Dmitry Orlov 
C l u b  O r l o v | ideas to blow your mind 
February 12, 2023 at 12:29 | Has readers’ comments | Here

A hot war is raging in the heart of the European subcontinent which, if you consult a geographic map, ranges from the scenic Cabo da Roca in Portugal (free admission) to the majestic Urals mountain range at the eastern edge of European Russia. The current locus is on the newly (re)acquired Russian provinces of Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson. Along with some other provinces, such as Odessa, Kharkov and Kiev, these were Russian lands until Vladimir Lenin saw it fit to lump them into a hastily concocted Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. But that chimeric entity has been gone for over 30 years now and what came in its stead has proven to be nonviable and is currently in advanced stages of political decomposition. It is the proverbial suitcase without a handle: impossible to lift but too valuable to leave behind; hence the current conflict, which is all about cracking it open and picking through the loot that’s inside it.

As wars go, it is a real one, employing tanks, APCs, all kinds of artillery, rockets, trenches, infantry and so on. As with most wars, this one is based on some misunderstandings. The US and its NATO buddies refuse to understand that Russia wants its own territory back and keep thinking that this demand is somehow negotiable. They have also been laboring under a misapprehension that it is somehow possible to defeat Russia simply by providing the hapless Ukrainian forces with some obsolete war junk and some intelligence, imposing some economic sanctions on Russia, attempting to isolate it politically and taking various other such steps that the Russians have barely noticed. The Russians are biding their time and waiting for everyone to come to their senses and give them what they want while grinding Ukrainian troops into chum by the thousand.

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