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Ukrainian military lost most of the M2 Bradley AFVs that were used in its recent counter-offensive

By Ahmed Adel | June 13, 2023

Ukrainian soldiers said that most US-made M2 Bradley armoured vehicles were destroyed during the counter-offensive in the Zaporozhye region. According to AFP, the vehicles were destroyed just outside the small town of Orikhiv.

“Of nine vehicles attached to the group’s mechanised infantry unit — not the only one involved in the battle — six were wrecked, three damaged but repairable, and one was unscathed,” AFP reported, adding that a Ukrainian soldier said only “very small progress” was made against the Russian army.

“Who would be happy receiving those orders, ‘Go and take those Russian positions which are well protected’?” a senior officer, who asked not to be identified, said according to AFP.

In early June, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that in the direction of Zaporozhye, Ukrainian troops consisting of 1,500 fighters and 150 armoured vehicles tried to break through Russian defences but lost up to 350 troops and 30 tanks in two hours. The minister stressed that the Ukrainian brigade was stopped in all zones toward Zaporozhye.

With the Ukrainian offensive underway, Kiev has virtually no gains to show. In contrast, images of destroyed Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles used by Ukrainian troops have circulated on social media. For this reason, several experts have warned about a heavy military defeat for Ukraine and another geopolitical failure for NATO, which again is resorting to intervention in remote territories outside its jurisdiction to achieve its objectives against Russia.

While the US and its allies have generously provided Ukraine with weapons and military vehicles during the current conflict, Ukrainian forces are institutionally and operationally incapable of successfully absorbing the wide and inconsistent array of equipment and weaponry on the battlefield.

Nonetheless, the US and the UK need Ukraine to launch a counteroffensive as they are the main financiers of Kiev’s escalation but are experiencing growing poverty and economic crises and therefore need to justify to their citizens the vast money sent to Ukraine.

Former Central Intelligence Agency agent and Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, Philip Giraldi, warned that Western media are trying to make it appear that the Ukrainian counter-offensive is succeeding and that Ukraine’s forces are encroaching on Russian positions. In this sense, and despite what is happening on the battlefield, Giraldi stressed that US, UK, and German politicians are obliged to speak positively about the situation in Ukraine.

Despite the rhetoric, images of destroyed M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and German-built Leopard 2A6 tanks abandoned and burning on the Ukrainian battlefield, the harsh truth about the futility of defeating Russia is starting to sink in. The reality is that Ukraine never had the capabilities to achieve its stated goal of piercing Russian defences to sever the land bridge connecting Crimea to Russia proper.

The Western hope was that Russia would be demoralised by these casualties and accept a negotiated end to the conflict on terms acceptable to Ukraine and its Western allies. Evidently, Ukraine and its allies have failed.

The genesis of this failure can be attributed to two things. First, the low opinion that Ukraine and its NATO allies had of the combat capabilities of the Russian Army and the forces deployed in the Zaporozhye region, and second, the unrealistic expectations placed on the NATO training and equipment that were provided to Ukrainian forces and assigned to the task of breaking through Russian defences.

It is reasonable to assume that, using intelligence assessments that highlighted perceived command and control weaknesses and low morale among Russian forces, NATO and Ukrainian military planners believed that Russian defences in the Zaporozhye sector would collapse under the weight of a NATO-style assault.

Although fighting in Zaporozhye is not yet over, initial results on the battlefield show that contrary to the expectations of Ukraine and its NATO partners, the Russian military professionally performed their tasks, decisively defeating Ukrainian forces. NATO and Ukraine gambled that Russia lacked the military capability to successfully implement its military doctrine, believing that Russian command teams lacked the necessary communications to coordinate the complex operations needed and that Russian forces — especially those that were recently mobilised — lacked the training and morale to perform well in stressful combat conditions.

NATO and the Ukrainian high command threw the Ukrainian brigades into the grip of the Russian defensive lines without adequate fire support, thinking that the Russians were unable to maximise their superiority in artillery and air power to neutralise and destroy the forces of Ukrainian attackers before they could generate the momentum expected. Instead, this led to the humiliating loss of most of the US-made M2 Bradley provided to the Ukrainian military for this front.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

June 13, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

CNN Admitted That Kiev Lost Around 15% Of Its Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles In A Week

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 12, 2023

Kiev’s NATO–backed counteroffensive is off to a rough start after losing around 15% of its Bradley infantry fighting vehicles in a week according to CNN’s latest report. The outlet cited a Dutch open-source intelligence website that’s collected visual evidence of each side’s military equipment losses since the start of Russia’s special operation. While Ukrainian supporters are celebrating the recapture of some long-contested villages along the Line of Contact, these were pyrrhic victories considering the costs.

The first line of Russia’s multilayered defenses in the Zaporozhye Region has yet to even be reached, which suggests that Kiev’s already very high losses will likely spike the closer that its forces get to there. Russia’s Ministry of Defense earlier shared footage showing some of the same Bradley vehicles that CNN later confirmed were indeed destroyed, which also included a German Leopard tank. Observers should therefore assume that there’s truth to Moscow’s claims that some of the latter were destroyed too.

Kiev’s loss of such American and German “wunderwaffen” was to be expected since it was never realistic that either piece of equipment would reshape the military-strategic dynamics of the NATO-Russian “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that have been trending in Moscow’s favor since the start of this year. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian and Western publics were misled by their governments’ information warfare campaigns into pinning their hopes of victory on those two and others.

The deep disappointment that they’d inevitably feel after seeing footage of them being destroyed by their opponents explains why Kiev released a propaganda video last week urging everyone to remain tight-lipped about the counteroffensive and not to share any unconfirmed claims about it. This narrative context makes it all the more surprising that CNN just informed their global audience that Ukraine lost around one out of every seven Bradley vehicles before it even reached the first line of Russia’s defenses.

Kiev will obviously be displeased by this, but there isn’t anything that it can do in response. According to Semafor, the regime has already threatened, revoked, or denied the credentials of Western journalists in the country over their coverage of this conflict, including CNN’s. That outlet’s latest report, however, was derived from third-party open-source intelligence and not its own sources on the ground. In fact, CNN might even have published it as a form of protest against Kiev’s censorship of its journalists.

After all, they usually toe the Western line on this conflict, which is why their report stands out so much. CNN didn’t have to inform their global audience about the scale of Kiev’s losses thus far just one week into the counteroffensive and contrary to that side’s demand not to share any unconfirmed claims. For this reason, it can be seen not only as an act of protest against Kiev, but also against that regime’s Western patrons who support their proxy’s censorship of foreign journalists like CNN’s by their silence.

