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Ukraine is turning into a minefield The war is following the model of North and South Korea

Soldiers prepare for an overnight combat sortie near Vovchansk, Kharkiv Oblast (Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)

Soldiers prepare for an overnight combat sortie near Vovchansk, Kharkiv Oblast (Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images)


June 12, 2024   7 mins

A year has passed since Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive and, while the picture on the ground may be mixed, its legacy is clear. The Russians are emboldened; Ukraine is once again on the defensive.

To succeed in pushing the Russians out of Ukraine, Kyiv’s strategists needed to do two things: sever the land bridge (and supply lines) that linked Russia and Crimea, and regain control of important infrastructure such as the Zaporizhzhia Power Plant. It failed on both counts. From early June to mid-September, the Ukrainians only captured 305 square kilometres of territory. To put that in perspective, at that pace, it would take Kyiv over 50 years to push Russian forces back to the pre-2014 invasion borders. Added to this, during the first two weeks of the counteroffensive, as much as 20% of the weaponry Kyiv sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed.

This was a failure of both tactics and logistics. Kyiv’s lack of offensive operations in the preceding months allowed the Russians to build heavily fortified lines across the front, particularly in Zaporizhzhya. They worked on a principle of layers: of static defence of barriers, ditches, military positions and, above all, vast swathes of minefields. The Ukrainians used Western-donated heavy mine clearance vehicles to try get around these, but they could not escape the Russian surveillance drone units, which would call in their location to artillery and attack helicopters. Once these vehicles were destroyed, Ukrainian columns behind them were unable to move without triggering more mines. It quickly became a “kill zone” for Russian artillery.

Then there was the issue of strategy. Western, particularly American, advisors urged Kyiv to focus its offensive solely on the Zaporizhzhya axis to sever the vital Russian supply line. Instead, Kyiv distributed its forces across the front to try to break through in multiple areas — a diffusion of attack that meant they were unable to penetrate anywhere. The result is that, last month, the Russians were able to launch a counteroffensive of their own in the Kharkiv region; there has been hard fighting in the village of Lyptsi and town of Vovchansk ever since.

Sat roughly 19 miles from the Russian border, Kharkiv itself is now on the receiving end of almost everything Moscow has to offer. The latest are glide bombs: essentially conventional bombs that can be launched remotely instead of directly over the target. This means they can be fired from planes 60-70km away from the intended target — so from Russia — and out of the range of the Ukrainian air defences. During the initial phase of the Kharkiv offensive, Russia dropped 20 glide bombs on Vovchansk in one day alone. The Russians are pounding the city with them daily. On a street near the centre, I see an apartment building that was recently struck. Window-shaped squares are filled with plywood; the building facade is pockmarked with shrapnel holes. I drive past several buildings — all civilian — that have suffered the same fate. The Ukrainians had no way of defending against these new weapons until they were finally given permission to use US weapons on Russian territory.

If glide bombs are an innovation, century-old weapons are just as effective. In a park in Vovchansk, I meet Leonid, a captain in the Pioneers platoon, which lays and removes mines.

Leonid has just returned from fighting near the border, not too far from the Russian city of Belgorod. He is wiry, with large glasses, wispy grey hair and a moustache that curves around his mouth. He hasn’t slept for two days and reeks of body odour. He smiles at me; I like him immediately.

“This is the biggest mining operation in human history,” Leonid tells me. “Both in amount and density. There are tens of thousands of mines every few kilometres. It is done on an industrial level, by the Russians and by us too. The USSR produced millions of mines in case of war with Nato, and now these mines are used against us. I’d say 10% of all combat casualties are from mines.”

“This is the biggest mining operation in human history.”

Leonid works with infantry and artillery units, which cover them with fire as they lay the mines. The sappers’ objective is, he tells me, to prevent enemy manoeuvres — to stop the Russians breaking through. “Their Russian offensive right now is fierce,” he says. “In front of us the line is stable, but the Russians have broken through on the right flank of our positions; and east from our positions in Vovchansk they are breaking through. It was poorly mined.”

