Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV
Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:05 pm
A meaningless carnage
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 08/06/2022 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENT
Original Article: Alexander Kots / Komsomolskaya Pravda
The attack on the Donetsk suburbs, where Ukrainian troops have been entrenched for eight years, has finally begun with the DPR army and Russian artillery support. Avdeevka is under attack. And also the town of Peski, which is considered key to Avdeevka. Assault detachments from Donbass have already managed to advance there. Over the last week, the population of Donetsk, which has been the object of bombing from Peski, has been able to see the clouds of smoke over that place, an image that they have been waiting for eight years. There have been no civilians left in Peski for a long time, which has been converted into a heavily fortified area.
The hope is that the front line will finally move away from Donetsk and that the population will stop being afraid to leave. The seriousness of the offense can be judged by the reaction to the other side. Not because of what the usual storyteller of the kyiv regime, Oleksiy Arestovich, says, who seems like the ambulance of Ukrainian television, but because of what those who are in the trenches of Peski say, who describe being there as hell.
Those are the impressions of a Ukrainian soldier, Serhiy Gnezdilov, who fights in Peski. His letter was published on Ukrainian social networks (and has been confirmed by the angry reaction from kyiv, which accuses the soldier of cowardice, but does not deny what he says).
What else is there to lose, what else can they take from me on this sixth day of personal hell in Peski, a kilometer from the first street of the Ukrainian city of Donetsk? The bodies of those I love more than my family lie in the heat of the trenches crushed by 152mm shells. As I wrote before, 6,500 shells for each village in less than 24 hours.
It's been like this for six days now and it's hard to know how many of our infantry are still alive under this fire.
No, I'm not complaining.
Two 82mm and 120mm mortars are working on our side. Sometimes two cannons wake up and press towards Donetsk.
We practically do not respond. There is no counter-battery fire, nothing, the enemy puts their artillery shells into our trenches without problems and destroys the cement fortified positions in minutes, without pause and with minimal rest tightening our line of defense.
The day before yesterday the dam was destroyed and the river dragged dead and wounded. I will not publish data, it is prohibited in our country, but they have no idea of the number and percentage of our casualties.
It is a carnage in which the battalion simply endures the invasion with their own bodies.
For almost a week, we have been waiting for at least some reinforcement to hit the enemy artillery because, I repeat, they are burning us with impunity with everything the Russian army is rich in. Today aviation has worked.
I am proud that the leadership of the battalion has stayed here with us. Kombat is with us, everyone is with us, the lightly wounded, put on a bandage and return to their positions in a couple of hours, if bottomless holes can be called that.
There is a war.
But without counter-battery, it is a senseless carnage in which huge numbers of our infantry die every day.
Did they want the truth? There is the naked truth.
The reserves went into position to cover the advance, but five minutes later, out of fifteen men there was only one healthy man.
Bodies lying on the ground. If there is a slight one, you might get lucky and be able to walk away.
Only one wounded man was taken away. He was yelling all the way: Where are the reinforcements? Where is the artillery? Why have they abandoned us? Why is no one covering us?
I don't know, man, I don't know why nobody covers us. I'm ashamed to still be in one piece and have only been deaf a couple of times.
I had to vomit, shit -sorry for the language- and back to the trenches.
All reserves have been spent, military equipment goes up in flames and the enemy approaches and takes our positions without problem after another artillery barrage.
Right now, we are losing Peski, all our material and human capacity is almost exhausted.
Denis, the man from Mariupol who told me “Well, I believe Arestovich, we will get everything back soon”, is dead. He was wounded twice, they bandaged him right there in the trenches. They told him: “Denchik, you have to be evacuated”, but he replied: “Boys, I am not going to leave you”.
He was wounded once and after the second time, he kept shooting.
We haven't picked up the body yet. She lies in the ruins of Peski, arms outstretched, staring. He asks for revenge. How can I refuse his dying wish? How can we all leave Denis?
I trust that he survived in the end. Because he can't have died, he just got back from the hospital, he just asked his girlfriend to marry him. They say that after one of the visits he simply disappeared. Buried under a mound of earth. But I think it's a mistake and that he is alive. A naive hope.
I know our government doesn't like to think out loud. But I have no other option in the context of this defense of victory and arestovichism. The truth should not be heard, it should not be whispered in salon conversations. Of course, I will take a special bullet for this, because how can a government lie to its own citizens?
I would not be surprised if today someone said “The Kremlin agent Sirozha has spit out a brilliant plan for victory on the Donetsk front, let's put it on Mirotvorets”.
I'm tired of saying that everything is under control. Now in Peski everything is under control, but for some reason the situation is getting worse.
Alarms sound as we cover Peski with our bodies.
Enough cannons for Donetsk
This card on the other side of the front requires clarification. The Ukrainian soldier claims that they do not have enough cannons. However, Donetsk continues to be bombarded, both with shells and mines (in which the civilian population is injured). Ukraine has enough cannons.
I don't like to judge the true state of the front by a letter on social media. However, what de Peski describes is a typical situation. For nearly six months, the backbone of Ukraine's main professional army has been battered. There are few units left with combat capacity and in which the professionals dominate and in the front are fundamentally mobilized reservists recruited in the streets and beaches. Many are from Western Ukraine. And they have neither the ability nor the will to fight.
Now the situation is similar around Soledar and Artyomovsk. Here, the LPR and Russian troops have slowly pushed back the Ukrainian first line of defense, holding onto the towns and fighting is already going on inside Soledar. But that does not mean that Ukraine does not respond. His troops tried to counterattack near Artyomovsk. Three battalions, supported by tanks and artillery, headed for the town of Pokrovskoe. In one day, 300 Ukrainian soldiers died there against the wall of the Wagner private company and allied forces. Afterward, the remnants of the Ukrainian battalions were pushed out, losing six tanks, four armor, infantry vehicles, and drones.
The superiority of the Russian artillery is, in large part, thanks to kyiv. Zelensky has transferred part of the artillery from Donbass to Kherson. There are some offensive plans that everyone already knows. But if such an adventure occurs, Zelensky will suffer a failure and the casualties will be on a more tragic scale than at Artyomovsk.
There are rumors that General Zaluzhny, commander of the Ukrainian troops, has demanded that Zelensky return the artillery to Donbass so as not to lose the key points of defense. He refers to both Avdeevka and the Seversk-Artyomovsk line, after which there is a direct line to Slavyansk.
At the same time, Zelensky stated that Ukraine cannot reverse Russia's artillery and personnel advantage in Donbass. It is a measured statement to be heard in the West: a prayer for more HIMARS, CAESAR self-propelled artillery and M777 howitzers. However, personally, Ukraine has superiority, that's not a big secret here. Moreover, on some fronts it is far superior. For example, when the Uglegorsk power plant was liberated, the enemy had three times as many troops. This says something about the experience, training and military artistry of the Allied forces, something that inexperienced Ukrainian units lack.
https://slavyangrad.es/2022/08/06/una-c ... more-25219
Google Translator
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Ukraine war is losing its sparkle. Where’s the lady with the lamp?
