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 » Wed Sep 07, 2022 11:51 am

The role of the UK
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/07/2022

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Yesterday the change of leadership in the British authorities was completed and, as had been expected for weeks, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson at the helm of the Government in a substitution that, in matters of international relations, is not going to mean any change in the political line of the country. Recent statements by the new prime minister and her interventions over the last few months confirm this. That is also the feeling conveyed by the Russian government, for which Truss evokes the memory of the uncomfortable meeting held between the then Foreign Minister and Sergey Lavrov just a few days before the Russian recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.

In a visit to Moscow that sought to increase his profile in view of the race to succeed the already questioned Boris Johnson, Truss was photographed in Moscow evoking Margaret Thatcher and attended a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation without great intention of dialogue or great knowledge on the matter. Faced with the constant repetition that the West would never accept any Russian annexation and annoyed by a unilateral speech without the intention of listening to contrary arguments, Sergey Lavrov asked Liz Truss if the West accepts the Russian sovereignty of Rostov and Voronezh. Whether it was simply a sarcastic comment or a small verbal ambush to make the minister fall into a beginner's mistake,

Since then, Truss, a close ally of Boris Johnson, has been one of the pieces of a machine that has made the United Kingdom one of Ukraine's main partners in military, political, diplomatic and economic terms. A few weeks ago, a confused Truss defended in Parliament the need to replace autocratic Russian oil with the apparently less autocratic Saudi oil and has been part of one of the governments that has imposed the most sanctions against Russia and its citizens, sanctions that have come even to the veto of Russian and Belarusian citizens in sporting events as important as Wimbledon.

In his last conversation before the transfer of power, Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the now former British prime minister for his unconditional support for Ukraine, which he hopes will continue with the new prime minister . In reality, continuity is guaranteed, not only because Truss has participated in the construction of the machinery of military, political and diplomatic support, but also because that machinery, already in motion, is difficult to stop given the certainty that there will be no negotiation of no peace, more confrontational positions than ever, and the state of war has become chronic. Western countries, the UK among them, have overinvested in their proxiesUkrainians, so a change in position is unlikely despite even the severe energy crisis that European countries are facing this winter.

In these six months, although the multimillion-dollar US military supply has made more and more headlines, the role of the United Kingdom in this war, which can be described as a proxy war or a proxy war, has gained great importance.against Russia. It is no coincidence that the UK intelligence report is one of the publications commented on daily by the Ukrainian press. Always in line with the official Ukrainian discourse - the British role in the communication strategy of the Ukrainian Government seems as clear as its participation in the preparation of the military strategy - British intelligence speaks daily of Russian failures, of the lack of the troops and from every mishap and only belatedly and underestimating the losses reports the Ukrainian defeats. Despite being an interested party involved in the conflict, albeit indirectly, these intelligence reports have become in recent months one of the main sources of the Western press to "inform" about the conflict.

British involvement in the war is not limited to communication strategy, delivery of intelligence data in real time or constant supply of weapons and financing to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. During Johnson's term, and it is likely to continue with Truss's term, the United Kingdom has become the training and instruction center for Ukrainian recruits who are later sent to the front, a key aspect when it comes to replacing those units that were decimated in the first months of hand-to-hand combat against Russia and the People's Republics. That instruction not only involves training in the use of weapons, but also in trench warfare and urban guerrilla warfare, an important aspect considering the type of war Ukraine has chosen to wage. As Mijailo Podoliak openly admitted in an interview with Western media, the city offers a series of defenses that the open countryside of the steppe does not favor. Among those advantages is, as has been shown in battles like the one in Mariupol, the possibility of hiding behind the human shields of the civilian population. On Monday, British media reported that 4,700 soldiers have already undergone British training - possibly seeking to use that formation in the current offensive in Kherson or in the nascent offensive in the Kharkov region, where in places like Izium the fighting is likely to reach the urban battle - and it is expected that tens of thousands will do so in the coming months.

The last week has also talked about the important role that Boris Johnson played, or said he played, in sabotaging a political resolution to the war between Russia and Ukraine last March. An article recently published in Foreign Policy , more related to the Russian vision of history than to the present, briefly mentions an agreement in principle between Moscow and Kiev last April, an agreement that, according to this version, fell apart due to the intervention of Boris Johnson, who traveled to Kiev to guarantee Zelensky long-term support in pursuit of a military victory against Russia. As published then by Ukrainian media such as Ukrainska Pravda, Johnson's intervention sought to let the Ukrainian president know that, although Ukraine could accept an agreement, the West would not, an evident way of pressuring kyiv to continue a war that had already cost thousands of lives and enormous destruction. Since then, both the number of civilian and military casualties and the destruction have multiplied and the chronification of the war in conditions of extreme political and economic confrontation between Russia and Ukraine's Western partners means that any risk to Western plans for Ukraine to fight a war to the end has disappeared.

Despite Johnson's willingness to give himself a more relevant role, the reality of the moment in which that negotiation took place made it clear that the agreement was unfeasible. Vladimir Medinsky's optimism after the meeting in Istanbul, in which the Turkish head of state even took part, who announced a road map for the end of the war that implied the Russian abandonment of all territory outside Donbass and the resignation of Ukraine to NATO in favor of a neutrality with security guarantees from third countries, was quickly destroyed by Mijailo Podoliak. Faced with what was suggested by Medinsky, who wanted to see Ukraine's willingness to recognize the loss of Crimea and Donbass in the principle of agreement, Podoliak quickly responded by recalling that kyiv would not make any territorial concessions. As was mentioned at the time, the deal was unworkable for several reasons. On the one hand, Russia and Ukraine could not negotiate security guarantees from third countries that, like the United States, they had already leaked to the press that they would not accept. On the other hand, the Russian will to believe that Ukraine would accept the loss of territories was guilty of excessive naivety that left the entire negotiating team sent by Moscow in doubt.

Boris Johnson's intervention was nothing more than the representation of the infeasibility of an agreement. However, the presence of the then British Prime Minister in kyiv, the first high-level figure to arrive in the Ukrainian capital since February 24, meant a temporary recovery of the figure of the questioned Johnson and a boost for Zelensky, already reaffirmed by the weapons supply guarantee.

Although perhaps in the shadow of its ally in Washington, the role of London has been key in propping up the Zelensky government and maintaining the combat capacity of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In this war, which goes far beyond the trench warfare in Donbass, the Novaya Kajovka bombings or the Kherson-Kharkov counter-offensive, London's role is not limited to sabotaging impossible negotiations, but is involved in the day-to-day of military and communication strategy and provides invaluable diplomatic support that translates into the media loyalty of the powerful British press. In this context, the change of leadership is nothing more than a change of faces at the forefront of official communications.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/07/25453/#more-25453

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Ukraine - A Second 'Counteroffensive' Contrary To U.S. Advice - IAEA Report

The Ukrainian 'counteroffensive' in the southern Kherson region has made little progress and binds a lot of Ukrainian resources and available units.

Despite that, and against advice from the U.S. military, Ukraine has now launched a second 'counteroffensive' in the north-eastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine.

AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 @AZmilitary1 - 13:06 UTC · Sep 6, 2022
‼️ 🇺🇦 🇷🇺 AFU has launched an offensive on Balakleya, heavy fighting started is underway


▪️For more than a month, the AFU pulled together reserves and created a strike force in the Kharkiv direction.
▪️Now, after a powerful artillery preparation, they have gone on the offensive, throwing forward armored vehicles, fighting is going on on the outskirts of the city.
▪️The artillery and aviation of the Russian army are hitting the sprawling advancing enemy forces.
▪️Allied forces blew up bridges to obstruct the AFU's advance.
▪️Armored vehicles work in battles on the outskirts.
▪️Allied reserves are being tightened.
▪️The Russian Aerospace Forces struck the headquarters of the operational command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Chuguev
▪️The offensive in the south is not a distraction, it's just that the enemy has planned and launched several offensive operations, and attempts to break through are also continuing in the Kherson region
▪️There is no panic. In Balakleya there are mostly mobilized. Now reserves are going to Balakleya. The barrel and rocket artillery are working. Aviation is actively working.
There is no talk of a deep breakthrough. The situation + is similar to the Nahtsee counteroffensive in the Kherson direction.

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Balakleya (Balaklya, Balakliia) originally had 25,000 inhabitants, many of whom will likely have departed by now. On March 3 it was taken by Russian forces without much fighting.

Here is an overview of the area. Balakleya is in the middle of the map, southeast of Kharkiv and northwest of Izium.

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Here are more details. West and south of the city are various rivers and streams but also some woods where troops can assemble and hide until they get called up.

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Attacking across a river is always dangerous as supplies and the way of retreat can easily be cut off.

A satellite view of the city. To the north-northeast of the city, where the above map shows a rail yard, was once a very large ammunition depot. In March 2017 it famously blew up (vid). Back then the city was evacuated. Lots of houses got damaged (vid).

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West of the former strategic ammunition depot is the village of Verbovka where fighting is currently ongoing.

I do not understand why the Ukrainian military decided to attack in Balakleya. A medium size city is relative easy to defend. The rivers on the Ukrainian approach make it difficult to keep the supplies going. The bridges can be bombed any time. The city is not really near to any significant supply route between Russia and Izium which was the target of previous offensives in the area (all failed). The strategic value of the city is thus dubious.

A week ago it was reported that the U.S. military had urged Ukraine to not launch several 'counteroffensives':

In the buildup to the current Ukrainian counteroffensive, the US urged Kyiv to keep the operation limited in both its objectives and its geography to avoid getting overextended and bogged down on multiple fronts, multiple US and western officials and Ukrainian sources tell CNN.
Those discussions involved engaging in "war-gaming" with Kyiv, the sources said -- analytical exercises that were intended to help the Ukrainian forces understand what force levels they would need to muster to be successful in different scenarios.

The Ukrainians were initially considering a broader counteroffensive, but narrowed their mission to the south, in the Kherson region, in recent weeks, US and Ukrainian officials said.


Its really hard to understand why the Ukraine is launching two operations with the main effort in both involving a river crossing. They bind resources that will likely soon be needed in the south of the Donetsk region where the Russian 3rd Corp is preparing for an attack.

The latest Rybar report on the situation near Balakleya says (machine translation):

The situation in the Kharkov direction as of 17.00 September 6, 2022
▪️After several days of artillery preparation, the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched an attack on Balakleya, which had been occupied back in March. The Ukrainian command has been preparing an offensive for a month and daily transferring equipment and personnel to the city: the last large column passed through Andreevka, located to the north-west, just yesterday.

▪️Ukrainian units advanced from the village of Prishib in the direction of Verbovka to the north of the city. Local resources reported that bridges across the Balakleyka and Extreme Balakleyka rivers were blown up in order to prevent further advancement of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, while some of the overpasses were allegedly put out of action in advance in the previous few days.

▪️Despite the bravura statements of Ukrainian resources, units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not enter Balakleya. All battles are currently taking place in the area of ​​the village of Verbovka and the 65th arsenal located there. Reinforcements of the RF Armed Forces were sent to the city and its environs.

▪️The Russian Aerospace Forces attacked the headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Chuguev, from where the leadership of the attack on Balakleya was going. In order to camouflage, the Ukrainian command set up a false command post in the city, but the RF Armed Forces did not fall for the trick and hit the target.

▪️At the same time, unconfirmed information appeared about the advance of Russian troops in the north of the Kharkiv region in the direction of the village of Shestakovo and the capture of the settlements of Bayrak and Peremoga.


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In other news the IAEA has published its report (pdf) on nuclear safeguards in Ukraine. As expected the report does not say that the Ukraine army is shelling the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which the IAEA recently visited. It also does not say that Russia is shelling the plant (which it does not). The shells and the damage the IAEA has seen during its visit just somehow must have appeared from the sky.

It reports that the personnel on the site is working under nearly normal shift conditions and is not under pressure from Russia. The Ukraine had falsely claimed that the reactor crews were under duress.

Posted by b on September 6, 2022 at 15:58 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/u ... .html#more

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IAEA Report on Zaporozhye NPP Mentions “Mysterious Shelling” 52 Times, Doesn’t Name Culprits
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Ilya Tsukanov

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The United Nations nuclear energy watchdog sent a high-level delegation of experts to the massive nuclear power plant last week. Moscow accused Kiev of trying to sabotage the mission via a botched offensive, and of engaging in “nuclear terrorism” by repeatedly attacking and shelling the facility with mortars, drones, and artillery.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released a much-anticipated report on the security situation at Ukraine’s nuclear facilities.

The 52-page document summarizes “preliminary nuclear safety and security findings” from last week’s expert mission to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and missions to the Chernobyl NPP from earlier this year, and provides an update on the country’s other nuclear plants.

The report outlines “seven pillars” for nuclear safety, including the need to maintain the physical integrity of nuclear facilities, the continued functioning of safety and security systems at all times, the fulfillment of safety and security duties by nuclear plant staff, reliable off-site power supply from the grid in case of an emergency, reliable logistics and transport supply chains, radiation monitoring, and “reliable communications with the regulator.”

Mysterious Shelling

The report contains a Ukraine-biased approach in discussing the “physical integrity” of the country’s nuclear facilities, particularly as concerns the Zaporozhye plant, citing “Ukrainian reports” on the alleged deployment of Russian military equipment at the ZNPP, and dangers said to arise from Russian cruise missiles flying overhead.

The report mentions shelling attacks on the ZNPP 52 times, but does not say who is responsible (Ukrainian and Western media have previously reported that the plant was being shelled by Russian forces – the same Russian forces which have controlled the facility since March. Russia has blamed the Ukrainian military).

The document expresses the IAEA’s “concern” with the impact that shelling may have had on “safety-related structures, systems and components,” and, citing agency director Rafael Grossi’s remarks following his return from last Thursday’s inspection, stresses “that while past events had not yet triggered a nuclear emergency, they represented a constant threat to nuclear safety and security because critical safety functions (containment of the radioactivity and cooling in particular) could be impacted.”


The IAEA’s recommendation to ensure the continued physical integrity of the ZNPP is as follows:

“The IAEA recommends that shelling on site and in its vicinity should be stopped immediately to avoid any further damages to the plant and associated facilities, for the safety of the operating staff and to maintain the physical integrity to support safe and secure operation. This requires agreements by all relevant parties to the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the ZNPP.”

The report also mentions the presence of Rosatom specialists at the ZNPP, saying that the IAEA fears that their involvement “could lead to interference with the normal lines of operational command or authority and create potential frictions when it comes to decision-making.” The document at least admits that the plant’s regular management and staff continue to work as normal, but cites anxieties and pressures they have faced, including from shelling incidents (the culprit of the shelling is again not named), as well as problems stemming from staff shortages.


Additionally, the document provides a summary of the IAEA’s findings from their April visit to the defunct Chernobyl NPP, mentioning “extremely stressful and tiring conditions” experienced by staff during spring, particularly after the loss of regular offsite power and the turn to reliance on emergency diesel generators while the plant was under Russian control. The document does not attribute responsibility for the attacks on the plant’s external power sources. The Russian military said Ukrainian forces were responsible. Russian troops withdrew from Chernobyl at the end of March in a bid to calm the situation.

The watchdog’s report concludes with a congratulatory self-pat on the back, boasting that “despite the very challenging current circumstances, the IAEA has continued to implement safeguards in Ukraine.”

The ZNPP is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, and ordinarily accounts for nearly half of all electricity generated by Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, and 20 percent of the country’s annual power production. The Russian military has held the facility and its six reactors since March, and and Moscow and local authorities have repeatedly accused the Ukrainian military of attacking the plant throughout the past five-and-a-half months and threatening to spark a nuclear catastrophe.

The ZNPP was built by the Soviets in the late 1980s, and has faced several emergency nuclear close calls over the past decade in the aftermath of the 2014 Euromaidan coup. In 2014, a technical fault caused one of the plant’s reactors to shut down, contributing to rolling blackouts faced across the country that year and in early 2015. In 2020, Ukrainian nuclear industry workers sounded the alarm about the situation across their sector, warning of the dangers of “another Chernobyl” caused by lax safety standards, a critical shortage of finances, incompetent management, and the switchover to the use of American-made nuclear fuel rods.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... -culprits/

Winter is Coming: Prague’s 70,000-Strong Protest Shows What’s in Store for Europe
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Bradley Blankenship

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Around 70,000 people gathered in Prague’s Wenceslas Square on Saturday to demand the resignation of their government in response to what they see as a failure to address the ongoing energy crisis. The protesters were also explicitly against the two foremost Western institutions that the formerly Eastern-aligned nation is a part of, namely the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

If you ask Prime Minister Petr Fiala of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) what the problem is, he’d simply say that these tens of thousands of people are just unknowing pro-Russian stooges. To quote him verbatim, he said “the protest on Wenceslas Square was called by forces that are pro-Russian, are close to extreme positions and are against the interests of the Czech Republic.” He reiterated his stance on Monday after criticism, calling the organizers of this protest a “Russian fifth column.”

Some commentators have even gone a step further, suggesting the protestors want to literally rejoin the Warsaw Pact and return to the communist era. Having lived in the Czech Republic for some time, I can say that this entire line is absurd. By and large, Czechs want to be Western. They want their country to be an open and free society, as opposed to the virtual dungeon that was the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

Due to the way history is framed in the country, as well, even the most liberal of Czechs can’t help but feel a tinge of resentment against Russia and even Russians. That is, in my opinion, entirely by design as the Western turn of the country has correlated almost directly with an anti-Russian sentiment. The more the Czech political establishment embraces the West, the more Czech people are whipped up to hate Russia.

Given this, I find it very unlikely that so many people took time out of their day to rally in support of the Russian state. On the contrary, what actually drew 70,000 people to the streets on Saturday is to do with the fact that the cost of living is rising tremendously, real wages are falling and the government is insisting on a foreign policy line that is exacerbating the problem. It is all perfectly logical and does not require a conspiracy.

In fact, Czech union leaders called for a demonstration on October 8 at the same location as the Saturday protest over the exact same issues. Does the prime minister actually believe that the Russians have infiltrated the Czech labor movement? Given the prevalent enmity against Russia and Russians in Czech society, this seems extraordinarily unlikely.

Again, we are only left with the conclusion – as bizarre as it might sound to the political elite – that the concerns that people addressed reflect exactly how they feel. Life is becoming unaffordable and Czechs don’t want to live a life of destitution and precarity to prop up the Ukrainian government. That is a matter of pure self-preservation and says nothing about purported “values” and ideals.

What happened in Prague is only a glimpse of what’s to come for Western countries if they continue on the same path – and you can take that to the bank. There are already signs of social unrest all over the continent due to the rising cost of living, especially energy prices, and we haven’t even arrived at the official end of summer yet.

If we take September 1 as the de facto beginning of autumn, just days after that 70,000 demonstrated in Prague. The question is, how will things look when the cold months set in and heating becomes too expensive? How many people have to take to the streets before the likes of Prime Minister Fiala admit there’s a problem and don’t just pin social unrest on a Russian conspiracy?

We have already seen the degree to which people will not sacrifice their own self-interest, or even simply their convenience, for some idea of the greater good during the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus revealed that such ideals are utterly useless in rallying Western populations. People are too individualistic and stubborn. The greater good is not good enough, apparently.

With this in mind, does anyone actually believe that EU citizens are willing to fall into poverty for Vladimir Zelensky and his government? Highly unlikely. Europe is looking at a very difficult cold season this year if the current foreign policy line stays in place. First Prague, next Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid and so on.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... or-europe/

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From Cassad's Telegram Account:

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Colonelcassad

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Izyum Front : situation near Balakleya by the end of September 6, 2022

🔻Due to its geographical position, without control over Balakleya, it is difficult to secure the northwestern flank of the group based in Izyum. In addition, if someday the RF Armed Forces again pay attention to Kharkov itself , a convenient route runs from Balakliya through Zmiev to the Slobodskaya and Industrialny districts of the regional center.

▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine, after inflicting massive fire damage on mobilized militiamen from the DPR, who were on the defensive in the nearest forests, entered the village of Verbovka .

From there, the only route to the territory of the 65th arsenal and Balakleya itself is still preserved through the Srednyaya Balakleyka River . The bridge across the river is intact, fighting is underway for control over it.

▪️From Verbovka, the Armed Forces of Ukraine developed success towards the village of Yakovenkovo , trying to advance towards Volokhov Yar and completely block Balakleya from the north.

Now the road Volokhov Yar - Balakleya is under the fire control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

▪️The bridges located to the south across the Balakleyka and Extreme Balakleyka rivers have been blown up, so communication with the central regions of Balakleya is now interrupted. The Ukrainian formations did not enter the Camp

area , located on the western bank of the Balakleyka River to the north of its tributary ( Lyakhovaya River ) . There is also no confirmation of the presence of the RF Armed Forces in this area.

▪️There were reports that the RF Armed Forces were moving south of the village of Bayrak and expanding the zone of control towards Gusarovka . But so far there are no facts that could confirm this.

🔻At the moment, Balakleya is in operational encirclement and in the zone of fire destruction of Ukrainian artillery. All entrances are cut by fire.

***

Colonelcassad
Special operation, 6 September. The main thing from RIA Novosti :

▪️Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed up to 100 militants of the Ukrainian 65th mechanized brigade in the Zaporozhye region

▪️Russian troops are inflicting precision strikes on units and reserves of Ukrainian troops, which continued their attempts to attack in separate areas in the Nikolaev-Kryvyi Rih direction during the day

▪️Ships of the Russian Navy hit a large Ukrainian fuel storage facility in the Dnepropetrovsk region, which supplied fuel to a grouping of Ukrainian troops in the Nikolaev-Krivoy Rog direction, with a Caliber strike.

▪️The Russian military with high-precision air-launched weapons destroyed up to 250 military Ukrainian 54th and 93rd mechanized brigades in the DPR, and Russian air defense systems shot down 11 shells of Ukrainian HIMARS MLRS in the area of ​​the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station

▪️Two residents of Kharkiv Izyum, including a 95-year-old veteran of the Great Patriotic War, died as a result of massive shelling, RIA Novosti was told in the press service of the regional administration

▪️Kyiv fired 15 times at Energodar and the Zaporizhzhya NPP, 20 shells were fired from the area of ​​​​the settlement of Marganets in the Dnepropetrovsk region, including three on the territory of the station, Ukrainian artillery units were suppressed by return fire from the Russian military

▪️The IAEA published a report on the results of the inspection at the Zaporozhye NPP. The report states that it is necessary to stop all hostilities that may affect the power supply systems of the station, and an agreement is also needed by all parties to create a protective zone around the Zaporizhzhya NPP in order to avoid damage.

▪️The head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Leonid Slutsky, commenting on the report, said that all calls for a ceasefire should be directed strictly towards Kyiv

▪️Volodymyr Rogov, a member of the main council of the administration of the Zaporozhye region, said that the IAEA delegation turned a blind eye to the situation with the shelling of the ZNPP by Ukraine and retired from their official duties

***

Colonelcassad

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The situation in the Soledar direction
by the end of September 6, 2022

▪️Detachments of "PMC Wagner" established full control over the village of Kodema. Fierce battles for him have been going on since mid-summer.

▪️The liberation of Kodema will allow developing in the direction of Zaitsevo from the south to reach the southern approaches to Bakhmut, which in the future will make it possible to storm the city from several directions simultaneously.

▪️The front line in Soledar has not changed significantly: clashes continue on the southern outskirts of the city and in the adjacent village of Bakhmutskoye.

▪️The allied forces continue to carry out artillery strikes on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in settlements along the line of contact, as well as on the places of concentration of enemy manpower and equipment.

***

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the course of the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine on December 20, 09/06/2022, specially for the Voenkor Kotenok channel Z @voenkorKotenok :
1.
Raisin.
The enemy launched an offensive on Balakleya and started fighting for the village of Verbovka to the north-west of Balakleya.
The fighting took on a positional character, at least 2 bridges were blown up in the city. Both sides are actively using artillery and MLRS. The Russian Aerospace Forces are working.
In Chuguev, the headquarters of the Ukrainian group was destroyed.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine launched rocket attacks on Izyum and Kupyansk.
Balakleya - under artillery fire.
Highway Volkhov Yar - Balakleya and the arsenal under the control of the RF Armed Forces.
2.
Kharkov.
The enemy here has not yet been able to go on a full-fledged offensive, both in the Uda region and near Borshcheva.
The RF Armed Forces are crushing the enemy in the area of ​​Rubezhnoye, Verkhny Saltov, Bayrak and Peremoga. There are unconfirmed reports of progress towards Shestakovo.
The Chuguev area is being actively processed by artillery and aviation. There are arrivals in Kharkov.
The enemy continues shelling the border settlements of the Russian Federation.
3.
Kherson.
In most areas, the fighting took on a positional character. The enemy continues to try to expand the bridgehead on the Ingulets River near Andreevka. There are battles near Kostroma and Sukhoi Stavka. The crossings of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Ingulets were again broken.
The enemy strikes at Novaya Kakhovka, the outskirts of Kherson and in the area of ​​Berislav.
The Russian Armed Forces destroyed a large oil depot in Krivoy Rog, and also carried out traditional strikes in the Nikolaev region.
4.
In the area of ​​Vysokopolye , the enemy continued to attempt to advance south in the direction of Berislav, fierce battles continue here with significant losses on both sides.
In fact, it is the Nikopol direction that is now creating the most significant problems.
On Nikolaevsky, the enemy has already run out of steam, on Krivoy Rog, he is running out of steam.
5.
Avdiivka.
Our troops started fighting on the outskirts of Pervomaisk, and also cleared the seed station near Sands, drove the enemy away from two bridges on the ring road.
In the area of ​​Avdiivka itself, there are no significant changes, as well as in Marinka with Ugledar.
6.
Artemovsk.
PMC "Wagner" took the Code. Enemy counterattacks with the use of armored vehicles were repelled.
The loss of the Codema complicates the position of the Armed Forces of Ukraine southeast of Artemivsk.

***

Colonelcassad

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The battle for Kherson: the situation in the Andreevsky sector
as of 18.00 on September 6, the

Andreevsky sector of the front in the Nikolaev-Krivoy Rog direction remains a zone of active fighting.

▪️Throughout the night and early morning, the Armed Forces of Ukraine transferred reinforcements to the south coast, trying to expand the bridgehead. And if the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not succeed in advancing further than Sukhoi Stavka, then today efforts were concentrated on the direction of Belogorka .

In the first half of the day, the Russian Aerospace Forces put out of action all three crossings that were functioning today. Artillery fire prevented the pontoon-bridge park of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from building a new crossing.

▪️To the south-east of Bereznegovatoy in a forest plantation, the Smerch MLRS destroyed the reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which were planned to be transferred to the south. In the village of Krasnopolye , two Ukrainian self-propelled guns were put out of action . By evening, the Armed Forces of Ukraine transferred two 152 mm Giacint-B guns to Bereznegovatoe.

▪️The infantry of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, having crossed Ingulets at night, dispersed along the Plotnitsky tract and began advancing towards Belogorka from the northwest. Around 13.00 Moscow time, the offensive was thwarted: Russian bombers destroyed the enemy grouping on the northwestern outskirts of the village.

▪️In the area of ​​​​Sukhoi Headquarters and Andreevka , the RF Armed Forces continue to destroy scattered enemy groups with artillery fire and bombing strikes of the Russian Aerospace Forces.

▪️On the northern bank of the Ingulets, reserves in manpower and equipment are still preserved. There are no more new tanks: basically, they are throwing BMP-1s and lightly armored vehicles of Western production.

***

forwarded from
Older than Edda
By Balakleya. The Armed Forces of Ukraine, as many warned, went on the offensive in this sector of the front. Enough forces were brought up, including tanks and artillery. In the morning they caught on the outskirts of the city, but the main direction of impact is still the Balakleya-Kupyansk highway, where they are trying to break through. At the moment, there are fights, the AFU did not succeed in cutting off Balakleya. It is necessary to take this offensive with all seriousness, and not try to shower it with caps and bravura statements.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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Ukraine: How British Intelligence Globalized Online Trolling
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Kit Klarenberg

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Since the conflict in Ukraine began, numerous commentators have drawn attention to the blatant weaponization of social media in service of the proxy war.

Legions of users on Facebook, Twitter, and other major platforms, many anonymous and recently registered, have relentlessly propounded pro-intervention, pro-Ukraine propaganda, viciously attacking all those deviating even slightly from established Western narratives. It has created an unprecedented situation, which writer Caitlin Johnstone calls “the most aggressively trolled war of all time.”

Of course, this hostile informational milieu didn’t abruptly emerge when Russia intervened in Ukraine on February 24th. For many years, public spaces online have been subject to an ever-intensifying blitzkrieg both by dedicated state-run bot and troll networks, and apparently grassroots initiatives. In respect of the latter, the one that started it all was the Lithuanian Elves, back in 2015.

An ostensibly informal collective of concerned citizens banding together to rebut Russian “fake news”, its activists have been praised effusively in the mainstream for their troll-busting prowess, and repeatedly held up as a paragon Western states must follow in order to effectively battle purported “disinformation”.

Unsurprisingly though, none of the countless glowing media profiles of the movement published to date have recognized that the movement has all along benefited from the sponsorship and promotion of British intelligence.

Covert operatives in London immediaely seized upon the Elves concept, then exported its model globally, in the process constructing a clandestine network of operatives to sway debate, influence policy, and distort perceptions the world over.

‘21st century resistance fighters’

References to this spectral background are, perhaps predictably, absent from an official biography of the Elves, provided in a chapter contributed to an academic handbook on “Disinformation and Fake News” by Giedrius Sakalauskas, one of the movement’s founders. Nonetheless, revealing – if romantic – insight into the group’s modus operandi is forthcoming.

There are; “debunkers” seeking to identify and expose “hostile propaganda”; “troll killers” mass reporting perceived malign actors and bot accounts to social media platforms, so they’re deplatformed; “motivators” spreading “positive news” about Lithuania, the EU and NATO “in order to make people proud of their own country”; and operatives “fighting trolls and their information using humor, irony, and sarcasm as a weapon.”

Oddly, Sakalauskas contradicts himself on the number of people involved, first stating “it is not easy to calculate how many Elves we have today, as there are different tribes,” but later on asserting Lithuania’s Elf chapter alone comprises “over 4,000 activists who participate as needed.”

They are mobilized via groups on social media and chat platforms, some of which are labeled “secret”. Elves “do not know each other’s real names or meet up in person; more often than not, they remain anonymous, in order to avoid being identified by the other side. But when we have a target, we are together [emphasis added].”

Sakalauskas goes on to describe a series of orchestrated actions by the Elves, in the process admitting their activities are anything but reactive – indeed, they avowedly subscribe to the philosophy that “the best defense is offence.”

For example, a number of Elves mounted a campaign against Russian state-owned outlet Sputnik, relentlessly spamming its Facebook page with negative comments and memes, and decreasing its ‘rating’ from 4.3 to 2.6 out of five in just six days.

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Sakalauskas outlines #StopAdidas campaign

Then, in the lead up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the Elves targeted Adidas after the international sportswear giant produced a range of t-shirts bearing the Soviet hammer and sickle, prompting a deluge of negative media coverage the world over. In just two days, the company bowed to the harassment and withdrew offending products from sale. Markedly, Sakalauskas states that a “group of likeminded Ukrainian activists joined in on the action.”

The Elves repeated the effort later that year, this time targeting Walmart for its own assortment of Communist-themed garments, and once again emerging victorious in short order. A core component of both campaigns was sarcastically suggesting the target companies create dedicated lines of totalitarian-themed attire – a meme bearing the inscription “Walmart, why not swastika?” was widely circulated, as were corresponding hashtags on Twitter.

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The Lithuanian Elves at work

These efforts are rather chilling, given for many years Vilnius has keenly embraced and perpetuated the dangerous, duplicitous myth of “double genocide” – namely, that Nazi liquidation of Lithuania’s population, in particular its Jews, during World War II is absolutely equal to political repression practiced during subsequent decades of Soviet occupation.

In 2010, the UK ambassador to Vilnius was lead author of a joint diplomatic letter expressing grave concerns about this push – he was forced out of the post not long after. That same year, Vilnius passed legislation significantly restricting public discourse about the Holocaust, and apportioning blame for mass slaughter of Jews exclusively to the Nazis. In reality, Lithuanians began carrying out this genocide before Axis forces had even reached the country.

Once they arrived, many citizens were actively complicit in large-scale pogroms, resulting in 90 percent of Lithuania’s estimated 250,000-strong Jewish population being exterminated. In all, more Jews were killed, in both percentage terms and total number, than in the far larger and more populous Germany.

A core component of this Holocaust revisionism is deification of the Forest Brothers, a band of anti-Soviet resistance fighters who for over a decade following World War II fought an ill-fated insurgency against Communist authorities across the Baltics. It is an established historical fact that overwhelmingly, these individuals were former Waffen SS collaborators and/or had been part of ‘stay-behind’ battalions created by Nazis as they prepared to evacuate the region, in advance of the Red Army’s arrival.

Yet, Lithuania – along with neighboring Estonia and Latvia – is committed to whitewashing the Brothers’ true nature, instead presenting them as courageous freedom fighters. Disturbingly, this bunkum has now been overwhelmingly accepted by Western governments and power structures, despite the vast readily available evidence to the contrary.

For example, the EU’s official position is that any suggestion the Brothers were “Nazi collaborators, criminals and terrorists” is Russian “disinformation”. Even more shockingly, in 2017 NATO released a slick film reinforcing this grossly distorted reading of history.

There are good reasons to believe production of that sordid propaganda, and in turn Western endorsement of “double genocide”, was heavily influenced by the Elves – with, as we shall soon see, the assistance of British intelligence.

Tantalizingly, Sakalauskas rounds out his chapter by revealing that the Lithuanian military’s Stratcom – information warfare – division serendipitously “noticed the Elves and was impressed.” As he tells it, the Elves’ exploits were then publicized at a 2015 NATO summit in Latvia, with resultant conference discussions about the movement unexpectedly “leaked” to media outlets across the Baltic states.

“It was a big shock that the world’s largest military alliance had discovered the Elves,” Sakalauskas excitedly records. “The coverage gave the Elves a chance to promote themselves in the public sphere and spread the message about [the] Elves movement internationally.”

‘Sponsoring a network of Elves’

The proposition that Lithuania’s Armed Forces just so happened to fortuitously stumble upon the Elves is difficult enough to accept on its own terms, but is rendered especially implausible given the contents of leaked files documenting the internal workings of Integrity Initiative, a covert Foreign Office intelligence operation.

These papers show that in 2015, at the same time as the Elves were being touted by NATO, the Initiative forged a “close link” with the Lithuanian Armed Forces Stratcom division. Several passages dotted across the trove strongly suggest there is little meaningful distinction between this unit and the Elves.

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Integrity Initiative diagram of its Lithuanian operations

For example, the Initiative initiated a direct line between the Stratcom team and British Army online psyops battalion 77th Brigade, which resulted in the Brigade “adopting Lithuanian techniques.” In turn, the organization received sizable sums from the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense to arrange monthly trips abroad for its Stratcom staff, so further internet armies explicitly based on the Elves model could be taught in “infowar techniques” practiced by the group.

“Lithuania has become particularly important in our network due to its expertise in dealing with Russian malign influence and disinformation,” one document states. “We are sponsoring a network of ‘Elves’, set up to counter Russian trolls.”

The Foreign Office funded the construction of this “network”, which Integrity Initiative delivered by establishing an “Elves academy”, where scores of participants from all over the EU were routinely whisked to Vilnius for four-day workshops, and received “practical lessons and training” in the fine art of trolling. Participants subsequently received in-country follow up visits from “Elves instructors”, to ensure their local networks “[developed] effectively.”

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Excerpt from Integrity Initiative file

“The Elves provide necessary knowledge for the development and implementation of an effective civic response,” an Initiative document declares. “Civic activists and volunteers [become] actively engaged in cyber resistance and digital resilience.”

By early 2018, the Dutch, Norwegian and Spanish defense ministries had also received direct training from the Elves and 77th Brigade, resultantly creating corresponding “units within their own ranks.”

Comparable divisions will have inevitably been created elsewhere in the years since. The organization had grand plans to circulate these and other meddling methods to the US, and a separate chapter in the aforementioned Disinformation and Fake News handbook moreover indicates former British colony Singapore has taken lessons from the Elves in tackling online “disinformation”.

There are clear indications too that Integrity Initiative was involved in the production of NATO’s Forest Brothers promotional clip. One file notes the organization is in receipt of “funding from NATO HQ for educational video films,” and been provided a camera team free of charge by the military alliance for the purpose, at precisely the time the clip was published. Two years later, it published an essay criticizing “Kremlin disinformation” regarding the Brothers on its now-defunct website.

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Excerpt from Integrity Initiative file

‘Intentionally false and defamatory’

In his handbook chapter, Sakalauskas incongruously concedes the risk of his Elves movement being “hijacked” by “local extremist groups” would “always exist”, although dismissed the prospect’s significance on the bizarre basis that new recruits “having [their] heart in the right place” would be “enough” to ensure the project wasn’t malignly infiltrated.

A cynic might query whether extremism was hardwired into the Elves and their foreign counterparts from the very beginning. A leaked Foreign Office-commissioned assessment accuses the group of “fomenting anti-Russian prejudice and spreading falsehoods.” The same appraisal was even more scathing of Propastop, a similar endeavor funded by the Estonian Ministry of Defense, which has likewise been endorsed by the EU, NATO, Western think tanks, and the media, and is often characterized as a regional ‘sister’ of the Elves.


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Foreign Office-funded assessment of the Lithuanian Elves

Propastop was said to be linked to “neo-fascist groups” and have incited violence against Estonia’s Russophone minority – “its reporting is widely considered to lack credibility and they have published a number of intentionally false and defamatory articles about Russian media outlets.” Eerily, Propastop content rebutting claims of discrimination against Estonia’s Russian-speaking population has been widely shared on social media since the war in Ukraine began.


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Foreign Office-funded assessment of Propastop

Furthermore, Integrity Initiative “linked directly” Lithuania’s Stratcom team – and thus inevitably the Elves – with Kiev’s StopFake, “to exchange practical experience.” The Kiev-based organization has received sizable US and UK government funding, and serves as one of Facebook’s dedicated in-country factcheckers for Ukraine, despite its lengthy history of whitewashing neo-Nazism, and cohering ties to white supremacist elements.

StopFake is far from the only entity determined to sanitize Kiev’s open, state-level embrace of fascism. Numerous Western media outlets have declared this demonstrable reality fake news, while legions of web activists stand ever-poised to malign anyone and everyone daring to acknowledge the truth – the most prominent and belligerent example of this phenomenon being NAFO – the self-styled “North Atlantic Fellas Organisation”.

A vast online nexus identifiable by “doge” profile photos, they independently and in coordination counter “disinformation” about NATO and Ukraine – and its alleged disseminators, who are derisively labeled “vatniks” – with an inexorable blend of absurdity, ad hominem, memes, and ridicule, all while raising money for Kiev.

NAFO has claimed responsibility for chasing a Russian diplomat offline, and endlessly mass reporting accounts and tweets until offending users are temporarily or permanently suspended. Such trolling also has a real-world component.

On August 4th, Amnesty International published a report on Kiev endangering its population by basing forces and weaponry in residential areas, including schools and hospitals, which constitutes a war crime. Three days later, CBS broadcast a program revealing only 30 percent of Western arm shipments to Ukraine reach the frontline. NAFO took a lead role in harassing the two organizations subsequently, and corralling bulk submissions of complaints to official bodies over their output.

What impact these coordinated actions may have had in isolation is difficult to quantify – they were just one component of a much wider on and offline backlash against Amnesty and CBS for highlighting the realities of Ukraine’s war effort, which in sum proved highly effective in crushing dissent.

Amnesty issued an apology for the “anger and distress” its factual reporting may have caused, while CBS pulled its documentary, and an accompanying promotional trailer and article, from the web outright. It has since been “updated” to claim “the situation has significantly improved” since the documentary was filmed, and “a much larger quantity now gets where it’s supposed to go.” Which is reassuring.

High-level support for NAFO is clear. For example, Paul Massaro, US government foreign policy advisor and two-fisted cheerleader for Kiev, has referred to the ensemble as “one of the most effective counter-disinformation campaigns in history.” The Economist, Politico and Washington Post all published fawning billet doux to the Fellas within 24 hours as August became September. Their actions have even inspired a range of branded merchandise.

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Accusations NAFO is sponsored or directed by intelligence actors abound, to the extent its members have transformed charges to that effect into an in-joke meme – they claim they cannot possibly be supported by the CIA, because “there is no CIA.”

Given the palpable similarities between NAFO and the Lithuanian Elves, such denials could well be sincere – after all, the effort’s nucleus might lie in London, rather than Washington DC.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... -trolling/

Kherson: What Happens Next? – Russian Ops in Ukraine Update September 6, 2022
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 6, 2022



Update on Russian military operations in Ukraine for September 6, 2022

– While fighting continues around Kherson, it remains positional, signifying the end of Kiev’s long-planned offensive;

– Western sources continue citing factors they believe limit Russian operations consistent with flawed Western thinking regarding Russian military capabilities stretching back to 2014-2015;

– Elements of Ukraine’s Kherson offensive appear inspired by lessons “learned” from fighting in the Donbass in 2014-2015;

– Fighting around Kherson depends on pontoon bridges on both sides, affording neither a clear advantage in terms of the means of logistics;

– Ukrainians involved in the “offensive” note they do not have the armor, artillery, or airpower to succeed;

References:

UK Ministry of Defense – Latest Intelligence Update, September 6, 2022 (Twitter): https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/

Institute for the Study of War – RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, SEPTEMBER 5: https://www.understandingwar.org/back

Moon Over Alabama – Kherson ‘Counteroffensive’ – Zelenski Is Going For Broke: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09

Alex Christoforou – Kherson, 3rd & 4th waves. Macron, Scholz warn Vucic. Erdogan warns Greece. In Liz we Truss. Update 2: https://youtu.be/BCnQHhqN8X8

Alexander Merouris – Kherson Offensive at Standstill, US Weapons Stocks Depleted, EU Throws Money at Gas Crisis-Inflation: https://youtu.be/-JBqM2g4tFw

Al Jazeera – Ukraine claims counteroffensive success to ‘starve the Russians’: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... er-6-2022/
"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 Sep 07, 2022 11:03 pm

Colors for Balaclava. 07.09.2022
September 7, 13:04

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Battles for Balakleya. 09/07/2022

At 12:00, according to reports, there are battles on the outskirts of Balakleya (Balakleya itself is under the control of the RF Armed Forces), in Verbovka, in the Volokhov Yar area (the enemy entered the Volokhov Yar - Izyum road), as well as in the Semenovka area in the direction of Shevchenkovo (on the Chuguev-Kupyansk highway).
Since the morning, the Russian Aerospace Forces have been actively working (in the morning they lost one Sushka, the pilot was evacuated) and artillery, there are reports that the reserves transferred by the Russian Armed Forces have already been put into use. The enemy is also actively working with artillery and MLRS and is putting into action its reserves previously concentrated in the Chuguev area.
In general, there is a growing serious operational crisis.

What is happening now to the north of Balakleya steadily resembles the well-known breakthrough of the ISIS strike group to the Itria-Khanasser highway in January-February 2016, which created a threat to the operational encirclement of the Russian-Syrian group in Aleppo. Then the reserves from the "Tigers" and "Hezbalons" were closed with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces. Let's see how the "fire brigade" works this time.

I remind those who suffer that the main broadcast of hostilities in Ukraine is carried out in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin
Those who want to promptly monitor incoming news from the front subscribe and track. Those who do not want to continue to whine in the LiveJournal comments that this damned world does not want to realize their Wishlist.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7847170.html

The grain deal was also deceived
September 7, 9:37

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"Only 2 ships out of 87 with grain were exported to African countries, as originally planned. The rest was exported to European countries. Maybe it is worth limiting the export of grain from Ukraine, I will consult Erdogan about this" (c)

Putin that it could be.
As an alternative and addition to negotiations with Erdogan, since grain is not exported to Africa, but to Europe, can it be started with the destruction of grain terminals in Odessa?

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7846560.html

Google Translator

Well, the Ukes are consistent....not only is everything they say a lie, it's a big lie too.

And now the whole issue has been consigned to the Memory Hole by the Western press....

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Outcry Grows as European Billpayers Struggle Amid Energy Crisis

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Protest against the EU policies and inflation, Paris, France, Sept. 3, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @f_philippot

Published 6 September 2022 (10 hours 23 minutes ago)

The possibility of a deep recession in Europe increases amid difficulties in finding short-term substitutes for Russian gas imports.


Inflation in the eurozone hit a new record of 9.1 percent in August as energy and food prices continued to drift higher. The protests may just be the beginning of waves of public discontent and can worsen over time unless the EU leadership brings in something concrete to curb the suffocating cost-of-living crisis while pressing ahead with climate pledge.

Over the weekend, tens of thousands of Czechs took to the streets in Prague to protest against soaring energy prices and demand state help, in one of the largest demonstrations over the worst-ever utility bills crisis in decades.

PUBLIC DISCONTENT
The rally which gathered an estimated 70,000 people in central Prague came a day after the Czech government survived a no-confidence vote amid discontent and claims of inaction against spiralling inflation, already at levels unseen in three decades.

Year-on-year inflation in the Czech Republic reached a whopping 17.5 percent in July. The Czech National Bank predicted that inflation would peak at just above 20 percent in the coming months and slow down only next year.

Meanwhile, recent months have seen workers in France, Spain and Belgium go out on strike in the public transport, health and aviation sectors, demanding pay rises to tide their families over rocketing inflation.

High inflation triggered by the current energy crisis could fuel social unrest, protests and strikes, according to a recent survey covering France, Germany, Poland and the U.K. The survey, conducted by pollster YouGov for the NGO "More in Common", showed that the cost of living has become the most important issue for Europeans in these four countries.


