By VT
By John Smith for VT
I have written an analysis earlier on the issues with the Russian military that have all come true to prediction. I’m an old Cold Warrior that studied the Russians, and the USSR, from 1986 to 1994. This disaster was totally predictable and had Putin just stayed amassed at the Ukraine border, he definitely would have gotten some concessions from the Europeans, but he’ll get nothing but a tragic end as it plays out. This was a trap from the very beginning and for some strange reason, I am estimating it is Putin’s health, that something destroyed Putin’s normal pragmatism and cunningness.
Putin is well aware of his past fiasco in the first war with Chechnya where around 7,500 Russian soldiers were killed, a large amount of Russian military equipment was destroyed, and there was backlash both from the Russian public and Chechens on the brutality of this conflict. However, Putin now has lost almost 4,000 soldiers in 3 days of fighting, a significant amount of equipment, he has gone through their major stores of MLRS rockets, and his military is facing huge logistical problems. It’s as though the Russian military is almost self-sabotaging because these blunders are military strategy 101.
The CIA trained the various militias for an insurgency war, this is now coming into full play and seems to be working well. Civilians are attacking Russian convoys and soldiers, even arresting Russian officers, and a nation-wide effort has been made to use thousands of Molotov Cocktails against Russian forces. Basically, to win, Putin will have to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians; this will never go over with the rest of the world nor with the Russian people.
Putin is facing now a nationwide Russian anti-war orchestrated online protest against the military action by Russian citizens, Russians are still going into the streets protesting, and the hacker group Anonymous today hacked Russian State television to play video messages to the Russian people informing them of what is happening in Ukraine. The West has put into play its sanctions against the oligarchs, banning certain Russian banks from the SWIFT money transfer system, and freezing the Russian Central Bank assets. The West and the EU have now banned Russian aircraft from their respective airspaces, which is another financial blow and stops Russians from travelling and overseas employment. Turkey is banning Russian ships from going thru the Strait and France confiscated a Russian supply ship.
The Russian General Staff has been assigned the mission of capturing both Kharkiv or Kyiv regardless of any consequence by Monday at the latest. The leadership of the Russian Airborne Forces is opposed to the plan since it will result in significant losses, approximately 10,000 dead Russian soldiers. Despite this fact that the General Staff accept complete responsibility for its actions made. Remember, the General Staff are the incompetent ones who created this situation and are basically “Yes Men” for Putin. The Airborne and Spetsnaz Command are more battle proven and understand this will be a losing option even if they win the battles.
Even after a successful operation, the counterinsurgency will begin and turn Ukraine into Chechnya. This was the trap all along, allow the Russian military to cross over and decimate them after they are inside. This will cause extensive causalities to the military and civilian population.
Basically, Putin will risk total destruction of the Ukraine infrastructure and its people in order to win a useless war. This will definitely draw NATO fully into the conflict and possibly put the world at risk of a nuclear war. As bad as things have been in my 34 years in this field, I’ve never been this close to a nuclear conflict. Always cooler heads prevailed. The madness needs to end and all parties need to sit at the negotiation table immediately. There is still a window of opportunity but this window is closing very quickly.
