Western Delusions Shattered: Putin's Firm Stance on Ukraine Highlights NATO's Impotence
05:35 GMT 19.03.2024 (Updated: 05:44 GMT 19.03.2024)
© AP Photo / Libkos
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During his speech, Putin said that Russian forces could establish a “security zone that would be quite difficult for the adversary to overcome with its weapons, primarily of foreign origin.”
On Sunday night in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the Russian public following an election victory which saw over 87% of people vote in his favor, amid a record-high turnout. During his speech, he said that Russia has a “lot of tasks ahead” but if they stay united, no one can “intimidate or suppress” their country.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Russia has repelled multiple attacks by Ukrainian sabotage groups that attempted to break into its territory over the past week. As a way to protect its people from cross-border Ukrainian strikes, Russia could set up a buffer zone in Kiev-controlled territories, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Monday, Sputnik’s Critical Hour spoke to Ray McGovern, who served as a CIA analyst for 27 years and co-created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. McGovern explained Putin’s approach to a possible battle with NATO, as French President Emmanuel Macron has toyed with the idea of putting boots on the ground—a sentiment his Western counterparts have vehemently rejected.
“This business about Macron and some of the European leaders saying, 'oh, my God, we can't let Putin win in Ukraine,' it doesn't really square with what's reality here because there is no way to prevent Russia from winning in Ukraine except by use of nuclear weapons,” said McGovern.
“What [Putin] has done is just reminded people in NATO that if they send troops into Ukraine, there's going to be a fight with Russia, and a fight with Russia would be very dangerous because they have weapons that NATO doesn’t have—such as hypersonic missiles,” McGovern explained, adding that Russia’s weapons are “fast” and “precise” and can cause a lot of damage without any “nuclear fallout, figuratively or literally”.
“The Western press has taken to accusing Putin of threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons,” McGovern added. “[But] he has not raised the issue of tactical nuclear weapons. It's the US that is raising this, which makes me suspicious. Does the US realize that there's no way they can stop Russia in Ukraine short of using tactical nuclear weapons, which in my view happens to be the case?”
“And so, they are considering that and preparing the propaganda play by blaming the Russians and specifically Putin,” the former CIA analyst added.
Putin spoke to reporters and journalists following his election victory, and said that at “some point” Russia could set up a buffer zone in Kiev-controlled territories in order to protect the Russian population from Ukrainian strikes. The president explained that if and when Russia considers it appropriate, they will establish a “security zone that would be quite difficult for the adversary to overcome with its weapons, primarily of foreign origin.”
“This went back a whole year,” said McGovern of the buffer zones. “[Sergey] Lavrov, the [Russian] Foreign Minister said they will be satisfied with the Donbass and those other two oblasts but, as long as there continues to be longer range artillery and missile range that much farther to the west, they’re going to have to go.”
“So, Putin made that very clear just the other day saying, ‘look, there needs to be a cordon sanitaire. There needs to be a kind of buffer zone, a zone where if you have weapons that you're aiming at us, it's got to be that much more towards the West that we will draw this line,’” the analyst clarified.
“As far as what the Ukrainians are trying to do, they're trying to show in one burst of energy that they really have the initiative, or at least they can take an initiative and they got slaughtered just over the weekend. They're all trying to show the US Congress that there's still life in the Ukrainian military—all they need is another $60 billion from Mike Johnson, the speaker of the [US] House,” McGovern added.
“In my view, the whole name of the game is to keep it going without an obvious defeat until November, so that Biden has some reasonable prospect of not having to run having lost a war,” he said.
Sputnik’s Wilmer Leon said the introduction of a buffer zone would be consistent with what Putin has been saying for a “number of years”, which is: the West has been encroaching Russia’s security space with missiles, and has cut Russia’s defense time down as a result, forcing Russia to act to defend its security.
Leon also referred to an article recently published by a Washington, DC newspaper that suggested the Western strategy in their proxy war with Russia is to ignore “reality”. The article also highlighted that the Russian economy has withstood Western sanctions “far better” than most predicted, adding that the global economy is interdependent enough that bans on products such as oil negatively impacts everyone—not just those the West is trying to punish.
“The pressure that Putin needs to feel is not long term economic decline, but short term military setbacks, loss of concrete territory, high casualty rates and a collapse of morale,” said McGovern. “Well, that would be great but that's not going to happen. Don't these people realize that the battle is lost?”
“For Russia, Ukraine is an existential issue; for the West, it is not. And [former US President Barack] Obama added that, by giving weapons to Ukraine, that would be a bad idea because that would give them the idea that they could prevail against a much more powerful Russia,” the former CIA analyst said.
“I don't know where Biden was when that was going on, but he's been persuaded that more and more weapons and it's going to come to a no-good end because even, even if Mike Johnson is browbeaten into approving some or all of that $60 billion more, it's not going to be usable to prevent a defeat,” he added. “Whether they can put it off until November, that's questionable.”
