Yesterday the Pentagon announced another transfer of weapons to the Ukrainian military:
According to the Pentagon, the package includes:
Additional munitions for NASMAS
150 heavy machine guns with thermal imagery sights to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
Additional ammunition for HIMARS
200 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds
10,000 120mm mortar rounds
High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARMs)
150 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs)
Over 100 light tactical vehicles
Over 20,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition
Over 200 generators
Spare parts for 105mm Howitzers and other equipment
The $400 million is being sent to Ukraine through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows President Biden to send arms straight from US military stockpiles.
The Pentagon is clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Additional munitions for NASMAS
NASMAS is an air defense systems that uses re-purposed air to air missiles (active radar homing AIM-120 AMRAAM) in a ground to air mode.
Yesterday one of those missiles was used in Kiev but missed its target. It hit an apartment block and killed several people:
The missile that hit an apartment block in Kiev today was a US-made AIM-120C launched from one of the newly arrived NASMAS air defense systems, donated to Ukraine in the last months. Local people shared on social media photos of the wreckage of the missile. Even though Ukraine blamed Russia for the strike, it turns out the missile was not Russian but American and was fired by Ukrainian troops.
The fragment shown in the photo has the word LIFT as the American AIM-120C. This is an anti-aircraft missile for the NASAMS systems which were recently donated to Ukraine. By analyzing the photos which Ukrainian citizens published themselves the missile which hit their residential building can be easily identified as American.[/i]
Heavy machine guns with thermal image sights against drones.
This is a really bad sign. I have tried to find recent photos of machine guns used in air defense mode. There were only antique ones plus this model picture.
Several decades ago we trained to shoot down helicopters and planes with the machine guns attached to the top of our battle tanks. Despite firing from a stable platform and spending lots of ammunition our hit rates were really lousy. That's why no army I know of is still using this method. Most of the UAV's used in Ukraine for reconnaissance are electrical. They are unlikely to show up in a thermal sight. The propeller driven Iranian drones, probably made in Russia, are hot and make a lot of noise. They can be targeted but are reasonably fast and one has to act equally fast to get them. The Lancet kamikaze drones used by the Russian military in Ukraine fly low and fast. A machine gun team will have little chances when such a drones flies towards it.
Those machine guns Ukraine will get, minus those to be sold on the black market, can not be effective as air defense. They will likely end up to be used in a ground mode to defend this or that frontline ditch. They are good for that until some artillery round or infantry fighting vehicle comes along and takes them out.
Additional ammunition for HIMARS
HIMARS is the wonder weapon that wasn't. The reach of some 70 kilometers is reasonable but one also needs very good targeting data to put them to use. The Russians have learned from the early HIMARS successes and have become much better now with camouflaging their positions.
200 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds
Nice to have - but again only if you have reliable targeting data. What is shocking is that there is no other 155 mm ammunition in this delivery. What are those M-777 guns that still exist in Ukraine supposed to fire?
10,000 120mm mortar rounds
That's not a lot either. Previously the U.S. had given Ukraine 20 120 mm mortar with 135,000 120mm mortar rounds. The 10,000 new rounds will likely be spend in less than a week.
High-speed Anti-radiation missiles (HARMs)
These are air to ground missiles used to target enemy radar. They have been jury rigged to fit on the few SU-27 fighter jets the Ukraine has received from some east European country. There have been reports that Russian air defenses usually hit these missiles before they reach their target.
Today the New York Times reported that one such missile, fired back in September, had hit an apartment building in Kramatorsk:
New York Times journalists were able to gather and identify distinct metal fragments left behind at the site of an earlier strike, in September in eastern Ukraine, providing a window into where the billions of dollars of United States’ military aid sent to Ukraine can sometimes land.
“Three people got wounded, they say. No dead. It hit the apartment where no one lives, and in the next one, people got hurt,” said Olga Vasylivna, a resident who lived adjacent to where the missile hit.
The trucks Ukraine will get may be useful but will there be enough diesel to fuel them?
20,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition is again practically nothing. The typical combat load for one infantry soldier is 240 rounds. Machine gun teams carry some 6,000 rounds. The frontline in Ukraine is 1,000 kilometer long. When one does the math one finds that these 20,000,000 rounds are practically nothing.
There is currently a roaring black market for generators in Ukraine. Those 200 new ones will be very welcome. They will most likely end up in Lviv or Kiev.
