Ostensibly the plan of Ukraine’s western sponsors was to provide the Kiev regime with enough wherewithal to regain territory from the Russians with which to significantly improve its bargaining position at the negotiating table. Unfortunately for both it is the Russians who are taking territory from the Ukrainians and, within the last several weeks with increasing rapidity.
Ukrainian forces are currently falling back, unable to withstand the pressure of myriad Russian offensives up and down the line of contact. It is becoming commonplace for large swathes of territory including towns and villages to fall to the Russian forces. Russia has an overwhelming advantage in terms of highly experienced troops and copious supply of munitions. With the dead and injured on the Ukrainian side ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 taken off the battlefield per day the likelihood of the western plan proving effective is minimal.
In addition to the above, the Ukrainian military is reduced to fielding reserves only in terms of briefly trained, forced conscripts who in some cases are apparently resentfully informing the Russians of Ukrainian troop concentrations and are also likely to surrender when the opportunity arises. Much of the original Ukrainian army, those with the most in-depth training and experience are long gone from the line of contact. Some strong units remain however they are being shuttled in desperation to various locations across a 1,500 kilometer-long battlefront. Such acts of desperation are becoming ever less effective.
The Russian military is daily punching multiple holes in the various Ukrainian lines of defense. Steadily a condition is arising where the Ukrainians can no longer firefight these onslaughts, Ukrainian troops are being encircled in what are termed ‘cauldrons’ where they have no other option but to surrender or die.
The Russian airforce is massively outperforming the residual Ukrainian air force and air defense network. Accurate targeting with 500, 1,000, 1,500 and 3,000 pound glide bombs is decimating Ukrainian forces, control HQs, arms and fuel depots, electrical transfer points and much else besides on a day in day out basis with air superiority assured. Western air defence systems, even the most sophisticated such as the U.S. ‘Patriot’ are being located and destroyed as well as the so-called game-changer weapons such as the ‘Leopard’ tanks and HIMARS missile systems. In addition Russia has developed the ability to detect and destroy most ATACMS missiles in mid-flight.
Where does all this leave the stated goal of Ukraine’s western sponsors? Where, after all else has failed, is the miracle of Ukrainian territorial gains to have its genesis? Once the long promised F16 fighter jets appear on the battlefield and fail to live up to their reputation (Russia already has the capacity in depth to defeat them) what is left? As far as we know, short of allowing the Ukrainians to use long-distance missiles to hit deep inside Russia or nuclear weapons… there is nothing and using either of these means the start of World War Three.
This is the situation we are now approaching.
Though now we see that just getting Ukraine through to November and the U.S. presidential without a complete collapse of its forces was far more likely to be the real goal rather than the purported goal of enabling the Kiev regime to obtain a better bargaining position. Now that Biden has left the race to regain another term as president and hardly anyone truly believes Kamala Harris stands any chance of winning against Trump why not admit that the entire Ukraine Project was sheer folly from the start?
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