What is Really Going on Ukraine?…

by Larry Johnson at Turcopolier

The Western media is filled with stories of the brave Ukrainian people rising up to fight the evil Russians and the Russians are paying a terrible toll, or so we are told. But if you step back and look at what is actually transpiring you will note the following:

• Unlike the U.S. “shock and awe” unleashed on Baghdad in 2003, which caused significant civilian casualties and destroyed infrastructure and damaged power grids and destroyed bridges, the Russian military is avoiding hitting population centers. The power is still on in Kiev and Kharkov last I checked.
• You are not seeing raging battles in the streets of Kiev or Kharkov between Ukrainian and Russian military forces.

Some believe this indicates Putin’s troops are bogged down and making little progress. But I think there is an alternative explanation. First, Russia has not deployed its most sophisticated weaponry. It remains in place in Russia on the Ukrainian border but showing no signs as of this writing of being activated. Second, little attention is being paid to eastern Ukraine where the bulk of the Ukrainian Army is deployed. Jacob Dreizin offers some important insight on this:

You won’t hear this on CNN, but Putin’s Army of Darkness, in the most complex and ambitious ground maneuver operation since World War 2, following the Soviet “deep war” playbook, is also working on cutting off the Ukrainian army group in the Donbass from Kiev.  This is by far the most capable (or only capable) large portion of the Ukrainian army.  Yesterday, its main reserves of diesel fuel were destroyed from the air.  It will soon be cut off and immobile.

Once that happens, the entire Donbass front collapses (they will no longer have a “front”), and BILLIONS of dollars in U.S.-funded or U.S.-supplied weaponry will be captured almost without a battle.  (To be clear, it’s almost all U.S. funded or supplied—even most of the Soviet vintage stuff was bought and shipped in from Poland, Czechia, etc. by the CIA, “off the books” but well documented in videos of tank trains crossing the border into Ukraine, in 2015-2016.)

The Russians have finally entered Kharkov…