Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with members of the Security Council via a video link in Saint Petersburg, Russia, October 10, 2022. Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Kremlin via REUTERS

"Now I am 100% satisfied with how the special military operation is being conducted."

"We warned you Zelensky, that Russia hasn't even got started yet, so stop complaining ... and run!"

Ramzan Kadyrov, pro-Kremlin leader of Russia's Chechnya region

 

"[He ordered] massive [long range strikes after an attack on the bridge linking Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula over the weekend, and threatened more strikes in future if Ukraine hits Russian territory]."

"To leave such acts without a response is simply impossible [alleging other, unspecified attacks on Russian energy infrastructure]."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russia's 'special military operation' launched on February24, which has since displaced millions of Ukrainians, killed tens of thousands, wounded many more, destroyed critical civilian infrastructure, caused a threat of famine in developing nations worldwide, disrupted the delivery of gas and oil to Europe, harmed an already-battered world economy and brought Russia to the brink of total political/diplomatic isolation on the world stage was, as Mr. Putin would have it, totally within reason.

 

The response of the Ukrainian government and its resourceful military, on the other hand, with its hugely successful counteroffensive represented an act of pure terrorism, one that only Russia recognizes for what it is, while the rest of the world cringes in horror at Russia's response, condemning the man who has ordered the invasion, isolating his country, imposed crippling sanctions, and awaits another Russian civil revolution to remove him from office. Meanwhile the threat of nuclear action hovers.

 

The New York Times

 Against all acceptable international norms, Moscow has annexed more swaths of Ukrainian territory to add to its illegal and universally condemned annexation in 2014 of the Crimean Peninsula and the port of Sevastopol. Russia has closed shipping off to Ukraine from the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, impacting grains and consumer oils and fertilizers for worldwide delivery. Ukraine has been warned that any moves on its part to regain territory now in Russia's hands would be construed as a declaration of war.

The conflict named as a special military operation is not to be considered war. And should Ukraine launch attacks on Russian territory -- so recently part of Ukraine -- it must prepare for all-out war. As though this is not what has been happening. And while Putin makes grand declarations of territorial annexation, the Ukrainian counteroffensive is retaking town after town in the occupied areas newly declared Russian, while Russian troops are retreating in disarray leaving behind their tanks and their trucks and their arms.

 

A medical worker walks near a burned car after Russian military strike, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in central Kyiv, Ukraine October 10, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

 

 Not only has Ukraine been placed on notice that it must no longer think of its geography as being intact, merely temporarily in an enemy's possession, earning it a massive retaliation should it attack areas now Russia's, but the West too has been placed on notice. Any notion of engaging with Russia directly by members of Western military in support of Ukraine's military on the battlefield will be the death knell of the long stretch of time without a world war. The Third World War, Moscow warns, will be launched should the U.S. or NATO directly intervene in Ukraine's illegal, terrorist efforts against Russia's will.

There is no such thing any longer as a 'conventional' war. Drones and missiles, thermobaric bombs, technically advanced war materiel of every description called into play to achieve maximum destruction. And if all that fails, there are nuclear bombs, tactically used and limited -- at least initially, sending a message of more potentially to come should Russia's fortunes on the battlefield continue to deteriorate because another country dares defend itself against a depraved tyrannical oppressor.

 

Firefighters work at a site of an infrastructure object damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine October 10, 2022. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS

Russian missiles were sent on their punishing retaliatory mission following the explosions on the Crimea bridge linking mainland Russia to the peninsula. Intersections, parks and tourist sites in Kyiv and explosions reported in Lviv, Ternopil and Zhytomyr in western Ukraine, Dnipro and Kremenchuk in the centre, Zaporizhzhia in the south and Kharkiv in the east. In long-range assaults Russia is confident; meeting on the battlefield where personal courage, strategic military expertise and fighting skills count sees Russian troops shrinking from direct combat and slinking steadily away in panic.

Cruise missiles fired from land, sea and air in waves of strikes hitting locations nowhere near the front lines. And more to come, snarls Vladimir Putin, should Ukraine continue its obstinacy in protecting its territory from wholesale theft.These assaults were no spur-of-the-moment decision-making on the part of the elite Russian military establishment, Their president had long ago ordered plans be drawn up for just such a concerted barrage. 

 

His outrage would be molten should Ukraine ever order missiles to fire over its border into Russian territory, razing civil infrastructure, hitting Russian civilians. 

 

Cars are seen on fire after Russian missile strikes, as Russia's attack continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine October 10, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko