Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Mon Jul 15, 2024 11:34 am

Miracle weapons, miracle generals
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/15/2024

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If there is one thing that has been perfectly proven in this war, it is that there is no such thing as a so-called wunderwaffe , a miracle weapon capable, by its mere presence, of changing the dynamics of the front. Throughout the conflict, and depending on the moment, the Javelin anti-tank systems, the Bayraktar drones, the HIMARS, Storm Shadow, Leopard and Abrams tanks, the still desired Taurus missiles and, more recently, the American F16 fighters have all had the status of a desired weapon that will modify the course of events. It is for these that Ukraine is now preparing, with the process of delivery of the first examples already announced to be underway. At every moment of the war, the announcement of the arrival at the front of this Western equipment has been accompanied by a wave of exalted optimism that has ultimately led to a certain disappointment even in cases where the weapons have fulfilled exactly the purpose for which they were acquired. The propaganda game, the need to exaggerate enemy defeats and own victories and to anticipate future successes have created a propaganda environment in which it is virtually impossible to meet expectations created in an absolutely artificial way.

War is a game of “mathematics,” Mikhail Podolyak, the prolific adviser to the President’s Office, has repeatedly said. In his last interview, he accused the Russian population of not being able to understand reality and portrayed a practically illiterate people who “have no literary tradition.” The creation of a narrative of a struggle between good and evil, and above all, between modern, advanced and cosmopolitan Ukraine and an archaic, outdated and useless Russia, has been the focus of Bankova’s speech, capable of creating a completely distorted image of both herself and her enemy. Something similar has occurred in the case of the creation of expectations around the latest counteroffensive and the effect that Western weapons were going to have on the front. War is a question of resources and the calculation of their use, but a whole series of factors come into play that are not limited to quantifying, as Ukraine seems to do, the total funding available for weapons compared to the Russian military budget.

This was evident last summer, when the myth of the invincibility of the Leopard tanks and the false hope that achieving a virtual equalisation of the Russian military budget would be enough to break through the Zaporozhye front, threaten Crimea and put Russia between a rock and a hard place, having to negotiate in a position of weakness and accept without complaint Ukraine's demands to end the war by signing its defeat, fell apart at the same time. Throughout that summer, kyiv also boasted of having surpassed the Russian artillery potential, one of the elements that was to tip the balance of the contest in favour of Moscow, much more powerful than Kiev in this respect. Nor was this calculation definitive and the greater number of artillery shots brought Ukraine few prizes on the battlefield: Rabotino, now lost again; Klescheevka, destroyed and unable to be used as a springboard to recover Artyomovsk; and Urozhainoe, in the centre of which the Russian tricolour was hoisted again last Saturday.

The calculations made, as well as the expectations created, must take into account more than just the market value of the material delivered, the power expected of it or the exaggerated capabilities attributed to the soldiers who will use it. Just as Russia did in February 2022, Ukraine made the mistake of overestimating the capabilities that its brigades were magically going to acquire with the acquisition of Western material and of underestimating Russian defensive and adaptation capabilities. The mistake continues to be made, as is evident in the Ukrainian discourse, which repeatedly blames the lack of significant successes in the ground war since the front was broken in September 2022 on the shortage of Western material or the slowness of its delivery. Part of the calculation of the real resources available to a State is the condition in which the material is found, the ability to insert the different models into a doctrine accustomed to other types of weapons or the preparation of the troops for the use of these weapons, coming from so many countries that the equipment becomes a showcase of weapons worthy of an international exhibition. To this must be added the ability of the opponent to foresee where the attacks will take place, its preparation for an offensive telegraphed in advance for months and the possibility that even that country presented as stuck in the past and incapable of creating anything new, may surprise by quickly adapting to the most novel aspect of this war: the use of drones.

War is much more complex than the sum of the value of the resources available to each side. Yet that is the calculation that Ukraine continues to make, arguing that the Western side, of which it considers itself a full member rather than a proxy force, has far more resources than the Russian side, which the Russian Federation has to supply itself with from its industry, with only the possibility of turning to the markets of countries such as China, Iran or the People's Republic of Korea to acquire - not receive as a subsidy - weapons or, above all, ammunition. Curiously, when calculating the superiority of the Western side, Ukraine does not add to the Russian resources those of China, despite the growing accusations of arms supply that are made against Beijing, without any evidence.

The official line is that all the problems are limited to a lack of weapons or a slow delivery. “Outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers, struggling to hold the front in the brutal, months-long Russian siege of Chasiv Yar, are increasingly concerned about their army’s ability to protect its rear. If the main supply lines from the west are cut off and troops from the south are overrun, they risk being suffocated,” The Kyiv Independent recently wrote , blaming the lack of supplies for a situation that is repeating the dynamics of a year ago in Artyomovsk, when Ukraine received huge amounts of weapons. The reality of war is that the opponent is also involved and its systematic and extended actions end up undermining the defensive capabilities of a garrison which, under pressure, is forced to retreat, with the risk of being besieged by an opponent who does not suffer from these logistical problems.

Although few and far between, and usually covered up by announcements of new arms deliveries or complaints about their slowness, there are also complaints that are far from the official slogans, which limit the issue of war to the quantity of Western weapons received. Anna Gvozdiar, Minister of Strategic Industries, for example, recently complained about the lack of adaptation of Western weapons. To the lack of precision of the HIMARS in certain cases she added the unwillingness of Western manufacturers to take measures to solve the problems, among which, above all, Russia's increasing ease of disabling or reducing the effect of the weapons by means of electronic warfare systems stands out. However, even these kinds of arguments end up returning to the original slogan: the West sends the weapons too late, when their introduction is no longer optimal and Russia has prepared for them.

“Despite billions of dollars in additional arms and security aid that NATO announced this week, allied officials said Ukraine would not be ready to launch a dramatic counteroffensive or retake large swaths of territory from Russia until next year. Donations of missiles, combat vehicles, ammunition and air defenses from the United States and European countries will take weeks, if not months, to reach the front,” laments The New York Times , which states that “NATO’s pledges to Ukraine fall short of a counteroffensive this year.” Ukraine has been receiving weapons from the United States for several months and has never stopped receiving donations from European countries. To these weapons must be added those that, according to Ukrainian sources themselves, Kiev could not use in the 2023 counteroffensive because the territorial advance in which they would have been used did not occur. The shortage of weapons sounds like an excuse considering the quantities of weapons that Ukraine has received, the levels of funding and the exaltation of its capabilities. Add to this the constant reference to Russia's inability to fight, its lack of tanks, shortage of artillery and lack of missiles, and the question becomes why kyiv remains on the defensive, unable to regain lost territory. The answer, of course, is that war is more than a calculation of available weapons.

In this context, many are clinging to the second argument, that the weapons should be sent not at a time when it would be a surprise for Russia, but when that window of opportunity has already passed. The delay and the Russian ability to prepare for an announced arrival is the fear that is currently beginning to emerge in relation to the F16s. Despite having waited for their arrival for months, at the moment when their entry into the battle is approaching, problems have appeared. Ukraine cannot find international crews to complete its ranks and complains about the tiny number of fighters it is going to receive. “The problem with the F16s lies in the quantity and the dates. Let's be honest. Russia uses 300 planes against Ukraine every day. We are going to receive between 10 and 20. Even if it is 50, it is nothing. We are defending ourselves, we need 128; that is a fleet,” complained Zelensky at an event held at the Ronald Reagan library. No one has asked Volodymyr Zelensky how kyiv would use the material if it is still looking for personnel to handle it.

Beyond the number of fighters and pilots available, Ukraine also needs the infrastructure to use and maintain Western fighters. In anticipation of their arrival, Russia has been carrying out a wide-ranging campaign of missile attacks against military bases and airfields, where it has achieved some success in destroying the most modern aircraft available to the Ukrainian air force. The problem is so serious that General Krivonos, an ally of Petro Poroshenko, has proposed opening the highways for the use of F16s.

“As far as I can tell, the transfer of these aircraft to Ukraine will unfortunately not change anything drastically. There will be no magic attacks or counter-offensives. Forget about it. Moreover, the infrastructure for them is not yet ready, and the attitude towards training pilots by the leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is more than questionable. It seems that our partners need this, not us,” said MP Mariana Bezuglaya in a highly critical tone, ready to take any criticism to the extreme in order to achieve her goals, in this case, changes in the military leadership. Becoming the voice of hysteria, the MP elected from the president’s party earned a headline in The Times with her statements in which she claimed that Ukraine would not win the war if it continued to be led by “Soviet commanders.” It has always been clear that the ever-widening campaign was directed against Oleksandr Syrsky, but now Bezuglaya makes it even more obvious by accusing the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine of agreeing to “signing a ceasefire and all sorts of variants of the question of surrender and the imposition of peace.” According to the MP’s sources , Syrsky would not be confident in Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russia on the front, and would therefore welcome seeking a compromise agreement. In the face of self-serving propaganda from sectors seeking an even tougher war, Syrsky has stood out for the tactic of fighting not only to the end, but even when continuing to do so no longer makes any sense. Still, sections of the Ukrainian ruling class want not only more weapons and more ammunition, but also generals willing to be even tougher. From miracle weapons, a part of the Ukrainian hawks have moved on to miracle generals.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/15/armas ... ilagrosos/

Google Translator

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From cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of July 14, 2024) Main points:

The West group defeated eight enemy brigades in one day, losing up to 520 troops and an ammunition depot;

— The Center group repelled six counterattacks by enemy assault units, with the Ukrainian Armed Forces losing up to 300 troops in one day;

— The Dnepr group destroyed an Israeli-made RADA RPS-42 aerial reconnaissance radar and four field ammunition depots;

— The North group defeated eight Ukrainian brigades, with the enemy losing up to 150 troops in one day;

— Air defense systems shot down 33 UAVs and 10 HIMARS rockets in one day;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 450 troops, two armored personnel carriers, and six ammunition depots in one day in the South group zone.

As a result of successful operations, units of the "East" force group captured the settlement of Urozhainoe of the Donetsk People's Republic and are clearing and demining it.

Manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized, 58th Motorized Infantry, 1st Tank Brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the 128th Territorial Defense Brigade were defeated in the areas of the settlements of Vodyanoe, Prechistovka, Velyka Novosyolka and Makarovka of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Two counterattacks by assault units of the 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade were repelled.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 155 servicemen, four vehicles, a 155-mm M777 howitzer made in the USA, five 155-mm FH-70 howitzers made in the UK, and a 152-mm D-20 gun .

▫️ Units of the Dnipro group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 65th Mechanized, 128th Mountain Assault Brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 35th Marine Brigade and the 23rd National Guard Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Tokarevka in the Kherson region, Novokamenka in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Nesteryanka, Pyatikhatki, and north of Rabotino in the Zaporizhia region.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 70 servicemen, four vehicles, 155-mm howitzers M777 made in the USA and M198 made in the USA, and a 152-mm gun D-20 .

In addition, the following were destroyed in 24 hours: the Plastun electronic intelligence station , the Israeli-made RADA RPS-42 air reconnaissance radar station and four field ammunition depots .

▫️Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups destroyed a railway train with personnel and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at an unloading station, combat positions of the IRIS-T anti-aircraft missile system made in Germany and a division of the Pechora anti-aircraft missile system of the 160th anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

As a result of the strikes, the enemy lost over 140 servicemen, five armored combat vehicles, 15 cars, a launcher of the IRIS-T anti-aircraft missile system made in Germany, three launchers of the S-125 Pechora SAM system, a TRML-4D multifunctional radar made in Germany and a target illumination and guidance radar station, and also destroyed personnel and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 129 districts .

Air defense systems shot down 33 unmanned aerial vehicles and ten US-made HIMARS multiple launch rockets.

▫️ In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed : 627 aircraft, 277 helicopters, 27,586 unmanned aerial vehicles, 551 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,578 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,377 multiple launch rocket systems, 11,885 field artillery pieces and mortars, 23,686 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Biden’s Reelection Bid Calls for More Death in Ukraine While the IMF Strangles the Economy
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 13, 2024
Dmitri Kovalevich

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“Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,” Biden said, referring to Zelenskiy at the NATO Summit in Washington D.C..

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban paid a surprise visit to Kiev in early July, bringing with him ideas for bringing an end to the war in Ukraine to an end. The main proposal he voiced was for a ceasefire between the two warring sides, with time limits in which negotiations would take place.

Several days on July 5, Orban traveled to Moscow for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He told a subsequent press conference of the two leaders that achieving peace in Ukraine is his top priority. Hungary holds the rotating presidency of the European Union for the second half of 2024. “Europe badly needs peace” is the message Orban delivered in Kiev and in Moscow.

Top officials of the European Union apparently don’t agree with Orban. The EU issued a terse, four-paragraph statement on July 7 calling the conflict in Ukraine “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine” and declaring that “Prime Minister Orbán had no mandate from the EU Council to visit Moscow.”

No to peace talks, says Kiev

For reasons undisclosed, the Hungarian government canceled a planned meeting on July 8 between Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock. On that day, Orban landed in Beijing on what he termed ‘peace mission 3.0’. He wrote from Beijing on Twitter/X: “China is a key power in creating the conditions for peace in the Russia-Ukraine war. This is why I came to meet with President Xi in Beijing, just two months after his official visit to Budapest.”

Kiev immediately rejected Orban’s negotiation proposals. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky did not directly address them during a joint press conference in Kiev on July 2. But Zelensky’s foreign policy adviser Ihor Zhovkva said later in televised remarks, “We say that Ukraine really wants peace for itself, this is logical… For this, we have a tool, the peace summit.” The Ukraine regime’s ‘peace summit’ approach is also termed by its advocates as building a global coalition to help Ukraine defeat Russia.

The first ‘Summit on Peace in Ukraine’ took place in Switzerland on June 15 and 16, gathering the Ukraine government, the governments of the NATO military alliance, and a scattering of governments of other countries. The Russian government was not invited to attend, and for this reason, many of the large governments of the world did not attend, including China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.

Bloomberg News reported on July 3 that Zelensky refutes the term ‘deadlock’ to describe the current state of the conflict in Ukraine, and he says the dire manpower situation for Kyiv’s forces is better compared to months ago. He says that launching a new counteroffensive is just a matter of adequately arming its armed forces. “We do have the will… [but] the tools haven’t arrived yet.”

Only weeks earlier, both Zelensky as well as his advisor Mykhailo Podolyak were continuing to argue the impossible idea that the road to peace in Ukraine runs through the military defeat of Russia. And so the Zelensky-led government in Kiev is today preparing to cause thousands and thousands more lives of Ukrainian soldiers as the price for maintaining Western countries’ confidence and support. This support includes all-important access to loans from foreign governments and financial institutions to state, financial, and commercial interests in Ukraine.

Boryslav Bereza, a former member of the Verkhova Rada (Ukraine legislature) and former spokesman for the ‘Right Sector’ far-right party and paramilitary force, drew stark attention on July 4 to Ukraine’s military situation. As reported by the Ukrainian political journal Politnavigator, Bereza spoke on his video podcast that day of the idea of a new military ‘counteroffensive’ by Ukraine’s armed forces being talked up in recent weeks by Zelensky.

“This is an interesting situation. Yes, we can acquire a lot of weapons, but we need people to fight with these weapons. Talking about a ‘counteroffensive’, it seems to me, is a little bravado, especially today when we cannot stabilize the front and we cannot stop the creeping offensive by the other side. Why? Well, I want to remind you, that Zelensky not so long ago actually destroyed the military mobilization then happening, firing all the military leaders [in February 2024]. We have not forgotten this. He didn’t listen to Zaluzhnyi [commander of Ukraine’s army at the time] and didn’t order a new military mobilization quickly enough. That is why we do not have troops ready to fight today and why military mobilization is only now taking place. The new recruits will be studying for many more months.

“After hearing all this, you will now understand why there can be no serious talk of a ‘counteroffensive’,” Bereza told his audience.

NATO warfare as political survival

For some Western politicians, a suicidal attempt at a new counteroffensive by the Ukrainian Armed Forces is something of a matter of their political survival. In early July, the well-known Russian pranksters ‘Vovan’ and ‘Lexus’ pranked Hillary Clinton by telephone, pretending to be Zelensky’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko. (The ten-minute exchange is here on YouTube.)

Clinton told the pair [believing she was speaking to Poroshenko] that a new offensive by Ukraine is needed to assist the re-election bid of Joseph Biden. “Petro, let’s take one step at a time. Let’s get this material [armaments] to your soldiers, let’s try to get some of the frozen Russian assets, and let’s work on NATO membership for you. If the worst happens, if Trump were to win, we will all have to figure out what to do. But I don’t think that will happen, I really don’t think that will happen.”

The call ended with both laughing when the prankster signed off with, “Let’s hope we will see a new Gaddafi”, referring to the NATO military intervention in Libya in 2011 which ended in the violent overthrow of the Libyan government and cold-blooded murder of its president.

Clinton added, “You have to move forward as best you can, not only to hold the line but also to go on the offensive. And then many in our country will do everything possible to re-elect President Biden.” The call was predicated on the worn claims by Clinton and her Democratic Party machine that Donald Trump is friendly to Russia and does not support continuing the NATO war in Ukraine.

In an earlier call by the same pranksters in late June, now-former British Foreign Secretary David Cameron also spoke of the need for a new offensive by the Ukrainian armed forces. He, too, spoke of the context of the U.S. election. “I think the key point is that if we can make sure that by November Ukraine is on the front lines and Putin backs down, then he [Trump] will want to support the winning side if I can put it that way. That’s what we have to guarantee. And that’s why this summer is so important,” Cameron said.

Neither of the two leaders expressed the slightest moral concern about the ongoing losses of Ukrainian lives, let alone Russian lives, caused by their war. We see once again that Ukrainian soldiers, most of whom have been forcibly conscripted, are being condemned to die from missiles, artillery, and powerful glide bombs in order to favor the electoral chances of a U.S. presidential candidate.

NATO summit to take place at the center of power

NATO’s 75th-anniversary summit will be held in Washington, DC from July 9 to 11. The central topic of the agenda will be the war in Ukraine. And related to that will be the subject of NATO membership for Ukraine.

Zelensky and his governing regime are desperate to hear something, anything, positive about a future NATO membership. But the decision has already been made by NATO not to do so. A report on July 2 in the British daily Telegraph begins with: “Ukraine will be told it is currently too corrupt to join NATO, in a major blow to Volodymyr Zelensky. The alliance will request ‘additional steps’ from Kyiv before membership talks progress, a senior official in the U.S. State Department has said. The position will be set out in writing in the NATO communique to be signed at the alliance’s annual summit beginning on July 9.” (see note#1 below)

The Telegraph adds, “NATO allies still disagree over whether they should upgrade the statement they made last year at their summit in Vilnius, Lithuania to make their offer to Kyiv ‘irreversible’.”

Zelensky will be in attendance at the summit in Washington and will likely be given the promise of a “well-lit bridge” to NATO membership (a term favored by the U.S. government, according to The Telegraph.

More IMF loans to Ukraine

An additional reason for Zelensky’s attendance in Washington is to keep the flow of IMF funding to his government. In early July, Kiev received another tranche of loans of US$2.2bn from the IMF. This is the fifth installment of a four-year loan by the IMF totaling US$15.6bn. The previous lending was made at two percent interest; this new installment is a harsh seven percent. Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance reported on June 19, “Even IMF loans, which are now provided at a really high rate of about seven percent (because they are tied to a basket of interest rates of the world’s key central banks), are preferential for us since the market rate for us with our credit rating would now be up to 20%. And it is still an ongoing question whether they would lend to us on market terms in conditions of war.”

In late June, news of an updated memorandum with the IMF became widespread in Ukraine. In order for the government and finance ministry to repay their loans, the last penny will be squeezed from ordinary Ukrainians. For example, as a condition for more loans, Ukraine has pledged to raise tariffs to consumers for natural gas (winter heating), electricity, and water. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is expected to approve a roadmap “for gradual liberalization of the gas and electricity markets”.

The chairman of the Union of Consumers of Utility Services, Oleh Popenko, recently warned against the plan of the Verkhovna Rada to raise the tariffs for natural gas this fall. [As with all former Soviet republics, multi-dwelling buildings in Ukrainian cities are heated by hot water tanks (boilers) using natural gas, while private homes are typically heated by electric, how water boilers.] Popenko warns that as a result, the country will face a crisis of payment defaults. “If we raise tariffs for the population to the proposed, high figures, a real collapse awaits us. Not everyone will be able to pay the higher payments and there is no money in the budget to raise subsidies [for the poorest people]. Therefore, the utility industries, which are already going through bad times, may simply collapse.”

Electricity tariffs have already been sharply raised, nearly doubling on June 1. This will not be the last increase, as spelled out in the new IMF memorandum.

Ukrainian economist Oleksiy Kushch also notes that the IMF is demanding that all of Ukraine’s financial information be handed over to it. “The tightening of control is noticeable. Let’s just look at the requirement of the National Bank of Ukraine to strengthen reporting to the IMF. Information on import-export transactions, the registrations of bank card holders, and other sensitive information will be required to be shared. All this suggests an element of distrust in Ukrainian officials on the part of the IMF. This all leads to tighter control.”

In essence, the IMF is becoming the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine and is able to regulate Ukraine’s financial system remotely.

The IMF is demanding an even tougher tax regime and higher tax collections. There is a growing hole in Ukraine’s budget due to lower tax collections caused by military conscription. As well, more and more businesses are closing, while male taxpayers facing possible conscription are quitting their jobs and joining the shadow labor market to avoid being sent to the front lines. (Employers in Ukraine are obliged to report to military officials the men in their employ who are of the age of military registration (18) and conscription (25).

The new agreement with the IMF also recommends cuts in government spending, which under the current governing regime inevitably means cutting social benefits to the poor and to internally displaced persons while freezing the amount of payments to the disabled (who many defenders of the government complain are becoming ‘too numerous’).

As part of the privatizations of an industry which Kiev is required by the IMF to carry out, Ukrainian authorities are privatizing companies that manufacture and fit prosthetics. While profitable natural gas fields or metallurgical plants have been prized for privatizations, now prosthetics companies are joining them. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of soldiers are daily losing limbs on battlefields. During wartime, many factories are sold for a fraction of their value as their assets fall in value, but privatized or contracted companies making prosthetics will see the value and prices of their products rise sharply.

Ukrainian journalist and writer Miroslava Berdnik comments, “Kharkiv Prosthetic Plant and Lviv Prosthetic Plant have already been declared bankrupt and been closed down; the employees have been dismissed. The provision of prosthetics is itself being ‘conscripted’ as many of the employees involved in making and fitting them are receiving military enlistment notices. Workers in the industry are writing in social media that factories producing less-expensive prosthetics in Ukraine and clinics fitting them are being replaced by foreign-owned and very expensive, alternative services.”

Odessa anarchist Vyacheslav Azarov notes that Ukraine’s fulfillment of obligations to the IMF is obliterating the country’s independence; the country is now ruled by external, financial interests. “Equally important is that our authorities are meeting obligations to a foreign financial power by increasing the taxation. Formally, it turns out that we elected this power [in 2019, and before that in 2014] to worsen our lives at the behest of foreign capital. I now find it difficult to understand what is left of Ukraine ‘independence’ when a state created by elections [since the coup in 2014] acts to harm its electorate through financial agreements with external forces.”

In addition, a moratorium on interest payments on Ukrainian bonds, worth USD20 billion, expires in August and Ukraine will either have to pay up, negotiate a new moratorium, or default. Western masters will not allow a default, so they will recommend finding more government revenue. Ukrainian authorities do not know any other way to do this but to increase taxes and fines on ordinary citizens.

One of the options to boost the budget in order to repay the loans could be financial penalties for conscription evaders. Failure to pay fines will henceforth result in confiscation of property. As of July 16, all Ukrainian men (and women with a medical education) will be considered evaders and criminals if they do not serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They will be fined the equivalent of 600 USD, a huge amount in today’s Ukraine, even if they have not received a military enlistment notice or have been living abroad for many years.

Ukrainian lawyer Larisa Kis wrote on Telegram on July 2 that the $600 fines can be issued an infinite number of times, even every day. When accumulated fines reach 160,000 hryvnias (US$4,000), all property and housing can be taken away from the debtor. Here gain is the choice facing Ukrainians: either die at the military front in a losing war to help Joe Biden’s re-election chances, or lose one’s home, property, and job if the choice is to evade conscription and war.

In the old days, highway robbers stopped passers-by with the command, ‘Your money or your life!’ The leadership of Ukraine, the IMF, the U.S. government, and the NATO military alliance are today acting as 21st-century highway robbers.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/07/ ... e-economy/

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NATO, like Biden, is a senile danger to world peace

July 13, 2024

Western imperialism has reached another degenerative existential crisis and the same nefarious process of regeneration through world war has resumed. This could all go catastrophic.

How fitting that a doddering, senile American president should officiate at the NATO summit this week. At 81 years old, Joe Biden is older than the transatlantic military alliance founded 75 years ago in 1949.

The 75th-anniversary gathering in Washington DC was meant to extol the NATO bloc as a guarantor of security and peace.

However, all the cloying, ridiculous hype and fanfare amplified by the Western corporate media could not hide the fact that the American-led military organization has emerged as the biggest threat to world peace.

The disconnect with reality was scathingly summed up by our columnist Martin Jay who surveyed the “lies, double-think and duplicity” spouted by Biden and other leaders of the 32-nation bloc.

Declaring NATO to be a champion of democracy, human rights and international law is an abomination. The organization has evolved as an instrument of U.S. hegemonic imperialist violence ever since its inception. It was never about purported defense, but rather as a seemingly plausible arm of Western warmongering against the Soviet Union and the rest of the planet to serve Western capitalist global domination. The Cold War was always a propaganda construct to give the blatant warmongering a pretense of noble purpose.

To be sure, the docile Western news media, academia and think-tanks wrap up the absurd deception into a plausible narrative. That illustrates the power of propaganda. But the chasm with brutal reality has made the narrative untenable and prone to outright denigration.

After more than three decades since the end of the Soviet Union and the supposed end of the Cold War, the U.S.-led NATO bloc has expanded both in member nations and also in flagrant belligerence. The so-called Cold War never ended. That’s because the need and accompanying pretexts for Western imperialist violence and lawless aggression were always present.

And so at the redundant age of 75 years of aggression, the NATO alliance is expressing more unhinged belligerence than ever before towards Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and any other nation that is deemed to stand in the way of U.S.-led global domination.

This week NATO issued a joint statement that reads like a shocking manifesto of war-making laced with Orwellian bombastic language of self-virtue.

American professor of international law Francis Boyle described the real agenda of NATO’s declaration as “preparing for war against Russia in the immediate future”.

Another of our columnists Ron Ridenour said the NATO document was nothing but a “maniacal scream for world war”.

This was in the same week that the United States announced plans to deploy cruise missiles to Germany capable of striking Moscow and other Russian cities.

It was also the same week that the NATO-backed NeoNazi regime in Ukraine launched a false-flag operation by hitting a children’s hospital in Kiev with an air strike to blame the atrocity on Russia. Our columnist Stephen Karganovic referred to the provocation as “perfect timing” for the NATO summit to commit more money, weapons and training to the Ukrainian regime for prolonging the proxy war against Russia.

See also this previous column by Finian Cunningham which looks at the pattern of false-flag atrocities committed by the Kiev regime to maximize publicity for promoting the NATO war racket. This odious NeoNazi regime is capable of committing the worst crimes against civilians, whether Ukrainian or Russian, just to keep the murderous laundromat in business.

The U.S. and NATO inversion of reality here is stupendous. It’s almost wondrous to behold from the viewpoint of how propaganda and insane war fever operate.

The United States and its Western vassals have reached a historical endpoint. Western economic power is decrepit from decades of corruption, abuse, debt and wanton militarism. The U.S. empire and its dollar crutch are teetering on collapse. In this moment of history of facing existential demise, the United States and its NATO allies are resorting to the desperate measure of inciting war against Russia, China, Iran and indeed the rest of the world who are willing to resist the writ of unipolar Western diktat.

NATO was born in the ashes of the Second World War. That war like the First World War only 21 years before was born out of Western imperialist degeneration and attempts at regeneration through destruction and mayhem. NATO is the heir to the Western imperialist tradition as Nazi Germany was before, as well as British, French and other European fascist powers.

Western imperialism has reached another degenerative existential crisis and the same nefarious process of regeneration through world war has resumed.

This could all go catastrophic. But one may hope that Russia, China and other nations are strong enough militarily, economically and politically, to face down the reckless aggression and insane desire for war.

And of course, NATO leaders and their servile media cheerleaders cannot honestly articulate the underlying locomotive for war. To do so would leave the organization open to worldwide condemnation as heinous and criminal.

The criminal warmongering must be dressed under a veil of do-good and nobility, which requires the telling of the most outrageous, even farcical lies, such as “defending democracy in Ukraine from Russian aggression”.

The delusional disconnect to present such a contemptible charade could only be performed by Western political leaders who are nearly brain-dead.

When the visibly failing Joe Biden addressed the NATO summit, he was more delusional and foul-mouthed than ever. Introducing the NATO-sponsored Ukrainian puppet Vladimir Zelensky, Biden misspoke with cognitive lapse, declaring: “Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin”.

A senile American president, leading a senile U.S. imperialist power and its NATO military enforcer. Biden is the embodiment of the living dead, both as a person and as the entire Western system he represents.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... rld-peace/

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Jihadi Julian is tired
July 14, 19:55

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"Jihadi Julian" began to suspect something...

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9266042.html

Let's forget about 52 million Ukrainians
July 14, 16:21

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"Let's forget that we had 52 million Ukrainians ," urged Ella Libanova, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Demography and Social Research.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9265837.html

Google Translator

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About a possible dam break in Kyiv: why are they talking about it now?
July 14, 2024
Rybar

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In recent days, the possibility of the destruction of the Kiev hydroelectric power station has entered the news agenda : officials mention it, and the results of modeling the consequences of such an outcome are published online. Against the backdrop of what is happening, there are also conversations about a similar threat to the Kanev hydroelectric power station in the Cherkasy region.

According to upper estimates, if the dam of the Kiev reservoir breaks, it could affect up to 80 settlements and flood several districts of the capital, where the total number of victims will be 900 thousand people. And if the dam in Kanev is destroyed, about 150 cities and villages will be under water , including the coastal zone of Cherkasy.

Why did this topic come up now?
Talks about the potential destruction of part of the cascade on the Dnieper appeared precisely against the backdrop of discussions about the possibility of NATO's direct participation in the conflict in the so-called Ukraine in light of the deteriorating situation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. A humanitarian catastrophe could serve as an excellent information backdrop.

As recent years have shown, for the sake of media effect, the Kiev regime is ready to take measures that completely contradict common sense. There are plenty of examples - from the failed offensive in Belgorod region on the eve of the elections in Russia to similar forays into Crimea.

By the way, it is not the first time for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to blow up dams near the capital - in March 2022, they destroyed the dam on the Irpen, flooding almost 3 thousand hectares. So the authorities of the so-called Ukraine may well arrange something similar on a much larger scale for the sake of the desired image.

Another point is the deterioration of Ukrainian infrastructure, which is often in a state of disrepair. The same Kiev hydroelectric power station was damaged in 2022, and in light of decades of mismanagement, it may collapse on its own. The authorities of the so-called Ukraine will immediately take advantage of this, blaming Russia for what happened.

Another thing is that all this will not necessarily lead to the desired result - it is not at all a fact that even if part of Kiev is flooded, NATO will suddenly decide to send its troops to the front lines. And the information noise with accusations of ecocide will fade away in a month or two, as happened after the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.

However, when have such inconsistencies ever stopped the Kiev regime, which is ready to use the dirtiest instruments even for a short-term media effect?

https://rybar.ru/o-vozmozhnom-proryve-d ... i-sejchas/

Google Translator

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Mobilization newsletter. Euro-atlantic serfdom
July 1-7

EVENTS IN UKRAINE
JUL 15, 2024
Sorry for the lag, I moved house last week. More content to come.

Numbers
On June 25, the ministry of defense first supported, then rejected the idea of giving men 3 more months to update their military details. The current deadline is July 17.

On June 27, Zelensky signed a law to register draftable man aged over 17 years old using the Central Election Commission, state tax and migration services. Previously, only those older than 18 were registered.

The secretary of the parliamentary defense committee Roman Kostenko announced on July 2 that it would be able to mobilize 200,000 more men by the end of the year, given existing mobilization numbers.

On the same day, head of the army Oleksandr Syrsky stated that the AFU’s biggest problem is ‘not enough motivated people’. According to Evhen Dyky, penguin-lover and ex-fighter in the rightwing Aidar Batallion fighter, Ukraine needs 500 thousand men to turn the tides of war. On July 4, a parliamentarian announced that there are 11 million men in Ukraine that can be mobilized, aged 25-59.

Unfortunately for those dreaming of astronomical figures, the parliament stated on July 1 that nine out of ten of all men who willingly go to the mobilization office have reasons that allow them not to serve. On June 25, the military announced that 2.2 million men had updated their military details since May 18 - but only 1.1 million are fit to serve. Not that this always allows them to escape, as I wrote here.

Protests
Some protests aren’t collective. On July 2, there was another case of a Ukrainian who tried to commit suicide in a mobilization office, this time in Zakarpattya. The local mobilization office relayed this to facebook. The recently-mobilized man asked to go to the bathroom, where he was found with his wrists slit. He is currently in hospital. I wrote about a similar case in the capital here.

On June 26, residents of a village in the western Chernivtsi region protested against blockposts set up by mobilization officers. The village is located 20 kilometres from the border with Romania, and the blockposts halt traffic to the border.

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In videos released to social media, local women and men not subject to mobilization surround the mobilization officers. The officers, when asked why they are there, state:

We are here to control the movement of individuals in a certain direction

In response, locals yell

Go to hell!

What are you here to control? Our boys?


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On June 30, the regional mobilization office confirmed that it would continue setting up blockposts. It cited the problem of individuals entering the region without being able to name what town they are heading too.

Blockposts are the bane of many in Ukraine. A woman was violently apprehended in the border region of Zakarpattya on July 3 for not stopping at a blockpost because her son was sick. (Video at link.)


A paradox of ‘euro-integration’ - not only are men not allowed to head to the EU, but movement within the country is restricted. Instead of bursting into Fukuyama’s liberal utopia, Ukrainian euro-atlantic integration involves a detour into serfdom.

On July 4, residents of Ivano-Frankivsk (Bandera’s homeland) ganged up against mobilization officers because they were scaring off tourists and ruining local business. One of the mobilization officers cowering in his car appeared to be injured.

The following day, Evhen Dyky, a pro-government military influencer of nazi-penguin fame said he would have shot them all dead if he had been there. On July 5, criminal charges against the citizens were made.

Below, you can see the attack on the mobilization officers on the left, and the corpulent Mr. Dyky’s commentary on the right.

(Video at link.)
(Paywall)

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... o-atlantic
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 16, 2024 1:55 pm

Diplomatic perspectives on the political situation
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/16/2024

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Yesterday, several media outlets were surprised by the data from a survey published by a respected Ukrainian outlet, Zerkalo Nedeli , regarding the attitude of the Ukrainian population towards possible negotiations with Russia. The lack of monitoring of the opinions that had already been reflected in previous surveys has led the media to stick so far to the narrative of unity of the Ukrainian people propagated by the Office of the President and by Ukraine’s Western partners, focused on maintaining the military solution as the only possible way to resolve the conflict. “44% of Ukrainians believe that the time has come to start negotiating the end of the war with Russia, compared to 35% who are against it and 21% who do not have a clear opinion on the matter,” wrote the EFE Agency yesterday . Despite the surprise of the media, the progressive increase in the sector of the population that defends the need for negotiations with the Russian Federation has been increasing progressively since the failure of the counteroffensive in 2023, and it has done so despite the fact that the national and international context does not lend itself to giving such responses. Although it is still not a majority, the option of negotiation already exceeds that of continuing the war and there remains a significant percentage of people who are unable to decide on one option or the other.

The publication of the survey coincides with a time when the possibility of negotiations and the need to find an alternative way to resolve the conflict are once again making headlines, primarily in the wake of the results of the peace summit held in Switzerland at the initiative of Ukraine, the peace mission with which Viktor Orbán is testing the willingness to reopen the diplomatic channel, and, above all, because of the stance of the Republican candidate for the White House, Donald Trump. In Switzerland, the Ukrainian leadership, which had prepared the meeting to present to Russia an image of a global consensus in favour of Ukraine, had to listen to criticism for excluding the other side participating in the war. The perception of unity that the Office of the President aspired to was shattered by the division between a West that continues to unconditionally support a peace based on the restoration of the 1991 borders and the refusal of a significant part of the Global South to join a final communiqué that did not even address the most relevant political issues. “In the end, the only result of this bewildering event,” said Russian opposition journalist Leonid Ragozin, referring to the summit, “is that it attempted to resolve an armed conflict without the participation of the party that initiated it, and it was the death of the very ‘peace formula’ it was striving to promote.”

