A thousand days.
On February 24, 2022 Vladimir Putin ordered to invade Ukraine. What he imagined as a military adventure that would last just a handful of days became an endless and exhausting war that persists to this day without a clear horizon of completion.
In these thousand days – which Putin did not foresee – his country suffered a loss of around 730 thousand soldiers (between dead and wounded); the destruction of 369 aircraft; 329 helicopters; 9,382 tanks; 19,092 armored vehicles; 20,632 artillery materials; 999 air defense systems; 1,252 mobile rocket launchers; 3,672 special communication and tracking equipment; 19,111 drones; 28 ships and 29,548 trucks.
Added to this are the internal rebellions he suffered, such as the publicized incursion of a former collaborator of his whom he later liquidated on the air: Yevgeny Prigozhinthe billionaire former boss of the Grupo Wagnerthe mercenary organization that continues to operate in Syria, Africa and also Ukraine.
To these hundreds of thousands of Russian human casualties – most of them from the deep interior of the extensive country – are added the international sanctions that, although they did not cause a deep economic crisis, they did hit the finances of a nation that has to ask for favors – very expensive – to sustain its numbers. Tens of billions of dollars frozen in European bank accounts.
Putin It also achieved the strengthening of the I’LL TAKE and the timid awakening of Europawhich he believed was subject to gas extortion.
In these almost three years, Putin had to resort to all kinds of alliances to complete its arsenals: from iranian drones until chinese technologypassing through north korean missiles. Alliances that put in check the balance that the world experienced until not many years ago. It also revived old deposits from the time of the Cold war to keep their military machine fired up.
The war is costing us dearly Putin. To the point that he resorted to military assistance that could upset his most important partner: China. Such is its weakness. He sealed an agreement with the dictatorship of Kim Jong-un so that 13 thousand North Korean soldiers fight under the orders of the Kremlin. In principle they would be destined to recover Russian territory invaded by Ukrainian troops in Kursk.
Putin knows that it is crucial to recover that lost ground to begin future negotiations with greater strength. That is why he needs North Korean personnel dying for him due to the shortage of his own comrades. He cannot distract his battalions already posted and gaining ground in Ukraine. He also has no back to recruiting more soldiers. His war, despite the countless costs, is at an apparent stalemate that favors him.
That is why the decision of Joe Biden to authorize the use of ATACMS missile system on Russian soil could delay – even more – the plans for Moscow. These missiles have a range of 300 kilometers, enough to harm air bases and military personnel who today feel protected from enemy fire. From those places the supply chains of Russian personnel and Ukrainian cities are attacked.
The North Koreans will be at the mercy of these destructive Western weapons, which will give them time to Ukraine also in Kursk. Will the course of the war change? Difficult. But Volodimir Zelensky will have more tools to negotiate at a hypothetical dialogue table. There is also another factor:Kim Jong-un will find an excuse to attack South Korea if its combatants suffer American fire?
The thousand days will continue. For now. Will they spread beyond European borders?
This Tuesday, Putin signed a decree authorizing the use of nuclear weapons against conventional aggression. It is in response to the green light of the White House a Ukraine. The head of the Kremlin threatens to place the world on the brink, once again, of self-destruction.
We will have to see the pulse that the priest has Moscow. Kiev already used ATACMS to hit a base in the western region of Bryansk, Russia. The Russian government confirmed it through the Russian state news agency itself, TASS.
It is difficult – although not impossible – for Putin decides to launch nuclear weapons alone, without warning or consulting Xi Jinpinghis main partner in this bloody war adventure. Would the head of the Chinese regime agree to an atomic bombing that could unleash a conflict of apocalyptic proportions? And if Kim Jong-un decide to start an excursion to the south? ¿Putin play with this alternative? Beijing should then accelerate his plans on Taiwan: are you ready? The nuclear threats of the head of the Kremlin They could remain just that, threats, but they generate discomfort among their friends.
All this in the context of an unresolved powder keg in Middle East.
It is most likely that, for the moment, Moscow intensify its attacks against Ukraine and multiply your bombings on cities, dams, sensitive infrastructure and populations to completely destroy them. Will you use thermobaric pumps or bunker bomb of between five and ten tons to increase terror? With them it would devastate entire populations. What it has been doing in the last thousand days, but more brutal and faster.
X: @TotiPI