Pepe Escobar – Strategic Review Nov 10, 2022
The announcement of the Kherson Retreat may have signaled one of the gloomiest days of the Russian Federation since 1991.
Leaving the right bank of the Dnieper to set up a defense line on the left bank may spell out total military sense. General Armageddon himself, since his first day on the job, had hinted this might have been inevitable.
As it stands in the chessboard, Kherson is in the “wrong” side of the Dnieper. All residents of Kherson Oblast – 115,000 people in total – who wanted to be relocated to safer latitudes have been evacuated from the right bank.
General Armageddon knew that was inevitable for several reasons:
no mobilization after the initial SMO plans hit the dust; destruction of strategic bridges across the Dnieper – complete with a three-month methodical Ukrainian pounding of bridges, ferries, pontoons and piers; no second bridgehead to the north of Kherson or to the west (towards Odessa or Nikolaev) to conduct an offensive.
And then, the most important reason: massive weaponization coupled with NATO de facto running the war translated into enormous Western superiority in reconnaissance, communications and command and control.
In the end, the Kherson Retreat may be a relatively minor tactical loss. Yet politically, it’s an unmitigated disaster, a devastating embarrassment.
Kherson is a Russian city. Russians have lost – even if temporarily – the capital of a brand new territory attached to the Federation. Russian public opinion will have tremendous problems absorbing the news.
The list of negatives is considerable. Kiev forces secure their flank and may free up forces to go against Donbass. Weaponizing by the collective West gets a major boost. HIMARS can now potentially strike targets in Crimea.
The optics are horrendous. Russia’s image across the Global South is severely tarnished; after all, this move amounts to abandoning Russian territory – while serial Ukrainian war crimes instantly disappear from the major “narrative”.
At a minimum, the Russians a long time ago should have reinforced their major strategic advantage bridgehead on the west side of the Dnieper so that it could hold – short of a widely forecasted Kakhovka Dam flood. And yet the Russians also ignored the dam bombing threat for months. That spells out terrible planning.
Now Russian forces will have to conquer Kherson all over again. And in parallel stabilize the frontlines; draw definitive borders; and then strive to “demilitarize” Ukrainian offensives for good, either via negotiation or carpet bombing.
It’s quite revealing that an array of NATO intel types, from analysts to retired Generals, are suspicious of General Armageddon’s move: they see it as an elaborate trap, or as a French military analyst put it, “a massive deception operation”. Classic Sun Tzu. That has been duly incorporated as the official Ukrainian narrative.
So, to quote Twin Peaks, that American pop culture subversive classic, “the owls are not what they seem”. If that’s the case, General Armageddon would be looking to severely overstretch Ukrainian supply lines; seduce them into exposure; and then engage in a massive turkey shoot.
So it’s either Sun Tzu; or a deal is in the wings, coinciding with the G20 next week in Bali.
The art of the deal
Well, some sort of deal seems to have been struck between Jake Sullivan and Patrushev.
No one really knows the details, even those with access to flamboyant 5th Column informants in Kiev. But yes – the deal seems to include Kherson. Russia would keep Donbass but not advance towards Kharkov and Odessa. And NATO expansion would be definitely frozen. A minimalist deal.
That would explain why Patrushev was able to board a plane to Tehran simultaneous to the announcement of the Kherson Retreat, and take care, quite relaxed, of very important strategic partnership business with Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
The deal may have also been the inbuilt “secret” in Maria Zakharova’s announcement that “we’re ready for negotiations”.
The Russians will leave the Dnieper riverbank in a managed military retreat. That would not be possible without managed military-to-military negotiations.
These back channel negotiations have been going on for weeks. The messenger is Saudi Arabia. The US aim, in the short term, would be towards a sort of Minsk 3 accord – with Istanbul/Riyadh attached.
No one is paying the slightest attention to coke clown Zelensky. Sullivan went to Kiev to present a fait accompli – of sorts.
The Dnieper will be – in thesis – the settled and negotiated frontline.
Kiev would have to swallow a frozen line of contact in Zaporizhye, Donetsk and Lugansk – with Kiev receiving electricity from Zaporozhye, hence cease shelling its infrastructure.
The US would come up with a loan of $50 billion plus part of the confiscated – i.e. stolen – Russian assets to “rebuild” Ukraine. Kiev would receive modern air defense systems.
There’s no doubt Moscow will not go along with any of these provisions.
Note that all this coincides with the outcome of the US elections – where the Dems did not exactly lose.
Meanwhile Russia is accumulating more and more gains in the battle for Bakhmut.
There are no illusions whatsoever in Moscow that this crypto-Minsk 3 would be respected by the “non-agreement capable” Empire.
Jake Sullivan is a 45-year-old lawyer with zero strategic background and “experience” amounting to campaigning for Hillary Clinton. Patrushev can eat him for breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night snack – and vaguely “agree” to anything.
So why are the Americans desperate to offer a deal? Because they may be sensing the next Russian move with the arrival of General Winter should be capable of conclusively winning the war on Moscow’s terms. That would include slamming the Polish border shut via a long arrow move from Belarus downwards. With weaponizing supply lines cut, Kiev’s fate is sealed.
