Ukraine: If Poroshenko Attacks His Days Are
Numbered
By The Saker
East Ukraine rebels are going out of their way to show their
interest in peace even as they have never been
militarily stronger
This is done so that when the inevitable Ukraine attack
demanded by nationalists and the US comes it will be impossible
to blame the rebels
After that the rebels stand a good chance of neutralizing
Ukraine attack and moving on the counter-offensive
At which point it is unlikely Poroshenko will be able to
maintain power
Question is, is he likely to be replaced by a pro-peace or
an even more pro-war faction?
July 20, 2015 "Information
Clearing House"
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"RI"
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Top Novorussian officials from the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s
Republics (Zakharchenko, Deinego and Pushilin) have held a joint
press conference and officially announced that they had taken the
unilateral decision to withdraw
at least 3km from the front line all their weapons up to a 100mm
caliber (weapons of a heavier caliber were supposed to have
already been withdrawn according to the Minsk-2 Agreement (M2A); the
Novorussians complied, the junta in Kiev did not).
Before that, the Novorussians had already done a similar
unilateral action by withdrawing all their forces by over 1km from
the town of Shirokino. Predictably, the the government side did not
follow suit and stayed on their positions (but did not dare enter
Shirokino either, at least as far as I know).
This time around, the Ukraine side greeted the new “gesture of
goodwill” of the Novorussians with an unprecedented barrage of
artillery fire on the city of Donestsk which, again, was shelled
all night long.
So what is going on here? Have the Novorussians suddenly
gone crazy?
Far from it.
In fact, they have set a very elegant trap for Poroshenko and his
western backers. Here is how it works.
Political level:
On a political level the Novorussians are bending over backwards
to prove to anybody willing to listen that they are truly complying
with all the provisions of M2A.
The problem, of course, is that nobody in the West is willing to
listen. In response, the Novorussians are multiplying the
initiatives to make it harder and harder for western leaders to
ignore the facts on the ground which are simple: the junta has not
even begun complying with M2A while the Novorussians have complied.
As soon as Zakharchenko, Deinego and Pushilin made their
announcement, Lavrov called Steinmeier to stress that the
Novorussians were doing everything they could and that the pressure
should now be put on Poroshenko to follow suit.
Now, of course Lavrov knows that Steinmeier is a US puppets and
takes his orders from Uncle Sam and, more importantly, Lavrov also
knows that Poroshenko cannot implement M2A, but since M2A was
signed, the Russians are now pretending as if the Ukrainians could
abide by its terms and they make sure that they, and their BRICS/SCO
allies, mantrically repeat that “the Minsk 2 Agreements are the only
way to solve this conflict“. In reality, of course, M2A is the best
way to achieve regime change in the Ukraine. Why?
Because even though Poroshenko has not implemented any of the M2A
points, he is already being openly attacked by the Right Sector and
the various nationalist parties for not decisively fighting the
oligarchs and the Novorussians.
The situation in the western Ukraine is now dead serious and
Dmitri Yarosh has openly described the regime in Kiev “traitors” and
called for the numerous Ukronazi deathsquads to rebel and disobey
Poroshenko’s orders.
Poroshenko would love to prove his patriotism by triggering yet
another large scale attack on Novorussia, but the problem here is
that this already failed the last two times around and the
Novorussians are now even stronger than they used to be.
Military aspect:
Though only a full scale resumption of hostilities would actually
test this hypothesis, there is very strong evidence that the
Novorussians have successfully achieved their transition from a
decentralized militia force to a unified regular army.
This means that they can potentially go from tactical victories
to operational
level counter-attacks posing a major risk for the regime
in Kiev.
They clearly have enough men under arms and they openly admit
that their equipment is “adequate”. Hopefully, so is their command
and control (which used to be terrible).
Even more telling is the fact that the Novorussian leaders are
all clearly very confident about their ability not only to push back
any Ukraine government attack, but to counter-attack and inflict
major losses. Zakharchenko has openly said so many times. Time was
always on the Novorussian side and now this is finally paying off.
