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 » Tue Apr 09, 2024 12:15 pm

Trump, Ukraine and the West's plans
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/09/2024

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War involves all types of variables, many of them uncontrollable, that mark the development of events and that, sometimes, can be directly or indirectly affected by disruptive factors that mark the events. One of them, the possible arrival of Donald Trump to the White House, is becoming one of the big issues on the world political agenda, especially with regard to international politics. Although the former president has not yet been proclaimed his party's candidate and faces criminal cases for which he could potentially be removed from running for president, the allies of the United States and the current leadership team in Washington are trying to create a shield that will serve of protection and that prevents Trump from excessively modifying some lines of foreign policy. The concern is not so much directed at the issue of the Middle East, where the Republican hawk would favor Israel even more and, judging by the four years in office, would be even tougher than the current administration in relation to Iran. However, he worries his European partners about his position in relation to the Ukrainian issue, the war against Russia and the proposals he would raise if he regained the presidency.

Accustomed to launching improvised proposals that generally lack coherence, at least with regard to international politics, Trump has stood out in recent months for showing an apparently dissident stance against continuing to finance the war effort and subsidize the Ukrainian State. Without stopping to think about the complexities of a conflict that, beyond the war, definitively broke out a decade ago, the now candidate for the American presidency has come to affirm, with the confidence that generally characterizes his media actions, that he would be capable of stop the war in 24 hours by putting pressure on both parties. "I will tell each of them certain things that I would not say to the rest of the world and that is why I cannot say much more than that," said the former president in an interview conducted by one of his former collaborators, Sebastian Gorka. a figure of the Trumpian nationalist right and with family and historical ties to the Hungarian collaborationists of the Second World War.

In the past, both during his presidency and in recent months, Trump has also been noted for his criticism of NATO allies. In words that were mistakenly understood as rejection of the Alliance, the president showed his disagreement with the situation and even proclaimed the uselessness of the military bloc. However, Trump's intention was never, as has been repeatedly published, to get rid of NATO, but to demand from member countries something that has now become an accepted dogma by those who protested at the time: the increase in military budget up to 2% of GDP. The Russian invasion has made possible, or even overcome, what Donald Trump could not achieve with his bombastic speeches and his thinly veiled threats. In reference, for example, to a possible Russian attack on a NATO ally that did not reach that minimum military investment, the former president responded “no, I will not protect you” when asked by the president of a member country about whether the United States would comply. with their collective defense obligations. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You have to pay. You have to pay the bills,” Donald Trump stated, according to the media. Although it is the first part, allowing Russia to act as it pleases, that has been highlighted, the policy of Trumpism is not about letting NATO fall but rather demanding increased participation, that is, strengthening the alliance. A protectionist in economic and industrial terms, Trump is aware, as the war against Russia has also demonstrated, that European remilitarization implies the acquisition of weapons, generally American.

Faced with the manipulation of their position on NATO and with the fear that the aspiring candidate would keep his word to force Zelensky to negotiate with Russia under the current conditions - undoubtedly of Ukrainian weakness -, European countries have raised the possibility of create a fund of 100 billion dollars for the next five years, with which Ukraine could stay afloat militarily even if the American contribution disappeared or was substantially reduced. However, the comments made by the Republican candidate and figures close to him do not point to the economic disconnection of the United States, but to the proposal that Lindsey Graham posed to Zelensky on his recent visit to kyiv: aid in the form of credits. In this way, Ukraine would continue to have funds and Washington could balance its accounts without reducing the arms sales contracts that are proving so lucrative for the US military industry. Resigned to the proposal, to which he initially reacted with anger and frustration, the Ukrainian president has been forced to accept that Ukraine would admit this new form of financing if there is no alternative option other than losing the funds that come from its main supplier. .

Causing even more anxiety in Kiev and its Western allies, The Washington Post this weekend published an outline of Donald Trump's “secret plan” for the war in Ukraine and its resolution. “Former President Donald Trump has privately stated that he could end Russia's war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up part of the territory, according to people familiar with the plan,” states the article, which, forgetting how NATO redrawn by the forces Yugoslavia's borders, criticizes adding that "some foreign policy experts said Trump's idea would reward Russian President Vladimir Putin and condone the violation of internationally recognized borders by force." “Trump's proposal consists of pressuring Ukraine to cede Crimea and the border region of Donbas to Russia,” explains The Washington Post , whose sources claim to be advisors to the former president whose anonymity is respected as these are private conversations on such a delicate issue. . “This approach, which has not been previously reported, would bring about a drastic change in President Biden's policy, which has emphasized curbing Russian aggression and providing military aid to Ukraine,” insists the outlet, which does not give further details. what he describes as a secret plan .

Trump's starting point is, according to the American newspaper's sources, his perception that "both sides want to save face, they want a way out." In these circumstances, Trump would offer to end the conflict by ceding three territories that rose up most strongly against Kiev ten years ago, Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea, an aspect that, of course, does not even deserve a mention. part of The Washington Post . The media defines the position - which has not been confirmed by the former president and seems simply an opinion, not a plan - as consistent with Trump's actions during his presidency. “His preference for the heights of political detail, confidence in his own negotiating skills and impatience with conventional diplomatic protocols were the hallmarks of his approach to foreign affairs in his first term,” he insists. he. The media seems to have forgotten that Trump's Ukrainian policy during his term did not differ excessively from that of Obama-Biden and that it was he, not his predecessor, who approved the shipment of the first Javelin anti-tank systems, denied by the Democratic administration for avoid an escalation in the conflict with Russia. There is also no sign of Trump's main initiative to resolve the Ukrainian conflict, which was not a grand summit but a discreet negotiation that dragged on for months between Kurt Volker, a veteran of the John McCain Foundation and former US ambassador to NATO, and Vladislav Surkov, then in charge of the Kremlin's Ukrainian policy. Trump's disdain for the Minsk agreements was exactly the same as that of Obama, Biden and their European counterparts.

In response to the news about Trump's alleged proposal, although without mentioning it, the advisor to the Office of the President Mijailo Podoliak has rejected any transfer of territory, raising three arguments: that adding such a small territory to such a large country cannot be the Russia's objective, that Moscow has not sacrificed so many lives to obtain such a meager prize and, finally, “the third and fatal one, believing that the Russians will comply with the terms of any treaty they sign. What happens to the papers on which entities like Putin or Patrushev put their signatures?” This last reason, Russia's lack of a word, is also the basis of many of the articles that defend the need to continue the war until final victory. All of them, as well as Podoliak's speech, prefer to ignore the clearest precedent of non-compliance with the signed agreements that has occurred in this conflict, the Minsk agreements, which Ukraine has openly renounced.

“Obviously, one can hardly find such political naivety today. But if so, where does this strange desire to force Ukraine to make peace with the aggressor at the cost of territorial concessions come from?” Podoliak complains in clear reference to the leak about Trump's alleged intentions. More realistic than continuing to demand Russia's unilateral surrender, as Olaf Scholz has done in recent hours, the approach to renunciation of Donbass and Crimea does not differ excessively from what Russia and Ukraine negotiated in Istanbul in March and April 2022. This is where the real objective of Moscow could be seen, which, according to Ukrainian negotiator David Arajamia, insisted on reaching an agreement. In exchange for Ukraine's neutrality, Russia offered security guarantees, while its territorial demands were limited to those regions in which the population had manifestly shown its desire to join Russia: Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk, the latter subjugated for years. to Ukrainian aggression. As now, this plan to let go of the population that Ukraine has despised for a decade caused rejection among kyiv's Western partners, an aspect that has little to do with Donald Trump and more to do with the illusory perception of being able to militarily defeat Ukraine. a historical enemy.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/09/trump ... occidente/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Report of the Russian Ministry of Defense dated 04/08/2024

At Kupyansky, enemy losses per day amounted to up to 25 military personnel, two armored combat vehicles, two cars, a 152 mm Akatsiya self-propelled artillery mount, a 152 mm Msta-B howitzer , three 152 mm D-20 howitzers and US-made AN/TPQ-50 counter-battery radar . In the Donetsk direction, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost over 460 military personnel, two tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles, eight cars, a 155 mm M777 howitzer made in the USA, a 155 mm Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery mount , a 152 mm Akatsiya self-propelled artillery mount , 122 mm self-propelled artillery mount "Gvozdika" and two counter-battery radar stations made in the USA AN/TPQ-36 . In the Avdeevsky direction, the enemy lost up to 325 military personnel, six armored combat vehicles, five cars, a 155 mm US-made M777 howitzer and a 122 mm Gvozdika self-propelled artillery mount . In the South Donetsk direction, enemy losses per day amounted to up to 80 military personnel, a tank , three vehicles, a 155 mm self-propelled artillery mount M109 “Paladin” made in the USA and a 155 mm howitzer FH-70 made in the UK. In the Kherson direction, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine amounted to up to 50 military personnel, three tanks, four cars, a 155 mm M109 “Paladin” self-propelled artillery mount and two 155 mm M119 howitzers made in the USA, as well as a 122 mm D-30 howitzer . Air defense systems shot down 291 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, three Hammer aircraft guided bombs made in France and four HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems . Total

Since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed : 583 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 19,681 unmanned aerial vehicles, 499 anti-aircraft missile systems, 15,725 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,266 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 8,732 field artillery and mortar guns, as well as 20,762 units of special military vehicles.

***

Colonelcassad
About attacks on enemy logistics hubs in the Odessa region

Let's start with the fact that since the beginning of August 2023, Ukraine has been actively increasing export supplies through a temporary sea corridor in the Black Sea . This route, which passes through the ports of Odessa, Ilyichevsk and Yuzhny , has become a key element in the enemy’s logistics strategy, ensuring a relatively stable flow of cargo in the region.

According to official data, an impressive 20 million tons of cargo have been exported through this route since August 2023, including 14.3 million tons of agricultural products despite the absence of a Grain Deal.

However, this also hides the other side of the coin. The enemy, hiding behind “peaceful” goals, uses sea and river port infrastructure to organize the production and maintenance of unmanned aerial vehicles . Moreover, port storage facilities play an important logistical role for the movement, storage and distribution of military cargo that comes from Europe by rail and road transport.

It is not possible to completely destroy ports and their infrastructure in the current conditions, but disrupting their logistics is an important task for the Russian military.

And so, today around midnight a strike UAV “Geran-2” was carried out on a railway bridge in the Aleksandrovka area . The facility is a key element in the logistics chain of Chernomorsk (Ilyichevsk) , providing railway communication with the port of Ilyichevsk .

Considering the importance of this facility for port activities, its destruction or significant damage will lead to disruptions in the operation of the port and the blocking of cargo flow through it.

According to the initial assessment, the bridge did not suffer critical damage - most likely contact lines and railway tracks were damaged, which suggests that it can be restored soon.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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Ukrainian Drone Attacks on Nuclear Power Plant in Zaporozhye

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Nuclear Power Plant in Zaporozhye has six VVER-1000 pressurized water reactors and a total capacity of 6,000 megawatts. | Photo: @EurekaNews10

Published 7 April 2024

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the explosion.


At least three workers ere injured this Sunday in a Ukrainian drone attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, denounced Russia. Several locations across the facility were hit, Russia’s nuclear energy agency Rosatom said in a statement on Sunday.

"The Zaporozhye nuclear power plant has been the target of an unprecedented series of drone strikes, which has created a direct threat to the safety of the plant," reported Rosatom on its Telegram channel.

From its channel on Telegram, the company also reported that, later, Ukrainian troops attacked the dome of unit 6 of the facility. However, no critical damage, radiation levels remain stable and do not exceed natural background values, victims or threats of breach of safety limits are reported.


"Rosatom is calling on the leadership of the IAEA and Director General Rafael Grossi personally, as well as the governments of EU countries, to immediately respond to the direct threat to the safety of the Zaporozhye NPP and categorically condemn the attempt to escalate the situation around the largest nuclear power plant in Europe," said Rosatom.


The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the explosion on Sunday of a drone at the Zaporiyia nuclear plant, after its authorities reported damage to a nearby truck from a Ukrainian attack.

Central press service specified that IAEA personnel toured the affected area 20 minutes before the attack. In addition, it described the fact as inadmissible and pointed out that no plant in the world is designed to withstand real fire from an army.

AIEA general director, Rafael Mariano Grossi said: “This is a clear violation of the basic principles for protecting Europe’s largest NPP. Such reckless attacks significantly increase the risk of a major nuclear accident and must cease immediately.”

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ukr ... -0004.html

Three Employees of Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant Injured in Ukrainian Drone Attack

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Cooling pool units at the Zaporozhye NPP in Energodar. Photo: Sputnik.

The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant has been subjected to constant Ukrainian shelling and drone attacks for over two years, ever since it fell into the hands of Russian forces in March 2022. Russia has warned the world’s nuclear safety watchdog and Kiev’s Western sponsors that the attacks threaten to unleash a nuclear crisis in the heart of Europe.

Three employees of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant were wounded in Sunday’s Ukrainian drone attack, with one of them now in serious condition, Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency has reported.

Rosatom condemned the “unprecedented” attack and called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to immediately respond to and condemn Ukraine’s actions.

“Rosatom is calling on the leadership of the IAEA and Director General Rafael Grossi personally, as well as the governments of EU countries, to immediately respond to the direct threat to the safety of the Zaporozhye NPP and categorically condemn the attempt to escalate the situation around the largest nuclear power plant in Europe,” the agency said.

The ZNPP’s press service announced earlier in the day that kamikaze drones had struck the canteen sector of the plant, damaging a truck containing food, with a second strike reported in a a cargo loading/unloading area.

Rosatom says a third drone hit the dome of the ZNPP’s sixth power unit.

The attacks was said to have begun a mere 20 minutes after IAEA experts inspected the plant.

The drone attacks did not result in any critical damage, and radiation levels remain stable and do not exceed natural background values, Rosatom said.

Situated on the left bank of the Dnepr River, the ZNPP is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and one of the ten largest in the world, with its six reactors capable of generating up to 42,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year.



Controlled by Russian forces since March of 2022 and formally incorporated into Russia in October 2022 after a regional referendum, the ZNPP has been under regular shelling and drone attacks by Ukrainian forces situated on the Dnepr’s right bank for over two years.

Russia invited IAEA specialists to put inspectors on the ground at the site in September 2022 in a bid to restrain Ukrainian attacks, which have nevertheless persisted.

Along with shelling, the ZNPP has faced other threats, including risks to water used for cooling as a result of a Ukrainian attack targeting the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023, resulting in declining water levels in the critical Kakhovka Reservoir.

The Russian Defense Ministry warned in August 2022 that if ZNPP were to suffer catastrophic damage, a nuclear catastrophe dwarfing Chernobyl could be unleashed, contaminating most of Ukraine, much of Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania and other countries in the region and across Europe with nuclear radiation.

Fortunately, such a scenario has thus far been avoided, in part due to the ingenuity and heroism of the ZNPP’s staff, and in part due to the plant’s highly sturdy Soviet-era design to be able to withstand heavy bombing or even a nuclear attack.

https://orinocotribune.com/three-employ ... ne-attack/

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Desperados… NATO cranks up false-flag mode

Finian Cunningham

April 9, 2024

It’s open season for false-flag provocations in NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

It’s open season for false-flag provocations in NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

Russia is winning the war – now in its third year – and the NATO weapons laundering scam with its NeoNazi regime in Ukraine is coming apart. So what to do?

Only two weeks after a terror attack near Moscow that killed 144 civilians, which the Western media roundly attributed to Islamist jihadists and Western governments categorically asserted had nothing to do with the Ukrainian regime it sponsors, there now follows a spate of other false flags.

Russia is being accused of dropping chemical weapons on Ukrainian soldiers while also trying to blow up Europe’s biggest civilian nuclear power plant.

Over the weekend, Western media reports bore the hallmark signs of disinformation campaigns by peddling lame claims that the Russian military was dropping gas grenades on Ukrainian troops.

It was reported that chemical weapons were being used daily to target Ukrainian positions near Lyman and Chasiv Yar in Donetsk Oblast. The source of this information was purportedly an “American combat medic” serving in the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces. That detail alone raises suspicion of planted disinformation.

The second realm of cloying propaganda is the sudden reappearance of reports that the Zaporozyhe Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is coming under constant artillery fire from drones. Those attacks had gone into a lull since last year. Now they are back, as if by clockwork.

Western media have repeated their earlier pattern of trying to make out that it is not clear whether it is the Ukrainian or the Russian side that is firing on the ZNPP – thereby risking a nuclear catastrophe that would engulf Europe from radioactive fallout.

Rafael Grossi, the director of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is again shamefully indulging the Western media disinformation. Grossi confirmed that the ZNPP was hit at least three times in recent days and he warned of “a significant risk of a major nuclear accident” adding that “this cannot happen”. But Grossi feigns to be agnostic about who is carrying out the attacks. He did not specifically call out the Ukrainian side as the perpetrator.

The Western media affects the ambiguous notion that it could not confirm Ukrainian or Russian claims, thereby giving the impression that it could have been Russian strikes on the ZNPP.

That is ludicrous. Russian forces control the nuclear plant having taken it in March 2022 soon after intervening in Ukraine to halt the aggression of the NATO-backed regime. Russia has provided documented evidence to the UN that the Ukrainian side has been targeting the ZNPP repeatedly with US-supplied artillery and NATO logistics.

Yet the Western media and the UN’s IAEA indulge in the risible charade that Russian forces might be shelling a nuclear plant that they are in possession and control of.

The Western media claims that Russia is resorting to chemical weapons are also absurdly illogical. Why would Russia need to use such a weapon when it is already gaining the strategic upper hand in the war? Besides, Russia has verifiably destroyed all of its chemical weapons years ago as mandated by the 1997 CW Convention.

The same illogical scenario was seen when the Syrian Arab Army was in full control of the battlefield against NATO-backed mercenaries. It was the Western-sponsored cut-throat jihadists of Al Nusra Front and so on that were the ones who contrived chemical weapons attacks and the Western media would reflexively and wrongly blame the Syrian state forces. The provocation succeeded in Syria in triggering the United States, Britain and France to launch air strikes against the Syrian army.

Russia has no need – even if it had chemical weapons – to use them when it is decimating NATO’s proxy army of the NeoNazi Ukrainian regime.

Likewise, Russia commandeered the Zaporozyhe Nuclear Power Plant at an early stage in the conflict knowing that the NATO regime would otherwise use it as a terror card. How right Russia was. The NATO forces are once again stepping up efforts to bomb the ZNPP in an attempt to create a crisis that would presumably justify an escalation by NATO.

Just like the atrocious mass murder at the Crocus City Hall near Moscow on March 22, the NATO proxy war is shifting to all-out hybrid terrorism. The NATO axis has lost conventional warfare on the battlefield due to Russia’s superior firepower and military tactics.

The NATO powers are becoming desperate from the historic defeat. They have invested an unprecedented huge amount of political and financial capital in winning a proxy war to defeat Russia – and they stand to now lose with devastating losses.

This is the feverish context for French leader Emmanuel Macron mouthing off about sending NATO troops into Ukraine and other NATO leaders issuing desperate pleas for more weapons supplies and compulsory military conscription. Their insane proxy war is a monumental debacle that spells calamity for the political establishments in the West, including the lying propaganda news media.

Amid this desperation on a sinking ship of Titanic proportions, the NATO powers are going into full false-flag mode to create some frenetic distraction.

The trouble for them is that we have been here many times before, and the whole world can see through their sordid playbook.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... flag-mode/

Mercenaries from NATO countries attack Belgorod

Lucas Leiroz

April 8, 2024

On a recent visit to the Belgorod front, the BRICS Journalists Association collected field information on Ukrainian attacks, discovering that Western mercenaries are used by Kiev to kill Russian civilians on the borders.

All over the world, newspapers publish news and analyzes about the possibility of direct NATO intervention in the Ukrainian conflict. Recent threats made by French leader Emmanuel Macron have raised fears about a possible war between the Russian Federation and the Collective West, further escalating current global tensions. However, little is said about the Western troops who are actually already fighting against Russia.

The presence of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine is not new. War correspondents have reported the deep involvement of Western mercenaries in Ukraine since the first months of the special military operation. The Western media obviously ignores these facts and, through censorship and coercive measures against the Russian press, prevents public opinion from discovering them. Now, however, there appear to be signs that such a foreign presence in Ukraine is even more serious, as there are clear signs that mercenaries are being used by Kiev to attack peaceful Russian cities.

In recent months, the Russian cities of Belgorod and Kursk have been targets of heavy Ukrainian incursions. Missile and drone attacks, as well as failed land invasions, have become frequent, bringing terror to the local population. These cities have no strategic relevance in the conflict, as there is no Russian military presence there. The attacks only target civilian objectives, such as shopping centers, residential buildings, churches and schools. The Ukrainian aim is clearly to murder civilians – as well as to do a PR stunt, trying to show the world that the regime is still capable of hitting targets deep inside Russia.

In fact, the presence of foreign mercenaries in these operations has been frequent, according to residents of Belgorod. Recently, videos began circulating on the internet showing hostilities between Russian defense forces and invaders in Belgorod. It is possible to see in the media that an American citizen was killed by the Russians during the invasion attempt. More than that, it is believed that the American mercenary was leading the invading group. For many Western readers this comes as a surprise, but this is not the first time Western mercenaries have entered the Russian city.

Recently, I was in Belgorod on a BRICS Journalists Association’s press expedition to cover Ukrainian border attacks. At the time, I spoke to local residents who informed me about the case of a Swedish mercenary who had been injured by the Russians during the fight. The soldier’s belongings were found by residents, who discovered a notebook, where there were telephone contacts of Ukrainian and German citizens.

Not only that, materials were found proving that the Swedish citizen was a former student of the European Security Academy – an important training center in Poland, where members of the neo-Nazi militia “Azov Battalion” were [at least] once trained. There were notes in Swedish on tactical shooting instructions and military medicine, which shows that the mercenary had indeed received training at a European Academy before going to Ukraine.

Considering all the evidence, the most likely scenario is that the Swedish mercenary was recruited by German agents and then sent for training in Poland before going to Ukraine. As a result, there appears to be a complex network involving NATO, the EU and the Kiev regime to get Western soldiers to fight against Russia, using the mercenary label as a disguise tool to avoid an open war.

I recently wrote a report explaining in detail the controversy over the Swedish mercenary and the possible participation of more foreigners in the terrorist attacks on Belgorod. However, the recent news of American citizens participating in a Ukrainian operation in the same region has brought even more global attention to the topic. Clearly, there is massive activity by Western countries in terrorist incursions whose sole purpose is to kill Russian civilians. Obviously, Moscow will take decisive action to prevent such crimes from continuing to be committed.

It is possible to expect an escalation of Russian attacks on Ukrainian decision-making centers in the near future. Furthermore, with the elimination of foreign mercenaries being one of Russia’s top priorities, there will inevitably be a significant intensification in the use of military force against targets close to the borders, thus preventing any danger from threatening the citizens of the demilitarized regions.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... -belgorod/
"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 Apr 10, 2024 12:08 pm

The focus of Chasov Yar
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/10/2024

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The dynamics of the front continue according to the terms established after the fall of Avdeevka, when the Ukrainian troops withdrew in a relatively organized manner although suffering losses in the process. That withdrawal was ordered by Syrsky, appointed precisely to replace Valery Zaluzhny who, according to what was leaked for weeks, defended that option against the criteria of Zelensky and whoever would succeed him in office. The withdrawal when the battle was already lost but the city was not completely besieged allowed Ukraine to avoid the Mariupol scenario, with thousands of captured soldiers, and made it easier for a part of those troops to fight on the outskirts of the city and in the nearby Lastochkino long enough for the bulk of the group to be placed on the first Berdichy-Orlovka line. This is where their job has been to slow down the Russian advance and give them time to prepare the second line of defense.

The loss of the Avdeevka fort was a wake-up call for Ukraine about the need to protect itself from Russian advances for which it was not prepared. The dream of the counteroffensive and the need to invest each and every one of the resources in the fight to advance on Crimea prevented the political authorities - and perhaps also some of the military - from considering the possibility that their plans would not be successful. Now, much more hastily than expected considering that the order to build defenses was issued by Volodymyr Zelensky at the end of last year, kyiv is finally building trenches, placing concertinas, dragon teeth and building second and third lines of defense both in areas close to the front such as on the borders with Russia and Belarus, especially in the Kharkiv region.

The battle, once again set in the war of attrition with very slow progress, shows signs of much greater activity by Russian aviation, especially the use of guided bombs, which denotes an offensive impulse that did not exist just a few months ago. Russia is pressing, albeit with enormous difficulties, towards the west of Donetsk in Krasnogorovka, where Ukraine is struggling to keep the front line that borders the capital of the DPR standing, where the use of drones is lately becoming a danger to the civilian population. . Its use replacing or complementing the usual artillery can be understood as a sign of the shortage of projectiles that Ukraine has been complaining about to its partners for months.

Although without any territorial progress on the Kupyansk front, the Kharkov sector is also suffering serious Russian air attacks, which have become the main Ukrainian argument for demanding more anti-aircraft ammunition from its partners. “The world does not have the right to remain indifferent,” said Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday in reference to the attacks that the second city of Ukraine is suffering, whose bombings cannot be compared, for example, with those carried out in Gaza by Israel in an offensive that kyiv authorities openly support. The increasing use of Russian aviation, with the imbalance in its favor that this entails, is due, at least in part, to Ukraine's difficulties in covering its cities and industry in the rear as well as the front with anti-aircraft systems in which Ammunition is currently in short supply. What's more, one of the objectives of the G7 leaders, as Annalena Baerbock confirmed yesterday, is to find Patriot systems and ammunition for them, since the reserves of countries like Germany are not capable of continuing to cover Ukraine's needs.

The general trend of Russian initiative in the war of attrition has been consolidated and, in this context, Moscow's troops are pressing at the front and in the rear to take advantage of the Ukrainian moment of weakness, which will be reduced at the moment in which the United States United States manages to approve new funds and North American material begins to arrive. The US Congress has now returned from its vacation and it is to be hoped that the issue of financing the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be quickly resumed. This is already demanded by editorials from major media outlets such as The Washington Post , which yesterday appealed to the American political class to act immediately and resume the supply of weapons and wrote that Ukraine must “receive the attention it deserves.”

Beyond the general tendencies of the front, it is also clear that there is a new central focus in which the parties in conflict will try to impose their strength, Chasov Yar. In reality, this is a certain repetition of the scenario of just over a year ago in the central part of Donbass. At that time, Russian troops were fighting for the city of Artyomovsk, once of tactical importance as it was a communications hub, but whose destruction had already diminished any value it might have had. However, as a Ukrainian stronghold on the way to the administrative borders of Donetsk, an objective that Russia has openly declared, the capture of Artyomovsk, then Bakhmut, was essential. For Ukraine, on the contrary, the defense of the city only meant the value of slowing down events, without kyiv's troops being able, even in moments of greatest Russian weakness, to advance on the territory lost since February 2022.

The current focus of the battle is located a few kilometers from Artyomovsk and is already causing a discourse very similar to that of a year ago, when Zelensky alleged that Ukraine could not afford to give up the town since Russia would have "open field" towards Kramatorsk, a false statement, as the current situation shows. Under Russian artillery and aviation fire, Chasov Yar has become the center of the fighting in this sector of the front. Located at a height, the city takes on greater importance. On the front line for a year, Ukraine has had enough time to fortify the city, closest to the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk urban agglomeration and, therefore, one of the last barriers available to the Kiev authorities.

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In recent days, both Russian and Ukrainian sources have confirmed the approach of Russian troops to the town and a first assessment of the defenses of the eastern part of the city. The fight for the city has begun, although its particularities and the slowness with which events develop in this war portend a prolonged battle. In this context, and in view of excessive triumphalism, Russian sources that observe the local development of the struggle taking into account the details and specificities of the cities in which the battles take place have published their analyzes on what can be expected right now. This is how Batfor explains his expectations for the coming weeks:

Chasov Yar, or Chasik, as it is called, is a key Ukrainian defense town in the north of the DPR. This is the last obstacle on the way to Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka, Konstantinovka and Toretsk (urban agglomeration known as Slavkram), the largest urban agglomeration in the Donbass that still remains under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. As can be seen on the map, Chasov Yar is located on a spur of the Donetsk mountain range, overlooking both Slavkram and Artyomovsk. The total elevation reaches 200 m, and the height of the cliffs is usually 50-70 meters, in some places up to a hundred.

The Seversky Donets-Donbass Canal, a very powerful defensive line, runs along the eastern slope of this ridge. The canal passes through deep beams in embankments (marked on the map) and in some places has niches. In general, crossing it is not a candy. A year ago, our troops managed to gain a foothold on the western bank of the canal, south of Artyomovsk, but were then forced to abandon that bridgehead.

Already in March, on the approaches to Chasov Yar, Krasnoe (Ivanovskoye) was liberated. However, it is much more important that north of Ivanovskoye our army has recently managed to control the heights and approach the Kanal microdistrict. Located opposite the canal itself, this block of tall buildings is a miniature Avdeevka and its capture will be the first serious success of the operation.

The battle for Chasov Yar will enter its decisive phase when it is possible to cross the channel and securely gain a foothold on its western bank. Perhaps this will happen in the area of ​​​​the Kanal microdistrict after its liberation, or in other areas, for example, to the south, opposite Krasnoe.

In this area, no quick successes are expected: firstly, operational difficulties are obvious, and secondly, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will hold on to Chasov Yar to the last, since after its fall the situation in Slavkram will be considerably complicated. for them.


As the front advances, slowly and at the cost of high casualties and a high level of destruction, the battles take on greater importance due to the possibility of the war reaching more sensitive points. In the case of Donbass, the approach to Kramatorsk is the most important danger for Ukraine. The possibilities of this occurring in the short or medium term depend on the battle for Chasov Yar that Russian troops are currently trying to begin.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/10/el-fo ... hasov-yar/

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 April 9, 2024)

- In the Kupyansk direction, units of the “Western” group of forces inflicted fire on formations of the 57th motorized infantry , 14th and 21st mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of settlements Sinkovka, Kharkov region and Terny, Donetsk People's Republic.

Enemy losses amounted to up to 25 military personnel, two vehicles, a 155 mm M777 howitzer, a US-made 105 mm M119 gun, a 152 mm Akatsiya self-propelled artillery mount and two 122 mm Gvozdika self-propelled artillery mounts .

— In the Donetsk direction, units of the “Southern” group of forces occupied more advantageous positions and inflicted fire damage on the manpower and equipment of the 79th air assault , 46th , 53rd and 54th mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Belogorivka of the Lugansk People's Republic, Konstantinovka, Selidovo and Chasov Yar, Donetsk People's Republic.

In addition, four counterattacks by formations of the 5th and 92nd assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of ​​​​the village of Krasnoe DPR were repelled.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 480 military personnel, seven vehicles, a Polish-made 155-mm Krab self-propelled artillery mount , a British-made 105-mm L119 gun , a 152-mm Msta-B howitzer , a 122-mm Gvozdika self-propelled artillery mount , 122 -mm D-30 howitzer and 100mm Rapier anti-tank gun . — In the Avdeevsky direction , units of the “Center” group of troops through active actions improved the tactical situation and repelled 11 counterattacks of assault groups of the 25th Airborne , 68th , 71st Infantry , 59th Motorized Infantry , 24th , 47th and 115th Mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Pervomaiskoye, Novobakhmutovka, Umanskoye and Berdychi of the DPR. Enemy losses per day amounted to 240 troops,



tank , three armored combat vehicles, 11 cars, two 155-mm M109 "Paladin" self-propelled artillery mounts and an American -made 155-mm M777 howitzer , as well as a 152-mm Msta-B howitzer and a 122-mm D-30 howitzer .

— In the South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok group of troops improved the situation along the front line and inflicted fire on the formations of the 58th motorized infantry , 72nd mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 128th terrestrial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Staromayorskoye and Urozhaynoye of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Enemy losses amounted to up to 110 military personnel, two armored combat vehicles, four cars, a 155-mm FH-70 howitzer made in Great Britain, two 122-mm Gvozdika self-propelled artillery mounts , a Nota electronic warfare station and a US-made AN counter-battery radar station /TPQ-50 .

— In the Kherson direction, units of the Dnepr group of troops inflicted fire on the personnel and equipment of the 65th mechanized brigade and the 35th marine brigade in the areas of the settlements of Rabotino, Zaporozhye region, and Ivanovka, Kherson region.

The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces amounted to up to 75 military personnel, an infantry fighting vehicle, five pickup trucks, and two 122-mm Gvozdika self-propelled artillery mounts . The UAV warehouse was also destroyed.

— Operational-tactical aviation , missile forces and artillery from groupings of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation destroyed a radar station and damaged the personnel and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 131 districts.

— Air defense systems shot down 236 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, a Neptune anti-ship missile and five HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems .

📊In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 583 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 19,917 unmanned aerial vehicles, 499 anti-aircraft missile systems, 15,732 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,266 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 8,753 field artillery and mortar guns, as well as 20,791 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Ultimate grill
April 8, 20:58

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https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9080120.html

At first they laughed....

Tsar-Mangal in battle
April 9, 18:49

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During yesterday's massive attacks by armored vehicles, the Russian Armed Forces broke into the southwestern part of Krasnogorovka.
It was there that the debut of the sensational tank of the Russian Armed Forces with Tsar-Mangal took place.

(Video at link.)

The vehicle performed quite well under enemy artillery fire (cluster munitions were also used) and drone raids, and successfully led the attack of a group of armored vehicles (one vehicle was lost during the battle), after which it was able to retreat. The battles themselves ended in favor of the Russian Armed Forces. Subsequent enemy counterattacks in Krasnogorovki with the aim of knocking out the stormtroopers who had broken into the city ended unsuccessfully for the enemy. In general, the tank certainly looks unsightly in the post-pop style, but in this case the new product worked.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9082249.html

The Russian Armed Forces liberated Pervomaiskoe
April 9, 19:59

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The Russian Armed Forces liberated the village of Pervomaiskoye and hung Russian flags on the western outskirts. The battles for Pervomaiskoye have been going on since 2022.

(Video at link)

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https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9082606.html

Destruction of 32 D-20 howitzers
April 9, 22:17

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Arrival ( https://t.me/The_Wrong_Side/15463 ) at the weapons storage base in Akhtyrka (Sumy region).
There were 32 towed 152-mm D-20 howitzers in the parking lot.

(Video at link)

It looks epic, but it’s strange that they only got to them in 2024. The howitzers themselves most likely needed restoration.
In any case, most of them have now been destroyed. From the point of view of destroying towed artillery, this is by far the most epic strike of the entire war.

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The desired base is in the Akhtyrka area.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9083105.html

Captured American BMP "Bradley"
April 9, 23:33

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Another captured American Bradley infantry fighting vehicle,

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The chassis is seriously damaged, but can be repaired.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9083183.html

Novorossiya must be taken into account
April 10, 14:02

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entry of Donbass and Novorossiya into the Russian Federation must be taken into account by everyone when resolving the Ukrainian conflict (c) Peskov

It remains to clarify the borders of Novorossiya.
In addition to Zaporozhye and Kherson, greater Novorossiya also includes Odessa, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov regions.

If desired, you can also consider the Poltava, Chernigov, Sumy regions.

PS. We note that the term Novorossiya has returned to the official level and appears in discussions of the future territorial borders of Russia.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9084414.html

(I'm glad someone is finally listening to me... beats the hell outta home.)))

Google Translator

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There’s A Logic To American PMCs Allegedly Recruiting Latin American Convicts To Fight In Ukraine

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ANDREW KORYBKO
APR 10, 2024

This alleged recruitment scheme entails considerable risk of blowback.

Russia’s foreign intelligence service SVR reported on Tuesday that American PMCs are recruiting convicted Mexican and Colombian drug dealers from prison with the support of the DEA and FBI. They’re offered complete amnesty if they survive, but the talks apparently aren’t going well since the cartel members don’t want to agree without the approval of their bosses, who SVR claimed are haggling with the American security agencies to sell their members to those PMCs at the highest price possible.

