THE TRAGEDY OF UKRAINE - REQUIEM FOR A YOUNG NATION
Intro
In late August last year I wrote “A Beginners Guide to the Conflict in Ukraine”. It was essentially the tale of my voyage of discovery, which opened my eyes to a vast reservoir of information and understandings about the conflict.
Well, six months have passed since then, and a very great deal has happened. As the passage of time and events helps to establish which information and understandings have proven to be the most reliable, I feel that it’s time to provide an update (hopefully a bit shorter than the last article).
Of course, these are my personal understandings. I emphasise that I’m not trying to tell you what to think about these matters, but rather encouraging people to think about what they’re told (especially if it’s coming from politicians or legacy/politicised media outlets).
So What’s Happened with Ukraine?
Gosh that’s an almost endless story, so I’ll break it down a bit with reference to Military, Political, & Societal events and circumstances.
1. Military
1. The big Ukrainian military offensive of last (northern) summer, planned and directed by the west (mainly US + some NATO countries), based on their money, training, strategies, armaments and munitions, was decisively defeated.
2. The offensive involved major losses in the Ukrainian military (of manpower, weapons and munitions), and this resulted in a significantly weakened army.
3. Attempts to build up the army again by recruiting and training more men, and obtaining more weapons and munitions, have had only limited success (Ukraine is running out of men, and the sponsor nations are running out of weapons and munitions).
4. As Russia then changed strategy from “defence” to “aggressive defence” (in which the Russian army constantly probed the Ukrainian lines looking for any weakness), they were able to cause ongoing attrition of Ukraine’s frontline forces. This together with constant degradation of military infrastructure (control centres, stockpiles, air defences, etc) systematically weakened the Ukrainian army over time, at an accelerating rate.
5. More recently Ukrainian manpower and material shortages became conspicuous over a wide spectrum, raising doubts about how long Ukraine would be able to continue fighting. As this occurred the Russian army shifted to aggressive attrition, involving increased assaults at multiple locations all along the 1,000+ km front line.
6. As we come to late (northern) winter we see Ukraine in a terrible situation where western support (money, weapons & munitions) has all but run out, and western promises to maintain supply simply cannot be met because of an inability to increase production sufficiently to generate spare capacity for Ukraine.
7. Likewise, Ukraine has been unable to recruit and train new soldiers fast enough to replace losses.
8. As discussed later, the Russian army has been able to steadily and systematically increase its capabilities in all arenas.
9. As a result of the rapidly expanding capability gap between the two armies, we are now at the point where Ukraine’s military appears to be starting to unravel.
10. This is evidenced by the collapse of Ukraine’s defence of Avdiivka. After a lengthy build-up of Russia’s offensive actions, this progress culminated on about 18 February such that there was a sudden collapse of the Ukrainian defences. The resulting rout was disorderly with large losses of men attempting to flee, and large numbers of soldiers surrendering.
{Note: Avdiivka was particularly important as it had been used since 2015 by Ukrainian ultra-nationalist forces to constantly attack civilian targets in Donetsk city and adjacent towns and cities, killing and maiming large numbers of civilians. Over 9 years it had been progressively fortified to what some had thought was an unassailable defensive position.}
11. What happens now is anyone’s guess, but there is a strong likelihood of further collapses of Ukraine’s military which is under increasing pressure all along the front line.
2. Political
I’m sure many books will be written about this. To keep it as short and simple as I can:
1. As discussed in my previous article, this is a proxy war being waged by the west (principally the US) against Russia for the purpose of weakening Russia and perhaps also collapse and break-up of the Russian Federation.
2. From 2014 (after the US facilitated coup) until 2022 the US (and some NATO allies) had been very active in Ukraine in financial and commercial areas, but in particular in terms of large-scale programs to re-organise and arm the Ukrainian army.
3. I don’t know the extent to which Ukraine had become dependent on financial aid from the west prior to February 2022, although given the long period of military support this would have been significant.
4. From February 2022, on as the costs of fighting the war escalated, the west pumped in more and more financial aid. Gradually Ukraine became heavily dependent on this flow of western funds, to the extent that now they rely on it for the provision of basic government services (military and government salaries, pensions, etc).
5. Politically, Ukraine found itself caught in a trap. In order to keep receiving western funds (& hence avoid financial collapse) it basically had to do what its western sponsors wanted it to do. This political imperative affected all aspects of political decision making, including the conduct of the war.
