Ukraine war mega thread

[bsnub]

The facts are clear that the Russians are winning.

Do you have anything more to bring to the conversation? Because you seem to keep repeating yourself. Isn't it like the tenth time you have made that comment?

[Iceman123]

Do you have anything more to bring to the conversation? Because you seem to keep repeating yourself. Isn't it like the tenth time you have made that comment?

Are you talking to your mirror, you really are a simpleton. I will repeat to try to get it to sink in “Russia is winning”

[bsnub]

Are you talking to your mirror, you really are a simpleton.

Simpleton? Maybe you should take your toys and go play in another thread.

I will repeat to try to get it to sink in “Russia is winning”

So is this when you start wringing your hands and stomping your feet until I agree with you?

[sabang]

It’s time for a US push to end the war in Ukraine

With a long, bloody stalemate on the horizon, the conflict’s negative ripple effects worldwide will continue to mount.


Two months after Ukrainians impressively repelled Russia’s attack on Kyiv, the war is taking a different course.

Russian troops are consolidating their gains in Donbas as up to 1,000 Ukrainian fighters are killed or wounded daily. This puts the war on track to be among the bloodiest in modern history. Despite the delivery of heavy weaponry from the West, Ukraine is outmatched by Russian artillery — for each shell or rocket fired by Ukraine, Russia fires about ten. The war has been difficult to predict, but time is not on Ukraine’s side.

So the time for aggressive diplomacy in Ukraine is now, and the recent G7 and NATO summits, and the G20 foreign ministers meetings last week, were colossal missed opportunities to restart the peace process. Rather than strategizing about how to extract the best terms from a Russia that appears ready to negotiate, leaders of the most powerful democracies have worked to “starve” Russia of oil money and further “weaken” the Russian military, and even resorted to schoolyard taunts to Putin. This during a moment when we most need the adults in the room to help de-escalate the conflict.

FULL- https://responsiblestatecraft.org/20...ar-in-ukraine/



Diplomacy Watch: Veteran diplomats question Blinken’s ‘do not engage’ strategy

Little was done to end the war in Ukraine at the G20, but talks to loosen Ukrainian grain exports from Russia’s blockade look promising.


At the Group of 20 meetings in Bali last Friday, Retno Marsudi, the host nation’s foreign minister, urged the world’s leading economic powers to work towards ending the war in Ukraine, noting that “the ripple effects are being felt globally on food, on energy and physical space.”

“It is our responsibility to end the war sooner rather than later and settle our differences at the negotiating table, not at the battlefield,” she said.
But stark divisions between factions led by the United States and Europe on one side, and Russia and to some extent China on the other, meant that the proceedings concluded with no consensus on the matter. The G20 foreign ministers took no group photo as is customary and they issued no joint communique. Instead, the AP pointed out, “acrimony appeared pervasive, especially between Russia and Western participants.”

Indeed, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov did manage one accomplishment in hand before leaving Indonesia: Successfully avoiding each other.

FULL- https://responsiblestatecraft.org/20...gage-strategy/



The United States is building a coalition of its adversaries

Countries like China, Russia, and Iran have cause for frosty intra-relations but US foreign policy is bringing them together.

FULL- https://responsiblestatecraft.org/20...s-adversaries/



But sadly it seems the neo-cons, in their latest foreign policy debacle, would rather fight to the last Ukrainian, perhaps in a futile attempt to 'save face'. Fuck the long suffering US citizen who is funding much of this, fuck the world economy, fuck your so called 'allies', fuck Ukrainian lives- both east and west leaning. When are you finally gonna learn your lesson and get rid of those assholes America? After Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and now this debacle- is something finally starting to sink through?

[bsnub]

[David48atTD]

Clearly most contributors to this thread support Ukraine. However wishing and reality are different beasts.
The facts are clear that the Russians are winning.

I appreciate the amount of propaganda from each side can be confusing. However it is not West = truth Russia = lies.

For those of us who remember the nightly coverage of the Vietnam war, we were bombarded constantly with reports of US victories when in reality they were having their arses kicked seven ways to Sunday.

I emphatically support Ukraine, having both visited and travelled the country and they are not the aggressor in this conflict.

However ... I have to agree with Iccy ... Russia is grinding out slow territorial advances, which logically equate to 'winning'.

That said, Ukraine will go from a toasty Summer to a bleak cold Winter in a few months and that could change, maybe even reverse those 'territorial advances'.

Odessa and the area adjacent the Black Sea will be more temperate.


This conflict, nuclear war, a nuclear winter aside, will drag out for years.

The oncoming winter will test the Euro alliance, with the focus on their reliance on Russian gas. Both economically and domestically.

While Putin or one of his cronies is alive ... years of death and destruction in Ukraine.

[OhOh]

they are not the aggressor in this conflict.

The spice must flow, the Ukraine coup installed sheep will do what they are told to do. Unfortunately, the teen boys and girls being press-ganged have no alternative.

Fight in the trenches or be shot.

[baldrick]

Now that your mate Poots has come.out as gay , what gender do you think he identifies as ?

[bsnub]

the Ukraine coup installed sheep will do what they are told to do.

You dimwitted buffoon, nobody was "installed" Zelensky as you full well know was democratically elected. Stop pushing your idiotic lies.

[OhOh]

A very long review of the Russian SMO.

Posted on a French language site with many references to other sites.

Saturday July 23, 2022

Geopolitical reminder

"On the eve of the first 5 months of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, this Pontic region, a major historical and strategic crossroads of Europe, attracts many eyes before which the propaganda clashing above the battlefield tries to impose an ideological vision biased and therefore partial. It is therefore important to recall the context and the roots of this crisis that a strategy of confrontation between two visions of the world has finally erupted into a high-intensity and symmetrical conflict between Moscow and NATO, the latter battling through its Ukrainian proxy .

Here is an analysis by Emmanuel Leroy which addresses the conflict through 10 questions that come up regularly on the networks. Emmanuel Leroy is both a thinker close to the eurasist vision of the need to establish a multipolar world and a man of action who has been organizing humanitarian actions for the children of Donbass for 7 years. I really appreciate this kind of analysis, which is both relevant and well-argued but which never sinks into a bipolar propagandist caricature in the service of a personal and sectarian ideology. Questions and answers that leave free the critical spirit and the freedom of conscience of the reader

Erwan Castel

PS I took the liberty of adding a few personal observations and updates.

