Ukraine war mega thread

[sabang]

Alastair CROOKE
Former British diplomat, founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum.



...... But back to today, and geo-politics, and what comes next —

Firstly, the Great Game. The liberation of Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline including Mariupol and Kherson was a huge strategic ‘Great Game achievement’, since, as MK Bhadrakumar perceptively explains, securing the Kerch Strait ensures maritime transit from the Black Sea all the way to Moscow and St Petersburg, as well as providing the strategic maritime route between the Caspian Sea (via the Volga-Don Canal) to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

The ‘big picture’ point here is that not only does the Volga River link the Caspian Sea to the Baltic Sea, but it links as well to the Northern Sea (Arctic) Route (via the Volga–Baltic Waterway). Suffice to say, Russia has gained control of an integrated system of waterways, which connects the Black Sea with the Caspian Sea, and thence to the Baltic, and also connects to the Northern Sea Route (which is an 4800 km long shipping lane that joins the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, passing along the Russian coasts of Siberia and the Far East).The inexorable strategic logic to these moves is that Odessa must be on Russia’s strategic agenda, since it is the hub opening up the Danube system of waterways linking Russia to central Europe. The distance between Odessa and the Danube Delta is approximately 200 km.

Next, the Tehran Summit-Great Game play by Moscow. The earlier Caspian Summit (29 June), having secured the Caspian against NATO vessels entering it, opened the way at the Tehran Summit (19 July) for a major upgrading of the North-South corridor, linking St Petersburg port in the north, through Iran’s Bandar Abbas port in the Gulf, to Mumbai.

If Moscow’s Great Game play seems overly centred on waterway links, then we would be missing the second half to the story. The companion half is a ‘corridor and pipeline’ network strategy crisscrossing Iran, West and Central Asia, India and China. This is what the big contracts signed in Tehran were about ($40Bn with Gazprom and $30Bn with Turkey): Russian energy feeds China; Iran’s South Pars field development will feed India with low-cost energy; and Turkey will become a key energy transit state.Naturally, the U.S. is busy with obstructing this Great Game move, with the CIA chief travelling to Kazakhstan, and the EU trying to woo Azerbaijan.

What else? For some time now, Moscow has been putting into place a security architecture for West Asia. The BRICS and the SCO are gaining potential heft; Lavrov’s Team has been working the Gulf hard; and the Tehran Summit took this wider project a huge step forward.

Soon, it seems, we may expect Moscow to have its ‘ducks all lined-up’ – so as to present Tel Aviv with a proposal: Let us say Moscow puts forward a Mid-East ‘Minsk Accord’, and tells Israel that this Accord represents the only path to avoid a multi-front war with Iran. Will it work? Can Israel transition? That is problematic. Netanyahu has pushed Israel towards a far right ideological stance. Israel now stands on the wrong side of the Middle East paradigm.

In parallel to the Iran–Israeli conflict, a Syrian ‘Minsk’ may come into view, too – as Moscow’s attention on Ukraine is relaxed. Russia, too, is gently widening the move towards a new commodity-based trading system for the non-West.

Reuters reported on Monday (July 18) that Russia is seeking payment from some Indian importers in UAE dirhams for its oil trade. An invoice accessed by Reuters showed that such payments are to be made to Gazprombank via its correspondent bank in Dubai, Mashreq Bank. At the Tehran summit, ties between Iran and Russia tightened and a joint financial clearing system was agreed.

We may expect more of this: The pace is accelerating. Gold and commodity trading, as well as some financial services such as vessel and cargo insurance, may well be uplifted out from Europe to the region (never to return) – and perhaps a Urals benchmark futures trading facility will be established in the future. The aim is to loosen the commodity markets from the Western grasp, through manipulating the paper-commodity markets, and by trading options.

As for Europe, Moscow’s ‘gas retribution’ for sanctions imposed effectively is prompting the EU to ‘self-harm’, through mimicking the same economic playbook vis à vis Russian gas supplies, as Germany employed vis à vis its cheap coal deposits. This event occurred after France, in 1923, seized the Ruhr (as penalty for defaulting on Reparations). Located in the country’s west, the Ruhr region was Germany’s industrial heartland, home of most of its coal and steel production. Germany (facing large Reparation payments), was determined both to subsidise its industrial base, and to finance its dismembered weapons supply lines in order to re-arm – yet facing a hijacked cheap energy supply, the Weimar government took to printing money. What Germany ‘got’ was hyperinflation and broken supply lines, compounding the inflation. Brussels seems ready to follow this same playbook.

