And it does look to be a certainty.
STOCKHOLM, March 8. /TASS/. The North Atlantic Alliance doesn’t rule out Russia could soon seize control of the town of Artyomovsk, known in Ukraine as Bakhmut, in the Donetsk People’s Republic, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.
"We cannot rule out that Bakhmut may eventually fall in the coming days," Stoltenberg told reporters in Stockholm on the sidelines of a meeting of EU defense ministers.
What then ?
Zelensky himself is rather nervous
Russian forces will have an “open road” to more Kiev-held parts of Donbass if they win the fierce battle for the city of Artyomovsk, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in an interview aired by CNN on Tuesday.
He denied claims that his top general had urged him to withdraw troops from the area.
The fight for Artyomovsk, known in Ukraine as Bakhmut, has been raging since August. The stronghold is a logistics hub and major foothold for Kiev’s soldiers in the Donetsk People’s Republic. Zelensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the battle was “tactical for us.”
“We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Slavyansk, it would be [an] open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction.
So, an open road to Kherson , even Kiev if it is determined the rodent must be removed.
Blinken appears to be conceding defeat and wants the best outcome, but Russia is probably in no mood to be generous. For the first time since the special military operation began last year, the war party in Washington is offering terms of concession to Russia’s security objectives explicitly and directly, without the Ukrainians in the way.
The terms Blinken has told Ignatius to print appeared in the January 25 edition of the Washington Post.
The territorial concessions Blinken is tabling include Crimea, the Donbass, and the Zaporozhye, Kherson “land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia”. West of the Dnieper River, north around Kharkov, and south around Odessa and Nikolaev, Blinken has tabled for the first time US acceptance of “a demilitarized status” for the Ukraine. [This is not explicitly addressed in the Ignatius’ article]
Also, US agreement to restrict the deployment of HIMARS, US and NATO infantry fighting vehicles, and the Abrams and Leopard tanks to a point in western Ukraine from which they can “manoeuvre…as a deterrent against future Russian attacks.”
This is an offer for a tradeoff – partition through a demilitarized zone (DMZ) in the east of the Ukraine in exchange for a halt to the planned Russian offensive destroying the fortifications, rail hubs, troop cantonments, and airfields in the west, between the Polish and Romanian borders, Kiev and Lvov, and an outcome Blinken proposes for both sides to call “a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity”.
Also in the proposed Blinken deal there is the offer of a direct US-Russian agreement on “an eventual postwar military balance”; “no World War III”; and no Ukrainian membership of NATO with “security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5.”
Blinken has also told the Washington Post to announce the US will respect “Putin’s tripwire for nuclear escalation”, and accept the Russian “reserve force includ[ing] strategic bombers, certain precision-guided weapons and, of course, tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.”
President Putin has offered a hint of the Russian reply he discussed with the Stavka and the Security Council last week.
In the end, it looks like Russia will get everything it wanted before the special operation began.
It won't be overnight, because the Zelensky mob is a death cult and will no doubt launch terror attacks wherever possible in the aftermath, but it is now looking more and more like the failed vaccine narrative, the end of mandates , and the undeniable proof that the jab is both useless and dangerous, as well as very costly to society.
