POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 08/19/2023
"The intelligence community of the United States confirms that the counteroffensive by Ukraine will not be able to reach the key city of Melitopol," said an article published by The Washington Post yesterday.which strongly assesses the development of events at the front in the more than two months that have elapsed since the resumption of active hostilities on the Zaporozhye front. The outlet, one of the most pro-Ukrainian even before the Russian invasion, when its editorials proclaimed that the Minsk agreements were not the solution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, admits that Kiev's troops are not fighting, as expected, for Melitopol but for Rabotino, a town already completely devastated and for which fighting has been going on since the first week of June. Russian media speculated yesterday that kyiv intends to speed up its capture in order to present August 24, Independence Day, as a success. Whether that's the intention or not,
The prominence achieved by Rabotino, like other smaller towns located on the front line and for which Ukraine did not expect to have to fight by foreseeing a rapid break from the front, is representative of the development of the counteroffensive, of which The Washington Post affirms that If current forecasts are confirmed, the summer campaign "will not fulfill its main objective of cutting off the Russian land corridor to Crimea."
Ukraine has never hidden that the Black Sea peninsula is its main target, since, as Russia's most important territory, a defeat in Crimea would amount to the complete Russian defeat that Kiev demands. Hence, it was always clear that Melitopol would be their target in the great ground offensive, which did not count on the improvement of Russian tactics, the factor of air superiority, the qualitative change in the use of kamikaze drones or even the difficulty of overcoming the Russian minefields in the open field of the central front of this war. Unlike the handful of towns captured - successes celebrated with little media epic even among the most pro-Ukrainian outlets - the capture of Melitopol would mean a dramatic loss for Russia, which has made the city its Zaporozhye capital.
Nor has Russia hidden the fact that it began to prepare the defense of the Zaporozhye front last autumn, when under the command of General Surovikin, it was decided to give up fighting for Kherson, lose the territories on the right bank of the Dnieper and start preparing a defense staggered on the front where Moscow was aware that it was going to be attacked. This preparation and the existential importance that Russia has given to Crimea made it unpredictable that kyiv's expectations were met. As The Washington Post admits, “Ukraine started the counteroffensive in early June hoping to replicate its brilliant breakthrough successes in the Kharkiv region last fall.” At that time, when people began to talk about the preparation of the current offensive, then planned for spring, but delayed for several months pending receipt of the material that was going to make Ukraine invincible, Pentagon sources were already leaking to media such as Politico that the approach of Kiev and its partners to recapture Crimea had little chance of success.
Now, however, the media seem annoyed at being forced to mention minor towns they were unaware of in their reporting from the front seems to annoy journalists and analysts eager to reach Melitopol, the most important city in the Russian-held southern territories. However, it must not be forgotten either that, as the activist Almut Rochowanski commented yesterday, "before 2022, all aid programs (those linked to the conflict, internally displaced persons, development, human rights, violence against women, etc. ninai) made a big detour around the city. It was too remote, unimportant, unstrategic, uninteresting." Now, Melitopol has become the desired goal, not even as a final destination, but as the end of the beginning., that is, as a door to the real objectives of Sevastopol, Simferopol or Yalta.
That dream has been rejected by what The Washington Postdescribes as "brutal efficiency in the defense of the occupied territory through a series of minefields and trenches", nothing new for those who have followed the process of creating that line of defense that was not only predictable, but also known. Within what military censorship allows -existing on both sides, it is only necessary to remember that nobody has dared to demand an approximate number of casualties from Ukraine-, since last autumn Russian journalists have shown the work of building fortifications. The contempt for the Russian press and the classification of entire staff of the media as propagandists and disseminators of the Kremlin's message has achieved that, despite the possibility of having information from both sides, this war is being broadcast as if an iron curtain separated the information spaces. So much so that the Western media seem to have internalized the propaganda and have even been surprised by the Russian ability to dig trenches.