Spare parts for 105mm Howitzers and other equipment
The story of the U.S. weapon support for Ukraine is one of diminishing quantity and quality. First the U.S. gave 143 M-777 155 mm systems to Ukraine. These proved to have a high breakage rate and were also easily targeted. Then the U.S. had run out of 155 mm ammunition it could give away. It next offered 36 105 mm howitzers and 180,000 105mm rounds. Same story. After that came the 120 mm mortar.
Artillery is usually fought against with counter artillery. When battle radar pics up a flying artillery round one can calculate where its has been fired from. Then a dedicated counter artillery battery, usually with longer range, will be tasked to fire at that position. In a good organized unit that takes less than one or two minutes.
The M-777 guns have a firing range of about 20 kilometers. That is somewhat equal to 152 mm guns the Russians are using. The 105 mm guns came next. Their range is about 11 kilometer. The 120 mm mortar can reach about 7 kilometer.
Aside from HIMARS Ukraine's front artillery has become smaller with less reach than those systems used on the other side. That will make it easier to counter it. Ukraine also has an acute lack of ammunition for those few weapons that still exist. It has long lost the artillery war.
The war in Ukraine is waged on an industrial level. But the 'west' and its Ukrainian proxy are not prepared for industrial warfare. In a longer piece - It's War, Josep, But Not As We Know It - Aurelian explains why that is the case:
First, much of the policy impetus on Ukraine comes from Anglo-Saxon countries, whose history of warfare, and thinking about warfare, is essentially expeditionary and limited.
...
The type of military operations that Europeans have actually conducted since 1945, and especially since 1989, have tended to follow this model.
...
The second factor is simply that in general the West’s wars have been limited liability ones, where there have been few casualties at home.
...
For the Russians, geography mandated a different set of criteria. Always a massive country with a relatively large population and long borders, the nation has suffered foreign military invasions repeatedly in its history. It is used to being obliged to fight on its own territory, and in World War II alone, suffered nearly thirty million dead, a large proportion of them civilians. Thus, national defence is literally a life and death issue, and thinking about, and planning for, war, takes place at a massively higher and more complex strategic level.
...
This Russian experience inevitably produces a way of looking at conflict which is radically different from western one, with the proviso that the West itself has had to painfully learn similar lessons during two World Wars, only to promptly forget them each time.
...
The Soviet and Russian militaries have a long tradition of studying the terrible past wars of their country, and there are a number obvious conclusions from any such analysis. One is the importance of sheer numbers, of personnel, of equipment and ammunition. In a long war, which the Russians, unlike the West, have always expected to fight, these things matter a great deal.
Up to 2012 there was a Ukrainian company near Kiev which still produced artillery rounds for Russia. I no longer find the link to that story but the numbers produced for Russia was some 2,000,000 million per year. There is no way the 'west' can match the Russian stockpiles.
Russia expert Gordon M. Hahn looks at the upcoming Russian Winter Offensive. Only with a ceasefire can Ukraine and its sponsors avert the upcoming catastrophe. This for three reasons:
First, the Russian hammer is about to fall on Ukraine. The gloves are coming off; electric energy stations, bridges, and even ‘decision centers’ such as central Kiev’s government buildings are being targeted. ... What will the sociopolitical situation be like when these critical infrastructures are in complete collapse and temperatures are 20 degrees colder? Russia will be moving closer to the strategy of ‘shock and awe’, fully destroying all infrastructure – military or otherwise – as the US did in Serbia and Iraq and will likely take less care now to avoid civilian casualties.
After the infrastructures are completely destroyed or incapacitated, Russia’s reinforcements of 380,000 regular and newly mobilized troops will have been fully added into Russia’s forces across southeastern Ukraine. ... A winter offensive by some half a million troops will make substantial gains on those three fronts and multiply Ukrainian losses in personnel and materiel`, which are already high. This could lead easily to a collapse of Ukrainian forces on one or more front. On the backs of such a success Russian President Putin might also make another attempt to threaten Kiev ...
Second, the West is suffering from Ukraine fatigue. NATO countries’ arms supplies have been depleted beyond what is tolerable, and social cohesion is collapsing in the face of double-digit inflation and economic recession. All this makes Russia the winner on the strategic level and is forcing Washington and Brussels to seek at least a breathing spell by way of a ceasefire.
...
Third, Ukraine’s greatest political asset – Zelenskiy himself – just got devalued, putting at even greater risk Ukraine’s political stability. ... For now, in order to keep the West on board, Zelenskiy is rumored to be pushing Ukrainian armed forces commander Viktor Zalyuzhniy to start a last pre-winter offensive in northern Donetsk (Svatovo and Severodonetsk) or Zaporozhe in order to put a stop to the West’s ceasefire murmurs and reboost support. At the same time there is talk of continuing Zelenskiy-Zalyuzhniy tensions over the latter’s good press and star status in the West. ... On the background of the deteriorating battlefield and international strategic situation, such civil-military tensions are fraught with the potential for a coup. ...
...
We may be reaching the watershed moment in the Ukrainian war. No electricity, no army, no society.
...
All of the above and the approaching presidential elections scheduled in Moscow, Kiev and Washington the year after next make this winter pivotal for all the war's main parties.
Reading the two pieces quoted above I come to the conclusion war has been lost - by Ukraine as well as by its supporters.
NATO, already deeply involved, could still want to change that by fully joining the war. But I do not think that the U.S. military, nor its European NATO allies, will have the stomach for that.
Posted by b on November 24, 2022 at 17:54 UTC | Permalink
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/11/u ... .html#more
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Consequences of strikes on 11/23/2022
November 24, 22:04
On the situation with energy supply after the strikes on November 23.
1. Despite all efforts, a huge part of consumers are still without electricity.
2. The emergency shutdown mode is actually extended for an indefinite period - it would be a blessing to return to October times with rolling blackouts on a schedule, but apparently it will not work out.
3. Cellular and internet outages also continue on the second day, despite serious efforts to fix the problems.
4. Zelensky's gang is already broadcasting the thesis with might and main that the population should be thrown out of the cities. Klitschko once again voiced this today.
5. In the context of the restoration of electricity supply, the Zelensky gang calls to save electricity, as in the mornings and evenings the load on the crippled power system increases and various accidents roll through the network, which aggravate the overall situation.
6. Taking into account previous practice, it can be expected that after some time, in late November-early December, another wave of strikes will follow, which will be aimed at distribution capacities and finishing off already damaged facilities. At the same time, due to the cumulative effect, the consequences will be even more severe for the energy system than on November 23. As it is not difficult to see, the methodical nature of the strikes led to the fact that each subsequent wave squandered the energy system of Ukraine more and more.
7. Since the US and NATO are aimed at implementing the "war to the last Ukrainian" strategy, the war will continue in the winter, and the continuation of the war means that the unified energy system of Ukraine will be further destroyed.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7993482.html
Hotline of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
November 24, 17:39
With some delay, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation created a hotline to resolve issues related to financial payments to mobilized and volunteers participating in the SVO.
Such questions periodically arose during October and November (I also received requests from relatives who asked where to find out how to solve problems with delays or non-receipt of due payments), usually at the grassroots level. To increase the speed of the system's response to such problems, they create a new feedback tool, which, in theory, should reduce the number of problems of this kind.
Hotline of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
"Hot Line" for financial support of mobilized citizens (volunteers) is open in the Unified Settlement Center of the Ministry of Defense of Russia
To promptly inform citizens, from among those mobilized (volunteers) as part of a special military operation, on the issues of calculating monetary allowances, a “Hot Line” has been opened in the Unified Settlement Center of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
The hotline number of the Unified Settlement Center of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is 8 (800) 737-7-737.
You can also send your question to the email address erc@mil.ru
(c) RF Ministry of Defense
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7992974.html
Google Translator
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European Parliament Resolution Against Russia Threatens Dialogue and Peace
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on NOVEMBER 24, 2022
Yoselina Guevara López
On November 23, the European Union Parliament, through a non-binding resolution, qualified the Russian Federation as a “State sponsor of terrorism” with 494 votes in favor, 58 against and 44 abstentions. As expected from Kiev came the immediate thanks of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba who declared “Russia must be recognized as a terrorist state throughout the world and Ukraine must be equipped with all necessary air defense systems as soon as possible”.
From Moscow came the frank response devoid of any diplomatic sweetener in the voice of Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova “the European Parliament passed a resolution recognizing Russia as a ‘sponsor of terrorism’. I propose to recognize the European Parliament as a ‘sponsor of idiocy’.” On the same day of the vote, the Europarliament’s website suffered a sophisticated cyber attack, which consisted of a distributed denial of service (DDoS), according to experts this is a technique that consists of saturating servers through the massive sending of requests issued with the intention of collapsing the system.
Terrorist attacks in Russia
In terms of diplomacy, and above all in terms of possible negotiations, the decision to declare Russia as a “State sponsor of terrorism” has not been the right one, and on the contrary, it could boomerang.
On the one hand, contemporary history, dating back at least twenty years, shows that the Russian Federation has devoted great efforts to the eradication of jihadism, including several attacks. Suffice it to recall the tragedy of the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow in 2002 when the Chechen separatist leader Movsar Barayev, accompanied by about 50 terrorists armed with grenades, explosives of all kinds and rifles, took more than 900 people hostage, including artists and spectators, in the middle of the second act of a musical-theatrical show. After three days of negotiations, the outcome was bloody and more than 130 hostages died during the storming of the theater by Russian security forces.
