The war in Ukraine remains the most important story in the world today.
Don’t believe the incessant U.S. government and media propaganda about Ukraine. Ukraine is not winning the war; they are losing badly.
But wait, hasn’t the news been talking up Ukrainian gains in recent months, while Russia is retreating and being badly beaten? That’s the mainstream, pro-Ukrainian narrative. Here’s the reality:
Most of the Ukrainian gains were against lightly defended positions that the Russians quickly abandoned because they were not worth fighting to defend.
Those Russian troops (really Donbas militias) were ordered to retreat to fortified Russian lines while Ukrainian forces rushing to fill the void were slaughtered by Russian artillery bombardments.
Most people think of war in terms of territory. If you lose territory, it must mean you’re losing the war. But it’s not always that simple.
The Russian Strategy
The Russians will willingly cede territory in order to fight again at a later time under more favorable circumstances. They’ll simply retake it when the terms favor them. They’re not primarily concerned about the territory per se. The primary Russian objective is to grind down and destroy the Ukrainian armed forces.
And if the Ukrainians want to keep hurling themselves against Russian positions in order to recapture land and score a propaganda coup, that’s fine with the Russians. They’ll just grind the attacking forces down with heavy artillery fire (artillery kills far more people in war than bullets or bombs).
And despite Ukrainian government claims, the best intelligence says Russia is presently enjoying an 8–10:1 casualty rate. In other words, Russia is inflicting eight–10 casualties on Ukraine for every casualty it’s suffering.
That kind of ratio isn’t sustainable for Ukraine.
Russia Prepares to Lower the Boom on Ukraine
Meanwhile, Russia has reinforced its positions with 300,000 or more fresh troops (about 30 divisions) who are rested and resupplied. That’s in addition to the number of troops already in Ukraine.
Evidence indicates they’re backed by at least 1,500 tanks, 5,000 armored fighting vehicles, 1,000 rocket artillery systems, hundreds of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters plus thousands of tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones.
At the same time, all indications are that Russia is changing its strategy.
The initial Russian invasion was ill-conceived and took place in a piecemeal fashion. Contrary to mainstream opinion, Putin never intended to conquer Kyiv and occupy Ukraine. The invasion force was far too small to accomplish those objectives.
Also contrary to mainstream opinion, Putin didn’t target Ukraine’s civilian population. He wanted to avoid civilian casualties to the greatest possible extent. Of course some civilian targets were hit, but that’s going to happen in war.
Putin instead believed that the “special military operation” would tell Kyiv and Washington that Russia was serious about enforcing its red lines in Ukraine, that it was willing to use force. But he thought his show of force would bring them to the negotiating table.
He badly miscalculated. Rather than bring Kyiv and Washington to the negotiating table, they resolved to aggressively defend Ukraine. Russia’s ill-prepared forces were pushed back and routed in many instances.
“Russia Means Business This Time”
But now Russia is taking the gloves off. It’s already launched heavy, sustained attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, including the power grid and energy nodes. Its army is also regrouping and preparing for massive counteroffensives.
It won’t make the same mistakes it made during last February’s ill-planned attacks. Russia means business this time.
It’s not interested in bringing Ukraine to the negotiating table anymore. It’s focused instead on destroying Ukraine’s military forces and imposing a settlement on Kyiv.
A major winter offensive will begin soon, likely when the ground in southern Ukraine is fully frozen (muddy ground will bog down Russian forces). A successful counteroffensive will consolidate Russian control of Donbas (the heartland of Ukrainian industry and natural resources), give Russia control of Zaporizhzhya (the largest nuclear power plant in Europe) and possibly include the conquest of Odessa, the most important Ukrainian Black Sea port.
The cost on the rest of Ukraine from Kyiv to Lviv will be horrendous, including the near-complete degradation of its power-generating capacity, transportation lines and food supplies. U.S. and U.K. weapons supplies won’t mean much because they are too little, too late and the Ukrainians are scarcely trained to use them.
But these prospects make no impact at all on the anti-Russian warhawks, both Democrat and Republican, who are determined to prolong the war at all costs — even if it means fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
A Great Deal for the Military-Industrial Complex
It seems that every week or so the U.S. announces a new multibillion-dollar package of aid for Ukraine. These aid packages fall into two categories: Some are simple financial transfers to keep the oligarchs in Ukraine supplied with funds to keep their government going.
Others consist of weapons including drones, anti-missile batteries like the Patriot, long-range artillery and most recently an announcement that the U.S. may supply Ukraine with Bradley Fighting Vehicles, or BFVs.
The total of such Ukraine aid, including the $1.7 trillion budget boondoggle passed by the U.S. Congress two weeks ago, is now approaching $100 billion.
When it comes to weapons, there’s a lot less than meets the eye in terms of helping Ukraine. It appears that Ukraine is getting billions of dollars in equipment, but in fact, Ukraine is getting castoffs from U.S. inventories.
What’s really going on is the U.S. is dumping old or obsolete systems on Ukraine (the original BFV was built in 1981, over forty40 years ago) and then using the appropriations to order new weapons for itself.
Meanwhile, the U.S. will likely send Ukraine an older version of the Patriot air defense system — and only one battery at that, consisting of eight missile launchers. It’s not the game-changer many seem to think it is. The Russians will simply overwhelm the system with numbers, and then take it out. It probably won’t last long whenever it’s deployed, which could be several months from now.
The real winners of these weapons transfers will be U.S. defense contractors like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, who are getting the money to build new advanced systems for the U.S.
The real losers will be the Ukrainian people, who will continue to die needlessly in the absence of a negotiated settlement that recognizes the reality on the ground.
How Much Western Military Aid Actually Makes It Into the Field?
To make this racket even more absurd, much of the equipment that does make it to Ukraine is quickly blown up by Russia.
Russia has very good intelligence on the whereabouts of these weapons systems once they reach Ukraine. Using global satellite imaging, laser guidance and a blend of drones and cruise missiles, Putin has had success preventing these weapons from reaching the battlefield or destroying them if they do.
But the U.S. has already spent so much money on Ukraine and committed itself so strongly to a complete Russian defeat, a Russian victory would represent another strategic defeat for the U.S., still smarting from the debacle in Afghanistan.
What remains of U.S. credibility is on the line.
Brinksmanship
What happens if Russia brings Ukraine to the verge of defeat? Will Biden and his strongly anti-Russian administration simply throw up their hands and concede victory to Russia? Based on their maximalist rhetoric and commitment to Ukrainian victory, that appears unlikely.
Biden has shown no signs of relenting and recently said he will supply Ukraine with weapons as long as it takes. On the other hand, Putin will also not back down and seems determined to secure the entire seacoast of Ukraine, including the critical port of Odessa.
The great danger could arise if the U.S. foolishly continues escalation to the bitter end in order to stave off a Ukrainian defeat. I’m not predicting it’ll happen, but things could escalate to the point where tactical nuclear weapons are employed out of desperation. From that point, it’s a short step toward the broader use of strategic nuclear weapons.
Again, I’m not specifically predicting that will happen. But it is a realistic possibility based on the logic of escalation, and we seem to be sleepwalking into a nuclear confrontation unless we wake up.
Will we?
January 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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Kiev is capable of building an atomic device, and its leaders often outline such thoughts
Last year, Western media and high-ranking politicians actively discussed the possibility of Russian troops using atomic weapons in Ukraine. There has even been speculation on the likelihood of a nuclear war breaking out. However, it could be said that the risk is probably a lot higher on the other side of the barricades.
Ukraine’s Atomic History
Ukraine was a nuclear state after the collapse of the USSR, when 1,700 active atomic warheads remained in the country. Its politicians of that time had the prudence to abandon this status. The weapons were taken to Russia under international control, and their means of delivery were destroyed. Ukraine’s missile silos, with the exception of one which is now a museum near Kiev, were blown up, while its strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons were either transferred to Russia or destroyed.
Despite this, there were still many nuclear specialists in Ukraine, as research into nuclear fission has been conducted in Kharkov since the 1930s. In addition, five nuclear power plants were built in Ukraine during the Soviet years: Zaporozhye, Rovno, Khmelnitsky, and South-Ukrainian, as well as the infamous Chernobyl, where an accident involving a power unit led to an explosion that spewed radioactive fallout throughout Europe.
In addition, uranium is extracted at a deposit in Ukraine’s Kirovograd Region and enriched at a plant in the city of Zheltye Vody. In the 2010s, there were plans with Russia’s Rosatom to build a plant in Ukraine that would produce fuel for nuclear power stations. However, these were abandoned after the Maidan coup in 2014, when the country adopted an adversarial stance towards Russia.
At present, three of Ukraine’s five original nuclear power plants remain under its control. Chernobyl, which continued to generate electricity even after the 1986 accident, was finally decommissioned in 2020, while Zaporozhye, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, has been guarded by Russian troops since last year. It is currently being run by Rosatom but does not produce electricity, largely for safety reasons. This is due to regular rocket and artillery attacks by Ukrainian troops, which have damaged numerous pieces of auxiliary equipment.
Push to Reobtain Nuclear Weapons
It should be noted that not everyone in Ukraine was happy that the country gave up its nuclear weapons. Ukrainian politicians have often failed to hide the fact that their dream of reobtaining nuclear weapons is not so much connected with their country’s security, as the desire to dictate their will to the rest of the world. Radical Ukrainian nationalists were particularly dissatisfied with the abandonment of the country’s nuclear status, and many of their manifestos contain a clause calling for it to be restored.
