Ukraine: not with a bang but a whimper

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper. TS Eliot. The Hollow Men

Above is last night’s video for SouthFront. Of special interest are the maps.

If Seversk falls, then Kramatorsk and Svatovo are at risk.

Putting aside the text of the video, those maps tell all. You can forget Trump’s 28 point peace plan.

The Russians are advancing steadily and remorselessly, cauldronizing one town or village at a time, all along a very long front.

Think: Pokrovsk, and Kupiansk and now Serversk in the North. Add to that, pressure on Zaporizhzhia in the South.

The Ukrainians are throwing ill-equipped and ill-trained troops into battle, even airfield mechanics, who no longer have aircraft to service – and people with support dogs! This is hollowing out their somewhat minimal defenses on the West Bank of the Dniepr.

If you look at the maps carefully, you see Russia’s goals – in the north, Svatovo and Kramatorsk . In the northeast, Kharkov. In the south, Zaporozhzhie which is bisected by the Dniepr. The Ukrainians will likely keep the Dniepr bridges open to feed troops into eastern Zaporzhzhie. The Russians will want to use those bridges to cross and set up West Bank positions, cauldronizing Zapozhzhie and later Dnipro.

West bank towns lack the multilayered defenses that the Ukrainians set up on the East bank over many years.

Rather, the Ukrainians rely on geography — the fact that the West bank is on higher ground, with the river a natural barrier. But using such advantages for defense requires manpower, artillery, and drone supremacy — none of which they have enough of.

If the Russians establish strategic positions on the West bank and fully employ aerial assets, artillery and bombing, they can negate the advantages of geography, exploiting Ukraine’s weaknesses in manpower and equipment.

At the same time, the Russians are destroying Ukrainian electrical infrastructure putting Kiev quite literally back into the Dark Ages!

With political turmoil in Kiev as the politicians fight over scraps of power, thanks to revelations of corruption, which everyone in Ukraine surely knew about for a long time — and the West also knew about -but was only publicized recently, American support for Kiev is compromised. As a result, Kiev government is simply not functioning and likely cannot control a military commanded by NeoNazi extremists who will fight on to the bitter end.

And bitter it will be! With casualties well in excess of two million, massive depopulation and poverty and profiteering by foreign corporations.

Then there’s economics.

Ukraine’s external debt was USD 208.5 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2025 – including over USD 140 billion owed by the general government and central bank, and nearly USD 68 billion from the private sector. A large part is owed the EU, the World Bank, and the IMF.

Put all this together and it is obvious that “Ukraine” is no longer a viable national state.

Obviously, it should just surrender/ But in that case, Russia would dictate terms.

But the EU, NATO, and the US will not allow that. They want a Ukrainian state they can manage— which means keeping the war going. Among other things that is a boost to their military industries and makes money for ruling elites.

Surrender or keep fighting – and lose all:

This is the way the Ukraine ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

For people in the Ukraine the best thing that could happen would be temporary Russian occupation and referenda allowing each oblast to decide their future.

They can form independent republics and join the Russian Federation, or , like Belarus, the Russian Union, or become an autonomous sovereign state, neutral and demilitarized and cut off from the West —with Russian bases.

With the dissolution the current Ukrainian state, they need not pay back the billions the owe and they can nationalize all foreign assets, relying on Russia and China to rebuild.

Russia may not get the whole of Ukraine….

We won’t really know until next year.

But certainly, Russia is going to be bigger, more powerful, and richer if it annexes the best parts of what we call “Ukraine”.

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