© UnknownTroops in Ukraine
"The Ukrainians are fighting for their country; they're fighting for their future; they're fighting for their freedom. I am convinced and confident that, at the end of the day, Ukraine's independence, Ukraine's sovereignty will prevail and will be there long after Vladimir Putin has left the scene."What was left unsaid was the reality that Russian President Vladimir Putin has survived four US presidential administrations and is well on his way to outlasting a fifth — the Biden administration that Blinken serves.
Blinken's comments come on the heels of continued calls from Ukraine's embattled President, Volodymyr Zelensky, for additional deliveries of heavy weapons needed for his country's ongoing fight against invading Russian forces.
While acknowledging that Ukrainian forces were suffering "painful losses" on the front lines, Zelensky believes that Ukrainian forces would be able to hold on to the contested Donbas region, and eventually launch a counterattack that would throw Russian troops from the totality of sovereign Ukrainian territory — including both Crimea and the Donbas.
While many military analysts have come to assess that the war in Ukraine has tilted in Russia's favor, US defense officials believe that the opposite is in fact true — Ukraine is emerging from the current struggle with "an advantage" brought on by the provision of billions of dollars of military assistance by the US and the West to the Ukrainian armed forces.
The US stance has apparently emboldened Ukraine's European allies, with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis all travelling to Kiev to pledge their ongoing support for Ukraine, both in terms of continuing to provide advanced weaponry to fend off the Russians, but also to support Ukraine's efforts to join the European Union.
Not to be outdone, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his own solo jaunt to Kiev on Friday, armed with a plan for Great Britain to provide training for 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers every 120 days.
The problem facing the European leaders is the harsh reality of military math. The driving force behind Ukraine's desperate need for heavy weapons is the fact that in the 100-plus days Ukraine has been fighting Russia, the Russian military has destroyed the vast majority of Ukraine's pre-conflict arsenal.
This fact is played out with violence daily — in a conflict that has taken on the characteristic of a massive artillery duel, the Ukrainians are able to fire some 5-6,000 rounds of artillery per day toward the Russian forces. Russia, on the other hand, replies with 60,000 rounds — per day (by way of comparison, US forces fired a total of 60,000 artillery rounds during the entirety of Operation Desert Storm, in 1991.)
The hard truth is that Russia will destroy whatever weaponry the West provides well before Ukraine would be able to assemble the mythical "offensive capability" of American imagination.
Moreover, with Ukrainian officials themselves admitting casualty rates of 200-plus killed and 500-plus wounded per day, there is no way Johnson's offer of training could reverse the inevitable tide of Ukraine's looming strategic military defeat — with Ukraine losing 10,000 troops every two weeks, the British offer to replace them every four months rings hollow.
The President of the Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, in a statement made during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, indicated that Ukraine's decision to receive heavy weapons from the West leaves the Russian forces no choice but to continue military operations even after the liberation of the Donbas.
All cities in Ukraine where there is a large Russian population, such as Kharkov and Odessa, will be captured, and the Ukrainian armed forces destroyed.
Pushilin believed that when the so-called special military operation was over, which he believed would be before the year ended, that Ukraine would no longer exist as a nation.
It is hard to imagine that Pushilin would make such a statement on Russian soil, at a conference organized by the Russian Presidency, without first clearing it with his Russian hosts.
There is a price to be paid for the fanciful delusions of the West, and those in Ukraine who believe them, and that price may be the very existence of a Ukrainian state.
About the Author:
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, served in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991 to 1998 served as a chief weapons inspector with the UN in Iraq. Mr Ritter currently writes on issues pertaining to international security, military affairs, Russia, and the Middle East, as well as arms control and nonproliferation. Follow him on Telegram @ScottRitter
Reader Comments
Only the Russian army has a proper reconnaissance, and fully integrated reconnaissance, detection, tracking and fire control capabilities. Almost nothing the Ukrainians do goes unnoticed, and they are getting hammered as soon as they come out of the wood. And not only on the Donbas front. That is why they are doing well with a small expedition force, while the Ukraine lost in excess of 100.000 men already.