The 10 Mysteries of the Ukrainian War

Why did the Russian army attack on February 24, 2022?

Why are the Russians attacking 1 vs. 2?

Why did the Russians launch the assault on kyiv and Kharkov?

What happened at Chernobyl?

What happened at Energodar?

What about US biological laboratories?

Where have the 50 French officers from Mariupol + other NATO officers gone?

What happened to Boutcha? What happened in Kramatorsk? Snake Island

Launched on the night of February 23 to 24, 2022, the special military operation, since that is what the Russians called it, conceals like everything related to Russia, a good deal of mystery and many questions. remained unanswered. We will try to answer some of them, or at least formulate hypotheses, because it is quite obvious that at this stage of operations and the fog of war that surrounds it, it is quite impossible to answer categorically. and it can even be said that at the end of this conflict – which may still last for a very long time – it is probable that some of these questions will not know clear answers for a long time, if at all. But that does not prevent us from imagining some answers, even if it means raising other questions that others will try to solve one day.

Why did the Russian army attack on February 24, 2022?

For those who have been following the Donbass file from the beginning, that is to say since the Maidan coup of 2014, the right question would rather be: why did the Russians take so long to intervene to put an end to to this conflict which has never ceased since 2014? Indeed, there are many political and military personalities who, in Russia itself, criticize the Kremlin for having launched the special operation only in 2022 when the Ukrainian army had been beaten soundly in February 2015 and that it virtually no longer existed on that date after the crushing defeat at Debaltsevo.

The most plausible answer to this question is that Russia was not strong enough in 2015 to take the brunt of the hellish sanctions that would have been imposed on it as they are today. It is likely that in 2015 the Russian economy would not have been resilient enough to withstand the strangulation of sanctions. Similarly, at that time, Russia's financial architecture was still rudimentary and too dependent on the West to cope with the cuts in the Swift system and the almost complete cessation of exports to Europe.

Moreover, it can be added that in 2015 the restoration of the power of the Russian army was not completed (Putin's speech on new Russian weapons is from 2018) and it is likely that Russia will not did not feel ready for an open conflict with NATO if it had broken out on that date. The Russians claimed (without conclusive evidence for the moment) to have seized documents from the first days of the operation which would prove that the Ukrainian army was preparing to storm Donbass in the first days of March. What is established is that the kyiv general staff had positioned on the Donbass front line since the spring of 2021 about half of its army (more than 150,000 men) and that these assault troops were made up of the best divisions of the Ukrainian army.

The American blogger Moon of Alabama, a specialist in geopolitics, asserts that

"Russia's entry into Ukraine on February 24, 2022 was most certainly aimed at preventing the Ukrainian army's assault on the Donbass. The February 15 report of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine recorded 41 explosions in the ceasefire zones. This figure increased to 76 explosions on February 16, 316 on February 17, 654 on February 18, 1413 on February 19, a total of 2026 on February 20 and 21 and 1484 on February 22 February. OSCE mission reports showed that the vast majority of artillery hit points were on the separatist side of the ceasefire line."

My personal conviction is that the Ukrainian army did attempt the assault on the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in April 2021 but that this attempt was shattered by the massive use of electronic warfare techniques by the Russians which literally cut all the radio communications of the Ukrainian forces and thereby causing what could be called a veritable denial of war. It took nearly a year for NATO and the Ukrainian army to rebuild a communications system that the Russians could no longer inhibit. And this is how the "miraculous and free" provision of Elon Musk's STARLINK satellite network came into play for the benefit of kyiv - operational from the start of the conflict, and no doubt long before - and which undoubtedly considerably hampered the Russian general staff in the first weeks of the operation and probably still today.

Why are the Russians attacking 1 vs. 2?

All military specialists will tell you that you never attack with a ratio of less than two to one, or even three to one preferably, in the hope of winning. In this case, the Russians seem to have launched the operation with about 150,000 men in 4 different sectors (kyiv and Kharkov in the north, Donbass in the east and Kherson in the south) and this on a front line of 2500 km ). For the record, during the campaign in France in May 1940, and on a much smaller front, Germany attacked with 137 divisions and a total of 2,750,000 men. The Ukrainian armed forces in the Donbass alone have a number of men equivalent to all the Russian forces involved in the operation. So why launch the assault under these conditions, which literally stunned the Western staffs?

First observation, even if the Russian army is undoubtedly the first army in Europe, and by far with nearly a million men assigned to the defense of the territory, the operational forces of the army do not exceed 300 000 men and it would be very risky to clear all the borders of the Russian Federation to engage them massively in the Ukrainian theater if NATO decided, for example, to activate its Japanese valet on the side of the Kuril Islands. The Russians have not forgotten the lesson of 1905.

Second observation, we have the feeling that the decision to intervene is taken in haste, probably with the aim of acting first in a pre-emptive war in order to avoid the massacre of civilian populations in the Donbass in the event that the forces Ukrainian armies (FAU) reportedly launched the offensive. We remember that the civilian populations of Donbass began to be evacuated en masse a few days before February 24.

Third observation, for the Russians it is a special military operation and not a war, which prohibits general mobilization and the awakening of the trauma of the Great Patriotic War of 1941 with its 27 million dead still alive. in the minds of Russians. The reason for this political choice is probably that the Russian leaders are perfectly aware that this war is not a war against Ukraine but a war against the Western System in all its components and that it is imperative to keep forces on the economic front so as not to see Russia collapse in the face of Western sanctions. But it is quite clear that this bet was based on a short and decisive war and that its prolongation, encouraged with all its strength by NATO, will inevitably see the transformation of this special military operation into a situation of war stricto sensu with all the consequences which will ensue, including for kyiv's allies.

Why did the Russians launch the assault on kyiv and Kharkov?

