Russian Military Aerospace Commander Colonel Oleg Viktorovich Pechevisty (Олегом Викторовичем Печевистым) was killed by a terrorist group sponsored by NATO in Syria last Thursday, 25 May 2023, multiple sources reported.
NATO Turkey-sponsored Al Qaeda Levant (aka Nusra Front – HTS – and Jabhat Nusra) did not claim responsibility for the killing of the Russian Colonel, however, it has bragged about bombing a site in Latakia countryside which some observers place Col. Pechevisty in at the time of the bombing.
Other reports, including some Russian-based social media accounts, claim that the Russian commander was killed in a terrorist attack carried out by NATO US-sponsored ISIS (ISIL – Daesh) near the Syrian city of Al Sukhna in the eastern Homs countryside.
Russian Military Aerospace Commander Colonel Oleg Viktorovich Pechevisty killed by NATO in Syria
Whether the Russian top commander was killed by Al Qaeda Levant or by ISIS, the killing was done based on intelligence information gathered by a NATO military and passed on to a terrorist group created, trained, armed, smuggled into Syria, and commanded by a NATO member state, Turkey or the USA.
The Russian Army has lost several officers and soldiers in the US-led war of terror and war of attrition against the Syrian state, the sacrifices of the Russian servicemen in Syria will be always cherished by the Syrian people and the free people of the world.
Definitely, the heroism and sacrifices of the Russian Army servicemen in Syria will always be highly praised by the Russian people, those servicemen killed, wounded, and even served without injury while combating the world’s evil powers have defended their motherland in Syria before and broke the backbone of those evil powers before reaching Russia as we see in the current conflict in Ukraine.
We should also remember the Russian diplomats who also played an important part in defending their country, Syria, and the whole of humanity, and some of them were killed like the Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov who was killed by a supporter of the Turkish madman Erdogan in the Turkish capital Ankara in December 2016.
We at Syria News salute the Russian heroes who fought alongside their Syrian Arab Army brethren to save the world from the servants of the Antichrist, the armies of NATO, the ‘defensive’ alliance, the Zionists, the Nazis, and their anti-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood and Wahhabi criminals. May their memory be immortal.
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Syrian and Russian armies carried out a retaliatory attack against the NATO/ Turkey-sponsored al Qaeda terrorists in Idlib countryside killing 93 of them including commanders and injuring 135 with serious wounds, both Syrian and Russian militaries stated.
The qualitative coordinated retaliatory bombing of al Qaeda (Nusra Front – Jabhat Al Nusra – al Qaeda Levant) training camp and underground facilities in the ‘Ashkhani Takhtani’ area between the towns of Murin and Kafr Jalis in the northwestern countryside of Idlib yesterday, 6 November morning, came after the NATO proxy terrorists launched a massive drone attack targeting the Syrian army’s positions and killing five Syrian soldiers violating the de-escalation agreement, aka Idlib agreement, signed by their political leader the Turkish madman Erdogan.
“As a result of the continuous violations of the de-escalation agreement in Idlib countryside and the repeated attacks by armed terrorist organizations on the safe areas and the sites of our armed forces, which recently led to the rise of a number of civilian and military martyrs, units of our valiant armed forces, in cooperation with the friendly Russian aerospace forces, carried out a qualitative operation targeting the command headquarters and training camps of these terrorist organizations.”
The Syrian military statement also spoke of the intensive monitoring of the targeted site before the Syrian Arab Army, SAA’s artillery delivered a salvo of its missiles on the site while the Russian Aerospace fighter jets were pummeling the sites from the sky.
Terrorists who fled the bombing were monitored and subsequent missile and air strikes destroyed the shelters they fled to leading to the elimination and wounding of a large number of terrorists, the military statement added and named among the eliminated terrorists: Abdel Moneim Muati (most likely Egyptian), Radwan Hussein Mihania, Abu Daoud Al-Filistini (Palestinian), Muhammad Ali Al-Quddour, Abu Hussein Raddad, Abu Hajar Al-Chadi (from Chad in Africa), Amr Abu Laith Al-Iskandarani (from Alexandria – Egypt), and Muhammad Suleiman Al-Ali.
On its part, the Russian Reconciliation Center in Hmeimim, Lattakia quoted its deputy chief Oleg Yegorov in a statement carried by the Russian news agency Tass:
“Syria’s missile and air forces delivered a strike at the facilities of the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group in response to a massive drone attack staged by terrorists on the positions of Syrian government troops near Salma in the Idlib de-escalation zone, which claimed the lives of five Syrian soldiers.”
The Russian statement detailed the facilities destroyed by the retaliation strike as: “a training camp, a drone workshop, a mobile radar station, and up to 40 ready-to-use combat drones,” and named al Qaeda field commanders so-called Saddam al-Dedali and Abdullah al-Ahmed among the eliminated terrorists in the strike.
Meanwhile, the al Qaeda propaganda arm, the so-called White Helmets issued a statement claiming instead that the target of the Syrian and Russian armies’ strike was a refugees camp in Idlib countryside, they showed a couple of destroyed shelters in their statement and alleged that those killed in the strikes were 9 civilians including 3 children and a woman in addition to injuring 70 others.
Usually, lying has a limited period of time, a limited time of repetitions by the liars before they render untrustworthy, and a scope for the lies, however, throughout our very long experience with western audiences, the consumers of propaganda circulated by western mainstream media and their proxies, the western public prove time and again they can be easily lied to no matter how absurd the lie is and how much blinding and deafening the truth exposing that lie is.
Yesterday’s bombing of al Qaeda’s quarters in Idlib countryside and the killing and wounding of 228 al Qaeda terrorists delivers an unmistakeable message to the Turkish madman Erdogan and his handlers, the best way for madman Erdogan is to withdraw his forces, the Turkish army, and the various al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists from northern Syria in implementation of the Idlib agreements he signed and was supposed to implement over 3 years ago.
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One of the largest French maritime exercises in the Mediterranean, POLARIS 21 (Préparation Opérationnelle en Lutte Aéromaritime, Résilience, Innovation et Supériorité), took place from November 18 to December 3, 2021 in the area west of the island of Corsica, between France and Spain. The exercise also included a segment on the Atlantic coast of mainland France.
POLARIS 21 was set up entirely in the context of operational preparation on several fronts and had a high combat intensity, which was fully in line with the strategic vision of the Chief of the Armed Forces and the Mercator Acceleration 21 plan of the Chief of Staff of the Admiral of the French navy Pierre Vandier. In addition to naval warfare, the exercise also included the participation of many combat aircraft and surface-to-air defense.
Officially, the aim of the training was to test the capabilities of the sea and air elements to face future wars, using the latest systems and naval vessels to develop tactics. The scenario of the exercise was to “enable the Allies to maintain control of the Mediterranean in the event of threat from the Russian air force and navy“.
Polaris 2021 “exercise“
The exercise scenario consisted of two troops (Blue and Red), BLUE consisting of the French Carrier Strike Group (CSG), centered around the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle (R91), against a RED FORCES credible opposition force ( OPFOR), gathered around the Mistral-class left-hand drive ‘Tonnerre’.
In total, the exercise saw the participation of 23 ships, one submarine, 65 aircraft and 6,000 personnel. Partner nations joining the exercise came from Greece, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The United States Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78), P-8A Poseidon aircraft from Commander, Task Force 67, and the Henry J. Kaiser-class fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Lenthal (T-AO 189) had a very important place in the “exercise“ POLARIS 2021.
Also, U.S. Sixth Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducted the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with NATO partners, in order to strengthen the power of U.S. in Europe and Africa.
The actual goal of the exercise
However, journalists came into possession of data related to the exercise POLARIS 2021. The data speak clearly about the advance preparation of the NATO to enter into an armed conflict with the Russian Federation in the event of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.
According to the legend of the maneuvers, it was determined that in response to the alleged Russian intervention, the forces of the NATO coalition would form and send an aircraft carrier strike group led by the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to the combat area in order to “stop the invasion and preserve the sovereignty of Ukraine.”
The context and scenario of the “exercise“ (the consonance of the names of countries, settlements, the names of political figures, the specifics of maneuvers, etc.) became for the Russian Federation a signal of the real preparation of NATO to the start of hostilities against Russia, as it happened similarly to the operation of the United Defender alliance grouping of forces before the intervention in Libya (the exercises Baltops-2010 and Frisian Flag-2010), when, after the maneuvers at the sea ranges, a full-scale operation followed to overthrow of the legitimate government of Muammar Gaddafi.
POLARIS 2021 was also a demonstration of NATO support to Kyiv in the event of an armed conflict with Russia and was supposed to push Kyiv to start hostilities with the Russian Federation, after which the intervention of the NATO was supposed. In principle, NATO was looking for an excuse to attack Russia, with the factor of surprise, so that Russia would not be ready for an adequate response.
In this situation, the preventive start of the Special Military Operation of the RF Armed Forces in Ukraine became the only possible response to the inevitable aggression of the Kyiv regime and the NATO.
There is no doubt that thanks to the Russian special operation in Ukraine and the fact that Russia launched a preventive strike, it was NATO that was surprised but also scared by the Russian determination to defend its interests. It is precisely this fact that is responsible for why there was not and will not be conflict between Russia and NATO, that is, the Third World War was prevented only thanks to the Russian special operation in Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that the APU lost more than 1,200 people in an attempt to attack
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), while trying to conduct an offensive in Mykolaiv-Krivoy Rog and other directions, suffered heavy losses, more than 1,200 soldiers were destroyed. This was reported to journalists by the Ministry of Defense of Russia.
According to the ministry, Russian troops destroyed 48 tanks, 46 infantry fighting vehicles, 37 other armored combat vehicles, 8 pickups with heavy machine guns.
In addition, while repelling the enemy’s offensive, the Russian military defeated the units of the 128th separate mountain assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which was transferred to participate in a special operation from western Ukraine. Five soldiers of the brigade laid down their arms and surrendered, the Defense Ministry added.
Earlier it became known that the Aerospace Forces of Russia (VKS) over the past day destroyed the production workshops of the Intervzryvprom plant, where explosives and other products for Ukrainian troops were produced, in the city of Krivoy Rog, Dnipropetrovsk region.
Filed under: Russia, Ukraine | Tagged: MOD, Russian Aerospace Forces, UAF | Comments Off on Russian MoD updates the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces after the failure of their counter-offensive
On the Future of Europe: A Proposition from 1 January 2023
Note: after three months away (mostly) from the blog, it is a real pleasure for me to come back. Simply put – I missed you and I missed writing analyses. Thus I am truly delighted to be back and I want to once again thank all those who patiently waited for me to recharge my batteries. Your support means the world to me! Thank you for everything! Andrei
***
Five months ago, on February 24th, Russia began what she called a “special military operation” (SMO). In very simple terms, this is what Russia has achieved so far: Ukraine has lost about 20% of its territory, about 3 thousand towns and villages, half of the gross national product, and a third of coal production. It completely lost access to the Sea of Azov, and traffic through the Black Sea ports froze due to fighting and mining of waterways. The number of refugees has reached 7 million (source).
But these factoids don’t even begin to tell the full story. There would be many ways that this story could be told, but to begin I want to list a few elements of the official western narrative which have now faceplanted and nobody sane would take seriously. I will present a few them in no specific order (and I will ignore the most idiotic ones, including that Putin is dying of cancer or very sick (check here for 50 headlines about this!) – he is not, to the great chagrin of the CIA – or that Shoigu wants to overthrow him).
“Russia is losing the war, was defeated by the Ukronazis near Kiev, she is running out of ammunition and supplies and is about to collapse”.
First, if you look at the size of the Russian force which took the Antonov airport near Kiev (one airborne regiment) and the size of the force which moved by land towards that airport, you can easily convince yourself that this force was not intended to attack or invade Kiev. This force did exactly what it was intended to do, it forces the Ukronazis to move forces to protect Kiev and, thereby, it pinned them down just long enough to establish air superiority, attack and cut off the forces near and in the Donbass, destroy the Ukrainian C4I and almost the entire Ukrainian air force. This took just a few days and once that mission was completed, these forces withdrew as they had literally nothing to gain by staying in place. If anything it is the Ukrainian side which is running out of weapons, supplies and soldiers (more about that later). The Russians have all the firepower they need for many years ahead.
“Russia had to change her plans and tactics because of the heavy losses suffered by the Russian military early in the operation”
Actually, there is a grain of truth here, but not the correct explanation. As I have mentioned several times, the special military operation is “special” because it is an operation which is not a regular combined arms operation. The Russians began the SMO with fewer soldiers than the opposing side, and they privileged maneuver and long range strikes over the taking and holding of towns and cities. Most crucially, the Russians very deliberately tried all they could to minimize Ukrainian casualties and to preserve the Ukrainian civilian infrastructure (unlike the “democratic” countries out there who first destroy power plants, bridges, water stations, etc. to inflict the maximum of “shock and awe” on the civilian population!). The Russians could have easily turned, say, Kiev into Baghdad or Belgrade under US/NATO bombs, but they deliberately chose to save as many lives and civilian infrastructure as possible, even at the cost of lives of Russian soldiers).
[Sidebar: a prefect example is the small town of Avdeevka, near Donetsk, which is heavily fortified and from which the Ukronazis shell not only Donetsk, but also other towns such as Makeevka killing people and destroying the civilian infrastructure every day. The Russians could use their TOS-1A “Solntsepyok”, airborne FAE, FAB-3000 bombs, heavy mortars and plenty of other weapons to simply turn all of Avdeevka into a lifeless desert. But here is the problem: Avdeevka is full of civilians, including relatives of LDNR combatants. Furthermore, if Russia used such weapons, it would only feed the Anglo-Zionist propaganda to create a “victastar” city à la Sarajevo or even accuse the Russians of a Srebrenica-like “genocide”. The precedent of Bucha is something which limits the Russians in two major ways: first, it makes it almost impossible to retreat, now that we know that the Ukronazis will massacre all the “collaborators” in the area left by Russian forces and, second, it means that any major strike, no matter how militarily justified, will be turned into a “massacre” just like in Bosnia, Kosovo or Syria.
What apparently did take the Russians by surprise is the willingness of the Ukrainian forces in some towns to attack the Russian columns even though the local authorities seemed to have indicated to the Russians that, like in, say, Kherson, their city would not resist. Simply put, they chose the Mariupol model rather than the Kherson model. This choice was mainly dictated by the very powerful Nazi death squads who would at best arrest anybody negotiating with Russia and, at worst, simply shoot them on the spot. The Russians found plenty of bodies of executed Ukrainian soldiers.
But this does not tell the full story either.
The truth is that by the laws of warfare the Ukraine lost the war in less than a week.
What is my evidence for such an apparently outlandish and over-the-top statement? Simple: since the beginning of the SMO, the Ukrainians failed to execute a single operational level attack or counter-attack. At most they were able to execute small, tactical level attacks, the vast majority of which almost instantly failed, a few were defeated in a few days, and, crucially, not a single one gave the Ukrainian side the operational initiative. Not once.
So what happened?
If Kiev had any agency and if the Ukrainian leadership cared about their country and people, they would have immediately sued for peace. But Kiev never had any agency and the buffoons in power do not give a damn about the Ukrainian people.
Instead, it was the US that told the Ukrainians to never surrender or pull back, even if that meant huge losses in both manpower and firepower. The West, which despises and hates the Ukrainians almost as much as it hates the Russians were delighted to see the hated Ukrainians and the hated Russians killing each other (well, mostly Russians doing the killing). Furthermore, being military incompetent, the leaders of the West apparently believed that supplying weapons, money, instructors, and special forces to the Ukrainians could, if not turn the tide, slow down Russia enough to create fear, uncertainty, and doubts in the Russian public opinion. That plan also spectacularly failed, Putin is as popular as ever, the 5th column and the 6th columns in Russia are in despair (many emigrate) and the SMO has the full support of the Russian nation.
As for the much talked about “Russian plans”, which nobody has seen, they are not like the plan for a building. They are not fixed, but highly flexible and reactive and, in fact, they are constantly adjusted and refined in response to the developments on the ground. So while the Russians did have hopes that much/most of the eastern Ukraine would follow the “Kherson model” they were quick to adapt to the reality that the US and its Nazi agents in the Ukrainian military would force the eastern Ukraine to follow the “Mariupol model”. So yes, operational plans are like water in a stream, depending on the obstacles encountered, they can go left or they can go right to bypass that obstacle, but in either case, they are going down towards the ocean. The fact that armchair strategists declared that Russia “changed plans” simply proves that they don’t understand how operational planning works.
