Inconvenient Questions for the “Special Operation”
First read: Who Dares Apply Anti-Interventionist Analysis to Russia?
Having briefly looked at the outcome of the “special military operation” by the yardstick of its declared goals, let’s expand our anti-interventionist analysis of it. Are there any other aspects of this fratricidal bloodletting of choice that are questionable, imprudent, or troubling? Let’s ask some questions to discover.
First question: what is the exit strategy? How does Russia bring the war to an end? Fighting has settled into positional warfare where soldiers continue to die but little ground changes hands. Has Moscow any other strategy for winning than fighting Ukraine — composed of “people close to us” per Putin — into utter economic and demographic exhaustion?
Wars can be ended by inflicting poverty and death on a large scale but especially if one is fighting own kin having a robust alternative would seem to be desirable and important.
Another question to ask is how should Russian citizens feel about the war being sprung on them as an utter surprise? Bush started the Iraq War after a cynical year-long propaganda campaign built on fearmongering and lies. But is the Kremlin presenting the demos with a fait accompli and going into Ukraine without a national debate, and after months of false assurances that war is impossible an improvement?
Or what of the Russians’ civil liberties? What of the harassment of antiwar Russians? If there is a case for the Russian war in Ukraine there is also a case against it. (You could ask Tolstoy or Poklonskaya.) Nobody is more aware of that than the Russian government which in January still publicly deemed war with Ukraine “unthinkable” and the suggestions that Moscow would embark on one as a “medical diagnosis”.
Yet now Russian citizens can be harassed for merely agreeing with the government’s own declared position from a couple of months ago. They can find themselves in trouble for merely deeming what is taking place a war which constitutes “spreading false information about the Special Military Operation.” So you have a government which lied that it would not start a war going after people who call its war a war as liars. There is no escaping that this is Orwellian. How should this make us feel? What would we say if the US reached for such methods?
What of the fact that instead of properly articulating the case for war (such a case did in fact exist) the government instead commissioned ludicrous FSB fabrications? What of the fact that even now Moscow can not articulate what this war is about, or for? The war is literally branded as “Z”. But “Z” is literally just a shape. It is one-hundred-percent content free. People are literally being invited to kill and to die for a certain shape.
The war’s official motto is “We do not leave ours behind.” (Who does??) But who is the “we” in this sentence, and who are the “ours” who are not being left behind? Not specified. Once again it’s content-free. It’s a motto for the sake of having a motto. It’s literally a war with Ukrainians who Putin says are one people with the Russians yet the government war advertising speaks of “ours” who will under no circumstances be “left behind”. (But maybe they should be if the alternative is cruise missile-ing them??)
What of the fact that albeit the war is said to be absolutely necessary, high-stakes, and just, nobody inside Russia is actually being asked to sacrifice anything for it? TV talking heads will speak of the importance of “supporting the Z” and invite people to do so, but this “support” demands nothing more than going about your daily business. At the most, it means wearing a Z ribbon or attending a pro-war event.
Supposedly this is a war that was imposed on Russia, one that was unavoidable and necessary and is 100% justified. It has been said by Putin that it is a war to save Donbass from genocide, by Lavrov that it is an existential war for Russia, and by a high-ranking general that Russia is now at war with virtually the entire world. Yet at the same time there is no mobilization, serving conscripts are undeployable, and even professional soldiers can tear up their contracts and refuse deployment with little legal repercussion. How come? Isn’t this a very strange situation?
Which one is it? Is this an imposed high-stakes war for lofty goals that would justify a national effort or is it not? The front situation is certainly screaming out for such an effort so why is the Kremlin acting as if its existential-lofty-imposed war is not worth it? Is it a war that is only worth killing for, but not dying for? Why, if Ukrainians are as Rus as the Russians themselves? Why is the war worth hitting Ukrainian-Russian conscripts in their barracks with cruise missiles as they sleep, but not worth sending Russian-Russian conscripts into battle?
