By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-22 01:16:42 | Updated at 2025-03-22 06:35:24
5 hours ago
Ceasefire: even the word is ominous. The deal being brokered by America to bring a halt to the battlefield slaughter in Ukraine is not a peace treaty.
It is exactly what it implies – a temporary cessation in the fighting.
Whatever emerges from the negotiations, there can be no lasting peace, not as long as Russia is intent on expansion.
The concessions being forced on Ukraine amount to little more than appeasement.
As Adolf Hitler took advantage of Allied naivety in 1938 at Munich, using the paper-thin treaty negotiated by British PM Neville Chamberlain to buy more time for his war preparations, so Russian dictator Vladimir Putin will use this ceasefire to rebuild his forces and get ready for all-out war with the West.
We don't yet know all the details of the deal with Russia. But one thing is certain: when the Kremlin is ready, Russia will renege in the most bloodthirsty fashion.
I predict there will be war in two years at the outside, unless we do what is needed to deter Russia.
What dictates whether the West can survive is how well prepared we are.
Europe's 'coalition of the willing', urged on by the UK, has pledged to put peacekeeping troops into Ukraine to enforce the ceasefire.
President Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance have made it clear the US will do no such thing – there will be no military guarantees from Washington, merely hundreds of American miners overseeing the extraction of up to half a trillion dollars-worth of rare minerals from Ukraine soil.
We don't yet know all the details of the deal with Russia. But one thing is certain: when the Kremlin is ready, Russia will renege in the most bloodthirsty fashion, writes Sir Richard Shirreff
Whatever emerges from the negotiations, there can be no lasting peace, not as long as Russia is intent on expansion. Pictured: The Russian army's multiple rocket launcher Solntsepyok fires towards Ukrainian positions in the border area of Kursk region, Russia
I predict there will be war in two years at the outside, unless we do what is needed to deter Russia, says Sir Richard Shirreff (pictured)
As well as the possibility of the US taking ownership of Ukraine's nuclear power plants to provide 'the best protection' for the country's energy infrastructure.
This civilian contingent, Trump claims, is the only US presence required because Russia would never dare attack if it meant putting American lives at risk. He is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Putin proved he cares nothing for the lives of Westerners when he ordered the assassination of defector Sergei Skripal in Salisbury seven years ago, using a weapons-grade nerve agent.
Skripal and his daughter Yulia survived but an innocent Briton was killed and a policeman suffered life-changing harm. The death toll could easily have been in the tens of thousands in the quiet cathedral city of Salisbury.
Western politicians have to work on the basis that, intentionally or not, Trump is effectively a Russian asset.
There's plenty of solid evidence to show that he was close to the Soviet regime in the 1980s and, when his business empire faltered in the 1990s, he was bankrolled by Russians.
Whether he is actively colluding with the Kremlin has not been established, but without doubt he is a sympathetic agent of influence for Putin's regime.
I would also nominate him as Putin's most useful idiot, aided and abetted by his blundering diplomats, Marco Rubio and his real estate sidekick Steve Witkoff.
President Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance have made it clear the US will give no military guarantees
What dictates whether the West can survive is how well prepared we are. Europe's 'coalition of the willing', urged on by the UK, has pledged to put peacekeeping troops into Ukraine to enforce the ceasefire, Shirreff continues. Pictured: Russian soldiers fire a 2S4 Tyulpan self-propelled heavy mortar in Ukraine
Some sort of European peace enforcement presence will need to be in Ukraine, without active US involvement, but Russia will strongly resist any front line presence. Wherever the border is drawn between free Ukraine and the annexed territories, Putin will never agree to having Nato troops on his doorstep.
The worst-case scenario would be an under-powered, nominal force in the centre and west of Ukraine, around Kyiv and Lviv, too far away for a rapid reaction to any Russian incursion, and lacking the firepower to defend themselves against a full-throttle attack.
It's very unlikely that Putin will launch a surprise assault on the peacekeepers. His instinct is to proceed by a steady stream of provocations, testing what he can get away with.
To Putin, his war on the West has already begun, with a constant barrage of lies and conspiracy theories polluting social media.
His aim for the past decade has been to destabilise our democracies, stirring up division and polarising debate, with considerable success.
Only this week it was revealed that Russian agents researched fire protocols at a factory owned by a German arms firm shortly before it burst into flames last summer. Putin's saboteurs were seemingly trying to disrupt arms deliveries to Ukraine.
