It’s a scenario I warned about almost a year ago during one of my commentaries on GB News.
Clearly, Putin has vastly underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainian people to resist the Russian invasion. Clearly, too, Putin is trying to avoid an all-out World War Three with the Western powers by using conventional weapons to invade Ukraine, even through he has been carrying out a guerrilla warfare against Ukrainian forces for months, even years, before the formal invasion.
The pitfall Putin’s forces tumbled into actually happened in the first couple of days of the formal invasion when his army failed to capture three vital airports in Northern Ukraine. These airports were crucial in terms of supplies if Russian forces were to penetrate successfully deep into Ukraine.
Failure to capture these airports meant Putin had to supply his forces with long, slow convoys across difficult terrain. These supply convoys were easy picking for at that time the lightly armed Ukrainian resistance.
Putin - in spite of nuclear sabre-rattling speeches - could not afford to unleash his arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons against Ukraine as such as move would inevitably provoke a similar response from the West, with the possibility of even the Chinese weighing in on Putin’s behalf.
Putin is determined to pursue the Ukrainian conflict no matter what the human cost to the Russian forces in much the same way as former Soviet Union communist dictator Josef Stalin threw millions of lives in the campaign to defeat Hitler in World War Two.
Ironically, with modern day Germany pledging to send some of its famed Leopard tanks to aid the Ukrainian forces, Putin is now ranting that with the 80th anniversary this year of the notorious Battle of Stalingrad in World War Two, the Ukrainian conflict has now become a re-run of that key battle.
It is also clear Putin is ignoring the tears and pleas of the Russian mothers who are concerned about their loved ones coming home from the conflict in coffins.
If Putin does not press the red button and fire his so-called Satan Two missiles to effectively trigger World War Three with the West, his only military option is to throw more Russians into a conventional war of attrition against Ukraine.
This could see the war drag on for another couple of years before the Russians reach the same military conclusion as they did previously in the disastrous Afghanistan campaign which saw the old Soviet Union crawl away with its tail between its legs following a right battering from the Taliban natives.
If Putin is determined to soak up Russian losses in Ukraine, then there’s only one short-term solution to end the war within weeks. There needs to be a Moscow version of the Operation Valkyrie in 1944 which saw German generals try to assassinate and overthrow Hitler when the Wehrmacht supremos realised the Second World War was lost and wanted to seek peace with the Allies.
Operation Valkyrie was supposed to be a coup, spearheaded by leading anti-Hitler German officer Colonel Claus von Staffenberg in July 1944, who planted a bomb in Hitler’s headquarters.
The operation was highlighted in the Hollywood blockbuster movie, Operation Valkyrie, in 2008 with Top Gun actor Tom Cruise in the lead role as the ‘hero’ von Stauffenberg.
In reality, the 1944 coup failed as Hitler survived the bomb explosion and took severe retribution against his German opponents, meaning that the war dragged on for almost another year costing thousands more lives.
Von Stauffenberg was executed by firing squads in the hours immediately after it became clear the coup had failed.
Applied to the Ukraine conflict, the time has come for a Russian version of von Stauffenberg to step forward and lead an internal coup against Putin. But this is a high wire strategy.
If a Moscow Operation Valkyrie succeeds, Russian forces will be withdrawn from Ukraine within hours of Putin being toppled, whether that be by arrest or assassination.
However, like its failed 1944 German predecessor, if the Moscow coup flops, Putin will launch a purge of his Russian forces not witnessed since the communist Reign of Terror during the Stalin era of the 1930s when many military leaders were executed.
Likewise, a failed coup may well be the very excuse which Putin needs to unleash his nuclear, chemical and biological weaponry, not just against Ukraine, but also against any other European Union member states, NATO nations or the West in general he perceived to be a part of the coup to oust him.
I have always maintained the key to getting Russia out of Ukraine lies with a solution within Russia itself:
If the coup is not sparked by the Russian mums, it needs the Russian generals who realise the futility of the Ukraine campaign to step up to the mark and stage that much-needed coup again Putin and his Kremlin cronies.
The question the Russian generals need to ask - how many more lives will you allow to be destroyed and lost in Ukraine before you show some backbone? In short, which one of you has the courage to be the Moscow von Stauffenberg?
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' Putin is trying to avoid an all-out World War Three with the Western powers by using conventional weapons to invade Ukraine, even through he has been carrying out a guerrilla warfare against Ukrainian forces for months, even years, before the formal invasion.'
ReplyDeleteNo evidence for this at all, but there is evidence of these activities from the far Right in Ukraine against trade unionists and Russian speakers.
So the USA had nothing to do with this war? It happened because Putin is a mad dictator?
'communist dictator Josef Stalin'
This is a contradiction in terms - but we can hardly expect anything else
from a proud Right winger like John. Stalin was a dictator but anything but a communist.
' communist Reign of Terror during the Stalin era of the 1930s'
Go and read some Marx John!
There is lots of evidence Mike - and from the Left - that he was intervening in Ukraine from at least 2014. The far right actually fought on each side during the clashes and committed atrocities.
DeleteThe USA is bound to take advantage of the war - from its own geostrategic perspective why wouldn't it? Now we face the likelihood of an ever growing NATO as a result of a penalty kick given to them by a right wing capitalist regime invading another country.
If only the West and NATO was as supportive of the Palestinians.
Your point about Stalin and communism will be lost on most people, who regard Stalin and his policies as communist.
Where we have dictatorship we increase the likelihood of repression and terror.
Putin will be waiting until the spring thaw is underway before pulling a Stalingrad; throwing men as cannon fodder in order to simply overwhelm the Ukrainian forces. Russia has not stopped attacks on civilian infrastructure to this end. The electrical grid and supply roads from the West are continuously targeted. I thought he would have went by now when the ground was frozen ergo allowing the tanks to traverse fields but I didn't count on Russian supply lines to be so poor. They've learned valuable lessons. They'll build up a huge reserve, wait til there's a significant improvement in the spring weather, then unleash a huge barrage against the infrastructure before sending 300,000 infantry over the top. I don't think he'll settle for anything but all of it.
ReplyDelete