Of course, the irruption of Russian forces in the north on the sectors of kyiv and Kharkov contributed to fixing a significant part of the Ukrainian army in this zone, which made it possible to relieve the eastern and southern fronts of the operation. This is one of the arguments put forward by pro-Russian propagandists to justify a posteriori the validity of this strategic choice. If the rapid capture of the entire southern coast which made it possible to secure the Crimean peninsula between Kherson and Novoazovsk and to sanctuary the Sea of ​​Azov could justify the implementation of this strategy, on the other hand on the Donbass front, the resistance ferocious FAU until today did not justify the sacrifice of thousands of Russian soldiers in the bloody battles at Irpin, Sumy, Kharkov and Chernikov, especially since these sectors were abandoned a few weeks later to operate a reassignment of forces Russians in operations on the Donbass front. Although this has been denied, it cannot be excluded that the General Staff of the Russian army was abused on the moral state of the Ukrainian army and that the rapid capture of kyiv - perhaps with complicity which would have been foiled by NATO and the SBU – was discounted in such a way as to cause a rapid collapse of Ukrainian resistance. If this hypothesis is true, we can only note that it was a dramatic failure, the consequence of which will probably lead to a long war in which Ukraine will be the main loser.

What happened at Chernobyl?

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant located a hundred kilometers north of kyiv was occupied on February 24 by Russian airborne troops coming from the nearby Belarusian border. The control of this industrial site is of no strategic interest either for the assault on the Ukrainian capital, or even in the course of the special military operation because most of the counter-attack efforts of the FAU during the month of March will take place further south for the takeover of kyiv's Antonov airfield and the adjacent town of Gostomel.

Contrary to what Wikipedia says, there was no real "Battle of Chernobyl" because the Ukrainian soldiers and the security forces present on the spot surrendered very quickly, almost without resistance and even seem to have collaborated, at least partially, with the occupying forces. Nevertheless, the Russians will remain in place until March 29 by establishing some elements of defense around the plant, in particular by digging trenches on the southern periphery. What prompted the Russian military to send some of its best troops to a highly contaminated site? The most likely hypothesis is that she planned to prevent the Ukrainians from making a “dirty” nuclear bomb made from radioactive waste.

This conspiratorial conjecture must be examined in the light of Volodymir Zelensky's statements on February 18, 2022 during the 58th Munich Security Conference where he very clearly stated that Ukraine is ready to question its status as a non-power. nuclear power by threatening to denounce the Budapest Memorandum. Had the kyiv regime already started working on the development of an atomic bomb from radioactive waste from the Chernobyl power plant? We can't exclude it, nor can we affirm it either, but the following question about the takeover of the Energodar plant may shed some light.

Personal observation:

This last remark by Emmanuel Leroy on the potential manufacture of nuclear munitions by the kyiv regime is confirmed

• by the desire publicly declared in Vienna by Zelensky in mid-February 2022 to see the nuclear component return to the Ukrainian arsenal.
  
• by the discovery in the Ernegodar nuclear power plant (Zaporodje power plant) of non-inventory and surplus nuclear stocks. (see next §)
  
• technically, acquiring nuclear weapons does not present a big problem for the Ukraine, which has the experience, factories and Soviet launchers.
  

What happened at Energodar?

City located on the left bank of the Dnieper south of Zaporijia, Energodar is a modern city on which was built the most powerful nuclear power plant in Europe. Like Chernobyl, the city and the Energodar plant came under Russian control – despite Mayor Dmitri Orlov's denial – on 26 February.

In an article dated May 25, 2022, the American journalist of the Wall Street Journal, Laurence Summer, claims that the head of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Rafael Rossi would have declared in Davos that the nuclear power plant contained 30 tons of plutonium and 40 tons of enriched uranium. Depending on the latter's degree of enrichment, it would have been quite simple for Ukraine to replenish a whole stockpile of nuclear weapons with Western support, which was a risk the Russians could not tolerate. What is certain is that as early as March 4, the Ukrainian special forces – perhaps assisted by British SAS – tried to regain control of the plant in order to prevent the transfer to Russia of stocks of plutonium and uranium.

According to researcher Thierry Meyssan

"Plutonium is sold between $5,000 and $11,000 per gram. 30 tons purchased at cost, that represents $150 billion. The price of uranium depends on its degree of enrichment. At less than 5%, it can only be used for civilian use and must reach at least 80% for military use. Unaware of its degree of enrichment, one cannot assess its price. Russia's seizure of this undeclared stock probably reimburses the all the sanctions taken against them.

The President of Voltaire Network continues:

"The information we have raises several questions: Since when does Ukraine, which had ceded all of its Soviet-era stockpiles to Russia, hold these materials? Where did they come from and who paid for them? Alternatively: what is the enrichment rate of uranium and who enriched it?

These questions remain unanswered and do not fail to raise questions about the real role played by the IAEA in this affair.

What about US biological laboratories?

From the fall of Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, NATO strengthened its grip on Ukraine and set up a network of around thirty biological laboratories whose documents recovered by the Russian army from the start of operations show that there “extremely dangerous experiments aimed at enhancing the pathogenic properties of plague, anthrax, tularemia, cholera and other deadly diseases were carried out by resorting to synthetic biology”.

The United States, after denying the existence of these laboratories, claimed that they were a program to destroy biological weapons that the Soviet Union had allegedly manufactured and stored in Ukraine. For Russia on the contrary, the Pentagon was subcontracting in Ukraine - as it also does in Georgia, Kazakhstan and elsewhere - research on biological vectors prohibited by the Convention on the prohibition of biological weapons of 1972.

Despite American attempts to erase all traces of this research by ordering the destruction of the stumps and related documents at the start of the invasion, Russian sources claim that experiments were carried out on mental patients at the psychiatric hospital. No. 1 (in the town of Streletchye, Kharkov oblast) and that a tuberculosis agent was allegedly manipulated to infect the population of the Slavianoserbsk district (People's Republic of Luhansk). What also seems proven would be the participation of Hunter Biden, son of the US President, in these experiences comparable to the worst Nazi abominations. Indeed, according to US media:

"About a year after Hunter Biden's investment funds poured money into Metabiota, company representatives attended a meeting in October 2016 involving U.S. military officials and their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss 'the cooperation in the monitoring and prevention of particularly dangerous infectious diseases, including zoonotic diseases in Ukraine and neighboring countries".

