“A salvo of missiles brought the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine to Fastiv, a quiet town abounding with flowering cherry trees and set in sweeping farmland hundreds of kilometers from the front lines.
The strike on April 28, which injured two people, hit an electrical substation that feeds power to a confluence of railway lines that forms a key hub of networks linking central Europe, Russia, and Asia.
The damage quickly was repaired, said Ukrainian officials, and a Reuters visit last week revealed no lingering impact. Trains plied between Kyiv and the southern port of Odesa, disgorging passengers into the station at Fastiv, a town of 45,000 people 75 km (45 miles) south of the capital.
Officials said the attack was part of an escalating Russian assault on infrastructure, aimed in part at paralyzing rail deliveries of Western-supplied arms and also reinforcements sustaining Ukrainian forces fighting in the east and south.”
Comment: Poor Vlad. Did Gerasimov come back from his trip to the front and actually tell Vlad the truf? That happpens. The loser ginruls in VN were so afraid for their careers that they would not tell LBJ how f—–g hard it all was. We were winning the CORDS campaign but goddamn it was HARD!
So, a lot less BS in Vlad’s speech; no symbolic mini-nuke, no general mobilization, just a lot of hot air.
Vlad needs to sober up, declare a victory and go home. pl
Russian Attacks on Rail System Fail to Paralyze ‘lifeline of Ukraine’ | Newsmax.com
Putin will go home when the job is done and Russia’s security is not threatened by NATO expansion.
By the way, Putin’s speech was excellent vastly superior to anything the moron in the White House could ever manage. I particularly liked this:
“Last December we proposed signing a treaty on security guarantees. Russia urged the West to hold an honest dialogue in search for meaningful and compromising solutions, and to take account of each other’s interests. All in vain. NATO countries did not want to heed us, which means they had totally different plans. And we saw it.”
That’s a good recap of events leading up to a war that could have been avoided if Biden and company chose to respect the basic security requirements of other countries.
But they didn’t, so now we’re at war with Russia.
Washington and the media think that’s a good outcome. I don’t.
There’s many bad outcomes. The worst IMO is at what is sometimes called the “strategic” level. Maybe this is what Colonel Lang means when he says declare victory and go home, I don’t know. The strategic absurdity to me is that what’s been put in motion here is the establishment of a perpetual Pakistan versus India standoff in Europe. With Pakistan as Ukraine and India as Russia. Or Palestine versus Isreal. Take your pick. Neither is any good and this standoff foretells: Inflation, Food shortages leading to famine in the global south, and numerous shortages and serious deprivation of everyday decent enough people who haven’t a dog in this fight. Why? To weaken Russia? Absurd IMO. I already said in another thread that for anyone with eyes to see it is apparent that Russia is plenty weak already. The China threat? Nonsense again in my opinion. Their geography has them bottled up and easily cut off from external supplies without which they perish. And, I mean no insult, brave as they no doubt have been, they are simply not a warrior culture, nor do they have a fraction of the very recent real fighting experience of the dominant west. It’s all boogie men all the way all the time.
Golly, I have a strange idea. How’s about Russia stops invading Ukraine, recognizes its sovereignty, and absorbs only the predominantly Russian speaking areas of Lugansk and Donbass (Russian already conquered Crimea from those war like Ukrainians w/o firing a shot). In return, Ukraine promises never to launch an invasion into Russia and threaten its existence.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia has to assume the roles of Pakistan or India, cowboys and Indians, Palestinians or Israelis. In the words of that marvelous old gospel hymnn; “there would be peace in the valley again, oh Lord”. Do you think Russia will ever agree that it does not own Ukraine. They own them people man! My friend, that is the issue.
Apart from ruining lives of millions of people whom he ostensibly wants to deliver from the clutches of Nazi hordes, he made Russia look weak and the opposition stronger.
Somehow, I don’t think that was the intended outcome.
He needs to wrap this up, use some of that 350+ frozen billions to repair as much damage to Ukraine as possible and go back to the drawing board.
If this war is the best idea he could have come up with, then maybe it is time for some fresh blood.
Russia, Ukraine and that whole region have been through hell in the last century and more war and destruction is the last thing they need.
Ukraine and the west was such a threat to Russia that Russia took Crimea and none of the so called threats fired a bullet.
Putin’s not very good at explaining stuff, plantman. I’ve noticed that before. He didn’t do much of a job in this Victory Day speech either. He failed to explain properly why the Russians invaded.
The Russian invasion of the Ukraine was a pre-emptive strike. I suppose much like our pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Was this particular pre-emptive strike justified?
