WESTERN ELITES ARE DRIVING UKRAINE HEADLONG TOWARD TOTAL DISASTER

Is the western world led by madmen? It certainly seems so.

Obsessions tend to ruin those who find no way to release themselves from them. They have arrived at a central locus within the minds of those who have fallen victim to a habit of mind that has been nurtured rather than rejected and are now in the driving seat.

The addiction that follows becomes virtually impossible to overcome, especially if peer pressure on top of all else, puts a second seal upon it.

Ukraine has become such an obsession for western elites. Unable to recognise reality, confusing themselves with endless wishful thinking and driven mad by the conviction that the next thing or the next thing will do the trick and win the day for them.

Meanwhile those Ukrainians on the battlefield, increasingly relatively elderly conscripts frogmarched into uniforms and sent as cannon fodder continue to die uselessly and tragically, decimated by a professional army. A professional army originally sent in the hope of a capitulation by Kiev that would have been agreed by a more responsible and wiser president and government, with a view to saving both lives and territory.

The longer this war goes on the more needless deaths of Ukrainians will occur and the more of Ukraine will be lost forever. Zelensky has been promised that the next thing and the next thing will do the trick. But the magic silver bullet never, ever arrives and never will. No matter what weapons the USA, UK or Europe sends, no matter how much money they senselessly pour into Ukraine, Russia will match on taking more lives and territory, far more than were ever contemplated.

The West has upped the ante constantly, forcing Zelensky to keep fighting to the last Ukrainian. Those sensible Ukrainians who could get out have gone. Now Kiev is forcing men well past their prime to be paraded as virtual sitting ducks to be mown down in their hundreds day after day.

However, back in western capitals those who run the mainstream media news outlets are pouring out an endless waterfall of deception claiming the perpetual defeats that the Ukrainian forces are experiencing are in fact indicators of victory. One wonders what they will say as the last uniformed Ukrainian expires or surrenders? That the next thing or the next thing will bring the long-sought victory? Somehow after so many such false promises, I really don’t think so.

Now however, the heavily advertised great offensive of the Ukrainian military in the Donbass is being hastily downplayed. It appears a Russian hypersonic missile strike on a bunker in Lviv took out many top level military commanders, some of them NATO officers. The glorious facade constructed by western mass media is unravelling fast. Look out soon for much back-peddling of all those earlier predictions of “victory”.

Incrementally the nation known as Ukraine is being reduced to a state where it cannot hope to be a viable state again standing on its own. The latest gambit of the regime seems to be to become part of Poland instead. Is this the great “victory” we were all told about that would be Ukraine’s if it kept fighting and rejected peace?

Truly, the western powers have been no friend to the Ukrainian people or the Ukrainian state. They have brought the nation to ruin and instigated the deaths of up to a quarter of a million men and counting. They have lost it a good quarter of its territory when Russia was originally asking for none, only to provide the security of autonomy for the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass.

Can it be said with any merit that the West has helped Ukraine in any way, except helping it to commit national suicide? If you think it has helped by arm-twisting Zelensky into rejecting the peace settlement that was almost reached in Istanbul a year ago tell me in what way. All I see is a western world using Ukraine as a tool, a tool which is now broken. Those self-obsessed elites, seeking to retain their dominance in a world turning away from them, are simply driving Ukraine toward total disaster.

UKRAINE: IS EVERYTHING GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN?

The title of this commentary doesn't refer to the Russian plan for its campaign in Ukraine. 

I don’t even intend to give any comment on that subject.

This commentary is on a related, but quite different subject.

It strikes me that given there is a clear goal by the western powers to replace the leaders and systems of governance of both Russia and China the current situation in Ukraine has many convenient aspects to it in this regard.

If you wanted to achieve the object of first isolating Russia (or isolating at least Europe from Russia) and then later isolate China for not forsaking Russia as a partner over its Ukrainian campaign, you could do no better than plan things as they are currently panning out.

First you would do everything possible to frustrate Russia in regard to both NATO and Ukraine, keep Russia hoping for a settlement to both and never seeking to make good on one and ensuring Ukraine never does either. In fact keep pushing Russia further and further into a corner with one more reason after another to explode out of it. Then of course, once the desired explosion occurs (the Ukraine campaign) you have the justification you need for all that follows, the various, continuous and expanding raft of measures that push Russia out of Europe for good.

