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 » Sat Sep 21, 2024 12:07 pm

Plan B
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 21/09/2024

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“There is no plan B because we are already in it,” said Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday at a press conference with Ursula von der Leyen. The President of the European Commission was making her eighth visit to kyiv to discuss issues that can be finalised remotely, but which require certain ceremonies to obtain their propaganda value. The European Union wanted to announce that it will contribute 35 billion euros to the credit fund with which the G7 wants to support the reconstruction of Ukraine, with special emphasis on the repair of infrastructure to mitigate the damage suffered by electricity production. Brussels has firmly supported Ukraine, which prioritised the Kursk adventure despite being aware that this offensive would make it impossible for Russia to continue with the indirect negotiations with which the mediating countries hoped to achieve a partial ceasefire that would affect, at least, the energy production plants. In practice, the position of the European Union and Ukraine is that plan B of repair is better than plan A of prevention.

The same can be said of Kiev’s geopolitical strategy, which Zelensky was referring to with his mention of Ukraine’s intentions and speculation about the document he is going to present to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and possibly Donald Trump next week during his visit to the United States to participate in the United Nations General Assembly. According to Volodymyr Zelensky, there can be no alternative to the Ukrainian government’s approach, since the current situation is plan B after failing to achieve the original: “preventing invasion.” As is now the case with the damage being suffered by infrastructure that could have been protected through diplomacy, Ukraine prioritized other strategic objectives instead of using diplomacy to implement what it now says was plan A. Avoiding Russian military intervention in 2022 involved two key aspects: compliance with the Minsk agreements to end the Donbass conflict and accepting neutrality so that the territory would not be used as a springboard for a military threat to Russia with the expansion of NATO’s borders to Russia . In both cases, even hours before tanks, missiles and ships violated Ukraine's borders by land, sea and air, kyiv always preferred the risk of a wider war to compromise.

The example is particularly glaring in the case of the Minsk agreements, which did not involve the loss of territory, but the recovery of the entire Donbass in exchange for political concessions in the form of linguistic and cultural rights and a minimum political and economic autonomy that could in no way be compared to, for example, that enjoyed by the Basque Country or Catalonia in Spain or, of course, Iraqi Kurdistan. The Ukrainian position remained firm even in the hours before the invasion, when a final call from Olaf Scholz to try to convince Zelensky to commit to the Minsk path was met with the same response as during seven years of negotiations: the Ukrainian refusal to make any concessions. The post-Maidan regime, which aimed to impose a centralised state in which regional differences would be subordinated to the acceptance of nationalist discourse as national discourse, could not afford to grant political rights to a region, which is the main reason why Minsk was always unviable and, as it now admits, Ukraine never intended to honour its commitments.

The case of withdrawing from NATO or negotiating with the United States to agree not to expand the military alliance to the east, a way of cornering a historic enemy that has never threatened member countries, followed a similar path. The Ukrainian state's objective since 2014 was accession to the European Union and NATO, a duo that it always saw as unique and which it would not give up under any circumstances. Zelensky's invitation to the United Kingdom to install military bases in Ukraine, a gesture of gratuitous provocation to Russia, at a time when military tension was already evident, is further proof that the Ukrainian president's plan A was to maintain his demands even at the cost of increasing the danger that the war, then limited to Donbass, would spread to the entire country.

The supposed plan A to avoid the Russian invasion having failed, even though the attempt can be summed up as a refusal to negotiate the Minsk agreements and NATO expansion, Ukraine has worked to impose a discourse in which it equates the current war with that of the eight years prior to 2022 to consolidate the idea of ​​innocent Ukraine versus evil Russia. Its success is reflected in posts such as the one written yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen, who recalled that the first thing she does “in Kiev is pay tribute to the defenders of Ukraine who have fallen in these more than 10 years. They are the heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the security of our continent as a whole. We will carry their memory in our hearts and minds.” In this way, von der Leyen grants the rank of fighters for European security to those who in the summer of 2014 went to Donbass to end a political problem by military means, attacked a park in Gorlovka in broad Sunday light or bombed, condemning a dozen people to bleed to death in the street, the building of the regional administration of Lugansk.

Understanding this performance is key when analyzing the current Ukrainian discourse on its intentions to achieve a just peace , victory and end the war , something that, according to Zelensky, could be achieved as early as this November. The details about the plan B that Zelensky is so eager to present to Biden are scarce, although his statements are enough to know that it is a list of steps required of his partners so that Ukraine can achieve its objective: to obtain Russia's surrender, to recover its territorial integrity according to its 1991 borders without having to ask the opinion of the population that a decade ago reacted to the coup d'état by seeking protection in Moscow, support for a militarization of the country that lasts beyond the just peace and privileged accession to the European Union and, above all, to NATO.

“To promote peace, Ukraine’s allies must make Putin understand that he cannot dictate the terms of how the war will end. They can do this by enlisting global support for a peace agreement based on the fundamental principles of international law, strengthening Ukraine’s position on the battlefield, providing long-term security guarantees and charting a clear path to NATO membership,” write Andriy Ermak, Zelensky’s right-hand man, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO Secretary General and now lobbyist for the Office of the President of Ukraine, in an article this week in which they argue for achieving “peace through strength.” The approach involves, of course, the delivery of a greater quantity of weapons and the lifting of all bans on the use of ammunition and material on the territory of the Russian Federation, to prevent “Ukraine from having to fight with one hand tied behind its back.”

The Ukrainian discourse, bordering on magical thinking, of making it seem that the way to shorten the war is precisely to make the situation as bad as possible for Russia, in the hope that Moscow will react by surrendering rather than responding to aggression, is the basis of what Zelensky will propose to Biden next week. As a country with the capacity to impose its decisions on an entire powerful bloc and as the main producer and supplier of arms, the United States is the key country. This week, the European Parliament, although divided on the issue, has approved a resolution calling for lifting “the current restrictions that prevent Ukraine from using Western weapons systems against legitimate military targets in Russia.” “I take note of this resolution. The Council will continue to work on the issue,” wrote Josep Borrell yesterday in a statement that anticipates the future career as a lobbyist that he currently exercises from the institutions. It is not the European Union that Zelensky has to convince but the United States. “The decisions regarding the plan depend mainly on him,” said the Ukrainian president in relation to his American counterpart. “I really hope he will support this plan,” he insisted, adding that “it is designed for the decisions that will have to be made between October and December.” The wish list is already written and includes shortening the war by means of an escalation in which missiles and attacks against Russia will play a central role. Hopefully, these attacks will be approved even though even the Pentagon is aware that Zelensky’s illusions are a fantasy.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/09/21/plan-b/

Nation Europa: The construction of a neo-fascist Europe
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 09/20/2024

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On August 24, Ukraine's Independence Day, the city of Lviv hosted the First International European Conference "Nation Europa", an expression of the extreme right, of neo-fascist or neo-Nazi inspiration, which is mobilized in Europe around the principles of the Third Way.

The Lviv Conference

According to some of the participants, such as the members of the German Third Way, the aim of the organisers was to “ bring together European nationalists who are not corrupted by the political agitation of the Kremlin ”. Any party that deviates even slightly from the official discourse is liable to be accused of being under the influence of Moscow. Only those who firmly adhere to certain ideas are above suspicion. At the event, “ the foundations were laid for future cooperation between European countries to secure our common living space ”. In this sense, a defining feature of the Third Way represented in Lviv is its Europeanist conception. It is seen as a project with aspirations of European expansion and for Europe.

In their introductory remarks, the Ukrainian officials of the conference welcomed the “ warriors, volunteers, Cossacks and crusaders ” to the royal city of Lviv, which, in their words, “ stood as a shield for Europe against the Mongol horde in the 13th century, just as Ukraine [now] defends Europe from the Russian horde .” Aside from the obvious racist conception of the world, it is curious that the difference between Europe and what lies beyond what they consider its borders does not differ greatly from the conception of the garden and the jungle that has been put forward by EU officials.

The representatives of the invited international organisations then presented the main features that characterise their parties and movements: their structure, forms of work and activities, as well as their political plans and objectives.

The Svoboda party, the Avanhard movement, Yevhen Karas' C14 regiment and the combat groups Tradition and Order and WotanJugend were represented on behalf of Ukraine. Some of the foreign volunteer formations that are part of the Ukrainian Defence Forces were also represented. The most prominent presence in this case was of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), with the active participation of its leader, Denis Nikitin (White Rex), who was described by Germany as “one of the most dangerous neo-Nazis in Europe”, which is why he had to leave the country to settle in Ukraine. Delegates from the Volunteer Corps of Belarus and Germany also took part in the Conference, as well as Italian soldiers of the International Legion attached to the GUR, the partisans of Kirilo Budanov.

The majority of foreign parties and movements were represented by groups from Central and Eastern Europe. Among the groups from the Germanic region were members of the party Dritte Weg (Der III. Weg), in particular the deputy chairman of the party Klaus Armstroff and the Saxon activist David Dschietzig, accompanied by members of Baldur Landogart's Expedition Avantura group and representatives of the Nationalists of German Austria. They were also represented by organisations from Eastern Europe, including the Albanian Third Position (ATP), the Bulgarian National Union (BNS), the autonomous nationalists from Slovakia, the Nationalisté group from the Czech Republic and the Trzecia Droga from Poland.

Gabriele Adinolfi's message

The participation of Western European organisations was limited to the Italian neo-fascist organisation Casa Pound. However, the Conference was highlighted by the intervention of the neo-fascist and third-party ideologue, Gabriele Adinolfi, who was presented as a special guest at the event.

In his message to the conference, Adinolfi mentioned that the war in Ukraine “ has brought the warrior spirit back to the fore ” in Europe. He pointed out, in that context, the need to “ create new models that are driven by principles ”, capable of crystallizing in their timeless character and with sufficient potential to be transmitted “ through blood and myth ”, that is, through violence and war and the control of culture.

To confront the “ era of advanced capitalism and its communist soul [which] has transformed elites into supranational and classist oligarchies ,” and in opposition to “ the right-wing version of Marxism, which opposes the people to the elites ,” the Thirdist ideologue stressed the need to form new popular European elites. “ This is what destiny demands of us: to form elites. Not group, party or ghetto elites, but popular elites. The great challenge is to create new elites for Europe ,” he stated in his message.

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To these elites, the expression of the people in national revolutionary processes similar to those of the twentieth century (understood as Nazism or Fascism, but also movements such as the one that led to Francoism in Spain), Adinolfi assigns the role of participating in the “ clash of elites ” that determines historical development, confronting the current “supranational and classist oligarchies”. They will be the result of an internal dynamic of selection of the most valid to form “ a lived and shared European spirit ”, in terms not only of skills and rational intelligence, but of existential capacity. “ Europe needs elites that roar and laugh… that are alive in everything that is essential, not merely formal ”, he affirms before recalling that “ only war, eros and art are authentic ”.

The project’s link to the imperial and corporate ideas of fascism is evident and is reflected in its text: “ Building social links in a disintegrated society, working to create autonomies that reconnect with an ideal centre according to the concept of Empire, updating the corporate concept that is the only one capable of opposing liberalism and its communist servant ”. Although it has not existed as a relevant political force on the continent for decades, communism remains one of the great obsessions of the extreme right. The important thing, according to Adinolfi, “ is to conceive of ourselves as an impersonal, conscious imperial centre, which loves Europe in its entirety and does not act out of mere resentment towards current politics or society ”. “ Europe must be central, not subordinate to the East or the West, but a free beacon of the Third Position in the world ”.

The Conference Memorandum

The conference concluded with the signing of the “Memorandum of Unity and Cooperation” by all the representatives present. This memorandum is intended to symbolize the commitment of the signatories to the goal of “ uniting right-wing movements in Europe to create a political and metapolitical basis for defending the interests of European nations .”

As the German representatives of Dritte Weg pointed out when summarising the results of the Conference, the various participants in the Conference share a common concept of Europe, summarised in the motto “Nation Europe”. This concept refers to the association of strong and independent European nation-states pursuing the same political, economic and military interests. In this sense, the Memorandum presents Nation Europa as “ a pan-European organisation ”. It reflects the agreement of the participants to cooperate, as an association of all the organisations present, to consolidate “ the territorial integrity of Europe, the defence of common values ​​and national interests, as well as the strengthening of the positions of each member at national and international level ”. This is a commitment to protect the future of Europe in which the Conference lays the foundations for “ a renewed effort to secure the future of our nations ”.

Given the narrow definition of the term nation, the racist aspect of this approach should not be ignored. In this sense, the Memorandum calls for a pan-European nationalism, stating that “ Europe is our true homeland, culturally, historically, ethnically and civilizationally, embracing all national and small homelands. Pan-Europeanism unites the disparate but genealogically connected peoples of Europe into a single political and spiritual reality .”

It also affirms a communitarian dimension in which the “community,” understood as national, is presented as “ superior to the selfish human “I” ” and faces “ organic opposition to the power of oligarchs and transnational corporations ,” although in a way that is compatible with the preservation and development of the cultural uniqueness of each region.

The most striking aspect of the Memorandum, however, is the biopolitical vision of the pan-European option. According to the Memorandum, there is a growing awareness that “ biopolitics represents the most crucial question of our time, our next horizon and, indeed, the realm of political reality in the sense of Carl Schmitt ”.

Behind this lies, in fact, the prospect of “ a community fighting for the survival ” [in the words of Dritte Weg] of white Europe. According to the signatories of the memorandum, “ Europe is at a critical juncture ,” with a series of challenges at the heart of which “ are the demographic crisis and the vital importance of biopolitics, which must take precedence over geopolitics. Our ability to confront these challenges—whether the ideological dominance of left-liberalism or the existential threats of mass migration and the spread of Islam—is crucial to the survival and prosperity of European civilization ,” that is, of the white race.

This approach is mixed with bioethical issues [read debate on gender identity and sexual orientation] in which the neo-fascist right of Nation Europa detects the main area of ​​cultural confrontation with the “ current left-liberal dominance ” and the associated narratives “ that undermine traditional European values ”. Thus, regarding bioethics “ modern norms, driven by post-Trotskyist influences, actively work against the positive growth of native European populations ”.

The third-party dimension of the Memorandum is affirmed in the section in which it states that the main challenge for Nation Europa “ is the struggle for an independent Europe, free from external hegemonic influences such as those of the United States and Russia. This implies resisting globalisation, defending Europe’s borders and asserting our sovereignty ”. And it is precisely at this point that the current role of Ukraine is crucial: “ The war in Ukraine exemplifies … the struggle for European independence and identity ”.

This, in short, is the vision of a Memorandum that above all aims to protect Europe “ from demographic and ideological threats ”.

What's behind Nation Europa

The main question is what real forces are behind the Nation Europa project and what relation they have to the current Ukrainian conflict.

Although this is not the main issue, the first fact to be highlighted is the decisive role played by militants linked to the RDK at the Conference. This is reflected in the presence of Denis Kapustin (Nikitin, White Rex) and Alexey Levkin, alongside other members of the armed group, but also in the parallel participation of neo-Nazi groups such as Wotan Jugend, whose creation is largely the result of Levkin's militant action.

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Levkin is known not only as the leader of such musical projects as Adolfkult or the black metal band М8Л8ТХ (Moloth in a legible form, “Hitler’s Hammer” in its real meaning), with all its litany of apologetic messages of Nazism and its exterminating actions, but also for his historical connection with the Azov movement. This is a collaboration that translates not only into collaboration with the military branch, but also with the political-ideological one.

Levkin is emerging as a theorist of the new far right in Eastern Europe, with undoubted influence in Ukrainian nationalist circles. In the continued dissemination of Julius Evola’s traditionalist and counter-modernist ideas, Levkin quickly linked up with the line of ultranationalist debate promoted at the time by Olena Semenyaka in projects such as Reconquista or Paneuropa. The Russki Tsenter formed by Levkin also presented itself, in line with the content of the Lviv Memorandum, as “ a Russian right-wing organisation that defends firm anti-Putin positions and advocates pan-European unity instead of Eurasian assimilation.” Levkin is also a defender of militant action, including its military dimension. Hence the fascination with “ the third way arising from the implacable nationalist struggle, the Ukrainian one in particular.”

Levkin's presence at the Lviv Conference is not only linked to the RDK, but also to his relationship with the Azov movement, which, although never explicitly, is also part of the organisations linked to the Memorandum. The logo of the movement appears both on the poster announcing the conference and during the event itself. This is a second essential aspect in relation to the organisation of the August 2024 event in Lviv.

The main figure of the event is also associated with the Third Assault Brigade of Colonel Biletsky and Maksim Zhorin, leading figures of Azov and the National Corps, a Brigade in which he participates in its medical service. He is also associated with Levkin as a bassist of the band Moloth and Adolfkult. He is Yury Pavlyshyn, with his associated aliases (Naglfar in Moloth, Dum in the Third Brigade). Dum is a senior lieutenant of the medical company of the Third Assault Brigade. He was part of the team that participated in the recruitment process in Ukrainian prisons and that selected prisoners for integration into the Brigade's units.

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The Levkin-Pavlyshyn connection reflects the continuity of the far-right third-party grouping projects that the Azov movement has been promoting since the last decade. And this is where the third - and decisive - dimension of the far-right action in Lviv appears: the link between the action and the political-military action of the power groups in present-day Ukraine.

Particularly relevant in this regard is the information provided by the Dritte Weg group, which mentions that the Nation Europa Conference was not limited to a meeting of European neo-fascist or neo-Nazi groups, but that there were parallel events. Thus, the German party mentions separate conferences at which the role of Ukrainian nationalist movements in the anti-Moscow armed forces was discussed, as well as the vision of a future Ukraine as a guardian body in the East together with the other nations of the West. “ While the “patriotic” traitors and communists of Central and Western Europe see Putin and his giant, the Russian Federation, as their saviour, the genuine nationalists know the importance of Ukraine’s statehood, ” the Dritte Weg group notes. Information about these parallel conferences is, for now, limited.

The danger of the pan-European and pro-Ukrainian far right

The apparently marginal character of the forces that claim to be grouped around Nation Europa should not be misleading as to the danger represented by these groups, which, given their links to prepared and heavily armed military units, are even further removed from those fascist forces that claimed to be grouped around the dialectic of fists and pistols .

In this regard, the thoughts of the main figure in the organization of the Lviv Nation Europa Conference, Yuri Pavlyshyn, are illustrative, as he has stated on his social networks. The essential point is his defense of the military dictatorship: “ Only the military has a different mentality… In the past world history, there are vivid examples of how power belonged only to war veterans, and, as we know, it was during the reign of such power that countries emerged from depression, developed and truly flourished, growing into continental powers. Someone will say that there will be a dictatorship. Yes, that's true. Because the dictatorship will in any case be the Kremlin or the “Western ” left, which they hypocritically call “democracy .”

This vision reflects the challenge that Ukraine will certainly face in the near future, the idea - defended by Dum and undoubtedly widespread in many military circles of the country - that " the real elites of our former Ukraine are now in trenches and dugouts, in cellars and headquarters. And everything that does not become the power of the same trench aristocracy will be a defeat ." The project is none other than a military, national and racial dictatorship: " Our path after the war is militarization, compulsory military service for all, military industry, support for the viability of the army and the exaltation of the honor of the soldier and the military." "Belief in power and originality, knowledge of the glorious deeds of ancestors, today's heroes, ancient traditional values, militancy, national cultural and racial identity are the postulates of the future great Ukraine ."

This is, however, a threat that extends beyond Ukraine, as the signatories of the Nation Europa memorandum claim. This threat seems to focus only in appearance on the confrontation with the traditional enemy, that “ greatest evil and enemy of man [who] has once again taken out its stinking red rag ” that Pavlyshyn speaks of, according to him “ wanting to kill us for being on our land, for what we are ”. But, in reality, it extends to any enemy of the ideas of the right of Nation Europa in all our countries.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/09/20/natio ... ofascista/

(I'm about sick of white people and I'm 'white'.)

Bleeding to victory
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 09/18/2024

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“The terrible cost of Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine is viscerally clear at a military rehabilitation center outside this city. There, soldiers describe how their bodies were torn apart on the front lines. And they are the lucky ones who survived,” writes David Ignatius in his latest article published by The Washington Post , which paints a much grimmer picture of the war than the Western press has accustomed its readers to. “Alexei was trying to hold his ground in Pokrovsk, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting this year, when a drone dropped a grenade near him. His left leg and right hand were nearly amputated, held together by thin threads of tissue but now healed. Nikolai lost his left leg in Kharkiv, another Russian target. He waited 18 hours to be evacuated because of drone strikes. Dima lost both legs when his vehicle was hit by a drone in Pokrovsk. "The four soldiers who were travelling with him were killed," continues the American journalist, who in a few lines shows the difficulties that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are suffering: high casualties and problems both in holding the front and in covering the soldiers' basic needs such as rapid evacuations.

Ignatius's picture of the situation is consistent with the dynamics shown by maps and data on the intensity of the battle. Just yesterday, soldiers of the 114th Brigade raised their red flag with a hammer and sickle over one of the mines in Ukrainsk, the most recent of the towns captured by Russian troops in their sustained advance on the most important front. It is clear that Russia has increased its pressure in Donbass and also in a part of Kharkiv that was thought to be practically forgotten, Kupyansk, where Ukraine believed it had finally expelled Russian troops in its lightning offensive in September 2022.

But neither the frank description of a catastrophic situation for soldiers on the front nor the headline of the article, “Ukraine is bleeding to death. It cannot fight forever,” should be misleading: the aim of the article is not to advocate a search for peace through diplomatic means or an attempt to achieve a ceasefire that would allow Kiev to recover, but to defend the line of escalation proposed by Volodymyr Zelensky. Given the certainty that the coming winter will be particularly hard for the civilian population and that the difficulties in the ground war will continue, or even worsen for Ukraine, Ignatius, explicitly aligning himself with the speeches given at the YES (Yalta European Strategy) summit, adheres to the thesis of missiles as a saving weapon for a Ukraine that is willing to continue fighting, but cannot do so weighed down by the lack of decision - or by the weakness, according to the sources cited in the article - of Joe Biden and the Democratic administration in the White House. “I came away from the conference thinking that the United States should take more risks to help Ukraine,” insists Ignatius, who in previous paragraphs admits that Washington’s main task must be to avoid a war with a nuclear power. However, the journalist adds that “it matters how this war ends. If Putin prevails,” he insists, personalizing the Russian Federation in a single man, “it will harm the interests of America and Europe for years.”

Friends of Ukraine who advocate the option of escalating the war, which is to allow the use of missiles on internationally recognised Russian territory, care little about the certainty of a Russian response. By focusing the possibility of retaliation solely on the nuclear issue, Ukrainian experts, journalists, politicians and officials conceal the fact that Zelensky's plan to bomb Russian territory implies an escalation of the war that will undoubtedly occur in Ukraine as well. The increase in attacks on energy infrastructure, for example, has been Russia's response to the growing use of Western weapons in Crimea and the threat of their use on the Russian mainland. The well-being of civilians seems to be so irrelevant that the possibility of, for example, the destruction of bridges over the Dnieper - which Russia, though not Ukraine in the case of Kherson, has so far respected - or the continuation of the campaign to destroy power stations is not even considered as a factor.

“Zelensky, dressed as always in his green combat shirt, said that the adequate range of US-supplied weapons should be “enough to change the rules of the game and make Russia seek peace,” Ignatius reports, recalling that the Ukrainian president will present his plans to Joe Biden next week. “If Zelensky is wise, he will bring with him Oleksander Budko, a wounded veteran who spoke to the YES group. Although he lost both his legs in combat, the youthful-looking Budko was recently voted “Ukraine’s most wanted man” on a national television show. That is the spirit that sustains Ukraine in this dark moment, and it is touching to see it,” the journalist adds to close the article, of course, without mentioning that the soldier he recommends using as a publicity stunt in the United States enlisted in the 49th Carpatska Sich Brigade, a battalion created in 2014 for the anti-terrorist operation against the population of Donbass and directly linked to the ultra-party Svoboda. Once again, the example of Ukraine's poignant struggle turns out to be a member of a far-right faction.

Zelensky's visit to the United States has not yet taken place, but it is already the most important part of Ukraine's speech, paving the way for the introduction of the final plan, which is no longer a just peace plan but has been baptized with a much more appropriate name: the victory plan . Although these two terms, peace and victory, have long been used as synonyms, the change confirms a position that was always clear. As Mikhail Podolyak insisted yesterday in a media appearance, the plan does not contemplate either the freezing of the front or territorial concessions. The proposal that the Ukrainian president says he has 90% ready is the same one he put forward with his roadmap for peace , a list of demands for Russia's surrender and no mention of the rights of the reconquered population, and which is nothing more than the reformulation of the position that Ukraine has maintained since 2014 regardless of its level of guilt or the situation at the front. The only difference now is that Zelensky says he will present a detailed plan to achieve that goal. Everything indicates that the proposal that the Ukrainian president will deliver to Joe Biden will be the development of his peace plan , that is, a whole journey that goes from military victory, which would require a level of armament that would significantly increase the intensity of the war (and which the United States does not seem willing to deliver or capable of producing as quickly as Ukraine demands), to accountability only on the part of the Russian side, passing through the enormous economic needs for financing reconstruction. This wish list will be presented as a counterpart, a payment for services rendered when, as Lindsey Graham said, “fighting so that we do not have to.” All this to achieve his dream of seeing Russia “begging for peace” – that is, offering to surrender – something so unrealistic that it would require a number of missiles that would undoubtedly place Europe at the center of a wider war.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/09/18/desan ... -victoria/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Russian Ministry of Defense on the progress of repelling the attempted invasion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces into the territory of the Russian Federation in the Kursk Region (as of September 20, 2024)

- Units of the North group of forces continued offensive operations, during which they defeated the formations of the 22nd, 41st and 115th mechanized, 17th tank, 82nd airborne assault brigades and the 1st National Guard Brigade, as well as the 112th and 129th territorial defense brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Lyubimovka, Darino, Zeleny Shlyakh, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Tolsty Lug, Malaya Loknya and Plekhovo.

Over the past 24 hours, units of the group thwarted enemy counterattacks in the direction of the settlements of Kremyanoye, Lyubimovka and Malaya Loknya.

As a result, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 30 people killed and wounded, two armored combat vehicles, a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled artillery unit and three cars were destroyed . - With the support of army aviation and artillery fire, four attempts by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to break through the border of the Russian Federation in the direction of the settlements of Novy Put and Medvezhye were repelled. The enemy lost up to 60 personnel killed and wounded, two tanks were destroyed , including a Leopard tank , three Swedish-made CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles , four armored combat vehicles and an engineering obstacle clearing vehicle . - Air strikes, artillery fire and troop actions have damaged concentrations of manpower and equipment of the 21st, 22nd, 41st and 115th Mechanized, 17th Tank, 80th and 95th Airborne Assault Brigades, the 36th Marine Brigade and the 1st National Guard Brigade, as well as the 103rd and 129th Territorial Defense Brigades in the areas of the populated areas of Bogdanovka, Guevo, Dar'ino, Zeleny Shlyakh, Kremyanoye, Kubatkin, Kruglen'koye, Kurilovka, Lyubimovka, Mikhaylovka, Malaya Loknya, Mirny, Melovy, Novy Put, Novaya Sorochina, Novoivanovka, Obukhovka, Plekhovo, Tolsty Lug, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye and Cherkasskaya Konopelka. - Operational-tactical aviation and missile forces carried out strikes on the areas of concentration in Sumy Oblast and reserves of the 21st, 22nd, 41st and 115th mechanized, 82nd and 92nd airborne assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 1st National Guard Brigade, as well as the 103rd and 106th territorial defense brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Basovka, Belovody, Glukhov, Zhuravka, Kondratovka, Kazachye, Katerynovka, Mogritsa, Obody, Pavlovka, Peremoga, Rechki, Rudnevo, Sumy, Shalygino, Khotyn and Yastrebinoe.

Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 370 servicemen and 18 armored vehicles, including two tanks, four infantry fighting vehicles, and 12 armored combat vehicles, as well as six artillery pieces, a mortar , an electronic warfare station , an engineering mine-clearing vehicle , and seven cars. One pontoon crossing was destroyed . - In total, during the military operations in the Kursk direction, the enemy lost more than 15,300 servicemen, 124 tanks, 56 infantry fighting vehicles, 93 armored personnel carriers, 780 armored combat vehicles, 471 vehicles, 115 artillery pieces, 28 multiple launch rocket system launchers, including seven HIMARS and six MLRS made in the USA, 8 anti-aircraft missile system launchers, four transport and loading vehicles, 29 electronic warfare stations, 7 counter-battery radars, two air defense radars, 15 units of engineering equipment, including 9 engineering obstacle clearance vehicles and one UR-77 mine clearing unit. The operation to destroy the Ukrainian Armed Forces formations continues.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Russell Bentley murder investigation complete

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September 20, 11:17


The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported that the investigation into the murder of Russell Bentley (call sign "Texas") has been completed
. The plot was as follows: 4 servicemen of the 5th Brigade of the 51st Army mistook Bentley for an American spy, tortured him, and he died from torture. When the morons realized what they had done, they put the body in a car and blew it up with a TNT block to hide the traces of the crime. Despite cries that the case would be hushed up, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation brought the case to court. We are waiting for the trial itself and the verdict.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9393759.html

Tesla carts in the Northeast Military District zone
September 20, 19:08

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Tesla-carts in the SVO zone. Kadyrov has already complained that his personal Tesla-cart was remotely switched off by Elon Musk.

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The combat value of such tachankas seems questionable, but if they exist, then why not.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9394461.html

Google Translator

(Tesla: the affectation of dipshits.)

******

Ukraine - Recent Front Line Reports Point To Systemic Failures

Two recent piece published in Ukrainian media take a look at the situation in eastern Ukraine and describe the reasons for the crumbling of Ukraine's defense lines.

The usually government friendly Ukrainska Pravda talked with units at the front line:

The Pokrovsk front didn’t just crumble overnight. Since 15 February 2024, when they withdrew from Avdiivka, Ukraine’s defence forces have been retreating towards Pokrovsk – sometimes faster, sometimes slower – almost every week.
The first difficulties arose when the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, which had been holding the line in the vicinity of Orlivka and Semenivka (not far from Avdiivka), was replaced by the 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade. The rotation of military units is one of the most vulnerable defence areas in general, and[/img] for the Ukrainian army in particular, and the Russians took advantage of that.


Rotations are a complicate business. The unit that gets relieved is supposed to wait until the replacement unit has completely arrived. Only after explaining the positions and situation to the new troops are the old ones supposed to retreat.

In reality that rarely happens as it is described in military manuals. The troops eager to get out do not take time to brief the incoming forces. Positions are emptied before the replacements have had time to settle in. Traffic snarls ensue as the number of vehicles in an area double before returning to a normal level.

The enemy will of course use any such situation to make it more difficult for the rotating side. Botched rotations have caused several occasion where the lines were open and allowed Russian units to break in. They may be the main cause for the Russian break through from Avdiivka towards the key supply point in Pokrovsk.

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From those in the know:

Vitalii, a crew member who operates a large attack drone, tells Ukrainska Pravda that he was deployed in the area in March, and that the Russian attacks started even before the 68th Brigade could take up its positions.
"We met guys from the 68th who had only just taken up their positions and were forced to retreat immediately because of the FPV drone attacks. When a brigade leaves, they take all the electronic warfare equipment with them. This is typical on this front: they [the Russians] advance the most during rotations. The occupiers take advantage of those times."

"The night we replaced the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade in Semenivka, the enemy attempted to carry out an assault operation. The meat-grinder attacks haven’t stopped since then," an Ukrainska Pravda source in the 68th Brigade confirms.


Another big cause of losses are miscommunication between the various units that hold the lines. The results are breakthroughs and utter confusion about who holds positions and where:

Another major turning point that marked the undoing of the Pokrovsk front was the Russians’ sudden breakthrough in Ocheretyne, a relatively large, urbanised town on the railway with industrial facilities, and therefore a particularly useful defence position. Russian occupation forces entered the town in mid-April.
...
"Before the offensive, I received intelligence that the Russians were going to assault Ocheretyne, where we had no troops at the positions," the officer says. "I passed this information on to my commanders straight away, but the commander of the brigade stationed there [the 115th Separate Mechanised Brigade – ed.] responded: ‘We have forces there, they’re all there.’
Next morning the Russians started to walk into [Ocheretyne], moving through what were officially minefields – but in fact there were no mines there. After we surrendered Novobakhmutivka, Ocheretyne and Soloviovo, the front started to collapse at the rate we’re seeing now."

"When the Russians captured Ocheretyne, there was no stable contact line as such," Vitalii the drone crew member adds. "No one knew where the front was. Soldiers in the villages of Sokil, Yevhenivka and Voskhod were walking around with guns in their hands, asking each other for passwords to figure out if they were dealing with one of us or the enemy."


In general Russian troops are superior in experienced manpower and have more ammunition to fight:

"The first problem on the Pokrovsk front is personnel numbers, the second is their level of training, and the third is the skills of the unit command. And then we run into the defence-related issues – tactics, measures, and so on." This, a soldier from the 47th Brigade tells Ukrainska Pravda, is the order of priority of the reasons for the Russians’ super-fast advance.

Brigades are kept in the fight even as they are staffed to as low as 40% of their nominal strength. Replacements, if the arrive at all, are unqualified for fighting:

"The backbone of the brigades was lost during the battles near Avdiivka, and the replenishments that arrived later left a lot to be desired," says a source from the 68th, explaining the shortage of motivated people. "The mobilisation failed. Let's be honest – each subsequent replenishment was less motivated and trained. So they could not reliably hold the defence.
In Semenivka we had about 90% experienced people in the unit and 10% newcomers. Now we have about the same ratio, but the other way round. And the average age of the newcomers can even be 55+, not 45+."


On the positive side there were a number of well prepared fortifications had been build near Pokrovsk. Unfortunately they had been build by unexperienced forces in the wrong places and were thus unusable:

Bunkers and connected trench lines were indeed built on the Pokrovsk front – but there’s a catch. Many of these fortifications are unsuitable for serious defence. They’re frequently located in the middle of fields, which makes them visible to the enemy and difficult for the defence forces’ personnel, ammunition and supplies to reach.
"When [Ukrainian MP Mariana] Bezuhla posts photos of empty trenches and asks why nobody was defending them, I know exactly why. Because it’s stupid to sit in a hole in the middle of a bare field. Sooner or later an FPV drone will fly right into your face," Vitalii tells Ukrainska Pravda angrily.
...
"On the Pokrovsk front, trenches and dugouts had been made right in the middle of fields, making logistics impossible. They dug anti-tank ditches that led directly from enemy positions to our rear positions, and it’s impossible to monitor them. These fortifications help the enemy advance more than they help us defend.


The Ukrainian public relations operation into the Russian Kursk oblast did not achieve its hoped for effect. Pressure on the Ukrainian front in the east was not relieved:

Another figure – the official number of combat encounters reported by Ukraine’s General Staff – confirms that Russian infantry attacks on the Pokrovsk front have continued, and have in fact slightly intensified. We analysed the number of combat clashes on the Pokrovsk front before and after the Kursk operation began and found that it had increased significantly – on average from 40 to 52 per day.
...
Nor, unfortunately, has the opening up of the Kursk front decreased the amount of artillery attacks and guided aerial bomb strikes on the front line as a whole. On the contrary, their number, just like the combat clashes, has slightly increased. There are an average of 4,500 to 4,600 artillery attacks per day, with the number of guided aerial bomb strikes ranging from 97 to 105.


A second report on the war in the Pokrovsk direction, this one by Kyiv Independent, comes to similar conclusions:

Since the first break through of Ukrainian defense lines in April near the village of Ocheretyne, Russian forces have advanced over 20 kilometers towards Pokrovsk, with the key logistics hub once considered to be deep in the rear, now gradually coming in range of Russian artillery and suicide drones.
Despite Kyiv’s attempts to draw away Russian forces from Pokrovsk with the surprise incursion into Kursk Oblast, Moscow made sure not to take its foot off the pedal, further intensifying its attacks over August.


Thin defense lines and a lack of supplies make losses inevitable:

The infantrymen’s stories testify to the starkly attritional nature of the fight: although Russia’s relentless infantry assaults come at a high cost, with enough time and enough fire covering the defending positions, the defenders are inevitably overwhelmed.
“We can be fighting them off for a while, but eventually our ammunition runs out,” said Dmytro, 32.

“And while they are getting resupplied constantly, we can't do the same, they cover all the routes, and because of that, we have to give up our positions.”


The lack of higher (divisional) command leads to a breakdown in communications:

With many different units — all in various states of combat effectiveness — deployed to the Pokrovsk front, effective communication between brigades is a crucial factor that is often lacking, soldiers from both brigades told the Kyiv Independent. One officer of the 68th, who asked not to be identified because of the nature of his comments, said that for months over summer, one of the neighboring brigades would consistently fail to report lost positions, leaving his own units vulnerable from the flank without knowing about it.
“In our area, there are a lot of different units, and communication between them becomes a big problem,” said Oleksandr.


Units do not only lack men but the lack of personnel has morale effects on those few who are still in the fight:

“In the last two months here, to be honest, we have had serious losses. Killed, injured, and taken prisoner,” said Olena Tarishchuk, a 39-year-old lieutenant responsible for monitoring the morale and mental state of the fire support company’s personnel.
“We need rest, we need rotation, we basically need support. We don't have enough manpower to carry out our orders.”


Inevitably, extreme manpower strains, on top of the reluctance of Ukraine’s higher command to rotate exhausted units off the front line, take their toll on the infantry’s morale.

There are two basic oddities in the Ukrainian military, reflected above, that explain some of its errors.

The high command decided early on to use the brigades as its major autonomous fighting units. A commander of a front may have (more or less) control over a dozen of those. The more typical organization would be a division staff which controls three to four brigades. Above divisions a corp command would coordinate the movements of several of them. A front command would sit on top of several corps and direct the greater moves with a long time perspective.

While such a traditional structure has its own problems with the additional bureaucracy layers it does coordinate much better than a lose structure of free-running brigades who do not even know the names and radio call signs of their neighbors.

A second systemic failure in the Ukrainian army is the lack of replenishment of personnel.

Experienced brigades are kept on the front until that have less than a third of their original strength. They are not replenishment while still in the fight. Newly mobilized men are instead put into newly constituted brigades which zero frontline experience.

A better system would rotate out units that have lost a third of their men and fill them up with new recruits before pushing them back into the fight. The result would be the same number of soldiers but with experience mixed into all of the army's units.

I am sure that NATO and U.S. forces have lectured the Ukrainians on both of these issues. But the Ukrainian command has a will of its own and is often resistant to critique and changes.

It has now even dismantled its only internal unit that was still able to present an objective view of its failures (machine translation):

The other day the People's Deputy Mariana Bezuglaya wrote a post in which she stated that the training centers "do not teach anything" and send untrained conscripts to the front line.
After that, Volodymyr Zelensky said that he had heard a report on the situation in training schools at the Headquarters and stated that he was instructed to develop measures to correct the situation. By indirectly acknowledging the existence of problems.

Bezuglaya at the same time said that the reporter at the Headquarters-Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Defense Igor Voronchenko-was dismissed after his report. According to her - by Defense Minister Umerov at the suggestion of Commander-in-Chief Syrsky.

"Immediately after he reported at Headquarters about the catastrophic situation with training in the training centers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Voronchenko's frank and detailed report startled everyone and caused great anger in Syrsky. The General Inspectorate of the Ministry of Defense was the last outpost that provided at least some kind of expertise regarding what is really happening in the Armed Forces of Ukraine," Bezuglaya writes.


The General Inspectorate's task was to point out the cause of failures. But the command insisted on destroying it instead of learning from its takes.

A certain stubbornness can be a great asset. But the situations in wars change all the time and it is necessary to adopt to them. The Ukrainian military has too often failed to do that.

Posted by b on September 20, 2024 at 13:07 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/09/u ... .html#more
"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 Sep 22, 2024 12:26 pm

Corruption in the Legion
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 22/09/2024

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The outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2014, which was then described as an anti-terrorist operation and was limited to the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, reactivated the networks through which the flows of volunteers who had fought in the various wars of the post-Soviet world and the Balkans had been channelled. Veterans of the wars in Abkhazia, Chechnya, Bosnia or the defence of Yugoslavia reappeared in Donbass in the first summer of the war, when the militias of the DPR and LPR were formed on one side of the front and the nationalist and territorial defence battalions on the other. At that time, the groups of Chechen volunteers stood out, who, depending on their ideology, chose one side or the other. The Chechen civil war was joined by the Balkan war, with Serbian groups on the Republican side and Croatians - or veterans who had fought alongside the Croatian army, such as the Frenchman Gaston Besson - on the Ukrainian side. And although with a less conspicuous presence, with a lower profile, what would later become the Georgian Legion also began to stand out, a presence that culminated the Georgian landing led by former President Mikhail Saakashvili, who for a time governed Odessa as his own fiefdom.

The fall of Saakshvili, who shared the hatred of the current Russian regime with post-Maidan Ukraine, was resounding, and with him were removed all those officials who had accompanied him and had, for example, taken control of the Odessa police. Since his dismissal as governor, Saakshvili tried to position himself as a necessary politician, either thanks to his connections with the United States - which he always exaggerated - or because of his experience in the field of economic reforms. His relations with the state went through all kinds of phases from ally to enemy to friend again: Saakashvili received and lost an important post; his citizenship was revoked when he was abroad, which forced him to illegally break into the border; he received a symbolic post from Zelensky that confirmed reconciliation, but which had no capacity to influence politics. After falling out with Poroshenko, Saakashvili rebuilt his relationship with Zelensky before boarding a truck that smuggled him into his home country with the aim of forcing a revolution that never happened and that sent him to prison on charges for which Georgia had convicted him years before.

Somewhat less turbulent, the Georgian Legion’s career has also seen its share of high-profile ups and downs. “By the time Mamuka Mamulashvili was 14, he had already fought in a war, been shot in the leg, and spent three months in a Russian military cell where he was tortured daily and survived on only bread and water. After suffering 20 bone fractures at the hands of his brutal jailers and losing nearly 50% of his body weight, the young Georgian quickly realized two things that would shape his future: He was destined to be a fighter, and he would always hate the Russian military,” wrote Business Insider in its 2015 glowing profile of one of Ukraine’s new heroes. “More than two decades later, Mamulashvili has once again shared a battlefield with Moscow’s powerful military, this time as commander of a group known as the Georgian Legion on the front lines of the war in eastern Ukraine,” the outlet explained about the best-known person in the group of Georgian soldiers, who were photographed alongside the former president of their country as a sign of Georgian influence in post-Maidan Ukraine and the alliance of revolutionary countries against Russia. “Facing an increasingly hostile, well-equipped and unpredictable rebel force backed by Russia, fighting to secure the autonomy of the disputed regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, Mamulashvili says he is concerned that his soldiers will not be able to defend themselves against the advancing Russian army without international help,” Business Insider continued . The attempt to internationalize the war has been present in the Ukrainian war from its first months. In addition to the inclusion of groups of foreign soldiers in official structures, there was the perpetual demand for more assistance from Western countries.

Like other units formed outside official structures – Azov, due to its growth, is the most important, although not the only one – the Georgian Legion was regularised and officially included in the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2016. “We did not come here because we hate the Russians, we are not like Russian mercenaries,” said its leader, Mamulashvili, in its first phase of war. “None of the Georgian legionaries have ever received a salary or any other material goods,” he added, which contrasted with the integration into the army, but also with the tours in search of funding that he made in those years. Like many other Ukrainian units, the Georgian soldier had travelled to the United States in 2015 in search of funding and technical support. Possibly exaggerating his military contacts in the same way that Saakashvili did with politicians, Mamulashvili claimed then that he had assistance from a group of experienced American veterans.

At times as problematic as Saakashvili, Mamulashvili has, in his Ukrainian career, caused no small number of problems for the state and for the Georgian Legion. In September 2017, the most media-friendly of Georgian soldiers announced the withdrawal of the brigade into which he had been integrated and threatened to expose his dirty laundry. “On December 20, 2017, the entire Georgian Legion left the structure of the 54th Mechanized Brigade due to the incompetence of Commander Maystrenko Alexey and his entourage, as well as the illegal orders they received,” the brigade wrote at the time. In December 2017, as this military split was brewing, so was the political split. That month, the most surreal image of the fall from grace of Mikhail Saakashvili and the breakdown of his friendship with Petro Poroshenko, then President of Ukraine, took place in Kiev: the Ukrainian authorities were trying to arrest the former governor of Odessa, who was taking refuge on the roof of the building in kyiv where he lived. At the time, the Georgian Legion had lost all the propaganda value it had had in its early years. Ukraine therefore reacted to the break-up and the threats in its own style: denying the existence of the Legion, which had been the subject of numerous reports, used as propaganda by significantly overestimating its size and importance.

The Russian invasion brought back to life all those groups that had fought in Donbass, especially since the internationalisation of the war made it useful to show the support of foreign soldiers for the Ukrainian cause again. Kiev forgot that the Georgian Legion did not exist and its members, especially its leader, came back into the spotlight. The war also opened the door to all kinds of schemes for seeking funding, not always legitimate. “Volunteers and non-governmental organisations have proven to be instrumental in helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion. But while the vast majority of volunteers and fundraisers participate legitimately with the best of intentions, some have exploited the war, and continue to do so, to attract attention on social media and, above all, to obtain significant financial benefits,” wrote Ukraine Today yesterday as an introduction to an article about the Georgian Legion. “Evidence shows that its leader lied about having been poisoned in order to obtain donations,” reads the headline, adding that Mamulashvili “has created a questionable NGO with a convicted American fraudster.”

The story goes back to June this year, when Mamulashvili claimed to have felt abdominal pains and had gone to a German laboratory, which confirmed that he had been poisoned. The soldier even published the results, which showed the presence of arsenic, mercury and tin in his body. “Nobody bothered to read them properly,” Ukraine Today complained yesterday , admitting that the results were normal, as these elements are found naturally in the human body. “We consume them in small doses every day in food, water and even in the air we breathe,” it wrote. Still, this claim was enough for the Georgian Legion to use the possibilities of social media to raise funds. Following the poisoning , for which Mamulashvili pointed to Moscow and claimed that it was not the first, “the Georgian Legion Twitter account alerted that Mamulashvili needed urgent medical assistance in the United States.”

