How Does it End?
NATO on the Ground in Ukraine
It has been generally agreed by more astute commentators (e.g. Jack Rasmus, whose recent article I summarized earlier this week) that a large proportion of the recently approved US aid package for Ukraine will be used in payments for equipment that has already been sent to Ukraine and may already have been deployed on the battlefields where, as today’s post avers below, Russia continues to make impressive gains west of Bakhmut and Avdiivka (although one should always bear in mind that on a large map these occupy what seems a very modest addition to Russian-controlled territory when taking into account the 150 to 200 kilometers that still separates Russian forces from cities such as Dnipro and Zapporizhzhia). Ukraine’s capacity for causing further trouble for Russian forces should not be underestimated - see below for example, for the details of an upcoming Ukrainian offensive, yet again, in the Krynky area of Kherson which could be a major distraction to Russian forces in the event, say, of a Russian offensive on Kharkiv, or, on the other hand, might just end up as just another meat-grinder to churn up the lives of less experienced and less well supplied Ukrainian troops, whether or not directly aided by NATO military advisers.
Additionally, Lt. Colonel Tony Shaffer, in an interview yesterday with Judge Napolitano, has estimated that there is a ground force of US personnel in Ukraine, in or out of uniform, including contractors, that amounts to 15,000 (by contrast, Matthew Hoh calculates that the number is likely less; Ray McGovern thinks it would include at least 2,000 case officers). Adding this to what may now be quite substantial bodies of foreign personnel, especially British, French, Germany, Israel, but also Poles, Romanians, Lithuanians, and bearing in mind recent statements made by French President Macron, it does not seem to me to be entirely fanciful that there there could be upwards of 50,000 personnel assisting Ukraine on the ground either representing NATO or, more simply, representing countries that have signed separate treatiest with Ukraine and which happen to be members of NATO.
In effect therefore, considering both these forces and the enormous scale of Ukrainian dependence on NATO for weaponry there already exists a direct war between NATO and Russia being fought over Ukraine. It makes no sense whatsover to think that this war is being fought by NATO primarily because NATO is defending the principle that Ukraine should have the right to join NATO. That was the principal Russian concern in the peace negotiations in Istanbul in March and April 2022 that were deliberately sabotaged by NATO representatives. It cannot be that upwards of 600,000 Ukrainian lives have now been spent simply to defend this principle, or that Ukraine, by withdrawing consular services from those of its citizens who fled Ukraine at the beginning of the conflict, is now pursuing 800,000 young men in the hope that by withdrawing their right to renew passports overseas they will be forced home. Of course, many will do everything they can to avoid such a fate, including claiming refugee status or other such measiures. A very large number of those who do find themselves compelled to return to Ukraine will likely die on the battlefields. The Polish prime minister has already said that Poland will do its best to send Ukrainians back to Ukraine.
All because Ukraine wanted to join NATO? In that case, why hasn’t NATO long ago afforded Ukraine actual membership. But it still claims that its rules prohibit that possibility for the time being and while Ukraine is at war, a war which NATO is doing everything it can to support and to perpetuate or, rather, until the US presidential elections in November, so as to avoid the ignominy for the Biden campaign of yet another catastrophic military defeat, following quickly on the heels of the collapse of the US puppet government in Afghanistan. No, of course, as I argued again yesterday, this has nothing to do with Ukraine as such (even if there are Ukrainians who imagine that it does), and everything to do with the desperate shoring up of US hegemony in alliance with the embers of European empires long in decline, in a counterrevolution against the emerging multipolar order and a greedy, dirty, criminal bid by the collective West to destabilize Russia and acquire control over Russian wealth while it also funnels US taxpayer money into the pockets of the shareholders and chief executives of the major US armaments industry.
How will this end? It may end in nuclear annihilation of the species, or (far more preferable) the humiliation of the collective West. The US is doing everything in its power to ensure that there will be a firmer effective alliance between Russia and China. Neither can have the remotest doubt that western elites will never let go of their arrogant, moral superiority (despite the horrors of slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust and the accumulated atrocities of European imperialism) short of their destruction. The arrival in Ukraine of F-16s and ATACMS missiles and, likely in the near future, German Taurus, and the like, will make little difference. Indeed, the arrival of long-range missiles, while making Russian military facilities on the mainland of Russia more vulnerable, will further infuriate the Russian people and consolidate their support behind the Special Military Operation and convince China that there is no blue water between its existential interests and those of Russia. In Blinken’s meeting yesterday with Chinse hosts Xi Jinping and Wang Yi, he and his country were taken to task for not honoring words with actions and in effect were urged to seek mutually beneficial cooperation rather than a diplomacy of lies.
