Once an event has happened, Historians try to understand it using mostly the Principle of Causality, meaning that an event or fact generates, in time, a result.
If that was correct then by combining cause and effect, we would be able to forecast the future with considerable accuracy.
We cannot.
Covid is just one example, but millions of other examples are there.
This is because human actions are not based on Objective Logos but mainly on subjective perceptions governed by emotion and bias.
Zelensky may die or be replaced, Putin may be replaced, Trump may become President of the US again, the Poles may enter the fight and Germans may come out of their torpor, to give some obvious examples of unpredictable events.
So, trying to predict how the present Ukraine-Russia war may end is futile.
We are more accurate to expect that this War will sometime end.
It is more rational to understand what is happening now that this War goes on.
What is happening now is that both Ukraine and Russia are bleeding hard.
Ukraine is in dire straits. Half of the Country is destroyed with Cities in ruins, dismembered industries, demolished infrastructure, occupied lands that suffered partial genocide. Half of its population are refugees.
Ukraine was a corrupt Country and Economy before the beginning of the War.
It survives for now with heavy economic assistance from the West.
Ukraine is bravely and competently fighting the Russians, had a number of big successive victories but now is in a War of friction and attrition, a War of trenches with huge minefields and entrenched Russian infantry which demands three times their number of Ukrainians for the Russians to be defeated.
Russia has four times the population of Ukraine, can produce four times the conscripts of Ukraine, has learned a lot from its sloppy and incompetent warfare in the first year of War and need only persevere for as long as it takes for Ukraine to collapse.
And Russia’s mainland and Industry are intact.
Both Russians and Ukrainians are trying to secure as much territory as they can before, in two to four months, the autumn mud, the “Rasputitsa”, brings movement to a standstill.
Ukrainian Armed Forces are not given the material means to overwhelm the Russians because of the cheese-pairing attitude of the West, including the United States that are happy to fight the Russians to the last Ukrainian
The “Drang Nach Osten” after 1991 was economically adopted by the Germans and Geostrategically orchestrated by the Americans.
Now both Russia and the West are out of artillery ammunition because tens of millions of rounds have been expended razing Cities to the ground and decades of Peace have stopped the production lines of the Western ammunition industries. Ammunition is more important for Ukraine’s attack than Russia’s defense.
In Europe, the enthusiasm for the Ukrainian cause, if it ever existed, is waning.
There is a strong movement in the Republican Party in the US to stop this War at whatever cost to Ukraine.
The valiant Ukrainian effort to dislodge the Russians from their conquered land is not succeeding as planned and it is unlikely that the UAF will reach the sea between Crimea and Russia and thus score the significant victory that it was hoped for.
Thus, the big question is inevitable:
What will happen in the autumn? – Will Ukraine continue to fight for a third winter?
An unpredictable event may save Ukraine.
Waiting for Russia to collapse is unlikely. Russia will suffer a Great Depression, political, economic, and social after the War but this is not likely to happen during the War.
A stalemate, which is likely if the War continues for the third winter, will not favor Ukraine.
By this autumn Ukraine will have used the bulk of its 2023 Army. Its remains will be used for defensive purposes.
If the war goes on in 24, Ukraine must create a new army by training new conscripts.
This is becoming more and more difficult in a ruined socially and economically Country where hundreds of thousands are dead and wounded and an unwillingness to serve and risk life or limb is more apparent now than in the beginning of the War.
Russia has already lost command of the Baltic. Now it is fighting with Ukraine for command of the Black Sea. Russia is not disposed to abandon the War now.
Neither is Ukraine. Ukrainian Nationalism genuinely exists with old roots.
The future is unknown but the willingness of Russia to absorb Ukraine goes back to the 19th Century when by Tsarist Ukaz it was decreed that “There never was, is or will be an Ukrainian language”
The Holodomor, also known as the Great Ukrainian Famine, was a Soviet State designed famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed over 5 million of Ukrainians.
Many Ukrainians wished to fight against Russia during the 2nd WW
The revolt of the Ukrainian intellectuals in the 1960s was artfully appeased by Khrushchev who donated Crimea to Ukraine.
The elimination of every sign of Ukrainian Culture by Russian troops now shows how strong the anti-Ukrainian feelings of the Russian elites are.
The Russians will never give up trying to absorb Ukraine.
They may still achieve it if much stronger support by the West is not given soon. The willingness to do this is diminishing in the West. Other major problems, like Climate Change, take precedence.
There is a limit to how much blood, sweat and tears Ukrainians can take. The Russians are poised to win.
But then, there is always the unpredictable event.
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6 August 2023
Reproduction is permitted provided the author is mentioned.
Dr Dimitrios-Vasileios KOKKINOS
Copyright © 2020 Kassandros. All rights reserved.
Reproduction is permitted provided the author www.kassandros.gr is mentioned.
