Shared some thoughts on the Ukraine War
Blog Link: Ukraine War - One Year On
Twitter Link
Btw, the above visuals are from the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the great US of A and Even Greater Britain, plus a host of other ‘willing’ partners. Interestingly, next week will mark two decades of that invasion on an utterly false premise, for which the culprits didn’t face ANY sanctions whatsoever! Neither were any warrants issued by any International Courts against the chief perpetrators, as in the case of Vladimir Putin some hours back!
Instead, the victim country was destroyed to the extent that they are still struggling to stand up.
Btw, the same culprits are today collectively united in their ‘horror’ at the invasion of Ukraine by Russia!
So we know why the USA and others invaded and destroyed Iraq. They had irrefutable proof that Iraq had WMDs!
Throughout our history, war has been a constant. So those that are aghast at yet another war, are merely trying to imagine a utopic world which has never existed. Instead, this cacophony of voices on social as well as mainstream media is, IMO, due to the fact that the collective West sees it as an opportunity to get an advantage over Russia.
It is no secret that Russia has been one of their Principal adversaries. So much so that at the end of the cold-war, instead of reaching out to co-opt broken and hugely malleable Russia as a fellow traveller in the world order, they decided to push the knife deeper.
With the disintegration of the USSR, instead of scaling down NATO (and actually promising to do so), it instead galloped closer and closer to Russia, with newer and newer members. The Georgia War of 2009(?) was one Russian reaction that should have told them that NATO was getting too close to Russian borders for their own comfort.
Of course, I am aware NATO is a voluntary organisation and any country has the right to aspire to become a member of the organisation.
But by the same logic, a country that is the exclusive target of an ever-expanding and an ever-closing military alliance to has the right to feel concerned and consequently, secure its own interests, no?
The war started not on 24th Feb 2022, but instead in 2014 when a democratically elected govt in Ukraine was toppled with the help of Maidan protests and replaced by one that was decidedly Anti-Russia and Anti Ethnic Russians in their own country. This resulted in the Russian invasion of Donbas in Aug 2014, followed by the Minsk Agreement in Sep 2014. However, it broke and Minsk 2 Agreement was signed in Feb 2015.
Coming over to the military operations, thanks to their experiences in Chechnya and Georgia, as also Donbas, it is fair to assume that the Russians miscalculated the time required to achieve their military aims.
In addition, by delaying the launch till end of winter olympics in China, the snows thawed out & cross-country movement became much more difficult for their military vehicles.
But most importantly, they miscalculated the amount of military support the West would give Ukraine!
It pretty soon turned from a ‘Special Military Operation’, to an existential war for Russia. They took some time to recalibrate their actions. But the West took it as a sign of collapse and were V.E.R.Y quick to declare victory!
Result: Hubris set in pretty solidly.
Resultantly, the collective euphoria in the West made it nothing short of blasphemous to even talk about Russia having a point of view about their security interests wrt Ukraine! As mentioned above, Zelensky was feted all over.
Btw, it is the same Germany that has suffered a direct & massive blow by the sabotage of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, some say done by its own allies! They tried to blame Putin, but by he not reacting to this bait, they are tripping over themselves to apportion blame to someone!
Neither do they tell their citizens that Russia is already in possession of over 20% of Ukrainian territory which they are unlikely to give back! Despite throwing billions of dollars in cash & military aid, all that they have to show is merely a slowed down pace of Russian advance.
And of course, a large number of bank failures! Oh wait, that happened in the USA .. My bad!
As far as Russia goes, fight is now to ensure that Ukraine ceases to be a politico-military problem of any worth. They don’t want a Pakistan on their borders, that’s for sure. So any negotiated end to this war will be at huge cost to Ukraine – geographically as well as otherwise.
A few possible endgame scenarios that might happen are as under:-
Stalemate
Negotiated Settlement
Breaking up of Ukraine (will delve on this a bit more)
Ceasefire, followed by negotiations
Ousting of leadership, either in Ukraine or Russia or both.
Of course, there is one more potential endgame scenario that some folks are talking about in hushed tones.
In any case, Ukraine stands to lose a LOT of territory East of the Dneiper River even in case of a negotiated settlement. However, what happens to the rest of Ukraine? Can it reasonably expect to survive as a sovereign entity in the aftermath?
Or will it become a state entirely dependent on Western aid to survive, especially after losing much of its productive lands in the East?
And most importantly, will Russia accept this?