Over the course of the last two weeks we watched the biggest military success of Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
A success that has shaken the entire Northern front, as well as all plans of the Russian
command and even the belief of some of the war supporters in victory
The fleeing of the Russian army, the redeployment of equipment from the Kharkiv direction
right into the AFU arsenal were sensational news that the world watched almost live, and now Putin has to be guessing
where Ukrainians would strike next time and whether he can do anything about it.
But let’s remember how just half a year ago nobody believed not only that Ukraine would counterattack,
but that it could hold against Russia for longer than three days.
Today we will talk about how the entire world was wrong about Ukraine and how Ukrainians have shown their worth.
NOBODY BELIEVED
Let’s be honest here: before the war, nobody in the world thought that Ukraine could defeat Putin’s army
in the field of battle.
Most believed that there would not be a war in the first place.
Me myself — keeping Putin’s madness in mind — thought the same.
That it’s all a bluff, that the same way as they moved forces to the border they’d move it back.
At least we thought so during the first two times when they moved the troops to the border last spring and autumn.
It was different this spring of course. That a large frontal war in Europe cannot happen because it can never happen.
Media outlets around the world were discussing reasons why Putin won’t begin an invasion
and how it would be an extremely idiotic decision to do so.
I must say it was all reasonable thoughts and they still are reasonable.
Even though at some point it has become clear that the logic of blackmailing can lead to war,
which we too talked about in February.
But nobody talked like: “since the AFU are superior to the Russian army, they’ll hold,
they’ll stop the invasion and will counterattack”.
It was somewhat of a consensus: if Russia were to attack, Ukraine would certainly lose.
The question was what Putin would do to the captured territories and how he was going to control them.
Those who still believed that the war would begin — military experts of all ranks and sorts — simply compared
the number of tanks, planes, ships, artillery, saw how Ukraine lacks certain equipment, and made a simple conclusion:
no war can be won with this disparity in military potential.
The Russian army was still considered to be the second army in the world.
How would they know back then that half of Russian tanks only exist on paper, and some of the other half has no crews.
Not only journalists and their sources were wrong.
Washington knew with certainty both that there would be a war and what strategy Putin would utilize.
And they still thought that there was no point in supplying Ukraine with heavy weaponry —
it would be captured by the Russians anyway.
Even when Biden openly stated from the rostrum that Putin is planning an invasion,
even said the dates, even then the USA didn’t believe that Ukraine would stop the Russian army.
Maybe they’d begin guerilla warfare, and for that, light weaponry can and must be supplied.
They even tried to persuade Zelensky to leave Kyiv.
But Zelensky remained in Kyiv.
And on February 24 Putin declared the beginning of his “special operation”.
Early in the morning, without declaration of war, from three directions at once.
With missile strikes on civilian residences, with military columns, with capturing of Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
With “Tigers” moving to Kyiv.
The world saw what Putin’s war looks like, and the world was terrified.
People remembered all the most horrible prognoses.
On the map of the war there were more and more zones captured by the Russian troops.
Putin threatened to take Ukraine’s capital in three days, and people believed him.
During the landing of troops in Gostomel nobody in the western media even discussed whether or not Putin can take the capital.
The discussion was about when he would do that
and whether or not Zelensky would be able to flee.
By the way, on the first day of the war we made this forecast for the future
and I believe that unlike many it turned out to be very close to what happened in reality.
Let’s rewatch and remember, I still remember how I was recording that video in London at 5 AM in complete shock.
The Russian army is now dealing with an army that has been at war for the last 8 years.
This fact is underestimated on our side of the border, but it is so.
People were living in a simmering war and were ready for it to fully begin.
The greetings with flowers that political technologists from the Kremlin are apparently hoping for will not happen.
There will be no capitulation.
There will be a war against a regular and modern army, a war in an extremely unfriendly territory,
a war with many victims.
By the evening we will learn of the world’s reaction to what has happened.
We must be prepared that our country might get cut off from the world economy.