The perennial problem, Leonid explains, is the lack of Ukrainian weapons. “Last year we captured a lot of Russian mines. We had so little equipment we had to use thousands of Russian mines from Izyium to Kharkiv and lay them along the border. We lack everything.”

My next stop is Kyiv, where the question of weapons — and the international cooperation that will decide to what degree Ukraine can continue to resist Russia — will be decided. But for the moment Leonid’s words put me in mind of something else: manpower. The Ukrainians are now struggling to recruit new soldiers: press gangs stalk the streets of almost every major city. I look at Leonid’s grey hair and wrinkled face. I ask how old he is, and he beams in response: “Will you still need me, will you still feed me / When I’m sixty-four?

A few days later, back in Kyiv, I meet Colonel Hennadiy Kovalenko, Director of the International Defence Cooperation Department at the Ministry of Defence. “David, in England you count to five like us in Ukraine,” he says. We are sat in a coffee shop opposite his office, and he is holding out his hand. “One, two, three,” he adds, a finger going up each time. At the count of five, all his digits are extended; he leans forward and offers me his open hand to shake. “In Russia, they count like this.” His hand is open as he starts to count, a finger going down on each number. At five his fist is clenched, and he mimes a punch at my head. “And that, in a shell of nut, is the difference between us and Russians.”

Since 2014, Kovalenko has been responsible for working with Nato and Ukraine’s foreign partners; everything from training to the supply of weapons falls under his purview. He begins by explaining the evolution of Ukraine’s army from 2014 to today. “In the initial phases of the conflict, the Russians were reading our minds: we used the same Soviet manuals and doctrines, so they knew how we planned our activities and so on. Then we created the Defence Education Advisory Group with the Americans and Brits. Once we started implementing new field manuals, our casualties dropped significantly.”

Key to this success was what the Germans call Auftragstaktik; a decentralised military doctrine emphasising initiative and flexibility for subordinate commanders. “It allowed our guys at the beginning of the hot war to delegate decisions to the lowest tactical levels. When the Russians were waiting for orders from the Kremlin or general staff, our guys were making decisions on the ground in accordance with the operational situation.”

When I ask about America’s recently announced aid package, Kovalenko explains that the logjam beforehand wasn’t fatal: European nations did not pause their shipments, while Washington was able to send smaller amounts of weapons and munitions through proxies. Yet many of the soldiers I have met on the front still cite “munitions” as the biggest problem they face. “The problem with the ammunition is not delivery, it’s production,” he replies. “It takes time for our partners to manufacture the munitions and ammunition we need in time.”

To speed up this process, the Czech government launched an initiative in February to provide Ukraine with 50,000-100,000 large-calibre shells per month — not through manufacturing them, but by going around the world buying them. By April, some 20 countries had joined the programme, financing the purchases with their own funds. Has it made a difference? “To be brutally honest, we have been promised 800,000 155 artillery munitions by the end of the year,” Kovalenko says. “We haven’t got any, but the deliveries are expected soon. It’s too early to say whether it’s working or not. We need to place production on Ukrainian territory — under certain security provisions of course and undertake joint ventures and technology sharing with our partners.”

Without the work of Kovalenko and others like him Ukraine would most likely not have held out for so long against Russia. The Czech initiative is likely to bear fruit at the right time. But divisions are growing. Ukraine’s top reconstruction official has just resigned after accusing the government of undermining efforts to build fortifications against Russia. And people are tired. The will to fight remains, but it is diminished. In the East many grumble about going to die in “Kyiv’s war”. Thoughts turn to possible solutions or at least anything that might offer a respite.

Once again, my mind turns to mines. Ukraine is, according to the EU’s delegation to the UN, now the “most mine-contaminated country” since the Second World War. As of February, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine says the amount of territory potentially contaminated with explosive objects amounts to 156,000 square kilometres — 25% of the country’s total area. I can believe it: I’ve stood on the Ukrainian lines staring out at miles of them. It’s astonishing: swathes of land that have become a living death.

But that’s not all. Look at a map. You’ll see the area of contamination snake around Ukraine as it follows the line of contact between the two sides. It is without doubt as accurate an adumbration of the fighting as you can get, but to me it also looks like something more instructive: a border.

