Let the good times roll

When that rock starts rolling down hill, sometimes there’s just no stopping it. When the actual history of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is written 10 or 20 years from now, long after I’m dirt surfing, it will mark the end of Russia as an aggressive threat to the rest of Europe. It doesn’t really matter who ends up replacing Putin. Putin’s misguided invasion of Ukraine has exposed once vaunted Russian Bear as nothing more than a colicky Koala. As a Texan would say, All hat and no cattle.

Where to start, where to start? Let’s start here. Ukraine not only reported today that the city of Kharkiv had been liberated, they put out video. The city and suburbs are free of Russians. And then they showed a video that brought tears of joy to my eyes. A gaggle of Ukrainian soldiers, their assault weapons harnessed on their chests, literally walked up to the Ukraine-Russia border, stopped on their own side, extended their right hands, and shot birds into Russian territory. Personally, I think they could have wandered a mile in if they had wanted to.

Obviously Putin and the Russian army haven’t learned a goddamn thing. Overnight, at least six long range missiles were fired into Lviv in a misguided effort to terrify the population. I can only guess that Russia must be just about of long range, precision guided surface to surface missiles. Here’s why. Military intelligence estimated that the missiles were fired from Russian submarines in the Black Sea. Why waste seabourne assets if you have land based missiles that can do the same thing?

Military analysis shows that Russia is actually consolidating their troops in the Donbas region, rather than looking to break out, so that they don’t lose total control. Russia’s massive assault to break out of Donbas and head to the south to link up is dead in the water.

A couple of days ago, Finland formally filed an application to join NATO, and today Sweden followed suit. Word is that Norway and Denmark are considering their options. Putin reportedly went on to say that the actions posed no immediate military threat to the homeland, and that Moscow was reviewing appropriate punitive responses.

That is the voice of a total LOSER talking! Putin is completely bogged down in Ukraine, desperately looking to hold on to some land gains in Donbas and the south he can use as chips when he sues for peace. What would be his punitive response? Call up the other leaders and scream and yell at them? Military estimated are that Putin has lost more than 30% of his ground forces in Ukraine. I don’t just mean men, I mean tanks, APC’s, aircraft, helicopters, supply trucks, all the shit that make a modern army run. What is Putin going to do, invade them with the Trotsky Scouts?

This is why I say that Russia is now officially dead as a legitimate ground threat to Europe. Putin can’t even take out Ukraine, and they’re not even NATO members. There are already 30 members of NATO. Take a look at a map of Europe, and look at the NATO members. They were already encircling Russia on 3 sides. And now Finland, who shares an 830 mile border with Russia, and Sweden are all in. Once he backs out of Ukraine, there’s nobody left in Europe for Putin to attack without invoking Article 5.

While neither Finland nor Sweden are NATO members, both are NATO partners. As such, they trade information and common security data with each other. Both have well equipped, modern militaries, and both take part regularly in NATO military exercises. Becoming members of NATO allows NATO to add infrastructure like extended runways to allow for military C-17’s to land, radar facilities, and expanded intelligence sharing capabilities. Denmark and Norway are on deck.

Putin’s sole goal and dream was to reestablish the glory of the former Soviet Union. Invading and annexing Ukraine was the first step. Instead, he has turned Russia into an international pariah, and they will never regain their former stature in the world. Because at the core of it, Russia has nothing to sell except oil and natural gas. And his misguided war with Ukraine has finally motivated Europe to wean off of both. And once they’re gone, they ain’t coming back. Stand up and take a bow, fool! 

 

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5 COMMENTS

  1. Kamil Galeev (who, as I keep saying, is guaranteed to make you 300% smarter about Russia via his Twitter threads) has pointed up a more dire possibility: the end of Russia period. He points up those losses in Ukraine included several folks who otherwise would have stayed home and kept order (one example he used was the entire leadership of SOBR in Vladimir, whose specific focus is organized crime). Not just soldiers dying for nothing but cops, National Guard and all their associated command structures. Enough of them wind up being sunflower fodder, who’s going to hold it altogether?

    Assuming that’s the trend, we could well be looking at the scenario Galeev dubbed “National Divorce”, the total breakup of Russia into smaller polities. Likely, it’ll start as economic isolation (hoarding vital goods for locals with none to give for other regions) but it can snowball into the political from there.

  2. Vlad is now micromanaging the whole thing at the division level. That’s a bad sign – for the Russians. Micromanaging never works out well.

  3. I feel.sorry for those ordinary Russians without access to reliable news revealing the facts if what is happening in Ukraine.
    Putin’s I located attempt in Ukraine has revealed Russia to be a tiger’s but a paper one.
    We still.have China and N.Korea to.worry about. Kim.is dealing with a pandemic with no access to vaccines or antivirals. Maybe we should drop tubes of overheating from.planes.

  4. The Russian Mafia is one of the most feared and consists of elite killer units that don’t care who you are, if you are marked for elimination, time is not a luxury you can enjoy …

    I’m wondering how long Putin can continue to function with ALL the suffering in his close group of oligarchs, losing their big toy boats, (along with his own), access to their cash and a giant fail of ordinary food and sundries supplies caused by whole world sanctions of the most serious type ? …

    The huge loss of metal to the Ukraine, will be seed sources for Ukraine to rebuild their steel industry, tons of cast iron and steel, with little but re-melting to refine into machine tools and agriculture tractors and wagons … the blood loss of the Ukrainian population will be the most costly mistake of ANY Russian leader, EVER …

    To rebuild the Ukraine countryside will take years, and the memory of the butchering of the citizens of Ukraine in the most horrible war crimes will stain everything Russia forever …

    Putin may actually be that dead man walking, maybe not walking for long …

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