SITREP 9/20/24: Ukraine Allies Squeezed by Weapons Drought as Clock Ticks
Ukraine’s fate continues to be hinged on ostensibly allowing “deep strikes” in order to lance the war’s final ‘taboo’ in involving NATO directly against Russia. This has become such an urgent objective that Zelensky has even resorted to outright begging lesser countries in getting involved; per Romania’s biggest newspaper:
‼️Kiev begs Romania to shoot down Shaheds over Ukraine, but it can’t shoot them down even in its own skies, - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
▪️After meeting with his Romanian counterpart Odobescu in Bucharest, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiga asked Romania to shoot down Russian drones approaching the country's airspace.
▪️At the same time, in Romania, after the wreckage of several UAVs fell on its territory, politicians and military officials are arguing about whether changes to the law are necessary to shoot down other people's drones in their own airspace, and a decision is not yet in sight.
RVvoenkor
There are various hard-nosed negotiations behind the scenes, with the key conclusion thus far being that the UK absolutely refuses to “go it alone” without the US also allowing deep strikes. This corroborates what I’ve said for a long time, that the UK is the most cowardly nation of all, strutting its chest more than anyone else against Russia but only when it has the complete backing of mommy US.
The British have grown very concerned over the sensitive British assets Russia itself could hit in retaliation, whether through proxy or directly—such as bases in the Falklands, Gibraltar, Sierra Leone, etc., as reported previously by some sources.
Now sources report that a kind of ‘quiet deal’ can be made in the coming weeks, but it all sounds like more of the same, with perhaps a slightly wider window of targets allowed simply to placate Zelensky:
Britain and the US could make a quiet decision in the coming weeks to strike deep into Russia with Western missiles , - LBC and The Times
▪️They will try to keep this fact secret until the first strikes are dealt, the Times writes.
▪️But Biden's team still has doubts about this, writes LBC.
▪️According to the plan under discussion, if London and the US give the go-ahead, the change in position will only be confirmed after the launch of the first missiles.
▪️ Washington also still wants to see Zelensky’s “victory plan,” which he wants to present to Biden, before making a decision.
➖"The US wants to first see President Zelensky's plan on how this (permission for missile strikes) will help Ukraine survive the winter months of the war," diplomatic sources told the media.
t.me/RVvoenkor
Referenced above is still the need to see Zelensky’s “victory plan”, which Zelensky claims is “90% done being drawn up”.
Here are some other comments on it from Ukrainian figures, such as former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Yuri Lutsenko:
Zelensky will give the US his “victory plan” in order to receive a refusal and then begin negotiations with Russia.
▪️This is the opinion of the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Yuri Lutsenko, which is why Kyiv constantly places responsibility for the situation at the front on its allies.
➖“The entire propaganda machine of the President’s Office constantly hammers into the heads of Ukrainians that we have problems only because the US does not want to give us permission for long-range missiles Jassm, Atacms, Storm shadow / Scalp,” writes Lutsenko.
➖"But this is a lie that will (not) lead to victory. At least because the Russian Air Transport Agency has already gone beyond the Atacms coverage area. Therefore, it will not stop attacks, KABs, and ballistics."
▪️Lutsenko believes that Zelensky is acting according to the following plan:
1. We submit to the US a new mega-list of demands for weapons and money.
2. We receive polite doubts that this will change the course of the war and lead us to the borders of 1991.
3. We declare that we have been abandoned and we have no other choice but to return to the Peace Forums with the participation of Russia.
4. During the negotiations we receive demands from Putin in the style of Istanbul.
5. We declare that this is the subject of a referendum and that a ceasefire is needed for this.
6. We sign a ceasefire.
7. We take the pose of the president of the world and hold presidential elections. Preferably - without lifting martial law, so that democracy does not interfere, and the TCC controls the polling stations.
▪️Lutsenko called it a “cynical show” that is “easily read by both Ukrainian political leaders and our allies.”
RVvoenkor
This is an interesting and plausible theory. In short, he believes Zelensky is putting on a display of theater in order to save his skin by first allowing Ukrainian citizens to witness the “betrayal” of Ukraine being abandoned, before Zelensky has the consensus to proceed to peace negotiations.