Kiev and its patrons should therefore have expected that some of these same Western outlets whose journalists’ work the regime impeded would eventually rebel and do so in a way that embarrasses them. Both would have preferred for proof of these “wunderwaffens’” destruction to be kept under wraps, but now there’s no denying this after CNN’s latest report. They can’t reflexively claim that this is “Russian propaganda” either since no Westerner believes that this outlet is under Moscow’s control.

The public’s artificially manufactured hopes that the Bradley vehicles and Leopard tanks would lead to a speedy victory for Kiev have thus been shattered, but most will likely cope with this by taking false comfort in the recapture of some long-contested villages. Those whose eyes have finally been opened by CNN’s surprising report, however, might rightly fear what could happen in the event of a direct NATO-Russian conflict since it’s clear that the West can’t rely on these “wunderwaffen” to win.

June 12, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Most Countries Side With Russia in Ukraine Conflict While US’s Credibility Slips – Hersh

Sputnik -12.06.2023

Most of the world’s population supports Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, while the United States lost its credibility, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said on Sunday.

“The percentage of the [countries], particularly of the African and Central Asian and South Asian countries, that have changed from being pro-America to being pro-Russia is really quite dramatic. Much more than a half of the world’s population supports Russia in the war and not the United States. This was never the way it was,” Hersh said in an interview with talk show host George Galloway.

The journalist opined that “things are not as good as they used to be in Russia” amid Western sanctions, but “the idea that they are desperate is just wrong.”

Hersh also argued that Washington “lost so much credibility around the world,” citing Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic rapprochement with Iran as an example.

“It’s happened because, I think, because of Ukraine and dislike of the war. Saudi Arabia, by the way, they’re selling 25% of [their] oil to China, as I have mentioned, but the Saudis immediately cut a deal. And the Iranians immediately responded … They have a lot of control in Yemen over the Houthi tribes,” Hersh said.

Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, following calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The world has split into those who support Moscow and accuse NATO of provoking the conflict, and those who condemn Russia’s actions and impose sanctions on the country, while also ramping up their financial and military aid to Kiev. Some countries have avoided taking sides in the conflict.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Asia-Pacific is where China-Russia “no limits” partnership will be put to test

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JUNE 11, 2023 

The power dynamic in Northeast Asia is undergoing a dramatic change against the backdrop of the “no limits” strategic partnership between China and Russia. Ukraine’s defeat in the war with Russia may compel the Biden administration to put “boots on the ground” triggering a global confrontation and, equally, the US-China relations are at their lowest point since their normalisation in the 1970s, while Taiwan issue may potentially turn into a casus belli of war. To be sure, the Northeast Asian theatre is going to be a crucial arena in the brewing big power confrontation.    

Symptomatic of the cascading tensions, Russian foreign ministry summoned the Japanese ambassador on Friday and a protest was lodged in extraordinarily harsh language, as it came to be known that the 100 vehicles that Tokyo innocuously promised last week to Ukraine would in reality be armoured vehicles and all-terrain vehicles. Apparently, Tokyo was dissimulating, since Japan’s export rules ban its companies from selling lethal items overseas! 

Tokyo is crossing a “red line” and Moscow is not amused. The foreign ministry statement on Friday “stressed that the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida should be ready to share responsibility for the deaths of civilians, including those in Russia’s border regions… (and) driving bilateral relations even deeper into a dangerous impasse. Such actions cannot remain without serious consequences.”

Significantly, on Friday, in a video conference with General Liu Zhenli, Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission, the Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Minister of Defence General Valery Gerasimov expressed confidence in the expansion of military cooperation between the two countries and noted, “Coordination between Russia and the People’s Republic of China in the international arena has a stabilising effect on the world situation.” 

The Chinese media later reported that the two generals agreed that Russia will participate (for the second time) in the Northern/Interaction-2023 exercise organised by China, signalling a new framework of China-Russia joint strategic exercises alongside the  joint air patrol over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea by their strategic bombers. By the way, the sixth such joint air petrol was conducted on Tuesday since the practice began in 2019. 

The big picture is that the shift in Japanese policies through the past year — close alignment with the US regarding Ukraine; copying the West’s sanctions against Russia; supply of lethal weaponry to Ukraine, etc. — has seriously damaged the Russo-Japanese relationship. On top of it, Japan’s re-militarisation with American support and its  growing ties with the NATO (which is lurching toward the Asia-Pacific) makes Tokyo a common adversary of both Moscow and Beijing. 

The imperative to push back this resurgent US client is strongly felt in Moscow and Beijing, which also has a global dimension since Russia and China are convinced that Japan is acting like a surrogate of American dominance in Asia and is subserving western interests. On its part, in a turnaround, Washington now actively encourages Japan to be an assertive regional power by jettisoning its constitutional limits to rearmament. It pleases Washington that Japan pledged a long-term increase of over 60 percent in defence spending. 

What worries Moscow and Beijing is also the ascendance of revanchist elements — vestiges of Japan’s imperial era — in the top echelons of power in the recent period. Of course, Japan continues to be in denial mode as regards its atrocities during the period of its brutal colonisation of China and Korea and the horrific war crimes during World War 2. 

This trend bears striking similarity to what is happening in Germany, where too the pro-Nazi elements are reclaiming habitation and a name. Curiously, a German-Japanese axis is present at the core of Washington’s strategies against Russia and China in Eurasia and Northeast Asia. 

The German Bundeswehr is expanding its combat exercises in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and will deploy more naval and air force units to the Asia-Pacific region next year. A recent German report noted, “The intensification of German participation in Asian-Pacific regional manoeuvres is taking place at a time when the United States is carrying out record-breaking manoeuvres in Southeast Asia, in its attempts to intensify its control over the region and displace China as much as possible.”

Japan’s motivations are easy to fathom. Apart from Japanese  revanchism which fuels the nationalist sentiments, Tokyo is convinced that a settlement with Russia over Kuril Islands is not to be expected now, or possibly ever, which means that a peace treaty will not be possible to bring the World War 2 hostilities to an end formally. Second, Japan no longer visualises Russia to be a “balancer” in its  troubled relationship with China. 

Third, most important, as Japan sees the rise of China as a political and economic threat, it is rapidly militarising, which in turn creates its own dynamic in terms of both upending its power position in Asia as also integrating itself with the West (“globalising”). Inevitably, this translates as promoting NATO in the Asian power dynamic, something that cuts deep into Russia’s core national security and defence strategies. Consequently, whatever hopes the strategists in Moscow had nurtured in the past that Japan could be weaned away from the US orbit and encouraged to exercise its strategic autonomy have evaporated into thin air. 

Arguably, in his zest to integrate Japan into the US-led “collective West”, Prime Minister Kishida overreached himself. He behaves as if he is obliged to be more loyal than the king himself. Thus, on the same day that President Xi Jinping visited Moscow in March, Kishida landed in Kiev from where he went to attend a NATO Summit and openly began lobbying for establishment of a NATO office in Tokyo. 

