by Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts:
The Duran presented on October 17 an excellent discussion between John Helmer and Gilbert Doctorow moderated by Alexander Mercouris about how Russian military and civilian decisions are made. The knowledge I gained enables me to update my take on the situation, which I will now do.
The Ukrainian invasion of Kursk, which has been defeated, was a game changer and possibly will result in the termination of Ukraine as an independent country. The reason is that the invasion convinced the Russian public, the General Staff of the Russian military, and buttressed the case of Russian politicians that an independent Ukraine is inconsistent with Russian security.
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Putin still says he is open to negotiations, but only if the other side acknowledges the reality on the ground, which Zelensky’s “Victory Plan” does not do. Zelensky says only nukes or NATO can save Ukraine. The Russians will not allow either.
If the Russian Army stops at the Dnieper River, that leaves western Ukraine as a US/NATO missile platform. Stopping at the Dnieper River leaves Putin no way to de-militarize and de-Nazify Ukraine. It would limit his declared goals only to preventing the Russian populations attached by Soviet leaders to Ukraine from being slaughtered by anti-Russian Ukrainian forces.
It seems that Putin overlooked that dispelling Ukrainian military forces from Donbas does not de-militarize Ukraine or prevent Ukraine from being a member of NATO. Putin will have reincorporated former Russian territory back into Russia, but western Ukraine would still be there as a platform for US nukes and from which to trade missile strikes with Russia as Israel and Iran are doing.
The question is whether Putin, who wants peace, will be content with liberating eastern and southern Russian territories of Ukraine, and, if so, whether the Russian public and the General Staff will permit him to leave a Ukrainian state in place or will they see a deal as merely kicking the can down the road.
There is also the question who Putin can negotiate with. Zelensky’s term as president has expired. On what authority is Zelensky still in charge? Putin cannot know whether a deal he makes with Zelensky will later be ruled illegitimate. One would think that Putin has learned from the Minsk Agreement, which was used to deceive him and to leave him unprepared for military action, and all Russian agreements with Washington–such as the promise that NATO will not move one inch to the East –that any agreement with Washington’s signature on it is worthless. So, how is it that Putin speaks of negotiations? Is Putin delusional and unable to learn from experience?
I see Putin as a successful leader. He has rescued Russia from demoralization from the Soviet collapse, which resulted in a once powerful state being dismembered, looted and embarrassed by its Jewish oligarchs and Washington.
Putin has rebuilt the Russian economy, despite Washington’s sanctions and Putin’s incompetent central bank director.
Putin has restored Russian pride, the Russian family, and civil morality.
He is a rare successful leader.
But as a war leader he has been Putin the Unready, caught off guard by the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia organized by Washington, by Washington’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government, and by the West’s response to his Special Military Operation in Donbas. Putin has accepted insult after insult, provocation after provocation, thus ever-widening the conflict and inviting more conflicts elsewhere as in the Middle East.
It is unclear to me why Putin accepted Washington’s overthrow of the Ukrainian government. Did he simply lack the military resources to prevent it, or was he unable to understand what was happening? The conflict that occurred 8 years later was the consequence of Putin’s failure to read the writing on the wall.
Perhaps he was constrained by the treasonous class, the worshipers of the West, traitors I refer to as “Atlanticist Integrationists.” These traitors are now referred to in Russia as “the Fifth Column.” For the most part they are gone, except for the Russian central bank director, who continues to do Russia more harm than the West does.
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