Observations on the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, No. 2

Russian and Eurasian Politics, by GORDONHAHN, March 8, 2023

The Russian Winter Offensive: Steamroller or Blitzkreig

Russia’s late winter offensive is under way. Seemingly unnoticeable, Russia’s forces in Donbass have been gaining steam over the last month and are now moving into high gear. The lack of visibility is relative. Expectations of a Nazi-like blitzkrieg have blinded eyes to the slowly moving steamroller that is now being unleashed. One need only compare a map of the disposition of Russian forces and the front along the Donbass front to see what is happening. [Maps supplied here on original]

In this two month period, Russian forces have taken Soledar and Bakhmut, while deterring a Ukrainian offensive in the north around Kupyansk and advancing on Kupyansk themselves. They have made gains in the battle around Serebranka Forest as well. Russian forces also deterred Ukrainian offensives in the south in Zaporozhe and Kherson. In the latter, Russian forces are inflicting heavily casualties in positional artillery battles across the Dnepr River and may force the Ukrainianians to abandon Kherson city. While advancing on Vugledar (Ugledar) in the southeast, however, their storm of the city failed, and they have been forced to step back and regroup. Ukrainian forces have been successful in blocking Russian advances on the Liman front as well as in Vugledar, inflicting higher numbers of Russian casualties than is usual.

The most important of Russian successes is the encirclement and the inevitable and imminent seizure of Bakhmut/Artyomevsk. There and in the battles surrounding Serebryanka Forest and Kherson in recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have been taking unprecedented casualties and equipment losses, far outstripping those suffered by the Russians.

As the Russian steamroller muscled forward to Bakhmut – a city Russians call ‘Artyomevsk’ – the former’s power was revealed in the preemptive propaganda campaign initiated in Ukraine and parts of the West asserting that Balhmut is of no strategic importance. The campaign revealed not only the propaganda value of any Russian seizure of Bakhmut would have for Moscow, reversing false image of ‘Ukraine is winning’ created by the propaganda victories for Kiev that the Russian withdrawals from – not routs at the hands of Ukrainian forces as the West/Ukraine propaganda claimed or implied – Kharkov (Kharkiv) in the northeast and Kherson in the south. But whereas Kharkov and Kherson have not proved to be strategic victories, Bakhmut’s fall will be. ………………………………………………………………………..

…………….. it is possible that by the end of the year, Russian forces will be in a position to force the Dnepr river, probably increasing the chances of ceasefire, peace, or surrender talks. This, along with any Ukrainian offensive on Crimea or Russian offensive in Zaporozhe and/or Kherson will define the war throughout 2023.

……………………………………………………………………………….. War and Authoritarianization

The war is instigating authoritarianization around the world. In Ukraine, President Volodomyr Zelenskiy has banned all non-nationalist, non-ultranationalist, and non-neofascist opposition political parties. The government has taken over mass media, instituting a de facto censorship regime. More recently, the government has instituted an online monitoring system that will track the websites citizens visit, and should they visit banned Russian and ‘pro-Russian’ sites, they will be arrested and can face imprisonment.

Vigilante groups are allowed to roam the streets in Kiev and all cities, making citizens’ arrests of sorts for alleged crimes and tying the alleged perpetrators to telephone and street light poles and leaving them there for hours in rain and snow, sometimes beating them. Children are being recruited into the army, which is a violation of international law. Oddly, the Western press, academia, and think tank milieu ignores or whitewashes all this. …………………………………………..

This reflects just one way in which the West is further dismantling its liberal republicanism in a misguided effort to lie in order to maintain public support for Ukraine. American media has banned almost all alternative views on the war other than ‘Ukraine is winning’ and Russian and Putin are evil, incompetent losers, deliberately murdering civilians in mass and otherwise committing war crimes as a matter of routine practice and policy.

A virtual gag order has been implemented in the case of the Nord Stream pipeline terrorist attack and other issues. US intelligence is helping Ukraine target attacks on civilian areas in Donbass using American-supplied HIMARS and assisting Ukrainian and Russian anti-Russian terrorists to carry out terrorist attacks and guerrilla activity in Russia.

………………………. One particular trend is the mainstreaming of neofascism across the West, especially in the US and the Baltic states, with Ukraine’s Azov and other neofascist groups and individuals being given positive news coverage, national awards, and visits with the Pope.

But the most deleterious development in American republicanism is the Soviet-like politicization of the law enforcement and intelligence departments. US intelligence and the FBI colludes with High Tech social network sites, like Facebook and Twitter, to censor Americans.

……………………………. In Russia, an already authoritarian system is becoming more so, with state media monopoly, censorship, and punishments for various oppositional articulations on the Internet and society at large being intensified. There is a deepening of the militarization of Russian society, the glorification of war, and mystification of Russia’s military, the State, and national culture, and a growing number of intensely anti-Western expressions, ………………………..

……………………………………Did the US Bait Putin Into War?

It appears increasingly likely that the US baited Putin to invade after he embarked on his strategy of coercive diplomacy by massing troops not far from the Ukrainian border in 2021. Washington ignored the Minsk process, built up the Ukrainian military to NATO level, did nothing to deter the strengthening of neo-fascism in Ukraine or Kiev’s plans to undertake a counteroffensive in Ukraine and Donbass rather than focus on the Minsk process.

Then we have recent revelations over the past year that not only did the US never engage the Minsk process but als the Western parties faked their engagement and the US foiled a ceasefire plan readied by Moscow, Kiev, and Tel Aviv in the first weeks of the war. Zelensky followed similar admissions by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and for French President Francois Hollande to this effect……………………………………………………………….. more https://gordonhahn.com/2023/03/08/observations-on-the-nato-russia-ukrainian-war-no-2/