I’d say so. A hundred thousand of the best troops Kiev had, trained and equipped by us, were ranged along the LoC. No more than thirty thousand or so LDNR troops to contain them. Had those Kiev forces got into the rebel parts of the Donbas there’d have been hell to pay.
They’d have taken Donetsk and Lugansk and maltreated the ethnic Russians living there, Mariupol style. They’d then have been well placed to do a Mariupol style defence: using civilian infrastructure, preferably with the civilians still around, so that heavy weapons couldn’t be easily employed: using the civilians as human shields and keeping those civilians in place by shooting at the ones trying to escape.
Kiev tactics are heavily dependent on this use of civilians and civilian infrastructure as protection. Only there can they fight on equal terms because of the Russian reluctance to risk civilian casualties. If one thinks of the difficulty the police have in dealing with hostage taking, and then scale that up by thousands, that’s the difficulty the Russians have in dealing with the tactics of Azov and the regular Kiev forces alike. Gentlemanly it is not, hostage warfare, but it’s remarkably effective.
We saw how effective in the earlier days of the war. Russian/LDNR casualties in coping with that type of defence in Mariupol itself were heavy. The city was wrecked, or those bits of it I’ve seen on videos. Given what a disaster a repeat of that in the cities of the Donbas would have been, I don’t think Putin could have done anything else but pre-empt.
Putin should have explained all that properly. He didn’t. Maybe he took it for granted that most Russians know it already. But most in the West don’t, so he missed an opportunity to tell them.
EO
BS. The Iraqis had no ability to attack us. They had surrendered all that to us after the first Gulf War. I was in charge of the operation along with a CIA friend. See my article DTK.
Colonel – I must admit I don’t remember the DTK article. “Search” doesn’t help on it.
But I do remember Blair’s WMD scam. Not that he ever admitted it. I should have made it clear above that I didn’t and don’t believe the WMD story.
My criticism of Putin above was perhaps a little unfair. His main problem is, as ever, that he takes the Rule of Law more seriously than we do.
If only he’d said of the Crimean land grab, for instance “My mates down that way were going to get lynched by the Kiev mob. So I moved in fastish. Quite pleased about it though. I’d always wanted the Crimea back anyway” – if he’d said that we’d all have known where he was coming from.
As it was there was all this talk about Kosovo – as if two wrongs could ever make a right – so all were left wondering what he was up to.
I might apply for the job of Mr Putin’s speechwriter, Colonel. I don’t suppose 77 Brigade would mind me doing a bit of moonlighting.
EO
https://web.archive.org/web/20090609172955/http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol11/0406_lang.asp
EO,
Maybe Putin knows the preemptive strike rationale is bullshit. If he had proof that Ukraine was about to launch an attack on the DNR and LNR, he would certainly use that information. Ukraine did not have 100,000 troops on the line of contact. The entire Ukrainian ground force numbered 125,000. Major formations were stationed along the entire border with Belarus, Russia, along the LOC and along the Black Sea coast. They were arrayed against 190,000 Russian troops and were in no position to launch any incursion into the breakaway republics. Also, if Ukraine depended on her civilian population to shield her troops, why would they evacuate so many millions away from the fighting? That’s another trumped up accusation.
TTG – I’m afraid we’ve been scammed. Again. It felt like it at the time – very much so – but since then the Washington/Brussels story has been comprehensively demolished by a number of authorities and analysts.
Macgregor, Kofman, Lee, Sleboda, Ritter, Baud, – they all tell much the same story when it comes to looking at how we got to where we are now. And it’s not the story the scammers are telling us.
Washington/Brussels deliberately put Moscow in a position in which Moscow could do no other than it did. Up until the 21st February (Ritter says the 24th but I think that’s wrong) the way was open for the resolution Moscow had been asking for. After that date it wasn’t.
This explains why NATO was so confidently predicting the Russians would invade. Of course it knew that! It created the conditions in which Moscow could do nothing else.
We’re not the only ones to have been scammed. Our proxies were as well. I came across this copiously referenced article a while back. It’s written very much from the “Russia wants its empire back” point of view and it doesn’t do detail but it has this to say about how Ukraine was led up the garden path by NATO –
“-“ But what’s more cruel is that Ukrainians might be paying with their lives for the United States’ reckless flirtation with Ukraine as a future NATO member without ever committing to its defense.”
