COMMENT: Putin is a madman. He has invaded a sovereign nation and Russia has to pay for that.
SV
ANSWER: Obviously, you are believing the propaganda from the West. Putin has stated from the outset that he was NOT seeking to occupy or conquer Ukraine. Just look at the numbers. Estimates of Russian troop numbers in Ukraine have ranged from anywhere between 100,000 and 200,000 in recent weeks. Now, if he was intending to really “invade” a sovereign nation, you would assume that the standard military strength that you want is between 2 to 3 times your opponent.
OK. So the question becomes: What is the size of the Ukrainian Army? That is about 297,000 and they are NATO-trained forces. They are not farmers and hicks – but professional soldiers. So the press that portrays that Putin is losing and this is taking too long is all based upon the idea that the objective is conquest. But Putin has stated from the outset, and he has NOT deviated, that he wanted Ukraine to be demilitarized and remain as “NEUTRAL” as according to the Belgrade Agreement.
This is a PROXY war and Putin understands that now. Zelensky is unwilling to let Donbas go nor Crimea and his statement that he asked to join NATO was rejected, but he states the “door remains open” and NATO has trained the Ukrainian Army so they are up to NATO standards without formally being in NATO. Putin understands all of this. He has an army of 850,000 active personnel and 250,000 in reserve. China had 2,695,000.00 in 2018 and maybe approaching 3 million right now.
The biggest NATO force in Europe is Turkey with about 445,000. The next is France with 208,000, Germany 1ith 189,000, Italy with 174,000, the UK with 156,000, Spain at 123,000, Poland 121,000, Greece 106,000, and everyone else under 100,000. The US has 1,352,000 and Canada 71,000. This means that in Europe, NATO has 1.3 million. If China assisted Russia, that would be a force of 3.7 million.
The problem this time is that the US has 1.3 million total, down from 2.2 million under Reagan. The US is clearly counting on non-conventional weapons. So have we reached the point where nukes are the ONLY line of defense?
You can see that Ukraine with 297,000 actually has the largest army in continental Europe that confronts Russia. Therefore, if Ukraine was part of NATO, it would have a conventional force of about 1.6 million including Turkey. That would outnumber Russia at about 1.1 million and that once again means a conventional attack on Russia would need to go nuclear to defend against Europe.
The risk of escalation here will be 8.6 weeks into this confrontation which will bring us to the week of April 18th, followed by the first week of May. The sanctions imposed on Russia are more than just insane, they have set in motion famine in Europe. Even French President Macron has been briefed on this real threat. He has urged an immediate emergency plan for food security at the G7 that has been triggered by the war in Ukraine. Moscow has urged that the longer the battle in Ukraine continues being the breadbasket of Europe, this war could result in “inevitable famine” as soon as 12 to 18 months from now. Because the bulk of the exports from Ukraine feeds Northern Africa, he has warned this could be serious. Indeed, our model is pointing to rising civil unrest over food and corruption.
This DEMONIZING Putin is highly dangerous. All the Russian leaders see this as a proxy war and they will respond even much more aggressively if Putin was not there. My concern is the US keeps cheering on the Ukrainians and they NEVER have any strategy other than the immediate victory. The aftermath they seem to never consider. Remove Putin and this is an attack upon Russia and its culture, that pushes the world to the brink and we cannot rule out that it would be a warning to all of Europe by nuking Kyiv as a warning to all of Europe – is this what you really want? Putin sees Ukraine as the mother country and does not want it demolished. The neocons behind him do not care about history.
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