“In the first week of battle,” laments The Washington Post , “Ukraine incurred heavy casualties in the face of well-prepared Russian defenses despite a wide range of newly received Western equipment, including American Bradley vehicles, Leopard- 2 of German manufacture and specialized demining vehicles”. Citing a Ukrainian soldier whose name is withheld to avoid reprisals, the US outlet ABCIt affects this line, describing the offensive as disorganized. "We lost three Leopards in one day because they were simply told to move towards a minefield," says the soldier, who also insists on the low quality of training received by the troops, something that until recently was an argument used only against Russia. It was Moscow that sent its youth to die on the battlefield, unarmed, unprepared and with low morale. All these arguments are being repeated right now in the Ukrainian and Western media, many of which continue to defend the military option as the only way to resolve the conflict. In this context, the Ukrainian casualties are not a reason to lower expectations or look for a more realistic option than complete victory over Russia,
Citing American and Western officials, The Washington Post states that "the joint maneuvers carried out by American, British and Ukrainian troops anticipated those casualties and anticipated Kiev's acceptance of those casualties as the cost of breaking through the Russian defense line." . In proxy warfare, the proxy state has to understand the enormous casualties among its troops as collateral damage of no great importance. Hence the reproaches for Ukraine's change of tactics precisely in order to limit personnel casualties and material losses. "But Ukraine," The Washington Post is surprised, chose to reduce casualties on the battlefield and switch to a tactic of relying on smaller units to push along different areas of the front”, a way in which, as the newspaper admits, it has achieved the little progress it has made. achieved in these ten weeks of apparently disappointing offensive for its suppliers and the media that had cheered it on prematurely. Concern over the Ukrainian refusal to suffer unsustainable casualties extends to The New York Times , which yesterday estimated the war's casualties at 500,000 between dead and wounded. "US officials say they fear Ukraine has become casualty averse."
The United States "would never have tried to defeat a prepared defense without air superiority, but they [the Ukrainians] don't have air superiority," retired US Army Lt. Col. John Nagl said in remarks reported by The Wall Street Journal .. This is an obvious argument that does not require extensive military experience, something Russia counted on from the start, especially considering the haste with which Ukraine and its partners wanted to prepare for a spring offensive, with What already existed was the certainty that Kiev would not have Western aviation. The time necessary to instruct the pilots in the use of devices such as the F-16 made their arrival in Ukraine before the summer unfeasible, as Oleksiy Reznikov seemed to demand.
Accepted that the current offensive will not achieve all its objectives, the United States seems to have launched into the preparation of the next one. Various media have published information about the preparation of the 2024 campaign, European countries such as Poland have increased their ammunition production and Biden has asked Congress for additional funding for the defense of Ukraine.. To this must be added the announcement made yesterday by the United States, which gave the green light to European countries to start training Ukrainian pilots. The F-16s will begin to arrive once this training is completed, which lasts several months and for which a large part of the selected Ukrainian pilots will first have to study the English language. The Ukrainian difficulties on the front are not giving rise to an opening of the diplomatic channel, but to a repetition of what happened in the last ten months, with the preparation of the future Ukrainian offensive, in which the Leopards will have ceased to be the miracle weapon to be replaced by the F-16.
https://slavyangrad.es/2023/08/19/miran ... more-27959
Google Translator
The New York Times , which yesterday estimated the war's casualties at 500,000 between dead and wounded. "US officials say they fear Ukraine has become casualty averse."
Jfc, the arrogance of these people!
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Chronicle of the special military operation for August 18, 2023
August 18, 2023
Rybar
Last night, a Ukrainian unmanned boat tried to attack the Russian ships " Inquisitive " and " Vasily Byko " in the southwestern part of the Black Sea. The aircraft was destroyed by gunfire.
The enemy also used five drones to attack Russian rear facilities: four were intercepted at the moment of crossing the state border, one was able to reach Moscow , where it was suppressed by electronic warfare. The wreckage of the latter fell on the eighth pavilion of Expocentre.
Fighting continues along the entire front line. Russian troops continue to methodically move towards Petropavlovka in the Kupyansky sector . In turn, the Ukrainian formations carry out sorties in the Vremievsky and Orekhovsky sectors , which are quickly suppressed by artillery and small arms fire.
Attack of Ukrainian drones on Moscow
At night, Ukrainian formations released five drones to attack Russian rear facilities: four were intercepted in the border zone, one was suppressed by electronic warfare equipment near the Moscow City business center in the capital . According to emergency services, a partial collapse of the outer wall in the eighth pavilion of the Expocentre exhibition complex was recorded . There are no victims or injured. In addition, the airspace in the area of Vnukovo Airport was blocked for some time .
In the afternoon, about two thousand people were evacuated from one of the towers in the Moscow City business center after an anonymous report about the “arrival of a UAV”. The information about the drone turned out to be false. Earlier, a video appeared on the network with an alleged flight of several UAVs in the Serpukhov area .
