By Scott Taylor
In the seesaw wave of information and disinformation emanating from the conflict in Ukraine it has been extremely difficult to accurately assess what is actually happening on the ground – let along predict the eventual outcome.
The early expectations by western military analysts was that Vladimir Putin’s mighty war machine would crush the diminutive Ukrainian forces with ease and capture Kyiv within 72 hours.
The U.S. State Department had so little faith in the capabilities of the Ukraine military they initially offered safe passage to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The defiant Zelenskyy then famously quipped “I need ammunition, not a lift” and vowed to remain in Kyiv.
Then the tide quickly turned as the Russian invasion force ground to a halt.
Once Putin’s armoured columns were blunted and stalled by the tenacious Ukrainian defence forces, the myth of Russian military invincibility was quickly and thoroughly shattered.
Through a wealth of aerial drone footage, western observers could watch in real time as Ukraine forces destroyed Russian armoured vehicles and killed demoralized Russian combat troops.
We were told by intelligence agencies that the Russian invaders had run out of food, trucks, tanks and missiles. Last month British intelligence estimated that Putin had lost nearly one third of his original invasion force of 190,000 troops. That casualty figure includes killed, wounded, captured and deserted.
According to U.S. military doctrine, combat units losing 10 per cent of their strength are no longer considered effective, so if the intelligence reports are accurate, the Russian invaders were essentially defeated.
With Ukrainian troops counter-attacking outside Kyiv and Kharkiv, it seemed that Putin’s gamble had failed and that it only remained to be seen how badly the Russians would be defeated. However, that was over a month ago and still somehow the food-less, truck-less, tank-less and missile-less depleted Russian forces continue to mount offensive operations in the eastern Ukraine region of Donbas.
The now omnipresent Zelenskyy continues to beg the West for additional sophisticated weaponry but in his latest address he admitted that Ukraine’s battlefield tenacity is not without an exorbitant human cost.
With the current battles raging in Donbas, Zelenskyy stated the Ukraine forces are losing an average of 60-100 soldiers killed daily, with another 500 suffering wounds. Both sides are being bled white in what has devolved into a higher tech version of first world war trench warfare.
In response to Zelenskyy’s appeal for more lethal aid, U.S. President Joe Biden has authorized a $40 billion lend-lease program to get more U.S. made weaponry and other aid into the hands of the Ukrainians.
American taxpayers can be mollified by the fact that this enormous sum of money is actually being spent to stimulate the U.S. arms industry and that the expenditure will benefit Americans.
The Ukrainian recipients are expected to use this ‘gift’ to fight and die while simultaneously fulfilling the U.S. objective of weakening Putin’s war machine.
On the flip side of this, the Russian war effort continues to be paid for by the very same European countries that publicly denounce the invasion and openly supply Ukraine with arms.
To put this in a nutshell, western Europe is wholly dependent on Russian oil and gas imports. When Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, all of these oil and gas dependant nations were quick to denounce Russia’s aggression and all of them announced sanctions against Russia.
However, the seizing of some Russian oligarch’s mega-yacht and the shuttering of McDonald’s outlets throughout Russia are meaningless gestures coming from the same nations that in turn purchase $900 million (USD) worth of Russian oil and gas every day.
Prior to the threat of war in Ukraine, oil was trading at just $70 (USD) per barrel.
At the time of writing that price had skyrocketed to $120 (USD) a barrel.
Not only has the price gone up, according to the latest reports, Russia’s oil production rose five per cent during the month of May.
The real kicker is that in response to the sanctions levelled against Russia by these western European nations, Putin demanded that future oil and gas purchases would need to be in Russian roubles.
In a public relations fantasy exercise, European gas companies claim they will refuse to comply with Putin’s demand, but instead buy his oil using Euros.
The reality is they pay Euros to Russian exporter Gazprom wherein Gazprom then promptly converts the currency to roubles prior to finalizing the sale.
In this way both sides claim they are keeping their promise, but the reality is that Putin’s regime is raking in the Euros and using them to bolster the Russian rouble.
I truly pity the Ukraine people upon whom this ongoing tragedy has been thrust. They are fighting and dying on their own soil, meanwhile the U.S. arms industry enjoys huge profits and western Europe pays hard currency to the Russian invader in order to avoid a potential recession in their own countries.
Given that equation, I do not foresee a quick conclusion to this bloody war.