The group raised $20,000 through this scheme. During this time, the soldier has continued to post pictures of himself in perfect health and in his military uniform, but that has not been his only activity. The Georgian Legion has registered the Georgian Humanitarian Legion as an organization based in Texas. The contact of this association that has been granted tax-exempt status (i.e. donations made can be deducted for tax purposes) is Nona Mamulashvili, Mamuka’s sister and a member of the Georgian Parliament from 2020 to 2022. On September 19, Nona Mamulashvili wrote on social media that “Putin needs wars to stay in power, that is how he has always maintained control.” As her case shows, war can also function as a means of personal promotion and a way to raise funds irregularly.

“We are aware of the onslaught of rumours, attacks, smear campaigns and most recently identity theft/misrepresentation directed against us in an attempt to discredit the Georgian Legion,” the group wrote on its official social media profile. Like Ukraine in 2017, the strategy is simply to deny reality. It is all propaganda, which should not distract from the battle and the need to raise funds.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/09/22/corru ... la-legion/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad

Rybar: Kursk direction: repelling attacks by Ukrainian formations along the entire length of the front,
situation as of 20:00, September 21, 2024

Despite a slight slowdown in the offensive in the Kursk direction , Russian troops continue the operation to liberate the territory occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

- In the Glushkovsky district, the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue their attempts to advance towards the district center from the villages of Novy Put and Medvezhye , but, as before, to no avail. Enemy engineering units have stepped up their attempts to prepare passages in minefields, probably in anticipation of another offensive.

At this time, Russian troops continue to strike Ukrainian positions in the Sumy region and in the occupied territories of the Kursk region in order to reduce the enemy's combat potential. Thus, in Stepovoye, drones hit hangars with Ukrainian equipment and temporary deployment points of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

- The combat aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces is also working effectively in the Korenevsky district , where the positions of the Ukrainian formations in Olgovka and in the forest area near Kremyanoye came under attack . At the same time, another attempt by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to counterattack Russian units in the western part of Lyubimovka was thwarted .

- In the Sudzhansky district, Russian soldiers are clearing the area south of Kamyshevka . A platoon of paratroopers from the 83rd brigade in armored vehicles reached the enemy positions across a field and took control of two Ukrainian Armed Forces strongholds. And in Novoivanovka, the Ukrainian Armed Forces brought an American M777 howitzer to a position, which was also destroyed by Russian troops.

On the southern flank, both objective control footage appeared, demonstrating the destroyed equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including the 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled gun, and video footage of the disruption of the evacuation of members of the Ukrainian formations in the area of ​​Russkaya Konopelka .

***

Colonelcassad
Rybar: On the Ukrainian drone raid

Last night, Ukrainian formations carried out another massive launch of drones at the rear regions of the Russian Federation. According to the Russian Defense Ministry , air defense systems intercepted over 100 drones.- One of the targets of the enemy attack was an ammunition depot on the territory of a military unit north of the village of Kamenny in the Krasnodar Territory . As in the case of Toropets , regional authorities again announced the fall of ammunition debris, as well as the resulting fire and detonation of explosive objects.Nevertheless, the entire media space has already been covered by footage demonstrating a powerful explosion with the characteristic sounds of a secondary detonation. A nearby settlement was evacuated against the backdrop of the incident. However, the results of the attack will be clear after the publication of satellite images.- In the Tver region, Ukrainian drones attacked the 23rd GRAU arsenal near the village of Oktyabrsky , which is located less than 20 km south of Toropets . According to heat signatures from the satellite, a fire broke out on the territory of the facility.Against the backdrop of the incident, the evacuation of the Staraya Toropa railway station , located to the south, was reported: several passenger trains were cancelled, others were sent along an alternative route.- In other regions, there were no significant damage or casualties. Most of the drones were shot down in the Bryansk region , as well as over the waters of the Sea of ​​Azov. In total, air defense systems were activated in eight regions of Russia .The latest raids by Ukrainian formations clearly demonstrate that one of the targets of the attacks, in addition to the already familiar fuel and energy infrastructure facilities and airfields, were large ammunition depots.And given the high production volumes of enemy drones, whose production of new UAVs completely covers the cost of the devices during previous attacks, it is worth expecting that such raids will only intensify.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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SITREP 9/20/24: Ukraine Allies Squeezed by Weapons Drought as Clock Ticks
Sep 21, 2024

Ukraine’s fate continues to be hinged on ostensibly allowing “deep strikes” in order to lance the war’s final ‘taboo’ in involving NATO directly against Russia. This has become such an urgent objective that Zelensky has even resorted to outright begging lesser countries in getting involved; per Romania’s biggest newspaper:

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https://www.agerpres.ro/english/2024/09 ... e--1356592

‼️Kiev begs Romania to shoot down Shaheds over Ukraine, but it can’t shoot them down even in its own skies, - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

▪️After meeting with his Romanian counterpart Odobescu in Bucharest, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiga asked Romania to shoot down Russian drones approaching the country's airspace.

▪️At the same time, in Romania, after the wreckage of several UAVs fell on its territory, politicians and military officials are arguing about whether changes to the law are necessary to shoot down other people's drones in their own airspace, and a decision is not yet in sight.

RVvoenkor


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There are various hard-nosed negotiations behind the scenes, with the key conclusion thus far being that the UK absolutely refuses to “go it alone” without the US also allowing deep strikes. This corroborates what I’ve said for a long time, that the UK is the most cowardly nation of all, strutting its chest more than anyone else against Russia but only when it has the complete backing of mommy US.

[mg]https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1 ... 1x713.jpeg[/img]

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The British have grown very concerned over the sensitive British assets Russia itself could hit in retaliation, whether through proxy or directly—such as bases in the Falklands, Gibraltar, Sierra Leone, etc., as reported previously by some sources.

Now sources report that a kind of ‘quiet deal’ can be made in the coming weeks, but it all sounds like more of the same, with perhaps a slightly wider window of targets allowed simply to placate Zelensky:

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https://www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/art ... -mqg02nhsc

Britain and the US could make a quiet decision in the coming weeks to strike deep into Russia with Western missiles , - LBC and The Times

▪️They will try to keep this fact secret until the first strikes are dealt, the Times writes.

▪️But Biden's team still has doubts about this, writes LBC.

▪️According to the plan under discussion, if London and the US give the go-ahead, the change in position will only be confirmed after the launch of the first missiles.

▪️ Washington also still wants to see Zelensky’s “victory plan,” which he wants to present to Biden, before making a decision.

➖"The US wants to first see President Zelensky's plan on how this (permission for missile strikes) will help Ukraine survive the winter months of the war," diplomatic sources told the media.

t.me/RVvoenkor


Referenced above is still the need to see Zelensky’s “victory plan”, which Zelensky claims is “90% done being drawn up”.

Here are some other comments on it from Ukrainian figures, such as former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Yuri Lutsenko:

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Zelensky will give the US his “victory plan” in order to receive a refusal and then begin negotiations with Russia.

▪️This is the opinion of the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Yuri Lutsenko, which is why Kyiv constantly places responsibility for the situation at the front on its allies.

➖“The entire propaganda machine of the President’s Office constantly hammers into the heads of Ukrainians that we have problems only because the US does not want to give us permission for long-range missiles Jassm, Atacms, Storm shadow / Scalp,” writes Lutsenko.

➖"But this is a lie that will (not) lead to victory. At least because the Russian Air Transport Agency has already gone beyond the Atacms coverage area. Therefore, it will not stop attacks, KABs, and ballistics."

▪️Lutsenko believes that Zelensky is acting according to the following plan:

1. We submit to the US a new mega-list of demands for weapons and money.

2. We receive polite doubts that this will change the course of the war and lead us to the borders of 1991.

3. We declare that we have been abandoned and we have no other choice but to return to the Peace Forums with the participation of Russia.

4. During the negotiations we receive demands from Putin in the style of Istanbul.

5. We declare that this is the subject of a referendum and that a ceasefire is needed for this.

6. We sign a ceasefire.

7. We take the pose of the president of the world and hold presidential elections. Preferably - without lifting martial law, so that democracy does not interfere, and the TCC controls the polling stations.

▪️Lutsenko called it a “cynical show” that is “easily read by both Ukrainian political leaders and our allies.”

RVvoenkor


This is an interesting and plausible theory. In short, he believes Zelensky is putting on a display of theater in order to save his skin by first allowing Ukrainian citizens to witness the “betrayal” of Ukraine being abandoned, before Zelensky has the consensus to proceed to peace negotiations.

Note one of the last parts, where he states this will allow Zelensky to present himself as a global leader. This exact hypothesis was supported by Ukrainian political consultant Oleksandr Kharebin in a new interview where he stated his opinion of Zelensky’s outrageous plan: (Video at link.)

According to the Zelensky's ‘Peace plan’, Ukraine will be one of the founders of a new post-war world order, Ukrainian political consultant Oleksandr Kharebin claimed: "We have that right, just like the Soviet Union became the founder of the UN, because it was the winning country, and it founded the world that is now being destroyed before our eyes. Ukraine will demand this right to build the world after the war," he stated.

The point of all this devolves into something I’ve been writing for many months: that Zelensky and the West’s goal will be to somehow sell the ending of this war as a “victory”. The above sounds like Zelensky’s attempt to twist the finale into a grand global achievement for himself and his political class, centering Ukraine on the chessboard as a mega-player. The timing is good after all, with European nations on the brink of political and economic dissolution, it surely gives the savor of a big opportunistic opening for Ukraine to position itself as a regional power center of sorts.

The problem is, it’s all contingent on Russia playing along and submitting to a ceasefire—which itself is contingent on the delusion that Russia is suffering the worse for wear and is eager to begin talks. It will be the most devastating moral blow of the war for the West when they realize this is not the case.

(Much more at link.)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sit ... s-squeezed

*******

Ukraine War Turns Into Russian Roulette
September 16, 2024

Biden is escalating the war to create new facts on the ground before his presidency ends in January, writes M.K. Bhadrakumar.

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U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer addressing the press in Washington on Friday. (Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street, CC BY 2.0)

By M.K. Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with U.S. President Joe Biden in the White House on Friday with the question of the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine to hit deep inside Russia on their agenda of conversation. But there were no announcements, nor was there any joint press conference.

Starmer later told the media that the talks were “productive” but concentrated on “strategy” rather than a “particular step or tactic.” He did not signal any decision on allowing Kiev to fire long-range missiles into Russia.

Starmer said no final decision had been taken on the Storm Shadow missiles and hinted that further developments may follow at the gathering of the U.N. General Assembly later this month. “We’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA in just a few days time with a wider group of individuals,” he said.

One reason for such extreme secrecy is that the U.S. and U.K. are intensely conscious of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s explicit warning Thursday that any use of Western long-range missiles to strike Russia “will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.”

Putin added in measured words: “This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries –- are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

Admittedly, Putin has given similar warnings before, but did not follow through even when Western weaponry was used by Ukraine — with impunity to invade Russia recently. So much so that Biden was plainly dismissive about the latest Kremlin warning, saying, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”

For its part, Moscow estimates that although no official decision on the matter has been announced it has already been made and communicated to Kiev, meaning that Moscow would have to respond with actions of its own.

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Biden and Starmer at the White House on Friday. (Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street, CC BY 2.0)

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, Moscow’s point person on the diplomatic track, was quoted as saying on Saturday:

“The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given (to Kiev), so we [Russia] are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.”

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the country’s security council, went a step further saying that the West is testing Russia’s patience but it is not limitless. He said Ukraine’s invasion already gave Russia formal grounds to use its nuclear arsenal.

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Medvedev warned that Moscow could either resort to nuclear weapons in the end, or use some of its non-nuclear, but still deadly novel weapons for a large-scale attack.

“And that would be it. A giant, grey, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities’,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, referring to Kiev.

Putin, in his remark on Thursday once again rejected the Anglo-American sophistry that it is Ukraine that will be using any Western long-range missiles and not NATO. He pointed out that the Ukrainian army

“is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or U.S. satellites – in general, NATO satellites…most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this.

Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.”


Interestingly, neither Washington nor London has so far refuted Putin’s above explanation and, curiously, it has been missing from British press reports — perhaps on fears that public opinion might militate against such direct involvement by the U.K. in a war against Russia in a combat role.

Moscow anticipates that the U.S.-U.K. ploy may be to test the waters by first (openly) using Britain’s Storm Shadow long-range air-launched cruise missile, which has already been supplied to Ukraine.

On Friday, Russia expelled six British diplomats assigned to the Moscow embassy in a clear warning that U.K.-Russia ties will be affected. Russia has already warned the U.K. of severe consequences if the Storm Shadow were to be used to hit Russian territory.

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U.K. embassy in Moscow. (NVO, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

What makes the developing situation extremely dangerous is that the cat-and-mouse game so far about NATO’s covert involvement in the Ukraine war is giving way to a game of Russian roulette that follows the laws of Probability Theory.

That is to say, although Russia cannot be defeated or evicted from the territories in eastern and southern Ukraine that it annexed, Washington and London regard that the final outcome of this random event cannot yet be determined before it occurs; it may even be any one of several possible outcomes, and the probability cannot be ruled out that the actual outcome might even be determined by chance.

Apparently, Biden believes that Russia’s current battlefield dominance is a random phenomenon and possible outcomes range from an annihilation of Russian military power to a large-scale disruption of life in Russia and a possible collapse of Russia — at a minimum, the weakening of the Russian hand in any future negotiations.

Simply put, the war is now about Russia rather than Ukraine and long-range missiles can be a game changer.

Image
Storm Shadow missile on display at the Royal Air Force Museum London. (Corrado Baldassi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Thus, Biden, with no political constraints working on him anymore, is escalating the war to create new facts on the ground before his presidency ends in January, which may create conditions for permanent NATO military presence on Ukrainian territory and present Russia with a fait accompli.

Such a strategy built on the quicksands of probability is akin to a game of Russian roulette — an act of bravado. Indeed, Biden’s options to support Ukraine are shrinking with each escalation. As The Wall Street Journal puts it,

“With only four months left in the Biden administration and little hope of Congress approving additional funding for Ukraine no matter who wins the presidency, the White House is debating how best to help Kyiv given its limited toolbox.”

Equally, Europe’s interest in the war is also waning.

European politics is becoming unpredictable with the ascendancy of the far-right in Germany, the crisis of leadership in French politics, the relative decline of the EU’s economy vis-a-vis global rivals due to limited innovation, high energy prices and skills gaps, etc. and, of course, the overarching economic crisis in Europe with no end in sight, as brought out starkly in the recent report by Mario Draghi.

Basically, Biden is pre-setting the trajectory of the war beyond next January so that even after his retirement, his policy approach aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia remains on track.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Saturday that Washington is working on a “substantial” round of further assistance for Kiev. He confirmed a meeting this month between Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky.

Sullivan noted that Biden is working to put Ukraine in the “best possible position to prevail” during his final months in office.

The bottom line is that Biden’s war strategy is attenuating as “escalation management” while NATO transitions as a direct party to hostilities.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/16/u ... c9df8b50af

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Tabe Bergman: Confronting censorship: on media bias and the war in Ukraine
September 20, 2024 natyliesb Leave a comment
By Tabe Bergman, Pearls & Irritations, 9/4/24

Editing a book about the media and the war in Ukraine taught me first-hand lessons about censorship. It also confirmed that the Western media’s pro-elite bias is as strong as ever. At an academic conference in Europe in the summer of 2023, I witnessed how several audience members shouted at one of the speakers. That’s not how such meetings are supposed to go. They should be much less eventful.

The speaker’s transgression? To demonstrate evidence that both the Ukrainian and Russian Governments censored their own national media as the war in Ukraine raged on. According some of the audience members, the speaker should not have been allowed to give her presentation at all. Freedom of academic inquiry, not to mention speech, anyone?

The speaker, Olga Baysha, wrote one of the chapters in a book I edited with Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman on the global media coverage of the war in Ukraine. The book focuses on the treatment of dissident views.

The incident at the conference was not the only attempt at censorship I encountered. An anonymous reviewer of the book proposal that my co-editor and I had submitted to the publisher, Routledge, accused us of acting as agents of Russian propaganda. We were giving “the impression that [we] defend the views put forward by the Russian propaganda”, the reviewer wrote.

In part I replied: “First, to observe some of the same things as Russian propaganda does not logically mean that therefore it is untrue. Much of propaganda by any country is factually correct. It is anti-scholarly to in effect take the position that if Russia or any other country says something, that scholars then cannot say the same because that would be propaganda or supporting propaganda. By the same token, we would not be able to agree with anything Western Governments say, because that would also be supporting propaganda? Or do Western Governments not do propaganda?”

Let me also note, for the record, that I do not have a history of interest in or engagement with Russia: the government and/or the country. I have “been to” Russia once. I had to spend the night at Moscow airport because I missed my Aeroflot connecting flight. The other passengers and I were, in effect, locked up on a hotel floor. It was not an enjoyable experience. That’s all about Russia and me.

I thank the publisher for resisting intimidation by the totalitarian, thought policeman, disguised as an academic, and protected by anonymity. Oscar Wilde wrote, “Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth.” My experience with academic peer-reviewing, though, suggests another lesson. Protected by anonymity, some people will feel they can be as inappropriate as they want to and employ the cheapest rhetorical tricks without regard for logic and truth.

Wilde also once said that “only a dangerous idea is worthy of being called an idea at all.” An example of a dangerous idea is that what the Western media primarily do is to facilitate propaganda for their own governments. This idea challenges lessons we all learned in school, without even paying attention, about how some countries have freedom of speech and the press (luckily ours), and others do not. It makes us question not just what our governments say, but what our media says as well. Thus, we are in danger of losing faith in “venerable” institutions. Next stage, utter anarchy?

My co-editor and I went into this project with certain assumptions based on the leading research on how Western media have covered foreign affairs, especially wars, in the past. Simply, there exists quite a broad consensus among leading researchers that the Western media do not act like watchdogs as to their own government’s foreign policy. Rather, they act as a handmaiden, as Hearns-Branaman and I summarise in the introductory chapter to a previous edited volume, entitled Journalism and Foreign Policy, published in 2022.

The classic example in the 21st century remains the war in Iraq. Those respectable legacy media outlets that everyone knows promoted false UK and US government claims as to the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the oil-rich country ruled by Saddam Hussein. The New York Times and Washington Post apologised (kind of, at least) for their lack of critical edge in covering that momentous story – but only after the invasion was done and the occupation had begun.

Disconcertingly, as the war broke out in Ukraine in 2022, there was some reason to believe that two decades later the coverage had gotten even worse than in the run-up to and during the Iraq war. That was, at least, the opinion of some genuine experts. To give but one example, as we wrote in the Introduction to the edited volume:

“The escalation of the Ukraine crisis provides the opportunity to test the possibility that, as argued by several experts, the pressures to conform to dominant pro-Western narratives, both in Western mainstream media and on social media, have increased. Such was the opinion, for instance, of the late Russia expert Stephen Cohen, who said that during the Cold War ‘the media were open – the New York Times, the Washington Post – to debate,’ but that these days ‘they no longer are. It’s one hand clapping in [America’s] major newspapers and in our broadcast networks.”

The original studies on the mainstream media as reported in the edited volume’s chapters cannot empirically prove that the media have degenerated into an even more slavish attitude towards their own government. That is something very hard, if not impossible, to prove empirically. But the chapters do show that media continue to report largely within a framework set by the government of the country the media happen to be located.

A thorough study of the war’s news on television in nine countries headed by Professor Kaarle Nordenstreng and colleagues confirms this conclusion. On the whole, the examined media, including the BBC, paid little attention to the Russian perspective, put their own (perceived) national interests as defined by their government front and centre, “supported” Ukraine, and relied mostly on established Western sources and news agencies.

Anyone who dissents from the NATO-supplied talking points on the war runs the risk of getting intimidated into falling into line, ridiculed or sidelined and ignored. For instance, a Dutch “quality” newspaper disparaged the famed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh as having lost his way by succumbing to conspiracy theories for his article that reported that the United States was behind the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, jointly owned by Germany and Russia. Regardless of the truth of the matter, the notion that “if you don’t promote the party line, you must be crazy”, is totalitarian and dangerous.

Another example explored in detail in the edited volume concerns a Scottish philosophy professor, Tim Hayward, who was attacked for a tweet on 11 March 2022, that, linking to a Russian source, read: “As long as we’re still able to hear two sides of the story we should continue striving to do so.” The professor’s reply to being challenged over this tweet really just reaffirmed the value of concepts that the mainstream media claim to hold dear, namely fairness, balance, and objectivity:

“The fact is, as we know, propaganda especially thrives in war time. It is naively and dangerously mistaken to think one side has a monopoly on propaganda. Therefore, citizens who want to understand the underlying dynamics of a war need to try and find ways to look beyond the propaganda. Comparing propaganda narratives can play a part in this. Being aware of how our own understandings can be unwittingly shaped by propaganda also is very important. I sincerely worry at the way alternative news sources are getting shut down just now so that it is becoming harder to hear any view other than that approved by those in power.”

Amen.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/09/tab ... n-ukraine/

******

Ukrainian nationalists on Trump

And Biden. The Sternenko/Azov split. Biden the soy cuckold. The split among Azovites on the question of ceasefire.

Events in Ukraine
Sep 16, 2024
Another month, another Trump assassination attempt. I decided to take a look at how Ukrainian militarists were reacting to it, and to US politics in general.

To begin with, Serhii Sternenko (825k subscribers) and Igor Lachenkov (1.5 million subscribers), two highly mediatized ‘volunteers/activists’, who spend their time ‘gathering funds to help the army’ while not fighting (Sternenko claims to have eye problems). In other words, their income and fame depends directly on the intensity of frontline combat.

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Sternenko in a Svastone label shirt (‘Perun company’). Need I say any more?

The neo-nazi Sternenko is also quite obviously being groomed for a more direct future political role and has powerful friends in western capitals, as I wrote here and here. Sternenko is aligned with Sorosite NGOs and similar characters, which, along with what is probably conflict over drug incomes, means he has long been in conflict with the more traditionally rightwing Azov movement.

Lachen, meanwhile, was no one before the war but is now a huge media star. Like Sternenko, he mainly posts death-porn of ‘destroyed Russian orcs’ and brags about new fundraising records. He and Sternenko often cooperate.

Anyway, both Sternenko and Lachen posted a laconic description of the assassination attempt on Trump, with most of the reactions laughing. Their obviously flippant reaction to the assassination attempt contrasts with the Azovites I’ll reproduce below. No wonder, given Sternenko/Lachen links with democrat party NGO networks:

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Katarsis, an Azov/C14 aligned telegram, also had a good laugh about Zelensky’s claims to sympathize with Trump:

Image

Tales of the IV Reich, a telegram managed by an Azov officer, had a more thought-out response to the assassination attempt. This post yet again illustrates Tales’ barely hidden desire to freeze the war now instead of Zelensky’s strategy for forever war at the altar of the 1991 borders. Not particularly popular among Ukrainian rightwingers, though it seems like a fairly rational nationalist move to me (not that Ukrainian rightwingers have ever been noted for their pragmatism or strategic outlook):

Both current U.S. presidential candidates neither want nor plan for Ukraine to win the war against Russia. It’s painful, and the injustice makes you want to destroy everything around you. However, we chose such allies ourselves over the years of independence. The only difference between Biden, who acts like a colored version of a woman in a skirt, and Trump is whether to end the war now, at the actual borders of the combat zone by the end of 2024, or not end it, allowing the Russians to advance even further.

The "Democrats" do not plan to increase arms supplies and have repeatedly hinted to the Ukrainian government that the 2025 U.S. budget will not be as generous to Ukraine as previous ones. Who is to blame in this situation? Who is the "pro-Ukrainian" and who is the "pro-Russian" candidate? Decide for yourselves. In my opinion, the pro-Russian candidate is the one who wants the Russians to seize even more Ukrainian territory.

I can predict that in 2025, amid political crises in Western democracies, we will not become stronger. But the destruction, occupied villages and cities, and the number of killed Ukrainian defenders will only increase.


Note that ‘Tales’ used to be more positive about Trump, for instance in a June 28 post calling him ‘our elephant’ (military/rightwing jargon for someone on our side):

Yesterday, during the debates, the fresh and energetic old man Trump politically knocked out the frail and tired, dementia-stricken old man Biden. Therefore, there is a chance for peace and an end to the war. The future of peace and war is being decided in the American elections, not in Ukraine, no matter what anyone says or how much dreamers want to dress the entire country in camouflage and send them to defend Vuhledar.

Let me remind you that throughout all the years of independence, under Republican Party presidents, Ukraine did not lose a single kilometer of territory. However, during the terms of Democratic Party presidents, Ukraine lost Crimea, almost the entire Donbas, no longer controls two-thirds of the Zaporizhzhia region, a large part of Kherson, and even a portion of Kharkiv.

God Bless America 🐘


‘Dead Russians’, a military channel with 107k followers on Biden, September 4. The ‘guarantees’ being referred to here is the Budapest memorandum, a favorite topic in Ukrainian discourse:

"I clearly conveyed to Zelensky what we support and what we do not support," Biden said about allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with American ballistic missiles.

Well, fuck this old bastard. They took away our nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees of territorial integrity, and that’s fine, but they can’t keep their promises. And as for striking at those fuckers—it's not allowed.

Let the political leadership remind them what we signed, and stop these humiliations in front of soy cuckolds.



Azov’s Major Maksym Zhorin, July 23

I'm somewhat concerned about this unhealthy interest in the U.S. elections, especially since part of society truly believes the war will quickly end if Trump is elected.

At the very beginning, we already made an important mistake that has led to today's issues with mobilization and the overall moral and psychological state of society: when people started believing that everything would end soon.

Instead, we should have immediately told the truth—that it will be hard, long, but the entire society needs to mobilize. Had we done that, we wouldn't be in the current situation where we have to search for people, detain them, and focus on punishments. We would have had a proper accounting of the male population and selected those needed in the military today—based on age, profession, experience, etc.

Under the circumstances Ukraine is in, the most appropriate approach for society is as follows: everyone should be prepared, but only those who are needed should fight. Regardless of who will be the U.S. president or whether we get enough F-16s, and so on.


My thoughts
The most interesting thing here is the split between the pure grifters like Sternenko and the actual fighters in Azov. Sternenko and the like are totally against any ceasefire whatsoever, war is a business for them, but not something they ever plan to die in. Tales of the IV Reich, along with being ideologically more committed to Trump’s message (plenty of posts on Tales, Katarsis and similar Azovite channels praising Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric), is also more concerned about long-term military strategy than Lachen/Sternenko.

On the other hand, Tales certainly isn’t a dominant voice among the Azovites. Zhorin is far more influential, with his standard anti-ceasefire rhetoric. Time will tell if that’s just a politically correct front for his real desire to see a ceasefire that would stave off a large-scale collapse of the army/massive territorial losses.

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... s-on-trump

200,000 deserters and 118,000 fatalities

No demobilization, ministry of defense eliminates anti-corruption organs, Syrsky/Umerov under attack from Yermak/Bezuhla. Azovite: send the LGBT NATO defense ministers to the trenches

Events in Ukraine
Sep 20, 2024

Next week, I’ll be taking a deep dive into the complicated power struggles inside the Zelensky elite itself - the name Yermak is probably familiar to my readers, but get ready to also get Tatarov-pilled. Battles among Zelensky’s own court elite may be translating themselves into more visible conflicts and events. This post’s selection of telegram commentary should hopefully get the reader acquainted with the crises wracking the army.

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Volodymyr Boiko, a journalist and lawyer currently serving at the frontlines, September 7:

People's Deputy Ruslan Horbenko, a former deputy of the Luhansk City Council from the "Party of Regions" and now a servant of an unknown people [a joke about the name of Zelensky’s party - Servant of the People], claimed that allegedly 80,000 servicemen have deserted from the Ukrainian army during the war. This, to put it mildly, is a lie: the people's representative is simply unaware of the real situation at the front. In reality, 80,000 (to be exact, 78,330) is only the number of criminal cases entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations under Articles 407 and 408 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The actual number of deserters is approaching 200,000.

In just August 2024 alone, 6,808 criminal cases were registered under Articles 407 and 408 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and no more than a third of the cases are registered, as the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) deliberately conceals crimes against the established military service procedure (because the SBI only investigates cases that can be lucratively "sold"). Military unit commanders even have to go to court to compel investigators to enter reports of unauthorized leave by servicemen into the register.

Since February 2024, I have repeatedly written that the front would collapse in the summer due to mass desertions, explaining the reasons and naming those responsible—Defense Minister Umerov, General Tourist Kostin, and SBI Director Sukhachov (https://t.me/volodymyrboyko/4942). However, instead of immediately correcting the situation by replacing Kostin, Umerov, and Sukhachov with competent leaders, restoring military justice, creating a system of disciplinary battalions, and assigning criminal investigations under Articles 407 and 408 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine to the national police (transferring the necessary resources from the SBI to the police), the parliament decided to decriminalize desertion. They even declared that deserters would no longer be held accountable, even if they happened to come to the attention of law enforcement.

The consequences for the front will be catastrophic.


Back in May, Boiko counted 55,000 criminal cases registered regarding desertion, and estimated there were over 130,000 deserters. I wrote about that estimate of his here.

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Oleksiy Honcharenko, high-publicity parliamentarian from Petro Poroshenko’s party European Solidarity. Honcharenko and ES represents the liberal-nationalist, western-connected opposition to Zelensky, who they criticize as an incompetent figure surrounded by corrupt obscure figures connected to Russia or the Yanukovych elite (such as Yermak and Tatarov). This post also cites an article from Ukrainska Pravda on the topic of demobilization, showing as usual the cohesion between publications like UP and the anti-Zelensky opposition. Post from September 17:

The saga of the demobilization bill has been going on for over a year and a half.

I first submitted this bill back in March 2023. Then there was a similar petition to the President and long months of fighting for basic justice, which would ultimately provide a motivated military and people who know what to expect from the future.

We were promised a lot, but nothing was done. The mobilization law was supposed to resolve everything, but here again, people were simply abandoned. The "Servants of the People" party simply ruined this law and removed all bonuses for the military, including demobilization.

After that, we were promised that at some point, somewhere, a separate bill would be made. But over time, we stopped hearing about demobilization altogether.

There's complete chaos in the Ministry of Defense. Umerov is just sitting idle.

And for them, everything is fine. A separate caste.

Meanwhile, the people defending our country are abandoned and have no idea what to expect.


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Maryana Bezuhla, who I wrote about at length in this recent article. In short, Bezuhla publicly criticizes top generals, which serves two functions: in a generous reading, it is Zelensky’s way of putting pressure on incompetent officers, and in a less generous reading, it’s a PR tactic of diverting public anger away from the government and onto the ‘corrupt Soviet generals’.

Anyway, as you can see in the way this September 18 post ends by calling on the president to do something, there’s clearly a ‘good Tsar, bad boyars’ dynamic going on here. Also, she’s now writing her posts in English - she has finally moved out of the parliamentary security/defense committee into the parliamentary foreign relations committee (Poroshenkites and the like have been trying to push her out to no avail for months). Another interesting development - probably Zelensky’s attempt to show the western partners that ‘there are principled anti-corruption figures on my side too, they aren’t only oppositional Poroshenkites’:

(Paywall with free viewing option.)

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... fatalities

*****

Bezlyudovka
September 22, 14:33

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Bezlyudovka

Well, we are back to the topic of cemeteries and, accordingly, the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Since Zeleboba refuted media reports on losses in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (Western resources wrote 80k killed), I believe that the topic will be interesting and relevant.

The telling name "Bezlyudovka".
The eighteenth cemetery of Kharkov is located on the outskirts of this particular settlement. Its volume is significant, which means that it will not be difficult to notice the expansion of its territory. There are about 450 bodies per square. There are 96 squares in the cemetery. Since not all cells are the same size, we will take 400 bodies and 80 cells as average values.
Thus, the total capacity of the cemetery is 32 thousand bodies.

Before the start of the Second World War, in 2020-21, 50x400=20,000 Ukrainian citizens found their resting places.
Today, the cemetery is almost completely full and continues to actively replenish.
Since the population of Bezlyudovka in 2022 was about 10 thousand people, we will neglect the replenishment of the cemetery due to civilians, the numbers there will be insignificant.

As a result, it turns out that about 10 thousand servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were comfortably accommodated in this cemetery.

In total, we looked at only 2 cemeteries, and the total figures for the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine turned out to be around 25-30 thousand.

How many more cemeteries are there in Ukraine?

If there is information about large burial sites, write in the comments or in the feedback bot) We will definitely analyze everything.

Thank you for your attention ☕️

(c) ANTISEPTIC

https://t.me/antiseptic_channel - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9397440.html

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

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

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 23, 2024 11:49 am

Staying in line
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 09/23/2024

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“Volodymyr Zelensky will press US President Joe Biden to offer an official invitation to join NATO and to commit to a sustained supply of advanced weaponry as part of the Ukrainian president’s victory plan to end the war with Russia. Zelensky is expected to present the plan, which also calls for a clear path to EU membership as well as other economic and security measures, to Biden when they meet on September 26,” Bloomberg wrote this weekend . As the Ukrainian president has explained, whether the plan is fulfilled and achieves its objectives depends “personally” on Joe Biden, a curious approach considering that the US president cannot approve on his own, without support from the legislative branch, additional arms packages such as those that Ukraine expects and that, in theory, is not part of the European Union to be able to choose how and when new members should access. With each new detail, the expected plan is confirmed: Ukraine is trying to get Western countries, especially the United States, to commit to more than just words and promises for the future, to continue to exert military, political and economic pressure on Russia until Ukraine can impose its conditions for ending the war without making any political, military or territorial concessions.

The known data are sufficient to conclude that Zelensky is demanding arms and funding to continue the war until final victory and a whole series of conditions for the subsequent phase, mainly incorporation into Western political and military structures, investment to ensure that the country does not have to bear the costs of reconstruction and a flow of military material that consolidates the country as a military base created by and for the West in its work of containing the Russian enemy. In the short term, the Ukrainian president's plan is equivalent to what Israeli sources leaked to the press yesterday about their attacks against Hezbollah and bombings in Lebanon: Israel is not seeking war, but rather intends to impose "de-escalation through escalation." The Ukrainian point of view is not exactly the same, since with its own resources it is not capable of inflicting on Russia the violence that Israel can inflict, but it is based on the same approach: the West must supply the missiles with which to bomb continental Russian territory, but not to provoke a direct war between the great powers, but rather to speed up peace.

Beyond the obvious risks involved in Ukraine's willingness to use F16 fighters and ATACMS, Storm Shadow and Taurus missiles - the German chancellor has once again insisted that, despite the pressures he is under, he is not willing to send missiles capable of reaching Moscow to Ukraine, precisely the reason why Kiev wants that material - some experts are questioning the chances of success of Volodymyr Zelensky's idea. "Loss of territory or eternal war," explains Mark Galeotti in his article this Sunday in The Times , which raises the possibility that Kiev and its Western allies have different definitions of what victory is, something evident in the case of the United Kingdom and the United States, which seek to wear down the main ally of their real opponent, China, and weaken Russia in a place they consider key, the Black Sea. "It is not clear that Ukraine's allies believe that the enemy can really be expelled," explains Galeotti in his article when referring to one of the main points of Zelensky's plan, the territorial aspect. The article proposes two possible scenarios for Ukraine under current conditions: territorial compromise, leaving, at least temporarily, the territories under its control in the hands of Russia, or an eternal war of attrition that may go through phases of decreasing intensity or ceasefire processes, but which does not lead to a treaty with which to end the military phase. In other words, a repetition of the Minsk scenario, a precedent that neither Galeotti nor other experts take into account, fundamentally because Ukraine would come out badly off, but which explains both the method - demanding all kinds of measures from its partners so that they are the ones who force Russia's capitulation and delaying the process until everything it asks for is achieved - and the objectives - not making any political concessions.

If such a scenario was unrealistic in the years of the Minsk agreements, when Russia was only required to abandon the population of Donetsk and Lugansk to their fate, which would have been at the mercy of Ukraine’s will to not grant any political rights and to apply collective punishment to the disloyal population, Ukraine’s chances of achieving what it seeks depend on a complete military defeat in which even Kiev’s staunchest allies do not believe. “While some countries such as Poland and the United Kingdom remain firmly committed to supporting Ukraine, there is a growing feeling in others that it may be time to end the war, even if it means creating an ugly peace ,” writes Galeotti. To develop this idea, the author quotes two of his sources, a “Polish hawk” who recalls that Ukraine’s borders have always been mobile and that the task now is to make them “move as little as possible in the future,” and a German diplomat who says he does not believe that “I don’t know if this will lead to victory over the Russians, but most likely the plan is aimed at forcing us to stay in line.” The war is dragging on and the Ukrainian government is not willing to give up its efforts to impose the victor’s peace on its enemy despite not having managed to win the war, so it is necessary for kyiv to guarantee long-term military and economic support, in order to prevent Ukraine from seeing scenes like those that occurred three years ago with the US withdrawal from Kabul.

This strategy of impossible goals has endured since the years of the Minsk agreements, when Ukraine needed the support of its allies – hence its preference for the Normandy Format, in which it had the assistance of Germany and France – to force Russia to honour the commitments made on Donetsk and Lugansk and make additional concessions (such as handing over control of the border as a first step) in exchange for nothing. kyiv, as it now openly admits, never intended to fulfil its part, so it simply offered vague promises of partial and in its own style compliance with only some of the points of the agreement. The stakes are much higher now, as Zelensky intends to force the surrender of a country that has its own military industry capable of continuing to supply the necessary material for the war, that currently has the initiative on the front and that occupies practically 20% of the territory of whoever demands its surrender.

The scenario seems so unrealistic that part of the Ukrainian opposition, i.e. Poroshenko's entourage, is beginning to see it as the path to Plan B, which Zelensky denies exists. This is the case of Yuri Lutsenko, Ukraine's general prosecutor under Poroshenko and who is currently serving in the army. In his opinion, the Ukrainian president's actions respond to the idea of ​​presenting a series of unrealistic demands for weapons and financing, in order to then claim that it is the West that has abandoned Ukraine, condemning it to compromise. This would lead to a return to Vladimir Putin's proposal, based on the negotiations in Istanbul, which would be, according to Lutsenko, consulted in a referendum. The possibility of transferring the decision on the territorial question to the population has been a recurring argument in the last decade, but it has never gone beyond being a media rumour or an idea with no future. The curious thing about the former prosecutor's speculation is that the final point would be to agree on a ceasefire and for Zelensky to be re-elected as a "peace president." In other words, Lutsenko is assuming that the population would approve the loss of territories in exchange for peace.

All indications are that Lutsenko's opinion is merely an attempt to exert some kind of opposition, but that the fear is unrealistic. Zelensky's goal is to ensure that Ukraine can continue to fight until it achieves its objectives even if it means risking an even bigger war. In his article, Galeotti resorts to another of the myths of this war, nationalist pressure, to argue that it is impossible for Zelensky to opt for the path of compromise. The threat that nationalist battalions would turn their tanks around and march on kyiv has appeared periodically, every time the Ukrainian government seemed to take some step towards fulfilling the Minsk agreements. Neither the nationalist march nor the fulfillment of the peace agreements were ever going to happen, so it is not a particularly useful argument at the moment. Apart from these possible threats, which there is no need to exaggerate even if they exist, the reality is that Zelensky has made the conflict the way to achieve reform in terms of nationalism, ultra-liberalism and remilitarization. After two and a half years of promising victory and making war the raison d'être of the State, between compromise and eternal war, he will always choose the latter. That is why, and not to return to the negotiations in Istanbul, he is seeking weapons with which to attack Russia and announcing that he is talking to his allies to finance a massive missile construction programme in Ukraine.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/09/23/mantenerse-en-linea/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of September 23, 2024) Main points:

The Northern grouping hit formations of two enemy brigades in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 105 people;

— The Center grouping repelled 9 counterattacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 24 hours, the enemy lost up to 440 soldiers;

— The West grouping repelled four counterattacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 24 hours, the Ukrainian side lost up to 450 soldiers;

— Russian air defence systems shot down an ATACMS missile, a HIMARS projectile, two Hammer bombs, three Neptune missiles and 35 Ukrainian UAVs in 24 hours;

— The Dnepr grouping of forces hit two brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the enemy lost up to 60 soldiers;

— The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 140 soldiers in the area of ​​responsibility of the Eastern grouping in 24 hours.

▫️Units of the "East" group of forces improved the situation along the forward edge, defeated the manpower and equipment of the 58th motorized infantry brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 118th territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Dobrovolye and Zolotaya Niva of the Donetsk People's Republic. A counterattack by an assault group of the 72nd mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was repelled .

The enemy lost up to 140 servicemen, three vehicles, a 155-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Caesar" made in France and a 122-mm howitzer D-30 . Two "Anklav-N" electronic warfare stations were destroyed .

▫️Units of the Dnepr group of forces defeated formations of the 141st infantry brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the 39th coastal defense brigade in the areas of the settlement of Veselyanka in the Zaporizhia region and the city of Kherson.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 60 servicemen, six vehicles and an electronic warfare station.

▫️ Operational-tactical aviation , unmanned aerial vehicles , missile forces and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups have destroyed concentrations of enemy manpower and military equipment in 135 areas.

▫️ The air defense systems shot down: a US-made ATACMS operational-tactical missile , three Neptune long-range guided missiles , two French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs , a US-made HIMARS rocket , and 35 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.

▫️ In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 646 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 32,124 unmanned aerial vehicles, 579 anti-aircraft missile systems, 18,338 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,458 multiple launch rocket systems, 15,085 field artillery pieces and mortars, 26,401 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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There Is Only One Night Left to Build Fortifications: The Thirty-Eighth Newsletter (2024)

Recent indications suggest that NATO may permit Ukraine to use Western-provided missiles to strike Russian territory. This would mark a serious escalation of the conflict.

19 September 2024

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Niniko Morbedadze (Georgia), The Orange Clouds on the Boundary, 2018.

Dear Friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

On 13 September, at a conclave in Washington, DC, US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer indicated that it would be acceptable for Ukraine to fire missiles, provided by the West, into Russian territory. No official decision has been announced as of yet, but it is clear where the conversation among North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) member states is headed. After Starmer – whose approval rating with voters sits at 22% – returned to London, his foreign secretary David Lammy told the press that the UK government is in conversation with other allies about lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of UK-provided Storm Shadow missiles into Russia. Sir John McColl, a retired senior UK army officer, went further, stating that these missiles would eventually be used against Russia, yet – by themselves – they would not enable Ukraine to prevail. In other words, knowing full well that these missiles will not change the tenor of the war, these men (Biden, Starmer, and McColl) are willing to risk deepening the conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made the use of Western-provided missiles a central theme of his conversations with world leaders, claiming that if his military is allowed to fire the Storm Shadow missiles (from the UK), SCALPs (from France), and ATACMS (from the US), then Ukraine will be able to hit Russian military bases on Russian soil. A greenlight by NATO to use these three missile systems, which have already been supplied to Ukraine by NATO member countries, would be a significant escalation: if Ukraine were to use these missiles to attack Russia, and Russia were to retaliate with an attack on the countries that provided the missiles, it would trigger Article 5 of the NATO charter (1949), drawing all NATO member countries directly into the war. In such a scenario, several nuclear powers (US, UK, France, and Russia) will have their fingers on the nuclear button and could very well take the planet down the path of fiery destruction.

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Ion Grigorescu and Arutiun Avakian (Romania/Armenia), The Genius and the Era, 1990/1950s.

In December 2021, Russia and the United States held a series of consultations that, even at that late hour, could have prevented hostilities from breaking out in Ukraine. A summary of those discussions is vital to highlight the key issues underlying the conflict:

1. 7 December 2021. US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a two-hour video conference. The White House readout, which is only a paragraph long, focused on Russian troop movements on the Ukrainian border. The Kremlin summary is a bit longer and introduced a point that the United States has ignored: ‘Vladimir Putin warned against the shifting of responsibility on Russia, since it was NATO that was undertaking dangerous attempts to gain a foothold on Ukrainian territory and building up its military capabilities along the Russian border. It is for this reason that Russia is eager to obtain reliable, legally binding guarantees ruling out the eventuality of NATO’s eastward expansion and the deployment of offensive weapons systems in the countries neighbouring Russia’.

2. 15 December 2021. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov met with US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried in Moscow. The Russian press release published after the meeting said that ‘they had a detailed discussion of security guarantees in the context of the persistent attempts by the US and NATO to change the European military and political situation in their favour’.

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Maria Khan (Pakistan), Craving for Love, 2012.

3. 17 December 2021. Russia released a draft treaty between itself and the United States as well as a draft agreement with NATO. Both texts made it clear that Russia was seeking firm security guarantees against any destabilisation of the status quo to its west. In these texts, there are explicit and important statements about missiles and nuclear weapons. The draft treaty says that neither the US nor Russia should ‘deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party’ (article 6) and that both sides should ‘refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories’ (article 7). The draft agreement with NATO says that none of the NATO countries should ‘deploy land-based intermediate- and short-range missiles in areas allowing them to reach the territory of the other Parties’ (article 5).

4. 23 December 2021. In his annual press conference, Putin once more broadcast Russia’s anxiety about NATO’s eastward movement and about the threats of weapons systems being deployed on Russian borders: ‘We remember, as I have mentioned many times before and as you know very well, how you promised us in the 1990s that [NATO] would not move an inch to the East. You cheated us shamelessly: there have been five waves of NATO expansion, and now the weapons systems I mentioned have been deployed in Romania, and deployment has recently begun in Poland. This is what we are talking about, can you not see? We are not threatening anyone. Have we approached US borders? Or the borders of Britain or any other country? It is you who have come to our border, and now you say that Ukraine will become a member of NATO as well. Or, even if it does not join NATO, that military bases and strike systems will be placed on its territory under bilateral agreements’.

5. 30 December 2021. Biden and Putin had a phone call about the deteriorating situation. The Kremlin’s summary is more detailed than the one from the White House, which is why it is more useful. Putin, we are told, ‘stressed that the negotiations needed to produce solid legally binding guarantees ruling out NATO’s eastward expansion and the deployment of weapons that threaten Russia in the immediate vicinity of its borders’.

On 24 February 2022, Russian troops entered Ukraine.