Government contracts also support the working relationship between Metabiota, Ukrainian Laboratories and the US Department of Defense, with the company receiving an $18.4 million grant from the US agency in 2014. So ? Conspiracy? Russian propaganda? Hysteria? We let you be the judge.

Where have the 50 French officers from Mariupol + other NATO officers gone?

The presence of thousands of Westerners in the ranks of the Ukrainian army, well before the start of the conflict, is perfectly documented: NATO instructors, mercenaries, various advisers, special forces... and it is even established that our Gendarmerie national provided some instructors to the FAU and perhaps even to the Azov regiment, at least during the year 2021. So where does this rumor about the presence of French officers in Mariupol come from? By mid-March 2022, the encirclement of the city was completed and rumors were already reporting the presence of many Westerners (Canadians, British, Americans, French, Israelis, etc.) present alongside the FAU and the famous Azov regiment which defend the city. On March 30, as rumors swell about the presence of French soldiers (photos found on social media show French Foreign Legion insignia and green berets found in the ruins of the city), we learn that General Eric Vidaud, director of military intelligence is brutally sacked when he has only been in office for 7 months.

Throughout the month of April, very strong pressure was exerted by the Westerners against the Russians (the French president in the front line on this subject) to obtain a humanitarian corridor in order to evacuate the “civilians” from Mariupol. Faced with the obstinate refusal of the Russians to let go, not the civilians but the big fish (we spoke of a Canadian general and a US admiral) locked up in the Azovstal factory, several rescue operations by helicopters and even by seaway will be attempted and will all end in bloody failures.

According to the sources, between 2 and 8 helicopters will be shot down during the extraction attempts. During one of them, two French officers were found dead in the charred cabin of one of the aircraft. So where does this rumor about the presence of 50 French officers from Mariupol come from? The case really took off when the Secretary General of the Turkish nationalist party VATAN, Özgür Bursal, held a press conference at his party's headquarters in Ankara on Friday, April 22, 2022, announcing that "Macron had left more than 50 French officers in Ukraine" . The Turk claims to have this information from a high-level Russian source.

It is obvious that this type of revelation a few days before the French presidential election would have had a direct impact on the outcome of the ballot and that it was crucial for the Élysée to keep the lid on this affair, at least until the end. outcome of the election. Be that as it may, on May 18 the last defenders of Azovstal began to surrender after two months of siege and numerous videos were circulating on the Web showing the spectacle of the surrender.

If a photo allegedly shows US Admiral Eric Olson (claim denied by the media under orders but neither confirmed nor denied by the Russian army), no more traces of mercenaries or Western officers appear in the Russian press official. Only the rumors continue more beautiful on social networks. And among these, one of them claims that the NATO officers who wanted to surrender were executed by the fanatics of the Azov regiment who did not want to hear about surrender. What is certain is that several hundred corpses (some sources speak of more than 200 bodies) were found in the basements of the factory in refrigerated trucks that no longer worked. Are French people part of the lot? Only the Russians have the answer to this question. On the contrary, did they come out alive and will they be the subject of tough negotiations between NATO and the Kremlin when diplomacy resumes its rights? Only time will tell, maybe...

Personal observation:

During the cleaning of the Azovstal Factory, in addition to the bodies found in cold rooms or simply stored underground, a crematorium was discovered with human remains belonging to several dozen bodies and nearby a fragment of a map of American identity. Why was it necessary to make certain bodies disappear among the corpses of the factory, assassinated civilians, executed soldiers or indeed members of NATO to make disappear?

What happened to Boutcha?

With the Boutcha affair, we are clearly entering into low-level war propaganda and which paradoxically is more easily dismantled today, thanks in part to social networks, than the stories of babies crucified at barn doors by the army. Prussian in 1914.

It must be said that in this case, the haste and the amateurism of the forgers made it possible to quickly expose the deception.

First of all, the very chronology of events does not match reality: on March 30 the Russian soldiers evacuated the city and the next day, March 31, the mayor of Boutcha hilarious in front of a camera, confirms it and even specifies that he has no deaths to deplore in his city, which he is obviously delighted with. The same day, the neo-Nazis of the Azov regiment entered Boutcha and on April 4, a satellite photo dated March 19 was published in the New York Times, showing a street strewn with corpses. The photo, released to Western media, was presented as evidence of a "war crime committed by Russian troops in Ukraine". But experts will establish that the photo was not taken on March 19, when the Russian army was still in the city, but on April 1, two days after it evacuated it.

The exact date and time of the image were calculated by the SunCalc program based on the tilt of the sun above the horizon and therefore the direction of the shadows. In the satellite image published by The New York Times, the angle of the Sun is 42 degrees. This means that the satellite photo was taken at 11:57 GMT on April 1.

Subsequently, the expertise carried out within the framework of the international investigation responsible for demonstrating the reality of the alleged war crime committed by Russia, will conclude that most of the corpses of Boutcha showed wounds by darts contained in shells. used by the Ukrainian army while authorities in kyiv claimed that all civilians had been executed with automatic weapons.

End of the manipulation and radio silence now on the highway media about the "Boutcha massacre".

Personal observation:

The Ukrainian special unit that came to Boutcha on April 1 is precisely the "Safari" bridle specializing in maintaining order (we will find it during the reoccupation of villages in the Sumy sector, in particular where many inhabitants denounced as pro - Russians will "disappear"

Concerning Boutcha, other observations easily destroy the ukro-Atlanticist narrative such as the white armbands (which with the red armbands designate the Russians and pro-Russians), the absence of lividity and rigor mortis during the first reports of April 2 . Then it is simply ridiculous for Westerners to want us to believe that bodies can remain intact for 2 weeks without being buried (even temporarily) by a Christian population for whom it is inconceivable, spared by stray dogs and birds and spared by the Ukrainian bombardments and the Russian vehicles which redoubled before their departure.

What happened in Kramatorsk?

In this other case of manipulation where a missile was launched on April 8, 2022 on the Kramatorsk station just after the Ukrainian authorities announced that evacuation trains were available for the inhabitants and where a large crowd of civilians was assembled in the station (several dozen dead). There are two objectives pursued here: in addition to the desire to present a Russian aggressor committing war crimes in the eyes of world public opinion, there was the desire to prevent the populations of Donbass from leaving the towns where they serve as a human shield to the FAU by discouraging them from leaving by train (for the many families who do not have vehicles).