It’s impossible to verify this scandalous claim but there’s a logic to it that makes this report credible. American prisons are overpacked so there’s an obvious interest in reducing capacity by funneling some of the most violent foreign inmates to American PMCs for deployment to Ukraine. Latin American convicts also tend to form powerful gangs that terrorize other inmates and even sometimes the guards too. Removing them from the prison system therefore makes a lot of sense.

Ukraine needs all the manpower that it can get too, especially those with experience handling firearms like most cartel members have. A bill was introduced into the Rada last month for legalizing the mobilization of prisoners while the Land Forces Commander said earlier in the week that nobody is allowed to sit out the conflict. This followed Ukraine lowering its draft age from 27 to 25 in order to replenish its depleted forces after Russia claimed in February that they already lost over 444,000 troops.

For as logical as this alleged recruitment scheme might seem, it entails considerable risk of blowback since those who survive could constitute an unprecedentedly dangerous threat to their homelands upon return. The region is already reeling from cartel violence, which is driven by Mexican and Colombian groups, and Ecuador almost fell to the cartels in early January. Those members with battlefield experience could train others with a view towards one day successfully seizing control of a state.

Of course, the American security agencies are counting on those prisoners being killed by Russia if they agree to go to Ukraine to participate in NATO’s proxy war, but even the survival of just a handful could eventually destabilize Latin America even more with time upon them passing along their experience. Another interesting point to dwell upon is why these PMCs are allegedly recruiting foreign convicts in the first place. SVR’s report therefore suggests that not enough average people are joining on their own.

This includes Americans and Latin Americans alike, hence why prisoners are supposedly being recruited, and not regular ones either but only those foreign ones with likely experience handling firearms. Local gangbangers from the inner city are probably considered too undisciplined and their possible return to the streets could cause a major political scandal if word spreads about what they had to do in order to be released. The security agencies also don’t want them training other gangbangers either.

All told, this alleged recruitment scheme isn’t expected to change the military-strategic dynamics of the Ukrainian Conflict, exactly as SVR concluded in their press release. Its only significance is that it reinforces just how desperate the West is to perpetuate their proxy war by helping Kiev replenish some of its forces in order to prevent a possible Russian breakthrough by sometime later this year. That might be inevitable, however, which would make this scheme all for naught.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/theres-a ... -allegedly

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Growing opposition in Central & Eastern Europe to the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine
April 9, 2024 Dennis Barton and Paul Taylor

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The victory of Peter Pellegrini in the Slovakian presidential election [6 April] consolidates the opposition in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) to the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine.

Pellegrini won decisively with 53.26% of the vote. The 61.14% turn-out was the highest in a second round since 1999. He campaigned for peace and against sending arms to Ukraine. His opponent was backed by pro-NATO voices in Slovakia and beyond.

Division in the Visegrad 4

The recent meeting of the Visegrad 4 – Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia – also highlighted the deep divisions in Central and Eastern Europe over the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine.

Czechia and Poland reiterated their commitment to supply Ukraine with arms and ammunition. These governments are ratcheting up war propaganda, with the new Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, even claiming that Europe is in a “pre-war era.”

However, Hungary and Slovakia reaffirmed that the war can only be ended through negotiation. The Hungarian Foreign Minister said that his country “has not and will not supply any weapons to Ukraine.” At the same time, he called statements about sending troops to Ukraine “dangerous.” Slovakia won’t join the Czech Republic’s initiative to buy ammunition for Ukraine from third countries, according to Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár.

War weariness

The divisions between the CEE governments are symptomatic of a growing war weariness across Europe. Implementing the EU’s proposals to move the European arms industry to a “war economy mode” will accelerate that trend as more resources are diverted towards military spending.

At the end of February, Deutsche Welle reported on a survey by the European Council on Foreign Relations of 17,000 people in 12 European countries. The survey showed that 10% of Europeans think Ukraine will be victorious and 20% that Russia will win. Most significantly, 41% believe that Europe should pressure Ukraine to negotiate.

European NATO countries are already having serious difficulty recruiting and retaining military personnel. Talk of more conscription comes with a price tag – increased military spending and the potential for greater support for peace rather than war.

There is a growing atmosphere of political dissatisfaction in CEE, including in countries with hawkish NATO leadership. For example, a poll in Czechia revealed that “up to 80% of the population believes that the current political situation is bad.”

In Poland, 75% of the population is against sending soldiers from Poland or other NATO countries to Ukraine.

Guns, not butter

The recent summit of European countries in Paris reached a consensus to send more weapons, ammunition, and air defense systems to Ukraine. The message was clear: the war should continue as long as it takes for a Ukrainian victory. However, with no victory in sight, the leaderships of most European countries have decided to continue supporting a Ukrainian war at all costs, with less money available for investment and social and environmental matters. The combined military budgets of the European Union’s 27 members are set to rise to 350 billion euros this year, which is around 60% higher than that spent in 2021.

Poland is leading this surge in military spending – currently committing around 4% of its GDP to its military budget. Radio Poland reported that the country is one of the world’s leading purchasers of U.S. weapons and military equipment. In the previous fiscal year, Poland bought $12bn worth of Apache helicopters from the United States, $10bn high mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and $3.75bn M1A1 Abrams tanks. It also spent $4bn on integrated air and missile defense command systems.

After President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled to Washington on 12 March to meet with President Joe Biden, they returned with a $2bn loan to purchase 96 AH-64 attack helicopters.

NATO escalation

The prospect of a Trump presidency and his demand that Europe pay more for its role in the international division of labor in support of U.S. imperialism has added greater urgency and stridency to the rhetoric of Europe’s NATO hawks.

From January to May this year, around 90,000 troops from all NATO countries will conduct maneuvers as part of Operation Steadfast Defender. Phase one is in the Atlantic and Arctic, and phase two is from the “Arctic to the Eastern Flank.”

The “Operation” is about projecting U.S. power in Europe. The eastward expansion of NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union goes hand in hand with the long-term U.S. goal to keep Russia from uniting with the rest of Europe. Subordination to the U.S. is also crucial to maintaining the latter’s global supremacy. Fresh from destroying the EU’s access to cheap Russian energy, the U.S. is also disrupting attempts by Europe to trade with the most dynamic country in the world economy, China. The price for adoption of the U.S. security stranglehold in Europe through NATO is economic decline, loss of trade, high energy costs, militarisation, political division, and insecurity.

Cost of subordination

Poland plays a crucial role in opposing the voices for peace in CEE and beyond. The revival of the so-called Weimar Triangle between Poland, France, and Germany added weight to those who supported war rather than negotiation.

French President Francois Macron’s statement that the option of sending his country’s troops to Ukraine could not be excluded was echoed by Polish foreign minister Sikorski’s view that Western troops in Ukraine are “not something unthinkable.” For the moment, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has ruled out such an option.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski revealed the economic burden on Europe for its subordination to the U.S.. He was recently in the U.S. lobbying for more money and arms for Ukraine.

He noted how Ukraine had fought a war against Russia without “American troops firing a single shot” and that most of the money provided “is spent here in the United States. According to some analyses, up to 90% goes directly to create American jobs on American soil. … [with] 117 production lines in at least 31 states and 71 cities where Americans are producing major weapons systems for Ukraine.” You can find them in deeply blue states like California, deeply red states like Mississippi, and purple states like Pennsylvania or Ohio, where Abrams tanks are made, which Poland, for example, is also buying. Much of the newly made equipment ends up not in Ukraine but in the hands of American soldiers. It replaces stockpiles of older weaponry already sent to help defeat Putin’s invasion.” Sikorski added, “Europe as a whole has placed ninety billion dollars of fresh orders in the United States.”

Sikorski’s thoughts were echoed by NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenburg on a visit to the Lockheed Martin Facility in Alabama in January. He said, “Over the last two years alone, NATO Allies have agreed to buy 120 billion dollars’ worth of weapons from U.S. defence industry. And that also includes also from you. … So from Arizona to Virginia, Florida to Washington State, And right here in Alabama, American jobs depend on American sales to defence markets across Europe and Canada.”

United States domination

Across the globe, the U.S. uses its military ascendancy to compensate for its relative economic decline. Its proxy war against Russia forces Europe to place so-called security above its economic interests.

The long-term U.S. plan is to integrate Ukraine into its orbit, including membership in NATO and the EU, thereby strengthening U.S. domination in Europe. Ukraine is not only a U.S. military spearhead in Europe but also a neoliberal economic one, including in food production.

However, winning popular support for Ukraine’s EU membership is undermined by resistance in CEE and elsewhere in Europe to imports of Ukrainian grain. After 2014, U.S. monopolies began dominating Ukrainian agriculture. Ukraine’s grain is produced without the environmental and food safety costs of farmers in the EU. Despite their pro-war rhetoric, Poland and France have been leading efforts to place caps on Ukrainian imports.

Farmers’ protests in CEE are a visible sign of resistance to the rise of U.S. agribusiness in Ukraine. Although the Polish government is talking about a ‘pre-war’ situation and the need to move the economy onto a war footing, it has still been compelled to call on the EU to stop imports of Ukrainian grain. Divisions are growing between Poland and Ukraine on this matter. The Tusk government is in a dilemma: support Ukraine but simultaneously address the demands of Polish farmers. These tensions are being exacerbated by the recent local government and upcoming European elections. They reveal how the demands placed on Europe by the U.S. are causing internal political divisions even amongst its staunchest allies.

The left

If the military conflict in Ukraine were to expand and intensify, it would be countries such as Poland and not the U.S. or even France that would stand on the front line and be most at risk. The CEE countries are split on how to go forward; even those who most ardently support Ukraine are being forced to make concessions due to the economic costs of war and sanctions. It is vital that European countries should use all diplomatic means to find a political solution to the war in Ukraine.

The rise of far-right forces capitalizing on some of the consequences of Europe’s subordination to the U.S., alongside other fake friends of the people like Orban, brings into sharp relief the failure of the left to oppose the expansion of NATO and the drive to a “war economy.”

In the months ahead, the divide in Europe over Ukraine is set to continue. A left in CEE and elsewhere that fails to unite opposition to U.S. global primacy, militarism, austerity, and racism will be a marginal force at best.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/ ... n-ukraine/

******



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

Post by blindpig » Thu Apr 11, 2024 12:18 pm

"Peace" without concessions
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/11/2024

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“I expected to find a dejected president. After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (46) spoke for the first time in recent days of imminent defeat if weapons from the United States did not arrive, he expected to see a frustrated president. Deeply disappointed with the West, angry, resigned: this is how I imagined the meeting. It was quite the opposite,” writes Bild journalist Paul Ronzheimer about his interview with the Ukrainian president. Nowhere is blind faith in the Ukrainian president maintained as in the Western press. “When I met Zelensky on Tuesday morning outside Kharkiv, in the new Ukrainian defenses, he was friendly, focused, open and able to smile despite the drama. He was very clear in his warning: “We must be prepared.” "Being prepared these days in Ukraine means being prepared for even more Russian attacks, for drone attacks, for major Russian offensives, for many deaths," he continues in his epic account of Zelensky's latest attempt to put himself at the forefront of the world political agenda. the war in Ukraine, currently overshadowed by the much more dramatic situation in Gaza, where the destruction, death and misery are currently far greater than what is being recorded on the Ukrainian front.

The war must continue and, to do so, Zelensky needs funding, weapons, ammunition, personnel and also attention from the most important country for his war effort, the United States, and from the two people who aspire to occupy the White House for the next four years. . 2024 is an election year for Washington, but it is also one for Volodymyr Zelensky and his closest allies, desperate to change the mind of Donald Trump, perceived as a threat to the continuation of the flow of military assistance that allows Ukraine to continue fighting. Zelensky is already demanding increasingly heavier weapons.

Trump has not even been officially proclaimed the Republican candidate, but he is already the target of Zelensky's entourage, especially now that the rejection of continuing non-refundable financing of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is accompanied by an alleged plan for a negotiation on the basis of peace. in exchange for territory. "If the agreement consists of us giving up our territories, and that is the underlying idea, then it is a very primitive idea," Zelensky said in his interview with Bild and other media owned by Axel Springer, one of the most important conglomerates in the world communication scene. Neither the Ukrainian president nor those who have criticized the proposal - if that is the approach of the Republican candidate, who has not officially commented in those terms - have assessed which territories it refers to or its resemblance to what Russia and Ukraine negotiated in March and April 2022 before much of the death and destruction that has occurred since then occurred. “I need very solid arguments. "I don't need a fantastic idea, I need a real idea, because people's lives are at stake," Zelensky insisted, as quoted by Politico , one of the group's media outlets.

The lives of the people were not a sufficient argument for Ukraine to agree to comply with the agreement it had signed and thus conclude the war in Donbass, thus eliminating one of the causes of the current war. Since the beginning of the anti-terrorist operation , the tenth anniversary of which is commemorated this week, the rejection of any peace with concessions has been the official policy of Ukraine. In the past, these concessions were limited to certain political rights for the population of Donbass, something that kyiv refused for seven years, opening the door for the war to spread to the entire country, as it eventually did, as the demands were much more costly. The military route has always been the one preferred by Ukraine, which, like its allies, continues to ignore the opinion of the population whose territory it wants to reconquer and who have suffered Ukrainian aggression over the last decade. Neither their lives nor their political positions matter in kyiv or in the European and North American capitals, willing to continue proclaiming the unity of the Ukrainian people for a total victory against Russia.

Zelensky's aspiration, as he himself has confirmed in recent hours, is to prepare a new counteroffensive, this time without interference from Russia. The official line of the Office of the President and the GUR is now to justify the failure of the 2023 ground operation by claiming that the Russian Federation had obtained the details. Between fiction and banal reality, Ukraine always chooses the most creative option: the direction and form in which the offensive was going to take place was evident from the moment kyiv made it clear that its priority was Crimea and no special intelligence infiltration to learn about the preparation of an operation that Ukraine was radiating step by step. In any case, offensive actions require large financing and enormous quantities of weapons that European countries cannot provide on their own. Hence the attempt to resume the flow of US military assistance and the insistence on reaching the heart and mind of the main obstacle to its approval: Donald Trump.

The task is not only in the hands of Ukraine, but is shared with its Western partners. The last to try to convince the candidate for the White House was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, who, according to The Guardian , failed in his attempt. “At a private dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's base in Florida, Cameron had urged Trump to acknowledge that it was in the United States' interest that Vladimir Putin not be rewarded for seizing land from Ukraine. He also insisted that by the NATO summit in Washington next July, all Alliance members would have plans to meet or exceed the defense spending target. He hoped that Trump would give a signal of a change of course, at least easing the way for him to meet with Johnson. The former prime minister did not achieve any of his objectives despite appealing to Trump with a practically tailor-made argument. “I make that argument to anyone who will listen: the argument that it is extremely profitable for the United States and for others, perhaps in exchange for about 5 or 10% of their defense budget. Nearly half of prewar Russian military equipment has been destroyed without the loss of a single American life. “This is an investment in the security of the United States,” said Cameron, exploiting the profitability of the war in terms of Western investment and deaths. The lives of the population of Ukraine, including its soldiers, have always been secondary to both the West and kyiv, willing to continue trying to repeat the same counteroffensive in search of a different result and move towards the reconquest of all its territory, including Donbass. and Crimea, where the population rejected post-Maidan Ukraine in the spring of 2014.

“That's the goal. That is justice. Recover all our territory,” Zelensky said, as quoted by Bild . “As I said, I think there is still a long way to go. I don't want to be too optimistic, I have to be very realistic. "If it is about saving independent Ukraine, democratic Ukraine, which is part of Europe or the future EU, Ukraine as a nation, then we must recover our independence," he insisted, equating democracy with imposing on a part of the population a version of the country that he protested ten years ago and for which he has paid with the war. The current Ukrainian version of independence, for its part, implies absolute dependence on Western countries to maintain the state and continue fighting whatever the consequences.

With war as the only option, any peace conference must necessarily be a theater of the absurd. Ukraine intends again to hold a peace summit, this time in Switzerland, to promote the Zelensky formula , the demand for Russian capitulation and the abandonment of the population of Donbass and Crimea at the mercy of Kiev, which has already promised to limit their rights. and political, cultural and linguistic impositions. In the mind of those who see war as the only way to achieve peace - in fact, victory - the other party to the conflict should not even be invited to negotiations. In the past, it was Donetsk and Lugansk that should have no say in the resolution of the conflict and now it is Russia. To the Bild journalist's question about whether the summit will be held without Russia, the Ukrainian president replied: “Of course, without Russia. Because we don't need them to be there blocking things.” Ukraine only needs weapons, ammunition and more money to continue the war as long as the alternative is a peace with concessions, even if they are as minor as granting cultural and linguistic rights to a region of the country.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/11/paz-sin-concesiones/

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 April 10, 2024) | The main thing:

- Russian troops destroyed the facility for training and launching unmanned boats of the Ukrainian Armed Forces;

- Within 24 hours, the Russian Armed Forces occupied more advantageous positions in the Donetsk direction;

- The Russian Armed Forces in the Kupyansk direction improved the position along the front line within 24 hours and repelled 1 counterattack;

- The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost up to 115 military personnel in the South Donetsk direction per day;

- Russian air defense shot down 172 Ukrainian drones and three Hammer bombs in one day;

- The Vostok group of troops has improved the position along the front line in the South Donetsk direction;

- Russian troops destroyed a Ukrainian Armed Forces storage base with 32 howitzers and 2 UAV assembly shops.

In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 583 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 20,089 unmanned aerial vehicles, 499 anti-aircraft missile systems, 15,741 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,266 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 8,802 field artillery and mortar guns, as well as 20,852 units of special military vehicles.

▫️Operational-tactical aviation, missile forces and artillery of groupings of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation destroyed the storage base for weapons and ammunition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with thirty-two 152-mm howitzers D-20, two workshops for assembling unmanned aerial vehicles, a facility for preparing and launching unmanned boats , as well as Manpower and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were damaged in 128 districts.

▫️ During the day, air defense systems shot down 172 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, three Hammer aircraft guided bombs made in France, and two rockets from the HIMARS and Uragan multiple launch rocket systems .

📊 In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 583 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 20,089 unmanned aerial vehicles, 499 anti-aircraft missile systems, 15,741 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,266 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 8,802 field artillery and mortar guns, as well as 20,852 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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New Containment: More NATO Expansion by Another Name
A new proposal in Foreign Affairs offers us just more of the same failed policies towards Russia.

GORDON M. HAHN
APR 01, 2024

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[Photo Credit: By Spc. Andrew McNeil, U.S. Army - Cavalry Crosses River, Continues Road March, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.p ... d=70038900]

The Simone Weil Center’s Symposium on ‘Containment 2.0’

On March 6, 2024, there appeared in Foreign Affairs a noteworthy article. Penned by four authors (Max Bergmann, Michael Kimmage, Jeffrey Mankoff, and Maria Snegovaya), the article is titled “America’s New Twilight Struggle with Russia: To Prevail, Washington Must Revive Containment.”

As the article’s title makes clear, the authors are calling on the U.S. to return, in its relations with today’s Russian Federation, to essentially the same multi-faceted (and costly) global strategy of resistance to the USSR that was recommended, back in 1947, by George Kennan.

Whatever its possible weaknesses, such a policy has at least the clear benefit of not requiring fundamental changes in how anyone thinks about international politics -- one is almost tempted to say that the proposal doesn’t require thought tout court. Western military alliances, Western think tanks, Western politicians, can simply let inertia continue to carry them forward, and as they do so, carry along with them the rest of the world.

Will that be a good thing, however -- for us, for the world at large? In an effort to mount a serious response to this enormously consequential question, we put out an appeal to our associated scholars and friends of the Simone Weil Center. Over the coming weeks, we will be publishing their responses in Landmarks.

– Paul Grenier

The proposal for a “new American twilight struggle with Russia” and a “new containment” policy which recently appeared in Foreign Affairs offers us nothing more than a continuation of the policy that has already led to the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War – NATO expansion. The co-authors are in effect calling on the West to double, triple, and quadruple down on stupid on an even grander scale.

After all, what, in effect if not intent, has been the policy of NATO expansion right up to Russia’s borders? Answer: a de facto ‘New Containment.’ The ‘post-Cold War’ New Containment based on NATO expansion and the attendant policies employed in order to achieve it – democracy-promotion, colour revolutions, economic sanctions, the arming and equipping of Islamist and nationalist extremists in ‘target countries’ – led directly to the ‘New Cold War,’ as well as to the ongoing NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, and a series of preceding wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Georgia, Libya, and Syria. Now four Foreign Affairs authors are proposing an extension and expansion of post-Cold War New Containment in what will be the creation of global Containment 2.0 motivated once again by the pursuit of a now elusive American hegemony and the quest for total security by way of NATO expansion (or ‘integration into Western institutions’) and another escalation of the New Cold War.

Containment 2.0’s geography, according to the authors’ concept, marks “the most important difference” from Containment 1.0, under which NATO was the lead mechanism. New containment’s geography should not encompass Europe “primarily,” as the old containment did. Instead, “post-Soviet Eurasia and the rest of the world will be more central.” In other words, as its focus, the West’s Containment 2.0 should substitute Europe with all of Eurasia, in reality Great Eurasia — MacKinder’s “World Island” — stretching east-west from China to the English Channel, and north-southfrom the Indian Ocean to the Arctic. The entire globe becomes the outer concentric circle of the core area of interest and a secondary area of economic, political, developmental (colour revolution/democracy-promotion), intelligence, and military operations. The key “flash points” are located along “Russia’s western periphery” as they have been ever since NATO began to expand after the Cold War. The West should work on integrating “Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine” (GUAM becomes GUAAM) into “Western institutions” – i.e. NATO (and the EU) – while “checking Russian influence in Central Asia” (and Africa).

Outside Eurasia, the authors recommend military action to “contest Russian influence outside Europe” as a secondary strategy. There, Containment 2.0 should “primarily” deploy “development assistance, trade, and investment.” Thus, a West that is less robust and dominant economically than when it inaugurated Kennan’s Containment 1.0 in the post-World War II years will be expanding its sphere of ‘vital’ interests or domination to the entire globe, thereby expending even greater financial and military resources. This is being recommended in the aftermath of what is emerging as a failed effort to expand its domination to Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Georgia, and Ukraine, sparking wars and chaos in the bargain. Although this expansion and overextension would be merely making explicit and declared what has already been the implicit and undeclared policy in Washington, London, and Brussels since the Cold War’s end, it suggests a more intensive effort in its geographical, operational, financial, and budgetary dimensions.

The authors are aware that the international context of the New and Old Containments differ, but they are not aware enough. They note that just as during the First Cold War, the West will face off in the Second Cold War against not just Russia but also China as well. But they pass over the facts that China is far more powerful economically than the USSR was, that there is no Sino-Soviet rift offering opportunities for peeling one of them off from their tight geopolitical near-alliance, and that China and Russia are proving far more adept than were Russian and Chinese communists at rallying powerful states in vitally important regions such as the Middle East and the Arab and Muslim worlds and indeed elsewhere across the world’s continents. BRICS+ is never mentioned, nor is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Yet the former has attracted three Middle Eastern states that the authors hope to rely on in the region. Most disturbingly, the authors also fail to note or consider important that a fundamental “novelty of the present moment” compared with the onset of the First Cold War and Containment 1.0 is that today NATO is already deeply involved in – is effectively a combatant-party – in a European war against Containment’s target.

What will be the mechanisms to implement Containment 2.0? One can be sure that one, if not the leading one will be that very same NATO at war with Russia in Ukraine. A return to and expansion of ‘out-of-area operations’ will be ensured, and the transformation of NATO into a global rather than a European military alliance is all but certain. The opening of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization office in Japan was the first toll of that bell. Cooperation between NATO, AUKUS and QUAD will grow and be subject to being parlayed into the formation of a global NATO by some other name. NATO expansion’s internal logic of eternal expansion – the need to secure new, newer, and newest ‘flanks’ – will be locked in as a result of the proposed Containment 2.0.

The authors’ policy would mean the West would eschew seeking a modus vivendi, a mutually acceptable security architecture with Russia or any agreement regarding Ukraine. This proposal demonstrates that many in Washington intend to persist in expanding NATO “irrespective of how the war in Ukraine ends.” Indeed, the authors think that “even if Ukraine does not achieve total victory on the battlefield, it could nevertheless be integrated militarily and politically with the West”! Pursuit of a Containment 2.0 will lock in confrontation and likely also further military conflict with Russia, whether through proxies or otherwise, and so perhaps with China as well. Of particular importance is another result that follows from the authors’ typical, for Washington, lack of self-awareness. They ignore that the project of insisting on NATO expansion to Russia’s borders, a project which was pursued for over a quarter of a century, revived what is typically called ‘Russian paranoia,’ but what is in reality a quite rational security vigilance strain in Russia’s strategic and political culture in respect to the West.

Historically, divisive cultural and political influences, interference in Russia’s domestic affairs, interventions of various sorts, and numerous military invasions from the West have taught Russians to distrust the very West they have often sought to emulate. The post-Cold War era has seen this pattern repeat, with the revival and renewed dominance of Russia’s traditional security vigilance culture vis-a-vis the West after having gone through a period, during perestroika and the post-perestroika 1990s, when Russia’s traditional security culture had receded into the background. This is the result of the West having rejected the path of a strong, not open-ended but sufficient, American and Western security order enveloped in a balanced global security architecture.

The West’s relentless post-Cold war pursuit of a ‘new world order’ of maximal American power, dominance, and hegemony across the globe has its very own emblem: it is the emblem of NATO. Intensifying NATO expansion in the form of Containment 2.0 will exacerbate these trends, entailing still more escalation in the relationship as Russians become even more convinced that the rationale of their security vigilance norm vis-à-vis the West is the correct path, even a special Russian calling. This will inspire a new, even an official state ideology in Russia and perhaps elsewhere that will be anchored in animosity toward the West. In the West itself, the escalating, already partly hot New Cold War will lead to further enlargement and authoritarianization under the national security state.

The Containment 2.0 proposal further confirms my own suspicions that the slogan ‘long war’ in relation to the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War is the product of the aspirations among certain elements in Washington that the Ukrainian war be dragged out, because this is to the West’s advantage. Regardless of the risks of escalation, they believe the West must prolong some form of armed resistance to Russia in Ukraine. Indeed, as the authors put it, “Containment should be implemented “for as long as necessary,”[emphasis mine – GH] and “Ukrainian victory” is “a long-term goal.” They appear to define ‘victory’ as “(f)orcing Russia to abandon all or most of the territory it has occupied.” But the authors propose no new specific strategies or tactics for how to defeat Russia in Ukraine or how to “push the Russian threat farther from Europe’s borders” – other, that is, than by sending insufficient military aid packets from Europe of $50 billion and the still-unapproved American packet of $60 billion. This means continuing the war ‘to the last Ukrainian’ for as long as it takes for Russian forces to reach the Polish border. After Kiev’s defeat in conventional war, it will require proceeding to build and sustain a partisan insurgency movement in any post-war pro-Russian or occupied Ukraine or rump neutral Ukraine.

The long war is designed not only for the domestic political purpose of holding off a full collapse of the Ukrainian front until America’s November election. No, this next ‘twilight struggle’ must last as long as it takes to achieve ‘regime change’ in ‘Putin’s Russia,’ or, failing that, the West’s hoped for succession crisis in Russia could provide another opening for making good on the West’s ‘right’ to expand NATO to Ukraine and beyond.

https://landmarksmag.substack.com/p/new ... -expansion

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(An interesting and useful graphic:)

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https://ibb.co/vHFy9DG

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Zelensky Is Lying About An Upcoming Counteroffensive Out Of Desperation To Receive More Aid

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ANDREW KORYBKO
APR 11, 2024

The survival of Zelensky’s regime is on the line for the first time since Russia’s “goodwill” gesture of withdrawing its forces from Kiev during spring 2022’s peace talks. If the front lines don’t hold and more aid isn’t forthcoming, then he might be out of power by year’s end.

Zelensky told German media in an interview earlier this week that Ukraine is planning another counteroffensive against Russia, which is why it requires production licenses from its partners in order to build up its domestic military-industrial capacity ahead of that event. He also urged the US to break its Congressional deadlock on Ukraine aid in order to help his country prepare for this next campaign. No counteroffensive is actually planned, however, since Ukraine completely lacks the manpower and arms.

It can’t realistically narrow the yawning gap between itself and Russia, which was only widened since the dramatic failure of last summer’s counteroffensive. Russia already won the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with NATO by far, which has dawned on many in the West over the past nine months, hence the renewed interest among some from that bloc for freezing the conflict. Nevertheless, policymakers still want to perpetuate the NATO-Russian proxy war, which his why peace talks have yet to resume.

That approach is increasingly unpopular with the masses, who’ve grown fatigued and frustrated with this conflict, especially after last summer’s failed counteroffensive exposed the fallacy of their hopes to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. This is particularly the case with the Ukrainians themselves, many of whom know someone who was killed or maimed in one of the meatgrinders. Left unaddressed, these public opinion trends could greatly complicate policymakers’ plans for perpetuating the conflict.

Therein lies the significance of Zelensky’s lie about an upcoming counteroffensive, which aims to advance several objectives, first and foremost misleading his own people by making them think that his regime has a plan for ending the conflict on their terms. They’re unlikely to fall for that though after seeing with their own eyes and hearing from trusted sources how bad everything is going for Ukraine. Even so, Zelensky is so out of touch with his people that he still thinks he can mislead them about this.

The second objective is to deceive the foreign public in order to help relieve some of the pressure upon his Western patrons’ policymakers whose people are nowadays demanding that their politicians devise an exit plan for extricating their countries from what they’ve come to believe is a stalemate. They consider Zelensky to be very ungrateful for all the assistance that he’s hitherto received on the taxpayers’ dime and can’t imagine that anything more could make a military-strategic difference at this point.

These two perception management objectives lead to the third one regarding Zelensky’s desperate need to receive as much aid as he can as soon as possible by deceiving everyone about his side’s plans before Russia achieves a military breakthrough across the front lines. The Ukrainian Intelligence Committee warned in late February that this could happen by as early as the summer, which they also predicted could coincide with nationwide protests that bring an end to his regime.

There’s no chance that Ukraine can muster the men and arms required for carrying out another counteroffensive before then, let alone after Russia’s reportedly forthcoming offensive ends (if his regime isn’t overthrown by then, that is), but there’s a chance that it could survive the onslaught. The only way to improve its odds is to deceive Ukrainians with false hopes about an upcoming counteroffensive so that they don’t protest while deceiving foreigners into supporting more aid.

In other words, the survival of Zelensky’s regime is on the line for the first time since Russia’s “goodwill” gesture of withdrawing its forces from Kiev during spring 2022’s peace talks, which it did out of the naïve belief that this was required to seal the deal for swiftly ending the special operation. He’s scared but he can’t show it and is therefore harnessing all of his acting skills to present a false veneer of confidence. If the front lines don’t hold and more aid isn’t forthcoming, then he might be out of power by year’s end.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/zelensky ... n-upcoming

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Anatol Lieven Continues To Parade...

... himself as nincompoop who he is, together with the co-author of this drivel, who, unlike Lieven, has at least some intel background. As I am constantly on record--it is IN THE clockwork of West's "academe" that denies them even remotely contextual view of the world around them, exacerbated with a deep seated belief in some military-economic capabilities of the United States which are not there and, in actuality, never has been. So, Soros-financed Quincy Institute publishes a paper on SMO.


It is also extremely dangerous for Ukraine’s future. The war is not trending toward a stable stalemate, but toward Ukraine’s eventual collapse. Russia has corrected many of the problems that plagued its forces during the first year of fighting and adopted an attrition strategy that is gradually exhausting Ukraine’s forces, draining American military stocks, and sapping the West’s political resolve. Sanctions have not crippled Russia’s war effort, and the West cannot fix Ukraine’s acute manpower problems absent direct intervention in the war. Ukraine’s best hope lies in a negotiated settlement that protects its security, minimizes the risks of renewed attacks or escalation, and promotes broader stability in Europe and the world.

Skeptics counter that Russia has no incentive to make meaningful concessions in a war it is increasingly winning. But this belief underestimates the gap between what Russia can accomplish through its own military efforts and what it needs to ensure its broader security and economic prosperity over the longer term. Russia can probably achieve some of its war aims by force, including blocking Ukraine’s membership in NATO and capturing much of the territory it regards as historically and culturally Russian. But Russia cannot conquer, let alone govern, the majority of Ukraine, nor can Russia secure itself against the ongoing threats of Ukrainian sabotage or potential NATO strikes absent a costly permanent military buildup that would undermine its civilian economy. Reducing the deep dependence on China created by the invasion will also sooner or later require Russia to seek some form of détente with the West. As a result, the United States has significant leverage for bringing Russia to the table and forging verifiable agreements to end the fighting.



This is an Exhibit A of, in the words of Orwell, "holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them". This is expected from Lieven who has zero understanding of military and warfare.

1. If, as authors correctly state, war is trending towards Ukraine's eventual collapse, one must ask a question: what is Ukraine for the United States? We have an answer--Ukraine, and the whole NATO-Ukraine project, is the best proxy the United States ever had. So, the formal logic goes (I omit here operational-strategic issues which Lieven will not understand)... Ah, wait. Remember South Vietnam? Correct--US proxy. Remember Afghanistan and the fate of the US proxies there? Well, here comes summary on fingers for people like Lieven and whoever gives tribune to this pseudo-academic shyster: combined all American proxies, multiply them by 10 and even their aggregate defeats will not have an impact equaling US and NATO defeat in 404 in its scope and consequences. The US and combined West are distinct losers.

2. In this case one has to ask the question: what is this "significant leverage" the United States allegedly has? Correct--none exists, because for Russia it is not about 404, it is about combined West headed by the United States, who, as is the consensus among most real military professionals in the US, are distinct losers in this war. Losers DO NOT dictate conditions or leverage whatever they think they have. They are being dictated what and how to do, of which Russia issued a good plan in December of 2021.

3. As per "Ukrainian sabotage or potential NATO strikes"--this is a kindergarten level "analysis" by people who obviously do not understand the upcoming end of NATO and that the only "sabotage" which will be happening after the 404 is partitioned the way Russia dictates will be not "sabotage" but pure terrorism financed by people from CIA, MI6 et al. That will be met with appropriate responses.

4. China: as I already stated--it is difficult to explain to an amateur what COFM is and that the United States lost the arms race to Russia, but NOT to China. China knows it, Lieven and Beebe, evidently do not. Expected, especially for people who do not understand still a huge relevance of the US Navy's submarine forces, for all their increasing issues, in possible war with China, as well as US attempts--they will succeed--to coral Japan and South Korea into this possible fight. China knows that she depends on Russia, not the other way around. But then again--this requires a real knowledge of Russia, real economy, COFM and understanding an intellectual abyss which separates Russian and Chinese diplomats and strategists from their current US counter-parts, many of who do not even have a proper military education.

I plan to talk about this Russia-China mythology and deteriorating mental state, as this piece demonstrates, of US "realists" many of who still reside in La-La-Land of American exceptionalism and continue to self-medicate themselves with all kind of ignorant bullshit with matters they have no clue about. But by that time they recognize their delusions, we may have on our hands a very real physical disintegration of the United States, which faces a possibility of a very real civil war and departure from the world stage as one of three superpowers. And no, it will not be Russia who will seek detente with the West. Not with this crop of "elites" who are not only non-agreement capable but are ignorant and, in general, people you don't deal with. Lieven should ask to give some lectures about "democracy" say in Higher School of Economics in Moscow--a cesspool of pro-Western liberals, they buy pretty much any BS from the West, for the rest--Russia has plenty of own demagogues. Get in line...

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/04 ... arade.html

Here the dependence upon the Chinese economy, both buying and selling, is underestimated in a fog of nationalism. Would the Russian economy be so good without China? I seriously doubt it. OTOH, China totally relies upon Russia's nuclear umbrella, it simply doesn't have the ability to counter the US preponderance in strategic nukes. Russia and Chana need each other at this time of US hyper aggression.

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MOSCOW SHINES SPOTLIGHT ON WHO COMES AFTER ZELENSKY

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by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

Advertisements for replacements of Vladimir Zelensky aren’t unusual, even if he has disposed of almost all of them already.

