Remember the Ukraine war? It’s been the graveyard of pundits for nearly 2 years now. If you can’t remember it, it’s possibly because all those “nice” other disasters keep happening. Absolutely everything else, including celebrity tantrums, and a 5000-year-old neighborhood dispute nobody has the brains to stop, keeps interrupting.
Yet it’s so easy to misread this situation. “Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed”, etc say the experts. No, it hasn’t. To start with, the Ukrainians didn’t use much more than a fraction of their assets. That entire huge Russian draft has been effectively used up, and they now need more troops from somewhere. Does that sound like a failure?
Meanwhile, Putin says the war is “a tragedy”. Well, whose idea was it? Who gave it the go-ahead? He now wants Russians to have 8 kids, according to someone. Imagine having 8 kids on $12,000 a year. Yeah, that’ll work. Putin also claims the Ukrainians are suffering “colossal losses” after crossing the Dnepr.
None of this claptrap works at any functional level. Propaganda isn’t taken seriously by anyone but pundits. Even the Washington Post says most Russians back the war, based on a poll. The Russians also have 100 years’ experience in not badmouthing their governments in public, but apparently that’s not an issue. It’s a one-off poll of people under duress, so it must be accurate.
A slightly different perspective:
Militarily, Russia continues to throw rocks with perhaps the most miserably planned airstrikes and fire plans in recorded history. The main effect of all this ballistic babble, apart from getting more Russians killed, has been on Ukrainian bats, who apparently don’t like the shelling.
The outcome of this war will be one of the most massive shifts in the power structure of Europe and the world since World War 2.
Russia can no longer even pretend to be what it was. 2022 is now part of the Before Times for Russia and the world. That’s pretty obvious. This is an almost unparalleled humiliating defeat. Russia won’t just walk away from it.
A generation of Russians are on the scrapheap. Those 8 kids, if they ever exist, will be uninsurable.
Domestically, there are other warning lights flashing. Russian food prices are a very mixed bag, but they all have been going higher. Food is generally an indicator of economic realities and supplier greed.
At the heart of it all are the pundits. Russian pundits. Western pundits. These are the same people who said Russia would win in a few days. The people who thought Russian APCs flying Soviet flags would win the war through nostalgia alone. The guys who thought turning Donetsk into a minefield of unexploded shells and ruined building was a good idea. The people who think a Russian army that keeps disappearing into the graveyards is winning.
One of the lessons of history is that dictators inevitably lose and lose disastrously. There’s only one possible outcome for this war.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