This could be seen as the first stage. The second, once Russia is fully engaged in Ukraine, is the manufacture of a series of incidents/events that deliver additional “justifications” for ever broader secondary sanctions, cutting of connections and permanent burning of bridges.

Meanwhile, China is pressured to condemn its partner Russia, something it is judged China will never do. This gives “cause” to begin a similar isolation of China, bringing NATO into the fray with warnings to China, contradicting of course Biden’s stated position to better relations with China. This last technique of seeming diplomacy followed by betrayal having worked well with Russia is simply a case of rinse and repeat. Stirring the pot, creating confusion, shaking stability and exerting pressure while seeming at one point to wish to find agreement then immediately having the State Department issue aggressive statements creates unease and potential instability while encouraging angry responses that give the casual observer misgivings.

Is it all a conspiracy theory too far?

Why would the USA, UK and their allies wish to take such a potentially devastating course that could destabilise the entire world provoking global division and worldwide instability if not outright war?

Is there any basis for the notion that the stakes could be that high for the collective west?

In fact there is.

9/11 made the U.S. elites aware that to make America totally safe they needed to eliminate ALL potential sources of threat and this required the elimination of all opposition, great and small.

Putin and Russia became the first target in 2007 when he stated quite clearly that Russia was not in agreement with the imposition of a unipolar world run by one nation of a coterie of allied nations.

Then China unexpectedly rose and rose economically without changing its communist leadership. It had been expected that with greater and greater reliance on capitalism that the communist system of central control would atrophy and die. It did not. It became even stronger and more deeply entrenched.

But the decisions made after 9/11 demanded that ALL opposition and potential opposition must be made to disappear and be replaced by West-friendly leaders and systems of governance.

What now?

The now may just be what is happening in Ukraine, what is happening across the western world and the actions against Russia that may well be seen happening also to China very soon.

Is it all just a coincidence that what was seen as an absolute necessity in the hours after 9/11 is now playing out? Is there nothing odd about that?

Or, just maybe, is everything going according to plan?

THIS IS NOT A ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL WORLD

Those who run the western world now and those who preceded them may well have set themselves goals to transform the entire world into their image of what is right, fit and proper. I would argue however that this was an outrageously dangerous project from the outset.

This for many reasons.

Perhaps the primary reason of all is that the two main protagonists in this global act of many parts were most unsuited to this task. Those whose histories included genocide of a native population and slavery imposed on another. Those who had acted as legalised pirates and licensed drug dealers, exploiting, enslaving and endlessly enriching themselves.

Now they self-interestedly and conveniently ignore their past and have indulged in new excesses against others in the recent past. Virtually ignoring an institution that the entire world agreed would enable a more stable and peaceful world to exist, they forced through their demand to exist as exceptional and superior entities with some God-given right to administer punishments including mass death and destruction to others.

The above was assumed to be theirs by inalienable right, with full powers of judgment and delivery of whatever punishment was decided upon whether that be an imposition of financial penalties, draconian economic sanctions or the ultimate sanction of invasion, war and total destabilisation of societies.

What global right were given to these powers representing only a fraction of the world’s population. Where are the signatories to the death certificates for hundreds of thousands given as a blank cheque to the USA, UK and their proxies? Who designated them the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong? The answer is of course no one. They took these powers unto themselves and guard them jealously with all the levels of threat they now wield.

What are the effects we see from the ambitions of these relatively few nations (by comparison with all nations of our planet)? Do we see increased peace, prosperity and stability for all? Or do we instead see increasing levels of war and dispute, poverty and hunger, and an instability each and every one of us feels more and more strongly on a planet going wrong?

The effort to make everyone else conform to the self-set standards of this cabal of nations led by the United States is the primary cause of so many ills recognised ever more clearly in these recent years. Their desire to make others conform to their needs, desires and wishes is bringing nothing good to our world but only destabilising efforts that left alone would have a much greater chance of achieving equilibrium over time.