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Louay Kayyali (Syria), Then What?, 1965.

Russia has been anxious about its security guarantees ever since the United States began to unilaterally withdraw from the delicate arms control system. The bookends of this dismissal are the US’s 2001 departure from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and 2019 revocation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The disposal of these treaties and the failure to acknowledge Russian pleas for security guarantees – alongside NATO aggressions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya – caused anxieties to grow in Moscow about the possibility that the West could place short-range nuclear missiles in Ukraine or in the Baltic states and be able to strike large Russian cities in the west without any hope of defence. That has been Russia’s main argument with the West. If the West had taken the treaties that Russia proposed in December 2021 seriously, then we might not be in a situation where the Western countries are discussing the use of NATO missiles against Russia.

A new study by the consulting firm Accuracy shows that arms companies in the United States and Europe have benefited enormously from this war, with stock market capitalisation for the main weapons companies having increased by 59.7% since February 2022. The largest gains were made by Honeywell (US), Rheinmetall (Germany), Leonardo (Italy), BAE Systems (UK), Dassault Aviation (France), Thales (France), Konsberg Gruppen (Norway), and Safran (France). The US companies Huntington Ingalls, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrup Grumman also saw gains, though their percentage increases were lower because their absolute profits were already at obscene levels. While these NATO merchants of death profit enormously, their populations continue to struggle with higher prices due to fuel and food price inflation.

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Askhat Akhmedyarov (Kazakhstan), Geopolitical Soldier, 2014.

Perhaps the most cruelly ironic part of this entire debate is that allowing Ukraine to strike Russia would not necessarily result in any military benefit. Firstly, Russian air bases have now moved out of range of the missiles under discussion, and, secondly, Ukrainian supplies of these missiles are low. Adding to the looming threat of nuclear war are two recent statements from the US. In August, the US press reported that the Biden administration had produced a secret memorandum about preparing the US nuclear arsenal to combat China, North Korea, and Russia. This came on the heels of another report, in June, that the US is considering expanding its nuclear forces.

All of this is part of the backdrop of the 79th United Nations General Assembly meeting taking place this month, where member states will discuss a new Global Compact. The draft compact uses the word ‘peace’ over a hundred times, but the real noise we hear is war, war, war.

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Tuvshoo (Mongolia), Tears of Joy, 2013.

When I was a teenager in Calcutta, India, I would often zip off to the Gorky Sadan theatre and watch the films of the Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky, which ruminated about life and the human desire to be better. One of these films, Mirror (1975), about the outrageousness of war, is anchored in the poems of the filmmaker’s father, Arseny Tarkovsky. As tensions rise in Ukraine, the elder Tarkovsky’s poem ‘Saturday, June 21’ (referring to the day before the Soviet Union was attacked by Nazi Germany 1941) warns us against mounting threat of war:

There’s one night left to build fortifications.
It’s in my hands, the hope for our salvation.

I’m yearning for the past; then I could warn
Those who were doomed to perish in this war.

A man across the street would hear me cry,
‘Come here, now, and death will pass you by’.

I’d know the hour when the war would strike
Who will survive the camps and who will die.

Who will be heroes honoured by awards,
And who will die shot by the firing squads.

I see the snow in Stalingrad, all strewn
With corpses of the enemy platoons.

Under the air raids, I see Berlin
The Russian infantry is marching in.

I can foretell the enemy’s every plot
More than intelligence of any sort.

And I keep pleading, but no one will hear.
The passersby are breathing in fresh air,

Enjoying summer flowers in June,
All unaware of the coming doom.

Another moment – and my vision disappears.
I don’t know when or how I ended here.

My mind is blank. I’m looking at bright skies,
My window not yet taped by criss-crossed stripes.


Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... s-ukraine/

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A River Runs Through the End of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War
by Gordonhahn
September 22, 2024

A river runs through Russian and, more recently, Ukrainian history. Ironically enough, the Dnieper River that unites Russia and Ukraine in this and other ways – the river rises in the Valdai Hills of Smolensk, Russia and runs through Belarus and Ukraine – is now the focus of the greatest schism in the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations. Russian forces appear impossible to stop and will arrive at the Dnieper at some point along its snaking length no later than next year, with Russian troops perhaps controlling the river’s and the country’s Left Bank by then. Russia – as well as the West and whatever remains of Ukraine‘s Maidan regime will then face some serious decisions.

The Dnieper River in Russian and Ukrainian History

The Dnieper River has played a major role in Russian and Ukrainian history and is now positioned to so again. The Dnieper drove the foundation of the first Russian city and state. The first Russian state of Kievan Rus rose from the city-state of Kiev, founded by Vikings as a result of the early small port town‘s location on the great north-south water route, the Amber Road, flowing between Scandinavia (the Swedish Viking Varangians) and Byzantian Constantinople. Thus, the Dnieper gave birth to ‚the mother of Russian cities‘ and connected Kievan Rus to what would become the source of much of Russian culure: Greek or Eastern Orthodoxy.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks, famous in Russia and Ukraine, as well as other Cossack formations, were located on the Dnieper, the Zaporozhians in the marshes and islands on the Lower Dniper near its Black Sea estuary. The Dnieper became the dividing line between Polish- and Russian-controlled ‚Ukrainian‘ lands, with the western side of what today is Ukraine called the ‚Right Bank Ukraine‘ and the eastern side known as ‚Left Bank Ukraine.‘ In the Soviet era, the Dniper’s six major hydroelectric stations and damns were symbols of communist modernization. One is featured near the end of Boris Pasternak’s famous novel Doctor Zhivago, as well as in the British film version of the novel.

The Dnieper was the focus of great battles during what Russians call the ‚Great Patriotic War‘ and what others call ‚World War II.‘ Following the largest tank battle in history at Kursk, the Battle for Dnieper was one of the largest operations of the war, involving four million troops, stretching over nearly 900 miles of front, and lasting over four months in 1943. It opened the way to the liberation of Kiev from the Nazi fascist army on 28 October 1944.

The Dnieper – more accurately one of its tributaries, the Pripyat – was the locus of the world’s first great nuclear disaster in 1986 at Chernobyl‘. The poetic Ukrainian name for the river, Slavutych or Slavuta, taken from an ancient Kievan Rus name for the river became the name of the town used to house displaced Chernobyl nuclear power plant workers.

Today, the Dnieper finds itself at the center of history once again.

Russia Marches to the Dnieper: What Then?

By the end of next year, if not earlier, Russian forces likely will reach the Dnieper and perhaps already be laying seige to Zaporozhe, Dnipro, Cherkassk, and, perhaps, Right Bank Kiev. This situation will demand key, pivotal decisions by the NATO-Russian Ukrainian War’s participants: NATO, Russia, and Ukraine.

For Russia, there will be at least three choices: (1) stop territorial advance at the Dnieper and offer peace talks with the threat to cross the Dnieper in lieu of an agreement that precludes NATO expansion to rump Ukraine and Moldova; (2) stop at the Dnieper without offering negotiations and warn the West that Russia will cross the Dnieper should NATO or NATO countries continue any activity or relations with Maidan Ukraine; (3) continue to Right Bank Kiev, the city’s center and country’s capitol, and then to the rest of Right Bank Ukraine without offering any negotiations, only conquest, capitulation, and survival of a Ukrainian or Galician state solely on lands not occupied by Russian troops before a capitulation act is signed by Maidan Ukraine, Washington, and Brussels.

The first option — halting Russian forces‘ territorial advance at the Dnieper while offering peace talks and threatening to cross the Dnieper in lieu of an agreement that precludes NATO expansion to rump Ukraine (and Moldova?) and any other NATO activity in Ukraine and meets other Russian demands – has advantages and weaknesses as do the other options. The obvious advantages are the end of NATO expansion to Ukraine and of the war or ‚special military operation‘ (SMO), assuming the West (and Russia) meet their obligations. The downside from Russia’s perspective is the possibility of the agreement collapsing or being violated by Ukraine and the West at some point in the future, necessitating another SMO or fully-declared war. Assuming Ukraine restores something resembling democracy, the presence of a democratic state on Russia’s border is not a threat to Russia, and is not by itself viewed by Russia as such. Such an assumption is based on the false and largely propagandistic notion that ‚Putin abhors democracy‘ and Russia is inherently antagonistic to democracies. This is false, as demonstrated by Putin’s recently warm visit to democratic Mongolia, located on Russia’s border like Ukraine.

It is important to keep in mind that obstacles to this option include Zelenskiy’s 2022 law forbidding negotiations with Moscow as long as Putin is in power and Putin’s post-Kursk incursion statement that talks with Zelenskiy and his Maidan regime were now excluded as an option. However, there are caveats to both of these. To the first, Kiev apparently was negotiating with Moscow through the Qatari Emir on an agreement – ultimately scuttled seemingly by the Kursk incursion – that two sides would not target each other’s energy-related facilities. To the second, Putin subsequently discussed the option of talks with Kiev as if they were still possible, unlikely albeit, in his view.

The second option – stopping Russian forces‘ advance at the Dnieper without offering negotiations and warning Kiev and the West that Russia will cross the Dnieper and seize all of western Ukraine if there is any continuation of military operations or should NATO or NATO countries continue any activity or relations with Maidan Ukraine – is likely a non-starter for Moscow. This option relies on trusting Kiev and the West far beyond what Moscow is now capable of. Without a binding treaty there remains the threat of a NATO-backed and in future NATO member Ukraine on Russia’s border, with the certainty that Washington and Brussels will re-arm Ukraine/Galicia for a future attack as well as support partisan guerilla and terrorist activity by Ukrainian special forces from western Ukraine and anti-Russian resistance fighters in eastern Ukraine. Putin and Russia would be faced with a long quagmire, draining resources and limiting Russia’s ability to defend itself in other places, where NATO or others may pose security threats. This option leaves open the possibility, indeed likelihood of an all-out NATO-Russia war.

One issue that has been raised by some observers is that Russia must „control“ much if not all of western Ukraine in order to ensure full control of the Dnieper River’s infrastructure such as dams, quality control mechanism, and navigation against western rump Ukraine. It is noted also that managing the river will be an expensive proposition (www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/russias ... tions.html). River control and management is perhaps one factor that may support any eventual decision to have Russian forces cross the Dnieper, but it is hardly the main one. Key will be the defense of the eastern bank and nearby territories from missile, artillery and drone attacks and from infiltration by sabotage and terrorist cells. Moreover, there are other ways of controlling the river’s west bank and adjacent land other than occupying it or all or most of western Ukraine. The Russians have their own missile, artillery, drone and covert infiltration capacities that can target western Ukraine and perhaps establish a cordone sanitaire within ten or more kilometers from the river. Any peace agreement will have to establish principles and procedures for ensuring the security of the river, broadly conceived, and that of any new Russian territory acquired by Moscow as a result of an agreement or Ukrainian capitulation and attendant consequences and sub-agreements.

The considerations above propose the third option: to cross the Dnieper in order to seize Right Bank Kiev, the city’s center and country’s capitol, and perhaps part or all of Right Bank Ukraine or Galicia without offering any negotiations, only conquest, capitulation, and survival of a Ukrainian or Galician state solely on lands not occupied by Russian troops before a capitulation act is signed by Maidan Ukraine, Washington, and Brussels. This option has the advantages of the first option only after expending more Russian blood and treasure. It has the disadvantages of the second in that it holds even greater risk of the rise of an anti-Russia resistance underground and quagmire, and this even after the great expenditure of blood and treasure seizing all of Ukraine would pose. This option offers a future of years of more war and prolongs the situation in which an all-out NATO-Russia war can begin, rendering that outcome more likely.

As I wrote earlier, it is possible that Moscow will consider and select one of these options but not in relation to crossing the Dnieper but in relation to whether or not to continue to advance after Russian forces have seized all of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and all of Zaporozhe and Kherson Oblasts. Again, the three options would be similar: stop in these conquered territories and propose talks, stop but not propose talks, or continue hoping for capitulation before the Dnieper, where the same options will face Moscow.

There is no guarantee that any Russian negotiation offers will be accepted by the West and or Ukraine. In that event, the future is obvious: a long war to take western Ukraine, risking quagmire, and NATO intervention. Indeed, the present resistance to negotiations demonstrated by Kiev and, after Kursk, by Moscow as well argues in favour of the third and most tragic and dangerous option being the one most likely to be realised.

https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/22/a-riv ... inian-war/

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The Madness of Antony Blinken
September 20, 2024

Two years after the Pentagon shot down his ploy for a no-fly zone against Russia in Ukraine, the U.S. “top diplomat” has been at it again pushing an even more insane idea, writes Joe Lauria.

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 24, 2024. (Official State Department photo/Chuck Kennedy)

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News



On March 7, 2022, two weeks after Moscow entered the civil war in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS News from Moldova that the U.S. would give NATO-member Poland a “green light” to send Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine to enforce a no-fly zone against Russian aircraft.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer then also backed the no-fly zone. But within days the Pentagon shot down the idea as it engaged in a consequential battle with the State Department and members of Congress to prevent a direct NATO military confrontation with Russia that could unleash history’s most unimaginable horrors.

A no-fly zone “could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” according to then Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.

President Joe Biden was caught in the middle of the fray. Pressure on the White House from some members of Congress and the press corps was unrelenting to recklessly bring NATO directly into the war.

Biden ultimately sided with the Defense Department, and he couldn’t be more explicit why. He opposed a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine fighting Russian aircraft, he said, because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin backed him up:

“President Biden’s been clear that U.S. troops won’t fight Russia in Ukraine, and if you establish a no-fly zone, certainly in order to enforce that no-fly zone, you’ll have to engage Russian aircraft. And again, that would put us at war with Russia.”

(The administration plan was, and apparently still is, to bring down the Russian government through a proxy counteroffensive and an economic and information war, not a direct military one.)

Blinken, who stepped out of line to speak above the heads of the president and the Pentagon, lost that round. It’s surprising he kept his job. But he survived and now he’s come back for more.

Relentless

Blinken’s recklessness emerged yet again last week when he peddled a story — eagerly picked up by The Guardian and The New York Times — that Biden would approve a British request to fire its Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russia.

The Guardian story on Sept. 11 said:

“The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave his strongest hint yet that the White House is about to lift its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia, with a decision understood to have already been made in private.

Speaking in Kyiv alongside the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, Blinken said the US had ‘from day one’ been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. ‘We will continue to do this,’ he emphasised.”


To fire British Storm Shadows, Ukraine would have to depend on British technical soldiers on the ground in Ukraine to actually launch them and on U.S. geolocation technology. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz revealed those British soldiers are already in Ukraine.

In other words, it would be a NATO attack on Russia, dressed up as a Ukrainian one. It would mean the U.S. and Britain were at war with Moscow, something Blinken seems to want and said was going to happen.

The next day Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that launching such missiles into Russia “will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

Nevertheless, The New York Times ran a story on the same day with the headline: “Biden Poised to Approve Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Western Weapons in Russia.”

The Guardian added:

“British government sources indicated that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia, although it is not expected to be publicly announced on Friday when Starmer meets Biden in Washington DC.”

Blinken’s words evidently raised British Prime Minister Keir Starmer‘s hopes that he would satisfy his desire to strike Russia with his nation’s arsenal of long-range missiles, despite Putin saying that meant direct war with NATO.

Blinken and the British are trying to lead us to the brink.

Sanity in Arlington

Except that the Pentagon, the purveyor of the most monstrous violence in world history, has pulled the world back from it.

For at least the second time — publicly known — the Department of War secured peace from neocon recklessness fronted by Blinken.

Starmer was sent back on his chartered British Airways flight from the White House meeting licking his wounds. He’d evidently been led by Blinken to believe that it was a done deal: the U.S. would let Britain attack Russia with its long-range missiles using U.S. technology — even if the U.S. wouldn’t allow its own long-range ATACMS to be used.

The Times of London reported that Biden withholding approval “surprised British officials who had listened closely to hints from Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, that America was edging towards authorising Storm Shadow, an Anglo-French weapon which relies on American GPS guidance systems.”

Starmer’s mania to strike Russia illustrates the British elite’s continuing pathological hatred of Russia, extending back centuries, compared to a perhaps more tempered, though determined, American geostrategic rivalry with Moscow.

Biden’s Limits With the Neocons

Biden has proven himself a supreme warmonger, his advocacy for the illegal invasion of Iraq and his complicity in the genocide in Gaza as the most egregious examples.

Like the two presidents before him, Biden allowed neocons to worm themselves into positions of power in his administration. But the extent to which Biden himself is a neocon, as opposed to a traditional warmonger, is subject to question.

As a creature of Washington of more than half a century, he seems to respect the military’s judgement about military matters and, on his good days, understands that even America has limits.

Barack Obama let Hillary Clinton, the “Queen of Warmongers,” bring Neocon Queen Victoria Nuland into his administration. Donald Trump let neocons John Bolton and Mike Pompeo into his. And Biden has Blinken (and for a time Nuland too.)

Instead of banishing these people, they are allowed to linger and drag the U.S. into evermore perilous failures: Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and Ukraine, leaving behind a mountain of squandered dollars and an ocean of blood.

As a careerist, Blinken said what he had to say to get to where he is. Obama in 2015 wisely decided against arming Ukraine after the Nuland and Biden-led 2014 coup because he did not want to antagonize Russia, for whom he said Ukraine was a vital interest, while it was not for the U.S. Obama also feared U.S. arms would fall into the hands of “thugs” — meaning neo-Nazi Azov types, whom Obama was well aware of.

Blinken at the time was Obama’s deputy secretary of state. To support the president’s position, he told a conference in Berlin:

“If you’re playing on the military terrain in Ukraine, you’re playing to Russia’s strength, because Russia is right next door. It has a huge amount of military equipment and military force right on the border. Anything we did as countries in terms of military support for Ukraine is likely to be matched and then doubled and tripled and quadrupled by Russia.”

But once he was freed of the restraints of Obama, he joined Biden’s aggressive Ukraine policy at the top of the State Department. From that position, and with a power vacuum in the White House because of Biden’s dementia, Blinken has been openly pushing the neocon agenda, laid out plainly in the 2000 report of the Project for a New American Century.

And what is that agenda? In another age, before it became a dirty word, it would have been proudly proclaimed as imperialism. It contains all of the hubris and sense of invincibility and impunity of any empire in history.

PNAC plainly promulgates that no power or alliance of powers will be allowed to rise up to stand in the way of the neocons’ mad quest to harness American power to achieve world domination. An alliance of powers such as that of China, Russia and the BRICS countries, which has only accelerated in opposition to unhinged, neoconservative adventurism.

No matter the many disasters piling up, notably Iraq, Palestine and now Ukraine, the neocons are undeterred and unrestrained. It’s about power and murder but it is made palatable to themselves with flowery language about America saving the world for democracy.

Their belief in their own supremacy, cloaked in an American flag, remains fanatic, no matter the death and destruction they cause. They do not understand that American power has limits and to test that, they risk everything.

In 2019, Blinken teamed up with arch-neoconservative Robert Kagan to write a Washington Post op-ed arguing for more aggressive use of U.S. power abroad and against U.S. domestic trends towards non-interventionism.

With Kagan’s wife Nuland out of the Biden Administration and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan crucially siding with the realists, Blinken has emerged as the undisputed leader of who George H.W. Bush called the “crazies in the basement.”

That was 30 years ago. The neocons are in the penthouse now and only the restraint of the Pentagon and Sullivan’s persuasion brought Biden back from the brink.

This time.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/20/t ... y-blinken/

(Gotta stop acting like 'neo-cons' are anything but the more blatantly aggressive faction of the ruling class. If they are displaced the liberal imperialists will grasp the baton and not miss a lick. )

******

It Is More Than That...

Larry wrote a good size and good piece on Daniel Davis interviewing Ben Hodges. Enough to read that Ben Hodges calls Russians "animals" to understand that this general suffers with debilitating case of both exceptionalism having a cognitive fight with a severe complex of inferiority, because Hodges wouldn't be able to pass exams into Russian Academy of General Staff, where his combat record would be laughed at. Not openly, of course. But here is one point (correct one) Larry makes:

Scott Ritter, Doug MacGregor, Ray McGovern and I (along with a few others), wrote and spoke widely at the time that the counter offensive would fail because, as Hodges conceded, Ukraine had no air power to provide close air support. Here is Hodge’s failure — he refused to incorporate the fact of Ukraine’s deficit in air power into his analysis at the time. He knew it then. That is why I maintain he is incompetent as a military analyst. He chose hope over facts. A pattern he repeats throughout the interview with Danny. Danny then presses Hodges to recount if there were any conversations at the time about what Ukraine needed to succeed in its counter offensive.

But there is more to it than just that. I wrote about it before, but it becomes clear that most US top brass has no understanding of the modern air defense. It is not surprising for the military force which is being shaped by largely confabulated US military history and never conducting SEAD operations against REAL modern air defense. Here is Yuri Selivanov noting a few days ago, what I wrote four books about:


Надо только быть немножко в курсе, из чего состоит так называемая «военно-воздушная слава США». А состоит она из таких специфических «подвигов», которые полностью объясняют все нынешние неурядицы с подготовкой украинских пилотов на Ф-16. Дело в том, что ВВС США, а заодно и всех остальных натовских стран все свои предыдущие войны, конца 20-го – начала 21-го веков, вели в настолько сказочно-комфортных условиях, что они могли там летать даже на метлах, причем с хорошими шансами выполнить боевую задачу. Все те страны, которые они намечали в качестве объектов для своих бомбардировок в последние тридцать лет, были очень разными. Но в одном все как на одно лицо.У всех этих стран либо вообще не было никакой противовоздушной обороны, либо даже она была, но в таком количественном и качественном состоянии, что её хватало очень ненадолго. А дальше, после подавления этой почти символической ПВО, начиналось форменное избиение младенцев. Так было дважды в Ираке, однажды в Югославии, и, наконец, в самом беззащитном Афганистане.В последнем случае ПВО отсутствовала от слова совсем, что, во-первых, позволило бомбить эту страну абсолютно безнаказанно. А во-вторых, отправить туда для проверки боевых качеств новейшие палубные ударные истребители Ф-35Б.

Translation: You just need to be a little bit aware of what the so-called "US air force glory" consists of. And it consists of such specific "feats" that completely explain all the current troubles with the training of Ukrainian pilots on the F-16. The fact is that the US Air Force, as well as all other NATO countries, fought all their previous wars at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries in such fabulously comfortable conditions that they could even fly there on brooms, and with a good chance of completing a combat mission. All those countries that they designated as targets for their bombing in the last thirty years were very different. But in one thing they all look the same. All these countries either did not have any air defense at all, or even had it, but in such a quantitative and qualitative state that it was enough for a very short time. And then, after the suppression of this almost symbolic air defense, a real massacre of the innocents began. This happened twice in Iraq, once in Yugoslavia, and finally in the most defenseless Afghanistan. In the latter case, there was absolutely no air defense, which, firstly, allowed bombing this country with absolute impunity. And secondly, sending the newest F-35B carrier-based strike fighters there to test their combat capabilities.

The problem with the US CAS (Close Air Support) on the modern battlefield of the 21st century is that it is not survivable against immediate frontline distributed AD based on a staggering plethora of advanced and networked hardware such as S1 Pantsir, Tor M2, Buk-M2-3 and AD artillery systems such as Tunguska et al. It will also be severely jammed and denied accurate approach in the absence of GPS. The whole idea that the USAF will be defeated even before it even takes off and then defeated before completion of the mission doesn't sit well with US generals whose combat record even against supremely inferior enemy is dismal. This is not an exaggeration, it is hard cold reality and that is what drives these sore losers like Hodges into the arms of sheer delusion. Then, let it be no surprise in observing Ben Hodges and his "colleagues" such as Keane, Petraeus and others resorting to the name calling and offering military "advice" which no responsible competent military leader would ever give, especially when having no clue about Russia and her historic warfare experience which dwarfs that of the United States. USMA at West Point used to be a decent engineering school. Not anymore...

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/09 ... -that.html

******

Ukraine Weekly Update
20th September 2024
Dr. Rob Campbell


<snip>

The White House Response

In response to Putin’s statement, the White House said that it’s position on not allowing Ukraine to use its missiles deep into Russia has not changed. It appears that the matter will be discussed at the next UN General Assembly Meeting at the end of September. This will allow some of the BRICS countries to have a say. I doubt that any long range Western missiles will be launched by Ukraine into Russia before then. But who knows.

Some commentators have pointed out that even if Ukraine were allowed to send long range missiles deep into Russia, it would not benefit it very much because there aren’t sufficient missiles to make a difference and because Russian air defences are very efficient. So, why risk WW3 by allowing Ukraine to engage in an activity which will not benefit them or the West. Alexander Mercouris discusses this issue with reference to an article in the Financial Times by ex-British diplomat Kim Darroch - as you can see here. Darroch does not believe that the potential benefits of allowing such strikes deep into Russia would outweigh the risks. Darroch warned the West not to assume that because Putin has not retaliated in the past that he will not do so in the future when ballistic missiles are hitting civilian targets in Russia.

Alex Krainer, speaking with Nima on Dialogue Works, has made some interesting observations regarding Starmer’s recent visit to the White House. Apparently, Starmer was hoping to persuade Biden and Blinken to allow Ukraine (i.e. help Ukraine) to launch long range missiles deep into Russia. But Starmer, unexpectedly, met with opposition even though he was fairly confident of obtaining support. Krainer entertains the possibility that there has been a ‘palace coup’ of sorts in the White House and that Blinken and Biden are no longer making decisions in this connection. As Krainer puts it ‘some adults entered the room’ in the form of top US generals - and pragmatism was able to triumph over the infantile irrationalism that we have seen from the Administration before now. More sensible heads have, hopefully, prevailed. Such people appreciate Russian fears, highlighted by Krainer, that a ballistic missile launched deep into Russia could be armed with a nuclear device.

For a while, a number of commentators have been talking about a divide between the Pentagon on the one hand and the Biden Administration on the other. This could be an expression of that. The Pentagon and the army must know that they are in no fit state to fight a war against Russia but even if they were, they know the risk of escalation to a nuclear conflict is quite high. They have a grasp on reality that the neo-cons/neo libs don’t possess.

If a ‘palace coup’ has indeed been carried out then Krainer believes this could involve a different relationship with Israel: a relationship in which the US will refuse to back Israel if they escalate - as they are now doing. Krainer also believes that the Pentagon and their counterparts in the Kremlin are talking to each other. Which is hopeful, if true. Only time will tell whether Israel commits ground troops, thereby defying the US. This matter is complicated by the fact that Netanyahu’s personal survival is at stake. The parallels between this and the Ukraine conflict are worthy of some analysis.

<snip>

Rukh Opir (Resistance Movement)
According to Telegram Channel, СВАРЩИКИ:

On the night of September 15-16, a major fire broke out in the Lithuanian city of Šiauliai at the production facility of the well-known telecommunications company TVC. The fire was started by direct arson and quickly spread over an area of ​​about 1,000 square meters. As a result, assembly shops were completely destroyed, as well as dozens of cars and trailers filled with expensive electronics.

Some time ago the firm TVC began fulfilling a US order for electronic warfare stations which were to be sent to Ukraine. Much of this was destroyed by the fire. On August 25th, a fire broke out at the Speed Mail and Logistics Hub in the Polish city of Plock which destroyed thermal imaging equipment, night sights, helmets, body armor, uniforms and equipment. It is suspected that the ‘Opir’ group could have been involved in this and an attack in early September on engineering equipment in Odessa which was destined for the front.

<snip>

Hundreds of Thousands Renounce Ukrainian Citizenship

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According to Rada Deputy Knyazhytsky:

Hundreds of thousands of applications for renunciation of Ukrainian citizenship are lying in embassies.

Knyazhytsky called the situation a ‘demographic disaster'

Poland To Send Ukrainians Home

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Send the buggers home!

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorsky has announced that Ukrainians in Poland will no longer receive benefits so they will be forced to become cannon fodder in Ukraine - according to Alex Christoforou.

Zelensky v Syrsky

According to this Ukrainian source, back in July, Syrsky wanted to organise a counter attack in Pokrovsk since the Russians were gaining the upper hand there. However, the once great Z, wanting to be great again, over ruled him because he wanted the escalatory possibilities associated with an attack on Russia. Zelensky realises that his only hope is to bring NATO into the war - otherwise he is toast.

In an interview, Zelensky said that he wanted to be able to strike at Russia’s interior to destroy the energy system so that Russian citizens are deprived of electricity just like Ukrainians are.

If the Russian people are in danger, if they don’t have a comfortable life, if they live without energy, like our people, they will understand the price of war. They will be not happy with it and will begin to influence him, Putin.

So, this is part of his plan if he gets permission to strike deep into Russia with Western missiles - according to RT. The end goal is the same as that of the West: i.e. regime change. Of course this is totally delusional and if he did manage to get ‘regime change’ Putin’s replacement is unlikely to be any kinder towards Ukraine.

<snip>

Kursk

Image

According to a Ukrainian source, Zelensky has told Syrsky to keep the Kursk incursion going and to prevent a breakthrough at places such as Pokrovsk until the end of the month when Z presents his ‘plan’ to Biden, Harris and Trump. Syrsky has been told not to spare men or equipment in these efforts. Apparently, Syrsky is withdrawing troops from Odessa, Nikolaev and Kherson regions (where the Russians are unlikely to attack) in order to achieve this. According to this source, reserves from Zaporozhye are also being redeployed to the Donbass and Kursk.

The Russians continued their counter offensive this week liberating villages on a daily basis and inflicting severe losses on the Ukrainians. Snagost and Borki were among those liberated.

On the 19th September, the Military Chronicle gave the following report:

From the Kursk region comes confirmations of the capture of Nikolaev-Daryino and Darino, with the prospect of reaching Sverdlikovo. This is an important result of the last 7 days of fighting and our counteroffensive. The Russian army is cutting off the grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine along the border, which is the most correct strategy. Cutting off the enemy's logistics south of Sudzha puts an end to the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the entire area - the enemy will have to quickly flee to the border in an attempt to save their units.

It will certainly not look good if the Ukrainian troops get trapped and have to surrender.

By the end of the week, the Ukrainians were still attacking towards Glushkovo using Leopard tanks but without success - according to the Two Majors.

(More at link.)

https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukra ... update-006
"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 Sep 24, 2024 11:52 am

No choice but war
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 09/24/2024

Image

Careful control of one's image, both one's own and that of one's actions, has always been one of the foundations of the creation of the discourse of Volodymyr Zelensky's entourage, who is well-versed in communication and very skilled at imposing his narrative. The Russian invasion made the work easier and the transformation of the peace president into a war president was rapid and generated large doses of international solidarity that translated into practically unconditional support for Ukraine that, in many cases, has not disappeared since then. The image of a young technocrat alien to politics and who came to change things had already been left behind in the face of a presidency that did not differ much from that of his predecessor. After February 24, Zelensky put on his military green clothes, his black sweaters from a brand with neo-Nazi links and transformed himself into the war president that he remains today, even though he has been talking for several weeks about his plan "to end the war."

“An important visit by the President to the United States,” wrote his right-hand man, Andriy Ermak, yesterday, with an image of Zelensky inspecting an arms production factory, adding: “Pennsylvania. The production of 155 mm ammunition. They help Ukraine defend its freedom. This is the moment when American and Ukrainian weapons are destroying Russian autocratic terror.” Despite having recovered the discourse of peace with which he came to the presidency in 2019, the first propaganda act of the Ukrainian president has been to visit one of the factories from which the projectiles arrive with which, for example, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been able until now to randomly and indiscriminately bomb the city of Donetsk. “Zelensky visits the Pennsylvania ammunition plant to thank the workers and ask for more,” wrote AP about the visit. There, the Ukrainian president signed some of the projectiles together with the state governor. The intentions are clear.

The second act was equally significant. The Ukrainian president received a Golden Plate Award, a prize given for contributions to human progress. As Euromaidan Press reported yesterday without the slightest irony, “American presidents such as Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have also received the Golden Plate Award.” Zelensky thus joins a series of figures whose names cannot be dissociated – not even that of Jimmy Carter, with a reputation for peace, under whose mandate military assistance to the mujahideen in Afghanistan began – from war and open or covert intervention abroad. “Today’s world does not allow us to lose the battle when freedom is on one side and everything we would never want for our children is on the other,” Zelensky said in his speech. The war between good and evil does not admit nuances or feelings of guilt for not having used diplomacy to avoid the current scenario or for having chosen war at a time when diplomacy was still possible.

In this spiral of war, where the only red line remains direct negotiations in search of a solution to the conflict or even a ceasefire that would allow Ukraine and its partners to mitigate the damage to infrastructure and reduce the suffering that awaits the civilian population this winter, the only thing that matters is imposing the peace plan drawn up by the President's Office. In this task, the image, the discourse, public relations and the ability to act as a pressure group confident in its capabilities are more important than the reality on the ground, the difficulties that Ukraine is encountering in Ugledar, practically besieged and about to fall into Russian hands, or in Kurajovo, whose loss would mean that the front would move far enough away from Donetsk so that Kiev's troops could not use their artillery against the civilian population, or that the Kursk adventure is not succeeding in slowing down Russian advances in Donbass. “Zelensky remains the person we have come to know from television screens and social media: a passionate, self-assured, ruthless communicator to the point of obstinacy, an artist-turned-statesman who has weaponized the force of his personality in a thoroughly modern form of warfare,” The New Yorker writes this week in an article published hours before the Ukrainian president’s arrival in the United States. But even the press that writes in a clearly glorifying tone is aware that “it is abundantly clear that the war, now in its third year, cannot be won by Zelensky’s talents alone.” The Ukrainian president “has pleaded for more Western military aid, which would certainly help, but which cannot solve Ukraine’s other problems: the inability to mobilize and train enough new soldiers and the struggle to maintain effective communication and coordination at the front,” the outlet writes, describing personnel and tactical problems that neither Western missiles nor Zelensky’s peace plan can solve.

During his visit, Zelensky is not only seeking a declaration of permission to use Western missiles against targets on the territory of mainland Russia and an even greater flow of weapons and ammunition for war and beyond the conflict, but is also seeking a geopolitical positioning that guarantees that Ukraine will maintain US support when the war ends and regardless of who is president. Hence, the Ukrainian president stated that his plan depends personally on Joe Biden, to whom he presumes practically absolute powers, and that media such as Bloomberg affirm that Zelensky is looking for “Trump-proof guarantees.”

Ukraine is thus seeking to protect itself from a resolution to the war that is not entirely in its favour. To this end, Zelensky constantly appeals to the idea of ​​a just peace as synonymous with victory. “When people ask me: ‘How do you define victory? ’ my answer is completely sincere. There has been no change in my mentality. That is because victory is about justice. A just victory is one whose result satisfies everyone: those who respect international law, those who live in Ukraine, those who lost their loved ones and relatives. For them the price is high. For them there will never be an excuse for what Putin and his army have done,” Zelensky said in his interview with The New Yorker , always without clarifying that this “everyone” and this “justice” do not include the rights or opinions of the population on the other side of the front. For them the price of these ten years of war is also high and there will never be an excuse for what Turchinov, Poroshenko, Zelensky and their armed forces have done.

There is no such thing as reality, only interests matter, and Zelensky's interests involve convincing Joe Biden that his plan must be approved and implemented quickly to prevent a possible victory by Donald Trump that could condemn Ukraine to negotiations, which would not take place in a position of strength, the only circumstance in which Kiev is willing to engage in dialogue with Russia. That is the reason for the insistence that this autumn-winter must be decisive and that the fate of the war will be decided in these months. But in this scenario, a possibility arises that the opposition - if Petro Poroshenko's party can be called that - has already raised: that Biden does not want or cannot promise what Ukraine demands of him. Between triumphalism and growing demands, Zelensky is forced to leave the door open to disappointment. "If he does not support it," he said in reference to his victory plan , "I cannot force him." Yet Zelensky is trying, and although it has not happened yet, he is already applying a certain emotional blackmail in the pages of The New Yorker by insisting that it would mean that “Biden does not want to end the war in such a way that a victory is denied to Russia. And we would be facing a very long war, an impossible, exhausting situation that would kill a huge number of people.” In that case, “we will have to continue living under plan B,” that the war continues as it is, “and that is unfortunate.” There is no other option on the table than more war.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/09/24/sin-m ... la-guerra/

Google Translator

*****

From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
SITUATION IN THE UGLEDAR DIRECTION

So, as you already know, over the past 24 hours, units of the "East" force group have made significant progress in the Ugledar direction. As we said earlier, the battle for the Ugledar dachas began 4 days ago, and in the morning the enemy's focal defense was still in place in the relatively intact houses after the winter battles. In the afternoon, information came from the field that the dachas were under the control of units of the "East" force group.

If so, then perhaps the marines of the 155th Guards Brigade are now momentarily regretting that they are in a completely different direction. They have special scores to settle with these dachas, Ugledar, and the enemy's 72nd brigade.

There is also success north of Pavlovka. Our soldiers managed to get into the MTF from several directions, which had been under enemy control since the summer of 2022 and remained so even after the assault on the village in November of the same year. There is fighting on the farm, the situation here is the same "swing" as in the dacha area.

The data of some telegram channels that the Russian Army units managed to cling to the multi-story buildings in the southwestern part of the city
is NOT CONFIRMED.

At the Yuzhnodonbasskaya #3 mine, the enemy held on to the buildings in the western part of the complex and the adjacent forest belts for another week and a half after our assault began, but by this morning they finally wavered from constant losses and tried to break through towards the ventilation shaft, suffering heavy losses in killed, wounded and captured. Thus, now from this bridgehead it is possible to develop an offensive both towards the ventilation shaft to the west, and further to Dobrovolye/Bogoyavlenka, and towards the air supply shaft to the southwest.

To the north of Vodyanoye, there are fierce battles for forest belts, here the enemy is noticeably biting back and trying to seize the initiative, does not give up attempts to infiltrate through forest belts and accumulate to the east of the settlement itself, going into the near rear of our units.

There are successes to the south of Katerinovka. At the moment, the forward positions of the units of the "Vostok" group and the southern border of the settlement are separated by less than 1 km.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

Simplicius Sep 22, 2024

<snip>

In Ukraine, there are a couple significant updates worth looking at.

To me, the most significant are reports that Russia plans to begin targeting Ukrainian nuclear plants:

Image

Image

The reason this is significant is because for a few months now there have been reports that Russia has knocked out over 70% of Ukraine’s conventional power-generating capacity, and pretty much all that remained was Ukraine’s nuclear power stations, with many pro-RU commentators wondering whether Putin would be “man enough” to finish Ukraine’s power grid off for good.

This appears to be the first indication that Putin may very well have decided to completely de-energize Ukraine. Mind you, this doesn’t mean striking the nuclear power plants themselves to create Chernobyl-like catastrophes, but rather their substations and other surrounding infrastructure to effectively ‘neutralize’ the nuke plants’ ability to provide, or at least deliver, power.

Europe is preparing for this consequence but in a way that leaves much to be desired, given that Russia can easily disable their so-called dismantled and re-assembled plants:

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Russia has also struck a ship in the Black Sea it detected was transporting weaponry to Ukraine, proving that Russia has the capability to take out Ukraine’s so-called “grain corridor” if it wanted to, but allows it leniency at its discretion.

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This again highlights how Russia continually attrits Ukrainian munitions stocks which compensates for Ukraine’s occasional destruction of Russia’s warehouses like seen recently. In fact, just in the past three days, Russia has struck over half a dozen weapons depots including in Odessa port, the ship that was en route to offload, and several other places.



Zelensky has now finally traveled to the US for his grand—perhaps final—tour: (Video at link.)

He himself appreciates the momentously foreboding nature of the curtain call. From his account:

This fall will determine the future of this war. Together with our partners, we can strengthen our positions as needed for our victory—a shared victory for a truly just peace. Right now, the legacy of the current generation of world leaders is being shaped—those in the highest offices. In the coming days, we will have meetings with leaders from the Global South, G7, Europe, and heads of international organizations— with many who are helping to consolidate the world. We will also have important meetings with representatives of the United States. True peace and a true victory for Ukraine and international law—this is what we need.

Can you guess his very first stop in the country?

Scranton, PA to beg directly for more shells in person at the General Dynamics 155mm shell factory:

Image

Scranton, Pennsylvania. I visited a plant that manufactures 155 mm artillery shells. Now, for our warriors who are defending not only our country, not only Ukraine, the plant will be ramping up production. I began my visit to the United States by expressing my gratitude to all the employees at the plant and by reaching agreements to expand cooperation between Pennsylvania and our Zaporizhzhia. It is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail. Thanks to people like these—in Ukraine, in America, and in all partner countries—who work tirelessly to ensure that life is protected.



We all know why he’s in the US, to present his grand ‘peace plan’ to his masters. Now, Bloomberg has allegedly learned of what the plan contains.

Image
https://archive.ph/FL758

Apparently the plan hinges on Biden extending a NATO and EU invitation to Zelensky, not to mention commitments for endless arms supplies thereafter. I’ve no idea how that will create peace, but I suppose it would mean a ‘victory’ for Ukraine, were it to actually happen. Unfortunately the chances of Ukraine getting an invitation to either of those are below zero. Perhaps the real plan is to have the US threaten Russia with a NATO invitation as consequence of Russia not accepting an unfavorable peace deal. But that would be nonsensical, given that it would only cause Russia to fight harder in order to subjugate Ukraine and prevent it from ever threatening Russia as part of NATO.

This is now the chief hangup vexing the establishment:

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https://archive.ph/ZXxsh

The latest WaPo piece describes a state of disarray in the West political class when it comes to a way forward against a clearly defiant and unbending Russia. You see, all the provocations, games, and peace ‘tricks’ were meant to bow Russia to the West’s leverage, but the Empire is finding that, after decades of dealing with shallow vassals, confronting one of the last remaining truly sovereign nations in the world is a glaringly different endeavour.

Most vexing is Putin’s national consensus, another cryptic koan to the West so habituated to their leaders’ gutter status as pariahs amongst a populace ruled only by ‘virtue’ of stolen elections, mass propaganda, and an iron fist.

Even as Putin faces Western efforts to isolate him, he seems increasingly invincible at home. Putin’s most formidable challenger, Alexei Navalny, died in prison in February. Any sign of political dissent is quickly crushed. What is left of the Russian opposition is now largely in exile. And even embarrassing military setbacks, such as Ukraine’s recent incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, have not weakened Putin’s grip on power.

Flummoxed, the West finds itself between pillar and post:

“There are no good choices here — it’s just degrees of bad going forward,” said Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at Rand, adding that “accepting Russian conditions that are unacceptable” would be a mistake. Instead, he urged “a combination of deterrence and potential negotiations.”

The article finishes on the grand vision of combating Putin, which is in effect, creating a supranational new totalitarian deep state order to rule over the West permanently, in order to Trump-proof and, in general, future-proof the West’s anti-Russian hostility, so no truly democratic force can emend it later on:

Because Russia is a long-term threat, Hill said, the structures to address that threat must also be long-term or Putin will always claim the advantage. She urged a more consistent response, spanning administrations — creating “a kind of permanent secretariat” with allies to maintain a consistent Russia policy.

Trump, meanwhile, has stirred uncertainty. He has boasted that his rapport with Putin, Xi and Kim would allow him to swiftly sort the world out on American terms. But the deepening ties between Moscow, Beijing and other adversaries complicate the picture.


A “permanent secretariat” to maintain a “consistent” policy in perpetuity. I’ll translate the Newspeak: create a permanent central authority which no “sovereign” nation can question to make sure populist leaders can never revolt against the globalist totalitarian dictatorship and its quest to enslave the planet under one hegemonic rule.



In light of the above article making mention of the ‘overpowering global reach’ of Russian ‘propaganda’, and the concomitant push for global dictatorship to fight against this, it’s now clearer than ever what the controllers intend to do when it comes to “disinformation” policy.

Just today the UN signed the ‘Pact for the Future’, which includes the ‘Digital Compact’ of new vast censorship powers against all dissenting voices. Secretary-General António Guterres plainly announces the assault on freedom: (Video at link.)

Is it any surprise, then, that this call is being mirrored all over the Western world? Here in the UK: (Video at link.)

On the surface, it hasn’t been the prettiest week for Russia in the war. Two new depots were struck after the large Toropets one, which included the smaller brother of the Toropets, GRAU 23, just a few kilometers to the south at geolocation 56.36033513129649, 31.64913480746371: (Video at link.)

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On top of this, the RS-28 Sarmat test I had warned about in the last report turned into a disaster, as the missile apparently failed in its Plesetsk cosmodrome berth, catastrophically destructing without taking off: (Video at link.)

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So yes, there have been quite some setbacks for Russia this week. Not every week is going to look sterling.

However, it was a week of contrasts of extremes. While Ukraine scored some big moral victories, no doubt planned for a long time with a lot of saved up fancy drones to coincide with Zelensky’s big US victory tour to conclude the war, Russia has now activated a number of advances, marking today in particular as the single most operationally successful day of arguably the whole year.

Literally on every single front Russia captured major territory today in what’s looking more and more like the beginning of that collapse Arestovich gloomily predicted last time. There were captures in Rabotino, Ugledar, Krasnoyarsk, Pokrovsk-Ukrainsk region, Toretsk, Klescheyevka-Chasov Yar, all the way up to Makeevka toward the Kupyansk zone, and of course Kursk.

Let’s run down each sector briefly:

I reported days ago that Syrsky had begun pulling units from Zaporozhye in order to reinforce the crumbling Kursk and Pokrovsk lines. Russian forces have taken advantage and begun advancing on multiple sectors. Advances were recorded in Rabotino as well as further east along the Urozhayne-Staromayorsk axis.

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Russian forces reportedly advanced south of the village of Makarivka in the Velyka Novosilka direction. Following the consolidation of positions north of Staromayorske and Urozhaine, it appears that Russian forces restarted offensive operations here. On the western bank of the Mokri Yaly river, Russian forces on motorbikes reportedly advanced from positions south of the trench fortifications in the red. Infantry then likely dismounted and captured positions in the treelines and groves just south of Makarivka. There is still one more trench fortification in the way of Makarivka that Ukraine holds before the Russians can enter the settlement.

Big news came with reports of Russian glide-bomb Fabs being used on the Zaporozhye line for the first time in a large-scale, systematic way, which seems to herald the initiation of more active operations here.

