Traduction allégée
J’apprécie Vladimir Poutine, mais cela ne m’empêche pas de souligner ses fautes de jugements. Aujourd’hui il nous conduit sans le vouloir vers la 3e guerre mondiale.
Sa récente opération militaire spéciale visant à neutraliser les milices militaires d’extrême-droite ayant pris le pouvoir dans le Donbas et soutenues par l’armée ukrainienne était une erreur stratégique. Elle prenait la suite de plusieurs autres erreurs stratégiques.
Les deux républiques indépendantes de Donetsk et Luhansk qui s’étaient mises en place dans le Donbass visaient à répondre au véritable coup d’état américain ayant renversé le gouvernement ukrainien légitime présidé par Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych. Elles votèrent démocratiquement pour être réincorporées à la Russie comme l’avait été la Crimée, mais Poutine le refusa. Il n’avait accepté la réintégration de le Crimée que pour ne pas perdre sa base navale dans la Mer Noire.
S’il l’avait accepté, jamais Washington ou l’Otan n’auraient osé attaqué un « territoire russe ». Mais il se borna à protéger la population russophone par le Protocole de Minsk qui ne fut jamais appliqué. Il montra ainsi qu’il n’était pas un chef militaire mais tout juste un diplomate.
Durant les années 2014-2022 l’on put constater les efforts extraordinaires de Poutine et de son ministre des affaires étrangères Lavrov, pour négocier un accord permettant de faire de la Russie sinon un membre de l’Otan, du moins une alliée de l’Otan . Mais la chancelière allemande et le président français s’y refusèrent toujours.
L’accord de Minsk ne servit qu’à donner à l’Ukraine le temps de renforcer ses forces militaires grâce à des milliards de dollars de matériels fournis par les USA
La naïveté de Poutine dans ces circonstances fut extraordinaire. Elle se traduisit par le fait qu’il n’entreprit que tardivement de renforcer l’armée russe et dut accepter de faite appel aux mercenaires du groupe Wagner.
Poutine s’était entouré de généraux incapables et jaloux qui ne songeaient pas à faire la guerre mais à renforcer leur pouvoir politique.
L’ opération militaire spéciale » été l’une des pires erreurs stratégiques de Poutine. Elle lui a pas permis de voir qu’il était en guerre contre l’Ouest et que dans ce cas, la seule chose à faire était de la gagner le plus vite possible sans laisser à l’Ouest le temps de s’engager et d’escalade en escalade le temps de la gagner.
C’est ce qui est précisément en train de se faire, en mobilisant progressivement pour ce faire toutes les forces de l’Otan.
Dans le même temps en Russie des élites pro-occidentales dites atlanticistes-intégrationnistes manifestent de plus en plus leur volonté de s’intégrer à l’Occident. Mais il ne faudra pas beaucoup de temps pour qu’ils comprennent leur erreur. Poutine lui-même avait longtemps prêché pour le « globalisme », de même que la présidente de la Banque Centrale de Russie.
Mais ces efforts pour récupérer une partie de la force ancienne sont interprétés à l’ouest comme une tentative de la Russie pour reconstruire son empire.
Suite
Article original non traduit et non commenté
From the standpoint of the Atlanticist-Integrationists, the point is to avoid justifying Western suspicions of Russia caused by Putin defending Russian interests. The West would interpret decisive Russian actions in defense of Russia as “Russia rebuilding its empire.” Consequently, the Russian liberals and the youth cultivated by foreign NGO money operating in Russia unregulated imposed constraints on Putin’s ability to defend his country, even if he understood the problem, which is not clear.
So that you understand, the long-range missiles, which President Biden denied would ever be given to Ukraine, have been given. They are not battlefield weapons. Their use is to further embarrass Putin with inability to protect Russian civilians and infrastructure from Ukrainian attacks inside mother Russia. Clearly, Washington is doing everything it can to embarrass Putin with Russians, and Putin is playing into Washington’s hands.
Putin’s limited military operation is a total failure. Yes, Russia dominates the battle front. But by restraining the use of force Putin has created the impression that he is irresolute and an inconsequential military opponent. Even the president of France, hardly a military power, is unafraid of Russia under Putin and is willing to send French troops to fight for Ukraine against Russia.
Initially the French president was ridiculed for suggesting NATO troops be sent to Ukraine. Now others are warming to the idea.
The American president declared never would long range missiles be delivered to Ukraine, and now they have been.
As I warned, Putin’s failure to put down a heavy foot has encouraged provocation after worsening provocation, and these provocations invited by Putin’s non-response are leading to a provocation that Putin will not be able to ignore, and then the world blows up.
When will Putin understand that all he has gained from his limited military operation is a wider war, two new NATO members–Finland and Sweden–that greatly expand (more that Ukraine) Russia’s borders with NATO, and deliveries to the anti-Russian government in Ukraine of weapons unintended for the battlefield but for long distance strikes into Russia, which will make Russia look weak and Putin a failure as a war leader who is unable to protect his country?
