Ukrainian Border Guards at a parade. Photo: Markiv Mykhailo.
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S DaviesĀ –Ā Jun 19, 2023
As Ukraine prepared to launch its much heralded but long delayed counteroffensive, the media published a photograph of a Ukrainian soldier with his finger on his lips, symbolizing the need for secrecy to retain some element of surprise for this widely telegraphed operation.
Now that the offensive has been under way for two weeks, it is clear that the Ukrainian government and its Western allies are maintaining silence for quite a different reason: to conceal the brutal cost Ukraineās brave young people are paying to recover small scraps of territory from Russian occupation forces, in what some are already calling aĀ suicide mission.
Western pundits at first described these first two weeks of fighting as āprobing operationsā to find weak spots in Russiaās defenses, which Russia has been fortifying since 2022 with multiple layers of minefields, ādragonās teeth,ā tank-traps, pre-positioned artillery, and attack helicopters unopposed in the air that can fire 12 anti-tank missiles.
On the advice ofĀ BritishĀ military advisers in Kyiv, Ukraine flung Western tanks and armored vehicles manned by NATO-trained troops into these killing fields without air support or de-mining operations. The results have been predictably disastrous, and it is now clear that these are not just āprobingā operations as the propaganda at first claimed, but the long-awaited main offensive.
AĀ Western officialĀ with intelligence access told the Associated Press on June 14, āIntense fighting is now ongoing in nearly all sectors of the frontā¦ This is much more than probing. These are full-scale movements of armor and heavy equipment into the Russian security zone.ā
Other glimpses are emerging of the reality behind the propaganda. At a press conference after a summit at NATO Headquarters, US General MilleyĀ warned that the offensive will be long, violent, and costly in Ukrainian lives. āThis is a very difficult fight. Itās a very violent fight, and it will likely take a considerable amount of time and at high cost,ā Milley said.
Russian videos show dozens of Ukrainian tanks and armored vehicles lying smashed in minefields, and NATO military advisers in Ukraine haveĀ confirmedĀ that it lost 38 tanks in one night on June 8, including newly delivered German-built Leopard IIs.
Rob LeeĀ of the Foreign Policy Research Institute explained to theĀ New York TimesĀ that the Russians are trying to inflict as many casualties and destroy as many vehicles as possible in the areas in front of their main defensive lines, turning those areas into lethal kill zones. If this strategy works, any Ukrainian forces that reach the main Russian defense lines will be too weakened and depleted to break through and achieve their goal of severing Russiaās land bridge between Donbas and Crimea.
Russiaās Ministry of DefenseĀ reportedĀ that Ukraineās forces suffered 7,500 casualties in the first ten days of the offensive. If Ukraineās real losses are a fraction of that the long, violent bloodbath that General Milley anticipates will destroy the new armored brigades that NATO has armed and trained, and serve only to escalate the goryĀ war of attritionĀ that has destroyed Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk, and Bakhmut, killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of young Ukrainians and Russians.
A senior European military officer in Ukraine providedĀ more detailsĀ of the carnage toĀ Asia Times, calling Ukraineās operations on June 8 and 9 a āsuicide missionā that violated the basic rules of military tactics. āWe tried to tell them to stop these piecemeal tactics, define a main thrust with infantry support and do what they can,ā he said. āThey were trained by the British, and theyāre playing Light Brigade,ā he added, comparing the offensive to a suicidal charge into massive Russian cannon fire that wiped out Britainās Light Cavalry Brigade in Crimea in 1854.
If Ukraineās āSpring Offensiveā plunges on to the bitter end, it could be more like the British and French Somme Offensive, fought near the French River Somme in 1916. After 19,240 British troops were killed on the first day (including Nicolasās 20-year-old great-uncle, Robert Masterman), the battle raged on for more than four months of pointless, wanton slaughter, with over a million British, French, and German casualties. It was finally called off after advancing only six miles and failing to capture either of the two small French towns that were its initial objectives.
The current offensive was delayed for months as Ukraine and its allies grappled with the likelihood of the outcome we are now witnessing. The fact that it went ahead regardless reflects the moral bankruptcy of US and NATO political leaders, who are sacrificing the flower of Ukraineās youth in a proxy war they will not send their own children or grandchildren to fight.
