By David Sole
Recent reports from the front lines in Ukraine confirm what the Russian Ministry of Defense and President Putin announced several weeks ago – thousands of Ukrainian troops have been surrounded and are being destroyed.
The city of Pokrovsk, long a center of combat in the Donetsk People’s Republic has come under Russian control. Ukrainian troops in the neighboring city of Myrnohrad appear to be completely surrounded with no relief in sight.
Further to the north the city of Kupiansk also appears to have been captured by the Russians after heavy fighting. Russia has been urging remaining pockets of Ukrainian troops to surrender or be destroyed.
Ukraine has also suffered a major political setback with the disclosure of another major corruption scandal. This one involves a close ally of President Zelensky who fled the country just as police were closing in on him.
The New York Times reported on November 19 “President Volodymyr Zelensky has been embroiled in Ukraine’s biggest corruption investigation since the start of the war, with members of his inner circle accused of siphoning off and laundering $100 million from the state-owned nuclear power company.”
These military and political problems come at the same time that the Trump administration has been pushing Zelensky to accept a 28 point “peace plan.” It was the U.S. who engineered the 2014 coup that led to the current war and who is Ukraine’s biggest military and political backer in what must be described as a proxy war.
Trump’s 28 point “peace plan” was leaked to the press and includes most of the original demands put forward by Russia at the start of the war in February 2022. This is not, as much of the media proclaims, because Trump is being manipulated by Putin. Rather it is because Trump and his section of the U.S. ruling class recognize that Ukraine has lost the war and, despite vast quantities of military aid, cannot reverse the growing advances by Russian Federation forces.
The Trump faction wants to extricate the U.S. from that war in order to direct all resources and attention against the socialist People’s Republic of China.
Almost immediately, however, most of the NATO allies and a large portion of the U.S. ruling class, began denouncing the “peace plan.” Trump and his agents have started back pedaling, dropping some items. Previously, Trump had strongly attacked Zelensky only to later provide Ukraine with long range, U.S. directed missiles and other weaponry. It remains to be seen if this “plan” takes the parties any closer to peace or if the Western powers continue to fight “until the last Ukrainian.” Looking at the successful Russian military advances it appears that a total collapse of the Ukrainian front lines may not be far in the future.
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