Scott Ritter says Russia are winning. What next?

All of NATO are against Russia, determined to win, and all the Western media must reiterate the official Western narrative: Putin's invasion of the Ukraine was the biggest mistake any Russian ever made, the Ukraine, with advanced US weapons, destroyed the "outmoded and inept" Russian weapons, shot down every Russian aeroplane, destroyed all the Russian tanks, killed just about all the Russian troops that invaded. And the sanctions completely destroyed the Russian economy, which was entirely based on selling oil and gas to the West and using the money to buy everything Russia needed from the West.

However,  Scott Ritter et al. report accurately about the war in the Ukraine, and the Western narrative is not altogether accurate. Mr Ritter, who has accurate information about the Ukraine and refuses to abide by US/EU law that one must always reiterate the official Western narrative, says that Russia are winning in the Ukraine. And anyone who can count knows that the Russia economy has survived the Western sanctions, selling to the East and South, making more money than before the sanctions, having the world's strongest currency.

The war in the Ukraine has, as its objective, the complete destruction of Russia. Russia must lose badly until Putin is overthrown and the new regime agree to all NATO conditions: Russia must be broken up into several small, unarmed states, all Russian energy resources must go to US oil and gas barons as reparations. A beneficial side effect is the complete economic destruction of Germany: Germany's prosperity was entirely based on cheap Russian energy, and with energy from the US oil and gas barons at four or more times the price, Germany is no longer competitive, no one can afford to pay four times what they were paying to buy German output, so the German economy is already collapsing, and things will only get worse. German industries can only survive if they can relocate to the US where they will be able to buy affordable energy. Maybe.

The raisons d'etre for NATO were 1) to keep the US in, and almost all of Europe are now a US neocolony, so the US are in as neoImperialist; 2) to keep the USSR (now Russia) out, and the neocolony of Europe are now prohibited by law from any economic interaction with Russia, the only allowed interaction is to support the US military conquest of Russia, so Russia are out; and 3) to keep Germany down, and the German economy is imploding without access to the cheap Russian energy that gave Germany their competitive advantage.

So it is win, win, win for NATO!

Except that Russia are winning in the Ukraine. The US as World Hegemon is under severe threat.

So will the US decide that having no World at all is better than losing their World Hegemony? Do the US leadership figure their bunkers will be safe from Russian retaliation? The US president says Armageddon is upon us, and he should know.

A Tale of Two Narratives

 Patrick Cockburn was once an excellent foreign correspondent, covering what the US call the "Middle East", which the UK used to call the "Near East" before, but now use the American term. 

The Greeks always said the East started at the Hellespont, but the US figure Western Europe is still East, not as far east as the Hellespont, but still East. So Europe are the Near East for the US, and the area just east of the Hellespont is the Middle East for the US. And the US is rich enough and powerful enough that most now call the area just east of the Hellespont the "Middle East".

Mr Cockburn wrote that, with Russia in severe decline, the idiot Putin got the idea of invading the Ukraine, for some inexplicable reason (if the Ukraine want to kill all the ethnic Russians in the Ukraine, they have every right to do so, that's national sovereignty). Of course, Russia lost badly, easily defeated by the Ukrainians, and complete collapse and regime change should happen in a few more weeks, at most. Mr Cockburn wrote that Russia had just 55 aeroplanes, and the Ukrainians destroyed all of them.

Mr Cockburn now reads the Western media which reiterates the Western narrative, but reporters actually in Eastern Ukraine report that Russia are mostly winning, with few losses, while the Ukraine lost huge numbers of draftees in their offensive that recaptured some areas formerly held by the Russians, while the Russian forces managed to escape with very few losses.

Of course, it still looks bad. The ethnic Russians left behind are now being murdered. Why Russia invaded the Kharkov oblast when they should have known they could not hold it against a Ukrainian attack, leaving the ethnic Russians now in much worse state than before, is not clear.

Russia admit that about 6,000 of the Russian army soldiers that invaded the Ukraine have been killed. Of course, the ethnic Russian army in the Ukraine joined with the Russian national army to fight the anti-Russian Ukrainians, and together they were slowly advancing. Until they weren't. And the ethnic Russian Ukrainian army lost far more soldiers than the Russian army, but no one counts them. So no reliable numbers for Russian/ethnic Russian Ukrainian losses.

Meanwhile, the goal of the US is the complete destruction of Russia, a continuation of what happened to the USSR thanks to Gorbachev and Yeltsin: breaking Russia up into several, perhaps many, small, unarmed countries that must do whatever the US demand or be totally destroyed similar to Iraq and Libya. The US want a similar fate for the PRC. Then the US will continue to be World Hegemon with no competitors. And the Western media all say this is going very well, following the US plan perfectly, destroying Russia and soon the PRC as well.