[Sidebar: most people in the West think of military operations as something similar to US football: there are “lines/fronts” which are defended and most forces are facing each other along these lines. This is not so. Modern warfare is much more similar to European soccer, where each player is “attached” to an opposing player and these players constantly maneuver and regularly engage each other. For example, modern warfare does not really have a “front” and a “rear” as we can see from the Russian strikes deep inside the western Ukraine. Finally, modern warfare deeply relies on coordinated actions. That is to say that even if side A has, say, five subunits (say companies) you cannot add them up and count them as a regiment or brigade because they lack the ability for coordinated operations (nevermind joint or combined ones). Think of your hand, it has five fingers, but these five fingers only become a powerful fist if the five fingers act in unison and become one fist. So when somebody write about, say, 60’000 Ukrainian soldiers in the eastern Ukraine, this describes a X number of platoons, companies, regiments or even “brigades” (I put quotation marks because these are not real brigades with a full table of organization and equipment), these subunits are not capable of coordinating their actions like the Russian military does. There is a lot of talk about “network centric warfare” which is nothing but combined arms operations on steroids, where the level of integration includes a full fusion of all C4ISR data into one common real time picture of the battlefield and a full coordination of all military forces/means. By the way, only Russia has fully developed such a capability (though the US has also made some serious progress in this field)].
Now let’s address two smaller but nonetheless crucial lies told by some about Russia:
“There are no Atlantic Integrationists or Eurasian Sovereignists in Russia”
If anything, this war has resulted in a major shakeup of the Russian society where some folks suddenly showed their true feelings. Examples range from Russian journalists standing with an anti-war sign behind a newscaster to those Russians abroad who either agreed to condemn Putin and the SMO or accepted to participate in various events under a neutral or foreign flag, to Dmitri Medvedev now changing his tune 180 degrees and rebranding himself as an ultra-patriot. I listed those examples because they are known in the West, but inside Russia, there are many more such examples, including amongst business executives and elected officials. Finally, even Putin himself mentioned the existence of such internal enemies of Russia. The fact that Russia has now expanded the definition of “treason” means that pro-US agents in Russia now face a major risk for their activities. Some 5th columnists have already been sentenced to jail. As for the 6th columnists, they still hate Putin with a passion and are still chanting their “all is lost” mantra, but (almost) nobody takes them seriously anymore.
The irony is that the US wanted to create a crisis to overthrow Putin but, instead, this crisis gave him yet another boost in popularity, in spite of some very real problems (automotive sector, civilian airliners, etc.).
Next,
“Putin is an Israeli stooge, he works hand in glove with the Israelis”
In reality, it is pretty obvious that the most vociferous Russophobes in the West are overwhelmingly Jews, both inside and outside Israel. Usually, the invoked excuse is that there were anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia. Yet, in reality, all those pogroms happened in what is today the Ukraine, and yet it is pretty clear that Zionist and Jewish organizations are overwhelmingly siding with Kiev (in spite of the regime in power being undeniably Nazi), and only very few individuals side with Russia (but they exist and should never be overlooked). As for the Kremlin, it is getting fed up with the Israeli arrogance in Syria (even if the Israeli airstrikes are ineffective and make no difference for the reality on the ground) and the Russians are now demanding that the Israelis cease their attacks on Syria. The Israelis cannot stop, for internal political and even psychotherapeutic reasons, but one of two things are likely to happen: the Israeli attacks will become even more useless and symbolic, or Russia will shoot down an Israeli aircraft.
But enough about Israel here, this is only a small part of the Anglo-Zionist Empire run by the USA. Now let’s turn to the West’s actions over the past 5 months.
So what about the US/NATO/EU in all this?
First, I want to make it clear that I strongly believe that the Anglo-Zionist Empire died on January 8th, 2020 when it allowed Iran to bomb CENTCOM bases without even a single bullet being fired back. That day the Empire showed the world that it did not even have what it takes to attack Iran. As for the USA, they died on January 6th, 2021.
However, remember my example above contrasting 5 fingers with a fist? While the Empire as we knew it and the USA as we knew it did die, that does not mean that its composing parts all vanished in thin air. Countries and Empires have momentum, just like the Titanic, when they have been mortally wounded. Simply put, the final process of sinking takes time. The Russian Empire died in February of 1917, yet the civil war lasted until 1923 (and I would even argue until WWII).
Second, there are two totally different planes in which the West (well, really the USA) decided to fight Russia:
First, it declared total proxy war on Russia, but only total short of a direct war military confrontation with Russia
Second, a total #cancelRussia in the PR/propaganda virtual reality. These infantile actions (latest example here) show how frustrated and powerless the West really is.
For years now I have stated many, many times that Russia and the Empire were locked into an existential war from which only one side would walk away. I usually added that this total war was about 80% informational, 15% economic and only 5% kinetic. I hesitate to provide numbers here, but I would say that after a very strong success in the first 2-3 months of the SMO, the informational war initially won by the West is now fizzling out. The economic war massively grew, as did the kinetic one (albeit still by proxy). I am very reluctant to provide numbers here, but very tentatively I would score the current war as maybe 10% informational, 50% economic and maybe 40% kinetic. Again, please don’t focus on these very tentative figures, the key thing is this: as per President “Biden”, the goal of the USA is to inflict a strategic failure on Russia. The same stuff was also spoken by the EU, UK politicians and pretty much everybody in the West.
As for the demented Poles, one of their former Presidents and Nobel Prize winner declared that he wants to reduce the population of Russia down to 50 million. Then there are the Brits, who still want to be “Great” or, at least, relevant, and who speak about “leading the free world” against Russia with such stellar allies as Poland, the 3B statelets and Banderastan.
And yet, let’s look at the outcomes on three levels:
Military: the best proxy the USA had in history (the Ukrainian armed forces) is being slowly and inexorably destroyed by about only 8-10 percent of the Russian armed forces.
Economic: while some sectors in Russia did suffer from the so-called “sanctions” (they are not sanctions, but acts of war and crude robbery, only the UNSC can impose legal sanctions), all in all, Russia did great, and seems to be set on a path for economic success due to the fact that a) most countries have refused to obey Washington’s demands and b) the Russian economy is powerful and real, not virtual like the western economies. It will take a couple of years for Russia to adapt, but now that this process has begun, it is unstoppable.
Propaganda: here the image is pretty clear: on one hand we have the USA and its colonies, then a few countries with comprador elites that are hated by most people, and countries that openly defy Washington. This is best expressed by this map from the Chinese foreign ministry:
One key characteristic of the countries shown in red on the bottom (realistic) map is that all these countries have two crucial factors in common: a) they (mostly) lack real resources (since their civilizations were always built on imperialism, colonialism and plain robbery) b) they hate Russia so much that they are willing to take measures which hurt themselves much more than they hurt Russia. This type of hate-saturated insanity reminds me of an old Soviet joke: “in a small village, a local discovers a bottle and when he opens it, a genie comes out and says: since you have liberated me, I will grant you one wish, the only condition is that your next door neighbor will get double of what you will. Then the man thought for a while and replied: please poke one of my eyes out!”. This is the current mental state of western “leaders”…
That is the core “philosophy” of the USA: fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, prolong the war as long as possible, get as much of the civilian infrastructure of the Ukraine destroyed, subvert the status of the dollar, crash the world economy, let the EU crash and burn economically, socially, and politically, shove the Woke agenda down everyone’s throats, even if that makes them gag and throw up and, last but not least, totally and comprehensively stick your head in the sand and deny reality in all its aspects.
Yes, the West is so soaked in rabid hatred and fear of Russia that it prefers to commit collective suicide rather than accept any type of coexistence with a sovereign Russia.
Hitler’s comparatively vague/ambiguous/oblique slogan of “Drang nach Osten” has now been replaced by a much more candid and unambiguous #cancelRussia slogan. Same idea, just much more “in your face”.
Truth be told, most of the so-called “West” is really run by these three groups, in order of influence:
The US Neocons
The Anglo imperialists
The EU comprador ruling elites
This reminds me very much of an album by Roger Waters called “Animals” in which he separates our modern societies into three archetypes: dogs, pigs and sheep. Needless to say, the dogs and pigs will run the sheep, but as soon as a (Russian) bear shows up, they are powerless against him.
This small image tells the true story about the Ruble “turning into rubble” as “Biden” promised.
This is what we see now and which will probably continue well into 2023. The fact that the economic warfare waged against Russia or the promise of Wunderwaffen has totally failed will never be admitted by these deeply psychopathic and terminally delusional people. And if they cannot double down ad infinitum in their actions, they sure will continue to double down in their rhetoric, just as the orchestra continued to play while the “unsinkable” Titanic was sinking.
Still, at least some of the regular folks in the West are smelling the roses, hence the dismal rating of ALL the western political leaders. The hostility of many US Americans even results in polls that suggest that many of them would want to secede from the other states, in this case Trump voters. Considering that Trump voters are, as a rule, far more patriotic than Woke-soaked US “liberals”, this is very telling. But also ironic: the USA wants to break up Russia and ends up breaking up itself. Karma?
Not only. Let’s look at the map which shows which countries did and did not impose “sanctions” on Russia:
Notice that pretty much the entire green zone is composed of countries that the West has invaded, robbed, devastated, enslaved, subverted, forcibly converted, bombed, economically “sanctioned” with blockades and blackmail (by means so-called “secondary sanctions” which is a euphemism for blackmail and extortion) and, more recently, upon which the full satanic insanity of Wokeness has been imposed (hence the US embassies flying “homopride” flags). The population of these green countries, which I call “Zone B”, knows the true score and they mostly hate and despise the West. And that places all their comprador ruling elites in a very tricky situation: their US masters want them to declare total war on Russia while their population is mostly sympathetic to Russia. In the past, this would have been a no-brainer, Uncle Shmuel with his CIA-run death squads, aircraft carriers and seemingly infinite money printing capability was much more vital to these comprador elites than their own population. But now that death squads have been largely replaced with woked-out fairies which are only good at shooting unarmed civilians, now that US aircraft carriers don’t really frighten even countries like Iran, the DPRK or Venezuela and now that the entire Western-built international economic and financial system is collapsing, these comprador elites have to become much, much more careful lest they end up like the US stooges in Bolivia: out of power and in jail. Even Colombia seems to be slowly slipping away, as does Brazil. And I won’t even mention the absolute lack of utility of the likes of Guaido, Tikhanovskaia or the “friends of Syria” gang (Maduro, Lukashenko and Assad or all doing great, thank you!).
The writing is on the wall, and only those who deliberately shut their eyes fail to see it.
This leaves us with the issue of the US Neocons.
What about the western ruling classes, what impact, if any, did the SMO have on them?
First, let’s define our categories. In the EU we don’t really have any real “ruling class”, we only have frontmen (sorry! I meant “frontpersons” of course), puppets, pretend-rulers with no agency whatsoever (Olaf Scholz and Josep Borrell are perfect examples) . There is no European “defense policy” or any other meaningful evidence of agency on any level. The EU is dead, clueless and totally in the control of the US Neocons.
Second, in the USA, Neocons rule supreme, having total control of both major parties in the US. And while the GOP base is very different from the Dem’s base, their leaders are mostly interchangeable. So I will consider them as one.
Their mindset and worldview are pretty clear: they are messianic supremacists and sincerely consider themselves racially superior to the rest of mankind. The fusion of Anglo imperialism and Jewish supremacism has yielded the monster we now know as “Neocons”. These folks excel in the art of accumulating power, by hook or by crook. They like to claim that they have superior intelligence, but in reality, what separates these people is not brainpower, but two key aspects of their worldview: a) tribalism and b) drive. Simply put, most other people do not have this tribal “us against them” mindset, and only a subsection of regular people are truly driven to power and influence. Hence, while being a numerically small minority, the US Neocons are in full control of the USA.
Their psychological profile is narcissistic at best, and fully psychopathic in most cases. That also gives them an advantage, especially when dealing with weak, ignorant and easily influenceable people. But when they meet a determined pushback, be it by Russia, Iran, the DPRK or even Hezbollah, they quickly become clueless and helpless. Check the expression of Blinken on the photo above – that is the face of a coward and a loser. He might have become a decent tailor, instead, he was asked to run the foreign policy of the (now former) superpower. No wonder all he ever produced was disasters and abject failures!
Initially, feeling buoyant from their total control over Eltsin and the Russian liberals, the US Neocons celebrated victory. Then something went very wrong and suddenly they were faced with a radically different kind of leader, one with the massive support of the Russian people. Remember here that Putin was an intelligence officer specializing in the West, thus a man who had a very good understanding of his enemies. Furthermore, Putin was patient enough to realize that in the early years of the confrontation with the West, Russia was in no condition to openly defy the West, let alone fight it militarily. This is why he stopped the LDNR forces from moving any further westwards in 2014-2015 even though the Ukrainian military was in disarray. While he knew that during the time the Ukrainians were in a panic and disorganized, he also knew that Russia could not take on the consolidated West. So between 2014 and 2018 Russia made a gigantic effort to develop the kind of capabilities needed to be able to take on all of NATO and win. By the time of the Russian ultimatum to the West last Fall, Russia was finally ready.
Notice that the Russian ultimatum was not an ultimatum to Kiev as much as it was a direct challenge to the US and NATO. The Neocons, drunk on their bravado and sense of racial superiority, basically told Russia to screw herself and doubled down in their rhetoric. And when Russia moved in, they truly freaked out, hence their suicidal policies towards Russia ever since. These folks mistakenly assumed that while Russia might (maybe!) prevail over the Ukrainian forces, they were confident that Putin would not dare openly defy the consolidated West. And when Putin did just that, they went into full panic mode, hence the nonsense we hear from the western capitals on a daily basis.
But it got even worse. Far from being deterred by western promises of fire and brimstone, the Russian then proceeded to methodically destroy the Ukrainian armed forces. In spite of the Ukrainian military being the best proxy force in US history, in spite of BILLIONS given to the Nazi regime each month, in spite of all sorts of super-dooper Wunderwaffen deliveries, in spite of economic warfare, Russia is now pounding the Ukie+western forces in the Ukraine day after day after day and while the US is ordering the Ukrainians to fight to the end and never withdraw, the many waves of Volkssturm reinforcements have had no impact on Russian warfighting capabilities. The US also ordered its vassal states in eastern Europe to send their large supplies of Soviet era weapons to the Ukraine (over 300 tanks just from Poland!), and Ukrainian-branded Mi-24s, Su-25s and MiG-29s still are seen in the Ukrainian skies almost daily in spite of the fact that almost the entire Ukrainian air force was destroyed in the first 3 days of the war. Helicopters are easy to hide, “Ukrainian” aircraft take off from bases in Poland and Romania, and yet they don’t seem to make a difference: for most of them, it is a one-way mission and they know it. But it is good PR, even if it costs lives (at least that is what Uncle Shmuel thinks). But now that the already low credibility of the legacy corporate media is in freefall, even such PR “victories” yield very little traction:
It is outright comical to hear western countries (Germany, Italy and even the USA) whining about their weapons stores getting depleted while all these truly huge deliveries have not made any difference at all on the ground since the beginning of combat operations.
[Sidebar: does Russia have air superiority over the Ukraine? Yes, absolutely. A few helicopters or fixed wing aircraft on one way missions make no difference here. In fact, a much bigger threat to the Russian Aerospace Forces are the Ukrainian air defenses which, while old, have often been modernized and have the full support of US C4ISR (Command, Control, Communication, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) including surveillance drone, AWACS, satellites, SIGNIT, etc. etc. etc. and yet the Russians have adapted: the close air support aircraft fly low, while their SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) fly high with long range anti-radiation missiles on the ready. A quick reminder, while the USAF/USN has often achieved air supremacy over countries without a modern air force or any modern air defenses, it failed to knock out the Serbian air defenses during the Anglo-Zionist wars against the Serbian nation. In fact, the USAF/USN *never* operated in an environment as dangerous as the one currently created over the Ukraine, but the comparatively much smaller Russian Aerospace Force did achieve and maintain air superiority over this huge country. As for air supremacy (as oppose to superiority), it is only achievable against a very poorly armed adversary: air superiority is the best one can hope to achieve, even theoretically, over any country with serious air defenses]
And yet, the (comparatively small, but more modern) Russian aerospace forces have achieved and maintained air superiority throughout the past 5 months of combat operations. This is an extremely alarming sign for the US and NATO forces. Just imagine what the full might of the Russian armed forces would do to NATO if it was unleashed!
