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

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

Post by blindpig » Thu May 18, 2023 12:05 pm

lugansk
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 05/18/2023

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Protagonists of the Donbass rebellion that in the summer of 2014 led to sovereignty referendums, the proclamation of the People's Republics and the start of a war that never ended, Donetsk and Lugansk have followed parallel paths, albeit with different nuances. Faced with a DPR in which a group of people willing to organize a political structure parallel to the Ukrainian authorities was created from the beginning, the start of the protests in Lugansk was much more turbulent. As Anna Matveeva details in her book “Through times of trouble. Conflict in South Eastern Ukraine”, the absence of figures willing to lead the protests politically was complete. The seizure of the SBU building in the capital of the former oblastguaranteed possession of an arsenal of weapons. However, still undecided about the direction in which to lead the protests, those people who had led the assault found themselves pressured by the population itself to continue. Matveeva cites what would be the first leader of the RPL, Igor Bolotov, explaining that it was the population of Lugansk gathered there that forced the group to continue.

From there, with a more solid start but also more prone to the first internal divisions, after a first proclamation in which not many believed, the two emerging People's Republics tried to organize a series of armed groups with which to defend themselves from the imminent Ukrainian assault. It was then that people like Alexey Mozgovoy or Alexander Jodakovsky began to organize the groups with which they would become known: the Prizrak and Vostok brigades. The appearance in Slavyansk of the armed group led by Igor Girkin, Strelkov , diverted all attention to the Donetsk region. Since then, the leading role has always fallen mainly on the development of events in the Donetsk region, with Lugansk as a secondary scenario to which little attention has been paid.

In military terms, the months of the active phase of the Donbass war occurred in parallel. The different localities organized their garrisons, not always well communicated with the center in Lugansk and from the beginning with coordination difficulties. The fall of Slavyansk had a domino effect that affected the two capitals of Donbass in the same way, which saw the front line come dangerously close. Closer to the Russian border than Donetsk, Lugansk experienced an aerial bombardment by Ukrainian aircraft on June 2, 2014 that caused the death of a dozen people in one of the main squares of the city. Although perhaps it was a miss-target and the Ukrainian troops wanted to catch up with the LPR militias then fighting for control of the border posts with the Russian Federation, a projectile perfectly visible in the recordings of that day hit a civilian building causing dramatic images. As Ukraine quickly began to spread conspiracy theories - the explosion of an air conditioner or the failure of a surface-to-air missile from theRussian troops -, a woman was bleeding to death in the street, with both legs amputated, asking for help. kyiv never admitted to the attack. Petro Poroshenko had been elected president of Ukraine just five days earlier and it was already clear that he had crossed a red line on a path that could only lead to open war.

As in Donetsk, internal fighting began quickly and the first leader of the RPL was replaced by Igor Plotnitsky, who would lead the Republic always questioned, mocked and sometimes hated. Bolotov, who never physically recovered from the war, died years later of a heart attack. And Plotnitsky, who was directly accused of having ordered the assassinations of several uncomfortable commanders such as Alexander Bednov, Batman , or Alexey Mozgovoy, was finally removed in a palace coup that brought Leonid Pasechnik to power, who would ultimately be in charge of signing , together with Denis Pushilin and Vladimir Putin, the documents in which the Russian Federation ratified the recognition of the People's Republics on February 22, 2022.

Focus of the press only to highlight the plight of the population, the cases of corruption or to compare it with African countries -the attitude of Ukraine and a significant part of the population towards the People's Republics has always included doses of racism and supremacism-, the lack of interest in Lugansk in recent years has been notable, and even in the Russian press, reports on the poorer of the two People's Republics have been scarce. During the winter of 2014-2015, with the media interest in the Donetsk airport and the battle for Debaltsevo, the situation in the RPL was critical and in some isolated areas, practically besieged by Ukraine and inaccessible to volunteers transporting humanitarian aid, cases of deaths due to hunger were recorded. And opposite Donetsk, much more developed, Lugansk was always behind. In these years of low-intensity war, economic blockade and economic dependence on Russia, the problems with trying to maintain industrial production, key in places like Alchevsk, have meant a perceptible loss of population on the streets. In front of the lively Donetsk, where the parks were filled with families, the streets seemed to have returned to civilian life and a part of the shops were working trying to maintain normality, Lugansk contrasted as a darker and empty city where the remains of the bombings they were perceptible in areas close to the most central places. It has meant a perceptible loss of population on the streets. In front of the lively Donetsk, where the parks were filled with families, the streets seemed to have returned to civilian life and a part of the shops were working trying to maintain normality, Lugansk contrasted as a darker and empty city where the remains of the bombings they were perceptible in areas close to the most central places. It has meant a perceptible loss of population on the streets. In front of the lively Donetsk, where the parks were filled with families, the streets seemed to have returned to civilian life and a part of the shops were working trying to maintain normality, Lugansk contrasted as a darker and empty city where the remains of the bombings they were perceptible in areas close to the most central places.

The beginning of the Russian military intervention has changed the reality in the People's Republics. Poorer and less strategic, Lugansk has always been worse defended by Ukraine. Beyond the most important places, mainly Stanitsa Luganskaya and Schastie, captured in the first hours of the special military operationwithout resistance, much of Lugansk lacked fortifications similar to those in the cities of the Donetsk region. The Russian advance north of Lugansk contrasted with the difficulties of advancing in any direction in the Donetsk region. Russia only collided head-on with Ukrainian resistance in the two big cities, Lisichansk and Severodonetsk, in 2014 defended by Alexey Mozgovoy and lost with a withdrawal in time when there was no way to defend them that summer. Although the breakout of the Kharkiv front brought the front line back to the LPR, by July 2023, Russian troops controlled the entire former Lugansk Oblast .

The geographical position of the region, close to the Russian border, and the retreat of the front have brought about a qualitative change in cities like Lugansk. Virtually desolate as soon as the sun went down in the war years in Donbass, Lugansk suddenly became a safer city than Donetsk, threatened daily by indiscriminate Ukrainian shelling. Contrasting also with the situation experienced in the summer of 2014, when the population had to survive without a running water supply, Lugansk has not suffered the problems of water cuts that Donetsk is experiencing and that have forced Russia to build a pipeline to transport water from the river Don.

Less important to kyiv than Donetsk, the Ukraine hadn't even bothered to bomb Lugansk. Increased security had allowed Russia to locate some of its logistically important structures for the entire Donbass front grouping there instead of in the DPR. However, and coincidentally coinciding with the announcement of the arrival in Ukraine of the new long-range missiles sent by the United Kingdom, things have changed in recent days. Ukraine, which first used its HIMARS against Perevalsk, also in the RPL, might have first used its Storm Shadows against the city of Lugansk, where it destroyed two industrial buildings over the weekend. The remoteness of their positions from the city of Lugansk makes it impossible to use 155-millimeter artillery, which Ukraine uses daily against Donetsk, but the selective bombardments have continued throughout these days. Bomb attacks have also begun. One person was killed and seven wounded in an attack apparently targeting LPR Interior Minister Igor Kornet.

Both shelling and attacks on the city are expected to increase as the Ukrainian counter-offensive approaches. As in other areas of the front, the objective is twofold: to destroy Russian military magazines and depots to undermine the combat capacity by complicating logistics and to intimidate the population. As in the case of Donetsk, Ukraine seeks to increase the uncertainty of the population, aware that there are no completely safe places, and create doubts about Russia's ability to defend the cities. The shadow of the British missiles, the precedents of the Ukraine's performance in the attacks to the rear and the lack of concern of Kiev for the civilian population that could be injured portend a worsening of the situation in cities that, like Lugansk,

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/05/18/27292/#more-27292

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An Historical Background to the US/NATO Proxy War Against Russia
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 17, 2023
Ian Beddowes

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Today the USA and its NATO allies have an overwhelming military presence throughout the world and are still trying to push that even further. They have the whole world divided into military commands. They have funded extremists everywhere, jihadists in the Middle East, Nazis in Ukraine. To call Russia imperialist’ in the present world order and under present conditions is to objectively support the continuation of NATO domination. Forward with the de-Nazification of Ukraine !! Forward with Reconstruction of Ukraine!! HANDS OFF RUSSIA !! The ZCP further calls for the rolling back of NATO and US domination everywhere and especially on our continent, Africa.

Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, has challenged the right of the USA to implement regime change through the use of extremist groups, terrorism and media manipulation and then establish military bases in the territory of its newly acquired ‘ally’.

This is what USA is attempting to do with Ukraine.

NATO, formed in 1949 to advance the Cold War, mainly at the instigation of the USA, has in recent years, distinguished itself by the destruction of Yugoslavia, the bombing of Iraq, the destruction of Libya and the terrorising of Afghan peasants in a bloody and fruitless war. The USA has around 800 military bases around the world in some 80 countries. It has divided the world into military commands. No other country has, in the history of humanity, ever had such a worldwide military presence. Europe is under EUCOM (European Command), India is under PACOM (Pacific Command and Africa is under AFRICOM (Africa Command).

Already there are US bases in countries close to Russia such as Poland and Turkey. Russia does not have any bases next to the USA, and in fact when the Soviet Union started to put missile bases in Cuba in 1962, the USA threatened nuclear war.

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Now let us study the historical relationship between Ukraine and Russia:

The Eastern Slavs were one people speaking one language up until 1000 years ago. And even today, there are people speaking dialects intermediate between Russian and Ukrainian.

Towards the end of the 9th century Prince Oleg of Novgorod relocated to Kyiv/Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine and established a kingdom of East Slavic people. This stretched across the land of modern central Russia and Ukraine west of the Urals, the concept of Russia and Ukraine as separate countries was unknown. Vladimir the Great, who was the first Russian Prince to make Orthodox Christianity the state religion, came to the throne in 980 and is recognised by Russians and Ukrainians alike.

Around 1240 came the Mongol invasion and the destruction of the old Rus, as it was known. It took another 200 years for new principalities to be formed as Mongol control weakened. In the 16th century, Prince Ivan III of Moscow, better known to history as Ivan the Terrible, united the Russian lands as the first Tsar. There was no specific territory or people known as ‘Ukraine’.

The Zaporzhian Cossacks, composed mostly of independent peasants who had run away from serfdom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and had settled around the Dnieper River are believed to have used the term ‘Ukraine’ in the 16th century. It is generally agreed that ‘Ukraine’ means ‘borderlands’ — and it had no fixed boundaries.

Some people speaking the dialect which later became the Ukrainian language settled in Galicia, then in the Austrian Empire, and it was from this group that Ukrainian nationalism spread. During the 19th century, various nationalist movements grew up in Europe based on ethnicity. They challenged the rule of big nations, but also could be cruel to others. This was a particular feature of the Ukrainian nationalists.

In 1917, during the chaos of the First World War, Symon Petlyura became a military leader of the Ukrainian nationalists and later ruler of a large section of Ukraine until finally defeated in 1920 by the Ukrainian Bolsheviks. Petlyura’s Army was known for ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of thousands of Jews who formed about 15% of the Ukrainian population at that time.

At the end of 1917, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was formed and eventually, as the Bolsheviks expanded their power during the Civil War, by 1920 had secured its rule over the whole of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic then joined the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at the time of its formation at the end of December 1922.

Now we need to deal with one of the biggest slanders made against the Soviet government by the Ukrainian Nazis and their western backers. This is the often repeated lie that in 1932, the Soviet Union deliberately engineered a famine which killed 4 million Ukrainians. The formulators of falsified history refer to this as the ‘Holodomor’ and this idea is used to create hatred against Russians and against Communists among young Ukrainians. In fact the term ‘Holodomor’ was unknown before the early 1980s.

This hideous lie was perpetuated in the West by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute founded in 1975 but which received heavy funding after the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 which marked the beginning of the destructive neoliberal agenda. The pseudo-documentary film Harvest of Despair was then produced with the assistance of Ukrainian Nazis in Canada in 1985 and in 1986 British disinformation specialist Robert Conquest published his book Harvest of Sorrow which was taken apart in the well-researched Fraud, Famine and Fascism by Douglas Tottle written in 1987 and available online.

What are the facts?

1. Old Russia, including Ukraine, was subject to drought and famine every 8 to 10 years due to erratic rainfall patterns. The majority of peasants throughout the Russian Empire had suffered poverty, malnutrition and occasional starvation for hundreds of years.

2. V.I. Lenin, on 26th October 1917, the day after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, announced that all land belonged to those who worked on it. They no longer had to pay any form of rent to the landowners.

3. The Russian Empire as a whole had been a place of primitive agricultural methods. With industrialization under the Soviet Union came a growing urban population which needed to be fed.

4. The rich peasants known as the kulaks (fists), found it profitable to hoard grain in order to put up prices. They were holding the USSR to ransom.

5. In 1927, as part of the first 5-year plan, it was decided to mechanise and collectivise agriculture. The growing population of the USSR could not be fed by small-scale peasant production.

6. Landless peasants, poor peasants and many middle peasants were happy to sign up for the collective farms. The kulaks, who in Ukraine were supported by Ukrainian nationalists, were unhappy with collectivisation.

7. At Kharkov/Kharkiv in Ukraine, enthusiastic workers established a tractor factory outside of the 5-year plan.

8. 1932 was a hot and dry year. There was little rain. Hot and dry conditions led to a typhoid epidemic. It was also a time of collectivisation. Kulaks and Ukrainian nationalists destroyed livestock and burnt cops and boasted about it.

9. Realistic estimates show that around 1.8 million people died during this period, the majority from typhoid, and not all of them were in Ukraine as the drought affected surrounding areas of Russia and even Kazakhstan.

10. Due to collectivisation and improved agricultural techniques there was no famine anywhere in the Soviet Union after 1932, (Save during the Nazi occupation 1941-1944).

11. Written reports by German officers during the occupation show that although the Nazis asked the peasants to de-collectivise, they refused saying that they were better off under the collective.

12. Most of the stories about the ‘Holodomor’ used by Robert Conquest in Harvest of Sorrow come from the Hearst press and from ‘reporters’ who it can be shown, never visited Ukraine. William Randolph Hearst is known as the ‘Father of Yellow Journalism’ in the USA.

13. Most of the photos used in Harvest of Sorrow are actually stills made from a Soviet Famine Relief film made for the 1921-1922 Volga Famine which occurred in an area which had only come under Soviet control in 1920 at the end of the Civil War. None of the photos is actually of the 1932 famine.

It is important to go through this matter in a little detail as these lies are still being perpetrated inside Ukraine and in the West and have been an important factor in the war of falsification.

When the Nazis invaded the USSR in 1941, many Ukrainians in the extreme west of Ukraine joined the Nazis, and some 200,000 joined various Nazi formations, some directly under the German SS. The Ukrainian divisions were noted for their extreme cruelty massacring not only Jews but more than 100,000 Poles. They were also distinguished themselves as concentration camp guards.

The majority of the Ukrainian Nazis came from the regions of Volhynia and Galicia which had been annexed by Poland in 1919. Following the refusal of the West, including Poland to make a deal with the USSR in 1938, the USSR made a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939. Germany invaded Poland on 1st September 1939. The Red Army only entered eastern Poland on 17th September 1939 after the Polish government had gone into exile. The majority population of this region was Ukrainian. This much criticised agreement gave the USSR time to re-arm and extra territory once the inevitable Nazi invasion began in June 1941.

It was from these territories that had formed eastern Poland between the two World Wars that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian nationalists came. They were enthusiastic in their support for the German Nazis whose ideology they eagerly adopted. Their message was fostered by the USA and its allies after the Second World War and is largely responsible for the current war.

It should be noted that around 250,000 Ukrainians fought bravely in Soviet partisan units and 4.5 million in the Red Army.

As the German Nazis were being pushed westward by the Red Army in 1944, Ukrainian Nazis, including wanted war criminals fled towards the American lines where they were welcomed in preparation for the coming Cold War. In fact as soon as the war was over, the followers of Stepan Bandera began an anti-Soviet guerrilla campaign which lasted until 1955, they were armed by the USA and Britain.

The Communist hero, Kim Philby, a Soviet agent working for British intelligence became head of MI.6. Philby never in fact spied against Britain. In fact his job was to parachute Ukrainian Nazis into the Soviet Union, where of course, they were immediately picked up.

In 1991 came the betrayal by Gorbachev and Yeltsin and the elitist stratum which they represented and the consequent dissolution of the Soviet Union. At a referendum held early in 1991, 70% of Ukrainians voted to retain the Soviet Union, but following the dissolution of the USSR, the independence of Ukraine was recognised.

Despite all the problems, the Communist Party of Ukraine was still quite popular winning nearly 20% of the votes in 2001. Problems really started in 2004 with the so-called ‘Orange Revolution’. In 2004 Viktor Yanukovych was elected President with a very narrow majority over his rival Viktor Yushchenko. Supporters of Yushchenko, fed with the Holodomor narrative and funded by the USA, came to the streets and forced the Ukrainian Supreme Court to reverse the decision. Yushchenko had most of his support from western Ukraine and wanted closer links with the European Union, while Yanukovych drew most of his support from the east and supported strengthening existing relations with Russia.

In 2010. Yanukovych was again elected President. He remained in office until 2014 when he was driven out by the Nazi-led Maidan Coup. Because President Yanukovych had agreed to make closer links with Russia rather than with the European Union, demonstrations broke out led by CIA-funded Nazi groups. Right Sector, Aidar and in particular Azov Battalion trained by Blackwater, the US private security company which does undercover work for the US State Department. The Azov Battalion is openly racist and openly Nazi. It uses the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol. Since 2014 all Soviet War memorials have been removed from Ukraine and replaced either by statues of Stepan Bandrea or memorials to the ‘Holodomor’ an event which never happened except in Nazi/US propaganda.

In 2014, the first targets were trade union buildings which were burnt down with trade unionists still inside. Those trying to leave the burning buildings were shot by Nazis. This happened both in Kyiv and Odessa. The Communist Party of Ukraine was driven underground and soon after made illegal. Eastern Ukraine has never been Ukrainian-speaking historically and there was immediate rejection of the coup government ⸺ even in some areas of western Ukraine initially.

The Crimea had never been part of Ukraine historically and under the Soviet Union had only been transferred from the Russian Federation to Ukraine in 1954 for purely administrative reasons. In 2014 the population had no interest in remaining as part of fascist Ukraine. Similarly, Lugansk and Donetsk established independent republics but came under constant attack from the Azov Battalion and other fascists. War and associated atrocities including the shelling of civilians in the People’s Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk continued for 8 years and accelerated under the Biden administration.

Since the time of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton there was an aggressive foreign policy against Russia which was softened under Donald Trump. Joe Biden is from the Clintonite camp of liberal-fascists; that is those in the Democratic Party who while mouthing ‘Human Rights’ are involved in the funding of terror groups and using them as a pretext for aggressive military expansion.

We should remember that the biggest war ever on African soil, the Congo War of 1998-2003 was funded and directed by the USA and initiated by Bill Clinton. The destruction of Africa’s most advanced country, Libya, was carried out by NATO under the presidency of Barrack Obama.

The Biden administration pushed Ukraine towards greater violence against Lugansk and Donetsk and to agitate for entry into NATO. Had Ukraine became a member of NATO, it had the right to ask other NATO countries to intervene in case of problems with Russia.

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With attacks on the Russian-speaking population of Donetsk and Lugansk increasing, the Russian government had little option but to intervene against the hostile terrorist state on its doorstep. Having persuaded the Ukrainian government to ask to join NATO, the USA and EU has now refused to send troops against the might of the Russian army and has simply put sanctions against Russia, introducing censorship and blocking news from RT and Sputnik.

Blocking Russia from the Swift clearing system has merely ensured that it joins the Chinese clearing system. Putin has called their bluff.

As the Hungarian Workers’ Party has said in its statement:

“Russia has been dragged into this war by NATO, the US and the EU. The war was provoked by the West, prepared by the West, and now the West wants to shift responsibility to Russia.

“It was not Russia that sent soldiers to Mexico, but the United States to Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, and the Baltic States…

“We support the assessment of events by the Communists of Russia and Belarus. The NATO war is directed against their peoples, against the independence of their countries.”

There has been a personalised propaganda campaign against Vladimir Putin, including the prepetition of the words, ‘Putin’s War’ ⸺ even by some elements who regard themselves as ‘Communist’.

That Putin is a Russian nationalist and not a Communist, and that he has criticised Lenin and Stalin is beyond dispute, but that he is somehow responsible for this war?

This is against all known facts and against all logic.

From 1944, through the early 1950s and with a revival in the 1980s and again in 2004 and then 2014, the USA and Britain have pushed the Ukrainian Nazi agenda.

In 2014 the Nazi coup led to revulsion by many citizens of Ukraine ⸺ more particularly the Russian speakers of Crimea and the Donbass. The people of Crimea in particular had shown reluctance to remain as part of Ukraine from the beginning of the destruction of the USSR. It was also obvious that the USA had hoped to secure the Russian naval base at Sevastopol for themselves. In the event, 86% of the people of Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation. Subsequent polls by Western organisations have shown that only 7% believe that Crimea should have stayed with Ukraine and that around 67% of Ukrainian speakers in Crimea are happier belonging to the Russian Federation.

A series of agreements known as the Minsk accords was finalised in 2015. These gave The Donbass republics, the People’s Republic of Donetsk and the People’s Republic of Lugansk autonomous status within Ukraine. They would have allowed these people to use the Russian language.

In fact, before the coup of 2014, 44% of the population, mostly in eastern and southern Ukraine, spoke Russian as a first language and this had been so since the formation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. Even after Ukraine obtained independence from the USSR in 1991, the status quo in terms of language remained until 2014. Russia continually tried to reach a negotiated settlement, but shelling of civilian populations increased until February 2022. It was only then, after 8 years of war between the Ukrainian government and the People’s Militias of Donbass that Putin finally launched Russia’s Special Military Operation. It was done with minimum force with the intention of forcing a negotiated settlement.

But the USA took this as a sign of weakness. Ukraine demanded that the Donbass and Crimea return to Ukraine despite the will of the population of those territories.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkle has since admitted that there was never any serious intent to make peace and that the Minsk Accords were there to give time to Ukraine to arm. It was during this period that the USA built the extensive Bakhmut military complex, currently falling to Russian forces.

President Putin has now made it clear that he now intends to incorporate all Russian-speaking areas into the Russian Federation but has no intention of trying to incorporate Ukrainian-speaking areas. All Russia wants to see there is de-Nazification and a neutral government.

The consequences of the US/NATO hybrid war have been enormous. Sanctions against Russia have rebounded. US companies which had penetrated Russia have now had their assets seized following the seizure of Russian assets in the USA. It has now been shown that without any doubt, the US sabotaged the Nordstream gas pipeline supplying cheap Russian gas to Germany. This has now severely undermined the German economy.

Russia has increased its exports to India and China. The attempts to weaponise the US dollar by confiscating (stealing) the assets of other countries in US banks have severely undermined trust in the dollar, and traditional allies of the USA such as Saudi Arabia and Japan are also de-dollarising.

The billions given to Ukraine for weapons (many of them being sold on the black market to Islamic extremists) has served to hasten the destruction of the economies of the USA and Europe and may well end the NATO alliance.

Two US banks have collapsed in the last couple of days and experts are predicting that by June this year, the USA will no longer be able to pay its debts. Inevitably, the USA will be forced to close its military bases.

BRICS and the other countries now joining will be creating a new international monetary regime. Not yet socialism, and new contradictions will arise. But US terrorism, military and financial will be severely undermined if not totally destroyed by the end of 2023.

The Zimbabwe Communist Party looks forward to a speedy victory and de-Nazification of Ukraine. We would remind people that across Ukraine, all war memorials commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany have been removed and replaced by memorials to Stepan Bandera and other Nazi collaborators and murderers; that Nazi gangs, including racist thugs from across Europe, are the ones in real control, not the clown President Volodomyr Zelensky. Some Communists have condemned Russia, and in particular President Putin, for taking military action, pointing out that Russia is no longer a socialist country and that Putin is anti-Communist. To this we reply: Because Russia is no longer socialist, is it acceptable for a NATO base to be established on its border by a country ruled by Nazi thugs?

We cannot, in a dogmatic fashion, look at the current world in the same way that Lenin looked at the world in 1916 in which there were two evenly balanced opposing imperialist blocs fighting each other.

“The living soul of Marxism is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions.”

– V.I. Lenin


Today the USA and its NATO allies have an overwhelming military presence throughout the world and are still trying to push that even further. They have the whole world divided into military commands. They have funded extremists everywhere, jihadists in the Middle East, Nazis in Ukraine. To call Russia imperialist’ in the present world order and under present conditions is to objectively support the continuation of NATO domination. Forward with the de-Nazification of Ukraine !! Forward with Reconstruction of Ukraine!! HANDS OFF RUSSIA !! The ZCP further calls for the rolling back of NATO and US domination everywhere and especially on our continent, Africa.

We call for the removal of all foreign bases from African soil. Down with AFRICOM !

! Down with the French occupation !!

HANDS OFF AFRICA !

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... st-russia/

Russian ‘Kinzhal’ Hypersonic Missile Destroys Kiev’s US-Made ‘Patriot’ Air Defense System
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 17, 2023
Drago Bosnic

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For most of this month, the mainstream propaganda machine has been parroting the same story over and over again – a Russian 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missile was shot down by a US-made “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) system. The “conclusive” evidence cited by the political West is laughable at best, but it was enough to convince those without specific knowledge of how weapons actually work, which includes most of the population. Moscow didn’t really comment on the claims. Or to be exact, not until the early hours of May 16, when the actual response came in a very “non-rhetorical” form.

Namely, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) launched a SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) mission over Kiev, with the operation including two “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles, which were used to neutralize at least one battery of the “Patriot” SAM system. While neither side commented on the variant of the destroyed US-made air defense system, video evidence shows that it was most likely one of the latest iterations, the PAC-3 MSE (Missile Segment Enhancement upgrade) that also includes the much-touted CRI (Cost Reduction Initiative) interceptors. The cost of a single CRI missile currently stands at close to $5,300,000, meaning that the 32 interceptors fired by the Kiev regime forces amounted to nearly $170,000,000.


Such a massive quantity of interceptors was still nowhere near enough to stop the Russian hypersonic weapons, although the Neo-Nazi junta announced that it shot down most of the missiles fired by the VKS, including the claim that it allegedly neutralized six “Kinzhals”, despite the fact that the Russian military used only two during this attack. Although Moscow didn’t publicly reveal this, the information is based on the comments from the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu himself. In response to the Kiev regime’s reverie, Shoigu stated laconically:

“The figures given by the Ukrainians about the interception of Russian missiles are [usually] three times higher than the amount [of weapons] we actually use.”

Several military experts estimate that the VKS used a lot of decoys of various types to bait the air defenses in and around Kiev, which would explain the claims of the local authorities that the Russian strike was “exceptional in density”. The Neo-Nazi junta officials stated that the attack also included cruise missiles and drones. Local air defense forces allegedly shot down 18 missiles and nine drones, including six “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles. The claims are widely ridiculed by military experts and numerous Telegram channels, with dozens of memes and practical jokes being posted by users and commenters.

Serhiy Popko, the head of the capital city’s military administration, stated: “The barrage was exceptional in its density, with the maximum number of missiles in the shortest time possible, but the vast majority of enemy targets in Kiev airspace were detected and destroyed.”

CNN, the flagship of the mainstream propaganda machine, immediately resorted to damage control to save the “Patriot’s” reputation, as it only arrived late last month and just recently entered service, claiming that “a US-made ‘Patriot’ air defense system was likely damaged, but not destroyed, as the result of a Russian missile barrage in and around Kiev early Tuesday morning local time”, citing a US official as its source. The report further claims that “the US is still assessing to what degree the system was damaged”, adding that “this will determine whether the system needs to be pulled back entirely or simply repaired on the spot by Ukrainian forces”. It also noted that “a US National Security Council spokesperson referred CNN to the Ukrainian government for comment”.



Such advice by the US government can only be interpreted by the fact that even Washington DC simply wants to avoid having to do anything with the Neo-Nazi junta’s ridiculous claims. The issue obviously lies in the fact that such laughable propaganda is not only completely unsubstantiated, but also makes the US itself look like a laughingstock of the world. This is particularly noticeable when looking at somewhat less propagandistic US media, such as The National Interest. Geoff LaMear, the author of one of the analyses recently published by the TNI, stated that “Patriot missiles won’t save Ukraine“, with the following assessment:

“‘Patriot’ systems are limited to pinpoint defense of major assets and are designed to operate in tandem with air defenses engaging targets at higher and lower altitudes. Without these additions, ‘Patriot’ will have too many threats to engage and the result will either be porous coverage that doesn’t protect its defended assets, or coverage that quickly subsides when ‘Patriot’ runs out of interceptors. Moreover, ‘Patriot’ systems are themselves vulnerable. Operating a ‘Patriot’ radar system gives away its location, making it an open target for Russian attacks. This means that ‘Patriot’ is not a one-stop-shop for defending Ukraine’s military assets or its people.”

Indeed, the “Patriot” is simply one segment of the US air defense/ABM (anti-ballistic missile) doctrine that also includes several other types of longer-range systems and interceptors. However, considering how lucrative air defense contracts are, the political West will surely continue suppressing any information about the destruction of its much-touted systems, while also parroting the ludicrous claims that Russian hypersonic weapons are being shot down by these same SAM systems. Such assertions come despite the fact that even top US officials repeatedly reiterated that there’s no viable defense against maneuvering hypersonic targets. This includes President Joe Biden himself, who stated last year that the “Kinzhal” cannot be intercepted.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... se-system/

Russian Kinzhal Missile Strikes US Patriot System in Kiev: The Fundamental Disadvantage West Faces
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 17, 2023



Update on the conflict in Ukraine for May 17, 2023

– Russia’s Ministry of Defense and US officials confirm Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles successfully targeted US-made Patriot air defense systems;

– Patriot systems launched approximately 30 missiles over 2 minutes, representing tens of millions of dollars of missiles that were already in short supply;

– Despite this, the Western media continues repeating obvious fabrications about Ukraine intercepting “all” incoming missiles and drones. The Patriot system falling victim to a Kinzhal missile despite firing upward to 30 missiles calls into question Ukraine’s previous claims of intercepting a Kinzhal days earlier;

– As Ukraine burns through Western weapons and ammunition, the West continues preparing to transfer other weapon systems including warplanes;

– European nations are preparing a “coalition” to purchase and provide F-16 fighters to Ukraine;

– F-16 warplanes have no specific capability beyond the aircraft that made up Ukraine’s original air force which is now mostly destroyed;

References:

TASS – Russia hits US-made Patriot air defense system in Kiev with Kinzhal hypersonic weapon (May 16, 2023): https://tass.com/defense/1618257

BBC – Ukraine war: Kyiv says it shot down Russian hypersonic missiles (May 17, 2023): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe

CNN – US assessing potential damage of Patriot missile defense system following Russian attack near Kyiv (May 16, 2023): https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/16/po

Lockheed Martin – New Lockheed Martin Facility To Support Increased PAC-3 Production (October 2022): https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2022-

Guardian – UK and Netherlands agree ‘international coalition’ to help Ukraine procure F-16 jets (May 16, 2023): https://www.theguardian.com/world/202

Politico – The end of Ukraine aid is rapidly approaching. Reupping it won’t be easy (May 5, 2023): https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05

The Atlantic – The Case for Increasing Aid to Ukraine (May 116, 2023): https://www.theatlantic.com/newslette

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... est-faces/

*******

Artemovsk. 05/18/2023
May 18, 13:23

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Artemovsk. 05/18/2023

1. The enemy will lose the last positions in the city before the end of the week - the average forecast now on both sides is 1-3 days. What remains of the Artemovsk garrison will crawl back to Krasnoye and Khromovo with losses in the coming days. The rest will remain in the city, since they have already stopped taking prisoners there.

2. Since after the ousting of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Artemovsk, the fighting will continue in the fields to the west of the city, as well as in the Khromovo and Krasnoy regions, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will continue to pretend that the "Bakhmut Fortress" is standing, after which, in 1-2 weeks, they will announce that "withdrew to more advantageous positions" and "in general, Bakhmut never mattered much."

3. The current attacks to the north and south of the city are unlikely to lead to significant breakthroughs in the front, but tactical successes may allow the Armed Forces of Ukraine to somewhat dampen the inevitable tantrums in Ukraine about the surrender of the Bakhmut Fortress.

4. In the middle of the day on May 18, the enemy continued attacks in the direction of Berkhovka and Kleshcheevka. There are intense battles. The enemy also continues attacks in the area of ​​Sacco and Vanzetti. The village itself is held by our troops, the enemy is pressing from the northwest and north. Those reserves are now being used, which for a long time were collected in the area of ​​​​Konstantinovka, Chasov Yar and Aleksandrovka.

5. With all the tactical troubles for us in the area of ​​​​Bogdanovka, Kleshcheevka and Sacco and Vanzetti, the continuation of these attacks after the loss of Artemovsk by the enemy will allow, with competent command and control of the Russian Defense Ministry and the strengthening of the interaction of the RF Ministry of Defense with the Wagner PMC, to grind part of the enemy’s operational reserves in Slavyansko-Kramatorsk direction, which will be of no small importance in subsequent battles to break through the defense line of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Konstantinovka-Chasov Yar-Rai-Aleksandrovka, with the aim of a full-fledged entry into the Slavnya-Kramatorsk agglomeration. The fights here will also be heavy.

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/86160 - the broadcast of hostilities continues as usual in the telegram, who are interested, subscribe

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8364097.html

Google Translator

Undermining in the Bakhchisaray district
May 18, 10:52 am

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In the Bakhchisarai region of Crimea, a railway track was blown up early this morning.
8 wagons with grain derailed. Up to 50 meters of tracks were damaged.
Restoration work has been going on since morning. The Ministry of Transport of Crimea reports that by the evening the rails will be replaced and traffic will be restored.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8363808.html

*****

From Cassad's Telegram account:

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
What we have in the moment.

1. The enemy has concentrated a strike group of troops of about 65 thousand people in the Zaporozhye direction, which was chosen as one of the main ones during the planned offensive operations.
The forces of about two army corps and air assault troops have been assembled.

2. The main units and formations of the group are located 80-100 km from the contact line.
The group is ready. The enemy is waiting for an order.

3. Before an attempt to break through, a massive rocket and artillery strike is planned against positions, locations, checkpoints, command posts, headquarters, warehouses, bases of the RF Armed Forces and civilian facilities both in Zaporozhye, Kherson regions, LDNR, in the Crimea and Sevastopol, and "old" territories RF.

4. An attempt to deliver a distracting strike in the direction of the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation is possible.

5. In the Kherson direction, engineering work was noted in preparation for an offensive with a forcing of the Dnieper - in a number of areas, mines are being cleared of approaches to a water barrier.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
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Location: Turtle Island
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Fri May 19, 2023 11:48 am

cessation of functions
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 05/19/2023

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The Russian attack using several Kinzhal missiles has been a new example of the use of propaganda for personal gain, even despite the obvious contradiction between reality and story. On Monday night, following its usual line of claiming victory despite the facts, Ukraine claimed to have shot down almost all Russian missiles and 100% of Kinzhal missiles. Until now, both kyiv and its partners had implied that they did not have the weapons to fight against these weapons, hence the imperial need to obtain the long-awaited Patriots. The goal of receiving such American weaponry has always been twofold. On the one hand, various Western media outlets have warned in recent weeks of the dangerous shortage of anti-aircraft ammunition in kyiv, an argument that always seemed like a justification for expediting the delivery of US batteries. On the other hand, Ukraine seeks to exhaust its Russian or Soviet stock so that it has to be replaced by weapons from NATO countries. It is no secret that Ukraine intends to use the war as its letter of introduction to be admitted to the Alliance and the use of the bloc's weapons is one of the main arguments for this.

On Monday night and throughout Tuesday, numerous images showed the performance of a Patriot battery against Russian missiles. In just a few minutes, in the images you could see about thirty shots. With only one takedown, the performance can hardly be considered satisfactory, especially considering the cost of each shot, which is around three million dollars. The intensive use of weapons, and especially ammunition, has been one of the concerns that Pentagon officials have expressed publicly and anonymously. However, with no risk of losing steady supply from abroad and no obligation to bear the costs of war, financed by donations and credits that Ukraine may never be able or attempt to pay, kyiv has continued with its plans without seeking, as its partners requested, a more efficient way of fighting. It is not to be expected that the fight against Russian missiles implies a different action, so it is also to be assumed that the demand for more anti-aircraft ammunition is a constant throughout the duration of the war.

On Tuesday, CNNIt confirmed something obvious and that had been observed in the images published on social networks: after those thirty shots, the Patriot battery burned and suffered damage. On Wednesday, the United States added that the battery had been damaged, implicitly admitting that it had been hit by a Russian missile or drone. The United States has repeatedly insisted that the battery has not been destroyed but only damaged. In any case, what Washington has admitted openly contradicts the Ukrainian allegation of having shot down all the missiles, a statement also taken for granted by the entire Western press. Despite the images, which could show both the firing of the Patriot battery and the explosion at ground level, and even after the American admission, Ukraine continued to boast of its resounding success on Wednesday. Surprisingly considering the ease with which the Ukrainian claim could be refuted, the mainstream media continued to take the Ukrainian claim for granted.

In this war, reflecting reality has never been the priority for the media, something that has intensified since February 24, 2022. The Western media, especially the European ones, have so far maintained exquisite loyalty to the Ukrainian government , which they have not doubted even in the most flagrant cases of false claims. That is precisely what Zelensky's team expects from the national and international, traditional or alternative press. After the episode of the air defense images against Russian missiles, which clearly contradicts the official discourse, the Ukrainian authorities have intervened to guarantee absolute control of the flow of information.

Impossible to control the international media discourse -something also unnecessary taking into account the abandonment of journalistic functions that this war has meant for a large part of the press-, Ukraine has made a move against the weakest link in the media apparatus. On Wednesday, the SBU announced the arrest of six bloggers whom it accused of having published images of the events. Since the first weeks of the Russian intervention, Ukraine has not only maintained the centralization of the audiovisual media under absolute control of the Government, but also the prohibition on publishing images of the consequences of the Russian bombings. In this case, It is evident that the arrest of the bloggers is not due to the danger to national security posed by the publication of images, but rather it is a sign of the evident contradiction between the official discourse and the facts. The arrest of the bloggers is not intended to punish these six people, but rather to warn the press in general against any action that deviates even in the slightest from the narrative carefully marked out by the Office of the President.

With the punishment of those six bloggers as only a secondary objective, kyiv has opted for humiliation and social targeting, forcing journalists to apologize for having done their job. "I fully admit my guilt, I apologize to the Ukrainian people and I promise not to do it again," said one of the six detainees. In practice, that apology is the promise not to carry out his journalistic work, a line to which a large part of the press seems to adhere unreservedly. This is demonstrated daily, as could be verified again yesterday.

After a new attack of Russian missiles against different Ukrainian cities, the press published without nuances and without the need to question the data, that Ukraine claimed to have shot down 29 of the 30 Russian missiles, a more than questionable figure considering the explosions and damage that occurred in several of them. The work of verification, or at least of contextualization of the press, has been so forgotten that it currently allows the Ukrainian claim of having shot down all but one Russian missile to coexist without problems with the Russian response of having hit all the targets. War is the most difficult context for journalism. However,



Google Translator

******

“Independent” Ukrainian “Kill List”: Run by Nazi Junta, Backed by NATO and Washington
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 16, 2023
David Miller

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Late last year, my name was added to a blacklist published online by the Ukraine Center for Countering Disinformation. I joined over ninety others deemed to be “speakers who promote narratives consonant with Russian propaganda.“

These included Manuel Pineda and Clare Daly, both leftist Members of the European Parliament (MEP); Also counted are people on the right, such as Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute, neocon and former IDF officer Edward Luttwak, a slew of rightist MEPs; Ex CIA officer, Ray McGovern; former military and intelligence figures such as Scott Ritter and Douglas McGregor, as well as academics such as John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs. Journalists on the list included Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson and Eva Bartlett, Roger Waters from Pink Floyd, and even actor Steven Seagal.

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Девід Міллер, Журналіст = David Miller, Journalist – in Ukrainian

What was my crime? It said my “pro-Russian narrative” was claiming that “NATO’s proxy war with Russia is taking place in Ukraine”. Of course, a NATO proxy war is exactly what is happening there, as this article will only further confirm.

The listing helpfully provided a link with the evidence, an article I wrote for Mayadeen English called “How disinformation works: Western intelligence agencies global war on the left.” It contained a single, 176-word paragraph on Ukraine titled “‘Russian Disinformation’ or Ukrainian lies?” It recounted several examples of Ukrainian misinformation and concluded that “Anyone who mentions any particular truth is derided for echoing Putin’s ‘talking points’.” In the event I was actually denounced as an “information terrorist” who might be guilty of “war crimes.”

Being added to the blacklist concentrates the mind wonderfully on the forces ranged against the possibility of truth and justice in the crisis-ridden West. When I was first accused, over a decade ago now, of antisemitism, my response was to intensify my research and writing activities on the organizations involved in defaming me. Since then I have produced a long catalog of work on the Zionist movement as well as on Western propaganda activities. Of course, the defamatory attacks encourage an atmosphere where social media threats can be made. But the issue of Nazism in Ukraine will be seen in retrospect as a defining issue of our era and it is important to remember that the reason I and many others are threatened by the Ukraine government and their NATO backers is because we in turn threaten to expose them for what they are: Nazi collaborators.

THE NATO-BACKED KILL LIST

But what is the Center for Countering Disinformation? It is an official governmental body created in late March 2021, along with a similar organization, the Center for Strategic Communication, by President Zelensky himself. But are they related to other blacklisting websites like Myrotvorets (“Peacemaker”), widely seen as a “kill list”? Peeling back the layers of cover and deception enables us to trace the origins of the kill list, which is still being hosted in Ukraine.

As it turns out, the covert “kill list” website is a product of the Ukraine regime, effectively funded by the CIA (amongst others) and is hosted by NATO. One extraordinary thing is that many American citizens, including ex-military and intelligence operatives, are included, as well as a significant number of citizens of NATO member countries. Perhaps the most remarkable element is that NATO has hosted the site (and a collection of affiliated websites) on its servers in Brussels. At the same time as NATO think tank the Atlantic Council boasts that Henry Kissinger is on its Board of Directors, NATO also hosts a kill list website on which Kissinger appears.

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Henry Kissinger is on the kill list

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look.

Let’s start with the kill list website itself, Myrotvorets. Today it is located at Myrotvorets.center, but it was originally at psb4ukr.org. That domain was first registered on 14 August 2014, some six months after the U.S.-backed Maidan coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych. Other similar domain names were later logged for the group, including the following (date of first registration in brackets):

•Psb-news.org (3 April 2015)
•Psb4ukr.ninja (19 April 2015)
•Psb4ukr.net (7 May 2015)
•Psbr4ukr.xyz (8 November 2015)
•Report2psb.online (19 August 2017)

These were used either as mirror sites, as digest news from the site, or, in the case of the last one, a form for reporting suspects. The Myrotvorets.center domain name was first registered on 7 November 2015 and the site was live by February 2016.

Three people are associated with these domains and they provide valuable clues to who and what was involved in the kill list site. They are:

• Victor/Viktor Garbar is a longstanding Maidan activist and co-ordinator of the Maidan Monitoring Information Center. He was the first registrant of a Myrotvorets domain name in August 2014 – psb4ukr.org. He had previously owned the domain of Maidan Monitoring from 2001 – maidanua.org (now located at maidan.org.ua). The group has been in existence since before the so called “Orange Revolution” in 2004. It was, of course, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy the foundation known as the “CIA sidekick” and the International Renaissance Fund, the Ukraine branch of the Open Society Foundation run by George Soros.

• Vladimir/Volodymyr Kolesnikov is a webmaster and developer. He has never given any public indication that he is affiliated with Myrotvorets. Among the links to the kill list are that a domain he owns (free-sevastopol.com) now redirects to Myrotvorets.center and he registered psb-news.org which is devoted to Myrotvorets news.

• Oksana/Oxana Tinko was the first to register the domain Myrotvorets.center and she also registered several others related to the kill list project such as Psb4ukr.ninja, Psb4ukr.net and Psbr4ukr.xyz

OPERATION BUTTERFLY – THE PROTOTYPE KILL LIST

Tinko is also the registrant of a series of domains that appear to be components of the Myrotvorets project and one that appears to have been a prototype. It is particularly stark in its intention to use the website to kill traitors or “terrorists”. The domain Metelyk.org was first claimed on 21 July 2014, three weeks before the first Myrotvorets domain. Metelyk is the Ukrainian word for Butterfly. The website titled Operation Butterfly was online by late August 2014, the first holdings in the Internet Archive are from the 27th of that month,
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Operation Butterfly website

Website FAQs make it clear that it considers calling “for separatism or changes in the constitutional system” a crime. The site states the necessity “to take appropriate measures in the event that the court, the police, the SBU, or the prosecutor’s office is trying to release terrorists and their accomplices from the arms of the law”. The FAQs are even more explicit on what is meant by “appropriate measures.”

Q: Last question: why “Butterfly”?

A: The site’s logo features a butterfly known as the “deadhead hawk”. In Latin, it has the name Acherontia atropos, where the first word comes from the name of the river in the realm of the dead in ancient Greek mythology, and the second is the name of the goddess of fate, who cuts the thread of human life. This symbolism should remind the enemies of Ukraine that their fate currently hangs on a very thin thread, and we will do everything to break this thread.

In late 2014 another associated site – Operativ.info – was in action calling for information about saboteurs and terrorists and threatening that if disinformation was detected, they would “regard these actions as assistance to terrorists and take measures against disinformers”. Revealingly the Operativ.info site was labeled as a project of InformNapalm at this stage.

