Chicago Tribune commentary on ‘West vs. the rest” reflects Trib’s long overdue Ukraine war pivot

The Chicago Tribune finally acknowledged one inconvenient truth about the Russo Ukraine war. Outside of the US, Canada and Western Europe, the rest of the world either ignores it, or even supports Russian intervention in Ukraine.

Its foreign affairs columnist Daniel DePetris, in his Ukraine war commentary, laments this truth that the Tribune, indeed most US media, has suppressed for all 218 days of this horrific war.

DePetris is careful to repeat the West’s false, and now largely ignored narrative, that “Vladimir Putin, the thin-skinned, bloodthirsty, nuclear-armed dictator is hellbent on a war of conquest. And the international community needs to step up and ensure he doesn’t succeed.”

But DePetris completely ignores the other inconvenient truths about this war. First, the US, NATO and Ukraine have been provoking this war for 14 years, beginning with the 2008 pledge to expand NATO into Ukraine up to Russia’s borders. That provocation dramatically expanded in 2014 when the US supported the coup that toppled democratically elected, Russian leaning Ukraine president Victor Yanukovych, setting off a civil war resulting in secession by Russian speaking Ukrainians in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Second, DePetris also ignores how the West is choosing to prolong the war funneling over $60 billion in weaponry to Ukraine rather than promote negotiations to end it. Even worse is his suppression of US and UK emissaries’ direct demands to Ukraine president Zelensky to abort the potential peace agreement in the war’s first month.

The Chicago Tribune has a long way to go to catch up with the inconvenient truths about the Russo Ukraine war. But finally admitting what was clear on Day One, that this is ultimately a proxy war between the US and Russia being fought over US client state Ukraine, is a start.

Does the Chicago Tribune have more inconvenient truths instore to provide its readership the full Russo Ukraine war analysis it's entitled to?