For example, “the return of nuclear weapons” is specifically cited as a goal in paragraph 2 of the Military Doctrine section in the program statement of the Patriot of Ukraine organization, while paragraph 7 of its Foreign Policy section reads: “The ultimate goal of Ukrainian foreign policy is world domination.” Patriot of Ukraine was created in 2014 by the notorious Andrey Biletsky, who formed it based on the ideology of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and had dreamed of Ukraine possessing nuclear weapons as far back as 2007.
In 2009, the Ternopil Regional Council, which was then dominated by Oleg Tianibok’s neo-Nazi Svoboda Party (called the Social-National Party until 2004), demanded that Ukraine’s president, prime minister, and head of the Verkhovna Rada “terminate the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and restore Ukraine’s nuclear status.”
Ukraine’s longing for an atomic bomb especially increased after February 2014. In an interview with USA Today in March of that year, Ukrainian MP Pavel Rizanenko called Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons a “big mistake.” And that was not just the opinion of one MP. Just a few days later, representatives of the Batkivshchyna party, headed by ex-Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, and UDAR, headed by Kiev’s current mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, including the secretary of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, Sergey Kaplin, submitted a bill on withdrawing from the non-proliferation treaty. Kaplin claimed that Ukraine could create nuclear weapons in just two years because it already had almost everything necessary: The fissile materials, equipment (except centrifuges), technology, specialists, and even means of delivery. In September of the same year, Ukraine’s minister of defense, Valery Geletey, also expressed the desire to develop nuclear weapons.
In December 2018, the former representative of the Ukrainian mission to NATO, Major General Pyotr Garashchuk, announced the real possibility of Ukraine creating its own nuclear weapons. In 2019, Aleksandr Turchinov, who usurped power in Ukraine in February of 2014, called Ukraine’s renunciation of nuclear weapons a “historic mistake.” Following him, in April 2021, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andrey Melnik, stated that if the West did not help Ukraine in its confrontation with Russia, the country would launch a nuclear program and create an atomic bomb. And on February 19, 2022, before the start of Russia’s special military operation, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced at the Munich Security Conference that Ukraine has the right to abandon the Budapest Memorandum, which proclaimed the country’s nuclear-free status.
Perhaps the most striking statement by a Ukrainian politician was made by David Arakhamia, the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s ruling parliamentary faction, Servant of the People. “We could blackmail the whole world, and we would be given money to service (nuclear weapons), as is happening in many other countries now,” he said in mid-2021.
Range of Possibilities
Is Ukraine technically capable of creating an atomic bomb? Absolutely. Yes, enriching uranium-235 to the purity necessary to set off a chain reaction would cost a lot, primarily to create centrifuges for separating isotopes. However, though this may be the most effective way to separate isotopes, it’s not the only one. The first American bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were created without the use of this technology.
In addition, it should not be forgotten that there are not only uranium, but also plutonium bombs. Breeder reactors are used to synthesize this chemical element, most often using heavy-water reactor technology, and research reactors are capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. There is presently a nuclear research installation at the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology, and a VVR-M reactor suitable for plutonium production at the Institute for Nuclear Research of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences in Kiev. Until March 2022, there was a US-built facility in Kharkov that could produce isotopes by irradiating the starting materials with a powerful neutron flux, which could also be used to develop fissile materials for a bomb.
In addition, Ukraine has the technical capability to create a nuclear weapon based on uranium-233, rather than uranium-235, which is usually used. A similar bomb was tested by the US in 1955 during Operation Teapot, and its power was comparable to that of the Fat Man bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Nagasaki. To obtain uranium-233, it is enough to replace one of the fuel assemblies of a conventional nuclear power plant reactor with a thorium-232 cassette, a supply of which is located near Mariupol, a city that was fiercely defended by Ukrainian nationalists from the Azov regiment earlier this year.
There is another indirect sign that both uranium and plutonium versions of nuclear weapons have been secretly developed at the direction of the post-Maidan authorities. At the beginning of 2021, Ukraine completely banned the export of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) to Russia, as was required by an agreement on its supply by Rosatom. SNF, among other things, is a source of weapons-grade plutonium, which can be isolated from fuel cells that have been in a nuclear power plant reactor.
Nuclear Power on the Brink of Disaster
Just as dangerous is the nuclear power policy pursued by the Ukrainian government.
Ukraine inherited five nuclear power plants with 18 active reactors from the USSR. Three of them located at the Chernobyl NPP were decommissioned by 2000. Five of the six reactors at the Zaporozhye NPP, three of the four reactors at the Rovno NPP, one of the two reactors at the Khmelnitsky NPP, and all three reactors at the South Ukraine NPP have exceeded their original lifespans and received extensions of their operating lives for another 10 to 15 years. The license extensions have sometimes been granted with violations of existing regulations since, after 2015, Ukraine’s State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate stopped cooperating with Russian vendors and has not overhauled reactor vessels, which become brittle after prolonged exposure to neutron radiation. Back in 2015, independent experts noted the critical condition of Reactor 1 of the South Ukraine NPP, which, nevertheless, has had its service life extended until 2025.
Ukraine’s Union of Veterans of Nuclear Energy and Industry sent a warning letter to the government in April 2020, arguing that the country’s nuclear energy sector was faced with a “threatening situation,” which, according to the authors of the letter, could well result in “a new Chernobyl.”
The lack of accountability, which led to the 1986 disaster, does not stop at neglecting the technical condition of the reactors that are not being properly monitored and maintained by their developers. During Viktor President Yushchenko’s administration, the decision was made to replace some of the standard fuel rods in Ukrainian reactors with unlicensed fuel assemblies supplied by Westinghouse Electric Company. In 2012, that experiment led to an emergency shutdown of Reactor 3 of the South Ukraine NPP, after Westinghouse fuel assemblies were damaged due to the specific design features of the American counterfeits.
That fuel assemblies fabricated by Westinghouse tend to malfunction in Soviet-designed reactors was not a revelation. They have repeatedly caused emergencies at NPPs in Finland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, but that did not deter the Ukrainian leadership. Not even losses of around $175 million caused by using non-standard assemblies persuaded Ukraine against conducting risky experiments with its nuclear assets.
The new ‘revolutionary’ government, which came to power in 2014, was quick to plunge into its own experiments with nuclear power together with Westinghouse, which was suffering from financial distress. For the company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2017, the Ukrainian market could have been a much-needed lifeline – however, it wasn’t to be, because it once again emerged that the counterfeit fuel assemblies were dangerous for VVER-type reactors. Emergencies at Ukrainian NPPs became a routine event, and yet Westinghouse assemblies accounted for 46% of all nuclear fuel used in Ukraine by the end of 2018.
These risky experiments went beyond using non-standard fuel assemblies. In the fall of 2014, Kiev sent direct orders to boost electricity production at the South Ukraine NPP by 5 to 7%. To achieve this, three VVER-1000 reactors were supposed to operate in “controlled runaway mode,” and a whole algorithm was developed by Ukrainian and British engineers. It was this type of experiment that resulted in the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986. A potential disaster was only averted by an ‘Italian strike’ organized by the NPP personnel, who refused to fulfil outsiders’ orders. This might have been what former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen meant when he said: “We have, upon Ukrainian request, sent a small team of civilian experts to Ukraine to assist the Ukrainians in improving security of their civilian nuclear plants.”
‘Revolutionary expedience’ was used as a pretext for a mass exodus of experienced nuclear engineers from Ukrainian NPPs. As Ukrainian MP Viktoria Voytsitska said in 2018, literally all categories of workers were thinking of leaving Ukrainian NPPs, from steam engine drivers and riggers to engineers who controlled reactors and other high-tech equipment.
Provocation for Nuclear Escalation
After Russian forces assumed control of the Zaporozhye NPP, it became a target for incessant Ukrainian shelling, sometimes with the use of Western-made multiple launch rocket systems, heavy artillery, and attack drones. The plant sustained significant damage and was forced to stop generating electricity due to the destruction of auxiliary equipment and the threat to the reactors themselves. At the same time, an IAEA mission “was unable” to establish who was firing on the nuclear site, where Russian soldiers were present.
As the Western media was busy whipping up hysteria over the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine, it transpired that Ukraine was allegedly plotting a provocation of exactly that nature. According to Russian intelligence services, in October 2022, the Eastern Mining and Enrichment Combine in the town of Zheltye Vody and the Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research were in the final stages of developing a dirty bomb on the orders of the Ukrainian government. A missile plant in Dnepropetrovsk built a mock-up of the Russian Iskander missile, which was supposed to carry a radioactive charge and be “shot down” over the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The goal was to accuse Russia of using nuclear weapons and push NATO to retaliate in kind. In other words, to start a nuclear war in Europe.
All these facts mean that present-day Ukraine is arguably a real threat to nuclear security not just in Europe, but on a global scale. It has everything it would take, from irresponsible people in charge of safety and security at nuclear sites, to the technical capabilities.
Olga Sukharevskaya is an ex-Ukrainian diplomat.
January 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Russia, Ukraine |
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By Ilya Tsukanov – Samizdat – 06.01.2023
On Thursday, in response to an appeal by Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a ceasefire across the front in Ukraine starting at noon on Orthodox Christmas Eve and running through Christmas Day January 6-7.
Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar has slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for rejecting Russia’s truce offering, and reiterated his position that continued US assistance to Ukraine is “immoral.”
“Unsurprisingly, Zelensky has rejected peace. It is immoral to fund this war,” Gosar tweeted.
Zelensky stated late Thursday that Ukrainian forces would not join their Russian counterparts in adhering to the 36-hour Orthodox Christmas ceasefire, and accused Moscow of seeking to use the truce as a “cover” to stop the Ukrainian military’s advance and to bring more troops and equipment to the Donbass.