This is a world of great diversity where the everyday man and woman desires to live in harmony with others and believe in the right of sovereignty of their native home, their nation, their country. They do not want in my considered opinion to see interference exerted from outside their nation by powerful other nations who have some compulsion to change them, their ways of life or modes of governance.

The political (and often too the religious) elites of the USA and collective west see it as some kind of holy duty to do exactly that which the majority of populations in other nations do not want. The western powers insist however that it is their prerogative, one granted by no one however, to assert their self-given right to do as they please and those resisting should instead be grateful.

There is no enlightenment possible it seems which might change the minds of these interferers and potential invaders. The privacy and rights of others are ignored and constantly abused by them. They are spied upon, judged and categorised, labelled and libelled, talked of as lesser beings and made subject to the powers their “betters” impose upon them while they talk of “human rights”.

These nations, led by the USA and UK cannot succeed in this utterly wrong-headed task. All they will create is further disastrous conditions as their attempt to create the perfect “solution” in their terms creates only ever more problems.

It appears that they feel they would rather have no world at all than a world they cannot control and that they will NEVER come to understand the level of their hubris, arrogance and inevitably catastrophic fixed ideas on this issue. They appear fixed-mindedly decided upon following this path to the bitter end where we end with either a nuclear war or a world split in two. In the first case almost all is of course lost. In the second and more hopeful outcome, resistance to their efforts reaches a point where nations resolve to fully defend themselves and in so doing quarantine the West for the good of all.

It is clear that until then they are incapable of understanding any of this however.

Until the bitter end (for them or for all of us) they appear unable in particular to understand the following:

THIS IS NOT A ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL WORLD

UKRAINE IS IN THE PROCESS OF DISAPPEARING AS A VIABLE NATION

The losses in manpower and machines of Ukraine have been absolutely enormous. As Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission has not so long ago admitted. At the very least 100,000 Ukrainian troops have died and just about every military vehicle of importance that Ukraine had prior to February 24th has been destroyed.

Russia is now grinding down the combination of foreign volunteers, young and old men mobilised and barely given a month's training plus western specialists. Russia has launched up to a dozen new military satellites in recent months which give them eyes on Ukrainian troop movements and potentially precise locations of artillery and large group movements.

The energy production capacity of Ukraine is nearing total degradation and once complete and the ground hard enough Russia will use a 500,000 strong army to sweep all before it in its upcoming winter offensive.

You have to wonder what the Ukrainians are banking on right now. Yes, they can keep throwing men forward, mostly at this point barely trained for a month, usually less. Men up to the age of 70. Women too no doubt. And what will they achieve exactly? They might hold back the highly trained Russian military with its far superior artillery power for a limited period. But that Russian military is firing six times as many shells back on a constant day in, day out basis, decimating Ukrainian troop numbers. Then they move forward incrementally and do the same all over again. This is why the Russian commanders and that of Wagner talk respectively of 'grinding down' the Ukrainians and putting them through a 'meat grinder'.

So, what exactly can be achieved by Ukraine in these circumstances?

Well, the USA and others can provide greater financial support and also more and better weapons. But this hasn't worked in the past. No matter which supposed 'game-changer' weaponry has been given to the Ukrainians the Russian military still grinds on and will continue to grind on. This is because Russia HAS to do so... because it sees its very nationhood is at stake.

Barack Obama said years ago that Russia has, 'escalatory dominance'. Russia has an enormous capacity to wage war. Its industry is now even more geared up to destroy Ukraine than before. Russia is not going to lose this. It cannot afford to and it has all the capacity it needs to do so. Sooner or later Ukraine will crack.

Delay in negotiating a settlement will have two consequences however. 1. Even more Ukrainians will die. 2. Even more Ukrainians territory will be lost. There is a third to add to these two. Ukraine is parcelled up into pieces, one taken by Poland, another by Hungary and a third by Romania. These are the realities. It seems the only reason that they cannot be faced by those pushing for ever more war is that they cannot face the humiliation of defeat. But it is coming... no matter WHAT they do.