Raid of a Ukrainian unmanned boat on the ships of the Black Sea Fleet
Last night, southwest of Sevastopol , a Ukrainian crewless kart attempted to attack the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet: the patrol ship " Inquisitive " and the patrol ship " Vasily Bykov ". The apparatus was destroyed by regular armament fire.
At the same time, there are several nuances in the attack on a detachment of warships of the Russian Navy: on the one hand, it is not clear where the unmanned boat was launched from. If earlier it came from the mouth of the Danube, now there is no such certainty. At the same time, the attack occurred while the container ship Joseph Shulte was moving towards the Bosphorus. Yesterday we assumed that the ship headed for the Bosporus at a time when the Russian ships were at a distance, and the threat of inspection was minimal.
In the end, it did. According to some reports, "Inquisitive" and "Vasily Bykov" accompanied the tanker, which came from the Mediterranean Sea. So it is possible that he was the target of the Ukrainian boat. It is curious that at the time of the attack at 22.55, the container ship Joseph Shulte was standing northwest of the Bosphorus, and began its passage only at midnight. And in the air at the same time were the American P-8A and MQ-9A Reaper.
The situation on the front line and the fighting
In the Kupyansky sector in the vicinity of Sinkovka, servicemen of the Zapad group of the Russian Armed Forces continue to push Ukrainian formations out of the village. As a result of the assault from the eastern side, the RF Armed Forces occupied two strongholds. Despite the onslaught of the Russian army, Ukrainian formations periodically try to counterattack. One of the assault detachments of the 67th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had an unsuccessful landing south of Olshany . The attack was repulsed, and the group was defeated.
Artillerymen and aviation of the RF Armed Forces actively support the offensive with fire: as a result of a massive strike on the front line, several strongholds were hit, as well as one self-propelled gun.
In the Soledarsky direction in the Kleshcheevka area , the enemy continues to attempt to roll on the positions of the RF Armed Forces in small groups, having lost at least two tanks and several platoons of manpower. In addition, according to some reports, the enemy tried to attack Russian units in the Andreevka area . Russian artillery and kamikaze drones are actively used on the site, which work both on equipment and on the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The use of combat aircraft was also recorded.
Positional clashes continue in the Donetsk direction in the area of Marinka and Avdiivka . At the rear positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the artillery of the RF Armed Forces, with the support of UAV operators, inflicts pinpoint strikes, trying to disrupt the enemy’s logistics.
In the Vremievsky sector, Ukrainian formations are regrouping, along the way carrying out rollbacks on the positions of the RF Armed Forces in the area of Urozhaynoye . One of the infantry groups of the 37th infantry regiment started a shooting battle with the 37th motorized rifle brigade in the forest belt to the east. According to the Warrior of the Far East , seven people from the Armed Forces of Ukraine were liquidated, and one was taken prisoner. In the area of the Staromayorsky unit, the 1st brigade is setting up false positions. In the same place this morning there was an attempt to rotate on one AFV, which was hit by Russian artillerymen.
Along the line of contact, Russian troops conducted a massive shelling of enemy concentrations, as a result of which several infantry fighting vehicles and armored fighting vehicles were destroyed. With return fire, cannon artillery crews of the 1st brigade and 55th brigade fired at the Cherished Desire - Staromlinovka line . After the restoration of the assault groups, the Armed Forces of Ukraine plan to attack these positions, including with tanks.
On the Orekhovsky sector yesterday, assault detachments of the 1st and 3rd battalions of the 82nd Airborne Brigade, with the support of aviation and artillery, attacked the positions of the RF Armed Forces at the Rabotino - Verbovoye line . The enemy units tried to break through to the northeastern outskirts of Rabotino and to strongholds to the east, but to no avail. The attacks were repulsed, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to rotate and replace the wounded under the cover of artillery.
Russian troops responded by shelling Ukrainian positions. As a result of one of the strikes, the stronghold of the 82nd Airborne Brigade was destroyed, including one Starlink terminal. And in the morning, infantry detachments of Ukrainian paratroopers once again tried to break into the defense of Russian fighters in Rabotino. Artillery worked on them, and, according to the Archangel Spetsnaz , the offensive was repulsed .
