Zelensky's New Cards
Zelensky speaks like a man possessed by sincere confidence in the cards he holds, but his confidence is backed up by some solid evidence.
A recent investigation by the Economists has revealed that Russian soldiers are being forced to pay officers substantial bribes in order to avoid being sent into fruitless offensives in the vast drone kill-zone, where Ukrainian UAV teams are recording more than 1,000 kills a day.
This has effectively turned the Russian Army into a dystopian organised crime racket, with senior commanders raising a small fortune by sustaining an unwinnable war. Any soldiers that complain quickly find themselves sent at gun point towards a brutally efficient Ukrainian defensive line that easily picks off Russian soldiers the moment they surface from their bunkers.
According to the report, some soldiers claimed that officers confiscated bank cards and continued withdrawing pay from men who had been killed or listed as missing. But perhaps most corrosive to the Russian war effort is the manner in which this lucrative shake down of the infantry means that officers have an incentive to keep the war going, long after the plausible prospect of victory has passed.
There are around 700,000 Russian men currently mobilised in Ukraine. Emotionally traumatised, and now likely harbouring a deep cynicism towards the corrupt hierarchy of the state that sent up to half a million of their compatriots to their death, and permanently disfigured at least half a million more.
They will be returning to an economy that now only functions to sustain war. The infrastructure of its largest industries has been devastated, and even if US sanctions are eased, Europe has finally awoken to the threat its energy dependence posed and cut off a financial lifeline that should have made Russia one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Putin's own rise to power was one which exploited the grievances of Russian soldiers whose morale had been devastated by the Soviet failure in Afghanistan, and Yeltsin's calamitous attempt to subjugate Chechnya. He understands the dangers these dejected young men now pose to him once they return home to an economic crisis that he cannot escape blame for.
But Zelensky's second comment is perhaps even more revealing. He's right. Ukraine has transformed itself from a defenceless liability to Europe's invaluable first line of defence. As I explained in a video months ago, they have not just brilliantly adapted to this revolutionary new format of war, they have now begun integrating into the European defence and manufacturing industries, essentially creating a new military superpower.
Two years ago, I would have declared the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine as "aspirational" at best. But with the extraordinary leverage Kyiv now has over Putin, it is looking like an increasingly achievable demand for Zelensky.