Ukraine Russia war: A view of a car destroyed by recent shelling in Kyiv outskirts. (AFP Photo)
If there is no breakthrough in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin is staring at a United States-backed insurgency and resurgent neo-Nazis in Ukraine. Putin would have hoped to wrest a quick victory, and not get into a major ground offensive that would cause mass civilian casualties, and reveal his military fighting hand.
Ukrainians slowing the Russian advance and the inability of the Russian Air Force to achieve complete air superiority wouldn’t bother Russia since doing that would have been triggering an angry anti-occupation insurgency that the “CIA (covertly) and Pentagon (overtly)” plans to finance, train, and arm. This also includes providing training and refuge in Poland and Romania for ‘insurgents to slip in and out of Ukraine.’ Former Ukrainian Defence Minister Andriy P Zagorodnyuk’s op-ed in the Atlantic Council reads like an insurgency manual when it suggests “combining serving military units with combat veterans, reservists, territorial defence units (to attack) Russian forces and its lines of supply.”
What it would also do is to reveal how Russia would fight a conventional war when a long drawn anti-insurgency campaign forces it to bring its full military resources to bear. That it is yet to happen seem to disappoint Pentagon officials who’ve doubted whether the ‘full scope’ of Russia’s capabilities have come into play.
Russian defence ministry officials maintain only “surgically striking and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure.” Ukrainian defence ministry reported on February 24 over “30 ‘Kalibr’ cruise missiles, multiple launch rocket systems and aircraft” in a classic long range fires strike at greater standoff ranges.
Social media shows people leaving for European countries but without the chaos amidst dropping bombs and urban devastation witnessed in Iraq, Syria, or Libya. In fact, many show abandoned Russian military hardware owing to fuel shortages, poor logistics, and basic mistakes of small unit tactics in urban warfare. Former US Marine Corps officer Rob Lee attributed this to Russia’s “restrained strategy that allowed the Ukrainian military to gain advantage.” A military baptised in heavy urban warfare from the revolutions to Syria making rookie mistakes should make one think about its goals rather than its capability. If the goal is coercion, it is working as the Ukrainian leadership has still not rejected talks.
Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’ is not intended to ‘occupy’ Ukraine, but its ‘demilitarisation’ and ‘de-Nazification’ – meaning defanging the Ukrainian military’s ability to mount offensives or threaten the breakaway Donetsk/Lugansk People’s Republics. Then extracting a guarantee that Ukraine would not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or at least announce its neutrality would be the next step.
Besides the deep civilisational and cultural links with Ukraine, Russia would also be alienating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself – a Russian-speaking Jew from eastern Ukraine who’s 2019 mandate of 73 percent votes was attained by promising to mend fences with Russia. It was after taking office that he became beholden to the far-Right, ethno-nationalist, and neo-Nazi outfits who oppose any reconciliation with Donetsk, Lugansk, or Russia.
The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion is a unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces while parties like the Svoboda commemorate Ukrainian Nazi leader Stepan Bandera. Azov has itself released videos of interacting with NATO advisers. They were once upon a time being trained by US engineers and receiving US military hardware. Accusing “American advisors (of) coordinating operations of neo-Nazi groups,” Putin’s army vanquishing them also gives Zelenskyy political space to engage in a diplomatic track with Russia. Amidst what looks like German rearmament with Chancellor Olaf Scholz announcing a 100 euro billion defence budget and sending Ukraine anti-tank weapons, to defend Deutschland’s “freedom and security…from Putin’s aggression” has raised the hackles in Moscow.
Zelenskyy’s bitter outburst on February 28 about “(Ukrainians)…left alone to defend (their) state” and that “everyone is afraid to fight alongside us and guarantee NATO membership,” indicated his disaffection with the US and Europe. His subsequent outreach to Moscow saying he was “not afraid” of talks on security guarantees and neutral status with Russia,” was instantly reciprocated by Moscow pausing military operations. Action was ordered to resume after Ukraine reportedly rejected the venue for the negotiations, insisting on Warsaw (Poland) instead of Minsk (Belarus).
The US State Department spokesperson Ned Price seems to be discouraging the talks, wondering how “diplomacy can succeed under these conditions.” The Ron Paul Institute meanwhile claims that the US is urging Zelenskyy to hold off for a few more days so that the narrative can shift to “Putin is slaughtering civilians”. Putin’s order to keep Russian strategic nuclear forces on alert indicates he wants the US to back off. For now it seems that only the US backing down or Ukraine burying the hatchet with Russia will prevent further escalation in this conflict.
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