That leaves just one, Andrei Yermak, head of the Presidential Office — prompter, grey eminence, comfort blanket of Zelensky in almost every significant move he has made since 2019– and now candidate to become prime minister in a revolutionary transfer of power in the Kiev regime, reducing the presidency to a shadow; centralizing all military and civil command in Yermak’s office, but letting Zelensky stay alive.

Advertising Andrei Yermak to be prime minister is unusual in Vzglyad, the semi-official platform in Moscow for political and security analysis. This is especially so at this point in time when President Vladimir Putin has identified the Kiev regime as responsible for the Crocus City Hall attack, and the General Staff are escalating the Russian offensive on the ground along the line of contact east of the Dnieper River, and in the air deep into the west as far as Lvov.

What war aim would be served by Vzglyad’s signal that Yermak may be an acceptable counterparty to the Kremlin for negotiations to end the war short of regime capitulation – unless the signal is a false flag, intended to encourage Zelensky to save himself by eliminating Yermak, as he did General Valery Zaluzhny, and thereby leave nothing and no one in Kiev to put a brake on the Russian resolve to create a demilitarized zone all the way to the Polish border.

What follows is a verbatim translation of the publication on April 9 of a piece in Vzglyad by Vasily Stoyakin, entitled “The all-powerful ‘Green Cardinal’ is operating behind Zelensky’s back”. There is no precedent in the mainstream Russian media, nor in military blogs and the internet media, for promotion of any end for the Zelensky regime, except its end. A profile of Yermak which is neutral to positive towards the role he has played so far and may play in the future is so exceptional that the fact it appears now is more significant than what the story, compiled from earlier publications, actually says.

Oleg Tsarev, a leading Ukrainian opposition figure in exile in Russia and potential candidate for the Ukrainian president after the Russian victory, has ignored Yermak in his regular Telegram commentaries; Zelensky and Yermak targeted Tsarev for assassination in Crimea last October, but failed.

Dmitry Rogozin, a possible presidential candidate for the Russian presidency, has mentioned Yermak once in his Telegram channel, declaring: “the Bandera leadership of Ukraine has embarked on the path of ‘the final solution of the Russian question.’ Well, [they are] creative people. [They are] comedians [Zelensky], [television] producers [Yermak]. Hitler was also an artist. Mediocre. But in other respects he surpassed everyone. This, apparently, is enviable. They want to repeat it. We’ll have to do it again.” Rogozin is currently senator for the Zaporozhye region. He was targeted for Ukrainian assassination in Donetsk in December 2022; he survived.

There are two reasons why Yermak might be considered by the Kremlin to be the substitute for Zelensky with whom a negotiated settlement can be reached. One is that it has reportedly happened before. In September 2020, when Yermak and Zelensky were meeting in Muscat, Oman, with the Omani foreign minister and other officials, the Russian Security Council Secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, flew to Muscat and reportedly met them for several hours. What happened between them remains secret. Less secret is that the aircraft on which the two Ukrainians returned to Kiev was identified to be the same aircraft which had brought Patrushev to Oman.

The secrecy was exposed by the US government’s propaganda organ, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and then amplified by the Ukrainian press. Yermak claimed the report “does not correspond to reality” attacking the US-financed Ukrainian source for “a blatant manipulation of public opinion [as] part of the aggressor’s information operations against Ukraine.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the reported meeting was “a classic example of fake news”.

The second reason for possible Russian favour for Yermak is a long history of his family’s connections to Russia. His mother is a Leningrader; his father, a Jewish Kievan, served in a Soviet government agency in Afghanistan; since then he and Yermak himself have had personal and business connections with Russians engaged with the intelligence services.

Stoyakin cites no official Russian source on Yermak and draws this uncertain conclusion: “Last year, it was assumed that in the event of Zelensky’s death, Yermak could head a particular collective management body that would replace the president; according to the Constitution, the acting speaker [Ruslan] Stefanchuk should be, but he does not enjoy authority. Some western media even believe that Yermak may become Zelensky’s successor. Ukrainian political analysts, given Yermak’s low popularity, believe that the head of the OP [Office of the President] will try to become prime minister while retaining control of the president’s office. At the same time, the centre of the country’s political life will move to the government. However, it seems that such a change is possible only in peacetime – in wartime, the main focus is still on the military sphere, which is subordinate to the president.”

For a backgrounder on Yermak’s career, read this.

The US-Ukrainian sources for the reported Omani talks between Zelensky, Yermak, and Patrushev claim that Zelensky and Yermak arrived in Muscat on January 5, 2020. Zelensky’s stay at an Omani hotel was first reported, with photographs, by Strana.ru. Another Ukrainian source, texty.org.ua, then published details of associated flights arriving and leaving from Muscat around the same time; these included the arrival of Victor Medvedchuk, the Ukrainian opposition party leader close to Putin, in the afternoon of January 7. He was followed a few hours later by an aircraft arriving from Moscow. The next day that aircraft returned Zelensky and Yermak to Kiev. The Medvedchuk aircraft then flew to Moscow.

The published Ukrainian investigation at the time concluded: “What did Zelensky and Yermak talk about with representatives of the Russian authorities dealing with security issues? We can only guess.”

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Source: https://vz.ru/world/2024/4/9/1262431.html
April 9, 2024
The all-powerful “green cardinal” is operating behind Zelensky’s back
By Vasily Stoyakin

Ukrainian political scientists claim that the leader of the Kiev regime does not make any decision entirely on his own. Out of necessity he consults with another official – the head of his administration, the office of the President of Ukraine, Andrei Yermak. What kind of person is this, where did he come from, and what is his real power over both Ukraine and Zelensky?

Recently, Ukrainian experts have been paying more and more attention to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine [OP], Andrei Borisovich Yermak. He had previously played an exceptionally large role in Zelensky’s entourage, and after the resignation of Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council [Alexei] Danilov and first assistant to the president [Sergei] Shefir, this influence became total. Who is this man who, as it was said in a document from another historical era, “concentrated immense power in his hands”?

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Left to right: Andrei Yermak, Alexei Danilov, Sergei Shefir.

How did Yermak get to Zelensky

Andrey Yermak was born on November 21, 1971 in Kiev. He comes from an intelligent family, his father worked at the Artem rocket factory, and [was] the head of the personnel department of the USSR trade mission in Afghanistan.

Yermak is Zelensky’s colleague, who is also a lawyer, and his education is not less prestigious – Yermak graduated from the Institute of International Relations of Kiev University. In addition to the degree, he immediately received extra awards as an English translator (he really speaks better than Zelensky) and the right to practice law.

Yermak is often reproached with the fact that he started in legal service for the stalls in the market, but there is nothing surprising here – it was the 1990s, so where should one start? Many people who have made a career in business and politics have started with something like this. Moreover, then he went into a growth business, found his niche – copyright. He worked with media manager Evgeny Rybchinsky (son of the famous Soviet songwriter Yuri Rybchinsky).

In the mid-2000s, he met Vladimir Zelensky, who had just started appearing on television.

In 2011, he began working with Studio Kvartal-95 as a producer. In 2017, Yermak became the producer of the films “The Rule of Battle” and “Inter” (unrelated to the “Quarter”). At the same time he became a member of the Ukrainian and European film academies. Later, three more films were released under his production and co-production. Information about Yermak’s role in the “Quarter” is contradictory – it can be said for sure that the cooperation began with legal issues, while Yermak’s interests as a producer went far beyond the projects of the “Quarter”.

In 2018, Yermak became a member of Zelensky’s election headquarters. On May 21, 2019, Zelensky appointed Yermak as his assistant. In this position, he oversaw foreign policy and international relations, including negotiations with Russia and the republics of Donbass. He was responsible for organizing meetings in the Normandy Format on the Ukrainian side.

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For a detailed briefing on the Normandy Format negotiations which Dmitry Kozak held with Yermak, click to read. https://johnhelmer.net/donbass-where-th ... ar-starts/

On February 11, 2020, Yermak was appointed head of the Office of the President. It is believed that the resignation of his predecessor Andrei Bogdan was the result of a conflict with Ermak.

Contradictions in Yermak’s policy

Yermak’s relationship with Zelensky is quite peculiar – until 2022, they were separated extremely rarely. In 2020, they even fell ill with coronavirus synchronously and were treated together at the nomenclatura hospital in the resort area of Feofaniya. This caused jokes in the media community, but for some reason they did not grow into rumours, although there is no information about Yermak’s marital status in open sources. It was only after the outbreak of the armed conflict that he began to travel abroad on his own – and, one must think, at the moment he has acquired an impressive number of lobbyists in the allied countries of Ukraine.

At the same time, Yermak is not a public politician. He rarely gives interviews. The posts of the head of the OP on social networks are sets of emoticons. He refuses to comment on these puzzles. However, he expresses most of what needs to be communicated to the public through his speaker, ex–Belarusian journalist and political strategist Mikhail Podolyak.

The first situation in which Ermak was publicly highlighted was an attempt to oust Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko in the summer of 2019; Yermak was opposed to the removal of the Kiev mayor. Yermak then met with Trump’s lawyer [Rudolf] Giuliani – and they agreed on something. In any case, Klitschko still keeps his place, and relations between Ukraine and the United States have improved, culminating in Trump’s introduction of the strongest sanctions against Russia before the start of his campaign.

Yermak’s political image is controversial. On the one hand, he was suspected of having ties with Russia: his father is allegedly a GRU employee (this is almost certainly not true); his mother is a native of Leningrad (this is the basis for suspicion); his former business partner Rahamim Emanuilov is called a person connected with the top of the Russian government. Yermak denies that their partnership was of a financial nature).

On the other hand, there is a point of view that it was Yermak who initiated the turn of Zelensky’s policy towards Galicia.

This could be due to his close relations with Western special services – the British, first of all; Americans do not trust Yermak. There is also the fact that his brother Denis participated in the ATO in 2014 as part of the Nazi Aidar battalion (recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia). However, both circumstances are not so contradictory – suspicions of sympathy for Russia often push Ukrainian figures to demonstrate a nationalist position.

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On November 4, 2022, Yermak met in Kiev with US National Security Adviser, Jacob Sullivan. Russian media reports claim Yermak is much closer to the British government than to the US, and as a result the US is hostile to the expansion of Yermak’s powers at the expense of Zelensky.

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Yermak in video conference with the British National Security Adviser Sir Timothy Yarrow, on February 24, 2024.

By the end of 2023, Yermak took the fourth place in the ranking of the most influential people in Europe according to Politico (in the “figures” category), second only to Meloni, Macron and von der Leyen. The publication called him the “green cardinal” of Ukraine.

How and what does Ermak affect?

And so Yermak is Zelensky’s strongest and closest ally. His influence is truly immense. Firstly, Yermak manages the office of the president, and now also has influence on the staff of the National Security Council, which prepares all the important documents related to the activities of the president.

Any decree or order of Zelensky passes through Yermak, and he has enough influence to dissuade the president from signing it or, on the contrary, suggest some kind of solution.

Secondly, Yermak, through David Arakhamiya, controls the work of the Servants of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada and coordinates negotiations with opposition factions. That is to say, the legislative power is also under his control.

Thirdly, Yermak directs personnel policy, including in areas which are not directly managed by the OP. For example, the government cannot propose to the president the candidacy of the head of the local administration, unless it would have been previously agreed with the OP. It also has an impact on the appointment/removal of judges. It is difficult to assess Yermak’s influence on the military sphere, although it can be said with certainty that the conflict which ended with the resignation of Commander–in-chief Zaluzhny was provoked by the leadership of the OP.

Image
Yermak with General Valery Zaluzhny, April 27, 2023.

Only Zelensky’s first assistant, Sergei Shefir, could match him in weight, but he has left. Now Zelensky is left without alternative sources of information – and he can only rely on Yermak.

Last year, it was assumed that in the event of Zelensky’s death, Yermak could head a particular collective management body that would replace the president (according to the Constitution, the acting speaker [Ruslan] Stefanchuk should be, but he does not enjoy authority). Some Western media even believe that Yermak may become Zelensky’s successor. Ukrainian political analysts, given Yermak’s low rating, believe that the head of the OP will try to become prime minister while retaining control of the president’s office. At the same time, the centre of the country’s political life will move to the government. However, it seems that such a change is possible only in peacetime – in wartime, the main focus is still on the military sphere, which is subordinate to the president.


The level of trust in Yermak among the population of the country is low. For example, according to last year’s June study by the Razumkov Center, Yermak ranked eighth among political figures of Ukraine in terms of trust (38%). Yermak’s electoral rating was not measured. Recall that the data of Ukrainian sociologists should not be trusted. At least for now – while the fighting is going on.
https://johnhelmer.net/moscow-shines-sp ... -zelensky/
"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 Apr 12, 2024 12:27 pm

The mobilization law
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/12/2024

Image

More than proven the will of Zelensky and his national and international environment to continue the war whatever the consequences and whatever the final bill that results for kyiv in the form of debt or for its partners in the form of subsidies, Ukraine yesterday gave the step that had been preparing for months. War not only requires 155-millimeter projectiles, Patriot anti-aircraft systems and long-range missiles, but also personnel capable of using them. Training is not enough either, whether at home or abroad, but a constant flow of new recruits is necessary to replenish casualties and replace exhausted troops.

“The Ukrainian military has been weakened by the failure of the 2023 counteroffensive against Russia and by the US Congress blocking key US military aid. It is also believed to have suffered enormous losses,” AFP wrote yesterday without focusing on the level of casualties in Ukraine. After the summer counteroffensive failed, it was evident to the political and military authorities of Ukraine that their armed forces would be forced to carry out a mobilization that was not going to be popular. Polls carried out in recent months in Ukraine have shown that the population's position is not necessarily favorable to seeking a compromise with Russia, but is reluctant to mass mobilization. The population of the areas under Ukrainian control seems to want to continue the war until victory, but does not necessarily want to fight on the front. It is therefore not surprising that the large influx of volunteers that occurred in 2022 has completely disappeared and has become a growing movement that tries to avoid recruitment.

In parallel to the news about the attempts of men of military age to flee across the border and the proliferation of images of forced mobilization in the streets of Ukrainian cities and towns, some of which have been left so empty that they have received the interest from media as important as The New York Times , Zelensky and his associates have sought a way to recruit the half million men that, according to the president, Zaluzhny claimed by the end of 2023. Although his replacement, Oleksander Sirsky, has stated that the needs are noticeably lower, concern over the approval of a law that would allow the recruitment of hundreds of thousands of soldiers has been one of the priorities of the Ukrainian Government.

The debate has taken place until the last minute, with up to 4,000 amendments to the law debated in the Rada the night before final approval. The discussion, of course, took place in a Parliament with barely a dozen representatives and packed only by the blue and yellow flags that now decorate each seat. In the morning, almost 400 deputies obediently came to give their favorable vote to a law that had been written many months ago, when Zelensky finally understood that Ukraine had to focus on defense and hold the front against heavily reinforced Russian troops. a year ago and whose performance is now much higher than the Ukrainian president dreamed of.

Although periodically insisting that it is Ukraine that must make decisions on legislation and the way in which recruitment is organized, Western partners had also begun to pressure Zelensky in search of an expansion of the mobilization. Representative, for example, is the insistence of the American media on the high average age of Ukrainian soldiers, attributed solely to the fact that the age of mobilization has until now been 27 years and not the 25 at which it has been assumed. modified with the new law or the 18 or 20 required from abroad. Different factors contribute to the average age of soldiers at the front being around 40 years. The first is the evident reduction in the flow of volunteers, generally younger than the recruitment age. The second is the attempt to evade mobilization given the certainty that life expectancy in the trenches of a high-intensity war in which the opponent has air and artillery superiority is reduced. Finally, as several media have highlighted, the high casualties force increasingly older soldiers to be recruited, thus raising the average.

When it came to expanding the population groups that could be mobilized, Zelensky had until now chosen to limit exemptions, expand the groups of disabled or chronically ill people, and had advocated improving the recruitment process through the fight against different frauds to evade the call up. In recent months, his associates have made it clear that none of this is enough and have begun to press through the press in search of lowering the recruitment age. Edward Luttwak, think-tanker and expert in military strategy, or the former United States ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, have demanded that the age be reduced to 20 years. The maxim pronounced by the Republican hawk Lindsey Graham of fighting to the last Ukrainian seems to be the basis of the thinking of those who plan and defend the war until the improbable final victory from the other side of the Atlantic.

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Having already approved the reduction of the recruitment age to 25 years, which like the rest of the measures will come into force in May, The New York Times yesterday raised the question of whether Ukraine will be able to overcome the war without decimating an entire generation. He accompanied his argument with the image of the population pyramid, in which a detail is perceptible that experts like Luttwak do not seem to have noticed: one of the reasons why 40-year-old men are twice as many in the trenches as 20-year-old men. It is not only due to the age of recruitment, but to the reality of a country that, since the disappearance of the Soviet Union, has constantly lost population due to emigration and a drop in the birth rate. The result is that the population group between 20 and 30 years old is so rare that Ukraine cannot afford to destroy it in war.

The law does not include any big surprises and incorporates the obligation to always carry a military card, an essential document for men both in Ukraine and abroad. kyiv explored the possibility of recruitment abroad through digital notifications and even proposed that European countries repatriate refugees to the country to join the ranks. The opposite reaction from countries like Germany has made the measure impossible, so the Zelensky Government has sought an alternative way. Men of military age must register, thus becoming potential recruits. This updated document will be essential to be able to obtain consular services or renew permits or passports, a way of penalizing with measures harsher than financial fines those men who have fled the country to avoid war.

Throughout the months in which it has been debated, the bill has always been more popular among soldiers than among the civilian population. As various media outlets have reported throughout the process, fatigue is taking its toll and soldiers who have not been relieved since 2022 are demanding to be demobilized. The lack of prospects of completing active service was cited in these testimonies as one of the reasons why the flow of young volunteers has dried up. However, at the last minute, the demobilization of those soldiers who have been fighting for two years has disappeared from the law, an unequivocal sign that the mobilization does not seek to relieve the exhausted troops, but rather to replace the losses suffered.

With the new law, Ukraine aims to recruit half a million men and also encourages other population groups not subject to mobilization to volunteer. Aware that a new expansion will be necessary in the not too distant future, the next step is already in sight. “Ukraine needs to get rid of the old mentality towards women and adopt a female recruitment policy similar to that of Israel according to the military's top adviser for gender affairs,” The Times wrote on Wednesday . Yesterday, deputy Bezugla, from Zelensky's party, insisted that the Constitution does not differentiate between two types of population and called for extending mandatory recruitment to women as well, whose voluntary presence on the front is already significant. The proposal is the confirmation that Ukraine will continue to need large numbers of soldiers. Both Ukraine and its partners are ready to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian man and woman.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/12/la-le ... ilizacion/

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 April 11, 2024) | The main thing:

- Units of the Southern Group of Forces of the Russian Armed Forces have improved the situation along the front line in the Donetsk direction;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 520 military personnel in the Donetsk direction per day;

— The Ukrainian S-125 air defense missile launcher was destroyed;

— Russian air defense shot down 266 Ukrainian drones and 4 HIMARS and Uragan MLRS shells per day;

— The Russian Armed Forces in the Avdeevsky direction repelled eight counterattacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in one day;

— Since the beginning of the special operation, the Russian military has destroyed 500 Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile systems;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 105 military personnel in the South Donetsk direction;

— The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces per day in the Avdiivka direction amounted to 275 military personnel;

— The Vostok group of troops has improved the position along the front line in the South Donetsk direction;

— The Russian Armed Forces in the Kupyansk direction occupied more advantageous positions and defeated the formations of the military defense brigades and the National Guard of Ukraine.

In the South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok group of troops improved the situation along the front line and inflicted fire on the formations of the 58th motorized infantry brigade, the 128th armored brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Urozhainoye and Makarovka of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Enemy losses amounted to up to 105 military personnel, three vehicles, a US-made 155-mm M777 howitzer , as well as the Nota electronic warfare station .

▫️In the Kherson direction, units of the Dnepr group of troops inflicted fire on the personnel and equipment of the 128th mountain assault brigade, as well as the 121st terrestrial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Lobkovoe, Zaporozhye region, and Nikopol, Dnepropetrovsk region.

The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces amounted to up to 35 military personnel, five vehicles, a 155-mm M777 howitzer made in the USA and a 152-mm towed howitzer "Gyacinth-B" .

▫️ Operational-tactical aviation, missile forces and artillery of groupings of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation destroyed three warehouses of missile and artillery weapons and aviation weapons, a launcher of the S-125 anti-aircraft missile system, and also damaged the personnel and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 112 regions.

Air defense systems shot down 266 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles , four HIMARS and Uragan multiple launch rocket systems , as well as three US-made JDAM guided aerial bombs .

▫️In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed : 583 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 20,355 unmanned aerial vehicles, 500 anti-aircraft missile systems, 15,756 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,266 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 8,818 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 20,887 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

US delivers new batch of seized Iranian weapons to Ukraine

Washington has been scrambling to fuel the war against Russia as Kiev has failed to mount any serious offensive for the past year

News Desk

APR 10, 2024

Image
(Photo Credit: US Department of Defense)
Washington has transferred a new batch of seized Iranian weapons to Ukraine to fuel the war against Russia, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on 9 April.

US defense officials said the weapons were allegedly seized from the Yemeni armed forces in the Red Sea. The cache, delivered to Kiev last week, includes over 5,000 AK-47s, machine guns, sniper rifles, RPG-7s, and over 500,000 rounds of 7.62-millimeter ammunition.

“The government obtained ownership of these munitions on December 1, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” the CENTCOM statement reads.

“These munitions were originally seized by US l Command and partner naval forces from four separate transiting stateless vessels between 22 May 2021 to 15 Feb 2023,” the statement adds, alleging that the IRGC was transferring the munitions to the Yemeni armed forces.

“This constitutes enough material to equip one Ukrainian brigade with small arms rifles,” the statement claims.

CENTCOM announced last October the transfer of about 1.1 million rounds of Iranian ammunition to Ukraine. At the time, Washington claimed to be in possession of 9,000 assault rifles, 284 machine guns, about 194 rocket launchers, and more than 70 anti-tank guided missiles reportedly belonging to the Islamic Republic.

With the war in Ukraine recently entering its third year, the country has been facing severe weapons shortages in the fight against Russia. The issue has been compounded by Ukraine's western backers depleting their munition supplies and a deadlock in the US congress over more military aid to fuel the war.

“If there is no US support, it means that we have no air defense, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-millimeter artillery rounds,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Washington Post on 29 March. “It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps,” he said. “We are trying to find some way not to retreat.”

Washington recently enlisted Turkiye's help to ramp up production of artillery shells for use against Russia.

https://thecradle.co/articles/us-delive ... to-ukraine#

******

Ukraine - To Hurt Russia Means Pain For Ukraine

Ukraine is trying to hurt Russia by hitting its refineries. But the attacks fail to have the desired effects on Russia. The Russian response though, in form of de-energization attacks on Ukraine, seriously endanger the state.

Today the Russian Federation continued with the de-energization of Ukraine (machine translation):

As a result of a massive Russian missile attack on the night of April 11 , the Trypillya thermal power plant in the Kiev region was completely destroyed.
...
Located in the city of Ukrainka, Trypillia thermal power station was commissioned in 1973 and became the most powerful power plant in the Kiev region. It was also the largest supplier of electricity to the Kiev, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions.
Since the Zmiyevskaya TPP in the Kharkiv region was completely destroyed on March 22, and Russian troops occupied the Uglegorsk TPP in the Donetsk region on July 25, 2022, Centrenergo has now lost 100% of its generation.

After the complete destruction of the Trypillya TPP, the network recalls the statement of Centrenergo from August 2023 that the facility is equipped with physical protection "at 100%".

At the same time, it was reported that 70% of the work at the Zmievskaya TPP was completed. This facility was also destroyed by shelling in March of this year.


DTEK, another power supply company in Ukraine, also reported significant losses:

During the missile attack on early 11 April, Russia attacked two thermal power plants owned by DTEK company (Ukraine's largest private investor in energy), severely damaging the equipment there.
Source: DTEK press service

Details: "After the attack, the power engineers promptly began to eliminate the consequences and restore the equipment. According to early reports, there were no casualties," the statement said.


Since the start of the full-scale invasion, DTEK's thermal power plants have been attacked almost 170 times.

In addition to the power supplies Russian attacks also targeted parts of the national electricity distribution network:

Russia has damaged Ukrenergo’s substations and generation facilities in Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Kharkiv and Kyiv Oblasts as a result of a massive missile attack on the night of 10-11 April (Ukrenergo is the electricity transmission system operator in Ukraine).

Europe's biggest underground storage facility for natural gas in western Ukraine was also attacked (machine translation):

On the night of April 11, Russian cruise missiles of various classes and drones attacked two critical energy infrastructure facilities in the Lviv region.
This was announced by the head of the Lviv OVA Maxim Kozitsky.

"This is a gas distribution infrastructure facility in the Stryi district and an electric substation in the Chervonograd district. Fires started. They were quickly extinguished by firefighters. There were no casualties. All life support systems in the Lviv region are operating normally," Kozytsky said.


The underground storage facility is partly used by west European companies. But without the pumping and distribution system at the surface the underground facility, and anything stored in it, becomes useless.

Russia has not attacked any of the nuclear power plants in Ukraine. They, and limited electricity imports from western Europe, can still provide a minimum of basic load electricity to the country. But any peaks in consumption, which are usually buffered by the now destroyed thermal and hydroelectric power plants, will put the system under stress. Significant blackouts will thus become unavoidable.

Aleksey Arestovich, a former advisor to the president of Ukraine, is not happy about this (machine translation):

The Russians consistently knock out our generation - hydroelectric and thermal power plants.
More than UAH 50 billion was allocated to protect the stations.

This is the same amount as according to the NBU, Ukrainians collected defense donations in two years.

I throw up questions that should be asked to our leaders.:

how and what was the money spent?
why haven't alternative generation circuits been created in the last two years - gas-fired power plants haven't been purchased?
why didn't you listen to the experts for two years, who predicted what was happening back in May 2022 and offered to do business for two years, and not to fuck around and publish?
Energy is the foundation of the country's life. If there is no energy, there is nothing.

We are still holding on, thanks to the energy bridge with the EU and nuclear power plants, but the prospect that some regions will sit without electricity for weeks (and therefore without production and storage of food-in the summer!) getting closer.


Neither Arestovich nor other commentators in Ukraine acknowledge that the Russian campaign to de-energize the country is a direct consequence of Ukrainian attacks on infrastructure in Russia.

The daily reports by the Russian Ministry of Defense have emphasized this several times:

In response to the Kiev regime's attempts to damage Russian oil and gas and energy facilities, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a massive strike on Ukrainian fuel and energy facilities with long-range precision weapons, air-and sea-based weapons, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles. The strike goals have been achieved. All objects are hit.
As a result, the work of Ukrainian military industry enterprises was disrupted, the transfer of reserves to combat areas was disrupted, and fuel supply to units and military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was hampered.


Ukraine has, over several weeks, used drones to attack oil refineries deep within Russia. It did not stop even after it received the first Russian responses in form of renewed strikes on its energy facilities.

The U.S. has said that it does not like the Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities because they could lead to an increase in global gasoline prices which could lower president Biden's chance for a re-election.

Only yesterday U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin again criticized such attacks:

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine’s recent drone strikes on Russian oil refineries have a “knock-on effect” that could affect the global energy situation and suggested Kyiv focus on “tactical and operational targets” instead.
“Those attacks could have a knock-on effect in terms of the global energy situation. Ukraine is better served in going after tactical and operational targets that can directly influence the current fight,” Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, April 9, Bloomberg reported.
...
Austin’s comments are the latest confirmation of Washington’s position on Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries, which first started circulating following a Financial Times (FT) article – citing unnamed officials – that said Washington had relayed wishes to Ukraine’s intelligence units to stop hitting Russian oil refineries for fear of rising crude prices and retaliation.


However, unable to provide further money and weapons to Ukraine, the Biden administration has lost much of its leverage over Ukraine.

It has also failed to put its ducks in a row. Remarkably the General Secretary of NATO, usually a spokesperson for U.S. policy, takes a position that is in opposite to what the U.S. Secretary of Defense says:

Oil refineries in Russian territory are “legitimate” targets for Ukrainian drone strikes, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a joint press briefing with Finnish President Alexander Stubb on April 10.
Stoltenberg reiterated that Ukraine has the right to defend itself by military means.

“Ukraine has the right to strike legitimate military targets outside the territory of their country to defend itself,” the secretary said.


While the Economist lauds the Ukrainian attacks it notes that the intended consequences like a gasoline shortage in Russia, are unlikely to happen:

The government has kept a lid on prices by banning petrol exports for six months from March 1st, and striking a deal with Belarus, its client state. Russia imported 3,000 tonnes of fuel from Belarus in the first half of March, up from zero in January. Fearing that may not be enough, officials have also asked neighbouring Kazakhstan to set aside a third of its reserves, equivalent to 100,000 tonnes, should Russia need them, according to Reuters.

Nor will Russia lose any income:

The government will even save some cash by paying out fewer per-barrel subsidies to refineries. Russia’s biggest money-earners are resource taxes. And because these are levied as royalties at the well-head, the government is indifferent between oil exported as crude or as refined fuel, says Mr Vakulenko. As long as Russia is able to export crude, it can collect royalties.

To sum up:

The Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries do not have the desired secondary effects on Russia. Fuel is available at cheap prices and resource based state income continues to be high.
Ukraine's attacks on Russia are the purported reason given by Russia for the de-energization of Ukraine.
NATO and the U.S. defense establishment do not have a consistent position.
Global fuel prices are rising and are hurting Biden's campaign efforts.
Ukraine continues to be de-energized.


One might think that the negative effects from the above are significant enough to lead to a change in policies.

How come I do not expect to see any?

Posted by b on April 11, 2024 at 13:53 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/u ... .html#more

******

LE MONDE: UKRAINIANS ARE GROWING TIRED OF IMPOSED ‘TELEMARATHON’
APRIL 10, 2024 NATYLIESB
By Thomas d’Istria (Kyiv, correspondent), Le Monde, 3/14/24

The photos, which were taken in the first weeks of the Russian invasion, have hung ever since then – side by side – on the premises of the Starlight Media television group. They depict journalists working from darkly-lit makeshift shelters, at a time when Russian forces were only 20 kilometers from the center of the capital, Kyiv.

On Friday, March 8, the media conglomerate’s communications manager pointed to the portrait of a man sitting at a school desk. She explained that it was Orest Drymalovsky, a star presenter of Starlight’s ICTV channel, who had announced his mobilization to the Ukrainian army in early February, live on air. “A powerful signal for our audience,” said Yana Honcharenko with a hint of pride.

This announcement was all the more powerful as it was made in the context of the United News Telemarathon, a major tool in the information war waged by the Ukrainian authorities. For more than two years now, teams from six channels have been jointly producing and simultaneously broadcasting identical news content – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The initiative was initially conceived by journalists as a way of maintaining the country’s cohesion against Russian attempts at destabilization via social media, before being passed into law by presidential decree in March 2022.

“While, at the start of the invasion, the production of the ‘marathon’ was a unifying factor and was watched by half the country, the situation has now changed,” said Svitlana Ostapa, head of the sory board of the Suspilne public television and radio broadcasting group.

Representatives of channels linked to opposition groups (Espresso.tv, 5 Kanal and Priamyi), which were sidelined at the outset of the “telemarathon” before being excluded from the national system of digital video broadcasting (DVB-T2) in April 2022 − thereby losing 40% of their audience − have accused the authorities of taking control of the country’s media. Several human rights organizations, and Ukrainian civil society more broadly, have recently called for the return of plurality in the country’s news channels.

Trust has been continually eroding

Above all, confidence in these programs, as measured by opinion polls, has been plummeting among the Ukrainian population. “The term ‘telemarathon’ has become synonymous with excessive positive propaganda reporting on victories, while the situation on the front lines is worsening,” said Otar Dovzhenko, an official from the NGO Lviv Media Forum.

“In reality, that’s not exactly true,” he immediately qualified, “because the telemarathon doesn’t systematically broadcast such positive propaganda. Rather, it’s seen as a communication tool for the authorities, one that society, it’s true, doesn’t entirely trust.” Of the six broadcasters participating in the telemarathon, the expert considered the teams at Suspilne, 1+1 Media Group and Starlight to be “professional and responsible.” On the other hand, he noted that the “Rada TV” parliamentary channel – which has stopped broadcasting plenary sessions of the Ukrainian Parliament since the start of the invasion – and the My-Ukraina (“We are Ukraine”) channel “focus excessively on government representatives and on building up their positive image.”

After reaching up to 40% of viewership ratings following the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, this “telemarathon” has now fallen to 10% of viewership, according to Ostapa. Viewers’ levels of trust have been continually eroding: from 69% in May 2022, to 36% in February 2024, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS). Also per this institute’s latest study, the share of Ukrainians who do not trust the program is now at 47%, compared with 38% in December 2023.

This decline of interest in Ukrainian television has prompted participating newsrooms to explore ways to re-engage their viewership. “The best producers are thinking every day about finding solutions that would be in the interest of Ukrainians,” said Oleksandr Bohutskyi, CEO of Starlight Media, the owner of the ICTV channel.

The issue of this program’s future has also been a matter of concern for Mykyta Poturaiev, who – before becoming a Ukrainian MP in 2019 with the presidential party Servant of the People – had spent his entire career in positions of responsibility in the media industry. “We want all citizens to be able to receive verified information,” said the head of the country’s humanitarian and information policy parliamentary committee. However today, “there are only two possibilities,” he said: “Either the telemarathon invents a new format, or we stop it.” To justify his position, Poturaiev also pointed to the cost of the programs (465.2 million Ukrainian hryven in 2024, or around €11 million), which he felt was too high given the low viewership figures.

Using Telegram for ‘alternative’ information

Galina Petrenko, director of media watchdog Detector Media, has also observed the decline in interest in the “telemarathon,” but called attention to the existence of a core group of loyal followers. This expert was amused at this discrepancy between the positions of civil society organizations, which have been critical of the program “because we are for freedom of expression,” and those really held by viewers: “We see that a portion of society still needs this format.”

Over two years of war, Ukrainian people have considerably changed the ways by which they obtain information. This has been reflected in a massive increase in the use of Telegram channels, to receive “alternative” information – as opposed to that put out by the “telemarathon.” This has also been because channels on this encrypted messaging app are more effective for use in wartime: “When you’re in a bomb shelter and you need information related to your safety, you’re not going to turn on the TV and wait for them to bring up something that is relevant to you,” said Petrenko.

As a result, she said, “[Volodymyr Zelensky’s] communications team has begun to understand that the government can’t rely on the telemarathon alone, and is trying to exert influence through other news channels.” While the presidential administration has allowed independent media to operate freely on the internet, “it has started to take control of [some] Telegram channels because it sees that they are now the main sources of information.” At a press conference held by the president in December 2023, three Telegram channel representatives were invited, two of whom were officially accredited.

In Petrenko’s opinion, the most problematic aspect of this “telemarathon” is its unequal political representation. According to Detector Media’s research into the profiles of guests on the program, former President Petro Poroshenko’s opposition party European Solidarity was clearly under-represented when compared with Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.

Ostapa, head of the supervisory board at Suspilne, qualified the authorities’ responsibility for the choice of guests. For commercial channels which are part of the “telemarathon” – such as 1+1, Inter and ICTV – “it’s more a form of self-censorship,” she said, “because journalists don’t want to broadcast information that Zelensky might not like, or invite guests he might not want to see.”

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/04/le- ... emarathon/

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"A dark day in the history of Centrenergo"
April 11, 16:19

Image

Ukraine. PJSC "Centrenergo". Manages 3 thermal power plants: Trypilska Thermal Power Plant in the Kyiv region, Ukrainka, Zmievskaya Thermal Power Plant in the Kharkov region, town. Slobozhanskoye, Uglegorsk thermal power plants in the Donetsk region, Svetlodarsk and a separate division of Remenergo, located in Cherkassy. The total installed capacity of production assets is 7665 MW, which is equal to about 14% of the total capacity of power plants in Ukraine.