Experts assess that, at current rates, it would take 757 years to fully demine Ukraine. And while the speed of clearance would increase if the war ended, it is for the foreseeable future an immovable fact on the ground. And in this lies probably any – at least interim – political solution. The model here is North and South Korea, which are technically still at war and separated by a demilitarised zone and hundreds of thousands of mines. In reality, while relations are not rosy, they have not been fighting for decades.

It remains politically impermissible for Zelensky to talk about any territorial compromise. Just as no British Prime Minister could agree to give an aggressor Manchester and Surrey, so Zelensky can never publicly accept the loss of Donetsk and Crimea. But you can talk about a “ceasefire” — and those, if agreed with an honest partner (which Putin is not), can last for decades. It is, of course, an imperfect solution. But as things stand, the alternative may well be far worse.


David Patrikarakos is UnHerd‘s foreign correspondent. His latest book is War in 140 characters: how social media is reshaping conflict in the 21st century. (Hachette)

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Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
6 months ago

Excellent article. My god, what a mess. I feel for Ukraine; they don’t deserve this. But it is what it is. And there are (as Thomas Sowell likes to say in economics) no solutions, only tradeoffs. No magic bullets.
I am afraid that the best that can be hoped for is a ceasefire, and the worst that should be feared is that Ukraine loses the war — a distinct possibility that grows more likely, not less.

Peter Buchan
Peter Buchan
6 months ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

True, all, Carlos. “Ukraine is turning into a minefield”. Yes. Wasn’t that always going to be the case? “No! Slava Ukraini!” …said the ahistorical armchair strategists on UnHerd (and all through the West).
History of Western military and political intrigue teaches that nothing will be learnt. Perhaps nothing can be learnt; a new generation of leadership capable of complex analysis and critical – holistic – reasoning through a Realist lens is needed.
All we can do is hope it arrives. And soon.

Martin M
Martin M
6 months ago

I don’t think there are any magic bullets in this, but a few things have to happen:
1) The West needs to realise that Russia has been its enemy for the last 80 years, and almost certainly will be for the next 80 years, and it must increase military production across the board with this in mind. 2) Ukraine must be given sufficient long range missiles not only to bring down the Kerch Bridge, but to destroy ALL Russia’s oil producing facilities (I am not talking about a small fire due to a drone strike, I am talking about reducing the entire thing to a charred crater). 3) Proper action needs to be taking against those who are “sanctions busting” (if this means jailing the executives of Western countries, so be it).
The people of Russia must be made to feel the same sort of pain as the people of Ukraine are currently feeling (absent the actual war crimes that Russia commits of course). If the combined forces of the West cannot bring Russia down, then there is frankly no hope for the world.

0 01
0 01
6 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Russia has been the West’s Enemy for 500 years in one form or another. Communism just obscured such things in the eyes of many, leading people to think they were being this way because they were communists, which was true but was not only reason. Russia has always been paranoid, resentful and jealous towards the west.

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
6 months ago
Reply to  0 01

Life under the Muslem Tartars for 200 years cant have been a barrel of laughs. And having to defend against Swedish invasions no fun either. Bu5 the sort of war propaganda that led Cecil Day Lewis to remark of a German in the 1930s that his head had that hairless quality so typical of a Prussian, and to spend 50 years fearing Bonaparte, is hard to relinquish.

D Walsh
D Walsh
6 months ago
Reply to  0 01

The Russians are NOT our enemy, the neocons are our enemy

b blimbax
b blimbax
6 months ago
Reply to  0 01

Of course, this must explain why Russia has induced the West to invade it so many times.

Martin M
Martin M
5 months ago
Reply to  b blimbax

I don’t know whether “the West” taken collectively has ever invaded Russia. I know France had a go, and Germany had a go, but that’s about it. I appreciate there was the Crimean War, but I don’t think you could refer to the Ottoman Empire (the main protagonist) as “the West”.

b blimbax
b blimbax
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

What you don’t know would fill many volumes.

A D Kent
A D Kent
6 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

It won’t just be Russia’s oil facilities that would be reduced to a charred crater in your deranged plan.

