When you look at it calmly, dispassionately, and with an eye towards history, what Vladimir Putin is trying to pull here is nothing new. Only the fact that he’s doing it ass backward. And then he wonders why it’s not working out so well.
Much ado was made about the fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t even at the summit in Alaska whose sole purpose was to try to stop the fighting raging in his home country as a result of naked Russian aggression. There is a good reason for this.
In 1937 and 1938 Hitler was on the rise, but not yet powerful enough to directly risk provoking a general European conflict. But he also knew that the two largest peace guarantors of Europe, France and
England were weak, with weak leaders, so he conned them.
He made huge land grabs for parts of Austria and Czechoslovakia which he claimed were historically Germanic lands, and massed troops at the borders one at a time threatening to invade. In each case, England and France negotiated with Hitler without the leaders of their peace treaty partners even being in the room, and in both cases sold them out, basically allowing Hitler to annex the two countries in stages.
That was the whole purpose of yesterday’s Alaska summit, at least from Putin’s point of view, and it was a miserable failure. Putin was hoping to get El Pendejo Presidente to agree with him that it was just and reasonable for Putin to get to keep all of the territory he has gained so far, and in fact annex Ukrainian land he hasn’t even taken, which, along with Ukraine giving back the 900 miles of Russian land they now hold, would bring a cease fire and guarantees of non aggression from Russia. Trump was then to pressure to either sign the agreement, or have the US pull its support, and leave Ukraine in the lurch. Traitor Tot did no such thing, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. For the simple reason that Putin’s dark little secret is out, because he reversed Hitlers strategy.
Hitler already knew that neither England nor France had the balls or the stomach for the fight to go to war over Austria and/or Czechoslovakia. So he threatened war, put on a show, and let England and France take the chickensh*t way out by basically telling their allies to suck it up and cease existing.
But in this case, Putin’s macho ego had him actually invading Ukraine. And he did so already knowing that Neither the US nor NATO were pledged to hump into the fight because Ukraine isn’t a NATO member. His gravest error was in thinking that the US and NATO would blindly stand by and watch it happen, instead of pumping billions of dollars in arms and supplies into Ukraine.
Here’s Putin’s dirty little secret. Putin. can’t. win. He is in year three of his campaign. If he were going to win, he would have done it long ago, probably in the first six weeks if his general’s hadn’t been such complete morons. And if Ukraine was going to collapse under the Russian pressure, it would have done so long ago. Putin desperately needs this face saving peace deal, and he needs it soonest, for the simple reason that things are only going to get worse for him.
Here’s why. When Putin started his war, he began with more than 1.5 million men opposing a Ukrainian force less than half that size. But Putin’s troops were largely untrained conscripts, while Ukraine’s soldiers were battle tested, having been fighting constantly in Crimea as well as the contested regions for a decade now. Also, Putin wasted his manpower by throwing them around like tin soldiers, while Ukraine wisely refused to get sucked into a major battle that could decide the conflict. And Putin desperately needs a face saving peace right now, because the tide has turned against him, but it’s an undertow, swirling beneath the surface.
Let’s look at some simple facts, shall we? Putin’s numerical advantage in manpower is long gone. He’s reduced to having to keep holding drafts, while any Russian men of fighting age who haven’t already fled the country are breaking their own arms and legs to make them ineligible for the draft. And Putin’s prisoner swaps benefit the Ukrainians, since their returnees can’t wait to get back in the fight, while the Russian returnees would rather throw their arms down and surrender again rather than die for a pipe dream,.
But Putin’s real peril is in the equipment gap. Putin screwed himself when he waited an agonizing three weeks to start the campaign so as not to offend China by stepping on their Olympics in the media. By the time he actually stated, the spring thaw was underway, and much of the Russian heavy equipment bogged down into the soft wet earth, abandoned by the Russian crews, and gleefully reclaimed, repainted, and put into action by the Ukrainians.
And now Putin is down to basically garage sale shopping. Combing through laagers of tanks, trucks, and half tracks that haven’t even been started up since the end of the Cold War. And since the international embargo made it impossible for him to get the chips he needed to replace his precision missiles and bombs, he’s reduced to using hand me down drones and SCUD missiles from North Korea and Iran. Along with whatever guns and ammunition they’ll send him.
Now, Zelenskyy is like a kid’s first Christmas after his Dad won the lotto. With the US and NATO, he has Santa’s with Alzheimer’s, so Christmas keeps coming almost every day. His biggest problem right now is the lag time for US and German advisors to train the Ukrainian crews on the new, advanced systems before they take them into combat.