6. As things have turned bad on the military front, the Kiev government has had to work harder and harder to try to coax more cash out of the coffers of western governments. However, they have run into significant problems, such as:
7. The USA is losing interest. It has other wars to support, needs cash to re-build its own depleted reserves of armaments, and with an election on the horizon partisanship is in full flight and domestic priorities are competing for attention.
8. European support is also waning, not least because the sanctions imposed on Russia have backfired spectacularly, pushing key European countries into recession and generating domestic unrest as funds for Ukraine are seen as directly affecting the welfare of the local populations.
9. Farmer protests and blockades of the Ukrainian border to prevent cheap Ukrainian produce from flooding European markets are some of the manifestations of this. Europeans who are struggling with the adverse economic impacts of the sanctions policies are starting to resent seeing vast sums of money that could be used to support them instead being sent to Ukraine.
As I write this, attempts by the Biden administration to get a further funding package through Congress have not succeeded (but may eventually, at least to some extent). Some funds have been approved by the EU (eu~12.5 billion annually for 4 years) which by itself will not assist greatly.
So, at this point in time Ukraine’s financial survival hangs in the balance. To say that there is tension within the political halls of power would be an extreme understatement.
Reflecting this was the recent sacking and replacement of the Commander in Chief of the Army (Gen Zaluzhnyi) due to a complete breakdown in his relationship with Pres Zelensky. The timing could not have been worse, taking effect just a week before Ukraine’s military collapse in Avdiivka. This is all in the context of political manouvering, rumours of coups, and two attempted assassinations (one successful, one not).
3. Societal
This is where we start to talk about the true tragedy of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian People
Put simply, Ukraine is running out of people. This is due to the combination of a long-term decline in the population, overlain by shrinking boundaries as the war progresses, outward migration as people flee the war-torn country, and extensive military losses.
For instance:
1. Ukraine’s population peaked at about 52 million people back in about 1992, but then began to decline due to the economic disruption which followed the break-up of the Soviet Union. This included a lower birth rate and also net outward migration as people sought better opportunities elsewhere.
2. By the beginning of 2022, when the latest phase of the conflict began, the population within the original territories of Ukraine had dropped to about 40 million.
3. Taking into account the population living in Russian controlled areas in Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk, and the recent refugee departures (both east and west), it is thought that the population currently under the control of the Kiev government is now only about 25 million (some have suggested as low as 20 million).
4. Mobilisations (conscription) have been necessary to make up for losses during the conflict. However, after two years of extensive recruitment Ukraine is finding it harder and harder to find new conscripts.
5. This is reflected by the average age of the army having increased from 27 to 43, as the younger fitter men originally recruited have been lost in battle and replaced with older more recent recruits.
6. The Kiev government has consistently tried to hide the true scale of the losses, driven by the political (propaganda) need to convince sponsors to keep supplying aid.
7. However, the scale of the losses is becoming impossible to hide, as reports emerge of people with obvious disabilities having been conscripted (for instance an epileptic who died before seeing service, a downs syndrome man on the front line being abused by other soldiers as a nuisance, a man with no fingers using wire wrapped around his wrist in lieu of a trigger finger, more and more deceased female soldiers, and one female soldier surrendering and asking for consideration because she was pregnant).
8. There are also protests and meetings attended by family and friends of soldiers who have been unable to get word about what has happened to those soldiers. Undoubtedly many of these will be bodies lying in fields and trenches along the contact zones.
9. As the population starts to understand that much of what they have been told about the progress of the war has been misleading, and the limited chances for surviving the front line, men are seeking to escape or go into hiding.
10. There have been cases of military commissars operating as press gangs, raiding neighbourhoods to forcibly conscript men, roaming the streets in disguise (eg in an ambulance vehicle) looking for men, and of fights as people attack commissars, including cases where women have attacked them to try to save their menfolk.
11. There is no reliable information on the actual number of Ukrainian losses, although various figures are floated. The Russian estimate based on intercepts of military daily reports suggests about 450,000 dead and severely wounded, of which about 50,000 have had amputations. Some parties suggest on the basis of large new / extended cemeteries that the figure could be significantly higher, but at this stage it’s all part of the fog of war.
So, we can see that as the Americans and Europeans insist that Ukraine must keep on fighting (in the pursuit of the west’s objectives), the Ukrainian people are starting to realise that they are being asked to fight “to the last Ukrainian” NOT for their own benefit, but only to further foreign interests. They are, indeed, the sacrificial lambs thrown to the wolves by their western sponsors.
What About Russia?