The fire which brought Heathrow to a standstill yesterday may be an accident. But if it is sabotage, it is straight out of the Kremlin playbook.
Western politicians have to work on the basis that, intentionally or not, Trump is effectively a Russian asset
I would also nominate Trump as Putin's most useful idiot, aided and abetted by his blundering diplomats, Marco Rubio (pictured) and his real estate sidekick Steve Witkoff
Though he regards Britain as a particular enemy, all Nato countries are his targets. Russia already has allies within the hard-right governments of Slovakia and Hungary, and Romania is next.
Putin's ultimate goal is to reunite the Eastern Bloc, from Bulgaria to Poland, under a new Russian empire. The more this can be done by subverting democracy instead of military means, the easier it will be.
The far-Right Romanian populist rabble-rouser Calin Georgescu lost his appeal this month against a ruling that bars him from standing in May's presidential elections.
Georgescu won the first round of voting last year but was disqualified when Romanian intelligence discovered that hundreds of TikTok accounts backing his candidacy were set up by Russian agents.
But the damage is done. Thousands of Georgescu supporters have staged angry protests, no doubt stirred up by Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU. They are proclaiming his victory and denouncing the judges who barred him as traitors.
Every Nato country which shows support for Russia will weaken the Western alliance that has kept the peace for nearly 80 years. But a far greater loss to our unity than Hungary or Romania is the effective withdrawal by the US.
Trump has made it plain that Article 5, the common pledge between Nato members that we protect each other, no longer applies in all circumstances, even issuing threats against a Nato country, Denmark, over its refusal to cede Greenland to the US.
We cannot rely on American troops and munitions in a conflict with Russia. More shocking still, as Ukraine discovered earlier this month, we cannot rely on the US to share its intelligence.
The far-Right Romanian populist rabble-rouser Calin Georgescu lost his appeal this month against a ruling that bars him from standing in May's presidential elections
Perhaps we cannot even be fully sure, in the event of war, whose side Trump would be on.
Europe has perhaps two years to prepare for a head-on confrontation with Russia and we must be ready now for the unconventional war of sabotage, arson, cyber attacks, propaganda and assassination which will set the conditions for full-scale war.
It is no exaggeration to say that tens of millions of lives and the national survival of Britain, France, Germany and all our true allies are at stake.
Earlier this month, the European Commission's president Ursula Von der Leyen announced up to 800billion euros will be spent on rearming the continent and delivering aid to Ukraine.
Welcome though that decision is, we might have left it too late.
When war comes, as it will come, events will unfold at devastating speed.
This is how the timeline could look:
Monday March 1, 2027: A Russian unit patrolling occupied Donetsk is attacked and, after a brief firefight, surrenders. The soldiers are executed in cold blood. Russia blames Ukrainian special forces.
Kyiv immediately denies it. Bodycam footage from one of the dead soldiers shows the ambush was carried out by men in Ukraine uniforms.
Tuesday March 2: The Kremlin announces that, for the safety of its citizens and soldiers, and the protection of American mining installations along the border, it will be establishing a 100-mile 'buffer zone'.
Heavily equipped Russian forces immediately roll into Ukraine.
President Vitali Klitschko, who succeeded Volodymyr Zelensky after the 2025 elections, denies again the involvement of Ukrainian troops and accuses Russia of a 'false flag' operation.
'Putin is a psychopath,' he says, 'who murders his own soldiers to create a lie.' Klitschko demands Nato support Ukraine in driving back the Russian advance.
The fire which brought Heathrow to a standstill yesterday may be an accident. But if it is sabotage, it is straight out of the Kremlin playbook, writes Shirreff. Pictured: The huge fire at North Hyde electrical substation near Heathrow Airport
More than 500 miles away, the peacekeeping force prepares to mobilise, but Trump steps in. The White House welcomes the creation of a buffer zone, he says, to keep American mining operations safe from Ukraine rebels.
Thursday March 4: At a UN Security Council emergency meeting, the US votes with Russia to redraw the map. Poland's prime minister Donald Tusk warns that Putin is testing Europe's resolve.
Unless we have the determination to force a Russian retreat, without US involvement and in open battle if necessary, he will interpret our weakness as an invitation to go further. Russia offers to negotiate a withdrawal.
Klitschko rejects the ploy, dismissing it as a cynical trick: the longer the West delays, the more time Putin has to reinforce his positions. But Nato chiefs agree to talks.
