By Lucas Leiroz | July 28, 2023
Western media are trying to improve Kiev’s image and create new expectations around the so-called “counteroffensive”. In an article published by the New York Times on July 26, authors stated that “Ukraine has launched the main thrust of its counteroffensive”. It was reported that the Ukrainian authorities had authorized a new war effort, giving an important boost to the operation. At this phase, it is said that a large number of NATO-trained troops are being moved to the front lines. The objective is to gain territory in the regions liberated by the Russians, mainly in the south of the country.
“The United States and other Western allies have trained about 63,000 Ukrainian troops, according to the Pentagon, and have supplied more than 150 modern battle tanks, a much larger number of older tanks, hundreds of infantry fighting vehicles and thousands of other armored vehicles (…) In villages all along the southern front line on Wednesday, unusually heavy artillery fire could be heard as Ukrainian guns thundered from hidden positions and Russian artillery and mortars targeted former Russian positions and villages now occupied by Ukrainian soldiers. Ukrainian troops deployed along that part of the front say they are steadily pushing the Russian troops back in what they describe as step by step, rather than breakthrough, movements”, the article reads.
In fact, the NYT report is in line with what some other outlets have been saying on the topic recently. For example, CNN published an article on the same day, “Ukraine’s counteroffensive is ramping up after months of slow progress”, in which it is also said that Kiev is deploying well-trained and equipped troops to regain positions currently under control of the Russian armed forces.
“The Ukrainian military had been holding large numbers of trained troops, some equipped with more powerful Western weapons, back since the operation started in early June. While it still maintains some combat power in reserve, it has now deployed the ‘main bulk’ of the forces committed to the counteroffensive forces”, CNN’s text reads.
This information is not entirely false. There is some veracity in the data, as Kiev has indeed recently launched a second phase of its “counteroffensive” against Russian forces. After the absolute military failure in Donbass, the Ukrainian focus has been on trying to recover some ground in the south, mainly in Zaporozhye. To achieve these strategic objectives, indeed, many NATO-trained troops that until now had been kept in the rear are finally being sent to the frontlines.
Keeping special forces outside the front has been a common Ukrainian practice. Kiev tries to preserve what is left of its military potential by keeping its well-trained troops as long as possible in the rear, while newly recruited and poorly equipped soldiers are sent in large numbers to the “meat grinder” at the frontlines. Kiev allows the deployment of its well-trained forces to the front only at specific times when there is some feasible hope of territorial gain. Currently, Ukraine is betting on the possibility of regaining ground in the south, which explains why forces trained abroad are finally being sent to the region.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the Ukrainian plans will really go as expected by the regime and media. Despite having many NATO-trained troops, the regime is militarily weakened after months of intense fighting. The Russians have created a very solid defensive line with their recent territorial gains, making it difficult for enemy forces to achieve any significant progress.
Also, it must be emphasized that there are a lot of minefields around these Russian-dominated regions. The Ukrainian armed forces are sending large numbers of special forces and NATO military tanks there, which is resulting in heavy losses. As Kiev’s well-trained soldiers die, the regime will be forced to bet once again on sending its inexperienced troops, resulting in new “meat grinders”.
It is unlikely that Ukraine will achieve any relevant territorial gains, except in the event of some strategic retreat by Russian units. Russia’s military advantage will not be easily reversed by simply sending the best troops to the front. In practice, the Ukrainian action sounds more like a gesture of desperation, with the regime sending everything it still has to the lines, trying to gain some ground. Not by chance, a Pentagon official commented on the case classifying the Ukrainian effort as a “big test“.
Even if there is a “thrust”, this does not seem enough to reverse the Russian gains in the conflict. Ukrainian losses so far have been too severe to be compensated by merely deploying a few NATO-trained forces. Wars are not won with just a few special troops, depending also on a strong apparatus of artillery and aviation, in addition to the ability to replace losses. In all these sectors, the Russians continue to have an extreme advantage, which is why Western propaganda about the Zaporozhye offensive sounds like yet another irresponsible attempt to spread expectations of [an impossible] victory.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | July 27, 2023
Like the war that necessitated it, Russia’s decision not to renew the United Nations and Turkish-brokered grain deal is bad for the world but not wholly unprovoked.
The deal allowed Ukraine safe passage for its grain laden ships through the mined and blockaded Black Sea ports so it could continue to export its agriculture to the world.
On July 17, Russia announced its decision not to renew the deal.
It has repeatedly been reported that Russia’s decision is retaliation for Ukraine’s recent sabotage of the Kerch Strait bridge that links Crimea to the Russian mainland. But President Vladimir Putin had announced the distinct possibility of suspending the agreement prior to the attack on the bridge.
During a July 13 question period, in a response to a journalist, Putin said, prior to the attack on the bridge, “We can suspend our participation in this deal.”
Putin gave two reasons for suspending the deal after having “extended this so-called deal many times.” The first is that, though it was Russia that suspended the deal, it was the West that broke it. “As for the conditions under which we agreed to ensure the safe export of Ukrainian grain, yes, there were clauses in this agreement with the United Nations, according to which Russian interests had to be taken into account as well,” Putin said. “Not a single clause related to what is in the interests of the Russian Federation has been fulfilled.”