©"A dark day in the history of Centrenergo.
As a result of today's massive attack,
our entire generation was destroyed.
Russian troops completely destroyed the Trypilska Thermal Power Plant
in the Kiev region.

As a result of the hits, a large-scale fire occurred in
the turbine shop. Now
localization work continues at the enterprise fire.
Trypillya Thermal Power Plant was the largest supplier
of electricity to the Kiev, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr
regions.

“The scale of destruction is terrible. This cannot
be valued with money. This is the biggest problem for us in the entire history
of the enterprise. But I am convinced that we
will cope with it,” - Chairman of the Supervisory Board of PJSC
Centerenergo Andrei Gota.

On March 22, 2024, the Zmievsky
Thermal Power Plant, in the Kharkov region, was completely destroyed. And on July 25, 2022, Russian troops
occupied the Uglegorsk Thermal Power Plant-Donetsk region.
Today, PJSC "Centrenergo" lost 100 percent of
its generation."

https://t.me/dva_majors/39727 - zinc

The campaign of attacks on Russian refineries is yielding unexpected results.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9086770.html

How we entered Krasnogorovka
April 12, 12:05

Image

How we entered Krasnogorovka.

(Video at link.)

Footage of the attack of the 5th brigade of the Russian Armed Forces on April 8, 2024.

1. Attack of armored vehicles, where the already legendary Tsar-Mangal appeared. It's called "Fedya 2.0".
2. Processing enemy positions in the Southern Part of Krasnogorovka.
3. A rapid rush to the city and landing of attack aircraft.
4. Advancement of attack aircraft on the outskirts of the city against the backdrop of high density artillery fire from both sides.

As a result of the battle, our troops gained a foothold in the southeastern part of the city and are now fighting inside the city limits.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9088402.html

Google Translator

*****

Russia Delivers Major Blow to Ukraine by Destroying Kiev’s Biggest Power Plant
Posted on April 11, 2024 by Yves Smith

Ukraine’s government is facing a juncture described in Marguerite Yourcenar’s The Memoirs of Hadrian: “I begin to discern the profile of my death.” Russia is demonstrating that it can turn the lights out all over Ukraine. That time has now passed. Russia has destroyed the largest generating plant in the Kiev oblast, Tripilska Power Plant.

As we’ll explain below, this further reduction of Ukraine’s generating capacity has knock-on effects, most importantly forcing further big cuts via soon necessitating the shutdown of nuclear reactors. The Ukraine power system is approaching a tipping point if it has not already reached it.

Commentators early in the war, particularly the hyper-nationalist sorts in Russia, were perplexed that Russia didn’t engage in the typical practice of a belligerent, of knocking out power and communications networks at the outset. The most common view provided was that Putin in particular really did regard the Special Military Operation as not exactly a war and hoped to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table, which indeed happened. So not stoking further Ukraine hostilities by harming civilians, or even unduly discomfiting them, was part of the initial “Let’s bring Kiev to its senses” plan. In addition, many Russians have relatives in Ukraine, so avoiding civilian casualties and even costs were important for domestic reasons.

Again, the more martial-minded weren’t happy with the Ministry of Defense, in fall-winter 2022, toying with Ukraine’s grid by selectively targeting transmission, inflicting damage that that Ukraine could repair in at worst a few days. John Helmer, who has given far and away the best analysis of the electrical war, depicted Russia as figuring out how the system worked so as to more efficiently drop the hammer when the time came. Others soon added that a major point of this campaign was to speed up the process of draining Ukraine of air defense missiles. Note that Russia intensified its grid strikes and began targeting generation capacity very close to when the Pentagon had said Ukraine would run out of air defense missiles, at the end of March. And on top of that, Russia has been taking out the weapons platforms too. One YouTuber (was it Brian Berletic?) recently said Ukraine might now has as few as three Patriot launch systems. Update: Per Helmer via e-mail, ” It was Boris Rozhin, Colonel Cassad, who reported that first, but perhaps he picked it up from another milblogger or was told by DefMin.” Helmer also amplified the report:
Dances_with_Bears
@bears_with
·
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RUSSIA’S STEP BY STEP OFFENSIVE WORKS LIKE THIS: combined aircraft missile, bomb & drone strikes averaged 22 per day at start of 2023; over 50pd by year’s end; 84pd in Feb 2024; in March the same rate, leaving just 3 Patriot missile batteries in Ukraine – no bunker is safe.
But there’s another reason for waiting until Ukraine’s military was on the rope and its air defenses were badly depleted. If Russia had tried prostrating Ukraine via widespread power outages much earlier (even assuming it wasn’t unduly costly against a Ukraine with intact air defenses) it would have been the dog that caught the car. Russia had dithered about developing a Plan B until the embarrassing Kharkiv and Kherson pull-backs forced Russia to act.

Amazingly. Russia was able to start and implement its partial mobilization, with 6 to 7 months of training for new enlistees, with the West doing nothing to force Russia’s timetable. They were so high on the Russian retreats and their own PR that Russia any day now, yessiree, was going to run out of missiles that they gave Russia extremely valuable time to build up its capabilities and its weapons supplies. Weirdly, they even saw Russia demonstrate its organizational/operational skill by constructing the Surovikin Line, yet still refused to get the memo.

As Helmer described in his last post, the destruction of generating capacity will start to beget more destruction, as limited supply will lead to load-balancing problems and surges, which will do yet more damage to the grid itself and user equipment. As a tweet by Sergej Sumlenny, LL.Mexplains:

Let me say it clear: Ukraine’s power production is close to collapse.
1) Coal and gas power stations are vital for balancing the demand-and-supply problem in a large network, as they can increase and decrease production.
2) Ukraine’s Nuclear Power Plants cannot work without this balancing.
3) And Ukraine’s hydro power plants are too few (and also targeted by the Russians, several damaged).
4) So effectively, Russia provokes not only a blackout in a 40-million-people country, amid a war, but also a nuclear disaster (or Ukraine’s nuclear power plants must be shut down, without a perspective to be launched soon again).
5) Coal and gas plants also supply heat for larger cities, this will be another huge problem in just 6 months.
6) All because someone in the White House and in the Chancellory decided to play “escalation management”.

Helmer also described how the loss of power will triggers a mass exodus from cities, as has happened with Kharkiv, and will also cripple the military, since many activities rely on electrical power and it seems vanishingly unlikely that there are all that many backup generators. The refugee flood will trigger an internal and potentially an external crisis.

Helmer pointed out that one check on the otherwise predictable movement of citizens to the western Ukraine would be that men would be subject to being captured and sent to the front lines. But as he explained last week:

Moscow sources believe the operational plan of the General Staff, agreed by the Kremlin since last month’s election, is to depopulate Kharkov and the surrounding region north to Sumy, and press equally hard in the centre (Dniepropetrovsk) and the south (Odessa). For maps of the campaign so far, click.

According to a Moscow source, debate over operational priorities in the political and military strategy is muted. “This time round,” the source believes, “the General Staff aims not to suspend the attacks, not to relieve the pace, so that the Ukrainian utilities cannot repair or restore power supplies — no repeat of the first phase of the electric war which stopped at the end of 2022.”

Now admittedly hitting the big power generating plant in Kiev seems at odds with this idea of which cities to knock out when. But Russia is also dealing with the structure of the power supplies. One assumes the strike on Kiev’s plant was an efficient way to go about the de-electrification, given its size and importance, even if cutting Kiev’s power was otherwise later on the list. From the current lead story in the Financial Times:

Russia has destroyed Kyiv’s largest power plant as president Volodymyr Zelenskyy chided Ukraine’s western partners for “turning a blind eye” to his country’s need for more air defenses.

The Trypilska thermal power plant 50km south of Kyiv, which so far was protected by air defences, was completely destroyed in the attack, officials said. The plant provided electricity to millions of people in Kyiv, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions….

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Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Kharkiv, said 10 missiles had struck the north-eastern region, knocking out power to more than 200,000 residents. Kharkiv, which borders Russia’s Belgorod region, has been pummelled by missiles, rockets and drones in recent weeks.

Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s national transmission system operator, said power substations and generation facilities were damaged and that emergency shutdown schedules were imposed in the Kharkiv region.

It called on Ukrainians to limit the use of electrical appliances from 7pm to 10pm, when it predicted a shortage of electricity might occur because solar power plants, carrying much of the load after Thursday’s attack, would decrease.

Some additional visuals and detail:

('X' screenshots at link.)

The Financial Times article includes much rending of hair and garments over the failure of the US to approve additional Ukraine, which is depicted as contributing to Ukraine’s inability to defend itself. But as many commentators have pointed out, money won’t magic weapons or trained men into existence. It would take well over a year to produce the needed armaments, even before getting to the wee problem of competing demand (Israel and Europe restocking).

Helmer included later in his early April post:

An unofficial Moscow source comments: “For the time being, the campaign is likely to leave enough lights on in Lvov to lure the displaced easterners there, and generate all sorts of communal friction. The westward process will repeat itself until Lvov and other border areas are huge refugee camps facing a bunch of nervous Poles, Romanians, Moldovans, etc. We’ll see what happens to Euro solidarity then.”

In a related sighting, a mercenary with two years in service in Ukraine (!!!) talks out of school about US and Ukraine performance. Do click through to read the full text:
-- GEROMAN -- time will tell - 👀 --
@GeromanAT
🐦⬛
🇲🇨🇺🇦 Confession of Polish mercenary Mihail Lipski, who fought against the Russians in Ukraine for two years

About Americans.
These are not guys you can go to full scale war with. You can go on a "safari" with them to Afghanistan or Iraq. You have everything, but your opponent has nothing. These are people who stick very tightly to the book. Without any flexibility.

About the Azovians.
At the end of 2022, we were transferred to Kleščejevka, where we stayed for a month and a half. During that time, the "magnificent" 47th Brigade lost Soledar.
In Kleščejevka, we were replaced by the Azovs from
3. non-aggressive tick-tock brigades.
They occupied our position, but when we were leaving, Azov vehicles caught up and overtook us. They handed over the village that we held for 1.5 months in one day.

About the mobilized Ukrainians.
There is a big problem with the quality of training and the quality of the people who come. The basic training that takes place at the training grounds is of such a low level that people come to us within a month of recruitment.
Sometimes they don't know they have a sight on their rifle.
No motivation. They are motivated already in the cemeteries.

About the attitude of the locals.
I remember how we entered Bahmut, July 2022. Our convoy of 10 infantry fighting vehicles was traveling. I was the first, I had a Polish and Ukrainian flag on me, and behind me were nine vehicles with Ukrainian flags. We pass through the village, and there are people there. We leave the BVP, they start clapping. But another BVP comes with a Ukrainian flag and they give up, hands down. It turned out that when they saw the Polish flag on my vehicle, white and red, they thought it was a Russian flag.

Yes, there are still people sitting under the floor in Ukraine
fire and are waiting for liberation from the Russians.

http://t.me/istocni_front
2:16 AM · Apr 11, 2024
·
83.9K
Views
It does not surprise me to learn that Azovites are (often? always?) posturing cowards. But those that run away sadly to live to see another day. Except here, the Russians will make diligent efforts to round them up. And Banderite love for Nazi insignia as tattoos will make them easy to identify.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04 ... nt-4024918

'Take the tat and take the rap.' Life in a Siberian uranium mine, no less.
"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 Apr 13, 2024 12:01 pm

Intelligence collaboration: building a tool against Russia
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/13/2024

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“The spy war: how the CIA secretly helps Ukraine fight Putin,” is the title of an extensive report published by The New York Times , which not only confuses Russia with its president, but also shows that the fight against Moscow began long before Russian troops violated the Ukrainian borders by land, sea and air in 2022. “Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed, its command center a burnt shell, victim of a bombing of Russian missiles at the beginning of the war. But that's on the surface," writes the outlet, which goes on to describe an underground base where "teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and listen to conversations between Russian commanders. On one screen, a red line followed the path of an explosive drone passing through Russian air defenses from a point in central Ukraine to a target in the Russian city of Rostov.” The bunker, he states, “is a secret nerve center of the Ukrainian army” of which he adds that “there is one more secret: the base is partly equipped and financed almost entirely by the CIA.” That is the starting point of a text that, with all the epic of who describes the secret and illegal war of his intelligence, contradicts, perhaps unintentionally, the official discourse, focused solely on what happened after February 2022 and insists in using the tagline “unprovoked” for war.

The text contains a whole series of well-known characters, some of them protagonists and others secondary, from a war that began even before Russia took control of Crimea. Although the links between the two intelligence services of Ukraine, civil intelligence or SBU and military intelligence or GUR, are known and part of their history had already been revealed, the text published by the New York newspaper provides data that confirms suspicions and turns into certainty some speculations. In this story, the name of Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the main promoter of an alliance whose work against Russia - or against Putin if the headline is to be believed - began on February 24, although not in 2022 but in 2014, takes on special importance. a few hours since the irregular change of Government in kyiv and the transformation of Ukraine into a nationalist and anti-Russian State had begun.

“Millions of Ukrainians had just overthrown the country's pro-Kremlin government and the president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his spy chiefs had fled to Russia. In the tumult, a fragile pro-Western government quickly took power,” writes The New York Times, exaggerating the turnout at the Maidan and forgetting both that Yanukovych had been democratically elected and that a part of the country quickly mobilized to reject what they correctly perceived as a nationalist government. Maidan was always a movement linked to the westernmost regions of Ukraine, where most of the visible faces and those in the shadows came from, while it caused much greater division in the south and east. Representative, for example, is what happened in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, where local and regional authorities - linked to the Party of Regions - chose to adapt to the new reality and ally themselves with the new Minister of the Interior, Arsen Avakov, former governor. of the region, to repress the “pro-Russian” protests, an adjective that was already used as an umbrella to define any protest against the new regime. They were the first steps in the use of radical groups incorporated into official structures to fight against the reaction of certain sectors of society in various regions to the change of government perceived as a coup d'état.

In Kiev, The New York Times presents a movie image in which “the government's new spy chief, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, arrived at the headquarters of the national intelligence agency and found a stack of documents burning in the courtyard. Inside, many of the computers had been wiped or were infected with Russian malware.” The need to justify the actions of US intelligence in a situation that would lead to war requires exaggerating to unsuspected limits the threat and Russian infiltration. In the last decade, in many cases simply as a way to delegitimize the opponent and without any relation to reality, accusations of Russian agents have proliferated . For example, on different occasions and each with their own style, Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky have accused each other of acting to favor Russia. In this context of doubt about the loyalty of each and every one of the country's representatives, it is easy to present the intelligence services as completely infiltrated by the Russian Federation, especially if that is the basis on which to justify the work of the CIA and MI6 to completely redesign the Ukrainian secret services to their benefit.

The key to the story is to present each and every event blaming Russia - or directly its president - while hiding the steps taken by Ukraine. In the same way that there is no talk of the February coup d'état or the collaboration of the United States with a government that, unlike the one it had overthrown, was not born from the polls, everything that happened during the spring of 2014 can be summarized in which “the situation soon became more dangerous. Putin seized Crimea. “His agents fomented separatist rebellions that would turn into a war in the east of the country.” In this story there is no sign of a coup d'état, the establishment of a government whose nationalist agenda caused a rejection in the population of Crimea and Donbass that did not require Russian propaganda to explode or even the anti-terrorist operation initiated by Kiev instead of continue along the path marked and supposedly accepted by the Geneva talks, which had proposed a national dialogue to overcome the moment of internal division evident in the country throughout that spring.

“Ukraine was on a war footing,” summarizes The New York Times, which adds that “Nalyvaichenko asked the CIA for aerial images and other intelligence services to help defend its territory. Given the escalation of violence, an unmarked US government plane landed at a Kiev airport carrying John O. Brennan, then director of the CIA, who explained to Nalyvaichenko that the CIA was interested in developing a relationship, but only at a pace the agency was comfortable with, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials. The CIA had already been burned before in Ukraine.” The story is loaded with a non-existent epic: unlike after the first Maidan , the Orange Revolution, when it was soon evident that an accommodation was going to be sought for the electorate represented by Yanukovych, the fundamental change in 2014 is the will to completely put an end to the political representation of that part of Ukraine. In this way, that east-west balance was broken, nationalist Ukraine-non-nationalist Ukraine, which implied that there was a way of understanding Ukrainian identity that was not necessarily against Russia. The CIA, as I would quickly verify, had nothing to fear, there was no possibility of the return of the pro-Russian parties or the search for a formula to reintroduce these positions into institutional politics or even into the activism of social movements. This was quickly proven by what happened in Odessa on May 2 and the start of the war in Donbass, when Ukraine made it clear that it was willing to kill to prevent that other way of understanding Ukraine from surviving.

The official story leaked interestingly to The New York Times has two important aspects. First of all, the moment in which it occurs. “Now these intelligence networks are more important than ever, as Russia is on the offensive and Ukraine relies more on sabotage and long-range missile attacks that require spies far behind enemy lines,” explains the article, which later introduces the key to why it is important to publicize intelligence work on the ground. “If Congressional Republicans end military funding for kyiv, the CIA could be forced to reduce it,” he admits.

Secondly, despite repeating throughout the article the legitimacy of the work of the CIA - and MI6, although the British agency receives less attention - it is necessary to justify its presence in the country by insisting that it was not an attempt of turning Ukraine into an anti-Russian tool (as has been happening since 2014). “The Times investigation found that Mr. Putin and his advisers misinterpreted a critical dynamic. The CIA did not push to enter Ukraine. “U.S. officials were often reluctant to participate fully, fearing that Ukrainian officials could not be trusted and worried about provoking the Kremlin,” the article states. Exonerating the United States is always a priority objective.

To do this, The Times insists on showing that it was Ukraine, the post-Maidan Government, that sought to deepen collaboration. He achieved this, according to the official story, by offering the United States intelligence on the Russian Federation, specifically on the Black Sea Fleet. “A small circle of Ukrainian intelligence officers assiduously courted the CIA and gradually became vital to the Americans. In 2015, General Valeriy Kondratiuk, then head of Ukrainian military intelligence, arrived at a meeting with the deputy head of the CIA and, without warning, handed him a stack of top-secret files,” writes The New York Times. Post-Maidan Ukraine always based its international positioning on making itself useful to those it hoped would be its partners by becoming a tool against Russia. “That first shipment contained secrets about the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet, including detailed information about the latest Russian nuclear submarine designs. Soon, teams of CIA officers were regularly leaving his office with backpacks full of documents,” the article adds. The perception that the United States was using Ukraine as a springboard against Russia was never far from the truth.

The New York Times goes only as far as its sources, evidently from intelligence on both sides of the Atlantic, allow it. Hence, when it comes to describing the practical aspects of the collaboration between Western and Ukrainian intelligence, details are scarce. An exception is the mention of Unit 2245, an elite commando trained by the CIA since 2016 and specialized in capturing drones and Russian communication equipment to decipher the material itself and its encryption systems. One of the unit's rising stars was the current director of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirilo Budanov, “known for his daring operations behind enemy lines and with deep ties to the CIA.”

“The intent of the training was to teach defensive techniques, but CIA officers realized that without their knowledge the Ukrainians could use the same techniques in lethal offensive operations,” explains The New York Times , exonerating the United States of any excessive audacity committed by the unit they had created, equipped and instructed. One of these episodes sought to infiltrate agents to place explosives and destroy the helicopters located in one of the bases in Crimea. The operation, in which Kirilo Budanov participated and which serves as an example for those currently carried out by the GUR, was a failure: the Russian troops were waiting and, according to their version, the Ukrainian agents had to swim away. They did it, of course, after having murdered the son of a Russian general. Conveniently for the United States, the outlet claims that Ukraine did not “ask for permission” and acted on its own, causing embarrassment to Obama and Biden. The odyssey in Crimea cost General Kondratiuk, leader of Unit 2245, his job. The next day, Arsen Pavlov, Motorola , was assassinated in Donetsk by the Fifth Directorate, formed by and for the CIA with officers born in independent Ukraine, not in the Soviet Union, to guarantee their complete loyalty. Once again, The New York Times claims that the events infuriated Obama's advisers. Ukraine always had the unconditional support of the Obama administration, so if this anger existed, it did not translate into a loss of confidence in those groups that had been created precisely for sabotage. Shortly after, the Fifth Directory assassinated Mikhail Tolstij, Givi . The accumulation of murders by the SBU finally provoked Russian retaliation. “The Russians used a car bomb to assassinate the leader of Unit 2245, the elite Ukrainian commando. The commander, Colonel Maksim Shapoval, was on his way to meet with CIA officials in Kiev when his vehicle exploded,” states The New York Times , which assumes that it was unit 2245 that murdered Motorola and Givi. .

Curiously, The New York Times forgets to mention the biggest success of the targeted assassinations of the SBU, specifically the Fifth Directorate, in Donbass: the death of Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the Donetsk People's Republic. This murder was highlighted by both The Economist and The Washington Post in previous articles about the role of Ukrainian intelligence in the war. Two aspects differentiate Zajarchenko's case from others such as Motorola or Givi . Firstly, it is more difficult to admit, in a legitimizing article, that groups organized and instructed by the United States murdered one of the signatories of the only existing peace agreements. Although Washington never had any interest in the Minsk process, admitting that agents members of a unit directly related to the CIA murdered one of its signatories would undermine the discourse that Russia and not Ukraine is the reason why there cannot be a diplomatic process. in this conflict.

Secondly, Zakharchenko's murder occurred during Trump's term, which the media presents as a time of uncertainty in which the relationship between intelligence agencies was maintained despite the president's position. To admit that the act of greatest value - at least for Ukraine - carried out by units trained by the CIA occurred during the time of Donald Trump would be to accept that US policy did not change at all with the change in the White House and could come to be doubted. even whether the return of the Republican to the presidency would cause as radical a change as the media wants to present. Everything in the current media scene seeks to show the United States as the indispensable country, the source of all innovation, and to sow doubt about what could become of Ukraine in the event of the return of Donald Trump.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/13/29533/

Google Translator

******

From Cassad's telegram account:

Colonelcassad
6:49
Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (for the period from April 6 to April 12, 2024) | The main thing:

- The Russian military in the Kupyansk direction has improved the situation along the front line, Ukrainian losses amounted to more than 380 people, three tanks.

— In the Donetsk direction, Russian troops occupied more advantageous positions, the enemy lost more than 3 thousand people and three tanks.

— In the Avdeevsky direction, the Russian military continued to advance into the depths of the enemy’s defenses, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 2,130 people and six tanks.

— In the Yuzhnodonetsk direction, the tactical position along the front line has been improved, Ukrainian losses amounted to more than 840 people, two tanks.

— In the Kherson direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 335 people and three tanks.

— Within a week, five French-Italian SAMP/T air defense missile launchers, S-300 and S-125, were destroyed.

— Over the course of a week, the Russian Armed Forces in the Avdeevka direction continued to advance into the depths of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defense and repelled 65 counterattacks.

— Russian aviation and air defense shot down a Neptune missile, 12 Hammer and JDAM guided bombs, 25 MLRS shells and 1,712 drones in a week.

— The Russian Armed Forces destroyed five SAMP/T air defense missile launchers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in a week.

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 335 military personnel and 6 US-made M777 howitzers in the Kherson direction in a week.

In the Avdeevsky direction , units of the “Center” group of troops, conducting active operations, continued to advance into the depths of the enemy’s defense .

With the support of aviation strikes, artillery fire and heavy flamethrower systems, they defeated the manpower and equipment of eight brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and repelled 65 counterattacks of enemy assault groups in the areas of the settlements of Novgorodskoye, Novokalinovo, Umanskoye, Pervomaiskoye and Berdychi of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Over the course of a week, in this direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 2,130 military personnel, six tanks, 24 armored fighting vehicles, 51 vehicles, as well as 22 field artillery pieces, including three M109 Paladin self-propelled artillery mounts and four M777 howitzers made in the United States.

▫️In the South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok group of troops improved the tactical position along the front line and defeated formations of seven brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the National Guard in the areas of the settlements of Makarovka, Urozhainoye and Ugledar of the Donetsk People's Republic.

In the areas of Nikolskoye and Novodonetskoye, three counterattacks by assault groups of the 58th motorized infantry and 72nd mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were repelled.

Enemy losses amounted to more than 840 military personnel, two tanks, two armored combat vehicles, 25 vehicles, and 11 field artillery pieces, including five US-made M777 howitzers.

▫️In the Kherson direction, the coordinated actions of units of the Dnepr group of troops defeated the manpower and equipment of one mountain assault brigade, three mechanized brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a marine brigade and two terrestrial defense brigades in the areas of the settlements of Rabotino, Mirnoye, Stepovoe, Pavlovka of the Zaporozhye region, Mikhailovka and Novotyaginka, Kherson region.

The enemy lost over 335 military personnel, three tanks, 29 vehicles, as well as 22 field artillery pieces, including six US-made M777 howitzers.

▫️ Within a week, missile forces, artillery and unmanned aerial vehicles of military groups destroyed five launchers of French-Italian SAMP/T anti-aircraft missile systems, S-300 and S-125, as well as two radar stations for detecting and tracking air targets P-18 .

▫️During the week, aviation and air defense systems shot down : the Neptune anti-ship missile, 12 Hammer aircraft guided bombs made in France and JDAM made in the USA, 25 rockets from the HIMARS and Hurricane multiple launch rocket systems, as well as 1,712 unmanned aerial vehicles.

Within a week, 21 Ukrainian servicemen surrendered .

▫️In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed : 583 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 20,604 unmanned aerial vehicles, 500 anti-aircraft missile systems, 15,761 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,266 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 8,836 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 20,910 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

SITREP 4/11/24: Zelensky in Shock as Kiev's Largest Power Plant Wrecked in Massive Strikes

SIMPLICIUS
APR 11, 2024

The day starts with a massive Russian missile strike that has wiped out another chunk of the remaining Ukrainian energy capacity. It’s now confirmed that Russia is hitting precisely the turbine rooms causing long-lasting, if not permanent, damage.

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Here’s Ukraine’s own Centernergo energy concern declaring it to be the worst day in their history, as the Trypil Thermal Power Plant in the Kiev region was wiped out:

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Here’s a before and after:

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(Video at link.)

The regime apologists are in conniptions over this:

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[img[https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1 ... 59x489.png[/img]

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The Kharkov plant and several others were struck as well. Full report:

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Missile attack on the territory of Ukraine on April 11: details

🔺Tu-95MS missile carriers and Geran-2 loitering ammunition hit many targets, including both military and infrastructure/energy facilities.

What objects were hit?

▪️Tripolye (Kyiv region). Trypilska Thermal Power Plant.

▪️Kharkov, CHPP-3.

▪️Kharkov, plant named after. Malysheva, workshop No. 510 and building No. 400.

▪️Chuguev (Kharkov region). Central warehouse of engineering ammunition of military unit A-2467.

▪️Kharkov, Turboatom plant. Foundry shop and KEMZ building.

▪️Stry (Lviv region), gas collection point No. 2.

▪️Susk (Rivne region). 1448th Central Artillery Weapons Base.

▪️Chervonograd (Lviv region). 72nd separate mechanization battalion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

▪️Chervonograd (Lviv region), substation “Chervonograd-2” 110/35/6 kV.

▪️Odessa, substation 330/110/10 kV “Usatovo”.


It is noteworthy that during attacks on electricity generation facilities, eyewitnesses recorded multiple arrivals, as in the case of the recent finishing off of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station. Indirectly, this indicates that the Russian Aerospace Forces have been tasked with completely destroying or critically damaging ALL large non-nuclear generation facilities on the territory of Ukraine.

Taking into account the fact that the attacks on Ukraine’s energy system are systemic in nature (and some facilities, such as CHPP-3 and substations in Odessa, have been hit not for the first time), the cumulative effect of a sharp shortage of electricity generation may appear in the near future.

It’s difficult to truly estimate how catastrophic the situation is becoming because every ‘expert’s’ opinion seems to differ, and many were disappointed with last year’s energy grid strikes. However, one thing that can be objectively said is Russia has demonstrably been hitting engine rooms, as we’ve seen in actual video from the Dnipro HES hydroelectric station. In the Centernergo note above, they also admit a ‘large fire’ in the ‘turbine workshop’.

And by the way, for those wondering why Russia didn’t begin such a devastating campaign in winter, here’s what Putin is alleged to have told Lukashenko at their soiree today:

Russia did not strike Ukrainian energy sector in winter for humanitarian reasons - Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with Lukashenko, said that Russia was forced to respond to the Ukrainian series of attacks on the energy sector. Our country did not carry out such attacks in winter for humanitarian reasons, so as not to leave hospitals and schools without electricity.


If only Netanyahu had 0.01% the compassion.

Now that things are heating up in this way, Ukraine is in a froth over those Patriot systems:

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In fact, Bild’s Roepcke appears to claim that Ukraine has completely run out of the flagship AD missiles:

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Update:

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Unfortunately, here’s Germany’s Annalena Baerbock’s response:

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https://www.rt.com/news/595655-baerbock ... exhausted/
If you want to see how truly desperate the situation has gotten, get a load of this unhinged rant by EU lunatic Guy Verhofstadt: (Video at link.)


During all these urgent calls for new Patriots to be sent has anyone bothered to ask where the previously delivered Patriots have gone, by any chance? We were told they were totally unscratched after stopping all those Kinzhals. It seems perhaps that wasn’t entirely accurate.

In the meantime, Russian MOD published another video of a new Ukrainian S-300 being taken out by what’s likely an Iskander or Tornado-S near Odessa: (Video at link.)

But here’s where it starts getting interesting. What began as mere improbable rumor weeks ago is slowly starting to spin into a common thread of something going on in the Kharkov direction. My readers know I’m very open and honest about these things—when something feels speculative and merely ‘rumor’-based, I readily say so, as I hate clickbait and groundless rumorbait just as much as you do.

But when a certain critical mass of rumors and information is reached, sometimes our ears perk up and we’re forced to pay attention. Kharkov is a particularly sore spot in this regard merely because we’ve heard rumors for so long about all the possible “big arrow” offensives that could come down from the north. However, we must objectively admit that Russia has never gone after the Ukrainian energy infrastructure with as much commitment as is happening now.

So, to dress the table, here’s head of the Kharkov administration announcing they’ve made their decision on evacuating nearly 50 settlements and villages in the north Kharkov region close to the Russian border:

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Recall the parallel thread I’ve been following here with many citizens beginning to slowly flee Kharkov, sensing what may be coming their way. Also recall my own personal on the ground intelligence, which I wrote about several weeks ago, that said Russian villages on the border of Sumy were being quietly evacuated, with residents being offered money by Russian authorities to leave within a two month frame.

Russian ex-general and current Duma member commented on just this: )Video at link, interesting.)

And Ukrainian pundit Max Feigin even stated on air that Kharkov is in danger of being evacuated, and appears to state that city services are already removing secret documents—if I’m understanding correctly—so they don’t fall into Russian hands in the event of Kharkov’s fall: (Video at link.}


Josep Borrell, too, seemed to signal something big being imminent:

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But the most eye-opening piece of new information came in the latest Economist article centered on Kharkov:

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First, might I mention that the article begins with this quite thematic quote which shows the nature of what Russia’s up against:

Imagedn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe180ad2f-7682-4844-b4df-01953a776f56_1277x153.png[/img]

While describing the huge uptick in strikes on Ukraine’s “second city”, they make the first notable admission—that Russia may be looking to effectively force the city’s evacuation, as reportedly opined by ‘military sources’ in Kiev:

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So: according to them Russia is preparing for a ‘major summer offensive’ and is training a massive two-corps field army of six divisions in ‘eastern Siberia’, according to a high-ranking Ukrainian official.

That is extremely interesting because it gives us the first potential intel on what some of Shoigu’s newly constructed army corps could be doing. But more importantly, and what most will miss about this news, is the following:

The 120k number matches almost precisely with the number of troops Russia has been designating for each given sector or front. For instance, the Kupyansk-Kremennaya theater was said to have about 120-150k men. The Zaporozhye theater was said to have roughly that amount as well; and then the Donetsk also. Most of that information is compiled from various sources such as the Pentagon leaks, which gave Russian troop dispositions. But as an example, here’s an older out of date graphic I happened to find in my collection just to give a rough idea:

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You can see the Kupyansk theater with ~130k, the center group with 50k + 60k, and Zaporozhye with 50k that later grew to much more, not to mention they don’t count the nearby Kherson region’s grouping.

My point is that this number roughly corresponds to what Russia has been using for an entire given major front or sector. So if we are to assume, hypothetically, that this potential new 120k man structure is being trained as one cohesive grouping—an assumption based on the fact that they’re reportedly training together in the same region—under one command, ergo we can make the logical extension that this grouping is intended for a new theater. And what possible new front or theater could be opened up with such a large grouping? There is no room anywhere else to inject such a group other than into the north.

Admittedly, these are all very preliminary assumptions. No one really knows anything quite yet—the grouping could very well be meant as reserves to replace and rotate men all along the front, or the Economist’s “report” could be entirely fake. There were other rumors that Russia intended to inject a huge amount of new men into the Zaporozhye front and push a large new offensive there. But it really does strike me as quite ‘coincidental’ and my personal suspicions are up about a potential Kharkov direction.

However, one thing I’ll say is that even if that were to happen, I’m not necessarily expecting it to be any time soon, or even necessarily this year. We see now Russia moves fairly methodically at its own pace. The coming ‘summer offensive’ could very well be an increased tempo of actions along the current front, and the phantom 120k man group could be meant to open the Kharkov theater for winter or even spring next year, for example. After all, one thing to remember is that it takes up to a year to properly train a new recruit. It’s unknown what training level all those enlistments have, which have been coming in over the past year at a rate of ~30k per month. Many of them could be in training for a long time before being allowed to see any action.

And in case anyone asks: I’ve been talking for a long time about Shoigu’s new 500k man army meant to be a reserve against potential NATO attack. But they’ve already raised the full 500k, yet have not stopped recruiting. That means this year alone, they’ve already raised a new 50k—as of last reporting by Medvedev and Shoigu several weeks ago—and so, potentially taking 120k of the reserves for SMO action would not be a major reduction given that, at 30k per month, in only a few more months they can already replenish the total.

Russia appears to know something—here’s UN rep Nebenzya’s latest statement to the committee: (Video at link.)

"Very soon, the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional surrender of the Kiev regime, I advise all of you to prepare for this" - Nebenzya

(Much more at link, check it out.)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sit ... n-shock-as

******

Russia Expects 'Unconditional Capitulation' Of Kiev Regime

During yesterday's UN Security Council meeting Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, said:

"This is how it will go down in history - as an inhuman and hateful regime of terrorists and Nazis who betrayed the interest of their people and sacrificed it for Western money and for Zelenski and his closest circle.
In these conditions, attempts by the head of the Kiev regime to promote his formula and convene summits in support of the Kiev regime cause only confusion.

Very soon the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional capitulation of the Kiev regime.

I advise you all to prepare for this in advance."


Posted by b on April 12, 2024 at 7:42 UTC | Permalink

***

From the comments:

Zelensky's time is up in a bit over a month. He can skeedaddle to Israel though that is now slated for destruction, Use Bojo's passport to Porton Down and exotic Putin poison, be hung from a lamp post by Ukrainians, be dispatched in whatever way the ukraine nazis see fit, or spend life behind bars in Russia.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2024 9:17 utc | 13

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/r ... l#comments


******

10 years ago the Slavic epic began
April 12, 16:24

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It’s as if yesterday, 10 years ago, Strelkov’s detachment occupied the police station in Slavyansk.

The Slavic epic began, which continued until the first days of July 2014 and without which the DPR would hardly have been able to exist, since for a long time it was the militia group in Slavyansk and Kramatorsk that fettered the main forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbass. The combat path of many future DPR leaders began there.

(Video at link.)

We remember both the fallen and the living. Slavyansk will certainly be liberated and return to Russia.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9089003.html

Google Translator
(I remember...)

******

Ukraine and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant: The Samson Solution
APRIL 12, 2024

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Russian serviceman on the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. Photo: Sputnik/Konstantin Mihalchevskiy.

Ukraine continues its attacks on Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi warned that it came “quite close” to a nuclear accident on Sunday after it was attacked by drones.

Dr. Chris Busby, a physical chemist and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, shares his opinion about what the non-stop Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant could result in with Sputnik.