Ukrainian presidential advisor Mikhail Podolyak dismissed Patriarch Kirill’s ceasefire request as a “cynical trap and a piece of propaganda,” and suggested the Russian Orthodox Church is “not an authority for global Orthodoxy.”
President Biden also dismissed the truce, accusing Russia’s Putin of “trying to find some oxygen” and charging him with war crimes.
The vast majority of Orthodox Christians, including Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians and their various denominations, celebrate Christmas on January 7, in accordance with the Julian calendar.
The United Nations said Thursday it would welcome an Orthodox Christmas truce, even if it would “not replace a just peace” in Ukraine.
Russian officials including President Putin have repeatedly floated peace talks with their Ukrainian counterparts going all the way back to late February and March of 2022, outlining a series of terms for peace including security for Donbass and Crimea, and Ukrainian neutrality in exchange for security guarantees. Media reported in September that Russia and Ukraine appear to have agreed on a tentative peace deal in April, but the deal was scuttled after now ex-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson flew to Kiev to sabotage an agreement. Since then, Ukraine has rejected all Russian overtures toward peace talks, and has been pumped up with tens of billions of dollars of NATO weapons assistance.
Representative Gosar has become a consistent critic of US support for Ukraine, voting against new aid packages and calling on Washington to address America’s domestic problems, such as the national debt, homelessness, and the crisis at the border with Mexico. The Arizona Republican is one of twenty House members of the GOP holding up the selection of a new House speaker, rejecting California Congressman Kevin McCarthy’s bid on charges that he would do the bidding of the “uniparty” establishment.
January 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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One of the fascinating aspects of the war in Ukraine has been the extreme reluctance of the mainstream press and Pentagon-CIA supporters to acknowledge, much less condemn, the Pentagon for its role in bringing about this war. After all, the two concepts — the Pentagon’s bringing about the crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — are not mutually exclusive. You can have both things happening — the Pentagon gins up the crisis with the aim of “degrading” Russia and then Russia falls into the trap by getting mired down in a deadly and destructive war against Ukraine.
But when one raises the first part of this equation — that is, the Pentagon’s role in ginning up the crisis — the mainstream press and Pentagon-CIA supporters go ballistic. For them, it’s heresy to point out what the Pentagon did to gin up the crisis. For them, the Pentagon and the CIA are innocent, virtuous babes in the woods that would never do such a thing. For them, the Pentagon and the CIA are nothing but a “force for good” in the world.
But we know that the Pentagon and the CIA do engage in these types of evil machinations. In fact, they did the same thing to the Russia in 1979. They lured the Russians into invading Afghanistan, with the same goal they had with their Ukraine machinations — to give the Russians their own “Vietnam,” which meant “degrading” Russia through the killing of massive numbers of Russian soldiers.
“Conspiracy theory”? Well, not exactly. That’s because National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, in a remarkable degree of candor, admitted that they had knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally done it. He was proud of it. He was bragging about how they had gotten the Russians to fall into their trap. The entire national-security establishment loved the fact that tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were being killed in the process. The more soldiers being killed, the more Russia was being “degraded.”
That’s why they are so ecstatic every time more Russian soldiers are killed in Ukraine. With each dead soldier, Russia is “degraded” a bit more. The more soldiers killed, the more Russia is“degraded.”
Ginning up a new Cold War with Russia was the whole idea behind keeping NATO in existence after the ostensible end of the original Cold War. The Cold War had been a great big cash cow for the U.S. national-security establishment. They weren’t about to let go of it that easily. So, they used NATO, which by this time was just an old Cold War dinosaur, to begin absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact. That would enable the Pentagon and the CIA to install their military bases and nuclear missiles ever closer to Russia’s border.
Throughout this process, Russia was objecting, and Pentagon and CIA officials knew it. Moreover, Russia consistently made it clear that absorbing Ukraine into NATO was a “red line” for Russia, one that would cause Russia to invade Ukraine to prevent that from happening.
Once Russia made that declaration, the Pentagon and the CIA had Russia right where it wanted it. The Pentagon then sprung the trap by simply announcing that NATO intended to absorb Ukraine. Not surprisingly, Russia ended up invading Ukraine, which has given Russia another “Vietnam,” just like what happened back in 1979 with Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.
There is nothing new about this type of thing. Back in 1964, the Pentagon knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately ginned up a fake and fraudulent crisis in the Gulf of Tonkin near North Vietnam. The goal? To embroil the United States in the Vietnam War. The strategy worked. President Lyndon Johnson used the fake and fraudulent Pentagon-induced crisis in the Gulf of Tonkin to secure a congressional resolution that authorized him to embroil the United States in a war that ultimately took the lives of more than 58,000 American soldiers and more than a million Vietnamese.
Why do Pentagon-CIA supporters get so bent out of shape when one points to these types of Pentagon-CIA machinations? Because the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA are a triune god to these people. And they don’t like it when someone exposes the evil actions of their triune god. After all, look at how much they love what U.S. officials have done to Julian Assange and Edward Snowden for disclosing the evil actions of their triune god.
There is something important to keep in mind about this strategy of “degrading” Russia. Every one of those Russian and Ukrainian soldiers who have been killed in this war had families or friends, just like American soldiers do. Those families and friends are grieving the loss of those soldiers, just like families of American soldiers grieve over the loss of their loved ones.
That is what makes the Pentagon and the CIA’s machinations so evil. When a regime is celebrating the deaths of massive numbers of people who are dying as a result of a strategy that is designed to “degrade” a foreign regime, that is an excellent sign that there is something fundamentally wrong, from a moral standpoint, with that regime.
January 5, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular | CIA, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian troops to impose a cessation in hostilities in Ukraine. Hours earlier, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill had called on the forces of both sides of the conflict to cease hostilities in the run-up to and during the holiday.
According to the Kremlin, the truce is intended to last from noon on Friday January 6 until midnight on Saturday January 7, when the Orthodox faithful traditionally celebrate the holiday.
“Judging by the fact that a lot of citizens who practice the Orthodox religion live in the embattled area, we call upon the Ukrainian side to proclaim a cessation of hostilities and give them the opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
Earlier on Thursday, Putin discussed the prospect of peace negotiations with Ukraine with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, over the phone. The Russian president reiterated that Moscow was “open to serious dialogue” with Kiev if the latter recognized the “new territorial realities.”
Erdogan responded by saying that “calls for peace and negotiations should be supported by a unilateral declaration of ceasefire and a vision of a just solution” of the conflict.
Ankara has offered to broker negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in the past. Any meaningful peace talks between Russia and Ukraine effectively collapsed by April, with both sides blaming each other for the collapse. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in late December that Ukrainian politicians were “incapable of negotiating,” adding that “the majority of them are blatant Russophobes.”
January 5, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Russia, Ukraine |
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In all probability, the message conveyed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov from his American counterpart Antony Blinken via Israel’s new foreign minister Eli Cohen concerned the Ukrainian missile attack on Makeyevka (Donetsk) on New Year Day at 12.02 am killing 89 Russian conscripts.
Kiev claimed that up to 400 Russian soldiers might have been killed. Russian MOD has made a rare acknowledgment of scores of deaths — latest figure is 83. Moscow rarely releases figures for casualties in the war.
The Russian statements stressed that US-made Himars missiles were used in the attack. The site was a “a temporary deployment facility” (a vocational school temporarily used as barracks for scores of recently mobilised troops sent by Moscow.
The incident sparked renewed public criticism over the state of Russia’s military and the decision to use civilian infrastructure to house soldiers. The First Deputy Head of the Main Military-Political Department of the Russian Armed Forces Lieutenant General Sergey Sevryukov told reporters:
“It has already become obvious at present that the main cause of the occurrence was activation and large-scale use, contrary to the ban, of personal phones by personnel within the reach of enemy’s destruction means. This factor enabled the enemy to take the bearing and determine coordinates of servicemen location to deliver a missile strike. Required measures are being taken at present to exclude such tragic incidents in the future.”
Apparently, the blame game has begun — that the “main cause” of the tragedy was the unruly behaviour of soldiers who used mobile phones on the warfront. But there are going to be consequences.
Public pressure may increase demanding maximum use of force to end the war quickly. There is always the danger of escalation if certain unwritten, unspoken red lines in the conduct of the war are crossed.
It is entirely conceivable that there could be Cold-War style “strategic deconfliction” parameters worked out between the general staff in Moscow and the Pentagon aimed at avoiding miscalculation or any set of actions (by either side) that could lead to unnecessary conflict. The US and Russian forces have been operating in Syria for years and a communications line, used daily, has helped the two sides avoid direct conflict.
Now, the New Year attack comes as the Biden administration is trying to provide billions in weaponry to Ukraine while also claiming that avoiding a direct clash with Russia has been a top US priority.
At any rate, although Russian intelligence would have a fair idea of the location of NATO officers conducting the Ukrainian operations, they have not been so far targeted. That is why, the Russian MOD’s decision on Monday to highlight that US-supplied Himars missiles have killed scores of Russian soldiers on Sunday night would have caused some uneasiness in Washington.
The big question is whether Moscow will also now go up the escalation ladder and directly target American military personnel deployed in Ukraine.
Of course, any killing of American military personnel in Ukraine will make very damaging headlines in the US news cycle for the Biden Administration. So far, there has not been a single instance of a body bag arriving from Ukraine. The Russian generals probably ensured that.
