In a show of incredible hubris, Ukraine released two professionally-produced ‘Hollywood’ trailers for their (as then) forthcoming military offensive…
One month into Ukraine’s semi-Schrödinger’s Offensive and the results are pretty definitive. By any measure, it’s a failure.
During World War Two, Operation Market Garden was an allied military offensive that lasted ten days, from 17th to 27th September 1944 with an objective to create a secure corridor through enemy lines and enemy territory to culminate in the capture of the bridge over the River Rhine at Arnhem, thus securing a route into northern Germany.
Although a number of cities and towns were captured (Eindhoven, Nijmegen) and eight bridges, the final bridge was not captured and the overall operation is considered a failure.
In comparison with Ukraine’s attempts to puncture Russia’s defences and create a secure salient through Tokmak and Melitopol, and capture a coastal town (such as Berdyansk or Mariupol), with the goal of fracturing the Russian land-corridor from Rostov to Crimea… Operation Market Garden might arguably be reappraised as a resounding success.
The WW2 allies managed to create (in ten days) a salient some 100km deep, over significant natural barriers. Ukraine has managed to crawl 5km (in a month) and has yet to traverse the ‘skirmish line’ forward of the first Russian defence line (of between three and five), let alone ‘puncture’ anything. Remember the enthusiastic talk about recapturing Crimea?
The area forward of Russia’s skirmish line is littered with Ukrainian equipment, blown apart by mines, artillery, drones, Kornets, and KA-52 helicopter-launched anti-tank missiles. Ukrainian manpower losses are estimated to be in the ballpark of 20,000 to 30,000 men, some 40% of the force committed to the offensive. Many of these men were equipped and trained to NATO standard, to much media fanfare and expectation.
Equipment losses for Ukraine include the very latest NATO ‘game-changers,’ M2 Bradley Armoured Fighting Vehicles, Stryker and Marder IFVs, French AMX-10RC ‘tanks,’ Leopard 2A6 battle tanks and Leopard 2R mine-breaching tanks, Huskys, Humvees, MaxPros, as well as an assortment of older ‘Soviet’ stock and supportive equipment (artillery, rocket, air-defence systems etc).
There is no evidence that a single Leopard tank has even managed to open fire at a Russian target. Not one.
The offensive has been an unmitigated disaster.
Despite this sober reality, the western media has reported the capture of a field, a hedgerow, a settlement, a tree-line, a farm… as a ‘victory’ for Ukraine… forgetting that none of these were supposed to be obstacles over which Ukraine would still be fighting 30 days after the offensive began. Whither the Black Sea coast? Whither the capture of Crimea?
Ukraine is having some success on the eastern contact line, away from the southern Zaporizhzhia area that is the focus (so far) of the ‘major offensive.’ Again… purely in ‘geographical real-estate’ terms, and measured often in metres and nowhere over even 10 kilometres. Most often, what is gained is lost again, and at a cost in men and equipment that is, on overall terms, unsustainable. Behind the eastern Russian front line are, yet again, extensive defensive fortifications that Ukraine is nowhere near reaching, let alone breaching.
Despite Ukraine’s attempts, and the billions in ‘western’ economic assistance packages, equipment and munitions supplies, training and intelligence-gathering… Russia is going nowhere. Russia is winning.
Of course, none of this is being relayed to the western public who are encouraged (and choose) to bury their noses in close-ups of ‘atrocities’ committed by Russia (such as the recent missile strike in Kramatorsk), and fearfully consider Russian ‘plans’ to create a radioactive catastrophe at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
It’s not just the western public that is being betrayed by their media and political pronouncements of western governments, it is Ukraine.
Back in February 2022, as the first few days of what Russia termed the ‘Special Military Operation’ unfolded, an opportunity for peace and the avoidance of conflict was squandered. Ukraine’s representatives signed a proposal document (along with their Russian diplomatic counterparts) that contained the seeds for a diplomatic resolution. They reneged on this proposal following the intervention of western governments, who promised they would back and supply Ukraine in order to militarily defeat Russia.
Zelenskyy, with a career in comic acting (himself cajoled into power by the oligarch Igor Kolomoyskyi, who had been behind Zelenskyy’s entire career success and wealth)… had no political or diplomatic experience whatsoever.
The Ukrainian government apparatus, infused with corruption, Russophobia and ultra-nationalist sympathies were similarly bereft of experience and foreign-policy direction. The promises of ‘the west’ to support Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’ with the aim of defeating Russia, and the containerloads of cash on the table, led, once again, to the torching of signed agreements and the journey along the primrose path upon which Ukraine has been catastrophically-plodding to date.
That ‘the west’ might betray Ukraine, that there may be ulterior motives behind the NeoCon architects in Washington (Nuland, Blinken, Biden etc), that western countries might themselves suffer from the anti-Russian inspired aid-packages, military equipment supplies, and sanctions packages gleefully thrown into the mix… avoided any consideration then, as now.
Historical precedent highlights the two-faced nature of western diplomacy. Erstwhile friends of the United States, abandoned at the whim and convenience of the White House, can be found across the globe. The promises of the United States have proven hollow, even to her ‘allies’ in Europe. Over and over.
A guarantee to stay and support an ally “as long as it takes” is a meaningless American lie.
Make no mistake, the United States, with the United Nations as an captive arm of US foreign policy, and with NATO as a captive arm of US military policy, is in Ukraine for her own selfish ends.
Trailing in the wake of the United States, sail the ‘sovereign’ countries of Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia… who continuously articulate the self-reflected virtues of democracy and freedom while Ukrainians themselves die in their hundreds-of-thousands, and whose own citizens suffer from the Russophobic and Sinophobic policies of their governments. The promises of this clique mean nothing.
Ukraine will never join NATO and will never join the European Union. Despite the untruthful statements to the contrary, such things are an impossibility.
It’s time for Zelenskyy to wake up, always assuming that he’s not just in this for the cash and mansions… and that he actually cares for Ukraine and her people.
But… elections have been suspended In Ukraine. What political opposition there may have been in 2019 has been expunged, with leaders exiled or imprisoned. Alternative views are suppressed. Independent media does not exist. Religious persecution has been enacted. Citizens are pressganged from the streets and whisked off within days to the front, thrown at the Russians with no care for any military utility or for life itself.
Ukraine is no example of ‘shared, common, European values’ whatsoever, despite the insistent proclamations of (the unelected) Ursula von der Leyen and (the unelected) Josep Borell.
There is no freedom of speech, freedom to protest, or freedom even to express a contrarian thought… as Ukrainian citizen Tatiana Drobot found to her cost when she was sentenced to ten years imprisonment for the crime of corresponding with her sister in Russia, and offering criticism of the Ukrainian ‘uberhero’ Nazi/Neo-Nationalist, Stepan Bandera.
On all of these issues, our western media is silent and our politicians are lying. The Ukraine that we westerners are told we are fighting for simply does not exist.
It’s time to face reality and for western ‘partners’ of Ukraine to pull the plug. And stop the senseless death and destruction.