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US Propaganda Is Responsible For Unrealistically High Hopes About Kiev’s Counteroffensive

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 24, 2023

Politico cited unnamed US administration officials in their latest piece reporting that “Biden’s team fears the aftermath of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive”. According to them, a dilemma of epic soft power proportions is in the making should this upcoming operation fail: hawks will blame the US for not giving Kiev everything that it demanded, while doves will demand the immediate commencement of peace talks. Left unsaid is the “politically inconvenient” fact that US’ own propaganda is responsible for this.

In particular, the SBU-backed fascist troll network known as “NAFO” played an unprecedented role in this respect. What began as an online campaign fundraising for war criminals morphed into an aggressive troll campaign whose members rarely get banned by social media for their toxic ad hominem attacks and doxing despite blatantly violating those platforms’ terms of service (with few notable exceptions). Although Twitter’s recent algorithmic tweaks have reduced their reach, they’re still very active.

What the combined efforts of infamous trolls like former congressman Adam Kinzinger and senior advisor at the Helsinki Commission Paul Massaro have done is generate unrealistically high hopes about Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive among their targeted Western audience. This undeclared foreign agent and shameless glorifier of a genocidal World War II fascist movement respectively thought they were “helping the cause” but were in reality working against its soft power interests this whole time.

Those infamous NAFO trolls and their ilk continued pushing the information warfare narrative that Kiev’s ‘total victory’ is supposedly very close within reach despite Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley publicly downplaying that scenario in late January by describing it as “very, very difficult”. These propagandists didn’t miss a beat even after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia several weeks later.

That second development was publicly shared just like Milley’s for the purpose of tempering everyone’s expectations about Kiev’s counteroffensive, with Stoltenberg’s drawing attention to how much more the West needs to ramp up military-industrial production to stand a chance of winning. It’s impossible for NATO to have made any serious difference in this respect in the two months since his candid admission so the difficult state of military-strategic affairs that Milley warned about still remains in effect.

A little more than one month ago, the Washington Post told its readers the truth about just how poorly Kiev’s forces are faring. Several weeks later, the Pentagon leaks then confirmed this sobering assessment, which set the context within which Politico’s latest report was published. Accordingly, it’s now indisputable that leading Western officials and their allied Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets were preconditioning the public for the last quarter-year not to expect much from this counteroffensive.

NAFO’s failure to respond to those signals and instead defiantly redouble their information warfare narrative priming the public for Kiev’s ‘total victory’ sometime in the very near future therefore directly resulted in the present dilemma. Those average Westerners who are supportive of Ukraine didn’t extend any credence to those aforementioned figures’ warnings due to the social media echo chamber that they became trapped in since the special operation started.

These people preferred to surround themselves with fellow wishful thinkers who told them whatever they wanted to hear, sometimes even pushing the most absurd conspiracy theories to explain away the cognitive dissonance provoked by the difference between their claims and those officials’. The most popular one alleges that elements within the US Government, NATO, and the MSM are either under the influence of a “Russian disinformation operation” or even infiltrated by “deep-cover sleeper cell agents”.

For as amusing as this may be those who know better than to fall for that super paranoid conspiracy theory, so many people within the West seriously believe it that the US Government doesn’t consider this to be a laughing matter at all. In fact, it’s precisely because a critical mass of people still subscribe to these radical fringe beliefs despite leading officials’ best efforts since late January to correct their false NAFO-indoctrinated expectations that those US administration figures just spoke to Politico.

Simply put, their propaganda operation has gotten out of control and is now a major soft power liability. NAFO trolls won’t respond to those dog whistles being blown by American and NATO officials like Milley and Stoltenberg since they remain “loyal” to parroting whatever Ukrainian officials are saying at any given time. Those who stray from the dogmatic information warfare narrative that Kiev’s ‘total victory’ is supposedly very close within reach are viciously attacked and expelled from this modern-day cult.

The felling of belonging that NAFO provides for many of its members, whose offline lives are rather dull and lonely to put it mildly, influences them to self-censor the sharing of any doubts they may have about Ukraine’s conspiracy theories in the face of growing Western public claims to the contrary. These interconnected gatekeeping and psychological dynamics result in narrative reinforcement, which in turn leads to Kiev’s average Western supporters retaining unrealistically high expectations about the conflict.

The reason why the US Government is recently scaling up its efforts to correct the public’s expectations is because the risk of deep disappointment affecting a critical mass of the population is assessed as being extremely counterproductive to their interests. Enough of them might become disillusioned in the aftermath of a failed counteroffensive that they decisively shift towards supporting the immediate ceasefire scenario, which works against those who want to indefinitely perpetuate this proxy war.

The most furious among them might even punish those politicians who they blame for this fiasco during the next elections, either by voting for pro-ceasefire candidates or not participating in the polls at all. Either way, administration figures fear that there’s a credible enough chance of tangible blowback from the false expectations that NAFO continued cultivating among the public in defiance of the dog whistles blown by top Western military officials that they’re now asking the MSM to help them avert this disaster.

The takeaway from Politico’s latest article is that the Biden Administration is still struggling to correct the public’s expectations after Milley first tried doing so a quarter-year ago. The US’ earlier NAFO-driven propaganda successfully instilled unrealistically high hopes of Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive among their targeted audience, which is now a major soft power liability owing to credible fears that it’ll fail. Unless their expectations soon change, Ukraine’s supporters might be in for a very deep disappointment.

April 24, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

West knows Ukraine weapons leaking to black market – Seymour Hersh

RT | April 23, 2023

Western-supplied arms are being sold by Ukrainian commanders to smugglers in Poland, Romania and other states, veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.

The Pulitzer Prize winner, speaking to Afshin Rattansi on his program ‘Going Underground,’ said the West is aware of this black market trade, as some reports about missing arms shipments have even appeared in the US media.

Hersh claimed that, according to his data, almost immediately after the conflict broke out between Kiev and Moscow last February, “Poland, Romania, other countries on the border were being flooded with weapons we [the US and allies] were shipping for the war to Ukraine.”

“Often, it wasn’t generals, it was colonels and others, who were given shipments of some weapons, [who] would personally resell them… to the dark market,” he explained.

The journalist noted that there was concern in the West last year that some of the arms sent to Ukraine, such as Stinger shoulder-launched missiles, could be used to “shoot down an airplane at considerable height.”

As for Western-supplied weapons ending up on the black market, “CBS wrote a story about it that they were forced to retract,” Hersh said.

When asked about why the piece was retracted, the journalist said the media is supporting the stance of the US government that “we’re on the side of Ukraine. We all hate Russia.”

Hersh was likely referring to the documentary “Arming Ukraine,” which CBS aired last August. The promo for the film, which included a claim by the founder of pro-Ukraine NGO Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman, that only 30% of military aid actually reached the frontline, was removed, while the documentary itself and the story accompanying it were redacted.

Russian officials have on many occasions warned about Western-supplied arms being smuggled outside Ukraine, thus deteriorating the security situation elsewhere around the globe.