Here again, in the age of social networks, after the announcement effect, it is easier to circulate information and a few minutes after the attack, a photo is taken up on the Web where we can see very clearly the serial number of the Tochka-U missile (?91579 in Russian) which hit the railway station. This missile comes from a stock clearly identified as belonging to the Ukrainian army. Only the FAU have Tochka-U missiles. The Russian army has not used this weapon since 2019. The People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk have never used it. This is more than obviously a war crime committed by the kyiv regime against its own population in order to blame Russia.

Only those who do not know the degree of hatred and contempt in which the inhabitants of Donbass are held by Ukrainian nationalist and supremacist militants will be surprised to see an army deliberately firing on its “own” people.

Personal observation:

If the fact that the Russian army cannot be put forward as an argument, because the Russians still keep their stocks of ares and ammunition (including those dating from the IIGM) and reactivate them if necessary (as recently the T62 combat tanks recently deployed in Ukraine to serve as mobile artillery supporting urban infantry assaults), on the other hand the serial number of the missile readable on the debris of its empennage photographed hundreds of times does indeed belong to the stock supplied to the missile brigades of Soviet Ukraine, not a single one of which had depots in the Donbass.

Snake Island (Zmeiny Island)

This tiny islet located in the Black Sea about fifty kilometers from the Ukrainian and Romanian coasts is of major strategic importance in the current conflict because the possession of these acres of land allows whoever controls them to lock access to Odessa, that is to say at the only port that kyiv still has and above all to monitor the entire western part of the Black Sea where two NATO countries are present, Bulgaria and Romania, the latter being particularly active in the conflict, in particular in the context of the very likely future NATO aggression against the Moldavian Republic of Dniester, a pro-Russian separatist entity better known as Transnistria and located between Moldova and Ukraine.

Beyond the strategic interest for the control of this island, there have also been rumors about the presence of a biological laboratory on Serpents' Island but the available sources having reported the information are rather questionable. .

On the other hand, NATO's desire to regain control of this island at all costs clearly stems from the resources committed - and lost -. Short timeline of events:

From the morning of the offensive, February 24, 2022, the island was taken by the Russian navy. The story of the capture of this strategic island will be the occasion of the first canard of war because according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the thirteen border guards present on the island would have resisted until death by refusing the ultimatum to a Russian ship calling on them to surrender. But two days later, the publication on the Web of photos of the surrender of the border guards forced the Ukrainian authorities to announce that their soldiers were alive and had been captured by the Russians. A satellite image taken on Sunday, March 27, 2022 by Maxar Technologies shows Serpents' Island with some buildings damaged, as well as a Russian Navy Ropucha-class landing ship anchored near the island. Russian military strikes therefore took place, but on a limited scale, prior to the occupation of the island. At the end of March 2022, Ukrainian border guards (there were 82, not 13) were released in an exchange for Russian prisoners held by Ukraine.

The statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense published on May 9, 2022 (the anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union against Germany) states the following facts:

According to updated information, 6 Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters were destroyed during the night near Artsiz in the Odessa region near the Chervonoglinskoe military airfield by Onyks high-precision missiles of the system of Bastion coastal missiles. …

On May 7, on the direct orders of Zelensky, the Ukrainian General Staff, with the direct involvement of American and British advisers, planned a major provocation to seize the island of Zmeiny.

Over the past two days, the kyiv regime has made several desperate attempts at air and sea assaults on the island of Zmeiny, which is important for controlling the northwestern part of the Black Sea.

The Ukrainian provocation was thwarted thanks to the competent action of a unit of the Russian armed forces on the island. The enemy suffered heavy losses.

4 Ukrainian planes, including 3 Su-24 and 1 Su-27, 3 Mi-8 helicopters with paratroopers on board, and 1 Mi-24 helicopter were shot down while the army repelled attacks on the island of Zmeiny.

In two days, 29 Ukrainian drones were shot down in flight, including 8 Bayraktar TB-2 attack drones. In addition, 4 Bayraktar drones were shot down this afternoon.

Separately, three Ukrainian armored amphibious assault boats carrying Ukrainian Navy personnel were destroyed during an attempted landing on the night of May 8.

Following Zelensky's rash provocation, more than 50 Ukrainian saboteurs were killed at sea and on the coast during the landing and attempts to consolidate on the island.

24 bodies of dead Ukrainian servicemen were left on the shore of the island of Zmeiny.

On the Russian side, the losses are also significant since at least two ships of the Black Sea Fleet were sunk (probably by surface-to-sea or air-to-sea missiles) either in the immediate vicinity of the island, or off this one.

It is unlikely that the archaeological remains of the temple of Achilles discovered on this Pelagian island are the main reason for the very heavy means committed by the two parties to maintain or regain control of this piece of arid land. Its key position at a time when radars, electronic warfare and missiles with strategic capability play a major role in the conduct of war, is more than enough to explain the major interest of this piece of land located on the borders of the borders. of NATO in the ongoing war between Russia and the West.


Personal observation:

Since this article, Snake Island has been abandoned by the Russian forces because it was too isolated, its supplies were vulnerable (especially since the loss of the cruiser Moskva which provided anti-aircraft cover for the sector) and too close to the Ukrainian coast it suffered increased attrition bombardments thanks to Western aids (attack drones, missiles and long-range howitzers). But the Russian aerospace forces keep this pebble off Odessa under their continual fire which dissuades the Ukrainian forces from reoccupying it and using it to threaten the harbor of Sevastopol for example.

Probably within the framework of international agreements to reactivate Ukrainian grain exports from Odessa, this islet will be protected and remain neutral.

Finally, to conclude and contrary to certain exaggeratedly optimistic pro-Russian propagandists, and despite the tactical successes of the Russian army obtained in the Donbass since its repositioning in April and its undoubted air superiority and artillery capacity, the the extreme slowness of the Russian advance on the eastern front and the almost complete stagnation on the other fronts show that the Kremlin cannot escape general mobilization if it wants to win.

The war in Ukraine is an existential war for Russia as well as for the West. We are only at the beginning and the peoples of Europe have not finished suffering.