The outcome of the summit would not have been enough for Ukraine to change its discourse without the context in which it is taking place. Viktor Orbán's initiative, largely propagandistic and with no chance of achieving the ceasefire and the transition to negotiations that the Hungarian prime minister claims to aspire to, is also a product of current events, marked by the third factor: the increasingly likely arrival of Donald Trump to the White House. Although the current Republican candidate's policy regarding Ukraine has not varied excessively from that inherited from Obama and Biden, the fear that his return to power will mean a change of course is marking the actions and rhetoric of international leaders. While NATO is mobilizing to ensure that Ukraine will always have an amount similar to what member countries have invested annually in the war since 2022, the Kiev government is forced to shape its demands and its discourse in order not to lose the favor of whoever may come to power in a few months in the main country providing military assistance. “I believe that if Donald Trump becomes president, we will work together. I am not worried about this,” said Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday, who, despite insisting on the good relations that his government maintains with the Republican Party, has significantly modified his speech. In the last appearances of the Ukrainian president, it has been noticeable that Ukraine has not mentioned the return to the 1991 borders as a prerequisite for starting negotiations with the Russian Federation. The elimination of this requirement would make the possibility of negotiations between kyiv and Moscow considerably more viable, a point that Donald Trump has openly stated he wants to reach.

Although details are scarce, the Republican candidate's plans for the war in Ukraine involve using the cards at Washington's disposal to force the parties to sit down at the negotiating table. According to reports, Donald Trump's entourage would use the promise of a greater shipment of weapons contingent on negotiations with Russia to encourage Kiev, while threatening to supply more weapons to Ukraine if Moscow refuses to engage in diplomacy. It is in this context that the Ukrainian president's words yesterday, which opened the door to a Russian presence at a future peace summit, must be understood . "I think there should be Russian representatives at the second summit," said the Ukrainian president. At a time when the main candidate to lead the United States insists on redirecting the war to the diplomatic plane, Zelensky does not want to be seen as a radical anti-peace.

In parallel, Zerkalo Nedeli publishes a survey by the Razumkov Center, which not only asks about the position on the possibility of negotiations, but also asks what the basis should be for such diplomatic contacts. More than half of the population surveyed (51%) demand a return to the 1991 borders, a proposal that is unfeasible, to begin with, because it is contrary to the opinion of the population of Crimea or Donbass, while 83% reject a negotiated solution on the terms proposed before the summit in Switzerland by Vladimir Putin, i.e. giving up Crimea and the four southern regions of Ukraine now under Russian control. The position shown by the Ukrainian sociology of the Ukrainian population - in the territories controlled by Ukraine, since in no case is the opinion of the Ukrainian population on the other side of the front taken into account - is similar to that of its government, which is technically open to negotiations but, in practice, repeatedly closes all doors to diplomacy.

Zelensky's comments on the possible invitation to Russian representatives - there is no talk of participation in the negotiations - refer to the issues discussed at the summit in Switzerland: food and nuclear security, freedom of navigation and the return of civilians and prisoners of war. To deal with each of the issues, which are important but not decisive for the resolution of the conflict, Ukraine plans to hold three summits in the coming months. The aim is to arrive at the definition of a peace plan that Zelensky promises to have ready by November, coincidentally the time when the elections in the United States are being held. Zelensky thus envisages the prolongation of the Swiss format in a way similar to the use he made of the Minsk agreements in the past, as a simulation of negotiations in which only collateral aspects of the war could be discussed and, in no case, its fundamental aspects.

In case there was any doubt, Dmitro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, has repeatedly shown the position of the Kiev government on the forms of negotiation. In contrast to direct diplomacy between the two countries, as occurred in the first months after the Russian invasion, Kuleba proposes the model of a grain export agreement. At that time, Turkey and the United Nations negotiated separately with each country, ultimately leading to the signing of two agreements instead of one directly between Russia and Ukraine. It is difficult to imagine that a three-way negotiation could be viable, in which, according to Kuleba, the mediators would negotiate with Ukraine and then provide conditions to Moscow. In contrast to the three-way negotiation and the imposition of a fait accompli that Ukraine seems to propose, Russia refuses to participate in a second summit in Switzerland, aware that its position would simply be that of receiving orders without even being able to argue its position.

Hours before the start of the summit in Switzerland, Vladimir Putin counter-programmed the demand for Russian withdrawal from all Ukrainian territories according to the 1991 borders with the demand for Ukrainian withdrawal from the four territories annexed by Russia. But beyond this maximalist proposal, the Russian position involves the recovery of the Istanbul format. Russia thus agrees with what was proposed by the American academics Samuel Charap and Sergey Radchenko, who in an article published by Foreign Affairs that analyzed the documents of the 2022 negotiations, came to the conclusion that the work carried out, in which much more progress was made than was publicly disclosed, could become an important basis for recovering the diplomatic path when the parties understood the need for compromise. Despite the statements and the apparent moderation in the discourse, that moment has not yet arrived.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/16/30165/

Google Translator

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From Cassad''s Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of July 15, 2024) Main points:

In one day, the "West" group of forces took up more advantageous positions and repelled four counterattacks, the enemy lost up to 585 soldiers;

- In one day, the "North" group defeated four brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, repelled one attack, the enemy lost up to 200 soldiers and 3 tanks;

- In one day, the "East" group improved the position along the forward edge, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 125 soldiers;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 540 people and 2 HMMWV armored vehicles in the area of ​​responsibility of the "South" group;

- The Central group improved the tactical position, defeated the formations of six brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the enemy lost up to 340 soldiers;

- The "Dnepr" group defeated two brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the enemy lost up to 110 soldiers;

— The Russian Armed Forces destroyed the Ukrainian Armed Forces' manpower and equipment in 109 districts.

Units of the "East" group of forces improved the situation along the forward edge, and also defeated the manpower and equipment of the 72nd mechanized, 58th motorized infantry brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 108th and 128th territorial defense brigades in the areas of the settlements of Nikolskoye, Makarovka of the Donetsk People's Republic and Lugovskoye of the Zaporizhia region. The Armed Forces of

Ukraine lost up to 125 servicemen, an M113 armored personnel carrier made in the USA, two vehicles, two 155-mm FH-70 howitzers made in Great Britain, and a 152-mm D-20 gun.

▫️ Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 35th Marine Brigade and the 124th Territorial Defense Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Tokarevka, Ivanovka and Antonovka in the Kherson region.

The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces amounted to 110 servicemen, six vehicles, a 155-mm howitzer M777 made in the USA, a 152-mm gun "Msta-B", a 122-mm howitzer D-30, two electronic warfare stations "Anklav-N".

Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the groups of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation destroyed the manpower and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 109 districts. The following were shot down by air defense systems: a MiG-29 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, 36 unmanned aerial vehicles, and five HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems made in the USA.

In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 628 aircraft, 277 helicopters, 27,622 unmanned aerial vehicles, 551 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,586 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,378 multiple launch rocket system combat vehicles, 11,916 field artillery pieces and mortars, and 23,710 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Luxembourg Goes to War
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 13, 2024
Christopher Black

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Little Luxembourg has concluded a “security agreement” with the American puppet of Ukraine, Zelensky. This astonishing event might call to mind the foreign policy of The Grand Duchy of Fenwick.

Security Agreement-Context

Little Luxembourg has concluded a “security agreement” with the American puppet of Ukraine, Zelensky, who I will not refer to as president because he no longer is, and really never was. This astonishing event might call to mind the foreign policy of The Grand Duchy of Fenwick, a tiny fictional European principality made famous by its declaration of war against the United States of America, in the film, The Mouse That Roared, in the hope of being defeated in order to get American financial aid, but only succeeded in capturing the Q Bomb and bringing Washington to its knees.

But history is unlikely to be as kind to Luxembourg as it was to the Grand Duchy of Fenwick. Luxembourg will not declare war on the USA; however, welcome that would be for the rest of us because it is already one of the puppets in the theatre of the absurd staged in Washington at the NATO summit meeting this past week. It will not capture the Q Bomb of the Americans, but risks receiving other bombs from the east as Russia reacts to the threats of Luxembourg’s master to place intermediate range cruise missiles, likely armed with nuclear warheads, into Germany and other countries, Luxembourg’s neighbours just down the road.

The Details

The agreement, identical in all respects to the many other agreements signed by Zelensky with NATO countries, only the name of the country involved changing, uses a lot of space to condemn Russia and promise Ukraine its unwavering support in all spheres from the military and intelligence to the economic and cultural.

The introduction to the agreement begins with the lie of the “illegal, unjustified, unprovoked, war of aggression against Ukraine.” It gets worse from there, but fanatics don’t care about the truth or the facts, when their glazed-over eyes and cold hearts are intent on war. The fact that Russia’s actions are legal and completely justified, not only by intense provocations but by direct aggression of the US and its NATO gang against Russia, means nothing to them. Nor do their claims to respect the sanctity of the UN Charter, which appears in the next article of the agreement, since the very creation and existence of NATO is a repudiation of, a negation of the UN Charter.

This lie is followed by others: that Ukraine is a democracy, that it is a sovereign, independent nation, that Ukraine is a member of a mythical “European family.” But the absurd nature of what is happening is set out in the commitment by Luxembourg to provide military assistance and training to Ukraine. It states,

“Luxembourg will continue to provide military support to Ukraine across all relevant domains, including land, air, and cyber-electromagnetic domains, in close coordination and cooperation with relevant international partners and institutions.”

Eight sections follow detailing the military assistance to be provided. Reading it one would think Luxembourg has a significant armed force with experience in warfare, and immense capacities of weapons, ammunition, intelligence devices, countless artillery systems, armoured divisions, entire armies of trained infantry and an air force that can send squadrons into the attack at a moment’s notice.

The Reality And Real Purpose

Luxembourg in fact has a total of 939 personnel as of 2018, the latest figures I can find, and two aircraft, one a transport plane, the other a helicopter. It has no artillery, no armoured divisions, no intelligence services, no arms industry, no navy. Its entire force is the size of a single battalion in all other armies. It does not even have the ability to train its few officers, who have to go to military schools in Belgium or France to learn their trade.

So, what then is the point of this pointless exercises, of a tiny duchy, a relic from the past, signing a security agreement with a country controlled by the United States, at war with Russia, putting itself into a state of war with Russia?

Little Luxembourg has to humiliate itself in this way because Washington desires it to advance its attempt to dominate the world. The agreement states, as they all do, that,

“13. The Participants reaffirm that Ukraine is part of the European family and that its future is within the EU,”

and,

“14. The Participants reaffirm that Ukraine’s security is integral to Euro-Atlantic and global security.”

In other words, Little Luxembourg has to obey its master’s voice and support the drive to achieve the final American dictatorship over all of Europe as well as North America. It long ago succeeded in reducing Canada to a non-entity in the world, with results the world can see.

Declarations of War

It is in reality a declaration of war against Russia. Every NATO nation is required by Washington to enter into the same bilateral agreement with Ukraine. The reason is not difficult to understand. NATO has proven ineffective against Russia. Russia has not attacked any NATO state and therefore, under the NATO treaty, NATO cannot become involved in a collective NATO action against Russia. This has not stopped NATO from attacking anyone, of course. It attacked Yugoslavia in 1999, which had not attacked any NATO state. Nevertheless, the propaganda the Americans have been using to convince their people that war with Russia is necessary and just, depends on the rhetoric of “democracy,” of “rules,” of “self-defence.”

The remedy is to put them all into action collectively by cobbling them together with a series of interconnected bi-lateral security agreements, which forces all NATO nations to take part in the war, without having to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty dealing with a collective response in the face of an attack on one or more NATO states.

NATO celebrates 75 years of its illegal existence as it makes itself irrelevant. Washington has, with these series of bilateral treaties by-passed NATO. It no longer matters whether Ukraine is in NATO or not. It has become a member of a new security architecture in which it is the point of the spear being thrust in the side of Russia while everyone else holds the shaft and calls for blood.

NATO may continue to exist. The criminals have put a lot of effort into the propaganda supporting its existence. They like the meetings, the summits, the dinners, and the military exercises are useful to intimidate the world. They seek to expand it into Asia, really nothing more than the revival of the Europe-Japan Axis of the 1930s and 40s with the US now in charge, the main targets again China and Russia. It will remain to threaten the people of the world. But with respect to Ukraine, the controlling power, the United States, has decided it wants more flexibility, and these bi-lateral agreements provide it. Opposition from NATO states such as Turkey, Hungary and Slovakia, to military action against Russia, is a problem that can be now ignored. The rest of NATO can go to war without them under another agreement with Ukraine. So the ground is prepared for a bigger war.

The Consequence

And what is to become of little Luxembourg in all this? I doubt the Prime Minister, Luc Frieden or the Grand Duke Henri, the billionaire ruler of the Duchy, have thought for even a second about their folly and its consequences. But what are the consequences for the rest of us? Canada also has signed one of the agreements with Zelensky, and though vast in size, it has a small population and armed forces that are irrelevant in any war with Russia. Canada cannot defend itself in the face of Russian attack, yet the Canadian government continues to kick sand in the eyes of Russia, to insult it, steal its property, engage in economic warfare against it, is a co-belligerent in the war against Russia. Washington commands. Ottawa obeys. Yet, no one says a thing. No one cares. No one stops to think or if they do, it’s only to pause for a second, then shrug it off, for more important things, like what to watch on television, the only reality they really know, unaware that their government, like that of Luxembourg, has committed them to war and no one in the government asked them about it, but why would they, the people are not in control, Washington is.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/07/ ... es-to-war/

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MY INTERVIEW WITH TED POSTOL: DESTABILIZING THE US-RUSSIAN NUCLEAR BALANCE
JULY 15, 2024

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Tundra Orbit at Apogee & View of Earth from Apogee 01. (Theodore Postol)

By Natylie Baldwin, Consortium News, 7/15/24

With the Biden administration having given Ukraine permission to use U.S.-made weapons to strike military targets inside Russian territory and Ukraine reportedly having hit a radar in southern Russia that is part of its nuclear early warning system at least once in recent weeks, a new level of escalation threat has aisen between the U.S. and Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by warning that Russia will essentially consider the U.S.-led West to be a direct belligerent if it provides satellite, intelligence and military help to facilitate any long-range missile attacks by Ukraine on Russian territory.

I talked to Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology and international security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about these recent escalatory events and their implications. The discussion took place between June 5 and July 5 of this year by Zoom and email.

Natylie Baldwin: In response to the recent reports of Ukrainian drone strikes on radars in southern Russia that are part of their early detection system regarding incoming nuclear attacks, you told the Schiller Institute:

“The Russian satellite-based early warning system is very limited and cannot be used to cover the blind spots created by damage to the radar. The Atlantic, Pacific, and Northern radar warning corridors are more important, and the Russians also have radars in Moscow. However, the radars in Moscow will only see threats at a later time, resulting in yet shorter warning and decision-making times — thereby increasing the chances of a catastrophic accident… They will almost certainly choose to operate their nuclear strike forces at a higher level of alert, which will further increase the chances of accidents that could lead to an unintended global nuclear war.”

Can you talk more about how Russia’s early warning system is limited, especially compared to the U.S., and specifically how that escalates the danger of accidental nuclear war?

Theodore Postol: Well, I think the tremendously important difference, and it’s not minor, is the fact that the Russians do not at this time have satellites that can provide them with global warning and surveillance of missile launches — hopefully they will, it looks like they’re trying to launch something, but they’ve had big delays. But hopefully it will begin to solve this problem, although we have not seen this problem solved over the last over 20 years. So, the United States has satellites in space in geosynchronous orbits.

A geosynchronous orbit is at an altitude above the earth that basically is inclined at the equator of the Earth. So it’s in the plane of the equator of the Earth. And it’s at an altitude so that it rotates around the Earth every 24 hours. That’s what a geosynchronous orbit is.

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(Theodore Postol)

So, basically, if you’re in a geosynchronous orbit, you look down at the Earth and you are always over the same location of the Earth because the Earth is rotating once every 24 hours and your orbit is rotating once every 24 hours.

So a geosynchronous orbit is ideal for all kinds of satellites, communication satellites. So you only have to point at one, you know, from the ground and it only has to cover the same point on the ground without rotating a lot from space. But this also turns out to be an ideal orbit for a satellite that’s looking down and trying to see things on the ground.

Now, the problem with a geosynchronous orbit is that it has to be very high in space typically around 40,000 kilometers so that altitude, which is required — because as you go to higher and higher altitudes the rotation rate of the satellite slows — and so you need to reach the right altitude where the rotation rate of the satellite coincides with the rotation rate of the Earth.

Because that altitude is so high, the Earth is quite far away, so you don’t have a lot of high-resolution capability. A typical what’s called spy satellite or reconnaissance satellite might be at 200 or 400 kilometer altitude rather than 40,000.

And the reason for that is you want to get close to the earth so your cameras can see smaller objects.

Now, what makes the American system unbelievably useful is we can see the entire surface of the Earth.

So, for example, if we had a radar that detected an incoming ballistic missile from, let’s say, Russia, it looked like it was coming from Russia, we would immediately be able to look down at the entire planet and see that nothing else was going on, that there weren’t missiles launched from other areas. So we would immediately be able to tell that this is not a general attack if it’s an attack at all.

So this system, which gives you a global presence, a global ability to monitor, gives you tremendously more information than you would get with radars because the radars are limited to line of sight. In 1996, there was a significant accidental alert of the Russian early-warning system because they saw a single rocket, but they could not see the rest of the Earth. So they had no way of knowing whether this was the beginning of a nuclear attack.

And now I think that many people have overstated the danger at that time from this accidental alert because at that time the situation between the United States and Russia was very, very calm. Yeltsin and Clinton were — with respect to presidents — there was no sense that the United States or Russia, there was no incentive for either of them to attack each other.

There was, at that instant in time, it seemed like we were going to actually become constructively engaged with each other. Of course, that hasn’t happened, but that’s another discussion.

But now, if the Russians saw, let’s say, a few incoming ballistic missiles, which may or may not be a general attack, they would have no way of knowing whether this was the beginning of a very large-scale attack or something very small. The reason for that, of course, would be they have no global information and they have no idea what is below the radar horizons of all their other early warning radars that will, at some time, just break through their radar fans at a time too late for them to take a retaliatory action.

So the global satellite-based system is a very, very stabilizing and critical piece of the early warning system because — one way to state this is that it gives you situational awareness which sounds kind of mundane but that mundane information could be critical in determining whether or not you inadvertently take action to retaliate to an attack that’s actually not occurring.

So the fact that the Russians do not have this space-based early warning system is very serious and really presents a major problem.

I had lots of contacts in Russia because I was working with the Russians on an infrared early-warning project that was supposed to be being done with the United States [RAMOS – Russian American Observation Satellites]. As usual the United States reneged on an agreement for a program with the Russians. And I was doing everything in my power to try to get the Pentagon to follow through on the agreement it had reached with the Russians.

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Tundra Earth-Limb With & Without Array Pixel Files. (Theodore Postol)

Baldwin: I just want to clarify one important point: In discussing the deficiencies in Russia’s nuclear early-detection system, you often reference information you became aware of in the 1990s. Can you confirm that there is recent data indicating that this deficiency — a lack of a geosynchronous global satellite early-warning system — has not been rectified by Russia as of 2024? Where is that data coming from?

Postol: The answer to your question is simple. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) publishes orbital data on all satellites that are in orbit. These data are typically published in the form of “Two Line Elements,” which provide all of the parameters needed to reconstruct the orbits of satellites at any time.

Since satellites can drift from their orbital positions, NORAD publishes revised two-line elements for every satellite in its catalog called regular business days (not on weekends). Hence, to analyze a specific satellite’s orbits, all that is needed in principle [are] the NORAD two-line elements for that satellite.

There is a very substantial body of information that supplements and builds on NORAD’s two-line element data. This includes a very large, well-informed, and energetic community of people who actively track and study everything they can find about satellites in orbit.

It is also of interest that the Russians have openly talked about their early-warning satellite system as consisting of satellites in both Molniya and geosynchronous orbits. [There is] a highly informative article by Anatoly Zak, a deeply knowledgeable historian of Russian space programs, [in which he] discusses the extraordinary efforts and unfortunately serious failures of the part of the Russian space-program that is dedicated to building in early warning system.

In reading of this history with the informed eyes of an individual who understands the extremely demanding technologies required to build look-down space satellite systems reveals that Russians are certainly aiming at this capability but have not yet achieved it.

As such, a comprehensive technical understanding of the demands of spaced-based ballistic missile early_warning detection and the history and choices made by Russia in its planning to deploy and its actual deployments overwhelmingly indicates that Russia is still limited to Earth-limb viewing technologies in their satellite systems.

If the Russians start launching into geosynchronous orbit, we will know after there are at least two or three occupied locations whether or not the satellites are Earth-limb viewing.

If they are Earth-limb viewing, they will be at the same geosynchronous locations of the Prognoz satellite constellation, which was ultimately canceled because of extremely high false alarm rate. We will just have to see and hope for the best.

Baldwin: Can you also discuss the role of decision-making time? How long does the president of the U.S. have to make decisions around responding to a believed nuclear attack compared to the Russian president and what is the process for assessing the threat before it gets to the respective president on either side?

Postol: The two figures below show the situation with regard to early warning times associated with a postulated U.S. SLBM attack on Moscow. Since Russia does not have satellites that can look straight down at the earth and see ballistic missiles when their rocket motors ignite, the only way it can detect the approaching attack is when the ballistic missiles pass through the radar search fans of Russian early warning radars.

The figure below showing the actual trajectories of postulated ballistic missile launches shows the location of ballistic missiles at one-minute intervals.


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(Theodore Postol)

The first point on each trajectory indicates roughly where the ballistic missile will complete its powered flight when it is rocket motors shut down. After that first point, every additional point shows the location of the ballistic missile at one second intervals as it coasts towards its target. There are significant uncertainties on how fast the radars can determine the presence of incoming attacking missiles as they break through the radar search fan. Nevertheless, approximate numbers are good enough given only uncertainties associated with assessing such an attack.

The table below shows the amounts of time consumed by different operations associated with detecting, assessing, and responding to an attack.


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(Theodore Postol)

Roughly two or three minutes will be needed for the radar to detect and estimate the direction and speed of the incoming ballistic missiles. This information would be immediately reported through command links to the highest-level military officers in the Moscow command center.

In all likelihood, they would have to alert the highest-level officers and bring them into a “conference.” Depending on the scenario, this could also consume several minutes.

The assessment of the situation would then have to be sent to Russia’s president — who may or may not be immediately available to get the message.

If the attack assessment is incorrect, a decision by the Russian president to retaliate would be indistinguishable from a decision to destroy Russia, so it is reasonable to assume that the president will want as much information as possible.

If a decision is made to retaliate, messages would then have to be sent out to missile facilities. The missile facilities would need to go through some process of verifying the accuracy of the launch order and going through procedures to actually launch the missiles. Even under the best of conditions it is likely that this process would take another two or three minutes.

Finally, the missiles must be launched at least one minute before the arrival of attacking warheads, as once the missiles leave their protective silos and are in flight, they would be extremely vulnerable to the blast waves from the attacking warheads.

Since warning times are potentially as short as seven-to-eight minutes, depending on the trajectories of attacking SLBMs, it is clear that there is no way to reliably guarantee that a nuclear response could be ordered by top political leadership of Russia. Russians are certainly aware of the situation and have certainly taken measures to assure that a retaliation would happen with a high degree of certainty.

This near certainty of retaliation would be implemented by pre-delegating launch authority to missile units in the field and dictating strict conditions under which these pre-delegated launches could occur.

For example, if there are any indications of nuclear detonations in the sky of Russia or on the ground, this could be detected by special sensors that could then transmit this information to missile launch installations. Obviously, this is not an ideal situation, and it would be in everybody’s interest to take cooperative measures to [reduce] the chances of an unforeseen set of circumstances leading to an accident.

Baldwin: What is the likely sequence of events that would occur if Russia responded with nuclear weapons to a false alert of a western attack due to their limited detection system? Would there be any space for stopping a spiral toward omnicide?

Postol: Because the timelines are so short, and the warning and communications systems are so fragile, it is difficult to see how anybody could stop the uncontrolled escalation if an accident occurred.

Baldwin: What are the implications of the fact that Ukraine’s armed forces could not have pulled off this attack on Russia’s early warning radar system without U.S. assistance?

Postol: I have no way of knowing whether or not the Ukrainians received critical information from the United States. The Ukrainians have been using the Starlink satellite system for communications between various military units as well as for other purposes.

The Starlink satellites are a dense constellation of low-altitude satellites that are designed for communications with systems on the ground. There is good reason to believe that the Ukrainians could use this system to communicate with a long-distance drone on a mission to attack a Russian early-warning radar. The locations of the radars are very well-known and easily identified by simply using Google Earth.

As such, it is not clear to me that the Ukrainians had to have the advice and support of the United States to perform this mission. Having said this, it is clear that the United States government does not have complete control over the Ukrainian leadership.

A very large part of the current Ukrainian leadership are known supporters of the Stepan Bandera ultranationalist ideology which was most prominent in Ukraine during the 1930s. The current admirers of Bandera would certainly know that Bandera’s followers were key figures in the brutal murders of between 60,000 and 100,000 Poles living in Western Ukraine in 1943, and also were actively involved in the murder of well over 30,000 Jews at Babi Yar in 1941.

Plus many other Bandera followers actively joined Ukrainian SS units that not only fought against the Russians, but just as importantly were engaged in mass killings of people who are not considered “racially pure” Ukrainians. These people were put in positions of authority during the U.S. sponsored Maidan Coup in February 2014.

The U.S. is now reaping the benefits of having played a major role in allowing ultranationalist extremists to gain control of the Ukrainian government. The reasons for choosing these people were simple, expedient, and standard U.S. operations for overthrowing governments that do not adhere to U.S. political demands.

The most extremist elements are the best choice because they are violent, willing to use violence, well organized, and ruthless relative to other political groups of choice. This is why the U.S. put [Augusto] Pinochet in power in Chile, and the shah in power in Iran.

The problem with this approach to “diplomacy” is that besides supporting murderous nondemocratic regimes, the U.S. can really lose control of those they have put in power.

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Tundra Satellites Spaced 12 Hours in All Four Orbits (Theodore Postol)

Baldwin: This next question is admittedly asking you to engage in some speculation, but you have stated publicly that you have spoken to some of the currently serving officials in the executive branch of the U.S. government so I am interested in your opinion on this.

There was an Austrian military analysis of the recent Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s early-warning system that suggested that it could have been a warning by the West since there was no military value to the attacks for Ukraine. As Russia expert Gordon Hahn has said — if the Austrian military thinks this is a credible interpretation, one can only imagine how this looks to Russia’s military/security organs.

First question: As Russia is militarily winning in Ukraine and the U.S. is on a course to suffer an eventual embarrassment and loss of face in this conflict that it played a huge role in provoking, is it possible that the U.S. is probing Russia’s nuclear defenses and indicating that it is willing to go nuclear to save face?

Postol: As incompetent as U.S. leadership has been, I do not believe they would knowingly try to provoke the Russians into some form of nuclear attack against the West. They may be foolish and reckless enough to say things to the Russians that they know, or should know, will lead to a reaction.

One of the most astonishing of many things that [U.S. Secretary of State] Antony Blinken has said to [Russian Foreign Minister] Sergei Lavrov was that United States reserved the “right” to put nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Ukraine.

Blinken made this statement to Lavrov in January 2022, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Imagine a Russian Foreign Minister telling John Kennedy in 1962 that the Russians reserved the right to put nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba, rather than indicating that Russia was willing to negotiate.

When you look at how the Biden administration has conducted its policies in Ukraine, it is hard to understand what their intentions are and whether or not they have given any thought to what they are doing. Nevertheless, I do think that they do not want to nuclear war with Russia.

Baldwin: Ironically, many in the West thought Putin would be the one to go nuclear if faced with possible defeat — is it possible that the U.S. is the one who is more of a threat to do this?

Postol: The only time I believe there might have been [a] danger that Putin would use nuclear weapons was when it initially appeared that Russia might catastrophically be losing the war with Ukraine.

Baldwin: In a presentation you gave in March of 2022, one of the things you talked about was what the results of a nuclear war would be in terms of death and destruction. You showed some harrowing images of the victims of WWII fire bombings which would be similar to what the firestorms resulting from a nuclear blast would do to people.

As a Generation X-er, I remember the threat of nuclear war being talked about when I was growing up and it was featured regularly in popular culture. Even our leaders — whether you liked them or not — seemed to understand how much a nuclear war must be avoided.

You stated at the beginning of the Ukraine war that you thought Biden was doing a good job of making it clear that he didn’t want to escalate to a direct confrontation with Russia. Since then, it seems like we’ve been experiencing the frog-in-boiling-water phenomena of the Biden administration eventually giving in to more escalatory actions. Do you think our current leaders have lost their fear of nuclear war? If so, why?

Postol: I do not think that Biden has lost his fear of nuclear war. I do think that Biden is suffering from some form of terrible debilitating and degenerative disease like dementia or Alzheimer’s.

I would be surprised if either Blinken or [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan did not understand that nuclear war with Russia would be a catastrophe for the United States and the world.

However, both Blinken and Sullivan are so isolated from reality that I do not rule out them inadvertently making decisions that lead to a nuclear catastrophe through escalation.

Blinken and Sullivan have presided over one of the biggest foreign policy disasters that the United States has had since the end of the Cold War. Their mindset is incomprehensible to me and wholly disturbing. You may be in a position to understand my current thinking due to your heartbreaking situation with your mother.

Imagine that a deeply loved individual started showing the signs of mental deterioration. Obviously, it would lead to tremendous pain, stress and sadness for all involved. But then imagine allowing that person to put at risk the lives in your community by encouraging them to drive a delivery truck! This is what the people surrounding Biden are doing.

Biden is clearly mentally incapacitated, yet the people around him have sought to conceal this terrible and horrifying condition from the American electorate.

The people around him must know that this is only the beginning of something that will be far worse. Yet they have so little concern for the future of our country and its citizens that they are willing to put a man into the office of president who is incapable of doing the job.

They are willing to do this even though the nation is facing multiple existential crises. Yet all these people surrounding Biden seem to care about is how they can maintain their privileges of power.

I am sorry for this diversion into our nation’s social situation, but I think the dangers we face of a possible nuclear war have much more to do with the frightening [domestic] social and political circumstances at the moment.

If people in power have absolutely no understanding of reality, then the situation is dangerous because they have no way of knowing how to make sound choices. Unfortunately, there are many other examples of delusional leadership from history.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/07/14/d ... r-balance/

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Details of the death of the US Embassy attaché in Kyiv
July 15, 2024
Rybar

Here are the details of the death of the attaché of the US embassy in Kiev at the end of June: the deceased was military adviser Richard Harry Kirlin, who had been in his last position for only 10 days.

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According to information from the Internet, the American had a very rich service record - during his career, he held positions in the Air Force, Central Command of the Armed Forces and the information technology sector, as well as in the State Department in missions in Mauritania, Honduras and Saudi Arabia. In the so-called Ukraine, he was engaged in organizing the supply of F-16 fighters.

According to the official version, Kirlin died in his hotel room at the Hilton, while no signs of violence were found on the body. Later, the media, citing some sources, even added that he "suffered from high cholesterol."

Last year we wrote that in general, seeing such reports as “legalization of losses” is akin to stretching an owl onto a globe. However, in this particular situation, the officer’s death is documented on an American memorial site.

The sudden death almost immediately after arriving in the so-called Ukraine, the type of activity and details of the biography do give some grounds to believe that the military adviser from the USA died under circumstances somewhat different from those publicly announced. For example, during a hit on one of the airfields or command posts.

https://rybar.ru/podrobnosti-smerti-att ... a-v-kieve/

Google Translator

*******

There is no humanity. There is no pardon. There is no right to life for them.
July 16, 10:59

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2009. Russian liberals consider Medvedev the main hope of democracy in Russia.
2024. Medvedev calls for total executions of Nazis.

My comrades discuss what the Ukrainian monsters did to our prisoner, referring to the world-famous Geneva Conventions. I was also well taught at my native university.

No need to even write about it. There can be no mercy here. There is no place for good. Just kill! Like Simonov, to whom I have referred many times! Remember? No need to pity them, no need! No one! Did they at least pardon anyone? Only total executions. No choice. No words about mercy. No humanity. No pardon. They have no right to life. Execute, execute and execute. This is the right of war for the enemy!

So kill at least one!
So kill him quickly!
How many times you see him,
So many times kill him!


(c) Medvedev

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9268671.html

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Wed Jul 17, 2024 11:52 am

The return of Minsk
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/17/2024

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On Monday, Volodymyr Zelensky publicly claimed not to be worried about Donald Trump's possible return to the White House, boasted of the bipartisan support Ukraine enjoys and insisted on the importance of the contacts he had had with Republican representatives during his recent visit to the United States. However, this impetus to deny the problems while lobbying the Republican Party, in many cases among the sectors most critical of Trump, whose presence in Congress and the Senate is important enough to enable the Democrats to approve their measures, shows that nervousness exists in the highest spheres of Ukrainian politics. The attempt to court Donald Trump by comparing him, for example, to Ronald Reagan, one of the Republican candidate's referents, has been continuous and is expected to become even more so as the November elections approach. For the moment, Zelensky has shaped his speech to accommodate the possibility of some kind of negotiation with Russia. Beyond that headline, the details show that the aim is not to negotiate but rather to have an indirect dialogue in which Ukraine negotiates the terms with its allies and then imposes them on Moscow. However, that minimal change has been enough to prove that the Ukrainian president is not opposed to peace and to deny that he is seeking an eternal war in which to perpetuate himself in power.

Ukrainian jitters were echoed on Monday when the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Rep. JD Vance, who is known for opposing unlimited arms supplies to Ukraine, was announced. As The Kyiv Independent recalled , Vance has in the past called the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO irresponsible, denied that the Ukrainian conflict affects US national security, and just days before the Russian invasion, he said in an interview: “I have to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.” “Ukraine’s problem is not the Republican Party, it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can deploy, even with draconian recruitment policies. And it needs more material than the US can provide.” “This reality must inform any future policy on Ukraine, from new aid from Congress to the diplomatic course the president sets,” he wrote in an op-ed published last April by The New York Times in which he argued for negotiation and stated that the “Biden administration has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war. The sooner Americans face this truth, the sooner we can fix this mess and negotiate peace.”

Given the vice presidential hopeful’s openly hostile stance toward the multi-billion dollar military aid he has provided to Ukraine, which he has called corrupt, The Kyiv Independent has found only hope in recalling the changes in attitude that Vance has gone through, a “political chameleon” who has gone from comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler to aspiring to join him in the White House. Not even the fact that Vance called Vladimir Putin an “evil man” or that he was included in the long list of 500 American representatives sanctioned by the Russian Federation seems noteworthy. In reality, Vance’s view is more stable than this change in his opinion of Trump indicates and is based on hatred of everything considered liberal or progressive, a reactionary vision in social and cultural matters and nationalist in economic matters.

In foreign policy, Vance has been consistent in his obsessions: Iran, “radical Islam” and China, hence his lack of interest in the situation in Ukraine in particular and in Europe in general. In 2022, Vance criticised “Biden’s obsession with re-entering the disastrous Obama nuclear deal” and added that “one of President Trump’s best foreign policy decisions was to get out of that deal”. In the same way that the now vice-presidential candidate saw Biden’s non-existent will to return to an agreement to which he never intended to return, Vance tends to see radical Islam in unexpected places. “What is the first truly Islamist country to get a nuclear weapon? And we wondered if maybe it would be Iran or Pakistan. And then we finally decided that maybe it is actually the United Kingdom since Labour took power,” he said, to the surprise of Keir Starmer’s more than moderate government.

Like Trump, Vance has shown his unconditional support for Israel in these months in which massacres of Palestinian civilians have been daily. His argument is as political as it is religious. “A majority of citizens of this country believe that their savior, and I consider myself a Christian, was born, died and resurrected in that narrow strip of territory facing the Mediterranean,” he said in a speech last May, adding that “the idea that there will ever be an American foreign policy that does not care much about that portion of the world is absurd.” The Republican vice presidential hopeful also shares with his leader the obsession with China, which would undoubtedly focus on the foreign policy agenda of a possible second Trump administration. The United States “should treat China like Germany in the 1930s,” JD Vance has stated in the podcast of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank known in recent years for its fanatical stances against Russia, Iran and China. Hitler wanted to dominate Europe, Vance added, “but I think China wants to dominate a much larger part of the world, perhaps the entire world.”

In this context, with the idea of ​​a pivot to Asia – as has been stated since the Obama administration – as the centre of international relations, the criticism of Republicans who oppose the status quo of the war in Ukraine is mainly based on understanding the conflict as a distraction from the real opponent. This is the case of Trump, Vance and also Richard Grenell, US ambassador to Germany during the Trump administration and now considered a figure close to the Republican candidate. His position on Ukraine was referred to yesterday, in a tone of concern, by the Bloomberg agency , which explained that “Grenell has repeatedly stated that he does not speak on behalf of former President Donald Trump and that he has not spoken with him about the issue. But he is often considered a candidate for a high office if Trump wins a second term, possibly as Secretary of State, and his opinions offer an idea of ​​the approach that Trump could adopt and the advice he would receive.”

