News from the Russian backlands reveal visually confirmed losses of its mobile armory, including 57 of the T-90 tanks, 448 of the T-80’s, 1,025 of fielded T-72’s, and close to 130 of its T-64 and T-62’s, as Russia reshuffles its forces from the killing ground of Bakhmut to Ardiivka and Vuhledar.
Small loss totals compared to what was once thought to be an unstoppable juggernaut of lethality which COULD be deployed or used in a show of force to rattle unsubject countries.
This threat was effective for many years. No longer. Comfortable with perceived dominance, the Russian army sat at ease for too long, thinking it had no need of newer hardware as nuclear missile-rattling was having its desired effect on the west. In those times, we treaded cautiously, unsure of just how much was bombast and whether threats could turn into reality. Now we know.
Bear in mind, Putin’s Russia once formed the core of the world’s most formidable strike capacity, capable of dusting any nearby smaller state which declined its rule.
Now they are pulling mothballed vehicles out of storage in the far east, no time for upgrades to armor which was thin to begin with and now is rusted.
The current call-up consists of 70-year old T-54 and T-55 tanks, last manufactured during the 1950’s. Rolling on flat cars in a slow train out of Arsenyev in Primorsky district far away from battle lines, these aged Russian tanks are a desperate move to replace destroyed armor in eastern Ukraine.
No kidding, this is real: when one “superpower” boasting of limitless destructive capability and threatening nuclear holocaust in every news cycle gets to experience the bottom line of going to unprovoked war – reality intrudes.
Russia cannot win this war, in which well over 100,000 Russian men and countless Ukrainian civilians have perished, and there is going to be an undignifed and disastrous end.
Current stalemate is a serious turn for Russia – and, it must be said – for the U.S. and its allies, as well. Cornered animals have no boundaries; Vladimir Putin has none, either – no moral, ethical nor humanitarian limits if any country impedes his visions of glory. Status on the ground is that dreams of Mega Russia are chimeric and unrealizable.
Putin desperately wants to think – and have the western world believe – that his cobbled-together army of paid mercenaries, convicted criminals and unwilling draftees can conquer any nation it chooses, beginning with Ukraine, reaching westward to echo Nikita Khruschev’s bombastic claim “We will bury you!”
Khruschev’s son, at first opportunity, established himself in the unburied U.S. Josef Stalin, ranked among the world’s most completely evil dictators, caused his wife to commit suicide and his daughter to escape the charms of Communism for America.
The old U.S.S.R. now dispersed, is Putin’s lodestar as he struggles to maintain an imaginary vision of Mother Russia and all her wayward children, together. Putin’s Kremlin cohorts, salivating for his predictable demise and their ascendancy, confront harsh reality.
The post-WW II age of grovelling puppet-states has gone. A game of money and power is being played, as Moscow sharks smell blood in the water and each wants a piece of the post-Putin action. He knows his time to rule is shrinking, thus any measure to obliterate dissent in Ukraine and elsewhere is on the table.
But – a big “but” – he will not deploy the nuclear arsenal. Once that card has been played, nothing is left and he will be gone. Like the Wizard of Oz, he bellows threats, hoping to convince the world that he is the Boss Player to whom all must bow. The truth is a small, sick, pitiable man behind a PR screen, cajoling loyalty from a citizenry which, when able, has left the country, gone into hiding or bleats fanatically out of hope that things will change. Yes, they will. Watch.
Linda Berry is a Northsider.