Martin M
Martin M
6 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

Well, we can’t let the tyrant Putin swan about invading his neighbors without provocation. We need to come to terms with the fact that Russia is a “forever enemy”.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
6 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

“Bring Russia down” to what end? For most of 20+ years in power, Putin has been far more interested in doing business with Europe than attacking it. Until the Nordstream attack, Russia was Germany’s main source of cheap energy and other nations benefitted from that, too.
The West needs to realise that Russia has been its enemy for the last 80 years,
No, it hasn’t. The Soviet Union was an enemy but no one was doing stupid things like what’s happening now. When the wall came down, NATO should have shuttered along with the Warsaw Pact. And don’t tell me that can’t be done. Germany and Japan went from enemies to allies, so it’s not like there is no precedent.

Martin M
Martin M
6 months ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Three points:
1) Germany should NEVER have bought Russian hydrocarbons. Still, they have probably learned their lesson now.
2) Why should NATO have been shuttered? It was obvious that Russia would be ruled by another tyrannical regime in short order.
3) The Germans and Japanese are, at heart, civilised people. The Russians arent.

b blimbax
b blimbax
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Your “three points” say more about you than they do about Russia or Russians.

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
6 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

No one will bring Russia down, we’re in the nuclear age, they will bring the west down with them if they try. In a nuclear war the living survivors will envy the dead. No understanding of the modern world, we are not in WW2, warmongers are clueless. MAD.

Martin M
Martin M
6 months ago
Reply to  Dave Canuck

So we give into their warmongering and brutality because they have nukes? No thanks!

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
6 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

This reminds me of the brilliant John von Neumann and his not-so-brilliant plan to preemptively flatten Moscow with nuclear weapons in 1950 before they could become a nuclear power. “”With the Russians it is not a question of whether but of when. If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o’clock, I say why not 1 o’clock?”
The US has not declared war on Russia. This is Ukraine’s war, not ours in the US and the UK, not the EU’s, not NATO’s. Ukraine has no allies. By making this war ours we validate Russia’s decision to invade. What next, we give Ukraine nuclear weapons? Because the fear of nuclear weapons pointed at Russia being based in Ukraine was one of the reasons why Russia escalated the war that had been smoldering in Ukraine for 8 years.

Martin M
Martin M
6 months ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

I was unaware of the view of Mr von Neumann, but I have sympathy with it. As WW2 drew to a close, there was a view in the US military that Russia was going to be a problem in the short term, and that the Western forces should just keep going after the defeat of Germany, and deal with Russia too. It didn’t happen, of course, but the word might have been a better place if it did. As to Ukraine having nukes, they did of course have “legacy” nukes at some stage, but gave them up. That was actually quite foolish on their part.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Wow you are a real imb*cile, please go and buy The Sun and try to read it, no big words for you.

Martin M
Martin M
5 months ago
Reply to  Carl Valentine

I was born during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Apart from a short period under Gorbachev, there has never been a time of my life when Russia hasn’t been “the Enemy”. I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

A D Kent
A D Kent
6 months ago

Kudos, but also a slow hand-clap to Patrikarakos for finally noting the role of mines in this war. Their role has been clear since March 2022, but has always been over-looked, usually in favour of comforting stories of one or other side’s incompetence or the advantages in training or initiative.

It’s not just the number (although that’s bad enough), it’s their fuses and activation mechanisms. Most are the standard pressure mines (familiar from the Second World War), some magnetic, possibly some audio and some with delayed actions. So flail and plough clearance messures may work for some, electronic measures for others and explosive charges for most – but all are pretty obvious once instigated and the (expensive and limited) clearance vehicles easily targetted.

Worse still is the fact that mines can now routinely be re-laid in real-time by shell, missile or drone – so any cleared path won’t remain so for long. The Russians soon found that they could clear a path, get halfway along it and then be hemmed in and destroyed after Ukrainian remotely laid mines were depeloyed behind them. The Ukrainians failed to learn from this, but did so at massive cost last summer (well done NATOs training!).

Regarding Patrikarakos’s view that the Korean War offers a model for how this will end – he’s right, but probably for the wrong reasons. The mines will keep people off the land, but what will keep the Ukrainians away is what John Helmer has called a ‘De-Electrified Zone’.