What is extraordinary here is that Europe took this lacuna on itself, in an excess of enthusiasm for ‘saving Ukraine’. Public protest in Europe has begun, and likely will build further. In light of the huge pendulum swing by Europe from adherence to some semblance of strategic autonomy – only to abandon itself to Washington and NATO’s sway – the pendulum will likely swing back, as the recession and price-spikes bite.

The European Deep State will endeavour to hold the line, but a fault line will open up in Europe between those states who dare not let go of ‘Uncle Sam’ (such as Poland), and those determined to move away and to engage with Russia. These tensions may well fracture the EU.

It will need a long catharsis to purge Europe of its illusions of superiority – as perceived by the non-west – especially since its claim to a lineage deriving from ancient Rome or (even less so) ancient Greece is more propaganda than truth. Contemporary ‘EU civilization’ and values in no way connect to the pre-Socratic world. Modern Europe – the West – is more the product of the Frankish, Carolingian civilization.

Nonetheless, Moscow ultimately may offer the European rump a ‘Minsk deal’ too. That, however, is likely a long way off.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/ne...ty-whats-next/


Pretty grim prognosis.

[bsnub]

It is just a jumbo word salad from the same sniveling Russian shill you have been posting since before this war started. The same war that he and yourself swore would never happen. A blowhard just like yourself and nothing more.

[sabang]

It's way above your head snubs. Our more cerebral readership might find it interesting however. The 'snivelling shill' was a MI6 spook and then a senior EU diplomat.

[pickel]

The liberation of Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline including Mariupol and Kherson

I stopped reading after this. You should have too, if you view yourself as cerebral.

[bsnub]

It's way above your head snubs.

Ok, Mister "this war will never happen". You have proven time and again that you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to this war.

The 'snivelling shill' was a MI6 spook and then a senior EU diplomat.

He is a shill plain and simple. Yet you insist on posting his drivel.

stopped reading after this. You should have too, if you view yourself as cerebral.

Point made. He is far from cerebral. I think the more proper word to describe sabang is a "fool". It fits him better.

[sabang]

The MintPress podcast “The Watchdog,” hosted by British-Iraqi hip hop artist Lowkey, closely examines organizations about which it is in the public interest to know – including intelligence, lobby, and special interest groups influencing policies that infringe on free speech and target dissent. The Watchdog goes against the grain by casting a light on stories largely ignored by the mainstream, corporate media.

Everyone can see that the U.S. has been in decline for several years,” Ben Norton told Watchdog host Lowkey today, explaining that the days of a unipolar world where Washington dominates the planet are over.

Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the founder and editor of Multipolarista, a website dedicated to presenting international and geopolitical news through the lens of multipolarity. “Obviously this is going to be a decades-long process of decline,” he said of the United States, “But we are very clearly seeing alternatives emerging.”


In the past two decades, the U.S. grip on global power has been slipping, and new nations and organizations have begun to emerge that challenge American dominance. One of these is the BRICS, an economic and increasingly political bloc of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Argentina, Iran and others have expressed an interest in joining this alliance, which has now laid out plans for its own bank and international currency, two moves strike at the heart of American economic hegemony.

“Now that the U.S. has sanctioned one-quarter of the global population, and especially now with the economic war on Russia, BRICS has emerged as this new economic infrastructure bringing countries together that want to get around Western sanctions,” Norton said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spurred the U.S. and its NATO allies to attempt to force poorer nations to turn their backs on Russia, politically and economically. And they have been trying to do the same in an effort to prevent China’s continued economic rise. But it has been to little avail, as even nations not known for defying orders have refused to line up behind the West.

For Norton, this is because these states see the writing on the wall: that U.S. economic and political power is waning and that the 21st century will be a multipolar one. As he explained:

Not only are countries around the world saying they want to continue doing business with China and Russia because they want Chinese technologies and goods and Russian commodities but they are also saying ‘look, we can do business with these countries and they don’t force us to privatize all of our state assets, they don’t force us to cut social spending and the minimum wage,’ [like the U.S. does]…Countries are saying that ‘we have done this neoliberal model for decades and it has resulted in disaster.’”

