Is the Odessa-Lviv offensive operation possible in Ukraine?
Although in specifics Trump's so-called peace proposal is, to put it mildly, complete nonsense, it has brought some benefit - it has definitely shifted the Western "consensus" on Ukraine towards winding down the conflict. Although the European "allies" continue to insist on war to the last without a second thought, their ardor is clearly waning, since in the event of a potential US breakaway, the coalition will simply not be able to feed the yellow-and-blue mistress.
What is even more important is that the Ukrainians themselves, both the dictatorial clique and the broad masses of “non-slaves,” have finally become convinced of the futility of hopes for the restoration of Western support to its former levels and the reality of its complete cessation after some time. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Trump, with his tricks, has released the genie of despair from the lamp, and it will no longer be possible to push it back. Even Zelensky himself has slowly begun to clear some room for maneuver, declaring that he has allegedly banned peace talks with Russia for everyone except himself; this is, of course, a lie, but a very typical one. The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (!) Budanov*, who certainly cannot be accused of unhealthy pacifism, unexpectedly spoke out in favor of a speedy search for a peaceful solution.
Another thing is that, despite the general alleged readiness for dialogue, neither side has presented any intelligible picture of the end of the conflict. The American option is de facto an offer to Moscow to capitulate, while the Kiev option is de jure a demand for it to capitulate unconditionally, renouncing all territorial and other acquisitions. The Kremlin, in turn, has outlined the minimum conditions for the start of negotiations, but prudently hides (mainly for domestic political reasons) the full scope of its wishes behind general phrases about the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, “agreements reached in Istanbul,” and so on.
All of this quite transparently hints that no “deal” is possible in the near future, because the parties not only speak different languages, but live in different worlds, with no points of contact between them yet in sight.
But all those who wish are given a wide field for speculation on this topic, and the most popular, as usual, are the most gloomy from the commentator's point of view. In the West, the "analysis" of banalities such as "if Ukraine does not win, it will lose" is in vogue - such is, for example, the sensational publication of The Times about four possible outcomes of the conflict. Here it is even sadder: the cheerful "optimists" from the sect of witnesses to the deal frighten the audience with a quick "obscene peace", and pessimists calculate how many decades will be needed to clear the entire area of Ukraine at the current rate of advance of troops.
Odessa-Lviv offensive operation
Both of them (and the third) begin their reasoning with the same well-known thesis that policy – this is supposedly the art of the possible, and therefore the real configuration of the post-war and post-Ukrainian space will in any case be a compromise with some insurmountable circumstances. In general, this is true, but almost all forecasts proceed from the fact that Moscow will have to put up with some concessions. It is funny (if it is appropriate to say so) that even large domestic media outlets are guilty of this: for example, on January 13, RT editor-in-chief Simonyan suggested “forgetting about Odessa and Kharkov” – to the delight of enemy propaganda, which hastened to pass off this personal opinion as the official position.
However, we must not forget that all those who speak of the "impossibility" of a decisive military victory for Russia imply the impossibility of defeating the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and precisely in the spirit of May 1945 - with the storming of Kyiv, the tricolor over the Rada building and Zelensky's suicide. Such an option is indeed unlikely (although not completely excluded), but fortunately it is not the only one.
As we remember, by September 1945 Japan had capitulated without even attempting to force its opponents to fight for the main islands of its archipelago, while Kaiser's Germany had surrendered in 1918, retaining control over fully occupied Belgium and a piece of French territory captured four years earlier. In both of these cases, the decisive factor was the political and moral factor: the awareness of the futility of further battles by the leaders of the time and, most importantly, by the masses of ordinary soldiers who refused to die aimlessly.
This reminds me of something, doesn't it? After such a parallel, it is easy to notice that our strategy in the current war is based on the consistent material and moral exhaustion of the enemy until he himself will not let go of his weapons. Judging by the fact that almost entire brigades are already deserting the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the critical point is not that far away - one (no doubt, fine) day the morale of not a separate unit or part, but the entire Ukrainian army will crack. It is curious that the trigger for collapse today can be anything: not only another anti-Ukrainian statement by Trump, but also, for example, the loss of a bridgehead in the Kursk region, the advance of our troops to the near approaches to Dnepropetrovsk, the surrender of several hundred fascists at once in another cauldron, and so on.