Announcing the decision not to renew the deal four days later, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated that charge; “Unfortunately, the part of the Black Sea agreement that concerns Russia has not yet been fulfilled. As a result, it has been terminated.” However, he added that “As soon as the Russian part [of the deal] is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of this deal.” Putin made a similar pledge in his answer to the journalist. One option, he said, is “not first the extension and then the honouring of promises, but first the honouring of promises and then our participation. What do I mean? We can suspend our participation in this deal, and if everybody once again says that all the promises made to us will be fulfilled, let them fulfil them—and we will immediately join this deal. Again.”
George Beebe of the Quincy Institute has written that “Russia’s withdrawal from the deal is part of classic negotiating behavior, after its repeated demands went unaddressed by partners to the deal.”
While Russia kept its promise to allow Ukraine to export its grain, Moscow argues that the West failed to implement their commitments on facilitating Russian exports of grains and fertilizer due to an impossible to navigate web of sanctions and the failure to reconnect the Russian Agricultural Bank to the SWIFT financial system to enable payments.
Though better known as the ‘grain deal,’ the deal was meant to facilitate the export of fertilizer as well. As early as the end of April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had complained that Russian cargo vessels carrying fertilizer were paralyzed in European ports. Russia has been unable to export its fertilizer. The world also watched silently with no condemnation when Russia’s Togliatti-Odessa pipeline that carries ammonia necessary for fertilizer was sabotaged.
The second reason is not about the failure to meet the conditions of the deal, but about the failure to meet the purpose of the deal. Putin has frequently pointed out that “this whole deal was presented under the pretext of ensuring the interests of African countries” whose food security was threatened. Instead, from Russia’s perspective, the deal has boosted the economy of Russia’s enemy by allowing Ukraine to export grain and boosted the economy of those supporting Russia’s enemy by allowing western Europe to import that grain while helping African countries barely at all.
Putin has repeatedly claimed that Ukrainian grain exported under the deal is not reaching Africa but is headed, instead, for Europe. He has claimed at various times that “about 45 percent of the total volume of grain exported from Ukraine went to European countries, and only three percent went to Africa.” In his response to the journalist, Putin again said that “only a little more than 3% went to the poorest countries—a bit over 3%. Everything else went to a well-fed and prosperous Europe.”
And he’s not wrong. Though Africa has benefitted from the deal indirectly by stabilizing global supply and prices, they have not been the direct beneficiaries. While only 12% of the grain has reached Africa, 40% went to Western Europe, according to the World Food Program. The biggest recipients of Ukraine’s grain have been China, Spain, Turkey, Italy, and the Netherlands. 80% of the grain has gone to upper-middle and high income countries, and 44% going to high income countries, but only 2.5% has made its way to low-income countries, according to the most recent UN data.
Russia, though, has sent many tonnes of grain to Africa; 11.5 million tonnes in 2022 and 10 million in the first half of 2023, according to Putin. And, in November 2022, Russia agreed to send grain to some African countries for free. Putin has repeatedly promised that, were the deal not to be extended, “Russia will be ready to supply the same amount that was delivered under the deal, from Russia to the African countries in great need, at no expense.” After the decision not to extend the deal, Putin wrote an article for African media repeating that promise directly to the people of Africa: “I want to give assurances that our country is capable of replacing the Ukrainian grain both on a commercial and free-of-charge basis… Notwithstanding the sanctions, Russia will continue its energetic efforts to provide supplies of grain, food products, fertilisers and other goods to Africa.” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that, despite Western obstacles in the form of logistics, ship insurance and payments, “We will help those in need, we will find a way to do it, both with grain and fertilizers.” The Kremlin says that the offer of free grain is on the agenda of the second Russia-Africa summit being held in St. Petersburg this week.
Though Russia’s decision not to extend the grain deal is harmful to the world, like the war itself, it has been presented as emerging without antecedents. The narrative has frequently been distorted by discussing the decision not to extend the deal in isolation from its important context. The decision was not spontaneous retribution for the attack on the Kerch Strait bridge; it was a long, thought out negotiation strategy in response to promises made to Russia not being fulfilled. The announcement of the decision was also accompanied by the assurance that Russia would immediately return to the deal when those promises were fulfilled. The decision was also the product of Russia’s frustration that the deal was not only failing to benefit Russia as promised, but that it was failing to benefit Africa as promised while supporting the economies of Ukraine and the wealthy Western European countries who are helping it in its fight against Russia.
Sputnik – 27.07.2023
WASHINGTON – The Biden Administration played a vital role in both recent deadly attacks on the Crimean Bridge, providing Ukraine with the necessary technology, US journalist Seymour Hersh reported on Thursday, citing a US official.
“Of course it was our technology,” the US official was quoted by Hersh as saying. “The drone was remotely guided and half submerged—like a torpedo.”
When Hersh asked if there was any thought before the bridge attacks about the possibility of Russia’s retaliation, the official responded with “What will Putin do? We don’t think that far. Our national strategy is that Zelensky can do whatever he wants to do. There’s no adult supervision.”
On October 8, 2022, a car detonated on the Crimean Bridge, which connects the Crimean Peninsula with Russia’s mainland. Five people, including the driver of the truck, were killed. The bridge itself was seriously damaged.
On July 17, a submersible drone carried out another attack on the Crimean Bridge, killing a woman and a man and wounding their teenage daughter.
Ukraine Shipped Drugs and Russian Oil to Europe Under Cover of Grain Deal
In addition, the journalist reported that Ukraine shipped drugs and Russian oil under the cover of the UN-mediated Black Sea Grain Deal, an accord that was meant to bolster global food security.
Russia refused to extend the Black Sea deal last week, following its long-time criticism of the UN’s failure to facilitate its own grain and fertilizer exports as was required under the agreement.