Shelling of rear territories and residential areas
In the Bryansk region, Ukrainian formations continue to strike for several days at the border region of Klimovsky . This time the village of Petrova Guta came under fire . The shells damaged three private houses, there were no casualties among the civilian population. In addition, a UAV drone dropped two explosive devices on a cell tower in Novye Yurkovychi : there were temporary problems with power supply in the village.
The enemy made an attempt to attack the border area of the Kursk region with a drone. An electronic warfare crew landed an enemy UAV kamikaze in the Rylsky district , the shells did not detonate, there were no casualties and no damage. And in the Glushkovsky district , a Ukrainian drone dropped an unidentified munition on the territory of a mill in Tetkino : no casualties and destruction were avoided. At the same time, local residents reported at least three arrivals in Alekseevka .
In the neighboring Belgorod region, shelling of Shebekino and the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka was also reported , but the official authorities did not comment on this incident. In the evening, an air defense system worked over the Belgorod region: a Ukrainian aircraft-type UAV was shot down, the consequences on the ground are being specified.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine throughout the day inflict massive strikes on the civilian infrastructure of the Donetsk People's Republic . The enemy fired over 110 shells and fired 34 shells, damaging 13 residential buildings. In the Kievsky district of Donetsk, as a result of a cluster munition explosion, three employees of a public utility company died, two more were injured by shrapnel, they are receiving the necessary medical care. The villages of Golmovsky , Gorlovka , Nikolskoe , Makeevka , Yasinovataya , Zaitsevo , Novoandreevka and Vasilievka were hit by Ukrainian formations.: Three more people were injured.
Closer to the night, the enemy dropped ammunition from a drone in the area of the fifth school in the Voroshilovsky district of Donetsk , as a result of which three people died on the spot, and medical care is being provided to eight more wounded.
In the Zaporizhia region, the Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked Enerhodar twice a day . Both times a high-rise building on Builders Avenue was hit. According to Vladimir Rogov , the victims were avoided.
In the Kherson region today, Ukrainian formations once again fired at Novaya Kakhovka , Sagi , Kakhovka , Dnepryan and Gornostaevka . As a result of the incident, no one was injured, but several civilian buildings were partially destroyed.
Political events
On the transfer of American F-16 fighters to Ukraine
The Reuters news agency says that the US authorities have approved the transfer of F-16 fighter jets from Denmark and the Netherlands to the Ukrainian Air Force after the completion of crew training. We have repeatedly noted that the delivery of American aircraft to the Armed Forces of Ukraine is a matter of time. Moreover, the training of Ukrainian pilots was reported back in the spring. The lack of air support during the offensive is what Kyiv uses to justify failures at the front. The transmission speed of the F-16 depends primarily on the timing of the readiness of the relevant infrastructure, and only then on the training of pilots, instead of whom vacationers from the armies of NATO countries may well fly. Therefore, the first fighters will most likely be delivered towards the end of this year.
Nevertheless, information is spreading in the Ukrainian media, according to which the F-16s can only be delivered by the summer of next year due to the long terms for pilot training. You should not hope for this - there were similar conversations about other Western military equipment, which, as a result, was delivered to the Armed Forces of Ukraine “ahead of schedule”.
It is important to understand that the F-16 is not a "wonder weapon". The example of Western armored vehicles is indicative: the beautiful advertising of the Leopards and Bradleys did not help them on the battlefield. The same is with fighters: this is the equipment that can and should be destroyed if it appears. However, underestimating the enemy is fraught with serious consequences. Ukrainian planes still fly, some have been upgraded to Harms and Storm Shadows: they also come from the last century, but they pose a threat. Therefore, the F-16, capable of carrying modern long-range missiles and integrated into the NATO command and control system, is dangerous.
On other foreign military assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine
The next package of German military assistance to Ukraine includes: two launchers of the IRIS-T SLS air defense system; 4386 155 mm ammunition; ten GO12 ground surveillance radars; eight 8X8 trucks with a special loading system (Wechselladesystem) for transporting platforms and containers with equipment or ammunition.
In addition, a second MILGEM-type corvette for the Ukrainian Navy was laid down in Turkey under a contract dated October 2020. The first ship was launched last year and is being completed at the shipyard in Istanbul . Although they will most likely not arrive at the ports of the Odessa region very soon , the events are clear evidence of the scale of the Turkish military support for the Kiev regime, which, despite all the declarations of friendship with Russia, does not decrease one iota and even grows in places. For example, a week ago, photos of the use of Turkish 155-mm M483A1 cluster projectiles manufactured by MKE appeared on the Web. So now Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson region will be dotted with Erdogan'sunexploded ordnance, posing a threat to all living things for many years.
