© Strategic Culture Foundation
The Russian military's victory over the key Ukrainian stronghold paves the way for the complete takeover of the Donbass region. The NATO-backed Kiev regime had dug its best defences at Konstantinovka, some 150 kilometers of elaborate trenches and minefields. Russian forces finally vanquished those defences with an estimated loss of 14,000 Ukrainian troops. This was not just Ukrainian defenses. It was NATO's, the bloc having weaponized the regime since the coup in 2014 and lending its best technical advisers and engineers on the ground.
Thus, in one fell swoop, the narrative of the Kiev regime and its NATO sponsors has been demolished. In recent months, the Ukrainian puppet president, Vladimir Zelensky, has been busily claiming that his forces were making gains on the battlefield and that Russia was supposedly on the back foot. The European elites and the Western media amplified that narrative. At the G7 summit in France last month, U.S. President Donald Trump had also bought into the fiction that Ukraine was "making progress on the battlefield and there is now a new momentum."
Of course, this was all empty public relations by Zelensky and the Europeans to keep the river of money rolling into the war effort. The summit in Ankara this week was billed as another round of multi-billion-dollar donations to help Ukraine win. Crucial to the fundraising was the appearance of "unity" among NATO members over their commitment to supporting Ukraine.
Fearing that irascible Trump could spoil that appearance of unity, Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary-general, went to the White House on June 24 on a grovelling mission. The former Dutch prime minister put on another cringe-making act of self-debasement and obsequiousness by hailing Trump as a savior of NATO. Rutte lavished praise on the American leader for the "Trump Trillion" effect, pointing out that European and Canadian allies had boosted military spending by €1 trillion under pressure from the U.S. president.
This insane military spending is, by the way, leading to the collapse of Europe, with governments falling from taking on unsustainable debt levels and consequent political crises. Britain is perhaps the worst basket case, looking for its seventh prime minister in 10 years.
In his White House grovelling display, Rutte, who has the odious demeanor of a concentration camp kapo, was also trying to sell the NATO spending as a lucrative market for U.S. military exports. His pandering to Trump is like a pimp for Europe.
But all this racketeering hinges on keeping the U.S. and Europe unified and committed to supporting Ukraine. That, in turn, relies on the narrative that the NATO proxy regime is worth supporting in combating Russia.
The Konstantinovka victory by Russia has smashed that narrative. The Kiev regime is now facing Russian forces "steamrolling" the dwindling defence in Donbass around Kramatorsk and Slavyansk, as former Pentagon analyst Michael Maloof put it.
NATO, for all its hundreds of billions of dollars and euros in support of the Kiev regime over the past four years, has been exposed as an utter failure. This is a political earthquake for Europe and the transatlantic alliance. The whole conflict looks more than ever like a futile war racket that has enriched Zelensky and his cronies as well as the Western military-industrial complex. Euro elites are up to their necks in this criminal proxy war.
The diversionary tactic of NATO helping the Kiev regime to inflict long-range air strikes on Russia has not worked either. Russia has absorbed those attacks and is now pushing ahead on the battlefield to roll up what's left of the NATO proxy defenses.
If there is one thing Trump cannot abide, it's losers and being associated with losers.
When he arrives in Ankara this week, there's going to be embarrassing recriminations in the light of Konstantinvoka's liberation by Russia.
Even before the news about Konstantinovka, Trump was firing up the tensions with the Europeans. On July 3, he slammed the NATO allies as "ridiculous" for not spending more on military budgets. He griped as usual about NATO being a one-sided dependence on "U.S. protection."
Trump is feeling sore about the debacle of his failed war against Iran and has constantly huffed about how Europeans did not provide support for the U.S. in the Persian Gulf. "They were not there when we needed them," he said.
He can now enjoy a bit of schadenfreude by telling the Europeans that they have to sort out the Ukraine mess on their own, which is rich given the U.S. and Trump's responsibility in fomenting the conflict in the first place. He was the first president to send lethal weapons to Ukraine in 2018.
Last month, Trump dispatched his war secretary, Pete Hegseth, to lecture the Europeans about their lack of loyalty and threatened that the U.S. would scale back its military deployments in Europe. Again, rich irony, given that the Euro elites are the most slavishly loyal vassals one could find.
There were also Trump-induced spats with Italian premier Giorgia Meloni over his egotistical claims that she was "begging for a photo-op" during the G7 summit in France. And he rankled German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his military minister, Boris Pistorius, about Berlin's lack of commitment to NATO.
All this deep-seated bickering seemed to have been smoothed over by French President Emmanuel Macron, who indulged Trump with dinner in the splendor of Versailles following the G7 conference. Trump signed up to renewed commitments in supporting Ukraine against Russia, albeit with the Europeans (their long-suffering taxpayers, that is) paying for it.
Russia's major advance on the battlefield with the breakthrough at Konstantinovka throws the Kiev regime and its NATO propaganda into total disarray.
What was intended as a NATO summer "love-fest" this week of hailing unity and splurging billions to underwrite another illusion of Ukraine winning is now in tatters.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin this week warned that Russian forces are ramping up the firepower and are now set to achieve all strategic objectives of crushing NATO's NeoNazi front in Kiev. It took nearly five years of grinding war, largely because Russia wanted to minimize casualties of its own troops and the civilian population, and also because Russia was up against the combined resources of the 32-nation NATO bloc.
When the NATO regime escalated terrorist attacks on Russia earlier this year, murdering civilians with long-range strikes, Moscow took revenge with a determined advance on the battlefield. The signs are that Russia will now not only take the Donbass completely but also ensure that the regime in Kiev is eradicated. This is a blow to the core of the U.S.-NATO axis.
The fall of Konstantinovka to Russian forces is sweet timing. The NATO instigators are tasting bitter fruit as they gather in Ankara.
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