China is now the world’s manufacturing powerhouse, while Russia is a huge source of vital commodities such as oil and natural gas, food and fertilizer. The U.S., by contrast, has little to offer except missiles and Netflix. Yet through coups, sanctions and other forms of economic warfare, the U.S. has been able to dictate the economic path of the world.

“What the U.S. is doing is trying to prevent any alternatives to the neoliberal capitalist model,” Norton said. Washington retains a strong military edge, however. The worry is that if all it has is a hammer, it will see nails everywhere it goes.

Another region challenging the U.S.-run global order is Latin America, where we have seen a resurgence of left-wing anti-imperialist movements. Many of these have come to power already. Later on this year, however, Brazil is poised to elect Lula da Silva as president. If the largest and most populous country in the region re-elects an anti-imperialist socialist as its leader (as polls predict it will), it could be a significant and permanent blow against American power in the Western hemisphere, a region President Joe Biden calls “America’s front yard.”

If you are interested in trying to understand the big picture of how the world works and where it is going politically and economically, you do not want to miss this discussion.

The MintPress podcast “The Watchdog,” hosted by British-Iraqi hip hop artist Lowkey, closely examines organizations about which it is in the public interest to know – including intelligence, lobby, and special interest groups influencing policies that infringe on free speech and target dissent. The Watchdog goes against the grain by casting a light on stories largely ignored by the mainstream, corporate media.

The End of US Hegemony and The Rise Of BRICS, with Ben Norton



Entry level stuff- hopefully you can get your head around that snubby. Still flag waving for the neocons?

[Iceman123]

I learned from my Polish acquaintances I met in Blighty that their loathing for Russia and Russians is pretty much absolute - Krauts weren't exactly 'top of the pops' either but their hatred for Ivan is almost atavistic.The only way the filthy Russkis could vanquish the Poles again would be if they nuked the country.

I see your game, you managed to sneak it in again, every fuckin’ post

[bsnub]

It is just more of your typical horseshit...

MintPress News (MPN) is an American far-left^[1][2][3][4] news website founded and edited by Mnar Adley (née, Muhawesh) which was launched in January 2012.^[5] It covers political, economic, foreign affairs and environmental issues. Editorially, MintPress News supports Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and the governments of Russia, Iran, and Syria.^[6][7] It opposes the governments of Israel and Saudi Arabia,^[8] and reports geopolitical events from an anti-Western perspective.^[9] In one contentious article, MintPress News falsely asserted that the Ghouta chemical attack in Syria was perpetrated by rebel groups rather than by the Syrian government.^[7]

Described as a conspiratorial website,^[10][11] MintPress News publishes disinformation and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, according to researchers at Rutgers University and others.^[12][13] MintPress News was a major media domain that spread disinformation about the White Helmets, a Syrian volunteer organization.^[14]

The site has been accused of regularly publishing pro-Russian propaganda.^[13] A report from New Knowledge includes MintPress News as part of the "Russian web of disinformation,"^[15][16] and
the site has published fake authors attributed to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency.^[17]

The source of MintPress News's funding remains unknown.^[7] MintPress News is headquartered in Minnesota, United States.^[18]

Total horseshit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintPress_News

[sabang]

Fancy some more war porn snubby? Here's some you probably won't like -


As a result of the missile strike, almost the entire command of the 28th separate brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was destroyed



Recently, the Russian Defense Ministry informed the public that in the course of a Russian special operation on Ukrainian territory, the Russian Armed Forces launched a missile attack in the Nikolaev region on the control post and the accumulation of personnel and equipment of the 28th separate mechanized brigade named after the Knights of the Winter Campaign of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Now it turned out that on July 23, as a result of this impact, almost the entire command of the mentioned tactical unit of the Ground Forces of Ukraine was destroyed.






On July 26, on the territory of the Military Academy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the city of Odessa, together with the commander of this brigade (military unit A0666 - 28th Specialized Brigade, part of the Operational Command "South"), Colonel Vitaly Gulyaev, they buried three more lieutenant colonels from the same unit - Alexander Daineko, Valentin Sergienko and Vitaly Bondarev. The video of the mourning event was distributed by the Joint Coordinating Press Center of the Harrow Forces of the South of Ukraine.

Despite this, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky continues to demand the impossible from the Ukrainian military - an offensive across the bare steppe towards Kherson in order to push back Russian troops across the Dnieper River, depriving them of a convenient foothold on the Right Bank. In this direction, the Armed Forces of Ukraine practically concentrated a corps: four separate brigades (28th mechanized, 59th motorized infantry, 79th air assault and 61st infantry) and attached forces. However, this grouping does not have a chance to carry out the plan of the head of state, but he continues to drive the military into battle, regardless of the losses.