The decision also came following the July 17 attack on the Crimean bridge with marine surface drones, which killed a couple who were driving across when the blast occurred and wounded their teen daughter.
US, Ukraine No Longer Project Counteroffensive Success, Russia Has Upper Hand
According to the correspondent, the US and Ukrainian military now abstain from making forecasts regarding future success in the counteroffensive because Russia has a clear advantage on the battlefield.
“The American and Ukrainian military are no longer making any predictions,” the US official was quoted by Hersh as saying. “The Ukrainian army has not gotten past the first of three Russian defense lines. Every mine the Ukrainians dig up is replenished at night by the Russians.”
The reality, the interlocutor clarified, “is that the balance of power in the war is settled. Putin has what he wants.”
Ukraine is not capable of returning Crimea, Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and the Zaporozhye Region, the official stressed, while Volodymyr Zelensky has “no plan, except to hang on,” the interviewee observed.
Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in early June, trying to break through the defense lines of the Russian armed forces in the Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions. Their attempts have been unsuccessful and resulted in heavy losses in armored equipment and manpower of Kiev’s forces, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
By Ahmed Adel | July 27, 2023
An eventual refusal by US President Joe Biden to support Ukraine would “represent a significant failure” that would even surpass the Afghanistan troop withdrawal debacle,” according to John Herbst, former US Ambassador to Kiev. His comments were made to the Wall Street Journal, which reported that the “sluggish pace” of Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive could raise questions about future military aid to the Eastern European country. However, it can be argued that Biden’s decision to support Ukraine is the greatest blunder in the US’ modern geopolitical history.
The newspaper pointed out that due to Washington’s strategy of not straying from the course, Biden made himself vulnerable as he became dependent on the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine, which he falsely framed as a battle between authoritarianism and democracy. The Ukrainian military’s failed counteroffensive has crushed all hopes that the fighting will end this year, at least on Kiev’s terms.
According to US officials interviewed by the American outlet, a long and indefinite conflict creates risks, especially as a potential stalemate could test the US president’s stated strategy to provide Ukraine with military support to start negotiations, where Kiev will speak from a position of strength.
“Halting arms supplies or even accepting a partial victory for Russia would represent a significant failure in U.S. foreign policy, surpassing the scale of the Afghanistan troop withdrawal debacle,” according to Herbst.
The newspaper notes that potential Republican candidates with the best chances of being nominated by the party – former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – were the instigators of Ukraine’s declining support among the American people.
In addition, another problem faced by the US is the lack of critical weapons. This led to the delivery of cluster munitions to the Ukrainian Army. This hypocritical move demonstrated the desperation of the Ukrainian military when considering Biden made threats if Russia used cluster munitions.
The newspaper also cited an unnamed senior European official saying that Washington does not expect the Ukrainian military to capture embattled Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporozhye, and Crimea fully. This follows up from a previous report that even though Western military officials knew Ukraine did not have all the training or weapons needed to push back Russian forces, “they hoped that Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day.”
It calls to question why the US and its allies continue to pour billions of dollars into Ukraine and maintain sanctions that are now affecting their own economies worse than Russia’s. In fact, the sanctions were promoted as a united Western action against Moscow. Instead, the sanctions policy in the international arena has only strengthened alliances between targeted countries, such as Russia, China, and Iran.
The recent sanction packages imposed on Russia, and Chinese companies for national security reasons, mean that the two powers have joined a growing club of US-designated pariah states alongside the likes of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela.
As Chatham House researcher Christopher Sabatini stressed, “It’s time for Washington to recognise that its love of sanctions may be undermining its own economic and diplomatic power worldwide,” before going on to say that changes can only be made if policymakers are willing to “consider a basic fact: Sometimes sanctions don’t work.”
Making the task of defeating Russia even more difficult for Ukraine, US and European partners have yet to agree on plans to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets, which the allies intend to transfer to Kiev. Throughout the war, we have heard how an array of Western-made weapons, from missiles to tanks, would be a game-changer that would swing momentum in Ukraine’s favour. All of these have failed to live up to expectations, and the training of Ukrainian F-16 pilots, who cannot enter the battlefield until next year, will end in the same way – the unnecessary loss of Ukrainian lives.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted as recently as July 23 that Russia “already failed, they’ve already lost.” In this regard, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) veteran Larry Johnson wrote on his blog on the same day that “it is alarming that America’s top diplomat is so divorced from reality.”
For his part, Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel, argued that the Pentagon military leadership, unlike State Department officials, most likely understands that Ukraine cannot win the war.
With former US intelligence agents and military chiefs acknowledging that the war is over for Ukraine, Biden finds himself in a predicament where he can be remembered as the president who made the greatest geopolitical blunder in modern US history – by accelerating the decline of the US as the globe’s hegemon and deepening the ties of non-Western powers by using Ukraine as a military proxy against Russia.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
RT | July 26, 2023
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on Wednesday proposed to extend the state of emergency, thereby effectively canceling the parliamentary elections scheduled for October.
Zelensky announced martial law on February 24, 2022, and has been extending it ever since. The most recent 90-day extension was announced on May 20, and is due to expire on August 18. If the Verkhovna Rada approves Zelensky’s latest request, this will see the emergency extended through November 15.
Ukrainian law calls for parliamentary elections no later than October 29, with a 60-day campaign season starting on August 28. However, it also forbids campaigning and voting during martial law. Another extension would cut into the campaign season for the presidential elections, currently scheduled for March 2024.