We all know the Biblical story of the end of Samson. Having been betrayed and captured by the Philistines, Samson ends his life, and all the others around him, by exerting his great strength and pulling down the pillar he was chained to. The building falls down, killing him and all his captors. This has always been my worry about what I will call the Ukrainian conflict.

As the developments go against Ukraine, there is an increasing tendency to abandon direct engagement with the Russian forces (lack of weapons, poor air cover, army losses) and rather to move to a kind of Terminator 2 warfare. Action at a distance, using robot drones and cruise missiles. A move towards a spiteful kind of warfare that is relatively cheap but results in politically spectacular results.


Well, so what – you may say. For me, as someone who has studied the effects of radiation and radioactive contamination, the possibilities relating to the six reactors and associated waste cooling ponds of the Zaporozhye nuclear site represent something which would have more effect on Europe and Ukraine and indeed the world than anything that has occurred so far.

For individuals in Ukraine, motivated by hatred and spite, the site is a tempting target. Do these people know what it is they are doing, or may do? I think they don’t. Or maybe, like Samson, they don’t care. They want to pull the house down. In this case, Europe, Russia, the world.

Of course, they have no idea what could happen if one of the reactors went up. Or a spent fuel pond. And let’s be clear, if one goes up, like the domino effect at Fukushima, probably they all go up. That is because nuclear fuel is hot. Even spent nuclear fuel is hot. The fuel in the reactor in shutdown, or in the spent fuel ponds, has to be cooled. If it is not cooled (by pumping water round it, or cooling the water in the ponds by spraying) then it gets hotter and hotter. Then it melts.

When nuclear fuel melts together it forms a critical mass. The neutron flux increases and increases. It turns into a kind of nuclear bomb. That explodes and sends radioactive material up in the air, as with Chernobyl, as with Fukushima.



The winds carry this Pandoras box contents for hundreds, even thousands of kilometres. The Chernobyl radiation went west, after contamination of an enormous tract of land and water courses, sending the contamination through Kiev, down the Dnepr to Zaporozhye and beyond. Studies of cancer and infant mortality, congenital malformations along the water route found significant effects, children died, from cancer, from heart attacks, the population of Belarus, the entire country showed a sharp increase in adult deaths, at the same time a sharp reduction in births.

As far away as Wales and Scotland children died from leukemia; I know this, I studied the numbers which were released to me when I was part of the UK Committee examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters, CERRIE. Babies developed leukemia in Germany and Greece. And the explosion of one reactor at Zaporozhye is a much bigger deal than Chernobyl.


How could this happen? There are a number of possibilities. First, a cruise missile attack on one of the reactor buildings could theoretically result in the penetration of one of the reactors. There are penetration warheads in existence now that can cut through concrete; using depleted uranium (DU) penetration.

Do we know what Ukraine has in the way of cruise missiles? I don’t. I read that France and UK have given Ukraine cruise missiles. Also depleted uranium weapons. Some of these went up at Khmelnitsky, as I wrote about. The material went north west to Poland, Belarus and Germany, round Scandinavia, and ended up (and was measured) in England. Ukraine has (it seems) promised not to use these cruise missiles to attack distant targets in Russia, or the Crimea bridge. Zaporozhye is not a distant target. It is just across the river (indeed there was an attack by boats).

Then there could be a fatal destruction of the control room and control facilities, so that the reactor goes mad and can’t be controlled. Then the cooling system could be knocked out. The electricity supply, the stand-by generators. Nuclear power stations are a very big target. They were never built to survive a war. It is no wonder that Rafael Grossi, the IAEA supremo, is worried.

The substances released by such an explosion include Caesium-137 with a half life of about 30 years. That means it’s around for 100 years or more. This causes cancer but also affects muscles, as in children’s heart muscles. They get arrythmias and die of heart attacks. The rate of arrythmias in children in Belarus is 15 %. In the rest of the world the background rate is 2%.

The contamination includes Strontium-90, which binds to DNA, causes cancer and kills children in the womb, or causes malformations. There are (of course) enormous amounts of Uranium particles. Uranium has a half life of billions of years. There is Plutonium. I can go on and on. And on. The radiation, focused inside the body, or the people, the animals, the plants, will destroy everything slowly.

But what about Chernobyl, you say, that hasn’t destroyed Europe. Well, just look at the cancer rates in Europe from 1986 onwards. In England, in the 1990s, about one in 6 developed cancer. In 2022 it was closer to one in 3. It is predicted (by WHO) to be soon 1 in 2. And this is adjusted for age. No one is asking why this epidemic has developed (except me).

The Samson option, will destroy the health of the population of Ukraine, Europe, Russia, and further afield. It would poison the productive land, crops would fail or else be poisonous.

The Samson option, it seems to me, is a possibility which I put in the same box in my head as Global Nuclear War. Ukraine has no nuclear weapons. But this can be done.

https://orinocotribune.com/ukraine-and- ... -solution/
"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 Apr 14, 2024 12:19 pm

Ten years of «ATO»
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/14/2024

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On April 14, 2014, in a solemn declaration to the nation, Oleksandr Turchinov, president of Ukraine in office since the irregular change of Government was consummated on February 24 of that year - the Revolution of Dignity for some and a coup state for those who demonstrated against -, announced the beginning of an anti-terrorist operation in the east of the country. Now, ten years later and with the distance that time allows, it can be seen that that moment was the definitive turning point towards the war and the catastrophe that has affected Donbass for an entire decade and the rest of Ukraine since 2022.

The events of the last 26 months, since the Russian invasion of February 2022, which occurred on the eighth anniversary of the Kiev coup, cannot be understood without taking into account what happened in the spring of 2014, when they sat down the bases were consolidated and the gaps were consolidated that made the political conflict become military. In this way, the diplomatic solution remained an acceptable option only in case of being able to impose one's own position without concessions on the other party, something that continues until the current moment, in which the possibility of negotiations is openly rejected by part of kyiv, which demands, as it did ten years ago, capitulation.

The week that culminated with Turchinov's announcement was, possibly, the most intense of a season of ups and downs that saw the overthrow of Yanukovych, the rebellion and Russian special operation in Crimea, the referendum and accession of the peninsula to Russia and finally the beginning of what throughout April would become the germ of the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Two days earlier, the de facto Ukrainian government , recognized by Western authorities, but not necessarily by the population of several regions of the country, had issued an ultimatum “to the separatists.” To this, and not to the emergence of the armed group led by Igor Girkin, Strelkov , responded the meeting of the National Security and Defense Council that on the night of April 13 to 14 agreed to the beginning of what for years would be known as “ ATO ”, the anti-terrorist operation with which Ukraine tried to defeat Donbass and which became the first euphemism of this war.

Although the protests in Donbass had begun practically immediately after the fall of Yanukovych and the first measures of the new Government, which did not take long to clearly show the population the nationalist agenda that was its reason for being, the movement that would lead to the proclamation on April 6 and 7, 2014 of the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics began after the annexation of Crimea. It was then that a movement that neither kyiv nor Moscow could control was truly reactivated and that, unlike in Crimea, where Sergey Aksyonov had emerged as the visible head, did not have a clear leader. That was one of its main characteristics and meant that, in its beginnings, it was not possible to co-opt the movement towards more moderate positions and that it could not be destroyed despite the rapid arrest of the person until then best known: Pavel Gubarev, proclaimed popular governor by the protesters.

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The capture of public buildings in the first week of April was understood by kyiv as an aggression that required to be stopped immediately. Neither the press nor Ukraine's new ruling class wanted to see the protests as a legitimate manifestation of a series of grievances. Neither were the similarities with the acts that Maidan had carried out in the capital and where the occupation of public buildings was the starting point. Throughout the Geneva dialogue process, in which both John Kerry representing the United States and Sergey Lavrov representing the Russian Federation participated, the return of occupied buildings to their rightful owners was one of the most discussed topics. In a feature that would be repeated throughout all the negotiation processes, the following weeks saw Ukraine demand that its opponents abandon occupied buildings, while not only refusing to vacate headquarters such as those of the Communist Party, but These ended up in the hands of the extreme right first and, in the long term, of the State, as happened with its building in Odessa. Ukraine and its partners demanded that the Donetsk protesters liberate the regional administration building, but did not see the equivalence between the actions of the Kiev protesters, presented as heroic, and those of the separatists , later terrorists who had captured to storm the Donetsk administration and the SBU building in Lugansk.

In his eagerness to show that he had complied with what his foreign partners demanded, the then prime minister held a round of talks, a dialogue that should have been plural, but was limited to sectors favorable to Maidan and oligarchs to whom he had handed over the regional power. This was the case of Donetsk, a city that Yatseniuk visited on April 7 and where he did not meet at any time with the protesters, who had captured the building, leaving industrialist Serhiy Taruta without a workplace. Maidan, which had stated that it would fight against the oligarchy, had handed over power in Donetsk, a key region for Ukraine, to one of its own against the opinion of the local population, whose voice was now irrelevant to the authorities in kyiv. That maxim was maintained during the negotiations of the two Minsk agreements and subsequently throughout the seven years of the peace process, in which Ukraine always demanded compliance with the points that favored it - especially the handover of border control. and the disarmament of the armies of the Popular Republics - without ever giving any indication that they intend to do their part. Kiev never missed the opportunity to insist that it would not negotiate politically with the separatists , described as terrorists, even if Ukraine never bothered to legally declare the DPR and the LPR terrorists.

In its initial phase, before the anti-terrorist operation began sending special forces, units made up of far-right soldiers from groups that would soon be organized into Andriy Biletsky's Azov battalion and the first armored vehicles, the tension was seen by the press Western world as something temporary that would fall under its own weight. After its proclamation before the building of regional power, still today the headquarters of the DPR, the “autonomy of a single building” was the target of ridicule. “No one really expects that the People's Republic, the resurgence of the short-lived Donetsk Republic that emerged amid the chaos that followed the Russian communist revolution of 1917, will last beyond the next few days,” wrote, for example, the correspondent of The New York Times . The Financial Times , for its part, described the protesters, who were beginning to hold press conferences to demand their rights from Kiev, as a “diverse group of Gubarev followers, academics and balaclava-clad factory workers.” Only those who did not understand the proletarian origin of Donbass, an industrial and working-class region since the industrialization of the 19th century, could be surprised that a popular movement counted, among its first exponents, people from the working class. And only those who sought to impose the Maidan agenda on an industrial region, whose economy had nothing to gain and everything to lose from the Euro-Atlantic path chosen by post-Maidan Ukraine, could believe that everything was simply a repetition of what happened in Crimea and they always preferred to see Moscow's hand .

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With the police route ruled out due to the authorities' refusal to forcibly assault buildings in which, armed only with Molotov cocktails and stones, civilians remained whose grievances were shared by a large part of the population, Ukraine opted to renounce dialogue - which usually involves concessions - and by the ultimatum to the protesters when the tension had not yet reached a point of no return. Almost the entire protest was still civil and only small groups like Strelkov's - 52 people who took over the Slavyansk police station without using force - were armed. No effective control by these republics of a handful of buildings could have been consolidated in Donbass without the support of an increasingly important part of the population, which saw Ukraine's attitude as a form of aggression. The decision on April 13 to start an anti-terrorist operation , a legal figure that allowed Kiev to use the army on national territory, is due to the authoritarianism of those who seek to impose their style of government and their way of understanding the country's culture and identity on the entire population and prefers the use of force instead of giving voice to the legitimate feeling of grievance of regions that felt excluded from the economic, political and social path that the capital had chosen for the entire country.

The renunciation of the political route condemned Ukraine to the anti-terrorist operation and the failure of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov's men in capturing the armed groups once again forced the new Government to make a decision. Again, between the possibility of de-escalation and dialogue, kyiv chose, only partly under pressure from far-right groups such as the Praviy Sektor, to up the ante. From the police it had already passed to the special forces and finally to the reticent Armed Forces and the nationalist volunteer battalions, they were willing to shoot against the civilian population of Donbass, whom they always considered inferior. The decisions taken throughout that spring condemned Donetsk and Lugansk to the very harsh summer of 2014 and the bloody campaign of the winter of 2015 and to seven years of a state of neither war nor peace during the Minsk process, finally broken by the Russian recognition of the independence of the DPR and the LPR on February 22, 2022, two days before Russian troops invaded Ukraine and spread a war to the entire country that began with the proclamation of the anti-terrorist operation by a de facto president and a Government that never had the intention of listening to the voice of two of the regions that both then and now it claims to consider its own. Ten years later, Ukraine continues to demand the recovery of the territory and deny the population a voice and vote, promising only the punishment it has long wanted to impose.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/14/diez-anos-de-ato/

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 April 13, 2024)

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to conduct a special military operation.

- In the Avdeevsky direction, units of the “Center” group of troops liberated the village of Pervomaiskoye of the Donetsk People’s Republic through active and selfless actions.

In addition, eight counterattacks by assault groups of the 25th Airborne, 59th Motorized Infantry, 68th Jaeger, 23rd, 24th and 115th Mechanized Brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were repelled in the areas of the settlements of Umanskoye, Pervomaiskoye, Krasnogorovka, Berdychi and Leninskoye of the Donetsk People's Republic.

The enemy lost up to 235 military personnel, two armored combat vehicles, three cars, as well as a 122 mm D-30 howitzer.

- In the Donetsk direction, units of the “Southern” group of troops occupied more advantageous positions, defeated the manpower and equipment of the 79th air assault and 46th airmobile brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Krasnogorovka and Antonovka of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

Two attacks by enemy assault groups south of the settlement of Novomikhailovka, Donetsk People's Republic were also repelled.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 500 military personnel, a tank, three armored combat vehicles, 23 vehicles and a combat vehicle of the Strela-10 anti-aircraft missile system.

During the counter-battery fight, two 155 mm M777 howitzers made in the USA, a 152 mm D-20 howitzer and a 122 mm D-30 howitzer were hit.

- In the Kupyansk direction, units of the “West” group of troops improved the situation along the front line, defeated the formation of the 54th mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near the city of Kupyansk, Kharkov region, and repelled three attacks by assault groups of the 12th special forces brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of ​​the village of Chervonaya Dibrova, Luhansk region People's Republic.

Enemy losses amounted to up to 25 military personnel, three pickup trucks, a Polish-made 155 mm Krab self-propelled artillery mount, a 152 mm Akatsiya self-propelled artillery mount, a 152 mm D-20 howitzer, as well as a Nota electronic warfare station.

- In the South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok group of forces improved the tactical situation and defeated the formations of the 58th motorized infantry brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the 128th terrestrial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Staromayorskoye and Urozhaynoye of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Enemy losses amounted to more than 110 military personnel, four pickup trucks, a Polish-made 155 mm Krab self-propelled artillery mount, a US-made 155 mm M777 howitzer, and a Nota electronic warfare station.

- In the Kherson direction, units of the Dnepr group of troops inflicted fire on the personnel and equipment of the 121st and 126th territorial defense brigades in the areas of the settlements of Mikhailovka and Ivanovka, Kherson region.

The losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine amounted to up to 65 military personnel, three vehicles, a 155 mm M777 howitzer made in the USA, a 155 mm howitzer FH-70 made in the UK, as well as a 155 mm Krab self-propelled artillery mount made in Poland.

- Operational-tactical aviation, missile forces and artillery of groupings of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation defeated the personnel and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 112 regions. During the day, air defense systems shot down 222 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, eight rockets from the HIMARS and Vampire multiple launch rocket systems, as well as a JDAM guided aerial bomb.

In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 583 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 20,826 unmanned aerial vehicles, 501 anti-aircraft missile systems, 15,767 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,266 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 8,849 field artillery guns and mortars , as well as 20,960 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

Ukraine Weekly Update
12th April 2024

DR. ROB CAMPBELL
APR 12, 2024

<snip>

Donetsk Aged 10 - 7th April 2024

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Happy Anniversary!

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April 10th was also the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Odessa from the NAZIS. During the 907 day occupation of the city, 82,000 of the city’s residents were killed and another 78,000 deported to forced labour camps in Germany. On May 1st 1945, Odessa was declared a ‘hero city’. Now Odessa is waiting for liberation from a modern version of Nazism.

Dmitry on Fire

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This statement follows the interrogation of Crocus suspects which revealed that they were advised that a path would be cleared for them (including mine clearance) so that they could cross the border safely into Ukraine. A definite connection between the terrorists and the Ukraine intelligence service has been established but Medvedev believes that connections to Western leaders and the terror attacks have also been made.

Unconditional Surrender

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Zhukov signs Germany’s unconditional surrender Berlin - May 8th 1945

Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, has responded to the peace initiative hosted by Switzerland which excluded Russia. ‘Very soon’, he said:

…the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional surrender of the Kyiv regime. I advise you all to prepare for this in advance.

Maria Zakharova suggested that Russia would not be attending any peace conferences based on the Zelensky model - which ignores reality - and questioned Switzerland’s neutral status, the lack of which disqualifies it from hosting such conferences in relation to the Ukraine conflict.

<snip>

Criminal Lack of Training

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Dmitry Lubinets, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, in an interview with Suspilnye Novosti, said that Kiev is throwing young men into battle without any training. Men are mobilised and sent to the front in just a couple of days whereas they should be trained for at least three months, yet no one is punished, he said.

25 Patriots Needed - Z

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The once great Z has called for 25 new Patriot systems with 6-8 launchers each. I’d like a Hymer Camper van but it’s never going to happen. The Patriots cost at least $1 billions each. He also admitted that the Ukrainians do not possess sufficient missiles for offensive actions but have enough for defence - which is doubtful. I read somewhere that only 4 of these Patriot systems are produced in a year.

Yermak - No Compromises

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Andriy Yermak, spokesman for Zelensky’s office, has announced that Ukrainians will never compromise with Putin, who, he believes, does not wish to negotiate. This is odd coming from the spokesman of an administration that has outlawed negotiations with Russia. The fact that Ukrainians are staying in Ukraine with their families is testimony to their determination in the face of Russian aggression, even though they are tired of war - he said. But the truth is that people are leaving Ukraine and will continue to do so.

More Ukrainian Woes

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Ukrainian Telegram channel legitimniy is reporting that the Ukrainian army is suffering a shortage of ammunition which Kiev is unlikely to be able to resolve. But some commentators on Ukrainian channels have also pointed to low morale within the army and an increasing number of ‘leaving positions/surrendering’ especially around Chasov Yar. Others, who now appreciate that the war cannot be won, talk about the country’s inability to increase mobilisation and are critical of Z for refusing to negotiate simply to keep himself and his entourage in power and at the feeding trough. On April 9th, one commentator on legitimniy gave the following assessment of situation on the fronts which is as gloomy as the rest of the report which you can read here:

Puzzle 7. Front
The situation at the front is deplorable. Almost a disaster. There is little ammunition, little equipment, and few people. Morale is low and many are depressed. Tension between officers and soldiers is growing. The soldiers quietly hate Ze-power and the General Staff. The Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to lose ground. The front is sinking.


The assessment of Russia in this report does not read well for Ukrainians:

Puzzle 6. Enemy.
The enemy (Russian Federation), during this time, strengthened itself politically, economically, and industrially. They are producing more and more equipment, ammunition, UAVs, missiles, etc. Support for the Russian Federation on the world stage has not decreased, but increased. There are more people stirring up schemes with the Kremlin. There are already fewer people inside Ukraine who think that the arrival of Russia is bad and terrible (the number of those who don’t care what flag is, the main thing is peace and tranquility), is growing especially.


The once great Z is equally pessimistic and has been criticised for recent speeches which have been ‘depressing’. In one recent interview he warned that Ukraine will lose the war without US aid and that Russia will then launch a nuclear attack on ‘other countries’. He blamed the US congress for all this because it did not approve Ukraine’s funding - according to Slavyangrad. Polish President, Donald Tusk, doesn’t share Z’s hysteria, suggesting that a Russian attack of any kind against European countries is unlikely.

His Nose is Growing

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The New Yorker is carrying a story from Luke Mogelson who was on the front line in Ukraine recently and talked to Ukrainian officers. These officers ridiculed Z ‘s claim that only 31,000 Ukrainians had been killed. Mogelson compared the once great Z with Pinocchio - who couldn’t stop his nose growing when he lied. Z also promised a new offensive once the West sends the weapons - hey it’s still growing. According to Z’s logic:

Yes, we have a counteroffensive plan. We will definitely win. We have no alternative. But I cannot promise this and name a date.

So, the Ukrainians will win because they must (i.e. should), which can’t count as an argument really. Such ‘thinking’ is commonplace among Western leaders who employ moral imperatives as part of their ‘logic’ - as I have said a number of times before.

Kiev Anti-Cemetery Protests

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Hundreds of protesters gathered in Kiev this week - but not for an end to the war, which would have been great. No, these people were protesting about the destruction of 260 hectares of forest in order to accommodate their menfolk in cemeteries. When people feel more motivated to protest about trees than they do about men there is something seriously wrong with that society. It’s the Green Curse.

<snip>

Chasov Yar

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With Chasov Yar on the verge of collapse, the once great Z is prioritising the spending of some 6 millions hyrvnia to rename the streets. Do you not realise, Mr. Zelensky, that plaques with street names are likely to get buried under the rubble once the Fab-1500s have finished their work. And when the dust clears and Russians occupy Chasov Yar, they will choose Russian heroes to name their streets after. But Z is after that transient moment of defiance when image attempts to defy reality but can do so only fleetingly.

On Monday 8th April, the village of Bogdanovka, on the flank of Chasov Yar, was captured. On the 9th April, the Two Majors reported that the Ukrainians are not allowing civilians to leave and are forcing them out of basements which they then occupy themselves leaving the people vulnerable to Russian attacks.

On the 10th April, the Military Chronicle gave this update:

The Russian army is launching a frontal triple strike on Chasiv Yar - the same one was used in Avdiivka and Artemivsk. The offensive is taking place in the central part directly in the residential area, from the north from the side of Bogdanovka and in the south from the side of the village of Krasnoye along the gullies. Thus, the eastern district of the city "Canal" will be taken in pincers.

It appears that an Azov brigade has refused orders to go to Chasov Yar because they consider the city to be lost already. The orders came from Syrsky.

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Azov Brigade

Zaporizhye

Sorry there’s no map - I’m having problems finding English versions - so I need to obtain new sources.

Fighting has been going on around Rabotino and Verbove for what seems like an eternity. On April 10th, the Military Chronicle reported that:

Near Orekhove and Malaya Tokmachka, the enemy is building fortifications and preparing for a long-term defense. It is reported about the appearance of foreign mercenaries in the area, due to the loss of the initiative of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

On April 12th, according to the Military Chronicle, fighting continued in the centre of Rabotino.

Avdeevka

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By the end of the week, fighting continued West of Avdeevka. In the area of Berdychi, stubborn battles continue for the northern outskirts of the village and landings in the direction of Ocheretyne - according to the Military Chronicle. To the north of Avdeevka the Russians are advancing west in the direction of Novokalinovo and Keramik.

(Much more at link.)

https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukra ... update-b97

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Here's a dandy map of pre 2014 Ukraine:

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"Quoth the Raven, nevermore."

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Events in Ukraine - April 1-14

Dead teens in the capital, corrupt debauchery in the name of drones in Lviv, clowns safe from mobilization, tiktok trends, Zelensky vs oligarchs

EVENTS IN UKRAINE
APR 14, 2024

I’ll begin with anti-social behavior. It might seem individualistic, but it expresses plenty of broader processes.
In Kiev, a 16 year old was killed in front of his friends by a 30 year old war veteran. The group was accosted by the drunk veteran late at night - he demanded to know ‘what you have done for the fatherland’. He beat and pushed the 16 year old into a window, where he suffered fatal glass cuts. When the veteran realized what he had done, he first tried to run away, was stopped by the dead boy’s friends. Then he tried to save the boy, but it was too late. He has been imprisoned but denies his guilt.

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Meanwhile, the central Ukrainian city of Zhitomyr has seen three 17 year olds kill a pensioner, beating him to death. In March, some young skinheads were arrested for filming their attacks on pensioners in the western region of Ivano-Frankivsk.

Next up, corruption -
among those who we would least expect it - the military ‘volunteers’ who make their living by raising money for the army and browbeating dirty commoners who resist mobilization. Lviv, the Piedmonte of Ukrainian nationalism and liberal European values, has won the contest of most corrupt Ukrainian city for the third year in a row.

A party called ‘Piemont’ held by volunteers to raise funds for the army was revealed to have cost more than it raised. Enough money to buy 7 FlyFish drones was raised. Unfortunately, the cost of merely renting the wonderful resort where the party was held would have been enough to buy 17 such drones. Local journalists estimate that if all the costs are put together, it would have been enough to buy 60 drones.

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The party to supposedly raise money for drones took place in the ‘Edem Resort and

(Paywall)

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... april-1-14

****

Very slim pickings....
"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 Apr 15, 2024 1:43 pm

Mobilization, weapons and new tactics: the changes of war
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/15/2024

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The adoption of the law on mobilization to expand recruitment and replenish the ranks of the exhausted Armed Forces of Ukraine and the insistence on obtaining funds from the United States to maintain the defense throughout 2024 with the dream of planning an offensive for 2025 These are sufficient arguments to see that the dynamics of war have changed. Only the most fanatical pro-Ukrainian representatives or media now repeat the mantra of the certainty of Ukrainian victory and although attempts to affirm that “Russia is running out of tanks” persist, as the Spanish version of the Huffington Post did last week , it is time to exaggerate the risk of defeat to justify the need to increase the flow of military assistance from the United States and the European Union. According to Ukrainian representatives, the freedom of the entire continent depends on it, whose moral obligation is to militarily defeat Russia and break relations with one of its main powers. kyiv's freedom to impose its nationalist agenda on the entire country and the Euro-Atlantic option of breaking with the neighboring country deserve these changes, which must begin with the massive delivery of Patriot anti-aircraft systems, the new miracle weapon with which Zelensky's team It promises to hold on this year to offer its partners next year the offensive that failed in 2023.

The insistence on anti-aircraft munitions is another irrefutable sign that Ukraine is at its most vulnerable since the summer of 2022, when it was able to stop the Russian offensive in the south and east and missile attacks against it had not yet begun against the country's infrastructure. As shown by the strength of Ukraine in the Black Sea, where without the need for a navy it has managed to practically leave the Russian fleet out of the game of war, this weakness does not indicate the possibility of imminent defeat of which some European representatives have wanted to warn in his attempt to justify the militarization of the continent and the sending of long-range missiles to destroy, for example, the bridge that connects Crimea and continental Russia. However, the current situation shows something equally worrying for Ukraine: its inability to militarily defeat Russia, which rules out any possibility of peace without concessions, the only acceptable option for kyiv, which considered the minimum political rights that Minsk provided for Donbass unaffordable. . Ukraine's opinion has not only not changed, but has consolidated. The Russian invasion gave Zelensky the chance to regain his “Crimea Declaration,” which promised to use all available means to regain control of the peninsula. Until February 24, 2022, these means were only political, diplomatic and communicative, while currently it demands Taurus missiles to liberate the region with which to destroy Russian bases and access to the peninsula.

Kirilo Budanov's dream of reaching Crimea before the summer of 2023 is behind him and Ukraine's inability to break the Zaporozhie front towards Melitopol has limited kyiv's possibilities on the peninsula to missile attacks, possible only if the flow of assistance from their partners. Interested in continuing to undermine Russian capabilities in the Black Sea, it is foreseeable that allies such as the United Kingdom, a traditional naval power that considers the area strategic, will continue to supply Ukraine with the material and intelligence necessary to continue with the tactic of attacks in the rear. , whose value is both tactical and propaganda. However, the fate of the war is played out on the land front and that is where all the parties in the conflict are concentrating. The situation in the east “has deteriorated significantly,” Oleksandr Sirsky admitted last Saturday in reference to the Donbass front, the center of Russian offensive military operations since the approach to Avdeevka began last October once the defeat of the counteroffensive had been consolidated. Ukrainian.

The change in the trend in the war is due to various factors, among which the use of aviation stands out, which, unlike the fleet, has been less vulnerable to the asymmetric war that Ukraine has tried to carry out and in which, in At times, it has had to resort to propaganda to claim imaginary victories. This is the case of the recent attack on the Rostov airport, a civil infrastructure now converted into an important base for the Russian air effort. “Six Russian aircraft destroyed by drones, Ukraine claims,” the British BBC headlined on April 5 . There was no evidence to support the claim and the satellite images from before and after the attack were so clear that even the Neocon Institute for the Study of War admitted that there was no evidence of damage to any of the Russian aircraft present. Despite constant Ukrainian claims about downings of Russian fighters, the relatively high examples of mechanical failures or friendly fire, and the poor reputation of Russian aviation, even representatives of the United States have confirmed their ability to act and recover from casualties.

“The overall message I would give you is that [the Russian military] is back to what it was before,” U.S. Gen. Christopher Cavoli, who heads European Command, said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. According to Politico , “in a written statement, Cavoli also warned that the Russian army has even more troops than when it launched its full invasion in February 2022. Moscow has also increased its frontline troops from 360,000 to 470,000 soldiers.” “Aviation has lost some aircraft, but only about 10% of the fleet,” he added in reference to the VKS, contradicting the Ukrainian discourse and insisting on the idea that he had already raised almost a year ago in Tallinn, when he stated that “ The air force has lost fewer than 100 fighters and bombers. They have about a thousand left” and insisted that “when we talk about the Russian army, we have to study it in all areas. And we have to be prepared to confront the Russian army in the future in all areas.” To the surprise of Ukraine, which, believing its own propaganda, thought that the arrival of Patriots would eliminate Russia's operational advantage in the fight for control of the skies, aviation is one of the two aspects for which it is now begging for more anti-aircraft systems and ammunition. at the risk of “losing the war.”

The evident lack of ammunition for its air defense systems after the interruption of US military assistance, still mired in the internal struggles typical of an election year, has opened the door for Russian attacks to cause damage much greater than that of the winter rear attack campaign of 2022-2023. “Russia resumes major attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure using better intelligence and new tactics,” AP headlined on April 5 before, six days later, a new attack destroyed Kiev's most important power plant using subsonic X-69 missiles . “The volume and precision of the recent attacks have alarmed the country's defenders, who say Kremlin forces now have better information and new tactics in their campaign to wipe out Ukraine's power grid and cripple its economy. "Apparently, Moscow has also learned to take advantage of gaps in Ukrainian air defenses," added AP , insisting that the country's most important private energy company, DTEK, owned by the group of oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, lost 80% of its ability to generate power during the attacks between March 22 and 29 due to damage that will take months to repair. Unlike previous campaigns, in which attacks focused on the distribution of electrical energy, Russia is now also focusing on the ability to produce energy. With this, the Russian Federation seeks, for example, to slow down the use of railways, a key transport for supplying troops, and, above all, force Ukraine to use its scarce anti-aircraft ammunition far from the front, causing loopholes that it hopes to use. to advance on the Ukrainian positions.

With greater capacity for action in the skies of the eastern front, the key weapon at the moment is the guided bomb, which is causing great damage to the Ukrainian ranks and which threatens the already weak network of fortifications improvised after the fall from Avdeevka. “Russian aviation has played a limited role since the February 2022 invasion. Indeed, the war has been defined by ground battles that one Ukrainian officer described as something akin to World War I plus the latest technology : trenches, but with drones,” the Financial Times wrote last week in an article that added that “in recent months, as the back-and-forth fighting has slowed and the opposing armies have dug in, the air war has heated up.” The medium refers to Ukrainian attacks against Russian refineries, Russians against energy infrastructure and use on the front lines. “The experience of recent months and weeks shows that the enemy has significantly increased aviation activity, using guided aerial bombs that destroy our positions,” Sirsky said last March. Since then, the situation has worsened for Ukraine, creating even more Ukrainian and Western concern about the fate of the Eastern Front.

“Guided weapons are commonly called glide bombs and consist of decades-old projectiles that are typically launched from Su-34 and Su-35 warplanes directly onto targets. By adding cheap deployable wings and a satellite navigation system, these old dumb bombs can now be dropped by Russian bombers far behind the front line and out of range of Ukraine's air defense systems," explains Financial Times to describe the weapon Ukraine is now trying to respond to. On Saturday, the Ukrainian aviation announced the use of guided bombs donated by France on the front. However, the weakness of Ukrainian aviation in relation to the Russian one means that its possible effects will be noticeably lower than the Russian ones. The importance of guided bombs is their lethality and efficiency. “For them, it is much cheaper than using hundreds of thousands of artillery shells when one of those bombs is going to destroy several buildings,” says a soldier quoted by the media. Simple and affordable to produce and effective on the front, where according to Dmitro Kuleba his soldiers “are being massively and I would say routinely attacked by guided bombs that erase our positions from the map”, they also have the advantage that, in the words of the Ukrainian minister , “they are very simple in their nature, so you cannot interfere with them and you cannot hide from them.” “The only way to protect yourself is to shoot down the bomber that carries the bombs,” Kuleba insisted, once again demanding more anti-aircraft systems and ammunition from his partners to be able to defend cities and critical infrastructure and attack Russian aviation on the front and in the area. rear. This is where the Patriot systems become especially important, not necessarily more powerful than the S-300 that Ukraine had, but whose ammunition is much more difficult to find on the market, since it is Russia that produces and trades them. Ukraine's prayers have already been answered. On Saturday, Germany, the second supplier to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, announced the shipment of a new Patriot system.

The growing use of aviation on the front at a time of increasing air attacks - with missiles or drones - in the rear of both countries is a preview of what may be a more complex summer than that of a year ago, when the expected Land advance quickly became a war of attrition. Whether or not the Russian offensive that Ukraine and its Western partners predict occurs, the current movements show the desire to resolve more quickly what until now had been carried out with the slowness implied by artillery duels. The first attempt, which possibly marks the possibilities of a larger-scale offensive on the Donetsk front, is the battle for Chasov Yar, where the use of aviation, especially guided bombs, already seems much superior to what occurred, for For example, in the battle for nearby Artyomovsk.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/15/29550/

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 April 15, 2024) The main thing:

the Russian Armed Forces have improved the tactical situation in the Avdeevka direction;

— The Russian Armed Forces destroyed the command and observation post of the battalion of the 13th brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine;

— The Vostok group of troops improved the situation along the front line in the South Donetsk direction within 24 hours;

— Units of the Southern Group of the Russian Armed Forces occupied more advantageous positions in the Donetsk direction;

— The Russian Armed Forces improved the situation along the front line and inflicted fire damage on the manpower and equipment of two enemy brigades in the Kupyansk direction;

— Air defense systems of the Russian Armed Forces shot down 270 Ukrainian UAVs and 6 HIMARS MLRS shells in the special operation zone during the day;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 420 military personnel in the Donetsk direction;

— The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces per day in the Avdiivka direction amounted to 295 military personnel.

▫️In the South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok group of troops improved the situation along the front line and defeated the formations of the 72nd mechanized, 58th motorized infantry brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 128th terrestrial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Urozhaynoye, Vodyanoye and Staromayorskoye of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Enemy losses amounted to up to 90 military personnel, three vehicles, a 155 mm M777 howitzer made in the USA, a 155 mm howitzer FH-70 made in Great Britain, as well as a 122 mm howitzer D-30 .

▫️In the Kherson direction, units of the Dnepr group of troops inflicted fire on the personnel and equipment of the 65th mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of ​​​​the settlement of Rabotino, Zaporozhye region.

The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces amounted to up to 60 military personnel, two vehicles, a 155 mm FH-70 howitzer made in Great Britain and a 152 mm D-20 gun .

▫️ Operational-tactical aviation, missile forces and artillery from groupings of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation destroyed the command and observation post of the battalion of the 13th brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine, and also defeated the personnel and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 110 regions.

During the day, air defense systems shot down 270 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles and six HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems .

▫️In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed : 583 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 21,137 unmanned aerial vehicles, 502 anti-aircraft missile systems, 15,789 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,266 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 8,884 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 21,050 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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LENIN REVISED — RUSSIAN MILITARY POWER MEANS DE-ELECTRIFICATION AND UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER OF THE KIEV REGIME

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by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

It was a relatively bright day, November 21, 1920, when Vladimir Lenin, having won the civil war and driven off the American, British, French, Canadian, and Australian invasion forces, announced: “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country, since industry cannot be developed without electrification.”