This is a war that is beyond all reproach yet rather than appeal to Russian patriotism and civic duty, the Kremlin is trying to address its gapping manpower shortage with mercenaries. Rather than telling men it is an honor to serve the motherland in such a good war, the Kremlin is trying to buy them, offering them brief 3-month stints for massive payouts. Why? Why is the Kremlin itself so timid to ask the nation to bear sacrifices for such a lofty war? And if it is that unsure should then its war even be fought? It’s a fair question to ask.
Another question to ask is why are sacrifices for this war distributed so unevenly among members of the “Russkiy Mir”. A 20-year-old conscript hailing from Crimea who has 10-months of service and is properly trained and integrated into a capable Russian military unit will not be sent into Ukraine but will be left behind at base as the rest of his unit ships out. A 45-year-old bricklayer from Donetsk meanwhile will be mobilized, given zero training, thrown into a newly-created unit surrounded by people like himself whom he has never met in his life, and they will be sent to the front. How is this fair? (Or good warmaking??)
Or what of the fact that the Russian MoD refer to Ukrainian soldiers exclusively as “nationalists and militants”? (Except if they surrender at which point they become “servicemen.”) A typical RUMOD report will include language like “militants of the Ukrainian armed forces have equipped a stronghold” or “The attacks have resulted in the elimination of more than 170 nationalists.” Numerous Russians have relatives in Ukraine. Relatives who may not appreciate Moscow deciding to settle inter-Slavic squabbles by force or might just not have found a way out of conscription. Relatives that may end up charred to death in a thermobaric artillery strike. How are these Russians supposed to feel about their government insisting their dead or at-risk relatives are “nationalists” and “militants”? How should anyone who has sympathy for Russians and Ukrainians both, as any proper “pro-Russian” should? Why this Orwellianism? The troops on the other side are not “nationalists” and are not “militants.” They are just normal people usually from the underprivileged strata. Often Russian-speaking. Everybody knows this.
End of Part II.
Any Russian that didn’t see this coming since the Maidan must be on another Planet . Or , they are bunch of Pro Western muppets. And the fact that the word Nazi , is no where to be seen in the article – negates the effort of even writing the article – unless this is from the Babylonian Bee.
Yes this site is pro empire and is hysterical and desperate to say Russia is losing.
The Japanese Yen is down 25 so far this year. The British pound is down by about 14%. It looks like the Japanese economy will collapse first likely setting off a chain reaction in the Zio global empire.
The UK will likely be next and then the EU. A total victory for Russia. How much support will they be able to give Ukraine when their own populations are starving to death? How long will it take for a revolution and the violent change of all Zio occupation regimes?
Rebellion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udoXLK-BYY8
In 2014 David Icke, Jeff Rense, Alex Jones got together for a session. They fisted each other and pulled out the fairy-tail that V.V. Putin is an opponent of the NWO, and a shining knight on an armoured horse, here to save the ignorant groupies of conspiracist charlatans from big-bad Rothschilds. —-Or; Jones, Rense, Icke started receiving money and became branch offices of Margarita Simonyan.
150 years ago the conspiracy industry invented a mythological Lincoln who never existed in real life and was just about the exact opposite of the historical Abraham Lincoln who did exist and for a few years was president of the United States. For 150 years they sold this mythological Lincoln to their groupies and kept them in ignorance.
Following his death, John Kennedy became Saint Jack, even though the real Kennedy was nothing of the sort.
In the past eight years the conspiracy industry produced a Mythological Putin who has nothing to do with the real Vladimir Vladimirovich, or with the crisis actor who is running around pretending to be Putin.
Why did and do they do this ? It serves somebody’s purpose, and there is money in it. (Gee Ed, the Griffin from Jackyl island, hasn’t worked a day, yet collected good revenue) There is no money in telling facts.
Alex Jones is a zio disinfo agent, his wife is a Jew and his kids can immigrate to Israel and become citizens passing the racist supremacist Khazarian Nazi DNA test of Jewish satanic racial purity. He is basically another version of Noam Chomski. Admit what is already known, build up false credibility and use it (spend it) when needed to fool the Goyim.
