'The Boys (and Girls) from Brazil' running NATO are having a field day. The Russian loss of terrain in the Kharkov Oblast has been their greatest victory after sinking the Moskva. And no, I'm not changing the subject to avoid labeling this loss a miscalculation by Putin. Hear me out.
Friend and foe of the Russian president are telling us the Russians allowed themselves to be fooled, thinking the announced Large Counteroffensive Ukraine had in mind would be in the Kherson area, which lead them to withdraw most of their troops from the Kharkov Oblast, leaving only some 2.000 lightly armed servicemen behind to police Izium, which was not nearly enough to repel a 15.000 men strong force when they moved in from around Kharkov for a prepared assault on the northern flank of the Russian held territory. On the other hand, and that is quite important for a correct 'reading' of what happened, IMHO, those Russian (and LPR) soldiers were evacuated before the elite troops arrived at Izium.
What's more, I saw several video's of those elite troops, proud to show us the sign marking the city limit, who were speaking English, and were clearly not Ukrainian at all. They were NATO-soldiers. Not only by training, and country of origin, but obviously being paid by NATO as well, since Ukraine itself doesn't even have the money to pay its energy bills, and is staying afloat on loans it cannot repay. With video's an pictures like that it is always possible that it is fake, but these looked very genuine to me. And why would Russia post stuff like that on the internet?
Now, call me 'stupid', or 'ignorant', but the very concept of the 'Special Military Operation' (SMO) was designed to avoid going to war with NATO itself, clearly stating the goals of the operation, freeing the Donbas-region, and demilitarizing and de-nazify Ukraine, not a NATO country. I maintain that NATO, which did the strategic planning and intel for Ukraine, miscalculated when it prepared for a Russian war effort which would be aimed at conquering all of Ukraine, at serious cost of lives to the Russians (and Ukrainians), when they had to take the entrenched and fortified positions NATO had been building for eight years since the 2014 coup. Only to get stuck in a hellhole with 'Stay Behind' extremists killing and blowing things up Al Qaeda-style. But that didn't happen. NATO also miscalculated the impact of their economic/financial warfare. In a really BIG way!
Scott Ritter was (with hindsight) correct to announce that the arrival of Himars on the scene was a 'Game Changer', although not in a military sense, though it clearly had an impact. But it came as a package, with Boris Johnson telling Zelensky to stay away from negotiating with Russia. It was a watershed moment, since Zelensky was losing thousands of men per week, and all his armor, to artillery bombardments with nothing to show for it. NATO told Zelensky it was taking over. 'Sit back, and relax. Watch the show!'
At the time every politician within Russia who still had an audience in the west, warned out loud that if Russia was forced to be 'Brutal', things would become ugly, and that they wouldn't hesitate to go all the way, which included the use of nuclear devices if Russia felt threatened in its existence. At the very same time, western politicians did not shy away from claiming that they were after cutting down Russia, and all over the place 'Think Tankers' were already busy cutting Russia into 'autonomous' pieces.
Though NATO calculated that Putin could be toppled early in the game, as Ukraine would prove to be a quagmire, and economic/financial sanctions would kill the Russian economy, he clearly came out unscathed, and even stronger, while the western elites, carrying the coattails of the 'Boys from Brazil' at NATO, and within the unelected officialdom of the EU, struggled with murderous inflation and killing their own industry and agriculture to comply with the demands out of 'Brussels' (both NATO and EU). But NATO doesn't give a hoot about the people, anywhere in the world, since they feel there are too many mouths to feed anyway. They are after conquering the world. Raw power. Miserable people can be made useful tools in a war, if you play it smart. And since they control the media, and their trolls and bots control the internet, they are confident that, when shit comes to shove, we'll fall in line behind them.
The miscalculation in Moscow was that they figured the Europeans, and even the Americans, wouldn't be such dumb asses, but they are. Fanatic Trump-fans are falling in line with Biden's cohorts, and the political 'Left' in Europe is merging with 'Right'-wing political groups, leaving only some populist parties on the fringes to be 'taken care of'. As I explained on my Dutch language blog, merging the 'Left' and 'Right' to form a unified group prepared to go to war, is not about ideology, but a 'chemical' reaction, labeled 'fascism'. Moscow is facing the horror of yet another war like the devastating Second World War, and we are happy to serve the 'Boys from Brasil', even though we destroy everything we ever thought we valued, which includes basic human rights. No questions asked. End of discussion. This is a war!