Come November 2024 it will be a century and four years to count what Lenin meant, and how Russia is proving itself against everything which the military industries, special forces, weapons, intelligence so-called, operations, and plans of the old invasion coalition, plus Germany, can throw at it. So on November 21, 2024, it will be time to revise Lenin’s maxim to read: Russia is military power plus the de-electrification of the countries which attack it.

This is electric war.

To make the war aim unambiguously clear, President Vladimir Putin ordered his ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Vasily Nebenzya (lead image, left), to read out a paper at his desk in the UN Security Council chamber on April 11: “very soon, the only topic for international meetings in Ukraine will be the unconditional surrender of the Kiev regime.”

Note what the terms “unconditional surrender of the Kiev regime” mean: total military defeat of the Ukrainian, American, British, French, Polish, and other forces on the Ukrainian territory and in the air surrounding; surrender of the municipal administrations of the east-bank cities, including Kharkov, Dniepropetrovsk, and Odessa; disarmament and demilitarization of the territory between Kiev and the Polish border; exit of every member of the regime, starting with Vladimir Zelensky.

This is an ultimatum without alternatives for either Moscow or Kiev. In electric war, are there any alternatives?

Nebenzya was making his announcement on the evening of Thursday, April 11, Kiev time. In the time it took for his text to be drafted, edited by the Foreign Ministry, authorized at the Kremlin, and Nebenzya given the go-ahead, it had been only a few hours after the lights of Kiev went out when the Tripolskaya power station was destroyed by a new Russian missile, the X-69 (lead image, right).

THE GEOGRAPHY OF TARGETING IN THE ELECTRIC WAR TO DATE
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Click to enlarge key and identify locations: https://t.me/rezervsvo/53515
The strike against the Tripolskaya plant was carried out by X-69 missiles fired by Su-34 or Su-35 aircraft flying at a range of up to 400 kilometres from the targets. The aircraft were in Russian airspace, out of range of Ukrainian Patriot and other air defence batteries; the missiles, however, penetrated the air defence screen around Kiev and could not be intercepted. Source: https://t.me/s/Slavyangrad

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Source: https://www.ft.com/
Note the single, tiny yellow blip southwest of Donetsk which the Anglo-American mapmaker calls “Ukrainian claimed counteroffensive”.

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As of April 10, 2024: Source: https://t.me/sputniklive/78749

Boris Rozhin, whose Colonel Cassad military blog broadly represents General Staff thinking, reports the operational breakthrough demonstrated on April 11, and explains what the maps of current targeting foreshadow for the next round of strikes, and the rounds after that. Rozhin republishes his analysis from RT, the state media organ.

“By the evening of April 11, Ukrainian sources reported that air-launched X-69 missiles could be used to hit the Tripolskaya TPP [Thermal Power Plant]. So far, there is no confirmation of this information, but it is worth studying these missiles in more detail. Their range is almost 20 times less than that of the X-101 missiles [equivalent to about 250-500 kilometres], the carriers of which are strategic aircraft of the Aerospace Forces [Tu-95]. In their [X-69] function, they are closer to the foreign [Anglo-French] Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles, which are being attempted for strikes on the Crimean Bridge. The [X-69’s] long range of the 300 km could be enough if the launches of missiles were carried out from the territory of the Bryansk region. If the use of missiles is confirmed in the future, it will mean that no energy facility of the Ukraine on the Dnieper River can work safely, and the strike capabilities of the Aerospace Forces have multiplied.” https://t.me/rt_russian/197065

“Several factors have led to the weakening of the air defence in Ukraine, among which in the first place is the disproportionately high consumption of expensive anti-[aircraft] missiles SAMP-T, and Patriot, as well as daily losses of the foreign air defence systems near the front line. They have been deployed there to prevent Russian aircraft, or at least reduce their activity, but as a consequence, the foreign air defence systems themselves have become the target. And so the circle is closed — medium-range air defence systems cannot be placed on energy facilities now due to the risk of destruction; in the event they are destroyed, the West is in no hurry to replace the launchers and radars. As a result, the key energy facilities remain unprotected; it becomes easier to hit them; and for combined strikes it is no longer necessary to use [Russian] strategic aviation, as it was at the beginning of the SVO or throughout the past year. These circumstances allow the Russian Defense Ministry to reduce the consumption of long-range X-101 missiles, and open up for the General Staff the opportunity to expand the operational horizon in striking, and consider the following global steps, for which long-range means of destruction will be required.”

“What goals can be affected after Tripolskaya? If you compare the range of the X-69 missiles with the location of energy facilities on the Dnieper, you can find that due to the shortage of air defences, the presence of cheap cruise missiles, and the large number of combatants from the Russian side, you can organize a massive strike on any target in the central part of Ukraine. It is noteworthy that a significant part of the TPP [thermal power plant], CHP [combined heat and power plant], and HPPs [hydroelectric power plant] on the Dnieper have already been attacked once or several times. But with the use of the X-69, the cost of which is several times less than X-101/X-555, the destruction of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure can reach a fundamentally new level.”

“At the same time, the cumulative effect of the blows continues to shake the Ukrainian energy network: the sudden loss of 1.8 GW of generation against the background of the destruction of the Tripolskaya thermal power plant and the general shortage of electricity is a serious and unsolved problem for the foreseeable future. There are not so many partially functioning and as yet not fully destroyed targets; three of them – Zmievskaya, Pridneprovskaya, and Kryvorizhska [Krivoy Rog] are now within reach of the X-69 missiles. For the final destruction of similar facilities in the west of Ukraine (Burshtyn and Dobrotrytskaya TPP) a combined missile strike with the use of long-range X-101 can be carried out.”

For a guide to the measurement units of electricity generation and consumption, click to read.

MAP OF LOCATIONS OF UKRAINE POWER GENERATING PLANTS BY TYPE
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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

“Given the fact that the Thermal Power Plants (TPP), as well as the hydropower plants [HPP], in the Ukraine play an important role in the system and have played the role of the energy balancer, their destruction will lead to the fact that there will be no stable electricity in the electricity system of the eastern and central part of the Ukraine. And without that it is impossible not only for industry to function, but also any normal life, not to mention serious military capabilities.”

The Ukraine has published electricity capacity levels before the war reaching their peak on January 25, 2022 — according to Ukrenergo figures, reported by the International Energy Agency (IEA) — of 21.13GW. Ukrainian demand on that day was 21.91GW.

Ukrenergo figures were last published for October 27, 2022, when the first phase of the electric war was under way. Generation amounted to 10.71GW; demand to 10.77GW. The estimated capacity which survived at the end of last month, after the electric war had resumed, was estimated in Colonel Cassad reporting on March 30 at 7.8GW.

Imports of electricity from the surrounding EU states were peaking last month, on March 26, at 18,649 MW per hour, or about 779.2MW of EU generating capacity; that is just over 10% of domestic generation. The figure is considerable for a single day and expensive, whether Kiev or the Europeans pay. For how long the Ukraine and its EU neighbours can agree to keep up the rate or expand it, is unknown. The line capacity from the EU networks was at 1.7GW by late last year. On paper, that looks like double last month’s peak. Russian attacks on the transmission grid inside Ukraine are likely to reduce that.

At best, on paper, the current generating capacity of solar energy plants is about 5GW; wind power, 1.3GW. In fact, according to the last report of the International Energy Agency (IEA) of electricity generation by source, dated February 25, 2022, the solar plants were producing just 0.10GW, wind plants, 0.04GW. The IEA data came from Ukrenergo, the Kiev state utility. Most of the Ukraine’s renewable energy sources are in the southeast of country, behind or just forward of the front.

CHART OF UKRAINE ELECTRICITY GENERATION BY SOURCE TO FEBRUARY 25, 2022
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Click to enlarge view. In the IEA’s last public record on February 25, 2022, Ukrainian nuclear plants were producing 8.42GW, coal 3.82GW, hydro 1.28GW, natural gas 0.47GW, solar 0.10GW, and wind 0.04, totaling 14.13GW. For Rozhin’s analysis of how much of this capacity remained before last week’s round of strikes, read this, Rozhin’s estimate of the surviving balance on April 1 was 7.8GW. Based in Paris, the IEA is a propaganda agency for the Kiev regime; Russia is excluded from membership or association. “The IEA is partnering with Ukraine as it bolsters its energy security”, the international agency says on its website at the moment. “The International Energy Agency (IEA), which has deepened its relationship with Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, is stepping up to provide support…The IEA and many of our member countries are working closely with Ukraine to help the country’s energy system recover from Russia’s attacks.” The agency has been concealing the loss of Ukrainian electricity capacity since February 2022.

In remarks this month to the Financial Times of Tokyo and London, Ukrainian energy officials claim they have three alternatives – repair the damage, bringing the system back to normal demand levels; add alternative power sources such as imported electricity from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova, Romania, and the Baltic states or local renewables, such as solar and wind generation; or defend the electricity system with more Patriot missile systems.

“Our goal,” according to Maxim Timchenko, chief executive of DTEK — the dominant Ukrainian power company which is owned by Rinat Akhmetov, “is to restore as much as we can by October… Subject to no further attacks, at least 50 per cent of damaged power units will be reconnected to the grid.” Had it not been for the warm weather, energy imports from the EU, and an increase in renewable energy generation, the current situation would be much worse, Timchenko added.

The Russians “are trying to cut off large industrial regions and cities from the power supply,” a spokesman for Ukrenergo, the state-owned grid system operator, told the newspaper. “Smaller substations — managed by Ukrenergo — can be shielded from attacks with protective structures. But it is very difficult, if not impossible to cover the large power plants, which take several months or even years to restore.”

In a separate report, the FT claimed after the Tripolskaya attack that the plant had been “protected by air defences.” Whether these were Patriot missiles or something else, the newspaper omitted to acknowledge that they had been defeated.


It then quoted Ilya Yevlash, Ukraine Air Force’s brand-new spokesman (right), as saying that “only the Patriot system was capable of shooting down Russia’s hypersonic Kinzhal and Zircon missiles. Obviously we need more, which may help us to protect our critical infrastructure and cities.” The newspaper didn’t ask — Yevlash didn’t say –why the NATO-Ukrainian crews manning the Patriot batteries have been unable to defend either their missile batteries or themselves from hypersonic Kinzhal strikes or the subsonic X-69s.

Other Russian military bloggers are reporting new strikes in the west against thermal power plants (TPP) at Dobrotvir, Lvov region, and Burshtyn, Ivano-Frankivsk region, as well as the vast underground gas storage in Lvov known as Bilche-Volitzko-Ugerskoye.

Alexei Slovtsov has summed up the current situation in the military blog Slavyangrad: “The enemy’s ability to manoeuvre [redistribute and balance] the load has practically disappeared. The base load is carried by the nuclear power plants, and all fluctuations in the schedule can now be covered only by imports from outside. And that is limited by the network bandwidth and power on the other side. The ability to control frequency in the power system will be greatly reduced. The east of Ukraine is now stuck in dependence on several lines of 330 kV and below. There, literally, the last click is needed for everything to go out from the Dnieper to Kharkov. If the 750 kV network is killed, the system will break up into three isolated nodes around the nuclear power plants.” Source: April 12, 01:21.

MAP OF UKRAINIAN TRANSMISSION LINE TARGETS
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This targeting map was drawn by military sources for this publication on April 1. It is not yet a map of new Russian strikes.

According to a NATO veteran and expert in applying electrical engineering to war, there is no prospect that the regime in Kiev can fill the power hole being created by the Russian operations. “Renewables [solar, wind] are not even remotely close to filling the gap. They’re a scam, especially in the Ukrainian case. Taking generation out of the equation, if the Russians continue striking transmission and distribution infrastructure, as well as production, transportation and storage facilities, the inevitable conclusion is the collapse of the Ukrainian electricity grid. This means the collapse of Ukrainian society. As we watch the electric war unfold, I get the impression that pushing [Ukrainian] people west of the Dnieper is the [Russian] goal of the current phase of the electric war – so call this Phase 2.”

The source said the bordering NATO states lack the capacity to increase their electricity supplies to the Ukraine, even with the addition of newly announced power sources in the Baltic states. This European industry publication has reported that in 2023 Ukrainian imports from the European Union (EU) had doubled from 2021 to 935 million kWh.

How much more EU sources can provide is uncertain. Ukrainian sources told the Financial Times last week that “in the aftermath of the March strikes, imports from the EU reached a record 18,700MWh, the equivalent generated by two power plants. In the months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of 2022, Ukraine connected its grid to neighbouring EU countries Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.”

The International Energy Agency (IEA), which publishes what it calls “real-time data on electricity demand and generation in Ukraine”, stopped reporting the demand and generation data after February 2022. The US propaganda source, Atlantic Council, is currently claiming that “Ukraine expands EU energy exports in fresh display of wartime resilience”; In fact, Ukrainian electricity exports have stopped, and imports from the EU may already be greater than the Atlantic Council estimated in March to be 1700MW (1.7GW).

Last month, the western press was repeating Kiev’s claims. “In its latest update on energy security in Ukraine, the country’s Energy Ministry said Sunday [March 17] the power supply system remained ‘balanced’ despite technical disruptions and shelling. ‘No shortage of electricity is expected’, it said in a press release on its website. ‘For the current day, electricity imports are expected to reach 3,900 MWh, while exports are also expected to reach 2,000 MWh’ it added. On March 5, 2024, the ministry, which oversees Ukrenegro, said Ukraine achieved an electricity surplus which was exported to Poland in the amount of 246 mWh.”

In the four weeks since then the Russian General Staff have despatched Kinzhal and X-69 to contradict the claims.

The NATO electrical engineer adds: “I don’t believe the transmission lines between the Ukraine and the EU have the capacity for the compensating increase required to fill the gap.”

Oleg Tsarev is an influential Ukrainian political figure and potential Russian candidate to take the presidency in Kiev; he was the target of Ukrainian assassination last October. He now lives and works in Crimea. Here is his Telegram piece of April 7, analyzing the new phase in the electric war: “What has happened? Why have our operations become more striking? Partly this is due to the fact that the Russian Aerospace Forces have pretty much blasted the Ukrainian air defense systems. Since the summer of 2022, the losses of such AFU [Armed Forces of the Ukraine] systems have sharply decreased due to the integration of air defence with Western intelligence systems. Our people looked closely at the western air defence systems, analyzed their work, and looked for vulnerabilities. And so it went on for a long time: for the whole of 2023, according to the official reports of our Ministry of Defense, only 46 anti-aircraft missile systems (SAMs) of Ukraine were hit. And in three months of this year, 52 have already been counted.”

“Our military has studied how Western systems work, how to bypass or hit them. We have improved the quality of the intelligence. The defeats of the SAM on the combat front and in the rear are vivid examples of this. Plus a combination of Geranium drone strikes and rocket launches is used. This is confirmed by the statistics of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in their analysis of combined air strikes and UAVs: if at the beginning of 2023, our [Russian] strikes averaged about 22 per day, then in the middle and end of the year, there were over 50; in February 2024 this number jumped abruptly to 84 per day, and in March the rate continued. Our missiles and drones have really increased. There are fewer enemy air defences.”

“The most important thing is, apparently, that after the attacks on our refineries and on Belgorod, decisions were made to use our capabilities to the fullest. Last year, they [Russia] tried not to hit production facilities, and even blows to large transformers in network nodes were inflicted reluctantly. Today, our weapons are hitting the engine rooms of power plants and any associated military targets. Important political decisions have been made, and all these strikes are just the tip of the iceberg.”

NOTE: The impact of the Tripolskaya, Dobrotvir, and Burshtyn strikes has not yet materialized in a surge of Ukrainians heading out of the blackout and into Poland. These are the latest outward and inward figures issued by the Polish Border Guard:

UKRAINIAN POPULATION MOVEMENT ACROSS THE POLISH BORDER THIS MONTH
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As of compilation of these data on April 14, the Polish Border Guard (Straż Graniczna) was lagging in its public reports by three days; in the first year of the war it published these data every day. Source: https://twitter.com/straz_graniczna?lang=en

https://johnhelmer.net/lenin-revised-ru ... more-89734


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NATO is losing the proxy war against Russia, so expect surge in false-flag terrorism – John Kiriakou

Finian Cunningham

April 15, 2024

A defeat for Washington and its NATO partners in Ukraine would be a political disaster for the Western powers. Hence they are getting desperate.

Last week the British media (Telegraph and Guardian) reported allegations that Russia was using chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops and, as if that was not bad enough, the Russian military was also endangering the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe.

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou discusses these reports and concludes that the incidents are false-flag operations orchestrated by Western sponsors of the Ukrainian regime. Kiriakou says it is the CIA that has a notorious track record of engaging in dirty tricks when its operations are going badly.

And, to be sure, the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia is going very badly indeed. Russia has the military upper hand while the NATO-backed Kiev regime is facing collapse.

A defeat for Washington and its NATO partners in Ukraine would be a political disaster for the Western powers. Hence they are getting desperate. That would explain the upsurge in Western media reports that Russia has started to use chemical weapons and that Russia is endangering the nuclear power plant at Zaporozhye, Europe’s largest civilian nuclear power station. The latter insinuation by the Western media is particularly absurd. Russia took control of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in March 2022.

It should be obvious that the NATO-backed regime is the perpetrator of nuclear terrorism yet the Western governments, media and the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency all adopt a shameful ambiguity about the perpetrator. The Western sponsors are covering up for a nuclear terrorist regime in Kiev because the Western governments are fully complicit in the terrorism.

John Kiriakou points out that the same playbook was used in Syria. When the Syrian Arab Army was gaining the military upper hand against NATO-sponsored jihadi mercenaries trying to overthrow the Syrian government, the Western media then reported alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian army. That resulted in the United States, Britain, and France launching air strikes against Syria. It turned out that the chemical weapon attacks were false flags conducted by the CIA and MI6-trained proxies.

Now that the NATO powers are losing the war in Ukraine against Russia – a war that they have invested in on an unprecedented colossal scale – the reaction is to repeat the false flag playbook as a desperate way to create a chemical or radiological disaster to justify an escalation of the war, perhaps by direct NATO intervention. It does not matter to the Western warmongering elite that the safety of the planet is being recklessly jeopardized. Of course, we should not be surprised. The same Western warmongering ruling establishments have fomented world wars and countless other wars costing tens of millions of lives. Their criminal recklessness knows no bounds.

John Kiriakou was jailed by the U.S. government for two years after he blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture program. He now works as an independent journalist and commentator and has gained worldwide respect for his integrity and truth-telling.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... -kiriakou/

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Ukraine’s Opposition To The Assimilation Of Its Refugees Is Extremely Hypocritical

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ANDREW KORYBKO
APR 15, 2024

This is the opposite of how Ukraine treats its indigenous Russian minority.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba warned on Friday that “It has become clear that assimilation would be extremely fast if we do not change our policy towards Ukrainians abroad”, calling on these refugees to “remain Ukrainian” with the innuendo that they shouldn’t plant roots in the West. He didn’t explicitly say so, but it’s strongly hinted that he hopes that those millions who’ve fled the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict over the past two years will eventually return home to their country.

Kiev-based economist Alexey Kushch said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Yury Romanenko last week that “I estimate that [after the conflict is over] Ukraine’s demographic profile <...> will be made up of 25 million people, including ten million senior citizens, five million children and two to three million disabled persons and veterans receiving social benefits. About seven to eight million working adults will make up the core of the economy.”

These two developments coincided with Ukraine’s passing of a new conscription law that doesn’t include a demobilization clause, which the media reported has left troops feeling “betrayed” while a member of the Rada described it as a “point of no return” in terms of turning citizens against the government. Kuleba obviously hopes that unassimilated Ukrainians will feel so unwelcome in the West that they’ll return home to risk their lives in the meatgrinder and then rebuild their country when the conflict ends.

Basically, he’s manipulating them on a faux “patriotic” pretext into creating problems for themselves abroad so that they’ll consider moving back to Ukraine, but his rhetoric is extremely hypocritical sine it’s the opposite of how Kiev itself treats minorities. It was observed that “The West Would Never Talk About Its Minorities The Way That Ukraine Talks About Its Russian One” after Rada speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk denied their very existence and associated rights last fall.

In other words, Kuleba wants Ukrainian refugees not to assimilate into their host societies, with a wink and a nod that they should exploit the liberal-globalist West’s related legislation and socio-cultural norms to preserve their culture as much as possible. At the same time, Stefanchuk denies the existence of Ukraine’s indigenous Russian minority, thus depriving them of any rights and therefore creating the exact same situation inside of Ukraine that Kuleba hopes that his country’s own refugees avoid.

These are blatant double standards, but they’re unlikely to be discussed but the Mainstream Media since these organizations have an interest in covering up for Ukraine’s fascist policies, which is exactly what Kiev is practicing. There’s nothing wrong with refugees or immigrants retaining their identity, nor with countries promoting assimilationist and integrationist policies, but what belies ulterior ideological motives is having double standards when it comes to one’s own group and country.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/ukraines ... similation
"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 Apr 16, 2024 12:38 pm

Iran, the Shahed and the Patriots for Ukraine
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/16/2024

Image

Accustomed to using the international situation in pursuit of its objectives, the Ukrainian Government has not missed the opportunity to introduce in its speech what happened last Saturday in the Middle East and has wanted to take advantage of the Iranian response to a previous attack by Israel. The use of Shahed drones, known on the Ukrainian front, has acted as a link between Israel and Ukraine on the one hand and Iran and Russia on the other. After having announced that it would offer a response to Israeli acts against the country, the last of which occurred a few days ago with the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Iran finally attacked Israeli territory with missiles and attack drones, an act that , despite having been announced, is unprecedented. According to both Western and Iranian media, communication between Tehran and the West was not broken at any time and, through mediating countries, Iran let the United States know that a response was going to occur, but that it would be measured and directed, not to escalate the situation or provoke a war, but to offer a firm response to an act that, as stated by the Russian representative at the UN Vasily Nebenzia, can even be considered casus bellli .

The Iranian attack caused no casualties, but it did show some weaknesses of the main Western ally in the Middle East. Used to saturate the defenses, the drones acted in the same way as they do in the Ukrainian war, as support so that the missiles could overcome the defenses. The Iranian missiles showed that, although they did not cause enormous damage, they were able to overwhelm the Iron Dome, which acted only as a part of the Israeli defense. Tel Aviv had invaluable help from at least the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Jordan in shooting down drones and missiles. One of the countries most subsidized by Washington required significant assistance from its partners to shoot down the missiles and drones launched by one of the most sanctioned countries on the planet in a previously announced attack.

As could quickly be seen in the comments posted on social networks, the episode showed the differences between Ukraine and Israel. Zelensky's prayers to close Ukraine's skies fell on deaf ears in 2022, when the United States showed its refusal to shoot down Russian aircraft and missiles, acts that would have meant direct participation in the war and a dangerous escalation between two nuclear powers. Israel, on the contrary, had the participation of its partners from the first moment, including an Arab country now subject to criticism from its population for its implicit support for Tel Aviv. The first reaction from kyiv was one of discontent: US participation in the downing of Iranian drones and missiles showed Washington's way of acting towards an ally. The refusal to act in the same way in Ukraine has revealed to part of the Ukrainian public the existing hierarchy in the priorities of the United States and the Biden administration that, despite trying to link military assistance to both countries, has clearly revealed the treatment of an ally towards Israel and a proxy towards Ukraine.

However, Ukraine is not just any proxy and has become accustomed to always demanding more than what it receives. The discourse of the Cold War, the alleged struggle between the free world and the dictatorship or between good and evil, and the way of describing the conflict as an investment by the West in its own security have given Kiev a centrality on the agenda international politics and a media spotlight far above that achieved by other wars. Skilled in managing communication, Ukraine has thus achieved an unprecedented flow of financing, weapons, ammunition and political and diplomatic favor compared to other proxy armies that have faced great power opponents in the past. Now, the President's Office is trying to turn differences into similarities to achieve a greater and faster supply of the equipment it has long demanded.

“Ukraine condemns Iran's attack on Israel with drones and Shahed missiles. “In Ukraine we know very well the horror of similar attacks by Russia, which uses the same Shahed drones and Russian missiles, the same tactics of massive air strikes,” Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media, going on to condemn the Iranian action and affirm that “threatens the entire region and the world, just as Russian actions threaten a broader conflict and the evident collaboration between the two regimes in the spread of terror must be met with the world's resolute and united response.” The world, in the vision of the Ukrainian president, is limited to the United States and its allies. In it, every misfortune can be used for its benefit and not the slightest empathy is needed for the victims of other wars. It is no secret that post-Maidan Ukraine has seen Israel as a model to follow: a country that imposes its vision on the population under its control, heavily militarized, capable of threatening the countries around it and, above all, faithful ally of Washington who, as he has demonstrated since October, is willing to defend him whatever his actions and whatever death he causes. Ukraine's support for Israel has been even stronger than that of the West and, without nuance, it has defended and continues to defend each and every one of the steps taken by Tel Aviv despite the fact that this defense involves all kinds of contradictions that have been clearly perceived by the Arab world, Muslim countries and the Global South in general. The use of force is legitimate for Ukraine in defense of its independence against the Russian occupier, but that right does not extend to the Palestinian population, whose suffering in Gaza far exceeds the situation experienced by the Ukrainian civilian population.

In the current situation, the defense of Israel is an implicit request that certain Ukrainian representatives have wanted to make even clearer. “Iran's catastrophically failed attacks on Israel have once again clearly demonstrated that the Axis countries (Russia, Iran, North Korea) are far behind technologically. And they can't do anything against modern weapons if... If there are enough weapons. If they are used on time. If we ignore the false illusions and propaganda,” Mijailo Podolyak wrote, deciding for himself what the result of the attack was. The advisor to the President's Office insists once again on a superiority of Western weapons with respect to Russian ones that is not justified by the results of the war, but which represents a claim for Western industry, to which kyiv has offered war in their national territory to test their new weapons.

“By defending Israel, the free world demonstrated that this type of unity is not only possible, but 100% effective,” Zelensky wrote yesterday on social media. “The same is possible to protect Ukraine from terror, which, like Israel, is not a member of NATO,” he insisted again, trying to make similarities out of the differences. All of this to demand what Israel had last Saturday: an anti-aircraft defense with great capabilities and enormous quantities of ammunition and direct support from its partners. Zelensky has now realized that there will be no direct US intervention in the war, but he believes he has the moral standing to demand much more than what Ukraine has gotten so far.

The situation on the front has become complicated and kyiv no longer only appeals to collective defense and the fight for good against evil, but is also capable of using blackmail. Only in this way can one read the statements of the last hours of Dmitro Kuleba, in charge of achieving the resumption of US financing, who yesterday referred to the Ukrainian attacks against Russian refineries despite the explicit order from the United States to cease this action. The United States' argument is twofold: these attacks, which do not achieve any strategic objective, are causing much more serious Russian retaliation in addition to forcing up the price of oil, something that could be detrimental to Biden in an election year. “If our partners tell us that they are going to give us seven Patriot systems but in exchange they tell us what we cannot do, then there is a topic for discussion. If they do not have those systems, there is no topic for discussion,” said Kuleba, making it clear that Ukraine will continue carrying out attacks that annoy its main partner, implying that it does so to get what it asks for. kyiv is not just any proxy but one that always wants more because it is used to getting what it wants. This time too, Ukraine is likely to get what it asks for. According to statements made in the last few hours by Mike Johnson, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Congress will soon vote on legislation that would unlock funds for Ukraine and Israel. It will be done, however, separately, with the certainty that assistance to Tel Aviv will obtain the support of Congress. But judging by his words, in which he has highlighted that a large part of the financing for Ukraine remains in the United States in the form of investments and employment, on this occasion, it is foreseeable that the vote on funds for Ukraine will also go ahead too.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/16/iran- ... a-ucrania/

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[img]https://i0.wp.com/gordonhahn.com/wp-con ... &ssl=1/img]

An Alternative Approach to Russia’s Coercive Diplomacy before February 2022
by GORDONHAHN
April 16, 2024

There is no doubt that NATO expansion, particularly the West’s refusal to compromise on enlargement to Ukraine and settle for a buffer zone with Russia, was the main cause of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, the War over NATO Expansion, or the Maidan War. Whichever title one prefers, the essence remains the same: the present war is a war for the West’s self-proclaimed ‘right’ to expand NATO wherever and whenever it chooses under its so-called ‘open door policy.’ This has been proven by Ukrainian leaders’, and in particular, Kiev’s lead negotiator at the Russo-Ukrainian peace talks in March-April 2022, who testified to the fact that the issue was Russia’s main demand during the negotiations (https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/stat ... 73766.html). Moreover, Ukrainian negotiator and Kiev’s former ambassador to the US, Oleksandr Chaly, noted that “Putin did everything possible” to achieve agreement in those talks and personally approved the preliminary draft agreement (https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/stat ... 73766.html; see also https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1746 ... 73766.html and https://x.com/i_katchanovski/status/175 ... 3DfCRCwexQ). Although this is generally true, putting aside the rhetorical hyperbole, it can be argued and may have even been the case that the Russian president had viable options other than beginning Russia’s ‘special military operation’ on 22 February 2022. What might they have been?

One option would have been for Putin to accept the January 2022 US counteroffer to conduct talks and arms control and a new European security architecture made in response to Putin’s December 2021 proposals for negotiating the NATO-Ukraine issue, NATO-Russian arms control, and a new European security architecture (www.npr.org/2022/01/26/1075880940/biden ... sis-in-ukr). Even while understanding that Washington and Brussels were highly unlikely to respond positively to any Russian effort to raise the Ukraine issue, no less to abandon, or at least place a moratorium on NATO expansion to the country, there would have been value perhaps in making the attempt. First, any attempt to negotiate arms control and especially European security without addressing the Ukraine issue would have been futile. So if any Western counteroffer to Moscow’s December 2021 proposals and any intent to seek an accommodation with Moscow on arms and security had been sincere, perhaps the West would have conceded to talks and perhaps, say, a moratorium rather than a full prohibition on NATO expansion to Ukraine. This is particularly so, given the coercive diplomacy that Putin was conducting at the time and could have been intensified, if necessary, but maintained below the SMO threshold. Second, if the West was insincere or insisted on keeping Ukraine off the table, then Moscow could have been more robust in its coercive diplomacy below the SMO threshold while it appealed to the UN to adopt a resolution on the need for a compromise on NATO’s Ukraine expansion project. Third, in the event of the latter case, Moscow would have unmasked the West’s obstinacy and disregard for Russia’s security concerns, lending Moscow perhaps even greater support for any SMO it decided to undertake.

Moreover, In lieu of a willingness to compromise regarding NATO enlargement on the West’s part, Moscow could have gone farther than it did in ratcheting up the coercive component of its pre-SMO diplomacy by gradually leaning more and more forward militarily. If that failed to prompt the West to negotiate, then posing the threat of occupying the Donbas breakaway regions, the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) and Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR). If the West remained obstinate, Russia then could have appealed to the UN one last time for a resolution condemning NATO’s open door policy towards Ukraine. This could then have been followed by employing the Crimean model in the LNR and DNR, which would have been an almost explicit threat of something larger perhaps to come. If Moscow was indeed concerned over the de facto NATOization of Ukraine then ongoing, it could have then made explicit threats of further military action, if NATO did not agree to a treaty on Ukrainian neutrality, all the while demonstrating its restraint from carrying out a larger military operation like the SMO Putin ultimately decided to implement. If the SMO was then necessary, with NATO rejecting Ukrainian neutrality yet again, then it or something similar likely would have been more effective in prompting a successful Gomel-Istanbul process, begun immediately after Russia’s February invasion but scuttled by the West in early April.

In terms of the former coercive measures, leaning more and more forward militarily, a host of various measures could have been incrementally implemented. Moscow could have gradually increased the geographical scope and military power of semi-symmetrical or asymmetrical measures to maximize Russian security and challenge Western security along the NATO-Russian line of contact. Geographically, additional troop and weapons deployments could have been made to the Russian border area near Ukraine (Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk), in Belarus, in Kaliningrad, and near the borders of the Baltic states. Military deployment could be escalated by a mix of measures such as increasing troops strength, deployment of various conventional and even nuclear weapons. For example, Russia could have massed more troops and build military bases for hundreds of thousands of troops on the border with the separatist breakaway territories of the Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples Republics (not today’s entire ‘constitutional oblasts’) at higher levels than occurred throughout 2021. Another example would the stationing of additional troops and tactical nuclear and conventional missiles in Kaliningrad, at one of the military bases near the Ukrainian border, and in Belarus if Minsk was amenable. With the threat level raised, Moscow again could have proposed once more that Washington and Brussels reconsider Moscow’s December 2021 proposals on Ukraine and a new European security architecture.

If the above military encroachments failed to produce results, Putin could have implemented the truncated version of the SMO or applied the Crimean model to the Donbas breakaway regions. First, he could have sent in troops to occupy the breakaway territories, while subtly implying the need to occupy all the territory of the two regions beyond the rump regions under the separatists’ control. A robust force of at least 60,000 troops could have been sent into Donbas, with another 100,000 stationed right over the border in Russia. He could have then threatened to annex the regions if Minsk 2 was not implemented by Kiev within a period of two months, particularly the clauses on direct negotiations with the Donbas separatists and the adoption of a Ukrainian law on the breakaway regions’ autonomy as envisaged under Minsk 2 and fully ignored by Kiev. A key demand would have been the withdrawal of all Ukrainian troops out of artillery range of said territories along with the standing requirement that NATO and Ukraine sign a treaty with Russia guaranteeing Ukrainian neutrality. Moscow could have sought this reinvigoration of Minsk II without the participation of the Western powers, limiting their role to the signing of a treaty on Ukrainian neutrality. If all this failed to move Western minds, Moscow then could have proceeded with referenda as was done in Crimea in 2014 and later under the larger SMO in the breakaway Donbas regions themselves and then recognized there independence, as Russia did with regard to Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia after the August 2008 Five-Day Georgian-Ossetian/Russian War. Refraining from annexing them would have allowed Moscow to employ annexation as a threat to force NATO finally to agree to Ukrainian neutrality. Another rejection from the West then could have been used to justify annexation of the LNR and DNR. One final gambit would have been to play the same game, using the threat to incorporate the larger, full Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts. If NATO once more rejected Moscow’s overtures for a treaty on Ukrainian neutrality, then military action could have begun to seize the remainder of the oblasts. All this would have left the rest of Novorossiya, the Azov and Black Sea coasts and Kiev untouched. A similar approach of ratcheting up military action could have applied to those areas if wished.

To be sure, such an incremental approach has its shortcomings. It would have allowed the NATOized Ukrainian army to meet the Russian advances, but it would have also made it easier to blame Kiev for the outbreak of a larger war, and indeed it would have made it more likely that Kiev would initiated a larger war first. Another minus is that realization of this Crimean model would not have solved the problem of Ukraine’s creeping, or stealth NATOization that had progressed ever more intensively from 2014 forward. NYT CIA article. As the New York Times so kindly reported in February of this year, the CIA was deeply embedded in Ukraine from 2014, had 12 intelligence and operational centers there, and trained Ukrainians who were already carrying out attacks against pro-Russian Donbas separatists (https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001pvh7zNu ... SDUVxh7Q== and https://gordonhahn.com/2024/03/10/updat ... in-to-war/). Also there have been previous reports that NATO troops, British and Polish, were in Ukraine from the very beginning of the war (Hindustani Times, Polish journalist Zbigniew Parafaniowicz, https://youtu.be/Igrh79RKpIA?si=VvTGcBDybuQUOAOY). However, the reports do not specify exactly when the troops arrived. If they arrived before 24 February 2022 or before Putin’s final decision to invade days or at the most weeks earlier, did Russian intelligence discover this and report it to Putin, driving the decision? Surely or at least very likely, the growing NATO presence in Ukraine and creeping integration of Kiev’s armed forces into NATO also helped drive Putin February 2022 invasion decision. The CIA and any Western military presence surely would have made very difficult, but not impossible a decision to participate in talks with the West before making a final decision to invade. It is important to recall that Russia’s army was not ready for all-out war in Ukraine, no less with Kiev receiving massive NATO support. It had cut its defense budget as recently as 2016, with only minor increases afterwards, and had an army too small to take Kiev and all of the more pro-Russian territories stretching in a long arc from Kharkov in the northeast of Ukraine down through Donbas and turning west in the south along the Black Sea over to Kherson.

