German Long-Range Taurus Missiles Won’t Be Wunderwaffe Ukraine Is Looking For
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 19.08.2023
Berlin has joined Washington in climbing up the escalation ladder in the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, sending more military aid to Kiev than any other country besides the US. Germany has also borne the brunt of the West’s economic war against Moscow, with its economy sinking into a recession and facing the threat of deindustrialization.
A majority of Germans are opposed to sending Taurus KEPD 350 air-launched long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, with a fresh poll finding while 36 percent are in favor of their delivery, 52 percent are opposed, with support falling to just 21 percent among residents of eastern Germany.
Despite opposition, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and other members of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government have expressed support for delivering the missiles this week, with Lindner saying a decision on the matter would be reached “faster and at shorter notice” than in the past.
German media first reported on talks to send Taurus missiles to Kiev last week, saying the chancellor’s office was hoping to make changes to the missiles’ programming to prevent Ukraine from using them to attempt strikes deep into Russian territory.
Previous assurances in this vein by the US and other NATO powers have turned out to be empty promises, with Ukraine’s military eagerly using its Western-provided military hardware including artillery, missiles and drones to strike Russia, and to indiscriminately fire on cities and settlements in the Donbass.
“As in the past, we will always check every single decision very carefully,” Scholz told reporters last week when asked about the Taurus missiles’ delivery.
These “very careful” checks have already seen Germany send some €7.5 billion ($8.15 billion) in weapons to Ukraine over the past year-and-a-half, the second-largest amount only behind the United States. Berlin has already approved sending over 260 Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks, including from its own armories and those of other European NATO allies, plus Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, MARS rocket artillery systems, Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers, Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Bergepanzer armored recovery vehicles, Panzerfaust RPGs and billions more in other weapons, support equipment, ammunition and supplies.
What distinguishes the Taurus cruise missile is its range and firepower. The €950,000-a-piece bunker buster munition has a 481 kg warhead, and an operational range of over 500 km, making it a standoff weapon which, in the wrong hands, could turn into a tool for terror bombings.
No Wonder Weapon
“The long-range Taurus cruise missiles are an advanced high-precision unmanned weapon system, but they are not a wonder weapon,” AfD European Parliament MEP Gunnar Beck told Sputnik.
“They will add to Ukraine’s military capability, but not decisively,” the lawmaker, who serves as vice president of the European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy fraction, said.
Instead, “the delivery of these missiles is significant in that it marks a further escalation of the conflict, leading perhaps to the delivery of other weapons with greater and more decisive offensive capability. That, to me, is the danger here,” Beck stressed.
The lawmaker noted that the danger of Ukraine using Taurus missiles against Russian territory is “the main point of controversy,” with government assurances that this won’t take place of little comfort to ordinary Germans.
“The German government says it would like to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles against Russian territory. However, this is just fanciful talk. In practice, Germany cannot do anything to prevent Ukraine from using the missiles as they like,” Beck said.
“Most Germans do not wish to be drawn into a major international conflict with Russia,” the AfD lawmaker emphasized. “This is particularly true of East Germans who still appreciate that without Russian blessing reunification could not have been achieved 33 years ago.” Most Germans “simply do not believe that Russia and President Putin are a real threat to Germany today. That is my own personal view too. Ordinary Germans have less to fear of Russia today than it has from the EU, their own government and any of the major political parties within Germany itself.”
Amid the Ukrainian crisis and economic downturn, Beck’s party has seen a major surge in support, with recent polling indicating it would win up to 18 percent of the vote if elections were held today – on par with Chancellor Scholz’ Social Democrats. The growing prominence of the upstart opposition party and its social conservative, Eurosceptic brand of populism has led to debate inside the German political establishment on whether it should be banned as an “extremist” organization.
Beck emphasized that notwithstanding the “relentless” “anti-Russian propaganda” in German media, many Germans, especially in the east of the country, “have lost faith” in Scholz’s coalition, and “cannot remember when their government last did something for them.” Instead, half of Germans “now regard their political elite as just the executor of the aims and objectives of large multinationals and foreign powers – very well-paid executors at that,” the lawmaker summed up.
Germans Don’t Want Nuclear War With Russia
Dan Kovalik, a US-based human rights and labor rights lawyer and peace activist, echoed Beck’s sentiments on the implications and dangers of the Taurus missiles’ potential delivery to Kiev.
“I think Russia is about to destroy the Ukrainian military and probably the Ukrainian state as it exists, and that’s just a fact. I don’t think the missiles will change that. Of course, what they could do is allow Ukraine to fire more into Russian territory in a more destructive way than they are now with drones, which of course presents a great danger of escalating this conflict into a major world war, possibly even into a nuclear conflict. That’s why I think the German people are against this,” Kovalik stressed.
“Of course, Germany and Russia have been through two world wars against each other, and I don’t think either wants to repeat that,” the observer added.
Western calls for Ukraine peace talks a ‘tactical ploy’ – Moscow
RT | August 19, 2023
The US and its allies do not want the Ukraine conflict to end and their purported peace initiatives are merely attempts to buy Kiev time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview published on Saturday.
Geopolitical issues need to be discussed “not with [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters,” Lavrov said earlier this year. Negotiating directly with the Americans would make sense, he told the magazine International Affairs when asked about the idea.
“The problem, however, is that the United States has no intention of ending the conflict,” Lavrov explained, noting that “their officially declared objective is to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia.”
Prospects for negotiations between Russia and the West “are non-existent at this stage,” Lavrov said, while Kiev “Western sponsors are constantly pushing them to up the ante.”
Insisting on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘peace formula’ at meetings in Copenhagen and Jeddah – to which Russia was not invited – “hardly demonstrates an intention by the West to negotiate with Russia,” Lavrov said. Moscow has dismissed Zelensky’s ten-point list of demands as an unacceptable ultimatum unrelated to reality.
Russia has repeatedly tried to negotiate, from the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements to the “drastic attempt to convey our concerns to Western capitals” in December 2021, Lavrov noted. The West “arrogantly rejected” Moscow’s initiative and ramped up deliveries of weapons and ammunition to Kiev instead.
“We regard the Westerners’ hypocritical calls for talks as a tactical ploy to buy time once again giving the exhausted Ukrainian troops a respite and the opportunity to regroup, and to send in more weapons and ammunition,” Lavrov said, adding that “this is the path of war, not a peaceful settlement process.”
Angela Merkel, the former chancellor of Germany, admitted last December that the 2015 Franco-German proposal in Minsk was “an attempt to give Ukraine time” to build up its military. This was then confirmed by former French President Francois Hollande.
Lost Cause Is in the Air
By William Schryver – imetatronink – August 18, 2023
Back in February, I wrote what was and will likely remain the longest blog post I have authored. (I solemnly promise not to do such a thing again.)
Among other things, I observed:
“… the milieu of the past several weeks, during which time we have observed a pronounced rhetorical revolution in the popular western narratives regarding the NATO/Russia war in Ukraine.
“Lost cause is in the air. Many who have privately known this to be the case for some time have finally been sufficiently emboldened to publicly embrace the obvious — albeit reluctantly, and often with a good measure of rationalization and lingering misinformation in tow.”
Of course, at that point in time, the pivotal Battle of Bakhmut had not reached its inevitable conclusion, and the dream of a decisively triumphant Ukrainian march to Crimea was still cherished fondly by those partial to that cause.
As per usual, my sense of the trajectory of events anticipated something that would still take some time to be realized in full.
In any case, lost cause is now acrid in the late summer air of August 2023 — cordite, sulphur, and putrefied flesh.
Chagrined accounts of Ukrainian slaughter and woe are now rippling through the mainstream western media, and spilling off the lips of the “credentialed commentariat”.
It has become the pitiless massacre many of us predicted all those months ago.
And, of course, it never had a chance to be anything else.
What were they thinking?!
How did the Imperial Masters of War ever persuade themselves that their money, weapons, several thousand mercenaries, and a large fraction of the male population of Ukraine could defeat Russia in a high-intensity industrial land war on its borders?!
Did they really believe NATO armaments, training, intelligence, surveillance, planning, command, and impotent economic sanctions would be sufficient to defeat a resurgent Russia in 2022 and beyond?
I think they almost certainly did. Hubris and its attendant delusions are staples of end-of-empire epochs.
Of course, they’re going to try to spin this major geostrategic defeat such that its true realities, causes, and consequences are obscured. Already they’ve been working overtime to subtly dismiss the obvious conclusion that Russia is simply too strong and capable to defeat militarily.
I’ve noted the recurring talking point that the repulse of Ukraine’s offensive is being attributed to Russia’s supposedly archaic employment of “minefields and trenches” in a complex array of static defense lines.
Somehow they neglect to mention the overwhelming dominance of Russian artillery, its dizzying array of battlefield attack drones, its air superiority, its first-rate motorized infantry maneuver, and its relentless long-range precision missile strikes on rear-area logistical targets.
The simple fact of the matter is that, not only was defeating Russia beyond the capacity of the Mother of All Proxy Armies NATO built in Ukraine, it would likewise defy the never-yet-demonstrated and effectively fictitious American “mastery” of what the Pentagon has fancifully termed “combined-arms operations”.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the damn fools aren’t still stupid enough to try.
Either way, as I wrote in my previous post:
Matters have reached the point where the imperial masters will be forced to choose between a humiliating disengagement and abandonment of Ukraine to its fate — or otherwise blunder into a calamitous direct military intervention.
I continue to be convinced they won’t go there. And for the sake of the bereaved mothers, widowed wives, and fatherless children of the young American men who would be compelled to act out the catastrophe, I sure hope I’m right.
West has shown its ‘true Russophobic face’ – Lavrov
RT | August 18, 2023
Washington and Brussels have openly unleashed a hybrid war against everything Russian, dropping their masks after decades of pretending to be civilized and adequate international partners, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with International Affairs, published on Saturday.
“Many of our former partners have been concealing their Russophobic nature under the veil of hypocrisy, but have now shown their true face in all its glory,” he said. “However, there is also the flip side of the coin here, since the Global Majority saw the true face of those who went as far as [to] aspire to a monopoly in defining the so-called universal values.”
“Today’s West is steered by people like Josep Borrell who divide the world into a blooming ‘garden’ and ‘the jungle,’ where the latter clearly applies to most of humanity,” Lavrov added.
The West has spent decades cynically transforming neighboring Ukraine into a “hostile military bulwark against Russia by nurturing an entire generation of politicians ready to declare war on our shared past, culture and everything Russian,” according to Lavrov.
Western capitals even openly admitted that reaching a peaceful settlement in Ukraine was never part of their plan, and that the Minsk agreements were originally designed to “buy some time to prepare a military scenario and deliver weapons to Kiev.”
“I think that the essential thing we must understand in this regard is that the West wants to do away with our country as a serious geopolitical rival,” the top Russian diplomat said “They have not hesitated to use subversive methods and perform acts of sabotage, as was the case with the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea.”
Lavrov also accused Washington and its allies of using all possible coercive means to prevent Russia’s partners from engaging in economic and other kinds of cooperation, while also “making outrageous efforts to disconnect Russia from international cooperation mechanisms in culture, education, research, and sports.”
One thing that the West fails to understand, according to Lavrov, is that “Russia will use all means to defend its people and its vital interests,” and thus would be better for the opponents to realize that “confrontation with Russia is futile and switch to more civilized” means for achieving a balance of interests.
The Anglo-American War on Russia – Part Nine (Preparing a Nuclear Attack)
Tales of the American Empire | August 17, 2023
The United States spent over a trillion dollars the past two decades to prepare for a surprise nuclear strike on Russia. The United States withdrew from major arms control treaties and built newer and more accurate nuclear missiles. It built missile bases in Poland and Romania and hundreds of new submarines and destroyers to launch cruise missiles or long-range anti-missile missiles.The United States Army and Navy developed, tested, and deployed mobile missile launchers to Europe while Generals insist they have the right to deploy such systems on Russia’s borders, to include inside Ukraine and Finland. This was barely reported in America’s corporate media, which spews constant propaganda about Russian threats to prepare the public for nuclear war.
_________________________________
Related Tale: “All Nuclear Weapons Are Illegal”; 
• All Nuclear Weapons Are Illegal
“America’s Secret Planned Conquest of Russia”; Washington’s Blog; December 29, 2016; https://archive.ph/TR1qG
“Navy Unveils Truck-Mounted SM-6 Missile Launcher in European Test”; Joseph Trevithick; The War Zone; September 14, 2022; https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone…
“Army Fires Tomahawk Missile From Its New Typhon Battery In Major Milestone”; Joseph Trevithick; The War Zone; July 3, 2023; https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone…
“Dr. Strangelove”; movie clip of a psychopathic American General advocating a massive nuclear attack on Russia; • Dr. Strangelove (1964) – General Turg…
“Putin’s Warning”; plea to reporters at the 2016 International Economic Forum to tell the truth; • Putin’s Warning: FULL SPEECH
Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”; • The Anglo-American War on Russia
Unexploded device detonates in Donetsk killing three
RT | August 18, 2023
Three utility workers were killed in the Russian city of Donetsk on Friday when a faulty Ukrainian cluster shell exploded, according to local officials. Another worker was injured in the blast.
The workers, who had been repairing water pipes in central Donetsk, were caught in the blast during their lunch break. They were killed on the spot in a “detonation of an explosive device,” Donetsk Mayor Aleksey Kulemzin said. Two others were hospitalized following the blast.
According to media reports and local officials, the explosion was caused by a Ukrainian cluster artillery shell. The unexploded device may have been hanging from a tree or in a trash can, local residents told the media. The shell suddenly detonated and released its sub munitions, which exploded, hitting the civilians.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has ramped up its use of cluster munitions, repeatedly firing them at Donetsk and other locations near the front line. The shells have already caused multiple deaths and injuries among civilians.
The uptick in the use of cluster munitions comes after last month the US sent so-called dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM) for NATO-caliber 155mm howitzers. The controversial delivery, which was criticized even by some of the US’ closest allies, came as a stop-gap measure to compensate for a shortage of conventional artillery shells, as admitted by President Joe Biden.
Over the course of the ongoing conflict, Russia has accused the Ukrainian military of repeatedly using cluster munitions from its domestic stockpiles to target civilian areas. In particular, Kiev’s forces have on many occasions shelled Donetsk and its surroundings with unguided multiple rocket artillery projectiles containing the controversial anti-personnel PFM-1 petal mines.
Iran and Russia Senior Defense Officials Discuss Military Coop
Mehr News Agency | August 17, 2023
Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Aziz Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh and Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin held talks on military-technical cooperation.
According to TASS news agency, the meeting took place on the sidelines of the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security.
“The sides discussed current issues of bilateral military and military-technical cooperation. They exchanged views on issues of regional security and the international situation,” the Russian defense ministry said on Tuesday, adding that the sides reiterated their commitment to close dialogue and development of cooperation in the military sphere.
The 11th Moscow Conference on International Security was held on Tuesday at the Patriot Congress and Exhibition Center. In total, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, more than 800 delegates from 76 countries took part in the conference. Interestingly, this list did not include any Western states.
According to the program, China, India, South Africa, Israel, Turkey, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and North Korea were invited. Representatives of eight international organizations, including the UN, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Arab League and the African Union, took part in the conference.
Russians gained wealth amid war in Ukraine while Western countries lost trillions of dollars: Report
Press TV – August 18, 2023
Russia got richer last year amid the war in Ukraine, while the Western countries that provided funds and weapons to Kiev to fight against Moscow lost trillions of dollars of their wealth.
Russia added $600 billion of total wealth in 2022, the Business Insider (BI) reported this week, citing the latest annual Global Wealth Report of the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) published on Tuesday.
According to the BI, the number of Russian millionaires rose from around 350,000 to about 408,000 last year. However, in 2022, about 1 million of an estimated 23.7 million lost their millionaire status in the United States.
It said 4,500 Russians joined the super-rich people’s club of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNW) — people with more than $50,000,000 — last year.
In the meantime, the collective West, North America and Europe together, lost $10.9 trillion, UBS said, noting that the US alone shed $5.9 trillion of its wealth.
The Swiss bank suggested that Russia’s gains might be attributed to the rising price of oil, a major export commodity and a key economic engine for Russia.
Russia’s added wealth came amid the West’s unprecedented anti-Moscow economic sanctions.
Western officials have admitted that the West’s sanctions on Russia had backfired, hurting Europeans instead.
Amid the West’s planning for anti-Moscow sanctions shortly after the start of war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin warned European buyers of Russian oil and natural gas that punitive measures imposed by the West would backfire, and those Western countries would be hit worse by the bans.
After Western countries banned Russia’s oil, Moscow turned to the East and increased its sales of crude to other countries which in turn re-exported oil to the European countries.
As a result, Mexico, India, and Brazil also gained significant amounts of wealth in 2022, while the US, Japan, Canada, and Australia lost the most, the UBS report suggested.
Diplomacy with Russia necessary for Europe – former French President
By Lucas Leiroz | August 18, 2023
Showing realism and willingness for dialogue, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy strongly criticized the West’s stance on the Ukrainian crisis and demanded more diplomatic efforts. For the former politician, it is necessary for Europeans to live peacefully with Russia, as it is not possible to continue a policy of confrontation and aggression in the long term.
Sarkozy’s criticisms were made during an interview with the French newspaper “Le Figaro”. He spoke with journalists about possible solutions to the current conflict in Ukraine and endorsed the need to pursue peace through diplomacy. Sarkozy condemned the policy of prolonging the war through unlimited military assistance to Kiev, which has been one of the main points of Emmanuel Macron’s foreign policy.
For Sarkozy, Macron failed to continue to deal with the reality of the conflict mainly “due to pressure from [some] eastern Europeans”. Last year, Macron was severely slammed by Polish leader Mateusz Morawiecki because he was trying to negotiate with Moscow in the early weeks of the special military operation. In May 2022, Morawiecki compared Macron’s stance to an “attempt to negotiate with Hitler”. Sarkozy sees this event as an important point of international pressure, boosting Macron’s decision to adhere to the policy of unlimited support to Kiev.
The former president also negatively assessed the project of Ukrainian membership in the European Union. For him, these plans are merely “fallacious promises that will not be held”. Sarkozy compared the Ukrainian access to the Turkish one, making it clear that in both cases the projects are unlikely to succeed.
Also, Sarkozy emphasized the importance of maintaining good relations with Russia due to the geographical factor. Considering the proximity between the EU and Russia, it is necessary that both sides are diplomatically close, without friction and conflicts. Sarkozy admits that the confrontation with Russia is only of American interest, not European, and therefore there must be a reformulation of Europe’s Ukraine policy.
“Russia is a neighbor of Europe and will remain so (…) In this regard, European interests are not aligned with American interests. We cannot stick to the strange idea of ’fighting a war without fighting”, he said.
Another subject commented by Sarkozy was the territorial issue. For him, peace negotiations will have to deal rationally with the possibility of recognizing Crimea and Russian historic territories. Sarkozy states that with Ukraine’s impossibility to win the war, there are only two alternatives: freeze the conflict or recognize the territorial loss. The first option seems inadequate because a new war situation would arise in the future, while on the other hand the recognition of territories can be legitimate, if done by referendum with international observers.
“When it comes to this territory (Crimea), which was Russian until 1954 and where a majority of the population has always felt Russian, I think any step back is illusory (…) If the Ukrainians do not completely manage to win them back, then the choice will be between a frozen conflict – which we know will inevitably lead tomorrow to a new hot conflict – or we can come out on top by resorting, again, to referendums strictly supervised by the international community to settle these territorial questions in a definitive way”, he added.
It is necessary to note that Sarkozy does not adopt a “pro-Russian” opinion. He echoes the Western “consensus” of criticizing Russia’s decision to intervene militarily in Ukraine, even referring to the special military operation by the biased word “invasion”. The very proposal to redo the referendums in Crimea and other regions shows Sarkozy’s distrust of Russia, since Moscow has already held referendums that have been widely verified by invited international observers, having no need to redo them. So, the former president’s opinion is undoubtedly aligned only with European interests, with no pro-Russian bias.
The problem is that Europe is now conditioned to believe that American interests are its own. And this is precisely what Sarkozy is criticizing. He reminds how geography is a basic principle of international politics. Neighboring regions must strive to maintain friendship and respect so that there are no conflicts, as they will always be close and have to deal with each other, rationally overcoming disagreements. And this is what Sarkozy advocates for EU-Ukraine-Russia relations – that, despite disagreements, a peaceful [and realistic] solution is found as soon as possible.
Obviously, the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime rejected Sarkozy’s proposal. Zelensky’s aide Mikhail Podoliak accused the former French leader of “deliberately participating” in “genocide and war” by simply advocating diplomacy. For the Ukrainian official, Sarkozy’s ideas are “fantastic” and “criminal”, as Crimea and Donbass are supposedly “unconditional territories of Ukraine”. In fact, this type of position on the part of Kiev is not surprising, since in addition to being one of the sides directly involved in the conflict, the regime works as a proxy for Washington, completely adhering to American anti-Russian narratives.
What really matters is whether French and European politicians will be attentive to Sarkozy. The former president is denouncing an obvious reality: to satisfy American interests, Europe is destroying itself and harming its relations with a neighboring power. Current politicians need to be aware of this scenario and reverse it. However, unfortunately, it seems the current generation of heads of state does not have the same strategic understanding as Sarkozy.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
A Vicious Blame Game Is Breaking Out After The Counteroffensive Predictably Failed
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 17, 2023
Two back-to-back pieces published by Newsweek and Politico confirm that a vicious blame is breaking out after the counteroffensive predictably failed. The first was released on Wednesday and reported how “Zelensky’s Pivotal Counteroffensive Call Threatens to Divide Leadership” between the presidential administration that wants to prepare for a potential Russian offensive and the armed forces that want to continue pushing ahead. An unnamed source also alleged that politicians felt misled by the military.
As for the second, which came out the day later on Thursday, its author observed that “As Ukraine counteroffensive gets bogged down, it’s back to the drawing board”. The problem is that nobody knows what to do next, however, since they can’t agree on what went wrong to begin with. According to their report, everyone is pointing fingers at who’s to blame for getting hopes unrealistically high about this failed campaign.
Here are some analyses of the relevant events leading up to this vicious blame game:
* 24 January: “Deciphering Ukraine’s Destabilizing ‘Deep State’ Dynamics”
* 14 February: “NATO’s Self-Declared ‘Race Of Logistics’ Confirms The Bloc’s Military-Industrial Crisis”
* 14 March: “The Washington Post Finally Told The Full Truth About How Poorly Kiev’s Forces Are Faring”
* 24 April: “US Propaganda Is Responsible For Unrealistically High Hopes About Kiev’s Counteroffensive”
* 29 April: “Poland’s Top Military Official Shared Some Unpopular Truths About The NATO-Russian Proxy War”
* 3 May: “Garry Kasparov’s Cognitive Dissonance Is Typical Of Kiev’s Average Supporters Right Now”
* 13 May: “Ten Critical Observations At The Onset Of Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive”
* 21 May: “What Comes Next After Russia’s Victory In The Battle Of Artyomovsk?”
* 1 June: “Kiev Faces Seven Key Challenges Ahead Of Its Counteroffensive”
* 2 June: “Viktor Orban Is Right: The Counteroffensive Will Be A Bloodbath For Ukraine”
* 11 June: “Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive Is The West’s Most Important Military Campaign Since WWII”
* 12 June: “CNN Admitted That Kiev Lost Around 15% Of Its Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles In A Week”
* 14 June: “How Will The US Respond After The Failure Of Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive?”
* 20 June: “Putin Strongly Suggested That A Political Solution To The Proxy War Is Still Possible”
* 21 June: “Lavrov Sent The Clearest Signal Yet That Russia Is Interested In Freezing The Proxy War”
* 5 July: “Will Zelensky Become The New Saakashvili?”
* 7 July: “Pay Attention To What NATO Chief Stoltenberg Conspicuously Omitted From His Latest Speech”
* 8 July: “Cluster Munitions Are The Latest Wunderwaffe That’s Doomed To Disappoint The West”
* 10 July: “Removing Ukraine’s MAP Requirement For Joining NATO Isn’t As Important As It Seems”
* 17 July: “Kiev’s Latest Attack Against The Crimean Bridge Was A Desperate Distraction”
* 24 July: “The New York Times Finally Told The Truth About The Failure Of Kiev’s Counteroffensive”
* 6 August: “The Jeddah Talks Backfired On Zelensky”
* 11 August: “The Polish President Said Kiev Isn’t Doing The West Any Favors & Its Counteroffensive Failed”
* 16 August: “Bolton’s Criticism Of Biden’s Ukraine Policy Doesn’t Stand Up To Scrutiny”
Simply skimming the headlines reveals that the counteroffensive’s failure was predictable due to Russia’s growing edge in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition”, yet it still went ahead anyhow for ulterior military and political reasons. Regarding the first, these concerned the West’s interest in obtaining invaluable battlefield data for its weapons, while the second involved Kiev’s inability to walk back its maximalist demands for ending the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.
This disaster was therefore entirely avoidable, which the Western public is quickly realizing as it begins to dawn on them that their over $165 billion in taxpayer-provided aid to Kiev failed to break the stalemate that set in last winter. The wisest among them might soon start wondering why a ceasefire wasn’t agreed to back then in order to focus on war-torn Ukraine’s reconstruction, which is why their leaders are now desperately trying to shift the blame to redirect rising public anger away from themselves.
Tens of thousands of Kiev’s troops have been killed since January and tens of billions of dollars spent just for the sake of gaining less than 100 square miles, which wasn’t worth it from the perspective of average Ukrainians or Westerners. The only party that profited was the military-industrial complex that obtained invaluable battlefield data for its weapons, though this was at the expense of further depleting the West’s stockpiles, which makes it more difficult for this New Cold War bloc to respond to sudden crises.
On the Ukrainian front, military-political divisions are reportedly widening per Newsweek’s report, which also claims that Russia is gearing up for its own offensive that’s slated to begin sometime this fall before scaling into a full-fledge one by next spring. Meanwhile, the Western front is less dramatic per Politico’s report as officials mostly try to pin the blame on the expert and media communities, though opposition parties like the Republicans are also of course trying to capitalize on this ahead of coming elections.
These latest observations about how counterproductive the counteroffensive has been for Ukrainian-Western unity, solidarity within their respective ranks, and Ukraine’s human and military resources mean that Russia’s prior interest in a ceasefire can no longer be taken for granted. Russia arguably has more to gain by continuing to fight than freezing the conflict since its enemies’ recent weaknesses raise the chances that all the entirety of those former Ukrainian territories that it claims can finally be liberated.
That’s not to say that there’s no possibility of Russia agreeing to a ceasefire in the unlikely event that the US complies with President Putin’s demand from late June to cut off arms shipments to Ukraine as the prerequisite for resuming related talks, but just that it would be his most surprising “goodwill gesture” yet.
China to strengthen military cooperation with Iran
MEMO | August 16, 2023
China is looking to enhance military cooperation with recent fully-fledged member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Iran.
Speaking at the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security yesterday, China’s Defence Minister Li Shangfu said that Beijing was keen to bolster military ties with Tehran and other SCO members and observer states.
“We will continue to strengthen the mechanism of security cooperation within the SCO, actively deepen defense collaboration with the organisation’s newest member Iran, as well as Belarus, which will soon become a SCO member,” Russia’s official TASS news agency quoted Li as saying.
The defence minister also emphasised that China is prepared to hold joint drills with other countries and to enhance international cooperation on arms control: “Beijing is ready to hold joint military drills and exercises with all countries, as well as find a larger space to hold drills and strengthen international cooperation in the field of arms control and non-proliferation [of nuclear weapons].”
Last month Iran became the newest member of the SCO, joining China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The SCO Charter outlines the intergovernmental organisation’s commitment to the collective security of member states, especially in regards to” joint counteraction to terrorism, separatism and extremism in all of them manifestations.”
The Jerusalem Post noted that it was the first time the Islamic Republic has joined a regional pact since its founding in 1979. “This will grant Iran a freer hand to openly trade arms with Russia and China, and other SCO countries, which results in Iran’s expanding its influence and aggression in the region. The West needs to carefully consider the repercussions of this significant strategic development,” the article warned.
Iranian Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, praised the Moscow conference, saying: “It is a weighty exhibition in which the Islamic Republic of Iran has a good presence in this exhibition with its many companies. Very good topics were raised in the international security conference.”
Russia’s asymmetric response
Russia’s asymmetric response to latest announced plans of U.S. and NATO for sending more devastating military hardware to Ukraine
By Gilbert Doctorow | August 15, 2023
Each time over the past 18 months that it appeared the Ukraine war was approaching a finale amounting to Kiev’s defeat and capitulation we have been surprised by yet another U.S. initiated escalation that changes the nature of the conflict and promises a new and drawn-out stage of fighting.
Did the Ukrainian counter-offensive which began on 4 June fail? An increasing number of Western mainstream media including CNN have published reports acknowledging it is a failure. In Washington, the finger pointing game over who ‘lost Ukraine’ has begun among the country’s most determined backers.
Europe is a backwater in more than one dimension. Not everyone here has gotten the word about Ukraine’s losses in two months of desperate attacks on Russian defensive positions across the entire 1,000 km front. Last night I watched a round-table discussion of the war on French television in which not a single panelist had been told that the game is up in Ukraine. These smirky amateurs, mostly garden variety journalists, were discussing the fighting around one or another Ukrainian town on the front line whose name they could barely pronounce, all convinced that the Ukrainian forces had the upper hand and were on their way to breaching the Russian defenses, about to reach the less awesome second line of defense, and were surely to make it through to the Sea of Azov, thereby achieving the basic objective of the entire operation – cutting the Russian supply lines and breaking the back of Russian resistance. The whole time these commentators smiled broadly as if the war were just a video game.
But to hell with the French propagandists. In the German media, mainstream journalists have been seeding the discussion of the war with news about Ukraine’s setbacks and the improbability of their accomplishing anything other than self-destruction as the fighting continues. Simultaneously with the announcement that Germany is about to supply long range reconnaissance drones to Kiev, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for “continuation” of peace negotiations. It is curious that no one told him there are no peace negotiations going on today. But the main point is that victory on the battlefield seems to have vanished from the Berlin discourse.
Nonetheless, the United States and Britain announce day after day new appropriations for delivery of military hardware of the most devastating sort to Ukraine. Abrams tanks are on the way. Longer range strike missiles with a range up to 500 km may soon be shipped. Biden in the past week inserted authorization for another 14 billion dollars in military supplies into a bill for provision of aid to victims of natural disasters, meaning the present disaster in Hawaii and elsewhere in the States. The tactic was meant to overcome rising Republican opposition to giving Ukraine one more cent of aid should the aid have been in a separate bill dedicated to the war effort. The drumbeats for provision of F16s to Ukraine continue and there is talk of preparing new Ukrainian troops for a renewed counter-offensive in 2024.
So what are the Russians doing about the new arms on the way to Ukraine?
An article posted in Russian social media and carried by the number one news portal, Dzen, formerly a subsidiary of Yandex, gives us a good insight into Russian countermeasures that otherwise are buried in general daily Western reporting on the war. We hear about air raid alerts across Ukraine which took place a day ago but there is no explanation. We hear about a Russian missile strike that killed a young Ukrainian family but are told it is just part of the Russian attacks on civilians.
The article posted on “Интересная жизнь с Vera Star” makes sense of it all.
First, those air raid sirens across the whole of Ukraine were related to the systematic Russian bombardment of all still functional Ukrainian airports from which their air force’s SU-24 and SU-27 can operate. These are the aircraft that are capable of carrying and firing the Storm Shadow and other long range missiles that have been supplied by Britain and France, and which may carry German missiles, if Berlin decides to proceed with its previous offer of such materiel.
Second, we are told that the Russians have just used Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to destroy the railway tunnels passing under the Carpathians which have been the main supply route of Western military hardware arriving from Poland and Romania. For a long time, there was discussion in the Russian senior military command over whether it was permissible to attack this ostensibly civilian infrastructure. However, the decision was taken to do so in light of the latest U.S. and NATO plans to raise the bar in what attack equipment they are providing to Ukraine. As the Russians argue, civilian infrastructure that is being used to serve military objectives automatically becomes a legal target for them.
By Russian calculations, they have now nullified the latest Western plans to prolong the war.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
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On Herd Mentality
By Jeb Smith | April 14, 2026
I no longer trust “we the people,” because of the powers influencing them. Media and government schooling form their general ideas on reality and governance. Therefore, it’s not a case of the voter choosing the politicians. Instead, the system is conditioning and conforming the voter to the authorities’ desires.
In democracies, the people are kept occupied working and paying taxes, too busy to acquire information outside the approved sources. You will find they know and care far more about the next iPhone than political philosophy. Of those who hold some interest, 95% just toe the party line, holding the same opinion as the primary media source they listen to. They lack both the desire and time to expand their horizons.
Media’s purpose is to conform people’s thought to a preferred goal, which is why Republican and Democratic voters both firmly hold their parties’ general stances, reciting the same talking points. The people do not originate ideas; their thoughts are fed to them by the media so they can consume, digest, and parrot back whatever they are served. When it comes to politics, we rarely think for ourselves. We are told what to think.
Watch PBS, MSNBC and read your local newspaper for six months, and you will receive a particular view and understanding of the world. Then listen to The Mike Church Show, The Blaze, and The Daily Wire, and you will get not just another perspective but a whole different world of facts and events. The world people believe they live in can be entirely different depending on their news sources.
We enjoy seeing the enemy humiliated, which describes why those engulfed in politics love their preferred media sources; they keep returning for more like a drug addict. Networks ensure their “experts” align with the worldview they and their audience desire. The people who watch PBS, BBC, and so forth expect a specific perspective to be presented. Fox News watchers demand the same. In doing this, we both encourage and assure we are misled.
In their book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, professors Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels argue, based on substantial research, that voters do not decide the party platform and agenda. Instead, the parties control the “ideologies” of the voters. When the party the voter identifies with changes its position, the individuals also change theirs. They discovered the individual would quickly adopt the views of their group; they will ignore or change their own opinions over time to fit in with the collective they identify with. Achen and Bartels wrote “group memberships largely drove policy views, not vice versa.” … continue
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