OVERDUE REMEDIES
Countries have been rolling out measures to slam brakes on energy prices. But experts believe the real effect hinges on implementation and policy coordination. The European Commission has come under fire amid mounting concern and doubts from some member states over its botched leadership as well as overdue and ineffective response.

To rein in soaring prices, the European Union is en route to impose historic interventions in the energy market including gas price caps and emergency credit lines for energy market participants.

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France and Germany will help each other through the energy crisis. After a videoconference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Macron said France is ready to deliver more gas to Germany while the latter will offer more electricity to France, if the current energy crisis persists in winter.

Meanwhile, Sweden and Norway announced they were ready to launch a joint task force aimed at curbing the soaring power bills in the Nordic region, a decision announced following a meeting between Swedish and Norwegian ministers in Stockholm.

The Finnish government proposed to provide the country's electricity companies with loans and guarantees of up to US$10 billion to secure the sufficiency of their cash resources. Trade union leaders cautioned that a failure to act will hurt disproportionately lower-income families, and exacerbate deepening social divisions.


LOSE-LOSE SANCTIONS
The protest on Saturday at Wenceslas Square in the center of the Czech capital unfolded with residents carrying signs calling for a new deal with Russia over gas supplies, a halt to arms sales to Ukraine and opposition to the European Union and NATO. Citizens demanded that authorities stick to military neutrality and ensure direct contracts with gas suppliers.

Cuts and suspensions of Russian gas supplies, which have occurred on and off since the start of the Ukraine crisis earlier this year, are widely feared to aggravate Europe's energy crunch and lead to a restructuring of the demand and supplies on the global market.

The ramifications of the surge in energy prices are seen everywhere in Europe, due to several negative factors, including the fallout of massive sanctions on Russia and the spillover of the United States' aggressive interest rate hikes.

To make matters worse, Russia's largest gas producer Gazprom announced it had stopped gas supplies via the Nord Stream I pipeline for an indefinite period due to malfunctions at a compressor unit.

While Germany is likely to bear the brunt as the cut-off threatens to halt industries, the overall EU economy will face risks of recession as a consequence. Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings said the eurozone was now set for recession due to the disruption of Russian gas imports and the lack of short-term substitutes.

Europe is heading towards a harsh winter, said Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director of The Economist Intelligence Unit. She said the continent should expect "two years of a very difficult adjustment with a lot of economic pain."

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies announced a small production cut for October to bolster oil prices that have recently slid over recession fears.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Out ... -0003.html

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Ukraine attacks city where Zaporizhia nuclear plant is located

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The attack by the Ukrainian army took place around midnight with the launch of a projectile from a drone. | Photo: Sputnik
Published September 6, 2022 (23 hours 25 minutes ago)

The administration of the city west of the Dnieper River published that "Ukrainian terrorists struck again."

Authorities in the city of Energodar reported Tuesday that a Ukrainian army drone attacked the roof of the passport office in the capital of the oblast where the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is located.

In this regard, the administration of the city located west of the Dnieper River published on its Telegram channel that "Ukrainian terrorists again attacked a civil infrastructure facility in Energodar."

In this sense, the entity added that "an unmanned aerial vehicle of the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a projectile on the roof of the passport office around midnight."

For his part, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, told national media about the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that "we await the truth and the confirmation of the real situation, of the real threats that can be observed on-site”.

Accordingly, he specified that "Ukrainians are nervous, the Ukrainian side has already expressed its discomfort with this mission, because it had the opportunity to see everything with its own eyes and make the necessary checks."

Last Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that it stopped an attack by the Ukrainian armed forces with eight drones against the Zaporizhia nuclear plant, which were "blocked by Russian electronic warfare equipment", according to the military ministry spokesman, Igor Konashenkov.

Meanwhile, the member of the military administration of the region, Vladimir Rógov, reported that the plant has registered a decrease of half of its energy production due to the impacts of the attacks by the kyiv army.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/ucrania- ... -0009.html

Google Translator

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IAEA Report on Zaporozhye NPP Mentions “Mysterious Shelling” 52 Times, Doesn’t Name Culprits
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Ilya Tsukanov

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The United Nations nuclear energy watchdog sent a high-level delegation of experts to the massive nuclear power plant last week. Moscow accused Kiev of trying to sabotage the mission via a botched offensive, and of engaging in “nuclear terrorism” by repeatedly attacking and shelling the facility with mortars, drones, and artillery.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has released a much-anticipated report on the security situation at Ukraine’s nuclear facilities.

The 52-page document summarizes “preliminary nuclear safety and security findings” from last week’s expert mission to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and missions to the Chernobyl NPP from earlier this year, and provides an update on the country’s other nuclear plants.

The report outlines “seven pillars” for nuclear safety, including the need to maintain the physical integrity of nuclear facilities, the continued functioning of safety and security systems at all times, the fulfillment of safety and security duties by nuclear plant staff, reliable off-site power supply from the grid in case of an emergency, reliable logistics and transport supply chains, radiation monitoring, and “reliable communications with the regulator.”

Mysterious Shelling

The report contains a Ukraine-biased approach in discussing the “physical integrity” of the country’s nuclear facilities, particularly as concerns the Zaporozhye plant, citing “Ukrainian reports” on the alleged deployment of Russian military equipment at the ZNPP, and dangers said to arise from Russian cruise missiles flying overhead.

The report mentions shelling attacks on the ZNPP 52 times, but does not say who is responsible (Ukrainian and Western media have previously reported that the plant was being shelled by Russian forces – the same Russian forces which have controlled the facility since March. Russia has blamed the Ukrainian military).

The document expresses the IAEA’s “concern” with the impact that shelling may have had on “safety-related structures, systems and components,” and, citing agency director Rafael Grossi’s remarks following his return from last Thursday’s inspection, stresses “that while past events had not yet triggered a nuclear emergency, they represented a constant threat to nuclear safety and security because critical safety functions (containment of the radioactivity and cooling in particular) could be impacted.”


The IAEA’s recommendation to ensure the continued physical integrity of the ZNPP is as follows:

“The IAEA recommends that shelling on site and in its vicinity should be stopped immediately to avoid any further damages to the plant and associated facilities, for the safety of the operating staff and to maintain the physical integrity to support safe and secure operation. This requires agreements by all relevant parties to the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the ZNPP.”

The report also mentions the presence of Rosatom specialists at the ZNPP, saying that the IAEA fears that their involvement “could lead to interference with the normal lines of operational command or authority and create potential frictions when it comes to decision-making.” The document at least admits that the plant’s regular management and staff continue to work as normal, but cites anxieties and pressures they have faced, including from shelling incidents (the culprit of the shelling is again not named), as well as problems stemming from staff shortages.


Additionally, the document provides a summary of the IAEA’s findings from their April visit to the defunct Chernobyl NPP, mentioning “extremely stressful and tiring conditions” experienced by staff during spring, particularly after the loss of regular offsite power and the turn to reliance on emergency diesel generators while the plant was under Russian control. The document does not attribute responsibility for the attacks on the plant’s external power sources. The Russian military said Ukrainian forces were responsible. Russian troops withdrew from Chernobyl at the end of March in a bid to calm the situation.

The watchdog’s report concludes with a congratulatory self-pat on the back, boasting that “despite the very challenging current circumstances, the IAEA has continued to implement safeguards in Ukraine.”

The ZNPP is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, and ordinarily accounts for nearly half of all electricity generated by Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, and 20 percent of the country’s annual power production. The Russian military has held the facility and its six reactors since March, and and Moscow and local authorities have repeatedly accused the Ukrainian military of attacking the plant throughout the past five-and-a-half months and threatening to spark a nuclear catastrophe.

The ZNPP was built by the Soviets in the late 1980s, and has faced several emergency nuclear close calls over the past decade in the aftermath of the 2014 Euromaidan coup. In 2014, a technical fault caused one of the plant’s reactors to shut down, contributing to rolling blackouts faced across the country that year and in early 2015. In 2020, Ukrainian nuclear industry workers sounded the alarm about the situation across their sector, warning of the dangers of “another Chernobyl” caused by lax safety standards, a critical shortage of finances, incompetent management, and the switchover to the use of American-made nuclear fuel rods.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... -culprits/

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UNSC: Russia Comments on IAEA Nuclear Plant Report
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

Statement by Permanent Representative V.A. Nebenzi at the UN Security Council meeting on the attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces on the Zaporizhzhia NPP

Mr. Chairman,

We thank UN Secretary-General A. Guterres and IAEA Director General R. Grossi for their briefings.

We commend Mr. R. Grossi for his decision to carry out the Agency’s mission to Zaporizhzhia NPP. This is a responsible and courageous step on the part of the IAEA leadership, confirming the Agency’s global role in the nuclear energy sector.

We are glad the visit allowed you, Mr. Director General and your team to see for yourselves the situation at Zaporizhzhya NPP and make sure we strictly adhere to the safety principles you formulated. It is important, as we heard during your briefing in Vienna on September 2, you could see with your own eyes that due to well-established cooperation between the plant personnel and Russian armed forces guarding the plant, it is generally operating in normal mode and there are no “internal” threats to its safety. You have had an excellent opportunity to see that the only threats are shelling and sabotage by the Ukrainian armed forces.

We see confirmation of this in your conclusion voiced at the above-mentioned briefing that the greatest concern of the Agency is the physical security of the station and its integrity, the risks to which have increased due to the shelling in August.

We regret that your report on the implementation of IAEA safeguards in Ukraine from April to September of this year, which appeared just a few hours ago, does not directly identify the source of the shelling. We understand your position as head of the international regulator, but in the current situation it is extremely important to call things by their proper names. Perhaps if the document had focused solely on the results of your visit to the ZNPP, your conclusions might have been clearer and more unambiguous. We will need more time to study the document, so I will not dwell on it in detail. We would only like to ask you to clarify what military equipment you saw during your visit to Zaporizhzhya NPP?

We do not sit idly by and let the reckless actions of the Kiev regime be hushed up. Last month we twice called a UN Security Council meeting on this matter. We tried to “get through” to our Western colleagues, explaining that this shelling poses a real threat of nuclear catastrophe at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, urging Western delegations to think about the possible consequences for the population of the continent and to “besiege” their wards in Kyiv. Unfortunately, our call was not heeded, and with the tacit consent of Western handlers, the Kiev regime continued shelling the ZNPP. They are still doing it today, on which I will elaborate later.

We welcome the decision of IAEA leadership to establish a permanent presence of the Agency at the plant. This makes a qualitative difference: the IAEA is now able to independently assess the situation in real time, given that there are two inspectors permanently stationed at the Zaporizhzhia NPP. We are ready to provide all possible assistance to their work.

I would like to emphasize that from the very beginning we have consistently supported the IAEA’s efforts to ensure nuclear and physical nuclear safety of Ukrainian nuclear facilities. The Russian side has done everything in its power to ensure that R. Grossi and his team get safely to the ZNPP, complete their work and return to Vienna. This fact was noted by the official representative of the UN Secretary General, stressing that “the Russian Federation did everything necessary to ensure safety of the IAEA inspectors who visited Zaporizhzhia NPP”. We would like to hear your assessment, Mr. Director General, of how satisfied the IAEA is with interaction with the Russian side, particularly in terms of ensuring an adequate level of safety for the mission.

Unfortunately, as we had feared, the Ukrainian side, realizing that it could not use the IAEA visit to ZNPP for its propaganda purposes, did everything to disrupt it. On the day of the Agency’s visit, September 1, the Ukrainian Armed Forces opened massive artillery fire on the plant and the city of Energodar from 5 a.m. onwards. They continued shelling ZNPP until the last moment, when the IAEA team was already on its way to the plant. Ukrainian artillery fired at the territory of Zaporizhzhya NPP, the meeting place of the IAEA mission with Russian specialists near Vasilievka settlement, and the route of their movement to Energodar. Four shells exploded at a distance of 400 meters from the first power unit of Zaporizhzhya NPP. The actions of the AFU directly threatened the lives and safety of the Agency inspectors.

But the Kiev regime did not stop there. It went for a monstrous provocation, attempting to seize the plant by force, right before the IAEA mission arrived at the plant. At six o’clock in the morning of September 1 Ukrainian Armed Forces sent sabotage groups through the Kakhovskoe water reservoir in the direction of Zaporizhzhia NPP in order to seize the plant. In other words, in order to create an impression of the AFU’s success, which, as we know, is necessary for the Zelensky regime to extort Western weapons, they meant to unleash active combat operations around the plant, which could have led to critical damage to its integrity. In case the operation was a success and the ZNPP came under the control of the Kiev authorities, the head of the IAEA R. Grossi and the experts of the mission would become a “human shield” for the Ukrainian saboteurs.

These provocations were prevented due to the effective actions of the Russian Armed Forces and Rosgvardiya units, as well as the vigilance of the local population. As a result, the meeting between the representatives of the Russian Federation and the IAEA team did not take place until noon, four hours later than planned. We commend the courage of the Agency representatives and their willingness to work literally under Ukrainian fire.

We would like to ask you, Mr. Director General, what was the impact on the work of the mission of the Ukrainian armed forces’ attempt to disrupt it through the landing of saboteurs to seize the ZNPP by force. How can you comment on these actions of the Ukrainian side in the context of threats to the physical security of the plant and the safety of the Agency personnel?

I would like to address a similar question to the Secretary General. Employees of the UN Security Department were part of the IAEA mission, they were directly involved in ensuring its security. They were supposed to assess the situation and to be aware of all the actions that create risks for it. What do your staff say about the risks posed to the mission by the actions of the Ukrainian side?

Mr. Chairman,

Kiev didn’t even consider it necessary to conceal its disappointment with the results of the IAEA visit to ZNPP. Zelensky’s advisor M.Podolyak said, among other things, that “all these intermediary missions look extremely ineffective and extremely cowardly, extremely unprofessional”. According to him, they were never ready to work in extreme conditions, and this concerns not only the IAEA, but also the UN. In the characterization of the Ukrainian functionary, international organizations are “not trusted already at the entrance. Mr. Podolyak also doubted that in two hours the IAEA mission was able to conduct a large-scale examination.

In a helpless rage, Kiev decided not to abandon its extremely dangerous plans. Despite the continued presence of the IAEA representatives at the ZNPP, the Kiev regime made yet another unsuccessful attempt to seize the plant on September 2, which was foiled by the Russian military.

Since then, the Kiev regime has continued to attack the plant on a daily basis. On September 3, the Ukrainian Armed Forces used eight unmanned aerial vehicles with suspended ammunition. Thanks to the actions of the Russian armed forces, the Ukrainian drones approaching the station were blocked, followed by the forced dropping of grenades in unmanned areas at a distance of more than one and a half kilometers from the station’s security perimeter. On September 4, Ukrainian troops used an unmanned aerial vehicle strike. As a result of the actions of Russian servicemen, the Ukrainian drone lost control and crashed one kilometer away from the territory of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant.

On September 5, the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out a new shelling of the Zaporizhzhya NPP with three artillery charges, one of which hit the roof of special building No. 1, where fuel assemblies are stored, as well as the storage facility for solid radioactive waste.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the shelling of ZNPP and Energodar came from the opposite bank of the Kakhovka Reservoir, predominantly from the settlements of Nikopol, Marganets, and Mariivka, which are under control of the AFU. The attacks by the Ukrainian side have resulted in five of the seven power lines at Zaporizhzhya NPP being damaged.

We call on members of the Security Council and the UN leadership to strongly condemn these provocative actions of the Kiev regime, aimed not only against plant employees, but also against international officials – IAEA staff.

The inhabitants of the city of Energodar also continue to be a “living target” for the Ukrainian armed forces. Today alone there have been five artillery attacks on the city. We know, Mr. Director General, that they handed you a collective appeal to stop the Kiev regime’s provocations. This story was widely covered in the media. You told them you would do your best. We would like to ask you to elaborate on this topic. What are your impressions from communication with the residents of Energodar?

We continue to do everything to ensure safe operation of Zaporizhzhya NPP. Its operation is ensured by regular technical personnel with support of Russian specialists. For now the radiation situation at the plant remains normal. But in case the provocations of the Kiev regime continue, no one is immune from more serious consequences. Responsibility for this lies entirely with Kyiv and its Western patrons and all the other members of the Security Council, who have still not found the courage to call things by their proper names and call on Kyiv to stop its reckless actions against the ZNPP, which pose a real threat to international peace and security.

We trust that today the members of the Council will have the courage to do so in order to prevent a possible radiation catastrophe.

Thank you for your attention.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... nt-report/

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Ukraine Loses Soldiers - Europe Its Economies - All For No Gain

When the Ukraine launched its Kherson 'counteroffensive' on August 29 I was pretty aghast and judged that it was destined to fail:

To break the reinforced Russian lines now would have taken more troops than were available.
I am sure that the Ukrainian military knew that this offensive would fail.

For political reasons Zelenski ordered them to launch it anyway. There are now another 1,000+ Ukrainian and Russian lives lost for nothing other then some sensational headlines and political optics.


More than 3,000 Ukrainians have died by now in the Kherson offensive without having made any significant progress. Hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles were lost. A dozen Ukrainian planes and helicopters have been shot down. All the material had come from the 'west' which has now emptied its stock of Soviet weapons. No more will be coming anytime soon.

The Ukraine thereby blew its chance to hold a line against any significant new moves from the Russia side. Those moves will be coming.

But what really bothers me is the human toll of this offensive.

I have never been at war. But I have had a decent full time military officer training over several years plus several month long reserve stints in active duty battalions. I have read lots of books and watched dozens of movies about frontline fighting in World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan etc. If one reflects on those events and the details described in the depictions one gets a 'feel' for such conflicts. Then there is the operational math like the numbers of artillery rounds fired per square kilometer, troop density and the toll such artillery bombardments will inevitably take.

The Ukrainian soldiers never had a chance to withstand the might of the Russian military. None whatsoever. That was recognizable from the very onset of the war. That the Ukrainian government and its backers tried to withstand the onslaught was illogical.

The 'west' should have given up and make the concessions that Russia had demanded. It will have to make those anyway.

The Ukrainian government has tightly controlled the media and any reporting from the frontline. We have only had Russian reports of high numbers of Ukrainian casualties. Some doubt the numbers the Russians give. I don't. They mostly fit with what I learned and with calculations.

Now a Washington Post reporter got access to hospitals where wounded Ukrainian soldiers involved in that 'counterattack' try to recover. John Hudson's report is grim even as it is not from the frontline and holds back on the most grievous scenes:

Wounded Ukrainian soldiers reveal steep toll of Kherson offensive https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... mmunition/

As the piece is behind a paywall I will extensively quote from it:

In dimly lit hospital rooms in southern Ukraine, soldiers with severed limbs, shrapnel wounds, mangled hands and shattered joints recounted the lopsided disadvantages their units faced in the early days of a new offensive to expel Russian forces from the strategic city of Kherson.
The soldiers said they lacked the artillery needed to dislodge Russia’s entrenched forces and described a yawning technology gap with their better-equipped adversaries. The interviews provided some of the first direct accounts of a push to retake captured territory that is so sensitive, Ukrainian military commanders have barred reporters from visiting the front lines.
...
“We lost five people for every one they did,” said Ihor, a 30-year-old platoon commander who injured his back when the tank he was riding in crashed into a ditch.
...
Russia’s Orlan drones exposed Ukrainian positions from more than a kilometer above their heads, they said, an altitude that meant they never heard the buzz of the aircraft tracking their movements.

Russian tanks emerged from newly built cement fortifications to blast infantry with large-caliber artillery, the wounded Ukrainian soldiers said. The vehicles would then shrink back beneath the concrete shelters, shielded from mortar and rocket fire.

Counter-battery radar systems automatically detected and located Ukrainians who were targeting the Russians with projectiles, unleashing a barrage of artillery fire in response.

Russian hacking tools hijacked the drones of Ukrainian operators, who saw their aircraft drift away helplessly behind enemy lines.
...
Oleksandr said the Russian artillery fire was relentless. “They were just hitting us all the time,” he said. “If we fire three mortars, they fire 20 in return.”

The Ukrainian soldiers said they had to carefully ration their use of munitions but even when they did fire, they had trouble hitting targets. “When you give the coordinates, it’s supposed to be accurate but it’s not,” he said, noting that his equipment dated back to 1989.
...
Russian electronic warfare also posed a constant threat. Soldiers described ending their shifts and turning on their phones to call or text family members — a decision that immediately drew Russian artillery fire.

“When we turn on mobile phones or radio, they can recognize our presence immediately,” said Denys. “And then the shooting starts.”
...
The Ukrainian claims of retaking villages such as Vysokopillya could not be confirmed, though soldiers interviewed said they were able to advance into some previously Russian-controlled villages. Those soldiers declined to name the villages, citing instructions from their superiors.

A group of Washington Post journalists who traveled within three miles of Vysokopillya, in northern Kherson, on Monday were prevented from entering the village by Ukrainian troops and could not ascertain its status. A local official said Ukrainian and Russian forces were still battling for control.

A clear picture of Ukraine’s losses could not be independently assessed.
...
Denys, sitting upright on his hospital bed, said almost every member of his 120-person unit was injured, though only two were killed.

A 25-year-old soldier being treated for shrapnel wounds said that, within his unit of 100 soldiers, seven were killed and 20 injured. Ihor, the platoon commander, said 16 of the 32 men under his command were injured and one was killed.

Ukraine’s injured soldiers have been spread out to different hospitals across southern Ukraine to free up the main medical facilities near the Kherson region for incoming patients.


The soldiers in the second 'counteroffensive' attempt southeast of Kharkiv will have a similar fate.

My best guess is that Ukrainian losses are not five but ten times those on the Russian side. An attack, through the open steppe, on an armored force that is technologically superior is a suicide mission.

Russian soldiers are not allowed to carry mobile phones. Why Ukrainian soldiers are allowed to have then and use those is beyond me. Do they want to commit suicide?

Suicide is what European politicians have committed their economies and societies to. Who knew that one needs energy, as cheap as possible, to smelter steel, aluminum and glass?

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SGM World News @SGMWorldnews - 10:13 UTC · 7 Sep 2022
BREAKING: 40 CEOs of European metal producers have wrote an open letter to Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission warning of an "existential threat" to industry as power prices surge.


No steel smelter, no taxes from steel smelters and their workers. No steel smelter, no payback of credit given to it. The big banking losses coming now will cause another severe banking crisis. Less money for the state means less pensions and healthcare.

This is ruinous for European states and their inhabitants. Meanwhile the U.S. politicians, neoconservative ideologist and money men behind the whole plan of using the Ukraine against Russia are laughing their asses off.

Tuomas Malinen @mtmalinen - 8:53 UTC · Sep 7, 2022
I am telling you people that the situation in #Europe is much worse than many understand.
We are essentially on the brink of another banking crisis, a collapse of our industrial base and households, and thus on the brink of the collapse of our economies.

We are also totally at the mercy of the authorities, and we have very little knowledge what they have planned.

Will they be able to stop the onset of the banking crisis, yet again? I don't know, but I am doubtful. 🤷‍♂️🤔

...

Germany is probably in the worst situation. Chancellor Olaf Scholz reacted to the Russia military operation with hysterical moralizing that was beyond any rationality. His government depends on the Green politicians in his cabinet. These are pigheaded ideological nuts. Germany, under severe threat of blackouts, will now decommission three perfectly fine nuclear power plants and restart dirty old coal fired power plants that were supposed to be dismantled. How Green is that?

Here is the how the president of Russia is seeing it:

Europe is about to throw its achievements in building up its manufacturing capability, the quality of life of its people and socioeconomic stability into the sanctions furnace, depleting its potential, as directed by Washington for the sake of the infamous Euro-Atlantic unity. In fact, this amounts to sacrifices in the name of preserving the dominance of the United States in global affairs.
...
The competitive ability of European companies is in decline, for the EU officials themselves are essentially cutting them off from affordable commodities and energy, as well as trade markets. It will come as no surprise if eventually the niches currently occupied by European businesses, both on the continent and on the global market in general, will be taken over by their American patrons who know no boundaries or hesitation when it comes to pursuing their interests and achieving their goals.


The next federal elections in Germany are three years away. One really hopes for some kind of coup but I see little movement yet in such a direction.

Where are the rational politicians who can take over?

Posted by b on September 7, 2022 at 11:16 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/u ... .html#more

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War in Ukraine. Summary 07.09.2022
September 7, 19:28

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War in Ukraine. Summary 07.09.2022

1. In the area of ​​Balakleya, the enemy controls a part of Verbovka, part of the Volokhov Yar-Balakleya highway, an interchange at Volokhov Yar.
The enemy also advanced from the south of Balakleya to Bayrak and Krasnaya Gusarovka. Balakleya itself is completely under the control of our troops. The main events unfold to the north of the city. There are battles at Shevchenkove. It is reported about the introduction of reserves by the parties. Ours are advancing from the direction of Kupyansk (which has been shelled from the MLRS for the last 2 days), the enemy - from the direction of Andreevka. In the offensive, units trained by NATO are used, foreign mercenaries are actively used.
After the failures with the offensive near Kherson and Kharkov, the offensive towards Balakliya is another attempt by Kyiv to achieve operational success.

2. In the Kherson direction, the front has stabilized. The enemy is exhausted almost everywhere and is unable to advance. Following the results of the battle, the American media states that the losses in the Kherson direction were 1 to 5 not in favor of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, not counting the large number of destroyed equipment. The control of several villages is clearly an inadequate price for a week-long offensive with such losses.

3. In the Artemovsky direction, our troops, after taking Kodema, are preparing for an offensive on Zaitsevo (not to be confused with Gorlovsky Zaitsevo). So far, the village is completely under the control of the enemy. The capture of Zaitsevo, as well as the Veselaia Dolina, is necessary to start a direct assault on Artemovsk.

4. In the Sand area, our troops have completed the expulsion of the enemy from the strongholds in the area of ​​​​the village and are now concentrating on the assault on Pervomaisky. The fighting is going on on the outskirts of the city, after the artillery defeat managed to grind the oporniks on the near approaches.

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/62795 - zinc

The broadcast of hostilities continues as usual in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin , including updates on the battles in the Balakleya area





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From Cassad's Telegram account:

***

Colonelcassad

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❗️The situation in the Nikolaev-Krivoy Rog direction
by the end of September 7, 2022

By the ninth day since the beginning of the Ukrainian offensive on Kherson , the front line had stabilized. The Armed Forces of Ukraine still do not give up trying to expand the bridgehead for further advancement to Novaya Kakhovka and Kherson , but they cannot build on the success.

🔻In the Andreevsky sector , the Ukrainian command continues to cling to Sukhoi Stavok and the surrounding settlements, trying to rotate the units located there.

However, the artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Aerospace Forces inflict intense fire damage on enemy positions in the narrow "gut" near Andreevka. MLRS "Tornado-S" delivered an accurate blow to the location of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Bereznegovatoy, and aerial bombs hit the bridgehead in the Sukhoi Stavka area. Also, Russian units approached the eastern outskirts of Belogorka, along which Su-34 bombers were working in the past days.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine suffer losses in manpower and equipment: through Bereznegovatoe located to the north, cars with wounded and killed soldiers pass almost continuously. The equipment damaged by the impacts is also being transported through the village.

🔻In the Posad-Pokrovsky area , Ukrainian units continue to try to gain a foothold west of the village of Ternovye Pody. At the same time, the units of the TRO brigades are in no hurry to enter new positions due to the heavy losses suffered in the previous days of suicidal attacks.

🔻It is relatively calm in the Snigirevsky sector : the Armed Forces of Ukraine are not undertaking active offensives and are trying to drop grenades from copters on the positions of Russian paratroopers in the previously taken Blagodatny.

🔻There are no changes in the front line in the Olginsky sector and in the Vysokopole region.

***

forwarded from
Poddubny |Z|О|V| edition
So, the situation is near Izyum, Balakleya and Kupyansk.

The task of the day, apparently, the enemy did not complete. The formations of the regime failed to take Balakleya, they did not even manage to enter the city like an adult. I had to bypass. Shevchenkovo ​​was also not taken by the enemy. Izyum - Kupyansk message is preserved. The formations of the regime were able to take control of the routes from Balakliya under fire control.

The situation for our group is difficult. The problems that have been discussed for several months now are obvious both in the public space and at closed meetings.

Glory to the courage and resilience of our fighters.

At night there will be time to regroup and to bring up reserves, inflict fire damage on the enemy, who is in unprepared positions. It's hard day tomorrow.

***

Colonelcassad

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The situation in the Donetsk-Zaporozhye direction
as of 21.00 September 7, 2022

▪️Subdivisions of the RF Armed Forces established control over Novopol and Vremyevka. These are small villages, partially abandoned by the population, but they are located on the axis between Gulyaipole and Ugledar. Control over settlements will allow in the future to put pressure on the flank of the fortified areas of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Zaporozhye direction.

▪️Under Ugledar itself, there are no significant changes in the front line: the attack on the city is complicated by a large number of mines in the fields on the way to the city. However, most of the Ukrainian units left the first line of defense due to regular losses from artillery strikes of the RF Armed Forces.

▪️The army aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces also constantly operates in the Ugledar region. Attack helicopters track down camouflaged enemy vehicles in forest plantations and hit them with fire from anti-tank guided missiles.

▪️Artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is operating practically along the entire front line, which strikes at the identified positions and accumulations of manpower of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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 » Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:21 pm

The offensive in the Kharkov region
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/08/2022

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Ukraine continues with its tactic of attacks on all sectors of the front and, as expected for days, this time it has gone on to attack the south of the Kharkov region. Under Russian control for months, the south of Kharkov is important for various reasons: in Balakleya, a city from which Russian troops are likely to withdraw in the coming hours to avoid being encircled, Russia captured the huge arsenal of the Forces Ukrainian Armed Forces, which promised to facilitate logistics and Izium, where the anti-terrorist operation beganit was to become an important point for the offensive on Slavyansk-Kramatorsk. Right now, that whole area is in danger from an apparently more serious offensive than the one that started in Kherson last week, and which currently seems stalled after the loss of such a high number of soldiers that even the Western press has reported with concern. the testimonies of wounded soldiers currently recovering in Nikolaev.

The south of Kharkov is important for Russia in terms of logistics and supply, but above all because of its proximity to the main front of this war, that of Donbass. Any Ukrainian advance in this area is more dangerous than the minimal advances of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Kherson front. Even in its first hours, it is early to determine the prospects of success for the Ukrainian troops or the Russian response. However, some trends are already visible.

Original Article: Alexander Kots / Komsomolskaya Pravda

It seems that the attack on Balakleya was not a spontaneous action by Ukraine in an isolated area of ​​the front. kyiv has launched an offensive in the Kharkov region, the aim of which is probably to cut off supply routes and communication routes between the Izium group and the Russian border.

There is still no official information about what is happening in this area. Judging by the information obtained from local residents, the fighting has already started along the route from the towns of Verbovka, Yakovenkovo, Taranushino and Volojov Yar. They are all on the same route.

It seems that the Ukrainian troops are not tasked with capturing Balakleya at all costs. In order not to get bogged down in positional battles for the city, they are trying to bypass it from the north and take control of the Volokhov Yar highway. In this case, Balakleya will come under an operational fence.

From Volokhov Yar, highways lead directly to Izium and Kupiansk. According to information from the battle sites, a combined Russian Guard force from the Bashkiria and Samara regions is heroically trying to hold the defense in Volokhov Yar. This group, actually a group of special forces, faces the enemy combined forces to try to avoid being surrounded.

The purpose of the Ukrainian Armed Forces offensive in this area is likely to be to cut off the supply routes of the allied force grouping in Izium from the Russian border and to impede communications with Russia.

There is currently a supply route from Kupiansk to Izrium, which runs along the highway through the city itself. But if the enemy advances south from Volokhov Yar, it will be threatened. And if the enemy captures Kupiansk, the Izium grouping will be completely cut off from the Russian border.

I would like to think that, as has happened in the Kharkov area, the Ukrainians will not be able to develop significant successes in the Balakleya area. Artillery strikes are being carried out against advanced units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and aviation is working. Reserves are being transferred to this combat zone.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/08/la-of ... more-25462

Google Translator

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Battles for Balakleya. 08.09.2022
September 8, 9:58

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Briefly on the situation in the Balakleya area on the morning of September 8.

1. The city itself in the morning was under the control of the RF Armed Forces. At night, 2 assault attempts were repelled.
2. The road network to the north of the city, including the interchange at Volokhov Yar, is still not controlled.
3. The enemy continues to attempt to storm Shevchenkove, but so far they have been unsuccessful for him.
4. The enemy continues to try to infiltrate the Izyum highway from the interchange area near Volokhov Yar.
5. Both sides are now actively using their reserves in the ongoing battle.
6. There is a serious operational crisis, which is still far from being resolved.

The broadcast of hostilities in Ukraine continues as usual in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin (if you are interested, subscribe)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7848593.html

Google Translator

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West Killed Peace Proposal to End Ukraine War, Russia Supported Negotiated Settlement
SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

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Photo composition with Boris Jhonson and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the background walking on the street and "West Killed Ukraine Peace Deal" is written on the front. Photo: Multipolarista.

By Benjamin Norton – Sep 4, 2022

Russia and Ukraine agreed to a negotiated settlement to end the conflict in April, but British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened to stop the peace deal, and the US and EU escalated the proxy war to try to weaken Moscow.


In May, Ukraine’s avowedly anti-Russian newspaper Ukrainska Pravda published a bombshell report that got virtually no attention in the West, titled “Possibility of talks between Zelenskyy and Putin came to a halt after Johnson’s visit.”

The article noted, “The Russian side… was actually ready for the Zelenskyy-Putin meeting. But two things happened, after which a member of the Ukrainian delegation, Mykhailo Podoliak, had to openly admit that it was ‘not the time’ for the meeting of the presidents.”

The newspaper continued:

According Ukrainska Pravda sources close to Zelenskyy, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson, who appeared in the capital almost without warning, brought two simple messages.

The first is that Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with.

And the second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.

Johnson’s position was that the collective West, which back in February had suggested Zelenskyy should surrender and flee, now felt that Putin was not really as powerful as they had previously imagined, and that here was a chance to “press him.”

Three days after Johnson left for Britain, Putin went public and said talks with Ukraine “had turned into a dead end”.


The fact that Russia and Ukraine were willing to end the conflict diplomatically was further confirmed later by Foreign Affairs, the media arm of the powerful Council on Foreign Relations, which has a revolving door with the US government.

Fiona Hill, who served as the senior director for Europe and Russia on the US National Security Council in the Barack Obama administration, co-authored an article for the September/October edition of Foreign Affairs titled “The World Putin Wants.”

The former top US national security official overseeing Russia policy wrote:

According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries. But as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in a July interview with his country’s state media, this compromise is no longer an option.

These terms had apparently been ironed out in face-to-face peace talks in Istanbul, Turkey on March 29.

Hill did not reveal what killed the peace process, but the Ukrainska Pravda report from May made it clear that it was Western pressure on Ukraine that sabotaged the negotiated settlement.

As US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated publicly on April 25, Washington’s goal was to use the proxy war in Ukraine to “weaken” Russia.


Sources

“Experts react: After Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul, is an end to war imminent?,” Atlantic Council, April 1, 2022

“Possibility of talks between Zelenskyy and Putin came to a halt after Johnson’s visit – UP sources,” Ukrainska Pravda, Roman Romaniuk, May 5, 2022

“The World Putin Wants,” Foreign Affairs, Fiona Hill and Angela Stent, September/October 2022

“Report: Russia, Ukraine Tentatively Agreed on Peace Deal in April,” Antiwar.com, Dave DeCamp

Brookings Institution funders in 2021 annual report

“No middle way between being independent country and colony, Putin says,” Russia’s Tass, June 9, 2022

“In long speech, Putin recognizes two Ukrainian regions as independent, a potential pretext for war,” Washington Post, February 21, 2022

“Foreign Affairs Council: Remarks by High Representative Josep Borrell upon arrival,” in Luxembourg on April 11, 2022:

JOURNALIST: Russians have criticised you for saying that the battle will be won on the battlefield. Do you still believe that this will be the case?

BORRELL: Normally wars have been won or lost on the battlefields. Yes.

https://orinocotribune.com/west-killed- ... ettlement/

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Germany’s Energy Suicide: An Autopsy
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 7, 2022
Pepe Escobar

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Police stand blocking people taking part in a protest against increasing energy prices and rising living expenses in Leipzig, Germany, September 5, 2022. Credit: REUTERS/Christian Mang

The EU has weaponized the supply of European energy on behalf of a financial racket, against the interests of European industry and consumers.


When Green fanatic Robert Habeck, posing as Germany’s Economy Minister, said earlier this week “we should expect the worst” in terms of energy security, he conveniently forgot to spell out how the whole farce is a Made in Germany cum Made in Brussels crisis.

Flickers of intelligence at least still glow in rare Western latitudes, as indispensable strategic analyst William Engdahl, author of A Century of Oil, released a sharp, concise summary revealing the skeletons in the glamour closet.

Everyone with a brain following the ghastly Eurocrat machinations in Brussels was aware of the main plot – yet hardly anyone among average EU citizens. Habeck, Chancellor “Liver Sausage” Scholz, the European Commission (EC) Green Energy VP Timmermans, EC dominatrix Ursula von der Leyen, they are all involved.

In a nutshell: as Engdahl describes it, this is about “the EU plan to de-industrialize one of the most energy-efficient industrial concentrations on the planet.”

That’s a practical translation of the UN Green Agenda 2030 – which happens to be metastasized into crypto Bond villain Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset – now renamed “Great Narrative”.

The whole scam started way back in the early 2000s: I remember it vividly, as Brussels used to be my European base in the early “war on terror” years.

At the time, the talk of the town was the “European energy policy”. The dirty secret of such policy is that the EC, “ advised” by JP MorganChase as well as the usual mega speculative hedge funds, went all out into what Engdahl describes as “a complete deregulation of the European market for natural gas.”

That was sold to the Lugenpresse (“lying media”) as “liberalization”. In practice, that’s savage, unregulated casino capitalism, with the “free” market fixing prices while dumping long-term contracts – such as the ones struck with Gazprom.

How to decarbonize and destabilize

The process was turbo-charged in 2016, when the last gasp of the Obama administration encouraged massive export of LNG out of the U.S.’s huge shale gas production.

For that one needs to build LNG terminals. Each terminal takes as much as 5 years to build. Within the EU, Poland and Holland went for it from the start.

As much as Wall Street in the past invented a “ paper oil” speculative market, this time they went for a speculative “paper gas” market.

Engdahl details how “the EU Commission and their Green Deal agenda to ‘decarbonize’ the economy by 2050, eliminating oil, gas and coal fuels, provided the ideal trap that has led to the explosive spike in EU gas prices since 2021.”

The creation of this “single” market control implied forcing illegal rule changes on Gazprom. In practice, Big Finance and Big Energy – which totally control anything that passes for “EU policy” in Brussels – invented a new pricing system parallel to the long-term, stable prices of Russian pipeline gas.

By 2019, an avalanche of Eurocrat energy “ directives” by the EC – the only thing these people do – had established a totally deregulated gas market trading, setting the prices for natural gas in the EU even as Gazprom remained the largest supplier.

As lots of virtual trading hubs in gas futures contracts started popping up across the EU, enter the Dutch TTF (Title Transfer Facility). By 2020 the TTF was established as the real EU gas benchmark.

As Engdahl points out, “TTF is a virtual platform of trades in futures gas contracts between banks and other financial investors. Outside, of course, of any regulated exchange.

So LNG prices soon started to be set by futures trades in the TTF hub, which crucially happens to be owned by the Dutch government – “the same government destroying its farms for a fraudulent nitrogen pollution claim.”

By any means necessary Big Finance had to get rid of Gazprom as a reliable source to allow powerful financial interests behind the Green Deal racket to dominate the LNG market.

Engdahl evokes a case very few know about across Europe: “On May 12, 2022 although Gazprom deliveries to the Soyuz gas pipeline through Ukraine were uninterrupted for almost three months of conflict, despite Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, the NATO-controlled Zelensky regime in Kiev closed a major Russian pipeline through Lugansk, that was bringing Russian gas both to his Ukraine as well as EU states, declaring it would remain closed until Kiev gets full control of its pipeline system that runs through the two Donbass republics. That section of the Ukraine Soyuz line cut one-third of gas via Soyuz to the EU. It certainly did not help the EU economy at a time Kiev was begging for more weapons from those same NATO countries. Soyuz opened in 1980 under the Soviet Union bringing gas from the Orenburg gas field.”

Hybrid War, the energy chapter

On the interminable soap opera involving the Nord Stream 1 turbine, the crucial fact is that Canada deliberately refused to deliver the repaired turbine to Gazprom – its owner – but instead sent it to Siemens Germany, where it is now. Siemens Germany is essentially under American control. Both the German and Canadian governments refuse to grant a legally binding sanction exemption for the transfer to Russia.

That was the straw that broke the (Gazprom) camel’s back. Gazprom and the Kremlin concluded that if sabotage was the name of the game, they couldn’t care less whether Germany received zero gas via Nord Stream 1 (with brand new Nord Stream 2, ready to go, blocked by strictly political reasons).

Kremlin spokesman Dmity Peskov took pains to stress “problems in [gas] deliveries arose due to sanctions that have been imposed on our country and a number of companies by Western countries (…) There are no other reasons behind supply issues.”

Peskov had to remind anyone with a brain that it’s not Gazprom’s fault if “the Europeans (…) make a decision to refuse to service their equipment” which they are contractually obligated to do. The fact is the whole Nord Stream 1 operation hinges on “one piece of equipment that needs serious maintenance.”

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who knows one or two things about the energy business, cleared up the technicalities:

“The entire problem lies precisely on [the EU’s] side, because all the conditions of the repair contract have been completely violated, along with the terms of shipping of the equipment.”

All that is inscribed into what Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov describes as “a total war declared against us”, which is “being waged in hybrid forms, in all areas”, with “the degree of animosity of our opponents – of our enemies” being “enormous, extraordinary.”

So none of this has anything to do with “Putin weaponizing energy”. It was Berlin and Brussels – mere messengers of Big Finance – which weaponized the supply of European energy on behalf of a financial racket, and against the interests of European industry and consumers.

Beware of the toxic trio

Engdahl has summarized how, “by systematically sanctioning or closing gas deliveries from long-term, low cost pipelines to the EU, gas speculators via the Dutch TTP have been able to use every hiccup or energy shock in the world, whether a record drought in China or the conflict in Ukraine, to export restrictions in the USA, to bid the EU wholesale gas prices through all bounds.”

Translation: casino capitalism at its finest.

And it gets worse, when it comes to electricity. There is a so-called EU Electricity Market Reform in progress. According to it, producers of electricity – from solar or wind – automatically receive “the same price for their ‘renewable’ electricity they sell to the power companies for the grid as the highest cost, i.e. natural gas.” No wonder the cost of electricity in Germany for 2022 increased by 860% – and rising.

Baerbock incessantly parrots that German energy independence cannot be secured until the country is “liberated from fossil fuels.”

According to Green fanaticism, to build the Green Agenda it’s imperative to completely eliminate gas, oil and nuclear power, which happen to be the only reliable energy sources as it stands.

And it’s here that we see the toxic trio Habeck/Baerbock/von der Leyen ready for their close up. They pose as saviors of Europe preaching that the only way out is to invest fortunes in – unreliable – wind and solar power: the “answer” from Providence to a gas price debacle manufactured by none other than Big Finance, Green fanaticism and Eurocrat “leadership”.

Now tell that to struggling pan-European households whose bills will surge to a whopping, collective $2 trillion as General Winter knocks on the door.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... n-autopsy/

Green capitalism is shit. The German Greens are an abomination. The West will use climate change as a weapon against it's chosen enemies. Nonetheless climate change is real, carbon is the immediate problem. The US will cynically promote clean energy and mitigation [i[elsewhere[/i] while pumping gas and oil like crazy. For the people of oil producing countries to 'keep it in the ground' requires economic mitigation, which can only come out of the hides of the 'well off' in the West and their Asian industrial 'partners'. And only revolution will accomplish that.

Absolute Proof that EU Leaders Are Responsible for Europe’s Soaring Fuel-Prices
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 7, 2022
Eric Zuesse

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A BusinissInsider news-report on the morning of September 7th headlined “Putin says Russia will restart Nord Stream 1 gas flows ‘tomorrow’ if it gets turbines, and blames sanctions for the shutdown” and opened with:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Gazprom could restart gas flows to Europe via the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline tomorrow, if it gets the turbines needed. He blamed Germany and Western sanctions for the indefinite halt in operations for the pipeline, according to media reports from his speech at the Eastern Economic Forum. At the same time, he said pressure from the US was behind the holdup in launching another pipeline, Nord Stream 2.

Putin was telling the EU’s leaders that what has been forcing gas-prices in Europe up 300% since Russia’s February 24th invasion of Ukraine isn’t Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (such as they allege) but instead the U.S.-EU-UK economic sanctions against Russia which have caused all U.S.-and-allied — including all EU — nations to terminate imports of fuels from Russia. He was saying that Russia will turn on the pipelines into the EU as soon as EU leaders turn off their sanctions that prohibit their businesses and consumers from buying it.

The ball is now in their court. Let’s see what they do with it. Have they been lying to allege that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused this 300% gas-price rise? If so, then Putin has said that the moment they stop lying and start to allow the gas to flow again from Russia, that gas will flow again from Russia and those prices will consequently plunge back down again.

If, however, they have been telling the truth (though it’s hard to see how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th could even possibly have forced up the prices in the EU of all fuels from Russia), then the ball will immediately be in Putin’s court, for him promptly to get the flows of Russian fuels into Europe restored to what they had been prior to the EU’s sanctions that were imposed in the wake of that invasion.