Myrotvorets lists thousands of “saboteurs”, “separatists”, “terrorists” and “traitors”. Sometimes, it has crossed out their photographs once they had been killed, with the label “liquidated”. This, for instance, happened after the murder of Daria Dugina in Moscow in August 2022. Today the Myrotvorets site houses links to two other domains which appear to be integral parts of the operation. One – ordilo.org – is titled “STORAGE OF INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMES AGAINST UKRAINE”. The other – identigraf.center – allows various categories of users to submit images of individuals for facial recognition scanning. Tinko registered both domains.

THE NATO CONNECTION

Kolesnikov and Tinko were successive registrants on Natocdn.work (from March 11, 2015). Tinko registered a follow on domain Natocdn.net (28 January 2019). These obscure-sounding web addresses were used to host the files needed for the Myrotvorets site as can be seen by examining the “page source”(right-click in Chrome and select “View page source”) on the site including in versions held in the Internet Archive. The first domain name (.work) was previously used to host both the original and succeeding Myrotvorets web sites. Thus it is in the page source on psb4ukr.org on 15 December 2015 just before the launch of the myrotvorets.center website, and is in the latter page source when it was first captured in the internet archive on 25 February 2016. The archive also shows that the latter domain was later hosted via Natocdn.net.

The letters CDN perhaps refer to a Content Delivery Network, a device to speed up the delivery of web pages when they are searched from an otherwise remote location, such as the California based name servers also used by the site. In fact, the Natocdn.net domain is hosted at none other than the official website NATO.int, based at its headquarters in Brussels.

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Source

Back on 17 April 2015, several interested people had also tracked the original web address (psb4ukr.org) directly to nato.int without the intermediary “CDN” domain suggesting that Myrotvorets had been hosted there from near the beginning. Other IP history records show that the Operation Butterfly domain discussed above was also hosted on psb4ukr.nato.int, as were two other sites:

• zoperativ.info which we noted above was part of the Myrotvorets operation;
• informnapalm.org

The latter was described “as anti-Russian propaganda site.” While this is certainly true, that designation seriously underestimates the importance of that domain in this story, as we shall see.

A day or so after this exposure in April 2015, Oxsana Tinko registered a new site for the project: psb4ukr.ninja. Perhaps foolishly, perhaps in an attempt to lean into the disclosure, she gave her location as Estonia and her company as NATO CCDCOE – the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence. For added authenticity, she used the correct street address and phone number.

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The NATO center quickly put out a statement denying any link, reading:

In fact, the Centre of Excellence has absolutely no connection with the site mentioned… Oxana Tinko … has no affiliation whatsoever with the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence… [She] appear[s] to have hijacked the Centre’s public information and we are taking steps to get the false information removed.”

It is also noteworthy, however, that a Ukraine Ministry of Defense psyops Powerpoint from 2015, leaked in the same month of that year (April), refers to the NATO cyber center as one of seven Western groups with which it had “cooperation”.

Nevertheless, the link to the NATO servers remained in the page source of the Myrotvorets websites. It was not until the NATO connection became an issue again in late August 2022 that anything was done about this. This was after Henry Kissinger had been added to the site in May. Then on August 24, independent journalist Eva Bartlett (who was named on both the Myrotvorets and Center for Countering Disinformation lists) reported that the page source code for Myrotvorets included links to resources held at psb4ukr.natocdn.net. Later, on October 14, she drew attention to the fact that Elon Musk had been listed on the site briefly after he threatened not to continue supplying his Starlink system to the Ukraine military for free. Musk responded “Is this list real?” Within eight days the page source links to natocdn.net were gone.

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More than one hundred links to natocdn.net were still there on October 21, 2022 at 22:35 but were all gone by the next morning at 09:14. Even after the incriminating text was removed, however, IP tracking sites show the domain natocdn.net is still, at the time of writing (Archive version), mounted on servers at NATO headquarters in Brussels. In fact, many of the image files used to make up the site are still hosted at that URL including the gory front page collage of alleged dead Russian soldiers. (Archive version).

But what of Informnapalm.org – the other site which appears to have been hosted on nato.int? The evidence suggests that Myrotvorets is a project of InformNapalm.

INFORMNAPALM AS A UKRAINE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE “SPECIAL PROJECT”

InformNapalm presents itself as a volunteer-run intelligence service. But this is a deception. A Ukrainian Ministry of Defense PowerPoint presentation leaked in 2015 refers to it as a “special project” of the ministry, along with a number of others who themselves stand in need of further investigation.

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Corroborating information comes in the form of the identity of the person who registered the domain name informnapalm.org – the aforementioned Vladimir Kolesnikov on March 29 2014, six months before the first of the kill list domains were registered. Kolesnikov is the webmaster of InformNapalm. His Linkedin page describes his involvement with InformNapalm as beginning as a “translator” in February 2014, graduating to System Administrator in March 2014 and DevOps engineer in April 2014. Helpfully Vladimir lists another “volunteering” role from February 2014 with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. This role involved: “participation in information operations in the interests of the anti-terrorist operation in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, and assistance in counteraction to information aggression by the Russian Federation.” Myrotvorets is, therefore, a project of InformNaplam which is, in turn, a ”special project” of the Ministry of Defense.

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Volodymyr Kolesnykov | LinkedIn page
Other links between the two projects include that Oksana Tinko, in registering the domain Myrotverots.center, used her informnapalm.org email address. On her Facebook page she claims to have worked at InformNapalm since March 2014. This conforms to the detail in data released by the Russian hacking group Cyber-Berkut which showed that Tinko had become an admin on the Operativ.info and informnapalm.org sites on March 29 2014.

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Oksana Tink on Facebook | Source

Tinko is fond of displaying Nazi and Banderite imagery on her social media. There is a swastika on her Github page and her Facebook profile features a background with the red and black colors of Bandera and a star of David together with a reptilian dressed as an orthodox Jew.

The journalist George Eliason who excavated much of the story of InformNapalm reports that the people involved are “mostly Pravy Sektor” (Right Sector), in other words far right supporters of Stepan Bandera. Pravy Sektor uses the red and black colors of Bandera in its flag, just as Tinko does on her Facebook profile. In late 2019 Myrotvorets proudly displayed a portrait of Bandera on its homepage to mark the Nazi collaborator’s birthday.

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“January 1 — Stepan Andriyovych Bandera’s birthday“
In the early days of the Myrotvorets project the InformNapalm logo was prominently displayed. It was still there on May 13, 2016, but was gone by August of that year. This may have been because of its publication of the list of thousands of journalists’ names which caused significant backlash and led to a statement that “taking into account the reaction… the Center ‘Peacemaker’ made a difficult decision to close the site.” The site did not shutter, however. By 2017, Myrotvorets continued to boast of its links with InformNapalm, stating:

Volunteers of the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance (UCA), the intelligence community InformNapalm and the Peacemaker Center publish their research based on information contained in the mail of terrorists and Russian authorities.”

As this passage highlights, all three organizations worked closely together.

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InformNapalm logo 2014 and 2023 – showing how it has tried to mellow its image.

It would appear that InformNapalm is the parent or coordinating body for an evolving team of pro-Ukrainian hackers, researchers, journalists and devotees of the far right. InformNapalm claims that: “We mostly rely on open sources and widely employ different OSINT methods of information gathering. We also receive some information from insiders (HUMINT) and hacktivists.” It also claims: “InformNapalm does not participate in or encourage computer hacking activities.”

This is an admission of receipt of intelligence information (“Humint”) from Ukrainian and perhaps other intelligence services. The disavowal of participation or encouragement of hacking is undermined by their own statements, as in this one by one of the hackers:

At first we had a separate group called RUH8… Our cooperation with other hacker groups was established thanks to the InformNapalm …where we all submitted information for processing and publication.”

RUH8 is an abbreviation for Russia Hate. InformNapalm claimed in 2020 that it “is a purely volunteer endeavour which does not have any financial support from any government or donor.” This is, of course, a lie.

PROMETHEUS

It is a matter of public record that InformNapalm has been funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, the CIA proxy. For example, in its now-deleted list of funding for Ukraine in 2016, the NED reported that $100,000 was given to a project of “Prometheus”. It would “conduct open-source investigations that monitor and spotlight external Russian military actions and post them on its popular and trusted website, https://informnapalm.org”. The Prometheus domain Prometheus.ngo was also registered by Volodymyr Kolesnykov on March 11, 2016.

Prometheus advertises two “information partners” in its operation, InformNapalm and The Ukraine Media Crisis Center. InformNapalm, created in early 2014, obviously only became a project of Prometheus after the latter was created in 2016.

The Ukraine Crisis Media Center is of course another Western-funded project. It even admits to a long list of Western State funding on its website (including USAID, Embassies of the U.S., Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Germany), as well as military/intelligence funding agencies such as the NED, NATO, the U.K. based Institute for Statecraft (a military intelligence cut out), regime change enthusiasts at the Soros network of foundations and the Open Information Partnership an MI6 funded project from the U.K., in which Bellingcat and other MI6 contractors were/are involved.

An avalanche of Western cash has been showered on such organizations, all of which appear to have gone to some trouble to disguise their real origins and connections (including to each other), not to mention their affiliations to the Banderite far right.

BACK TO NATO

InformNaplam boasts in its list of achievements of working closely with NATO run groups such as the Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Lab and MI6/CIA cutout Bellingcat. It claimed to have identified “persons who could be involved in the shootdown of Flight MH17 …(this information was used in the reports by our colleagues from Bellingcat team).” The organisation also claims to have conducted “exclusive analysis of SurkovLeaks – the email dump belonging to [Russian politician] Surkov’s reception office obtained by Ukrainian Cyber Alliance (the authenticity of the emails was reconfirmed by several reputable organizations, including Atlantic Council’s DFR Lab)”. The DFR Lab and Bellingcat, are not “reputable” organizations but rather are part of NATO information operations against Russia.

These boasts put both the DFR Lab and Bellingcat in the frame as collaborators with the Nazi kill list, which is itself based on the OSINT techniques pioneered by both groups. Now that we know that the “volunteers” of Mirotvorets, InformNapalm and the Ukraine Hacker Alliance are a project of the Ukrainian government with significant NATO support, the role of the DFR Labs and Bellingcat appears to be part of that support for the Nazi kill list.

In the West, these Nazi collaborators and apologists attempt to push an altogether softer narrative. Thus, we have Eliot Higgins of the Informnapalm “colleague” Bellingcat attempting what he presumably thought was a condescending denial in tweeting: “’Myrotvorets is a Ukrainian government kill list’ is rapidly becoming the most effective way to identify the dumbest people in this website.”


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We can even find Aric Toler, also of Bellingcat, criticizing Myrotvorets while appearing to disavow any knowledge that Bellingcat had worked with them. In response, the founder of InformNaplam (and we must assume Myrotvorets too) Roman Burko, defended the activities of the kill list as purely a question of style.

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So, the evidence here supports the contention that NATO is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. There is a link between the Nazi kill list and the blacklist to which I was added and that is that both are operations of the regime in Kiev. A further link is the deputy head of the regime-created Center for Strategic Communication, Mykola Balaban. He cut his teeth working on the InformNaplam/Mirotvorets operation, as was revealed in a document released by Russian hackers Cyber-Berkut in late 2015 in which he featured as an admin of both the operativ.info and informnapalm.org sites from November 2014.

Finally, it seems likely a key reason why the Nazi kill list remains online is that it is protected by the regime, the U.S. government and NATO.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... ashington/

******

From Cassad's telegram account:

Colonelcassad
By Artemovsk for lunch.

1. The enemy will lose the last positions in the city before the end of the week - the average forecast now on both sides is 1-3 days. What remains of the Artemovsk garrison will crawl back to Krasnoye and Khromovo with losses in the coming days. The rest will remain in the city, since they have already stopped taking prisoners there.

2. Since after the ousting of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Artemovsk, the fighting will continue in the fields to the west of the city, as well as in the Khromovo and Krasnoy regions, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will continue to pretend that the "Bakhmut Fortress" is standing, after which, in 1-2 weeks, they will announce that "withdrew to more advantageous positions" and "in general, Bakhmut never mattered much."

3. The current attacks to the north and south of the city are unlikely to lead to significant breakthroughs in the front, but tactical successes may allow the Armed Forces of Ukraine to somewhat dampen the inevitable tantrums in Ukraine about the surrender of the Bakhmut Fortress.

4. In the middle of the day on May 18, the enemy continued attacks in the direction of Berkhovka and Kleshcheevka. There are intense battles. The enemy also continues attacks in the area of ​​Sacco and Vanzetti. The village itself is held by our troops, the enemy is pressing from the northwest and north. Those reserves are now being used, which for a long time were collected in the area of ​​​​Konstantinovka, Chasov Yar and Aleksandrovka.

5. With all the tactical troubles for us in the area of ​​​​Bogdanovka, Kleshcheevka and Sacco and Vanzetti, the continuation of these attacks after the loss of Artemovsk by the enemy will allow, with competent command and control of the Russian Defense Ministry and the strengthening of the interaction of the RF Ministry of Defense with PMC "Wagner", to grind part of the enemy's operational reserves in Slavyansko-Kramatorsk direction, which will be of no small importance in subsequent battles to break through the defense line of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Konstantinovka-Chasov Yar-Rai-Aleksandrovka, with the aim of a full-fledged entry into the Slavnya-Kramatorsk agglomeration. The fights here will also be heavy.

***

Colonelcassad

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Attack on the location of the 60th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Tsirkuny

Today, Russian troops hit the location of the unit of the 60th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a residential building in Tsirkuny : the entire settlement has long turned into one continuous positional area of ​​​​Ukrainian formations.

Despite reports in the Ukrainian media about a blow to pensioners, this is not at all the case. Almost all residential buildings in the private sector are occupied by units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Specifically, in this house there were up to two branches. As a result of the strike, one Ukrainian serviceman was eliminated, five were wounded.

Coordinates: If you, your loved ones and relatives have information about the affected objects, enemy movements or any other sensitive information that can help our troops, feel free to write to our bot50.082354, 36.380045

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

*******

Ukraine’s Neoliberalism on Steroids & Europe’s Economic Suicide
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 18, 2023



To analyze the conflict in Ukraine, political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson are joined by economic geographer Mick Dunford. They discuss the aggressive neoliberal reforms being imposed by the Ukrainian government and Europe’s suicidal policies.

Transcript: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/

You can watch other episodes of their program Geopolitical Economy Hour here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... ccibhYHnDP

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... c-suicide/

**********

Battlefield Update - 2023-05-18 (1)

A SKEPTIC
MAY 18, 2023
Rybar: ❗️🇷🇺🇺🇦 Highlights of Russian Military Operation in Ukraine on May 17.

▪️The AFU continue to shell border settlements of Kursk Region.

Shell fragments damaged power lines in Gordeevka and Troitskoye, one person was injured.

▪️A kamikaze drone equipped with an explosive device crashed on a highway near Kaluga.

The drone crashed and exploded at the 380th kilometer of the Moscow Big Ring Road near the village of Tarutino.

▪️In the west of Bakhmut, Wagner PMC assault groups have begun storming the last serious AFU stronghold in the city.

At the moment, the so-called Domino fortified area located behind Yuvileina street is under intense artillery fire.

▪️On the flanks, the situation remains difficult: the AFU command continues to introduce new forces into the battle.

The Russian forces, in turn, are trying to cut off the enemy's supply routes by hitting roads to Chasiv Yar and Kostyantynivka.

▪️The AFU artillery significantly increased the intensity of strikes on the DPR's frontline areas.

Donetsk, Horlivka, and Yasynuvata were shelled. As a result, five people were killed, at least 15 were wounded, and dozens of residential buildings were damaged.

▪️In Zaporizhzhia region, the number of AFU artillery attacks is increasing day by day.

Once again, Tokmak, Polohy and the surrounding villages were shelled. Residential buildings were destroyed and at least two people were wounded.

▪️Russian troops launched a missile attack on an industrial facility in Mykolaiv.

According to some reports, the attack destroyed an ammunition warehouse on shipyard territory.

https://askeptic.substack.com/p/battlef ... 23-05-18-1

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RECENT RUSSIAN ATTACKS CONFIRM PATRIOT SYSTEM VULNERABILITY
May 18, 2023 , 11:02 a.m.

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The Patriot missile defense system at the Sliac airport in Slovakia (Photo: Reuters)

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the destruction of the American defense system Patriot on May 16, after carrying out a combined attack with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, from the air and from the sea, against the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. stationed in Kiev, as well as against depots of ammunition, weapons and military equipment supplied by Western countries.

Regarding this attack, military expert Alexei Leonkov detailed, Sputnik reports , that the Patriot "used all the ammunition in a desperate attempt to bring down the Kinzhal. In total there would be 32 Patriot interceptor projectiles that were fired from the eight missile launchers, but it was the effort was in vain. The fact that the Patriot fired all those interceptors at the Kinzhal indicates the complete ineffectiveness of the system in relation to the Russian hypersonic complex," Leonkov concluded.

The vulnerability of this defense apparatus does not surprise the American bimonthly magazine The National Interest , a publication of the Washington-based think tank Center for the National Interest, which referred to the improbability of the Patriot meeting the expectations that were projected. . And it is that, according to what was said by the magazine, even though the Ukrainians have learned everything related to its use, the threats that Ukraine faces are far above what the system can withstand.

These lurks include Russia's entire arsenal of missiles and drones, as well as its unmanned aerial systems, which range from consumer-grade reconnaissance drones to more sophisticated Iranian-made kamikaze drones.

The porosity of the expensive US defense system - each launch of these interceptor missiles is worth three million dollars - was demonstrated after the recent Russian attacks, whose air superiority is recognized by the US establishment .

https://misionverdad.com/recientes-ataq ... ma-patriot

Google Translator

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Radioactive cloud from Khmelnytsky is approaching Europe
May 19, 1:40 p.m

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Now officially.

Russian Security Council Secretary Patrushev said that the radioactive cloud that emerged after the explosion of the ammunition depot in Khmelnitsky (where a large number of tank shells with depleted uranium were destroyed) is moving towards Western Europe. In Poland, an increase in the radiation level has been recorded.

As the British used to say. There is no need to worry about this.
Our military must be understood before the strike, they got acquainted with the wind rose and are now observing the consequences.

The main threat from such ammunition is a serious increase in cancer in the medium term, which was confirmed in Yugoslavia and Iraq. Now in Ukraine and Europe.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8367095.html

Google Translator

This is on the Brits, no matter how the propaganda tries to twist it. The has-been hegemon doubles down in it's efforts to remain the current hegemon's favorite puppy. Perhaps this will shake up NATO.

***************

Russian Extends Black Sea Grain Deal

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Food cargo ship in the Black Sea. | Photo: Twitter/ @consulting_fkg

Under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, over 30 million tons of food have been exported so far.

On Wednesday, United Nations Secretary Antonio Guterres welcomed Russia's decision that would allow the extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which allows the export of Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products from Black Sea ports.

"We have some positive and significant developments: confirmation by the Russian Federation to continue its participation in the Black Sea Initiative for another 60 days. I welcome this decision," said Guterres. "The continuation is good news for the world."

Outstanding issues remain, but representatives of Russia, Ukraine, Türkiye and the United Nations will keep discussing them, he told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.

"I hope we will reach a comprehensive agreement to improve, expand and extend the initiative, as I proposed in a recent letter to the presidents of the three countries."

The importance of the Black Sea Grain Initiative -- and the parallel memorandum of understanding between the United Nations and Russia on the facilitation of exports of Russian food and fertilizer -- is clear. These agreements matter for global food security. Ukrainian and Russian products feed the world, said Guterres.

Under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, over 30 million tons of food have been exported. Vital food supplies are reaching some of the world's most vulnerable people and places, including 30,000 tons of wheat that just left Ukraine to feed hungry people in Sudan, said the UN chief.


The agreements matter because the world is still in the throes of a record-breaking cost-of-living crisis. And they matter because they demonstrate that, even in the darkest hours, there is always a beacon of hope and an opportunity to find solutions that benefit everyone, he said.

Guterres noted that over the last year, global food markets have stabilized, volatility has been reduced and global food prices fell by 20 percent.

"Looking ahead, we hope that exports of food and fertilizers, including ammonia, from the Russian Federation and Ukraine will be able to reach global supply chains safely and predictably -- as foreseen in both the Black Sea Initiative and the memorandum of understanding on Russian food and fertilizer exports, the implementation of which the United Nations is fully committed to support," he said.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative was signed separately by Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul with Türkiye and the UN on July 22, 2022. The deal, initially in effect for 120 days, was extended in mid-November 2022 for another 120 days till March 18, 2023. At that point, Russia only agreed to extend the deal for a further 60 days, till May 18, 2023.

As a parallel agreement, Russia and the United Nations signed the memorandum of understanding on the facilitation of exports of Russian food and fertilizer. But the parallel agreement has not made much progress.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Rus ... -0007.html

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Ukraine Conflict is a ‘Proxy War of Combined West Against Russia’ (Interview)
MAY 17, 2023

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Illustration of war showing an explosion and two soldiers running. Photo: Mohamed Hasan/Pixabay.

The so-called Ukraine conflict is “a proxy war of the combined West against Russia,” American writer and geopolitical analyst Daniel Patrick Welch says.

Welch said in an interview with the Press TV website on Tuesday that the United States and its allies trying to use Ukraine as a bludgeon to subdue the world are instead hastening the demise of their own empire of shame.

“This whole Ukrainian episode of the Forever War is more and more like a caricature every day,” Welch said.

“In the first place, it’s not a Ukrainian war. We have to abandon that propaganda narrative that we’ve been aiding and abetting,” he added.

Asked to explain, Welch pointed out that even the most careful reporting is incorrect. “It’s not a war where ‘the Ukrainians did this, the Russians did this, the Ukrainians, the Russians…’ and on and on. That’s not what’s happening. It is–and has always been–a proxy war of the combined West against Russia. Absolutely every bit of that is true.”


On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with German leaders in Berlin and pressed them for faster deliveries of advanced weapons and fighter jets, in a visit that aims to nudge Germany towards potentially replacing the United States as Kiev’s most prominent supplier of arms.

Zelensky, who was escorted to Berlin by German fighter jets for his first trip, noted that Germany was now Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the United States.

“We are working to bring Germany to first place on that,” he said at a news conference.

Welch further thinks that avoiding mention of direct Western involvement is becoming a fig leaf. “Now even the word ‘proxy’ is getting to be a little creaky. Because all they are using is foreign investment in weapons: missiles that shoot farther, uranium-depleted weapons. All those things are overseen by NATO and by the US.”

But there are Ukrainian roles in what is happening, in which Welch sees another amazing twist. “What provides an interesting light shone on this idea of it being just another chapter in the Forever War is this weird foreign trip of Zelensky. You now have the president of Ukraine going to the Germans. To ask the Germans to be the greatest provider of weapons in his fight against Russia.”

Replay of the end of World War II
Welch is almost apoplectic at the historical déjà vu. “Is this 1939? Is W.H. Auden going to write about this? Is Stepan Bandera actually alive? What is this?”

However, he continues, the biggest danger in this repeat of history may be dragging up ghosts from the past. “The trouble is that this is exactly what it is– to replay the end of World War II. Which, let’s be honest—let’s be completely honest— it didn’t quite end the way the West wanted,” Welch explains.

“From that space that the Nazis share. All the Nazis! I don’t mean the German word ‘Nazi.’ I mean it sounds cool, and it’s fun to say the word, Nazi! Nazi! Nazi! But Nazi isn’t a German tradition. And they certainly weren’t the only Nazis around!”

What does he mean on this point? The writer elaborates on how the rewriting of history has isolated Hitler’s group as unique when actually the philosophy was more widespread. “In fact, they shared all that space with Bandera, with half the aristocracy of the British Empire, with all the great titans of American corporations that were building up Hitler to ruin Russia.”

This is what happens with exceptionalists, supremacists. It’s okay to kill the people who live on the land you want to take. And you can flip Auden either way you want from that time until now: ‘I and the public know./ What all schoolchildren learn,/ Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return.”

While it is common these days to downplay the enormity of the Soviet losses, Welch argues, there is no way that a ‘reboot’ of this history could change the outcome. “This is what is happening. And what is going to happen? The ending is no different. The movie is the same. The Russians (Soviets) lost 27 million people. And it might as well have happened yesterday. The same people are providing the same weapons to the same people (with the details slightly tweaked).”

‘Proxy war is the most common tactic of US foreign policy’
The proxy war became the most common tactic of US foreign policy, starting with choosing a proxy. “These are the Somozas! This is the very origin of the Proxy. Older than Somoza. Older than SAVAK. Older than settlers in South Africa—well maybe not, I don’t know. But certainly, Bandera is revered in this corner, in this northwest corner of Ukraine, for ‘making it free from 1939 to 1945.’ How? By slaughtering tens of thousands of Poles, Russians, and Jews. Friends of Hitler!”

Again, Welch says revisionist history has not only minimized the contribution of the Red Army, but overstated the West’s denunciation of the Axis powers. “Friends of Hitler have never been enemies of the United States in its policy machinations. They’re the first ones they went to!”

“And one of the first things they do is to demonize the hell out of anything that has to do with those people targeted,” he explains.

Mind-blowing attacks Russia
“The attack–the slaughter—on the Russian language, Russian tradition, and Russian history is mind-blowing. So much so that Americans don’t even know how brain-dead they are. And they should. I mean, if so many of us come from Ireland, and we had to suffer historically what the British do, which is sell the narrative that says Ah, the Irish are all drunks anyway. And they’re lazy. And they’re most likely terrorists. So we just march in with Cromwell and slaughter them all. And take that land!” says Welch, whose forefathers were Irish.

He continues, “So you always have the resonance of that war, of World War II…all the wars come back and feed into each other. What the Wolfe Tones sang in the 80’s: ‘Round the world, the truth will echo/ Cromwell’s men are here again! England’s name again is sullied in the eyes of honest men.’”

Repetition, he believes, can’t change the outcome. “No. It is ridiculous to think that you can change that. That history is just the long arm of a clock that if you have enough neocons running things and enough capitalists on your payroll, you can stop that hand. You can move it! Guess what? You can’t.”

West miscalculating Russian thought
The West, Welch feels, is making a huge mistake by miscalculating Russian thought. “The Russians know it. What are you going to do? Bring in all sorts of long-range missiles? Well, we’ll blow them up where they are. Do these go 300 or 400 kilometers? Then I guess that is how far we have to push in.”

They have no choice but to stand their ground, Welch says. “None of this shi*t is going to be a threat to Russia. Period. “

Compounding the problem, he thinks, is that the US seems unusually oblivious to the danger. “Americans? The neocons who run things? They don’t understand that. Partly because they come out of this tradition. The King of England! Was pro-Nazi. He had to abdicate partly because of that. Truman said Eh, if the Russians win, we’ll help the Germans, and if the Germans win we’ll help the Russians. Today. Today, in 2023, there is a woman sitting as an advisor to President Biden, who actually said you know what? Hitler might have been controversial, but no one really sings his praises for fighting communism to the death.”

‘It’s okay to be soft on Hitler now?’
The writer finds this beyond belief. “What is this? It’s okay to be soft on Hitler now? Then what the hell was that all for? Ah, we know. We know what it was all for. And guess what? It had very little to do with communism.”

It’s a very familiar narrative, but Welch rejects it, saying Napoleon and Hitler have more in common than anti-communism. “I’m sorry. I don’t buy that. I know that that is the narrative. But it’s about Russia—it’s not about Lenin, Stalin, or even Marx. It’s about Mackinder! Says Welch, referring to early 20th-century writer Halford Mackinder, who theorized that whoever controls the ‘Heartland’ controls the ‘World Island.’

“It’s about The Heartland,” Welch says. “About preventing anyone from uniting that central part of—fast-forward now–Russia and China. And that is the threat! And the irony is that these people are so arrogant and so full of themselves that they can’t see that they have made that even more inevitable than time itself. Russia and China are now joined at the hip because they know their existence depends on it.”

The party’s over, the gloves are off
Welch says that it is no longer possible for the West to hide behind its Forever War. “These wars are not proxies. These are the fingers of a LONG armed puppet. They are dangerous. And they are threats everywhere.”

The world’s response, he thinks, especially that of Russia and China, has to be deft and very cautious, given the power of those who currently hold so much.

“So just like you do at a dinner party with friends you don’t really like or trust. You nod and smile. Find the exit. And jump and run to it—quick as you can—when it feels like you’re in danger. And—unknowingly, apparently–that is what the West is facing.” Why does he think they won’t stop making things worse? “ They can’t help it,” he offers simply.

“It is the demise of their control for the last five hundred years. It will yield incredible shortages and difficulties for the hundreds of millions of us who live under the Western regime. But the party is over,” he concludes.

https://orinocotribune.com/the-partys-o ... s-are-off/

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The US is in a hurry to “finally destroy” Ukraine
May 19, 11:51 am

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US rushes to 'finally destroy' Ukraine - Kim Myung-chul, international observer for the Korean Central News Agency

From Kim's statements:

▪️ American instructors are driving tens of thousands of Ukrainian mercenaries to the bloody battlefield;

The US is on the brink of default. As a major debtor throughout the world, America continues to supply weapons to Kyiv;

▪️ To date, NATO member countries, led by the United States, have supplied Ukraine with lethal weapons and equipment worth $71 billion, including more than 230 Leopard-2 and Challenger 2 MBTs, 1,550 armored vehicles, UAVs, helicopters, large-caliber weapons and ammunition;

▪️ The West, through the supply of long-range missiles Storm Shadow to Ukraine, is trying to spread the fighting deep into the territory of Russia;

▪️ The delivery by the United States and its allies of high-precision strike weapons to Kyiv is an obvious declaration of war on Russia, a threat to Moscow's sovereignty and its security. The US has crossed the most dangerous red line;

▪️ The US and its supporters are making desperate efforts to turn Ukraine into a testing ground for their deadly weapons and a proxy war theater to defeat Russia at any cost;

▪️ America and Western powers fear most of all that Russia's victory will not end only in the defeat of Ukraine, but will lead to the collapse and death of the US-led Western world. That is why, with their absurd military support for Ukraine, they seek to prolong the crisis, loudly calling for a “peaceful solution to the Ukrainian issue”;

▪️ The United States and its vassals embellish their assistance to Ukraine with lethal weapons as an act of "defending the world", and the just support of the international community for Russia is called a "conspiracy" with the "aggressor" to turn black into white. But they can never hide the truth;

▪️ it is high time for a just international community to raise the mood for the victory of Russia;

▪️ Russia can wipe out everything in Ukraine with one blow, creating a huge mushroom cloud;

▪️ Zelensky and his clique, the puppets most loyal to the United States, who left the fate of the Ukrainian people in the bloody hands of foreign forces, have already been defeated and sentenced to a miserable death. America and their vassals will be next.

@china3army - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8366754.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 IV

Post by blindpig » Sat May 20, 2023 12:01 pm

freeze the conflict
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 05/20/2023

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Ever since the long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive was announced several months ago, and especially since huge quantities of increasingly heavy weapons began to arrive in Ukraine, official discourse has revolved around the consequences for the war of future success. from Kiev. The euphoria caused in kyiv by the announcement of the shipment of Western tanks increased markedly with the arrival of Patriot anti-aircraft batteries. Regardless of the situation on the ground, Zelensky's team wanted to establish as an official discourse the idea of ​​a certain victory to which only a nuance was added. Although "mathematically guaranteed" according to Mikhailo Podoliak, that victory depends on only one aspect: the amount of Western weapons Ukraine receives, an issue that is being increasingly used as the time to start the counteroffensive approaches. In recent weeks, contradicting the narrative of previous months, the Ukrainian government, mainly through the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmitro Kuleba, has begun to go part of the way to warn that the next attack should not be considered the last. or the definitive

Much later than its partners, who for months have hinted that Ukraine will not be able to inflict such a final blow on Russia to expel its troops from the entire territory according to the 1991 borders, Kiev seems to be joining this idea. . Despite having received military assistance equivalent to the Russian military budget in the last year, there are several obstacles that Kiev does not take into account when its most staunch representatives or allies go to the press or to social networks to assume the Russian defeat or classify the Russian Federation as a pariah state. In a fundamentally terrestrial war and in which artillery takes on special importance, Ukraine has flaunted its American HIMARS and its French artillery trying to hide that these weapons are not enough to compensate for Russian artillery superiority. The same can be said of aviation or long-range missiles. Ukraine is now much better armed than it was a year ago, a time it has used to prepare, together with its partners, its future offensive.

However, not even this armament or the reception of all kinds of Western tanks, which represent a logistical challenge both because of their different maintenance needs and because of the problem that the heavy weight of some of them can cause, convinces all the allies. A part of them has not hidden their hopes that a sufficiently decisive advance by Ukraine will force Russia to negotiate in weak conditions and accept the dictates of kyiv and its partners. Emmanuel Macron has openly adhered to this idea and, although with nuances, also Rishi Sunnak. Facing this position are the countries of Eastern Europe, exultant at the dream of defeating their Russian enemy militarily, and a part of the German government, especially Annalena Baerbock,

The last year has revealed the importance of European countries when it comes to financing the war, maintaining a part of the economy, at least the payment of pensions and part of public salaries, and as a logistical axis for the supply of weapons . But more weakened than ever in the face of eastern countries that are closer to Washington than to the Paris-Berlin axis and subservient to US interests, the European bloc is not Ukraine's most important ally. It is Washington, and to a lesser extent London, that sets the course for this war and determines both the weapons that are sent and the way in which they are to be used. Hence, his position must be carefully studied and analyzed, especially when it is published by media related to the Biden administration.

This is the case of the recent article published by Politico and in which it is alleged that the US government is preparing for the possibility that, after the announced but still uncertain Ukrainian offensive, the conflict will go into a frozen phase and continue, in a way or another, for years. “It is a scenario that may turn out to be more realistic in the long term considering that neither Kiev nor Moscow seem inclined to ever admit defeat,” says Politico ., who in his article refers to five different sources from the Biden administration. This is a way of admitting that a decisive victory for one of the parties is not expected, something increasingly evident since the moment in which, last summer, the front was paralyzed without the apparently stronger party, Russia, being able to continue going forward. And despite a year of continuous supply to kyiv, there is nothing to suggest that Ukraine has a realistic chance of capturing, say, Crimea. The possibility of a frozen conflict increases, according to Politico, "among the feeling within the administration that an upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive is not going to deal a fatal blow to Russia."

The scenario, which the article compares to Korea, Nagorno-Karabakh or even the paralyzed front of the Donbass war, would simply mean the maintenance of the status quo , a situation in which the parties "would only have to agree not to shoot each other". Among the advantages of this possibility would be, according to the sources of the American media, that Ukraine would not be forced to admit the loss of territories, kyiv's main requirement when seeking a non-military solution to the war. The approach is simple: an agreement, which the outlet admits would entail great difficulties, although it adds the Korean example, which took two years to forge, on what that front line would be and accept the cooling off. Curiously, the outlet considers the static front represented by the Minsk agreements to be a relative success, deliberately forgetting that the breach of the agreements prevented a resolution of that war from taking place, something that would have significantly hampered its current continuation, already extended to the entire world. Ukrainian territory.

The publication of the article has been used by a section of the Russian media as proof that the United States and its allies are beginning to see the war more realistically and are looking for a way out to start limiting arms deliveries and moving away from war. In reality, this possibility of a frozen conflict, one of the different scenarios that Washington handles in its industrial and political planning, would mean a false closure similar to the Minsk agreements, with a much larger front and a much better armed opponent. “A frozen conflict, in which fighting is paused but neither side declares victory or agrees that the war is officially over, could also be a politically acceptable outcome for the United States and other countries that support Ukraine,” he says.Political , making clear the priority interests will always be those of Washington. Despite the words and commitments that Ukraine is receiving throughout these months, its interests will always be secondary to its European and North American partners.

This is not to be understood as a possibility that the United States and its European allies will abandon their Ukrainian proxy or begin to limit military or financial assistance. The long-term commitment exists as long as the use of Ukraine as a tool against Russia continues to be useful. In this sense, the interests of kyiv and those of Washington continue to be aligned. For Ukraine, the war against Russia is necessary to continue the path of creating the ultra-liberal, nationalist and anti-Russian country that has been slowly taking shape since the Maidan victory. For the United States, the war is a useful tool to pressure Russia politically and economically, not because it is considered a real opponent to its hegemony or its position in the world, but as an important ally of the real enemy: China.

The maintenance of a controlled war on the Russian borders was already an element that favored Washington never getting involved in the Minsk agreements, whose breach guaranteed the continuation of the frozen conflict, which meant for Moscow an economic commitment to maintain the People's Republics and an economic ballast in the form of sanctions. Freezing, along current lines or those resulting from possible future offensives or counteroffensives, would mean extending that situation both geographically, with a significantly broader front that both parties should maintain, reinforce and fortify, and politically. A frozen conflict south of the Dnieper and somewhere in the Donbass would mean the maintenance of an eternal war between Russia and Ukraine and also the perpetuity of sanctions against Russia.

With the parties preparing for the resumption of full-scale hostilities, this frozen conflict scenario, which has already been rejected as a possibility by the Ukrainian government, which is demanding more weapons in exchange for promises to decisively defeat the common Russian enemy, would only be possible in the medium term. The failure of the Istanbul agreement more than a year ago made it clear that the possibilities of agreement between the parties were limited and that a resolution to the war would have to go through the military defeat of one of the parties or the unbearable wear and tear on both. Neither of the two situations has occurred at the moment, but it is the latter that the main financier of this war seems to be preparing for. However,

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/05/20/27311/#more-27311

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Ukraine: How Western Nations Pushed for Privatization of Agriculture and the Devastating Consequences
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 18, 2023
Peter Korotaev

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A farmer on his farmland in Western Ukraine. Image credit: CGTN.

Part I: Ukraine’s Privatized Agriculture: A Hungry Guarantor of Global Food Security
Former Canadian ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk said Ukraine is a country where the IMF does ‘economic experiments’. Ukraine is a laboratory for testing radical neo-liberal policies, irrespective of the harm ordinary Ukrainians face from them.

Of Ukraine’s 60 million hectares of land, 55 per cent (33 million ha) is considered arable – the highest such figure in Europe. Some more optimistic estimates place that figure at 74 per cent. The world average is 12.6 per cent. 2.3 per cent of the world’s arable land is in Ukraine. Much is often said of Ukraine as the ‘breadbasket of Europe’ – indeed, Ukraine’s arable land accounts for 25 per cent of Europe’s.

Things aren’t so rosy when it comes to Ukraine’s capitalist, privatized agriculture. While it exports plenty of sunflower oil and corn, food production has plummeted for decades, the land is monopolized by big agroholdings, the quality of the land is rapidly dropping because of unsustainable agroholding practices, and the population suffers from equal or worse levels of hunger as countries in Latin America.

The power of big agroholdings – Ukraine’s agricultural relations

In the 1990s, there was a privatization of the soviet state farm system. But in 2001, a moratorium was declared on the buying or selling of agricultural land. As a result, most Ukrainian agricultural land is still owned by small farmers. These small farmers numbered almost 7 million in 2019, or a sixth of the population. The remaining agricultural land is owned by the government.

The moratorium was introduced because many Ukrainian peasants were worried about losing their land to big business, especially to foreigners. Contrary to the urgings of domestic and foreign ‘market reformers’, most Ukraine’s peasants have no interest in privatizing their land. A 2005 survey showed that 96 per cent of Ukraine’s farmers did not want to start individual farming. A USAID poll conducted in 2015 showed that only eight per cent of landowners wished to sell it in the first year after the lifting of the moratorium, and a 2017 poll done by the institute of agrarian economics showed that only 10 per cent of landowners wanted to sell their land.

Until July 1, 2021, Ukrainian land could not be bought, but only rented. Due to the poverty of Ukrainian peasants, most (56 per cent) are forced to rent out their small plots to private companies. Another 29 per cent work the land themselves, 8 per cent rent it out to the government, and 7 per cent do nothing with their land. Many rent to larger companies – agroholdings. Land belonging to the government is also often rented out to big agroholdings. As a result, these agroholdings have played a dominant role in Ukraine’s capitalist agriculture.

The scale of agroholdings

The main Ukrainian agrobusiness web portal is fittingly called ‘latifundist’. Not only are Ukrainian agricultural relations often compared to those in Latin America, but Ukraine actually tops world figures in this respect.

Ukrainian largest agroholdings are very powerful. In 2017, two of Ukraine’s agroholdings were in the global top 20 list as ranked by amount of land controlled. NCH Capital, which evenly distributes its land in Russia and Ukraine, is in the top 10. Ukraine’s largest agroholding, Kernel, controlled 510 000 hectares of land in 2021. Kernel was planning to increase that to 700 000 after the ‘good news’ about Zelensky’s 2020 lifting of the moratorium on selling agricultural land. Kernel received $643 million of gross profit in the 2021 financial year, 5.2 times more than what it received in the previous year. This company alone is responsible for 22 per cent of Ukraine’s sunflower oil exports, 20 per cent of Ukraine’s grain exports, and close to 10 per cent of Ukraine’s total grain exports. Agroholdings were responsible for 22 per cent of Ukraine’s total agricultural production in 2017, though as we will see later, they have little to do with Ukraine’s food security.

It is hard to say how much Ukrainian land is controlled by large agroholdings, both because of non-transparency of these rental relations of control (relatively little Ukrainian land has been sold since the lifting of the moratorium) and the rapidly changing state of the sector. In its 2020 report, Land Matrix recorded 242 land deals (this includes rental and lease agreements) in Ukraine, leading to a total size of 3.24 million hectares under contractual control by agroholdings. This amounts to 7.6 per cent of all agricultural land and 10 per cent of all arable land.

But as Land Matrix itself admits, this is an underestimate since it only considers transparent deals.

According to ‘Latifundist’, in 2021, the top 117 agroholdings in Ukraine directly controlled 6.45 million hectares of land, which is 16 per cent of all agricultural land, and 20 per cent of all arable land. In 2020, according to ‘Eco-action’ and the Institute of Geography of Ukraine, only the top 10 agroholdings controlled 2.66 million hectares of arable land. According to the influential agrobusiness news portal ‘Landlord’, 45 agroholdings control 4.1 million hectares of arable land, with a total revenue of $10.8 billion USD.

By comparison, no EU countries apart from Romania (not coincidentally one of the EU’s poorest members) have large agroholdings. In most countries, such as Germany, no single individual or company owns more than 30 000 hectares of land, while the average size of agricultural plots is 20 hectares. Due to the negative social, economic and ecological effects of domination of agriculture by large agroholdings, only poor, imperialized countries in South America, Asia and Africa have agroholdings comparable to those in Ukraine[1].

How much land do foreign agroholdings control?

According to Land Matrix’s 2021 report, Ukraine is second on the global list of the amount of land owned by foreigners – three million hectares. Only beaten by Indonesia, Ukraine was followed by Russia, Papua New Guinea and Brazil. Another study found that 15 per cent of Ukraine’s agricultural land is owned by foreigners, or almost 20 per cent of arable land.

However, these figures are likely an underestimate. Latifundist writes that only 10 foreign agroholdings control two to three million hectares. The largest were US companies – the biggest two controlled 300 000 and 195 000 hectares. One of the ways that foreign businesses get around restrictions on owning land in Ukraine is by buying it as collateral from a Ukrainian bank. This method has also hugely discounted Ukrainian land through the use of the western program ‘Prozorro’, which we will detail in our last article.

Another reason why foreigners own more than it seems is given by Ukrainian economic journalist Roman Gubrienko. He writes that 60-70 per cent of the land controlled by agroholdings is actually foreign owned, albeit with a token Ukrainian front. A 2023 report on Ukraine’s agriculture found that nine out of ten of Kernel’s top shareholders are European or American. Ukraine’s fourth largest investor in 2020 was Norway’s Sovereign Wealth fund, which owns shares in both Kernel and its competitor agroholding MHP. Blackrock and Goldman Sachs are some of the other big global financial groups heavily involved in Ukraine’s agriculture.

Indirect relations of control by agroholdings

It is also misleading to only take into account direct juridical control over land through rental contracts. This does not take into account the indirect control over agricultural produce effected by the domination by big agroholdings of agricultural capital goods. While financially out of reach of the poor individual farmers that nominally own most Ukrainian land, big agroholdings own most processing, logistics, elevator and storage equipment. Without the appropriate equipment, peasants are forced to sell their produce for very low prices. Since trading companies and agroholdings own two thirds of all agricultural elevator equipment, they can easily force smaller peasants to sell them produce for low prices, then resell it abroad for higher prices.

Kernel is not only the biggest agroholding but also the biggest trader of agricultural produce – it was responsible for delivering 13 per cent of all Ukraine’s grain exports in 2019-20. The top three traders were responsible for delivering 30 per cent of Ukraine’s exports. The top five private owners of elevators control a third of all elevators. Kernel is also the biggest private owner of elevators. This means that in some regions, agroholdings such as Kernel enjoy a monopoly on elevators.

As a result, agroholdings can dictate prices to smaller peasants, and in reality, control far more of the agricultural industry than indicated by the land they legally control. These indirect means of control are why Natalia Mamonova, an academic specialized on the topic, wrote in 2015 that 60 per cent of Ukrainian agricultural land is controlled by big agrobusiness.

Privileged giants

The agroholdings have political power to match their economic strength. Through their lobby, the ‘Ukrainian Club of Agrarian Business’ (UCAB), they advocate for laws that raise taxes on small farmers. While the similar law 3131 failed to pass through parliament (Verkhovna Rada – VR), law 5600 was approved by president Zelensky in December 2021. This law involved increasing the tax burden on small and medium farmers. The VR expert committee critiqued the law, arguing that it ignores the seasonal specificities of various forms of agriculture and that it is based on the unproven assumption that small farmers avoid paying taxes.