In any war there are of course two sides. On one side we have the US and their NATO allies, and of course their proxy, namely Ukraine. On the other side we have Russia and for a period of time the LPR and DPR (Luhansk Peoples Republic & Donetsk Peoples Republic).
The conflict effectively started a long time ago, after 1991 and the breakup of the Soviet Union. At this point the need for NATO (a defensive alliance to protect against the might of the USSR) ceased to exist.
Rather than use this opportunity to seek to establish a mutually agreed security architecture for Europe, the US instead adopted a policy of aggressive expansion of NATO (and hence abandoned their commitments to Gorbachev and Yeltsin that NATO would NOT be expanded “one inch to the east”).
It was always known that deliberate aggressive expansion would be seen by Russia as a major threat. However, in 2008 the US ambassador to Russia, William Burns, made it very clear that any attempt to expand NATO to Ukraine would be to cross a final red line which was likely to cause civil war in Ukraine (it did) and cause Russia to intervene (it did).
So, the war was never a surprise to the US / NATO but instead was the expected and almost certainly the intended outcome of the US / NATO actions (intended to weaken Russia).
It is now clear that the welfare of Ukraine or the people of Ukraine was never a consideration. The west saw a country with extensive resources which it wanted to use to advance its own interests.
The massive sanctions imposed on Russia shortly after February 2022 (making it the most sanctioned country in the history of the world) were intended to cripple Russia economically, leading to political and military breakdown.
Initially this looked like it might succeed, as Russia did suffer economically. To the surprise of the US/NATO Russia was able to rapidly re-orient its economy, which is now healthy and performing better than most other European countries. As a result, it has now passed Germany to be the largest economy in Europe on a PPP (purchasing power parity) basis.
Of note is the fact that Russia has large resources (hydrocarbons, minerals, population, infrastructure). It was able to use these to rapidly expand all aspects of the military, including extensive voluntary recruitment, massive expansion of traditional weapons and munitions, and a level of military innovation which caught the west completely by surprise.
The net result is that as Ukraine’s military capabilities have shrunk due to losses which could not be replaced in time, Russia’s has grown enormously (eg men, machines, weapons, innovation).
While Russia would also have had significant military losses, Ukrainian reports have been shown to have been grossly over-stating these. It seems that these are significantly lower than Ukraine’s and with Russia’s larger human and industrial base, the signs of stress in Ukraine have not been evident in Russia (for instance new recruits are voluntary not conscripted).
Some analysts have been saying for a very long time that they expect Russia to succeed, and that Ukraine should start negotiations as early as possible. However, Zelensky’s decree outlawing any negotiation with Russia is still in place with key elements of the government (the ultra-nationalists) ideologically driven and very resistant to any compromise. Hence an attempt at pragmatic negotiation which is based on the realities of the battlefield is currently impossible.
So, the war continues, perhaps to the last Ukrainian (or until complete military collapse). What actually happens is anyone’s guess. Meantime, the population of Ukraine is being systematically destroyed in every conceivable way.
What About the USA / NATO / EU?
Although nominally aligned in terms of supporting Ukraine as sponsor states, there are large differences in how these entities have been affected, and in terms of how their different objectives have been addressed.
The USA
As a reminder, the primary cause of the conflict was the USA’s policy of relentless expansion of NATO, despite commitments to Russia that it would not, despite the doubts and objections of various existing NATO countries, and in complete disregard of Russia’s multiple objections and attempts to have its security interests respected.
The original 12 members have now been expanded to 31 countries (and 32 if Sweden joins). There have been nine rounds of enlargement. After the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the disbandment of the Warsaw Pact, the apparent purpose of NATO ceased to exist (the Soviet Union was no longer a threat, with the former Soviet Republics in economic collapse and chaos).
However, the US maintained an aggressive policy, directed towards Russia rather than the Soviet Union. This involved transitioning NATO from a defensive alliance to a means of expanding US influence and power. US financial interests also benefited, as membership of NATO locked member countries into reliance on the US weapons industry. The MIC (Military Industrial Complex) applied ongoing pressure on Congress to push for continued expansion.
While Russia objected continually it did not take direct action (it lacked the economic and military capacity to do so). However, attempting to expand NATO to include Ukraine was always identified as a final red line, as per Ambassador William Burns’ memo in 2008. This was well known and publicised. Prof. Mearsheimer in a lecture in 2015 predicted the war that we now have, and also predicted that Russia would prevail because for them NATO membership by Ukraine represented an existential threat. Jens Stoltenberg (Sec Gen of NATO) more recently has acknowledged that this was the primary driver of Russia’s intervention.
