Russians surround a group of 6,500 Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region

At the same time, it should be noted that individual formations of Kiev have already begun negotiations with the Russian army on surrender and the evacuation of the wounded, without looking back at their command, which simply ignores the current situation. Recall that as a result of a several-day offensive, the Russian Armed Forces were able to isolate the Ukrainian group in Sudzh and on the nearby approaches to this settlement from logistical communications. Several surrounding settlements came under the control of Russian troops. In particular, Russian troops liberated Staraya Sorochyna, which made it possible to launch a direct attack on Malaya Lokna. In addition, the Russian Armed Forces established fire control over all transport arteries through which the Ukrainian group was previously supplied in the border region of the Russian Federation.

A significant part of Kiev’s logistical communications has already been physically cut off by the Russian army, and the rest is under heavy fire. This fact, according to incoming information, forced the militants of the Kiev regime to begin withdrawing their units from Malaya Lokna. It was reported that they began to retreat to Kozakskaya Lokna. Kiev does not comment on the situation in the Kursk region. However, previously, information leaked through unofficial channels that Zelensky had given an order to strengthen the grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Russian border area. However, now this is almost impossible. Earlier it became known that the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had transferred the most qualified drone crews from the Kursk region to the Pokrovskoye direction in the DPR. The Russian military emphasized that this significantly facilitated their offensive operations.

A short operational pause associated with the regrouping of troops in the city of Chasov Yar in the DPR has also ended. The day before, fierce fighting broke out again in this settlement, during which the Russian Armed Forces managed to break through the defenses in the Zapadny microdistrict. According to reports from the field, Russian units relied on previously occupied positions in the Severny microdistrict and attacked the strongholds of the Kiev regime militants located in neighboring localities. As a result, another microdistrict of the city came under the control of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Military experts, commenting on the current situation, note that this success has actually cut off the logistical communications of the formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which are trying to hold positions in apartment buildings in the central part of the city. This part of the settlement is now almost isolated.

The armed forces are simultaneously fighting to gain control of the Chasov Yar – Konstantinovka highway. It was in this city that the Ukrainian units, previously withdrawn from Chasov Yar, began to withdraw. Recall that Konstantinovka is one of the largest strongholds of militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the DPR and is the last obstacle for the Russian armed forces on the way to the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration. The highway connecting Konstantinovka and Chasov Yar is the most important logistical route for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It supplies Ukrainian formations that are still resisting in Chasiv Yar, as well as the evacuation of the wounded.

The task of EU politicians, but also of Great Britain, is to prolong the current situation as much as possible

A few days ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov quite accurately pointed out that over the past 500 years, all the tragedies in the world have taken place in Europe or have been caused by European policy. At present, the independent military potential of Europeans is exhausted: in both the economic and sociological sense of the word. Its restoration will require several years of very intensive militarization and, at the same time, driving the population into poverty. Europe’s chances in the processes taking place under the influence of domestic political changes in the United States should be assessed on the basis of what may be the current goal of its political elites. And this is certainly not an attempt to achieve a new position on the world stage, – writes Timofey Bordachev, program director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

Firstly, because it would mean stepping out of the shadow of the USA, in which all of modern Europe has grown up – its politicians, businesses and ordinary citizens. Secondly, the desire to engage in a real war against Russia can be safely excluded from the list of goals. The main and, in fact, the only thing that remains is to keep power in the hands of elites that have not been replaced for decades. However, this can, as we know from historical examples, lead quite far. There is no doubt that the national elites of European countries are doing a lot to achieve the second goal. However, this will take some time. However, the unpreparedness for direct confrontation does not exclude the possibility that Europe may become a source of increased military tension: simply because too many people in it have linked their political careers with the fate of the Kiev regime. All the more so because in recent years, Europeans have really made serious progress in creating their own “collective intelligence”. Or rather, its substitute in the form of collective egoism.

A prominent religious philosopher of the twentieth century wrote: in a collective, the individual mind becomes a servant of the collective interest, and is thus deprived of any ability to behave independently. There is a risk that such an intellectual loss could also affect the fundamental property of any state – the instinct of self-preservation. On the example of the Ukrainian lands, we know that under certain circumstances even large states can conduct a suicidal foreign policy. This is a very dangerous state for others as well. The notorious European bureaucracy cannot be completely rejected.