According to the VR expert committee:

‘increased tax pressure on small producers may lead to the sale or lease of land by them (which may be one of the negative consequences of the adoption of the project) and lead to an increase in unemployment in rural areas, an outflow of labor to cities and abroad, a decrease in competition and monopolization of agricultural production, changing the structure of agricultural production, the commodity structure of export-import, increasing the price offer in the domestic agri-food market, etc’

The government made agricultural liberalization its top priority, regularly describing the 2020 privatization of land as one of its greatest achievements. As Zelensky put it in a 2020 pathos-laden speech to farmers (where he promised meagre credits), ‘without land reform, we have no chance to become the breadbasket of Europe’. The head of the Servant of the People party, David Arakhamia, sung praises to law 5600, pushing parliament hard to ratify it as soon as possible, despite expert critique. Taras Vysotsky, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture and a top advocate of market reforms, was general director of UCAB until 2019.

It is hence no surprise that while the government implements laws impoverishing Ukraine’s 2.3 million small or medium farmers, it approves huge subsidies for big agroholdings. In January-September 2017, Ukraine’s largest poultry agroholding and third largest landowner, MHP (belonging to Yury Kosyuk), received 1.25 billion hryvnias in ‘agrarian support’ subsidies from the Ukrainian budget. By comparison, the 2017 budget involved 1 trillion hryvnias in spending. Kosyuk was also an advisor to then-president of the time Poroshenko, and the sixth richest Ukrainian ($900 million). Independent journalists also found that Kosyuk was a key intermediary figure in immense Donbass smuggling schemes linking US diplomat Kurt Volker and Poroshenko. The company, like any agroholding and most Ukrainian big business, has its headquarters in Cyprus (previously in Luxemburg). That means that not only does it receive enormous budget subsidies, but it evades taxes. In 2019, the company announced that it would make new investments in the Balkans and Saudi Arabia instead of in Ukraine.

MHP received $230 million USD (6.2 billion hryvnia) in pure profits in 2017. In 2018, Kosyuk’s company received 25 per cent of all state agricultural subsidies, 970 million hryvnia. In 2018, the government approved a law giving big agroholdings (before this was only possible for small farmers) the right to receive compensation from the government for credit interest.

The second most privileged company was UkrLandFarming, which owns the second largest amount of agricultural land after Kernel); receiving 444 million hryvnias. This company and MHP combined received half of all agrarian subsidies in 2017. The same year, according to state statistics, MHP received 1.8 billion hryvnia in subsidies. Two companies belonging to members of Poroshenko’s parliamentary bloc received a total of 3.5 million hryvnias, the same amount of money spent on the modernization of the streetlights of the entire city of Khmelnytsky. 60 milion hryvnia were also received for the agricultural business of a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada belonging to the parliament’s Agrarian Committee .Even the pro-western ‘radiosvoboda’ who conducted this investigation reported that it is possible that the real numbers are higher.

Apart from state subsidies to Poroshenko allies like Kosyuk, avoiding taxation is itself a form of subsidy. And this is exactly what Zelensky legislated in 2021, signing off a reduction in value-added taxes from 20 per cent to 14 per cent for imports and exports of a variety of top agricultural exports, including agroholding favorites corn, sunflower, and wheat.

Ukraine’s agrobusiness is very low down the list of top Ukrainian taxpayers, a list which itself is hardly full of high performers. The top agricultural tax payer is Kernel, which was still only at 147th place in 2020. It paid only $18 million in taxes in 2018. The same year, Kernel earned $513 million USD in profit, and its owner was among Ukraine’s top 20 richest men. MHP paid even less.

According to the NGO Ukrainian Agrarian Association, only a fifth of designated state assistance to small-scale farmers reached its destination in 2018, for a total of merely $7.4 million USD. The World Bank gave only $5.4 million in support to small Ukrainian farmers. Even this small amount did not come from the WB itself, as is the case for its loans to big agrobusiness, but required small farmers to use their future harvests as collateral to receive capital. It and other western financial institutions have found it much more important to push for the agricultural liberalization which destroys small farmers and encourages the growth of big agroholdings. We will look closer at the role of western financial institutions in encouraging the rise of big agrobusiness at the cost of smaller farmers in the final article of this series.

Analysts of Ukraine’s agricultural relations have also noted how difficult it is for smaller farmers to receive credit. Banks mainly work with clients that own over 500 hectares of land, and require extensive paperwork, as well as generally being short-term and involving high interest rates.

The decline of agricultural employment

The post-Soviet period has seen a steady decline in the amount of agricultural land controlled by family farmers. This is because the defunct Soviet Union provided large subsidies to peasants, buying much of their produce and organizing other aspects of production. The world bank, on the other hand, stated that the key to development of Ukrainian agriculture through privatization is ‘expansion of producers with higher productivity and incentives for lower productivity producers to improve or exit, as the price of land rises.’.

The more that agricultural relations has been liberalized, the more rural employment has declined. Slightly rising from 2012-13, it drastically fell from 3.3 million to 3 million in 2013-14. Declining every year since, by 2021 only 2.69 million people were employed in agriculture. It is hence no surprise that most Ukrainian farmers have consistently stated their unwillingness to become individual, capitalist farmers.

Kernel, Ukraine’s biggest agroholding, controls 500 000 hectares of land, about 1.5 per cent of Ukraine’s arable land, but only employs 15 000 workers. That means that if all Ukraine’s arable land were used by agroholdings similar to Kernel, only 990 000 workers would be needed. Given the fact that agroholdings employ quite few people, the decline in agricultural employment is certainly thanks to increased unemployment among individual farmers. While total employment fell, from 2014 to 2021 Ukraine increased annual exports of agroholding favorite sunflower oil from 12 million to 16 million tons.

The controversial privatization of agricultural land

Unpopular reforms

The marketization of Ukrainian agriculture has always been very unpopular. According to one 2020 poll, only 15 per cent of Ukrainians supported the privatization of agricultural land. Nevertheless, under cover of Covid quarantine restrictions on public meetings, during the same year, Zelensky lifted the moratorium on the buying and selling of agricultural land. Zelensky never ceases to remind western state audiences of this act to prove his credentials as a ‘defender of free market democracy’. It is well known and readily admitted by pro-privatization Ukrainian outlets that the lifting of the moratorium was due to IMF pressure.

The aforementioned makes it difficult to describe the lifting of the moratorium as particularly ‘democratic’. On the topic of democracy, Kernel has been accused of ‘raider’ captures of land, whereby they threaten or otherwise force small farmers to sign over the rights to their land. In 2016, 7150 cases of raider captures of agricultural land were recorded.

Roman Leschenko, minister of agrarian policy and food, had much to say about the necessity of land reform. While claiming that Ukrainians were ‘intimidated and misled’ into opposing the privatization of agricultural land, he was very pleased by the ‘historic’ decision to privatize the land in 2020. But he lamented that this law remained ‘highly conservative’. What he meant by this was the fact that the 2020 law did not allow foreigners to buy land – this question would be decided on no earlier than 2024.

But Ukrainian journalist Roman Gubrienko brought up the fact that several months later, there was an amendment to the law allowing foreigners to buy the land through using it as banking collateral. Even the most unpopular part of agricultural land reform – allowing foreigners to buy land is opposed by 81 per cent of Ukrainians – thereby went through quite easily, despite Leschenko’s fears. Even without the loophole, foreigners still had fairly easy access to the land – companies with US, Saudi, and European companies control millions of acres.

The price of land

In 2020, Ukrainian economy minister Taras Vysotsky predicted that the average price per hectare of Ukrainian land would be between $1480-$2224. But quite different estimates emerged from various government figures, ranging from $1000-$2500 per hectare. Vysotsky also ‘predicted’, or threatened as Ukrainian journalist Gubrienko puts it, that the price of land will fall from $2200 to $1500 if there are ‘restrictions’ on the privatization process, such as on the size of land per owner or on foreign investors. Meanwhile, all these predictions are very far from the minimal price of $8000-$10,000 per hectare of Polish land, which had been used for years to tempt Ukrainian farmers to agree to privatization. Land in western European countries costs $30,000-$64,000 per hectare.

In January 2020, Gubrienko predicted that land would be sold for even cheaper. He based this off poll results from 2019 which showed that Ukrainian land generally earns about $130 a month for its owners. As a result, he predicted prices at best of $1000-$1200 per hectare. Gubrienko predicted that the increase in supply of land would further drive down the price. The state also owns 7-10 million hectares of agricultural land and stated that it plans to receive over $1 billion from land sales in 2020. The difficulty of securing credit in Ukraine due to harsh IMF banking reforms is cited by him as another factor driving down land prices. The low quality of Ukrainian soil is another factor, itself a result of intensive cultivation of monocrops by agroholdings.

In the first three months after the land market was opened, the average price per hectare was $1690. The lowest average was in the Kherson region, at only $830. However, the process was non-transparent – these averages only take into account 54 per cent of sales.

The liberal publication Liga promises that the price will rise in the future. It also includes calculations given by an EU-sponsored think tank ‘Land Transparency’ in cooperation with a World Bank official, according to which any restrictions on the concentration of land ownership or on foreign control over land will lead to a slower rate of Ukrainian GDP growth and a slower rate of growth in land prices. In the most unregulated scenario, Ukraine would supposedly gain $10 billion. Tymofiy Mylovanov, a notoriously neoliberal advisor to the president’s office, promised that land privatization would increase GDP by 1.5 per cent per year.

The same Liga publication records that three months later (January 2022), the average price of land had fallen to $1500 per hectare. While the article does not mention this, the threat of war likely played a role here. Nevertheless, in the midst of the anticipation of war (December 2021), the economy minister promised that the price of Ukrainian land would rise to $2200 by 2-3 years. Faith in the market knows no bounds.

Agricultural trade with the EU

Western nations and domestic agricultural latifundists ceaselessly pushed on the Ukrainian government government to lift the moratorium on buying and selling agricultural land. This move gave power to big agroholdings. These companies, which decide on what to invest in based on the price trends in top export markets like that of the EU, set about deepening Ukraine’s neocolonial trade relation with the EU. Where the EU sells Ukrainian agrobusiness means of production and processed food goods, Ukraine sells back cheap agricultural raw materials.

Illusions and reality of ‘eurointegration’

Ukraine’s modern history has been transformed by the question of signing a free-trade agreement (FTA) with the EU. This was generally misrepresented by its supporters as being equal to joining the EU.

All kinds of promises were made about the magical results of the FTA. It was said byv supporters such as Maidan Prime Minister Yatsenyuk (of Victoria Nuland phone call fame) to bring instant economic prosperity. They would often refer to the pension and wage levels of Germany as an obvious disproval of all the ‘Eurointegration’ doubters, who reasonably pointed to the deindustrializing effects of giving EU capitalists access to the Ukrainian market, and the inherently unequal terms of the agreement. Yatsenyuk and the other ‘principled supporters of Eurointegration’ (generally urban journalists on western grant money who had never stepped foot in a factory) always loved talking about how ‘integration with the EU will give Ukrainian exporters access to the biggest market on earth’.

The problem is that this was always explicitly contradicted by the actual FTA, which entered into practice in 2016. It involves harsh quotas for Ukraine’s top exports. This means that only a comparatively small amount of Ukraine’s exports can actually reach the EU without paying tariffs, while the much stronger (and highly state-supported) European producers are free to invade the Ukrainian market.

2019 was post-Maidan Ukraine’s best trade year[2], but exports to the EU only increased by 3 per cent. During the 2020 Covid pandemic, while the EU tightened access to its markets, it forbade Ukraine from taking any steps to protect its markets. As a result, exports to the EU tumbled by 13.2 per cent.

Ukraine’s total exports in 2019 were only $63.5 billion according to the World Bank – in 2012, they were $86.5 billion. Industrial exports to the EU even declined by 2.3 per cent. While Ukraine’s total vegetable exports increased from $6.6 billion USD to $17.6 billion USD in 2010-2020, its machine and transport equipment exports decreased from $9.1 billion USD to $5.4 billion. Exports to Europe accounted for only $3 billion USD of the increase in vegetable exports – China and other countries of the ‘barbaric East’, so reviled in the hegemonic post-maidan Ukrainian discourse, are responsible for much of its export growth. The sluggish growth of exports to the EU has not been enough to compensate for the loss of the Russian market for industrial goods, and for a general decline in exports due to FTA-induced deindustrialization.

Programmed inequality of the EU Free Trade Agreement

In 2021, the five-year period approached when Ukraine was entitled to renegotiate the EU FTA. Something approaching negotiations on the topic took place. To which the EU answered, as usual, that there could be no such relaxations in trade relations until Ukraine tried harder to implement reforms demanded by the EU. The reforms demanded by the EU, such as the ‘struggle against corruption’, invariably involve removing support for Ukrainian industry.

The EU representative declared that Ukraine would receive neither full access to the EU market of state purchases, nor a relaxation in the quota regime. Things only changed in 2022, when Ukraine’s industry became largely destroyed by war – then the EU declared that Ukraine could have tariff free access to EU markets for a limited period.

What are these tariff quotas? The 2016 FTA gave tariff-free access to 36 (+4 extra) groups of Ukrainian exports. Only agricultural exports received this privilege. Occasional noise about tariff-free access for Ukrainian industrial goods never came to anything until 2022. The FTA involved a small increase in some of these quotas over time. The following table shows the change over time of these tariff-free quotas for only those exports whose yearly volume exceeded 10,000 tons.

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Size of tariff quotas for main Ukrainian exports to the EU, 2017-2021 (thousands of tons).

These quotas are highly restrictive. In 2021, Ukraine exported to the entire world 42 times more wheat than allowed the EU quotas, and 21 times more than the EU quotas. The EU imported 18.5 times more corn from Ukraine than what the quotas allowed. This is despite the fact that Ukraine is indeed a crucial source of grains for the EU – the second biggest source after France, accounting for 14 per cent of total EU imports of corn, wheat and other grains.

While Ukraine exported 81 000 tons of honey in 2020, it is only allowed six thousand tons by the 2021 quotas. The milk quotas allowed by the FTA were only 0.007 per cent of total Ukrainian production, while Ukraine produced 66 times more meat than allowed by the quotas in 2015. In 2019, while Ukraine exported 414 000 tons of chicken meat, it was only allowed 19 200 tons of customs-free exports to the EU. As Ukrainian chicken magnate Yury Kosyuk said:

“There has been no opening of the [EU] market. You know, there is a mechanism in the wheel called a spoke nipple. It allows something to pass in one direction, but not to pass in the other direction. This is approximately the situation we now have with the European markets. Europe talks about a free trade zone with Ukraine, and at the same time a bunch of exceptions and restrictions have been put in place for the export of Ukrainian goods… while we produced 1.2 million tons of chicken meat in 2016, anything over the 16-000-ton quota is charged with a tariff rate of more than 1000 euros a ton… Ukraine has been tricked by this ‘free trade agreement’’“

The story with restrictive quotas can be continued extensively. Ukraine also regularly exceeds quotas for juice, tomatoes, and cereals.

Even these meagre benefits are only given to primitive agricultural goods. Ukraine has had no luck in receiving any such privileges for its industrial goods. It is worth mentioning some impressive figures brought up by a 2020 report by the ministry of economy, as part of its ill-fated drive to implement state support to domestic industry (subsequently halted by the EU):

“the production of motor vehicles in 2019 amounted to only 31.0 per cent of the level of 2012, the products of the railcar industry – 29.7 per cent, the production of machine tools – 68.2 per cent, metallurgical products – 70.8 per cent, agricultural engineering products – 68.4 per cent”…

“Between 2013-2019, exports of aerospace products decreased by 4.8 times (from $1.86 to $0.38 billion), production of railcar products – by 7.5 times (from $4.1 to $0.5 billion), production in the metallurgical sector – by 1.7 times (from 17.6 to 10.3 billion US dollars), chemical products – by 2.1 times (from 4 to 1.9 billion dollars)”


On the other hand, after a three-year transition period, Ukraine was obliged by the FTA to remove import tariffs on a range of EU imports in 2019. In 2016, the Ukrainian government had agreed to totally remove or reduce import tariffs for most EU imports within three to 10 years. The EU only exceeded one export quota to Ukraine in 2017 – chicken meat. It only used 5 per cent of its pork export quota, and 0.5 per cent of its sugar quota.

Other forms of EU agricultural protectionism

Besides the quotas, the EU FTA also obliges Ukraine and the EU to ‘refrain from any state subsidies’ for exports. In conditions where Ukrainian agriculture is far weaker than EU, while the EU hypocritically gives immense subsidies to its farmers, this has naturally led to domination by EU imports and decline of Ukrainian production.

Another form of hidden protectionism is the EU’s stringent restrictions on food imports. Due to various ecological and quality controls, many Ukrainian exports cannot enter the EU. This is one of the main reasons, along with the tiny quotas, that Ukrainian agricultural exports have been forced to reorient towards Asia and Africa.

Neo-colonial trade relations

Along with a huge trade deficit, the EU sells Ukraine processed goods, while Ukraine exports cheap raw materials. A good example of the primitive nature of Ukraine’s agricultural sector is Ukraine’s tractor trade. While it exported $4.7 million worth of tractors in 2020, it imported $456 million. 59 per cent of those tractors were imported from the EU, and another 12 per cent were from the US and UK. The rich first world imports cheap food goods from Ukraine, extracting large tariff revenues in the process, and sells Ukraine the industrial machinery needed for this agriculture.

For instance, Ukraine’s main exports to the EU in 2021 were iron and steel (20.8 per cent of total exports), ores, stag and ash (12.5 per cent), animal and vegetable fats and oils (8.5 per cent) – mainly sunflower seed oil, electrical machinery (7.8 per cent) and cereals (7.3 per cent). ‘Electrical machinery’ is actually mostly just the manual screwing together of wires in small sweatshops as part of European car production chains. The EU’s main exports to Ukraine were machinery (14.8 per cent of all exports), transport equipment and vehicles (10.2 per cent), mineral fuels (9.4 per cent), electrical machinery (9.3 per cent), and pharmaceutical products (5.9 per cent).

European exporters have actively entered and mastered the Ukrainian market. In 2019, the Ukrainian destination set a record for growth in European food exports. Ukraine took third place in the ranking of consumers of agricultural products from the European Union. In the first half of 2019, the EU increased agricultural exports by 15 per cent compared to 2018, reaching 2.26 billion euros. In 2020, Ukraine imported 1000 times more butter from the EU than it exported. In 2021, Ukraine had an overall trade deficit of over 4 billion euros with the EU.

Domestic producers are losing competition and shelf space to European manufacturers. Unlike Ukraine, producers in Europe are protected by high duties, tight quotas and receive huge subsidies from the general budget of the European Union. Ukrainian economic journalist Roman Gubrienko argues in his articles on the topic that the rapid advance of imported food products leads not only to the capture of the market and the displacement of Ukrainian agribusiness, but also gradually destroys the basis of domestic food production – the topic of the next article.

Notes

[1] Australia being a notable exception.

[2] 2021 had higher export figures in dollars, but this was due to post-covid global price rises on raw materials exported by Ukraine

(Part 2 at link)

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... sequences/

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

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Colonelcassad
Kupyansky sector of the front
situation as of 16:00 on May 19, 2023

After losing control over an important tactical height to the west of Masyutovka , the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to contract. Ukrainian formations are actively using mortars and copters with a grenade drop system to strike at the positions of the RF Armed Forces.

Over the past day, separate battles were on the line of contact southwest of Liman 1 , where the forces of the 40th separate rifle battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stationed.

Soldiers of the RF Armed Forces respond with dense artillery fire. In Tishchenkovka, at the time of unloading ammunition for the 14 OMB, a warehouse was destroyed: as a result of the explosion, 14 members of Ukrainian formations were liquidated.

Now the Ukrainian headquarters are waiting for the activation of the Russian army by Tavolzhanka . To strengthen their lines, the enemy deployed assault groups of 40 OSB of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to Dvurechnaya and Novomlynsk .

***

Colonelcassad
I found out an interesting version of the disappearance of Zaluzhny.

If you remember, during the past year, various Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that the Zelensky gang feared the rise in popularity of Zaluzhny, who was curated by the United States. It was assumed that, if necessary, the United States would throw out the cocaine addict and build around Zaluzhny their usual banana military dictatorship. Therefore, the Zelensky gang promoted Syrsky everywhere, but the United States continued to promote Zaluzhny.

Therefore, the decision to get rid of Zaluzhny by "heroic death at the front" could well have matured. Relatively speaking, through the GUR MOU Budanov, who is in contact with the Russian military and PMC "Wagner" about the exchange of prisoners of war and the dead. And it is quite possible to assume that during such contacts, information could be unofficially transmitted that Zaluzhnaya would be in such and such a place at such and such a time during a visit to the Artemovsky direction.

Through the Zelensky gang, the event to eliminate Zaluzhny could be supervised by Podolyak, who himself admittedwho previously worked for Russia. Well, what circumstances could be there is still unclear. It is possible that this is an episode with the death of an adviser to Zelensky’s office in the Chasov Yar area (where Zaluzhny and Tantsyura also disappeared), which was donated to provide an alibi for Yermak and Podoly

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Colonelcassad
Approximate situation in Artemovsk in the morning. The statements by Ukrainian soldiers about the surrender of Bakhmut, the videos of which appeared last night, come from those who were able to escape from the western high-rise buildings and fled through the fields to Khromovo. Since Bakhmut really ended there, it is quite natural that they declare the fall of the city.
In the southwest, the fighting is still going on in the city, so the capture of the city is not announced. As soon as the surviving Armed Forces of Ukraine crawl away from there to Krasnoye, then that's really all.

***

Colonelcassad
Defense Plan Kramatorsk.pdf
5.1MB
We continue to publish the plans of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to destroy the defense of cities. Today we have Kramatorsk in line.

As in the two previous cases, the defense is occupied in the city itself in residential areas. The document contains the names of the streets along which the defensive lines will pass. We advise the residents of Kramatorsk to study these addresses. And then remember how they “defended” Mariupol and see what is happening in Bakhmut.

And also remember how a rocket was hit at the station square last year. At first, the whole world was horrified by the cruelty of the Russians, but then they showed a close-up of the wreckage of the rocket. It turned out to be Tochka-U, which is not in service with Russia. But the Ukrainian military has. We know who fired this rocket, but the Armed Forces of Ukraine want to forget about it ...

We are Beregini!We know everything!

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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"River Toads"
May 20, 10:26 am

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"River Toads"

There is no sadder story in the world than the story of the Ukrainian special operations forces. Yes, I understand that the enemy should not be underestimated, but some individuals are just asking for a separate list of the most fierce losers.

Today we will talk about the 801st Separate Detachment to Combat Submarine Diversionary Forces and Means of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The chevron of which, found in the port of Mariupol ( https://t.me/yaremshooter/1568 ), was posted today by our colleague Yarem @yaremshooter. It turned out that behind the big name is a story of typical losers.

Contrary to the image of a shark on a trident applied to the chevron, 801 OOB PDSS itself had a less sonorous nickname - “river toads”. It appeared for a reason, and a little later I will tell you why. A detachment was created in the once Ukrainian Crimea and was planned as an elite detachment of floating saboteurs. Everything would be fine, but the year 2014 ruined the raspberries for the "toads" - the decision of the Crimeans to return to Russia and the appearance of "polite people" actually killed the unit. After the fighters were given a choice - to stay in the Crimea or blame Ukraine - out of 80 floating saboteurs, only 7 people left for the "square".

When the Kiev regime unleashed a war in the Donbass, the remnants of the 801st detachment, together with part of the 73rd Special Purpose Marine Center (another ones who had left Crimea), tried to perform the functions of naval intelligence - but were quickly transferred to the Ilovaisk region and actually poked around in the ground like regular foot soldiers.

Starting from 2016, 801 OOB PDSS worked in the Danube-Dnepr region (Odessa region - Transnistria). Due to their activity in the river system on the frontier, the unit gets its nickname "river toads". And at the same time, apparently - because of the total mess in the unit, more about which can be found in the article of our colleagues ( https://bmpd.livejournal.com/1748913.html ) from @bmpd_cast . But then specialists from NATO joined in the reformatting of the detachment - and away we go ...

So, in 2018, 801 PDSS OOB on the territory of the Odessa region, as part of the Rapid Trident international exercises, worked out the defense of the Ukrainian coast together with the Romanian army. And in 2021, at the international exercises Sea Breeze, saboteurs worked out mainly “nautical legends”, including the protection of the coast of the Odessa region from landings.

As we know, the landing near Odessa did not happen. But what happened was Mariupol, on which the Ukrainian army threw significant forces and resources. Among them were "river toads".

After the port of Mariupol was liberated from units of the 36th brigade and Azov militants, and the remaining units retreated deep into the Azovstal plant, Russian units began to inspect the port area. And during the inspection on boats in the loading area, they found a large amount of diving equipment and gear. ( https://life.ru/p/1491719) Apparently, it belonged to the 801th OOB PDSS - apparently the saboteurs planned to cut through to Azovstal and create a stable corridor for the inmates to escape. But in the end, the special forces groups themselves were forced to flee, abandoning their equipment and chevrons.

Another focus of unfortunate saboteurs was planned for the last Victory Day - namely, a landing on Snake Island on the night of May 7-8, 2022 ( https://t.me/polkovnik_hodarenok/2526). After the Russian Armed Forces repelled an air attack, the Ukrainian troops were short of several air support assets, several boats and more than 50 fighters of the 801st OOB PDSS. If it were not for a gesture of goodwill, then maybe there would have been a long confrontation between Ukrainian toads and Russian Serpentine.

What is the "river toad" squad doing today? Firstly, the fire groups of 801th Specialized Observatory of the PDSS were thrown into the Avdeevka area - there they are trying to shut up the advance of the RF Armed Forces to Novokalinovo and to the highway to Konstantinovka. And secondly, he is preparing new sabotage operations under the leadership of officers of the French naval special forces. The goal is the objects of the Navy in the Crimea

Apparently, the surviving "toads" really want to return to where they were expelled from by your ...

https://t.me/astramilitarum/33069 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8368955.html

An exciting new era in British-Ukrainian relations
May 19, 21:40

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An exciting new era in British-Ukrainian relations

The British CHRK Quintel Intelligence, in the midst of negotiations between Russia and the United States at the end of 2021, took on James Hart, a consultant specializing in control over the Ukrainian clientele of the City, as well as asset recovery strategies in foreign jurisdictions and toxic assets, as an adviser. Through Hart, QI obtained as clients the grazing of post-Soviet Ukrainian nouveaux riches, a goal set by a new shareholder of the office, acting anonymously, through an offshore legal entity Capital Compliance in the Virgin Islands.

The British consultant supervised as an adviser to the former Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Goncharuk, oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, took part in coordinating reforms of the Ukrainian government, making decisions on trade and investment issues in the interests of British beneficiaries. In 2016, Hart founded Hillmont Partners, which helped to develop business ties between the cocaine parties in London and Kyiv.

His clients include international companies operating in Ukraine, using a wide range of services - dispute resolution, intelligence, business capture. In addition to the City, Hart has positions in other global financial centers such as Wall Street, Paris, Singapore and Toronto.

Hart managed to establish his group of influence. Failed flight ( https://t.me/thehegemonist/2275) on a helicopter, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Denis Monastyrsky, was a consultant to Hillmont Partners, cheerfully resourceful clowns with powdered noses, Studio Kvartal 95, under the leadership of Vladimir Zelensky, were regular clients of Hart, who also gave instructions to Ivan Bakanov, the future / former chairman of the SBU, who had previously led another tent.

Quintel Intelligence was founded by the former director of the British Special Forces, Major General John Holmes. The CHRK is led by a British military intelligence officer, Nicholas Connon. In addition to Hart, QI advisers include former judge Anthony Hooper, who oversees British interests in the Ukrainian judiciary.

https://t.me/rtechnocom/1965 - zinc
https://hillmont.com/publ/stat/an-excit ... relations- article in English

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8368566.html

Google Translator

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RUSSIA EXPLAINS WHY THE BLACK SEA GRAINS INITIATIVE COULD NOT BE EXPANDED
May 19, 2023 , 4:21 p.m.

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On May 18, the 60-day extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative on the export of Ukrainian food expired, an agreement encouraged by the United Nations (UN) in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war. An extension was established for another two months, until July 17, without any changes.

The pact, which was made at the request of Türkiye, could not be extended because obvious problems persist with the declared humanitarian aspect of the grain deal, according to Russian authorities.

Moscow argues that Ukrainian grain is shipped by sea mainly to high- and upper-middle-income states, including European markets, which are not the most disadvantaged. Meanwhile, poor countries receive the absolute minimum, or 2.5%, of the total volume of 30 million tons exported from Ukrainian ports for nine months.

Another claim by Russia is that its products continue to face "sanctions", even when they are for the free delivery of fertilizers to the poorest countries, another way of failing to comply with the humanitarian measures that gave rise to the agreement.

"In such conditions, we must again remind, first of all, the US, the EU and Great Britain, lip service 'concerning' about food safety, that it is necessary to effectively withdraw Russian fertilizers and food outside of the "sanctions "unilateral," says the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement .

On the other hand, some tasks that were set in the course of the implementation of the Russia-UN memorandum have not been fulfilled and still have not progressed: reconnecting Rosseljozbank to the Swift system, supplying spare parts, unblocking transport logistics and insurance, reactivate the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline and unfreeze the assets of Russian companies.

"If these conditions are not resolved within two months, it will be impossible to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and the agreement will be suspended from July 17," he reiterates.

https://misionverdad.com/rusia-explica- ... -mar-negro

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 IV

Post by blindpig » Sat May 20, 2023 10:24 pm

Bakhmut Has Fallen - Artyomovsk Has Been Liberated

The so far largest battle of the 21st century ended today.

Bakhmut has fallen. Artyomovsk (the Russian/Soviet name of the city) has been liberated. This was announced today by the titular leader of the Wagner forces, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a video posted on Telegram.

Why the Ukrainian leadership had decided to hold onto the city even months after the situation there was already in its disfavor is beyond me. The fight was decided by the numerical superiority of Russian artillery fire and the Ukraine had never a chance to top that.

The losses there for the Ukrainians amounted to 300 to 500 men per day over that last 5 months. That sums up to a total of 60,000 casualties. Ten days ago Ukrainian units, including the fascist Azov brigade, rolled up the Russian flanks north and south of Bakhmut to allow the Ukrainian troops in the city to flee west. That attack alone, only one or 2 kilometer deep, cost them some 1,600+ men and some 50+ armored vehicles.

On the Russian side the fighting in the city was largely done by Wagner troops. But they were never able to do it on their own. Russian military intelligence, artillery and logistics all played an important role in the fight.

The city has been destroyed but it will continued to exist as it is an important logistical hub with several rail and road connections running through it.

Mariupol, which fell/was liberated a year ago, is already being rebuild. In a month or two, when the frontline has moved away from Artyomovsk, rebuilding will start there too.

For a moment now the front line in Ukraine seems all around relative quit.

It is not clear to me when or where a new operational move will start.

Posted by b on May 20, 2023 at 13:32 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/05/b ... l#comments

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NEWLY RELEASED US GOVERNMENT EVIDENCE AGAINST JACK TEIXEIRA REVEALS HE WAS UNDER INVESTIGATION AND SURVEILLANCE FOR SIX MONTHS BEFORE THE PENTAGON PAPERS LEAK

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

Evidence from the US Air Force (USAF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released in federal court this week ahead of a bail hearing for Jack Teixeira, the junior airman accused of leaking top secret Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) briefing papers, reveals that Teixeira was under close surveillance and official investigation from September 2022 through February 2023. That is six months before he allegedly printed out the JCS documents, and then published photographs of the papers on a social media site.

The new USAF and FBI evidence records Teixeira pocketing handwritten notes of what he had been reading; there is no evidence of his being able to print out copies of the documents.

The court hearing, held on Friday afternoon May 19 in US federal district court in Worcester, Massachusetts, ended in a ruling by Judge David Hennessy to deny bail for Teixeira and keep him in prison while his state trial is prepared. “The danger he poses to the community is a grave one,” Hennessy said during the 45-minute hearing. “Court states the relative law with respective to this matter,” the court clerk has recorded in the case docket. “Court grants the Government’s motion for detention, ordering the Defendant detained, and states reasons therefore.”

“The decision was a victory for the government, which is seeking to send the strongest possible message to potential leakers”, the New York Times reported from the courtroom.

The evidence revealed by the government , which the newspaper and every other mainstream and alternative medium in the US are failing to report, demonstrates the opposite.

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To read the court case docket up to date, click.

The FBI evidence in the court file, prepared by a special agent Luke Church, records Teixeira as telling other chatroom members on January 4, 2023 – two months before the Pentagon Papers were published on the site – that he had no intention of copying classified documents and then posting them on the internet. “Shooting myself in the back of the head twice isn’t something im fond of”, he said in an internet exchange obtained by the FBI from the site server.

His motivation, Teixeira also wrote, was to show off to the chatroom members how important he was. “I work with NRO [National Reconnaissance Office], NSA [National Security Agency], NGA [National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency], and DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] people mostly. Tbh [to be honest] I’d rather get a comfy position at MSIC [Missile and Space Intelligence Center], or NASIC [National Air and Space Intelligence Center]…I had to go through indoc[trination] for TS/SCI [Top Secret/Special Compartmented Intelligence]. I’m on JWICS [Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System] weekly. Knowing what happens more than pretty much anyone else is cool.”

However, when another of the chatroom members asked him on November 22: “what is being said now about this loose Ukrainian missile?” Teixeira replied that he was at home sick. “When I get back however I will let you know.” There is no record in court that he did. The “loose Ukrainian missile” referred to the incident on November 15, 2022, when two Polish farm workers at Przewodów were killed by a missile fired from across the border with Ukraine; read the details here.

Aiming at a future career in a US intelligence agency or contractor, Teixeira went on to say on January 4, 2023, that disclosing classified intelligence “would be the equivalent of what chelsea manning did”. This reference to the military records leaked by Manning to Julian Assange, for which she was convicted and imprisoned and he is being prosecuted for espionage, led to the warning from the site participant: “better be careful then”. “I am”, Teixeira replied.

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To read the FBI agent’s sworn testimony, click.

Three weeks later, on January 26, 2023, the new court evidence from the FBI reveals, Teixeira told others on his site chat: “im spooked about my [site] account for my background check, ban my ass from your server and select the delete all message history option.. im purging my accounts recently..ill be back later im just going through background checks rn so im being extra careful.”

The “background checks” to which Teixeira referred in late January followed evidence reported to the court by the 102d Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, the unit in which Teixeira served (lead image). The unit reported the discovery on September 15, 2022, that Teixeira had “been observed taking notes on classified information…and put the note into his pocket.” The note was removed and shredded; Teixeira was “instructed to no longer take notes in any form on classified intelligence information”. Additional orders have been blacked out in the court filing.

From then on Teixeira knew he was under close surveillance; twice again, on October 25, 2022, and on January 30, 2023, he was detected breaking the “cease-and-desist [order] on any deep dives into classified intelligence information”.

The USAF documents reveal Teixeira was reported as viewing and making notes from “a JWICS machine”. This refers to the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System which had been the source of the Wikileaks of Manning and Assange. However, despite Teixeira’s repeated boasting of the high-level secrets he was privy to, there is no FBI record that he mentioned the JCS.

No evidence has appeared in court that in early March Teixeira had gained access to the Ukraine war situation reports discussed at meetings of the JCS, or that he had used a printer to copy them out for republication on his website. These are the leaks which form the most sensitive part of the espionage case against Teixeira. Because they reveal the Pentagon’s assessment that the Ukraine war cannot be won, and that counting the war risks defeat of US military capabilities in NATO, the source and the motive for the leak have been identified as coming from the senior commanders of the USAF. For more, read this.

Teixeira’s lawyers from the public defender’s office in Boston have yet to file a plea on his behalf; there are signs in the court record that plea bargaining over entrapment has already begun.


The USAF evidence, now available in the court file, indicates an improbability between unlikelihood and impossibility that Teixeira could have printed out copies of the JCS papers on the Ukraine war and then published them without connivance and help from the USAF member of the JCS, General Charles
Brown.

The evidence presented so far in the public court record — albeit with half the lines redacted — indicate the scope of the evidence which the Air Force command, the Joint Chiefs, Defense Department, FBI, Department of Justice in Washington, and the District Attorney in Boston are keeping secret. They know exactly which files, documents and other classified materials Teixeira accessed and viewed on the JWICS computer from September 15, 2022, until his arrest on April 6. They also know when the handwritten notetaking was replaced by copying on a printer at his airbase; and exactly when he copied the documents which later appeared on the internet. If that’s what Teixeira did on his own.

The government officials and investigators have already compared what these records reveal of the extent of Teixeira’s access with what the Bellingcat organization has reported in the New York Times of the leaks alleged to have been Teixeira’s doing , based on what Bellingcat claims to have been given by their government “open sources”. In time, if not already, Teixeira and the defence lawyers will have noticed the gap between what he did and what has been published. That’s the black hole in this case, the Topmost Secret of all.

https://johnhelmer.net/newly-released-u ... more-88015

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Leaked recordings expose shocking state corruption in ‘U.S. governed’ Moldova
Originally published: The Grayzone on May 18, 2023 by Kit Klarenberg (more by The Grayzone) | (Posted May 20, 2023)

The invasion of Ukraine placed the tiny country of Moldova on the immediate periphery of a conflict with global significance. Bordering Ukraine, counting hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians as citizens, and home to the breakaway region of Transnistria, Moldova’s doggedly pro-Western government has been buffeted by crisis after crisis since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th 2022.

President Maia Sandu of the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) has remained steadfast as murmurings of a looming Ukrainian invasion, Russian plots to destabilize the country, and vast anti-government protests have reverberated on an almost monthly basis. Key to her endurance has been the unconditional backing of Western officials.

The sponsorship of NATO states has persisted despite industrial scale corruption at the highest levels of government. Indeed, as we shall see, foreign corruption in Moldova is actively facilitated and perpetuated with the support of Brussels and Washington, and continues apace with their full knowledge, consent, and even assistance.

The Grayzone has exclusively obtained video recordings of numerous well-connected figures within Chisinau’s political and business community openly—and gloatingly—testifying to rank malfeasance within the country’s government and economy, while outlining various schemes to enrich Western investors for an appropriate fee. It is the starkest depiction of how corruption operates in Moldova to ever emerge, gravely underlining its endemic, institutionalized nature.

In the recordings, pranksters posing as wealthy U.S. businesspeople contacted Moldovan politician and lawyer Stanislav Pavlovschi, asking for assistance in securing a gigantic return for investing $50 million in Chisinau. The pranksters are private citizens who approached The Grayzone with the bombshell footage, and have asked to remain anonymous.

Very quickly, Pavlovschi—a former European Court of Human Rights judge and self-styled human rights defender—told them that a “good lawyer” and water-tight contracts would not be of any use to them there, as “the level of corruption is very high.” He went on to note that the country was effectively a colony of Brussels and Washington:

Moldova now is governed by the U.S. Ambassador… He is practically governing Moldova at this particular stage. You have hundreds of consultants for the EU…working for each and every ministry here in Moldova. So it is under very, very strict control on the part of the EU.

When asked how this state of affairs could work given the high levels of corruption, Pavlovschi retorted that it functioned “perfectly,” “absolutely,” “brilliantly”—“everybody loves money.”

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Well-connected investor promises ‘direct access’ to government

The pranksters were duly introduced to a number of influential local figures who could assist them in getting rich quick. Among them was Oleg Ciubuc, counselor to Vladimir Bolea, head of the Moldovan parliament’s agriculture and food commission. He professed in the leaked discussions to also be an “entrepreneur” whose “main direction” was connecting “investors with project developers.”

Beyond his “school friend” Bolea, who personally writes laws and regulations covering the country’s agriculture and food policy, Ciubuc revealed that his brother Alexandru runs state telecoms firm Moldtelecom. He is also a member of the PAS, which he described as “a big family,” connected “directly” to the “government, parliament and president.” In practice, this creates a dynamic not dissimilar from traditional mafia cartels:

All my colleagues are telling me, ‘you are a perfect connector, to find a point A point B and connect to make money’…we are all of us connected to each other. Any question you have, I’m going to the highest person in the country responsible for that field… That’s the beautiful thing, when you have the majority in the parliament, everything is made by this majority… All the power in the country is controlled by this majority, which is the ‘family’.

Ciubuc claimed his deal-making prowess was such that he was recommended for the post of Moldova’s state investment chief by his contacts, only for Sandu to personally reject the proposal. She supposedly reasoned that he should be working “multimillion investment funds” in the private sphere, which were “much more interesting projects than just a small agency under the government.”

“For me now is [sic] very easy to invite investors in my country because I can guarantee 100% the full political and security support,” Ciubuc swaggered.

Of course, being in that structure, we have access to all information, all the details in the country. And you need, like, you know, five minutes to find everything you need.

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The issue of state-level protection for foreign investors in Chisinau was similarly raised by investment professional Olga Melniciuc, who formerly worked as a consultant to the Moldovan state economic council. She acknowledged that many outsiders were deterred from funding projects in the country due to a lack of “predictability”—whether favorable terms secured under one government would still apply if another was elected.

Melniciuc said that “predictability and some insurance for the stability” of an investment could be guaranteed by direct negotiation with government ministers, albeit via “non-formal communications.” Investors simply needed to “make sure the main person in the government knows what they are doing,” and they have official support for their endeavors, if only behind closed doors. She described an official “vetting” process for investments that was nothing of the kind, and did not involve scrupulous background checks or due diligence.

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Melniciuc went to assure the pranksters that well-established forums in Moldova, such as the American Chamber of Commerce, Association of Foreign Investors, and European Business Association were already “very actively advocating for the rights of their members,” and “have direct access to [the] Prime Minister.”

“We have a pro-European government supported by the EU [and] U.S. government. So there is a lot of this pro-Western support,” Melniciuc said.

And we have all the needed documents and the association agreements signed. We are [EU and NATO] candidates…So all that is very good. It creates a good playground for investors.

Melniciuc felt it was “the best time to invest,” as the war in Ukraine’s impact on Moldova, which includes 30% inflation, had created “uncertainties” in the market.

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Moldovan media tycoon ‘handles’ relationships with Prime Minister

Staffers within the ranks of U.S.-funded NGOs operating in the country were also eager to assist foreign investors to enrich themselves via dubious schemes. They included the education training organization Pro Dictactica, which is partnered with George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the EU, the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and U.S. Embassy in Moldova, among others.

He introduced the pranksters to a key figure in Pro Dictactica, Oxana Draguta, who enjoyed direct access to Maia Sandu. The pair worked together when Sandu was Minister of Education 2012—2015, and Draguta was a staffer in her ministry “responsible for coordination of foreign assistance in education.” After being elected President, Sandu “brought her team for the government,” meaning Draguta had a variety of contacts to exploit.

One method proposed to Dragutra of getting Sandu and her associates on board was by simply bribing her administration, via the funneling cash to “private entities,” which would pass these funds on to the PAS. The party’s coffers could be illicitly filled without the appearance of a direct foreign donation, providing the pranksters with astounding commercial benefits. Draguta concurred, noting her own involvement in facilitating such an arrangement could also conveniently be hidden:

I can reach them out [sic] and ask…They are actually across the street…Actually, I am…this kind of…a member of this party but not an active member of it.

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Similarly unguarded comments were made by Cătălin Giosan, a Moldovan oligarch who in 1999 founded PRO TV, one of the country’s first, and now largest, private broadcast networks.

Giosan made clear he could serve as the bogus business peoples’ public relations “partner.” Keenly clarifying he was “not somebody who has experience in logistics or construction or whatever, but somebody to guide you in this political environment,” he promised to help them to connect “with local politicians and decision makers,” and “handle” those relationships on their behalf.

“I do this [sic] for 23 years. We…have the main news programs in urban Moldova. That means I saw generations of politicians coming and going,” Giosan boasted.

It’s not a question if we can establish a connection with them. I’ve met the key people I think should and can be involved in this project…One is the key decision maker in the administration. So I’m talking about the people you need.

He pledged once their discussion concluded to “think” about “how such support can be structured…the most efficient way,” and meet with local stakeholders, “to craft a plan, a solution.” He asked the pranksters to prepare a “brief” for his “partners”. In turn, he would meet with the pranksters over dinner, to discuss “the political, economical, social situation, the crisis situation, the war.”

“Then,” Giosan pledged,

I’ll make you a presentation on the decision making, political decision making processes in Moldova to understand how this where the power stays and how the decisions are made.

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It is indeed “not a question” whether Giosan could connect wealthy foreign financiers with a high-ranking government decision maker. Moldova’s aggressively pro-EU, pro-U.S. Prime Minister Dorin Recean, who took office in February, is extremely rich by local standards. Official declarations of his assets show he owns several properties, including a lavish Romanian villa, and that he and his wife reap vast sums from their assorted business interests.

For example, Reacean is the founder of three highly profitable local companies, including U.S. Food Network, which manages outlets of KFC in Moldova. In each case, Giosan is also a shareholder.

Such an intimate relationship provides him with a direct and highly influential line to the heart of government, while offering some clue as to “how decisions are made” in the country.

Moldova makes mockery of USAID anti-corruption efforts
The recordings obtained by The Grayzone are all the more shocking when considering that Moldova is enrolled in the U.S. Agency for Aid and International Development (USAID)’s Countering Kremlin Malign Influence (CMKI) program. Under the auspices of USAID, a traditional cutout of U.S. intelligence, countries which once comprised the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact receive vast funding and practical support to supposedly defend themselves from Russian meddling. Cracking down on corruption is one of the initiative’s foremost objectives.

This includes sponsorship of “reform-minded leaders and civil-society voices.” Maia Sandu happens to be one such “reform-minded leader,” which is why her upset victory was hailed in Western quarters as a watershed moment in Moldova’s battle against corruption. Since then, she has regularly touted high-profile legislative amendments and initiatives to tackle the issue, but critics charge they have achieved nothing, simply serving to replace one set of crooked officials with another.

One would not know that from the pronouncements of U.S. officials, however. In December 2022, USAID chief and humanitarian interventionist guru Samantha Power met personally with Sandu to “discuss U.S. support for the people of Moldova,” and the President’s “anti-corruption and democratic reform agenda.” An accompanying press release noted the U.S. had provided Chisinau with $320 million over the past nine months, to address the economic, energy, security, and humanitarian impacts of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Always wonderful to see the President of Moldova, @sandumaiamd. The Moldovan people have shown tremendous generosity & resilience in the face of Putin’s war on neighboring Ukraine—the U.S. will continue to provide support to help them cope with spiking energy prices this winter. pic.twitter.com/AWD5NzVT3a

— Samantha Power (@PowerUSAID) December 5, 2022


This staggering sum follows almost $100 million gifted to Moldova by USAID through the CMKI program between 2017 and 2021, making it the biggest beneficiary.

Evidently, Washington has taken a relaxed attitude toward high-level graft and bribery in Moldova. As long as Western oligarchs and businesses are profiting, and the government toes an anti-Russian line in all matters domestic and foreign, Washington seems content to look the other way.

This dispiriting reality is apparently not lost on most Moldovans. While polls indicate Sandu remains the most popular politician in the country, 57% of citizens cannot name a single public figure they trust. Likely sensing the precarious position of their puppet in Chisinau, the EU announced in April 2023 it would deploy a “civilian mission” there to counter Russian “threats”.

Yet, the longer the war in Ukraine grinds on, the more probable it is the government will fall—not due to external interference, but because of internal upheaval. The coterie of business figures, well-connected actors and NGO operatives to whom Stanislav Pavlovschi introduced the pranksters—and the Western oligarchs they so eagerly serve—may be wise to line their pockets in Moldova while they still can.

https://mronline.org/2023/05/20/leaked- ... d-moldova/

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Canada Played a Key Role in Neoliberalizing Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 18, 2023
Peter Korotaev

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Canadian foreign minister Melanie Joly on the left, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov on the top right and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the bottom right. | Image credit: CGTN, FC Dynamo Kyiv and Fox News

The 2019 ‘Ukraine Reform Conference’ in Toronto

The ‘Ukraine Reform Conference’ is as an annual event that engages political leaders from NATO countries, the G7, the European Union and private think tanks in key reforms aimed at reforming Ukraine’s economy.

‘Reform’ is a favorite buzzword among liberals in post-2014 Ukraine, following the western sponsored Maidan coup. It implies a set of initiatives advocated by loyal foreign allies designed to lift Ukraine out of its poverty. In reality, it’s a politically neutered way to describe neo-colonial economic liberalization, the topic of the previous two articles.

One detrimental reform seen in post-maidan Ukraine was the elimination of food price regulation in 2017. Along with the destruction of Ukraine’s domestic food production as a result of trade liberalization, this lead to food scarcity and hunger even exceeding levels of many Latin American countries.

All the usual suspects were present at the 2019 Ukraine Reform Conference – Chrystia Freeland, Justin Trudeau, and delegates from other NATO countries and Ukraine. The key issue on the agenda was “the irreversibility of reforms in Ukraine”. Apart from the undesirability of said reforms, ‘irreversibility’ hardly seems like a democratic way for a group of foreign countries to advocate for implementing economic reforms in a given country. For the Ukraine Reform Conference however, it’s a go!

In fact, the ‘irreversibility’ of these reforms directly rules out the pursuit of democracy. 2021 saw the legally dubious sanctioning of leaders of political parties such as the Opposition Platform for Life (OPFL), by presidential decree. This party, which primarily represented the industrial workers of Ukraine’s south-east, advocating a pro-peace and anti-IMF platform, consistently ranked high among voters. At the start of 2021, it often came a close second in polls after Zelensky’s “Servant of the People”. Following Zelensky’s 2021 unilateral bans and sanctions against the OPFL’s media voice and leading politicians, the party lost a third of its voters. Bypassing due process within the court system, associated media groups which described the negative effects of IMF-sponsored economic liberalization were also closed in 2021 by order of Zelensky’s National Security and Defense Council. This included ZiK, Strana, 112, NewsOne and Ukrlive among others, with Zelensky even sanctioning the Editor in-Chief of the social democratic opposition media source Strana. The reasoning for such crude censorship was vague and criticized by the European Federation of Journalists.

The west was also complicit in suppressing opposition parties, with US officials following in lockstep with Zelensky in sanctioning these Ukrainian political figures critical of western integration. At a high level, imposing sanctions is juridicially (administration of the law) absurd since opposition figures in foreign countries don’t pose any direct threat to the USA. OPFL-affiliated independent parliamentarian Andriy Derkach was one of those sanctioned; largely known in the west for bringing to light Hunter Biden’s corrupt affairs in Ukraine.

Further, in a long article marking one year since Russia’s large-scale military operation against Ukraine, the media portal ‘Strana’ (sanctioned by the Zelensky government) published an article arguing that the banning of ‘pro-Russian’ parties and media was the tipping point that pushed Russia to war in 2022. A more recent Russian opposition longread has also repeated this argument. Given that all pro-peace and geopolitical neutrality political forces had been banned, there was no longer any reasonable hope for Ukraine to remain a neutral, non-NATO country through democratic means.

What sort of ‘reforms’ were celebrated in the 2019 Toronto conference? The Ukraine Reform Conference declared one of the biggest ‘achievements’ of Ukraine’s “reforms” to be the liberalization of medicine—a reform regularly lambasted by the sanctioned left-leaning Ukrainian media groups. Before these reforms, Ukraine had a broadly Soviet model with a variety of specialized doctors. After the reform, many medical personnel lost their jobs and affordable specialty doctors were replaced with westernized general practitioners and private clinics. The mastermind of this reform, Ulyana Suprun—herself born in the USA and receiving her post directly after the Maidan coup– is widely hated in Ukraine for this reform; she is often called “Doctor Death”.

She is also a close patron of neo-Nazi military veterans such as Serhii Sternenko. On trial for torture and extortion in 2020 (he also murdered an unarmed man on camera with a knife, but was never brought to court for it), Sternenko was of course released due to his ‘patriotism’ (he was an early participant in the 2014 Maidan coup and a leader of the neo-Nazi organization ‘Right Sector’). Suprun came to his trial in 2020 and offered to pay for his bail.

The liberalization of medicine facilitated another “crowning achievement” in Ukrainian health and prosperity—some of the highest COVID death rates in the world. Ukraine’s hospitals regularly lacked stocks of oxygen due to Suprun’s system of small privatized clinics and underfunded public hospital. Meanwhile, neighbouring Belarus’ Soviet-style healthcare system allowed it to have one of the lowest COVID death-rates in the world. In Belarus, only 7,118 people or 0.07 per cent of the population died of COVID (without any lockdowns) while 111,000 people died of COVID in Ukraine. This is a remarkable statistic given that Ukraine’s population is about 3.5 times bigger than Belarus.

In 2020, Ukraine’s health minister stated that continuing Suprun’s reforms would require firing 50 000 healthcare workers and closing 300 hospitals. While Zelensky’s government complained about how underfunded Suprun had made the health system, it still officially stated its loyalty to pursuing her neoliberal reforms. Healthcare workers at Ukrainian psychiatric care facilities often engaged in protests, stating that Suprun’s reforms meant:

laying off 30 per cent of employees in the sector;

cutting funding for pyschiatric care facilities by half the amount available until Suprun’s reforms began;

reducing the pay of doctors to USD $140 a month while simultaneously increasing their workload and;

removing rehabilitation centres, resulting in psychiatric patients being forced onto the street.

In Ukraine, liberal reforms are ‘irreversible’. Media outlets and politicians which critique these destructive reforms are undemocratically censored. Not only does this west-facing liberalization negatively impact the health of Ukrainians, but it has deindustrialized the economy.

Canada-Ukraine trade

In 2016, Canada and Ukraine signed a trade agreement (CUFTA) which came into force in 2017. While on the surface this appears to be a positive development in bilateral trade, a 2021 statistic showed that Ukraine imported $261 million USD of Canadian goods, but only exported $160 million USD of its own goods.

The structure of the trade is also deeply imbalanced. In 2021, Ukraine’s top three exports were ferrous metals, copper/copper products, and processed vegetable products (sunflower oil). Canada’s top exports were transport goods, seafood, nuclear reactors, boilers, machines, and aircraft. Canada’s exports of high-tech goods increased by 147 per cent compared to 2020.

Where Ukraine exports cheap raw materials which only require low-paid unskilled workers, Canada exports more expensive manufactured goods which require high-paid, skilled workers. This encourages Ukraine’s further ‘specialization’ as a country of low-paid manual laborers. As we saw in part one of this series, Ukraine’s specialization as an agricultural raw materials exporter has made millions of workers redundant, forcing them to work as super-exploited migrant laborers in EU nations such as Poland, thereby subsidizing their economic growth.

Canada’s free trade agreement with Ukraine, like Ukraine’s other FTA’s with western partners, is in fact deeply unequal against Ukraine. Supporters claim that the FTA benefits Ukraine more than Canada, since it cancels tariffs on 98 per cent of Ukrainian exports to Canada, but only 72 per cent of Canadian exports to Ukraine. The first thing to note is that the FTA also stipulates that all tariffs will be removed after 7 years time. In the meantime, among the 72% of Canada’s tariff-free goods include beef and processed food.

This will further impact Ukraine’s livestock and food processing industries, which, as our last articles showed, sharply declined after 2014 under pressure from foreign competition in conditions of near-total trade liberalization. Even in its early, ‘softer’ stage, the FTA with Canada also contributes to this tendency. It is hence no surprise that, as we saw in part two of this series, Canada is among Ukraine’s top sources for pork. This one of many food products Ukraine imports far more than it exports, and whose domestic production has declined for decades.

Another reason why CUFTA doesn’t favor Ukraine is that it keeps many of Canada’s huge agricultural tariffs on imported goods in place. Ukraine’s liberalized agriculture, on the other hand, does not boast any such similarly protective tariffs. This is a revealing example of the west’s hypocrisy when it comes to ‘free trade’ with the developing world. CUFTA exempts 108 agricultural product groups from tariff-free imports to Canada, including poultry and dairy products, eggs, and sugar. This is especially troublesome for Ukraine, as explored parts one and two of this series, since these sectors have been steadily declining due to unfettered competition from other western producers.

These exempted goods are still subject to huge Canadian tariffs (many of which are over 100% the price of the imported product, for instance an extraordinary 238 per cent tariff for bird meat) beyond small import quotas. So much for ‘free trade’. Even if Ukrainian exporters eventually get equal access to the Canadian market for these goods, by that time Ukraine’s agriculture will be so devastated by economic liberalization that it won’t be able to make use of it.

Meanwhile, the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce predicted that the only tangible Ukrainian sectors which would benefit from this FTA would be that of IT services, clothing, shoes, furniture, chocolate, and other confectionaries. In this context, it is worth recalling that Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president at the time, made his billions in large part in the confectionary industry, through his company ‘Roshen’. The other sectors named represent Ukraine’s trend towards deindustrialization and specialization in low-tech, labor-intensive goods produced in low-wage sweatshops.

IT is often upheld as the leading sector of the economy in Ukraine. However, only a small minority of Ukrainians can actually become successful computer programmers, and many will emigrate permanently when given the opportunity. A pro-FTA Ukrainian publication cites increases in Ukrainian IT service exports to Canada as proof of the FTA being beneficial for Ukraine.

The inequality of Ukraine’s trade relations with Canada are also evident in terms of services, where 62 per cent of Ukraine’s service exports to Canada in 2017 were IT services, while 61 per cent of Canada’s service exports to Ukraine were state and government services. In essence, CUFTA enables Canada to manage the Ukrainian government, while Canadian IT-companies can outsource jobs to low-paid Ukrainian IT workers.

The trend towards deindustrialization is evident in Canadian-Ukrainian trade with respect to high-tech gas turbine and automobile production. In 2011, Ukraine exported $20.6 million USD worth of gas turbines to Canada, but in 2021 it only exported $4.6 million USD worth. The fact that cars are among Ukraine’s exports to Canada can be easily misunderstood. Rather, this refers to automobile cables, typically created in agricultural west Ukrainian sweatshops which are later used in car assembly by west European automobile firms.

The FTA with Canada also affords equal access for producers in either country to state purchases. In the words of Emma Touros, head of the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce: “Foreign companies now have equal access to public procurement projects. CUFTA is a modern agreement that gives Canadian companies many advantages to explore.” Because Canada’s industrial development is far more advanced than Ukraine’s, the advantage of foreign public procurement lies with Canada, while opportunities for state support to Ukrainian industry remain neglected.

Post-Maidan coup Ukraine has also entered in other agreements, such as the 2016 Ukraine-EU free trade Association Agreement, and the 2016 Agreement on Government Procurement under WTO, both of which give rich western nations free access to Ukrainian state purchases. These agreements were cited by the EU and USA when it told the Ukrainian government in 2020-21 that its attempt at industrial protectionism via Bill 3739 was unacceptable. This bill would have given Ukrainian producers preferences in state purchases, as is the norm in most countries, including the USA and EU. Ukraine changed the bill to allow EU and North American access to Ukrainian state purchases as a result of this pressure. The ministry of economic development and parliamentary committee on economic development, representatives of which proposed and defended the law, pointed to the fact that 40 per cent of Ukraine’s state purchases were from foreign producers, while the EU and USA only sourced eight per cent and five per cent respectively of its state purchases from foreigners.

The CUFTA’s bias against Ukraine could already be seen by the end of 2017 where Ukrainian imports from Canada rose by 93 per cent, while exports to Canada only rose by 76 per cent, widening the already huge trade deficit.

In examining longer term trade statistics, it becomes clear that the FTA with Canada has done little to improve trade relations. Canadian statistics claim that Ukraine last enjoyed a trade surplus (+$15.7 million USD) with Canada in 2012. The largest pre-2014 deficit (-$63 million USD) was in 2010, the first year of Yanukovych’s government after Yuschenko -the neoliberal, pro-western Ukrainian leader- left office. While 2013 saw a trade deficit of $97 million USD for Ukraine, it vastly expanded after the 2014 coup. By 2016, Ukraine experienced an trade deficit with Canada of $158 million USD.

While the trade deficit with Canada decreased by 2021, an even bigger problem remained– the low volume of Ukrainian-Canadian trade. Ukraine’s exports to Canada in 2021 were only $3 million USD higher than what they were in 2011, with a total trade turnover of under $400 million USD.

Agricultural ‘aid’ and loans

A look at the kind of agriculture Canada wants to see in Ukraine can be seen in their choice of aid projects. In 2015, the Canadian minister of foreign trade Ed Fast announced $52 million USD in aid for Ukrainian economic liberalization reforms following the 2014 coup.

One of these projects was $13.5 million to aid Ukrainian grain farmers. Rather than supporting the diversification of Ukraine’s agriculture Canada opted instead to promote the further development of big monoculture farming of Ukraine as a corn, wheat, and sunflower oil republic. As we saw in the second article of this series, this form of intensive monoculture farming worsens food insecurity and the long-term degradation of agricultural soil.

In part one of this series, we discussed a study by the ‘Ukraine Land Transparency Project’ which claimed that land privatization led to a higher GDP growth rate, and more restrictions placed on the land market (including restricting the access by foreigners), lower the growth rate. Interestingly, this NGO is funded by the European Union (EU) and World Bank (WB), and led by Klaus Deininger, an economist who works in the WB. Canada, a founding member of the World Bank Group, is the 11th largest shareholder and holds a permanent seat on the 25-member Board of Executive Directors, along with other mainly western countries. Canada holds great power and influence in determining the direction of WB funds; in fact, it is the sixth highest donor to the WB concessional fund for loans and grants to poor nations.

A recent study by the Oakland Institute think tank has illuminated the role of these financial institutions (as well as those of the European Union) in accelerating Ukrainian agricultural privatization. Even before Euromaidan, the WB provided an $89 million loan in 2013 to privatize state land and move towards the privatization of individually owned land in Ukraine, which makes up the majority of agricultural land. The IMF gave a $17.5 billion USD loan in 2015 and a $3.9 billion USD loan in 2018, both tied to land privatization. After calling for land reform again in 2017, the IMF set up a working group with Ukrainian state ministries and the WB to organize land privatization.

The World Bank has also been crucial in pushing for land privatization in Ukraine. In 2019, the WB’s announced a $200 million USD loan for the liberalization of the agricultural market. In 2020 and 2021, the WB approved two loans for Ukraine totaling $700 million USD with the aim of “establishing a transparent market for agricultural land”, as well as other neoliberal privatizing reforms. Zelensky’s 2020 removal of the moratorium on buying and selling land was motivated by the IMF making this as the condition for a $5 billion USD loan.

In the second article of this series, we examined how big agrobusiness has been given huge subsidies by the Ukrainian government. Not only have these Canadian-sponsored financial institutions aggressively pushed through agricultural privatization in Ukraine, but they have also systematically directed agricultural aid towards big agroholdings instead of the small and medium farmers that produce over 50% of Ukraine’s declining food supply, despite only cultivating 12% of Ukraine’s total farmland.

According to findings by the Oakland Institute, since 2004 the WB provided Ukraine’s biggest agrobusinesses with $1 billion USD in loans. The WB’s loan policy stipulated that smaller farmers (so far only 2,000 of them) can only gain access to these funds if they use their future harvests as collateral. The WB has created a special fund to credit smaller farmers, but it only contains $5 million USD.

The Oakland investigation also reports extensively on how the west exercises control over Ukrainian agrobusiness through its debt leverage. For instance, UkrLandFarming, one of Ukraine’s largest agrobusiness and the eighth largest in the world by acreage of controlled land, accrued $1.25 billion USD in debt owed to western creditors including to Canada’s Import-Export agency, by 2020. A 2016-17 restructuring of $500 million USD in Eurobonds arranged by these creditors involved layoffs of 6,000 employees.

In short, the agricultural aid loaned by the west to Ukraine always has the explicit – and constantly successful – aim of liberalizing Ukraine’s agricultural market. This ‘aid’ constantly intensifies the extent to which Ukraine’s agriculture is dominated by the big agroholdings whose interests, as we saw in part 2 of this series, sharply contradict those of most Ukrainians.

Sponsorship of pro-liberalization ‘Ukrainian voices’

Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs of the United States and a key player in Ukraine’s 2014 regime change, boasted in 2014 that the USA had spent $5 billion USD in Ukraine over the past 30 years ‘promoting democracy’. In 2021, Ukraine was the number one country in Europe in terms of USAID fund destinations ($300 million USD in just that year). Canada spent $890 million CAD on aid to Ukraine from 2014-2021. More than $250 million CAD was for development aid, over $100 million CAD was directed to Ukrainian military and police, and the rest of the $890 million CAD was humanitarian aid.

‘Humanitarian’ aid has been a key vector of western influence over Ukraine. The west has spent a colossal amount of money supposedly ‘building civil society’ in Ukraine. A more accurate description of this would be that the west has bought off or even created a sizeable section of the Ukrainian urban intellectual class.

For instance, Canada spent $2.2 million CAD ‘strengthening investigative reporting in Ukraine’ from 2014-2017, and $2.9 million CAD ‘Strengthening Democratic Parties and Civil Society Organisations in Ukraine’ from 2015-2017. Canada also spent $500,000 CAD on ‘dialogue for reform and social cohesion in Ukraine’ from 2016-2018. The program was focused on Eastern Ukraine and aimed to “reduce social tensions” and “increase social cohesion” through “dialogue efforts between Ukraine’s central government and regional stakeholders”. It is no wonder that such ‘aid’ is considered necessary, given that the predominantly industrial Eastern Ukraine has always been mostly against the destructive economic liberalization represented by the EU association agreement.

Having been given coveted upwards mobility by the west, the ‘civil society’, a relatively privileged minority Ukrainian society, defends the aims of its sponsors. This voice of supposedly politically conscious Ukrainians’ is the only one seen in the west because it is created by the west. Their investigative journalism focuses on individual corruption scandals, rather than the social issues created by privatization and economic liberalization.

The ‘Ukrainian voices’ spotlighted by the west never miss the chance to stress how “Ukraine needs land reform”, meaning land privatization. While acknowledging that the majority of Ukrainians are opposed to this reform, these western-funded ‘Ukrainian voices’ argue that this is the result of ‘poorly justified but emotionally loaded arguments’ made by opportunistic politicians. Ukraine’s most influential newspaper, ‘Ukrainian Truth’, is funded by USAID and other western liberal structures such as the Open Society Foundation – it never misses the chance to urge acceleration of land privatization.

Ukrainian politicians critical of these neoliberal reforms have described this as the voice of “a foreign army of journalists trained on western money that work against our own state”. This army of western agents bent on economic liberalization and NATO militarization exposed their true intentions with the 2013-14 Maidan coup, where western-funded journalists such as Mustafa Nayyem began this ‘revolution’ in favor of a free trade agreement with the EU.

Asides from creating a loyal political class, the west has also found it important to “invest” in Ukraine’s electoral infrastructure. Canada spent $24 million CAD in 2018-19 on ‘election transparency support’. Canada spent another $5.4 million CAD ‘building capacity of electoral actors in Ukraine from 2014-18, which involved sponsoring training 60 000 Ukrainian elections commissioners.

It was USAID and Open Society Foundation-funded ‘election monitor’ pollsters and NGOs that called foul on the 2004 elections which saw Viktor Yanukovych claim victory over Viktor Yushchenko. As a result of this western-backed ‘election transparency support’ and heavy western government pressure, the so-called ‘orange revolution’ took place – unconstitutional re-elections were implemented, resulting in the victory of the pro-Western Viktor Yuschenko who implemented wide ranging neoliberal economic reforms. The claims of election manipulation by Yanukovych were never corroborated by evidence, with none of the previously accused organizers of ‘election fraud’ actually charged despite Yuschenko’s many years in power and attempts to do so. Journalists have highlighted the key role of Canada in engineering this 2004 regime change.

As for economic aid, the official position by the Canadian government on support for Ukraine is quite clear: “Canada fosters inclusive growth, led by the private sector; promotes investment and job creation, particularly in agriculture”. It also has an interest in highlighting a $25 million CAD aid program aimed at assisting rural women, internally displaced persons, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups in Ukraine.

This is precisely what Roman Waschuk —former ambassador of Canada to Ukraine— meant when in 2020 he famously talked of ‘what the west got wrong in Ukraine’. He argued that forced economic liberalization, such as the privatization of land, which harms the majority of the population, is patched over by the west with aid programs for minority groups, resulting in the unpopularity of western reforms among most Ukrainians. While Waschuk thought that this was a ‘mistaken’ strategy, this would imply that western interests are harmed by this approach.

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We can, thus, speak of two functions of Canadian ‘aid’ to Ukraine. The first is various charitable aid schemes, such as those helping minorities; the primary function though, is to distract from the destructive economic reforms in Ukraine pushed by the west. The second is through funding projects which directly protect Canadian economic interests. Examples of the latter are the ProZorro program and court reform.

(more....)

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... g-ukraine/
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Sun May 21, 2023 1:57 pm

eternal war
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 05/21/2023

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The main political novelty this week has been the article published by the American media Político, which cited five Biden administration officials and which asserted that the United States is preparing for the possibility of a frozen conflict between Russia and Ukraine that will drag on for years and has drawn particular attention for referring to this scenario as potentially acceptable to Washington . Neither side could claim victory, but neither could admit defeat, since neither of the two armies would have been truly defeated. This front of hundreds of kilometers between two countries between which there is maximum mistrust and where neither has achieved its objectives would mean a burden of human and financial resources to maintain a stable line of separation highly militarized and in danger of falling back into war.

Despite what has been published, that in any case it is a possible scenario in the future in the medium term, preparations for the Ukrainian offensive continue and nothing indicates that the military situation is going to change, so that announced offensive is practically an obligation for Ukraine. After more than a year of betting on the military option as the only way to resolve the conflict after the breakdown of peace negotiations at the Istanbul summit, neither Zelensky's team nor his foreign partners can now afford the luxury of give. Ukraine needs this offensive to justify the support of its partners and to guarantee that the assistance continues in the future, since, today, the military and economic dependence on the outside is absolute: without external assistance, kyiv currently lacks the capacity to even maintain the payment of the miserable pensions with which its elderly have to pay the growing electricity or gas bills. For Western countries that have donated, given away or donated equipment, there is no turning back either. Chekhov's gun principle is followed here: “If in the first act you have a gun hanging on the wall, then in the next chapter it must be fired. If not, don't put it there."

Since the rupture of the political negotiations was confirmed in April 2022 and the military option was marked for all the parties in conflict as the only way, the West has advanced little by little crossing lines that until then seemed red: sending artillery from long-range, western tanks, long-range missiles and now there is the possibility of sending F-16 fighters. That was the main objective of the visit to four European countries that Volodymyr Zelensky made last week. The Ukrainian speech, which must be assumed to be agreed upon with his partners, raised the creation of a "hunting coalition", an idea that Oleksiy Reznikov already demanded a few months ago, but that Zelensky has now recovered in a more favorable context. Repeating the script followed until the dispatch of German Leopard tanks,

At the moment, the promise to send the long-awaited fighters has not been confirmed, nor has the approval for the re-export of the F-16s in the hands of other countries been confirmed, but everything indicates that this announcement will take place in the near future. Joe Biden led the way on Friday by approving the training of Ukrainian pilots, a prior and indispensable move for a promise to send NATO fighters that was never in doubt. However, the timing of this first step towards Western aviation shipping is relevant. As has been observed in the example of the shipment of Western tanks, whose arrival has been delayed for months,

“We have now delivered everything we said we were going to deliver, so we have put the Ukrainians in a position to make progress on the battlefield through counteroffensive. We have reached the point where it is time to look ahead and say what Ukraine is going to need as part of a future force to defend against Russian aggression," Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden's National Security Adviser, said on Friday clearly giving understand that what has been promised from now on seeks to prepare the security structure of the Ukraine of the future. The West not only prepares the future offensive, but the remilitarized Ukraine of the future, either to continue the war until the two armies are finally exhausted or to maintain an armed peace in a frozen conflictalways at risk of overheating .

In any case, the possibility of freezing the conflict according to the limits of control maintained by both armies openly contradicts the discourse that the Ukrainian government continues to maintain, always ready to describe as pro-Russian any initiative that deviates even slightly from the idea of ​​complete and guaranteed victory. from Ukraine. “Any ideas of frozen conflicts that is regularly heard in the media is fiction, a pseudo-analytical product and the result of lobbying efforts by Russian diplomacy. There are no such scenarios on the agenda and they are not being discussed in any office. All players are perfectly aware of the limited resources and time that the Russian Federation and Putin's elite have. The path has not changed. We will finish it,” Mikhailo Podolyak, the main voice of the Office of the President of Ukraine, wrote on social media.

The official Ukrainian discourse continues to go through military victory, which it sees even in defeat. In this week in which the press has insisted so much on the Ukrainian advances on the northern and southern flanks of Artyomovsk and has downplayed the Russian advances in the city until yesterday achieving its complete capture, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov alleged that Ukraine it eliminates a Russian battalion a day in the fighting in Bakhmut, crazy figures that are reminiscent of the worst moments of the summer of 2014, in which the Kiev war report claimed daily to have eliminated hundreds of “terrorists”.

The insistence on absolute and certain victory is due to internal and external factors. Ukraine needs to maintain that confidence in victory to maintain its recruiting power, but also to ensure that it does not lose centrality on the international political agenda and thus continue to maintain a continuous and significant supply in the future. Hence, despite the fact that not even its partners believe in its ability to capture Crimea, Ukraine's main objective since 2014, the peninsula is one of the axes on which the Ukrainian narrative is built. This is demonstrated by the words of Zelensky this week, who stated that Ukraine is essential to "rebuild everything that Russia has destroyed since 2014", the unemployment plans of Danilov or the recent declarations of Kiril Budanov. The powerful director of Ukraine's military intelligence, who claimed months ago that his troops would capture Crimea before the end of spring 2022, continues to have his sights set on the Black Sea peninsula and its people.

"Before the arrival of the Ukrainian units in Crimea by any means, be it by offensive or otherwise, the majority of the pro-Russian radical population will quickly leave for the Russian Federation by ferry," said Budanov, who seems to have forgotten the cross via the Kerch Bridge or perhaps he hopes that by then the bridge has already been destroyed, perhaps with another truck bomb attack as occurred in the previous attempt. "Nobody will stay there," hopes Budanov, who like other Ukrainian officials aspire to recover the territory, but not the population. “It is evident looking at all the other liberated areas: where are those who once called for Russia to come? now they are in Russia. This will not be an exception," said Budanov, who does not mention that, in Crimea,

Budanov's speech contrasts with the numerous reports that Western media have published in recent months about the hunt for collaborationists and pro-Russians in the territories recovered by Ukraine. Vengeance, whether at the hands of far-right groups acting with impunity or the state, has been the norm in both Kharkov and Kherson, as reported - and in some cases praised - even by media as close to the Ukrainian government as The New York Times, Foreign Policy or Reuters this same week. Indeed, Crimea would not be an exception and Ukraine aspires to be able to prove it. To do this, it will continue to demand more weapons and more financing to maintain, not the eternal but frozen war to which the United States aspires, but military inertia.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/05/21/27317/#more-27317

Google Translator

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From Cassad's telegram account:

Colonelcassad

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Liberation of Bakhmut
Situation as of 17:00 on May 20, 2023

After the flight of the 60th and 93rd OMBRs, as well as 241 brigades of the territorial defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the southwestern outskirts of Bakhmut , the assault detachments of the Wagner PMC completely liberated the city. Until May 25, the territories will be cleaned from the presence of Ukrainian formations.

Despite the long-awaited success, the situation at the front is only approaching the active phase. The Armed Forces of Ukraine lost tens of thousands of people during the defense of Bakhmut and Soledar , but parts of the strategic reserve were not involved.

New formations from the 9th and 10th Army Corps are in the rear areas and are preparing for the attack. The third decade of May was noted in the radio intercepts of the members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as a possible start of the offensive.

In recent weeks, artillery units have been preparing guns for intensive shelling, and ammunition has been brought to warehouses. And at the tactical level, combat orders have already been sent out.

🔻Bakhmut is released, and this victory will go down in history as one of the largest battles. And it is precisely its fall that can become a catalyst for the start of the long-awaited offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Considering the flank attacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Bakhmut, the accumulation of formations in the Zaporozhye and South-Donetsk directions , as well as in the Kupyansko-Svatovsky direction , it is there that the main enemy strikes should be expected.

***

Colonelcassad
Liberation of Artemovsk.

1. Zelensky's regime called Bakhmut - "Fortress Bakhmut". Today, this "fortress has fallen" despite all the efforts of more than 80 thousand groups that operated in this direction, not counting the transferred reserves from the Kharkov, Svatovsky, Krasnolimansky, Zaporozhye directions. The enemy fiercely resisted until the very end despite heavy losses, but could not hold the city.

2. We also suffered significant losses during the battles for the city. And PMC "Wagner" and the RF Armed Forces. Despite the joy of victory, remember today those who fell during these months in and around the city so that this victory becomes possible.

3. Despite all the difficulties, problems, losses - the Artemov offensive operation ended in our victory. The enemy lost one of the key cities in the Donbass, suffered monstrous losses in manpower and equipment, was forced to adjust plans for other operations, and at the same time received a powerful image blow.

4. Of course, the PMC "Wagner" played a decisive role in the liberation of Artemovsk, whose attack aircraft in the most difficult conditions broke through the enemy's echeloned defenses and crushed the enemy from the city until today. Now Wagner has 3 significant victories - Popasnaya, Soledar and Artemovsk, not counting Svetlodarsk, Uglegorsk TPP, etc. The case when powerful PR is supported by powerful deeds for which you are not ashamed.
As everyone understands, now Wagner PMC is No. 1 on the market of private military companies not only in our country, but also in the world. The state has a very serious tool, and it would be very desirable that frictions in the apparatus or personal ambitions not prevent its further use in the interests of achieving victory in the war. "Wagner" from May 25 go on vacation from Artemovsk - they fully deserve it.

5. According to the laws of the DPR, Bakhmut has gone down in history - since May 20, 2023, the city is already, in fact and legally, Artemovsk. After the war, the residents will have the opportunity to return to the discussion of the name of the city, but for now we are celebrating the liberation of Artemovsk. No matter how trite it may sound, but the liberation of Artemovsk is the fulfillment of one of the constituent tasks of the 2nd stage of the NWO associated with the liberation of the LPR and DPR. The task is still far from being solved - there are heavy battles ahead with the NATO mercenary army, which will not give up other occupied Russian cities so easily.

6. For Russia, the Battle of Artemovsk has become one of the most bloody and longest since the Great Patriotic War. The more valuable the victory achieved.

Happy Artemovsk Liberation Day everyone.


***

forwarded from
military chronicle
⚡What is important to understand about Artyomovsk and the situation as a whole.

1. Artyomovsk is not the end yet. Around it are the largest fortifications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - Konstantinovka, Chasov Yar, Druzhkovka, Toretsk, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk with a group of many thousands. The issue with these points on the map has yet to be resolved, so the “orchestra” will go on vacation, but, apparently, will return if necessary.

2. Now the situation with the flanks will be decided, on which the main attention will switch. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have concentrated significant forces there, but it has not yet been possible to properly dispose of them - the losses are very large. According to preliminary data, the garrison of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Khromovo was almost completely destroyed.

3. Many predicted the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the 20th of May. Artyomovsk is taken, on the calendar May 20th. The offensive plans, in principle, and in the DPR and LPR, in particular, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have not been abandoned. These plans have been prepared, and the equipment and people that we managed to accumulate and save are being pulled up to the front line. By all indications, activation may begin in the coming days.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the situation in the Artemovsk direction at 15.45 Moscow time on May 21, 2023, specially for the channel Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok :

1. By May 21, the territory of the city of Artemovsk has been completely liberated. The legal renaming of the city in accordance with Pushilin's decree on the rollback of all Ukrainian renaming to the state of May 2014 came into force. Since May 20, we have the Russian city of Artemovsk - de jure and de facto.
In the city itself, the cleansing of the western outskirts continues.
A serious demining process is ahead, which will be activated after the APU is driven away from the western outskirts of the city, because. now the enemy continues to shell our positions in the city with artillery and mortars.
There is a lot of dirty work associated with cleaning up corpses, incl. from under the ruins of high-rise buildings. There will be many of them.

2. The fighting in the Artemovsk direction does not stop. The units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that retreated from Artemovsk are trying to stay in the area of ​​the settlement. Chrome and Red.
Khromovo is not yet directly stormed, but covered with artillery. The position of the enemy there is difficult, and as our troops consolidate on the western outskirts of the city, the situation for the remnants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Khromovo will worsen even more. With Krasny it is more difficult - the enemy has a fairly serious fortified area there, which is reinforced by those forces that were able to retreat from Artemovsk.
The withdrawal at Kleshcheevka removed the semi-coverage from Krasnoy, which would somewhat complicate the subsequent operations of the RF Armed Forces to liberate Krasnoy.

3. The roads to Artemovsk through Chasov Yar and Khromovo lost their former significance. Almost all bridges on them are destroyed. Today, the RF Armed Forces destroyed the bridge near Krasnoe. On the roads and fields to the west of Artemovsk, there are still dozens of skeletons of destroyed wheeled and tracked vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The accumulation of enemy forces in Konstantinovka, Chasov Yar and Kramatorsk continue to be subjected to rocket and bomb attacks. It can be expected that soon the artillery impact in the direction of Chasov Yar and Konstantinovka will increase.

4. Information about the withdrawal of the enemy from Bogdanovka, Stupok, Orekhovo-Vasilyevka, etc. to the line Ray-Aleksandrovka - Chasov Yar is not true. At best, we could talk about the passage through these settlements of the remnants of the enemy forces from Artemovsk, which were assigned for rest and replenishment. The enemy intends to defend these settlements. In the meantime, he did not give up hope of achieving something more in his counterattacks to the northwest and southwest of Artemovsk.
It is possible that attempts will still be made to capture Sacco and Vanzetti, Kurdyumovka, Kleshcheevka in order to somehow justify the high costs of the "counteroffensive" near Artemovsk, which has not even led to the capture of one seedy village against the backdrop of the loss of one of the key cities of Donbass.

5. The enemy has not yet completely used up the operational reserves, but the strategic reserves, which were intended for offensives in the Svatovsky and Zaporozhye directions, were not brought into action here, and we will see them again in the coming months. However, the Artyomovskaya grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (initially up to 80,000 bayonets) suffered huge losses and could not hold the city, which should not have been taken.

6. At the end of the month, a rotation will take place in Artemovsk - the RF Armed Forces will replace the Wagner PMC, which goes to the rear for rest and replenishment after a successful operation to liberate Artemovsk. I am sure that if the hardware conflicts between Prigozhin and the leadership of the Ministry of Defense do not interfere, we will again see the Wagner in one of the key sectors of the NWO, where his experience and skill will be required.

Google Translator

************

Artemovsk , What Next?

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Artemovsk for the evening

1. The city is still being cleaned up. Individual soldiers or groups of the enemy can still wander somewhere.

2. Large-scale demining is still to be carried out in the city, this is not a quick process. It will take months

.

4. The red one will be kept, since it covers one of the direct roads to Chasov Yar. Therefore, breaking into the fortified area in Krasnoye is still to be done (and probably not Wagner will be doing this anymore).

5. The completion of the fighting in the city itself will allow refocusing part of the artillery strikes on the flank groupings of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stuck in a semi-position to the northwest and southwest of the city, which should have a positive impact on the course of hostilities and will allow, in a relatively short term, to return at least some recently lost positions. The Armed Forces of Ukraine will probably still continue to launch attacks in order to take at least some village and smooth out the gloomy picture of the defeat in Artemovsk - attacks on Kleshcheevka, Kurdyumovka and Sacco Vanzetti are quite possible, the enemy has not yet squandered all the reserves here.

6. We can expect an increase in artillery impact on Chasov Yar and Konstantinovka, as well as the continuation of intense attacks on the forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration.

7. It is not yet clear whether the Russian command will activate alternative options related to attacks on Seversk or Dzerzhinsk. From the point of view of the configuration of the front, Seversk looks like a fairly promising option.

(Images at link.)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8371318.html

On the number and losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
May 20, 19:17

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Historian Ilya Topchy about the number and losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Haven't written for a long time. There were problems with the computer and the browser (presumably hacked and messed up). Happens.

Recently - more precisely, the day before yesterday, May 18, 2023 - an interesting infographic on the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was published on Boris Rozhin's blog: https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8365720.html . 264 thousand killed, 11 thousand prisoners and 407 thousand in the ranks.

Curious here's why. Recently, at the end of April 2023, there was a report on the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the US Congress. It called the total loss of about 300 thousand people, including 110 thousand killed. By the way, this is a lot. Russia's losses in terms of the dead were estimated as 3-4 times less: 25-30 thousand people. By the way, even before the start of the NMD, American intelligence estimated approximately the same ratio of losses: as one to four.

At the same time, 400 thousand people were estimated as combat personnel. Without the rear (100 thousand people) and recruits (another 100 thousand people). Thanks, by the way, to one person for information support. And without NGU, border guards and, it seems, the defense (that's another 250-300 thousand people per circle). Given the large number of troops they had in the north, in the rear, and so on, a typical situation was obtained that was similar to the Civil War in Russia a hundred years ago. That is, when a lot of people were mobilized - in July 2022, for example, 700 thousand in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and 250 thousand in other structures, in addition to the pre-war composition. And he fights a little (in the spring of 2023 near Kyiv - about 200-250 thousand military personnel in the LBS).

These data on losses also surprisingly coincided with those published here on February 12: about 65,000 killed at the Armed Forces of Ukraine (57,000 of their own and 8,000 foreign tourists):https://schneider-krieg.livejournal.com/59698.html . By the end of April 2023, they were supposed to have, indeed, about 110 thousand killed (including well over 10 thousand foreign tourists). Thanks again to someone (data not mine).

Their losses in the dead over the past four months:

- January 2023 - 6.5 thousand killed (almost a third - in the Soledar massacre);

- February 2023 - 11 thousand killed. In particular, they lost a lot during the Wagner offensive on February 23-27 in Artemovsk, when out of 30-35 thousand personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 12 thousand people were killed, including 4-5 thousand killed;

- March 2023 - 11 thousand killed;

- April 2023 - 15 thousand killed.

If the above estimates are correct, it turns out that a third of all losses by killed AFU suffered in the last reporting quarter (February-April 2023). Which means that both casualties and the intensity of the fighting are growing noticeably. The bloodiest war in Europe since WWII. On average, the losses of the Ukrainian side are about 8 thousand killed per month. At the same time, over the past three months (February-April 2023), on average, the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were more than 12 thousand killed per month. And for the 11 previous months of the campaign, the average losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine killed (per month) were less than 7 thousand killed (and January 2023 with its Soledar massacre turns out to be quite an average month here).

Approximately like this. Let's see.

https://schneider-krieg.livejournal.com/61128.html - zinc

PS. In the photo, the commander of the 3rd battalion of the 10th brigade, which was advancing in the area of ​​​​Sacco and Vanzetti. It was destroyed along with the headquarters on the 2nd day of the attack.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8370620.html

Poland betrayed historical memory
May 21, 12:49

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Volodin walked around Poland and promised to close the transit of Polish trucks through Russia.

Poland has betrayed historical memory.

She forgot that her liberation from the fascist invaders was given to the Soviet people at a high price.
A third of the current Polish territories - areas with developed infrastructure, industrial enterprises, as well as rich in natural resources - became part of it after the Second World War only thanks to our country.
In the post-war period, the Soviet people, tearing themselves away from themselves, spent more than 750 billion dollars on the restoration and development of Poland, according to today's estimates (more than 800 industrial, energy, and transport facilities have been built).

Poland exists as a state only thanks to our country.

The Poles act vilely:
1. Demolish monuments to the Soviet soldier-liberator.
2. Close Russian schools.
3. They steal Russian property.
They behave in a rude way.

Having abandoned the common history, desecrated the memory of our soldiers and officers, Poland must return the territories acquired as a result of the Second World War and reimburse our country for the funds spent on it in the war and post-war years.

In addition, it would be right to forbid Poland to cash in on Russia today: to stop the passage of Polish trucks through the territory of our country.
Let the goods be loaded onto Russian trucks.
Our citizens will earn on transportation.

Poland's costs in this case could be about 8.5 billion euros. According to experts, as a result of this, about 2,000 Polish transport companies, which employ more than 20,000 drivers, will suffer or go bankrupt.

The question will be considered at the Council of the Duma on Monday.

(c) Volodin

PS. Maybe we will finally deal with Katyn?!

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8372348.html

Google Translator

********

Parsing Putin’s Victory Day 2023 Speech
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 20, 2023
Gordon Hahn

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Moscow’s annual May 9th Victory Day Parade, which is the centerpiece in Russia’s commemoration of the USSR’s victory over fascism in World War II, is the most sacred Russian holiday and historico-political spectacle Russia knows today. It simultaneously honors the memory of each Russian family’s dead from the Great Patriotic War, instills Russians with a sense of national pride and patriotism, reaffirms the national political norm of national solidarism, and reinforces the Russian national solidarity in politics, culture, and spirit. It is Russia’s central national sacrament. Therefore, it is worth analyzing the contents of Russian Vladimir Putin’s speech at this, the 78th anniversary of the great military victory, particularly as Russia again finds itself at war—this time with NATO and Ukraine.

Putin’s address sent several messages regarding contemporary issues in his speech, the main purpose of which was to commemorate the Victory over Nazism in the Great Patriotic War: (1) the ‘special military operation’ (SMO) in Ukraine is a defensive action, (2) the conflict with NATO in Ukraine is an existential struggle for Russia and Russians, (3) and Russia’s national solidarity and consolidation behind the war effort. Other points in his address, while less broad or thematic are nevertheless, are worthy of note and so are included at the end of the discussion below.

First, Putin endeavored to reinforce Moscow’s message and belief that the SMO in Ukraine is a defensive action against Western attempts to weaken Russia’s national security, undermine its state sovereignty, and overthrow its government. Thus, Russia has no designs for foreign conquest, does not see the Russia, its civilization, or the ‘Russian world’ as inherently superior to other civilizations, cultures, or peoples, and hopes to have good relations with all. Moscow’s issue is with certain Western governments’ policies, most notably NATO expansion. He noted: “For us, for Russia, there are no unfriendly, hostile peoples either in the West or in the East. Like the vast majority of people on the planet, we want to see a peaceful, free and stable future.” He sought to reinforce the message of a lack of Russian antagonism towards the West’s populations and states (as opposed to their government policies) by highlighting and singling out the contribution to the victory over fascism made by the US and the UK, which are routinely castigated in Russian media as an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ axis of sorts historically set on destroying Russia. Putin noted: “We pay tribute to the Resistance members who bravely fought against Nazism, the soldiers of the allied armies of the United States, Great Britain, and other states.” A new wrinkle came in the word that followed. It reflected Russia’s growing alliance with China: “We remember and honor the feat of the Chinese soldiers in the battle against Japanese militarism.”

At the same time, however, he implied a similarity between German Nazism in WW II and the West’s claim to superiority over Russian culture expressed in the Western civilization’s ‘democratic values’ as being superior to the backward ‘authoritarian jungle’ that constitutes much of the non-West, most of all Russia and China. He did this by renouncing any form of ideological superiority (“We believe that any ideology of superiority is by its nature disgusting, criminal and deadly”), and then shortly afterwards noting: “Western globalist elites still insist on their exclusivity.”