Because it’s hard to see how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24th could even possibly have forced up the prices in the EU of all fuels from Russia, the headline here is based upon the very reasonable expectation: that the result of Putin’s September 7th challenge to the EU’s leaders will be that they are proven to have been lying when they have blamed these price-rises on him, instead of on themselves.

In other words: On September 7th, Putin laid down the gauntlet to EU leaders, regarding whom is to blame for Europe’s now-soaring energy-prices, and for the consequences thereof. That challenge to them tests whom has been telling the truth about this matter, and whom has been lying about it. It is that test, regardless of whether news-reports about his statement (other than this one), report it as testing whom the liars, and whom the truth-tellers, about this matter, have been. This is a big tree that is falling in the news-forest, and that tree is falling, regardless of whether or not (or the extent to which) it is being reported to the public. The test is a fact — an important fact — even if it won’t be reported (other than here). However, something else will be even more important: what the result of this test will turn out to be. And then the test for the news-media will be: will they report that result? Will they report the finding? Because there certainly will be a finding, from this test. And it certainly will be an important one.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... el-prices/

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From Cassad's Telegram Account:

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forwarded from
KHARKOV OUR
At night in Kharkov flew to the 8th bakery on Saltovka; there were no casualties among the civilians after this arrival, as well as after a parallel arrival in the Kholodnogorsk region.

But after the morning massive shelling of the Industrial and Nemyshlyansky districts - two dead and five wounded. There were many arrivals, more than a dozen explosions successively sounded. The official version is MLRS, but the craters in the photo make it impossible to determine which one. It is likely that the blow was combined, not only the MLRS, but also artillery, and maybe a rocket, took part. There were also hits in the industrial zone on the border of two districts (along Moskovsky Prospekt), and near a school, near enterprises; at the same time, at least part of the shells or missiles arrived from the southwest. At the same time, some arrivals came to the place where heavy artillery hit the region all night.

***

Colonelcassad

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The situation in the Slavyansko-Barvenkovsky direction
by 14:00 on September 8, 2022

Against the backdrop of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Balakleya region in order to encircle the Russian group near Slavyansk , the Ukrainian command is also concentrating forces south of Izyum in order to strike at the forces of the Russian Armed Forces in the sector from the south.

▪️In the area of ​​​​the settlements of Dolina and Krasnopolye , accumulations of enemy manpower and equipment were noticed with the aim of a possible strike in the direction of Kamenka south of Izyum.

▪️In the forests south of the Liman , Ukrainian DRGs are operating after crossing the Seversky Donets . The fighters calmly enter the settlements of Brusovka, Ozernoye and Stary Karavan: they are in the "gray zone", there are no Russian units in them. Pontoon-bridge parks were also transferred to Raygorodok and its environs to build a crossing.

▪️In the Suligovka area , units of the RF Armed Forces cleared forest plantations south of the settlement from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Dibrovnoye , located nearby , is under the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

▪️The Ukrainian command launched an attack on Kopanki with forces of up to 100 people, supported by tanks, armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles. Its goal is to take the heights on the outskirts of the settlement for the further development of the offensive towards Malaya Kamyshevakha.

🔻The idea of ​​the Armed Forces of Ukraine is to put pressure on the Russian grouping near Slavyansk and tie down forces against the backdrop of an offensive in the Balakleya region, depriving the RF Armed Forces of the opportunity to transfer reinforcements to the most dangerous areas north of Izyum.

***

Colonelcassad
A spotter was detained in Energodar, who was aiming a kamikaze drone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the building of the city administration, the authorities said. As a result of his actions, the air conditioning unit on the roof of the administration building was damaged.

***

Colonelcassad
🇬🇧🇺🇦Intermediate along the Kharkov direction.

It was possible to stop the attacks on Balakliya and Shevchenko . The Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to reach Vesely from both sides and take Balakleya into the ring.

The key task for today is to hold the Savintsy-Vishneve line and prevent the connection of the APU groups. It is necessary to hold out and inflict a decisive fire defeat.

If it is possible to hold the line Shevchenko - Cherry - Savintsy, as well as Balakleya, then the scenario of the "attack on Kherson" will begin to repeat. There will be an opportunity to seize the initiative and recapture the occupied territories, again throwing the APU across the river.

Otherwise, the Armed Forces of Ukraine can simply leave Balakleya in the ring, advance in the areaMerry - Kunye , reach the Oskol line and start fighting for Izyum . And this is going to be bad.

***

Colonelcassad
Regarding the supply of weapons to Ukraine.

1. Arms deliveries to Ukraine will certainly continue as long as it makes sense from the point of view of US strategy.
2. There may be some interruptions in supply or they may ripple, but don't be under the illusion that they will stop as such.
3. Part of the deliveries, as usual, will be announced after the very fact of the delivery, and something will appear after the fact of application.
4. There is a tendency to further expand the range of supplies with a transition in the medium term to the supply of medium-range air defense systems.
5. The enemy will continue to use the tactics of dispersing supply chains in order to reduce the costs of attacks by the RF Armed Forces on warehouses and storage sites.

***

forwarded from
Kotsnews
By Balakleya

At 9:00 the enemy has not yet taken the city. During the night there were two attempts to enter Balakleya from the western direction, but were repulsed by Russian forces. Our divisions remain in the city.

In the morning hostilities around Shevchenkove resumed. The enemy is trying to take control of the Chuguev-Kupyansk highway.

To the south of Balakliya, the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to try to reach the crossroads in the area of ​​​​the settlements of Veseleye and Kunye in order to cut the supply arteries of our Izyum group.

Our aviation, artillery and reserves are working. The situation is difficult, but by morning it could have been catastrophic, but no. The guys are holding on.

In some areas, the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to advance 20, and somewhere - 30 kilometers deep into the territory under our control over the past day. There is no need to sprinkle ashes on your head, you need to prepare a counteroffensive, taking advantage of the fact that the enemy has broken away from his artillery.

The current victory for Kyiv carries not only a tactical, but also an informational burden. Especially against the backdrop of today's summit of Western allies at the US air base in Ramstein, Germany, where Washington is expected to announce the supply of $675 million worth of weapons to the Ukrainian army. For this event, Kyiv needed to show at least some success in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the use of the supplied weapons . And at least Ukraine fulfilled the task.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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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 » Fri Sep 09, 2022 12:09 pm

Ukrainian advances on the Kharkov front
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/09/2022

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Few are the verified and verifiable data about the Ukrainian offensive in the Kharkov region. Yesterday, the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced that they had recovered territory in the Kherson, Donbass and Kharkiv regions, although they only gave examples from one of those areas. Silence remains the tone regarding the Kherson offensive -possibly because there is no relevant advance- and there is no sign that there has been any Ukrainian advance in the DPR, the only one of the Donbass provinces in which the fight continues . Contrary to the southern offensive and the fighting in Donbass, Ukraine did publish yesterday images of its progress, in this case real and important, in an offensive in the Kharkov region that seems to have caught Russian troops off guard. Something surprising,

As on previous occasions, the information is not only scarce, but is limited to the declarations of Ukraine and its allies. However, the available data is sufficient to know that these are the most important advances in Ukraine since last March, when kyiv regained control of the north of the country. Contrary to that time, when Russian troops seized previously abandoned towns, this time it is a full-fledged military offensive. A few kilometers from the Russian border and compromising the supply routes and the possibilities of advancing on the north of the DPR -if that objective is maintained in the medium term-, this Ukrainian advance supposes, if it is consolidated, a serious blow to the plans of the Russian command.

This is what we know about the situation on the front lines late yesterday afternoon as reported by Boris Rozhin, Colonel Cassad :

1.The enemy has occupied at least part of Balakleya, including the town hall [Andriy Biletsky boasted yesterday that it was soldiers from the Kraken unit of the Azov regiment who raised the Ukrainian flag in the city]. Fighting continues in and around the city, as can be confirmed by a video from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. it is likely that the main forces of the Russian grouping are located in the eastern part of the city, since the Ukrainian images come from the western districts of the city, where they have arrived through Verbobka and Bayrak.
2.The opponent has established himself in Volokhov Yar and continues to fight in the Shevchenko district (there is no confirmation of local images) and uses sabotage groups in the direction of Kupiansk and the route to Izium.
3.He is also testing the possibilities of advancing towards Kunie and further to Oskol to hit the communications of the Izium group.
4.Both sides are actively sending additional troops in this direction: ours to try to stabilize the front and the Ukrainian Army to develop the offensive. The use of large numbers of foreign mercenaries has been appreciated.
5.In general, the operational crisis continues to develop and the command of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation does not manage to stabilize the situation. What is happening is remarkably reminiscent of the story of the loss of Palmyra in 2016. We will have to talk about the possible causes of what is happening - which is not yet fully known due to the fog of war - regardless of whether the results are positive or negative.


Compared to the situation of last March, when Russia withdrew from large areas of northern Ukraine, but advanced in the south and east, this Ukrainian military advance is a blow at a time when there is no Russian advance in the RPD, the only front in which large-scale offensive actions persist. With a front that stretches over a thousand kilometers and attacks in different areas of the separation line, the Russian Federation and its allies in Donbass now suffer from a shortage of personnel that has been evident since the beginning of the Russian intervention. Over the next few days, Russia will have to mobilize its reserves to try to regain the initiative in this area of ​​the front and maintain control over the Izium salient, which is strategically more important than Balakleya. For now, the situation points to a severe defeat of the Russian troops on the Kharkov front. In any case, any Ukrainian advance on territory controlled by Russia, especially in areas so close to the border, is a moral blow for the Russian and Republican troops at a time when the Allied advance is stalled.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/09/avanc ... more-25467

Google Translator

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Balaclava. 09/08/2022. Evening
September 8, 19:53

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Balaclava. 09/08/2022. Evening

1. The enemy occupied at least part of Balakleya, including the local city council. Fighting continues in the city and on its outskirts, which is confirmed by the video from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It is likely that the main forces of the RF Armed Forces are located in the eastern part of Balakliya, since the videos from the Armed Forces of Ukraine come from the western districts of the city, where they entered from Verbovka and Bayrak.
2. The enemy has established himself in Volokhov Yar, and also continues fighting in the Shevchenkovo ​​area (there are no confirming videos from the village) + throws out the DRG in the direction of Kupyansk and the road to Izyum.
3. There is also a probing of the possibilities of advancing in the direction of Kunye and further to Oskol in order to strike at the communications of the Izyum group.
4. Both sides hastily transfer additional forces to this direction - ours to stabilize the front, the Armed Forces of Ukraine to develop success. The use of a large number of foreign mercenaries is noted.
5. In general, the operational crisis continues to develop and the command of the RF Armed Forces in this area is not yet able to stabilize the situation. What is happening is sharply reminiscent of the story of the loss of Palmyra in 2016. About the possible reasons for what is happening (now there is still too much fog of war) following the results of the operation, regardless of its positive or negative results.

Broadcast of hostilities in Ukraine as usual in the TG https://t.me/boris_rozhin (if you are interested, subscribe)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7849358.html

Balakley. 09/08/2022. Results of the day
September 8, 23:37

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Balakley. 09/08/2022. Results of the day

1. Balakleya is partially controlled by the enemy. The forces of the RF Armed Forces were still fighting in the eastern part of the city in the evening. The situation east of Balakleya itself is not clear. The enemy tried to completely cut it off from the main forces. Bayrak is completely under the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as is Recruitment.

2. The enemy controls Volokhov Yar and the Volokhov Yar-Balakleya road, including Yakimenkovo. The settlements to the west of Shevchenkovo ​​are either occupied by the enemy or will be occupied by him in the coming days. It is obvious that troops were withdrawn from the Chkalovsky area in order to avoid encirclement.

3. Relying on Volokhov Yar, the enemy, on the one hand, supports the movement on Shevchenkovo, on the other, is trying to move southeast to the Izyum highway. They are holding him there for now.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have not yet presented evidence of control of Shevchenkove, except for a photo at the entrance to the village near the stele. However, the appearance of the enemy DRG a few kilometers from Kupyansk and the threat of an attack on the city indicate that the enemy has either taken Shevchenkovo ​​or bypassed and is trying to break through to Kupyansk, which is preparing for defense.

4. In the current realities, the main tasks of the RF Armed Forces at the moment are to keep Kupyansk and ensure the safety of the Kupyansk-Izyum highway, taking into account incl. and the possibility of an auxiliary offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Izyum direction in order to pin down the forces of the RF Armed Forces. Auxiliary actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the direction of Krasny Liman through the gray zone on the northern bank of the Seversky Donets are also possible.

5. Tonight and tomorrow during the day, we can expect enemy attempts to reach the outskirts of Kupyansk, as well as attempts to cut the Kupyansk-Izyum road.

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

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7850007.html

Balakleia 09.09.2022. Morning
September 9, 10:14

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9:30 a.m. according to the situation.

1. In the Kupyansk area, the activity of the enemy's DRG was repelled at night. The city is completely under the control of the RF Armed Forces.
2. Fighting continued in the Shevchenkove area and in Shevchenkove itself.
3. The situation around Balakleya and east of Balakleya is not clear. There are reports of some fighting in the Balakleya area.
4. The infiltration of the enemy continues in the direction of the Izyum highway. The enemy maintains high activity of DRGs thrown forward.
5. According to a number of reports, rather serious reserves of the RF Armed Forces have entered the direction.
6. There is a continuation of the transfer of reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine through Chuguev in the direction of Balakleya and Shevchenkove.

The broadcast of hostilities continues as usual in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin/62980 , who are interested, subscribe

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7850750.html

Google Translator

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Russia and Europe: War of Sanctions and Energy Resources
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 8, 2022
Yoselina Guevara L.

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According to press agencies, Russia will not fully resume its gas supplies to Europe until the West lifts sanctions against Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated. He also referred to the specific case of maintenance work on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline noting “we cannot say whether repair work will be carried out, because sanctions prevent it”, “There are no other reasons that could cause problems with pumping”. This means that the full resumption of gas supply by Russia through the pipeline “undoubtedly” depends on the West lifting the economic and financial blockade against Moscow; Peskov assured “it is these sanctions imposed by Western states that have led to the current situation”.

As if that were not enough, the G7 member states (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan) and the European Union agreed to impose a cap on Russian oil prices in an attempt to hit Moscow’s financial capacity. The finance ministers said the “price cap” on crude oil and oil products would also help reduce global energy prices, according to which the margin will be set at a level based on a range of technical data. By September 9, it is expected that at the EU Council meeting, chaired by the Czech Republic, the finance ministers of the member states will also discuss the introduction of a cap on the price of Russian gas.

Russia’s response to the G7 decision came at the end of the summit with the words of Deputy Prime Minister and former Energy Minister (2012-20) Aleksandr Novak, who announced that they will cut off supplies of oil and oil products to countries that decide to cap the price. Novak’s statements were seconded by Dmitry Peskov, who said that similar reprisals will also be taken against chancelleries that choose to introduce a price cap on natural gas from the Federation.

Iron curtain reissued

The energy initiatives of the G7 and the EU, in line with political dictates from Washington, only contribute to the growing geo-economic dissociation of spheres of influence in the Old Continent, in a kind of enhanced reedition of the iron curtain that seeks to totally isolate it from Russia. At the historical moment of the Cold War, the geopolitical scheme was almost the same as it is today, made up of a Europe lacking in raw materials but in need of energy to feed its own economic boom, a Russia rich in raw materials and interested in the technological products of European industry, and the distant (only geographically) United States concerned about the possible Eurasian energy-industrial intertwining.

This economic complementarity, frowned upon by Washington, between Moscow and the European capitals established the fulcrum of energy geopolitics in the Old Continent for at least half a century, particularly since the 1970s, a direct consequence of the two oil crises of 1973 and 1979, which had undermined confidence in the reliability of Middle Eastern exporters, pushing Europeans towards neighboring Russia up to the present day.

Once the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and President Vladimir Putin came to power, the Russian Federation established a strategy based on exporting its resources to extend its influence over other countries, starting with those that made up the former USSR. For this reason, Russian energy assets are nationalized mainly because they are strategic and functional resources for the country’s geopolitical projection. Energy becomes a fundamental piece of a totally valid geopolitical weapon, which in the case of Russia is being used to face the economic and financial sanctions, with which they have tried to isolate them and break their economy.

The prospects for the Russian Federation

There is no doubt that the strict Euro-Atlantic sanctions imposed on Moscow are proving to be a boomerang to the immediate detriment of Western Europe’s industrial apparatus. The transformation countries, such as Italy and Germany, are expected to suffer the harshest consequences due to the scarce access to essential raw materials (hydrocarbons, minerals, food), the increase in energy costs, which means in short the dramatic reduction of the socio-economic welfare of the European middle class, and the increase of poverty, to the extreme, in the most disadvantaged sectors that abound in the old continent.

Moscow is reasonably confident that it will be able to withstand the blow of the sanctions set in place in Washington and Brussels, thanks to accumulated reserves and rising world prices. Indeed, Russia’s trade surplus has increased in recent months despite falling oil and gas exports. At least for the whole of next year 2023, the Russian government is firmly reassured that the domestic market will not be affected as a whole by Western sanctions. The Russian Federation has prepared for this and is self-sufficient in two fundamental sectors, energy and food, which are key, apart from the military, to being independent and becoming a world power.

Moscow’s diplomacy has not been paralyzed; on the contrary, what we have seen in recent months is the action of the Russian Foreign Ministry with the conclusion of substantial agreements with the countries that make up the Brics group and its allies, whose objective is the production and commercialization of raw materials. Likewise the close work between Moscow and Beijing with the recent signing of an agreement to carry out their gas trade transactions in rubles and yuan. As for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russia has obtained and maintained quotas for the sale of oil and OPEC has decided to reduce production by 100,000 barrels per day as of October 1, 2022, on the eve of the cold season in the northern hemisphere, when the demand for hydrocarbons soars.

It is quite possible that Russia will continue to face the sanctions victoriously, as it has done until today, on the contrary, the future of Europe is quite uncertain, the only thing certain is that gas and energy resources, and therefore its geopolitics, will continue to be central to unleash and solve conflicts at world level.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... resources/

Good Morning Donetsk…!
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 8, 2022
Manish Rai

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Reporter Alejandro Kirk describes daily life in Donetsk, a city besieged by Ukrainian artillery.

“Good morning Donetsk”, like the TV morning shows, is the joke among the few foreign correspondents who remain here: good morning, good afternoon, and good night with a cannon fire.

The urban area of Donetsk is one of the places most harassed by Ukrainian artillery in the Donbass: with rumblings we wake up and go to bed at night. With rumblings we enjoy a coffee or a beer, or a stroll through the city’s many parks and its beautiful artificial lakes, all from the Soviet era. It is with rumblings that I write these lines. At any given time the rumble can fall on your head.

In each of those rumbles there is a house, a building, a market destroyed, people wounded or killed. Always civilians. This happens daily since 2014 in the whole periphery of the city, and now it includes the center, where the state institutions, many schools, universities, hospitals, shopping malls, hotels are located.

On average, every day about 300 shells of shells, rockets and missiles are discharged on Donetsk and its surroundings. There are Telegram accounts that report within minutes each attack, specifying destination, origin, caliber and consequences.

Ukrainian gunners are precise. In the periphery they destroy buildings every day, but in the center this rarely happens, except for two schools and the central administrative building.

The shells always fall close by the supposed target. Near the Theater, the main hotels, the Parliament, the restaurants and cafes, the Government House. They break windows, kill or wound one or another of the few passers-by, and keep their message alive: we can hit wherever we want and at whatever time we want.

Ukraine’s darling targets are basic services: water, electricity, communications. This is punishment of the civilian population. They rarely hit military targets. If they did, it would be easier for Russian forces and Donetsk militias to locate the source of the fire and destroy it. Much of the fire comes from nearby urban, populated areas, such as Avdeevka or Maryinka, which serve as human shields.

In Donetsk, on the other hand, there are no artillery or combat posts in residences or schools. In fact, they are nowhere to be seen, and when fire is heard, mainly from the Grad multiple rocket launchers mounted on trucks, it is from the surrounding rural areas.

We all know that the fire is coming from the west. Hence cars are preferably parked on the eastern side of buildings. It is also safer to walk on that side. A Russian journalist told me that in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) there are still street signs, from the time of the Patriotic War, about the safest side of the street, opposite to the direction of the German fire.

On Sept 2, at about 7 p.m., five shells fell in the middle of the city center.    The noise is enormous and one knows where to go to report. I walk just two blocks and find an old woman dead in front of the Parliament, her daughter in despair. Two craters on the main avenue of the city, which is flanked by rose gardens; Donetsk prides itself on being “the city of roses”.

I make a quick “standup” and send it to the channel via Telegram, with the images of the destruction and the covered body of the victim.

We walk two more blocks and reach the tree-lined and well-maintained Pushkin Boulevard, an area of restaurants and cafes. Two more craters around the Drama Theater. The fifth impact was on top of a tall building. Emergency services arrive, military specialists, repair of the trolley wires begins immediately, and I watch with delight (if that is possible) two girls smoking relaxed on the porch of a restaurant, about 20 meters away.

Another “standup”, images of the broken glass of the theater, of the shrapnel splinters scattered everywhere. Another dispatch to the channel, end of the day, for now.

We go to another restaurant nearby, called Happy Life, popular among journalists, and drink a beer to comment. It’s a terrace facing the Boulevard. It is half-busy, there are several soldiers with their girlfriends or wives, chatting, laughing.

Life goes on, and one thinks that people like this are unbeatable, but there are signs that patience is running out.

WHY DOESN’T RUSSIA JUST GET IT OVER WITH?

We regularly travel through semi-isolated or neglected areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. These are small, newly liberated communities that have not yet been reached by organized and systematic humanitarian assistance.

People who have nothing, and cannot go anywhere, and to whom we bring modest food and water aid in a Uaz (“Bukhanka”) van purchased by Russian journalist Nikita Tretyakov for that purpose only.

The aid is funded by private contributions from users of his Regnum news agency. The project has been going on for three months and we have so far made 18 trips, often through mined areas and/or under constant attack.

We are almost always guided by militia soldiers we meet, who know the terrain well, to avoid the mines left there by the Ukrainians. Often, these soldiers ride their own cars.

On the way, we do journalistic work. We talk to regular people, almost never to officials. They tell us that they have often been able to survive because Russian soldiers and militiamen share their food and water rations with them. This single fact alone, repeated, marks a remarkable difference with the behavior of the Nazi battalions and Ukrainian troops.

There is gratitude, but also sorrow. They have lost a lot, and they have an urgency to rebuild their lives. The question that keeps repeating itself more and more is, “Why doesn’t Russia just get it over with?”

This same question becomes even more urgent in the Zhaporozhye region, where Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, built by the Soviet Union in the 1980s, is located, and which has been under constant Ukrainian attacks, and even attempts to seize it by surprise, for the past three weeks.

The claims of Ukraine’s President Volodymir Zelenski that the Russians are bombing themselves and killing their own people to blame Kiev, are laugh stock everywhere.

The scale of this conflict is small, if you want. Russia has committed no more than 150,000 professional soldiers, who are slowly defeating a numerically far superior force. Moscow has not yet used its immense military power.

To measure the scale, it is useful to go back to August-September 1943, when the same area of Zaporozhye was the scene of the battle for the Dnieper River, between advancing Soviets and retreating Nazi-German invaders. The front stretched for 1,300 kilometers. Four million soldiers took part in the battle and about 400,000 were killed in less than a month of fighting.

“Four missiles to the Rada (Parliament) and banks in Kiev and this is over,” a resident of Pervomaisk (May Day) in Lugansk PR told me, after an unusual attack on a residential building – a NATO Himars rocket- destroyed nine floors in one hit.

Donetsk military spokesman Eduard Basurin admits that the new 155 mm howitzers and Himars multiple rocket launchers present a problem that has no tactical solution: they are highly mobile, are fired from far distances and are very difficult to locate. That is why, he said, the response is concentrated in ammunition depots and military bases.

For Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk PR government, the dilemma of new NATO armaments in Ukrainian hands raises the need to expand the republic’s security zone to at least 70 or even 130 kilometers from the borders. That is, close to Kiev.

Moscow assures that everything is going according to its plan, and that all its objectives will be achieved, either by negotiations or by force: denazification, demilitarization and neutrality of Ukraine.    For Russia, this is a limited “special military operation”, not an all-out war, which would involve the mobilization of reserves and a frontal attack on the entire Ukrainian territory.

So much so, that in the course of the Operation, the Russian Defense Ministry has organized international military games and an international conference on security and defense, and wide-ranging combined maneuvers are currently taking place in the Far East, with the participation of several countries, including China.

The apparent ease with which Ukrainian artillery strikes are apparently intended to create the media impression that they have succeeded in stopping the Russian advance, that they are regaining territory, and that they have the strategic initiative.

Such was the conviction of a group of Western journalists who came to the area in recent days to join a Russian Defense Ministry tour of the Donbass and Zaporozhye.

On the battlefield, however, counter-offensive attempts have failed, including two commando raids across a lake to seize by surprise the Nuclear Power Plant, coinciding with the visit of an investigative commission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), chaired by the Argentine Rafael Grossi.

Ukraine inherited from the USSR a powerful industry, as well as advanced technology and science, but today it is a country impoverished by 30 years of neglect, looting, corruption and deindustrialization. It is visible when one travels through the territories now controlled by Russia.

The country is entirely dependent on the West to pay wages and salaries, and to maintain the war. In the last six months it has received – as loans and sales – assistance similar to Russia’s entire annual military budget.

However, all geopolitical considerations are of no importance today for ordinary citizens living under the scourge of artillery. The first secretary of the Donetsk Communist Party, Boris Litvinov, is of the opinion that Russia should increase the force of the attack and direct its strategy to where the decisions are made – Kiev.

For Litvinov, Ukraine has shown that it is a state that does not justify its existence, and must be dismantled as soon as possible. Many around here agree with him.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... g-donetsk/

Ukraine Planned to Use UN-Appointed International Nuclear Experts as a Tool for Blackmail
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 8, 2022
Scott Ritter

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The IAEA report doesn’t name the perpetrators of attacks on Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, but the mission itself left Kiev frustrated.

If at first you don’t succeed, then try, try again. This seems to be the mantra of the Ukrainian government as it seeks to blackmail the international community into helping it evict Russia from the territory encompassing Europe’s largest Nuclear Power Plant.

“The world is once again on the brink of a nuclear disaster,” Kiev’s Energy Secretary German Galushchenko declared in a message posted to Facebook on Monday, September 5. “The last line connecting it with the energy system of Ukraine…separated due to the fire that occurred as a result of shelling. Any repair of the lines is impossible now – there are combat operations around the station.”

Galushchenko’s warning came as the bulk of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission, dispatched late last week to inspect the safety of the Zaporozhye facility, and personally led by Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, departed the nuclear power plant.

Kiev is insisting that the international community oversee the “demilitarization” of the Zaporozhye plant and surrounding environs. The removal of Russian forces, the Ukrainians contend, and their replacement with international “peacekeepers,” is the only way to ensure nuclear safety.

Left unsaid is the fact that all the damage caused to the nuclear power plant is the result of Ukrainian military action, including the deliberate targeting of the nuclear reactors and their support buildings by Ukrainian artillery.

The irony of the Ukrainian action is that IAEA Director General Grossi has now seen first-hand that the threat to the plant comes not from Russia, as Kiev wants to portray, but from Ukraine itself. More damning is that Grossi likewise is cognizant of the reality that Ukraine has been using the IAEA not as a guarantor of nuclear security, but rather a facilitator of Ukrainian policy, including military action that appeared to use the presence of IAEA inspectors at Zaporozhye as cover.

By all appearances, Grossi undertook his mission to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in good faith. Since the attacks on the facility started in early August, he has been voicing his concerns and calling on forces on both sides to exercise the “utmost restraint” and avoid jeopardizing the safety of the plant “at all costs.” These calls were echoed by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

In mid-August, at an emergency session of the UN Security Council requested by Russia, Grossi called on Moscow and Kiev allow international experts to visit the power plant, and said he’d lead the mission himself. The United States, while backing his call, also demanded that a demilitarized zone be established in conjunction with any such visit, and said that any refusal by Russia to allow that was tantamount to nuclear blackmail.

Russia refused to consider any requests to “demilitarize” the facility. It did, however, encourage the dispatch of the IAEA team, with one caveat – that it include ballistics specialists who would be able to evaluate the damage done to the plant with an eye toward determining the source of the attacks. Such professionals were included in the mission.

On August 29, Grossi’s team travelled to Kiev, where the next day they met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Zelensky told Grossi that Ukraine believed it was critical for the IAEA to press home its demands for a demilitarized zone, which would enable Ukraine to take control of the plant.

On September 1, Grossi and his team set off for the Zaporozhye facility. Prior to their arrival, they were stopped by Ukrainian officials, who warned Grossi that military activity in and around the facility had picked up that morning. According to Russian military sources, the Ukrainian army had attempted to seize the power plant in a commando raid that was thwarted by Russian forces.

As Grossi’s 14-man team arrived at the power plant, the sound of nearby combat could be readily heard. The deteriorating security situation at the facility prompted Grossi to withdraw the bulk of his team later that day. A six-person sub-team was tasked with remaining on-site for a few days longer, after which four inspectors would depart, leaving behind a two-person element, who would provide a permanent presence, on a rotational basis, at the facility.

Afterwards, Grossi stated that the mission had been valuable. “We knew a lot before too, but of course it is being inspected now. We are trying to do a thorough assessment of the current situation.” As to the security of the plant, Grossi noted that “[t]he physical integrity of the facility has been violated not once, but multiple times. This is by no means acceptable.”

In addition to their personal observations, the team was presented with a petition signed by 20,000 residents from Russia-controlled parts of the Zaporozhye region demanding that the IAEA condemn the attacks on the nuclear power plant, which the signatories said were conducted solely by the Ukrainian forces.

This was not the result either the Ukrainian government or its Western backers could have envisioned when they were pushing for the mission’s dispatch in mid- to late-August.

The IAEA mission, it seems, was not aware that there was going to be a Ukrainian military operation designed to capture the site while the inspectors were en route. There can be no doubt, however, that the Ukrainian government was aware that this was going to happen, even as Zelensky met with Grossi and his team the day before. It is also highly likely that Zelensky’s backers, especially the United States, United Kingdom, and France, were aware of the pending military operation, if not its timing.

Needless to say, using an international inspection team as cover for a military operation is a violation of everything the United Nations Charter stands for. While the goal of the operation appears to have been to capture the site, and then invite the IAEA inspectors to remain there permanently, prompting the need for the dispatch of an international peacekeeping force, this was not achieved.

Worse still for Ukraine and its partners, the team has now been exposed to the duplicity of the Ukrainian government and, by extension, its Western backers in the United Nations, as well as to the reality that Russia had been telling the truth the entire time about the safety and security of the plant. There is no doubt that the ballistic experts accompanying Grossi’s team were able to gather more than enough forensic data to prove conclusively who was responsible for the ongoing attacks on Zaporozhye.

On Tuesday, September 6, Director General Grossi submitted the findings of his mission as part of a larger periodic report on the IAEA’s work in Ukraine since the initiation of Russia’s special military operation. The report is technical in nature, focusing on the safety of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. This is the IAEA’s bread and butter, and based upon the contents of the report, the team accurately reflected what it observed while on the ground in Zaporozhye.

A second, unspoken and ultimately more sensitive aspect of the report is the political ramifications of the mission. While accurately reporting the frequency and damage done by repeated artillery strikes on the territory of the plant, Grossi did not provide any conclusions about the origin of the shelling, despite being able to do so based on the data collected by his team. UN organizations, unless specifically mandated to do so, rarely provide attribution when it comes to who did what to whom. Instead, the report concluded that the safety and security of the nuclear power plant and its operators has been put at risk because of the ongoing military action, and encouraged all parties involved to cease such activity.

The report likewise avoids any reference to the efforts of the Russian military to keep the team safe from attack while they were visiting the plant, thereby avoiding any indirect acknowledgement that the threat to Zaporozhye came from Ukraine, not Russia.

What the team did do is speak of “an urgent need for interim measures to prevent a nuclear accident arising from physical damage caused by military means,” which could be achieved by the immediate establishment of a “nuclear safety and security protection zone.” Grossi declared that the “IAEA is ready to start immediately the consultations leading to the urgent establishment of such a nuclear safety and security protection zone at the ZNPP [Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant].”

Grossi could have prepared a report that sought the UN Security Council’s condemnation of the perpetrators of the egregious actions observed by the IAEA team – evidence of ongoing Ukrainian artillery attacks, and the use of Grossi’s team as operational cover for a physical attack on the plant while the mission was underway. Grossi is part of the UN system, however, and in any event the Council cannot police itself; when three of the five permanent members are involved in facilitating the Ukrainian malfeasance, then the Council is paralyzed by its own moral corruption.

Regardless, Grossi’s trip is a political defeat for Ukraine and its supporters, which had placed so much hope and effort (including the lives of soldiers who perished in the September 1 assault on Zaporozhye) in using the IAEA inspection as a facilitator for larger objectives, such as the dispatch of international peacekeepers to occupy the plant and its immediate environs.

In a crass display of hubris-laced audacity, Ukraine has called for a new IAEA inspection mission to be accompanied by a UN peacekeeping force. “We need to draw conclusions from this mission {Grossi’s} on the ground,” Peter Kotin, the head of Energoatom, declared on September 5, 2022 – well prior to Grossi’s report being published. “These conclusions should resolve the whole situation by ending Russian control. If the mission does not produce that, then we must have some viable outcome.”

Kotin proposed increasing the number of agency inspectors at the station, adding that “the presence of other international organizations, such as United Nations peacekeeping forces or other international missions from the European Union, will help provide an independent view of what is going on there, and ultimately remove the Russians from the station.”

The chances of that happening are near zero. But the fact that Ukraine continues to push for this outcome virtually guarantees that the relentless shelling of the Zaporozhye plant will continue until such time as the Ukrainian military is pushed back, out of artillery range, or else Ukraine capitulates. In any event, the world will continue to be subjected to nuclear blackmail daily. The perpetrator of this global crime, however, isn’t Russia, but rather Ukraine, along with its Western supporters in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and elsewhere.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... blackmail/

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The Izium 'Counteroffensive' Success / Disaster
"It's a disaster," says Dima of the Military Summary channel.

I agree. A disaster for the Russian Special Military Operation.

Here is the map of the Izium region in the northeast of Ukraine on September 4.

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In the middle we can see the Oskol river flowing north to south. Along it run railway tracks and roads that connect Izium region at the bottom of the map with Urazovo in Russia (further north, not on the map).

Here is the situation in the same area on the morning of September 9.

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The Ukrainian forces have broken through the Russian positions on a wide front and in remarkable depth.

The above maps are from the Ukraine friendly site LiveUAmap. On the Russian side's map, as provided by Dima in his latest video, the Ukrainians are shown even further east and have reached the Oskol river.

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This is latest Rybar version of the map which confirms that the Ukrainian side has at least in part reached the river. They took the town of Senkovo on the western side of it.

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(German version as the English one does not load correctly.)
Izium, Lyman and several other important positions along the Izium front are now in imminent danger of losing their main supply route.

How could this happen?

Well, I am not in the Russian high command and have no real idea.

But what we know is that there were mostly conscripted men of the Luhansk Peoples Republic at the frontline when this episode started. The troops that held the town of Balakleya for two days where Russian National Guard forces. Those are militarized police units, not real armed forces. The Russian military had to send army forces to evacuate them.

Apparently the whole Russian front in that area was very thin and had too little artillery support. The Ukrainians moved extremely fast skipping towns and just blocking off local resistance to move on. They had a very significant number of tanks and armored transport as well as long range artillery support by several HIMARS systems. Many of the units must also have had night vision equipment as they did not stop even after sunset. There are also reports of strong foreign elements but those are hard to verify.

The LPR forces and whatever else was in the area had no chance. They were killed or captured or moved out.

The Russian side seems to have had little information about the size of the attack. The forces in the area were too few and too light. There should have been way more forces in the area to block the Ukrainian move much earlier.

Then again - I do not know what plans the Russian military has had or might have. We might still see surprises.

Armored Russian reinforcements are now coming in from the north from the northern Kharkov region as well as from the east through Svatove. But they will still need some time to reach the front lines and to set up for battle.

The best countermove is likely to move the battle group seen in Svatove down to Izium and then up north and the group from the north southward in an attempt to pincer and envelope the Ukrainian forces.

Going this deep and this fast makes the attacking Ukrainian troops vulnerable. They will need some time to consolidate and to move up their artillery. Their supplies will have to come from Andivka on the left of the map and from Chuhuiv on the upper left. That are some 75 kilometer or 45 miles one way distances.

The Russian missile forces can interdict those routes by destroying the bridges along the way. They should do this as soon as possible. Andivka itself is surrounded by a river in the south, west and north. The handful of bridges over the river should also be dropped to cut the town off.

Ukrainian forces south of Izium and Lyman try to cross the Siversky Donets river to attack those cities from another direction. The idea is likely to bind the Russian forces there and to not let them move north to counter the upper Ukrainian strike.

There may be some ingenious Russian plan behind this to drag the Ukrainian forces in to then destroy them in place. But I do not see any evidence for that.

Heads will have to roll for this disaster, especially if it takes weeks of months to correct the situation.

Posted by b on September 9, 2022 at 9:19 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/t ... .html#more

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

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forwarded from
Older than Edda
After yesterday's Ukrainian offensive, which ended at least in part with the occupation of Balakleya and the approach of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the suburbs of Kupyansk, a serious threat to Izyum has arisen. Especially if the enemy went to the n / a Kunya, but at least at the moment the Ukrainians failed to do this.

At night and this afternoon, the Izyum garrison delivered and continues to deliver the heaviest artillery strikes against enemy concentrations south of Izyum, where the crests deployed yesterday in attack formations (they did not abandon their intentions). The enemy fired harassing fire at Izyum itself, in the forests on the border of the DPR and the Kharkov region, our soldiers fought, but did not let the enemy through. Khokhols tried to attack the forest, got a good pendel and retreated back.

Army aviation carried out strikes on clusters of APU equipment in the area of ​​the Staroverovka settlement, and indeed there are a lot of aircraft in the sky today. But it must be taken into account that crests go through forest plantations or in small mobile groups, to some extent leveling the consequences of the FAB-500 arrivals.

Kupyansk is preparing for defense and I hope they took into account the bitter experience of previous days. Izyum himself is also preparing for defense, crests, in turn, are trying to cut roads and isolate our garrisons. The Vushniks have not yet committed all the reserves to the battle, and I think that at night and in the next few days they will try to hammer at us with high-precision shells of cannon and rocket artillery, since Excalibur has already been delivered to them.

If anyone thinks that the Izyum warriors are in a panic, then they are seriously mistaken. Yes, the first part of the battle, to put it mildly, was not ours, but this happens in war, and military luck is an extremely windy young lady. The main thing now is a competent analysis of what happened and correctly drawn conclusions from it. The enemy will be defeated in any case, and the resulting slap in the face is simply obliged to bring to life those who have lost touch with reality.

***

Colonelcassad
The situation in the area of ​​Kupyansk. On the outskirts of the city there is a fight.

https://t.me/wargonzo/8188
Telegram
0:50
WarGonzo
⚡️Urgently⚡️An attempt of a tank breakthrough of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Kupyansk⚡️

According to the @wargonzo team, which is now at the entrance to Kupyansk, the tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to break through to the city, there is a battle going on.

Thick smoke is pouring over Kupyansk and Aerospace Forces aviation is working. Local residents…

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Forwarded from
Poddubny |Z|О|V| edition
1:06
❗️Mass transfer of reinforcements by air near Kupyansk and Izyum. "Cows" land almost at LBS. Several landing points have been prepared. Mi-26 helicopters deliver armored vehicles and personnel. Fighters are sent into battle to push back the enemy and prevent further breakthroughs.

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Colonelcassad
On transferred reserves.
Additional forces are now being pulled to the front from both sides, and the organization of logistics is of great importance. The speed of putting the reserves into action will determine the further success of the parties.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine, of course, will strive to capture Kupyansk and cut off Izyum, supplementing this with strikes from the Izyum and Slavic directions.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will strive to ensure the defense of Kupyansk and stable communication with Izyum, if possible, trying to move on to pushing the enemy to the west.

***

Colonelcassad

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Battle for Kharkov: the situation in the Izyum-Kupyansky sector of the front
as of 11.00 September 9, 2022, the

Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to expand the control zone southwest of Kupyansk . Operating in small mobile tactical groups, enemy subunits go around the few pockets of organized resistance and blockade populated areas.

▪️Ukrainian formations occupied Senkovo ​​on the right bank of the Oskol River. Due to the undermining of the dam and the shallowing of the Krasnooskolsky reservoir, the river can be forded in this segment : if there is a desire, the Armed Forces of Ukraine can easily force a water barrier and cut the Kupyansk-Borovaya highway .

▪️Ukrainian resources published a photo of flags raised near the Shevchenkovo ​​administration building of the Ukrainian flag and the flag of the city of Kharkiv (not the region). Whether the photo is from today or not is not clear, but the town is at least semi-encircled by Ukrainian troops.

▪️The R-07 highway in the section from Shevchenkovo ​​to Grushevka is under the full control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: after cleaning by mobile groups, Ukrainian formations transferred heavy armored vehicles in the second echelon. Artillery and aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces at the moment does not allow the Armed Forces to come closer than 2-3 km to the outskirts of Kupyansk .

▪️By indirect evidence, it can be judged that the presence of the Russian garrison may remain in Balakliya . Until now, confirmation of the occupation of territory 65 of the Balakleysky arsenal has not been published, and in theory , control over the "road of life" Balakleya - Savintsy can be maintained .

🔻Despite the active fire defeat by the RF Armed Forces, at the moment the efforts being made are still not enough to limit the breakthrough. Due to the transfer of reserves, the Izyum front is exposed: the next goal of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine can be either a breakthrough through the fields further to Bolshoy Burluk , or a full-fledged encirclement of the Izyum grouping of the RF Armed Forces.


https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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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 » Fri Sep 09, 2022 10:34 pm

Balaclava. 09/09/2022. Evening
September 9, 21:21

Image

Balaclava. 09/09/2022. Evening

1. Fighting continues on the near approaches to Kupyansk. The Armed Forces of Ukraine failed to break into the city itself. Reinforcements of the RF Armed Forces are being transferred to the city, and artillery and air strikes are launched against the accumulations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the west of Kupyansk.
The enemy is shelling the city with MLRS and artillery. The bridge across the Oskol was put out of action. Both sides are pulling up reserves to the city.

2. The enemy continues to press along the Oskol to the south towards Izyum, throwing forward the DRG.
The transfer of reserves of the RF Armed Forces, including by helicopters, is also underway to the city. The enemy is trying to move mechanized units behind the light infantry as quickly as possible in order to strengthen control over the Kupyansk-Izyum highway. Because of this, the main supply is now through Oskol.
The enemy will obviously try to create supply problems along this road, or even break through to it east of Izyum.

3. In the Krasny Liman area, the enemy is probing the front on the northern bank of the Seversky Donets, operating in groups of DRGs in the gray zone and accumulating a fist for a potential strike on Krasny Liman in order to, at a minimum, tie down the actions of the Izyum group, and as a maximum, try to recapture Krasny Liman.

4. The situation in the Balakleya region is still unclear, since even the enemy reports that the city is not yet completely controlled and there are some battles going on there. In the occupied settlements north of Balakleya, the Nazis begin to unleash terror against the civilian population

5. In general, the operational crisis continues to develop and it is too early to talk about any stabilization of the situation.

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/63155 - zinc


The broadcast of hostilities continues as usual in Telegram https://t.me/boris_rozhin

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7851402.html

Google Translator

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Ukraine’s Offensive Coincides with US $3 Billion+ Aid Package – Russian Ops in Ukraine Sep. 9, 2022
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 9, 2022



Update on Russian military operations in Ukraine for September 9, 2022

– Kherson offensive appears to have ended;

– The Western media admits to the massive losses suffered by Ukraine outside Kherson owed to the inferiority of Ukrainian forces versus Russian capabilities;

– Ukraine has launched an offensive in Kharkov toward Izium;

– The offensives have been launched to coincide with the announcements of massive aid packages for Ukraine;

References:

CNBC – Ukraine seizes the moment with surprise counterattacks; U.S. approves further $675 million in weapons for Kyiv: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/08/russi

Washington Post – Wounded Ukrainian soldiers reveal steep toll of Kherson offensive: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/

Financial Times – Ukraine claims significant gains in counter-offensive against Russia: https://www.ft.com/content/0b3f9e0a-9

NPR – U.S. provides nearly $3 billion to Ukraine as Blinken makes unannounced visit to Kyiv: https://www.npr.org/2022/09/08/112154

Guardian – ‘We have already lost’: far-right Russian bloggers slam military failures: https://www.theguardian.com/world/202

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Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC Meeting on Western Arms Supplies to Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

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Mr. President,

First of all, let me express my sincere condolences to the United Kingdom and the people of this country following the passing of the monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.

We thank Ms. Izumi Nakamitsu and Ms. Dragana Trifković for their briefings. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hear part of Ms. Dragana Trifković’s statement, but we hope that she will circulate among the members of the Security Council later.

Mr. President,

During the time that has elapsed since the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine, we have discussed various aspects of the situation in that country. The Western members of the Council and Russia have different views on the origins of the Ukrainian crisis, as well as on the transformations that have taken place in this country since the anti-constitutional coup in February 2014. In case of our former Western partners it is completely clear that they are trying at all costs to evade responsibility for the steady deterioration of the independent Ukraine towards developing strong anti-Russian sentiments, ignoring the 8 long years of incessant shelling of the people of Donbass by the Kiev regime and covering up the unwillingness of the Ukrainian authorities to implement the Minsk agreements.

