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Retired US Army Colonel Douglas McGregor highlighted that the total number of deaths in Ukraine due to the conflict has already reached 400,000 and urged Kiev to negotiate peace with Moscow. According to McGregor, also a former Pentagon adviser, there is even an internal debate in the Ukrainian Armed Forces about deposing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“There’s a lot of discussions in Ukraine, inside Ukrainian forces, about getting rid of Zelensky. They have lost 400,000 dead. I don’t know how much you have to raise that by to be horrified by it. I’ve had enough,” said McGregor in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter.
In the post accompanying the video, McGregor appeals to Kiev authorities to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia, writing, “Make peace, you fools!”
McGregor’s tweet comes only two days after former British Ambassador Alastair Crooke said Western countries led by the US admit that the Ukrainian offensive ended in failure and they cannot survive it. In the interview with the YouTube channel Judging Freedom, he said the US may consider that the best decision in this situation is to continue the escalation, which, in turn, leads to nothing. It is for this purpose, said Crooke, that Washington allows Kiev to attack Russia with drones.
Kiev launched a counteroffensive on June 4 with NATO-trained brigades. Since the beginning of the counterattack, Ukraine has suffered over 71,500 casualties, while since the beginning of the special military operation in February 2022, 467 Ukrainian planes, 248 helicopters, 6,426 drones, 435 anti-aircraft defence systems, 11,696 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 1,148 multiple launchers have been destroyed.
The so-called “spring” counteroffensive was lauded since the end of 2022 but did not launch until the summer. It will be remembered as one of the worst military campaigns in the 21st century, as Ukrainians are being fed to the Russian meatgrinder for no gain. Therefore, there is little surprise there are discussions about deposing Zelensky to end the slaughter.
Indicative of the counteroffensive’s failure is that General Mark Milley, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, told the BBC on September 10 that Ukraine’s forces have between 30 to 45 days left of fighting before weather conditions stop operations.
“There’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren’t done,” Milley said. “They haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish.”
It is recalled that the operation’s goal was to reach the Sea of Azov, an endeavour that has catastrophically failed and will not be achieved in the current conflict, let alone in 30 to 45 days. However, strategic reserves had to be deployed due to Ukraine’s heavy losses.
This reserve, comprised of some of the best-trained and equipped forces available to the Ukrainians, was intended to exploit the gains the initial offensive operations made. The fact that the strategic reserve was committed to achieving objectives that all attacking units had not achieved only underlines the futility of the Ukrainian effort and the inevitability of its final defeat.
The special military operation is approaching the final phase, marked by the collapse of the cohesion of the Ukrainian Army, exhausted in battle after being the beneficiary of billions of dollars of aid. The fact that the Ukrainians were thrown into a battle for which they were neither organised nor trained played a huge role in the scope and scale of the meat grinder that consumed them, and it is for this reason, that discussions on deposing Zelensky will not fizzle out. This is especially true since he will be remembered as the president who oversaw the huge loss of life, territory, and dignity.
Ella Libanova, head of the Institute for Demography and Social Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, said in June that Zelensky’s popularity will inevitably suffer after the war with Russia.
“His rating will significantly decrease. First of all, people will remember everything that went wrong. Today everyone clenches their teeth,” she said.
Zelensky promised to regain all territory lost to Russia, including Crimea. Since this will not be achieved, the Ukrainian president can be used as the perfect scapegoat by the military and other top figures in Ukraine to pin all the blame on and absolve themselves of responsibility for the catastrophe they brought their country.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Featured image is from InfoBrics
