End of the Line for Ukraine? UK Paper The Times: ‘It’s Time We Talked About the Fall of Kiev’ – Zelensky: ‘We Are Trying To Find a Way Not to Retreat’

End of the Line for Ukraine? UK Paper The Times: ‘It’s Time We Talked About the Fall of Kiev’ – Zelensky: ‘We Are Trying To Find a Way Not to Retreat’

Paul Serran

Ever since the conquest of the heavily fortified key Donbas city of Avdeevka, the real dimension of the Russian combat superiority became suddenly clear to just about everyone.

While Ukraine still finds some success in missile strikes behind the Russian lines, and asymmetrical attacks of a terror nature, everyone now can see just how outmanned, outgunned and outmaneuvered Kiev’s forces have become.

Now, even in the MSM, there are daily reports of just how dire the situation on the ground is right now.

The UK paper The Times [behind a paywall] went as far as publishing an op-ed talking about how the West is bracing for an imminent Ukrainian army’s collapse.

TASS reported:

“Western leaders are bracing for the Ukrainian army’s collapse as it has only been able to slow the advance of Russian forces amid weapons and ammunition shortages, the Times writes.

In its editorial, titled ‘It’s time we talked about the fall of Kiev’, the paper points out that ‘contrary to the predominant view that this is a perpetual frozen conflict, with neither side able to win a decisive advantage, the front line is bitterly contested and there is a real risk of Ukrainian forces being pushed back’. 

‘This is the nightmare scenario now being contemplated by western policymakers’, the Times notes.

Russia’s advance ‘would obviously be disastrous for the Ukrainians’. ‘It would also confront the West with all manner of tough challenges’, the newspaper says. ‘The consequences of a partial or complete defeat would be calamitous in ways western populations have barely begun to understand. But we have a lazy habit in the comfortable West – away from Europe’s front line in east and south Ukraine – of wishful thinking and being unprepared for bad surprises’, the Times emphasizes.”

It also shows a poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations conducted in 12 countries in January.

In the poll, only 10% of those surveyed believe that Ukraine can win.

And the gravity of the situation is talked about by the upper echelons of Ukrainian society, as is the case of the recent article by President Volodymyr Zelensky, where he candidly says that ‘We are trying to find a way not to retreat’.

As Russian missiles were pounding southern Ukraine, he said: ‘Give us the weapons to stop the Russian attacks, or Ukraine will escalate its counterattacks on Russia’s airfields, energy facilities and other strategic targets’.