Note one of the last parts, where he states this will allow Zelensky to present himself as a global leader. This exact hypothesis was supported by Ukrainian political consultant Oleksandr Kharebin in a new interview where he stated his opinion of Zelensky’s outrageous plan:
According to the Zelensky's ‘Peace plan’, Ukraine will be one of the founders of a new post-war world order, Ukrainian political consultant Oleksandr Kharebin claimed: "We have that right, just like the Soviet Union became the founder of the UN, because it was the winning country, and it founded the world that is now being destroyed before our eyes. Ukraine will demand this right to build the world after the war," he stated.
The point of all this devolves into something I’ve been writing for many months: that Zelensky and the West’s goal will be to somehow sell the ending of this war as a “victory”. The above sounds like Zelensky’s attempt to twist the finale into a grand global achievement for himself and his political class, centering Ukraine on the chessboard as a mega-player. The timing is good after all, with European nations on the brink of political and economic dissolution, it surely gives the savor of a big opportunistic opening for Ukraine to position itself as a regional power center of sorts.
The problem is, it’s all contingent on Russia playing along and submitting to a ceasefire—which itself is contingent on the delusion that Russia is suffering the worse for wear and is eager to begin talks. It will be the most devastating moral blow of the war for the West when they realize this is not the case.
Arguably the biggest issue for Ukraine is the long-kept secret of the West’s dire arms and production woes. More and more we become privy to just how badly NATO was demilitarized in its futile attempt to subjugate Russia.
A growing number of officials are sounding the alarm of the US’ own shrinking stockpiles and the grave danger this poses for its national security.
The CNN article above reveals that the real reason behind Biden not using the remaining billions of dollars in drawdown authority is concerns over the US’ dwindling stockpiles:
In April, Congress gave the Biden administration an additional $13.4 billion to use specifically to send Ukraine weapons and equipment drawn from US stockpiles. But the Defense Department hasn’t been able to use it all because of a lack of corresponding supply that it is willing to part with without risking the US’ own readiness, officials told CNN.
Recall what I had just written recently about ATACMS? At $1.5-1.7 million each, sending just another 100 missiles would wipe out almost an entire aid package, like those below:
Since then, however, the value of each military aid package to Ukraine has been significantly smaller, with none exceeding $400 million and most in the $125 million to $250 million range. In 2022 and 2023, the Pentagon regularly announced packages worth between $600 million to $800 million, with the highest being $2.85 billion in January 2023.
Now, Jake Sullivan has even gone on record with the biggest bombshell of this crisis. Listen very carefully below, as Sullivan explains that the US was forced to literally scrounge the entire world to desperately plug critical gaps in Ukraine’s missile defense:
What further proof do you need that NATO is being far more demilitarized by this conflict than Russia, as they so often claim? This is particularly in light of alarmism surrounding the latest strikes on Russia’s Toropets arsenal. I wrote this yesterday on X and will repeat it here:
Fun fact: The Toropets arsenal "has 41 newer bunkers that can hold up to 240 metric tonnes of ammunition each, and 70+ sheds hold up to 120 tonnes each, not factoring large areas of open-air storage, that's over 19K metric tonnes". Thus, the arsenal holds *up to* 19,000 tonnes of munitions. The Russian army uses upwards of 10,000 - 15,000 tons of munitions per day. So, even if Ukraine were to have destroyed the entire arsenal, this represents a single day or two of Russian expenditures at most. We know they didn't come close to destroying the whole thing, nor that the arsenal was even "full" at capacity. Thus, Ukraine may have destroyed about 12 hours worth of Russian munitions expenditures in the SMO. Gamechanger?
I had added that the above report is already a year old, and the Russian SMO force has grown by 20-25% from about 450k to 570-600k since then, with the daily munition tonnage growing correspondingly. Thus, it’s possible Ukraine may have destroyed the equivalent of as little as 12 hours’ worth of Russian ammo or less in the Toropets strike.
In fact, Putin just signed the decree to increase the Russian Armed Forces to 1.5 million, a 180,000 increase of the Army, which would put Russia at number two largest military in the world:
US generals are again saying—like Christopher Cavoli months ago—that the Russian Army is now bigger and better than even before the invasion:
Russia's military is bigger and stronger than it was prior to invading Ukraine in February 2022, the commander of United States Air Forces in Europe and Africa cautioned Tuesday.