Searching for the needle in a haystack is exciting, as there could be sudden surprises. There are growing signs that the diplomatic front on Ukraine conflict is livening up
August 03, 2022 by M.K. Bhadrakumar
Cargo ship Razoni carrying 26,000 tonnes of maize sailing from Odessa Port toward Bosphorus on Aug 1, 2022.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Monday that at around 9.20 a.m. Moscow time, Razoni, a ship flying the flag of Sierra Leone, left the Odessa port in Ukraine as part of the recent grain deal. Razoni is carrying a cargo of maize to Istanbul port.
The MOD (Ministry of Defense) said the “control of the humanitarian operation for the departure of the first ship carrying agricultural products was planned with the active participation of Russian officers who are part of the Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul.”
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, “this is a good and important first step” that the first ship with around 26,000 tonnes of grain sailed out of Odessa.
Searching for the needle in a haystack is exciting, as there could be sudden surprises. There are growing signs that the diplomatic front on Ukraine conflict is livening up.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden offered talks with Russia. In his statement ahead of the 10th Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, Biden reiterated the US’ “shared belief” with Russia that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” and that “my administration has prioritized reducing the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”
Biden continued: “I’ve worked on arms control from the earliest days of my career, and the health of the NPT has always rested on meaningful, reciprocal arms limits between the United States and Russian Federation. Even at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were able to work together to uphold our shared responsibility to ensure strategic stability. Today, my Administration is ready to expeditiously negotiate a new arms control framework to replace New START when it expires in 2026. But negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith. And Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression in Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and constitutes an attack on fundamental tenets of international order. In this context, Russia should demonstrate that it is ready to resume work on nuclear arms control with the United States.”
Simultaneously, Blinken also alluded to Russia’s key role for “making sure that countries with nuclear weapons, including the United States, pursue disarmament; making sure that countries that don’t have nuclear weapons do not acquire them by upholding and strengthening non-proliferation; and making sure that countries can engage in the peaceful use of nuclear energy, something that is even more vital as we deal with the challenges posed by climate change.”
Blinken has had a makeover lately, pushing back an avalanche of hawkish opinion represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the US Senate, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian parliament who demand that Russia be formally designated a state sponsor of terrorism, a label reserved for North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Iran.
Indeed, Blinken’s phone call to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on prisoner exchange was a US-Russia re-engagement since February and therefore a subtle messaging in itself. (Biden’s offer of talks has come within the week.)
These fresh tidings need to be seen alongside the trend of the “collective West” lately working to ease the anti-Russian sanctions. The following developments suggest a pattern:
*Canada announced on July 9 — on Germany’s request and Washington’s backing — while also ignoring Ukraine’s objections, a waiver of sanctions that allowed the return of equipment for Nord Stream 1 pipeline so as to support Europe’s access to “reliable and affordable energy”;
*European Union issued a guideline on July 13 (in relation to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad) “that the transit of sanctioned goods by road with Russian operators is not allowed under the EU measures. No such similar prohibition exists for rail transport” (via Lithuania.)
*On August 1, the UK eased some restrictions to allow companies to provide insurance and reinsurance to Russian entities, which have implications for shipping and aviation industries.
*The EU also allowed “exemption (for Russia) from the prohibition to engage in transactions with certain state-owned entities as regards transactions for agricultural products and the transport of oil to third countries.”
*Bloomberg had reported on June 13 that “US government is quietly encouraging” agricultural and shipping companies to buy and carry more Russia’s fertilizer, whose exports are down 24% this year as “many shippers, banks and insurers have been staying away from the trade out of fear they could inadvertently fall afoul of the rules… and (Washington) is in the seemingly paradoxical position of looking for ways to boost them (Russian exports.)”
However, on the war front, Russia’s special military operations to grind the Ukrainian forces are continuing, albeit without significant changes on the battlefield. The current frontline in Donbass appears to be along the Bakhmut-Soledar-Seversk line where Ukrainian forces try to slow down the Russian offensive on the cities of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk from the eastern direction.
Positional battles are also going on along the entire frontline in eastern and southern Ukraine. The Western media, prompted by the Kiev regime, is hyping up an imminent Ukrainian “counteroffensive” in the southern region of Kherson, but that is a stretch. In fact, in the weekend, Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade in Zaporozhye direction reportedly suffered such heavy losses that demoralized troops began abandoning combat positions and desertion from the frontline.
Although Razoni sailed out on Monday, Russian strikes also destroyed one launcher of US-made anti-ship Harpoon missile system in Odessa Region while high-precision strikes also destroyed two advanced US rocket launchers of HIMARS in Kharkov.
Against such a convoluted backdrop, an opinion is building up in the US that the Kiev regime is stringing the West, and needs to be firmly told that all good things must come to an end.
Reflecting this nascent thinking, the National Interest featured a piece last week by two influential American think tankers close to the Democratic Party circles who had served in the White House and State Department under the Obama administration. Read it here.
Conceivably, there is a convergence here with Russia’s grouse that but for Kiev’s intransigence, peace talks are possible. Putin has invited Turkish President Recep Erdogan to meet up at Sochi on Friday. (here, here.) Erdogan had said he hoped the recent grain deal would be a turning point for the resumption of political talks between Ukraine and Russia to end the armed conflict. (here)
If only Florence Nightingale were still there at the Scutari Barracks of the Turkish Army, built in 1800 by Sultan Selim III in the Uskudar district on the Asian part of Istanbul, Erdogan could have asked the Lady with the Lamp to go with him to Sochi.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/08/03/ ... -the-lamp/
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Ukraine SitRep - Casualties Leak - Ukraine Admits Russian Breakthrough - Southern Front Paralysis
There is an report on Ukraine making the rounds that was allegedly written by the higher command of the Ukrainian army and leaked from somewhere.
Dr.Snekotron @snekotron - 12:50 UTC · Aug 5, 2022
Ukrainian channels are discussing what might be a leaked data from AFU General Staff:
- The AFU are only at 43-48% strength
- medical workers at their limit
- small arms and armor are not enough
- 191 thousand soldiers were killed and wounded (only AFU, not including others)
- there is not enough hydraulics and liquid nitrogen for M777 howitzers
- no one cares about the missing - there are no statistics
- the equipment transferred by the West is running out
- western weapons are operated by amateurs, since there are no qualified specialists
- no way to repair weapons on the spot due to the lack of spares and specialists - everything is sent to Poland
BTW, even with this dire report, I would caution against predicting a decisive break in morale. As with Peski, the walking wounded are sent straight back into the trenches
There are some pictures of documents written in cyrillic script attached to the above tweet.
The documents look legit. The overall numbers and issues mentioned seem plausible to me. The high number of casualties (plus the missing) is not astonishing. It would be astonished though if the Russian army and its allies have more than one tenth of those. This is mostly an artillery war and the Russian side has had a vast superiority in guns and missiles.
I wonder about the M-777 need for hydraulic oil and nitrogen. Both are used in the hydraulic recoil mechanism of such guns. Back when I was in the military we had similar mechanisms in our tanks. But they did not consume oil or nitrogen due to normal operation. Only larger maintenance, like changing the gun barrel, would require a readjustment of that mechanism. Is the 'light' howitzer M-777 so badly constructed that those fluids and gases can leak out and thereby become consumables?
