Mercouris: Ukrainian Collapse On The Horizon
Every credible military analyst maintains that the collapse of an army, when it occurs, typically occurs suddenly. The morale of the men on the front can no longer be sustained and resistance simply evaporates over night. Doug Macgregor and Danny Davis have been sounding more and more certain that a moment of that sort is approaching in Ukraine. The Russian advance is picking up pace, Ukrainian casualties are at unsustainable levels. Russia appears now to be enforcing a no-fly zone over the Black Sea, which means targeting of Russian positions is increasingly haphazard at best—the NATO supplied weapons systems rely not only on NATO crews but on NATO ISR mediated through those drones.
Today, at the very end of a lengthy video (beginning about 1:12:00), Alexander Mercouris addressed this situation in the context of the NATO self congratulation fest currently being held in the Imperial City on the Potomac.
Macron Chaos France Hung Parliament: Rus Strike Rocks Kiev, Rus Takes More Key Villages, NATO Denial
Alexander had been providing a sitrep, discussing the rapid Russian advances in obscure towns and villages. But then he moved on to the last topic above: NATO Denialism even as the prospect of a complete Ukrainian collapse is appearing on the horizon:
None of [these villages] are bigname places but, if we look at these villages as pieces on the board, they are important pieces in themselves and the Russians are scooping them up at an ever faster pace. Increasingly, Ukrainian defenses are starting to look like they're losing strategic depth.
I discussed the NATO Summit meeting before and I said that the Western Powers seem to be determined to lock in support for Ukraine, disregarding whatever Donald Trump might say or think or do when he is elected president--if he is elected president of the United States in November. What the West is doing is, it is depriving itself of maneuver room—of freedom of action—immediately prior to the collapse that is now starting to appear over the horizon. I've said in previous programs that I don't think many people in the West fully understand how brittle the situation for Ukraine has started to become, how the situation in Ukraine is now increasingly acquiring the the quality of a prospective collapse by the Ukrainian military--perhaps even sooner than anyone expects. It's not impossible that, even as the West strategizes on how to continue the war, they will find that they're facing a sudden collapse on their hands and that they have done nothing at all to prepare for it.
But there we are. As Yves Smith once correctly said, the West spends so much time discussing things with itself that it loses sight of the thinking and actions of the other side. She was talking about negotiation strategies. The West negotiates with itself about what proposal to put to the other side but it doesn't consider whether or not the other side is going to be interested in accepting this proposal. The West is making the same mistake in terms of its military strategies and political strategies. It is a year behind actual developments in the war.
We will see how the West does react to a sudden collapse in Ukraine--a collapse which, in my opinion, all the signs are that it is coming, and coming faster than I think pretty much anyone in government in the West expects.
I liked that part about how the West is making the same mistake in both military and political strategies. What has always been so striking since this war on Russia began—and you can go back to the beginning of the Russia Hoax, the hoax assassinations in the UK, and so forth—is the revelation of the Globalist West’s Manichaean worldview of both politics and warfare. The similarity of rhetoric is remarkable. It’s always a struggle of absolute good against absolute evil—there is no room for discussion, for trying to understand the other side. Not at all coincidentally, the same is true of the Zionist vision of their genocide in the Middle East—the other side is absolute evil, there’s no point in discussing history, the only way to deal with The Other is to exterminate them.
Think about it. Trump is literally Hitler. Paradoxically, so is Putin—identical twins. There is no room for understanding. One must be jailed, the other eliminated. The war we started against Russia is existential—if we hadn’t started the war Putin would have invaded Europe (never mind Intel Comminity assessments to the contrary). The election is one to Save Our Democracy—but, wait, who was it that staged the military occupation of DC? Now it’s Trump who will make himself dictator if he wins. It’s all of a piece. An hysterical, Neo-gnostic/Manichaean psychosis.
We’re at a dangerous point in time—a psychotic empire facing defeat could well lash out irrationally. I think Putin realizes this, and that this realization explains both his resolve as well as his cautious conduct.
In the same vein, J6. Everything we've learned over four years raises serious questions about it having been a staged event.
Trump will make himself a dictator? Who staged a military occupation of DC for several months?
First, an explanation. We had a power outage last night and didn't get power back until 10:30am--so I'm playing catchup today.
Regarding comparisons of the current war to WWII on the Eastern Front ...
In fact, during WWII their were plenty of instances of collapse--on both sides. The differences between then and now ...
The Russians ended up falling back into a vast country with intact manufacturing and vast human resources. They took terrible losses, but the war was largely lost for Germany by 1942.
The German military leadership were masters of tactical defense, as they showed time after time. However, the Russians achieved breakthroughs that led to collapses of the German defensive lines and withdrawals over vast territories. Operation Bagration is only one example.
IOW, both the German and Russians--when either side was on defense--were able to trade area in large amounts to maintain cohesion. Each side also, on offense, at times had to rest and regroup before resuming the offense.
In Ukraine today the Ukrainian military is being destroyed largely in place--in their fortified front lines. If the Russians eventually force a large scale collapse Ukraine has no heartland to fall back to that offers either an intact manufacturing base and energy/transport infrastructure (even Germany maintained much of that until virtually the end) and lacks trained manpower.
The other factors make all this worse--morale is collapsing not only because of casualties but because of bad leadership, large elements of ethnic kinship and history, corrupt government.