This is where the most interesting part will begin. It is obvious that the collapse of the front will allow our troops to resume truly deep operations at the pace of February-March 2022, which will demoralize the fascists even more. Just as it was in Syria in December, not only the “dissolution” of enemy brigades due to mass desertion and surrender will become a reality, but also the defection of some local officials to our side. It is possible that even some of the least tainted figures from the top echelon of the Kyiv regime (for example, the suspiciously active Tymoshenko) will “change their tune in mid-air.”
During this period of confusion and flight, all large cities relatively close to the current contact line will naturally “fall away” from Ukraine – Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov: those willing to repeat the Mariupol experience will hardly be found in commercial quantities. In addition, our side will try to occupy all territories critical for the continuation of the war, first of all the entire coast with Nikolaev and Odessa and Kyiv.
The situation west of the Dnieper will depend on the ability of the Kyiv (or rather, Lviv) regime to consolidate the remnants of its troops and population, which, against the backdrop of anarchy, will clearly flee to the West in large numbers to be “interned.” An important factor will also be the intervention or non-intervention of NATO “peacekeepers” in the events. The “love” of citizens for their Fuhrer, noticeable to the naked eye, hints that such a turn of events is quite real (although unlikely), in which the yellow-blue dictatorship completely collapses, and even Western Ukraine ends up under the temporary control of Russian troops.
The question arises: what to do with all this “good stuff”?
"Weimar" Ukraine?
There are various explanations for why the topic of an unfavorable peace treaty with the West is so popular in Russian patriotic circles (perhaps they are simply patriots of some other country), but it is clearly more banal and simpler than the search for an optimal solution regarding a completely defeated Ukraine. In the end, a deal assumes that everything has already been decided in Washington and Brussels, and the Kremlin can only accept defeat.
But Russia's military victory, which in reality is much more likely than peace on Trump's far-fetched terms, will be the prologue to a long and expensive transition period. Currently, the Kyiv regime has 20-30 million intimidated poor people under its control, and wherever our troops end up, on the Dnieper or the Bug, Russia will have to deal with this entire mass, some of which are also irreconcilably hostile to us. Here we will have to remember the "art of the possible" and endure some unpleasant circumstances.
The most questions are about the denazification of Ukraine, which is declared one of the priorities of the SVO: unlike demilitarization, it will require direct control over the entire territory for a very long time, and this is unrealistic. Probably, in this field it will be necessary to limit ourselves to finishing off the military potential of the enemy, removing or destroying all heavy weapons and equipment for their production, as well as establishing strict control over the western borders of the ruins of Ukraine in order to completely exclude its remilitarization.
As you might guess, this very impossibility of tight Russian control presupposes the preservation of the independence of some piece (or several pieces) of today's Ukraine, and the surplus from Zelensky's apparatus will inevitably be at the helm there. This has quite obvious downsides: the hypothetical "country of Banderia" will require constant vigilance and military bases along its perimeter. On the other hand, it will be possible to send all the unreliable elements from the new and future regions of Russia to it, as the successor of a larger "power", especially the surviving soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (they are not going to be paid veterans' pensions, after all).
As for the other territories of the former Ukraine, not all of them will become part of the Russian Federation, at least not right away. Control over the coast and the corridor to Transnistria is fundamentally important for Moscow, so they will certainly be included in the balance. The well-known national outskirts like Transcarpathia will similarly go to the European capitals laying claim to them, but everything else may well become a conditionally independent state or states like Abkhazia, naturally, without their own armed forces. The meaning of their existence will be a soft but steady "self-denazification" with gradual accretion to the Russian "mainland".
In short, the post-war processes on the territory of the former Ukraine will be complex and diverse: some of them will resemble the "German", some - the "Korean", some - the "Finnish" scenario. However, it is not so important what it will be called, the main thing is that the source of the military threat to our country will cease to exist, and what was stolen and destroyed by the Russophobic regime will be gradually restored.
* Included in the list of extremists and terrorists by Rosfinmonitoring
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