The "Wagner" group of the Russian military has apparently taken over the Donetsk city of Soledar today. (Donetsk is one of the four regions recently annexed to Russia.) Considering how slow the battle near there has proceeded over the last couple months, this all seems rapid and triumphant.
There is an irony to watching the video from the movie, Apocalypse Now, featuring Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." The video is a powerful combination of visual images, dramatic situation, and music. Of course the war in the movie was Vietnam, but it is related to the Ukraine War in the sense that the Ukraine War might be seen as the American Empire's biggest debacle since Vietnam.
Heretofore the war in the Donbass region has been slow and slogging, as if it were imitating the Western Front of World War One, albeit with satellites and drones. And now something happened that seems blazingly fast by comparison.
A certain amount of triumphalism is called for if you are one of the people who desires:
1. NATO going back to being a defensive and non-expansionist organization.
2. NATO perhaps even disbanding like the Warsaw Pact did in the 1990s.
3. Washington DC giving up on its messianic mission of ruling planet Earth.
4. The captive populations of European peasants liberating themselves from European Union bureaucrats and radical Greens.
5. The Biden administration getting stuck with most of the blame for this debacle.
Comments
The more surprising thing is that the Russians were able to accomplish this not only fast by comparison but they were able to do it although they have run out of ammunition, their troops are ill supplied and have poor morale.🙃
I think this reported capture is based on a Tweet by a Prominent Twitter account @AZgeopolitics. However, there are conflicting Tweets, Dmitri @wartranslated:
"There are multiple reports from the Russian side claiming advances of the Russian forces in Soledar after allegedly capturing Bakhmutske last night.
They claim the Ukrainian forces are falling back to the north of the city.
Importantly, no evidence so far, only words."
I think we need to wait for the New York Times to tell us the truth.🙃