On the sale of Ukrainian children to pedophiles and transplantologists
Journalist Kristel Nahan from Donbass Insider released another investigation into the abduction of children by Ukraine with the aim of selling them for organs or for pedophiles. The refugees from Bakhmut interviewed by Nean confirm the information about the theft of children by the Phoenix and White Angels units, who are then sold abroad. Similar information also comes from Kupyansk and Avdiivka .
Former SBU officer Vasily Prozorov found out that some of the children abducted by the Armed Forces of Ukraine are sent to UK pedophile networks . At the same time, the abducted children are issued new documents as orphans with living parents. In recent months, more and more information about the trafficking of Ukrainian children has appeared in the media. So, in May 2023, a citizen of Ukraine was arrested in Poland , who rented 10 children under her care to pedophiles. The fact that Ukrainian children disappear without a trace after being "evacuated" abroad was even reported by such liberal media as Deutsche Welle and The Guardian .
At the same time, it is known that Ukrainian officials are also involved in the network of selling human organs. After all, the Kiev regime prepared “well” for the SVO, adopting a law in 2021 allowing the removal of organs from the dead without notarial consent. Apparently, the Kiev regime is really ready to "fight for the last Ukrainian." And this "last Ukrainian" will go as a thank you to the Western masters for their assistance.
On the new "public" mobilization in Ukraine
Ukrainian media write that the authorities are trying to further strengthen the mobilization in Ukrainian society, and this is not only about sending men to the front. Taking into account the fact that the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is not yet going the way that the Kiev authorities promised to their own society and the world community, Ukrainians are beginning to be prepared for a long war.
Because of the inflated expectations of the counteroffensive, many Ukrainian citizens are now feeling frustrated. At the same time, the authorities are demanding more and more from people, and what this will result in in the political and economic plane depends on the results of the next stage of hostilities by the fall of this year.
Probably, this can lead to some political instability in Ukraine and the demoralization of society. However, one should not hope for this - outside forces in the West stand behind the backs of the Ukrainian formations, which will not allow the Kyiv authorities to withdraw from the war if it is not beneficial to them.
https://rybar.ru/hronika-speczialnoj-vo ... 2023-goda/
Google Translator
(Other images at link.)
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The West vs Russia – Was It All Inevitable?
AUGUST 17, 2023
Russian an NATO flags over an Ukrainian map. File photo.
By Paul Atkin – Aug 15, 2023
This look at Mike Phipp’s review of Gilbert Achar’s The New Cold War- The United States, Russia and China from Kosovo to Ukraine, is because it represents an archetype of the thinking among sections of the Left that have fallen into becoming cheerleaders for NATO; despite their recognition that, as the author approvingly quotes Achar it “continues to push, global relations in the worst possible direction, (my emphasis) at a time when the world should be focused on fighting the greatest threats that humanity has ever faced short of a nuclear Armageddon—climate change and pandemics—as well as the socioeconomic consequences of global economic crises related to these same threats.” So should we all.
The title of the review is a belated acknowledgement by the author that this is not a war between Russia and Ukraine, but a war between Russia and “the West”. “The West” can be described in many ways. “Global North” is another label for it. The most developed, advanced, dominant countries in the world, united militarily in NATO with the United States at its core is another. And it is, indeed, pushing global relations in the worst possible direction. The tragedy of the position taken by the author is that the logic of it provides them with left cover to do so.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990, the way that pushing global relations in the worst possible direction manifested itself was a drive by the United States to “dominate the post Soviet space”. This is thoroughly documented, but the author ignores it because it is such a blatant move by the dominant global imperial power to extend its dominion eastwards; with the ultimate aim of control of Russia itself, “a gas station masquerading as a country” as Senator Lindsay Graham put it. Understanding this makes supporting NATO’s war aims under the guise of supporting Ukraine’s national self determination an unsustainable posture; therefore the only possible position is disavowal. Look right at it, and not see. Or try to talk it away…
So, let’s look and see.
Dominating the post Soviet space meant not only moving to absorb Eastern European members of the former Warsaw Pact into the USA’s political, military and economic orbit, but also breaking the USSR down into its constituent republics, and seeking to control the leadership in Russia while this took place.