Sursum corda!"

Soutien a la rebellion du Donbass : Rappel geopolitique

[bsnub]

Oh, so more horseshit lies. That steaming turd of fake news belongs in your doghouse thread. What a fucking loser.

[bsnub]

A good video about the M982 Excalibur guided artillery shell that has a 50-mile range that has been supplied to Ukraine. Apparently those shells are what hit the Antonivka Bridge in Kherson.

[sabang]

How erudite, snubby. Love that war porn don't we. Here is something considerably more heavyweight, Authored by-

Graham E. Fuller (born November 28, 1937) is an American author and political analyst, specializing in Islamist extremism.^[1] Formerly vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council,^[2] he also served as Station Chief in Kabul for the CIA. A "think piece" that Fuller wrote for the CIA was identified as instrumental in leading to the Iran–Contra affair.^[3][4]

After a career in the United States State Department and CIA lasting 27 years,^[5] he joined Rand Corporation as senior political scientist specializing in the Middle East.^[3][6][7] As of 2006, he was affiliated with the Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, as an adjunct professor of history.^[8] He is the author of a number of books, including The Future of Political Islam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_E._Fuller



Some hard thoughts about post Ukraine



The war in Ukraine has dragged on long enough now to reveal certain clear trajectories. First, two fundamental realities:

1. Putin is to be condemned for launching this war– as is virtually any leader who launches any war. Putin can be termed a war criminal–in good company with George W. Bush who has killed vastly greater numbers than Putin.

2) secondary condemnation belongs to the US (NATO) in deliberately provoking a war with Russia by implacably pushing its hostile military organization, despite Moscow’s repeated notifications about crossing red lines, right up to the gates of Russia. This war did not have to be if Ukranian neutrality, á la Finland and Austria, had been accepted. Instead Washington has called for clear Russian defeat.


As the war grinds to a close, where will things go?

Contrary to Washington’s triumphalist pronouncements, Russia is winning the war, Ukraine has lost the war. Any longer-term damage to Russia is open to debate.

American sanctions against Russia have turned out to be far more devastating to Europe than to Russia. The global economy has slowed and many developing nations face serious food shortages and risk of broad starvation.

There are already deep cracks in the European façade of so-called “NATO unity.” Western Europe will increasingly rue the day that it blindly followed the American Pied Piper to war against Russia. Indeed, this is not a Ukrainian-Russian war but an American-Russian war fought by proxy to the last Ukrainian.

Contrary to optimistic declarations, NATO may in fact ultimately emerge weakened. Western Europeans will think long and hard about the wisdom and deep costs of provoking deeper long term confrontations with Russia or other “competitors”of the US.

Europe will sooner or later return to the purchase of inexpensive Russian energy. Russia lies on the doorstep and a natural economic relationship with Russia will possess overwhelming logic in the end.

Europe already perceives the US as a declining power with an erratic and hypocritical foreign policy “vision” premised upon the desperate need to preserve “American leadership” in the world. America’s willingness to go to war to this end is increasingly dangerous to others.

Washington has also made it clear that Europe must sign on to an “ideological” struggle against China as well in some kind of protean struggle of “democracy against authoritarianism”. Yet, if anything this is a classic struggle for power across the globe. And Europe can even less afford to blunder into confrontation with China–a “threat” perceived primarily by Washington yet unconvincing to many European states and much of the world..

China’s Belt and Road initiative is perhaps the most ambitious economic and geopolitical project in world history. It is already linking China with Europe by rail and sea. European exclusion from the Belt and Road project will cost it dearly. Note that the Belt and Road runs right through Russia. It is impossible for Europe to close its doors to Russia while maintaining access to this Eurasian mega project. Thus a Europe that perceives the US already in decline has a little incentive to join the bandwagon against China. The end of the Ukraine war will bring serious reconsideration in Europe about the benefits of propping up Washington’s desperate bid to maintain its global hegemony.

Europe will undergo increasing identity crisis in determining its future global role. Western Europeans will tire of subservience to the 75 year American domination of European foreign policy. Right now NATO is European foreign policy and Europe remains inexplicably timid in asserting any independent voice.How long will that prevail?

We now see how massive US sanctions against Russia, including confiscation of Russian funds in western banks, is causing most of the world to reconsider the wisdom of banking entirely on the US dollar into the future. Diversification of international economic instruments is already in the cards and willl only act to weaken Washington’s once dominant economic position and its unilateral weaponisation of the dollar.

One of the most disturbing features of this US-Russian struggle in Ukraine has been the utter corruption of independent media. Indeed Washington has won the information and propaganda war hands down, orchestrating all Western media to sing from the same hymnbook in characterizing the Ukraine war. The West has never before witnessed such a blanket imposition by one country’s ideologically-driven geopolitical perspective at home. Nor, of course, is the Russian press to be trusted either. In the midst of a virulent anti-Russian propaganda barrage whose likes I have never seen during my Cold Warrior days, serious analysts must dig deep these days to gain some objective understanding of what is actually taking place in Ukraine.

Would that this American media dominance that denies nearly all alternative voices were merely a blip occasioned by Ukraine events. But European elites are perhaps slowly coming to the realization that they have been stampeded into this position of total “unanimity”; cracks are already beginning to appear in the façade of “EU and NATO unity.” But the more dangerous implication is that as we head into future global crises, a genuine independent free press is largely disappearing, falling into the hands of corporate-dominated media close to policy circles , and now bolstered by electronic social media, all manipulating the narrative to its own ends. As we move into a predictably greater and more dangerous crises of instability through global warming, refugee flows, natural disasters, and likely new pandemics, rigorous state and corporate domination of the western media becomes very dangerous indeed to the future of democracy. We no longer hear alternative voices on Ukraine today.

Finally, Russia’s geopolitical character has very likely now decisively tilted towards Eurasia. Russians have sought for centuries to be accepted within Europe but have been consistently held at arms length. The West will not discuss a new strategic and security architecture. Ukraine has simply intensified this trend. Russian elites now no longer possess an alternative to accepting that its economic future lies in the Pacific where Vladivostok lies only one or two hours away by air from the vast economies of Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul. China and Russia have now been decisively pushed ever more closely together specifically out of common concern to block unfettered US freedom of unilateral military and economic intervention around the world. That the US can split US-induced Russian and Chinese cooperation is a fantasy. Russia has scientific brilliance, abundant energy, rich rare minerals and metals, while global warming will increase the agricultural potential of Siberia. China has the capital, the markets, and the manpower to contribute to what becomes a natural partnership across Eurasia.

