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Ukraine – Zelinski’s ‘Victory Plan’ Charade
On August 27 the former president of Ukraine Vladimir Zelenski announced that he would soon present a plan for ending the war with Russia:
kraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that the war with Russia would eventually end in dialogue, but that Kyiv had to be in a strong position and that he would present a plan to U.S. President Joe Biden and his two potential successors.
The Ukrainian leader, addressing a news conference, said Kyiv's three-week-old incursion into Russia's Kursk region was part of that plan, but that it also comprised other steps on the economic and diplomatic fronts.
"The main point of this plan is to force Russia to end the war. And I want that very much – (that it would be) fair for Ukraine," he told reporters in Kyiv of the war launched by Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
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Zelenskiy said he hoped to go to the United States in September to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York and that he was preparing to meet Biden.
The plan will also be presented to the presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
It is believed that this announcement came in response to a silent request by Ukraine's supporters for a longer term perspective.
Details of the plan have since leaked bit by bit:
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed a new detail about the victory plan he plans to present to US President Joe Biden next week.
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"Decisions regarding the plan mostly depend on him [Biden – ed.]. They depend on other allies too, but there are points that depend on positive will and support from the United States. I really hope he will back this plan," Zelenskyy said.
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"This plan is based on decisions which would need to be adopted within the period from October to December… Then the plan will work, we think," he said.
Earlier, Zelenskyy revealed that the plan consists of four points to increase Ukraine's defence capability, "plus another one that we’ll need after the war".
The 'victory plan' is not about a real plan for Ukraine's action but a list of demands towards the 'western' supporters of Ukraine.
The theory in Kiev is that a fulfillment of these demands will allow Ukraine to win the war and to press Russian into accepting Ukraine's 10 point 'peace plan'.
As explained by a Zelinski advisor:
A source close to Zelensky told the Kyiv Independent that the "victory plan" aims "to create such conditions and such an atmosphere that Russia will no longer be able to ignore the peace formula and the peace summit."
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"The problem is, to get to that point where we have any sort of peace negotiations, Russia must feel like they're going to lose, and we are not there yet," Rep. Jimmy Panetta, a Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee in Congress, told the Kyiv Independent.
"I hope part of this victory plan is how we can shape battlefield conditions to reach that point," said Panetta, who met Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials in Kyiv last weekend.
From other reporting we know that Zelenski's 'victory plan' demands include:
- to allow unrestricted long range missile strikes into Russia
- to invite Ukraine in the borders of 1991 to join NATO at a nearby date
- to immediately negotiate and accept Ukraine's membership in the the European Union
- to permanently supply advanced heavy weapons to Ukraine
- to provide additional hundreds of billions of dollars for 'reconstruction' without any restrictions attached to it
The 'victory plan' requests are of course outrageous and delusional and have little to no chance to be fulfilled.
Zelenski's opposition in Ukraine is therefore convinced that the plan was formulated to get rejected. The refusal of the plan would be used by Zelenski to then justify peace negotiations with Russia (machine translation):
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky will pass on his "victory plan" to the United States in order to get a refusal and then start negotiations with Russia.
This opinion was expressed by former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko.
According to Lutsenko, that is why the Ukrainian government constantly blames the allies for the situation at the front.
"The entire propaganda machine of the President's Office constantly hammers into the heads of Ukrainians that we have problems only because the United States does not want to give us permission for long – range missiles Jassm, Atacms, Storm shadow / Scalp," the ex-prosecutor general wrote.
Zelenski's, not Ukraine's, real victory plan would thus go like this:
According to Lutsenko, Zelensky act according to this plan:
- We are submitting a new mega-list of requirements for weapons and money to the United States.
- We have polite doubts that this will change the course of the war and lead us to the borders of 1991.
- We declare that we have been abandoned and have no other choice but to return to the World Forums with the participation of Russia.
- During the negotiations, we receive demands from Putin in the style of Istanbul.
- We declare that this is the subject of a referendum and that a ceasefire is necessary for this.
- We sign a cease-fire.
- We pose as the president of the world and hold presidential elections. Preferably – without lifting martial law, so that democracy does not interfere, and the military recruitment offices can manage the polling stations.
Lutsenko called it a "cynical show" that " is easily read by both ukrpolitikum and our allies."
Zelenski's real plan, as listed by Lutsenko, sounds nifty and would probably work in a normal state. But Ukraine is a state in which a small minority of well armed and ruthless fascists have control over all major political decisions. They are adamant against any negotiations with, or concessions to Russia and have threatened to overthrow any government that would try to go that way.
It is hard to see how Zelenski can get convince those men to agree with his plans.
Why Kiev absolutely wants Taurus missiles and why their use means Germany’s direct involvement in the war.
The persistence with which German hawks, Ukraine and other countries are demanding the delivery of German Taurus cruise missiles is due to the fact that the Bundeswehr has a capability that otherwise only the USA has.
by Anti-Spiegel
September 20, 2024 5:10 p.m.
