“History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”

 Yours truly served in Korea, no, not in the Korean War, but rather during Nam as I was lucky, I avoided Nam by serving as a 1st Lt in charge of the STRACOM facility in Seoul managing communications between South Korea and the US as needs warrant. Excellent assignment as the Koreans are an amazing people without question. With that in mind, the DMZ is an intense reality, something experienced first hand when visiting the Truce Village in '71 as the animosity, at the time, was primal to a fault.

Now, the notion of Putin imposing the same kind of endgame with Ukraine becomes a real possible if educated takes by people knowing far more about this situation than me becomes true.

To whit.

For the buffer zone to achieve the demilitarization of the Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned in July that military factors, not politics, will decide. “I see no reason to question what President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, and reaffirmed a few days ago,” Lavrov said. “Our goals remain the same. And they will be met. There is a solution to this problem. The military know this.”  

In case the distinction Lavrov was making between political negotiations and military operations, between soldiers and civilians, wasn’t clear enough, Maria Zakharova, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, made it the target of her irony last Thursday.  In her regular briefing  for reporters, Zakharova was asked to comment on US weapons supplies to the Ukraine.  “Something is wrong with this world if two women are discussing Stingers, MANPADS, SAMS, and HARM anti-radar missiles,” she answered the journalist. “As a reminder, scaling up its military supplies to Kiev and directly controlling Ukrainian forces, including the provision of real-time recon data, Washington has, in fact, become a party to the conflict in Ukraine…As far as their internal dealings regarding how much money they give to whom, what particular supplies are underway, or what items they are running out of or have more of, this is not our concern. Let them decide what kind of games they want to play among themselves.”

The Kherson manoeuvre, announced  by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Sergei Surovikin on November 9; the electric war campaign  which has followed*; and the cutoff of troops, arms and supplies by train from Kiev to the eastern front, first announced by the Russian Defense Ministry on November 24,  foreshadow how the military are preparing to establish the Ukrainian Demilitarized Zone (UDZ), its depth to the west of the Dnieper River, and the cities to be included in Russian-controlled territory.

This is a future to be established by the Russian General Staff, negotiated and signed by military officers of the NATO-controlled commands in Kiev and Lvov. The outcome is an end to  hostilities with an armistice that is not a peace treaty.

The model is the armistice of Panmunjom of July 27, 1953, which ended the Korean War. The terms of the armistice took two years to negotiate by US, Korean and Chinese officers. The Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ) which was the outcome was four kilometres in depth. The Ukrainian demilitarized zone (UDZ) will be up to one hundred kilometres in depth, depending on the range of the US and NATO missile and artillery weapons deployed on the Kiev side of the Dnieper.  On the ground inside the UDZ there may be no electricity, no people, nothing except for the means to monitor and enforce the terms of the armistice.

For avoidance of doubt, red on the map means Russia.

“History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” - Mark Twain