Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Finnish military officer: “Wishful thinking that Ukraine will win the war”

The war in Ukraine

Published 2 March 2023
– By Editorial Staff
Ukrainian soldiers conduct operations against pro-Russian separatists in 2014.
3 minute read

A high-ranking Finnish officer on the ground in Ukraine says that the image of the war spread by the Western media is based mainly on Ukrainian propaganda. The reality, he says, is that the Ukrainian military is substandard in many respects and that it is “wishful thinking” on the part of the West that it will be able to defeat Russia.

– The Russian forces have learned from their mistakes, the same cannot be said of the Ukrainian ones, the officer, who wishes to remain anonymous because of his rank, told Finnish state broadcaster Yle.

– The Ukrainians think they are skilled soldiers. But you don’t become a good soldier by lying scared in a trench for eight months. What you need is training, he continues.

The officer started training Ukrainian soldiers back in 2014 and says that the level of training of the soldiers leaves much to be desired – and he also does not believe that Ukraine will win the war – which is the leading narrative being pushed by politicians and media in the West.

– It’s nothing but wishful thinking, he says.

Among other things, the military leadership in Ukraine is described as “very poor”, as are the tactics and combat techniques used, which are often claimed to have been taken from computer games. The fact that it has been able to withstand the Russian offensive so well so far, the officer says, is not primarily due to its own skill – but because Russia has made major strategic mistakes.

– A Ukrainian offensive is always a broad-based movement. They are not able to open a breach in the front quickly.

Darkens losses

He notes that the war has evolved into a “positional war” with heavy artillery fire rather than rapid movement – and that while both Ukraine and Russia have suffered heavy losses, Ukraine has far fewer reserve troops to call on.

The Finnish officer is also convinced that Ukrainian casualties have been significantly higher than reported and that it has about as many dead and wounded as the Russian side – something that is not sustainable in the long run.

According to the man, the Ukrainian army’s success in retaking many of the areas previously occupied by Russia is due to “luck” and Russian mistakes, and he believes that Ukraine may soon be on the verge of losing the war altogether.

– It looks like Russia has the initiative. You could almost say that Ukraine is losing the war if nothing decisive happens soon.

He also does not believe that Ukraine is capable of conquering the Crimean Peninsula and probably not even Donbass.

If Kiev manages to get to the front line that existed when the war began, it would be averting victory… Russia is not losing this war because it is a superpower with nuclear weapons. If Ukraine launches a major offensive against Crimea, Russia is likely to resort to strategic nuclear weapons.

Instead, his guess is that the war will end with Ukraine being forced to cede territory to Russia.

That would not be the end of Ukraine’s independence, but the border would be moved. That would have to be accepted, just as we did in Finland after the Winter War.

“The media listens kindly to the Ukrainian propaganda”

Regarding the media coverage of the war, the officer points out that the Western population is only exposed to Ukrainian narratives and says that “the media listens kindly to the Ukrainian propaganda”.

Prime Minister Marin says the war will end when Russia withdraws from Ukraine, but that will not happen, he notes, adding that “the Ukrainians have not managed to breach the Russian defensive positions anywhere.

If Ukraine is to win the war, he continues, the most important thing is that its soldiers receive better training – and preferably Finnish training, the officer says.

The Finnish army has the best training in the world in the skills of fighting Russia. We’ve been training for a hundred years, and we’ve fought twice… No one else has the breadth of forest and terrain knowledge that we have in Finland. And that is what should be taught.

He believes that training of this type would not cost much money and that many Finns would be happy to volunteer.

It hurts to see when poorly trained soldiers are sent to the front, and when they return in a coffin, and that’s why I’m still here in Ukraine – to provide better training.

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Hungary wants EU sanctions on Ukrainian forced conscription officers

The war in Ukraine

Published today 16:18
– By Editorial Staff
Hungarian Foreign Minister demands that those responsible must be held accountable for the murder and brutal assault of people who refused to go to war.
1 minute read

Following the Council of Europe report, the brutality surrounding forced recruitment patrols in Ukraine must be covered by EU human rights sanctions. This is the view of Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.

Referring to the Council of Europe report titled Memorandum on human rights elements for peace in Ukraine, dated July 8, 2025 and signed by the EU Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, Szijjártó points out that conscription in Ukraine involves murder, torture, brutal assault and brutal treatment.

— It is a fact that people are dying in Ukraine because of the brutality of the conscription officers, because they don’t want to go to war.

