Russia's major offensive may end in major defeat - Piontkovsky

We are measuring this design, and of course the determination and readiness of our partners, in particular the United States, the United Kingdom, and others, to provide us with heavy armored vehicles and long-range missiles.

We see that the first Leopard has already appeared on the territory of Ukraine. Yesterday there were talks, especially among those who were not friendly to Ukraine, that in about six months, nine months, there would be a flow of weapons. Of course, we will get the final point in the historic ninth Ramstein, which will be held on February 14, it has already been called an aviation one, but I would pay more attention, as always, to our British friends, who are half a corps ahead of the Western allies. During Zelenskyy's visit to London, both the Ukrainian and British sides made statements about the UK's readiness to transfer long-range missiles, meaning, of course, Storm Shadow missiles, missiles, air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which are launched from aircraft, possibly Polish Mig-29 aircraft, which the Poles have been preparing to transfer for several months and which have been blocked by NATO bureaucratic procedures.

It is known that over the past month and a half, work has been underway to slightly modernize the MiGs, equipping them with components and mounts for Storm Shadow missiles. These missiles have a range of up to a thousand kilometers. Moscow is in a panic. Several reviews on propaganda channels have already been devoted to these missiles. Do you understand? Moscow does not have modern air defense, well, judging by how easily Ukrainian 'swifts', almost home-made, got strategic bombers, Moscow did not believe its own lies that it was threatened by NATO, and no one seriously considered military scenarios in which Moscow would be threatened by enemy aircraft.

We understood perfectly well, as we can see, with what efforts NATO was going to make over the course of the year, and in my opinion, it was going to provide some kind of military assistance to Ukraine. No one in Moscow believed in these scenarios, and the Ukrainian army did not exist for them at all. That is, today they need to create an air defense system in Moscow from scratch. You saw the panic when they were using cranes to drag their outdated Pantsiris onto the roof of the General Staff.

Perhaps it was just a psychological attack on the minds of the Russians. Like, the enemy is at the gate, let's get closer to the Fuhrer's foot, and it's on. Perhaps they want to mobilize the Russian population in this way?

When, and this may be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, missiles and planes arrive in Ukraine, Ukraine needs them not to smash Moscow, but to stop the barbaric attacks on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine will simply state that if the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure does not stop tomorrow, then after the first new strike, using your terminology, we will strike at dual-use facilities: the energy and logistics infrastructure of the city of Moscow. Even this prospect, even today, has caused panic and led to serious discussion among the population of Moscow and in the Russian elite, where things are not so simple. What we see is a deafening conflict and mutual discontent, reaching the point of hatred. As in the usual fascist regimes that fail between the Fuhrer and the generals, because there is always a problem to explain to the deep fascist people who is to blame for these failures: the Fuhrer or the generals.

I repeat once again, I keep saying this on Ukrainian and Russian channels, that in my opinion, what happened on the night of 10 to 11 in the bunker was a mini-military coup, when General Shoigu and Gerasimov, tired of the six-month campaign of harassment by Prigozhin and Kadyrov, demanded that Putin remove Surovikin, Prigozhin's protege, and return Gerasimov to command the army. It is necessary to understand these details and relationships to understand the prospects of the war.

Shoigu and Gerasimov have been running the Defense Ministry for 10 years, and of course they only appointed people who were personally loyal to them. So, this is a very important experience. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - in my memory, this is Putin's first hardware defeat in 23 years of his rule.

Having tasted the experience of defeating him on this important issue, I think the generals will be more determined.

But the specificity of fascist regimes is, among other things, inertia. We don't see any manifested, public, clearly articulated position of the population that would start acting. Yes? And we see that Shoigu and Gerasimov will continue to form and train legions of suicide bombers. Right? As far as we understand, the convicts are running out, and, accordingly, Prigozhin has already fulfilled his mission.

Prigozhin is already dead. You are right, all fascist regimes are similar to each other, and this struggle between the generals and the Fuhrer over who is to blame, and the classic conflict between the professional military and the Fuhrer's stormtroopers. You remember the "night of the long knives" in 1934, when the situation was almost the same: the generals demanded that Hitler rid them of the stormtroopers and their leader, the Fuhrer's close friend, Ernst Röhm. But the Fuhrer was a more determined man than Putin. Putin is no less of a criminal, but he has no leadership qualities. You remember that Hitler simply realized that generals were more important to him and his plans for world domination and handed Ernst Röhm a pistol with one round.

There are currently 27 PMCs in Russia. The question is, why are they needed? They are not needed for the war with Ukraine. The fact is that the people who organize these PMCs already see themselves in another, next war, and realizing that the war with Ukraine has already been lost, they are lining up for the next, mafia war between different groups for the huge economic inheritance that will remain after Russia's defeat and the inevitable withdrawal of Putin's group. They will start fighting for large chunks of Russian property, for the same Krasnoyarsk Nickel, Krasnoyarsk Aluminum, Norilsk Nickel, and these criminal groups are being created for this purpose. In fact, the idea of defeat has already taken hold of the mass of generals and senior leadership, and any further, obvious defeat, if I move on to the next question, we are all absolutely confident in Ukraine's victory.

I see two basic scenarios. The first and main one is a huge aid package, a weapon of victory. What has already been delivered and is being delivered is a tank armada, aircraft, long-range missiles, including Storm Shadow. I think the main thing is not so much the tanks as the new missiles, which extend the range of HIMARS from 80 to 160 kilometers. It will be fully operational by early May. By this time, the training and methodological conditions will be in place. May and June are the decisive offensive of the Ukrainian army, most likely in the South: Melitopol, Berdiansk, the transformation of Crimea and all this into a huge encirclement

Perhaps we are now listening with disbelief to the American intelligence reports that Putin is preparing a crazy offensive in the coming days to use the window of opportunity before the Ukrainian offensive. I think that the Russian offensive will not be successful. The Russians have nothing but a huge number of corpses. The corpses of imprisoned Russians are over, now there will be corpses of mobilized soldiers. This offensive will either end in nothing and prolong the situation of uncertainty until May, or it will end in a huge defeat for Russia. And this defeat will be the trigger for political changes inside the bunker. The same generals will take the position: “We warned you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and this is what it led to.”

On the other hand, there are also certain trends. It seems that the main Kremlin bunker is trying to turn the aggressive war against Ukraine into the so-called "Great Patriotic War," they are trying to do this, they are failing, and one of Putin's former friends from the Dresden residency was talking to Putin, and he said that when he asked him what the purpose of the war against Ukraine was, Putin explained to him that it was a state secret.

You know the scenarios from the series - there is no way out for war, for Putin. And by the way, you've noticed that the West emphasizes this with all its actions. And Putin is called a war criminal in the official documents of the G8. The work of organizing an international tribunal for war criminals is underway, and then, as a cherry on top, the eyes of the Dutch investigators investigating the downing of the Boeing finally opened, and they finally came to the conclusion that, on Putin's orders, this very Buk was sent from Russia to Donbas. But this was obvious from the very beginning, because we already know the names of the entire crew of this Buk, the entire chain of command up to the air defense commander, from social media. And when this Buk was crossing the border, it was necessary to coordinate the actions of the army leadership and the FSB leadership, because border crossing is the function of the FSB. The only head of these two institutions is Putin. So what the Dutch investigators have come to now was clear to any person with logical thinking. The fact that they have come to this conclusion today shows that all these signals are signals that the West is sending to the entire Russian elite, to the entire Russian environment.

If you give up Putin, we will somehow be constructive in sharing your current responsibility. In other words, the entire elite has a way out of the situation, to accept the G8 ultimatum and withdraw all troops from the territory of Ukraine.