According to one Ukrainian power-companys boss, the RF have destroyed about 85% of their electrical production system and could, at any time, turn off the rest by targetting what remains of their transmission system. Yes people can live without the internet and cope with rolling black-outs for a while, they can use generators (if they can maintain them – something that becomes increasingly expensive over time), but cities become uninhabitable without the water and sewage systems that rely upon that power too.

What makes this particularly problematic for the Ukrainians is that they use a 330V Soviet system, not the 220-240 systems used in Western Europe. To replace what is damaged will be expensive, to replace the whole lot with 240V systems insanely so. The Russians have been attritting the Ukrainian grid for almost two years now – targeting transformers, watching to see what the Ukrainians repaired and then hitting them again thereby destroying all their spares and exhausting their engineers. Guess who makes all the 330V kit nowadays?

The Ukrainians are stymied here whichever way you slice it.

https://johnhelmer.net/buzzer-beater-russian-general-staff-aims-at-ending-the-ukraine-by-electric-war/

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
6 months ago

A country sacrificed on the altar of the Democrat strain of neoconservatism and the slavish British adherence to the toxically one-way Special Relationship.

Utter
Utter
6 months ago
Reply to  Tyler Durden

I believe Russia also had something to do with it, and not everything evil that happens in the world is down to the West in general and Biden/Dems in particular.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
5 months ago
Reply to  Utter

Not all but most is down to the nefarious US war machine and there 3 letter agencies, they would rather Europe was hollowed out and in perpetual war than cede their hegemony!

Simon S
Simon S
6 months ago
Reply to  Tyler Durden

Exactly, and – “….if agreed with an honest partner (which Putin is not)…..” the author seems oblivious to the fact that were the US not such a dishonest partner Putin would not have invaded in the first place.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
5 months ago
Reply to  Tyler Durden

Totally agree!

Max Rottersman
Max Rottersman
6 months ago

If all the Europeans planned a D-Day like break through of the Russian lines, to split the land bridge, only then would Russia have to come to the negotiating table. This is implied in the story; I figured I’d write it out. Europe is waiting for Russia to implode from the inside. I certainly hope that happens. Yet from the beginning I’ve felt Ukraine can’t win if its friends don’t fight along side it, right at that beach of minefields.
As pointed out in the story, Ukraine needs control of the skies and massive counter-battery fire to go on a significant offensive.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
6 months ago
Reply to  Max Rottersman

Russia was willing to negotiate two years ago. The meeting was all set up. Remind me again who scuttled it.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
5 months ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Boris and his US paymasters. (probably or maybe because he was a self serving fool)

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
6 months ago
Reply to  Max Rottersman

Ukraine doesn’t actually have “friends”, it has “investors” who expect the Ukrainian people to fight to protect those investments.

Friends would have told Ukraine to stick with the Minsk Agreements.

Jürg Gassmann
Jürg Gassmann
6 months ago

The heart wrenching tragedy of the whole sorry mess is that it was not necessary. The Minsk Accords were a formula for peace, they were binding in international law, and Zelensky was elected by a landslide on the promise of implementing them. But then reality struck – as Zelensky’s predecessor Poroshenko had declared, and Merkel and Hollande admitted, the Minsk Accords were never intended as an avenue to peace, only to bamboozle Russia into holding still while NATO prepped Ukraine for war. And so Zelensky was blocked from implementing the Minsk Accords.
The next opportunity was March/April 2022, the Istanbul Protocol. As direct participants from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, Turkish Foreign Minister Cavasoglu, and others confirmed, Russia was ready to retreat back to the borders of January 2022, and even started its retreat from Kiev before the agreement was signed. Zelensky’s spin doctor Oleksey Arestovich said they popped champagne in Kiev at that news.
But again, it was not to be. Boris Johnson swanned in and told Zelensky he had to continue fighting.
US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley told the Ukrainians in autumn 2022, after they successfully exploited the thin Russian screen in Kharkiv region to push the Russians back, that now would be a good time to negotiate. Again, it was not to be.
So many missed chances.
As the EU’s “top diplomat” declared in Spring 2022: The decision will fall on the battlefield. And so it is turning out to be.

