Why I see a war in the Donbass as (almost) inevitable

DONBAS/UKRAINE: First, I want to present the parties to the conflict and describe their intermediate objectives and final goals

The first thing we notice is that three of the main actors (USA+UK+3B+P+EU+U) want to force Russia to intervene.  Why? Because as I have written a million times already, the goal is not to defeat Russia militarily, the goal is to defeat Russia politically.  Any Russian intervention will be used by the Anglos to “prove” that “NATO is vital for European security” and for the 3B+PU gang to prove its utility to their Anglo masters.

As for the Nazi regime in Kiev, it main goal is to survive, blame the destruction of the Ukraine on Russia and to get rid of disloyal territories.  The fact that these eastern Ukrainian territories would be liberated and/or recognized by Russia would allow the Ukronazis to declare an eternal state of emergency, destroy whatever little is left from the opposition by calling them “traitors/collaborators” and to blame any internal problems on Russia.

For the LDNR things are much simpler, in a stark way: they need to be capable of surviving long enough until Russia is forced to intervene.

Now let’s look at what the outcomes the main parties want to avoid:

Now we can look at what “tools” each side has

It is absolutely crucial to keep the following things in mind:

• Neither the Ukronazis nor their bosses in the West believe for even half a second that the Ukraine can win militarily.  They all *know* that the LDNR+Russia will win any military confrontation, and it is their goal to secure a bloody Ukrainian defeat.
• The main target of the current strategic PSYOP are not the Russians, but the Ukrainian people: by telling them that a) you now have super dooper Wunderwaffen and b) we got your back, the West wants to convince the Ukrainians that they are safe from an outcome like 08.08.08.
• The Russians *know* that this is a trap.  The problem is that with every passing month the Ukraine acquires more and more capabilities to, no, not defeat Russia, but to force Russia to take the bait.  Remember their idiotic attempt at forcing their way under the Crimean Bridge?  Well, this entire Bayraktar thing (whatever this really was) is exactly the same, but unlike the Ukie Navy which does not exist, there are between 6-12 (depending on sources) Bayraktars available to the Ukraine, with a range of 150km and a weapons range of 8km.  If and when future Bayraktars eventually fail, as they will, then the Ukies could use even outdated cruise of tactical-operational missiles.  In other word, and only in this sense, time is on the Ukie side: the more the West provides them with toys to provoke (as opposed to win), the worse the internal situation, the more incentive they have to do something really provocative.

In the last couple of days, I advocated for a no-fly zone over the LDNR.  I still do.  But I need to clarify the following:

Any Russian no-fly zone over the LDNR will be used by the West to send Ukies in harms way, thereby, again, to escalate the conflict.  Yes, a no-fly zone would buy Russia more time, but does she still need more time and, if yes, how much?

I don’t think so.  Yes, between 2013 and 2021 Russia vitally needed time to prepare for any contingency.  But now I think that any further delays would be counter-productive: it will make Russia look weak and hesitant and providing no objective benefits (not military not political).  Militarily, economically and politically, Russia is now stronger than she ever was in a very long time.

Frankly, the entire Ukrainian issue is just the tip of a much bigger political iceberg: it appears that, once again, the united West needs to get a brutal smackdown (political and military) from Russia.  I want to illustrate the Russian approach with the following personal recollection:

Many years ago, in 1993, I spent a entire night talking to two officers of a special forces unit whose main mission was to protect Russian nuclear weapons not by passive, static, defenses, but by proactive counter-infiltration methods: they would not stand guard around the weapons, but they would do what an attacker would do: hide in its proximity and try to detect any intruder even before he got anywhere near the Russian nukes.  They mentioned their training and one of them said this: “yes, sure, we study martial arts, but for us to run around a hot room in a Karategi or in shorts (he was referring to the typical outfit Karate or MMA fighters wear) makes no sense.  Our terrain is the Taiga, thus we need to train fight, even hand to hand, in full winter combat gear with backpack, weapons, ammo, food, radios and more (50kg easily).  In this terrain, which only we are truly trained to survive, we can run circles around any super dooper western special forces intruders, we can watch them slowly die without even engaging them and then, when they will be too weak, exhausted and desperate to even move, we will come out and just spit at them, without even having to fire one bullet“.

1000 years of existential warfare have taught the Russians to take their time, even a long time, to wait until their enemy is at its weakest and you are at your strongest before engaging him.  But that approach has its potentially negative aspect: it won’t work against an enemy who was not send in to win, but who was sent in to lose.

If your enemy is dead set on losing, then you really have no choice other than the choice of how/when to defeat him.

Furthermore, the Ukies are not the enemy, they have no agency, the real enemy is the West and it is this collective West which Russia must defeat, not its Ukrainian cannon-fodder.

Even if the Russian succeed in, somehow, getting the Ukie back from the brink (which already happened twice in the past), this only guarantees that the next time around the Ukies will come up with an even more “provocative provocation”.  So why wait any further?

So the real battle is not for the LDNR or the Ukraine, it is a battle for the future of the European continent.  Russia needs to do what she did to Georgia in 08.08.08 not “just” to the Ukronazis in Kiev, but even more so to their patrons in the US and EU.  Yes, the Ukie military must be de-fanged, but in such a way which would force the EU leaders to come back to their senses and give up their current war (80% informational, 15% economic and 5% kinetic) against Russia.

Every century or so, the rulers of Europe like to unite to take on Russia.  The past teaches them nothing because they are too narcissistic and too ideological to see that they are the ideological heir of Napoleon and Hitler (and many others before these two).

I don’t see any options left for the Kremlin but to “remind” these western ruling elites of how their previous attempts ended, and they need to do so not by words, or even by military exercises inside Russia, but by action, clear, unambiguous and observable actions.  Nothing short of that kind of action will bring the western ruling classes back to reality.

Andrei

PS: I have been listening/reading the Russian corporate/social media and there is A LOT of talk about “enough is enough”.  Interestingly, talk show hosts are also expressing their frustration with what they see as a non-existing response from the Kremlin.  With each Ukie provocation, the percentage of Russians who say “now that’s enough!” rises.  Might this be the explanation for the Kremlin’s lack of action?  Are they waiting until the percentage of Russian in favor of direct action reaches a certain level?

PPS: so far there STILL is no evidence whatsoever that the Ukies conducted a Bayraktar strike in the LDNR.

PPPS: Just to clarify, when I mean that Russia needs to act, I am not talking hours or days, but weeks and months.  But no more than that.

PPPPS: The Pentagon is now asking all EU colonies to sell lethal weapon systems to the Ukraine.