Ukraine will certainly lose Bakhmut. There is simply no way Russia will give up on the task of taking it. Too much hinges on this. Recent reports, including that of the commander of the Ukrainian 'Svoboda' unit, tell of horrendous conditions in and around Bakhmut with dead Ukrainian troops littering the fields and even the trenches themselves, trenches which flood on a regular basis. The local hospitals are receiving on average 150 casualties per day with amputations relatively common. Across the battlefield it has been estimated that Ukraine is losing between 500 and 800 troops each day. This is not sustainable.

Russia is pounding Bakhmut to dust to take it and in fact it suits the Russian military high command to do so as the object is to eliminate as much of the Ukrainian military forces as possible, to put them into a "meat grinder" as the head of Wagner has said. Sooner or later Bakhmut will fall. Of that there should be no lingering doubt.

The new Russian military satellites now have full oversight of the battle space. These were put in position over the last few months and the current strikes can be seen to have relied on the new satellite data that has become available.

Ukraine stands no chance of keeping anything much in the days and weeks ahead. Another 380,000 Russian troops are arriving with the most modern of weaponry at their disposal. Russia is readying its military for an overwhelming surge that will hit Ukrainian positions, logistic centres, repair shops, warehouses, arms dumps and quite possibly state command and control entities.

There is no possible way Ukraine can do anything very significant against what's coming... especially as its western sponsors are realising the game is just about up and Russia is going to be the winner that takes all.

Russia attempted to find a peaceful way by which the mixed marriage Russian-Ukrainian population of eastern Ukraine could retain their language, pro-Russian culture and allegiances in the face of the president and government they by majority had elected, being ousted by means of an insurrection. The people in that region of Ukraine had expected that change would come through the democratic process, not through riot, or by any other means.

The events which took place on Maidan Square in Kiev therefore shocked and horrified them and they knew with some confidence what was to come. They knew for instance that those who had taken power were those who had failed to secure their positions by democratic means. They knew also that their language, allegiances, pro-Russian culture and indeed their lives were at threat and that henceforth they and their children down the generations would never again experience the ability to reliably cast their vote and have the government they favoured be elected to power.

In effect what had occurred in Kiev was a coup, and they knew it. In addition to all of the above they had seen various members of the United States political elite appear on the square exhorting those there to continue and achieve their goal of bringing the democratically-elected president and government down. A president who had announced that elections would be brought forward to a few months hence in which the entire matter of Ukraine linking ever closer to the European Union could be decided democratically. This was not to be. Instead many were to die including around fifteen policemen. I wonder if anyone reading this can imagine what the political elites of the USA would do if such a number of police officers were killed by similar insurrections in their country?

The people in eastern Ukraine read the writing on the wall and when the new authorities in Kiev said they were going to act against the Russian language every fear they had was confirmed. Were they to accept this new government forced on them and accept to that their already hated population (called 'Moskals' by the ultra-nationalists and most of the general public in western Ukraine, i.e. Russians) was not to be further excluded from any right to a democratic vote, their language itself and that of their children, and perhaps even the right to live at all? Of course not. They took matters into their hands by largely peaceful means, took over administration functions in their regions and demanded a level of autonomy that would guarantee their future rights.

Putin, when asked by the leaders of what became self-asserting republics, to let them join the Russian Federation, refused, stating they must remain within the boundaries of Ukraine but that he would work with others to attain for them the level of autonomy within Ukraine that they required. At the time of asking Kiev had sent its military plus the most violent of the Maidan militias to the republics and they had begun bombarding their villages, towns and cities.

Putin worked with Germany, France and the Ukrainian authorities on the autonomy issue to bring peace and reconciliation to the region. The Minsk Accords were agreed and ratified in 2015 and the next seven years were spent attempting to have them implemented. Ultimately the Ukrainian authorities stated they had no further interest in them. In the interim, from 2015 to 2021 NATO and others within the West has reinforced, trained and financed the Ukrainian army plus put in place massive lines of defence bordering the two regions.

During this period also a constant bombardment of the civilian populations of the two regions was carried out by the Ukrainian military and the so-called 'Volunteer Battalions' such as the 'Azov Battalion'. There was scant, if any, reporting in the West of this latter fact. 

When the Ukrainians said they were no longer interested in Minsk and the ex-president of Ukraine, Poroshenko, said it had merely been a ruse to let Ukraine re-arm Russia understood the situation. Then Zelensky, the current president talked of regaining Ukraine's nuclear status and swore to take Crimea back by force. Then, there was a sharp rise in the shelling of the republics. 