Kishida followed up by hosting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Tokyo and giving him a platform to berate China publicly from its doorstep. There is no easy explanation for such excessive behaviour. Is it a matter of impetuous behaviour alone or is it a calculated strategy to gain legitimacy for the ascendance of revanchist elements whom Kishida represents in the Japanese power structure?

To be sure, Northeast Asia is a priority now for China and Russia, given their overlapping interests in the region. NATO expansion to Asia and the sharp rise in the US force projection bring home to the defence strategists in Beijing and Moscow that the Sea of Japan is a “communal backyard” for the two countries where their “no limits” strategic partnership ought to be optimal. The Chinese commentators no longer downplay that the Russian-Chinese military ties “serve as a powerful counterbalance to the US’ hegemonic actions.” 

It is entirely conceivable that at some point in a near future, China and Russia may begin to view North Korea as a protagonist in their regional alignment. They may no longer  feel committed to observe the US-led sanctions against North Korea. Indeed, if that were to happen, a host of possibilities will arise. The Russian-Iranian military ties set the precedent. 

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive Is The West’s Most Important Military Campaign Since WWII

More Than Meets The Eye

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 11, 2023

Kiev’s NATO–backed counteroffensive has captivated the world’s attention as everyone watches to see whether it’ll push Russia out of the territory that Ukraine claims as its own. Progress on that direction would likely lead to continued Western support, while the failure to fulfill expectations might lead to the aforesaid being curtailed and ceasefire talks commencing. Either outcome is important, but what many observers have overlooked is the historical significance of this campaign.

The Unexpected Proxy War

It’s the first time since World War II that the West has conventionally fought a military peer, albeit indirectly in this case since they’re fighting Russia via their Ukrainian proxy. The US envisaged transforming that former Soviet Republic into a platform for threatening Russia through conventional, hybrid, and unconventional means with the aim of coercing it into never-ending concessions. The goal was to strategically neutralize then Balkanize it in order to facilitate doing the same to China afterwards.

While Ukraine was cooperating with NATO to this end prior to the start of Russia’s special operation, including through the secret hosting of that bloc’s bases as well as joint biological and nuclear weapons programs, everything was supposed to accelerate after its planned reconquest of Donbass in early 2022. President Putin narrowly preempted his opponents’ first move once he concluded that the West didn’t want to resolve their problems through peaceful means after they rejected Russia’s security requests.

Mutual Surprises Lead To A Stalemate

The fast-moving events that were set into motion caught both sides by surprise. The West didn’t really expect a large-scale intervention, predicting instead that Russia would likely concentrate its forces in Donbass in the unlikely scenario that it got involved, but they still secretly dispatched plenty of anti-air and -tank missiles to Ukraine ahead of time just in case. Likewise, Russia didn’t expect such formidable resistance from Ukraine, but the West was also surprised that Russia didn’t collapse due to sanctions.

Neither side has thus far been able to defeat the other as a result of the NATO-Russian “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that Secretary-General Stoltenberg finally admitted in mid-February has been going on this whole time. His bloc continued pumping Ukraine full of increasingly higher quality arms and training more of its troops to NATO standards exactly as it planned to do had Donbass been reconquered, while Russia partially mobilized its trained reservists and ramped up its military-industrial production.

The New York Times Spills The Beans

Instead of settling for the present stalemate by seeking to freeze the Line of Contact via a Korean-like armistice, the West saw the opportunity to put its proxy war plans against Russia into action ahead of schedule. Had Donbass been reconquered by Ukraine last spring like NATO envisaged, then Kiev would have been armed to the teeth and extensively trained for years prior to provoking a crisis over Crimea, but the decision was made to test it now since it’s partially ready and the pretext already exists.

The New York Times (NYT) hinted at this motivation in their recent article titled “As Ukraine Launches Counteroffensive, Definitions of ‘Success’ Vary”, which revealed that “Essentially, the United States and its allies will be looking at the counteroffensive for evidence that their plan of remaking the Ukrainian army into a modern force that fights with NATO tactics, and that can use complex maneuvers and advanced equipment to allow a smaller force to defeat a larger one, is sound.”

The West’s Reality Check

The influx of over $165 billion worth of military support to Ukraine from NATO proved too tempting of an opportunity for the bloc’s most hawkish decisionmakers to pass up in terms of finally testing their arms and strategies against a peer competitor. Considering the likelihood of Russia entrenching itself even deeper into those territories that Ukraine claims as its own and recalling the neck-and-neck NATO-Russian “race of logistics”, the decision was made to test it now instead of face greater difficulties later.

The NYT reported that expectations are tempered as a result of this newfound context: “Privately, U.S. and European officials concede that pushing all of Russia’s forces out of occupied Ukrainian land is highly unlikely. Still, two themes emerge as clear ideas of ‘success’: that the Ukrainian army retake and hold on to key swaths of territory previously occupied by the Russians, and that Kyiv deal the Russian military a debilitating blow that forces the Kremlin to question the future of its military options in Ukraine.

The outlet then proceeded to indicate some tangible benchmarks for “success” such as “retaking some parts of the Donbas or pushing Russia out of agricultural and mining areas in southeastern Ukraine”, “Seizing the nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia”, and/or “cut[ting] off, or at least squeez[ing], the so-called land bridge.” These moderate goals are a far cry from the maximalist one that’s officially being pursued by NATO and Ukraine, which shows what a reality check the past 15 months of fighting have been.

NATO’s Utter Humiliation By Russia

Even worse for them is that Russia didn’t just destroy a sizeable amount of their so-called “wunderwaffen” over the past few days, but even released videos proving its accomplishments, thus utterly humiliating NATO. The bloc’s most hawkish decisionmakers were so eager to receive large-scale battlefield data from their Ukrainian proxies’ fielding of NATO equipment against the West’s Russian peer competitor that they arrogantly overlooked all the signs that this risked tremendously backfiring.

It was wrongly thought after Russia’s pullbacks in Kharkov and Kherson Regions late last year that the entire front would collapse if it was pushed strongly enough by NATO-trained Ukrainians fielding some of that bloc’s most famous equipment during the planned counteroffensive over half a year later. This assessment ignored the particularities of those two situations and assumed that Russia was incapable of learning from its prior shortcomings, which directly led to the West’s disaster over the past few days.

That’s not to say that Ukraine’s counteroffensive might not achieve some success despite the enormous physical costs that this would certainly entail, but just that global perceptions about Western power have just been shattered after Russia shared videos of it destroying their “wunderwaffen”. If more sober-minded decisionmakers had the final say in whether the counteroffensive should go ahead, they might have calculated that it’s better to preserve the illusion of dominance than risk having it dispelled.