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/russia-s-ukraine-invasion-may-have-been-preventable-n1290831
That’s what Zelensky has been saying. Kiev would never have dared massing armies along the line of control, issuing the various threats, and increasing the shelling, had it not believed it had the backing of its sponsors. But when the time came it found it didn’t. We’ve left Kiev hanging in the wind.
So scam all round. And as the casualty figures are telling us insistently, it’s no longer “might” when it comes to the unfortunate Ukrainians paying for it with their lives. The tragedy now is, the scammers are in so deep that it’s difficult for them to pull back without losing face.
EO
“This explains why NATO was so confidently predicting the Russians would invade. Of course it knew that! It created the conditions in which Moscow could do nothing else.” Nonsense. We had excellent sources of information INSIDE the Russian government.
EO
“Washington/Brussels deliberately put Moscow in a position in which Moscow could do no other than it did”. Yes, it is a tremendous triumph for the Neocons analogous to Zbig’s goading of the Soviets into Afghanistan*. But, but, only because Moscow’s thinking is as Bill Roche describes – i.e. an absolute inability to tolerate an independent Ukrainian state hostile to Russia.
*He claimed credit for this, I do not know to what extent he was actually responsible
That intolerance is not the fault of the Ukrainian people. Putin has been played and his whinging about fair treatment and broken promises is pretty pathetic. Russia should never have been naïve enough to believe NATO promises – geopolitics is not played according to Marquess of Queensberry Rules. Ukraine was ‘lost’ in 2014 and on February 24th Putin made the situation immeasurably worse for Russia.
In any case a large scale ground invasion was the last thing most people were predicting, primarily because it had such obvious potential to become a second Afghanistan (Martyanov mocked the idea saying it was inconceivable). I myself thought Russia may take a leaf out of the Israeli book of preemptive war and start to mow the neo-NATO Ukrainian grass with standoff weapons.
If you go to The Kremlin web-site you will be able to find transcripts of Putin’s speeches in English. This is from his address to the country broadcast on the 21st February. He followed this with another address on the 24th.
“In March 2021, a new Military Strategy was adopted in Ukraine. This document is almost entirely dedicated to confrontation with Russia and sets the goal of involving foreign states in a conflict with our country. The strategy stipulates the organisation of what can be described as a terrorist underground movement in Russia’s Crimea and in Donbass. It also sets out the contours of a potential war, which should end, according to the Kiev strategists, “with the assistance of the international community on favourable terms for Ukraine,” as well as – listen carefully, please – “with foreign military support in the geopolitical confrontation with the Russian Federation.” In fact, this is nothing other than preparation for hostilities against our country, Russia.
As we know, it has already been stated today that Ukraine intends to create its own nuclear weapons, and this is not just bragging. Ukraine has the nuclear technologies created back in the Soviet times and delivery vehicles for such weapons, including aircraft, as well as the Soviet-designed Tochka-U precision tactical missiles with a range of over 100 kilometres. But they can do more; it is only a matter of time. They have had the groundwork for this since the Soviet era.
In other words, acquiring tactical nuclear weapons will be much easier for Ukraine than for some other states I am not going to mention here, which are conducting such research, especially if Kiev receives foreign technological support. We cannot rule this out either.
If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will drastically change, especially for us, for Russia. We cannot but react to this real danger, all the more so since, let me repeat, Ukraine’s Western patrons may help it acquire these weapons to create yet another threat to our country. We are seeing how persistently the Kiev regime is being pumped with arms. Since 2014, the United States alone has spent billions of dollars for this purpose, including supplies of arms and equipment and training of specialists. In the last few months, there has been a constant flow of Western weapons to Ukraine, ostentatiously, with the entire world watching. Foreign advisors supervise the activities of Ukraine’s armed forces and special services and we are well aware of this.
Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads.
The United States and NATO have started an impudent development of Ukrainian territory as a theatre of potential military operations. Their regular joint exercises are obviously anti-Russian. Last year alone, over 23,000 troops and more than a thousand units of hardware were involved.
A law has already been adopted that allows foreign troops to come to Ukraine in 2022 to take part in multinational drills. Understandably, these are primarily NATO troops. This year, at least ten of these joint drills are planned.
Stevelancs is IMO an obvious Russian IO operation, something like Larry Johnson. I would like to see a citation on Ukraine statement of intent to develop nuclear weapons.
https://www.uawire.org/ukrainian-ambassador-to-germany-ukraine-will-consider-restoring-its-nuclear-status-if-not-accepted-in-nato
Ukraine has (or had) a MIC capable of building out nuclear weapons very rapidly. Can’t say it has that anymore. Article is from April 2021.
