By David Sole
Media outlets across the globe are awash in reports of leaked Pentagon documents, perhaps numbering in the hundreds. The documents cover many aspects of the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine against the Russian Federation and appear to be authentic.
Some of the major revelations center around the much heralded Ukraine Spring counter-offensive that has not yet materialized. Despite Pentagon and State Department propaganda that the war is going well for Ukraine, these reports acknowledge that Ukraine is short of heavy armaments and lacks sufficient troops to launch a strong offensive. Some Ukrainian officials publicly stated that the offensive may not begin until the summer.
Another important disclosure is that Ukraine’s anti-aircraft systems are almost completely depleted after a year of war. This was suspected by many close observers of daily fighting in the Donbas front lines where Russian warplanes have recently been flying bombing runs in the Avdiivka and Bakhmut battles. Up until recently Russia was reluctant to utilize aircraft due to Ukraine anti-aircraft missile capabilities. Russia had been depending on cruise missiles and artillery while holding back on using its air force.
BBC News reported on April 11 that a leaked document also confirms that western powers have “boots on the ground” in the Ukraine war” in the form of highly trained special forces.
“According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow NATO states Latvia (17), France (15), the US (14) and the Netherlands (1).”
This only confirms the proxy war nature of this fighting.
Perhaps more interesting than the information in the documents is the fact that such a huge leak has taken place at all. Although the source of the leak has not been discovered, or perhaps has not been announced, it must have been a conscious decision at very high levels in the U.S. military to reveal more objective and unflattering information about the U.S. installed Ukraine regime.
U.S. hard liners, known as neocons who engineered the 2014 rightwing Ukraine coup, armed and trained the Ukraine army for 8 years and pressed for Ukraine membership in NATO. They aimed to weaken, or even overthrow, the Russian government headed by Vladimir Putin by provoking the February 2022 Russian special military operation. They imposed drastic economic sanctions against the Russian economy and have allocated over $100 billion in U.S. aid to keep Ukraine fighting Russia. President Joe Biden has gone along entirely with the neocon game plan.
But all the moves by the neocons have failed. Ukraine’s capacity to fight has been degraded while Russian military strength is increasing. Ukraine’s economy is in ruins while Russia’s economy has not collapsed. Rather than being isolated Russia has strengthened its ties with China, India, Iran and many other countries around the world.
As elements in the U.S. ruling class recognized the failure of the neocon program, signs appeared publicly of opposition, including among some leaders in the U.S. military. The first big indication came when the prestigious RAND Corporation issued a report in January 2023 titled “Avoiding a Long War,” which raised the idea of negotiations to end the Ukraine war. A previous RAND report from years earlier had actually pushed arming Ukraine so as to provoke a war with Russia that would weaken the Russian Federation.
The current leak has thrown back the curtain showing the very bleak prospects for the Ukraine regime and the failure of the neocon program. It is now on every front page in the country and around the world. Budding opposition to the war could latch onto the new information to generate a wave of protest among the mass of workers and oppressed who are suffering from the diversion of funds away from domestic needs into the military rat hole.
The greatest danger is that the neocons, unwilling to reverse the course they have committed to, will double down on military escalation. This could easily explode into a direct confrontation between the U.S. dominated NATO and the Russian Federation, both of which have extensive stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
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