WHERE DOES UKRAINE GO FROM HERE?

Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian Military told anyone who would listen that fielding a counteroffensive with virtually no air cover for his troops, facing a Russian army well dug in, and with many times more artillery and air superiority for its planes and helicopter gunships, was a grave mistake.

No one of any importance appears to have been listening. The Ukrainian counteroffensive is more of a suicide operation than anything else. To call it a dud and ineffectual doesn’t do it justice, the regime’s leader, Zelensky, pushed by his western sponsors created a killing field for his own countrymen. Does that seem to faze him any? It appears not. Hie sole concern appears to be how to generate the next media appearance in which he features as a superhero.

How do the Ukrainian people of western Ukraine, who voted for him in their millions as the peace candidate dedicated to coming to a settlement with Russia, feel about the war that the US/UK/EU/NATO say needs to continue? Apparently there are now protests in western Ukraine due to the graveyards being too limited in size to deal with all the corpses arriving from the front. Yet look for any dismay in Zelensky’s face as he flies here and there hob-nobbing with various nations’ elites. He seems to be doing just fine.

Zaluzhnyi disappeared from view for a couple of weeks recently before popping up again very briefly. Were certain actors in this tragedy attempting to make him shut the ‘f’ up and convince him to toe Zelensky’s line that Ukraine was going to teach the Russians a lesson and have his “glorious” army break through their lines to reach the Azov Sea? Or just to shut up if he refused to do the latter. Seemingly he didn’t quite get the message as he gave his views once again to the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps he will vanish from you once again for a while… or perhaps even forever.

It has been reported for six months and more that Zaluzhnyi and Zelensky almost never see eye to eye with Zelensky always having the final say and getting his way. By the way, the latest report from the Russian Ministry of Defence states that since the Ukrainian counteroffensive began the Ukrainian army has lost 26,000 soldiers. How do they know this? They explained recently that they can listen in to Ukrainian army reports to base on daily casualties.

So, it should be clear to anyone with a few brain cells to rub together that Russia has won this and that to fight on with any success is quite beyond the Kiev regime. Those in charge placed their trust in the assurances of Joe Biden and Boris Johnson conveyed to Zelensky shortly after something close to a peace settlement was agreed between the sides in Istanbul in March 2022. A peace settlement didn’t suit these two men and Zelensky had his arm twisted to end the search for peace and instead continue to fight.

Just as the western powers had only played a game with the Russians regarding the Minsk Accords pathway to peace (as has been explained by Merkel and Poroshenko) they were not of a mind to see peace break out now. Putin had sent a modest number of troops and vehicles to the vicinity of Kiev to persuade Zelensky to come to his senses and seek peace. When it appeared Zelensky had taken this seriously and serious gains were made in Istanbul Putin had them withdrawn. Then came Boris to Kiev to deliver his ultimatum.

If Zelensky continued along the path to a peace settlement his western sponsors would pull their support from Ukraine and would give him no guarantee of any security. However, if he abandoned the negotiations in Istanbul, threw the substantive agreements that had been made in the nearest bin then they would supply him with everything he needed to “win the war” and drive the Russian military out of every bit of the territory they had taken. Tragically Zelensky was essentially blackmailed into taking the latter offer.

Now something of the order of 200,000 Ukrainians are dead and many more wounded, the Ukrainian economy hardly exists and now we hear that the western powers are out of ammo to give him. Joe biden let this particular cat out of the bag only yesterday though it had been long forecast by those in the know. Russia on the other hand has expanded its production of military vehicles, missiles and ammunition many times over.

So. What. Now?

Now it seems the hard liners in the West want to escalate, to give Zaluzhnyi what he originally asked for hundreds of this and that plus F16 jets and who knows, perhaps even nuclear warheads. What he is getting is supply of two-decade (or more) old cluster munitions. As Biden says, the cupboard is almost bare except for these. That Russia has a huge stockpile of these that they will use if the Kiev regime does, seems not to have perturbed Biden in the slightest.

Does anything perturb Biden in the slightest these days? Perhaps only how to get off a stage after one of his incoherent ramblings that are supposed to pass for speeches. Though he can fly into a rage okay. We have seen that once or twice… actually more often than that when we think back to his verbal duals with detractors during his presidential campaign. Biden, always a political thug and given the Ukraine brief by Obama has a bee in his raggedy bonnet over that nation. Perhaps that bee has entered his grey matter through one ear and hasn’t exited through the other yet to search for the bug up Biden’s ass concerning it. It appears he is willing to start WWIII over it. And we all thought TRUMP was insane.

With Biden in the White House surrounded by raving neocons such as Blinken and Nuland what can Zelensky do? And what of the neo-Nazis, some of whom he has just brought back from Turkey? Do you really think they will let him become a peacenik again? Only if he’s hanging from a lamp post after being tarred and feathered maybe. Zelensky is between a rock and a hard place. He thinks his only chance of survival is to continue saying Ukraine is going to win, continually placing barriers before any mention of peace talks and in essence being the ‘warrior king’. If he slides he knows either the fanatics around him or the everyday long-suffering Ukrainians (who have ALL lost someone at this point in a war Ukraine could never win) will do for him and maybe for his family too.

This is the tragic circumstance Ukraine finds itself in and got itself into because the West wanted to use it as a battering ram against Russia. A Russia by the way led by a man who strove for seven years from 2015 to 2022 to bring all parties involved to a peaceful solution and who, even as he saw that a military solution was the only one left to him, attempted to end it as soon as humanly possible. In Istanbul, only weeks after the Russian military began its operation, a peaceful settlement appeared to be within reach so, as a gesture of good will he withdrew the force he had sent to set up camp in the vicinity of Kiev.

If Zelensky had been left to his own devices and had finally given the largely Russian-speaking Donbass the autonomy they longed for so they could preserve their way of life after the coup in Kiev of 2014 Ukraine would have remained largely intact. Crimea, with its long Russian history, until gifted to Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev, would have stayed as part of Russia, but all else would have remained Ukrainian. But Boris and Biden got their way and war it was instead of an agreement leading to peace.

What can the Ukrainians do now? Being realistic and with the West continuing to prod Ukraine into battle, all they can hope for now is a speedy and overwhelming Russian victory. And that whatever is left of Ukraine is at peace, the peace they had always wanted by voting for the peacemaker turned warmonger Zelensky, the man they elected to negotiate with Russia and find a way to peace, not provide the endless misery they are deeply mired in now.