I’m not arguing that such a position is extreme when your neighbour is Putin, but it does appear that even if Russia had gotten an outright refusal to admit Ukraine into NATO, a Ukraine actively pursuing nuclear weapons would have been even worse for their security.
MapleLeaf,
Back when the USSR collapsed, the Ukrainian did have Soviet nuclear missiles in their possession. They tried to break the codes and control measures, but couldn’t do it. Then they gave them up and soon joined the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Much of the hulabaloo about Ukraine thinking about developing nuclear weapons stems from comments made by Zelenskiy during the Munich Security Conference last February when he referred to the promises of the Budapest Memorandum. His remarks were either misconstrued or deliberately twisted
“Will NATO countries have to defend each other? I want to believe that the North Atlantic Treaty and Article 5 will be more effective than the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world’s third nuclear capability. We don’t have that weapon. We also have no security. We also do not have part of the territory of our state that is larger in area than Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium. And most importantly — we don’t have millions of our citizens. We don’t have all this. Therefore, we have something. The right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to ensuring security and peace guarantees.”
The radio interview remarks of Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk are more pointed, but it doesn’t state a Ukrainian policy of seeking nuclear status. In my opinion, his remarks do allude to the apparent truth that having a nuclear capability does seem to deter foreign aggression.
“Either we are part of an alliance like NATO, and we are helping to make Europe stronger so that Europe becomes more confident, or we have only one option – to arm ourselves, perhaps to think again about nuclear status. How else can we guarantee our security?”
What about the ‘regular joint exercises’ part and who controls them?
June 28, 2021, Operation Sea Breeze. 32 countries, 5.000 troops, 32 ships, 40 aircraft, 18 special operations involving special forces.
Controlled from Base A2637, naval installation, and radar station? Ochachov. A NATO Naval Operations Center. Acknowledged by NATO, wasn’t it?
What do we know about this place? Not much really. There are conflicting accounts in the press.
But it was said to control much of this very large fleet exercise? To what extent? And how? A satellite uplink? Everything being sent from there to somewhere else, somewhere larger and more capable, and then the big picture relayed back to individual ships?
Did it have a CIC? Surely it did. Radarscope operators, plotters, fighter direction officers there? NATO naval officers there? Surely. At least a few.
It is still very murky. And it was blatant. “Shameless”, one Russian naval officer said.
Everything will escalate.
Me, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We need a new Kelly Johnson Lockheed ‘skunkworks” KISS rule:
KEEP (The ) INTERNET SAFE, STUPID.
Tidewater,
Ochatov was a small naval base with some Ukrainian Naval patrol craft on the Sea of Azov. Hardly a threat to Russia. At least not near a threat to Russia as the Russian base at Sevastopol and the massive military buildup in Crimea is to Ukraine and other Black Sea nations. The Black Sea and even the Sea of Azov is not Russian territory any more than the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean are US territories.
In the week leading up to the Feb 22 speech and subsequent Feb 24 invasion, Zelensky visited Munich during an international security conference where Kamala Harris was present and spoke to him and this fact was publicized widely. If I recall correctly Nancy Pelosi was also there. That’s #2 and #3 in US presidential succession. At that Munich conference Zelensky spoke quite openly of Ukrainian intentions to aquire nuclear weapons in the case that security guarantees equal to those of NATO article 5 protection were not provided in short order. All very public. To any conspiratorially minded or overly security conscious person such as those who do occupy high positions in the Russian government that was an open threat. My personal read was that it was a slightly better than grade school level playground “clever” trick – putting potus-successors 2 and 3 there (with numerous oligarchs and powerbrokers, including those of other nuclear weapons powers UK and France) and having Zelensky say that. (It’s well known Ukraine has several, 16 I think, functioning Soviet era reactors, so no long lead time such as building reactors etc, and “smart” people would say, obviously, ok so they gave him the bomb already or will do so at their leisure). The con was obvious, or so I thought. Now Putin will have his excuse. Now he can justify his invasion, hands down, because it’s been heard loud and wide internationally that the President of Ukraine: a) Will get nuclear weapons if no security guarantees b) No security guarantees were forthcoming c) It sure looked like presidential level support was quietly offered and it’s otherwise a supremely reckless statement to make publicly. (I will omit, for popcorn fanatics, that 1) President Joe Biden was and is a very elderly person 2) All sorts of political dirt was circulating that he was senile and needed to be replaced urgently and 3) That the aforementioned ladies were also commonly smeared in the yellow press of the West as being power hungry, corrupt etc and that a soft coup may have been smiled upon by various peoples in powerful circles). It was a perfect setup in other words. According to a plausible point of view, the bait was in fact taken, or it was incrementally enough at that point in time to be intolerable other than to seize the opportunity it offered. For those who paid attention to the speech of the 22nd of Feb and especially the brief statements of the assorted government notables and powerful, at least one of whom was dressed down – Zelensky’s statements at the Munich conference were given prominent consideration. Of course it’s impossible to know exactly what happened and who did or didn’t influence Zelensky or much else.
Fourth and Long,
See my comment to MapleLeaf about the nucs. I quoted verbatim what Zelenskiy said to the Munich Conference. It was nothing about intentions to acquire or develop nuclear weapons.
Sorry sir, went on too long and forgot to finish my thought. Which was that the US administration wanted Putin to invade, hoped that he would, and the Munich conference performance was designed toward that desired end. I am still of several minds about the wisdom of Putin’s decision in light of my hypothesis. The preparation and execution do seem to have been poor, as TTG here and others elsewhere have spared no effort to document. Superficially that last seems unarguable.
Furthermore, whatever truth partially or otherwise there is to my observations above, I still maintain that it was not determinative. I subscribe to Professor Mearsheimer’s theses of “geopolitical realism” and his particular warnings regarding this instance. Namely that absent neutrality for Ukraine and given the ongoing arming and training of its forces, that the Russian leadership had no choice but to, in his words, wreck Ukraine, rendering it impotent to pose threats so deeply bordering Russia’s European heartlands. The US administration knew this intimately to be the case as well, or so one would think.
Seems that according to Professor Mearsheimer’s theses of “geopolitical realism,” Europe has no choice but to wreak Russia and render it impotent. Nations have to learn to live next to unfriendly neighbors without resorting to invading those neighbors.
TTG,
Regarding your response to me to look at your citation of Zurich speech of Zelensky in your response to Mapleleaf, allow me kindly to adduce this interpretation of said speech:
https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/14001201000618/Ukraine-Threaens-Rennce-Is-Nn-Nclear-Sas
Wherein find this text in the caption underneath the photo:
TEHRAN (FNA)- Ukraine could give up its decades-old pledge to be a non-nuclear nation and reverse the decision it took to give up its atomic weapons after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned.
Or this:
It is true that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his February 19 speech at the Munich Security Conference, questioned whether Ukraine was obligated to retain its non-nuclear status. He argued that Russia had grossly violated its security promises to Ukraine in the so-called Budapest Memorandum that set the terms for Ukraine eliminating the nuclear weapons it inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union. As a result, Zelensky argued, the whole “package of decisions” in that deal, including Ukraine’s non-nuclear status, were “in doubt.”
Which is found here:
https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/ukraine-building-nuclear-bomb-dangerous-nonsense
I apologize in advance for citing an Iranian source, as yes they have their own obvious motives for pointing out under which circumstances a party to a treaty, particularly on development of nuclear weapons, may decide it becomes legal for them to pursue such endeavors when clauses in said treaty no longer apply. And excellent debator that you are may further say that the best I could do in addition to that was cite another piece whose intention was to say that Zelensky really said no such thing. You will I hope accept my apologies further in saying that I haven’t now the time to find other sources but nonetheless maintain that this small evidence I have provided does establish that certain people did in fact conclude that his comments could be interpreted in the way that I proposed – otherwise why try, as did belfor, to refute something unnecessary of refutation?
Fourth and Long,
No need for apologies. Arguing our points is what this place is for. I’m not at all surprised on the Iranian interpretation of Zelenskiy’s remarks. They’re using their interpretation to point out the apparent truism that having nuclear weapons is the only real guarantee of not being attacked. And they have a point. This interpretation is just that, an interpretation. Zelenskiy’s exact words were recorded and they speak for themselves. The Budapest Memorandum, by itself, doesn’t guarantee Ukraine does not go nuclear. The NPT, however, does do that. Ukraine signed on to the NPT and has made no statement or effort to pull out of the NPT. Ukraine wants NATO membership, not nuclear weapons.
TTG,
In response to your use of symmetry to hoist Professor Mearsheimer on his own petard: Well said if not devilishly clever too. And I cite Barbara Ann too when she referenced someone else regarding Putin’s invasion, paraphrasing: It wasn’t just wrong (in the sense of being law-breaking) – it was a blunder.
It’s the Pearl Harbor dilemma. Japan was embargoed from oil supplies. By the United States. So it in desperation attacked the US territory at Pearl Harbor. Sealing its fate. And Japan had previously embarked on a criminally brutal invasion of China, which was a serious factor in favor of the decision to impose the oil embargo.
