The Turning Point in Ukraine?

[1]

The Ukrainian army’s positions in Bakhmut as of May 10.

1,424 words

As of May 9, 2023, the Ukrainian military controls less than 2% of Bakhmut [2]. It is only a matter of time before the city is entirely in Russian hands, barring a miraculous Ukrainian counterattack which turns out to be wildly successful. Reports of minor counterattacks are mostly hype [3].[1] [4]

The Russian capture of Bakhmut is similar to what the Battle of Verdun in 1916 would have been had the Germans won. The fall of Bakhmut, should it conclusively occur [5], will raise morale in Russia and lower it in Ukraine. The Ukrainians have a chance to recover the situation with a successful spring offensive, however. The most likely scenario for the over-promoted [6] upcoming Ukrainian “spring offensive” is that it will originate in the vicinity of Zaporizhzhia [7]. From there the Ukrainian army’s objective will be to cut the land route between Russia and Crimea. Anything is possible, of course. Perhaps the Ukrainian army will encircle the Russians in Bakhmut or another city. Regardless, total surprise is unlikely.

[8]

The Bakhmut front as of May 11, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

The Ukrainian “spring offensive” will serve to answer an important international relations question: Can the Russians deter [9] or repel the pending Ukrainian counterattack? In either case, the fall of Bakhmut will indicate that the Russian are trending towards success. If the Ukrainians successfully cut off Crimea from Russia, their mission will then become one of besieging and capturing fortified cities near Crimea. This will mean months, if not years, of further war. Throughout that time, the Ukrainians will burn up their only unrenewable resource: Ukrainian men [10].

[11]

On May 6, the Russian army bombarded the Ukrainian-held areas of Bakhmut with white phosphorous artillery shells. The attack came after the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group claimed he was being deliberately starved of ammunition by the Russian government. The massive phosphorous bombardment shows that the Russian artillery is able to fire without fear of counterbattery fire and can transport and secure a large quantity of ammunition.

While the initial offensive was a disaster as a result of Vladimir Putin’s extremely poor assumptions [12] at the time, it is clear that the Russian army has now successfully adapted to meet the actual conditions of the war. Additionally, Putin seems to have adjusted his war aims in Ukraine and is now seeking an outcome similar to how the 2008 Russo-Georgian War [13] ended. In Georgia, the Russians captured strategically important territory which contain pro-Russian populations of a non-Georgian [14] ethnicity [15]. In Ukraine, Putin’s army is capturing portions of the country which has a Russian-speaking and Russian-aligned population [16].

[17]

The ethnic divide in Ukraine is between Western European-aligned Ukrainians in the west and Russians who lean towards Moscow in the east.

[18]

As of May 2023 the frontlines in Ukraine are semi-stable, meaning the Russians have made marginal gains at a tremendous cost. Since September the Russians have held the ground they’ve taken and appear to have adjusted their war aims to holding the eastern regions rather than capturing the entire country.

The Russians are therefore likely to “win” the war by redefining success to mean the capture of eastern Ukraine, in the same way that they “won” in Georgia in 2008 by capturing Ossetia. It is possible that such an end to the war is in fact the best outcome [19]. Regardless, international relations in Eastern Europe will become more poisonous [20] than they are at present — and since the United States remains part of NATO for now [21], that poison will fall like acid rain across America as well.

[22]

Ukraine’s borders have historically been ill-defined. This map shows the proposed map of an independent Ukraine that was presented at the Paris peace conference in 1919. This version of Ukraine includes parts of the Caucuses where no Ukrainians were or are living.

The Russo-Ukraine War [23] is a disaster [24]. It is an entirely unnecessary conflict that had many instigators, the most immoral of whom are the mostly Jewish Russia-haters [25] in positions of high office in the US government. Besides Putin, the biggest culprit in this entire affair is the Biden regime. Simply put, the current US President’s weakness invited an attack. Biden won by obvious voter fraud and his cognitive decline is clear for all to see. Biden further provoked the Russians [26] without any ability to stop them from attacking.