Another glaring example occurred on September 1, 2004 with the so-called Beslan massacre when a group of 30 terrorists, mostly armed and with explosives attached to their bodies, entered a school in the city of Beslan. The toll was in this case also ruthless 334 dead, 186 of them children, and more than 700 wounded. In this sense, the fight of the Russian security forces against terrorism has been constant and recognized even by the West, dismantling Daesh jihadist cells and links against these organizations.
Likewise, if we take into account recent actions such as the murder of the young journalist Daria Aleksandrovna Duguin, daughter of Aleksandr Duguin, with the explosion of the vehicle in which she was traveling; the bombing of the Crimean bridge, these are all operations carried out, organized and even carried out by Ukrainian agents that clearly demonstrate who the terrorist state really belongs to. It is worth noting that in the face of this absurd resolution of the European Parliament, nations historically plagued by international terrorism could distance themselves from the declaration of the European Union, just as some countries protested when it was attempted to apply the term “genocide” to the Russian operation in Ukraine, which evidently does not pursue ethnic or racial cleansing.
Folded to the United States and NATO
However, this resolution should not cause astonishment, because already NATO at its recent assembly in Madrid, Spain decided to classify Russia as a terrorist state. Beyond the media rhetoric, intrinsically what they are trying to sow in the public opinion is the belief and justification that the terrorist, or rather the “terrorist state” must be annihilated, defeated, without any possible mediation. It is necessary to remember that it is precisely NATO that has coined this definition, which has served to justify invasions, attacks and belligerent actions. It is worth asking why no international organization has ever issued a resolution that qualifies the United States as a terrorist state, by virtue of all the wars, invasions, sanctions and coups d’état that it has carried out and continues to carry out throughout the length and breadth of the world.
Special operation equals reasoning and strategy
The special operation being conducted by Russia in Ukraine follows a military logic. That is to link the concept of “terrorism” to the destruction of civilian infrastructure in the course of a war campaign is intellectually dishonest. The bombing of critical infrastructure of the enemy country belongs to the military strategic theory and this has also been a component of wars waged by Western countries.
It will not be statements of condemnation, let alone non-binding ones, that will make Russia desist from implementing military plans and broader strategies to bring the Ukrainian government to its knees. The systematic destruction of the power grid, water systems and, potentially, political-military command centers – the shelling of the intelligence headquarters is one example – will probably continue to be carried out throughout the winter season. The evacuation of the large urban centers which could no longer be heated and would be without essential services, UNO has spoken of about 2 million people leaving Ukraine, would allow the Moscow Armed Forces to hit more easily the Ukrainian local power centers. General Winter, about to make his first foray into this conflict, remains Russia’s main ally. Unfortunately there is no peace on the horizon. On the contrary, the conflict is becoming more and more radicalized. Let us hope that it does not reach its most disastrous, most exacerbated, most catastrophic point for humanity.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/11/ ... and-peace/
Moscow Explains its Ukraine Objectives to the UNSC
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on NOVEMBER 24, 2022
Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at UNSC briefing on Ukraine
Mr.President,
At the outset, let us repeat our position regarding the participation of the president of Ukraine in the meeting via VTC, which happens not for the first time. As we repeatedly stated, we have nothing against his participation, but he needs to be present here in person. This is prescribed by the rules that have been regulating the work of the Security Council for the past 75 years. Besides, Mr.Zelensky seems to be not taking part in this meeting at all. Apparently, we have just listened to his pre-recorded statement. Whichever UNSC meeting Zelensky addressed, he never stayed until the end, and most likely, he never stayed even a second.
I now turn to the esteemed representative of Norway. You said that you heard Zelensky “loud and clear”. I am sorry to disappoint, but he did not hear you at all. He is not interested in opinions of UNSC members. To him, this Council is only a podium.
Mr.President,
In the course of our special military operation, we have to oppose not only the formations of the Kiev regime, but also countries of the North Atlantic Alliance that provide all sorts of military support to Kiev and thus wage a proxy war on Russia. In order to weaken and destroy the military potential of our opponents, we launch high-precision strikes against energy and other infrastructure that is used to supply Ukrainian armed formations with weapons, first of all Western, facilitate their logistics and liaison.
