On Evidence So Far Ukraine *Wants* This a Lot More Than Russia Does

The manlet willpower battle has a winner

Source: Substack

Source: Substack

When Russia made its move on February 24 it demonstrated that it cares a lot more about the Black Sea coast and the plains of Ukraine than the USA ever could. Russia may be the lesser of the two powers globally, but Russia wants this particular region a lot more than the US does.

Russia has already sacrificed the deaths of 10,000 of its soldiers in a bid to determine the fate of this part of the world. It’s safe to say that is the sort of investment the United States is not ready to make — not for these distant and strange shores. On the contrary, the first thing the US did when it came to believe that Russia was poised to move was to evacuate and get the hell out of her way.

For Russia, the Black Sea coast was its reward for eight Russo-Turkish wars and centuries of competition against the Tartars of the vast Eurasian steppe. Whatever the region is to the United State it is not *that*.

Russia — because it is willing to go much farther to decide the fate of a region that means a lot more to it — ends up as the dominant actor locally. What you could do on paper doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you’re willing to bring to the showdown in practice.

Unfortunately for Russia, the US isn’t the only party it has to overpower. There is another actor who gets to vote on the outcome.

If the American reaction was to flee, the Ukrainian one sure as hell was not. Kiev’s reaction early on to distribute guns to civilians, to call on them to inform on the positions of the Russians, and to literally drag people from buses and impress them into military service may have looked cringey (especially from the comfort of a far-away sofa and with hindsight that Kiev did not have) and been unwise — but it betrayed the picture of a regime that was supremely determined to go the distance to try and survive.

On the other hand, while Ukraine was dumping 17,000 guns to civilians in Kiev, Putin was busy reassuring Russian parents that serving draftees would not be sent to Ukraine, and that officers who had ignored instructions to leave them behind would be hunted down.

Which of the two looks like the side that wants it more?

The Russians have trained conscripts available which they refuse to use. The Ukrainians are mobilizing left, right, and center, and have even damaged dams and flood walls to slow down the Russians.

The Russians may be flying the Soviet red and restoring monuments to Lenin, but it is the Ukrainians who are actually fighting like the Soviets.

Russia is obviously much more powerful of the two on paper, but Ukraine is fighting with a lot more of what it has. The result is not only that the war has receded into a stalemate, but that Kiev looks like the party that cares about possessing these regions and dictating their future a lot more than Russia does.

Russian willpower may have been sufficient to send the Yankees packing home, but Russia is now herself finding herself similarly out-efforted by Ukraine. Ukraine has less but it is using a lot more of what it does have. Exactly as if it possessed a level of determination and clarity that it wants to remain in control of the fate of places like Odessa, Kharkov, Nikolayev and Kiev that far exceeds anything in Moscow.

The simpleminded of the Russia backers are celebrating the alleged facts that Ukraine is now on its “sixth mobilization” and that it has already sustained “60,000 dead“. But if that is remotely true, what does that mean other than that Ukraine will go to distances for its war effort that Putin has hit the break at?

This is highly ironic since Kremlin launched the Ukraine expedition on the assumption that the opposition was scared and weak. That Ukrainian state would crumble on impact was treated as a real possibility and dictated the ill-fated march on Kiev.

Instead it is Putin who by refusing the military the manpower it needs has made himself look unresolute and has made Zelensky look like the Man of Steel himself. Stalin come-back-to-life would have likely determined that Kremlin has been usurped by soyboys and wondered as to why his true heirs are flying the trident and the Banderite red-black.

Meanwhile, if there is a historical analog for Putin it is the heels-sporting Bourbons and their Ancien Régime. Putin acts like an early modern monarch where wars are a private affair of the king and of the people in his employ and none of the people’s business. He has neither explained to the people what the war is about, nor did he sought to prepare them for itNor has he asked them to bear any sacrifices for it. On the contrary, he has promised them that they wouldn’t have to. Certainly not by having their sons sent to fight this allegedly super necessary and super existential war.

There is a strange duality in Russia right now that we last witnessed when the US was in Iraq. On the one hand, the state is involved in a major conflict that is exerting a heavy tax on the army and military families. On the other, society at large is instructed to carry on shopping.

Nor does Putin’s approach mean that Russia’s war is more sustainable than Ukraine’s. On the contrary. Russia’s deaths are far more concentrated on its military families, while Ukraine’s are far more spread out. Almost every one of Russia’s deaths falls upon one of only 250,000 officers and enlistees in the various land combat arms. Ukraine meanwhile is fighting with recent civilians thus distributing the deaths among the 7 million of its fighting-age men. Even if Ukraine really was losing 6 soldiers for every 1 Russian (and it isn’t) the arithmetic would favor Ukraine.

Putin has literally rolled back the clock to before 1792 and to before national citizen armies. He presided over the transformation of the post-Soviet military into a force that would rely on a mix of professionals and citizens, but now won’t use anyone not in government’s pay.

The price for this ‘kindness’ has been a heavy toll on the standing military, and a stalemate on the ground. The upside has been the lack of accountability. As long as normie Ivans are not bleeding out under fratricidal fire on the prairies of the Ukraine the Kremlin and its Sun King resident do not need to explain themselves.