Without elaborating on the idea, Grenell “advocated for a peace agreement in Ukraine that he said would preserve the country’s territory but allow for the existence of autonomous zones.” “Autonomous regions can mean many things to many people, but those details need to be worked out,” Bloomberg quotes the former US ambassador as saying. “ Bloomberg believes Grenell’s plan would “rule President Zelensky” and also notes that regional autonomy has been discussed in the context of the Donbass territories now under the control of Russian troops,” adds the Ukrainian outlet Strana , which correctly perceives echoes of the Minsk agreements in the proposal. The possibility that a possible Republican administration would even recover a vague and undefined idea of ​​regional autonomy that Kiev has always refused to implement as a solution for Ukraine sounds like a joke considering the development of events and the performance of now-candidate Trump during his presidency.

During his term in office, Donald Trump appointed Kurt Volker as special envoy for Ukraine, a man from the John McCain Institute with a similar track record to his predecessor, Victoria Nuland, with whom he shared another post that both had held at different times in the past, that of US ambassador to NATO. During his time in charge of achieving a resolution to the war, then limited to Donbass, Trump's emissary negotiated directly with Vladislav Surkov, a person very close to Vladimir Putin and then in charge of Russian policy on Ukraine. These were times when all parties claimed to defend the Minsk agreements as the only possible way out of the situation in Donbass. However, actions did not always match words, as was demonstrated when Volker, like Nuland had done in the past, encouraged Ukraine to extend the "special status law" for the territories under the control of the DPR and LPR. The argument was the same: it was simply a matter of formally fulfilling the commitments of the Minsk agreements, even if this would not have any practical consequences. All parties were aware that the law would not come into force or be applied.

There are several reasons why Ukraine rejected it, first de facto and then explicitly – Zelensky communicated this to Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron at the Normandy Format summit in Paris in December 2019 – but two stand out above the rest: the agreement did not entail the recovery of Crimea and the granting of a special status was a red line for Ukraine. This regional autonomy, the terms of which Kiev always refused to discuss, implied the rupture of the main political plan of the State born from Maidan: the imposition of a unitary and centralised State in which nationalist discourse would become the only acceptable national discourse. No kind of autonomy was going to be acceptable to Ukraine, which preferred to risk a wider war rather than negotiate a special status involving linguistic and cultural rights and the ability to trade with the Russian border regions.

For seven years, the Western allies, especially the United States, which was never interested in the Minsk agreements, allowed Kiev to artificially maintain the war while refusing to honour its commitments. Not only has the situation not changed, but Ukraine's terms have become even harsher. It is hardly credible to revive the idea of ​​some kind of autonomy for the territories under Russian control, especially those that have suffered a war since 2014, as a viable way out of the current situation. With mentions like this, Trump's entourage shows that its approaches are based on a profound lack of knowledge of the Ukrainian conflict, both in its current and past situations.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/17/el-retorno-de-minsk/

Google Translator

******

From Cassad's telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of July 16, 2024) | Main points:

— The East group took more advantageous positions in 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 145 servicemen;

— The North group defeated 3 brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 24 hours, repelled 5 attacks in the Kharkiv region, the enemy's losses amounted to 230 servicemen;

— Units of the South group of forces took more advantageous positions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 560 servicemen and a tank in its area of ​​responsibility;

— Units of the Western group of the Russian Armed Forces improved their position along the forward edge in 24 hours and destroyed formations of 9 Ukrainian brigades;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 545 servicemen in the area of ​​responsibility of the Western group of the Russian Armed Forces;

— The Dnepr group of forces destroyed two field ammunition depots of the Ukrainian Armed Forces;

— The Center group improved its tactical position in 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 320 servicemen;

— The Russian Armed Forces destroyed Ukrainian manpower and equipment in 124 districts in 24 hours.

Units of the "East" group of forces occupied more advantageous positions, inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 48th, 72nd mechanized, 58th motorized infantry brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 123rd territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Neskuchnoye of the Donetsk People's Republic and Rizdvyanka of the Zaporizhia region.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost up to 145 servicemen, six vehicles, 155-mm howitzers M777 made in the USA, "Caesar" made in France and FH-70 made in Great Britain, 152-mm gun "Giatsint-B", combat vehicle of the anti-aircraft missile system "Osa" and electronic warfare station "Nota".

▫️ Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 65th Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 123rd and 126th Territorial Defense Brigades in the areas of the settlements of Novodanilovka in the Zaporizhia region, Burgunka in the Kherson region and the city of Kherson.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 120 servicemen, a tank, seven vehicles, two 155-mm M777 howitzers made in the USA, an Anklav-N electronic warfare station and two field ammunition depots.

▫️ Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups have damaged the manpower and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 124 districts.

▫️ Over the course of 24 hours, air defense systems shot down six US-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles, two French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs, seven US-made HIMARS rockets, 28 unmanned aerial vehicles, and a Ukrainian Yak-52 aircraft with a machine gun mount.

📊 In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 628 aircraft, 277 helicopters, 27,650 unmanned aerial vehicles, 552 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,594 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,378 multiple launch rocket systems, 11,982 field artillery pieces and mortars, 23,739 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

SITREP 7/15/24: Crumbling NATO Buys Time for Broad European War

SIMPLICIUS
JUL 16, 2024
Zelensky arrived in the U.S. for NATO’s grand 75th anniversary summit, which turned out to be another sniveling disappointment, embellished with the usual carrot-on-a-stick promises that offered nothing concrete.

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Here ex-ambassador Chas Freeman goes one step further in declaring it a swan song for NATO: (Video at link.)

Instead of strengthening the NATO alliance and showing its power, the latest summit in Washington did the opposite, it laid bare its cracks, its failure to deal with reality, and its incapacity to respond to the unstoppable emergence of Multipolarity.

It was a summit of retreat and will be remembered as the moment when NATO, instead of reinventing itself, doubled down with the same failed approach that ultimately leads to its demise.

The summit was a also an amazing show of undiplomatic visions of world-domination.


But all the manic pledges of ‘air defense’ systems did make an indirect revelation as to the severe attrition of AD suffered by Ukraine of late. Many reports have given us indicators of this; for instance last week’s strike on Kiev, with satellite images showing an airport that housed Patriot systems being hit. Ukraine supporters continue to claim the elusive Western systems are not being found and taken out by Russia, but the scramble to resupply tells a different story.

This recent strike on Kiev was particularly notable for how little AD was present, as an uncommon amount of videos showed Russian missiles hitting their targets. Further, missile trajectory maps were subsequently published with commentary stating that the strike was somewhat unusual as most of the Russian missiles pretty much went straight to their targets across Ukraine without the usual highly irregular winding patterns meant to misdirect UA intelligence and confuse national AD grid ops. These are all indicators that AD has been severely attritioned by Russian strikes, it’s just that, as with everything, we don’t see it because—unlike image-conscious Ukraine and NATO—Russian MOD doesn’t justify the release of constant images and videos of their normal mundane work, not to mention they prefer keeping up a professional OPSEC.

The summit also featured some entertainment, which included the worst presidential flub arguably in American history, right on cue to embarrass an already shame-faced Zelensky even more: (Video at link.)

The one interesting takeaway was the CFR’s Foreign Affairs mag releasing their vision of a compromise for Ukraine’s future:

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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ ... e-and-nato

The eye-opening concept is revealing as to how the West likes its chances in Ukraine. In short, they propose following not the Korean DMZ model, but rather the German ‘Berlin Wall’ model. Though they beat around the bush somewhat, as it’s clearly a radical idea sure to ruffle feathers and frighten many Ukrainians, they in essence propose that Ukraine should decide which territory to give up, and then the remainder under Ukraine’s control should form its own new state that would be allowed to enter NATO proper. The consolation is that, just like West Germany was eventually reunified with East, they contend that Ukraine can ‘hold out’ under the promise of reunification with the territory they lost at some indeterminate future time:

Given the lessons in these models, leaders of NATO member states should, in private, encourage Kyiv to do three things: First, define a provisional, militarily defensible border. Second, agree to self-limitations on infrastructure on unoccupied territory (such as the permanent stationing of foreign troops or nuclear weapons) with the important Norwegian disclaimer that these limits are valid only as long as Ukraine is not under attack or threat of attack. Third, and most painful, undertake not to use military force beyond that border except in self-defense, as the West Germans did, in order to assure NATO allies that they won’t suddenly find themselves at war with Russia as soon as Ukraine becomes a member. The cost of this step would be acceptance of open-ended division, but the benefit would be to give most of Ukraine a safe haven in NATO.

Once settled, Kyiv and the alliance would go public with these agreements. NATO could amplify Kyiv’s unilateral statement with a similar declaration. The goal would be for independent Ukraine to join NATO as soon as feasible, ideally before January 20, 2025—but, if need be, as part of Trump’s “deal.”


As can be seen by the end, they even radically propose for this plan to be enacted ASAP to beat Trump to the punch, thus is their sheer terror at the fallout of a Trump presidency. It should also be noted that Trump’s new VP pick, JD Vance, has previously stated unequivocally that Ukraine should give up land to end the war.

The problem is, almost all of the above in practice sounds virtually no different to the previous Minsk accords. What possible incentive would Russia have in taking such a “deal” which freezes the conflict and brings NATO even closer to Russian territory—thus effectively achieving the complete opposite of Russia’s chief objectives in the war?

Later in the piece, they even absurdly propose for a NATO ‘no fly zone’ to be enforced on the demarcating line. Right—that will go over well, the Kremlin is sure to welcome NATO stealth fighters peacefully ‘patrolling’ a split Donetsk/Lugansk territory.

The only real danger is that, if such a plan represents the internal brainstorms of connected CFR deepstate bigwigs, then it can only mean they’re likewise considering forcibly freezing the conflict in such a way even should Russia reject the idea.

In fact, months ago I wrote about this very idea from a different source: the proposal for Ukraine to “cut off” the taken territories and then fast-track its remaining rump-state into NATO, to hide behind the skirts of Article 5. Technically, it can happen, especially owing to the fact that most Ukrainian citizens are now fine with giving up the lost territories, as per recent polls.

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The only issue would of course be the vetoing of such a move by saner NATO members like Hungary, but there could be mechanisms to deal with that. Although, the danger for such a drastic plan to totally rip NATO apart and cause its collapse would likely be great; but in the minds of desperate Western globalists it would be a trade off: should Ukraine lose the war in decisively dramatic fashion, NATO would face its extinction anyway.

This is why, for instance, the Western banking cabal is so rabidly earnest in seizing stolen Russian sovereign funds despite the risk of it completely delegitimizing the entire Western financial system: they know that if Russia wins the war, this system will collapse anyway, owing to a runaway effect of de-dollarization and Russia’s leading role in the paradigm-breaking multipolarity grand awakening.

Never underestimate the folly of evildoers facing their mortal demise.



One interesting digression: the article inadvertently validates Russia’s justifications for the war in a way that’s very telling about the West’s morally untenable position.

First, in a bit of historical prefacing, they strangely admit that Norway not only faced no threat from Russia, but was in fact saved by Russia in World War Two, yet still illogically joined NATO to conversely threaten Russia:

Seventy-five years ago, Norway wanted what Ukraine wants today: to become an ally despite bordering Russia (then in the Soviet Union). Although Moscow wasn’t invading Norway at that time, or ever—in fact, the Red Army had even helped liberate some northern Norwegian territory from the Nazis—Norwegians had bitter memories of how their onetime neutrality had ended in brutal Nazi occupation. And they were horrified as Czechoslovakia—another formerly occupied country between East and West—fell under Moscow’s control in 1948. These experiences diminished the attractiveness of continued neutrality.

Follow the stated logic above with me for a moment:

Norway was never threatened by Russia

Russia saved Norway from the Nazis

For the sake of safety from future attacks, Norway joins an alliance to protect itself from the nation which…protected and liberated it from its attacker

Does that make sense to anyone?

Incomprehensibly, the article then makes another jolting admission—that Putin very reasonably requested for NATO to not station long range missiles on Russia’s border:

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How is that—even in the minds of the bitterest Russophobes—not a rationally reasonable request? For a leader of a country to ask a giant threatening alliance to not position its devastating long range weaponry on his country’s borders is something even the most cynical demagogue can understand.

What can we say? It merely shows the intellectual bankruptcy and moral disingenuousness terminally plaguing the West.


What has become evident in the wake of the NATO summit, however, is the overarching plan that the West has to goad Russia into a major European war by the end of the decade. The reason for this is well known: the globalist-financial interests who run the world and make all the top executive decisions in the West have decided there is no other way to ‘reset’ their system other than war. They tried to push the Great Reset onto humanity via Covid and Agenda 2030, but these plans have failed thus far—and so the only way left to reset the hyper-leveraged and terminally diseased global financial web is via war.

Here they can kill several birds with one stone, as well: destroying ascendant Russia, which has recently taken fourth place in GDP PPP standings and is now leaving Europe in the dust, not to mention trailblazing a new golden path forward for all humanity with its leading role in the Multipolarity project.

Thus, there are now increased agitations for war in the West.

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The latest revolves around plans to put long range missiles in Germany, to which Russia has now responded with plans to begin manufacturing long-time-banned intermediate range ballistic missiles.

🇩🇪🇺🇸🇷🇺 U.S. TO START DEPLOYING LONG-RANGE WEAPONS IN PUPPET GERMANY BY 2026 (see article above) - #Moscow warns against escalating move, as #Berlin and #Washington plan unprecedented stationing of missiles with range exceeding 500KM.

U.S. in preparation for longer-term stationing of such capabilities that will include SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles and developmental hypersonic weapons that have a longer range than current capabilities in #Europe - Joint statement.


Germany, of late, has been chafing at the bit, with repeated calls from top military officials from the reintroduction of conscription, as well as statements that the country must be prepared for large-scale war “by 2029”:

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Of course, as per their usual MO, the West conceals their own secret plans by projecting them onto Russia:

🇷🇺⚔️🏴‍☠️Russia may begin to fight with NATO around 2029 - then the Russians will have optimal conditions for this, - Inspector General of the German Army

▪️He predicts approximately 1.5 million soldiers in Russia in 5-8 years, which is twice the number deployed in Ukraine.

▪️The German army only has enough ammunition supplies for 2 days.

▪️Beli is even considering reintroducing compulsory military service in Germany.

▪️Russia is now building ~1500 battle tanks a year - the same number in the five strongest NATO countries. Germany has, for example, only 300 of them.


More:

The US and NATO are preparing for war with Russia. The US is bringing its Tomahawks to Germany. You know how this will end.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Antonov (https://t.me/dimsmirnov175/74948) on American plans to deploy destructive weapons in Germany:

Essentially, we are talking about plans for the United States to deploy medium- and shorter-range missiles in Europe. This is a serious mistake by Washington. The Americans are increasing the risks of a missile arms race. They forget that tying a knot of confrontation can become a detonator of uncontrolled escalation against the backdrop of a dangerous escalation of tensions along the Russia-NATO line. The decision to deploy long-range weapons in Germany from 2026 backfires on Russia’s commitment to a moratorium on the deployment of ground-based INF missiles. The Americans have embarked on the dangerous path of militarism.


<snip>

Meanwhile ex-US ambassador to NATO has blatantly demanded for the immediate gangpressing of all 18-year olds in Ukraine: (Video at link.)

The official account for the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces beat him to the punch by releasing images of some of their members, which included a mortarman who looks suspiciously like a teenage girl:

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Higher rez original so you can see her earring:

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And in fact, some reports claim that Ukraine is already mobilizing under-25s unofficially en masse—something you can see with your own eyes on the front.

A sample was given of a mobik born in the year 2000:

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In Ukraine, the Zemobilization of men 20-25 years old is in full swing, despite the law ... the Ombudsman and deputies do not notice the lawlessness of military police officers, and power covers the TCK (commissars)!
From the beginning of 2025, an appeal may be introduced from the age of 18. The parliament is already collecting a majority for this project, lists of 16-17 summer children are being prepared in order to prevent them from going to the border. At the same time, people under the age of 25 are already being mobilized into the army.
Police officers illegally abducted the police officers and mobilized a 21-year-old and 24-year-old guy against their will, and against their will they were sent to the training ground. At the same time, Colonel Merzlikin beat young people there, to whom the law is not written!

Take care of your children, Zemobilization has nothing to do with the laws of Ukraine, the main thing is to maintain power…


Even MSM is beginning to cover this angle more and more:

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https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukrain ... e-9cb6d99d


Russian motorcycle tactics continue apace as well, and successfully so. New videos abound of major captures by way of motorbike that look like something out of Mad Max.

The first is a bit from the Espanola Brigade, a mostly volunteer unit made up of wild soccer ultras: (Video at link.)

Then there was another video showcasing by far the largest scale motorcycle assault, perhaps in modern history, which led to the total re-capture of Urozhayne (Harvest), which had been taken by the AFU during last year’s grand summer counteroffensive:(video at lnk.


Given the Marine-looking flag at the end, this could be the Russian 40th Marine Brigade—which operates precisely on that front—and other detachments.

(Much more at link.)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sit ... -nato-buys

******

Some News From Convention...
... the conditions, however, are known--Kremlin articulated those many times.

МИЛУОКИ /штат Висконсин/, 16 июля. /ТАСС/. Кандидат в президенты США Дональд Трамп будет готов вступить в диалог с российским лидером Владимиром Путиным по урегулированию конфликта на Украине без каких-либо посредников. Об этом сообщил корреспонденту ТАСС высокопоставленный функционер Республиканской партии, принимающий участие в национальном съезде партии в городе Милуоки, где недавно объявили об официальном выдвижении Трампа кандидатом в президенты. "Несомненно, он начнет диалог с Путиным. Причем он сделает это без посредников", - подчеркнул собеседник агентства, отвечая на вопрос о готовности Трампа вступить в диалог с Путиным по Украине. "Сейчас демократы не ведут никаких переговоров [с Россией]. Конечно, должен быть кто-то, кто начнет переговоры, чтобы вы [Россия и Украина] смогли прийти к какому-то согласию", - подчеркнул собеседник агентства и утвердительно ответил на вопрос, будет ли этим человеком Трамп. Функционер выразил уверенность, что Североатлантическому альянсу не следует присутствовать на Украине, конфликт должен быть решен путем переговоров. "НАТО не нужно быть на Украине. Нужен диалог, и если он начнется, мы все сможем прийти к соглашению о том, как преодолеть его [конфликт на Украине]", - отметил собеседник агентства.

Translation: MILWAUKEE /Wisconsin/, July 16. /TASS/. US presidential candidate Donald Trump will be ready to enter into dialogue with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to resolve the conflict in Ukraine without any mediators. This was reported to a TASS correspondent by a high-ranking Republican Party functionary taking part in the party’s national convention in Milwaukee, where Trump’s official nomination as a presidential candidate was recently announced. “Undoubtedly, he will begin a dialogue with Putin. And he will do this without intermediaries,” the agency’s interlocutor emphasized, answering a question about Trump’s readiness to enter into a dialogue with Putin on Ukraine. “Now the democrats are not conducting any negotiations [with Russia]. Of course, there must be someone who will start negotiations so that you [Russia and Ukraine] can come to some kind of agreement,” the agency’s interlocutor emphasized and answered the question affirmatively, whether that person will be Trump. The functionary expressed confidence that the North Atlantic Alliance should not be present in Ukraine, the conflict should be resolved through negotiations. “NATO does not need to be in Ukraine. We need dialogue, and if it starts, we can all come to an agreement on how to overcome it [the conflict in Ukraine],” the agency’s interlocutor noted.

Just the news.

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/07 ... ntion.html

Fat chance, Orange Man couldn't even get a handful of troops out of Syria. He will go with the status quo rather than chance being branded a 'loser'.

******

Zelensky’s Envisaged Path To Peace Is A Political Fantasy

ANDREW KORYBKO
JUL 16, 2024

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Any talks that include ultimatums to Russia and in which China doesn’t participate are doomed to fail.

Zelensky shared his envisaged path to peace on Monday where he revealed that four more rounds of talks on the Ukrainian Conflict are planned for the coming months after the most recent one last month in Switzerland. The next one will take place in Qatar and cover energy security, then there’ll be one in Turkiye about free navigation in the Black Sea. After that, a meeting on prisoner exchanges will take place in Canada around September, followed by another Swiss-like event in November.

It's during this fifth event that Zelensky said that he hopes Russia can participate, though Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin already ruled that out last week on the grounds that his country won’t attend any meetings where it’s talked down to and pressured to comply with ultimatums. Nevertheless, Zelensky’s shifting rhetoric and the timing with which he expects everything to unfold are interesting developments in and of themselves, and they’ll now be analyzed to place them into perspective.

His roadmap was shared shortly after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s “peace mission”, which took him to Ukraine, Russia, China, and the US, and suggests that Zelensky and his most reliable Western partners are seriously concerned about the possibility of a non-Western peace process emerging. It was explained here how this could take the form of more inclusive Chinese-organized but Brazilian-fronted talks ahead of and/or during the G20 Summit in Rio.

In the event that they’re held, then they could create the diplomatic momentum for coercing Ukraine into compromising on its unrealistic maximalist objective of reconquering its lost territories, not to mention having an international tribunal for alleged Russian “war criminals” after the conflict ends. That’s because the Sino-Brazilian duopoly could foreseeably marshal most of the Global South to attend their meetings and get them to support their joint six-point peace consensus for freezing the conflict.

Considering China’s interest in presenting itself as a global diplomatic force to be reckoned with, it’s unlikely that it would participate in any of the upcoming four meetings that Zelensky described just like how it declined to attend last month’s one in Switzerland. Its closest partners in the Global South might follow its lead as well, or if they still take part in the event, then they might refuse to sign any joint statement just like Brazil declined to do during the latest one.

Without China’s participation and absent the support of leading Global South countries, many of whom also didn’t lend their signature to last month’s declaration, everything that Zelensky has planned over the coming months is just a political fantasy for perception management purposes. He and those behind him know that they need to at least superficially reach out to the Global South, hence the upcoming meetings in Qatar and Turkiye, and they also know that they can’t continue excluding Russia either.

This explains those two’s roles in this envisaged diplomatic sequence and Zelensky’s publicly stated interest in inviting Russia to the next Swiss-like event in November, though the first part won’t make any difference in changing the Global South’s approach while Galuzin already ruled out the second. The fact of the matter is that any talks that include ultimatums to Russia and in which China doesn’t participate are doomed to fail so all of this is yet another soft power stunt that won’t amount to anything.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/zelensky ... h-to-peace
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 18, 2024 11:54 am

Dysfunctional politics
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/18/2024

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“Dysfunction Sidelines Ukrainian Parliament as a Governing Force,” is the title of an article published this week by The New York Times in one of the few political critiques that have appeared in the Western press in recent months. It took two years after the Russian invasion for the grace period of no political commentary on the Ukrainian authorities to be broken, albeit partially and only temporarily. It was the news that reported Vitali Klitschko’s words against what he perceived as authoritarian drift that opened the door. Like current reports, those news items also lacked the contextualization that politics requires and it was not mentioned that the criticisms of the mayor of Kiev and the measures he was protesting against were part of a confrontation that practically dates back to the beginning of Zelensky’s presidency. The origin of this rivalry lies in the struggle for power and control of state resources between the two protagonists. Moreover, Zelensky's attempt to administratively snatch the mayoralty of kyiv from Klitschko, a man with important political connections and contacts, especially in Germany, is one of the examples that show that Volodymyr Zelensky's authoritarian drift is not justified in the current war situation, but rather precedes the Russian military intervention by several years.

As then, the information currently provided by The New York Times also lacks the context that would be expected from a world-renowned media outlet. The search for immediacy at the expense of depth, the lack of interest in the situation in Ukraine beyond the war scenario or the attempt not to overly annoy an allied government that does not hesitate to label any minimally critical comment as Russian propaganda seriously undermine the information that the public is receiving. Hence, an article that questions the political performance of the party represented by President Zelensky, praised since 2022 as a war hero and the man who has united Ukraine, is both an exception and insignificant information for understanding the internal political context of the war.

“Under martial law, with the country at war, it is not possible to hold elections to replace members who changed jobs, enlisted in the army, fled the country or resigned. Parliament meets regularly with more than 10% of its lawmakers absent. Although they are legally required to attend hearings when summoned, ministers sometimes fail to show up, without repercussions,” writes The New York Times as all the contextualization it deems necessary to describe the current situation. Monitoring Ukraine’s political news since February 2022 gives a very different picture than the simple absenteeism of deputies and ministerial representatives and shows a Rada absolutely devoid of content and whose work has been taken over, one might even say usurped, by the Office of the President, which also controls executive power. The Ukrainian parliament, which is completely ineffective, remains a stage for personal confrontations and political spectacles, often in the face of empty seats, deputies who try unsuccessfully to resign from their posts, and a large number of elected representatives who only appear in the chamber to ratify previously approved decisions. This is what happened during the adoption of the law on mobilization, where the photographs of the moments of the debate on the amendments, with the hall empty, had little to do with those of the day of the vote.

“President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, once a political giant, has lost its majority by splitting into factions,” explains The New York Times, giving Servant of the People a status it never really had. The president’s party, like the Poroshenko Bloc, was always a personalist formation created by and for the figure of its leader. The press seems to have also forgotten what was written about the party and its leader when it emerged, practically out of nowhere and at the hands of the oligarch Viktor Kolomoisky, in 2019. “The Servants – all of them newcomers to the political front line – claim they will cleanse the country of the scourge of corruption. They will increase the income of Europe’s second-poorest nation. They will introduce a more honest kind of politics. But critics point to the team's inexperience and an approach to political enemies that they say is not entirely out of keeping with 1917," wrote Oliver Carroll in The Independent after the victory of the Jewish-born leader, with a reference to the year of the October Revolution which, in a country already dominated by the nationalist right, had clear anti-Semitic overtones of the Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy .

“The overall picture, according to Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst, is of a parliament that was marginalized during the war and is failing to play its once powerful role in Ukrainian democracy,” insists The New York Times , once again extolling a role and democratic credentials far superior to those that the Rada has shown in this last decade. To begin with, it was the parliament that wanted to give a democratic appearance to the irregular change of government that had taken place in the capital on February 24, 2014. Even despite the pressure on the deputies of Viktor Yanukovych’s party and the latent threat of violence from the extreme right, the pro-Maidan parties did not obtain the necessary votes for the motion of censure, riddled with irregularities, to achieve the necessary votes to remove the democratically elected president in elections validated by international institutions. And throughout the years of war in Donbass, the Rada became the theatre of personal ambitions, political rivalries and the demonisation of opposition options.

The Rada, once a democratically powerful place, was the place where an Orthodox priest cleansed the seats that had been occupied by the communist parliamentary group during the previous term . This happened in 2014, when the Communist Party of Ukraine was no longer able to stand for election. That same year, its historical leader, Petro Simonenko, was attacked by other deputies when he tried to finish a parliamentary speech from the podium.

The war has facilitated the work that the three branches of government – ​​executive, legislative and judicial, if there ever was an effective separation between them – had done over the previous eight years to eliminate any non-nationalist political option. Demonised and discredited, the Party of Regions fractured into several political groups which, under the cover of Rinat Akhmetov, formed minor political parties with a limited presence in Parliament. One of them, the Opposition Platform for Life, split from the Opposition Bloc, rose to the point of overtaking Volodymyr Zelensky’s party in voting intention for the legislative elections that were due to be held this year. It was then that the political powers began to put judicial pressure on its leader, Viktor Medvedchuk, who was detained under house arrest for a politically fabricated case of coal trading with the People’s Republics in which Petro Poroshenko was also accused, although he was not subject to any restrictive measures on his freedom. The Russian invasion put Medvedchuk and his group in the crosshairs: their leader was arrested, accused of all sorts of crimes, publicly humiliated and then handed over to Russia as a prisoner of war, while other deputies were deprived by decree of their seats obtained thanks to the votes of the population.

Now, whether out of ignorance of day-to-day reality, disinterest or apathy, media such as The New York Times are surprised by the lack of unity in the president’s party, the defections – historically abundant in Ukrainian political parties – and the measures with which Volodymyr Zelensky maintains the majority. “The party has formed a strange political partnership with the remnants of a party called the Opposition Bloc that was officially dissolved in 2022 due to its ties to Russia. Together they have passed laws to expand the bill, critically important to Ukraine’s war effort, and to shape agency oversight and rules intended to safeguard foreign aid,” explains the American media, without giving importance to the fact that the president dissolved political groups and withdrew deputies’ minutes by decree. “Critics of this alliance claim that it has weakened the independence of parliament, as former pro-Russian politicians risk prosecution for treason and are barely able to exercise effective oversight,” he finally admits, without ever describing that these are not empty threats but actions that have already been used against another political group.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/18/30179/

Google Translator

******

From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of July 17, 2024) | Main points:

- Russian Air Defense shot down a Hammer guided aerial bomb and 59 Ukrainian drones in one day;

- The Vostok group of forces took up more advantageous positions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 125 servicemen;

- The Central group of forces improved its tactical position, repelled a counterattack by units of the Lyut assault brigade;

- The Russian Armed Forces destroyed a missile and artillery weapons depot of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in one day;

- The Sever group of forces defeated 3 enemy brigades in one day, repelled 1 counterattack, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 170 servicemen;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 325 servicemen and a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle in one day in the area of ​​responsibility of the Central Group of Forces;

- The Dnepr group of forces destroyed three ammunition depots of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and a military-technical equipment depot.

Units of the "East" group of forces occupied more advantageous positions and also defeated the manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 21st National Guard Brigade and the 48th Separate Assault Battalion of Territorial Defense in the areas of the settlements of Ugledar, Oktiabr and Makarovka of the Donetsk People's Republic. The Armed Forces

of Ukraine lost up to 125 servicemen, ten vehicles, a 155-mm howitzer M777 made in the USA, a 152-mm howitzer D-20 , a 105-mm gun M119 made in the USA and a Nota electronic warfare station .

▫️ Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 141st Infantry, 128th Mountain Assault Brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as the 112th and 121st Territorial Defense Brigades in the areas of the populated areas of Pyatikhatki, Zherebyanka in the Zaporizhia region, Sadovoe and Mykhailivka in the Kherson region.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 100 servicemen, a tank , four vehicles, a US-made 155-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Paladin" , three US-made 155-mm howitzers M777 , a UK-made 155-mm howitzer FH-70 , a 122-mm howitzer D-30 , and three "Anklav" electronic warfare stations .

Over the course of 24 hours, three Ukrainian Armed Forces ammunition depots and a military-technical property depot were destroyed .

▫️Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups hit a missile and artillery weapons depot, as well as manpower and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 136 districts . Air defense systems shot down a French - made

Hammer guided bomb , two US-made HIMARS rockets and 59 unmanned aerial vehicles.

▫️ In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed : 628 aircraft, 277 helicopters, 27,709 unmanned aerial vehicles, 552 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,602 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,379 multiple launch rocket systems, 12,013 field artillery pieces and mortars, 23,772 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Trans;ator

******

It Was A Major Mistake For Zelensky To Insult Modi Last Week

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ANDREW KORYBKO
JUL 17, 2024

India is the world’s most populous country, the Voice of the Global South, and a major power that’s pivotal to the global balance between all key players so getting on its bad side like Zelensky just did will capsize Ukraine’s plans to generate wider support for its cause.

Zelensky insulted Indian Prime Minister Modi during his trip to Moscow last week by tweeting that “It is disheartening to see the leader of the world's largest democracy embrace the world's most notorious criminal in Moscow”, thus prompting India to summon the Ukrainian Ambassador on Monday. It’s unclear what he was told, but his hosts predictably made it clear that such rhetoric isn’t welcome, especially after Modi lamented the loss of life in all conflicts during his meeting with Putin.

While some might imagine that Zelensky simply tweeted whatever his Western patrons told him to, the reality is that he probably did so on his own prerogative, though therein lies the problem. In his mind, the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict sparked by Russia’s special operation is an epic battle between democracies and dictatorships, not anything having to do with security dilemmas and national interests. This false perception was impressed upon him by the West over two years ago.

While his embrace of it might have been opportunistic to begin with, namely to rally the Collective West around the cause of Ukraine reconquering its lost territories per Kiev’s envisaged maximalist goal, he’s since become a sincere believer in this paradigm as evidenced by what he tweeted about Modi. The reason why this is troubling isn’t just because it’s an inaccurate way of assessing everything, but also because it led to Ukraine stirring trouble with the Voice of the Global South, India.

The past nearly two and a half years have seen Ukraine belatedly realized that it must obtain some support from this diverse collection of non-Western countries if it’s to have any hope of pressuring Russia to compromise on its own envisaged maximalist goals in this conflict. This explains the recent outreaches to that part of the world during last month’s Swiss talks, which were over-hyped ahead of time and thus became a disappointment after they failed to meet the public’s lofty expectations.

Zelensky announced earlier this week that four more talks are planned before December, with at least two of them taking place in the Global South states of Qatar and Turkiye, the first of which has first-world living standards for its citizens (though not migrant workers) but is still a non-Western country. Quite clearly, this schedule was discussed over the past month since the last Swiss talks, it wasn’t something that was broadly agreed to by those countries over the past week since Modi’s Moscow trip.

Accordingly, Zelensky should have exercised better judgement than to insult the Indian leader like he did since this in turn reduces the chances that Modi will send high-level representatives to those events, let alone sign whatever final declaration might emerge from them. It also declined to put its signature on the Swiss document so precedent suggests that it was already planning to withhold it from forthcoming ones, but nonetheless, India’s attitude towards Ukraine will sour even more than it already has.

India is the world’s most populous country, the Voice of the Global South, and a major power that’s pivotal to the global balance between all key players so getting on its bad side like Zelensky just did will capsize Ukraine’s plans to generate wider support for its cause. China refused to attend the Swiss talks and thus likely won’t participate in the forthcoming ones, and with India possibly sending low-level dignitaries from here on out who are now less likely to sign any declarations, the Global South is lost.

Without at least one of those two’s support, especially India’s seeing as how it’s the world’s largest democracy, Zelensky will be unable to obtain real support from the Global South as a whole and can’t continue upholding the claim that this conflict is an epic battle between democracies and dictatorships. To be sure, it was never realistic to expect India to fully support Ukraine due to its multi-alignment policy and principled neutrality towards this conflict, but it might have signaled more sympathy for its cause.

That’ll never happen now after what Zelensky wrote about Modi, which amounts to one of the greatest self-inflicted soft power blows that any leader has committed in recent memory. He let himself believe the false paradigm about this conflict and then emotionally reacted when he saw Modi hugging Putin instead of taking some time to calm down before tweeting. This episode says a lot about Zelensky as a person, and it’s that he’s a very weak man at heart, not the lion that the West has pretended that he is.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/it-was-a ... r-zelensky

Ukraine Likely Feels Jaded After NATO Said That It Won’t Allow Poland To Intercept Russian Missiles

ANDREW KORYBKO
JUL 18, 2024

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Although they’re playing a dangerous game of nuclear chicken with Russia, NATO is still exercising a degree of self-restraint, albeit solely due to its self-interest and not out of any so-called “responsibility”.

One of the most reported-upon aspects of the newly clinched Polish-Ukrainian security pact, which was summarized here and analyzed at length here, was that Poland agreed to discuss the interception of Russian missiles over Ukraine. The caveat though was that this would “follow necessary procedures agreed by the States and organisations involved”, and outgoing NATO chief Stoltenberg just said that his bloc is against doing so after the US and UK expressed a similar stance earlier in the year.

Ukraine likely feels jaded after Zelensky hyped up this “provision to develop a mechanism for intercepting Russian missiles and drones in Ukraine’s airspace aimed at Poland” during his press conference with Tusk in Warsaw last week after they signed their security pact. Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski, who’s one of the EU’s most infamous anti-Russian hawks, probably feels foolish too after claiming the day prior to Stoltenberg’s comments on Sunday that Poland was still “exploring the idea”.

In hindsight, this clause was only included in the Polish-Ukrainian security pact as a means of Warsaw signaling its support for Kiev even though it was never going to unilaterally act on that proposal since it explicitly included the requirement that it be “agreed” by NATO. It might also be that Zelensky, Sikorski, and the other anti-Russian hawks in those two countries thought they could convince the Anglo-American Axis to approve this escalation, however, hence their optimistic comments about it.

Nevertheless, their refusal to greenlight the Polish interception of Russian missiles over Ukraine speaks to the fact that NATO is still reluctant to escalate in a way that risks drawing the bloc directly into the conflict, though that doesn’t mean that some countries might not intervene unilaterally. France and Poland already talked about doing so under certain conditions, but it remains unclear whether they’ll actually go through with it if the time comes such as if Russia achieves a military breakthrough.

In any case, whatever they might do in that respect is separate from NATO as a whole authorizing the interception of Russian missiles, which could prompt Russia to target their air defense systems and thus lead to NATO feeling pressured to directly strike Russian targets whether in Ukraine or Russia proper. Although they’re playing a dangerous game of nuclear chicken with Russia, NATO is still exercising a degree of self-restraint, albeit solely due to its self-interest and not out of any so-called “responsibility”.

Zelensky, Sikorski, and their ilk might therefore collude to stage a false flag incident of some sort for moving the needle on a conventional NATO intervention in Ukraine instead of risking a “coalition of the willing” going in without any ironclad promises that Article 5 would protect them. After all, they’re heavily invested in that scenario since it would reassure Kiev that it won’t suffer a strategic defeat if Russia achieves a military breakthrough, but it’s too early to predict what form this might take.

