Pentagon officials said they are not changing the U.S. nuclear readiness in response to 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin who said Sept. 20 that if the Russian homeland were threatened, he would use all available military options including nukes. “This is not a bluff,” Putin said Sept. 20. Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky, embroiled in a bloody proxy war against the Russian Federation, said he believed Putin would use nukes if his back were to the wall. CIA Director William burns, 66, said yesterday that he took Putin’s threat of using tactical nukes seriously but found no reason to think that it’s imminent. Putin announced today, contrary to U.S. Kiev’s plans, that he would press the war forward to capture and protect the Donetsk region of Donbas, only 60% controlled today by Russian forces. Putin announced Sept. 20 a 300,000-member draft,
Western press reported the 300,000-man draft prompted the mass exodus out of Russia for thousands of draft-eligible Russian conscripts. Reporting about the gridlock on Russian roads heading to the border with Poland, Finland, Belarus, Georgia and other Caucus states, the West hopes to embarrass Putin who wants the world to see Russians as patriotic citizens, loyal to the cause. Whether the same thing would happen in the U.S. should Biden re-institute the draft in the U.S. for wars in Ukraine and China is anyone’s guess. As India’s 72-year-old Prime Minister Narenda Modi told Putin Sept. 17, “Now is not the time for war,” asking Putin to work hard to end the war. Modi made the demand of Putin but said nothing to 79-year-old President Joe Biden about moving the conflict off the battlefield to the peace table. Biden and Zelensky show no interest in negotiating for peace because they’ve lost so much land.
Putin has no plans, despite all the hype from the Western press, to use tactical nukes to take more Ukrainian territory. Putin clarified today that his “military technical measures” were limited in scope, he would not leave the battlefield until Donetsk and Luhank were firmly in Russian control. Zelensky likes to talk about Putin’s battlefield failures, touting his big success in Kharkiv, where Putin ordered his army to re-deploy to Donbas, specicially Donetsk. Zelensky and Biden had called Putin’s 300,000 man draft and act of weakness but it’s Putin’s way of signaling to Washington and Kiev that he’s not going away. Zelensky and Biden said Putin suffered from a terminal illness a month ago, suddenly he’s cured and running the Ukraine was like a seasoned general. Whether admitted to or not, Putin controls Ukraine’s entire Black Sea coast, all strategic ports and closes in on Donetsk
Whatever Biden thinks he’s doing funding the Kiev government and proxy war against the Russian Federation, Putin made clear today that his war objectives have been almost met, securing Luhansk and getting close with Donetsk. At some point, Biden will realize that he can’t change the facts on the ground in Ukraine. Like Russian-speaking areas in Georgia, Abkahzia and South Ossetial, Putin seized the separatist regions Aug. 1-12, 2014 and never gave them back. Whether Zelensky or Biden admit it or not, Ukraine faces the same fate of letting Putin keep Luhansk and Donetsk. Zelensky won’t admit that before the Feb. 24 war, Kiev did not control the peoples republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. When the war’s finally over, it’s doubtful Kiev will get Putin to return the eastern regions. When it comes to the Black Sea coast, Putin will most likely return Kiev’s strategic ports in exchange for control of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Before the war started, Zelensky knew that the peoples republics of Donetsk and Luhansk fought a bloody war of independence from Kiev for eight years. Kiev authorities insist that 14,000 Ukrainians lost their lives in the last eight years. But when it comes to Donetsk and Luhansk, Zelensky knew he had no control over the two Russian-speaking regions. So, Zelensky, once Biden agreed to fund the proxy war against the Russian Federatioin, decided to try to get back Donetsk and Luhansk. Putin offered Zelensky a good deal in the days after the Feb. 24 invasion. Putin told Zelensky he would relocate his troops inside the Russian border if he ceded Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea to the Russian Federation. Zelensky told Putin “no way,” proceeding to fight his way to his current abysmal loses to Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. If the war ended tomorrow, Zelensky would end in the exact same place.
Today’s Ukraine War has become a war of attrition, with Zelensky and Biden getting the short end of the stick. You’d think Biden would no better losing so badly in Syria to Putin, after spending billions funding a rebel proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Now Biden faces some big choices, knowing, realistically, that Kiev will not get back Donetsk and Luhansk. Biden’s European Union counterparts, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel should try to talk some sense into Biden. Biden’s can’t possibly believe with so much NATO unity that Putin represents a threat to the EU. Putin has no interest in starting a war with the EU. Today’s Ukraine War has been an economic disaster for the U.S. and EU, prompting Biden and the EU to take a second look. It’s clear Zelensky won’t get back Donetsk and Luhansk.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
