Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s Zaporozhye and Kursk Nuclear Power Plants are most likely an attempt to portray Moscow as unable to keep those facilities safe, Swedish Armed Forces veteran and political and military observer Mikael Valtersson told Sputnik.
“When it comes to the Zaporozhye power plant, I believe that Ukraine wants to create pressure from the international community towards Russia, that the power plant should be at least internationalized, so that Russia wouldn’t control it,” Valtersson explained. “They could say it’s neutral now, the international community takes care of it.”
“When it comes to Kursk, I believe they want to sow distress, and maybe even panic among some part of the Russian population, at least those living nearby,” he added.
He also suggested that Ukraine tries to sow confusion by denying responsibility for these attacks.
“They said Russia attacked its own power plant in Zaporozhye, and they will probably say that if there were any Ukrainian drones, they were just passing by nearby, and they will all the time try to claim that it’s a false flag operation from Russia,” Valtersson noted. “And in the West many will believe that.”
Even if Ukraine’s culpability is confirmed, there likely “won’t be very severe reaction in the West,” he remarked.
The UAE has allocated $10 billion for direct investment in the Zionist entity in compliance with its obligations under the US-guided Abraham Accords.
The UAE’s deep involvement in Zionist militarism is barely noticed in the shadow of the Gaza genocide.
A deal was signed in 2021 between state-owned UAE arms firm, Edge Group, and weapons manufacturer, Israel Aerospace Industries, to design unmanned surface vessels with a range of military applications.
The UAE has also initiated a partnership between G42 and the Zionist entity-owned arms firm, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. G42 is run by Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s National Security Advisor who is the controlling shareholder and chairs the company.
Dorian Barak, co-president of the UAE-Israel Business Councilو expects to see about 1000 Israeli-owned companies operating in the Persian Gulf state very soon.
One such example could be Elbit Systems, which has set up a subsidiary in the UAE known as Elbit Systems Emirates. The branch produces weapons for both the UAE military and Israel.
The UAE state-owned firm, Mubadala, has an 11% participating interest in the Tamar and Dalit leases, which includes the bountiful Tamar gas field.
Mubadala has also invested in the Israeli venture capital firm, Pintango Venture Partners. Originally named Polaris Venture Capital, it was founded in 1993 by Chemi Perez, the son of the late Israeli president, Shimon Peres.
The UAE has also invested in the tech firm Synaptech, which is closely linked to the Israeli military. The chairman of Synaptech is the former war minister and the military chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon.
The UAE is deeply integrated, economically, with the Zionist entity.
Taiwan’s local authorities proposed increasing the island’s defense spending to a record NT$647 billion ($20.2 billion) next year, an increase of 7.7% from 2023 that accounts for 2.45% of estimated GDP in 2025.
The defense spending hike, proposed by the island’s local leader, Lai Ching Te, is the continuation of a trend set by his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen. During her tenure between 2016 and 2024, Tsai pushed through seven consecutive increases, almost doubling the island’s defense budget.
The US is forcing the island to step up its military spending, citing an alleged “threat” of China’s “invasion.” China considers the island as its inalienable territory.
While the US had stayed deliberately ambiguous in its vows to defend the island since 1979, the Trump and Biden administrations appeared to voice nothing short of clear deterrence commitments.
The Taiwan Enhancement Resilience Act (TERA), signed by President Biden on 23 December 2022, authorized $2 billion of annual military grant assistance to the island from 2023 to 2027. The US even attempted to designate the island a “major non-NATO ally.”
In April 2024, the US authorized another $8 billion in military aid for Taiwan and other allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. US weapons are now directly transferred from the Pentagon stockpiles to the island under the Presidential Drawdown Authority.
Over the past several years, Taiwan has, in particular, acquired 108 General Dynamics’ M1A2T Abrams tanks ($2.2 billion), 66 Lockheed Martin’s F-16V fighter jets ($8 billion) and 29 M142 HIMARS systems ($1.06 billion) from the US. US Big Five arm-makers have boasted of increased profits stemming from the US-driven tensions in Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
China strongly opposes Washington’s push for Taiwan’s militarization, saying this “sends a wrong signal to the Taiwan separatist forces.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced he would back Republican candidate Donald Trump and end his independent run for president, but only in swing US states.
The son of Senator Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy first tried to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination last April. Faced with obstruction within the party, he announced a third-party bid last October.
“Many months ago I promised the American people I would withdraw from the race if I became a spoiler,” Kennedy said on Friday afternoon. “In my heart, I no longer believe I have a realistic path to electoral victory.”
Kennedy said that three major issues led him to leave the Democrats: “free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on our children.” Trump, he explained, has “adopted these issues as his own to the point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration.”
The party two of his grandfathers helped build has become “the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big money,” Kennedy said.
He also accused the US government – led by Democrats on both occasions – of staging a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and rejecting a peace plan in 2019, pushing Kiev into a conflict with Moscow that, according to Kennedy, has cost over 600,000 Ukrainian lives so far.
“Ukraine is a victim of this war, and it’s a victim of the West,” he said.
Kennedy also criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for not having won “a single delegate” during the 2020 race, avoiding interviews, and not having a policy platform but a campaign focused entirely on opposing Trump.
Democrats have filed lawsuits to keep Kennedy off the ballot in many states, forcing his campaign to spend millions on ballot access challenges, according to NBC News.