The Ukraine has acknowledged that its main reinforced defense line west of Donetsk city has been broken:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy this week described the pressure his armed forces were under in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine as "hell". He spoke of fierce fighting around the town of Avdiivka and the fortified village of Pisky, where Kyiv has acknowledged its Russian foe's "partial success" in recent days.
The Ukrainian military said on Thursday Russian forces had mounted at least two assaults on Pisky but that its troops had managed to repel them.
Ukraine has spent the last eight years fortifying defensive positions in Pisky, viewing it as a buffer zone against Russian-backed forces who control the city of Donetsk about 10 km (6 miles) to the southeast.
General Oleksiy Hromov told a news conference that Ukrainian forces had recaptured two villages around the eastern city of Sloviansk, but had been pushed back to the town of Avdiivka's outskirts after being forced to abandon a coal mine regarded as a key defensive position.
The Russian defence ministry confirmed its offensive.
Everything red on the left of the red line marks recent progress. It looks small but was achieved against the most fortified positions the Ukrainian side had.
Here is an aerial view of a part of Pisky.
There are ditches (black lines) everywhere and after eight years of artillery war all houses have been more or less destroyed. Still their basements are good fighting positions which are difficult to overcome.
The breakthrough happened after the Ukraine had moved many artillery units from the Donetsk to the southern front. That also explains the lack of counter-battery fire in the east an eyewitness recently lamented about.
Ukraine is still dreaming of a counter-offensive in the south:
Ukraine said the Russian offensive in the east looked like an attempt to force it to divert troops from the south where Kyiv's forces are trying to retake territory and destroy Russian supply lines as a prelude to a wider counter-offensive.
"The idea is to put military pressure on us in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk over the next few weeks ... What is happening in the east is not what will determine the outcome of the war," Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in an interview on YouTube.
Arestovych is of course wrong. The war was decided in the east when the Ukrainian military followed its bosses orders and moved everything it had to that front. That gave the Russian artillery the chance to take it apart. The Ukrainian tactic, ordered from above, was to hold onto every position until it was completely destroyed. A more mobile defense would likely have been more effective and would have cost less casualties.
The units that Ukraine pulled back from Donbas and has send down to Kherson for its 'million men' offensive were already heavily mauled. They have now been waiting for weeks for the offensive to launch. Meanwhile Russian missiles have hit several of those repositioned units and caused a high numbers of fresh casualties. The removal of Ukrainian artillery from the Donetsk line allowed for the breakthrough at that line.
The long time it took for all that repositioning to happen has also given time for the Russian forces to strengthen its troops around Kherson. There are by now sufficient numbers for the Russian's to launch their own offensive in the area.
General Hromov said Russia might launch its own offensive in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson to try to win back momentum in the war after building up its forces there.
The general got that right. The Russian offensive in the south may launch as early as next week.
There seems to be again a disagreement between the Zelensky regime and the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine.
The general staff knows that a counter-offensive against Kherson makes no sense as it would cost many more casualties and is likely to be defeated.
(Under NATO symbology friendly artillery is marked as a rectangle with a fat dot in the middle. An X above says the unit is a brigade. Three vertical lines mark a (smaller) regiment and two a (smaller) battalion.)
I count 4 Ukrainian artillery brigades and three artillery regiments on the southern front. There is currently only one artillery brigade on the eastern front. While mechanized brigades in the east have their own organic artillery units those do not have the big guns that can do the counter-battery fire.
The general staff does not want to attack in the south. It wants to move a least some of the artillery brigades there back to the Donetsk line.
But Zelenski and his crew want to prevent the referendums that will be held next month in Kherson and other regions under Russian control. That is why they are pushing for a counter-attack there.
The disagreement has paralyzed the Ukrainian army. The units sitting in the south waiting for orders while they get decimated by daily Russian missile strikes. This while they are urgently needed in the east.
Zelensky and Arestovych may be good at making movies. Military geniuses they are certainly not.
Posted by b on August 5, 2022 at 16:49 UTC | Permalink
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/u ... .html#more
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The Petal Problem
August 6, 0:25
Actual text for residents of Donetsk and the liberated territories, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine are actively mining with anti-personnel mines of the Petal type.
The Petal Problem
In this material, I will not touch on violations of conventions, treachery and ethics in the use of PFM-1 "Petal" mines by the enemy, cries about the deceit and meanness of the enemy, these are all "talks in favor of the poor." It is especially surprising to hear this from the military, and what did you actually expect, that the enemy would fight honestly ???!!!
But this is poetry, here I will only touch on technical issues, briefly, so that it would be clear to a non-specialist.
Recently, in the network, there are some attractions of unprecedented dementia and courage to clear these mines.
They drive over them with armored vehicles, damaging gooses and asphalt, throwing tires, bricks at them, hitting them with a stick, shooting from a machine gun ...
Well, the classic movie idiocy:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/LgLqjQGNckw[/youtube]
So, what is this mine and how to mine it correctly and safely.
Introductory part:
PFM-1 anti-personnel mine, high-explosive, pressure action. The mine does not hit the victim with fragments (the body is soft polyethylene), with the exception of secondary ones, formed by the material with which it comes into contact during the explosion, asphalt, concrete, stone, metal. The defeat is inflicted due to brisance, i.e. crushing the limb that clicked on the mine.
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Сolonelcassad
Special operation, August 5th. The main thing from RIA Novosti :
- On Friday, Ukrainian militants fired twice at the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the shells hit the industrial site of the station;
- According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, 20 shells of 152 mm caliber were fired by Ukrainian troops on the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in Energodar;
- An artillery strike on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant could lead to a major fire and a radiation accident, the Russian Defense Ministry said;
- As a result of the shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in Energodar, a fire broke out on the hydrogen pipeline, which was quickly extinguished by emergency services, the RF Ministry of Defense reported;
- A group of foreign journalists arrived on July 30 in Orekhov, Zaporozhye region, at the location of Ukrainian troops to film the facts of the alleged indiscriminate use of artillery by the Russian Armed Forces, Colonel General Mizintsev said;
- Russian aviation, missile troops and artillery hit four command posts of Ukrainian troops, two weapons depots in the DPR, and enemy manpower in 182 districts in a day;
- Nine local residents of the Kharkiv region suffered as a result of a conflict with the commanders of the Ukrainian military, who tried to forcibly evict them and place them in residential buildings of foreign mercenaries;
- The Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed up to 150 Ukrainian soldiers and officers, two M777 howitzers and 1.5 thousand ammunition for them, seven drones, about 350 shells for the Grad MLRS, as well as six Msta-B howitzers with a high-precision strike on two howitzer artillery divisions and warehouses of rocket and artillery weapons in the Zaporozhye region;
- Russian and allied troops during the special operation in Ukraine destroyed more than 5 thousand units of armored vehicles and multiple launch rocket systems;
- Ukrainian militants in the courtyards of residential buildings in Artemovsk in the DPR have placed large-caliber mortars and fired at the positions of the Russian Armed Forces from them, while residents of nearby houses are being held as human shields.
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Сolonelcassad
0:24
In addition to the repeated shelling of the ZNPP (again, arrivals at the station), the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired at Berislav.
These strikes, coupled with fresh arrivals at the Tokmak railway station (railway damaged - several days of repair) indicate ongoing attempts to create conditions for an offensive either in the Kryvyi Rih-Nikopol or Zaporozhye directions.
