by Theo Russell The current direction of the war in Ukraine has created an acute crisis in Western capitals, above all in Washington, and the position of Vladimir Zelensky, the president elected on a promise to end the war in Eastern Ukraine, now hangs by a thread. We must make clear here that this is not a war between Ukraine and Russia; this is a war forced on Russia by the NATO alliance. Ukraine is merely a proxy for NATO and is paying a horrific price for this war. The weaknesses of the once mighty NATO alliance have been exposed: after decades of relocating factories to developing countries they have now discovered that they are no longer able to produce sufficient weapons for a major sustained war. In contrast Russia, which Western experts love to claim has a GDP the size of Italy, has proved to be a manufacturing superpower with a highly skilled workforce and mighty technological and scientific resources. Russia has not only increased arms production, from bullets to hypersoni