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Second, in terms of the existential of the NATO-Russia Ukrainian war, as Putin and many Russians see it, the Russian president declared: “Battles decisive for the fate of our Motherland have always become popular, national and sacred (battles). To buttress the point, the importance of the war, and the people’s support for the troops he stated: “We are proud of the participants of the CBO, … The security of the country rests on you today, the future of our statehood and our people depends on you. You are honorably fulfilling your military duty, fighting for Russia. Your families, children, friends are behind you.” Here we get a hint of the third main theme in Putin’s Victory Day message: national solidarity.

Solidarism, as I have tried to demonstrate in two recent books, is one of four values – along with monism, universalism, and communalism – that make up a central norm in Russian culture and political culture – tselostnost’ [The Russian Dilemma: Security Vigilance and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (Jefferson: McFarland Books, 2021) and Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Culture Thought, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022)]. Solidarism – a belief in or aspiration to national unity whether political, cultural, religious, linguistic or otherwise – has been engrained in Russian culture through centuries of struggle with internal social and political divisions, religious schisms, and foreign attempts to divide and rule Russia. As I have noted in the two noted books and in articles published here, Putin addresses this issue quite often in order to reinforce this value as a pillar of stability for his government and fend off a repeat of the collapse of the Soviet state and regime and the instability of the early post-Soviet era in the 1990s.

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In his Victory Day speech, therefore, Putin told the Russian people: “There is nothing stronger, powerful, and reliable than our unity.” Russia’s military at the front were told that the people and their relatives “are waiting for you. I am confident you feel its boundless love.” Invoking a consolidated, united nation standing behind the soldiers, he added: “The whole country is consolidated to support our heroes. Everyone is prepared to help, and they are praying for you.”

Thus, one of the charges Putin leveled against “Western globalist elites,” besides their sense of exclusivity or superiority compared to Russians and other non-Westerners, is their efforts to sow discord, split and undermine the solidarity of Russia and other societies. Western elites “pit people against each other and split societies, provoke bloody conflicts and coups, sow hatred,” in addition to their attempts to promote “Russophobia, aggressive nationalism, and destroy family, traditional values that make a person human.” Similarly, in Ukraine the West split society and state by fomenting a ‘color revolution’, and so the Ukrainian people “became a hostage of the coup d’etat and the criminal regime of his Western masters that developed on its basis.” Putin also extended solidarism to the international level, presumably addressing the ‘rest’ as opposed to the West, by asserting that the “experience of solidarity” under the alliance against fascism, “partnership in the years of struggle with a common threat – this is our priceless legacy. (This is) a firm pillar right now, when the irreversible movement to more just multipolar world is gathering strength.”

Putin also alluded to another value he has promoted in order to support national unity: historical tselostnost’. Warning those listening of the threat to the homeland, he reminded that this was a danger to “the land, which remembers the remembers the vigilantes of Yuri Dolgorukii and Dmitry Donskoi, the militia of Minin and Pozharskii, the soldiers of Peter the Great and Kutuzov, the parades of 1941 and 1945.” Here, despite his anti-communism, Putin nevertheless included the Soviet war experience in this pantheon of Russian patriotic heroism. He brought in the Soviet experience into historical wholeness again when he alluded to the Western-backed Ukrainians “destroying memorials to Soviet soldiers and removing monuments.” It is worth noting Putin’s neglect of Stalin (and the Soviet generals). So much for the frequently met canard that Putin has ‘rehabilitated Stalin’ because he himself is a Stalinist or totalitarian leader. By including Soviet heroism against Nazism in this ‘history’ of Russian war achievements, Putin again upheld the wholeness of Russian history (for more on Russian historical tselostnost’, see https://gordonhahn.com/2023/04/13/worki ... onclusion/).

Noteworthy minor aspects of Putin’s speech include Putin’s failure to mention the Wagner Group by name among the numerous units and types of forces he listed, despite the fact that Yevgenii Prigozhin’s private mercenary fighters were then spearheading the successful siege of Bakhmut, which certain to fall soon by the time Victory Day’s commemorations took place. Also, it was quite noticeable that the quantity of troops and equipment that pararded through Red Square on Victory Day 2023 was quite modest in relation to recent ‘Pobeda’ parades. Finally, there was no air force flyover to conclude the parade, and days before the parade Russia’s authorities apparently because of security concerns cancelled the annual ‘immortal regiment’ march through central Moscow, which Putin usually participates.

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As I have noted elsewhere, this a central ritual sacralizing not just the Great Patriotic War victory but a sacrament of national solidarity—a living manifestation of Russian solidarism.

None of the above should be construed as being presented of evidence of national solidarity in general or behind the war effort. However, there is plenty of evidence to support that, despite the perpetual presence of Russian dissent from both as well. In addition to opinion polls, which show Putin’s support rising slightly and holding since the SMO began, several trips to Russia since the NATO-Russia Ukrainian war began confirmed for me that there is little opposition to the war effort and substantial support for it, particularly among the middle-aged and elderly. The Russian elite, not least of all Putin, and the media have convinced the Russian people for the most part that the SMO/war is just, defensive war, which if lost threatens the stability and survival of the Russian state. Since Western leaders have declared that fall of the Putin government and even ‘color revolution’ are now the goals of Western support for Ukraine’s war effort and Western opposition to Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, this is not a difficult task and can hardly be considered fake. Russia has a too long and bitter experience of Western invasion, intervention, and domestic interference for Russians – whether in the Kremlin or on the street – not to believe this. The all too robust presence of neo-fascists inside and around the Maidan regime reminds Russians too much of their Great Patriotic War enemies; hence, Putin’s allusions to this parallel. As the West continues to promise Ukrainian membership in NATO ‘after victory,’ persisting in the main cause of the war, and as Ukraine begins to attack the Russian homeland, Russians have little choice but to hold together and continue the fight.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... 23-speech/

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The Western Media Disinformation Campaign: Fall of Bakhmut, a case in point
gilbertdoctorow Uncategorized May 21, 2023 5 Minutes
Our language is in constant evolution. Partly this is bottom up, from the inventiveness of creative personalities or writers for commercial advertising. Partly it is top down, from the powers that be as they seek to manipulate and control the thought processes of the broad public.

My brief essay today addresses the latter phenomenon and the introduction of the word “disinformation” into common parlance. There is a charming freshness to it, unlike the stale and repugnant word “propaganda.”

The word “disinformation” has a specific context in time and intent: it is used by the powers that be and by the mainstream media they control to denigrate, marginalize and suppress sources of military, political, economic and other information that might contradict the official government narrative and so dilute the control exercised by those in power over the general population. It is to remove “disinformation” from public life that the United States and EU member states ban RT and other Russian media outlets from the internet, from satellite and cable television channels. The censorship here in Europe varies from country to country and is probably most drastic in France and Germany. One would think that these European states are truly at war with Russia, not just giving a helping hand to Kiev.

In reality, it is these censorious states and the mass media that carry their messages with stenographic precision into print and electronic dissemination who are the ones that day after day feed disinformation to the public. It is cynically composed and consists of a toxic blend of ‘spin,’ by which is meant misleading interpretation of events, and outright lies.

The many months long battle for the provincial Donbas city of Bakhmut, or Artyomovsk as it is known in Russia, has been described variously from on high in Washington, London and Berlin. When the likely outcome was unclear, the defense of Bakhmut was called heroic and demonstrative of the brave fighting spirit of the Ukrainians.

Casualty figures issued by Kiev and then trumpeted from Washington suggested that the Russians were stupidly throwing away the lives of their fighting men by using WWI style human waves of attackers who were decimated by the defenders. Russian lives are cheap was the message. The fact that Russian artillery on site outnumbered and outperformed Ukrainian artillery by a factor of five or seven to one was freely admitted by the Western propagandists as they pleaded for increased supplies to Kiev. They, nonetheless, issued casualty reports for the Russians that inverted the force correlation. It was assumed, obviously with reason, that the public was too lazy or too uninterested to do the arithmetic.

At one moment, the spin doctors in Washington, London and Berlin said that Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut made sense because it was pinning down Russian forces and giving time to the Ukrainians to train and position their men for the heralded “counter offensive” during which they would overrun Russian positions at chosen points in the 600 mile line of combat and drive a wedge through to the Sea of Azov, opening the way for recapture of Crimea. Those were grand words and ambitions to justify continued and ever rising Western military assistance to Kiev.

At another point, the spin doctors said it would be better if Ukraine stopped losing men in Bakhmut and launched instead that much vaunted counter-offensive. Now we were told that Bakhmut is just a Russian fantasy, that it has no strategic value.

In the past couple of weeks, the Russian command has issued daily reports on the progressive capture by Russian forces of Bakhmut, square kilometer after square kilometer. We were told they controlled 75%, then 80% and most recently more than 90% of the city proper while artillery bombardment of the remaining blocks of high rise residential buildings that were being used by Ukrainian defenders for their sniper attacks and intelligence reports on Russian troop movements pulverized everything in their path.

At this point, the attention of Western media defending truth against Russian disinformation was directed at the Ukrainian “successes” in recapturing settlements on the flanks of Bakhmut. Just three days ago The New York Times was telling its readers that these “breakthroughs” by the Ukrainians put in jeopardy the Russian forces holding the city proper: they might be surrounded and compelled to surrender or die. The possibility that the offensives on the flanks were only intended to facilitate withdrawal of remaining Ukrainian soldiers from Bakhmut and were tolerated by the Russians to avoid bloody fights to the death – that possibility crossed no one’s mind at the NYT, it seems.

Midday yesterday, 20 May, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group which did most of the fighting for Bakhmut on the ground, claimed total victory. In the evening, President Vladimir Putin announced to the Russian public that Bakhmut was taken. Joyous messages of congratulations filled the internet message services in Russia as the broad public celebrated a victory as iconic as the Battle for Stalingrad.

Meanwhile, the defenders of the Western public against Russian “disinformation” were hard at work, straining their brains to find what to say. This morning’s New York Times still speaks of the battle for Bakhmut as undecided, pointing yet again to the Ukrainian hold on the flanks.

Given their losses in men and materiel defending Bakhmut, the surrender of the city to the Russians will be a great blow to Ukrainian fighting morale when it is finally admitted. So will the fate of their Commander in Chief General Zaluzhny who, according to Russian sources, has been hospitalized for the past two weeks and remains in critical condition after falling victim to a Russian strike on a provincial command center which killed most of the high officers around him. If nothing else, this speaks to the amazing success of Russian military intelligence directing their firepower.

Meanwhile, Western media attention to Ukraine is conveniently redirected at the nonstop travels of President Zalensky who went from his European tour on to the Middle East, where he attended the meeting of the Arab League, and thence via French military jet to the G7 gathering in Hiroshima where he held talks with fellow heads of state and joined them for the obligatory group photos. All the talk was about when the U.S. will formally give its consent to the dispatch of F16s to Kiev. For the disseminators of Western disinformation this is a wonderful distraction from a war that clearly is going badly for Kiev and in particular a distraction from the counter offensive that looks less likely with each passing day of Russian military strikes on the command centers and weapons stores of the Ukrainian side.

The plume of radioactive smoke and ash that rose from the Khmelnitsky store of British depleted uranium artillery shells in Western Ukraine after a Russian missile strike, just like the extensive damage to the Patriot air defense installation near Kiev by a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile tell us all what will be the fate of future Western arms deliveries to Ukraine. It is an interesting question how much longer the Ukrainian military or politicians will put up with their high flying, good life President while the country is well on its way to hell.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/05/21/ ... -in-point/
"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 IV

Post by blindpig » Mon May 22, 2023 11:37 am

Artyomovsk

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On Saturday, the owner of the private military company Wagner communicated, with a video recorded in the city itself, that his troops had managed to capture the last remaining meters to reach the limits of Artyomovsk. With this, and with the capture of the few apartment buildings still under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Evgeny Prigozhin ended the fight for the city, which, as he recalled in his communication, began in October 2022. The Russian troops they had already approached the city in July of last year after the capture of Popasnaya, Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, but with the units on the Donbass front exhausted and exhausted the offensive potential, the slow assault did not really begin until months later.

Russia had found itself in that part of the front with a well-defended and highly fortified zone, the product of the previous eight years. The proximity to the frozen Donbass war front had made Artyomovsk a key position for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the first city across the front from the strategic town of Debaltsevo, captured by the DPR and LPR in February 2015. It was in Artyomovsk where Petro Poroshenko received his heroes, who had fled across the fields, in some cases even before the order was given, in what the then president defined as "an orderly and planned withdrawal." decommunized IN order to erase the memory of Comrade Artyom, after whom the city was named, Ukraine used the time granted by Minsk to turn the area into a fortress. With the name change to recover the one given by the Russian Empire at its foundation, Bakhmut, the city also recovered its first use in the 16th century: a border fortification.

Due to its location, its industrial infrastructures and, above all, as a communications hub, Artyomovsk was, in war planning, a strategic city. Its importance, as well as attack and defense tactics, have been widely debated in the time that combat has lasted. Ukraine had blown up the bridges inside the city already last summer and the battle destroyed all kinds of infrastructure months ago, removing from the face of the earth any element that could have made this position strategic in the past. Hence, one of the recurring themes in the US pro-Ukrainian press has been the mistake of Ukraine wasting its troops in the defense of a city of no strategic importance. The Ukrainian position has been based on alleging that, in the event of the loss of Bakhmut,

Installed in the epic discourse of the defense of every meter of land -not necessarily of its population, always observed cautiously in the certainty that at least one part was waiting for the arrival of Russian troops-, Ukraine continued to exalt the fight of their troops in the area, which made any withdrawal option unfeasible to avoid unnecessary casualties and destruction. In his speech to the US Congress, Volodymyr Zelensky defined the city as the "fortress of Donbass" and claimed that the battle would change the course of the war.

The fight was going to last until the end also because, having lost Izium, crossing Artyomovsk was the only way to advance towards Slavyansk, the clear objective of the Russian troops in their attempt to reach the borders of the former Donetsk region. A necessity for Moscow and a tactical option for Kiev, the intense combat in Arytomovsk has also made it necessary to concentrate a large number of troops in a localized area of ​​the front, hindering deployment and offensive actions in other sectors. This has also been another of the Ukrainian arguments throughout these months: the Battle of Bakhmut was destroying the best Russian combat units, thus undermining their future offensive capabilities. Curiously, this discourse has coexisted throughout the battle with the argument that Wagner's troops, in charge of the assault on the city, they were undersupplied, untrained, and simply sent in hordes straight to their deaths. The politicians who have used this argument - denied even by the Ukrainian military authorities, who have admitted the combat prowess of the Russian troops in the battle of Artyomovsk - have not explained how the much better armed and trained Ukrainian troops have continued to lose land for weeks.

In the final phase of the battle, an urban fight in which both parties had already lost any aspiration to limit the damage in the city, completely destroyed, Ukraine has avoided repeating a scenario similar to that of Mariupol, captured in its entirety after the surrender from Azovstal on May 20, 2022, exactly one year before the culmination of the battle for Artyomovsk. On this occasion, the last Ukrainian troops that remained in the city limits have managed, as evidenced by several videos posted on social networks, to leave the city via the Chasov Yar road. Everything indicates that the recent Ukrainian counterattacks on the flanks of the city, both to the north and to the south, sought to become a misdirection maneuver to free up precisely that withdrawal route. The dynamics of the battle and the naivety of turning around weeks of advances by continuing to send reserves to the city at the expense of other areas of the front made the final result inevitable. Even despite the obvious Russian attrition, which has manifested itself in the form of Prigozhin's reproaches to the Russian military authorities, the dynamics of the combat have been clear in recent weeks. Russian troops captured, possibly at the cost of heavy casualties, the Artyomovsk industrial sector, once the source of its importance, thus managing to prevent any attempt to use the infrastructure for protection as occurred a year ago at Azovstal. Without the possibility of encircling the city from the west either, since they would have been exposed to Ukrainian troops, Russian units have been forced to advance neighborhood by neighborhood into the interior of the city. In this urban battle, the apartment buildings have gained special importance, some of them with boarded up windows and leaving only a small space for machine guns. In theDonbass fortress , the Soviet-era apartment buildings had been turned into medieval castles, used as a temporary retaining barrier until retreating to the next line. With no more buildings to retreat to, Ukrainian troops lost their last positions this weekend in the district where the much-photographed aviation monument was located.

The images published by Wagner's soldiers in different parts of Artyomovsk, geolocated by both experts and amateurs, prove the presence of Russian troops in places previously controlled by Ukrainian troops. However, as also happened in the case of Soledar, the Ukrainian authorities deny, for the moment, the loss of the city. The political authorities continue to extol the Ukrainian counteroffensive on the flanks of the city and this week the Defense Minister boasted that Ukraine is wiping out “a battalion a day”. Also in line with what happened in the past, the Western press sticks to the official Ukrainian discourse. On Saturday, the Ukrainian withdrawal already evident, The New York TimesIt claimed on social media that “Ukrainian advances in Bakhmuth represent a striking turnaround in a place they had been on the defensive for months and a blow to the Russian war effort, which had made the city the main strategic target.” at your reach". Exactly one minute later, AFP published statements by the Ukrainian military authorities which, although denying the complete loss of Bakhmut, admitted that the situation for their troops was "critical".

Yesterday Sunday, very far from Ukraine, where it seems he has not returned since his trip to four European countries the previous weekend, Volodymyr Zelensky denied in Japan, although without apparent conviction, the loss of Bakhmut. However, it also downplayed the importance of the city, which has gone from being the key to Donbass to lacking strategic importance in a process that also took place in Soledar, a case in which Ukraine took twelve days to admit the reality.

The end of the battle for Artyomovsk, which will at least momentarily regain its Soviet name pending a future final decision, does not mark a turning point in the fight for Donbass. Russia's path to Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, where defense preparation similar to or even greater than that of Artyovmosk is to be expected, passes through another series of cities where Ukraine will continue to fight to the end, partly as a strategy. to concentrate Russian efforts in this area and force Moscow to deploy there troops that would possibly be needed in preparation for the defense of the most vulnerable points on the front.

Evgeny Prigozhin, whose troops received, together with the Russian regular troops, congratulations from President Vladimir Putin, stated on Saturday that Wagner will hand over the Artyomovsk positions to the Ministry of Defense on the 25th. The Russians will have to secure the area, and respond to the Ukrainian attacks to the north and south of the city as well as relieve the worn-out contingent that has fought in the city. And on both sides of the front, it will be time to assess the level of casualties and attrition suffered in a combat that has caused the complete destruction of the city. A review of the fight will also begin in which both parties will try to claim victory. Until now,

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/05/22/artyo ... more-27324

Google Translator

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According to War Tears, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost 55,000 killed near Artemovsk
May 21, 11:13 p.m

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According to War Tears, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost 55,000 killed near Artemovsk

According to the War Tears project, during the battle for Artemovsk, participation in the hostilities of 221 enemy units and subunits was recorded. A complete list of marked units and the methodology for collecting information can be found here https://t.me/wartearsorg/251 and here https://wartears.org/posts/2023-05-20-b ... khmut/area of ​​Artemovsk since February 22, 2022, there are 55,000 killed. About the calculation here https://t.me/wartearsorg/253

This is about 1/5 of all losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since February 22. According to War Tears, as of May 18, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost 264,432 killed.

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About the current situation.

Regarding the front and who "covers" whom.

1. At the moment, on the evening of May 21, 2023, the Artemovskaya grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, knocked out of Artemovsk, occupies a kind of ledge, on the flanks of which there are Russian troops in the Kleshcheevka-Kurdyumovka area and in the Berkhovka-Yagodny area, etc.

2. Attempts by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to advance from May 10 in the north-west and south-west of Artemovsk were supposed to not only cut off the penetration of Russian troops, but also lead to stabilization and leveling of the front near Artemovsk. The enemy was able to push our troops back from Bogdanovka and Krasnoe, taking several landings and positions, and also tried to advance at Sacco and Vanzetti, but had no serious success there.

3. Upon the fact of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, from May 10 to May 21, at the cost of heavy losses, the Armed Forces of Ukraine advanced on the flanks, but could not fundamentally change the situation with the continued coverage of the main forces west of Artemovsk, and also could not capture a single settlement, even seedy Sacco and Vanzetti.

4. In order to seriously talk about the capture of Artemovsk, the enemy must take Kleshcheevka, Andreevka, Zelenopolye, Kurdyumovka from the south, in order to then advance to Otradovka - this is what is called the capture of Artemovsk from the south.
To capture Artemovsk from the north, the enemy must at least take Sacco and Vanzetti, Dubovo-Vasilyevka, Berkhovka, Yagodnoye, Krasnaya Gora - this can be called the capture of Artemovsk from the north. At the moment, the enemy was not able to implement this.

5. Therefore, on May 21, the enemy not only lost Artemovsk, but against the background of stories about the capture of Artemovsk, he himself sits in a semi-coverage to the west of the city.

You can study the map in detail here https://map-svo.rf/ (with relief)
Authors of the map https://t.me/z_arhiv

* * *

General situation.

1. By May 21, the territory of the city of Artemovsk is completely liberated. The legal renaming of the city in accordance with Pushilin's decree on the rollback of all Ukrainian renaming to the state of May 2014 came into force. Since May 20, we have the Russian city of Artemovsk - de jure and de facto.
In the city itself, the cleansing of the western outskirts continues.
A serious demining process is ahead, which will be activated after the APU is driven away from the western outskirts of the city, because. now the enemy continues to shell our positions in the city with artillery and mortars.
There is a lot of dirty work associated with cleaning up corpses, incl. from under the ruins of high-rise buildings. There will be many of them.

2. The fighting in the Artemovsk direction does not stop. The units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that retreated from Artemovsk are trying to stay in the area of ​​the settlement. Chrome and Red.
Khromovo is not yet directly stormed, but covered with artillery. The position of the enemy there is difficult, and as our troops consolidate on the western outskirts of the city, the situation for the remnants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Khromovo will worsen even more. With Krasny it is more difficult - the enemy has a fairly serious fortified area there, which is reinforced by those forces that were able to retreat from Artemovsk.
The withdrawal at Kleshcheevka removed the semi-coverage from Krasnoy, which would somewhat complicate the subsequent operations of the RF Armed Forces to liberate Krasnoy.

3. The roads to Artemovsk through Chasov Yar and Khromovo lost their former significance. Almost all bridges on them are destroyed. Today, the RF Armed Forces destroyed the bridge near Krasnoe. On the roads and fields to the west of Artemovsk, there are still dozens of skeletons of destroyed wheeled and tracked vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The accumulation of enemy forces in Konstantinovka, Chasov Yar and Kramatorsk continue to be subjected to rocket and bomb attacks. It can be expected that soon the artillery impact in the direction of Chasov Yar and Konstantinovka will increase.

4. Information about the withdrawal of the enemy from Bogdanovka, Stupok, Orekhovo-Vasilyevka, etc. to the line Ray-Aleksandrovka - Chasov Yar is not true. At best, we could talk about the passage through these settlements of the remnants of the enemy forces from Artemovsk, which were assigned for rest and replenishment. The enemy intends to defend these settlements. In the meantime, he did not give up hope of achieving something more in his counterattacks to the northwest and southwest of Artemovsk.
It is possible that attempts will still be made to capture Sacco and Vanzetti, Kurdyumovka, Kleshcheevka in order to somehow justify the high costs of the "counteroffensive" near Artemovsk, which has not even led to the capture of one seedy village against the backdrop of the loss of one of the key cities of Donbass.

5. The enemy has not yet completely used up the operational reserves, but the strategic reserves, which were intended for offensives in the Svatovsky and Zaporozhye directions, were not brought into action here, and we will see them again in the coming months. However, the Artyomovskaya grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (initially up to 80,000 bayonets) suffered huge losses and could not hold the city, which should not have been taken.

6. At the end of the month, a rotation will take place in Artemovsk - the RF Armed Forces will replace the Wagner PMC, which goes to the rear for rest and replenishment after a successful operation to liberate Artemovsk. I am sure that if the hardware conflicts between Prigozhin and the leadership of the Ministry of Defense do not interfere, we will again see the Wagner in one of the key sectors of the NWO, where his experience and skill will be required.

PS. Prigozhin announced by night that from the end of May to the end of June, Wagner PMCs would not appear on vacation and at the front. They will rest and accept replenishment after 14 months of continuous fighting.

The commanders of PMC "Wagner" who took Artemovsk. All Heroes of Russia and holders of various state and PMC awards.

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"Ratibor"

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"Zombie" "Mehan" "Salem" The broadcast of hostilities in Ukraine, as usual, continues in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin - if you are interested, subscribe

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https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8373394.html

Deliveries of American weapons to Ukraine from 02/24/2022 to 05/21/2023
May 21, 7:55 p.m

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Cumulative deliveries of American arms, equipment and ammunition to Ukraine by May 21, 2023

Of course, here is only what was announced publicly. What was not announced, but delivered, is not included in this list.

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https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8372970.html

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
The situation on the islands of the mouth of the Dnieper River

1. Islands (spits, floodplains, etc.) under the control of units of the RF Armed Forces.

2. The enemy is constantly trying to show the presence (landing of the DRG, photo, video), which is accompanied by information stuffing on the Internet under the slogan - "This island is under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine!"

3. Such attempts take place for a very short time, since the planned artillery targets were assigned a long time ago and fire damage is inflicted on the identified enemy.

4. Irretrievable and sanitary losses of the enemy are very high, but now wander through the floodplains, reeds and swamps, count the corpses in / sl. APU no one will.

5. The units of the RF Armed Forces are constantly monitoring the actions of the enemy, for some time a fairly successful use of air bombs with UMPC modules by aviation has been noted.

(c) according to information from a source from a direction

***

Colonelcassad
In the Belgorod region.
It seems that the current activity at the border precedes the real activation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in other directions - primarily the Zaporizhzhya branch.
Of course, they will try with all their might to bring down the negative of the last days associated with the loss of Artemovsk.
It can be noted how closely these actions are integrated into the information activities of the IPSO. The content of the action is identical to the raid of the Nazis in the Bryansk region.

As for the issue of the security of the Belgorod region, without occupying the north of the Kharkov region, it is hardly possible to ensure complete security of the region's borders from shelling, actions of the DRG, etc.

***

Colonelcassad
Our sources from among the local “sane” civilians of the territories of the DPR occupied by Ukraine report:

On the night of May 20-21, a large batch of armored vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the NSU drove into Avdeevka through the Kurakhovo railway station. During the last 72 hours, wave after wave of enemy manpower arrived in the specified city, incl. and personnel of the so-called. "assault brigades". In addition, there is a sharp increase in tanks and other military vehicles of Ukraine on the territory of an old brick factory in Krasnogorovka.

Today, May 21, 2023, starting at 20:00, the personnel of the Avdiivka garrison began to be given narcotic painkillers (we do not write that this is promedol, because the Ukrainian side has long been supplied with "foreign drugs"). In addition, our reconnaissance has been recording the attempts of the Ukrainian side to find gaps in our defenses for the advancement of tank columns from Avdiivka towards Donetsk for the fourth day already.

Also, our sources note that the Ukrainian Air Force has a combat order for the use of ADM-160B MALD decoy missiles in the Donetsk direction on May 22-25, which also serves as an intelligence sign of the enemy preparing an attack on the capital of the DPR (these missiles are a cheap means of overcoming air defense).

TOTAL: all the soldiers and defenders of New Russia keep their ears open! Starting from 03:00 am on 05/22/2023 and in the next 48 hours - maximum attention to attempts to covertly advance the enemy towards Donetsk! But don't panic - just keep the ATGMs at the ready a little more actively than we kept them

***

Colonelcassad
About Zaluzhny Schrödinger

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny finally appeared in public at a video conference on the occasion of Science Day. For a long time there were rumors that he was either killed or badly wounded. We believe that it could have been covered on May 8 during an attack on the bunker in Mezhirichi with two "Daggers".

And now a video with Zaluzhny appeared on the Web. True, after it there are more questions than answers.

No, we have no doubts about the sincerity of the video: at first we thought it was some kind of processing through neural networks / swap face. Zaluzhny's speech corresponds to the theme, he himself looks haggard, and the smeared background can be an office somewhere on the ZKP. Well, or a hospital ward.

But two questions arise:when was the video recorded and why did Zaluzhny owe his first public appearance to the Day of Science ?

It is very strange that there was no announcement of the event against the background of rumors in the media. The video was centrally uploaded yesterday via Odessa Telegram channels, and the primary source is the National University "Odessa Law Academy". By the way, the rector of the academy, Sergei Kivalov, has been a good friend of Zaluzhny for many years.

The video was published on the YouTube channel of the university on May 19, but it is strange that, against the background of rumors about the death of the commander-in-chief, large Ukrainian media did not distribute it, and this was entrusted to local Odessa nets without much scale.

The video gained the greatest popularity thanks to Russian Telegram channels, where it was uploaded via feedback bots.

The reaction of the audience at the event also looks strange, as if it were absolutely not interested in what is happening, despite the fact that, in fact, one of the first persons of the non-state Ukraine is speaking.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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MAY 21, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
US hopes to snatch victory from jaws of defeat in Ukraine

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Top Ukrainian intelligence official Kirill Budanov has proposed a 100-km-long demilitarised zone between Ukraine and Russia
The G7 Leaders’ 2700-word statement on Ukraine, issued in Hiroshima after their summit meeting glossed over the burning question today — the so-called counter-offensive against the Russian forces.

It is a deafening silence, since rumours are swirling about the disappearance of the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces. Significantly, President Vladimir Zelensky himself is making himself scarce from Kiev touring world capitals — Helsinki, Hague, Rome, Vatican, Berlin, Paris, London and Jeddah and Hiroshima. It does seem that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

As the G7 summit ended, the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin announced on Saturday that the Russian operation to capture the strategic communication hub of Bakhmut in Donbass region of eastern Ukraine lasting 224 days, has been brought to a successful completion, overcoming the resistance by more than 80,000 Ukrainian troops.

It is a painful moment for Zelensky, who had boasted before US lawmakers in Capitol Hill last December that “just like the Battle of Saratoga (in 1777 during the American Revolutionary War), the fight for Bakhmut will change the trajectory of our war for independence and for freedom.”

Meanwhile, to distract attention, there is talk now about a subtle shift in the US policy regarding supply of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine in an indeterminate future. In reality, though, no one can tell what the Ukrainian rump state will look like when the jets arrive. Unsurprisingly, the Biden Administration still seems to be in two minds. F-16 is a hot item for export; what happens if the Russians were to blow it out of the sky with their hi-tech weapons and rubbish its fame ?

The Russians seem to have concluded that nothing short of a total victory will make the Americans and the British understand that Moscow means business on the three objectives behind the special military operations that are non-negotiable: security and safety of the ethnic Russian community and their right to live in peace and dignity in the new territories; demilitarisation and de-Nazification of Ukraine; and a neutral, sovereign, independent Ukraine freed from the US clutches and no longer a hostile neighbour.

To be sure, the unprecedented levels of US hostility towards Russia only hardened Moscow’s resolve. If the Anglo-Saxon alliance keeps climbing the escalation ladder, the Russian campaign may well expand the operation to the entire region east of the Dnieper River. The Russians are in this war for the long haul and the ball is in the American court.

What comes to mind is a speech last July by President Vladimir Putin while addressing the Duma. He had said, “Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can I say? Let them try. We have already heard a lot about the West wanting to fight us ‘to the last Ukrainian.’ This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but that seems to be where it is going. But everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything in earnest yet.”

Well, the Russian operation has finally started “in earnest.” The thinking behind the delay is unmistakeable. Putin underscored in his speech that the West should know that the longer Russia’s special military operation goes on, “the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us.”

Therefore, the big question is about the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Russian forces enjoy overwhelming superiority in every sense militarily. Even if the hard core of the Ukrainian forces who were trained in the West, numbering some 30-35000 soldiers, manage to achieve some “breakthrough” in the 950-kilometre long frontline, what happens thereafter?

Make no mistake, a massive Russian counterattack will follow and the Ukrainian soldiers may only end up in a fire trap and suffer huge losses in their tens of thousands. What would the Anglo-Saxon axis have achieved?

Besides, the Ukrainian military will have so thoroughly exhausted itself that there will be nothing stopping the Russian forces from advancing toward Kharkov and Odessa. Herein lies the paradox. For, from that point, Russians will have no one to talk to.

If past American behaviour — be it Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq and Syria — is anything to go by, Washington will do nothing. The well-known American strategic thinker Col. (Retd.) David MacGreggor couldn’t have put things better when he said earlier this week:

“I can tell you that Washington is going to do nothing. And I’ve always warned… we (United States) are not a continental power, not a land power anywhere but in our own Hemisphere. We are primarily an aerospace and maritime power, much like Great Britain. And what does that mean? When things go badly for us, we sail away, we fly away, we go home… That’s what we always do. Eventually, we just leave. And I think, that’s on the agenda now.”

The stony silence of the G7 statement on the Ukrainian counteroffensive is understandable. The G7 statement needs to be juxtaposed with a report appearing in Politico on the eve of the summit in Hiroshima which, quoting senior US officials elaborated on an audacious plan to transform Ukraine war into a “frozen conflict” on the analogy of the Korean Peninsula or Kashmir.

A Pentagon official told the daily that recent military aid packages to Ukraine reflect the Biden administration’s “shift to a longer-term strategy.” Reportedly, US officials are already talking to Kiev about the nature of their relationship in the future.

Principally, if Ukraine’s NATO membership bid stalls, western guarantees could range from a NATO-style Article 5 mutual defence deal to Israel-style arms deals with Ukraine so that “the conflict will wind up somewhere in between an active war and a chilled standoff.”

Indeed, the G7 statement began conceptualising the “Europeanisation” of Ukraine with reforms, market economy driven by private sector and western financial institutions, and boosting Kiev’s deterrent capability vis-a-vis Russia militarily.

It is quite amazing. Hardly has one flawed narrative — espousing Russia’s military defeat in Ukraine and the overthrow of Putin — unravelled, another narrative is being hoisted, predicated on the simplistic notion that Russia will simply roll over and passively watch the US integrating Ukraine into the western alliance system to create an open wound festering on Russia’s western borders that will drain resources for decades to come and complicating ties with neighbours.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s reaction to the G7 Summit confirms that Moscow will not fall into the trap of a “frozen conflict.” Lavrov said, “Could you take a look at those decisions which are being debated and adopted at the G7 summit in Hiroshima and which are aimed at dual containment of Russia and the People’s Republic of China?

“The objective was announced loudly and frankly, which is to defeat Russia on the battlefield, and without stopping at this, to eliminate it later as a geopolitical rival, so to speak, along with any other country that claims an independent place in the world, they will be suppressed as opponents.”

Lavrov also pointed out that the Western countries’ expert community is overtly discussing the order to work out scenarios aimed at Russia’s breakup, and “they do not conceal that the existence of Russia as an independent centre is incompatible with the goal of the West’s global domination.” The Minister said, “We have to give a firm and consistent response to the war declared upon us.”
Yet, it is not as if Americans are incapable of seeing the war through Russia’s eyes. Read here a letter pleading for some sanity in Washington penned by a group of distinguished former American diplomats and military officials associated with the Eisenhower Media Network. By the way, they paid to get it in the New York Times, but the rest of the establishment media chose to ignore it. https://eisenhowermedianetwork.org/russ ... war-peace/

https://www.indianpunchline.com/us-hope ... n-ukraine/

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BRAVADO BEFORE CAPITULATION – WILL RUSSIAN DEFEAT OF US PATRIOT MISSILE BE FOLLOWED BY “UKRAINIAN F-16” ATTACK DURING THE NATO “AIR DEFENDER 23” EXERCISE ON JUNE 12

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

There is a grave risk that in three weeks’ time US and NATO forces will attempt direct combat against Russia.

The operational plan is to strike from Romanian airspace in the south and the Baltic states in north, in camouflage of the NATO exercise called “Air Defender 23”, and under cover of US F-16 fighter aircraft purportedly operated by Ukrainian pilots but fuelled, directed, and guarded by more than two hundred US and NATO aircraft, including the most advanced US air war fighter, the F-35.

“This [is] the largest deployment exercise since the foundation of NATO”, according to the cover story published by NATO headquarters, “ Commanded at US bases in Germany, ostensibly led by German officers, a Bundeswehr “fact sheet” claims “100 [US] Air National Guard aircraft from 35 different states will make the leap across the Atlantic to participate in Air Defender 2023. In addition to the world’s most modern jets, the F35, more than 20 different types of aircraft and Airmen from 24 nations will practice air warfare operations together over Germany, but also over eastern Europe on the NATO border. Among them Eurofighter, F18, F16, A10, [Saab] Gripen jets.”

Including the Ukrainian regime in Kiev as one of “our partners in East and South-Eastern Europe”, the German military announcement says “we want to promote collective defense of common values (freedom, democracy, prosperity) – attack on one NATO nation is an attack on responsiveness of airpower – Allied air forces are first responders.”

Camouflaging US direction of the combined NATO attack operations from the Ramstein base in Germany, headquarters of the allied air command in Europe, are two parallel operations. “Two NATO exercises, RAMSTEIN DUST for NATOs Deployable Air Command and Control capability, the DARS, and RAMSTEIN GUARD for Electronic Warfare are linked into our exercise.”

In design since the start of the Russian Special Military Operation in February 2022, this plan of US and NATO air operations against Russia follows the defeat of the Ukrainian ground forces at Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and the strategic defeat of the US Patriot missile system at Kiev by the Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile on May 16.

The use of NATO exercises to conceal active attacks on Russian targets was first demonstrated last September when the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up following the BALTOPS naval exercise. More recently, on May 13 a US-directed ambush of Russian aircraft was rehearsed when an Su-34 fighter-bomber, an SU-35 air-defence escort, and two Mi8 helicopters were hit simultaneously and downed in Russian airspace, over Bryansk region.

Listen to the broadcast discussion now:https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/war- ... -may-2023/
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The White House and Pentagon have been attempting to downplay the strategic significance of the Kinzhal strike against the Patriot system.

US officials, amplified by CNN and other propaganda outlets, have claimed there was “minimal” damage to “two components of the system”. No US casualties have been acknowledged in the 90-man crew required to operate the Patriot system’s radar, control centre, missile units, re-loading, and other equipment.

The day after the attack, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the military briefer at the White House, wasn’t so sure. Asked to clarify what had happened, Kirby said: “I cannot, no. First of all, I cannot confirm the reports. [On whether the Ukrainians can repair the damage] it would depend on, it would depend on the scope of the damage. As to whether or not it can be repaired by the Ukrainians, or whether we might need to help them… Obviously, if there was damage done to a Patriot system that needed to be repaired outside Ukraine, we would certainly assist with that.”

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Click to listen from Minute 18:35 to 19:27. https://www.c-span.org/video/?528130-1/ ... y-briefing

There has been no press release, briefing, or comment from the Pentagon on the Patriot strike. No US official, and no US media have reported the failure of the Patriot to intercept the Russian missile, despite warnings from Moscow since last December that this would happen.

At that time Dmitry Medvedev, the former president and now deputy head of the Kremlin’s Security Council, said: “Even before reports emerged on the delivery of Patriot systems, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council which is chaired by President Vladimir Putin, warned that if Patriots enter Ukraine ‘along with NATO personnel, they will immediately become a legitimate target for our armed forces.’”

President Vladimir Putin issued his warning on December 25: “Of course we will destroy it, 100 percent!”

The post-operational Russian intelligence reports of May 18 and May 20 indicate “a multifunctional radar station, as well as five launchers of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system manufactured by the United States were hit and completely destroyed.”

In the days following, Russian military operations have intensified long-range missile attacks targeting anti-aircraft defence complexes, rail marshalling yards, fuel and ammunition stocks, equipment parks, and reserve assembly areas in the west of the Ukraine, including Khmelnitsky, Rivne, Zhitomir, and Lvov. The scope of targeting goes beyond the Electric War of previous months, a NATO forces veteran comments. “It’s now a full-on campaign. Now that the US/NATO air defence has proven to be useless against Russian strike capabilities, I expect them to take to the sky. It’s all they have left.”

The source agrees with retired US military experts in the alternative media who do not believe that supplying old F-16 aircraft to Kiev adds significant air defence or air attack capability against Russia. The F-16s for the Ukraine are a deception, camouflage for a much deeper NATO attack plan, the source warns. “How about the F-16s being cover for US F-22s or other US aircraft in Romanian or Polish airspace, firing stand- off weapons?”

This is now the looming Russia-attack threat of the Ramstein “exercises”; these are scheduled to run from June 12 to June 24. Japan is one of the non-member state NATO “partners” officially acknowledged to be participating; the Ukraine is not mentioned in the NATO press releases.

The German Army is less reticent about the identity of “partners” engaged in Air Defender 23, , as distinct from the NATO member states. The Germans are claiming “our Eastern partners are participating in the exercise, with air assets and planners in the Air Operations Headquarters. Additionally, we plan and conduct daily missions to show force at NATO’s eastern flank.” The Luftwaffe is planning “three big Composite Air Operations every day – with about 40-80 aircraft each, and command and control elements. All in all, it is about 250 sorties per day.”

“We created three large Exercise Areas in the east, south and north of Germany that will be used every day in sequenced activation. Additionally, our neighbours Poland and Czech Republic offered their Military Training Areas for so called continuation training, means smaller Air Defence exercise missions outside the big waves.”

“Air Defender reflects the Russian war of aggression,” the Germany military have declared. “The war in Ukraine determines our present and shapes our future…With Air Defender we send a clear signal that we absolutely guarantee the security of the alliance. Without ifs or buts. We need to train as we fight, so we can fight as we have trained.” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been more explicit, claiming he supports air attacks on Russian territory, and is building German-Polish combat support bases on the Polish side of the border with the Ukraine. It is “completely normal” in such a military conflict, Pistorius has said, “that the attacked party also moves into the opponent’s territory, for example, to cut off supply routes.” “

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German Luftwaffe chief, Lieutenant-General Ingo Gerhartz with (left) Defense Minister Boris Pistorius; (right) with US Air Force Chief of Staff, General Charles Brown, making a gift of a model of one of Manfred von Richthofen’s red “flying circus” fighters of World War I. Unlike von Richthofen, Gerhartz has risen from conscript to general without ever having faced an adversary in air combat. His only military action to date was dropping bombs on Afghan civilians.

South of the Ukrainian battlefield, Romania and Bulgaria will also be participating in the Air Defender 23 operations. Watch the rehearsals for reconnaissance, electronic warfare, targeting command and control in Romanian airspace on May 11.

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Click to enlarge picture at source.

These operations are far from new and no surprise to the counterpart Russians operating in the Black Sea and from Crimea.

If Russian military intelligence moves from suspicion to conviction that air attacks by US and NATO aircraft are being readied under cover of the Ukrainian F-16s, Moscow sources anticipate “asymmetrical response”. The sources believe that if and when Poland or Romania allows a “Ukrainian” F-16 to take off from a local airfield to attack Russian forces, Polish and Romanian air bases will become Russian missile targets, just as the Patriot batteries were. US and NATO air support for such an F-16 sortie, including AWACS and RC-135 warfighting systems in the air at the same time, would become collateral targets.

The Poles have been showing reluctance for direct war with Russia. President Andrzej Duda had revealed this last November 2022 when he thought he was speaking on a secure telephone line to French President Emmanuel Macron. “Do you think I need a war with Russia?” Duda said then. “No, I don’t want that. I don’t want a war with Russia, I’m extremely careful, believe me. I am extremely careful.”

That was six months ago. Last week in Iceland Duda claimed Poland would not supply F-16 aircraft to the Ukraine. He omitted what Poland is already doing, and will do next month during Air Defender 23.

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Source: https://www.rp.pl/

According to the Polish press report, “President Andrzej Duda spoke about the possibility of transferring Polish fighters to Ukraine in Reykjavik on May 17.” “ ‘We are in the absolute vanguard of countries when it comes to the transfer of weapons to Ukraine. It is we who have handed over virtually unprecedented amounts of arms as far as the European Union is concerned. We handed over 300 tanks to Ukraine. We have already handed over to Ukraine all our MiG-29s, which Ukraine has been asking for since the very beginning of the conflict,’ he said.”

“We have a relatively small number of F-16 aircraft. We are ready to support the process of training Ukrainian pilots – I talked about this with the Prime Minister, the Minister of National Defense some time ago. However, the number of F-16 aircraft that we have does not allow us to talk about transferring any part of them to Ukraine today. We are ready to systematically hand over the MiG-29. We have a problem there, because we have some MiGs that already operate in NATO standards, they perform the Air Policing mission, and therefore they serve the defense of NATO countries, but we promised that we will successively hand over these aircraft – said Duda.”

In the third and final segment of the TNT Radio broadcast, the discussion focuses on the Jack Teixeira case in which the US is accusing Teixeira of stealing and publishing Ukraine war briefing papers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

New evidence revealed in US federal court last week reveals how much the US Air Force (USAF) command has known about Teixeira for months before the Pentagon Papers leak, and how much encouragement Teixeira received to copy and post documents he said at the time he had no intention of disclosing.

For detailed background on the new evidence of what USAF Chief of Staff General Charles Brown and his subordinates knew, and when they knew it, read this. https://johnhelmer.net/newly-released-u ... pers-leak/

https://johnhelmer.net/bravado-before-c ... more-88021
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Tue May 23, 2023 7:08 pm

border raid
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 05/23/2023

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Yesterday morning, with pompous announcements published by the participants in the events, an operation began in the Russian region of Belgorod that was reminiscent of what happened last March, when a group of soldiers attached to the Main Directorate of Military Intelligence (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine crossed the Russian border in a raid that Ukraine described, at the same time, as a false flag of the Kremlin and a heroic act of Russian clandestine groups opposed to the Russian authorities. Since then, American media such as The Washington Posthave published articles in which they recounted the plans of the director of the GUR, Kiril Budanov, in the Russian rear. Among them were the capture of Russian cities and towns, not to claim the territory, but as a tool to pressure the Russian authorities. According to The Washington Post , Budanov would have taken the example of the actions of Chechen groups in Dagestan, which sought to capture territory and hostages. Something similar has occurred in the last few hours.

