Expectations may be realistic, though they fail to materialize because of outside interference. If that happens, others who were skeptical will point out that these expectations were not realistic to begin with. Most prominently the parties responsible for the outside interference. Any realist worth his or her salt will have a ‘Plan B’, while preparing a ‘Plan C’ when that plan fails to deliver on its promises as well. Now, my understanding of this military conflict in Ukraine between Russia and NATO, as it developed from the moment Russia decided they had no other option than to intervene in a civil war, seeing that Ukraine was preparing for escalation, coached by NATO, with designs to take Crimea as well, is that Moscow was aiming for a split between NATO (‘Washington’/‘London’), and ‘Kiev’ to save the ‘Minsk-accord’, and restore peace.
Various observers maintain that they nearly pulled it off, but that ‘undue pressure’ by Boris Johnson and the Biden-administration, with various sidekicks within NATO, killed a peace-deal which was in the works as a result of the meetings in Istanbul, under tutelage of Erdogan. The Russian retreat from the north of Ukraine, where a massive force had been sitting on a road facing the capital, doing nothing, was explained by the Russians as a good-will gesture to grease the deal. But they were betrayed, and had to revert to their ‘Plan B’.
Now, NATO had its own ‘Plan A’, but no ‘Plan B’. So they had to improvise. I admit that I have no solid proof of what ‘Plan A’ entailed, but from before this military escalation began, my own analysis told me that NATO wanted Russia to invade Ukraine, take the country by storm, declaring victory, installing their own hand-picked president, or even re-install Yanukovych, the last elected president of all of Ukraine, who had been removed by NATO, while NATO would set up Zelensky as a ‘president-in-exile’. Using an army of terrorists (‘Stay Behind Military’), trained to make life miserable for the occupying forces, and cost them dearly, coupled to an all-out economic war against Russia, was expected to deliver a final victory over Russia to be just a matter of weeks, or months. After which China would have no choice but to fall in line, and submit to the ‘One World’ order, led by the ‘WEF-associated’ globalists/bankers.
Nothing worked for NATO as planned. Please understand that for NATO’s ‘Plan A’, and only ‘Plan’, to work, it is not at all necessary that Zelensky was aware of what they had in mind. On the contrary! It is highly unlikely that Zelensky would have agreed to such a plan beforehand. It probably dawned on him in the early stages of this military conflict that he, and the Ukrainians, had been used as pawns to take Putin down, throwing Ukraine under the bus. Faced with impossible choices in March, of ‘betraying’ Ukraine by submitting to the ‘Minsk-accords’ after all, to save his country from a military onslaught and horrendous destruction, or hand the reins to NATO, while becoming its puppet for all to see, he succumbed to NATO, which promised to support him to the hilt after all.
But NATO was ill prepared to fight a ‘classic’ war, with a huge amount of artillery, and the need for plenty of air-defense capability, as the wars it instigated during the first two decades were against adversaries which were no match in any way. Lacking artillery, as well as everything else it needed to make good on the promises made to Zelensky, the Ukrainian forces were ‘sitting ducks’, in their trenches and fortifications, which had been designed by NATO-planners to elevate the costs to the Russians as they conquered Ukraine, but not to withstand a drawn-out artillery duel. Moreover, to commit NATO-forces was a bridge too far, since the voters in NATO countries were unlikely to send their sons and daughters to die in Ukraine.
It left Zelensky between a rock and a hard place, as he counted the bodies of his own countrymen, and learned the hard way that NATO uses its ‘assets’ in unpredictable ways to further its own glory and reach, without defending anything, and certainly not any values it is said to defend. NATO is not as good as its word. Russia knew that from experience, and now Zelensky knows it too. And an increasing number of Europeans, knowing full well who blew up their lifeline to a prosperous future and saving its economy from collapse as a result of economic warfare, by destroying Northstream, were not the Russians, but their ‘friends’ from NATO.
Meanwhile, Russia is acting on the basis of its ‘Plan B’, although they already had to adapt to changing circumstances. Now then, at this stage they evacuated all civilians from the Cherson district, and according to the ‘buzz’ they are preparing for a military pull-out as well, leaving the westbank of the Dnieper river to the combined Ukrainian/NATO-forces. Now, before I continu with offering you my take on the situation, it is important that you understand that I do not include NATO-forces to achieve some sort of dramatic effect. NATO has this habit of ‘nudging’ the public, leaving voters clueless as long as possible, telling them any score of lies to deny involvement, until there is no way back. No ‘heads’ ever rolled because the public was fooled into yet another war, and any politician who served NATO well will be honored and taken care of through various plush ‘jobs’ outside politics. This thoroughly corrupt system has been an eyesore for ‘ages’, but no cure has been found yet. I truly fear that when the general public comes around, it will all end in tears. Contrary to some realists I’m not in favor of revolutionary change, and tribunals. In a democracy, the people are expected to educate themselves, and if they don’t, they will be taken to the cleaners.