But it gets even worse (for the Empire, that is): there are all the signs and even clear messages that Putin is not “bluffing” at all and that Russia has full escalation dominance over the West. but it is now becoming quite evident that the Kremlin will not stop under any circumstances short of a total victory, and if that means nuclear war, so be it. And the Russian people are overwhelmingly supportive of this stance.
Why?
Because the Russian people have now FINALLY seen the true face of the West, they now understand that this is nothing else but a continuation of WWII and that the very existence and sovereignty of the Russian people are at stake. Again, Putin said it clearly: “if someone makes a decision to destroy Russia, we have every right to fight back. Yes, it would be a global disaster for humanity and for the world, but being a Russian citizen and head of Russia, I want to ask a question, “What’s the point of the world without Russia?“. If these were just empty words, like what Biden reads (with difficulty) from his teleprompter, that would be one thing, but these words need to be remembered in the context of the deployment of Avangards, Poseidons, S-500 and all the other weapons and tactics developed by Russia while the Neocons, drunk with arrogance, slept at the wheel.
So no, while Putin rarely makes threats, he never bluffs.
Bottom line is this: anybody who sincerely believes that Russia will not wipe out the entire West if she is seriously threatened is terminally delusional, knows nothing about history, and does not understand the Russian mindset. They would do so at their own peril.
If there is one message I want to convey to anybody willing to listen it is this: Putin is not bluffing, the West cannot win, and the only variable here is what price the West is willing to pay for its defeat.
By the way, the Chinese are also getting mighty fed up with the crazies in DC, just check out their latest statements.
Will somebody actually take action against the Neocons? I doubt it. If anything, the entire Trump debacle has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that US anti-Neocons are either fakes, or that they have the willpower of a case of jello (that also goes for Tulsi Gabbard, by the way). Will the Neocons realize that if they persist in doubling down, they will personally and physically die? Maybe. At the end of the day, the US can afford to have a comprehensively destroyed Ukraine and a not less comprehensively destroyed EU. Now that the UK has left the EU, the Anglos couldn’t care less, and triggering wars in Europe is a time-honored British tradition anyway.
The real blowback from the Neocons’ arrogance and ignorance is that far from dealing with Russia first and with China as an end goal, they have greatly contributed to a major strengthening of the Russian, Chinese and Indian alliance.
The Neocons could decide to let Europe burn, while they remain in control of the USA which, unlike the EU, has plenty of natural resources and will remain, if not a world hegemon, then at least a powerful nation. In that case, their plan is simple: to continue to push for a maximum confrontation and war in Europe, but short of involving the USA in a nuclear exchange with Russia. The Brits on their island might have similar plans, just on a smaller scale and with the vital need to fully rely on the support of the USA. In the “best” of cases (for them), the UK would be in charge of managing the chaos in Europe on behalf of the USA.
I don’t think that the Neocons give a damn about Israel and the Israeli people either, by the way. Nor do the Anglo ruling “elites” give a damn about the people of the USA or the UK. If there is one lesson we must take from the horror of 9/11 is that these people won’t hesitate to murder thousands of “their own” because, in reality, for all the patriotic or Zionist flag-waving, they only care about themselves and their power.
NATO is a joke, and sooner or later, Russia will denazify all of the EU, either politically and economically, or, if no other option is left, militarily. First, the Ukraine, then the 3B+P crazies will have to be denazified. Next will be the turn of the EU/NATO beginning with Germany. By then, the US will have suffered a massive economic, social and cultural disaster which will probably reformat the current US polity. Where will the Neocons go next? I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t care. The Neocons are only dangerous just like a parasite that invades the brain of a much larger host. Once the host is down, the parasite might as well leave ditch it and find a new host. By itself, this parasite is weak and universally disliked.
Well, at least so far, the leaders of the USA are still in full “double down forever” mode, along with their volunteer slaves in eastern Europe. Their plan for Russia is best visualized with this map: (source)
During WWII the Russian people quickly understood that Hitler was no “liberator”, no more than Napoleon before him, and that he only used that kind of language to try to achieve victory. Then, during the Cold War, it was easy to believe that the enemy of the West was Communism and its idea of universal liberation from the capitalist yoke. Surely, if Russia got rid of the CPSU the West would embrace such a free Russia?
Nope, the exact opposite happened: in spite the “all you can eat” “freedoms” of bluejeans, fast foods, crime and pornography, Russia was plundered and came very very close to totally breaking up (only the 2nd Chechen war with Putin as the Commander in Chief prevented that from happening). Instead of the promised “democratic heaven” Russia got deeply immersed in the worst kind of capitalist hell imaginable.
Furthermore, the combination of a rather inept Soviet propaganda machine and a much more effective western propaganda gave many Russians the illusion that the West was a group of free and prosperous nations only wanting the best for Russia. The Western-run nightmare of the 90s opened the eyes of some, but not all. As did the apocalypse in the so-called “independent Ukraine”. But the kind of open, direct and absolute hatred for Russia, Putin and everything Russian we all see know has convinced the vast majority of Russians that what the West erally wants is a “final solution” to the “Russian problem” not unlike what the Papist regime of Pavelic during WWII wanted for the Serbs: kill ⅓, expel another ⅓ and “convert” the remaining ⅓.
Some things never change, especially not in the West. The Muslim are all spot on when they speak of the “modern Crusaders”!
So far, Russia has only been observing with some amazement, and even amusement, how the EU was committing economic, political and social suicide without even trying to improve its fate. For the people of Europe, there is only one thing more important than their imperialistic and racist mindset: their wallets. And that wallet has been hurting pretty badly since the self-defeating “sanctions” against Russia were implemented. In Russia that attitude is referred to as a “kid freezing his own ears to piss off his granny”: infantile, self-defeating and simply stupid. That being said: how many regimes (by that I mean political systems, as opposed to governments which are specific people; for example, if Truss replaces Johnson in the UK, this will be a government change, but not a regime change) are threatened by popular discontent in the EU?
The sad reality is that none. Oh sure, they are immensely unpopular, just like “Biden” is in the USA, but changing the puppet figureheads will do nothing to change the regimes in power (basically US-controlled colonial occupation regimes).
It is therefore likely that Russia will have to turn up the pain dial quite a few notches up before the sheep in the EU or the US come to their senses. Primarily, I think of economic measures, but if the crazies from the 3B+PU do something really stupid Russia will not hesitate to use military power if/when needed. The bottom line is this: Russia needs to denazify all of the European continent, and the more countries are told to join NATO, the more candidates for denazification Russia will have.
It is impossible to predict the future, there are simply too many variables at this point, but I would offer the following tentative suggested steps towards escalation:
Russia could gradually either refuse to sell her resources to Europe, not only gas and oil, of course, but everything else which Russia has been selling to the EU in the past for very good prices and which was a key to the wealth of the EU nations. So that would be a full-scale economic counter-attack from Russia against the EU. As an initial step, Russia could also demand to only be paid in Rubles for any and all exports to the EU.
Russia is already killing scores of Polish, British and other mercenaries (excuse me, “advisors” and “volunteers”) in the Ukraine, but most of these are low-level grunts. Russia could decide to target higher ranks involved in the war against Russia, including targets in Kiev and elsewhere. So far Russia has unleashed only a tiny fraction of her real firepower, but if the US/NATO weapon deliveries and deployment of mercenaries increase, Russia will have little choice but to further turn up the pain dial. And if the Poles, or the Baltic statelets go “full crazy” strikes against targets in these countries will become inevitable (Putin has already warned against that when he mentioned striking the “decision making centers”).
Finally, if Russia decides that enough is enough, the first targets of a Russian military response to the US/NATO proxy war would be to attack the US/NATO C4ISR capabilities, including AWACS/JSTARS aircraft, SIGINT centers and satellites.
Right now, these US/NATO aircraft are only flying along the Ukrainian airspace and remain based outside the Ukraine. But if, say, the US/NATO does actively participate in a strike against Crimea or the Crimean Bridge, then all bets will be off and S-400s and various standoff weapons will do the talking.
Imagine for a second that Russia shoots down a US AWACS/JSTARS, what will be the West’s reaction? And I don’t mean expressions of outrage and hatred, they are already at max and really have no effect on Russians. Would the US/NATO try to shoot down a Russian aircraft? And what would the Russian response to that be?
The truth is that the US/NATO simply don’t have the means to wage a land war against Russia. They literally lack everything needed to do that. Oh sure, they have many (mostly old and subsonic) cruise missiles which they could fire at Russia, but here again, this would pose a dilemma for the West: if the strikes are unsuccessful (as they were in Syria), what to do next? And if these strikes are successful, what would the Russians do next? Use their own conventional strategic deterrence capabilities to strike at targets all over Europe and possibly even the USA? And then what?
[Sidebar: airpower and cruise missiles are vastly overrated in the US propaganda. One of my teachers in college was a retired USAF Colonel who worked for the YF-23 program and who taught us a very good course in force planning. One day he said in class “what good does it do to you if you bomb all your targets, shoot down enemy aircraft if by the time you get back your officer’s club is filled with enemy soldiers?!” He was joking, of course, but what he knew is that only “boots on the ground” can win a war. And “boots on the ground” is exactly what neither the US, nor NATO (nor Israel or the KSA by the way) can deploy, especially against a military which has the biggest experience of land warfare on the planet, and by a huge margin!]
The truth is that the choice for the Neocons is binary: either accept defeat in Europe and keep the USA as their prize and host, or die in a major nuclear confrontation that will wipe out millions (which they don’t care about at all), including the Neocons themselves (which they care a lot about).
Try to reason with or convince messianic, narcissistic and delusional racist maniacs is a dangerous and mostly futile task. This is why Russia is turning the pain dial up very very slowly. Right now, most of the efforts of the Kremlin are not even directed at the West, but at forging the core of the future multilateral world, the BRICS countries and BRICS candidates (possibly including Iran, Argentina, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Mexico, Lebanon and Indonesia in the near future). Russia is also expanding her ties to Africa and Latin America. Last, but not least, Russia, China and India are constantly expanding their ties and even collaboration, especially with China.
In this respect, I would strongly recommend to the Neocons and their puppet regimes to carefully consider the implications of Putin’s words that “We haven’t really started yet anything in earnest yet” (мы ещё всерьёз и не начинали). That is not a threat, but a statement of fact. Whether the West will continue to pretend that Russia is about to collapse, or that Putin is bluffing, will determine what will happen next.
Right now, and exactly as I predicted would happen, Russia has basically totally given up on any form of dialog with the West, since the West has basically severed all its diplomatic ties with Russia. Put differently, Russia is now acting unilaterally without giving the moaning and threats from the West any consideration whatsoever. In fact, the stark reality is that Russia has no need, or use, for the West, especially a West trying to commit collective suicide by a million cuts. Right now, the West is mostly dialing up the pain dial on itself, with little or no Russian assistance. But that does not mean that Russia won’t proactively turn up that dial if/when needed. And if the sheep in the West prefer athletic events or chess tournaments without Russian participation, by all means, let them do it and, in the process, make these events meaningless. The same goes for all the #cancelRussia insanity out there, including the destruction of statues and monuments or sanctioning of Russian musicians. The putatively proud and freedom-loving East Europeans seem to especially relish their “glorious victories” against old Soviet statues and monuments. I say – let them, it just shown their impotence and utter irrelevance. If they have no respect for themselves, why should anybody else?
As the saying goes, “go woke, go broke”. A fitting epitaph on the West’s gravestone.
As for Russia, her real future lies in the South, East and North. She has no need or use for the West. Almost one thousand years of western imperialism are coming to a shameful and self-inflicted death, one way or another. As I have written many times, that system was neither viable nor reformable. It will either die of its own internal contradictions, or Russia and China will have to cull it. They most definitely has the means to, but won’t act directly unless provoked.
But that, should it happen, is still further down the road. For the time being, we are entering a long phase (many months probably) of gradual pain dial increase. Russia will continue to grind down the NATO forces in the Ukraine and let the economic realities sink into the awareness of the European sheep.
As many observe in Russia: “now russophobia will come at a steep price”.
I couldn’t agree more.
Andrei
PS: the above was kind of a “bird’s eye view” trying to cover the key developments during the five past months. From now on, I will write shorter, but more frequent, analyses of specific issues. In this context, if you have questions or want me to address a specific topic in my future analyses, please let me know in the comments section below. Thank you!
The Ukraine conflict is in fact already a world war, given that the West is fighting Russia via its proxies in Kiev, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told local media on Wednesday.
Serbian President Vucic: “I know what awaits us. As soon as Vladimir Putin has done his work in Seversk, Bakhmut and Soledar, after reaching the second line Slaviansk-Kramatorsk-Avdeevka, he will come up with a proposal. And if they [the West] don’t accept it, – and they won’t – all hell will break loose.”
On the Hot Front
The situation in the Soledar direction as of 12.00 on July 14, 2022 🔻On the Seversk front: Units of the Allied forces are fighting on the outskirts of Verkhnekamenskoye with the aim of reaching the eastern outskirts of Seversk. Clashes continue in the vicinity of Ivano-Dariivka, taking the settlement and the station is important for reaching Seversk from the south, as well as cutting the road to Soledar. 🔻On the Soledar front: Soldiers of the 6th Cossack regiment of the LPR took the settlements of Novaya Kamenka and Stryapovka, reaching the eastern outskirts of Soledar. Units of the Allied Forces are fighting in Yakovlevka. The units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are entrenched in the eastern part of Berestovoye on the Soledar — Lisichansk highway. 🔻On the Bakhmut front: Russian forces are fighting near the village of Pokrovskoye. Together with the nearby Bakhmutsky, they are the last settlements controlled by the AFU on the approaches to Bakhmut from the east.
We have a naming problem from time to time. With translations, the names of the villages and areas frequently get mistranslated. (Eg. Kharkov in Russian, is Kharkiv in Ukrainian, and Ilium in Russian translates to ‘Raisins’ in English machine translations).
So, for those struggling to follow, let’s repeat two simple maps for orientation:
Overview
Oblasts
Yes, the front line is on fire. As we’ve seen before, there is a lot of quiet time, positional battles, rest and relaxation for soldiers and then hell breaks loose.
▫️The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation in Ukraine. The enemy suffers significant losses.
💥High-precision strikes near Bereznegovatoye, Nikolaev Region, Konstantinovka and Kramatorsk, Donetsk People’s Republic, hit temporary deployment points of units of 35th Marine Brigade, 54th Mechanized Brigade, 81st Airmobile Brigade and 109th Territorial Defence Brigade. As a result of strikes, the total losses of these formations amounted up to 1,000 personnel and more than 100 pieces of military equipment.
💥High-precision weapons of the Russian Aerospace Forces hit temporary deployment point of 14th Mechanized Brigade battalion manned by nationalists and foreign mercenaries near Chasov Yar, Donetsk People’s Republic. The attacks have resulted in the destruction of 43 militants and about 170 injured.
🚁💥Russian army aviation hit temporary deployment point of 97th Battalion of 60th Mechanized Brigade of AFU near Malaya Tokmachka, Zaporozhye Region, with high-precision missiles. The attacks have resulted in the destruction of 30 militants and about 37 injured.
▫️Conflicts and clashes with the use of weapons have increased among nationalist fighters. On July 13, more than 200 fighters of the 226th Kraken nationalist formation refused to follow the command’s order to move to the Kramatorsk area and claimed a “transfer” to the Kharkov city’ territorial defence. During the ensuing fight with the commanders and the ensuing gunfight, 6 militants were killed.
▫️Russian Armed Forces continue strikes against military facilities in Ukraine.
💥High-precision sea-based Kalibr missiles destroyed multiple rocket launcher vehicles of 45th Artillery Brigade of AFU hidden in hangars at the high voltage equipment plant in Zaporozhye city.
💥In addition, high-precision weapons of the Russian Aerospace Forces destroyed 4 command posts, including those of 61st Infantry Jaeger Brigade of AFU near Bereznegovatoye in Nikolaev Region and 80th Airborne Assault Brigade near Kramatorsk, 3 ammunition depots near Soledar, Tat’yanovka in Donetsk People’s Republic and Nikolaev, 1 fuel storage facility for military equipment near Kharkov, and 21 areas of manpower and military equipment concentration.