“If we have martial law, we cannot have elections. The constitution prohibits any elections during martial law,” Zelensky announced in May. The following month, he told the BBC that “elections need to happen in a time of peace, when there is no fighting.”
Some of Ukraine’s supporters in Europe and North America have been critical of the possible cancellation of elections. Ukraine should prepare for a vote as soon as possible, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) head ‘Tiny’ Kox said in an interview in May.
“Although democracy is far more than only elections, I think we all agree that without the elections, democracy cannot properly function,” Kox said at the time.
Zelensky ran on a peace platform in 2019 and won with 73% of the vote. Soon thereafter, his newly formed party – named after the TV show in which he played a fictional president of Ukraine – won a supermajority in the Verkhovna Rada as well. By late 2020, he had pivoted away from the notion of peace in Donbass and began to openly talk about a military solution for “occupied territories.”
Within three months of the conflict with Russia escalating, in May 2022, Zelensky enacted a law that allowed him to ban any political parties merely accused of being “pro-Russian,” without any right to appeal. He has outlawed a dozen parties since then, including the formerly largest parliamentary opposition bloc.
Earlier this month, the Federal Intelligence Service of Switzerland accused Zelensky of attempting to “politically eliminate” Kiev mayor Vitaly Klitschko ahead of next year’s presidential election. The FIS cited “credible intelligence” to say that Zelensky was “showing authoritarian traits” which may lead to Western pressure, according to a classified report leaked to the outlet NZZ.
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 26.07.2023
London prevented the religious leader from delivering his first-hand experience of repression against the church in Ukraine.
“Today is an extremely sad moment for the UN Security Council, as well as for the international community as a whole,” said Dmitry Polyansky, first deputy permanent representative of the Russian Federation in the UN.
“Western delegations actually agreed with the repressive policy of the Kiev regime against the canonical Orthodoxy. This is a clear evidence of blatant double standards in matters concerning freedom of expression, religion, and in general all those ideals that they preach. Your decision to block the participation of an Orthodox clergyman in accordance with the prerogatives of the president of the UN Security Council is clear evidence of how London treats ideals and how easily it is ready to give them up for the sake of narrowly selfish, petty attempts to prick Russia.”
The UK holds the 15-nation organ’s rotating presidency for July 2023.
Earlier, on July 18, Russia called for a meeting of the UNSC on Ukraine for July 26, in particular on the topic of repression against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
On the same day, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Moscow would raise the issue of the persecution of the vicegerent of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Bishop Pavel, at the upcoming meeting of the UN Security Council.
On July 14, a Kiev court changed the measure of restraint for Metropolitan Pavel from round-the-clock house arrest to detention until August 14.
For his part, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia called on the UN, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and heads of churches, including Pope Francis, to protect the vicegerent of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.
Earlier this month Pope Francis responded to the appeal of Patriarch Kirill and spoke against politically motivated arrests in Ukraine.
The Kiev regime started to exert pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 2022. Ukrainian authorities gave an ultimatum to the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra to vacate the monastery’s premises until March 29 under the pretext of allegedly violating the terms of the lease – jurisdiction over which is divided between the National Kiev-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Preserve, a Ukrainian secular organization and the UOC. Lavra monks condemned the eviction order as illegal as it was not backed by a court decision. As they resisted the Kiev regime’s attempts to expel them from the monastery, the Ukrainian authorities resorted to persecution.
Other Ukrainian Orthodox priests have also been subjected to pressure from the Ukrainian authorities. Ukrainian law enforcement officers searched the homes of bishops and priests, churches and monasteries, including the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in order to find traces of “anti-Ukrainian activities.”
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 26.07.2023
There is no chance of Russia losing the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine, the West fomented the conflict and a peace agreement is needed immediately to prevent further bloodshed, Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said.
“Russia’s not gonna lose this war. Russia can’t afford this – it’d be like us losing a war to Mexico. They are not gonna lose the war,” Kennedy said, speaking at a televised town hall Tuesday night.
“Go look at what Russia did in Stalingrad in order to preserve its territorial integrity. Russia’s been invaded three times through the Ukraine. The last time, Hitler killed one out of every seven Russians. They’re 400 miles from Moscow. We already have Aegis missile systems within 12 minutes of Moscow. We wouldn’t tolerate that if the Russians did it [like] in 1962 when they put them in Cuba,” the candidate added, referencing the Cuban Missile Crisis, during which time his late uncle, John F. Kennedy, was president.
US Sabotaged Peace
“The more disturbing thing,” Kennedy said, “is that on two occasions the Russians tried to sign a peace agreement with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky,” and both times the West sabotaged it.
The candidate pointed to the 2015 Minsk Agreements, which Zelensky expressed interest in before being talked out of it by the US in 2019, and the 2022 draft peace deal reached after talks in Belarus and Turkiye.
“In 2019, France Germany and Russia all agreed to the Minsk Accords. That year, Zelensky ran for president. He was a comedian. He had no political experience. Why did he win? Because he ran on one issue: signing the Minsk Accords. As soon has he got in there, Victoria Nuland and the White House told him he couldn’t do it,” Kennedy recalled.
“Then,” in February 2022, he noted, Russia sent “40,000 troops in. That’s not enough to conquer the country. Clearly, [Putin] wanted somebody to come to the negotiating table.” Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Istanbul, hammering out a draft peace deal. After that, “Putin in good faith began withdrawing troops from Ukraine. What happened? We sent Boris Johnson over there to torpedo it. Because we don’t want peace, we want war with Russia,” RFK Jr. stressed.