The Novorussian confidence is best illustrated by the fact that
even though Novorussian intelligence services have established that
there are currently 70,000 junta soldiers backed by heavy armor and
artillery all along the line of contact they still went ahead with
their unilateral withdrawal.
Besides, the Novorussians have had plenty of time to carefully
prepare the terrain along the likely axis of attack of the junta
forces which, if they attack, will be carefully channeled into
carefully prepared fire pockets and destroyed.
I also suppose that the Novorussians have dramatically improved
their mobility and fire coordination which will make it much easier
for them to engage any attacking force.
So the reality is this: the Novorussians are really not taking
much of a risk with their unilateral actions. In fact, they have
very nicely combined good political PR and sound military tactics.
Poroshenko’s dilemma
Poroshenko is in a terrible situation. Ukrainian economy is
basically dead. There is nothing left to salvage, nevermind turn the
tide and overcome the crushing economic crisis.
The Right Sector is up in arms and very, very angry. Folks in the
western Ukraine are already seriously considering demanding their
own special autonomy status. As for Odessa with Saakashvili in
charge and the
daughter of Egor Gaidar as Deputy Governor, it will inevitably
explode, especially since the USA officially pays their salaries.
When Poroshenko goes to the Rada he has to look “tough”, i.e. say
the exact opposite of what he committed to do according to M2A. But
since even the White House has called the M2A the only solution,
Poroshenko is put in the crazy situation of having to look like a
peacemaker by day, and execute Nuland’s crazy orders by night.
By now Poroshenko has probably already figured out that he is
being used like both a pawn and a fall guy by the USA: when he will
be forced to order an attack on Novorussia and this attack
inevitably fails, he will be blamed for it all.
Why would the USA order Poroshenko to attack even though such an
attack is sure to result in yet another defeat? For two reasons: the
(now rather hypothetical) hope that Russia might intervene and
because that is the perfect way to get rid of Poroshenko.
Unsurprisingly, Poroshenko has no desire to lose power and, most
likely, die, so he is doing his best to avoid taking that dramatic
step while continuing to shell Donetsk and the rest of the cities of
the Donbass just to prove his “patriotism” and military “prowess”.
The problem with that “solution” is that this kind of shelling
does *nothing* to weaken the Novorussian armed forces but only
serves to further enrage the people of Novorussia.
When the attack comes
So what will happen when the probably inevitable attack comes? My
guess is that the Novorussians will rapidly and effectively counter
it and mount an immediate counter offensive, probably towards
Mariupol and/or Slaviansk.
At this point the junta will freak out again and beg its western
patrons to stop the Novorussians (which is exactly what happened
before Minsk 1 and 2).
Obama and Kerry will probably have the nerve to blame Russia for
it all again, but in Europe the elites will be in full panic mode,
not only because “their” guy clearly was the one to violate M2A and
the one to have launched the attack, but also because they will be
terrified of the possible depth of the Novorussian counter-attack
(their biggest fear is a coastal corridor to the
Crimean Peninsula).
Remember the Sarkozy trip to Moscow to beg the Russians not to
enter Tbilissi in 2008? I would not be surprised if something
similar happened again (with Merkel or Hollande in Sakozy’s role).
And, again, Putin will probably order the Novorussians to stop ,
but the terrain they would seize would remain in their hands, like
in Debaltsevo. Everybody would have to accept that, however
reluctantly. At which point I would expect a complete collapse of
the regime in Kiev. Who could replace it then?
Regime change sure! But for what?
I only see two options here. Option one is a military coup to
“save the Ukraine” and “restore peace”.
That would be a de-facto end of the entire Ukronazi experiment
and a basic acceptance of the Putin plan: a de-centralized, unitary
and neutral Ukraine with a right of self-determination guaranteed by
the Constitution.