I don’t know what to say other than that nations don’t act always morally in service of what they perceive to be their national interests. And that history has lessons to teach as do philosophers of ethics. The world is long in tooth and claw, George Kennan and others such as Ambassador Matlock warned repeatedly and strenuously that expanded NATO as was done was a recipe for conflict if not disaster. Certainly our leaders (meaning US) know all about those things. It’s disingenuous to say otherwise. Treaties and borders are lovely things, but they are not everything. I like it probably less than you do.
Sir I agree 100% with your assessment of the situation. I am nost sure when did Vlad say that he will use mini nukes or give a hint to the general mobilization as the good colonel says “So, a lot less BS in Vlad’s speech; no symbolic mini-nuke, no general mobilization, just a lot of hot air.” This is what we have been hearing from the MSM all the while. By the way where is the esteemed Condi Rice when we really have a prospect of mushroom clouds all over our heads if things go south or some miscalculation on the part of Vlad or Nato or our own intelligence? Thanks
“a war that could have been avoided”. I knew on Jan. 1918 that this war would come. There was no NATO then but the Russo/Ukrano War was never about NATO. I knew again, in August 1991, that this war would come. You see Ukraine said it was independent of Russia, again! All countries have basic security requirements. Ukraine, for example has a security requirement not to be invaded. This war will end when Ukraine’s security is no longer threatened by Russia.
Indicators of infrastructure-denial escalation:
1. Unitary explosive warhead
2. Submunition explosive warhead
3. Submunition anti-personnel/anti-tank mine / delayed-explosive warhead
4. Non-persistent chemical
5. Persistent chemical / explosive-radiological
6. Nuclear
It appears that Russia is mostly at step 1, maybe step 2 some places. Media reporting has little details on the warheads.
Russia had as much to fear from NATO as America had to fear from North Vietnam, nothing. Putin was co-opted in to invading to serve larger NWO goals.
NATO is an agglomeration of some of the strongest economic, industrial and military countries with enormous influence and capabilities and a history of regime change operations. They are also on Russia’s border.
How do you compare that threat level with North Vietnam 60 years ago ?
zzmajcek
There was no threat to us, fathead.
@zmajcek
You give NATO a great deal of undue credit.
I’ve had the same thought but dismissed it. This article by Mark Galeotti mentioned in this message is very interesting:
Steroid rage is a perceptive hypothesis. His right shoulder was drooping noticably. I have a similar condition and it is really horrible, but no steroids. Too pat an explanation though. I think his system has been infiltrated and it’s been sold out as in the eighties. Plus Galeotti is a (rather brilliant) limey spook. He’s written some fascinating stuff on the relationship between crime and state in Ru – see his book and YouTube lectures on the Vor V Zakone. A codependency evolved over the years between state officials and the crooks they depended on to snitch and subvert. Similar to here, but different. So he presumably has sources. It’s an interesting article.
https://www.intellinews.com/stolypin-the-sick-man-of-europe-243657/
Interesting that Galeotti’s title for this article brings up Stolypin, who was assassinated.
Yes it is, but he uses that handle frequently. Example:
https://www.intellinews.com/stolypin-talk-of-renewed-war-in-ukraine-likely-russian-coercive-diplomacy-but-worrying-for-all-that-207325/
Picked at random that one. He uses it on intellinews and twitter AFAIK. I guess he identifies.
“Russia had as much to fear from NATO as America had to fear from North Vietnam, nothing.”
That is what NATO told Gaddafi shortly before NATO proxies killed Gaddafi on live TV with a bayonet you know where.
I can’t do better than that. Thanks
@James
If you’re equating Libya to Russia, I’m not sure what to say.
Things fall apart? Things stop working?
I am afraid that could not just be something peculiarly Russian. On or about April 27, in France, at at least three separate locations, these being small communities miles apart, at four a.m, at ten-minute intervals, coordinated attacks were made on internet fibre optic cables belonging to ISP Free and SPR cable which affected parts of France hundreds of miles away. Not only was internet traffic disrupted in the Ile de France region around Paris; Strasbourg, some three hundred miles east of Paris, also suffered damage; so did Lyon, a distance of two hundred and eighty miles, and Grenoble some three hundred and fifty- eight miles distant. This would be like internet traffic –including commercial data transfer–being disrupted between Richmond, Virginia, and New York City. Internet security officials in France said that this was an historic first: “This sort of incident at this scale never happens.”
Was this a warning?