If I was a Nato general, I would watch carefully, and think twice about each of my steps.
Due to highly interconnected hardware, the "combat effectivness" of Russian troups is at least an order of magnitude higher than those of Ukrainian or Nato troups. Including the US.
Take a closer look videos of Russian hardware shooting, being it howitzers, tanks, SPG or MRLS. You always see three or more separate entities, all firing simultaneously . Which not only means they are "remote controlled", but use the same target aquisition data. Which are usually fed by drones hovering two or three miles above the target. The operator usually only acknowledges the target to aim at, the rest is done automatically.
And the US state department is sending WWII level artillery ...
Ukrainian bombing of Donetsk renewed just before 6 pm, hitting residential areas across the city for the next two hours.Journalist @EvaKBartlett is reporting from Donetsk. pic.twitter.com/499QeCv9Cq
Western Media and Politicians Prefer to Ignore the Truth about Civilians Killed in Donetsk ShellingBy Eva BartlettGlobal Research, June 20, 2022Internationalist 360° 16 June 2022Region: Russia and FSUTheme: US NATO War AgendaIn-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT 5 0 0 8 When Kiev’s guilt in attacks on a maternity hospital cannot be denied, it’s simply brushed under the carpet Following intense Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk on June 13, some Western media sources, in tandem with outlets in Kiev, unsurprisingly claimed that the attack – which killed at least five civilians and struck a busy maternity hospital – was perpetrated by Russian forces. Why Moscow would launch rockets at its own allies wasn’t explained, nor would it make much sense.The Donetsk People’s Republic’s foreign ministry reported: “Such an unprecedented. in terms of power, density and duration of fire, raid on the DPR capital was not recorded during the entire period of the armed conflict [since 2014]. In two hours, almost 300 MLRS rockets and artillery shells were fired.” The Ukrainian shelling began late morning, resumed in the afternoon, and continued for another two hours in the evening, a deafening series of blasts throughout the city, terrorizing residents and targeting apartment buildings, civilian infrastructure, the aforementioned hospital, and industrial buildings.Ukrainian bombing of Donetsk renewed just before 6 pm, hitting residential areas across the city for the next two hours.Journalist @EvaKBartlett is reporting from Donetsk. pic.twitter.com/499QeCv9Cq— Juan Sinmiedo (@Youblacksoul) June 13, 2022Locals say this was some of the heaviest bombing of Donetsk since 2014, when the region declared its independence from post-Maidan Kiev. In the Budyonnovsky district in the south of the city, Ukrainian shelling of a market killed five civilians including one child. Just two months ago, Kiev’s forces hit another Donetsk market, leaving four civilians dead.In the hard-hit Kievskiy district, to the north, the shelling caused fires at a water bottling plant and a warehouse for stationery, destroying it. The building was still in flames when journalist Roman Kosarev and I arrived about an hour after the attack. Apartment buildings in the area also came under fire, leaving doors and windows blown out and cars destroyed.The destroyed gas station was on a street where I stayed in April, which is completely residential.Ukrainian Army Shelling of Donbass Civilians: A Day in Hell Without EndDPR head Denis Pushilin said, “The enemy literally crossed all the lines. Prohibited methods of warfare are being used, residential and central districts of Donetsk are being shelled, other cities and settlements of the DPR are also under fire now.”
HE SHOULD OF DIED FROM ITS POXY GAYTIME RIDE WITH ITS MATES ON A PUSH BIKE, HEHE, FUNNY, HOPE IT HURT..
spirit around the world influence, and drive total love, USA, equalls total hate, 22 million souls forced back to spirit, USA fault..
5 yrs from now, USA no longer.. thank fuk for that..
Didn't they kill thousands of their own citizens lately, potentially millions ?!?