Former Marine Intelligence Officer and UN Weapons Inspector Says Russia Is Going to Prevail, Decisively

Trying to make sense of the war in Ukraine is not easy.

What information do you trust?

Has a single Twitter account ever been banned for promoting "violence" or "disinformation" on behalf of the US/NATO/Ukraine? No? So in an utterly mind-blowing coincidence, accounts supporting that particular "side" have never once done anything to violate Twitter rules? 🤔

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) April 13, 2022

Are we to believe the media, Schumer, and Biden?

If you do, you will believe Russia is guilty of genocide, i.e. that Putin is trying to ‘wipe out the idea’ of Ukrainian identity.  You would need to believe Russia’s war effort is focusing on Ukrainians, not the state or Nazi elements at work there.  You will agree with Sean Penn’s suggestion that we use nukes against Russia.  And you will also think it’s inevitable that Ukraine is going to win this conflict.

On the other hand, if you accept Russia’s perspective, you will conclude the escalation in the conflict was a natural response to Ukraine’s westward drift. Ukraine, as former Soviet republic, has many cultural, political, and economic ties to Russia.  So as the EU and NATO made inroads there, Russia was threatened and provoked, particularly since the US and NATO made pledges in the 90s that NATO would not expand eastward.  Ukraine became the stick that poked the bear into conflict.

Scott Ritter has an interesting perspective on the matter.

Ritter is a former US Marine Intelligence Officer and UN Weapons Inspector.  This week he was banned on Twitter (and later reinstated) for calling the massacre in Bucha, Ukraine a false-flag operation perpetrated by NATO-backed Ukranian Nazi regiments.

Veterans:
Twitter censoring Scott Ritter, A patriot, USMC Intelligence officer. Former UN weapons inspector.
This is a disgrace and every veteran should be outraged.
We need Scotts voice, perspective and knowledge at this very critical time.
Retweet and demand he be reinstated

— Richard X O'Brien (trusted flagger) (@beKewl4ever) April 11, 2022

Ritter was involved with weapons inspections inside Iraq and became a vocal critic of the Bush Administration’s claim that Saddam had WMDs.  He has relevant career experience to comment on Ukraine.

In a Q & A format, he gave an interview with Strategic Culture Foundation entitled, “The Ukraine Conflict Is A US/NATO Proxy War, But One Which Russia Is Poised To Win Decisively”.

Here is some of Ritter’s perspective:

Question: Do you think that Russia has a just cause in launching its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24?

Scott Ritter: I believe Russia has articulated a cognizable claim of preemptive collective self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The threat posed by NATO expansion, and Ukraine’s eight-year bombardment of the civilians of the Donbass fall under this umbrella.

Question: Do you think Russia has legitimate concerns about the Pentagon sponsoring biological weapons programs in laboratories in Ukraine?

Scott Ritter: The Pentagon denies any biological weapons program, but admits biological research programs on Ukrainian soil. Documents captured by Russia have allegedly uncovered the existence of programs the components of which could be construed as having offensive biological warfare applications. The U.S. should be required to explain the purpose of these programs.

Question: Western governments and mainstream media have denigrated Russian objectives to “demilitarize and deNazify” Ukraine. The West says Russia has invented or grossly exaggerated these problems as a pretext for invasion. Do you think this Western denialism is because it doesn’t want to acknowledge that Russia may indeed have legitimate concerns, and secondly that to acknowledge would mean admitting that the West is part of the problem in the current war?

Scott Ritter: The irony is that the West had thoroughly documented the extent of the Nazi ideology in Ukraine’s civil, political, and military structures during and after the 2014 Maidan coup. This documented reality was deliberately obscured by the same sources that had previously documented its existence once the Russian invasion occurred. To acknowledge the existence of this odious ideology by NATO would require NATO to acknowledge the role it played in training and equipping Azov regiment personnel since 2015. The Russian documentation of its ongoing de-Nazification effort in Ukraine is a source of continual embarrassment to NATO, as it exposes the scope and scale of NATO’s role in empowering the militarization of Nazi ideology in Ukraine.

Question: For about four months before the Russian intervention in Ukraine, the Biden administration was asserting non-stop that Moscow was planning an invasion. Do you think this is a case of great intelligence on the part of Washington or the culmination of provocation by Washington resulting in Russian military action in Ukraine?

Scott Ritter: We now know that the U.S. intelligence community under the Biden administration is committed to a policy of haphazardly “declassifying” intelligence for the purpose of shaping public opinion (so-called “getting ahead of the story”). There is no evidence that the intelligence regarding potential Russian military action was based upon anything other than politicized speculation derived from a crude analysis of Russian military dispositions void of any context. Any genuine intelligence assessment regarding the timing of any Russian military action would have incorporated the domestic political imperative of getting Duma [Russian parliamentary] approval for the deployment of Russian forces outside the borders of Russia, which carries with it the requirement of a cognizable justification for this military action under the UN Charter. This required political steps such as Donetsk and Lugansk declaring independence, and then petitioning the Russian parliament to recognize this independence, so that Russia could legitimately invoke Article 51. None of these factors was knowable when the Biden administration was issuing its warnings of imminent attack, thereby certifying the “intelligence” as being derived from fact-free speculation, and not intelligence at all.

Question: The Western media are reporting that the Russian military operation in Ukraine is floundering because it has not over-run Ukraine entirely. As a military expert, how do you see the Russian operation proceeding?

NATIONAL POLL: Do You Trust Fox News?

Scott Ritter: Russia is fighting a very difficult campaign hampered by its own constraint designed to limit civilian casualties and damage to infrastructure and the fact that Ukraine possesses a very well-trained military that is well led and equipped. Russia deployed some 200,000 troops in support of this operation. They are facing some 600,000 Ukrainian forces. The first phase of the Russian operation was designed to shape the battlefield to Russia’s advantage while diminishing the size and capacity of the Ukrainian ability to wage large-scale conflict. The second phase is focused on destroying the main Ukrainian force concentration in eastern Ukraine. Russia is well on its way to accomplishing this task.

Question: Do you see danger from Ukraine being turned into a proxy war by the United States and NATO partners against Russia in a way that attempts to repeat the West’s covert war in Syria or the Afghanistan war (1979-89) with the Soviet Union? There are reports of foreign legions being sent to Ukraine via NATO countries. Do you think there is a Western plan to embroil Russia in a proxy war that is aimed at sapping Russia politically, economically, and militarily?

Scott Ritter: The Ukrainian conflict is a proxy war, but one which Russia is poised to win decisively. While there appears to be a NATO/western plan to embroil Russia in a “new Afghanistan”, I don’t see any risk of this conflict dragging on for more than a few more weeks at the most before Russia accomplishes a strategic victory over Ukraine.

Whether Ritter is 100% on target, I cannot say.  But he raises many points in conflict with the official mainstream narrative on Ukraine.  And for those of us skeptical of narratives, we’re not easy to persuade.

Ritter appeared recently on a YouTube channel to share more of his current perspective.

https://youtu.be/m0COzfjw14k?t=30