There has been intense media speculation in France that the firing of Gen. Eric Vidaud, head of the DRM, in April, with no explanation, was because France has gotten involved too deeply in Ukraine, perhaps by the use of a French missile with French operators in the sinking of the Moskva; anyway, that there has been a grave failure in the French secret intelligence world. Russia knows this and Russia is sending warnings of what is to come…
There have been other warnings off of Norway. In January, the backup fiber optic cable to the Svalsat satellite antenna farm at Spitzbergen in the Svalbard archipelago was cut. This is the largest satellite downlink in the world. Norwegian intelligence and police have stated that the disruption was manmade. And it is evident that the perpetrators knew that the cables were redundant.
You also need a submarine to do this kind of thing.
I used to enjoy the product from Raw Farm called “Raw Butter.”
https://www.thebullvine.com/news/deeply-devastated-fresno-county-raw-milk-dairy-loses-creamery-to-blaze-owner-says/
Later, more reports of us food production facilities being destroyed, one way or another: fires, coupla airplane crashes, you know, usual stuff right -?
From Tucker Carlson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tbtKBgok9I
And from Ice Age farmer:
Well, just go here to learn more about the war on food we (you and me) eat
http://69.162.109.250/
Sir,
His speech makes me think he might refrain from using nukes, that he’s not a total madman. I only hope. Maybe he will hang his hat on defeating the Azovs if so.
When this finally ends many on here will understand warfare. I knew the day I flew into Afghanistan I was on the losing side. I knew it from DAY ONE. Nobody else wanted to admit it. THE Ucranium is RUINED. It will become scorched earth the longer this goes on. Russia does not care. The war was going to happen regardless. Better it does outside Russia’s border. Create a deeper buffer. They don’t have to win. Just keep a real scorched earthed buffer. No more poking. The official bloodland is established.
Babeltuap –
The bloodlands were established long ago by Stalin and Hitler.
Putin is just trying to follow their lead.
The bloodland was established in 1918 by Lenin. Those naughty Ukrainians got uppity and said they were free men! Stalin put a punctuation mark on it during Holodomore. But the Ukrainians, annoying what!, again professed independence in ’91. This conflict precedes NATO. Russia, its just got to dominate.
A video of Ukraine Soldiers on the front line. Take it for what it is or take it for whatever you want it to be:
https://youtu.be/JmGlbK5YIak?t=2
Seen and listened to the video a few days ago, but didn’t have your courage to post it in order not to listen to commentaries such as – hear them out, they don’t want to quit fighting nor are they mourning their dead, they just want better equipment.
Babeltuap & Jovan –
Powerful indictment. Could be true, if they are a Territorial Defense Force unit as it appears. Those TDF units do not have the same gear as the regulars. I have to ask some questions though.
1 – Why are they speaking in Russian instead of Ukrainian? Especially since Vinnitsiya is in Western Ukraine where many commenters here have been saying there are no Russian speaker, only Banderite Ukrainian speakers.
2 – Who is the guy in the black sweater doing all the talking? And why is his tactical vest and kit a bit different from the others?
3 – Why is he saying that front ballistic plate is homemade? It looks more like a standard issue. I’m no expert though, our Nam era vests used laminated fiberglass plates. What did you use in Afghanistan?
4 – Why no blue or yellow arm or leg bands that most Ukrainian soldiers wear to identify themselves? Are they POWs?
5 – What is that faint “@holodniyyar” ticker that is crawling around the video? Holodniy Yar (aka Kholdnyi Yar) is the honorific of Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade, a regular army unit. What do they have to do with a territorial militia? Unless perhaps the Vinnitsiya outfit was attached to them?
6 – Why at the end of the video, minute 4:53, does a golden two-headed eagle superimposed over a “Z” appear? That is definitely Russian symbology, not Ukrainian. Note that the video producer is listed as R&U Videos, with a telegram channel @ruvidz and a twitter channel @r_u_vid. Both are notorious for their Russian bias. They produced a similar video about the Ukrainian 79th Air Assault Brigade a while back.
But maybe I’m paranoid. It might still be true. Best to take things like this with a grain of salt though.
I’ll try to answer a few:
1) All Ukrainians more or less speak Russian and especially the older ones (the Soviet Union was dismantled 30 years ago). For the post soviet space, Russian was and is some kind of lingua franca. All telegram channels that have a pro-Ukraine and anti-Russian stance use Russian It’s kind of a paradox since every Ukrainian regime since 2014 discriminated Russian speaking Ukrainians and suppressed the Russian language (even Zelensky uses Russian more often).