It is possible that a strike can be delivered here and there, and one of the strikes will be fettering and distracting, while the main forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will try to achieve some sane operational-tactical goals.
In the Krivoy Rog-Nikopol direction - to break through the front on the Ingulets River, and also to strike in the Potemkino area from Nikopol.
The main goal is not the capture of Kherson, but cutting off part of the bridgehead of the RF Armed Forces on the Right Bank up to Berislav.
In the Zaporizhzhya direction - try to advance to Tokmak and Pology and, with a successful development of events, try to take some relatively large settlement in order to declare it a victory.
I believe that both of these possibilities are being considered by our command, which has already led to the strengthening of groups in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
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The Russian Foreign Ministry Comprehensively Explained the Global Systemic Transition
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 5, 2022
Andrew Korybko
What follows is a summary of everything that the Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared, after which some concluding thoughts will wrap up the analysis.
Alexey Drobinin, Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, comprehensively explained the global systemic transition to multipolarity that was unprecedentedly accelerated by the US-provoked Ukrainian Conflict. His insight is admittedly lengthy and requires a lot of time to read through, but therein lies the purpose of the present piece to draw attention to its highlights for the reader’s convenience. What follows is a summary of everything that he shared, after which some concluding thoughts will wrap up the analysis.
Titled “The lessons of history and vision for the future: Thoughts on Russia’s foreign policy”, Drobinin’s treatise opens by pointing out the seminal nature of unfolding events. The trends shaping the emerging dynamics predate his country’s special military operation in Ukraine and include the formation of a Multipolar World Order (MWO), the increasing relevance of the civilizational approach to International Relations, the globalization crisis stemming from the 2008 financial one, the increased importance of the cultural and force factors in foreign affairs, and the “Great Reset”/”Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
After touching upon each of these, Drobinin then explains the evolution of his country’s approach to International Relations as enshrined its Foreign Policy Concepts from 1993 until 2016, with a sneak peek of what to expect from the latest one that’s in the process of being finalized. The foreign policy planner emphasized its continuity with respect to defending national interests, promoting regional stability, embracing multipolarity, upholding international law, proactively engaging with the Global South (especially China and India), and promoting Eurasian integration.
Moving beyond these concepts that he described as his civilization-state’s ideological outlook, this influential policymaker then declared that recent events have forever changed the nature of Russian-Western relations, which he said were always tainted by his counterparts’ Russophobia. The Russian elite’s hitherto Western-centric outlook that he blamed for its “ideological separation from the popular masses” is also changing in line with these new conditions. It’s not all bleak, however, since the resultant period of acute confrontation with the US-led West nevertheless carries with it certain opportunities.
Drobinin explained that these first and foremost concern the impetus to create a new structure for International Relations after the declining unipolar hegemon practically privatized the UN and other multilateral fora. The US-led West exposed its self-interested motives that it unconvincingly disguises behind “democracy” and “human rights” rhetoric, which is in turn inspiring the rest of the international community to unite in opposition to it through the joint establishment of new platforms in “politics, economy, trade, currency and finance, as well as culture, education and international security.”
These processes are led by BRICS, the SCO, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter, et al. Drobinin also predicts that the Russia-India-China (RIC) framework will play an integral role in this respect in accordance with Yevgeny Primakov’s vision from the late 1990s. Furthermore, President Putin’s Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) might very well become Russia’s flagship foreign policy concept, he says. That’s because Russia’s partners across the Global South see the world more or less the same way that it does, Drobinin notes.
One of the priorities of Russian foreign policy is “Injecting more sovereignty across the board, including in the world of ideas, politics, culture, research, economics, finance and other spheres”. This aligns with what President Putin earlier encouraged, especially in his recent global revolutionary manifesto that Foreign Minister Lavrov elaborated upon in the African context to promise that Russia will help its partners there fully complete their decolonization processes. In parallel, Russia will “readjust foreign policy concepts emanating from the Western school of thought to fit in with our national narrative.”
Drobinin then closed his treatise by pointing out that “going back to one’s roots would be impossible without mobilising the state and society on the ideological front. This is another essential prerequisite for an effective foreign policy as we move away from our dependency on the West in all its forms and manifestations.” This suggests that President Putin’s global revolutionary manifesto will shape the views of future generations, thus enabling Russia to fulfill its historical destiny of “accelerating the transition to a new world order through its persistence and steady resolve to achieve truth and justice for all.”
All told, the foreign policy planner’s explanation of the global systemic transition to multipolarity and Russia’s leading role in this process is indeed comprehensive and worth reading in full in order to obtain a clearer idea of its grand strategy. Far from being the so-called “marginalized regional power” that the US-led West falsely portrays it as, Russia is actually the engine of the emerging MWO and has once again been fated to play the transformational role in International Relations that it’s practiced for centuries. Considering all the trends that are presently converging, this is no simple task.
Returning to what Drobinin earlier touched upon, deglobalization processes risk fragmenting the world but could also enable the resultant blocs to more confidently defend their sovereignty in all domains, especially in the financial, scientific-technological, and socio-cultural ones. The growing role of civilizations is also something that no observer should lose sight of either, which he predicts will lead to Great Powers like Russia, China, India, and the US among others leading the political consolidation of their regions, though it’s still unclear what effect this will have on global systemic stability.
Nevertheless, it adds credence to the prediction that bloc-based politics will likely characterize the future deglobalized world order, which can preserve each civilization’s diversity from those pernicious external influences that seek to erase their identity by subsuming them into the amorphous liberal-globalist blob that’s being artificially manufactured by Western ideologues. By playing a leading role in bringing about this scenario, Russia is therefore positioning itself as a humanitarian superpower with respect to protecting the planet’s socio-cultural diversity, especially across the Global South.
To wrap it all up, the US-provoked Ukrainian Crisis that unprecedentedly accelerated the global systemic transition to multipolarity can be seen in hindsight as completely self-defeating from the perspective of that declining unipolar power’s hegemonic interests. It didn’t lead to Russia’s collapse like its strategists ridiculously expected but actually put that civilization-state back on its historic path of transforming International Relations. No one should doubt that the coming decades will be characterized by Western-incited chaos, but nor should they lose hope about the world’s promising multipolar future either.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... ransition/
Well and good, bucko. But the western civilization which you abhor is capitalism and Russia remains in it's thrall under the present government.
US/Western hegemony must be broken but this vaunted 'multipolarity' ain't no panacea as long as capitalism is extant and will likely usher in a new period of Great Power competition, which always results in war. Nothing but world-wide socialism has a ghost of a chance to get us out of this jam to some degree intact.
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Cages for the Nazis
August 6, 14:26
Preparation of cages for the trial of the Nazis in Mariupol. In June, it was announced that the trial of Ukrainian war criminals should take place in Mariupol in the second half of August and become part of a series of open trials that should take place on the territory of the DPR over Ukrainian Nazis from Azov and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as over foreign mercenaries.
On a number of charges, the defendants may face the death penalty, the moratorium on which was recently lifted in the DPR.
Several mercenaries have already been sentenced to death and are now trying to challenge the sentence through established procedures.
If the court refuses them, then only a pardon from Pushilin can stop the millstones of justice.