[27]

You can buy Jonathan Bowden’s Pulp Fascism here [28].

The ongoing bloodbath in Ukraine should cause all Americans to reflect upon the many flaws in the American elite’s foreign, domestic, and military policies. The reasons why Russia attacked Ukraine in the first place go back to Russian security concerns that are as old as the hills. Russia has been invaded many times from the west, and controlling the territory of Ukraine is critical for them to protect the Russian ethnic heartland. The United States and NATO paid no heed to these concerns. There was plenty of opportunity for the “finlandization” of Ukraine, but the American establishment, and its Jewish and neoconservative core in particular, doubled down on anti-Russian hostility.

Those who are most prominent in attempting to drum up American support for Ukraine are Jewish women [29]. This includes Anne Applebaum, a writer for The Atlantic [30]; Victoria Nuland, a US State Department official; and Kimberly Kagan [31] of the Institute for the Study of War. None of these women are able to provide a compelling moral case for the war and they come across as contemptuous of those ordinary white Americans who tend to join the military. Such people have also used Russia’s official pro-family values and anti-LGBT stance as a pretext to make liberal Americans hate the country.

The American military is also part of the problem. The US military has been focusing for years on recruiting more racial minorities, women, and Muslims; rooting out “white supremacy” and sexual harassment; propagating critical race theory; and becoming more welcoming for transsexuals. As a result, it has less of an ability to deter adversaries such as Russia. In 2014, while the Russians were annexing Crimea, the Pentagon instituted a policy of making male soldiers wear high-heeled shoes [32] to “raise awareness” of sexual assault in the military — which is an obvious side effect of integrating women into the military. One wonders if this had more to do with a psychosexual desire of some Defense Department official to humiliate masculine men rather than raise awareness of rape. The policy was discontinued in 2015 [33] after it became widely noticed, and then became a scandal. Any military which adopts such a policy will not be taken seriously.

Americans, and especially white Americans, are responding by not joining the military. And even some of those who do enlist are unserious about their duties. For example, Airman First Class Jack Teixeira of the Massachusetts National Guard allegedly posted classified documents on a Discord server to demonstrate his knowledge of current affairs to other video-game enthusiasts. The leak was not discovered for two months. And a prominent pro-Russian social media account is said to be overseen by a former US Navy non-commissioned officer [34]. This is all a natural outcome of the American political elite’s radical Leftist ideology, of which its Ukraine policy is a part.

The widespread frustration among ordinary Americans with allies such as NATO, South Korea, and Israel has caused a large sub-set of otherwise patriotic Americans to hope for Russia to be successful in Ukraine. In early March 2023, a rumor spread online that a large number of NATO officers were killed in a Russian strike on a bunker in Ukraine. The story turned out to be false. Ron Unz traced its source and speculated that the reason the rumor had spread so quickly [35] was that “people are especially likely to accept claims they deeply want to believe, and a severe NATO military setback together with a major black-eye for the hated mainstream media probably falls into this category.”

Putin is not the savior of the white race, nor is Russia is a traditionalist paradise. Russia’s war against Ukraine is a war on Western Civilization and has the potential to spread. The situation on the ground is rapidly approaching the point where the choices will be reduced to picking the lesser of two evils. There is no good course of action to take, but reflecting on the problems identified above would be a step in the right direction.

* * *

Like all journals of dissident ideas, Counter-Currents depends on the support of readers like you. Help us compete with the censors of the Left and the violent accelerationists of the Right with a donation today. (The easiest way to help is with an e-check donation. All you need is your checkbook.)

GreenPay™ by Green Payment

Donation Amount

For other ways to donate, click here [36].

Note

[1] [37] The Institute for the Study of War reported on May 11 [38]: “Geolocated footage published on May 9 and 10 indicates that Ukrainian forces likely conducted successful limited counterattacks north of Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut) and northwest of Bila Hora (14km southwest of Bakhmut) and made marginal advances in these areas.”