That we will pay for the war on the border of the European Union and Nato with sanctions worthy of Iran and North Korea,
that our national currency will be naturally untied from oil prices, we won’t be able to export oil, or anything at all.
We are in for the most difficult time in our newest history.
In addition to human casualties, it may include complete isolation from all imports,
all technologies without which the Russian economy will be pushed far back.
Europeans and Americans competed in who and how condemned Putin, who offered more sanctions,
who expressed most solidarity with Ukraine.
But they feared Putin and didn’t want to get involved. Remember the talks about how supplying Ukraine
with heavy weaponry may lead to WW3?
During the first days of the war Putin scared everyone much more than today.
Western help to Ukraine back then was limited to light weaponry, grenade launchers, body armor,
helmets, and moral support.
Yes, a second package of sanctions — the one that froze the Central Bank’s assets in the US —
was a serious blow to the Russian economy, but it was a punishment for starting the war,
not an attempt to stop it here and now.
Days passed. Then weeks. Zelensky never ran. And with him, Ukrainians didn’t give up as well.
Even during the hopeless situation on Zmiinyi island they sent such a message
to the Russian warship that the entire planet heard it.
The whole world saw footage of citizens of Kyiv making molotovs, how the whole country stands in line at recruitment centers.
Kyiv has been defended. Its neighbors have been retaken.
The offensive of Putin’s troops on all fronts had been halted.
It is then when the Ukrainians have achieved their most important victory.
Putin had one chance, a daring plan for blitzcrieg.
Were Kyiv to fall back then, it would all be over now.
But Ukraine stood, and it was the beginning of the end of Putin’s gamble.
We’ll interrupt for a commercial here and then look at what the Ukrainians did in spite of all predictions and considerations.
ADS
So, the first weeks of the war. The world froze in uncertainty.
Approximately at the same time, other footages have appeared.
Not only explosions from Putin’s missiles, but now also the burning columns of military equipment with Z and V on them.
The bodies of Russian soldiers.
The world began to realize the price Putin and Russia itself has to pay for this war.
It turned out that the Russian troops were not in control of the territory that they captured,
that they had no rear and no supplies.
In many places, zones of occupations were replaced with lines of roads on which the Russian military equipment was halfted.
And Putin started to do what he was later doing every time when the war went wrong: intensified terror against civilian population.
Every day we saw more horrible footages. People who had to live in the metro for weeks.
A shelling of a kindergarten. A destroyed nursing home in Mariupol. The drama theater.
The worse the occupiers were doing, the more terrible it was for all normal people.
When the Russian army retreated from Kyiv, Sumi, and hernihiv, two things were revealed to the world.
First, the war didn’t comply with the plans of the Russian leadership.
The prolonged war has started, for which it was unprepared and was never going to wage.
Second, the world saw Bucha.
Millions of people saw what Putin's “Russian world” left after it.
The narrative has changed.
Putin was no longer a fearsome rulerwith a massive army who cannot be
stopped and who better not be provoked.
A ruler who must be appeased, with whom you need to sit at the negotiation table and persuade
the Ukrainians to sign peace with, any peace at all.
In the eyes of the international community Putin turned into a personified evil.
He represents everything the world was trying to move away from for the last 75 years.
He wiped out Mariupol. Threatened to capture Transnistria.
But the image of the ultimate evil was no longer scary to anyone, because after six months, more details have surfaced.
The army that was weakened by corruption, the convict soldiers, the outdated soviet equipment
that for some reason was unable to fulfill military objectives.
And on the other scale there was Zelensky, who after six months has become the most influential world leader,
who is given standing ovations in parliaments all over the world.
Zelensky and his team used every opportunity, every meeting, every interview and every call
to the western leaders to create a new image for Ukraine
An image of not simply a country that became a victim of a mad autocrat riding a missile warhead.
But a country that protects the world from evil, a country whose troops are warriors of the light
who stand between the tyrant and Europe.
This is how freedom wins.
This is why this conference is important to everyone in Europe. It's important both strategically and tactically.
