This is a recent interview with Colonel Douglas Macgregor about the next possible developments in the Ukraine war. Macgregor was one of the five runners up to become security advisor to Trump after John Bolton left.
His main points are:
* the war right now is being financed and supported mostly by the states. This also means if it gets more intense again, the states will have to pay, also if it fails. It can become a big financial burden to the states, and probably Europeans sooner or later will lower their support for Ukraine.
* Providing Patriot to the Ukraine is just a nice gesture, because proper training takes minimum six months and to really protect Ukraine you would need ten battalions of it. Overwhelming the delivered equipment is easy to do.
* At the moment the kill ratio is that on 1 dead Russian soldier there are 8-10 dead Ukrainian soldiers.
* Russia is right now preparing a massive offensive with three main goals in his opinion, namely:
* cutting off the Ukraine from Poland to destroy this important supply route for weapons, ammunition and more.
* destroying the remains Ukrainian army in the East, which will be more easy on the east side of Ukraine than the West,
* getting rid of the government in Kyiv, since in Russian view Zelensky is just a puppet who cannot be trusted and left no room for negotiations. For that they will pull out the sledgehammer, if needed.
* The offensive will probably start in the next few weeks when the ground is frozen enough to allow armies to move again with enough ease. Also Putin is in no rush, he can move as he pleases. And anyone who thinks that Putin will not go in is in his opinion delusional, because you can only reach these goals by going all in.
* The red line all involved war parties at the moment don't want to cross is a nuclear conflict.
www.latimes.com
