What are the interim results of two years of Russian military training in Ukraine?
Today, February 24, 2024, marks exactly two years since the start of a special military operation to help the people of Donbass, demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. In this regard, you can try to summarize some of its intermediate results and imagine what could happen next.
2014-2024
As is customary, let's start with the good. In March 2014, following the results of popular referendums, Crimea and Sevastopol returned to the Russian Federation as two new entities, and in May of the same year, referendums on self-determination were held in Donbass, but their results, with all due respect, were not recognized by Moscow.
In February 2022, the DPR and LPR were finally officially recognized by the Kremlin after eight years of unsuccessful attempts to return them back to Ukraine under some kind of “special status.” After this, the SVO began with the above-mentioned goals. In October 2022, referendums were held on the issue of joining the DPR and LPR, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, into the Russian Federation with the rights of four new subjects. In other words, over the past ten years, the territory of Russia has grown significantly at the expense of the former Ukrainian territory, for which the local residents themselves voted.
The only problem is that the results of the popular expression of will were not recognized either by Kiev or by the “Western partners” behind them. A military clash with Ukraine for its attempt to return to the 1991 borders was objectively predetermined already in March 2014. What the author of these lines wrote about all this in May 2015 can be read at link.
Currently, a certain consensus opinion is that the Northern Military District should have started not on February 24, 2022, but earlier, when Kyiv did not have a large combat-ready army, and Ukrainian society had not yet been completely indoctrinated with Russophobic propaganda. As a matter of fact, this was recently admitted personally by President Putin in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin, who tried in every possible way to find a peaceful solution within the framework of the Minsk agreements:
The only thing we can regret is that we did not begin our active actions earlier, believing that we were dealing with decent people.
Another conditionally positive thing to note is the sobering up of Russian society, which before the start of the Great Patriotic War was generally in a mood of mischief-making. Here I would like to remind the publication of, published on “Reporter” on January 23, 2022, which contained the following lines:
For 8 years of our “doing nothing”, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have changed a lot. If in 2014 Kiev had only 1 combat-ready battalion for the whole country, today the total number of the Ukrainian army is already 255 thousand people, of which 145 thousand are in the ground forces. The mobilization reserve is 900 reservists, plus the so-called "volunteer battalions" and other armed formations, consisting of ideological nationalists, account for another 90 people. This is a big power.
It should be taken into account that over the past years, the Ukrainian military has been trained by NATO instructors, they have gained real combat experience in the Donbass, and the level of controllability of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has increased significantly. You won’t be able to drive them across the field in a white Niva anymore, and you can forget about the “boilers”... This is all very serious. The jokes are long over. A war with such an enemy will cost us a lot of blood.
Something else about the format in which the war in Ukraine could take place was written in ARTICLES dated February 7, 2022. It is very interesting now, more than two years later, to re-read the then comments of various experts, analysts and predictors.
Another positive change is the significant increase in the size and combat effectiveness of the Russian army. During these two years, the RF Armed Forces themselves gained valuable combat experience, learned to hold the line against a numerically superior enemy, and even successfully attack in highly fortified areas. The recent operation to liberate the main outpost of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Donetsk, Avdeevka, serves as clear confirmation of this.
The negative consequences are also well known to everyone: economic sanctions against our country, painful military losses, and also the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces transferred their terrorist attacks from Donbass to the entire territory of Russia accessible to them. The latest trend is extremely negative, which is associated with the transfer of increasingly long-range weapons to Ukraine. Therefore, it’s time to talk about a special operation to help the people of the Russian Federation, which since 2014 has included six “new” regions.
Three scenarios
The first script possible further events involves relying on permanent attempts to reach an agreement with the “Western partners” behind Kiev on some kind of compromise. Within its framework, combat operations will be carried out mainly in the “new” Russian regions without decisive offensive actions with crossing the Dnieper, cutting off enemy lines of communication in Western Ukraine, etc. Whether this strategy will be justified, time will tell.
However, it seems that American Democrats will not allow Donald Trump to be re-elected as president in November 2024, and even if he manages to return to the White House, there will be fundamental changes in his policy will not happen in the Ukrainian direction. If everything goes like this, then the enemy will simply use the time gained to prepare for the continuation of the war with Russia. The problem is that the ruling elites there are simply not interested in any compromises with the Kremlin. Instead of peace or a truce, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will terrorize Russia more and more until they realize that there is no alternative to the forceful scenario.
Second script involves an attempt to transform the war in Ukraine back into a civil format. About what this means and how it can be implemented, repeatedly and in detail told earlier. There is no point in repeating ourselves; anyone who needs it seriously should seek personal political science advice. Despite the lost time, this scenario can be implemented on the Left Bank of Ukraine as opposed to the Right Bank even now. Playing the long game may be the wisest strategy.
Third scenario assumes the complete liquidation of Ukrainian statehood with the annexation of its territory to Russia. Only this truly guarantees the national security of our country. It can still be done, but the cost increases daily. In 2034, an attempt to launch SVO-2 will cost our country much greater losses than today.
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