In practical terms, Kennedy explained, he would be removing his name from the ballot in swing states while continuing to run in solidly “red” or “blue” states so his supporters can still cast a ballot without “harming or helping” anyone. His campaign has reportedly already filed petitions to that effect in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today suspended his campaign for president of the United States as an independent, telling the media he no longer saw a path forward to victory “in the face of relentless censorship.”
Kennedy said that following discussions with former President Donald Trump, he has agreed to join forces with Trump in a unity party, which will allow the two to work together on “existential issues,” including ending the war on Ukraine, censorship and the childhood chronic disease epidemic.
“I believe I have a moral obligation to use this opportunity to save millions of children,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy, founder and chairman on leave from Children’s Health Defense — whose campaign defied the odds by gathering more than 1 million signatures in a drive to get on the ballot in all 50 states — said he will remain on the ballot except in a handful of battleground states.
Kennedy delivered a scathing rebuke to the Democratic Party and the DNC, which he said “dragged us into court, state after state after state” in a campaign of “legal warfare” to keep him off the ballot.
He promised that if Trump is elected, in addition to ending chronic disease in children, he will work with Trump to clean up corrupt agencies and the “corrupt food system.”
Kennedy said he reached out to the Harris campaign in an attempt to engage them on issues he believes are critical to the country’s future, but the campaign didn’t respond.
Calling it a difficult choice to join the Trump campaign Kennedy said, “I have the certainty that this is what I’m meant to do. … Ultimately the only thing that will save our country and our children is if we choose to love our kids more than we hate each other.”
Kennedy launched his campaign on April 20, 2023, with a nearly two-hour speech in Boston, during which he vowed to reduce chronic disease in children.
He reminded the audience of the obligation America’s leaders have to protect children — from toxic pesticides, from dangerous pharmaceuticals and from the “corrupt merger of state and corporate power” that robs future generations of their health and of their ability to achieve financial security.
On Oct. 9, 2023, Kennedy said he would no longer challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president, announcing that he instead would run for president as an independent.
He told a crowd in Philadelphia that most Americans are tired of divisive politics and that they agree more than they disagree when it comes to issues like the environment, education and the economy.
“We agree that we want a clean environment and wholesome communities for our kids,” Kennedy said.
He accused both parties of being beholden to corporate donors.
Has the thin line between proxy war and direct war now been eliminated? I spoke with Colonel Douglas Macgregor as NATO’s direct involvement in the war is evident with its involvement in the invasion of Russia.
Russia has restrained itself to a large extent as retaliating against NATO could trigger another world war and possible nuclear exchange, although the failure to retaliate emboldens NATO and results in subsequent escalations. Even Zelensky referred to the failure of Russia to respond to the invasion of Kursk as a reason for why NATO should not fear stepping over more Russian red lines. Colonel Macgregor suggests that the assumption of the US and NATO being all-powerful will continue to contribute to reckless escalations in the war against Russia – but also in the Middle East, and against China.
Most Ukrainian, Western and Russian observers seemed to recognise during the first days of the invasion of Kursk that it was a mistake. Ukrainian troops emerged out of well-defended frontlines and could be easily targeted in the open and with poor supply lines. As this is a war of attrition, it is likely a huge mistake to throw away Ukraine’s best soldiers and NATO’s military equipment on territory that is not strategic and cannot be held. However, the propaganda machine has since been turned on and the war is now sold to the Western public as a great opportunity to improve negotiation power, to develop a buffer zone, and to humiliate Putin – although none of these arguments can stand up to scrutiny.
The Ukrainian and NATO invasion of Kursk has changed the war completely as the Ukrainian causalities have increased dramatically, the Ukrainian defensive lines in Donbas are now collapsing even faster, and NATO’s role in the war is no longer ambiguous. This is all happening as internal divisions in NATO are surfacing, and the US/Israel will likely trigger a regional war in the Middle East.
Retired Ukrainian Army Major Igor Lapin said in an interview with former Ukrainian parliament deputy Boryslav Bereza that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be defeated in the Kursk region if they decide to hold their positions. Ukraine’s expected defeat comes despite the involvement of the intelligence services of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Poland in the invasion of the Kursk region.
“Some people thought that now we would get somewhere and start entrenching ourselves. Well, I have already said, from the point of view of a special forces officer, that as soon as the front becomes static, that will be the end of us,” Lapin said.
He noted that the Russian military has an advantage in terms of air force, artillery, and troop numbers. In his opinion, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, is responsible for the attack on the Kursk region.
According to the retired major, Ukrainian troops cannot “add 300 km to the defence line and try to hold back the pressure of Russian troops,” thus, he believes that a static front line creates problems for Ukraine.
“There is the commander-in-chief’s intention. That is his responsibility. By the way, what is the strategic intention? Nobody knows,” the major added.
On August 6, Ukrainian troops launched an attack on the Kursk region of Russia. The invasion marked Ukraine’s most significant aggression against Russia since February 2022. Commenting on the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine had carried out another large-scale provocation by indiscriminately firing at civilian targets, adding that the enemy would receive an adequate response.
Despite the rapid advancement of Ukrainian forces in the first days of the invasion, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov said the advance had been halted. He stressed that the operation in the Kursk region would be completed with the defeat of the enemy and access to the state border.
However, the initial success of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region is due to the involvement of the intelligence services of the US, the UK, and Poland.