By 1992, precursors to the neo cons, often with direct fossil fuel interests like Dick Cheney, argued for partitioning Russia into smaller parts immediately, the better to dominate it and, “get the gas”. This is now back on the agenda, both in Ukraine and the US. The more cautious heads, who won out in 1991, felt that this would lead to uncontrollable political and economic chaos that would be more trouble than it was worth, particularly with several thousand nuclear weapons in the mix. They went for holding the country together under the control of a biddable President (Yeltsin) while shock therapy shattered its economy and reduced it to its knees as a competitive power.
Politically, in Eastern Europe, this also meant disinterring old nationalist identities from the shadows that, in their rejection of a common Soviet past, celebrated collaborators with the Nazis as national heroes, particularly in Ukraine and the Baltic States.
Economically, as the author puts it, “The IMF-blessed economic reforms plundered the former USSR, wrecking the economy and impoverishing the mass of people” throughout the nineties. GDP declined 3% in 1990, 5% in 1991, 14.5% in 1992, 8.7% in 1993 and 12.7% in 1994 and didn’t recover sustained growth until 1999. Between 1988 to 1999 per capita income in Russia dropped from $3,777 pa to just $1,331 pa.
This also involved overt anti democratic action, backed by “the West”. Again, as the author puts it ” when the Russian parliament became a centre of opposition to the policy, the then President Boris Yeltsin dissolved it and ordered the military to shell the building in 1993″ killing 147 people and wounding 437, according to Yeltsin’s own officials. The anniversary of this event on October 4th passes in silence in the West every year. Hardly surprising as the US at the time praised Yeltsin’s “superb handling” of the situation.
It is evident that Western shock therapy could not be carried through without repression. The author puts this mildly. “There’s no doubt that the economic policies imposed on Russia by the West contributed significantly to this process.” Indeed.
But he then makes an arbitrary detachment of the military dimension of US policy “It’s less evident, in my view, that US-led military policies played the same role”, on the basis that “they did not impact on the life of ordinary people in Russia in anything like the same way as the economic destruction.” As if the military, economic and political dimensions of a single policy can be divided from each other. As if the economic destruction could have been guaranteed without the military threat of the US in the full flush of its unipolar moment. This serves a purpose because, if NATO expansion is conceded to be a real, and very widely understood, threat in Russia, the whole house of cards resting on the oft repeated phrase “unprovoked invasion” collapses.
Instead, the author spins his argument around speculation about how the rise of Vladimir Putin – as an embodiment of nationalist self assertion – might have been avoided. This implies that – far from being inherently locked into a push for its own dominance, the US could have applied a different policy, one that built up and integrated Russian into a “common European home” perhaps and, instead of shock therapy, applied a Marshal Plan to the “post Soviet space”. The implication of this is that he shares Gorbachev’s delusions about the nature of US imperialism. That it is possible that it could genuinely lead the world in the interests of anything other than its venal ruling class. As though the Marshal Plan itself were an act of selfless generosity, rather than a hard nosed intervention by the US to prevent Europe going Communist – reviving flattened European competitors to revive as the price paid – allowing Western European Social Democracy half a century of delusion that its welfare states were a tribute to its own strength and wisdom rather than the temporary price paid to stave off the red threat.
This gets quite surreal when discussing Putin’s proposal to join NATO in 2001. Nowhere does the author consider why the US turned this down. The clue is in Putin’s own statement, that “Europe (my emphasis) will reinforce its reputation of a strong and truly independent centre of world politics soundly and for a long time if it succeeds in bringing together its own potential and that of Russia, including its human, territorial and natural resources and its economic, cultural and defence potential.” A strengthened European pole inside NATO with Russia as a hefty and unshiftably consolidated component part is the last thing the US wanted then, and now, as it would put its own hegemony in Europe at risk.
But, not letting the Russians in, and continuing to expand NATO at the same time, while fomenting or taking advantage of political crises in Russia’s “near abroad” in Georgia and Ukraine particularly meant that Russia, with the 20 million dead from World War 2 seared into living memory, was bound to feel under threat. Because it was, in fact, threatened. It takes an extraordinary level of dulled empathy to ignore this; or treat it as some sort of irrational paranoia on their part – or attribute it to a personality defect on the part of President Putin – all of which have become articles of faith among these currents.
In presenting the “colour revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine as “attempts to break free” the author swallows the US narrative whole. Becoming imperial junior partners of the United States is not the same thing as to “break free”.