Today many grieved that the people of Ukraine risk being left without energy or water. But we cannot remember anyone in the West express any concern back in 2015, when through the fault of Ukraine the people of Crimea were left without water and electricity. To say nothing of the people of Donbas, who suffered from economic suffocation for eight years on end. We will not take over the sly logic of the representatives of Zelensky’s regime who are cowardly bombarding the Zaporozhye NPP and blaming it on Russia (given total connivance of their Western sponsors) and will not say that Ukraine itself is hitting its infrastructure. Especially if we recall that, as Ukrainian and Western media would put it, we ran out of missiles back in March, then in July, then in September. However, the residential buildings become damaged and civilians get killed on account of Ukrainian air defense systems that are deployed in centers of Ukrainian cities rather than on the outskirts. As a result, wreckage of the missiles or stray Ukrainian missiles hit the facilities that we never targeted. For example, today, Ukrainian web users posted photos of missiles that had hit residential buildings in Kiev and Vyshgorod (the Kiev Region). Those turned out to be American air defense missiles that Kiev had been supplied with. Let me draw the attention of my US colleague to this. Your thoughtless provision of weapons to Ukraine is already killing civilians not only in Donbas, but in Ukrainian cities and towns.
Quite understandably, Ukrainian propaganda makers do their best to conceal such incidents carefully and try to narrow it all down to the mantra about Russia being guilty of everything.
Reaction of Ukrainian leadership to the incident in which Ukrainian air defense missiles had hit the Polish town of Przewodow, made it clear to what extent one may trust the stories and evidence shared by the Kiev regime. After the incident, Kiev made hysterical and absolutely untruthful claims that were meant to provoke a large-scale war in Europe. But the Western partners, though blushing and stuttering, still try to blame it on us. We wonder what the results of the “transparent and objective” investigation of this episode are going to be. We very much want to believe that our Western colleagues will not fear to call things by their real names and will not lie to their people the way Zelensky’s regime does.
Unfortunately, many national and even international officials eagerly take up those fake stories while not thinking of verifying the facts and sources.
Absurd allegations by Special Representative of the Secretary-General Pramila Patten are a telling example of this. In October this year she claimed that Russian soldiers were allegedly supplied with “Viagra” in order to rape Ukrainian women. But recently a recording of her conversation with whom she thought to be the representatives of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine was leaked to the web. In this talk, she admitted to not having any credible data on this. What’s more, she said, “It’s not my role to go and investigate. I have no such authority”. So the highest officials of the UN Secretariat may hide behind the limits of their mandates or easily overstep those – depending on what they need. Convenient, isn’t it? We pinpoint all such cases and we call on UN officials to be guided strictly by the UN Charter and the rules of conduct of international officials.
We also keep record of all real evidence of the crimes committed by Ukrainian armed formations, i.a. in the territories of the new Russian regions that are temporarily under Ukrainian control. Having landed in the Dnieper’s right bank, Ukrainian nationalists began mass “cleansings” and repressions against the local population. Ms.G.Lugovaya, a representative of Ukrainian authorities, warned in advance that the UAF would “shoot the traitors like dogs”. To cover up for this, a curfew was introduced. Though the Kiev authorities try hard to maintain the information blockade of the Kherson Region, bone-chilling photo evidence still reaches us. It shows Ukrainian militants tying up to lampposts those locals who cooperated with Russian forces. Back in the times of the Great Patriotic War, Nazis tortured the Soviet people in the exact same way.
Now they torture even those whom they discover to be in possession of a Soviet-issued military identity card. The goal is clear – intimidate the opponents of the Kiev regime. Fearing reprisals, citizens are forced to shout Nazi slogans and throw up their hands in a Nazi salute, as is customary among Ukrainian militants. This footage was aired by CNN, after which Kiev revoked licenses of the journalists of this channel. Same happened to Sky News. So what is it that official Kiev takes pains to hide? Why don’t Western delegations condemn these infringements on the freedom of media and access to information?
Thereby the European Union that champions these goals, flung aside its former peaceful ideals and openly embarked on the path of an aggressive military alliance, which brings it close as never before to being directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine. On 14 November, Brussels announced the launch of an “EU mission to train Ukrainian military”. The training will take place at the sites of EU members, Germany and Poland, and will provide exercise for at least 15,000 military personnel.
Mr.President,
Last weekend, the shocking footage of Ukrainian military shooting unarmed Russian POWs went viral on the Internet. In an open letter, we called on the Secretary-General and UNSC member states to demand Kiev to put an end to its gross violations of international humanitarian law.
The amount of evidence of the use of torture by the Ukrainian side in violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 is growing. The DPR fighters released from captivity confirm that militants of the ultra-nationalist armed group “Right Sector” execute prisoners by hanging. In the LPR, forensic experts arrived at a conclusion that the POWs had had upper sections of their ears cut off and legs shot through before they were killed. Some Russian POWs were left lying in excavated graves under a layer of earth for as long as 5 hours.