The Russian reports often mention publicly that the highly advanced HIMARS missile systems supplied to Ukraine are in reality operated by the US personnel. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Tass news agency as recently as last week:
“The Kiev regime is deliberately flooded with the most advanced weapons, including samples that have not yet been put into service in the Western armies, apparently in order to see how they will do in combat conditions… Meanwhile, Westerners are saying they prefer to remain ‘above the fray’ and find a direct face-off between NATO and Russia unacceptable, which is unadulterated hypocrisy. Already now, NATO members have de facto become parties to the conflict: Western private military companies and military instructors are fighting on the side of the Ukrainian forces. The Americans transmit satellite and other reconnaissance data to the Ukrainian command almost in real time and participate in planning and carrying out military operations.”
Neither Washington nor Brussels ever endeavoured to refute these damning Russian allegations. Instead, they choose to tread warily since a public discussion may jeopardise the delicate “strategic deconfliction” arrangement / understanding worked out with the Russian general staff.
It comes as no surprise if Washington distances itself from the dastardly attack on New Year Day in Donetsk, which drew Russian blood. Quoting an unnamed Israeli diplomat, the Times of Israel reported that the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a call with the newly appointed Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen on Monday and asked him “to pass messages on to Lavrov but did not say what they were.”
The Russian readout of Cohen’s phone conversation with Lavrov on Tuesday mentioned that the latter “informed his Israeli counterpart about certain aspects of the situation in Ukraine in the context of Russia’s special military operation.”
Lavrov probably had his say on Blinken’s charade that the US had nothing to do with the killing of 89 Russian soldiers. The fact that as many was six deadly HIMARS missiles were fired in rapid sequence at a single target at 12.02 am shows a high level of certainty on the part of the Ukrainian side and/or their western mentors that maximum damage would be inflicted.
The intelligence inputs in real time show direct American participation in the horrific operation targeting the Russian conscripts’ New Year party just when the toasts began. Of course, whipping up public sentiments in Russia against Putin is a core American objective in the war.
We are entering a grey zone. Expect “surgical strikes” by the Russian forces, too. After all, at some point soon enough, it will emerge that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
January 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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The fact that the smaller kamikaze drones used by Russia are much cheaper than the Ukrainian air defense missiles used against them is creating problems for Kiev and its Western backers, the New York Times has acknowledged.
In an article on Tuesday, the paper didn’t question Kiev’s claims that most of the UAVs launched by Russia are being shot down, but pointed out that even in this case Ukrainian air defense stocks were being exhausted.
“How long can Ukraine sustain its effort when many of its defensive measures cost far more than the drones do?” the NYT wondered.
In addition to trying to destroy the incoming drones with anti-aircraft guns and small-arms fire, Kiev’s forces have “also relied heavily on missiles fired from warplanes and the ground,” which are very expensive, it wrote.
The paper cited the head of the Ukrainian consultancy Molfar, Artem Starosiek, who claimed that using a missile against a UAV costs up to seven times more than the drone itself. The drones that Russia uses are priced at around $20,000 per unit, while a surface-to-air missile from Ukraine’s arsenal ranges from $140,000 for a Soviet-era S-300 to $500,000 for a US-supplied NASAM system, he said.
The article claims that the drones used by Russia in Ukraine are Shahed-136s, supplied by Iran. This claim has been denied by both Moscow and Tehran on many occasions. The Russian Defense Ministry insists that its Geran-2 drones are domestically made, just like all the other hardware used in the military operation against Kiev. The Iranian Foreign Ministry has only confirmed sending a small batch of drones to Russia before the outbreak of the conflict with Ukraine, stressing that no new deliveries have been made since then.
Starosiek nevertheless defended Kiev’s strategy, arguing that it still “costs far less to shoot down a drone than to repair a damaged or destroyed power station.”
However, the NYT warned that the price difference between drones and air defenses was “an imbalance that could over time favor Russia, costing Ukraine and its allies dearly, some analysts say.”
According to estimations by Molfar, Russia has targeted Ukrainian military infrastructure and energy systems with some 600 UAVs since September, when they began to be used more widely.
Russia drastically ramped up its strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure in early October in response to repeated Ukrainian sabotage on Russian soil, including the bombing of the Crimean Bridge, which Moscow blamed on Kiev. Although the attack was widely cheered by top Ukrainian officials, Kiev has denied any involvement.
January 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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It would seem that not long ago we touched on the intricate situation regarding rumors of North Korean or South Korean arms being supplied to the region of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, noting that there was no real evidence of either. Unfortunately, the situation is not evolving for the better and even those in the US establishment, who previously had refrained from making direct and unsubstantiated accusations, have begun to do so.
On December 22, 2022, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the DPRK had completed its initial arms delivery to Russia back in November, including infantry rockets and missiles: “We can confirm that North Korea has completed an initial arms delivery to Wagner, which paid for that equipment”. And while Washington does believe “that the amount of material delivered to Wagner will not change battlefield dynamics in Ukraine,” it is still “certainly concerned that North Korea is planning to deliver more military equipment.”
Kirby’s further statements reflected that, for him, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is taking place on some other globe. It turned out that Russian military officials report to the command of this PMC, which has 50,000 fighters. “It’s pretty apparent to us that Wagner is emerging as a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries”. The Russian reader can only raise a restrained smile, which also applies to the idea that the PMC has not only heavy equipment, but also missiles and heavy artillery in its arsenal.
Nevertheless, Kirby said the US, along with its allies and partners, would raise the issue in the UN Security Council, as the North’s arms deliveries were a clear violation of sanctions resolutions and he promised new sanctions against the Wagner group. US Permanent Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield also said that the US “intends to raise the DPRK’s and Russia’s violations of UN Security Council resolutions in future meetings of the Security Council and will share information of this violation with the Council’s 1718 Sanctions Committee.”
The ROK and Canadian foreign ministries joined in the condemnation. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly stressed that the actions of Wagner and Pyongyang “clearly violate international law and United Nations Security Council resolutions.” South Korea’s foreign ministry also condemned the arms trade between North Korea and the PMC, saying it was detrimental to peace and stability in the international community in direct violation of the resolutions.
More interestingly, Stéphane Dujarric, the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, told a briefing that the UN had no information on possible arms deliveries from the DPRK to the Wagner PMC. From the author’s point of view, this is a hint…
Equally interesting is that Kirby’s information was published almost exactly the same way a little earlier by the British media. Reuters quoted a senior US administration official as saying that the ammunition had been bought from the DPRK last month and delivered to Russia: allegedly the volume of shipments is not large enough to seriously affect military operations, but the US fears that this channel will continue to operate.
A little earlier, the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shinbun had reported that similar missiles were being supplied via the Hasan-Rajin railway.
And all this could not but prompt a comment from the DPRK Foreign Ministry, which on December 22 dismissed the manipulative report by the Japanese media as a completely clumsy and groundless PR stunt. The rest of the statement should be quoted as fully as possible:
“The DPRK remains unchanged in its principled stand on the issue of “arms transaction” between the DPRK and Russia which has never happened.
The international community will have to focus on the US criminal acts of bringing bloodshed and destruction to Ukraine by providing it with various kinds of lethal weapons and equipment on a large scale, rather than lending an ear to the groundless theory of “arms transaction” between the DPRK and Russia cooked up by some dishonest forces for different purposes.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to say that the Russian people are the bravest people with the will and ability to defend the security and territorial integrity of their country without any others’ military support”.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner PMC, also dismissed the allegation of North Korean supplies as “gossip and speculation”, and the author partly agrees with him: there is still no regular railway connection between North Korea and Russia. All the more so since the movement of trains across the border is monitored by US military satellites, among others.
The author also draws attention to the fact that the PMC has far less capacity to procure this type of weapons than the state does, because it would require additional time. Finally, if the PMC had received these weapons back in November, they would have already been used on the battlefields, which would have left an information trail.
This looks like another fake about North Korean shells, but for the author it is an opportunity to talk about two additional things.
First, that accusations are very often based on the method of projection or, as the saying goes, the tongue ever turns to the aching tooth. And in this context, it is worth talking about a series of US pieces in the Western media which suggest that the “arsenal of democracy is depleting” and it is not Russia, but the “free world” which is having problems in supplying arms.
Second, although this version was first published by a British news agency and then voiced by Kirby himself, no evidence was produced. Meanwhile, the author reiterates a very important point: if you accuse your opponent and you have hard, irrefutable facts that incriminate them in some way, you can safely put them out there – without fear that some independent expert will discover that it was a poorly concocted fake. When someone says “we have secret evidence, but we won’t show it to you because it is a military secret”, this approach has been considered rotten since the Dreyfus affair.
The accusations concerning Moscow’s use of Iranian drones include at least debris that is structurally similar to Iranian designs. There is nothing in this case, and the Wagner PMC seems to be attacked because it is today the most demonized armed formation having anything to do with Russia. Moreover, it also operates in the Middle East and Africa, which might have added credibility to the US claims, if there had been any specifics.
The use of accusations, however, which are not backed up by any semblance of credible evidence, did not begin with North Korean shells. One may recall the high-profile doping case in which the Russian side somehow allegedly tampered with urine samples in containers that were not supposed to be opened as per design. One may recall the poisonings of the Skripals or Kim Jong-nam when, in response to a direct question as to how exactly on the technical side the special operation had been carried out, there was no sane answer.
Rather than going into detail and sorting out the extent to which certain actions are technically possible, the analysis is substituted by notions of how capable we think “They” are of doing It. And if They could do it, then They did it, no matter how.
That said, such unsubstantiated information becomes a pretext for imposing sanctions of any level of severity – and this is an important criterion of a post-globalization world in which there is no longer any room for normal investigations and evidence. And this is a worrying sign, because now it is possible to use a fantastic accusation as a pretext for sanctions and if it is said from a high rostrum, the status of the one who said it is confirmation in itself: “How can we doubt the existence of Marquis of Carabas if the talking cat claims it?”
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences.
January 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Japan, Korea, Ukraine, United States |
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Picture of a book Cover Ukrainian politician attempted to pass off as a victim of the conflict in Ukraine – © Twitter
By Wyatt Reed – Samizdat – 03.01.2023
The latest falsified photo posted by an infamous Ukrainian legislator was widely mocked on Twitter by incredulous users.
A widely-shared photo which claimed to show a child victimized by the Russian military has been deleted by the notoriously-mendacious Ukrainian politician who posted it after social media users discovered it was fraudulent.
“There are no children in #Ukraine anymore,” claimed Lesia Vasylenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament who’s frequently cited in Western media reports on supposed Russian misdeeds. “Pictured: Marc, 8 [years old], just survived a #Russia artillery attack,” she insisted in a since-deleted post which received tens of thousands of likes and retweets.
The only problem? The photo was actually over a decade old, as a simple reverse image search shows. In fact, the image seems to have been pulled directly from the Spanish-language cover of a 2008 book called “The Forgotten Man” by novelist Christina McKenna.
It’s far from Vasylenko’s first brush with forgery. As far back as April, she attempted to pass off horrifying war crimes inflicted by the Ukrainian military’s neo-nazi Azov militants as the doing of Russian soldiers.
The notoriously-mendacious legislator is the daughter of Volodymyr Vasylenko, who was at one point not only the Ukrainian Ambassador to NATO and the EU, but a representative to the UN Human Rights Council. The elder Vasylenko previously sat on the “international tribunal” which oversaw the prosecution of former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milošević and which openly admitted it wouldn’t prosecute NATO nationals.
Despite the extensive reach of Vasylenko’s false post, only independent and non-Western media outlets fact-checked the incorrect claim. Indeed, no Western media outlets even mentioned the post – perhaps due to the fact that, according to Mint Press News, “most of the fact-checking organizations Facebook has partnered with to monitor and regulate information about Ukraine are directly funded by the U.S. government, either through the U.S. Embassy or via the notorious National Endowment for Democracy (NED).”
January 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Ukraine |
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President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a new bill into law that boosts Kiev’s control over the public’s access to news in Ukraine. Zelensky has already used his martial law powers to nationalize Ukraine’s media.
According to the New York Times, the law expands Kiev’s control over news outlets to print and online sources. In March, Zelensky nationalized broadcast media, effectively quashing dissent.
The Kyiv Independent explains the law will allow a governmental body to give licenses to outlets, any media organization without the proper paperwork can be shut down. The Kyiv Independent noted the body handing out the permits will be under total control of Zelensky.
According to Ukraine’s Institute of Mass Information, under the law, the media regulator is likely to be controlled by the incumbent authorities because its members are appointed by Zelensky and the Ukrainian parliament, where his party has an absolute majority.
While Zelensky’s power grabs throughout the 11-month conflict have largely gone ignored in the American mainstream press, the Times covered calls from human rights groups to put down the law over fears that it will crush the free press.
The Committee to Protect Journalists and the European Federation of Journalists slammed the legislation while it was being debated. Subsequently, Ukraine’s legislature stripped away some of the bill’s more extreme measures. However, the law Zelensky signed will still give Kiev near total control over Ukraine’s news media.
January 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Ukraine |
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Will Americans wake up to the reality that they’ve been walking on the wrong side of history for too long or has the point of no-return been crossed?
Bipartisan insanity was on display again this week as the U.S. congress responded to Biden’s requested $37 billion in additional aid to Ukraine by giving him $45 billion bringing the total U.S. support to its Davos-managed disposable ward up to $111 billion.
The aid was part of an overall omnibus spending bill passed by both houses of Congress was a gargantuan $1.7 trillion and included $858 billion in defense spending which far exceeds any sum ever spent by a U.S. government in history.
Of that $858 billion, $817 billion is allocated directly to the U.S. Department of Defense while the remaining $29 billion will be allocated to national security programs within the department of energy.
Continuing to Weaponize Taiwan
2023 NDAA Funds will be used to “strengthen” Taiwan in the Pacific with $12 billion authorized to assist Taiwan in purchasing weapons from the U.S. military industrial complex (with the $12 billion in ‘loans’ needing to be paid back over the course of the next five years of course). Of this fund, $100 million will be given directly to contractors to fill up a “contingency stockpile” to be used by Taiwan “in case of any future conflict”.
Additionally Taiwan will be invited to participate in the next U.S.-led Rim of the Pacific Military Exercise in 2024 and thus greater “Pacific NATO” strategy encircling mainland China. This exercise and broader Pacific NATO (aka Quad) anti-China arsenal of puppet colonies will be boosted by an additional $11.5 billion will be allocated to the Pacific Deterrence Initiative ‘to counter malign Chinese influence in the Pacific’.
Just as Ukraine has suffered U.S.-directed color revolutions in 2004 and 2014, so too has Taiwan been strung through a similar NED-funded ‘Sunflower Revolution’ regime change in 2014 which saw the Kuomintang Party taken out of power just as final stages of an economic integration agreement with mainland China were being finalized.
Billions have been tagged to purchase Lockheed Martin Corp’s (LMT.N) F-35 fighter jets and ships made by General Dynamics but beyond airforce, one of the biggest and most dangerous boosts in spending this year has been absorbed by a fixation on ‘space warfare’. $5.3 billion will be directed towards ‘space force’ and the ongoing effort to militarize space as a new dimension in war making in the 21st century (which was $333 million more than originally requested by military officials at space force’).
The recent U.S.-Canada-Australia joint ‘space warfare’ drills in order to prepare for an oncoming war over Europe took place at the start of December 2022 at the Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado- which [eliminates] the residues of any positive memory of ‘space diplomacy’ once seen under JFK’s leadership, the 1976 Apollo-Soyuz cooperation program or even the better aspects of President Trump’s Artemis Accord.
The 2000 RAD Origins of NDAA 2023’s Dark Age Doctrine
It would be a lie to say that this program for human extermination originated in 2022, or even under the previous presidencies of Trump or Obama.
If one wishes to grasp the germ seed of today’s policy doctrine, it would be necessary to revisit the Project for a New American Century Think Tank’s September 2000 Rebuilding America’s Defenses report where the end of history cultists then taking the helm of government stated:
“RAD” envisions a future in which the United States is in complete control of land, sea, air, space and cyberspace of planet Earth. It finds objectionable the limitations imposed by the ABM treaty and urges a newer rendition of Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ defense shield program.
On top of calling for the USA’s exit from the ABM Treaty (which was promptly done in the wake of 911), the authors of RAD outline in clear detail the rationale behind the growth of the rise of a need for a new branch of the military known as space force. The authors stated that the USA must gain:
“CONTROL THE NEW ‘INTERNATIONAL COMMONS’ OF SPACE AND ‘CYBERSPACE,’ and pave the way for the creation of a new military service – U.S. Space Forces – with the mission of space control.”
Outlining the doctrine of ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ the PNAC report outlined on page 51:
Global Missile Defenses — “A network against limited strikes, capable of protecting the United States, its allies and forward-deployed forces, must be constructed. This must be a layered system of land, sea, air and space-based components”.
Looking towards the need to expand and modernize nuclear forces due to the possible danger of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Iraq, the RAD authors stated:
“Today’s strategic calculus encompasses more factors than just the balance of terror between the United States and Russia. U.S. nuclear force planning and related arms control policies must take account of a larger set of variables than in the past, including the growing number of small nuclear arsenals – from North Korea to Pakistan to, perhaps soon, Iran and Iraq – and a modernized and expanded Chinese nuclear force.”
Possibly one of the most dangerous and revealing aspects of RAD, was found on page 60, where the authors outline a program that soon grew into obscene proportions in the wake of the 2001 Anthrax attacks which justified the later passage of Cheney’s 2004 Bioshield Act as well as the growth of the 320+ international biolabs run by the pentagon. Describing the conversion of bioweapons from the realm of terror to “a politically useful tool”, the authors state:
“Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and ‘combat’ likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, ‘cyber-space,’ and perhaps the world of microbes… Space itself will become a theater of war, as nations gain access to space capabilities and come to rely on them; further, the distinction between military and commercial space systems – combatants and non-combatants – will become blurred. Information systems will become an important focus of attack, particularly for U.S. enemies seeking to short-circuit sophisticated American forces. And advanced forms of biological warfare that can target specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool”
Back to Ukraine
How will the $45 billion Ukraine money burning project be used? That’s not so easy to say exactly?
What we do know is that $22.9 billion will go towards what Kiev will be expected to use to buy more weapons from private U.S.-based defense contractors and much of the rest will be enjoyed by NGOs and Non Profits which will more often than not be run by figures closely tied to those same creatures in the Washington swamp who voted for these bills.
These uncomfortable facts were outlined repeatedly by the oft-slandered republican Senator Marjorie Taylor Greene whose multiple attempts to create some form of oversight and auditing of the handouts to Ukraine have been met with absurd levels of resistance since the special operation was launched in February. Even when such operations as the FTX crypto exchange (a major partner to Kiev and the World Economic Forum) was discovered to be simply a money laundering outfit infusing vast sums into the coffers of the DNC that were tied to Ukrainian operations, hardly a single western Mockingbird press outlet made a peep.