But independent media are not so sure, they figure the US will lose to Russia in the Ukraine, where Russia have all the logistic advantage.

And the US will lose to the PRC, which have all the advantage in numbers, technology, and leadership.

But my question remains: will the US decide that having no world at all is better than giving up World Hegemony? It's certainly looking like it. Jens Stoltenberg says that NATO must not lose in the Ukraine, no matter what it takes to prevent a loss.

Russian or Western narrative?

From the day Russia began the "Special Military Operation", the Western Narrative was that the Ukrainians, with advanced US weapons, had completely destroyed just about all of the Russian forces. The Russians were using Soviet era tanks and aeroplanes that were "outmoded and inept" according to the Western press, and easily destroyed by those advanced US weapons. In a few weeks, Russia had lost more than 80,000 dead and the rest badly wounded and/or captured, so just a handful of Russians sneaking where the Ukrainian military could not find them and shelling undefended cities and villages, doing a lot of damage to the civilian infrastructure but not doing any damage to the Ukrainian military.

The reporters in the Russian controlled areas produced many videos showing that the Russians were winning, slowly advancing and doing massive damage to the Ukrainian military. No actual Russian losses. The US had built a series of impregnable, mostly underground fortresses. No conventional bombs, no artillery shells, nothing could penetrate the layers of cement and steel, so the Russians had to starve out the Ukrainian military, and those fortresses were stocked with months of food and water, so all was going slowly, but the Russians were advancing. For six months.

Then, two weeks ago, Russia lost the entire oblast of Kharkov. Russia say they are now mobilising, and held referenda where four oblasts voted to rejoin Russia. The Western narrative was that armed Russians forced a few unarmed civilians to vote to join Russia, but the overwhelming majority of the Ukraine hate everything Russia. The Ukrainians see great prosperity and freedom in the EU and NATO and abject poverty and oppression in Russia. The abject poverty when Russia are selling huge amounts of energy to Europe sounded a bit unlikely, but the West insisted their reporters, who could see clearly from their desks in New York and London and Paris and Berlin, checked and verified the veracity of the Western narrative.

And then the Russians lost Liman, after holding it for 6 months.

So the Western narrative, that the Ukrainians have worn down the Russian military pretty much completely is starting to sound as if it might have some truth to it. Not, as they've been claiming for 6 months, that the Russian military were completely destroyed the first week, since that was obviously false, but the Russian claims of losing only 6,000 men is starting to look equally false. An oblast and a piece of another oblast, held for six months that the Ukrainian military could not make any progress, suddenly, the Ukrainian military are easily able to evict the Russians from part of the Ukraine, something they could not do for six months, but are now finding rather easy. If this continues, the Ukraine will eventually evict the Russian military from the entire Ukraine.

Two wins in two weeks might be less than they seem, but six months of nothing but losses by the Ukrainian military followed by two rather big wins indicate that something might have changed.

The West finally giving the Ukraine much more advanced weapons? The Russian forces slowly but steadily worn down until they no longer have the wherewithal to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensives they once easily stopped?

And what's happening to the Russian 'recall of reserves'? The Western narrative is that every man in Russia is hiding, trying to emigrate, knowing if they are sent to the Ukraine it is certain death. Could there be some truth in the Western narrative? A lot of obvious lies in the Western narrative, but could those lies contain a kernel of essential truth? The recall is going slowly, and the Ukraine are able to take more and more territory that was Russian-controlled for six months.

The reporters in the Donbass report that the ethnic Russians, being killed by the Ukrainians for 8 years, are desperate to be part of Russia, to have the protection of the Russian military from the Ukrainians who want to kill them, and they have video and a lot of evidence that this is correct, but we see no evidence that Russia still have the wherewithal to protect them. It is looking like the Russian force, easily able to stop Ukrainian counteroffensives for six months, was slowly being whittled down until they are no longer able to stop those counteroffensives, and Putin was hoping the referenda and promise of major Russian retaliation for any attacks would cause the Ukraine to pause.

Instead, the US, fearful of uprisings in Europe, destroyed the Russian pipelines. So now, even if ordinary Europeans could overthrow their governments (unlikely, since those governments are supported by the US military), they still won't have any gas to heat their homes, so no point. The German government will not allow Russia to repair the pipelines, since they are US puppets. So there will never again be any pipelines, no Russian gas in Europe, and the German economy destroyed. Europeans will have to use Norwegian, Qatari, and American gas, all much, much more expensive than Russian gas, so many won't be able to heat their homes, energy intensive industries must close or relocate to the US.

So US in, Russia out, and Germany down: NATO still successfully accomplishing everything they were intended to accomplish.