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Moving on just east of there, one of the largest movements occurred in Ugledar, which Russian units are almost entirely enveloping now. Several maps from Deep State, Suriyak, etc.:

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Ukrainian report:

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In fact the commander of the 72nd at Ugledar was reportedly dismissed immediately after:

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Some reports even claimed Russian forces have begun entering the town itself:

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Now moving further north from there, Russian forces took several positions on the Kurakhove axis, near Gostre and Tsukuryne:

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Julian Roepcke gave the usual howls of pain:

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In fact, here’s a video from Ukraine’s 46th Airmobile brigade defending Gostre which shows the vast scale of Russia’s attacks. This one alone claimed to involve “52 Russian vehicles”. As per usual, they did their best editing tricks in an attempt to show some kind of hits, but in reality very few losses of Russian materiel is observed and Russian forces verifiably captured their objectives: (Video at link.)

One of the problems is, most of these videos now consist of quick-cuts of FPVs hitting moving ‘sheds’—tanks with huge anti-drone weldings. These constructions are known to often take many FPV hits. One recent video of a Russian crew said their ‘Tsar Mangal’ turtle tank withstood over 100+ FPV strikes. Thus, seeing a clip of an FPV descending on a shedded tank means nothing, and in almost every case the attack is repulsed.

The above video consists of upwards of an entire tank battalion with potentially hundreds of ground troops involved, yet the Ukrainian brigade could only show a single “burning” vehicle, which could very well be their own—and not a single Russian casualty. That’s bad news for them and indicates a massively successful assault operation.

Further north of there Russian forces made advances deep into Toretsk city itself:

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As well as here on the flank:

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“Beer” above is supposed to read Pivnichne.

They made a long parallel advance on the outskirts here as well, just north of already-captured Niu-York:

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And north of this region we get to Klescheyevka, where Russian forces made surprise new advances:

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Then all the way north toward the Kupyansk zone, Russia made several creeping advances.

Here from “Sandy”—which is supposed to be Pishchane—they advanced toward the Oskil River:

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South of there but on the same axis they captured new territory further west of Makeevka and Nevskoe nearby:

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These are west of Kremennaya on the Kharkov-Donetsk border. According to the Ukrainian report below it was a surprisingly large assault for such a ‘sleepy’ sector:

The Russian army defeated the enemy in Nevsky, effectively liberating the village

▪️Yesterday, the Ukrainian military confirmed that Russian troops broke through the Ukrainian Armed Forces front and entered the village of Nevskoye during the offensive in the Krasnolimansk direction;

➖"The Russians were able to break through our defense north of Terny with a mechanized assault and entered Nevskoye," admitted 24th separate assault battalion militant S. Bunyatov yesterday afternoon;

▪️Another militant, "Raver", reported in the evening that the Russians attacked with 32 armored vehicles and took Nevskoye, and Ukrainian troops were forced to retreat from the settlement.

▪️According to our information, the "West" group has practically liberated the village of Nevskoye, the village is being cleared, after its completion and consolidation, the capture of the village will be officially announced.

RVvoenkor


Here is a handy Deep State map showing the progress in that Kupyansk zone over the course of just the past few weeks—the main middle salient is Pishchane: (Video at link.)

One can see Russian forces making steady progress here despite most having forgotten this ‘backwater’ area.

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Lastly, even all the way up in Kursk, Russia made new advances, as again highlighted by an inconsolable Roepcke:

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The Ukrainian echo-chamber is now filled with triumphalism centered on the strikes on Toropets, Oktyabirsk, and Tikhoretsk arsenals, while the AFU is literally crumbling before our eyes and all the signs of a major snow-balling collapse are beginning to show.

As always, the “nibbling” style of advancement may seem inconsequential from one perspective because a little bite here, a little bite there does not make a big visual splash on a map. However, it’s undeniable that Ukraine’s front is cracking and the most damningly understated factor is it doesn’t really matter if Ukraine lowers mobilization to 19 or 21 as many expect to happen within the next few months. That is because the issues are not of pure manpower alone, but rather of motivation, training, and skill level of the forces. The leading complaint at this point at the front is the lack of troop training and motivation to fight. This will only get worse and the frontline collapses will accelerate until it begins looking quite noticeable on the maps even from afar.

To play devil’s advocate and give a fair shake to the other side, Ukrainian sources claim they have ample mobilization potential, citing this recent chart which claims to show mandatory registrations for service:

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What it claims to show is over 4.5 million Ukrainians “fit for service” still in the registration pool. This appears to be as official an account of the total remaining Ukrainian manpower as we can get.

Let’s suppose this number is accurate: realistically speaking, a large fraction of that number will end up escaping in some way and will never actually fulfill any kind of obligation to show up at the recruitment office when it’s their time. Is that number greater than 50%? Most likely, but we don’t know how much exactly.

Either way, that could theoretically leave over 2 million Ukrainians still left to fight. Of course, the current Russian MOD estimates are averaging a track of something like 400-750k Ukrainian casualties per year, which could deplete most of that reserve pool in 2-3 more years of fighting.

Now Ukrainska Pravda reports that Ukraine recruits 6,500 volunteers monthly:

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https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/09/20/7476078/

I’m not sure if they’re distinguishing voluntary recruits as opposed to another distinct number of mobilized ones like this one from today: (Video at link.)

Either way, it’s a paltry number compared to what Russia’s hauling in.

Speaking of losses. Last time I wrote about the single cemetery which allegedly saw 19,000 soldiers’ graves added. Now the networks have produced a second example after Zelensky yesterday forcefully refuted that Ukraine has 80k dead in the war. He had the gall to say the number is “significantly less” than that. Accordingly, a second big Kharkov cemetery was studied, and the conclusion was that 10,000 new soldiers were added here alone, totalling nearly 30,000 when added to the previous cemetery. Thus, in two sample cemeteries 30k people were said to be found, and there are hundreds and thousands of such cemeteries throughout Ukraine.

Well, we're back to the topic of cemeteries and, accordingly, the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Since Zelya refuted media reports about losses in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (Western resources reported 80k killed), I believe that the topic will be interesting and relevant.

The name "Bezlyudovka" speaks for itself.

The eighteenth cemetery of Kharkov is located on the outskirts of this very settlement. Its volume is significant, which means that it will not be difficult to notice the expansion of its territory. There are about 450 bodies per square. There are 96 squares in the cemetery. Since not all cells are the same size, we will take 400 bodies and 80 cells as average values.

Thus, the total capacity of the cemetery is 32 thousand bodies.

Before the start of the SVO, in 2020-21, 50x400=20,000 Ukrainian citizens found their final resting places.

Today, the cemetery is almost completely full and continues to be actively replenished.

Since the population of Bezlyudovka in 2022 was about 10 thousand people, we will neglect the replenishment of the cemetery due to civilians; the numbers there will not be significant.

As a result, it turns out that about 10 thousand servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were comfortably accommodated in this cemetery.

In total, we looked at only 2 cemeteries, and the total figures for losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were around 25-30 thousand.

How many cemeteries are there still in Ukraine?

antiseptic_channel


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(Much more at link.)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/isr ... s-zelensky

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Red Lines of No Return
Posted by Internationalist 360° on September 20, 2024
Lorenzo Maria Pacini

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A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is test-fired as part of Russia’s nuclear drills from a launch site in Plesetsk, northwestern Russia on Oct. 26, 2022. [AP Photo/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service]

Russia and the West are rapidly running out of room to manoeuvre to avoid a head-on military clash.

For a few days now, we have been hearing about the ‘permission’ given by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to use ATACAMS missiles on Russian territory, almost as if the issue was permission to strike Russian territory, which is actually a non-issue, since Russian territory has been struck regularly for more than a year, mainly with drones. The patience of the Russians is well known and few people in the West realise that it may be coming to an end.

To understand the extent of the news one has to look at Putin’s recent comment that, unlike drones, to use the high-precision ATACAMS missiles (1320 kg, up to 300 km range) one needs NATO satellite targeting systems and ground personnel trained to do so. Once again, Putin stated that this is a red line, defining NATO’s direct participation in the war.

It is appropriate to reflect for a moment on the issue of ‘red lines’.

Amidst a wave of reports that the U.S. and UK are ready to approve the use of Western missiles to strike Russian territory, Russian President Putin made his harshest comments to date, stating that the move would ‘change the very nature of the conflict’ and mean that NATO and Russia are ‘in a state of war’, warning that Russia would make ‘appropriate decisions’.

In response, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: ‘Russia started this conflict. Russia has illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia can end this conflict immediately. Ukraine has the right to self-defence’.

Let’s be clear: this is an exquisitely political, international relations-related beat, certainly not a military ‘fact’, because in Russia as well as in the West, they are well aware that attacks on Russian territory have been going on for a long time and that the violation of territorial integrity and sovereignty is a fact; but diplomacy, which is still a balancing art, tries to remedy these troubles and offers solutions.

The military rationale for testing Russia’s resolve in this matter is unclear. There is little reason to believe that the use of air-launched cruise missiles would significantly increase Ukraine’s chances of winning a war of attrition in which the Russians have enormous advantages over Ukraine – and the West in general – in terms of population and military production. In particular:

– The Russians are undermining the Ukrainians’ ability to send well-trained and equipped troops into combat, and air-launched cruise missiles will not change that;
– The issue of the ‘red lines’ not to be crossed is precisely at the origin of the so-called Special Military Operation, which depends on NATO’s repeated defiance of the ‘red lines’ relating first to NATO’s non-expansion to the east and then to Ukrainian non-neutrality;
– In fact, the best way to understand the current confrontation is to see it as a challenge to Russia, trying to bring it back to the subordination model of the Yeltsin years, preventing its expansion on a global scale;

– The Russians can adapt to the long-range strike capabilities of the Ukrainians because they have already adapted to the use of HIMARS artillery and ATACMS land-based missiles (and the Russians are still operating with the retired arsenal, not the new artillery). To have any real impact on Ukraine’s ability to harm Russia, the West would have to supply a very large number of very long range missiles, far more than the small number of basic range models that would be considered, but the West’s ability to supply such quantities is limited, and supplying them would almost inevitably provoke direct Russian retaliation.

Any red line violated without retaliation is experienced, and presented, as weakness on the part of the Russian government, and this game produces its real effects within Russia, whose original issue is its ability to exist unitedly as the huge multi-ethnic country that it is. Any sign of weakness in the central power opens the way for possible centrifugal movements within the country. Russia, like any other country, has its own power games within. There are few reasons to be optimistic that such attacks will push Putin to end the war or come to the negotiating table, but there are good reasons to fear that they will reinforce his claims that Russia is at war with NATO, not the Ukrainian people.

This is a key point to emphasise: Russia has continuously reiterated in all official and institutional fora that the conflict is not against the Ukrainian people, but against its coup government and the Atlanticist West that promoted and started this war, as early as 2014 (and even earlier). Russia has no interest in exterminating the Ukrainian population, which is ethnically and historically part of Russia’s large multi-ethnic family.

Another potential unintended consequence is that the increasing lethality of Western military support will toughen Russia’s demands in any future negotiations. The more the West shows that it is willing to use Ukraine to strike at Russia, the more the Russians will insist on a broad demilitarisation of Ukraine as a condition for a settlement.

At an early stage, this process did not lead for the West (i.e. the U.S.) to the desired outcomes. The idea was clear: once Putin takes the bait, and invades Ukraine, we, having trained the Ukrainian army to NATO standards for 8 years, will prove that it is a paper tiger; Western economic sanctions will strangle the Russian economy; the gap between the military and economic debacle will put the regime on the ropes, producing internal revolts and a systemic collapse.

However, this scenario did not materialise.

Militarily, the operation has become a war of position, a war of attrition. On the economic level, thanks mainly to the support of China, Russia was able to absorb the initial shock, regaining a new set-up of market flows, and immediately entered a new phase of economic prosperity on the international level. In terms of international relations, Russia was able to show the world what it means to deal with the West and started a process of global emancipation from the control of the Hegemon.

Militarily, the military situation in Ukraine is now critical for Western forces. The Kursk adventure was yet another red line violated, with the sole significance of producing an image damage to Putin’s political leadership, but nothing more. In the central area of the front, the Russian army has now reached the third and last defensive line, beyond which there are no more fortified lines. The Ukrainian collapse seems to be a matter of a few months, probably destined to take place next spring.

Faced with this scenario, the entire Western ruling class, i.e. the American military-industrial complex and its European henchmen, know no Plan B. This is a huge mistake, as international politics dictates that one always has backup plans for various possible scenarios. This Western mistake carries enormous weight and few have yet realised it.

Those who command, the USA, can afford to violate any red line with virtual impunity: they know that Putin is by no means a madman who wants planetary destruction and will therefore not launch a direct attack on American soil. Those who obey, Europe, have already devastated their own production system and are in the front line for targeted attacks, including nuclear ones (remember that in current war doctrine, the use of tactical atomic bombs counts as ordinary warfare, not as the start of a nuclear war).

The U.S. is pushing for the violation of all red lines because it has two powerful expendable buffer zones: first Ukraine, then Europe.


It is in neither the West’s nor Ukraine’s interest to make it more difficult to reach an agreement that preserves Ukraine’s independence and provides the opportunity for a prosperous future. What Ukraine desperately needs now is not long-range weapons, but a viable plan for a negotiated end to the war that gives Ukraine a real chance to rebuild.

Beware: Putin’s Russia may still decide to respond militarily and demonstrate its superiority. Should this happen, the conflict would take place in the ‘expendable zone’ elected by the U.S., which is called Europe, leveraging Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty, involving all European countries. And this is a reality, as harsh and violent as the carnage will be.

Here we are on the eve of yet another red line violation. Let’s see how much the world is willing to risk.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/09/ ... no-return/

******

Autumn campaign of the RF Armed Forces. Part one.
September 23, 15:31

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Autumn campaign of the RF Armed Forces. Part one.

Many people wonder what to expect from the autumn campaign of the Russian Armed Forces. In the first part, we will analyze the situation in the vicinity of Gornyak. After the fall of Ukrainsk, the situation for the Ukrainian Armed Forces here is not the best.

The central defense node here is, of course, Gornyak, which is also located on a hill. Of course, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will try to cling to it as long as possible, but there are several BUTs.

Let's analyze the main supply routes for the Ukrainian Armed Forces garrison in Gornyak and the surrounding villages:

1. The Selidovo-Tsukurino road (red arrow approximate advance of the Russian Armed Forces) according to information from both our and enemy sources has already come under the control of the Russian military. It is also worth noting that the Selidovo-Kurakhovo railway line passes through Tsukurino, which, in the current configuration of the front, also cannot be used for supplies.

2. The second road, Kurakhovo-Ostroe-Kurakhovka, also came under the control of the Russian Armed Forces yesterday (the red arrow points to the colony beyond Ostroe, which, according to both Ukrainian and our sources, was liberated by Russian troops) and cannot be used to supply the garrison in Gornyak.

3. There is also a third route, namely the Berestki-Ilyinka-Gornyak road, but most of this road is a dirt road, which even before the arrival of the muddy season has limited capacity, and with the arrival of full-fledged autumn in the DPR, it will not be suitable as the main artery for supplying the multi-thousand-strong garrison of Gornyak and the surrounding villages.

4. At the moment, of course, there is also the Berestki-Novoselidovka-Gornyak road, but it is no longer safe to use it due to the proximity of Russian forces in the Ukrainsk area, drones and remote mining.

5. Finally, the fifth supply option, namely Kurakhovo-Ilyinka-Gornyak, has both a problem with the road surface (see point 3), and the road across the Volchya River can simply be destroyed at any moment. According to objective control from the Ukrainian side, the dam locks have already been disabled. Probably, at the right moment, the road surface will also be disabled in order to block the supply channel.

6. The sixth option, let's say, "Krynochny", is supply via motorboats or across fields. Yes, it is certainly possible and, moreover, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will actively use it, but it is suitable for supplying a small group of troops (~up to a thousand people), without armored vehicles and artillery (even mortars), since each of the options (by water and by field) has serious limitations on the transported weight and volume. Therefore, in this case, problems will arise even with replenishing the ammunition for small arms.

Why did this happen?
First, these are certainly the competent actions of the Russian Armed Forces, which during the August offensive distributed all their forces, rather than trying to hammer in one direction. Yes, this certainly led to our forces leaving Selidovo (if they were there at all), but it allowed us to liberate Ukrainsk and the surrounding area.

Second, this is the unwillingness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to give up a hopeless pocket near Nevelskoye, concentrating their forces at Zhelanny Vtoroye and missing the offensive at Ukrainsk and Ostroye. The Ukrainian forces were so reluctant to either retreat or allow a cauldron to be created, abandoning their forces at Nevelskoye, that this led to the emergence of much more global problems in this direction.

Conclusions:
Due to the cut main supply roads, the Ukrainian Armed Forces already have supply problems in the Gornyak area, and as the Russian forces advance, the situation will become even more dramatic. Therefore, this direction can be called one of the most promising for "cleansing" in the autumn campaign. The Russian Armed Forces competently cut off the main supply roads of the Ukrainian group of forces. At the same time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were defending the pocket near Nevelskoye with all their might, which missed the more dangerous directions for them.

(c) "Orc from Mordor"

@genshtab24 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9399421.html

Google Translator

******

From Cassad's telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Autumn campaign of the RF Armed Forces. Part two.

The second in order, but not in significance for the Russian Army is the Ugledar direction. Ugledar has long been a "bone in the throat" for our General Staff, because without it, it hampers any offensive operations in the district. Let's figure out why Ugledar was a real "fortress" for Ukraine.

First of all, its location. Ugledar is located on heights from which the entire district is visible for several kilometers, so any movements of the Russian Army in the district were known in advance to the enemy. In addition, the landscape itself adds complexity. These are mainly fields with small forest belts, in which it is difficult to hide both personnel and any equipment, so it was extremely problematic to bypass Ugledar.

The second reason is the legacy of the USSR. Ugledar consists mainly of multi-story buildings (except for a small area of ​​"dachas" to the southeast of the city), in addition, near the city there is a large number of various industrial buildings (mines, warehouses, production facilities), which the Armed Forces of Ukraine skillfully turned into virtually impregnable strongholds, which are also problematic to "bomb", our ancestors built to glory.

The third reason is that between Ugledar and Pavlovka there is a river, which restricts movement and does not allow "with force" to transfer equipment and personnel. Well, do not forget that bombing Ugledar is a thankless task, the Armed Forces of Ukraine do not pay attention to losses and continue to sit even in ruins.

Several attempts were made to storm Ugledar head-on, both at the beginning of the SVO and much later. But each time the RF Armed Forces suffered defeat in the battle for the "fortress". So what has changed now?

The main difference of the current situation is the classic tactics of the Russian Armed Forces to encircle the city "in pincers" and cut off the enemy's communications. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are currently using two roads to supply the garrison:

1. Bogoyavlenka-Ugledar (marked in blue from the west) is currently unsafe to use. According to various sources, it is 1 to 2 km from the forward positions of our troops. This allows using both FPV and classic methods of destruction, such as ATGMs and armored vehicles.
2. Bogoyavlenka-Vodyanoye-Ugledar (marked in blue from the east). This road is essentially a country road in a field. It is less than 1 km from the forward positions of the Russian Armed Forces, which, coupled with the poor road surface, makes this road VERY dangerous.

Based on the above, all supplies for the Ugledar garrison (very battered due to constant shelling and the "pulling" of forces to Selidovo and Pokrovsk) hang on two roads, which are impossible to use safely. Yes, of course, it is possible to supply through the fields, but firstly, it is dangerous, drones and ATGMs have not been cancelled, and secondly, it is impossible to supply a huge enemy group in this way.

The Konstantinovka-Ugledar highway (red arrow from the east) is controlled by the Russian Armed Forces. Moreover, for us it is a real "artery" that will allow us to pull up armored vehicles to Ugledar, because without it the assault is impossible. BMPs and tanks will help both cover the infantry offensive and suppress the main firing points. Together with the liberation of the western outskirts of Pavlovka, the transition of the Ugledar dachas under our control and the offensive from the west, this time the Russian Armed Forces have every chance of driving the enemy out of Ugledar.

Conclusion:

The success of the Russian Armed Forces in the Ugledar direction is influenced by many factors, starting from the successful cutting of the enemy's supply channels, and the transition of the Konstantinovka-Ugledar transport artery (by the way, Konstantinovka is also under our control). The withdrawal of part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to Selidovo and Pokrovsk and the sending of select units of "Uhilants" in their place, which do not have the same training as the 72nd OMBR, have also had an effect, which allowed the front to be pushed through in the Vodyanoye area.

Well, the imminent onset of thaw also plays a role. In this case, the transfer of supplies to Ugledar through the fields will be completely impossible, and the garrison will need to be supplied with ammunition, provisions, and fuel. And if the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Ugledar are currently "on a starvation diet," then, most likely, the trickle of supplies will soon stop altogether, leaving the enemy fighters with an empty ammunition, without food or fuel.

(c) "Orc from Mordor"

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

Some Visual Evidence...

... of Pokrovsk being empty. Some 404 "patriot", for some reason not on mova but on Russian, laments the fate of the city, which, of course, will be rebuilt and much improved by Russians, while not getting a simple fact--he and his ilk didn't count on consequences. You don't need to know Russian to recognize that Pokrovsk's fate is sealed, as is that of Ugledar.



Average khohol is uneducated and brainwashed and now they squeal when they experience a very measured military power applied to their failed state. They thought that they can kill women and children of Donbas with impunity. They were wrong, as were their masters in NATO.
Meanwhile, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. What do you expect from this chihuahua?


Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has claimed that NATO should take a no-holds-barred policy towards the Ukraine conflict and allow Kiev fire long range missiles deep into Russia. Public discussion on how far NATO countries should go to defeat Russia only plays into Moscow’s hands, she argued. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is set to meet US President Joe Biden this week to present his “victory plan.” Kiev is lobbying Washington to permit long-range strikes using donated Western weapons, deep inside Russia, a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said would amount to an act of war by the US-led military bloc. Frederiksen, a staunch supporter of Kiev, told Bloomberg TV that such permission should be granted regardless of how Moscow might react. “The most important red line has been crossed already. And that was when the Russians entered Ukraine,” she told the channel on Friday. “So I will not accept this premise, and I will never allow anyone from Russia to decide what is the right thing to do in NATO, in Europe or in Ukraine.”

I am absolutely positive that mighty Danish army and navy should be first to try and then see what happens.

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/09 ... dence.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 25, 2024 11:46 am

Ugledar
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 09/25/2024

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A long article published this week by one of Ukraine's leading media outlets, Ukrainska Pravda , attempts to explain the situation on the Pokrovsk front and how the Ukrainian troops have reached the dire situation they are in now. The beginning is, naturally, the fall of Avdeevka, the last major Ukrainian stronghold on the front born out of the great battles of the Donbass war. The end is not yet written, but everything indicates that it will lead to a decisive fight for the city of Krasnoarmeysk, decommunized like Pokrovsk, where the Praviy Sektor starred in one of the first episodes with the death of a civilian in the incipient civil war that broke out in 2014. Curiously, it is someone now linked to a unit from that group, Serhii Filimomov, former member of Andriy Biletsky’s National Corps and now in command of DaVinci’s Wolves , who disagrees with the general conclusion reached by the Ukrainian media and believes that the situation can still be reversed in favor of Ukraine. “There are weak points where enemy units have been crushed. It is clear where they are, where they are accumulating forces and what their next steps will be. There are many prisoners, and everything is known. "The question is about means and personnel," Filimonov said, evidently calling for the sending of reserves to protect a sector of the front that has been relegated to a secondary stage since the start of the Kursk adventure.

If there is one place where Russian forces – and the DPR units now integrated into the Russian army that have fought in the area – have been crushed, it is Ugledar, a small town that since 2022 has served as a border and fortress that Russia has so far failed to seriously threaten. Created in Soviet times, the small town, now the scene of fierce battles, has throughout its short history been a mining town where the main source of wealth was coal extraction (ugol, hence its name). In the last two years it has become one of the scenes of recurring Russian failures. Situated at a slight elevation, in contrast to the flatness of all the surrounding territories, Ukraine has enjoyed a privileged position for defence and has caused at least two resounding episodes of huge casualties when Russian attempts to advance on the city with convoys of armoured vehicles were perfectly detected on their way out and ambushed or destroyed by artillery or drones when they were in the open field between Pavlovka and Ugledar. However, it is here that Russian troops are now gaining strength and hoping for their next success.

“The situation in the city is critical and continues to worsen,” wrote DeepState yesterday , which despite these qualifications has been accused of being overly positive in its coverage of developments in the area in recent hours. “ DeepState is being very, very slow in its update of Russian advances that have already been confirmed by Ukrainian and Russian military bloggers. This could be pressure from above,” wrote Russian opposition journalist Leonid Ragozin yesterday, reporting that Russian troops have already entered Ugledar, “a key strong point at the junction of the eastern and southern fronts. The potential effect of its capture is difficult to overestimate.” “The katsaps are trying to surround the town and at the same time they are simply wiping it off the map with artillery, KABs [guided bombs], etc,” DeepState lamented . Despite the delay in monitoring the events, it does provide a clue as to the tactics that have been followed: advancing from the east and west to threaten the last supply lines of a garrison whose situation has worsened considerably in recent weeks. The director of the Center Against Disinformation also came to the same conclusion, stating that “it was previously appropriate to defend this town, it is on high ground. But with the active arrival of the KABs at the front, the enemy managed to destroy it and outflank it. Unfortunately, the KABs and the aviation are the only things that allow the enemy infantry to move,” to which DeepState adds that “defending it to the end means prioritizing the ruins at the expense of our military, which is unacceptable.” The final withdrawal of the Ukrainian garrison in Ugledar appears imminent, if it has not already begun in small groups, mostly on foot, as shown in several videos published in recent days by various Russian sources.

The eulogy for the brigade that defended the town has already begun, both in official and semi-official Ukrainian sources and among those journalists who feel every Ukrainian defeat as their own. This is the case of David Axe, who in his most recent article for Forbes warned that “the same deadly Ukrainian brigade has defended Ugledar for two years. Now it is in danger of being surrounded.” “In January and February 2023, the 11th and 12th months of Russia’s largest offensive on Ukraine, the Ukrainian army’s 72nd Mechanized Brigade defeated a Russian force twice its size outside Ugledar, a fortress town in Ukraine’s Donetsk province,” he recalls of the failed Russian assaults, most likely significantly exaggerating the imbalance in troop numbers. The reality is that, until recent weeks, the situation for Russian troops in that area has been precarious, with officers such as Alexander Khodakovsky, founder of the Vostok battalion in 2014 and whose men captured nearby Pavlovka at a time when Russia needed victories and at the cost of many casualties. Since then, they have struggled to withstand Ukrainian artillery attacks from privileged positions and have made assault attempts at times when they did not have sufficient numbers of troops.

“The minefields and roads around Ugledar have become a death trap for attacking Russians. It is common for the Russians to attack in dozens of armored vehicles, as well as motorcycles and golf carts. It is equally common for the Ukrainians to destroy most of the attackers with mines, drones, artillery, and anti-tank missiles,” Axe writes, despite the fact that this failed tactic was long ago abandoned in favor of attacks with smaller groups of infantry or men simply on motorcycles, who advance on territory, consolidate it, and allow the next ones to join them in that position, advancing slowly in a manner that makes them harder to detect. “The 72nd Brigade is reasonably well equipped with T64 tanks and BMP-2 combat vehicles and M-109 howitzers. But even the best equipped brigade cannot hold the line forever, and two years is a long time in combat without a break for the entire unit,” laments Forbes, seeking the reason why, on this occasion, it seems that the Russian approach to the city will put an end to this Ukrainian stronghold. As usual, there is no attempt to explain why, despite the enormous losses attributed to it, Russia has managed to maintain the integrity of its garrison while it is the Ukrainian one that suffers despite the general mobilization, the recruitment and the sending of a part of the troops destined in Donbass to fight in Kursk.

The alternative explanation is even simpler: Western countries have not supplied the weapons to prevent the Russian advance. “This is the picture that should be presented to our allies: while political discussions are taking place about restrictions and permissions [for the use of Western weapons on Russian territory], the Katsaps simply destroy entire cities and villages with aerial bombs from planes that should be destroyed,” wrote DeepState yesterday with an argument that makes no sense: Ukraine had a powerful air defense by 2022 and has received both systems and additional ammunition, which have significantly hampered the use of Russian aircraft. The fact that the VKS, the Russian air force, is currently able to operate more efficiently so close to the main front of this war can be attributed, only in part, to a shortage of equipment (mainly because Ukraine has prioritized the protection of other objectives) and it is also worth highlighting the adaptability of the Russian command, which has taken two years to achieve a minimally efficient performance in the sector west and southwest of the city of Donetsk, the most fortified and important Ukrainian part of the southern and eastern front. Of course, none of the Ukrainian sources have stopped to think about the benefit that the Soviet heritage has brought to the Ukrainian garrison until now. “Our ancestors built for glory,” boasted a Russian source yesterday, explaining that the city has several mining complexes equivalent to the Avdeevka coke plant in its preparation to withstand any attack. However, these positions have not helped Ukraine either, a clear sign of the weakening of the Ukrainian position and the strengthening of the Russian one in the main theatre of this war, a reality that Zelensky prefers to hide, especially now that he is trying to promote his Victory Plan .

The weaknesses that Filimonov sees in the Russian troops exist and have been exploited by the Ukrainians in various areas of the front, including Ugledar. However, the current situation also shows the cracks in the tactics and strategy of the Ukrainian command, which, in just a few weeks, seems to have been able to wear down one of its most prepared brigades and is on the verge of losing a town that has been key in holding the line at the point where the southern front meets the eastern front.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/09/25/ugledar/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of September 25, 2024) Main points :

- The Russian Armed Forces repelled three counterattacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in one day, the enemy lost up to 390 soldiers;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 120 soldiers in one day in the area of ​​responsibility of the North group;

- Air defence systems shot down four Hammer guided aerial bombs, 14 HIMARS rockets and 31 UAVs in one day;

- The Center group advanced deep into the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defences, the enemy lost up to 580 men in one day;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 30 soldiers in the area of ​​responsibility of the Dnepr group;

- The Zapad group repelled three counterattacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in one day.

- The Russian Armed Forces have destroyed the Ukrainian Armed Forces' radio communications center and UAV production workshops.

▫️ Units of the "East" group of forces improved the position along the forward edge, defeated the formations of the 33rd mechanized, 58th motorized infantry brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 118th territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Novoukrainka, Zelenoye Pole and Zolotaya Niva of the Donetsk People's Republic.

They repelled three counterattacks of assault groups of the 72nd mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 110th territorial defense brigade . The enemy lost up to 135 servicemen, three vehicles, a 155-mm FH-70 howitzer made in Great Britain and a 155-mm Caesar howitzer made in France.

▫️ Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 128th Airborne Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 35th and 37th Marine Brigades and the 124th Territorial Defense Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Zherebyanki in the Zaporizhia region, Veseloe, Ivanovka in the Kherson region and the city of Kherson.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 30 servicemen, three vehicles and two 152-mm Msta-B howitzers . An ammunition depot was destroyed .

▫️ Operational-tactical aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups have damaged the Ukrainian Armed Forces' radio communications center, production workshops and a warehouse for unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as concentrations of enemy manpower and military equipment in 153 districts.

▫️ Air defense systems shot down four French-made Hammer guided aerial bombs , 14 US-made HIMARS and Czech-made Vampire rockets , as well as 31 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.

▫️ In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 646 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 32,218 unmanned aerial vehicles, 579 anti-aircraft missile systems, 18,348 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,462 multiple launch rocket systems, 15,187 field artillery pieces and mortars, and 26,467 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Collapsing Defensive Lines and Offensive Dreams in Ukraine
by Gordonhahn
September 23, 2024

The end is near for Ukraine’s army in the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War over NATO expansion and likely for Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s iteration of the ultranationalist-oligarchic Maidan regime, the establishment of which accelerated Washington’s, Brussels’ and Moscow’s march to war. The resulting desperation in Kiev explains Ukraine’s seeming last roll of the dice—the Kursk incursion. It also explains Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s desperate appeals to Washington and Brussels to allow Kiev to use long-range missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia to its pre-2014 territory and his pie-in-the-sky ‘Victory Plan’ dreams. At the same time, Maidan Ukraine’s domestic political regime is fracturing in direct proportion to the failing front; a trend Zelenskiy hopes to arrest by weighing into the US presidential political campaign and intensify sentiment for Kiev.

THE KURSK FAILURE

Ukraine’s Kursk incursion is a disaster for Ukraine. As I recently demonstrated, it has not achieved and will not achieve any of its goals (https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/14/the-n ... nd-beyond/). In Kursk, Ukrainian troops are about to be encircled and the home front fatally weakened as a result. More importantly, the home front – that is the front line arching from Kherson to Kharkiv is collapsing everywere, with Russian advances steadily accelerating almost everywhere. I wrote in early June that the Russians did not (and probably still do not) have their eyes on Kharkiv and may not have been attempting even to create a border buffer zone. The main goal of the Kharkiv-now Sumy offensive has been for now to stretch out the length oft he entire front and thereby Ukraine’s already thinning forces. I added that one should „look to the south in midsummer for offensives in Kherson and/or Zaporozhia.“ (www.facebook.com/gordon.hahn1/posts/pfb ... 8mrXBSTU4l).I was just about two months early. The Russians are about to begin an offensive in the south in Zaporozhe that may fatally extend the front line beyond what the Ukrainian army can bear (https://t.me/rezident_ua/24385). The Russians may begin ‚large arrow‘ offensives at weak points further thinned out by the stretched out line. Russian forces are already encircling Russian Ukrainian troops in Kurakhovo and Vugledar (Ugledar) on the southern Donetsk front and on the central Donetsk front have advanced 40 kilometers west since seizing Bakhmut in May and are about to lay siege to the strategic hub of Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeisk). The inevitable taking of Pokrovsk opens a clear road to Pavlograd and on to the Dnieper River.

To add to Ukraine’s woes, the Pentagon has said it is scraping the bottom of the barrel of potential military weapons supplies it can send to Ukraine (https://ctrana.news/news/472170-u-penta ... y-snn.html). The Pentagon will not be able to send any significant weapons to Kiev, as its own stores are low. Production will have to ramp up to deliver and that will take time. The same is true for the rest of NATO, members of which can only send outdated, if not obsolete weapons. Ukraine’s collapsing front lines and limited weapons supplies for any hope of stabilizing them has led to another ‘last throw of the dice’, seeking yet further escalation in the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War.

MISSILES

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy has been seeking Western approval for the use long-range missiles against targets deeper inside Russia, pre-2014 Russia. Western permission to do so will not save the Ukrainians from defeat. Most key Russian targets will remain out of range of U.S. ATACMS and JSSAMS and British-French Storm Shadows, and most will be shot down. Drones have proven an effective means for hitting Russian arms depots and the like deeper inside Russia. So the only serious change the lifting of the prohibition will be to cross the red line between covert and over NATO involvement in its war to protect its ‘right’ to expand NATO wherever and whenever it wants, forcing Moscow to regard NATO as a combatant in the war and thereby a legal target for its own missiles. Contrary to some of the more alarmist assessments, however, Putin will not hit European, no less American targets in their respective homelands in response, and certainly not use nuclear weapons in response to a few conventional missile attacks. Rather, he will hit Western military and other interests using proxies such as the Houthis, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, supplying them with Russian weapons, intelligence, and operational planning as NATO is doing for Kiev. Those parties that already have Russian weapons can be expected to be given more powerful ones than they might possess at present. Another possibility is to attack US satellites gathering intelligence and performing other military functions. Horizontal or asymmetrical escalation internationally will be accompanied most likely by vertical escalation in Ukraine, which might include a declaration of war and more generalized warfare, including the targeting of Kiev and Maidan Ukraine’s leaders. All this might come despite a Western lifting of the missile prohibition; Kiev hit four ammunition depots deep inside Russia proper last week.

VICTORY PLAN

Zelenskiy has brought with him to Washington a plan to justify such a decision on long-range missiles militarily. This new, more grand ‘Victory Plan’, he deliriously claims, can bring victory or force Putin to the bargaining table. Although the points of the Victory Plan remain largely secret, some details have been leaked or hinted at: Ukraine’s admission to NATO immediately (or perhaps by year’s end), initiation of NATO’s Article 5, and NATO’s direct entry into the war, even with boots on the ground. This will surely include the lifting of the missile prohibition and massive new military and financial assistance to Ukraine’s armed forces, even as NATO forces engage Russian forces. Of course, all of this is in Zelenskiy’s mind. One can imagine his arguments to US President Biden and NATO: ‘If you (the West) intend to accept us one day, then why not now and only after we defeat Russia. This is a Catch 22. We cannot defeat Russia without NATO forces fighting beside us. This means no Ukrainian membership and ultimately perhaps no Ukraine. You say, Putin is intent on moving west after conquering Ukraine. Then what are you waiting for? We must all unite and fight the Hitler of the 21st century now, before it is too late for us all.’

One Ukrainian source on Telegram, which some in Kiev want to shut down, states that Zelenskiy’s head of the Presidential Office (PO), essentially Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak has noted this Plan’s ‘logic.’ According to the source, which claims to have sources inside the OP, Yermak says that Ukraine’s main goal now is to to draw NATO into direct confrontation with Russia. Only this, he believes, will allow Ukraine to join the alliance and win the war. There are no alternatives to this scenario. Reserves and equipment are at critical levels, and so, he thinks, Ukraine can not withstand a protracted war and needs to look for ways to escalate the war and provoke the Kremlin (https://t.me/rezident_ua/24380).

This Plan is both a delirious pipe dream as well as a calculated stealthy attempt to influence — one might say, interfere in — the US election, return Ukraine to the front pages, spark a debate over policy, and hope that translates into bringing Zelenskiy’s latest dream to fruition. Surely, if the Plan is publicized, it will raise American war hawks into a frenzy, with the publishing of a mountain of articles supporting the Plan or fulfilment of some of its points. If the debate fails to bring fulfilment of the Plan in the period designated by Zelenskiy necessary to salvage the war effort – October-December – then it may be hoped by Zelenskiy and his cohorts that it will influence the election discourse and perhaps outcome, leading to Trump’s defeat and election of the war party, the Democrat Party-State-led, supported by neocon Republican allies. Indeed, the Kamala Harris campaign has been emphasizing Ukraine in its propaganda in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, and the Democrat-controlled media is helping (www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-i ... es-victory; www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/polish-ame ... rcna171685; https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/har ... -113831627; and https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harri ... b76501d7d9). Right on cue, Zelenskiy’s first visit after arriving in the US was to Pennsylvania, where he met with political and military-industry leaders (https://x.com/GovernorShapiro/status/18 ... 6218194136). Zelenskiy announced he would be presenting his Victory Plan to “America, President Biden and Vice President Harris and Donald Trump (https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1838168411446108636). He who rejects it will be subject to a storm of Democrat Party-state and US media attacks, heating up the presidential campaign precisely in order to boost US support for the war and sentiment for entering it directly. I will not be surprised if this is a propaganda campaign orchestrated jointly by the Biden-Harris and Zelenskiy administrations.

Overall, however, it is clear that Zelenskiy is thrashing about, seeking a way out of the Ukrainian catastrophe that awaits should he continue the war, and the personal and perhaps also general Ukrainian catastrophe that awaits should he seek to suit for peace, as the country’s numerous ultranationalists and neofascists will certainly attempt to rise in revolt should peace talks with the hated ‘Moskal’ — no less with the most hated of them all – Putin — be broached. At the same time, others may move against him for refusing to begin talks with Moscow. Aside from American politicians, there is no politician in the world today in a more precarious position than Zelenskiy. It must be said that he has walked the tight rope well over the last year and a half, and the Ukrainians have been creative and brave. But there is a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and I have doubts Zelenskiy sees that line.

THE HOME FRONT BEGINS TO CRUMBLE

Back home grumbling is growing inside Zelenskiy’s government. He fired some six ministers a few weeks ago and then his energy company (UkrEnergo) chair last week. Among the six ministers was Foreign Minister Dmitriy Kuleba, who reportedly came into conflict with OP chief Yermak (https://ctrana.news/news/471547-zapadny ... uleby.html). At the same time his Head of the Office of the President (OP) fired the deputy heads of the Main Military Intelligence (HRU) chief, the ambitious and creepy Kirill Budanov, without his knowledge, unleashing a firestorm. The same day this was reported, September 21st, it was reported that Zelenskiy was preparing to fire Budanov and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, another shadowy figure (https://ctrana.news/news/472355-rustema ... tavku.html). Reportedly, internal OP polling shows Budanov’s ratings rising, as Yermak has been attempting to clear the political playing field of all challengers to his boss (except for himself), which strengthens the increasingly powerful Yermak, and Budanov’s popularity has been rising in recent months (https://t.me/rezident_ua/24400; https://t.me/rezident_ua/24399; and https://t.me/rezident_ua/24394). The Budanov threat to the Zelenskiy camp, real or perceived, is heightened by his being a creature made by the CIA (https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001pvh7zNu ... SDUVxh7Q==). Thus, it is being reported that Yermak will be raising the issue of Budanov’s removal from the HRU and replacement by his client Oleg Ivashcenko (https://t.me/rezident_ua/24413).

Zelenskiy remains in conflict with the military. Former Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valeriy Zaluzhniy let it be known to the US outlet Politico that he and another top general opposed the Kursk operation, which was apparently in planning before his (and the other general’s firing (www.politico.eu/article/kursk-russia-in ... zelenskyy/). In this way, a major potential threat to Zelenskiy’s rule has raised its head again, as Ukraine’s and thus Zelenskiy’s war crisis deepens. Moreover, Zelenskiy has been at odds with his present Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskiy, and there are rumors his sacking may not be too far in the offing, as the front lines crumble under his watch. Ukrainian Rada deputy Maryana Bezugla, a key member of Zelenskiy’s party, Servants of the People, has been calling for Syrskii’s resignation in August and September, with rumors circulating she was doing Zelenskiy’s bidding. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ckout=true). Syrskii supposedly opposed the Kursk operation in favor of a counteroffensive at Pokrovsk (https://t.me/rezident_ua/24321). Bezugla appears to have exceeded her writ by revealing too much about the disastrous state of affairs on the battle fronts. She was fired in mid-September from the Rada’s Defence and Security Committee and transferred to the parliament’s International Affairs Committee. But she has not ceased in revealing the truth about the collapsing front. Recently, she noted: “I’m coming back from Donetsk region once again. There are no fortifications beyond the Sentinel Yar, Konstantinovka is not ready for defense. Kurakhovo too. Selidovo inside the city was completely unprepared for defense, now they are feverishly trying to do something. There are no borders beyond Ugledar, and the chaos created by Syrsky in the 72nd brigade due to the removal of the brigade commander at the peak of the Russians’ offensive and the non-priority replenishment of the priority unit now makes the loss of Ugledar a matter of time.” According to Bezugla, brigades of recently mobilized, often coercively so, “who have not participated in the battles and are flee because of fear and lack of training,” are being sent to replenish the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions.” The predominantly mobilized officers of these brigades do not know even basic things. Nevertheless, the authorities continue with this, instead of making the replenishment of combat brigades the priority, she asserts. Although, according to Bezugla, the construction of fortifications around Pokrovsk and Mirnograd has begun, it is “an initiative on the ground” — in other words, a local initiative (https://t.me/rezident_ua/24408). In this way, Bezugla may be moving from criticism simply of Syrskiy and the General Staff to that of the civilian leadership as well, because such revelations discredit both the military and civilian leaderships.

All this while Zelenskiy’s popular approval ratings are overwhelmingly disapproving. The latest evidence comes from the falling ratings of Zelenskiy’s daily vidoes as well as the government’s main propaganda mechanism, the television marathon, run daily on Ukrainian television (https://t.me/rezident_ua/24395).

Conclusion

When Ukrainian forces are encircled in, killed in, and/or run out of Kursk, when Pokrovsk and Vugledar have fallen, when all of Donetsk and Luhansk have been captured, and Russian forces are advancing on Pavlograd, the last possible stronghold before the Dnieper, as 2024 comes to a close either Zelenskiy or Syrskiy will be the scapegoat. Indeed, one cannot exclude both will be targeted in a neofascist-led or other form of putsch. Moreover, by that time Kiev had better have some new instrument with which to fight or else the end will be very near indeed.


https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/23/colla ... n-ukraine/

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September 23, 2024 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
Zelensky’s Victory Plan is his survival kit

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President Volodymyr Zelensky presents (L) Hero of Ukraine award to military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov, Kiev, FEB. 9, 2024

Strana, one of the top online newspapers in Ukraine, which is banned in Russia since 2022, reported on Friday that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is planning to dismiss Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and the powerful military intelligence chief Gen. Kirill Budanov from their posts as part of his continuing purge of the military establishment in Kiev.

Umerov is a political lightweight and a non-military man by profession and may become the ‘fall guy’, as the Ukrainian military is losing the Battle of Donbass. But Budanov belongs to an entirely different planet — a professional soldier with a career entirely in the special forces of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) ever since he graduated from the Odesa Institute of the Ground Forces in 2007 (originally, the elite educational institution of the Soviet Armed Forces for the training of officers of military intelligence units.) Ironically, his expertise in operations against Russia has put him today at the top of the list of wanted men in Moscow.

At the end of the day, what makes Budanov indispensable are three things.

First and foremost, Budanov is an exceptionally audacious intelligence officer of a rare breed in any country and, therefore, a ‘strategic asset’ to the regime in Kiev. Second, he supervises three anti-Kremlin Russian militias fighting for Ukraine, the largest being the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC) led by Denis Kapustin, whom German authorities once described as “one of the most influential neo-Nazi activists on the European continent today”. (See the academic paper titled Ukrainian Nazism today: origin and ideological and political typology on the Russian foreign ministry’s website.)

Kiev struggles to maintain that RVC acts independently and its success only testifies to the Kremlin’s loss of control of the security situation in the country. But in reality, RVC’s raids are closely coordinated with the HUR, which provides logistical assistance, vets the operational plans and arms and bankrolls them. In fact, RVC is formally part of the Ukrainian armed forces, enlisted in the so-called International Legion. By the way, Kapustin has links with American neo-Nazi groups as well.