As the Pentagon Papers and Hunter Biden Laptop reminded us, not only has Ukraine been run by a coterie of money laundering grifting politicians enjoying endless skimming of foreign aid (Pandora Papers revealed that Zelensky and his billionaire handler Igor Kolomoskoi were both tied to offshore shell companies representing hundreds of millions of dollars of stolen loot), but also energy firms like Burisima which have been caught extracting revenue from the Ukrainian people the way silk worm farmers extract silk.
And what happens if you find yourself among that precious minority of republican or independent voices of resistance to this new plunge into world war? Just ask Representative Matt Gaetz who has been called out alongside other patriots such as Jim Jordan and Lauren Boebert for not applauding Zelensky’s pathetic speech in Congress this week. For the crime of keeping their hands from slapping in lock step with the rest of the congressional herd, NBC analysts like Michael Beschloss have attempted to stir up a McCarthyite witchhunt asking why these representatives refused to clap, asking:
“I’d like to know why that was for two reasons- Number one: You’re a public servant, we’re allowed to know those things. You’re supposed to tell us if you’re serving in Congress what the reason was. Do you love Putin, or are you just opposed to democracy, or is there something else?”
The fact that these figures even dared ask where graft was going probably touched a nerve too close to home with the Pentagon itself failing its fifth consecutive audit in November 2022 with over 65% of its assets and expenditures unaccounted for. That’s right, the government ‘lost track’ of $2 trillion in 2022.
Will enough Americans wake up to the reality that they have been walking on the wrong side of history for far too long or has the point of no-return already been crossed?
January 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | China, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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With all due respect, it seems that the times we are living through, in regards to the war in Ukraine, take us back to times and moments gone by. The apparent stabilization of the front and the call to judge those responsible for this conflict bear many similarities with past historical events. Although the Western media insist on a propagandistic rather than informative narrative, largely co-responsible for the continuation of this war, and continue to maintain the superiority of the Ukrainian forces and their forthcoming victory, the reality on the ground is different.
The recent visit of President Putin to the General Staff of the Russian Army where he was informed about the development of the military operations, and his visit to his Belarusian counterpart, Lukashenko, the visits of the Minister of Defense Shoigu and his second in command, General Gerasimov, suggest that in the coming days there will be some relevant event in the evolution of the conflict. According to the statements of the presidential office spokesman, Putin visited the front line in the Donbass. If he did so, something that remains to be confirmed, he did so in the manner that corresponds to his former role in the past, with total discretion. Nothing to do with Zelensky’s propagandistic visit that has been on the front page of all the media.
General winter has already made its appearance on the Ukrainian front. The cold is hardening the ground, which has been muddy up to now due to the numerous autumn rains, and the colder temperatures are beginning to take their toll on soldiers and equipment. However, despite this, the war continues its slow progress.
The Situation on the Fronts
A front line of more than 1,200 km, from Kharkov to Kherson, in which mainly two fronts stand out: Adviika in the region of Donetsk and Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), where the fiercest fighting is taking place between the Russian troops leading the offensive and the resistance and counter-offensive of a Ukrainian army in which more and more mercenaries from many countries are trying to make up for the casualties of Ukrainian soldiers. Although both Russians and Ukrainians are used to extreme climatic conditions, the foreign mercenaries fighting with the Ukrainians are not so accustomed, and in many cases lack the appropriate equipment to face such cold temperatures.
Since the arrival of General Surovikin, the Kherson front has been fortified, creating a defensive line in which there is a vast stretch of trenches and installations that make a landing and the access of armored vehicles impossible, maintaining a large artillery deployment. Up to four defensive lines have been established in that area, on the left bank of the Dnieper, which makes a Ukrainian offensive practically impossible. The Russians have limited themselves to continue shelling, from the other bank, a city deserted of its inhabitants, where the SBU is engaged in hunting down the so-called “collaborators” of the Russians previously denounced by their fellow citizens, some of whom have been killed with impunity—without being reported in the Western press.
In that part, the front has stabilized and is calm, and for now it is unlikely that the Russians are going to launch an offensive to regain the city; and it is more feasible that if they do, they will do so by coming down from the north on the right bank, once the issue of the Donbass front has been resolved. But one thing is clear, and that is that the Russians will not give up the Kherson Oblast and Zaparoje Oblast, which are already part of the territory of the Russian Federation, either because they recovered it by arms or by an agreement. Russia will never return to the borders prior to February 24, 2022.
On the Donbass fronts, where the progression on the part of the Russian Army is proceeding slowly, once the objectives are reached, a line of defense is quickly established, taking advantage of the strongholds won from the enemy. The similarity with the Verdun front in the First World War is remarkable. Trenches and fortifications on both sides, offensives and counter-offensives in small portions of terrain, deadly artillery duels and terrible environmental conditions. Tenacity, endurance and determination on each side, but above all the immolation of many Ukrainians just because it was decided to wage a war against Russia by proxy. Suffice it to recall the words of the infamous promoters of this war—”resist to the last Ukrainian!”
The Russians are maintaining the strategy implemented by the current Commander-in-Chief, Surovikin, and cede ground in exchange for preserving soldiers. The incorporation of a part of the mobilized Russian Army, already duly formed and trained, has complemented these trench positions, allowing the operational forces to continue their offensives. Of the 150,000 mobilized troops already sent to the fronts, 80,000 are integrated in the operational units, the rest in the close defense units. There are still another 150,000 mobilized troops who are continuing their education and training and who will probably be incorporated during this month, so that it would be possible to take advantage of this to launch a larger offensive.
As the Russian commanders maintain, the greater the training, the greater the chances of survival, an aspect neglected by the Ukrainians with their mobilized troops, which is causing a terrible increase in the number of deaths and wounded among their ranks. They hardly receive basic training when they are sent to the front. By the way, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleskiy Reznikov, has already announced a new wave of mobilization for early 2023 to cover the casualties, and to facilitate the rotation of the troops stationed at the front; although he does not stop hunting for citizens of military age to give them the call-up, even in the most remote corners of the cities. Nor is he considering possible the demobilization of those who have already been in arms after a year of service, although he estimates that there are about one million people in arms at the moment.
No Christmas Truce
According to the latest information, Russia is not going to facilitate a Christmas truce, as it could be used by the Ukrainian Army to reinforce its troops and reorganize itself. For the Russians, it is not necessary. As the Russian President himself has recognized, the war is going to drag on and therefore cannot be stopped at the moment. The current priority is the liberation of the territory of Donbass, an objective set by the President himself in order to avoid the suffering that the citizens of Donetsk are undergoing with the indiscriminate bombings that have caused the deaths of more than 80 civilians since the beginning of the month, and which shamefully are not mentioned by the Western media. Something that has been happening since 2014.
Weapons sent by NATO countries, specifically HIMARS, are being used to kill civilians, including children, because there are no military targets in the center of the city. Just a day ago a hospital was bombed, hitting the children’s and oncological parts, killing one person without anyone commenting on it. Up to 40 missiles in less than 10 minutes were fired into the city center, where there are no military installations since before the beginning of the conflict because they are all on the front lines.
For its part, the Ukrainian Army justifies the shelling of the city of Donetsk because it is occupied by Russian troops! Nobody is appalled by this. However, when the Russians shell a strategic center and there is a civilian casualty, the news in the Western media is front page and heads all the news programs. Any death on both sides is a tragedy; but a different media treatment in each case or its concealment is unacceptable. Cowardice prevails and serves the interests of some.
It is curious, if not indecent, the information on the Russian bombing of targets that constitute strategic targets to weaken the Ukrainian Army. Most of them are power plants or fuel depots, which have collateral effects on the functioning of certain civil infrastructures, such as the supply of light and water to the population, or the functioning of heating systems. Nobody remembers that the Ukrainian government cut off water and electricity for 8 years to the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, and to the Crimean Peninsula, since the latter declared its accession to the Russian Federation. Still the city of Donetsk suffers from water cuts and many parts of the city lack heating and nobody comments on it; and yet its citizens suffer from it daily. In this case, the Russian Army seeks to weaken the Ukrainian Army and the shelling of infrastructures is a primordial element to achieve its objective, as is the shelling of military installations and command posts or centers of production and repair of military equipment.
The then comedian, now president, mocked on TV the inhabitants of Crimea because they had no water, and they had been like that until Russia built salt water treatment plants and managed to reopen the Crimean canal sabotaged by the Ukrainians.
Nobody wants to remember the words of the then NATO spokesman Jamie Shea on May 25, 1999, justifying the bombing of the power plants, depriving more than 70% of the Serbian population of water and electricity, claiming that they were military targets because they supplied electricity to the control and command systems of the Serbian Army.
Verdun or the Alamo?
Once again the media omits to provide the enormity of the casualties that are occurring in the ranks of the Ukrainian Army—about 400 dead per day and between 2,000 and 3,000 wounded according to data provided by analysts and specialists, mostly Americans, something which confirms the statements made by General Mike Miller, Chief of Staff of the American Army, when he recently said that the Ukrainians had more than 100,000 dead since the beginning of the conflict, although later, in view of the enormity of the data and criticism, he wanted to rectify it and said that they were losses which would include dead and wounded. The President of the Commission herself, Ursula Van Der Layen, also acknowledged the same figure, although she quickly withdrew the comment from social media for the same reason.
The Ukrainian commanders abandon their dead on the battlefield, giving them up as missing, and it is the Russians who, prior to their identification, have to bury them in a Christian manner as happened in Izium in summer, even if they were later accused of genocide. In this way the relatives will never receive the corresponding compensations, as they are simply listed as missing. One more aspect of the corruption that prevails in the Ukrainian government. More than 35,000 military personnel are listed as missing in the files of the Ukrainian Army who are not considered as having fallen in combat, as it has recently come to light due to the hacking of these files.