Britain did not express any desire to barter its mercenaries.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7783294.html
Google Translator
POSTED BY @NSANZO ⋅ 08/06/2022 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENT
Original Article: Alexander Kots / Komsomolskaya Pravda
The attack on the Donetsk suburbs, where Ukrainian troops have been entrenched for eight years, has finally begun with the DPR army and Russian artillery support. Avdeevka is under attack. And also the town of Peski, which is considered key to Avdeevka. Assault detachments from Donbass have already managed to advance there. Over the last week, the population of Donetsk, which has been the object of bombing from Peski, has been able to see the clouds of smoke over that place, an image that they have been waiting for eight years. There have been no civilians left in Peski for a long time, which has been converted into a heavily fortified area.
The hope is that the front line will finally move away from Donetsk and that the population will stop being afraid to leave. The seriousness of the offense can be judged by the reaction to the other side. Not because of what the usual storyteller of the kyiv regime, Oleksiy Arestovich, says, who seems like the ambulance of Ukrainian television, but because of what those who are in the trenches of Peski say, who describe being there as hell.
Those are the impressions of a Ukrainian soldier, Serhiy Gnezdilov, who fights in Peski. His letter was published on Ukrainian social networks (and has been confirmed by the angry reaction from kyiv, which accuses the soldier of cowardice, but does not deny what he says).
What else is there to lose, what else can they take from me on this sixth day of personal hell in Peski, a kilometer from the first street of the Ukrainian city of Donetsk? The bodies of those I love more than my family lie in the heat of the trenches crushed by 152mm shells. As I wrote before, 6,500 shells for each village in less than 24 hours.
It's been like this for six days now and it's hard to know how many of our infantry are still alive under this fire.
No, I'm not complaining.
Two 82mm and 120mm mortars are working on our side. Sometimes two cannons wake up and press towards Donetsk.
We practically do not respond. There is no counter-battery fire, nothing, the enemy puts their artillery shells into our trenches without problems and destroys the cement fortified positions in minutes, without pause and with minimal rest tightening our line of defense.
The day before yesterday the dam was destroyed and the river dragged dead and wounded. I will not publish data, it is prohibited in our country, but they have no idea of the number and percentage of our casualties.
It is a carnage in which the battalion simply endures the invasion with their own bodies.
For almost a week, we have been waiting for at least some reinforcement to hit the enemy artillery because, I repeat, they are burning us with impunity with everything the Russian army is rich in. Today aviation has worked.
I am proud that the leadership of the battalion has stayed here with us. Kombat is with us, everyone is with us, the lightly wounded, put on a bandage and return to their positions in a couple of hours, if bottomless holes can be called that.
There is a war.
But without counter-battery, it is a senseless carnage in which huge numbers of our infantry die every day.
Did they want the truth? There is the naked truth.
The reserves went into position to cover the advance, but five minutes later, out of fifteen men there was only one healthy man.
Bodies lying on the ground. If there is a slight one, you might get lucky and be able to walk away.
Only one wounded man was taken away. He was yelling all the way: Where are the reinforcements? Where is the artillery? Why have they abandoned us? Why is no one covering us?
I don't know, man, I don't know why nobody covers us. I'm ashamed to still be in one piece and have only been deaf a couple of times.
I had to vomit, shit -sorry for the language- and back to the trenches.
All reserves have been spent, military equipment goes up in flames and the enemy approaches and takes our positions without problem after another artillery barrage.
Right now, we are losing Peski, all our material and human capacity is almost exhausted.
Denis, the man from Mariupol who told me “Well, I believe Arestovich, we will get everything back soon”, is dead. He was wounded twice, they bandaged him right there in the trenches. They told him: “Denchik, you have to be evacuated”, but he replied: “Boys, I am not going to leave you”.
He was wounded once and after the second time, he kept shooting.
We haven't picked up the body yet. She lies in the ruins of Peski, arms outstretched, staring. He asks for revenge. How can I refuse his dying wish? How can we all leave Denis?
I trust that he survived in the end. Because he can't have died, he just got back from the hospital, he just asked his girlfriend to marry him. They say that after one of the visits he simply disappeared. Buried under a mound of earth. But I think it's a mistake and that he is alive. A naive hope.
I know our government doesn't like to think out loud. But I have no other option in the context of this defense of victory and arestovichism. The truth should not be heard, it should not be whispered in salon conversations. Of course, I will take a special bullet for this, because how can a government lie to its own citizens?
I would not be surprised if today someone said “The Kremlin agent Sirozha has spit out a brilliant plan for victory on the Donetsk front, let's put it on Mirotvorets”.
I'm tired of saying that everything is under control. Now in Peski everything is under control, but for some reason the situation is getting worse.
Alarms sound as we cover Peski with our bodies.
Enough cannons for Donetsk
This card on the other side of the front requires clarification. The Ukrainian soldier claims that they do not have enough cannons. However, Donetsk continues to be bombarded, both with shells and mines (in which the civilian population is injured). Ukraine has enough cannons.
I don't like to judge the true state of the front by a letter on social media. However, what de Peski describes is a typical situation. For nearly six months, the backbone of Ukraine's main professional army has been battered. There are few units left with combat capacity and in which the professionals dominate and in the front are fundamentally mobilized reservists recruited in the streets and beaches. Many are from Western Ukraine. And they have neither the ability nor the will to fight.
Now the situation is similar around Soledar and Artyomovsk. Here, the LPR and Russian troops have slowly pushed back the Ukrainian first line of defense, holding onto the towns and fighting is already going on inside Soledar. But that does not mean that Ukraine does not respond. His troops tried to counterattack near Artyomovsk. Three battalions, supported by tanks and artillery, headed for the town of Pokrovskoe. In one day, 300 Ukrainian soldiers died there against the wall of the Wagner private company and allied forces. Afterward, the remnants of the Ukrainian battalions were pushed out, losing six tanks, four armor, infantry vehicles, and drones.
The superiority of the Russian artillery is, in large part, thanks to kyiv. Zelensky has transferred part of the artillery from Donbass to Kherson. There are some offensive plans that everyone already knows. But if such an adventure occurs, Zelensky will suffer a failure and the casualties will be on a more tragic scale than at Artyomovsk.
There are rumors that General Zaluzhny, commander of the Ukrainian troops, has demanded that Zelensky return the artillery to Donbass so as not to lose the key points of defense. He refers to both Avdeevka and the Seversk-Artyomovsk line, after which there is a direct line to Slavyansk.
At the same time, Zelensky stated that Ukraine cannot reverse Russia's artillery and personnel advantage in Donbass. It is a measured statement to be heard in the West: a prayer for more HIMARS, CAESAR self-propelled artillery and M777 howitzers. However, personally, Ukraine has superiority, that's not a big secret here. Moreover, on some fronts it is far superior. For example, when the Uglegorsk power plant was liberated, the enemy had three times as many troops. This says something about the experience, training and military artistry of the Allied forces, something that inexperienced Ukrainian units lack.
https://slavyangrad.es/2022/08/06/una-c ... more-25219
Google Translator
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Ukraine war is losing its sparkle. Where’s the lady with the lamp?
