Zelensky Angling For US Troops In Ukraine

Prigozhin, a visible leader of the Wagner group, an illicit billionaire and a“friend” of Putin led a squad of malcontent Wagnerians into an invasion of Russian territory, after Prigozhin claimed that in the battle for Bakhmut the regular army shortchanged him and allowed hundreds of his men to be sacrificed, lacking air cover and artillery support.

His forces were welcomed, it seems, in Rostov-on-Don, although coming off a victory in Bakhmut made them national heroes, not exactly revolutionaries. Starting a military drive to Moscow, Putin was prepared to destroy Prigozhin and his forces, but Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, brokered a deal.

Prigozhin did not stick to the deal and on one of his forays in Moscow, boarded his airplane that apparently exploded in flight, not far from Russia's capital.

The other candidate for overthrowing Putin is the late Alexei Navalny.
He represented the left opposition to Putin. He did run for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and garnered around 27.2% of the vote.
He had been out of Russia for medical treatment after being poisoned with Novichok, a Russian-developed nerve agent.

Navalny was told not to return to Russia but did so anyway. He was arrested, put on trial and sent to a high-security prison where he died.
Navalny campaigned on an anti-corruption theme and directly attacked Moscow's leaders as thieves and crooks.

Navalny narrated and produced sophisticated presentations trying to destroy Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council.

Navalny certainly had Western support, although not much is known about how much help he actually received. Neither Prigozhin nor Navalny were able to take down Putin.

At present, there is no candidate to do so beyond these two deceased players. In fact, what is odd about the Zelensky thesis is that it is supported by UK intelligence and top UK leaders. How much real support it has in the CIA and at the NSC is not clear.

The real internal threat in Russia seems to be from assassins and killers, including terror groups who have been able to set off bombs at key industrial, military and infrastructure targets, kill Russian
political and military officials and Russian nationalist supporters, and who carried out the brutal attack last March on the Crocus theater
complex that killed at least 60.

In some cases, Russian citizens have been recruited by Ukrainian operatives to carry out terror attacks. In the Crocus attack, the shooters were linked to ISIS (from so-called Khorasan province, ISIS-K, in Afghanistan and Pakistan) but the Russians claim that they were backed by Ukraine.

None of the above indicates any threat to the current regime significant enough to force a change in leadership. There is even less certainty or clarity on what group might emerge in charge of Russia if Putin was overthrown or died. When you listen to the rantings of some Russian politicians and TV personalities, you wonder what would happen if they really were in power. Would they use nuclear weapons, blaming Ukraine, the UK and the United States?

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Similarly, the calls for deep strikes on Russian territory also invite the same sort of risk of resorting to nuclear weapons by Russia. While it is unlikely that Putin would use such armaments, the same can't be said if he is replaced by more extreme leaders.

Zelensky's“dream” of replacing Putin or even putting Putin on trial is just political theater, and not very smart theater. His chance of success is virtually nil.

The idea of sending in NATO and US troops, of course, is even worse as an alternative because Russia would respond by unleashing war on Europe and the United States. Everyone knows that to be the case but it may happen anyway as Ukraine's army crumbles and no Western leader, let alone a new President Harris, would want to accept defeat.

Instead of supporting a diplomatic initiative, the Biden-Harris administration is following Zelensky down the rat hole.

Stephen Bryen is senior correspondent at Asia Times. He served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee
and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.

This article was originally published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack, and is republished with permission.

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