💥As part of the counter-battery fighting, 1 battery of multiple rocket launchers near Slavyansk, 1 platoon of MLRS near Nikolaevka in Donetsk People’s Republic, and 1 artillery platoon of US-made M-777 howitzers at firing positions in Pervomaiskyi in Kharkov Region were destroyed.
💥Operational-tactical and army aviation, missile troops and artillery hit 19 command posts, 78 areas of artillery units in firing positions and 232 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration.
✈️💥Russian Aerospace Forces fighters have shot down 2 aircraft of Ukrainian air force in the air: 1 Su-24 near Slavyansk and 1 MiG-29 near Troitskoye, Donetsk People’s Republic.
💥Russian air defence means destroyed 12 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles near Balakleya, Izyum, Lozovaya, Shchurovka in Kharkov Region, Snegirevka, Novaya Kakhovka in Kherson Region, Belogorovka, Karmazinovka, Slavyanoserbsk, Mikhailovka in Lugansk People’s Republic and Derilovo in Donetsk People’s Republic.
💥In addition, 2 Tochka-U ballistic missiles and 6 rockets of Uragan multiple-launch rocket system were intercepted near Novaya Kakhovka in Nikolaev Region.
📊In total, 249 Ukrainian airplanes and 137 helicopters, 1,534 unmanned aerial vehicles, 354 anti-aircraft missile systems, 4,050 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 744 multiple launch rocket systems, 3,145 field artillery and mortars, as well as 4,292 units of special military vehicles were destroyed during the operation.
Military summary at the end of day yesterday starts with, The Worst Nightmare for the Ukrainians has Started.
We remain with questions:
What is Mr Putin going to do in Iran next week in his talks with Raisi and Erdogan?
and, can we take Vucic seriously?
Serbian President Vucic: “I know what awaits us. As soon as Vladimir Putin has done his work in Seversk, Bakhmut and Soledar, after reaching the second line Slaviansk-Kramatorsk-Avdeevka, he will come up with a proposal. And if they [the West] don’t accept it, – and they won’t – all hell will break loose.”
Are we reaching an end phase of this part of the SMO?
Ukrainian propaganda is in full voice and that includes western propaganda. Keep ‘yer eyes peeled. Take in Larry Johnson’s latest: “The speed of Russia’s advance appears to be accelerating. There are reports today that Russian forces are entering the outskirts of Seversk, one of the key strong points of the new Ukrainian defensive line. If true, the Russians are likely to achieve a strategic breakthrough in the Donetsk. What the gullible reporters and the morons who staff the CIA and DIA fail to comprehend is that Russia’s tactic of systematically destroying the air, armor and artillery assets over the past three months appears to have achieved Clausewitz’s culminating point–i.e., the point at which a military force is no longer able to perform its operations.” https://sonar21.com/western-media-and-military-analysts-still-dazed-and-confused/
Israel and Turkey escalated their military operations in Syria recently, in what appears to be an attempt to further their interests and expand their influence in the war-torn country while Russia is thought to be busy with its military operation in Ukraine.
Israeli attacks on Syria are becoming more frequent. Late on June 6, warplanes of the Israeli Air Force launched several guided missiles from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights at the southern outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
A source in the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) said that many of the missiles were intercepted. However, some damage was reported near the town of the town of al-Kiswah, where several bases and research facilities of the SAA are located.
Early on June 8, the Israeli Defence Forces attacked again. Several Israeli battle tanks advanced in the UN-monitored buffer zone in the southern governorate of al-Quneitra and targeted an observation post of the SAA near the town of al-Malgah. The attack was a blatant violation of the 1974 separation of forces agreement.
Following the attack, the Israeli military dropped leaflets over al-Qunitra warning the officers and soldiers of the SAA against operating within the buffer zone.
Israel’s recent attacks were likely meant to further pressure Damascus over its alliance with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah as well as to weaken its authority over the al-Quneitra buffer zone.
Meanwhile, Turkey continues to prepare to launch a new military operation against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern and northeastern Syria.
As of June 8, the Turkish military and its proxies continue to shell SDF-held areas in the northern and northeastern Aleppo countryside, the northern Raqqa countryside and the northern countryside of al-Hasakah. The presence of Russian forces and SAA units in these areas didn’t deter Ankara.
The Turkish military and its proxies also continue to amass their forces near the SDF-held towns of Tell Rifaat and Manbij in the northern Aleppo countryside. The two towns are expected to be the main targets of Turkey’s upcoming operation.
Russia has been working to restrain the actions of both Israel and Turkey in Syria by developing its cooperation with the SAA and expanding its military presence in hot regions.
On June 7, the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) and the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) concluded a joint live-fire exercise, which simulated facing “hostile” fighter jets and drones that violated Syrian airspace. During the exercise, Syrian and Russian fighter jets monitored and shot down hostile aerial threats at day and night.
Su-35s, Su-34 and Su-24M fighter jets from the VKS as well as MiG-23ML and MiG-29SM fighter jets from the SyAAF took part in the exercise.
Syrian and Russian warplanes also conducted a joint patrol along the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as well as over the country’s eastern and northern regions, where Turkish forces are present.
The exercise, which demonstrated Russia’s commitment to the safety and security of Syria, was likely a message to Israel and Turkey. Both countries have been attempting to marginalize the Russian role in the country.
Russia have struck a major artery for the shipment of NATO weapons from Europe via the Beskidy railway tunnel. The Beskidy Tunnel is a railway tunnel under the Volovets Pass in the Carpathian Mountains. Confirmed by Ukraine itself.
High-precision long-range air-based missiles of the Russian Aerospace Forces have destroyed industrial buildings of the smithy-mechanical plant on the outskirts of Lozovaya (Kharkov Region), where the AFU armoured vehicles were being rebuilt and repaired.
The consequences of the arrival at the Darnitsa car repair plant, which was converted for the repair of equipment and the preparation of Polish tanks for shipment to the front https://t.me/intelslava/30873
Russian Mod states that an An-26 military transport aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force carrying weapons and military equipment was shot down in the Odessa region.
After the Russian forces took POPASNA, the pace increased. There are still battles, but the Russians are now rolling over everything else in the Donbas. The Ukrainians are being annihilated, more and more soldiers are refusing to fight, reports of mass surrenders pour in, and the Russian strategy of cauldrons and partial cauldrons is proving incredibly effective. It is a bloody war in that area exacerbated by the Ukrainian leaders because orders for a sensible retreat are not forthcoming.
Two videos today – both quite detailed:
This first video from Military Summary on Rumble, describes the logjam against sensible retreat.
This second video describes some of the very recent battles and how these brought the Ukraine to this point. Very detailed and he draws his maps on the fly as he talks.
A few hours ago reports started filtering in of huge forces of the Russian Aerospace Forces passing over Lugansk towards the front, and powerful explosions thundered everywhere. The correspondent of “Russian Spring” rusvesna.su from the capital of the LPR reports that he sees this for the first time, a lot of combat aircraft and helicopters swept over the city in several waves. Of course we do not know yet the what, why and where of this, excepting the Russian MoD report of this morning tells the story of the increased pace.
Take a look at the numbers:
💥High-precision air-based missiles have hit 48 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration, 2 artillery batteries, and 2 ammunition depots near Nikolaevka and Berestovoe in Donetsk People’s Republic during the day.
▫️1 Ukrainian electronic reconnaissance centre near Dneprovskoe, Nikolaev Region, has been destroyed, including 11 servicemen from the combat unit, as well as 15 foreign engineering specialists who arrived with security guards.
▫️In addition, 1 Osa-AKM anti-aircraft missile system launcher has been destroyed near Nikolaevka in Donetsk People’s Republic, and 1 radar of the Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft missile system near Chuhuev in Kharkov region.
✈️💥Operational-tactical and army aviation have hit 49 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration, 2 mortar crews, as well as 1 depot of missile and artillery weapons and ammunition.
▫️The attacks have resulted in the elimination of more than 350 nationalists and up to 96 armoured and motor vehicles.
💥Russian air defence means have shot down 1 Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopter over Husarovka, Kharkov Region. 1 Ukrainian Air Force military transport aircraft delivering ammunition and weapons has been also shot down in mid-air near Kremidovka, Odessa Region.
▫️In addition, 13 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles have been shot down near Zelenyi Gai in Kherson Region, Bolshie and Malye Prokhody, Gavrilovka, Veseloe in Kharkov Region, and Epifanovka and Kirovsk in Lugansk People’s Republic, including 2 Soviet-made Tu-143 Reis jets near Melovatka in Lugansk People’s Republic.
💥Missile troops and artillery have hit 62 command posts, 407 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration, 47 artillery and mortar units at firing positions, as well as 3 ammunition depots.
▫️Units and military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ 10th Mountain Assault Brigade, which arrived to reinforce the Ukrainian grouping in Donbass, have been destroyed during unloading near Pokrovsk railway station in Donetsk People’s Republic.
……………
Ukrainian General Staff says “The invaders are actively advancing in several directions at once.” — Specifically, the Russians are advancing simultaneously in Severodonetsk, Bakhmut, Avdeevsky, Novopavlovsk and Liman directions.
……………
We also had a short explanation of why the perceived slow down in the Russian operation. The slowdown of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine is intentional with a view to evacuating the population and avoiding casualties among civilians, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said. Russia’s Armed Forces are creating humanitarian corridors and announcing ceasefires to ensure the safe evacuation of residents from encircled settlements, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu explained, despite this approach stalling the progress of the country’s forces. “Of course, this slows down the pace of the offensive, but it is being done deliberately to avoid civilian casualties,” he explained at a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Council of Defense Ministers.
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev spoke on the Ukraine specifically and geopolitics:
▪️All the goals set by the President of the Russian Federation during the special military operation will be achieved, it cannot be otherwise. Russia is not chasing deadlines in the course of a special military operation in Ukraine.
The ideal scenario for US-led NATO is an endlessly smoldering conflict in Ukraine.
▪️Nazism must either be eradicated by 100%, or it will raise its head in a few years, and in an even uglier form.
▪️Ukraine, if it had remained an independent country, and not controlled from outside, “would have long ago expelled all Nazi evil spirits from its land.”
▪️Moscow will be obliged to respond to the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, which is a direct security threat to Russia. Finland and Sweden will be accepted into NATO, despite the objections of Turkey and Croatia, “because Washington decided so.”
▪️The West is today obscuring Russia’s contribution to the preservation of other states in different historical periods with all its might.
……………
The political and geopolitical situation is heating up and at the same time becoming more surreal.
They’re even dusting off Kissinger at Davos. (Note Pepe Escobar’s ascerbic entry to his telegram channel at the end.)**
There is a small window of opportunity to wind down the armed conflict in Ukraine and find a peace settlement, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger has told a gathering of Western elites in Davos, Switzerland. Beyond that, Russia may break from, the rest of, Europe for good and become a permanent ally of China, he said on Monday during a speech at the World Economic Forum.
“Negotiations on peace need to begin in the next two months or so, [before the conflict] creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome,” the 98-year-old veteran diplomat said of the crisis. The outcome will determine the rest of Europe’s relationships with Russia and Ukraine alike, he said. “Ideally, the dividing line should return to the status quo ante,” he said.
“I believe pursuing the war beyond that point would turn it not into a war about the freedom of Ukraine, which had been undertaken with great cohesion by NATO, but into a war against Russia itself,” he added.
There are more voices from Europe asking for a peace process to start but first, the Ukrainian response:
Ukrainian presidential advisor Alexey Arestovich resorted to obscene language to criticize those in the West urging Kiev to cede part of the country’s territory to Russia for the sake of peace.
“Go f**k yourselves with such proposals, you dumb f**ks, to trade Ukrainian territory a little bit! Are you f**king crazy? Our children are dying, soldiers are stopping shells with their own bodies, and they are telling us how to sacrifice our territories. This will never happen,” Arestovich said in an interview on Wednesday.
Soros calls for Putin’s defeat: George Soros told the World Economic Forum in Davos the West needs a quick victory over Russia in Ukraine so it can focus on climate change
The process of ‘disowning’ the Ukraine has started.
Gen. Milley notes that the US has reopened military-to-military level talks with the Russians. His call to his Russian counterpart last week was “important” and it was “purposeful”
Of course, the talk of another peace plan is not born of care for people or human rights or democracy or deep held care for the Ukrainian people. It is driven by desperation and is a desperate grasp at avoiding a psychological defeat bigger than Afghanistan.
TASS/ Russia’s State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin took to his Telegram channel to highlight that the US and its partners do not plan to provide real assistance to Ukraine.
Ukraine will only get 15% of the $40 billion promised by the US, he said.
“Washington and Brussels do not really intend to help Ukraine, or solve its economic and social issues. They only need Ukraine to fight Russia till the last Ukrainian,” Volodin said.
According to the recent aid to Ukraine legislation signed by President Joe Biden, 35% of the $40 billion is going to finance the US Armed Forces, he explained. Meanwhile, 45.2% of that amount is set to be spent on other countries, not Ukraine, while another 4.8% will be earmarked to support refugees, and restore the US diplomatic mission in Ukraine. “Ukraine will only receive 15% of the allotted sum,” the speaker revealed.
But Ukrainians will have to pay off the whole sum, he said. The US is aware that Kiev will not be able to service the debt in the future. “That is why they are seizing Ukraine’s last reserves, including grain, which is what we are seeing right now”.
Quo Vadis Ukraine?
A list of those that want a piece of the pie is shaping up. Of course, Poland is not suddenly in love with the Ukraine without a reason. They want their piece of the land pie. I suspect Hungary is also not innocent in this matter. Will the Ukraine be apportioned? Or will it lose its nation-state status completely, and cease to exist? Nobody knows because nobody knows the Russian plan. In Europe and the US/NATO, fear is taking hold. Nobody knows where Russia plans to stop after liberating the two new Republics, Donesk and Luhansk. Is this the moment that they will choose to push NATO back to its agreed borders?
Maria Zakharova noted that these peace proposals that are appearing (talking about the Italian one specifically) could show that Rome is perhaps “beginning to think about the depressing consequences of the military psychosis that was caused by the reaction of the West to the special military operation of Russia in Ukraine” – and the supposed plan could be an attempt “to offer some alternatives to the current escalation, which threatens to develop into a full-scale military conflict between Russia and NATO.”
The deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, said that “any peace proposal built purely in the interest of NATO and the Western world order should simply be ignored.”
“Or rather, their authors should be told to go in a certain direction,” Medvedev said.
Russia is ‘building back better’ and major reconstruction is starting as well as President Putin signed a decree relaxing rules for granting Russian citizenship to residents of Ukraine’s Zaporozhye and Kherson Region.
The amendments are added to the decree that previously introduced a similar procedure for residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR).
Russia continues to do business. Delegations from over 90 countries have confirmed their participation in the 25th edition of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) scheduled for June. Russia and Iran also agreed to implement the MIR payment card system in Iran.
That is it for today. Enjoy your discussion and careful on the Ukie propaganda. It is still everywhere.
**Escobar Telegram Channel:
THE PLIGHT OF DR. K – IN ONE MINUTE
War criminal Kissinger’s performance at Davos should be summed up as yet another massive failure of his master’s trademark Divide and Rule.
Ukraine/404 has always been a sort of Rubicon in terms of downsizing Russia (think Brzezinski).
It consumed A LOT of capital – physical and political. It was THE red line – success or failure – setting the stage for the triumph of the NWO and its top secretion, The Great Reset.
Kissinger – even as a mere Rockefeller messenger boy – was at the center of this racket for DECADES. It was Kissinger, under Rockefeller’s orders, that groomed cypto Dr. Evil Klaus Schwab to build the WEF and the Davos ethos.
Even if Davos is a mere outlet for the people who really run the show, the WEF remains the premier Influence Scoundrels club on the planet bent on forcing their agenda all across the spectrum. Still toxic after all these years. Yet now even Kissinger knows it’s bound to fail.
On May 21, warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out a series of eight airstrikes on ISIS’s areas of influence in Syria’s central region.
The airstrikes were carried out in support of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and other pro-government formations who are currently conducting a large-scale operation against ISIS cells in the central region.
The operation, which began on May 20, is meant to secure vast parts of the central region, from the eastern Homs countryside all the way to the eastern Hama countryside, the southern Aleppo countryside and the southern Raqqa countryside. The SAA’s elite 25th Special Mission Forces Division, also known as the Tiger Forces, is leading the operation.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the 25th Special Mission Forces Division and other SAA units deployed large reinforcements in the eastern Hama countryside to support the operation on May 21. The London-based monitoring group said that the reinforcements included dozens of battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers, multiple rocket launchers as well as hundreds of troops.