His argument that local actors have agency – which they do – is presented as in itself a sufficient refutation of any notion that these movements were “Western orchestrated” or “designed to encircle Russia militarily”; as if all three can’t be true at the same time.
This is odd, because the author comes close to acknowledging the point when he states, “Equally, from the standpoint of the opportunities available to self-interested Western capitalism, any military or diplomatic arrangement with Russia which left the latter’s hegemony over these states intact would be less than satisfactory, especially given the exploitable, mineral-rich nature of some of them. If opportunities for a grand US-Russia rapprochement were missed, it was not accidental. (my emphasis)”. Quite so.
There is reckoned to be $12 trillion worth of rare earths and related minerals, most of it in the rebellious region of the Donbass; which “self interested Western capitalism” would like under its control, regardless of the rights or views of the people who live there.
The Maidan movement in Ukraine had popular support in Western Ukraine. The hegemonic political current within this is passed over without comment, the better not to acknowledge the strength of the far right. To do so is embarrassing, so best not. The US and EU were also active participants in the process, and the aim to pull Ukraine decisively into the Western orbit economically and politically, and to begin to pull it in militarily, had been part of the agenda since 1991. Not to acknowledge this is disavowal again.
What is even stranger about this is that the argument is completely inverted when it comes to Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. When people there rebelled against the overthrow of a government they had, for the most part, voted for, their “local agency” is dismissed by the author’s camp as completely invalid, and reduced to them being simply Russian agents.
This is where the author’s central argument, that “for socialists, the central starting point is the human and social rights of the peoples in the states involved, which could not be sacrificed to great power bloc considerations” exposes itself as utter tosh. The human and social rights of the people of the Donbass, who rebelled against Kyiv in 2014 and have been shelled and bombed by the UAF daily ever since, and mobilised in tens of thousands into the Donbass militia, are ignored completely, of no account, dismissed, written out of history. Some people, it seems, are more equal than others.
Its also evident that Ukraine itself is part of the “post Soviet space” that the US and its allies were, and are, seeking to dominate. The impact since separation in 1991 has also been to wreck the economy. As Renfrey Clarke has noted “World Bank figures show that in constant dollars, Ukraine’s 2021 Gross Domestic Product was down from the 1990 level by 38 per cent. If we use the most charitable measure, per capita GDP at Purchasing Price Parity, the decline was still 21 per cent. That last figure compares with a corresponding increase for the world as a whole of 75 per cent.”
Even before the war, Ukraine had the worst death rate in Europe and was losing 600,000 young people to emigration every year. The country has been asset stripped at an increasing pace, especially since 2014, with Western agri-businesses buying up land, and the post war reconstruction deal aimed to be run by Blackrock seeking to recoup the debts Ukraine has run up to the West by acting as its henchman/military frontier state/ willing sacrificial victim. This is grotesque any way you want to look at it, and will be crippling, whatever the residual assets and territory controlled by Kyiv.
Self determination, it won’t be.
https://orinocotribune.com/the-west-vs- ... nevitable/
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Define Win.
LOL, didn't we hear this before, with Bill Clinton.
On if Ukraine can win
“That depends on what you mean by the word ‘win.’”
I have news for Milley--"win" is achieving political objectives of the war. This is the ONLY definition. Key political objective of SMO for Russia is annihilation of 404 as NATO stooge and a removal of the Kiev regime and its sponsors. This is tantamount to annihilation of 404 as such and Russia is "brutally proficient" (quoting NYT, I believe) in achieving these objectives which imply annihilation of VSU. So, no amount of semantics can hide a clusterfuck at the top of military and political levels in the US. Only moron could believe Ukie "success" at Kharkov last year and only a graduate of Ivy League humanities program believes that territory as such means much in modern war. Accidentally, Russians simply withdrew from around Kharkov in 2022 because saw no military sense in expending resources on it.
Now, Milley follows the path of many other US JCSs and military leaders who managed to lose every single war they ever fought, because they never, quoting Vladimir Lenin, "studied warfare in the most realistic way". And don't tell me that I didn't warn about it--I did. And here we are with this infamous Bill's request: "define what word "is" is." I, meanwhile, off to eating shawarma. Should be at Patriot Park on Tuesday.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/
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Slim pickin's this morning...
- @upholdreality - 21:56 UTC · Aug 17, 2023