Peter B
Peter B
6 months ago
Reply to  Jürg Gassmann

Total fantasy.

Brian Doyle
Brian Doyle
6 months ago

No mention whatsoever as to the root cause of this conflict
All Ukraine had to do and had 14 long years to do so was sign a single A4 piece of paper agreeing No NATO and piling of nuclear Warhead’s upon the Russian Borders
A bloody motely fool can see the obvious USA and it’s lackeys were engineering
But Putin’s patience ran out
Russia knows all too well what the end game plan of the West was
Germany understood for success it had to form a proper trading mutually beneficial relationship with it’s Eastern neighbours
This was beginning to bear fruit by way of a friendly respectful relationship developing
But No No No for America who has to maintain Hegomonic control over Europe
No mention of much further talk of who blew up the Under sea gas pipe
Why because it’s obvious it was done by USA
Which in effect backfired as the Sales of Russian energy soared
And our bills in the West also did
The Hungarians know all this and refused to contribute monies into the EU aid package for Ukraine
Encapsulated in their reply to the EU request
‘ Why should I raise the taxes upon the Hungarian people only to give a Thourghly rotten corrupt regime in
Ukraine ”
Far less the vast profits being made by US defence and energy companies
The recent so named peace conference in Switzerland a farce
And here’s why
Saudi Arabia when asked why they declined a invite replied
” Please explain how you can have peace talks when the other half has not been invited ”
China’s response
” As has been our stance always and remains so peace can only be achieved when both parties negotiate a settlement and how can these talks achieve that as only one of the belligerents in attendance ”
Furthermore China knows all too well if the USA and NATO achieve their aims of neutering Russia then China next
Big Big miscall by Western warmongers as now you confront 2 deadly enemies in the form of Russia and China then add into the mix the ever growing BRICS intitative and the West has now effectively sown the seeds of their own downfall of the Neo colonial capitalism
Hegomonic so called World Order
Many developing Nations are not stupid and Quickly woke up as to how easy it was for America and it’s allies could sieze Russian State Asessts
Asking themselves the simplest of questions Well if they can do that with speed and ease with the powerful Russia then bloody easy to do so with our people’s Asessts
Whenever we endeavour to form partnerships or policies they do not like

Saudia Arabia along with many other rich Arab nations with huge fossil fuel resources are now quietly disposing of their vast gold reserves currently held in the USA to China
Saudia Arabia and the UAE are now full BRICS members and Turkey about to apply for Membership
Note all BRICS development loans now given by way of US debts
By way of US treasury bonds but repayments in Chinese Yuan or a currency of a BRICS member
Slowly but surely this ends the reign of the economic hegemony of the US $

The West has kicked their own apple cart well and truly into a abyss

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
5 months ago
Reply to  Brian Doyle

I totally agree, hopefully people will wake up before it is too late. Unfortunately for a lot of Americans they feel Trump is an antidote for their problems, he isn’t; he will go where the money is. The elites will be content with the ‘choice’ provided for the voters. RFK may be a better option, or would the elites assassinate him as well as the other members of his family?! Remember JFK wanted to pull out of Vietnam, that wasn’t allowed by the military industrial complex. I wonder where the next US war will be, I shudder to think it may be Germany/Poland? The US elites and their Private equity thugs will gladly sacrifice our sons in the name of higher profits whilst our so called political leaders placate them. US out of NATO now! Leave Europe for Europeans. Let the US get its own house in order.

Wyatt W
Wyatt W
6 months ago

Great article, always appreciate the front-line reporting. This makes me wonder how Russia plans to breach through this with their rumored offensive coming up?

Brian Doyle
Brian Doyle
6 months ago

Why

Will K
Will K
6 months ago

Incompetence, stupidity, obstinacy, evil, madness. Share those among the leaders.

ralph bell
ralph bell
6 months ago

A ex CIA guy was saying on a interview that the USA strategy is for the war to continue with no negotiation so as the continue depleting Russia of its military resources and reduce its threat level to the USA. Obviously the Ukrainians are use as collateral damage in the process : World politics is truly a nasty business…