Vladimir Putin's Little Psychopathic War

People try to leave the capital Kyiv.   Getty Images

"He is as ready as he can be. They have advanced their readiness to a point where they are literally ready to go -- now -- if they get the order." 

"We do have indications that they plan to use reserves and their equivalent of the National Guard and that is concerning because that would connote to us -- long-term goals."

Senior U.S. Defense Official

 

"Predicting what might be the next step of Russia, the separatists or the personal decisions of the Russian president -- I cannot say."

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky

Ukrainian servicemen get ready to repel an attack in the Lugansk region   AFP

 

Speculation has been on high alert of a planned, imminent invasion by Russia of its neighbour Ukraine. The stress has been palpable for weeks, building on the alert expressed months earlier at the buildup of Russian troops and equipment near the border with Ukraine, inside Russia. There could only be one reasonable explanation for the unreasonable imagery interpreted by military and intelligence experts in the West as clear and ominous signs of an impending strike against Ukraine.

By a neighbour that had been responsible for an earlier military strike by proxy in 2014, one that has been on standby ever since, an uneasy 'truce' that the ethnic Russian-Ukrainian rebels had been persuaded to accept with Ukraine through international intervention, approved by Moscow who claimed then as it claimed now that it was in no way involved, despite training, arming and militarily supporting the separatist element to Ukraine's territorial detriment.

Even as France and Germany made diplomatic overtures in visits to Moscow, conferring with Vladimir Putin, and Britain and the United States stuck to their warnings of imminent conflict, the Russian President scoffed at the hysteria of the West, determined to smear Russia's reputation with unfounded accusations. Scheduled war games with Belarus, simply put. While inveighing against the perfidy of Ukraine in aspiring to join NATO, leaving behind its glorious past with the Soviet Union.

Spurning Russia's love for Ukraine! Despite which the West, NATO and the United States in particular were on a witch-hunt; the Kremlin had no reason to assault Ukraine, would never think of it even though Ukraine was rife with fascists and war-mongers. If Russia were to intervene in the Donbas it would be to send peacekeepers, not a military invasion. 

 

Civilians shelter in a metro station in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in a photo taken by Victoria Vota. "We are trying to stay strong," she said.

 

Two dozen warships deployed in the Black Sea with landing ships and Marines aboard, artillery and missile forces, over 150,000 Russian forces assembled. Over 120 battalion tactical groups. The alarmist United States intelligence stated the Russian military assembled close to one hundred percent of forces required to mobilize for a large scale attack. Plus the mobilization of reserve forces.

More alarmism when the Ukrainian parliament approved a declaration of a state of emergency to last 30 days. Even as the Russian parliament approved formal Russian recognition of the two rebel-held territories in the Donbas, the 'Republic of Luhansk' and the 'Republic of Dunetsk'; independent of Ukraine because Russia deems it so. Echoes of the stealth military capture and annexation of Crimea. Slow and steady; inexorable territorial pillage.

 

Crowds attempt to evacuate the capital by bus   Getty Images

 

An intelligence and military expert warned that just prior to an invasion there would be a wholesale cyberattack on Ukrainian government and state websites; Ukraine's parliament, cabinet and foreign ministry websites. Then, on Wednesday, Russia removed its flags from its Kyiv embassy, ordering Russian diplomats to evacuate for 'safety reasons'. 

And in the small hours of Thursday morning the denouement of Russia's innocent claims of business-as-usual. Kyiv residents rudely awoken to the sounds of the bombardment of war. 

Ukrainian State Emergency Service / Reuters

Handout picture from the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, rescuers work at the crash site of a Ukrainian Armed Forces' Antonov aircraft, shot down in the Kyiv region.