In addition to some or all of the above, before military action, occupation, and annexation of the Donbass, Putin could have undertaken some of the steps that have been taken in the international arena more broadly since the SMO began such as: turning even more to the ‘strategic partnership’ with China, invigorating relations with Iran and North Korea, expanding BRICS, and refocusing Moscow’s oil and gas trade.

If all the above failed, then Putin could have proceeded with the SMO and another attempt to negotiate—this time directly with Kiev, as he eventually did. Again, however, it is important to point out that having done some of the above, the Gomel-Istanbul process would have taken place in a wholly different international environment, given the Russia’s more than good faith effort to put off as long as possible the much more violent coercive ‘diplomacy’ of the February 2022 SMO. In such an alternative atmosphere, Washington and Brussels may have been more hard-pressed to succeed in scuttling those talks and wage a proxy war-turned semi-direct war for the precious ‘right’ to expand NATO all along Russia’s borders and beyond.

In the end, NATO’s increasing build up in Ukraine seems to have made any delay in undertaking military action seem too risky in Putin’s eyes. The Western build up created the sense that the longer Moscow waited to escalate its coercive diplomacy the less effective it would be. Put before a choice between action and inaction, Putin is the kind of leader to choose the former. History will tell whether he made the right call in starting the special military operation in Ukraine.

https://gordonhahn.com/2024/04/16/an-al ... uary-2022/

'Woulda, coulda, shoulda'....Seldom has such a mass of hypotheticals been amassed. Playing footie like that would have resulted in Donbass being overrun. The real 'road not taken' would have been Russia aiding the Donbass republics in smashing the Nazis in 2014 when they had a clear chance of nipping the horror of Maiden in the bud.

******

And the Iranians have sucked all the rest of the air out of the room...
"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 Apr 17, 2024 12:05 pm

Bad options
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/17/2024

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“As Russia steps up airstrikes and advances again into the Ukrainian battlefield more than two years after its bloody invasion, there is no end to the fighting in sight. And President Volodymyr Zelensky's options on what to do next – much less on how to win the war – are going from bad to worse,” writes in the opening of a recent article published by The Washington Post , one of the media most sympathetic to Ukraine. and whose leadership has not stopped writing editorials defending the need to continue military assistance to Kiev to continue the war against Russia to the end. Hence, this type of articles in the most important newspapers of the first provider of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are especially significant.

“Zelensky has said that Ukraine will accept nothing less than the return of all its territory, including lands that Russia has controlled since 2014. But, with the battle lines having barely changed in the last year, a military retake appears increasingly unlikely. swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia currently occupies, about 20% of the country,” writes Isabelle Khurshudyan, the newspaper’s kyiv bureau chief. This is not an opinion article from outside the media, but rather the opinion of a person with access to direct sources about the current situation and who directs the information about Ukraine and, by extension, the war. The starting point is the blow of reality that the 2023 counteroffensive represented for those who wanted to believe the false Ukrainian promises of its superiority on the front and the immense capacity of Western weapons against the old Soviet weapons. The media campaign carried out using the Leopard tanks as a lure, those that were going to make the Russian troops flee, also burned the credibility of the Ukrainian discourse, which in its attempt to repeat the strategy, now with the F-16, is not finding the expected response. The experience of a year ago seems to have made even the most favorable media for Ukraine see a reality that they avoided observing at that time: the complete victory that kyiv demands is highly unlikely, a conclusion that authorities have reached a long time ago. from the Pentagon, but which the press had tried to avoid.

“Pessimism about Ukraine's chances on the battlefield has increased in recent months as Russian forces have regained the initiative on the battlefield, largely because the Ukrainians are short of troops and ammunition.” , writes Khurshudyan, making it clear that the appearance of reality of his diagnosis does not extend to the causes, in which he follows, to the letter, the Ukrainian discourse. This version avoids facing the fact that Russia has managed to maintain the defense and regain the initiative on one of the most difficult fronts of this war, that of Donetsk, based on tactical changes, adaptation to the situation, improvements in coordination, introduction of new elements well integrated into the doctrine, all of this a consequence of the learning that war entails.

“The Russians are not condemned to repeat their mistakes. "They have demonstrated their ability to adapt, especially in building multi-layered defenses that thwarted last summer's Ukrainian offensive, deploying gliding bombs beyond the reach of Ukrainian defenses, and developing their own arsenal of attack drones," wrote last week, in a fit of honesty, in an article published by CNN . Pessimism dominates the mood, as can be seen with the statements collected by the media.

Despite the evident improvement in Russian performance, planning, tactics and logistics, serious errors have continued to cost heavy casualties. Some of them, such as friendly fire incidents, are an intrinsic reality of war and have occurred on both sides of the front. Others are the result of overconfidence or underestimation of other people's capabilities. In several of these incidents, some very recent, Ukraine has been able to eliminate dozens of soldiers during maneuvers with the use of just a handful of its HIMARS projectiles. However, these failures have not posed a risk of collapse of the front, as occurred in September 2022 in the Kharkiv region.

And yet, other people's mistakes seem to be one of Ukraine's hopes. “Everything that NATO can achieve for Ukraine is enough to stabilize its position, but not to change it significantly,” says the academic whom the media consulted, adding that “the only variable that could [change it] is a big mistake.” Russian, and counting on your enemy to screw up is never a good strategy.” However, even those who see the improbable mistakes of others as the only possibility of recovering the initiative cling to the official discourse of the Ukrainian political class. “Russia pushes poorly manned and equipped local offensives wherever it can. But poorly manned with enough bodies could be enough,” The Washington Post alleges , insisting on a tactic that Ukrainian militaries from Biletsky to Zaluzhny subordinates have repeatedly denied.

In this scenario of pessimism, Khurshudyan considers what to do, although the answers he finds are, in his own words, “just bad options.” “Negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war – something Zelensky has rejected as long as Russian troops remain on Ukrainian territory – is politically toxic,” he says. After two years of promising complete victory, a negotiation with Russia would be political suicide for Zelensky and his team. Fighting is dangerous, as Ukraine faces a war in which it is increasingly clear that it cannot obtain what it seeks, a return to the 1991 borders, negotiation is politically impossible, but even the current situation is unsustainable in the long run. term. “The status quo is horrible. With the fighting at a stalemate, Ukrainians die daily on the battlefield. But a ceasefire is also not an option, the Ukrainians say, because it would only give the Russians time to replenish their forces.” The current situation is unsustainable due to the deaths, the negotiation is politically unviable and the ceasefire would not be accepted by a population - those residing in the territories under Kiev control - that demands victory, but does not necessarily want to be recruited. to fight for her.

“Zelensky is stuck,” says Khurshudyan who, like several of his sources, wonders how the Ukrainian president will get out of this situation, whose term expires in May, when he will be even more vulnerable to attacks that doubt his legitimacy. Without solutions, the sources cited in the article simply advocate continuing to demand weapons and financing from their partners and preparing “for a long war” with an eye toward 2025, a year that is no longer presented as a moment of offensive but of consolidation. With the optimism of previous years gone, only Zelensky and his team dream of large-scale offensives and his allies even drop the possibility of negotiating. “At the end of the day, it has to be Ukraine that decides what kind of commitments it is willing to make, we have to allow it to be in a position where it can actually achieve an acceptable result at the negotiating table,” Stoltenberg said these days. mentioning two words, negotiation and compromise, that still do not enter the minds of the current Kiev authorities, for whom it is preferable to maintain the state of war eternally.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/17/malas-opciones/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

Forwarded from
Military chronicle
There is a new scandal in Ukraine regarding the supply of Western weapons.

In addition to the fact that Western shells are not interchangeable with different guns of the same caliber, it turned out that most of the military equipment from Poland was either supplied defective or could not be repaired after damage for a variety of reasons.

First of all, we are talking about the problematic Polish Rosomak armored personnel carriers with the Hitfist 30P combat module. It was equipped with a 30-mm Mk 44 Bushmaster cannon, but the owner of the technology for its production is not Poland, but Italy.

As a result, damaged or broken towers cannot be replaced without payment and a lengthy manufacturing and delivery process, and there is no money for repairs either in Ukraine or Poland. Taking into account the fact that the Poles announce the delivery of “technically serviceable and combat-ready vehicles” to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, we can conclude that Poland was well aware of the problems that would inevitably arise after the start of combat use of these vehicles.

Problems with spare parts also affected the T-72, PT-91 and Leopard 2A4 tanks delivered from Poland to Ukraine. The problems are the same as for wheeled armored personnel carriers: a lack of spare parts for repairs and a lot of mechanical difficulties. The Poles, however, are not shy and openly admit that they supplied “slightly problematic” equipment to Ukraine.

At the same time, Ukraine “took everything it could”, since there were few options: either such equipment, or none at all.

**

Colonelcassad
Strikes against enemy energy infrastructure facilities - from April 10 to April 16, 2024

Russian troops continue to carry out systematic strikes against enemy energy infrastructure facilities in various regions of Ukraine.

🔻Which substations were hit?

▪️04/10/2024 - Substation 330 kV "Nikolaevskaya" . As a result of the strike, two autotransformers caught fire. The outdoor switchgear is damaged.
▪️04/11/2024 - 330 kV substation "Novoodesskaya" , one autotransformer was destroyed by the "Geran-2" attack drone.
▪️04/11/2024 - Substation 330 kV "Usatovo" . ORU-110 was damaged by the impact; no fire was detected.
▪️04/11/2024 - 750 kV substation "Zaporozhskaya" . Two missiles destroyed one autotransformer and damaged high-voltage lines and switches.
▪️04/11/2024 - 750 kV substation "Zapadnoukrainskaya" . One autotransformer was destroyed by the missile strike. The outdoor switchgear was also damaged.
▪️04/12/2024 - PS-330 “Pervomaiskaya” , due to a hit by an attack drone, one autotransformer caught fire.
▪️04/14/2024 - PS-330 “Losevo” , as a result of the impact, a 110 kV oil circuit breaker caught fire.

🔻Which thermal power plants were affected?

▪️04/11/2024 - Dobrotvorskaya TPP . The Geran-2 strike hit the main building of the facility. As a result of the damage, the conveyor belt caught fire.
▪️04/11/2024 - Burshtyn TPP . The drone strike damaged outbuildings on the site. A fire was detected.
▪️04/11/2024 — Trypilska Thermal Power Plant is out of commission. I’ll give it my due - I advise you to read it, I’m pleasantly impressed by the detailed analysis.

🔻Which thermal power plants were hit?

▪️04/11/2024 - a missile strike was carried out on CHPP-3 in the Nemyshlyansky district, but the power outages were partially eliminated. The exact extent of the damage is unknown.

Destruction or damage to an enemy's energy supply facilities is of strategic importance because it directly affects its ability to conduct military operations and impedes logistics routes. The continuity of such strikes seems encouraging, and we hope that this trend will continue.

@don_partizan

**

Colonelcassad

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About the missile attack on Dzhankoy

This night the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the airfield in Dzhankoy . About 12 ATACMS operational-tactical missiles were used for the strike , most likely launched from the Kherson region.

- The raid was carried out in two waves. The first strike involved seven missiles, apparently with cluster warheads, and the second used at least five . Some damaged equipment at the airfield, and some damaged one of the buildings. - Both MGM-140A with a range of up to 165 km and MGM-140B with a combat radius of 300 km

could be used for the attack . When launched from the outskirts of Kherson , the APU can easily reach Dzhankoy even with the first versions of ATACMS. As with previous strikes, an American RQ-4B drone unhinderedly patrolled the airspace south of Crimea and monitored the operation. But even without him, the enemy received the necessary information. “Thanks to” the actions of pro-Ukrainian residents of the city, as well as some minors, there are clear footage of arrivals on the Internet, from which the necessary conclusions can be drawn. How and why residents of Russian Crimea are still not afraid of the consequences of such actions is a rhetorical question. The lack of real punitive measures affects the ability to detain and prosecute such citizens, and this already puts our military personnel at risk. Ukrainian formations, meanwhile, are making targeted preparations for more massive attacks on the peninsula. A couple of days ago there was an attempt to strike the control point in Berdyansk , but unsuccessfully, but today the airfield. The task is, in principle, obvious. Deprive our units of coordination by hitting command posts, as well as inflicting maximum damage on air defense forces. It is precisely the fulfillment of these two goals, taking into account the already weakened fleet, that the Ukrainian Armed Forces need before attacking the Crimean Bridge .

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Ukraine SitRep: The Power Plant War - Ideological Losses - More Signs Of Corruption

The Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski is lobbying Congress through U.S. media for more weapons and monetary support. It requires him to finally depict the situation as dire as it is:

Speaking to the PBS news hour on Tuesday, April 16, Zelensky underlined Ukraine’s air defences' critical condition.
“I'll give you a very simple example,” he said.

“Eleven missiles were launched towards the Trypillya [thermal power] station, upon which the electricity supply in the Kyiv region depends. We managed to intercept the first seven, but the remaining four hit Trypillya. Why? Because we had zero missiles left. We have exhausted all the missiles that were defending Trypillya,” the President added.
...
In response to the targeting of critical infrastructure, Zelensky used this example to once again call upon Ukraine’s allies to urgently supply the weapons Kyiv needs, particularly air defense launchers and missiles.

“Frankly speaking, without this assistance, we stand little chance of victory, because we need to be significantly stronger than our adversaries. The current ratio of artillery shells stands at 1 to 10. Can we endure for much longer? No,” Zelensky said.


It is good to see that Zelenski is finally noticing the situation Ukraine is in.

The electricity infrastructure is indeed a critical point. John Helmer, via Naked Capitalism, suggest that Russia is using the destruction of Ukrainian power plants to press for its unconditional surrender.

Helmer quotes the Colonel Cassad blog site:

Boris Rozhin, whose Colonel Cassad military blog broadly represents General Staff thinking, reports the operational breakthrough demonstrated on April 11, and explains what the maps of current targeting foreshadow for the next round of strikes, and the rounds after that. Rozhin republishes his analysis from RT, the state media organ.

“By the evening of April 11, Ukrainian sources reported that air-launched X-69 missiles could be used to hit the Tripolskaya TPP [Thermal Power Plant]. So far, there is no confirmation of this information, but it is worth studying these missiles in more detail. Their range is almost 20 times less than that of the X-101 missiles [equivalent to about 250-500 kilometres], the carriers of which are strategic aircraft of the Aerospace Forces [Tu-95]. In their [X-69] function, they are closer to the foreign [Anglo-French] Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles, which are being attempted for strikes on the Crimean Bridge. The [X-69’s] long range of the 300 km could be enough if the launches of missiles were carried out from the territory of the Bryansk region. If the use of missiles is confirmed in the future, it will mean that no energy facility of the Ukraine on the Dnieper River can work safely, and the strike capabilities of the Aerospace Forces have multiplied.” https://t.me/rt_russian/197065


The lack of power supply is not the only unsolvable problem Zelenski has.

The situation at the frontline is deteriorating. One of the critical sectors in now Chasiv Yar, some 10 kilometer west of Bakhmut, where the Russian forces recently managed to make some crucial progress.

Chasiv Yar - April 1 2024

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Chasiv Yar - April 16 2024

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Ground that had been held by parts of the 67th Separate Mechanized Brigade had been given up very quickly.

The Ukraine command investigated and found the root cause in the ideological framework of the 'nationalist' brigade:

After losing some positions on the Chasiv Yar front in Donetsk Oblast, where heavy fighting has been ongoing since the beginning of 2024, the 67th Separate Mechanised Brigade of the Right Sector Ukrainian Volunteer Corps is being investigated and the military personnel who served as the brigade’s backbone are being transferred to other units.
...
One of the factors revealed by the audit was issues within the brigade. The leadership allegedly separated the soldiers from the Right Sector and those who were transferred from other parts during the recent replenishment (they were referred to as "pixels", in reference to the pattern on the Ukrainian military uniform). The attitude toward the "pixels" was even worse; they were the first to be sent into combat, and their lack of experience made them lose territory.
According to a source of Ukrainska Pravda, this was not the only reason for the brigade's combat capacity deficiencies, as revealed by the audit.

According to a former Ukrainian Volunteer Corps fighter who served in the unit during the 2014-2018 anti-terrorist operation in Ukraine's east and the first year of the full-scale invasion, the current problem stems from the inability to reform the former volunteer unit into a regular brigade of the Armed Forces.

Following the reformatting of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps into the 67th Brigade, volunteers were forced to live "according to military tenets", as determined by the newly formed army command. The former Ukrainian Volunteer Corps leaders lacked the military experience necessary for high positions.


The street gangs and hooligans of the fascist Right Sector, who played a major role during the so called Maidan revolution, were not keen to be real soldiers. They put the least experienced mobilized men into the frontline and kept their ideological brethren in the back.

Such behavior had been fine under the former Commander in Chief General Zaluzhni who has a well known affinity for the hard right 'nationalists' units. But the new Commander in Chief General Syrski needs real soldiers, not amateurish terrorists:

During the tenure of former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the backbone of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, particularly Andrii Stempitskyi, was able to maintain some autonomy in the brigade while receiving assistance from the General Staff.

Quote: "And when Sirskyi was appointed, they were confronted with the fact that they must only do activities that are appropriate for their official position. They saw it as political persecution. For highly ideological Ukrainian Volunteer Corps combatants, this appears to be the end of a movement, but it is actually the system bringing its combat units up to standard."


Strana adds a bit of history (machine translation):

Recall that the" Ukrainian Volunteer Corps "(DUK) was formed in 2014 by the "Right Sector" during the anti-terrorist operation. After that, for a long time he was not a member of any of the official law enforcement agencies of Ukraine, which raised questions about the ambiguity of his legal status. This continued until 2018, after which most of the DUK joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Like other fascists groupings in Ukraine, i.e. Azov, the DUK or 'Right Sector has multiplied during the war. It has infiltrated more units:

In 2023, the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps was split into two parts: one joined the Special Operations Forces and the other formed the 67th Separate Mechanised Brigade. In February 2024, a portion of the Da Vinci Wolves Unit transferred from the 67th Brigade to the 59th Separate Motorised Infantry Brigade.

'Reforming' the 'nationalist' brigades will be quite a task for the new command under Syrski. As he was born in Russia they may in the end declare him to be their ultimate enemy.

Another problem Zelenski should, but wont, care for, are the signs of corruption which due to the war have only increased:

By law, Ukrainian officials such as lawmakers, prosecutors, and judges must declare their assets to the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NACP).
The NACP received some 664,000 documents by March 31, which was the submission deadline for 2023, Economic Pravda reported.

The news site reported Wednesday that it randomly selected declarations for 2,200 officials to see how their fortunes had changed from 2022 to 2023.

It found that every sixth official had bought an apartment or house, and every third one a car. They purchased 721 cars, 268 apartments, and 90 new houses.

Meanwhile, even with the new asset purchases, the officials’ savings increased.

Economic Pravda found that the cash and bank deposits of the declarants increased by about a quarter during the two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.


The dire economic situation of Ukraine leaves no explanation but corruption for this (machine translation):

In Ukraine, record sales of luxury foreign cars were recorded last year. Some premium brands were included in the top 10 best-selling cars, which was not even in peacetime. And the number of Tesla cars in Ukraine has increased almost 10 times compared to 2021.

Such a boom in demand for expensive cars in a warring country, at first glance, looks at least strange. But there are explanations for this.


Used Teslas have become a bit cheaper in Ukraine. But the main reason why the sales of luxury cars in Ukraine is booming is this:

Third (and this is the main thing), there is a category of new applicants for luxury cars-people whose welfare has grown significantly since the beginning of the war.
"Before the war, a man drove a modest Volkswagen. And then he sat down on the stream, got money, decided to upgrade the car, bought a Range Rover. And there are a lot of them," one of the car dealerships in Kiev told us.

According to employees of the salon, massively upgrading cars to something "more decent", are in particular, the security forces.

In addition, a whole layer of people appeared in the country, who became very rich during the war. Including on corruption schemes for supplies to the army. They are also a major category of luxury car buyers. Yes, and other expensive things. For example, one of the dealers of luxury watches told Strana that in the last year its sales are breaking records for the entire existence of the business.

While Zelenski is begging Congress it should consider that someone will have to pay for those who 'sit down on the stream' and gain from it.


Posted by b on April 16, 2024 at 15:04 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/04/u ... .html#more

Well, they're gonna need 'get-away' cars...

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About the connection between MI6 and RDK
April 16, 20:44

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A DETAILED OVERVIEW OF THE MI6-LINKED RUSSIAN VOLUNTEER CORPS UNIT (RDK)

At the end of 2021, even before the start of the Russian special military operation, the military-political leadership of Ukraine, at the direction of the British special service Mi6, began to form an armed formation called the “Russian Volunteer Corps” on the territory of Ukraine and NATO countries.
In August 2022, this initiative was transferred to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR). The military unit received a clear ideological coloring, a kind of crazy combination of the ideas of Nazism, neoliberalism (more precisely, extreme transhumanism) and ordinary mercenaries.

The priority task was to carry out sabotage and reconnaissance activities on Russian territory.
The basis of the unit were nationalists with citizenship of the countries of the former USSR (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.), who fought as mercenaries on the side of Kyiv from 2014-2018.

At the same time, from August 2022, the unit began to actively recruit persons with Russian citizenship who left the territory of the Russian Federation, citing their decision as a protest against the Kremlin’s policies. The overwhelming majority are those who previously declared their belonging to the LGBT community, the values ​​of the New World Order of the collective West and/or to the creative intelligentsia with neoliberal ideology, that is, those who are accustomed to declaring and considering themselves the “new aristocracy” of Russia. Unemployed “creative” youth with a criminal behavior pattern were also recruited. In fact, all these people were united by one personal complaint against the Putin regime - these are the imaginary lost opportunities that would continue to allow them to lead their usual idle lifestyle.

Surprisingly, by the fall of 2022, the number of such people from the 150 million population of Russia and the 250 million population of the countries of the former USSR turned out to be insufficient to form any large unit. Therefore, the curators of the RDK decided to form a combat base from mercenaries from NATO countries, mainly from Poland, France, Canada, the USA, the Baltic countries and Latin America, and military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Their number at the first stage was at least 25%, excluding persons with Ukrainian citizenship. From the very beginning of its activities, the corps was financed from budget funds allocated by the Government of Ukraine for the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

By 2024, the number of military personnel of the “updated” RDC with citizenship of NATO countries and Latin America exceeded 40%. Militants with Russian citizenship remain no more than 15% of the total composition of the RDK, the remaining 40-45% are military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with Ukrainian citizenship. The total number of the RDK payroll, that is, those who were paid money as a serviceman of the RDK or a serviceman of the International Legion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine attached to the RDK, by this period was about 372 people, of which no more than 50 people had Russian citizenship, probably someone else could have dual citizenship.

Back in November 2022, the group of militants, which today is known as the RDK, was formally reassigned and became one of the units of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as part of the International Legion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At the same time, the unit continues to directly report and act on the instructions of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

Currently, members of extremist and nationalist organizations, as well as supporters of opposition movements to the current government of the Russian Federation from among citizens and residents of Russia, whose candidacies are approved by name by the GUR, continue to be invited to participate in the RDC. Since the end of 2022, all of them began to receive the status of military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Since the second half of 2022, RDK military personnel have been directly involved in combat operations against units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (RF Armed Forces). Thus, from July to November 2022, members of the corps participated in military operations against the Russian Armed Forces in the Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions. However, representatives of the RDK did not achieve significant successes at the front.

The reasons are obvious - small numbers and poor military training. Rare forays onto the line of combat contact were carried out under the leadership of Ukrainian paramilitary right-wing radical units (Right Sector, Freikorps, Kraken) and were aimed only at creating a media effect.

During this period of time, RDK suffered its first significant one-time losses. So, after participating in the next action, the unit concentrated in the rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the city of Zaporozhye, where their location was revealed by Russian military intelligence. As a result of Russian rocket fire, up to 20 RDK militants were killed and dozens were wounded.

However, the intelligence services of Great Britain, the United States and Ukraine have agreed that the unit fully meets the objectives of anti-Kremlin propaganda and, more importantly, the objectives of providing cover for its own terrorist activities in Russia. After all, Russian presidential elections were coming up in March 2024.

On March 2, 2023, the sabotage and reconnaissance group "RDK" attacked the village. Lyubechany and s. Sushany, Bryansk region, as a result of which a local resident died, an 11-year-old child and an employee of the Russian border service were injured. As a result of the actions of the DRG, one armored combat vehicle was damaged, a residential building and a civilian passenger car were destroyed.

The Russian side successfully pushed the saboteurs back into Ukrainian territory. Moreover, in order to avoid civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, the Russians did not use heavy weapons on their territory. As soon as the militants found themselves on the adjacent territory of Ukraine (Kharkiv region), they were immediately subjected to a massive artillery strike.

From May 22 to 23, 2023, units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, consisting of mercenaries from NATO countries, military personnel with Ukrainian citizenship and members of the RDK with citizenship of the countries of the former USSR, carried out an armed invasion of the territory of the Russian Federation in the Grayvoronsky and Shebekinsky districts of the Belgorod region. As a result of these actions, 2 servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces were killed, 4 were wounded, and 1 was captured. 13 local residents were also injured, 1 died. The attackers managed to capture the BTR-80A, destroy two Ural-4320 trucks and a 100-mm T-12 anti-tank gun. In addition, buildings and structures of the international automobile checkpoint "Grayvoron" were damaged. Based on the results of repelling this raid, the Armed Forces of Ukraine of the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the destruction of a total of about 50 people, including ethnic Ukrainians and NATO members, excluding the wounded. Four armored vehicles and three pickup trucks were destroyed. In turn, the RDC stated that the losses of the “corps” in this action amounted to 2 people killed and 10 wounded.

From June 1 to June 5, 2023, the Ukrainian Armed Forces, using the media brand “RDK” as a cover, carried out a repeated, even larger, raid into the Belgorod region, during which they captured and held the village for a short time. New Tavolzhanka. Throughout the action, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked residential and administrative buildings using unmanned aerial vehicles, artillery and mortars. As a result of the fighting, more than 10 servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces were killed, including the commander of the 1009th motorized rifle regiment, Colonel V. Kuznetsov. In turn, the Russian Ministry of Defense released information that “during the fighting on Russian territory, 70 RDK militants were killed.” Probably, this message should be taken as the fact that 70 servicemen of the International Legion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were killed, including the RDK, as well as other attached units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (the corpses of many of those killed are available to the Russian Defense Ministry). The rest were forced out of Russian territory.

Foreign mercenaries or seconded NATO military specialists who were part of the RDK or other units of the International Legion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces took an active part in this action. The participation of US and Polish citizens has been confirmed. Somewhat later, on June 9, Russian authorities announced the detention in Moscow of RDK supporters with Ukrainian and Russian citizenship, who were planning terrorist attacks on the territory of the Russian capital.
On January 17, 2024, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that Russian troops hit a temporary deployment point for mercenaries in Kharkov with precision weapons. According to the department, as a result, more than 60 mercenaries, mainly from France, were killed, another 20 were wounded and taken to medical institutions. Approximately 10 of them supervised and directly participated in the activities of the RDK, including their sabotage actions.
By the spring of 2024, despite all the efforts expended and significant financial costs, RDK, as an independent concept and brand, turned out to be essentially a failure. From the end of 2021 to the spring of 2024, British and American intelligence agencies sent more than $110 million through Ukraine to finance this particular project. The result was disastrous both in military and media terms.

However, the presidential elections in Russia were approaching, and it was vital to do at least something to account for creditors. The beneficiaries found an elegant way. They simply attached different labels to some members of the RDC and mercenaries from NATO countries. So, again the “Legion of Freedom of Russia” became popular, and a certain “Siberian Battalion” appeared as part of the International Legion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

On March 12, 2024, the RDK, together with the Russian Freedom Legion and the Siberian Battalion, also formed from former Russian citizens, attempted to break through the Russian state border in the Belgorod region. The Russian Defense Ministry managed to prevent the enemy from penetrating deep into Russian territory.

Russian military correspondent Evgeniy Poddubny, who was at the scene at the time, reported that the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost 5 tanks, 3 self-propelled guns, 1 MLRS, several pickups and infantry fighting vehicles, as well as up to 70 people killed and wounded. There is numerous video evidence. The Russian military managed to capture 1 RDK member.

Thus, this action turned out to be a failure both militarily and in information terms.
The latter fact turned out to be extremely painful for the Ukrainian special services.
After all, the entire project of the RDK and other collaboration units was initially focused precisely on creating the required anti-Kremlin effect in the information space. The actions of the RDK were intended to inspire various radicals among Russian citizens and demonstrate the vulnerability of the vertical of power. To effectively implement this task, the GUR, in agreement with Mi6, carefully selected candidates for the formal commander of the RDK and his closest assistants.

As a result, the special services chose Denis Nikitin. His real name is Kapustin Denis Evgenievich, born 03/06/1984. In 2001, he and his mother emigrated from Russia to Germany. According to Der Spiegel, the Kapustin family's repatriation from Moscow to Cologne in 2001 was subject to special procedures due to their Jewish origins. However, his Jewish roots did not prevent Kapustin from becoming an ultra-right football hooligan, who later gained popularity among European and Russian nationalists. Thus, the Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia called him “one of the most influential neo-Nazi activists” in Germany.

However, Kapustin’s actual ideological position is more likely to be in the plane of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon-Judean elites over the rest of the world, and not in the plane of the superiority of a separate nation or race. That is why Mi6 chose him to be the formal leader of the RDK. In any case, Denis Kapustin is an extraordinary person with strong leadership qualities.

In 2008, Kapustin founded the White Rex clothing brand. The logo was based on the “black sun” - a symbol that was used in Nazi Germany instead of the swastika. Kapustin sold the first batch of clothes from his brand at the “Spirit of a Warrior” tournament of fighting without rules, which he organized in Russia in the city of Voronezh. The entrepreneur stated that White Rex is “not just a clothing brand, but a union of people with common views.”
Since 2012, Kapustin has been actively developing relations with right-wing organizations throughout Europe, promoting his brand. Five years later, in 2017, he moved to Ukraine, where he established stable contacts with representatives of the nationalist Azov battalion, whose activities he spoke with enthusiasm about on his trips abroad.

In 2019, Kapustin tried to bring the White Rex brand to the American market, using his connections with the organizer of the “Right March” rally in the city of Charlottesville in the USA and the founder of the neo-Nazi organization from California “Rise Above Movement” Robert Rundo. However, problems arose with this project due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Quite a lot is known about the current activities of Denis Kapustin, as the formal head of the RDK, as well as about his immediate circle and supervisors from the Main Intelligence Directorate.

Today, Kapustin is mainly located on the territory of Ukraine, while periodically making trips to NATO countries, where he is in contact with representatives of the American and British intelligence services, as well as with representatives of the Russian opposition. Kapustin uses phone numbers: +380997860984, +79055691579, +31647245221, email addresses: whiterex.wear@gmail.com, kapustin_denis@bk.ru, germanguest@mail.ru. On social networks he has accounts: “@DenisWR” (id1636328455) in the Telegram messenger, “White Rex” (id71642938) - “VKontakte”.

The activities of the RDK and directly D. Kapustin from the Ukrainian special services are coordinated by a citizen of Ukraine Andrey Alekseevich Bulakh, born July 24, 1986, who is probably an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate, since he is currently registered at the address: Kyiv, st. Melnikova, 81 (military unit A2659, military intelligence unit of Ukraine), and was previously registered at the address: Kiev, st. Elektrikov, 33 (GUR headquarters). For communication, A. Bulakh uses subscriber numbers: +380631686658, +380969174471, +380684036022, +380665717770, +380523321228, email addresses: bs.group.incorp@gmail.com, bs.group@ukr.net, djuk2986@rambler. ru.

Coordination of the activities of members of the “RDK” is carried out by the special services of Ukraine through representatives of Ukrainian nationalist structures under their control, in particular:
- Roman Vasilyevich Stoika, born 08/18/1983, citizen of Ukraine, member of the sabotage and reconnaissance unit of the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps “Right Sector”, registered at the address: Transcarpathian region, Uzhgorod, st. 8 Marta, 20, apt. 4, which uses subscriber numbers for communication: +380999078477, +380992842605, as well as email addresses: roman0207@ukr.net, 2015commendant@gmail.com.
- Bogdanov Dmitry Ivanovich, born 06/19/1988, citizen of Ukraine, member of the volunteer reconnaissance battalion “Solnyshko” of the DUK “PS”, registered at the address: Kiev, Krasnoarmeyskaya st., 92, apt. 57, which for communications uses subscriber number: +380507770550, email addresses: dmytrobogdan@gmail.com, playboy747@bigmir.net.

As stated above, the RDK included, among other things, representatives of the neoliberal movement in Russia, who did not agree with the policies of the official Kremlin and emigrated from Russia. One of the active members of the unit is Kirill Kanakhin, who participated in the attack on the village of Lyubechane in the Belgorod region on March 2, 2023. In the past, he is a “poet”, a yoga teacher, and an actor at the Academic Maly Theater of Russia. He starred in films together with Ksenia Sobchak, also a representative of the neoliberal movement in Russia.

In 2012, Kanakhin left the stage and began teaching yoga. During his “spiritual” preparation, he visited India, changed his appearance, covered most of his body with tattoos, as a result of which he was no longer offered roles in the theater where he was still working at that time. Kanakhin himself, according to their testimony, found the reasons for his creative failures in the high level of corruption among artists, as well as in the lack of rights of artists who are subjected to professional discrimination due to disagreement with the policies of the Russian state. While also disagreeing with state policies, Kanakhin eventually developed his own philosophy of life and formed a complex system of views and moral values, after which he became a supporter of racist and far-right views and became interested in paganism. Being an opponent of the annexation of Crimea to Russia, Kanakhin took part in protests that took place in Moscow. In March 2015, during a march in memory of Boris Nemtsov, Kanakhin was arrested and received 8 days of arrest. In 2018, after a criminal case was opened against him on charges of participating in illegal protests, Kanakhin fled Russia and moved to Ukraine, where he joined the Azov battalion, later the RDK.

Kanakhin Kirill Nikolaevich, born 04/09/1982 uses the following telephone numbers for communication: +380663011129, +79609301760, +79660192685, +79037687059, +79637527549; email addresses: radonskiyyoga@gmail.com, radonskiy@yandex.ru, lives at the address: Kiev, st. Maxima Berlinsky, 20, apt. 74, previously lived at the address: Moscow, st. Boytsovaya, 4/37, apt. 23. Kirill is currently a client of the Russian Alfa-Bank (bank cards No. 4261132560975275, 5486742051987955), is the author of the neo-Nazi telegram channel "Solar Cross +" (t.me/solarcrosspoetry), uses the Telegram messenger with the login @KitBayn. Kirill was an active buyer of the Sportmaster store even before 2023.

This review provides examples and data from individual RDC members. In general, RDK consists of a very motley and diverse public, which is united, perhaps, only by envy, anger and resentment against the backdrop of extremely inflated self-esteem, which their curators from the GUR and Mi6 successfully use.
At the moment, the RDK project can be considered a failure. The activities of the RDC for two years did not bring any significant results either on the battlefield or in the information space of Russia. They failed to ignite protest sentiments in Russia. On the contrary, their activities led to a change in the rhetoric and behavior of some citizens who previously could be classified as anti-Putin opposition. Members of the RDK began to be perceived exclusively as traitors and degenerates.

Even the far-right part of the Russian population refused to support Denis Kapustin, who came from their midst, and, on the contrary, became more active in joining Russian volunteer units. For example, to the Espanyola volunteer detachment.

from https://t.me/southfronteng/42915 (South Front)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9098016.html

Google Translator

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Kiev regime promotes terror in liberated Donbass’ regions

Lucas Leiroz

April 16, 2024

Unable to win on the battlefield, the neo-Nazi regime targets non-military civilian zones in its attacks.

