The Situation in the Ukraine: Predictions vs. Reality | The Vineyard of the Saker

By Dmitry Orlov

Last Thursday I reposed my “top ten signs that Russia has invaded the Ukraine” from 8 years ago when the Ukrainian regime change and civil war first started and the West continuously made claims that Russia had invaded. Well, last Thursday Russia did indeed invade.

Russia had the full legal right to invade the Ukraine from several perspectives: to defend its allies in Donetsk and Lugansk; to defend itself against Ukrainian WMDs, which the Ukrainian president threatened to start producing at the Munich Security Conference; and to stop NATO from continuing its advance toward Russian borders in violation of its previous commitment of “not an inch to the east.” Russia exercised its right of self-defense under article 51 of part 7 of the UN Charter. The Ukraine had forfeited its right to territorial integrity under the 1970 UN Declaration by refusing to honor the rights of its Russian-speaking population. It also refused to renew its Friendship Treaty with Russia and therefore no longer had a defined border with Russia that Russia was obligated to honor.

From a strictly legalistic perspective, claims that “Russia violated the Ukraine’s territorial integrity” or that this is “an act of Russian aggression” is just pure twaddle. From a moral perspective, the fact that the entire international community idly stood by and ineffectually discussed politics for eight years during which the civilian population of Donetsk and Lugansk was continuously shelled by the Ukrainian “anti-terrorist operation” is utterly shameful.

People who are now speaking out against Russia’s military action in the Ukraine need to answer a simple question: Where have you been for the last eight years while the carnage in Donetsk and Lugansk was going on, while people were being burned alive in Odessa, while the Ukrainian government organized terrorist operations on Russian territory and while the entire Ukrainian population has been forced to kowtow to Americans and to speak Ukrainian, most often against its will? If your answer is “I didn’t know” then you have forfeited your right to an informed opinion on what’s happening there now. Please keep that in mind and act accordingly.

Now I will go through the 10 predictions I made 8 years ago and see how well they held up in light of events that have unfolded for the past three days. A reasonable expectation would be that I got them completely wrong; if not, then that’s something of a minor miracle. Please keep that in mind also.

1. Ukrainian artillery fell silent almost immediately. They are no  longer shelling residential districts of Donetsk and Lugansk. This is  because their locations had been pinpointed prior to the operation, and  by Thursday afternoon they were completely wiped out using air attacks,  artillery and ground-based rocket fire, as the first order of business.  Local residents are overjoyed that their horrible ordeal is finally at  an end.

Not quite true. Donetsk and Lugansk is still being shelled sporadically, although most of the firing has been suppressed and as more and more territory is being liberated from the Ukrainian forces by the Donbass militia (with Russian forces playing a supporting role). At the same time, new possibilities for civilian carnage are resulting from the fact that the Ukraine’s Nazi battalions, under guidance from their US/NATO minders, are hiding heavy weapons in residential districts and using civilians as human shields.

2. The look of military activity on the ground in  Donetsk and Lugansk has changed dramatically. Whereas before it involved  small groups of resistance fighters, the Russians operate in battalions  of 400 men and dozens of armored vehicles, followed by convoys of  support vehicles (tanker trucks, communications, field kitchens, field  hospitals and so on). The flow of vehicles in and out is non-stop,  plainly visible on air reconnaissance and satellite photos. Add to that  the relentless radio chatter, all in Russian, which anyone who wants to  can intercept, and the operation becomes impossible to hide.

This is obviously the case. No sane person would now say that there are no Russian forces in the Ukraine. They made their presence about as obvious as they possibly could and the sight of endless columns of Russian military vehicles rolling unhindered through the Ukrainian countryside appears to be effecting a sea change in the mindset of the Ukraine’s population. Throughout history, it has always been quick to switch allegiances as circumstances and battle lines shifted, and this time will probably be no exception.

3. The Ukrainian military has promptly vanished. Soldiers and officers  alike have taken off their uniforms, abandoned their weapons, and are  doing their best to blend in with the locals. Nobody thought the odds of  the Ukrainian army against the Russians were any good. Ukraine’s only  military victory against Russia was at the battle of Konotop in 1659,  but at the time Ukraine was allied with the mighty Khanate of Crimea,  and, you may have noticed, Crimea is not on Ukraine’s side this time  around.

Again, not entirely true. It turns out that there is a hardened Nazi embedded with each and every detachment of Ukrainian forces whose job is to shoot those who try to surrender. Nevertheless, some unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered, signed a promise to no longer fight against the Russian army, and have been given some food and sent home. In all, the Ukrainian military is turning out to be no different from other NATO-organized, NATO-trained forces, be they in Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq or elsewhere. All of them immediately turn out to be completely useless as soon as a real military force arrives on the scene, be it the Russians, the Taliban or the Islamic Caliphate. Also notable is the fact that the large quantities of weapons recently supplied to the Ukraine by the US have been shown to be completely useless. The Javelin anti-tank missiles, which helped line the pockets of some of the Pentagon’s top brass, have been worse than useless: by the time they can be set up to fire there is generally nobody left alive to fire them, so the soldiers don’t even bother with them.

4. There are Russian checkpoints everywhere. Local  civilians are allowed through, but anyone associated with a government,  foreign or domestic, is detained for questioning. A filtration system  has been set up to return demobilized Ukrainian army draftees to their  native regions, while the volunteers and the officers are shunted to  pretrial detention centers, to determine whether they had ordered war  crimes to be committed.

Not true at all. The Russian troops are not engaging with the civilians in any way, scrupulously avoiding residential districts and doing their best to see that the delivery of electricity, water and other essentials is not disrupted. As far as denazification, I am still not sure what the plan is, but my hunch at the moment is that this will be left up to the Ukrainians themselves. There is a good chance that once they realize what the Nazis and their Western masters have been doing to their country, they will do their best to round up the Nazis and hang them on streetlights. The Nazis will see this coming (some already do) and will run away to Poland or Slovenia or points further west.

5. Most of Ukraine’s border crossings  are by now under Russian control. Some have been reinforced with air  defense and artillery systems and tank battalions, to dissuade NATO  forces from attempting to stage an invasion. Civilians and humanitarian  goods are allowed through. Businessmen are allowed through once they  fill out the required forms (which are in Russian). (…more)