The number of dead Ukrainian troops is really important. The number of wounded is also significant. Most of them are from artillery explosions and less from direct clashes. The hospitals near the front line are overcrowded and there is no more room for the wounded. Many combatants die on the front line because they cannot be transferred to the rear due to the incessant bombardment to which they are subjected, so that in many cases the tourniquets that are made to avoid hemorrhages become a lethal instrument or they bleed to death on the spot. In some units, up to 70% of their troops have been casualties and have not been withdrawn from the front, resisting the onslaught of the Russians. To get an idea, the NATO criterion by which a unit is considered to be replaced is 10% to a maximum of 15%.
The situation in Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) according to the Ukrainian commanders themselves is Dantesque, and the area is already known among the Russians as “the meat grinder” because of the number of casualties among the Ukrainian troops as a result of the shelling they are suffering from mortar and grenade fire on the front lines and artillery when they try to approach reinforcements. However, the Western media refer in the same way to the same area, because it is there that Russian troops are sent to dislodge the Ukrainians from their trenches without mentioning that there are far fewer casualties in the Russian ranks.
It must be taken into account that while the Ukrainian artillery supplied by NATO is more precision artillery and smaller in proportion, the Russian artillery is more abundant and is used more massively, covering more land, although it is insisted that the Russians have practically exhausted their stock of ammunition.
Despite being aware of the situation they are in, Ukrainian commanders advised by NATO officers continue to send reinforcements, preventing a withdrawal that would save lives. This situation is causing the morale of the Ukrainian troops to fade little by little—but it is also beginning to take its toll on the German and Polish mercenaries (more than 15,000 Germans belonging to a private company) who refuse to carry out offensives in view of the extreme risk to which they are being subjected. The last declarations of the Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, asked for the approval of a law which would toughen the punishment of deserters even to the maximum penalty, if they are on the front line.
Soldiers of Fortune
Both in Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) and in Avdiivka the weight of the offensives is carried by the troops of the Wagner private company and the Chechen special troops, supported by the militias (today already integrated in the Russian Army). They are faced by the Ukrainian troops mostly made up at this time by mercenaries from various countries, but mainly Poles, Anglo-Americans, some Spanish-Americans and Germans. The Russian forces testify to more and more corpses of black people when they take some stronghold, as well as to radio conversations in English, Polish or German.
According to testimonies of these foreign mercenaries, appearing in the Ukrainian social networks, there is a strong dissatisfaction about the conduct of operations and complaints about the lack of artillery and aviation support, with some even refusing to carry out the firefights planned by the high command because they consider that they are being sent to be butchered. The salaries of these mercenaries are very high, between $1,000 and $2,000 a day, which is attractive for many adventurers, although the type of war they have been confronted with in Ukrainian territory differs a lot from the operation theaters where they have been rendering their services until now. They face different scenarios and different adversaries.
On the Russian side are the men of the Wagner private group, whose number is unknown but could be in the region of 10,000 men. Former professional soldiers from the special units of the Russian Army, hired with salaries higher than those paid in the Army and with additional bonuses, they are perfectly equipped and have their own armored escort vehicles, mobile artillery, helicopters and even aviation, which allows them to maneuver autonomously, although in coordination with the Russian high command. This unit, formed mostly by Russian personnel, although the existence of an American unit commanded by a former general of the American Army has been mentioned, has a strong patriotic sentiment which makes them even more combative.
Lately, about one or two hundred prisoners with sentences of more than 15 years, with the consent of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office, have also joined it, and they were offered the possibility of redeeming their sentences by obtaining their freedom at the end of the conflict if they enlisted. After intensive and hard military training, to which all members of the unit, regardless of their origin, are obliged to undergo, they were sent to the front. Some of them have already paid the price of blood and others have been distinguished for their heroic deeds.
At present the Wagnerians, as they are called, bear the burden of the conquest of the city of Bakhmut, an objective that was assigned to them at the time and which they did not manage to seize, although now it seems they are achieving it.
Artyomovsk or Bakhmut as we want to call it, is at the moment the new Mariupol. The fiercest fighting is taking place there, with the Ukrainians resisting with particular courage. The capture of the city could mean a radical change in the course of the war. Although from the Ukrainian and NATO side they will try to minimize the effects that its loss can suppose, from the Russian side it is understood that its conquest will be the key for a significant advance, taking into account that subsequent Ukrainian defense lines are at a considerable distance, and that it would allow the encirclement of a large part of the Ukrainian forces present in the area.
The Arms Market
While on the Russian side the logistical supply is assured, on the Ukrainian side it is becoming scarce due to the difficulty of getting it to the front, and to the fact that the supplying countries are already running out of stocks and are putting their own defense at risk. Regarding the latter, NATO is reactivating old Soviet-era ammunition and armament manufacturing factories in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. While the Ukrainians fire between 2,000 and 3,000 shells a day the Russians fire between 30,000 and 40,000 shells a day on all fronts. It should be remembered that the famous American M777s have a NATO standard use of 400 shells per day, so that about 30% of these pieces are damaged by the intensive use to which they are subjected, with the problems involved in their repair outside Ukrainian territory, mainly in Poland, the Baltic States or the Czech Republic.
Even in this situation in which its army finds itself, the Ukrainian Government sells weapons to African countries (there is a catalog with more than 970 pages circulating on the dark net) among them some coming from US shipments, maintaining its position in the arms trafficking market initiated at the time of its independence from the USSR in 1991. For their part, the Anglo-Americans periodically remind the Ukrainians that the arms shipments they send them come at a price and that they will have to pay back these loans: Business is business! The price to pay is very high now and in the future.
Until now HIMARS were a difficulty for the Russian defenses; but as a result of the seizure of this material during the fighting or by the sale of it by the corrupt Ukrainian military, Russian technicians have been able to examine the functioning of the system (GPS) and consequently have developed a whole series of countermeasures that have considerably diminished its effectiveness and the result of this is being seen on the battlefield.
The Art of War
The war that is developing in Ukraine, is a war of high intensity in which infantry, armored, artillery and aviation intervene jointly in great proportion, over a great extent of territory. Something that in the West had been set aside in the configuration of their armies, so they bet more on a reduced army with smaller but lighter units.
The Ukrainian army, mainly instructed by Americans, British and Canadians, has adopted in its offensives on the ground the so-called COIN (Counter Insurgency Operations) tactic, which consists of reduced units moving in light vehicles, mostly pickups, on which mortars are adapted, and which penetrate at high speed into the Russian lines, without previous artillery preparation to favor the surprise factor and neither with the support of armored vehicles initially. While the terrain has allowed this, this tactic has had a good result. When the weather conditions have changed, it has been a different story.
This tactic employed in the middle and end of the summer initially surprised the Russian forces, and which favored the Ukrainian offensives that recaptured large stretches of land, entering deep into the zone controlled by the Russians who were retreating so as not to be surrounded. This maneuver, however, left the Ukrainian forces uncovered as they were not followed by armor and artillery, and the Russians took advantage of this to reduce them with intense artillery fire, causing a considerable number of casualties. The surprise factor has disappeared and the Russians now know how to proceed when they encounter this type of operation. The Ukrainian forces trained in NATO countries, for their part, complain about the level of instruction of the foreign trainers whom in many cases they surpass in terms of combat experience, especially in urban areas.
For its part, the Russian army continues to maneuver conservatively: Artillery and air preparation in advance, assault with armored vehicles with 30mm guns and heavy armored vehicles, and an infantry that makes use of anti-tank weapons to dislodge the enemy in urban areas.
The use of observation drones is playing a fundamental role in the evolution of this war. If at the beginning of the conflict, the Ukrainians had clearly superior numbers to the Russians, the situation is now reversed. The Russian troops have a considerable number of these drones, and they use them to locate the concentration of enemy troops, to examine their defense lines, to fix their positions or the location of their artillery and consequently to beat their positions with artillery before making the assault.
On the other hand, at a time when artillery is characterized by its mobility on the ground to avoid detection, it is essential to have it located in the shortest possible time to destroy it, and that job is done by observation drones. Until now, this work was mainly carried out by aviation or infantry vanguard units with the risk that this entailed.
Similarly, the Russian army is incorporating electronic warfare equipment to neutralize Ukrainian drones with good results, although the militias still do not have them in their ranks.
The Second Stage
Russian forces have begun a second stage in their bombardment to demilitarize Ukraine. Tactical missile bombardment of power plants, fuel depots, factories and ammunition depots is being carried out quite effectively. To this end, the Russians launch low-cost [alleged] Iranian-made drones in swarms beforehand, which causes Ukrainian air defense radars to light up and they are then detected by Russian systems and immediately destroyed by tactical missiles. Once the air defense in the area has been suppressed, the latest generation strategic tactical missiles are launched.
Logistics
As for the logistical aspect, major changes have taken place. In the Russian army, the deficiencies in the supply of ammunition and materiel have been corrected, which favors the supply to the front lines in a smooth and permanent way. The same is not true on the Ukrainian side. The shelling of electric power infrastructures greatly hinders transportation from the border areas, while the destruction of factories for the production or repair of materiel prevents a rapid replenishment of the front line.
In addition to all this, the delivery by NATO allies of materiel is increasingly diminishing, both because of the depletion of their stocks inherited from the Soviet era and because of the need to maintain their own strategic reserves. The NATO allies are also unwilling to transfer state-of-the-art weapons because of the distrust that they could be sold to the Russians, given the high level of corruption in the Ukrainian armed forces, and consequently their secrets could be revealed.