Putin saw that the peaceful means he had hoped would resolve the question of the Donbass region was no longer recognised by Ukraine or its western supporters. It was for these and other reasons, such as NATO pushing for Ukraine accession to it and with Ukraine having become a de facto NATO state, with nothing at all evident that might provide a peaceful path forward to resolve the thorny questions Minsk ought to have answered that Putin took Russia into Ukraine. 

WHAT IN A WIDER CONTEXT IS AT STAKE IN THE UKRAINE WAR?

I will presume for the purposes of this commentary that all readers are aware of the fundamental immediate goals and ambitions, concerns and sought for outcomes regarding the present conflict in Ukraine.

But what are the larger geopolitical ramifications involved, if any?

As I see it, this war has an enormous importance for the geopolitical makeup of our planet for all the time left to us as a species. This may appear a big claim, perhaps a hyperbolic claim that makes too much of the present situation. I will attempt to explain why I believe this is not the case.

As I have referenced before, I see much if not all of the geopolitical interventions and most of the western foreign policy narratives, talking points and official statements as intimately linked to decisions made in the hours immediately after 9/11.

It follows then that I see the Ukraine situation, stretching all the way back to 2014 and in fact years before, as very much part of the processes having their genesis in 9/11.

The primary and I would argue clear goal set after 9/11 was to establish supreme dominance by the United States over the world to ensure no such event could ever come to pass again. This meant nullifying and wherever possible replacing all individuals and entities that could add to the possibility of recurrence.

I feel the above statement is incontrovertible in fact and a quite natural response by the elites of the most powerful and influential nation on the planet. The great problem for the rest of the world however, lies in the actions needed by those elites to achieve that goal. To achieve it, and I am quite sure from statements made and actions followed, that absolutely no ethical, moral or any other barrier was to be placed that could hinder the speedy achievement of that goal. International law and normal codes of conduct of all kinds were not to be a barrier. Nothing and no one was to be a barrier and without exception. All means necessary was to be the modus operandi.

It is well known what followed soon after 9/11. A program of regime change operations across the Middle East, with varying tactics deployed. Full on attack and invasion in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq. NATO in Libya and proxy combatants in Syria, sanctions and other financial instruments of war as a constant meanwhile. All overt and covert attacks were also complemented by an enormous effort regarding enhanced psychological operations which incorporated a now compliant mass media. This latter directed mainly at western populations themselves, the purported benefactors of the full spectrum dominance project initiated after 9/11.

China is by far the main target for the USA and its allies but too big a meal to take on so early. The obvious way this was to be done was to tackle the low-hanging fruit first. As we have seen that has not gone particularly well… though the sub-goal of substantially weakening U.S. “enemies” was achieved in all cases to one degree or another. None of those attacked will present the kind of problem the U.S. elites have sworn to defend themselves against in perpetuity. However, perpetuity is a rather long time frame to work to and without doubt those nations that did not fully succumb to regime change will be returned to time and again to maintain their weak position.

So we come to Russia, a larger stepping stone than the previous targets, and one leading ultimately to the number one target, China. Russia had to be relieved of its current president and then have its system of governance modified. Modified to suit the goals set post-9/11 of course, its transformation into a state compliant to U.S. needs, demands and implicit instruction as all other ‘liberal democracies’ were.

So, along comes Vladimir Putin to the Munich Security Conference in 2007 and a little abashedly states that Russia is not onboard with the project that the USA plus its allies become global hegemon on a unipolar planet.

How do you think that went down in the context of the absolutely must-have goal the U.S. political and military elites had set for themselves after 9/11. Like a lead balloon. Precisely.

NATO, used as the spearhead against Russia to soften it up and over time create fractures in its society (along with a plethora of other methods operating concurrently) was to bring about the undoing of the Russian state to the degree that it could be shaken apart. Chaos-creation was the name of the game, at least confusion and if possible greater and greater degrees of anarchy and opposition.