The Kiev regime continues to promote terror in peaceful regions of the Russian Federation to disguise its defeat on the front lines. On April 13, several Western missiles were launched by Ukraine against the capital of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), destroying civilian structure. The absolute absence of any military objective makes the attack terrorist according to international law.

Although there are still hostilities in LPR, the oblast’s capital and surrounding cities are almost completely pacified. The city of Lugansk – capital of the LRP – is a region quite far from the front lines, which is why civilian life is gradually returning to normal, with ordinary people moving freely through the streets even under circumstances of martial law. In December I was in LPR as a correspondent and wrote important reports about the situation on the ground. At the time, I emphasized the advanced pacification process in Lugansk.

However, the Kiev regime does not seem willing to allow peace to prevail in the New Regions of Russia. Recently, neo-Nazi forces launched missile attacks against the capital of LPR, hitting a machinery factory that was about to be opened. As expected, this was another attack against civilian targets, without any military relevance. The reason for the incursion appears to be related to the Ukrainian objective of preventing life from returning to normal in Donbass, as this factory would employ dozens of people and accelerate the process of economic stabilization in Lugansk.

The attack injured at least three civilians, according to data published by the Coordination Council of Reintegration of New Regions. This was the first Ukrainian attack on Lugansk City in ten months. The region is one of the safest in Donbass, considering the distance from the “zero line” – where infantry troops fight. The people of Lugansk have long lived peacefully, but Kiev clearly wants to prevent security from prevailing.

It must be emphasized that it is not easy for Kiev to reach the capital of LPR, with most of the missiles launched being neutralized by Russian defense artillery. The attack on the 13th was successful because Kiev used long-range British missiles, the well-known Storm Shadow projectiles – capable of reaching more than 250km. At least two of these missiles were launched against LPR, which made the attack successful. The last successful attack against the city of Lugansk was in May 2023, also using Storm Shadow projects. At the time, neo-Nazi forces attacked a food factory and a home goods store, injuring dozens of people.

As we can see, Ukrainian attacks use lethal Western weapons to destroy civilian facilities and harm ordinary people, without any strategic purpose. The bombings in LPR come amid a recent wave of terrorist raids against civilian areas, including Zaparozhye, where, in addition to constant attacks on the nuclear power plant, three children were murdered in an artillery attack in the city of Tokmak on April 13. It is also necessary to remember that terror continues to spread on Russian borders, with Belgorod and Kursk being attacked by missiles and drones in terrorist operations that constantly generate civilian casualties.

Losing on the battlefield, the neo-Nazi regime uses terror to divert the attention of the global media and pretend that it still has some kind of chance to cause damage to the Russian Federation. The deliberate murder of civilians has become commonplace for Ukrainian troops, who frequently target non-military targets in peaceful regions to make it appear that they are having some strategic success – thus justifying the delivery of more weapons from NATO.

Moscow has already shown that it will not respond to terror with terror. While Russian civilian targets are killed, retaliations are only carried out against legitimate targets (military and critical infrastructure facilities). For Ukraine it would be very advantageous if Moscow attacked Ukrainian civilian targets, as this would generate arguments to boost the NATO war machine against Russia, but for its part Russia continues to understand this war as a conflict against the neo-Nazi regime and its sponsors, not against the Ukrainian people.

However, the constant use of Western weapons in these terrorist incursions tends to generate a serious escalation not only in the conflict, but also in the diplomatic sphere. Ties between Russia and the West will become increasingly unfriendly as Russian civilians are targeted by Western missiles.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... s-regions/

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The Polish President Revealed That Foreign Companies Own Most Of Ukraine’s Industrial Agriculture

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ANDREW KORYBKO
APR 17, 2024

Andrzej Duda represents what’s widely considered to be one of the most pro-American and anti-Russian governments at any time in history so he can’t credibly be accused of “pushing Kremlin propaganda” on this scandalous subject.

The Oakland Institute published a detailed report in February 2023 titled “War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land”, which exposed how foreign firms have clandestinely taken control of a significant share of Ukrainian farmland by exploiting a liberal law in collusion with local oligarchs. Their findings made waves around at the time but eventually receded from the public’s attention over half a year later once Western outlets like the USA Today misleadingly “fact-checked” it.

They took advantage of social media users conflating indirect ownership through stakes with direct control to discredit the institution’s report, after which it largely faded from the general discourse. Few could have expected that it would be none other than Polish President Andrzej Duda who just breathed new life into it during his interview with Lithuanian National Radio and Television. He was explaining Poland’s problem with Ukrainian agricultural imports when he dropped the following bombshell:

“I would like to draw particular attention to industrial agriculture, which is not really run by Ukrainians, it is run by big companies from Western Europe, from the USA. If we look today at the owners of most of the land, they are not Ukrainian companies. This is a paradoxical situation, and no wonder that farmers are defending themselves, because they have invested in their farms in Poland […] and cheap agricultural produce coming from Ukraine is dramatically destructive to them.”

Duda represents what’s widely considered to be one of the most pro-American and anti-Russian governments at any time in history so he can’t credibly be accused of “pushing Kremlin propaganda”. He therefore wouldn’t have confirmed the dramatic claim of majority-foreign ownership of Ukraine’s industrial agriculture, albeit indirectly through stakes in national companies that exploit a liberal law in collusion with local oligarchs, if he didn’t have the facts provided to him by Polish experts to back it up.

This development should prompt a resurgence of interest in prior reports on this subject such as USAID’s about how “Private Sector on the Frontlines of Land Reform to Unlock Ukraine’s Investment Potential”. Thomas Fazi’s detailed report for UnHeard back in July 2023 about how “The capitalists are circling over Ukraine: The war is creating massive profit opportunities” is also insightful. Most relevant, however, is what Zelensky told the World Economic Forum in Davos in May 2022. In his words:

“We offer a special - historically significant - model of reconstruction. When each of the partner countries or partner cities or partner companies will have the opportunity - historical one - to take patronage over a particular region of Ukraine, city, community or industry. Britain, Denmark, the European Union and other leading international actors have already chosen a specific direction for patronage in reconstruction.”

One year later, he hosted BlackRock’s management in Kiev, during which time they discussed the creation of an investment and reconstruction fund. According to Zelensky, “Today is a historic moment because, since the very first days of independence, we have not had such huge investment cases in Ukraine. We are proud that we can initiate such a process…We will be able to offer interesting projects to invest in energy, security, agriculture, logistics, infrastructure, medicine, IT, and many other areas.”

Putting the pieces together, the Ukrainian leader made good on his May 2022 Davos proposal by offering companies “patronage” over Ukraine’s industrial agriculture, which was already in the process of unfolding prior to then but was greatly accelerated by last May’s meeting with BlackRock’s management. This took the tangible form of these indirectly foreign-controlled farms outcompeting Poland’s by far, thus leading to the Polish farmers’ protests across the country and the latest troubles in bilateral ties.

The sequence of events detailed thus far places into context mid-February’s report about the G7’s alleged plans to appoint an envoy to Ukraine, who’d obviously be tasked with implementing the Davos agenda if this comes to pass, particularly entrenching foreign control over Ukrainian farmland. It also suggests that Ukraine’s informal focus on ramping up agricultural exports to the EU isn’t just opportunistic, but partially driven by these foreign firms’ preference for speedy and reliable profits.

Ukraine had hitherto been an agricultural powerhouse in the Global South but ceded its market share to Russia on the false pretext that Moscow was blockading the Black Sea, which in turn prompted the EU to temporarily eliminate prior trade barriers for the official purpose of facilitating exports via its territory. In reality, Russia never blockaded the Black Sea, and almost all of the Ukrainian grain that entered the EU remained there instead of traveling through the bloc en route to Kiev’s traditional Global South markets.

It's much quicker for Ukraine to sell its agricultural products in the neighboring EU than to wait however long it takes to export them to Africa, not to mention more reliable as well since it’s unimaginable that these developed economies would ever have the same possible payment problems as developing ones. These self-evident calculations work against Poland’s interests, ergo how much of a struggle it’ll be for that country to defend its domestic market from this influx considering the powerful forces at play.

It's not just the Ukrainian agricultural lobby that wants tariff-free access for these products into the EU market, but also the lobbies of those foreign firms that indirectly control its industrial agriculture. The latter will likely fight tooth and nail to prevent any compromise being reached on Ukraine’s hoped-for EU membership whereby that former Soviet Republic’s agricultural sector would be excluded from any deal. Poland therefore has every reason to continue drawing global attention to these shadowy relationships.

It's only by raising maximum awareness of the fact that “most of the land” within Ukraine’s industrial agriculture sector “is run by big companies from Western Europe, from the USA” that Poland stands any chance of the aforesaid compromise entering into force. That’ll make the country some very powerful enemies who could then meddle in Polish domestic affairs out of vengeance, but Duda’s latest interview suggests that he’s prepared to face their wrath in order to protect Poland’s objective national interests.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/the-poli ... ealed-that

Another good reason for Russia to retake the old Novorussian territories. Expropriating those thieves would only be right. And as for the concerns that a Ukraine without Black Sea access would be an economic basket case, well too bad. Perhaps after they are sufficiently purged of Nazism they might request protection of Russia from Western deprivations, as they did in the 16th century.
"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 Apr 18, 2024 12:00 pm

The line of commitment
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 04/18/2024

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Diplomacy, as the only real alternative to the continuation of the conflict until the final victory of one of the parties or the exhaustion of the resources of both, was, in the case of Russia and Ukraine, completely put on hold after the breakdown of the principle of agreement of Istanbul. Although members of the Ukrainian delegation have confirmed that the talks and the Russian attempt to reach a treaty lasted until June 2022, the failure of the summit in Turkey can be considered the end of that attempt to resolve the conflict between the two. countries before the war gave way to the massive destruction that is occurring on the front. Since then, one of the most repeated arguments for rejecting the possibility of dialogue has been the popular rejection of said option.

The official discourse has always wanted to insist on the idea of ​​the unity of the nation against the Russian invader and the will of an entire people to fight until they regain their independence, sovereignty and freedom. In this trajectory, which had already begun before February 24, 2022, the media discourse has followed to the letter the script of the Office of the President, increasingly similar to that of the extreme right in the moments in which it mistakenly feared an agreement with Russia to resolve the Donbass conflict. “No to capitulation,” cried groups linked to the Azov movement and the most radical factions of the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States and Canada in relation to the possibility that Ukraine could choose to comply with the Minsk agreements. The danger that the Zelensky Government would choose to comply with the minimum concessions to which the State had committed itself by signing the Minsk agreements to recover the territory of Donbass was non-existent, but the campaign marked a significant line in understanding the current position. kyiv did not give a single sign of its intention to comply with the Minsk agreements and, for example, include in the Constitution the special status for the territories of the DPR and the LPR as required by the peace agreements.

Ukraine banned by decree all political negotiations with Vladimir Putin, according to the Ukrainian delegation the person most interested in achieving a peace agreement in March and April 2022, and since then it has condemned every diplomatic initiative that has been presented internationally. Kiev is preparing a summit with Switzerland to promote Zelensky's peace formula which, without Russia's participation, simply demands the unilateral surrender of Moscow and the abandonment of all the territory under its control, including Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea, where the population has clearly shown its position over the last ten years. The rejection of the population of that part of the country to Kiev and the possibility of returning under Ukrainian control, which was also manifested during the Minsk years, has not been a sufficient argument to doubt the strength of the unity of Ukraine to which it constantly the Ukrainian Government and its related media appeal.

Throughout the war, both the current one and the one that lasted for almost eight years in Donbass before the Russian intervention, polls have shown a much more nuanced position than the simplification of unconditional support for the state and the president that has been wanted to present. While the Ukrainian nationalist extreme right demonstrated and created an entire movement to demand that there be no capitulation that was never on the table, polls showed a greater preference for compromise among the population. After all, the Minsk agreements, despite demanding concessions that broke with the idea of ​​centralism and cultural and political uniformity that kyiv wanted to impose, returned two of the three lost territories. On that occasion, the majority in favor of the agreement was not used as a justification for opting for the negotiation route, fundamentally because it was never possible. Poroshenko had decided years ago that the agreements were not going to be implemented and Zelensky officially communicated this to Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron at the Normandy Four summit in December 2019. Minsk was always a dead end and the population's position did not matter. The Government's point of view was going to change, more concerned about that social minority with the capacity to mobilize in the streets that required them to be even tougher with Russia (and with Donetsk and Lugansk).

With the Russian invasion, the population's opinion collected in the surveys went from being an unimportant anecdote to a central argument in the nation's unity discourse. Of the three reasons given by David Arajamia, leader of the Ukrainian negotiating delegation in Istanbul, for rejecting the agreement with Russia, one of them was the opinion of the population that, in no way, would accept ceding territories to Moscow in exchange for the peace. At that time, as Arajamia himself confirmed months later, the territorial concessions that were negotiated were limited to Crimea, lost to Ukraine due to popular fervor in the spring of 2014, and the area of ​​Donbass that kyiv did not want to recover through Minsk. In the nationalist wave that occurred in February 2022, when thousands of volunteers enlisted in the Ukrainian Armed Forces to fight against Moscow, that price was excessive and it was preferable to fight until final victory. At that time, and especially in moments of greatest Russian weakness, the polls clearly showed the favor of a qualified majority to the Government and especially to the president and commander in chief of the Armed Forces. That position was conveyed to the press without the nuances that war demands. With a bias towards urban areas and underrepresentation of rural areas, carried out only in the territories under Ukrainian control and without taking into account the millions of refugees who had left the country, some of them to Russia, the surveys carried out by the institutions The Ukrainian authorities were also not inclined to show positions favorable to peace at that time. But despite the questionability of these data, they were used as a guarantee that Western investment in weapons, ammunition, intelligence and troop training had the unanimous support of the Ukrainian people. The warning that none of these studies, like those carried out during the previous eight years, did not take into account the opinion of the population of Crimea, Donetsk or Luhansk was never more than a footnote in the executive summary of the results and a fact that did not make the headlines.

Some time ago, a study commissioned by the Quincy Institute, possibly instigated by Anatol Lieven's perception of disparate attitudes toward war depending on distance from the front, showed serious regional differences. Now, as the Ukrainian newspaper Strana reflected last week , these gaps are also shown in sociological studies carried out by Ukrainian institutions. The medium refers to three similar studies carried out in recent months. The first of them, commissioned by the Ministry of Veterans Affairs and carried out by Rating, shows notable differences both in the willingness to participate in the war and in the position on its objectives. While 46% are willing to participate in the war in the westernmost regions, that percentage drops to 42% in the center, 40% in the south and 32% in the east. The will to go to the front is reduced proportionally to the distance to the battle in the same way as the will to continue fighting until the territorial integrity is recovered according to the 1991 borders. The data show that 50% of the population of the west of Ukraine is in favor of rejecting all negotiations and continuing to fight until all the territory is recovered, while 42% are in favor of seeking a compromise with the help of third countries. Taking into account that this is the traditionally most nationalist region and in which social, cultural, economic and family relations with Russia have been scarcer, it is representative that the option of commitment reaches such a high percentage. The figure is the same as in the center and rises to 47% (equal to the percentage willing to fight until the end) in the south and reaches 51% in the east, where this option exceeds the most belligerent option by ten points.

Regional differences are not new and were already recorded by the kyiv Institute of Sociology last year. “According to a survey conducted in late November and early December 2023, in the west and center of the country, 64% and 65% of respondents respectively support the continuation of hostilities even if there is a significant reduction in Western aid. Consequently, 28% and 26% agree with an end to the war with serious security guarantees from the West,” explains Strana . On the contrary, “in the south, 46% are in favor of war, and in the east, 47% of respondents, while 40% of survey participants are undecided and 42% are willing. to a freeze .” The east-west gap, marked by the distance from the front, was already evident in 2023 and has increased notably in these months in which Russia has regained the initiative and threatens to be able to break the Ukrainian defenses in sensitive areas of the contact line.

The differences of opinion are so evident that they are not only commented on by national sociologists, but also by some of their authorities. “The front regions say: we still have to talk, what about peace negotiations? In the central regions, 40% are undecided. And in the west they say: no negotiations, let's go to Moscow,” commented Vitaly Kim, the media-friendly governor of the Nikolaev region.

Finally, the Socis survey finds that 36% of the country's population agrees with seeking a compromise to end the war with the mediation of third countries, that is, through negotiation, and 8.2% defend freezing the front in its current position, meaning that 44.3% of the population is in favor of stopping the war in one way or another. On the contrary, 33.5% demand that hostilities continue until all the territory is recovered, an option that is hardly realistic today. Another 11% want to fight until they recover the territories captured by Russia since February 24, 2022, something that could be achieved through negotiation in Istanbul, but which under current conditions is also increasingly utopian.

The data provided by sociological studies in conditions as complex as those implied by war must be understood as indicative. However, the fact that these are Ukrainian companies confirming the growing war fatigue is significant in itself, especially when it comes to calling into question any plan and policy that is based on the unity of the Ukrainian people willing to fight for their freedom until final victory, as the Ukrainian government and its foreign partners continue to insist despite evidence that society is made up of much more nuanced versions.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/04/18/la-li ... ompromiso/

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 April 17, 2024) | The main thing:

- The West group of troops occupied more advantageous positions and repelled four counterattacks in the Kupyansk direction;

- Units of the Eastern Group of the Russian Armed Forces improved the position along the front line in the South Donetsk direction;

- Russian air defense systems shot down 191 Ukrainian drones and 6 operational-tactical missiles MGM-140 ATACMS made in the USA during the day;

- The Russian Armed Forces improved the situation along the front line in the Donetsk direction and inflicted fire damage on manpower and six brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine;

- Within 24 hours, the Russian Armed Forces improved the tactical situation in the Avdeevka direction, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost up to 330 military personnel;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 480 soldiers and a tank in the Donetsk direction in one day.

Operational-tactical aviation, missile forces and artillery of groupings of troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation destroyed ammunition depots of the operational-tactical group "Donetsk", the 125th territorial defense brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the terrorist formations "RDK", and also defeated the enemy's manpower and military equipment in 132 districts. During the day,

air defense systems shot down 191 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, six operational-tactical missiles MGM-140 ATACMS made in the USA and a Hammer guided aerial bomb made in France.

📊 In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 583 aircraft, 270 helicopters, 21,483 unmanned aerial vehicles, 502 anti-aircraft missile systems, 15,798 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,267 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 8,935 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 21,096 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Strike at a hotel in Chernigov. 04/17/2024
April 17, 11:24

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As a result of the strike on the hotel in Chernigov, a large number of enemy personnel were killed and wounded (the enemy announced 8 killed and 16 wounded in the morning, now there are already 10 + piled under the rubble). Nazi Mosiychuk reports that there are a large number of killed and wounded in the hotel. They are collecting blood around the city and looking for those who led the Russian military to this hotel.

(Other images at link.)

Also on night strikes.

1. There were missiles arriving in the area of ​​the airfield in Dzhankoy. They report an explosion at an ammunition depot + limited damage at the airfield.
2. Missile arrivals at the port of Yuzhny (Odessa region). It is not clear what was destroyed, but secondary detonation was noted.
3. In Mordovia, a single drone that flew there was shot down.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9098773.html

"Peaceful Hotel" turns into...
April 17, 16:40

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The "Peace Hotel" in Chernigov turned out to be a very large enemy location.
By mid-day, the enemy had already recognized more than 40 soldiers and officers killed and dozens of wounded. Debris clearance continues. Mourning was declared in Chernigov.
This, of course, was successfully covered. In the city, the SBU is looking for those who leaked information about this hotel to the Russian military and helped with missile guidance.

https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/colonel ... 99_900.jpg

Google Translator

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It Would Be Surprising If Polish Patriot Systems Were Used To Protect Western Ukraine

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ANDREW KORYBKO
APR 17, 2024

The Anglo-American Axis recently signaled that it wouldn’t approve of this.

Ukrainian Foreign Minster Kuleba claimed that “Everything is possible” when recently asked about the scenario of Polish Patriot air defense systems being used to protect Western Ukraine. This shortly followed reports that Kiev was requesting these missiles from neighboring Poland and Romania, as well as faraway Spain, amidst Russia’s attacks against Ukraine’s energy grid. It would be surprising if Poland complied, however, since the Anglo-American Axis recently signaled that it wouldn’t approve of this.

British Foreign Secretary Cameron said in response to a question on Monday about why the UK won’t help Ukraine shoot down incoming Russian drones and missiles like it helped Israel shoot down incoming Iranian ones that “I think the difficulty with what you suggest is if you want to avoid an escalation in terms of a wider European war, I think the one thing you do need to avoid is NATO troops directly engaging Russian troops. That would be a danger of escalation.”

Pentagon spokesman Kirby said something similar on the same day: “I knew this question was coming. Look: different conflicts, different airspace, different threat picture. And [President Joe Biden] has been clear from the beginning [of the Ukraine hostilities] that the US is not going to be involved in that conflict in a combat role.” While it’s unlikely that either of them would hang Poland out to dry if it unilaterally shot down Russian projectiles over Ukraine, they’re clearly signaling that they don’t want it to do this.

Any such action could escalate the conflict beyond anyone’s control, which could at the very least destabilize the Western financial markets even if World War III doesn’t break out by miscalculation. That might in turn further reduce the odds of Biden winning re-election, thus explaining the political self-interest behind the US’ uncharacteristic restraint. Similar calculations account for why it speculatively coordinated with Iran behind the scenes during last week’s retributive strikes to prevent an escalation.

The American public has no appetite for their country’s direct involvement in a large-scale conflict after having already soured on its role in leading NATO’s proxy war on Russia in Ukraine. Furthermore, the destabilization of Western financial markets in the event of a NATO-Russian crisis brought about by one of the bloc’s members creating a “no-fly zone” over parts of Ukraine could push the US into a recession, thus unleashing more anti-incumbency sentiment that works against the ruling Democrats’ interests.

Nevertheless, just like Israel could exploit its role in catalyzing a large-scale conflict unless it obtains tangible concessions from the US, so too could Poland do the same. Unlike Israel, however, Poland doesn’t have the independent agency to pursue such a risky policy seeing as how its new liberal-globalist government comprehensively subordinated the country to Germany since mid-December. Whereas Israel is still sovereign despite claims of US control, Poland is a German puppet state nowadays.

Considering this, it would indeed be surprising if Polish Patriot systems were used to protect Western Ukraine, which Kuleba knows but still spoke ambiguously about the possibility in an attempt to pressure the West while keeping morale from plummeting even further at home. That’s not to say that this scenario can be ruled out, especially since the US could decide to escalate in response to a potential Russian military breakthrough, in which case they could cover the skies ahead of a Polish intervention.

For the time being, however, it’s very unlikely that the US would approve of Poland taking that step unless something seriously changes. Likewise, it’s even more unlikely that Poland would unilaterally do so in defiance of the Anglo-American Axis after it conveyed its disapproval of this possibility. For that reason, Kuleba’s proposal will probably amount to naught, with the only chance of it materializing absent a Russian breakthrough being if the US recklessly decides to “escalate to de-escalate”.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/it-would ... -if-polish

Borrell Came Up With A Nifty Excuse For Why NATO Won’t Shoot Down Russian Missiles Over Ukraine

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ANDREW KORYBKO
APR 18, 2024

This is credible enough of a reason to justify a conventional NATO intervention in defense of Israel without giving Ukraine grounds to claim that there are double standards at play.

Ukraine became jealous like never before after NATO members helped shoot down Iranian missiles en route to Israel earlier this month yet won’t lift a finger to help Ukraine shoot down Russian ones. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that “the difficulty with what you suggest (about the UK shooting down Russian missiles) is if you want to avoid an escalation in terms of a wider European war, I think the one thing you do need to avoid is NATO troops directly engaging Russian troops.”

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby responded to a similar question by saying “Look: different conflicts, different airspace, different threat picture. And [President Joe Biden] has been clear from the beginning [of the Ukraine hostilities] that the US is not going to be involved in that conflict in a combat role.” Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andrey Yermak didn’t buy their explanations, however, and demanded that the West start shooting down Russian missiles just like they shot down Iranian ones.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tried allaying Ukraine’s jealousy by declaring that “if allies face a choice between meeting NATO capability targets and providing more aid to Ukraine, my message is clear: send more to Ukraine.” Even though he’s telling members to prioritize Ukraine’s interests over their own national ones, Kiev isn’t expected to calm down since it still knows that NATO won’t come to its rescue in this respect like the bloc just did for Israel.

That’s where EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s nifty excuse comes in. As he explained, “Iran’s attacks flew over air bases of the armies of France, the US, the UK and Jordan. They have gone over their bases, which then acted in self-defense. There are no air bases of the UK, or the US, much less Jordan of course, on Ukrainian territory or in the territory Russian missiles fly over. Therefore, the same answer cannot be given because the circumstances are not the same.”

This is credible enough of a reason to justify a conventional NATO intervention in defense of Israel without giving Ukraine grounds to claim that there are double standards at play. The only way that Kiev could try flipping the tables is in the far-fetched event that it officially admits the presence of NATO troops on its territory, which Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski described as an “open secret” last month, and pinpoints their bases to prove that the bloc does nothing as Russian missiles fly overhead.

That is extremely unlikely to happen, however, since it would represent a major security risk. Ukrainian officials might still hint that this is the case and perhaps leak vague information about it into their national media and/or to international media via their “agents of influence”, but they’re almost certainly not going to cross the red line of disclosing specific details that could put those troops at risk. Borrell, for all his professional faults, knows this and thus crafted his nifty excuse that inspired this analysis.

Giving credit where it’s due, that was a wise move since his explanation is consistent enough to dispel Ukraine’s complaints about NATO’s double standards and consequent perception of being less important to the bloc than Israel is, both of which are true but can now be more plausibly denied. Ukraine should accept that NATO isn’t going to treat it and Israel as equals, with the only consolation being if some members send it more Patriot systems, but that’s not the same as them shooting down Russian missiles.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/borrell- ... fty-excuse

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Kiev regime promotes terror in liberated Donbass’ regions

Lucas Leiroz

April 16, 2024

Unable to win on the battlefield, the neo-Nazi regime targets non-military civilian zones in its attacks.

The Kiev regime continues to promote terror in peaceful regions of the Russian Federation to disguise its defeat on the front lines. On April 13, several Western missiles were launched by Ukraine against the capital of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), destroying civilian structure. The absolute absence of any military objective makes the attack terrorist according to international law.

Although there are still hostilities in LPR, the oblast’s capital and surrounding cities are almost completely pacified. The city of Lugansk – capital of the LRP – is a region quite far from the front lines, which is why civilian life is gradually returning to normal, with ordinary people moving freely through the streets even under circumstances of martial law. In December I was in LPR as a correspondent and wrote important reports about the situation on the ground. At the time, I emphasized the advanced pacification process in Lugansk.

However, the Kiev regime does not seem willing to allow peace to prevail in the New Regions of Russia. Recently, neo-Nazi forces launched missile attacks against the capital of LPR, hitting a machinery factory that was about to be opened. As expected, this was another attack against civilian targets, without any military relevance. The reason for the incursion appears to be related to the Ukrainian objective of preventing life from returning to normal in Donbass, as this factory would employ dozens of people and accelerate the process of economic stabilization in Lugansk.

The attack injured at least three civilians, according to data published by the Coordination Council of Reintegration of New Regions. This was the first Ukrainian attack on Lugansk City in ten months. The region is one of the safest in Donbass, considering the distance from the “zero line” – where infantry troops fight. The people of Lugansk have long lived peacefully, but Kiev clearly wants to prevent security from prevailing.

It must be emphasized that it is not easy for Kiev to reach the capital of LPR, with most of the missiles launched being neutralized by Russian defense artillery. The attack on the 13th was successful because Kiev used long-range British missiles, the well-known Storm Shadow projectiles – capable of reaching more than 250km. At least two of these missiles were launched against LPR, which made the attack successful. The last successful attack against the city of Lugansk was in May 2023, also using Storm Shadow projects. At the time, neo-Nazi forces attacked a food factory and a home goods store, injuring dozens of people.

As we can see, Ukrainian attacks use lethal Western weapons to destroy civilian facilities and harm ordinary people, without any strategic purpose. The bombings in LPR come amid a recent wave of terrorist raids against civilian areas, including Zaparozhye, where, in addition to constant attacks on the nuclear power plant, three children were murdered in an artillery attack in the city of Tokmak on April 13. It is also necessary to remember that terror continues to spread on Russian borders, with Belgorod and Kursk being attacked by missiles and drones in terrorist operations that constantly generate civilian casualties.

Losing on the battlefield, the neo-Nazi regime uses terror to divert the attention of the global media and pretend that it still has some kind of chance to cause damage to the Russian Federation. The deliberate murder of civilians has become commonplace for Ukrainian troops, who frequently target non-military targets in peaceful regions to make it appear that they are having some strategic success – thus justifying the delivery of more weapons from NATO.

Moscow has already shown that it will not respond to terror with terror. While Russian civilian targets are killed, retaliations are only carried out against legitimate targets (military and critical infrastructure facilities). For Ukraine it would be very advantageous if Moscow attacked Ukrainian civilian targets, as this would generate arguments to boost the NATO war machine against Russia, but for its part Russia continues to understand this war as a conflict against the neo-Nazi regime and its sponsors, not against the Ukrainian people.

However, the constant use of Western weapons in these terrorist incursions tends to generate a serious escalation not only in the conflict, but also in the diplomatic sphere. Ties between Russia and the West will become increasingly unfriendly as Russian civilians are targeted by Western missiles.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... s-regions/

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KYIV POST: UKRAINE’S SECRET SERVICE BOSS DETAILS ASSASSINATION CAMPAIGN VS. KREMLIN-LOYAL OCCUPATION OFFICIALS
APRIL 17, 2024 LEAVE A COMMENT
Stefan Korshak, Kyiv Post, 3/27/24

Not all claims made by SBU head Vasyl Malyuk could be confirmed independently. Reportedly, one Ukrainian collaborating with the Kremlin lost body parts to an anti-tank mine. – Kyiv Post

An assassination campaign “possibly” run by Ukraine’s national spy agency, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), has killed more than a dozen Ukrainian citizens collaborating with the Kremlin in Russian-occupied territory, the agency’s senior officer, Lt. Gen. Vasyl Malyuk, said in Monday evening televised comments.

Speaking in an hour-long interview with the national broadcaster ICTV, Malyuk said secret operators since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion have targeted “very many” individuals responsible for war crimes and attacks against Ukrainian citizens and operated deep behind “enemy” lines, including in Russia.

Kyiv Post could not independently confirm Malyuk’s claims in the interview or elsewhere related to these alleged operations.

Malyuk claimed that the assassination campaign, run through networks of secret agents and clandestine operatives, has prioritized Ukrainian nationals collaborating with Kremlin occupation authorities to arrest and torture other Ukrainians, but that formally, Kyiv cannot take responsibility for the killings and attempted killings.

“Officially, we will not admit to this,” he said. “But at the same time, I can offer some details.”

Following the interview, a Moscow court issued a warrant for Malyuk’s arrest on Tuesday on suspicion of participating in “terrorist acts” in violation of Russian Federation law.

In the interview, Malyuk offered details of multiple Ukraine state-sponsored killings and of purported internal Ukrainian government processes authorizing them.

Malyuk claimed the process goes as follows: Before planning and executing an assassination, SBU leadership cooperates with national-level law enforcement and intelligence agencies to identify the target and confirm he or she was responsible for wartime activities calculated to kill or injure Ukrainians. He said that civilian authorities give any sanction to the SBU to assassinate only after due deliberation of intelligence.

Malyuk said Ukraine-born Vladlen Tatarsky, a Kremlin propagandist and media personality, was targeted because of his military service fighting against the Ukrainian military in 2014-16, and continued high-profile calls for elimination of Ukrainians as a nation, by state-sponsored genocide, if necessary, up to his death. An explosive-filled statuette killed Tatarsky in a St. Petersburg café on April 2, 2023. Operatives duped an intermediary, a young woman, into handing the statue to Tatarsky, Malyuk said.

The SBU would not take credit for the execution but Tatarsky deserved it because of repeated abuse of Ukrainian prisoners of war for Kremlin propaganda, he said. The woman with the statue, Darya Trepova, was sentenced to 27 years imprisonment in a Moscow court on Jan. 25. She said she was tricked into giving Tatarsky the explosives-filled statue.

Vasyl Malyuk, head of Ukraine’s national spy agency the SBU, poses with a service dog. Image published by the rn.ua news agency on 21 Feb. 2024.

Former Ukrainian parliament member Illia Kyva, an outspoken critic of Ukrainian independence and a fugitive from Kyiv authorities following Russia’s main force invasion of Ukraine, was shot dead by an assassin in a village west of Moscow, on Dec. 6, 2023. Kyva had been convicted of treason and was continuing anti-Ukrainian activities in cooperation with Russia’s national spy agency the FSB, and was executed by a pair of 9mm pistol shots at close range by a skilled assassin, Malyuk said.

Ukrainian citizen Zakhar Prelepin, a senior police official in a “separatist” government supported by the Kremlin in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, was “a target” because he had served at the top levels of Ukrainian law enforcement before turning coat, and went on to call publicly for the murder of Ukrainians and a systematic police effort to carry out the killings, Mayuk claimed.

Prelepin survived the Sep. 16, 2022 detonation of an anti-tank mine killing several other police gathered at a country house in the Luhansk region, but severe injuries to his midsection destroyed his genitalia and left “this proved war criminal” an invalid, Malyuk claimed. Some media at the time reported Prelipin died in the attack.

An 800-gram NATO-standard C-4 explosive charge was used to blow up the office of the Prosecutor General of the Luhansk occupation authority “LPR,” following Gorenko’s active prosecution of Ukrainian citizens for Kremlin officials running the region, and obtaining execution sentences against Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, Malyuk said. Some media at the time reported an anti-armor rocket had been fired through Gorenko’s office window.

Igor Kornet, the senior LPR police officer, was likewise severely injured and left an immobile invalid following a bomb blast on May 15, 2023 hitting a Luhansk barber shop. Kornet visited the establishment once a week, Malyuk claimed.

The number of targeted killings against such officials collaborating with invading Russian troops is substantial and more are likely to take place, he said.

Malyuk said one of the highest-profile assassination attempts was against Russian political philosopher and close Vladimir Putin ally Aleksandr Dugin. It failed when the Kremlin propagandist switched cars with his daughter on Aug. 20, 2022, who was killed in a bomb rigged by agents, he said.

Aside from assassinations and intelligence collection, Malyuk said, SBU operators are running an ongoing campaign targeting Russian oil refineries using long-range kamikaze drones. The attacks began in earnest in early 2024 have hit all 15 oil refineries in European Russia and in some 10 weeks of attacks cut Russian national petroleum product production by 12 percent, and forced the Kremlin to declare a total ban on gasoline exports effective March 1, the intelligence agency head said.

Operators from the Ukrainian military are assisting in the oil refinery attacks inside Russia, Malyuk said.

Ukrainian military planners believe Kyiv is currently capable of attacking and destroying the strategically critical Kerch bridge connecting Russian-occupied Crimea with the Russian Federation. Railroad transport capacity of the bridge, severely damaged in a spectacular Oct. 8, 2022 truck bomb attack, has never been fully repaired, preventing movement by military freight cars and making the link a lower-priority target, Malyuk said.

“When they [Russian repair workers] fix the carrying capacity, that’s when we will send them, so to say, another ‘greeting card,’” he said.

SBU operator observes a kamikaze Sea Baby robot boat similar to ones used by Ukraine’s national spy agency in high seas attacks against warships belonging to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. According to SBU director Vasyl Malyuk, SBU-operated attack boats have hit and damaged at least 11 major Russian warships. Official SBU photograph, undated.

An SBU-led campaign to attack the Russian Navy with kamikaze robot boats carrying explosives, launched in early 2023, has hit 11 Black Sea Fleet (BSF) warships operating in the central and western Black Sea, and forced Moscow to shift surviving vessels out of the major naval base Sevastopol to bases on the Russian coast, Malyuk said. SBU strikes can reach the new bases and will continue, he added.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/04/kyi ... officials/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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