В результате ракетного удара уничтожено практически все командование 28-й отдельной бригады ВСУ

[NamPikToot]

^^ They are unopposed aside from a few UKR fighters and some SAMs. Snub you can keep researching all you like through the intergoogles, i don't need to as I know people who are involved in intelligence gathering in the UK, they may be wrong however.

[bsnub]

i don't need to as I know people who are involved in intelligence gathering in the UK, they may be wrong however.

You are clueless. Next you will be agreeing with that idiot skiddy who claims that the entire Ukrainian air force was wiped out in the first three days of the war.



Ukrainian Migs were just flying in the last few days protecting Ukrainian attack helicopters in a mission.

[panama hat]

i don't need to as I know people who are involved in intelligence gathering in the UK

Is this while you were/are SAS or SBS? Your 'friends' pop up as conveniently as sabang's.

they may be wrong however.

there is no guarantee Putin will further his ambitions once he's consolidated.

There is no guarantee irrespective of what the situation is with Putin. He is not beholden to the population, he does what he wants.

And no, he will not use nukes!

I fear he might . . . he's mad.

[panama hat]

what does it matter what you think anyway? You're not exactly a Player, and certainly not a Thinker

. . . neither are you. No one here is a 'Player', but some here think independently, you're not one of them.

Zelensky is a hero for his people. The Ghost of Kiev was disproven yonks ago.

He's making things up as he goes

[NamPikToot]

Is this while you were/are SAS or SBS? Your 'friends' pop up as conveniently as sabang's.

Yes but you are not supposed to know that.

There is no guarantee irrespective of what the situation is with Putin. He is not beholden to the population, he does what he wants.

Thanks for repeating what i said, and your point is?

[bsnub]

Is this while you were/are SAS or SBS? Your 'friends' pop up as conveniently as sabang's.

He used to be in the SAS, apparently.

[OhOh]

Monday, July 25, 2022

Towards a European Federation

Snippets translated from the French original.

"At a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Russian President Vladimir Putin paid tribute on March 3, 2022 to Russian soldiers and officers engaged in military operations in Ukraine.

"I am Russian, and as they say, there are only Russians in my family. But when I see the heroism shown by this young man, Nurmagomed Gadjimagomedov , originally from Dagestan, belonging to the ethnic group Laks, or other of our soldiers, I want to say: I am a Laks, I am a Dagestani, I am a Chechen, an Ingush, a Russian, a Tatar, a Jew, a Mordvian, an Ossetian ... It is simply impossible to list the more than three hundred national and ethnic groups of Russia – I think you understand me – but I am proud to be part of this world, of the powerful, strong and multinational People of Russia."

"Unless the peoples of Europe wake up before being once again the cannon fodder of the financial elite who today want to destroy both their identities and traditions as always, but also their civilizational values, ​​from which and defend individual and collective freedoms.




And to end with a bit of humor - albeit very serious - here is the reaction of the President of the Russian Republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, to the photos of transgender US Navy Admiral Rachel Levine and Deputy Undersecretary to the nuclear energy of the USA Sam Brinton, guests please at the embassy of the marconist governorate for the 14th of July. !."

"There they are, NATO soldiers! We're tired of fighting them. Give us a normal enemy, so he'll be brave, so we can tell our grandkids how terrible he was and dangerous. But what is that? Who is it?

How do we talk about it to our grandchildren..."

And the Chechen Lieutenant General, Muslim to the end of his beard, adds:

"Vladimir Putin and his team maintain a strict foreign and domestic policy to prevent the degradation of society and to protect natural, healthy and clear human values",

for which they should be grateful.
"We want children to have a father and a mother, so that their psyche is not traumatized from childhood, but is healthy, strong, balanced. And it will be."

According to Kadyrov, Russia "has crossed the Rubicon and will resist baseness and satanism to the end".

"During this Russian bombardment, a Ukrainian warship carrying "Harpoon" anti-ship missiles supplied by NATO was destroyed and another damaged. Other "Kalibr" missiles destroyed repair shops for Ukrainian warships at a shipyard in the military port.