“According to available data, the operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kursk region was prepared with the participation of the intelligence services of the United States, the United Kingdom and Poland. The units involved underwent combat coordination at training centres in the United Kingdom and Germany. Military advisers from NATO states are providing assistance in managing the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that invaded Russian territory,” the Russian Intelligence Service said on August 20 to the Izvestia newspaper.
NATO countries also provided the Ukrainian military with satellite intelligence data on the deployment of Russian troops in the area of operation. The intelligence service further stated that due to the deterioration of Ukrainian troops’ situation in several sections of the combat contact line in the Northern Military District zone, the West has been pressuring Kiev to transfer military operations to Russian territory in the false belief that it will provoke the rise of anti-government sentiments and shaking up the internal political situation in Russia.
Washington’s involvement in Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk is not limited to the support from intelligence services. US private military group Forward Observations Group boasted about its involvement by posting a photo titled “The boys in Kursk” and geotagging Kursk. In response to the American mercenaries fighting in Kursk, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned US Chargé d’Affaires Stephanie Holmes on August 20 to lodge a protest.
It is recalled that in March, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that 13,387 mercenaries had arrived in Ukraine since the start of the Russian special military operation. At that time, up to 5,962 mercenaries were reported to have been eliminated. It is only normal that this number will skyrocket since Ukrainian forces are not only relying on the Forward Observations Group but a host of other mercenary groups, including the Georgian Legion, to invade Russian territory.
Nonetheless, as supply lines become stretched and Ukraine struggles to rotate soldiers, it is expected that their advances will quickly stall, which will inevitably lead to a rapid collapse and Ukrainian soldiers being driven out of Russia, especially as Russian forces continue to close in on the key supply hub town of Pokrovsk in Donbass.
As expected, Western media is glorifying Ukraine’s assault in Kursk while ignoring that Ukrainian front lines in Donbass are collapsing, which will see even more territory fall into the hands of Russia. In effect, for Ukraine’s daring attack on Kursk to occur, troops had to be withdrawn from Donbass, which has only benefited Russia on the eastern front, and once the Ukrainian assault stalls, it can be expected that it will be Russian forces pouring into Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast in response.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Washington’s fear-mongering over China’s nuclear arsenal is completely unfounded, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has said. Her comment came after the New York Times reported on Tuesday that US President Joe Biden had quietly updated the Nuclear Employment Guidance, refocusing its aim against China.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Mao said that Beijing was “gravely concerned” with the report. “The US has called China a ‘nuclear threat’ and used it as a convenient pretext for the US to shirk its obligation of nuclear disarmament,” she said.
Mao added that the size of China’s nuclear arsenal was “by no means on the same level with the US,” stressing that Beijing “follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and always keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security.” China has “no intention to engage in any form of arms race” with other states, she stated.
“It is the US who is the primary source of nuclear threats and strategic risks in the world,” the spokeswoman argued.
In 2023, the Pentagon estimated that China will double its stockpile of operational nuclear warheads to over 1,000 by 2030. The US currently has 5,550 warheads, while Russia has 6,255, according to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The White House has downplayed China’s concerns, with spokesman Sean Savett describing the change in nuclear strategy as a routine update that was “not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat.” US officials, however, have repeatedly described Beijing as “a challenge” to world peace and accused it of economic and military coercion in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing, in turn, blamed the US for the ongoing tensions, urging Washington to abandon the “Cold-War mentality.”
The largest party in the Swiss parliament, the Democratic Union of the Centre (UDC), accused President Viola Amherd and the government of undermining Switzerland’s neutrality by seeking to join the EU’s Military Mobility project.
On Wednesday, the Swiss government said that it intends to join the EU’s Military Mobility project, which aims to facilitate the movement of troops and military equipment across European territory.
“The UDC resolutely opposes Switzerland’s participation in the EU military pact PESCO [Permanent Structured Cooperation]. The Federal Council is thus frivolously abandoning the neutrality and sovereignty of our country. By participating in the EU military pact, the Federal Council, through gross negligence, is also endangering the security of the Swiss population. The UDC demands that the Federal Council bring this issue before parliament without fail,” the party said in a statement on Wednesday.
The UDC also accused the European Union of pursuing an expansionist policy in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.
“The goals of Switzerland as a neutral and sovereign state do not coincide at all with the goals of the EU. Especially since the EU considers itself a geopolitical player and pursues an obvious expansionist policy towards Ukraine, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova,” the party added.
Switzerland is not a member of the European Union or NATO. However, the Swiss Foreign Ministry’s 2022 foreign policy report announced the country’s intention to strengthen security cooperation with the alliance. In 2024 the Swiss military are expected to take part in 20 military drills beyond the country’s territory and in four drills within its soil, all of which involve NATO states.
French and Spanish radars installed by UNIFIL in the south of Lebanon are being used to target the resistance on behalf of Israel, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported on 15 August.
“A week ago, an Israeli drone targeted two Hezbollah fighters in Naqoura. Eyewitnesses said the drone was not noticed or heard before the surprise attack, which directed attention to the new French radar that was raised above the UNIFIL base in Mount Naqoura, and whether it was used to monitor the movements of the resistance,” Al-Akhbar wrote.
The French radar, the “marine radar” as the daily refers to it, was installed in the south two weeks ago at the request of UNIFIL Chief of Staff, Frenchman Cédric du Gardin, it says.