At the same time, the majority of UN members are becoming increasingly convinced of the multifaceted nature of the Ukrainian crisis, they understand that it is useless to search for its root causes in simplified Western schemes proving Russia’s guilt. That explains the desire of these UN members, first and foremost, to secure a cessation of hostilities and search for solutions at the negotiating table. We regularly hear calls for peace from our colleagues in developing countries. Today we suggest analyzing together the factors that impede the realization of those wishes.

We launched our special operation to protect the people of Donbass in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter after the Kiev regime, with the approval of its Western sponsors, publicly put an end to the Minsk process. It was a difficult but necessary decision, made after it became obvious that Ukraine’s military campaign against the DPR and LPR was inevitable. The documents of the Ukrainian General Staff that were found during the special military operation confirm that. The special military operation is also aimed at the de-Nazification and demilitarization of Ukraine so that it could no longer pose a threat to either the Donbass or Russia.

As you all know, just one month after the start of the special military operation, participants to the Russia-Ukraine talks practically negotiated the outlines of future peace agreements. Peace seemed so close that Russia, as a goodwill gesture, withdrew troops from the occupied regions of Kiev, Chernigov and Sumy regions. It was up to the authorities in Kiev to say the word, and they were ready to do so, but then our former Western partners, for whom this scenario was disadvantageous, intervened in the process. I am referring, first of all, to London and Washington that are giving orders to NATO.

In fact, since the illegal Maidan coup, Ukraine has been of interest to them solely as a pawn in the geopolitical struggle to weaken Russia. Therefore, a peaceful scenario would not satisfy either the UK or the US. Envoys that traveled to Kiev managed to convince Mr. Zelensky and his team that the West was ready to do everything for Ukraine’s victory, except for direct military intervention. They came up with slogans that the fate of world democracy would be decided in Ukrainein the clash between good and evil. The EU’s chief diplomat, Mr. Borrell, in complete disregard of diplomacy, told then that “this war will be won on the battlefield.” In their usual Russophobic frenzy, Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic countries were hysterical, and the now-retired Boris Johnson was far more engaged in inciting Ukraine than dealing with the problems of his country. President Biden was also encouraging Kiev. As you all know, President Zelensky then disavowed all the agreements, staged a blatant provocation in Bucha together with the British special services, and the chance for peace was lost. Thus, the Ukrainian president made a fatal mistake for his country. But instead of this today we would rather talk about the role of our Western colleagues, who from that moment launched the largest in history war by proxy with Russia using Ukrainians and ready to go “until the last Ukrainian”.

Let’s analyze what is happening today. NATO actually directly guides the actions of Kiev in the theater of operations. Representatives of Ukrainian military intelligence have publicly acknowledged that Washington is directly involved in coordinating every target of the multiple-launch rockets of the US High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). Ukraine is awash with Western military trainers, special operatives and mercenaries. A number of NATO countries conduct training courses for Ukrainian armed units. At one of the previous meetings we mentioned a military base in the Czech city of Cesky Krumlov used to train saboteurs who were supposed to carry out a terrorist attack on the territory of the DPR. There is information that the Pentagon is planning to launch a military-technical assistance mission to the Kiev regime. We heard about similar plans of the European Union.

According to the most conservative expert estimates, the United States and its allies spent a total of about $20 billion on military support for Ukraine in the past months of this year alone. According to US media, the Biden administration intends to request emergency funding of another $20 billion, and this is only for the first quarter of 2023. Ukrainians are consistently assured with the idea that with modern Western weapons, a kind of “Wunderwaffe”, they can turn the tide of the military campaign and defeat Russia. We will not comment on these beautiful but empty tales, enough to say that the consequences of this mass brainwashing of the population by President Zelensky and his associates are very deplorable for Ukraine, and now we are still far from the end of this self-destructive process. I want to say right away that Western weapons do not play a decisive role on the battlefield, no matter how much our former partners and their Ukrainian vassals claim the opposite. With minimal risk to its soldiers and civilians, the Russian army is gradually and methodically destroying not only obsolete Soviet-style weapons, which Eastern European countries were glad to get rid of, but also modern NATO weapons. The only difference is that, having received long-range NATO artillery and missile systems, coupled with Western intelligence, the Kiev regime began to hit civilian targets and infrastructure facilities that it was unable to reach before. Hence the massacre in Yelenovka, and the incessant shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, as well as residential areas of the cities of Donbass.

By loading Ukraine with weapons that are actively being used by the Ukrainian armed forces against civilian targets, the EU countries violated their own intra-EU rules (the so-called “Common Position”), which prohibit issuing licenses to export weapons if this creates obvious risks of violating international humanitarian law, and also require that the risks of uncoordinated re-export of weapons and its illegal trafficking be taken into consideration.

Similarly, the EU States have disregarded the provisions of their other “brainchild”, the International Arms Trade Treaty, which requires each exporting State to assess in an objective and non-discriminatory manner whether the arms transferred would cause damage to peace and security and whether their use would violate international humanitarian law. The treaty expressly prohibits a State from authorizing the transfer of conventional weapons if it knows with certainty that they will be used to commit acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, attacks on civilian objects or civilians.

In order to scrounge for new weapons, especially on the eve of today’s meeting of NATO Defense Ministers in Ramstein, the Zelensky regime tried to create at least the appearance that Ukraine could attack. Contrary to the elementary principles of military strategy, Ukrainian propagandists in the highest echelons of power openly shared with the world community plans for an offensive to regain the lost territories, which was eagerly relayed by the Ukrainian and Western media. As far as we can tell, even the leadership of the Ukranian armed forces opposed this madness, but the head of Ukraine, after talking with his American and British colleagues, was adamant. As a result, the fields near Nikolaev and Zaporozhye and the forests near Kharkov are strewn with corpses of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who were sent to certain death and who prevented from retreating by the rearguard. Several peripheral villages have been captured, which was nothing akin to a breakthrough. The military experts understand that very well. But the Western media have already heralded that Ukraine has entered into a counter-offensive that must be supported with a new supply of Western weapons. Thus, the necessary media backdrop was created for the meeting in Ramstein. This is exactly what Mr. Zelensky and his Western sponsors wanted. And this means that there is every chance that more fuel will continue to be poured on the fire of the Ukrainian conflict in the form of further deliveries of Western weapons.

Will that change the situation on the battlefield? It will not in any significant way, which most military experts openly agree on. The new supply of weapons will not be able to change the balance of power, but they will prolong the agony of the Zelenskyy regime and delay its inglorious demise. It will also prolong the sufferings of the Ukrainian people, sacrificed by the West in its geopolitical struggle with Russia. And, of course, it can put off the prospects for establishing peace in Ukraine, which is what the absolute majority of United Nations members want, with the exception of the Western camp.

Distinguished Colleagues,

Let’s see who benefits from this scenario. By a strange coincidence, the main beneficiaries are precisely those who beat the drums of war the loudest – the United States and Great Britain. Their defense companies are making huge profits, the price of their stocks is growing at a breathtaking rate. It is clear that the US and British arms lobbies are not ready to give up such huge profits and they will only increase their pressure on politicians. In addition, Ukraine is not only a huge platform for the disposal of obsolete NATO weapons, but also a testing ground for new ones, as well as advertising weapons for export. It isnot in the interest of the West to lose such an opportunity. Therefore, it would be naive to believe that Washington and London will soon change their inflammatory rhetoric.

What consequences and risks does this situation entail for the world and, above all, for Europe? The immediate ones are the spread of weapons resold by corrupt Ukrainian officials and their falling into the hands of terrorist and criminal groups. The Secretary General of INTERPOL, Jürgen Stock, warned about the high level of interest that organized crime has shown in the spill over of weapons from Ukraine into the black market.

This threat is so great that the Security Service of Ukraine has already begun to suggest the possibility that Russia is moving Western weapons into Europe. That means that the situation is already out of control.

Western military leaders already openly admit that they are unable to trace the end user of their weapons. However, it must know that corrupt Ukrainian officials have established channels for for supplying the black market with Western-made weapons. A significant part of it falls into the hands of smugglers directly from warehouses. Offers for their sale are openly published on the “darknet”.

We have seen this in the recent past in the Balkans and the Middle East, when Western military arsenals were subsequently clandestinely re-exported to Europe and used by criminal groups on its territory or fell into the hands of terrorists.

Unfortunately, the leadership of Western countries did not learn any lessons from this and is now turning Ukraine into a world hub for illegal weapons supplies that may very soon be used by terrorists in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The proliferation of man-portable air defence systems (MANPADs) and man-portable anti-tank systems (MANPATs) poses a particular threat. Those types of weapons pose enormous risks to international civil aviation and rail transport. That is why its circulation is strictly regulated at the international level. NATO countries are well aware of this. In the 2000s, the Alliance spent a considerable sum of money to destroy excess MANPADS components in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Montenegro and several other countries as part of the Partnership for Peace program. The United States, having realized the danger of the MANPADS they delivered to Afghanistan in the 1980s, also went at great length to buy back these systems. Now, Western countries have forgotten about this and, seeking to arm Kiev at any cost, they are violating all international obligations regarding the circulation of MANPADS and ATGMs, including those agreed by the General Assembly and in the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies.

An indirect confrontation between NATO and Russia objectively increases the risk of a direct clash between Russia and the Alliance, regardless of how much NATO claims to be doing everything it can to prevent such a scenario. We were groundlessly accused of nuclear blackmail, and the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss openly confirmed her readiness to use nuclear weapons, to press the nuclear button. Before her, no one had uttered such irresponsible words.

Have NATO members already crossed the red lines? In 2020, US presidential candidate Joe Biden tried to accuse Russia of having crossed the red lines merely on the basis of speculation in the New York Times that Russia allegedly secretly paid the Taliban for the assassination of American soldiers in Afghanistan. British parliamentarians then stated that a permanent member of the UN Security Council should not supply weapons and train the very militants who did not allow a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan. According to these criteria, Western countries have crossed the red lines long ago and more than once.

Distinguished colleagues from developing countries,

We have requested for today’s meeting precisely to make you aware of the cynicism and falseness of the calls for peace from the states of the collective West, as well as their appeals for us to stop our alleged war of choice. Having created a neo-Nazi hornet’s nest near our borders and supporting the war of the Kiev regime against the population of Donbass since 2014, they left no choice. As President Vladimir Putin said: we did not start this war, we are ending it. That is, we are ending the war that the Ukrainian regime, with the support of Western sponsors, began in 2014 against its own people. Our former Western partners have a choice – to continue to supply weapons to the conflict zone, contrary to all international norms and their own declared principles, encouraging Ukrainians with unrealistic calls to defeat Russia on the battlefield, or to force the Zelensky regime to sit down at the negotiating table and try to eliminate the reasons that prompted us launch the special military operation. All these reasons lie either in the actions of Ukraine or in the actions of the West.

Unfortunately, we do not have faith in the good sense of Western countries. They have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to commit any crime and engage in any adventure in order to ensure the well-being of the so-called golden billion, maintain their dominance in the world and pursue the neo-colonial policy. And the realization that the world has changed irrevocably after February 24 only strengthens their determination to fight to the last Ukrainian. However, we do have faith in the good reason of the developing world, the states of Asia, Africa and Latin America. And we count on you to manifest it in the interests of not only your countries, but of all mankind.

Thank you.

Right of reply:

Mr. President,

Today, our Western colleagues had no substantial comments on the topic, since the facts confirm their not only indirect, but also direct participation in this proxy war. Therefore, they resorted to their favorite tactic of shifting the focus from the topic of the meeting to the sickeningly familiar accusations against Russia.

We will not comment on the speculations of our US and British colleagues about filtration camps, tortures of Ukrainians and the cruelty of the Russian army, we have done this many times, including yesterday. But we have taken note of the statement of Kiev’s Western sponsors that they are only supplying them with defensive weapons. Only from this “defensive weapon” Ukrainian armed forces fire not at the Russian military, but at peaceful neighborhoods of the cities of Donbass.

We also noted another point in the speech – the dogmatic statement of the United States and Great Britain that Russia allegedly buys weapons from Iran and North Korea. Now I would like to ask them to either provide evidence or admit the dissemination of unreliable information within the walls of the Security Council. I want to say right away that publications in the Western media, or meaningful comments, and unconvincing and non-assertive assumptions of US officials do not count as such evidence. Although, as we have repeatedly said, recently we stopped being surprised at anything. Today, any media message of our Western partners almost automatically takes the form of a prosecutor’s accusation.

Thank you.

PERMANENT MISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS

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Russia Makes Grain Promise to Poorest Nations
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

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Moscow will also supply fertilizers to such countries free of charge, the Russian president said.

Russia is set to ramp up grain exports, seeking to supply some 30 million tons of grain, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. The supplies will prioritize poor and food-insecure nations.

“We believe it to be right to ramp up deliveries to the poorest countries,” Putin said during a meeting of the Security Council on Friday.

“In total, by the end of this year, we will supply some 30 million tons of grain and are ready to increase this volume to 50 million tons or more, because, thank god, we have a good harvest this year,” he added.

Moscow is also ready to supply fertilizers to the poorest nations free of charge, the Russian president said. “Our producers – if I remember correctly, we’re talking about potash fertilizers – are ready to deliver them free of charge to developing nations that urgently need them,” Putin said, instructing the Russian Foreign Ministry to work on the plan.

The president also touched upon the UN-brokered grain deal with Ukraine, reiterating his allegations that the goods have primarily been exported to the EU rather than the developing countries in Africa that need the food supply the most.

“Of the 87 ships that left the Ukrainian ports with grain, 32 remained in Turkey. And I think that this is absolutely natural, because Turkey, the host country of this entire process, certainly has the right to do that,” Putin said.

Another 30 vessels were sent to EU nations, while only two ships went to “the poorest countries for UN food programs,” namely to Yemen and Djibouti, Putin said. The vessels only carried around 60,000 tons of grain on board, constituting only around 3% of grain exported by Ukraine under the deal.

RT

Ukrainian grain going to EU instead of Africa

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of deceiving poor nations with the grain deal.

At least 38% of the grain exported from Ukraine under the UN-brokered deal is shipped to the EU instead of the developing countries in Africa for which it was intended, Spain’s El Pais newspaper reported on Thursday, citing UN data and ship tracking figures.

According to the report, more than 2.3 million tons of corn, wheat, barley and other agricultural products were exported through the Black Sea corridor from Ukraine between August 1 and September 7. Of this total, about 900,000 tons were sent to the ports of EU member states. The report notes that it is impossible to trace from the available data whether the EU is the final destination of the shipments or a transit point.

On July 22, multilateral agreements were signed in Istanbul establishing the framework of exports of Ukrainian grain, food, and fertilizers via the Black Sea. The agreements also lifted restrictions on Russian grain and fertilizer exports. However, according to Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, the part of the food deal that concerns the export of Russian products has not been implemented, which could lead to the termination of the deal by Moscow.

Speaking at a plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Western nations of lying when they claimed Ukraine needed access to sea shipping to alleviate surging food prices and the risk of famine in poor countries, as a lion’s share of the grain is being exported to Western states. In his remark earlier on Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sided with the Russian leader, saying that Ukrainian grain is “unfortunately” going mostly to rich countries.

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Russia and Europe: War of Sanctions and Energy Resources
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 8, 2022
Yoselina Guevara L.

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According to press agencies, Russia will not fully resume its gas supplies to Europe until the West lifts sanctions against Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated. He also referred to the specific case of maintenance work on the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline noting “we cannot say whether repair work will be carried out, because sanctions prevent it”, “There are no other reasons that could cause problems with pumping”. This means that the full resumption of gas supply by Russia through the pipeline “undoubtedly” depends on the West lifting the economic and financial blockade against Moscow; Peskov assured “it is these sanctions imposed by Western states that have led to the current situation”.

As if that were not enough, the G7 member states (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan) and the European Union agreed to impose a cap on Russian oil prices in an attempt to hit Moscow’s financial capacity. The finance ministers said the “price cap” on crude oil and oil products would also help reduce global energy prices, according to which the margin will be set at a level based on a range of technical data. By September 9, it is expected that at the EU Council meeting, chaired by the Czech Republic, the finance ministers of the member states will also discuss the introduction of a cap on the price of Russian gas.

Russia’s response to the G7 decision came at the end of the summit with the words of Deputy Prime Minister and former Energy Minister (2012-20) Aleksandr Novak, who announced that they will cut off supplies of oil and oil products to countries that decide to cap the price. Novak’s statements were seconded by Dmitry Peskov, who said that similar reprisals will also be taken against chancelleries that choose to introduce a price cap on natural gas from the Federation.

Iron curtain reissued

The energy initiatives of the G7 and the EU, in line with political dictates from Washington, only contribute to the growing geo-economic dissociation of spheres of influence in the Old Continent, in a kind of enhanced reedition of the iron curtain that seeks to totally isolate it from Russia. At the historical moment of the Cold War, the geopolitical scheme was almost the same as it is today, made up of a Europe lacking in raw materials but in need of energy to feed its own economic boom, a Russia rich in raw materials and interested in the technological products of European industry, and the distant (only geographically) United States concerned about the possible Eurasian energy-industrial intertwining.

This economic complementarity, frowned upon by Washington, between Moscow and the European capitals established the fulcrum of energy geopolitics in the Old Continent for at least half a century, particularly since the 1970s, a direct consequence of the two oil crises of 1973 and 1979, which had undermined confidence in the reliability of Middle Eastern exporters, pushing Europeans towards neighboring Russia up to the present day.

Once the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and President Vladimir Putin came to power, the Russian Federation established a strategy based on exporting its resources to extend its influence over other countries, starting with those that made up the former USSR. For this reason, Russian energy assets are nationalized mainly because they are strategic and functional resources for the country’s geopolitical projection. Energy becomes a fundamental piece of a totally valid geopolitical weapon, which in the case of Russia is being used to face the economic and financial sanctions, with which they have tried to isolate them and break their economy.

The prospects for the Russian Federation

There is no doubt that the strict Euro-Atlantic sanctions imposed on Moscow are proving to be a boomerang to the immediate detriment of Western Europe’s industrial apparatus. The transformation countries, such as Italy and Germany, are expected to suffer the harshest consequences due to the scarce access to essential raw materials (hydrocarbons, minerals, food), the increase in energy costs, which means in short the dramatic reduction of the socio-economic welfare of the European middle class, and the increase of poverty, to the extreme, in the most disadvantaged sectors that abound in the old continent.

Moscow is reasonably confident that it will be able to withstand the blow of the sanctions set in place in Washington and Brussels, thanks to accumulated reserves and rising world prices. Indeed, Russia’s trade surplus has increased in recent months despite falling oil and gas exports. At least for the whole of next year 2023, the Russian government is firmly reassured that the domestic market will not be affected as a whole by Western sanctions. The Russian Federation has prepared for this and is self-sufficient in two fundamental sectors, energy and food, which are key, apart from the military, to being independent and becoming a world power.

Moscow’s diplomacy has not been paralyzed; on the contrary, what we have seen in recent months is the action of the Russian Foreign Ministry with the conclusion of substantial agreements with the countries that make up the Brics group and its allies, whose objective is the production and commercialization of raw materials. Likewise the close work between Moscow and Beijing with the recent signing of an agreement to carry out their gas trade transactions in rubles and yuan. As for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russia has obtained and maintained quotas for the sale of oil and OPEC has decided to reduce production by 100,000 barrels per day as of October 1, 2022, on the eve of the cold season in the northern hemisphere, when the demand for hydrocarbons soars.

It is quite possible that Russia will continue to face the sanctions victoriously, as it has done until today, on the contrary, the future of Europe is quite uncertain, the only thing certain is that gas and energy resources, and therefore its geopolitics, will continue to be central to unleash and solve conflicts at world level.

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

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Colonelcassad
By the actions of the enemy.

1. There is a transfer of additional forces to the Kupyansk direction. It was not possible to take the city with a swoop, the enemy obviously plans to resume attacks with the aim of taking the city.
2. There are also reports of possible enemy attempts to cross the Seversky Donets and deploy an auxiliary strike in the Krasnolimansky direction.
3. The LPR Army reports that a large batch of Stinger MANPADS with trained operators has arrived at the Artemovsk front to reduce the effect of our army aviation, which causes significant losses to the enemy with its strikes.

***

Colonelcassad
If we talk about the situation as a whole.
The operational crisis is still far from over, but unlike yesterday, today you can already notice the results of the actions of the command to stop the consequences of the breakthrough of the Armed Forces of Ukraine north of Balakleya. The main tasks at the moment are to keep Kupyansk, prevent a breakthrough to Izyum and keep the supply of the Izyum group.
The enemy, for his part, will try to consolidate and develop the operational success achieved at the expense of redeployed reserves. It is worth noting that on his part, in addition to confirming videos about the promotion, not only information about the captured equipment comes, but also confirmation of a large number of dead APU soldiers.
Analysis of why this crisis arose and developed the way it developed will be after the completion of this defensive operation.

***

Colonelcassad

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The battle for Kharkov: the situation on the Izyumsko-Kupyansky sector of the front
as of 17.00 on September 9, 2022

▪️The transferred reserves of the RF Armed Forces from Borovaya managed to repel the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Gorokhovatka and prevent the cutting of the Izyum-Borovaya bridge . Fighting is currently underway in the area of ​​​​the village of Yasinovatoe .

▪️The settlements of Sinikha , Senkovo , Lesnaya Stenka , Fedorovka are under constant fire control of the RF Armed Forces. The main shock fist of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has not yet been activated in this sector : small maneuverable groups tried to pass from Senkovo ​​and Grushevka to the south.

▪️In Kupyansk and Izyum , they announced the evacuation of the civilian population: the RF Armed Forces are preparing for defense and a possible siege of settlements. A significant part of the residents do not want to leave their homes - even despite the threat of reprisals from the Ukrainian forces.

▪️APU "Haymarsami" struck at the command post of the RF Armed Forces in Dvurechnaya . As a result of shelling, the bridge in Kupyansk across the Oskol River was partially disabled.

▪️The fate of the eastern Balakleya and the section of the Balakleya-Savintsy highway remains unclear .

🔻At this stage, the most optimistic scenario for the development of the situation on the part of the command of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the creation of a boiler and luring the destruction of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Shevchenkovo ​​- Kupyansk - Izyum - Balakleya square .

How realistic this scenario is, only time will tell. So far, the task of the day of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is to stop the advancement of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and prevent it from gaining a foothold on the achieved lines.

The Ukrainian tactics of using small maneuverable groups in the style of the "Islamic State" justified itself at the first stage, now heavy equipment and mobile air defense systems are being brought up.

If the Armed Forces of Ukraine manage to gain a foothold, then it will be much more difficult to recapture the occupied territories, and the battle will obviously not be on these lines.

However, in Kupyansk and Izyummove really large forces.

***

Colonelcassad
Special operation, 9 September. The main thing from RIA Novosti :

▪️The Russian Armed Forces stopped several Ukrainian attacks in the Nikolaev-Krivoy Rog direction, Ukrainian troops suffered losses and retreated, the Ministry of Defense reported

▪️Russian Armed Forces killed more than 270 Ukrainian militants per day in the Nikolaev-Kryvyi Rih direction

▪️The intensity of shelling by Ukrainian troops in the Kharkiv region has increased five times, the head of the administration said, the evacuation of residents of Izyum, Shevchenko, Kupyansk and Balakliya has begun

▪️The Ministry of Defense published footage of the transfer of troops and equipment to the Kharkov direction

▪️A HIMARS MLRS combat vehicle was destroyed in the Kharkiv region, an M777 howitzer was destroyed in the Zaporozhye region

▪️Ukrainian troops shelled the territory of a hospital in Donetsk, on Friday 7 civilians were killed and 27 injured from shelling in the DPR

▪️Russia is studying the IAEA report and proposals on the ZNPP, but it takes time to respond, the Russian Foreign Ministry said

▪️In Mariupol, the keys to apartments in new buildings were handed over, the first three houses were commissioned

***

Colonelcassad
❗️ The situation in the east of Ukraine
by the end of September 9, 2022

▪️In Sudzha in the Kursk region , Ukrainian saboteurs opened fire on a checkpoint of the Russian Guard, several people were injured. Law enforcement agencies are looking for the attackers.

▪️Russian artillery worked on targets in the villages of Senkovka, Bleshnya and Gai , Chernihiv region , as well as Bolshoi Prikol, Stukalovka, and Zapsieli, Sumy region.

▪️During the day, the RF Armed Forces attacked the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kharkiv and the surrounding settlements: the location of the national battalion "Kraken" was destroyed in the center of the city , in which there were a large number of Ukrainian military personnel.

▪️The Ukrainian counter-offensive continues in the Izyum direction , but the pace of the enemy’s advance has slightly decreased:
➖The Armed Forces of Ukraine were able to take control of the Chuguev-Kupyansk highway to Grushevka, which allows them to transfer reserves and military equipment to the line of contact near Kupyansk . In Grushevka itself and Staroverovka , the enemy's shock fist is being prepared for the assault on Kupyansk.
➖According to some reports, part of the RF Armed Forces continue to hold the eastern quarters of Balakleya. An attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine is expected on Veseloe and Kunya, where one of the key road junctions in this direction is located.
➖Ukrainian forces also attempted to capture the village of Gorohovatka , where there is also a bridge across the Oskol River, but were stopped by allied forces near Yasinovat.

▪️Northeast of Slavyansk , the enemy will soon try to attack the Liman from Raygorodok with the aim of further access to the Oskolsky reservoir , which will enable the Izyum grouping.

▪️In the Bakhmut (Artemovsky) direction, the allied forces were able to advance near Bakhmut:
➖The Armed Forces of Ukraine tried to counterattack in the east of Bakhmut , but in the end they were defeated, which allowed the Wagner PMC units to move slightly towards the industrial zone in the east of the city.
➖In the suburbs of Bakhmut , the allied forces are developing an offensive towards Nikolaevka II, Otradovka and the Donbasskaya substation.
➖In Soledar , units of the Russian Armed Forces took control of several blocks near the Knauf-Gypsum plant.

▪️In the Donetsk direction , the shelling of Ukrainian formations on the capital of the DPR and the surrounding settlements does not stop. Positional battles continue in the suburbs of Donetsk.

▪️In the Zaporozhye region , the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to strike at the ZNPP and Energodar from Nikopol and Marganets, while Russian artillery is trying to suppress enemy positions with return fire.

▪️In the Krivoy Rog direction , positional battles are taking place not far from Vysokopole , as well as on the outskirts of Olgino and Arkhangelsk.

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***

Colonelcassad

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The battle for Kharkov: the situation on the Izyum-Kupyansky sector of the front
by the end of September 9, 2022

🔻Kupyanskoe direction

▪️Due to the transfer of reserves to the Kupyansky sector of the front, the RF Armed Forces managed to stop the advance of the main forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine a few kilometers from the city limits.

▪️By the end of the day, the Armed Forces of Ukraine established control over the villages of Chkalovskoye, Shevchenko, Borovskoye and controlled the Chuguev-Kupyansk highway to Grushevka, which made it possible to transfer equipment and artillery systems to the line of contact.

▪️The Ukrainian command is forming a strike force to storm Kupyansk in the area of ​​Grushevka and Staroverovka. The RF Armed Forces carry out artillery and rocket-bomb strikes on enemy concentration areas.

▪️The Armed Forces of Ukraine are shelling the rear settlements in the liberated territories. The village of Bolshoi Burluk

was hit especially hard . The Ukrainian formations will block the reserves of the Russian Armed Forces in Kupyansk and try to bypass the city from the north with the main forces, advancing in the direction of Dvurechensky.

🔻Izium direction

▪️From the south of Izyum, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are advancing from Vernopolye and Dolina.

▪️When trying to advance to Gorokhovatka , the mobile groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine met with a rebuff near the village of Yasinovatoe.
▪️The reserves of the RF Armed Forces came to the eastern bank of the Oskol River , which prevented attempts to cross the river by mobile groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Apparently, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will reinforce the mobile units on the western bank of the Oskol with heavy equipment and will try to conduct reconnaissance in combat of the defense of Izyum from the direction of Gorokhovatka.

🔻Balakley direction

▪️There are unverified reports that the eastern quarters of Balakleya are still being held by detachments of the RF Armed Forces. In the near future, we should expect an attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the villages of Vesele and Kunye .

In the near future, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will attempt to attack the Liman from Raygorodok. The main goal of the Ukrainian command in the area is to reach the Oskol reservoir and encircle the Russian group near Izyum.

***

Colonelcassad

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The situation in the Soledar direction
by the end of September 9, 2022

▪️The units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the east of Bakhmut (Artemovsk) made an unsuccessful counterattack attempt, after which they were counterattacked in response by Wagner PMC units. Russian fighters managed to advance towards the industrial zone along Patrice Lumumba Street and capture six Ukrainian servicemen.

▪️The advanced forces of the PMC Wagner came close to the territory of the electric substation of the Donbasskaya substation, taking the territory of the facility into a semicircle.

▪️To the east of Nikolaevka, the Second allied forces, developing an offensive from the suburb of Gorlovka Zaitsevo , cleared two strongholds of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

▪️At the same time, Wagner PMC detachments are advancing towards Nikolaevka II from the direction of Kodema . The village itself and its environs are completely under the control of Russian fighters.

▪️The Wagnerites continue to destroy strongholds in the fields, moving from the Vershina - Kodema line towards Otradovka .

▪️In Soledar , the allied forces advanced in residential development, capturing several blocks, which made it possible to level the front line along the northwestern side of the Knauf-Gypsum plant.

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

Google Translator

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I am going off line for a long week. Piss poor timing on my part, but 'arrangements' have been made...

I expect that by the time I return that these Nazis will be properly chastised and the De-nazification will be back on track.
"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 » Sun Sep 18, 2022 2:31 pm

matter of numbers
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 18/09/2022

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The defeat on the Kharkov front has not only created a difficult situation on the Donbass front, but has also raised questions about whether Russia will be able to defend territories such as the city of Kherson, in a difficult geographical position on the right bank. of the Dnieper River. In this context, the idea of ​​mobilization to alleviate the shortage of available troops in the area of ​​military operations in Ukraine has reappeared. But the mobilization requires a declaration of war, which the leader of the Communist Party demanded last Monday. According to Zyuganov, the special military operationit has turned into a war and the country must act accordingly. However, the country's authorities not only maintain the idea of ​​normality, but also the rejection of the need for change. The speed with which the Kremlin has denied the possibility of mobilizing army reserves has given rise to alternative proposals.

Original Article: Alexey Zotiev

The leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has called for the start of the automobilization and has invited the leaders of the different Russian regions to prepare, train and equip at least a thousand volunteers. In his opinion, these numbers would be insignificant for the regions, but together they would represent a contingent of 85,000 people, which can become a heavy argument in the extended conflict in Ukraine. This proposal cannot be described as emotional or thoughtless, as the current situation leads to such conclusions. An analysis of the situation on all fronts suggests, today, that the number of troops of the group participating in the "demilitarization of Ukraine" operation is unable to fulfill the tasks that the command has assigned to the troops .

It is not about the level of education or the motivation. It is a fact that it is almost impossible to actively attack an enemy that has significant numerical superiority. Of course, history is full of examples of how a smaller force has defeated larger armies in number of soldiers, but, as a rule, in most cases these are short-lived conflicts. If we refer to long-term conflicts in which a staggered defense is produced by one of the parties, according to the dogmas of military science, the attacking party must have numerical superiority. Otherwise, the situation will look like the classic pendulum, with sporadic successes on one side or the other. This is what we have observed in recent weeks on the territory of Ukraine.

To this day, it cannot be said that Russian society has really understood what is happening on the territory of Ukraine. Most of them live their lives in a normal way, although periodically they receive information about what is happening in the neighboring territory through Telegram channels, the press and television. But there are also those who have abandoned their daily routine and have completely immersed themselves in what is happening. Thanks to volunteers, the army and militias of the Republics of Donbass receive equipment that helps them carry out their tasks in the most efficient way possible: drones, thermal imaging devices, night vision goggles, bulletproof vests, walkie-talkies or tactical kits. As in 2014, the volunteers have been the first to organize themselves and have won something that is impossible for the rest. As before, they have not only established and maintained stable supply channels for military units and civilian structures, but have also established themselves as a part of society whose members have joined a movement in which it is “all for the front, all for victory."

Everything is obvious to the volunteers and it is clear that the executive authorities of the regions, tied down by the restrictions imposed by the regulation, are practically not necessary to obtain funds and other resources, but things are different for those who are willing to go to Ukraine with weapons in hands. The situation in Ukraine in 2022 is not the same as in 2014. If in 2014 it was possible to gather a group of people, cross the border, arm themselves in some way and appear in a few days at the front line, today it is something impossible for beginning. If the "limited contingent" is not killed by the fire of some Ukrainian sabotage group in one of the units that have accepted volunteers, their fate in the combat zone will not be enviable.

It must be understood that Russia is currently fighting against an army equipped with modern weapons and reinforced with professional mercenaries who have been through more than one serious war. So all volunteer units that arrive in the territory must go through a period of training, combat coordination, and be armed and equipped. The effectiveness of this idea can be seen by the example of the Cossack formations of the territory of the Rostov region. Although they are on the front line, they have suffered minimal casualties and perform their assigned combat tasks quite efficiently.

If the authorities of the federated entities that make up the Russian Federation follow the example of the regions that have already formed, equipped and sent their volunteer units to the combat zone, it will significantly change the course of events and qualitatively accelerate the process of fulfilling the tasks facing the limited contingent of Russian troops stationed in Ukraine.

Automobilization will draw into the ranks voluntary units of people who have made a balanced and thoughtful decision to participate in the conflict. As a rule, they will be mature people with experience of service in the armed forces or even in combat. There may be whole units of people who will fight no worse, or even better, than some regular units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. This is confirmed by the detachments of the DPR and RPL militias, whose professionalism was recently praised by Vladimir Putin. And most importantly, if the regions commit to equipping the soldiers - this is the main prerequisite - it will not be groups of enthusiasts but real battalions and regiments that will cross the border.

It is clear that our society needs a new consolidation model, something that Kadyrov implicitly announced. You have to understand that what is happening in Ukraine affects the whole of society, even if for now you don't hear explosions or shots. That doesn't mean you can stay on the sidelines. It is time to understand that the sooner we rebuild our way of life, our point of view, realizing that the world has changed on a global level and that it requires unusual solutions, the sooner we will see the end of this conflict imposed from outside.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/18/25524/#more-25524

Google Translator

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Ukraine - Dissecting Some War Propaganda News Items
Last night a Reuters headline claimed:

Mass grave of more than 440 bodies found in Izium, Ukraine -police

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Many media, who republish the Reuters feed, repeated that headline:

Kyiv: Ukrainian authorities have found a mass grave of more than 440 bodies in the eastern city of Izium that was recaptured from Russian forces, a regional police official said on Thursday, adding some of the people had been killed by shelling and air strikes.
Serhiy Bolvinov, the chief police investigator for Kharkiv region, told Sky News that forensic investigations would be carried out on every body.

"I can say it is one of the largest burial sites in a big town in liberated (areas)... 440 bodies were buried in one place," Bolvinov said.

"Some died because of artillery fire ... some died because of air strikes," he said. Thousands of Russian troops fled Izium at the weekend.


Notice the wording. It is a 'large burial site' with '440 bodies in one place'. That does not have to mean a mass grave with 440 bodies but could also describe a graveyard with a total of 440 people buried there.

And indeed an AP video team visited the site and their video shows quite a different scenario (h/t Tore). In a wooded area there are a large numbers, maybe one hundred or two, of single graves with orthodox and other crosses. There is also one grave that has a cross which says that 17 soldiers were buried there.

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In the AP video several soldiers and investigators are moving around. One Ukrainian soldier says he saw a video that the Russians made when the soldiers were buried in that one mass grave. From it, he says, he estimates that more than 17, maybe 25 or 30, he says, were buried in that grave.

The video he refers to is likely this one (h/t Elena Evdokimova) which was published on May 8. It seems to show the same graveyard with that one mass grave. One sees civilians with red cross armlets collecting and burying bodies of dead soldiers. I count a total of 17 dead bodies but there may be one or two more. One Russia soldier is around and explains what is happening. The title in Russian translates to:

Ukraine refuses to take away the bodies of dead soldiers. Russian military bury them in mass graves

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There is also a link to a Russian news site called Giport or Hyport which says (machine translated):

Ukraine refuses to take the bodies of the dead soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the Russian military is forced to bury them in mass graves

Ukraine again refuses to take away the bodies of its dead soldiers, who have to be buried in mass graves. The Russian side several times offered the enemy to take the bodies for burial by organizing a corridor for medical workers, but did not receive a response from the Ukrainian command.
Some time ago, the bodies of dead soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were collected by Russian soldiers on their own and transported to the morgue under mortar shelling from Ukraine. As a result, Ukraine did not take them from the morgue either. Today, Russian servicemen had to bury the dead soldiers in mass graves.

According to one of the soldiers involved in the burial, the bodies of the killed soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were taken from the front line a week ago. He said that negotiations with the current government of Ukraine were unsuccessful. The Ukrainian side simply refused to take the bodies, so the Russian Armed Forces buried the dead on their own in one of the city cemeteries.

If the current Ukrainian authorities took the bodies of their fighters, their relatives could say goodbye to them in a human way. And now they were buried in plastic bags in mass graves. But this is better than becoming food for the beast, as it would happen if it were not for the Russian military. At least the relatives will at least have a chance to find the dead by going through the procedure of taking DNA.

This is not the first such story. Back in March, we wrote that Ukraine refuses to make contact and take the bodies of dead servicemen from the territories of the LPR and DPR. As a result, all of them were also buried in mass graves. Some had nameplates, other soldiers remained unidentified.


The Reuters headline was 100% false. That may have been because the editor misinterpreted what the Ukrainian police investigator said. Or it intentionally exaggerated the case to increase the propaganda value of that news item. I suspect the latter to be the case.

There is otherwise nothing unusual with that graveyard. During a war people on both sides die. Civilians suffer as much as soldiers while fighting around them is going on. The city had been heavily defended by the Ukrainians and it took the Russian military the whole of March to take it. A lot of the buried casualties were likely killed by artillery fire. There is no way to tell from which side that fire had came.

That the graveyard is in the woods and not in some open place also makes sense. With camera drones around and being in reach of hostile artillery one would not want to be caught while shuffling graves in open fields. The trees give at least some protection from being seen from above.

A different obvious propaganda fake was published in today's Washington Post:

The letters left behind by demoralized Russian soldiers as they fled

The 10 handwritten letters, dated Aug. 30, were left behind in a two-story residential house where Russians were squatting and later found by Ukrainian soldiers who provided the letters to The Washington Post for review. They paint a portrait of dejected troops desperate for rest and concerned about their health and morale after months of fighting.
...
The similar style in which the 10 letters were written suggests the troops, weary and disheartened, banded together to draft them. The letters caught the attention of Ukrainian soldiers when they first arrived in Izyum, which the Russians abandoned hastily in retreat, and some were shared on social media.
The authenticity of the letters has not been confirmed by independent forensic experts ...


One can tell right away that the story makes little sense. The Russian security forces that were in Izium after the initial fighting were from the Rosguardia (Rosgvardiya), the National Guard of Russia which is more like a border police force with some additional tasks. There was little fighting in Izium after the end of March. The guards station there were regularly supplied. In that context they had no reason to feel like "dejected troops desperate for rest and concerned about their health and morale".

The Rosguardia were evacuated without losses by Russian military forces before the Ukrainians surrounded and recaptured the city.

That the ten letters were written in 'similar style' makes it likely that they were written by the same team of Ukrainian intelligence that uses the Washington Post and other media to spread their lies to the public. They intend to portray the Russian military as an exhausted and morally broken force. Neither seems to be the case.

While I wrote the above Reuters published a new piece that changes its earlier reporting but does not correct it:

Around 200 wooden crosses seen at site near Ukraine's Izium

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It in fact repeats the earlier false claims that the AP report had debunked:

IZIUM, Ukraine (Reuters) - Around 200 wooden crosses were found on Friday at a site near Izium in northeastern Ukraine, Reuters witnesses said, possibly marking a second mass grave in an area recaptured in recent days by Ukrainian forces.
Men in white overalls have begun exhuming bodies at the site, located on the edge of a cemetry in the northwest of Izium, the witnesses said. Some 20 white body bags were visible.

Ukrainian authorities earlier reported the discovery of a mass grave containing around 440 bodies in the city of Izium, a frontline Russian stronghold until Ukraine's counter-offensive across the Kharkiv region during the past week.


It is not the 'fog of war' that clouds such new reporting. It is the propaganda that was ordered up to incite the 'western' population against Russia and its citizens and soldiers.

Without further backup and and proof one can not, and should not, believe any news item coming from the Ukrainian and other wars.

Posted by b on September 16, 2022 at 12:43 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/u ... items.html

September 17, 2022

Ukraine - Dissecting Some War Propaganda News Items - Addendum
This is a follow-up to yesterday's piece about Reuters unfounded propaganda claims and distribution:

Ukraine - Dissecting Some War Propaganda News Items

Reuters via Yahoo:

Multiple bodies found at mass burial site in Ukraine's Izium with rope around necks


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Hours later:

Advisory - Story has been withdrawn - Multiple bodies found at mass burial site in Ukraine's Izium with rope around necks

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Will Kherson and Zaporozhye surrender?

This is probably the most popular question in our feedback bot right now. Since we, to put it mildly, are tired of answering it non-publicly, let's say it like it is here.

Much has changed since the events in the Kharkiv region. If the withdrawal of troops from the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions could still be perceived with difficulty, and the exodus from Serpentine could be explained by tactical necessity, then with the Kharkov region it turned out much worse.

Selfies of the Armed Forces of Ukraine against the background of posters “Together with Russia forever!”, filtration measures and reprisals against “collaborators” and a whole series of Russophobic information campaigns - you already know all this.

Therefore, now we will focus on Kherson and Zaporozhye. Money

🔻Objective reasons why it is not planned to hand over the regions. Objective reasons why the regions are still at risk.



A large-scale campaign is underway to privatize both state property and private property of Ukrainian businessmen who are in no hurry to enter Russian-controlled territories. Tenders are being bid for the restoration of settlements and infrastructure. Not even a tenth of the sums that are now allocated in the south were spent on projects in the Kharkiv region.

Saturation of the region with troops

Volunteer formations, which are part of the 3rd Army Corps, are already reinforcing the units of the RF Armed Forces holding the lines. Yes, there are not enough forces to carry out an offensive on a wide front. But compared to what the picture was at the sites a month and a half ago, the density of the concentration of troops has increased three to four times.

In addition, the process of formation and recruitment of the 4th Army Corps has already begun. At least on paper.

"Not a step back"

Last week, the command "Not a step back" passed through all units in the Donbass and the south. It was ordered to keep the occupied lines at all costs. It remains to be hoped that now the main task is to reduce the offensive potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and try to seize the initiative.

Civilian units, yes, have been given instructions in case of forced evacuation. But this is a normal practice: unfortunately, in the Kharkiv region, everything turned out badly. The numerical superiority of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the shock potential of the West

🔻



Unfortunately, in Ukraine they can afford to overwhelm the defensive formations of the RF Armed Forces with mobilized "meat", regardless of losses. If this is multiplied by the practically unlimited channels for the supply of weapons, equipment and ammunition, we can come to a simple conclusion: there is a war of annihilation. And also the saturation of the Western military-industrial complex with orders for decades to come.

For the other side, everything that happens is a chance to make money in the war. And unfortunately, if more radical measures are not taken to mobilize production, the economy, and troops in Russia, we may at some point be overwhelmed with this "meat".

subject of bargaining

The liberated buffer territories, no matter how cynical it may sound, may remain the subject of bargaining for politicians. The only question is how high the stakes will be when one of the parties wants to “fix” the state of affairs and freeze the front for a new breakthrough.

There will be no output.

Let everyone make it for themselves. We believe in the best. And we know that certain tectonic shifts began after Kharkov. Officials were held accountable.

Many reports still remain "a fable about how good everything is." But there are more and more cases where, up there, they face objective reality. And the changes begin.

(c) "Rybar"

https://t.me/rybar/38978 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7869590.html

Google Translator

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Leaked Documents Expose Ukrainian Attempts to Destabilize Russia and Draw NATO into a Full-Scale War with Moscow
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 16, 2022
Olga Sukharevskaya

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Plans concocted by the special services reveal Kiev’s aggressive strategy over many years

The best defense is a good offence. So goes one of the oldest principles of international relations.

And as Ukrainian documents now at the disposal of the media show, Moscow apparently had something to defend itself from when it launched its offensive in Ukraine. Over the past eight years, Kiev’s military and special services have been preparing numerous operations aimed at undermining Russia’s international ties, and internal peace itself.

In June, a hacker Telegram channel dubbed ‘Beregini’ published the action plan of the Information and Psychological Operations Department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO). According to official information, the tasks of this unit include working with the population of foreign countries, creating agent networks, and infiltrating special services and military organizations to conduct espionage and destroy people who pose a threat to the Ukrainian government (including in other countries), as well as preparing coups and the overthrow of regimes.

Фундук, Заслон, Болотная площадь…

Beregini June 09, 2022

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The SSO plan was prepared back in 2017, and this is just one of many similar secret documents created by Ukrainian spooks. It was just one that became public. But the presence of these plans and the real political and military steps taken by Ukraine, which coincide with SSO programs to a surprising extent, indicate that KI’ve has been actively carrying out anti-Russian activities since at least 2014, when a Western-backed coup took place in the country.

Sowers of Unrest

When studying the Ukrainian plan from 2017, the first thing that catches the eye is the variety of operations aimed at creating a split in Russian society.

