Operation Ivan Susanin: Sucking NATO into Ukraine's Quicksand
A battered Zelensky has lost the support of the American people, but our ruling class still embraces him. It wants to defeat Russia at any cost. Exploiting that manic obsession is how Moscow can win.
Vladimir Zelensky was in New York last week to speak before the United Nations and then to Washington DC to report to his handlers and beg for more weapons. He next traveled to Canada where Justin Trudeau’s unpopular regime gave a warm welcome, not to mention a standing ovation for 98-year old Yaroslav Hunka, a Nazi SS soldier who helped murder thousands of Jews and Poles during World War 2.
This is how far the West has fallen. We now warmly celebrate Nazi murderers. In my childhood, the likes of Hunka were vilified, hunted down and brought to justice. Today, Nazi war criminals are the new heroes for totalitarian liberal regimes.
While many Americans are revolted by Zelensky’s corrupt regime and thievery, the U.S. ruling class tries to hypnotize the public with mantras — “For as long as it takes” and “We will not waver” — as they pledge more weapons and money for their fanatical crusade against Russia. Indeed, our rulers have crossed the Rubicon, betting everything on victory. They plan to fight Russia to the bitter end, even if they bring down all of western civilization and destroy the planet.
As the world’s most formidable war machine, with 31 member states and a collective population of almost 1 billion people, NATO feels invincible and confident that it will defeat Russia with its population of 145 million. It’s David versus Goliath, and Russia is the new David. If a major war erupts, NATO believes that it can succeed where Hitler and Napoleon failed.
Nearly each day, Kiev’s regime provokes Russia by launching brazen terrorist attacks against both military and civilian sites. These attacks are approved and supported by NATO. The most recent provocation came on Sept 22 when Kiev fired British-made missiles that partially destroyed the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol (Crimea). The U.S. Air Force, flying out of Romania, provided vital real-time intelligence to facilitate the attack.
Such recklessness, which risks a nuclear war, is unprecedented in the history of NATO and U.S. foreign policy. If Moscow had made the decision to retaliate and launch an attack against NATO, then it would be acting within the confines of international law (the right to armed self-defense). Stoically, however, the Russian Bear shakes off these attacks that cause significant loss of life and property.
Moscow doesn’t exercise its legal right to self-defense because it’s well aware that such a move — say bombing NATO bases in Poland or Romania — would be used by NATO to invoke the much-hyped “Article 5” that would trigger World War 3.
Gravely aware of its responsibility before its citizens and the global community, the Kremlin treads carefully, resigned to absorbing these attacks, seeing them as mere pinpricks in the march of history. Moscow only responds by retaliating against Ukrainian military infrastructure.
Personally, I think that a Russian attack on NATO bases would paralyze and collapse the alliance, because half of its members would be crapping in their pants. But as an analyst I have the luxury of making such assertions without any responsibility. Vladimir Putin doesn’t. He understands that in the face of resurgent Western imperialism, the future of mankind literally depends on his decisions.
As already stated, the West’s goal is to once and for all realize the dream of Napoleon and Hitler and subjugate Russia. Also, in the eyes of Western elites, a world war is an opportunity to radically reshape the social order at home and across the globe. They see it as creative destruction. To build a New World Order they’ll first need to destroy the old. But arrogance and hubris will be their downfall; they don’t realize that they’re sinking deeper into a trap.
When I studied geopolitics in college in the late 1980s, one maxim that we learned was: “Never get involved in a land war against Russia”. Somewhere along the line, that wisdom was discarded by NATO officials and their ‘intelligence’ community.
Today, those same ‘brilliant’ minds see Russia’s unwillingness to retaliate against NATO as evidence of weakness. With each NATO attack and Russia’s refusal to retaliate, this bias is reinforced and Western elites become hostage to their own propaganda and overconfidence.
In Moscow’s mind, attacks such as that on the Black Sea Fleet HQ are unfortunate but acceptable losses on the road to final Victory. This is an aspect of the Russian mind that the West can’t fathom. Moscow can easily repair, rebuild and bring in more soldiers to fight because Russia is a 1,200 year old civilization with an identity and a mission; it’s not an obese ‘shopping mall’ like the U.S. where Consumerism is the national religion, and corporate media eager for clicks and viewers peddle sensational disinformation to mislead the public.
Notice how Moscow doesn’t play the same savvy media game that Kiev and NATO play? Because Moscow doesn’t care about scoring cheap PR points with hype in the daily news. It’s focused on full Victory over a powerful, implacable enemy
Meanwhile, NATO, convinced of its superiority, continues pouring money and weapons into the black hole of the Donbass and Zaporozhye regions, where over the past four months Russian troops have waited in well-fortified positions and destroy everything that the Ukrainian proxy army throws at them.
Operation Ivan Susanin
Invaders come and go; in the end they’re always defeated. Russia is eternal. When fighting an ancient nation with a strong sense of identity and tradition, be advised to study its culture, history and folklore. You might glean interesting tidbits about possible tactics and strategies. Ever hear of Ivan Susanin?
According to legend, Susanin was a Russian peasant who lived in the early 17th century when the Poles invaded and controlled much of the Russian lands (1609-1613). When Mikhail Romanov was elected Tsar, the Poles vowed to kill him and began looking for him.
The Poles tracked the young Romanov to the region of Kostroma, (today about a 7 hours train ride from Moscow) where Susanin offered to show where the Tsar was hiding. The pious peasant, however, led the clueless Polish army on a wild goose chase into the thick Russian forest where they were lost forever, thus saving the Tsar, the Orthodox faith and the Russian nation. Susanin died a martyr for his people.
When I look at what’s happening in Donbass, I have the feeling that something similar is happening. Look at the map above: see the very small purple areas? That’s what the invading Ukrainian forces have seized in nearly 4 months of heavy fighting, even though they’re backed by the full might of NATO’s war machine.
While Susanin isn’t here today taking NATO troops by the hand and misleading them into the vast steppes of southwestern Russia, my point is that Moscow’s tactics aim to deceive and to suck NATO into a quagmire that it can’t escape and which will eventually lead to its destruction.
Russia is fighting on its land, with strong support from the local population, which is ethnic Russian. Meanwhile, NATO has to transfer vast amounts of weapons and men across thousands of miles, facing Russian bombs and missile attacks along the way.
On the front lines, Russia fights just enough to hold the Ukrainian army at bay but doesn’t go on the offensive even though it easily could, say, open another front from the north. Russia isn’t yet eager to end this conflict because it wants NATO/ Kiev to think that it can win and to continue sending men and materials into the meat grinder, further straining their economies.
We’re not witnessing a battle per se, but rather a voracious and carefully crafted quicksand that’s sucking in vast amounts of NATO/ Ukrainian soldiers and resources.
This plan is working and will continue to work. Clueless NATO generals still have no idea that they’ve been lured into a trap, and even when they finally realize what’s happening, it will be too late. NATO already crossed the Rubicon and can’t go back. Ivan Susanin must be looking down from heaven and smiling.