The Investigative Committee of Russia holds inquiries into all these cases. But we also expect the international community and international rights advocates to give their principles assessments to Kiev’s non-compliance with its obligations under the IHL.
In parallel to this, the Kiev regime is carrying out provocations in order to pose a threat of an industrial disaster at the Zaporozhye NPP. On 19 November, UAF launched 12 large-caliber projectiles against the ZNPP industrial area, and then 8 more on 21 November. According to IAEA Director-General R.Grossi, these bombardments turned out to be the most serious incidents in the recent months. IAEA experts who were present at the ZNPP saw with their own eyes the explosions where the projectiles fell. They noted extensive destruction that occurred in the area of the NPP. In particular, condensate storage tanks were damaged, which resulted in a leakage of a non-radioactive material.
So far, the radiation background at the ZNPP remains normal. But taking into account the irresponsible attempts of Kiev to infringe on the integrity ZNPP’s critical infrastructure, this may change and the only question is when.
Now back to the issue on which account this meeting was called. We underscore again that we launch strikes against the Ukrainian infrastructure in retaliation for the pumping-up of Ukraine with Western weapons and the reckless calls to Kiev to win a military victory over Russia. Undermining the combat capability of the Ukrainian army, which threatens the security and territorial integrity of Russia, is one of the goals of our special military operation. This task will be carried out by military means until the Kiev regime adopts a realistic position that would allow to negotiate and try to resolve the issues that forced us to start the SMO. So far, what we have heard from Mr.Zelensky and his adepts can in no way be described as “readiness for peace”, but rather as the language of reckless threats and ultimatums. Kiev’s Western sponsors further encourage this irresponsible stance, because the war “until the last Ukrainian” to be fought on the Ukrainian territory is something they benefit from. This is how their weapons industries can receive colossal profits, and also how NATO can test its armaments. In doing so, Western states seek to establish their geopolitical hegemony by proxy at the expense of Ukrainian lives.
Thank you.
PERMANENT MISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE UNITED NATIONS
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/11/ ... -the-unsc/
Ukraine: Electric War
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on NOVEMBER 24, 2022
Pepe Escobar
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton
Spare a thought to the Polish farmer snapping pics of a missile wreckage – later indicated to belong to a Ukrainian S-300. So a Polish farmer, his footfalls echoing in our collective memory, may have saved the world from WWIII – unleashed via a tawdry plot concocted by Anglo-American “intelligence”.
Such tawdriness was compounded by a ridiculous cover-up: the Ukrainians were firing on Russian missiles from a direction that they could not possibly be coming from. That is: Poland. And then the U.S. Secretary of Defense, weapons peddler Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin, sentenced Russia was to blame anyway, because his Kiev vassals were shooting at Russian missiles that should not have been in the air (and they were not).
Call it the Pentagon elevating bald lying into a rather shabby art.
The Anglo-American purpose of this racket was to generate a “world crisis” against Russia. It’s been exposed – this time. That does not mean the usual suspects won’t try it again. Soon.
The main reason is panic. Collective West intel sees how Moscow is finally mobilizing their army – ready to hit the ground next month – while knocking out Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure as a form of Chinese torture.
Those February days of sending only 100,000 troops – and having the DPR and LPR militias plus Wagner commandos and Kadyrov’s Chechens do most of the heavy lifting – are long gone. Overall, Russians and Russophones were facing hordes of Ukrainian military – perhaps as many as 1 million. The “miracle” of it all is that Russians did quite well.
Every military analyst knows the basic rule: an invasion force should number three times the defending force. The Russian Army at the start of the SMO was at a small fraction of that rule. The Russian Armed Forces arguably have a standing army of 1.3 million troops. Surely they could have spared a few tens of thousands more than the initial 100,000. But they did not. It was a political decision.
But now SMO is over: this is CTO (Counter-Terrorist Operation) territory. A sequence of terrorist attacks – targeting the Nord Streams, the Crimea Bridge, the Black Sea Fleet – finally demonstrated the inevitability of going beyond a mere “military operation”.
And that brings us to Electric War.
Paving the way to a DMZ
The Electric War is being handled essentially as a tactic – leading to the eventual imposition of Russia’s terms in a possible armistice (which neither Anglo-American intel and vassal NATO want).
Even if there was an armistice – widely touted for a few weeks now – that would not end the war. Because the deeper, tacit Russian terms – end of NATO expansion and “indivisibility of security” – were fully spelled out to both Washington and Brussels last December, and subsequently dismissed.
