{"id":5556,"date":"2022-05-10T08:55:13","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T12:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5556"},"modified":"2022-05-10T08:55:16","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T12:55:16","slug":"no-victory-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/05\/10\/no-victory-day\/","title":{"rendered":"No Victory Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

VE Day<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday was May 9th.  On the Western calendar, May 9th doesn\u2019t have a great deal of significance.  It is the day after May 8th, celebrated in the West as \u201cV-E Day\u201d, Victory in Europe Day.  It marks the defeat of Nazism, and the surrender of Germany to end World War II in Europe.  May 8th was not the end of the war.  The world was still at war in 1945, in the Pacific  against the Japanese Empire. It was apparent by that May that Japanese defeat was inevitable. But as we gained victory over Germany, Allied forces were desperately trying to gain control of the island of Okinawa.  It was the last of the \u201cisland hopping\u201d campaigns.  The next step was the invasion of Japan itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But May 9th is a significant holiday in one country.  In Russia, it is simply called \u201cVictory Day\u201d.  It is a day of huge military marches across Red Square, the wide plaza outside of the capital building, the Kremlin.  Russian leaders still pack the risers on top of the Kremlin wall, showing their \u201cproximity to power\u201d by literally standing shoulder to shoulder with the President.  And while it has always been a demonstration of raw military might, it also is the Russian day of commemoration.  Almost 17 million citizens of the Soviet Union died in World War II, fifteen percent of the population.  They sacrificed to stop the German invasions of their nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mariupol<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Many observers, this writer included, thought that May 9th would have a particular significance this year. Putin\u2019s miscalculation in Ukraine is becoming more apparent by the day.  What he thought was going to be a quick strike, decapitating the Ukrainian leadership and taking the capital Kyiv, has dragged out into a World War II style fight in the streets and fields of Eastern Ukraine.  Putin was clearly hoping for some victory to celebrate.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The obvious target was Mariupol, where the Russians have been fighting for months.  The port city stands between the two previously Russian \u201coccupied\u201d zones of Ukraine, the Eastern Provinces of the Donbas, and Crimea.  It has been bombed since the Russian invasion began in March, and the civilian population of 450,000 has dwindled to under 100,000.  Many have escaped to unoccupied Ukraine.  Some were shipped by the Russians to Russian cities, and their fate remains unknown.  And many thousands are dead, casualties of Russian aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city has been destroyed.  But the Ukrainian Army made a stand at a massive steel factory in the town, using the tunnels under the two square mile facility as protection from Russian bombs.   Perhaps a thousand or more troops are still there, denying Russia control of the destroyed city.  Putin cannot claim victory there, even for \u201cVictory Day\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conscripts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In fact, in his Victory Day speech, Putin could only call for increased conscription of Russian men.  His \u201ctwo-week\u201d war, now in a third month, has sapped almost all of the Russian ready fighting forces, leaving the rest of the vast nation militarily weakened.  And while Russian propaganda is still touting the importance of stopping \u201cNazis\u201d in Ukraine, the reality of a long, ugly, and deadly war is seeping through to the Russian people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia is bombing civilian targets throughout Ukraine.  In the port city of Odesa in the Black Sea, a shopping mall was targeted yesterday.  What was once a Russian military campaign is turning into a terror effort against Ukrainian civilians.  The mass graves outside of Mariupol and other towns are further evidence of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Next?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But Ukraine holds on, standing on the support of the West.  What the Russians destroy, NATO replaces.  After two months of fighting, the Ukrainian Army is better supplied than it was before the war.  And that\u2019s not just from NATO.  Ukrainians have captured a lot of equipment from the Russian Army itself.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s left for Vladimir Putin?  He can hope that Western leaders grow weary of the economic consequences of his war.  Gas prices throughout the world are up, and that has political consequences in democracies.  That\u2019s a recurring theme in American social media, placing the rise squarely on the shoulders of President Biden, instead of where it belongs, on Putin.  And while that complicates the American mid-term elections in November, Biden has made it clear that the United States will \u201cstay the course\u201d of supporting Ukraine.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the war will continue.\u00a0\u00a0Ukraine will fight to hold territory, and make captured territory impossible to control.\u00a0\u00a0And Vladimir Putin is caught in a box \u2013 there is no path to his next\u00a0\u201cVictory Day\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The danger:  no one knows what a \u201ccornered\u201d Putin will do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine Crisis<\/h4>\n\n\n\n