Russian General Ivashov On His Prognosis: It Turns Out To Be Much Worse

• 14.02.2023, 16:59

Russia has become a rogue state.

A year ago, Russian Colonel General

"I get the impression that Putin is tired of Russia and wants to end it. Because this large-scale war will actually lead to the disappearance of Russia as an integral large state," Ivashov predicted.

What does the Russian officer think in a year? The Republic magazine has asked him.

- What has happened in the end? Pretty much what we expected, but a lot worse. At the operational and tactical level, we did not think that within a year we would not be able to liberate Donetsk and Luhansk regions (seize them - note). We did not think that there would be such heavy losses, although I mentioned tens of thousands of casualties on both sides at the time. But it turned out to be much worse. We did not expect that there would be such devastation: in fact, entire small towns and villages had been demolished. Further, I wrote that we would end up as a rogue state, but frankly, I did not anticipate that we would not have a single ally that had serious influence at the political, economic or military-technical level.

Finally, we did not anticipate that this situation would push China and the US closer together to this extent. In 2020, Cold War II was declared to the Chinese, back under Trump. Recently, the Secretary of State was about to fly to China to present a plan for great cooperation or, in other words, a re-division of the world. As a matter of fact, it was declared at the 20th congress of the Chinese Communist Party and is even being implemented the idea that China, together with the U.S., is responsible for world order on our planet. Russia is not mentioned as a political player at all in this picture of the world. So now they will create a bipolar world, but without our participation.

And besides we should add that we did not expect such series of mistakes, wrong actions during this military operation. Though Putin says that everything is going according to plan. And indeed, when you look at what was being done even in the format of a special operation, you can see a clearly planned scenario. We could not assume that we would give the whole of Europe to the Americans, including the whole energy market - today they are taking the Europeans by the throat.

I could not assume that Finland and Sweden would apply to join NATO. This whole chain of events is going according to plan.