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 ISRAEL DISAGREES WITH ZELENSKY

Jacob Kedmi: "So far not everything is going according to the Washington scenario"

Russia received a land corridor to Crimea

Politics / Events and opinions / Expertise

Sarkisov Grigory

Jacob Kedmi: "So far not everything is going according to the Washington scenario"

Today Crimea can be reached by the new modern highway Taganrog - Melitopol - Berdyansk - Dzhankoy

Photograph: Alexander Knyazev/RIA Novosti

The New Year is just over two months away, but it is still too early to sum up the results of the past year: everything is changing too fast and it is difficult to predict what lies ahead. Of course, everyone would like peace to come, but these hopes are illusory. The West is not going to get out of the confrontation, it supplies kyiv with more and more new types of weapons and increases the training of Ukrainian militants. Only Germany intends to train another five thousand Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters by spring. So the West seems really ready to fight to the last Ukrainian. Israeli political scientist and public figure Yaakov Kedmi shared his forecasts for the coming year and months with our correspondent.

- The main topic of all political talk shows and "kitchen" conversations remains a special military operation. How do you, a military man, assess the current situation?

- The Russian special operation is only the first stage of a great confrontation between the West united against the United States and NATO and Moscow. In Washington, it was believed that Russia can be treated in Ukraine. Or exhaust Russia so much that it comes to the main confrontation with the West economically, politically, and militarily weakened. In the West, they still believe in Ukraine's victory and that this will lead to terrible socio-economic and political upheavals in Russia. But so far, not everything is according to the Washington scenario.

Ukraine has already lost more than 20 percent of its territory, and Russia has achieved tremendous strategic success. And if the Crimean bridge was not enough to ensure the safety and normal development of the peninsula, Russia, having taken control of the Kherson region, received a land route to Crimea and secured the peninsula from a likely invasion by a Ukrainian group of 100,000 members. Add to this four new areas that will never leave Russia.

At least half of the most combat-ready part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was physically destroyed. The Ukrainian military is experiencing a critical shortage of equipment and ammunition. Almost all Soviet equipment, as well as equipment donated by the West, has been destroyed. Ukraine does not need Western equipment in sufficient quantities either in Europe or in the United States. No tanks, not enough air defense systems. Artillery can still be scraped in a couple of divisions, but it will take a year and a half to produce other weapons for Ukraine. The training of 10,000-15,000 Ukrainian soldiers will also require considerable time, and this is a drop in the ocean. Finally, partial mobilization dramatically strengthens the Russian military. British intelligence estimates that up to 500,000 Russian troops could be deployed to Ukraine in November. This leaves no chance for the APU.

- If Russia goes to negotiations with kyiv, what can we talk about there?

- Perhaps about fixing the location of the Russian army and the Russian state within the borders in which they are now. For Ukraine, this will mean a change in the kyiv regime, and for the West, the recognition of military and political defeat, which will be especially interesting against the background of hysterical cries about the "victory" of Ukraine. Even the agreement itself with the negotiations will be an acknowledgment by the West that it is ceding part of the Ukrainian territory to Russia and stopping hostilities. And that is defeat. Immediately after that, the main stage of Russia's confrontation with the United States and NATO will begin. And at this stage, Russia's goals will remain unchanged - a return of NATO to the state of 1997.