Deal or no deal, General Winter is coming to town – ready to entertain his guest of honor Sun Tzu with so many new dishes at their dinner table.
A massively biased article. The fake news is accusing Russia of damaging near by dams. No way would Russia do this.
The withdrawal from Kerson is to prevent the loss of life to civilains and Russian troops.
Of course it looks embarrassing, but faced with Nazis blowing the dams, or even more likely the UK terrorist state, could blow the dams, they’ve done the bridge and the pipe, so why not blow a dam???
The Nazis can have Kherson, because the new Russian line is on the higher bank, and can shell the Nazis at their leisure.
The purpose of the SMO is to prevent the loss of civilian and Russian troops lives, and to kill as many Nazis as possible. A dead Nazi is a Nazi you don’t have to put under key, feed, or put on trial, so killing as many Nazis as possible makes sense.
The Russians don’t want peace just yet. Maybe one day. At the moment, they are winning by a country mile. UKraine is almost out of power, and water. Huge numbers of Nazi nationalists will flee into Europe/EU, and it will be many years before utilities are up and running.
This is the true disaster for a Europe fed up with dead weight refugees.
As I said the other day. UK hospitals have secret wards where they are treating Nazis, mercenaries, and NATO troops. No one wants to talk about this. I wonder why?
The reason why the NHS continues to keep sick sheeple away from hospitals, is that they might find out, as I did… lol
I suspect there are secret wards all over Europe, and at a staggering cost. Even if these Nazis recover, they can’t be sent back, unless they are fit to fight, so many will have to be covertly slipped into the UK population with new IDs benefits, or pensions, and free housing. But know one wants to talk about it, I wonder why?
Then we have the admitted fact that NATO states have been bled dry of weapons systems and munitions, and they are send some of their best men into UKraine. Upwards of 30,000 Polish troops are in Nazi uniforms, in Ukraine, and are being killed and wounded in huge numbers. Some pundits put the death/injury ratio at 15/1 in Russias favour!
Before the SMO, I said there were at least 80,000 MI6/CIA funded mercenaries in, or waiting to enter UKraine. I would now say this is well over 100k, all are ex NWO military types, and ex special forces, being very well paid for, by YOU!
While the UK has always been a terrorist state. Recently this has been revealed as fact. The Russians know that MI6/SAS would have no qualms about sending 16 meters of water over 150,000 civilians. I mean, MI6 sank the MS Estonia, never mind all the bullshit YouTube vids that say otherwise. MI6 can say ‘we don’t kill anyone’, no, they get the SAS, or contractors to do it for them, but they still pay for it.
There aren’t words to describe the evil that Russia is fighting. One third of the Russian mobilisation is active in UKraine. Over the next 3/4 weeks this will be completed, and the ground will be hard.
Either the NWO agrees to Russias terms, or UKraine will get smashed.
Carl Jones–I hope the Nazis in Europe will help educate the White population about Race, and the Jewish war against all humans
It’s a classic trap worthy of a grandmaster, one minute the suckas’ are saying “bad move”, next minute they’re in checkmate. Doubt if Saruman’s minions know, but the boots near the ground sure do. A FF seems immanent, besides the 300,000, overwhelming air power and hyper missiles. 101st could sure use a Texas judge right now, BEFORE there’s a nuke barbecue!
they are not nazis they are jew controlled
yes the dirty jews no one else
l’m sorry… but Russia by all metrics has lost the ahem… ‘war’…
You will see..
But the strategic interests of those that staged this theatre have been accomplished..
Russia will be Balkanized for resource extraction and Europe will be turned into a sort of once white Africa…
the Ukraine and certain other areas will be turned into a high Tech ‘jewish’ Homeland.. (for the shetl kings of money magic) …
the terminus for the Asian superstates…
NB: of course this may all change..but only if Putin and his fifth column are replaced…
and judging by the success of that in Europe..it seems unlikely…. there is more rot than wood l’m afraid..
So it’s up to us now..:)
lewis jones: grow up. Fingering the Jews all the time, doesn’t work. One needs to chip away at the foundations. This is what Russia is doing, killing fecking Nazis, and mercenaries, and NATO forces.
If we assume the Jews are in the canopy eating pork scratchings, then you chop near the roots.
Even if Jews are exceedingly powerful, banging on about a tiny group of nasty sheeple won’t get you anywhere. Best to tell HMRC that you want your taxes held back due to ragime war crimes and misappropriated taxes. Do things that work.
Pretty sure there were no GPS guided missiles in Sun Tzu’s day.
Russia’s MAIN military advantage, historically, has always been WINTER….
The title should read Sun Tzu walks into a movie set.
U.S. buying time to go at the Russian another way. By way of Deception, We shall war on you. Think !!!
Mystic and Yogi
The more accurate spelling is Sunzi. “Sun Tzu” is taken from the Wade-Giles transliteration system which was already archaic when I went to college 30 years ago.
@ CHESTERTONS JEWISH BULLSHIT !