"Russia is getting larger, and they're getting better than they were before. … They are actually larger than they were when [the invasion] kicked off," Air Force General James Hecker told reporters at the Air & Space Forces Association's annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
This comes amidst a spate of regime media articles warning to switch tacks and stop underestimating Russian might:
"Washington Post: The US and EU no longer believe that Russia will lose on the battlefield or that its economy will be destroyed by sanctions.
The publication notes that the stalemate, which has been going on for three years now, has become a strategic disaster for Moscow, but Russia can still outlive Washington and its allies due to its enormous mass of forces and resources. The publication also states that this is precisely why the partners are now more inclined to negotiate and are giving Ukraine various hints about this."
The above article by the way finally comes around to making a big admission, which we’ve been talking about here for a long time:
Much has been made of Ukraine’s impressive success in sinking or crippling a chunk of Putin’s Black Sea Fleet. But with a couple of exceptions, the Chatham House study said, the ships destroyed or disabled were “very old or limited” vessels. The Russian navy “has lost none of its blue-water combat capability,” the paper concluded, and Moscow’s “global power projection capabilities are undiminished.”
'The war will not end this year. The Russians are strong, they can fight for a long time' Dutch Defense Minister Brekelmans said that Europeans need to be prepared for long-term spending on the war in Ukraine: 'I don't see it ending next year. Of course, we have to support Ukraine militarily as much as we can, but we also have to be realistic. The situation on the battlefield is very difficult. That means we have to do more, but we also have to be realistic. We have to make sure that the Dutch and other Europeans are prepared to support Ukraine in the long term. So we must not create any false expectations, because then people might be disappointed. The Russians are strong. We see on the battlefield that they are capable of continuing this war and fighting very intensively for a long time. If you look at the projections of what they can produce there, the military industry is capable of producing a lot. So we have to take the threat from Russia very seriously.'
This brings us to Ukraine’s latest travails, which are behind Zelensky’s Faustian push to increase the costs of the war for all sides.
The article is a feast to behold, describing the devastation that Ukraine is experiencing on the front, and how notions of it “holding out” indefinitely against Russia are nothing more than affronts to reality.
KYIV — The terrible cost of Russia’s continuing assault on Ukraine is viscerally clear at a military rehabilitation center on the outskirts of this city. Soldiers there describe how their bodies were shattered on the front lines. And they’re the lucky ones who survived.
At our last meeting, a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion, he had described an almost giddy sense of national solidarity, with young activists talking about a mountaintop festival to defy Russian threats of using tactical nuclear weapons. But that mood has changed.
“We thought that once we showed solidarity, Russia would back off,” he told me. “Now it seems the war could last for decades.”
Ukrainian intellectuals on Twitter began to agree in earnest with the article’s chief takeaway:
Read the rare admissions now being openly bandied with growing regularity:
The mood was followed by other articles:
WSJ made a big splash with the following article, which led to a large amount of jeering and heckling against their obviously-skewed numbers:
In the piece, they ludicrously write:
A confidential Ukrainian estimate from earlier this year put the number of dead Ukrainian troops at 80,000 and the wounded at 400,000, according to people familiar with the matter. Western intelligence estimates of Russian casualties vary, with some putting the number of dead as high as nearly 200,000 and wounded at around 400,000.
On one hand, at least the West is finally admitting to higher casualty figures for Ukraine; on the other, it’s clear they’re desperately pulling out all the stops to conflate each side’s figures. Russia, which has the far better medical, triage, and evacuation infrastructure, equipment, and capabilities, is somehow billed as having an absurd 1:2 KIA to WIA ratio, whereas Ukraine manages a 1:5. In reality, it’s the opposite.
BBC at least was a little more forthright in their latest:
They boast that Russian deaths topped 70k, yet inadvertantly highlighted the steep drop off of casualties in recent months via their graph above.
Interestingly, a new cemetery analysis in Ukraine has revealed massive expansions of Ukrainian cemeteries, adding almost more soldiers in a single cemetery than supposedly killed in the entire war:
The Cemetery of St. Nicholas in Zaporozhya added around 19,000 soldier graves since 2022!
Zelensky said Ukraine lost 31,000 soldiers in February.
One cemetery alone added 19,000! The numbers don’t add up, not even close.
Geolocation: (47.854774 34.975785)
In Ukraine, military cemeteries continue to grow, gradually turning into "cities".
It is noteworthy that once again the Western media raised the topic of enormous losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the front, which was dangerous for the Office of President Zelensky. In particular, The Washington Post published a video from Kharkov City Cemetery №17, which shows hundreds, if not thousands, of new graves of Ukrainian military personnel. At the same time, the media noted that the graves seemed to be twice as large as last year. And, this is just one example of the real situation in Ukraine, where the male population is almost knocked out in 2 military years.
So, the losses of the Armed Forces that the Presidential Office hides are visible to the naked eye when you come to cemeteries in ANY city or even a village (by the way, in Ukraine they also want to create a memorial military cemetery in each region, starting from Kiev).
Meanwhile, demographers are already alarming, because there are all prerequisites for the fact that if the military conflict continues until 2026, then Ukraine will actually turn into a “folding country”, and the nation will move into the stage of irreversible extinction (now the birth rate in Ukraine is three times lower than mortality, which means a complete collapse with a demographic situation — it is the worst
Ukrainska Pravda released a long article detailing the months-long Pokrovsk-direction battles, which echoed the usual damning realizations of huge losses from the front:
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Even the most diehard pro-Ukrainian observers growingly see little chance for Ukraine to last blow-for-blow against Russia in an all out attritional slugfest.
Here Arestovich gives another eye-opening diatribe:
The Ukrainian front is "crackling" in many places, and not just near Pokrovsk, which is the focus of attention, - Arestovich.
Zelensky's ex-representative predicts "grave consequences" in the next "3-4 months" for the front.
In many areas, the Russian army managed to "infiltrate" the Ukrainian defense, when at least one Russian soldier, with the cover of a drone, manages to enter the rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and occupy some trench or building on the supply or rotation line. Then a second or third one follows, and it is very difficult to dislodge even one such entrenched soldier from there.
He also quotes soldiers as saying that mobilization failed and the Ukrainian Armed Forces are catastrophically short of infantry.
"Not in the sense that the person was not caught and not dressed in a uniform, but in the sense that a fighter is being sent to the troops who does not know how and does not want to carry out the task. Therefore, it is like a snowball growing. In the next three or four months, and maybe even earlier, there will be grave consequences. But if by that time we agree on a ceasefire, then no one will see it. And I will say - and thank God, because if the front collapses, then we will have to make peace on much worse terms," Arestovich says.
RVvoenkor
Watch the video above very carefully, particularly the second half.
First he describes the new tactic Russia uses to advance everywhere. He states the reason Ukrainian troops can’t dislodge even a small amount of Russian forces that build up very gradually around their positions before overwhelming them is because frontline AFU troops lack any attacking ability. They can be just good enough to man a trench and shoot out of it occasionally, but to actively go forward and dislodge a Russian foothold by assaulting is beyond most of them at this point.
But what he alludes to in his conclusion is devastating: in 3-4 months, he sees a “snowball” effect accelerating into a potential collapse of the entire front, adding it could even happen ‘sooner’. This is the reason that negotiations are required ASAP, according to him—and this is precisely what I’ve been saying. That could be the reason everyone of note propounds the conflict may resolve by the end of this year.
The pro-UA commentariat continues beating the drums of the Kursk incursion, but it has borne no fruit, and has resulted in nothing more than another disaster for the AFU:
Footage of the breakthrough of a section of the state border in the Glushkovsky district of Kursk region by the 225th separate assault battalion of the AFU, consisting of armored vehicles Kozak-7, BMP CV-90 and tank Strv 122.
The footage also shows the use of IMR-2s to make passages in minefields.
Shortly after the attempted breakthrough, the column was destroyed, as evidenced by the presence of identical equipment in the two videos.
New footage of the breakthrough of the mixed armored group of the 225th assault battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement of Novy Put in the direction of Obukhovka.
By using the heavy engineering mine clearing vehicle IMR-2, the enemy was able to break through the minefieldsand "throw off" the "dragon's teeth", bringing Swedish MBTs Strv 122 (the most protected version of the "Leopard-2A5"), IFV CV9040C, and MRAP "Kozak-7" into the forest plantations.
However, later, batteries of 152mm artillery, attack helicopters and FPV drone operators very quickly eliminated this armored group.
