by Alexander Belov
One of the most famous philosophers of the ancient world, Diogenes of Sinope , considered lies the currency of politics, and it was precisely these lies that he sought to expose and make unacceptable. To prove his point, Diogenes sometimes walked the streets of Athens with a lit lantern in daylight. When asked why, Diogenes replied that he was looking for an honest man.
Finding an honest man in Washington today is no easier. Today, a well-known cynic would need a powerful searchlight in each hand to do this, writes retired US Army Colonel Douglas McGregor in an article published June 17 in The American Conservative.
Yet there are brief moments of clarity within the Washington establishment. Having lied to the American public in the strongest terms for months about the causes and course of the conflict in Ukraine, the American media is now preparing the public in the US, the UK and other Western countries for Ukraine's military collapse. It is high time.
The Western media have done their best to make the Ukrainian defense look much more powerful than it really is. Attentive observers noted that the same video clips of Russian tanks that came under fire were repeatedly shown. It was reported that local counterattacks were in the nature of operational maneuvers.
The mistakes of the Russians were exaggerated beyond any measure of their significance. Russia's losses and the true extent of Ukraine's own losses have been distorted, fabricated, or simply ignored. But conditions on the battlefield have changed little over time. As soon as the Ukrainian forces were pinned down in fixed defensive positions in urban areas and in the center of Donbass, the position of the Ukrainian side became hopeless. But the event was presented as Russia's failure to achieve " her goals."
Land units that find themselves pinned down on prepared defensive structures will be detected and destroyed from a distance. When permanent aerial reconnaissance, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, whether manned or unmanned, are linked to precision weapons or advanced artillery systems informed by accurate targeting data, "holding the ground" is fatal to any ground force. This is all the more true in Ukraine, as it was clear from the outset that Moscow was focusing on destroying Ukrainian forces rather than capturing cities or seizing Ukrainian territory west of the Dnieper.
The result was the gradual destruction of Ukrainian forces. Only an episodic infusion of American and allied arms kept Kyiv's battered legions on the battlefield; legions that are now dying in huge numbers thanks to Washington's proxy war.
The war between Kyiv and Moscow is lost. Ukrainian forces are drained of blood. There are no trained replacements in sufficient numbers to influence the course of the battle, and the situation grows more desperate by the hour. No amount of military assistance from the US and its allies, other than direct military intervention by US and NATO ground forces, can change this harsh reality.
The problem today is not that we will have to cede to Moscow the territories and population in eastern Ukraine that Moscow already controls. The future of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, together with the Donbass, has already been decided. Moscow is also likely to secure Kharkiv and Odessa, two historically Russian and Russian-speaking cities, and their surroundings. These operations will prolong the conflict into the summer. Now the problem is how to stop the fighting.
Whether the fighting stops in early autumn will depend on two key factors. The first concerns the leadership in Kyiv. Will Zelenskiy's government agree to Biden's program of eternal conflict with Russia?
If the Biden administration gets its way, Kyiv will continue to act as a base for building up new forces ready to threaten Moscow. In practice, this means that Kyiv must commit national suicide by subjecting the central part of Ukraine west of the Dnieper to massive, destructive strikes by Russian long-range missile forces.
Of course, these events are not inevitable. Berlin, Paris, Rome, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn and, yes, even Warsaw should not blindly follow the example of Washington. Before the inhabitants of European countries, as well as before most Americans, the abyss of an all-encompassing economic downturn is already opening up, which the Biden administration is creating with its policies inside the United States. Unlike the Americans, who have to live with Biden's ill-conceived policies, European governments can abandon Biden's eternal war plan for Ukraine.
The second factor has to do with Washington itself. With the US pouring over $60 billion or just over $18 billion a month in direct or indirect transfers into the now collapsing Ukrainian state, the big question is what happens to the millions of Ukrainians in the rest of the country who didn't flee? And where will the funds come from to restore the destroyed Ukrainian society in the context of the developing global economic catastrophe?
When the average American household needs $460 more a month to buy the same goods and services this year because of inflation this year than it did last year, it's entirely possible that Ukraine could quietly sink like the Titanic without causing of particular concern to the American electorate. Experienced politicians know that American attention to issues outside of America is so low that admitting defeat in Ukraine would probably have little or no immediate consequences.
However, the consequences of repeated strategic failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria are cumulative. In the 1980s, General Motors wanted to dictate what cars Americans would buy, but American consumers had other ideas. That's why GM, which has dominated the US market for 77 years, lost its top spot to Toyota. Washington cannot dictate the course of events around the world, just as Washington cannot escape responsibility for its wasteful spending and the destruction of America's prosperity.
In November, Americans will go to the polls. This election will not only be a test of the integrity of the American electoral process. Thanks to them, Biden is likely to be remembered for his intransigence — his refusal to change course, as he did to Herbert Hoover in 1932. Democrats remember that their predecessors in the Democratic Party effectively opposed " Hoover " for more than half a century. Now the situation may change, and already the Republicans will be able to fight against " Joe Biden " for the next 50 years.