Third and most crucial, Budanov’s links with the CIA are a legion. The New York Times in a sensational report detailing for the first time the vastness of the CIA presence in Ukraine, said: “General Budanov, was a rising star in Unit 2245. He was known for daring operations behind enemy lines and had deep ties to the C.I.A. The agency had trained him and also taken the extraordinary step of sending him for rehabilitation to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland after he was shot in the right arm during fighting in the Donbas.”

The Times described Unit 2245 as a top-secret “commando force that received specialised military training from the C.I.A.’s elite paramilitary group, known as the Ground Department. The intent of the training was to teach defensive techniques, but C.I.A. officers understood that without their knowledge the Ukrainians could use the same techniques in offensive lethal operations.”

The stunning thing here is that this nefarious nexus between Langley and Budanov goes all the way back to the Obama Administration — much, much before the Russian operations began in February 2022.

Later, Budanov himself recalled in 2020 that the links with the CIA “only strengthened. It grew systematically. The cooperation expanded to additional spheres and became more large-scale.”

Times added, “The relationship was so successful that the C.I.A. wanted to replicate it with other European intelligence services that shared a focus in countering Russia.”

President Trump was unwilling or unable to stand up to the CIA, but as Biden entered the Oval Office, the floodgates were opened. Times said,

“The head of Russia House, the C.I.A. department overseeing operations against Russia, organised a secret meeting at The Hague. There, representatives from the C.I.A., Britain’s MI6, the HUR, the Dutch service (a critical intelligence ally) and other agencies agreed to start pooling together more of their intelligence on Russia. The result was a secret coalition against Russia — and the Ukrainians were vital members of it.”

This also predates Russia’s special military operations in Ukraine, testifying to Biden’s maniacal obsession to destabilise Russia as an independent world power any whichever way.

The US’ proxy war in Ukraine is, in reality, spearheaded by the CIA, while the Pentagon and the State Department play subaltern roles. It is for future historians to investigate the raison d’être of Biden’s curious, unconventional choice of William Burns, supposedly a career diplomat, as his hand-picked head of the CIA in 2020.

Burns is an unusual ‘specialist’ on Russia who had a role in the CIA’s war in Chechnya in the early 1990s soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union when he was first posted in the Moscow embassy. (Burns later returned as envoy to Moscow.)

Suffice to say, Biden knew precisely what he wanted to get done and he picked the one man whom he could rely on to keep the CIA on leash, au fait with the world of cloak-and-dagger operatives and also a ‘Russia hand’.

All things considered, therefore, Strana’s report regarding Budanov may seem improbable. For, Budanov cannot be touched without CIA clearance. And there is no conclusive evidence so far that Biden is done with the proxy war against Russia where Budanov is a pivotal figure.

A dead man walking

Zelensky’s forthcoming meeting with Biden should give some clues. Zelensky proposes to present a ‘victory plan’ to Biden. Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson recently gave a preview of the ‘victory plan’ in an article in The Spectator after his most recent visit to Kiev to meet his close friend Zelensky one-on-one.

Johnson wrote that Zelensky will propose “a three-fold plan for Ukrainian victory”, the key elements being that the US should

“allow the Ukrainians the right to use the weapons they already possess”;
“produce a package of loans [for Kiev] on the scale of Lend-Lease: half a trillion dollars… or even a trillion”; and,
admit Ukraine forthwith into NATO so that the alliance “could protect most of Ukraine, while simultaneously supporting the Ukrainian right to recapture the rest.”
Johnson underscored that extending NATO’S Article 5 security guarantee “to all the Ukrainian territory currently controlled by Ukraine (or at the end of this fighting season), while reaffirming the absolute right of the Ukrainians to the whole of their 1991 nation” will be the “single biggest step,” which would unambiguously convey to the Kremlin that there is nothing like a ‘near abroad’ or a ‘sphere of influence’ anymore and that “like Rome and like Britain, the Russians have decisively joined the ranks of the post-imperial powers.”

Zelensky has since confirmed the three key elements that Johnson wrote about. Interestingly, he did this after a sudden unannounced visit to Kiev by the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen — another hawkish Russophobe like Johnson — after which Zelensky told reporters on Friday, “The victory plan, this bridge to strengthening Ukraine, can contribute to more productive future diplomatic meetings with Russia. Without that, we will live the way we live now and keep fighting.”

Clearly, Zelensky rules out any near-term peace talks with Russia, which of course, necessities a dramatic escalation in the near term before the Ukrainian military altogether packs up.

In the final analysis, what the Strana report shows is that the Western strategy against Russia, as in Vietnam War, is built on quicksands. The point is, Zelensky himself is a dead man walking and must be conscious of it, as the latest bizarre move by him, a Jew himself, to act as a predator on Christianity — harking back to Old Testament.

Zelensky is still putting a brave face on the approaching defeat in the Kursk offensive as the Russian forces encircle the invaders in the forests and marshes of that forlorn region, and the killer drones begin to target them once the trees shed their leaves in autumn.

Zelensky knows that he is a marked man being the genius of the Kursk offensive, and vultures are circling in the skies. Indeed, some of Ukraine’s top army commanders, including the former armed forces commander Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, now ambassador to London, had voiced scepticism when Zelensky first broached the Kursk offensive. Those who opposed the offensive included the highly respected Emil Ishkulov, commander of Ukraine’s 80th Air Assault Brigade who was dismissed in July amid protests from high-ranking officers.

A Politico report says that Zaluzhny’s objection was that “there was no clear second step after the [Russian] border had been successfully breached by elite Ukrainian units drawn from four brigades. “He never got a clear answer from Zelenskyy,” said one of the officials. “He felt it was a gamble,” he said. Zaluzhny queried: once you have the bridgehead, what then?” ”

Clearly, the moment of truth is fast approaching for Zelensky. Such insecure men tend to be suspicious of charismatic men like Zaluzhny, who, surprisingly, took his dismissal calmly and went into exile in London but now, it transpires, with an eye on Zelensky’s job for himself some day. And Zaluzhny has powerful backers, too.

Nonetheless, do not underestimate Zelensky. Four days after Zaluzhny’s dismissal from the post of commander-in-chief on February 4, he conferred on the general the highest national decoration in Ukraine — the Hero of Ukraine. Interestingly, Zelensky awarded the same title to another general also during that very same ceremony in Kiev — Gen. Budanov. (here)

https://www.indianpunchline.com/zelensk ... vival-kit/

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What Russia’s Response Might Be
September 23, 2024
Russia Matters, 9/23/24

1.The editorial boards of several Western publications, including BG, WP and The Economist, have called on Joe Biden to allow the Ukrainian armed forces to use longer-range Western-supplied missiles, such as Storm Shadows, for strikes inside Russia’s officially recognized borders. The calls were published ahead of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the U.S., which began on Sept. 23. Later this week, Zelenskyy intends to hold separate meetings with Biden, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to promote his “victory plan,” in which the approval of long-range missile use is a key part, according to the Ukrainian leader.Zelenskyy has refused to disclose the plan in its entirety so far; however, the Ukrainian leader did share that “most of the decisions on the plan depend” on Biden, and that these decisions need to be made in October to December, according to Ukrainska Pravda.
2.Should strikes into Russia by Storm Shadows and ATACMs take place, Moscow’s potential response is likely be directed in the first instance against Great Britain, not America, but it would not involve the use of nuclear weapons, according to Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute. One response would be to shoot down British military aircraft operating close to Russian airspace; another would be to destroy British intelligence satellites; yet another one would be to provide Hezbollah and the Houthis with both missiles and the satellite technology to launch much more effective strikes on Israel and Western shipping, Lieven wrote in Unherd.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/09/rus ... -might-be/

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How the US and NATO declare war on Russia
Sep 23, 2024 , 2:27 pm .

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The Ukrainian president is currently on a trip to the United States to present Joe Biden with the so-called "Victory Plan" and ask him to authorize Kiev to use American long-range missiles against Russian territory, which undoubtedly contrasts with the headline in El Nuevo Herald which states: "Zelensky prepares a trip to the US focused on his roadmap for peace."

In reality, the supposed route to peace could mean an escalation of confrontation that would trigger a war of considerable magnitude, since the use of the aforementioned weapons is interpreted as a declaration of war against Russia by Washington and NATO.

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that if Ukraine is allowed to use long-range missiles, NATO countries will go to war with Russia because this would be interpreted as the NATO-led organization's "direct participation" in the conflict.

"This will mean that NATO countries, the US and European states are fighting with Russia," he said recently during a speech in St. Petersburg, adding: "We will make appropriate decisions based on the threats posed to us."

For Stephen Bryen, Asia Times' chief correspondent, this is a reckless and foolhardy move that could lead to a Third World War.

The missiles may be launched from Ukrainian territory, but they would be fired by NATO personnel using targeting data from US satellites covering Russian territory.

In recent days, President Biden has signaled a new push to allow Ukraine to fire Western-supplied missiles at targets inside Russia. Kiev has the U.S. military’s Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, and long-range Storm Shadow missiles, supplied by the United Kingdom.

The ATACMS were secretly supplied by the United States . The delivery of these missiles, which have a range of up to 300 kilometers, was part of a $300 million package of military aid to Kiev.

Ukraine and its allies are losing the war
But beyond the speculation and projections, what Bryen believes is that Ukraine is losing the war and could be defeated even before the presidential elections in November, which is why Washington wants to resume Zelensky's proposals for deep attacks on Russian territory.

"The Biden-Harris team will have to explain why they continued to support a loser, causing tens of thousands of casualties instead of seeking a diplomatic deal that was easily within their reach," he said.

In June, President Putin presented Moscow's fourth proposal for resolving the conflict in Ukraine. The first was made in 2014 but was interrupted by the coup d'état, the second in 2015 with the Minsk Agreements and the third with the Istanbul Agreements in 2022.

The Kremlin's conditions for peace in Ukraine are the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), and the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, as well as Ukraine's refusal to join NATO. Washington has blocked the ongoing agreement between Ukraine and Russia, which the journalist blames directly on Biden and Harris.

On the other hand, and at Zelensky's initiative, the " Ukraine Peace Summit " was also held in Switzerland in June , an event attended by only 92 of the 160 invited states and organisations, and where there was no willingness to explore alternatives to those of the Ukrainian leader. One of the main problems was the scant interest of Kiev and its allies in reaching a diplomatic solution.

For the Asia Times correspondent, the strategy of bringing NATO into direct confrontation with Russia is understandable if it knows that "everything is falling apart and that Ukraine will not be able to continue fighting in winter" due to the fragility of its energy infrastructure. Let us recall that Moscow launched massive attacks with drones and precision weapons in response to Kiev's attempts to destroy energy facilities on Russian territory.

He also argues that Washington is irresponsibly and without measuring the consequences, "playing the same game" as Zelensky. Everything indicates that the US government, taking huge risks with little idea of ​​how things will end, preferred an uncertain path rather than trying to open communications with the Russians to find a way out.

For former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko, Zelensky's "victory plan" is designed to obtain a refusal and then start negotiations with Russia. He argues that the Ukrainian government's propaganda machine is trying hard to project that all the country's problems are limited to the fact that "the United States does not want to give us permission to manufacture Jassm, ATACMS, Storm shadow/Scalp long-range missiles."

According to the former official, Zelensky's real victory plan - not Ukraine's - would be the following:

"We are presenting a new mega-list of weapons and money requirements to the United States."
"We have educated doubts that this will change the course of the war and take us back to the 1991 borders."
"We declare that we have been abandoned and have no other choice but to return to the World Forums with the participation of Russia."
"During the negotiations we received Istanbul-style demands from Putin."
"We declare that this is a matter for a referendum and that a ceasefire is necessary for this."
"We signed a ceasefire."
"We pose as world presidents and hold presidential elections, preferably without lifting martial law, so that democracy does not interfere and military recruiting offices can manage the polling stations."

Lutsenko called the plan "a cynical show" that sounds ingenious but cannot possibly be effective given that Ukraine "is a state in which a small minority of fascists has control of all important political decisions" and is therefore likely to strongly oppose any negotiations with Russia.

Zelensky 's tour began on September 23 with a visit to a factory in Pennsylvania that produces 155mm artillery ammunition used on a massive scale by the Ukrainian army on the front. According to the Kyiv Independent , he will present his plan at the White House on September 26 and will continue to insist that the United States allow him to use missiles to hit air bases and other military targets inside Russia. For now, it remains to be seen how this meeting will develop and what will come out of it.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/co ... erra-rusia

Google Translator

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The cemetery mafia - economy newsletter

Human dust, home front fortification corruption, mobilizing HIV-positive proletarians, oligarchs and onlyfans, the mysterious Mr Kripp

Events in Ukraine
Sep 24, 2024

First of all - the cemetery mafia. The following was shared by just about all the top militarist, Azovite telegrams on September 20: (Video at link.)

Appeal from Our Brothers for the Sake of Justice!

Here is the situation: Kyiv cops and the funeral mafia have been working together in a good partnership for many years. However, the situation has drastically changed after the full-scale war began and with the growing number of casualties — both civilians and military personnel.

The police and mafia realized that they can earn much more and faster from the deaths of military personnel, so they established total control and monopolized the burial sector. These criminals know that the relatives receive large sums of money for a fallen soldier, and therefore, they try to extort the maximum amount from them.

Our brothers are trying to correct this injustice and blatant violation of the law so that families don’t have to pay tens of thousands of hryvnias to the mafia for a burial, and things can be handled much better.

But now, the Kyiv police have become heavily involved, threatening veterans with physical violence and defending the mafia. They even call the military units where these guys served to discredit the veterans in the eyes of their commanders, accusing them of becoming drug addicts and alcoholics (there’s video evidence).

Can you imagine how much money the police and mafia are making on deaths and this monopoly right now? Relatives of fallen heroes shouldn't have to pay anything for these services — that’s how it should work in a decent society. Instead, we see the mother or wife of a fallen soldier having to give the mafia and police 100,000 hryvnias just to bury their loved one with honor.

How do they make money? They create artificial obstacles (problems), endless paperwork, monopolize coffins, and control the burial process, and much more. Profiting from people's grief is beyond immoral, but this situation suits the law enforcement.

What will the reaction be?


It’s ironic that the above post was made by an Azovite military telegram. I wrote here earlier about how Azov was in charge of a comically-criminal funeral racketeering network in Kharkov years before 2022. I suppose they’re angry that this time, the cemetery racket isn’t under their control.

The home front
There’s been plenty of talk about unbuilt fortifications close to the Donbass frontlines lately. On September 23, parliamentarian Mariana Bezuhla published the following to telegram:

I’m returning once again from Donetsk region. There are no fortifications beyond Chasiv Yar, and Kostiantynivka is not prepared for defense. Neither is Kurakhove. In the center of Selydove, there was absolutely no readiness for defense; now they are frantically trying to do something. There are no defensive lines beyond Vuhledar, and the chaos created by Syrskyi in the 72nd brigade due to the dismissal of the brigade commander at the peak of the Russian offensive, along with the non-priority reinforcement of a priority unit, now makes the loss of Vuhledar a matter of time.

Around the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad agglomeration, fortifications are currently being built, and they are the most modern structures created since the start of the full-scale invasion. However, the vast majority of these fortifications no longer have any connection to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They are the result of horizontal coordination between military administrations, local units, engineers of various "backgrounds," the command of the eastern front "Khortytsia," and benefactors who deliberately bypass outdated and out-of-touch instructions issued by higher military headquarters. Previously, they were afraid, but now they don't care. They do what needs to be done themselves.


As part of her usual jihad against Syrsky and the military elite, most probably on behalf of Zelensky, Bezuhla places the blame on the generals and praises local military administrations for their initiatives.

But there’s another side to that. Maksym Kozytskyi, the head of the Lviv region civil-military administration, spent 25 million hryvnia building a road to his father’s house. Local publication NGL media wrote on September 6:

The complex of Kozytskyi Sr. is called the wellness resort "Panorama Skhidnytsia." It is accessed via Horna Street. The reconstruction of this street turned out to be the most expensive among the roads funded by the Regional Military Administration (RMA) in 2023—and "the most questionable in terms of priority.

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Of course, Lviv is far from the frontline. But Druzhkyvka, only 18 kilometres from frontline Chasiv Yar, made the rounds on telegram on August 28 because the local military administration decided that now was the right time to pave the roads: (Video at link.)

And instead of spending resources on fortifications, local soldiers angrily shared on July 25 how the local administration of Pokrovsk was planting flowers:

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Building roads is a favorite feeding trough for the government - Zelensky’s great pre-war project was the ‘big build’, also often called ‘the big steal’ by anti-corruption journalists. Journalists pointed to things like the fact that the construction of roads in Ukraine often cost many times more than similar roads in Poland, despite wages being much lower. The saga with the ‘big build’ has continued in wartime, with infamous ‘big builder’ government-linked entrepreneurs cooperating tightly with corrupt regional civilian-military administrations - as the Golyk story, which I wrote about here, amply demonstrated.

Perhaps that’s why Bezuhla, generally considered to be a barely-covert Zelensky operative, is so glowing about the military-civilian administration….

But these infrastructure-addicts may run into trouble. Not with the law, but with the supply of workers. On September 5, the Lviv mobilization office announced it was still deciding whether an asphalt layer with HIV could be mobilized - for the second time!

(Paywall, with 7 day free trial.)

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... newsletter

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

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

Post by blindpig » Thu Sep 26, 2024 11:24 am

New York Speeches
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 09/26/2024

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The week of diplomacy and public relations that the annual celebration of the United Nations General Assembly has become is serving as a way for Volodymyr Zelensky, his team, his lobbyists and staunch allies such as Josep Borrell to carry out their pressure group work in the most public way possible. The Ukrainian president has proposed as the culmination of his trip the bilateral meeting with his American counterpart, to whom he gives the personal responsibility of implementing the Ukraine Victory Plan , a proposal that is not a plan, but a list of Ukrainian demands. If the strategy is, as Ukraine has made clear in the last ten years and repeats more and more explicitly, to achieve peace without concessions - territorial, political, security or to the population that has been affected by the Ukrainian aggression that represented the war in Donbass - Zelensky's plan aims to be the way to achieve it. Judging by the statements of the Ukrainian delegation and the leaks of the past few weeks, the proposal is not so much a series of steps to achieve such a victory, but rather a list of Ukraine's demands to be in a position to get everything it wants.

“During my speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, I noted that the Victory Plan consists of military and diplomatic components. Ukraine’s invitation to NATO is part of the Victory Plan. I urged partners not to pay attention to threats of escalation from Russia,” wrote Andriy Ermak, the powerful head of the Ukrainian President’s Office. His words are further evidence that Zelensky’s proposal is not a plan to win the war but a blueprint for the future that the current Ukrainian president wants for the country – a political goal that makes his claim that the proposal is “a bridge to the second peace summit” laughable. The plan that Zelensky is set to present to Joe Biden in the coming hours is, in fact, a bridge to the war that Ukraine believes it can win, one in which it is supplied with massive amounts of weaponry and in which the end result is guaranteed: a Ukraine with rapid access to the EU and NATO, which continues to receive military assistance and funding for the reconstruction of its entire territory along its 1991 borders. That has been kyiv’s goal since 2014, and the current plan seeks a firm commitment from the United States to abide by those principles and to continue supporting Ukraine politically, economically, militarily, and diplomatically.

“Partners often say: ‘We will be with Ukraine until it wins.’ Now we are clearly showing how Ukraine can win and what is needed for that. Very concrete things,” Zelensky said, before adding that “let’s do all this today, while all the officers who want victory for Ukraine are still in official positions.” Obviously, the rush is not only due to Ukraine’s current weak position on a significant part of the front, but to the possibility that Donald Trump could win the election and fulfill his promise to remove the United States from the war. The Victory Plan is also a commitment to make American assistance Trump-proof .

Yesterday, citing an unnamed Ukrainian official — though it is evident that he is a member of the President's Office, which is keen to leak the proposal as a lever to pressure its allies — AP said that “the military element of the plan is about what Ukraine thinks it needs in the short term to keep pressure on Russia and hopefully force them to the negotiating table” — that is, to force Russia to accept Ukrainian terms. “The political element is about how to assure the Ukrainian people that they will be welcomed in Western institutions like the European Union and NATO if they continue to fight with Russia or reach a negotiated settlement with Russia,” the official said. Aside from the NATO membership request, the plan aims to bolster Ukraine's defenses, including air defense capabilities, enough to force Moscow to negotiate. A request for tougher sanctions to weaken Russia's economy and defense industry is also expected. Zelensky said, without giving further details, that kyiv's military incursion into Kursk (Russia) is part of the plan for victory.

Each and every one of these points is perfectly predictable and consistent with the position that the United States and the European Union must continue to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, with real diplomacy as the only red line. Hence, the target of Zelensky’s speeches in New York these days is not only Russia, but also those countries that distance themselves from the solution of the war until Ukraine decides that it has achieved all its objectives. “We know that there are those in the world who want to talk to Putin,” Zelensky said, “possibly to hear from him that he is angry because we are exercising our right to defend our people,” a people that the Ukrainian president did not specify whether he includes those whom Ukraine has attacked for years and to whom it has denied the minimum political rights granted to them by the agreements signed in 2015. “Russia can only be forced to achieve peace and that is exactly what is needed, to force Russia to peace,” he insisted, again confusing peace with his wishes. Yesterday, Zelensky sharpened his aim and focused on two countries, China and Brazil, which insist that peace means freezing the conflict within their current borders and simply negotiating. Criticizing the dependence on the Security Council, which, in his opinion, hinders the capacity of the United Nations to achieve peace, Zelensky reaffirmed his proposal and argued that, unlike the UN, his plan can do so. And in his attempt to criticize the position of the countries of the Global South, which have understood neutrality as a responsibility to help end the war in Europe, he added that “if someone in the world seeks alternatives to any of these points or tries to ignore any of them, most likely he himself wants to do something like what Putin is doing. And when China and Brazil try to become, together with someone from Europe, someone from Africa, a chorus of voices that say something other than a full and peaceful world, the question arises: what is the real interest?”

However, doubts about the viability of Zelensky's plan are not limited to neutral countries, which Zelensky continues to treat with his usual European supremacist disdain, but also exist among his allies. The three main objectives of the Ukrainian proposal - Euro-Atlantic integration, the territorial issue and the supply of weapons for use in Russia - have been questioned by allied countries. In his speech, Turkish President Erdoğan said no to Ukraine's quick accession to NATO, where Kiev also faces reluctance from such important countries as the United States and Germany. And in New York, President Pavel of the Czech Republic, who has worked tirelessly to ensure that Ukraine has hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds and can therefore be considered nothing but a friend of Ukraine, added, referring to the territorial issue, that Kiev must set realistic goals.

Even in the field of weapons, the difficulties are glaring. According to The Washington Post , Ukraine would be left without Western missiles if the supplier countries gave their approval for their use in Russia, implying that the quantity of such ammunition is minimal and with no real prospect of it increasing to the levels that Kiev wants. “I hope that the allies will provide us with what we need,” said a soldier quoted by AP , who specified, in line with what his government demands, that “not 10 or 31 tanks, but a thousand tanks, thousands of weapons and ammunition.” That is also what Zelensky naively hopes. “As President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to the United Nations, we are watching to what extent he pressures allies to allow Ukrainian forces to use Western-supplied weapons to strike deep into Russian territory. The Biden administration has considered giving Ukraine the green light as long as it does not use weapons manufactured by the United States,” stated The New York Times yesterday . Such permission would be insufficient to achieve what kyiv hopes to achieve with its bombing raids in Russia, as British and French missiles do not have the range to meet Ukraine's plans.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/09/26/discu ... yorquinos/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
📝Summary of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of 26 September 2024)

— Units of the North group of forces defeated the formations of the 57th motorized infantry brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 36th marine brigade and the 113th territorial defence brigade in the areas of the settlements of Liptsy, Volchansk and Volchanskie Khutor in the Kharkiv region.

The enemy lost up to 235 servicemen, three vehicles, a 152-mm D-20 gun, a 122-mm D-30 howitzer, and a 122-mm Grad multiple launch rocket system combat vehicle.

— Units of the West group of forces occupied more advantageous lines and positions, inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 3rd tank, 14th, 44th, 53rd, 63rd, 66th mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Kupyansk-Uzlovaya, Petrovpavlovka, Vishnevoe, Pershotravnevoe, Olgovka in the Kharkov region, Grigorovka in the Donetsk People's Republic and Chervona Dibrova in the Lugansk People's Republic.

The enemy's losses amounted to 435 servicemen, a Cossack combat armored vehicle, eight vehicles, a US-made 155-mm M198 howitzer, two Polish-made 155-mm Krab self-propelled artillery mounts, a Gvozdika 122-mm self-propelled artillery mount, a D-30 122-mm howitzer, and a Croatian-made RAK-SA-12 multiple launch rocket system combat vehicle.

Two Anklav-N electronic warfare stations, a US-made AN/TPQ-37 counter-battery warfare station, and two ammunition depots were destroyed.

— Units of the South force grouping improved the position along the forward edge, defeated formations of the 24th, 54th mechanized brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and the 119th territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Seversk, Verkhnekamenskoye, Kramatorsk, and Nikolaevka of the Donetsk People's Republic.

The enemy lost up to 750 servicemen, ten vehicles, two US-made 155-mm M777 howitzers, a Polish-made 155-mm Krab self-propelled artillery unit, a 152-mm D-20 gun, two 152-mm Akatsiya self-propelled artillery units, a US-made 105-mm M119 gun, and Anklav-N and Nota electronic warfare stations. Nine ammunition depots were destroyed.

— As a result of decisive actions by units of the Center group of forces , the settlement of Ukrainsk in the Donetsk People's Republic was liberated.

The manpower and equipment of the 53rd, 100th, 110th, 151st mechanized, 68th Jaeger brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 116th territorial defense brigade were damaged in the areas of the settlements of Leonidovka, Krasnoarmeysk, Shcherbinovka, Dobropolye, Nikolaevka, Gornyak and Tarasovka of the Donetsk People's Republic. The

losses of the enemy's armed formations amounted to 670 servicemen, a tank, two combat armored vehicles, five cars, two 152-mm D-20 guns, a 152-mm Giatsint-B cannon.

Units of the "East" force group improved their position along the forward edge, defeated the formations of the 72nd mechanized, 58th motorized infantry brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 118th territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Ugledar, Novoukrainka and Zolotaya Niva of the Donetsk People's Republic.

The enemy lost up to 130 servicemen, a tank, three infantry fighting vehicles, seven cars, a 155-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Caesar" made in France.

- Units of the "Dnepr " force group took more advantageous positions, defeated the manpower and equipment of the 39th coastal defense brigade, the 124th territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Ponyatovka, Antonovka and Prydniprovskoye of the Kherson region.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 60 servicemen, ten vehicles, a 155-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Bogdana" and a 152-mm howitzer "Msta-B". A P-19 radar station and an ammunition depot were destroyed.

- Air defense systems shot down a long-range guided missile "Neptune", three French-made "Hammer" guided aerial bombs, five US-made HIMARS rockets and 45 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Russian Ministry of Defense: Ukraine Has Lost 16,400 Soldiers During Operation in Kursk Area
September 24, 2024

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Russian artillery servicemen ride a self-propelled heavy mortar in the course of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, in Russia. Photo: Sergey Bobylev/Sputnik.


The Russian armed forces have eliminated up to 16,400 Ukrainian servicemen and 127 tanks in military operations in the border areas of the Kursk Region, the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Monday.

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In total, during the fighting in the Kursk area, the Ukrainian armed forces lost up to 16,400 servicemen, 127 tanks, 60 infantry fighting vehicles, 95 armored personnel carriers, 797 armored combat vehicles, 497 cars, the MoD said in a statement.

On Sunday, Kiev lost more than 340 soldiers in battles in the Kursk Region, the ministry added.


Russian troops repelled counterattacks in two directions of the Kursk Region, during which the Ukrainian forces lost up to 25 fighters, the ministry also noted.

The Russian armed forces also repelled two attempts by Ukrainian troops to break through the Russian border in the Kursk region, eliminating up to 30 Ukrainian troops and a tank.

https://orinocotribune.com/russian-mini ... ursk-area/

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SITREP 9/24/24: PR Tour Sours as Ukraine's Lackluster 'Victory Plan' Met with Doubts

Simplicius
Sep 24, 2024

<snip>

On the Ukraine front, Zelensky has begun his grand tour by speaking at the UN and presenting his long-awaited [war is] peace plan. Unfortunately, it fell on dubious ears as allies emerged quite skeptical and underwhelmed:

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1 ... x1280.jpeg[/img]

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It didn’t help that his messaging was totally confused, with Zelensky repeatedly calling for more “war” in order to create “peace”, as per usual NATO doublespeak: (Video at link.)

His grand “peace plan” was described by allies as merely a “wishlist”, with nothing ground-breaking presented. That’s not to mention the wishes themselves are all unrealistic.

Increasingly, Zelensky appears convinced the end is near for him. Almost everything out of his mouth has switched gears to the war coming to an end.

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Zelensky gave an interview to ABC News in which he stated that the war with Russia is "closer to the end" than many believe. "I think we're closer to peace than we think. We're closer to the end of war. We just have to be very strong, very strong." - said Zelensky and called on the allies to strengthen the Ukrainian army.

The front is going catastrophically, with major Russian advances continuing day by day. Ugledar is now close to falling and the latest ‘rumor’ is that Zelensky has instructed his commanders to postpone its capture by Russians at any cost at least until the end of the UN dog-and-pony show. Zelensky merely requires that he not be ‘humiliated’ with the fall of such a key city during his big public PR tour, as it would lend itself toward deflating any last remaining hopes for the AFU’s prospects.

Unfortunately, that postponement is costing lives, with terrible reports streaming out of the embattled and besieged city.

From pro-UA commentators:

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At present, Ugledar looks like this, and Russian forces have now entered the city proper from the eastern dachas side:

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It appears it’s mere hours from falling, with reports of mass surrenders already happening as shown above—but we’ll see. Big Ukrainian sources believe the AFU may soon pull out from several large, key city-centers, which would be a devastating moral blow:

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The problem is, the lines are buckling everywhere, including the north:

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Ukrainian reserve officer and analyst Tatarigami is despondent:

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A Ukrainian unit even wrote an urgent public appeal:

The Ukrainian 23rd battalion has apparently written a public letter calling for the removal of their commander.

It goes as follows:

Open letter

military personnel of the 23rd OSB to the battalion commander:

Commander, we express our disbelief and demand your resignation. You are not worthy of the position of our battalion commander for the following reasons:

1. During your one-year tenure as a battalion commander, you have not personally been to any combat position or place of residence of the personnel of the battalion entrusted to you. Your deputies have never been interested in this either.

2. you have been ignoring numerous reports from deputy company commanders about the unsatisfactory moral and psychological state of the rifle company soldiers for 8 months. The first of these reports was submitted back in January 2024.

3. despite the reports of the deputy commanders of rifle companies about the unsatisfactory moral and psychological state of the personnel in August and ignoring the messages in the signal of the deputy commander of the 2nd company (that the creation of the joint venture koren-8 makes no sense

and can only lead to unjustified losses), you planned and gave the order to conduct offensive operations on September 5, 2024. As a result of your disregard for the officers ' opinions

due to poor planning of the combat operation, the battalion suffered significant losses among its best fighters and almost lost its combat capability.

4. you ignored the reports of the rifle company commanders on September 16 that the personnel were unable to continue performing combat tasks and needed long-term recovery, and issued an order to move to new combat positions.

5. you conveyed threats to the personnel through the company commanders that if they continue to insist on withdrawal for restoration, the battalion will be disbanded, and soldiers, sergeants and officers will be dispersed to various units.

6. during the 4 days of our stay in the rear villages of the Kharkiv region, you did not come to any location of the personnel for personal communication and studying the mood among your subordinates.

7. you require completely exhausted physically and mentally fighters to continue performing combat tasks. This can lead to unnecessary losses caused by fatigue.

8. putting exhausted soldiers on combat duty, you risk losing not only people, but also the positions themselves, which in turn can affect the defense capability of the entire front in a certain area.

Based on all this, we express our distrust to you and demand your resignation from the post of commander of the 23rd separate rifle battalion.

Our volunteer battalion deserves a better commander in spirit and in fact of creation.

September 24, 2024

As of today, 89 servicemen have agreed to sign this open letter, both those who are now in the battalion and those who transferred to other units or were written off from the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2024.




A new WaPo article again confirms what we’ve been writing for weeks—read very carefully:

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Now Zelensky has announced that Russia plans to target the last three remaining Ukrainian nuclear plants this winter at the UN, not holding back from implicating China for good measure—that’s what good will’s for, after all!

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Having just sent up its latest Kondor-FKA advanced spy satellite last week, Russia apparently still needs ‘Chinese satellites’ for the gig.

In light of this, Zelensky met with a host of “corporate executives” and USAID’s Samantha Powers to bolt together some kind of Ukrainian ‘survival’ plan for this coming winter.

In New York, I met with executives from leading U.S. energy, finance, and insurance companies, as well as U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator SamanthaJPower and U.S. DepSecStateMR Richard Verma. The primary focus was on preparing Ukraine's energy system for the winter. We discussed our plans in detail, as well as the possibility of implementing joint projects in the energy sector.

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Advisor to the Ukrainian Energy Minister Lana Zerkal said that Zelenskyj's statements about rapidly increasing Ukraine's energy capacity 'have nothing to do with reality

This brings to fore the big question of what exactly will be the game plan for the Ukraine narrative the next few months, now that it’s pretty much a done deal that Zelensky’s big “peace plan” tour will be another huge disappointing failure, like all those vaunted NATO summits before it.

The Ukrainian state and its military runs on the fumes of scheduled morale-boosting spectacles which are ever on the horizon and seem to always promise some big game-changing policy “soon to come”. But now that the current one will end a failure, and Ukraine faces a disastrous winter with disastrous current ongoing developments, it’s hard to imagine what new gimmick they’ll use to sell the public on the war’s continuation over the next few months.

We can only assume the big “long range strikes” gag will be drawn out a little more, to buy Ukraine another month or two of false hope, but then what?

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According to the above, Zelensky was hoping to create a kind of peer pressure campaign to merely browbeat Russia into acceding to talks. But both Lavrov and Peskov again released new statements reaffirming that Russia has nothing to talk about with Ukraine, and that all Russia’s goals will be achieved in the SMO.

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What he’s saying is, either Ukraine surrenders and accedes to Russia’s demands, or whether Russia takes those demands by continued military force, either way the objectives will be met.

The only thing one can think of is Ukraine attempting more big PR hits, like taking down the Kerch Bridge to tide the morale over for the next few months.

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Legitimny channel reports the following about Ukraine’s potential use of long-range NATO missiles in Russia:

Our source reports that the West is aware that if they give Ukraine permission to strike deep into Russian territory with Western long-range missiles, the Kremlin will launch a series of strikes using tactical nuclear weapons on western Ukraine (targeting training grounds, bridges, tunnels, airfields, industrial facilities, and energy and gas infrastructure). This will increase the flow of refugees from Ukraine to Europe. This will have enormous problems for both the West and Ukraine. The world will be one step away from World War III, provoked by the actions of Western politicians. Many will see their ratings plummet. A large-scale crisis will begin. This is why the West is now reconsidering whether it's worth taking such a risk.

Food for thought.

Meanwhile, controversial Rada MP Mariana Bezuglaya says Russia plans five major ‘bridgeheads’ for this fall, including Zaporozhye city, Dnipro, Kharkov, Kherson, and Sumy:

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(Much more at link.)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sit ... s-ukraines

******

Oliver Boyd-Barrett: Ammo Depot Explosions and Failed Sarmat Launches
September 24, 2024
By Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Substack, 9/22/24

I havent seen anything very substantial since my morning post on “Ukrainian” attacks on Russian ammunition depots, other than Dima’s midday report (California time of Sunday, September 22). There may now have been four such attacks in recent days. While the sites were big, and the damage apparently extensive, there are thousands of ammunition depots throughout Russia.

Dima continues to confirm that these attacks have involved cruise missiles which, if true, of course implicates NATO, providing evidence of direct NATO involvement. Since there has been no official Washington permission for this, it is hardly surprising that Washington is not saying anything, and I suspect that Russia at this time is too embarrassed or uncertain as to how it wants to proceed to make any formal pronouncement either. Dima implies that Russia is waiting for Washington to “officially” give the green light for the use of such weapons before Russia responds, but I think this is absurd unless Russia simply wants an excuse not to have to respond to this escalation right away.

Of course it is still theoretically possible that Ukraine has all of a sudden come up with some miracle drone that does as much damage as a cruise missile, just at the very same moment as Washington has appeared to go quiet on the subject of allowing the use of Western long-range missiles on targets deep in Russia.

Perhaps things will be clearer once Zelenskiy arrives in New York, which I believe he will have done by tomorrow, September 23.

Of course, attacks on Russian ammo depots is not a new phenemonon in this war. They have been ongoing. What is surprising right now is the size of the depots involved, their long distance from the front lines, and the scale of the damage that they have inflicted. Up until now attacks on ammo depots have seemed of relatively slighmt significance, and it was not unreasonable to attribute the damage that was caused to drones, except for some attacks by cruise missiles on depots in Crimea. Up until now use of Western long-range missiles on targets in Crimea has been considered “permissible,” given that for the West and for Ukraine, Crimea has been considered Ukrainian territory illegally seized by Russia in 2014 but which Russia says asked to join the Russian Federation for protection against the illegal, anti-Russian Kiev regime that came to power following the US-instigated, violent and unrepresentative coup that year in Kiev.

Dima also appears to be the only source I have seen today who is reporting the failure of a Russian test of its R5-28 “Sarmat” nuclear-capable missile, following the recent Russian confirmation that it was re-initiating such tests. The rocket exploded in or before take-off from a mine, destroying the test site, leaving a huge crater. The most recent comparable test took place on April 20, 2022. There have been four failed tests of the Sarmat to date, at least, according to Dima, and one success.

The Sarmat is nuclear capable, but can also carry Avantgard warheads. These are not nuclear but their explosive force is equivalent to 18 tons of TNT. By comparison, the hypersonic Kinzhal missile, when it is not fitted with a nuclear warhead, can carry a non-nuclear warhead with the impact equivalent to just one ton of TNT. That, at least, is as much as I could understand of Dima’s report today.

Dima suggests that Russia’s response to Western use of long-range missiles on Russian targets will take the form of the use of Avantgards but he does not explain how Russia intends to do this if Avantgards can only be deployed from Sarmat launchers that have only a one in five success rate. Once again, I shall be looking out for more reliable data on this matter.

In Kursk, which is of considerable importance to Western and Ukrainian narratives of the war’s progress, Russia continues to push back on previous Ukrainian successes south east of Snagost, and some of the fiercest clashes are in the forested areas close to Lyubimovka (recently recovered by Russia, according to some reports) and Tolstyi Lug. Further to the east, there are still fierce clashes in the highly contested area of Martynovka. Ukraine’s cross-border raid on Veseloye, well to the west, appears to have been repelled, but there are continuing clashes to the north near Glushkovo.

Otherwise, Dima’s most recent reports are of Russian advances in Zapporizhzhia in the territory north of the Russian-held settlements of Preschystivka and Pavlivka, from which Russian forces have been establishing a semi-encirclement of Vuhledar, while to the east Russian forces are moving from their recent acquisition of Vodiane towards Bohoiavlenka to the northwest, completing another part of the circle around Vuhledar. Bohoiavlenka would be the natural destination, otherwise, of Ukrainian forces abandoning Vuhledar.

Further north, west of Marinka and Krasnohorivka – both now under Russian control – Russian forces are moving from Hostre towards Ostrivske and the Kurakhove reservoir. They will soon likely take Maksymilianivka on this route. Moving up towards Pokrovsk, Russia is recovering positions in the south and southeast of Selydove, and appear to have taken the coalmine and Ukrainian stronghold in that area. Russia has control over most of Novohrodivka, as well as over Mykolaivka and Krasnyi Yar to the north. Further north still, Russian forces are moving from Niu-York, which they have recently taken, towards Leonidivka, and they control 70% of the Toretsk agglomeration.

Russia continues to consolidate control over all territory east of the Kanal, north and south of Chasiv Yar. Otherwise, the main recent developments have been in Kupyansk where Russian forces gradually edge towards to the Oskil river in a number of different locations, with a view to dividing up the oblast into three sections.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/09/oli ... -launches/

*****

Reasons for a nuclear response
September 25, 21:03

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1. Reliable information about the launch of air and space attack weapons towards the Russian Federation will entail a nuclear response.
2. The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Belarus
3. A critical threat to the sovereignty of the Russian Federation and conventional weapons will be the basis for a nuclear response
4. Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression, including if the enemy, using conventional weapons, creates a critical threat

(c) Putin.

Accordingly, any mass launches of long-range missiles at the Russian Federation or an attack on Belarus will lead to a nuclear war.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9404160.html

Cling to Ugledar
September 25, 17:13

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The Russian Armed Forces were able to gain a foothold on multi-story buildings in the eastern part of Ugledar. This will accelerate the collapse of the city's defense. The enemy's defense in the city largely relied on preventing the Russian Armed Forces from gaining a foothold on multi-story buildings. The unsuccessful 2023 offensive on Ugledar ended in the fields southwest of Ugledar and in Ugledar dachas. This time, everything is different. It would hardly have been possible so soon without the enemy's offensive in the Kursk region.

Online broadcast of military operations in Ukraine as usual in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin (if interested, subscribe)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9403862.html

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

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

Post by blindpig » Mon Oct 07, 2024 11:40 am

I'm back, after 8 days with no electricity. It was cope-able but got old. The cleanup is tedious.

*****

You too, Switzerland?
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 07/10/2024

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The summit in Switzerland was supposed to be a demonstration of global unity in support of Ukraine and its way of bringing the war to an end, and last week it was supposed to consolidate the Victory Plan that Zelensky intends to impose as the only possible solution so that it becomes the basis for a future second edition that would be much more decisive. The Ukrainian president's entourage has even suggested that Ukraine was already working to organize such a forum, something that was quickly denied by the Government of Switzerland, the country that hosted the first meeting and where it was expected that they would be repeated in the future. Beyond the document that Zelensky has presented to Joe Biden and the two people who aspire to replace him, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the real plan of the Ukrainian presidency is, as his statements make clear, to obtain sufficient political, diplomatic, economic and military support to force Russia to accept the conditions proposed by Kiev as a resolution to the conflict. Despite the rumours and numerous editorials, such as that in El País , announcing that “Ukraine is preparing for negotiations”, the President’s Office is determined to negotiate only with its allies.

The dynamics have long been clear and none of the countries that participated in the summit in Switzerland can be surprised. Although the lack of consensus forced Andriy Ermak to significantly lower expectations and the topics that could be included in the agenda so that there would be no dissenting opinions, the outcome of the meeting was disappointing for kyiv. Ukraine got a family photo in which it made a show of strength thanks to the presence of heads of state and government of Western countries, but it did not get the support of the Global South that it aspired to. Zelensky even had to endure repeated comments from the different delegations about the need to invite the other side of the war, without which it is impossible to talk about diplomacy. This position was also shared by the host country, Switzerland, which recently denied that it is working on preparing a next summit.

The week in New York has not produced the expected results for Ukraine either. In his speeches at the Security Council and the General Assembly, Zelensky has denounced a Russian plan – possibly imaginary – to bomb three Ukrainian nuclear power plants, and the Russian invasion was compared by the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, to the slavery suffered by his ancestors. In the first case, it was not mentioned that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that had bombed a nuclear power plant. In the second, it was said that the culprit of the human trafficking that condemned the minister's ancestors to exploitation was the British Empire. However, both arguments have been accepted by the entire Western bloc, which has also stressed the damage caused by the war and the attacks against the civilian population while avoiding condemning Israel's actions in Gaza and Lebanon. But despite the obvious support that kyiv has received at the UN, Zelensky has not yet achieved his goals, not least because he has not yet succeeded in getting the United States to lift restrictions on the use of Western missiles on Russian territory.

Ukraine’s main setback has come from the Global South, which kyiv is still trying to attract to its position. In an interview with a Brazilian media outlet, Zelensky had criticised Brazil and China’s plan for resolving the Russo-Ukrainian war days before the start of the General Assembly. Until now, the main argument, at least publicly, had been to describe as “vague” the six-point plan that the two countries have promoted and that does not propose a concrete end or define what the borders should be, but rather advocates mutual de-escalation, renounces the use of weapons of mass destruction and proposes a negotiation at a summit accepted by both countries. “Russia and Ukraine are neighbours and cannot move their countries away from each other and concord is the only realistic option,” said the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, referring to a plan that, despite not imposing anything on kyiv, has caused Ukraine’s anger.

“China and Brazil pressed ahead on Friday with their effort to rally developing countries around a plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s rejection of the initiative as favourable to Moscow’s interests. Zelensky criticised China and Brazil in his speech to the UN, saying forcing Ukraine to accept a peace deal was akin to colonialism. Seventeen countries attended a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly chaired by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Brazilian foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim,” Reuters wrote of the unveiling of the plan, which came despite Ukraine’s anger and calls for it to be cancelled by the sponsoring countries.

The Ukrainian reaction was expected and reflects the plans and intentions of Zelensky’s entourage. The statement by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, referring to participation in the negotiations, said that “there is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” Unlike Ukraine, which has specifically excluded Russia from meetings that it believes are working towards peace, the Chinese-Brazilian plan excludes no one, including Ukraine. Apparently, inviting Russia is equivalent to excluding Ukraine from the negotiations. Any initiative “that does not comply with the UN Charter,” that is, that does not start from the idea that the only possible resolution is the recovery of all lost territories, including Crimea and Donbass, lost before the Russian invasion, “only creates the illusion of dialogue, while the aggressor continues its criminal activities.” The only negotiation that Ukraine considers real is one in which the participants strictly adhere to its demands and in which it does not have to put up with the presence of the other side of the war. This was the case during the Minsk talks, which is why Ukraine preferred the Normandy format, and the same is true now.

The model for negotiations is, according to Kiev, that of the summit in Switzerland, where Ukraine negotiated with itself and which was criticised even by the country that organised it. To the chagrin of Zelensky’s government, the Swiss president’s criticism of Russia’s exclusion was not an isolated case. Switzerland not only attended the event organised by China and Brazil, but was also in favour of it. “Switzerland supports the principles of the China-Brazil initiative because it advocates a ceasefire and a political solution to the conflict,” Nicolas Bideau, spokesman for the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Friday,” wrote swissinfo.ch at the weekend .

