Don't believe the propaganda coming out of Team Biden and its Big Media allies regarding Ukraine, one analyst insists.
Ukraine "is not winning the war," he said. In fact, "they are losing badly," James G. Rickards, editor of Strategic Intelligence, wrote on Jan. 4.
The narrative from the Ukraine cheerleaders in D.C. is that the second coming of Winston Churchill, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, has led his country to major gains in recent months and has Russia on the retreat.
The reality, Rickards noted, is that "most of the Ukrainian gains were against lightly defended positions that the Russians quickly abandoned because they were not worth fighting to defend. Those Russian troops (really Donbas militias) were ordered to retreat to fortified Russian lines while Ukrainian forces rushing to fill the void were slaughtered by Russian artillery bombardments."
The primary Russian objective, Rickards added, "is to grind down and destroy the Ukrainian armed forces. ... The best intelligence says Russia is presently enjoying an 8–10:1 casualty rate. In other words, Russia is inflicting eight to 10 casualties on Ukraine for every casualty it’s suffering. That kind of ratio isn’t sustainable for Ukraine."
As it prepares to lower the boom on Ukraine, Rickards notes that Russia "has reinforced its positions with 300,000 or more fresh troops (about 30 divisions) who are rested and resupplied. That’s in addition to the number of troops already in Ukraine. Evidence indicates they’re backed by at least 1,500 tanks, 5,000 armored fighting vehicles, 1,000 rocket artillery systems, hundreds of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters plus thousands of tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones."
Russian leader Vladimir Putin is no longer interested in bringing Ukraine to the negotiating table, focusing instead "on destroying Ukraine’s military forces and imposing a settlement on Kyiv," Rickards wrote.
Military analysts who aren't obliged to push the Team Biden narrative believe a major winter offensive will begin soon, "likely when the ground in southern Ukraine is fully frozen (muddy ground will bog down Russian forces)," Rickards wrote. "A successful counteroffensive will consolidate Russian control of Donbas (the heartland of Ukrainian industry and natural resources), give Russia control of Zaporizhzhya (the largest nuclear power plant in Europe) and possibly include the conquest of Odessa, the most important Ukrainian Black Sea port."
Most recently, Team Biden announced it would be shipping M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BFVs) to Ukraine after Zelensky had complained there is “no rational reason why” he has “not yet been supplied” with heavier Western tanks, such as the American M1 Abrams or the German Leopard 2.
Rickards was dismissive:
When it comes to weapons, there’s a lot less than meets the eye in terms of helping Ukraine. It appears that Ukraine is getting billions of dollars in equipment, but in fact, Ukraine is getting castoffs from U.S. inventories.
What’s really going on is the U.S. is dumping old or obsolete systems on Ukraine (the original BFV was built in 1981, over 40 years ago) and then using the appropriations to order new weapons for itself.
Rickards continued: "The cost on the rest of Ukraine from Kyiv to Lviv will be horrendous, including the near-complete degradation of its power-generating capacity, transportation lines and food supplies. U.S. and U.K. weapons supplies won’t mean much because they are too little, too late and the Ukrainians are scarcely trained to use them.The real winners of these weapons transfers will be U.S. defense contractors like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, who are getting the money to build new advanced systems for the U.S.
The real losers will be the Ukrainian people, who will continue to die needlessly in the absence of a negotiated settlement that recognizes the reality on the ground.
Meanwhile, in a private talk Saturday at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump suggested the current administration had manipulated Putin into a conflict and warned again that it could potentially go nuclear.In October, Rep. Kevin McCarthy had vowed that, if Republicans took control of the House, they were “not going to write a blank check to Ukraine.”
Following McCarthy's weekend election as Speaker of the House, Zelensky asked for that blank check.
“Congratulations to [Kevin McCarthy] on his election as the Speaker of the [United States] House of Representatives,” Zelensky wrote on social media. “U.S. support in all fields has been vital for [Ukraine’s] success on the battlefield. We’re counting on your continued support and further U.S. assistance to bring our common victory closer.”
U.S. taxpayers are already on the hook for $100 billion in aid to Ukraine.
McCarthy has not toed the Uniparty line which insists Ukraine must get everything it asks for. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said last month that “[p]roviding assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans.”
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