As the Western Media tires of covering the war in Ukraine, the battle has come to its most dangerous juncture.
When the war first started, I begged the leader of Ukraine to cede Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea in order to keep the country solvent. President Zelensky balked at the concept of ceding land for peace. For 100 days, the Ukrainians fought valiantly, even achieving a few moral victories.
But the Ukrainians had, and still have, no path to victory. And, again, Ukraine does not have the manpower to win a war of attrition. What is the next step in Ukraine? I am writing from my suburban home in America. There are people in suburban areas of Russia that are getting a diametrically different view of the war.
As opposed to other parts of the world, though, BOS can see all sides of the propaganda war:
Beacon of Speech: I am beating the drum loudly, I love Ukraine, I love their thirst for freedom and love that they are willing to fight. With that being said, the longer the war goes on, the worse it's going to get for them. NATO isn't jumping in unless Putin makes a catastrophic miscalculation. Putin could chip away in Ukraine for a decade, crippling both their morale and their economy. Ukraine has to cling to Odessa for Black Sea access and cut the rest of the Russian occupied losses now. Ukraine's new endgame has to be to preserve Odessa.
They have to cede Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea. Now they're probably going to have to surrender the land bridge too. Unfortunately, 99 year old Henry Kissinger agrees with me.
CNN: CNN came out this week and compared Putin to Peter the Great.
Of course CNN is wrong again. Peter's Russian Expansion was into Kyiv and into the Baltics. We have already seen Kyiv fight ferociously to keep the Russians out of their capital.
Putin's expansion is specifically around the Black Sea. The resource-rich portion of Ukraine with a high portion of sympathetic ethnic Russians on the ground.
Daily Mail: They do a great job of being a cheerleader for the Ukrainian Army. Ukraine shoots down a Russian helicopter, the Daily Mail reports it immediately.
The problem with their coverage is that they give the illusion that Ukraine is winning. THEY. ARE. NOT. WINNING. Winning would be defined as pushing the Russian Army back into the Motherland. What Ukraine is doing is inflicting a high cost of human life to the enemy troops on the ground. Putin does not care about casualties because he has the superior number of soldiers. If 30,000 Russian soldiers are dead and 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers are dead, but 15% of your country is occupied, that is a loss.
Zero Hedge: Their coverage has been a revelation. They talk about the Russians manipulating the Ruble. They have boots on the ground reporting. They explain the business end of the Russian Invasion.
Now here's the crux of our story. Russian Propagandists are desperately trying to spin the war in their direction. I actually found a Russian Bot and this was the map on his page. (Usually I try to do the proper citations, but screw that guy, I stole this image.)
This map is an abomination. So Russians are being fed that they are fighting Ukraine, the EU, the United States, AND the Nazis? Now I'm not naive, I know most of Ukraine's weapons are coming from the West, but there are no real Nazis marching under that red flag. None.
And NATO, the EU, the United States, none of them have uniformed troops on the ground, or else the Russians would have been pushed back by now. (And we probably would have been nuked.) Ukraine is not a puppet of the United States. EU troops on the ground, under the EU flag, is a pure Russian lie.
You know who else is aiding Russia in their "Special Operation?" The "freedom fighters" of Donetsk and Luhansk. Those are their flags in the 2 Eastern Oblasts.
Other stunning features:
The benevolent Vladimir Putin (sarcasm) is willing to carve up the Zakarpattia Oblast and give control of that oblast to the Hungarians, Romanians, and Slovakians. (WHAT???)
Not only is Putin marching through Southern Ukraine, but he will continue into Moldova and assimilate their separatists.
There would be a transitional Polish government in Lyiv. (HUH???)
The map above is the illustration that middle class Russians are looking at in their living rooms while shaking their fists in the air, "we have to stop the arrogant Americans and the Nazis." Those Russian citizens, who are only getting one view (the government view,) see Putin as a savior.
Another question to ask is: What if Putin takes all of Luhansk Oblast, Donetsk Oblast, Crimea, and the land bridge, then....stops? Putin takes to state media and declares the special operation over and sets up a staged victory parade in the border town of Sorokyne (Krasnodon), Ukraine, where two thirds of the population are ethnic Russians and 90% of the population speak Russian. Putin propagandizes that he has set Russian populations free and he is the Great Liberator. He slaps a new map of Russia across TV screens throughout the Eastern World and states that if Zelensky attacks any land on the new Russian map, it will be Zelensky that is the aggressor. Putin will also threaten Ukraine with a nuclear response for any new aggression into Russian Territory.
What then?
The Mexico Analogy:
"Why should Americans care about the average Russian being lied to by their government? Our government lies to us all the time." - Jaded US Citizen
Because, using Putin Logic, that he's simply protecting the minority Russian populations in Ukraine, he is creating a dangerous precedent. Let's make the analogy that Mexico would use the same thought process. (Well, a Mexico that's twice its current size, wasn't ripe with corruption, and wasn't waste deep in a drug war.) Maybe Mexico in 2040.
Under that scenario, the President of Mexico could go all jingoistic and say "the Hispanics in America are suffering and we are going to invade America and free our Mexican Brothers."
As Mexican troops poured across El Paso, Texas they aren't greeted as invaders, but as liberators. As the troops continued to surge through Western Texas and Eastern New Mexico, with their goal being Denver, the President of Mexico takes to the airwaves and proclaims that he wants to restore the 1821 borders of Nuevo Mexico. The Mexican President also states his army will fight until the Nazis and the White Supremacists are no longer a threat to his country or to his citizens, no matter where they live.
Both China and Russia quickly threaten the United States with nukes if the U.S. uses nukes on Mexico. So the superior U.S. Army mobilizes and easily pushes the Mexicans back. But as the Americans inflict heavy casualty losses on the Mexican Army, the Americans are surprised to be greeted with First Mexican Empire flags flying in the streets of places sympathetic to the Mexican President's sentiment. Places like Boise City, Oklahoma, Clovis, New Mexico, or Midland, Texas.
Suddenly America has a different type of domestic terrorist problem. As the American Army is greeted with civilian resistance, the President of the United States is forced to re-institute the draft. [Currently only .4% of the population are actively serving in the military.}
Instead of the draft quelling the situation, hundreds of draft riots break out up and down the East and West Coasts and talks of Civil War scorch the airwaves from both the left and the right. Just last month, the Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed lamenting:
Guess what the answer was?