APPROACHING THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF RUSSIA’S SMO: TWO QUESTIONS

Western leaders & media elites have been shocked by the ability of Russia to overcome powerful economic attacks upon it while winning a gruelling conflict in Ukraine. What can we learn from this?

WHY DID RUSSIA INITIATE ITS SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION IN 2022?

Russia was pushed far further than any western nation would have allowed itself to be pushed. The pressure was immense and unrelenting. In addition, the Russian leadership was actively duped via the Minsk process where the western powers merely stalled for time pretending they sought a peaceful resolution to the situation in the Donbass. There, the Ukrainian government had immediately moved to use the military in 2014, the most reckless and irresponsible thing they could have done. This led to violence that had not been there when the Russian-speaking majority rose up in response to the insurrection against the president and government they had helped vote into power in elections given a positive scorecard by the electoral inspectors who supervised them. 

Sending the Ukrainian military to the Donbass in the Spring of 2014 was the worst thing that the US/EU-installed authorities could have done. The troops that travelled east brought with them the extremist ultranationalists who saw the Russian-speakers in the Donbass as vermin, as sub-humans. They were completely conditioned in their mental processes to think that way in cult-like form due to having imbibed an entire mythology based on the Nazis having assisted Ukrainian nationalism. That there was going to be violence due to this approach was entirely predictable and so it was. These militants set up their mortars and delighted in firing at random into the villages, towns and cities occupied by the Russian-speaking majority. In the main these hit high rise buildings such as Soviet-era apartment blocks, hospitals and schools. Those that did not hit these exploded on urban streets and town centres killing civilians at random. 

The attacks upon the virtually helpless civilian population of the Donbass drew Russian volunteers into the mix and they began building what came to be called 'Self-Defence Forces'. 2014 and 2014 were the years of slaughter when thousands of civilians died through incoming mortar shells and from time to time missiles. Since 2014 some 15,000 plus civilians have died. 

In 2014 those who defended the Russian-speaking population appealed to Vladimir Putin to allow the two newly-formed republics to join the Russian Federation. He would not hear of this but in 2015 he worked through the Minsk process to obtain a degree of autonomy for them so that their future could be secured and guaranteed. As we now know, the Minsk process was used a sham perpetrated by the then Ukrainian regime and its western partners. It was a ruse constructed to stall the Russians and to build up the attack potential of the Ukrainian military which is why we are where we are today.

Neither successive Ukrainian regimes nor the western powers had any intention to move things toward a peaceful resolution. War was the goal... and finally war it was. Zelensky talking openly of regaining Ukraine’s nuclear status didn’t help either. Russia could see that there was never any intent on the Ukrainian regime’s part to make Minsk work. On top of this, as a last gesture to retrieve the situation at the last moment Russia made requests both to the U.S. authorities and to NATO offering to work with them to create a new security architecture for Europe that would shield everyone and ensure peace. These were rejected. This was the final end of all Russian hopes to find a way to resolve all issues involved peacefully.

HAVE RUSSIAN GOALS CHANGED IN ANY WAY SINCE IT BEGAN ITS OPERATION IN 2022?

Russia will win this war, mainly because the desire to win it to safeguard not only for the security of the Russian-speaking population but for the security in posterity for Russia herself is overwhelmingly strong. Nothing will stop the Russians from achieving these goals. Nothing whatsoever. When the western powers failed to bring down the Russian economy it was already over. Russia will win and fully deserves to win. The western powers and their tools in Kiev certainly do not. 

Ukraine has lost with many hundreds of thousands dead to no good purpose. It is on life support and now risks the loss of any potential economic viability as a unified state. It is looking increasingly likely that large parts of Ukraine will be subsumed within neighbouring states, Hungary and Poland, initially as protectorates within a temporary arrangement worked out by the EU in conjunction with the USA.

Ukraine is the absolute loser in this war.It has essential been in this condition ever since the sanctions imposed on Russia failed and nations expected to rally to the West's side against Russia failed to do so. Ever since these eventualities failed to take place the end point of this conflict was clear.

Sooner or later the reality to be faced by the western powers who were so confident in their sanctions regime is that Russia won and won conclusively. That will be the unavoidable reality. However, the false narrative concocted to spare the blushes of the western leaders who failed will convince most people in the West. That false narrative will state that Russia failed. It will be said time and time again and in fact has already been said several times that Russia wanted to vanquish the entirety of Ukraine and occupy it. 

The above narrative was never true at any point, not anywhere along the line, including at the get go. Russia wanted initially only to get the Minsk Accords complied with as agreed and verified at the United Nations. Plus an assurance that Ukraine would not join NATO. This was virtually a done deal in Istanbul, March 2022. That route to a speedy reconciliation was terminated by the Ukrainian regime in consultation with the western leadership. Hundreds of thousands have subsequently died needlessly to no good purpose. 

Russia is moving forward  incrementally toward the attainment of a now expanded number of goals. With the Istanbul semi-agreement lost Russia now knows with 100% conviction that it cannot trust either the Ukrainian regime or the western powers. Russia knows she must now take far more of Ukraine and bring the present regime down while utterly humiliating those in the West that pushed the Kiev regime relentlessly and to no good purpose, losing the Ukrainian population of some 400,000 of its male population. 

Russia cannot compromise now as it has no faith in those who might seek to negotiate with it. This is why it must move forward to a complete victory and insist on its expanded number of goals. It will accept nothing less now.