Regardless of whatever ends up happening, the takeaway is that NATO (or rather, the Anglo-American Axis that’s most responsible for its decisions) has thus far kept the most vicious anti-Russian hawks at bay by refusing to approve Poland’s interception of Russian missiles over Ukraine. This doesn’t mean that they’ll be able to do so indefinitely, but it’s still significant that they haven’t capitulated to their latest escalation proposal, which shows that there are still some coolheaded figures behind the scenes.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/ukraine- ... aded-after

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Desertion in AFU. In half a year, twice as many soldiers escaped from front than in the whole of 2023
Editor: Daria Zubkova

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The escape of military personnel from the Armed Forces of Ukraine has reached an alarming scale. In the first half of 2024, law enforcement officers in Ukraine opened almost 29,800 new criminal cases related to the escape of military personnel: 18,600 under the article on voluntary abandonment of a military unit and 11,200 under the stricter "Desertion", according to the statistics of the Prosecutor General’s Office. This number has already exceeded the figures for the entire year 2023 - when 24,100 new investigations were initiated, and is more than three times higher than the figure for 2022 (9,400 cases), DW writes.

It is reported that since the beginning of 2022, the prosecutor's office has registered 63,200 such criminal proceedings. If we compare this number with the number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (880,000 people), we can conclude that almost every 14th serviceman escaped from the army during the full-scale war.

As the publication notes, official data do not reflect the real scale of the problem, according to HR officers and lawyers familiar with the situation of the escape of servicemen from units. Some say that the real number of cases is three times greater than the number of criminal cases, others even four times. "In April 2022, the soldier left the unit voluntarily, and until today no criminal case was registered. And I had five out of nine such cases without a case in my list for one region," says a personnel officer of the 28th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Viktor Liakh, from the Odesa Region.

Commanders are also obliged to report the escape of subordinates to the Military Law and Order Service (MLS) - a special law enforcement formation within the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At DW's request, they did not want to disclose the number of such messages and comment on the statistics of the prosecutor's office, referring to the confidentiality of the data.


However, the service admits that there are enough reasons for the "commitment of voluntary abandonment of a military unit by servicemen". In a written response to DW, its recently appointed chief, Colonel Vitalii Levchenko, in addition to purely subjective factors, such as "the desire to temporarily evade duties for rest" or "the low moral and psychological state of servicemen called up for mobilization", indicates joint military problems. First of all, this is "emotional overload and exhaustion... associated with a long-term stay in the area of ​​hostilities without rotation" and "insufficient level of assistance from the command in solving family and social problems," the military officer notes.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, since the beginning of the war, 13 soldiers have been sentenced for fleeing the battlefield or refusing to take up arms.

During the 2 years of the war in Ukraine, 270 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were convicted of desertion.

https://ukranews.com/en/news/1019931-de ... le-of-2023

Ukraine's internal economy facing huge problems - Razumkov about intensified mobilization measures
Editor: Tetiana Herasimova

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Ukraine's economy is seriously suffering from mobilization measures in the country, which will ultimately affect the state's defense capabilities.
The ex-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, leader of the Rozumna Syla (Reasonable Power) party, non-affiliated parliamentarian Dmytro Razumkov has stated this in a comment.

"The situation with mobilization today is difficult, because time was completely lost. And when they tried to find a balance between the mobilization of people and those who will work for the economy, work to fill the budget and thus help the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the authorities decided to play the story of 2- 3 weeks and in fact lost the precious time that was, and was provided, including by the Security and Defense Forces. Today, the law that was adopted, the law on mobilization, does not objectively give any of the categories a positive result," he noted.

Moreover, Razumkov emphasized, mobilization negatively affects the economy of Ukraine.


"When mobilization takes place today in the way that it is today, we understand that huge problems are occurring in the internal economy of the state, because the government, which did not cope with the tasks before it, actually transferred its responsibility to business. When business has to ensure delivery of people to territorial recruitment and social support centers, this leads to the fact that people are fired, people go into the shadows, people try to evade this process, and it is inconvenient for business," he added.

The parliamentarian explained: in fact, the Ukrainian authorities are shadowing the economy, causing the situation to have negative consequences in the very short term.

"This is against the background of rising prices, it is against the background of rising tariffs, it is against the background of the lack of stable energy supply and many other things. That is, in fact, today in all directions the law on mobilization, and that mobilization in the way that is happening today, does not give positive results in any of directions. And in fact, this may lead to the failure of the economy within the state, which, in turn, will lead to a decrease in revenues to the state budget of Ukraine, and a decrease in revenues to the state budget of Ukraine will lead to a lack of funds for the security and defense forces on the state's defense capability. In other words, we can actually say that today's actions of the authorities lead to a decrease in the state's defense capability, and not the other way around," he emphasized.

Razumkov also drew attention to the lack of male labor in a number of sectors of the economy, which also threatens with adverse consequences.


"Today, it is really far from being possible to replace men in all sectors and industries, especially if we are talking about hard work that women cannot do. And today there is no logical long-term and honest relationship between the government and business, because business was promised one thing, that part of people in enterprises that pay, for example, large taxes, or that belong to the security and defense sector, or that belong to critical industries, for example, the agricultural sector, will be booked. But in fact, we reached the point where the authorities bailed on the business again, because if we take the same agricultural sector, they promised that they would book 50%, initially they booked, and after the enterprise showed all the workers, the next time this booking was not extended. And there are many such examples,” he noted.

The parliamentarian believes that in the absence of people's trust in the authorities, it will not be possible to open the state borders.

"Confidence in the central government is effectively reduced to zero. And there is no faith in the president, the Cabinet, or the monomajority... That is, if the borders are opened today, taking into account the absolute distrust of the government, people will simply flee, go abroad. Even today, we see a trend, when those who potentially cannot be mobilized today are still looking for ways to leave the country, because they do not understand what will happen tomorrow and what the president and his entourage will throw out the next day," he concluded.

https://ukranews.com/en/news/1020090-uk ... n-measures

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Slobozhansky direction: clarification of the combat situation near Staritsa and positional battles in Volchansk
July 17, 2024
Rybar

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The situation in the Slobozhansky direction remains tense: Ukrainian formations are making significant efforts to dislodge the Russian Armed Forces from the territory of the Kharkov region . Earlier, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command transferred significant reserves to this section of the front, which are used for counterattacks along the entire line from Liptsy to Vovchansky Khutors.

In Glubokoe, the enemy has consolidated its positions on the southwestern outskirts, using which it is launching attacks on the positions of the Russian Armed Forces in the center of the village. Russian units are striking at infantry groups and positions of Ukrainian formations, preventing them from achieving significant success.

The situation in the Staritsa area has not changed significantly. Thanks to combat footage from the Russian Armed Forces, it was possible to clarify the current front line to the southwest of the settlement: apparently, Russian troops were unable to advance in the vicinity of the pond located here and have consolidated their positions to the northeast in the Degtyarevka tract .

In Volchansk, fighting continues in the area of ​​the Aggregate Plant , where Russian attack aircraft are trying to finally drive the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of the industrial zone. Around July 13 , Gorky Park and some buildings on the southern outskirts of the plant up to the northern bank of the Volchya River came under the control of the Russian Armed Forces .

The area around Shevchenko , Gagarin , Dukhovnaya and Naberezhnaya streets is in the "gray zone", and neither side can achieve stable control in this area. The areas report high activity of various types of drones, which are hunting for infantry groups and armored vehicles.

The enemy uses the restored river crossings to transfer reinforcements to the northern bank. At the same time, the engineering equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the crossing sites thttps://rybar.ru/rumyniya-forpost-na-vostochnom-flange-nato/#:~:text=Romania%3A%20NATO%27s%20Eastern,Russia%20from%20Transnistria.hemselves regularly become targets for Russian Aerospace Forces strikes.

https://rybar.ru/slobozhanskoe-napravle ... olchanske/

Romania: NATO's Eastern Flank Outpost
July 17, 2024
Rybar

There has been much talk lately about Romania becoming one of the main outposts on NATO's eastern flank. A clear sign of this is the plans to purchase modern equipment and rearm the army, a process that continues to gain momentum:

Last week, Romania signed a contract for 54 South Korean-made K9 self-propelled howitzers and 36 ammunition carriers, as well as 18,000 155mm shells. The agreement is for five years, with the first deliveries scheduled for 2027.

Yesterday, July 16, in Bucharest , they also announced their desire to reach an agreement with the United States no later than autumn on the acquisition of 48 fifth-generation F-35 fighters in two stages. At the moment, the country's Air Force operates used F-16 fighters purchased from Norway in 2022.

Previously, Romania also signed contracts for the supply of American M1A2R Abrams tanks, HIMARS MLRS , MIM-104 Patriot air defense systems , Turkish Bayraktar TB2 attack drones , as well as the licensed production of Swiss Piranha V armored personnel carriers.

At the same time, NATO's military infrastructure continues to expand in the country: in particular, it is on Romanian territory that they plan to build the Alliance's largest base in Europe.

Taken together, this further points to the expansionist sentiments of the authorities in Bucharest, who are aiming to absorb Moldova and are trying to oust Russia from Transnistria.

https://rybar.ru/rumyniya-forpost-na-vo ... ange-nato/

Google Translator

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Unacceptable approaches
July 17, 21:13

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Lavrov made it clear that Russia is not going to participate in the "new peace conference" that Zelensky is muttering about. According to Lavrov, there are "unacceptable approaches" for Russia there.

Yes, there are a number of objective reasons for this.

1. Switzerland as such is obviously not suitable, since Switzerland is not a neutral country. For the same reasons, Russia is unlikely to participate in any conference that will be held on NATO territory (with the possible exception of Turkey).

2. Zelensky is not a legitimate representative of Ukraine. His term of office has expired and he is illegally holding power. Accordingly, any agreement with Zelensky has no legal force and can subsequently be easily annulled, simply due to the fact that Zelensky does not have the legal authority to act as president after the expiration of his term.

3. The "peace conference" in the minds of the United States and their Kiev puppets is a gathering to discuss "Zelensky's peace formula". After the failure of the summit in Switzerland, where the initiators themselves were afraid to discuss their own "formula" in its entirety, there is even less point in Russia discussing it in any form at any future summit where it considers it necessary to participate.

4. At the moment, Russia may be interested in a summit that will be held on the territory of a truly neutral country, with a discussion of Putin's conditions for the completion of the CBO and the Chinese peace plan that suits the Global South.

5. At the same time, until such agreements are concluded, military actions will not be stopped, so as not to give the enemy a respite to strengthen its military potential.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9271786.html

Monument to "victims of Stalinist repressions" demolished in Lugansk
July 17, 23:10

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In Lugansk, monuments to the "victims of Stalin's repressions" and "victims of the Holodomor" that were erected under Ukraine were torn down.

(Video at link.)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9271932.html

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Fri Jul 19, 2024 12:41 pm

Krynky
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/19/2024

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“Ukrainian troops have lost a hard-won position on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River near the southern city of Kherson after months of bloody fighting to hold a chunk of ground in what some Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts have called a futile operation,” The New York Times wrote on Wednesday , calling the offensive “brutal and senseless,” in a tone somewhat colder than its openly “suicidal” tone in December. Reports of the loss of the town of Krynky, south of the Dnipro in the Russian-controlled Kherson region, had begun to appear in pro-Ukrainian media throughout the day. “Official statements by the Ukrainian military on Tuesday made no direct reference to the withdrawal from Krynky. However, a report in the state-run Suspilne Novyni newspaper confirmed that the village had been abandoned “a few weeks ago,” The Kiyv Post wrote at the time , taking for granted the loss of what its headline describes as a “long-defended defensive bastion.”

Since November 2022, when the last major advance of this war took place, the Dnieper River has acted as a natural border and separation barrier between the two armies. At that time, aware that defending its positions on the right bank of the river was going to be excessively costly in terms of personnel and equipment, especially due to the work of destroying the logistical routes that Ukraine had carried out, the Russian Federation withdrew all its troops from the area, thereby abandoning the regional capital, Kherson, without trying to fight for it. The withdrawal, rapid and much more organized than other withdrawals made by Russian troops throughout this war, marked the end of the Ukrainian offensive movements that began in September with the attack on Kharkiv. With both sides exhausted and with winter at the door, that moment marked the beginning of the virtual paralysis of the front and a stability that, since then, has only been broken in Donbass. During that winter of 2022 and spring of 2023, when the Ukrainian government and its foreign allies anticipated an imminent counteroffensive, completely confident that it would be successful, the possibility of Ukraine trying to force the Dnieper was one of the scenarios that were handled. The logistical difficulties, the same ones that the Russian troops had suffered, made that possibility unviable and it was always evident that the ground attack would come exactly where it occurred, the central part of the front, where the river is not a factor and a break would have meant a very dangerous approach to Crimea for Russia.

The start of the Ukrainian landing on Krynky, an operation of small boats to avoid being seen, began in the fall of 2023, when it was already clear that the expected Ukrainian success in Zaporozhye was not going to happen. Although raids across the Dnieper, generally carried out by troops linked to Kirilo Budanov's GUR, were recurrent since the front practically stabilised, the Krynky operation was the first time that Kiev managed to consolidate positions on the southern bank of the river. As is often the case when Ukraine initiates suicidal operations, among the troops chosen were groups of the most extreme right. “Since 2014, Karas has led a volunteer military group, the C14, which has been described as far-right by vigilante groups. In 2016 it was integrated as a special operations force into the Ukrainian army,” wrote The New York Times in December , which already presented military plans of dubious viability.

“Krynky and the surrounding wet, marshy terrain had been widely described in the domestic media as the scene of months of bitter but successful defensive battles fought by elite Ukrainian marines, backed by omnipresent drones, against larger Russian forces displaying a huge firepower advantage,” wrote The Kiev Post yesterday in a legitimising article that in no way criticised Ukraine’s performance in this operation, the success of which depended entirely on a breakthrough elsewhere on the front. The attempt to pass off a retreat as a months-long success is an attempt to present what happened in Krynky in the defensive light it never had. Since the abandonment of Kherson, Russian troops have made no attempt to force the Dnieper.

The bridgehead on the southern bank of the river has always had a huge propaganda component. After the obvious failure of the ground offensive in Zaporozhye and with no possibility of breaking through the front in any other area, Ukraine needed a victory to present to its population and allies and created expectations that never corresponded to reality. “The Krynky bridgehead was presented as the possible start of a major offensive on Crimea. But many in Ukraine saw it as a PR move aimed at downplaying the failure of the 2023 offensive,” wrote Russian journalist Leonid Ragozin yesterday, summarizing both positions. Russia’s ability to monitor troop movements and the use of aviation made it impossible for the territory south of the Dnieper under Ukrainian control to increase.

“The Ukrainian military has tactical bridge-building equipment, including standard NATO assault bridges donated by Germany. In the more than six months since the capture of the Krynky stronghold, the Ukrainian top brass has never attempted to bridge the Dnieper River, a major water obstacle comparable to the Rhine. Any attempted crossing would have been destroyed by Russian Air Force bombers operating almost freely in the airspace over the Kherson sector, military analysts say,” The Kiev Post also admitted, doing so after months of praising the operation, which in all this time has been described as successful.

“Ukrainian forces are still fighting in Krynky, a key town in the hotly contested Dnipro bridgehead in Russian-occupied Kherson, but their positions are “completely destroyed,” the Southern Ukrainian Defence Forces said on July 17,” wrote The Kyiv Independent yesterday in a failed attempt to deny the reality or at least to qualify it. The destruction of Ukrainian positions necessarily implies their loss, since it is impossible to maintain a minimal presence in the ruins of a town that, according to the last census, had less than a thousand inhabitants. Contrary to what the media claimed, Krynky was never a key town , since the makeup of the front and, above all, its stability made the place an isolated point impossible to use both in defence and attack. “The lost battle for Krynky, a small village on the left bank of the Dnieper, has cost Ukraine 262 dead and 788 missing in action. "It gives an idea of ​​the possible global losses in the war that Ukraine is not disclosing," wrote Ragozin, referring to the information on casualties - underestimated according to Russian sources - that the Kiev troops have suffered during this time in a suicidal operation from which no military gain could be obtained beyond triumphalist headlines and the creation of false expectations.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/19/30186/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

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Rybar : On another combined attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Crimea

This night, after a long break, Ukrainian formations carried out a massive combined attack on the peninsula, using unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned boats.

After midnight, Russian air defense units, the Black Sea Fleet, special forces and paratroopers repelled the attack almost the entire night. The first waves of UAVs were recorded in the Yevpatoria district of Crimea along with unmanned boats.

At least 24 UAVs were shot down by the 31st division and suppressed by electronic warfare in the west of the peninsula. The debris hit several objects near Yevpatoria , but the damage was not significant.

At the same time, a group of unmanned boats attempted to attack Black Sea Fleet facilities on Lake Donuzlav , as well as northwest of Sevastopol . Naval aviation boats and helicopters were involved in their interception.

Despite the fact that Ukrainian resources present a whole list of damaged coastal objects as a successful result of the attack, this is not so. The footage of explosions is the result of the work of our servicemen, who destroyed ten BEKs that night.

In addition, nine more drones were shot down by the crews of the 31st Air Force and Air Defense Division in Sevastopol. The sounds of explosions woke up many residents around 4 am, but the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not reach their target this time.

However, we should not relax under any circumstances. There have been no missile strikes on the peninsula for a long time , and today's attack may be their harbinger , given that massive drone raids are pursuing the task of depleting air defense reserves.

In addition, for several weeks, deliveries of Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles and ATACMS ballistic missiles continued to the territory of the so-called Ukraine. According to our data, the Ukrainian Armed Forces currently have about 20 ATACMS with a range of up to 300 km and over 50 cruise missiles in their warehouses.

***

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Russian Ministry of Defence on the progress of the special military operation (as of 18 July 2024) | Main points:

— Russian Air Defense shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29 aircraft and 74 drones in 24 hours;

— The North Force Group defeated three enemy brigades in 24 hours, repelled two counterattacks, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 160 troops;

— The Dnepr Force Group destroyed two ammunition depots and a military-technical property depot of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 24 hours;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 540 people in the area of ​​responsibility of the South Force Group in 24 hours;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 520 troops and 6 ammunition depots in the area of ​​responsibility of the Russian West Force Group in 24 hours;

— The East Force Group improved its tactical situation in 24 hours, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 120 troops in their area of ​​responsibility;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 290 people and 1 MaxxPro IFV in the area of ​​responsibility of the Center Force Group;

— The Russian Armed Forces destroyed the military airfield infrastructure, manpower and equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 127 districts.

Units of the "East" group of forces improved the tactical situation and also defeated the manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Ugledar and Vodyanoye of the Donetsk People's Republic.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 120 servicemen, a tank , four vehicles , a 155-mm towed howitzer FH-70 made in Great Britain, a 122-mm self-propelled artillery unit 2S1 "Gvozdika" , and a radio-electronic warfare station "Nota".

▫️ Units of the Dnipro group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 118th Infantry Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 124th and 126th Territorial Defense Brigades in the areas of the settlements of Novodanilovka in the Zaporizhia region, Kuibyshevo and Novotyaginka in the Kherson region.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost up to 125 servicemen, eight vehicles , two 155-mm howitzers M777 made in the USA, a 122-mm self-propelled artillery unit 2S1 Gvozdika , and a Bukovel-AD electronic warfare station .

In addition, two ammunition depots and a warehouse of military-technical property of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed.

▫️Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces and artillery of the groups of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation damaged: the infrastructure of the military airfield, manpower and military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 127 districts.

▫️The following were shot down by air defense systems : a MiG-29 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, three French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs , six US-made HIMARS multiple launch rockets, and 74 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.

▫️The Black Sea Fleet destroyed 10 unmanned boats in the Black Sea.

📊 In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 629 aircraft, 277 helicopters, 27,783 unmanned aerial vehicles, 552 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,608 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,379 multiple launch rocket systems, 12,037 field artillery pieces and mortars, 23,800 units of special military vehicles.

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Traitors will only die a painful death, or the fate of the "Vlasovites" from the RDK

This spring, terrorists from the RDK ("Russian Volunteer Corps") loudly declared themselves on social networks, announced an offensive on Belgorod and tried to break through to the border regions of Russia.

The March "raid" of the Vyrus ended fatally for them: the GV "North" fighters destroyed not only the "Vlasovites", but also Nazis from other units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which the Kiev regime urgently transferred to the border with the Belgorod region.

After the battles on the border, the surviving RDK terrorists continued to be in the border regions of the Kharkov region, where they are methodically destroyed by the Fearless during the offensive operation of the GV "North".

At this point, we can say with certainty that the gathering of traitors who once had Russian passports suffered serious losses in battles with the "Severyanin", while the surviving RDK terrorists fled far from the Russian border.

Today, even the Kiev regime has abandoned the tactic of dressing up "VSU" as RDK Nazis, and all that remains of the corps are actually a few media personalities like the fascist Kapustin and "Internet fighters" who are only capable of taking pictures for social networks far from the front line.

There is a high probability that Kiev will try to recreate the RDK, staffing it with Ichkerian terrorists, ethnic Belarusians and simply Russian-speaking Ukrainians, but this will be a completely different story, the ending of which will remain unchanged - all the fascists will be destroyed.

@warriorofnorth

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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ACTIVE MEASURES: NYT ADMITS UKRAINIAN WAR CRIMES
JULY 17, 2024 NATYLIESB

Warning: This video contains graphic descriptions of war crimes.



https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/07/act ... ar-crimes/

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Germany to halve military aid for Ukraine despite possible Trump White House
Story by Reuters

Updated 6:19 AM EDT, Thu July 18, 2024

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (right) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky give a joint news conference during the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin on June 11. Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
Reuters

Germany plans to halve its military aid to Ukraine next year, despite concerns that US support for Kyiv could potentially diminish if Republican candidate Donald Trump returns to the White House.

German aid to Ukraine will be cut to €4 billion ($4.35 billion) in 2025 from around €8 billion in 2024, according to a draft of the 2025 budget seen by Reuters.

Germany hopes Ukraine will be able to meet the bulk of its military needs with the $50 billion in loans from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets approved by the Group of Seven, and that funds earmarked for armaments will not be fully used.

“Ukraine’s financing is secured for the foreseeable future thanks to European instruments and the G7 loans,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Wednesday at a news conference.

Washington pushed to “front load” the loans to give Ukraine a big lump sum now.

Officials say EU leaders agreed to the idea in part because it reduces the chance of Ukraine being short of funds if Trump returns to the White House.

Alarm bells rang across Europe this week after Trump picked Senator JD Vance, who opposes military aid for Ukraine and warned Europe will have to rely less on the United States to defend the continent, as his candidate for vice president.

Trump sparked fierce criticism from Western officials for suggesting he would not protect countries that failed to meet the transatlantic military alliance’s defense spending targets and would even encourage Russia to attack them.

Germany has faced criticism for repeatedly missing a NATO target of spending 2% of its economic output on defense.

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks to the media in front of destroyed buildings in Irpin, Ukraine, in June 2022. Kay Nietfeld/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

Depleted military stocks
The stocks of Germany’s armed forces, already run down by decades of underinvestment, have been further depleted by arms supplies to Kyiv.

So far, Berlin has donated three Patriot air defense units to Kyiv, more than any other country, bringing down the number of Patriot systems in Germany to nine.

Germany’s fractious coalition of left-leaning Social Democrats, pro-business liberals and ecologist Greens has struggled to comply with NATO’s spending target due to self-imposed rules that limit the amount of state borrowing they can take on.

Although military aid to Ukraine will be cut, Germany will comply with the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defense in 2025, with a total of €75.3 billion.

Days after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a “Zeitenwende” – German for historic turning point - with a €100 billion special fund to bring the military up to speed.

From this special fund, there will be €22.0 billion more for defense, plus €53.3 billion in the regular budget, still less than that sought by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

The defense budget is set to receive a meagre €1.3 billion more than in 2024, far below the €6.7 billion requested by Pistorius.

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Scholz and Zelensky pose after signing a bilateral agreement on security commitments and long-term support at the Chancellery in Berlin on February 16. John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images

As ever-increasing annual operating costs outpace this rise, the defense ministry is being forced to cut ammunition orders for 2025 by more than half, reduce procurement by €260 million and research and development by over €200 million.

The budget for 2025 comes with the mid-term financial planning until 2028, the year when the armed forces’ special fund to meet NATO’s minimum spending goals is due to run out and 80 billion will be needed for defense, as noted in the financial plan.

In 2028, there is a gap of €39 billion in the regular budget, of which €28 billion are needed to comply with the NATO target without the special fund, sources from the finance ministry said.

Decisions on how the hole will be plugged are not likely to be taken until after the 2025 election.

“The 80 billion euros that have been put on display for 2028 simply do not exist,” said Ingo Gaedechens, member of the parliament’s budget committee from the conservative opposition party CDU.

“The coalition is not even trying to cover this up but are openly admitting it.”

https://us.cnn.com/2024/07/18/europe/uk ... index.html

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What Happens With the War in Ukraine if Trump Wins?
Posted on July 19, 2024 by Yves Smith

The question of “Whither the Ukraine conflict if Trump becomes President?” is, not surprisingly, far from clear-cut despite the Trump braggadocio that he can end the war in 24 hours. Rather than attempt an in-depth treatment, let’s look at some boundary conditions which look likely to constrain possibilities.

A negotiated outcome still seems impossible given justified Russian distrust of the West. Putin seemed genuinely embittered when he learned that Merkel and Holland had set out to deceive him with the Minsk Accords and buy more time to arm Ukraine. Putin regularly returns to the theme of Western bad faith in recent speeches, indicating this is a sore topic. Putin biographers have pointed out Putin makes a point of not repeating mistakes, which he did in trusting various Western officials in the past. A recent example is the famed Ukraine grain deal, which had two major components: Russia permitting transit and the West ending or suspending sanctions on Russian institutions so as to allow foreign countries to buy Russian fertilizer. The West welched on its half of the deal, leading Russia to withdraw by not authorizing an extension.

On top of that, Putin still has a strong bias to avoid more force commitment that necessary, if nothing else to spare Russian lives. So despite signs that many in the government in Moscow and potentially in Russia as a whole would prefer that he prosecute the war more aggressively, Putin appears to take the view that the current pacing is working out nicely. He has no reason to do more than continue to slowly and steadily increase the pressure on Ukraine forces until conditions change enough so that a different course of action is preferable.

Putin has dropped only a few hints as to what the final territorial disposition could look like (recall he has repeatedly said Odessa is a Russian city and pointed out that Kiev was part of ancient Rus). He still seems inclined to keep his options open. We’ve opined that occupying Western Ukraine or successfully installing a puppet government would be non-trivial. But their ease or difficulty also has some path dependence, based on how the Ukraine political and military collapse plays out.1 Even Reuters took note of Putin’s musing in June about capturing Kiev, which he noted would likely require more manpower:

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that any further mobilisation would depend on what Russia wanted to achieve in the war in Ukraine, adding that he faced a question only he could answer – should Russia try to take Kyiv again?2

The reporting on Ukraine’s conditions and prospects, even though it is getting somewhat more realistic, is still well behind events. Press presentations matter because they are reflexive: they show what various interested parties want to present to the public, but they also influence and constrain the views of those same officials. Studies have repeatedly found that lawyers hired to defend parties they know are guilty come to believe their case for innocence. So even those officials who know Ukraine cannot win yet are tasked to touting Ukraine’s prospects wind up internalizing the idea that maybe Ukraine can somehow come out on top.

The media, Western leaders, and even it seems quite a few US/NATO leaders still do not seem to have come to grips with the fact that Russia is waging a war of attrition, and that therefore its territorial gains are no measure of Russian success to date. They are even further from recognizing that Russia is so dominant that it will in the end dictate terms, even if it takes its sweet time in getting to that point.

We do see more of the reporters admitting to Russian superiority in arms, such as a recent Wall Street Journal story that ‘fessed up that American’s vaunted wunderwaffen at most scored some initial blows to the Russian campaign, but Russia quickly worked out how to counter them. A new Reuters story re-confirms that the West is hopelessly behind on shell production: Years of miscalculations by U.S., NATO led to dire shell shortage in Ukraine.

But that does not mean the spin doctors have given up. For instance, Mediazona and the BBC had teamed up to track Russia deaths with a sound methodology: collect funeral data and other death notices. But they were coming up with numbers that Russians regarded as credible, consistent with the Mediazona level of between 50,000 and 60,000, which you might gross up by 50% to be conservative.3 (Russian Telegram is very active and very critical of the Russian military, albeit mainly from the vantage of calling for more vigorous prosecution of the war; the Telegrammers have contacts so that if there were a lot of military deaths, they would be making a huge stink and demanding that heads roll at the Ministry of Defense).3

But the Mediazona death count was embarrassing way below the recent reports of Ukraine deaths and serious injuries.4 Worse, Mediazona showed that Russia deaths in 2024 were way below 2022 levels, even as Russia has been moving into the offense (which should produce more losses, all things being equal).

That was apparently unacceptable. So Mediazona has adopted a new algo-based methodology. Viola! Russian deaths are suddenly way higher that the old verifiable level.

The bigger point here is simple: the West is still deep in denial. So even if Russia were suddenly to lose its mind and be willing to negotiate, the West would not accept that Ukraine was in dire shape and large concessions by the US and NATO were entirely reasonable. For instance, NATO is effectively leaving Russia with no option other than to completely subjugate Ukraine. At the just-concluded NATO summit, the alliance maintained that Ukraine joining NATO was irreversible.

RT reported the response by former Russian president and deputy Security Council chairman of Dmitry Medvedev:

NATO’s declaration that Ukraine’s eventual membership of the US-led military bloc is “irreversible” means that either the nation or the alliance – and preferably both – should disappear, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said…

“The conclusion is obvious. We have to do everything to make sure that the ‘irreversible path of Ukraine’ towards NATO ends with either the disappearance of Ukraine, or the disappearance of NATO. Better, both,” Medvedev said on Thursday.


Trump has signaled he will reduce commitments to NATO, which means Ukraine too, but the psychological impact is likely to be greater than the practical difference. Trump is making clear, to much alarm, that he expects both NATO members and Taiwan to bear more of the cost of their defenses than they are bearing now. Amusingly, NATO has been discussing how to “Trump proof” the alliance, even after then NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg admitted many months back that NATO could not continue to back Ukraine without US support, as many outlets such as the BBC reported last week. This follows Congress passing a stipulation that no President could withdraw from NATO without Senate consent.

But the reality is that, as far as Ukraine is concerned, this matters less than it seems. The US and NATO have emptied their weapons caches to supply Ukraine, yet Russia has ample production capacity and stockpiles. The US under a new Democrat might prop up the Ukraine government longer than a Trump administration would, but given the difficulty of passing the last funding bill and Ukraine’s deterioration, that might not pass at all or amount to much if it did. More US support of Ukraine would increasing be a confidence game, to persuade Ukraine to keep throwing more men into the Russian maw, than a strategy with any hope of success.

European leaders would feel cast adrift. EU leaders are stunningly doubling down on Project Ukraine. They seem to be externalizing their frustration with their inability to turn the war around with their unhinged attacks on Hungarian president Viktor Orban for the temerity of talking to key players about peace in Ukraine. Orban had just assumed a rotating six month presidency of the EU Council, which despite the pretenses of the wannbe queen of Europe, EU Commission chair Ursula von der Leyen, is the premier executive group for the Union. Even though Orban had disavowed operating as EU president in undertaking his listening tour to Zelensky, Putin, Xi and Trump, he nevertheless was taking advantage of his higher profile.

The unified and vicious official European reaction to even tentatively exploring a settlement to the war has been revealing. Since this post is getting long, we will limit ourselves to a sampling of headlines:

European Commission President slams Orbán’s “appeasement mission” to Moscow

The European Commission boycotts the Hungarian presidency due to Orban’s unexpected visit to Russia

Reuters: EU chief criticizes Hungary’s Orban for ‘peace mission’ talks with Trump


And now threats of serious punishment, albeit not (yet) with any teeth, via Reuters:

A group of 63 European Parliament lawmakers has asked the EU to withdraw Hungary’s voting rights in the bloc, in response to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s recent visits to Moscow and Beijing….

The lawmakers have no formal ability to strip Hungary of its voting rights, but seek to add political pressure on Brussels to take tougher action towards Budapest.

The European Commission said on Monday it would stop sending Commissioners to informal meetings organised by the Hungarian EU presidency, downgrading its participation to instead send civil servants.


These aggressive moves to stuff Orban in a box come at the same time other NATO leaders make unhinged professions of fealty to Ukraine over the interests of their own country:5
Keir Starmer
@Keir_Starmer
·
Follow
I won't allow Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers, and the dirty money it generates, to flow freely through European waters and put our security at risk.

Ukraine is, and always will be, at the heart of my government’s agenda.
3:00 AM · Jul 19, 2024
Aurelien predicted a long time ago that the EU would eventually settle into epic pouting over its unsuccessful Ukraine adventure. But a lot of difficult psychological, political, and messaging adjustment is in store before the bloc comes to grips with its failure.
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1 For instance, there are now rumors that Ukraine’s top commander, General Syrzki, has determined Ukraine cannot win the war and is now calling for negotiations. But the neo-Nazis have repeatedly threatened Zelensky if he were to try:
Ivan Katchanovski
·
Jul 18, 2024
@I_Katchanovski
·
Follow
Zelensky in case of peace deal would be also accused of treason by "marginal" & "depoliticized" neo-Nazi-led Azov that he & along with other Ukrainian & Western politicians & media tried to mainstream & turn into national heroes. Azov has power to overthrow him.

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Moss Robeson 🇵🇸
@mossrobeson__
Neo-Nazi Azov Brigade's chief of staff Bohdan Krotevych has visited London and met with Zaluzhny, the new 🇺🇦 ambassador to 🇬🇧 who periodically signals his allegiance with far-right nationalists. Meanwhile, Krotevych posted about getting "justice" against "traitorous generals" and

***


Megatron
@Megatron_ron
BREAKING:

🇺🇦 The Ukrainian neo-Nazi group Azov threatenes Zelensky:

"Don't even think about signing a truce, because it will be very bad for you"

Chief of Staff of the Azov Regiment Krotevich says:

"No peace without victory. There is only one victory – not a single…
This is entirely predictable since the Russians want the Banderites removed from power and marginalized in society, plus any who played a role in torturing Russian soldiers (and there are lots of ugly videos) or killing POWs can expect a not happy future.

So if military situation continues to deteriorate, Zelenksy is likely to flee rather than attempt negotiations. That makes sense additionally because Putin has made clear he does not regard Zelensky as a legitimate head of government. He has said it is up to Ukraine to make a determination, but his reading of the Ukraine constitution is that the head of the Rada is now in charge. And that is before getting to the point that Putin, Lavrov, and many others have made: Ukraine is only a proxy and any negotiations would have to take place with the US (and perhaps NATO too).

So a new, and undeniably illegitimate government would take over. How the US, UK and EU try to pretty that up is over my pay grade. But given a military coup or other form of non-elected leadership running Ukraine, Russia re-installing the what would arguably the last legitimate regime, that of Viktor Yankovich, who was ousted in the Maidan coup and the effort to legitimate his removal fell afoul of the Constitution (too few ratifying votes in the Rada) might look not-so-bad compared to what followed a Zelensky exodus.

2 The distortions in Western reporting seem pervasive. Russia did not “take” Kiev in 2022, but merely engaged in a pinning operation. It would have required a massive force commitment to have any hope of seizing Kiev, a sprawling city of 3 million.

3 Russian Telegram is very active and very critical of the Russian military, albeit mainly from the vantage of calling for more vigorous prosecution of the war. The Telegrammers have extensive contacts with active duty soldiers. So if there were a lot of military deaths, they would be making a huge stink and demanding that heads roll at the Ministry of Defense)

4 Mind you, both the now-admitted huge disparity in Russian shelling v. Ukrainian and the fact that Ukraine, until recently, has been attempting to launch offenses, means Ukraine should be expected to be losing a lot more men than Russia.

5 Recall German Green Party leader and defense minister Annelina Baerbock similarly said defending Ukraine was more important than German voter interests.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/07 ... -wins.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 20, 2024 12:11 pm

Diplomacy or coercion
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 20/07/2024

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On Thursday, Volodymyr Zelensky was received with all honours in the United Kingdom, where he participated in the summit of the European Political Community, the umpteenth forum of cooperation and propaganda organised to bring together the largest possible number of countries on the continent, always excluding those considered opponents, such as Russia and Belarus. Therefore, this type of international meeting is a good platform for the Ukrainian president to get his message across, gain media attention and meet with his partners to demand more concessions, financing and arms and to demand the elimination of restrictions that prevent Ukraine, for example, from attacking Russian military bases with Western missiles hundreds of kilometres from the border. During his visit this week, Zelensky met with the British monarch and with the new prime minister, Keir Starmer, whose pro-Ukrainian stance has never been questioned.