Operation ‘Zaslon’ describes a scheme to influence the family members of Donbass soldiers and militiamen, as well as Russian army personnel. The operation’s main goals include blocking military units and encouraging desertion and resignations in the militaries of ‘Eastern,’ the document’s code word for Russia and the Donbass republics.

In the event of an outbreak of hostilities, a transition to Operation ‘Bolotnaya Square’ was planned. This consists of cultivating distrust of Russia’s military and political leadership among the country’s population, as well as fomenting dissent “against the aggressive policy of the ‘Eastern’ president and his entourage,” in order to incite mass protests.

Ukraine’s actual actions confirm the authenticity of these plans. Even after Crimea’s reunification with Russia, Russian citizens could be found who sided with Kiev.

It is noteworthy that in 2018, a fake news story claiming that 300 people had died in a fire at Kemerovo’s Winter Cherry shopping center originated in Ukraine. No less revealing is the story of a Ukrainian Special Forces employee who called on Russians to protest against “pension genocide,” but forgot to change his Ukrainian IP address.

Goal: Undermine Morale

The number of Ukrainian sympathizers in Russia is unlikely to have increased this year. Sociological studies indicate that citizens’ support for the Russian government has only been growing. By the beginning of the summer, 72 percent of Russians supported the military campaign, while Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity rating had risen, settling at 82 percent.

But if Ukraine has failed in killing support for the offensive, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t tried. For example, the command of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces has been implementing the ‘Smuta’ project since January of 2022. The documentation contains a detailed report on materials published in the Russian media and social networks aimed at destabilizing the country, provoking discontent among its population, and discrediting the authorities.

After the outbreak of hostilities, Operation ‘Steppe Wind’ was activated. As stated in the SSO documents, its task is to demoralize the enemy and create tension between the Russian military and DPR and LPR fighters. According to Oleg Matveichev, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, “in fact, there are about 80,000 accounts maintained by Ukrainian students [on the Russian-language internet], but they pretend to be locals: ‘ordinary residents’ of Penza, Kurgan, Chita, and Khabarovsk.”

Relatives of Russian servicemen have been terrorized by telephone scammers who report the death of their loved ones in Ukraine or demand money for their “release from captivity.” As reported by ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova, relatives of Russian soldiers have also received videos showing prisoners being abused. The Ukrainian special services have created several Telegram channels, where unverified data on Russian casualties and prisoners is published. The Ombudsman also said she has received more than 100 appeals concerning prisoners of war, of which about half have been confirmed.

‘Gentle Dew’ of Grads

Operation ‘Gentle Dew’, which is aimed at residents of territories not controlled by Ukraine, deserves special mention. Its mission is to “form pro-Ukrainian sentiment among the population of the occupied territories and encourage protest movements directed against the ‘Eastern’ and the occupation authorities.”

However, there has been no success in implementing this plan. The main reason for this lies in the difference between Kiev’s and the Donbass republics’ views on and approaches to the possible reintegration of the regions with Ukraine. In March 2021, President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree approving a ‘Strategy for De-occupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol.’ The document, which consists of 158 paragraphs, will give you an idea of how the authorities in Kiev intend to treat the residents of the regions that have left Ukraine.

The document proposes to exclude persons who “were part of or collaborated with the occupation administrations” from holding any position in government or civil service. This is a very wide range of people, ranging from members of the 2014 referendum commissions to teachers and doctors working in municipal schools and hospitals. ‘De-occupation’ also involves extending the statute of limitations on criminal cases that were conducted by Ukrainian police before the referendum on the return of Crimea to Russia, as well as pursuing criminal cases within the competence of the Security Service of Ukraine.

Translated from legal to layman’s language, this means purposeful persecution of all officials who worked in Crimea in February 2014, as well as participants in mass rallies supporting the reunification of Crimea with Russia, volunteers who helped DPR and LPR residents during the civil war, and so on.

While opening opportunities for the residents of Crimea and Donbass to study at Ukrainian universities, Kiev refuses to recognize any educational documents obtained on the peninsula. The question of whether these conditions will make residents of Crimea and Donbass want to return to Ukraine is purely rhetorical.

While it is unknown whether the SSO intends to continue implementing its plan to foster pro-Ukrainian sentiment among the residents of Crimea and Donbass, we do know for sure that the Ukrainian side sharply increased its attacks on cities in these regions after the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation. So far, this ‘Gentle Dew’ has only fallen on the region in the form of MLRS Grad shells and Tochka U missiles.

On the Hills of Manchuria

Ukraine’s SSO has also carried out several special operations in the foreign policy field. One of them is operation ‘Caspian’, whose purpose is to sow and deepen disagreements between the Russian Federation and certain ‘Fawn,’ which are presumably countries in the Caspian region. The operation is to be considered successful if it leads to “actions indicating the refusal of ‘Fawn’ from interacting with ‘Eastern’.”

In general, it is difficult to assess where the line lies between Ukraine’s efforts to disrupt Russia’s relations with its partners and the natural difficulties that arise in the dialogue between any countries. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that during the riots that took place in Kazakhstan in January this year, at least some of the protesters’ actions were coordinated with Ukraine, where Kazakh oppositionists found refuge.

Operation ‘Manchurian Hills’ aims to worsen Russia’s diplomatic relations with the countries of the Far East. This Ukrainian special services’ plan has been designed to persuade Moscow that its eastern neighbors are potential threats, thereby provoking Russia to increase its military presence in the region.

If we analyze the content of the ‘Strategy of Ukraine’s Foreign Policy Activity’ adopted in July 2021, we can see not the defensive, but the aggressively offensive nature of Kiev’s foreign policy actions. For example, to offer experience “acquired over years of countering Russian aggression” to NATO countries and the Baltic-Black Sea region. Or to assist in fighting Russian “disinformation” in neighboring countries, to support the “people of Belarus,” to “democratize” Russia itself, and to strengthen “pressure on and deterrence of the Russian Federation on the basis of a broad international coalition.” This, by the way, is also included in SSO plans called ‘The Voice of Reason’.

Even in bilateral relations, where Ukraine should seemingly focus on developing trade, industrial cooperation, and cultural exchanges, the Foreign Ministry is tasked with “ensuring support from African and Middle Eastern states in countering the aggression of the Russian Federation.”

Epilogue

Since the outbreak of hostilities, Ukraine has been trying to present Russia’s actions to the ‘international community’ as an attack by a great power on a small state that is unable to defeat the huge Russian army because it has never had aggressive intentions either against the Russian Federation or any other country. This statement is refuted by ‘Ukraine’s Military Security Strategy’, which states in black and white, for example, that KI’ve may enter into a war with the Russian Federation if Russia tries to “keep the Republic of Belarus in its sphere of political influence.”

The goal of Ukraine’s accession to NATO is also clearly outlined. Of course, as a sovereign state, Ukraine has the right to join any international organization. But the issue is that Kiev sees the goal of NATO membership as the US-led bloc’s participation in a war against Russia. This has been confirmed by an adviser to the president of Ukraine, Alexey Arestovich, who, in explaining the purpose of the DEFENDER Europe 2021 exercises, stated that “in the waters from the Baltic to the Black Sea, we are working out – let’s not beat around the bush – how to carry out an armed conflict with Russia, a war with Russia.”

Although, back in 2017, the SSO created a ‘Voice of Reason’ plan, which included a task to ensure that “statements confirming readiness to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the situation” appeared in the West. In fact, the West never rejected this idea. After the outbreak of hostilities, it was Kiev that refused peace talks, preferring to wage war with Russia. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky repeated this policy line in Paris, stressing that the conditions for negotiating with Russia hadn’t yet “matured,” as he wanted to take a “stronger position.”

Olga Sukharevskaya is an ex-Ukrainian diplomat.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... th-moscow/

Izyum is Bucha 2.0: New Ukrainian False Flag War Crimes and Western PSYOP
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 16, 2022
Nicolas Cinquini

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While the authorities have ordered lawsuits and detention of collaborators but private channels are simply spurring the murder of civilians, Ukraine pretends on September 15, 2022, to have found out a mass grave of 440 bodies near Izyum.

The Russian forces have seized Izyum, northeastern Ukraine, in March, on their path to the northern flank of the Ukrainian entrenchments in Donbass. On September 7, the Ukrainian forces have started an offensive around Kharkov. The local balance of forces may have been 4 to 1 and despite their higher firepower, the Russian forces have declined there an annihilation battle, have retreated to Oskol river, while artillery and air forces were targeting the Ukrainian concentrations and columns. Ukraine may have lost 12,000 service members, dead and wounded, the Russian casualties have been marginal. In the morning of September 10 or even earlier, the Russian garrison and many civilians, for fear of reprisals, have left Izyum, that the Ukrainians have occupied in the evening of September 11, no fighting for the town.

The military context reminds another retreat, from the northwestern suburb of Kiev. On March 30, the Russian forces left Bucha, that the Ukrainians occupied on 31. Special purpose formations of the Ukrainian national police started to clear the area of saboteurs and accomplices of Russian troops. On April 2, not earlier, the Ukrainian authorities pretended to have suddenly found out bodies in the streets and mass graves of people that the Russian forces would have killed. No serious criminal investigation was conducted. Some dead civilians were wearing the Russian white armbands, others were carrying Russian food rations, that the Ukrainian nationalists are regarding as the evidence of a treason. French investigators came on April 11, started to conduct forensic investigation on corps that the Ukrainians submitted as victims of Russian atrocities. But against all expectations, the gendarmes proved that they had been victims of Ukrainian shelling, before the Russian retreat. Despite these facts, the narrative of Russian atrocities in Bucha is still the catechism of most Western media

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Meanwhile, the Ukrainian law has filled legal voids. 15 years of prison are the penalty for collaborationism, like for example, the consumption of Russian food rations. The government has also announced that the teachers will be sued for enforcement of the Russian curriculum. Last but not the least, private social networks channels are doxxing collaborators under various pretexts

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(Screenshot)

On September 13, about the de-occupied areas, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has written on social networks

[…] Remnants of occupiers and sabotage groups are being detected, collaborators are being detained and full security is being restored […]

The chase of the collaborators has officially begun.

The Western media rush to broadcast his new statement in the night of September 15-16

[…] And finally. A mass burial site was found in Izyum, Kharkiv region. The necessary procedural actions have already begun there. There should be more information – clear, verified information – tomorrow. Tomorrow there will be Ukrainian and international journalists in Izyum. We want the world to know what is really happening and what the Russian occupation has led to. Bucha, Mariupol, now, unfortunately, Izyum… Russia leaves death everywhere. And it must be held accountable for that. The world must hold Russia to real account for this war. We will do everything for this […]

The alleged mass grave has been found out four days after the liberation of Izyum and the journalists are convened right away.

First cognitive dissonance in the narrative on September 15, when Ukrainian journalists share on social networks the photos of what is not a mass grave, but a cemetery

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(Denis Kazanskyi)

September 16 shows once more the momentum of a mediocre narrative, propaganda and disinformation from Western media, especially British ones, the usual Daily Telegraph for example

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(Screenshot)

Yet, a basic analysis of first footage realizes that many cross are marking with respect the tombs of Ukrainian service members. So, during the occupation, the Orcs have buried there the corpses of dead fighters whom their comrades had left rotting in the open ? This NATO protracted war is indeed a carnage for the Ukrainian forces, we already knew it.

Anyway, hundreds of unknown bodies are nothing but a statistic. As a former criminal investigator, I am eager to know the results : identification of each victim, dating and map of each corps, identification of the causes of each death. Hurry up, respectable sleuths should achieve these ABCs during the first 48 hours.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... ern-psyop/

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From Cassad's Telegram account:

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Forwarded from
military chronicle
Blocking the advancement of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kherson region. Details

After the X-101 cruise missiles attacked the Karachunskaya dam in Krivoy Rog and the level of the Ingulets River rose, the supply of the battalion tactical groups of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the Andreevsky bridgehead was successfully minimized. In the area of ​​​​the “fire bag” Andreevka - Sukhoi Stavok, through which the Armed Forces of Ukraine wanted to attack Berislav, units of the 57th Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and paratroopers from the 46th Airmobile Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were partially blocked.

The destruction of the SSO company of Ukraine and the death of the Ukrainian landing force on the Kinburn Spit, sent to probe the defense of the RF Armed Forces on the southwestern flank of the Kherson fortified area, put an end to the distraction strike, which was supposed to draw our forces and means from the Andreevsky bridgehead sector. As a result, the artillery and anti-tank units of the Russian Airborne Forces and Marine Corps of the Russian Navy continue to remain in their previous positions and provide fire resistance to the mechanized reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, pulling up to the Andreevsky bridgehead from the western coast of Ingulets. After all, the latter expect a decrease in the level of the river and the speed of the current for a second attempt to force the Ingulets and strengthen the offensive potential of the Andreevsky bridgehead.

Nevertheless, tactical landing, mortar crews and crews of the Stugna-P ATGM, although sporadically, continue to saturate the still remaining backbone of the Andreevsky bridgehead. This transfer is carried out through episodic flights of Mi-8 military transport helicopters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which arrive on the eastern bank of the Ingulets at the time of the temporary windows of absence of combat duty of the Russian Su-35S.

Information about these windows to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is kindly provided by the operators of AWACS aircraft and Rivet Joint electronic reconnaissance aircraft of the US Air Force, which patrol daily in the northeastern part of Romanian airspace.

Meanwhile, Kyiv's attempt to regulate the water level in the river came to nothing: the third strike on the water infrastructure in Kryvyi Rih raised the level of Ingulets by almost 1 m in just three hours.

Consequently, the possibility of transferring large volumes of armored vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the eastern bank of the Ingulets in the foreseeable future will be excluded.

The units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Novopoltavka, 10 km to the south-west, were supposed to insure the encircled units in Sukhoi Stavka, but there are elite units on the verge of operational encirclement due to the flood of the river, including two battalions of the 35th Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

@milchronicles

Google Translator

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Russian regrouping in Kharkov will speed up Battle of Donbass
By M. K. Bhadrakumar (Posted Sep 15, 2022)

Originally published: Indian Punchline on September 12, 2022 (more by Indian Punchline) |

The New York Times has disclosed that the U.S. shared vital intelligence with the Ukrainian military and took part in the preparation of the latter’s current “counteroffensive” near Kharkov. No matter the Biden Administration’s motivations in publicising its role in what western media is celebrating as a success story–presumably, with an eye on domestic politics in America–it could be factually correct. The media leak puts the dramatic happenings in the past 3-4 days in proper perspective.

There are two ways of looking at the surge by the Ukrainian military: one, Kiev has inflicted a heavy defeat on the Russians and forced them to retreat, or, the American intelligence finally got wind of the unobtrusive thinning out of the Russian frontline in Kharkov that had been going on in the recent weeks as part of a larger re-deployment of military formations, and shared the intelligence with Kiev, who of course gleefully acted on it.

The New York Times report effectively confirms the latter reading of the situation, which has been the stuff of hearsay and whispers so far.

Indeed, there has been hardly any fighting as such in Kharkov region during this Ukrainian surge, and the Russian focus was, unsurprisingly, to pull out the residual forces in the frontline under the cover of heavy artillery fire. The Russian operation ensured that there was no significant casualty. The new frontline that was being steadily put together in the recent weeks (or months) along the Oskol River has crystallised.

The withdrawal from the Balakleysko-Izyum direction stemmed from the Russian military command’s appraisal that no useful purpose would be served by maintaining such a frontline. In March, when Russian forces gained control of Izyum, the assumption was that it would help mount an operation from the north toward Sloviansk city in the Kramatorsk district of the Donetsk region. But as it turned out through the past 4 months, Russians apparently gave up that idea altogether.

Make no mistake, the battle for Donbass still remains the number one priority for the Russian special military operation. The re-deployment from the Balakleysko-Izyum direction will now significantly strengthen the offensive in Donbass instead of weakening it, as some western journalists are speculating. The confusion arises out of the ancient legend of Izium being the “gateway” to the Donbass and the Black Sea. Whereas, today, with modern communication, Russian supply lines to the Donbass can be sustained even without such a “gateway” from the north.

Second, Izyum itself is in a heavily wooded region–some call it Sherwood Forest–to its west where the Ukrainian forces had fortified themselves and the Russian presence had come under attack even previously also. Simply put, continued occupation of Izyum would only be a drain on manpower.

That said, the optics of the happenings in the Balakleysko-Izyum direction have triggered a wave of criticism within Russia itself about inept mishandling by the military command, and some of it was even directed at President Putin himself. The military command comes under pressure to show “results” in the Donbass campaign. Suffice to say, there might be some rethink too on the Russian strategy so far to depend on militia groups to do the heavy lifting rather than regular troops from its armed forces.

In reality, Kharkov Region has been largely a sideshow so far. The fact that there are no plans to hold any referendum in Kharkov–unlike in Kherson and Zaporozhia in the south in early September (which now stands postponed)–speaks for itself.

To be sure, last week’s happenings in the Balakleysko-Izyum direction will come as a big morale booster for the Ukrainian armed forces. This will have implications for the future. For one thing, Kiev will have no inclination whatsoever for peace talks. The thundering statement by Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov on Sunday sets the threshold of belligerence:

Kyiv is ready for negotiations after the vacation [by Russia] of all territories of Ukraine–within the limits of December 1, 1991. There are no more options for ‘February 24’ for Ukraine.

That is to say, the plans of the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are to completely “liberate” all “occupied” territories, including Donbass and Crimea, and nothing less! Interestingly, Reznikov was reacting to a statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the effect that Moscow does not reject negotiations with Ukraine, but further delay in peace talks by Kiev will complicate the possibility of reaching an agreement.

According to the Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Danilov, Kiev is already considering options for accepting the surrender of Russia, as well as dividing it into several nice little states! Such a level of madness and war hysteria will make things extremely difficult for the Biden Administration to carry forward the incipient signs of moderation and realism that were straining to surface in the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s rhetoric during his visit to Kiev last Friday.

Blinken reacted cautiously when asked by the travelling media party about the Ukrainian “counteroffensive.” He said:

yes, we did get a comprehensive update on the counteroffensive… it’s very early but we’re seeing clear and real progress on the ground, particularly in the area around Kherson but also some interesting developments in the Donbass in the east. But again, early days.

Earlier in Kiev, Blinken did not respond to President Zelensky’s bottom line during their joint media appearance that he regarded the U.S. support to be “a guarantee of the possibility of returning our territories, our lands.”

General Mark Milley, U.S. chairman, Chiefs of Staff, also was noticeably circumspect about the Ukrainian counteroffensive in his remarks on Saturday in an interview with the National Public Radio. The general said it remains to be seen what is happening in the next few weeks. “It is a very, very difficult task that the Ukrainians are undertaking–combining their offence with manoeuver,” the general said.

While the regrouping of troops in the Kharkov region will enable the Russian forces to concentrate their attention on establishing full control over the territory of the Donetsk, it is not as if the military command has turned its back on Kharkov.

The Russian Ministry of Defence on Monday stated that Russian Aerospace Forces, missile troops and artillery “continued to launch high-precision attacks” at the Ukrainian units and reserve forces in Kharkov region. The Ukrainian forces that used to be in well-fortified positions in that heavily wooded region have now stepped out into the open and are being targeted for intense air, missile and artillery strikes.

The Russian MOD stated on Saturday that more than 2,000 Ukrainian fighters were killed near Balakleya and Izyum in the previous three days alone. For sure, a few thousand more troops would have suffered injuries too. Considering that a 15000-strong Ukrainian force is estimated to be involved in the entire Kharkov operation, that is a very heavy loss. Over time, Kiev may have little to celebrate about.

https://mronline.org/2022/09/15/russian ... f-donbass/

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Sahra Wagenknecht, Die Linke member of Bundestag: Russia sanctions causing ’social and economic catastrophe’ in Germany
Originally published: Peoples World on September 12, 2022 by Combined Sources (more by Peoples World) | (Posted Sep 17, 2022)

Former Die Linke co-chair Sahra Wagenknecht, among the German Left Party’s most famous politicians, has accused the government of causing a “social and economic catastrophe” through its sanctions on Russia.

Wagenknecht, writing in the German newspaper Junge Welt, said that one in three German businesses were facing bankruptcy, blackouts could not be ruled out over the winter,

and while oil and armaments companies are reporting record profits, consumers in Germany are supposed to pay even more for a gas surcharge, which Economy Minister Robert Habeck had the energy lobby dictate to him.

The MP’s article follows a challenge to the government in the Bundestag on Thursday, when she called it “the stupidest government in Europe” for starting an economic war with its main energy supplier.

She wrote, “The traffic light is steering our country” toward economic doom. “Traffic light” refers party colors of the governing coalition of Social Democrats (red), the right-wing Free Democratic Party (yellow), and the Green Party (green).

“The idea that we are punishing Putin by impoverishing millions of families in Germany and destroying our industry while Gazprom is making record profits—how stupid is that?” she asked, calling for Habeck to resign.

Despite a backlash to her speech from some Die Linke politicians, who said the sanctions are an appropriate response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wagenknecht argued in Junge Welt that “Europe, and Germany in particular, have a bad hand in the sanctions poker with Russia. It would be crazy to keep bidding until China comes into play.

But anyone who calls for an end to the sanctions spiral and calls for negotiations runs the risk of being defamed as a Kremlin propagandist. The debate is sick.

She pointed to some of the absurdities currently playing out in Germany’s politics. “Those who support peace are on the right, those who advocate military harshness are on the left?” she asked incredulously.

The former leader of Die Linke questioned why left-wing people are denounced as Putin supporters or for being supposedly close to the extreme right when they demand an end to the failing sanctions regime, but the politicians of the Christian Democratic Union can institute harsher policies toward unemployed people but face no accusations for echoing fascist demands.

Wagenknecht hit out at Green Party foreign minister Annalena Baerbock and CDU leader Friedrich Merz—who have all been enthusiastic in their support for the war—as well as critics in her own party.

“The answer to the ‘America First’ policy of Baerbock, Merz & Co, is not ‘Deutschland Über Alles’ (‘Germany over all,’ Germany’s Nazi-era anthem)—any more than we can support Russian nationalists just because we hate fascists in Ukraine,” she said, in a swipe at the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which her Die Linke critics accused her of assisting because it also backs an end to sanctions.

Entering the debate on whether the left should mobilize for social protests against the government when the far right was also doing so, she said:

We must not leave a day of the week or a good argument to the right. Anyone who gives up correct and popular positions just because some of them are also represented by the AfD has already lost the fight before it even started.

This article features material from Morning Star and Junge Welt.


https://mronline.org/2022/09/17/sahra-w ... bundestag/
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:31 am

"Legitimate Goals"
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/19/2022

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On Friday, by methods that can be described as terrorists, the Attorney General of the Republic, Sergey Gorenko, and the Deputy Prosecutor, Ekaterina Steglenko, both natives of the region, with experience of working in Ukrainian official structures, were assassinated in the city of Lugansk. until 2014 and in their positions for several years. Gorenko and Steglenko have become part of a growing list of public officials from the People's Republics or Russian-controlled Ukrainian territories killed by workplace bombing, poisoning, shooting as a mafia execution or the favorite method of US proxy wars, the car bomb, so widely used in Afghanistan in the 1980s by some of the groups most generously financed by Washington and its allies.

In its attacks from the rear, whether it is the sabotage of military bases in Crimea or the cold-blooded murder of people who collaborate with the current authorities, Ukraine moves trying to balance several contradictory positions: the mockery of affirming that Russian soldiers “ they smoke” in strange places, claiming successes and blaming the opponent. All of them have in common the normalization of selective assassination and the subversive activities of groups probably directly linked to the Ukrainian secret services, but also that none of them imply any criticism on the part of Ukraine's partners or the press of the countries that they generously currently finance Ukrainian military operations.

Coinciding with the attack on the RPL Prosecutor's Office in the center of Lugansk, also on Friday, civil authorities in two cities under Russian control on Ukrainian territory were attacked: Berdyansk, in the Zaporozhie region, on the Azov Sea coast, and the city of Kherson. In Berdyansk, the newly appointed deputy mayor, Oleg Boyko, in charge of the electoral commission in anticipation of a referendum on possible Russian annexation, and his wife were assassinated. Boyko is not the first officer assassinated - Ukraine has a special interest in doing everything possible to sabotage the organization of any participatory process -, nor is his partner the first "collateral victim" of the selective assassinations that have proliferated since the past. March.

Also on Friday, but this time by artillery, the civil-military administration of the Kherson region was attacked. Ukraine thus puts in the spotlight all those people who have collaborated or collaborate with local authorities. And if kyiv promises teachers or people who collaborate in the delivery of humanitarian aid - two aspects such as education and survival, essential for the development of a minimally dignified life in any territory - sentences for "collaboration" or for war crimes, it has a special treatment for the civil authorities for which it does not even need to recover the territory.

While Ukraine is now trying to pass off the Izium burials as proof of genocide and torture - perfectly demarcated in individual graves marked by crosses where Russian troops buried Ukrainian soldiers abandoned by their authorities or civilians killed in the artillery attacks - continues its campaign of trying to eliminate one by one anyone who collaborates with Russian administrations. "Military objectives, nothing more," explained Mijailo Podoliak calmly to justify both the attack on the Kherson administration and the murder of Boyko and his partner. The advisor to the Office of the President insisted on Friday that Berdyansk or Kherson are legitimate military targets for Ukraine.

It also seems to be the center of Donetsk, a city that Ukrainian troops have been indiscriminately bombing since May 29. On Saturday, the Ukrainian artillery, according to the DPR with the use of Western weapons, shelled Lenin Square, the nerve center of the most important city of Donbass. A civilian vehicle that was traveling on one of the adjacent streets was burned by the impact in an attack that cost the lives of four civilians. The DPR yesterday denounced the death of nine civilians in Ukrainian attacks against the Republic, a trickle of death and destruction that causes little attention in an international press willing to accept without critical questioning the Ukrainian version of events. On Sunday, five civilians were killed in a shelling in an area of ​​single-family homes on the outskirts of Gorlovka.

Despite having justified the Ukrainian attack on Kherson as a legitimate and normal military objective, Mijailo Podoliak yesterday defined what happened in the center of the city as “one more manifestation of the growing tension between mercenaries, Kadyrov militants, Russian troops and the FSB. The number of internal conflicts is increasing. The parties divide the looting before fleeing taking into account the news of the approach of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”.

After eight years of accusing Russian forces of shelling DPR and LPR cities, the Ukrainian authorities continue to successfully use the strategy of blaming the opponent for their actions. A form of conscious and planned action useful both to blame Russia for the Ukrainian artillery shelling -whether in Donetsk, Kherson, the Elenovka prison or the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant- and for targeted assassinations. “The elimination of the so-called attorney general of the RPL and his second must be considered as an example of local organized criminal groups that have not received their share of the properties looted before the large-scale flight. Or the purge of the Russian Federation of witnesses to war crimes. Investigation will show…”

A legitimate Ukrainian attack can quickly turn into an infighting over non-existent loot between parties not even on that front line, and a targeted assassination can be an internal dispute over official action to eliminate witnesses. With eight years of experience in hate speech and the invaluable collaboration of a press that has never bothered to correctly report on the war in Donbass, Ukraine does not even need to maintain a minimally coherent discourse.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/19/objet ... more-25532

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Washington Throws Kiev Under the Turkish Bus
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 16, 2022
Vladimir Platov

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Although Turkey continues to be economically, politically and militarily dependent on the US and NATO, it is also moving further and further away from being an unquestioning supporter of Washington. And there are many reasons for this, which showed Erdoğan the collapse of the once monolithic “Pax Americana” system. Wherever Turkey sees a prospect for its expansion, it is confronted with “strategic interests” of the US, which is “slapping Erdoğan on the wrist,” seeking to limit Ankara’s actions and influence, and by doing so to increase its own. Erdoğan, now a problematic ally, underhanded and adventurous, ready to act against the interests of Washington and Europe, which have blatantly abandoned Turkey in the antechamber of the European Union, has recently become the target of criticism and attacks from the current US political elite. To counter Ankara, Washington has been increasingly involving its vassals, stirring up in particular the anti-Turkish conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean through Greece and France and thus trying to “reason with the free-thinking Erdoğan.”

But one of the most active instruments of opposition to the Turkish leader’s policies in the hands of the US in recent days has been the Kiev regime, ready to commit any grave sin at the whim of the White House, be it is selling off what is left of Ukraine for next to nothing, or the well-known failure of the recent bloody adventure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Kherson that killed 3,500 Ukrainian soldiers. The “cherry on top” of recent Ukrainian adventures has been the development of restrictions against the Turkish business community amid Ankara’s decision not to join the sanctions against Russia.

In fact, the Turkish newspaper Aydinlik has recently confirmed that this action was directly designed by Washington as another attempt to force Erdogan to be more obedient to US anti-Russian actions. The newspaper told its readers that it was the US that first sent threatening letters to members of the Turkish business community, warning them, in breach of diplomatic rules and international law, of imposing restrictive measures and publicly campaigning to this end. Two major Turkish business associations have even been warned by US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo that if Turkish companies do business with Russia, they could face sanctions. Similar threats and calls for sanctions then appeared on the “War and Sanctions” website with the domain name gov.ua, referring to Ukrainian state agencies. In particular, a list of executives of Turkish financial institutions was published, with photos and personal details, as well as calls for the global community to impose sanctions on them. Specifically, against the heads of Ziraat Bankasi, İş Bank and Credit Europe Bank and several other members of the Turkish business community. The publication of a blacklist of executives of major Turkish banks, who are reproached for their cooperation with Russia, has been carried out on a portal that operates under the auspices of Ukrainian official institutions – the Foreign Ministry and the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC). More than two hundred NAPC analysts are responsible for selecting names for publication on this portal, informing foreign governments and citizens about the sanctions already imposed by Ukraine and thus engaging the public in a global campaign to expand the sanctions lists. The portal, meanwhile, demands that blacklisted individuals and institutions publicly condemn Kremlin policies, stop paying taxes in Russia and transfer a significant portion of their personal wealth to the Ukraine Reconstruction Fund.

Turkish businesspeople and ordinary citizens have already reacted rather harshly to such actions by Kiev, stressing that this is, to put it mildly, not the smartest course of action, since Turkey has been actively helping Ukraine in recent months. In particular, the issue raised by Kiev regarding the export of Ukrainian grain was resolved through direct mediation by Ankara. Turkey, moreover, is today not only an important political partner but also an economic one, supplying Ukraine with drones and announcing its intention to start building them on Ukrainian soil. “In the circumstances,” stressed former Ankara representative to the European Union, Uluç Özülker, “calling for sanctions against Turkish organizations and businessmen is not the smartest thing for Ukraine to do. It would be madness for Ukraine to do such a thing. Ukraine needs Turkey.”

Ankara has already called the situation unacceptable and through official channels conveyed its strong reaction to Ukraine, demanding an explanation from Kiev. Turkish citizens have urged their authorities to respond harshly to Kiev’s outbursts against Turkish banks and businessmen who have refused to support anti-Russian sanctions, calling for an end to all assistance to Kiev and to cancel arms supplies for Ukraine.

Washington’s choice of Ukraine to strike Erdoğan again was not accidental, as Kiev has long expressed dissatisfaction with close cooperation between Ankara and Moscow, viewing such behavior by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as treasonous. Yet when Turkey and Russia cooperated to make a successful grain deal, which Kiev badly needed, Ukraine presented it to the world as if Russia had been “forced” to sign the agreement.

Turkey has famously refused to sanction against Russia, the only NATO member to do so. Robert Menendez, chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, even called Turkey one of the most serious threats to the modern world order in this regard, equating the “Turkish threat” to those posed by Russia, China and climate change.

Ankara, from the very start of Moscow’s special military operation, has remained politically neutral, guided primarily by its economic and political interests. It has therefore developed a partnership with both Moscow and Kiev, while showing a willingness to host peace talks.

Turkish newspaper En Son Haber recently reported that President Erdoğan publicly sided with Russia for the first time in the Ukrainian conflict, choosing Belgrade, Moscow’s ally, as the stage for his statement.

If Turkey and Ukraine’s diplomatic relations deteriorate as a result of this conflict, Kiev will be the first to feel the consequences, as the grain deal will be jeopardized. After all, Ankara can both diplomatically and technically stall grain shipments passing through the Bosporus. The supply of Bayraktar drones to Kiev could also become a problem, as could the implementation of plans to build a drone manufacturing plant in Ukraine in general. This scandal could also bury an earlier agreement on Turkey’s possible involvement in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure, as well as the inclusion of Turkey in the list of countries guaranteeing Ukraine’s future security, as Zelensky recently announced.

However, it appears that the emergence of these possible problems is of no concern to the Kiev regime, which continues its mindless policy of outright Nazi agony.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... rkish-bus/

Ukraine War, Divided Left: “Social Patriots” and the “Anti-Imperialism of Fools”!
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 17, 2022
Charles Pierce

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Two Anti-war rallies, two very different messages.

Since Russia’s military operation commenced on February 24, the socialist left has been divided in its response to the armed conflict in Ukraine.

On one side are those who align with the U.S., NATO and the Ukrainian state in denouncing Russia as the principal villain. In opposition are those who view the conflict as the outcome of the West’s new cold war against Russia, and the post-coup regime in Ukraine as a willing pawn of the West (U.S. and its geopolitical allies) in that new cold war.

There are also some groups who condemn both: Russia for its February 24 military action, and the U.S. and NATO for their provocations against Russia’s national security concerns. Many of the left’s published commentaries repeat invalid assumptions, evade crucial issues, and/or misrepresent the realities of the conflict.

Divided left. There being differing political perspectives on the left is nothing new. For example, during the Vietnam War some avowed socialists (actually liberals) initially supported the U.S. policy in Vietnam from a number of rationales.

Those rationales included: acceptance of the pretext that U.S. foreign policy was about defending the “free world” for the sake of “democracy”; unswerving opposition to Communism as an existential enemy of liberal freedoms; and being blind or indifferent to the racist realities of Western imperialism. As the war dragged on with no end in sight and as a large popular anti-war movement emerged, those pro-war “socialists” either switched over to the anti-war side or became discredited.

Finally, realists in the foreign policy establishment and national politics, realizing that the War was undermining U.S. influence around the world, switched over to the anti-war side (thereby dividing the ruling class). At that point, the anti-war forces were strong enough to force an end to U.S. continuation in that War. Defeat in Vietnam was a setback for U.S. imperialism, but only a temporary and limited one. It did not end U.S. imperial interventionism or divisions within the “socialist” left.

In speaking about the current Ukraine War, every group branding itself as “socialist” claims to be “anti-imperialist.” However, they differ as to which imperialism to oppose in the current conflict: Russia, the U.S. and NATO, or both.

With the conflict portrayed (by the bipartisan political establishment and the liberal mainstream news media) as having begun with an “imperial” Russia threatening and then invading an “independent” “democratic” Ukraine, and with images of Ukrainian suffering and heroic resistance in one-sided daily news broadcasts, it is all too easy to endorse the establishment narrative.

Meanwhile, any socialist who disputes that narrative must expect to be dismissed and/or denounced by those “anti-imperialists” who put all blame upon Russia. In fact, many leftist online publications have been publishing such dismissive, condescending, and/or denunciatory commentaries by Russia-blaming “socialists.” A few of the more erudite examples:

Bill Fletcher, Jr., Bill Gallegos & Jamala Rogers [F&G&R]. “When Should We Stop Excusing the Russian Invasion?” New Politics, May 11, 2022. (Republished by Portside and by LeftLinks – CCDS.)
Taras Bilous, [TB]. “Self-Determination and the War in Ukraine,” Dissent, May 9, 2022. (Republished by Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal and by Portside.)
Van Gosse & Bill Fletcher, Jr. [G&F]. “Whose Side Are We On? The War in Ukraine and the Crisis of the Left,” Portside, April 19, 2022.
F&G&R are longtime left activists. Bill Fletcher, Jr., has held leadership positions in Black liberation, anti-war, and organized labor, and is a current leader in DSA. Bill Gallegos has held leadership positions in Chicano liberation and revolutionary socialism, and is a longtime leader in Liberation Road. Jamala Rogers has been a leader in Black liberation, revolutionary socialism, and Liberation Road.

Fletcher and Gallegos have histories working within the Democratic Party. Van Gosse is: university professor of history, a member of DSA and of CC-DS, and also works within the Democratic Party. Taras Bilous, a historian, is a leading member of Social Movement organization, a liberal “socialist” organization in Ukraine.

This critique neither approves nor condemns Russia’s action. Its essential purpose is to refute the misinformation and misconceptions that have proliferated (especially those from the anti-Russia pro-Kyiv left) in U.S. leftist commentaries.

Consequently, it takes issue with arguments propagated by those leftists who have evaded, or failed to ascertain, the relevant facts and context of the event. In fact, the anti-Russia left (like the mainstream liberal news media) has joined the U.S. and its NATO allies in purveying falsehoods which portray the Kyiv regime as an innocent victim of unjustified or even “unprovoked” Russian aggression.

Unprovoked? Some of the ignored facts.

U.S.-NATO:

The U.S. and NATO violated their promise that NATO would not expand into Central and Eastern Europe, promise given in 1990 in order to obtain needed Soviet consent for the reunification of Germany.
The U.S. placed nuclear-capable missiles (capable of quickly striking Moscow and other Russian targets) in Poland and Romania (planned from 2008, installed in 2018). Not a provocation? Do we remember how the U.S. pushed the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse when the USSR placed such missiles in Cuba after the U.S. had placed similar missiles in Turkey?
NATO has repeatedly conducted war games, practicing for war against Russia, in the Baltic states on Russia’s border.
The U.S. and NATO consistently responded to the past 25 years of Russian protests (against the foregoing NATO threats to Russian national security) with an arrogant intransigence. Continued diplomacy was clearly not a viable means for obtaining redress.
The U.S., especially thru its National Endowment for Democracy (NED), has been funding and training anti-Russia pro-West political organizations in Ukraine (also in Belarus and other former Soviet states) since the collapse of the USSR. It funds and trains pro-Western media and civil society organizations in scores of countries (which have also included Russia). Congress created the NED in 1983 to replace the CIA as the principal U.S. agency for surreptitiously promoting regime change in countries (including liberal democracies) which refuse to comply with U.S. dictates.
The U.S. incited and abetted the 2014 coup which, spearheaded by violent neo-Nazi militias, ousted the democratically elected government of Ukraine. Why? Because said government had chosen to keep Ukraine neutral between Russia and the West. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the U.S. choice to lead Ukraine, then became Prime Minister.
The post-coup regime (far from innocent) has consistently pursued anti-Russia policies:

revoking a 2012 law providing language rights for minorities, plus new legislation restricting the use of the Russian language (the first language of 30% of Ukrainians);
outlawing and repressing Communists (under its 2015 de-communization law) and every other political party deemed to be in opposition to its anti-Russia policies;
giving impunity to neo-Nazi militias when they have terrorized Russian, Roma and other national minorities;
lauding, as national heroes, wartime collaborators with Nazi Germany and participants in its genocidal crimes;
refusing to implement its promise (in the 2014 and 2015 Minsk accords) of autonomy for the Donbas regions which had resisted the 2014 coup and rebelled in response to regime attempts to crush that resistance by means of repressive armed force;
refusing to respect the will of the people of Crimea to reunite with Russia; and
pursuing membership in the anti-Russia NATO military alliance.
The U.S. had been arming and training Ukrainian military forces, including the neo-Nazi Azov regiment, for military operations against the Donbas rebels. These military operations resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and millions displaced and many others forced to live for years underground for protection.

There clearly was a lot of provocation: by the U.S., by NATO, and by the post-coup regime in Ukraine. Moreover, but for those provocations, this war would not have occurred.

The belligerents and their objectives. To reduce this war to a case of evil Putin-Russia preying upon innocent Ukraine is simplistic delusion. The current conflict (certainly since the 2014 coup) was never simply between Russia and Ukraine.

And now, the U.S. and NATO, with their economic siege (draconian sanctions) against Russia and their supplying of huge amounts of advanced weaponry to the Kyiv state, are very much belligerents even though not putting their own soldiers into the fight.

The belligerents’ objectives:

The U.S.-NATO objective (since before the 2014 coup) has been: to turn Ukraine into a client state of the West; to weaken Russia; to strip it of its limited sphere of influence; and to effectuate a regime change to replace Putin with someone who will be submissive to Western imperial dictates.
The post-coup Kyiv regime, prompted by the U.S. and dominated by chauvinistic Ukrainian nationalists (including neo-Nazis), has consistently pursued anti-Russian policies and sought: to make Ukrainian language and national identity dominant throughout the country; to marginalize or Ukrainianize national minorities; to eliminate Russian influence; to impose its absolute rule over predominantly minority regions seeking autonomy or independence; and to integrate Ukraine into the West both economically and militarily.
Russia’s objective, contrary to assertions by anti-Russia “socialists” [F&G&R], has never been to eliminate Ukraine’s existence as a separate independent country. Russia has been striving: to prevent the presence of hostile military bases (including nuclear-capable missiles) in neighboring Ukraine; to uphold the decision of the people of Crimea to reunite with Russia (along with ensuring Russia’s continued control of its Crimean naval base); and to protect the rights of the predominantly ethnic Russian population in Donbas (which as part of Ukraine would also serve as an obstacle to Ukraine’s joining any anti-Russia alliance).
International law? The U.S.-NATO-Kyiv-aligned part of the “socialist” left attributes this War (as in the words of F&G&R) to Russia committing violations of “international law” and of “the right of nations to self-determination” with “invasion of a sovereign nation.” This oversimplifies and worse.

Firstly, it evades the fact that the Kyiv regime, with U.S. encouragement and deliveries of ever-more-lethal arms, remained intransigent in response to appeals by Russia and the breakaway Donbas Republics to resolve the Donbas conflict peacefully.

Kyiv was refusing to even talk to the leaders of said Republics and was evidently intent upon crushing them through brute military force. Moreover, it was the coup regime in Kyiv which first resorted to violence when (in 2014) it sent newly formed armed forces, including neo-Nazi militias, to crush resistance to said coup (the regular army then lacking sufficient motivation for doing so).

Russia insists that its military action against Ukraine is, in part, a response to Kyiv’s aggression in Donbas and, in fact, it was the Kyiv regime which first resorted to armed force.

Thusly, Russia makes its case that its military action in Donbas was a justified response to Kyiv’s continued military aggression against the breakaway Donbas Republics, and therefore allowed under the UN Charter.

As for Russia’s invasion of the rest of Ukraine, Putin regards Kyiv’s collaboration with NATO’s increasing moves to threaten Russian national security as providing justification. Although one may question the validity of one or both of those rationales, it is not a clear-cut case of Kyiv-NATO all right versus Russia all wrong.

Secondly, in their legalistic diatribes against Russia, the U.S.-NATO-aligned leftists either: (1) make unfair comparisons (specifically to the U.S.-British 2003 invasion of Iraq which was, in fact, purely an imperial regime-change war “justified” by nothing other than an absolute lie); and/or (2) evade the enormity of the history of repeated and massive violations of the UN Charter and of international law whenever said law has stood in the way of the unjust aggressions by their own imperialist states.

Those aggressions include:

arming violent reactionary insurgencies (such as the Mujahidin in Afghanistan and the Contras in Nicaragua) in resistant countries;
murderous economic sieges (Cuba, Iraq, Venezuela, Iran, …);
threatening war games (Baltic states, South Korea);
inciting and abetting coups, even against democratically elected governments (Syria in 1949, Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973, and dozens more);
assassinations and attempts (Lumumba, Castro, Qasim, Allende, Gaddafi, …);
interference in many other countries’ elections (beginning with Italy in 1948);
devastating murderous military interventions on the side of repressive reactionary regimes in other countries’ civil wars (Greece, China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Colombia, …);
arming and shielding states which perpetrate massive crimes against human rights (the Zionist state, Saudi Arabia, …);
regime-change military invasions (Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Libya, …).

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Many of those racist imperial interventions (scores of them since 1945) have left many tens of millions impoverished, terrorized, displaced, injured, or dead.
Finally, none of those victims of Western imperial violations of international law was able to have it enforced against their oppressors. In fact, the U.S. and its major allies routinely violate the UN Charter and international law and, given the lack of any authority with the power to enforce said law against them, they (its major violators) are never held accountable.

Nevertheless, our anti-Russia “socialists” are now repeating the U.S.-NATO one-sided application and misapplication of international law in order to justify their backing for the West’s intervention against Russia.

They may argue that U.S. crimes are a separate case and therefore irrelevant. The fallacy in that argument is that the U.S. and NATO have been anti-Russia participants in this armed conflict ever since the 2014 coup.

Consequently, our U.S.-NATO apologists are, in effect, calling for the worst outlaw in a lawless world to enforce the law against a lesser alleged offender notwithstanding that said enforcer is itself a perpetrator acting in furtherance of its own criminal objectives. This is not support for law enforcement; it is giving de facto assistance to the worst criminal gang in the world.

“Imperial Russia”? G&F describe Russia as an “imperialist great power.” TB calls Russia “imperialist” and “fascist.” F&G&R accuse Russia of “aggression” as an “imperialist power” motivated by “revanchism.”

Thusly, our anti-Russia leftists make much of Putin’s Russia as an “autocratic,” “anti-democratic” “imperialist” state. While Russia’s economy has improved dramatically under Putin from the era of Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999), certainly, there is much to fault in Russia’s domestic policies (crony capitalism, favoritism for the Russian Orthodox Church, inaction on climate change, restrictive labor laws, rigging of elections).

There may even be valid criticisms for some aspects of Russia’s actions in Donbas and/or Crimea and/or elsewhere. Nevertheless, Russia’s efforts to preserve its limited sphere of influence are essentially defensive. Moreover, Russia (with military spending less than 1/17 that of NATO member countries collectively and with one military base outside of former Soviet countries) pales into insignificance when compared with Western imperialism which: maintains hundreds of military bases around the world; attempts to impose its will upon nearly every other country; exploits and oppresses people around the world; and is led and dominated by the world’s only current superpower.

