"I would like to say that yes, not everything is going as fast as we would like… But we are going towards our goal step by step and victory will be for us."
Viktor Zolotov, chief of Russia's national guard and a member of Putin's security council in comments posted on the National Guard's website.
“This is a terror that Europe has not seen for 80 years, and we are asking for our life for an answer to this terror from the whole world. Is this a lot to ask for, to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to save people? Is this too much to ask? Humanitarian, no-fly zone, something that Russia will not be able to terrorize our free cities. If this is too much to ask, we offer an alternative. You know what kind of defense systems we need, S-300 and other similar systems. You know how much depends on the battlefield, on the ability to use aircraft, powerful, strong aviation to protect our people, our freedom, our land.”
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in his virtual address to Congress on March 16th.
Zolotov explained that Russian soldiers were very sensitive to protecting civilians, but they faced what he called far-right Ukrainian forces hiding behind civilians. According to the March 14th Reuters, “Zolotov has been at Putin's side since before the turn of the century, running the Kremlin leader's personal security for 13 years. Since 2016 he has headed up the National Guard force, which reports directly to Putin and has deployed troops in Ukraine… His comments, made at a church service led by Orthodox Patriarch Kirill on Sunday [3/13], deviated from those of the Kremlin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu who say Russia's operation in Ukraine will be completed on time and in full.”
While Zelensky’s address above didn’t produce his “close the skies” no-fly zone or those Russian MIGs in NATO hands, he did get drones and more sophisticated missile systems, capable of taking out aircraft and ground targets plus sanctions against a wider array of Russian officials. Expedited.
The majority of Russians still believe the state-supplied propaganda and nothing else. Eyewitness Russians on the ground in Ukraine, telephoning their own families in Russia to tell of attacks on civilians, have faced angry responses that such observations are lies. Yet one of war’s most basic truisms is that it never goes as planned. The minute actual combat begins, the most detailed military strategies and the finest military intelligence almost always demand an instant reset, often from the ground up. Events simply spiral out of control.
And when that entire intention to attack, invade and conquer goes dramatically awry, when a demonic and unhinged megalomaniac faces a direct and immediate contradiction of his powerful flex of military might, that deep and astounding humiliation is truly bad news for those under attack. Those with deep and abiding autocratic tendences, surrounded by adoring and fearful sycophants or subordinates, fiercely believe that the are never wrong, that they can never lose. Whatever minimal moral principles may remain are cancelled. Whether it is denying the results of an election or facing a much longer, drawn out conflict with massive casualties to one’s own forces, the ends justify the means… no matter the damage. No matter the consequences. Anything goes! Double down!
We know that Putin has extended Russia’s attacks close to the Polish border, where NATO and other supplies are pouring in. While he believes that NATO has crossed a red line by sending sophisticated offensive and defensive military weapons to Ukraine, it has not led to an attack of any NATO state from which weapons are transshipped. Indeed, Putin has accepted even greater support, a full military staging area, from neighboring Belarus and according to our intelligence services, has requested military and financial aid from China.
President Biden has held back on supplying NATO-owned, Russian-built fighters to Ukraine. While he is shipping drones, defensive and offensive missile systems, tank and aircraft killers, small arms and vastly larger weapons, he has pledged that no US soldiers, sailors or airmen will cross into Ukraine in support of their defense. He has maintained that only a direct assault on a NATO or mutual-defensive-nation-under-treaty would cause the United States to commit our forces to the fight. He shudders under that nuclear feared MAD assumption (mutually assured destruction). Russia has the same launch-layers as do we; a multi-level system is required to trigger a nuclear launch. Many believe that no Russian commander would follow an order that would inevitably kill Russia and almost everyone living there. “Believe.” But that fear addresses strategic nuclear weapons, mega indiscriminate warheads, not smaller, concentrated tactical nukes that inflict vastly more limited and targeted damage… or, more likely, biological and chemical weapons.
But given the reality of an unhinged madman, with suggestions (via false flag propaganda) that Putin will use whatever it takes including chemical weapons, pulling out all the stops to crush Ukraine, can the West seriously sidestep direct involvement? Writing for the March 14th Los Angeles Times, Nicholas Goldberg makes a deep dive into the reality and fiction of escalation: “[Frankly], it’s not so difficult to see that promise [of no direct NATO involvement] being swept aside in the face of unexpected pressures and changing circumstances. It’s not hard to imagine the war in Ukraine careening off in ever more dangerous directions.
“Among the wars that have escalated in unanticipated ways are the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, both world wars, Korea and Vietnam, according to one Rand study… During World War I, for instance, Germany’s plan to invade France required it to invade Belgium as well, which triggered treaty-bound Britain’s entry into the conflict in August 1914… In World War II, a group of German bombers accidentally attacked London in August 1940. In retaliation, the Royal Air Force launched its first raid against Berlin, which in turn contributed to the German decision to begin the Blitz, the concerted bombing campaign of 1940-41.
“That’s how escalation works… Sometimes it is intentional, according to military strategists. One side purposely heightens the conflict because it calculates that the price it will pay is worth it… Sometimes it is inadvertent, as some say was the case in the invasion of Belgium, which came at a time when the Germans were eager to keep Britain out of the war… And in some cases it is purely accidental. An errant plane mistakenly flies into enemy airspace and is shot down, triggering a new phase of the conflict. Or faulty intelligence results in a bomb falling on the wrong target — a civilian neighborhood, say — prompting a strong response.
“In Ukraine, barring some kind of negotiated solution, it is Russian President Vladimir Putin who is most likely to take things to the next level. He could do so by invading a nearby non-NATO country such as Moldova. Or he could begin using chemical, biological or — heaven forbid — even more dangerous weapons… Putin’s unpredictable nature, his supposed sense of grievance at Russia’s treatment by the West and his conviction that brutal military force can work to his advantage — all these make escalation on his part more likely… And it is even more likely still if he feels backed into a corner or like he’s losing the war or that his grip on power is threatened…
“As for Biden and his European allies, they have made it clear over and over that the last thing they want is a direct military confrontation with the Russians, and that they don’t intend to be sucked in. But can they really assure us they won’t be?... So far, the Biden administration and its allies have adamantly opposed creating a no-fly zone over Ukraine. They recognize that it would be tantamount to war, requiring them to shoot down Russian planes that violate it. ‘What we’re trying to do is end this war in Ukraine, not start a larger one,’ said Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken [in early March].” It going to get worse. And we’re dealing with a madman. What is our red line? And how close are we to crossing it? What’s the trigger? The leveling of Kyiv? Chemical weapons? Invading Moldova, a tiny nation on Ukraine’s border. Or non-mutual defense treaty, non-NATO Finland or Sweden? Or…
I’m Peter Dekom, and the best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray.
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