“I don’t think the UK’s position will change,” the Ukrainian president said in an interview with the BBC , with the confidence of someone who knows there is no danger. However, the status quo is not enough for Ukraine, which, despite multi-billion-dollar financial and military assistance over the past two and a half years and unconditional diplomatic support over the past decade, remains unable to defeat Russia militarily and politically. “I would like Prime Minister Starmer to become special. Speaking about international politics, about defending world security, about the war in Ukraine,” insisted Zelensky, demanding a little more from one of his closest allies. Long before the United States, the United Kingdom delivered to Ukraine the long-range missiles that Kiev was looking for to attack Russian positions in Crimea, for which it obtained the explicit permission of the then Foreign Minister, David Cameron, who took advantage of a visit to Kiev to announce it. London has also been instrumental in providing real-time intelligence, a basic aspect of modern warfare in terms of surveillance and anticipation of foreign movements. And, above all, it has collaborated with Ukraine, especially with Kirilo Budanov's GUR, in the development of maritime drones and a strategy of progressive attrition and destruction of the Russian Black Sea fleet, a geopolitical objective of enormous interest to the United Kingdom, which has considered the region to be strategic for several centuries.

During his visit, Zelensky received a new economic boost. Yesterday, the two countries signed a loan of more than 2 billion euros, with which Ukraine will be able to purchase weapons and equipment “according to NATO standards.” This is yet another loan with which Western countries guarantee arms sales and Ukraine acquires yet another debt that it may never be able to repay. And in addition to his photograph with the king and the prime minister, the United Kingdom gave the Ukrainian president another image. “Zelensky was the first foreign leader to participate in a British cabinet meeting since former US President Bill Clinton did so in 1997,” wrote The New York Times yesterday . Since 2022, London has done everything in its power to present itself as the most favorable country to Ukraine, generally by presenting itself as the most belligerent ally. Although it was not the only factor - and perhaps not the most important - Boris Johnson's visit to kyiv after the Istanbul summit is considered one of the reasons why diplomacy never had any chance of succeeding. Since then, the UK's position has not changed, nor has London moderated its aspirations. In contrast to other countries, which have at times questioned Ukraine's ability to achieve the goal of restoring its territorial integrity according to the 1991 borders, British governments have always adhered to the idea of ​​fighting until final victory, whatever the consequences.

In the United Kingdom, Ukraine has achieved the bipartisan support it dreams of on the other side of the Atlantic, where the situation is much more complex. Moreover, the self-proclaimed friend of Ukraine, Boris Johnson, has recently travelled to the United States precisely to convince his friend Donald Trump of the importance of continuing to support Ukraine. Although he has just been officially designated as his party's candidate and there are still almost four months to go until the elections and six months until the inauguration of the winner of the elections, Donald Trump continues to monopolise the concerns of kyiv, Brussels and London. They are all aware that a possible reduction in US military assistance if Trump comes to power - something that should not be taken for granted given the precedent of the previous Republican administration, which continued in Ukraine the policy inherited from Obama and Biden - would necessarily imply that European countries would have to increase their economic investment in a war that they are not going to give up.

Yesterday, the Ukrainian president held his first conversation with candidate Trump. Hours earlier, when asked about the Republican candidate's position, and especially about the vice-presidential hopeful's comment that in 2022 he did not care what happened to Ukraine, Zelensky wanted to show confidence in his ability to redirect the relationship. "I may not really know what is happening in Ukraine, so we will have to work with the United States," said the Ukrainian president, who is not wrong about Trump and Vance's ignorance of the war, but who may not be aware of their lack of interest. Although not for the reasons of isolationism that the media accuse them of, the Republican candidates have made clear their intention to reduce their economic commitment to Ukraine so that European countries bear the burden of maintaining the war. Their interest is not in Europe but in Asia, where they see their main enemy, China, a power that poses a danger to the United States - economic, not military - that in no way involves Russia.

As the number one supplier of military equipment, the role of the United States is irreplaceable for Ukraine in its aim to continue fighting until it achieves its goal, a complete victory, whether military or political. Faced with Donald Trump's insistence on basing his position on the idea of ​​forcing Moscow and Kiev to negotiate the end of the war as soon as possible, Ukraine has slightly moderated its discourse, has made the military euphoria that it boasted of a year ago disappear and has revived an idea that Mikhail Podolyak had already raised: that Ukraine should not reach the 1991 borders by fighting for every town and city. "It does not mean that all territories are recovered by force. I think that the power of diplomacy can help," Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC in a statement that should not be considered a sign of openness to compromise or of having understood that his objectives were unattainable. The logic of the Ukrainian president is the same as that of the adviser to the President's Office at the start of the counteroffensive: putting so much pressure on Russia will make Moscow have no choice but to yield to Western dictates. For Kiev, this is the task of sanctions against the Russian Federation, the supply of weapons and explicit permission to use them on Russian territory, and also of diplomacy , understood as unbearable pressure until the enemy is forced to sign its own capitulation. And amid the carefully designed confusion of the Ukrainian discourse on its peace plan and the peace summits , this is also the goal of initiatives such as those of Switzerland: to get the international community , that is, the NATO countries and allies, to force Russia to sign its own capitulation. Despite repeated attempts to do so, kyiv has not made any progress in this direction over the past year, which would be further complicated if it did not have a president in the White House who, although he is not going to reduce support for Ukraine as much as European countries seem to fear, does not seem to consider the war in Ukraine the existential conflict for the West that the current administration does see.

Zelensky is aware that Donald Trump's political positions depend largely on his personal feelings and relationships with the people involved. That is why he is willing to do the "hard work" of convincing the Republican candidate not only that the war in Ukraine is existential for the West, but also that defeating Russia means defeating Iran as well. The Ukrainian president has four months to lobby Trump's opinion of the country and the war in his favour.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/20/30192/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Russian Ministry of Defense on the progress of the special military operation (as of July 20, 2024) | Main points:

- The Center group improved its tactical position in 24 hours, repelling eight counterattacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces;

- The Russian Armed Forces destroyed two launchers and a radar station of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system in 24 hours;

- The Vostok group took up more advantageous positions in 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 110 soldiers;

- The North group defeated three enemy brigades in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 185 soldiers in 24 hours;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 540 soldiers in the area of ​​responsibility of the West group in 24 hours;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 640 soldiers and two ammunition depots in the area of ​​responsibility of the South group in 24 hours;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 140 soldiers in the area of ​​responsibility of the Dnepr group in 24 hours.

▫️ Units of the Center group of forces improved their tactical position and defeated the formations of the 32nd, 41st, and 47th mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Toretsk, Novgorodskoye, Rozovka, Progress, and Novoselovka Pervaya of the Donetsk People's Republic.

They repelled eight counterattacks by assault groups of the 31st, 151st mechanized, 95th airborne assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Lyut assault brigade of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.

The enemy lost up to 280 servicemen, four combat armored vehicles, five cars, a 122-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Gvozdika" , two 122-mm howitzers D-30 and two 100-mm anti-tank guns "Rapira" .

▫️ Units of the "East" group of forces occupied more advantageous positions, defeated the manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 120th, 129th Territorial Defense Brigades and the 21st National Guard Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Vremyevka, Makarovka, Storozhevoe, Vodyanoye, Razliv and Oktyabr of the Donetsk People's Republic.

The enemy's losses amounted to 110 servicemen, four vehicles, a 155-mm towed howitzer FH-70 made in Great Britain, a 122-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Gvozdika" , a 122-mm howitzer D-30 and two electronic warfare stations "Nota" .

▫️ Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on formations of the 141st infantry, 128th mountain assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 106th and 108th territorial defense brigades in the areas of the populated areas of Kamenskoye, Belogorye, Mirnoye and Pyatikhatki in the Zaporizhia region.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 140 servicemen, two combat armored vehicles, six cars, a US-made 155-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Paladin" , a 152-mm cannon "Giatsint-B" and a 152-mm cannon D-20 . A Nota electronic warfare station, a US-made AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery radar station and a field ammunition depot

were destroyed .

▫️Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces destroyed two launchers and an AN/MPQ-65 radar station of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system made in the USA, and also defeated concentrations of enemy manpower and military equipment in 113 areas. Air defense systems shot down two operational-tactical missiles made in the USA "ATACMS" , four HIMARS rockets made in the USA and 74 unmanned aerial vehicles of the aircraft type, including 27 over the territory of the Russian Federation.



▫️ In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed : 630 aircraft, 277 helicopters, 27,915 unmanned aerial vehicles, 554 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,620 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,379 multiple launch rocket systems, 12,120 field artillery pieces and mortars, 23,870 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

One more effort, if you want to be atlanticists!
Kyiv's latest present from the IMF. The inevitability of default and yet more shock therapy. Ukraine's new NGO nobility.

EVENTS IN UKRAINE
JUL 19, 2024

What is the Ukrainian political news cycle without a new set of friendly instructions from the International Monetary Fund? On June 28, the IMF approved a new packet of aid for Ukraine, to the sum of 2.2 billion USD.

The main demand - redouble the struggle on corruption. In other words, the western partners are frustrated with Zelensky’s attempt to clamp down on the organs created by the west to control the Ukrainian elite, as I wrote here.

The first IMF demand, as relayed by Bloomberg, is for Ukraine to reform its customs code to crackdown on corruption. Indeed, in conditions of a Berlin wall-style border where attempted ‘deserters’ are shot and killed, as happened yet again on July 15, customs officials have profited hugely.

In a fantastic distillation of the current moment, a record amount of contraband cigarettes - 20 thousand packets - and two draft-dodgers were apprehended in a car in the border region of Zakarpattya on July 2.

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One of the ways the IMF wants Ukraine to tackle corruption in customs is by ‘a leadership selection process with integrity checks and the meaningful participation of experts with international experience, to be in place by the end of October.’ (my bolding)

This is a well-played out game in Ukraine. Ever since 2014, the IMF and other western structures have consistently demanded - and achieved - necessary ‘oversight’ by ‘western experts’ of practically all key institutions in the country, from law enforcement to the judicial system. Another step forward in Ukraine’s decolonization.

The IMF can’t do very much about actually reducing corruption in Ukraine. Nor is it very interested in doing so. Aleksei Kusch, a Ukrainian economist, speculates that the IMF’s demand regarding customs reform was requested by Kyiv itself, to push parliament to vote for Zelensky’s new legislation on the matter. Given the extremely short time frames given by the IMF for its customs reform (October 2024) and lack of concrete tasks, it’s unlikely to have much effect.

What the IMF can do, however, is tighten the leash on its dear Ukrainian allies.

That’s why the IMF’s other demand is to conduct the first ever external audit of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). This and variations on it have been standard IMF demands ever since the US set up NABU as an extra-constitutional constabulary keeping a close eye on Ukraine’s elite back in 2015.

No matter how much they depend on the US, Ukrainian presidents, whether Poroshenko or Zelensky, always do their best to put ‘their people’ in charge of NABU or slow down the selection of new leaders in a bureaucratic morass, as I wrote in a recent article.

In that article, I wrote about how the brave representatives of various western-funded NGOs, anti-corruption organs and journalists - the IMF’s strongest soldiers - have been raising the alarm of late that Zelensky has put his people in charge of NABU to protect high-level government corruption. Clearly, the IMF has been listening to its people on the ground, and is demanding Zelensky allow the local euro-Atlantic nobles get NABU back into fighting shape.

I call them ‘nobles’ for good reason - cabinet signed into power a law on June 21 that made 133 mostly western-funded NGOs exempt from mobilization, given that they are ‘critically important infrastructure’. Parliamentarian from Zelensky’s party Max Buzhansky described it as the formation of a ‘new nobility’, but one that, in contrast to the medieval one, is protected from military service.

(Paywall)

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... want-to-be

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Seversky direction: a dash to Ivano-Daryevka
July 19, 2024
Rybar

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In the Seversky sector , which had not previously been distinguished by high intensity of military clashes, the news of the capture of Ivano-Daryevka thundered like a bolt from the blue . Media coverage of the sector on both sides is very restrained, which sometimes leads to a lack of precise information about the configuration of the front.

Russian soldiers from the 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade, after clearing the area, installed a flag in the center of the village. The nearest previously known positions of the Russian Armed Forces are at least three kilometers away, both from the Sporny side and from the railroad in the Vyemka area . Now the prospect of an attack on the latter is open not only from the south, but also from the east.

Ukrainian formations may probably be located on the high ground near Ivano-Daryevka in the Ivano-Daryevka Razrez nature reserve and pine forest, where the enemy prepared a network of trenches and strongholds several years ago.

The difference in altitude compared to the village itself here is more than 70 meters, and the area near the local ravine and the Sukhaya Plotva River is swampy, so Russian troops can bypass the enemy's fortified area from the flanks without advancing across open terrain, after which they can proceed to storm the Vyemka .

In connection with the capture of Ivano - Daryevka, the "pocket" on the Veseloye-Berestovoye line ceased to exist, and the Ukrainian formations, based on the fact of control over Ivano-Daryevka , retreated from the western outskirts of Spornoye . Less than seven kilometers remain to the outskirts of Seversk , which is an important fortified area of ​​the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

https://rybar.ru/severskoe-napravlenie- ... o-darevke/

Google Translator

*****

Farion all
July 20, 0:35

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All the goals are exhausted!
Farion died from a gunshot wound to the head.

Ironically, it was also thanks to Farion that the Russian Spring began. It was the speeches of Tyahnybok, and then Farion, about the ban on the Russian language in Ukraine that became the last straw, which pushed many to resist the coup d'etat and the advancing Ukrainian Nazism.

In any case, the earth is glassy.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9276580.html

German mercenary sentenced to death in Belarus
July 20, 14:29

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Death penalty news.
In Belarus, German mercenary Rico Krieger, who fought on the side of the Ukrainian Nazis as part of Kalinovsky's Zmagar battalion, which is subordinate to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, was sentenced to death by firing squad. In general, there is no place to put a stigma there. The character was tied up back in the fall of 2023. And now the case has reached the verdict.

Executing German Nazis has been a good Belarusian tradition since 1944-1945.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9277359.html

Google Translator

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It Was A Difficult But Necessary Decision For Russia To Lock Down Parts Of Belgorod Region

ANDREW KORYBKO
JUL 20, 2024

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Everything will likely get worse in Belgorod Region before it gets better.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced last week that parts of his region along the Ukrainian border will be locked down until further notice. An ultra-strict security regime will be imposed for residents’ safety in response to incessant shelling and the continual threat to more cross-border terrorist raids. This comes a little more than two months since Russia began to carve out a “buffer zone” in Ukraine’s neighboring Kharkov Region. Here’s what TASS reported about the new measures:

“Only adult men will be allowed to enter the areas, provided they drive an armored vehicle equipped with electronic warfare systems, wear bulletproof vests and helmets, and are accompanied by service members or municipal officials. The restrictions will apply to settlements in five borderline municipalities. Checkpoints equipped with modular shelters will be set up on the way to these areas. Public transport, including taxis, will be banned from entering the settlements.”

This was a difficult but necessary decision, and it admittedly carries with it the very uncomfortable optics of appearing to be a “buffer zone” on Russian territory, but this development was to be expected so long as cross-border threats remain. It can even be argued in hindsight that this was long overdue considering the intensity of the threats that residents have faced for over a year already. The reason why it wasn’t done sooner is probably due to the aforesaid optics and the disruption of people’s lives.

Regarding the first, Russia’s responsibility is to its people, not foreign public opinion. As for the second, their lives have already been disrupted for a while already. Nevertheless, this decision was only just made now, which might also suggest that Russia expects the threats to become even worse and that’s why it finally decided to impose this ultra-strict security regime. The timing also coincides with Ukraine receiving more of the US’ long-delayed aid package and similar support from other NATO countries.

With this possibility in mind, it can’t be ruled out that an unprecedented cross-border bombing campaign might be in the cards as a way for Ukraine to show the West that it’s getting its money’s worth. More terrorist raids could occur as well, thus turning parts of Belgorod Region into a stereotypical warzone, hence the need to implement the recent measures in order to not be caught off guard. Russia might also be preparing for retaliatory action in Kharkov Region under the cover of this new regime.

Whatever ends up happening, everything will likely get worse in Belgorod Region before it gets better, which Russia’s supporters should brace themselves for in order to not have any false expectations that lead to disappointment and thus make them susceptible to “doom-and-gloom” narratives. The conflict’s military-strategic dynamics still favor Russia, but the West doesn’t want Ukraine to go down without a fight, even if that includes continuing to kill civilians across the border like it’s been doing for over a year.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/it-was-a ... -necessary
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Sun Jul 21, 2024 12:47 pm

The death of Irina Farion
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/21/2024

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On Friday evening, Irina Farion, a former MP for the fascist Svoboda party and one of the leading representatives of the most radical faction of Ukrainian nationalism, which has made hatred of everything Russian its raison d'être, was shot dead in the head in the city of Lviv, where she lived. “The Lviv police are establishing the circumstances of the attempt on the life of a public figure. A woman with a gunshot wound to the head was hospitalized. Law enforcement agencies are taking measures to detain the shooter. The incident occurred today, July 19, at around 7:30 p.m. on one of the streets of Lviv. An unknown person fired a gun at a 60-year-old woman. Doctors hospitalized the victim with a head wound. Investigators, officers and the Lviv police leadership are working at the scene. "Measures are being taken to identify the person and arrest the shooter," said authorities in Lviv, Ukraine's nationalist capital for decades.

Shortly after the incident, when it was announced that Farion was struggling between life and death, President Zelensky published a statement in which he said that “Interior Minister Igor Klimenko and the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Malyuk are promptly reporting on the search for the person who attacked Irina Farion. All necessary forces of the National Police of Ukraine and the SBU are involved in establishing the circumstances of this crime. Doctors are fighting for Irina Farion’s life. It is obvious that all violence deserves only condemnation and all those guilty of this attack must bear full responsibility.” The Ukrainian press also published statements from neighbours, who claimed that a man had been watching the area around the former MP’s residence for several days and added the image of the alleged killer.

The murder of Farion, whose death was confirmed yesterday morning, is possibly the highest-profile attack on a civilian since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The surprise of the attack and the notoriety that the murdered woman had achieved in the last decade has caused her death to reach the international media. “Nationalist activist in favour of the Ukrainian language is murdered in Lviv,” headlined the British newspaper The Guardian yesterday in an article that presented the linguist and former politician as “known for her noisy campaigns to defend the Ukrainian language.” Without the slightest context, the newspaper does not go into the ways in which Farion defended the Ukrainian language and culture and, of course, her desire to impose on the Russian-speaking and culturally Russian part of the country the way of understanding the meaning of being Ukrainian in the most western part of the country is left unmentioned.

Despite having been a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in its last years of existence, Farion carried out his public and political life in the most radical sectors of Ukrainian nationalism in the region from which the type of nationalism that the Government intends to impose on the entire population comes, Galicia. It was there that Soviet monuments were most quickly dismantled, replaced by tributes to the new heroes: mainly Bandera and Shujievich, a trend that did not spread to the rest of the country until the revolution of dignity , when the State adopted a large part of Svoboda's ideology and began to impose nationalist discourse as the only possible national discourse. In this task, Farion, a linguist by training and profession, has stood out for his passionate opposition to the use of the Russian language in Ukraine. “Russian-speaking Ukrainians, that is an oxymoron. It is a living dead, dead water. Our job is to create the conditions for them to stop speaking the language of the occupier. “Let those conditions not exist. “So that they will have to master the Ukrainian language. And that there will be conditions so that they will not speak the language of the occupier in our presence,” he said during these years of war in Donbass, insisting that “those who live in a country called Ukraine and do not speak the Ukrainian language are treated too delicately.” The defense of the use of Russian, their native language, in the public sphere was one of the demands of the population of Donbass, which rose up in the certainty that the government born from Maidan was seeking to impose its nationalist agenda.

From the fanaticism of someone who once claimed that “Hitler was right: Moscow must be destroyed”, Farion started from the basis of Ukraine for Ukrainians , identifying the nation with the language used by the people. As the Ukrainian daily Strana recalled yesterday , very critical of the types of nationalist imposition that Svoboda has represented over the years, Irina Farion achieved celebrity status - both on the part of detractors and defenders - following an episode that occurred in 2010, when during a visit to a kindergarten, she corrected the names of the children and tried to make them understand that they should use their Ukrainian equivalents. At that time, when nationalist imposition was in an initial phase, whose geographical expansion beyond western Ukraine would stop during the four years of Yanukovich's mandate, Farion's actions caused a scandal in the country. It was the same year that Viktor Yushchenko awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine to Stepan Bandera, causing a wave of condemnation and explicit demands for his removal from the European Parliament.

Fourteen years later, none of these actions have caused any scandal. Bandera has not only been given his title again, but the tributes have increased significantly, without causing any reaction from the European Union and other Western countries. Groups such as the OUN or UPA, which in many cases alongside Nazi Germany, fought for the freedom of Ukraine, are now legally honoured . The idea of ​​destroying Moscow is so mainstream that Serhiy Sternenko, former leader of the Praviy Sektor in Odessa and now a rising representative of civil society, has been photographed wearing T-shirts depicting a bomb exploding in Red Square. And President Zelensky, who until coming to power had made his career in the cultural field with the Russian Federation as his main market, also allows himself to call Mykita a child who, when shaking his hand, had introduced himself as Nikita.

Svoboda has long since lost its electoral base, even in western Ukraine, where it once had the most support. The reason is not that its demands are perceived as extreme or that its aggressive and violent methods are rejected, but that other respectable centrist parties have adopted almost all of the ideology of the far-right party. Like Farion, the current President Zelensky has also encouraged Ukrainians who feel Russian to leave the country and move to the Russian Federation. The idea of ​​Ukraine for a certain type of Ukrainian has prevailed over the pluralism and coexistence of the two cultures, both indigenous, that Ukraine had inherited from the Soviet Socialist Republic during the last decade of war.

Farion’s murder has sparked rapid speculation about who was behind the attack. “Farion was killed by the Russians,” said Sergey Leschenko, an adviser to the President’s Office, claiming that “they are the only ones who benefit. Now, instead of unity against the external enemy, they will create internal divisions, making Ukrainians fight among themselves.” The speech of Farion’s party, Svoboda, shares the arguments and the culpability and differs from the version of the President’s Office only in the wording. “This crime benefits only Muscovy, which is undoubtedly the one who committed it. It is their age-old technique: physically exterminating the Ukrainian elite.” In contrast to these certainties, DeepState , an outlet affiliated with the Ministry of Defense, pointed to the issue of gun ownership without pointing out any possible culprits. “Today’s precedent is another resounding wake-up call, also on the issue of gun ownership. "Murderers can use them to commit a crime, but people still cannot use them to defend themselves. We hope that law enforcement will find the perpetrators and bring them to justice, because such actions have no place in our country," he said, adding that "only Russians should die."

In his fanaticism, Farion was not only offended by the use of the Russian language by the eastern population who have taken refuge in Lviv or by the thousands of refugees now in Poland, but he also insulted the current heroes, the members of the units linked to Azov. “I cannot call them Ukrainians if they do not speak Ukrainian. Let them call themselves Russians,” Farion said, referring to the soldiers who, on the front, use their native language to communicate. “If you are so strong and so clever, what prevents you from complying with Article 29 of the Law on the Armed Forces of Ukraine? Don’t you know what discipline is in the army?” he said, provoking the anger of Maksym Zhoryn, deputy commander of the Third Assault Brigade, member of the Azov National Corps and representative of the most extreme right-wing factions of Azov. “The first post in Russian on this channel! “Especially for Irina Farion,” he wrote, warning her that “no one gave her the right to open her mouth in the direction of the Azov fighters, the Third Assault, or any other division of the Ukrainian army.” Zhoryin ended the post with a rude insult and called on the country’s authorities and the SBU to investigate Farion “for dividing Ukrainian society according to the FSB’s script.”

Two weeks later, Andriy Biletsky’s second in command in the Third Brigade was on the attack again after Farion revealed the identity of a Crimean student from whom he had received a letter advocating the policy of forced Ukrainisation of the peninsula. The student was arrested by the Russian authorities and Farion was fired from his job at the university (although he was later reinstated by a court decision). “You don’t even need to study the archives of the USSR to find evidence of Farion’s pro-Russian work, just look at how he works in unison with the FSB right now,” Zhoryn wrote then, now in Ukrainian. In Ukraine, the shadow of the accusation of being a Russian agent or a useful idiot of the Russian secret services is never far away.

“Farion will not be remembered well in Ukraine. One of the dark figures whose toxic rhetoric contributed significantly to the current conflict,” wrote Russian opposition journalist Leonid Ragozin upon learning of the murder of Farion, a very significant figure in the direction the country has taken in the last decade. Among the details that will not be widely reported these days is what was recalled by Ukrainian-Canadian professor Ivan Katchanovski, who has tirelessly studied the Maidan massacre since it occurred in 2014. “Maidan snipers were in Farion’s room at the Ukraina Hotel, controlled by the far-right Svoboda, during the Maidan massacre in Ukraine. A Ukrainian media report revealed that a BBC journalist saw a warning from the Security Service of Ukraine not to enter room 1109 of the hotel,” he wrote.

Farion’s death has similarities with that of Oles Buzina, shot dead outside his home hours after his address was published on the Myrotvorets website. Of him, who was killed by two activists linked to Svoboda and who have still not paid for their crime, Farion said that “at least someone has neutralised the rubbish that this bastard was spreading”. In its report on Farion’s death and the first investigations, Strana mentions the two possible lines, the Russian hand and the internal settling of scores, although it recalls that the list of enemies of the former MP was long: “Considering that during her life Farion came into conflict with a very wide range of people, there may be very different versions about who killed her and why.”

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/21/la-mu ... na-farion/

Google Translator

******

From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
About the drone attack on Millerovo

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🔻This night, Ukrainian forces carried out a massive attack on an airfield near Millerovo in the Rostov region, launching 30 drones from the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.

▪️As a result of the raid, 26 UAVs were shot down by Russian servicemen: 11 were destroyed by the Pantsir-S1 air defense missile and gun crews, ten were destroyed by rifle squads, and five were suppressed by electronic warfare.

▪️Unfortunately, four drones hit the military facility's infrastructure, but without causing significant damage. Footage of the fire was once again posted online for all to see, which the enemy used in its propaganda.

▪️In fact, the strike damaged an administrative building and two warehouses without causing casualties among personnel. The aircraft based there had left the airfield in advance of the attack.

🔻Again and again we raise the issue of the need to equip military infrastructure facilities with hangars and other protective structures.

However, we have what we have. At least this time we did without losing fighters and equipment worth millions, and in some cases billions of dollars.

***


Colonelcassad
Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of July 21, 2024) | Main:

- Russian air defense systems shot down a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter;

- Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 510 troops in the area of ​​the South grouping in one day;

- Units of the Eastern grouping of the Russian Armed Forces improved their tactical position in one day and defeated the manpower and equipment of 5 brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces;

- Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 115 troops in the area of ​​responsibility of the Eastern grouping of forces in one day;

- The Russian Armed Forces destroyed a HIMARS MLRS launcher, a Ukrainian Armed Forces ammunition depot where up to 400 tons were stored;

- The Center grouping of forces defeated 5 enemy brigades in one day, repelled 7 counterattacks, Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 330 troops;

- Troops of the Dnepr grouping defeated the manpower and equipment of three Ukrainian Armed Forces brigades in one day, the enemy lost over 80 troops;

- "Sever" fighters defeated the manpower and equipment of four territorial defense brigades, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the National Guard in the Kharkiv region;

- The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost up to 145 servicemen in the area of ​​responsibility of the "Sever" group;

- The Russian Air Defense Forces shot down a helicopter, two Hammer aerial bombs, two HIMARS shells and 40 UAVs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in one day;

- The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost over 520 servicemen in the area of ​​responsibility of the Western group.

- The Russian Armed Forces destroyed a warehouse in one day where up to 400 tons of Ukrainian ammunition were stored, the Ministry of Defense reports. In addition, workshops of an enterprise of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine were damaged


Units of the "East" force grouping improved their tactical position and defeated the manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized, 58th Motorized Infantry Brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 120th Territorial Defense Brigade, the 17th and 21st National Guard Brigades in the areas of the settlements of Oktyabr, Vodyanoye, Novosyolka, Prechistovka, Razdolnoye and Stepnoye of the Donetsk People's Republic. A

counterattack by the 102nd Territorial Defense Brigade was repelled.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 115 servicemen, three vehicles , 155-mm howitzers "FH-70" made in the UK and M198 made in the USA, and a 122-mm howitzer D-30 .

▫️ Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 141st Infantry Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 35th Marine Brigade, and the 15th National Guard Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Stepnoye and Novodanilovka in the Zaporizhia region.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost over 80 servicemen, five vehicles , a 152-mm howitzer "Msta-B" , a 152-mm gun D-20 , and an electronic warfare station "Anklav".

In addition, two missile and artillery weapons depots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed.

▫️Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the groups of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation destroyed a launcher of the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system made in the USA, a warehouse where up to 400 tons of ammunition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stored , and also damaged: workshops of an enterprise of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine, manpower and military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 133 districts.

▫️Over the course of 24 hours, air defense systems shot down a Mi-8 helicopter of the Ukrainian Air Force, two French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs , two US-made HIMARS multiple launch rockets, and 40 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.

📊 In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 630 aircraft, 278 helicopters, 27,955 unmanned aerial vehicles, 554 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,624 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,381 multiple launch rocket system combat vehicles, 12,184 field artillery pieces and mortars, 23,910 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

SITREP 7/19/24: West Searches for New Deflection in Russian "Barrel Crisis"

SIMPLICIUS
JUL 20, 2024

Last time I debunked the new narrative being trotted out about mass Russian casualties, all to deflect from Ukraine’s own progressing collapse. Now this narrative has shifted lanes to the loss of Russian equipment, with a coordinated effort from pro-Western media to depict the Russian military as running out of tanks, artillery barrels, and armor altogether—not to mention the tired retread of the ‘low ammo’ trope.

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https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/07/17/7466120/

To some extent, I think there is some truth to Russia’s tank and armor woes, merely in that I don’t think Russia yet produces as many brand new tanks as most people on the pro-Russian side think. Yes, there are figures of 1000-1500 per year tank production floating around, but the vast majority of that is likely refurbished tanks, which do have a finite limit. It’s questionable how many actual brand new ones they’re building, with lowest base floor estimates at around 200-250 per year.

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Reportedly, the only new tank Russia now produces is T-90M, with both T-72 and T-80 production having ended in the early 2000s or so. However, Russia is slated to restart the T-80 production, and has done so for the turbine engines, but not yet the tank hulls themselves.

One plausible estimate is that Russia is producing about 250-300 T-90Ms per year, then refurbing another 200-250 old T-72s into T-72B3Ms, 200-250 old T-80s into T-80BVMs, then another 250 old T-62s into T-62Ms and probably an equal number of T-55s now being sent to the front as well. This would make for roughly ~1250 yearly “production” but only a fraction is brand new, and a large portion of it are old T-62s and T-55s—as an example.

Here are Western estimates for how those tanks could be dwindling:

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As you can see above, Russia can potentially go up to 2029 and beyond, though a “critical point” is reached in 2027 whereby the remaining tanks would be in bad shape. However, any tank can be restored no matter the shape, so long as you provide all new components like engines, etc.

But many Western experts are now claiming Russia will run into trouble as early as 2025-2026. I’ve long held that by that point, Russia would have upped the production of new tanks to match losses. One thing the pro-Western ‘experts’ leave out is that recent Russian tank losses have been dipping extremely low, even by their own accounting:

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June 24, as can be seen sees nearly the lowest losses of the war, at 56, with July not yet printed but likely as low or lower. Keep in mind, even the above losses are typically overstated as they list anything that’s hit even if the tank is recoverable, and likely double count a lot as well. But it still gives a good indication of trends.

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In the above you can see the share of T-62 losses going up this year, and the T-72 share decreasing over time.

If Russia maintains current loss tempos then they can last quite a long time, particularly given that Ukraine’s equipment is getting worse over time as well. But of course, Russia’s chief concern would not be Ukraine, but rather getting its own tank force attritioned to the point where Russia would be defenseless against NATO. A weakened Russia with few remaining tanks would be viewed as ripe for the taking and would wield little deterrence against further NATO aggression in the future. Thus, Russia needs to maintain adequate tank forces in reserve to deter a NATO hellbent on building up its forces on Russia’s border.

It’s important to remember, however, that NATO’s tank forces—barring the U.S.—are so pitifully low that even a highly depleted Russia would vastly outnumber them. Germany, France, and UK have hardly 300 working tanks amongst the three of them. It’s the U.S. Russia would have to worry about, but even America’s tank force is not quite as strong as it used to be, with recent official figures showing a mere ~900 active tanks in the army.

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https://www.economist.com/the-economist ... f-big-guns

More interesting is the discussion of barrels, where the West claims Russia is suffering its most critical issues at the moment. Western ‘experts’ now claim Russia only produces 100 artillery barrels per year, and that they only have one single foreign machine to do it.

Here’s one ‘expert’ commenting on the new Economist article:

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https://archive.ph/iIp7T

In fact, in an earlier Economist article they even claimed Russia makes 50 artillery barrels per year:

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https://archive.ph/sa5RT

And note the sly insinuation that the untermensch Russians can only steal forging machines from the superior Austrians and Germans, or buy them from the Americans.

Problem is, as I’ve reported before—the U.S. itself only has one single artillery barrel production line in the entire country, at the Watervliet Arsenal in New York, and guess what machine it uses? The same exact Austrian GFM as Russia.

Left: Watervliet Arsenal in Upstate New York
Right: Motovilikha Factory in Perm, Russia
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The same exact GFM machine in both.

In fact, this article from earlier this year mentions how U.S.’ only artillery barrel manufacturer doesn’t even have the capability to create the longer 52 caliber barrels with further range to give Ukrainian M109s better capability. And so to do that, they’re forced to consider manufacturing the barrels at Rheinmetall Waffe Munition, Unterlüß, Germany. Recall that the U.S. can’t even design its own tank barrel—the Abrams tanks use German Rheinmetall Rh-120 barrels.

But more interestingly, I happened to find this semi-recently declassified CIA doc, which you can happily peruse on the official CIA site:

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https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/print/2068052

It discusses secret intelligence from the 60s, 70s, and 80s regarding the transfer of Austrian barrel forging machines to the USSR. And boy, let me tell you: the numbers are jaw-droppingly massive.

Here they state that the USSR initially purchased 26 of the rotary GFM forges:

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Read the article for more details if you’re interested. It lists the USSR’s purchase of further forges later on, though many of them were used for all kinds of barrels from machine guns, tanks, large mortars like the 240mm Tyulpan, etc.

And what do you know, it even has a photo of the Watervliet Arsenal in New York, confirming its use of the same Austrian GFM SXP-55 machine:

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But here’s the grand kicker: how many barrels could the USSR produce per year with all these machines? The CIA conveniently fills us in:

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Now, we all know Russia is not the Soviet Union, and even Russia’s annual tank production capacity of ~1200 is said to be 1/4 of peak Soviet Cold War capacity of 4000 tanks per year. But how believable do you reckon it is, that Russia can now only make 100 barrels per year, when with the same machines, they previously could make upwards of a whopping 250,000?

And do you think Russia threw away all those dozens of machines and only has a single one left? If they’re in such short supply as the Economist article claims, then how come a cursory web search shows Russian companies literally trying to sell these machines on Korean websites? Here’s a GFM SXP-55 located somewhere in Rostov-on-Don:

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Happen to be in the market for one?

Also, it should be noted that Russia doesn’t even actually need these specialty Austrian machines to make barrels. You can make barrels without them, it simply takes longer. The rotary machine allows you to hammer the barrel blank from all sides conveniently, reducing the time by several factors. The CIA report even corroborates this:

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Even if Russia’s capacity were 1/100th of the USSR’s it would mean the production of vastly more than a mere 100 barrels per year, as the West laughably claims.

Interestingly, in light of all this, a recent RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) piece from last month has proposed recalibrating the entire strategy to defeat Russia—instead of trying to defeat it kinetically on the battlefield, they now see that Russia can only be beaten by taking out its defense-economic sector:

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https://static.rusi.org/methodology-deg ... e-2024.pdf

They propose to do this not by physically bombing the manufacturing plants but rather by working to cut the Russian defense sector’s ties to Western procurement and supply chains; e.g.

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<snip>

A big fiasco occurred in the Ukrainian 59th brigade recently, which was devastated badly. Not only do they speak about how the entire top staff of the brigade was wiped out, but that a newly recruited all-convict “Skhval” battalion was sent to reinforce the brigade with little training, which led to further massive losses of the brigade.

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(Much more at link.)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sit ... es-for-new

******

Peschanoye and Rozovka have been liberated
July 20, 16:55

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And here's more good news.
They report the liberation of Peschanoye (Svatovo-Kupyanskoye direction) and Rozovka.
The flag of the 1st Guards Tank Army was raised in Peschanoye.
The Russian flag was raised in Rozovka.

(Videos at link.)

Progress and Lozovatskoe are also practically liberated + serious advance of Krasnogorovka, which will be the next city liberated by the Russian Armed Forces. Next will be Dzerzhinsk's turn.

