The Lead

The Ukraine Breakdown Point Is Imminent

by Marcia Merry Baker (EIRNS) — Aug. 26, 2024

This morning a wide-ranging Russian drone and missile strike hit many locations across Ukraine, resulting in electricity blackouts, selected water outages, rail disruption and other impacts. Strikes were delivered in the regions of Kyiv, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Lvov, and other major cities. At the same time, a barrage of Ukraine drones aimed inside Russia were repelled.

There comes a point where the Ukraine pretense of a war machine breaks down, even as NATO continues to crank up the supply lines. On September 6, U.S. Defense Secretary Gen. Lloyd Austin will host the 25th Ukraine Defense Contact Group. Tomorrow the European Union Defense and Foreign Ministers will meet in Brussels to confer on supplying more “trainer” soldiers to Ukraine.

Nevertheless the Ukraine breakdown point is imminent. It is maybe days or weeks from now, but imminent. U.S. weapons expert Scott Ritter described this in an interview last night, saying that Russia is on the cusp of a major victory in the Donbass and Zaporozhye as Ukrainian forces are on the point of collapse. “We are looking at a strategic Russian victory,” Ritter said. “We’re looking at a Ukraine that has run out of options because they basically threw their strategic reserves into this gambit in Kursk that has failed....”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute leader, sharing his evaluation, warned today of the implications. “With the impending defeat on the battlefield, the desperation increases.” With this increase in desperation, the danger of World War III increases.

Moves in this direction are not confined to the Ukraine theater. The situation is devolving in Southwest Asia. On Sunday, August 25, major exchanges took place on the southern Lebanon-northern Israel border. Relatively quiet last night, the situation remains open for more strife. The Pentagon has announced it will station two aircraft carrier groups in the region indefinitely, the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Theodore Roosevelt, now in the Gulf of Oman. Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown went to Egypt yesterday, and Israel today. To what end? There is no inherent resolution in any of this activity. In Gaza the mass death machine rolls on.

Zepp-LaRouche called for a mobilization of voices and forces to sound the right call: “Don’t go to World War III!” Take all measures. In Germany, for example, there are days of protest upcoming on September 1, and also October 3. In the United States, there are demonstrations planned for September 28 and 29. Of note today, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard endorsed Donald Trump for President, citing the need to stop nuclear war. She said, speaking at Arlington Cemetery, the U.S. is now “facing multiple wars on multiple fronts in regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before.”

Zepp-LaRouche made reference to the Russian commander Major General Apti Alaudinov, who, speaking last week from the battlefield in the Kursk region, addressed Americans and Europeans: “You probably do not see or hear that your leadership is doing all it can to launch a nuclear war … as you’ve been trying with all means to make Russia cross the red line and start protecting itself using all these nuclear weapons. I don’t think this is something you really want. If you don’t want this to happen, speak out! Go to the streets and stop your government.”

Speaking out and demonstrating is all the more urgent, given the escalation of moves to silence any views and practices deemed contrary to the Global NATO rules-of-order war drive. This includes violating freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and human rights.

Yesterday in Rome, Pope Francis at the Sunday Angelus denounced the Zelenskyy government’s shutdown of Russian Orthodox Churches in Ukraine. He said, he has “fear for the freedom of those who pray” in Ukraine. “So let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their Church. Please, let no Christian Church be abolished directly or indirectly. Churches are not to be touched!”

In Paris, a social-media expert spoke out today on France’s national public radio, warning against the August 24 government arrest and charges against Pavel Durov, founder and head of Telegram. Prof. Fabrice Epelboin, on the faculty of the Institute of Political Sciences, said that the incident is an application of the European Union’s “Digital Services Act,” under which Brussels is moving to limit access to freedom of speech throughout Europe.

The FBI raids in the United States are part of the same picture of clampdown: the August 7 raid on Scott Ritter’s residence in New York; and the August 13 on the Virginia home of Dimitri Simes in Virginia.

Circulate the August 25 emergency statement from the International Peace Coalition, “A Council of Reason, Not a Council of War!” The statement concludes: “There is still time to act, but this is no time to run, to flinch, or to ‘choke.’ All of human civilization that has been, and will be, may hinge on what we—what you—choose to do in these next hours, days and weeks.”