Searching for the needle in a haystack is exciting, as there could be sudden surprises. There are growing signs that the diplomatic front on Ukraine conflict is livening up
August 03, 2022 by M.K. Bhadrakumar
Cargo ship Razoni carrying 26,000 tonnes of maize sailing from Odessa Port toward Bosphorus on Aug 1, 2022.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Monday that at around 9.20 a.m. Moscow time, Razoni, a ship flying the flag of Sierra Leone, left the Odessa port in Ukraine as part of the recent grain deal. Razoni is carrying a cargo of maize to Istanbul port.
The MOD (Ministry of Defense) said the “control of the humanitarian operation for the departure of the first ship carrying agricultural products was planned with the active participation of Russian officers who are part of the Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul.”
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, “this is a good and important first step” that the first ship with around 26,000 tonnes of grain sailed out of Odessa.
Searching for the needle in a haystack is exciting, as there could be sudden surprises. There are growing signs that the diplomatic front on Ukraine conflict is livening up.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden offered talks with Russia. In his statement ahead of the 10th Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, Biden reiterated the US’ “shared belief” with Russia that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” and that “my administration has prioritized reducing the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”
Biden continued: “I’ve worked on arms control from the earliest days of my career, and the health of the NPT has always rested on meaningful, reciprocal arms limits between the United States and Russian Federation. Even at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were able to work together to uphold our shared responsibility to ensure strategic stability. Today, my Administration is ready to expeditiously negotiate a new arms control framework to replace New START when it expires in 2026. But negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith. And Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression in Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and constitutes an attack on fundamental tenets of international order. In this context, Russia should demonstrate that it is ready to resume work on nuclear arms control with the United States.”
Simultaneously, Blinken also alluded to Russia’s key role for “making sure that countries with nuclear weapons, including the United States, pursue disarmament; making sure that countries that don’t have nuclear weapons do not acquire them by upholding and strengthening non-proliferation; and making sure that countries can engage in the peaceful use of nuclear energy, something that is even more vital as we deal with the challenges posed by climate change.”
Blinken has had a makeover lately, pushing back an avalanche of hawkish opinion represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the US Senate, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian parliament who demand that Russia be formally designated a state sponsor of terrorism, a label reserved for North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Iran.
Indeed, Blinken’s phone call to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on prisoner exchange was a US-Russia re-engagement since February and therefore a subtle messaging in itself. (Biden’s offer of talks has come within the week.)
These fresh tidings need to be seen alongside the trend of the “collective West” lately working to ease the anti-Russian sanctions. The following developments suggest a pattern:
*Canada announced on July 9 — on Germany’s request and Washington’s backing — while also ignoring Ukraine’s objections, a waiver of sanctions that allowed the return of equipment for Nord Stream 1 pipeline so as to support Europe’s access to “reliable and affordable energy”;
*European Union issued a guideline on July 13 (in relation to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad) “that the transit of sanctioned goods by road with Russian operators is not allowed under the EU measures. No such similar prohibition exists for rail transport” (via Lithuania.)
*On August 1, the UK eased some restrictions to allow companies to provide insurance and reinsurance to Russian entities, which have implications for shipping and aviation industries.
*The EU also allowed “exemption (for Russia) from the prohibition to engage in transactions with certain state-owned entities as regards transactions for agricultural products and the transport of oil to third countries.”
*Bloomberg had reported on June 13 that “US government is quietly encouraging” agricultural and shipping companies to buy and carry more Russia’s fertilizer, whose exports are down 24% this year as “many shippers, banks and insurers have been staying away from the trade out of fear they could inadvertently fall afoul of the rules… and (Washington) is in the seemingly paradoxical position of looking for ways to boost them (Russian exports.)”
However, on the war front, Russia’s special military operations to grind the Ukrainian forces are continuing, albeit without significant changes on the battlefield. The current frontline in Donbass appears to be along the Bakhmut-Soledar-Seversk line where Ukrainian forces try to slow down the Russian offensive on the cities of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk from the eastern direction.
Positional battles are also going on along the entire frontline in eastern and southern Ukraine. The Western media, prompted by the Kiev regime, is hyping up an imminent Ukrainian “counteroffensive” in the southern region of Kherson, but that is a stretch. In fact, in the weekend, Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade in Zaporozhye direction reportedly suffered such heavy losses that demoralized troops began abandoning combat positions and desertion from the frontline.
Although Razoni sailed out on Monday, Russian strikes also destroyed one launcher of US-made anti-ship Harpoon missile system in Odessa Region while high-precision strikes also destroyed two advanced US rocket launchers of HIMARS in Kharkov.
Against such a convoluted backdrop, an opinion is building up in the US that the Kiev regime is stringing the West, and needs to be firmly told that all good things must come to an end.
Reflecting this nascent thinking, the National Interest featured a piece last week by two influential American think tankers close to the Democratic Party circles who had served in the White House and State Department under the Obama administration. Read it here.
Conceivably, there is a convergence here with Russia’s grouse that but for Kiev’s intransigence, peace talks are possible. Putin has invited Turkish President Recep Erdogan to meet up at Sochi on Friday. (here, here.) Erdogan had said he hoped the recent grain deal would be a turning point for the resumption of political talks between Ukraine and Russia to end the armed conflict. (here)
If only Florence Nightingale were still there at the Scutari Barracks of the Turkish Army, built in 1800 by Sultan Selim III in the Uskudar district on the Asian part of Istanbul, Erdogan could have asked the Lady with the Lamp to go with him to Sochi.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/08/03/ ... -the-lamp/
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Ukraine SitRep - Casualties Leak - Ukraine Admits Russian Breakthrough - Southern Front Paralysis
There is an report on Ukraine making the rounds that was allegedly written by the higher command of the Ukrainian army and leaked from somewhere.
Dr.Snekotron @snekotron - 12:50 UTC · Aug 5, 2022
Ukrainian channels are discussing what might be a leaked data from AFU General Staff:
- The AFU are only at 43-48% strength
- medical workers at their limit
- small arms and armor are not enough
- 191 thousand soldiers were killed and wounded (only AFU, not including others)
- there is not enough hydraulics and liquid nitrogen for M777 howitzers
- no one cares about the missing - there are no statistics
- the equipment transferred by the West is running out
- western weapons are operated by amateurs, since there are no qualified specialists
- no way to repair weapons on the spot due to the lack of spares and specialists - everything is sent to Poland
BTW, even with this dire report, I would caution against predicting a decisive break in morale. As with Peski, the walking wounded are sent straight back into the trenches
There are some pictures of documents written in cyrillic script attached to the above tweet.
The documents look legit. The overall numbers and issues mentioned seem plausible to me. The high number of casualties (plus the missing) is not astonishing. It would be astonished though if the Russian army and its allies have more than one tenth of those. This is mostly an artillery war and the Russian side has had a vast superiority in guns and missiles.
I wonder about the M-777 need for hydraulic oil and nitrogen. Both are used in the hydraulic recoil mechanism of such guns. Back when I was in the military we had similar mechanisms in our tanks. But they did not consume oil or nitrogen due to normal operation. Only larger maintenance, like changing the gun barrel, would require a readjustment of that mechanism. Is the 'light' howitzer M-777 so badly constructed that those fluids and gases can leak out and thereby become consumables?
