A Russian Perspective On The State Of The War

First of all a hat tip to Friend George, who pointed me to this interview-article. I’m not in a position to vouch for how representative the views expressed actually are, but the overall viewpoint is conceptually well thought out.

You will note two things. First of all, there is a consistent focus on political developments within the US. Russia, from this perspective, is keeping a close eye on US politics because Russia prefers a global and negotiated settlement to a settlement reached exclusively on the battlefield. Second, a characteristically Russian preoccupation with the role of Poland. Here, the interviewee keeps that preoccupation within what I consider reasonable bounds. Like me, he regards Poland as a pawn, not a power player in its own right.

I’ve added a few links, but I’ve also appended a section from Wikipedia on the Congress of Berlin (1878) which I believe will be of great interest to readers. The interviewee brings the subject up, and it’s key for understanding the Russian point of view.

Let me interject here a tweet that could be a preview of escalations to come—fit it into this perspective:

-- GEROMAN -- time will tell -

-- reposted

Victor vicktop55

@vicktop55

Announcement of Germany's entry into the war with Russia. In this video, Spiegel's experts brag about the capabilities of the TAURUS rocket. Its application will unequivocally Germany's entry into the war. The authors of this video, without realizing it, confirm this. Almost half a ton of explosive in a high-speed missile that is capable of flying at ultra-low altitudes, adapting to the terrain, while remaining invisible to radars, is not a defense, but a strike force. If this falls into the hands of the Ukrainian military commanders, they will not resist the temptation to direct these missiles at civilian targets in cities. So far, the German government has not made a decision, but this may happen in the very near future. https://t.me/vicktop55/16547

2:48 AM · Aug 20, 2023

The comments under the tweet make for some interesting reading. Here’s a more extended comment:

Hypocrites-B-Gon

@GHeckler67

German chicken hawks are having the best time of their lives right now. Even old WW2 Nazi veterans are invited to the media to go off on the "bad Russians". Comments under German MSM articles look like they are from 1941.

No shame at all anymore.

Other comments suggests that this war will end in Berlin—again.

Daniyar Ashimbaev: If Russia defeats the Armed Forces of Ukraine and takes Lviv before November 2024, the world will face a catastrophe

Kirill Kurbatov

author of Ukraina.ru

Russia's fighting in Ukraine last year was tied to congressional elections. Moscow expected that the balance of power in America would change somewhat, but no one achieved decisive success. The fighting is now tied to the 2024 presidential election. If "Biden" remains in power, the fighting will drag on even further. If "Trump" wins, it will be possible to conduct a constructive dialogue with him, Kazakh political scientist Daniyar Ashimbaev believes.

He spoke about this in an interview with Ukraina.ru.

- Daniyar, you wrote in your TG that now Russia is able to defeat the Armed Forces of Ukraine in two months and reach Lviv, but this could provoke a military conflict with NATO, so Moscow is forced to prolong the conflict. Why did you come to this conclusion?

- During the NWO, Russia has changed its strategy several times. Moscow retreated from the original blitzkrieg plan and switched to a long-term positional war, because it miscalculated the potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the reaction of the West. But then it turned out that Western sanctions not only do not harm Russia, but also provide an opportunity to carry out modernization, which has not been for many years. The mass migration of the liberal public, the active work of the military-industrial complex, the restructuring of the army administration allowed the Russian Federation to reboot its political system.

Academician Glazyev once said that in Russia there is the necessary human, scientific and resource potential for development, but there was a hole in this whole scheme in the form of an interbank currency exchange, when all earned capital flowed to the West. Now the West itself has closed this channel for the outflow of funds - it has done what the Russian authorities failed to do for a long time.

Yes, it was clear that the supply of Western weapons would increase. But, judging by the salad from NATO tanks (you don’t have to be a military expert to understand that it is impossible to ensure their unified supply, repair and training of crews), the failed “counterattack” and huge corruption (equipment ends up in third countries, and money flows back to suppliers through offshore schemes), we see that the military potential of Kiev is more represented in the PR sphere.

At the same time, there is no understanding of Russia's position in the West either. Europe, on the other hand, is receiving huge damage from the sanctions war, a huge amount of funds are flowing into the black hole called Ukraine, but they don’t want to make adequate decisions there. They do not even try to start negotiations on a temporary truce with the fixation of the front line. While Russia periodically offers to start peace talks, no such proposals have been made by the West. They are still trying to defeat Russia by military means.

China is a difficult partner, on which we should not fully rely. There has not yet been a decision to challenge the West, as Russia did, and become a world leader. But with regard to countering AUKUS and Japan, Beijing will help us.