#info
For those interested, here’s a higher quality video of the opening of Ukraine’s offensive on the Glushkovo district of Kursk, showing some of their IMRs clearing Russian dragon-teeth, followed by lighter armor:
A commander of the 810th Marines fighting in Kursk gave an interview, stating plainly that the casualty ratio is 6:1 in Russia’s favor for manpower, and 30:1 in Russia’s favor for vehicles/armor, in Kursk specifically:
While the manpower is harder to deduce, the vehicular one seems accurate from video evidence given that Ukrainian vehicles are being massacred in Kursk, whereas there is virtually no evidence of Russian armor or vehicles being hit there. Thus, if he told the truth on the vehicle front, we can only conclude the manpower figure is accurate as well.
For the skeptical, there have been some Russian efforts to track the visually confirmed vehicle losses in the Kursk offensive only: one such spreadsheet can be seen here, although it appears they stopped updating it after late August. However, up to that date, they have visual confirmation of 135 Ukrainian pieces versus 25 Russian ones. Not quite 30:1 ratio, more like 6:1 here—but it gives an idea.
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All over the front, Ukrainian troops report deteriorating conditions. A Ukrainian officer gives an update on Ugledar:
Interestingly, this same officer has recently made a very controversial statement which I have yet to understand whether it was a tongue-in-cheek gag, or if he’s deadly serious:
Rezident_UA channel claims Zelensky’s old plan to assault the Zaporozhye nuke plant may be circling down the drain as they’re forced to pull those brigades to reinforce the disasters elsewhere:
#Inside
Our source in the General Staff said that Syrsky began to withdraw reserves from Zaporozhye and transfer them to the Sumy region and Pokrovsk, the Armed Forces of Ukraine does not have the opportunity to launch an attack on the Zaporizhzhya NPP due to large losses. Now Glavkom is trying to stabilize the eastern front and maintain positions in the Kursk region, where the enemy began a counterattack and squeezes out the Armed Forces.
Meanwhile, Europe continues to crumble.
This Sunday, Scholz's political future will be decided, Politico writes.
While the German Chancellor is at the General Assembly in New York, elections will be held in his homeland in Brandenburg, the “traditional bastion” of the SPD.
If Scholz's party loses to the right again, its members will probably decide to replace the chancellor. Early parliamentary elections are possible, or Scholz will be replaced as party leader in the next elections next year by Defense Minister Pistorius.
According to polls, the SPD is slightly behind the AfD.
The Financial Times has previously written about a similar scenario. Both publications call it a repeat of Biden's fate, who was removed by the party so that he would not drag it down.
The collapse of Scholz's party began with elections in Saxony, where the right came second, and Thuringia, where it won, achieving its biggest success since World War II.
Some last disparate items of note. Petraeus urges Kiev to mobilize the young:
❗️The former head of the CIA stated the need to mobilize young people in Ukraine. The average age of a soldier in Ukraine exceeds 40 years, but 19-21 year olds should be sent to the front before demanding weapons.
🔴Former CIA chief David Petraeus stated this at the Yalta European Strategy forum, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
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Experts have gathered more evidence that the F-16 was shot down by “debris” from a Russian missile—read the details below if interested:
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After seemingly being stalled for some time, it turns out the Russian investigation of the Russell Bentley murder has in fact been completed, with all suspects caught and awaiting trial and sentencing:
Official statement from the Russian Investigative Committee on the completion of the investigation into the murder of correspondent Russell Bentley (call sign "Texas"). We are awaiting the trial and the verdict.
⚡️ Russia’s Investigative Committee identifies suspects in murder of Sputnik’s Russell Bentley
The Russian Investigative Committee has wrapped up the preliminary investigation into the murder of Russell Bentley, 64, a US-born Donbass volunteer and Sputnik correspondent.
Suspects involved in the criminal case were identified as Russian Armed Forces servicemen Vitaly Vansyatsky, Vladislav Agaltsev, Vladimir Bazhin, and Andrey Iordanov. The individuals have been accused of felonies under Russia's Criminal Code, including the use of physical violence and torture, which resulted in the death of the victim through negligence, as well as the concealment of an especially grievous crime.