Jihadi Julian is squealing about the imminent collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces front in Donbass.
It hasn't collapsed yet, but the Ukrainian Armed Forces have very serious problems stabilizing the front in the Donetsk direction.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9277589.html

Google Translator

*****

Donetsk direction: advance to the northern outskirts of Krasnogorovka and fighting in the fields near Georgievka
July 20, 2024
Rybar

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In recent weeks, the Donetsk direction has fallen off the agenda a bit against the backdrop of active clashes in the Aleksandro-Kalinovsky and Pokrovsky directions . However, today information has appeared online that sheds light on the situation in Krasnogorovka .

Thanks to the footage, it was possible to establish for certain that the equipment of the Russian Armed Forces is successfully approaching Ukrainian positions on Kalinina Street . Russian troops also expanded the control zone on the neighboring Gagarin and Sadovaya Streets , where the advance was almost a kilometer.

Based on this, and also against the background of the transition of the positions to the west on Belinsky and Nakhimov streets under the control of the Russian Armed Forces, it can be assumed that the Ukrainian Armed Forces retreated from the central park named after T. G. Shevchenko in the direction of the northwestern outskirts of the city. To the west of it, assault groups cleared part of Sverdlov , Lenin and Michurin streets and leveled the control zone to the east of the forest park area.

One of the reasons for such a rapid retreat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces could be the accumulating organizational problems in the infamous 59th separate mechanized brigade. Another factor was the abnormally high heat and the impossibility of evacuating the wounded, as well as ensuring the delivery of ammunition to positions constantly under fire.

To the southwest of Krasnogorovka , not far from the reservoir, a Ukrainian Armed Forces position in a forest plantation came under fire, which confirms the enemy's control over this area.

Further south, in the Georgievka area , it was possible to update the configuration of the front thanks to data from the field and video footage. Russian troops slightly expanded the control zone north of the settlement, and also stormed a strong point near a forest plantation not far from the H-15 highway , advancing several hundred meters to the west.

https://rybar.ru/doneczkoe-napravlenie- ... eorgievki/

Kupyansko-Svatovskoye direction: a dash to Peschanoye and battles near Sinkovka
July 21, 2024
Rybar

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Russian troops continue their consistent offensive in various areas of the Kupyansk - Svatovsky direction .

In the Sinkovka area , fighting is taking place in the forest belts to the east and west of the village. Positions change hands from time to time, and the front here is relatively static. Russian aviation is carrying out airstrikes on the approaches to Liman Pervy .

To the west of Kislovka, Russian troops are advancing towards Stepova Novoselovka along the railway. The village remains under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for now, as evidenced by recent airstrikes on enemy positions near the village.

At the Krakhmalnoye-Berestovoye line , Russian troops pushed through the enemy's line of defense, advancing several kilometers to the west. At the moment, the Russian Armed Forces have successfully consolidated Peschanoye , which is almost under complete control. Footage from the Operativny Prostor channel captured the moment of raising the flag on the Soldier Monument in the western part of the village.

The closest settlement to the bridgehead on the opposite bank of the Oskol River is the small village of Kolesnikovka , which is separated from Peschanoye by a large field.

At the same time, footage of the raising of the flag on one of the houses in Rozovka (Andreyevka) was actively published on the Internet. During the analysis of the footage, it was possible to establish that the moment of raising the flag was captured in Dzherelnoye (Rodnikovoye) , and the presence of units of the RF Armed Forces in Rozovka itself has not yet been confirmed, although it is quite likely.

https://rybar.ru/kupyansko-svatovskoe-n ... sinkovkoj/

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Mon Jul 22, 2024 12:51 pm

Boris Johnson's proposal: another war plan
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/22/2024

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“It was the moment Donald Trump won the November presidential election,” Boris Johnson writes in his column for the British tabloid Mail Online , specifying that he is not referring “to his miraculous survival” but to the moment when, wounded, secret service agents “tried to carry him away horizontally, without his shoes.” It was then, according to the former British Prime Minister, that the Republican candidate “instantly confirmed not only his theatrical instincts, but also his courage. Freshly hit by a high-powered rifle bullet, he did not let himself be carried passively. He took the reins of the situation. Freeing himself from his security guards, flouting their security protocols, he stood up until he was sure the crowd could see him.” The epic description of the moments after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump is the introduction with which the former British leader intends to flatter the American candidate before moving on to try to convince him to follow a very specific policy on an issue that is of greater interest to Johnson than to Trump: the war in Ukraine.

“Why I am more convinced than ever that Trump has the strength and courage to save Ukraine and end this appalling war,” is the title of the Daily Mail article in which Johnson not only tries to lay out a roadmap to settle the conflict in Ukraine, but also demonstrates his personal interest in the issue being resolved in a very concrete way. Both from the Government and in his belligerent stance, practically as a lobby, after losing the favour of his party and having to hand over power to Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson has openly shown his hostility to Vladimir Putin and his willingness to use Ukraine as a tool against Russia. In recent months, Johnson has met with the Azov Brigade delegation that visited the United Kingdom and posed with its flag, showing that the limits of what is acceptable and unacceptable have changed significantly since 2022, when Western countries still sought to distinguish between the tolerable aspects of the Ukrainian state and those that are not. But Johnson's credibility is not only questionable because of his current radicalisation, but also because of his past performance.

It is no coincidence that it was the then British Prime Minister who made the first high-profile visit to Kiev after the Istanbul summit in the spring of 2022, just a few weeks after the Russian invasion, and that the purpose of his presence in Ukraine was to ensure the status quo , i.e. the continuation of the war. As confirmed by statements by representatives of Moscow and Kiev and by analysis by Western scholars of the documents drawn up during that negotiation process, the work of Russia and Ukraine in search of not a temporary ceasefire but a political resolution that took into account the territorial, political, social and military aspects of the conflict went further than the Western media led them to believe. Moreover, in its analysis of the documents, Foreign Policy magazine sees in this work in the spring of 2022 a basis on which to build a future peace when Moscow, Kiev and their partners choose to return to the diplomatic path.

Although the focus of the analysis is on the documents produced by the Istanbul process and the subsequent negotiations, which lasted until June 2022, three months after the Turkey summit and long after the negotiations seemed to have broken down, the article also focuses on the reasons for the breakup. Much has been said in the last two years, especially due to an article published in Ukrainska Pravda and the statements of David Arajamia, head of the Ukrainian delegation in the negotiations, about the weight of Boris Johnson's visit to Kiev just a few days after the Istanbul meeting. Despite what the Ukrainian media published in 2023, which practically gave all the credit for the breakup to the then British prime minister , Arajamia's words and the documents that have been made public since then indicate that there were several factors: mistrust between the parties, the territorial issue or the limits of the demilitarization that Russia demanded. The deal was never as close as those who see Boris Johnson's appearance as the turning point in the war have taken for granted. However, as Foreign Policy shows , the work that Russia and Ukraine were doing in their negotiations implied the need for Western countries to reintegrate the Russian Federation into international relations, something that, according to academics, Western countries were not willing to do.

This stance was fundamentally expressed in the figure of Boris Johnson, with a greater desire for personal prominence than Joe Biden and a personal history of belligerence towards the Russian Federation. Unlike the rest of the European countries, which either participated in the negotiations or supported, at least verbally, the Minsk roadmap as a way of politically resolving the war in Donbass, neither the United Kingdom nor the United States wasted time defending these peace agreements, which did not imply a defeat for Russia nor did they bring them any benefit. Both countries, comfortable with a war on Russian borders, which allowed them to start the sanctions regime and aim for the continental breakup finally imposed after the Russian invasion, London and Washington never prioritized peace in Ukraine in favor of international stability, with their geopolitical interests as the primary objective.

In this context, Johnson's visit to kyiv after the Istanbul summit should not be understood as an exercise in pressure on kyiv, whose reluctance to accept the peace agreement demanded by Russia is consistent with the refusal to implement the Minsk agreements for granting excessive rights to Donbass, but as an incentive. As confirmed by the documents and statements of those who participated in the negotiations, Ukraine rejected territorial concessions and doubted the viability of withdrawing from NATO, an aspiration included in the Constitution. Johnson's visit to announce Western support for Ukraine was, in reality, the confirmation that kyiv would have the funding and weapons to do what it wanted: to continue fighting to recover as much territory as possible and, above all, to make the minimum political concessions in a future negotiation process.

Although it is an exaggeration to say that Johnson's intervention, which according to Ukrainska Pravda warned Zelensky that the West would not accept the agreement even if Ukraine did so, as a final one, with its presence to promise weapons with which to fight until final victory, the British Prime Minister showed the lack of interest of his country - and that of the United States - in a diplomatic resolution. More than two years have passed since that moment, time in which destruction and death have accumulated, and Ukraine has not managed to improve its negotiating position or its situation on the front. On the international level, the increasingly possible rise to power of Donald Trump, with his speech of stopping the war through some kind of negotiation, also marks the positions of the different actors. This is the case of Johnson, a personal friend of Trump, who has wanted to convince personally and also through the media of the benefits of supporting Ukraine against Russia. Sticking strictly to kyiv's rhetoric, which blames all failures and the lack of successes on the lack of Western weapons - always without explaining the failure of the 2023 counteroffensive, for which Ukraine had a huge amount of funds and material - Johnson is trying to convince Trump to continue this supply by highlighting the benefits of the war in Ukraine.

“The Ukrainians have more than a million people with weapons in their hands. They are already used to working with NATO equipment and are the most effective anti-Russian force in the world. Once the war is over, there is no reason why Ukrainian forces could not replace some of the 70,000 US troops still in Europe. That would allow Trump to save money, and bring US forces home, and get the Europeans to do more in their own defence – one of his key objectives,” Johnson writes, using one of the slogans of the moment: reducing the US presence on the European continent. This possible reduction is not due, as has been argued in the press, to pacifism or isolationism, but to the obsession with “the southern border” and rivalry with China.

“Trump could simply do what comes naturally to him: end bureaucratic dithering and delays; give the Ukrainians the permissions they need; and then, when Putin has been pushed back again, he could offer the deal,” he writes, appealing to one of the important points of the Republican programme: destroying the “administrative state”. Less bureaucracy would guarantee, according to this version, speed in the delivery of weapons and fewer restrictions on the use of missiles, which could be used against military bases located on the territory of the Russian Federation. That is the basis of Johnson’s roadmap to end the war: guarantee more weapons and fewer restrictions on their use. In this way, magically and effortlessly, “Putin would have to retreat at least to the borders before the 2022 invasion and, to avoid future conflicts and uncertainty, the rest of Ukraine would have to be recognised as a free country, able to choose its destiny within the EU and NATO, and absolutely welcome to join as soon as possible.” In other words, the end of the war proposed by Boris Johnson is not a path to negotiation, nor is it a return to the borders of 2022 - something that was possible during the negotiations in Istanbul, but not feasible now - but a vague formulation that implies that he is aware that Ukraine will not recover all the territories, but does not give up on it. And, of course, unlike in Istanbul, where Russia supported Ukraine's accession to the European Union but demanded neutrality and limitation of military power, Johnson's recipe involves militarization - Ukraine as "the best anti-Russian tool" - and the expansion of NATO to the Russian border, which is hardly something that cannot be considered, as part of the press is doing, a change of opinion.

In exchange for the defeat presented by this scenario, the former British Prime Minister offers Russia “something in return.” With even less coherence than in his proposal to end the war, Johnson writes that “there are all sorts of incentives that could work with Putin. Of course, he could claim that the “special military operation” – also known as the invasion – had been a success and had denazified Ukraine. There could be special protections for Russian speakers.” Johnson here picks up on one of the important points of the Minsk and Istanbul negotiations, which were ultimately deemed unacceptable by Ukraine. The idea, especially given the precedents, now sounds like a bad joke in the mouths of those who never supported the Minsk agreements, the basis of which was precisely to guarantee these cultural and linguistic rights to the population of Donbass.

“Above all, with Trump in the White House, there is the real prospect of some global rapprochement with Russia, and with Putin, a return to the days when Russia was a respected partner of the G8 and even NATO,” Johnson says in yet another example of apparent magical thinking. In a nutshell, the former British Conservative leader proposes an increased flow of arms and the removal of restrictions, seemingly miraculous material that would allow Ukraine to return to the borders by 2022 and minimal concessions to the Russian-speaking population. The icing on the cake is the expansion of NATO to Russian borders, something that is incompatible with peace with Russia, but which Johnson inexplicably presents as an opportunity for Russia. It is possible that Trump’s naive approach, that he believes himself capable of achieving peace even before his hypothetical inauguration, is based on his ignorance of the reality of war or the depth of the conflict. In Johnson's case, his past performance suggests that he is simply seeking to achieve his country's geopolitical objectives at all costs and whatever the consequences for Russia and Ukraine. Like Zelensky's roadmap , Johnson's plan is not one of peace, but of war.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/22/la-pr ... de-guerra/

Google Translator

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Ukraine Weekly Update
19th July 2024

DR. ROB CAMPBELL
JUL 19, 2024

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The bear had a bit of a rest this week - it was hot.

<snip>

15 Millions Rubles for the First Downed F-16

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Hey - we’re being hunted!

This reward is being offered by the ‘Forres’ - a company from the Urals to the first Russian to destroy and F-16.

German Magazine Shut Down After Zakharova Interview

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Drawn by Gen. Erich Ludendorff who later supported Hitler

According to Ukrainian Telegram Channel, Resident, General Syrsky has assembled 8 new brigades fully equipped with Western equipment for an Autumn Counter Offensive which will give the Democrats a boost for the November elections. According to NATO hopium, the Russian army will exhaust itself over the summer and will be vulnerable to this onslaught which will be directed at two sectors of the front. Anyone who is following this conflict closely will know that this is nonsense and anyone following US politics will know that the Democrats will not benefit from an injection of success on Ukrainian battlefields - they have suffered too much damage even before someone tried to kill Trump.

Ukraine Peace Movement

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The level of opposition to the war among Ukrainians is increasing to the extent that it is now worthy of examination imv. A Ukrainian source had this to say:

Now we see a sharp reversal; we were the first to know about this and predict this scenario. There are more and more people who hate the Ukrainian government and have a positive attitude towards the Russian Federation. This provides excellent ground for the emergence of a huge number of partisans from the region’s residents in the city.

This change has occurred due to the dictatorial practices of Zelensky and Ermak, according to legitimniy - including the botched mobilization.

Peace Bloggers
According to Pravda, Ukrainian bloggers with over a million subscribers are calling for peace and blaming the government for the deaths of civilians. Some said that they have no need of the 1991 borders. One blogger said:

Our country is being robbed by our own government, children and people are dying, families and lives, plans and dreams are being destroyed.

Another said:

In my 30-40-50 years, the state has given me nothing but the Kalashnikov. Why should I be a patriot?

Many do not believe Ukrainian propaganda (such as the alleged Russian attack on a hospital); they are convinced that Ukraine cannot win the war and that negotiations with Russia are inevitable. Therefore, they argue, peace moves should be initiated immediately before more are killed unnecessarily.

Sabotage

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On July 12th several cars were set alight in the Vinnitsa region south west of Kiev. In Radostnaya (Odessa) two military vehicles were burned out and a military man burned the car of a TPP worker - according to legitimniy. It appears that the Ukrainian authorities have been told to clamp down on dissent and dissenters. On July 14th, Odessa witnessed its fourth torching of a Ukrainian forces car within a week - as you can see here. On the 15th July, another military car was torched in Luzanovka (Odessa) during the night. Also on the 15th, a grenade was thrown into a TPP military registration/enlistment office - damaging a filing cabinet - according to legitimniy. Overnight on the 16th/17th July, Odessa police reported that 5 army/TPP vehicles were burned out. On the 18th, legitimniy reported another three burned out TPP cars in Odessa.

Draft Dodging

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This map shows that draft dodging is higher in the west of the country. Add two zeros to each figure to get the total number of dodgers in each region. The largest figure is 101,700 (in the far west). A survey has shown that 46% of Ukrainians do not regard draft dodging as shameful. You can read more at Sputnik.

Protests
Dnipropetrovsk
Residents of Kamenskoye (Dnipropetrovsk) have been outside the DTEK (energy provider) building protesting at being left without electricity for 17 hours a day. According to legitimniy, this was the second ‘social riot’ in a week.

Odessa
TPP workers entered a bus in search of new ‘recruits’ but they were ejected by the passengers. One woman said: ‘go fight for your drug addict Zelensky’. You can see some footage here.

Elsewhere in Odessa, many people are blocking the streets in protest at having no electricity. The police have not been interfering with the protesters. You can read more here.

In another incident a TPP official was so frightened by the people gathering around him that he fired his pistol in the air. You can see footage here.

Kiev
In Kiev, a woman set herself alight in public to protest her husband’s forced mobilisation. Yo can see footage on X or Telegram. She is still alive at the time of writing, with 80% burns. Heartbreaking.

Only One in Ten Willing to Fight
According to a Ukrainian commander, only one in ten men are willing to fight. Nine will write refusals or go to hospital, he claimed, adding that most are not physically fit for service.

(Much more at link.)

https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukra ... update-593

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NATO at the Crossroads
Incoherent Security Architecture and the Problem of Grand Strategy

BIG SERGE
JUL 19, 2024

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Ukrainian Quagmire
The war in Ukraine is now nearly two and a half years old. That is more than enough time to mull over the broader strategic logic of the conflict. Nonetheless, western leadership continues to give contradictory responses to a very elementary question: is the outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian War existential for NATO? Depending on who and when you ask, NATO’s (or, more specifically America’s) interests in Ukraine are presented in various ways, and generally run along three different tracks.

In the more tactical, cynical variant of the story, the west has backed Ukraine because it is an opportunity to attrit an adversary without putting western soldiers in harm’s way. This is the mercenary version of the story, where the AFU can propped up in the field to destroy as many Russian vehicles and kill as many Russian personnel as possible. This has a certain opportunistic and cold strategic calculus to it, but it certainly does not frame Ukraine as an existential battleground for the west. Another version of the story reframes Ukraine as an extension of the old Cold War theory of containment. It is the duty of the west, evidently, to defend “democracies” against a perceived bloc of totalitarian states, in a show of deterrence.

The third answer is the most interesting, and the most phantasmagorical. This is the story that describes Ukraine as a forward bulwark and barrier state for NATO. Russia must be stopped in Ukraine, it is argued, because if Russia succeeds in conquering much (or all) of Ukraine, it will surely attack NATO next. That’s bad news, because if NATO and Russia get into an open war it will probably go nuclear. Therefore, Ukrainian victory is existential not just for the Ukrainians themselves, or even just for NATO, but for all of humanity. Ukraine is the last line of defense preventing a likely nuclear war. This is an argument that has been repeated in earnest by many figures in both western leadership and the analytics sphere, including ISW and the internet’s favorite talking head, Peter Zeihan. This is the argument which underlies all the rhetoric comparing Putin to Hitler - the notion is that “Putler” will continue his rampage if he is not stopped in Ukraine, but unlike Hitler he possesses a nuclear arsenal, so that when he goes down into the bunker, he can take the world with him. Or something.

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Joe Biden and “President Putin”

It’s all a bit blasé, of course. But the confusion when it comes down to actually characterizing NATO’s interests in Ukraine (are they trying to save the world, or simply degrade an adversary’s military?) speaks to a larger contradictory pattern when it comes to Ukraine’s role vis a vis the alliance. Two elements in particular stand out - namely, the continued promises of a Ukrainian path to membership in NATO, and the unwillingness to negotiate a settlement which cedes territory to the Russians. Let’s review them in turn.

At the recent NATO summit in Washington DC, most attention was directed to President Biden’s characteristically incoherent babble, mispeaks, and inability to properly form recognizable English sentences - particularly his introduction of Ukrainian President Zelensky as “President Putin”, to thunderous and befuddled applause. But amid the babble, the summit reconfirmed NATO’s commitment to Ukraine’s eventual and inevitable membership in the bloc.

At some level, this is understandable. Ukrainian membership in NATO has been a consistent element of Russia’s war aims, and Moscow has consistently sought a guarantee against Ukrainian membership as a condition for peace. It is not hard to see how NATO would wish to emphasize its commitment to Ukraine, to avoid the impression that they can be easily deterred by Russia.

On a more pragmatic level, however, the logic of Ukrainian NATO membership is badly garbled. At this point in the war, the United States has crossed virtually all of the red lines that it had set for itself at prior points: it sent Abrams tanks after the Pentagon initially ruled it out, it has cleared the way for F-16s, and delivered ATACMS. The pattern is clearly one of slowly (slower than the Ukrainians would like) but surely checking off all the items on Ukraine’s wish list, after an initial period of refusal and foot dragging.

The one red line that Washington has consistently hewed to, however, is direct and formal American involvement on the ground (various undeclared American trainers, advisers, and contractors notwithstanding). Biden has been particularly clearsighted about the fact that America cannot justify “fighting the Third World War” in Ukraine. The problem here is a contradictory and undefined sense of the stakes at play. NATO has communicated, in fairly unequivocal terms, that it is not willing to fight an open war with Russia and risk annihilatory nuclear exchange over Ukraine. But by pledging eventual NATO membership for Kiev, they are signaling that they would be willing to do so in the future.

It’s not clear how to reconcile these positions. America has essentially pledged that it is willing to link nuclear escalation calculus to Kiev and commit to a hypothetical future war with Russia by bringing Ukraine under the umbrella of Article 5, while simultaneously insisting that it is not willing to fight such a war now, while there is an immediate kinetic threat to Ukraine. It’s not obvious why Ukraine might be worth fighting a catastrophic war tomorrow, but not today. If defeating Russia in Ukraine and holding the line at Ukraine’s 1991 borders are indeed an existential American interest, then why is America holding back now?

Furthermore, insisting on Ukraine’s postwar path to NATO membership alters the calculus of the current war, in myriad ways. Insisting on Ukraine’s future membership encourages Russian maximalism - if Moscow resigns itself to the idea that whatever is left of Ukraine after the war will eventually join NATO, it will likely conclude that it ought to leave the most wrecked and neutered Ukrainian rump state that it possibly can. Since NATO membership requires prospective candidates to resolve all their active territorial disputes before entry into the alliance, Russia has a direct lever to scuttle and delay Ukraine’s path to membership by keeping the conflict burning.

In effect, the repeated pledges of postwar Ukrainian NATO membership create a host of strategic incentives that are bad for Ukraine and bad for NATO, since it is hard to see precisely why the western bloc would be so eager to admit a shattered Ukrainian trashcanistan with intractable anti-Russian revanchist tendencies. In addition, Moscow would be sure to see this rump Ukraine as the frontline weak spot in NATO, and an ideal place to probe and test America’s commitment to Article 5.

NATO has put itself in this bind through its overly eager and careless expansionary mindset - having prematurely promised Ukraine NATO membership as early as 2008, the west cannot formally withdraw its pledges without undermining its own credibility, to say nothing of the backlash from a betrayed and ruined Ukraine, which would likely exit western orbit altogether.

And so, we arrive at the current Ukrainian crisis. NATO frivolously spread to the east, handing out cheap security assurances and pushing right up to the Russian border - intaking the Baltics and making promises to Ukraine at the same time that it systematically disarmed itself. Now, in the face of a counterstroke by the Russians, the west - but America more particularly - cannot seem to decide if these places are actually worth fighting for. NATO expansion as a low cost mechanism to push the American footprint deep into the old Soviet space made sense; NATO expansion as a burden which requires America and Western Europe to prepare for a land war in Ukraine and the Baltics makes no sense at all.

Washington is caught in a bind of its own making, created by decades of writing checks that it would prefer not to cash It has pledged to fight the “Third World War” for Tallinn and Riga, should the need arise, and has promised in no uncertain terms to extend that guarantee to Kiev as well at some point in the future. But faced with a high intensity continental war in the Donbas, there are increasing reasons to doubt American willingness to actually risk it all for these remote and strategically tenuous positions, particular as China’s swelling power promises to suck in ever more of America’s constrained military power to the East Asian theater, and the keystone European partners drag their feet on military preparedness.

In the end, Ukraine becomes the poster child and archetype for the mismatch between NATO’s promises and its material basis of power. It has now been 16 years since Kiev was first enticed with the prospect of NATO membership. But what did they actually get? A wrecked power grid, the loss of 20% of their territory (so far), and hundreds of thousands dead, wounded, or missing. The 45 million strong Ukraine that received those lofty promises so long ago is now a shattered and battered husk with perhaps 25 million citizens left. From NATO, they receive too many words and far too few shells, vehicles, and air defense interceptors.

NATO is, after all, a military alliance. When it was originally created, the hard calculus of divisions, manpower, and operational minutia were a foundational element of its construction. West Germany was brought into the alliance not due to lofty rhetoric about democracy and friendship, but due to the need to mobilize West German manpower and industrial capacity, and the desire to defend forward of the Rhine - a far cry from the induction of the Baltics, which brought no strategic advantage whatsoever. What NATO needs now is not another member, another noncontributing security commitment deep in the Russian strategic space, but a hearty dose of realism.

(Much more at link.)

https://bigserge.substack.com/p/nato-at-the-crossroads

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Causality, Moral Responsibility, and the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War
by GORDONHAHN
July 21, 2024

The causal explanations are not justifications, but they do overlap. In the West the NATO-Russia Ukraine war is usually referred to as ‘Putin’s war’ or ‘Russia’s war’ against Ukraine. Accompanying texts often aver that Putin seeks to recreate the Soviet empire and even conquer Europe. This is clearly part of a massive attempt in the West to escape any moral responsibility for the catastrophe now unfolding in Ukraine. All causality is attributed to ‘Putin’ and ‘Putin’s Russia’, so all moral responsibility can be laid on him and, if necessary, all Russia.

The facts are that the main cause of the war is NATO’s plan to expand to Ukraine and the efforts undertaken over the last two-three decades by NATO, the EU, and Western governments, especially the U.S. government to achieve that goal. Russia reacted – in some instances overreacted – but it was the West that was the proactive driver of events and the confict. If there had been no NATO or no NATO expansion, then there would have been no Ukrainian Maidan putsch, no Kiev attack on Donbass, no Russian annexation of Crimea, and no NATO-Russia Ukrainian war. I have detailed the complex causal chain of events here numerous times and will not repeat it here. Suffice it here to offer a simple analogy.

Imagine you are in a restaurant (the international system), and your friends and others tell you that the guy sitting in the corner table is named Russ, and Russ does not like it when people sit at the tables (eastern Europe) that surround his table (Russia) because in the past drunkards (Western powers) have started fights with him, trying to take chairs from his table or to unseat Russ outright from his table. A very few people even say that Russ is aggressive, likes to fight, actually wants to have all the tables for himself, and plans to kick everyone else out of the restaurant. They tell you that if one tries to sit at any of those tables situated around his table, Russ will try to kick you out of your chair and force you to return to your original table.

Rather than keeping his distance, however, one visitor to the restaurant named Nate — who is well-informed about Russ’s troubled history with neighboring tables — begins to move in the course of a few hours from one table to another, nearing and then sitting at one of the tables next to Russ’s table (color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine). As Nate does this, Russ gets up and warns him to stop and not to sit at any table next to his corner table (Putin’s offer to negotiate a new European security architecture and call for NATO to abandon expansion to Ukraine). Then Nate gets up and sits at the table next to Russ’s table (Western-backed Maidan putsch and arms Kiev for eight years). Russ tells Nate to leave that table and return to one of the tables more dstant from his or he will ‘clean your clock’. Nate refuses to move, and Russ cleans Nate’s clock (Russia’s 24 February 2022 invasion).

You, having observed all this as one of the erstwhile restaurant-goers at the time, are asked to describe what happened by someone who just entered the restaurant post-clock-cleaning, and you, late for an appointment, hurriedly relate the course of events, saying simply that Nate sat down at the table next to Russ and Russ got up and beat him (Western version of events). Your interlocutor says that Russ is ‘evil’, and that Nate is good (Western public). As you walk out, you blurt out that things were more complicated, and your interlocutor says you are a friend of Russ and no less evil than him.

This is precisely what has happened with regard to Russia, NATO, the West, and Western discourse.

In order to cover up the complex causality and moral responsibility shared by the West and Russia for the ‘clock cleaning’, the West has been adamant that Russia’s invasion was “unprovoked.” The alleged lack of provocation is then used to support the view that if Putin is not rolled back in Ukraine, he will invade all the other former Soviet republics, and soon we will be fighting Russian forces on the Vistula, Elbe, Rhine, Thames, and Potomac.

But we know Putin has no intention of restoring the USSR or invading Europe, because Russia made no effort to seize all of the former Soviet republic of Georgia in the 2008 Georgia-Ossetian/Russian war, even though Russian troops were facing a vastly inferior military force and Russian troops were as close as 60 miles from the Georgian capitol, Tbilisi. Similarly, in 2014 Putin could easily have mounted an invasion in Ukraine of the kind he did last year and limited his goal to the extremely low hanging fruit of seizing and annexing all of Donetsk and Luhansk as he did in Crimea, but he did not attempt to do this. In other words, when he had the chance – before NATO had eight years to harden Kiev’s military – Putin did not try to take the Donbass regions no less all of Ukraine just as he did not try to take all Georgia in 2008.

In annexing Crimea and recognizing the independence of Georgia’s breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetiya, Putin tried to protect Russia’s Black Sea Fleet naval base in Sevastopol and ethnic Russians on Crimea and remove an instability threat near Russia’s North Caucasus border, then a conduit for jihadi terrorists. In the case of Donbass, he instead signed on to apeace process that recognized Ukraine’s territorial integrity (sans Crimea) and stipulated limited autonomy for Donetsk and Luhansk to negotiated between Donbass rebels and the Kiev Maidan regime—the latter of which refused to follow through and negotiate with their fellow Ukrainians. Instead, Kiev continued to carry out its ‘anti-terrorist operation’ against Donbass, and the rest is rather contemporary ‘history.’

The polarizing tectonic of our already split apart world is intensifying at the schism’s present epicenter – Ukraine. Both Ukraine and Russia are radicalizing, becoming more zealous, irreconcilable, exclusive, and perjorative in their rhetoric and propaganda. This will make coming to the negotiating increasingly difficult for both regimes, as their populaces having believed their governments’ words will find it difficult to tolerate a turn to peace. Ukraine and the West continue to demonize everything Russia, ratcheting Russophobia up to fascist levels. Russian cultural figures from the past and present are being banned or forced to repent for or denounce their government’s war policy. Indeed, Russian culture and Russians as individuals are again being denigrated as uncivilized, backwards, unenlightened, and culturally inferior to Westerners—all this despite the close cultural affinity of Russians and Ukrainians. Putin and his domestic political allies are increasingly compared to Hitler and Stalin, even though there is no profound ideological, cultural, or ethnonational hatred of Ukrainians or Americans contained in their speeches, policies, and official documents. In turn, Russians are blamed for the fact that Putin and Putinists are and have remained in power for so long. One needs only to recall calls from the likes of former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, and his comments arguing for collective guilt and collective punishment – for now confined to suffering under sanctions – of all Russians. Yet Russia’s just recently revised Foreign Policy Doctrine specifically states that the Western democracies are not Russia’s enemy and Moscow still seeks good relations with them.

The Moscow Crocus City, St. Petersburg terrorist attack, and others, and the West’s response to them provide another good example of Ukro-Western dehumanization of Russia. Some in the West justified Ukrainian terrorist attacks, such as the 2 April 2023 terrorist attack in St. Petersburg, and no Western government has condemns them. They assert that such are legitimate targets; a Russian war correspondent who participated in military actions in Ukraine can be exploded in a restaurant surrounded by innocents. The other 39 victims in the Petersburg attack are excluded from the ‘rules-based international order’, apparently because they are Russian.

The visit by NATO Gen Sec Stoltenberg to Kiev weeks later and his statement that Ukraine belongs in the “Euro-Atlantic civilization”, combined with the abundance of neofascist ideology, pols, and military, can not but buttress the Russian public’s support for the war effort. This may not be incompetence on Stoltenberg’s part. It could very well be the intent to radicalize Russia and push it further into the rogue category as a way of justifying NATO’s growing role in the Ukraine war.

Whereas Ukrainian and Western discourse has passed the stage of fear and paranoia and become aggressive and racist, Russian rhetoric and propaganda – almost exclusively in the media, with government officials being more cautious – are increasingly demonizing the Ukrainian regime and its neofascist elements as not just ‘Nazis’, which at least approximates an aspect of Ukrainian reality. There is a ‘mystification’ of this demonization of the enemy in Kiev and in Western socieites as ‘satanic’, playing on the religious orientation of Russian culture and the conservative portion of Russia’s political spectrum. Russian media is increasingly referring to the ‘Satanization’ of Ukraine and the West (e.g., https://vz.ru/opinions/2023/4/14/120725 ... ource=push). Ukraine’s repression of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), formerly affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church based in Moscow (and Kiev, 800-1100 years ago), play into this image in remarkably convenient ways for Russian demonization efforts. Russian media is not starved for images of Ukrainian neofascists and Western-influenced Ukrainian liberals beating, taunting, and screaming like little devils at OCU priests and Orthodox believers. Things have gone so far that even some Ukrainian soldiers have even posted videos condemning Zelenskiy’s support for the confiscation of OCU churches, monasteries, and shrines in response to the tragifarce. The direction this is taking Kiev was indicated when during Orthodox Easter celebration Ukrainian armed forces targeted a church during services with artillery, killing a pregnant yound woman and wounding six others. The iconography of this act could not have supported Russian discourse better: Fascist demons had slaughtered a living analogy of the perhaps the most sacred image in Russian Orthodoxy – the Bogomater’ – maternal image of divinity represented by May, the mother of God.

This kind of primordial mutual demonization coming from both sides is rising to the level of Arab-Israeli enmity. We know what this has wrought in the Middle East—decades of hatred, war, and terrorism. This is what awaits Europe and Russia should the parties continue to conduct themselves in this way. Moreover, the image of two Christian peoples hating and slaughtering each other is precisely what the secular and atheist globalists, transgenderists, transhumanists, radical leftists and ultra liberals need to develop their own propaganda for their own no less nefarious goals. But most of all, these Slavic Christian peoples would do well to remember that their hatred and murdering is exactly over that which they contend their God despairs.

https://gordonhahn.com/2024/07/21/causa ... inian-war/

Hahn provides some interesting insights but oh boy, that last paragraph, what a sack of dead rats. His religiosity totally bypasses what he must know of the history of Christianity. And being a True Believer in the bourgeois republican form of government he(and many others) is incapable of comprehending that the diversity scam being promoted by the corporate/government combine is nothing but a misdirection campaign to keep the working class from embracing class politics and keeping us proles at each other's throats.

*****

NATO’s foreign mercenaries carried out the false-flag Bucha massacre

Sonja van den Ende

July 21, 2024

The testimony of a Czech mercenary sheds light on the alleged massacre in Bucha in 2022.

The testimony of a Czech mercenary, Filip Siman, who fought for the Ukrainian Carpathian Sich battalion, part of the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine, sheds light on the alleged massacre in Bucha in 2022.

Much has been written about Bucha, revealing much about the propagandist function of the so-called Western “free” media, with entire articles copied from each other, and the single source predominantly being the United States, the Washington Post, or the New York Times.

From the outset, the Western media reporting somehow knew for sure that the Bucha massacre was done by Russia. There was no doubt – and now everything turns out to be a big lie.

They are exposed, for their stupidity and especially for their loss on the Ukrainian front. Their evidence has been fabricated with lies aimed at misleading the Western public, which is standard practice since the U.S. started wars and killing people decades ago, under the guise of democracy.

According to Western sources including the popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, the nominated Bucha Massacre was perpetrated on Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war by Russian forces during the battle for Bucha in late March 2022.

The West and Ukraine claim this Russian atrocity via photographic and video evidence shown in their media on April 1, 2022, several days after the Russian troops had withdrawn from the city. The Ukrainians and West showed pictures and videos of corpses in the streets of Bucha and claimed the Russians killed them.

In addition, many of the photos from Bucha published in the Ukrainian and Western media show white armbands on the sleeves of the dead people, a Russian identification mark for friendly locals. However, in the rapidly changing situation in the city, some people forgot to remove the identification mark or did not have time to do so, and thus became victims of the NATO-backed Kiev regime soldiers who would have viewed the “Russian-friendly locals” as collaborators.

The fighting in Bucha lasted from February 27 to March 31 and ended with the withdrawal of Russian troops as part of the peace process that was then underway in Istanbul. On March 29, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr Fomin announced that the Russian military would reduce its activities near Bucha and all Russian troops had withdrawn completely from Bucha on March 30, the day after the face-to-face talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey.

New shocking details about alleged atrocities in Bucha

The testimony of a Czech mercenary Filip Siman, who fought for the Ukrainian Carpathian Sich battalion, part of the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine, sheds light on the events in Bucha in 2022 and casts doubt on the claims of Ukrainian and Western media about alleged atrocities committed by Russian soldiers.

Czech media recently published an article about the trial of Siman, who fought on the side of the Ukrainian Army or battalions (AFU) in Irpen and Bucha in the spring of 2022.

According to the Czech news portal Seznam Zpravy, he said the following: “We were the police, we were the judge, we were in charge of the firing squad”.