Road to Perdition
The Democratic politician also pointed out that the current crisis has its origins in the end of the Cold War.
“We promised in 1992, the Russian leadership said… ‘We’re gonna withdraw 400,000 troops from East Germany and we’re gonna allow you to reunite Germany under NATO,’ which is a hostile army. That’s a huge concession for them. ‘One commitment that we want,’ is what the Russians said, ‘is that you will not move NATO to the east.’ James Baker, who was then secretary of state under [George H.W.] Bush, famously promised ‘We will not move NATO one inch to the east.’ Well since then, we’ve moved it 1,000 miles and 14 countries. Now when we started that plan in 1997, Bill Perry, who was the secretary of defense under the Clinton administration, said ‘If you move NATO to the east, I am resigning because you are forcing the Russians to come to war with us.’ George Kennan, who’s the most important diplomat in American history, the architect of the containment policy [after] World War II, said the same thing. You do not need to make an enemy out of Russia,” Kennedy said.
Since announcing his run for the presidency in April, RFK Jr. has been the single most outspoken critic of the Russia-NATO proxy war in Ukraine in the Democratic Party, and like former Republican President Donald Trump, has promised to bring the conflict to a close if elected president.
The 69-year-old candidate, who is currently polling at 16 percent, is a veteran environmental lawyer and the son of assassinated former US Attorney General and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. RFK Jr. has enjoyed a groundswell of support among Democrats, Republican, and independents amid his refusal to play party politics, but has been smeared by media and largely ignored by the Democratic establishment as an “anti-vaxxer” and “conspiracy theorist.” Kennedy has rejected these claims and accused the establishment of trying to silence him.
By Gilbert Doctorow | July 25, 2023
There is a lot of cheerleading for Russian military successes on the Western alternative news portals. There is also a fair amount of cheerleading coming from front line Russian war correspondents on Russian state television. But, as I have indicated in past essays, the more serious Russian news programs such as Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov also give the microphone to military experts from among Duma committee chairmen and others who actually bear responsibility and accountability for the war effort and are not just talking heads. These speakers are much more restrained in their remarks on the war’s progress and I use this opportunity to share with readers what I hear from such sources. I will be drawing in particular on what was said on the Solovyov show two days ago.
The most sober remark was that it is a mistake to gloat over reports that the Ukrainians have run out of reserves and that their soldiers at the front are now just old men and youths, who are demoralized and surrendering to Russians when they can. Saying that is to diminish our respect for the heroism of Russian soldiers who are facing, in fact, peer equals in the Ukrainian forces. This is a tough war.
Moreover, the Ukrainian reserves are not yet exhausted. Out of the approximately 60,000 elite troops that received training in NATO countries only 30 – 40% were killed or wounded in the battle for Bakhmut and subsequent Ukrainian counter-attack after 4 June. The Russians will not begin their own massive offensive to knock out the Ukrainian military until they are confident that most of the Ukrainian reserves have been depleted in the ongoing war of attrition.
Accordingly, what we are witnessing these days is localized attacks that have tactical, not strategic importance. Yes, the Ukrainians make advances here and there of a few meters at great cost in lost lives of the soldiers. Yes, the Russians make advances of three or four kilometers here or there, at significantly lower cost. The Russians are biding their time. This is not a stale-mate as Western media keep telling their audiences.
Now let us turn to another aspect of the conflict that has grabbed the news over the past week when ground skirmishes between the hostile forces moved to the back pages of our newspapers. I have in mind the spectacular Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure in Odessa, in Nikolaev and yesterday in a river port of the Danube estuary just across from the Romanian border. These attacks are described by official Russian military sources as “revenge attacks” for the damage inflicted on one of the roadways of the Crimean bridge by Ukrainian surface drones that exploded under bridge supports.
Of course, that is just Public Relations talk to satisfy the Russian public and overwhelm local outrage at the failure to defend what is, finally, vulnerable infrastructure. No, the reason for the Russian destruction of the Ukrainian port facilities day after day lies elsewhere. The missile strikes were not so much intended to inflict pain on the Ukrainians as to avert what could be naval battles on the Black Sea and a quantum jump in risks of total war. And, en passant, they demonstrated that the latest sea-launched Russian cruise missiles with 3,000 km range that fly just 15 meters above the sea at Mach 3 cannot be intercepted by present Ukrainian air defenses.
Let us remember that when Vladimir Putin announced that the grain deal with Turkey and the United Nations would expire on 18 July, the RF Ministry of Defense announced that any vessels headed towards Ukrainian ports ostensibly to receive export grain would henceforth be considered as carriers of arms to Ukraine and were fair game for destruction by Russian forces.
Immediately after this Ukrainian President Zelensky went on air with his proposal to Turkey that the grain exports by sea continue without Russian participation. The safety of the vessels would be assured by Turkish and other NATO naval convoys. In the context of Erdogan’s latest turn to the U.S. and away from Russia, it appeared that Ankara was prepared to strike a deal with Zelensky. If that were done, then the chances of naval battles between Russian and NATO vessels in the Black Sea would have soared.
And so the Russians decided to destroy the Ukrainian port facilities active in the grain trade and so to preempt the dangers in view. Erdogan was compelled to draw back from any agreement with Zelensky on resumption of the grain corridor mission.