Apparently Putin didn’t see it coming or he would have done it in 2014 when Ukraine had no army. There is no way of telling this story where Russia doesn’t look bad – at least incompetent
The word “Nazi” is a red herring. There is nothing about these psychopaths that is NSDAP. Their hero Bandera never claimed to be a “Nazi”. The “Nazi” symbols aren’t “Nazi”. The Waffen SS was made up of more than 500,000 volunteers from across Europe and North Africa. The NSDAP weren’t having them take tests on whether they were “Nazis”. These volunteers were there to fight communists. Whenever numbers were sufficient, “national” brigades were formed, with some countries, like Belgium and the Netherlands having more than one. Each of these brigades were uniformed, and had their own colours and badges – all in accordance with the Treaty of Westphalia, which were the 250+ year old rules of war, until the Stalinist show trials at the kangaroo court at Nuremberg. In the case of Ukraine, the Western and Southern parts were part of the Austrian and Hungarian Empires until the treaty of Versailles. The Galicians were troublesome even as part of Austria. It astonishes me that people are shocked that the Galicians, who collaborated with Germany, would do so in order to rid themselves of the (((Russian communists))) that had starved to death millions of their family, friends and neighbours. Collaboration does not require agreement on anything beyond a common objective, which was defeating communism. Explain to me how these psychos, when they support a coup run by bankers and the IMF, a Jewish President, and the Jewish oligarchs behind that President – all of which were an anathema to the “real deal” Nazis. On top of that, these “Nazis” are using Soviet tactics by embedding themselves in the general population – something forbidden by the Treaty of Westphalia. The ultimate irony is that Putin (Putler) invaded for the same reason Hitler invaded Poland – to stop the ethnic cleansing.
Invoking the “Nazi” narrative plays into the Soviet lie of the Great Patriotic War – innocent USSR invaded by Germany for no reason, burying the fact that the largest invasion force ever assembled was in final stages of preparation to invade Europe. No ones hands are clean when it comes to war.
The questions are all valid but of secondary importance beside the primary question of strategic justification for the operation.
Yes, propaganda is rife–much of it laughable (though no more than Ukraine’s tall tales.) The issues of shared sacrifice, communication with the public, and the related manpower question may undermine Russian strategy in the end–or maybe not. No matter what happens, we won’t affect the outcome.
So we’ll just have to wait and see. What else is there to do? Sure, we can observe every few days that Russia is failing to do this, that, or something else, but the initiative is still Putin’s until events take it away from him.
I mean, what are you trying to convince us of here?
What you are saying is true, humane, and sane. But was there really any other to stop the Ukrainians continuing to murder the people of Donbass?
The reason the western media is rolling out a heavy cope narrative that admits impending defeat in Ukraine is because Putin’s strategy is working.
Putin’s strategy of fighting a protracted war with economy of force was met by endless complaints from the peanut gallery and derision by western analysts, but it is now bearing the first fruit of victory: support for Ukraine is collapsing in Washington and NATO.
The real center of gravity in this war is not in Ukraine but in Brussels and Washington.
Yes this site is pro empire and is hysterical and desperate to say Russia is losing.
Russian strategy is to destroy the Ukrainian military first and capture territory second and it is working.
The real shock for the Ukrainian society is coming, as we will see, from the Guardian who makes a reason for 1,000 Ukrainian losses on the day.
The revelation causes an earthquake as it is the first major western MEDIA gives to the publicity of such numbers confirming the WarNews247 about what he wrote so long for the Ukrainian losses.
Recall this is the same strategy Russia used against Zio Nazi Germany in world war 2 and Napoleon and it was successful. Russia did not care what territories were lost or gained only how many of the enemy personnel and military equipment Russia destroyed.
Excellent piece, dogged by some of the usual shill replies.
Propaganda article of lies. Russia is now prolonging the war as they have the opportunity to now demilitarise NATO and the USSA as NATO and the USSA are sending almost all their tanks artillery etc.to UKn werh Russia can destroy it.
So by the end of the war once Russia has all of Ukraine, NATO and the USSA will have very few tanks armored vehicles and artillery, depleted ammo stores, very short on missiles a poorly trained and led military of brainwashed Woke snowflakes.
What ued to be Western counties will be bankrupt, starving, and with no fuel and no strategic metals to rebuild its military.
