What’s it actually mean if the new Donbass republics join the Russian Federation?

Posted by Pointman on September 24, 2022 · 6 Comments 

It’s basically a game changer and one which as usual seems to have been totally unanticipated by the so-called “Kremlin watchers”. Hitherto, Russia has been conducting a Special Military Operation which comes with certain limitations. They’re not responding to an attack on sovereign Russian Federation territory but attacks on ethnic Russians in a neighbouring country. Just as the West is fighting a proxy war or a hybrid war as it’s called nowadays, the Russians really couldn’t go in with a pure force of the Red Army.

Instead it’s been the various Donbass militias, Chechens, a few Wagner division guys and some odds and sods such as even Cossack irregulars doing the infantry fighting. You don’t want to be mixing it with them in any season, but most especially Winter which is fast coming at us. The official Russian help has been confined to providing overwhelming air and missile superiority, absolutely dominant and massive artillery support and I suspect not only a large hand both in the day-to-day command and control of the war but also in its general strategy. Given such a disparate group of forces, they’d need a strong hand directing them.

As soon as the referendums in the new Donbass republics overwhelmingly vote for membership in the Russian Federation, their applications will be accepted immediately. To vote differently would be to abandon themselves to the tender mercies of the Ukrainians and the proven duplicity of Western powers such as the US, France and Germany. Between the lot of them, they’ve ensured the conditions of the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements have been comprehensively ignored and have been training and arming the Ukrainians to the teeth since 2014.

From that day onwards, one shell fired into any of the republics will be landing on Russian territory and will therefore constitute an act of war – no more hybrid war excuses. Concurrent with the referendum announcement a partial mobilisation of Russian forces was announced. That one shell landing means all out war between the Ukraine and Russia but for the moment the latter have only announced the call up of 300,000 experienced reservists. Bear in mind, that represents 1% of the strength of the Red Army that Putin can call upon.

Once again, Putin has wrest the initiative from the West. This single bold move opens up an array of options for him, each one of which presents a foreign policy Gordian knot for the Biden administration and its satraps. To illustrate, what if Russia takes the not unreasonable position they’re in a direct war with the Ukraine and a third party, namely America, who by supplying the Ukrainians directly with arms and support, has now made itself a legitimate target of war. All those big fat C-130 Hercules transports full of arms, flown by Americans and now getting blown out of the sky the minute they enter Ukrainian airspace would certainly represent a complete humiliation. It’d be put up or shut up time.

What’s the response? Armed escorts of American fighters? How would downhome America react to potentially getting sucked into a war with Russia? The NATO “allies” are already rushing to declare they’re not in a war with Russia. Pull up a chair ladies and gentlemen and watch dogfights break out all over Western Ukraine. The unknown here is what other surprises have the Russians got lurking in their arsenal because believe me, the West have got a few nasty surprises of some stuff like hypersonic missiles they though were sci-fi imaginings.

Sure, it’d be interesting getting confirmation that the much hyped F-35 Raptor is the very expensive lemon it’s rumoured to be but it’d be a more salutary piece of intelligence watching operational hypersonic missiles travelling at speeds well beyond any hope of interception decimating fleets of transports.

It’s a weapon we’ve seen in action that the West not only doesn’t have but they’ve no earthly chance of stopping either. Does this mean the end of the whole philosophy of MAD? Is the old 8 minute warning of Russian missiles heading over the north pole to hit continental America no longer a time interval to react in? Is it now down to two minutes, which is far below the spin up time of most ICBMs. Does it even exist if semi-autonomous missiles traveling at that speed can be fired and gone at the first sign of a launch bloom in America? That’s just one destabilising weapon nobody wants to talk about in front of the children. There are just too many unknowns coming out of that can of unknowns.

Remember, the Russians are the only party to the Ukraine conflict who consistently think ahead.

If you haven’t seen that already, contrast how foreign policy is currently being made in America with how it’s being done by Russia. Off the cuff soundbites. Last week Biden was wheeled onto some highly respected fake news show and asked a question about nuclear responses. He answered Yes to one question to which he should have said No, so the show immediately cut to commercials to get the real answer from his care givers in the WH. The handlers told the fake news whores the answer should have been No and if they asked again, their chimp would answer correctly. First thing after the break, they repeated the same question in a different form and the old fool immediately answered Yes again.

Again, two weeks ago, Russia introduced and passed a raft of new laws related to people intent on undermining the state in time of war. They’ve already got such laws I thought but now the laws have even more teeth and a lower standard of proof. They’re getting ahead of something I surmised. As if by magic, when the partial mobilisation was announced, crowds of “thousands” turned out to protest in major Russian cities. The reality was it was hundreds arranged by some shadowy, deniable CIA affiliate, but they’re mostly facing charges. They’d correctly anticipated how the Western propaganda machine would react two weeks ago.

You can find the full text of Putin’s speech on the Ukraine at various sites and I’d heartily recommend you read it, but for me the pertinent paragraph is the following, especially the last sentence.

“To those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, I would like to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for some components more modern than those of the NATO countries. And if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff.”

Be aware, Putin would rather die than be ruled by the West in whatever form. Remember, if there’s one lesson the West has learnt about Putin in the last six months is that he just doesn’t bluff. If he comes out with a shotgun, be in no doubt he’s prepared to use it.

©Pointman

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The Ukraine war – the military realities.

All articles about the Ukraine situation

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Filed under Article · Tagged with America, NATO, Russia, Ukraine