Sunday March 7: Tusk is proven right. Putin has decided we are toothless. At 4.30am, a full Russian armoured division begins to roll across the border into Estonia and Latvia. Within four hours they are approaching the Estonian capital of Tallinn.
The British-led Enhanced Forward Battle Group in Estonia puts up brief resistance but takes heavy losses before being overwhelmed and forced to withdraw.
This is a tripwire force, numbering just over a thousand, of which around 90 per cent are British with the rest from other nations. More than 50 UK soldiers are among those killed and seriously wounded in the ferocious first action.
At 11am, Sir Keir Starmer announces Britain is formally at war with Russia.
Televised statements are made by the German chancellor, the French president and the Italian prime minister.
But not all Nato countries are united in the reaction. As well as Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, the US refuses to offer support.
On his Truth Social service, Donald Trump posts: 'This is Europe's mess. I gave them peace. They screwed it up. America is staying out of this fight, as long as our great Engineers in Ukraine are safe under Russian protection. Vitali, this warning is for you.'
Earlier this month, the European Commission's president Ursula Von der Leyen announced up to 800billion euros will be spent on rearming the continent and delivering aid to Ukraine
Monday March 8: The blitzkrieg continues, with forces surging into Latvia over the Russian border and driving towards the Baltic sea.
But the Estonians, combined with the remains of the Nato battle group and reinforcements hastily flown in from UK and other Nato nations, are putting up fierce resistance.
The RAF, German Luftwaffe, Finnish and Swedish airforces, with support from the French, rapidly establish dominance in the air.
Putin unleashes a missile attack on RAF bases in east England, but Britain's air defences prove solid. Patrolling in the North Sea, a pair of newly commissioned Type 45 destroyers pick off the Geran-2 rocket drones, fired in clusters from Kaliningrad.
Some missiles hit targets in Western Europe, but the hundreds of billions of euros poured into strengthening our armed forces in the past two years means we can defend ourselves – and hit back hard.
Retaliatory strikes deep inside Russia take out oil refineries and missile silos. But the European war plan is not to win by sheer firepower. Instead, we turn the tables on the Kremlin's cyber-warfare tactics, with a devastating barrage of electronic tricks.
As night falls, Russia's computer networks are crippled, taking down their fuel supplies, electricity grid and financial systems. It's -6C in Moscow and millions are without heating.
Tuesday March 9: Fighting intensifies in the Baltic states. The advance has slowed but defenders are hugely outnumbered. They will face a bitter struggle to fend off the invaders until reinforcements can arrive by sea – and even then Russia could still have the upper hand.
Their forces are battle-hardened after three years of trench warfare and house-to-house fighting in Ukraine, and they can absorb horrendous losses.
The concessions being forced on Ukraine amount to little more than appeasement, according to Shirreff
But if Putin is close to winning on the battlefield, he is close to losing control in his cities. European missiles continue to pick off vital targets in Russia.
Transport is grinding to a halt. Food is scarce. The internet is not functioning, and the security forces are stretched, trying to contain anti-war protests.
Russia, consumed by the demands of an insane warmongering dictator for so many years, is on the brink of total collapse.
Wednesday March 10: In a desperate last attempt to blackmail the world, Putin announces he will use nuclear weapons before allowing the West to defeat Russia. Satellite intelligence suggests this is no bluff, and that Kyiv is a likely first target.
That is all the provocation Ukraine needs. During two years of ceasefire, its own nuclear scientists have not been idle.
They have the Bomb and a burning hatred of everything Russian. In an act of stupendous revenge, Ukraine launches a nuclear strike against the industrial Volgograd. The city is instantly obliterated.
Within the hour, Trump declares Ukraine a terrorist state. But he also warns Russia – and others – against retaliation with nuclear weapons. China orders the Kremlin to sue for peace immediately.
There is no need. By nightfall, ultra-nationalists enraged at the destruction of their country have staged a palace coup and overthrown Putin.
The madman of Moscow has finally gone. Russia's vassal republics in the far east and Caucasus begin to declare their independence from Putin's rapidly disintegrating empire.
Fiction this might be, but if we duck the opportunity to become masters of our fate, it will be Putin, not us, who is in control.
Again, whether the West can survive depends on how well prepared we are. Tens of millions of lives and the very existence of Britain, France, Germany and the democracies of Europe are at stake.
Defence must be our only priority, taking precedence over everything. Because without it we will cease to exist.
Sir Richard Shirreff is former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe for Nato.