Russia will have the best trained, led, motivated, experienced and battle hardened military in the world. Russia will also a record export profits and profits from the Russian economy will no longer bes sent to the Zio empire of the USSA and NATO
The EU and NATO will break up ad their economies and the economy of the USSA will collapse ending the global Zio empire forever.
This is a far greater victory then Russia could have imagined.
Excellent article. The sore low-IQ orks writing nonsense in the comments are so pathetic it feels unreal. But the left half of the bell curve is there, such is life.
Your site is nothing but a CIA schill. You are embarrassing
No , no anything I don’t like is a CIA shill.
Or a Nazi.
Or racist
Now, Russia seemed to think it’s the Empire who can do the kind of casual war it’s lately largely known for.
Well, what can I say, except that stupidity rarely comes in single?
Back in the 90s when the Pentagon funding biolabs & research, in the former soviet union states and inside Russia, was all over the news, but in a much different way, the Republicans would complain that it was like it was foreign aid that should be spent at home. and that it was a waste of time tying to stop bio attacks and since many kinds are easy to make . Right ijn the late 90s abortion clinic bombs got blamed for sending anthrax to abortion clinics but then 9/11 happened. Also some weird cult in Japan using Sarin gas. Some end of times cult suppsedly in 30 countries
Hilariously, war hawks loved UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter for standing up to the Clinton administration. Ritter was accusing Clinton of being weak on Saddam and that he was a threat to be taken seriously. One of Ritters claims was Russia sold Saddam missile guidance systems, ironically.
Clinton hailed it has a new era of cooperating between Russia and the US. As the DOD and EU, Japan pumped money into biolabs in Russia and FSU states
It was around 2016, such a pivotal year, that germy fear mongering started to trickle out of some venues about secret PENTAGON funded biolabs. Also, ‘Alt’ Right” became a thing or at least inserted into the pubic lexicon. Which quickly became synonymous with Nazi. Nazi germy memegeneering with Mr White Nationalist and biolab scare stories
Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction act in 91 lead to The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR). These were not secret and widely publicized at the time
The biolabs were built and or rehabbed under the CTR which has the biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP) under it.
This Actually receives a portion of it’s funding from the DOD among like 60 other countries
The BTRP was an international agreement and funded internationally and reports to the WHO.
It’s headquarters were in Moscow In 1994,called the International Science and Technology Center .
From 94 to almost 2014 they were pumping money into these ‘biolabs’. In Russia and several other FSU nations, Ukraine being one of them.
It actually employed 1000s and pumped tons of money into local economies. Of course, US contractors got their cut.
In October 2012 the second Putin administration declared that Russia would not extend the CTR agreement without changes in the text.
On 14 June 2013 the US and Russia proposed a new bilateral framework on cooperative threat reduction intended to supersede the first CTR
Ukraine madness started up 5 months later
Joint work at numerous Russian sites and facilities was halted on 1 January 2015
In 2015, the ISTC moved to Astana’s Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, without Russia’s long time collaboration
DOD and many other countries money have been in Ukraine since the 94. They funded research and labs in Russia and several countries of FSU from 94-14 with Russian collaboration.
They finished most major construction of new labs in the Ukraine, in 2008, when the program was in headquartered Moscow , with collaboration of Russian Scientists.
DOD ,money flowed into Russian biolabs from the mid 90s until like 2013. For building, rehabbing and actual scientific research of various sorts
I mean you can argue that DOD money turned evil in 2014 when Russia pulled out of the agreement but NOT that they were kept secret or unknown to the UN or WHO.
Russia has Scientists in and funds the WHO,
My question is why after the invasion in 2022 did it become such a huge scary secret exposed? I mean, I don’t like this web of biolabs around the world. I have questions. But the pearl clutchng is ridiculous
Interestingly Odessa has one o the oldest biolabs in the world, quite famous .
– You are with with the Russian Nazi slaughter fest or your with the Nazis.
It’s also very amusing of the Trump hating punch all Nazis, get Putin crowd started to seem to hate the US more than most. Everybody is a Nazi except those guys with Swastiks. I mean it’s funny. Now, Antifa is silent
Death to America!