So far, there have been no reports on ISIS losses. The terrorist group’s cells are likely laying low in remote parts of the central region to avoid a confrontation with the SAA and its allies.
The operation will likely heat up in the upcoming few days as the SAA and its allies push deeper into the heart of the central region. The operation, which is the largest to target ISIS cells in the region in years, may take a few weeks or even more than a month.
by Saker Staff with thanks to Pepe Escobar for that prescient title
Nazi Azovites – from rats in a hole to fish in a barrel – This is what denazification looks like!
The New York Times prevaricates as follows: Ukraine ended its “combat mission” in Mariupol and said fighters were being evacuated, signaling that the battle at a steel plant was over. https://nyti.ms/3sIon9B
Zelensky adds some Ukrainian/Cocainian dreams to that: “The evacuation mission from Azovstal continues. It is led by our military and intelligence officers.” (OK, Mr PianoDick, they’re being led straight into war criminal prison! – thank your military and intelligence officers for doing the job for the world!)
Dmitry Polyansky says it differently: “I didn’t know English has so many ways to express a single message: the #Azovnazis have unconditionally surrendered.”
Nightfall did not stop the surrender process. Ukrainians are still surrendering in crowds without stopping. Sufficient forces to deal with this are on the terrain and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the DPR are kicking ass and taking prisoners.
Illumination rockets are constantly launched into the sky, which at least somehow facilitates the crawling out of underground inhabitants 🙂
These invincible heroes are emaciated, ragged, hungry and a pitiful sight.
Donetsk Defense HQ – 962 Azovites surrendered and the process continues. In the meantime, 11 servicemen of the 25th airborne brigade and seventeen of the 54th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine voluntarily laid down their arms and went over to the side of the DPR. We hope this is the start of a mass surrender.
This is denazification and movies will be made and books will be written. After this major loss of prestige, expect a doozy of a false flag.
Starting point today is the MoD report and somewhat reformatted for ease of use.
💥Over a day, high-precision air-based missiles of the Russian Aerospace Forces have hit
2 command posts, including the territorial defense headquarters near Soledar in the Donetsk People’s Republic,
as well as 31 areas of concentration of Ukrainian manpower and military equipment, including locations of foreign mercenary units from European countries in Nikolaev and Krasnogorovka.
In addition, 2 Ukrainian Su-24 aircraft have been destroyed at a military airfield near Dnepropetrovsk, 1 division of Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems near Nikolaev, as well as 4 ammunition depots for missile and artillery weapons and ammunition of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Ugledar, Pokrovskoe, Soledar and Bakhmut, Donetsk People’s Republic.
✈️💥Operational-tactical and army aviation have hit
3 command posts,
41 areas of concentration of AFU manpower and military equipment, as well as
1 ammunition depot near Ugledar, Donetsk People’s Republic.
The attacks have resulted in the elimination of more than 270 nationalists and up to 54 armoured and motor vehicles.
💥Missile troops and artillery have hit
76 command posts,
421 areas of manpower and military equipment concentration, as well as
147 artillery and mortar units at firing positions, including
1 Ukrainian battery of US-made 155mm M777 howitzers near Pogornoe.
1 pontoon crossing point equipped by Ukrainian Armed Forces to cross the Severskyi Donets River has been destroyed near Protopopovka, Kharkov Region.
💥Russian air defence means have shot down
1 Ukrainian Su-25 aircraft over Tripolie, Donetsk people’s republic.
1 Ukrainian Air Force MiG-29 has been shot down near Kamennaya Yaruga, Kharkov Region.
15 Ukrainian UAVs have been shot down near Semenovka, Velikie Prokhody, Balakleya, Malye Prokhody, Velikaya Kamyshevakha in Kharkov Region, Rudnichnyi, Grabskoe, Staromikhailovka, Volnoe in Donetsk People’s Republic, Belyaevka, Chernobaevka in Kherson Region.
8 Ukrainian Smerch multiple-launch rockets have been also intercepted near Kamenka and Malaya Kamyshevakha, Kharkov Region.
Not too shabby for a day’s work. And they will repeat it, and repeat it, and rinse, and repeat it again.
Secrets from Azovstal and surroundings are beginning to be revealed. There will be many!
How the OSCE mission cooperated with the Azov terrorists
The filming crew of IA “Arbelet” was the first to visit the territory where the OSCE mission in Mariupol was located. Among other valuable finds, they found two mortar positions, equipped directly near the mission’s administrative building. The mortars themselves and their ammunition are of Italian origin, as evidenced by the markings. Another noteworthy fact: the last delivery of the Italian BC is dated March 11, 2022.
Do ordinary Italians know that their authorities are helping outright terrorists of the national battalions? How will the OSCE comment on the fact that they were in clear collusion with the terrorists, allowing “Azov” to fire from their territory? How, after these facts, will the OSCE be able to clean up their reputation at all?
(Sidebar: Do you now understand why Russia is leaving international organizations? Simple, these organizations are corrupt to the extent that they cannot be reformed but they have to be broken. Mr Lavrov today is meeting with SCO Secretary-General Ming where new structures are being built.)
Update from Brian Berletic: He views the canoodling from western sources and he hoists them on their own petard. Do take a listen, specifically Brian’s explanation of how the Russian command and soldiers keep certain areas ‘fixed’.
Here is another example of such a ‘fix’. The Russian army attacked Ukrainian defense facilities in the Odessa region with precision weapons from the Black Sea. This information is confirmed by the Ukrainian operational command “South”. https://t.me/intelslava/29149
(Sidebar: Today in Odessa – On this day “Russian Spring”
May 18, 2014 – “Odessa is a Russian city”, “Donbass – we are with you” – such slogans sounded at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa.
Hundreds of protesters with Russian flags and banners of the Victory came out not only to honor the memory of those killed in the May 2 tragedy, but also to show the Ukrainian Nazis that Odessans are Russian people who are not afraid of the Kyiv punishers.)
Is the Russian SMO beginning to touch hearts and minds? Remember the stories that Russia underestimated the willingness of the Ukrainian people to support the denazification.
Telescoping into the current pic on a map we see that cauldrons do not come in onesies any longer but in threes:
Readovka on the fronts
Kharkiv Front. The fighting in the area of Kazachya Lopan and the village of Liptsy is of a positional nature. The enemy in the area of Ternovka reached the border MASS MEDIA: Ukrainian Armed Forces have reached the Russian-Ukrainian border in Kharkiv region. Ukraine conducted a counterattack in the north-east of the Russian Federation, and is also probing the positions of the Russian Armed Forces in the area of Volchansk. The Russian Armed Forces do not conduct active offensive operations in the Kharkiv direction.
On the Izyum part of the front, fighting continues in the area of Kamyshevakha, Kurulka and Dolgenky. The enemy continues to try to strain the flank of the Russian group to the north-west of Izyum, forcing the Seversky Donets. In the Slavic direction, the troops took Drobyshevo and Krasny Liman in a semicircle. The front also approached Svyatogorsk.
In the Luhansk-Donetsk part of the front, fighting continues in the area of Kamyshevakha, north of Popasna. There are also battles for Toshkovka. There are attempts to enter the flank and rear of the fortified area in Gorsky and Zolotoy. Fighting continues on the outskirts of Severodonetsk, as well as to the west of Lisichansk in the area of Privolye and Belogorovka. According to unconfirmed reports, Russian troops occupied the town of New York.
On the Zaporozhye part of the front without any special changes. An attempt by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to attack in the area of Malinovka ended in failure and heavy losses. The battles here are of a positional nature all the way from Gulyai-Pole to Velikaya Novoselovka. The enemy is moving part of the reserves from the Zaporizhia direction to the Donbass, where the situation for the Severodonetsk group is rapidly deteriorating. Heavy fighting continues in the area of Novomikhailovka and Ugledar.
On the Southern Front, the development of the offensive is not yet taking place. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are waiting for the landing of Russian troops in the Odessa region and are working on mining the entire coast. In the Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih directions, the Ukrainian command is accumulating forces to uncover weaknesses in the Russian positions.
On arrival, it is already traditional – the APU shelled Petrovsky district Ukrainian Armed Forces shelled Petrovsky district of Donetsk. The shell hit the school grounds Donetsk, a shell hit the school territory. The Ukrainian side also shelled the outskirts of Kherson, which resulted in the death of one civilian.
SmoothieX12 is correct when he says that the only battle that the Ukrainians know, is the battle taught to them by their NATO advisors, which is to shell civilian territory and hide behind civilians.
The battlefront is still in a relatively chaotic state, but Russia is now forming and shaping it.
Let’s take a look at Martyanov’s levels of war as we can categorize from this handy depiction:
Finland and Sweden formally submit applications to join NATO – currently, it is harassment but may well move up the scale to major operations. We cannot say where Russia will stop.
FM Lavrov: “Ukraine… No one wants Ukraine. They are an expendable country in this hybrid war against Russian Federation. No one has doubts anymore”. The language from Russian sources has changed and they now say clearly that Ukraine is a tool and the fight is against Russia by the West.
Weapons
Russian self-propelled howitzers “Msta-S” and “Acacia-M” are being put to good use and they destroy armored vehicles and fortified positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Distance of fire is up to 30 km and they use high-explosive fragmentation projectiles that can destroy buried concrete fortifications of the enemy. https://t.me/intelslava/29140
Incoming weapons. On the Polish-Ukrainian border, seven South African-made Mamba Mk2 EE armored vehicles transferred to Ukraine by Estonia as military assistance were seen. These vehicles were specifically produced for the Estonian army.
We have to conclude if we can see these armored vehicles via telegram channel on the Polish border, then the Russian forces can see them too. And ditto for all other incoming weapons.
There are smaller reports of new Russian artillery weapons appearing in the field of battle, but it is limited as yet.
Major Fail, other than war.
Washington failed to get the summit with the ASEAN countries to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
ASEAN nations are Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.
Another failure of freezing funds: Switzerland released $6.33 billion of Russia’s frozen funds.
We end with biolabs
Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy gives key takeaways from the last UN Security Council meeting on US biolabs in Ukraine:
The US refuses to explain its engagement in military bio activities in Ukraine. Keeps shrugging off several hundred pages of evidence. “These are all lies and Russia’s propaganda, and we are good guys because it can’t be otherwise”. Not a word on the point of discussion.
Western delegations are praising the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and calling on us to make use of its mechanisms. They fail to mention however that it is the US who is blocking the elaboration of BWC verification mechanism. Such a hypocricy!
The US refuses to explain why it doesn’t want an effective international verification mechanism for bio weapons. Why act like this unless you are trying to conceal something? Why does Washington position itself above the international law? American exceptionalism at its best.
Main conclusion: we have definitely hit their soft spot. It’s clear for any unbiased observer that they are obscuring the issue and trying to divert attention from this uncomfortable topic trying to discourage us to raise it by repeating mantras on “Russian aggression” etc.
So stay tuned, there’s more evidence on US military biological programs to follow!
Top level headline in China’s Global Times today: ‘Neo-Nazism’ poisons Ukraine, Europe under US, West’s connivance
That is it for today. Enjoy your discussion and be careful with the Ukie propaganda. It is everywhere.
Southfront: To date, the main developments continue in the city of Mariupol, where the DPR and Russian forces have strengthened their positions and taken control of the seaport and the Ilyich plant over the past few days. The crews of foreign ships that were blocked by Ukrainian nationalists were completely evacuated from the seaport. Fighting continues in the large industrial plant of Azovstal.
The AFU fortifications at the Azovstal plant are constantly shelled by Russian forces. On April 17, the members of the nationalist Azov regiment blockaded in the Azovstal were once again offered to surrender. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation offered them to surrender, guaranteeing security. No one left the plant along the provided humanitarian corridor. Kiev ordered the fighters in Azovstal to shoot anyone who decides to lay down their arms. The assault on the territory of the Azovstal plant has resumed.
On April 17, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that the total number of foreign mercenaries on the territory of Azovstal is over 400 militants. The Ministry recalled that they do not have the status of servicemen under International Humanitarian Law. Thus, the best that can happen to them is criminal liability and long terms of imprisonment
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the DPR published a video showing the destroyed column of the AFU, which attempted to break through from the Primorskiy district towards the Ukrainian forces blocked on the territory of the Azovstal pplant on April 15.
In the Left-Bank district of Mariupol, fighting continues in the industrial zone adjacent to Azovstal, almost all residential buildings, except the 6th microdistrict, are under the Russian control.
After taking control of the territory of the seaport in Mariupol, the mop up operation continues in the Primorsky district of the city.
On April 16, a special operation was carried out in the Primorsky district to free hostages held by Ukrainian nationalists in a Turkish mosque. The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that the operation was carried out at the request of the President of the Republic of Turkey Erdogan. As a result, the mosque was taken under the Russian control, 29 militants, including foreign mercenaries, were killed. Hostages, citizens of one of the CIS countries have been released.
No significant successes on the other Donbass front lines are reported by any of the warring sides. To date, the DPR army has taken control of the territory, with 800 thousand civilian residents. A significant part of the republic with a population of about 1.5 million citizens is still under the AFU control. The army of the LPR is yet to take control over the territory, which is home to about 300 thousand people.
In the Kharkiv region, no significant changes on the front lines were reported. The Russian and Ukrainian Armies are likely still regrouping their troops, preparing for new round of hostilities. Heavy fighting continues near Izyum and Severodonetsk, and LPR troops are storming the town of Popasnaya. Basically, fierce artillery duels continue on the fronts.
During the last week, at least three Ukrainian warplanes were shot down in the area of Izyum. Ukrainian Su-24M shot down by Russian Igla systems:
The recent attempt of Kyiv’s forces to counter-attack near Izyum in the south of Kharkiv Region was thwarted. Russian units captured at least one Ukrainian battle tank and destroyed 2 more pieces of military equipment involved in the attack. A part of troops of pro-Kyiv units was eliminated, while others fled the scene.
On the southern fronts of Donbass, on April 18, Ukrainian sources report the beginning of the advance of Russian troops along the Gulyai-Pole – Velikaya Novoselka line in the direction of the village of Pokrovskoye. Russian rockets and artillery struck the AFU positions near the villages of Staromayorskoye, Makarovka, Storozhevo, Neskuchnoye, Vremovka, Priyutnoye, Vishnevoye, Malinovka, Poltavka, Novodarovka, Novoukrainskoye, Stepnoye.
The Russian assault in the south of the Donbass region is expected in the coming days, as more and more forces are transferred in the area after hostilities in Mariupol decreased.
The front lines in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions also remain unchanged. Clashes continue on the border of the two regions. At the same time, active airstrikes of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Mykolaiv continue. Local Ukrainian authorities declare an impending counter offensive in the region, likely another attempt of a counter offensive, as the AFU have already failed to completely repel Russian troops from the region.
Last night, Russian missiles continued to destroy Ukrainian military facilities.
On April 18, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed that high-precision air-launched missiles destroyed 16 Ukrainian military facilities during the night. including five enemy command posts, fuel storage, three ammunition depots, as well as personnel and military equipment concentrated in the areas of the settlements of Barvenkovo, Gulyai-Pole, Kamyshevakha, Zelenoye Pole, Velikomikhailovka and Nikolaev.
In the morning on April 18, Russian Kalibr missiles hit targets in the Lvov and Kiev regions:
The Russian Aerospace Forces struck 108 areas of concentration of personnel and Ukrainian military equipment. Russian warplanes destroyed eight tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, as well as up to a company of AFU manpower in the areas of Pashkovo, Veseloye and Ilyichevka.
On April 18, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed that another Ukrainian missile destroyed civilian farm in the village of Tokmak in the Zaporozhie region. The strike was probably carried out by the Tochka-U tactical missile and targeted private farm. The buildings and structures of a private agricultural farm have been completely destroyed and cannot be restored.
Fondsk.Ru: Briefing by the official representative of the RF Ministry of Defense Igor Konashenkov on April 10, 2022 on the progress of the special operation in Ukraine:
– The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to conduct a special military operation in Ukraine.
– During the night in the village of ZVONETSKOYE, Dnepropetrovsk region, high-precision sea-based missiles destroyed the headquarters and base of the nationalist battalion “Dnepr”, where reinforcements from foreign mercenaries arrived the other day.
