Spring offensive

Credit: Wanderer777

It´s hardly a secret that this blog supports Ukraine against the Russian aggression. However, I frequently find myself bemused by the absurd propaganda in the Western media. Russia is constantly on the brink of collapse, Putin is presumably on the verge of a psychic break-down, and somehow (don´t ask too many details) he is constantly “losing the war”. For about eight months now, we´ve been hearing about the fabulous Ukrainian “spring offensive” which was supposed to miraculously reconquer all lost territory in one single swoop (lost territory which somehow doesn´t really exist anyway, since Russia has apparently been losing the war since day one or something).

That the “spring offensive” isn´t going very well hardly comes as a surprise, since the Ukrainians couldn´t even throw the Wagner Group out of Bakhmut despite almost a year of heavy fighting. Indeed, the Russians seems to have stopped about half of the planned offensive by simply blowing up that huge dam! Let´s be honest: at present, Ukraine can´t even embark on a successful “spring offensive” against Swedish chocolate! (The Ukrainian government wants everyone to boycott Mondelez, which owns Marabou.) Which brings me to the recent mutiny of the Wagner Group…

Two interpretations are possible. One is that Russia is on the verge of collapse, that Putin will suffer an emotional breakdown any day now, and (of course) that they are losing the war! Another is that the Putin regime has been *strengthened* by its handling of the mutiny, and the complete failure of Prigozhin to accomplish anything important at all. I leave it up to the reader which of these interpretations seem to align best with the known facts.

As I said before: Russia is waging a war of attrition. And no, the sanctions aren´t working. Could Russia fail anyway? Of course: Russia and its military *do* have enormous problems, larger than anyone expected before the outbreak of the war. These include widespread corruption, bad supplies, and yes, the odd mutiny. Russia can´t even control its own territory 100%, as evidenced by the attacks of pro-Ukrainian freebooters, supposedly even a drone attack on the Kremlin itself. But time is still on Russia´s side. If we accept the claim that both sides have suffered equally severe losses in absolute numbers, Russia´s larger population will ultimately win out…unless Poland wants to send its sons to the Donbass slaughter house when Ukrainian males become scarce.

But the biggest problem might be the fissures in the Western alliance. Turkey and its tinpot vilayet Hungary have spent most of the Ukrainian war blocking Swedish NATO membership, despite the United States clearly wanting to expand NATO in the Baltic region. Turkey is NATO´s second largest military power, but doesn´t seem particularly interested confronting Russia. And if Donald Trump becomes US president in 2025, there is a non-zero chance that the US will force Ukraine to sign a rotten peace agreement. Indeed, even Trump´s valiant opponents might do so, as evidenced by recent British complaints that Ukraine is treating NATO as an “Amazon warehouse” for arms and munitions?!

The only peace agreement worth signing would be status quo bellum ante, in which Crimea and the original LDNR territories are allowed to remain in Russian hands, while the rest of the occupied territories are evacuated. And, I suppose, Mondelez can continue selling chocolate in Moscow (and Sweden). At the moment, it looks as if the only way for Ukraine to win the war would be coordinated Western airstrikes on Russian targets. But unless Putin really does get a nervous breakdown, that would risk escalate the situation to a new world war…