“Truth is the first casualty of war,” the apocryphal saying goes. This certainly appears the case with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, too. On the one hand, most media reportage holds that Vladimir Putin’s forces are poorly and under-equipped, ineffective, demoralized, are sometimes sabotaging their own military, and that Ukraine is wounding the Bear mightily. A good example is a new Foreign Affairs article titled “Putin Is Going to Lose His War.”
On the other hand, Colonel Douglas Macgregor (ret.), a highly credible source, speaks for a minority of voices in maintaining that all the billions in weaponry the United States is sending to Ukraine won’t change the outcome — Putin is going win his war. So the truth is hard to ferret out. But now a voice from the front lines, so to speak, lends credence to the latter position:
Russia’s campaign is going according to plan, media propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding.
Ernest Sipes, a dispatch reporter for Associated Reporters Abroad, has, among other things, “visited and reported on Iraq, Kurdistan, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Oman, Republic of Georgia, Republic of Congo and Somalia,” his bio relates. And now he has just returned from a three-week fact-finding trip to Ukraine during which he collected information from various people, a process that included visiting and speaking with the nation’s soldiers. He also was present for missile attacks in different cities and dozens of artillery barrages.
Sipes emphasizes that Russia’s invasion was wrong, that the loss of life is tragic, and that his heart lies with the Ukrainian defenders. Yet he also states that, as The New American has illustrated, the Russo-Ukrainian relationship is “complicated.”
Putin’s military action is, too, says Sipes. In fact, far from any goal of conquering Ukraine, Russia appears to have a limited set of objectives, the journalist states. He perceives them to be the following:
- [Securing a] route to the Black Sea.
- [Achieving the] unification of areas perceived as belonging to Russia and whose citizens (a majority at least) desire to join Russia.
- [Sending a] notice to the world that the lands that once formed the Soviet Bloc are still under the guidance of Moscow at some level.
- To discourage Ukraine and surrounding nations from joining NATO/EU.
- To illustrate that all of Eastern Europe is still under the influence of Moscow.