“NATO military supplies intended for the Kiev regime end up in the hands of terrorists, extremists and criminal groups in the Middle East, Central Africa, Southeast Asia,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in October. At the time, she estimated the black market turnover at $1billion per month.

An investigation by RT last summer also revealed how various weapons supplied to Kiev by the West were being sold on the dark net. The journalists were able to swiftly negotiate to the purchase of a US-made kamikaze drone with smugglers. However, it impossible to confirm whether the sellers actually had the weapons in stock, as the reporters did not complete the purchase.

The full version of Going Underground’s interview with Seymour Hersh will be aired on RT on Monday.

April 23, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Will The Republic Of Korea Dispatch Lethal Aid To Ukraine?

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 22, 2023

Republic of Korea (ROK) President Yoon Suk-yeol told Reuters on Wednesday that his country was considering the dispatch of lethal aid to Ukraine if the humanitarian situation descends into a deeper crisis as a result of alleged Russian war crimes. In his words, “If there is a situation the international community cannot condone, such as any large-scale attack on civilians, massacre or serious violation of the laws of war, it might be difficult for us to insist only on humanitarian or financial support.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that “any weapons supplies would imply a certain involvement in this conflict.” That same day, former Russian President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the National Security Council Dmitry Medvedev wrote the following on social media: “I wonder what the residents of this nation would say when they see the newest example of Russian weapons in possession of their closest neighbors, our partners from the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea]?”

The ROK’s Yonhap News Agency then cited an unnamed senior presidential official on Thursday to report that “Decision on lethal aid to Ukraine depends on Russia’s actions”. According to their source, “The reason we are not taking such action voluntarily is because we want to simultaneously and in a balanced manner fulfill the task of stably maintaining and managing South Korea-Russia relations while actively joining the ranks of the international community in defending the freedom of the Ukrainian people.”

The larger context within which the latest ROK-Russian spat is playing out concerns President Yoon’s upcoming trip to the US next week, during which time it’s expected that US President Joe Biden will request that his country participate in some sort of arrangement for dispatching lethal aid to Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared in mid-February that his US-led military bloc is in a so-called “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia in Ukraine, and it’ll struggle to win without help.

Its members have already depleted a considerable amount of their stockpiles over the past 14 months, yet the conflict still continues raging on. Without maintaining the pace, scale, and scope of their lethal aid to Ukraine, that country might soon be at a major disadvantage vis-à-vis Russia, which could further delay its planned NATO-backed counteroffensive and possibly create the conditions for a ceasefire if Moscow is able to then consolidate its on-the-ground gains in the territories that Kiev claims as its own.

This explains the urgency with which the US is searching across the world for additional ammunition to arm Ukraine. Considering the ROK’s enormous shell stockpile that it’s built up over the decades in preparation of possibly fighting the DPRK once again, it makes sense why the US is approaching it. Nevertheless, Seoul’s compliance with Washington’s request could lead to Moscow arming Pyongyang with “the newest example of Russian weapons” exactly as Medvedev warned on social media.

For that reason, ROK officials remain divided on this ultra-sensitive issue as proven by the latest Pentagon leaks, yet they’ll ultimately have to do something since the resultant dilemma is unsustainable. President Yoon will probably be forced to make a choice during his upcoming trip to the US. On the one hand, directly arming Ukraine per the US’ wishes could prompt Russia to arm the DPRK, yet declining to dispatch lethal aid to that Eastern European country could lead to Seoul falling out of Washington’s favor.

Objectively speaking, the second scenario is much more aligned with the ROK’s national interests than the first, though President Yoon might end up trying to reach a so-called “compromise” under heavy US pressure. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki proposed precisely that in an interview with the New York Times earlier this month where he suggested that Biden convince his ROK counterpart to indirectly supply Ukraine with much-needed artillery shells via Poland.

Poland and the ROK signed a $5.8 billion artillery and tank deal last summer, and the latter’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration’s (DAPA) technology control bureau already approved a license for the export of partially ROK-built Krab howitzers to Ukraine last year according Kim Hyoung-cheol. He’s the director of the Europe-Asia division of the International Cooperation Bureau and confirmed this fact when talking to Reuters last month.

The precedent is therefore established at least in principle for the ROK to ship shells to Poland prior to their re-export to Ukraine under US supervision, but the relevant license would obviously first have to be approved, which will likely be discussed during President Yoon’s upcoming meeting with Biden. If that happens, however, then Russia might react furiously and even possibly arm the DPRK because these shell shipments would be much more strategically significant in the present context than the Krabs were.

It was certainly an unfriendly move for the ROK to approve the export of those systems that it partially built, but that development’s importance in shaping the dynamics of the present conflict pales in comparison to what could occur if it facilitates the massive re-export of artillery shells at this time. Doing so would enable Ukraine to remain in the so-called “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia, while declining to participate in this scheme could create the conditions for a ceasefire with time.

Assessed from this perspective, it can therefore be concluded that President Yoon’s decision could be a game-changer since his country can either contribute to perpetuating this conflict by keeping Ukraine in its aforesaid military-industrial competition with Russia or play a decisive role in drawing it to a close. He’s clearly under immense pressure from the US to do the first-mentioned so it would be an impressive display of strategic autonomy if the ROK ends up doing the second by refusing to send shells to Ukraine.

April 22, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO member questions Stoltenberg’s stance on Ukraine

RT | April 21, 2023

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has cast doubt on NATO’s purportedly universal support for accepting Ukraine into the US-led bloc.

Orban took to Twitter on Friday to share an article by Politico on NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s visit to Kiev, where he proclaimed Ukraine had a “rightful place” within the bloc.

Commenting on the article, Orban simply wrote: “What?!”

Stoltenberg made a surprise appearance in Kiev on Thursday, in a first visit to the country since the beginning of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022.

During a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Stoltenberg praised the continuous military aid flowing from NATO member states to Ukraine. He also insisted a multi-year support initiative for Kiev was “testament to NATO’s long-term commitment” to the country.

“Allies are now delivering more jets, tanks, and armored vehicles, and NATO’s Ukraine fund is providing urgent support… All of this is making a real difference on the battlefield today,” Stoltenberg asserted. He further claimed that Kiev has a “rightful” place within the bloc.

Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. And over time, our support will help to make this possible.

However, the secretary-general failed to provide a specific timeframe for Ukraine’s potential accession into the alliance. Zelensky, for his part, urged Stoltenberg to “overcome the reluctance” of some NATO members to supply long-range rockets and modern fighter jets to Ukraine.

Hungary has repeatedly said it will not support Ukraine’s applications to either NATO or the EU. Budapest has refrained from providing military aid to Kiev, as well as refusing to allow such shipments to travel through its territory and onto Ukraine.

