‘All is fair in love and war” was just a sentiment when British poet and novelist John Lyly wrote this in his novel “Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit,” published on December 2, 1578. Surely, it was not in his mind that a sentiment written in a romantic novel would turn into an idiom when it comes to justifying one’s cheating or abuse of power or authority. And, years after, this idiom would lead to idiotic narratives to wage wars to keep the hegemony up to stretch the power corridors. This idiom was “religiously” used to take the first tentative steps toward the establishment of the British Empire with overseas settlements in the 16th century. Though the British Empire, a global system of dependencies brought under the sovereignty of the Crown of Great Britain, came to an end in the twentieth century, its spirit endured for three centuries and continues to this day. The lust for neocolonialism never ended and continued under different narratives. The Ukraine war is a recent example of neocolonialism and the result of the US hegemonic interventions in Ukraine over the last two decades. The war is waged to control natural resources and a staple food basket that accounts for 23 percent of the global food market. “Ukraine harbours some of the world’s largest reserves of titanium and iron ore, as well as fields of untapped lithium and massive coal deposits. Collectively, they are worth tens of trillions of dollars,” the Washington Post wrote on August 10, 2022. So, the main proponents of war, the UK and the US are playing all the dirty tricks to engage even all sane powers into what they have insanely indulged in. They fueled the war instead of facilitating negotiations between the two adversaries. Now, after putting all the economic sanctions and geopolitical pressure on Russia, the US and its allies are arming the Kyiv regime, training soldiers, supplying intelligence, sending advisers and mercenaries, as well as engaging in a propaganda and sanctions campaign against Russia. The Ukrainian leadership has resorted to forbidden methods of confrontation, including terrorist attacks and contract murders, and the firing of heavy weapons at civilians. The Western countries have been ignoring all the Russian alerts on the Ukrainian abuses in the war. The Ukrainian leadership has resorted to forbidden methods of confrontation, including terrorist attacks and contract murders, and the firing of heavy weapons at civilians. The Western countries have been ignoring all the Russian alerts on the Ukrainian abuses in the war. Russia has pointed out several times in a row that the US and the West are facilitating and supporting Ukraine to do all that is forbidden. Ukraine has also been blackmailing Russia on alleged provocations over the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. Zaporizhzhya is a city on the Dnieper River in southeastern Ukraine. It’s home to Khortytsia Island, a former Cossack stronghold with the Khortytsia National Reserve and the open-air Museum of Zaporizhian Cossacks. Riverside Dubovy Gai park has children’s rides and a lake. Nearby, the Regional Lore Museum explores Cossack, Scythian, and medieval history. The Boguslayev Museum of Technology has jet engines and motorbikes. Ukraine is also unnecessarily building up scenarios against Russia for preparing a so-called “dirty bomb,” perhaps at the behest of the US. It’s the same sort of propaganda that the US built up against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Nothing was found in Iraq or Afghanistan despite huge spending in the ‘war against terrorism’. The Ukraine war seems to be the next phase of the same agenda of the US and its Western allies. This time, they are refraining from any direct action against Russia, knowing how expensive it could be for them. The current state of affairs around the Black Sea is largely advantageous to the United States, which intends to utilize it to uphold its global hegemony and weaken other nations, including its friends in Europe. The expansion of NATO’s forward presence close to the frontiers of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, along with the West’s intention to continue military operations in Ukraine to weaken Russia as much as possible, is of special concern. Everyone realized that Russia was not the cause of the war in Ukraine after the post-meeting statements of former Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The statements of other world leaders and the opinions shared in the media reflected the actual intentions behind the Minsk agreements. Allied nations were split by the Western-backed coup d’état in Kyiv in 2014, which installed anti-Russian forces in authority. In Donbas, it sparked an armed conflict. Russia seems to have taken action to protect the people against terrorism and genocide. Russia has said time again its willingness to get engaged in productive peace talks. Geopolitical experts believe that Russian forces are still destroying military targets and carrying out large-scale, high-precision attacks on military command structures, entities involved in the military-industrial complex, and other connected facilities, such as power plants. Ukraine’s military capability is being crushed while the supply chain for foreign weaponry is being destroyed. In the meantime, every precaution is being taken to prevent the deaths of civilians. The writer is a freelance journalist and broadcaster, and Director Devcom-Pakistan. He can be reached at devcom.pakistan@gmail.com and tweets @EmmayeSyed