4) They are not POW’s and they retreated (or abandoned their positions, I’m not sure). Russian channels say that these soldiers have been later jailed because of this video, but take it with the mentioned grain of salt.
5) It’s just a pro-Ukrainian and anti Russian telegram channel called – @holodniyyar who posted it somewhere.
6) Antoher Russian telegram channel put this on youtube (@ruvids) and he maybe took it from the mentioned @holodniyyar. Many Russian channels share this video.
PS I think they are not a TDF unit, because at the time of the video the Ukrainian regime didn’t send territorial defense units to different parts of Ukraine. It started later.
Jovan P,
Territorial Defense Force units operate in their home territories. That’s the whole point of the TDF, they are local. Only recently did Kyiv make the decision allowing TDF unit to be deployed outside their home territories.
Jovan –
1 – Sure, most Ukrainians are multilingual. But if they wanted to get the message out to their Defense Dept in Kiev or to the Ukrainian people wouldn’t they have spoken in Ukrainian? The fact that they spoke Russian seems to me that the message was for the Russians or for the Donbas separatists.
4 – How can you be sure they are not POWs? Yup, they are carrying weapons, but are they loaded?
5 – @holodniyyar telegram channel may or may not be legit. But regardless anyone can post to it. Even you or I.
6 – See number 5. This could have been posted to the @holodniyyar telegram channel by the Antoher you mention, instead of copied from it.
PS – I think they might well be TDF. Ukrainian Parliament officially greenlighted TDF units to fight outside their assigned regions a week ago on 3 May. That video was posted on 8 May. Plus as far as I can determine Regular Ukrainian Army units do not have so-called ‘Rifle Battalions’. According to wiki: “Each Ukrainian oblast is covered by its own Territorial Defence Zone, which commands one separate territorial defence brigade and one separate rifle battalion of higher mobility and readiness.
As basically a French “nobody” and NOT an obvious Russian IO operation I would nevertheless appreciate an argumented rebuttal of Scott Ritter latest video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yazZjf9akWE
jld,
Not a full blown rebuttal, but a quick comment.
Ritter paints Russia as an imminent threat to Finland fully capable and apparently willing to destroy Finland. Ritter is alright with that. I don’t know why. He certainly doesn’t approve of US military adventurism and is quite right in that disapproval. Yet he is fine with Russian aggression and threat of aggression against her neighbors. Russia is now learning that she shouldn’t let her alligator mouth overload her hummingbird ass. Ritter doesn’t see that.
Finland has a decent military defense capability based on the strategy of total defense which has swept the Baltics and is now doing quite well in Ukraine. NATO would be lucky to have Finland in its ranks. NATO’s collective defense guarantees would enhance Finland’s total defense strategy. In my opinion it would deter Russian aggression rather than encourage it. At some point Russia must learn that the empire is gone and her neighbors don’t trust her.
“no general mobilization”
So Putin didn´t do what he never said he was going to do. Doesn´t that make the one claiming he was going to do that, the ones blowing hot air? If they keep getting things wrong, should we not start to doubt what they say until they start getting things right?
“Poor Vlad, nothing works” has another manifestation. Just before the parade he apparently learnt that his gymnast mistress is pregnant.
English Outsider :Putin’s not very good at explaining stuff …… He didn’t do much of a job in this Victory Day speech either. He failed to explain properly why the Russians invaded.”
This is from a post by Gilbert Doctorow who attended the 9th May celebrations in St Petersburg “Meanwhile, Russian observers, such as the political scientist who offered his appreciation of the speech on Business FM radio St Petersburg this morning, explain that by tradition a presidential address during May 9th celebrations is not the format for announcing decisions with respect to military operations. “
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/05/10/march-of-the-immortal-regiment-st-petersburg-2022-impressions-of-a-participant/
Does this tweet show?
This is real world unspun data from the Ukrainian war zone. It uses NASA fire detecting sattelite data which can detect exploding shells. So it is an objective, give or take a few natural first, picture of the war. Russian activity surged on the 5th May and collapsed on the 9th. Due to Twitter limitations I have showen 6, 7, 8 May plus 24 hours ending on 11th. From this, I have concluded, to my surprise, that the Ukrainians have been more truthful about the military situation than Russan sources. I monitor the Russian foreign and defence ministries, the general government site, RT, the local newspaper in Saratov and others. Seems the UK MoD might be the best site if somewhat willing to err on the side of Russian capability.
https://twitter.com/PCOwen_a/status/1524435497791205377?s=20&t=56g_F_TO_nNrrB65MAmqYA