Since the beginning of the Ukraine disastrous saga in 2014, with the Nuland/Pyatt duo coaxing, pushing, threatening etc., anyone with even basic understanding of Soviet history knew that Vladimir Putin would put up ironclad counteraction to stop Western expansion right up the frontier of Old Russia. Indeed, there was no rational cause to play deep Cold War anti-Soviet offensive other than a misguided sense of “superpower” brinkmanship present in Washington and several Western European capitals.
A significant number of American experts were already sold on the idea that Putin was Stalin No.2 scheming in his dark study at the Kremlin to expand Russian influence back into the former East European Soviet vassal states. The few sane voices warning that tangling with Russia in the battlefield was an extremely dangerous game were ignored.
None of these latter day Western warlord Einsteins did pause to reflect on Russian history, Putin’s own strategic approach, and the historic Russian dislike of Western expansion into territory adjacent to the traditional Russian frontier (Soviet Russia’s Afghanistan disaster was, and is, very much alive in Putin’s mind, who apparently flexes Russian power with careful and well-thought steps seeking balance and influence rather than military conquest).
And , thus, with a stupid midget comedian playing warlord in Kiev, the US and, to a lesser extent, the NATO allies, put their money of Zelensky beating the Russophones of the Donbas into pulp in a first stage of challenging Moscow directly. Still, Putin held back preferring to support the Russophones indirectly—although, at some point, Russian artillery commenced fires targeting Kiev’s troops trying to kill those still clinging to Mother Russia.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The global sages at the Pentagon and NATO HQ stumbled from one ill-thought step to the next with proverbial incompetence. The opening stage of the Russian attack was exactly what somber and educated observers of Russian military history had already predicted.
Russia, borrowing a modified page from the history of the Great Patriotic War against Hitler, proceeded to terribly maul the poorly trained and motivated Ukrainians with massive artillery and rocket fusillades that caused severe damage to both breathing troops and unprotected civilians. In a matter of months Ukrainian targets lay in ruins and the first signs of less than robust morale along the Ukrainian line of defense became visible.
From the outset, Putin avoided getting involved in diplomatic “initiatives” to check expanding military operations knowing full well that raw force only would promote Russian objectives.
The neo-tsar was also correct in assuming the Western “alliance” (US plus NATO) lacked the political and strategic cohesion to pursue a grueling shooting war of gradual annihilation—and this assumption is still re-confirmed with every passing day. Ukrainian leaders, including the comedian playing president, now openly admit Ukraine will lose the war unless Uncle Joe continues to pour $$$ billions into Kiev’s coffers feeding a lost cause.
Ukraine is a stark example of almost freshman miscalculation and lack of strategic insight on the part of great powers that should know better, not to mention stark, almost deliberate, ignorance of political and military history.
The bell’s tolling and the final phase of a preordained disaster is under way.
Ukraine outnumbered, outgunned, ground down by relentless Russia
KRAMATORSK, Ukraine, Feb 21 (Reuters) - As the Ukraine war enters its third year, the infantry of 59th Brigade are confronting a bleak reality: they're running out of soldiers and ammunition to resist their Russian invaders.
One platoon commander who goes by his call sign "Tygr" estimated that just 60-70% of the several thousand men in the brigade at the start of the conflict were still serving. The rest had been killed, wounded or signed off for reasons such as old age or illness.
Heavy casualties at the hands of Russian forces have been compounded by dreadful conditions on the eastern front, with frozen soil turning into thick mud in unseasonably warm temperatures, playing havoc with soldiers' health.
"The weather is rain, snow, rain, snow. People get ill with simple flu or angina as a result. They're out of action for some time, and there is nobody to replace them," said a company commander in the brigade with the call sign "Limuzyn". "The most immediate problem in every unit is lack of people."
On the cusp of the second anniversary of its Feb. 24 invasion, Vladimir Putin's Russia is in the ascendancy in a conflict that combines attritional trench combat reminiscent of World War One with high-tech drone warfare that's sending tens of thousands of machines into the skies above.