Putin needs peace, and he needs it now! Ukraine has already stabilized the lines and stopped any Russian advances. And the third rate junk Putin is now reduced to fighting with will not be well suited for a long winter fight. By the time next spring rolls around, Ukaraine will likely use their spring offensive to start retaking land held by the Russians. And when that happens, there is no longer any reason for Zelenskyy to give Putin a goddamned thing other than the back of the door in his ass on the way out.
That is what Putin was desperate to get from this summit, to use his useful idiot to bail him out by forcing Ukraine to accept a sh*tty peace deal that lets Putin save face. By all appearances it didn’t work. But even if it did, it wouldn’t matter.
Because if I can read these tea leaves, then so can the leaders and military men of NATO, and so can Zelenskyy. And even if Traitor Tot cuts off US military support, it wouldn’t matter. The leaders of NATO would do whatever they had to do to make up the shortfall, give til it hurts. Because with Ukraine, they see the chance for a dominating victory that once and for all puts the Russian Bear into a cage from which it can never again escape to threaten them. And you know what? Somehow or other, I cannot envision Trump or the politicians in the US not wanting to grab their share of the glory for the mammoth victory. Ukraine will get what it needs. Simply because Traitor Tot has no time or sympathy for LOSERS.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
What a well written article and history lesson thank you.
oh I sure hope you’re right 👍
just an excellent read!
Trump doesn’t have a clue. The fact is, he can’t give one inch of Ukrainian land to Putin, for the simple reason that Ukraine isn’t his. It belongs to the Ukrainians. “Nemo dat quod non habet.”
Ukrainians want this to be over. However not on Putin’s terms. And here’s the thing the former KGB Analyst Putin and the average Russian has never gotten. Most Ukrainians HATE them and Russia. That hatred goes back over hundred years of Russia screwing with their country and the horrors they visited upon Ukrainians Except for collaborators who since Russia’s puppet govt. fled the country who decided to lay low you won’t find Ukrainian who doesn’t hate Russia.
More importantly as you said while they had a small army when Putin invaded they had a LARGE cadre of Reserves who had been “blooded” fighting in those eastern parts of Ukraine Russia took over back in 2014. Instead of fleeing, accepting a NATO offer to try and salvage things from afar Zelensky stayed put and publicly so. At great risk to himself with Russians or sympathisers hoping for a new Russian puppet govt. trying to assassinate him. His example got other politicians to stay and what troops he did have at the ready kept Russia from seizing the airport at Kyiv. Everyone knows what happened with Russia getting bottled up on that highway of death down from Belarus. Within a week Reserves were reporting in and in another week they’d be organized and sent to mount an effective stalling campaign.
And of course there was Zelensky’s famous don’t send me a plane, send me weapons thing. No matter how long it would take to finally have it be over that was Russia LOSING right then and there. Ukraine would and continues to pay a terrible price but even if Trump had completely capitulated there are hundreds of thousands of trained Ukrainians who will fight an ongoing gurerilla war until Russia, as it did with Afghanistan give up and withdraw.
Putin thinks he knows the people of Ukraine and he doesn’t have a freaking clue. They are fierce and proud and a helluva lot more educated than the Afghans who kicked Russia’s ass during the Cold War. You’re right. Putin needs a win of some sort and within months. As you say even if Trump cuts off all U.S. aid (which Congress and defense contractors won’t let happen) Europe will find a way to make up enough of the difference to keep Ukraine able to fight.
Not-so-minor historical nitpick here, Murf:
“He made huge land grabs for parts of Austria and Czechoslovakia which he claimed were historically Germanic lands, and massed troops at the borders one at a time threatening to invade. In each case, England and France negotiated with Hitler without the leaders of their peace treaty partners even being in the room, and in both cases sold them out, basically allowing Hitler to annex the two countries in stages.”
First off, Hitler annexed Austria completely separately from the Czechoslovakia-Sudetenland issue. Hitler literally marched his troops into Austria in March of 1938 (he had informed military aides about plans for annexing both Austria and bordering regions of Czechoslovakia some 6 months earlier). It was AFTER announcing the “Anschluss” that gave Hitler the impetus for demanding more “protections” for ethnic Germans living in Czechoslovakia, mostly in the adjoining Sudetenland region and, a little more than 6 months later, the British and French governments agreed to concede the Sudetenland to Germany without any conversations with the Czechoslovakian government. Then, about six months after gaining the Sudetenland, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, turning the western regions of Bohemia and Moravia into a “protectorate” (effectively, a military-occupied region) while the eastern region of Slovakia became an “independent” country (though, for all intents and purposes, a German puppet state).