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Finally, Russia’s grievances against U.S.-NATO imperialism and against the post-coup regime in Ukraine are real and valid. Making an issue of Russia’s deficiencies, while evading that reality, is simply a convenient pretext embraced by those in need of an excuse for aligning with Biden, Stoltenberg and the Kyiv regime against Putin’s Russia.

“Democratic” Ukraine? Apologists for the Kyiv regime propose that Ukraine deserves support against “autocratic” Russia because it is (they assert) a “democracy.” F&G&R describe Ukraine as striving for “democracy” and TB describes it as an imperfect “democracy worth defending.”

They omit and evade numerous contrary facts:

that the current regime was established thru the U.S.-backed 2014 coup against an actually popularly elected government;
that Zelensky’s initial popularity rested largely upon his promise (broken soon after he took office) to make peace with the breakaway Donbas Republics;
that (in 2021) the leading opposition party (which was then beginning to outpoll Zelensky’s party) was suspended and its leader (Viktor Medvedchuk) placed under house arrest and subsequently charged with treason; and
that voices of opposition to Kyiv’s anti-Russia policies have been routinely repressed by the post-coup regime. In fact, many have been kidnapped and tortured and murdered by the state security forces, trained by the CIA in a Phoenix-style operation reminiscent of Vietnam.
While human rights abuses (some of them probably fabricated) alleged against Russian soldiers are expansively reported by Western states and their supportive mainstream news media, the Kyiv state’s reign of terror, with torture and murder of dissenting Ukrainians and of captive Russian soldiers, goes entirely unreported in said news media. In fact, the Kyiv state has long been far more repressive and anti-democratic than Putin’s Russia.

The national question? Some Russia-blaming “Marxists” concoct an issue of Russia allegedly violating the Leninist principle that nations (including Ukraine) have the right to self-determination and separate existence as an independent nation-state.

Even though Putin expressed disagreement with Lenin’s nationalities policy, the assumption and assertion (by F&G&R), that Putin has denied Ukraine’s present-day national legitimacy or sought to eliminate its existence as a separate and independent country, is an absolute falsehood.

What he actually said was that Russia and Ukraine, like Germany and Austria, have common ancestral and cultural roots and ought to have friendly relations. He definitively acknowledged that “historical circumstances” had resulted in Ukraine being “a separate nation” and that—as to “How should we treat that?”—there is only one answer: with respect! Substituting false imaginary extensions of Putin’s sentimentalities for his actual deeds and evident intentions, in order to justify siding with Western imperialism, is simply deceitful.

Here are the relevant facts.

Firstly, Putin has clearly acknowledged the impossibility of resurrecting the Soviet Union. He has evidenced no intent to deprive Ukraine of its existence as a separate independent country, but only to prevent it from becoming a threat to Russian national security.

He persisted for nearly eight years in seeking Ukraine’s implementation of autonomy within Ukraine for the Donbas regions (as Kyiv had agreed to do in the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements) even though much popular sentiment in said regions was for unification with Russia. In fact, the UN Security Council, including the U.S., had unanimously endorsed the Minsk Agreement in 2015.

Nothing that Russia did prevented Kyiv from implementing the promised autonomy. Moreover, the U.S. actually encouraged Kyiv in its refusal to implement. Those are crucial facts which the anti-Russia “socialist” commentators generally omit and always evade.

Secondly, these “Leninists” echo the U.S. and NATO by branding Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea and its assistance to the breakaway Donbas regions as “violations of the sovereign territory of Ukraine.”

So say F&G&R, who also brand the secession of Crimea as Russian “seizure of Crimea.” Meanwhile, TB embraces Kyiv’s goal (“victory”) as regaining absolute rule over Donbas and Crimea.

Those assertions depend upon a gross oversimplification and misapplication of the national question as applied here. These “Leninists” join the U.S. and NATO in insisting upon the “right” of ethnic Ukrainians to exercise absolute sovereignty over the entire ethnically diverse territory of an independent country separate from Russia; but (contrary to Lenin) they deny the self-determination rights of national minority populations to even have autonomy within regions wherein they predominate.

Moreover, some of these “Leninists,” notably F&G&R, try to justify their one-sided application of national rights by questioning whether the peoples of Crimea and Donbas ever actually chose independence from, or autonomy within, Ukraine. They have evidently rushed to judgment without bothering to ascertain the relevant factual evidence:

1954. Khrushchev orchestrated the decision (of dubious legality) to transfer Crimea from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian SSR without the consent or approval of the people of Crimea.
1991. At the breakup of the USSR, Crimea’s elected leaders attempted to obtain recognition of Crimea as an independent Republic separate from Ukraine.
1992. After disputes between Kyiv and Crimea over the scope of Crimea’s autonomy, Kyiv agreed to a compromise recognition of Crimea as an Autonomous Republic within Ukraine.
1995. Kyiv abolished the Constitution of Crimea, abolished its office of President, made the elected Crimean parliament’s choice of its Prime Minister subject to veto by Kyiv, and imposed other severe limits upon its authority (largely negating its autonomy).
2008. Polling by the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Studies (not an agent of Moscow) found that 64% of Crimeans would like Crimea to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
2009-11. The United Nations Development Program (not an agent of Moscow) conducted periodic opinion polls in Crimea. Each time, at least 65% of Crimeans favored Crimea leaving Ukraine and reuniting with Russia.
Crimea’s break with Ukraine was a direct popular response to the US-backed 2014 coup in Kyiv (Crimea having voted overwhelmingly for the ousted government). The assertion that Crimea’s reunification with Russia was effectuated by a Russian “invasion” is another falsehood. Although Russia’s authorized military forces already based in Crimea assisted local forces in effectuating the independence referendum and the subsequent secession and reunification with Russia, those actions were welcomed by a huge majority of Crimeans, they being already so inclined. Moreover, given the history of past denials of their self-determination rights by both Moscow (1954) and Kyiv (after breakup of the USSR), the people of Crimea had more than ample justification for seceding and reuniting with Russia. Lenin, insisting that socialists are “the most consistent enemies of oppression,” would have agreed.
Our anti-Russia “Leninists” have joined the U.S., NATO, and Kyiv in insisting upon national rights for Ukrainian nationalists but denying such rights for the peoples of Crimea and Donbas. They sanctify “territorial integrity” and “sovereignty” but, contrary to Lenin, they negate the fight against oppression and injustice.

Trap? Some anti-imperialist analysts believe that the U.S., with its intransigence regarding Russian security concerns, deliberately set a trap for Russia; and there is precedent for that proposition. Jimmy Carter (beginning in 1979) armed the reactionary Mujahidin insurgency against the Soviet-allied revolutionary government in Afghanistan: in order to provoke Soviet military intervention in defense of that government, and (as his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has stated) to draw the USSR into a Vietnam-like quagmire.

A 2019 report titled “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia,” by the U.S. military-funded think tank Rand Corporation, proposed that the U.S. goal should be “to undermine Russia just as it did the Soviet Union in the cold war.”

Until there is access to the internal communications of Biden’s national security team, we cannot say with certainty that they intended to trap Russia into a self-destructive war in Ukraine. However, there was apparent advocacy for that policy within the U.S. foreign-policy establishment; with the U.S. encouraging Kyiv intransigence in peace talks, that clearly is the current U.S. policy objective.

As for our anti-Russia “socialists,” they refuse to even acknowledge the clear fact that the U.S. and NATO were acting to isolate and weaken Russia. Why? Because, with their distaste for Putin’s Russia, these “socialists” evidently share that objective.

Domestic politics. Socialists, whatever their views of the war in Ukraine, are rightly concerned about the rise of bigoted reactionary political factions in the U.S. and many other countries.

In the U.S., many liberal-reformist “socialists” habitually respond to Republican reaction by giving their allegiance to the Democrats despite the latter’s long-standing betrayal of their working-class electoral base. Moreover, virtually every Democratic Party politician at the national level supports U.S. imperialist hegemony over the world and the consequent imperial crimes in U.S. foreign policies.

Liberal “socialists,” with their commitment to the Democrats, can then give only lip-service to anti-imperialism. So, when Democrats are in control, such “socialists” generally do nothing to organize popular opposition to U.S. imperial crimes against peoples in foreign lands. In fact, they even become willfully blind to some of those crimes (as in the case of Ukraine).

The correct policy for socialists is to tactically ally with Democratic Party politicians when they actually fight for social justice. However, it is necessary at the same time to educate the people as to the perfidy and betrayals of social justice by Democrats.

Failure to so educate is to tail after the agents of capital and to perpetuate existing ignorance and prejudices within the populace. We need to build a social-justice solidarity movement, not a constituency committed to the Democratic Party. Hence: temporary limited tactical alliances, yes; allegiance, no.

Pro-war “socialists.” While the U.S. and NATO send ever increased and ever more lethal weapons which serve to prolong the horrors of this war, it is Ukrainian and Russian (not NATO-country) fighters and civilians who suffer and die.

Regardless of who prevails, both Russia and Ukraine will have paid a huge price. Meanwhile, transnational capital, especially in the arms industry and fossil fuel companies, will reap increased profits.

Yet, our anti-Russia “socialists” advocate sending western arms to Ukraine and draconian sanctions against Russia. Thusly, they give their support to the West’s new cold war (now hot) in Europe.

[Note: Socialists have appropriately given critical support for U.S. foreign military operations in those exceptional cases where it (for its own self-serving reasons) was an ally in just war against an oppressor enemy. The Ukraine War is clearly not such an exception.]

Principal contradiction. Portside (an avowedly “leftist” online publication) published a solidly anti-imperialist analysis of the Ukraine war by the U.S. Peace Council [USPC], subsequently indicating that it did so in order to present an alternative viewpoint with which Portside did not agree. Shortly thereafter, Portside published 11 comments in response to the USPC statement, all but one opposing the USPC analysis, several in very denunciatory terms.

Two of those joined a number of other anti-Russia leftist commentators in denouncing the anti-imperialist analysis as the “anti-imperialism of fools” or “idiots.” A third, avowed U.S. “Marxist” Carl Davidson (a former leader of the Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] and in revolutionary organizations, later and currently active within the Democratic Party, and currently in leadership in CC-DS), commented that the “principal contradiction” in this conflict is “the Russian invasion of a sovereign nation and Ukraine’s defense of their sovereignty.”

Evidently, anti-Russia “socialists,” that one among others, have decided that the contradiction, between Western imperialism and its worldwide numerous targets (Russia, China, Iran, Syria, DPRK, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, …) for containment, subjugation, and/or regime change, is no longer paramount.

Being in sync with the U.S. and NATO in this Ukraine conflict, they have devolved into social patriots. The term originates with the leaders of the socialist parties in the major belligerents who (in 1914) concocted pretexts to justify backing their respective imperial governments on both sides in the Great War (after having neglected for years to educate their members with respect to imperialism). Our present-day social patriots, obsessing over the need to prevent election victories by Trump bigots, apparently go along, consciously or unconsciously, with the imperialist liberals for the sake of political respectability and popular influence at the expense of principle.

Given their past contributions in fights for social justice, we can only hope that they, unlike their 1914 predecessors, will recognize and correct their error.

Our current task

We may consider Russia’s military response in Ukraine to be an inappropriate excess or imprudent or both, and we may fault Russian methods in its military operations; but, while we may state our disapproving opinions, we have no capacity to influence Russia’s decisions.

Our job, as anti-imperialist social-justice activists in the West, is to condemn and vigorously oppose U.S.-NATO imperialism (including arms to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia).

We must expose the falsehoods in the Russophobe war propaganda, and we must persist in supporting the fight against that real enemy. That is our obligation even though we will be defamed by some avowed “socialists” as “Putin apologists,” “fools” and “idiots.”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... -of-fools/

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The Kharkov Game-Changer
SEPTEMBER 17, 2022

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A view of the destroyed village of Moshchun, Kiev region, Ukraine, May 19, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Leonardo Benassatto.

By Pepe Escobar – Sep 13, 2022

Wars are not won by psyops. Ask Nazi Germany. Still, it’s been a howler to watch NATOstan media on Kharkov, gloating in unison about “the hammer blow that knocks out Putin,” “the Russians are in trouble,” and assorted inanities.

Facts: Russian forces withdrew from the territory of Kharkov to the left bank of the Oskol river, where they are now entrenched. A Kharkov-Donetsk-Lugansk line seems to be stable. Krasny Liman is threatened, besieged by superior Ukrainian forces, but not lethally.

No one—not even Maria Zakharova, the contemporary female equivalent of Hermes, the messenger of the Gods—knows what the Russian General Staff (RGS) plans, in this case and all others. If they say they do, they are lying.

As it stands, what may be inferred with a reasonable degree of certainty is that a line—Svyatogorsk-Krasny Liman-Yampol-Belogorovka—can hold out long enough with their current garrisons until fresh Russian forces are able to swoop in and force the Ukrainians back beyond the Seversky Donets line.

All hell broke loose—virtually—on why Kharkov happened. The people’s republics and Russia never had enough men to defend a 1,000 km-long frontline. NATO’s entire intel capabilities noticed—and profited from it.

There were no Russian Armed Forces in those settlements: only Rosgvardia, and these are not trained to fight military forces. Kiev attacked with an advantage of around 5 to 1. The allied forces retreated to avoid encirclement. There are no Russian troop losses because there were no Russian troops in the region.

Arguably this may have been a one-off. The NATO-run Kiev forces simply can’t do a replay anywhere in Donbass, or in Kherson, or in Mariupol. These are all protected by strong, regular Russian Army units.

It’s practically a given that if the Ukrainians remain around Kharkov and Izyum they will be pulverized by massive Russian artillery. Military analyst Konstantin Sivkov maintains that, “most combat-ready formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are now being grounded… we managed to lure them into the open and are now systematically destroying them.”

The NATO-run Ukrainian forces, crammed with NATO mercenaries, had spent 6 months hoarding equipment and reserving trained assets exactly for this Kharkov moment—while dispatching disposables into a massive meat grinder. It will be very hard to sustain an assembly line of substantial prime assets to pull off something similar again.

The next days will show whether Kharkov and Izyum are connected to a much larger NATO push. The mood in NATO-controlled EU is approaching Desperation Row. There’s a strong possibility this counter-offensive signifies NATO entering the war for good, while displaying quite tenuous plausible deniability: their veil of—fake—secrecy cannot disguise the presence of “advisers” and mercenaries all across the spectrum.

Decommunization as de-energization

The Special Military Operation (SMO), conceptually, is not about conquering territory per se: it is, or it was, so far, about protection of Russophone citizens in occupied territories, thus demilitarization cum denazification.

That concept may be about to be tweaked. And that’s where the tortuous, tricky debate on Russia mobilization fits in. Yet even a partial mobilization may not be necessary: what’s needed are reserves to properly allow allied forces to cover rear/defensive lines. Hardcore fighters of the Kadyrov contingent kind would continue to play offense.

It’s undeniable that Russian troops lost a strategically important node in Izyum. Without it, the complete liberation of Donbass becomes significantly harder.

Yet for the collective West, whose carcass slouches inside a vast simulacra bubble, it’s the pysops that matters much more than a minor military advance: thus all that gloating on Ukraine being able to drive the Russians out of the whole of Kharkov in only four days—while they had 6 months to liberate Donbass, and didn’t.

So, across the West, the reigning perception—frantically fomented by psyops experts—is that the Russian military were hit by that “hammer blow” and will hardly recover.

Kharkov was preciously timed—as General Winter is around the corner; the Ukraine issue was already suffering from public opinion fatigue; and the propaganda machine needed a boost to turbo-lubricate the multi-billion dollar weaponizing rat line.

Yet Kharkov may have forced Moscow’s hand to increase the pain dial. That came via a few well-placed Mr. Kinzhals leaving the Black Sea and the Caspian to present their business cards to the largest thermal power plants in northeast and central Ukraine (most of the energy infrastructure is in the southeast).

Half of Ukraine suddenly lost power and water. Trains came to a halt. If Moscow decides to take out all major Ukraine substations at once, all it takes is a few missiles to totally smash the Ukrainian energy grid—adding a new meaning to “decommunization”: de-energization.

According to an expert analysis, “if transformers of 110-330 kV are damaged, then it will almost never be possible to put it into operation… And if this happens at least at 5 substations at the same time, then everything is kaput. Stone age forever.”

Russian government official Marat Bashirov was way more colorful: “Ukraine is being plunged into the 19th century. If there is no energy system, there will be no Ukrainian army. The matter of fact is that General Volt came to the war, followed by General Moroz (frost).”

And that’s how we might be finally entering “real war” territory—as in Putin’s notorious quip that “we haven’t even started anything yet.”

A definitive response will come from the RSG in the next few days.

Once again, a fiery debate rages on what Russia will do next (the RGS, after all, is inscrutable, except for Yoda Patrushev).

The RGS may opt for a serious strategic strike of the decapitating kind elsewhere—as in changing the subject for the worse (for NATO).

It may opt for sending more troops to protect the front line (without partial mobilization).

And most of all it may enlarge the SMO mandate—going to total destruction of Ukrainian transport/energy infrastructure, from gas fields to thermal power plants, substations, and shutting down nuclear power plants.

Well, it could always be a mix of all of the above: a Russian version of Shock and Awe—generating an unprecedented socio-economic catastrophe. That has already been telegraphed by Moscow: we can revert you to the Stone Age at any time and in a matter of hours (italics mine). Your cities will greet General Winter with zero heating, freezing water, power outages and no connectivity.

A counter-terrorist operation
All eyes are on whether “centers of decision”—as in Kiev—may soon get a Kinzhal visit. This would signify Moscow has had enough. The siloviki certainly did. But we’re not there—yet. Because for an eminently diplomatic Putin the real game revolves around those gas supplies to the EU, that puny plaything of American foreign policy.

Putin is certainly aware that the internal front is under some pressure. He refuses even partial mobilization. A perfect indicator of what may happen in winter is the referenda in liberated territories. The limit date is November 4—the Day of National Unity, a commemoration introduced in 2004 to replace the celebration of the October revolution.

With the accession of these territories to Russia, any Ukrainian counter-offensive would qualify as an act of war against regions incorporated into the Russian Federation. Everyone knows what that means.

It may now be painfully obvious that when the collective West is waging war—hybrid and kinetic, with everything from massive intel to satellite data and hordes of mercenaries—against you, and you insist on conducting a hazily-defined Special Military Operation (SMO), you may be up for some nasty surprises.

So the SMO status may be about to change: it’s bound to become a counter-terrorist operation.

This is an existential war. A do or die affair. The American geopolitical /geoeconomic goal, to put it bluntly, is to destroy Russian unity, impose regime change and plunder all those immense natural resources. Ukrainians are nothing but cannon fodder: in a sort of twisted History remake, the modern equivalents of the pyramid of skulls Timur cemented into 120 towers when he razed Baghdad in 1401.

It may take a “hammer blow” for the RSG to wake up. Sooner rather than later, gloves—velvet and otherwise—will be off. Exit SMO. Enter War.

https://orinocotribune.com/the-kharkov-game-changer/

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Biden adds billions in Ukraine ‘aid,’ pushing total to $70 billion
September 14, 2022 Gary Wilson

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Zelensky will be featured at the National Defense Industrial Association conference Sept. 21. Promotion image from the NDIA Facebook.

The people of Jackson, Mississippi, have toxic sludge coming out of their kitchen faucets. In some neighborhoods, there isn’t enough water pressure to flush toilets. They’ve gotten, at most, the distracted attention of President Joe Biden.

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba says it will take $1 billion to fix the city’s water plant and another $1 billion to fix the sewer system. The Biden administration’s response? Last January, they promised to loan the state of Mississippi $459 million over 5 years for water “improvements.” (Reminder: these loans from the federal government must be paid back with interest.)

The loans go to the state, not to Jackson, a majority-Black city that has been underdeveloped for years.

With the new crisis in Jackson’s water system, nothing has come from the Biden administration.

One joker suggested that if the city of Jackson declared itself a part of Ukraine, the $2 billion check would be in the mail tomorrow.

The joke isn’t that far off.

$13.7 billion ‘slipped in’

Andrew Lautz in Responsible Statecraft reports that the Biden administration has “slipped” another $13.7 billion weapons package into a routine spending bill that Congress must pass to keep the government open past Sept. 30.

“If Congress accedes to the Biden administration’s request, then the U.S. government will have committed nearly $69 billion in taxpayer funds to Ukraine in just six short months,” the report says.

“The latest request from President Biden allocates about half of the total funding to the Department of Defense ($7.2 billion) and the other half to the Departments of State and Energy ($6.5 billion). This is in line with the first Ukraine aid package Congress passed ($13.6 billion total, which included $6.5 billion for DoD and $6.8 billion for State) and the second, much larger aid bill Congress passed ($41.6 billion total, including $20.1 billion for DoD and $19 billion for State).”

If the Biden request passes as is, then total U.S. war spending committed to Ukraine will be over $69 billion in six months. That’s more than triple what the U.S. spent in Afghanistan in the first year of the occupation. It’s more than the State Department’s budget. And it equals what Russia spent on defense in 2021, Lautz adds.

This is all new funding, not taken out of existing funds for the Pentagon, for example. That means that Biden and Congress must borrow the funds. Lautz explains: “In fact, rising interest rates mean that the interest costs alone on this $69 billion in debt could be an additional $14 billion to $15 billion over 10 years, raising the taxpayers’ total tab for Ukraine assistance to as much as $84 billion.”

The escalating billions for the U.S.-NATO proxy war on Russia have gotten not even a whisper of objection in Congress. With all the electioneering that is going on and the coming congressional elections, the only negative comment was from Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), who said it wasn’t enough.

When it comes to Congress, the sky’s the limit for the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex.

Wall Street antics

Wall Street bankers and the military-industrial complex are calling the tune. And that can be seen in the antics of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is putting in performances at the centers of power.

On Sept. 6, Zelensky rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange, which was filled with the blue and yellow Ukrainian war flag. This was the day after Labor Day, which seemed to emphasize that Zelensky had recently imposed a martial-law condition on workers in Ukraine, outlawing labor unions for 80% of the workforce, banning strikes or picket lines, and tearing up existing union contracts. Zelensky signed the law in the last week of August.

Zelensky’s vicious anti-labor laws have been compared to the anti-labor repression of Chile’s fascist Pinochet regime.

Zelensky announced at the Stock Exchange a massive $400 billion state selloff, inviting Wall Street’s imperialist capitalists to exploit Ukraine’s resources and low-paid labor.

Zelensky is following the Wall Street appearance with a show prepared for a major U.S. military-industrial conference on Sept. 21 in Austin, Texas, hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s minister of defense, is also scheduled to speak.

NDIA includes defense industry giants like Raytheon Technologies, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.

Eight defense contractors — including Raytheon, Lockheed and General Dynamics — attended an April Pentagon meeting to discuss how the U.S. could increase arms production for the Ukraine proxy war.

This should be sufficient to set the course for the anti-imperialist movement. The U.S.-NATO proxy war is being expanded. It can only be countered by organizing opposition to the imperialist war, the Wall Street bankers and the military-industrial monopolies behind it.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... 0-billion/
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Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:16 pm

NATO’s Approach to Russia’s Borders Planned Years Ago

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NATO has officially acknowledged that planning for the current expansion of the alliance's presence near Russia's borders "began several years ago," according to the head of the Alliance's Military Committee, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer. Sept. 18, 2022. | Photo: Twitter: @Marianna9110

Published 18 September 2022

The alliance revealed plans to increase the number of prepared forces on the eastern flank to more than 300,000 soldiers in the near future.

The head of NATO's Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, stated on Saturday that NATO began planning its expansion near Russia's borders several years ago.

Earlier on Saturday, the NATO Military Committee met in Estonia, where Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Christopher Cavoli outlined to NATO member countries his strategic considerations for NATO's efforts on the eastern flank, among other things.

"We’re talking about the biggest overhaul of our military structures since 1949. The planning for that started several years ago, but now we're implementing it," Bauer said at a press conference.

NATO leaders agreed on a plan for a significant build-up of the alliance's forces at the end of June, on the eastern flank by 2023, amid Russia's military operation in Ukraine.

The alliance revealed plans to increase the number of prepared forces on the eastern flank to more than 300,000 soldiers in the near future. In addition, it intends to increase the composition of combat groups to the brigade level. Moreover, NATO countries pledged to increase defense spending.


NATO is closely collaborating with the defense sector to restock its arsenal, which has been depleted as a result of the supply of armaments to Ukraine by the bloc, according to the NATO Secretary-General.

"NATO is working closely with defense industry in order to replenish stocks for the military equipment the allies have sent to Ukraine," Stoltenberg said on the sidelines of a forum organized by U.S. magazine Foreign Policy, adding that NATO countries were also asking defense companies to ramp up their production.

The Secretary-General added that the need for additional help for Ukraine was still urgent, and it was crucial to make sure that the bloc had adequate weapons and other equipment to stockpile and support Kiev militarily.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Nat ... -0003.html

Donbass Liberation: Goal of Russia's Operation in Ukraine

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Sep. 16, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@mar40248589

Published 16 September 2022

Putin said that Russia's goal in Ukraine with its special military operation remains the same: to liberate the entire territory of the two Donbass republics.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's statements came amid a Ukrainian counter-offensive. Russia will do everything possible to prevent a "negative turn of events," but will respond more seriously if Ukraine continues with it.

On the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan, Putin said that "the main goal is the liberation of the entire territory of Donbass. This work continues, despite the counter-attack attempts of the Ukrainian army."

Ukraine's attacks against "nuclear facilities, nuclear power plants" on Russian territory was an issue mentioned by Putin, who said Russia will do "everything possible to prevent any negative turn of events."

However, the Russian leader said, "We will retaliate if they do not understand that such methods are unacceptable, they are no different from terrorism."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that during the missions of the special operation to protect Donbass, Russia does not fight with the entire army, but only with the contracted side, he said on Sept. 16 after the Samarkand summit.

Putin referred to the set of security guarantees and conditions worked out by Russia and Ukraine in March at the Istanbul talks aimed at ending the conflict.

At that time, Ukraine withdrew from the table, now it is presenting its "Kiev Security Compact." The draft document released by the Ukrainian president's office this week provides neither for Kiev's renunciation of NATO membership, for a neutral status for Ukraine, nor for Russia's participation as a security guarantor.

Putin said that Russia's special military operation in Ukraine came about as a result of some Western countries deciding to use Ukraine as a means to achieve the West's long-planned intention to split Russia.

teleSUR Correspondent Alejandro Kirk Injured in Donetsk

https://www.telesurenglish.net/__export ... 483346.jpg[/img]

Published 17 September 2022

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The incident took place specifically in the Voroshilovsky district, located in the center of Donetsk, in the eastern region of Ukraine.

teleSUR's correspondent in Donetsk, Alejandro Kirk, was injured while covering the conflict in eastern Ukraine, but is out of danger according to the medical report.

According to the journalist, who is also a correspondent for the Iranian channel HispanTV, a group of journalists, including Kirk, was in the city of Donetsk when he was hit by shrapnel during a Kiev offensive in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.

"Currently his condition is stable thanks to the timely care of doctors in Donbas," the same journalist indicated in recorded audio in which he describes his situation.


The incident took place specifically in the Voroshilovsky district, located in the center of Donetsk.

In a communication of teleSUR regarding what happened to the journalist and documentary filmmaker, it was specified that Kirk's condition is stable thanks to the timely care of doctors in Donbas.

The president of teleSUR, Patricia Villegas, is in communication with Kirk and reiterated the numerous calls from global organizations to respect the work of the media and to guarantee the integrity of reporters. "We are grateful for the medical attention he is receiving and hope for his speedy recovery," the text states.

The multimedia platform's communication stated: "teleSUR reaffirms its commitment to tell the truth about what is happening in the Donbas and the rest of the world. Telling what the hegemonic media keeps silent. We will continue to inform".

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/tel ... -0001.html

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Why should the Ukrainian proletarians fight?
No. 9/73.IX.2022

The course of the SVO shows that the Ukrainian proletarians, forcibly dressed in military uniforms, were fairly brainwashed by the bourgeois ideas of "defending the fatherland." This is evidenced by both the relatively small number of prisoners and the rather stubborn resistance of the Ukrainian army, which consists mostly of mobilized. That Ukrainian soldiers are fighting exclusively under pressure, under the threat of being shot by nationalists, is nonsense. Although such facts certainly exist, they are unlikely to be widespread. Otherwise, the Ukrainian front would have collapsed long ago.

It is obvious that, despite the unpopularity of the Zelensky regime, the Ukrainian bourgeoisie managed to play the “defence of the fatherland” card, and it is this motivation that, in one form or another, determines the stubborn resistance of the Ukrainian army.

In this regard, it is useful to recall the old Marxist thesis, which says that the proletarians do NOT have a fatherland. In the objective Ukrainian reality, there is absolutely nothing for which a Ukrainian hired worker would be worth shedding even a drop of his blood. Those streams of blood that the mobilized Ukrainian proletarians are shed now are objectively useless for them. Indeed, in fact:

Firstly, "to defend the Ukrainian land" from no one. The Ukrainian hired worker is alienated from this land. And the land, and everything in it, belongs to the oligarchy. Moreover, it is also far from being only Ukrainian, but foreign, to which Ukrainian lands and enterprises were actively sold. In fact, Ukrainian hired workers own only patches of land under summer cottages and private houses. And those, however, belong conditionally. Not only can the bourgeois state take them for debts (and it is not difficult to accumulate debts at horse tariffs for housing and communal services), but also the policy of the oligarchy led to a war, during which this property ceases to exist at all. That is, the main threat to the personal property of Ukrainian citizens is the corrupt pro-American Zelensky clique in power. The continuation of armed resistance to a much more powerful enemy will in fact result in the Ukrainian proletarian losing his already modest property. To remain with a bare bottom, but in a “non-independence” country is a so-so prospect.

Secondly , there is no need to protect the Ukrainian people, their language and culture. Russian imperialism does not encroach on all this. Even his domestic policy does not imply any infringement of national minorities. In the national republics, national languages ​​are studied in schools under the disapproving howl of Russian Nazis. Therefore, the cultural environment familiar to the Ukrainian proletariat is also not under threat.

Thirdly , protecting the lives of your loved ones also cannot make sense in a war with a superior enemy. He will achieve his goal anyway, and more and more civilians will die at the same time. The "world community" has repeatedly suffered much greater losses among civilians in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Endure even now, not going anywhere. The harder the Ukrainian soldier fights, the more civilians he condemns to death.

Fourth . You can recall such a metaphysical thing as "the honor and dignity of the nation." But to defend such “lofty matters” under the leadership of those who understand the “dignity of the nation” as turning Ukrainian soldiers into cannon fodder in the struggle of American imperialists against Russian ones is a defense of honor under the leadership of scoundrels.

Fifthly , the same goes for the “freedom and independence” of Ukraine. Since 2014, there has been complete freedom for American and European corporations in Ukraine to rob the Ukrainian people. The country was put on a debt needle, external management was introduced. The only thing that can be defended now with arms in hand is the freedom of the American imperialists to continue plundering and dependence on them. Yes, of course, the Russian imperialists are the same robbers. But now they will have to buy the loyalty of the Ukrainian layman. Moreover, it is in the interests of the Russian imperialists to end the war as soon as possible. This means that fewer civilians will die. The American imperialists are ready to fight with the Russian Federation to the last Ukrainian.

Sixth , the motivating factor for soldiers is revenge for their comrades who died in battle. But the blame for their deaths objectively lies with the mediocre Ukrainian leadership, which threw the Ukrainians into the abyss of war with a superior enemy. The longer the Ukrainian soldiers resist, the more their comrades will die.

Seventh , maybe the Ukrainian proletarians in military uniform are fighting for a better future for their children and grandchildren, for the “European choice”? Only the most stubborn ones can have such a motivation... All this was already promised to Ukrainian employees in 2014 by the Maidan leaders. They never saw a better life... Is it really because of the "Russian orcs"? No, just because of the operation of the objective laws of capitalism. One of them, the law of the absolute and relative impoverishment of hired workers, just says that the satisfaction of the growing needs of the proletarians under capitalism is impossible, and a decrease in the quality of satisfaction of needs is guaranteed. It is obvious what the games of the “European choice” turned out to be for Ukrainians.

Eighth , finally, tales are being used about the fact that "the Russians came to our house, in which we ourselves are the masters." But neither Russians nor Ukrainians are masters in their "houses". The bourgeoisie only creates the impression that the masses choose their own power and are masters in their own countries. However, in reality, power in any capitalist country is in the hands of the capitalist class. If they use mass discontent, then only for their own purposes. So, after the Maidan, another group of exploiters was simply put on the neck of the Ukrainians.

In general, whatever one may say, it is objectively pointless for the Ukrainian proletarian to take up arms. For some of them, this will result in death and injury, and not even for the interests of Ukrainian capitalists, but for the interests of overseas masters. And the part that is lucky to survive will surely realize the falsity of the goals for which blood was shed.

The best thing a Ukrainian mobilized into the army can do in the current conditions is to surrender, thus saving his life. It is life for the Ukrainian proletarian that is now the highest value, since there is objectively nothing for him to fight for. But life should be used for Marxist self-education and the struggle for communism, under which private property as the cause of all wars will be done away with.

N. Fedotov

11/09/2022

https://prorivists.org/73_war/

Google Translator

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From Cassad's Telegram account:
***

Colonelcassad

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The battle for Kherson: the situation in the Posad-Pokrovsky sector
as of 12.30 on September 19 of the year

After several failed attempts to storm the positions of the RF Armed Forces, there are no significant changes in the situation on the front line. The units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have switched to positional defense and restoration of combat capability, reinforcements are being transferred and strike potential is being accumulated. Artillery duels continue on the line of contact.

▪️In the vicinity of Lyubomovka , a Stugna ATGM crew has been deployed, and in Mirny , a MANPADS fire group is operating to cover ground forces from air strikes.

▪️In the area southwest of Ternovy Pod , using a cross-country vehicle, the Ukrainian DRG operates. At the turn of Mirnoe - Lyubomirovka , the Ukrainian UAV provides reconnaissance of the positions of the RF Armed Forces.

▪️An advanced ammunition depot has been organized in Luch , from which the ammunition of the Ukrainian forces in Posad-Pokrovsky is being replenished .

▪️At the forefront positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the direction of Ternovy Pod, before the next attempt at an offensive, personnel are being rotated, and in the vicinity of Mirny , engineering and sapper troops are removing minefields.

▪️In addition, additional units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were transferred from Nikolaev to Pribugskoe to carry out an assault on the Pravdino - Znamenka line .

***

SOMETHING CREAKS IN GERMANY: ENERGY CRISIS AND DECLARED SUBORDINATION TO THE US
17 Sep 2022 , 10:17 am .

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Supply reduction and concern about the future drive increases and protests in Germany (Photo: File)

Between rumours, calculations and facts, the cracking of one of the countries that leads the European Union is heard: Germany. There are indications that it is not just a matter of serial clumsiness on the part of its current authorities, but of an inter-elite plan in which the citizen population would lose.

INDUSTRIAL DECLINE HOT (OR NOT SO)

Gas and electricity prices have skyrocketed in recent months due to the "sanctions" that the European Union (EU) has applied against Russia, and which have forced the Eurasian country to cut off gas flows. That has left many industrial firms with input costs too high to remain profitable, and many economic experts forecast more trouble for Germany's core industrial sector.

As industrial processes are chained to energy sources, it is easy to understand how the energy crisis in Germany turns into a manufacturing crisis: the ability to generate added value to raw material from the Global South is diminishing and its companies can no longer compete due to skyrocketing energy costs.

Such is the case of the steel company ArcelorMittal, which recently closed two plants in the country and is calling for swift political intervention. Figures from the Steel Industry Association show how additional energy costs this year will exceed 10 billion euros, which is equivalent to a quarter of the average annual turnover of the German steel industry.

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TITLETEXT:
The ArcelorMittal plant in Bremen (Germany) produces rolled steel coils that are being closed and creating a material shortage crisis for industrial activity CREDITS: File, Archive

News agencies are reporting that German companies are increasingly unable to access energy supplies on the market, and the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) has warned that the German economy will simply cease to function if supplies of energy run out.

On Friday, September 16, the German government announced that it had "taken control" of the German unit of the Russian oil company Rosneft, its subsidiaries Rosneft Deutschland and RN Refining & Marketing, as well as its three refineries in the cities of Vohburg and Karlsruhe, alleging that the production of oil distilleries was endangered by the Russian ownership of the company. These refineries have relied on Russian crude supplies through the Druzhba pipeline, which transports oil from central Russia to Europe.

The Ministry of Economy and Climate Protection, headed by Robert Habeck, announced in a statement that Rosneft PJSC will come under the tutelage of the Federal Network Agency, the government entity in charge of gas supply, among other matters. In addition, the decision is accompanied by a package that "will bring a transformational impulse" to the region and will support the refinery, to ensure the supply of oil through alternative delivery routes.

Data from the German Executive reveals that the German subsidiary of Rosneft represents around 12% of Germany's oil processing capacity, making it "one of the largest oil processing companies in Germany."

For its part, Rosneft considers that Berlin's resolution to hand over the company's German assets to the country's authorities is illegal and that "it is in line with the algorithm imposed by the United States to deal with Russian companies on German territory."

In addition, the Russian company also pointed out that, despite the "difficult situation in the German energy market", Rosneft Deutschland continued to "fulfill its obligation to supply oil products in full and negotiated the new contracts necessary to guarantee the security of supply. both in Germany and in Poland.

This is the most recent step that the German political establishment has taken, in a series of actions that has resulted in creaking of its energy infrastructure and, therefore, economic. This collapse could have been planned by some geopolitical adversary of the leader of today's Europe, but some allegedly leaked documents say otherwise, or someone wants to say something through them.

"WEAKENING GERMANY, STRENGTHENING AMERICA"

A so-titled report, purportedly leaked from the RAND Corporation, appears to reveal the real motives behind European destabilization and the war between Russia and Ukraine. The American think-tank was born after World War II as a kind of research and development think tank that would bring together the best and brightest minds in the United States to formulate hypotheses and solve problems related to American politics before they arose. . RAND is funded by the Department of Defense (Pentagon) and other US government departments.

With offices in the United States and Europe, it conducts research in the fields of defense, terrorism, education, and even health. In terms of policy formulation for Washington, its impact is seen in the functioning of society, politics and the world economy.

The six-page document, released before Russia's military operation on Ukrainian soil began, appears to be a product intended for the White House and National Security community, namely: White House Chief of Staff (WHCS), ANSA, Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and the Democratic National Convention (DNC).

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TITLETEXT:
(I) Two of the six pages of the alleged RAND Corporation report describing the eventual plan to weaken Germany in favor of the United States
CREDITS: File, Archive

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TITLETEXT:
(II) Two of the six pages of the alleged Rand Corporation report describing the possible plan to weaken Germany in favor of the United States
CREDITS: File, Archive

In the report, the think-tank predicts that the US economy is on the verge of collapse, that rising debt and uncontrolled cash printing, as a result of the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, have led Washington to a precarious position. They predict that the continued deterioration of the economy will likely lead to the defeat of the Democratic Party in both Congress and the Senate in the upcoming November elections, opening the door for an impeachment trial against Joe Biden in the next session of Congress urging that "the impeachment of the president cannot be ruled out in these circumstances, which must be avoided at all costs".

The executive summary is clear in announcing the urgent need for resources to flow to the US domestic economy, especially the banking system. Only European countries bound by EU and NATO commitments could provide them without significant military and political costs to the United States.

For RAND, the biggest obstacle to achieving this goal is growing independence from Germany. That problem appears to have been addressed with the war in Ukraine and "sanctions" on Russia, resulting in the destruction of the NordStream 2 pipeline and the cutting off of natural gas from Russia to Germany. That alone will no doubt lead Germany to require assistance from other European nations if they hope to save their citizens when energy sources are depleted.

Control of Germany and its governmental decision-making process appears to be the think-tank 's main concern , predicting that the destabilization of the United States would lead to an acceleration of independence from Germany and the inevitable end of American influence. If that happens, RAND believes that France and Germany will fall in line, along with other old European nations, creating an economic and political competitor for the United States, but as long as these things can be avoided, its global dominance can be assured. Similarly, without Russian energy it is well uphill for both countries to achieve such a goal.

They predict that "sanctions" on Russia and continued pressure from US influence in the European region would affect two things:

German consumption of cheap gas from Russia.
Russian import of cheap nuclear fuel to France.

France and Germany rely heavily on the electricity produced by French nuclear power plants. As pillars of the German economic model, gas and electricity have broken or will break very soon as a result of European submission to US interests. Germany will look west and France will be forced to look to Canada and Australia for fuel, both firmly under US influence.

PLAYING "CONTROLLED CRISIS"

In the section titled "Managed Crisis," RAND admits that through "our precise actions, it has been possible to block the commissioning of the NordStream 2 pipeline," and suggests that Germany must reject Russian natural gas altogether by involving both Russia. and Germany in the "military conflict in Ukraine". Russia stopped all natural gas exports to Germany when the operation began, but when that report was written, the conflict in Ukraine was little more than a civil war between the east and west of the country. Western Ukraine (aligned with NATO) clearly acted as the aggressor against the Donbas.

It should be noted that the United States was beating the drums of war before Putin moved a soldier inside Ukraine's borders, so it appears that the effort to involve Russia and Europe in the Ukrainian conflict was in the planning stages for some time. .

The report discusses the methods by which Berlin can manufacture the elements necessary to create an economic and humanitarian crisis. That includes using the German environmentalists from the Green Party coalition and even appointing two helpful unprofessional leaders to help create the atmosphere they seek. Until after mistakes are realized, lasting damage would make it difficult for current leaders or a new German government to revive relations with Russia, especially after Germany has been forced to supply Ukraine with arms and ammunition from its Western partners. .

Some predictions:

The consequences of these geopolitical moves were expected to be catastrophic for Germany.
Without Russian gas, the industry would be forced to shut down to avoid mass deaths of German citizens, leading to shortages of basic goods, breakdown of logistics chains and "eventually, a domino effect".
Likelihood of full stoppage at largest chemical, metallurgical and machine building plants while having virtually no available capacity to reduce energy consumption."
Losses for Germany of hundreds of billions of euros, which would lead to a collapse of the economy, a reduction in GDP and eventually also the complete collapse of the EU economy.
All European currencies would become toxic and much less desirable than the dollar, leading to an inevitable strengthening of the US economy and its repositioning as the most favored nation.
Of course, "unfortunately" China will also benefit from economic conditions in Europe.

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TITLETEXT:
Germany announced last June that it will turn to coal after joining the "sanctions" against Russia, its government had proposed to abandon this fuel in 2030 and has described the current situation as serious
CREDITS: Sascha Steinbach / EPA-EFE

Additionally, mass migration is expected as jobs dry up and skilled labor is no longer needed. In that case, of course, their only recourse will be to migrate to the United States, whose booming economy would "welcome" them to help offset the jobs that will inevitably be created.

The US economy would be saved, American society would be distracted, and "election risks" are reduced, putting the Democrats back in control, should RAND's predictions come true.

CASINO "GREEN", PAPER GAS AND SUBORDINATION
Regardless of the authenticity of the report, the authorship of which has been denied by RAND, the path to subverting Germany began in the 1980s, when Wall Street banks, led by Goldman Sachs, created a new market in "paper oil". ", or the trading of futures and derivatives of future barrels of oil. This created huge speculative profits under the control of the big banks in New York and London.

In the early 2000s, journalist Pepe Escobar relates that the secret of "European energy policy" was that the European Commission, "advised" by JP Morgan Chase, as well as by the usual speculative hedge mega-funds, engaged in "a complete deregulation of the European natural gas market".

In 2016, closing the Obama administration, the massive export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the huge US shale gas production was encouraged, inflating an "energy bubble" by opting for a speculative "paper gas" market.

For his part, the researcher F. William Engdahl details:

"(...) the EU Commission and its Green Deal agenda to 'decarbonise' the economy by 2050, eliminating oil, gas and coal fuels, provided the ideal trap that has led to the explosive increase in gas prices in the EU from 2021".

From the Netherlands, the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) was created, a virtual platform for transactions in gas futures contracts between banks and other financial investors. It is, of course, outside of any regulated exchange and has established itself as the true benchmark for gas in the EU.

At present, the big financiers and the big energy ones totally control everything that passes for "EU politics" in Brussels, they invented a new price system parallel to the long-term stable prices of Russian pipeline gas and the LNG prices soon began to be set by futures trading at the TTF hub.

The Euro-Atlantic strategy is clear: prevent Europe from receiving Russian gas at low prices due to long-term agreements previously made with Russia, forcing European consumers to buy it on the spot market at extremely high prices, set according to speculation, policies and mechanisms of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, which is now part of a large American holding company.

This is how the financial megacircuits got rid of Gazprom (a Russian company) as a reliable source to allow the powerful financial interests behind the Green Deal to dominate the LNG market.

Added to this is the saga about the turbine of NordStream 1, the only one to carry Russian gas to Germany after the forced closure of its sister gas pipeline, NordStream 2. Canada deliberately refused to hand over the repaired turbine to Gazprom, its owner, to send it to Siemens Germany, which is essentially under US control. Both the German and Canadian governments refuse to grant a legally binding penalty waiver for the transfer to Russia.

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TITLETEXT:
Recently, due to Canada's refusal to deliver a turbine for the NordStream 1 pipeline, Gazprom extended its gas cuts to Europe indefinitely. NordStream 2 has not been inaugurated due to pressure from Washington
CREDITS: File, Archive

There's more: the EU's Electricity Market Reform means that electricity producers, solar or wind, automatically receive "the same price for their 'renewable' electricity that they sell to electricity companies for the grid as the highest cost, that is, say, natural gas. It is not surprising that the cost of electricity in Germany by 2022 has increased by 860%, and continues to trend upwards.

