AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET:

The challenge for the Russians is even more formidable. Since the beginning of the war, and probably long before, US military and intelligence agencies have been planning for a transition from war to a more comprehensive national resistance. On the front lines, Russian forces will receive reinforcements, especially from the April 2022 draft of conscripts, who were called up early. These new troops, when they do arrive in a few months, are unlikely to constitute effective, cohesive units. It remains to be seen whether Russia can replace its losses in men and military hardware.

Russian soldiers, as they always do, will begin to adapt. But Ukraine's armed forces will continue to benefit - as Russia's will not - from ever better training and weaponry supplied by a newly revitalised Nato. [...]

Nato has applied the lessons of Iraq to develop new thinking on setting up effective resistance forces against Russian forces. For some time Ukrainian, US and other intelligence agencies will have been identifying and supplying the territorial defence leaders behind Russian lines, and they have been effective in disrupting Russian supply lines and logistics.

Should Ukraine be split as Putin plans, this will not be a frozen conflict, as Korea is. Nor will it resemble Abkhazia or Chechnya, uneasy though they both remain, under the control of a Russian puppet Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya and military occupation in the breakaway Georgian region. Even Afghanistan in the 1980s will pale in comparison.

From 1807 to 1814 on the Iberian peninsula, Napoleon had to fight Spanish, Portuguese and British armies while beset by ubiquitous, ferocious insurgents. He described this war as his 'bleeding ulcer', draining him of men and equipment. It is the west's aim to make Ukraine for Putin what Spain was for Napoleon.

In the absence of a negotiated settlement, Ukraine and Nato will continue to grind away at Russia's army, digging away at that bleeding ulcer and prolonging Russia's agony on the military front, as the west continues its parallel assault on its economy. If Putin's plan is to proceed with the Korea model, he will fail. There is a strong possibility that Putin has only a limited idea of how badly his army is faring. So be it - he'll find out soon enough that there is now no path for him to military victory.

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