To be sure, export of grain by ship is the cheapest solution to bringing Ukrainian grain to world markets. But there are other means, namely by rail and truck, traveling north and west across Bulgaria or Romania or Poland. These logistics were used last autumn to move a lot of grain, but that grain tended to disappear into the nominal transit countries where it provoked outrage among the farming communities of these countries for underpricing their own grain crops. We may expect more of this political turmoil in Eastern Europe and protests against Ukraine in the coming months, and this also will serve the Russian objective of making Europe pay for its support of Kiev.
The U.S. State Department representatives have shrieked over the humanitarian disaster that the Russians were causing first by pulling out of the grain deal and then by destroying Ukraine’s export infrastructure in the Black Sea. Particular attention has been directed at the nations of Africa which purportedly represent a large proportion of the poor destination countries for Ukrainian grain.
It is interesting to note that notwithstanding vicious American propaganda against the Russian pull-out from the grain deal, the leaders of Africa have not gone for the bait. Today 47 African leaders are assembling in Russia for highest level strategic talks and deal-making with their Russian counterparts. The Russians are offering free of cost grain to the poorest countries and contracts for grain supply to the others at normal commercial terms. The certainty of supply is assured by what the Russians say will be their biggest grain harvest ever during this season.
Though I denounce the U.S. State Department policies under Antony Blinken as a force for evil in the present world context, I do not mean to say that each and every player there is a villain. I am amused to see on Russian television images of the speeches to the United Nations about the grain corridor delivered by Rosemary Di Carlo, a former U.S. career diplomat who since 2018 has served in the UN as Under-Secretary General for Political and Peace-building Affairs.
Once upon a time, in 1998, I had conversations with Rosemary when she was in charge of cultural affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. We sat together at the head table of a gathering of American graduate students and professors on the academic exchange with Russia directed by a Cold War holdover NGO, IREX, for which I was briefly country manager back then. Rosemary talked about the theater season in Moscow and we discussed possibilities for assisting Russian museums and other cultural institutions to adapt to the post-Soviet realities of low government funding and finding private sponsors. She held a Ph.D. in Slavic literature. She was one of the relatively few career diplomats who actually understood and spoke Russian. Her heart was in the right place and I very much doubt that she is working to do the Russians a bad turn today.
Moral of the story above from start to finish: very often things are not what they seem.
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 25, 2023
The problem with the war in Ukraine is that it has been all smoke and mirrors. The Russian objectives of “demilitarisation” and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine wore a surreal look. The western narrative that the war is between Russia and Ukraine, where the central issue is the Westphalian principle of national sovereignty, wore thin progressively leaving a void.
There is a realisation today that the war is actually between Russia and NATO and that Ukraine had ceased to be a sovereign country since 2014 when the CIA and sister western agencies — Germany, the UK, France, Sweden, etc.— installed a puppet regime in Kiev.
The fog of war is lifting and the battle lines are becoming visible. At an authoritative level, a candid discussion is beginning as regards the endgame.
Certainly, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s videoconference with the permanent members of the Security Council in Moscow last Friday and his meeting with Belarus President Belarus Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg on Sunday become the defining moment. The two transcripts stand back-to-back and need to be read together. (here and here)
There is no question that the two events were carefully choreographed by the Kremlin officials and intended to convey multiple messages. Russia exudes confidence that it has achieved dominance on the battle front — having thrashed the Ukrainian military and Kiev’s “counteroffensive” moving into the rear view mirror. But Moscow anticipates that the Biden administration may be having an even bigger war plan in mind.
At the Security council meeting, Putin “de-classified” the intelligence reports reaching Moscow from various sources indicative of moves to insert into Western Ukraine a Polish expeditionary force. Putin called it “a well-organised, equipped regular military unit to be used for operations” in Western Ukraine “for the subsequent occupation of these territories.”
Indeed, there is a long history of Polish revanchism. Putin, himself a keen student of history, talked at some length about it. He sounded stoical that if the Kiev authorities were to acquiesce with this Polish-American plan, “as traitors usually do, that’s their business. We will not interfere.”
But, Putin added, “Belarus is part of the Union State, and launching an aggression against Belarus would mean launching an aggression against the Russian Federation. We will respond to that with all the resources available to us.” Putin warned that what is afoot “is an extremely dangerous game, and the authors of such plans should think about the consequences.”
On Sunday, at the meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg, Lukashenko picked up the thread of discussion. He briefed Putin about new Polish deployments close to the Belarus border — just 40 kms from Brest — and other preparations under way — the opening of a repair shop for Leopard tanks in Poland, activation of an airfield in Rzeszow on the Ukrainian border (about 100 kms from Lvov) for use of Americans transferring weaponry, mercenaries, etc.
Lukashenko said: “This is unacceptable to us. The alienation of western Ukraine, the dismemberment of Ukraine and the transfer of its lands to Poland are unacceptable. Should people in Western Ukraine ask us then we will provide support to them. I ask you [Putin] to discuss and think about this issue. Naturally, I would like you to support us in this regard. If the need in such support arises, if Western Ukraine asks us for help, then we will provide assistance and support to people in western Ukraine. If this happens, we will support them in every possible way.”
Lukashenko continued, “I am asking you to discuss this issue and think it through. Obviously, I would like you to support us in this regard. With this support, and if western Ukraine asks for this help, we will definitely provide assistance and support to the western population of Ukraine.”
As could be expected, Putin didn’t respond — at least, not publicly. Lukashenko characterised the Polish intervention as tantamount to the dismemberment of Ukraine and its “piece meal” absorption into NATO. Lukashenko was upfront: “This is supported by the Americans.” Interestingly, he also sought the deployment of Wagner fighters to counter the threat to Belarus.