Analysts such as Hungarian political scientist Zoltán Kiszelly are of the opinion that, after bowing to US pressure, Germany is facing a massive energy crisis. He adds that the Germans are more afraid of the Americans than they are of the Russians.

On August 22, the exchange-traded market price of natural gas on the German gas hub THE (Trading Hub Europe) was trading more than 1,000% higher than a year ago. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz tells most citizens that the reason is Putin's and Russia's war in Ukraine. The truth is very different.

On August 31, Annalena Baerbock, who heads Germany's government in close collaboration with her Green Party colleague Robert Habeck, told a forum funded by the United States, allied governments, and multi-billion dollar American and European organizations:

"If I promise the people of Ukraine, 'we are with you, as long as you need us,' then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think, I want to deliver with the people of Ukraine. And that is why it is important for me to be very frank and clear. And this means, [with] every measure I am taking, that they will remain in place as long as Ukraine needs me. (…) Now we face the winter, where we will be challenged as democratic politicians. People will go out into the streets and will say 'we can't afford our energy prices', and I will say 'yes, I know, then we help you with the social measures'. But I don't want to say: 'Okay, then let's stop the sanctions against Russia'. We will support Ukraine , and this means that the sanctions will continue through the winter,even if it becomes very difficult for politicians."

Meanwhile US sales to Germany, especially of much more expensive LNG, have soared and arms manufacturers (including US) are booming as well. Washington does not seem willing to rest until both Russia and China are under its control; its American billionaires want cheap labor and raw materials, under imposed conditions, not negotiated.

That is why winter will not knock on the door of European citizens but will enter their homes without any permission.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/al ... arada-eeuu

ZELENSKI ENTOURAGE IMPLICATED IN THE THEFT OF HUMANITARIAN AID
12 Sep 2022 , 5:53 pm .

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(Photo: International Red Cross)

The case of the theft of thousands of tons of humanitarian aid by high-ranking Ukrainian officials linked to Volodimir Zelensky's circle is taking a new turn. And it is that an agent of the NABU (Ukraine's anti-corruption agency, managed by Washington) revealed more details about a corruption plot in the Zaporizhia region, refers "To all power" on his Telegram channel .

It details that the inspection of only one shipment of products revealed that of the 240 tons, only 25 tons, or just over 10%, were distributed to the population. The rest went to the supermarket network of those involved.

The person responsible for the control of international aid would be the deputy head of the President's Office, Kyrylo Timoshenko, according to the NABU, and the amount stolen reaches 8.7 million dollars in this batch alone.

Already in July the kyiv police had discovered a fraud scheme to sell products of foreign humanitarian aid. They seized more than 10,000 items that were being sold without certificates, barcodes, and labels.

The war in Ukraine has become a breeding ground for corruption and the trafficking of resources, both food from humanitarian aid provided by other countries, as well as weapons and other supplies. In this case, the president's circle is immersed in the food theft plot.

https://misionverdad.com/entorno-de-zel ... umanitaria

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Ukraine Seeks F16s, Patriot Missiles, & Leopard Tanks – Russian Ops in Ukraine Sept.18, 2022
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 17, 2022



Update on Russian military operations in Ukraine for September 18, 2022

– Ukrainian offensives in Kherson and Kharkov have both ground to a halt; – Near Kherson, a Russian strike on a dam up-river of the Ingulets has flooded crossings, isolating Ukrainian bridgeheads east of the river;

– Ukrainian forces have been fighting for days attempting to take eastern Kopiansk with no success as Russian reinforcements arrive; – Potential Ukrainian offensives elsewhere are still a possibility;

– Winter fighting may see Russian military aviation given the advantage as Ukrainian forces’ ability to hide in forests diminishes;

– The US is sending fewer and fewer weapons and ammunition to Ukraine;

– Future talk of sending advanced weapons from Patriots and F-16’s, to Grey Eagle drones and Leopard main battle tanks ignore how impractical this aid would be;

References:

Live UA Map: https://liveuamap.com/

Military Summary Channel – Ukraine. Military Summary And Analysis 17.09.2022: https://youtu.be/DyBD4AruRBY

US Department of Defense – $600 Million in Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine SEPT. 15, 2022: https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases

Politico – Negotiations on whether to send F-16s and Patriots to Ukraine continue — but quietly: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09

DW – Germany to send rocket launchers and armored vehicles to Ukraine: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-send

AP (via ABC News) – German FM urges swift decision on tank delivery to Ukraine: https://abcnews.go.com/International/

Army Recognition – Russian army increases stocks of Krasnopol guided artillery shells: https://www.armyrecognition.com/analy

Forbes – Russia’s Deadly Artillery Drones Have A Strange Secret (Updated): https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidham

Kalashinikov – Krasnopol-M2: https://en.kalashnikovgroup.ru/catalo

National Interest – Turkey’s Leopard 2 Tanks Are Getting Crushed in Syria: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buz

National Interest – Why Did American Patriot Missiles Fail To Stop the Houthi’s Attacks?: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reb

NBC News – Why U.S. Patriot missiles failed to stop drones and cruise missiles attacking Saudi oil sites: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion

The Duran – Thucydides Trap sprung. Conflict and regime change operations incoming: https://youtu.be/IV26025Kx8I

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... t-18-2022/

NATO-Backed Atlantic Council Proposed Apartheid Israel as a Blueprint for a Hyper-Militarized Ukraine
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 17, 2022
Alexander Rubinstein

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Zelensky and NATO plan to transform post-war Ukraine into ‘a big Israel’

The NATO-backed Atlantic Council has proposed apartheid Israel as a blueprint for a hyper-militarized Ukraine. The paper was authored by Obama’s former ambassador to Tel Aviv, now an Israeli spy-tech consultant.


Just forty days after Russia’s military campaign began inside Ukraine, Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky told reporters that in the future, his country would be like “a big Israel.” The following day, one of Israel’s top promoters in the Democratic Party published an op-ed in NATO’s official think tank exploring how that could be executed.

Zelensky made his prediction while speaking to reporters on April 5, rejecting the idea that Kiev would remain neutral in future conflicts between NATO, the European Union, and Russia. According to Zelensky, his country would never be like Switzerland (which coincidentally abandoned its Napoleon-era tradition of nonalignment by sanctioning Russia in response to its February invasion).

“We cannot talk about ‘Switzerland of the future,’” the president informed reporters. “But we will definitely become a ‘big Israel’ with its own face.”

For those wondering what a “big Israel” would actually look like, Zelensky quickly elaborated on his disturbing prophecy.

“We will not be surprised that we will have representatives of the Armed Forces or the National Guard in all institutions, supermarkets, cinemas — there will be people with weapons,” Ukraine’s president said, predicting a bleak existence for his citizens. “I am sure that our security issue will be number one in the next ten years.”

Though the web post was based on comments Zelensky made to reporters, the president’s office mysteriously excised a section of his remarks in which he declared a future Ukraine would not be “absolutely liberal, European.” Instead, along with his vision for a heavily militarized Ukraine, the post emphasized Zelensky’s readiness to join NATO “already tomorrow.”

For NATO’s power brokers, however, Zelensky’s intimated willingness to join the military alliance was perhaps the least remarkable aspect of his statement. Instead, within 48 hours of his comments, the Atlantic Council – NATO’s semi-official think tank in Washington – published a “road map” exploring how to transform Ukraine into “a big Israel.”

Authored by Daniel B. Shapiro, the former US Ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, the document posited that “the two embattled countries share more than you might think.”

Just as former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig presented Israel as “the largest American air craft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk,” Shapiro put forward a vision of Ukraine as a hyper-militarized NATO bastion whose national identity would be defined by its ability to project US power against Russia.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem, January 2020

Israel and Ukraine: “old, loyal friends”

Despite Israel’s reluctance to join the Western sanctions campaign against Russia, it has aided Ukraine’s militarily, sending two large shipments of defensive equipment since February of this year. In the past, however, Israel’s support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia has been more than defensive.

Back in 2018, over 40 human rights activists petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to stop arming Ukraine after members of the neo-nazi Azov Battalion were caught brandishing Israeli-made weapons. As Israel’s Ha’aretz noted at the time, “The militia’s [Azov] emblems are well-known national socialist ones. Its members use the Nazi salute and carry swastikas and SS insignias… One militia member said in an interview that he was fighting Russia since Putin was a Jew.”

Zelensky, a Ukrainian Jew, was apparently unperturbed by Israel’s alleged arming of Nazi elements in his country. One year after his 2019 election, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to launch what he called a “prayer for peace,” and to attend an event entitled “Remember the Holocaust to fight anti-Semitism.” Ahead of the junket, Zelensky heaped praise on Israeli society, remarking in an interview that “Jews managed to build a country, to elevate it, without anything except people and brains,” and that Israelis are a “united, strong, powerful people. And despite being under the threat of war, they enjoy every day. I’ve seen it.”


“There are many countries in the world that can protect themselves, but Israel, such a small country, can not only protect itself, but facing external threats, can respond,” Zelensky said, adding that he had visited the country “many times.”

In a birthday message later that year to Israel’s then-Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Zelensky commented that “old loyal friends are more valuable than ever. Ukraine and Israel have a friendship such as this.”

Since the escalation in fighting between Kiev and Moscow in February of this year, dozens of Israelis have traveled to Ukraine to join the country’s Foreign Legion.


In August, the Canadian government-backed Kyiv Independent published an investigation which accused Ukraine’s Foreign Legion of stealing arms and goods as well as carrying out sexual harassment and other forms of abuse.

Meanwhile, Zelensky has continually heaped praise on Tel Aviv, especially after an Israeli Supreme Court decision to lift restrictions on citizens traveling to Ukraine.

“The rule of law and respect for human rights is exactly what distinguishes a true, developed democracy!” the Ukrainian President tweeted following the July ruling.


A hyper-militarized apartheid state as a model for Ukraine

By April of 2022, Zelensky’s admiration for the Israeli state had apparently reached new heights. Immediately following his declaration that Ukraine would soon become “a big Israel,” Washington’s former ambassador to Tel Aviv, Daniel B. Shapiro, published a blueprint for Zelensky to achieve that dream at the Washington DC-based, NATO-sponsored Atlantic Council.

“By adapting their country’s mindset to mirror aspects of Israel’s approach to chronic security challenges, Ukrainian officials can tackle critical national-security challenges with confidence and build a similarly resilient state,” Shapiro, an Atlantic Council “distinguished fellow,” wrote.

The nearly 900-word outline offered eight bullet points detailing how Ukraine can become more like Israel, a country recently described by Amnesty International as an “apartheid state.” The points included advice such as to place “security first,” maintain “Intelligence dominance,” and remember that “technology is key.”

According to Shapiro, a central component of Israel’s security strategy is that “the whole population plays a role.”

“Civilians recognize their responsibility to follow security protocols and contribute to the cause,” Shapiro wrote of the Israeli population. “Some even arm themselves (though under strict supervision) to do so. The widespread mobilization of Ukrainian society in collective defense suggests that the country has this potential.” These comments align directly with Zelensky’s prediction that in a future Ukraine, “people with weapons” will be present in nearly every aspect of civilian life.

Like the propaganda touting Israel’s “success” as a security state, Shapiro’s blueprint imagined Ukraine’s citizenry united by a “common purpose” with help from Tel Aviv’s “high-tech innovation” in the military and intelligence sectors. His game plan portrays Israel’s advancements in security to as an almost mythical achievement owing purely to the feisty, innovative spirit of its citizens, overlooking the single greatest material factor in its success: unprecedented levels of foreign military assistance, particularly from the United States. Indeed, without US taxpayers virtually subsidizing its military through yearly aid packages amounting to untold billions of dollars, it is difficult to see how a country the size of New Jersey would have attained the status of the world’s leading surveillance technology hub.

Even as Shapiro urged Zelensky to maintain “active defense partnerships,” he simultaneously downplayed the role foreign aid has played in preserving Israel’s settler-colonial imperatives, arguing that the “single principle” informing Tel Aviv’s security doctrine is that “Israel will defend itself, by itself—and rely on no other country to fight its battles.”

Shapiro must have forgotten that principle when he tweeted, “Thank God Israel has Iron Dome” — a reference to Israel’s air defense system that US taxpayers funded to the tune of $1 billion in 2021 alone, on top of $3.8 billion in military assistance earmarked for Tel Aviv that year.


In his advice to Zelensky, Shapiro also emphasized that “Ukraine will need to upgrade its intelligence services” in a similar manner to Israel, which “has invested deeply in its intelligence capabilities to ensure that it has the means to detect and deter its enemies—and, when needed, act proactively to strike them.”

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Then-Amb. Daniel Shapiro speaking at the 2016 conference of the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, which would later employ him.
A US diplomat stays behind in Israel, goes to bat for its top spying firm

Shapiro would know a thing or two about the Israeli intelligence apparatus. In mid-2017, after opting to remain with his family in Israel, rather than return to the country that had employed him as a diplomat, he joined the Israeli tech firm NSO hacking firm as an independent advisor. There, Shapiro helped evaluate potential clients for NSO’s notoriously invasive digital spyware, known as Pegasus. NSO’s many government clients include the Saudi Monarchy, which has used its Pegasus system to monitor and persecute human rights campaigners and journalists.


Shapiro has also enjoyed close ties with Israeli intelligence through the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) think tank in Tel Aviv. During the better part of his four years as a “Distinguished Visiting Fellow” at the institute, its executive director was Amos Yadlin, the Israeli Defense Forces’ former chief of Military Intelligence. Yadlin helped devise the doctrine of disproportionate force employed by the Israeli military against Gaza in which civilians were redefined as the “terrorists’ neighbor,” and thereby stripped of protections under the Geneva Conventions.

In 2018, INSS paid Shapiro more than $20,000 to testify before Congress on its behalf, despite him not registering as a foreign agent. Like NSO Group, INSS maintains a veneer of independence from the Israeli government even though its founder, Aharon Yariv, also served as the head of Israel’s military intelligence.

In the US, Shapiro had a stint at WestExec Advisors, a consulting founded in 2017 by now-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and described by Politico as “Biden’s Cabinet in waiting.” Prior to the election of Joe Biden, Shapiro ran cover in the media after the Democratic Party’s platform removed language opposing further annexation of land in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

War — it’s good for Atlantic Council donors

It is likely no coincidence that Shapiro published his prescription for converting Ukraine into an Israeli-style security state in his capacity as a “distinguished fellow” at the Atlantic Council. If Ukraine is ever transformed into the permanent military fortress he and Zelensky imagine, the NATO think tank’s weapons industry donors stand to benefit immensely.

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing were all listed among the Atlantic Council’s top benefactors in 2021. Raytheon Chairman and CEO Gregory J. Hayes also happens to sit on the think tank’s international advisory board. As Max Blumenthal reported for The Grayzone, the Atlantic Council has also served as a de facto laundromat for money from Ukrainian interests like Burisma to members of Biden’s inner circle.

The three aforementioned arms companies, which form the heart of Washington’s military industrial complex, have already reaped massive profits from the war in Ukraine. Boeing, which faced a public relations crisis after malfunctions in its 737 Max plane’s operating system resulted in two high profile crashes, could be on track to reclaiming its status as the world’s top aircraft manufacturer as a result of the conflict.

Though Boeing suffered two consecutive quarterly losses in 2022, by July it claimed to be “building momentum” for a recovery. In June, the aerospace giant secured a contract to supply heavy-lift helicopters to Germany’s government after Berlin created a $107 billion fund for military investment in direct response to the Ukraine war.

Meanwhile, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin both manufacture the Javelin anti-tank missile system that have been dubbed a “symbol of Ukraine’s resistance” on the battlefield.


“They’ve been so important, there’s even a story about Ukrainian parents naming their children — not a joke — their newborn child, ‘Javelin’ or ‘Javelina,’” US President Joe Biden gushed during a May visit to a Lockheed Martin plant in Troy, Alabama, underscoring the company’s vital role in the Ukraine war with absurdity.

The US has sent more than 8,500 Javelin anti-tank systems to Ukraine since February at a cost of roughly $178,000 a pop, according to the Pentagon’s 2021 budget. Eager to keep the gravy train flowing, Lockheed Martin is seeking to double production, aiming to manufacture 4,000 Javelin systems a year. Lockheed’s 2022 stocks are up more than 20 percent over the previous year, reaching their height just two weeks after Russia’s military operation began.

With inspiration from Shapiro’s NATO-sponsored “road map” to success, Zelensky’s fantasy of a perpetual militarized, high-tech Sparta bolstered by a gun-toting civilian population will require a massive investment in weapons and surveillance technology on the part of the government in Kiev. If this war is any indication, Ukraine will likely look to the Atlantic Council’s donors once again as it ventures to fulfill Zelensky’s dream of establishing a “big Israel” on Russia’s border.

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

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:29 pm

Putin's Press Conference On Ukraine, Terrorism, Fertilizer, Europe's Energy Crisis

Last week the Head of States Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization met in Samarkand. The meeting was not very remarkable. It was business as usual. Iran will soon join the organization and several other states want association agreements with it.

An important side event was a non-scripted press conference President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation held. There is a video with English subtitles that covers it and the Kremlin provides as usual an English language transcript. Putin made some important points that were not reflected in 'western' news coverage as they contradicted the propaganda positions the 'western' media have taken. Below I excerpted parts and added a few comments.

On the SCO:

Vladimir Putin: The most important thing always and everywhere is economic development. And the SCO, cooperation with the SCO countries, creates conditions for the development of the Russian economy, and thus for the social sphere and for resolving the tasks related to improving the living standards of our citizens.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation includes countries whose population, as has been said many times, comprises almost or even slightly more than half of humanity. It is 25 percent of world GDP. And, most importantly, the national economies in the region, those of the SCO member states, are developing much faster than others in the world.


The SCO markets are were global economic growth is happening. But the 'west' is excluding itself from those regions. 'Western' policies are hostile towards many of the big SCO members. Those policies build up barriers that hinder 'western' industries to profit from that growth. These are self-defeating measures.

There is a question about military strikes within Russia. Putin didn't seem bothered too much about those.

There is nothing new about this. Frankly, I find it even a bit strange to hear your question because Western countries have cultivated the idea of the collapse of the Soviet Union and historical Russia and Russia as such, its nucleus.
I have already cited these statements and studies by some figures in Great Britain during World War I and after it. I cited excerpts from Mr Brzezinski’s writings in which he divided the entire territory of our country into specific parts. True, later he changed his position a bit in the belief that it was better to keep Russia in opposition to China and use it as a tool to combat China. It will never happen.
...
But they have always been seeking the dissolution of our country – this is very true. It is unfortunate that at some point they decided to use Ukraine for these purposes. [...] This is what some US-led Western countries have always been seeking – to create an anti-Russia enclave and rock the boat, threaten Russia from this direction. In essence, our main goal is to prevent such developments.
...
In the course of this, we are seeing attempts to perpetrate terrorist attacks and damage our civilian infrastructure.

Indeed, we were quite restrained in our response, but that will not last forever. Recently, Russian Armed Forces delivered a couple of sensitive blows to that area. Let’s call them warning shots. If the situation continues like that, our response will be more impactful.


On Saturday the Russian military destroyed electricity distribution systems at a power plant in Slaviansk. Dima of the Military Summary channel showed two open source pictures provided by NASA that demonstrate problems with the Ukrainian electricity network. Especially in the east the lights are going out.

September 17 2021

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Source: NASA
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September 17 2022

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Source: NASA

The attack on Slaviansk followed after several Ukrainian attacks on electricity infrastructure in Russia and in areas under Russian control.

Putin mentions such attacks and calls them terrorism:

Terrorist attacks are a serious matter. In fact, it is about using terrorist methods. We see this in the killing of officials in the liberated territories, we even see attempts at perpetrating terrorist attacks in the Russian Federation, including – I am not sure if this was made public – attempts to carry out terrorist attacks near our nuclear facilities, nuclear power plants in the Russian Federation. I am not even talking about the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.
We are monitoring the situation and will do our best to prevent a negative scenario from unfolding. We will respond if they fail to realise that these approaches are unacceptable. They are, in fact, no different than terrorist attacks.


In early August some Ukrainian commandos had destroyed high power lines from the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant.

In the Kursk region of Russia, Ukrainian saboteurs blew up power transmission lines that feed the Kursk nuclear power plant, the press service of the Federal Security Bureau of Russia said.
According to the agency, on August 4, 9 and 12, six explosions took place in the Kurchatov district of the Kursk region. The explosions were conducted targeting high-voltage power lines.
...
A criminal case was filed into the incident under Part 2 of Article 205 (Terrorist Attack) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Security forces are looking for saboteurs. The National Guard have strengthened the security of nuclear facilities.


Back to Putin's press conference.

He gets asked about some negotiation paper Ukraine had put out. He has not seen it but he explains what happened with negotiations in late March/early April:

Frankly, I am not familiar with what they have come up with this time. We, in fact, started with this when we were negotiating with the incumbent Kiev authorities and, in fact, completed this negotiating process in Istanbul with the well-known Istanbul agreement, after which we withdrew our troops from Kiev in order to create the proper conditions for concluding this agreement. Instead of concluding an agreement, Kiev immediately turned down all agreements, shoved them into a box and said they would not seek any agreement with Russia, but instead would pursue victory on the battlefield. Let them try.

The Ukrainian turn about came in early April after then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatened Kiev with withholding all 'western' support.

Putin says the Special Military Operation will continue without a change in the plans.

Putin later remarks on the deal to let Ukraine export its grains:

As of today – as of yesterday or the day before – 121 ships left Ukrainian ports. Only three of the 120 ships headed for the poorest countries under the UN food programme. Some 35 percent, maybe a bit more, of the grain exported from Ukraine went to European countries, to non-poor countries, and definitely not to the world’s poorest countries. And only 4.5 percent of the shipments were sent to the poorest countries under the UN programme.
...
The same applies to our fertiliser exports. This is something unprecedented. I would say this has been an outrageous and shameful decision by the European Commission to lift the ban on the purchase of Russian fertilisers – but solely for their countries, for EU member states. But what about the world’s poorest countries?
...
So they have lifted sanctions on our fertilisers. The Americans were actually the first to lift them, since they are generally pragmatic people.
...
But there are still issues as regards freight and insurance plus the existing ban on entering our ports where our fertilisers are exported from, as well as on financial transfers and settlements. They are aware of this all and keep saying this problem will be solved, but no one is actually doing anything about it.
To be fair, the UN Secretary-General is taking efforts to solve these issues.


This scandal was news to me:

You have probably heard about 300,000 tonnes of Russian fertiliser stuck in European ports; our companies are saying they are ready to provide it for free – just unblock and release it, and we will donate it to the poorest countries and to developing markets. But they are still holding it, and this is absolutely astonishing.
They do not want Russia to earn money – but we are not making a profit by giving away fertiliser. I just do not get what they are doing. What is the purpose of all this? There has been so much talk about providing help to the poorest countries, but exactly the opposite is actually happening.

I have the impression – and this is particularly true for European countries – that these former colonial powers are still living in the paradigm of colonial philosophy, and they are used to living at the expense of others. They still fail to get rid of this paradigm in their daily policies. But it is time to draw certain conclusions and act differently, in a more civilised manner.


There follow questions on China, the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict, U.S. sanctions against certain persons and their kids and about the G-20.

Then follows a last question about the energy crisis in Europe about which Putin had a lot to say:

The energy crisis in Europe did not begin with the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, in Donbass; it actually started much earlier, a year before or even earlier. As strange as it may seem, it started with the green agenda.
...
To pursue momentary political considerations, they chose to completely close down the hydrocarbon energy programmes in their countries. Banks stopped extending loans, ...
...
Now, we see that prices, say, for natural gas in the United States have risen and production is growing, but not as fast as they would like it to – and the reason is that banks are afraid to issue loans.
...
These are erroneous reference points in the green agenda, rushing things, and the green energy being unprepared to meet to the demand for huge energy resources to support economic and industrial growth. The economy is growing while the energy sector is shrinking. This is the first drastic mistake.
The second mistake concerns natural gas.

We made attempts to persuade the Europeans to focus on long-term contracts rather than solely on the market. Why? I said it before and will repeat it once again: Gazprom needs to invest billions in development but it must be confident that it will sell gas before making investments. This is what long-term contracts are about.

Mutual obligations are incurred by the sellers and the buyers. They said, “No, let the market regulate itself.“ We kept telling them, “Don't do it or it will lead to drastic consequences.” But in fact, they forced us to include a significant share of the spot price in the contract price. They forced us to do this, and Gazprom had to include both the oil and oil product basket but also the spot price in the gas price. The spot price began to grow, causing the increase in the price envisaged even in long-term contracts. But what does it have to do with us? This is the first thing.


Putin is right with this. The privatization and 'liberalization' of the European gas and electricity markets has never made sense and has indeed had very negative consequences.

Second, I told them many times. “Gazprom is not supplying gas.” Look, are you normal people or what? Poland chose to impose sanctions against the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline and shut off the route. I told Mr [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz: “Why are you calling me? Call Warsaw and ask them to reopen the route.” That is all there is to it. That’s the first.

Scholz is really that dumb?

Second. Two lines of the gas pipeline run through Ukraine. Ukraine is being supplied with weapons, but it went ahead and closed one of the lines for them. They also shut off another line that supplied 25 billion cubic metres of gas – I will not talk about the exact amount, but they shut off the entire route. What for? Call Kiev and ask them to reopen the second line.
And finally, Nord Stream 1. One turbine goes out of order after another.


Siemens has the maintenance contract for the turbine pressure pumps but sanctions are prevent it from fulfilling it.

There is of course a solution for the lack of natural gas in Europe.

After all, if they need it urgently, if things are so bad, just go ahead and lift sanctions against Nord Stream 2, with its 55 billion cubic metres per year – all they have to do is press the button and they will get it going. But they chose to shut it off themselves; they cannot repair one pipeline and imposed sanctions against the new Nord Stream 2 and will not open it. Are we to blame for this?
Let them think hard about who is to blame and let none of them blame us for their own mistakes. Gazprom and Russia have always fulfilled and will fulfil all obligations under our agreements and contracts, with no failures ever.


It is indeed a sign of cowardice that European politicians blame Russia for problems they themselves have caused. They try to hide it but the facts are all there to point that out. Should Europe really run into energy problems during the winter the political punishment they will receive will be remorseless.

Posted by b on September 19, 2022 at 17:10 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/p ... .html#more

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Ukraine is the new Israel


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September 19, 21:06

Ukraine is the new Israel

Western support for the Ukrainian army will have long-term implications for US foreign policy. The consequences will undoubtedly be felt in the Middle East and especially in Israel.
Generous military and economic aid to Ukraine from the US and NATO should unnerve Israel.

Unlike the Gulf regimes, which simply buy Western patronage, Israel depends on Western military support for its very existence. Ukraine is now the main thing for the West, no state has ever received such military assistance from the West, and no state has ever excited the public opinion of the West in such a way. (And notice how the Western media ignores the opinions of the peoples and governments of Africa, Asia and Latin America, who do not support sanctions against Russia. Only the opinion of the Western countries matters).

Europe tried in the 1970s to pursue a different policy on the Palestinian issue. But by the 1980s, the United States - especially after the war against Iraq in 1991 - forced all Western allies into submission and submission. Washington ensured that Western Middle East policy was US-led: France was the last Western government to try a different policy in 2003 when the US attacked Iraq, but Paris quickly reversed course and has been trying to redeem itself ever since.
Another example is Canada, which used to feign friendliness towards the Palestinians, is now as adamant in supporting Zionism as the US, and even worse than the US in censoring pro-Palestinian speeches and debates (just like Germany) in the media and in schools.

Israel's tarnished reputation

Israel's reputation began to deteriorate after 1967 and continues to this day, which affects public opinion. There is (documented) support for the Palestinians in most Western countries, but governments do not allow public opinion to influence their Middle East policy.
Jeremy Corbyn, a former Labor leader, is an example of an opposition leader in the West punished for expressing the foreign policy preferences of members of his own party.

Reasons for Israel's decline in Western public opinion include, but are not limited to:

Israel's growing military power and the overt US policy of guaranteeing Israel's military superiority against any Arab army group.

The disclosure since 1980 of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Israel, including nuclear

The loss of Zionist control over Western media narrative and wide access on social media to Palestinian opinion despite pressure from corporate censorship, as well as photos and videos of Israeli atrocities on social media

Exposing the reality of Israeli racism and atrocities hidden until 1977 (when the Likud party came to power ), previously covered by socialist slogans and quasi-liberal rhetoric

The end of the PLO showed that Israeli hostility and opposition is not directed against political or military organizations, but against the very existence of the Palestinians as a people

The sharp turn in Israel's politics towards the fascists made it difficult for the mainstream Western liberal parties to continue their traditional support for Israel. Of course, these parties continue to support Israel, but their political base is moving away from Zionism The

publication of numerous documents from the official archives of Israel, confirming and reinforcing what the Palestinians said about the Nakba

side of Israel without regard to the laws of war and the minimum requirements of human rights

The Israeli leadership's arrogance towards Western politicians has tarnished Israel's image in public opinion, Netanyahu's direct challenge to Obama against the Iran nuclear deal has offended the Democratic Party's liberal base, and Israel's close ties to Western fascists also hurt it in Western liberal opinion.

Attention volatility

In 2016, Obama guaranteed apartheid Israel $38 billion over the next 10 years. Congress, as usual, added more from itself.

But the level of congressional support for Ukraine reminds Israel that US attention has shifted and that a new Cold War is brewing. The level of Western (including the US) military and economic aid to Ukraine is never before seen, and this should worry Israel.

The US is most concerned with the rise of Chinese and less of Russian power, which raises the importance of Taiwan and Ukraine in US political calculations. The fact that Ukraine receives tens of billions in military and economic aid, and that delegations of US congressmen openly challenge China with visits to Taiwan, is an indication of the level of interest outside the Middle East.

The US is now spending its own military supplies (especially HIMARS) to boost Ukraine's military power. If Israel wants to attack Iran, it is unlikely that it will receive the same air support as is usual for wars of aggression against the Arabs.

Congress and public opinion are more likely to support Ukraine and Taiwan, because, as propaganda says, the vital interests of the United States are at stake there. The importance of Israel during the Cold War has all but disappeared from strategic calculations. Mossad helped the US against the USSR, but those days are gone.

The Mossad is no longer of such value to the West: the United States and its war against what they call "terrorists" can now rely not only on their own special services, but also on the Arab countries, which during the Cold War could have been allies of the USSR.

Israel is most frightened by the fact that the conflict over Ukraine and Taiwan will obviously drag on for more than months, this is not a bombing of Belgrade and not an attack on Afghanistan.

The United States has clearly decided on a long-term conflict, on a new Cold War, where they will need much more funds and weapons against Russia and China. Since the US dominates most of the Arab countries and destroys those it could not subdue (like Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon and Yemen), Israel can no longer claim that its enemies (whether Hamas or Hezbollah) are also enemies of the US. that threaten vital US interests.

Of course, the US Congress recognizes all enemies of Israel as its enemies, but there will probably now be limits on how far the US will go in real support for Israel.

What does this mean for the Arabs?

In light of these changes, Israel will increasingly rely on its new friends and allies, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Israel will have to do more to support and help these regimes survive.

Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia was largely the result of pressure from the Zionist lobby - AIPAC, and Biden himself did not hesitate to admit that Israel demanded this visit and that it was done for Israel. The West now views Israel as a dubious ally. Western human rights organizations that have traditionally defended Israel have finally recognized that Israel is an apartheid state.

Ukraine is the new Israel, and this will limit Israel's ability to wage aggressive wars - especially long ones.

(c) Asad Abuhalil

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/09/15/t ... ew-israel/ - original in English

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7872526.html

About referendums
September 19, 19:39

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Regarding the issue of holding referendums in the liberated territories and in the LDNR, my position has not changed since March - the sooner they are held, the better. The referendums fix the irreversibility of the further disintegration of Ukraine. The delay in this process plays against the goals of the Russian Federation in the NVO in Ukraine.
Security problems can be partially stopped by the active introduction of remote voting - electronic or by mail (as in the USA 😀), as well as by stretching referendums for several days in order to avoid crowds that could become the target of terrorist attacks.

Of course, there will be terrorist attacks and shelling in this case as well, but with a time-consuming process, some of which is transferred to a remote format, Ukraine will not be able to stop them using terror methods. The opinion of the West in this case is absolutely not important, so their "recognitions and non-recognitions" can be ignored. What is important is what will be de facto, and not what is being said in Washington.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7872289.html

Donetsk Red Line
Basic
September 19, 18:50

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Red line in Donetsk. Today, 16 civilians, including two children, were killed in the shelling of the city center.

From my point of view, the best response to this terrorist act is to continue the strategy of "strange self-attacks" on Ukrainian energy facilities. There is no need to warn, these warnings do not touch anyone, we must act methodically, one self-attack after another. And then the effect of such "red lines" will be completely different.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7872230.html

Google Translator

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Friedrichstrasse, bisected by the Berlin Wall, in 1961. Operation Red Sox dropped 85 CIA agents into Soviet-controlled territory to gather intelligence about Moscow’s plans. [Source: politico.com]

Ukraine: The CIA’s 75-year-old Proxy
By Gerald Sussman (Posted Sep 14, 2022)

Originally published: CovertAction Magazine on September 12, 2022 (more by CovertAction Magazine) |

It takes a musical artist to cut through the morass of propaganda to educate American mainstream media (MSM) about the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the roleof the United States in instigating that conflict for its own nefarious ends.

The MSM have constructed an undiluted narrative about “Putin’s War” that disguises America’s imperialist expansion into eastern Europe. It is utterly Orwellian in its effort to project onto Russia what the U.S. and its main imperial ally, the UK (which a British journalist deemed “America’s tugboat”), have been doing non-stop since 1945—and indeed for centuries.

Looking back, the U.S. under Truman began the policy of turning enemies (Germany, Japan) into friends and friends (the important war-time alliance with the USSR) into enemies. The CIA, established in 1947, was the main clandestine instrument of this policy, working closely with the neo-Nazi Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) to carry out acts to sabotage, divide and destabilize the Soviet state.

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OUN logo [Source: wikimedia.org]

The OUN, in particular the faction led by the German ally Stepan Bandera and his second in command, Yaroslav Stetsko, OUN-B, was a violently anti-semitic, anti-communist, and anti-Russian organization, which collaborated with the Nazi occupation and actively participated in the slaughter of millions of Poles, Ukrainian Jews, and ethnically Russian and Ukrainian communists in the region. Nonetheless, The Washington Post treated Stetsko as a national hero, a “lonely patriot.”

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Yaroslav Stetsko with then-Vice President George H.W. Bush. [Source: fpif.org]

The OUN-German alliance in 1941 was backed by the leaders of the Ukrainian Orthodox and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches. The latter’s archbishop, Andrey Sheptytsky, penned a pastoral letter that declared:

We greet the victorious German Army as deliverer from the enemy. We render our obedient homage to the government which has been erected. We recognize Mr. Yaroslav Stetsko as Head of State… of the Ukraine.

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Andrey Sheptytsky [Source: encyclopediaofukraine.com]

On the occasion of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the OUN put up posters in the western Ukrainian city of Lvov that read:

Do not throw away your weapons now. Take them in your hands. Destroy the enemy.…People! Know! Moscow, Poland, the Hungarians, the Jews are your enemies. Destroy them!…Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes! Glory to the Leader! [Bandera]

Notably, this call for ethnic cleansing does not cite the Germans then occupying Ukraine, yet the fascist and neo-Nazi propagandists who are waging a war in the Donbas region today portray their forebearers as heroes for having defended Ukrainian nationalism from the Soviets and Germany. The Pentagon successfully pressed Congress to lift restrictions on training and providing military assistance to groups, such as the Azov Battalion, that are based on fascist or neo-Nazi ideology.

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Azov Battalion fighters with NATO flag at left and Nazi flag at right. [Source: wsws.org]

As in the past, U.S. foreign policy is prepared to accommodate such sectors within its circle of allies. On December 16, 2021, a draft resolution of the UN General Assembly was listed as “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”

It passed by a recorded vote of 130 in favor (mainly the Third World, constituting the large majority of the world’s population), 51 abstentions (mainly the EU, Australia, New Zealand and Canada), and two opposed, the two being Ukraine and the United States. The Western European countries that Hitler conquered and occupied would not condemn present-day manifestations of Nazism and fascism.

Harry Truman, infamously declared as a senator in 1940 in response to Operation Barbarossa that “If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible.” This showed what little regard he had for the Russian and other Soviet people—which became more evident when he became president.

During his tenure in the White House, the U.S. helped rebuild the industrial capacity of Western Europe (in large part to prevent communists and socialists from winning elections), but he also launched a war on North Korea, destroying virtually every structure in the country through bombing, including incendiary and napalm weapons.

He initiated the Cold War, massively escalated the military budget, organized NATO, and used atomic weapons on civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in large part to block the allied Soviets from gaining territory in Japan in the last days of the war.

Perhaps Truman’s most destructive initiative was the creation of the CIA, a monster that he later claimed got out of hand, telling a friend “I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo, ”though as president he supported its clandestine activities in Eastern Europe.

The immediate target was Soviet Ukraine, which the CIA hoped through its clandestine projects to “crack apart” with saboteurs behind enemy lines.

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President Harry S. Truman signing off on creation of the CIA. [Source: historydaily.org]

Its task was a carry-over from the World War II covert action agency, the OSS, which had worked with partisan groups resisting the Nazi occupation. In Ukraine, the U.S. simply flipped the enemy by supporting Nazi insurgent organizations fighting the Soviet Union, the country that had just saved Europe from the scourge of Hitler’s Third Reich.

The CIA’s plan, part of its “stay behind” operations in Central and Eastern Europe, was to airdrop Ukrainians from the ultra-nationalist groups, in particular OUN-B, that would involve the smuggling of weapons, the uses of covert communication transmissions, spies, commandos, banditry, assassins and sabotage.

A declassified secret CIA history shows that the Agency refused to extradite the OUN war criminal Bandera to the Soviets in order to keep the underground movement and the destabilization efforts in Ukraine intact.

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Stepan Bandera [Source: wikipedia.org]

Instead, two branches of the CIA, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) for covert operations and the Office of Special Operations (OSO) for clandestine projects for which the U.S. government provided cover, both protected the OUN and worked closely with the anti-Soviet Ukraine Insurgent Army (UPA) “for psychological warfare activities directed against Polish, Czechoslovakian, and Romanian targets bordering Ukraine.”

OPC and OSO “agree[d] that the Ukrainian organization [Ukrainian Supreme Council of Liberation], the governing body of the OUN, offers unusual opportunities for penetration of the USSR, and assisting in the development of underground movements behind the Iron Curtain.”

The CIA operation was codenamed PBCRUET-AERODYNAMIC, based on a top-secret document dated June 17, 1950.

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Ukrainian Insurgent Army. [Source: militaryhistorynow.com]

The OUN

The OUN party congress in August 1939 called for an “ethnically uniform” state, a concept that escalated after 1941 with its commitment to a “cleansing operation against all enemies of the race.” Ukraine’s Jews, numbering about 1.5 million, were virtually annihilated by the Germans, aided by OUN’s Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the Ukrainian police, and by ordinary Ukrainian citizens. OUN was made up of a range of Ukrainian fascists, Nazis, and other extreme elements but also included Slovak Hlinka Guards, Ukrainian SS from the 14th Grenadier Waffen-SS (Galicia) Division, and mercenary German SS.

The mass murder of Poles (estimated at 100,000 to 200,000) escalated in 1943, again actively joined by the UPA. The OUN-UPA also collaborated with the Germans in rooting out thousands of Ukrainian Russians for extermination. Its self-appointed “prime minister,” Yaroslav Stetsko depicted Russians as a barbarian, non-European race, descended from Mongols and Huns.

After the war, the U.S. saw no problem with working closely with Stetsko who, in his own biography (1941), wrote:

I consider Marxism to be a product of the Jewish mind, which has been applied in the Muscovite prison of peoples by the Muscovite-Asiatic people with the assistance of Jews. Moscow and Jewry are Ukraine’s greatest enemies and bearers of corruptive Bolshevik international ideas.… I therefore support the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine, barring their assimilation….

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[Source: twitter.com]

Neither his madness, nor the Nazi death camps, nor the three million Russian POWs who died in concentration camps nor the utter barbarity of the German and allied invasions changed the course of U.S. official thinking about how high-ranking Nazis and fascists could be useful to America’s war with Soviet socialism. Stetsko was given a broad welcome in Washington, where he was fêted by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as an esteemed leader of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, which originally was a Nazi German formation (noted by Stephen Dorril), and permanent ABN delegate to the World Anti-Communist League.

Rollback

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Mykola Lebed [Source: encyclopediaofukraine.com]

By the early 1950s, after parachuting 85 agents into Ukraine, three-quarters of them captured, the CIA conceded that the project was a dismal failure. This did not deter the cold warriors from using regime-change mercenaries elsewhere, including the failed Bay of Pigs a decade later. With the Ukrainian insurgent movement crushed, many of the Banderites, including Mykola Lebed, one of the founders of the OUN and a lieutenant of Bandera trained by the Gestapo in ruthless methods of torture, became émigrés.

Lebed, who had served as the organization’s foreign minister and head of its notorious secret police, was described by the U.S. Army as a “well-known sadist and collaborator of the Germans.” He migrated to Munich after the war, where he played an important role in the newly formed and secretly CIA-run Radio Free Europe, the U.S.-funded propaganda organ that transmitted to Eastern Europe. RFE was joined by Radio Liberty (also run by the CIA and directed to the Soviet Union) and the Voice of America in not only broadcasting propaganda but also for relaying one-way coded messages to “stay behind” saboteurs.

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[Source: journalismisnotacrime.org]

During the war, Lebed was said to have been a good pupil and favorite of the German Gestapo. Afterwards, relocated in Munich, Lebed enjoyed the patronage (as did Bandera) of Nazi intelligence officer Reinhard Gehlen, who himself had close operational relations with the CIA.

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Reinhard Gehlen [Source: ww2db.com]

Gehlen later became head of West German intelligence, employing the Nazis he had worked with during the war, and helping the CIA by sharing information on Eastern Europe. When Lebed fell out with the post-war OUN-B in Germany, the CIA smuggled him and many other Ukrainian ultra-nationalists to the U.S.

With the endorsement of CIA Director Allen Dulles, Lebed worked in New York City (and lived in affluent Westchester County) under a false name as an anti-Soviet intelligence asset and was given citizenship. The far-right Ukrainians then and now have long been instruments of a Cold War policy. “Former members of the Ukrainian underground now in the United States,” the CIA wrote in a top-secret 1950 document,

will be exploited to the fullest extent practicable.

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Allen Dulles Source wikipediaorg

In the early Cold War years, there were hundreds if not thousands of Nazis, including such war criminals as SS officer Otto von Bolschwing (a leading organizer of the Final Solution and an adjutant of Adolf Eichmann), brought into the U.S. from Germany, Ukraine, the Balkans, the Baltic states, and Byelorussia.

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Otto von Bolschwing Source wikipediaorg

Also among them was Adolf Heusinger, “one of the many high-ranking Nazi and fascist officials who had been integrated into U.S. military and intelligence networks.” Heusinger had been Hitler’s Chief of the General Staff of the Army, and in 1961-1964 was appointed as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, so fluid was the transition from being a high-ranking Nazi to becoming a military commander of the “Free World.”

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[Source: wikipedia.org]

Meanwhile, Bandera’s demand for total control of the OUN led to friction within the Germany-based fascist leadership. By 1950, the U.S. and UK were planning joint operations into Ukraine, but the CIA at that point decided to work more closely with the ZP/UHVR (foreign representation of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council, the umbrella organization of all right-wing nationalist formations), while the British MI6 took on Bandera as their chief contact among the Ukrainians.

When Bandera was assassinated in 1959 after the U.S. refused to extradite him to the Soviet Union for war crimes, Stetsko took over the OUN.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. thought it at last had Russia in its grasp. Under the autocratic, vodka-driven rule of Boris Yeltsin in Russia, the U.S. was invited in to guide a neoliberal “shock therapy” program, which resulted in the complete destruction of the Russian economy.

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[Source: medium.com]

American-style capitalism created a severe depression with massive unemployment, falling wages, loss of pensions, oligarchs taking over formerly state-owned industries, increased inequality and poverty, rising alcoholism, and a significant decline in life spans.

Although Yeltsin put up some resistance, the Clinton administration had its way in expanding NATO into Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, a violation of agreements made between George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev on not expanding the military organization “one inch” to the east. This false promise was supposed to be a concession to the Soviets for not blocking German reunification and its NATO membership.

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[Source: vhlf.org]

Henceforth, this began a steady progression of NATO enlargement, which certified Ukraine as a future member and a de facto associate member and brought arms deliveries, weapons training, and coordinated war games with the Ukrainian army in anticipation of a war with Russia—along with bank accounts for cooperating Ukrainian politicians.

Vladimir Putin proved to be a far superior Russian leader, turning around the economy, reining in many of the oligarchs, and restoring confidence in the Russian state. In Ukraine, the U.S. saw an opportunity in the 2004 presidential election to pull Ukraine away from the influence of Russia.

Along with visits to the country by high-level officials, the U.S. intervened by using several other channels, including the regime-change organizations, National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, Freedom House, George Soros’s Open Society Institute (now Foundations), and the ever-present CIA, to block the election of Russia-leaning Viktor Yanukovych and install a pro-American neo-liberal Viktor Yushchenko as president.

With U.S. help, Yushchenko prevailed but failed miserably as president. The fire alarm went off again for the U.S. in 2010, when Yanukovych was elected president. By then, Yushchenko was fully discredited as a leader, receiving only 5.5% of the first-round vote, thereby eliminating him. The U.S. has had a hard time picking winners.