— Where are the NGOs, where are the Soros organizations, where are the so-called independent journalists, where are the human rights organizations, why do they not speak out and say that this manhunt on the streets of Ukraine is unacceptable? asks Péter Szijjártó.

Szijjártó emphasizes that they view it as unacceptable and “shocking” that European politicians remain indifferent to the brutality and stresses that they demand the responsible recruiters be placed on the EU’s human rights sanctions list.

— This is a bare minimum that the EU must do in this issue, he emphasizes.

Trump urges Zelensky to attack Moscow

The war in Ukraine

Published today 6:55
– By Editorial Staff
2 minute read

Donald Trump has secretly urged Ukraine to carry out attacks against the Russian major cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg – as a strategy to force Russia to the negotiating table, according to the Financial Times.

The conversation reportedly took place on July 4 between American and Ukrainian representatives, where Trump posed direct questions to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky:

– Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow? . . . Can you hit St Petersburg too?

According to the newspaper’s sources, the plan is to make Russia “feel pain” in order to pressure a settlement. Trump has previously expressed frustration over the war’s duration and said:

– I’m disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago.

At the same time, it is reported that Zelensky has received a list of long-range weapons that Trump wants to deliver through intermediaries – to circumvent Congress’s ban on direct military aid.

Escalation in the war

The revelations come at a sensitive time. The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that Russia could strike against the West if its weapons are used against Russian territory.

President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Russia has the right to “use our weapons against military facilities in countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities”.

In November 2024, Russia tightened its nuclear doctrine, which now allows nuclear response if Russia is attacked with conventional weapons by “non-nuclear states supported by nuclear powers”.

So far, Ukraine has primarily used domestically produced long-range drones in its attacks inside Russia. Neither the White House nor the Ukrainian government has commented on the revelation.

North Korea declares “full support” for Russia

The war in Ukraine

Published 14 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during their meeting in Wonsan, North Korea.
1 minute read

North Korea is providing its “unconditional support” to Russia in the war against Ukraine. This was declared during a meeting between Kim Jong-Un and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Wonsan on Saturday, according to North Korean state media.

Kim Jong-Un informed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the country stands ready to provide strong assistance in the conflict against Ukraine during a meeting that took place on Saturday in the coastal town of Wonsan on North Korea’s east coast, a location that the country has recently attempted to market as a tourist destination.

According to the North Korean news agency KCNA, Kim Jong-Un told Lavrov that North Koreans have “expressed full sympathy and support for all the measures taken by the Russian government to remove the root cause of the Ukrainian conflict”.

The North Korean leader is also said to have expressed his “firm conviction that the Russian army and people” will triumph and “achieve the sacred cause of defending the country’s dignity and fundamental interests”, KCNA reports.

Before the meeting with Kim Jong-Un, Lavrov met with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Choe Son-Hui, earlier in the day.

Deepened military cooperation

Lavrov’s visit to North Korea marks increasingly extensive military and political ties between the two countries, which have accelerated in connection with the war in Ukraine.

Pyongyang has previously sent thousands of soldiers to the Russian border region of Kursk to participate in fighting against Ukrainian forces that occupied parts of the area.

War hawk: Trump will send “record amounts of weapons” to Ukraine

The war in Ukraine

Published 14 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
War hawk Lindsey Graham with Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo to the right in a meeting in Helsinki, Finland in August last year.
2 minute read

The US will send more weapons than ever to Ukraine. These are the tones being heard around the Trump administration as NATO chief Mark Rutte now visits Washington.

A large part of Trump’s voter base is generally considered to be voters who voted for him in hopes that he would reduce US involvement in foreign wars, partly because he promised during the campaign that he would end the war in 24 hours. However, these promises seem to be becoming increasingly distant for the American president.

On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is scheduled to meet Trump in Washington, and Rutte can be pleased that more weapons than ever are now heading to the war in Ukraine. This according to information from, among others, the neoconservative war hawk Lindsey Graham, Republican senator and close ally of the Trump administration.

In the coming days, you’ll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves, says Graham on CBS’s program “Face the Nation”.

European countries foot the bill

A central part of the escalation is that NATO countries, including Sweden, have pledged to increase their weapons purchases, which in practice are largely procured from the American military-industrial complex.

Graham believes that the US escalation of weapons deliveries to the war in Ukraine is part of a “massive effort” to force Russian President Vladimir Putin into peace negotiations. It should be added that Russia has in many different contexts over a long time emphasized that they have been open to negotiations as well as being open about their peace conditions, which primarily revolve around guarantees of Ukraine’s neutrality.

Trump has signaled that he will make a “major statement” about Russia during the day.

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