To answer the question we pose in the headline, because what is being reported in western news on TV and in print, we truly have no clearer a picture than we did on day one. While the proaganda from Kiev is parroted by American, British and European news organisations as it it were handed down from heaven on tablets of stone, anything reporting Russia's side of the story or is in any way, no matter how slightly, critical or Ukraine or sympathetic to Russia's point of view is dismissed as Kremlin lies.
While more level headed reports (from India, Singapore and Cairo suggest that the Russians have almost complete their primary objective in taking control of Luhansk and Donbas, the two eastern, Russian speaking majority breakaway provinces which have been under attack from Kiev since declaring their desire for independence, the stories mainstream media prefers to report are based on the coments of some Ukrainian minor official in the Luhansk region who claims that Ukrainian forces are pushing back the Russians and have reclaimed twenty per cent of the occupied territory and that Russian losses have been so heavy President Putin is on the verge of begging for a ceasefire.
These claims may well be true, we don't know, but similar claims have come from the Ukrainian side on a daily basis for the entire hundred days of the war so far. Even so that once respectable and conservative UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph was happy to take them seriously. Meanwhile on alt_media site Unherd, Harald Malmgren takes a different view:
“If a ceasefire is declared, the world will sigh with relief, stock markets will rebound, worries about world food shortages will diminish, and diplomats will go back to sleep. But the war will only be in hibernation; the action will resume at a later date.” (Source: Harald Malmgren, Unherd.)
That’s why in the unlikely event of a unilateral declaration of ceasefire by Putin won’t be
accepted at face value. By now everyone thinks they know Putin’s game is the total annexation of Ukraine, so if Putin declares a ceasefire I’d guess the west will
take the time to properly prepare Ukraine for the coming onslaught.
I do wonder, though, how long the Russian army could possibly sustain its current
losses (assuming those losses are not exaggerated by the Keiv government and further massaged by sensationist reporting in mainstream news. Sadly, we
can no longer trust most news outlets on any issue).
If a ceasefire is declared," it is safe to assume the west will delay agreement in order to buy time to properly prepare Ukraine for the coming onslaught. However if the most recent Russian attacks are an indication, Russia’s objectives as a prelude to “ceasefure” are the following:
– Mariopol (done)
– Land bridge to Crimea (almost done)
– Liberate Lugansk and Donetsk (almost done)
– Industrialised areas in East and seaports (with exception of Odessa, done)
– Wipe out Azov (done)
– Encirclement and destruction of the key Ukrainian military units (not a given, but 60% done)
If the Russians do reach a point where they offer a ceasefire it will be from a position of strength rather than weakness, and it doesn’t matter what the West does in the rest of Ukraine once the above objectives are achieved. They would as as keen on “occupying” them as South Korea or India would be on taking over North Korea and Pakistan respectively. I
If anything the loss of Luhansk, Donbas and the land corridor to Crimea would leave the West commited to sinking money in the corrupt, deindustrialsed, backward rump that would be left.
For instance, all those Ukrainian “refuges?” Good luck sending them back. They didn’t run because of the war, they ran because it’s Ukraine and since the 'coup' engineered by Washington and the NATO allies in 2014 it has been run by a Russophobic right wing government whose principal objective has been to provoke The Kremlin rather than to strengthen Ukraine economically and socially for the benefit of its people.
In fact the conflict in Ukraine is just a sideshow compared to the real conflict, and I say tht with the untmost sympathy for the people of Ukraine who have suffered bravely and stoically throughout the conflict. The true conflict is the economic war being waged betwee the USA and western democracies on one side against Russia, China and their allies on the other. Over the past twenty years Russia and China have assiduously worked to gain control of many essential resources (lithium and rare earth metals for the batteries used in electric vehicles and all types of high tech gadgets for example,) necessary to maintain economic development and prosperity. The governments of many western nations, obsessed with virtue signalling and pandring to the green lobby have also, foolishly, alowed their countries to become dependent on Russia for oil, gas and commodities such as fertilizer, grain and cooking oil and on China for a wide range of manufacured goods. The Ukraine conflict is a major contributor to crises in energy and food supplies and the spiralling cost of living. The Western Alliance doesn’t make very much money compared to what it borrows and prints. The USA just hit 133% debt to GDP. Historically, any country in the last 500 years that hit this level is effectively bankrupt and is in for a some very severe austerity.China and many countries are no longer buying our bonds and selling bonds is how governments raise money to fund their debt. Revenues from exports cannot be increased because thanks to thirty yers of gloalism there are no hard industries left to manufacture goods for export.
These are reasons why the west is pouring military aid in the form of high tech weapons into Ukraine. Economically Russia and Chinahold all the aces and are moving to replace the US$ as global reserve currency. This would completely shift the balance of economic power east. Thus the NATO powers must prolong the war and plan to eventually invade Russia and later China; in order to take out the competition so that "the Great Reset" can go ahead inimpeded.
Ultimately, our civilisation is near bankruptcy. It would be bankrupt if nations weren’t able to print more money. That priviledge is also being lost now that more and more nations are moving away from the petro-dollar, ironically a process exacerbated by NATO / UN sanctions on Russia.
Meanwhile, Russia and China both have compartively low debt to GDP and big mountains of gold. When the debt driven economies reset, asset values are likely to crash, and tho lower 80% income groups will lose all their net worth as hyperinflation sets in (it already has in some deeply indebted, economically weak, third world nations.) We are set for a repeat of what happened in Germany in the 1930s, but on a wider scale and with a more lazy, aloof, and deluded elite in chage of the global economy.