But the outcome is increasingly clear: Ukraine will win if it continues to receive Western support, while Russia can at best, mitigate the extent of its defeat.Įxpert Biography: Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. Russia’s armed forces remain enormous, and the war could easily continue for months. Still, as Ukrainians say, it’s far too early for euphoria. AN UNPROCESSED VERSION HAS BEEN PROVIDED SEPARATELY. THIS PICTURE WAS PROCESSED BY REUTERS TO ENHANCE QUALITY. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. Russian President Vladimir Putin watches a military parade on Victory Day, which marks the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia May 9, 2022. For what? For his bloated ambition to be a great czar and to countenance the destruction of Ukraine, Russia, and the world to that end. He started the war, he embarked on genocide, he turned ordinary Russians into aiders and abettors of a criminal enterprise, he continually intervened in the work of the general staff and placed politics above military strategy, and he showed-and still shows-that he is absolutely indifferent to the fact that as many as 50,000 Russian soldiers may have died. Putin bears the largest share of the blame for Russia’s embarrassing retreat. The Ukrainian counteroffensive testifies to a fivefold failure-of Russian intelligence to foresee the offensive, of Russian military planning to fortify its defenses in potentially vulnerable regions, of Russian rank-and-file troops to be willing to die for what most of them now know is a stupid, criminal war, of the Russian people to have the courage to save their sons from certain death, and of Vladimir Putin to leave the job of war-making and warfighting to his general staff.

In fact, the irony is that Russian troops have responded to Ukraine’s Blitzkrieg in the same manner that Ukrainians were expected to respond to Russia’s February 24 th offensive: by throwing down their arms and heading for the hills. It should be amply clear by now that, expert expectations to the contrary, Russia cannot win the war. Ukraine has made some impressive progress on the battlefield, but let us hold the applause for a moment: It’s too soon to tell whether Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive heralds a Ukrainian victory in the war with Russia, but the remarkably rapid Ukrainian advance on the one hand and the equally remarkable rapid retreat by the Russians on the other do testify to Ukrainian military prowess and, perhaps more critical, Russian military incompetence.

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