“We do not see the logic of this decision, especially considering that we held the First World Peace Summit with Switzerland on June 15-16 in Burgenstock, which was attended by representatives of 100 countries and international organizations,” said Ukraine, which had appealed to countries not to participate in the event in Brazil and China, referring to Switzerland’s participation. Diplomacy is only defending Ukraine’s position, negotiation is doing so without inviting the other party, and neutrality is limiting oneself to attending summits and events previously approved by kyiv.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/10/07/tu-tambien-suiza/

The morale of the troops
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 06/10/2024

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“We are preparing for the 25th Ramstein meeting on October 12, which will be the first to take place at the leadership level,” Volodymyr Zelensky wrote yesterday, stressing the importance of the summit to be held next week in Germany, from where Ukraine’s allies coordinate military supplies for the common proxy war. The high profile of next week’s participation is important for the Ukrainian president, who has been working for months on the strategy to achieve his military, political and economic goals of the war. “We will present the Victory Plan – clear and concrete steps for a fair end to the war,” Zelensky added, again repeating the three most important concepts of this strategy: victory, justice and steps. As has become clear from the information published in the media, and as could be deduced from the Ukrainian modus operandi and the precedents of this war, the Ukrainian leader's plan seeks neither justice nor an end to the war, but is a recipe for an even tougher war to achieve each and every one of Kiev's demands since the war broke out, not in 2022, but in 2014.

In this war full of euphemisms - from anti-terrorist operations to special military operations - justice means objectives achieved and peace is simply victory for Ukraine. Hence, Zelensky's Victory Plan entails the steps to be taken to achieve that complete victory. Ukraine's dependence on its foreign allies and suppliers means that these clear and concrete steps are not only a roadmap for Kiev, but fundamentally for the countries that have supported the Ukrainian state and its armed forces since 2022. This is how we must understand the importance that Zelensky attaches to the next Ramstein meeting, which will not only be the first in which the heads of state or government participate, but will take place once the United States has been able to analyze the proposal that the Ukrainian president gave to Joe Biden.

According to statements by various Ukrainian officials, the plan that Zelensky presented to his main supplier, the United States – on which, among other things, kyiv's permission to use Western missiles against mainland Russian territory depends – includes both kyiv's objectives and its needs. In other words, it is also a list of the material that the different countries must deliver and the steps they must take to support Ukraine in the development of this common war. At a time when Zelensky and his circle only want to talk about the situation at the front to blame the Western countries for their refusal to lift restrictions on the use of weapons, the next meeting is key for kyiv to try to impose its position over the reluctance of some of the most decisive countries, namely the United States and Germany. Despite the self-confidence in Ukraine's ability to achieve its objectives and the willingness of its partners to supply everything that kyiv demands that Zelensky has shown in the last two and a half years, the difficulties are evident.

“Allies begin a new phase of pressure on Ukraine to negotiate the end of the war,” was the headline in El País yesterday, an example of the many articles that, with different nuances, agree in presenting the NATO option for territories as a temporary solution to the war. As far as communication is concerned, Ukraine continues to be able to impose its discourse, based fundamentally on exaggerating Russian weaknesses and Ukrainian strengths - especially in terms of casualties and material losses -, describing the war as existential and highlighting the ease with which Ukraine would defeat Russia if it obtained the military material it demands from its partners. However, promises tend not to become reality, which undermines the credibility of Zelensky and his proposals. “US officials were not impressed by Zelensky ’s victory plan , which includes demands for massive amounts of Western weaponry,” writes the Financial Times this week , which simply confirms something that was completely predictable. The “peace through strength” advocated by the Ukrainian president is simply war, an option that does not seem to be as convincing as it was in 2022.

In this case, Ukraine is not content to act as a proxy army for the West in a common conflict against the Russian Federation, but is publicly asking its allies to shoot down Russian missiles that threaten its infrastructure from their territory. kyiv chose to launch a military offensive that made any ceasefire negotiations impossible, rather than continuing the indirect dialogue with which several mediating countries intended to get Russia and Ukraine to agree not to attack electricity production infrastructure. Having rejected diplomacy, kyiv prefers the option of having its NATO partners prevent these bombings by participating directly in the war, something that, at this time, does not seem likely. Comfortable with the proxy war, Ukraine's allies do not seem to have any great desire to confront a nuclear power.

Asked about the possibility of the United States and its allies acting directly in defence of Ukraine, as they have done on two occasions when it has shot down Iranian missiles on Israeli military targets, the Pentagon's deputy press secretary stated that "we are talking about two very different landscapes and battlefields," and after highlighting the material delivered to Ukraine and the success in its use, she added that "the president has committed that the United States will not put boots on the ground in Ukraine, but we are supporting Ukraine in its efforts to recover its sovereign territory." In response to the press's insistence on an assessment of the possibility that other allied countries, such as Poland, could shoot down Russian missiles from their territory, Sabina Singh insisted that "that would involve us in a war in a different way."

“The determination of our partners and the strength of Ukraine are what can stop Russian aggression,” Volodymyr Zelensky wrote yesterday. His allies supply the weapons and Ukraine fights on the front, this is the essence of proxy warfare, sustainable only if both aspects are balanced. Maintaining high morale and motivation of all of them thus becomes an obligation that the Ukrainian president has understood perfectly. He referred to this during his visit to the 82nd brigade on the Sumi-Kursk border, one of the formations that were destined to assault Melitopol during the failed offensive of 2023. While waiting to see if a new offensive attempt can take place, the current situation in the region is not particularly promising for Ukraine, which is losing some of the ground gained, has been weakened on the main front in Donbass and has not achieved a significant enough success to make Russia nervous. However, the Ukrainian president made the objective of the operation clear yesterday: “It is crucial to understand that the Kursk operation is something strategic, something that adds motivation to our partners, motivation to be with Ukraine, to be more decisive and to put pressure on Russia.” Every action by Ukraine is in fact a request for more military equipment to continue fighting. The priorities are clear. In war, the state has to work to maintain high morale of the troops, in this case, of the troops that periodically gather in Ramstein.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/10/06/la-moral-de-la-tropa/

Google Translator

*****

FRom Cassad's telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation (as of October 6, 2024) Main:

The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the zone of the "Center" force group amounted to 460 soldiers per day;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 530 soldiers and four ammunition depots per day in the zone of the "South" force group;

- The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces per day exceeded 120 servicemen as a result of the actions of the "East" force group;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 50 soldiers per day in the Liptsov and Vovchansk directions;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 400 soldiers per day in the area of ​​responsibility of the "West" force group;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 60 soldiers per day in the area of ​​responsibility of the "Dnepr" force group;

- Russian air defence forces shot down 3 HIMARS projectiles and 68 drones per day.

▫️ Units of the Center group of forces continued to advance deep into the enemy's defenses. They inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of the 24th, 150th, 151st mechanized, 95th airborne assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 109th, 117th territorial defense brigades, the 14th and 15th National Guard brigades in the areas of the settlements of Aleksandro-Kalinovo, Nelepovka, Druzhba, Novoolenovka, Novoekonomicheskoe, Dzerzhinsk, Tsukurino and Selidovo of the Donetsk People's Republic.

They repelled nine counterattacks by assault groups of the 42nd, 100th mechanized, 59th motorized infantry, 68th ranger, 55th assault, 25th airborne brigades, the 49th and 429th assault battalions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The enemy lost up to 460 servicemen, two pickup trucks, a 152-mm Msta-B howitzer and a 122-mm D-30 howitzer .

▫️ Units of the "East" group of forces occupied more advantageous positions and defeated the manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized, 58th Motorized Infantry Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the 21st National Guard Brigade and the 48th Assault Battalion of the Territorial Defense in the areas of the settlements of Dobrovolye, Velyka Novosilka, Oktiabr, Zolotaya Niva of the Donetsk People's Republic and Temirovka of the Zaporizhia region.

Two counterattacks by units of the 110th, 116th and 118th Territorial Defense Brigades were repelled. The enemy's losses amounted to over 120 servicemen, nine vehicles, a 155-mm howitzer M198 made in the USA and a 155-mm howitzer FH-70 made in the UK.

▫️ Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on formations of the 65th mechanized, 128th mountain assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 35th, 37th marine brigades, the 108th and 126th territorial defense brigades in the areas of the settlements of Mala Tokmachka, Novoyakovlevka, Zherebyanka in the Zaporizhia region, Lvovo and Tokarevka in the Kherson region.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 60 servicemen, five vehicles and a 122-mm self-propelled artillery unit "Gvozdika" . A counter-battery radar station was destroyed .

▫️ Operational-tactical aviation, strike unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups have damaged a fuel base in the Odessa region, the infrastructure of the Starokostiantyniv airfield in the Khmelnytsky region, as well as control points for unmanned aerial vehicles, concentrations of enemy manpower and military equipment in 137 districts.

▫️ Air defense systems shot down three US-made HIMARS rockets and 68 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

SITREP 10/5/24: Post-Ugledar Landscape Unfurls into Dark Ukrainian Future
Oct 05, 2024
We turn back to Ukraine, where the deterioration continues to accelerate.

As the key fortress-town of Ugledar fell days ago, a number of MSM articles began to highlight a truly grisly picture of the situation behind the scenes. The first horrors were recorded from the 123rd Brigade, a commander of which reportedly committed suicide by shooting himself after hundreds of his troops mutinied.

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About a hundred Ukrainian Troops from the 187th Battalion of the 123rd Brigade refused to carry out a combat mission and left the military unit in Donbass, Ukrainian media write.

They came out to a rally in Voznesensk, Nikolaev Oblast, to declare insufficient training and a lack of weapons to participate in combat operations.

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The above photo purports to show the mutinying troops who abandoned their positions and withdrew to Nikolayev in the rear to complain or perhaps confront their higher ups.

The most harrowing were from Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade, which was the chief garrison at Ugledar. This brigade was almost entirely annihilated, and the stories coming out directly from its troops are shocking.

This article covers it in most detail:

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https://www.slidstvo.info/english-stori ... -vuhledar/

One of the soldiers describes the losses:

Viktor tells us how many men he has left in the battalion. Out of 350 people, there are up to 30 people left for one platoon. This includes mechanics, drivers, and recently infantrymen who held the front line — a 2-3 kilometre strip — and there were 14-18 people in the unit.

In this thread a prominent Kiev commentator says the 72nd was being annihilated on retreat.

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The story was echoed by other sources: since the retreat order was given so late—and in fact, according to some it wasn’t even given at all and the brigade merely began to abandon its positions on its own—the men were forced to retreat through a tiny, narrow corridor which was already entirely under Russian fire control. The 72nd was subjected to massive firebombing as they retreated in the open, as this sample video shows: (Video at link.)

There are numerous videos of totally liquidated corpses from TOS-1 thermobaric strikes in this corridor.

That’s not to mention that the AFU units said Russia continued to ‘remote mine’ all the rear roads via units like the ‘Agriculture’ remote mining MLRS, which added to the carnage. They point to Russia’s tactic in infiltrating Ugledar being the “isolation” of Ukrainian units in sectors via such mining, then taking out one unit and sector at a time, all while a pincer of Russian forces from both east and west entered the city.

Of course, it didn’t help that Russia uses massive ODAB thermobaric bombs like this one to incinerate everyone in a wide vicinity: (Video at link.)

From another Ukrainian source:

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"Of the 50 recruits sent to strengthen the defense of Ugledar, only four got into position, but they also deserted during the first rotation," — Ukrainian Armed Forces militant Boyko

Information about the last reinforcement of the 72nd brigade personnel before the surrender of Ugledar. 50 recruits arrived to the brigade, mostly aged 52-56. 30 of them were immediately sent to rear units and hospitals, since they were not fit for service on the front lines due to health reasons (because the TCK was fulfilling the conscription plan and mobilizing the sick). Of the remaining 20, 16 servicemen deserted on the second day. Thus, 4 were sent to positions out of a reinforcement of 50 people, after the first rotation these four also deserted," writes journalist Boyko.

He calls the loss of the city a "local collapse of the front," and writes that a similar situation with the replenishment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is observed along the entire line of conflict.

"It will only get worse. Until March 2024, it was still possible to fix the situation, but today the collapse of the army has reached such a scale that no measures will help - there are simply no people at the front. There are not and will not be. Since the "busified" soldiers are not going to die for the rotten corrupt regime, and the means of coercion - that is, military justice - were eliminated by the 95th quarter back in 2019," writes Boyko.
RVvoenkor


<snip>

But getting back to the “tactics” employed for a moment. This has come into closer scrutiny of late in the MSM, as Russia has accelerated its devastating gains.


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https://archive.is/QXLoe

The key point from the article above:

Soldiers from several units along the front have described improved Russian tactics this summer that combine their advantages into powerful attacks that Ukrainians have struggled to counteract, even as they achieve local victories.

They cite the usual: small Russian units embedding themselves discreetly which makes it difficult for Ukraine’s drones, artillery, etc., to hit these small, fast-moving fire teams. But another major admission is that Russian battlefield communications have reportedly seen vast improvements.

WaPo laments that this has resulted in large-scale territorial losses which are starting to mount up:

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The above are advances in just the past few months.

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As a counterbalancing cope, the article continues to cite ‘heavy’ Russian losses without any proof. In Ugledar in particular, this has become the last remaining reconciliation for the Ukrainian side: “Well, at least they suffered heavy losses to take the city.” But in practice, all available evidence points to the opposite.

It’s the Ukrainian side openly admitting to unfathomable losses, as in the case of the 72nd where entire battalions were reduced to a dozen men. In Russia’s case, recall how they said untold thousands were lost in the first Ugledar assaults in February 2023. Yet I have shown before that MediaZona’s own numbers debunk this. The site allows you to search specifically for Marines, which was the attacking force back then, and further filter the losses by month. Just to be generous, I put October 2022 to March 2023, though the infamous attacks where “major losses” of Russia’s Marine columns were seen occurred in February. But for that entire period of nearly six months, they only count 215 casualties:

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That roughs out to nearly a single KIA per day on average. Even if you quadruple these numbers under some presumption it doesn’t represent all casualties there, it’s still tiny. Thus we can confidently say the present Ugledar liberation likely reflected these same casualty disparities—with AFU taking the heavy lion’s share of losses.

The Russian Armed Forces are advancing in Ukraine at an "unprecedented pace"

This is stated in an article by The Washington Post. They calculated that in August and September, about 820 square kilometers came under Russian control.

The newspaper's experts suggested that this is facilitated by improved Russian tactics, improved communications for coordination, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces' attack on the Kursk region.


Ultimately though, all the new ‘tactics’ is not what primarily contributed to the fall of Ugledar. The main responsible element was more holistic in nature:

1. The greater overall attrition of the AFU—less men, less arms and firepower, more tired and worn out men, etc. That’s not to mention many men from the region being pulled to help reinforce other even more critical zones like Pokrovsk, Kursk, etc.

2. Probably the most important: Ugledar was increasingly cut off by the much larger advancements Russia made to its direct north. The capture of Konstantinovka, Vodiane, etc., in the previous months led to a mountingly untenable position for Ugledar as its main supply routes fell under various forms of fire control.

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Compare the above to a map of the region from February 2023 and note how the main road above has been completely cut:

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2/2/23

This led to the progressive isolation of Ugledar as a fortress which slowly wore down the defenders there, depriving them of timely rotations, resupply, etc. In short, it was much more a slow constrictor-like envelopment and strangulation of the fortress-town, rather than one late miraculous strategic flourish of some kind.

One expert analysis of what the capture represents:

The significance of taking the powerful fortified area of ​​Ugledar is operational, if not operational-strategic.

The fact is that this "balcony" was located at the junction of the Zaporizhzhya and Donetsk fronts and posed a constant threat to the group covering the approaches to Mariupol. Moreover, this salient did not allow the use of a powerful two-track road to Mariupol, which was in the immediate rear of our troops. It was only 15-16 km from the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. That is why RF tried to take Ugledar many times, starting with the major offensive of January-February 2023, which then ended in failure.

For the railway connection with Mariupol, a more distant lateral line was built from the Donbas agglomeration via Kuteynikovo-Kichiksa (judging by satellite photos, it is still unfinished). The danger of the "balcony" was clearly high, and therefore the so-called "tsar-train" 32 km long was placed on the Volnovakha section of the railway, which additionally covered this threatened direction. Now, finally, there is an opportunity to unblock the line and use it for its intended purpose, after moving the front away from Ugledar.


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A powerful lateral line = strengthening the stability of the front and confident communication with Mariupol.

The map shows the front line on 7.4.2024, it clearly shows how dangerous the Ugledar balcony was operationally. The second map shows how this ledge prevented the use of the powerful Soviet double-track.


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1 - approximate line of contact of the "Ugledar balcony" in the stage of its holding by the Armed Forces of Ukraine

2 - Yasinovatsko-Donetsk railway gap east of Avdevka (still not restored)

3 - Placement of the Tsar-train on the Volnovakha section

4 - Construction of a straightening through Kuteynikovo - Kichiksu (partially completed)

#inf


For those who don’t know, the ‘Tsar Train’ referenced above was a massive 32km line of train carts—hundreds, if not thousands of them—which Russia positioned along the section of track shown in the map as a giant fortress wall and bulwark against potential Ukrainian invasion. Now this entire railway line can potentially be unblocked, opening a direct new communication/logistics route from the Donetsk region to Mariupol.

But furthermore, Ugledar itself now presents a fortress with great overwatch over the entire Kurakhove basin to the north. Quoting former-72nd Brigade member Igor Lutsenko, the previous Kiev-based analyst states:

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What he means is that, it has been reported very few if any fortifications were made in the rear of Ugledar and the retreating 72nd was forced to hastily dig in in the open, while Russia now has overwatch over the whole region via the tall apartment blocks Ugledar affords:

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What are the further strategic ramifications for this? They were spelled out by none other than Arestovich in his latest interview: (Video at link.)

A summary:

🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 The Ukrainian front may collapse in three to four months, according to former Ukrainian presidential office advisor Oleksiy Arestovych.

"In two to three months, well, three to four, the front, which is currently crumbling in two directions, and slowly retreating in three, will begin to crumble in six or seven. This flow will become uncontrollable. This means a collapse of the front," he said.

He stated that in this case, the Russian army will shift the war to maneuver warfare, leading to "the collapse of the front as such."

"When all these 700,000 with automatic weapons and artillery cannot hold the front line, the enemy will start to rapidly advance inward, cutting off Kharkov and reaching Poltava, Dnepr, and Zaporozhye. This will lead to the loss of key industrial centers of Ukraine," the former presidential office advisor noted.

Arestovych identified the main reason for what is happening as the lack of a reserve of motivated infantry.

"No drones can help reach the borders of any year if infantry soldiers do not walk this path under enemy fire... The training system has failed, there is a lack of basic motivation in the troops, but there is an understanding that the declared goal of the war – reaching the borders of 1991 – is unrealistic under these specific circumstances," he explained.

"Moreover, motivation is lacking due to internal politics, where every day new proposals are put forward by the powerful to limit citizens' rights: from cultural and language bans to economic restrictions. Almost every day, new corruption scandals emerge, and the chaos in the management of the army and the state intensifies," added the former presidential office advisor.

Arestovych believes that "now the only way out is to sober up, stop the war, and begin a complete reorganization of the state system."


In short, he says the collapse will accelerate in 3-4 months. Russia will for the first time be able to utilize full-on maneuver warfare to get into Ukraine’s “rear” areas, particularly with special ops forces, and all hell will break loose at that point. Essentially, he predicts the collapse of the AFU.

He states the two or three breakthrough areas will turn into six or seven, snowballing more and more. Right now there’s Ugledar, Pokrovsk, and Toretsk directions. But it is true that signs of instability are growing for the AFU in several other directions, particularly in the Kupyansk-Seversk axis, where Russia has made steady gains recently. There’s also been signs of upcoming pick-ups in movement in Zaporozhye.

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Thus, I can definitely see his words ringing true as in several months all of those directions will face severe pressure and what just happened to the 72nd Brigade will begin to be faced by many others along the contact line.

Arestovich concludes that this avalanche will lead to the loss of all Ukrainian industrial centers east of the Dnieper, including Poltava, Zaporozhye, Kharkov, etc.

(Much more at link.)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sit ... -landscape

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Poland’s “Ukrainian Legion” Flopped

Andrew Korybko
Oct 05, 2024

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The only way that it could have worked was if Poland rounded up draft-aged Ukrainians.

Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz admitted last week that the “Ukrainian Legion” that his country promised to form last summer after these two neighboring countries clinched their security pact has flopped. In his words, “The [initial] Ukrainian declarations were very high [and indicated] that there would be [enough volunteers] to form a brigade, that is a few thousand people. But there are not that many willing people.” He also blamed Ukraine for not launching its recruitment campaign earlier.

Out of an estimated 300,000 Ukrainians of draft age inside Poland, only 138 applications were received through the newly opened Lublin recruitment office’s website and another 58 through consulate offices, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. This is a far cry from the “several thousand” that Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said had registered to join the “Ukrainian Legion” shortly after he announced its creation over the summer. There are several takeaways from this debacle.

First and most obviously, those draft-aged Ukrainians living in Poland don’t want to fight for their homeland. They’ve remained outside their country for a reason and it’s to avoid being sent to their deaths. These people have seen what’s happening on the front lines. They know that they’ll stand a slim chance of surviving their deployment. There’s no reason for them to risk their lives when there are still plenty of draft-aged Ukrainians left inside their country to be forcibly conscripted in their place.

Second, the Ukrainian government itself seems to have quietly reconciled with this reality and that’s why they didn’t invest the resources required to recruit for this project. Even though it could have easily become another corrupt venture from which officials would profit, practically no effort was made to exploit it. One can only speculate why, but it might be because the predictably embarrassing outcome would risk drawing attention to the resources that were expended, thus exposing this scheme.

And finally, contrary to the expectations of some, Poland never ended up coercing Ukrainians to join or deporting draft-aged men so that they can be forcibly conscripted back home. Kosinak-Kamysz’s previously implied plans from spring never came to fruition, likely because it was realized that they could push the Polish economy into a recession as was explained here at the time. In brief, those Ukrainians are considered to be “replacement migrants”, so losing them could entail economic losses too.

This insight proves that Poland’s “Ukrainian Legion” was therefore doomed to fail. The only way that it could have worked was if Poland rounded up draft-aged Ukrainians, but this wasn’t ever considered. Legal constraints and economic interests combined to make this an impossibility. Ukraine knew this too and that’s why didn’t waste its resources on it since any corrupt schemes that its officials might have wanted to cook up in connection with recruiting for this project would be too obvious once it flopped.

The impression that observers are left with is that continued Western aid for Ukraine is questionable if its own draft-aged citizens abroad aren’t interested in fighting for their homeland. It’s unrealistic to imagine that the West will completely cut this off but scaling it back in light of this debacle and Ukraine’s latest battlefield losses might become more appealing to many. It’s beginning to dawn on everyone that Ukraine will never achieve its maximum goals in this conflict and only a compromise is possible.

https://korybko.substack.com/p/polands- ... on-flopped

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THE WAR CAME TO POKROVSK

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by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

Pokrovsk, in the northwestern corner of Donetsk region, is almost a Russian city again.

Established as a minor Russian rail junction in 1880, it was badly damaged by the Italians and Germans who captured the city between 1941 and 1943, killing more than 8,000 Red Army defenders, 5,000 residents, and all the Jews. After the war, the city, then named Krasnoarmeiskoye and later Krasnoarmeisk, more than doubled to a peak of around 80,000 in the last years of the Soviet Union. The city economy was based on the area’s mines which worked to dig out the largest coal reserves in the Ukrainian territory.

The coalmines were taken over in the post-1991 Ukrainian free-for-all by Rinat Akhmetov’s Metinvest group. Akhmetov, a Donetsk native and son of a coalminer, declared earlier this year: “Ukraine hopes Pokrovsk will feed its industry with coal for decades more from estimated reserves of 200 million tonnes. For that to happen, the country’s army must stop Russia’s creeping advance despite being hampered by ammunition shortages caused by a Republican-inspired halt to US military aid and Europe’s failure to rapidly expand arms production.”

Akhmetov dictated that from London where he owns many homes.

The defeat of the Zelensky regime in the Donbass has ended Akhmetov’s production chain of coal from Pokrovsk, coke from Avdeyevka, and steel from Mariupol. Pokrovske Coal has reported that from the first half of 2023 to the first half of this year, its mine output has dropped by 25%, from 1.6 million tonnes of coal concentrate to 1.2 million tonnes, “because of optimisation of mining operations amid changes in geological conditions.” Akhmetov’s annual production reports don’t reveal the volume of coal and coal concentrate produced at Pokrovsk.

He has engaged to a New York law firm to sue Russia for his losses.

The population of Pokrovsk city remained steady at about 60,000 in 2014 through 2021. It is now estimated to have dropped to 26,000 at the start of this month, when the Ukrainian military ordered the evacuation of civilians. Russian has been the native language of almost two-thirds of the population

Born in Pokrovsk and a resident of the city for 30 years, a professional psychologist and newspaper editor left the city ahead of the final battle between advancing Russian forces and the Ukrainian retreat. Her name is not published to protect family members who have remained. In the form of a question-and-answer interview, this is her story.

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Located 66 kilometres northwest of Donetsk, the centre of Pokrovsk district and the city are located near the administrative border of the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine. Together with the cities of Dobropolye, Mirnograd (Dymytrov), Novogrodovka, Selidovo and the smaller settlements adjacent to them, they form the Pokrovsky urban agglomeration (within the Pokrovsky district). According to Ukrstat, as of January 2022, the population of Pokrovsk was 60,127. In the middle of 2024, according to the statements of the city authorities, approximately 53,000-58,000 were living there. According to the last state census of 2001, the main ethnic groups were Ukrainians (75.04%) and Russians (22.09%). At the same time, Russian (59.84%) and Ukrainian (39.39%) prevailed linguistically. In addition to serving as a major railway junction, the M30 (E50) Pokrovsk- Karlovka-Donetsk highway passes through the city, as well as the T-0504 (H-32) Pokrovsk- Konstantinovka, the T-0515 Alexandrovka- Pokrovsk – Kostayantynopil, and the T-0406 Grigorovka-Mezhevaya-Pokrovsk highways.

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The leading edge of the Russian army’s westward advance on Pokrovsk is shown on this week’s Washington think-tank map as less than 5 kilometres from the outskirts of the city; click on source to enlarge. The sources for the map are reports by Russian military bloggers Boris Rozhin (Colonel Cassad), Mikhail Zvinchuk (Rybar), and Semyon Pegov (WarGonzo). For a review of their accuracy, read this. The strategic military importance of Pokrovsk is as a supply hub for the Ukrainian forces in the Donbass, including the cities of Toretsk (Dzerzhinsk), Konstantinovka and Chas Yar, as well as the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration.

Q: What was the political orientation of your area and your family before 2014 – towards Presidents Kuchma, Yushchenko, Yanukovich and Prime Ministers Azarov and Timoshenko?

A: Donbass was for Viktor Yanukovych. Since he comes from this region, he invested well in Donbass. Salaries, social benefits, and pensions were steadily paid. The indexing was timely. Not everything was perfect, but nevertheless, under Yanukovych it was the most stable time for Donbass. Yanukovych collaborated with Rinat Akhmetov, who owned many enterprises and mines in the region. Funds were also created to help the disabled, new cultural centers and temples were opened, and small businesses developed. At least in Pokrovsk, the situation was exactly like that.

Q: How did the Maidan protests and then the putsch in Kiev of February 2014 affect your living conditions in Pokrovsk?

A: The ordinary residents of Pokrovsk did not understand anything at first and did not attach importance. Many thought that it would not last long and would come to a peaceful solution. Information about the Kiev events was sketchy in Donetsk, but we learned about the fighting at Donetsk airport when wounded soldiers began to be taken to the hospital in the north of the city. However, already in 2014, roadblocks began to be set up at the exits from Pokrovsk. Both the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the military from the national battalions were on duty at them. On the part of the latter, there were frequent cases of robberies and murders of civilians. These cases did not reach the courts. But there were no “Nazis” in the city itself until 2022, only ordinary military patrols.

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Donetsk Polytechnic University (Pokrovsk branch)

Q: How did the military actions from 2014 to 2022 affect Pokrovsk?

A: During this period, Pokrovsk existed as if nothing had happened. Occasionally Grad rockets flew to the outskirts, but surprisingly without casualties. That year, a new mayor was elected, who adjusted the work of all services, directing huge budget funds to the social development of the city. Pokrovsk is a rich city, as there are many mines and enterprises around, but before that, money was most often stolen. From 2014 anti-Russian propaganda, planted in Ukraine since the 1990s, became totally undisguised. The flow of misinformation was endless, especially about the May [2014] tragedy in the Odessa House of Trade Unions, but while access to Russian television and news resources was not blocked, residents regarded these news sources with great skepticism. They tried to erase all the past. For example, the possibility of renaming the central Shibankov Square to Lesya Ukrainka Square was seriously discussed. This is nonsense! Hero of the Soviet Union, who died during the liberation of Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk) in 1943 and a mediocre poet, whose merit is only that she wrote in Ukrainian. Well, the wonderful poet Taras Shevchenko also wrote his poems in Ukrainian, why not name him after him, although he has nothing to do with the city at all.

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Left, Pokrovsk’s Shibankov Square. Right, Lesya Ukrainka (1871-1913) – an anti-tsarist Ukrainian Marxist , she never lived in Pokrovsk and had no family association with the city.

For twenty years now, open persecution of the Russian language, culture, and the Orthodox Church, has been under way. And for an area where more than 80% of the population consider themselves as Russians, this has been really hard.

Q: What were your expectations from the beginning of the Special Military Operation?

A: The Donbass has always been waiting for Russia, waiting for its protection and help. And in recent years, this has become especially strong. Of course, any military action is frightening — it is unnatural to normal human nature. But, as sad as it is to say, Ukraine deserved it and was heading for a similar outcome itself. The country cannot be a bargaining chip in the political game of other states and it is impossible to divide its citizens into people and “non-humans” because they speak a different language, especially in a region where representatives of different nationalities live – Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Bulgarians and others – who sincerely love both their home and the cultures of each other, but which – historically speaking – were united by the Russian language. Therefore, when the war began, many in Pokrovsk were relieved: “They will finally release us.” They thought that everything would pass quickly, but at the same time they knew about the preparations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for defence, which had been made since 2014.

Q: How did life change in Pokrovsk after the start of the SMO?

A: There was no panic. In February 2022, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation announced on the radio that they would attack only military facilities, weapons depots, clusters of equipment and armed formations. And when the shelling began in the same year, it was easy to determine who was shooting. The Russians always struck very accurately and only at objects where there is no civilian population. So when we see the news from the series “the enemy hit the kindergarten”, it means that there was a weapons depot in this kindergarten. The indiscriminate shelling is the work of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

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Source: https://t.me/infantmilitario/136004

There were three bridges in the city over the railway dividing it, there was only one left by the time I was leaving. [All bridges have now been destroyed.]

Is it useful for Russian troops to destroy roads and bridges that will help the offensive, simultaneously hitting communication towers and civilian facilities? Air alarms were activated after the shelling, which was illogical and only annoying. People are hiding in basements, but this is actually a trap, because if the structure collapses, it will bury everyone under it – the basements weren’t prepared as shelters. The Ukrainian armed forces started grabbing people on the streets as part of the “mobilization”. Even the miners, although they are a reserved occupations and have exemptions. Then Akhmetov intervened and they stopped taking people away. The mayor was removed and a military administration was set up. Many refugees passed through Pokrovsk – from Bakhmut, Avdeyevka, Soledar. There were cases when the Ukrainian security forces shot buses with refugees at western checkpoints.

Q: What happened in the city with the approach of the Russian army?

A: Over the past three months, “Nazis” have appeared in large numbers in the city. They don’t make defensive structures. Nothing like that – they just walk the streets, drive around in their armoured cars. It feels like they are waiting for some kind of military orders — we don’t know exactly what. The locals are afraid of them. Sometimes you can hear shooting in the streets, especially on the outskirts of the city – either there are clashes between the national guards and the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or the Nazis just got bored. Kindergartens and schools have been turned into warehouses of weapons and ammunition, In August, small shops and banks began to close. ATMs are working, but the priority for receiving cash is for the military. They receive a lot; ordinary residents do not always get money. There were gas outages. There is water and light only twice a day. Humanitarian aid which was sent to the city is being stolen and ends up on the shelves, where it is sold at exorbitant prices. In early September, the Pokrovsk-Lvov evacuation train stopped running; at that time very expensive tickets were required. And the attitude towards refugees from Donbass in western Ukraine is far from the best. Only the road to Pavlodar remains, but prices are also exorbitant there.

Many stay in the city because they are afraid of losing their homes, shops and other real estate. Also, there is simply no way to leave. But the only thing that scares the residents of Pokrovsk is not the arrival of the Russian armed forces, but the fact that after the retreat, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will start shelling the city and turn it into the same ruins as Bakhmut and Avdeyevka.

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In the New York Times version of the evacuation of Pokrovsk, written by Andrew Kramer, artillery bombardment of the city will come, not from the retreating Ukrainian army but from the advancing Russian forces. For many years Kramer failed to be promoted at the Times bureau in Moscow but became chief of the organ’s Kiev bureau in 2022. From Pokrovsk Kramer reported: “Now, it is too late to ensure that Pokrovsk will be protected from artillery bombardment, the town’s military administrator said….Russian forces since April have ground through five defensive lines east of Pokrovsk, said Serhiy Dobryak, the town’s military administrator. With only two more lines remaining, the incursion into Russia, and the potential diversion it might cause, was essentially a last hope…The town for now is not at risk of imminent capture, he said, but officials expect a sustained artillery bombardment that is likely to leave it in ruins. That has been the fate of other Ukrainian towns like Bakhmut and Avdiivka that Russia pummeled into rubble before forcing Ukraine to pull back. ‘They will bring the artillery nearby and they will destroy the town,’ Mr. Dobryak said. “That will happen.’ ”

https://johnhelmer.net/the-war-came-to- ... more-90387
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part V

Post by blindpig » Tue Oct 08, 2024 1:22 pm

Open letter to war
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 08/10/2024

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“The new foreign minister, Andriy Sibiha, used private meetings with his Western counterparts on his first trip to the United States since taking office to discuss potential compromise solutions, diplomats said, and struck a more pragmatic tone than his predecessor on the possibility of negotiations on a territory-for-security basis,” wrote a lengthy article published by the Financial Times last week , which details what it considers to be a change of course by the Ukrainian authorities to open the door to negotiations. This version takes at face value the recent talk of shortening the war and inviting Russia to the second peace summit as a change in favour of diplomacy. In the same way, it understands the possibility of freezing the front in its current situation in order to proceed with a NATO accession, whose guarantees would extend only to the territories currently under the control of Ukraine, which would commit to not trying to recover by force those currently under Russian command.

Those who support these theses overlook the fact that the head of the President’s Office has explicitly rejected the possibility of peace over territories and that Volodymyr Zelensky’s intention regarding Russia’s presence at a peace summit is that Moscow’s participation in it will be limited to accepting the terms proposed by Kiev. This is explained in a thinly veiled manner by Andriy Ermak and his chief lobbyist, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in an article published by Project Syndicate on September 17 and entitled “Achieving Peace Through Strength.” The focus of this text is, indeed, Ukraine’s main objective, NATO membership, although obtaining sufficient Western weapons to be able to dictate the terms of the resolution of the war is an integral part of Ukraine’s plan. Referring to the Ukrainian president’s peace plan , which has recently been rebranded as the Victory Plan by adding the list of actions Ukraine demands from each country to achieve the goals, Ermak and Rasmussen write that “this summer, [Zelensky] gathered representatives from more than 90 countries in Switzerland to rally support for his ten-point peace formula, which calls for strengthening nuclear security and addressing the environmental impact of the conflict, as well as a full Russian withdrawal.” The demand for the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity remained explicit in the days before the Ukrainian delegation’s trip to the United States, so it is questionable whether Sibiha, a man of Andriy Ermak, was more pragmatic than his predecessor about the possibility of conceding, even temporarily, the loss of territories.

Breaking with what is becoming the most accepted theory - the possibility of immediate accession to NATO following a hybrid between the German model of temporarily conceding the loss of territories and the Norwegian model of renouncing the hosting of nuclear weapons in times of peace - Mark Galeotti writes in his latest article for The Times some plans much more coherent with Ukraine's position since the outbreak of the conflict. The British expert assumes that next year there will be a Ukrainian offensive "on a large scale with the use of the new equipment that Ukraine is receiving and the brigades that it is forming and for which "it is also likely that it will receive permission to use long-range weapons such as American ATACMS missiles and British Storm Shadows against targets on the territory of the Russian Federation." Ukraine has never hidden its offensive ambitions and its desire to recover lost territories, and this version is also what media such as The Wall Street Journal announced at the end of 2023 , predicting a year of defensive actions in 2024 to recover the offensive potential lost in 2023 and to be able to make a new attempt to recover the lost territories in 2025. Ukraine's position on the front is significantly worse today than a year ago, when Zelensky was still reluctant to admit the failure of the Zaporozhye operation, with which he hoped to break the front and force Russia to negotiate between a rock and a hard place. The Kursk offensive, which has not achieved any strategic objective, and the loss of the main strongholds of the first line of defense of Donetsk are not an unimportant detail when planning military operations or when launching into speculation again about the damage that Ukraine can do to Russia.

Galeotti starts from the most commonplaces of this war - the weakness of the Russian economy, the difficulties of the military industry to produce the necessary levels of material, the lack of personnel due to demographic complications and the refusal of the population to enlist or simply the wear and tear caused by a war of attrition that drags on - to present a balance of forces that hardly corresponds to reality at the front. With more and more powerful weapons than a year ago and the intention of taking the war to Russia, Galeotti sees the moment for a new attempt at a major Ukrainian offensive that, of course, is consistent with kyiv's wishes. However, this vision suffers from the same naivety that condemned the previous major land operation to disaster: ignoring that the problems listed are common to Ukraine, which also depends on the willingness of its allies to continue supplying the enormous quantities of weapons that kyiv continues to demand. As confirmed by the Financial Times , Zelensky's Victory Plan calls for an increase in arms supplies, a request more compatible with the intention of escalating the war than with the possibility of reaching a compromise.

Along the same lines, an open letter signed by hundreds of politicians, former politicians, media professionals, university professors and members of the so-called third sector openly addresses Joe Biden seeking more weapons and permission to attack Russian territory. “We fully understand that, as president of the only country in the Western coalition capable of giving a credible and persuasive response to Moscow’s aggression, he has been careful since the beginning of the war to avoid any scenario that could lead to an escalation.

“In a few months, it will be three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It is now clear to us that, for both military and political reasons, this worst-case scenario no longer offers any advantage to the Moscow leadership,” says the letter, signed by, among others, a former Estonian prime minister, fanatical academic Alexander Motyl, former commander of the US Army in Europe Ben Hodges, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oleksandra Matviichuk, who began demanding weapons to fight Russia in the summer of 2024, when Ukraine was the aggressor. The destruction that has occurred in Ukraine is not a significant enough element to control the intensity of the war, so it is necessary to increase the flow and power of weapons in a war that they see as profitable for the West.

Taking Russia’s defeat for granted and concealing Ukraine’s authoritarian tendencies and the fact that Zelensky has surrounded himself, for example, with the Third Assault Brigade, which comes from Azov and in turn from the Patriot of Ukraine and the Social-Nationalist Assembly of Ukraine, the Ukrainian equivalent of the Russian siloviki , the signatories state that “as for the question of Russia’s future after its defeat in Ukraine, the current power structure leaves little room for doubt. The vertical power structure of the “siloviki” (“strongmen”) will probably reorganize itself around the components of the political-mafia system that first understood the need to end Vladimir Putin’s experiment in order to save what is left.” In the least convincing way possible – pressure from the West is uniting rather than separating Beijing and Moscow – the authors go on to present the scenario in which they do conceive of escalation. “We believe that a significant risk of escalation remains, but it has moved to Asia. Just as Mao Zedong waited for the Kuomintang to exhaust itself in its fight against Japanese troops before launching the Long March, Xi Jinping is patiently waiting for the Russian military apparatus to collapse.”

“From this point of view, any Western delay can only delay Russia’s inevitable defeat and simultaneously reinforce China’s imperialist designs, not only towards Taiwan and the Philippines, but also in the Russian Far West [sic], particularly in the territories of Outer Manchuria, which Russia annexed in the 19th century, the key access to the Sea of ​​Japan,” they add. In short, the letter presents a war that apparently has little to do with Ukraine or even Russia, whose eastern territories are in danger of falling into Chinese hands, so it is necessary to accelerate its defeat which, in any case, will lead the siloviki to rebuild what remains of the state. Incoherent, poorly written, with glaring errors and at times bordering on absurd, politicians, academics and a Nobel Peace Prize winner demand from Joe Biden exactly the same thing that Zelensky asks of him: to lift restrictions on attacking Russia (perhaps to save it from Chinese clutches). In addition, they are asking for 300 Abrams tanks and 1,000 Bradley vehicles, even though their results were not particularly good in the Zaporozhye counteroffensive. As the icing on the cake, they are demanding that Biden include Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Australia “and any other democratic country that, like Argentina,” shows interest in joining NATO, and the creation of a NATO structure based on those of the Cold War that controls “arms exports and dual use of technologies to Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Belarus and Azerbaijan,” coincidentally a cause that Ukraine has embraced more aggressively in recent days. Even more belligerent than Zelensky or the anti-Russian and anti-Chinese policy of the United States, this proposal presents a Cold War, or perhaps not so cold, even tougher than the first. But first, of course, Ukraine must be supported so that it can obtain its wish to bomb the Russian Federation.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/10/08/30705/

Google Translator

*****

Desertion and mobilization newsletter

If we stop beating them, 30% might be fit to serve. Courts throwing out mobilization fines. 6 million men potentially finable as draft dodgers. Desertion performance art. Deserto-mobilized stories

Events in Ukraine
Oct 03, 2024

Desertion and mobilization, two sides of the same coin. Dragged into a minibus, given some rocks to throw as ‘grenade practice’ in a training center, then straight to the front.

And here’s a soundcloud track titled ‘CZCH’ - the military abbreviation for desertion. https://soundcloud.com/szch-171904244

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The lyrics go:

Unit commander…

Can get fucked….

And the whole brigade…

Can get fucked…

You bunch of devils…

I’m going quietly, without being noticed

To CZCH



The performative deserter

Soon I’ll make a post about the remarkable geopolitical history of Soros/MI6-sponsored performative art in Ukraine. But for now, the news - the talk of the liberal-nationalist town this past week was a ‘performative desertion’. The ‘artist’ in question, Serhii Hnezdilov, had been serving in the 56th motorized infantry battallion for the past five years. Enraged, like many other soldiers at the front, by the lack of timelines regarding demobilization, he publicly deserted the frontline on September 21.

Hnezdilov, himself a former journalist, wrote the following (and much more) on facebook the day of the event (my bolding):

…In 11 years of war with Russia, neither our society nor our government has found the strength to seriously and honestly talk about the realities of a prolonged, constant war.
We were told that neither side would have the resources for a year, that the war would end in two or three weeks.

….

We have reached the Rubicon, where the infantry can no longer bear it, and society continues to "believe in the Armed Forces," instead of asking itself the question:
"Did you defend the Homeland?"
We are being convinced that the infantry, which has carried this war on its shoulders, has no replacements. Five million men eligible for military service tell a soldier at the front that this is not their war and that he should stay there until victory.



The guilt of the infantryman is as follows:

He survived,

He was not captured,

He was not seriously wounded.

That’s why he must continue his service, while other citizens get fake disabilities, fictitiously marry women with disabilities, fictitiously adopt, and evade fulfilling their constitutional civic duty.
…..
Without terms of service, without the foreseeable right to demobilization, arriving in peaceful rear areas, listening to society, the volunteer begins to understand that serfdom hasn’t been abolished, and he’s been made the guilty and responsible one.
Migration to the rear begins, to relative safety.
Total corruption begins: $2,500 is the average price for a "limited fitness" classification during a military medical commission.
For full unfitness, they’ll charge twice as much.
The lack of clear terms of service encourages "black demobilization": marrying pensioners with disabilities was once a meme, but now it’s a widespread phenomenon, getting divorced from wives to gain sole custody of a child,
divorcing their own parents to arrange care for a mother or father,
entering the reserves.
History has many lessons to teach, but unfortunately, we do not learn them.
The government still cannot engage in serious dialogue with society and remains intolerant of the widespread evasion of civic duty.
Instead of the doctrine "fighting is every citizen's duty," the state proposes to indefinitely appoint as defenders those they’ve caught on the streets.
The issue of giving the infantry a break and establishing clear terms of service at the front is a matter of national security.
From today, I am entering the reserves until clear terms of service are established, or until my 25th birthday, with five years of flawless soldier service behind me. I emphasize: flawless.
I hope this act will convey to the government and society the necessity of discussing and resolving this situation.
My position remains unchanged: we must create a mobilization queue from all military-eligible Ukrainians, and then demobilization will become a reality.
An armed and trained nation cannot be defeated.


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As you can see, Hnezdilov is hardly a pacifist! By deserting, he simply wants the state to mobilize more people. A journalist at the sorosite ‘hromadske’, he exemplifies the liberal nationalist intelligentsia. But things have gotten too hot for him.

The reaction to his action was varied. Many soldiers, such as those interviewed by Radio Free Europe, called him a traitor. But they were also quite clear about the extreme difficulty of fighting for months, even years on end without rotations.



The video above from September 26 also featured an interview with Inna Sovsun of the ultra-atlanticist Holos party. Sovsun is as extreme a liberal nationalist as they get - most old-fashioned Ukrainian nazis don’t get close, especially given the parliamentary power and western connections she and her party wields. Anyway, Sovsun was ambiguous about Hnezdilov’s act, saying she couldn’t condemn him since she had never fought at the front, but also understood other soldiers who did condemn him. Sovsun respects lived experience, in other words. Sovsun, despite her lack of military experience, publicly supports mobilizing women to the front.