The Ukraine has acknowledged that its main reinforced defense line west of Donetsk city has been broken:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy this week described the pressure his armed forces were under in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine as "hell". He spoke of fierce fighting around the town of Avdiivka and the fortified village of Pisky, where Kyiv has acknowledged its Russian foe's "partial success" in recent days.
The Ukrainian military said on Thursday Russian forces had mounted at least two assaults on Pisky but that its troops had managed to repel them.
Ukraine has spent the last eight years fortifying defensive positions in Pisky, viewing it as a buffer zone against Russian-backed forces who control the city of Donetsk about 10 km (6 miles) to the southeast.
General Oleksiy Hromov told a news conference that Ukrainian forces had recaptured two villages around the eastern city of Sloviansk, but had been pushed back to the town of Avdiivka's outskirts after being forced to abandon a coal mine regarded as a key defensive position.
The Russian defence ministry confirmed its offensive.
Everything red on the left of the red line marks recent progress. It looks small but was achieved against the most fortified positions the Ukrainian side had.
Here is an aerial view of a part of Pisky.
There are ditches (black lines) everywhere and after eight years of artillery war all houses have been more or less destroyed. Still their basements are good fighting positions which are difficult to overcome.
The breakthrough happened after the Ukraine had moved many artillery units from the Donetsk to the southern front. That also explains the lack of counter-battery fire in the east an eyewitness recently lamented about.
Ukraine is still dreaming of a counter-offensive in the south:
Ukraine said the Russian offensive in the east looked like an attempt to force it to divert troops from the south where Kyiv's forces are trying to retake territory and destroy Russian supply lines as a prelude to a wider counter-offensive.
"The idea is to put military pressure on us in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk over the next few weeks ... What is happening in the east is not what will determine the outcome of the war," Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said in an interview on YouTube.
Arestovych is of course wrong. The war was decided in the east when the Ukrainian military followed its bosses orders and moved everything it had to that front. That gave the Russian artillery the chance to take it apart. The Ukrainian tactic, ordered from above, was to hold onto every position until it was completely destroyed. A more mobile defense would likely have been more effective and would have cost less casualties.
The units that Ukraine pulled back from Donbas and has send down to Kherson for its 'million men' offensive were already heavily mauled. They have now been waiting for weeks for the offensive to launch. Meanwhile Russian missiles have hit several of those repositioned units and caused a high numbers of fresh casualties. The removal of Ukrainian artillery from the Donetsk line allowed for the breakthrough at that line.
The long time it took for all that repositioning to happen has also given time for the Russian forces to strengthen its troops around Kherson. There are by now sufficient numbers for the Russian's to launch their own offensive in the area.
General Hromov said Russia might launch its own offensive in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson to try to win back momentum in the war after building up its forces there.
The general got that right. The Russian offensive in the south may launch as early as next week.
There seems to be again a disagreement between the Zelensky regime and the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine.
The general staff knows that a counter-offensive against Kherson makes no sense as it would cost many more casualties and is likely to be defeated.
(Under NATO symbology friendly artillery is marked as a rectangle with a fat dot in the middle. An X above says the unit is a brigade. Three vertical lines mark a (smaller) regiment and two a (smaller) battalion.)
I count 4 Ukrainian artillery brigades and three artillery regiments on the southern front. There is currently only one artillery brigade on the eastern front. While mechanized brigades in the east have their own organic artillery units those do not have the big guns that can do the counter-battery fire.
The general staff does not want to attack in the south. It wants to move a least some of the artillery brigades there back to the Donetsk line.
But Zelenski and his crew want to prevent the referendums that will be held next month in Kherson and other regions under Russian control. That is why they are pushing for a counter-attack there.
The disagreement has paralyzed the Ukrainian army. The units sitting in the south waiting for orders while they get decimated by daily Russian missile strikes. This while they are urgently needed in the east.
Zelensky and Arestovych may be good at making movies. Military geniuses they are certainly not.
Posted by b on August 5, 2022 at 16:49 UTC | Permalink
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/u ... .html#more
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The Petal Problem
August 6, 0:25
Actual text for residents of Donetsk and the liberated territories, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine are actively mining with anti-personnel mines of the Petal type.
The Petal Problem
In this material, I will not touch on violations of conventions, treachery and ethics in the use of PFM-1 "Petal" mines by the enemy, cries about the deceit and meanness of the enemy, these are all "talks in favor of the poor." It is especially surprising to hear this from the military, and what did you actually expect, that the enemy would fight honestly ???!!!
But this is poetry, here I will only touch on technical issues, briefly, so that it would be clear to a non-specialist.
Recently, in the network, there are some attractions of unprecedented dementia and courage to clear these mines.
They drive over them with armored vehicles, damaging gooses and asphalt, throwing tires, bricks at them, hitting them with a stick, shooting from a machine gun ...
Well, the classic movie idiocy:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/LgLqjQGNckw[/youtube]
So, what is this mine and how to mine it correctly and safely.
Introductory part:
PFM-1 anti-personnel mine, high-explosive, pressure action. The mine does not hit the victim with fragments (the body is soft polyethylene), with the exception of secondary ones, formed by the material with which it comes into contact during the explosion, asphalt, concrete, stone, metal. The defeat is inflicted due to brisance, i.e. crushing the limb that clicked on the mine.
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Сolonelcassad
Special operation, August 5th. The main thing from RIA Novosti :
- On Friday, Ukrainian militants fired twice at the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the shells hit the industrial site of the station;
- According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, 20 shells of 152 mm caliber were fired by Ukrainian troops on the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in Energodar;
- An artillery strike on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant could lead to a major fire and a radiation accident, the Russian Defense Ministry said;
- As a result of the shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in Energodar, a fire broke out on the hydrogen pipeline, which was quickly extinguished by emergency services, the RF Ministry of Defense reported;
- A group of foreign journalists arrived on July 30 in Orekhov, Zaporozhye region, at the location of Ukrainian troops to film the facts of the alleged indiscriminate use of artillery by the Russian Armed Forces, Colonel General Mizintsev said;
- Russian aviation, missile troops and artillery hit four command posts of Ukrainian troops, two weapons depots in the DPR, and enemy manpower in 182 districts in a day;
- Nine local residents of the Kharkiv region suffered as a result of a conflict with the commanders of the Ukrainian military, who tried to forcibly evict them and place them in residential buildings of foreign mercenaries;
- The Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed up to 150 Ukrainian soldiers and officers, two M777 howitzers and 1.5 thousand ammunition for them, seven drones, about 350 shells for the Grad MLRS, as well as six Msta-B howitzers with a high-precision strike on two howitzer artillery divisions and warehouses of rocket and artillery weapons in the Zaporozhye region;
- Russian and allied troops during the special operation in Ukraine destroyed more than 5 thousand units of armored vehicles and multiple launch rocket systems;
- Ukrainian militants in the courtyards of residential buildings in Artemovsk in the DPR have placed large-caliber mortars and fired at the positions of the Russian Armed Forces from them, while residents of nearby houses are being held as human shields.
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Сolonelcassad
0:24
In addition to the repeated shelling of the ZNPP (again, arrivals at the station), the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired at Berislav.
These strikes, coupled with fresh arrivals at the Tokmak railway station (railway damaged - several days of repair) indicate ongoing attempts to create conditions for an offensive either in the Kryvyi Rih-Nikopol or Zaporozhye directions.