Russia, in turn, can quickly win in Ukraine by bombing the bridges across the Dnieper, conducting more active operations and establishing an uninterrupted supply of its troops. But we remember from history that as soon as Russia began to win in the western direction, Europe and the United States immediately consolidated against it. I mean the Berlin Congress after the end of the Russian-Turkish war in 1878 and the increase in pressure on the USSR after the end of the Great Patriotic War. Now a quick victory for Russia, evident from military and economic factors, could also lead to a sharp escalation of relations with NATO.

At the head of the United States are figures whose professionalism and mental health raise big questions ( Kamala Harris and Joe Biden ), and this is fraught with the most unpredictable consequences. There is no point in talking to the leaders of Germany, Great Britain and France either. There is no force capable of constructive dialogue in the West.

I repeat, the Russian leadership is well aware that it is possible to win, but it is also possible to run into an inadequate reaction from the West, which can use weapons of mass destruction.

Therefore, Moscow prefers to calmly grind the personnel of the Ukrainian army and NATO equipment, taking advantage of the fact that the sanctions war gave Russia unexpectedly many advantages, and waiting for sane politicians to come to power in the United States with whom they can conduct a constructive dialogue about the post-war order of the world.

- Wouldn't it turn out that if the NWO drags on indefinitely, then the West will prepare its army for a land war with Russia, considering that it is too weak?

- Neither Russia nor the West has and will not have sufficient potential to wage a land war. Both sides are trying not to cross the line, sorting out relations exclusively on the Russian-Ukrainian front. And even in Ukraine, despite the huge length of the front, there are much fewer forces than it was during the Great Patriotic War in these same places.

Russia does not carry out a new mobilization, realizing that the population will not withstand such a load (the flow of relocators to Kazakhstan confirms this once again). The NATO army is also not ready for a positional war with a stretched front line and head-on clashes. Because the West has been preparing for local wars and pinpoint operations for the past 30 years.

Therefore, everyone understands that a direct clash between Russia and NATO cannot be cold. Sooner or later, the question of the use of nuclear weapons will arise. Tactical or strategic, it doesn't matter.

Russia can reach not only Lvov, but also Warsaw. But this is already crossing the "red lines" for the West, which can use nuclear weapons, because it does not have a land advantage in the European theater of operations (theatre). Nobody wants World War III.

- And the potential of Poland, which plans to increase the army to 350 thousand people, is not enough for a land war?

- We don't know many wars won by Poland or even France.

At the same time, Poland has growing ambitions that far exceed its capabilities. Warsaw was offered many times to take Galicia to leave in peace, but the projects of the Pilsudski era for the Polish leadership are not dreams, but a concrete image of the future. Warsaw will not be satisfied with Lviv, because it has far-reaching plans.

But these plans do not particularly fit into the plans of her allies. The European Union has a lot of conflict zones, which have recently reappeared. In addition, the Polish population, like the population of the GDR/FRG in its time, understands that in the event of the outbreak of the Third World War, it is their territory that will turn out to be a war zone. Given the growing number of armaments from all sides, there will be nothing left of Poland.

Therefore, Warsaw will try to exert maximum political pressure in order to achieve concessions from both the West and the East. But neither the European Union nor the United States are ready to fully pay for its Wishlist. Like the Ukrainian ones.

- What ideal reorganization of the world would Russia like to see?

- Russia is not going to return to the times of the USSR, which was in constant confrontation with the West. It does not need to return the planned economy and nationalize the enterprises of hostile states on its territory. Moscow would like to live according to the model of the Russian Empire of the late 19th century - state capitalism and integration into the world economy only on its own terms. The Kremlin sent these signals both before and after the start of the NWO.

But the West is not ready to go for it. They intend to finally resolve the Russian issue with the military defeat of the RF Armed Forces and the change of the Russian political leadership. At the same time, the West cannot defeat Russia on the Ukrainian front without moving on to World War III.

The situation is complicated by the fact that new lines of confrontation are emerging in Africa or Taiwan.

At the same time, a large number of countries dissatisfied with the Western model are now raising their heads. Pax-Americana is bursting at the seams. But the West is not ready to make a decision that would allow American leadership to be preserved on a limited scale (which many would not argue with if this meant the existence of mutual compromises and firm bilateral guarantees).

Only Trump showed such readiness.

Moreover, NWO is a conflict between Russia and the West, which all countries use in their own interests. We see this especially well in Turkey. And if Russia manages to solve all its strategic tasks in Ukraine, this will seriously affect the geopolitical situation. And even those countries that are considered Russia's allies are not interested in its excessive strengthening.

