Rolling the Dice with Putin

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
32
837

Russia strikes back at Ukrainian forces in Kursk region

Russian forces on Tuesday struck back at Ukrainian troops with missiles, drones and airstrikes in actions that one senior commander said had halted Ukraine’s advance after the biggest attack on sovereign Russian territory since the war began.
Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers smashed through the Russian border a week ago in a surprise attack that Russian President Vladimir Putin said was aimed at improving Kyiv’s negotiating position ahead of possible talks and slowing the advance of Russian forces along the front.

Last month I wrote that Zelensky would take the next gen weaponry from the West to launch an attack into Russia proper.

I argued he would feel pressured by the possibility of a Trump election and would take a leaf from the Hamas playbook by provoking a disproportionate response that would take attention off Gaza and back on the Ukraine.

The attack into Russia is a gamble for the Ukraine that risks a possible counter attack by a desperate Putin that justifies full war mobilisation by Moscow.

This could set in motion a range of outcomes that are all terribly destabilising including the possibility that Iran responds to the recent assasiantion of the Hamas leader in Tehran by successfully testing a nuclear weapon aided by Russia.

- Sponsor Promotion -

Whatever pause in domestic inflationary pressures we have seen recently are all on a global knife edge with a swarm of Black Swans heralding geopolitical meltdowns and global disruption.

32 COMMENTS

  1. The problem with Putin is that he’s far too rationale, hence the US via its many Euro proxies, pokes and pokes and pokes the Russian bear. Same in the Middle East although the US proxy Israel is maybe, just maybe, provoking Iran against the wishes of its masters. Who knows. But what we do know is that Putin is the bad guy, ditto Iran. No wonder the rich keep on getting richer and everyone else, at best, at best, treads water. We believe, we believe, we believe in Western values spearheaded by the leaders of the two political divides, granted that their is no political divide when it comes to war anymore with the former anti-war Left firmly on the side of Western aims and values.

    • Too rational? I beg to differ – there is not much between him and Trump … unless you believe Trump is rational also? I would agree he is more rational than Trump, although the bench is very low there!

  2. Putin says this is a “NATO” war (along with a number of people on this blog). So I guess that means that NATO just invaded Russia. How many red lines does that mean have now been crossed for Putin? Where is this great response of his?

    He can’t even declare war because of what that says domestically. His invasion is a “special military operation” and this response from Ukraine is a “terrorist action”.

    And as for Trump, you may have to hold your nose but listen to his interview with Elon Musk. If you think he is a friend of Putin and enemy of Zelenskyy then you need to listen to what he actually says, and not a 5 second sound bite from CNN.

    • “He can’t even declare war because of what that says domestically. His invasion is a “special military operation” and this response from Ukraine is a “terrorist action”.”

      The SMO had something to do with international law as in Russia had international law on its side when it initially conducted the SMO. Whether this remains the case, I don’t know but the US has used the same law, and its requirements, to conduct similar operations in the past.

      As for NATO and Russian red lines. We either believe that NATO ditto the US are involved in this war or we don’t. End of story. And red lines, there are a lot of red lines because their are Russian red lines and then their are red lines that are attributed to them….

      • I think we could quibble that “Russia had international law on its side”. Russia certainly claimed they did, but they didn’t exactly have a lot of support with that claim. At Pat has pointed out many times even the court case showing Ukraine was committing genocide that they used a justification turned into a farce.

        I would stand by calling it a SMO was purely for domestic consumption. It’s a hell of a lot easier to sell then “we invaded the neighbours and are at war”

        And even now saying that mother Russia has been invaded by foreign troops – it’ll hardly topple Putin but it is a crap look for him.

        Right now the question becomes what does he do. I have no doubt that Ukraine will withdraw because they could never hold the territory and he can’t allow them to. Time will tell.

        • Well, you appeared a bit uncertain but I can see I was wrong about that. Nonetheless, I can’t expect the West to be understanding of anything that Putin-Russia tries to do. Same goes for the Middle East, there is not a lot of sympathy for Palestinians either as far as Western government, courts and media are concerned. And same will go for China in the very near future too. There’s a common denominator in all this, but nonetheless, they are all the bad guys and we are always the good guys because among other things, we will at best, always quibble over their words, but we will never question our own.