As nothing – conceptually – has changed since then, coupled with the Western weaponization of Ukraine reaching a frenzy, the Putin-era Stavka could not but expand the initial SMO mandate, which remains denazification and demilitarization. Yet now the mandate will have to encompass Kiev and Lviv.
And that starts with the current de-electrification campaign – which goes way beyond the east of the Dnieper and along the Black Sea coast towards Odessa.
That brings us to the key issue of reach and depth of Electric War, in terms of setting up what would be a DMZ – complete with no man’s land – west of the Dnieper to protect Russian areas from NATO artillery, HIMARS and missile attacks.
How deep? 100 km? Not enough. Rather 300 km – as Kiev has already requested artillery with that kind of range.
What’s crucial is that way back in July this was already being extensively discussed in Moscow at the highest Stavka levels.
In an extensive July interview, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov let the cat – diplomatically – out of the bag:
“This process continues, consistently and persistently. It will continue as long as the West, in its impotent rage, desperate to aggravate the situation as much as possible, continues to flood Ukraine with more and more long-range weapons. Take the HIMARS. Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov boasts that they have already received 300-kilometre ammunition. This means our geographic objectives will move even further from the current line. We cannot allow the part of Ukraine that Vladimir Zelensky, or whoever replaces him, will control to have weapons that pose a direct threat to our territory or to the republics that have declared their independence and want to determine their own future.”
The implications are clear.
As much as Washington and NATO are even more “desperate to aggravate the situation as much as possible” (and that’s Plan A: there’s no Plan B), geoeconomically the Americans are intensifying the New Great Game: desperation here applies to trying to control energy corridors and setting their price.
Russia remains unfazed – as it continues to invest in Pipelineistan (towards Asia); solidify the multimodal International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), with key partners India and Iran; and is setting the price of energy via OPEC+.
A paradise for oligarchic looters
The Straussians/neo-cons and neoliberal-cons permeating the Anglo-American intel/security apparatus – de facto weaponized viruses – won’t relent. They simply cannot afford losing yet another NATO war – and on top of it against “existential threat” Russia.
As the news from the Ukraine battlefields promise to be even grimmer under General Winter, solace at least may be found in the cultural sphere. The Green transition racket, seasoned in a toxic mixed salad with the eugenist Silicon Valley ethos, continues to be a side dish offered with the main course: the Davos “Great Narrative”, former Great Reset, which reared its ugly head, once again, at the G20 in Bali.
That translates as everything going swell as far as the Destruction of Europe project is concerned. De-industrialize and be happy; rainbow-dance to every woke tune on the market; and freeze and burn wood while blessing “renewables” in the altar of European values.
A quick flashback to contextualize where we are is always helpful.
Ukraine was part of Russia for nearly four centuries. The very idea of its independence was invented in Austria during WWI for the purpose of undermining the Russian Army – and that certainly happened. The present “independence” was set up so local Trotskyite oligarchs could loot the nation as a Russia-aligned government was about to move against those oligarchs.
The 2014 Kiev coup was essentially set up by Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski to draw Russia into a new partisan war – as in Afghanistan – and was followed by orders to the Gulf oil haciendas to crash the oil price. Moscow had to protect Russophones in Crimea and Donbass – and that led to more Western sanctions. All of it was a setup.
For 8 years, Moscow refused to send its armies even to Donbass east of the Dnieper (historically part of Mother Russia). The reason: not to be bogged down in another partisan war. The rest of Ukraine, meanwhile, was being looted by oligarchs supported by the West, and plunged into a financial black hole.
The collective West deliberately chose not to finance the black hole. Most of the IMF injections were simply stolen by the oligarchs, and the loot transferred out of the country. These oligarchic looters were of course “protected” by the usual suspects.
It’s always crucial to remember that between 1991 and 1999 the equivalent of the present entire household wealth of Russia was stolen and transferred overseas, mostly to London. Now the same usual suspects are trying to ruin Russia with sanctions, as “new Hitler” Putin stopped the looting.
The difference is that the plan of using Ukraine as just a pawn in their game is not working.
On the ground, what has been going on so far are mostly skirmishes, and a few real battles. But with Moscow massing fresh troops for a winter offensive, the Ukrainian Army may end up completely routed.
Russia didn’t look so bad – considering the effectiveness of its mincing machine artillery strikes against Ukrainian fortified positions, and recent planned retreats or positional warfare, keeping casualties down while smashing Ukrainian withering firepower.
The collective West believes it holds the Ukraine proxy war card. Russia bets on reality, where economic cards are food, energy, resources, resource security and a stable economy.