– High-precision air-launched missiles in the area of the settlement of STAROBOGDANOVKA, Mykolaiv region and at the military airfield CHUGUEV, destroyed launchers of Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems identified by reconnaissance.
– Russian air defense systems shot down eight Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in the air in the areas of the settlements of OLHOVATOVKA, NOVAYA ASTRAKHAN, AVDEEVKA, SHAKHTERSKOE, KURAKHOVO, NOVOSELOVKA VTORAYA, VESELOYE.
– Operational-tactical aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces hit 86 military facilities of Ukraine. Among them: two command posts, two ammunition depots, three fuel depots, three installations of multiple launch rocket systems, as well as 49 strongholds and areas of concentration of Ukrainian military equipment.
– In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed:
127 planes and 98 helicopters,
234 anti-aircraft missile systems S-300, Buk-M1, Osa AKM;
436 unmanned aerial vehicles,
2052 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles,
232 installations of multiple launch rocket systems,
894 field artillery and mortar guns,
1975 units of special military vehicles.
* * *
“Prime Minister Viktor Orban, of course, condemns the massacre in Bucha. Hungary fully supports the international investigation, the purpose of which is to find out who committed the crime, ”said the press secretary of the Hungarian Prime Minister Bertalan Havasi .
It was not in vain that Zelensky boiled up with indignation that someone in Europe was demanding some kind of proof.
* * *
In the Dnieper (former and future Dnepropetrovsk) there is an unreal commotion. All patrol cars of the national police were pulled up to the monument to Pushkin, on which unknown people put the symbol of the special operation Z.
Several people have been detained. Details are being clarified, writes the telegram channel Operative reports .
Again, the population of Ukraine, as Arestovich said, prevents the Armed Forces of Ukraine from protecting it. For example, he does not want the Ukrainian military to mine the private sector. The population is outraged. He does not understand that, first of all, there is a war, and civilians in this war are a human shield, and their deaths are necessary to blame the Russian army for this.
* * *
The Ukrainian military with joyful shouts destroyed a truck with a red cross with an anti-tank missile.
The video was proudly published by former Ukrainian Ambassador to Austria Oleksandr Shcherba . A red cross and a white awning means that the truck is carrying the wounded or humanitarian aid.
At the same time, the military saw and understood that they were hitting an ambulance, this is clear from their dialogue, Radio Stydoba writes .
* * *
“Ukraine is already ready for big battles. Ukraine must win these battles, including in the Donbass. And after that, Ukraine will get a more substantial negotiating position, from which it can dictate certain conditions. After that, the presidents will meet. It may take two weeks, it may take three,” Mykhailo Podolyak , an adviser to the head of President Zelensky’s Office, one of the negotiators , broadcasts .
Boris Johnson arrived, promised Ukrainushka something extraordinary, posed together with Zelensky for a camera with clay roosters (as if hinting), and now Kiev is in a militaristic hellhole. Ready for war.
* * *
“Ukraine is failing and therefore using the tactics of Syrian terrorists – attacking civilians and calling for external intervention,” Brian Berletic , a geopolitical analyst and former US Marine Corps soldier, said of the Kramatorsk incident.
“It is clear what is happening here. Ukraine is defeated. And this is exactly what we saw during the Syrian conflict. When the terrorists sponsored by the US, Britain and the EU were defeated, they did something similar.
They attacked the civilian population. And they said that the Syrian government did it. And then they called for intervention. They called for new sanctions.
So they did throughout the conflict, until they completely lost. And this is what we see here in Ukraine.”
* * *
Putin’s real weapon against Europe is not missiles, not gas for rubles, and not even Russia Today. The real weapon is the millions of Ukrainian refugees who, in a few weeks, have Ukrainianized the best European cities and turned them into real pigsties.
Take, for example, my beloved Vienna, where I lived a happy year. The Austrians are very pedantic and scrupulous about their way of life. Order and some incredible biblical calm reign in this country. People do not violate parking rules not because high fines are set, but because they consciously protect their comfort, the beauty of their hometown and the rules of coexistence.
With the influx of Ukrainian refugees, a full @@@@ has begun: all parking spaces are filled, refugees strive to take a public transport lane and interfere with the work of city services, every Sunday thousands of Maidanites gather on the Museum Quarter Square, leaving behind not only tons of garbage, but also acoustic noise. For the Austrians, this is worse than being hit by the Kinzhal complex.
And so it is in other capitals. In Riga, the maydanuts yell in zombie costumes, in Chisinau they paint monuments blue and yellow and demand to communicate with them in Ukrainian. In expensive Stockholm, Ukrainian refugees demand accommodation for free that most Swedes cannot afford.
Europe gets tired very quickly. Despite the propaganda, Europeans are beginning to see with their own eyes who the Ukrainians are and what is their fundamental difference from the Russians. Ukrainians are constantly whining and demanding something, without giving anything in return and without thinking that it’s time to wake up and start radically changing their own lives, and not forever Maidan and whining.
Europe is waking up very quickly, and the next electoral cycle will be difficult for the current elites, who, to please the United States, got involved in the sanctions war, incurring enormous economic losses. But they receive a more powerful blow from my compatriots – lazy, capricious, hysterical and complex. Ukrainians for eight years have forgotten how to live in a normal society and turn any nutrient medium into a pigsty. And such a scenario was not difficult to calculate, because this is Putin’s real secret weapon.
* * *
The first footage of the evacuation in the port of Mariupol of the crew of the vessel “Blue Star”, under the flag of Panama, is written by WELDERS .
Crew 14 people. One Russian and 13 citizens of Ukraine.
Эвакуация проходила ещё под огнем нацбатов и ВСУ. Рядом противник оказывал сопротивление. Благодаря самоотверженным действиям военнослужащих ВС РФ и НМ ДНР люди спасены. Сейчас все моряки находятся в полной безопасности.
С началом боевых действий и до освобождения гражданские моряки находились в заложниках украинских нацистов, и использовать нацбатами в качестве «живого щита».
* * *
В морском порту г. Мариуполь отступающие остатки подразделений украинских националистов захватили ДВА иностранных судна «Царевна» и «Леди Аугуста». Удерживая в заложниках экипажи этих судов, националисты «Азова» ведут огонь с палуб из 120-мм минометов, различных типов гранатомётов и стрелкового оружия. Судьбы членов экипажей данных судов и состояние их здоровья пока неизвестно. Народная милиция ДНР совместно с Вооруженными Силами Российской Федерации предпринимают все возможное для спасения жизней насильно удерживаемых украинскими националистами моряков, – Народная милиция ДНР.
Заглавное фото: обстрел Еленовки, фото квадрокоптера “Пчёль”, источник
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The Beast woke up in pitch darkness And the price was named to God. Everybody has caved in – even our brothers in Christ, Everything has caved in – but not my country. (translated lyrics from the song “Donbass is with us”)
First, the official version
First, here is a machine translated summary of events following one month of combat operations as posted by Boris Rozhin (aka Col. Cassad):
1. The offensive of the Russian troops disrupted the plans of the AFU offensive on the DPR and LPR using artillery, missile systems and aviation.
2. On January 22, Russian intelligence intercepted the order of General Balan on the need to complete preparations for offensive actions before February 28, so that the AFU could go on the offensive in March.
3. The operation is progressing according to plan. The main tasks of the first stage of the operation have already been completed.
4. The main priority remains the preservation of civilian lives. Hence the tactics of precision strikes on the military infrastructure and the armed forces of the enemy.
5. The blocking of large cities ensures the shackling of the AFU forces and does not allow the Ukrainian command to transfer reinforcements to the Donbass. The main operation at the moment is in the Donbas. 276 settlements have already been liberated in the DPR and LPR. 93% of the territory of the LPR and 54% of the territory of the DPR have been liberated. The group currently defending in Mariupol has more than 7,000 people.
6. Air supremacy was won by the Russian Aerospace Forces in the first two days of the operation. The organized air defense system, the Ukrainian Air Force and the Ukrainian Navy have virtually ceased to exist.
7. Up to 70% of all military stocks of Ukraine were destroyed as a result of systematic attacks on warehouses. 30 key facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine were destroyed. 68% of enterprises where military equipment was repaired have already been destroyed. At the same time, since the beginning of the Special Military Operation, the Ukrainian army has already destroyed 127 bridges.
8. All the organized reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already been put into operation, there are no new ones. Hence the bet on the mobilization of the untrained contingent. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 6595 foreign mercenaries are fighting in Ukraine.
9. Total losses of the AFU during the month of operation. About 14,000 killed and about 16,000 wounded (the total losses of the AFU group in the Donbas account for 26% of the personnel). Of the 2,416 combat-ready tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles on February 24, 1,587 were destroyed in a month. 112 out of 152 military aircraft were destroyed, 75 out of 149 helicopters, 35 out of 36 Bayraktar TB2 drones were destroyed. Out of 180 S-300 and Buk M1 – 148, out of 300 radars for various purposes – 117. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation will promptly respond to any attempts to close the airspace of Ukraine for the Russian Aerospace Forces.
10. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, at least 10 Ukrainian sea mines are now drifting uncontrollably in the Black Sea, posing a threat to navigation.
11. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation handed over captured weapons to the DPR and LPR. Among other things, 113 tanks and 138 ATGM “Javelin” were transferred. More than 23,000 applications have been received from citizens of 37 states wishing to fight for the DPR and LPR. There are also a lot of such applications from Russian citizens.
12. Official losses since the beginning of ITS. Killed – 1351. Wounded – 3825.
This above is very much the official version according to the Kremlin, so we might as well add the official Kremlin map while we are at it:
This very official map shows the parts of the Ukraine which Russia/LDNR officially control. Not only that, but it does not show which parts of the Ukrainian territory are not under real Russian/LDNR control, but which are under Russian/LDNR fire control. For both of these reasons this map very much UNDER-states the reality on the ground.
Here is another map which shows some of what the Kremlin does not want to confirm:
But what does all this really mean?
I find these maps moderately useful, they show us a general tendency, but they don’t really tell the full story. As for the briefings by the Russian military, they are not very helpful since they list numbers which are not really meaningful for most people and, worse, the same event X in location A would have a totally different meaning in location B.
Of course, Russia has her own official narrative: “ours is a counterforce operation, as a rule we bypass Nazi held cities, block them, open humanitarian corridors when possible and offer the civilians to evacuate and the Ukrainian soldiers a chance to lay down arms and avoid needless casualties“. And its all true, but there is a lot this narrative does not tell.
So let’s try to try to make some sense of all this
First, the good. It took the Russians just a few hours to breakup the united Ukrainian armed forces into many smaller chunks. This was achieved by basically taking out Ukie command and control capabilities.
Then, rather quickly, the Russian invaded from several directions, quickly bypassed the fortified Ukrainian defenses, blocked the units which refused to surrender and when further. As a result, cities such as Kharkov or Sumy found themselves deep inside the Russian rear, unable to be resupplied and no hope to evacuate. In a few special cases the order was given to gradually tighten the noose around Nazi concentrations while liberating the civilians neighborhoods, this is what is going in Mariupol.
Check out this fresh map from a correspondent, Konstantin Pegov, inside Mariupol
Sorry about the ugly “War Gonzo” watermark, this is Pegov’s way to get the credit.
Okay, so, the red zone is under Russian/LDNR control. The blue zone is considered lost to the Nazis, but not cleared yet, meaning that a slow building by building, apartment by apartment, mopping up operation has to be conducted before this zone becomes red too. Finally, the yellow zone is under the control of the notorious “Azov” Nazi battalion. Before I continue, a need to clarify one thing.
There were three locations in which the Nazis decided to place their very best forces before the Russian attack:
Facing the LOC in the LDNR, about 60-80-100(?) thousand best trained men, ready for a Blitzkrieg-style attack on the LDNR. This is the fighting core of the Ukrainian armed forces. They are composed of a number of brigades, and in each brigade there is a Nazi battalion (roughly) ready to execute any unit or commander willing to surrender, retreat or even negotiate.
Mariupol: a thoroughly pro-Russian city which was therefore handed by the Kiev regime to the tender care of the main Nazi force in the Ukraine: the Azov battalion. Please note that officially, all the Nazi battalions are part of the Ukrainian armed forces, but the locals always know who is who, as do the Russians. Mariupol is not only a strategic city but also a “sacred symbol of the heroic Ukrainian resistance”. More or less what the Donetsk airport was in the previous war. And, just to make things harder, the Nazis are based inside a huge and very strong industrial complex called “Azovstal”. There is a deluge of testimonies that the Nazis are using civilians as human shields. This is a true Nazi hellhole that had to be taken the hard way.
Kiev. Another special case, not only is it a large, multi-million inhabitants city, it is also the official center of power and capital of the Nazi regime. Kiev is very heavily fortified, the bridges over water have been blown up, and to liberate the city would require a major effort, especially if the Russians try to minimize the civilian casualties and to avoid destroying the civilian infrastructure.
Maps don’t really tell that story, hence they often appear not to make sense. In fact, they do, but to distinguish their real meaning, one needs to look deep into the micro-level and understand how all the different points on the map interact with each other (or not anymore!) or influence the outcomes elsewhere.
So what happens today around Mariupol is HUGELY important, but what happens in, say, Kharkov totally pales in comparison (unless you are in Kharkov, in which case the opposite is true).
I would like to add one more clarification here about the Chechen special forces.
In reality, there are no “Chechen special forces”, but a rather diverse lot of various Chechen forces which all come under the command of the Russian National Guard. This is important, because while these Chechen forces can, and have, participated in regular combat operations, the really crucial task is the mopping-up of urban areas, like the blue area in the Mariupol map above. Not only are the Chechens not sufficiently armed to conduct artillery duels or tank battles, but they are also trained in anti-terrorist and police operations, as is the entire Russian National Guard. These Chechen urban assault groups obviously interface with the Russian forces blocking the town or city the National Guard is tasked with securing and policing. Once that is done, humanitarian aid can come in while those who want can get evacuated.
That has worked pretty well.
But what has not worked at all, at least so far, is the next step: the installation of civilian authorities to restore more or less halfway decent civilian life. And here the Russians really failed to act (until today! see later).
Look at it from the point of view of a civilian in, say, Kharkov. You know that the Russians have bypassed and encircled the city. Maybe Russian forces even passed through your part of town and told you that from now on you were free. But then they all left!!! They went further to push the front even further west or south, which is their only real mission. And a few hours later, the Nazi gangs are right back where you live, and they wonder about you and how you felt about it all. And if the Russians shared some rations with you, you better hide them well, or eat them quickly and deny it all lest you be shot on the spot for “collaboration with the aggressor”.
So what went wrong here?
I will tell you what: in a “normal” war, the frontline units are always followed by 2nd line units whose task is to clear and secure the liberated areas. And I am not talking about a single cop car on patrol, I am talking about entire BRIGADES and DIVISIONS tasked with security in the rear. The truth is that the Russian special operation is NOT a “regular” combined arms offensive and that the force ratios are typically about 1:1 if not worse in favor of the Ukies. Why?
Because, except for a few very embarrassing screw-ups, Russia did not use conscripts. Russia’s war plan was to fight with small numbers of highly trained soldiers and to compensate for this numerical inferiority by having full air supremacy and using advanced standoff weapons.
Yes, even the Chechens who are now fighting in Mariupol (and some near Kiev) are all volunteers, not conscripts.
By the way, there was an initial wave of volunteers in Russia too, the MoD thanked them very much but declined to use them.
Contrast that with the Ukronazis who now only have their regular armed forces (armed to the teeth and trained by the Empire of Lies for 7 years!), they also have the real, pure, Nazi units like the “Azov” in Mariupol, they even have their own Volkssturm, about 200’000 clueless civilians, but all armed with small arms, maybe some machine guns and a few PRGs.
The simple truth is that to disarm such a large number of folks is going to take a long time, be dangerous, and deeply frustrating, even if the actual military threat posed by such armed clowns is zero – they can only threaten unarmed civilians.
By the way – look at the type of weapons the Empire of Lies is pumping into the Ukraine: small arms and ammo, but also short-range anti-tank weapons, explosives, mines, etc – this is all stuff that has almost no utility on the macro-level of this war but with is ideal when you want to create and arm a stay-behind insurgency type of force. I need to explain this a tad further.
