May 9th: Victory Over Russian Fascism Day!
Victory comes in all different sizes, but let's be honest, Russia has gotten its ass kicked!
As Russia gears up for its May Day 9th Victory over Fascist Germany Day, a genuinely memorable day for people all over the world, it ironically has been overcome by its own fascist revolution. At no time ever before in Russia’s history has the country been so far “up its own ass” (this is the only way I can describe what’s going on today) as it is in May 2024.
Nonetheless, on May 9th, let us reject Russia’s crocodile tears over the trials and tribulations of World World II, the so-called “Great Patriotic War,” and let us raise our glasses to victory over Russian fascism. As Russia wages almost the same war for the exact same reasons as Nazi Germany against Ukraine, we should show no sympathy for the sacrifices of the past but rather pity for those Soviet citizens who, over 75 years ago, left their lives on the blood-soaked battlefields.
Millions of innocent citizens were systematically murdered in Leningrad and all over the lands occupied by Nazis, and for what? To see the cowardly son of one of those veterans rise and lead the country in a war of genocide against its former brothers and cousins — the war against Ukraine is as much a civil war as it is anything else. Having spent nearly 30 years worth of Victory Days celebrating with barbecues, parades, and just a general sense of patriotic well-being in Russia, no more. The time has come to deny them that right and accept the silly pomp and ceremony in the same way most normal people should regard beauty contests for eight-year-olds.
This is how we should view Russia’s Victory Day celebrations — with disgust, if not mocking disbelief.
It is true that I have recently written several articles about how I — and the spirit of Walter Cronkite — consider the war in Ukraine unwinnable. I put forth a lot of sound and reasonable ways for Ukraine to regroup, refortify, and rebuild. Many have accepted my ideas, while many others still, some armed with accurate information from the front (you know who you are, hats off to you, sir), others just ranting emotionally, and still others overwhelming with questionably relevant historical analyses (but I love your analyses!), but what many overlook is that victory is not cut and dry, now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t, we win with the walk-off single in the 12th inning.
We define what victory is
Victory is what we say it is.
Eastern Ukraine, which has historically always been more closely culturally aligned with Moscow, is a wasteland. Soaked in blood, the infrastructure is decimated, and the fields are so full of metal and undetonated ordinance that it will take a generation at least before it will again be safe to farm, so why does Ukraine want this land back? Kyiv’s control for many will be like an occupying force in a wasteland, and Kyiv will be blamed for everything bad there. It guarantees decades of hemorrhoidal pain for Kyiv.
As far as Crimea is concerned, I don’t think Ukraine is capable of retaking it, especially given Moscow’s urgency to hold it. A loss of Crimea for the Kremlin will likely be the reason to use nukes. All of the talk that it used to be part of Ukraine is, for the most part, correct. In 1991, it was Ukraine, and the collapsed Soviet Union gave it Ukraine. The talk about past agreements and international bodies not recognizing the territory as Russian is spot on but, at this time, irrelevant. Putin is a terrorist, and the Russian government is a terrorist state. Accept it or not, we may have to and, in the meantime, help Ukraine flourish.
Some call this a defeat for good and a victory for evil. Others call this appeasement. I say to both: Don’t be so naive or historically inaccurate.
On May 9th, 2024, Ukraine, with the on-and-off support of the West and Asian democracies, declares Victory over Russian Fascism Day! The Russian military has been wrecked. While proving more resilient than many expected, the economy is hanging on but barely. Russia is culturally and intellectually isolated, and as it slowly replaces critical thought (there was never a lot of it to begin with) with pure propaganda in the schools at all levels, and the intellectual stagnation will set the country back decades. Putin is approaching the “dumbification” of Russia in the same way that Antonio de Oliveira Salazar of Portugal regarded the “peasantification” of the Portuguese.
Before the war, the world worried about Russia’s “war machine.”
But when Russia tried to seize Kyiv with a lightning advance in the opening days of the war, armored columns were sent down narrow, congested roads. Bottled up by roadblocks and ambushes, they were decimated by Ukrainian artillery, drones and anti-tank missiles. Nor does the manual describe how the Russian Army is fighting today. Instead of rapid and well-coordinated maneuver with its once-vaunted Aerospace Forces, attacks rely on obliterating Ukrainian defenses with artillery or glide bombs, or swamping them with large numbers of freed convicts and other “disposable infantry.”
The cost has been enormous: an estimated 450,000 Russian casualties and 3,000 tanks destroyed. Moscow’s best pre-war units have been decimated, and its best tanks and other equipment wrecked (The Russian Army May Have Defeated Ukraine).
Russia has invested billions in revamping and modernizing its military. As I have written before, having lived not far from an apartment building in St. Petersburg where military officers lived, I marveled at the amount of expensive foreign cars parked outside the lot. The price for the average car there was $70,000, and up to, I can only imagine — there was one Maybach. The leadership of Russia’s military is rotten to the core and remains so; the good officers that were there died a long time ago on the front. It will take Russia a generation or two to rebuild its current army back into a relatively modern one. However, will Russia ever have a modern military, given its inability to eradicate its addiction to stealing and corruption?
Russia’s most significant advantage to date over Ukraine has been the use of tens of thousands of convicts, which is inhumanely thrown at the fortified Ukrainian positions and continues to do so. This is a source of manpower that, at times, has overwhelmed the best Ukrainian defenses; nonetheless, with the receipt of new aid, much of this advantage will be negated.
Ukraine also struggles, but it is defending much less territory and has if the West can overcome the fascist rebellion of U.S. Republicans and Trumpists, the best the West can offer in terms of material support and training. Ukraine’s doctrine will always beat Russia’s doctrine because Russian officers lead Russian soldiers.
Ukraine has proven victorious. Let us take this week’s May Day Celebration and declare Victory over Russian Fascism Day together! “Slava Ukrain’e!”