With Israel continuing her genocide of the Palestinians with gusto—and Iran delivering a massive missilery warning to the Jewish state that has put the fear of God into all—Ukraine is evolving into an almost backdrop subject in the global strategic situation. But, the fighting between the Ukrainian neo-Nazis and Czar Putin’s army is anything but backdrop and delivers lessons re. ground war in the 21st century.
One thing is for sure: the Ukrainians would have been dead and buried already without the massive economic & hardware support of the US and (an increasingly reluctant) European Union.
The Russians have set up a giant battlefield trap for their opponents (and their supporters) by resurrecting their good ole shelves of the WWII years when, despite Nazi Germany’s strategic and materiel prowess, they proceeded to reduce the invaders slowly, but painfully, into final defeat by exercising, among others, complete indifference for human life (both theirs and the enemy’s).
The current Ukraine battleground “model” has unmistakable resemblance to how the Stavka crushed the Germanic invaders by using both human and weapon mass backed up by king-sized wartime weapon production further augmented by military aid from the United States. Zelensky et.al., meantime, are not only outgunned and outnumbered, they are also of poor morale and with a society fed up with sending its young men (and women) to be fodder for Russian fires.
Zelenskyy’s predicament increasingly worries particularly the Western Europeans, who are developing “WWII fever” watching the Russians bulldozing the Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Germany and France, in particular, are already in the trenches by sending more weapons to Zelensky and demanding increasing amounts of cash for Kiev to buy ammunition and various instruments of war. But, this apparent mobilization appears increasingly inadequate against the backdrop of Western European and, to a lesser degree, American voters becoming fed up over their tax $$$ and euros gobbled up by Kiev.
With the clouds of Ukrainian defeat already increasing over the horizon, both Western politicians and warfare experts are at various stages of trying “to game” the almost given Russian victory and its inevitable impact on Western security, increasingly shaken by Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. The US, in particular, already under way for a bruising Biden-Trump slugfest during the coming presidential election, is struggling to find the best possible approach not to drop the Ukrainians like a carcass already being mauled by their attackers.
Ukraine was in trouble already — now it openly admits it's on track to lose
Ukraine's chances of victory in its two-year battle to repel Russia's brutal invasion appear to be fading.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's president, is warning with increasing urgency that his country could lose the war if it doesn't get $60 billion in US aid that Republicans in Congress are refusing to release.
"Can we hold our ground? No," Zelenskyy recently told PBS of Ukraine's prospects should it not get the funding.
Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, was just as blunt in a recent interview.
"Give us the damn Patriots," he told Politico in March, referring to the US-made air defense systems used to defend Russian missiles, which are pummelling Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
On the front line in east and south Ukraine, reports say the situation is increasingly desperate, with Russia outfiring Ukraine at a rate of three to one. Parts of the front line are also dangerously close to collapse.