So? Is Russia withdrawing militarily from Cherson? Or is it a set-up, as Ukraine expects it to be? Multiple analysts pointed out that accepting the Dnieper river as a natural barrier would make it easier for the Russians to defend their positions. Moreover, it would kill the attempts by NATO to breach the dam upstream, and flood the area. The troops saved could be used to support the offensive elsewhere, like around Bakhmut, in order to conquer the remaining part of the Donetsk-Oblast. But logistically it is a ‘challenge’ to say the least. Critical observers pointed out that such an operation would be impossible without some kind of deal with Ukraine/NATO to refrain from attacking the withdrawing forces. Moreover, multiple reports indicated that Russia recently upgraded its military presence in that part of Cherson, and it is next to impossible to accept that the Russians will leave recently introduced equipment behind while evacuating the soldiers. With the bridges across the Dnieper out of order, or damaged and unable to support large convoys of heavy military equipment, while pontoon-bridges and ferries are hardly an alternative, it is easy to understand why the Ukrainians expect some kind of trap. And since they are making it public that they do not trust the Russians, it is clear that no prior agreement has been reached.
If it is a deception, then who was the target, and to what end? Is Russia switching to a ‘Plan C’? In my perception everything they did up till now, which includes the withdrawal from the Kharkiv region, leaving it unceremoniously, even stealthy, and without prior announcement, or large losses, and the torrent of missile- and drone strikes to disable the Ukrainian electrical grid, is in line with ‘Plan B’, calling for gradually increasing the pain-threshold for Ukraine, and advancing step by step, while leaving the door open for negotiations the moment Zelensky and his team had enough, while understanding that NATO is in the business of selling ‘Hot Air’. I may be mistaken, and it could be that Russia decided it cannot go on forever, and it should take the pressure off, so as to deflate the conflict, and avoid further NATO involvement. Even if this will not go down well in Russia itself, where ‘hawks’ already beat the drums because they consider Putin to be way too soft. The part of the Russian public which wants Russia to pull out and submit to NATO, for all intents and purposes, are not in Putin’s electoral base anyway, and hardly a force to be reckoned with from my understanding. Propaganda to the contrary in our part of the world notwithstanding. Creating an uproar in Russia may very well be the goal of this deception, increasing support for the next phase, which is bound to cause far more casualties on the Russian side, as well as loss of ‘high value’ equipment, like landing-craft, ships and aircraft, if this next phase is about adding Odessa, and completing the land-bridge to Transnistria.
Ukrainian forces attacking ‘withdrawing’ Russian forces, and ‘hawks’ in Russia itself demanding that Russia will honor its promise to defend the newly added territory, and liberate the rest of the Donbas, at least, will provide Putin with the arguments he needs to engage with a blank stare: ‘Look at what you made me do…….’. It is Putin’s ‘signature dish’, the way he operates. Give fair warning, and execute if provoked beyond his clearly stated ‘red line’. Putin cancelling the ‘G-20’-summit, where all his adversaries are expected to show up for their ‘High Five’ self-congratulating event, has been explained by NATO-sympathizers as driven by fear of being seen as isolated and ignored. But another possible explanation is that Russia is set to unleash its own offensive while the competition is celebrating the success of the ‘Climate-summit’, and addressing various pressing problems ‘at home’. Like the changes as a result of the ‘Mid Terms’, the chaos in Great Britain, and the energy-seizure and blistering inflation in Europe, which are distractions for NATO-leaders. Leaving the conduct of war to the generals is not an option for an organization like NATO, which prides itself with serving elected leaders, in practical terms the ‘Victoria Nulands’ and other shadowy war-mongers dragged in by the cat after elections.
I’m not predicting anything, just allowing my informed imagination to run wild, offering you a different angle from what you are likely to find elsewhere. The ‘truth’ is out there, but multifaceted and complex by design, in part to surprise adversaries. Lies trump honest reporting at all levels in the Western mainstream media. For instance, in a popular talkshow in Holland an ‘expert’ was asked to give his opinion on what was likely to happen in Cherson, now that the minister of defense in Russia appeared to have announced a withdrawal from the westbank of the Dnieper. In the background pictures of destroyed and burned-out apartment blocks. In reality, Cherson itself was taken by the Russians with hardly a shot fired in anger, and the destruction today is the result of relentless attempts by NATO to destroy infrastructure and government buildings. The likelihood of more destruction at the hands of NATO was a valid argument to evacuate the civilian population. Now let’s see if this is the opening move of some kind of settlement, or a preparation for the ‘Next Stalingrad’ as mentioned in my previous contribution. The ‘expert’ in the talkshow had no clue, and offered no insights, while his ‘gigs’ are paying him a handsome fee. This article may not be useful, or it may be an eye-opener, but at least it is for free.
To conclude this attempt to ‘read’ the situation, I’d like to express my own personal frustration with regard to the failure of diplomacy to prevent this senseless war, or to put a stop to it.