Meanwhile, as if the energy-suicide EU did not have to face a pyramid of ordeals, they can surely expect to have knocking on their door at least 15 million desperate Ukrainians escaping from villages and cities with zero electrical power.
The railway station in – temporarily occupied – Kherson is a graphic example: people show up constantly to warm up and charge their smartphones. The city has no electricity, no heat, and no water.
Current Russian tactics are the absolute opposite of the military theory of concentrated force developed by Napoleon. That’s why Russia is accumulating serious advantages while “disturbing the dust in a bowl of rose-leaves”.
And of course, “we haven’t even started yet.”
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/11/ ... ctric-war/
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From Cassad's Telegram account:
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Colonelcassad
The situation in the Starobelsk direction
as of 18.00 November 24, 2022 The
situation in the Starobelsk direction has not changed much. Both Russian units and enemy troops conduct positional defense without involving large forces.
The parties exchanged artillery strikes and attacks by sabotage groups to "probe" the front line of defense.
Settlements on various sectors of the front are in the "gray zone" and neither the RF Armed Forces nor the Armed Forces of Ukraine have confident control over them.
In the Kupyansko-Svatovsky sector, the command of the 14th and 92nd mechanized brigades is restoring the combat capability of the units and carrying out a planned rotation of personnel.
In the vicinity of Stelmahovka , UAV operators of the 92nd ombr conduct reconnaissance of the positions of the RF Armed Forces, and also carry out remote mining of the area with PFM-1 anti-personnel mines in threatened directions.Several 120-mm mortars were deployed to Sinkovka to conduct shelling of Russian advanced strongholds , and territorial defense units arrived west of Kislovka .In the Limansky sector, reconnaissance and sabotage groups of the RF Armed Forces conduct regular attacks on Ukrainian positions in the Torsky area . The artillery of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is firing indiscriminately at the areas of the alleged presence of Russian fighters.At the moment, there is a relative calm in the Starobelsky direction . The Armed Forces of Ukraine are preparing for a large-scale offensive.Reserves are concentrated in the Kharkiv region. It is quite likely that the Ukrainian command is expecting the arrival of some formations from the Kherson direction .
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forwarded from
ADEQUATE Z
In their planning, the Ukrainians must take into account the likelihood of our large-scale offensive starting around the second half of December. What plans our command has regarding the choice of terms is, of course, a separate question. But in any case, winter will fully come into its own by this time, the training period for those mobilized even by the very last will be two months, and we can deploy forces in a specific direction very quickly.
Therefore, in order to try to achieve some success in their own offensive, the forelocks have about three weeks, in a number of areas densely colored by mud. To count on at least something, they need a tank fist, a lot (hundreds) of battlefield armored vehicles, that is, infantry fighting vehicles and not too cardboard armored personnel carriers, a lot of accumulated artillery ammunition and fuel and lubricants, a rich military air defense and a capable logistics support system growing straight from an uninterrupted operation of the railways feeding the selected section.
With all of the above, the Ukrainians have problems after heavy losses in the fall - from serious to very large. At least some of them will almost certainly grow - first of all, this concerns the railways, where the forced transition from electric to diesel traction looks like a matter of time. But that doesn't mean they won't try. Because in anticipation of the deployment of all our forces, they, in fact, have nothing to lose.
Expose inactive sectors of the front to the limit, pulling artillery and armored vehicles of the first line from wherever possible. Line up in two or three echelons in a narrow area. And hope that it will be possible to break through it en masse, in the hope of operational success, entailing such a buildup of our public opinion that would force us to negotiate in an unfavorable situation. Hope is so-so, but they still can’t hope for anything better.
The game is very gambling, very risky, with very small chances of remaining at least on your own. But they can decide, because from month to month the balance of forces and means for them will only worsen: the owners have already raked too much out of their reserves, and repeating this approach quantitatively (even leaving aside its political side) would mean tearing away absolutely necessary.
A natural consequence of a highly probable failure: an instantaneous sharp change in the balance of forces, especially shock, entailing the exhaustion of the safety margin for defensive actions. The loss of the last bet looks exactly like this and is supposed to.
And perhaps the most interesting question is whether the hosts will bless this gambling game. The probability of this is the higher, the lower they estimate our combat effectiveness right now. The enemy may have the most outstanding illusions on this score.
In my opinion, if they still bless, then to our serious benefit.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
Google Translator
in the Kiev region
Full text of the briefing by the head of the radiation, chemical and biological defense forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov
On the Impact of Attacks on the Energy Infrastructure of Ukraine on the Logistics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Chronicle of the special military operation
Soledar direction
