Air Force Gen. Tod D. Wolters, commander of the U.S. European Command. DoD
Stars and Stripes: EUCOM boss confident Ukraine could blunt a new Russian offensive
STUTTGART, Germany — The top U.S. commander in Europe on Tuesday said he is confident Ukraine could repel a new Russian invasion “over time” even though Moscow has massed a large force around the country.
The Russian force “mirrors the size and scope and scale of the infiltration of forces that occurred back in 2014,” when Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, U.S. European Command’s Gen. Tod Wolters said during a Senate budget hearing.
Wolters said while his command remains “very, very vigilant,” Russia’s rapid buildup in recent weeks is a great concern.
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Update: EUCOM chief thinks Ukraine could hold Russia off; NATO worried about buildup (UPI)
WNU Editor: This US General really does not know and/or understand east Ukraine.
That part of the country has a huge Russian speaking population, and they are not sympathetic to the central Ukrainian government, the U.S., or NATO. I should know. My family background on my father's side is Russian-Ukrainian.
This US general also does not understand the make-up of the Ukraine military. Many are Russian-Ukrainians and almost all of them are conscripts. They are not going to fight against their neighbors.
In the event that a major war does break out between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian military will focus on seizing the territory where Russian speaking Ukrainians live (see map below). The rest they will leave alone.
Knowing the territory, culture, and the demographics in this Russian speaking part of Ukraine, I know that most would support such a Russian invasion. As for the rest of the country, a Russian military advance and occupation would not be treated in a friendly matter. This territory will be very hostile to any Russian occupation. I think the Kremlin is well aware of that.
Bottom line.
The Ukraine military will not be able to repel a Russian invasion in the territories dominated by Russian speaking Ukrainians. I can easily see them disintegrating within a few weeks (if not sooner), with most fleeing to the western part of the country.
But a Russia - Ukraine war is not my biggest fear. My biggest fear is if this happens ..... General Says NATO Prepared to Respond to Aggression Should Deterrence Fail (US Department of Defense). If NATO deploys military forces to assist the Ukrainian military, such an intervention will end in a nuclear war.
9 comments:
There is no question that the Russian speaking will support a Russia "intervention". That said, the remaining part which is not Russian speaking will go quickly to be within the umbrella of NATO.
We owe Russia as much as we owe Assad. The Assad Family killed many Americans in Lebanon. Years later they gave aid and logistical support to jihadis entering Iraq from Syria. We did not get them all, but we did have teams waiting for them to cross the border.
"If NATO deploys military forces to assist the Ukrainian military, such an intervention will end in a nuclear war."
!!!!!!!!!!!Really?????!!!!!!
Nuclear War is a good thing.
NATO going into Ukraine is a complete strategic idiocy, literally nothing to gain and everything to lose
No, Putin will not use nukes. Thats the narrative that they want to display but in the end they are not lunatics. They know, each side, if they use Nukes each side will face death and destruction in a % never seen before, so NO, Nukes are off a table in a fight for Ukraine
TO WNU dude, The Ukraine military would mop the floor with them, take that to the bank. I get you are Russian and despise the Ukraine but you continue to overrate the Russian military. Its one thing to bully Georgia or Chechnya, its another when you take on a much larger country with the same equipment and abilities.
Also, the ancestry is Russian but they are Ukrainian and I doubt seriously they would want to live under the Russian boot again.
If Ukraine would "mop the floor" with Russia, they would already have crushed the rebels and retaken Crimea. After all, those are Kiev's strategic objectives.
Ukraine's Russian speaking population is divided into two parts - ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian (as a result of Russification campaigns from Tsarist and Soviet times) and ethnic Russians who are Ukrainian citizens.
My understanding is that now the ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian are overwhelming in their loyalty to Ukraine, and that the situation with ethnic Russians is now more divided than it was before Maidan and the Russian invasions. This was not the case when Ukraine became independent or even before Maidan when they were solidly pro-Moscow.
Our esteemed host and blogger obviously has insight into the area, but he also has his biases. Besides reading here, I listen a lot to Brian Whitmore's Power Vertical blogspot. He and his guests are also experts with insight into the area and their own biases. So when they conflict in talking about Ukraine (which is almost always), I am forced to rely on my own guts instinct.
Putin's original attempt was to conquer all of Novorossiya which was the non-blue portion of the map. It failed. Instead Putin was only able to get Crimea (the test case) and half the Donbass. The Ukrainian people there defeated Putin's proxies before the new government could reorganize itself. Only in the Donbas where the proxies could get direct military support from Russia were they able to seize power. And even then if Putin did not outright militarily intervene with Russian armed forces, Ukraine would have defeated Putin's proxies. That tells me there is little support for Putin even in the Russian speaking areas. That little support is not negligible though.
Our host is probably correct that Crimea will never be returned to Ukraine. Until the 1950s, Crimea was always part of Russia proper and settled by Russian immigrants who displaced the Tatars who lived there since the days of the Mongol invasions. They never had a Ukrainian identity. The Donbas, Kharkhov, and the east were always part of historical Ukraine. Loyalties are very divided, but much less so now than before.
The problem is that Ukraine is not yet ready to reclaim the Donbas. Russia has escalation dominance, and Ukraine has too many domestic policy issues it must settle. I have no doubt Ukraine can defeat the rebels, but I don't think Ukraine is in a position to defeat the Russian military which will escalate to the point that Ukraine can no longer match. Ukraine is a good 10-20 years away from being able to do so.
The Russian military has greatly improved from what it was before, and for now the Putin regime is solid. Ukraine likely has to wait until Russia is destabilized during a regime transition after Putin is dead or loses power.
Ukraine's best path forward is to eliminate corruption, grow the economy, remove the oligarchs from power, and build a professional military and wait until the time is right. The status quo is not perfect, but is tolerable. Ukraine has a lot it could lose if it strikes too soon.
Chris
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