As Ukraine launches its offensive, NATO is conductingĀ Air Defender, the largest military exercise in its history, from June 12 to 23, with 250 warplanes, including nuclear-capable F-35s, flying from German bases to simulate combat operations in and over Germany, Lithuania, Romania, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea. The exercise has led to at leastĀ 15 incidentsĀ between NATO and Russian aircraft in the skies near Lithuania.
It seems that nobody involved in NATO has ever stumbled over the concept of a āsecurity dilemma,ā in which supposedly defensive actions by one party are perceived as offensive threats by another and lead to a spiral of mutual escalation, as has been the case between NATO and Russia since the 1990s. Professor of Russian history Richard SakwaĀ has written, āNATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence.ā
These risks will be evident in the upcoming NATO Summit in Vilnius on July 11-12, where Ukraine and its eastern allies will be pushing for Ukraine membership, while the U.S. and western EuropeĀ insistĀ that membership cannot be offered while the war rages on and will instead offer āupgradedā status and a shorter route to membership once the war ends.
The continued insistence that Ukraine will one day be a NATO member only means a prolongation of the conflict, as this is a red line that Russia insists cannot be crossed. Thatās why negotiations that lead to a neutral Ukraine are key to ending the war.
But the United States will not agree to that as long as President Biden keeps US Ukraine policy firmly under the thumbs of hawkish neoconservative desk warriors like Anthony Blinken and Victoria Nuland at the State Department and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House. Pressure to keep escalating US involvement in the war is also coming from Congress, where RepublicansĀ accuseĀ Biden of āhemming and hawingā instead of āgoing all inā to help Ukraine.
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Paradoxically, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies are more realistic than their civilian colleagues about the lack of any military solution. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,Ā General Milley, has called for diplomacy to bring peace to Ukraine, and US intelligence sources have challenged dominant false narratives of the war in leaks toĀ NewsweekĀ andĀ Seymour Hersh, telling Hersh that the neocons are ignoring genuine intelligence and inventing their own, just as they did to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
With theĀ retirementĀ of Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the State Department is losing the voice of a professional diplomat who was Obamaās chief negotiator for the JCPOA with Iran and urged Biden to rejoin the agreement, and who has taken steps to moderate US brinkmanship toward China. While publicly silent on Ukraine, Sherman was a quiet voice for diplomacy in a war-mad administration.
Many fear that Shermanās job will now go to Nuland, the leadingĀ architectĀ of the ever-mounting catastrophe in Ukraine for the past decade, who already holds the #3 or #4 job at State as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
Other departures from the senior ranks at State and the Pentagon are likely to cede more ground to the neocons. Colin Kahl, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, worked with Sherman on the JCPOA,Ā opposedĀ sending F-16s to Ukraine, and has maintained that China willĀ not invadeĀ Taiwan in the near future. Kahl is leaving the Pentagon to return to his position as a professor at Stanford, just asĀ China hawkĀ General C.Q. Brown will replace General Milley as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs when Milley retires in September.
Meanwhile, other world leaders continue to push for peace talks. AĀ delegationĀ of African heads of state led by President Ramaphosa of South Africa met with President Zelenskyy in Kyiv, and President Putin in Moscow on June 17th, to discuss the African peace plan for Ukraine.
President PutinĀ showedĀ the African leaders the 18-point Istanbul Agreement that a Ukrainian representative had signed back in March 2022, and told them that Ukraine had thrown it in the ādustbin of history,ā after the nowĀ disgracedĀ Boris Johnson told Zelensky the ācollective Westā would only support Ukraine to fight,Ā not to negotiateĀ with Russia.
The catastrophic results of the first two weeks of Ukraineās offensive should focus the worldās attention on the urgent need for a ceasefire to halt the daily slaughter and dismemberment of hundreds of brave young Ukrainians, who are being forced to drive through minefields and kill zones in Western gifts that are proving to be no more than US and NATO-built death-traps.
BLA
Medea Benjamin
Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human right organization Global Exchange. Follow her on twitter at @MedeaBenjamin.
Nicolas Davies
Nicolas J S Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq and of the chapter on "Obama At War" in Grading the 44th President: A Report Card on Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader.