The emptiness, hypocrisy, arrogance, foolishness and fascist instincts of the elites of the collective West are on display in their ever more oppressive enmity towards free speech - even when this free speech is exercised against an ongoing program of genocide in Gaza - their egregious propaganda campaigns, their corruption of both legacy and social media in the interests of official censorship. They have no values other than their own survival. Their behavior radically undermines the claims to what they claim is the intrinsic righteousness of two-party democracy and separation of powers.
The Battlefields
Russian forces continue to exploit their recent victory in Avdiivka, controlling most of the territory to its immediate west from Orlika, down through Umanske, Yasnobrodivka and Natailove. This constitutes a rather fragile new line of Ukrainian defense that will not long last.
North of Avdiivka, Russians are now solidly entrenched in the town of Ocheretyne. South of Ocheretyne they have taken the villages of Bakhmudivka and Soloviove and these advances have facilitated enhanced Russian control over more of Berdychi on the western shore of the Duma river and further to the south where Ukrainian forces are retreating southwest towards Umanske. Russian forces have taken the settlement of Selevivka. North of Ocheretyne, Russian forces are close to taking the settlements of Arkhanhelske (which some reports say Russian forces have already entered) and Keramik. They are on the eastern flanks of both Novokalinovo and Keramik.
A Russian cauldron appears to be forming around Ukrainian troops in the territory that separates Ocheretyne and Novkalinovo. Ukrainian forces need to retreat, but they are currently disorganized and they may not all be able to do so.
From Novobamhmutivka and Soloviove, the way appears open for Russia to advance southwestwards towards Novopokrovskse and Novoselivka Persha. Ukraine is trying to hold a line between the area around Novopokrovksa and Umanske. Another Russian cauldron appears to be forming here, in the wake of Russian destruction of a bridge between Komyshivka and Mezhove, and another at Umanske and a dam near Kartivka resevoir, leaving open only an exit that still seems to be available near Novoselivka Persha.
South of Avdiivka and west of Marinka, Russian forces have taken a part of the southern end of the settlement of Krasnohorivka, and have also begun to enter the northern part of the settlement, with a strong likelihood that they will be able to form a cauldron around the center and, by moving forces from the south up to the western end of the settlement they will close off evacuation routes. Further south there have been no major developments following Russia’s consolidation of control over Novomykhailivka. Movement towards Kostyantynivka is expected and this, if and when it happens, will constitute a major weakening of Ukrainian defenses in this area. In that process, the taking of the supply route between Kostyantynivka and Vuhledar, to the south, will prepare the way for Russian forces, once again, to attempt to storm that town.
Elsewhere in southern Donbass Russians have been attacking Prechystivka (north of Russian-held Novomaiorske) with drones and attacking Urozhaine with FABs. In the settlement of Nove near Dnipro, Russia has bombed an ammo depot and a base used by foreign forces.
There is a new resurgence of Ukrainian activity in Kherson area along the Dnieper, from Kazachi Laheri up to Korsunka and Nova Kahhovke. Russia has been hunting for Ukrainian boats along the Dneiper and attacking the settlement of Ivanivka. A major concern appears to be the concentration of 2,000 western-trained marine forces near Kozatske. It is anticipated that these will be joined by another 4,000 troops, with a view to crossing the Dnieper (which is very easy to do now that the level is super low) and attacking Nova Kakhovka and Malokakhovka.
Moving north from Avdiivka, Russia continues to pummel Chasiv Yar in the Bakhmut area without, yet, staging a ground operation. Further north still, north of Bakhmut, Russian forces continue to submit the settlements of Spirne, Verknetamiansk, Bilohorivka and Balaklia to drone and bomb attacks. There have been more evidence of Russian troop concentrations along the border north of Kharkiv.