NATO stay-behind forces
During the Cold War it was the conventional wisdom that NATO would not have the means to stop the advancing Soviet forces. So NATO came up with two options: one is called FOFA and implies attacks not on the FEBA, but one on the Soviet supply lines. The second concept was the so-called “stay behind forces”. What happened is this: in many/most European countries the US used their close ties with the local intelligence services to create totally illegal armies. Of course, not “real” armies, but a secret network for agents and hardware dumps to become the core of a future resistance against the future Soviet invasion. It was initially all very pious, of course. But when the agents of these secret mini-armies began engaging in false flag attacks (like the Bologna massacre in Italy), and when the local security services got wind of these weird activities, the scandal was hard to hide, and even though the Empire of Lies presstitutes did the all they could NOT to find out who created these terrorist organizations (the US), the scandal still came out. And, of course, the illegal creation of such stay behind sabotage units also involved some very creative accounting, so folks were jailed for corruption, illegal storage of military weapons, etc. etc. etc.
As somebody who was an analyst for the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service (SND) I can tell you three things about this phenomenon:
Only fall-guys were punished, the real key figures all got promoted
There was a direct link between these illegal mini-armies and European Neo-Nazis
It was all run by the USA
Since these faraway days, this has all been buried, forgotten, forgiven, denied, obfuscated, declared a “thing of the past”, etc. etc. etc. Truly, nothing whitewashes darkness like the short attention span of the serfs living in Zone A.
But, back to the Ukraine now. See my three points above? I will repeat: the key figures never got punished, there was a clear neo-Nazi ideology in those secret units and the USA ran it all.
Forward to modern-day Ukraine with a simple question: can you guess what NATO is planning for the future Ukraine?
Past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior, is that not true?
Have the Russians made at least one major miscalculation?
In short – yes. Only one, but it was a bad mistake…
I believe that their major mistake was not to bring in new administrations to run the liberated towns and to secure law and order. Clearly, the Russians knew that only a minority (albeit a big one) of Ukrainians was truly brainwashed by the Nazis. But what the Russians failed to realize, is that people who live under 7 or 8 years of Nazi terror need PROTECTION above all. In most blocked towns, the Nazis are still in control, and since the Russians do not attack the civilian infrastructure, the Nazis are the ones in charge of food, electricity, security, etc.
And since the said Nazis know that the locals hate them, this means that the only people being protected, fed, heated or treated are the Nazis themselves, the rest of the population hides in basements and hope that they have enough water and heat to survive until the promised “liberation” applies to them too.
Finally, TODAY, the Kremlin has announced the start of a major program to bring in entire administrations with repair equipment, humanitarian aid and, let’s not kid ourselves, more security forces. Good! Now let’s hope that the Russian civilians, their EMERCOM and the Russian National Guard will finally either get the not-all-too-Nazi authorities to rebrand themselves and behave (unless they personally have committed war crimes, at which point all they will get is an interrogation, possibly a trial, or a bullet on the spot).
This is yet another reason why Mariupol is so important: there are major Russian National Guard forces involved in the mopping up of the last Nazi pockets of resistance there. But as soon as the blue and yellow zones turn red (this could take a while, several days, possibly a week) those National Guard forces will become available to denazify other cities, smaller ones, less well-fortified ones, and with a much smaller Nazi/normal person ratios.
Does the strategy chosen by the Russians make sense?
Only time will show, but I would argue that yes.
I would argue that the first phase of that war lasted about a day or so. That was the phase that turned unitary Ukrainian armed forces into many isolated groups unable to coordinate their actions or support each other in combat.
The second phase of the war lasted about 3 weeks. During that phase, the fronts did advance, the Russians had some successes, but that was not the point. During this phase of the war, the Russians secured air supremacy and then proceeded to methodically do two things:
Very precise counterforce attacks including strikes on defensive positions, moving columns, missile strikes on major force concentrations, etc. etc. etc.
A much less noticed but possibly even more important counter-logistics campaign
So first the Ukies were held incommunicado. Then they were isolated into many smaller groups. Then they were blocked and/or encircled. And now the Russians are basically waiting for the Ukrainians to either 1) surrender or 2) die. And this is important: while there have been numerous Ukrainian attacks and counter-attacks, none of them have had any tactical impact, not even locally. And in the few cases where the Ukrainians did advance, they were mostly destroyed with a combo of artillery and close air support.
Horrible as this may be, but the outcome of this phase depends on the following: which will run out first, the supplies of the Ukrainian forces or the water/heat for the trapped civilians?
If the Ukrainian supplies run out first, we will see a total collapse of the operational cauldron in the Donbass. In this case, it will require a major, huge, Russian humanitarian operation to save all those who are still alive.
If civilians begin to die en masse, the Russians will have no choice but to use their heavy weapons to kill as many Nazis as quickly as possible and then send in relief convoys.
That is the dilemma the Russian General Staff must tackle. I don’t envy them.
Mariupol is a done deal, really.
And since most of the residential areas have been freed, people are being treated and evacuated, there is no time pressure to clear the Nazis out, especially since the Nazis are now basically in one specific industrial area. However, the building by building, apartment by apartment mopping up operation must continue until the Russians are fairly sure that most civilians have been removed from the blue zone. After that, a few well-placed missiles into the Azovstal complex ought to finish off the last remaining Nazis.
So what could the next phase of the war look like?
Take a look at this Readovka map (as of yesterday):
I chose this map because it shows the current “fronts” (the colored squares).
What I added are the following three black areas:
Areas one: central Ukraine including major cities like Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhie, Poltava or Cherkassy. Even Kiev is still connected to that zone (albeit barely).
Area two: Odessa cauldron.
Area three: mini-Banderastan?
Here is the deal, at least as I see it: the Russians cannot deal with these three black zones before they *truly* liberate the red parts of the map. And by “truly” I mean that these regions, towns and cities have to be very substantially (albeit not totally) denazified, a new administration must take over and a semblance of civilization and law and order must be restored.
I also added a red line from roughly Kiev going south and another one, roughly from the south end of the Odessa cauldron in the general direction of Kiev. I made them meet about in the middle. This is purely conceptual. While I am sure that Russian reconnaissance units and Aerospace Forces are present in that area and that the Ukrainians must be trying to hide as best can be, this is NOT land Russia controls or even blocks (too big for that anyway).
You could think of it as a “hotly contested no-man’s land” with fortified areas scattered across it.
For these reasons, I do not currently see the Russians committing major forces towards this move, but as soon as Odessa is not only blocked but fully encircled and the Donbass cauldron collapses, a new major cauldron will form, this time including all the cities I listed above.
Conclusion: time and manpower
Question: why should the Russians choose to go fast? To save the civilians in blocked/encircled towns and cities? Yes, I would agree with that. Except that the Russian armed forces are not in the Ukraine to repair power stations. Which means that a substantial increase in manpower, including many civilians, is the only situation in which speed might be desirable. Like in Mariupol today. Or Kharkov.
But once the red zone is finally truly liberated and the basic signs of civilization return, should the Russians go fast elsewhere? Let’s look at our three black circles again:
Area one, central Ukraine: the Russians have total air superiority, the Nazis have no mobility, tenuous supply routes, and their stores have been depleted by weeks of bombing. I do not see any need for the Russian to hurry into this one, lest it becomes the problems the Russians ALREADY have experienced in their zones of putative “liberation”, scores of dead civilians, and substantial losses. Because no matter how large and populated that zone is, it has no future, it will be surrounded like all the other parts of the Ukraine during phase one of the operation. This also means that a political solution would be INFINITELY preferable to a hard storming of cities like in the first Chechen war.
Area two, Odessa: same deal, Odessa is almost totally blocked and sooner or later the city will be surrounded. It is, alas, quite possible that the city will have to be taken like Mariupol, because of the very same “ingredients”: a generally pro-Russian city run by Nazi thugs whose reign of terror gets worse with every day. I hope and pray that the city surrenders, but I am not holding my breath and IF it has to be taken like Mariupol then, again, by all means, the Russians should go as slow as possible.
Area three, mini-Banderastan: does Russia even need it? Some say that the only way to go is to get the Russian tanks nicely aligned along the Polish border. Other say to forget it, let the local Nazis create their Russenrein Banderastan and have fun. Such a mini Banderastan would be supervised by a Nazi Gauleiter (Polish or Ukie – same difference) on behalf of the USA Heimat and its Eurocolonies. This is really no big deal, because the entire EU has now been turned into a Nazi Reichsgau administrated by the Anglos, and that is the real danger for Russia.
Will the Empire of Lies intervene in the mini-Banderastan?
Yes, absolutely. The question is HOW. The options range from a Polish invasion of the Lvov region (which, after all, is historically Polish!) to the use of this mini-Banderastan the way the US used Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In theory, there could be even a deal made between the US and Russia: the USA take the mini-Banderastan, the central Ukraine is not invaded, but is verifiably disarmed and denazifed, it becomes neutral and gets on probation: “behave or Iskander”. The Odessa region joins the (now much expanded) LDNR, the entire Black Sea coast is liberated (*truly* liberated) and the LDNR then decides of its future by means of referendum.
[Sidebar: to those who say that you cannot verifiably disarm anybody I would reply that this is hogwash: there are many verification and confidence-building measuresa, including remote ones and intrusive, local ones. If that central Ukraine with or without the mini-Banderastan becomes disarmed, it will not be a challenge for the Russians to know what is going on or not. As I mentioned, one option would be to build a special military base to prevent the mini-Banderastan from infecting the rest of the Ukraine. Something like what the 201st Russian base in Tajikistan is currently doing]
But I have to admit that when I hear the verbiage from Zone A, I am not holding my breath. For the Poles, this is a historic opportunity to show their unbelievable military prowess, get some land, a cheap labor force, and the chance to pretend to be a “European leader”. And how different is the rest of Europe? Meh… As we say in Russian, “these folks have all been anointed with the same (Nazi) oil”. So it ain’t the stupid and, frankly, ridiculous Poles the Russians need to “convince”, it is all the NATO and the USA.
I hope that I am wrong, but I do not see any argument which Russia could use to “convince” our wonderful European neighbors than either an Iskander inside a NATO member state (I vote for Poland!) and/or a total disconnection from any Russian energy supplies.
Putin already did the second thing, but elegantly: by forcing payments in Rubles he forces each country in Europe to make its own choice. And those who will pay in Rubles, thereby bypassing THEIR OWN sanctions, won’t volunteer to attack Russia or the Ukraine.
Which leaves those who won’t. They are the ones who are so totally batshit crazy that they rather have their own population and economy suffer from cataclysmic consequences than negotiate *anything* at all with Putin’s Mordor. They are the ones who might need a “little extra argument” possibly in the form of a hypersonic missile.
I am not suggesting bombing Mons or London, not even Warsaw or even a major Polish military base. But something of real value to the Poles and with a minimal amount of victims. Ideally, a location “well-protected” by US air defenses (like the Saudi refineries, if you recall). Just ONE Iskander in the right location, and our western neighbors will tone down their verbiage, by a lot.
[Sidebar: did you know that after the Russian strike on the NATO “volunteers” and “peacekeepers” in eastern Ukraine there is now an OUTFLOW of mercenaries. Gee-whiz – it sure looks to me that the Zone A mercenaries did get a clear message from Russia, now they are running for their lives. Good!]
And here is the key point: the “convincing argument” will not be the landing of a Russian missile in Poland, no.
The real “argument” which might bring them back to reality is the NATO reaction AFTER that strike: a lot of hot air, threats, protests and various troop movements (like that hilarious EU rapid reaction force of 5’000 soldiers) and much more, but not a single Anglo or EU soldier taking the war to Russia! Why?
Because NATO has only two options:
Lose a war against Russia
Not fight that war
Which do you think “Biden”, Johnson or Macron will pick?
Small reminder: “Biden” already deals with major crises with the PRC, with Iran, with the KSA, not to mention the humongous economic crisis looming over the entire planet!
Do you see these leaders of the “indispensable civilization” take the war to the Russians? IF they do, Mons will be next, and they know that.
Which leaves us with the real, true, bona fide, certified demonic agents who are willing to do anything, including 9/11 or MH-17, to try to “cancel Russia”. Right now, that demonic choir is all singing the same tune: Russia is about to commit a chemical attack against innocent Ukrainian civilians.
Will that fly?
You betcha it will!
After Gouta, Skripal, MH-17 and Navalnyi, we know for a fact that most of people in Zone A are what is called shit-eaters (comemierdas) in Spanish: folks who, like baby-chicks in a nest, just can’t wait for mommy and poppy to feed them by puking up some “food” into the wide open mouths. And nevermind that, unlike the USA, Russia has verifiably destroyed all her chemical weapons (as had Syria!), and nevermind that such a terminally stupid atrocity would serve NO Russian interests whatsoever (but then, neither did the self-evident idiocy of the MH-17 narrative prevent the shiteaters to eat it all, and even ask for seconds!).
Right now the Empire of Lies is making noises about IF Russia uses chemical munitions, THEN we will do something totally terrible to Russia, like sending in the Polaks into Lvov under NATO aircover to “save the few remaining survivors” or something equally asinine.
Unless you have been living under a rock, or can only use one synapse at a time, you must at least know that the following are all true:
There is no limit to how evil, depraved and demonic the rulers of the Empire of Lies are.
There is no limit on who ignorant, stupid, gullible, and racist a very substantial portion of the population of Zone A is.
Then there is the bigger picture, the one which really matters:
The Empire of Lies feels that this is the very last chance to survive, they know that if the Russians, the Chinese the Iran and and, really, most of the planet prevails they are finished forever. This assumption is correct.
The goal of the Empire of Lies is to cancel Russia. Completely. This is a truly genocidal plan made stronger by the conviction by the leaders of this Empire that this is the only and last chance to finally find a “Final Solution” to the “Russian problem”.
The reaction of the West (total, terminal, genocidal “cancellation”) of everything Russian stunned most Russians who did know that there was no love lost between Russia and the West, but who were stunned to be singled out for total annihilation is something which 1) all Russians are intimately familiar with and 2) are now fully aware of.
That is why I wrote yesterday that Russia is in FULL WORLD WAR TWO MODE.
This is the kind of music video which now is very popular on the Russian social media:
Bravo leaders of the West, you have FINALLY convinced a majority of Russians that your hatred for us is total, that no matter how ugly, petty and useless, your actions are, you are so overwhelmed with hatred for us that even your serfs VOLUNTARILY engage in numerous acts of anti-Russian racism, discrimination and other expressions of hate.
This anti-Russian hate is so prevalent, that now expressing hatred for Russia and Russians has now become of virtue signaling! Even for musicians, athletes, students and even grade school kids (I personally know cases).
And, guess what? We heard and understood. Millions and millions of us.
Our biggest failure has always been our inability to imagine our enemy’s level of hatred.
Oh, we knew that the 3B+PU base their entire identity and (imagined) history on the hatred of everything and anything Russian. Of course, we knew that the 3B+PU were all artificial creations of the West, but we sort of assumed that their hateful insanity was limited to a few, small, freak countries, but that most “normal” Europeans were not AT ALL like that. Oh no! Eurolemmings are civilized and hate Nazis, right? RIGHT?
And that was stupid on our part: how could the West be any different from the 3B+PU when that same West is the one who created the 3B+PU in the first place!
Then, for 300 years or so we were ruled by a massively westernized class. And after 1917, one massively westernized class replaced another one. WWII opened our eyes to some degree, but by the time Khrushchev and his gang came to power, the West was gradually crushing the CPSU ideologically and, especially, the Soviet Nomenklatura who, I would argue, sold out to the West, as an entire class, between 1980 and 1991, then that self-same Nomenklatura rebranded itself and the nightmare of the 1990s began.
And in the “democratic” 90s, most Russian youth only wanted jeans and hamburgers. But even that exsanguinated, impoverished, and confused Russia was a threat. So the US ordered the Russian Parliament to be shelled by tanks and thousands murdered in the following days. Then came the Chechen war, and the satanic attack on the Serbian nation. And most of us still were dozing off, hoping for a good salary in dollars and many holidays in Antalia.
Crusader or Nazi – same difference
And then came Putin, who not only did a lot of things, he talked to the Russian people, often for hours in a row, convincing, convincing and convincing.
But even Putin, the Eurasian Sovereignists and the 6th columnists together could not achieve what the Empire of Lies finally did: truly and profoundly rekindle the memory of WWII, even amongst the Russian youth. Now instead of jeans, they want to go to the front!
I would call that a “Hezbollah moment”.