Although many countries are benefiting from this situation, the main beneficiary is the American arms industry, although, curiously, South Korea is positioning itself quite well also in this.
As for the operation and use of the equipment on both sides, things are also different. Russian equipment, although less technologically advanced, is characterized by its robustness, easy maintenance and repeated use; but above all by its proven resistance to extremely cold temperatures. On the other hand, the NATO materiel suffers from the cold; its fluids clog badly and seize the mechanisms of vehicles and artillery pieces; this materiel is not ready for the intensity of use to which the Ukrainians subject it, and it often requires a very specialized handling that is difficult to master in a month of training. The stinger or javelin batteries discharge rapidly in cold temperatures, making them unusable in the winter period. Ultimately, the old RPG is more effective on the battlefield.
A Long-Term War
Whether there will be a winter offensive or several separate offensives, where and in what proportion we will probably see soon. It is significant that Putin has postponed his annual speech to the Assembly until after the New Year and has visited his General Staff and his Belarusian neighbor. Perhaps he wants to announce the purpose of the expected offensive, the start of negotiations, or simply to confirm the prolongation of the conflict with its social and economic consequences. In any case, there is little chance of a truce during these winter months.
A New Nuremberg Trial? Who Should Sit in the Dock?
A few days ago, the President of Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky, again in the media campaign after having obtained 1 billion euros from the French President Macron, asked the various Western leaders to envisage the setting up of a special international criminal court to try Russian political and military leaders for war crimes. Previously, the French President had already stated what he defined as genocide, namely the Russian bombardment of energy infrastructures, resulting in power cuts for civilians. This is nothing new, since the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) had already called for the establishment of such a court this spring. The chorus of Western politicians and institutions calling for the establishment of such a court is already more like a choir. Biden himself had already opened the floodgates right at the beginning of the conflict by saying that Putin was a murderer and that he would pay the price for it.
The level of cynicism of the leaders of NATO countries calling for this tribunal is unprecedented and astounding. Not only because of the track record of many of them for their interventions without any kind of legitimacy, but also because of the terrible consequences they have brought about, destabilizing vast areas in different continents, ruining entire economies, provoking ethnic and religious conflicts, persecutions and genocides. That they are the ones who are now demanding these tribunals is repulsive. They have lost all decency and lack morals.
The shamelessness with which Merkel admitted that there was no intention to negotiate anything but only to gain time for Ukraine to join NATO makes her an accomplice in the provocation of the conflict. Porochenko denying from the first day after the signing of the Minsk agreements and encouraging the shelling of civilians in the Donbass republics, Macron urging the cessation of hostilities without having previously read the agreements in which France was the guarantor of their fulfillment, Holande failing to keep his word to enforce the agreements signed in Minsk—all of them are responsible for this war as perpetrators or accomplices—agreements that by their non-compliance generated more than 14,000 dead, including 110 children and 80,000 wounded since 2014.
The only intention, now confessed without any remorse, was to gain time to arm the Ukrainian army, to integrate Ukraine into NATO, and thus impose its conditions on an isolated and socially and economically weakened Russia as a result of the imposition of sanctions each time more and more senseless and incoherent as we observe as time goes by.
The culprits are Zelensky himself elected because he committed himself to negotiate with the secessionist republics; Boris Jonhson for preventing the holding of peace negotiations when the war could still have been stopped; Mrs. Ursula Van del Layen totally corrupt for censoring media and using her European “credit card” to deliver millions to buy weapons that end up in mafia circles; Borrel promoting and applying sanctions to the Russian economy that we will all end up paying for. All of them are directly responsible for this war.
Not to mention the leaders of the Baltic States and Poland, whose visceral Russophobia they take advantage of to discriminate against the population of Russian origin by depriving them of all their rights and censoring their media, without questioning in any way the right to freedom of expression, or the violation of human rights when citizens of Russian origin are deprived of the most elementary rights of access to public services. Incidentally, there is no mention about this in the Western media—and Europe is supposed to be the guarantor of human rights into which they are all integrated.
The Obama, Clinton, Biden clan, promoters of orange revolutions and of the Maidan events, installing corrupt governments and promoting xenophobic groups with explicitly Nazi ideology who brought torture and genocide for the population of Eastern Ukraine and imposed a culture of hatred not only towards the Russian people but even towards other ethnic minorities, Hungarians or Romanians, deserve a special mention. Installing research laboratories for bacteriological warfare in a clandestine manner in the style of the Nazi medical murderers in the concentration camps, although later acknowledging their existence shamelessly, but without saying what kind of experiment they were engaged in. Namely, whether or not lethal experiments were carried out among the population to test their efficacy.
Others, however, have adopted a low profile; keeping silent, they have cowardly accepted and endorsed all these developments. They have not raised their voices to stop and denounce a course that has led us to the events we are witnessing, lest they lose their perks.
None of them have prevented this conflict; in the same way that none has spoken out for both parties to sit down at a negotiating table. On the contrary, they have only been heard giving ultimatums and threats of sanctions, while promoting the sending of weapons and money for their purchase in exorbitant amounts. With their position, the only thing they are causing is a prolongation of a war that is bleeding a country, causing the extermination of several generations and an economic ruin from which Ukraine will hardly ever recover, if its neighbors, today complacent allies, have not each appropriated their share.
All of them are the real culprits of this war—and they are the ones who should be put on trial for war crimes and for the deaths that are taking place. If our western societies had enough information, without censorship, and were not misinformed by the continuous media propaganda promoted by incompetent leaders, and knew what is really happening to the Ukrainian people, they would take to the streets to stop this bloodletting. So many deaths are unacceptable, so much suffering for the population is unbearable, although, of course, they are not ours. The belligerent posture in which all the progressive forces have positioned themselves is striking, who in other times demonstrated for a “No” to war.
Broken Ties
When this war will end, we don’t know. We should be aware that the Russians are not going to negotiate; they are going to impose their conditions; and the longer this conflict lasts, the harsher those conditions will be. They will not give up the territories recently annexed to the Russian Federation, and who knows if they will not give up the territories they may conquer. In any case, we will not see again the Ukraine with the borders of 1991.
A fact that has gone totally unnoticed in the Western media has been the term in which recently President Putin in his speech justifying the attacks on energy infrastructures has referred to Ukraine; he named it as “the neighboring country.” He did not say “close” or “fraternal” as up to now. It was a radical change of attitude, perhaps as a result of his weariness with the insistence of Zelensky and his NATO allies to continue a war that they will not win. However, he has returned to the terms of fraternal ties in a recent speech when referring to the ties that unite Russians and Ukrainians, blaming the West for their deterioration, resisting that centuries of common history, culture and religion be forgotten.
But despite the historical existence of these fraternal, cultural and religious ties, the reality that the Russians are discovering is that these ties are no longer so clear, and that a part of the Ukrainian population during this last decade has succumbed to the cultural and ideological indoctrination promoted by successive governments and their henchmen, the paramilitary groups of Nazi ideology; and that hatred towards Russia and the Russians has settled inside them. One more example of this persecution of everything Russian is the banning of the Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. Monasteries and churches are being raided and their clergymen arrested for collaboration; and the situation is very reminiscent of the time of the Nazi occupation when Bandera’s followers inflicted terror on the rest of the population. It is enough to reread history to see that we are in the same situation. Nothing is said about this, either.
Although the Russians do not have the same feeling of hatred towards the Ukrainians, they no longer consider the fraternity they used to have towards the Ukrainian people. The estrangement is becoming more and more visible, and it is not at all clear whether it can ever be reversed, either by one or the other. In all likelihood, this rift will never be healed.
The Russian intelligence services made a serious mistake believing that in the Ukrainian army they would find former colleagues from the Soviet era and that they would understand each other in order to reach a quick agreement. The reality has been totally different since 2014 — it is an entirely NATO-ized army, in which there has been a symbiosis between elements of paramilitary forces of openly declared Nazi groups and the rest of the Army. Their behavior in the areas they have accessed is that of a foreign army of occupation, using the civilian population as hostages to defend their positions, by preventing their evacuation. As happened in Mariupol.
There Will be No Concessions
Perhaps, the Americans are already thinking that they have achieved their goals, to restrain Europe and maintain their economic stranglehold, although they have not defeated Russia economically, and they are thinking of sitting Zelensky at a negotiating table, although he is resisting for the time being.
If not, what are the recent trips of Mrs. Nuland to Kiev, or the insistence of Macron to talk to Putin, who by the way does not pick up his phone, or the recommendation of Xi Jinping that there should be a negotiating table. The Russians have already said that they are ready to negotiate, but indeed under the current conditions; which means that the incorporation of the territories that voted their annexation to the Russian Federation must be recognized as a premise. The conditions will be imposed by the Russians, because they no longer trust liars and thieves; nor will the Asians, Africans, South Americans or Middle Easterners who have seen how the West does not keep its word and shamelessly appropriates other people’s property. No one will want to be the next victim.
An armistice could be what is signed, although unlike the Peace of Panmunjom between the two Koreas. In this case, there will be the new borders, with the territories annexed to the Russian Federation, and the creation of a demilitarized zone of a hundred kilometers—which will have to be recognized. And of course a commitment to neutrality, without the possibility of joining supranational organizations, such as NATO or the European Union.
If a negotiation is imposed, it will be tough for Zelensky, because his Nazi cubs have promised him a bullet in the head if he gave in to negotiations as happened to the first negotiators at the beginning of the conflict—and his American mentors are not known for their unswerving loyalty. In the end, perhaps the Russians might be the only ones who could save his life, albeit probably in a penal colony in faraway Siberia.
In conclusion, who should be tried and convicted?
January 1, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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