The other option is an openly Nazi regime of Bandera freaks à
la Right Sector and the various death squads. The accession to power
by bona fide Nazis will, of course, only re-start the process of
breakup of the rump Ukraine which, form the Russian point of view,
this is also a temporarily acceptable outcome.
Russia cannot accept having permanent and unitary russophobic
“Banderastan” on her borders, but a breakup of the Ukraine into
several “zones of control” by various Urkonazi gangs presents no
danger to Russia at all.
I would argue that the worst regime for Russia (and Novorussia,
of course) is what we have now: a unitary Ukraine ruled by a
completely immoral and spineless oligarch in power, surrounded by
Victoria Nuland’s minions in all key positions, with the official
recognition and support of the EU/IMF/WB/etc. This configuration
clearly has the greatest potential to threaten Russia and it already
actually murders people in Novorussia every day. But if the Ukraine
follows the Libyan or Iraqi “democracy model” then it will be a much
bigger problem for the EU than for Russia.
Putin and Zakharchenko have all the time in the world
The “Ukronazi Ukraine” has by now already acquired enough
self-destructive momentum for Putin and Zakharchenko to sit back
and wait.
They don’t have to do anything right now other than to prepare
for a very likely and desperate suicide-attack by the junta against Novorussia.
Should that happen, the Novorussian will be ready to
counter-attack and fast and as deep as possible and then stop again
and restart the mantra about “we support the territory integrity of
the Ukraine” while thinking “but we can’t help it if the damn thing
falls apart“.
Obama and Kerry will, of course, blame Russia for it all, but for
who long can anybody blame somebody for doing absolutely *nothing*?
The people of Novorussia unfortunately don’t
The toughest situation so far has been for the people of
Novorussia who could take little comfort in the nice theory that
time is on “their” side while shells are landing on their houses,
schools and hospitals. For them, every minute of this horror was was
an emergency which had to be stopped now. Things are now starting to
get really ugly in the Nazi-occuppied Ukraine too. Check out this
video of a famous Ukrainian blogger (in exile in Russia irrc) in
which he reports how the “Ukrop” party (of Kolmoiskii and Yarosh) is
trying to get votes by distributing food:
(please press ‘cc’ to see the English subtitles)
Scary no?
And it is only going to get worse, much worse. Politically,
economically and socially the Ukraine is dead, even if the body is
will warm.
Only a regime change followed by the inevitable de-Nazification,
combined with a long term and major international stabilization and
reconstruction program might, eventually and slowly, allow the
Ukraine to return to some modicum of normalcy, and that only if
Russia plays a major role in this effort.
Since such an outcome is absolutely unacceptable to the Empire,
the Ukraine will continue to be a “black hole” like Kosovo, Libya or
Somalia – a failed state with abject poverty ruled by thugs and
Mafia dons. For this reason, a breakup of the country into several
smaller entities is probably the least bad option for everybody,
especially the Ukrainians themselves.
One big explosion or several smaller ones?
What if you were offered the choice to either be in the room A
where 100g of TNT would be detonated at once, or in room B where 5
times 20g of TNT would be detonated sequentially, with some possibly
not exploding at all? The choice is obvious, right? The same goes
for the Ukraine.
There might be much less danger for the entire continent if the
Ukraine was allowed to break up in several parts (Donbass, Central,
Souther and Western for example) and this might be much better for
the local population too.
For one thing some parts are far more viable than others. They
are also very different. And since the Ukraine in its current
borders is both a creation of Lenin and Stalin and has no basis in
history anyway, a breakup might be a much safer and more natural
process than desperate attempts to keep this artificial
entity alive.
In ideological terms the Ukraine is a fantastic idea: a large
virulently anti-Russian state ‘protecting’ the rest of Europe from
the Russian hordes. Great! But as soon as one looks at the
practicalities of such a project it becomes immediately clear that
it is a crazy notion born in the sick minds of the rabidly
russophobic western religious and political elites.
The only question is this: will the western plutocrats agree to
give up on the monster they created? The future of Russian does not
depend on the answer, but the future of Europe probably will.
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