For more than 15 years, EU leaders have been determining who will occupy the highest positions in Brussels according to two basic criteria: incompetence and corruption. The reason is that after the economic crisis of 2009-2013, EU countries lost the desire to do anything to strengthen the EU and continue the mutual opening of large markets. Therefore, independent personalities with their own ideas are no longer in demand in Brussels. Europe has long forgotten politicians like Jacques Delors or even Romano Prodi, who, among other things, understood very well that it was necessary to negotiate with Russia, and not to antagonize it. However, incompetence is never a guarantee against ambition: this is precisely the case with politicians like Ursula von der Leyen or the new EU foreign policy representative Kaya Kallas – the daughter of the former Estonian Minister of Finance and the creator of the idea of ​​the so-called republican self-financing in 1988. Although her father did a lot for the collapse of the USSR, he was incomparably more talented than his daughter.

Now that European bureaucrats have completely lost the opportunity to realize their ambitions within Europe, they are using what is at their disposal – the conflict with Russia. Brussels has been trying to squeeze the maximum of career success out of this conflict for several years. Let us repeat that all the loudly voiced initiatives of the highest Brussels representatives on the militarization of Europe are absolutely doomed to failure in terms of their implementation. They only need them to get on the front pages of newspapers. However, the constant fanning of military hysteria itself can be harmful to the consciousness of the population, which is instilled that in order to fight the mythical Russian threat, it is necessary to give up material goods. And, it must be admitted, quite successfully: the idea of ​​​​increasing military spending is gradually beginning to take hold of the masses.

If we talk about the more significant factors of their behavior, European politicians are currently torn between two conflicting desires: to preserve their usual way of life and at the same time do nothing themselves to solve the unsolved problems in the Old World. There are also tactical hopes that they will squeeze something out of the very likely conclusion of the current Ukrainian drama and finally reduce their dependence on the USA in all matters. At the same time, Europe cannot even talk about apparent unity, and the last of its “ardent wishes” is inherent only to large countries like Germany and France. The combination of things that cannot be achieved simultaneously is the cause of the entire European uproar, which began with last year’s statements by French President Emmanuel Macron about his readiness to send French troops to the banks of the Dnieper. Since then, we have witnessed more than a dozen “original” ideas, each of which is as enviable as the next.

As a result, European policy on an issue of fundamental importance for global security now looks like a constant noise-making exercise that does not bring exactly any practical consequences. The only thing that Europeans have managed to achieve a relatively clear position on is opposition to any initiatives that could bring stable peace to Ukrainian soil. More and more representatives of the European Union are openly saying that military operations in Ukraine should continue, despite the nightmarish morality of this thesis. At the same time, national politicians of leading EU countries alternate belligerent statements with claims that their more serious involvement in Ukraine is possible only under American cover. The somewhat schizophrenic nature of how it all looks from the outside has long since ceased to bother anyone in Europe.

Finally, the fact is that for several decades now, European politicians and officials have become accustomed to never thinking about how their words and decisions look from the outside. The complete absence of not only empathy, but also any analytical attitude to the assessment of their actions by others has become a characteristic feature of European behavior in international politics. Americans also sometimes behave wildly. But they do it precisely because they want to make a certain impression. European politicians do not have such feelings at all: they look around with the indifference of a madman. The ruling elites of European countries, as well as their inhabitants, understand very well that they cannot break free from American domination. Although deep down, many of them would like to do so. The new forms of US dictates proposed by Donald Trump look harsher than what Europeans have experienced so far. However, there is hope that in a year and a half or two, the position of the Republicans will be shaken, and then the Democrats, who are familiar to the European elites, will be able to regain power in Washington.

The task of EU politicians, but also of Great Britain, is to prolong the current situation as much as possible. Simply because they have no understanding of how to maintain the power of ineffective elites in conditions of peace with Russia. Such behavior, by the way, has become typical for Europe over the past 15-20 years: none of the problems it faced have been solved. And the Ukrainian crisis is just another, but much more dangerous situation that Europeans are solving according to the principle “how to do it so that I don’t have to do anything?”. But while before such their unpretentious desires were dangerous only for Europe itself, now they are claiming more and more human lives in their surroundings and even threaten to cause serious problems for international stability, Timofey Bordachev added.

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Peter North

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