Colonel Donovan: And then the game is over for Ukraine

Putin's strategic goal of de-Nazification seems to be an operational win for the Kremlin, thinks Colonel Donovan, the former director of research and Russian (Soviet) studies for USAF Intelligence.

He writes at “The American thinker”, that two events should be decisive in the near term: the American congressional election in November and the Ukrainian winter that follows. Clearly, Brussels and Washington are trying to put lipstick on the Ukrainian pig in the run-up to November. Just as clearly, Russia is going to have a better winter than Ukraine, Europe, and America, all of whom are about to be throttled with a political and economic blizzard of epic, if not unknown dimensions.

With a cold moon rising over Washington and Brussels, "Putin's war" could become Biden's albatross, like Afghanistan, another self-inflicted humiliation. There is no history, or modern evidence, to suggest that Europe or America, one on one or collectively, will endure or relish similar discomforts — to say nothing of weathering a looming economic blight.

Colonel Donovan notes, that the infamous AZOV battalion and an assortment of volunteer anarchists were moved East after 2016 to confront pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region.

Most so-called neo-Nazis in Ukraine are political linear descendants of Stepan Bandera, an infamous Schutzstaffel (SS) collaborator still celebrated in Kiev. Bandera was a another unindicted participant in the European Holocaust.

Much of the Ukrainian Nazi iconography — SS arm patches and flags, for example — has disappeared since Ukraine's NATO membership campaign took center stage. Stephan Bandera, however still thrives as a national touchstone.

With the remnants of AZOV now in Russian prison camps, Vladmir Putin's strategic goal of de-Nazification seems to be an operational win for the Kremlin — and Kiev. The Right Sector was always a bigger threat to Kiev than it was to Moscow.

When the Russian army takes what remains of the Donbas, the Kremlin will have achieved a second strategic objective: a defensible buffer between NATO and the Russian homeland. Like Crimea, Moscow is unlikely to relinquish any strategic real estate, especially a buffer bought with Russian blood.

Alas, the collusion problem in Ukraine is a donkey of a different color, darker, more obscure — indeed, nearly invisible. The fall of Kherson should have been a big tell, were Washington, Brussels, and the legacy press not too busy canonizing Zelensky.

As the Russians approached Kherson, the river bridges were mined, but never blown, giving Russians the delta without much of a fight — and now a clear shot at Mykolaiv and Odessa.

Note also that Odessa is a traditional Soviet destination resort with strong ties to Russian elites. If and when Odessa falls, it may go, like Kherson, with a Fifth Column whimper, not a fight.

And then maybe it's game over for Ukraine, concludes Colonel Donovan.

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