The rest of the invasion sequence is pretty straightforward. Unlike the rest of mainstream media, we are telling you the truth.
Russia has won. Ukraine wants to save face, stop getting beat up, and to still exist as a nation. We have been correct in our predictions and descriptions so far. The Russian strategy and goals have been laid out here:
Putin’s Military Strategy in Ukraine? Judo Rules
Putin Reveals His End Game – We Were Correct
We know that Putin cannot stop, Ukraine realizes this as well:
No Options: Literally Life or Death for Putin
Putin won’t – can’t back down now. Only two scenarios left
And we are seeing Ukraine capitulate, giving Russia exactly what it wants:
Biden’s Worst Failure: Zelenskyy is Starting to Cave to Russia
This is all working out according to Putin’s original script. This is not to say it is complete or that alternative may not present themselves. Putin is, in fact, on a fine edge between success or failure. He is all in, he cannot turn back.
Current Moves:
This is a posturing phase, Zelenskyy is attempting to show some pluck by attempting to set conditions and challenging Putin to a face to face. But his country is getting pounded so he can’t waste time.
Putin is doing exactly the same thing as he has for several weeks, ratcheting up his attacks and waiting for capitulation to be complete. Putin doesn’t have a lot of time, but he has more than Zelenskyy.
Russia has indicated that it would ratchet down its attacks as peace talks progressed. But guess what? He can ratchet them back up, if Zelenskyy’s pluckiness gets out of hand.
This is EXACTLY the script we interpreted for Russia a month ago.
What Putin needs to happen:
Putin is within reach of his primary goals, Zelenskyy has already said that he would grant them. Putin will be a hero, but he has one more task.
Putin must prevail upon Zelenskyy to say “It’s over guys, we can all be friends again.” Putin needs his side to be presented to the world (and he does have a side), and for the two countries to jointly ask for a relief in sanctions.
Once this occurs, Putin believes the U.S. and NATO will cave and the sanctions will be lifted.
Will the U.S. and Europe cave? Putin will still have some levers to pull in this respect. He still controls a large portion of Europe’s energy and can shut it off at any time. He can’t be attacked directly militarily because he still has nuclear weapons. He has China and a large selection of neutral nations, including Israel, who have succumbed to the propaganda that Ukraine is a neo-Nazi state (see Neo-Nazis in Ukraine? Or Putin Propaganda BS), who will be clamoring to get past all of this.
Our Options:
Should we let Putin off the hook? Hell no.
We should maintain the sanctions, help destabilize that entire region and try to turn this into a failure for Putin in the medium term. We need to turn the “new countries” and the surrounding areas in both Ukraine and Russia into Afghanistan-like quagmires that will drain resources forever.
What is at stake? Basically the stability of the rest of the world.
The rest of the world depends on us having the balls to prevent Russia’s ambitions of conquering its way to empire, because it will continue forever if they get away with it. Remember, China’s has this same ambition. They are watching this closely, and are more dangerous than Russia.
This is a horrific strategy, certainly unfair to Ukraine, but given that we missed opportunities to prevent or mitigate this all along, there is not much left.
But Biden has not dealt with this competently, and that is not likely to change.