Arestovich is the guy who, years ago, predicted a big war between Ukraine and Russia, which would start in 2020-22 - and would be stopping and starting again for some 10 years, with Russia annexing the Eastern provinces. The war would eventually end with Ukraine’s victory. This prediction was made some years prior to the war, maybe in 2016-17. When I first saw it, probably in early March of last year, I thought the guy is a genius of some kind. By now it’s clear - the man simply was familiar with the PLAN. He figured, it would take NATO until 2020-22 to get Ukraine ready. (This was likely the reason Zelensky giggled in 2019 over talks about the Minsk accord).
In late ‘21 - early ‘22, Ukraine announced a major military campaign to “conquer” back the Eastern ethnic Russian provinces. Tanks, artillery, regular troops…. Such an escalation of the war against Donbass and other areas made a Russian invasion predictable.
Indeed, that’s what happened - Russia “recognized” Donbas and Luhansk as independent nations - and, upon their “request”, moved in to protect them.
I think Russia vastly underestimated the seriousness of the situation. They still thought that a small “limited” push would announce to the world that they’re very serious - and everyone would pronto come to their senses - and everything would be fine.
When Putin fired numerous members of his intelligence establishment early in the war, he didn’t do it over the initial difficulties - he did it because they totally missed the big picture… of Russia being played. They missed the elephant in the room. |
