According to Swedish media, a 28-year-old lieutenant, who had recently left the national air force, was killed near Donetsk. According to the source, he arrived in the war zone a couple of months ago to “share his tactical knowledge”.
This news, despite its local nature, is on a par with other developments in recent days, which unequivocally show that the West is at a crossroads and will soon be forced to make a fundamental decision on the form of its further involvement in Ukraine’s fate.
The problem is that on all fronts, the processes are not developing the way they were planned and intended on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. And the situation is rapidly becoming critical.
Russia’s economy has withstood the brunt of the “hellish” sanctions. On the other hand, Europe and America have been hurt so badly that they cannot hide it. And in the autumn the situation threatens to become quite grim.
The isolation of Moscow did not work out either. Moreover, watching what is happening, the non-Western world is openly demonstrating its disdain for the global hegemon. Biden’s trip to the Middle East was an embarrassment that no amount of buoyant rhetoric could cover up. Putin, on the other hand, had an excellent flight to Tehran yesterday. Mr Lavrov, too, demonstrated at the Indonesia summit that boycotting our country at the G-20 is not an option.
But most importantly, things are not rosy in Ukraine. Events on the fronts are still developing slowly, so that sofa experts do not tire of breaking their spears in disputes about whose favor the score ends up being. At the same time officials are increasingly making statements and decisions that reveal the essence of what is happening. Zelensky’s beheading of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Security Service of Ukraine with the words “unsatisfactory work results” and “numerous facts of state treason” speak for themselves.
For the West, it is Ukraine that has become the main stake in the fight against Moscow. Failure here is simply unacceptable. But things are not going well at all.
In Ukraine, the West is at war against Russia, using Ukrainian armed formations as its proxy troops. In theory this was indeed an ingenious plan. Firstly, because there is no risk of a direct clash of the nuclear powers. Secondly, because it is much, much cheaper than going to war yourself. And thirdly, this format of confrontation presupposed exhaustion (economic, military, social, etc.) of our country, while Europe and the United States would bear minimal costs.
However, in five months of Russian special operations, it has become clear that the West is getting deeper and deeper bogged down in Ukraine.
It is forced to spend more and more money on it. Yes, against the backdrop of the trillion-dollar bubbles inflated by the printing press, the billions allocated may not be that significant. But the support of European and American societies for this expenditure is steadily decreasing in the face of a worsening domestic crisis.
The West is constantly being forced to allocate armaments instead of grinding out allied troops. And it has come to the point of increasingly modern and expensive Western-made items. Those are, of course, troublesome for the Russian and republican troops, but their use is in no way capable of turning the tide of military action. In addition, Russia is learning to resist such weapons. And Kiev is not to be trusted either, given how some of the supplied volumes simply evaporate, and journalists unearth facts of trivial theft and sale to the outside (including Russian).
The publicised death of the Swede, however, has once again highlighted the growing problem of growing casualties among the foreigners fighting on Kiev’s side. There is no doubt that among them are many commonplace mercenaries who have come to Ukraine simply because they want to earn extra money or because of their Nazi beliefs. But the “retired lieutenant” is a different matter; most likely it was a military adviser “in plain clothes”. All in all, the usual story: NATO and almost-NATO countries use the long-standing method of formally distancing themselves from the conflict while actually helping one side.
The bottom line for the Western countries is extremely worrying: money, weapons (of which there is already a shortage) and people are lost, and the internal situation is deteriorating at home. And there is no result. And with every decision taken in Washington and European capitals, the proxy coverage (even if it does not fool anyone) is erased from their war against Russia.
This begs the question: how should the West proceed?
It has three obvious options: 1) to back down, 2) putting aside the formalities and engaging in an open military confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, or 3) to continue with the current logic.
The first option implies an open surrender of the West to Moscow, which looks almost unbelievable at the moment; the second option is to bring the planet to the brink of a global nuclear war with a high chance of falling into it. And the third option, which has already proved ineffective, means continuing to build up comprehensive, costly aid to Kiev, which cannot turn the tide on the frontlines and will only drag the United States and Europe deeper into a conflict that is sure to be a loser for them.
In short, there is a wedge in every direction.
It is from this set that the West will try to put together the phrase “victory over Russia”.
Irina Alksnis, RIA
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