Phil Butler
In every mainstream media outlet from Berlin to Los Angeles, Vladimir Putin and Russia are losing in the conflict with Ukraine. The NATO proxy warriors and western think tank experts are endlessly reassuring citizens of the U.S. and other allied countries that Russia is on the ropes and ready for the knockout punch from the coalition led by U.S. President Joe Biden. There is, however, one huge problem. None of these assertions are true.
CNN says “Putin needs to know he’s whipped in Ukraine.” At The Hill, the experts say Biden and NATO should “do what it takes to stop Putin.” But wait. If Putin is already defeated, then what is left for NATO and the hairbrained U.S. president to do? Mixed messages, this is the latest sign telling us the dilapidated North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the one on the ropes. When the Russians finally launch their multi pronged offensive against what’s left of Zelensky’s troops, NATO will be revealed as the biggest, most useless Humpty Dumpty the world has ever seen. Check this from more reliable sources.
Back in November of 2022, retired Colonel Douglas MacGreggor wrote a lucid analysis of the real situation in Ukraine at that point. The man his U.S. Army colleagues called “America’s Greatest Warfighter,” the master strategist encapsulated the situation while revealing that the U.S. and allies never really had a strategy in Ukraine or against Russia. Here is part of what he said then:
“American senior military leaders and their political bosses viewed Russia through a narrowly focused lens that magnified U.S. and Ukrainian strengths but ignored Russia’s strategic advantages—geographic depth, almost limitless natural resources, high social cohesion, and the military-industrial capacity to rapidly scale up its military power.”
The former military advisor to the Trump administration outlined the array of forces poised to strike what’s left of Ukraine’s decimated military at any moment. In November, MacGregor’s network informed him that some 540,000 additional Russian combat troops, supported by over 1,000 rocket artillery systems, 1,500 tanks, 5,000 armored fighting vehicles, hundreds of fixed fighters, helicopters, and bombers, and thousands of tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones had assembled in striking distance of Ukraine’s last reserves.
That was November. Ukraine has since bled it’s forces white attacking Russian defensive networks and defending key transport hubs like Bakhmut, where Wagner Group is currently dislodging the last of Zelensky’s defenders. Ukraine is all but done! The Pentagon knows it, Zelensky knows it, NATO command knows it, but no one in western leadership has the gumption to just spit it out. Ukraine has suffered 157,000 dead, and 234,000 wounded. Almost 20,000 have been taken prisoner, and the arms is not only out of aircraft and tanks, but ammunition to continue the fight as it exists on the ground today. When Russia launches the new offensive, it will be a bloodbath the likes of which have not been seen since the Soviets ran the Nazis back into Berlin. According to MacGreggor and other experts, the Russians will only stop once they’ve reached the banks of the Dnieper River, which divides Ukraine into west and east.
Former U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins MacGregor and other key military experts in pointing out that the death tolls from Ukraine reveal Russia is actually fighting NATO and Ukraine. In fact, NATO and the US have been training and building Ukraine’s Nazi spearheaded military since 2014. In the combat figures thousands of mercenaries, NATO operators out of uniform, and NATO trainers from the US and the UK have also perished in the fighting. Given historical US setbacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in Syria, this is nothing new. America’s “special” operators have been in virtually every conflict on the planet since World War 2. But Ukraine is different.
Colonel MacGregor was interviewed the other day saying that his contact visiting Russia told him that “the Russians are preparing for a 30 month war with the US and NATO.” The former tank regiment commander highlighted the fact that the US and NATO do not currently have a quick response mobilization capability in place, while Russia has already ramped up weapons production dramatically.
On Telegram and other back channels, we see Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dimitry Medvedev inspecting tank, missile, and other weapons manufacturing facilities across Russia that have stepped up production rapidly. Medvedev, who is now deputy head of the powerful Security Council and heads a government commission on arms production, told reporters recently that the new supplies will “help Russia inflict a “crushing defeat” over Ukraine on the battlefield.”
Medvedev has also warned that Russia could join with other countries opposed to U.S. hegemony and create a military coalition aimed at weakening its dominance in global politics. Western news consumers hear nothing of these facts, even though the choices left to those outside the NATO alliance seem pretty clear these days. From India to Brazil, the fear and uncertainty over the US hegemony grows day by day.
As Colonel MacGregor and others have insisted, the US and NATO leadership fails totally in understanding Russia and Russian tactics and policies. This is evidenced by reading or watching western news. The Hill just sourced a retired US Major John Spence, claiming Russia cannot conduct a coordinated offensive. Get this, Major Spence works with Madison Policy Forum, which is led by retired Colonel Liam Collins, who advised Ukraine with regard to the military buildup in the country in the wake of the “fake” Minsk accords.
So, what can we expect? Within days, perhaps even before this is published, Russia will launch a massive multi-pronged attack to flyswatter a defeated Ukraine military. All the Leopard and Abrams tanks in Europe will not be able to slow it down, even if the Ukrainians knew how to operate them. NATO does not have the juice. The best that can be achieved will be a partitioning of Ukraine, as I suggested before. And if some crazy multinational force is inserted into the conflict, then I expect the name “Ukraine” to enter the history books as a “once was” nation.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
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