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| | MR OnlineViktor Yanukovych [Source: wikipedia.org]

The 2013-2014 anti-government protests, which started out peacefully in Kyiv’s Maidan (square), was urged on by visits to the streets by the U.S. undersecretary of state and regime change specialist, Victoria Nuland, who repeatedly met with coup plotters. Joining her were Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Chris Murphy (D-CT), who stood on a platform in the square with the neo-Nazi leader Oleh Tyahnybok to offer America’s support, presumably without formal authorization, for the illegal overthrow of Yanukovych.

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Then-U.S. Senator John McCain, center, speaks as Chris Murphy, Democratic senator from Connecticut, second left, and Opposition leader Oleh Tyahnybok, right, stand around him during a pro-European Union rally in Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, in December 2015. [Source: foxnews.com]

This time the CIA was more fully involved in getting rid of the Russia-leaning president and very likely helped prepare the extreme right militia groups that took part in the sniper shootings and massacres of police and protesters in the Maidan, which forced Yanukovych to flee. The New York Times falsely attributed the shootings to his government. This set off resistance in the heavily Russophone Donbas region to the overthrow, which in turn was met by an assault by the Kyiv coup government and the deaths, up to 2022, of 14,000 soldiers and civilians.

In interviews with European reporters in June 2022, Petro Poroshenko, who was a regular informant at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv before he was sponsored by the U.S. to become president in 2014, said that while in office, he signed the Minsk agreements with Russia, France and Germany and agreed to a cease-fire merely as a ploy to buy time in building up the military and preparing for war. “Our goal,” he said,

was to, first, stop the threat, or at least to delay the war—to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.

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Petro Poroshenko, who was an informant at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv before the U.S. sponsored him to become Ukraine’s president. [Source: ndtv.com]

The Propaganda War

President Biden and other public officials have repeatedly used the phrase “unprovoked attack” to characterize Russia’s motivations as nothing more than territorial aggression. Such claims are made without credible evidence, as if the invocation of the name Putin is enough to establish any statement about him or the Russian state as proof by its mere utterance.

The problem, as many observers have noted, is that the mainstream media serve as little more than a national and international graphic transmission and amplification tool of the state and ruling-class consensus. This, of course, is nothing new, as more than 400 journalists from the MSM were discovered to have served as the eyes and ears of the CIA during much of the Cold War, as reported by Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein. There is evidence that at least some journalists continue to act as messengers for the Agency.

Those Washington Beltway insiders have problems understanding what constitutes provocation. The expansion of hostile U.S. and NATO forces and war games carried on to the gates of Russia, including the plan to add Ukraine and Georgia to the list of members, are clearly provocations. And if Biden’s memory is at all intact, he will remember how the Kennedy administration treated the presence of a single Soviet military base in the Western Hemisphere (in Cuba) as a threat to U.S. security. In that case, the Soviets had the good sense to back off.

The Maidan coup in 2014, which even the U.S. puppet president Poroshenko admitted was unconstitutional (i.e., illegal) and the subsequent banning of the Russian language and call for a general ethno-cleansing in public institutions and media by his government were provocations. So too were the military assaults in the Donbas region, instigated by the U.S.-armed and -trained neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, starting in 2015. Just prior to the Russian invasion, Kyiv put a massive formation of troops on the border with the breakaway oblasts, Donetsk and Luhansk.

The secession of Kosovo, following 78 days of U.S. bombing of Russian ally Serbia, had Washington’s full support and for Russians served as a precedent for the Crimea breakaway. Prior to the Russian invasion, Volodymyr Zelensky launched authoritarian purges of opposition parties that were accused of giving voice to Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Poroshenko and Zelensky refused to abide by the Minsk agreements. These too were provocations.

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[Source: wikipedia.org]

Indeed, the 75-year history of U.S. efforts to destroy the sovereignty of the Soviet and Russian states is an unending provocation. The U.S. and NATO aggression against Russian allies in Syria and Serbia (and China) and the “color revolutions” in Belarus, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere in the former Soviet region and the expanding list of sanctions against Russia are further forms of aggression. The amnesia of the MSM in this recent history would be difficult to comprehend were it not for the understanding that they in fact serve as instruments of state propaganda, what Louis Althusser called ideological state apparatuses.

As Noam Chomsky expressed it: “It’s quite interesting that in American discourse, it is almost obligatory to refer to the invasion as the ‘unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.’ Look it up on Google, you will find hundreds of thousands of hits. Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.” If Chomsky is not convincing enough, perhaps the U.S./NATO warmongers might heed Pope Francis, certainly no Russophile, who ascertained that the invasion is the result of “the barking of NATO at the gates of Russia…. I can’t say if it was provoked, but perhaps, yes.”

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Noam Chomsky [Source: britannica.com]
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Pope Francis [Source: wikipedia.org]

The deluge of MSM propaganda against Russia and the embargo of voices that question the official story regarding the 2014 coup and the Russia-Ukraine conflict expose U.S. democracy as a model not worthy of emulation. There are few if any authoritarian states where suppression of news is of such magnitude and so institutionally entrenched as in the U.S.

Elsewhere, I have discussed the wide presence of former military and intelligence officials with ties to defense industries populating the broadcast and cable news channels as “expert analysts,” and the uses of white supremacist ideology by MSM reporters to depict displaced Ukrainians as a special group of “worthy victims.”

A central feature of the MSM reporting and celebrity culture has been the portrayal of Zelensky as a “hero,” selflessly defending Ukraine against tyranny. The hero image in America is an old trope taken from a long line of such larger-than-life military exemplars that include John Wayne’s characters in World War II, the construction of the Vietnam war criminal into “war hero” John McCain, the chicken hawk Ronald Reagan, Rambo, the Indian killer Daniel Boone, and so many others.

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A president under siege? The Zelenskys on the cover of Vogue magazine. [Source: vogue.com]

Propaganda is now openly a major part of the U.S. war arsenal, and the government does little to hide the fact. Apart from the massive arms shipments the U.S. and NATO allies are supplying Ukrainians to kill domestic and foreign Russians, some 150 American and other global PR firms, according to PRWeek, including a British company with close ties to the ruling Conservative Party, have offered to supply Ukraine with propaganda tools—weapons of mass deception.

At the same time, there has been close to no reporting on Zelensky’s less than sterile record on corruption, an endemic problem for Ukraine, which is ranked the by U.S.-, UK- and corporate-funded Transparency International as the most corrupt country in Europe. Apart from failing to bring down the oligarchs who rule the country (50 of whom hold 45% of the country’s wealth), including his own patron, the corrupt and U.S.-sanctioned Ukrainian-Israeli-Cypriot billionaire Igor Kholomoisky, Zelensky himself has been exposed in the Pandora Papers as a goniff, with millions stashed away in offshore accounts in the British Virgin Islands and in properties in London. His shuttering of the entire political, media and intellectual opposition makes it difficult for Ukrainians to get wind of his less-than-heroic financial machinations.

Exposure of these realities in the U.S. and UK social media or in books and journals leads to being labeled a Russian “bot” or “Putin’s useful idiot.” Perhaps the most authentic useful idiot is Russiagate Rambo Adam Schiff, Democrat from California and Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who on the occasion of the Trump impeachment hearings in January 2020, said,

We fight Russia over there so we don’t have to fight them here.

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Adam Schiff [Source: thehill.com]

This is what passes for intelligence in Congress.

Takeaways
One must take seriously the insight of German political theorist Carl Schmitt, who argued that powerful nation states need to have enemies in order to define who they are, and that their “political actions and motives can be reduced to the distinction between friend and enemy.” For Schmitt, the “enemy” need not be construed as evil, but for the U.S., the enemy is always embedded with religious notions of immorality.

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Carl Schmitt [Source: wikipedia.org]

Schmitt ultimately lent his intellect to the service of the Third Reich, but the U.S. itself confirmed by its early “stay behind” actions in Ukraine and other parts of Europe that it was prepared to adopt some of the same tactics, if not ideology, of their Nazi recruits.

Constructing the Soviet Union, later Russia, as an enemy had at least three utilities: creating a national threat to divert public attention from the massive inequities within the corporate capitalist economy; justifying the building of a national security (police, imperialist) state and empire, built upon a military-industrial-media complex, with an extraordinary level of military spending as a hedge against depression; and organizing a broad propaganda complex modeled on the Office of War Information in World War II to maintain the legitimacy of the state as a moral force in a world threatened by evil leaders who seek to take away Americans’ freedom.

In reality, it is the U.S. itself which is stripping the country of its vaunted “four freedoms” and denying other countries, particularly in the Third World, of their independent paths to development and freedom.

The main point of the anti-imperialist argument is not to defend the war in Ukraine but to look more deeply into its causes. The U.S. has long been a highly militarized society and indeed has been out of war for only15 years of its existence.

And when the U.S. is not directly invading (into 84 countries to date), it sponsors invasions and coups against countries that run against its strategic interests (Chile, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Yemen, Brazil, Argentina, Angola, Venezuela, D. R. Congo, Gaza, Greece, Ecuador, Ghana and many others).

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Map of countries where the United States has fought in or occupied. Excludes air strikes and special forces operations. [Source: reddit.com]

The Ukraine crisis is also a sponsored war, as Kyiv’s assault on the Donbas region is ultimately in the U.S. interest, as its resources, including a “highly developed coal industry, ferrous-metallurgy industry, machine building, chemical industry, and construction industry, enormous energy resources, diversified agriculture, and a dense transportation network” are lusted over by transnational capital and finance.

Beyond Ukraine lies the vast territory of Russia and untold wealth of energy, strategic minerals, and other resources that call out to a globally expansionist and militarist corporate capitalist system like the U.S. There are certainly ways out of the present crisis in Ukraine, but they require the neutralization of the country and its conversion to a demilitarized state that, with the U.S. alliance, respects and enforces the rights and equality of its ethnic Russian population.

The West also has to acknowledge on some level Russia’s legitimate security interests, which have become compromised by the horde of NATO forces far too close to its borders. The concept of state security is enshrined in the United Nations Charter, and the avoidance of an even larger catastrophe requires that the U.S. act in compliance with UN dicta for peace and remove its obstacles to a negotiated settlement, which is in the long-term interest of Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the world.

https://mronline.org/2022/09/14/ukraine/

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

From cassad's Telegram account:

forwarded from
Voenkor Kitten Z
Military expert Boris Rozhin on the main points during the special military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine on 20.13 Moscow time on 19.09.2022 specially for the Voenkor Kotenok Z @voenkorKotenok channel :
2. On the Maryinsky and Ugledarsky directions - without significant changes. 3. On the Artemovsk direction, PMC "Wagner" storms Zaitsevo (the control of the village has not yet been confirmed), as well as fortifications near the Artemovsk-Dzerzhinsk highway . There is also a promotion in the industrial zone of Artemovsk . 4. In Soledar street fighting continues.
Belogorovka (near the Artemovsk-Lysichansk highway ) and Yakovlevka are held by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Fights
are going on for Disputed. The enemy entered Belogorovka (which is next to Kremennaya , the attacks in the direction of which were repulsed). 5. Yampol and Krasny Liman are held by our troops. DRGs of the enemy roam with might and main in the Old Caravan , Shchurovo , Dibrovo and Yarovaya . Svyatogorsk is still in the gray zone. 6. The enemy continues to attack Oskolsky front, pressing on Scars and in the Kupyansk area. The Russian Armed Forces are still defending in the eastern part of the city.

7. On the border of the Kharkov and Belgorod regions, positional battles and shelling continue. There are no significant developments here. It is quite obvious that the intensity of shelling of the border areas can be reduced only by returning the northern part of the Kharkov region under control.

8. On the Nikolaev and Krivoy Rog directions without significant changes. Positional battles are still going on in the Posad-Pokrovsky sector and the Andreevsky bridgehead on the Ingulets River .

***

Colonelcassad

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The situation in the Donetsk direction as of 18.00 on September 19,2022

▪️Trying to hold back the advance of the allied troops into the defensive lines of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they are firing indiscriminately at Donetsk , Yasinovataya , Sladky , Maryinka , Peski and Staromikhaylovka .

▪️During the last days, Ukrainian formations have been making regular counter-offensive attempts (up to five per day) on Maryinka and Peski . During the fighting, the units of the 115th Ombr and 79th Oshbr of the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffer significant losses in manpower and equipment, without actually achieving anything .

▪️The command of the Donetsk grouping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine withdrew the remaining units of the 115th brigade to Novoselidovka , where mobilized citizens also arrived. The surviving personnel of the 115th brigade, together with the reserve, will be transferred to the 56th brigade. Their accelerated training is carried out at the training grounds in Sukhiy Yalakh and Druzhkovka .

▪️To hold the occupied lines in the Donetsk direction, 155-mm long-range artillery is being transferred, including M109 self-propelled howitzers and CAESAR self-propelled guns.

▪️On the Ugledar sector of the front, units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are waiting for the allied forces to attack Pavlovka with a further exit to Vugledar . Reconnaissance UAVs operate to monitor the movement of Russian troops.

***

Colonelcassad

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The battle for Kherson: the situation in the Olginsky sector
as of 14.00 September 19, 2022

▪️The Ukrainian command is preparing for the next offensive in the directions of Arkhangelsk and Lyubimovka . To this end, the sabotage and reconnaissance group of the 128th Guards Brigade conducts reconnaissance of the positions of the RF Armed Forces in the vicinity of Olgino .

▪️An additional platoon of the 60th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine arrived in the Mirolyubovka area to make up for losses on this sector of the front. To strengthen the defensive lines in Shesternya , Koshevoye and Vysokopolye , servicemen of the 129th brigade of the territorial defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine arrived.

▪️In addition, Stinger MANPADS crews operate in Vysokopolye and Petrovka . In the coming days, the arrival of the 1st battalion of the 128th Guards Rifle Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with anti-tank systems and AGS-17 mounted grenade launchers in service is expected from the 17th brigade training ground near Krivoy Rog .

https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin

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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 » Tue Sep 20, 2022 12:20 pm

The war in Donbass
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 09/20/2022 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENT

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Original Article: Antifashist

The start of the special military operation in Donbass was greeted with great enthusiasm by the residents of the DPR and the LPR: it was hoped that the Armed Forces of Ukraine would finally get their due and be expelled from the region, after which the Republics would become in part of Russia. That was exactly what Donbass had been waiting for eight years. However, the reality has turned out to be much crueler. After six months of military operation, Donetsk remains the target of Ukrainian shelling and is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, and cities and districts in Donbass that have never been bombed before are now under fire from multiple rocket launchers that Western countries have handed over to kyiv.

On March 21, in an interview with the Russian press, DPR leader Denis Pushilin stated that the bombing of Donetsk would end soon. “I think this is one of the last attacks. For our part, we continue to develop an offensive in the direction of Avdeevka, Marinka and Peski. The enemy has important fortifications there. But even so, our units are advancing”, he explained then [Ukraine had attacked Donetsk with a Tohcka-U that caused twenty deaths in the heart of the city and later blamed Russia for the bombing- Ed ]. The reality has turned out to be different: Peski has only been captured this month and Avdeevka and Marinka remain in Ukrainian hands. The heavy shelling of Donetsk does not stop for a single day and the fighting continues.

The city is at risk of catastrophe: right now there is running water in the capital of the DPR every three days and for two hours, although it is not even in the entire city, with some streets where it barely makes an appearance. In neighboring Makeevka, the water is even less frequent: every six days. In the front towns, there is no running water since the beginning of the military operation. Local authorities have not been quick to deal with the problem and even volunteers are forced to drill wells for the population.

The liberated territories of the DPR and the RPL have also become a humanitarian disaster zone. In Severodonetsk, Lisichansk, Rubezhnoe, Kremennaya and other cities of the LPR there is still no electricity, water or gas supply. Politician Igor Dimitriev has drawn attention to it. “More than 100,000 people lived in Severodonetsk, Luhansk region. Now about 20,000 remain. Many have spent weeks in cellars, without food or water. Many require psychological treatment. But now a new test awaits them: winter. There were more than 800 apartment buildings in the city, most of them damaged. Less than half can be repaired. There is no gas or heating. The electricity and water supply will probably be recovered in a part of the houses before the winter. The Ukrainian Army blew up power lines during its retreat. But the local population explains that there are already new sources of supply. Contractors from Perm were supposed to participate in the repair of the housing stock, but during the first month there was a struggle for the budget between Perm and Ingushetia. This has won and is now recruiting local workers. The local population does not count on the repair of heating and windows or insulation of basements, but hopes that the electricity supply will be restored. The food is cooked on stoves. The Ministry of Emergency Situations is installing mobile toilets”, explained the political scientist.

In addition, the war continues, in which defenders of the RPD and RPL continue to die and the mobilization continues, so a part of the young people hides at home. Donbass is fighting at the limit of its strength and capabilities. Much has been said about mobilization and it is correct to want to defend the land, but it must be said that it is, to say the least, stupid to accuse the inhabitants of the Republics of not wanting to fight. Donbass has suffered great hardship for eight years because of the war and has resisted alone against the Ukrainian Army, far superior to the popular militias in both personnel and weapons. However, it is not normal for university professors, employees of the company that repairs communication equipment or industrial workers who have never carried a weapon in their lives are forced and immediately sent to the front. A doctor who is recruited and sent to the infantry to the front must treat soldiers, not be in a trench with a machine gun.

The writer has recently referred to the problems of housing and basic services in the RPL. It turns out that a large part of the locksmiths and plumbers have been mobilized, so the Ministry has no one to send to help the population. Is it possible to recover the house in these conditions?

The lack of personnel threatens to be a catastrophe also in the industrial field because of the mobilization. For example, the management team of the Alchevsk Metallurgical Plant, where several hundred people have already been mobilized, has been forced to turn seriously to Moscow to stop the recruitment of workers, which threatens to cause the closure of the factory. Now an attempt is being made to replace the residents of the DPR and the RPL who have marched to the front by hiring people from the liberated territories [currently exempt from the mobilization requirement- Ed ].

Why should Donbass, which has been paying in blood for eight years for its right to become part of Russia, bleed again? There are still problems with the supply to the people's militias of the DPR and RPL. Helmets and bulletproof vests are scarce for the mobilized residents of the Republics and there are not enough radios and drones. The volunteers try to make up for the shortcomings, but it is not enough. And the trench warfare promises to be long.

The referendum in Donbass, the one that the population has been waiting for so long, will not take place in the immediate future either [the DPR and the RPL urgently requested yesterday the holding of a referendum, but there is still no official response from Russia, for which, for the moment, is not known if the request has been coordinated with Moscow or an initiative of its own in the face of worsening conditions on the front -Ed. ]There are many reasons for this: the hostilities in the DPR, the unstable situation in Kherson and Zaporozhye. But there is something else: admitting the Republics to Russia, where there is no general mobilization, would mean the demobilization of thousands of Donbass reservists. Then one would have to ask who is going to fight if Moscow is not going to carry out a mobilization in the Russian Federation and the residents of the DPR/RPL are demobilized.

Donbass has been in a state of war for eight years and is now fighting at the limit of its strength. The population trembled and fell into apathy. The peace, for which they have been waiting for many years, has not yet come to the homes of Donetsk and Lugansk and in its place war has appeared in an even more cruel form. I would like to think that the clouds in the sky will dissipate and soon the sun will shine on the region.

https://slavyangrad.es/2022/09/20/25537/#more-25537

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US and Britain obstruct peace in Ukraine
September 19, 14:07

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US and Britain obstruct peace in Ukraine

If not for the US and UK, the conflict in Ukraine would have ended in April, American comedian Lee Camp said on a show for MPN. According to him, it was Washington and London that stopped the peace process.

A report has come out that shows Russia and Ukraine have worked out a peace deal and are ready to end the conflict. Thank God! What? Oh, sorry, the report says they worked out a peace deal back in April, but the US and UK stepped in and stopped the process. What...?

Yes, they wanted to end the conflict four months ago. They were going to put an end to the killings and the horrors, because that's what the doves and so forth symbolize, isn't it? Ukraine wants an end to the conflict. Presumably, Russia wants an end to the conflict. Presumably the US and NATO want an end to the conflict. "Supposedly" is the same as "seemingly", people say this when they are trying to seem smart, but at the same time, supposedly, they do not care at all who thinks what. Did I use the correct word? Not?

Let's take a step back and think about it. Let's forget that the US and NATO helped unleash the conflict in Ukraine, breaking the word given to Russia not to expand NATO. Let's forget that in 2014 the United States organized a coup d'état in Ukraine. Forget that many senior US officials have admitted that there is a proxy conflict between the US, NATO and Russia, including former CIA chief Leon Panetta.

Let's forget Dave Chappelle's last few performances, but not because they have anything to do with all this, but because ... Good God! I won't take it for granted. Even if you hate transgender people, even if you don't care about the oppressed and those who find it difficult to live in our society, even if you really can't stand them, why in the name of God do you constantly complain that they ask for normal treatment ? Is there not enough shit on this planet to complain about? Hard conditions for workers in Bangladesh, sex traffickers in the US, illegal whaling in the Pacific, racism, apartheid, drought, and car rental employees acting like it's my fault for being in the car I'm going to rent , stinks of tobacco smoke. What am I doing here?

Hipster thrift shops that don't give more than a dollar for anything you bring to them, except for extremely rare ones. So many reasons for anger, but no, we will endlessly talk about the fact that a man who was born a man began to call himself Audrey. That's all, we'll just talk about it. What the heck?

I beg your pardon, let's get back to Ukraine. Forget that Biden and Congress provided multi-billion dollar aid and weapons to an army that is at least partly Nazi. Nazis who do not hide well that they are Nazis. But don't worry, Ukraine solved the Nazi problem by simply changing the logo. Just like Uncle Ben's Rice changed the controversial brand name to ThatGuy Ben's Rice and said the labels were just some dude named Ben who was a good cook and had nothing to do with America's racist history, plantations or anything. whatever it was. I'm sorry, what? Ben?

And forget that even the mouthpieces of American propaganda CBS and CNN admitted that only 30% of the weapons worth billions of dollars go directly to the Ukrainian front line. The rest was stolen and sold on the black market to terrorists and people who like to use grenade launchers as props. Well, you know, who already have everything.
Forget that the US government admitted that they are lying about what is happening in Ukraine, because it is, in their opinion, justified in the context of the information war.

Forget that a US-funded committee within the Ukrainian government labels anyone who tells the truth about the conflict a “media terrorist” and calls for war crimes to be held accountable. Among them are US Congressman Rand Paul and Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters. Well, yes, and Paul McCartney is a Russian assassin.
Forget that sanctions against Russia have backfired and are ruining the lives of ordinary Americans. Forget the documented fact that the US and the West have been planning for years to plunder Ukraine. Let's forget all this - and we will have to forget a lot. Like Joe Biden on his worst day, when he didn’t drink his cocktail of drugs and didn’t get the right dose of formaldehyde, which is poured into his ears to fill the voids in the brain, and ordered a missile attack on some fictional Kuzdzhakistan. No one knows where they ended up flying.

Even if you forget all this, even if you are still waving the Ukrainian flag and refusing to accept the facts I have listed and, plugging your ears, say "na-na-na-na", then accept the information that the United States and its allies actually tore up the peace agreement, preventing it from moving forward?

Exactly. Back in April, Russia and Ukraine tentatively agreed on a peace deal that could put an end to all this senseless killing. One of the conditions was that Russia should withdraw to pre-conflict positions in exchange for Ukraine's promise to abandon plans to join NATO with security guarantees from a number of countries. Wow, sounds incredible. It could end a lot of suffering, save a lot of lives and money, and stop countless destruction. Well, yes, it sounds good, but we will not do that.

The main factor in the failure of the negotiations is that the settlement process has come under pressure from the West. According to the Ukrayinska Pravda online publication, during an April 9 visit to Kyiv, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on Ukrainian President Zelensky to stop negotiations with Russia. He said that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some kind of guarantee agreement with Putin, its Western patrons do not agree to this. And the news is not fake - Johnson confirmed this in a conversation with French President Macron. Even if Ukraine and Russia were ready to end the conflict, the clown Boris Johnson let them know that the West does not want to stop the bloodshed. Of course, if Zelensky hadn’t been such an outspoken puppet, he would have answered like this: “Who are you anyway? There is a conflict going on in our land, it's us risking our lives, it's our families roaming the streets with all their belongings and dogs on their shoulders. Who the hell are you? You are a freak with a creepy haircut who just blew the prime minister's chair and will go down in history as a cross-eyed baboon."

But, of course, Zelensky did not do that. He said: "Ah, you want to continue this terrible senseless conflict? Okay, I'll tell Russia to keep bombing and the Nazis to keep shooting. Thanks for the advice, Mr. Baboon!"
Once again: this conflict could have ended if not for the United States and Great Britain. Don't forget to tell your friends!
That's all. Leave a comment below the video and let me know if you suddenly find it cool that the US is continuing this conflict. And if you want our releases to continue, repost and spread the word. Our transmission is completely independent. Fight!

https://inosmi.ru/20220919/anglosaksy-256184344.html - zinc

Captain Evidence is in touch.
It is clear that the United States and Britain deliberately forced the war on Ukraine and not at all in order to stop it immediately. For some, it only began to reach in the fall.
For the United States, the end of hostilities in Ukraine in the current realities is another step towards the loss of world hegemony, so they will support the war as much as they can.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7871420.html

"During the period of mobilization or wartime..."
September 20, 12:15

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The State Duma is preparing a package of amendments related to tightening the screws on issues of mobilization, martial law and the actions of soldiers at the front.

"During the period of mobilization or wartime..."

The State Duma introduces the concept of "mobilization", "martial law" and "wartime"

into the Criminal Code The amendments introduce a whole set of new articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: "Voluntary surrender" (Article 352.1) and "Looting" (Article 356.1). For surrender, one faces from three to 10 years in prison, if there are no signs of high treason. For looting - up to 15 years in prison.

The list of aggravating circumstances includes the commission of a crime “during the period of mobilization or martial law, in wartime” (Article 63).

Unauthorized abandonment of a unit during the period of mobilization and martial law (Article 337 of the Criminal Code) will be punished more severely:
- from two to 10 days - up to 5 years in prison, and not up to one year
- from 10 to one month - up to 7 years in prison, and up to three years old
- more than a month - from 5 to 10 years in a colony, and not up to five years.

They also came for the refuseniks. Non-fulfillment by a subordinate of an order of a superior given in the prescribed manner, during a period of martial law, in wartime or in conditions of an armed conflict or combat operations, as well as refusal to participate in military or hostilities, is proposed to be punished with imprisonment for a term of two to three years ( Part 2.1 of Article 332 of the Criminal Code).

A group of articles on non-execution of the state defense order and violation of the terms of the state contract is also introduced (articles 201.2, 201.3, 285.5, 285.6 of the Criminal Code).

The second reading of the bill is scheduled today. The State Duma can adopt it simultaneously in the third, final one. By analogy with the package of laws on military censorship, it can be approved by the Federation Council, signed by the president and published before the end of the day.

The amendments were introduced by State Duma deputies D.F. Vyatkin, E.A. Valeev, V.I. Piskarev, A.V. Kartapolov, L.E. Slutsky, O.A. Nilov, V.A. Davankov, V.I. Sobolev, N.V. Kolomeitsev, as well as senators A.A. Klishas and O.F. Kovitidi.

The bill comes into force from the day of its official publication.

https://vott.ru/entry/618540 - zinc

Quite logical and expected tightening of the screws in the context of a proxy war with NATO in Ukraine.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7873484.html

The referendum on the entry of the LPR into Russia will be held from 23 to 27 September
September 20, 14:28

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The LPR adopted a law on holding a referendum on the reunification of the Lugansk People's Republic with Russia. The law has already been signed by the head of the LPR Pasechnik. The referendum is to be held from 23 to 27 February. It is expected that a similar law will appear in the DPR. Also today, the authorities of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions also spoke in favor of holding referendums for reunification with Russia as soon as possible. We are waiting for everyone to go home.

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https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7873617.html

Google Translator

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‘Washington doubles down on proxy war in Ukraine’
September 12, 2022 Melinda Butterfield

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A market in Donetsk bombed by Ukrainian troops on Sept. 10. Photo: Inside Donetsk
Talk given on behalf of the Socialist Unity Party at the international meeting “200 Days of War: Stop the War of U.S./NATO Imperialism Against Russia! Stop U.S. Preparations of War Against China!” on Sept. 10.


Today the capitalist media is rapturous with news of the advance of the long-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Kharkov region. How significant this will be remains to be seen. Less is said about why and how this counter-offensive was made possible: the massive intervention of the Pentagon and NATO to shore up their faltering proxy war against Russia.

Last week, as the Ukrainian offensive was taking shape, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a “surprise” visit to Kiev to pledge another $2.8 billion in military aid from Washington. For those keeping track, that brings the total in public U.S. military aid to Ukraine this year to a whopping $16.5 billion. That’s more than the annual Gross Domestic Product of 98 countries, according to U.N. figures.

This has been described as the largest single arms transfer in U.S. history. It’s also an enormous transfer of wealth to the military-industrial bourgeoisie. But in reality, this is just the tip of a very large iceberg that includes separate Congressional funding, covert U.S. aid and the infusion of weapons, troops and mercenaries from the U.S.-controlled NATO alliance.

Blinken’s visit was not really a surprise. It was the latest in a long line of visits by high-ranking U.S. officials to give marching orders to their puppet regime in Kiev. These visits date back to the very beginning of the war against Donbass in 2014 and 2015, when it was then-Vice President Joe Biden, among others, who delivered the orders.

The continuing infusion of massive amounts of money and weapons to the war zone removes any illusions that the Ukrainian conflict is just a brief episode in the New Cold War against Russia and China. On the contrary, the way Washington has doubled down at a time of growing economic crisis for the masses in the U.S. and Europe shows that the ruling class intends this war to continue for a long time, to break up and dominate the Russian Federation.

But they also feel the urgency to make tangible headway quickly. The ability to seduce large sections of the U.S. population to “stand with Ukraine” has waned sharply with the accumulating crises facing the working class. Inflation is only the most obvious. The Biden administration is spending billions on war and police while funds for public health, pandemic eviction bans, climate crisis, and education are eviscerated. This contradiction cannot be papered over forever.

The situation will sharpen even more quickly among the Western European NATO powers, which face the prospect of winter without access to cheap Russian fuel.

Importance of Donbass struggle

The efforts of the organizations represented here for a genuine anti-imperialist position in the movement is making headway. Here in the U.S., the United National Antiwar Coalition has finally called for a week of action around U.S. threats to Russia and China in mid-October. There are many factors, but the impact of events like this one, and of John Parker’s visit to the Donbass front line in May, on the rank and file of the left are significant.

The importance of the Donbass people’s struggle continues to be under-appreciated, if not outright ignored, by most left forces in the West. If the people of Donetsk and Lugansk are considered at all, it is as mere tools of Russia. In fact, the relationship is quite different.

Imagine trying to build an anti-imperialist movement during the Vietnam War while ignoring the struggle of the Vietnamese people! And yet, this is the standard position of the Western left on the conflict in Ukraine and the Donbass republics.

The explosion of resistance in eastern Ukraine after the Maidan coup in 2014, particularly in the Donbass, the most working-class region of Ukraine, was a tremendous breakthrough in reviving anti-fascist consciousness and internationalist solidarity rooted in the Soviet period. It reverberated through the people of all the former Soviet countries, particularly Russia.

There is a reason why Soviet flags and the Banner of Victory are seen everywhere in the current anti-fascist military operation. It’s not that Putin is trying to restore the USSR, as the Western media claim, or put something over on the global left. He and the Russian ruling class would love nothing more than to be rid of those symbols.

But they reflect the genuine consciousness of the most active elements of the Soviet people about the stakes of the war, even three decades after the destruction of the USSR. That includes many anti-fascist Ukrainians.

In 200 days since the launch of the Special Military Operation, the anti-fascist military alliance has succeeded in liberating much of Donetsk and Lugansk from Ukrainian occupation. But as they have advanced, a large group of Ukrainian troops, including some of the most hardened neo-Nazi battalions, has become concentrated in a well-defended area west of the capital of Donetsk. And all summer, this has meant unrelenting, daily, brutal Ukrainian attacks on the civilian population of the city, including raining thousands of small anti-personnel mines on the streets, where children, seniors and emergency workers have been the main victims.

This heroic population, which has held strong for more than eight years of war, is under the worst siege of the war. The morale of this anti-fascist city is absolutely crucial to the struggle. We must elevate the plight of the people of Donetsk and expose the grotesque war crimes of the U.S. and Ukraine.

Victory to the Donbass republics and Russia! End the U.S./NATO proxy war and sanctions!

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... n-ukraine/

Austin, Texas: Protest Zelensky’s meeting with U.S. war profiteers, Sept. 21
September 16, 2022 Struggle - La Lucha

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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2022 AT 12:00 PM – 7:00 PM CDT
Protest Austin War Profiteers Conference No to U.S./NATO proxy war
Austin Convention Center

Stop $ Billions for War Profiteers
No to U.S./NATO Proxy War on Donbass & Russia
Protest at the War Profiteers Conference
where Zelensky is scheduled to speak
Wednesday, September 21
12 noon to 7 pm
At the Austin Convention Center,
500 E. Cesar Chavez St, Austin, TX 78701
Sign up on Facebook
Ukrainian President Zelensky will headline the National Defense Industrial Association conference of war-profiting industries like Raytheon Technologies, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics.
This conference is being held to secure the already record-breaking war expenditures for the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia. A major part of the agenda will address how the giant U.S. defense contractors can speed up production of high-tech weapons.
While war profiteers and the Pentagon receive billions, the U.S. infrastructure cannot even guarantee safe drinking water in the U.S. Today, the people of Jackson, Mississippi, face life-threatening denials of water, while the annual inflation rate is at its highest in over 40 years and the housing crisis intensifies as more families can no longer afford their rents or mortgage.
We are being asked to sacrifice our lives and our children’s lives for the expansion of NATO, the most belligerent and violent military association in the history of the world, and the immense record profits of Raytheon and Lockheed, and other merchants of death.
These weapons manufacturers are today’s beneficiaries of the greatest single expenditures for war in the history of the U.S. The Biden Administration is now spending 70 billion dollars for this war, and they, along with the Republican Party, encourage the government in Ukraine to not negotiate but, instead, escalate with billions more in weapons. This U.S. war effort also threatens China and recklessly provokes World War. The only way this will end is if we make our voices heard! Shut Down the NDIA – No More Money for U.S./NATO Wars!
If you cannot get to Austin, please consider supporting activists who are caravaning from the East and West Coasts and the region. Funds are desperately needed for gas, supplies, and motel costs.

Donate Here to Venmo@Solidarity Center
For information, text only to:
West Coast: 323-899-2003
East Coast: 410-218-4835

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... s-sept-21/

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NATO Prolongs the Ukraine Proxy War and Global Unrest
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 19, 2022
Aaron Maté

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With diplomacy thwarted, the US and its allies plan for “open-ended” military and economic warfare against Russia, no matter the costs at home and abroad.

The Ukrainian military’s routing of Russian forces from Kharkiv, which relied extensively on US planning, weaponry and intelligence, has sparked triumphant declarations that the tide has turned.

According to The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, “Americans and Europeans need to prepare for a Ukrainian victory,” one so overwhelming that it may well bring “about the end of Putin’s regime.”

Beyond the chorus of emboldened neoconservatives, Western officials are less sanguine.

“Certainly it’s a military setback” for Russia, a US official told the Washington Post said of the Kharkiv retreat. “I don’t know if I could call it a major strategic loss at this point.” Germany’s defense chief, General Eberhard Zorn, said that while Ukraine “can win back places or individual areas of the frontlines,” overall, its forces can “not push Russia back over a broad front.”

Whether or not it marked a major strategic loss for Russia, the battle in Kharkiv is already a major victory for NATO leaders seeking to prolong their proxy war in Ukraine and economic warfare next door.

Ukraine’s expulsion of Russian forces in the northeast, the New York Times reports, has “amplified voices in the West demanding that more weapons be sent to Ukraine so that it could win.”

“Despite Ukrainian forces’ startling gains in the war against Russia,” the Washington Post adds, “the Biden administration anticipates months of intense fighting with wins and losses for each side, spurring U.S. plans for an open-ended campaign with no prospect for a negotiated end in sight.”

As has been apparent since the Ukraine crisis erupted, US planning for open-ended proxy warfare against Russia has led it to sabotage any prospect of a negotiated end.

The US rejection of diplomacy around Ukraine has been newly substantiated by former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill. Citing “multiple former senior U.S. officials,” Hill reports that in April of this year “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement.” Under this framework, Russia would withdraw to its pre-invasion position, while Ukraine would pledge not to join NATO “and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

In confirming that US officials were aware of this tentative agreement, Hill bolsters previous news that Washington’s junior partner in London was enlisted to thwart it. As Ukrainian media reported, citing sources close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Kiev in April and relayed the message that Russia “should be pressured, not negotiated with.” Johnson also informed Zelensky that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on [security] guarantees with Putin,” his Western patrons “are not.” The talks promptly collapsed.

Having undermined the prospect of a negotiated peace in the war’s early weeks, proxy warriors in Washington are openly celebrating their success.

“I like the structural path we’re on here,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham recently declared. “As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person.”
Twitter avatar for @aaronjmateAaron Maté @aaronjmate
It’s not just critics who say that US policy in Ukraine is to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. Here’s @LindseyGrahamSC saying that as long as the US arms Ukraine, “they will fight to the last person.” And four months in, he says, “I like the structural path we’re on here.”

[youtube]http://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/155 ... mp4?tag=12[/youtube]
August 2nd 2022

696 Retweets1,713 Likes
Graham’s avowed willingness to expend every “last person” in Ukraine to fight Russia is in line with a broader US strategy that views the entire world as subordinate to its war aims. As the Washington Post reported in June, the White House is willing to “countenance even a global recession and mounting hunger” in order to hand Russia a costly defeat. In Ukraine, this now means also countenancing the threat of nuclear disaster, as the crisis surrounding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has laid bare.

The prevailing willingness to sacrifice civilian well-being extends to the US public, as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has newly made clear. Appearing at the Aspen Security Conference, Sullivan was asked if he is worried about the “American people’s staying power” on the Ukraine proxy war, amid “criticism that we’re spending billions and billions to support Ukraine, and not spending it here.”

“Fundamentally not,” Sullivan responded. “It’s very important for Putin to understand what exactly he’s up against from the point of view of the United States’ staying power.” That staying power, Sullivan explained, was cemented in the $40 billion war funding measure overwhelmingly approved by Congress (including every self-identified progressive Democrat) in May.

“That can go on, just on the basis of what we have already had allocated to us and resources for a considerable period of time,” Sullivan vowed. “And then, I strongly believe that there will be bipartisan support in the Congress to re-up those resources should it become necessary.”

To policymakers like Sullivan, there is not only an endless pool of money to “re-up” the war, but a “fundamentally” indifferent posture toward the taxpayers footing the bill.
Twitter avatar for @aaronjmateAaron Maté @aaronjmate
.@JakeSullivan46 is asked if he’s worried by “criticism that we’re spending billions… to support Ukraine, not spending it here.” Jake says he’s not worried: Congress approved $40B, enough to send weapons “for a considerable period of time,” and will easily “re-up” if needed.

[youtube]http://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/155 ... mp4?tag=12[/youtube]
July 24th 2022

326 Retweets992 Likes
Despite Biden’s reported scolding of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for admitting that the US goal in Ukraine is to leave Russia “weakened,” Sullivan – speaking before a friendly Beltway crowd — also forgot to stick to the script.

The US “strategic objective” in Ukraine, Sullivan explained, is to “ensure that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine… is a strategic failure for Putin,” and that “Russia pay a longer-term price in terms of the elements of its national power.” This would teach a “lesson,” he added, “to would-be aggressors elsewhere.”

By “would-be aggressors elsewhere”, Sullivan naturally precludes the US and its allies, whose aggression is not only permitted but promoted under the US-led “rules-based international order.”

President Biden has made that clear by abandoning his pledge to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state, notwithstanding its murderous (US-backed) aggression in Yemen. The regular aggression by US ally Israel against Gaza and Syria also continues unabated. The United Nations just reported that an Israeli strike on the Damascus international airport in June – one of hundreds of Israeli bombings on Syria that go largely ignored — “led to considerable damage to infrastructure” and “meant the suspension of U.N. deliveries of humanitarian assistance” to Syrians in need for nearly two weeks. As of this writing, the latest Israeli strike killed five Syrian soldiers, eliciting no Western media and political protest. It is more accurate to describe Israeli aggression on Syria as a joint Israeli-US effort, given that the US reviews and approves the strikes.

Allied NATO leaders are also vocally countenancing the Ukraine proxy war’s costs on their domestic populations. In response to the European sanctions, Russia has now halted gas deliveries to the EU via the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Having previously relied on Russia for close to 40 percent of its gas needs, European industries are facing layoffs, factory closures, and higher energy bills that “are pushing consumers to near poverty,” the Financial Times reports.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/ ... al-unrest/

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Zelensky Quietly Deletes Photo of His Bodyguard’s Pro-Hitler Patch
SEPTEMBER 19, 2022

By Alexander Rubinstein – Sep 15, 2022

The Ukrainian President published a photograph on his social media channels showing one of his security escorts bearing a patch referencing the personal bodyguard unit of Adolf Hitler.

On September 13, Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky made a surprise trip to the city of Izyum in the Kharkov Region for a photo op following his military’s recapture of the town from Russian forces. During the visit, a soldier who appeared to be guarding Zelensky was photographed wearing a Nazi-inspired patch on his uniform.

When the image drew criticism on social media, the Ukrainian president’s official Telegram and Facebook accounts quietly deleted it.

In Izyum on September 14, Zelensky participated in a flag raising ceremony to the tune of the Ukrainian National Anthem and took selfies with local civilians and soldiers. While most of the men on the scene wore official military fatigues, it was not difficult to see which ones were for lack of a better term, working, and which ones were simply present to participate in the event.

One photograph posted on Zelensky’s Telegram and Facebook accounts (archived here and here) captured the president as he posed for selfies with Ukrainian troops. As Zelensky flashed a smile for the camera of a cheerful service member, he was flanked by a heavily equipped soldier standing guard and facing the opposite direction. Just over Zelensky’s right shoulder, a small but significant patch could be seen on the back of the soldier’s flak vest.

Social media users quickly identified the symbol. It was derived from the “Totenkopf,” (German for “Death’s Head”), an insignia widely used in Nazi Germany. Badges incorporating the skull and bones motif were popularized by Germany’s Death’s Head Units, whose original task was to serve as guards at concentration camps. In October 1939, some 6,500 members were deployed as frontline fighters in the attempted conquest of Europe and the Soviet Union, carrying out war crimes and ethnic cleansing on their way.

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SS-Totenkopf’s symbol

Zelensky’s bodyguard appeared to sport a slightly altered version of the SS-Totenkopf’s patch; it was missing the crossbones and the skull was wearing a helmet.

However, this reporter was able to find three online vendors based in Ukraine that sell the patch, which is branded the “Operator Skull” and manufactured by a company called R3ICH, an explicit reference to Nazi Germany.

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A side-by-side comparison of the R3ICH patch and an enhanced version of the patch worn by Zelensky’s bodyguard

While a clear and sizable shot of the insignia decorating Zelensky’s apparent bodyguard has yet to emerge, enhanced renderings of the image demonstrate he was clearly sporting the same design manufactured by R3ICH. Both badges feature a skull wearing a helmet, the headgear is virtually identical, the nose and eye holes share the same amount of space between them, the silhouettes are indistinguishable, and the tally marks drawn on the helmet appear in the same location.

A closer look at the R3ICH’s “Operator Skull” patch reveals an even more disturbing detail: a skeleton key displayed on the top right of the helmet is a clear reference to SS Division Leibstandarte, or Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler — Hitler’s personal bodyguard unit. The unit later evolved into a Panzer, or armored tank division and, like the Totenkopf, participated in several invasions throughout Europe and the Soviet Union.


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The skeleton key emblem of the SS Division Leibstandarte

While the SS Division Leibstandarte made its way through Kharkov — where this week Zelensky’s bodyguard was photographed with the “Operator Skull” patch — during the Second World War, one of its units earned the nickname “Blowtorch Battalion” for its habit of burning down Russian-speaking villages.

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A soldier of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler lights his cigarette on the burning thatched roof of a building in Kharkov. Photo via German Federal Archives

After this reporter took to social media to report that Zelensky’s bodyguard appeared to be wearing the “Operator Skull” patch, no less than eight Twitter users asserted the image was photoshopped. Shockingly, Twitter even deemed MintPress News’ tweet about the photograph to be “sensitive content,” an apparent attempt at damage control on Zelensky’s behalf that reduced the image’s visibility on the platform.

The sighting of the Nazi patch recalled a 2018 incident in which then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko posed with soldiers bearing placard featuring the Nazi Totenkopf symbol. Newsweek spuriously claimed, “The image included a skull and bones that appear to have been Photoshopped onto the photograph of the Ukrainian troops.” However, as The Grayzone reported, the soldier standing directly beside Poroshenko was wearing the Nazi-inspired patch on his chest. The paratroopers later apologized for displaying the Nazi symbol, further discrediting Newsweek’s spin.


As before, the image of the Nazi patch was real. What’s more, the R3ICH company’s “Operator Skull” patch seems quite popular in Ukraine. Of the three Ukraine-based online shops that this reporter discovered were selling the Nazi emblem, none had any left in stock.

(The Grayzone)

https://orinocotribune.com/zelensky-qui ... ler-patch/

As a historical note, the 'Totenkopf' was used by the light cavalry of imperial Germany, the Uhlans. However, I'd bet the farm that ain't who these bastards were referencing.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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