I always say that the to defend Ukraine is to defend the entire Europe.
It's not just about us, it's about the entire democratic world.
It took a lot of time and a lot of effort, but today no one can say that the war in Ukraine is just
a local clash between some slavic countries and of no concern to them.
Not supporting Ukraine and its leader is now a marginal position.
We must commend Zelensky here. People like the image of a young, open leader,
who won’t hesitate to give an interview to Russian journalists,
to lecture the leaders of the big seven for delays in supplies, or to come to the frontlines.
Yes, it seems that Europe is taking too much time to discuss everything, isn’t too eager to stop buying Russian oil
and gas and got tired of the war.
Yes, it may be slow, maybe with delays for weeks and months, but the West has proven
that it believes in Ukraine and is willing to help.
Slowly but steadily, the supplies of armaments to Ukraine were increasing.
NATO countries provided Ukraine with new anti-air and anti- missile defense, and supplied it with heavy weaponry,
Himars and M777. And there is no doubt that more is coming.
Over the course of these six months, public opinion in the world went from “Ukraine will hold only a few days” through
“we must help Ukraine to keep fighting” and to “Ukraine can win!”.
And it all didn’t just happen on its own, the Ukrainians literally forced the world to believe in them,
in their power, in their bravery, in their readiness to protect their home.
During the first six months Ukraine was halting the Russian offensive and saving up strength.
And now it went into an offensive. And this time the world sees who is more likely to lose.
And it’s not Ukraine.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
Ukraine has proven to the world everything it needed to prove. It did what nobody believed it would.
Not just survived, not just didn’t get scared.
But gathered strength and fought back. Before, there was a discussion in the West:
is it worth it to be supplying Ukraine with weapons and spending so much money on it, if its chances of victory are slim at best.
Such talks have now become meaningless.
The question now is: how much equipment must we give to Ukraine for it to completely defeat Putin’s
army and return Donbass and Crimea. That’s some difference, isn’t it.
What else is being discussed around the world? Well, the Ukrainian counteroffensive of course.
How it was organized and in which direction it will develop further.
It turned out that not only the USA and Britain provided Ukraine with equipment and intelligence —
they also helped it to devise a plan to deoccupy the Kharkiv region.
Western journalists and military experts are now discussing whether or not Ukraine can retake Kherson and Mariupol.
They don’t forget about Putin either and don’t just write him off.
The retreat will cost him some of the support and of his image within the country —
he has neither left outside of it.
It’s time for Russia to give up on encircling and capturing the whole of Donbass, you can’t do a pincer movement
if half of your pincer just fell off.
And that is exactly what happened in the North-East of Ukraine.
It is clear that Russian troops need supplies and new equipment to offer any meaningful response.
Especially considering how many gifts they left to Ukraine in Balakleya and Kupyansk.
It is now unclear where Moscow is planning to get it all.
But another thing is clear: the only thing left for Putin is to either sit at the negotiation table or to continue with the old tactics,
that is, to respond to any defeat with terror.
Except that now Zelensky will only negotiate after military victory and on his terms.
And shelling of peaceful cities no longer scares the Ukrainians as much after half a year of war.
With everything that's happening negotiations are out of the question.
They've made a decision to occupy our country.
But since in 2014 they've made that decision and weren't smashed in the face by the world, they went further.
And further and further. And now we're smashing them in the face.
Already back in spring I talked on my channel about how geopoliticians from the Kremlin
have lost as soon as they invaded Ukraine.
The world has overestimated the Russian army and refused to believe in the AFU.
It seemed that the Ukrainians could only prolong their defeat.
But the opposite have turned out to be true: it was Russian troops that,
with shellings and terror, were trying to hide the fact that they cannot win this war.
The Ukrainians didn’t run and didn’t surrender.
They fought back. No longer their country is seen as a victim that cannot be saved.
The world is watching where and when Ukraine will hit the aggressor next.
And we will be watching, too.
See you tomorrow.