Yes, Ukraine Invaded Russia. Now The Ukrainians Will All Be Killed.

Headlines are dominated by news that Ukraine has invaded Russia in force. Three Ukrainian brigades totaling about 6,000 troops with armored personnel carriers and tanks invaded a lightly defended part of the Russian border and began to move toward a Russian nuclear power plant near the city of Kursk. The object was to capture the nuclear power plant and hold it hostage. The Russians would not attack to regain the plant because it’s too dangerous to stage a battle in proximity to a nuclear reactor. A repetition of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster when a nuclear reactor in Ukraine near the Belarus border exploded in the worst nuclear accident in history could not be ruled out. Control of a Russian reactor by Ukraine would give Ukraine leverage in forcing peace negotiations with Russia or even destabilizing the Putin regime.

The world press including the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Economist and the Washington Post called this a “turning point” in the war and a demonstration that the Ukrainian military was capable of surprise attack and could even win the war. These headlines were hyperbolic, premature and wrong. Ukraine failed to capture the Kursk power plant. Russia surged troops to defend it. Russia also encircled the Ukrainian invaders and cut off their ability to retreat back to Ukraine. Ukraine has suffered several thousand causalities and has lost much of the armor used in the attack.

Russia will now systematically destroy the Ukrainian forces offering them a choice between surrender or death. This is the Russian way of war. They are not in a hurry. They are not looking at world opinion or the U.S. election calendar. They will proceed methodically and carefully to annihilate the Ukrainians. The attacking forces were the only reserves and some of the best troops that Ukraine had left. Once this battle is done, there will be little standing in the way of Russian troops completing their victories on the battlefront and moving to take what remains of the eastern half of Ukraine. The media can have their headlines. The Russians will win the war. And the Ukrainians will suffer the consequences of their own inability to pursue peace negotiations.