Only acceptable outcome for Putin: Ukraine's complete destruction

Russian President Vladimir Putin is hell-bent on bringing about the complete destruction of Ukraine either on the battlefield or at the negotiating table. To date, Mad Vlad has lost 766,690 soldiers dead or wounded — and now he is increasingly throwing North Korean troops into his meat grinder.

Reports of North Korean forces fighting in Russia are not new, but now there is confirmation. On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder acknowledged that “North Korean troops have entered combat in the Russian region of Kursk and already [are incurring] casualties.”

New video shows North Korean soldiers assaulting across an open field in Kursk as the Kremlin attempts to push Ukrainian forces out of the Russian oblast, parts of which Kyiv has controlled since August.

According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, “at least 30 North Korean soldiers were killed and wounded in weekend battles.” Ryder had briefed last month that as many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed to the Kursk Oblast as part of a Russian counteroffensive believed to number over 50,000 troops.

The introduction of North Korean ground forces — a third-party nation and unofficial member of the Axis of Evil — has put the conflict on a bad trajectory. This latest Russian escalation demonstrates Moscow’s unwavering determination to destroy Ukraine. Ditto the introduction of the Oreshnik hypersonic missile, “a cutting-edge intermediate-range ballistic missile” first used against civilian targets in Dnipro on Nov. 21.

Putin’s war against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has clearly become personal. He suffers from Ukraine Derangement Syndrome: A disdain for the Ukrainian people, their culture and their president has overcome his sense of logic and judgment.

He is essentially doubling down on Ukraine by recently abandoning key military installations in Syria, his gateway into North Africa, the Sahel, Sudan and the Middle East – all in his reckless pursuit of a victory in Ukraine. The use of North Korean troops is just his latest escalation to make up for the Kremlin’s military shortcomings.

Surrounded by yes-men, Putin is marching his now largely conscripted pick-up game of an army into oblivion. They are now forced to fight with 1950s Korean War-era weapons. And in waging this war, Putin is rapidly destroying Russia’s economy.

Failure, however, is not yet an option for Putin. Instead, he continues to play a game of nuclear bluffing, diplomatic obfuscation and repeated accusations that the West is pushing Russia to its "red lines.”

Essentially, Putin’s "red lines" comprise all actions, weapons or munitions uses that would prevent Russia from completely annihilating Ukraine. To get there, Putin continues to raise the specter of war with NATO. On Monday, Andrei Belousov, the Russian defense chief, said the Kremlin was preparing for “possible military conflict with NATO in Europe in the next decade.”

Putin’s continued threats of nuclear escalation play on an advantage given to him by the Biden administration when then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley asked Russian General Valery Gerasimov, “Under what conditions would you use nuclear weapons?”

Putin recently told a meeting of defense officials that “Russia was watching the U.S. development and potential deployment of short and medium-range missiles with concern,” and that “Russia would lift all of its own voluntary restrictions on the deployment of its own missiles if the U.S. went ahead and deployed such missiles.”

What restrictions is the Russian president talking about? He has used nearly every conventional munition in his arsenal. And he launches drones, ballistic missiles and ICBMs from deep within the Russian interior, intentionally targeting almost exclusively civilian population centers and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Ukraine has every right to fight back. In June, then-NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine had the right under international law to attack legitimate military targets in Russia to defend itself. "The 's "right to self-defense ... includes the right to hit legitimate military targets on the territory of the attacking party, the aggressor, in this case Russia."

U.S. forces in the Middle East routinely destroy enemy weapon systems “that present a clear and imminent threat to U.S. and coalition forces.” Why should Washington and Brussels not afford Ukraine that same right?

The Russian military has only one real advantage: mass, in infantry and artillery. The “deployment of short and medium-range missiles” could be used to interdict those forces before they arrive on the Ukrainian battlefields. Until then, the carnage will remain on the scale of World War I.

If left unchecked, Russian and North Korean forces will continue their incremental advance one ‘meat assault’ at a time.

The Kremlin is not in pursuit of peace or a ceasefire. Just listen to former-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who recently said out loud what Moscow is thinking, “Today, Ukraine faces a choice to be with Russia or to disappear from the world map altogether.”

Submit or face extinction — really one and the same choice.

Or consider the stance on Monday of Russia's representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenz: “No schemes to freeze the [Ukrainian] conflict are agreeable to Russia.” His diatribe was based on falsehoods and designed to play into Russian disinformation that NATO is at the heart of Putin’s war against Ukraine.

Even Russian propagandist and TV host Vladimir Solovyov has made Putin’s intentions clear: “We will kill all of you,” in response to President-elect Donald Trump's idea of deploying European peacekeepers to monitor a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.

Trump needs to put an end to Putin’s bluffing and grandstanding come Jan. 20, to demonstrate to him that he cannot win. Washington must stop playing by Putin’s rules and seize the initiative. Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity cannot be up for negotiation. Rewarding Russian aggression is not an acceptable course of action.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, can do just that. He must proceed deliberately and not be distracted by Russian double-speak, disinformation and misinformation. Rather, he must believe what he sees on the battlefield.

Trump can best strengthen Kellogg’s negotiating hand by ending the sanctuary afforded to Moscow on the battlefield by the Biden administration. That means letting Ukraine interdict Russian and North Korean troops, their weapons systems and ammunition storage facilities on the Russian side of the border.

It also means destroying drone and missile launch sites in Russia, along with their crews, and empowering the Ukrainians to push Russian forces in the close fight out of Ukraine.

Anything less and Putin will not come to the negotiating table, save to buy time and attempt to snooker Trump into a bad deal — into capitulating to Russia in Ukraine.

Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as an Army intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.

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