Budapest and Kiev have long been at odds over the latter’s attitude towards the ethnic Hungarian minority in Ukraine. Some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in modern Ukraine, primarily in the Transcarpathian region. Kiev’s efforts to crack down on Russian speakers following the 2014 Maidan coup have affected other minorities as well, including Hungarians. Kiev, meanwhile, has repeatedly accused Budapest of meddling in its internal affairs, particularly by granting citizenship to Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarians.

April 21, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Spain to send naval defense equipment to Kiev

By Lucas Leiroz | April 21, 2023

In a rather irresponsible and provocative way, the Spanish government has announced a new military aid package for the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, which includes naval defense equipment. As well known, naval defenses are items of high strategic relevance, and their supply represents a great advance in the level of co-participation in the conflict by the exporting country. In this sense, it is possible to say that Madrid is taking a dangerous step in NATO’s proxy war with Russia, generating high risks of escalation.

The announcement of the shipment of new Spanish arms to Ukraine was made on April 20 by the Minister of Defense Magarita Robles. According to the official, the new equipment aims to reinforce the Ukrainian armed forces in different sectors considered strategic, such as land, anti-aircraft and especially naval defenses. Robles claims that improving the Ukrainian situation on the naval battlefield is an essential step to ensure the stability of regional security, which would “justify” the need to send such weapons to the Ukrainian regime.

“The new shipments are aimed at reinforcing the Armed Forces of Ukraine in such areas as armored vehicles, means of ground troops protection, antiaircraft defenses and naval defenses. The latter is considered essential for the security of ‘the green sea route’ that allows the transportation of the Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea”, she said during a press conference.

It is curious to note that the minister used as an excuse for her country’s decision the supposed need to defend the Ukrainian positions in the Black Sea, protecting the flow of grains through a safe route. Obviously, the minister said this while absolutely ignoring the clear truth that the Ukrainian side is the only one that repeatedly provokes the Russian ships and ports in the region, preventing the effective working of the grain agreements and raising the risks of food insecurity.

Although details about which naval weapons would be sent to Kiev have not been clarified yet, it is important to remember that the announcement comes as a response to the request formally made by Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov on a recent visit to Madrid. At the time, Resnikov stated that Kiev would be interested in Spanish amphibious vehicles as well as in technical assistance from the country’s military, considering its experience in amphibian attacks.

So, it is possible to assume, analyzing the information available so far, that Kiev plans to carry out amphibious attacks against Russian cities in the Black Sea, which includes Crimea and other strategic regions. If this happens, the escalation of the conflict will be significantly high, as amphibious attacks are extremely dangerous and demand an extraordinary level of military mobilization. The Russian response to this type of incursion would be particularly strong, certainly causing even greater damage to the already weakened Ukrainian armed forces.

However, the Spanish anti-Russian audacity goes beyond this naval issue. Madrid is also sending to the neo-Nazi regime some Leopard 2A4 battle tanks as well as TAT vehicles and many other types of equipment. Also, in addition to weapons, the Spanish government has also promised to send an additional package of humanitarian and medical aid as soon as possible. What is possible to see is that Spain is really focused on increasing its participation in the conflict, fulfilling NATO’s requests for all members of the Atlantic alliance to advance their military agendas and remain in combat readiness.

In the same sense, the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced that he will visit Washington in May to talk with his American partners, the Ukrainian issue being a central topic on his agenda. The objective would be to discuss new ways in which Spain could contribute more actively to the war against Russia. In addition, some discussions related to Latin America, a region where the US seeks hegemony and with which Spain has historical ties, are also expected for the summit.

Indeed, there are not enough reasons to justify the Spanish desire for war. It is possible to understand the reasons why Ukraine wants to increase its cooperation with Spain. As a country with an extensive coastline and a military history marked by naval conflicts and amphibious attacks, Spain seems to become an interesting partner for Kiev to seek help in its war ambitions – not only in arms supply, but also in technical assistance. However, there simply seems to be no advantage for the Spanish government to adhere in depth to this type of partnership.

Being in western Europe, Madrid seems a long way from any direct effects of the conflict. Any kind of anti-Russian paranoia seems irrational in the Spanish case. Even if there is an eventual internationalization of the conflict in the near future, Spain will certainly not be the side most threatened by escalation. What appears, therefore, is that Madrid is making a kind of bet on military expansionism, seeking to increase its strategic relevance through active participation in NATO’s war against Russia.

This seems problematic and irresponsible from many points of view, since Madrid obviously does not have enough military capacity to reverse the battlefield scenario. Spanish help can only cause Kiev to carry out more dangerous provocations, which will be responded to in an intense way, accelerating the inevitable collapse of the Ukrainian forces. The best Madrid can do is avoid getting involved in irreversible conflicts and raise its own national defense capabilities, assuming skepticism about the “umbrella” promised by NATO.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

April 21, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine: Stalemate in an attritional war?

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 20, 2023 

The Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to the country’s “new territories” of Lugansk and Kherson/Zaporozhye Regions on Monday to assess the military situation. 

The countdown has begun for the Ukrainian “counterattack”. The arrival of Patriot missile system in Ukraine testifies to the scale of mobilisation to impose heavy losses on Russia. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg paid a surprise visit to Kiev today, his first since the war began. 

The leaked Pentagon documents are sceptical about the success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, but Moscow makes its own assessments. Primarily, the neocons are not going to pull the plug on the Zelensky regime, since that means opening the Pandora’s box when President Biden is about to announce his bid for a second term as president and cannot accept that Ukraine is losing the war. 

In reality, Ukraine is haemorrhaging. It is in the nature of attritional wars that at some point, the weaker side breaks and thereupon, the end comes very fast. This was how in Syria where once the 5-year old Battle of Aleppo was won in December 2016, the government forces swept through the country in a string of military victories bringing the curtain down on the conflict. 

The attritional war in Ukraine may look “stalemated” but the clincher will be which side is inflicting the greater casualties. There is no question that the massive military, intelligence, financial and economic assistance by the West notwithstanding, Russian forces have ground down the Ukrainian side all along the line of contact.

The Russian ambassador to the UK recently said the ratio of losses in the attrition war is roughly seven Ukrainian soldiers to every Russian soldier. To put things in perspective, western media reports estimate that around 35,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be involved in the upcoming counter-offensive along the 950-km frontline while Putin is on record that the Russian reserve forces on the frontline come to 160,000 soldiers!      

The Ukrainian air defence system is in a critical state. Russians have a predominance of artillery and, Russians have heavily fortified the frontline in the recent 5-6 months in multiple layers of defence such as mines, earthworks and bollards to impede advancing tanks, etc. 

This is a desperate gambit for Ukraine, which has lost a large share of its most experienced soldiers (estimated 120,000 casualties), to take on the Russians who are having air superiority and missile superiority, air defence superiority and artillery superiority, and trained manpower superiority, above all.   

The areas that Putin chose to visit — Kherson / Zaporozhya and Lugansk — are where the Ukrainian counteroffensive is most expected. Putin heard from the commanders the military situation and of course, most certainly, that will be inputs for his decisions on Russian counter-strategies, both defensive and offensive. 