Sadly for Washington, nearly every single one of its expectations about this war are turning out to be incorrect. Indeed the West may come to look back at this moment as the final argument against following Washington’s quest for global dominance into ever newer and more dangerous and damaging confrontations with Eurasia. And most of the rest of the world–Latin America, India, the Middle East and Africa– find few national interests in this fundamentally American war against Russia.
==================
Graham E. Fuller is a former Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council at CIA with responsibility for global intelligence estimates.

https://grahamefuller.com/some-hard-...-post-ukraine/



I can only hope this is the final neo-con disaster, because hopefully those nincompoops will be purged from the corridors of power forever. Fingers crossed.

[harrybarracuda]

Oh, so more horseshit lies. That steaming turd of fake news belongs in your doghouse thread. What a fucking loser.

Yes, pages of drivel.

The wanketeers are having a circle jerk.

[sabang]

And the neo-cons and their apologists are, hopefully, getting their idiot heads pulled in.

[sabang]

Lets ratchet up the pain a bit. The failing US proxy war against Russia you see, has ramifications that extend far beyond those poor Ukrainian cannon fodder.



For Those About to Rock, NAM 2.0 Salutes You

Pepe Escobar
July 22, 2022





NAM 2.0 drive – of which China is a key player – stands in stark opposition to how the Empire of Chaos – and Lies – wove its toxic net, via the war on terror, since the start of the millennium.

Those were the days, in 1955, at the legendary Bandung conference in Indonesia, when the newly emancipated Global South started dreaming of building a new world, via what became configured later in 1961 in Belgrade as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).The Empire of Chaos – and Lies – would never allow a starring role for NAM. So it played dirty: everything from hardcore subversion and bribing to military coups and proto-color revolutions.

Yet now, the Spirit of Bandung lives again, via a sort of NAM 2.0 on steroids: a Newly Aligned Movement, with the leaders of Eurasian integration at the vanguard.

We just had a taste of which way the geopolitical wind is blowing at the gathering of a new power troika in Tehran. Unlike Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in 1943, Putin, Raisi and Erdogan did not meet to carve up the world. They met essentially to discuss how another world is possible – through bilaterals, trilaterals, multilaterals and an enhanced role for an array of relatively new geopolitical and geoeconomic institutions.

Russia – and China – have been on the forefront of all recent key decisions. Their diplomacy has brought Iran to join the SCO as a full member. Their pull is attracting key Global South players to join BRICS+. Russia has all but convinced Turkey to join BRICS+, the SCO and the EAEU, and facilitated the re-approximation of Tehran and Ankara as well as Tehran and Riyadh. Russia has largely influenced the remake/remodel process across West Asia.

This NAM 2.0 drive – of which China is a key player – stands in stark opposition to how the Empire of Chaos – and Lies – wove its toxic net, via the war on terror, since the start of the millennium. The Empire tried to subdue what it described as MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) on the basis of two invasions/occupations (Afghanistan-Iraq); a total devastation (Libya); and a protracted proxy war (Syria). All eventually failed.

And that brings us to the stunning contrast between these two foreign policy approaches, graphically illustrated by the spectacular failure of the teleprompter-reading “leader of the free world” in his visit to Jeddah – he was not even allowed to go to Riyadh – compared to Putin’s performance in Tehran.

Not only we are witnessing the lineaments of a Russia/Iran/Turkey informal alliance; we are witnessing the alliance reading a soft riot act to the Empire: leave Syria, before you suffer yet another humiliation. And with a Kurd-directed corollary: keep away from the Americans and recognize the authority of Damascus before it’s too late.

Ankara could never admit it in public, but the fact is Sultan Erdogan – as much against US troops in Syria as Putin and Raisi – even seems to have swiftly calibrated his previous designs on Syrian sovereign territory.

The much-debated Turkish military operation in northern Syria in the end may be restricted to taming the YPG Kurds. The heart of the action will in fact revolve around how the Russia/Iran/Turkey/Syria alliance will make like impossible for Americans stealing Syrian oil.

As Russia is now on “take no prisoners” mode when facing the collective West – the mantra in every intervention by Putin, Lavrov, Medvedev, Patrushev – and on top of it firmly aligned with China and Iran, it’s inevitable that every other player across West Asia and beyond is giving undivided attention to the new game in town.

Go Caspian, Young Man

Interconnecting West Asia and Central Asia, the Caspian Sea has finally reached the geopolitical and geoeconomic limelight – complete with the groundbreaking consensus reached by the five littoral states at the Caspian Summit in late June to officially ban NATO from these waters.

Moreover, the leadership in Tehran in no time realized how the Caspian is the perfect, cost-conscious corridor from Iran to the heart of Russia along the Volga.

So it’s no wonder that Putin himself, in Tehran, proposed the construction of a key stretch of highway on the St Petersburg-Persian Gulf route, much to the delight of the Iranians. Cue to the nostalgic Great Game crowd in that former “rule the waves” island getting serial heart attacks: they could never imagine the Russian “empire” finally having full access to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf.

So we’re back to the absolutely crucial re-engineering of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC) – which will play for Russia and Iran a parallel role the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) plays for China. In both cases, it’s all about multimodal Eurasia-wide trade and development corridors immune from interference by the imperial Navy.

And here we see the renewed importance of the hyper-strategic liberation of Mariupol and Kherson by the Russian and DPR forces. The Sea of Azov is now configured as a de facto Russian lake – and the same will eventually happen to what is bound to remain of the (currently Ukrainian) Black Sea coast, Odessa included.

So we have the ultra-strategic Caspian-Black Sea maritime corridor – via the Volga-Don canal – seamlessly connected to the Black Sea-Mediterranean, and up north, all the way to the Baltic and the fast developing Atlantic-Pacific connector, the Northern Sea Route. Call it the Russian Heartland Water Roads.

