Military analyst Col. Douglas Macgregor explained on GrayZone on March 15 that Russia’s actual military goals — not those alleged by deaf ideologues in the West — were “largely complete.” He described Russia’s strategy, designed to avoid civilian casualties and neutralize the Ukrainian military, as working. This includes capturing or destroying military weapons and supplies. “The war, for all intents and purposes, has been decided. The entire operation from day one was focused on the destruction of Ukrainian forces. That’s largely complete.” The remaining active units “are completely surrounded, cut off and isolated in various towns and cities.” Up to 60,000 Ukrainian troops are cut off on the border of the Donetsk Oblast. He surmised that they must be facing, after several days, a situation of dwindling supplies.
He recounted some remaining problems. The biggest problem, he said, was that “in the West, there is no truth. There is wishful thinking and there is this impression of success by the Ukrainians that doesn’t stack up.” This leads to continual re-arming attempts. (Independent of whether the new arms can actually be put into play in the present fighting, they both aggravate the de-militarization effort and create the added risk of falling into the hands of neo-Nazi militias, irregular formations, and outright terrorists.) Macgregor remarked that Putin’s extra cautious execution of his plan, while admirable, has meant a deliberate time-table, one that allowed fantasy-ridden Westerners who ignore what Putin has said and has done, to double-down with weapons and more weapons.