I believe this is all rather obvious. America’s playbook is not all that long really and hiding the various paragraphs within it doesn’t take a degree in rocket science or a deep knowledge of Einstein’s theory of relativity to understand them I’d say. They are a bit too blatant to miss.

The CIA and all those who conjoin into its various elements such as the national Endowment for Democracy (NED) and a great many others over a vast array and network of activists, embassy chiefs, “journalists” and myriad functionaries across all allied states, wield enormous power and influence and are indeed THE true blade of power and influence of the western world.

So it was that the blade turned primarily toward Russia. Putin must go and Russian must be taught a lesson… the lesson being that you can’t deny the power of ‘The Boss’, the great arbiter of good and evil, the world’s exceptional cop… especially not now when we need you to TOTALLY comply to our needs due to what happened to us on 9/11.

Russia was to be harried on as many issues as possible. China was to get its initial share also but that was the really big project for when Russia was dealt with. Putin and Russia had to be seen in the frame of being responsible for just about every negative circumstance that could possibly be thought of. Putin was first for the treatment with long years after his Munich address in 2007 being filled with articles portraying him as some kind of reincarnation of Hitler.

After many years of Putin-bashing, which still continued of course, this was expanded to Russia in general, or to be precise to its current hierarchy. They were to get the same treatment as devils beyond the pale, irretrievably lost to the precepts of ethical behaviour, baby-killing, schoolkid injuring, hospital patient targeting fiends. And this time and time again in a hypnotic repetition to embed the required conditioning in as many minds as possible across the western world.

Then the final card to be played when other softening up efforts to create the requisite unrest in Russia largely failed to be effective… Ukraine. NATO and Ukraine. NATO, Ukraine and the Russian-speaking majority in the Donbass. Russia was to be pushed past its limits of endurance and then be bled dry, weakened beyond repair… and then find itself moving ever closer to where the U.S. elites and their allies wanted it.

And this is what is at stake as I see it in Ukraine. This I am convinced is the broader picture, the deeper context. But… there is one last and in my view preeminent factor at stake:

The potential loss of a multipolar world replaced by an ever-suspicious unipolar entity that can never quite bring itself to trust any of us and monitors each of us to a depth, even with all the big data gathering now, has never been seen before. 24/7 in geosynchronous orbit the spies in the sky will feed on what we say and do and report immediately if any of it is suspicious and we will be flagged appropriately in consequence. One power dominating with servants helping do its bidding. A world controlled by a single entity and its proxies. No resistance of any kind brooked. No China, Russia or any other fly in the US’ elite ointment. Obedience… or else. A virtual prison planet in fact. 

THE UNTHINKABLE FOR THE WEST IS ABOUT TO OCCUR

All the positive and wishful thinking up to now was never going to affect the inevitable outcome in Ukraine. None of the one-sided commentary and reporting has not and is not going to either. Russia is about to achieve its goal of securing the Donbass region against further Ukrainian military attack.

The goal of autonomy first sought by the people of the Donbass in the Spring of 2014 after the insurrection in their then capital city of Kiev will be more than accomplished, full sovereignty is about to become a reality.

This will be a body blow to a western world that has been telling itself fairy stories about the Kiev authorities and assorted military and militia forces winning against a Russia absolutely sure of the need to secure not only the Donbass but thereby its own security in perpetuity. What will the reaction of the western world, specifically the western political elites, be regarding these facts?

By this point in time, subsequent to the Russian intervention in Ukraine, the West has thrown everything it could at Russia to no evident avail. The big financial and economic guns have been deployed and have largely missed their target. Some of the shells have in fact boomeranged back to their gun-emplacements causing financial and economic damage at home.

Russia began its 'special military operation' with all its financial and economic resources presenting a sound barrier to the western attacks known to come no matter what it did. These are the sentiments expressed by its president, Vladimir Putin. Better in for a pound than a penny, you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Besides, the importance for Russia that circumstances changed from the ever-worsening situation regarding NATO and the ever-increasing belligerence by Kiev, had become painfully clear.

If almost every weapon in the western armoury has been spent or is known to be metaphorically out of commission, what then?

