Victory Day May 9 is an annual holiday celebrating the defeat of the Nazis in Europe at the end of World War II but in 2022 Putin has nothing to celebrate. It is also a memorial day in Russia in remembrance of the 27 million Soviets who died in World War II and was an obvious target for completing Putin’s “special operation” in Ukraine.
Victory Day May 9 2022 has No Victories for Putin
Vladimir Putin had many goals when he decided to invade Ukraine:
- Dividing the West over support for Ukraine
- A quick victory that would decapitate the Ukraine government and allow Putin to install a puppet leader
- Demilitarizing Ukraine so that it no longer has any hope of independence
- Conquest of Ukraine and annexation into a Greater Russia
- Creation of a continuous land corridor to the Black Sea, using annexed Ukraine territory
- Destruction of any possibility Ukraine would join NATO or the EU
- Using Ukraine as a first step toward annexing Moldova and ultimately the remaining Soviet states
- Reinforcing Russia’s position as a world power and a force to be reckoned with militarily and economically
Instead, Putin has accomplished the opposite of his goals and transformed them into wishful thinking:
- UNITED the West and some of its former Soviet neighbors to the south in SUPPORT of Ukraine
- Pushed Sweden and Finland out of neutrality and toward full NATO membership
- Strengthened the unity of NATO and into strengthening Europe’s defenses to discourage any further Russian military adventures and to contain Russia at its current borders
- United and energized the Ukraine people to fight Russia at all costs
- Russian war crimes and atrocities have created a deep and powerful hatred of Russia that overpowers ancestral ties between the Ukrainian people and their Russian neighbors
- Instead of demilitarizing Ukraine, military aid from the West is arming Ukraine with NATO-class weaponry, while Putin is digging into the bottom of the barrel to pull weapons and equipment out of storage that may be non-functional or obsolete
- Instead of ensuring that Ukraine never joins NATO or the European Union, it appears that Ukraine may be admitted to NATO and the EU after the war has ended, and is receiving support from both during the war
- Putin has discredited Russia as a top-tier military power, and has cast doubt in the effectiveness of its weaponry and its military
- The war has killed off many of Russia’s senior military officers and elite forces, and seriously damaged the overall morale of the rest of Putin’s army and other military forces
- Russia is no longer viewed as an attractive place for foreign investment, and most top-tier Western companies have closed their offices and stores in Russia, ceased trading with Russia, and begun wide scale disinvestment in Russia, creating unemployment and seriously disrupting supply chains, making many goods, services, and maintenance unavailable
- Severe economic sanctions and boycotts have cut off Russia from the West, and are beginning to strangle her economy
- The war has energized to West, especially Europe, to reverse its energy policy and committed it to phase out the purchase of any energy from Russia. This will cripple Russia’s economy and starve it of its most important source of foreign currency.
- The possibility of conquering, controlling and ultimately annexing Ukraine will likely never happen, and Putin is focusing his efforts on controlling a land corridor to the Black Sea.
Victory Day May 9 2022 will be remembered as a day that Putin will look back at February 24 as the day he made a serious mistake by invading Ukraine, a day that he isolated Russia and began its downfall as a major economic and military power in Europe.
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