In the near future, the second wave of mobilization will begin in Russia, within which at least 500,000 men will be drafted into the army. Putin dreams of repeating a full-scale attack on Ukraine, but he lacks weapons. The only resource that is still in abundance is the potential mobilized. The Kremlin dictator is ready to kill hundreds of thousands of Russians just to postpone his shameful defeat. Russia’s behavior is becoming more and more aggressive, and at the same time — devoid of common sense. Putin’s army must be destroyed in Ukraine before it reaches Europe.
Putin and Lukashenko are in some respects geopolitical relics, «remnants of totalitarianism», aging dictators whose era has ended, but they cannot accept it and have made a last desperate attempt to revive a totalitarian superpower. They really believe in it, because they are unable to perceive another paradigm of the world system. For Putin, war is peace, he believes in a mythical conspiracy against Russia and is looking for enemies everywhere. And his paranoia led to tragedy for millions of people. Putin is in a hurry, he cannot accept his defeat and is ready to kill Russians by the hundreds of thousands in pursuit of his ghostly illusion of restoring the USSR. Soon there will be many more victims in the Russian army, because hundreds of thousands of new recruits are being mobilized, and the necessary weapons to protect their lives according to the rules of military science are extremely scarce in Russia.
During almost a year of the so-called SMO, but in fact the war of conquest against Ukraine, Russia has lost half of its tanks, almost 3,000. It is estimated that the Russian industry will not be able to produce such a quantity even by 2035. This means that if the war with Ukraine continues at its current pace, by the end of 2023, Russia will lose almost all of its heavy weapons. Russian propaganda is intensively preparing Russians for general mobilization, which will soon be announced, and for the flow of zinc coffins to Russia. Putin’s key propagandists, for example, V. Solovoyov, repeat the narrative that «there is no greater happiness for a man than to die in war.» Putin’s New Year’s greeting is also indicative: for the first time during his entire reign, he spoke against the background of the military standing behind him. This is a direct signal to the Russians to prepare for a protracted war and hundreds of thousands of new victims.
We should not expect Putin to make real concessions, to be open to constructive dialogue, peace, and even more so – his departure from the occupied territory of Ukraine. He will really fight to the last Russian and to the last machine gun that can shoot. And it is not important that tens of millions of people may die from his adventure. This is the greatest tragedy of the situation and the greatest danger for Europe. The Kremlin dictator has been living in a world of illusions for a long time. And he a priori did not leave the West other options for response except force. That is why Ukraine must get all the necessary weapons to quickly defeat the Russian army. Otherwise, this war will continue for years, and this is to Putin’s advantage. Russia has enormous resource potential and has always won protracted wars, but quickly lost blitzkriegs. This is the biggest trap for the West: in Europe, they believe that a dosed amount of weapons, which is enough for Ukraine for self-defense, but not for a real offensive, is the best option, and Putin will eventually get tired and retreat. In fact, everything is exactly the opposite: during protracted wars, Russia recovers and begins to accumulate strength, and during the blitzkrieg, it loses and retreats.
The future of the civilized world is being decided in Ukraine, and the delay in providing weapons to Ukraine makes the third world war only a matter of time.