“Before the end of his term at the end of last July, the former French Chief of Staff sent a letter ‘reprimanding his officers because of their failure to detect any drone, air defense missile or rocket’ launched by the resistance,” the report adds.
Prior to this, a Spanish radar was installed in the Blat Plain in southern Lebanon’s Marjayoun.
Israel “asked the current UNIFIL commander, the Spaniard Arludo Lazarro, to install the radar immediately after his appointment two years ago. However, local Lebanese pressures postponed the decision until Army Commander Joseph Aoun and the government expressed their approval of it, with Defense Minister Maurice Slim refusing,” sources told the newspaper.
The Spanish radar monitors the occupied Shebaa Farms and Kfar Shuba hills on the Lebanese border.
The two radars “complement the French radar system installed since after the July 2006 aggression on Lebanon” in the vicinity of Bint Jbeil, the daily reported.
According to the report, UNIFIL’s navy has also joined the intelligence campaign to make up for the blind spot created by Hezbollah’s attacks on Israeli surveillance sites and equipment.
“A German warship, which has been in command of UNIFIL’s naval forces since 2001, is stationed off the coast of Naqoura. No one knows who is boarding or disembarking off of it or using it for reconnaissance, especially in the area extending from Tyre to Naqoura, which has witnessed several assassinations,” field sources told the newspaper.
UNIFIL has been operating in Lebanon since the first Israeli invasion of 1978. Despite this, their forces failed to end an 18-year occupation and have attempted to expand their areas of influence without proper authorization.
Many in Lebanon have for years accused UNIFIL of acting to suppress resistance in the south on behalf of Israel.
Last year, Washington and London had been trying, on behalf of Israel, to secure Lebanon’s approval for a UN Security Council resolution ensuring freedom of movement for UNIFIL across the country, without accompaniment from the Lebanese army as is the law.
“The US and Israel were unable to implement the freedom of movement clause despite the enormous pressure on Lebanon,” Munir Shehadeh, Lebanon’s former government coordinator for UNIFIL, told Al-Akhbar.
The bold and surprising incursion across the border into the Kursk region of Russia has won Ukraine the temporary possession of several Russian villages and a few hundred square miles of Russian territory. But the strategically cheap Russian land may have been bought at a very costly price. The Ukrainian armed forces managed a lightning advance through largely undefended territory. But that territory is defended now, and the advance seems already to have been slowed. And though it seems to have lost momentum well short of its goals, Ukraine may still have to pay the full price.
Ukraine’s decision to take the war across the border may have been made out of the desperate realization that the war is lost. The Russian advance in Donbas is slow but inexorable. It moves forward at a horrible cost of Ukrainian lives, military equipment, and ammunition. It now threatens the city of Pokrovsk, a strategic location whose fall could cut off Ukraine’s ability to supply its forces in the east and facilitate Russia’s capture of Donbas.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, made the decision to take the best trained and best equipped troops the Ukrainian armed forces has and remove them from the Donbas front—where the real war is being fought and where they are being existentially missed—and send them into Kursk to win land that few in NATO think they have a hope of holding. What calculation makes sense of that strategic decision, unless Zelensky and Syrsky know that the end is near?
Perhaps the calculation was that Ukraine’s best troops could be sent to the Donbas front to defend against the Russian invasion or they could be sent to Kursk to invade Russia. In the first case, they would inevitably fail to halt the overwhelming Russian advance; in the second case, they might change the facts on the ground. In either scenario, Ukraine’s best troops will be defeated and their Western equipment lost, but in the first they will be killed while achieving nothing but a short delay in defeat. In the second, they will be killed with the hope of assisting military and political objectives.
The military objective may have been to create a crisis in Kursk that would force Russia to divert troops from Ukrainian territory to Russian territory and relieve the pressure on the Donbas front. The political objective may have been to seize Russian territory that could be bargained back in exchange for occupied Ukrainian territory and improve Ukraine’s position at a negotiating table at which Ukraine now realizes it has to take a seat, since there is no longer a hope that their political objectives can be won militarily.
Though Ukraine considered several options for some time, the risky decision may have been catalyzed, not only by national desperation, but also by personal desperation by Ukraine’s commander-in-chief. Sources familiar with the decision-making by Syrsky toldThe Economist that the general “was under pressure.” Russia was irreversibly on the offensive, Ukraine was running out of weapons and, even more seriously, out of people. Avdiivka had fallen, the Russian front was advancing, the Ukrainian front was crumbling and the pivotal hub of Pokrovsk was in danger. He was even hearing rumours that he “was on the verge of being dismissed.”
So Syrsky secretly set his plan. Ukraine would invade Russia at a place that was little defended because it was of little value. Russia would not expect it. Highly trained and well equipped and supported Ukrainian troops would advance quickly, seize territory, and perhaps even capture the Kursk nuclear power plant. Russia would be forced to divert troops from Ukraine, relieving the desperate situation in Donbas, and Ukraine would hold a better hand at the negotiating table. Russia would have to negotiate land to secure the return of their land and, especially, of a nuclear plant that would be hazardous to win back militarily.
But the advance ran out of momentum well short of the nuclear plant. Russia has moved in defenses without moving significant forces out of Ukraine, and Ukraine is now losing troops and equipment in Russia the way it is in Ukraine. Exposed troops, tanks, mobile air defense missile launchers and supply lines have come under massive air strikes.
If the Ukrainian offensive fails, the spectacular ephemeral gains will have come at a great cost. Costs could include more rapid and painful losses in Donbas, loss of the opportunity to negotiate an end to the war, and loss of trust when those negotiations are forced upon Ukraine.
The most immediate cost of diverting elite troops and Western equipment from Donbas to Kursk is the further deterioration and weakening of Ukraine’s defences along the Donbas front. Russia’s military is taking advantage of that costly decision. Though Ukraine had counted on the invasion pulling Russian troops out of Donbas, so far, that does not seem to have happened. The Ukrainian armed forces say that the “relatively small” number of Russian forces that have been drawn out of Ukraine is “not…enough to indicate any differences or weakening in… hostilities.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin says both that, far from relieving pressure on the Donbas front, “on the contrary,” Russian offensive operations will increase and that, far from expediting negotiations, the incursion into Russia has made negotiations less likely.
Both claims appear to be true. The Ukrainian General Staff reports that the number of Russian assaults in the area of Pokrovsk have roughly doubled since the Kursk offensive and that they are increasing every day. On August 19, as Russian forces advanced to within six miles of Pokrovsk, Ukraine ordered the evacuation of families with children.
As for negotiations, there is not only the possibility that the Ukrainian offensive could derail future negotiations but the actuality that it already has. The Washington Postreports that Russia and Ukraine had both “signaled their readiness to accept the arrangement in [a] lead-up to the summit” in Qatar that would have seen both sides agree to cease strikes on the other’s energy and power infrastructure. The negotiations would have been the first since the peace talks and grain deal in Istanbul in the first months of the war. There were “just minor details left to be worked out” when the Qatar talks “were derailed by Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region.” Russia has not completely killed the talks but has put them on pause.
Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have reduced Ukraine’s power by 50%. One Ukrainian official said that Ukraine has “one chance to get through this winter, and that’s if the Russians won’t launch any new attacks on the grid.” A very cold winter could be an additional painful cost of the Kursk offensive.
And, as if trust could be hurt any further, a final cost of the Kursk offensive could be the continued erosion of trust. Russia was already distrustful of talks of peace since the recent revelations that Germany, France, and Ukraine were just using the 2014-2015 Minsk process to lull Russia into a ceasefire with the promise of a peace settlement in order to buy time for the Ukrainian armed forces to build up for a military solution. That distrust has now been fed by the Kursk offensive. Recent statements by Zelensky about the preparedness of Ukraine to negotiate, and even to negotiate territory, may be seen by Russia, rightly or wrongly, as once again anesthetizing Russia with promises of peace while preparing for war. As The New York Timesreports, “Even as Ukraine was signaling its readiness to talk, its military was preparing for one of its most daring attacks since Mr. Putin’s invasion began in February 2022.” The Times suggests that “[t]he flurry of Ukrainian talk about peace may have served in part as strategic deception, encouraging Russia’s leadership to see meekness and let down its guard.”
Barring a sudden reversal and a spectacular success, the Kursk offensive brings the risk of ephemeral gain at enormous cost. Those costs might include accelerated defeat in Donbas, a reduced likelihood of future negotiations, a lost opportunity for current negotiations, a very cold winter for Ukraine, and further loss of trust that erodes the chance for peace.
In the lead up to the Ukrainian military’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, even Western headlines were dominated by reports of Ukraine’s gradual demise. Ukraine is admittedly suffering arms and ammunition shortages, as well as facing an unsolvable manpower crisis. Russia has been destroying Ukrainian military power faster than Ukraine and its Western sponsors can reconstitute it.
Western headlines have also been admitting the scale on which Russia is expanding its own military power as its Special Military Operation (SMO) continues into its third year.
While the launch of Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk has diverted attention away from Ukraine’s collapsing fighting capacity, the incursion itself has not only failed to address the factors leading to this collapse, it is already accelerating it.
Politico in an August 15, 2024 article titled, “As Kyiv makes gains in Kursk, Russia strikes back in Donetsk,” cites the spokesman of Ukraine’s 110th Mechanized Brigade who would admit, “since Ukraine launched the Kursk offensive I would say things have become worse in our part of the front. We have been getting even less ammo than before, and the Russians are pushing.”
The same article would also cite “Deep State,” a mapping project Politico claims is “close” to Ukraine Ministry of Defense, claiming, “over the past 24 hours, Russia occupied the villages of Zhelanne and Orlivka and made advances in New York, Krasnohorivka, Mykolaivka and Zhuravka in Donetsk.”
Thus, while Ukraine claims gains in Kursk, it comes at the expense of territory everywhere else along the line of contact.
Because of the nature of the fighting in Kursk where Ukrainian forces have come out from behind extensive defensive lines and are operating out in the open, they are suffering much greater losses than Ukrainian units being pushed back along the line of contact, according to even the Western media.
Superficial Success, Strategic Suicide
Despite this reality, the Western media has invested heavily in depicting Ukraine’s Kursk incursion as a turning point in the fighting.
CNN in its August 15, 2024 article, “Russia appears to have diverted several thousand troops from occupied Ukraine to counter Kursk offensive, US officials say,” attempts at first glance to portray the Ukrainian operation as having successfully diverted Russian forces from the front lines.
Buried deeper in the article, however, CNN reveals that whatever troops Russia is moving are relatively insignificant compared to the number of Russian forces still fighting along the line of contact primarily in Kherson, Zaporozhye, the Donbass, and Kharkov.
In the short-term, experienced forces utilized as a mobile reserve are likely being moved to Kursk until Russian reserves within Russia itself can be sufficiently mobilized and moved to the area of fighting. The vast majority of Russia’s forces not only remain along the actual line of contact, they continue making progress at an accelerated rate.
The same CNN article would quote US officials, saying:
Some officials also raised concerns that Ukraine, which one western official said has sent some of its more experienced forces into Kursk, may have created weaknesses along its own frontlines that Russia may be able to exploit to gain more ground inside Ukraine.
“It’s impressive from a military point of view,” the official said of the Kursk operation. But Ukraine is “committing pretty experienced troops to this, and they can’t afford to lose those troops.”
“And having diverted them from the front line creates opportunities for Russia to seize advantage and break through,” this person added.
Buried under optimistic headlines across the Western media regarding this latest incursion is an ominous truth – that an operation aimed at humiliating Russia, boosting morale, and raising the political, territorial, and military costs for Russia, has only brought Ukraine deeper into its growing arms, ammunition, and manpower crisis.
Toward what end does an incursion accelerating the collapse of Ukraine’s fighting capacity serve?
Washington’s, Not Kiev’s Ends
CNN would also attempt to convince readers that the Kursk incursion took the US itself entirely by surprise. This is untrue.
The United States, following its political capture of Ukraine in 2014, admittedly took over Ukraine’s intelligence networks. These are the same networks that would have been required to organize this most recent incursion.
A New York Timesarticle, “The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin,” not only admits to the CIA’s role in training, shaping, and directing Ukrainian intelligence operations, but also admits to a network of CIA bases along the Ukrainian-Russian border and the fact that the CIA stood up covert military units specifically for crossing over into Russian territory and conducting operations there.
The CIA and other US military and intelligence agencies have been involved in Ukrainian military operations leading up to and all throughout the duration of Russia’s SMO. The Washington Postadmits that the US worked with Ukraine to “build a campaign plan” ahead of the failed 2023 Ukrainian offensive.
It is inconceivable Ukraine moved multiple brigades of manpower and equipment, including US-European trained soldiers and Western military equipment to Sumy where the Kursk incursion was launched without Washington’s involvement, let alone without Washington’s knowledge.
Why then did the US organize such an incursion, one admittedly overstretching Ukrainian forces already crumbling under the growing weight of Russian military power? Why, amid Russia’s strategy of attrition, have US planners decided to launch an incursion that will accelerate the loss of Ukrainian manpower, arms, and ammunition it does not have to spare?
In a much wider geopolitical context – Washington’s geopolitical context – the incursion helps raise the cost of victory for Russia in Ukraine as the US seeks to place pressure on and overextend Russia elsewhere within and along its borders.
Years before the SMO even began, as far back as at least 2019, US policymakers openly sought to draw Russia into a costly conflict in Ukraine, just one among many other proposals meant to overextend Russia.
The RAND Corporation in its 2019 paper “Extending Russia” would explain the benefits of “providing lethal aid to Ukraine,” stating:
Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Russian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.
Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk has – at a minimum – raised the political cost of Russia’s ongoing SMO. This most recent incursion into Kursk almost certainly had hoped to reach the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, just 35 kilometers beyond the furthest extent the incursion has reached as of this writing. Had Ukrainian forces reached the power plant, the price would have been even higher.
In many ways, however, the Kursk incursion has created a much greater strategic dilemma for Ukraine than it has for Russia. While it has unfolded on the wrong side of the border, the outcome is the same as the Kharkov front Russia opened earlier this year.
Regarding the Kharkov front, the New York Times in its May 2024 article, “Facing Russian Advance, a Top Ukrainian General Paints a Bleak Picture,” would admit, “the Russian attacks in the northeast are intended to stretch Ukraine’s already thin reserves of soldiers and divert them from fighting elsewhere,” and that, “the Ukrainian army was trying to redirect troops from other front-line areas to shore up its defenses in the northeast, but that it had been difficult to find the personnel.”
By committing thousands of Ukrainian troops and large amounts of Ukraine’s best military equipment to an incursion into Kursk, it is creating the same overextension of its own forces Russia had created in Kharkov last May, but with the added complication of needing to extend logistics and other means of supporting Ukrainian operations beyond Ukrainian territory itself.
The same RAND Corporation paper proposing to draw Russia into a costly conflict with Ukraine would also discuss the consequences this conflict would have for Ukraine itself, explaining:
… such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace.
The plan from the very beginning was to lure Russia into a costly conflict in the hopes of precipitating a Soviet-style collapse, but at the expense of Ukraine’s own survival. Thus, what we see unfolding in Ukraine today is simply the consequences predicted by the RAND Corporation in 2019.
Dangerous Escalation and the Long Game
Perhaps most concerning of all is the looming prospect of the US intervening more directly, including in the form of a “buffer zone” similar to that created by the US and its Turkish allies in the east and north of Syria during Washington’s proxy war there.
For this intervention to succeed, Russia would have to be compelled to restrain itself from attacking Western forces arriving in Ukraine.
The possibility of this happening is difficult to predict.
On one hand, Russia has demonstrated immense patience amid other US proxy wars. Russian patience in Syria is finally paying off after almost a decade of enduring US provocations and the presence of US troops east of the Euphrates River. The US now finds itself isolated and vulnerable in Syria, its forces under regular attack there, and a disproportionate amount of US military hardware remains committed to both Syria and the surrounding region, limiting US combat power ahead of a potential conflict with Russia in Eastern Europe or China in the Asia-Pacific.
Moscow may determine that a Western intervention directly into Ukraine will, over time, collapse under its own weight in a similar manner. In the long term, the US is only going to grow weaker and more isolated as a result of its unsustainable, overreaching foreign policy. Initiating direct conflict with the US now, when it is inevitably going to be weaker later, would be permitting the US a potential and unnecessary advantage.
Instead, Russia and its allies may find an opportunity to exercise many of the means of escalation (short of direct conflict with the US itself) they have held in reserve throughout the duration of this conflict. This includes more open and direct military cooperation between Russia and China, including the arming of Russian forces with Chinese manufactured weapons and ammunition.
On the other hand, Russia may decide to restrain itself from attacking Western forces arriving in Ukraine’s westernmost regions, but continue military operations along the line of contact and obviously within Kursk itself to expel Ukrainian forces. The US would seek to test the limits of Russian resolve, seeking to constrain Russian operations as much as possible, just as the US did in Syria from 2015 onward.
Throughout this process, the potential for escalation and direct conflict between Russia and the US will grow.
Despite the continued collapse of Ukraine’s fighting capacity because Ukraine is ultimately a proxy of the United States, a difficult and dangerous transition period lies ahead dependent on the extent to which the US seeks to mitigate Ukraine’s subsequent political and territorial collapse.
Only time will tell whether the US cuts and runs as it did in Afghanistan, or doubles down as it did in Syria. It should be pointed out, however, that the US withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 to redirect its resources ahead of Russia’s SMO in 2022. Were the US to cut Ukraine loose, it would only be because the US requires resources for a larger, more dangerous conflict elsewhere – namely in the Asia-Pacific region against China.
Either way, when Ukraine’s fighting capacity nears its end, it is likely only wider conflict awaits.
British Challenger 2 tanks reached Ukraine with enormous fanfare, ahead of Kiev’s long-delayed, ultimately catastrophic 2023 “counteroffensive”. On top of encouraging other proxy war sponsors to provide Ukraine with armoured fighting vehicles, Western audiences were widely told the tank – hitherto marketed to international buyers as “indestructible” – made Kiev’s ultimate victory a fait accompli. As it was, Challenger 2 tanks deployed to Robotnye in September were almost instantly incinerated by Russian fire, then very quietly withdrawn from combat altogether.
Hence, many online commentators were surprised when footage of the Challenger 2 in action in Kursk began to circulate widely on August 13th. Furthermore, numerous mainstream outlets dramatically drew attention to the tank’s deployment. Several were explicitly briefed by British military sources that it marked the first time in history London’s tanks “have been used in combat on Russian territory.” Disquietingly, The Times now reveals this was a deliberate propaganda and lobbying strategy, spearheaded by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Prior to the Challenger 2’s presence in Kursk breaking, Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey had reportedly “been in talks about how far to go to confirm growing British involvement in the incursion towards Kursk.” Ultimately, they decided “to be more open about Britain’s role in a bid to persuade key allies to do more to help – and convince the public that Britain’s security and economic prosperity is affected by events on the fields of Ukraine.” A “senior Whitehall source” added:
“There won’t be shying away from the idea of British weapons being used in Russia as part of Ukraine’s defence. We don’t want any uncertainty or nervousness over Britain’s support at this critical moment and a half-hearted or uncertain response might have indicated that.”
In other words, London is taking the lead in marking itself out as a formal belligerent in the proxy war, in the hope other Western countries – particularly the US – will follow suit. What’s more The Times strongly hints that Kursk is to all intents and purposes a British invasion. The outlet records:
“Unseen by the world, British equipment, including drones, have played a central role in Ukraine’s new offensive and British personnel have been closely advising the Ukrainian military… on a scale matched by no other country.”
Britain’s grand plans don’t stop there. Healey and Foreign Secretary David Lammy “have set up a joint Ukraine unit,” divided between the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. The pair “held a joint briefing, with officials, for a cross-party group of 60 MPs on Ukraine,” while “Starmer has also asked the National Security Council to draw up plans to provide Ukraine with a broader range of support.” On top of military assistance, “industrial, economic, and diplomatic support” are also being explored.
The Times adds that in coming weeks, “Healey will attend a new meeting of the Ukraine Defence Coordination Group,” an international alliance of 57 countries overseeing the Western weaponry flooding into Kiev. There, “Britain will press European allies to send more equipment and give Kyiv more leeway to use them in Russia.” The British Defence Ministry also reportedly “spoke last week to Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, and has been wooing Boris Pistorius, his German opposite number.”
Evidently, the new Labour government has an ambitious vision for the proxy war’s continuation. Yet, if the “counterinvasion” is anything to go by, it’s already dead in the water. As The Times notes, the imbroglio is primarily “designed to boost morale at home and shore up Zelensky’s position,” while relieving pressure on the collapsing Donbass frontline by forcing Russia to redirect forces to Kursk. Instead, Moscow “has capitalised on the absence of four crack Ukrainian regiments to press their attacks around Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar.”
Similarly, commenting on Starmer’s wideranging efforts to compel overt Western action against Russia, a “defence expert” told The Times: “if it looks as if the Brits [are] too far ahead of their NATO allies, it might be counterproductive.” This analysis is prescient, for there are ample indications London’s latest attempt to ratchet tensions and drag the US and Europe ever-deeper into the proxy war quagmire has already been highly “counterproductive”, and boomeranged quite spectacularly. Indeed, it appears Washington has finally had enough of London’s escalatory connivances.
In repeated press conferences and media briefings since August 6th, US officials have firmly distanced themselves from the Kursk incursion, denying any involvement in its planning or execution, or even being forewarned by Kiev. Empire house journal Foreign Policy has reported that Ukraine’s swoop caught the Pentagon, State Department, and White House off-guard. The Biden administration is purportedly not only enormously unhappy “to have been kept out of the loop,” but “skeptical of the military logic” behind the “counterinvasion”.
On top being a clear suicide mission, the eagerly advertised presence of Western weapons and vehicles on Russian soil “has put the Biden administration in an extremely awkward position.” Washington has since the proxy war erupted been wary of provoking retaliations against Western countries and their overseas assets, and the conflict spilling outside Ukraine’s borders. Adding to US irritations, the British-directed Kursk misadventure also torpedoed ongoing efforts to secure an agreement to halt “strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides.”
This comes as Kiev prepares for a harrowing winter without heat or light, due to devastating Russian attacks on its national energy grid. Putin has moreover made clear that Ukrainian actions in Kursk mean there is no longer scope for a wider negotiated settlement at all. Which is to say Moscow will now only accept unconditional surrender. The US has also seemingly changed course as a result of the “counterinvasion”.
On August 16th, it was reported that Washington had prohibited Ukraine’s use of British-made, long-range Storm Shadow missiles against Russian territory. Given securing wider Western acquiescence to such strikes is, per The Times, a core objective for Starmer, this can only be considered a harsh rebuke, before the Labour government’s escalatory lobbying efforts have even properly taken off. The Biden administration had in May granted permission for Kiev to conduct limited strikes in Russia, using guided munitions up to a 40-mile range.
Even that mild authorisation may be rescinded in due course. Berlin, which like Britain had initially proudly promoted the presence of its tanks in Kursk, is now decisively shifting away from the proxy war. On August 17th, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced a halt to any and all new military aid to Ukraine as part of a wider bid to slash federal government spending. The Wall Street Journal reporting three days earlier that Kiev was responsible for Nord Stream II’s destruction may be no coincidence.
The narrative of the Russo-German pipeline’s bombing detailed by the outlet was absurd in the extreme. Conveniently too, the WSJ acknowledged that admissions of “Ukrainian officials who participated in or are familiar with the plot” aside, “all arrangements” to strike Nord Stream “were made verbally, leaving no paper trail.” As such, the paper’s sources “believe it would be impossible to put any of the commanding officers on trial, because no evidence exists beyond conversations among top officials.”
Such an evidentiary deficit provides Berlin with an ideal pretext to step away from the proxy war, while insulating Kiev from any legal repercussions. The narrative of Ukraine’s unilateral culpability for the Nord Stream bombings also helpfully distracts from the attack’s most likely perpetrators. This journalist has exposed how a shadowy cabal of British intelligence operatives were the masterminds, and potential executors, of the October 2022 Kerch Bridge bombing.
That escalatory incident, like Nord Stream’s destruction, was known about in advance, and apparently opposed, by the CIA. Chris Donnelly, the British military intelligence veteran who orchestrated the Kerch Bridge attack, has privately condemned Washington’s reluctance to embroil itself further in the proxy war, declaring “this US position must be challenged, firmly and at once.” In December that year, the BBC confirmed that British officials were worried about the Biden administration’s “innate caution”, and had “stiffened the US resolve at all levels”, via “pressure.”
The determination of Washington’s self-appointed “junior partner” to escalate the proxy conflict into all-out hot war between Russia and the West has only intensified under Starmer’s new Labour government. Yet, the Empire gives every appearance of refusing to take the bait, while seeking to curb London’s belligerent fantasies. This may be an encouraging sign that the proxy war is at last reaching its end. But we must remain vigilant. British intelligence is unlikely to allow the US to withdraw without a fight.
Living through five or six major wars has hardened me to what I thought were the extremes of inhuman cruelty and brutality.
Two things made those extremes almost bearable: the brutality always revealed – at least according to the media coverage – the viciousness of the enemy. It was therefore quite understandable when our “brave men and women” pulverized the enemy.
Films of Japanese torturing captive Americans somehow justified holding Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II; and only a small percentage of Americans found the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki unreasonably vengeful at best, at worst, depraved.
The media giants in America portrayed the North Koreans as barbaric beasts with their captives, quite unlike their southern counterpoints – our allies during the Korean War. No one ever felt the need to explain how the South Koreans were a civilized breed while the North Koreans were absolute savages, at least according to the official line.
In Vietnam, our warriors justifiably (or so the media made us believe) dropped napalm on the North Vietnamese who had the gall to hide in villages and tunnels to ravage our invaders. At least it was accepted practice until some rogue photojournalist filmed a young girl screaming down a Vietnamese road in flames. … continue
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