It is fair to conclude that Russia’s intervention and the resulting war was always the objective of the US. This gave the US an excuse to split Europe away from Russia and thus prevent the combined economic power of Europe and Russia challenging the global economic dominance of the USA. The destruction of the Nordstream pipelines was simply part of the process of splitting Europe (and especially Germany) away from Russia (an objective for a long time). Hence the US ensured that all attempts at peaceful resolution were sabotaged (mostly with the enthusiastic support of the UK).
So, how is it all turning out? To summarise:
a) Well, energy separation has been achieved. This has massively damaged the European economy, and in particular Germany’s economy. However, it has been great for the USA, which has suddenly jumped to the position of the world’s largest LNG exporter. Huge windfall profits have been made by US interests as the gas has been sold at sky high prices to the poor Europeans.
{Out of interest, the massive expansion of LNG export terminals on the US east coast had some commentators predicting a price crash due to oversupply. The opposite has occurred.}
b) The war has been great for the US armaments industry, which has also made massive windfall profits as extraordinary amounts of US taxpayer dollars were spent on arms for Ukraine.
c) However, it hasn’t been such a good outcome for the reputation of the US armaments industry (essential for the maintenance of export sales). The promise to Ukraine was that with modern US weapons and associated technology they would be able to defeat Russia. That simply didn’t happen.
While there were some successes, ultimately Russia demonstrated that their modern weapons were as good as those of the USA and in some areas superior. In addition, Russia showed an amazing capacity to innovate and also scale up production so that now Russia is flush with weaponry of very high quality and ample production capacity, while the USA has simply run out of weaponry to supply and does not have the capacity to scale up to meet the promises originally made.
“Whatever it takes for as long as it takes” gradually morphed into “Whatever we can for as long as we can”, with the latter amounting now to very little indeed.
So, the outcome at this point in time has been major damage to the US’s reputation as the world's top arms manufacturer and supplier.
d) In terms of the reputation of the US military, the results have been likewise. It’s important to understand that the US runs NATO, and hence was the prime architect of the war strategy for Ukraine. However, the strategy has been shown to have been based on poor intelligence, a poor understanding of modern Russia, and seriously defective military strategy. This all flowed from arrogance based on an image of the poor state of Russia back in 1991 when the USSR collapsed. Thirty years later of course it is a markedly different country.
Russia’s military strategy was quietly and carefully conceived, and despite many setbacks succeeded. The defeat of the large counteroffensive was decisive, with the Ukrainian army only getting to the first line of defensive fortifications at one location. Elsewhere it was defeated in the crumple zone in front of the defensive line.
e) Of course, the US people have lost out badly. The money spent on the Ukraine war could have solved many of the US’s most pressing problems (housing, healthcare, education, dropping life expectancy, growing poverty etc etc).
f) In terms of weakening Russia and perhaps causing economic collapse and breakup, the war has been a failure. Russia has survived the sanctions and the demands of the war surprisingly well. The economy is stable and expanding. The political leadership has approval ratings that western leaders can only dream of.
g) In one regard the US has damaged its economic position. By freezing Russian central bank assets and imposing draconian sanctions, the US finally managed to convince much of the world that the so called “safe haven” US dollar was not really a “safe haven” after all. This has accelerated a move away from the use of the US dollar for trade transactions, with this process spreading rapidly around the world.
This poses a major risk for the US, which has a current (and rapidly rising) federal debt of $34 trillion and annual interest payments which have now reached ~$1 trillion. As debt rolls over the US has to continually persuade parties to invest in government debt. The actions of the US directly act as a disincentive for parties to invest in what is now seen as a significantly riskier asset class.
h) Another problem for the US is that the war has forced Russia to re-align itself away from Europe and forge closer ties with many parties, including China, India, Iran and others. While the original plan of the US was to cause the collapse of Russian military power so that it could then turn its attention to China, instead the war has strengthened ties between Russia and China. Together Russia and Chine represent a much stronger challenge to US global hegemony than existed prior to the Ukraine conflict. A case of the US shooting oneself in the foot.
i) The war has also revealed the weakness of US manufacturing. While Russia has been able to rapidly scale up its military production, the US has not. This stems in part from the “for profit” system in the US where industries will only invest in capacity if it is expected to be sufficiently profitable. Hence there is little incentive to invest in increased capacity for the more traditional types of military equipment and munitions. By contrast Russia’s military industry is still mostly government owned (the rest of the economy is the western style of “for profit” commerce). This has enabled Russia to dramatically scale up production without the inflation and windfall profits which have blown out cost structures in the west.
j) One issue that has been very clearly demonstrated in the US is the total lack of any concern for Ukraine as a nation, or for the people of Ukraine.