There’s an interesting political context here - ex-president Petro Poroshenko’s liberal-nationalist party ‘European Solidarity’ was the only party in the Ukrainian Rada without any parliamentarians that voted for Zelensky’s mobilization bill back in April. They motivated that by reference to the lack of demobilization deadlines in it. Sovsun also abstained from voting on the bill for the same reason, though some other figures in Holos did vote in favor of the bill. Sovsun motivated her decision by reference to her husband’s ongoing service at the frontline.

On September 26, Hnezdilov gave an interview to the liberal-nationalist Babel. He said the following:

They tell me that I betrayed my unit. Who did I betray? There are no people left in my unit; they're gone because the brigade had no rotations. Only my commander, myself, and two subordinates remain,"

Acknowledging he had committed a crime, he nevertheless justified himself by saying he deserted -

“because the legislation does not regulate this issue, and everyone just ignores the problem….They tell me that the front will collapse because of me, not because of those who failed and continue to fail the mobilization. I appeal to the state's ability to defend itself in the long term. If it cannot mobilize as many people as needed for defense, then the state will cease to exist,"

If we stop beating them, 30% might be fit to serve

Liberal-nationalist Ukrainska Pravda released an interesting interview on the topic of desertion with the commander of the reconnaissance platoon of the 28th Mechanized Brigade, Valid Y (call sign Krim).



Commander Krim feels quite strongly about the lack of demobilization terms. According to him, the only way that frontline commanders are able to keep their troops sane and motivated is by giving them unofficial holidays (he didn’t explicitly say he did this, however).

Krim had much else interesting to say. According to him, 90% of officers treat the newly mobilized ‘like animals’, beating them mercilessly and showing no respect whatsoever.

‘If you treat the mobilized with respect, about 30% of them could be fit to serve’

Krim contrasts this with the current situation, where mobilized soldiers run at the first possible moment. He also noted other motivations for desertion - according to him, there are many drug addicts (the cheap post-soviet amphetamine ‘salt’) at the frontline, and many mobilized refuse to storm a trench when their only company is two addicts:

'One guy told me that these two always get high during storms and then start shooting their guns at everyone. He refused to join, so I listened and put him with a different group’

But despite the issues, Krim concludes there is no alternative to mobilization. The Azov battalion is cited as a good example, where officers serve at the front first and are hence better able to convince the newly-mobilized to serve.

Krim also recommends slowly acclimatizing the mobilized to warfare by sending them to quiet sections of the front first. The journalist interviewing him likens this to ‘putting the frog in cold water to boil it’ - Krim agrees. Hardly an appealing metaphor, but moving on.

Krim, like many nationalists, has little love lost for the majority of the population. According to him, most Ukrainians born in the 1980s and 1990s are a "lost generation" with no sense of patriotism, not understanding why they should defend their country. They are more concerned with survival and making money, and are resistant to patriotic re-education.

Krim’s claims about drug addicts and unofficial holidays by responsible low-level officers was somewhat corroborated by a September 26 article in the economist:

Officers complain that many of those drafted into service are ill-suited to fighting: too old, too ill, too drunk. There is no clear path out of the army once in it, which makes being mobilised seem like a one-way ticket to the morgue. Some 5-10% of soldiers on active duty are absent without leave.

And wanton beatings of mobilized men are often in the news. On September 26, it emerged that an officer beat a mobilized soldier at a training centre with the but of a rifle. The following was stated on the matter by the State Bureau of Investigations:

On September 17, 2024, during a firearms training session, a conflict arose between the instructor and one of the cadets. As a result of the argument, the instructor struck the soldier with the butt of a rifle. The cadet was hospitalized with physical injuries. The following day, investigators from the Bureau initiated a case under Part 5, Article 426-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (exceeding military authority or official powers by a military officer).

And back in March, the following video emerged of an officer beating a soldier at a training center in the Zhytomyr region.


The violent officer soon apologized for his actions, blaming it on alcohol. The story took yet another twist a few days later when the beaten soldier stated on camera that it was all ‘just a joke’ and ‘a way for the officer to test a new fighting technique’. I leave it up to the reader to choose which story to believe.

Mobilization under judgment

Mobilization officers often justify their actions by claiming they have just returned from the front. But on September 18, the Azov fighter nicknamed ‘Pitbull’ disputed this, claiming more than half had never seen the front. This was in the context of complaining about the low quality of men ‘busified’ and sent to the front.

There’s one thing mobilization officers have in common with other officers. On September 28, a mobilization officer in the impoverished western region of Chernivtsi beat an elderly man who came to the mobilization center to try save his son. The son was stuck in the center without mobile connection - a recent post of mine went into how mobilization minibuses use frontline anti-drone electronic warfare to cut off the phone connection of the mobilized.


But beyond the beatings, there are bigger problems in the mobilization saga. According to lawyer Oleksiy Shalar in a September 28 TV interview to Novyny, courts are dismissing 88% of attempts by mobilization officers to fine recalcitrant men. Shalar said that judges are throwing the cases out of court either because the ‘offenses’ in question were not actually illegal at the time they were committed (ie, before new mobilization legislation), or because the fines demanded by the mobilization officers are excessive.

An October 1 article by Ukrainsky Novyny also went into the topic. In the past four months after the new mobilization law was passed, the Verkhovyna court of the western Ivano-Frankivsk region only filed three protocols for draft-dodging. Two men were fined 17,000 hryvnia each ($410 USD), which is the minimum for said offense. And in the nearby Kolomyya regional court, 44 protocols were filed, but only 4 men were fined.

A former lawyer and current deputy of the Kyiv council also complained on TV on September 25 that the capital’s courts have been filled with mobilization fine cases.

There is no established legal practice. There will be problems because the way officials apply the law is, to put it mildly, far from ideal. How our courts and the European Court of Human Rights will interpret these norms remains to be seen in practice.

[The mobilization app] Reserv+" is not an electronic account for reservists. How is it related? It is regulated by decrees of the Cabinet of Ministers, but these are not laws. This means that its legal status and application are governed by regulations of the executive branch, which do not have the force of law passed by the Verkhovna Rada. Such an approach may raise questions regarding its legal validity, especially in the case of court proceedings or interpretation of norms in international institutions like the European Court of Human Rights.


And there are certainly plenty of draft dodgers whose cases are poised to flood the court system. Back on July 18, parliamentarian Osadchuk stated the following:

I haven’t seen the final figure, but it’s about 4.2 million who have updated their information [on the mobilization app Rezerv+]. That’s the number I heard as of yesterday or the day before. Meanwhile, there are about 11.1 million men who are required to update their information. Accordingly, simple arithmetic tells us that at least 6 million people are subject to automatic administrative penalties.

It isn’t difficult to imagine the chaos of trying to fine 6 million men, many of whom are intent not to leave their home anyway. No wonder the courts are throwing out the cases.

There was another interesting court precedent on September 28. A court in the far western Carpathian region decided to declare the mobilization of a 23 year old man illegal. Of course, this is technically so - existing mobilization legislature only applies to those older than 25. But this hasn’t stopped the mobilization officers, as I wrote here.

Oleksiy Honcharenko of Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party had this to say on the matter:

]This is a precedent. Imagine how many people will now go to court to seek justice. How many cases will be heard by the courts?

And on October 1, an Odessa court decided in favour of a mobilized man, demanding that the mobilization centre release him after holding him for a week without any justification.

Some government figures have even blunted the most ambitious mobilization plans. On September 30, parliamentarian Fedor Venislavsky, chairman of the Defense and State Security Committee, denied the claims by the mobilization office that those who hadn’t responded to mobilization letters were now being searched for by the military police.

As we saw with Hnezdilov, some soldiers accuse the government of not prosecuting mobilization hard enough. Parliamentarian Roman Kostenko of the atlanticist Holos party, himself a military veteran, blamed Zelensky himself for not mobilizing enough men during an October 1 interview with the pro-western NV outlet. According to Kostenko, mobilization numbers have been falling lately.

As usual, there are contradictory tendencies at work. At the same time as parliament tries to appear as the good cop to the mobilization bad cop, on October 1 it emerged that Cabinet had allowed military commanders to mobilize soldiers on their own, without the intermediary of mobilization officers. This, in fact, has been a demand by nationalist officers from Azov and elsewhere for some months. They talk big about their supposed abilities to re-educate and discipline ordinary men, unlike the barbaric and brutal mobilization officers. I find it somewhat hard to believe.

Mobi-desertion stories

On September 30, strana.ua put out a special article on desertion. According to strana, its frequency has skyrocketed in the second half of 2024. Apparently, many of those who illegally cross the western borders now include soldiers. Here are some of the stories strana gathered. Note that they are all part of the dreadfully unpatriotic generation condemned by officer Krim:

Serhiy, 42 years old, mobilized in 2023, shared his story: "I ended up in the army by accident: I did something stupid while drunk, and the police caught me on the spot. They took me to the district police department, and the military recruitment office (TCC) arrived there. They offered me a choice: either face charges and go to prison, or volunteer for service. Back then, everyone thought the war would end soon, by the end of the year at most. So, I chose service over prison and a lifelong criminal record. Initially, I didn't want to fight, but over time I got into it, developed a sense of camaraderie, and when I was first wounded, I even feared they wouldn't let me return to the front. But over time, fatigue builds up, and you see people around you dying or becoming disabled. Most importantly, it's completely unclear how and when this will all end. Life goes on... After my second injury in February 2024, I left the hospital and went AWOL, staying with relatives near Vinnytsia for a while before finding a way to Romania."

Oleh, 34 years old, mobilized in 2023, described his experience: "I was drafted last fall while taking my daughter to kindergarten. On the way back, the recruitment officers (TCC) caught me. In 20 minutes, I passed the medical examination, spent the night at their place, and the next morning they escorted me home to gather some things—welcome to the army! After training, I was sent to the front, and it was pure hell. We were told to hold the defensive positions for three or four days. Out of the 10 of us, only two had combat experience, and one of them was killed during the first shelling before we even reached the positions. Another three were wounded, one severely, and later I found out he died. We reached our positions, or what was left of them—shallow trenches, all beaten up. We sat in those trenches for six days, running out of food and water, and ended up drinking from puddles. We couldn't see the enemy, only constant shelling. When we asked over the radio when we would be relieved, they just said, 'Hold on, hold on.' In the end, there were only four of us left, and we decided to retreat. On the way back, I was hit by shrapnel in the leg. I thought my fighting days were over. Later, while waiting for evacuation, I overheard someone ask in surprise, 'Is anyone still alive out there?' It became clear to me that we were meant to die there. After that, I left the hospital and went AWOL. I'm currently hiding out with relatives and planning to cross the border, because I have no future in Ukraine."

Ihor, 32 years old, mobilized in the spring of 2024, expressed his frustration: "I really didn't like the attitude towards new soldiers from the more experienced ones. Training camp was fine, though there were jokes about 'draft dodgers' and 'cowards,' but nothing too serious. But once we got to the brigade, the sergeant started yelling at us, calling us cowards and traitors, blaming us for the deaths of great guys while we 'hid under our wives' skirts.' He even said that if it were up to him, he'd shoot every third one of us right then and there. It’s hard to be in that environment, you feel like an animal. The moral level is very low: there are a lot of older people who physically can't fight, alcoholics, drug addicts, homeless people, people who have just given up. And you can't even tell if they were like that before the army or if they deteriorated here. Many stop taking care of themselves, fall into a kind of stupor. I realized that even if I don't get killed or wounded, I definitely don't want to end up like that, so I decided to flee. I waited for the right moment, made a deal with a friend to pick me up by car, he brought me new clothes and a phone, and that was the end of my military service. I've heard that there are groups in the rear catching deserters, but I haven't seen any."


Comedic relief

Today, October 3, the Ukrainian drone company ‘Ptashka Drones’ announced one of its engineers had been ‘kidnapped’ by the mobilization officers while on the road to work:

The engineer is officially employed, with certificates showing civil obligations to military units and incomplete contracts for the supply of strike drones. We presented all the documents and explained the situation. But the Holosiivskyi military recruitment office in Kyiv decided that starting tomorrow, this 'shooter' would be more useful in training

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And for those who’ve made it this far, some memes from the military instagram ‘Misha in a Trench’. Most are about ‘mobiks’ - the derogatory term for mobilized troops.

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A post shared by @mysha_v_blindazh
‘Officer-mobik from a military academy who went through a three-day course picks up a gun’

‘Unit commander’

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A post shared by @mysha_v_blindazh
’Sergeant shows the unit commander the new mobiks he just got!’

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A post shared by @mysha_v_blindazh
’Commander: Oh! You served compulsory military service, that’s great!

Your preparation!’

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... newsletter

Budanov-gate continues

Yes, I’ve seen the future, and we didn’t lose there/Nord Stream exploded, for that we thank the GUR and the SBU/To the borders of '91, death is what we must reach.

Events in Ukraine
Oct 07, 2024

Since my article last week on rumours of Zelensky’s move against head of military intelligence (GUR) Kyryllo Budanov, events have been rapidly developing. The main lightning bolt burst out on October 3, when the supposedly oppositional, pro-western Ukrainska Pravda released a large ‘investigation’ proving large scale corruption in military procurements in Spetstechnoexport, a major arms company controlled by Budanov.

Image

Coincidentally, of course, minister of defense Umerov (also under threat of removal, but undoubtedly closer to Yermak and Zelensky) transferred control of Spetstechnoexport out of Budanov’s control on October 1, which I managed to write about here. The release of UP’s investigation at such a time naturally led to wide-ranging accusations that UP was working for Zelensky - a rumour I also covered last week. A subsequent UP round table spent much of its time defending itself against such accusations, which have been rife in the comment section on UP videos lately.

I gathered a range of perspectives on Budanov - from fanatically pro-Budanov neo-nazi militarists (and their sig heiling freestyle rap album dedicated to him) to more critical voices like Zelenskite Bezuhla, frontline journalist Boiko, and, of course, strana.ua.

Among the most interesting ideas:

A postponement of the removal of Umerov and Budanov until after the US elections

Worries from Zelensky-Yermak that the removal of Budanov would simply strengthen Umerov, and through him head of the army Syrsky. I’ve written here about the harsh attacks on Syrsky through Yermak’s favored instrument Bezuhla

Total support to Budanov from the most virulently rightwing telegrams, such as Tales of the IV Reich, ꑭ ᴠᴀʟʜöʟʟ ✙, Ukraine’s football hooligan community

The SBU (Security Services of Ukraine) figure in charge of Spetstechnoexport is Mr Petrov. First, the SBU is meant to be firmly under Zelensky-Yermak-Tatarov’s control, and Budanov has also been in public conflict/competition with it. Anyway, one interesting aspect covered in the following is Petrov’s organized crime connections.

Bezuhla uses the Budanov case to strike at her parliamentary liberal-nationalist enemies

Budanov replaced Arsen Avakov (interior minister 2014-2021) as the main patron of Ukrainian neo-nazis in 2022.

To get everyone in the mood, here’s some musical accompaniment - a freestyle rap album by aggressively hitlerite Nordic Division. This was reposted in relation to the possible sacking of Budanov on October 4.



Why are we so bold?

Kyrylo Budanov supervises us.

He gives us assignments, about what and about whom.

When we read.

If he says not to release a track, we don’t release it.

We’re GUR members, damn it.

We were blasting in Bakhmut

We fucked Kadyrov

….

Doctor Mengele, this is still like a concentration camp.

Yes, I’ve seen the future, and we didn’t lose there.

Nord Division is like blowing up the Kursk submarine.

Historical note: a lot of Russians died there.

..

All of Ukraine's counterintelligence says that we are art.

Before interviews, Budanov listens to our tracks in Russian.

Nord Division is like the terrorist attack in the Moscow metro,

Where women and children died, and now I feel warmth in my soul

….

A lot of police in the country, when it's your turn to go to war.

Catch the wave with me, try to get into the assault company.

Don’t take this crap into your mouth, always know your worth.

Maybe you’re a badass fighter, but you saw that in a dream.

Nord Stream exploded, for that we thank the GUR and the SBU.

Now I bring news,

A very sad one for you, my friend.

The war won’t end,

Because it’s not beneficial to anyone. 2024,

A new war in the new year.



Don't preach peace, but preach only violence.

To the borders of '91, death is what we must reach.

This landing is doomed, I have already died for Ukraine.



You bastards will pay in blood.

Enemies of common sense and the white race.

A white key is on my shoulder.

Stand when the lieutenant speaks to you.

Lie on the floor when the RDK [Russian Volunteer Corps, Budanov-created group of Russian neo-nazis] comes in.

A Sig Heil to everyone, and goodbye.

….

We also want to reclaim our native land.

The gas van is coming, climb in, Vazgen.

Now we’re going to clean the streets in Moscow.

We will leave our mark, in the dark we are the light.

For Holy Rus', we’ll crush all of you now.


(Paywall with free option.)

https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/ ... -continues

******

"Abrams" that wants to live.
October 7, 19:02

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"Abrams" that wants to live.

One of the remaining unfinished "Abrams" of the 47th separate separate brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which is hung with Soviet dynamic protection and nets from drones.

It is worth noting that at the beginning the enemy seriously relied on the declared performance characteristics of these tanks and their armor, sending them into battle without additional ERA and nets/barbecues for protection from drones.
As a result, the majority of the vehicles delivered to Ukraine were destroyed by ATGMs and drones. The overestimation of these tanks by the enemy led to their great losses.

Image

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9426015.html

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

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

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 09, 2024 11:39 am

Russian habits
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 09/10/2024

Image

“Three years ago, Russia was the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, and Europe its biggest customer. For the continent’s leaders, access to all that cheap Russian energy outweighed any misgivings about doing business with President Vladimir Putin. Then Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and this overwhelming dependence on a single supplier suddenly looked like a threat to the region’s economic and political security,” wrote Bloomberg last week , lamenting that “Europe is unable to give up its Russian energy habits.” Data provided by the European Council, for its part, boast of the sharp decline in consumption of this raw material from Russia. “Diversification is a long and costly process that requires investments in infrastructure, such as the construction of new pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals.” “However, the EU and its countries are acting quickly,” he says, adding that “the share of Russian pipeline gas in EU imports fell from over 40% in 2021 to around 8% in 2023. For pipeline gas and LNG combined, Russia accounted for less than 15% of total EU gas imports.” The European Union also insists that the reduction in Russian gas has been offset by imports of liquefied natural gas from reliable partners such as the United States and Norway.” Reliability is confused in this discourse with the geopolitical stance of the country in question.

“In 2022, the 27 countries of the European Union consumed more than 350 billion cubic metres of gas, 13% less than in 2021. Gas is mainly used for electricity generation, domestic heating and industrial processes. More than 3% of EU households are heated with gas,” says the European Union, which does not dwell too much on the reasons for the fall in gas consumption or on the effects on industrial production, which, according to one of the graphs it provides, uses 24.1% of the gas consumed. As the main industrial power, one country in the bloc is being hit harder than the rest: Germany, which is the subject of much of the criticism for not having eliminated the Russian energy habit .

In one of his latest articles, Enric Juliana criticises “the enormous confidence that German leaders had in Russian supplies. They did not believe that in the future they would have to import liquefied gas from other sources, as they are doing now. They did not have any regasification plants in their ports. Spain has seven. Without this high degree of confidence in Russia, Chancellor Angela Merkel would not have taken the decision to bring forward the closure of German nuclear power plants. Merkel bet everything on Russian gas as a transitional energy towards renewables. This fact is key to understanding the current situation in Germany and, by extension, the complex European political picture. There is an architecture that has broken down. Germany and France, and to a large extent Italy, wanted a good relationship with Russia.” Germany, which had based part of its industrial competitiveness on having cheap energy from a country with which it had maintained an economic and political relationship for decades, began to be harshly criticized at the moment when countries whose economic or geopolitical interests depended on the failure to consolidate the perception that continental interests were common and to create a Berlin-Moscow axis (as the initial phase of an even more feared Berlin-Moscow-Beijing). “The Anglo-American axis never stopped thinking about containing Russia, with the strong support of the Poles and the Baltics,” adds Juliana, who apparently is not aware that this containment was nothing more than a reflection of its interests, clearly contrary to those of Germany and a large part of the European continent.

The deputy director of La Vanguardia presents the gas trade between the Russian Federation and Germany as “the real peace treaty”, which “blew up in February 2022, when Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border”. In reality, pressure on Germany had begun much earlier and increased when a politically strong chancellor, Angela Merkel, was replaced by Olaf Scholz, at the head of a weaker coalition with serious internal contradictions. It was then, long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that the US campaign against, for example, Nord Stream-2, which it accused of being a political project, not an economic one as Berlin and Moscow defended, increased in order to achieve what Condoleezza Rice had already openly stated in 2014: that Europe should depend more on American energy than on Russian energy.

Even then, with Ukraine acting as the aggressor against the population of Donbass, Rice was proposing tougher economic sanctions affecting the oil and gas sectors, a move that, in practice, meant sanctioning both Russia and its main European client. Despite referring to the European Union in general, the former Secretary of State under George W. Bush during the years of the Iraq war pointed directly to Germany, against which an article published last week by Foreign Policy is also directed.

“Moscow’s decades-long use of energy as a weapon against Europe became an incontrovertible fact in late 2021 and early 2022, when the Kremlin choked off natural gas supplies to prevent Germany and other European countries from aiding Ukraine. To ensure that Russia cannot use energy to wage war again, it is time for the United States to impose permanent sanctions on Russia’s remaining gas pipelines to Europe, beginning with existing but soon-to-expire sanctions on Nord Stream 2, the dormant pipeline connecting Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea,” write in their opening Benjamin L. Schmitt, a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and John E. Herbst, a senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Despite the headline calling for Germany to be prevented from returning to “old Russian tricks” and a cover image showing then-Chancellor Schroeder with Vladimir Putin, this is not an archive article written when Nord Stream 2 was under construction or awaiting commissioning, but during the week marking the second anniversary of the attack that condemned three of the four Nord Stream pipelines.

The explosions caused by explosives placed by a Ukrainian commando, according to German and American media citing sources from various Western intelligence agencies and people involved in the plot, blew up the symbol of decades of economic and political détente on the European continent on 26 September 2022. As The New York Times reported months later , Russia had begun to consider the possibility of initiating a repair project, which would entail multi-million dollar costs and is in no way viable under the current military, political and economic conditions.

The Foreign Policy article traces a historical trajectory littered with the usual clichés of the Atlantic Council and other Atlanticist think-tanks , from calling the events of 2014 “the first Russian invasion of Ukraine” without mentioning the Maidan coup – to which Germany contributed despite the fact that its man, Vitaly Klitschko, lost the race to lead the government to Victoria Nuland’s candidate – or that it was Ukraine that attacked Donbass, to calling the SPD “traditionally pro-Russia”. Along the way, the experts blame Germany, mainly Merkel, for having opposed NATO’s expansion to the east “so as not to upset Russia” without stopping to consider whether the approach of a Cold War military bloc to Russia’s borders was not in fact a legitimate complaint by Moscow three decades after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the country against which that alliance had been created. Even the current German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a ceremonial figure in office, is being criticised for not taking advantage of the Russian invasion to resign from his post. The authors do not mention, of course, that his main failure as foreign minister was precisely his failure to get his ally and protégé, Ukraine, to apply the formula he proposed to move forward with the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the implementation of which, together with negotiations to prevent NATO expansion, could have prevented the current war.

However, for Washington's hawks, the goal was never to reach an agreement, end the war in Donbass and secure an accommodation from one of the main continental powers, but to prevent any possibility of the existence, not of an axis alien to the United States and its interests, but of the slightest dissent or deviation within it. To do so, sanctions are needed even against infrastructure that has already been destroyed and of which the current Polish Foreign Minister tweeted an image of the result of the explosions accompanied by his already famous "Thank you, USA."

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/10/09/habitos-rusos/

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 October 9, 2024) Main:

- The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of ​​responsibility of the "Vostok" group amounted to more than 90 soldiers per day;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 50 soldiers in the Liptsov and Vovchansk directions per day;

- Russian air defense systems shot down an S-200 SAM missile and 68 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in one day;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 525 soldiers and two tanks, including a French AMX-10, in the area of ​​responsibility of the "Center" group of forces per day;

- The Western group of the Russian Armed Forces took up more advantageous lines and positions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 370 soldiers;

- The Russian Armed Forces hit Ukrainian energy facilities that supplied the Ukrainian Armed Forces with fuel and lubricants;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 65 fighters as a result of the actions of the "Dnepr" group.

Units of the "East" group of forces occupied more advantageous positions and defeated the manpower and equipment of the 72nd Mechanized , 58th Motorized Infantry Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 127th Territorial Defense Brigade in the areas of the settlements of Dobrovolye and Ravnopol of the Donetsk People's Republic. Two counterattacks by units of the 118th and 123rd Territorial Defense Brigades were repelled .

The enemy's losses amounted to over 90 servicemen, five vehicles, a 155-mm Caesar howitzer made in France, a 155-mm FH-70 howitzer made in Great Britain and an AN/TPQ-48 counter-battery station made in the USA.

▫️Units of the Dnepr group of forces inflicted losses on the formations of the 141st infantry, 128th mountain assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the 35th, 37th marine brigades and the 124th territorial defense brigade in the areas of the populated areas of Kamenskoe, Pyatikhatki, Zherebyanka in the Zaporizhia region, Lvovo and Dneprovskoe in the Kherson region. The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 65 servicemen, three vehicles, a 155-mm M777 howitzer made in the USA and a 152-mm D-20 gun. Two Anklav-N electronic warfare stations were destroyed.

▫️ Operational-tactical aviation , strike unmanned aerial vehicles , missile forces and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces groups inflicted damage on Ukrainian energy facilities that supplied the Ukrainian Armed Forces with fuel and lubricants, as well as on concentrations of enemy manpower and military equipment in the 141st district.

▫️ Air defense systems shot down an S-200 anti-aircraft guided missile modified to fire at ground targets and 68 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.

▫️ In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed: 646 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 33,130 unmanned aerial vehicles, 580 anti-aircraft missile systems, 18,559 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,469 multiple launch rocket systems, 15,858 field artillery pieces and mortars, 27,074 units of special military vehicles.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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UKRAINIAN ULTRA-NATIONALISM’S POISONING OF THE AMERICAN BODY POLITIC
by Gordonhahn
September 28, 2024

As America’s drive for NATO expansion to Ukraine persists, the Ukrainian nationalism and neo-fascism it has used and engendered in pursuit of that goal has had an increasingly nefarious and divisive effect on American politics and its political system. This goes beyond the ‘mere’ polarisation and authoritarianization of American politics caused by disagreements over NATO expansion, the US role on the Maidan and in general in Ukraine after the Soviet collapse, and even involvement in the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. In particular, US involvement in Ukraine has fostered corruption as high as in the White House itself and the repression of Americans, particularly unprecedented violations of their free speech rights by the Democrat Party- Deep State and the administration of President Joe Biden. Moreover, Ukrainian extremism since 2014 also has contributed to the growing tendency in U.S. politics to lie and circumvent the rule of law in pursuit of political goals at home and abroad. Controversy in the U.S. surrounding Ukraine and NATO policy there, fostered false charges of sedition against an American presidential candidate, Donald Trump (2016), crippled his presidency with trumped up impeachment charges and other campaigns, contributed to the causal chain leading up to the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, led to U.S. government censorship on Facebook and Twitter and a general authoritarianization of American politics, motivated at least one attempted assassination of the Republican Party’s presidential candidate and former U.S. President Trump in 2024, and led to open interference in this year’s presidential campaign by Ukraine’s ostensible president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy.

The ubiquity of ethnic Ukrainians in both the Russiagate and Ukrainegate scandals is breathtaking: Democratic Party Director for Ethnic Affairs Alexandra Chalupa, Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC) Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (offered the Ukrainian Defense Minister’s position by Zelenskiy), U.S. District Attorney for New Jersey Bogdan Vitvitskii (in one of the recently released audiotapes Poroshenko requested Biden to send Vitvitskii on the basis of an American recommendation to Kiev to become Washington’s overseer in the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office), among many others. Vitvitskii is just one of numerous Ukrainian diaspora members in America assigned to key posts representing the U.S. in Ukraine. Both of the most previous U.S. ambassadors were deeply involved in Ukrainian domestic politics. Former U.S. embassy official Natalya Jaresko became Ukraine’s Finance Minister under Poroshenko, and the tapes reveal an effort by the U.S. to get her appointed to prime minister’s position.

So for this article, I put aside deleterious effects of America’s support for Ukrainian nationalism and neofascism such as the drain on the U.S. budget and the U.S. military’s weapons stockpiles and the splitting of the world into two camps leading to the distancing from or outright opposition to the U.S. and the West on the part of ‘the Rest’ led by China and Russia. I focus exclusively on the degradation and schism that America’s NATO Ukraine obsession has engendered.

‘Russiagate’ = Ukrainegate

American and Ukrainian government and court documents have show repeatedly that the Barak Obama administration and certainly various State Department, CIA, and DNC officials (such as the whistleblower who shall not be named and Alexandra Chalupa) conspired to frame then presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russia in faked conspiracies of ‚collusion.‘ (https://gordonhahn.com/2020/02/10/repor ... -collusion; and http://www.scribd.com/document/43636341 ... nuary-2016). If things are as the documents suggest, this was nothing other than an attempt first to defeat Trump at the ballot box and after that failed to overthrow a legally elected president in a color revolution from above by impeachment. The operation was not limited to ‘just’ the discredited Steele Dossier, the overinflated Russian troll factory’s work on social websites, and false reports of Russian hacking of state election commissions. These measures evolved into what the lawyer of one of the conspirators himself called at the time a “coup” (www.newsmax.com/politics/whistleblower- ... id/940549/).

It is now widely acknowledged outside Democrat Party-State circles that the fake ‘Russiagate’ hack of the Democrat National Committee and the notorious Steele Dossier were promoted by the Ukrainian diaspora in the U.S., including ethnic Ukrainian and Ukrainian nationalist members of the Democratic National Committee’s Ethnic relations Department and other Democrat Party-State- and NATO-affiliated institutions (Atlantic Council), and that some Ukrainian officials were instrumental in providing false ‘data’ for the Steele Dossier drummed up by the 2016 Clinton campaign alleging Trump was under the control of Russian President Vladimir Putin (https://gordonhahn.com/2020/02/10/report-ukrainegate/ and https://gordonhahn.com/2020/05/21/ukrai ... ussiagate/). For example, “The first ‘information’ billed as Trump ‘Russia collusion’ was a set of documents – the so-called chernaya kassa – that came from Ukrainians and after years of investigation not a single Trump campaign or White House staffer was brought up on charges of interacting with Russia. The ‘chernaya kassa’ documents became the basis for an investigation of Paul Manafort, leading to his removal from the Trump campaign and, on completely different charges (of tax fraud and operating as a foreign representative without having registered) to indictment, arrest, and imprisonment. On 27 May 2016, weeks after Ukrainian ultra-nationalist, radical cultural Marxist and DNC operative Ali Chalupa’s emails promising something big to the DNC and meetings with Ukrainian Embassy staff and, Artyom Sytnik, head of the US embassy- and Soros-controlled Main National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine or NABU confirmed that his department had received documents from the Party of Regions “black cash box” handed over to it by former (as of 2015) deputy head of post-Soviet Ukraine’s successor to the Ukrainian KGB, the Sluzhba bezopasnosti Ukrainy or SBU, and at the time a continuing SBU operative. Chalupa, who founded the U.S. ‘United With Ukraine Coalition’ in 2014, wrote that she led the DNC’s opposition research into any Trump ties to Russia (https://medium.com/@alexandrachalupa/ru ... .i80moxkdh; https://gordonhahn.com/2021/11/04/worki ... ve-part-1/; and https://gordonhahn.com/2021/11/14/updat ... e-dossier/). That is not all she did. The White House visitor logs show that Ali Chalupa, the relatively low-level DNC contractor who coordinated with Ukrainians to investigate Manafort and Trump, visited the White House 27 times (www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/12/f ... iaramella/; https://gordonhahn.com/2021/11/04/worki ... ve-part-1/; and https://gordonhahn.com/2021/11/14/updat ... e-dossier/). Four days later, a portion of these documents was published by a Rada deputy from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Sergei Leshchenko and the editor-in-chief of the daily pro-Maidan Ukrainskaya pravda, Segvil Musaeva-Borovik. Although the documents they produced would help prove secret payments were made to Manafort from Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions before 2014, forcing Manafort to plead guilty to illegal lobbying and tax violations and sending him to prison, he was never accused or charged by US authorities, including the Mueller investigation, of colluding with Russia. Moreover, high-level DP political consultants such as the Podesta brothers were engaged in the same consulting activity. So Ukrainian officials and Ukrainian-American emigres conspired to smear a presidential candidate at the behest of the same DNC that claimed to be hacked by the Russians. In December 2018, a Ukrainian court ruled that both NABU head Sytnik and Rada deputy Leshchenko had illegally meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by leaking financial documents that smeared then-Trump campaign manager Manafort. Sytnik and Leshchenko eventually ended up in Ukrainian prisons for attempting to influence the US presidential campaign on Hillary’s behalf (https://gordonua.com/news/politics/sytn ... 34217.html; https://gordonua.com/news/politics/anti ... 36339.html; https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house ... ed-without; www.facebook.com/AlexandraChalupa/posts ... 6743080389; www.politico.com/story/2016/12/russia-u ... eeh67HJNSg; www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/05/breaki ... t-in-2016/; www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine- ... ire-233446; https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/14/poli ... index.html; https://medium.com/@alexandrachalupa/ru ... .i80moxkdh; www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/12/f ... iaramella/; and https://gordonhahn.com/2021/11/04/worki ... ve-part-1/). All this was tied into the clear Obama-DP-FBI hoax of the Steele Dossier” (https://gordonhahn.com/2021/11/04/worki ... ve-part-1/). One of Chalupa’s sisters works in the NATO-affilitated Atlantic Council, and another works for the Ukrainian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

There came more Ukrainian corrupting of the U.S. political scene (and vice versa) in ‘Baidengate.’The Barack Obama administration, in particular then Vice President and Obama’s Ukraine point man, Joe Biden, used the threat of withholding economic assistance and IMF assistance in an effort to block then Ukrainian General Prosecutor Viktor Shokhin (poisoned twice in the process) from investigating the corruption of Biden’s and Kerry’s sons at the Burisma energy company where they became board members solely by virtue of their fathers’ political office. Shokhin resigned, and the Burisma investigation died. In other words, Biden and Kerry committed the very same act in more blatant and now proven fashion that the Democratic Party accused President Trump of committing (without the requisite evidence) in order to impeach him and were trading on their public office and dragging Ukraine’s state sovereignty through the mud (https://gordonhahn.com/2020/05/21/ukrai ... ussiagate/ and audio tapes of perpetrators at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N4PmqyJrTI).

Then came the orchestrated impeachment charge against President Trump. This coup attempt had as its key witness the ethnic Ukrainian official of the United States National Security Council (NSC), Lt. Col. Alexander Windman, once offered the Ukrainian Defense Minister’s position. He claimed to have been informed by another NSC staffer that during one of President Trump’s phone calls with Zelenskiy the former had demanded a quid quo pro: U.S. aide for an investigation of Burisma and the Bidens. Trump did not attempt to coerce Zelenskii, as Zelenskii himself later said, and one can read the transcript to see there was no quid pro quo. Windman became the star witness at the congressional impeachment hearings, but it has turned out Ukrainian nationalist NSC officer Windman was exposed later to be the lone whistleblower on the Trump-Zelenskiy call; Windman was the only one of those who listened in on the call to express concern over Trump’s words (https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-driv ... ok-alleges).

At the same time, Biden long before these events could be seen live and then on tape boasting in his usual blowhard manner that in March 2016 as vice president he pressured Ukrainians to fire prosecutor Shokhin precisely by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. assistance (www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/09 ... cutor.html; www.cfr.org/event/foreign-affairs-issue ... -joe-biden; https://ua.usembassy.gov/ukrainian-refo ... -invasion/); and https://gordonhahn.com/2020/02/10/report-ukrainegate/). This occurred despite the fact that some at the U.S. State Department were apparently concerned about corruption surrounding Burisma if not Hunter Biden. Numerous State Department officials testifying during the Trump impeachment hearings noted that Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma created the appearance of a conflict of interest since his father ran the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. One witness testified the State Department had even blocked a project with Burisma because it was concerned about charges of corruption at the company (https://johnsolomonreports.com/latvian- ... s-in-2016/). Upon Shokin’s firing, Burisma’s American legal team arrived in Ukraine to meet with his replacement Yurii Lutsenko (https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/46 ... aine-story). The case was dropped in late 2016 and early 2017 after Ukrainian prosecutors’ met with Burisma representatives and then US ambassador to Kiev, the Ukrainian-American Marie Iovanovich, read out a list of people Lutsenko should not investigate. Early last year, Ukrainian President Zelenskiy’s Ukraine new Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka and a cleaned out NABU announced the Burisma investigation’s reopening to look at the money laundering operations and a set of even broader issues, including possible embezzlement of $33 million dollars from the Ukrainian Central Bank by Burisma founder Zlochevskii, who served as the Ukrainian government’s Ecology and Natural Resources Minister under former president Petro Poroshenko and granted Burisma several lucrative morsels in the process (https://johnsolomonreports.com/latvian- ... s-in-2016/; www.scribd.com/document/429942801/March ... skyBurisma; www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/nabu- ... evsky.html; and www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-im ... SKBN1XU2N7). Ryaboshapka said Zlochevskii is suspected of the “theft of government funds on an especially large scale.” This could involve the ‘lost’ US assistance money laundered through PrivatBank. It is possible those moneys were transferred not just to Biden but also to help the then new Burisma owner, Igor Kolomoiksii, fund the ultranationalist-manned volunteer battalions fighting in Donbass.

In other words, VP Biden used American taxpayers‘ money to bribe Ukrainian officials to cease its investigation of his corrupt son Biden who with the ‘Big Guy’ (Joe Biden) was running a business out of the White House with China, Russia, Ukraine, among others. The Democratic party’s failed impeachment of President Trump was an effort to cover up the trail that leads from the Biden scandal to the State Department, US intelligence services, if not Barak Obama’s Oval Office itself and — in the form of a coordinated media/information coverup — to much to the rest of the Washington establishment (government, think tanks, foundations) — especially but not solely the Democratic establishment — through George Soros to corrupt officials, oligarchs, and neofascist groups in Ukraine. Specifically, the US government and allied governments and private institutions were at least buying off Ukrainian politicians to control their government and perhaps illegally financing a proxy war in Donbass by money-laundering funds (a disappeared billions of dollars) through Kolomoiskii’s Burisma and Privatbank.

The laundered money went in two directions: from Burisma to the Bidens and from the US government to Privatbank and onto the battalions and who knows what else. The latter flow helped to control institutions such as NABU (the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, whose officials helped Biden to block investigation of Burisma) and assisted Kolomoiskii in his financing Kiev’s volunteer battalions organized by MVD Chief Arsen Avakov and manned by ultra-nationalist and neofascist groups such as Right Sector and the National-Social Assembly. Recall US State Department official George Kent’s lack of concern over the billions of US aid that went missing at Privatbank (https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/43 ... uring-2016).

But matters may be even more dirty and the scheme even more convoluted than the above suggests. One document from a US court is exceedingly disturbing. It comes from document an investigative company submitted to a court handling Hunter Biden’s paternity case dealing with his failure to make payments. An excerpt reads: “Burisma Holdings Ltd., finances the Atlantic Council (Ukraine) and associated rogue operatives from USDOS [U.S. Department of State], FVEY [Five Eyes intelligence alliance of U.S., Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand], and Crowdstrike, through Privatbank.” [Words in brackets not in original] (See ‘Ukraine: The Final Piece,’ The Blaze, 6 February 2020, www.theblaze.com/glenn-beck-special/ukr ... tion-obama), at the 1:01:14 mark in video. See also http://www.glennbeck.com/ukraine-missing-aid; http://www.glennbeck.com/radio/rudy-giu ... laundering; and http://www.glennbeck.com/radio/impeachm ... iden-fraud).

This raises a host of questions. After all, it was the same cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike that provided the ‘evidence’ that Russians had hacked the DNC server. Neither the FBI nor any other law enforcement or intelligence body ever request or gain access to the server (https://thehill.com/policy/national-sec ... ers-report). Crowdstrike’s president, Dmitrii Alperovitch, is a member of the pro-NATO Atlantic Council. Crowdstrike has done frequent contract work for the U.S. government, especially during the Obama years, and Crowdstrike’s personnel is replete with former U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials with a Democratic party preference. There are reports that Alperovitch’s wife is the sister of the Ukrainian-American Ukrainian nationalist Alexandra Chalupa, who began the original investigations of the Trump campaign’s Carter Page and Paul Manafort in cahoots with Ukrainian officials, including the Ukrainian Embassy and NABU, which was controlled by the US Embassy in Kiev and George Soros. What Crowdstrike activities did Burisma fund through PrivatBank? If FVEY indeed stands for the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence alliance, what are Burisma and Privatbank doing ‘financing’ the activities of Crowdstrike, Western intelligence, rogue State Department operatives, and the Atlantic Council? Does this explain why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suddenly reversed her position against impeachment the morning after the transcript of the Trump-Zelenskiy conversation took place in which Trump mentioned ‘Crowdstrike’.

Of further interest from this same court case is that Hunter Biden requested (and the court granted his request upon certain conditions) not to have to submit any financial records on sources of his income covering the last five years; that is, from the time he began ‘working’ for Burisma. Furthermore, Burisma’s and Privatbank’s Kolomoiskii had been barred from US on suspicion of murder and “beheadings,” but after the Bidens struck up partnership with him and he had served ‘US interests in Donbass’, he was suddenly given a visa to the US. Kolomoiskii is an associate of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy (See ‘Ukraine: The Final Piece,’ The Blaze, 6 February 2020, www.theblaze.com/glenn-beck-special/ukr ... tion-obama), at the 1:01:10 mark in video). Kolomoiskii is now under arrest in Ukraine and has been out of sight for some two years. He is a man who knows too much?

Muddying the waters or securing silence on Ukraine-related issues has been a central focus of U.S. media, including the social net. One can recall the 50 Deep State signatories’ muddying op (former CIA directors and the like) by way of publishing an open letter during the 2020 Biden-Trump presidential race claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop and its information, much of it Ukraine and Ukrainegate related and leaked top the press, were a Russian influence operation (www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter ... nfo-430276). It later emerged that this letter was another case of the Democrat Party-State doing what it accuses others of doing—in this case issuing misinformation to influence an election campaign, whitewash Ukrainian influence in the U.S., and thereby further the cause of NATO expansion to Ukraine (https://intelligence.house.gov/news/doc ... entID=1432). Hunter is soon to be imprisoned on the lesser ‘cover up’ charge of tax fraud based on the ‘Russian misinformation.’

Securing the silence has been achieved by FBI and Ukrainian state censorship of social net media, such as . Recently, it has been reported that the FBI convinced these social net outlets to remove the pages of legitimate accounts of Americans on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube on the request of Ukraine’s SBU. Thousands of such requests were fulfilled. The report adds that the SBU was infiltrated by Russian operatives, and the accounts closed were pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian. This violation of Americans’ rights occurred, moreover, because the FBI did not vet the SBU’s requests (https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-s ... .23-sm.pdf and https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world ... opher-wray). Called to testify before Congress, Facebook’s Marc Zuckerberg claimed Fb responded to FBI requests prompted by the Hunter Biden laptop leaks—the noted ‘Russian misinformation’ (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62688532). In this connection, it has been revealed that FB hired Ukrainian fact-checkers, whose work even the New York Times suggested was veering into “activism” (www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/world/europe ... -news.html). FB hired American fact-checkers with ties to the U.S. government and the Ukrainian fact-checking group, Stop Fake, with ties Ukrainian neofascist groups and likely to the SBU as well was a well-known neofascist (www.mintpressnews.com/facebook-fact-che ... -facebook/; https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1243565328258433031; and https://x.com/ColborneMichael/status/12 ... 4233899008). So Ukraine’s intelligence services and ultranationalists were marshaled by the FBI in order to censor Americans, violating their free speech rights, while Ukraine ‘defends democracy’ in Donbass.

Given all of the above, it is not surprising that as Ukraine’s plight worsens and America’s politics devolves into a cold civil war, Ukrainians and pro-Ukrainians are involved in violence and terrorism. Moreover, many in America’s Ukrainian diaspora are descendants of members of Ukraine’s World War II-era neo-Nazi organizations, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Partisan Army, and they have close ties to successor and OUN and UPA wannabes that engage in political violence and terrorism both in Ukraine and abroad, including attempts at such by their trainees here in the U.S. (https://gordonhahn.com/2020/04/07/repor ... nd-abroad/). It may be worth noting in this regard that, as Ivan Katchanovski notes, in the years before and during WW II an OUN terrorist was involved not only assassinations of the Polish minister of internal affairs, the French foreign minister and the king of Yugoslavia but also was recruited by the Nazis to kill U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (www.academia.edu/3378079/The_Politics_o ... ry_Ukraine, p. 220, citing archival documents).

Now we have Ryan Routh, the rabid pro-Ukrainian American and would-be assassin of the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, former President Trump. Routh is a fervent devotee of the Maidan regime and fanatical proponent of defeating Russia in the NATO-Russian Ukrainian War. He was present on the Maidan in 2013-2014. He traveled to Ukraine in 2022 to fight the Russians but was turned away due to age (56) and lack of military training. He sought to recruit Americans, Afghans, Syrians, and anyone who would listen to fight in Ukraine. He led pro-Ukrainian demonstrations in the U.S (www.newsweek.com/ryan-wesley-routh-trum ... er-1954348; http://www.newsweek.com/ryan-routh-dona ... ok-1954433; and http://www.newsweek.com/ryan-wesley-rou ... es-1954629). He even wrote a book, Ukraine’s Unwinnable War, on the present war, calling on the world to support Ukraine (www.amazon.com/Ukraines-Unwinnable-War- ... =1&depth=1). Finally, he sought to kill an American candidate for president and former U.S. President, Mr. Trump. Routh is a reflection and symbol of the extent to which U.S. involvement in Ukraine, especially since the Maidan putsch, has poisoned the American body politic. The U.S. media’s full-throated decades-long propaganda rage against candidate and President Trump helped to drive Routh’s and others’ hysteria regarding Ukraine and Russia; indeed, Routh appears to have no ties to America’s sufficiently radical Ukrainian diaspora. U.S. politicians and even scholars have used the trope of equating Trump with Putin (and both with Hitler) for domestic political purposes of strengthening the anti-white male toxin that drives much of ‘left-wing’, Democrat Party-State politics and policy.

It is important to remember that Ukrainian ultranationalist and neofascist violence today includes involvement in international fascist groups and both domestic and foreign terrorism (https://gordonhahn.com/2020/04/07/repor ... nd-abroad/). So now, according to Congressman Matt Gaetz citing a DHS official, one of five teams hunting former President Trump is “Ukrainian” (https://gaetz.house.gov/media/in-the-ne ... n-teams-us and (https://x.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1838294590228455633). In addition, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson said in an interview days ago that U.S. authorities are refusing to hand over data on Trump would-be assassin Routh because it is connected with a „more nefarious plot“ (https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1838644005913116823). Could this be the Ukrainian team mentioned by Gaetz?

As pro-Ukrainians and perhaps a Ukrainian wet team attempt to kill a duly selected Republican Party candidate for the U.S. presidency, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy has come to the U.S. and in a fashion unprecedented in American history openly injected himself into, interfered in the U.S. presidential campaign. On September 24th he campaigned with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and called Trump’s vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance “too radical” and said Trump did not know how to stop the war despite his claims, joining the chorus of the Democrat Party-State and its ubiquitous media (www.foxnews.com/politics/volodymyr-zele ... icans-warn and https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4895 ... o-radical/). Moreover, the White House has claimed that it was Kiev that requested the Pennsylvania factory plant visit (https://penncapital-star.com/election-2 ... ton-visit/). Indeed House of Representatives Speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, called upon Zelenskiy in a letter to fire Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S. for interfering in the presidential campaign, and House Republicans opened an investigation into the genesis of the trip (www.speaker.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024 ... Final-.pdf and https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2 ... r-00181029). So Maidan Ukraine is intentionally intervening in this U.S. presidential election in order to influence its outcome in favor of the Democrat Party-State candidate. In doing so, it has made be the latest and perhaps one of the most harmful injections of poison into America’s body politic to have resulted from our neo-colonial efforts to expand NATO and Western hegemony to Ukraine and elsewhere along Russia’s border and beyond.

It is an ironic and perhaps just that the 25-year record of U.S. interference in Ukraine, which gravely split Ukraine’s Ukrainophile and Russophile populations and regions, has ended in Ukrainian interference in American politics that is exacerbating the already deep schism in the American body politic.


https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/28/ukrai ... y-politic/

*****

Ukraine - FT Proposes Impossible Peace Deal, Demands More Violence

By now it has become accepted wisdom that Ukraine is losing the war against Russia.

Western governments are slowly accepting that their Ukrainian proxy forces have no chance to turn the situation around. None of their own populations or military are prepared to get themselves engaged in combat. Meanwhile the war support for Ukraine is eating into their budgets.

The situation necessitates to push for an end of the war - at least a temporarily one.

The Zelenski government is officially against any talk of ceasefire or piece without it being a full Ukrainian victory. But behind close doors such talks are preceding.

That is at least what the editors of the Financial Times are telling the public:

Ukraine’s shifting war aims (archived)

In Washington and some western capitals, meanwhile — and in the corridors of Kyiv — the mood is shifting: from a determination that the war can end only with Russia’s army driven from Ukraine, to the reluctant recognition that a negotiated settlement that leaves the bulk of the country intact may be the best hope. Yet Kyiv is not being given the support it needs even to achieve that scaled-back goal.
...
[G]rappling simultaneously with an escalating Middle East war, even some western capitals that previously insisted on the need to defeat Russia’s Vladimir Putin militarily are recalibrating their goals. Some Kyiv officials, too, fret in private that they lack the personnel, firepower and western support to recover all territory seized by Russia. There is talk behind closed doors of a deal in which Moscow retains de facto control over the roughly one-fifth of Ukraine it has occupied — though Russia’s sovereignty is not recognised — while the rest of the country is allowed to join Nato or given equivalent security guarantees. Under that umbrella, it could rebuild and integrate with the EU, akin to West Germany in the cold war.
The plan is to concede some land to Russia while giving a NATO protection cover to a rump Ukraine.


There are at least four groups involved here who will not agree to such a solution.

All NATO countries have to agree to take up new members. If the western parts of Ukraine are allowed to join NATO who is going to keep Ukraine under control? What would happen if it provokes another war with Russia? Will all current NATO countries find that agreeing to Ukraine's NATO membership will increase their own security?

Some countries, like the Russo-phobe Baltic ones, would probably support that step. But I do no believe that any of the more sane NATO members will be willing to risk a war with Russia over an issue, Ukraine, that is only of marginal interest to them.

An Ukrainian membership in the EU will see similar hurdles. Two-third of the EU budget are agricultural subsidies designed to allow for a common market without destroying the farming communities in this or that country. The largest share of those subsidies currently goes to Poland. Ukrainian land is extremely fertile. It can produce crops at much lower costs than its EU neighbors. The EU does not have and will not have the budget to compensate for that. Any entering of Ukraine into the EU would thereby lead to losses for farmers in any if not all current EU member states.

The price advantage of Ukrainian agricultural products is the reason why Polish farmers have just restarted their blocking of border crossings with Ukraine (machine translation):

Polish farmers blocked traffic at several checkpoints last winter and spring. They demanded that the Polish government suspend the transit of Ukrainian agricultural products, the import of which was previously prohibited.

The farmers of Poland have an unusually big influence on the country's policies. Poland will thereby likely be the country most opposed to a EU membership of Ukraine. Others will agree with it.

Ukraine itself would of course also have to agree to a ceasefire or peace agreement that would lead to a loss of some 25% of its land. While the average Ukrainian may well favor a land for peace deal a distinct minority on the radical right is adamant against it. As a previous FT piece noted (archived):

“If you get into any negotiation, it could be a trigger for social instability,” says a Ukrainian official. “Zelenskyy knows this very well.”
“There will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation capitulation. The far right in Ukraine is growing. The right wing is a danger to democracy,” says Merezhko, who is an MP for Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party.


The radical segment in Ukraine's society, aka the Nazis, are heavily armed and experienced in combat. They do have sympathy in the higher ranks of the Ukrainian army. The former Chief of Staff General Zaluzny is known for good relations with it as is General Budanov, the current head of the military intelligence service.

A civil government of Ukraine which wants to engage in serious peace negotiations will first have to neutralize those radical forces. Without that it will have little chance to survive their onslaught.

The fourth party that would have to agree to such a ceasefire, and NATO membership for a rump Ukraine, is of course Russia.

Russia was, is, and will be against any membership in NATO of any part of Ukraine:

In January 2008, William Burns, the U. S. Ambassador to Russia at the time, sent a classified cable to Washington in which he summarized Russia’s concerns about NATO expansion. The subject line, “Nyet means Nyet,” or “No means No,” conveyed in a single word Burns’ belief that NATO expansion into Ukraine was “brightest of all redlines” for Russia.

Russia largely launched its special military operation in 2022 to prevent a NATO membership for Ukraine. It was and is sure that any encroachment of NATO in Ukraine will be used to weaken Russia. It is now winning the war in Ukraine. To now agree on some form of NATO membership for a rump of Ukraine would contradict the war's purpose.

The ceasefire or peace plan the FT editorial foresees depends on the agreement of all NATO and EU member states as well as the approval by the Ukrainian and Russian government. Neither of the four groups is likely to sign off on it.

The FT editors know this well:

This scenario relies, however, on ambitious assumptions. One is that the US and its allies must be prepared to offer Nato membership or the necessary guarantees, when they have so far been reluctant to grant Kyiv a binding path into the alliance.
...
A second assumption is that Russia’s president can be induced to negotiate and accept such a scenario. But preventing Ukraine from joining Nato was one of his ostensible war aims.


But instead of rejecting the plan because it is obviously infeasible the editors demand to apply more violence to achieve its acceptance:

Whether the goal is outright victory or bringing Russia to the table, western allies need to strengthen Ukraine’s hand. The Kremlin can only be pushed into talks on a deal that might be satisfactory for Kyiv, and the west, if it feels the costs of fighting on are too high. And any resolution to the war that enables all or part of Ukraine to survive and prosper will need guarantees of its security.
...
We cannot yet know how the war will end. But it is within the west’s power — and interest — to help Ukraine regain the upper hand over its foe.
The editorial is a demonstration of the childish naivety that is predominant in western government thinking: Ukraine is losing. Propose a peace agreement that has no chance of getting implemented. Demand to intensify and prolong the war to -may be- make the infeasible peace plan less infeasible.


But Ukraine and the west have lost the war. Negotiating a ceasefire of peace deal with oneself, as the FT editors do, does no make it plausible. All ways to a deal that is "satisfactory for Kyiv, and the west" have long been foreclosed - by the west. There will simply be no deal like that - ever.

Denying that reality will only lead to higher losses for Ukraine and for the west.

Posted by b on October 8, 2024 at 15:35 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/10/u ... .html#more
"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 Oct 10, 2024 11:48 am

Diplomacy simulation
Posted by @nsanzo ⋅ 10/10/2024

Image

“Ukraine seeks peace summit with Russia before year-end,” Reuters headlined on Wednesday , citing statements by Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey, Vasyl Bodnar. Hours earlier, the President’s Office had ruled out the possibility of the long-awaited meeting taking place in November, so Kiev appears to be aiming for December to try to achieve what it failed to achieve in December: to stage a global consensus in favour of Ukraine and, above all, its formula for resolving the conflict. Since the failure of that summit organised by Andriy Ermak, in which the perception that Ukraine was not seeking peace but was only betting on war was particularly widespread in the countries of the Global South, the Kiev government has tried to control the damage by appealing to diplomacy and showing itself theoretically open to a negotiated peace.

The nuance of this diplomacy and this peace lies in the terms to which Ukraine aspires, which make it clear that the tactics may have changed, but not the strategy. Kiev has made it clear that it hopes to recover its territorial integrity according to the 1991 borders, something that can only be achieved by defeating Russia militarily, economically and politically, in addition to obtaining a privileged access route to both the European Union and NATO, the latter aspect making it impossible for a political agreement to be reached under the current conditions. The fact that Zelensky has stopped talking about a peace formula to present his proposal as a plan for victory further influences what his objectives are. Referring to a fair peace , the Ukrainian president seeks to legitimize his plan and obtain majority support, especially among the countries that at the first summit perceived that Ukraine was, due to its intransigent stance and opposition to negotiation, an obstacle to the resolution of the conflict. However, the conditions that qualify the peace as fair are exactly the same as those that make negotiations unfeasible. kyiv's plan remains the same and its objectives have not changed since 2023, when it naively hoped to break through the Zaporozhye front and put Russia between a rock and a hard place, forced to abide by the terms dictated by Ukraine and the West.

Outside support, the possibility of escalating the war the moment it receives permission from the West to use Western long-range missiles against targets on Russian territory, the perception that sanctions and the temporary extension of the war may still be able to significantly undermine the Russian economy, and heavy doses of propaganda mean that kyiv is able to maintain its demands even though it is significantly weakened at the front. Despite the Kursk adventure, or perhaps partly because of it, Ukraine is losing ground in Donbass and sees its control over its last strong points threatened, behind which there are no major fortifications and its defence would be seriously undermined. However, Zelensky and his entourage downplay these setbacks, highlighting the huge Russian casualties he claims to be inflicting and insisting that he does not intend to recover all the territories by military means but by political and diplomatic means. In this way, any withdrawal is a victory that comes after inflicting enormous damage on the enemy and with which kyiv, unlike Moscow, seeks to preserve the lives of its soldiers. This picture of reality hides the significant wear and tear that occurs in this type of battle, in which Ukraine fights while considering that it is possible to inflict Russian casualties, and then gives the order to retreat when the battle is already lost. This performance contrasts, for example, with the Russian withdrawals in the defeats at Kharkiv and Kherson in the autumn of 2022, which occurred without a battle and which allowed Russia, which at that time suffered from a chronic shortage of troops, to defend itself at the most critical points.

The widespread belief that Russia is emerging stronger while Ukraine has been weakened over the past year, coupled with proposals such as NATO membership in exchange for temporarily giving up territories now under Russian control, have revived calls for negotiations. The West would succeed in freezing the front and proceeding to rebuild Ukraine's infrastructure and economy by offering the jackpot of rapid accession to the Atlantic alliance, something that continues to be perceived in kyiv as an unacceptable consolation prize if it does not come hand in hand with the recovery of the lost regions. The recent anger with the Polish Foreign Minister, Radek Sikorski, who had to back down from his proposal to leave Crimea in the hands of an international administration in order to hold a long-term, recognised referendum in which the population could choose between Russia or Ukraine, shows that kyiv has not even given up the peninsula, lost a decade ago and whose recovery can only be achieved by military means.

Yesterday’s statements by the Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey show once again that kyiv’s position has not only not changed, but has been reaffirmed. In contrast to the open negotiations proposed by countries such as China and Brazil, the Ukrainian government continues to propose a simulation that has little or nothing to do with diplomacy. “One of the most important objectives of this summit is to achieve a fair peace in Ukraine,” said the Ukrainian ambassador, who added that “we are not talking about a format here in which Ukraine and Russia sit face to face and Ukraine listens to Russia’s demands.” Bodnar verbalizes what has always been clear: the Ukrainian aspiration is for Russia to sit face to face with Ukraine and listen to its demands. “What we see is this: the international community, together with Ukraine, will sit down and create a list of steps that can be taken to achieve a just peace in Ukraine and discuss what kind of demands to ask of Russia based on this list,” he added, insisting that “this is not a bilateral meeting, most likely it will be in a format where third countries will also be involved and the talks will be conducted via third countries.” In other words, Ukraine is seeking to reach a consensus with its allies, who have magically transformed into the International Community, from which, of course, those countries that see the sham will be excluded, on a list of demands that Russia, which will not even have the right to sit opposite Ukraine, will have to accept.

The fact that this approach is clearly unworkable, that there is no chance that Russia will agree to participate in a summit under these conditions and that Ukraine will not thereby gain further international support among the countries it hopes to attract to its position does not, however, prevent the media from continuing to propagate Kiev's diplomatic will and its good faith in negotiations. Despite the fact that the simulation of diplomacy has been a fundamental part of Ukraine's modus operandi since it broke out in conflict ten years ago.

https://slavyangrad.es/2024/10/10/simul ... lomacia-2/



Google Translator

*****

From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Summary of the Russian Ministry of Defense on the progress of repelling the attempted invasion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces into the territory of the Russian Federation in the Kursk Region (as of October 9, 2024)

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue operations to defeat the enemy group that has penetrated into the territory of the Kursk Region.

- Units of the North group of forces continued offensive operations, during which they liberated the settlements of Novaya Sorochina and Pokrovsky, defeated the formations of the 22nd, 41st, 47th and 115th mechanized, 17th tank, 82nd and 95th airborne assault brigades, the 1st National Guard Brigade, as well as the 103rd and 129th territorial defense brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Darino, Lyubimovka, Novy Put and Plekhovo.

- Over the past 24 hours, the group's units repelled two enemy attacks in the direction of the settlements of Lyubimovka and Plekhovo. As a result, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 20 people killed and wounded.

- Army aviation strikes and artillery fire damaged concentrations of manpower and equipment of the 22nd, 41st, 61st and 115th mechanized, 82nd and 95th airborne assault brigades, the 1st National Guard Brigade, as well as the 103rd and 129th territorial defense brigades in the areas of the settlements of Bondarevka, Darino, Kolmakov, Kruglenkoye, Lyubimovka, Leonidove, Martynovka, Mikhaylovka, Melovy, Nikolayevo-Daryino, Novy Put, Plekhovo, Tolsty Lug and Cherkasskoye Porechnoye.

- Operational-tactical aviation and missile forces carried out strikes on the areas of concentration in the Sumy region and reserves of the 21st, 47th and 115th mechanized, 95th airborne assault brigades, 36th marine brigade, 1st national guard brigade, as well as the 103rd and 119th territorial defense brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Belovody, Bunyakino, Katerinovka, Zhuravka, Makeyevka, Mirlogi, Pavlovka, Novonikolayevka, Rechki, Starikovo and Stepanovka. Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have lost about 100 servicemen.

- In total , during the military operations in the Kursk direction, the enemy lost more than 21,350 servicemen, 136 tanks, 66 infantry fighting vehicles, 98 armored personnel carriers, 891 armored combat vehicles, 589 cars, 177 artillery pieces, 33 multiple launch rocket system launchers, including eight HIMARS and six MLRS made in the USA, nine anti-aircraft missile system launchers, five transport and loading vehicles, 45 electronic warfare stations, nine counter-battery radars, three air defense radars, 22 units of engineering and other equipment, of which 13engineering vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing unit, and three armored repair and recovery vehicles. The operation to destroy the Ukrainian Armed Forces formations continues.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******

The War's Pivotal Impasse Crystallizes as Russia Cements Negotiation Terms

Simplicius
Oct 08, 2024

Increasingly the lens is being narrowed onto territorial concessions as Ukraine’s end game. Behind the scenes, all Ukraine’s Western allies now understand that it’s impossible to compete with Russia and the only way they can salvage some of their blood-investment is by freezing the conflict under the false promise that Ukraine can regain its lost territories at some future date, after a few years of rebuilding.

A new FT article spotlights this angle.

Image
https://archive.ph/mTiBH

Key summary:

‼️Kiev is holding closed talks on a peace deal that would see Russia retain control over Ukrainian territories it controls but not recognise its sovereignty over them, - Financial Times

▪️ “Behind closed doors, there is talk of a deal in which Russia controls about 1/5 of Ukraine, although Russian sovereignty is not recognized - while the rest of the country is allowed to join NATO or receive equivalent security guarantees.”

▪️The publication describes a scenario similar to how West Germany restructured and integrated with the EU during the Cold War.

RVvoenkor


The article opens by acknowledging that behind the scenes the mood is “darker than ever” and that Ukraine faces a devastating winter of power shortages. What’s extremely interesting, to digress briefly, is how they acknowledge that a settlement of the conflict which is ‘adverse’ to Ukraine in favor of Russia would pose grave security risks to Europe and the US.

So, are they admitting that a non-neutral Ukraine is a key linchpin buffer state that poses massive risks to either side, depending on its alignment? If that’s the case, why the hysterical denial of Russia’s justified concerns about Ukraine’s shifting alignment to the West after the CIA-sponsored coup in 2014? Surely they can see Russia is likewise due the same allowance of concern they now profess for themselves.

They go on to land their key thesis:

Some Kyiv officials, too, fret in private that they lack the personnel, firepower and western support to recover all territory seized by Russia. There is talk behind closed doors of a deal in which Moscow retains de facto control over the roughly one-fifth of Ukraine it has occupied — though Russia’s sovereignty is not recognised — while the rest of the country is allowed to join Nato or given equivalent security guarantees. Under that umbrella, it could rebuild and integrate with the EU, akin to West Germany in the cold war.

But they explain that even the optimistic deal above relies entirely on two improbable scenarios:

That the US and allies would even allow the remaining rump-state Ukraine to enter NATO. This is problematic because it would require the mass-deployment of US troops upfront as a Cold War-style ‘tripwire’ in accordance with Article 5.

That Putin would agree to such a ceasefire deal to begin with, particularly given the fact that one of the principle stated reasons for the SMO being launched was the prevention of Ukraine joining NATO. We will address this point specifically later.

They do also mention that Putin doesn’t quite have the incentive for a ‘land for peace’ deal when his troops are essentially winning and making active advances. Why settle for some land now when he can take the whole thing? Of course, one of the answers to this lay in Zelensky’s Kursk gambit, which was partly designed to capture an amount of territory that would induce Putin to exchange it for what Russia captured in Donbass and elsewhere. But this has no chance, as Russian troops are shrinking Ukraine’s Kursk holdings daily, including some gains yesterday and today, and it will all be recaptured in due time.

The article concludes with the groping sentiment that Russia can only be forced into these demands if Russia feels the costs of the war have become too high. This could not be a more preposterously frivolous idea. Russia has shown nothing other than iron-clad determination for total victory, with its economy going to a war-footing, particularly with next year’s mass defense spending surges, and its population—which includes previously frayed elites—increasingly patriotic. Any inconvenient ‘thorn’ Ukraine manages to rib into Russia’s side only amplifies Russia’s resoluteness and solidarity. There is no possible event that can even conceivably cause Russia to decide “enough is enough, we must back down”.

In this game of Chicken, the West will have to veer first or simply accept that nukes will fly at the height of the escalation ladder.

But now that we’ve been apprised of the West’s new terms, we also have an interesting new insight into Russia’s terms courtesy of Newsweek’s latest, which has an interview with none other than venerable Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Image
https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-russ ... ne-1964468

Lavrov prefaces with this axiomatic condensation of Putin’s stated position on the conflict:

"Russia is open to a politico-diplomatic settlement that should remove the root causes of the crisis," he said. "It should aim to end the conflict rather than achieve a ceasefire."

This is key: Russia seeks to end the broader crisis, which is ideologically larger than the mere physical war itself, rather than merely achieving a shallow ceasefire. In short, Russia wants something permament, not another Minsk-style set of accords.

Lavrov likewise cites the need for the entire world order to recalibrate to modern realities as part of this settlement process—this is a nod to Putin’s Westphalian-redux proposition of a whole new security architecture undergirding any possible settlement.

"What we have in mind is that the world order needs be adjusted to the current realities," he said. "Today the world is living through the 'multipolar moment'. Shifting towards the multi-polar world order is a natural part of power rebalancing, which reflects objective changes in the world economy, finance and geopolitics. The West waited longer than the others, yet it has also started to realize that this process is irreversible."

But the final segment is the most important. Lavrov for the first time finally clearly enunciates Russia’s explicit demands for ending the conflict via ceasefire. For all those wondering amidst the hazy rumors and stitched-together partial statements, here it is, finally in unvarnished form—Russia’s concrete demands for the settlement of the conflict as of this present time:

Lavrov: Our position is widely known and remains unchanged. Russia is open to a politico-diplomatic settlement that should remove the root causes of the crisis. It should aim to end the conflict rather than achieve a ceasefire. The West should stop supplying weapons, and Kiev should end the hostilities. Ukraine should return to its neutral, non-bloc and non-nuclear status, protect the Russian language, and respect the rights and freedoms of its citizens.

The Istanbul Agreements initialed on 29 March 2022 by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations could serve as a basis for the settlement. They provide for Kiev's refusal to join NATO and contain security guarantees for Ukraine while recognizing the realities on the ground at that moment. Needless to say, in over two years, these realities have considerably changed, including in legal terms.

On 14 June, President Vladimir Putin listed prerequisites for the settlement as follows: complete AFU withdrawal from the DPR [Donetsk People's Republic], LPR [Luhansk People's Republic], Zaporozhye and Kherson Oblasts; recognition of territorial realities as enshrined in the Russian Constitution; neutral, non-bloc, non-nuclear status for Ukraine; its demilitarization and denazification; securing the rights, freedoms and interests of Russian-speaking citizens; and removal of all sanctions against Russia


So, we have:

AFU must withdraw from DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye, and Kherson. These republics were all officially annexed by Russia on September 30, 2022 as enshrined in the Russian Constitution, which makes it final. They are now irreversibly part of the Russian state and cannot be negotiated. Again I remind you: this goes for the full pre-war borders of those states—that means Ukraine would have to withdraw from both Kherson city, as well as the huge industrial center of Zaporozhye city, which has a population of nearly 1 million.

Interestingly, Lavrov cites the recognition of these realities as being part of the demand. That means the earlier floated regime in the FT article would not fly, given that it proposes for Kiev to explicitly not “recognize” Russia’s dominion of these territories while still ‘temporarily’ ceding control of them. It’s a small but very significant sticking point that could be a deal-breaker for the whole thing.

Neutral, non-bloc, non-nuclear status for Ukraine. The problem here is, who would be the guarantor to such a dubious thing? What could possibly entice Russia to trust Western/NATO accomplices in guaranteeing this for the foreseeable future when it’s now known their word is as good as the toilet paper it’s written on? That is obviously another huge sticking point, and could require the inclusion of other major BRICS powers like China as guarantors, which would almost by default turn the proceedings into a kind of newly reimagined global framework, the likes of which Putin talked about.

Securing the rights of all Russian-speakers; this one is self-explanatory.

The big one—it’s still here for those doomers and 5th columnists who claimed Putin had backpeddled on these: demilitarization and deNazification. Since Lavrov cited the Istanbul agreement as a basis, we can infer that the documents on Ukraine’s demilitarization from that meeting can serve as a starting point.

For those wondering, here are the very documents Putin presented, showing precisely what demilitarized limits Russia sought to impose on Ukraine:

(Paywall with free option unavailable to my primitive tech...)

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/the ... ystallizes

******

Jeff Childers: West Changes the Narrative in Ukraine
October 8, 2024 natyliesb
By Jeff Childers, Substack, 10/7/24

As the world braces for….[the] anniversary of the barbaric October 7th attacks on Israel and as the war in the Middle East heats up, the influential Financial Times floated a very suggestive proposal yesterday headlined, “Ukraine, Nato membership and the West Germany model.” The sub-headline added, “Security guarantees will have to underpin any peace deal where Russia retains control of Ukrainian land.” So much for “not one inch.”

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“Although it remains committed to recovering the lands seized by Russia over the past decade,” the Financial Times regretfully explained, Ukraine “regrettably lacks the manpower, weaponry and western support to do it.” Later, it somberly conceded, “the west patently lacks a strategy for Ukraine to prevail.”

Now they tell us! And here, we all thought they had a strategy of some kind. (Just wait for the next story to see what the current strategy is.) But apparently not. So now they want to split the Ukraine baby.

Now they tell us, Part Deux: “The West German model for Ukraine has been discussed in foreign policy circles for more than 18 months.” Surprise! What they mean by the “West German model” is splitting Ukraine into two parts, like West and East Germany after the Second World War. In that historic scenario, West Germany was allowed to join NATO even though half the country remained under Soviet control.

This overly optimistic scheme suffers from two obvious problems, as the article eventually got around to admitting. First, in Germany, the occupied borders were well-defined, allowing the famous Berlin Wall to be erected right down the line. But in Ukraine, the war marches on, and the ever-changing borders remain fluid.

Second, after the war, the Soviets agreed to the Germany-splitting compromise. Today, Russia will never agree to let West Ukraine join NATO as part of any peace plan. It will never ever happen.

Biden’s neocons, Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, must now divide their attention between the old, difficult, plan-less Ukraine war, and the shiny new war emerging in the Middle East, which is ripe with potential and enthusiasm for a fresh conflict and all its glorious potential.

Meanwhile, things are only getting worse in Eastern Europe’s strategy-free theater of war. Any day now, Ukraine will head into winter and its rasputitsa mud season, further freezing and bogging down prospects for Ukraine’s ‘victory.’

Perhaps it isn’t completely fair to say there’s no strategy. On Saturday, the New York Times ran an eye-watering story headlined, “Ukraine’s Donbas Strategy: Retreat Slowly and Maximize Russia’s Losses.” The agonized sub-headline added, “It’s far from clear if the Ukrainian strategy will succeed.” So, there is a strategy after all.

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Talk about trying to put a good spin on failure. The gist was that the Ukrainians are losing, are in retreat all along the front lines, but Kiev has ordered its troops to hold their untenable positions at all costs, in the hope that the Russians will eventually get tired of winning and go home.

That’s it. That’s the whole strategy.

To be clear, Ukraine has an alternative: pulling its troops from vast numbers of unholdable towns and villages, and mustering them together in more defensible positions, such as behind the giant Dnieper river, which divides the country in half. The main advantage of this defensive strategy would be saving tens or hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives.

Instead, Ukrainian martial law coordinator and former comedian Zelensky figures that, despite the astonishingly high cost in lives and free NATO materiel, by holding on till beyond the last minute in every little hamlet and township, the Russians might, sooner or later, get exhausted by all the fighting and give up.

Given that one of Russia’s stated objectives at the outset was to demilitarize Ukraine, it seems unlikely that Russia will get tired anytime soon of killing Ukrainian soldiers by the battalion.

Combined, these two stories, the Financial Times’ and the New York Times’ articles, together revealed the war’s hideous truth. Western war planners don’t care about Ukraine. They don’t care about its courageous soldiers willing to fight Russia to their inglorious deaths. As I reported yesterday, all the West cares about is the Wolfowitz Doctrine: establishing a NATO foothold in Ukraine to keep a lid on Russia and prevent it from becoming a rival world superpower.

In other words, the Ukrainian people and their land are disposable NATO resources. But there isn’t any strategy. Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result isn’t a strategy, it’s insanity.

But the fact the corporate media conversation and “foreign policy circles” have evolved from a goal of crushing Russia any day now to a strategy of trading land for peace is a great sign. Perhaps the end lies in sight.

https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/10/jef ... n-ukraine/

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The Sanctions Poison Pill in Putin’s Peace Offer
Posted on October 8, 2024 by Yves Smith

Poison pill noun
a financial tactic or provision used by a company to make an unwanted takeover prohibitively expensive or less desirable

-Merriam Webster


Yours truly must confess to having overlooked a critical component of Putin’s proposed peace terms, which he articulated on June 14, and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov just reiterated in an exclusive interview to Newsweek, which was his position on sanctions. Admittedly, Putin included it almost as an afterthought.

First, let’s look at Lavrov’s recap, since it’s more compact than Putin’s formulation (which Putin set forth in two places in his speech, so it was not a tidy, self-contained list). From Newsweek:

On 14 June, President Vladimir Putin listed prerequisites for the settlement as follows: complete AFU withdrawal from the DPR [Donetsk People’s Republic], LPR [Luhansk People’s Republic], Zaporozhye and Kherson Oblasts; recognition of territorial realities as enshrined in the Russian Constitution; neutral, non-bloc, non-nuclear status for Ukraine; its demilitarization and denazification; securing the rights, freedoms and interests of Russian-speaking citizens; and removal of all sanctions against Russia.

Aside from Putin setting forth all these issues, including recognition of the four oblasts plus Crimea as being part of Russia, in his June 14 speech, important media outlets also stated the key points (see for instance the Anadolu Agency writeup).

We will skip over the fact that Putin warned, not long after the Istanbul talks collapses, that the longer the war went on, the harder it would become to negotiate with Russia. By implication, just by virtue of Putin’s last offer being made in June and it now being October, with Russia having made considerable breakthroughs on the ground, that Russia would insist on even tougher terms now. That is confirmed by Russia’s position that it would not negotiate with Ukraine at all as long as it has forces in Russia. And many commentators have said opinion in Russia hardened even more against Ukraine after the Kursk invasion, and more citizens wanting Russia to fully subdue Ukraine and dictate terms that before.

Currently, Western commentators are focusing on what is sure to continue to an area of no bargaining overlap: that of Ukraine neutrality and foreswearing membership in NATO. That was tentatively agreed in Istanbul in March-April 2022 because the US and NATO were allowing Ukraine the appearance of autonomy. That is no longer very much the case. NATO and other Western officials now regularly yammer that Russia has no business deciding whether any country joins NATO. Of course, a Ukraine under different management (including most Banderites dead or run out of the country) could but the US and NATO would not give any security guarantees. Some Western pundits and officials are engaging in new versions of cope, such as advocating Ukraine cede the Russian-occupied land (temporarily!) for NATO membership. Amusingly, Zelensky and the Azov types are incandescent.

The part of Putin’s proposal that I saw as particularly cheeky but got comparatively little attention in the Western press was the condition that Ukraine withdraw from all of the four contested oblasts, which goes beyond what Russia occupies and that that be recognized as Russian territory. For those who have not been paying careful attention, the Banderites have threatened Zelensky if he gives up any part of Ukraine.

From the Kremlin translation of the Meeting with Foreign Ministry senior officials:

Certainly, the rights, freedoms, and interests of Russian-speaking citizens in Ukraine must be fully protected. The new territorial realities, including the status of Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions as parts of the Russian Federation, should be acknowledged. These foundational principles need to be formalised through fundamental international agreements in the future. Naturally, this entails the removal of all Western sanctions against Russia as well.

You will see that Putin goes from agreement terms that can be granted by Ukraine alone, to ones to be granted by other countries, admittedly down the road. Even if a future Ukraine agrees to recognize the four oblasts and Crimea as part of Russia, it seems well-nigh impossible that the US and EU would ever concede that. However, most BRICS members probably would, so that would confer considerable legitimacy

It’s thus odd to see Putin, who obviously know what he is doing, toss in the idea of reversing all Collective West sanctions almost as an afterthought. These were formally imposed on a state by state basis. The US, UK, EU, Australia, Japan and South Korea all implemented sanctions packages. That included the seizure of Russian central bank assets by the EU, US, and UK, with the EU holding the bulk of the frozen lucre.

Let’s engage in some thought experiments. The EU has been desperately trying to “Trump-proof” various Ukraine arrangements. If Trump were to become President and be willing to meet Russia way more than halfway and give some sanctions relief, you can be sure that the EU would do everything in its power to undermine Trump, particularly where it has more degrees of freedom, as with the sanctions. Remember also that Ursula von der Leyen is about as hysterically anti-Russian as the Baltic states, and has filled the top ranks of the Commission with female uber-hawks. EU experts please pipe up. I assume modifying or ending the sanctions would require a unanimous EU vote, and not just a qualified majority, which amounts to na ga happen.

Mind you, I expect this implacable rejection to continue even when it became more self-destructive than now. What if things get so ugly in the Middle East that oil goes over $120 a barrel and stays there? Yes, China will be hurt, but so too would be the recessionary EU. But it seems vanishingly unlikely that they’d roll back the Russian oil sanctions, or that Germany would accept gas from the still-working one of four original Nordstream 2 pipelines.

Given all that, one has to think that Putin clearly understood that his Western potential interlocutors would reject not just some but all of his deal points with prejudice. So why make an offer that the other side is set to reject? First, Putin (as we and others have stressed) finds it important to make clear to his Global South economic partners that he’s not being the difficult party, that Russia is not the impediment to ending the war. Most of these countries are still viscerally uncomfortable with Russia invading and occupying a neighbor even if they understand why intellectually.

To put it another way, setting out terms, even if they are objectively reasonable, or at least a not-crazy opening position for talks, that the other side looks set to reject, looks like an exercise in papering the record, rather than negotiating. Lavrov underscored the idea with Newsweek: “At present, as far as we can see, restoring peace is not part of our adversary’s plan.”

So one can argue that Putin had concluded before June 14 that the only way to resolve the conflict was through a battlefield victory. His provisions were a way to make that official without saying so.

But second, this may have been Putin doing his own early Trump-proofing. Remember, he made this speech before the Biden-second-term-killing debate with Trump. Trump then looked to have good odds against Biden due among other things lack of enthusiasm for Biden dampening Democratic party fundraising. And Trump has told anyone who would listen that he can secure a peace in Ukraine in 24 hours.

So was this outline of terms a bit of Russian Trump-proofing? Recall how Putin over time found dealing with Macron’s various peace schemes to be tiresome. So he might want to short-circuit similarly pointless talks with Trump by pointing to his position and playing broken record.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10 ... offer.html

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WHAT IS RUSSIA DECIDING FOR TERMS TO END THE WAR IN THE UKRAINE – GORILLA RADIO EXPLAINS

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by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

The Russian history of end-of-war negotiations for the capitulation of Germany and for the World War II peace settlement requires it to be understood now: it was the Red Army’s defeat of the enemy on the battlefield all the way to Berlin which preceded and which was the precondition for the paper promises and pacts offered to Moscow by those allies whom Joseph Stalin understood to be permanent enemies of Russia — the United States, United Kingdom, and France.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has just spelled this out in an especially timed essay published on October 2.

Those lessons are being repeated now because they apply with equal force to the end-of-war negotiations with the US in the process nicknamed Istanbul-II.

For Russian decision-makers in Moscow, and for the Russian people across the country, there can be no long-term security for the country without the military defeat of the enemy on the Ukrainian battlefield, capitulation of the Kiev regime, and withdrawal from Ukrainian territory of its US and NATO allies. This is first of all.

The political “guarantees”, “permanent neutrality” of the Ukraine, and treaty promises for the removal of foreign bases, forces, and weapons to continue war against Russia – terms spelled out in the pact of March 2022 known as Istanbul-I — come second. This is because the terms are unreliable and unenforceable, no matter what president of the US is elected next month and promises the day after — unless and until the Russian military has won the unconditional surrender of its enemies, and secured the battlefield against revival of the war in future. This battlefield security extends from the new Russian western border to the old Ukrainian borders with Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova.

Which must come first now — war or politics?

The Russian answers to this question being debated in Moscow today are turning the old German theory of war and the state upside down, reversing the meaning of the well-known maxim of Carl von Clausewitz (lead image, badge), “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” In Europe today — the Russian General Staff and Security Council insist — politics is the continuation of war by other means. Accordingly, the terms of Istanbul-II for the politicians to draft and sign must follow the terms of armistice, unconditional surrender and disarmament to be dictated by the generals.

For background to the end-of-war terms now in discussion, read the draft Istanbul-1 treaty of March 2022:

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Source: https://static01.nyt.com/
https://gradio.substack.com/p/gorilla-r ... k-john-f1a

For analysis, click to read.

For Gilbert Doctorow’s interpretations, click to read.

For Paul Craig Roberts’s entry in the debate, read this.

Listen to Chris Cook lead the hour-long discussion on the only independent talk show in Canada, Gorilla Radio.

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Source: https://gradio.substack.com/

https://johnhelmer.net/what-is-russia-d ... -explains/

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Gordon Hahn: A River Runs Through the End of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War
October 9, 2024
By Gordon Hahn, Website, 9/22/24

A river runs through Russian and, more recently, Ukrainian history. Ironically enough, the Dnieper River that unites Russia and Ukraine in this and other ways – the river rises in the Valdai Hills of Smolensk, Russia and runs through Belarus and Ukraine – is now the focus of the greatest schism in the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations. Russian forces appear impossible to stop and will arrive at the Dnieper at some point along its snaking length no later than next year, with Russian troops perhaps controlling the river’s and the country’s Left Bank by then. Russia – as well as the West and whatever remains of Ukraine‘s Maidan regime will then face some serious decisions.

The Dnieper River in Russian and Ukrainian History

The Dnieper River has played a major role in Russian and Ukrainian history and is now positioned to so again. The Dnieper drove the foundation of the first Russian city and state. The first Russian state of Kievan Rus rose from the city-state of Kiev, founded by Vikings as a result of the early small port town‘s location on the great north-south water route, the Amber Road, flowing between Scandinavia (the Swedish Viking Varangians) and Byzantian Constantinople. Thus, the Dnieper gave birth to ‚the mother of Russian cities‘ and connected Kievan Rus to what would become the source of much of Russian culure: Greek or Eastern Orthodoxy.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks, famous in Russia and Ukraine, as well as other Cossack formations, were located on the Dnieper, the Zaporozhians in the marshes and islands on the Lower Dniper near its Black Sea estuary. The Dnieper became the dividing line between Polish- and Russian-controlled ‚Ukrainian‘ lands, with the western side of what today is Ukraine called the ‚Right Bank Ukraine‘ and the eastern side known as ‚Left Bank Ukraine.‘ In the Soviet era, the Dniper’s six major hydroelectric stations and damns were symbols of communist modernization. One is featured near the end of Boris Pasternak’s famous novel Doctor Zhivago, as well as in the British film version of the novel.

The Dnieper was the focus of great battles during what Russians call the ‚Great Patriotic War‘ and what others call ‚World War II.‘ Following the largest tank battle in history at Kursk, the Battle for Dnieper was one of the largest operations of the war, involving four million troops, stretching over nearly 900 miles of front, and lasting over four months in 1943. It opened the way to the liberation of Kiev from the Nazi fascist army on 28 October 1944.

The Dnieper – more accurately one of its tributaries, the Pripyat – was the locus of the world’s first great nuclear disaster in 1986 at Chernobyl‘. The poetic Ukrainian name for the river, Slavutych or Slavuta, taken from an ancient Kievan Rus name for the river became the name of the town used to house displaced Chernobyl nuclear power plant workers.

Today, the Dnieper finds itself at the center of history once again.

Russia Marches to the Dnieper: What Then?

By the end of next year, if not earlier, Russian forces likely will reach the Dnieper and perhaps already be laying seige to Zaporozhe, Dnipro, Cherkassk, and, perhaps, Right Bank Kiev. This situation will demand key, pivotal decisions by the NATO-Russian Ukrainian War’s participants: NATO, Russia, and Ukraine.

For Russia, there will be at least three choices: (1) stop territorial advance at the Dnieper and offer peace talks with the threat to cross the Dnieper in lieu of an agreement that precludes NATO expansion to rump Ukraine and Moldova; (2) stop at the Dnieper without offering negotiations and warn the West that Russia will cross the Dnieper should NATO or NATO countries continue any activity or relations with Maidan Ukraine; (3) continue to Right Bank Kiev, the city’s center and country’s capitol, and then to the rest of Right Bank Ukraine without offering any negotiations, only conquest, capitulation, and survival of a Ukrainian or Galician state solely on lands not occupied by Russian troops before a capitulation act is signed by Maidan Ukraine, Washington, and Brussels.

The first option — halting Russian forces‘ territorial advance at the Dnieper while offering peace talks and threatening to cross the Dnieper in lieu of an agreement that precludes NATO expansion to rump Ukraine (and Moldova?) and any other NATO activity in Ukraine and meets other Russian demands – has advantages and weaknesses as do the other options. The obvious advantages are the end of NATO expansion to Ukraine and of the war or ‚special military operation‘ (SMO), assuming the West (and Russia) meet their obligations. The downside from Russia’s perspective is the possibility of the agreement collapsing or being violated by Ukraine and the West at some point in the future, necessitating another SMO or fully-declared war. Assuming Ukraine restores something resembling democracy, the presence of a democratic state on Russia’s border is not a threat to Russia, and is not by itself viewed by Russia as such. Such an assumption is based on the false and largely propagandistic notion that ‚Putin abhors democracy‘ and Russia is inherently antagonistic to democracies. This is false, as demonstrated by Putin’s recently warm visit to democratic Mongolia, located on Russia’s border like Ukraine.

It is important to keep in mind that obstacles to this option include Zelenskiy’s 2022 law forbidding negotiations with Moscow as long as Putin is in power and Putin’s post-Kursk incursion statement that talks with Zelenskiy and his Maidan regime were now excluded as an option. However, there are caveats to both of these. To the first, Kiev apparently was negotiating with Moscow through the Qatari Emir on an agreement – ultimately scuttled seemingly by the Kursk incursion – that two sides would not target each other’s energy-related facilities. To the second, Putin subsequently discussed the option of talks with Kiev as if they were still possible, unlikely albeit, in his view.

The second option – stopping Russian forces‘ advance at the Dnieper without offering negotiations and warning Kiev and the West that Russia will cross the Dnieper and seize all of western Ukraine if there is any continuation of military operations or should NATO or NATO countries continue any activity or relations with Maidan Ukraine – is likely a non-starter for Moscow. This option relies on trusting Kiev and the West far beyond what Moscow is now capable of. Without a binding treaty there remains the threat of a NATO-backed and in future NATO member Ukraine on Russia’s border, with the certainty that Washington and Brussels will re-arm Ukraine/Galicia for a future attack as well as support partisan guerilla and terrorist activity by Ukrainian special forces from western Ukraine and anti-Russian resistance fighters in eastern Ukraine. Putin and Russia would be faced with a long quagmire, draining resources and limiting Russia’s ability to defend itself in other places, where NATO or others may pose security threats. This option leaves open the possibility, indeed likelihood of an all-out NATO-Russia war.

One issue that has been raised by some observers is that Russia must „control“ much if not all of western Ukraine in order to ensure full control of the Dnieper River’s infrastructure such as dams, quality control mechanism, and navigation against western rump Ukraine. It is noted also that managing the river will be an expensive proposition (www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/russias ... tions.html). River control and management is perhaps one factor that may support any eventual decision to have Russian forces cross the Dnieper, but it is hardly the main one. Key will be the defense of the eastern bank and nearby territories from missile, artillery and drone attacks and from infiltration by sabotage and terrorist cells. Moreover, there are other ways of controlling the river’s west bank and adjacent land other than occupying it or all or most of western Ukraine. The Russians have their own missile, artillery, drone and covert infiltration capacities that can target western Ukraine and perhaps establish a cordone sanitaire within ten or more kilometers from the river. Any peace agreement will have to establish principles and procedures for ensuring the security of the river, broadly conceived, and that of any new Russian territory acquired by Moscow as a result of an agreement or Ukrainian capitulation and attendant consequences and sub-agreements.

The considerations above propose the third option: to cross the Dnieper in order to seize Right Bank Kiev, the city’s center and country’s capitol, and perhaps part or all of Right Bank Ukraine or Galicia without offering any negotiations, only conquest, capitulation, and survival of a Ukrainian or Galician state solely on lands not occupied by Russian troops before a capitulation act is signed by Maidan Ukraine, Washington, and Brussels. This option has the advantages of the first option only after expending more Russian blood and treasure. It has the disadvantages of the second in that it holds even greater risk of the rise of an anti-Russia resistance underground and quagmire, and this even after the great expenditure of blood and treasure seizing all of Ukraine would pose. This option offers a future of years of more war and prolongs the situation in which an all-out NATO-Russia war can begin, rendering that outcome more likely.

As I wrote earlier, it is possible that Moscow will consider and select one of these options but not in relation to crossing the Dnieper but in relation to whether or not to continue to advance after Russian forces have seized all of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts and all of Zaporozhe and Kherson Oblasts. Again, the three options would be similar: stop in these conquered territories and propose talks, stop but not propose talks, or continue hoping for capitulation before the Dnieper, where the same options will face Moscow.

There is no guarantee that any Russian negotiation offers will be accepted by the West and or Ukraine. In that event, the future is obvious: a long war to take western Ukraine, risking quagmire, and NATO intervention. Indeed, the present resistance to negotiations demonstrated by Kiev and, after Kursk, by Moscow as well argues in favour of the third and most tragic and dangerous option being the one most likely to be realised.

https://johnhelmer.net/what-is-russia-d ... -explains/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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