Great Power Competition

It might have been inevitable in hindsight that the greenlight would be given to Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive, however, when remembering that the US has been planning to test its new proxy war model against a peer competitor since at least December 2017. The National Security Strategy that was released at the time declared that “great power competition has returned”, specifically identifying China and Russia as the two that the US must actively contain.

Despite Trump continuing to arm Ukraine and impose sanctions against Russia during his tenure, he appears to have sincerely wanted to strike a deal with the Kremlin in order to then focus entirely on containing China, but he was thwarted by his permanent bureaucracy. Upon Biden coming to power, the Democrats’ plot to have Kiev reconquer Donbass as part of their grand strategic plan to contain Russia before China was once again back in play, which would have happened earlier had Hillary won in 2016.

The Biden Administration’s Gamble

The West didn’t expect Russia to stop them, let alone intervene far beyond Donbass in the unlikely scenario that it got involved, and then they wrongly predicted that it would soon collapse under sanctions. They were wrong on all three counts, which led to them being pulled by rapidly accelerating mission creep into waging a proxy war against Russia a lot earlier than they planned. Instead of being satisfied with their test data and freezing the conflict, they want even more at a much larger scale.

The most hawkish decisionmakers downplayed Russia’s proven military improvements since its pullback from Kherson last November and authorized the counteroffensive for this purpose since they were convinced that Ukraine’s NATO-trained and -armed forces would smash through the entire front. They couldn’t resist the chance to finally test their arms and strategies against a peer competitor at this scale after NATO poured over $165 billion worth of military aid into their proxy these past 15 months.

Concluding Thoughts

Awareness of these real motivations explains why the counteroffensive is the West’s most important military campaign since World War II, which was the last time that they conventionally fought a military peer. Even though they’re only doing so by proxy right now, they’re still receiving the large-scale data that they require in order to fine-tune their plans ahead of possibly waging a direct war against one. What the West has learned over the past few days, however, is that they shouldn’t take victory over Russia for granted.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Counteroffensive Runs Into Defensive Wall

By Scott Ritter – Sputnik – 10.06.2023

Over the course of the past few days, Ukraine has thrown two of its best-trained, best-equipped mechanized brigades into offensive operations against entrenched Russian defenders in the Zaporozhye sector of the front lines.

These two brigades had been hand-picked for this job, having been equipped with modern Western tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, supported by Western-supplied artillery, and using NATO-specific tactics shaped by NATO-provided intelligence and NATO operational planning. In short, these two brigades represented a top-level NATO-level capability, the epitome of the nexus between Ukraine and the Collective West in their ongoing war to destroy Russia.

They failed.

As the world comes to grips with the imagery of destroyed US-manufactured M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and German-made Leopard 2A6 tanks abandoned and burning on the Ukrainian steppe, the harsh truth regarding the futility of its larger designs—the strategic defeat of Russia—is starting to sink in.

The reality, however, is that Ukraine was never going to achieve its stated objective of punching through the Russian defenses to sever the land bridge connecting Crimea with Russia proper. This was pie-in-the-sky thinking promulgated by Ukraine’s Western supporters to motivate the Ukrainians into committing the equivalent of mass suicide to inflict similarly prohibitive casualties among the Russian defenders.

The Western hope was that Russia would become demoralized by these casualties and accept a negotiated end to the conflict on terms acceptable to both Ukraine and its Western allies.

So far, Ukraine and its Western allies have failed.

The genesis of this failure can be traced to two things. First, the low-opinion Ukraine and their NATO allies had regarding the combat capabilities of the Russian army, and in particular those forces deployed in the Zaporozhye region, and second, the unrealistic expectations assigned to NATO training and equipment that had been provided to the Ukrainian forces assigned the task of breaking through the Russian defenses.

The area selected by Ukraine and its NATO partners as the focus of effort for the counteroffensive was held by the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division, part of the 58th Combined Arms Army. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank with close ties to US and NATO, claimed that the troops of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division “are predominantly comprised of mobilized recruits and volunteers and are therefore likely to face some problems with poor training and discipline.”

Moreover, it accused at least one of the subordinate regiments—the 70th motorized rifle regiment—of performing poorly during the initial phases of the Special Military Operation in 2022.

It is therefore reasonable to believe that NATO and Ukrainian military planners, using intelligence assessments that highlighted perceived command and control weaknesses and poor morale among the Russian forces which, when combined with poor past performance, believed that the Russian defenses in the Zaporozhye sector manned by the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division would collapse under the weight of a NATO-style assault, allowing Ukrainian forces to penetrate deep into the Russian defenses.

While the fighting in Zaporozhye is not yet finished, the initial results on the battlefield show that, contrary to the expectations of Ukraine and its NATO partners, the men of the 42ndGuards Rifle Division performed their tasks in a professional manner, decisively defeating the Ukrainian assault forces. The 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment has been singled out as performing very well under difficult circumstances. The same can be said of the 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment and the 71st Motorized Rifles Regiment, along with special forces soldiers from the 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade. Analysts from ISW, in assessing the initial successes of the Russian defenders, noted that “Russian forces appear to have executed their formal tactical defensive doctrine in response to the Ukrainian attacks.”

This, of course, should have taken no one by surprise, since the individual in command of Russian forces in the Zaporozhye area is Colonel General Alexander Romanchuk, the man who is responsible for conceiving modern Russian defensive doctrine. In April 2023 Romanchuk, who at that time was serving as the Rector of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (the equivalent of the United States Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth), co-authored an article titled “Prospects for Improving the Efficiency of Army Defensive Operations.”

In the article, Romanchuk noted that the main mission of a defending force “is to neutralize the initiative of the advancing enemy, i.e., to bring him to the state of impossibility to continue advancing with deployed forces. Ultimately, this allows you to reduce his activity and seize the initiative by going over to a decisive counter-offensive to defeat the enemy with shock groups.”

This represents a restatement of Soviet-era doctrine. Indeed, Romanchuk draws upon the defeat of German offensive operations in the vicinity of Lake Balaton in March 1945 as representing an ideal implementation of this doctrine, underscoring “a bold maneuver of the reserves… especially artillery, the skillful use of anti-tank reserves, vigilant detachments of obstacles and the arrangement of fire ambushes” by the Russian forces in defeating the German attack.

Romanchuk, however, did not simply reiterate old doctrine in his paper. Instead, he emphasizes the concept of “dispersed forces” in building a defensive scheme capable of prevailing on the modern battlefield. “A dispersed defensive operation should become a logical response to a superior enemy,” Romanchuk writes.