Therefore, Russia has to go on prolonging the conflict, taking advantage of the side effects brought to it by the NWO. And this situation is becoming more and more beneficial to more and more people and countries.

- In other words, Russia is waiting for a conditional Trump to come to power in the West?

- Yes. Or until the West enters into negotiations, taking into account the Russian position. Until then, Moscow can manage this war as it wants. We remember the year before last Lavrov's memorandum on strategic neutrality in Europe, which ensures the interests of all countries, not just the United States. Moscow will not agree to negotiations on other terms.

- And what will happen if this "Trump" never comes to power?

- At the beginning of the NMD, Russia wanted to bring the fighting to the Dnieper, in order to then return certain territories to Ukraine in exchange for consolidating the status quo. But now such a scenario is unacceptable for Moscow. Crimea, Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye are territories that Russia considers its own.

Theoretically, we can talk about the division of Ukraine or its confederal structure. But such scenarios are not really spelled out yet, because there are too many variables. The decision will be made on a case-by-case basis.

So far, I see the situation as follows.

Russia's withdrawal from the Kharkov and Kherson regions caused panic in Russia, but Moscow mobilized and the front was stabilized. Then there was the successful capture of Artemovsk, the "counterattack" got bogged down, and the situation became quite manageable.

Now Russia can move the front in any direction. It keeps the border near the Dnieper on the periphery and regulates the supply of especially dangerous Western equipment, inflicting pinpoint strikes on deep rear areas and destroying communications.

It seems to me that Russia's last year's fighting was tied to congressional elections. Moscow expected that the balance of power in America would change somewhat, but no one achieved decisive success. The fighting is now tied to the 2024 presidential election. If "Biden" remains in power, the fighting will continue to drag on. If "Trump" wins, it will be possible to have a constructive dialogue with him.

Here we append Wikipedia information about the Congress of Berlin (1878). The Russian historical timeline perspective leading up to the Congress of Berlin runs something like this. Having shaken off the Tatar Yoke, the Russians next had to deal with Polish and Swedish dreams of empire among the East Slavs. The Swedish Drang nach Osten actually began in the 13th century but met its Waterloo—so to speak—deep in the eastern Ukraine at Poltava. This was followed by the Napoleonic invasion. Shortly afterwards, as the Russians pushed the Turks and Tatars out of Ukraine, Britain and France—preferring the Christians of Eastern Europe to remain subject to the Ottomans—launched the Crimean War against Russia. Russia came back from that defeat to launch the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) that liberated Romania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Serbia. That brings us up to the Congress of Berlin. I really recommend the entire article, but this will do for our purposes. What will jump out at you is that “fear of Russian influence” was largely a matter of protecting Western colonial ambitions and keeping the Slavs down—if that meant brutal domination by the Ottoman Turks that was no concern of the French and British:

Other powers' fear of Russian influence

The principal mission of the participants at the Congress was to deal a fatal blow to the burgeoning movement of pan-Slavism. The movement caused serious concern in Berlin and even more so in Vienna, which was afraid that the repressed Slavic nationalities would revolt against the Habsburgs. The British and the French governments were nervous about both the diminishing influence of the Ottoman Empire and the cultural expansion of Russia to the south, where both Britain and France were poised to colonise Egypt and Palestine. By the Treaty of San Stefano, the Russians, led by Chancellor Alexander Gorchakov, had managed to create in Bulgaria an autonomous principality, under the nominal rule of the Ottoman Empire.

That sparked the Great Game, the massive British fear of the growing Russian influence in the Middle East. The new principality, including a very large portion of Macedonia as well as access to the Aegean Sea, could easily threaten the Dardanelles Straits, which separate the Black Sea from the Mediterranean Sea.

The arrangement was not acceptable to the British, who considered the entire Mediterranean to be a British sphere of influence and saw any Russian attempt to gain access there as a grave threat to British power. On 4 June, before the Congress opened on 13 June, British Prime Minister Lord Beaconsfield had already concluded the Cyprus Convention, a secret alliance with the Ottomans against Russia in which Britain was allowed to occupy the strategically-placed island of Cyprus. The agreement predetermined Beaconsfield's position during the Congress and led him to issue threats to unleash a war against Russia if it did not comply with Ottoman demands.

Negotiations between Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Andrássy and British Foreign Secretary Marquess of Salisbury had already "ended on 6 June by Britain agreeing to all the Austrian proposals relative to Bosnia-Herzegovina about to come before the congress while Austria would support British demands".^[15]

Not long afterwards came the 20th century, with two wars that devastated Russia and brought America in as junior partner in empire to the British Crown. This is not a defense of every aspect of Russian history, but it is essential background for understanding what’s going on today. How many Americans have a clue? Not many.