The bottom line is that Putin and Lukashenko held such a discussion publicly at all. Clearly, both spoke on the basis of intelligence inputs. They anticipate an inflection point ahead.
It is one thing that the Russian people are well aware that their country is de facto fighting the NATO in Ukraine. But it is an entirely different matter that the war may dramatically escalate to a war with Poland, a NATO army that the US regards as its most important partner in continental Europe.
By dwelling at some length on Polish revanchism, which has a controversial record in modern European history, Putin probably calculated that in Europe, including in Poland, there could be resistance to the machinations that might drag NATO into a continental war with Russia.
Equally, Poland must be dithering too. According to Politico, Poland’s military is about 150,000 strong, out of which 30,000 belong to a new territorial defence force who are “weekend soldiers who undergo 16 days of training followed up by refresher courses.”
Again, Poland’s military might doesn’t translate into political influence in Europe because the centrist forces that dominate the EU distrust Warsaw, which is controlled by the nationalist Law and Justice Party whose disregard for democratic norms and the rule of law has damaged Poland’s reputation across the bloc.
Above all, Poland has reason to be worried about the reliability of Washington. Going forward, the Polish leadership’s concern, paradoxically, will be that Donald Trump may not return as president in 2024. Despite the cooperation with the Pentagon over the Ukraine war, Poland’s current leadership remains distrustful of President Joe Biden — much like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
On balance, therefore, it stands to reason that the sabre-rattling by Lukashenko and Putin’s lesson on European history can be taken as more of a forewarning to the West with a view to modulate an endgame in Ukraine that is optimal for Russian interests. A dismemberment of Ukraine or an uncontrollable expansion of the war beyond its borders will not be in the Russian interests.
But the Kremlin leadership will factor in the contingency that Washington’s follies stemming out of its desperate need to save face from a humiliating defeat in the proxy war, may leave no choice to the Russian forces but to cross the Dnieper and advance all the way to Poland’s border to prevent an occupation of Western Ukraine by the so-called Lublin Triangle, a regional alliance with virulent anti-Russian orientation comprising Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, formed in July 2020 and promoted by Washington.
Putin’s back-to-back meetings in Moscow and St. Petersburg throw light on the Russian thinking as to three key elements of the endgame in Ukraine. First, Russia has no intentions of territorial conquest of Western Ukraine but will insist on having a say on how the new boundaries of the country and the future regime will look and act like, which means that an anti-Russian state will not be allowed.
Second, the Biden administration’s plan to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat in the war is a non-starter, as Russia will not hesitate to counter any continued attempt by the US and NATO to use Ukrainian territory as a springboard to wage a renewed proxy war, which means that Ukraine’s “piece meal” absorption into NATO will remain a fantasy.
Third, most important, the battle-hardened Russian army backed by a powerful defence industry and a robust economy will not hesitate to confront NATO member countries bordering Ukraine if they trespass on Russia’s core interests, which means that Russia’s core interests will not be held hostage to Article 5 of the NATO Charter.
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 25.07.2023
American officials have announced another military aid package for Ukraine, this time including a batch of tiny Black Hornet reconnaissance drones. What exactly are Black Hornets? Who makes them? And why are they so expensive? Sputnik explores.
US officials have spent nearly a week touting a new $400 million weapons package for Kiev to assist in NATO’s ongoing proxy war against Russia, with the weapons, taken directly from the Pentagon’s own stocks, including NASAMS, Stinger and Patriot air defense missiles, Stryker armored vehicles, TOW and Javelin anti-tank missiles, howitzer ammo, HIMARS rockets and 28 million rounds of small arms ammunition.
On Monday, anonymous officials revealed to media that the arms package will also include Black Hornet Nanos, a pricy, sophisticated unmanned aerial vehicle about the size of a small bird.
What are Black Hornet Drones Used For?
Black Hornet Nanos are a micro UAV weighing in at just 17-18 grams. They can be carried around by troops and deployed to provide hi-res images and video of the surrounding environment using three separate onboard cameras. The drones resemble a tiny helicopter, are about 100 mm long and 25 mm wide, with their main rotor blade’s diameter measuring in at about 120 mm.
Who Makes Black Hornet Drones?
Black Hornets were developed by Norwegian nano drone helicopter startup Prox Dynamics in the early 2010s, and are now manufactured by FLIR Unmanned Aerial Systems, another Norwegian company, which bought out Prox Dynamics in 2016 for $134 million. FLIR specializes in surveillance and automated systems, equipment for armored vehicles, traffic detection systems, and firefighting cameras.
What is the Black Hornet’s Range and How Fast Do They Fly?
Black Hornets have a flight time of up to 25 minutes, are equipped with a digital data-link effective to ranges up to 1.6 km, and have a top speed of 21 km per hour.
How Much do Black Hornets Cost, and Why are They So Expensive?
Black Hornet drones had an estimated price tag of about $195,000. That figure is based on a 2013 contract by the UK’s Defense Ministry on the purchase of 160 Black Hornet sets (320 micro copters total) for the equivalent of $31 million. For 195k, you get a remote control, handheld touch screen, rechargeable battery pack, and a two-in-a-set pack of mini drones stored in a special portable, wearable bump resistant container.
Where Have Black Hornets Been Deployed?
Over 14,000 Black Hornets have been produced since their debut in 2011, with the drones purchased en masse by the Norwegian and NATO militaries, as well as by Algeria, Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and South Africa for military and police use.