***

Between 8:31 and 9:31 in the morning of yesterday, May 23, the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK for its acronym in Russian), one of the groups participating in the "special" actions of the Ukrainian GUR, published on its channel Telegram various videos of just a few seconds in which some of its militants posed in front of the entrance signs to various locations in Russian regions. In their first publication they accompanied the graphic document: “ It seems that the RDK fighters are visiting their homeland again! The flames of the fight are lit! ”.

In that interval, on his Facebook, Dmytro Korchinsky asked his followers to pray for the members of his Bratsvo battalion, and other units " that are storming the enemy fortress at the moment ." As is well known, Bratstvo is another of the groups that Ukrainian military intelligence relies on for this type of irregular action on Russian territory.

A few hours later, at 2:34 p.m., Korchinsky added that “ the battles in the Belgorod region are the largest land combat operations in the territory of Erefia not only since the beginning of the large-scale war, but also since 1943 ” , assuming de facto the continuity observed between both wars. However, and beyond the flagrant exaggeration of the facts, reflecting the Gran-Ukrainian dimensionof his political vision (as that of the elite of the current Ukrainian political system), he went on to point out that still “the Belgorod region is the east of Slobozhanshchina temporarily occupied by the Moskali, so, in fact, the war is still being fought on the territory of Ukraine”. This irredentism that Korchinsky displays is not exclusive to the extreme nationalist right of groups like Bratstvo. Last year, on his last visit to Kiev before the start of the Russian military intervention, one of the images published by Ukraine showed Antony Blinken looking in the office of Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba at a map of the "greater Ukraine" that it included several Russian regions.

However, irredentism is not the main argument of these military operations on the other side of the border. Yesterday morning, social networks spoke of "fierce battles", capture of towns -small villages in the border area-, evacuation of the city of Belgorod and general panic, the latter being the main objective of the operation. The Russian authorities reported the shelling of one of the towns near the border and added that a residential house had been destroyed and that three civilians had been injured. From there, an operation against the sabotage groups that had penetrated across the border began in the Belgorod region.

During those hours, the Russian Volunteer Corps, a well-known unit led by Denis Nikitin , White Rex¸ a neo-Nazi with a long history on the extreme right and whose unit operates under the cover of the Main Directorate of Military Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced its participation. In the published images, the volunteersfrom the RDK showed one of the vehicles that have participated in the operation: a US-made MaxxPro delivered to Ukraine by Washington, which theoretically has always claimed that its equipment would not be used on Russian territory. This has also been insisted on by the kyiv authorities, who have recently renewed their promise in relation to the F-16 fighters. Until now, the United States had explicitly insisted that its weapons should not be used in attacks on Russian territory.

At 11:18 a.m., the War Monitor Twitter account noted that, according to Russian sources, "a fierce battle is currently being waged" against a Ukrainian reconnaissance and diversion group "on the border of the Belgorod region, near the town of Dronovka”. A little earlier, the RDK published a video in which he indicated to continue working during the day.

The available data on the raid is sparse, confusing and, as is often the case in war, contradictory. While the Russian sources admitted the battles, the capture of buildings in small towns, the use of armored vehicles and a small number of tanks and gave importance to the Ukrainian operation, the Ukrainian sources added epic to the issue and tried to install the discourse of a offensive against Belgorod and even the evacuation of the oblast capital .

The same Twitter account indicated at 11.21 that an unidentified military vehicle had entered, from Ukrainian territory, the area of ​​the Graivoron checkpoint (actually Kozinka), also in the Belgorod region, about 30 kilometers from Dronovka. At 11:23 a.m., he published an image, taken from a Ukrainian drone, of one of the border towns in the Graivoron district, attacked by artillery fire for more than an hour.

Another video, posted at 12:47 p.m. and recorded from a Ukrainian drone at the same border checkpoint, showed a column of several Ukrainian armored vehicles and soldiers, including an American Humvee.

In parallel, mention was made at 11:35 a.m. of a false document relating to an official decree. At 11:41 a.m., the head of the Belgorod region reported that false information was being spread about a proposal to evacuate residents of the Shebekinsky (Belgorod) district.

At 1:00 p.m., the Legion and the RDK claimed responsibility for the capture of Kozinka (Belgorod), as well as the entry into Graivoron of advanced detachments. Ukrainian drone footage showed a military column allegedly near the Belgorod border.

At 1:15 p.m., local residents showed the arrival of helicopters of the Russian forces, flying at very low altitude, and firing. At 1:36 p.m., Governor Gladkov confirmed that a sabotage and reconnaissance group from the Armed Forces of Ukraine had infiltrated the Graivoron district and noted that the Armed Forces of the Federation, together with the border services, the Russian Guard and the FSB, they were taking the necessary measures.

At 14.04 it was added that the search for the saboteurs continued in the villages of Kozinka, Glotovo and Gora-Podol, south of Graivoron. These localities were then without water supply. At 2:14 p.m., artillery action in the area was reported. At 2:29 p.m., according to RIA Novosti , the Kremlin indicated that it was actively working to expel the saboteurs from Russian territory. Shortly after, Ka-52 attack helicopters were flying over the area and the local population reported the presence of Russian armored vehicles on the roads in the direction of Graivoron. At the same time, a photo of a grocery store destroyed during the clash with Ukrainian saboteurs in the village of Gora-Podol was published.

At 3:25 p.m., images of the battle in the city of Graivoron were published, showing a BMP automatic cannon in action.

At 3:38 p.m., Readovka announced that buses would be sent to evacuate the Graiboron area, including the surrounding villages.

At 15:53, the governor of Belgorod specified that three residential houses and an administrative building had been damaged during the attacks that occurred near the border with Ukraine.

At 3:55 p.m., Baza posted footage showing Ukrainian saboteurs shooting at and seizing a civilian car in the Belgorod region. The saboteurs then deployed anti-tank systems near the car. In all these actions, American MRAPs and HMMWVs would have been used.

At 4:55 p.m., a video of RDK militants was published. On the right of the picture, one of the participants in the march action in Bryansk, Kirill Kanakhin.

At 17.08 the status of anti-terrorist action in the Belgorod region was announced.

At 17:31 Alexander Bogomaz, Governor of the Bryansk region, reported that the village of Solovyovka had been attacked with artillery and specified that a house and an outside building had been destroyed.

At 17.58 it was announced that fighting with the Ukrainian saboteurs is still going on in the villages of Kozinka and Glotovo. In Glotovo, the fighting took place in the residential sector, which made it impossible to evacuate the civilian population (scarce in these villages). The Ukrainian forces seemed to have established positions in this exclusively civilian area and hiding behind that population.

At 5:38 p.m., Vitaly Chorny, one of the best-known figures in the Bratstvo battalion, published a statement in which he made clear the objective of the attack: to create panic and destabilization based on a disinformation exercise.

The saboteurs seized the police station in Graivoron and in the form of Russian policemen in police cars are moving towards Belgorod, the advanced groups have already entered.

Request to Belgorod residents to open fire without warning at people in police uniforms.

Attention, in Belgorod and its surroundings at the moment there is no Russian police. All people in police uniforms are DRG, they shoot to kill.

Spread the word!

At 6:09 p.m., the governor of Belgorod reported that a large part of the population of the border villages and the regional center into which the Ukrainian sabotage group had entered had left the territory.

At the end of the day the operation continued and so did the narrative duel. Always victorious in his operations, even in those that, like the previous Bratstvo adventure across the border, ended in catastrophe for the group, Dmitro Korchinsky announced heavy casualties and material losses for the Russian forces. Russia, for its part, announced the death of 39 Ukrainian saboteurs.

In the evening, Russian sources claimed that the Russian troops had regained control of Glotovo and Graivoronsky, but admitted the seriousness of the events, which had forced the authorities of the Russian Federation to implement the status of an anti-terrorist operation.

***

Regardless of the results, casualties and destruction, which cannot be assessed until the fog of war clears, Ukraine has achieved the success it sought with this operation, which was always fundamentally informational. The presence of sabotage and reconnaissance groups in border areas is common and difficult to detect. The use of small groups further complicates their detection, especially in small villages where there is not, and cannot be, a military presence. The use of these locations, obviously of no strategic importance, shows the willingness of these groups to use the population and the civil infrastructure as a shield to prevent the work of the Russian forces and to guarantee damage in the event of military action against sabotage.

Any raid across the border also seeks to create uncertainty among the civilian population, with the obvious objective, openly recognized by the Ukrainian government, of creating instability in the Russian Federation, a country that Ukraine aspires to balkanize - decolonize in the words of Kiril Budanov , who celebrated his birthday by cutting a cake in the shape of Russia - and whose government he wants to overthrow. Suicidal overtones as with many of Budanov's GUR actions, the operation comes barely a day after the loss of Bakhmut was confirmed, now officially Artyomovsk, a particularly propitious time to launch an action to divert attention from the Ukrainian defeat.

In any case, the situation continues to be dangerous, especially for the civilian population, and it cannot be ruled out that there will be an increase in this type of operations, with which Ukraine intends to make the Russian Federation have to divert resources to defend these areas. border at the expense of places on the front. In this sense, the action of the RDK last March, much shorter and with fewer troops and means, appears to have been a simple rehearsal for future actions. It is possible that the action of these last hours is also the prelude to other similar operations.

As usual, Ukraine showed its joy at the events, although without claiming them. Once again, although the battalions of the soldiers participating in the action have not hidden their participation and the statements are proof of the participation of the Ukrainian military structures, Mikhailo Podolyak stated that "Ukraine is watching the situation in the Belgorod region with interest and studying the situation, but it has nothing to do with it” and added that “clandestine guerrilla groups are made up of Russian citizens”. Budanov may have checked the passports of RDK members - many of them residing in Ukraine before February 24, 2022 and members of groups linked to the Azov regiment or the Russian Imperial Movement,

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/05/23/redad ... a/#respond

Google Translator

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THE BRITISH GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING – URANIUM IRRADIATED WIND AND RAIN FOR POLAND, GERMANY, DENMARK, NETHERLANDS, AND LONDON TOO

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By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

This is a primer on the way the wind has been blowing since the Ukrainian ammunition stockpile was blown up at Khmelnitsky in the early hours of May 13.

Radiation measurements in the western Ukrainian city appear to have risen sharply on May 13 and 14, indicating that British-supplied depleted uranium shells for anti-tank warfare had been detonated. The radiation-level spiking caused by the release of the depleted uranium (DU) has been denied by Ukrainian officials.

US media reported on May 15 that “while not all of the facts and information about the multiple strikes on Western regions of Ukraine have been fully established, there are several elements to the viral conspiracy narrative that are provably false, misleading or lack evidence.” “While Newsweek could not rule out the possibility that the ‘depleted uranium’ shells provided by the U.K. had been stored there, past reports about the nature of these munitions put a big question mark over that claim.”

Newsweek endorsed Ukrainian government agency claims. “Energoatom, the National Nuclear Power Company of Ukraine, said in its official Telegram channel that ‘the radiation level at the industrial site [in Khmelnitsky] and in the surrounding regions is at a level corresponding to the normal operation of power units and does not exceed natural background values.’”

A statement by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeated the Ukrainian government claim without publishing independent radiation measurements of its own. The IAEA was reported by Newsweek as having “poured cold water over the claims. “The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency today that there have been no measurements of elevated levels of gamma radiation in the country’s western regions in recent days,” a representative of the international body told Newsweek in an email.”

Social media from the region have indicated a rapid exodus of the population in the vicinity of the blast. Anti-radiation measures have been introduced for the residents of the Ternopol region, which neighbours Khmelnitsky to the west.

The wind has been blowing northwest into Poland since, and raining. The Polish state Atomic Energy Agency (PAA) has been reporting radiation-level spiking since May 15. The highest measurements have been reported at Lublin and Krakow in the south, and then Gydnia, a port on Poland’s north coast.

On May 19 in Moscow, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Security Council, said the “elimination [of the Khmelnitsky stockpile] has caused a radioactive cloud that is now moving towards Western Europe. An increase in radiation levels has already been registered in Poland.” Patrushev was repeating what the PAA had already confirmed.

For independent evidence of radiation-level spiking in Europe and its causes in the Ukraine, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), directed by Rafael Grossi in Vienna, has not been either independent or credible since the war began; for the archive documenting the war-fighting bias of Grossi and the IAEA, click.

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Left: Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. For more, read this: https://johnhelmer.net/

For a review of the evidence that the international and European government models for safe exposure to radiation of depleted uranium are faulty, and that the Ukrainian and IAEA statements on the Khmelnitsky detonation are misleading, read this paper, published in 2022, by Christopher Busby, an English chemical physicist and expert on radioactivity.

“[The] local absorbed dose from internal radioactive particles of Uranium (for example from Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons) to tissue volumes within the range of alpha decays (about 4 cells) is not small. The deposited dose to a single cell from a single alpha decay track is about 500mSv. Yet the ICRP [International Commission on Radiation Protection] model dilutes this energy into a kilogram of tissue and dismisses the resulting nanoSieverts [μSv/h], as irrelevant and unable to cause cancer. The concept of Absorbed Dose itself as a covariate for internal exposures has been questioned…”

“The current radiation risk model, which is the basis of legal limits of exposures to internal radionuclide contaminants has been shown by mechanistic and epidemiological studies to be unsafe… The evidence from Chernobyl, from the weapons fallout, from the nuclear sites, and from cell biology, and simple mechanistic considerations show that the model is unsafe. But because of economics and power, university funding and journal publication bias, no change occurs. Attempts to draw attention to the issue are blocked at every turn. Journal reviewers and editors reject articles and letters. Court cases on cancer are regularly settled to prevent the issue going before a jury…European law, the Basic Safety Standards Directive of the European Union has a clause requiring Justification of all Practices, and these must be changed if new and important evidence emerges. ICRP also in its earlier reports (1977, 1990) stated clearly that should there be new evidence, it would address it. It never did. And the clause disappeared from later ICRP reports. In reality, all the radiation protection agencies refuse to address any new evidence.”

The scientific and political debate over Busby’s research findings can be followed here.

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Christopher Busby; source: https://www.youtube.com/

Follow Busby’s research report, published in March 2023, that “data covering the period November 2017 to November 2022 was obtained from the Atomic Weapons Establishment [AWE] Aldermaston to find if there was an increase in Uranium associated with the Ukraine war. Results from 9 High Volume Air Samplers deployed onsite and offsite by AWE showed that there were significantly increased levels of Uranium in all 9 HVAS samplers beginning in February 2022 when the war began. The result has significant public health implications for the UK and Europe.”

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Note that the data points are five high-volume air-sampling measurement locations in the UK operated by the government agency, the Atomic Weapons Establishment. Source: https://www.researchgate.net/

Data gathering, measurement, and data charting ought not to be controversial – unless the data themselves are blacked out or misreported, as has been happening in recent days. The debate among scientists over Busby’s analysis has been focused primarily on what the cancer impacts are of exposure to DU and other sources of radiation at the abnormal levels now being registered from the Ukraine and Poland, and to be expected in Denmark, The Netherlands, and England.

In this report by Busby, obtained by the Russian state news agency Sputnik, the northwesterly winds blowing at about five kilometres an hour from Khmelnitsky triggered radiation spiking in Poland on May 15:

[img]
Source: https://sputnikglobe.com/

In the US propaganda version, “Newsweek has not been able to locate any official statements or credible reports that radiation levels in Khmelnytskyi or other parts of Ukraine are above normal or corroborate the claim about depleted uranium shells being destroyed in the Russian attack.”

Polish university sources and the Polish Atomic Energy Agency (PAA) corroborate the spiking. The highest levels reported publicly have been in Gdynia (0.103 μSv/h), Lublin (0.100 μSv/h) and Krakow (0.115 μSv/h).

The official Polish reaction has been to accept the reported data measurements, but deny the biological hazards. Marie Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS), the state establishment at Lublin, close to the Ukrainian border, has confirmed the sharp increase in radiation levels from May 15. However, the university adds the qualifier: “The increase in radiation intensity observed on May 15, 2023 is a natural phenomenon that is caused by rainfall. The isotope Bi-214 (formed as a result of the decay of radon gas rising from the ground) is captured by falling water droplets, which results in an increase in radiation intensity near the soil surface recorded by MR. This phenomenon has always accompanied humanity, and the increased intensity of radiation as a result has no significance for health.”

The report includes the first two illustrations reproduced in the lead to this story.

The university adds: “Due to the forecast rainfall, we expect another increase on May 17. It will probably be smaller, because the air has already cleared yesterday, but it depends on many factors, e.g. soaking the soil with water, wind direction, etc.”

This is the university’s most current chart of radiation levels, confirming the spiking on May 15 and again on May 17 through May 18, diminishing since then.

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Blue line=metered radiation levels; red line=above normal. Source: https://www.umcs.pl/

https://johnhelmer.net/the-british-gift ... more-88032

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Ukraine war a critical issue in upcoming elections in Slovakia as Eduard Heger steps down
President Zuzana Čaputová has now installed a technocrat caretaker cabinet headed by central bank deputy governor Ľudovít Ódor to run the government till the general elections scheduled on September 30

May 22, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch
19-05 Political Crisis - Slovakia

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Eduard Heger addressing the media. (Photo: via Reporters Without Borders)

The political and economic crisis inflicted by the ongoing war in Ukraine has been causing political instability across European countries. While European leaders continue trying to politically and financially isolate Russia through sanctions and other punitive measures, the repercussions of this have led to worsening living standards in most of the countries, triggering widespread protests against their respective political leaderships. In Slovakia, the coalition government led by Eduard Heger, a staunch ally of Kiev in the war against Russia, lost its parliamentary majority in December last year due to internal differences over the failure to tackle soaring inflation and the energy crisis. While Heger continued in power as the head of a caretaker government, he was forced to step down earlier this month due to disarray in his coalition. President Zuzana Čaputová has now installed a technocrat caretaker cabinet headed by central bank deputy governor Ľudovít Ódor to run the government till the general elections scheduled on September 30. The new caretaker government also has to face a confidence vote in parliament within 30 days.

Heger became the prime minister of Slovakia on April 1 last year, heading the coalition government led by the conservative populist platform Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OL’aNO). He came to power following a reshuffle in the cabinet, which was demanded by the coalition partners to replace Prime Minister and OL’aNo chief Igor Matovic.

From the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Heger was an active supporter of the Volodymyr Zelensky-led regime in Kiev and has also provided arms and ammunition, including a fleet of MiG fighters, helicopters, an air defense system, anti-tank missiles, etc. Meanwhile, an energy crisis brought on by sanctions on Russian oil supply and profiteering by energy giants spread across Europe over the last year. This led to a deterioration in living standards in Slovakia as well, with high fuel and food costs. Cheap gas from Russia was a major source of energy for Slovakia. In the wake of sanctions, inflation in the country hit 13.8% in April.

In the backdrop of the cost of living crisis last year, the Freedom and Solidarity Party (SaS) withdrew its support to the coalition government led by Heger and the minority government lost a vote of non-confidence pushed by the opposition in December 2022. 78 legislators supported the no-confidence motion in the 150-seat National Council. However, Heger continued to lead a caretaker government. On May 7, Heger resigned as prime minister, left OL’aNO, and joined the center-right pro-European party, the Democrats.

Meanwhile, in the latest opinion polls for the upcoming parliamentary elections, the left-wing populist party Direction-Slovak Social Democracy (SMER-SD), led by former Prime Minister Robert Fico is in the lead. Fico is a vocal opponent of Slovakia’s support to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.

Several sections are also dissatisfied with President Čaputová’s decision to appoint a technocrat-led caretaker government, rather than consulting the parliamentary parties. In his statement on May 11, Artur Bekmatov from the leadership of the Socialisti said that “by refusing to negotiate with representatives of selected parties represented in the National Council of Slovakia, president Zuzana Čaputovánot not only showed disrespect to tens of thousands of voters who voted for these parties, but also undermined her nominees. This is not the action of either a statesman or a bipartisan president.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/05/22/ ... teps-down/

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Biden Okays F-16s For Ukraine, US Weapons To Attack Crimea

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The Biden administration has signed off on both F-16s for Ukraine and attacks on Crimea using US-made weapons. Both of these moves have drawn dire warnings from nuclear-armed Russia, and both would have been unthinkable a year ago.

In a Sunday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper from the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made it clear that Washington would approve of US weapons being used in an offensive to recapture Crimea, a horrifying prospect that many experts have agreed is the most likely scenario to lead to nuclear warfare in this conflict. Sullivan told Tapper that while the US has forbidden the use of American weapons to attack Russia, the US considers Crimea to be part of Ukraine, not Russia.

Here’s CNN’s transcript of the exchange:

TAPPER: In February on this show, you would not say whether the U.S. would support Ukrainian efforts to recapture Crimea. That’s one of the concerns that has been expressed about whether or not the Ukrainians are given the ability to hit Russian targets in Crimea. Do you think that Crimea is part of Ukraine?

SULLIVAN: Of course.

TAPPER: So, what would be the objection of giving…

SULLIVAN: Crimea is Ukraine.

TAPPER: Right.

SULLIVAN: I mean, that’s a very straightforward thing.

TAPPER: Well, yes you answered it directly. I mean, Russia doesn’t think so, obviously. But do you think that Ukraine should have weapons that can reach Russian targets in Crimea?

SULLIVAN: Yes. We have not placed limitations on Ukraine being able to strike on its territory within its internationally recognized borders. What we have said is that we will not enable Ukraine with U.S. systems, Western systems, to attack Russia. And we believe Crimea is Ukraine.

TAPPER: OK.


Moscow has considered Crimea a part of the Russian Federation since its annexation in 2014, meaning efforts to recapture it would — at least in theory — be treated the same as an invasion of any other part of Russia. It was only by way of an arbitrary bureaucratic fluke that Crimea wound up a part of Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Crimeans overwhelmingly prefer to be a part of the Russian Federation. That we may soon be staring down the barrel of a nuclear third world war over something so pedantic is a very dark shade of absurd.

In the same interview, Tapper questioned Sullivan about the Biden administration’s policy shift toward approving F-16 fighter jets to be sent to Ukraine, demanding to know why the war planes weren’t approved sooner.

“President Biden told the G7 leaders that the United States is going to support this joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets,” said Tapper. “As you know, just a few months ago, the president said there was no basis militarily for giving Ukraine jets and that Ukraine didn’t need them at all. What changed? And would these jets not have been more effective if Ukraine had been trained and had them in time for the upcoming counteroffensive?”

It’s so obnoxious how the only time you ever see these mass media propagandists challenging the US government on its warmongering is when they’re pushing it to be more warlike and demanding answers on why it isn’t warmongering more. This creates the illusion of brave adversarial journalism, when in reality these empire cronies are just manufacturing consent for the increased aggressions the US wants to wage anyway.


These escalations have drawn stern warnings from Moscow, which have just been casually hand-waved away by Biden like he’s rejecting jello for dessert. In an article titled “Russia Says West Providing F-16s to Ukraine a ‘Colossal Risk’”, Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes the following:

A Russian official said Saturday that the Western plans to provide Ukraine with American-made F-16 fighter jets bring “colossal risks” after the US announced it would sign off on European countries delivering the aircraft.



“We see that Western countries are still adhering to the escalation scenario. It involves colossal risks for themselves,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, according to TASS.



“In any case, this will be taken into account in all our plans, and we have all the necessary means to achieve the goals we have set,” Grushko added.



During the last day of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, President Biden was asked about Russia calling the F-16 plan a “colossal risk.” He replied, “It is for them.”



As Tapper noted, both the F-16 decision and the Crimea decision marked a sharp policy shift by the Biden administration in just a few months. This proxy war just keeps escalating and escalating, with aggressions once deemed unthinkable due to their likelihood of sparking a nuclear exchange now becoming commonplace. Every time a new once-unthinkable escalation is enacted, the hawks are already pushing for the next one.

As we’ve discussed previously, this pattern of continually escalating nuclear brinkmanship in Ukraine has built-in incentives for Russia to ramp up its own aggressions against NATO itself. Every time the west ramps up its brinkmanship and crosses another once-taboo line in the sand without Moscow responding with direct military confrontation, the west takes this as a sign that it can ramp up the escalations again. This has put things on a trajectory toward more and more direct western-backed attacks on the Russian Federation unless Russia lashes out at NATO powers in some way to show them it’s not worth it. Which would be about as dangerous an occurrence as you could possibly imagine.

It is not okay for our rulers to play games with our lives like this. It is not okay for them to keep rolling the dice on nuclear escalation more and more often in the name of securing US unipolar hegemony. These people are making it abundantly clear that sanity and level-headedness are not in the driver’s seat here. Everyone on earth should be shouting a loud, unequivocal “no” to this at the top of their lungs.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/05/22 ... ck-crimea/

If the contest is decided before these weapons are brought to bear then this is just posturing. I think there's a good chance that this will be the case.

********

Radioactive Cloud From Depleted Uranium Ammunition in Ukraine Is Approaching Europe, Russia Warns
MAY 20, 2023

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Fireball over an ammunitions depot allegedly storing depleted uranium weapons in the Ukrainian town of Khmelnitski. Photo: Social media.

The destruction of depleted uranium ammunition supplied by the West to Ukraine has led to the appearance of a radioactive cloud that is heading towards Europe, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has warned.

Patrushev made this comment at a press conference on Friday, May 19 in the Russian city of Syktyvkar, where he also reported that “an increase in radiation has already been recorded in Poland.”

Regarding the presence of US President Joe Biden in Japan to attend the G7 summit, Patrushev said that instead of defending “common democratic values” as Americans believe, “the heads of Western countries, under pressure from the United States, will discuss aid to Ukraine.”

Videos have been circulating on the internet of an enormous explosion in the town of Khmelnitski, located to the west of Kiev, and about 200 km from the border of Ukraine with Poland. There were two major explosions after Russian airstrikes hit an alleged ammunitions depot in the Ukrainian town, producing a massive swirling fireball which, like the fireball generated from a nuclear bomb explosion, rose upward and formed a black mushroom cloud.

According to the Russian official, said fireball was generated by the explosion of depleted uranium ammunition stored at that depot.

Since depleted uranium particles are very small and act like a gas in the atmosphere, the material is expected to move with the wind direction.

Chemical weapons in Ukraine
Patrushev condemned the United States for “developing and already using chemical and biological weapons, including in Ukraine.”

He pointed out that in August 1945, without any military necessity, the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which caused “disastrous consequences and the death of a large number of civilians.”

“They did not apologise!” Patrushev stated. “And they are not going to apologise for what they have done. They keep brainwashing the Japanese into thinking that it was the Soviet Union, not the United States, that used nuclear weapons against them.”

“That is what US aid is all about,” he added.

https://orinocotribune.com/radioactive- ... sia-warns/
"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 IV

Post by blindpig » Tue May 23, 2023 7:26 pm

F-16s To Ukraine

A few days ago U.S. President Joe Biden announced the training of Ukrainian pilots for the F-16 multirole fighter aircraft:

President Joe Biden told G7 leaders on Friday that the US would join in efforts to train Ukraine’s pilots on fourth generation fighter jets including the F-16s, a senior administration official told CNN on Friday.

This has obviously been in the planning for some time. The timing of the announcement at the G7 summit was simply chosen to maximize the propaganda value for Biden.

The process we have seen has repeated itself again and again. As pro-Ukrainian blogger (with no military knowledge) describes it:

This has clearly become a proxy war between Russia and NATO, supercharging the political considerations inherent to any war. Ukraine’s goal is to wheedle as much military aid as humanly possibly out of NATO, especially the United States. The United States’ goal is more complex: give enough aid to push Russia back, but not so much that its proxy war with Russia escalates into an actual one.

This dynamic has created a Hunger Games scenario where Ukraine is constantly playing to the cameras to cajole extra gifts from the wealthy sponsors who watch its every move over the internet in real time. I had decided against using this analogy until I saw Ukrainians themselves using it. There is something grotesque and sobering about finding yourself in this position, and writing about it. But it is what it is.


I had assumed that F-16 training had in fact already started several weeks back. The EU blabber mouth Josep Borrell now all but confirmed it:

The European Union’s foreign policy chief said on Tuesday that the US green light to allow Ukrainian pilots to get training to fly F-16s has created an inexorable momentum that will inevitably bring the fighter jets to the Ukrainian battlefield.
...
Borrell added that training for Ukrainian pilots had already begun in Poland and some other countries, though authorities in Warsaw could not immediately confirm the news. The Netherlands and Denmark, among others, are also making plans for such training.

No decision on actually delivering fourth-generation fighter jets has been taken yet, but training pilots now – a process that takes several months – will help speed up battle readiness once a formal decision is made.


The process will be much faster than many assume.

The jets the Ukraine will get have already been selected and will go through ready maintenance. The Ukrainian pilots, who already have some experience on other fighter jets, will get just a short introduction course - six to eight weeks or even less. They do not need to train air to air fights because the F-16 would lose any such fight against the newer and better armed Russian jets. They just need to learn the basics, starting, landing, going up to a certain height and launch point, release whatever long range weapon will be on board. Anything else would be suicide.

The big question is where to start and land from. The F-16 has a relative short combat range of some 500 kilometer and there will be no air to air tankers. There ain't that many airfield that are suitable for the fighter jet's missions.

Someone who seems competent explains the problem (edited):

The Ukrainian Air Force, to my knowledge, has had to use guerilla airfield tactics to keep the Russians guessing as to where they are operating from. This is to prevent Moscow from targeting the aircraft/impromptu airfield from drone attacks and air strikes, destroying stationary aircraft or the rendering the “runway” unusable. Soviet-built aircraft are sublimely suited to this.
For ex, the MiG-29 “Fulcrum” uses automatic Foreign Object Debris (FOD) covers that close for initial start up (vid). Meanwhile louvres located at the top of the wing-root open to provide alternate air intake to the jet engines. Upon take off, once the weight on wheels (WoW) switch in the nose gear detects it is off the ground, the louvers cycle closed and the FOD covers on the primary intake retract, allowing max airflow to the engines once the danger of FOD damage has passed. This ingenious design allows the Fulcrum to operate, not only from unimproved runways or even highways, but even from grass fields. The wing itself and the distance to the ground preventing small stones and debris from getting sucked into the delicate engines.

I cannot stress how dangerous and debilitating FOD is to aircraft. A single rock, bolt, nut, or minor road debris can have a cataclysmic effect on a modern high-performance jet engine. It may not even happen immediately, the damage could happen on take off, then progressively get worse during flight as the blades, now potentially bent or unbalanced begin to self-destruct the engine internals. Even if a MiG-29 happens to shell out an engine because of the careless placement of a bolt or tool by a mechanic or the ingestion of a bird during flight or take off, the MiG HAS TWO ENGINES which are isolated in separate bays, preventing the destruction of one engine from FOD-ing out the second.

The F-16, by contrast, is definitely not suited for this style of airfield. The bottom of the intake lip sits approximately 30” from the ground with no provision of alternate intake. In addition, all the suction flow of that air comes from the sides, fore, and ground since no air can be ingested from above the engine (that’s where the fuselage is). With no provision for FOD protection or alternate, high-mounted intakes during the entire time spent on the ground, this calls for rigid and inflexible FOD control measures from the location of engine start, to taxiing routes to the runway.

In the USAF, this meant hundreds of maintainers walking at arms-length intervals two to three times a day with eyes on the ground looking for any and every piece of debris that could be ingested by the multi-million dollar vacuum cleaner with only ONE engine we were charged with maintaining. In addition, an almost constant procession of street-cleaners rumbled up and down the flightline, taxiways and runway. Everything had to be spotless lest we risk the aircraft, or worse, the pilots.

Imagine the preparation it would take to complete this process on a 10,000 foot long straight highway, in the dark, while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible so as not to draw the attention of collaborators or Russian spies. You couldn’t hop from highway to highway or run from unimproved airfields like the Ukrainian Air Force can do with MiG-29s, you’d be handcuffed or at the very least less mobile. Imagine a disused Soviet airfield that suddenly had all its weeds plucked from the cracks in the concrete, concrete patched, the runway spotless. What signal does that send? “F-16s could, will, or are operating from here.”


There are several other issues discussed in the above thread. The maintenance philosophy behind U.S. and Russian build planes is different. The Russians just change factory parts and systems, U.S. maintainer try to repair them locally:

The MiG-29 averages about 11 hrs of maintenance for every ONE hr of flight. The F-16? A whopping increase to 18.5 maintenance hrs for every one hr of flight time. These are per aircraft with experienced crews. These figures also assume decent airframe hours on the aircraft.

The Ukraine will also need a sufficient number of competent maintainers. The training for them will likely take more time than for the pilots. The author of the above suggests a solution:

Plenty of mechanics in Europe and the US are happy to lend their services to the UAF as members of the “International Legion” or the modern day iteration of the “Flying Tigers”. Myself included.

Well, good luck doing maintenance on the F-16s that will soon sit on those few available and thereby quite vulnerable Ukrainian airfields.

Russian air defenses, from the ground and from the air, can certainly suppress any F-16 flights coming near to them.

The only sensible purpose of those planes is thereby their one or two time use as a launching vehicles for long range missiles like the British Storm Shadow cruise missiles that were given to Ukraine. It is easy to train for those missions but I doubt that they will make any noticeable difference.

Posted by b on May 23, 2023 at 14:53 UTC | Permalink


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African Initiative on Ukraine Settlement Cements Africa’s New Global Role
MAY 20, 2023

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) gestures as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (left) and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (right) pose for a photo with African country leaders attending the 2019 Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum in Sochi, Russia, on Oct. 24, 2019. Photo: Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images.

By Muhammad Nooh Osman – May 19, 2023

Earlier this week, South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed that Moscow and Kiev had agreed to receive a mission of African leaders with their peace initiative on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later confirmed that the African mission was planning to visit Russia in mid-June or early July.
The mission of African countries to Russia and Ukraine to end the ongoing conflict between the two neighbors is “very encouraging and unexpected,” given that African nations have not previously directly addressed conflicts outside the continent, Natalia Piskunova, an Associate Professor of African Studies and Political Science at Lomonosov Moscow State University, told Sputnik on Friday.
Piskunova stated that the proposal of six African countries, namely Zambia, Senegal, South Africa, Egypt, Congo and Uganda, is the first of its kind since Africa’s independence and represents evidence of the continent’s increased international presence.

“This initiative is a long-awaited development in world politics, which finally fixes the completely new role of Africa in international relations.The fact that six African states have come together in a single peace initiative and offered their mediation efforts demonstrates the very good experience and potential of these states in terms of peacemaking,” the political scientist said.

According to Piskunova, as nations with both favorable and negative conflict experiences, African states understand the toll such disputes can take on individuals and economies. The current initiative shows that these countries are willing to apply their diplomatic experiences beyond the continent’s borders to resolve conflict and promote peace.
She opined that most African nations are no longer viewed as “underdeveloped” or “obsolete” due to the restructuring of their economies, resolution of political risks, and increasing international influence. As such, African countries are now capable of being significant political and economic players, shaping global policies.

“This initiative is a long-awaited phenomenon in world politics that definitively marks a completely new role for Africa in international relations,” Piskunova said. “Today’s Africa represents states with both positive and negative experiences of conflict. Most of the conflicts experienced by African countries are conflicts that have grown out of the problems and contradictions of once united countries.”

She added, “This extremely difficult experience of Africa now gives it the opportunity to offer different solutions to conflicts. African countries know all the peculiarities of the development of conflicts between neighboring states, as well as the peculiarities of the reconciliation process, even in the most acute conflicts.”

The scholar cited a number of examples of past conflicts between neighboring nations on the African continent, including the conflict in Rwanda, the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the conflict in Mozambique.
“Above all, African leaders know that the first step in the process of resolving any conflict is to create a ‘communication bridge’ between the parties. It is this experience of African countries that is now extremely important and most in demand,” Professor Piskunova.

Commenting on the fact that most African countries have remained neutral since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, despite pressure from Western powers, Piskunova described this neutrality as “the result of years of experience in conflict resolution, a professional approach to the problem, and the great interest of the countries in stabilizing the situation.”

“Africa’s neutrality gives it the greatest opportunity to become a ‘new peacemaker’ in the system of modern international relations. Moreover, this neutrality is advantageous for Africa as the beneficiary of the first part of the ‘grain deal’,” she said.
According to the professor, Africa’s neutral stance in this situation is easy to understand. The continent is equidistant from the conflict zone and has stable relations with both direct and indirect parties to the conflict. In addition, African nations do not run the risk of becoming directly involved in the war zone.
As a result, there is great potential for Africa to engage in various peacemaking activities, such as unofficial mediation, shuttle diplomacy, and formal proposals for peace talks.

While South Africa, which is leading this peace initiative, is a member of BRICS along with China, which has also proposed a peace plan for resolving the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Piskunova stated that it is premature to speak of BRICS as a mediator in the conflict, since only two members of the five-state bloc have independently proposed peace plans.

“Moreover, one of the parties to the conflict is a member of BRICS, so it is difficult to distinguish this structure as a mediator in the conflict so far. Now it is more appropriate to consider the Chinese and African plans and initiatives separately,” Piskunova concluded.

Earlier this week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on behalf of African countries and presented them with a peace initiative for the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict on behalf of Zambia, Senegal, Congo, Uganda, Egypt and South Africa.
On Thursday, during a joint press conference with visiting Ugandan Foreign Minister Jeje Odongo, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that a mission of African leaders with a peace initiative on Ukraine plans to visit Russia in mid-June or early July.
Recently, the founder of the Brazzaville Foundation and the initiator of the peace mission, Jean-Yves Ollivier, told Sputnikthat the initiative is the first of the kind to be accepted both by Russia and Ukraine. Moreover, he noted that negotiations along the lines of the African mission will be held without preconditions and that any media reports to the contrary, including an article in the magazine Jeune Afrique, are “unreliable.”

“I saw some article on the news that there are pre-conditions. They are not correct, there are no pre-conditions. I can assure you. Of course as I said, and Jeune Afrique mentioned, what I said, I think, we hope not to get back empty-handed. Those people are not going to spare four days, because it is the minimum to do the two countries, and go back to their cities empty-handed,” said Ollivier. “We really sincerely hope we will get some results out of these visits, if not we wouldn’t do it.”

https://orinocotribune.com/african-init ... le-pundit/

******

DRG of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Belgorod region
May 22, 2:31 p.m

Image

DRG of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Belgorod region

In the Belgorod region.
It seems that the current activity at the border precedes the real activation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in other directions - primarily the Zaporozhye direction.
Of course, they will try with all their might to bring down the negative of the last days associated with the loss of Artemovsk.
It can be noted how closely these actions are integrated into the information activities of the IPSO. The content of the action is identical to the raid of the Nazis in the Bryansk region.

As for the issue of the security of the Belgorod region, without occupying the north of the Kharkov region, it is hardly possible to ensure complete security of the region's borders from shelling, actions of the DRG, etc.

By 2 o'clock the enemy's armored group was driven away from the border with the Belgorod region. There are unconfirmed reports of the destruction of two Humvees.
At the same time, an enemy DRG has already been discovered on the territory of the region (in the Grayvoron district), and work is underway to eliminate it. As a result of today's shelling in the region, 2 civilians were injured.

Good luck to the military and border guards.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8374156.html

CTO regime introduced in Belgorod region
May 22, 18:12

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CTO regime introduced in Belgorod region

Judging by the IPSO stuffing in the comments, the enemy is now focusing on the stuffing:

1. In Belgorod, an evacuation is underway.
2. APU captured Grayvoron
3. A Russian helicopter was shot down.
4. Bomb shelters are closed in Belgorod.

In fact, no evacuation is being carried out in Belgorod, this IPSO is trying to sow panic through stuffing in social networks and anonymous calls.
Grayvoron was not captured by anyone. The shot down heat traps were mistaken for the downed helicopter.
The stuff about bomb shelters is illustrated by old messages or videos.

CTO continues in the region. There are clashes in the border villages.
The CTO regime has been officially introduced throughout the region today. In a good way, this should have been done last autumn, as in all front-line regions.

Arrivals in the Kharkiv region also continue.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8374595.html

Belgorod region. Evening 05/22/2023
May 22, 10:40 p.m

Image

In the Grayvoron region, our military seized a damaged American MaxxPro armored car (to be repaired). By evening, the enemy had partially fled abroad, taking with him an armored personnel carrier from the border crossing.

From our side, they reported 8 wounded civilians, 39 killed militants and 5 prisoners. The enemy declared 1 captured border guard. Several houses were damaged in the area.
In the evening, the cleansing of the border area continued, and arrivals continued in the Kharkiv region.

As a result of what happened, the CTO regime was finally introduced in the Belgorod region. But they didn’t introduce it in Bryansk. Apparently, and there it is necessary to wait for a similar raid to be introduced. In the State Duma, Deputy Sobolev from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Deputy Gurulev from United Russia (both retired generals) called for the introduction of the CTO regime in all front-line regions (here one can only agree).
Prigozhin on this occasion stated that the reason for the enemy’s jump into the territory of the region was the cuts and indifference of responsible persons. In fact, he talked about something similar a few months ago. Yes, and jokes about the military commanders shouting "wolves! wolves!" about the threat of a raid on the Belgorod region now look completely ridiculous.
Governor Gladkov was puffing for the officials all day today. Did what he could.
The enemy, in turn, threw in a huge number of fakes to sow panic.

As for the rest, the Armed Forces of Ukraine tried with all their might to shift attention from the surrender of Artemovsk, which Zelensky still continues to virtually defend, but the videos from the city are very eloquent.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8374957.html

Google Translator

*********

From Cassad's telegram account:

bout the CTO regime.

The introduction of this regime expands the opportunities for the security forces for counter-terrorism activities in the CTO zone and limits some of the rights of citizens.
For example, the security forces get the opportunity to:

inspect cars and people, check documents;
remove people and vehicles from the CTO territory;
to strengthen the protection of public order and facilities that "ensure the vital activity of the population";
to control telephone conversations and "other information transmitted through the channels of telecommunication systems";
use machines belonging to organizations, and in urgent cases - to individuals;
suspend the work of hazardous industries and organizations;
turn off the connection;
temporarily relocate people to safe areas;
introduce quarantine;
restrict the movement of cars and pedestrians;
freely enter residential and other premises (applies only to CTO participants);
restrict or prohibit the sale of weapons, ammunition, explosives;
restrict or suspend the work of private detectives and security guards.

The CTO regime is temporary. Once the threat is removed, the CTO regime is cancelled. In practice, it can last from several days to several years.

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
1. In the next week / 10 days, with the end of Zelensky's trips, the main events will unfold. They will climb forward. This is if politics prevails over military decisions. If we are talking about military decisions, then it is possible that the military leaders of the “other side” (Zaluzhny, Syrsky) have confident doubts that the offensive will be successful. Everyone understands perfectly.
2. For Kiev, this offensive, the last and only one in the coming year. If it is unsuccessful, and we can keep them, then for Kyiv this will entail consequences, incl. such that they will force them to negotiate and try to freeze the conflict. The military understands that this is the last chance, if they advance badly, the military will be made extreme.
3.There is a certain euphoria in the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the received weapons and completed brigades, which were returned from abroad. Euphoria at the lower and middle levels - privates / sergeants, warrant officers. Military leaders have few such thoughts. The offensive may begin with tactical probing along all 2,000 km of the front (using the example of the Belgorod direction).
4 . Over the past two days, the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the flanks of Bakhmut has been stalling. Last week they had tactical successes, no doubt. “Bakhmut was not taken” - these are all words. Of course, "Wagner" Bakhmut took.
a) Wagner units fight more effectively than the MO. One can argue whether it was necessary to take Bakhmut and throw people into meat assaults, but it was a principled move. Taking is a matter of principle, but it was possible to cling to the city and stand on the defensive without spending so much effective assault infantry.
b) Why Bakhmut, and not Avdiivka, to prevent the enemy from ironing Donetsk? With t.z. there is no military explanation. Bakhmut was taken heroically, but why Bakhmut? Kappel's attack on machine guns, we're burning the best assault infantry in the world, but we'll still take Bakhmut. Am I fighting because I am fighting? Do you have a strategic intention? When we take Maryinka and Avdiivka, we move the enemy away from Donetsk. When we fight in the Kharkov region, we move the enemy away from the border. We take Bakhmut after half a year of continuous assault, having shown mass heroism. But why?
5.Biden lies about 100,000 dead Russians in Bakhmut. Wagner never had 100 thousand people with all the detachments and prisoners. There is simply no place to store them. Losses of sodomites in Bakhmut - 38 thousand killed. So, "300" - 2.5-3 p more. Laws of War. Similar to Wagner.
5. The secret of Ukraine's offensive is not to bring into battle prepared assault units. At the moment, they are not visible on the Bakhmut and other directions. They fight with the forces introduced earlier into the battle. There are no armored Western vehicles. But the very tone of the West's statements suggests that there will be an offensive.
6.There is a proxy war with NATO. We are no longer at war with Ukraine. NATO systematically led by the United States entered the war and is doing everything to deprive the Russian Federation of subjectivity. The latest statements of the G7 summit say that they are trying to deprive Russia of the right to vote in making decisions about the fate of ... Russia.
The decision to conduct a CBO is fair, but belated. The enemy is a NATO war machine. 2nd, 3rd echelons of Ukraine - NATO. Officers, units, equipment, NATO weapons are fighting, battle formations are being saturated with NATO structures.
7. As long as "above" in the Russian Federation they hope to rebound with an agreement and fight half-heartedly, trouble threatens. If we hold the offensive and the enemy comes to negotiate, it is impossible to negotiate, we must fight until complete victory over those forces that are doing everything to defeat Russia on the battlefield. Otherwise, there will be no Russia.
8.F-16 will see in the summer. When sodomites publicly say that they will transfer, then at least 1-1.5 months. as the decision has already been made. With the development of the offensive, the F-16 will be used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to break our defenses. If they run into us, then the forces and means of air defense of the RF Armed Forces are sufficient to confront the NATO Air Force. The ambush on our pilot group in the Bryansk region proves that the enemy is trying to drop us from the sky.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

**************

The Current State of Kiev’s Air Defenses: Interview with Colonel Wolf
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 22, 2023
Drago Bosnic

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Russian ‘Kinzhal’ Hypersonic Missile Destroys Kiev’s US-Made ‘Patriot’ Air Defense System

In the last several weeks, the Kiev regime’s air defense assets have been at the forefront of news coverage while failing to achieve the one that actually matters. The political West has mobilized its entire massive propaganda machine to lionize the SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems the Neo-Nazi junta was provided with, publishing ludicrous claims about shooting down Russian hypersonic missiles and other assets. Despite all the Western disinformation clutter, as well as the near-absolute infowar dominance, the belligerent power pole failed to convince any expert worth their salt to believe such reverie. This is particularly true as the “conclusive evidence” of the alleged “shootdown” is absolutely laughable and nothing but meme-worthy.