Matt Taibbi…
“The best explanation for these sudden reversals in rhetoric is that Trump broke the brains of America’s educated classes. Like Russian aristocrats who spent the last days of the Tsarist empire flocking to fortune-tellers and mystics, upscale blue-staters have lost themselves lately in quasi-religious tracts like White Fragility, and are lining up to flog themselves for personal and historical sins.
In desperation to help the country atone for their idea of why Trump happened, they’ve engaged in a sort of moon landing of anti-intellectual endeavors, committing a generation of minds to finding a solution to the one thing no thinking person ever considered a problem, i.e. the Enlightenment ideas that led to the American Revolution.
The same pols and pundits who not long ago were waving the flag for wars and insisting that American-style democracy was so perfectly realized that it made sense to bring it to all the peoples of the world, by force if needed (think Friedman’s hypothesis of a borderless utopia of forced wealth creation called the Golden Straitjacket), have now reversed course to tell us our entire history needs to be wiped clean.
Everything is a lie now. CNN even put “Independence” in quotes when describing the holiday today (i.e. “Reexamining ‘Independence’ Day”). This revolution will end with Wolf Blitzer pulling a switch to dynamite the Statue of Liberty. Even if America is an idea whose time is past, I doubt it deserves an ending this ridiculous.”
This is just Nature about to recover one of her creations: the disrespectful primate Homo sapiens sapiens.
That poor wayward animal thought he was human. Nope, nature is reeling him – ending his affairs with freedom, science, and the recognition of other people’s property.
So long progress and modern technological civilization, hello Nature’s Monkey Cage.
I get your analysis, but this is not a war “sprung on with absolute surprise”.
First, the war started in 2014 with Maidan.
Second Russia said if NATO did not address it’s mid Dec document seriously, a military technical solution would follow.
Putin is a lawyer, and I think he sails close breaking international law here and then, but an Article 51 justification is not entirely moot. It’s not yet customary international law to expect a state to only be recognised once it’s in the UN (Kosovo), so these republics get to be states as they fit the earlier, pre WWII definition of a state: population, territory, a government that can enforce the border, and recognition from at least one state.
How this ends? Ukraine capitulates. Simple as that. The longer it takes, the more will be lost. Although I think Russian terms will be everything from Odessa region to everything East of the Dniper. Obstinancy gets punished imo, and the Ukranians are being obstinate.
Everyone who defende the immagine of Russia and Putin like opponents of NWO, have to answer to this questions:
1) why Russian federation had joined “center for the 4° industrial revolution” of World Economic Forum on 13 october 2021- seven year after Euromaidan? Why Putin joined the WEF that is the establishment, that is the NWO, seven year after the begininnig of the ucrinian crisis?
2) All the oblast of Russia have done:
• genetic experimental vaccine – Sputnik
•compulsory vaccination laws
•qr code
•digital healt passport/green pass
So USA UE RUSSIA AND CHINA have done the same totalitarian project: there is the possibility of a political multipolarism?
I think no: if they do green pass it s impossible to believe that Putin it’s not a part of great reset
The first Ukrainian HIMARS battery entered service yesterday. It basically wasted Snake Island all by itself.
More will follow. Many more.
One HIMARS salvo alone can place six independently targeted high explosive warheads within 2 meters of the intended target with 95%+ reliability, then scoot to a new location and be ready to fire a second salvo within 15 minutes. There is no defense.
Russia could lose 70,000 men before the right people in Moscow finally decide that they’ve had enough, shoot Putin in the head, and finally pull the plug on “Operation Z”.
Ukraine now has nine HIMARS/MLRS systems in operation. Russian ammunition warehouses and fuel depots far behind the front lines are blowing up left and right.
By the end of July, they will have more than 20 of them in service with still more on the way.
The only thing the Russians can do is move their ammo and fuel much further behind the line so that they’re out of range, but this will drastically reduce their ability to provide supplies to their forward units. If their trucks have to drive 90 km to pick up ammo rather than just 30 km, it reduces by 2/3 the number of trips that they are able to make in a day. This will, in turn, reduce the number of shells and gallons of fuel that they can provide by an equivalent amount.
The tide of this war is about to turn decisively in Ukraine’s favor.