Despite the Pentagon leaks and the ensuing disarray and confusion in Washington and European capitals (and Kiev), the Ukrainian counterattack will go ahead to gain back at least some of the lost territory. This is a desperate throw of the dice. 

However, delusional thinking still prevails in Washington. This is apparent from a recent article in Foreign Affairs co-authored by two veterans of the US establishment — former State Department official Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations — titled The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine: A Plan for Getting From the Battlefield to the Negotiating Table. 

The article largely sticks to the myths spawned by the neocons — that Russia’s special military operations failed and the war has “turned out far better for Ukraine than most predicted” — but has occasional flashes of realism. It builds on the refrain currently in vogue in Washington that “the most likely outcome of the conflict is not a complete Ukrainian victory but a bloody stalemate.” 

Haas and Kupchan wrote that “By the time Ukraine’s anticipated offensive is over, Kyiv may also warm up to the idea of a negotiated settlement, having given its best shot on the battlefield and facing growing constraints on both its own manpower and help from abroad.” 

The authors take note en passe that Russia’s leadership has options and calculations too, as western sanctions have failed to cripple the Russian economy, popular support for the war remains high (above 70%) and Moscow senses that time is on its side as the staying power of Ukraine and its Western supporters and their resolve will wane and Russia should be able to expand its territorial gains substantially.

Fundamentally, Haas and Kupchan hail from another planet. They cannot comprehend that Russia will never accept a scenario where the conflict ends with a ceasefire but the NATO will continue to beef up Ukraine’s military capabilities and steadily integrate Kiev into the alliance. 

Why would Russia want to play another game of musical chairs while the West formalises Ukraine’s NATO membership — that is, acquiesce in a replay of the grotesque interregnum between Minsk Agreements of 2015 and Russia’s special military operations? 

Putin’s visit to the new territories at this crucial juncture with the attritional war at a tipping point conveys a powerful signal that Russia too has an offensive plan and it is not up to Biden to blow the whistle and call off the proxy war — out of sheer fatigue or pressing distractions in the Asia-Pacific region or due to cracks in western unity or whatever else. 

Equally, it is improbable that Russia can ever reconcile with the Zelensky regime, which Moscow sees as a puppet of the Biden administration. But how can Biden possibly dump or lose sight of Zelensky while the skeletons are rattling in the family cupboard? 

Most important, Russian public opinion expects Putin to redeem the pledge he made while ordering the special military operations. Anything short of that will mean tens of thousands of Russian lives perished in vain. 

It is not in the grain of Putin’s political personality to ignore the groundswell of Russian opinion — or overlook the wounded national psyche as images are playing out of forced eviction of hundreds of monks of  Pechersk Lavra, the 11th-century Orthodox cave monastery complex in the heart of Kiev, branded as Russian fifth columnists. It was a calculated political move by Zelensky with tacit western encouragement. (here and here)

What the neocons in the US are yet to grasp is that they failed to subjugate Russia despite all the humiliations poured on its national honour, proud history and enviously rich culture. Why would Russia normalise with states that appropriated its sovereign wealth and imposed such draconian sanctions to bleed and weaken its economy?

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has admitted on CNN that sanctions may ultimately risk hegemony of the US dollar. But her remarks do not go far enough. 

Meanwhile, the Russia-China strategic partnership has strengthened, the signal this week being Moscow’s willingness to coordinate with Beijing to counter military challenges in the Far East. (See my blog China, Russia circle wagons in Asia-Pacific) 

Russia is far from isolated and enjoys strategic depth in the international community. Whereas, through the past one-year period, the systemic decline of the West and the US’ waning global influence has become an inexorable historical process. 

April 20, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

THE PLANNING OF THE UKRAINE INVASION FROM THE RUSSIAN POINT OF VIEW (MAYBE)

By Gaius Baltar | SONAR | April 19, 2023

Recently I heard an “expert” offer the opinion that Putin and the Russian Army had made a serious mistake when they organized the “special military operation” (SMO) in the Ukraine the way they did. It would have been far better to just send the army into Lugansk and Donetsk to defend them rather than make an ill-advised dash toward Kiev.

Instead of following this belated advice from that expert, the Russians chose to move fast into northern and southern Ukraine. Why did they do that? There are many theories; some good, some illogical, and some completely incoherent. I thought it might be a good idea to step back and look at the situation before the SMO from the Russian point of view. Russians tend to be practical and logical people and the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces probably more so than most. Their plan must have had logical reasons based on what they saw at the time. So, how did the Russians see the situation before the SMO, at the end of 2021? Let’s put ourselves in their shoes and come up with a theory. Note that this is not a theory of what did happen, only of what the Russians may have thought that might happen when they planned their SMO.

The defensive lines and the siege of the Donbass

The first thing the Russians must have noticed was the construction of the massive Ukrainian defensive lines around the Lugansk and Donetsk republics. The Ukraine Government had made no secret of their plan to capture the republics and the Ukrainian Army should have had an “offensive posture” rather than defensive. It makes perfect sense to construct defensive lines while planning an attack to prevent disruptive counterattacks, but the Ukrainian defenses went far beyond that. They were truly massive and built over a period of 8 years. We know how strong they were because it has taken the Russians more than a year to break through them.

The Russians must have taken a look at those defenses and reached the following conclusion: Their purpose is to contain the Russian Army if necessary – even if a large part of the Russian Army is used against them.

The second thing the Russians must have noticed was the absolute determination of the Ukrainians to attack the republics, even if this ensured a Russian response. We saw that determination when the Russian Government recognized their independence just before the war started. According to the OCSE artillery monitoring map, Ukrainian artillery attacks on the republics decreased right after the recognition of independence, but then increased again – most likely after having received orders from Kiev to keep going. At that point in time Russian involvement was ensured, but the Ukrainians still kept attacking the republics.

The Russians would have connected those two things; the determination to attack and the massive defenses. They must have come to the following conclusion: “They want us to attack through the Donbass, and then they are going to use those defensive lines to contain us. Why?”

The trap

Having observed all this the Russians must have started to think about the Ukrainian plans. They would have assumed that those plans were not just Ukrainian plans, but NATO plans as well. So, what were the Ukrainians and NATO planning?

The Russians must have made the following deduction: “The Ukrainians and NATO want us to attack through the Donbass and clash against those lines. Why would they want that? It must be because it is a precondition for some kind of plan on their part – some kind of larger plan. What is that larger plan?”

Then they must have thought about what it would take to confront the Ukrainian army in the Donbass and take on the defensive lines. What would that require? It would require a large force and a lot of time. That would mean that a considerable part of the Russian Army would be tied down there for quite some time. Was that perhaps the precondition for the larger Ukrainian/NATO plan? Was the whole thing perhaps about forcing the Russian Army to attack through the Donbass and taking on the defensive lines – specifically to tie it down – to keep it busy while the Ukrainians and NATO carried out the rest of their plan?