It is possible that a strike can be delivered here and there, and one of the strikes will be fettering and distracting, while the main forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will try to achieve some sane operational-tactical goals.
In the Krivoy Rog-Nikopol direction - to break through the front on the Ingulets River, and also to strike in the Potemkino area from Nikopol.
The main goal is not the capture of Kherson, but cutting off part of the bridgehead of the RF Armed Forces on the Right Bank up to Berislav.
In the Zaporizhzhya direction - try to advance to Tokmak and Pology and, with a successful development of events, try to take some relatively large settlement in order to declare it a victory.
I believe that both of these possibilities are being considered by our command, which has already led to the strengthening of groups in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
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The Russian Foreign Ministry Comprehensively Explained the Global Systemic Transition
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 5, 2022
Andrew Korybko
What follows is a summary of everything that the Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared, after which some concluding thoughts will wrap up the analysis.
Alexey Drobinin, Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, comprehensively explained the global systemic transition to multipolarity that was unprecedentedly accelerated by the US-provoked Ukrainian Conflict. His insight is admittedly lengthy and requires a lot of time to read through, but therein lies the purpose of the present piece to draw attention to its highlights for the reader’s convenience. What follows is a summary of everything that he shared, after which some concluding thoughts will wrap up the analysis.
Titled “The lessons of history and vision for the future: Thoughts on Russia’s foreign policy”, Drobinin’s treatise opens by pointing out the seminal nature of unfolding events. The trends shaping the emerging dynamics predate his country’s special military operation in Ukraine and include the formation of a Multipolar World Order (MWO), the increasing relevance of the civilizational approach to International Relations, the globalization crisis stemming from the 2008 financial one, the increased importance of the cultural and force factors in foreign affairs, and the “Great Reset”/”Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
After touching upon each of these, Drobinin then explains the evolution of his country’s approach to International Relations as enshrined its Foreign Policy Concepts from 1993 until 2016, with a sneak peek of what to expect from the latest one that’s in the process of being finalized. The foreign policy planner emphasized its continuity with respect to defending national interests, promoting regional stability, embracing multipolarity, upholding international law, proactively engaging with the Global South (especially China and India), and promoting Eurasian integration.
Moving beyond these concepts that he described as his civilization-state’s ideological outlook, this influential policymaker then declared that recent events have forever changed the nature of Russian-Western relations, which he said were always tainted by his counterparts’ Russophobia. The Russian elite’s hitherto Western-centric outlook that he blamed for its “ideological separation from the popular masses” is also changing in line with these new conditions. It’s not all bleak, however, since the resultant period of acute confrontation with the US-led West nevertheless carries with it certain opportunities.
Drobinin explained that these first and foremost concern the impetus to create a new structure for International Relations after the declining unipolar hegemon practically privatized the UN and other multilateral fora. The US-led West exposed its self-interested motives that it unconvincingly disguises behind “democracy” and “human rights” rhetoric, which is in turn inspiring the rest of the international community to unite in opposition to it through the joint establishment of new platforms in “politics, economy, trade, currency and finance, as well as culture, education and international security.”
These processes are led by BRICS, the SCO, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter, et al. Drobinin also predicts that the Russia-India-China (RIC) framework will play an integral role in this respect in accordance with Yevgeny Primakov’s vision from the late 1990s. Furthermore, President Putin’s Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) might very well become Russia’s flagship foreign policy concept, he says. That’s because Russia’s partners across the Global South see the world more or less the same way that it does, Drobinin notes.
One of the priorities of Russian foreign policy is “Injecting more sovereignty across the board, including in the world of ideas, politics, culture, research, economics, finance and other spheres”. This aligns with what President Putin earlier encouraged, especially in his recent global revolutionary manifesto that Foreign Minister Lavrov elaborated upon in the African context to promise that Russia will help its partners there fully complete their decolonization processes. In parallel, Russia will “readjust foreign policy concepts emanating from the Western school of thought to fit in with our national narrative.”
Drobinin then closed his treatise by pointing out that “going back to one’s roots would be impossible without mobilising the state and society on the ideological front. This is another essential prerequisite for an effective foreign policy as we move away from our dependency on the West in all its forms and manifestations.” This suggests that President Putin’s global revolutionary manifesto will shape the views of future generations, thus enabling Russia to fulfill its historical destiny of “accelerating the transition to a new world order through its persistence and steady resolve to achieve truth and justice for all.”
All told, the foreign policy planner’s explanation of the global systemic transition to multipolarity and Russia’s leading role in this process is indeed comprehensive and worth reading in full in order to obtain a clearer idea of its grand strategy. Far from being the so-called “marginalized regional power” that the US-led West falsely portrays it as, Russia is actually the engine of the emerging MWO and has once again been fated to play the transformational role in International Relations that it’s practiced for centuries. Considering all the trends that are presently converging, this is no simple task.
Returning to what Drobinin earlier touched upon, deglobalization processes risk fragmenting the world but could also enable the resultant blocs to more confidently defend their sovereignty in all domains, especially in the financial, scientific-technological, and socio-cultural ones. The growing role of civilizations is also something that no observer should lose sight of either, which he predicts will lead to Great Powers like Russia, China, India, and the US among others leading the political consolidation of their regions, though it’s still unclear what effect this will have on global systemic stability.
Nevertheless, it adds credence to the prediction that bloc-based politics will likely characterize the future deglobalized world order, which can preserve each civilization’s diversity from those pernicious external influences that seek to erase their identity by subsuming them into the amorphous liberal-globalist blob that’s being artificially manufactured by Western ideologues. By playing a leading role in bringing about this scenario, Russia is therefore positioning itself as a humanitarian superpower with respect to protecting the planet’s socio-cultural diversity, especially across the Global South.
To wrap it all up, the US-provoked Ukrainian Crisis that unprecedentedly accelerated the global systemic transition to multipolarity can be seen in hindsight as completely self-defeating from the perspective of that declining unipolar power’s hegemonic interests. It didn’t lead to Russia’s collapse like its strategists ridiculously expected but actually put that civilization-state back on its historic path of transforming International Relations. No one should doubt that the coming decades will be characterized by Western-incited chaos, but nor should they lose hope about the world’s promising multipolar future either.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... ransition/
Well and good, bucko. But the western civilization which you abhor is capitalism and Russia remains in it's thrall under the present government.
US/Western hegemony must be broken but this vaunted 'multipolarity' ain't no panacea as long as capitalism is extant and will likely usher in a new period of Great Power competition, which always results in war. Nothing but world-wide socialism has a ghost of a chance to get us out of this jam to some degree intact.
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Cages for the Nazis
August 6, 14:26
Preparation of cages for the trial of the Nazis in Mariupol. In June, it was announced that the trial of Ukrainian war criminals should take place in Mariupol in the second half of August and become part of a series of open trials that should take place on the territory of the DPR over Ukrainian Nazis from Azov and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as over foreign mercenaries.
On a number of charges, the defendants may face the death penalty, the moratorium on which was recently lifted in the DPR.
Several mercenaries have already been sentenced to death and are now trying to challenge the sentence through established procedures.
If the court refuses them, then only a pardon from Pushilin can stop the millstones of justice.
Britain did not express any desire to barter its mercenaries.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7783294.html
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