However, in order to better understand the true state of the Kiev regime’s air defenses, once again, we decided to interview Colonel Wolf, a retired military officer and former member of an air defense unit of the Yugoslav (and later Serbian) Army. Colonel Wolf spent over 40 years in the military and thanks to his professionalism and extensive combat experience (including against US/NATO aggression on Yugoslavia/Serbia in the 1990s), he has the knowledge necessary for an in-depth assessment of the situation. Our previous interview with Colonel Wolf was published just over a year ago and involved his take on how Russia was conducting its special military operation (SMO). This time, the topic is the performance of the main antagonist in the SMO and how Western deliveries of advanced SAM systems affect the situation on the battlefields.

Colonel, it’s great to have You back with us and thank You for taking the time to participate in another interview. We would like to start with the basics. Do You think the air defenses of the Kiev regime forces will further diminish or could a constant supply of Western weapons prevent that?

First and foremost, best regards to You and Your respected readers. I am delighted by the opportunity to talk to You once again, especially considering the topic is my absolute favorite and the one I’ve spent most of my life dealing with. I’d like to point out that I often chuckle when seeing how the mass media report on air defenses and how this almost mandatory simplification makes everyone think that [air defense] systems are this giant magical bubble that just destroys everything as soon as it reaches its maximum engagement range. In addition, various targets can be very different, requiring vastly diverging reactions. For instance, a ballistic missile requires a starkly different approach in comparison to a drone or a jet. Air defense is so complex and so multifaceted that it’s simply beyond the scope of just one interview, so I’ll try to keep it as simple and as brief as possible.

As for your question, I’d like to emphasize the importance of interoperability of various branches of the military of any country. Simply put, SAM systems need to be integrated within the air defense forces themselves and then the rest of the military to maximize their effectiveness. Whenever this is not the case, when there’s miscommunication or lack of communication, mistakes are much likelier and in our line of duty, the cost can easily be one’s life. Within the AFU [Armed Forces of Ukraine], such cases were relatively common even when its SAM systems were mostly Soviet-era, even though the level of their integration was decent, despite decades of neglect and mismanagement. The AFU shot down quite a few of their own jets and helicopters in so-called “friendly fire” incidents. However, with them now getting NATO air defense systems, this issue could actually be exacerbated, because the level of integration or even the possibility of expedient integration of Western and Soviet-era air defenses, as well as many other systems, is quite a challenge. This is mostly because NATO and the Soviet Union/Russia have vastly different doctrinal approaches to air defense.

Could you briefly explain the main doctrinal differences between Russian and Western air defense systems?

Certainly. The main difference lies in the prioritization of air defenses and this doctrinal approach includes more than just the SAM systems themselves. While NATO’s main focus is air dominance, the Soviet Union (and nowadays Russia) never counted on having constant and complete air superiority in a major conflict. In that regard, Western countries usually see air defenses as some sort of an auxiliary branch of the military. On the other hand, the Russians see them as a major part of their doctrine, which involves the ability of those air defenses to work both within a large, complex and well-integrated system, as well as on their own in case something goes wrong, which is true more often than not in an actual conflict, particularly a major one. Having that in mind, it’s very puzzling to me that someone truly believes Western SAM systems will serve the AFU better than the Soviet ones did and still do.

We will certainly get to that shortly, but before we do, could You tell us Your opinion on how the effectiveness of Russian airstrikes on critical infrastructure is changing the calculus for the political West in terms of SAM systems deliveries?

Well, despite what I said about Western doctrine, their systems are certainly not to be underestimated. This is particularly true when considering that NATO will now be sending its own missiles to the AFU, which should ensure a relatively constant supply. This is definitely a threat to Russian forces. However, the overall capability of the AFU’s air defenses is bound to be reduced sharply. The reason for this is quite simple – missiles. As we all know, the vast majority of Ukrainian SAM systems are still Soviet-era and because Russia is the only country that can mass-produce them, the AFU is bound to run out of such missiles. This is especially true for systems such as the S-300PT and S-300PS, which were the most numerous long-range SAM systems in Ukrainian service before the SMO and most likely still are, despite significant losses. These systems largely relied on the 5V55 family of missiles, as those were the most numerous in Soviet and later AFU’s stocks.

And even Western sources themselves, like the Washington Post and Financial Times, are warning about this. Interestingly, You mentioned the issue of integration. Do You think the problem is limited only to Soviet-NATO integration or does it extend to various Western systems themselves?

That’s an excellent observation. What we’re seeing now is what a good friend of mine jokingly dubbed a “wartime arms expo”. And it certainly seems that way with various NATO systems being sent to the AFU. We have the “Patriot”, NASAMS, IRIS-T, “Hawk”, etc. Coupled with various Soviet-era ones, this “salad of systems” is a real logistical nightmare that is bound to get worse. People often make the mistake of only looking at raw numbers and comparing various systems, thinking this truly shows their capabilities. However, things such as logistics and ease of operation are what truly ensures the machine is “well-oiled”. The USSR had a vast network of air defenses that were extremely well-supplied. That system survived to this very day, so the VKS (Russian Aerospace Forces) is essentially facing its own air defenses, which have been without equal for decades. I keep saying that I believe NATO would’ve never dared to go against such air defenses, despite its vast SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) capabilities. However, those air defenses have been steadily and consistently degraded since last year.

How do you assess the effectiveness of the much-touted US “Patriot” SAM system?

Well, on paper, the “Patriot” is a very good system. However, the reality is a true test for any weapon, meaning that its track record is not particularly flattering. Ever since the “Desert Storm”, the US has had major problems with the “Patriot”. This includes various software issues, as well as its inability to intercept even virtually homemade long-range drones and missiles. Additionally, the “Patriot” has several notable disadvantages in comparison to even the most basic S-300 system. Apart from things like detection and engagement range, as well as the types of targets it can intercept, there are other highly important aspects to consider. First and foremost, the S-300’s TEL [transporter, erector, launcher] fires missiles at a 90° angle, which gives the system complete coverage over an area. However, the “Patriot” covers only an area of 120°, meaning that you need more launchers to cover the same area as the S-300. In recent times, this issue was demonstrated in Saudi Arabia, when cheap and simple drones and missiles broke through “Patriot’s” perimeter because it was aimed at the north/northeast [towards Iran], while the targets were coming from the opposite direction [Yemen].

Another important point is “Patriot’s” ability to shoot down maneuvering targets. The system’s ABM [anti-ballistic missile] capabilities were brought into question even against older types of Soviet missiles such as the “Scud” series. And in this case, we’re talking about a largely rudimentary ballistic missile that flies along a predictable path that can be calculated and tracked with relative ease. However, maneuvering missiles effectively nullify all that. Any calculations based on a ballistic flight path become completely useless once the missile changes its trajectory, requiring new calculations, reducing reaction time and requiring additional interceptors to be launched. This alone significantly complicates the system’s ability to defend against such targets. However, if we add hypersonic speed to the equation, the task becomes virtually impossible. And that’s precisely what we’ve seen recently when the AFU claimed that it shot down the Russian “Kinzhal”. The available footage shows dozens of missiles fired at the same time. If the Russian military indeed used hypersonic missiles to strike the operational battery deployed in Kiev, this would explain the reasoning behind the AFU’s decision. I cannot verify if all the missiles fired that day were from the “Patriot”, but if various reports are true, the AFU used up to 6% of the missile system’s yearly production in mere minutes or even seconds. This also opens up another topic we already mentioned – how can Western countries afford to sustain such usage of missiles? Thus, the “salad of systems” has the issue of cost-effectiveness that didn’t exist with the S-300 series.

When taking all that into account, what do You think is the motivation behind Western and Kiev regime’s unsubstantiated boasting about the “Patriot’s” performance, particularly against Russian hypersonic weapons?

Well, the friend I mentioned earlier summed it up perfectly with his “wartime arms expo” remark. Every major conflict is the best way for arms manufacturers to promote their weapons and the current crisis is no different in this regard. In fact, it’s the first true high-intensity conflict in decades, meaning the weapon systems that prove most effective could secure lucrative long-term contracts for various corporations. In the specific case of the “Patriot”, information warfare provides not just the much-needed morale boost to the AFU, but also the previously shattered reputation of the SAM system itself, which should help both with sales and the stock market.

However, there’s another dimension in this case. The reason why Russian hypersonic weapons are being “targeted” is also connected to international prestige and reputation. The United States of America is far behind Russia in terms of both hypersonic weapons development and deployment. By denigrating those weapons in the service of Moscow, the US is reinforcing claims that it can both “shoot down” such missiles and that Russian hypersonic weapons are supposedly “not as good as everyone thought”. Your respected readers should just think about the fact that Ukrainian air defenses have been active for over a year, but as soon as the “Patriot” was inducted, a Russian hypersonic missile was “shot down”. That in and of itself raises serious doubts, let alone the “evidence” they used to “prove” this. On the other hand, the “Patriot’s” closest rival, the S-300 series, has been designed to counter threats such as the US SR-71 “Blackbird”. I think that gives Your readership a pretty good idea as to how effective any other, particularly Western, air defense systems could be in comparison.

Colonel, once again, thank You very much. It was a privilege to hear Your take on the issue of the Kiev regime’s air defenses.

Thank You for another great interview. And again, my regards to You and Your respected readers.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... onel-wolf/

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Bakhmut Folds: Russia Takes City & Ukraine’s Struggle Against Toll of Attrition
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 22, 2023



Update on the conflict in Ukraine for May 22, 2023

– Russian Ministry of Defense claims the Donbass city of Bakhmut/Artyomovsk has been fully taken by Russian forces;

– Western analysts claim the city’s capture will not “turn the tide” of the conflict, ignoring the war of attrition taking place superseding territorial advances;

– The US is sending another weapons package to Ukraine featuring an unspecified amount of ammunition for HIMARS, artillery systems, anti-tank weapons, and both bridging and logistics equipment;

– The US is also incrementally moving in favor of sending Ukraine F-16 fighter jets through third party nations in Europe. The F-16 represents no specific capability Ukraine’s own air force didn’t have before being removed from the battlefield;

– The Western media continues incrementally admitting the limits in military industrial output preventing the US and Europe from providing Ukraine with weapons and ammunition to match or exceed Russia’s military capabilities;

References:

TASS – Putin congratulates Wagner assault teams with liberation of Artyomovsk — Kremlin (May 21, 2023): https://tass.com/defense/1620655

Associated Press (via NPR) – President Zelenskyy has said that Bakhmut is destroyed as Russia claims victory there (May 21, 2023): https://www.npr.org/2023/05/21/117738

NY Times – Defenses Carved Into the Earth (December 2022): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2

US Department of Defense – Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine (May 21, 2023): https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases

Politico – Biden set to announce new military aid for Ukraine after meeting with Zelenskyy (May 19, 2023): https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05

Washington Post – Europe’s military industrial capabilities fall short of Ukraine’s needs (May 19, 2023): https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/05/ ... attrition/

*****

The Western Media Disinformation Campaign: Fall of Bakhmut, a case in point

Our language is in constant evolution. Partly this is bottom up, from the inventiveness of creative personalities or writers for commercial advertising. Partly it is top down, from the powers that be as they seek to manipulate and control the thought processes of the broad public.

My brief essay today addresses the latter phenomenon and the introduction of the word “disinformation” into common parlance. There is a charming freshness to it, unlike the stale and repugnant word “propaganda.”

The word “disinformation” has a specific context in time and intent: it is used by the powers that be and by the mainstream media they control to denigrate, marginalize and suppress sources of military, political, economic and other information that might contradict the official government narrative and so dilute the control exercised by those in power over the general population. It is to remove “disinformation” from public life that the United States and EU member states ban RT and other Russian media outlets from the internet, from satellite and cable television channels. The censorship here in Europe varies from country to country and is probably most drastic in France and Germany. One would think that these European states are truly at war with Russia, not just giving a helping hand to Kiev.

In reality, it is these censorious states and the mass media that carry their messages with stenographic precision into print and electronic dissemination who are the ones that day after day feed disinformation to the public. It is cynically composed and consists of a toxic blend of ‘spin,’ by which is meant misleading interpretation of events, and outright lies.

The many months long battle for the provincial Donbas city of Bakhmut, or Artyomovsk as it is known in Russia, has been described variously from on high in Washington, London and Berlin. When the likely outcome was unclear, the defense of Bakhmut was called heroic and demonstrative of the brave fighting spirit of the Ukrainians.

Casualty figures issued by Kiev and then trumpeted from Washington suggested that the Russians were stupidly throwing away the lives of their fighting men by using WWI style human waves of attackers who were decimated by the defenders. Russian lives are cheap was the message. The fact that Russian artillery on site outnumbered and outperformed Ukrainian artillery by a factor of five or seven to one was freely admitted by the Western propagandists as they pleaded for increased supplies to Kiev. They, nonetheless, issued casualty reports for the Russians that inverted the force correlation. It was assumed, obviously with reason, that the public was too lazy or too uninterested to do the arithmetic.

At one moment, the spin doctors in Washington, London and Berlin said that Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut made sense because it was pinning down Russian forces and giving time to the Ukrainians to train and position their men for the heralded “counter offensive” during which they would overrun Russian positions at chosen points in the 600 mile line of combat and drive a wedge through to the Sea of Azov, opening the way for recapture of Crimea. Those were grand words and ambitions to justify continued and ever rising Western military assistance to Kiev.

At another point, the spin doctors said it would be better if Ukraine stopped losing men in Bakhmut and launched instead that much vaunted counter-offensive. Now we were told that Bakhmut is just a Russian fantasy, that it has no strategic value.

In the past couple of weeks, the Russian command has issued daily reports on the progressive capture by Russian forces of Bakhmut, square kilometer after square kilometer. We were told they controlled 75%, then 80% and most recently more than 90% of the city proper while artillery bombardment of the remaining blocks of high rise residential buildings that were being used by Ukrainian defenders for their sniper attacks and intelligence reports on Russian troop movements pulverized everything in their path.

At this point, the attention of Western media defending truth against Russian disinformation was directed at the Ukrainian “successes” in recapturing settlements on the flanks of Bakhmut. Just three days ago The New York Times was telling its readers that these “breakthroughs” by the Ukrainians put in jeopardy the Russian forces holding the city proper: they might be surrounded and compelled to surrender or die. The possibility that the offensives on the flanks were only intended to facilitate withdrawal of remaining Ukrainian soldiers from Bakhmut and were tolerated by the Russians to avoid bloody fights to the death – that possibility crossed no one’s mind at the NYT, it seems.

Midday yesterday, 20 May, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group which did most of the fighting for Bakhmut on the ground, claimed total victory. In the evening, President Vladimir Putin announced to the Russian public that Bakhmut was taken. Joyous messages of congratulations filled the internet message services in Russia as the broad public celebrated a victory as iconic as the Battle for Stalingrad.

Meanwhile, the defenders of the Western public against Russian “disinformation” were hard at work, straining their brains to find what to say. This morning’s New York Times still speaks of the battle for Bakhmut as undecided, pointing yet again to the Ukrainian hold on the flanks.

Given their losses in men and materiel defending Bakhmut, the surrender of the city to the Russians will be a great blow to Ukrainian fighting morale when it is finally admitted. So will the fate of their Commander in Chief General Zaluzhny who, according to Russian sources, has been hospitalized for the past two weeks and remains in critical condition after falling victim to a Russian strike on a provincial command center which killed most of the high officers around him. If nothing else, this speaks to the amazing success of Russian military intelligence directing their firepower.

Meanwhile, Western media attention to Ukraine is conveniently redirected at the nonstop travels of President Zalensky who went from his European tour on to the Middle East, where he attended the meeting of the Arab League, and thence via French military jet to the G7 gathering in Hiroshima where he held talks with fellow heads of state and joined them for the obligatory group photos. All the talk was about when the U.S. will formally give its consent to the dispatch of F16s to Kiev. For the disseminators of Western disinformation this is a wonderful distraction from a war that clearly is going badly for Kiev and in particular a distraction from the counter offensive that looks less likely with each passing day of Russian military strikes on the command centers and weapons stores of the Ukrainian side.

The plume of radioactive smoke and ash that rose from the Khmelnitsky store of British depleted uranium artillery shells in Western Ukraine after a Russian missile strike, just like the extensive damage to the Patriot air defense installation near Kiev by a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile tell us all what will be the fate of future Western arms deliveries to Ukraine. It is an interesting question how much longer the Ukrainian military or politicians will put up with their high flying, good life President while the country is well on its way to hell.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
"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 IV

Post by blindpig » Wed May 24, 2023 12:27 pm

The war cartel
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 05/24/2023

Image

Volodymyr Zelensky capped off his week of travel, events, awards and commemorations, which had taken him to Rome, Berlin, Paris and London, with a stellar appearance at the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan this past weekend. . Two main themes stood out at the summit: the eagerness of the cartel of the seven big Western economies to contain China and their common fight against Russia. In this context, the appearance of Zelensky could not but be the icing on the cake. As he had already done in his four European stops, the Ukrainian president has sought the same objective: to obtain from his partners the promise of delivery of Western aviation. As in the case of the unlocking of the delivery of Leopard tanks, throughout the week several countries have committed to training Ukrainian pilots,

With European countries acting as the vanguard , the United States, the country that must approve the deliveries, responded, as Germany had done in the past in the case of tanks, meeting Kiev's expectations. Although Biden did not announce the delivery of the long-awaited fighters, the US president did advance the start of the instruction of the Ukrainian pilots. However, supply guarantees were not the only objective of Zelensky, who wanted to use his appearance in Japan to present the Ukrainian cause as a global cause. That is why the Ukrainian president wanted to end his week of diplomatic offensive in the most desired forum.

However, the offense is not limited to its usual allies. As collected last week Foreign PolicyAware of the importance of expanding international relations beyond its Western partners, Ukraine is preparing a performance in Africa that should result in the opening of diplomatic legations with which the country wants to show the importance of its presence on the continent. In the more than a year since the start of the Russian military intervention, kyiv has tried to attract all kinds of countries to its position, including those with which its relations were practically non-existent. Dmitro Kuleba has come to visit countries this year that no foreign minister of Ukraine has visited before. The objective is threefold: seek a semblance of global support for Ukraine for its propaganda, wrest allies from its Russian enemy, and demand help. with little shame,

In his brief stop in Saudi Arabia to speak at the Arab League summit, Zelensky condemned those who support Russia and demanded a position of neutrality from all countries. However, that neutrality that the Ukrainian president demanded from the Arab countries is the same that he condemns in other cases. The clearest examples refer to those countries that aspire to mediate in the conflict. Aware that its power is excessive even for those who have the unconditional support of the United States, Ukraine has not harshly denounced China's position, which has not condemned Moscow's actions and reminded Kiev that in a negotiation, both parties will have of being willing to compromise and not achieve all of your goals.

Unlike China, other countries or people who aspire to mediate in the conflict and who seek an immediate peace negotiation have received reproach from Ukraine. Even the Pope, who has denounced the war since its inception, has drawn the ire of senior officials from the Office of the President of Ukraine in messages posted on social media. But it is Lula da Silva who has received the greatest rudeness from Ukrainian diplomacy. The Brazilian president, who even before regaining the presidency criticized Volodymyr Zelensky's position, has been, and continues to be, one of the targets of criticism from pro-Ukrainian propaganda at the national and international level. On Monday, for example, the well-known journalist Paul Mason, whose knowledge of Russia and Ukraine is scant, a limitation that does not prevent him from giving lessons, he wrote that "on the geopolitical stage, Lula is acting like a clown." The British publicist added that Lula "is doing everything he can to turn Brazil into a semi-colony of China" and, referring to Russia, "a client state of a doomed fascist regime."

Mason's emotional response was due to statements by the Brazilian president in which he stated that Ukraine's peace proposal is tantamount to demanding Russia's surrender. Actually, this has been the attitude of Ukraine since 2014 and throughout the years of the Minsk process, in which Kiev demanded from Russia the disarmament of the People's Republics and its unconditional return to Ukraine. Currently, to this demand has been added the return of the territories captured since February 24, 2022 - which Moscow was willing to return with its proposed agreement in Istanbul in April 2022 before Ukraine rejected the plan and broke off negotiations. - and, above all, Crimea. As throughout the peace process during the Donbass war,peace on the will of the population of places like Crimea, offering them the centralist and nationalist state against which they rose up in 2014.

The Russian invasion has meant for Ukraine an exponential increase in the diplomatic cover offered by Western countries, which now put pressure on the rest of the world in search of a world front against Russia that they fail to create. Many of them are opposed to the war, most of the countries outside of that so-called Western bloc intend not only not to encourage the war, but also to mediate in it to shorten and stop it. Hence, in recent weeks there have been various movements in search of an immediate negotiation that does not wait for the results of the highly anticipated Ukrainian offensive. The idea of ​​a negotiation in a position of strength in which Ukraine dictates the terms, as Emmanuel Macron seems to defend, contradicts the logic of avoiding death and destruction advocated by countries that are not directly involved in the war. While the West encourages the war and sends the material to make it possible, the rest of the world tries to stop it. Following the initiative of Lula da Silva, who gained the support of the Asian giant during his visit to China, several African leaders led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced their diplomatic mission. All of them have received the same response and despite the initial good words, Ukraine has wanted to impose its force again. On Monday, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister expressed his concern about the "proliferation of peace plans." In a dynamic of war to the end, any peace initiative is considered an aggression against Ukraine. Ukraine has wanted to impose its force again. On Monday, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister expressed his concern about the "proliferation of peace plans." In a dynamic of war to the end, any peace initiative is considered an aggression against Ukraine. Ukraine has wanted to impose its force again. On Monday, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister expressed his concern about the "proliferation of peace plans." In a dynamic of war to the end, any peace initiative is considered an aggression against Ukraine.

Yesterday, another of the advisers of the Office of the President of Ukraine insisted that any peace proposal must be based on the Ukrainian proposal, an attitude that guarantees that any negotiation is impossible and that the war continues. In this context, it is not surprising that President Zelensky, star of the G-7 summit, did not have time to meet with Lula da Silva, also invited to the forum held in Hiroshima. According to Brazilian sources, it was Ukraine who, through the kyiv embassy, ​​contacted Brazil to arrange the meeting. Lula's team, for its part, offered different schedules and even a change in Lula da Silva's itinerary, but Volodymyr Zelensky did not show up for the meeting. The lack of respect was not limited to the sit-in, Instead, the Ukrainian president ironically responded "Lula must be disappointed" to the journalists' question about the failed meeting. Although Ukraine has since claimed that there will be an occasion for a meeting between the two presidents, the reality is that Lula da Silva's stance, which seeks peace, is incompatible with Kiev's vision of fighting to impose its victory in a war until the end. Destruction and death are only collateral damage that Ukraine is prepared to bear as long as the West continues to finance and supply the resources that make it possible to prolong the conflict, something that is guaranteed as long as Zelensky remains the star of the international forums in which he participates.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/05/24/el-ca ... more-27339

Google Translator

*******

From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
Having taken Masyutovka, the Russian army continues the offensive , breaking through the enemy's defenses in the Kharkov region
▪️Assault detachments of the 6th combined-arms army in the area of ​​the settlement. Masyutovka and Molchanovo, Kharkiv region, an observation post, 5 dugouts and up to a platoon of militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the 14th brigade and the 105th brigade of the TerOborona were destroyed , the West group of troops reported.
▪️Also in the Kupyansk direction, aviation of the Western Military District launched missile and bomb strikes against concentrations of forces, weapons and equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
▪️The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine recognizes that the situation in the Masyutovka area is difficult, Russian troops are conducting successful offensive operations. Also in the Kupyansk direction, the Aerospace Forces are conducting airstrikes near Kislovka and Kotlyarovka. The positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlement are subjected to artillery and mortar shelling. Kamenka, Poplars, Red First, Novomlinsk, Dvurechnaya, Masyutovka, Malaya Shapkovka, Kondrashovka, Kupyansk, Tabaevka and Berestovo of the Kharkov region and Stelmahovka - Lugansk.

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the situation in the Artyomovsky direction at 11.03 Moscow time on May 24, 2023, specially for the channel Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok :

1. The city is completely controlled by the forces of Wagner PMC. DPR structures are slowly starting to enter the city.

2 . The enemy does not conduct assault operations with the aim of returning to the city. Limited to shelling of the western and southwestern quarters and the actions of the DRG to the west of the city.

3. PMC "Wagner" does not conduct serious assault operations with the aim of capturing Krasny. The positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Khromovo are subjected to artillery strikes. The "Wagner" itself will leave the city one of these days and go on vacation.

4.Demining and cleaning of corpses in the western quarters is hampered by ongoing shelling, while maintaining the configuration of the front, the duration of cleaning of corpses and demining may be comparable to the time of clearing the Donetsk airport terminal. The collected dead, most likely, will be handed over to the Armed Forces of Ukraine after a while.

5. On the flanks of our grouping, the enemy continues attacks to the northwest and southwest of Artemovsk and declares advances up to 200 meters. The main positions of a part of the Russian Defense Ministry and the volunteer detachments deployed here are being held. However, the enemy still has unspent reserves here, which he can try to throw into the attack on Kleshcheevka.

6.The actions of the parties are complicated by the beginning of the rains, which again scattered the area beyond the boundaries of highways and asphalt roads. The enemy will most likely attribute the failure of his counterattacks to Russia's "climatic weapon", although the weather interferes with us exactly to the same extent as the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

7. The command of the RF Armed Forces, for obvious reasons, does not disclose its intentions regarding further offensive operations based on Artemovsk and Soledar - there are various options that do not end with one Chasov Yar.

***

Colonelcassad
1:17:05
Prigozhin's big interview following the results of the Battle of Artemovsk.
Interestingly. Prigogine declares that the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are 50,000 irretrievable. They practically coincide with the calculations of the War Tears project, which, according to its methodology, gave 55,000 losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, based on the calculation of the established losses of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine noted in Artemovsk and regional obituaries.

Wagner losses amounted to 20% of the total killed and up to 20% of the wounded.
At its peak, the number of Wagner PMCs reached, according to Prigozhin, up to 50,000 people.
The enemy grouping defending Artemovsk totaled up to 82 thousand people. (which coincides with our and Ukrainian estimates that estimated the grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Artemovsk area at 75-85 thousand people.

***

Colonelcassad
What to take with you when mobilizing https://t.me/IronHelmets/131

The priority of things that you should take with you is the following: 1) Medicine, 2) For everyday life, 3) For service and military operations.

As you can see, everything related to "bang-bang" is in last place. Simply because even for a contract soldier on the front line, contact with the enemy is obtained at best in 10% of the total service time. In this case, you most likely will not even see the enemy.

More than 60% of the time will be occupied by everyday life. Yes, it's dirty trenches, rain, snow, cold and mud. Cooking, dragging BC from one place to another and other "non-heroic" things, unlike what we are shown in the films. And a lot depends on life there ..


***

forwarded from
Beregini
When conducting information and psychological operations, special attention is also paid to the assessment of the moral and psychological state of the personnel. In addition, they assess the socio-political situation in the region. No one will carry out any measures in the unfavorable moral and psychological state of their troops. And the fact that soldiers and officers do not run away when two pickups approach is also given great attention.

For example, in the operational grouping of troops "Kharkov" they study the mood not only in the Kharkov region, but also in Dnepropetrovsk and Poltava. What is also noteworthy in this document is that much attention is paid to numbers about the Russian-speaking population. Of course, the numbers are not the same in reality. Something, as it should be, was painted in the right direction in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. So Zelya can sing about the fact that in Ukraine no one oppresses Russian speakers as much as they like. But what is actually happening - this document is direct evidence.

By the way, people from Kharkiv region have already begun to complain to us. Especially from the village of Liptsy. The military simply take the houses without asking the owners. Most likely, then they will write off the fact that they spoke Russian.

Well, the Russian military should take note of this document. We said that everything that happens in the Belgorod region is a psychological operation. Everything was prepared in advance, and the script was written in the Kharkiv OGV. Everyone immediately forgot about Bakhmut, and at what cost they kept him, too. We warn you, there will be many more such provocations.

We are Beregini! We know everything!

***

Colonelcassad
Meanwhile, respected Western "partners" react to the events in the Belgorod region with relative restraint.

The American press, for the most part, broadcasts the official statements of Russian officials, quoting everything that does not fit into the established narrative.

However, in the Russian-language Telegram channel of the US State Department, on-duty reminders about who exactly is the aggressor appeared - however, with the proviso that the American authorities did not encourage or allow any attacks outside the borders of Ukraine . But still, journalists from individual media outlets - for example, CNN - covering what was happening, slowly began to promote"Legion Freedom of Russia" . The attack on Russian settlements is called "the most decisive step since the beginning of the war" , the militants have "Christian" and "religious" motives, allowing them to kill Russians.

A kind of icing on the cake is the title of the note "These shots show why Russian citizens are fighting against their homeland."

It is noteworthy that the CNN interviewer spoke with the militants back in December, during the active phase of the battle for Bakhmut (Artemovsk) , and this case was published only now.

***

Colonelcassad
"The data on Ukraine's losses remain Zelensky's biggest secret," write the French media.

Questions to the military authorities of Ukraine on this issue "cause their anger," say those journalists who "risked doing it."

However, from 40 to 60% of Ukrainian military personnel who were trained in France in 2022 no longer get in touch, according to a Valerus source. "We think most are silent because they have already died in battle."

"There is no doubt that the number of dead and injured has risen sharply since the end of the summer."

"After about ten waves of mobilization, the number of those who can serve under the blue and yellow flag has noticeably decreased."

"The nine brigades reconstituted with NATO assistance to prepare for the spring offensive have between 2,500 and 3,000 men each, while there should be between 5,000 and 8,000."

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

******************

CIA Front Company Extends Intrusive Surveillance Operations in Lithuania Under Pretext of New Cold War
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - May 22, 2023 3

Image
[Source: chesbro-on-security-blogspot.com]

Creation of Orwellian surveillance apparatus belies claim that the U.S. is upholding democracy in the face of Russian authoritarianism.
On April 26, Palantir, a data analytics company founded with CIA seed money, announced an expansion of its operations in Lithuania after entering into a strategic partnership with Lithuania’s Ministry of Defense.

This announcement exemplifies how the new Cold War is being used to justify CIA collaboration with a foreign government in advancing intrusive surveillance operations targeting Russia and pro-Russian political elements. It also exemplifies how central the CIA is to the war in Ukraine, as Palantir is playing a key role in the war by tracking Russian military movements and helping Ukraine to coordinate battlefield maneuvers.

The U.S. claims to be supporting democracy against Russian and Chinese authoritarianism; however, Palantir’s methods are right out of George Orwell’s 1984.

While Western media consistently highlight the alleged human rights atrocities of Belarus’s socialist, pro-Russian government led by Alexander Lukashenko, it is silent on the intense political repression targeting socialists and anti-fascists in Lithuania, which will only be enhanced by Palantir’s growing presence.

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[Source: archyde.com]

Big Brother Is Watching You
Named after the omniscient crystal balls in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy,[1] Palantir cut its teeth working for the Pentagon and CIA in Afghanistan and Iraq, where U.S. spies and Special Forces deployed its software to synthesize the blizzard of battlefield intelligence, and to avoid roadside bombs, track insurgents for assassination, and hunt down Osama bin Laden.

Before her appointment as Director of National Intelligence in January 2021, Avril Haines, the former CIA Deputy Director, was paid $180,000 by Palantir as a consultant.

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Avril Haines [Source: counterinformationblog.blogspot.com]

Palantir’s technology has been described as “surveillance” or “data mining,” with the ability to analyze massive amounts of data from disparate sources and present its findings in colorful, easy-to-interpret graphics that look like spider webs.

Co-founder Peter Thiel—an early investor in Facebook who also founded PayPal—described Palantir as a “mission-oriented company” focused on “needing to reduce terrorism while preserving civil liberties” in a 2013 Forbes article.

Co-founder and CEO Alex Karp said that the company’s “software is used to target terrorists and keep soldiers safe” in a letter issued with the IPO filing.

Peter ThielPeter Thiel addressing 2016 Republican Party Convention. A libertarian black sheep in left-leaning Silicon Valley, Thiel contributed $1.25 million to Donald Trump’s presidential victory, spoke at the Republican Convention, and dined with Trump at the White House. [Source: bloomberg.com]

Bloomberg News reported in April 2018, however, that Palantir—the world’s #1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) software platform—was weaponized against ordinary Americans.

Law enforcement agencies and corporations have used its software to comb through and then analyze people’s financial documents, airline reservations, cell phone records and social media postings.

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An unwelcome party for Palantir after it moved to new headquarters in Denver from Silicon Valley. [Source: 5280.com]
Palantir has also partnered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help arrest families for deportation.[2] The Los Angeles Police Department additionally taught officers to use the company’s “Palantir Gotham” tool to “construct a vast database that lists the names, addresses, phone numbers, license plates, friendships, romances, jobs” of city residents, regardless of whether they were under any suspicion of committing a crime.

A former JPMorgan cyber expert who used Palantir’s software said that “everyone’s a suspect, so we monitored everything.”

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[Source: chesbro-on-security.blogspot.com]

In September 2018, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL) wrote a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton, urging an investigation of the company before it went public.

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AOC and “Chuy” Garcia [Source: aldianews.com]

One of many concerns raised by the representatives was incomplete information about investments in the company from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm that partially funded the company when it was founded. A 2008 filing showed that In-Q-Tel owned at least 10% of the company, but more recent information is not available.

Ukraine War Profiteering
Palantir‘s latest offering makes clear the growing military applications of the company’s cutting-edge AI software in an expanding war against Russia via proxy.

In a theoretical scenario, a military operator tasked with monitoring the Eastern European theater discovers enemy forces massed near the border and is able to rapidly order reconnaissance drones and then a Reaper drone strike while jamming enemy communications.

Palantir has already been heavily involved in the Ukraine War by supplying Ukraine with software systems to help it target Russian tanks and track Russian troop movements.

Last June, Palantir CEO Alex Karp met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, after which he agreed to open an office in Ukraine. Karp later bragged that Palantir was “responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine,” referring to Russian tanks, artillery and other weapons systems. Karp also told David Ignatius of The Washington Post that “Palantir AI was ‘winning’ the war for Ukraine.”

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Volodymyr Zelensky going over military plans with Palantir CEO Alex Karp in Kyiv. [Source: benzinga.com]

Palantir recently announced that it plans to deploy its software to help prosecute Russians for war crimes at the ICC. The software will combine intelligence and satellite imagery to build a map of evidence establishing the proximity of Russian equipment to crime scenes or aggregating photographs that Ukrainians have uploaded to social media and investigators see as relevant evidence.[3]

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Zelensky in the presidential palace with Palantir CEO Alex Karp. [Source: rubryka.com]
This coincides well with Palantir’s growing role in Lithuania, whose government has staunchly supported Ukraine in the war with Russia while reinforcing an EU blockade on the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on its border.

Lithuania’s Defense Minister, Arvydas Anušauskas, said that the Palantir agreement would “strength[en] Lithuanian expertise in data-driven defense capabilities and [allow it to] becom[e] a center of excellence within the Baltic States and NATO.”

In 2019, the U.S. began stationing battle-size army units of around 500 troops in Lithuania on a rotational basis, and sent additional troops to Lithuania last year along with the other Baltic States, along with eight F-35 fighter jets and 20 AH-64 Apache helicopters.[4] A NATO battlegroup has also been stationed at Lithuania’s main base in Rukla since 2017.

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Simonas Zagurskas [Source: bukimeviening.lt]

Zagurskas claimed that the victims were shot and killed by local militants and other snipers directed by representatives of the CIA who wanted to blame the killings on the Soviets.[6] This was a prelude to the techniques used in the February 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine that triggered the current war where Georgian snipers likely in the pay of the CIA shot protesters in killings that were framed on the pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych who was discredited and forced to flee Ukraine.

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Burial ceremony of victims of January 13, 1991, massacre in Vilnius. [Source: wikipedia.org]

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[Source: barnesandnoble.com]

Zagurskas’ view on the events of January 13, 1991 in Vilnius is corroborated by Galina Sapozhnikova’s book, The Lithuanian Conspiracy and the Soviet Collapse, which is based on first-hand eyewitness accounts, including that of former USSR Foreign Minister Marshal Dmitry Yazov, who said, “everything was set up to cause mass discontent. They had to get the Soviet troops out of Lithuanian territory. How does one do that? Spill blood and provoke them. That is what they did. They outplayed us. Killed their own in order to win.”[7]

Audrius Butkevičius, the director of Lithuania’s department of national defense in the early 1990s and a main orchestrator of the January 1991 drama, admitted to a Lithuanian newspaper that, on January 13, 1991, he deliberately aimed for civilian casualties, saying he “had no regrets since the deaths delivered a powerful blow to two main pillars of Soviet authority, the army and the KGB,” which never recovered. “Yes,” he said, “I planned to place the Soviet army in a very uncomfortable psychological position, so any officer would feel shame for being there.”

The bed of lies upon which Lithuania’s post-Communist state was established has set the groundwork for recent waves of repression in Lithuania targeting especially the Socialist Popular Front, which intensified following the 2014 Ukraine coup and the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.

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Poster demanding the freedom of Algirdas Paleckis, the Socialist Popular Front Party’s leader, who was arrested and jailed in 2018. [Source: www.struggle-la-lucha.org]

With access to Palantir’s software, Lithuania’s government can now monitor and track the Socialist Popular Front and other renegade political parties even more methodically than before, while more effectively supporting U.S. and NATO military operations in Ukraine that are leading us toward World War III.


1.In the fantasy classic, scenes from the future or past can be viewed using the object, but, as Newsweek points out, the information provided is unreliable and often used to deceive. ↑

2.Wilmer Catalan-Ramirez, a 31-year-old body shop mechanic, was seriously injured when six ICE agents burst into his family’s home last March without a warrant. He had been listed in the local gang database twice—in rival gangs. Catalan-Ramirez spent the next nine months in federal detention, until the city of Chicago admitted both listings were wrong and agreed to petition the feds to let him stay in the United States. ICE released him in January, pending a new visa application. “These cases are perfect examples of how databases filled with unverified information that is often false can destroy people’s lives,” said his attorney, Vanessa del Valle of Northwestern University’s MacArthur Justice Center. ↑

3.Palantir said its technology would allow investigators to access otherwise ring-fenced data while guarding against evidence tampering. ↑

4.Pabradė is one of the two military bases in Lithuania with adequate infrastructure for allied forces.

5.Galina Sapozhnikova, The Lithuanian Conspiracy and the Soviet Collapse (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2018), 16. ↑

6.One person whose death was attributed to Soviet soldiers also died from a heart attack and two others were hit by civilian cars and not Soviet tanks. ↑

7.Sapozhnikova, The Lithuanian Conspiracy and the Soviet Collapse, 28. Interestingly, U.S. regime-change specialist Gene Sharp had been spotted in Vilnius in February 1991. ↑

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/0 ... -cold-war/

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Truth and Power: on which side is the Fourth Estate?
May 23, 2023

The question I pose in the title to this essay is purely rhetorical. We all can imagine on which side mainstream media stands. And for those who have doubts, a convincing demonstration that the Press speaks for Power was given last night at a speech in the Geopolitics Group of a prestigious private club in downtown Brussels. The speaker was Steven Erlanger, principal diplomatic correspondent of The New York Times, who since 2017 has been based in Brussels, topping out a distinguished career with the newspaper which has, along the way, earned him a Pulitzer Prize.

I went to hear Erlanger in part because his address was given the tantalizing title: “Reflections on the Vassalization of Europe.” The mention of “vassalization,” which is not complimentary either to the overlord in North America or to the vassals here in Europe, allowed one to think that Erlanger would be distancing himself from U.S. foreign policy.

My second reason for attending this event was “the old class tie.” Not the club tie, but the Harvard College tie. Both Erlanger and I are alumni of that training ground for American elites and even occasionally for American intellectuals. My graduating class was five years earlier than Erlanger’s. But in my class there was also a certain French-born Serge Schmemann, who made a distinguished career in The New York Times and spent many years based in nearby Paris as bureau chief. As I had supposed, Schmemann, who is today on the newspaper’s editorial board in semi-retirement, was once Erlanger’s boss.

I was curious to see how Erlanger’s thinking matches or contrasts with the positions of Schmemann, with whom I have crossed swords publicly in past essays. Notwithstanding his Russian ancestry, as a journalist Sergei Aleksandrovich has been anti-Russian down to his socks. I was curious how Erlanger, who claims to be a Russian speaker and claims to follow Russian television, would match up. This is all the more relevant in the present day near war situation between the West and Russia.

Chatham House rules were not in effect last night. The talk and the Q&A which followed were for the record.

Allow me to open with a bouquet of sorts for Erlanger. The man and his newspaper are wedded till death do them part. The intrigue hinted at in the title to his speech was just a feint, a conversation opener. He firmly believes what he writes: Europe needs American direction in order to defend itself and its values against the malevolent Big Bear to the East. Europe cannot get its act together on its own, as we all saw on 24 February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and the whole of European security was put in jeopardy. It is American money and American military hardware which has kept the Ukrainian forces in play. Without that, Kiev would have folded just weeks into the campaign. The point of variance in Erlanger’s speech with official U.S. government foreign policy was elsewhere, with regard to China. His advice to his European audience is not to follow the United States into a gratuitous fight with Beijing that may be in American interests but is not in Europe’s interests.

Of course, the question of how far America, not to mention Europe should go in pushing conflict with China is still debatable in the United States. Von der Leyen’s distinction between “decoupling” and “de-risking” relations with the PRC still finds supporters in Washington. So Erlanger had wiggle room on this issue.

Now for the other side of the coin. Everything that Erlanger said last night about how Russia has been humiliated in its military campaign against Ukraine; how it is losing the war; how the war should end by early winter, a time that is politically convenient for Washington in light of the electoral campaign: all of these statements show that his sincere loyalty to what his publication is feeding the public comes from a mind that is superficial, incapable of seeing let alone countering facts and questions that put in doubt his verities.

I rest my case on his answers to the two questions I posed at the very start of the Q&A session. The first question was why he is so certain that U.S. military support will ensure the victory or at least will spare Kiev a defeat when events of the past week have demonstrated that the Russians have and are deploying superior military hardware that vanquishes the best that the West is throwing at it. I mentioned the destruction of one of two Patriot air defense systems in Kiev by a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile that evaded all 30 Patriot missiles fired at it and hit target. I also alluded to the destruction by Russian missiles this past week of the stores of British depleted uranium artillery shells in the town of Khmelnitsky, in Western Ukraine, that send radioactivity levels in the atmosphere soaring around Lvov and into southern Poland. And I raised the question of the hospitalization in intensive care of none other than the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces General Zaluzhny following an attack two weeks ago on a provincial command center which killed outright the senior officers in his entourage. I could have added the Russian capture of Bakhmut on 20 May, but time to complete my question was running out.

Erlanger batted away these indications that the war is going badly for the Americans and Ukrainians without a moment’s reflection. No, the Patriot system was not destroyed, he said, just damaged and is now back in working order. As to the other indications of Russians’ superior military intelligence and striking power, not a word of counter proofs or denials from Mr. Erlanger. The Russians are being humiliated, period.

My second question was about how and why Europe found itself defenseless on the day of the Russian invasion, 24 February 2022, when for the preceding decade or more the 27 Member States of the European Union had been spending hundreds of billions of euros each year in their defense budgets? Where did that money go, I asked.

Obviously this was a question Mr. Erlanger had never encountered before. He has been spending far too much time with fellow thinkers to be challenged in that way. This is the “bell jar effect” which generally accounts for the lack of intellectual rigor of those in the mainstream. And so he said he would skip that question and move on to give others the microphone.

In fact, considerably later in the Q&A Erlanger came back to my question when he remarked apropos nothing in particular that the Europeans’ military budgets were all spent on salaries and pensions. Three or four hundred billion a year on salaries? I think the good journalist should dig a bit more deeply before venturing such guesses.

What I did not have the opportunity to pursue in questioning flows directly from the same critical question. How is it that the Russian military budget which comes to 80 billion euros per year produces the world’s biggest stock of artillery pieces, shells and tanks, when Europe had almost nothing on 24 February and the USA has not much more than nothing to offer Ukraine today? And if I may reach back still further in causality, was it just plain stupidity that explains why Europe and the USA were both surprised and unprepared in materiel for a land war in Ukraine? Why did Europe and America provoke Russia as they did during the period 2014 to 2022 by turning a blind eye to the murderous Ukrainian shelling of civilian populations in Donbas? Why did Europe and America provoke Russia as they did in December 2021 – January 2022 by refusing to negotiate on Russian demands for a review of the security architecture in Europe if they were unprepared for war?

