There’s no such thing as a “pretend” military victory. If propaganda settled wars, Ukraine would be safe, secure, and a member of NATO by now. From John Helmer at johnhelmer.net:
In war, the losing side has several options. Fighting to the death is one of them, capitulation and surrender are another. Depending on their rank, religion, honour, and offshore bank accounts, the losers may run away or commit suicide.
The Ukrainian regime, with the assistance of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) states and President Joseph Biden, have come up with an entirely new ploy. This is to escalate the combat, sacrificing all their troops and their equipment, and pretend this is winning — before they do a runner. Not even Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, in their last days in the Berlin bunker, thought of this. But then Miami, Malibu, or the Côte d’Azur weren’t haven options for them.
At the current attrition rate on the front line, the Ukrainian army will have lost another one hundred thousand men dead and about three hundred thousand wounded by Christmas; their reserves will have been committed to the fight and exhausted; the army will have neither resupplies of ammunition nor replacement NATO artillery and other equipment to fight on. In desperation, if a final fight to the death is their option, President Vladimir Zelensky and the Ukrainian general staff demand F-16 fighter-bomber aircraft. This means escalation to the use of tactical B-61 nuclear bombs. These can be stored in Germany, Czech Republic, Poland or Romania, and loaded on F-16 aircraft there.
How many F-16’s did the J6ers have?
“I think I am not exaggerating when I say that the campaign against Russia has been won in fourteen days.”
General Franz Halder, June, 1941, Chief of Staff, Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres