Complaining during the 11-month conflict that Russia committed war crimes on Ukrainian civilians and troops, Kiev’s leaders celebrated a strike on a Russian barracks and ammo depot in Donetsk, killing at least 70, injuring a hundred more. Hit with rockets from U.S. HIMARS launchers, Russia sustained serious casualties prompting Kiev official to celebrate the carnage. Russian military bloggers were furious at Russian command to house soldiers near and ammunition deport, unnecessarily endangering Russia soldiers. Ukraine claimed it shot down 29 drones designed to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing havoc around the country. Ukraine shows it has more than the military resources from the U.S. and NATO to hold its own against the Russian Federation, regardless presenting like David and Goliath. Russian has its hand full countering Ukrainian attacks.
Ukraine can’t wait to get Patriot Missile batteries, all hoping to provide a more impregnable shield against Russian missiles and drones. Whether or not Patriot Missiles tips the balance of the war is anyone’s guess. What’s known for sure is that Ukraine has all the military hardware to reclaim lost territory and potentially drive Russian troop out of Ukraine’s sovereign lands. “What happened in Makikka is horrible,” wrote Achangel Spetznaz Z, another Russian military blogger with 700,000 followers. “Who came up with the idea to place personnel in large numbers in one building, where even a fool understands that ever if they hit with artillery, there will be many wounded or dead?” he wrote. However many Russian died in the ammo depot missile strike, there’s no way of knowing how many Ukrainian have lost their lives in the 11-month-long conflict. Both sides inflate casualty figure for the enemy.
Russian President Vladirm Putin, 70, has been telling the Russian people about defending the fatherland, Russia history and the country’s glorious destiny. Putin knows that every battlefield loss gets blamed on his military strategy. Sergien Mironov, legislator and former member of Russia’s Upper House, said Russian military officials should stand accountable for their bad decision-making. Russia should have never “allowed the concentration of military personnel in an unprovoked building, noting that Russian officials did not provide the kind of protection necessary for their troops. Whether the Russian military learned anything from the HIMARS attack, clearly Ukrainians have the weapons needed to strike Russia at will. Ukraine’s recent strike showed that they’re not helpless about bringing about severe damage to Russia’s military adventure in Ukraine’s sovereign territories.
Whatever happens to Ukraine’s infrastructure in the course of the war, Ukraine has all the military hardware to inflict maximum damage on the Russian Federation. If Kiev wants Russian air strikes to stop or to get back some of their sovereign territory, Kiev needs to move the conflict to the peace table. As it stands now, Kiev is involved in a war of attrition where both sides incur heavy casualties but Ukraine gets the worse of it because the war’s fought on their territory. Putin’s perfectly content to keep counterpunching, hitting Ukraine’s electrical grid, natural gas pipelines or any other structure that allows Ukraine to eventually have an economy. Ukraine no longer has an economy to employ its 43.8 million population, at least before the war. If Kiev wants to get back to developing more than a failed state, they need to stop the war, rebuild and return to independence.
Killing mass number of Russian troops won’t change Putin’s mind to retreat, call back his troops and hand over Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. Crimean houses Putin’s warm water Black Sea fleet and isn’t about to surrender it back to Kiev. When the war started Feb. 24, Putin had troops in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. If Kiev wants to get back its lost sovereign territory over the last 11 months, they’d be wise to let U.N. peacemakers on neutral ground to negotiate an end to most Russian occupation. But beyond occupying Ukrainian land, Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky needs to consider the extent of destruction to Ukraine’s biggest cities and towns. As it stands now, it would take decades for Ukraine to rebuilt its country, including developing a thriving economy for its citizens. Continuing the war only guarantees more death and destruction.
Going after Russian targets in Ukraine, Kiev proved that it has all the lethal means to defend itself against Russian occupation. Zelensky has changed the parameters of the war, seeking to use U.S. and NATO lethal weapons to retake the Crimean Peninsula, lost March 1, 2014 when a CIA-backed pro-Western coup toppled the Kremlin-friendly government of Viktor Yanukovych. When Putin saw his Sevasopol naval base threatened, he moved Russian troops to seal of Crimea. Ukraine lived with the situation in for eight years but decided, with U.S. cash-and-arms, to reclaim all lost Ukrainain territory. If Zelensky wants to stop the destruction and carnage in Ukraine, he’d move the conflict to the U.N. for settlement. Continuing the war repeats Russian wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan, where the host countries were laid to waste while they continued to fight.
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.