The Carpathian Sich 49th Infantry Battalion, is a battalion of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, founded in May 2022. It previously existed from 2014 to 2016, then merged into the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), but was revived as a separate battalion by NATO in 2022. It consisted up to 2016 of mostly Ukrainian Neo-Nazis from the right-wing Svoboda party, who seized power in Kiev in February 2014 with the help of the U.S. and NATO client states from the EU. The NATO-sponsored mercenary battalions are typically the most brutal in Ukraine, comprised of fanatical Russian-hating ideologues who adulate the Third Reich’s Waffen SS and its Final Solution extermination campaign.

In the last two years, 20 of the 95 confirmed dead Carpathian Sich fighters turned out to be foreign volunteers. They were fighters from Colombia, Spain, Portugal and other countries. The brutality of foreign mercenaries is confirmed by articles about the liquidation of the Portuguese mercenary Rico Chavez, who, together with Argentine and French mercenaries, took part in the execution of Russian prisoners.

On January 16, 2024, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that they delivered a precision strike at a temporary deployment area of foreign mercenaries, most of whom were citizens of France, near Kharkov. Some of them were recruited through a direct advertising campaign for the so-called Azov Battalion in France, which France denies and claims is fake news (but that’s normal in war). The mercenaries were, of course, recruited through the Ukrainian International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine.

International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine – a NATO army

This legion has taken part in most of the crucial campaigns and battles of the war. Legionnaire teams are also embedded in some of the most prominent brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, like the Carpathian Sich 49th Infantry Battalion and the Azov Battalion. It is just like in the Syrian war, where various groups were accommodated by Daesh (ISIS). Now it is called the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine.

As the advertisement says on their website: “Join the brave, from now on you can apply if you do not speak English or Ukrainian, the Spanish can join. This also applies for candidates who have no prior military experience since we have Spanish-speaking trainers (and French)”.

According to the website: “Wednesday, 12th of July 2024, the Kyiv Regional Police Department received 5 new patrol boats and presented them to the public. The boats were donated by Mitzi Perdue and as per her request, they were named after fallen legionnaires from the 1st and 3rd battalions of the International Legion. The 5 boats were named after: Shuto Fukuyama (Japan), Benjamin Giorgio Galli (The Netherlands), Andreas Gallozzi (France), Sage Avalon O’Donnell (Australia), Andrew Peters (U.S.).”

Mitzi Perdue is the widow of Frank Perdue, who was for many years the president and CEO of Perdue Farms, now one of the largest (and richest) chicken-producing companies in the United States. She claims to be a war correspondent (a very rich one) and published stories about the lives of NATO mercenaries who died for Ukraine, on her site, among them also the Dutch-Jewish guy, called Benjamin Giorgio Galli van der Plas. This shows that private companies in the U.S. and Europe are connected to the war against Russia and are major financial backers. The U.S. company Perdue Farms (owned by Mitzi Perdue), with annual sales of $8 billion, buys oilseeds and grains from Ukraine to feed livestock. U.S. imports of oilseeds from Ukraine reached $1.85 billion in 2022. Other agri-industry companies from the West have made nice profits in Ukraine as well.

Anyone who thinks that the Republicans in the U.S. do not support Ukraine in its war against Russia is mistaken. There is one project, among many others, running through a so-called charity organization called dzyga’paw that boosts the purchase of Elon Musk’s Starlinks. Multibillionaire Musk is a booster for Trump and the GOP.

They write on their website the following: “During our most recent trip to deliver 111 Starlinks, we spoke with our friends in the military and discovered a much greater need for these terminals than our previous projects have met. Therefore, we are launching a new project with an updated goal: to deliver 202 Starlink terminals!”

We can conclude that the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine is a NATO foreign legion. Since the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, this NATO foreign legion has been doing much of the heavy fighting against Russian forces. Mercenaries have been recruited from all over the Western world, but the command is under the auspices of NATO. NATO is up to its neck in this war on the ground, and, what’s more, the supposed chivalrous Western “security alliance” is committing atrocities as in Bucha for the dirty purpose of smearing Russia in a propaganda battle to keep the mega-lucrative war racket churning.

As a Dutch military general candidly said in the mainstream media: “Pretending that NATO is not involved in the war makes no sense – we are.”

NATO’s soon-to-retire Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that “Trump proofing” of the proxy war in Ukraine is a top priority.

NATO will continue its proxy war against Russia. After all, it is the shadow government of the U.S. that rules, including the weapons lobby, and for them it doesn’t matter whether a Democrat or Republican sits in the White House.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... -massacre/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 23, 2024 12:01 pm

Debts, privileges and priorities
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/23/2024

Image

“Ukraine has one month to avoid default,” The Economist proclaimed with concern just a few days ago. With the two-year moratorium on default now over, the government in Kiev was obliged to restructure its debt with private creditors in order to continue to have access to the international credit market, one of the main engines of the Ukrainian economy. As economist Adam Tooze explained last week, Ukrainian economic growth above certain limits revived debt payment obligations and the end of the default put significant pressure on the depleted coffers of the State, whose growth is more than misleading as it depends on injections of capital from abroad. In a similar way to what is happening in Russia, the huge military expenditure involved in the war generates above-normal growth. As a result, the Russian Federation has become considered a high-income country while Ukraine has risen to a middle-income country. There is, however, a fundamental difference: while Russia is making this investment at the expense of its reserves and using its own resources, Ukraine is relying on subsidies from its allies and the immense increase in debt that, as events show, it cannot repay.

Unlike Moscow, which has seen its access to the international market and to Western financial institutions, which almost completely dominate the sector, Ukraine enjoys a privileged position in its relations with public and private creditors. In 2022, the IMF made an exception for Kiev by continuing to issue loans despite the war situation, a treatment that other countries at war have not received, with much less access to humanitarian aid or economic concessions from the major powers. In financial markets and in credit institutions, Ukraine has obtained preferential treatment thanks to its geopolitical position.

This is also why kyiv has negotiated a reduction in part of its debt to private creditors relatively quickly. The interest in reaching an agreement was not limited to the Ukrainian government, but extended to its Western allies. If there was no agreement, the loans from governments and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank would have been used to pay off debts to private creditors, which in practice would have been a form of subsidy from the Western powers to big international capital, in whose hands is a significant part of the debt.

“Ukraine had been seeking debt relief as part of its conditions for continuing bailout loans from the IMF, which said it had approved Monday’s deal along with backing from the US, UK and other allies who are funding Kiev’s war effort,” wrote the Financial Times yesterday . Ukraine secured the deal last week at a meeting with bondholders and other creditors, in a statement saying that “as long-term investors in Ukraine, we are pleased to be able to provide Ukraine with significant debt relief, contribute to its efforts to regain access to international capital markets and support the country’s future reconstruction for the benefit of the Ukrainian people.” All aspects are key, although perhaps the last one is the most representative. The debt reduction on this restructured part of the debt is 37%, far from the 60% that Ukraine demanded, but also from the 20% initially offered by creditors. Favorable conditions put creditors, including big business in the civil engineering and construction industries, in a privileged position when kyiv begins the reconstruction of the country, which it wants to do by leaving public responsibilities and, therefore, profits, in private hands.

The announcement of the debt restructuring is also relevant, in which the United States and the United Kingdom, the two countries most interested in the war from a geopolitical point of view, are singled out above the rest. Unlike other regional powers such as Germany, neither Washington nor London are suffering major side effects from the war nor have they had to give up an important base of their economy (as Berlin has done with the cheap energy it obtained from Russia) and they have prospects of achieving objectives that they consider strategic. While the United States seeks to break a possible Berlin-Moscow-Beijing axis, possible a few years ago and impossible now, and to weaken a privileged ally of its only real rival, China, the United Kingdom seeks to obtain a better position in the Black Sea, a region considered strategic. Hence the special interest of these countries in keeping the Ukrainian state afloat, for which it is essential that kyiv can continue to opt for IMF financing and artificially reduce its debt so as not to become a bottomless pit that always needs more financing. Ukraine thus takes advantage of its geopolitical position and its relationship with the major powers that dominate the financial sphere and seek to maintain Western hegemony in the political sphere as well.

But it is not only the political position that is currently favouring Ukraine, which is also taking advantage of the other aspect that makes the country geopolitically relevant: geography. The ability to turn off the tap on the transit of Russian gas or oil has been a tool that Kiev has used in the past and that even caused a gas war with Russia. For years, Ukraine fought to remain a privileged country in the transit of Russian gas and oil to its main client, Germany. The income derived from this passage represented a significant part of the state budget, something that could be seen at the Normandy Format summit of heads of state and government in December 2019. Although resolving the situation in Donbass might seem to be the most important aspect, the efforts of the Zelensky government were aimed at obtaining an extension of the gas transit contract through Ukraine, thus protecting itself from what then seemed to be the certainty of the launch of Nord Stream-2. Today, despite the war, the Ukrainian system is the only one through which Russian gas still transits to the European Union.

The cutting off of other transit routes, especially for gas with the Nord Stream completely paralysed, gives Ukraine an even more important strategic position than it was a decade ago. However, for the moment, Kiev does not want to use this position for further economic gain, but to punish its enemy. This is the case, for example, with the implementation of sanctions against Lukoil. “Last month, Kiev imposed sanctions blocking the transit through the pipeline of crude oil sold by Lukoil, Moscow’s largest private oil company, to Central Europe, partly nullifying an exemption from sanctions established by the European Union to give countries dependent on Russia more time to run out of supplies,” writes Politico this week . On its own and with the intention of undermining its enemy, Kiev has imposed sanctions that go beyond those of Brussels, aware - Kiev cannot not know who receives that oil - that the damage is not only produced in the form of lower income for a Russian company, but, above all, in significant economic damage for two of the countries of the political bloc that Ukraine wants to access by fast track: Hungary and Slovakia. Coincidentally , these are two countries whose governments have shown themselves to be in favour of negotiation and of not extending the war or unlimited financing to Kiev indefinitely. Now, both find themselves in the position of having to negotiate with Ukraine the transit of a merchandise that is not even sanctioned by the European Union precisely to avoid that the coercive measures against Moscow harm the allies more than the enemy.

However, Ukraine's position is not without risks. Despite the unconditional support it will undoubtedly receive from its most important partners, the country's energy situation, with a large part of its electricity production network destroyed and it becoming an importer of energy - when it aspired to be a major exporter precisely to the EU countries close to its borders - makes it dangerous to stop oil transits to certain neighbours. "Budapest regards Kiev's decision to stop oil transits as hostile, especially given that Ukraine imports electricity from Hungary," said Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó.

“Slovakia will not be held hostage by Ukrainian-Russian relations, and the decision of the Ukrainian president means that the Slovak oil refinery Slovnaft, which is part of the Hungarian MOL Group, will receive 40% less oil than it needs for processing,” said Prime Minister Fico, who has now returned to his duties after surviving an assassination attempt. Fico also recalled that the situation may not only affect Hungary and Slovakia, but also Ukraine, as oil refined by Slovnaft accounts for almost 10% of Ukraine’s consumption.

Impunity and unconditional support from the major powers make kyiv feel capable of taking unilateral measures that seek to harm Moscow, but which also have the capacity to harm countries in the European Union and even its own citizens, who are the main victims of any worsening of the energy situation, a concern that seems to be secondary for its government.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/23/30212/

Google Translator

******

From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Eighteen British Special Air Service and French army soldiers were killed in a strike on Odessa, retired Spanish army colonel Pedro Baños said, without specifying the date of the strike.

"I just received information that I cannot confirm, I asked for confirmation and they told me that it is certain... there was a strike on Odessa in which at least 18 members of the British Special Air Service were killed," Baños said on his YouTube channel Canal del Coronel.

According to him, another 25 members of the British Special Air Service were wounded. "And they tell me that French soldiers were killed... they are not mercenaries, who are French, no, they are soldiers of the French army," he added. At the same time, the retired Spanish army colonel did not specify when exactly the strike on Odessa was carried out.

@belarusian_silovik

Apparently, this is the same blow to Odessa, after which Macron began to often squeal about the introduction of French troops into Ukraine. Before that, the French were also hit hard in Kharkov.

***

Colonelcassad
Rybar : About a massive drone attack in southern Russia

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Two days later, Ukrainian troops again carried out a massive launch of drones in southern Russia. Dozens of UAVs were launched from the territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, directed towards Crimea , Krasnodar Krai , Rostov and Astrakhan regions .

The main blow fell on the Rostov region (47 UAVs) , where the first UAVs were recorded after midnight. The main target of the attack was the airfield in Morozovsk . Almost all the drones were shot down, several, unfortunately, hit a fuel depot, causing a fire.

Several more drones were shot down over Ilyinka , Kamensk-Shakhtinsky , the villages of Mokrotalovka and Maloe Polesie . In the last settlement, a UAV fell in the yard of a house due to the impact of electronic warfare, but there were no casualties.

Along with the raid on the airfield, the Ukrainian Armed Forces again attacked the oil infrastructure in Tuapse on the Black Sea coast . Seven of the eight drones were shot down on approach, but the last one reached its target unhindered, hitting one of the objects in the area.

There would have been more drones in Tuapse, but 17 units were shot down in the waters of the Black and Azov Seas. Of these, five drones were destroyed by fighters of the Black Sea Fleet naval aviation 30 km west of Sevastopol .

In addition, five more drones were destroyed by air defense systems over the Astrakhan region. It is unknown what exactly was the target, but it could have been either the airfield near Astrakhan or the oil depots located near the Caspian Sea .

The enemy's attacks with relatively inexpensive drones continue over and over again. For the second time in two days, fatal damage to both military equipment and energy facilities was avoided. However, hits happen again and again.

The system's sluggishness seriously affects defensive capabilities. Once again , we note a UAV approaching the oil refinery along the same trajectory without any significant impact, and once again we note the lack of hangars for aircraft.

It would seem that there is nothing complicated about it. Hangars and shelters are much cheaper than repairing or building a new aircraft, and installing a ZU-23 on a pickup truck is much easier than losing oil refinery capacity. Maybe there is something we don't know or understand. I would like to see at least some reasonable arguments, but of course there are none.

***

Colonelcassad
Forwarded from
War Correspondent Kitten
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the main moments of the SVO by 16:28 Moscow time on July 22, 2024, especially for the Voenkor Kotenok channel @voenkorKotenok :

1.
Rabotinsky salient.
Positional battles to the north of Rabotino and Verbovoye, minor shifts in favor of the Russian Armed Forces.
The enemy is strengthening its defenses to the south of Orekhovo.

2.
Vremyevskiy salient.
The Russian Armed Forces are probing the defenses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the direction of Makarovka.
They managed to take a number of landings to the east of Urozhaynoye to secure the flank.

3.
Ugledar.
Positional battles on the outskirts of Konstantinovka.
It was not possible to break through to the Konstantinovka-Ugledar highway and gain a foothold there on the move, but new positions have advanced closer to the highway and it will now be easier to continue attacks from them with the aim of cutting the communication line of the Ugledar group.

4.
Krasnogorovka.
More than 90% of the city is under the control of the Russian Armed Forces.
The enemy continues to fight its way back to the northwestern part of the city. Almost all the large buildings in the city have already been lost to the enemy, and the fighting has shifted to the private sector.

5.
Krasnoarmeyskoye direction.
Minor advancement near Nevelskoye + minor advancement on the outskirts of Karlovka.
Fighting continues for the center of Novoselovka Pervaya, the settlement has not yet been taken.
In the area of ​​liberated Progress and Lozovatskaya, the Russian Armed Forces have significantly expanded the zone of control, the enemy was forced to roll back to the west. Fighting also continues near the outskirts of Vozdvizhenka, but the settlement itself is still under enemy control.
There is some advancement to the north of Arkhangelskoye, but it has not yet been possible to break through to Kalinovo or bypass it from the west.
There is minor advancement near Rozovka.

6.
Gorlovka direction.
In New York, the Russian Armed Forces have occupied part of the city center + are advancing west of New York.
In Dzerzhinsk, the Russian Armed Forces have occupied most of Artemovo and about a third of Kirovo.
The enemy's defense is showing crisis tendencies; there is a threat of encirclement of fairly large enemy forces between New York and Dzerzhinsk.

7.
Chasov Yar.
There are no changes in Chasov Yar itself; fighting is taking place near the Seversky Donets-Donbass Canal. The Russian Armed Forces control the eastern part of Kalinovka and have advanced north of Kalinovka along the canal.
Near Kleshcheyevka, the enemy has again gained a foothold in the outlying houses in the southwest of the village.
Positional battles are taking place here.

8.
Seversky Salient.
Fighting continues near Pereyezdnoye.
The village itself is under enemy control.
Fighting is taking place in the Ivano-Daryevka area and in the direction of Vyemka.
Positional battles are taking place in Belogorovka and Spornoye.

9.
Krasnolimanskoye Direction.
Positional battles continued in the Serebryanskoye forestry, in the area of ​​Terna and Torskoye.
There were no significant changes in the front line.

10.
Svatovo-Kupyanskoye direction.
The Russian Armed Forces are making progress in the area of ​​liberated Peschannoye, where they are expanding the zone of control.
Fighting continues in the eastern part of Makeyevka, on the outskirts of Stelmakhovka, and to the east of Sin'kovka.

11.
Kharkov direction.
The Russian Armed Forces drove the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of the northern part of Glubokoye and regained control over most of the village.
The enemy suffered heavy losses here.
In Volchansk, the Russian Armed Forces achieved success in the city center, taking a number of buildings.
There are minor shifts in favor of the Russian Armed Forces in the eastern part of Volchansk.

In general, the Russian Armed Forces continue to maintain the operational initiative in most directions, which prevents the enemy from stabilizing the front in a number of important areas. This, in turn, leads to the methodical liberation of territory and settlements.

***


Colonelcassad
📝 Summary of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of 22 July 2024)

— Units of the North group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 42nd Mechanized, 82nd Airborne Assault, 52nd Motorized Infantry Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 13th National Guard Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Bely Kolodez, Staritsa, Liptsy and Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region. They repelled three attacks by units of the 92nd Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 36th Marine Brigade.

The enemy's losses amounted to 270 servicemen, four vehicles, a 155-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Krab" of Polish manufacture, a 152-mm howitzer D-20, a 122-mm gun D-30, a 105-mm howitzer L-118 made in Great Britain.

— Units of the West group of forces have taken up more advantageous lines and positions. They have defeated the formations of the 54th Mechanized, 57th Motorized Infantry, 144th Infantry Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Peschanoye in the Kharkov region, Makeyevka in the Luhansk People's Republic and Krasny Liman in the Donetsk People's Republic. In addition, two counterattacks by units of the 66th and 67th Mechanized Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been repelled.

The enemy has lost over 520 servicemen, a Leopard tank made in Germany, an M113 armored personnel carrier made in the USA and nine vehicles.

During the counter-battery fire, the following were destroyed: a 155-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Krab" of Polish manufacture, a 155-mm howitzer M198 of US manufacture, a 122-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Gvozdika", a 105-mm howitzer L-119 of British manufacture, a 100-mm gun MT-12 "Rapira". Three ammunition depots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were also destroyed.

— Units of the "Southern" group of forces improved the position along the forward edge, inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 28th Mechanized, 93rd and 79th Airborne Assault Brigades, the 5th Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Dyleevka, Konstantinovka and Katerinovka of the Donetsk People's Republic. They repelled two attacks by formations of the 5th Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In addition, during the counter-battery battle, the following were destroyed: two 155-mm FH-70 howitzers made in the UK, three 152-mm D-20 guns, a 122-mm D-30 howitzer, a 105-mm M119 gun made in the US, two 105-mm L-119 howitzers made in the UK, and AN/TPQ-36 and AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery radars made in the US.

— Units of the "Center" group of forcestook more advantageous positions and defeated the formations of the 32nd, 41st, 110th, 151st mechanized and 68th infantry brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the 129th territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Toretsk, Zhelannoye, Volchye, Timofeyevka, Veseloye and Grodovka of the Donetsk People's Republic. They repelled six counterattacks by units of the 53rd, 151st mechanized, 95th airborne assault, 68th ranger brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the united assault brigade "Lyut" of the National Police of Ukraine.

— Units of the "East" force grouping improved their tactical position and defeated the manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 120th and 123rd Territorial Defense Brigades in the areas of the settlements of Vodyanoye, Neskuchnoye, Novosyolka, Prechistovka and Stepnoye of the Donetsk People's Republic. A counterattack by the formations of the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was repelled.

— Units of the "Dnipro" force grouping defeated the manpower and equipment of the 103rd, 124th Territorial Defense Brigades and the 15th National Guard Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Kapulovka in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Antonovka in Kherson Oblast and Mala Tokmachka in Zaporizhia Oblast.

▫️Units of the "East" group of forces improved the tactical situation and also defeated the manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 120th and 123rd Territorial Defense Brigades in the areas of the settlements of Vodyanoye, Neskuchnoye, Novosyolka, Prechistovka and Stepnoye of the Donetsk People's Republic. A counterattack by formations of the 58th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was repelled.

The enemy lost over 110 servicemen, five vehicles, two 155-mm M777 howitzers made in the USA, a 155-mm towed howitzer FH-70 made in Great Britain, a 152-mm howitzer D-20, and a 122-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Gvozdika".

▫️Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 103rd, 124th territorial defense brigades and the 15th National Guard brigade in the areas of the settlements of Kapulovka in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Antonovka in the Kherson region and Mala Tokmachka in the Zaporizhia region. The

Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 115 servicemen, four vehicles, two 155-mm M777 howitzers made in the USA, and a 122-mm D-30 gun.

▫️Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups destroyed the P-18 air target detection and tracking radar station, as well as the manpower and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 113 districts.

▫️Air defense systems shot down three US-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles, six US-made HIMARS multiple launch rockets, and 163 unmanned aerial vehicles, including 80 over the territory of the Russian Federation.

📊 In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 630 aircraft, 278 helicopters, 28,118 unmanned aerial vehicles, 554 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,629 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,381 multiple launch rocket system combat vehicles, 12,224 field artillery pieces and mortars, 23,941 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

Boris Johnson’s Peace Plan For Ukraine Speaks Volumes About The Elite’s Changing Perceptions

ANDREW KORYBKO
JUL 22, 2024

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He’s infamous for sabotaging spring 2022’s peace talks so it’s likely that there are other comparatively more “moderate” hawks who’ve finally come along to feeling the same way if he of all people is now proposing territorial compromises with Russia and Ukraine protecting the rights of Russian speakers.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who shares responsibility with Polish President Andrzej Duda for sabotaging spring 2022’s Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, laid out his envisaged peace plan for Ukraine in an op-ed for The Daily Mail on Friday. He proposes that Trump lift all US restrictions on weapons to Ukraine and their use thereof if he returns to power, after which he takes for granted that Kiev will be able to push Russia back to the pre-special operation boundaries of early 2022.

He then proposes that Russia let Ukraine join the EU and NATO in exchange for Ukraine providing special protections for Russian speakers and the West entering into a rapprochement with Russia that could see its return to the G8 and the resumption of its NATO partnership. Parts of what he proposed are unrealistic while others are “politically incorrect” from the West’s perspective, but the package itself is interesting to analyze as a whole.

The first part about Trump lifting all US restrictions towards Ukraine is based on the plan that he was recently handed where it’s implied that the US might do so if Russia refuses to enter into talks with Ukraine while it would explicitly withhold support from Ukraine if it refuses to enter into talks with Russia. Johnson’s first mistake is assuming that Ukraine would agree but Russia would decline, and then he makes another by assuming that Ukraine would push Russia back to the early 2022 boundaries.

It's after these sequential intellectual stumbles that he then makes his most interesting proposals. This warmonger flips the script from the past nearly two and a half years by walking back his demands for maximalist victory. Instead of restoring Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders, he’s willing to settle for its early 2022 ones, and he no longer favors the forcible artificial imposition of socio-cultural unity in Ukraine since he now wants special protections for Russian speakers. It’s impressive that he of all people is saying this.

Less impressive though are him clinging to Ukraine’s formal NATO membership, which Russia will never agree to even though Ukraine’s growing network of bilateral “security guarantees” de facto amounts to this, and suggesting that Russia is interested in returning to the G7 and its former NATO partnership. The first part is par for the course though since no Western leader has the courage to call for excluding Ukraine from NATO, while the second are well-intentioned but misguided carrots for Russian compliance.

Nevertheless, the importance of his peace plan rests in the fact that it’s no longer taboo to talk about territorial compromises with Russia and Ukraine protecting the rights of Russian speakers, both of which were driving forces behind this decade-long conflict’s latest phase. This hints that other anti-Russian hawks among the Western elite are realizing the impossibility of Ukraine’s maximalist victory as the military-strategic dynamics continue favoring Russia.

After all, he’s infamous for sabotaging spring 2022’s peace talks (with Duda’s role being much less known and discussed), so it’s likely that there are other comparatively more “moderate” hawks who’ve finally come along to feeling the same way and whose epiphanies might have preceded and influenced his own. The proverbial dam is now beginning to break and it’s possible that other influential figures might soon follow his lead ahead of the US’ upcoming elections that Trump is increasingly expected to win.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/boris-jo ... or-ukraine

This plan is DOA for too many reasons to enumerate, as is the supposition that Trump's campaign promises have any value whatsoever. Other than trashing science and giving a huge tax break to the rich he didn't do squat.

******

Can Trump really pull off a quick peace deal in Ukraine?

Martin Jay

July 22, 2024

There is really very little incentive on the Russia side to cede anything as militarily they have the upper hand.

Can Trump really pull off a peace deal in his first week in office with Ukraine and Russia? Initially, when he spoke of this during the earlier part of the war, the picture was a lot simpler and many commentators and analysts bought into his idea: starve Ukraine of military aid and force Zelensky to accept the inevitable while threatening Putin with doubling the aid to Ukraine. Surely, on this one, the element of surprise was dashed when he told a number of journalists the master day.

Recently, the subject of a Ukraine peace deal has come to the fore once again when Trump spoke with Zelensky over the phone and, despite the Ukrainian President speaking very positively about the talk, no details were revealed about what was on the table. What was leaked however was that Trump expected Zelensky to withdraw his troops from the four key areas which Russia considers to be its own regions – which until now was always off the table.

It could signify a possibility that the super deal that Trump reckons he can pull off might have legs. Yet there are a number of complications to factor in. Firstly, there is really very little incentive on the Russia side to cede anything as militarily they have the upper hand. The three key points are they want to keep the four regions in dispute, they want a denazification of Ukraine, promises that it can never be a NATO country and last of all that a deal is signed with a new, democratically elected president, as, it should be stressed that Zelensky’s mandate has legally expired This last point is important as due to the track record on the West’s side of not playing fair when they signed the Minsk Agreement, the next peace deal has to be water tight.

But at the heart of this is the problem of Zelensky himself. Will Trump convince Putin that Zelensky needs to stay? Putin might bend to this one condition if Trump is the one doing the bidding while at the same time NATO is being brought into line by a new U.S. president who has no patience for the foibles of some its key players. Yet at the same time, Zelensky could so easily see himself being a spectator to a bigger deal. Both sides at a certain point could argue that Zelensky is really the heart of all the problems and has been the main obstacle to ever getting a deal signed. Earlier on in the conflict he was poised to sign a peace deal only for Boris Johnson, then the UK Prime Minister, to be jetted in to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and scupper the deal. Many might argue if Zelensky was tougher and he placed the country before himself, he might have stood up to the West’s bullying and signed the Istanbul agreement regardless.

Johnson’s role at the time was to serve the interests of both the U.S. and NATO in equal measure but these days it’s hard to see who he is representing as he turned up recently at the Republicans’ convention which inaugurated Trump officially as the presidential nominee. Remarkably, while Trump didn’t see Nigel Farage – someone who the former leader insists is a “friend” – he gave Boris plenty of facetime. Is Boris now the new unofficial envoy of western elites brought in to handle Trump? Or, perhaps less edifying, he is simply on Zelensky’s payroll as an international PR agent provocateur.

In either case, it’s hard to see the call to Zelensky and the meeting with Trump as merely a coincidence. Zelensky and a cabal of NATO elites are rallying behind him and Boris to try and steer Trump away from making a hasty and erroneous decision in Ukraine. The problem is that the two camps can’t agree and so this is confusing things even more for Trump who never reads briefing notes and has the attention span of a 5-year old in meetings with top officials.

And to make matters even more complicated, J. D. Vance’s stance on China is pushing Trump to create a new global import tax hike to hit both China and the EU simultaneously while the Trump administration is to focus all its foreign policy gusto on the demise of the Chinese economy. This, in itself, presents problems when Trump will look to Putin for a quick fix in Ukraine as a new geopolitical layer of issues will be unpeeled making a quick deal almost impossible. What is more likely is that Trump will achieve a ceasefire only.

No wonder both Russia’s UN ambassador and its official spokespersons both snubbed a quick fix solution by Trump as near on impossible. In the case of the latter, they even went as far as to raise the point of the Middle East peace process which Trump made a dog’s breakfast of while in office. Ouch. That must have hurt.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... n-ukraine/

And I doubt any ceasefire will interest Russia after getting burned on Minsk.

*****

Ukraine Might Actually Be Semi-Serious About Resuming Peace Talks With Russia

ANDREW KORYBKO
JUL 23, 2024

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It's a gamble, but Zelensky hopes that the next US President might either become so nervous about him flirting with China that they decide to give him more of what he’s been demanding and remove their restrictions or that China can convince Russia to scale back some of its maximalist demands for peace if they won’t.

The conventional thinking is that Ukraine isn’t interested in resuming peace talks with Russia unless the latter capitulates to its unacceptable ultimatums, otherwise it’ll continue fighting “until the last Ukrainian”, but that might be about to be turned on its head as a result of recent developments. In the span of less than a week: Trump talked to Zelensky about his peace plan; the Vatican’s top diplomat visited Ukraine; and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister is visiting China, the last two for the first time since 2022.

From the looks of it, Ukraine is fretting about Trump’s likely return to power and wants to get ahead of the curve by exploring paths to peace, which are intended to give it a chance to shape the process instead of being completely controlled by it if the US suddenly decides to end its latest “forever war”. The supplementary developments that led up to the three aforementioned ones are Orban’s peace missions and the unveiling of former British Prime Minister Johnson’s peace plan.

Regarding the first of these two, this saw the Hungarian leader travel to Kiev, Moscow, Beijing, DC, and Mar-a-Lago, after which he recommended in a report to the EU that their bloc explore the modalities of the next peace conference with China and resume dialogue with Russia. As for the second, this infamous hawk proposed territorial compromises with Russia and Ukraine protecting the rights of Russian speakers. These five developments were also just followed by an unexpected proof of concept.

It was announced on Tuesday that 14 Palestinian factions signed the Beijing Declaration that’ll end the years-long divisions between Hamas and Fatah, thus showing that lightning does indeed strike twice after China brokered the Iranian-Saudi rapprochement last year. For background, it was explained here how China is trying to organize a Brazilian-fronted parallel peace process on Ukraine ahead of and/or during November’s G20 in Rio, which is more realistic than ever now.

To explain, Zelensky read the writing on the wall over the past few weeks about Biden’s inevitable departure from the campaign, especially after Trump’s famous fist-pumping picture that followed his miraculous survival of an assassination attempt earlier this month turned him into a hero. This places his unprecedented proposal of Russia participating in the next round of Swiss-like Ukraine talks in November into context even though he hasn’t yet at this point signaled any willingness to compromise with it.

He suggested this on 15 July, and it was sometime last week that the Vatican’s and Ukraine’s top diplomats finalized their trips, the first to Ukraine and the second to China. 19 July then saw Johnson publish his peace plan, the details of which he likely conveyed to Ukraine and others beforehand, which was the same day as the Trump-Zelensky call. Then the previously mentioned diplomats set off on their respective trips and China coincidentally proved yet again that it can broker game-changing peace deals.

The EU disavowed Orban’s peace mission and associated report, yet the visit of the Vatican’s top diplomat to Ukraine hints that they might be relying on the Holy See as a backchannel for finding out whether the political fallout from Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump changed Zelensky’s views. After all, Orban visited Kiev less than a week afterwards when it wasn’t yet clear what its full implications would be, so it’s sensible to dispatch someone else a few weeks later to follow up on everything.

Zelensky’s unprecedented proposal last week for Russia to participate in the next round of Swiss-like Ukraine talks in November showed the world that he’s becoming more flexible at least in his rhetoric, thus paving the way for the Vatican’s top diplomat to visit Kiev and for his own such one to visit Beijing. Johnson’s peace plan also contained some carrots in it for Russia pertaining to its return to the G7 and the resumption of its partnership with NATO, which Trump may or may not have discussed with Zelensky.

The last part remains unclear since Johnson noted in his op-ed that he talked about the conflict with Trump but clarified that the views expressed therein are his own and claimed that he supposedly doesn’t know how the former American leader might try to resolve this conflict if he’s re-elected. Nevertheless, it’s more likely than not that Johnson sought to informally float at least some of Trump’s proposals in his piece, with the former promoting them before the public and the latter before Zelensky.

Trump considers China to be the US’ systemic rival so he doesn’t want it to play any role in the peace process, yet Zelensky just dispatched his top diplomat to Beijing regardless, which is intended to gain negotiating leverage with the US regardless of whatever November’s outcome may be. That trip is obviously at variance with American interests, which suggests that he’s once again “going rogue” a bit by behaving somewhat independently of his patrons.

Zelensky knows that his maximalist goal of reconquering all of Ukraine’s lost territory is unrealistic no matter what he says for the purpose of keeping morale high. He therefore wants to retake as much as he can before the US either becomes too fatigued with its latest “forever war” or is forced by circumstances into “Pivoting (back) to Asia” before it’s ready. By publicly displaying interest in China’s mediation, he hopes to either keep the US supporting him for longer or to reach a better peace deal with China’s help.

It's a gamble, but he hopes that the next US President might either become so nervous about him flirting with China that they decide to give him more of what he’s been demanding and remove their restrictions or that China can convince Russia to scale back some of its maximalist demands for peace if they won’t. Nobody can confidently predict how far he’ll go in this regard nor exactly how serious he is, but it’s undeniable that Zelensky is changing tack to an extent, which is remarkable development in this conflict.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/ukraine- ... mi-serious

Any plan with more tthan one 'if' is wishful thinking. File under Fat Chance.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Wed Jul 24, 2024 11:54 am

“Ukraine supports Israel and all nations committed to peace and security”
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 07/24/2024

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In one of his many apparent changes of discourse, President Volodymyr Zelensky has recently tried to appeal to the Global South and has even allowed himself to recall that Ukraine recognises – unlike many Western European countries – the Palestinian State. Ukraine has also wanted to show solidarity with the population of Gaza, whose humanitarian situation is considerably worse than that of any Ukrainian locality, including those located on the front line. On July 18, kyiv announced the shipment of the first thousand tons of flour under the “Grain from Ukraine” program, with which, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 100,000 Palestinian families could be fed for a month. “Hunger has become a persistent problem in Gaza against the backdrop of the Israeli Defense Forces incursion,” wrote The Kyiv Independent , using a mild euphemism to describe the situation in Gaza in an article in which it recalled that “Ukraine showed its support for Israel after it came under a deadly attack by the Hamas militant organization in October 2023” and also that “President Volodymyr Zelensky said in June that Ukraine recognizes both Israel and Palestine as states.” Like the article in the popular Ukrainian outlet, Kiev’s statements have recently remained equidistant between those who kill and those who die, which openly contrasts with Ukraine’s demand to force all countries in the world to show their explicit support, not only for its cause, but for the supply of weapons to continue the war until the only end acceptable to its government.

Zelensky’s most explicit statements, who in October showed his unconditional support for Israel and even tried to travel to Tel Aviv to have a photo taken with Netanyahu, came at a time when Ukraine was seeking to change the opinion that the Global South, and especially powerful Arab countries, had created about kyiv following its militant pro-Israeli stance over the past nine months. But even so, the Ukrainian president wanted to maintain the balance between arguing that the suffering of the civilian population must be alleviated – always without mentioning that it is being massacred – and “Israel’s right to defend itself”. “Ukraine said that if Hamas terrorists attacked civilians on the first day of their attack on Israel, then Israel has the right to defend itself,” Zelensky explained as an introduction. “And after that, when Israel was in Gaza and there was a humanitarian crisis, Ukraine said: first of all, we are ready to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza. Secondly, we must respect international law. Thirdly, Ukraine recognises two states, Israel and Palestine, and will do everything possible to convince Israel to stop, to end this conflict and prevent the suffering of civilians,” he added, at the moment when he spoke most clearly about the events. Even at the moments when Ukraine was seeking the favour of the Global South, which unlike the West has shown its unreserved support for the Palestinian population from state institutions, Zelensky was unable to deviate from the equidistance of someone who seeks the support of both sides.

But Ukraine's stance on the events in the Middle East is not limited to showing sadness for human suffering and sending humanitarian aid to alleviate the hunger experienced by almost two million people right now. As a recent article by Yevgen Kornichuk, Ukraine's ambassador to the State of Israel, shows, the political use of the massive tragedy that the Israeli bombings and blockade are causing for the Palestinian population is also a tool to be used for its geopolitical benefit.

“The world cannot ignore the evil network of Russia, Iran, Hamas and North Korea,” The Jerusalem Post headlined an article written by Kornichuk on July 16. “Together we must confront this threat with the full force of our collective determination. Let us not be caught in the web of evil intentions,” the outlet added in the subtitle. In an article in which at no point is there even the slightest solidarity shown with the population being massacred, which does not even make a secondary appearance, the diplomat focuses on the relationship between Moscow and the various enemies of the West: Hamas, Iran and North Korea.

