What’s Next for Ukraine? [Updated]

Here’s some of the most noteworthy bits of news I’ve picked up about Ukraine over the last few days, and how I think they’re related.

Polish Peacekeepers?

Poland is submitting a proposal for an invasion, I mean peacekeeping mission, to Ukraine. What are the odds of that happening?

From Reuters:

An international peacekeeping mission should be sent to Ukraine and be given the means to defend itself, the leader of Poland’s ruling party said on Tuesday after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski made his remarks after he and the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia arrived in Kyiv in a show of high-level backing for Zelenskiy, who briefed them on the war with Russia.

“I think that it is necessary to have a peace mission – NATO, possibly some wider international structure – but a mission that will be able to defend itself, which will operate on Ukrainian territory,” Kaczynski told a news conference.

“It will be a mission that will strive for peace, to give humanitarian aid, but at the same time it will also be protected by appropriate forces, armed forces,” said Kaczynski, who is seen as the main decision-maker in Poland.

There is recent historical precedent for this idea. Turkey stole land from Syria and completely got away with it. Here’s a map of Ukraine, as imagined by Polish nationalists:

Image Source

Use of chemical weapons a “red line” for… NATO.

Liz Cheney, daughter of the cancerous war criminal, claimed that a chemical attack would be a “red line” justifying NATO intervention in Ukraine. From Politico:

Rep. Liz Cheney on Sunday agreed with Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the use of chemical weapons should be a “red line” for NATO to intervene in Ukraine.

“I think that we in the West, the United States and NATO — we need to stop telling the Russians what we won’t do,” Cheney (R-Wyo.) said. “We need to be very clear that we are considering all options, that the use of chemical weapons is certainly something that would alter our calculations.”

NATO claims 10,000 Russian troops killed, 30,000-40,000 wounded

From Yahoo News:

Russia may have suffered between 30,000 and 40,000 battlefield casualties in Ukraine, according to a senior Nato military officer.

The military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by Nato, added between 7,000 and 15,000 Russians had been killed since it invaded its neighbour on 24 February.

The estimate of those killed is based on information from the Ukrainian government, indications from Russia, and open-source data, Associated Press reported.

It is Nato’s first public estimate of Russian casualties since the beginning of the war.

The US government has largely declined to provide public estimates of Russian or Ukrainian casualties, saying available information is of questionable reliability. [emphasis mine]

American military officers don’t typically “leak” incendiary and convenient claims like this, and I speak from personal experience. This “leak” was intentional. If the USA or NATO officially made a claim this ridiculous, that would be a hit to their credibility. But when lies are “leaked,” they can be as ridiculous as you want them to be.

Russian casualties just cannot be this high. Tens of thousands of casualties aren’t something that can happen from skirmishes with small arms and a handful of vehicle. That would need massed indirect fire and air strikes, and Ukraine has neither of those in sufficient quantities. Furthermore, Ukraine is not Russia, there are no vast stretches of empty land for opposing armies to butt heads on. Fighting this intense would cause proportional civilian casualties – even the UN, who have every reason to lie and exaggerate, still put the total number of civilian deaths since Feb. 24 at below 1,000. No, sorry. No army would take losses that extreme without resorting to full use of their heavy weapons, and Russia has not done that.

And if the Russians truly have suffered such extraordinary losses, where is the evidence? Every road into Belarus and Russia should be crammed with medevacs and casevacs, with casualty collection points and field hospitals everywhere, and it would all be impossible to hide. There would be gore porn photos on CNN, BBC, NBC, and every other nazi propaganda outlet on the planet. Sorry, Russophobes, but this lie is ridiculous.

What does it all mean?

I believe these three stories are entwined, and suggest a possible course of action by NATO. From an information operations perspective, we have two talking points:

-The Russian army is weak and poses little to no threat against NATO

-The Russian army is strong and using overwhelming force, causing “many” civilian casualties.

Yes, it makes absolutely no sense to claim that an enemy is simultaneously weak and strong, but that’s classic nazi disinformation intended to confuse and manipulate the public. The nazis used this tactic in World War II and are doing it again for World War III.

Every marketing scheme needs a call to action, and the Poles have suggested one: direct NATO intervention in western Ukraine. That said, I think there’s something missing from this disinformation stew. We need a triggering event, and that’s where all of this talk of chemical weapons comes into play. Ukronazis could target their own population with some sort of chemical or biological weapon. They might, alternatively, fake an attack, and the distinction between fake and fact seems to matter very little in this war so far. Then we could have the sad “will someone please think of the children!” headlines to justify the Poles partitioning Ukraine.

This move would be extremely reckless, however, it would not necessarily require a direct attack on Russian forces. NATO and Russian forces have been sitting in Syria for the past seven years, with many near misses and actual incidents, but this hasn’t resulted in a full-scale war. Yet.

For further reading, I’m particularly fond of this new update from the Saker.

*Update*

I just read a great and relevant translation on the Saker from Rostilav Ishchenko, the Ukrainian analyst (see his bio on Wikipedia). He believes the Poles are probably not trying to gobble up more territory for themselves. Rather, they are trying to preserve a piece of Ukraine as a buffer state.

I do not think that Poles really want a part of the territory of Ukraine, because it is to get somewhere between 10-15 million Bandera for 35 million Poles. This is a lot. This is not the 2 million that Poland digested after the Great Patriotic War.

This can destabilize Poland very much, because such a minority makes up a third of the entire population, which is absolutely hostile to this population. Bandera massacred the Poles, and the Poles hate Bandera. And when these two cultures collide on the same territory in a non-abstract way, such as, everyone lives in their own country and both hate Russia; – and when they collide on the same territory it turns out that they also hate each other, – for Poland it will not be like a gift.

It is important for the Poles to maintain a Ukrainian buffer between themselves and Russia. Therefore, theoretically, by entering western Ukraine, they can try to preserve Ukrainian statehood at least in three, four, at least five regions, and this Ukrainian statehood will be due to the demarcation line, not making peace with Russia, but concluding a truce on the principle of the Minsk agreements. They will, because of the line of demarcation, all the time claim the entire territory of Ukraine, the Crimea, the Donbass and even the Kuban and Voronezh.

And Russia will always have this problem, a splinter sticking out in the boot, which will not allow much concentration against Poland.

Therefore, the Poles are making serious enough efforts to preserve Ukrainian statehood, in one form or another. Another thing is that they are also afraid, because you don’t understand that if they go out alone on their own initiative without any support, they will simply be kicked in the neck and thrown back, and this will end the liberation campaign.

But they understand that they cannot rely on the verbal, political support of the United States. That the United States will put pressure on their European allies to provide more help, and so on. And if all this works out, if the Poles know that they are not alone, but at least two or three of them, and that, for example, Germany, France, everyone else was forced to somehow help, for example, to send military equipment, transfer aviation , then they may well afford to venture into western Ukraine.

Ian Kummer

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