Ukraine’s Brilliant Strategy: Invade Russia with Poodles, What Could Go Wrong?

by Jeff Childers

Lately, trying to wrangle the horde of news can, at times, cause your humble blogger to feel much like how the Alligator Farm’s™ one-armed, in-house gator wrestler must feel on especially busy days. This is a poor excuse for neglecting the Proxy War, which until recently has been a constant breaking news story of “more of the same.” But yesterday, coming on the heels of its exclusive “real story” of the Nordstream bombing —it was a ‘real story’ all right— the Wall Street Journal ran a remarkable, long-form, magazine-style article under the headline: “As Ukraine Invades Russia, Kyiv’s Troops Are in Trouble on the Eastern Front.” Uh oh.

At the risk of boring readers who, like yours truly, follow the daily inch-by-muddy-inch Proxy War news, we must first backfill a little. Last week, Ukraine sprang a dramatic surprise attack. Using around 14,000 of its last, best troops, and a vast array of critical, impossible-to-replace war equipment, Ukraine tried to flip the script by invading Russia in a quiet, remote, sparsely populated area on the northeast corner of the map.

In other words, bantam-sized President Zelensky boldy let slip the dogs of war. But in this case, the dogs of war were more like the miniature poodles of war.

The most rational explanation for this desperate gamble is that Ukraine sought by surprise to snatch a Russian nuclear power plant lying about 70 kilometers from the two countries’ shared border. Had it worked, Ukraine could have traded the power plant back, forcing major Russian concessions. But Ukraine denies this was its objective, and so the “real story” remains, like so much else these days, murky and unclear.

It looks a lot like the Russians knew they were coming. So Ukraine’s most experienced units are now, a week later, rattling angrily around inside a killing box inside Russia, scores of miles from the power plant, far from reinforcements or supply lines, trying to … something. We don’t know yet.

Ukraine may have just served up its last remaining fighting force to Russia on a silver salver.

The bigger problem, as the Journal’s article soberly informed readers, was that, to scrape together 14,000 effective soldiers, Ukraine had to take them away from other places on the immense frontline. The predictable result is that Russia, already grinding inexorably westwards through Ukraine, is now skipping westwards in a sort of military frolic.

The Journal laid it on thick. The Ukrainian army is short of everything, people, guns, shells, tanks, air support, and ammunition. With scarce artillery shells on a strict budget, Ukrainians had turned to drones as a cheap alternative, but now the inexpensive drones aren’t working anymore “because Russian forces have increased their use of electronic jammers.”

But manpower shortages are the most critical shortfall. This ‘news’ (to Journal readers) has been the constant refrain that better-informed C&C readers have heard for over a year now. A military expert quoted for the story simply explained, “Ukraine doesn’t have enough reserves; they don’t have enough units to reinforce everywhere.”

So now it’s an old man’s war. In just a few months (“since the Spring”), the Ukrainians disastrously plunged from matching Russian troop figures one-to-one to an astonishing one-to-five ratio, and the few replacement troops are mostly seasoned citizens:

 
The article was a major narrative shift. I expected, but didn’t find, the usual litany of quotes from military ‘experts’ about how Ukraine still has time to turn things around, given a few more billions and steady NATO support.

But this time, there was no happy optimistic take to balance the bad news. It was just relentless bad news.

To be fair, other media, like the NYT and the Wapo, were yesterday still penning delirious headlines about Ukraine’s daring invasion, featuring a swimmingly optimistic narrative of a Ukraine public relations victory, even if it’s not any kind of actual military success. Absent from those articles was any analysis of the ethics of trading thousands of men’s lives to score a few days of favorable headlines.

But since the Journal just carried the deep state’s vodka by running that humiliating fantasy about the Nordstream debacle, it smells like team spirit, and it hinted that the Journal’s article signals the real narrative switcheroo. There were a few other signs.

A pro-Ukraine, pro-Harris op-ed in Wednesday’s Politico advised the ‘Plan B’ candidate to stop ignoring the war and take a hard line with Russia. But to create a sense of urgency, the article surprisingly predicted a looming catastrophe for Ukraine:

 
Might it soon be time for Zelensky to cheerfully take one for the team?

The Proxy War is the hub around which all 2024 geopolitics revolves. But the hub is increasingly being pulled out of its axle by the gravitational forces of the U.S. elections, which lie just around the corner. We’ve been fooled before, but it feels like something new and big is brewing. And it ain’t good for Ukraine.

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