          • No AO, I don’t think “we” are always the good guys at all. I just think Putin is very definitely a bad guy. I also think Netanyahu is as well. And I’m not going to defend the US foreign policy and the incredible problems it has caused over the years (then again I’d say the foreign policies of most powerful nations have been pretty crap).

            China is an open question to me. I kind of think that ultimately trade is more important to them.

          • If Putin is as bad as you firmly believe, then you must possess some semblance of evidence that you can share that supports this view. A very definite bad guy must have done very evidentially clear bad things that supports this position! Likewise, Israel aside, what are the other powerful nations and what crap actions have they committed?

            You are right about China, but like Russia, like Middle Eastern nations, like every country in the world, in fact, bar the very closest allies to the one superpower in today’s world – the USA – what is important to China, like what is important to all other nations is of no importance to the world’s sole superpower.

            Everyone, bar Israel, reacts to the actions of the sole superpower, thus nothing ends until the sole superpower deems it so. There’s your answer to whatever Putin will do – and has done so far.

    • What soundbot platform is the interview on?

      You’re at it again Carran(Karen?)
      It’s only a plausible media platform if you say it is( good god)
      It was on X, Musks own media outlet and is a friend of Trumps having endorsed him earlier. Of course if you listen to soundbotes from Fox and X and then try to convince us CNNs fact checking is wrong then, well, I’ve got a Simon Bridges bridge to sell you.

      • I have no idea what point you’re trying to make but I’ll try to guess.

        If you’ve read anything I write here I make no secret of trying to read/listen to as many different platforms as I can. If the next potential POTUS is going to talk on X I’ll listen to it on there.

        I did like the Karen joke, it was pretty good for a 6 year old.

        Maybe you should read what AO wrote. He knows what it means to disagree and discuss things like an adult.

        • Poor Karen triggered. I’ll spell it out slowly as I see you can’t think fast. S.T.O.P. A.S.S.U.M.I.N.G your platforms are better than anyone else. You dismissed CNN at great expense, yet promoted the interview Trump had on a user friendly pro Trump supporter platform. There, is that simple enough for your 6 year old brain to comprehend?

      • Nice comment …..you’re at it again Carran(Karen?)
        It’s only a plausible media platform if you say it is)

        That in effect encapsulates the whole “debate” on Ukraine. You either believe the MSM and the pro Western propaganda machine, aided by one eyed imperial supremacism, or you find more detached sources.

        For those who don’t believe the MI5 Pentagon neocon propaganda via the MSM is reserved the epithet Putinista. Those idiots using the term wouldn’t see the rich irony that we don’t particularly support him either. It doesn’t get into their thick brains that we merely prefer facts to preferences.

        • Correct Nick. Listening to Trump and then fact checking is essential to constructive analysis. This is lost on Karen.

  3. “…possible counter attack by a desperate Putin that justifies full war mobilisation by Moscow.”

    Putin isn’t desperate. Where are you getting that from? It’s clearly Zelensky who is desperate:
    a) marching in Russian territory in order to provoke an Israeli style response from Putin to try and force NATO into action.
    b) once again attacking their own nuclear power station in order to try and create a nuclear catastrophe that will force Europe (and by extension NATO) into the war.
    These actions are not coming from positions of strength.

  4. Martyn this is a suprising piece of writing from you , I do not paricularly disagree with anything you wrote!(I can tolerate reading speculations) – except for your use of the word desperate. The Kursk incursion would provoke some anger and determination and then Putin would move on quickly to make effective decisions that will move things to their inevitable outcome.

    Russians say that Napolean delivered an invitation so they came to Paris. Hitler did the same so they came to Berlin. After an invitation from Nato, they are ready to go to Brussels, London, …

    Maybe Putin will get to ride around Kiev barechested next summer or maybe being the tough guy he is he will do it this coming winter!

Comments are closed.