Talks are due to take place today between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers in Turkey. Nobody expects a breakthrough but it's a telling sign that Russia is losing the war. Rest assured Sergey Lavrov wouldn't be going to attend talks with a half defeated enemy. This is all going to end in a massive humiliation for Putin and perhaps an end forever to his ambition for a united Russia. I cannot see there being any support for that in Ukraine for generations to come after what has happened over the last two horrific weeks.
I stumbled across a couple of interviews given by Andrei Illarionov, now a Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington but from 2000 to 2005 he was the chief economic adviser to Putin and the president’s personal representative in the G-8. He is a PhD and basically helped to design the Russian post Soviet economy.
He resigned over the corruption at the top of Russia's political system. In one of the interviews he talks of being accidentally invited to a meeting where Putin, Medvedev and the heads of the central bank and finance department among about a dozen others were talking about stealing $12 billion from the government coffers. They weren't discussing IF but HOW, it was taken as read that it was quite normal.
Dr Illarionov, said it was a 'small amount' but they got bigger!!
The first interview for the American Westminster Institute was in June 2021 where he talks about Putin's plans to 'unite' an artificially divided Russia taking it back to how it was at the end of the 18th century:
"Anyone who is interested in that topic can download the map of the Russian Empire at the end of 18th century, and would find that the western border of the Russian Empire then was going from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea along the river’s Neman, Western Bug, Zbruch, Dniester. Maybe not everybody who listens to us and who watches us at this moment is familiar with the geography of that particular region, but it would be helpful to just understand that the whole territory of the current Republic of Belarus, an independent state, according to Mr. Putin belongs to historic Russia. Almost all of the territory of Ukraine, with the exception of western Ukraine (Galicia, Volyn, Trans-Carpathian, Bukovina) all the rest belongs to historic Russia."
Note this also includes the Baltic states. Anyone who thinks NATO has anything to do with the war in Ukraine is mistaken, Putin is simply set on expanding Russia.
Next, in December when Russian forces were building up on Ukraine's borders, he gives another interview where he really explains what a problem it would be for Putin to occupy Ukraine. He gives two examples, firstly the occupation of Poland in 1939 and the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968:
First Poland:
"We can just look into the historical examples of the Soviet attacks on neighbours in that particular theatre. In 1939, in September 1939, when the Soviet Union moved troops into eastern Poland, it was the beginning of the Second World War, when Hitler attacked Poland from the west, and Stalin attacked Poland from the east. The territory that [was] occupied by the Soviet troops in September 1939 had a population of 12 million people, and the Polish army, as we know very well, received [the] order not to fight back against [the] Soviets. What was the size of [the] army [that] invaded eastern Poland? Half a million people, with tanks, artillery, all this equipment. Once again, no resistance, almost no resistance, 12 million people, half a million army. Almost 30 years later in 1968, Warsaw Pact armies of five countries, led by the Soviet Union, occupied Czechoslovakia in [the] famous August 1968 occupation."
"Then-Czechoslovakia had [a] population of 15 million people, and the Czechoslovak army received [the] order not to fight back against [the] invasion. How [large] was the attacking force of five countries? Half a million people. We have some kind of basic understanding. When we have a country of [a] population or territory of [a] population [of] 12 to 15 million people, with no army fighting back, the army of invasion comprises half a million people. All those maps that have been published by The Washington Post, by Bild, by Military Times, showing that invading Russian forces should occupy territory of all left bank Ukraine, or eastern Ukraine along the Dnieper river, and sometimes even part of the right bank of Ukraine, with [a] population [of] 22 to 25 million people, which is roughly speaking twice [as] large [as] Poland [was] in 1939, with [the] ready-to-fight Ukrainian army. And we know that it [is] now [the] very qualified military forces of Ukraine, after eight years of war, the 250,000 people in the first echelon, and another 600,000 in the second echelon. And against such an enemy, 94,000 would be enough to attack such a territory, with so many people with such an army that is ready to fight?"
So, Putin hasn't got a prayer of winning. And to make the point again, this threat by a Trent Telenko says it all:
This is a quick thread on Russian plans, maps, and trucks.🧵We are going to start with Ukraine & explain.— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 10, 2022
I think we can conclude Putin is going to fail badly. Russia is going to be ostracised, permanently smaller that Putin hoped, permanently poorer and permanently weaker.
The mask has been pulled back to reveal a nation that tried to look like a super-power but has only succeeded in showing how weak, corrupt and evil it is. No self respecting western democracy will deal with it while Putin is in charge - and probably not for years after that.
Russia needs to start again from scratch. It has met its match in Ukraine.
