OFFICIAL MISINFORMATION ABOUT PUTIN IS KILLING UKRAINIANS AND DESTROYING UKRAINE

“We believe that Russia has already failed in this war. What did Russia set out to do? Wipe Ukraine off the map.” National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan

If Russia’s obective was to “wipe Ukraine off the map” or any of the other of the malevolent goals attributed to them by the the Biden White House, the foreign policy establishment, and the corporate media, then why did they invade with only 200,000 troops? How do you wipe a country off the map or even conquer it with only 200,000 troops? If Russia’s goal was to wipe Ukraine off the map, then why were they willing to sign the Istanbul peace agreement in the Spring of 2022 just three months after the invasion?

Russia did not set out to destroy Ukraine. They set out to intimidate Ukraine into declaring neutrality and liberating the Russian residents and citizens of Eastern Ukraine from Ukrainian military aggression. They thought they could do that with 200,000 troops, and they were right. Just three months into the conflict, Ukraine had agreed to neutrality and a deal granting autonomy to the people of Eastern Ukraine. The agreement was never finalized because the US and UK told Zelensky not to go through with it.

STRATEGIC EMPATHY: KNOW YOUR ENEMY

Shortly after the nearly catastrophic encounter with the Soviet Union over the Cuban Missile Crisis where he and his Soviet counterpart avoided a nuclear war, President John F Kennedy gave his greatest speech. He warned of the dangers of pushing a nuclear power into a corner and called on Americans to refrain from condemnation and judgmental speech towards the Soviets and to see them as real human beings with many of the same values and aspirations as us, especially the longing for peace. President Kennedy gave a passionate and heartfelt speech. He was convinced that the survival of humankind depended on a change of mindset and appealed to Americans take the initiative and stop thinking and talking about the Soviet Union and its leaders in only negative terms. The Soviets heard his speech and were thrilled by it. A new era of exchange between the two superpowers began. The speech brings me to the verge of tears when I go back and listen to it.

In the more recent past, I remember when President Biden took office, the media discussed how we had restored the possibility of responsible foreign policy because “the adults were back in the room.” It seems to me that JFK set the standard for adult foreign policy. There is a term for the attitude of a statesman, especially a leader or a diplomat, who attempts to put himself in the shoes of a potential adversary in order to see matters as his opponent sees them and thus, better understand what motivates him. Only when this understanding is achieved can the leader or diplomat devise an effective strategy for dealing with the potential adversary. The discipline of seeing the world as one’s opponent sees it is called “strategic empathy.” It is a discipline for adults.

Although those engaged in making and reporting foreign policy are supposedly the “adults in the room,” they have failed to adopt strategic empathy in their engagement with Vladimir Putin, the leader of a nuclear power. This is evident from their reaction to Tucker Carlson’s interview with him. Before they even heard what he said, they had dismissed Carlson as a shill for Putin progaganda, the willing puppet of a brutal dictator and imperialist thug. I listened to the interview, and when I heard the report on what Putin said in the NY Times, I read the interview critically several times, highlighting the main thread in Putin’s argument. What Putin actually said made me wonder whether the NY Times and a whole host of others were reading the same interview. They were so intent on maligning both him and Carlson that they failed to hear what he was saying. They asserted that Putin’s “rambling history lesson” was intended to justify his imperialist designs for Ukraine. They jumped to this conclusion by skipping over the important part of his remarks and completely misinterpreted what he said.

The same is true of the supposed “Russian expert” Timothy Snyder of Yale. I read his piece in FOREIGN AFFAIRS drawing similar conclusions about Putin’s famous essay in July 2021 entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” Snyder asserted that Putin made his historical case for that unity in order to argue that Ukraine didn’t really exist as a nation as a pretext for conquering the entire nation and restoring it into the Russian empire. I read Putin’s essay, but in the one I read Putin stated several times that he recognized Ukraine as a sovereign state and accepted the borders as they had been drawn. He went on to explain that the historical unity between Russians and Ukrainians was being subverted by bad actors (neoNazis in Ukraine supported by Western agents) to the point that Ukraine was becoming a threat to Russia’s security. All of this was dismissed, as usual, as “Putin progaganda” in spite of the fact that everything Putin said can be found in the reports of the Western press, diplomats and scholars. But Snyder was more interested in his vilification narrative than trying too understand what was motivating Putin in his actions in Ukraine.

I single out the NY Times and Timothy Snyder, but I could also talk about neocons Frederick Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War, Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic Magazine or Lindsey Graham of the United States Senate. In fact almost everyone – aided and abetted by corporate media – that has any real voice in foreign policy attributes malevolent motives for Putin’s military action in Ukraine. None of them have attempted to see the world as he sees it by actually listening to what he has been saying for more than15 years. They have chosen instead to vilify him as a tyrant and imperialist and summarily disimiss the abundant and clear evidence to the contrary by cherry picking what he says and ignoring the context that makes clear what his concerns are.