Such an operation “is based on the retention of important areas, objects and transport hubs in separate most important directions,” and is “characterized by an even distribution of forces and resources in areas, and decentralized use of formations and military units of the armed forces and special forces.”

Romanchuk then went on to describe the ideal deployment scheme for these “dispersed forces” — one which focuses on three separate “zones of defense responsibility” separated by distances of between 8 and 12 kilometers. These gaps are covered by Russian artillery. The first “zone” is the “cover” zone, whose task is to define the main axes of the enemy’s advance. The next “zone” is the “main line of defense”, which is designed to halt enemy attacks using obstacle belts and fire power (artillery and air strikes). The last “zone” is the “reserve”, which is responsible for mounting counterattacks designed to push the attacking forces back to their original positions.

Romanchuk’s doctrine was the blueprint for the Russian defensive scheme employed in Zaporozhye. Indeed, Romanchuk was pulled from his teaching position at the Combined Arms Academy and put in command of the Zaporozhye sector. In other words, the place chosen by NATO and Ukrainian intelligence as the “weak spot” in the Russian defensive scheme was designed by Russia’s top specialist in defensive combat and placed under his direct command.

NATO and Ukraine gambled that Russia lacked the military capacity to successfully implement its own military doctrine, believing that Russian command staffs lacked the communications necessary to coordinate the complex operations necessary to implement this doctrine, and that the Russian forces—especially those who were recently mobilized—lacked both the training and morale needed to perform well under stressful combat conditions.

They were wrong on both counts.

NATO and Ukraine’s poor assessment of Russian military capability mirrored their own exaggerated assessments of Ukrainian units tasked with attacking the Russian defenses in Zaporozhye, namely the 33rd and 47th Mechanized Brigades. Both units were the recipients of modern NATO equipment, including Leopard tanks (the 33rd) and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (the 47th). The officers and men of both units had been provided with the best training NATO could provide regarding modern combined-arms operations, including weeks of specialized training in Germany which focused on platoon, company, and battalion tactics and operations integrating firepower and maneuver while undertaking offensive operations.

The Ukrainian troops, working side by side with their NATO instructors, started by using computer simulations to introduce them to the complexities of the modern battlefield, before moving to the field for realistic hands-on training using the very NATO-provided equipment they would use against the Russians.

US “experts” like Mark Hertling, a retired US Army general believed that the combination of advanced western military equipment and superior NATO-style tactics “will allow Ukraine’s emerging combined-arms teams to conduct high-tempo maneuver” capable of overwhelming the Russian defenders in Ukraine.

He was wrong.

Hertling and his active-duty NATO brethren would have done well to listen to the words of General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, when speaking before a Swedish defense conference this past January.

“The scale of this war [i.e., the Russian-Ukraine conflict] is out of proportion with all of our recent thinking,” Cavoli noted.

The takeaway from this revelation is that NATO is neither trained nor equipped to fight the kind of fight they are demanding Ukraine execute against Russia.

The sad truth of the matter is that there are no NATO forces capable of successfully executing the offensive tasks that have been assigned to Ukraine. No one doubts the courage and commitment of the Ukrainian forces which have been thrown against Colonel General Romanchuk’s defensive barrier. But courage and commitment cannot overcome the reality that NATO lacks the ability, both in terms of equipment and doctrine, to successfully defeat Russia in a force-on-force confrontation, especially one which has Russia playing to its doctrinal strength (defensive operations) while NATO seeks to do something (an assault against prepared defenses) that it has no experience in doing.

Moreover, NATO and the Ukrainian high command threw the Ukrainian brigades into the teeth of the Russian defensive buzzsaw without adequate fire support, meaning that the Russians were free to maximize their superiority in artillery and air power to neutralize and destroy the Ukrainian attacking forces before they could generate the momentum expected from “high-tempo maneuver.”

The end result: Russian reality trumped NATO theory on the battlefield, and it is Ukraine’s military that once again paid the heaviest price. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that this situation will change anytime soon, if ever, a fact that bodes poorly for the future of Ukraine and NATO going forward.

June 10, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Russia’s Release Of Captured Ukrainian Fighters To Hungary Sent Three Messages

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 10, 2023

The Russian Orthodox Church’s press service revealed late last week that Patriarch Kirill mediated an unusual prisoner transfer. According to their statement, “at the request of the Hungarian side, a group of Ukrainian war prisoners of Transcarpathian background, who participated in active service, was transferred to Hungary.” The Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister later said that Kiev wasn’t informed of this ahead of time, which prompted all sorts of speculation about this event.

Some background context is in order before going any further. Most Westerners might not be aware of it, but Hungary is very worried about the human rights of its co-ethnics in Ukraine, who found themselves in that former Soviet Republic as a result of post-World War II border changes. What’s now known as “Zakarpattia Oblast” had been part of Hungarian Civilization for over a millennium up until the interwar period when it was first part of Czechoslovakia before being given to Ukraine by the Allies.

Kiev began to crack down on all its minorities after the Western-backed spree of urban terrorism popularly known as “EuroMaidan” overthrew that country’s government in 2014. Ethnic Hungarians’ linguistic rights were rescinded, including the freedom for members of this community to study in their native language. They were then conscripted by Kiev to fight in the NATO-Russian proxy war that broke out 15 months ago despite the majority of them wanting to be left alone to live in peace with everyone.

Having brought the reader up to speed about this group’s background, they can now better understand why they were transferred to Hungary instead of Ukraine. The Hungarian news portal Telex published a detailed analysis here about their speculative legal status at the time that they entered that country. It suggests that Russia released them from their formal status as prisoners of war so they could travel to Hungary as civilians, where they might have been given citizenship to prevent their return to Ukraine.

That’s a sensible enough interpretation, but whatever their legal status may or may not have been at the time of transfer, this very event itself sent three very strong messages. Recalling the Russian Orthodox Church’s statement, this was done at the behest of the Hungarian side, though it’s unclear how Budapest became aware that its co-ethnics were captured by Russia. More than likely, Moscow informed it of this upon learning their identities, after which Budapest requested the transfer.

Hungary thus sent the first message by showing that it sincerely believes that its co-ethnics in Ukraine are exploited as cannon fodder. The second one was sent by Russia and concerns its tacit agreement with this assessment, which explains why it presumably contacted Hungary after learning that it had captured some of its co-ethnics. Both countries then sent the final message to Ukraine by carrying out this transfer and showing the world that they don’t trust Kiev to protect minorities within its borders.

Those captured Hungarian minority fighters never wanted to participate in this conflict but were forced against their will to do so since Kiev refused to give them exemptions from conscription, which is why they fear for their lives if they’re sent back since they know they’ll be thrown back to the frontlines. Their personal experiences attest to the fact that it isn’t so-called “Russian propaganda” to claim that Kiev violates its minorities’ human rights.

Extrapolating from this, the only reason why Ukraine won’t exempt minorities from conscription and consequently counteract Russia’s aforementioned accusation in part is that it desperately needs as many fighters as possible. This insight implies that there’s a very high casualty rate, which in turn corroborates Wagner chief Prigozhin’s infamous claim that his forces turned the Battle of Artyomovsk into a meat grinder for Kiev.

This unusual transfer therefore exposes the dark truth that the Mainstream Media has hidden from the world since the start of this conflict if those who hear about this event actually take the time to dwell on all its dimensions. Russia and Hungary sent three very clear messages regarding the true state of affairs for Ukraine’s minorities, who are exploited as cannon fodder in a conflict that they never wanted to participate in but are forced against their will to fight on pain of imprisonment or worse.

June 10, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

US & NATO’s Ultimate Goal is to ‘Take Over Ukrainian Land, People and Resources’

By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 10.06.2023

Shortly after the fabled Ukrainian counteroffensive finally started, it became increasingly apparent that NATO military equipment and training won’t be enough for the Kiev regime forces to penetrate Russian defensive lines.

With the Ukrainian offensive now underway, Kiev so far has virtually nothing to show in the way of gains, whereas images of wrecked Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles used by Ukrainian troops have already started circulating on social media.

Even though the United States and its allies have been generously supplying Ukraine with armaments and military vehicles during the ongoing conflict, it appears that Ukrainian forces are “institutionally and operationally unable to successfully absorb the wide and inconsistent variety of equipment and weaponry” while “under fire and duress,” said US Ret.Lt.Col Karen Kwiatkowski.

“This is the fault of the US and NATO which seeks to ride the back of Ukrainian patriotism in order to both confront and harass Russia, with an aim to take over Ukraine’s land, people and resources once there is little Ukraine left – in a kind of mini-Marshall Plan, this time completely and wholly managed and conducted by US and international crony capitalists, like Black Rock,” Kwiatkowsky, a former US Department of Defense analyst, told Sputnik.

She suggested that the United States and Britain were likely the ones who actually needed Kiev to launch this counteroffensive and that it would seem “as if Western governments see Ukraine little more than a snuff film, for their entertainment and profit.”

“Clearly, what Ukraine needs is to find a way to get out from under the US political cycle and NATO’s organizational expansion obsession, and make peace,” Kwiatkowsky mused, postulating that such a deal would likely entail the separation of the “Russian side of the former Ukraine” from the “Ukrainian side.”

She did point out, however, that so far the US and the UK politicians have been quick to suppress any attempts by the Ukrainian side to “make peaceful signs or noises.”

Meanwhile, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and former CIA station chief Phillip Giraldi has observed that some Western media outlets have been trying to make it look like the Ukrainian counteroffensive is succeeding and that Kiev regime forces are “overrunning the Russian positions.”

Commenting on this development, Giraldi suggested that politicians in the US, the UK and Germany “need to be able to speak positively about what is occurring” in Ukraine, since the public in their respective countries is starting to turn against the conflict “as it grinds on and on consuming hundreds of billions dollars worth of equipment.”

He further suggested that people in the United States, Britain and Germany are none too thrilled about their governments directly backing the regime in Kiev, which he described as “a regime that nearly everyone concedes is hopelessly corrupt.”

“There is talk here in Washington that the Ukrainian generals might depose Zelensky and enter into negotiations with Moscow,” Giraldi added.

June 10, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Where Do 2024 US Presidential Candidates Stand on Ukraine?

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 09.06.2023

Over a dozen US presidential candidates have tossed their hats into the 2024 ring. Sputnik has analyzed what the contenders’ attitude to Washington’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine is.

The Russo-Ukraine conflict remains one of the focal points of the 2024 election campaign. Republican and Democratic hopefuls are striving to rally support from the American public which appears to have grown impatient with the overseas standoff.

Despite roughly a half of Americans still backing the provision of military aid to Ukraine, a marked drop in the public’s willingness to pay a cost in terms of higher energy price, inflation, and plummetting living standards has been registered by pollsters over the last several months. Per Brookings, the realization that there is no end in sight for the conflict has seemingly become sobering to US voters.

Do US presidential candidates – who are polling at 1% or above in recent Ipsos polls and thus having a chance of coming out on top – meet the American people’s expectations when it comes to the Ukraine conflict?

Democratic Party

Joe Biden

Incumbent US President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that he would support the Kiev regime for the long haul. The Biden administration is the most vocal advocate of fuelling the unfolding standoff and imposing a “strategic defeat” on Russia. To that end, Joe Biden has announced over $100 billion worth of Ukraine aid packages since the onset of the conflict.

“Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never,” Biden told a crowd in Warsaw, Poland, on February 21, 2023.

During his June 8 meeting with UK Prime Minister Sunak, the US president signaled his readiness to continue providing the Kiev regime with weapons together with London. Simultaneously, Team Biden is stirring up the waters of the Pacific by beefing up US military presence in close proximity to China. Biden is continuing to go all in on the dual standoff with Moscow and Beijing, even though this policy is backfiring both on the US and its European allies.

Marianne Williamson

Marianne Williamson, the author of “A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles” (1992), former “Spiritual Leader” for the Church of Today and political candidate, has called for closing over 800 US military installations in over 80 countries in her May 27 Substack op-ed denouncing them as “nothing more than a continuation of the excessive militarization of American foreign policy.” She also condemned Washington’s “imperialistic ventures”, “actions regarding NATO, and putting Aegis missiles in Poland”, as exacerbating the situation vis-à-vis Russia.

Still, that does not mean that the US is “responsible” for the Russo-Ukraine conflict, “nor does it mean that our larger interests, the interests of the people of Ukraine or the interests of the rest of the world, are best served by our withholding support from Ukraine now,” insists Williamson. In short, the author is advocating further arming the Kiev regime.

Robert Kennedy Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late US attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of the 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy, formally launched his presidential campaign on April 19, 2023. In contrast to his Democratic rivals, Kennedy does not support the US proxy war in Ukraine.

In his lengthy May 3 tweet, RFK pointed out that it was US neocons, who crossed all “red lines” and dragged Russia and Ukraine into the conflict:

“[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky almost certainly could have avoided the 2022 war with Russia simply by uttering five words — ‘I will not join NATO’; But pressured by neocons in the Biden White House, and by violent fascist elements within the Ukrainian government, Zelensky integrated his army with NATO’s and allowed the US to place nuclear-capable Aegis missile launchers along Ukraine’s 1,200-mile border with Russia.”

“[US neocons] wanted war as part of their strategic grand plan to destroy any country such as Russia that resists American imperial expansion,” RFK Jr. reiterated on May 25 on Twitter.

Republican Party

Donald Trump

Former US President Donald Trump has made it clear that as president he would stop the Russo-Ukraine conflict in 24 hours after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.

“When I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours,” Trump said in a CNN town hall on May 11, adding that both Moscow and Kiev have their “weaknesses” and “strengths.”

Trump avoided answering the question, which country he would prefer to win: “I don’t think in terms of winning and losing. I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people. I want everybody to stop dying,” the former president told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

Ron DeSantis

In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wrote: “While the US has many vital national interests, becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”

In April, DeSantis reiterated his stance: “It’s in everybody’s interest to try to get to a place where we can have a ceasefire,” told Nikkei Asia. “You don’t want to end up in a [Battle of] Verdun situation, where you just have mass casualties, mass expense and end up with a stalemate.”

The Ukraine issue was not even mentioned in DeSantis’ campaign launched on Twitter in May.

Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek Ramaswamy, an American entrepreneur and politician, also stands for ending the Ukraine conflict. On June 6, Ramaswamy outlined his foreign policy vision in a Twitter post, condemning President Joe Biden’s Ukraine support for “pushing Russia into a closer military alliance with China.”

The politician proposes “a Korean war style armistice agreement” between Russia and Ukraine, “which would cede most of the Donbass region to Russia”; suspend any US military assistance to the Kiev regime; establish “a permanent moratorium on Ukraine joining NATO”; lift sanctions against Russia; withdraw NATO troops from Ukraine and close all their bases in Eastern Europe; and accept Russia into the security infrastructure of Europe.

In return, per Ramaswamy, Russia should cease all sorts of technical military cooperation and security partnerships with China; withdraw its nuclear weapons and delivery capabilities from Kaliningrad and Belarus; pull out Russian security specialists from Latin America; and re-enter into the New START Treaty.

“I’ve offered a clear & specific path to end the war in Ukraine now while dismantling the Russia-China alliance. No other GOP candidate has touched this with a 10-foot pole,” Ramaswamy summed up.

Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, has taken a stance which is the polar opposite: “This is bigger than Ukraine,” she stated during the CNN town hall on June 4. “This is a war about freedom and it’s one we have to win.”

Haley said if Russia is allowed to achieve its stated goals of demilitarization and de-Nazifying of Ukraine, a world war would be round the corner:

“China says Taiwan’s next, we better believe them. Russia said Poland and the Baltics are next, if that happens, we are looking at a world war. This is about preventing war.”

The former UN ambassador fell short of specifying the sources behind her claims of Moscow and Beijing’s plans of “invading” Poland, the three Baltic nations and the island which the People’s Republic of China has always considered its inalienable part.

Mike Pence

Former US Vice President Mike Pence’s stance on Ukraine aligns him with his fellow party member, Nikki Haley. Still, instead of predicting a world war in case Russia wins, Pence has suggested that Washington is fighting for “freedom” in Ukraine. The ex-veep has also subjected Trump and DeSantis to criticism over their attitude to the Ukraine conflict.

Having filed the paperwork to run on June 5, he expressed willingness to support the Kiev regime during Wednesday’s CNN town hall in Iowa:

“I know the difference between a genius and a war criminal, and I know who needs to win the war in Ukraine,” Pence said. “And it’s the people fighting for their freedom and fighting to restore their national sovereignty in Ukraine. And America – it’s not our war, but freedom is our fight. And we need to give the people of Ukraine the ability to fight and defend their freedom.”

Tim Scott

US Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has signaled strong support for arming Kiev since the beginning of the Russo-Ukraine conflict. According to Scott, Biden has done “a terrible job” articulating to the Americans “what is America’s vital, national interest in Ukraine”, which, according to the presidential candidate, is “degrading the Russian military.” Judging from Scott’s words, he expects Russia to attack the US one day.

“The more we degrade the Russian military, the less likely there is to be an attack on our sovereign territory,” Scott told NBC News on May 22. “And it protects our NATO partners. I think that we should be in Ukraine. I believe that the truth is simple, that degrading the Russian military is in America’s best interest. And the more we do that, the faster we get it done, the better off the entire world is.”

Chris Christie

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie launched his presidential nomination campaign with a June 6 town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire. Prior to that, Christie called Trump a “coward” and “a puppet of Putin,” over the former president’s stance on the Ukraine conflict.

Speaking to GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on May 11, Christie claimed that Washington should have done more to support the Kiev regime from day one of the conflict and insisted that the US should remain a global leader in providing weapons to Ukraine.

“In the end, we are in a proxy war right now with China, whether we like it or not, and their support of Russia in Ukraine is proof of that,” claimed the former New Jersey governor. “We have to make sure we send a very clear message, not only to the Chinese, but to our own allies that America’s not going to be a cut and run country.”

Doug Burgum

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum is another Republican presidential contender advocating support for Kiev. When the Russo-Ukrainian conflict erupted, he expressed solidarity with the Kiev regime, stating that “the United States and its allies must stand together in support of Ukraine and hold Russia accountable for its unprovoked attacks.”

Still, Burgum views the conflict as a chance for the US to step up energy production in the first place (which is quite understandable given that North Dakota is one of the top oil-producing states in the US):

“This international crisis underscores the importance of US energy security and increasing American production so we can sell energy to our friends and allies versus buying it from our enemies,” he stated on February 24, 2022.

He reiterated his stance on Wednesday while announcing his 2024 bid: “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin only dared to invade Ukraine because our allies in Western Europe are all dependent on Russian energy,” Burgum claimed.

Who’s Commanding Most Support?

Biden has gotten the most backing among Democratic and Democratic leaning voters with a staggering 60%; while 20% support Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and 8% would vote for author Marianne Williamson, according to SSRS Political and Election Polling, released on May 25. However, pollsters warn about a decline in Biden’s nationwide approval over the past six months from 42% in December 2022 to 35% on May 25, 2023.

To date, former President Donald Trump has commanded the largest support in the Republican 2024 primary polls, as per Project FiveThiryEight survey aggregator. The national average support as of June 8 indicates that Trump got 53.8%; DeSantis (21.3%); Mike Pence (5.4%); Nikki Haley (4.5%); Ramaswamy (3.5%); Сhris Christie (less than 3%); Tim Scott (2.2%); and Doug Burgum (1%).

June 10, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine hits flood shelter with UK-supplied missiles – Kherson official

RT | June 10, 2023

Ukrainian forces have attacked several temporary shelters for people evacuated in the wake of the breach of the Kakhovka dam, the acting governor of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said on Saturday morning, sharing pictures of the devastated facility.

The strike on the shelter on the left bank of the Dnieper River was carried out around 5am local time, allegedly using British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles, Saldo said in a statement. There was at least one casualty, a woman, according to preliminary information.