Concerning the ukro-Atlantic perfidy

On this side, "nothing new under the sun": with this news item of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict during which the Ukrainian forces suffered a new setback, we can observe that kyiv:

• attempts on the ground to amalgamate the civilian and the military, using the former as a human shield and disguising the latter as a victim of war.
  

• seeks in the media to demonize Moscow once again but with such stupidity that, unlike the Russian shootings, it is not an ephemeral sword in the water.
  

However, it is a safe bet that the Ukrainians will want to take advantage of this economic and humanitarian agreement for grain exports to Western populations taken hostage by the suicidal Russophobia of their governments to try to protect military resources, for example by storing them in or in the immediate vicinity of agricultural warehouses.

In conclusion

The American newspaper The New York Times wrote on the same day as the attacks on the port of Odessa did not legally and factually violate the agreement (Let us note in passing and paradoxically to their government) that the American media are much less servile to it than the French media.

While Anthony Blinken, who is no longer a lie, declared that Russia had violated its obligations under the grain agreement.

And to put an end to this new Western hysteria, the UN, which it is difficult to say is an agent of the Kremlin, declared on July 24, 2022 not to consider the strike on the military installations in Odessa as a violation of the memorandum on the cereals

Game over !

As soon as this truth was expressed, the well-meaning Torquemadas went on a crusade against the rebels of the unique thought and a few hours later the OBU refuted its initial observation... It doesn't matter given the crass uselessness of this "big thing" as General De Gaulle ironically called it.

Except certainly for the French or British thurifers of the globalist plutocracy whose media, like the Kievan clown, are nothing more than servile and ridiculous lackeys of a capitalist hegemony that has gone mad to tie.

Soutien a la rebellion du Donbass : juillet 2022

[NamPikToot]

^ Surely you remember the trouble the Burpas had in Carry on up the Kyber?

[bsnub]

transgender US Navy Admiral Rachel Levine

You really are a fucking idiot.

[OhOh]

Carry on up the Kyber

Great film.

[Norton]

“What the U.S. is doing is trying to prevent any alternatives to the neoliberal capitalist model,” Norton said. Washington retains a strong military edge, however. The worry is that if all it has is a hammer, it will see nails everywhere it goes.

Don't recall saying this but I could have because it is partially true imo. The US would be far better off if it used it's considerable economic power and military power as a perk to gain allies rather than a threat.

[NamPikToot]

^ I think the CIA have been doing that for years but at and individual level

[bsnub]

I think the CIA have been doing that for years but at and individual level

Is that what your MI6 buddies told you, Whingy McBond?

[kingwilly]

as I know people who are involved in intelligence gathering in the UK,.

If you really did, they sure as shit wouldn’t be sharing intel with you!

[kingwilly]

And to put an end to this new Western hysteria, the UN, which it is difficult to say is an agent of the Kremlin

say what???

[sabang]

Advisor in Zelensky's office: The encirclement of Russian troops north of Kherson failed, the Armed Forces of Ukraine did something wrong there


Aleksey Arestovich, representing a group of advisers in Zelensky’s office, continues to give interviews and comment on the situation with a “possible counteroffensive” in the Kherson region.



Arestovich stated that "Russian troops have been transferring military equipment to the Kherson region for several days," which, according to an adviser in the office of the head of the Kyiv regime, "raises certain questions for the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

Arestovich:

The encirclement of Russian troops north of Kherson failed. The Armed Forces of Ukraine did something wrong there, in the Vysokopolye region.

Vysokopolie is a town in the north-east of the Kherson region, located near the border with the Dnipropetrovsk region.

What exactly the Armed Forces of Ukraine “did wrong” there, Arestovich did not comment.

Advisor in Zelensky's office:

The Russians led columns of their equipment through the dam in Novaya Kakhovka. Although it is fired upon by our military there, it still remains suitable for passage.

According to Arestovich, “the encirclement of Russian troops in the north of the Kherson region did not work out,” since the Russian troops inflicted a series of artillery and aviation strikes against the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of ​​the aforementioned Vysokopole.

Recall that earlier officials from Kyiv stated that "just about in the Kherson region, from 1 to 2 thousand Russian military men will fall into the cauldron." At the same time, they began to think about what “to do with so many Russian military men after they were completely surrounded.”

https://en.topwar.ru/199514-sovetnik-v-ofise-zelenskogo-okruzhenie-rossijskih-vojsk-k-severu-ot-hersona-sorvalos-vsu-koe-chto-tam-sdelali-nepravilno.html