By Rich Kozlovich
It's now common knowledge the Ukraine government has had to purge many of it's top officials for corruption, especially those involved with Ukraine's military. As even the New York Times has had to recognize.
Following the dismissal of Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov amid a slew of corruption scandals surrounding the war effort against Russia, the New York Times acknowledged that the “enduring challenge of corruption in Ukraine” has “emerged as a rare area of criticism of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s leadership.” Although Reznikov has yet to be tied with any of the corruption scandals personally, the Times went on to admit that the resignation has “elevated the issue to the highest level of Ukrainian politics”. Unnamed Ukrainian officials even told the paper that some funds intended for military contracts “failed to produce weaponry or ammunition and that some money has vanished,” while claiming that the issue was merely confined to the early days of the war.
Of course the implication is the Ukraine government was shocked, shocked I tell you, shocked this was going on. Get real! What's not commonly reported, and these firings seem to be tied into Ukraine's President recently meeting in Poland with top American advisers telling him he has to change tactics if he's to win. I'm also willing to bet Zelenskyy told them he needs more money. And guess what, it appears Biden is going to give it to him. Imagine that.
Ukraine has been successful because they didn't directly engage the Russian in battle, but as small destructive forces that decimated Russian personnel, military equipment, and Russian morale, with Russia's army facing a potential casualty list of 300,000 troops, and 120,000 dead. So Russia changed tactics, and instead of trying to destroy the Ukraine army, which they couldn't engage in direct battle, decided to destroy their cities and infrastructure. But that's taking a lot time and resources, so it seems Putin wants it all to end and is now amassing another large army to send them in to find and destroy the Ukraine army. And by activating his missile defense system, he's threatening to use nuclear bombs if thwarted.
America's military advisers are saying, look, you're army is now blooded, has a lot of advanced military equipment and can beat Russia by directly challenging their army. Really? Let's think about this.
When I read these kinds of things it puts me in mind of Cesar's conquest of Gaul. Vercingetorix had defeated Caesar by refusing to engage in outright battles with the Roman army, which was far better equipped, disciplined, and organized. Instead, the Gauls engaged in hit and run tactics that was slowly taking a toll on the Romans, but when facing Rome in out right battle, they lost. But even after, victory was, at least in my mind, still possible with the remaining Gallic forces outside of Vercingetorix's hill fortress of Alesia, had they been organized properly. But the Gallic tribes weren't really united, and failed to take advantage of what were Caesar's weaknesses. While he surrounded Alesia, he was surrounded by the entire Gallic "nation". Clearly a failure in leadership on the part of the Gauls.
The same will play out if Ukraine's army challenges Russia to its strengths. Ukraine has lost way too many people, has a stunningly corrupt government, and the leadership is just as self serving as the Gallic tribes. Their only hope is to inflict as much damage on Russian troops, whose morale is in the toilet, as possible. Make every mile expensive in men and material to Russia.
Are we to expect the troops Russia is massing now will do better? That's not been the trend. Then there's the estimated 170,000 "Storm Z" troops. These are “anti-social elements, criminals and mercenaries” recruited with promises of "reduced" sentences and money, with the goal of creating another Wagner fighting force. In reality what they got was a largely ineffective force with poor morale, weak performance, and discipline. Imagine that, criminals with poor discipline.
Russia's best fighting force wasn't in the Russian army, it was the Wagner group, mercenaries, who are now left without a leader, and according to some reports, they're now being controlled by the failed generals of the Russian army. The difference is Russia has a massive population advantage over Ukraine. Ukraine can only inflict sufficient damage hoping for a truce leading to a peace treaty. And quite frankly, I don't see Putin agreeing to that, he will tolerate no resistance to his imperial ambitions, especially so since Prigozhin's "revolution" failed, he had Prigozhin killed, but did it in such a way it made him more powerful.
If he'd done it right away he would have looked desperate, but by doing it later he sent a message to anyone attempting to overthrow him. You can't run, you can't hide. I won't forgive, I won't forget, and you will not be allowed to live out your life peacefully. I will get you! He's now more powerful than before, but Putin is not the chess master we thought, and his military acumen stinks. But he's a true and brilliant KGB thug when it comes to instilling fear in adversaries.
I believe his ego will not allow him to walk away, and he's so powerful now there won't be an internal overthrow by a Stauffenberg cabal. If there was one, its gone into the closet, and all the more so since Gen. Sergei Surovikin, AKA, General Armageddon, who sort of "disappeared" from public view, allegedly being held incommunicado and interrogated in order to find out who might have been Prigozhin sympathizers. Even though he's now been seen publicly, make no mistake, Putin will ultimately decide his fate. Putin's just not the forgiving kind, and based on his past performances, one has to believe Surovikin is already scheduled for a fatal accident.
There has been a lot of discussion on who Putin thinks he's the Czar, or Joe Stalin. It was reported that before the war Putin isolated himself with yes men, sycophants and flunkies, tolerating no views opposing his imperialistic visions of return of the Russian Empire. But since all has gone awry, he's supposedly isolated himself even more, and has become more paranoid. No one in the Russian hierarchy is safe. He might have started out thinking he was the Czar, but now we know, he was always the philosophical progeny of Joe Stalin.
Ukraine is doomed, no matter what they do, and it won't be long before the
western powers walk away. If they did manage to get a peace treaty, who will be obligated to rebuilt Ukraine? Untold millions given to Ukraine by western nations are gone and no one knows
where, and Zelensky says he won’t hold elections unless U.S. & E.U. pay for them. Zelenskyy's shtick is wearing thin, and Slovakia may stop supporting them. Who would be willing to come up with the billions of dollars needed to rebuild Ukraine given the corrupt state of their government?
No matter what's being touted, Russia's military is no longer respected by anyone, including former Soviet Republics such as Kazakhstan. Putin's not going to attack the western alliance, and now that they’ve had this wake up call, they’re going to seriously reinforce their military forces. But they're broke, and getting more broke by the day. All the economics and demographics in this conflict are disastrous for all parties, including Russia. The long term consequences of this war will have a long term negative impact on Russia, both demographically and economically.
One more thing. America military advertisers
who advocate a direct challenge to the Russian army are inheritors of what
became American military dogma from the Civil War and General Ulysses S. Grant. A military policy of attrition. Have more of everything than the enemy and
bleed him dry. America tanks weren't as good as were German tanks but they outnumbered the German tanks
massively, and won. That’s not gonna happen with
Ukraine, they don't have the numbers and they don't have the material, no matter who much is being provided by western nations.
Ukraine is doomed, Russia will suffer economically and demographically for a long time over this, China has become more important than Russia, but both are going to go broke, right along with Europe, and China's going to take a lot of countries down with them.
The only question is how well will America survive the upcoming worldwide economic storm? The world is facing a massive economic downturn, and I think it will be before 2030, so the answer to that depends on the 2024 election, and who can answer this one all important question.
What's the end game plan?
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