Can Anyone Ascertain What Putin’s Endgame Must Be?

What happened to “a few weeks” as predicted by many military experts would be the length of Russia’s Ukraine invasion before the former Soviet nation would own Ukraine? We are 40+ days into the slaughter of hundreds of Ukrainian citizens and a yet-uncounted military death toll. It appears victory for Putin may be slipping away. He hasn’t won yet. And it seems he may have bitten off more than he can chew.

What he HAS done is push other world leaders into panic mode. They each are examining these actions in Ukraine in the context of “What if Putin decides to come here?” That certainly is true about European nations, especially those near Ukraine and Russia.

What Are These World Leaders Doing About This?

Many citizens of numerous countries have been watching in earnest to see what a unified West would do to stop Putin’s senseless slaughter of men, women, and children in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s daily pleas to other leaders to send weapons sufficient for the Ukrainian people to push Putin’s military out of their nation. However, the foreign military support has been slow-coming — maybe, partly, for fear of Putin’s retribution against them for their support of Ukraine. Even President Joe Biden has been slow-playing the fulfillment of his massive televised support promises. I’m certain Zelensky has had it with the feckless actions of those who have made all these grandiose promises.

World leaders ARE calling for President Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes, but experts are concerned these horrors could continue as the despot pushes forward with a grander plan to build a sprawling empire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is endeavoring to build a pro-Russian empire stretching from “Vladivostok to Lisbon,” a former Russian president has warned. The ex-president and deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said Putin launched his brutal invasion of the former Soviet republic to bring peace to Ukraine in a Telegram post.

The shocking allegations were made as Western leaders shared fears Moscow is planning a new military offensive in southern and eastern parts of Ukraine. Medvedev said: “To change the bloody and full of false myths consciousness of a part of today’s Ukrainians is the most important goal.

“The goal is for the sake of the peace of future generations of Ukrainians themselves and the opportunity to build an open Eurasia – from Lisbon to Vladivostok finally.”

He further accused “Nazis, murderers and collaborators” of stirring up “Russophobia” in Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The ex-Russian leader also said Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine was undertaken in a bid to “demilitarise” and “de-Nazify” the country. Medvedev added the offensive “will not only be decided on the battlefields.”

He also questioned the legitimacy of Ukrainian sovereignty, saying: “The passionate part of Ukrainians has been praying for the Third Reich for the last 30 years.” The former president revealed that Moscow intends to fight attempts to seize Russian property abroad in courts around the globe. He said: “Our opponents … should understand that they will face many cases in courts. Both in the national courts of the United States and Europe and international courts.”  Medvedev’s comments come amid heightened concerns from Western officials, including NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg that Russia will try to capture Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas in the “coming weeks.” Officials warned Russian troops might attempt to create a land bridge to occupied Crimea.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky yesterday accused the Russian military of carrying out the worst crimes since World War II. He told the U.N. Security Council civilians had been murdered, and Russian tanks had crushed people “for pleasure.” After finishing his speech via video link, he showed gruesome images of dead Ukrainians, including charred and mutilated bodies. Mr. Zelensky said: “The Russian military searched for and purposefully killed anyone who served our country. “They killed entire families, adults, and children, trying to burn the bodies.” He urged the U.N. to take action, saying failure to do so would make the world body ineffectual. Mr. Zelensky added: “Are you ready to close the U.N.? And the time of international law is gone? If your answer is no, you need to act immediately.” President Zelensky was praised for his ferocious and passionate attack on the Russian military, telling the U.N. that “accountability must be inevitable.” He said: “We are dealing with a state that turns its veto at the U.N. Security Council into the right to [cause] death.” Before Putin launched his invasion into Ukraine, the Russian parliament’s deputy chairman Pyotr Tolstoy said Finland and Ukraine should be incorporated back into an enlarged Russia. Speaking in January, he claimed NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will “crawl” back under the Kremlin’s sway after realizing the “insignificance of their position,” according to Znak media. Tolstoy did not specify how this “restoration” might happen but claimed it could be in the next ten years. He later claimed his comments about the Kremlin restoring its old empire at a Russian Press Day event had been a “joke,” but he previously made clear he holds such views.

Last year he declared “there will be no Ukraine, describing it as “part of Russia which has temporarily seceded.” He claimed Russia could take Ukraine by force, rapidly overrunning the country and reaching the Polish border.

The United Russia MP said: “We will finish everything in a week. “We will return Kyiv to the Russian people; we will return Kyiv…There is no future for an independent Ukraine.”

Summary

There are not very many things in this war that are certain. Let’s name a few that ARE: Russian soldiers are desperately finding ways to disqualify themselves from battle because they want to go home. Some are so desperate they will shoot holes in the vehicles their in to justify the abandonment of vehicles. Others are deserting and hiding in forests in Ukraine.

Several other certainties are the horrific rapes of numerous Ukrainian women, brutal beatings, and savage killings of men, women, and children in the most horrendous manners one can imagine.

What’s uncertain is exactly what Putin expects to achieve in Ukraine and his expectations for the nation to be when he’s through with its destruction physically. (That doesn’t make sense. If Putin wants to take over Ukraine, it stands to reason that he would NOT want it on the ground in the rubble!)

The greatest certainty is that if the war stopped today and all Russians left Ukraine to go home, it would take decades for this war-torn country to rebuild and refurbish it back to its former self. The only question is, will it be a sovereign nation at that point, or will it be just a shell of its former shelf and exist as a section of Putin’s “new” Soviet Union?