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What do think the final outcome will be in the Ukraine? • Sam North 'The fight is here, I need ammunition, not a ride' - Volodymyr Zelensky

‘Pandora’s Box is open, a real global horror will begin by summer – global hunger is inevitable as Russia and Ukraine are the main suppliers of grain in the world and there will be harvest ‘problems’ – indeed planting may not even get done at all in Ukraine.' So writes a desperate and overworked, possibly terrified FSB analyst on a dark website who wants the world to know what is happening. (Confirmed most likely genuine on page 9 of The Times 7.3.22)

The analyst cites the sudden chaos within Moscow intelligence and logistical planning in the Army that seemed to have made no preparations for a long war because 'those at the top' said the blitzkrieg would all be over in three days. Ukrainians would cheer them all the way.

He adds, to justify the war Putin claims that Ukraine were building atomic bombs ready to attack Russia. So they siezed Chernobyl and other nuclear power stations to lay the groundwork to place radioactive material (plutonium) in specific locations (some factory near Kyiv) to ‘prove’ that bombs were being made. That rings terrifyingly true. Then the Russians cut off power to Chernobyl preventing cooling the old radioactive material. Accident or deliberate? Unconfirmed reports say power restored by Belarus.

So far 2.5 million have fled Ukraine (mostly women and children as the men must return to fight).
Putin probably didn’t expect the Ukrainian people would so fiercely resist his loving embrace.  He’s going to double down on city busting weapons and kill as many civilians as he can to frighten them into surrender.  Then he’ll have to keep 300,000 + soldiers and FSB agents in place and conduct mass propaganda to make them love Russia for decades.  The question to ask is, will the west keep up the sanctions for all that time?  How much sacrifice will Europe endure without Russian gas or oil to heat their homes or drive industry if they choose to stop the flow from Russia. * Europe has finally agreed to reduce buying gas and oil by two-thirds this year 'sometime'. Shell already made that choice.  McDonalds has finally stopped serving hamburgers to hungry Russians. There will be siren voices (no doubt well juiced by Putin’s gold) who will say he’s taken the country now, let’s compromise. But there is no compromise with Putin, he's all in.

According to the FSB analyst, all calculations were based on assassinating Zelensky quickly and resistance crumbling within days. But as we know everything went wrong and now there is no chance of Putin backing down. To do so shows weakness. Next step could be mobilisation in Russia and economic ruin by June this year. The people of Russia will not thank Putin for destroying their own economy with a possible run on the banks there, interest rates are already at 20 percent and the Rouble is sinking by the hour. But will they overthrow him and realign with the West (which would make them all much safer and wealthier)? Or succumb to the endless propaganda and mindwashing of those who wish to keep Putin in power and profit from the association?

5000 + peace protesters are already in jail. It takes courage to protest in a dictatorship. The analyst believes there are at least twelve thousand Russian war dead already, mostly young conscripts. The Ukranians aren't allowed to count their dead in Mariupol where the Russians are shelling children trying to get out and last week a maternity hospital. Kyiv is now surrounded. It will a bloodbath on both sides.

The Russian people aren't permitted to know Putin is targeting hospitals, apartment blocks, schools and now nuclear reactors. Several people were killed and injured when the Russian army shelled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant (six reactors now shut down) and now we know their objective is to produce evidence of the alleged bombs. The craziness of shelling nuclear reactors reveals an utter contempt for humanity Europewide. It is pure evil. Russia is now where Hitler was in 1944 - hiding in his bunker terrified of assassination as all his rich friends are losing their ill-gotten fortunes or hiding their wealth in NFTs and Bitcoin.

Chernihiv has come under fire. Putin's objective is to totally flatten Ukraine. (Remember Goebbels' 'Total War' promise?) This I am sure will endear the Ukrainians to love Mother Russia more. We admire Ukrainians being brave to fight to the last man standing but it would have been a lot easier if they had been on a fast track to joining the EU two decades ago.  Offering that option now is a non-starter unless Russia withdraws.  They are not just up against 190,000 Russian troops but Putin's Private Army - The Wagner Group than have snuck 4000 well trained assassins into Ukraine tasked to eliminate all prominate people and Zelensky of course. (Who has survived three attempts on his life so far but is still there in Kyiv.)

We should have realised that Ukraine needed help and military support back in 2014 when Putin invaded East Ukraine and Crimea.  (For reference read Gary Kasaparov's book 'Winter is Coming' published in 2015 - Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must be Stopped.)

Any Russian victory now will be pyrrhic. The fact they are using TOS-1 'Buratino' flame throwers and tanks firing thermobaric rockets which ignite oxygen to create high-temperature explosions and wipe out city blocks is an acknowlegment that Putin's strategy is failing. BM-21 'Grad' multiple launch rocket systems are totally indiscriminate. President Zelensky could end up martyred and will be a talisman to rally Ukrainians to mount a guerrilla war for many years. 

Ukraine, up until Feb 24, was a growing, confident somewhat prosperous nation with a great culture with freedom of expression without fear of jail.  Putin claims he is fighting a neo-Nazi state but it’s Russia that maintains an army of three million backed up by secret police and Gestapo-like regular police who forbid free protest, poison activists and jail the survivors like Navalny who exposed the kleptocrats running the country.  To criticise the Government in anyway or comment on the 'war' invites a 15-year jail sentence. Why on earth would Ukrainians want to live under a kleptocracy? They only just escaped that.

We in the West could be cowed by the threat of nuclear war. I speak from a generation that lived under that threat all my life. It shaped my career choices. My school was right next to a rocket range and the nuclear armed heavy bomber base in Lincolnshire (Vulcans). Most people think it will never happen, but Putin is exactly the type of paranoid personality that should NEVER have his finger on the button. He has a bunker. He may even think he can survive and emerge from the rubble to rule the rabble for ‘life’. He may try a limited nuclear strike on Moldova or Ukraine as a warning to the West according to the analyst calculating the West will be too cowed to reply. Watch that space.

Who will be left alive to plant the wheat that feeds so much of the world in Ukraine? Where will be the fuel for tractors if there are any left. History reminds us of Stalin’s Collectivisation farming program, the Holodomor (Terror-Famine) that effectively starved 3.9 million Ukrainians to death between 1932-33. Any wheat grown was sent to Russia. Maybe Putin is hoping to break that record number. You can understand why the Ukrainians might resist this option.

At the moment Europe and America is standing united. Even Switzerland has blocked Russian money.  Against them are all the usual kleptocrats of Venezuela, Cuba, China, (sadly) India and Assad in Syria. They might come to regret this when Putin falls and fall he must.

© Sam North March 1st 2022 - Editor (updated 12th March)


A Cure for Sceptics by Sam North
Publisher: Hammer & Tong
Paperback & kindle: 326 pages
ISBN-13: 979-8537465874

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