The Narrative of a Ukrainian Victory in the Donbas Is About To Collapse. Consequences

Mariupol celebrating the victory over Nazi Germany in WW2 and the liberation of the city from Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion on May 9, 2022

Since the war in Ukraine began – call it what you want – the Russian invasion, the Special Military Operation – the media here in the USA – and even more so in UK – has been magnifying Ukrainian victories (there have been some, a few actually, but none of what might be described as strategically important), and claiming that the Donbas republics and Russian troops are bogged down, dispirited, creating war crimes, etc., most of which is what psychologists refer to as projection.

Of course nothing, or very little, about the defining influence of neo-Nazi elements like the Azov “Battalion” and like ultra-right wing militias, NATO and US trained, nor of their eight year record of torture, brutality and ethnic cleansing of Ukraine’s Russian speaking population.

It is this false notion that the Ukrainians are “winning” or at the very least “holding their own” against the more powerful Russian military that is, at least in part, the basis for Washington and the EU throwing money and weapons’ systems in the direction of the Kiev government. It’s easier to justify that which is unjustifiable if the contrived narrative suggests that the side Washington is supporting has a shot – however distant – at winning. No?

It is that narrative of the spunky Ukrainian military standing up to the Russian grizzly bear that is collapsing before our eyes. The article below (in French mostly) details the latest battlefield situation.

Frankly, “the Ukrainian military victories” never existed, or hardly so, from the February 24, 2022 get-go. Now we’re seeing the proof of this in the collapse of the Ukrainian forces throughout the Donbas (E. Ukraine) as the article below suggests. It is a military debacle for Kiev some of which could have been avoided had Ukraine issued the orders for a tactical withdrawal. But in its effort to extend the timeline of the war and to “bog the Russians down, “advised” or is it actually “run by” U.S. and Uk advisors, the Zelensky government didn’t withdraw their best trained troops, did they? In “PR optics” perhaps, the “Collective West” might have scored some points; but where it concerns the actual balance of force on the ground in Ukraine, they are taking nothing short of a pounding.

By the day it is becoming more obvious, reinforced by statements of U.S. congresspeople and senators, that the Ukraine military contest is nothing other than a proxy war in which the U.S./NATO’s goal is to weaken Russia, cause economic chaos there that could lead to the overthrow of the Putin government. Not only is the military situation on the ground becoming increasingly grim for Kiev and its allies in Washington, London and Berlin, but the economic warfare against Russia (the sixth round of sanctions) is backfiring as well, resulting in a more comprehensive setback for the West. The consequences of this defeat for Ukraine, Europe and Washington have yet to be clearly spelled out, but having invested so much in the defense of Kiev, the propping up of a comedian supported by Ukraine’s richest oligarch into a kind of Spartacus hero of mythical proportions, and having created in so many other ways false narratives about the overall situation… the repercussions will be profound,

he consequences of this defeat for Ukraine, Europe and Washington have yet to be clearly spelled out, but having invested so much in the defense of Kiev, the propping up of a comedian supported by Ukraine’s richest oligarch into a kind of Spartacus hero of mythical proportions, and having created in so many other ways false narratives about the overall situation… the repercussions will be profound,

The unconditional surrender of more than 2000 Azov Battalion and Ukrainian military forces from the Azovstal Steel Complex in Mariupol, misleadingly described as an “evacuation” or “redeployment” (the troops being “redeployed” to Russian and Donbas military prison camps) marked a symbolic turning point in Western media coverage of the Ukraine war. For the first time a (slightly) more honest picture of the military state of affairs, of how badly Ukraine and its NATO “advisors” are losing the actual battle on the ground is being acknowledged, if still soft-pedaled.

How does Washington rationalize what is shaping up to be a historic defeat? As usual, by denial, the first rule of hegemonic setbacks. Washington played down what was another crushing defeat – its complete failure of the twenty year war in Afghanistan, by instigating what it hoped to be a successful color revolution in Kazakhstan. As that was quickly crushed – in a few days actually – taking the attention off of its failure there, Washington turned to provoking Russia in the Ukraine. As Ukraine turns into yet another foreign policy debacle before our very eyes, the Biden Administration – starting with the increasingly senile president himself, Joe Biden, again tries to turn global attention away from Ukraine to China. Biden’s recent – frankly stupid, but carefully prepared – statements threatening China over Taiwan are yet another attempt to divert global attention from the Ukrainian collapse.

No doubt the war in Ukraine is far from over; it has a long way to go; the neoconservatives in Washington (Sullivan, Blinken, Nuland and their ilk) do not the meaning of tactical political retreat or compromise. They will go on their merry wreckless way in the Ukraine and elsewhere. But opposition to the Biden Administration’s war in Ukraine is starting to appear, both in the USA and Europe. Fissures in Western unity over war are starting to open as the Ukrainian military effort in the Donbas collapses. On May 19, the New York Times – the reporting on Ukraine of which – has been little more than an echo of State Department policies up until now – printed an op ed signed by the “editorial staff” calling for an end to the fighting, to a negotiated solution and for Ukraine to accept the fact that in any resulting settlement, Kiev will lose territory (Crimea, Donetz, Luhansk). It was a startling departure from the Times recent reporting. Then at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland, a 98 year old Henry Kissinger argued along the same lines, supported in that approach by India which brushed aside Zelensky’s calls for more aggressive sanctions against Russia. India refuses to sanction shipments of Russian oil and gas and it is more than likely, that some of the gas which the Europeans are rejecting will be redirected to India and other places in East Asia.

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https://alawata-rebellion.blogspot.com/2022/05/assaut-sur-krasni-liman.html?fbclid=IwAR1S7Nvh90G00kJFMGFm4FA2nP5uQwhcvJO1hsAOs–w85cnCvJdxUGdLHU

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