It is a foregone conclusion that Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions of the former Novorossiya will be re-assimilated into the Russian motherland.
Odessa will follow at some point in the not-so-distant future.
And the empire’s refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of these developments will prove utterly irrelevant.
Western media and puppet politicians can scream “Russian aggression” and “sham election” all they want, but the unadorned fact is that these regions are overwhelmingly ethnic Russians whose collective desire is to be reunited with what they view as a powerful and ascendant Russia.
In conjunction with this shrewd maneuver, Vladimir Putin will almost certainly announce in his September 21st address a major escalation of Russian military action in Ukraine – thereby making available a significant amount of Russia’s as yet untapped military strength and capabilities.
This will result in a rapid acceleration in the ongoing process of annihilation of the Ukrainian military, its mountains of NATO weaponry, and its numerous “foreign volunteers”.
This, of course, presents the empire with an existential dilemma. The defeat of NATO’s proxy army, weapons, and leadership in Ukraine at the hands of the Russians will be viewed all around the world as an unprecedented defeat of American hegemony; a watershed moment that will carry with it profound geopolitical consequences.
As I have argued for months now, it will mean the end of NATO as a credible military alliance. It will mean the end of the European Union as presently constituted.
In other words, a decisive defeat of the empire’s aspirations in Ukraine will be viewed in Washington, London, and Brussels as an existential threat – which it is. And, as such, it is difficult for me to envision them submissively acquiescing to the outcome.
Therefore we have, as I wrote a few weeks back, now well and truly arrived at The Moment of Greatest Danger.