After having considered this, the Russians must have asked themselves the following question: “What do the Ukrainians and NATO want more than anything?” And since it’s actually the Americans and the British running the show: “What do the Americans and the British want more than anything?” The question isn’t hard to answer. What the Americans, the British, and the Ukrainians want more than anything is Crimea. Crimea is the key to “dominating” the Black Sea, and capturing it would be a dagger into the belly of Russia.

After having run through this logic, the Russians would have come to the conclusion that the Ukrainian attack on the Donbass republics and the defensive lines was a trap to tie them down. Then they started planning countermoves.

The Russian plan

The first thing the Russians may have thought about when planning the countermove was timing. How long after the war started would the Ukrainians move on the Crimean peninsula? They wouldn’t do it right away because they would want the Russian Army to be well and truly engaged in the Donbass before making a move. They would also not want to tip the Russians off by assembling a big force near Crimea before the Russians engaged the defensive lines in the Donbass. This would mean that the area north of Crimea, i.e. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, would be lightly defended for a while.

After having reached this conclusion, the Russians put together a plan to preempt the Ukrainian/NATO plan. The plan had one main objective and two secondary objectives.

Objective 1 (main objective): To capture Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts to create a buffer zone between Crimea and the rest of Ukraine. This objective had to be reached extremely fast while the area was still lightly defended. This operation was all-important at that point in time, far more important than anything happening in the Donbass or the Kiev area. Capturing Kherson was not enough to create the buffer zone because the Ukrainians had to be prevented from attacking the Crimean Bridge. The Zaporizhzhia coast line is only 150 kilometers from the bridge so Zaporizhzhia oblast had to be taken immediately as well.

Objective 2 (secondary objective): While a large part of the Ukrainian Army was positioned in the Donbass, there was still a large force kept back, possibly for the Crimean operation. This part of the Ukrainian army would have to be kept from engaging the Russian forces going after Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The only way to do that was to threaten something that had to be defended at all cost, even at the cost of the Crimea plan. There was only one location the Ukrainians would defend at all cost outside the Donbass – Kiev itself. The Russians therefore decided to advance on Kiev in an extremely threatening manner. The forces they used were not sufficient to take Kiev outright but enough to hold the area north of the city and seriously threaten it. The Ukrainians would have no choice but to take the threat seriously and move forces toward Kiev, including the forces intended for the Crimean operation. This would prevent the Ukrainians from responding to the Russian occupation of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Objective 3 (secondary objective): To force Ukraine to negotiate peace on Russian terms. The Russians most likely assumed that if the Kherson/ Zaporizhzhia buffer operation was successful the Ukrainians might want to negotiate. They would want to negotiate not only because Kiev was threatened, but primarily because their main objective, the capture of Crimea, had been thwarted. This part of the plan was partly successful because the Ukrainians were ready to sign a treaty before the Americans and the British intervened.

The conclusion from this (perhaps dubious) mind-reading of the Russian General Staff is that the main objectives of the initial Russian operation were Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, not Donbass, Kiev, or a treaty with the Ukrainians. When the negotiations fell through, the Russians moved back to their contingency plan with the main objective of destroying the Ukrainian Army.

It is important to keep in mind that this is not a theory intended to explain what happened. It is only a theory to explain the Russian plan based on what the Russians may have been thinking at the time. It’s highly speculative and perhaps wrong, but it explains a lot nevertheless – including Ukrainian and Western reactions to the Russian operation.

The Ukrainian plan

Let’s describe the theoretical Ukrainian/NATO plan before moving on. The plan, according to this hypothetical Russian pre-war theory, had three main objectives:

  1. To tie down the Russian Army in the Donbass using the massive defensive lines and a good part of the well-trained and well-equipped Ukrainian Army.
  2. To carry out a surprise attack on the Crimean peninsula, occupy it and turn the Black Sea into a NATO-controlled area – and putting massive pressure on Putin as a bonus. For this a significant part of the Ukrainian army was held back from the Donbass.
  3. To bog down and bleed the Russian Army in the Donbass with the goal of engineering a regime change in Russia. The sanctions blitz was planned as an integral part of that goal.

 

It’s April 2023 and so far none of these objectives have been achieved. Let’s assume that this theory is correct and this was actually the plan – and let’s look at what the Ukrainians and the West have been up to since it failed.  Again, this is highly speculative.

The obsession with the plan

If we look at what the Ukrainians and the West have been doing in this war, a pattern seems to emerge: They still seem to be carrying out the initial plan, even though it failed. Almost every decision they make seems to be in accordance with the plan, or more specifically, in accordance with a pathological denial of the failure of the plan. Let’s look at a few examples:

The obsession with Crimea: The Ukrainians and the West are still planning to take Crimea, even though it is impossible. Still, the capture of Crimea is alive in their minds and a realistic option. Zelensky even at one point said that the Ukraine had started the liberation of Crimea … “in their minds.” Occupying Crimea was a part of the plan and abandoning Crimea means that the plan has failed.

The attack on the Crimean Bridge: Destroying the bridge was a part of the plan, and even after the Crimea was out of Ukraine’s grasp and the Russians had secured a land corridor to Crimea, the bridge was still a priority. It had to be attacked because that was a part of the plan. Now that itch has been scratched and they have, so far, not had the need to try again.

The obsession with Bakhmut: The Ukrainian Army has probably lost close to 40,000 soldiers defending Soledar and Bakhmut. The enclosed area is a kill zone for Russian artillery which the Ukrainians supply with endless cannon fodder. Even the Americans have doubts that hanging on to the city is the right option and the Ukrainians may even be willing to sacrifice their spring offensive to hold on to it just a little bit longer. More and more military experts are shaking their heads and talk about Bakhmut as a Ukrainian obsession, which it is. Holding Bakhmut prevents the last part of the plan from failing, i.e. to hold the Russian army on the other side of the defensive lines. If the Russians break through, the plan will have failed completely. Therefore Bakhmut must be defended.

The obsession with the sanctions: One of the biggest shocks of the war was the failure of the Western economic sanctions. The response of the West to the failure has been interesting. They didn’t cancel the sanctions or freeze them or rethink them. Instead they keep on sanctioning everyone and everything even though it is clearly pointless and even counterproductive. The situation is becoming increasingly surreal but they can’t stop. If they stop, the plan will have failed.

The initial panic

There is one other issue which the failure of the Ukrainian/NATO plan may explain. Every significant person in the West expected the Russians to invade the Ukraine before it happened. This was, in fact, what many of them wanted. One would have expected them to show indignation, to condemn the brutish Russians, and so on and so forth. The initial reaction in the West went far beyond that. There was extreme anger, panic and hysteria. There were even threats of using nuclear weapons. I always thought these reactions were far more extreme than the Russian invasion warranted. Why completely lose your mind over something you knew was going to happen? I suspect all the anger, the panic and the threats were because the Russians thwarted the Western Crimea plan. They were going to trick the Russians but the Russians tricked them instead. The Westerners were humiliated and nothing motivates anger and threats of nukes more than humiliation.

The anger and obsession with the failed plan in the Ukraine and the West are without doubt the result of the psychology and personality of the incredibly uniform Western and Ukrainian leadership class. They don’t accept personal failure easily, or the intrusion of reality into their plans. But that is a matter for another essay, and a long one at that.

Finally, remember that this is all speculation – a thought exercise if you will – but who knows…

April 19, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Via col Vento in the United States of Amnesia: Whistleblowers, Leaks and Fratricide

Michael Hoffman’s Revelation of the Method | April 19, 2023

Fratricide is Satanism

Satanic activities are not the domain of one political wing. One of the most wicked black magic sacrifices occurred in the early 20th century, in a mass immolation known as the First World War, a useless fratricide, tantamount to an open air Satanic ritual, placating the devil with human sacrifices and approved by the churches.

Each church hierarchy among the belligerents declared that God was on the side of their army, and then dispatched young men in the flower of youth to cross oceans and trenches and butcher other young men in the flower of youth.

World War I was fought between traditional monarchies and conservative governments deeply entrenched in Christendom and nonetheless behaving diabolically. It was Churchianity in charge, not Christianity, and it reflected a self-deception that is quintessentially demonic.

In Ukraine at this moment another fratricide is underway—a civil war between Slavic people. It would be an understatement to say that the Cryptocracy is not generally fond of Slavs. The Cryptocracy’s aversion to Slavic people is one of the destabilizing facts that remans secret in what is otherwise the age of the Making Manifest of All that is Hidden (Revelation of the Method).

In 1941 Adolf Hitler stated, “The Slavs are a mass of born slaves who feel the need for a master” (cf. Manfred Henningsen, “The Politics of Purity and Exclusion” in  Björn H. Jernudd (ed.), The Politics of Language Purism, [1989], p. 48). Hitler proceeded to kill millions of Slavs in combat in the course of his invasions of Slavic nations (Poland and later Russia).

Hitler’s occult beliefs (documented in our book, Adolf Hitler: Enemy of the German People) were partly the result of his initiation into “Theosophy,” an occult system that taught a “root races” ideology in which the “Aryan race” was held to be superior.

There are exceptions to Nazi racial animus toward Slavs. Hitler was an admirer of Józef Pilsudski (1867-1935), the Polish leader who vanquished the Bolshevik army in 1920. These individual cases do not however, nullify the fact that Hitler killed more Slavic people than any other leader of the 20th century, an act whose theurgic dimension is overlooked.

The Nazis’ post-war plans for Eastern Europe entailed deportations to gain “living space” for German settlers, with Poles, Russians and “western” Ukrainians targeted for mass extrusion to Siberia (cf. Czeslaw Madajczyk, “Vom ‘Generalplan Ost’ zum ‘Generalsiedlungsplan,” in Rössler, Der “Generalplan Ost”: Hauptlinien der nationalsozialistischen Planungsund Vernichtungspolitik [1993], p. 13).

As Hitler was useful, so too are Putin, Zelensky and Biden. The current fratricide in Ukraine is exceedingly pleasing to hidden forces beholden to esoteric doctrines and the very public Neocon element in the United States which, in spite of being wrong about every war the U.S. has fought in the 21st century, continues to drive foreign policy in Washington, under both Democrats and Republicans, feeding cash and war materiel to Zelensky’s regime in pursuit of maximum carnage between the Ukrainians and the Russians.

NATO’s Unsung Crimes

Prior to the anti-Slav abattoir in Ukraine, beginning with the Clinton administration, US General Wesley Kanne Clark commanded NATO forces in Slavic Serbia, bombing trains, buses and civilian centers in cities and killing thousands of civilians. Forces under his command also destroyed ancient Serbian churches and monasteries. There was no war crime trial because Clark attributed the killing and destruction to “collateral damage.” That’s the magic wand our government waves to dispense with prosecution by the International Court of Justice where the US is determined to prosecute Putin and absolve Zelesnsky.

On April 23, 1999 Clark’s NATO forces intentionally bombed a Serbian radio and TV station in Belgrade, killing 16 reporters and staff members. NATO excused the attack by asserting the barbaric doctrine that killing journalists is justified if they engage in propaganda: “NATO defended the air strike by saying the TV station was a legitimate target because of its role in what NATO called ‘Belgrade’s campaign of propaganda” (BBC, October 24, 2001).

These facts are down the Memory Hole’s greased chute. The New York Times and the corporate media generally don’t report crimes like those of NATO as part of any annual “This Day in History” memorial. To learn about them the enterprising researcher has to dig, and the American people are too distracted by digital and televised phantasmagoria to take up the spade.

Jack Teixeira’s Intel Leak and the Disclosure of Ukraine War Secrets

The recent disclosure of secret U.S. government files has resulted in reporting almost exclusively confined to the question of how the government’s security was breached. The secrets themselves contained have been mostly ignored or underplayed. The two most substantive revelations are the fact that US combat troops are stationed in Ukraine and the US intends to ensure that the fratricidal slaughter continues throughout 2023.

Glenn Greenwald: “There will be no negotiations, there will be no diplomatic settlement, there will be nothing but ongoing grinding, endless war that you will pay for beyond the $100 billion already authorized.”

The leak of NSA and CIA secrets has been treated as a grave criminal act by the media who were chiefly responsible for the apprehension of 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, as the result of a report published in the Washington Post of April 12, which led the FBI directly to the leaker.

The New York Times in an April 16 article, “Finding the Pentagon Leak Suspect,” also boastes of its role in assisting law enforcement in apprehending the whistleblower.

These facts should in the future dissuade any whistleblower gullible enough to trust that the Post and the Times will keep secret their revelations of government-perpetrated felonies.

Greenwald:

“Why… would self-proclaimed journalism outlets do the job of the FBI and hunt down the leaker and boast of the fact that they were the ones who found him even before the FBI did?…

“There aren’t many ways to define the function of a free press and what journalism is without referencing the way in which journalists are supposed to bring transparency to the most powerful institutions… The idea of journalism, ostensibly, in theory, is to bring transparency to what the most secretive and powerful institutions are doing in the dark. Exactly what this leak did…

“One of the ways, arguably the only real way, that we, as journalists, now have to show the public what these institutions of power are doing in the dark is through leaks. Leaks of the things that they don’t want you to see, oftentimes being classified information.

“Classified information is not some sacred text. Classified information is nothing more than a document or a piece of information that the government has stamped on that word “classified” or “top-secret,” because they want to make it illegal for you to learn about it. That’s the effect of calling a document classified or top secret. And one of the things I learned in working with many large archives of government secrets and classified material is that, more often than not, when the government calls something classified or top secret, it’s not because they’re trying to protect you. It’s because they’re trying to protect themselves.

“They’re trying to make it illegal for anybody to show what it is that they’re saying and doing in the dark because what they’re saying and doing in the dark is composed of deceit, corruption, or illegality. And that’s why the most important journalism over the last 50 years…the Pentagon Papers, through the WikiLeaks reporting, the Snowden reporting… have taken place when people have been able to show you, the public, documents and other information that people inside the government wanted you not to see and made it illegal for anyone to show it to you”.