UKRAINE PAYING THE PRICE FOR AMERICAN IGNORANCE

This failure to listen to Putin and other Russian officals is killing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainiians. I realize this is a good deal according to Lindsey Graham and Dan Crenshaw (better Ukrainian boys than our boys), but supposedly Americans care about the people of Ukraine. Granted, for most in the foreign policy establishment, the war is not about the people of Ukraine. It’s admittedly about weakening Russia and toppling Putin. Of course neither of those projects is working out too well because the adults in the room made some catastrophic miscalculations. Catastorphic especially for 500,000 Ukrainian men and their families, not to mention the destruction of Ukraine as a whole. And also not to mention the economies of Europe.

Because the “Russian experts” in the West have concluded that Putin has imperialist ambitions and is beginning with Ukraine, their fundamental way of looking at and evaluating the military conflict is in terms of territorial gains. When Russia is slow to take terriitory or loses territory, by Western criteria for evaluating the conflict, Russia seems to be struggling, and Ukraine has some notable victories. But what if from Putin’s perspective, it is not fundamentally about territorial acquisition and never was? What if the publicly stated objectives of Russia’s military operations in Ukrainie is a better framework for evaluating what is actually happening in Ukraine? Since those stated objectives don’t really fit the narratives of Kagan, Applebaum or Graham, many in the West probably don’t know what they are, or have bought into the “Putin, the Hitler-like imperialst-dictator-thug” narrative to the degree that they too have dismissed what the Russians have stated as their strategic goals.

One of Russia’s stated goals was to “demilitarize” Ukraine. They intended to get rid of NATO armaments that could be used against Russia or destroy the Ukrainian military that refused to give them up. I do not seek to defend or even explain this objective. I merely state it. I also note that it is consistent with the famous war strategist popular in Russia, Carl von Clausewitz, who counseled that destruction of the enemy’s forces takes precedence over territorial gains. Accordingly, Russia’s strategy early on was to “grind down” the Ukrainian military. This was common knowledge among those paying attention.

GRIND THEM DOWN

After the Istanbul peace negotiations were trashed by the White House, and Putin discovered that no one in the West wanted to negotiate and end the war, Russia focused on implementing its strategy. Putin announced that their goals were to spare civiliain lives and the lives of Russian soldiers, and they would conduct military options in a way to achieve these goals. Their tactics were simple but not evident to those ignoring their strategic goals. They began their invasion with around 200,000 men. This was clearly not enough to take and then hold much territory (and the “adults in the room” should have known that). But by concentrating the entire 200,000 in specific areas in the Donbas, they took a lot at first with minimum losses, knowing that they could not hold it. And they made a big deal over elections resulting in annexing regions where they had taken territory. This made that territory a tempting target for Zelensky to take back.

Meanwhile, Ukraine had raised and equipped a new army. Russia did not have enough forces to hold the territory they had taken, let alone advance further. But that was acceptable because their goal was to lure Ukraine’s new army into coming out into the open by attempting to take back territory. When Ukraine did so, Russia was ready to do two things: (1) evacuate the undermanned defenders with minimal casualties, and (2) destroy the Ukrainian forces in fire traps laid with overwhelming artillery firepower.

In August of 2022, Ukraine launched its counter-offensive in Kherson and in September of 2022 its counter-offensive in Kharkiv. Both offensives were hailed by the West as overwhelming victories Ukraine and humiliating defeats for Russia. Remember the criteria by which the Western “experts” are evaluating the war. It’s fundamentally about terriitory. Meanwhile, Russian artillery destroyed nearly half of Ukraine’s new army, up to 30,000 Ukrainians in Kherson and 20,000 in Kharkiv.

Russia’s commanding general, Sergy Surovikin made several public statements on Russian media warning the Russian people that some tough decisions were going to be necessary regarding the recently acquired Russian territory. He ultimately decided to withdraw Russian forces from Kherson in order to save Russian troops who faced being trapped in Ukraine’s expected counter-offensive. Western experts predicted it would take Russia at least a weak to withdraw and were surprised two days later when there were no Russian troops to be found in the area of Kherson. Everything had been planned in advance and executed according to plan.

Surovikin explained in an interview, that Western handlers of the Ukrainian military demand its advance on Kherson regardless of military and civilian casualties. He went on to explain Russia’s strategy to the Russian people, who were concerned about the territorial losses. According to Surovikin, Russia does not seek to make rapid territorial advances in the special military operation. Instead, he said, “We have a different strategy… We spare each soldier and are persistently grinding down the advancing enemy.”