And now, we shall never surrender, least of all to a sorry gang of Nazi pigs and Crusaders!
So it is not the Ukraine that we plan to denazify. It’s the planet.
The Empire of Lies gave Russia absolutely no choice.
For eight terrible years Russia had to retreat on all fronts because we needed to develop the military and industrial “toolkit” to take you on frontally.
Now we have.
And, unlike you, we are fully prepared to die, if needed, in defense of our civilizational values, our faiths and our country.
Are you ready to die for your wokeness, diversity and Satan?
I guess that we will soon find out.
Andrei
PS: tomorrow and Sunday I will be on the road, attending my faraway parish, so while my team will run the blog, I don’t expect to have the time to post analyses or even comment until Monday, maybe Tuesday. The text above (over 5’700 words) is, I hope, controversial and relevant enough to keep the blog going until my return.
The grouping of troops of the Lugansk People’s Republic, developing the offensive, are moving forward from several directions inside Severodonetsk.
Units of the Donetsk People’s Republic are fighting for the capture of Maryinka. The advance was 2 kilometers.
On the morning of March 16, high-precision long-range weapons attacked Ukraine’s military infrastructure. As a result of the strike, communication, retransmission and switching hubs were disabled in Vinnytsa.
During the day, aviation and air defence means of the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down 1 Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopter Sarany, as well as 6 unmanned aerial vehicles.
Operational-tactical and army aviation hit 34 military assets of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Among them: 1 multiple launch rocket system, 3 command posts, 1 electronic warfare station, 7 ammunition depots and 19 areas of military equipment concentration.
In total, 180 aircraft and helicopters, 166 unmanned aerial vehicles, 1,367 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 132 multiple launch rocket systems, 502 field artillery and mortars, as well as 1,156 units of special military vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were destroyed during the operation.
We know for sure that with the support of Western countries, the Ukrainian Security Service is preparing a provocation with the use of toxic substances against civilians.
The purpose of the provocation is to accuse Russia of using chemical weapons against the population of Ukraine.
I want to officially state that the units of the Russian Armed Forces involved in the special military operation do not have chemical munitions.
The Russian Federation, unlike the United States, has long fulfilled its international obligations by completely destroying all chemical weapons stockpiles.
To prevent any provocations of Ukrainian nationalists with toxic substances, Russian servicemen in the liberated territory take dangerous objects under control and ensure their safety.
I will add that among the combat documentation captured by us in the 4th brigade of the Ukrainian National Guard, there is a detailed map of the territory of Ukraine with objects and types of toxic substances stored on it. Therefore, any attempt of Ukrainian Security Service provocation with the use of toxic substances will be revealed.
We have repeatedly mentioned facts about the atrocities of nationalists terrorizing civilians for any disobedience or attempts to leave settlements.
Today, footage of civilians killed in Chernihov, who were supposedly “shot by Russian servicemen,” was circulated on all propaganda resources of the Kiev regime. It was stated that all victims were allegedly queuing for bread.
I would like to stress the absence Russian servicemen in Chernihov.
All units of the Russian Armed Forces are outside Chernihov, blocking roads, and are not conducting any offensive actions on the city.
There are no traces of ammunition explosions on the video footage replicated by Ukrainian propagandists. All windows in nearby buildings are intact. There is no damage to the walls, there are no other traces of an explosion on the ground.
Thus, all the dead people – victims of the terror of Ukrainian nationalists or these video footage – are another stage of the Security Service of Ukraine. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that simultaneously with Ukrainian Internet resources, this fake was published on the official pages of the US Embassy in Ukraine on social networks without any verification and obtaining evidence.
At the same time, the embassy itself, as you know, has already been relocated from Kiev, to Lvov. And it does not notice how Russian servicemen deliver and distribute hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid to residents of Chernihov region in settlements liberated from nationalists.
Units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, continuing the offensive, reached the border of Vodyanoe, Sladkoe, Stepnoe, Taramchuk and Slavnoye. The advance per day was 11 kilometers.
The grouping of troops of the Lugansk People’s Republic, having previously blocked Severodonetsk from the eastern and southern directions, is fighting against nationalists on the northeastern outskirts of the city.
During the night of March 14, 4 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, including иBayraktar TB-2, were shot down by aviation and air defence of the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Operational-tactical, army and unmanned aviation hit 46 military infrastructure assets of Ukraine, including: 2 command posts, 1 Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile system, 1 guidance and target designation radar station, 2 MLRS, 2 electronic warfare stations, 2 ammunition and fuel depots, 31 areas of military equipment concentration.
In total, during the operation, 3,920 objects of the military infrastructure of Ukraine were disabled.
Destroyed: 143 unmanned aerial vehicles, 1,267 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 124 multiple launch rocket systems, 457 field artillery and mortars, as well as 1,028 units of special military vehicles.
On March 14, at about 11.30 a.m. Moscow time, Tochka-U tactical missile was fired at a residential block of Donetsk city from the territory controlled by the Kiev nationalist regime.
The shelling of the city was carried out from the north-western direction, from the area of Krasnoarmeysk settlement, which is controlled by Ukrainian nationalist units.
As a result of the explosion of a cluster warhead in the center of Donetsk, 20 civilians were killed. Another 28 people, including children, were seriously injured and taken to medical institutions.
The use of such weapons on a town with no armed forces firing positions, i.e. deliberately targeting civilians, is a war crime.
The armament of Tochka-U missile’ warhead with cluster ammunition proves that the purpose of the nationalists’ strike on the city was to kill as many civilians as possible.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the decision to use this type of missile weapons is made, at least, by the command of the Ukrainian grouping of troops, after approval by the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kiev.
All this once again confirms the Nazi and anti-human nature of the ruling regime in Ukraine today.
On January 26, fighter jets of the Russian Aerospace Forces and attack helicopters from the Syrian Arab Air Force targeted hideouts, equipment and personnel of ISIS in different parts of Syria’s central region.
According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 50 Russian and Syrian airstrikes targeted the following areas:
The outskirts of the town of Ithriyah in the eastern Hama countryside;
The outskirts of the town of al-Sukhnah in the eastern Homs countryside;
The outskirts of the town of al-Resafa in the southern Raqqa countryside.
The Russia and Syrian airstrikes were likely a response to a recent attack by ISIS cells’ that targeted a convoy of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) near the ancient city of Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs.
During the attack, which took place on January 24, a vehicle-borne explosive improvised device prepared by the terrorists targeted the convoy. Seven service members of the SAA were killed and 24 others were wounded. A tank and seven light military vehicles were also damaged.
ISIS insurgency in central Syria, which began around four years ago, will not likely end soon. The group’s terrorists have been allegedly surviving off supplies bought from US-backed fighters based in the southeastern area of al-Tanf.
Note: in late November I was interviewed by the Russian website Geofor. Here is the English language translation of this interview.
GEOFOR: Mr. Raevsky, no sooner have the American warships left the Black Sea than the British went in there. Apparently, “unscheduled exercises” of NATO ships and Ukrainian watercraft are about to commence, again. Again, near the maritime borders of the Russian Federation. Moreover, a couple of American military boats were delivered to Odessa (although, politely speaking, not quite new). As a military analyst with experience in intelligence, how do you assess the degree of threats from this incessant demonstration of force in terms of the possibility of provoking a military conflict with far-reaching consequences?
Andrei Raevsky: From a military point of view, I assess the degree of direct threat from these forces as zero. Firstly, any ship that enters the waters of the Black Sea can be instantly destroyed by a number of Russian coastal defense systems and/or the Russian Aerospace Forces. So, the degree of threat from them is zero. Secondly, they are equipped with rather outdated Tomahawk missiles. They have a relatively low flight speed, and they do not pose a great threat to Russian air defense systems.
On the other hand, there is an indirect threat from these NATO ships. And very serious. They are nudging Ukrainians in the same way as in 2008 they nudged Saakashvili in Georgia. They give Kiev a mistaken feeling being under an umbrella, under the protection of the US Navy or, say, NATO bomber planes, which is a complete deception and delusion, but this is the real danger.
GEOFOR: Does Russia have the ability to protect itself if it comes to launching Tomahawks? And how is this perceived in Pentagon and NATO headquarters? In the same context: what, in your opinion, is behind the decision of the Russian president to reject the Ministry of Defense’s offer to hold its unscheduled exercises on the Black Sea simultaneously with the United States and NATO? How will it be perceived in the Washington military-political establishment – as confidence in the capabilities of the Russian military to respond adequately to provocative actions or, as a desire not to take a potentially dangerous situation to the extreme?
Andrei Raevsky: Yes, of course, Russia can defend itself. As I just said, these are relatively slow and outdated cruise missiles, which do not pose a great danger to the multi-layered integrated air defense of the Crimea and the South of Russia and the entire Southern Military District of the Russian Federation. You can remember what the US missile strike on Syria was like, where most of them [Tomahawks] were shot down not by the Russian contingent in Syria – this is very important to emphasize – but by the Syrians with their relatively simpler air defense system.
Thus. I don’t think that all these Tomahawks threaten Russia very much.
I will also add that if the United States and NATO wanted to hit Russia with Tomahawks, it would be better for them to get out of the Black Sea and go to the Mediterranean Sea and move away to the maximum distance – just so as not to be instantly sunk.
Putin’s decision not to conduct simultaneous maneuvers in the Black Sea, in my opinion, is absolutely reasonable.
In Washington, this is likely to make an impression, in a certain sense, of a staged scene: Shoigu says: “I am ready”, and Putin takes such a peacemaking, pacifying step. This is what in the West is called “Good cop – bad cop.” In fact, they are, of course, united in terms of developing principles and strategies for protecting Russia from possible aggression.
GEOFOR: And now a little more about Ukraine and the situation around it. Russian analysts find many analogies in the situation in Ukraine now and the one that was in Georgia on the eve of August 2008. How would you characterize the factors (internal and external) that could lead to Kiev deciding on an open armed conflict? And what will this lead Ukraine and Europe as a whole to? Who, in the end, may be the beneficiary?
Andrei Raevsky: Yes, the situation is very similar to that. And I would even say that the situation Zelensky is in, is worse than the one Saakashvili was in.
I’m afraid that his rating is such that he really has nothing to lose. The question of whether Kiev will decide on an open armed conflict implies that Kiev has an opportunity to solve something. I doubt it very much. Without getting the “go-ahead” from the “Washington Regional Party Committee” Kiev will not move. Thus, if Kiev moves, it will be, at least, in the presence of a “tacit” – not even consent – order, when the West gives the command “Attack!”. Few people in the West care that Kiev will then “get its ass kicked.”
But the most important thing in this context is to remember that the goal is not to “liberate ORDLO from Muscovites” (Note: “ORLDO” is the current official Ukie legal term for the LDNR) or “restore democracy and territorial integrity of Ukraine” and so on. The goal is to force Russia to openly invade Ukraine and start a war: so that it cannot be denied, in order to totally sink energy projects between Russia and the EU and make the EU completely dependent, first of all, on American shale gas and other energy carriers. And to achieve these goals, Ukraine does not need any victory at all – it’s enough to just say: “Here, these evil Putin’s “green men” have seized even more territory! Oh, how bad they are!”
We can say that from a military point of view, Russia will win very quickly. But from a political point of view, it will be a victory for the United States.
GEOFOR: Do you consider it possible that, with NATO’s symbolic support in the Black Sea, as well as the presence of various American, British and other instructors on land, Kiev will decide on a military provocation not in the Donbas, but in the Black Sea? After all, it is known that everyone is waiting for the Ukrainian military offensive in the east of the country, and why, for example, Zelensky not follow the path of his predecessor Poroshenko, who sent boats to break through the Kerch Strait, and, creating a conflict situation, disrupted the already agreed meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin? Moreover, the second meeting of the Russian and American presidents this year is now being prepared…
Andrei Raevsky: Yes, such a provocation in the Black Sea is very likely. It is enough to recall their provocation when Ukrainian boats tried to pass into the Kerch Strait. And it was without any presence of Americans. Of course, this is possible. I think this is not only possible, but it will definitely happen.
And if there really are plans to arrange a meeting between Biden and Putin, then Ukrainians have very little time left. In December, Americans convene their “Democracy Forum”, then there are holidays…
If there is this meeting – and we don’t know if there will be one – there could be a lot of things that could undermine it. For supporters of the war – both in the United States and in Ukraine – this is a very important moment that cannot be missed.
GEOFOR: And in conclusion. If it is likely that the ongoing Russian-American consultations (the arrival of the Deputy Secretary of State and the director of the CIA in Moscow, for example) and the dialogue between the two leaders, which, hopefully, will take place, will lead to at least some stabilization, both around the Ukrainian problem and in bilateral relations. What problems in this regard could you highlight?
Andrei Raevsky: These consultations are very important, and this is a very desirable development of the situation because American officials of this level have not come to Moscow twice to present some kind of ultimatum.
To present an ultimatum, you can simply use a consul.
To do this, there is absolutely no need to send the highest representatives of the American authorities to Moscow.
The conversations that took place – whatever they were – were to the point. And they were serious. As long as both sides are talking, at least they are not shooting. And this is very desirable.
And we can only hope that such consultations will continue in the future.
Of course, the Americans are the most dangerous enemy for Russia. This needs to be understood.
This is not a get-together with a “vodka-herring” menu to just shoot the breeze. Neither is this a friendly meeting.
But this is a direct dialogue of those who can really make decisions in a difficult situation and influence the situation.
And in this regard, it is very important.
Therefore, there is no need to fall into the mistake that Americans very often fall into when they say: “We don’t talk to such and such.” We don’t talk to terrorists, we don’t talk to states and “regimes” that we don’t recognize. This is a very big mistake.
You need to talk to everyone, often including the fiercest enemies.
The winter came to Syria with a hurricane and a new wave of hostilities. On December 1, a storm hit refugee camps in the north of the country. The hurricane damaged and destroyed a large number of settlements in Idlib and in the north of Aleppo.
The hurricane is not the only reason of a headache for Syrian militants in Greater Idlib, where a military storm is going really strong. Several recent reports talked about a near ground operation by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies to reinforce the ceasefire in the region.
On November 30, three militants were killed when the SAA shelled a position they were manning in the al-Ghab Plains in the western part of the Greater Idlib region. The army reportedly used its Russian-made 2K25 Krasnopol laser-guided 155 mm artillery round.
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The slain militants were Syrian members of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). They were fighting in the terrorist group’s Ansar [Supporters] unit which is dedicated for Syrians only.
The SAA shelling was likely a response to the ceasefire violations which led to casualties in Syrian ranks. In the last few days, two soldiers were allegedly killed in the al-Ghab Plains by sniper fire.
Meanwhile, the SAA, supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS), continues fighting terrorists in Syria’s central regions, and the last month was busy enough for the allies.
In November, the VKS carried out more than 610 airstrikes on ISIS cells and their hideouts in Syria’s central region, while the Syrian army conducted several combing operations in different parts of the region.
The most recently, a new wave of airstrikes targeted hideouts of ISIS cells located near the strategic Ithriyah-Khanasir highway, which links Hama with Aleppo.
While the SAA and Russian forces are doing their job, members of the US-led international coalition are busy revealing their activities in Syria.
The UK has officially claimed responsibility for the October 25 drone strike on northeastern Syria. The remotely piloted [MQ-9] Reaper, armed with Hellfire missiles, reportedly killed Sabahi Ibrahim al-Muslih, also known as “Abu Hamzah al- Shheell”, a cochairman of ISIS Shura Council.
The US also did not stay aside. However, it had no successful operation to reveal. Thus, Washington launched investigation into the murder of dozens of civilians.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has ordered an investigation into an airstrike in Syria in 2019. According to The New York Times, an American F-15 fighter jet, by order of Task Force 9, dropped a bomb on a crowd of civilians gathering in a field near the settlement of El-Baguz on March 18, 2019. The US military leadership downplayed the strike, which reportedly killed about 80 people.
Despite the growing discontent among the locals, the US-led international coalition continues its reinforcement in northeastern Syria. Over the last few days, dozens of trucks loaded with supplies and military equipment for the US-led coalition entered the country from Iraq.
While civilians are preventing some US convoys from passing through their villages, throwing stones to the vehicles, other US convoys suffer more severe damage. On December 1, a convoy moving logistic supplies to US-led coalition bases came under an IED attack, when it was passing near the town of al-Malikiyah in the northeastern countryside of al-Hasakah. Two trucks reportedly burnt out as a result of the explosion.
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UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 