The systems’ first combat deployment was reported in 2013, with the systems used by British troops during NATO’s occupation of Afghanistan. The US began using modified versions of the base drone equipped with night vision and improved navigation in 2015, reporting their deployment with Marine Corps Special Operations units; the US Army followed up with a $140 million contract for its Soldier Borne Sensor (SBS) program.
The US is not the first country to equip Ukraine with Black Hornets. In August 2022, the UK and Norway jointly purchased 850 Black Hornet Nanos, promising to deploy them by November of that year. Earlier this month, the Norwegian Defense Ministry announced that FLIR would supply another 1,000 Black Hornets, plus spare parts, and would train Ukrainian operators and instructors to fly them (a process which reportedly takes as little as 20 minutes).
Are Black Hornets the Smallest Military Drones in the World?
Black Hornets are touted as the smallest military drones in the world. UK Defense Media hinted back in late 2015 that the military was considering experiments using even smaller UAVs weighing as little as 5 grams, but additional information on these plans has yet to materialize.
Last year, a Chinese company known as Huaqing Innovation unveiled the Fengniao (lit. ‘Hummingbird’) drone at a defense expo in Abu Dhabi, with the UAV measuring in at 17 cm and weighing 35 grams, and capable of transmitting snapshots or real-time footage at distances of more than 2 km. It has a reported flight time of about 25 minutes, and is powered by replaceable batteries, rather than a battery pack. The Fengniao can reportedly be used in combination with up to 15 other drones of the same type to form a swarm, and controlled by a smart phone app. Huaqing Innovation has not revealed the drone’s likely price tag.
For the more budget-conscious buyers, there are commercially available helicopter-style drones fitted with cameras (which have already been used en masse in Ukraine), such as the Eachine E110 RC, which features a 720 pm HD camera with 90 degree rotatable lens.
These drones can be yours for as little as $95, meaning, in theory, that one can buy over 1,000 of the mass-market drones for the price of a single Black Hornet. But there are many tradeoffs, including a flight time of just 15 minutes, a 20 km per hour flight speed, and crucially, a transmission distance of just 50-120 meters. Eachines are equipped with automatic hover and stare modes, and user-selectable waypoint controls, and an automatic return feature. The drones are also substantially larger than Black Hornets, with a nose to tail length of about 30 cm and a similar rotor span. However, as the saying goes, in some circumstances quantity has a quality all its own.
What Weapons Can Be Used to Counter Black Hornet Drones?
Black Hornets’ tiny size and quiet operation make them basically impossible to destroy using conventional missile defenses, although small arms (or an aptly thrown bag of groceries) might just be able to do the job at close range.
Alternatively, they can be targeted by specially-designed countermeasures, such as the RLK-MTs Valdai, a special-purpose radar designed by Russian missile maker Almaz-Antey to detect, suppress and neutralize small drones with extremely low radar cross sections at close-in ranges of 2 km or less. The RLK-MTs’s detection systems include an X-band radar module, thermal imagers and cameras, and a radio signal source-finder module. But these systems are heavy. Heavy enough that they have to be mounted on a truck.
Alternatively, there are military-grade anti-UAV systems such as the PARS-S Stepashka, a 9.6 kg Russian anti-drone gun with the ability to hijack enemy drones and force them to land or return to their launch sites. These weapons have an effective range between 500 and 1,500 meters.
And if that doesn’t work, there’s the Stupor rifle, which uses electromagnetic pulses to suppress drones’ control channels and similarly force them down.
RT | July 25, 2023
Moscow enjoys a significant advantage over Kiev in terms of electronic warfare, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yury Ignat has admitted. He cited the disparity as among the reasons why Ukraine is struggling in its long-anticipated counteroffensive.
Russian forces use electronic countermeasures to disable Ukrainian drones, an approach that Kiev wishes it could also adopt, Ignat said in a TV interview on Monday.
“You don’t need to shoot down a drone with missiles or guns. You can simply force it to go down, intercept it with electronic warfare,” the official stated.
“Russia has powerful systems that interfere with the actions of our defense forces. They have plenty of those systems. Ukraine has made some progress, but we started late,” he added.
The Russian Defense Ministry regularly reports the downing of Ukrainian drones without firing a shot. A raid on Crimea on Monday involved 17 UAVs, 14 of which were disabled by jamming, according to the Russian military.
Russian electronic warfare superiority has been widely acknowledged. A study released by the Royal United Services Institute in London last November estimated that by the summer of that year, Kiev had lost 90% of the thousands of drones it possessed at the beginning of hostilities in February. Once Russian electronic warfare infrastructure was deployed, the life expectancy of Ukrainian UAVs over the battlefield dwindled to three flights for quadcopters and six flights for fixed-wing aircraft, it said.
The issue was also highlighted at the weekend by the New York Times. Ukrainian electronic warfare troops find it difficult to jam Russia’s Lancet loitering munitions because they don’t know how exactly operators communicate with them, the newspaper reported. Meanwhile, their opponents detect Ukrainian mobile phone signals, interfere with GPS geopositioning, and call artillery strikes on Starlink routers, which are essential for Ukrainian communications.
In a CNN interview this week, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov acknowledged that Kiev’s counteroffensive was lagging behind schedule, but insisted that otherwise it was proceeding as planned. Russian officials have said Ukraine has suffered tens of thousands of casualties for no tangible gains.
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By Lisa Pease | Consortium News | September 16, 2013
More than a half century ago, just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others went down in a plane crash over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All 16 died, but the facts of the crash were provocatively mysterious. … continue
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