© Evgeny Biyatov/SputnikRussian serviceman undergoes tactical training for deployment to Ukraine
The US-led drive to isolate Russia and the attempt to debilitate its economy and military using Ukraine -
acknowledged as a "proxy war" even by some Western leaders -
appears to be having the opposite effect by various measures.Washington and other NATO members have repeatedly proclaimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has already suffered a strategic defeat in Ukraine and has "no possibility" of winning the conflict.
"Putin's already lost the war," US President Joe Biden claimed last month after attending a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Pentagon officials, who have openly admitted that their goal is to weaken Russia's military, have spoken in recent weeks of heavy losses for Moscow's forces and "steady progress" in Ukraine's long-touted counteroffensive. America's top-ranking general,
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, went so far earlier this year as to say, "Russia has lost. They've lost strategically, operationally and tactically."Russian leaders are seeing a far different picture on the ground. For instance, Putin has claimed that Russian forces achieved a ten-to-one kill ratio in a key battle last month. Ukraine has lost 43,000 troops, as well as dozens of Western-supplied tanks, infantry vehicles and artillery pieces since Kiev's counteroffensive began in early June, according to an August 4 estimate by the Russian Defense Ministry.
"It is obvious that the Western-supplied weapons are failing to bring success on the battlefield and only prolong the military conflict," Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said.
Comment: This is the same Borrell who, less than a year ago, said that Europe was a garden and the rest of the (developing) world was a 'jungle'.
Since then, the number of African nations that are throwing off the death grip of the West is increasing apace. This is occurring alongside the West's failing proxy war in Ukraine - which demonstrates its increasing weakness on the world stage - and the multipolar world approaching the developing world with offers of mutually-beneficial deals; which not only accelerates the pivot away from the West, but also serves to block any attempts at re-conquest. Furthermore, the West is now being forced to admit that a significant portion of its comfort and wealth has been reliant on the 'jungle':