Champagne! The participants of this year's Munich Security Conference were celebrating. Billions were collected from participants to keep the war with Russia going. Moreover, countries emptied their warehouses containing the last bits and pieces of 'stuff' and corresponding ammo to prop up Ukraine. Denmark decided to donate every last bit of artillery to Ukraine, while the Czech republic announced it found a stockpile abroad, in some undisclosed country, willing to sell to the NATO-countries, which could then transfer it to their 'friends' next door.
NATO, in other words, is running on empty, bled dry, while the Russians are accelerating their progress, as the fall of Avdeevka took many by surprise. The 'Strong-Hold' had been used since 2014 to strike at Donetsk city regularly, terrorising its people, while Ukraine and NATO fortified the city so as to withstand serious military assaults from all directions. Again underpinning my own theory about this war as a 'desired war', meant to ruin Russia economically through the use of 'Stay Behind' forces and 'Sanctions from Hell', assuming Russia would hurry to take all of Ukraine, with Avdeevka, Mariupol, Bakhmut and other fortified cities with extensive underground depots to create a serious headache for the Russians.
You will remember the 'surprise' withdrawal of the Russian military from around Kiev, from the Kharkov region, and eventually from the westbank of the Djnepr, vacating the beautiful city of Kherson, which 'informed' Ukraine and the NATO planners that Russia was 'weak', and could be defeated in the spring of last year. At the time I wrote that, from what I've heard, that information was wrong. That the Russians had not been chased from these positions it held previously, but that they had withdrawn behind the 'Surovikin' line, while preparing for a war of attrition. I was not a lost soul, the only person sharing this with my readers, but that concept was clearly not 'mainstream' consensus, obviously. Even before Russia unleashed its 'SMO' I wrote on my Dutch-language pages that if the Russians felt there was no escaping a military conflict with Ukraine, that they still wouldn't take everything, and limit their campaign to those parts of the country which are known to be leaning towards the Russian 'Orthodox' culture, estranged from the western part which was under the spell of 'Bandera Nationalism', with its American and European supporters.
Avdeevka fell much faster than many anticipated, although I felt it would not take all that long and shared it with my readers, because Ukraine and NATO were already struggling to field the weapons and men it needed to defend the city. The miscalculation on the side of Ukraine and NATO was mainly due to 'wishful thinking', believing your own propaganda. We've heard all those stories about low morale, bad military leadership, lack of everything, and the need for Russia to take washing machines apart to find the chips they needed. I called BS on it, and so did others I happen to follow on the internet, because Russia has stopped to be a thoroughly corrupt 'backwater' a long time ago, and I felt strongly that they 'came prepared'. They gambled on a speedy resolution, but if that didn't materialise, they would be able to ramp up production of everything they needed in no time at all. Brian Berletic has picked the whole endeavour apart in a very easy to understand way on his channel, primarily relying on western sources, filtered to avoid the BS, reading between the lines, comparing notes, and he did an admirable job.
In his latest video he drew attention to a publication of people who are considered 'Kremlin Mouthpieces', with his name listed as one of those. But do you, as a tax-payer stakeholder, prefer to be served BS from various politicians and their mouthpieces in partisan 'ThinkTanks' who have no clue whatsoever? Honestly, these people are pathetic. It is often suggested that they are only interested in their portfolio of shares in the Military Industrial Complex. You would be better informed if you listened to the tooth fairy. They appear to be under some hypnotic spell. In part because they want to show 'Unity', I guess, but this is becoming a serious embarrassment for all concerned. This is a freakshow! They are demonstrably lying to us, but to themselves, and each other as well. I'm left with this feeling of looking at an inexperienced boy-scout group going on a lengthy trek that nobody prepared, or researched, and nobody took the precaution to check the weather forecast. Improvising on the move, trusting the others to find solutions, as they discover that nobody cared to check the gear before they left, and important stuff is missing.
Now, are we going to survive this adventure, following the suggestions of a pair of senior adspirant scouts who claim to have read the introduction to a 'survival manual'? It sounds like listening to an obituary. Zelensky insisted on being recognised as 'Top Dog', and he'd ordered his troops to defend Avdeevka to the last man. One week later the forced retreat as disorderly as you can imagine, with corpses everywhere, many hundreds of prisoners, and tiny groups of survivors trying to escape through the fields. No armoured troop carriers or helicopters to extract them anywhere. This is not anything resembling the orderly, professional Russian retreat from Kharkov and Kherson a little over a year ago. And no time for Ukraine to create a 'Surovikin-line' to hide behind as the Russians are now chasing them to the threshold.
This general feeling of being betrayed by their NATO 'friends' sipping champagne in Munich is bound to create a tidal wave of dissatisfaction in Ukraine, while people in Europe, discovering that the money is gone, and all that we got in return was a bunch of pissed Nazi's, should start to worry. Now!