RT-DE has published an article by Dagmar Henn that I consider to be very important, which is why I will repeat the core message here, because it mentions information that I had not had on my radar.
Western participation in the war
In response to the discussion in the West that Kiev should be allowed to fire weapons supplied by the West deep into the Russian hinterland, Russian President Putin issued a statement addressed to Western countries on September 12, in which he said, among other things:
“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing other than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine. This is their direct participation, and of course this significantly changes the essence, the nature of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries will be at war with Russia. And if that is the case, then we will make the appropriate decisions, given the changed nature of this conflict and based on the threats that we face.”
Putin also explained why allowing Kiev to use Western-supplied weapons to attack targets deep in Russia’s hinterland means direct Western involvement in the war:
“It’s about the fact that the Ukrainian army (…) is not able to attack with modern, long-range, Western-made precision systems. It cannot do that. It is only possible with the help of satellite information, which Ukraine does not have, this is information that only comes from EU or US satellites, i.e. from NATO satellites. That is the first thing. The second and very important, perhaps decisive thing, is that only NATO soldiers can draw up flight plans for these missile systems. Ukrainian soldiers cannot do that. So it is not about allowing the Ukrainian regime to attack Russia with these weapons or not. It is about the decision whether or not the NATO countries will be directly involved in the military conflict.”
Russia has repeatedly pointed out that the Ukrainian army cannot operate long-range weapons such as the British Storm Shadow or the French SCALP cruise missiles, or the US ATACMS missiles, because Ukraine lacks the necessary reconnaissance data. This means that such attacks would not only take place with Western help, but that they would be carried out by Western soldiers, because they program these weapons systems and would therefore inevitably even be involved in selecting targets.
This is generally not reported in the West. And if it is mentioned, it is usually described as Russian propaganda.
The “Russian propaganda” is right again
The fact that Russia’s claim is true has been known since the leaked telephone conversation between the German Air Force generals at the latest. In the conversation, they spoke in great detail about the fact that Ukraine cannot use the cruise missiles itself, but that NATO soldiers do. Just one example from the conversation:
“So when it comes to doing mission planning, for example, I know how the English do it, they do it completely in reachback.”
But there is another problem, which the British Times pointed out in passing in an article a few days ago:
“The missiles are not flying directly at their target, defense officials say: They are effectively guided “through the eye of a needle” using GPS and terrain map data. “You could certainly fire them single-handedly, but they probably wouldn’t survive in the contested, electronically jammed environment the Russians are in,” said a British defense source. “Russian electronic warfare has rendered GPS useless. They jam it. So you have to use another data set that is in American possession instead.” This is classified, but probably has to do with the capabilities of ground maps.”
It’s all about ground maps
The fact that Russian electronic warfare has rendered GPS useless is indeed a problem for the West. The second option, besides GPS, to maneuver a missile to its target is precise ground maps that the missile can use to navigate. And according to the British Times, only the USA has such detailed ground maps of Russia.
However, that is not true.
On September 30, 20On 21, the “Welt” newspaper reported on a tender from the Bundeswehr under the headline “Centimeter-accurate geodata – these maps from the Bundeswehr identify Putin’s vast empire more precisely than ever before”:
“According to information from WELT AM SONNTAG, the Bundeswehr has awarded a contract to print highly accurate hiking maps of Russia on a military scale. The maps are supposed to show more than just streets, paths and houses. The Bundeswehr itself does not want to comment on this information. However, a tender platform provides more clarity: “The project in question deals with the production and delivery of vector data in high resolution – usually on a scale of 1:50,000 – in the production area of Russia.” (…) The contract for the terrain data collection that has now been awarded has also already been awarded. According to the tender data, the contractor is Arge VEHA GbR.”
This is why Kiev wants the Taurus
This means that in addition to the USA, Germany also has the necessary ground maps to guide a cruise missile to targets deep in the Russian hinterland, even without GPS. It can be assumed that one of the reasons why Chancellor Scholz, at least so far, is so stubbornly opposed to the delivery of the Taurus to Kiev is that then Bundeswehr soldiers would not only have to program the missiles, but they would also do so on the basis of information that the Bundeswehr apparently has exclusive access to in Europe.
And Germany also appears to be unwilling to share these ground maps with the British or French so that they can use them for their Storm Shadows or SCALPs. It is unlikely that the USA will share such exclusive information with anyone. And the British and French cannot change this, because in the West the USA is in charge and does not take orders from its European vassals.
The situation is different for the German government, which other European countries can certainly put pressure on. And that also seems to be happening behind the scenes, which is why the media keep reporting widely on the demands from Ukraine and other Western countries that Germany should finally deliver Taurus to Kiev.
It is difficult to tell the media that Germany should hand over its soil maps, because then the media readers would understand that the “Russian propaganda” is telling the truth when it claims that only the West can provide the data that Ukraine needs to launch cruise missile attacks deep into the Russian hinterland.
Posted by: ossi | Sep 22 2024 7:08 utc | 238
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