What was gained (and lost) for the investment, why was the war started, and why is it being allowed to go poorly? Since you don’t have a son in the trenches it is the opinion of the Kremlin technocrats that you don’t get to ask this question. Russia’s fate on the Black Sea and in the Ukraine is theirs alone to play with.

9 Comments
  1. Pat says

    True – somethings not right in the kremlin

  2. Dianthus says

    LEAKED: Russia’s ENTIRE Economy Is About To IMPLODE
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er4Xs5fa5sI

  3. Traveller says

    Hahahah!! Yet another soviet-style propaganda from pro-empire.

  4. Abraham Lincoln says

    What a joke this Jewish supremacist nazi site is. Why don’t you all volunteer to go to the front lines in Ukraine to die for your Jewish supremacy if Russia is doing so badly? . Fighting to the last Ukrainian Goyim does not count.

    Russia may be the lesser of the two powers globally???

    Not any more, not militarily not economically etc. Russia’s manufacturing base is more then twice the size of the USSA. The real USSA economy is only about 7 trillion and rapidly dropping. The Zio USSA empire only has Finance, Insurance, realestate and equities all based on fraud and money printing and it all depends on the Zio USSA petro dollar and the USSA Zio dollar being the reserve currency, so world racist supremacist Nazi Jewry can suck the plant dry.

    it will all be over soon whe the Zio dollar dies. The USSA economy will shrink to less then 3 trillion. Lets see what the USSA and its capital Israel is like then.

  5. Anonymous says

    I want Russia to prevail without question or condition, but …

    … they are not doing what they need to do, and what they can do, in order to win.

    Contract soldiers released from contracts if they don’t want to fight, relying on PMCs like Wagner and militias made up of middle-aged men, no mobilization of reservists, regular professional military rotated out of the combat zone, munitions depots left uncamouflaged and subsequently destroyed, continuing to sell energy supplies to your enemies – the list is almost endless. Does Moscow want victory or just violence?

    The entire war-not-a-war looks like a sham altogether. Who wins? Pampered ruling classes, everywhere. Who loses? The ordinary man and woman with their life on the line at the front.

    1. Abraham Lincoln says

      NIce try racist supremacist Nazi Jew.

      Russia is wining on all fronts including defeating and crushing the combined Zio USSA and NATO militaries, demilitarizing NATO and the Zio USSA by destroying all their military equipment.

      Slow territorial progress is worth it when it means the total defeat of the entire racist supremacist global Jewish, Judeo Nazi satanic slave empire dictatorship .

      I have to say I am shocked at how well Russia is doing.Russia on all fronts, also crushing the Zio empire economically and politically. I would have said it could not be done before this conflict started.

  6. Arraya says

    If I was head of psychological warfare for the Ukrainian military I’d have them wear a Palestinian flag on their uniform.

    That would enrage the ADL more than Nazi gear, and freak out the Russian troops in a less inflaming way but way more effective in reducing their battle game more than it is now

    The down side is they would be less likely to get Israeli support and be called anti Semitic

  7. Oscar Peterson says

    So in your view, is Putin paralyzed with indecision?

    You say that Zelensky and Ukraine “wants it” more than Russia and Putin.

    But Putin really needs to win this. One can debate what “win” actually means in this instance, but at least a strong perception of victory is a sine qua non for him.

    Should we believe these news stories about a potential deal back in April between Russia and Ukraine?

    Clearly, the US is planning to bleed Russia with this “transition” of assistance to aid on a “long term” basis.

    The idea here is that neither Ukraine nor Russia can go much beyond where they are now and that we will simply use a strategy of judicious amounts of new HIMARS and ammunition plus supporting limited long-range strikes and assassinations by the Ukrainians to gradually turn the Russian public against the war.

    So what CAN Putin do and what is he likely to do?

    If Putin escalates with the use of conscripts, will that work or will it generate visible internal dissension that he can’t control? Will he start to target the seat of government in Kiev and infrastructure that he has left alone so far?

    Will he wait for the economic pain in Europe and consequent tensions to mature?

    I’m always amazed how limited our ability to see the future is even in this massively information-rich environment.

    1. aa3 says

      The main Russian strategy right now is just to hang on to what they have. Which the Russian army has shown itself very good at holding ground.

      The Russians dig in with fortifications, with layers of defensive lines. And they have mobile troops who come in and back up wherever is under attack. And then for losses, the Russians just keep reinforcing.

      They don’t really need to mobilize reserves if they set lesser aims. Since the Russian state has lots of money from resource exports, while much of the country the incomes are low, they are able to get volunteer soldiers by paying way, way above local salary levels. Putin said they are increasing the standing military from 1,020,000 now to 1,150,000 in 2023.

      Every month that goes by Russia is working to integrate these 4 SE provinces of Ukraine into Russia. What the current plan is, is to just outlast the Ukrainians until the Ukrainians stop attacking. Then Russia can make the decision to try to go further or more likely also not be attacking.

      The Russians probably will keep trying to crawl forward in Donetsk provinces, but it is all these defensive fortifications and the Ukrainians keep reinforcing them.

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