The NATO/Five Eyes/Intermarium combo has absolutely nothing to counteract these (overland) facts on the (Heartland) ground except to throw a pile of HIMARS into the Ukrainian black hole. And of course, keep de-industrializing Europe. In contrast, those across the Global South with a keen sense of history – as in the grand debate of ideas in a Hegelian sense – and also versed in geography and trade relations are busy getting ready to hit (and profit from) the new groove.

Have strategic ambiguity, will travel

As much as it’s a blast to survey all the instances of Russia playing strategic ambiguity to levels capable of baffling the entire, bloated “Western intel” apparatus, what is coming to the forefront is how Putin – and Patrushev – are now willfully turning up the pain dial to tactically exhaust not only the Ukrainian black hole but the whole of NATOstan.

Western governments are collapsing. Sanctions are being ditched – practically in secret. A Deep Freeze winter is a given. And then there’s the incoming economic/financial crisis, the Definitive Monster from Hell, as Martin Armstrong has made it quite clear: “There is no way they can get out of this other than default. If they default, they are worried about millions of people storming the parliaments of Europe…This is really a tremendous financial crisis that we are facing. They have been borrowing year after year since WWII with zero intention of paying anything back.”

Meanwhile, Moscow may be revving up the turbines to launch – this coming Fall? In the middle of Winter? Next Spring? – a multi-spectrum Mother of All Offensives, capitalizing on a rolling series of interconnected strategies that have already rendered dazed and confused every NATOstan “analyst” in sight.

That would explain Putin looking like he’s cheerfully whistling JJ Cale’s Call Me the Breeze in most of his public appearances. In his crucial intervention at the Strong Ideas for a New Time forum, he enthusiastically promoted the advent of “truly revolutionary” and “enormous” changes that would lead to the creation of a new, “harmonious, fairer and more community-focused and safe” world order.

Yet that’s not for everyone: “only truly sovereign states can ensure high growth dynamics.” What that implies is that the unipolar world order, followed by states in the collective West which are hardly sovereign, is condemned to fail, as it’s “becoming a brake on the development of our civilization.”

Only a self-confident sovereign who does not expect anything constructive from the collective West can get away with describing it as “racist and neo-colonial”, bearing an ideology that “is becoming increasingly more like totalitarianism.” In the old NAM days these words would be met with an assassination.

So will the “rules-based international order” be preserved? Not a chance, argues Putin: the changes are “irreversible.” For those about to rock, NAM 2.0 salutes you.

В доступе на страницу отказано


We are talking Geopolitics, man. The World order isn't changing- it has changed. Most of the World feels good about that.

[pickel]

The spice must flow, the Ukraine coup installed sheep will do what they are told to do. Unfortunately, the teen boys and girls being press-ganged have no alternative.

Fight in the trenches or be shot.

Ukraine has yet to implement a draft in this war. They are all volunteers.

Russia, on the other hand, is forcibly conscripting the "liberated" males of the Donbass.

[OhOh]

Ukraine has yet to implement a draft in this war. They are all volunteers.

You've obviously missed the teenage boys being forced to enlist into the Ukraine/NATO army. Been going on for moths.

Does Ukraine have conscription?

Also on 24 February 2022, President Zelensky signed a decree on general mobilisation in all regions of Ukraine plus the city of Kyiv. The decree became law on 3 March 2022, and mobilisation of conscripts and reservists was to be carried out within 90 days of this date."

Who gets conscripted in Ukraine?

"As The New York Times' Daily podcast reported, fathers, brothers, boyfriends and husbands as well as single men between the ages of 18 and 60 are being forced to stay and enlist in Ukraine's military, while women of all ages are not only being allowed over borders but actively encouraged to flee".

Mar 11, 2565 B

Now girls:What categories of women can be registered?

According to Hryva, these are women under the age of 60 who have no contraindications due to their health and whose profession or specialty is in the order of the Ministry of Defense.

It presents specialties from the field of catering to publishing and printing. Among the professions - are programmers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, musicians, social workers, accountants, employees of restaurants and hotels, and more.

What does it mean to register a woman?

This means that a woman becomes a conscript and is in the reserve of the Armed Forces, the National Guard, or other military formations."

Visit Ukraine - Military registration of women from October 1: will women be called up for military service?

Videos of parents in Ukraine protesting abound the media.

forcibly conscripting the "liberated" males of the Donbass.

Do you have a link?

[pickel]

^
Registration and being called up to serve are two different things you idiot. Did you not even notice the question mark at the end of your link headline?

Do you have a link?

[sabang]

Males of adult age are not even allowed to leave Ukraine. Russians- certainly from St Petersburg- are travelling to Finland quite regularly now, because with the strength of the ruble it has become cheaper for them. And Ukraine, with it's opposition parties banned, has become a neo-fascist state. Fuck 'em.

[pickel]

And Ukraine, with it's opposition parties banned, has become a neo-fascist state.

Putin bans more opposition parties, and have been a neo-fascist state for some time now. Wonder why that doesn't seem to bother you though.

[sabang]

Gotta link for that? Russia seems a lot more free than Ukraine these days- a lot more. Opposition there is not taped to lamp posts, and publicly scourged and humiliated.

[pickel]

^
You've lost your marbles.

[misskit]

^ FACT.

[bsnub]

You've lost your marbles.

He is also a chronic liar and fake news poster...

Russians- certainly from St Petersburg- are travelling to Finland quite regularly now

Another one of your horseshit lies...

Despite a Russian government announcement last week that temporary Covid-related restrictions on border crossings would be lifted on Friday, the Finnish Border Guard has not yet seen an increase in traffic.

Russian news outlet Fontanka reported on Friday that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a document on Thursday that officially lifted epidemic restrictions on land border crossings. However, Fontanka reported that many Russians were still not being allowed to cross.

On Friday morning, the situation on the Finnish side of the Nuijamaa border crossing remained quiet, with just a few individual cars headed in either direction, according to Yle journalist Kalle Schönberg.

Border crossing points Niirala in Tohmajärvi and Salla in Lapland also reported a slow Friday morning.

Russia eases border restrictions, but crossings to Finland still restricted | The Independent Barents Observer