The US has essentially trapped Ukraine into a position where it was forced to reject peace options and hence wage war with Russia which it was unlikely to win, but which satisfied the US’s requirement to damage Russia and split Russia from Europe.
Many commentators saw this from the beginning, but it was drowned out by the massive propaganda campaigns waged throughout the western world.
As problems emerged for Ukraine and military success became more and more doubtful, many US politicians continued to argue that it was a “great war” because Russia was being damaged and Russians were being killed without any US casualties (no mention of Ukrainian casualties). Almost no-one showed any concern for or even interest in the Ukrainian society which was being destroyed by the ravages of war.
So, in balance the war has not been too much of a problem for the US. Some sectors of the economy are making a fortune but on the other hand there has been a major loss of reputation (politically, militarily and financially) and this will at some stage come home to roost. The diversion of resources from domestic needs has also been driving internal dissent and political division, with unknown consequences.
NATO / EU
Despite some benefits accruing to sectors in the US, there has effectively been no benefit for Europe. In this regard Europe went along with the US demands to try to drag Ukraine into NATO, to foment a coup in Kiev, to arm and train the Ukraine military to turn it into Europe’s most powerful army, and to contribute large chunks of their budget for this purpose.
I can’t think of any positive outcomes for Europe, so I will have to settle with listing some of the many negatives, such as:
a) Europe was once again burdened by a flow of refugees, which seems to happen after all of the US initiated wars (eg Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya). This obviously imposes economic and social pressures.
b) Europe lost access to cheap Russian energy. Low cost pipeline gas was replaced by extremely expensive LNG. Russian crude oil delivered to European refineries by pipeline was replaced by Russian oil sent to India, refined, and sent on to Europe at much higher total cost. The energy cost has caused major damage to industry, and in particular Germany which was the industrial powerhouse of Europe.
Germany in particular is now in recession and is rapidly de-industrialising with major sectors relocating to various places including the US and China.
c) Cost of living increases associated with the decoupling with Russia have impacted average citizens, causing widespread dissatisfaction, manifested by farmer protests across Europe, loss of political support for the current European leaders, and the rise of more extremist attitudes and parties. In short, policies intended to hurt Russia (war and sanctions) have ended up damaging Europe instead.
d) As the war has interfered with Ukraine’s normal export flows, cheap Ukrainian commodities and goods have flooded to Europe, disrupting markets and contributing to farmer and other dissatisfaction and protests.
e) As for the US, Europe has given all of its available armaments to Ukraine and does not have the industrial capacity to continue this or to re-stock. Hence it has to some extent de-militarised itself as a result of its Ukraine policies.
This may partly explain the illogical responses to Ukraine’s military losses, characterised by a touch or hysteria and panic.
f) Despite popular dissent European leaders seem to be determined to follow the same course and push for a continuation of the war, instead of pushing for negotiations to end the war. They seem unable to step out from the shadow of the US and act in the interests of their own populations.
In Conclusion
Over the last two years the current phase of the conflict in Ukraine has evolved, helping to clarify many things that seemed confusing and contradictory in the early stages.
In particular, a great deal of information has slowly seeped out despite obvious attempts at suppression (and costing the lives and freedom of some journalists).
It is now clear that the orchestrated outrage (throughout the west) when Russia entered Ukraine was a massive propaganda campaign with planning involving western intelligence agencies and Ukrainian organisations funded by the west.
The purpose of this saturation propaganda was to divert attention away from the real issues and causes of the conflict, in particular the objectives of the US and NATO allies (vassal states).
For the majority of the western public this worked beautifully, with endless outrage across media outlets. However, despite the risks there were people out there that bit by bit peeled back the covers and revealed what was really going on.
In short, Ukraine and the people of Ukraine have been used and grossly abused so that oligarchic elements throughout the west could access the vast wealth and resources in Ukraine (and also with a bit of luck in Russia), while the USA retained its global hegemonic power (by damaging or destroying Russia).
All the public statements about supporting Ukraine were in effect just cover stories. In reality there was no concern for Ukraine at all. It was all driven primarily by US self interest, and European subservience).
We mourn the passing of a young country, driven into civil war, and then into war with Russia. No-one knows what will be left at the end. The people of Ukraine are truly the victims of a great injustice.
QED