The spin-doctoring about leaks and the “need” for the Deep State to keep the truth about their treacherous machinations from the public, is an exercise in the artifice of political theater. The media, when it suits their purposes, appropriate to themselves the illustrious appellation of “patriot.” With the Federal government in the hands of tyrannical social engineers who keep the Cryptocracy’s esoteric grand design for the subjugation of our nation on schedule, leaking government secrets is now derided as unconditionally iniquitous—almost—though not quite.

We qualify our observation due to the fact that the media routinely leak the secrets the Deep States wants revealed. They pretended that an “unauthorized” CIA leaker revealed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation,” when in fact the CIA ordered CNN to make the information public, disguised as an unauthorized leak. There are good leaks and bad leaks. The ethical metric is decided by determining whether the leak favors the Deep State or undermines it. The contents of Hunter’s laptop was anathema to the ruling class so their intelligence arm ordered the media to brand it a fake conjured by Putin. The media can’t confess that they take orders from government intelligence agents hence, their subservience is disguised as a report about a clandestine fact disclosed without permission; in other words a “good” leak. There were many of those while Trump was president.

Young Jack Teixeira is a whistleblower who sounded an alarm about the propagators of World War III who occupy the US government, which seems somewhat newsworthy apart from the debate about leaks, yet it is not. Furthermore, to anticipate a criticism, the documents he released do not endanger our men and women in uniform. No sensitive intelligence on personnel in harm’s way was disclosed.

The facts about the gradual introduction of US special forces into Ukraine are incendiary; so too the knowledge that the Biden administration has no peace plan or ceasefire in mind, only more slaughter in the Slavic civil war’s ever larger butcher’s bill.

“Land of Felony”

If the American people were not so distracted and alchemically processed the revelation that Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and President Biden both declared the Nordstream Pipeline would be destroyed as indeed it was, by US agents, as well as the secrets contained in Mr. Teixeira’s leak, would awaken them and cause them to rise and work for the prosecution of the criminals in the District of Corruption.

Yet, as we take the occult pulse of programmed Americans we discover that they are exhausted rather than energized by the steady stream of shocking revelations of crime and corruption that flood our TVs and computer screens in this era.

Nineteen children were killed in Uvalde, Texas while the cops stood around and let it happen a few yards from where they stood.

Ho-hum.

Then there’s the Nashville massacre. It’s been nearly a month since a trans-gender individual shot to death three children and three adults at a Christian school in that city. Prior to the massacre the perpetrator reportedly issued a manifesto which we the people have not been allowed to see. Notice that not one sentence of that document has been leaked. It’s locked down tighter than Joe Biden’s soul.

It has in the interim however, been dismissed as a nothingburger by David B. Rausch, Tennessee’s top cop. Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said that what police found isn’t so much a manifesto spelling out a target, as a series of rambling writings indicating no “clear” motive.

Nothing to see here folks, you can go back to sleep.

Sooner or later the manifesto will be released, possibly in redacted form, at some point in time sufficiently distant from the March 27 killings to dull the edge of public outrage.

Moreover, the delay of the release may itself be a psychological warfare ruse to discredit conspiracy theorists—and anyone else who is skeptical toward government. If the manifesto really is a “nothingburger,” why wouldn’t the authorities release it within a few days after the shootings? By suppressing it they build tension among the masses over the suspicion that some substantial secret is being withheld. If, when it is released, it is found to be a tissue of trivia, every skeptic from Elon Musk to Tucker Carlson will be made to look overwrought and foolish.

Tennessee news media have added the following concerning the alleged analysis and investigation of the manifesto: “The writings remain under careful review not only by Metro police, but also by the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit based in Quantico, Virginia.”

The FBI’s “Behavioral Analysis Unit” has legendary status for discovering the mental secrets of monstrous murderers. This detail of their “crime-fighting” expertise exerts as much star power as did J. Edgar Hoover’s one-time polished image as a nemesis of the Mafia. Both are myths. The “Behavioral Unit” is a reference to miscreants inside the FBI who manipulate the behavior of Americans by directing, as we document in Twilight Language, ritual and mass murders subsequently blamed on the “lone nut” patsies who people “Arlington Road.”

One historical datum that is via col vento in the United States of Amnesia is the truth that the FBI was a participant in the terrorism it grouped under the title it concocted, “University and Airline Bomber” (“Unabomber”), crimes which were wholly attributed to LSD-experiment victim and scapegoat Ted Kaczynski. The details are in our book, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare.

Ambrose Bierce, a Union veteran of the Civil War battles of Shiloh and Kennesaw Mountain, was a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, renowned for his caustic wit. In Mexico to cover Pancho Villa’s rebel army he wrote home, “If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs.”  He disappeared in Mexico in 1914.

It would take a wordsmith of the caliber of Bierce to adequately account for the criminal politics in which our nation is at present sunk, and which would probably not have surprised the man who wrote, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of felony.”

Copyright ©2023 by Independent History and Research

April 19, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Just how many US troops and spies do we have in Ukraine?

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | April 18, 2023

Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who has flooded the docket in recent months with resolutions designed to get U.S. troops out of overseas missions he believes have not been approved by Congress, is now demanding that Biden tell the American people just how many American military personnel are operating in Ukraine today.

His new Privileged Resolution of Inquiry, which forcing Biden to notify the House of  the exact number of U.S. military inside Ukraine and to hand over “copies of any and all documents outlining plans for military assistance to Ukraine,” comes a week after leaked Pentagon documents showing previously unreported U.S. Special Forces inside the war zone.

According to the document there were 97 special forces from NATO countries operating in Ukraine as of March, including 14 U.S. special forces. When asked by the Guardian newspaper for confirmation/clarification, the Department of Defense said,  “We are not going to discuss or confirm classified information due to the potential impact on national security as well as the safety and security of our personnel and those of our allies and our partners.” The Pentagon has not denied the authenticity of the documents, however.

While “14 special forces” sounds like a drop in the bucket, these revelations are a drip-drip of other pieces of information over the last year that, when added up, leave more questions than answers, and the bottom line is that the American people have a right to know, says (Ret.) Lt. Col. Daniel Davis.

“It is entirely appropriate that the American people know, authoritatively, whether any U.S. troops are engaged in military operations within Ukraine — and to demand a change if we don’t like the answer,” Davis told me yesterday when I asked him about the Gaetz resolution.

“American history is rife with too many examples of presidents secretly employing U.S. troops without the consent or knowledge of our people. It almost always goes sideways when presidents go covert with our troops.”

We know from reporting last year, beginning in June 2022, that the CIA had a strong presence in Ukraine, engaging a network of commandos and spies among European partners set up to provide critical weapons and military intelligence to Ukraine. According to the New York Times, “even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the massive amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces.”