Having again made their goals public, they proceeded to implement their strategy in Bakhmut. The Russian units leading the ground attack on Ukraine’s heavily fortified positions in Bakhmut was the notorious Wagner Group. Ukraine considered the city to be strategic in terms of logistics, domestic moral and international support. When Wagner support artillery ground down defending Ukrainiian forces, Zelensky ordered more to replace them. Holding Bakhmut became an obsession and material for PR in the U.S. He sent more troops. The cycle repeated over and over, and it became evident to attentive observers that Bakhmut was becomeing a “meatgrinder.” That was the term the Russians were using. While the Wagner forces were keeping the defenders occupied in their defenses, other Russian forces were encircling Bakhmut and cutting off supply routes into the city. Eventually there was only one open road on the west side of the city. The analysts i follow expected Russia to cut off that road too so that Ukraine could not resupply and reinforce the forces inside.

Russia did not cut it off. Instead they let Zelensky send in as many Ukrainian soldiers as he had to send. Russia was implementing its strategy of grinding down the Ukrainian military with the goal of eliminating it as an effective fighting force. Some Western analysts began to recognize that Bakhmut was “a trap” set by Russia to grind down the Ukrainian military. But it was too late. Ukraine’s second army was finished off in Bakhmut,requiring NATO countries to help raise up and train a third for the much anticipated Spring-Summer offensive of 2023.

Russia’s official strategy in Bakhmut was the basis for the vocal discontent and ultimate “revolt” of the Wagner Group leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He thought his forces could take the city with adequate equipment and support. He wanted them to keep advancing. The Russian Defense Ministry told him no and rationed ammunition and artillery support. Consequently, when Wagner forces overextended themselves beyond their ammunition and support, Prigozhin threw public tantrums condemning the Definse Minister for withholding needed ammo and support. Whatever he thought he was doing when he sent the armored column towards Moscow, he had no support anywhere in Russia.

So much for Bakhmut and Prigozhin. At this point, Russia had already ground through two Ukrainian armies with minimal losses of Russian troops. The Western media myth that Russia has lost 400,000 men is simply war propaganda from the Ukrainian government regurgitated by the professing adults in the room. The BBC (avid Putin haters) have contracted careful research and determined that Russia has lost no more than 60,000 men compared to Ukraine’s 500,000.

In the Summer of 2023, Ukraine’s third army was supposedly trained and equipped. Ukraine and its Western masters had made a public spectacle of the upcoming offensive. So while the West trained and equipped this army, Russian set up formidable defenses while they too recruited and trained over 700,000 men, mostly volunteers. They called their first line of defensive posiitons the “Surovikin Line.” They set this line of defenses further back so that there was a large area that Ukraine had to cross to reach the first line of defense. They called it “the Gray Zone.” These open areas, mostly fields, were heavily mined so that an armored column could not get through without hitting a series of mines. The new meatgrinder was prepared whenever Zelensky and his masters were ready to send more Ukrainian men to their slaughter.

The West had provided mine-clearing vehicles that would lead the advancing columns through the Gray Zone. The clueless Western strategists schemed that when the cowardly and untrained Russian troops saw the Western tanks cominng at them, they would piss their pants, throw down their weapons and high tail it back to the Motherland. Ukrainian forces would clear a path through the minefields, penetrate the Surovikin Line and drive toward Mariupol, cutting off Russian supply lines and threatening Crimea.

It didn’t work out that way. Russia wouid target that lead mine-clearing vehicle with artillery or drones. When it was destroyed, they would then set their guns on the rest of the immobile column. Ukrainian forces could either abandon their vehicles and then advance or retreat on foot, or they could try to turn around in the mine fields. Either way, they were slaughtered. In spite of the spin from fanatics like Frederick Kagan, Ukraine never even reached the Surovikin Line in force, let alone penetrate it. The third and final army took a hard hit.

I could go on and talk about Avdiivka, which has recently fallen to Russia’s grinding away of the Ukrainian military, but I think I have given sufficient account to make my point. As a result of dogmatic intransigence in their insistence that Putin is an imperialist in a bloodthirsty quest for territory, the “Russia experts” in the West have misread Russia’s objectives and misdirected Ukrainian military operations resulting in the slaughter of most of the Ukrainian male population able to fight. Ukraine is not only out of artillery ammunition and air defense missiles. It will very soon be out of people to fight. Russia is close to achieving one of its stated strategic objectives. The longer we supply Ukraine and encourage them to keep on fighting, the more Russia will achieve its real objectives. It’s too late for Ukraine to establish defensive positions. They don’t have enough army left to build them, let alone effectively man them.

INCOMPETENCE AND INEPTNESS IN THE FOREIGN POLICY ESTABLISHMENT

This is the ongoing legacy of the neocon foreign policy elite in the U.S. Instead of pursuing strategic empathy, they believe their own propaganda, and they corrupt the media, and thus the American public, with that propaganda. Soon the public will discover the truth about Ukraine. But by the time we have maintained our support for Ukraine “down to the last Ukrainian,” and the American people have discovered what has happened in Ukraine, the adults in the room will have transferred their energies to China and Taiwan. And to hell with JFK and his vision for peace. The ruling class has ways to deal with those who challenge their agenda.