks in Istanbul’ ‘but following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, it was the impression that... there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia get weaker’

-Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan corroborated in 2024 the involvement of Boris Johnson in blocking the possible peace deal in spring 2022.

-Gerhard Schröder, the ex-leader of Germany, made in 2023 a similar statement, saying ‘At the peace negotiations in Istanbul in March 2022 with Rustem Umerov (then Ukrainian negotiator) , the Ukrainians did not agree on peace because they were not allowed to. For everything they discussed, they first had to ask the Americans. I had two talks with Umerov, then a one on-one meeting with Putin, and then with Putin’s envoy. Umerov opened the conversation with greetings from Zelenskyy. As a compromise for Ukraine’s security guarantees, the Austrian model or the 5+1 model was proposed. Umerov thought that was a good thing. He also showed willingness on the other points. He also said that Ukraine does not want NATO membership. He also said that Ukraine wants to reintroduce Russian in the Donbass. But in the end, nothing happened. My impression was that nothing could happen, because everything else was decided in Washington. That was fatal. Because the result will now be that Russia will be tied more closely to China, which the West should not want’.

-Victoria Nuland, who was at that time one of the top US State Department officials, stated in her interview in September 2024 that the Ukraine-Russia peace deal, which was close to being finalized in spring 2022, ‘fell apart’ because the US, the UK and other Western governments ‘advised’ the Zelenskyy government that it was not ‘a good deal.’

-Oleksii Arestovych, who was a member of the Ukrainian delegation at the peace talks in spring 2022, said after leaving his position as an adviser of Zelenskyy that this was the most advantageous ‘draft of agreement’ that Ukraine could have. He stated that the last round of the peace talks in Istanbul was ‘completely successful negotiation’ and that the Ukrainian delegation even opened a bottle of champagne afterwards. Arestovych also said that ‘the Istanbul agreement was a protocol of intentions and was completely/90% prepared for a direct meeting of Putin and Zelenskyy.’ Arestovych also stated that he ‘knew that in two or three weeks there would be a meeting in Istanbul, and it should end the war altogether. And then the meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin. All this was decided, there was a calendar… I knew exactly the calendar of Istanbul meetings, everything was moving towards reconciliation.’He elaborated that Russian representatives offered the talks on the first day of the invasion, that the Istanbul agreements were ‘fully acceptable,’ and that a meeting between Zelensky and Putin was supposed to be on April 9, 2022. The former Zelenskyy’s adviser and a member of the Ukrainian delegation at the peace talks stated that the talks ended because the West decided to use Ukraine as a trap to fight Putin’s Russia.

-Alexei Venediktov, the well-connected former editor of the pro-Western Ekho Moskvy radio station, which was banned following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, commenting on the Nuland’s admission in September 2024 confirmed that the peace treaty ‘was already initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation’ and said that ‘he saw this signature.’

-Ambassador Oleksandr Chalyi, who participated in the peace talks with Russia in Spring 2022, stated that ‘we concluded’ the ‘Istanbul Communique’ and ‘were very close in... April to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement.’ He said that Putin ‘tried everything possible to conclude agreement with Ukraine.’ He noted that it was Putin’s ‘personal decision to accept the text of this communique.’

-source in Times on March 31, 2022, that the Johnson government ‘urged’ Ukraine not to ‘back down’ by accepting such peace deal under the terms negotiated in Istanbul and that the British prime minister ‘warned’ Zelenskyy in a phone call.

-Robert Fico, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, stated publicly that the West blocked a peace deal to end the Ukraine war in spring 2022 and used Ukraine for a proxy war with Russia in a failed strategy

NATO Expansion

Along with this, Katchanovski documented how the West continuously signaled support for Ukraine joining NATO, despite previously promising it would not expand eastward towards Russia.

He noted that “The NATO summit in Bucharest in 2018 declared that ‘NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO’ and that “after the Western-backed violent overthrow of the pro-Russian government during the Euromaidan in Ukraine, the Ukrainian government declared joining NATO its priority. The goal of the NATO and EU membership was included on the initiative of then President Poroshenko into the Ukrainian Constitution, which since its adoption by the Ukrainian parliament in 1996 declared non-bloc, neutral status of Ukraine”.

He noted that “The NATO enlargement to include post-communist countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union violated promises given by the US and other Western leaders and senior officials to their Soviet counterparts”.

Katchanovski added that, “There was increasing US and other NATO countries military involvement in Ukraine after the Western-backed violent overthrow of the Yanukovych government and during the civil war and Russian military intervention in Donbas. Ukraine became a US client state and was increasingly used as US/NATO bulwark to contain Russia without Ukraine formally joining NATO and without NATO having obligation to defend Ukraine in case of a Russian invasion under article 5 of the NATO treaty. The US and NATO countries trained Ukrainian military forces during the war in Donbas, put Ukrainian military intelligence and SBU under the US and British tutelage, supplied primarily defensive weapons and other military aid, and conducted military exercises in Ukraine.”

He noted that even NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted that Russia invaded Ukraine over this Western expansion of NATO, writing, “NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that Putin ‘went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders....” “and it demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.’”

The Maidan Coup

Ivan Katchanovski also documents the U.S. backed 2014 Maidan coup against Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and its role in the war, writing “Conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and Russia and the West started with the violent overthrow of the relatively pro-Russian government in Ukraine by means of the Maidan massacre an assassination attempts against then President Viktor Yanukovych”.

He went on to note:

The US and other Western governments de facto backed the violent undemocratic and illegal overthrow of the Yanukovych government for geopolitical reasons, in particular, to contain Russia, and blamed him and his forces for the massacre of the Maidan protesters. They immediately recognized the new Maidan government after the seizure of the presidential administration and the parliament by the Maidan forces and the parliament vote to remove Yanukovych even though such actions violated the agreement signed on February 21, 2014, by Yanukovych, the Maidan opposition leaders, and representatives of France, Germany, and Poland as well as the Constitution of Ukraine. The violent overthrow of the Yanukovych government escalated into the civil war in Donbas with pro-Russian separatists and an international conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the West and Russia. Russia escalated the conflict by conducting military interventions in Crimea and Donbas and annexing in the violation of the international law Crimea, which was populated by ethnic Russians.

Ukraine became a US client state since the violent overthrow of the Yanukovych government. It abandoned its neutrality, made the NATO membership the principal policy goal and a part of the Constitution, and was increasingly used by the US and other NATO members as a bulwark to contain Russia.

With Trump now vowing to continue the proxy war in Ukraine, it is more important than ever to understand the context laid out by Katchanovski about the Western proxy war.

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