The invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia is today 7 months old. These are a few of the opinions I have been posting on social networks even before the Russian invasion began. This saga begins in 2014 when suddenly, and without prior notice, Putin sent his troops to invade and annex the Crimea peninsula that so far Russia had been leasing from Ukraine. At the time, the NATO countries and the USA refused to see the danger. Some even said, “Well, after all, the Crimea peninsula had always been Russia’s”.
Then in February 2022 Putin started to pile up tanks and troops along the Russian-Ukrainian and Belarus-Ukrainian borders. One had to be too dumb not to see it coming. Putin tried to fool the world with allegedly joint military exercises with the Belarus’ puppet regime. It was clear then that Russia’s real intentions were to get ready for the invasion with the excuse to defend the Eastern Ukraine Russian-speaking separatist provinces. At first the West washed their hands on Ukraine - just as they did on Czechoslovakia in 1938 when Hitler’s Nazi forces invade the country with the excuse to defend the German-speaking Sudetenland.
Putin and his inner circle have a strange obsession: they don’t accept Ukraine as an independent country, not to mention a pro-West neighboring one. Putin wants to bring the former (fortunately disappeared) Soviet Union back to life. It was then logical that in early September Putin refused to give Mikhail Gorbachev a state funeral and he didn’t even attend it. On the other hand, the West recognizes the last Soviet leader as the one who had the courage to introduce reforms to the old, iron-fist soviet regime with proposals such as Perestroika (Reform) and Glasnost (Transparency).
In the beginning, Putin and his war mongers overestimated their own firepower and thought that invading Ukraine would be a walk in park, a matter of days, or a couple of weeks at the most. Even though Russian bombardments killed thousands of Ukrainians and destroyed entire civil areas, the genocidal ex-KGB agent was proved wrong.
Ukraine resistance, with the decisive help of the USA, Poland, Germany and other European countries, has been both intelligent and heroic. At first, Western Countries remained as mere spectators. Some people said Ukraine should promptly surrender to put an end to the war. Would they say the same should their country be invaded by a foreign power? I don't think so.
I hate to be the one who says, "I told you so". From the very beginning I suggested the West should respond accordingly to Russia's invasion before it was too late. No one seemed to realize then that if Putin is not stopped, Poland, Finland, and the Baltic republics are next in his list. For a few weeks, most seemed to be too afraid of Putin.
To this day, Putin he continues to threaten the world Joseph Goebbels' totalen krieg style. In his most recent address on TV, he warned the West saying Russia has very powerful weapons, some of them even better than those of NATO, and that his is not a bluff.
Putin’s calculations were proved wrong. Not only his Army suffered tens of thousands of casualties and considerable loss of vehicles, tanks, aircraft, and equipment, but the sanctions imposed by the USA and Western Europe have taken a heavy toll on Russia’s economy. Additionally, the Russian people do not want to fight a war that they don’t feel as theirs. These days, Russian men are fleeing their country by the thousands to escape being recruited.
Putin is clearly losing the war and his troops are being humiliated. This makes Putin even more dangerous. Rumors say that he is terminally ill, and at risk of being toppled from power. He is dangerous as a cornered beast, and might try a desperate, highly deadly attack on civilian populations with unpredictable consequences in an attempt to turn the situation in his favor. Putin has also been punishing Europe by cutting the oil and gas supply as a way to put pressure on NATO countries to stop helping Ukraine.
At this point it is impossible to predict how the war in Ukraine will develop from now on, but one thing is certain: Putin will only stop if he suffers a decisive defeat, one that leaves him with no choice but to retreat and give up.
Seven months have already passed by. The free world cannot tolerate this war to go on for much longer.
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