On April 8, Russian military servicemen Vansyatsky, Agaltsev, and Iordanov used physical violence and torture against Russell Bentley in Donetsk, which led to the correspondent's death. On the same day, Vansyatsky and Agaltsev blew up a VAZ 2115 car with Bentley's body with TNT explosives.
On April 9, Bazhin, a serviceman from the same military unit removed Bentley's remains from the scene on the instructions of Vansyatsky in a bid to conceal the heinous crime. The accused have been provided with the materials of criminal case. Subsequently, the case will be transferred for the indictment approval and court hearings.
Bentley went to Donbass in 2014 and joined the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) militia using the call sign Texas. He said that he admired the courage of the Donbass defenders and called Donetsk his home. The US-born volunteer was granted Russian citizenship and began collaborating with Sputnik as a correspondent. He was known as an outspoken supporter of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
In mid-April, Bentley went missing in Donetsk. On April 19, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group, announced that the 64-year-old had died. An investigation into the circumstances of Bentley's death was launched by the Russian Investigative Committee.⚡️
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Ukrainian Strana now reports that both Defense Minister Umerov and GUR Chief Budanov may be dismissed or forced to ‘resign’ soon. The news is serious enough that both Russian RIA and RBC have now reported it:
There’s no reason as to why yet, but it was reported several days ago that two of Budanov’s key underlings were removed without his consultation this week, so it appears something is brewing.
For a long time now insiders claimed Budanov was falling out of favor with Zelensky and Yermak because he was gaining too much spotlight and beginning to upstage them, which made the power-hungry duo feel threatened.
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To update on the Toropets arsenal situation, we bring these new updated satellite images:
Though there’s still some smoke cover, this is the most detailed Maxar pass with before and after of each section. First the older Soviet one in the northwest, then the newer section to the east of that, and the main newer bunker section at the end:
It’s clear the older Soviet one has suffered the most damage, which had the least reinforced depots probably without much revetments, etc. At least 50-70% of the next section appears to also be devastated, though the satellite photo seems to selectively show only the lower half of it, while the first photo above shows some of the upper half possibly having survived.
My initial reporting from the last article appears to be validated about the damage to the main bunkers to the southeast, which seem the least affected. There is still much discussion about how many of them were actually taken out, with it not being totally clear. It can be anywhere from only a couple to a much larger amount depending which way your bias leans.
What needs to be said is it’s quite comical that Ukraine claims to require NATO help to “strike deep” into Russia when they just hit such a big depot 500-600km, which is superior to the range of ATACMS, Storm Shadows, and the like. It goes to show the ‘deep strike’ red herring is meant merely to instigate a NATO-Russia conflict rather than add new capabilities Ukraine lacks.
That being said, if it’s true they used this new jet-drone, and a huge amount of them at that, with claims of 100+, it may be that they cannot manufacture this drone in great quantity, given that anything with a turbojet engine will be difficult and expensive to make. This is why even Russia opts for the propeller variant of the Geran-2 rather than mass-producing the new jet-powered Shahed-238.
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As a last note, Russia has published its official list of Western countries deemed to be imposing destructive neoliberal ideologies from which Russia will accept emigres or ideological refugees and asylum seekers into their new expedited residency program:
So, a heads up if you’re from one of the countries above and have been contemplating escaping.
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The elephant in the room here is the coming winter and what it will bring- a massive tide of refugees sweeping into old europe. It is why border closures are already going up. It is the imminent armageddon for the west that knows that once its own people experience this onslaught it will be game over for their involvement in this war. Their own governments will collapse under the chaotic conditions and mass protests. No deep attacks into Russia are going to hold back this denouement. Russia knows what it has to do to finish Ukraine off, and it will do it, for the same reason the US dropped the Bomb on Japan. It is the only way to bring this horror to an end because the cowardly west does not even have the courage to pull the plug itself.
The war will be brought to an end by a tide of war ravaged humanity, not by way of any special wonder weapon. Or maybe this is the wonder weapon to end all wonder weapons- the Russian winter.
Something that I think western countries need to understand is that the way Russia is fighting the war in Ukraine against the AFU is nothing like how it would be with NATO. If it happens, they will be orders of magnitude more brutal with no mercy.
Right now they are restrained because they don’t want to expand the war. They know where it might lead (because they are adults). They also - despite it all - consider most Ukrainians kin and that they are returning Russian lands and people home.
NONE of that applies to NATO.