Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Losing on purpose?

After some three months of (very) relative armistice, the war in Donbass rages again. Not long after the new year, the Kiev junta's artillery opened up on the civilians of Donetsk. Then, on Sunday or so, junta tanks and infantry began attacking.

They failed. Badly.

Not that you'd know this from the mainstream Western reporting... See here for Phillip Butler's glorious fisking of Reuters' coverage. But while I was fairly sure the junta troops were losing (I'll explain why in a moment) when I took part in a discussion of the hostilities on RT's CrossTalk yesterday morning, I didn't realize how bad it was.

Apparently, a brigade commander - and a major "Right Sector" officer - was captured at the Donetsk airport, which is fully under Novorussian control at this point. Mind you, Kiev and the Western media keep pretending this is not the case. They are also screaming about another "Russian invasion" - which always happens when they suffer a major defeat. So it is entirely possible the battlefield fiasco of the junta's "punishers" was due to the fact they bought into their own propaganda.

I may have said it here, or elsewhere (it's hard to keep track) that I fully expected hostilities to resume come spring. The junta cannot make peace, because the identity that drives them demands a conflict with Russia and the Russians, going back to the shadowy origins of "Ukrainianism" a century ago in Austrian-terrorized Galicia. But even if they could, they don't want to - believing that the Atlantic Empire has their back.

Logically, they would bide their time until they had rebuilt their army - shattered last fall by the dramatic defeats at the hands of Novorossian rebels - and rearmed with US equipment. Kind of like the Croatians in 1995 - in fact, that's precisely what Poroshenko's adviser, one Yury Lutsenko, said last September as the armistice took effect.

In clear preparation for just such a turn of events, Kiev announced a new draft of 50,000 men last week. As the Saker put it, it is "rather evident for anybody with a semblance of intelligence that [Poroshenko] is really conscripting cannon fodder, not a capable fighting force." Sure enough, many Ukrainians are already defecting to Russia, not eager to become the Nazis' cannon fodder.

So, why launch a half-witted attack now? Not only was the weather atrocious, but the artillery was aiming at civilians (rather than the Novorossian positions) and the attacks were small and not very coordinated, enabling the rebels to shred them to bits.

The crucial bit of information is that there is a high-ranking U.S. general visiting Kiev this week. Reportedly, his mission is to asses whether and how to implement Washington's insane "Ukraine Freedom Support Act" - those weapons and supplies the junta says it desperately needs. At first I thought the plan was to score a tactical victory somewhere - the airport seemed the logical place, especially if the Ukies believed their own propaganda about "winning."

But this morning another thought occurred to me: what if the plan all along was to lose? Basically, send some men to get slaughtered in order to prove a point to the Americans that "brave threatened Ukraine needs help to defend the Free World from evil Russian aggression" - or whatever the official line in Banderovsk is these days.

I've seen this before, in Bosnia. In fact, one of the reasons I've been able to accurately parse the events in Ukraine over the past year or so is that I've seen them before: the Maidan was basically a re-run of the October 2000 coup in Serbia. The snipers were a repeat of the tactic used in Bosnia in April 1992. Kiev's howling about "Russian invaders" and "aggression" is likewise right out of the propaganda manual written during the Bosnian War. As is the false-flag murder of innocents (MH17, the Volnovakha bus) for propaganda purposes. I am well aware of the dangers of false analogies, and forcing the facts to fit preconceptions. But time and again, the shoe fits.

Anyway, if the Banderites in Kiev are thinking they can manipulate the U.S. to fight their war for them, they have learned nothing from the Bosnian experience. Sure, the Izetbegovic regime got NATO to lend a hand - eventually. But instead of a triumph, they got the same peace treaty they were offered prior to four years of bloodshed - the one Washington had slyly advised them to reject. So, who used whom, exactly?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Indeed. In fact, it is the U.S. which harnesses other countries to do its fighting for it, as it is using Europe now as surrogate hammer against Russia. Except when the war is to protect Israel and Israeli interests, of course, like in Iraq, which the American policymakers were quite happy to undertake themselves.

Ukraine's continued - in fact, escalating - embarrassing behavior is making it less and less desirable as an ally, and Poroshenko is starting to get heckled at his western speech dates. If the Ukrainian state keeps on this path, the west is simply going to decide that a wrecked Ukraine will achieve a useful secondary objective against Russia even if the plan to crush it economically was a failure, and abandon Ukraine to its fate.

Anonymous said...

"Reportedly, his mission is to asses whether and how to implement Washington's insane "Ukraine Freedom Support Act"..."

I think you meant "assess" but considering who you're talking about, I don't blame you for typing asses... bit of a Freudian slip there! ;)

Excellent post as usual.

CubuCoko said...

Ooh, good catch Natalie! I'll just go ahead and leave the slip in there, since it's entirely appropriate.

Mark, while I am sure Washington will eventually abandon the junta to its fate (let's face it, being America's "ally" is usually fatal), I just don't see it happening just yet. But you are right, Ukraine is but a means to an end: Russia is the prize.

And while Washington doesn't give a dead rodent's flying posterior for the actual people in Ukraine, Moscow actually does care - even for the morons who march for Bandera, because there is always hope they may wake up from their toxic hate and return to their civilizational fold. This is why it's not taking the "easy way" of just sending in the tanks - and winning the battle, but losing the war.

Phil Butler said...

Falcon, tysvm for the mention. The situation is degrading rather than getting better. Forgetting 27 million brave souls is unforgivable. We must stand here, and stop the world falling once again into disaster.

Thx for your efforts.

Phil

CubuCoko said...

Phil, you are very welcome - and thank you for the astute analysis. The situation does indeed keep deteriorating, while the Emperor and his press corps are fiddling that "everything is awesome." Unbelievable, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

False Flag Attack like the one in Markale Sarajevo and blame it on Russian Invasion???

http://rt.com/news/225891-mariupol-eastern-ukraine-shelling/

CubuCoko said...

Given how quickly Kiev howled to the UN for help - and that, reportedly, water had been cut off to that quarter prior to the attack, so as to hamper firefighters - I'd say it smells like a false flag, yes.