The Black Sea village of Zhelezny Port also came under “fierce shelling” overnight, with a local hotel hosting the evacuees “destroyed,” according to the official.

The acting governor shared several pictures of the heavily damaged facility, as well as a video of a villa engulfed in flames.

“The targeted strikes are being carried out with British missiles, delivered to the Kiev regime to unleash ‘peace’ on civilian infrastructure,” Saldo wrote.

Earlier on Friday, one person was killed and another injured after several rockets hit a children’s summer camp in the same area. According to Saldo, first responders discovered the debris of Storm Shadows at the scene.

The Russian-held Kakhovka dam in Kherson Region was destroyed early on Tuesday morning. Several people were killed, while thousands more were exposed to flooding.

Kherson authorities declared a state of emergency across the entire territory controlled by Russia. Saldo said that a total of between 22,000 and 40,000 people were located in the disaster area.

Moscow and Kiev have traded accusations over who is to blame for the incident, which triggered mass evacuation efforts on both sides of the Dnieper River. Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of “deliberate sabotage” in a bid to deprive Crimea of drinking water and deflect attention away from Kiev’s botched counteroffensive in Donbass.

June 10, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Kiev’s Alleged Proof That Russia Blew Up The Kakhovka Dam Doesn’t Stand Up To Scrutiny

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 9, 2023

The Ukrainian secret police claimed on Friday to have intercepted a call between two Russian soldiers where one of them allegedly admitted that their side blew up the Kakhovka Dam. That person explicitly denied that Kiev was responsible and instead said that it was a false flag attack by Russia’s own troops that supposedly went awry, which would explain their losses downstream. They also said that the flooding killed thousands of animals in a nearby safari park.

Nobody should believe the account that was shared in this recording since it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. For starters, it’s already suspicious enough that the three talking points made in the recording – that Ukraine wasn’t responsible, Russia staged a false flag that didn’t go according to plan, and thousands of animals also died – perfectly align with Kiev’s official narrative. The chances that one of their opponents echoed all three points in a single secretly recorded conversation is highly unlikely.

The second reason why this is dubious is because it was shared a day after Foreign Minister Kuleba angrily rejected Turkiye’s pragmatic proposal to form a multilateral committee for investigating the Kakhovka Dam’s destruction. Kiev would have certainly known that refusing to participate in a truly neutral investigation into this war crime would make their side look guilty, which explains why they fabricated this recording in order to desperately divert attention towards Russia instead.

And finally, the global media attention that this recording just generated serves to drown out the discussion that Tucker Carlson sparked in the first episode of his new show on Twitter where he informed the 110 million people who watched it about a damning Washington Post report from December. Ukrainian Major General Andrey Kovalchuk not only admitted to plotting the exact same terrorist attack that happened half a year later, but even to testing its viability with US-supplied HIMARS missiles.

The content, timing, and context within which the Ukrainian secret police just shared their alleged proof that Russia blew up the Kakhovka Dam are all questionable in and of themselves, let alone when taken together. No honest observer would extend credence to this recording, which is arguably fabricated for the reasons that were explained. Those who sincerely want to know the truth about what happened should pressure Ukraine to join Turkiye’s proposed UN-led multilateral investigation committee.

Kuleba’s innuendo that the deck would be stacked against Kiev in the event that it participates in a UN-led investigation is discredited by the fact that this global body has consistently taken its side in every one of its disputes against Russia since the start of the special operation. Unlike UNGA votes where countries can be bribed or pressured to influence the political outcome of this process, however, no such trickery can take place in an evidence-driven investigation where Russia participates as an equal party.

Ukraine knows that Turkiye’s proposal would prove that it blew up the Kakhovka Dam exactly as Kovalchuk admitted to the Washington Post that Kiev had been plotting to do since late last year, which is why it refuses to join and instead fabricated this “evidence” as its excuse. Nevertheless, Russia, Turkiye, and other UN members can still proceed with this investigation even without Ukraine if they have the will to do so, but the West might claim that it’s “illegitimate” so long as Kiev isn’t involved.

In the court of public opinion, however, Ukraine comes off as guilty by refusing to participate in a truly neutral investigation into this war crime. Having its infamously corrupt secret police share a suspicious recording that coincidentally echoes all three of Kiev’s talking points and then claiming that the case is closed on this issue isn’t something that someone who’s innocent would do. Anyone who claims otherwise has an agenda in gaslighting others in order to cover up for Kiev’s culpability in this war crime.

June 9, 2023 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

EU fears ‘pro-Russian’ votes in key states – Politico

RT | June 8, 2023

“It would be a disaster” if Ukraine-skeptic leaders were elected in Austria and Slovakia, a European Commission official told Politico on Tuesday. The EU reportedly fears that a swing to populism in both countries could jeopardize future sanctions against Russia, as well as the bloc’s military aid to Kiev.

Austria’s center-right government is unpopular, and concerns about immigration and the rising cost of living have made Herbert Kickl’s right-wing Freedom Party the most popular political faction since late last year. Legislative elections are scheduled for next autumn at the latest.

Similar concerns in Slovakia have seen former Prime Minister Robert Fico surge in popularity. With just three months to go until parliamentary elections, Fico’s Direction – Slovak Social Democracy party is leading in the polls, as the country labors under an unelected government of technocrats.

“It would be a disaster” if both men were to take office, an anonymous “senior [European] Commission official” told Politico, referring to Kickl and Fico’s stance toward Russia.

Politico evidently agrees with the European Commission, and has published multiple articles in recent days describing the Austrian politician as “a pro-Russian, anti-American conspiracy theorist,” and his Slovakian counterpart as a spreader of “Russian disinformation.”

Both potential prime ministers are vehement opponents of immigration, particularly from Islamic countries. When it comes to Ukraine, Kickl has declared NATO as responsible for the conflict as Russia and considers Austria’s backing of EU sanctions on Moscow to be a violation of the country’s neutrality. In March of this year, Kickl and his Freedom Party colleagues walked out of parliament during an address by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

Slovakia is a member of NATO and has given Ukraine armored personnel carriers, howitzers, and its entire fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets since last February. Fico, who served two stints as prime minister in the last two decades, has said he would cut off this military aid.

Until now, Hungary has been the only EU member to consistently oppose sanctions on Russia, with Viktor Orban’s government usually agreeing to the bloc’s restrictions only after carving out concessions for Hungary. Budapest is currently holding up the EU’s eleventh sanctions package over Ukraine’s blacklisting of several of its companies as “war sponsors,” while simultaneously blocking a $542 million tranche of EU military aid to Kiev.

Were Kickl and Fico to take office, Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia would form a powerful political bloc, and could exert significant pressure on Brussels to change its Ukraine policy.

June 8, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

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