Just perhaps, some kind of reconciliation may be a possibility. A little realpolitik rather than the hysteria and breast-beating by western powers that we have seen up to now. What other choice is there for the West? To keep on fighting, keep on supplying the Kiev authorities and its dwindling military power with weaponry? Perhaps. The incentive is clearly there for the USA and UK in particular to try to do as much damage to Russia as possible.

The goal of weakening Russia is certainly a goal these two close allies have in common and there will be enthusiasm by the hawks within their hierarchies to keep the war going even when Russia is calling for all hostilities to cease. This policy will risk being seen as a totally callous one quite uncaring that through it the deaths will continue when Russia is clearly calling for an end to them.

We all await these coming events with both hope and trepidation. As ever with geopolitical events where national interests are involved it may be a mistake to believe that the usual and best human characteristics of compromise and agreement can prevail.

The next few weeks will be crucial in determining the outcome of this war that Russia never wanted but after years of hoping the West would play fair it became inevitable. Now we are approaching the final chapter. Who will prevail?

We will soon see...

IT MAY BE NECESSARY FOR RUSSIA TO DECAPITATE THE UKRAINIAN REGIME

I suspect Russia can no longer gamble on getting a peace deal from the present Ukrainian regime. Backed by the collective western elites who have an incentive to keep the conflict going it seems to me that ideas of an eventual settlement rather than capitulation via regime change decapitation are fading.

Kiev is being used as a grinding tool to whittle away at Russia’s resource base. This is the sole purpose behind the current tactics being deployed by Ukraine’s puppet-masters. Of course it has long been assumed that the obvious advantage Russia has in terms of artillery and air power would overcome all resistance sooner or later. But I do wonder how soon that will be if the West, as it appears to be, is willing to make things drag on right to the very last Ukrainian.

If the western powers have indeed decided to throw everything Ukraine has at the Russian lines without a thought spent considering an eventual peace agreement then their talk of the conflict going on for years that we have heard for a long time now may become reality. What choices, if this is the case, does Russia have at this moment, taking into account that it may have to deal with additional offensives by Ukraine where virtually kamikaze attacks are mounted simply throwing Ukrainians constantly at Russian lines?

1. Russia could continue resolutely as of now, hitting at strategic locations in the Donbass and presumably at some point finally and completely break through Ukraine’s defence lines and  then totally secure the Donbass and other liberated regions.

Presumably the strategy then would be to call a halt to the SMO and demand that zElensky agree terms.

But what if this still does not bring the regime to its senses and all that happens when Russia calls a halt to its special military operation is that it simply continues to wage war, using any hiatus to build its army, retrain and gain additional weaponry, meanwhile continuing to mount provocations and sabotage attacks?

2. Russia could take the step that has already been suggested in the Duma, to declare Ukraine a terrorist state and begin an assault on an increased range of targets within Ukraine including all command and control centres including the office and hiding places of the pseudo-president zElensky.

If this option was taken it would be a major step and escalation. Russia wants zElensky in place so that he can sign the eventual peace agreement. But if no peace agreement is contemplated at any point by zElensky what then? Then the only choice it seems to me is the one above, to take out the entire regime or at least to decapitate it.

If Ukraine, through support of its sponsors, can continue to mount attacks using force of numbers and ever more military hardware supplied by the West then I strongly suggest that Russia should actively consider taking out the regime completely as the most reliable means of ending what is intended to be a forever war with the West totally unable to back down.

If Russia did take out the regime in all its aspects it would then “own” Ukraine and this would naturally have its own enormous costs, unless what was left of Ukraine was left to the devices of AZOV, AIDAR and others as a rogue state that the West would require to support. But of course there lies another danger, that the West would simply transfer its allegiance to them, prop them up in turn and begin the same policy of war support as before.

These are difficult decisions for Putin to make along with his military high command. Neither option is ideal in a situation where the Ukrainian regime and its backers resolutely refuse to negotiate, or even contemplate negotiating a peace agreement, but instead continue attacking and harassing Russia and the territories under its control that were once part of Ukraine. What should Russia do if the strategy of the regime and those behind it is to NOT negotiate ANY peace but to fight and continue fighting no matter the consequences for Ukraine, Russia or the world as a whole?

This is the thorny question the Russians will have to answer if the next few weeks do not bring a final resolution to this conflict and the eventual peace we all hope for.