Declan Hayes
Gerasimov must finish the Ukrainian war on Russia's terms and then he must turn his attention to Finland, Declan Hayes writes.
Though Russian general Valery Gerasimov has some very hard and immediate choices to make, this is what he has been training for his entire life. First off, Gerasimov must finish the Ukrainian war on Russia's terms and then he must turn his attention to Finland, as well as to the NATO fifth columnists operating throughout Russia itself. Then there are also the pimple Baltic states, Poland and similar nuisances to deal with in the short, medium and longer terms.
Though Gerasimov knows all of this, he is keeping his opinions very much to himself. If the maxim to beware the silent man is to be personified, it takes flesh in the buttoned lips of Valery Gerasimov, author of the Gerasimov doctrine, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and commander of all Russian forces in Ukraine and contiguous countries. Not a man to be trifled with!
First cab off the rank is Ukraine. When the mud and the fog of war both clear, Gerasimov must hit Zelensky's rump Reich so hard, either on attack or counter-attack, that Ukraine's defeat will become as much a byword as Paulus' Stalingrad defeat or Napoleon's end at Waterloo. Those Ukrainians, who were at the heart of the rump Reich must pay the same price their Bandera pin-up boy paid on 15 October 1959. None of this must end well for them.
Far from being revenge, this is to send a blunt message to the Banderites that their actions against the culture, religion, language and even Christian names of Russians have consequences, none of which will be to the liking of the rump Reich's resident Nazis. Provoke the bear, get mauled by the claws, by the land, air and sea forces Gerasimov has at his disposal.
Then there is Russia's significant fifth columnists, who must be stamped underfoot like a discarded cigarette butt. The Russian authorities should take a leaf out of Uncle Sam's Iraqi play-book and issue a deck of cards with their most wanted, dead or alive, on them. These fivers, such as those complicit in the murder of Darina Dugina, must know that they and theirs will get no peace this side of the grave. Do the crime, do the time!
On the subject of MI6 agents working in Russia, consider this BBC news report which claims that the confession of Darya Trepova to complicity in Tatarsky's murder was "most likely recorded under duress." How can MI5's main propaganda outlet make that outlandish supposition in what is supposed to be a news, not an opinion, piece? Although MI5 are no strangers to kicking confessions out of both the innocent and the guilty, as Trepova brought the statue masking the bomb to the cafe, she is undoubtedly a person of interest to the inquiry into the murder of Tatarsky, a murder that is a source of amusement and not horror to MI5's other media outlets. Although MI5, like their Banderite stooges in Kiev, like to mock their victims, remember they are doing this at a time when the Wall St Journal's Evan Gershkovich, whose "parents fled the Soviet Union" but who "fell in love with Russia" is on trial, hopefully for his life, on espionage and other terror-linked charges in Russia. Although it is not my place, or that of the BBC, the Wall St Journal or any other CIA outlet to give the Russian judiciary advice on those or any other terrorist-related cases, Russia must send out a clear message that fifth columnists and all associated with them will pay their dues if caught.
Gerasimov must send out a similar message to all of Ukraine's Banderites, both those at the front but especially those einsatzgruppen who, lacking the mettle to face the Wagner Group on even ground, instead rough up old ladies and older priests in Kiev. Do the crime and you and yours will do the time.
The Wagner Group are noteworthy as they show that Gerasimov's orchestra now has a section for asymmetric warfare to complement their other musicians. Gerasimov must get other, similar strings to his bow in both the hot and cold wars. These further strings would include increased funding for Russia's sports and arts sectors and sponsorships to bring Chinese, Korean, Japanese and other ballet troupes to Russia to mix it with the masters. Business as usual there to show that, though NATO's Olympians might savour the shit-strewn boulevards of Paris, Russia has much better fare to offer her children and those of Africa and Asia.
And in the arms' field, where mutually beneficial technology and personnel transfers with Chinese, Koreans, and Iranians should be expedited so the curtain can come down that bit quicker on Zelensky's rump Reich and Gerasimov's gaze can shift northwards to stop Lake NATO and the direct threat it poses to St Petersburg becoming a reality.
Lake NATO is, of course, the Baltic Sea where the U.S. has encouraged the pimple states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to slap Russia around and for Finland and other countries with major cocaine problems to back them up and, in the process, not only to double the border Russia shares with NATO but to put Russia's key Kola peninsula in the front line. Forget that Finland's rash action totally vindicates Stalin's defensive moves into the Baltic statelets, eastern Poland and parts of Finland but this must not end well for Finland, whose coke-addled leaders have now sacrificed their own security to keep the bottom line of Uncle Sam's defence companies and their Nordstream terrorism buoyant.
If Finland's overlords want to play by Big Boys' Rules, fair enough. Perhaps the Russian navy can invite their Chinese, North Korean and Iranian counterparts to pay courtesy calls to Kaliningrad, Primorsk and Ust-Luga. And even to station observers and more there and in the Arctic as well. Freedom of navigation and all that. Who is to say?
If the maxim to speak quietly but to carry a big stick is to be personified, it is in the buttoned lips of Valery Gerasimov, Chief of Staff of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and Sergey Lavrov, Russia's urbane Foreign Minister, who has lately been flexing his diplomatic muscles in Beijing, where they have a saying to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys. If Ukraine is to be the chicken and the Nordic and Baltic countries are the chattering monkeys, who have no regard for their own welfare well, then, Gerasimov must decide which of them is metaphorically next for the chopping block.
There is another saying that, when the going gets tough, the Russians not only pull in the belt but they eat it as well. Though Gerasimov, Lavrov and their colleagues must make some hard and brutal decisions to stop Russia's days of fighting the Wehrmacht and La Grand Armée from ever returning, they can have hope. Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, has declared that NATO's objective in Ukraine is to obliterate all things Russian. Russia's leaders, in other words, recognise the existential and, indeed, pathological nature of the threat Russia faces, a threat that can be traced back even far beyond NATO's criminal attacks on Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia and a host of other countries too lengthy to adumbrate.
Though I am confident all of these latest Biden-inspired squabbles will end to Russia's advantage, the ball is very much in Gerasimov's court. When he moves, he must win not only game, set and match but craft this reincarnation of The Great Game so that the world can savour the hard and soft power diplomacy of Lavrov, the Bolshoi Ballet, Kamila Valieva and so many others rather than the pottage of jumped-up crooks Zelensky, Hunter Biden, Ursula von der Leyen and their ilk personify.