THE NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN INTERVENTION IN UKRAINE
In the critical days between Wednesday 16 February, when the bombardment of the Donbass by
Ukrainian forces intensified sharply, and Thursday 24 February, when Russia's Special Military
Operation in Ukraine began, I seemed to detect an apparent - and disarming - contradiction between
two incompatible strategies on the Russian side. On the one hand, a strategy of evasion: the refusal to
engage in an "imminent invasion" of Ukraine, proclaimed for months by the Euro-Atlantic camp - and
which was a NATO trap aimed at definitively cutting Europe off from Russia. This strategy of evasion
seemed to be implemented on Sunday 20 February with the decision to evacuate the two Donbass
republics and to welcome up to 5 million refugees in Russia. Hence Donald Trump's exclamation
about Vladimir Putin: "He's great!" And then, four days later, on Thursday 24 February, Russia
launched its "special military operation" in Ukraine. By noon that day, Russian forces established air
control over the entire territory of Ukraine and Ukrainian aircraft were destroyed or grounded. And the
next day, the Ukrainian fleet was rendered harmless and extensive Russian control was established
over the northern Black Sea. By mid-March, after the fall of Mariupol, Russian control is complete
over the Sea of Azov and the southern coast between Kherson and Odessa is under the control of the
Russian fleet.
We have really moved from a strategy of evasion to an offensive strategy! This is certainly beneficial
militarily - and NATO was prevented at the last moment from launching its own large-scale offensive
on the Donbass. But politically it looks like a disaster: Putin seems to have fallen into the trap set by
Washington, the "special military operation" appears to the world as an "invasion campaign" of
Ukraine by Russia, which is immediately outlawed. Europe is now in a state of reinforced vassalage to
the Anglo-Saxon empire and is ready to join a possible anti-Russian crusade in Ukraine or elsewhere
in Eastern Europe. On the face of it, a real disaster for Russia.
How to explain this sudden change of strategy on the part of Vladimir Putin in four days, from 20 to
24 February?
The Russians were aware of NATO's intention to launch a major offensive against the Donbass in
order to sow terror there and carry out a real genocide (perhaps half a million victims) in order to
empty the Donbass of its entire population (about five million inhabitants). An offensive of the same
type as the one that forced the Serbs of Krajina to leave (taking their dead with them) in the face of a
Croatian offensive in 1993. Documents seized by the Russians in Ukraine at the end of February 2022
show that the date of the NATO offensive on Donbass was scheduled for 8 March. It is likely that
between 16 and 24 February, Vladimir Putin was made aware that this offensive would be unleashed
earlier. As a result, the decision was taken to conduct a "special military operation" (Operation Z). No
doubt this type of operation was part of a series of plans envisaged by the Russian army, but without
being planned with high precision, hence some hesitations or reorientations on the ground.
Thus, far from being a campaign to invade Ukraine, Operation Z is part of the list of "preventive
operations" to deprive an adversary of a catastrophic surprise.
It should be recalled, moreover, that Vladimir Putin, as he emphasised in his 21 February speech, had
no hostility towards the Ukrainians and had no desire to invade Ukraine, but that Russia would oppose
NATO and Washington until it got what it had demanded in its ultimatum of 17 December, namely a
written commitment not to advance to Russia's borders and not to integrate Ukraine, Moldova or
Georgia: For Russia, this issue remains a "red line" that must not be crossed under any circumstances.
Moreover, it is not with an army of 100,000 men that Russia could take lasting control of a country
larger than France and populated by 42 million inhabitants, at least some of whom, in Galicia, are
filled with an unquenchable hatred of the Russians.
The "ethnic cleansing" operation planned by Kiev in the Donbass, under the leadership of Washington,
also explains the desire to "denazify" Ukraine, as one of Vladimir Putin's clearly expressed goals. The
question of the resurgence of a dark force in a kind of Nazi resurgence (in Ukraine, but also within
NATO) is a complex one, but it is likely that this theme will continue to attract attention beyond the
destruction of the Azov "regiment" in the rubble of the Azovstal industrial complex in Mariupol.