The US Secretary of State, Blinken, was recently in China doing his best to unwind the Russian-Chinese relationship. Putin’s inability to deal with such a minor military adversary as Ukraine must make China wonder. Clearly Putin’s failure to win a war, now in its third year which he should have won in 3 weeks, provided Blinken with the opportunity to pressure China. Blinken saw the opportunity and used it. Blinken gained the support of a Chinese “Russian expert” and the ear of the Chinese government.
China itself is an ineffectual defender of its interest. Chinese thinking teaches the long run perspective. China simply waits out its opponents, but the West is immediate, which is something China doesn’t understand.
There is still no Russian-Chinese-Iranian Mutual Defense Treaty that would put a halt to Western provocations and war-making. No doubt the Russians and Chinese don’t want to be provocative. This indicates that they are incapable of realizing that they are at war.
To sum up: Putin thinks Russia has won the conflict because, despite $200 billion in US aid, Russia dominates the battlefield. Ukrainian casualties are 10 or more times Russian casualties, and the Western weapons are vastly inferior to the Russian ones. Putin thinks it is only a matter of time before the West comes to its senses and realizes it has lost and agrees to Russia’s conditions for ending the conflict. Why does Putin think that the West has any sense to come to? Putin is deceiving himself.
Putin should read Mike Whitney’s latest. Whitney has an independent uncompromised mind concerned only with the truth. Whiteny says, backed with the evidence, that the US, understanding that it has lost the battlefront war, nevertheless still intends to win the real war and has moved to Plan B.
Plan B is to prolong the conflict with aid not for the lost battlefield but for long distant strikes into Russia against civilian centers and essential social and economic infrastructure. The success of these strikes will show Putin to be a failure, a leader unable to protect mother Russia from a non-existant military power–Ukraine.
Will the pro-Western Russian intellectuals seize on “Putin’s failure to protect Russia” by pushing for a peace accord that results in Ukraine’s admission to NATO?
In other words, Putin’s timidy, restraint, and miscalculations have defeated him.
Here is Whitney’s analysis of the US Plan B : https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/washington-moves-on-to-plan-b/
Putin has been seriously damaged by the incomprehensible failure of Russian intelligence. Where, for example, was Putin when the US/Israeli trained and armed Georgian Army attacked the Russian protectorate of South Ossetia killing Russian troops serving as peace keepers? Putin was at the Chinese olympics unaware that he was faced with a dangerous crisis. Putin was recalled from his fun and games and had to use an unprepared Russian Army to repel the American/Israeli trained Georgian army. Then when he again had Georgia in Russian hands, he left, apparently leaving in exchange for a less hostile government toward Russia. Now there are reports, true or false, of another Georgian color revolution against the Georgian government that is not sufficiently hostile to Russia.
Do we have here a second war front opening against Russia in addition to Ukraine? And what about the reports that NATO is focusing on Belarus where Russian nuclear weapons are stationed if not deployed? Will a third war front open?
https://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-terrorists-launch-attack-belarus/5855863
Russian intelligence also failed Putin when the Washington orchestrated Maiden Revolution occurred. Putin had no warning of what was happening on his doorstep. He was away, again, enjoying the Sochi olympics while Washington took possession of Ukraine, a part of Russia for centuries.
What explains these massive total failures of Russian intelligence? Are the Russian intelligence services so pro-Western that they are incapable of seeing reality? Or are the intelligence agencies operating under a protocol in which only a happy agreement can be the result of the US orchestrated conflict between Russia and the West?
If Putin continues to deny reality, he risks losing his alliance with China. This will end dollar replacement in the settlement of international balances and leave the entirety of the dissenting world at the mercy of US financial sanctions. Can even this report from RT bring Putin to confront reality?
“Specifically, an article in The Economist by Feng Yujun, a professor at Peking University, has caused a stir. This methodical, official expert on Russia and the Ukraine conflict speaks very much in the spirit of Western political thought: he criticizes Moscow, predicts its defeat, praises Kiev for its ‘strength and unity of its resistance,’ and even suggests that if Russia doesn’t change its power structure, it will continue to threaten international security by provoking wars.
“Knowing how Chinese society is organized, it’s hard to imagine that the professor who penned this article was acting at his own risk without the support of responsible comrades in Beijing. The recent refusal of four major Chinese banks to accept payments from Russia, even in yuan, can also be seen as an alarming signal to Moscow. In other words, it may turn out that the Russian-Chinese alliance, so strong in words, is far from being effective and trouble-free in practice. And Blinken would certainly have tried to consolidate this trend.
” https://www.rt.com/news/596632-blinken-in-beijing-russia/
Clearly, Putin has no economic and political advisers with sufficient intelligence and awareness to tell him the dangerous situation he has created for himself and for Russia.
And for the world, as the consequence will be nuclear war.
Europe Solidaire 