Predictions of imminent collapse of Russian army are fanciful

The Western media have widely celebrated the retreat of Russian forces from the city of Kherson, presenting the Ukrainians as liberators of the city and the Russian retreat as an example of the weakness of the Russian army and its impending collapse.

However, the same media have a track record of biased and misleading coverage of the Ukraine war that leads one to question its veracity in all aspects of its reporting.

With regards to Kherson, the media has failed to acknowledge that the Russian retreat was a calculated one designed in part to save the Nova Kakhovka dam, which the Ukrainians had threatened to blow up in an act of state terrorism.

The Kakhovka dam has an associated lock and power station with an installed capacity of 357 megawatts. The water from its reservoir cools the 5.7 gigawatt Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, and flows through the North Crimean Canal to irrigate large areas of southern Ukraine and northern Crimea.

If the Ukrainians had attacked the Kakhovka dam, it would mean that Crimea would run out of water and it could lead to a nuclear fallout, which Russia had warned about for weeks.

Though a public relations disaster, military experts believe that the Russian retreat from Kherson will have no discernible impact on the outcome of the war.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a former senior adviser to the Secretary of Defense under Donald Trump, said that Russia’s repositioning of troops was part of a new strategy under General Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of Russian forces in Syria, in which Russia plans to shuffle troops around in preparation for winter offensive operations designed to annihilate the enemy across southern Ukraine.

Macgregor said that he regarded the Kherson withdrawal as “an operational decision with short-term benefit in support of the long-term strategy of building this enormous striking power.”

These comments suggest that Volodymyr Zelensky’s hailing the Russian retreat from Kherson as “the beginning of the end of the war” is completely at odds with reality. One recalls the euphoric claims of Generals during the Korea and Vietnam Wars that U.S. troops would be home by Christmas, which will likely be regarded in the same vein.

Stage Set For U.S. Combat Troops?

According to Macregor, secret communications between national security advisor Jake Sullivan and the former Russian ambassador to Washington, Yuri Yushakov, and the former head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, suggest that Sullivan warned his Russian counterparts that the U.S. would not allow Russia to settle the conflict on its own terms, but would take whatever steps were needed to prevent a decisive Russian victory.

Macgregor told an interviewer that “if Russia escalated, presumably—on the scale that we think the Russians will escalate—that we (the U.S.) might be prepared to jump in. And we would jump in with 40,000 US troops, 30,000 Polish troops and 20,000 Romanian troops….. Sullivan made it clear that we are in a position to intervene.” 

World War III No Longer Seems Far Away

That the western dogs of war were on the loose was apparent last month when a UN official accused Russia of providing its troops with viagra so they could carry out mass rapes; a propaganda claim that had been recycled from the Libyan War when Muammar Qaddafi was accused by U.S. ambassador Susan Rice of giving his troops viagra on the eve of the U.S.-NATO invasion in 2011.

A potential pretext for U.S. military intervention in Ukraine was an incident on November 15 when Ukraine accused Russia of launching a missile barrage across the border of Poland, though President Biden defused the situation by acknowledging that it was a Ukrainian air defense missile. But the start of World War III no longer seemed far away.

The Referendum

In a referendum, held in Donbass from September 23 to 26, 96% of the population voted to become part of Russia. Kherson had also voted to be part of Russia prior to the Ukrainian reoccupation of the city. The Russians consequently consider Kherson to be part of Russia, and will eventually seek to retake it as a matter of its legal duty.

I was an international observer during the referendum for the Netherlands. Normally, this is the job of parliamentarians or organizations like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) but the Western countries say they are in “war with Russia.” So that’s how I became a delegate to the referendum as a journalist.

Western countries consider the referendums to be “shams.” However, they overlook the historical attachment of the regions of Eastern Ukraine to Russia and sentiments of the people who consider the Russians as protectors from Ukrainian army terror.

In my capacity as an international observer in Lugansk city and Oblast, I visited about 30 polling stations where everything was carried out in accord with democratic values from what I could see.

The Escalation

I think we’re going to see an escalation in the coming months. The American empire along with NATO will do everything in their power to defeat Russia and they want to implement a regime change, as they have attempted to do since the end of World War II.

Russia has now mobilized 300,000 troops that will soon take up the fight at the front against the American Empire and its vassal NATO states, which are waging an effective proxy war.

More troops will probably be mobilized if necessary. The factories in Russia are running at high speed to produce tanks and other equipment for the front.

Ukraine has slammed all doors to negotiations. Perhaps as many suggest, “secret” negotiations are taking place with the American Empire, though knowing the track record, I would doubt it.

*This article was written with the assistance of Jeremy Kuzmarov

---

CovertAction Magazine is made possible by subscriptions, orders and donations from readers like you.

Blow the Whistle on U.S. Imperialism

Click the whistle and donate

When you donate to CovertAction Magazine, you are supporting investigative journalism. Your contributions go directly to supporting the development, production, editing, and dissemination of the Magazine.

CovertAction Magazine does not receive corporate or government sponsorship. Yet, we hold a steadfast commitment to providing compensation for writers, editorial and technical support. Your support helps facilitate this compensation as well as increase the caliber of this work.

Please make a donation by clicking on the donate logo above and enter the amount and your credit or debit card information.

CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and your gift is tax-deductible for federal income purposes. CAI’s tax-exempt ID number is 87-2461683.

We sincerely thank you for your support.

---

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s). CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI), including its Board of Directors (BD), Editorial Board (EB), Advisory Board (AB), staff, volunteers and its projects (including CovertAction Magazine) are not responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. This article also does not necessarily represent the views the BD, the EB, the AB, staff, volunteers, or any members of its projects.

Differing viewpoints: CAM publishes articles with differing viewpoints in an effort to nurture vibrant debate and thoughtful critical analysis. Feel free to comment on the articles in the comment section and/or send your letters to the Editors, which we will publish in the Letters column.

Copyrighted Material: This web site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. As a not-for-profit charitable organization incorporated in the State of New York, we are making such material available in an effort to advance the understanding of humanity’s problems and hopefully to help find solutions for those problems. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. You can read more about ‘fair use’ and US Copyright Law at the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Republishing: CovertAction Magazine (CAM) grants permission to cross-post CAM articles on not-for-profit community internet sites as long as the source is acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original CovertAction Magazine article. Also, kindly let us know at info@CovertActionMagazine.com. For publication of CAM articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: info@CovertActionMagazine.com.

By using this site, you agree to these terms above.

---

About the Author