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Dzmitry Bandarenka: Chinese Tiger Сrept Up

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Dzmitry Bandarenka: Chinese Tiger Сrept Up

Russia repeats the fate of the USSR.

Is Lukashenka afraid of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine? Does Russia have a margin of safety? How will the war in Ukraine end? Dzmitry Bandarenka, the European Belarus Civil Campaign coordinator, answered these and other questions in an interview with the Charter97.org website.

– Armed Forces of Ukraine are preparing for a counteroffensive. What is the likelihood, in your opinion, of a successful offensive by Ukrainian troops?

– Most likely, they will launch the offensive in the south: the Kherson region, Zaporizhzhia and the south of Donetsk. It is obvious. Ukraine will not conduct a frontal strike. Perhaps they will also try to organize an auxiliary strike in the Luhansk region.

The situation is complicated because the Russians also know possible areas for the offensive. The chances of success are great, but it also depends on the Western supplies for Ukraine.

We know that they, fortunately, have not disclosed all the deliveries to the public recently. If Ukraine has a sufficient number of long-range missiles (for its own weapons or for the HIMARS), then the chances of success are high. If they do not have enough long-range missiles and artillery, then the war will continue.

– Ukraine is striving to restore its 1991 borders. Will the war end in this case?

– The USSR collapsed before my own eyes. It was defeated in the war against its main opponents without firing a shot. No need to count Afghanistan. I think that Russia is already suffering the main defeat in the economic confrontation with the West, this will be a key factor.

The huge USSR with a multi-million army, tens of thousands of tanks, armoured vehicles, nuclear warheads - collapsed. They begged on their knees for the West to finance the withdrawal of troops from Europe, so as not to place people in open fields, so that officers could build housing, and save the population from starvation. An example is the supply of the so-called Bush's Legs from the USA. I think that Russia will repeat the fate of the USSR.

– Is Lukashenka afraid of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine?

– Of course, Lukashenka is afraid of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It is absolutely clear that Russia will force him to provide the territory of Belarus for strikes against Ukraine, in the event of a Ukrainian offensive. In the direction of Kyiv and Western Ukraine likely, missile strikes will be carried out from the territory of Belarus. There will be provocations on the border so that Ukraine won't be able to transfer all the troops to the south and will be forced to defend itself in the north.

Lukashenka understands it very well. The leadership of Ukraine warned him that in this case, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will inflict retaliatory strikes. He is really and strongly afraid of it. They will strike not only against the Russian facilities but also against Lukashenka's residences, against the control centers of the regime's power structures. Hence this game with the supply of nuclear weapons, so that Ukraine does not deliver such strikes, but still it's inevitable.

– The Chinese factor affecting the war in Ukraine is being discussed more and more often. Will Beijing decide to directly support the Russian Federation, or is it beneficial for China to keep standing by?

– There is a Discovery Channel show: people are describing their dramatic experiences. It's called When Animals Attack. It’s made of survival stories when people faced attacks by sharks, bears, cougars, and so on.

If we draw analogies with this TV show, then here is a Russian hunter getting ready to hunt, lying down, loading his gun, waiting for a deer, and a Chinese tiger crept up behind him and easily grabbed his leg with his teeth.

The Russian hunter continues to fire from his double-barrelled gun, he feels pain, so he waves his arms and he even destroys the anthill in front of him, but his fate already completely depends on the Chinese great tiger.

We know that both demographically and economically, Russia is already 10 times inferior to China. So China will slowly bite off the limbs of the Russian "wonder-hunter".

– Does Russia have a margin of safety to wage a long war?

– There are phantom Western fears about Russia. This is a memory of the mighty USSR, but in fact, Putin is a poor manager. In addition to the situation with China, he continues to destroy Russia. The main mobilization in percentage terms takes place in the Far East and Siberia at the expense of the indigenous population, the Siberians who have lived there for a long time, but we know that the level of alcoholization of the male population there is catastrophic. This is just an invitation to Chinese men to move to these territories massively.

Putin's second "wonder-success" is turning the Baltic Sea into NATO's inland lake. It is known that Finland, for example, with the exception of five years from 1940 to 1945, was friendly to Russia and to the USSR.

Putin could attack Finland at any moment, it was not clear whether NATO would support it in this case. Finland is a member of NATO now, Russia can no longer do anything. The approach of the Alliance to the borders of Russia happened instantly precisely because of the aftereffects of Putin's actions.

He also became Turkey's small brother. We know that Ankara today dictates its terms to Russia in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Russia has already become the small brother (the small sister actually) of Saudi Arabia. After all, the Saudis can bring down prices at any moment, increase oil production, their cost is lower, then the Russian economy will simply collapse.

Here the only such self-limiter of the West is the old question: What will happen to the nuclear weapons of the collapsing Russia? The West was not ready for such a scenario. However, there is a challenge and it's necessary to react.

Russia has no margin of safety because the energy market is lost not only in rich Western Europe but also in Eastern and Central Europe, which existed even longer. There was a so-called Comecon once [The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, for socialist states - Ed.]. Thus, Uncle Vova successfully destroyed the work of many generations of his Kremlin predecessors.

– We are witnessing conflicts between different groups in Russian power circles. Is there the same among Belarusian officials?

– If the majority of Russian officials are imperialists, Russian chauvinists, then Belarusian officials are Belarusian patriots at all. They will wait until everything is over. They'll try to somehow save the stolen.

But at the last moment, the security officials, who can think, will inevitably eliminate Lukashenka and the most rabid guardsmen from the GUBOPiK [the punishes - Ed.] and OMON [the riot police - Ed.].

– Before the war, many said that there were no such prominent Western politicians as Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. Do you think there are such prominent political figures who are ready to fight the new evil empire until the moment of its defeat?

- We have, let's say, a "Collective Reagan". I'm talking about NATO generals, the leaders of the Alliance. Jens Stoltenberg for example, whose powers are ending. He was not a military man, but during the war, he showed himself in the best possible way.

The military has more information than civilians. They are less dependent on political upheavals, elections and everything else. They understand that leaving this conflict in Europe means pushing to aggressive actions not only Putin, but also China, as well as a whole bunch of various dictators around the world, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Therefore, the issue should be completely resolved, but since Russia is already so huge, the military explains to the civilian leaders of the civilized world countries that decisions should be made by them, because there is no way to sweep such a problem under the rug.

Radical changes in global politics are simply inevitable, and the task of the Belarusians is to find their place in this new world.

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