Regarding the People’s Republic of Korea, without even mentioning the supposedly huge quantities of ammunition that Pyongyang has sold to Russia – and for which there is no evidence – the ambassador highlights the global danger linked to nuclear weapons. “North Korea’s proliferation and its potential to provide military technology to Iran and Hamas pose a significant threat. Its isolation in the world has not deterred it from carrying out activities that undermine global security, and its connection to this axis of malign actors only increases the risks we face.” The subtext is clear: a tougher attitude is needed. In practice, this would translate into more severe sanctions and isolation of the few countries with which it trades regularly, mainly Russia, since there is no mention in the article of China, a country too powerful and with which Ukraine does not want to clash. Moreover, Dmitro Kuleba, on a trip to Beijing, has been praising its role in world peace for several days.

On Iran, Kornichuk says that “the strategic partnership between Russia and Iran has made significant progress, culminating in a near-final agreement that underscores their shared aspirations. This relationship is not limited to economic or military cooperation, but is based on mutual support for violent non-state actors and regimes that violate international norms.” The ambassador does not even mention the sale of Shahed drones about a year ago, possibly because it seems scant evidence to claim a strategic partnership that simply does not exist.

Given the medium in which it was published, the focus of the argument was bound to be on the relationship between the Kremlin and Hamas. In fact, until this past week, when Sergey Lavrov recalled that the number of civilian casualties in Gaza has been much higher in the past nine months than in two and a half years in Ukraine, Moscow's criticism of Tel Aviv has been scant. Russia, which has always remained faithful to the two-state solution , has also never shot down Israeli aircraft preparing to bomb Russia's main ally in the Middle East, Syria, and has collaborated with Israel in its demand to keep pro-Iranian groups and units away from the occupied Golan, an implicit agreement that has also made it difficult for Israel to send to Ukraine the weapons that Kiev demanded. It is not only Ukraine that plays the equidistant balance.

Yet, despite Russia’s modest presence in the region, the Ukrainian ambassador to Israel says that “Moscow systematically seeks to expand its influence in the Middle East, often at the expense of regional stability. By aligning itself with Iran and tacitly supporting its proxies, Russia is complicit in perpetuating violence and unrest. This is the same Russia that is waging a harsh and brutal war against Ukraine and showing blatant disregard for international law and human rights. What’s more, the inclusion of North Korea in this alliance adds another layer of danger,” he writes, adding that “this web of evil is not just a theoretical threat; it has tangible and devastating consequences.”

To describe them, the ambassador does not hesitate to present the struggles in kyiv and Tel Aviv as equivalents, an identification in which he presents Ukraine as the main sufferer. “In Ukraine we are witnessing first-hand the horrors of Russian aggression. The ongoing war has caused tens of thousands of deaths, along with millions of displaced people, and has caused enormous suffering to our people. We understand better than anyone the devastating potential of an uncontrolled evil.” There is no mention in his argument of the tens of thousands of Palestinians – a disproportionately high number of them minors – who have been killed by Israel, of which Kornichuk says that “it also knows the pain of living in the shadow of terrorism and the constant threat posed by terrorist organisations such as Hamas.”

The diplomat's prescription is clear: “strengthen our alliances and support each other in the face of these threats. Diplomatic efforts must focus on isolating and resisting this network through sanctions, strategic partnerships, and more.” It is not difficult to see in that last “and more” a request for more weapons, a habitual demand of Ukraine from its partners. But beyond coercive measures, Kornichuk affirms that “in addition, we must remain firm in our commitment to democratic values ​​and human rights. The axis formed by Russia, Iran, Hamas, and North Korea thrives on the suppression of these principles. By preserving and promoting them, we not only protect our societies, but also offer a powerful counterargument to those who seek to undermine freedom and stability in the world.” He says this on behalf of a country that has cancelled elections, has openly harassed all non-nationalist opposition for a decade, launched an anti-terrorist operation against its own population, and refused to implement the peace agreement it had signed. This is the statement made by the ambassador to a country under investigation by a court, who has interpreted the accusation of genocide against it as credible. In case there was any doubt, Ukraine, says Kornichuk, “supports Israel and all nations committed to peace and security.”

“Together, we must confront this threat with the full force of our collective resolve. We must not be caught in a web of evil intentions. We must free ourselves and ensure a more stable and secure world for all.” Except for the Palestinian population. Or for the Ukrainian population on the other side of the front, which for Ukraine has been fulfilling for a decade the same mixture of internal and external enemy that the Palestinian population fulfills for Israel.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/07/24/ucran ... seguridad/

Google Translator

******

From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Forwarded from
ADEQUATE Z
Despite the manic tendency of the hohols to cling to every square meter, they have been unable to ensure even a relatively static front for many months now, especially in the Donbass. There is no single reason for this inability; there are many significant factors here.

Here is the loss of one after another of the most important, because the most powerful, fortified areas - Maryinka, then Avdeevka, then Novomikhaylovka, most recently the approaches to Dzerzhinsk, and on the immediate agenda is the almost completely liberated Krasnogorovka. And the instability of the field defense in the plantations and villages, especially in comparison with all the previously lost lines. And our unconditional superiority in the quality of troops and their control. And no less unconditional fire superiority, which is far from limited to gifts from heaven in a rich assortment. And the increasingly noticeable limitations of the hohols in the use of reserves - and in this place for a long time, at least since spring, a kind of paradox has been observed.

On the one hand, the general directive to hold everything at any cost has not gone away and cannot go away, because it comes from their political elite, often even contrary to the opinion of their masters. On the other hand, for several months now they have been using reserves from the depths extremely sparingly, mainly maneuvering forces that are far from fresh between directions, and this helps Trishkin's caftan very little - it is still crawling as it was.

And it turns out that even in these conditions, the Ukrainian command almost does not dare to operate with what they still have in the depths and on the borders, although the threat is only growing with time. Something that is being formed or previously thoroughly gutted is apparently still not combat-ready even relatively. Something (partially spent on Kharkov since May) can be kept both for preparing its next nahryuk, and for the most extreme case, when it will crack and collapse at a completely different pace than now. And the third, probably, is no longer given.

And it is very, really extremely, interesting where exactly the borders lie and where the points are located, where they will not spare the forelocked strategic reserves, and not like now: these are not just borders and points, this is the limit of patience for their command or, rather, the authorities. When it is possible to empirically feel it and cross it, this will be a very important line: to have ten in a stash and to throw ten on the counter, whether immediately, or per ruble, it does not matter - these are two qualitatively very different states in the military sense.

***

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Russian Ministry of Defence on the progress of the special military operation (as of 23 July 2024) | Main :

— The Russian Armed Forces liberated the settlement of Ivano-Daryevka in the DPR and took up more advantageous positions.

— The Russian Air Defense Forces shot down 15 HIMARS shells and 151 Ukrainian drones in one day;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost another Abrams tank in the area of ​​responsibility of the Center group;

— The Center group of forces improved its tactical position in one day and repelled six counterattacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the enemy lost more than 405 servicemen;

— The Dnepr group of forces destroyed a field ammunition depot of the Ukrainian Armed Forces;

— The Vostok group inflicted losses on the manpower of four brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the territorial defence and the national guard, the enemy lost up to 115 servicemen;

— The North group defeated 4 enemy brigades in one day in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 170 soldiers; —

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 490 soldiers, an American armored personnel carrier and two field warehouses

in one day in the zone of responsibility of the Russian South group;

— The Russian Armed Forces destroyed a mobile radar for detecting and tracking low-altitude targets ST68 and a workshop for the production of Ukrainian drones.

Units of the Center group of forces improved their tactical position, defeated the formations of the 31st, 41st, 47th mechanized, 25th airborne brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 109th territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Toretsk, Dimitrov, Grodovka, Rozovka, Kamyshevka and Novoselovka Pervaya of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Over the course of 24 hours, they repelled six counterattacks by assault groups of the 32nd, 53rd, 151st mechanized, 68th Jaeger and 95th airborne assault brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The enemy lost over 405 servicemen, three tanks, including the M1A1 Abrams , three armored combat vehicles, two pickups, a 155-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Bogdana" , a 152-mm howitzer "Msta-B" , a 122-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Gvozdika" , a 122-mm howitzer D-30 , a 100-mm anti-tank gun "Rapira" and three field ammunition depots .

▫️ Units of the "East" force grouping inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 37th Marine Brigade, the 129th Territorial Defense Brigade and the 17th National Guard Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Vodyanoye, Vremyevka, Prechistovka, Makarovka and Razdolnoye of the Donetsk People's Republic.

The enemy lost up to 115 servicemen, seven vehicles, a 155-mm towed howitzer FH-70 made in the UK, a 155-mm howitzer M777 made in the USA and a 152-mm gun D-20 .

▫️ Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on formations of the 65th Mechanized, 141st Infantry, 128th Mountain Assault Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 126th Territorial Defense Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Novodanilovka, Novoandriyevka in the Zaporizhia region and Tokarevka in the Kherson region.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost up to 110 servicemen, eight vehicles, a 155-mm howitzer M777 made in the USA, a 105-mm howitzer M119 made in the USA, a Bukovel-AD electronic warfare station and a field ammunition depot .

▫️Within 24 hours, operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces destroyed : a mobile radar station for detecting and tracking low-altitude targets ST68 and a UAV production workshop , and also defeated concentrations of Ukrainian Armed Forces manpower and military equipment in 138 districts. Air defense systems shot down three French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs, 15 US-made HIMARS multiple launch rockets and 151 unmanned aerial vehicles, including 82 over the territory of the Russian Federation.



▫️ In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed : 630 aircraft, 278 helicopters, 28,269 unmanned aerial vehicles, 554 anti-aircraft missile systems, 16,638 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,382 multiple launch rocket systems, 12,294 field artillery pieces and mortars, 23,977 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

*******

Four memories from 02.2022
Calm, hysteria, and paranoia. Why I write

EVENTS IN UKRAINE
JUL 21, 2024

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All the events in this story unfolded at or near this square. Then called ‘Victory square’, it has now been desovietized into the Tsarist name - Galician square.

I have four particularly intense memories from Ukraine in the days following February 24, 2022.

First, one of philosophical calm. I went to the shop to buy some food before curfew. The sky was hazy and orange, smelling of gunpowder. You could see plumes of smoke on the near horizon from the battles unfolding around the capital, in Irpen, Bucha and the like. There was a homeless woman walking around, dressed only in plastic bags. She stood on the steps of the city circus. Almost no one was out, even though it was 4pm - social media was full of stories of people being shot when caught out after curfew, which started around 6.

Around this time, I noticed how the homeless approached the situation rather differently. The capital’s bohemian elite were possessed by the moment, while the homeless took the moment to chat together on the benches of deserted parks.

Exiting the shop, a 16 year old boy waved at me. It was my old English student. I started talking to his father in Russian. It turned out they were from Donetsk. He told me how they had lived through the first six months of war in Donbass back in 2014. He told me that what he learned was that there’s no point hiding in bomb shelters, they generally don’t work and are often more dangerous than sitting at home. He then started telling me about the eternal lessons to be found in Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Then I have two memories of frantic mania.

First, when we foolishly sought refuge in a nearby bomb shelter. Most of the bomb shelters indicated in the government app didn’t actually exist, but when we eventually found one in a building neighboring ours, my partner and I weren’t totally welcome. At first things were fine, we lived with a cosplayer who had also fled Donetsk years ago. Then she left, and an older woman and her ipad-obsessed child entered.

We soon realized she didn’t want anyone else in ‘her’ bomb shelter. On our second night there, things seemed like they were getting bad. Mayor Klitchko sent out a message on telegram - ‘THE RUSSIANS ARE TRYING TO DESTROY US AS A NATION’. This was interpreted as indicating imminent carpet-bombing of the city. The woman became hysterical, and I began googling the blast powers of Russian thermobaric bombs. Then, she started telling us about how armed men outside were shining a light into our bomb shelter, hinting about their malevolent intentions.

My partner and I ended up running in the dark, after curfew, to the nearest metro. I was convinced that we’d either get erased by the imminent Russian carpet-bombing everyone was talking about, or we’d get shot for violating curfew (it was 8PM).

The second memory was in the metro itself. We were stuck there for two nights - once we got in, police with kalashnikovs fully closed the gates. There was plenty to see - such as the older man in an ushanka arguing with others about the meaning of current events, or the middle aged woman calling out for the need for ‘a new Bandera, a new Shukhevych!’ But what struck me most was the woman sitting next to me on the metro floor.

I didn’t introduce myself to her, but without further ado, she began showing me random headlines from the stream of telegram news. NATO promises 60 billion dollars in military aid, she desperately told me. Then she’d continue scrolling the news. And then something else. Then nothing.

Back then, I and everyone else was glued to telegram. The endless stream of hyper-emotional events, predictions, photos, videos. One felt somehow safer to know more. But in reality, it just drives you further into mania, deeper into a meaningless flow of information, mostly fake, and further from any deeper understanding. Hope, disappointment, betrayal, victory. The French are sending laser beams. The Americans are sending F16s.

Later, reading Paustovsky’s memoirs about the civil war in Ukraine, I found description of the exact same psychological condition, in a story whose translation I published here.

The fourth memory is one of paranoia. I met a rich Ghanan music producer in front of a shop and we began chatting in English. He invited me to his modern bomb shelter. We went, and met his wife, a Chinese loan shark. She was in Ukraine because her company was able to give loans with interest at rates illegal in China, she told me.

But most interesting was an unexpected guest - a Romanian businessman. He was the only other person left in the luxury condominium whose cold garage we occupied (by the way, if you’re ever in a similar situation, just stay in your apartment behind several walls, it’s generally safer than any supposed ‘bomb shelter’). He was thrilled:

I’ve just spent the past three days using up the rest of my coke and watching the rockets fly from my penthouse! I’m the only one who didn’t leave, I’m the biggest patriot in Ukraine!

I was fascinated by this remarkable character, and went up to his penthouse (unfortunately, I only managed to sneak a finger lick of his white gold). There, he told me about his plans to head to the front as soon as possible, accompanying the flood of western journalists entering the country.

He also told me about his business adventures - the previous year, a rival restauranteur decided to get at him with the help of the secret services. The SBU (security service of Ukraine) accused the Romanian of ‘sponsoring separatist terrorism’, a classic method of racketeering. Luckily,

I’m a Romanian, I’m used to it, so I managed to sort it out

But at one point, as we shared a cigarette on a balcony in the night, I decided to switch gears. Asides from all his endless irony, joking, and all the rest - he does realize the actual gravity of the situation? That the city is surrounded by the Russian army, and there’s every possibility that our hapless deaths will be live streamed on CNN as proof for the need to send more weapons?

He also switched gears, and told me of a recent experience. That day, he’d posted an instagram story calling for peace through compromise with Russia, Ukraine not entering NATO and whatnot. In response, he got a flurry of death threats.

So, then, Mosul 2017 it is, I said.

Of course, that’s not what happened. At the end of February, we managed to jump on a train after waiting for hours in the chaotic crowds, watching an older woman go hysterical at a young man for trying to leave the capital instead of staying and fighting like her son. I slept on the floor of the train and my girlfriend’s friend’s mother lovingly shoved disgusting sandwiches into my mouth.

Once I got out of the capital - which, coincidentally, my father (safely ensconced in a bomb shelter whose location he kept secret) constantly urged me against - I was able to finally think a little. To stop sitting up all night until 3 scrolling the endless river of telegram news and analysis.

I started reading books again, and trying to think about the bigger picture. I still try, though sometimes I have the urge on this substack to get stuck into the endless flow of news.

I think the woman in the metro impressed me the most. That state of information-induced mania, where life, the past, the future, everything shrinks into the emotional delight and despair summoned by each telegram news post. Where a boxer with the intelligence of a macaque (Mayor Klitchko) gains the status of Seer and Sage.

The older man from Donetsk was closer to the mark. Better to think about bigger questions of war and peace than to be sucked into mediatized hypnosis, or the irrelevant quest for ‘the perfect bomb shelter’. Your chances of survival don’t change very much. But it would be nice to at least better understand how things got to this. This sometimes involves some paranoia.

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... rom-022022

Introduction to Ukraine's clan wars
Part 1: the Soviet-era emergence of the clans. Why Ukraine had no Putin. Rough scheme of post-soviet clan wars.

EVENTS IN UKRAINE
JUL 22, 2024
I recently went on the wonderful podcast the Farm, where I talked at length about the shadow wars between rival oligarchic groups in post-soviet Ukraine. It’s a quite complicated but absolutely crucial topic, and I think there’s value in laying out the general historical contours in written form. With an understanding of the whole, the stakes involved and so on, later posts will be able to go into more detail on particular events and personalities.

Why Ukraine had no Putin
Today we’re going to have a look at how post-soviet Ukraine became so characterized by a sort of Hobbesian struggle between competing regional elites. To understand the basics, some comparison with Ukraine’s two slavic sisters is necessary.

Soviet Ukraine was, in many ways, blessed. Eastern Ukrainian regions like Donetsk, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia were one of the greatest centers of Soviet heavy industry, particularly the most technologically advanced military technologies.

But this would also become a curse. Why? Because it meant that the ostensible capital, Kiev (a note for readers: I use the Russian spelling for cities whose residents mainly speak Russian, and the Ukrainian spelling for cities such as Lviv, which mainly speak Ukrainian), was dwarfed both politically and economically by other cities.

Compare that to Russia or Belarus. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Belarus, by the hands of president Lukashenko, was the first of the three to successfully tame the newly emergent business class in the early 90s. There’s only one significant city in the country, and it’s the capital, Minsk.

Russia, of course, has plenty of economically and politically powerful regions, and it took over a decade of the regions ‘taking as much power as you can’, as Yeltsin famously encouraged, and a whole separatist civil war in Chechnya for Putin to centralize power. But there were never any cities in Russia whose political or economic power rivalled or exceeded that of Moscow/St Petersburg.

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A tale of two cities

In Ukraine, meanwhile, 70% of GDP was concentrated outside the capital, most of all in the eastern cities of Dnepropetrovsk and Donetsk. There were other eastern centres of industrial power as well - Kharkov and Zaporizhzhia in particular, though all the eastern provinces boasted factories with Soviet-wide importance.

The western regions were and are dirt-poor, destroying basically all their industry in the early 90s. Their economic survival has always depended on labor migration to the EU and Russia, as well as budget subventions from the richer east.

Here was the problem - Ukraine had cities which were used to competing for domination on the scale of the entire Soviet union. But now they were hemmed in by the confines of a relatively small Ukraine.

My friend had a teacher in the Odessa region who would never stop reminiscing about the Soviet Union - ‘Once we had a country THIS BIG [she would raise her hands wide], now its just this big [with her hands close together].’ Another of her theses was that ‘the only thing the Anglo-Saxons have ever invented is the rubbish bag’. I wish I knew her, though I am told that I shouldn’t wish for such an honor.

Both cities were economic giants. Dnepropetrovsk was where the Soviet Union’s intercontinental ballistic missiles were produced in the monumental Yuzhmash factory, founded in 1944 (note the date, as former president and head of the factory Kuchma wrote in his memoirs). Donetsk was one of the Soviet Union’s greatest sources for coal and iron, as well as the center for a range of other crucial industries.

But politically, they were also heavyweights. The Donetsk elite began playing on the Soviet-wide stage already in the 30s. Its first leader was Aleksandr Zasyadko, a Donetsk miner who impressed Stalin himself, soon becoming People’s Commissar of the coal industry. Future leader of the Union, Nikita Khruschev, was also raised and matured in the Donetsk clan system.

And besides that, Donetsk and the broader Donbass region was hugely politically important for the Soviet Union. So many dramas, battles and heroes of the civil war took place here. It was from here that many of the most important political intrigues and purges of the late 20s and 30s emanated. It was here that so many of the great victories of breakneck 1930s industrialization were achieved.

It was in many ways the quintessence of Soviet proletarian modernity. Decades later, for this reason it would be hated by Ukrainian nationalists, whose ideal was liberal capitalism and peasant individualism, rather than the Plan and proletarian, supranational collectivism. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

Dnepropetrovsk would form its own powerful clan in the 60s, with its leader - Leonid Brezhnev. Vladimir Scherbitsky, powerful leader of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1972 to 1989, was a close ally of Brezhnev’s and another representative of the Dnepropetrovsk clan.

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From left to right: Brezhnev, Aleksandr Ryabenko, and Scherbytsky. Ryabenko, born in Odessa, spent much of his life in Dnepropetrovsk, as well as Donetsk.

Back then, the military secrets produced in Dnepropetrovsk meant that it was a secret city - the movement of its million residents was severely restricted. This perhaps lent a certain secrecy and ambition to its political elite. In any case, these pragmatic, cunning engineers soon made their way to the top of the Soviet power structure. At the Soviet Union’s - and Russia’s - historical peak in the 1970s, it was led by the Dnepropetrovsk elite.

By the end of the Soviet Union, more than half of Ukraine’s top government-party officials were from the Dnepropetrovsk region. Ukraine as a whole, but particularly our two cities, were called the Soviet Union’s ‘cadre reserve’. The stage was set for the ensuing decades of vicious power struggle.

The Rocket represents a technology of ultimate terror, capable of annihilation and devoid of moral compass.
Ukraine’s first president was Leonid Kravchuk, head of Ukraine’s Communist Party at the time. He had little noteworthy achievements aside from tepid support for cultural nationalists and overseeing the collapse of Ukraine’s Soviet riches. Kravchuk came from a poor western Ukrainian peasant family, and there are even rumors that his parents were active in the collaborationist nationalist movement in the 40s. I’ve written here about the cold war-era infiltration of Soviet Ukraine by western-sponsored nationalist agents.

But the second president was far more important - Leonid Kuchma, the classic representative of the Dnepropetrovsk clan. He was head of Dnepropetrovsk’s most important factory - the Yuzhmash rocket factory.

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I intend to write about Kuchma and his fascinating memoirs in more detail in the future. Many speculate that Kuchma was trying to replicate Putin/Lukashenko’s centralization of power and taming of the oligarch class. It’s possible, and he certainly cultivated such an idea in his memoirs.

But there are two reasons why that wasn’t the case. First, he himself was a representative of a warring clan, and was already leading the emerging Dnepropetrovsk business elite against the Donetsk elite in the struggle for power in the capital in the early 90s.

Second, even if he had wanted to centralize power, he and his clan weren’t powerful enough to do so, relative to the Donetsk elite. And as we will see in later installments, the Dnepropetrovsk clan has always suffered from one defect the Donetsk elite have less of a problem with - internal disagreements and feuding.

A scheme
In the sequels to this series, we will try to flesh out the following rough scheme of events:

1991-1993: Donetsk elite maintain influence through president Kravchuk, Dnepropetrovsk elite weakened

1994-1997: Dnepropetrovsk elite strengthened as Kuchma becomes president

1997-2004: Due to competition within the Dnepropetrovsk clan and Kuchma’s desire for centralization, the Donetsk clan gains favor in the capital. It becomes the most economically powerful region of Ukraine, led by Ukraine’s richest man - Rinat Akhmetov

2004-2010: The Dnepropetrovsk clan, notably rising oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, allies with pro-western and nationalist forces in the 2004 Orange Revolution, preventing Kuchma’s desired successor Viktor Yanukovych, Donetsk native, from coming to power. Instead, the pro-western nationalist Viktor Yushchenko takes power, who I wrote about here and here.

2010-2013: The Yushchenko years saw economic chaos amidst western-encouraged neoliberalization. Furthermore, the Dnepropetrovsk clan descended into fratricidal (and sororicidal?) struggle, as Yuliiya Tymoshenko, the Dnepropetrovsk ‘Gas Queen’, began mauling her erstwhile ally Yushchenko. In 2010, Yanukovych became president, solidifying the positions of the Donetsk clan.

2013-4: As so often happens in Ukrainian history, the president, though a representative of one regional clan, grew excessively large ambitions. He tried to create a new oligarchic clan centered around his family. None of the other clans were going to take it, and he was removed in the 2013-4 euromaidan.

2014-2019: A complicated period for Ukraine’s clan wars. At first, the Dnepropetrovsk clan grew in power, with Kolomoisky becoming the governor of the region, and the Donetsk clan seemingly routed, with much of Donetsk and its factories separated from Ukraine by a frontline. But the richest man in Ukraine was still Donetsk’s Akhmetov, though he no longer lived in the city.

Meanwhile, the two clans were under pressure from two directions - president Petro Poroshenko, an oligarch trying to centralize power for himself, and pro-western ‘sorosites’, the western-funded NGOs, journalists and anti-corruption organs that were principally opposed to Ukraine’s oligarchy as a whole - because it was an obstacle to their sponsors, transnational western capital. By 2016-19, all oligarchs, even and especially Kolomoisky, came out with scandalous (by Sorosite standards) statements in favor of ending the war in the east and returning to economic normality by means of a compromise with Russia.

2019-present: Zelensky takes power, at first an obvious puppet of the Dnepropetrovsk clan. In his first year or so in office, he is clearly on the side of his old sponsors, Kolomoisky. But then a range of events, as well as his own ambitions, lead him to put his old boss in jail in 2023, and attempt to centralize power in a way that no previous Ukrainian president had ever dreamt of doing. Though the west has its worries, it is all too happy to see the troublesome oligarchs disappear.


https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... -clan-wars

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Brother from GRU
July 24, 10:28

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Brother from GRU

An interesting detail: American and Ukrainian media write that Podolyak's late brother, who worked for the GRU, lived in the same house with one of the GRU leaders, Major General Averyanov, who was engaged in recruiting activities abroad. It is noteworthy that when it became known about the death of Podolyak's brother, many in Ukraine suddenly learned that he had a brother who not only lived in Russia, but was also a colonel in the Russian special services, namely the GRU, which, by the way, was not particularly hidden in Russia, since a photo in uniform and with orders for various operations, including the Hero of Russia star, was installed on his grave.

Actually, after this, the topic of searching for a mole in Zelensky's entourage was again activated in Ukraine, since having a brother in the GRU who lives in a house with one of the GRU leaders immediately falls under suspicion.
And the search for a mole has been going on for quite a long time. Its presence was openly discussed by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Colonel General Vasily Burba, who was removed from his post in 2020 after the failure of the operation to lure a group of Wagner PMC fighters through Belarus to the territory of Ukraine. The operation, as is known, was disrupted by an unknown mole in Zelensky's entourage, who managed to warn the Russian special services, which thwarted the GUR operation plan. As a result of the failure, Burba was fired from his post, and he directly stated that an agent of the Russian special services was operating in Zelensky's inner circle. In addition to Podolyak, Yermak and Syrsky, who also had ties to Russia, were also accused of this. Now Podolyak has joined this group of "usual suspects".

Podolyak himself, like Yermak before him, naturally denies everything, stating that he hasn't seen his brother for a long time and that they had different beliefs and, in general, Podolyak's relatives allegedly never belonged to special services like the FSB and KGB. Which is an obvious lie, since Podolyak's brother worked in the GRU. This is actually what suspicions against Podolyak are based on, which are picked up by die-hard Nazis and Poroshenko bots, who previously accused Yermak of working for the FSB, and Syrsky of wanting to capitulate to Russia and having relatives in the Russian Federation (see Bezuglya's opuses).

The aggravation of this squabble, the search for internal enemies and agents of the Russian special services within Zelensky's entourage are connected with the difficult situation for Zelensky's regime at the front, problems on the external track and the aggravation of internal contradictions among various groups of the colonial administration, which benefit from drowning each other in the hope of currying favor with the Americans. Everyone can see how various jackals are increasingly actively biting Zelensky, seeing his growing weakness. But the fact remains - the Russian special services agent in Zelensky's entourage has never been found. And this is, of course, an intrigue that will most likely be revealed after the war - who was our Stirlitz in Kyiv. If this Stirlitz turns out to be Yermak or Podolyak, it will be especially funny.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9283974.html

Google Translator

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The West is Learning the Wrong Lessons About Airpower in Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 23, 2024
Brian Berletic

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The West is Learning the Wrong Lessons about Airpower in UkraineA recent article appearing in the US-based Business Insider titled, “Russia’s showing NATO its hand in the air war over Ukraine,” would provide a showcase of the deep deficit in military expertise driving increasingly unsustainable, unachievable foreign policy objectives. The article summarizes a number of interviews conducted with Western “airpower experts,” exhibiting a profound misunderstanding of modern military aviation, air defenses, and their role on and above the battlefield.

The article claims:

Russia botched the initial invasion by failing to establish air superiority from the start, and it has been unable to synchronize its air and ground forces.

This is based on the assumption that Russia could somehow establish air superiority over the battlefield and infers that had the United States and the rest of NATO been in Russia’s place, air superiority would have been established. But this is false.

Fundamental Misconceptions

At the onset of the Russian Special Military Operation (SMO) Ukraine possessed a formidable Soviet-made integrated air defense network consisting of some of the most successful and effective air defense systems in the world. This included long-range air defense systems like the S-300 as well as mobile systems like Buk, Strela, and Osa, as well as a large number of Soviet-made man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS).

The United States and its allies have not operated in airspace as contested as Ukraine’s since the Vietnam War. Over the skies of Vietnam the US would lose over 10,000 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to Soviet-made air defenses employed by Vietnam’s armed forces.

In subsequent conflicts, including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, US-led forces would face either no significant air defenses at all, or air defenses consisting of old equipment operated by poorly organized, poorly trained, and poorly motivated troops, as was the case in Iraq.

Amid the US proxy war against Damascus and the US occupation of eastern Syria, US military aviation has been confined by Syria’s relatively modern air defense network, forcing both US and Israeli warplanes to conduct the same types of stand-off strikes Russian military aviation is conducting in Ukraine.
The article would claim:

Russia has demonstrated that it’s unable to suppress or destroy enemy air defenses, fly effective counterair missions, or run complex composite air operations like those the US Air Force pulled off in the opening days of Desert Storm in 1991 and then in the Iraq invasion in 2003.

Beyond the factually incorrect nature of this statement, the obvious differences between Iraq and Ukraine appear entirely lost among the “airpower experts” interviewed by Business Insider.

The Business Insider, citing these same “airpower experts,” also claims:

On the battlefield, effective airpower should aid the advance of armored combat vehicles and infantry by striking an enemy’s strongpoints, as well as the reinforcements and supplies they depend on.

Because of the vast differences between previous US conflicts around the globe and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine now, the type of rapid maneuver warfare utilized by US-led forces in Iraq would not only be inappropriate in Ukraine, it would be disastrous. The 2023 Ukrainian offensive before which NATO trained, armed, and directed Ukrainian forces, ended in catastrophic failure, comprehensively defeated by Russian defenses utilizing land mines, artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS), long-range ballistic missiles, a wide variety of drones, and both infantry and attack helicopters utilizing anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) – all elements absent among the armed forces of the various nations the US has invaded and occupied since Vietnam.

Because Ukraine also possesses significant defense capabilities, including well-protected fortifications, minefields, artillery, and FPV (first-person-view) drones, NATO-style maneuver warfare would likewise result in catastrophic failure for Russian forces.

Russia has instead adopted a strategy of attrition. Instead of overwhelming Ukrainian positions with rapid maneuver warfare, it is grinding them down with huge amounts of artillery, MLRS, missiles, drones, and military aviation carrying out stand-off strikes using a variety of glide bombs ranging from 250 to 3,000 kilograms. While progress is slower than NATO-style maneuver warfare, it has allowed Russia to avoid the staggering losses Ukraine suffered last year during its offensive.

Ukraine is a different kind of war; thus Russia utilizes a different approach to military aviation.

The conclusion that events unfolding in Ukraine demonstrate the capabilities of Russian military aviation have been “significantly overstated,” as one expert interviewed by Business Insider put it, is a dangerous misconception. US-NATO military aviation would (and already has in Syria) demonstrated it suffers from the same limitations in airspace as contested as Ukraine’s.

Admitted Russian Advantages

Business Insider’s article concedes there are aspects of Russian military aviation that constitute success. It mentions Russia’s extensive use of stand-off weapons – both air-launched cruise missiles as well as glide bombs (just as the US and its allies are using in Syria to avoid Syrian air defenses). The article also acknowledges Russia’s significant air defense and electronic warfare capabilities, constructing an “umbrella” protecting Russian forces, infrastructure, bases, and civilian centers.

There is one significant difference, however, between Russian and Western stand-off capabilities. Russia’s military industrial base allows it to produce missiles and glide bombs in quantities the collective West cannot match. Russia’s air defense capabilities also exist on a scale the collective West is unable to replicate.

After first claiming Russia is, “unable to suppress or destroy enemy air defenses,” Business Insider eventually admits the depleted air defense arsenals of the collective West and the inability to replenish them in any meaningful manner precisely because Russia has been able to not only “suppress” and “destroy enemy air defenses,” but also because of Russia’s ability to saturate and deplete Ukraine’s supply of interceptor missiles.

Claims in the article that Lockheed Martin is expanding Patriot missile production to 550 a year are made without explaining that Russia is firing 4,000+ missiles at targets across Ukraine over the same period of time, meaning that 550, 650, or even 750 interceptors manufactured a year represent an entirely inadequate quantity.

And despite this fact, the article would even claim:

In Ukraine, the world has seen that Western air defenses can shoot down incoming drones and missiles when they have sufficient coverage and enough ammo, and the performance has quelled doubts about the Patriot.

This is doubtful.

The US and its allies transferred Western air defense systems to Ukraine, in part, to protect Ukraine’s power grid. In April 2024, CNN would admit that up to 80% of Ukraine’s non-nuclear power production has been destroyed. This means that Ukraine has either run out of Patriot missile interceptors, or the interceptors they have are failing to protect Ukraine’s power grid. It should be noted that the efficacy of an air defense system lies now only in its ability to intercept incoming targets, but also to be produced in large enough quantities to continue intercepting incoming targets.

The high cost of the Patriot missile system inhibits larger-scale production to meet the requirements of a large-scale and/or protracted conflict, meaning that despite its supposed performance in combat, it is still a fundamentally ineffective means of air defense.

Even before Russia’s SMO began in February 2022, the previous month Saudi Arabia’s Patriot systems had exhausted their supply of interceptors amid its ongoing conflict with neighboring Yemen. The United States’ inability to increase production forced Saudi Arabia to “borrow” missiles from neighboring nations.

The limited number of Patriot systems and interceptors being manufactured represent a metric of the system’s overall “success” and, despite the Business Insider’s conclusion, should continue to drive “doubts” regarding it.

NATO vs. Russia

The Business Insider article admits that in a conflict between NATO and Russia, NATO military aviation would face serious challenges that simply did not exist in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and even Syria.

The article cites US Air Force (USAF) General David Allvin who noted, “in future fights, it may be possible for the US to achieve air superiority only in bursts — small windows in a specific time, place, and location where air defenses are missing, destroyed, or out of ammo.”

USAF General James Hecker would tell Business Insider, “if we can’t get air superiority, we’re going to be doing the fight that’s going on in Russia and Ukraine right now, and we know how many casualties that are coming out of that fight.”

Considering the advantages Russia also enjoys in land warfare capabilities, including the production of up to 3 times more artillery ammunition than the collective West, the outcome of that fight would likely mirror the same incremental defeat Ukraine itself is now suffering.

Western Failures in the Skies of Ukraine, a Microcosm of Wider, Irreversible Decline

The same blind pursuit of profits and power that compelled the collective West to expand NATO up to Russia’s border in the first place, and deliberately create a national security threat forcing Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, has also created the crisis facing the collective West’s military industrial base making it impossible to achieve the geopolitical objectives this proxy war in Ukraine is a part of.

In order for the collective West to “succeed,” it should first reevaluate what it is even trying to achieve.

This blind pursuit of profits and power is not unlike a tropism in nature – like a tree, for example – reaching downward with its roots and upward with its branches and leaves to grow as large and as fast as possible. In the ideal environment, such a tropism can thrive. In times of drought, the means of sustaining the vast proportions that the tree took could jeopardize its own very survival.

Until the 21st century, the global “environment” was ideal for Western hegemony. The disparity in military and economic power between the West and the rest of the world favored the blind pursuit of profits and power, often in the form of empire. The West grew to gargantuan proportions. Today, the environment has changed – this disparity no longer exists – and now the West is collapsing under the unsustainable size of its own overreach.

While Western policymakers search for game-changing strategies and technologies to maintain generations of global primacy, the unsustainable nature of this pursuit becomes more precarious all while Russia, China, and the rest of the world continue to grow stronger relative to the collective West. Only a policy of shifting away from coercion and control over the rest of the world, toward constructive cooperation with the rest of the world, can avert the inevitable collapse all other stubborn empires have faced throughout history.

For the rest of the world, including Russia and its Chinese allies, the goal continues to be defending their individual and collective sovereignty from Western hegemony while carefully avoiding the triggering of a much larger conflict borne of Western desperation.

In the meantime, in the airspace above Ukraine, a microcosm of the wider failure of Western foreign policy continues to play out, not only lacking any possibility of reversing in Ukraine or its Western sponsors’ favor, but almost certainly to continue accelerating to their detriment.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/B6AlxLWaXqk[/yourube]

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/07/ ... n-ukraine/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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