Ken Klippenstein and Jim Risen reported in October 2022 that “there is a much larger presence of both CIA and U.S. special operations personnel and resources in Ukraine” than publicly known. They reported for the Intercept that several former and current intelligence officers told them that the covert operations were being conducted “under a presidential covert action finding,” for which only a handful of Congressional lawmakers have been notified.

In November, the administration announced it was sending a team of military “weapons inspectors” into Ukraine to keep track of weapons shipments, but that they would be away from the fighting. Also that month, the DoD confirmed that it would be setting up a new joint forces command called the Security Assistance Group Ukraine, or SAGU, based out of U.S. Army Europe and Africa headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany and led by a 3-star general to “handle weapons shipments and personnel training.”

In February of this year, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon wanted to revive pre-Ukraine war orders that would allow them to insert commandos in the form of “control teams” to direct Ukrainian operatives to counter Russian disinformation and monitor troops movements on the ground. This would require the U.S. personnel to be in Ukraine or in a neighboring country. Washington had been operating such teams in Ukraine under Section 1202 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act until the invasion last year.

Nick Turse, who has written extensively about U.S. covert operations in other parts of the globe, said the recent leak showing special ops forces in Ukraine “is hardly a surprise. ”

“U.S. Special Operations forces deploy throughout the world, often with next to no transparency or real oversight,” he said when asked about the Gaetz resolution. “Under little-known authorities, special operators conduct shadowy missions — sometimes indistinguishable from combat — unbeknownst to the American people and most members of Congress.”

What we don’t know much about is how many trainers and intelligence personnel might be working under contract for the U.S. government on the ground in Ukraine. There have been hints that they are there. Of course, some American experts, like Alexander Vindman, who are frustrated that the U.S. military is not more directly involved, have been calling on Biden to send contractors into the fight from the beginning.

Others have said “operational contractors” should be inserted into Ukraine, not to fight, but to help the Ukrainians train and operate the sophisticated weaponry Washington is sending over there. Are they there now? It is hard to tell. We know there are plenty of private military contractors in Ukraine today from all over the West working in extraction, training, and humanitarian aid, but they are, as far as we know, freelancing, not on the U.S. dole.

The use of contractors, whether they be Americans or third party, has been widespread since the U.S. launched a Global War on Terror after 9/11. According to the Congressional Research Service, as of the end of 2022, there were approximately 22,000 contractor personnel working for the DoD throughout the US Central Command’s area of responsibility.

“It is highly probable that contractors are a significant part of the U.S. personnel presence in Ukraine,” speculated Ted Carpenter, who wrote about the topic recently for Responsible Statecraft.

“My expectation is that they would be used for the operation and maintenance of the more advanced (and twitchy?) weapons systems that NATO has given to Kyiv,” he shared on Monday. “Another interesting question is how many DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and Pentagon personnel, as well as contractors, might be helping Ukraine with targeting information for attacks on Russian forces. Some of the operations have seemed far too sophisticated for the known capabilities that Ukraine possessed when the invasion began.”

Responsible Statecraft has put in a request to the DoD press office to ask just how many contractors might be in Ukraine today. In the meantime, Gaetz said in a statement he will press on with his own quest for a clear number of U.S. troops there. “There must be total transparency from this administration to the American people when they are gambling war with a nuclear adversary by having special forces operating in Ukraine.”

April 18, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Force Biden to Provide Data on Ukraine Aid, Conflict

Sputnik – 17.04.2023

WASHINGTON – US Congressman Matt Gaetz said in a statement that he has introduced a resolution to force the Biden administration to relay information about plans for US military assistance to Ukraine, as well as about the number of US servicemembers operating in the country.

“Today, US Congressman Matt Gaetz introduced a Privileged Resolution of Inquiry, forcing President Joe Biden to transmit to the House of Representatives copies of any and all documents outlining plans for military assistance to Ukraine. Additionally, the resolution directs Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to disclose the number of United States Armed Forces, including special operators, deployed to Ukraine without Congressional authority,” the statement said on Monday.

Biden and Austin would be required to provide the requested information within two weeks of the bill’s adoption, the statement said.

Documents leaked in recent months that appear to show classified US military information revealed that at least 14 members of the US special forces were deployed in Ukraine.

There is a small US military element in Ukraine, but no servicemembers engaged in combat operations, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Monday. However, US officials have declined to comment on the veracity of the seemingly leaked materials.

“The Biden Administration and other allied countries have been misleading the world on the state of the war in Ukraine. There must be total transparency from this administration to the American people when they are gambling war with a nuclear adversary by having special forces operating in Ukraine,” Gaetz’s statement said.

The resolution would better inform Congress and the country on the “true state” of the US military’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict, the statement added.

April 18, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Orban: Conflict in Ukraine to End Once US, Europe Stop Backing Kiev

Sputnik – 14.04.2023

BUDAPEST – Ukraine is a non-existent country in financial terms, and as soon as the US and Europe stop supporting it, the conflict will end, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday.

“In fact, Ukraine is a non-existent country in financial terms. The fall in economic indicators is huge, which is completely understandable… Obviously, Ukraine cannot finance itself. The question is whether we support Ukraine,” Orban told a Hungarian broadcaster.

He added that “the moment America and Europe answer ‘no’ to this question,” the conflict will end.

Europe spends tens of billions of dollars to support Ukraine, this cannot continue indefinitely, the Hungarian leader stressed.

April 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

China reiterates Ukraine stance

RT | April 14, 2023

Beijing will continue promoting peace talks to settle the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said during a joint press conference with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock on Friday.

“One point I want to emphasize is that China’s role in the Ukraine issue, our proposition, boils down to one point, that is, to persuade and promote talks,” Qin told journalists in Beijing on Friday.

All sides involved in the conflict should remain “objective and calm” in order to find a solution to the crisis, he added. According to the minister, the Chinese authorities “won’t do anything to add fuel to the fire” in Ukraine.

Qin also rejected Western claims that Beijing is supplying or planning to supply arms to Russia amid the fighting.

“Regarding the export of military items, China adopts a prudent and responsible attitude,” he insisted, adding that the country “will not provide weapons to relevant parties of the conflict, and manage and control the exports of dual-use items in accordance with laws and regulations.”

Baerbock, for her part, stuck to the Western line that Beijing should put pressure on Moscow to bring the fighting in Ukraine to an end.

“It’s good that China has signaled its commitment to a solution, but I have to say frankly that I wonder why the Chinese position so far does not include a call on the aggressor Russia to stop the war,” she said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “would have the opportunity to do so at any time, and the people in Ukraine would like nothing more than to finally be able to live in peace again,” the German foreign minister said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin also said on Friday that Qin made it clear to Baerbock during their talks “that the only way to resolve the Ukrainian crisis is to promote the peace process and negotiations.”

Since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine last February, Beijing has been reluctant to give in to Western pressure to condemn Russia or join the international sanctions against it. Instead, the neighbors have boosted political and economic cooperation, which they both now describe as “strategic.” Moscow and Beijing signed dozens of deals in various areas when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Russia last month.

April 14, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

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