Now in control of the entirety of their own border, the LPR (Lugansk People’s Republic) has declared that there is still insufficient security for the LPR territory. Is this a sudden realisation? I think not. A trigger thought, perhaps, for their continued participation in the ongoing Ukraine conflict alongside Russia and their sister Donbass state of DPR (which is nowhere near fully liberated at this point).
A few facts…
About two thirds of LPR western border is sheltered by joint border with DPR. The other third is covered by Russian held territory to some depth northwards and may soon be sheltered by a freshly liberated Kharkov Oblast.
Of the whole western border of the LPR, only about one tenth has protagonist Ukraine forces on the other side of it. And those forces are now in full retreat and are unlikely to be able to mount another defensive zone anywhere in the DPR or even until they are as far west as the Dniepr river, if then. Their forces having been decimated, demoralised, defanged and completely disorganised by what has occurred recently.
So, in fact, there is little for the leaders of the LPR to worry about in regard to their own lands. This then has to mean they intend (are willing) to follow Russia further west. How far they will follow, remains to be seen.
I don’t want to make too much of this but the same really applies to the DPR. This break in the Ukraine military line of defence also has significance for the liberation of the whole of DPR lands.
It would be a good time now for Russia to supplement its so far relatively small commitment of forces (in comparison to its known military strength) to the allied effort, with at least some extra firepower and manpower. Such a move may already be in effect. I noticed that the Military Summary channel – which provides excellent, mostly daily, summaries of the conflict – has mentioned a change in tactics by the Russian forces over recent days, in their report for July 2 (link below). This is not the latest report of course. They even mentioned talk of the use of the Russian TOS-1 system now taking place. This new development may form part of the reason Lisichansk has been taken by the allies so quickly in the last few days, and augurs well for a faster rollover of remaining Ukraine forces in coming days.
TOS-1 is a fearful thermobaric MLRS system, inadequately and inaccurately labelled a ‘flamethrower’. It generates temperatures at the rocket missile target points said to be comparable to the surface of the Sun and will blacken and kill exposed soldiers even well outside the area of explosion effect. It would be excusable for Ukrainian soldiers (or any soldiers) to run for their lives from anywhere such a weapon was about to be released. There was talk of its use early on in the conflict but I think that was probably over-enthusiastic reporting by excited ‘experts’. There is now a new TOS-1A variant, but I guess the Russians will want to use up all their old TOS-1’s first.
The US also has similar weapons but only, as far as I know, in the form of air delivered bombs (such as MOAB).
So, with the Ukrainians on the run, the LPR has nothing much to fear now of hurt to their territorial possessions. Their stated concern is therefore more in line with a commitment to carry on with the conflict as part of the allied forces of the Russian Federation. And that is a very necessary and all-important task.
This conflict will not be over until the Dniepr is crossed and all Eastern and Southern Ukraine has been liberated.
This will also not be over until the Western borders of Ukraine have been liberated and denazified (‘demilitarized’ is an implied condition of all that).
This will not even be over, potentially, until the whole of Europe has been liberated from NATO. Which must mean that NATO has been cancelled and all US military influence removed from the continent. Nothing less can ensure security for the Donbass republics or Russia itself. Why? Because the west cannot be trusted. Russia in particular has lost all trust in the west. I am personally in full agreement with Russia’s position on that. There is not a single honest and trustworthy government or even government official to be found anywhere within western civilisation today. Not one, to my knowledge. And that is quite an indictment, is it not?
Anyway, when this is finally over – and there can be only one result (only a fool would disagree) – then peace can return, or more precisely, peace can begin in Europe, and the Eurasian Economic Union might be arranged (extended) to cover the whole of Eurasia, with transport corridors crossing all regions across the whole continental landmass. No European parliament necessary, and all nations represented individually and with ‘equal’ (yet to be defined) rights and benefits in all continent-wide forums. Wouldn’t that be a nice thing to see?
Well, at least that is the sort of thing we should be looking towards achieving. Instead of the money-grubbing, underhand, deceitful way of western democracy with its consequent delivery of inequality, death and destruction through unwarranted theft and coercion that we appear to have settled for and which has mostly been forced upon us for centuries, culminating in the orgy of war and economic mismanagement of the last 80 years or so.
Better by far than that, which has several times led to our potential destruction by our own hands or the hands of a few maniacs, and very soon at the hands of a climate threatening to make life here more unbearable than we care to imagine – partly at least, through our gross mismanagement of the planet’s resources.
On an ascending scale of culpability, there are idiots, fools, and other humans. Locality, race, age, and even education apparently, garner little or no primacy in the formation of that hierarchy – or that is how it seems to me – a self-assessed, ordinary, but never normal, man.
I also – as everyone who is not a fool or idiot does – admit to falling within the category of ‘other humans’ on the scale of climate culpability.
Not Something Else 
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