Allow me to answer these questions myself here and now. Europe was unprepared for war because society and its leadership knew that they were living at peace with the Russians, who did not threaten them. They had seen Russia’s never ending restraint in the face of ever more brazen Western threats to their vital interests not just in Ukraine. The installation of dual purpose American missile launchers in Romania and Poland, the NATO war games similating capture of Kaliningrad come to mind. European elites mistook this restraint for weakness and indecisiveness, just as Erlanger today mistakes the Russians’ refusal to wage ‘shock and awe’ war on Ukraine from the start of the Special Military Operation for their supposed inability to do so.

In brief, the shallowness of thinking of Mr. Erlanger and of the editorial board that he serves is simply astounding. So much for the education imparted by our common alma mater.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/05/23/ ... th-estate/

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The EU Can’t Keep Its Story Straight About US Sanctions Against the Import of Russian Fuel
MAY 23, 2023

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By Andrew Korybko – May 22, 2023

The EU only has two choices when it comes to India selling refined Russian fuel: it can either retain the present arrangement for the pragmatic sake of all parties’ pecuniary interests, or it can ban the import of these products for ideological reasons at the expense of the aforesaid.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell sparked a scandal earlier this week when he criticized India for selling refined Russian fuel to Europe, ominously warning that “we have to act.” This implied threat prompted Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to remind everyone to “Look at EU Council regulations, Russian crude is substantially transformed in the third country and not treated as Russian anymore. I would urge you to look at Council’s Regulation 833/2014.”

Borrell responded shortly after by sharing “Some Clarifications On The Circumvention Of EU Sanctions Against Russia” on the European External Action Service website. According to him, “The EU’s measures have no extraterritorial effect, meaning they only apply to European entities.” He also reaffirmed that “Once refined, these products are no longer treated as Russian but as Indian and we cannot prevent Indian refineries selling them to an EU operator, or to an intermediary.”

Nevertheless, Borrell then added that

“We in the EU don’t buy Russian oil, but we buy the diesel obtained by refining this Russian oil somewhere else. This has the effect of circumventing our sanctions and our member states should take measures to deal with this.”

He also quoted a Ukrainian official who described this arrangement as “completely legal, but completely immoral.” All that the EU’s foreign policy chief did was further muddle his side’s stance towards Russian energy sanctions.

On the one hand, he confirmed that this pragmatic workaround doesn’t violate the bloc’s unilateral restrictions in this sphere, but on the other, he said that “we cannot close our eyes to how EU companies themselves are circumventing the sanctions by purchasing refined oil coming originally from Russia.” Despite saying twice that India can’t be blamed for this, the subtext is that these EU companies wouldn’t even have the chance to circumvent the sanctions if India wasn’t selling refined Russian fuel.

Legally speaking, the EU can’t punish India for this, but Borrell’s initial remark and subsequent clarification were obviously aimed at harming its soft power by portraying that country as “immoral”. The EU can, however, “take measures to deal with this” at home but that would require tweaking its sanctions language otherwise it wouldn’t be legal. That said, any moves in this direction would raise the costs for European consumers.

The present arrangement made India indispensable to the global energy market by helping to meet the EU’s related needs for a premium and thus keeping prices comparatively affordable. If its services were prohibited upon tweaking the EU’s sanctions language to ban the import of refined Russian fuel, then the bloc would have to compete with other customers for the finite amount of fuel from other suppliers, thus spiking costs.

Even if those selfsame other suppliers decided to increase production, which can’t be taken for granted due to the Russian-Saudi duopoly that pretty much controls OPEC+, it would still take time to have an effect on the market. It’s therefore in everyone’s pecuniary interests to keep the present arrangement intact, thus necessitating the EU prioritizing pragmatism over the faux “values” that it claims are at the center of its liberal–globalist “rules-based order”.

Therein lies the dilemma though since the Western elite is split between ideological and pragmatic factions, particularly when it comes to India. This was most recently proven by the State Department’s “religious freedoms” report earlier this week that sharply criticized that country, which contrasted with Ashley J. Tellis’ article from the beginning of the month for the influential Council on Foreign Relations’ official magazine that called for not letting differences on any issue impede their strategic partnership.

The EU only has two choices when it comes to India selling refined Russian fuel: it can either retain the present arrangement for the pragmatic sake of all parties’ pecuniary interests, or it can ban the import of these products for ideological reasons at the expense of the aforesaid. The second scenario that’s presumably being debated as evidenced by the scandal that Borrell sparked and then exacerbated with his clarification could also risk harming Indian-EU relations too by depriving Delhi of additional profits.

Objectively speaking, it’s best for everyone if the EU keeps everything the way that it is, but it can’t be assumed that it’ll do so due to the powerful influence of the ideological faction within its permanent bureaucracy. For this reason, observers should keep an eye on this issue, especially since any movement in the direction of banning the import of Indian-refined Russian fuel could lead to sudden price spikes as well as potentially complicating that country’s ongoing trade talks with the bloc.

https://orinocotribune.com/the-eu-cant- ... sian-fuel/

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An Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon fires an AIM-9M Sidewinder missile during training at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, March 10, 2021. [Photo: Department of Defense/Air Force 1st Lt. Savanah Bray / WSWS.org ]

U.S. announces plans to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine
Originally published: World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) on May 19, 2023 by Andre Damon (more by World Socialist Web Site (WSWS)) | (Posted May 23, 2023)

On Friday, the White House announced the most reckless and dangerous escalation of its involvement in the war with Russia to date, that it has decided to train Ukrainian pilots to fly U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets and send the nuclear-capable planes to the battlefield.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters at the G7 summit in Japan that Biden “informed his G7 counterparts that the United States will support a joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots on fourth generation fighter aircraft including F-16s.” He added the U.S. “will work with our allies to determine when planes will be delivered, who will be delivering them and how many.”

Facing a series of major military setbacks for its proxy forces in Ukraine, the United States is massively expanding its direct involvement in the war, with potentially catastrophic consequences for all of humanity.

Although first fielded decades ago, the F-16 has been continuously updated and remains one of the most capable, complex and deadly weapons systems in the world. With a range of more than 500 miles, it is capable of fielding the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, with a range of up to 1,200 miles. These weapons threaten both Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Last March, the Pentagon rejected a plan to send semi-obsolete Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine, because it “may be mistaken as escalatory and could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO.”

The fact that these words are far more applicable to the decision to send F-16s points to the degree to which the war in Ukraine is spinning out of control.

To an even greater degree than the M1 Abrams battle tank, sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine would involve the deployment of logistical infrastructure and supply lines into Ukraine from the NATO countries, likely including the deployment of American civilian contractors to help maintain these sophisticated systems.

The F-16 is the workhorse of the United States’ “nuclear sharing” program. In the event of a full-scale nuclear war, atomic bombs based in Turkey, Germany and Poland, delivered from F-16 fighters, would be among the first to explode.

The announcement that NATO would send F-16 fighters to Ukraine takes place in flagrant defiance of multiple explicit promises made by the Biden administration to the public, aimed at reassuring the population that it was seeking to avoid an escalation of a full-scale war with nuclear-armed Russia.

In March 2022, Biden asserted,

the idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews, just understand—and don’t kid yourself, no matter what you all say—that’s called World War Three.

In May, Biden said,

We will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces. We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders.

One by one, Biden has crossed each of the “red lines” he set out to limit his administration’s involvement in the war.

In January, the Biden administration announced that it would send dozens of M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine, alongside hundreds of other main battle tanks from NATO countries.

In April, leaked documents revealed that 97 NATO special operations troops are deployed inside Ukraine, alongside 71 active-duty U.S. military personnel. These troops, according to an article published this week in the in the Wall Street Journal, are “operating very close to the front lines” and are a “guiding influence on Ukrainian special-forces activity.”

Ukraine has received U.S. authorization in private to carry out strikes inside Russia itself, and in February, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland publicly endorsed Ukrainian strikes inside Crimea. “Those are legitimate targets,” Nuland said.

Ukraine is hitting them. We are supporting that.

Now, with the sending of F-16 fighter jets, the United States has crossed the last of these self-proclaimed red lines.

But the war does not enjoy the support of the population. Only one in five Americans approves of expanding U.S. involvement in the war, according to a University of Maryland poll.

It is for this reason that the Biden administration has systematically lied about its plans to escalate the war and sought to cloak its long-planned escalatory measures as improvised responses to public “pressure” from its NATO allies and members of Congress.

This was the narrative presented over and over in the U.S. media. “For more than a year, getting F-16s into the skies above Ukraine for use against Russia has been Kyiv’s holy grail… Suddenly, President Biden has said yes,” wrote the Washington Post.

The turnaround, according to U.S., European and Ukrainian officials, is the result of steady pressure from allies, Congress and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who just completed visits to European capitals.

This narrative has just one wrinkle, namely the fact that the U.S. has been working on plans to send F-16 fighters since at least July of 2022. That month, John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, confirmed that the Pentagon is discussing “providing fighter aircraft to the Ukrainians,” and Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., asserted that “discussions are ongoing” to send U.S.-NATO fighters to Ukraine.

The announcement by the White House that it would send F-16 fighters to Ukraine, under the pressure of a series of military defeats, sets the stage for a further escalation of the war, threatening a full-scale conflict between the countries with the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.

https://mronline.org/2023/05/23/u-s-ann ... o-ukraine/

Ukraine cannot win this, Russia cannot lose, a rapid Russian victory may be the only way to avoid WWIII.
"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 IV

Post by blindpig » Thu May 25, 2023 11:59 am

At the service of the extreme right
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 05/25/2023

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Many have been the foreigners who in the last year have responded to the call of Ukraine to go as volunteers to the front to fight in defense of Ukraine and against Russia. Many of them have gone unnoticed, while others have gained notoriety for all kinds of factors: being accused of corruption, scams, being captured by Russian or Republican forces or dying on the front lines. This is the case of four soldiers whose death in Artyomovsk was announced by Dmitro Korchinsky. Four Western citizens of supposedly leftist ideology who went to the front to fight in a battle that had been meaningless for months, as part of battalions made up of far-right militants and for a neoliberal and nationalist country whose ideology clashes with the nationalist and authoritarian tendencies of post-Maidan Ukraine. The integration of these alleged leftists into battalions known for their proselytism and ultra-rightism leaves little doubt: any alternative tendency to the nationalist right among the Ukrainian troops is an anecdote in a context of absolute inability to influence the message and at the service of the far right.

The Bratstvo Foreign Legion in Bakhmut

On April 19, on its Facebook profile , the Bratstvo Battalion reported that “ In today's battle [during the night of 18-19] in the Bakhmut area, Bratstvo, it suffered the highest losses in killed and wounded during the entire the war ”. According to the chronicle, “ Bratstvo fulfilled the combat task, destroyed a large number of enemies, after which they managed to take out their dead and wounded from the battle ”. A little earlier, Dmytro Limko, from the Stugna Battalion, another of the units usually attached to the special actions of the Ukrainian HUR, also pointed out that his group was " suffering casualties in the battles in Bakhmut... Many combatants are in hospitals, many they are lost”.

In a video of that same day 19, uploaded to the network a few hours later, the leader of Bratstvo, Dmytro Korchinsky, in a brief introductory content to an interview unrelated to the events, confirmed that the greatest losses had occurred in the history of Bratstvo, with numerous deaths and serious injuries. Regarding the combat order received from the military command, the video emphasized the exploratory intention of the action (identification of enemy troops), although accompanied with the aim of retaking the most accessible positions and, more generally, alleviating the situation of Ukrainian forces on the outskirts of Bakhmut.

In line with the propaganda will to reaffirm the line of his unit, Korchinsky's intervention was to ensure that he would continue with his activity -“we will replenish the battalion ”, he said-, with new soldiers willing to join the ranks, with the intention not only of not to retake the Ukrainian borders established in the early 1990s, but to reach Moscow. “ We will do it ”, he assured, before abruptly closing this part of the video with “ I don't want to continue with this topic ”.

A few days later, on May 2, a new entry from the group surprised by announcing that they obtained " eternal life in the battle of Bakhmut on April 19, 2023 " for the following foreign personnel:

The American "Harris", Cooper Turner Andrews.

The Irish "Osip", Finbar Cafferkey.

The Mexican "Bradley", Bradley Thomas Jarema.

The Muscovite [sic] «Leshiy», Dmitry Petrov

According to the statement, “when they joined the Brotherhood, they followed leftist beliefs. In Bratstvo they learned to respect the faith and love God. They participated in the Liturgy . “ Very disciplined and brave ”, “ They will always remain in our memory ”. “ The Kingdom of Heaven! ”

The following photos of the four militants accompanied the post.

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In this case, Dmytro Korchinsky had anticipated his group's statement and on May 1 put forward a slightly different version in which he began by stating that in Bratstvo " there are a small number of foreigners " who " study, pray, fight alongside their Ukrainian brothers ”. Referring to the fallen in Bakhmut, he noted that by joining Bratstvo " they held strange leftist beliefs " before learning in the unit to " respect the faith and love God ." He also provided the information that Bradley Jarema was Mexican, but was in possession of a US passport.

The events described up to now raised some serious questions, particularly in relation to the theoretical leftist ideas of a series of combatants incorporated into a national-banderista group like Bratstvo. In addition, two of the photos submitted by Bratstvo (on the right, top and bottom) actually corresponded to a single person, the Irish Finbar Cafferkey (although, without a doubt, with a mustache of a certain Mexican style in one of the images). . It was also striking that it was not possible to find any information on the web regarding the Mexican-American Bradley Jarema.

Regarding the reported success in the recovery of the bodies of the deceased, it would be known shortly after that it had not occurred. Cooper Andrews' mother, for example, would state on CNN that his body had not been recovered, due to ongoing fighting around the city, in stark contradiction to Bratstvo's statements.

deceased fighters

What is known about the deceased people? Without trying to investigate their personal history, the objective is to know the ways through which these four combatants came to fight in Bakhmut together with Bratstvo. The reason is the importance of foreign participation in the group's actions from the first weeks of the war. Prior to the raid on the city of Artyomovsk, among others, several US citizens and an entire Ukrainian-Irish unit participated in the Brotherhood's actions. The collaboration between the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and Bratstvo is equally well known.

Dmytro Petrov, Ilya Leshiy

Of the four people killed, only one, the Russian Dmytro Petrov, Leshiy, had previous roots in the Ukrainian conflict. Around thirty at the time of his death, Petrov, who had supported the Maidan actions in 2014, settled permanently in Ukraine in 2018. It was when his anarcho-communist activities, which he intended to base on direct action and in guerrilla methods, they ended up placing him on the radar of the Russian security forces, as revealed in an interview with Doxa , published in March 2023. According to a post by Соціального руху(Social Movement), Petrov would also have participated in the Bolotnaya movement at the beginning of the last decade in Russia and defended the anti-Lukashenko protests of 2020 after the elections in Belarus. Another notable fact is his interest in the Kurdish experience in Rojava.

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Petrov at the presentation of a collective book on Rojava. He personally visited Kurdistan and authored or co-authored several books and articles on the experience of revolutionary self-organization in that area.

A member of the small anarchist network in Kiev, Petrov led the implementation of an action plan during the war, of evident media success among European anarchist and antifa groups. The plan resulted, on the one hand, in the setting up of an anti-authoritarian and anti-imperialist unit to fight on the front. Petrov had no military experience, but had undergone initial military training during his stay in the Ukraine.

Almost immediately, Leshiy's anti-authoritarian platoon joined the unit of Yuri Samoilenko, one of the group's associates, within the structures of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense. The incorporation occurred according to the hierarchical and leadership structures defined in the structure of the army. However, according to Petrov, some modalities of grassroots action were introduced, such as tekmil self-criticism sessions or the appointment of squad delegates to transmit suggestions, etc.

The new command, however, canceled the contracts and dissolved the anti-authoritarian platoon. The subsequent incorporation of Samoilenko's volunteers into the 6th Battalion of the DUK-Praviy Sektor, which in turn is more firmly integrated into the structures of the Ministry of Defence, occurs under the same circumstances of hierarchical dependency, although without the level of autonomy maintained in the Territorial defense and without the participation of the group of foreigners of the initial group. In return, according to Leshiy, the maintenance of the tradition of the voluntary formations of the Right Sector favored a less hierarchical operation than in the army itself.

The second part of the Leshiy group's plan for the war was the consolidation of a civilian support structure in charge of assuming, among other things, the task of supplying the groups of the anarchist network that joined the defense forces. It is the origin of the so-called “Operation Solidarity” and, later, of the current “Solidarity Collectives”, with wide diffusion among European anarchist and antifa groups, particularly in Eastern countries, including Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom. In his spare time, Leshiy also wrote frequently for the Комітету Спротиву / Resistance Committee, a committee that acts as a space for dialogue and coordination of anarchist, libertarian and anti-authoritarian initiatives in Ukraine.

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28.10.2022. Twitter. Poster of the Комітет Спротиву /// Resistance Committee showing the strategic line for the war: From kyiv to Minsk, Donetsk and Crimea; from there to Moscow.

The formation of the group of foreign volunteers

Given the progressive clandestinization of armed action, including that of voluntary groups, it is not easy to specify with complete certainty how Leshiy, who is located in the battles around Svatovo and Kreminna, ended up participating in the fighting at Bakhmut in a small foreign volunteer unit. Although some aspects can be pointed out to understand the process.

In the first place, Leshiy's involvement in the fighting at Bakhmut must have fit with the dynamic of getting close to one another reflected in his interview with Doxa. Referring to the enlistment mechanism, he said for example: “ The procedure is simple: you find a volunteer unit or a regular AFU unit willing to admit you as volunteers and you join it. The hardest part is finding a suitable unit that works with volunteers .” Everything indicates that, individually or as a group, the unit made up of Leshiy, Finbar Cafferkey, Cooper Andrews and Bradley Jarema ended up positioning itself around the voluntary support units for the HUR, among which Bratstvo assumes a relevant role.

Second, the existing data shows that members of Leshiy's unit had quite different trajectories of approach to it, with the formation of the new group of foreign volunteers roughly coinciding in time with its downfall. The trajectories of the Irishman Finbar Cafferkey and the American Cooper Andrews show this.

Finbar Cafferkey, Çiya or Osip

At 44, Finbar Cafferkey was the veteran of the group and the only one who appears to have had, prior to the Russian attack in February 2022, any combat experience. According to a mayonees.ie article , Cafferkey joined the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria around April 2017, at a time when the group was trying to take Raqqa from ISIS. In an explanatory video, uploaded to the networks on June 20, Cafferkey pointed out that he participated in the fight when required. What this may mean, in terms of actual military experience, cannot however be specified, especially as a history of participation in a conventional war between states with powerful and well-armed armies.

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Petrov in Kurdistan

In any case, a point in common between Petrov and Cafferkey is the Kurdish connection, particularly in its dimension of collaboration with local militants in Syria. Although both were in Rojava, supporting the YPG's action, there are no sources that support that they knew each other or coincided at some point in Syria.

According to Solidarity Collectives , Cafferkey participated from the beginning of the Russian intervention in actions to distribute humanitarian aid from Poland to Ukraine together with ACK Galicja and XVX TacticAid. He also collaborated with Help War Victims UA and Operation Solidarity, point of contact in the latter case with the structures of Leshiy and Samoilenko.

ACK Galicja , an anarchist group from Rzeszów, Poland, reveals that its members met Cafferkey around April 2023 “ when he landed in Poland after a failed attempt to join a military unit in Kiev. He spent about a month with us; he then he went to Ukraine. Çiya led transports of equipment and humanitarian aid from Poland and delivered them to Ukraine. He collaborated with Operation Solidarity (later Solidarity Collectives) and Help War Victims ”. When his visa in Ukraine expired, he " returned to Poland, where he took care of our warehouse and headquarters, receiving transportation and guests who came to visit us ."

Also of interest is the information disseminated by a regional organizer and mobilizer of the EPSU, the European public service union, the Ukrainian activist Artem Tidva, also linked to Соціального руху (Social Movement). In a post on Facebook, Tidva points out that Finbar Cafferkey (Irish Chia to him) lived in a spare room in the apartment that he rented for a couple of years at the Kiev Polytechnic University. According to Tidva, that kyiv apartment served as a refuge “for the refugees of the dictators, a place where the miners who came to Kyiv to protest could dine and wash, here we painted signs for the demonstrations, we called it a “commune”. And with the beginning of the war, this apartment became a place where volunteers could stay .

According to Tidva, when warfare led to the destruction of Nikolaev's Dnieper water supply, Cafferkey helped by bringing water and food to the city. A photo posted on Facebook by “Соціального руху” (Social Movement) on August 16, 2022 precisely shows Tidva, Cafferkey and two other members in the distribution process (supported by that group and other Ukrainian formations, including Solidarity Collectives , as well as by European and Ukrainian union activists such as Tidva).

Cafferkey was looking to register in kyiv and stayed with Tidva for just over a month. “ I wanted to be useful to people, I was wondering who I knew from the frontline areas and if those people needed to bring something in, evacuate someone, because I was driving vans skillfully. ” In his account, Tidva points out that after the fall of Kherson, the need to bring drinking water to Nikolaev disappeared, while Cafferkey continued to try “to join the Armed Forces, because he believed that this would be the fastest way to eliminate the humanitarian catastrophe created.” by the occupants. But it was difficult for him, as a foreigner, to get the necessary documents issued; there was also the language barrier ”.

Before continuing his volunteer work, Cafferkey asked him about the Carpathian Mountains. Tidva advised him on several places and they have not seen each other since. He left her a Cafferkey sweatshirt with the print We Will Destroy Capitalism as a souvenir. Our time will come ." According to the Ukrainian activist, after that visit to the Carpathians, he joined the Armed Forces.

In the aforementioned ACK Galicja post, it is stated “ the last time they saw each other was when he transported a vehicle to the front and joined an international unit. We got a message from you on April 17. ” Cafferkey received support from Solidarity Collectives when he “ decided to join ” that unit “along with three of our comrades ”. The group provided him with the equipment he needed. As can be seen, it was an international unit (of foreign volunteers), made up of four people, including Cafferkey.

Knowledge of Cafferkey's death on April 19 spreads rather quickly. On April 28, journalist Anton McNulty publishes an article stating that Cafferkey's family received information from " his colleagues in Ukraine " days prior to the date of the article. Çiya's Irish colleague in the YPF, Philip O'Keefe, was detained by the Metropolitan Police on April 22 at Heathrow airport when he tried to go to Ireland to explain the death to the family and help them " connect with the unit of his son " pending the recovery of his remains.

Cooper Turner Andrews

An article by Task&Purpose, from May 1, talks about the death in Bakhmut of 26-year-old Marine Cooper Andrews ( Harris ), a resident of Cleveland, United States. The article cites statements to CNN by his mother, Willow Andrews, according to which her son was killed on April 19 during a mortar attack along " a road that the Ukrainian army uses to evacuate civilians from the besieged city." from Bakhmut ”, the route from Chasov Yar to Artyomovsk (epically called the Road of Live by the defenders of Ukraine).

According to the official service record provided to Task&Purpose, Andrews served in the Marine Corps between the months of January 2017 and 2022 as a land electronics transmission systems maintenance technician. He left the Marine Corps as a sergeant and his last duty assignment was with Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. According to the unit's spokeswoman , Andrews was not deployed in combat during his time in the Marine Corps.

Upon completion of his contract as a Marine, Andrews worked as a volunteer firefighter, putting out fires in the mountains of the western United States. According to his mother, Cooper joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion in November 2022. The Facebook of his main friend, Suncere activist Ali Shakur, shows that his departure occurred in early November, probably the day 2.

Andrews' obituary shows that Harris signed a six-month contract with the Ukrainian Foreign Legion and " later joined a private foreign military group " trying to defend the road out of Chasov Yar into Bakhmut . Although the family claims to have expected his return in March, this information shows that Leshiy and Cafferkey's incorporation into the group still occurred during the six-month period provided for in their contract as a legionnaire. It also reveals that the incorporation into the international group occurred shortly before Bakhmut's death.

News of Cooper's death reaches the United States relatively early, as an April 22 post by Suncere Ali Shakur reveals: " This is my Friend, he was like a Son, a Comrade to me ." He lost his life "fighting Russia to side with it to end a possible nuclear war." "I've known him and spent time with him since I was 17 years old." "Cleveland remembers my friend a young black man who died trying to save us all ."

On April 24, he shows his great regret for the death in a country he did not want him to travel to: “I still want to strangle you because I did not want you to go to Ukraine to fight in that war. Black people have already been giving enough... I hate what you did but I respect what you did... I can't believe you won't come home to spend time with me or discuss world events. Mad at you but proud… Cooper Andrews An American Hero from Cleveland Heights .”

On the 28th he points out some of the circumstances of the death of the four members of the unit: “ Not everything, but this is what I know ”. Cooper was going on a mission behind enemy lines with three other foreign fighters. They were undertaking a mission, I'm not clear on those details, around what is known as the Road of Life in Bakhmut ...In that part of the city there is only one open supply route… which carries humanitarian and military supplies to the civilians and soldiers of the city, and without this route the city would be completely surrounded and everyone in it destroyed… it is literally the hottest part from the front right now. Ukrainian forces are about to launch an offensive in that area which has been changing hands recently and has seen a lot of back and forth between Russian and Ukrainian forces. That means there is a chance that his remains will be recovered in the near future ."

In a very expressive way, and without receiving any response from the activist friend of Andrews, the only comment on the post states, almost as a sentence: " So they sent the international legion on a suicide mission to help secure the road before they the main Ukrainian offensive ”.

On the 30th , Ali Shakur uploaded a new post that provided other information of interest: the confirmation that it was a group with four members, all of them non-Ukrainians, the hidden name of the unit for security reasons and the lack of knowledge. for now from the name of the fourth member killed in action (then not yet revealed by Bratstvo).

Bradley Thomas Jarema

A striking fact of the Bratstvo communiqué of May 2 is the inclusion of the Mexican-American Bradley Thomas Jarema in the list of those who died on April 19 in Bakhmut. With virtually no mention on the web, none of Petrov, Cafferkey and Andrews' regular publicists, including the Resistance Committee, claim Bradley 's anarchist affiliation , or even his existence.

The initial feeling of falsehood in the statement from the Korchinsky Brotherhood, however, disappears when verifying the existence of the combatant. On May 11, the Lansing State Journal mentioned the death in Ukraine of a 20-year-old man, a resident of Okemos, a suburb of Lansing, close to the metropolitan area that connects Detroit with Cleveland. According to a note from the Okemos school district sent to his families, Jarema died (according to the note on May 10) in " a voluntary search and rescue mission ." The statement from what was his institute, Okemos Public Monterrosi, presents him as " OHS [Okemos High School] 2020 graduate , humanitarian and hero ." The article notes that it is not clear “when Jarema went to the Ukraine or where he was killed ” and that the State Department is aware of “ these unconfirmed reports ”.

The affiliation of the fighters

According to the Resistance Committee, Andrews, Cafferkey and Petrov were all fighters affiliated with this anarchist committee. On May 5, through various channels, including its Instagram page , the group denounced " that some political scammers are trying to carry out a public relations campaign with the deaths of our colleagues, attributing actions or motives that were not theirs ." According to the statement, its militants would have been until their death " convinced anti-fascists and anarchists, which is reflected in the texts they left and messages on their social networks, messages to their families and memories of friends and relatives. "

Regarding this issue, it stands out on the one hand that the publication of information about the deaths of " his" militants did not take place between April 27 and 30, but more than a week after they occurred, in contrast to the immediacy of the general informative reference of the events of the 19th by Bratstvo, although without making reference at that time to specific people. In a very significant way, on the other hand, the communiqué of the Resistance Committee expressly admits that " in the course of their military activities [its militants] had to come across and interact with people and groups of different political views, which is currently in line with the requirements of this war ”.

In reality, as the interested parties themselves point out, for example Leshiy, while they participated in military activities, these people could not act outside the structures authorized by the Ministry of Defense, without the possibility of real political or military autonomy within those structures. .

Regular non-Ukrainian publicists for the group point to the existence as an autonomous military unit of the anarchists of the Resistance Committee. It is enough to read Petrov's own articles or learn about the careers of other alleged commanders of the group to know that this is false information. As the career of one of the main commanders of the Resistance Committee, Yuri Samoilenko, who fell on September 9, 2022 in the Kharkov region, shows, his death in combat occurred while he was part of the military leadership of the 6th DUK Separate Battalion of the Praviy Sektor, one of the main political leaders of the extreme right in Ukraine. Until his death, the other members of the anarchist group simply followed the steps taken by Samoilenko.

The only relevant question that remains to be clarified is whether Bratstvo's role in this matter is merely formal or whether Korchinsky's group actually ended up integrating the unit of Leshiy, Cafferkey, Andrews and Jarema into their Battalion. In this regard it should be noted that a Pressing documentary on Bratstvo on May 19 clearly linked these militants to the Korchinsky Brotherhood. However, the lack of interest in the fighters is striking . For example, Bratstvo has made no reference to funerals or farewells, nor has there been any memory of the deceased that could accompany the usual requests for the transfer of funds and material.

In the event that they had integrated in Bratstvo, however, in relation to the American combatants, it would then be the third death that, in one way or another, would be associated with the Brotherhood. It should be remembered that, in addition to Cooper Andrews and Bradley Jarema, at the end of 2022, another American soldier incorporated into the ranks of Bratstvo, nicknamed Flash and originating, according to the Battalion, in Wyoming, died in the Kherson area. In the latter case, the attachment to Bratstvo is fully accredited.

A unit at the service of the State of Ukraine and its values

It is convenient, in any case, to situate objectively the role of the military unit of Leshiy, Cafferkey, Cooper and Jarema. In his last appeal to the international community in February 2023, Leshiy made a reference to his anti-authoritarian and anti-imperialist struggle against the Russian Federation. “ We are not here to defend a neoliberal policy or a state structure but to defend the population from this aggression, elimination and servitude ”, to confront “ the dictatorial and totalitarian forces ”.

The main contradiction of this vision is that, as the available information shows, the fight of Leshiy and his comrades was in favor of the Ukrainian state and its neoliberal, centralist -one could say authoritarian- and nationalist values, forming part of its structures. and without hesitating to participate in some of the units most closely linked to the local and military extreme right, both in the Praviy Sektor battalions and in the actions of groups close to the GUR action, such as Bratstvo.

The members of the group did not die defending any civilian population in a city of Bakhmut already practically deserted, with the exception of some last people left to the fate of the war by the parties, but as the last defenders in that city of a very specific state. , that of Ukraine, at war against the rebel population of Donbass since 2014.

And consistent with the messages of the representatives of the State of Ukraine, in his posthumous appeal, Leshiy also frontally opposed, in the name of his conception of justice, negotiations and peace agreements because, “when we talk about negotiations , peace agreements, are just fantasies ”.

https://slavyangrad.es/2023/05/25/al-se ... more-27344

Google Translator

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Mearsheimers Latest Talk On The War In Ukraine

Yesterday the well known international relations scholar John Mearsheimer gave a talk (video, 1:33h) about the war in Ukraine to the Committee for the Republic.



Mearsheimer made two major points:

Ukraine can not win this war because the kill ratio in this war is in its disfavor. Mearheimer estimates that two Ukrainians die for one Russian soldier but says that many of his friends think that the ratio is more like 3:1 or 4:1. The reason for this is the WWI-style static war in which artillery is the most deadly weapon. Russia has an immense artillery advantage. During an offensive the attacker will often have more casualties than the defender. But in this war the Ukraine side has been (counter-)attacked most of the time while the Russians defended.

The Ukraine also has a much smaller population than Russia. The current ratio is about 5 Russians for 1 Ukrainian. With a much smaller population and much higher casualties the Ukraine will run out of able bodies way before Russia does.

Mearsheimer expects that Russia, which already has incorporated four Ukrainian oblast plus Crimea, will take another four oblast from Ukraine. (I predicted this on February 24 2022, the day the war began. Those eight oblast plus Crimea are historically Russian land inhabited by Russian people. During the last thirty years they have consistently voted for pro-Russian candidates while the people in west Ukraine consistently opted for anti-Russian candidates.) Ukraine will end up as a dysfunctional (and poor) rump state.

Mearsheimer says that there will be no peace agreement in Ukraine. The war is seen by both sides as existential. Ukraine insists of regaining territory it sees as part of the country. Ukraine wants security guarantees from the 'west' which Russia opposes. The problem of hyper-nationalism (fascism) on the Ukrainian side also makes peace impossible. Then there is the problem that Russia, after having been lied to over the Minsk agreements, has zero trust in any 'western' word.

Posted by b on May 24, 2023 at 9:41 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/05/m ... l#comments

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

Colonelcassad
British RUSI's top (publicly published) military experts Nick Reynolds and Jack Watling write :

Russia has begun applying thermal camouflage to its vehicles and, using a number of other modifications, tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP), has significantly reduced the detection of tanks at long ranges. In addition, these measures have reduced the likelihood of hitting various anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) at ranges in excess of 1400 m .
...
Russian artillery has begun a significant improvement in the reconnaissance and strike complex .
...
This has led to a much closer integration of several unmanned aerial vehicles directly supporting commanders authorized to fire. The Russian artillery also improved its ability to fire from multiple positions and to fire and move, reducing susceptibility to counter-battery fire .
...
Russian retaliatory shelling is the biggest problem for Ukrainian offensive operations .
...
Losses of Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles remain at about 10,000 per month. The Russian EW system also appears to be seeking real-time interception and decryption of Ukrainian Motorola 256-bit encrypted tactical communications systems, which are widely used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces .
...
The Ukrainian military estimates that Russian air defense systems are currently intercepting some of the MLRS attacks, since Russian point defense systems are directly connected to more advanced radars .
...
A review of adaptation in Russia shows the power to improve and develop the use of key systems .
However, much of this adaptation is reactive .
...
The result is a structure that, when faced with problems, gets better with time over time, but at the same time hardly anticipates new threats .

At the end of their report, Reynolds and Watling suggest that Ukraine look for ways to impose a dynamic situation on Russian units in which they are likely to quickly lose coordination .

Accordingly, a solution suggests itself: to develop a complex susceptibility to novelty (both opportunities and threats) and the stability of joint actions in dynamic situations.

***

Colonelcassad
On the topic of "Polish attack"

Today a retired Polish general said that they are preparing for an uprising in Belarus. He didn't say anything new. They have been trying to pull off at least something similar for many years. For this purpose, "Belarusian" media were created in Poland, which are financed by the Polish government. For many years they have been courting the western borders of our republic through the "Map of the Pole" project. It is also not news that Tik-Tok troops would like to enter the territory of Belarus with weapons. All this is nothing new.

Another question is the purpose of this stuffing. The scheme is too typical for the West. In general, they are very fond of throwing in some information through retired security officials that officials cannot voice.

In my opinion, today's stuffing and the situation in the Belgorod region are links in the same chain. In both cases, NATO commandos are trying to create an infoboom that should cause panic among the population, provoking the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry into action so that it regroups its troops, weakens other areas and strengthens those that will be decoys.

Yes, the Polish army is expanding its numbers, modernizing and doing everything possible for its army. And what are we doing differently, taking into account the war at hand? Moreover, nuclear weapons are deployed on the territory of Belarus and an attack on the territory of the country could be the beginning of a new world war. That is why the topics with nationalists who are "going to liberate the country" are being run around, because in this case, as it were, there is no one to declare war on, and it is not particularly clear who to bang.

From this, my conclusion is this: the main threats to Belarus will be the DRG. There is an internal terrorist, but it is no longer as much as it was in 2020. Many had the brains to assess the situation in Ukraine.

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forwarded from
Call Sign Bruce
📌In the Bakhmut direction

, my source in Konstantinovka said that the movement of the military has intensified through the settlement over the past few days:

▪️Georgians (I think they mean mercenaries) with equipment are being transferred in the direction of Bakhmut himself

▪️personnel and equipment are also arriving and deploying in the vicinity of Konstantinovka.

At the same time, about five days ago, a source wrote to me that the military, on the contrary, was leaving the city. Moreover, the quote, " faster than usual ."

There are three options here: the enemy began to actively prepare for defense, or vice versa, he wants to increase pressure on Bakhmut's flanks, or it's just a rotation. In general, all options are equally likely.

But the main thing is that the enemy, apparently, does not intend to freeze the front in this direction. Although so far all combat activity has been reduced mainly to artillery duels.

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Colonelcassad
Having taken Masyutovka, the Russian army continues the offensive , breaking through the enemy's defenses in the Kharkov region
▪️Assault detachments of the 6th combined-arms army in the area of ​​the settlement. Masyutovka and Molchanovo, Kharkiv region, an observation post, 5 dugouts and up to a platoon of militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the 14th brigade and the 105th brigade of the TerOborona were destroyed , the West group of troops reported.
▪️Also in the Kupyansk direction, aviation of the Western Military District launched missile and bomb strikes against concentrations of forces, weapons and equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
▪️The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine recognizes that the situation in the Masyutovka area is difficult, Russian troops are conducting successful offensive operations. Also in the Kupyansk direction, the Aerospace Forces are conducting airstrikes near Kislovka and Kotlyarovka. The positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlement are subjected to artillery and mortar shelling. Kamenka, Poplars, Red First, Novomlinsk, Dvurechnaya, Masyutovka, Malaya Shapkovka, Kondrashovka, Kupyansk, Tabaevka and Berestovo of the Kharkov region and Stelmahovka - Lugansk.
t.me/RVvoenkor

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Colonelcassad
Germany today officially entered into recession, which is recognized by the authorities.
Less than 1.5 years after the start of the NWO, the former leader of the European economy fell first into stagnation and then into recession. In fact, the recession in Germany began even earlier, just the manipulation of statistics allowed for some time to pretend that this was just stagnation.

Meanwhile, the Russian Federation, even according to the forecasts of Western structures, is expected to grow by 2-3% already in 2024, with all the sanctions already imposed against Russia, which have hit hard not even Russia, but Europe, which of course is in the interests of the United States. But of course we will not grieve over European suffering. Merkel's legacy has been squandered at a record pace.

***

Colonelcassad
The Russian army went on the offensive near Artyomovsk on 2 "roads of life" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the key villages of Khromovo and Ivanovskoye
Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) direction remains the most difficult, with the highest intensity of fighting, Ukrainian military analysts report in reports.
▪️Heavy clashes continue on the flanks of the direction.
▪️After the approach of the reserves, the Russian troops seek to seize the initiative and lead an offensive on Khromovo and Ivanovskoye.
▪️To the north-east and east of the village of Khromovo, the RF Armed Forces conduct assault operations in two directions, along the forest belt and through the forest plantation.
▪️South of the village, Russian troops first conducted reconnaissance in battle towards the intersection of Yubileynaya and Podgornaya streets, and then began to attack.
▪️In its latest reports, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirms the advance of the Russian army on Ivanovskoye and Khromovo.
In the Bakhmut direction, the RF Armed Forces carried out offensive operations in the direction of Ivanovsky and Khromovo with the support of aviation, which inflicts air strikes on the Belaya Gora area. Also under fire are the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlement. Vasyukovka, Ozaryanovka, Orekhovo-Vasilyevka, Markovo, Grigorovka, Stupochki, Konstantinovka, Toretsk, Northern, Southern and New York.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Russia’s victory has become undeniable. What happens next could be an unprecedented escalation in the class conflict.

BY RAINER SHEA
MAY 22, 2023

For the members of the proletarian movement, the most important thing about the Ukraine proxy war is not that Russia has won the conflict’s battles. The U.S. empire always saw Ukraine as nothing more than a sacrificial tool for trying to destabilize Eurasia, and was never materially invested in it militarily defeating Russia. The important thing is that Russia has won the economic war, and did so long prior to its recent Bakhmut victory. The military aspect has been secondary. Ukraine could have retaken Crimea, and because Russia couldn’t be destabilized by the sanctions, the war still would have represented a net loss for the imperialists.

The U.S. would still have started a war that accelerated its own social decline, putting the American and European working classes in an even worse economic situation than they already were. And the imperialists still wouldn’t have managed to throw Eurasia into chaos, which is the only thing that could have made Washington’s strategic investment in Ukraine truly pay off. The future stability of American capitalism depended on Washington gaining the leverage, via a Russian balkanization, to be able to subdue China and reverse the BRI’s damage towards neo-colonialism. Because this hasn’t happened, the system our ruling elites operate off of can only continue to fall apart.

Even within this wider context, the fall of Bakhmut, and the other parts in the wave of Russian victories that it represents, is significant in that it creates a new opportunity for communists. It’s given us a way to show the people that their ruling class, the ruling class media, and imperialism’s online narrative enforcers have been lying this entire time. Because we must never forget that less than a year ago, these actors were aggressively promoting the idea that Ukraine’s military victory was inevitable, and even that it had come into being by that point.

Last fall, when Ukraine gained a series of localities, they said that this meant the war was as good as over. They said Russia’s continuing to fight was futile. They ignored how these “victories” for Kiev were hollow ones. How they had come at the cost of leaving Ukraine vulnerable in more long-term ways; how they showed a myopic focus by the Ukrainians on gaining soil for its own sake, rather than on what would have been strategically optimal; how these “victories” represented a waste of increasingly sparse Ukrainian resources; how Russia had a vastly greater amount of manpower and equipment at that stage; how even the USA’s surplus was getting exhausted; how all of these things were symptomatic of Russia’s military industry being state-run, and therefore largely free from the corruption which handicaps America’s absurdly privatized arms manufacturers. They ignored all of these factors so that they could keep selling an illusion.

This was the illusion that even though by that point, the sanctions had already been revealed to be not nearly as effective as Washington’s analysts initially promised, this war was ultimately going to be proven worthwhile from a pro-American perspective. That because of Ukraine’s supposedly having made its military victory guaranteed, Russia would ultimately fall, and Washington’s hegemonic status would be restored. This narrative was meant to appeal to the dark, cynical side of the American and European psyches during the era of late capitalism. The side that wants not to rectify the crimes we’ve been complicit in as citizens of the imperialist countries, but to commit even more crimes so that we can gain greater extractive benefits. And thereby to save ourselves from the perils of late capitalism, not through ending capitalism but through stealing more labor and resources from the global “have-nots.”

Appealing to this selfish mentality will only be effective on a minority of Americans. Most in the U.S. aren’t labor aristocrats or bourgeois, they’re proletarians or lower. This is what Lenin was talking about when he wrote in Parasitism and the Decay of Capitalism: “The distinctive feature of the present situation is the prevalence of such economic and political conditions that are bound to increase the irreconcilability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of the working-class movement.” Only a minority of the USA’s people, and of the country’s workers even less so, are wealthy enough to have a primary material interest in the continuation of imperial extraction. Most of them have more to gain than to lose from proletarian revolution. This is evident in how almost two-thirds of Americans have come to live paycheck to paycheck after this last year’s inflation increase.

When the majority lack a primary material incentive to support imperialism, imperialism’s psyops will only work on them as long as they aren’t exposed to the anti-imperialist perspective. And we know the majority lack this incentive because at this stage in American capitalism’s decline, further austerity is the only future the country’s working class can expect. At least as long as we stay under the present system. Even if the proxy war had been successful, and Eurasia had been destroyed, it’s not like neoliberalism would have ended in the U.S. or anywhere else. All that would have happened is an expansion of market shares by U.S. corporations into Russia, China, and the other targeted countries, while workers everywhere got exploited even more intensely. After the Soviet Union fell, the capitalist class didn’t suddenly become less antagonistic towards U.S. workers, they instead implemented more severe austerity policies. The same would have happened if socialist China had been subdued.

Most U.S. workers don’t know these details about the nature of their conditions, at least not yet. But they do know that the more their government spends on war, the less reward they see for their own labor. Their wages only shrink, and the funds for the programs that benefit them get diverted towards the military. Then they see that the war’s facilitators have been willing to lie about what its outcome would be in order to make it appear more justified. And this propaganda hasn’t even been effective at getting them excited for “victory,” only the privileged minority have had this reaction to it. To the majority of workers, the idea of a Ukrainian victory has represented absolutely no reason to be enthusiastic. It isn’t something that would improve their conditions. They therefore have had no choice but to act apathetic towards global affairs, unless a revolutionary institution comes to them which tells them about how global affairs (when going against Washington’s favor) can give them opportunities to assert their class interests.

The Democratic Party and its foreign policy have been discredited. The task of Marxists is to build revolutionary institutions that present the correct analysis about global affairs. That don’t take the ahistorical stance on the conflict which the opportunist and ultra-left orgs have taken on it, this being that Russia and the U.S. are fighting an “inter-imperialist war.” And that also don’t take the more mildly opportunist stance, which is that Russia isn’t imperialist but is still “fascist” and therefore shouldn’t be supported against U.S. hegemony. Amid the discrediting of the Ukraine psyop’s biggest narratives, these ideas are the alternative ways to maintain imperialism’s narrative control, and must now be struggled against further.

https://newswiththeory.com/russias-vict ... -conflict/

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Treaty on Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus
May 25, 12:21 p.m

Treaty on Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus

1. Russia and Belarus today signed a formal agreement on the deployment of Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus.
2. From Russia, Minister of Defense Shoigu signed, and from Belarus, Minister of Defense Khrenin. Previously, Putin and Lukashenko had already agreed on this.
3. Nuclear weapons should protect Belarus from the threat of an attack from NATO, especially since neighboring Poland does not hide its intentions to attack Belarus.
4. We are talking about the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons using the Iskander-M and Su-25 platforms. Strategic nuclear weapons will not be deployed, but such an option is not ruled out.
5. The Belarusian military will receive the necessary training for the operation and storage of nuclear weapons. For this, the restored infrastructure of the times of the USSR will be used, among other things.
6. Control over nuclear weapons will be exercised by Russia. The decision to use nuclear weapons will also remain with Russia.

And remember how a few years ago there was a lot of whining that the Old Man does not open Russian military bases on the territory of Belarus. And now a joint Russian-Belarusian military group is deployed on the territory of the republic, as well as nuclear weapons are deployed on a permanent basis.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8378959.html

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

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