“Ukrainian partisans appear to have launched a campaign of assassinations of pro-Russian officials in occupied Kherson ahead of a planned offensive to recapture the region.
On Saturday, Vitaly Gur, the Moscow-installed deputy head of the town of Nova Kakhovka, near Kherson, was shot as he stepped out of his apartment block. He died on his way to hospital in Crimea, according to Russian media.
Investigators reportedly found discarded bullet casings from a Makarov semi-automatic pistol near Gur’s house. The reliable Makarov pistol was the standard-issue sidearm for the Soviet military, KGB agents and police.
“He has died, as far as I know,” said Vladimir Leontiev, head of the pro-Russia collaborator Kherson region government. “He was in hospital. Military doctors tried to save his life.”
Nova Kakhovka, a town of around 45,000 people on the southern bank of the River Dnipro, is a vital hub for Russian efforts to resupply the city of Kherson, 35 miles further downstream on the northern bank of the river.
Ukrainians step up attacks on pro-Russians
It comes a day after the pro-Russia mayor of the city suddenly fell so ill that he had to be put into an induced coma. Vladimir Saldo was sent to Crimea and later flown to the Sklifosovsky Emergency Research Institute in Moscow for toxicology tests.
Russian news reports differed on what Mr Saldo was suffering from. Some reported that he had suffered a stroke, others that he was ill with Covid. Opposition media said he had been poisoned.
Over the past couple of months, saboteurs and assassins have increased their attacks in the Kherson region.
In June, car bombs killed the collaborator head of its prison service and a senior pro-Russian official in the civilian government. In July, a bomb blew up a car with two policemen inside, reportedly killing one.
The assassinations come as Ukraine gears up for an offensive to retake the strategic region. Russian forces captured the area, which lies next to Crimea, without a fight in the first few days of the war.”
Comment: This increase in partisan activity probably reflects the presence of US Special Forces soldiers (Green Berets) advising and training. This is our preferred mode of operation. It is why we were created. DOL. pl
Pro-Russian officials ‘assassinated’ in Kherson ahead of Ukraine offensive (telegraph.co.uk)
Vive la Résistance
Without claiming the moral high ground because I have family who were in the resistance during the Second World War, fighting the ‘Banderite’, Dutch and German fascists occupying Europe and large swats of Russia, allow me to point out that they (those people I know personally) didn’t kill unarmed civil servants. They were far braver than that.
While armed operatives not wearing a uniform, and working behind enemy lines, are considered terrorists, and are not protected by the Geneva conventions, there are distinctive differences. The ‘Gladio’ operatives employed by NATO within Europe to prevent the rise of communism, bombed railway stations (Bologna), killed a civil servant who brokered a political cooperation between communists and the ruling Catholic party (Aldo Moro), and shot random civilians at the ‘Delhaize’ supermarket in Belgium, to make the people beg for a ‘strong man’. Posing as ‘left wing’ terrorists, or criminal gangs.
The resistance within occupied Europe during the Second World War, in general, were a pretty brave lot, ambushing armed patrols, killing generals, sabotaging crucial infrastructure, robbing centers which contained essential paperwork for the Holocaust, or food-stamps in order to provide for the people in hiding. And they hid people to save them from being deported, or being recruited in the workforce the Germans needed as replacement for those young men who were sent off to conquer Russia.
Calling each and every assassin a ‘freedom fighter’ took us to places we never wanted to go already. It made us cheer for Al Qaida, provide them with funds and weapons. I feel that was a serious error. We desperately need some sort of selection process to determine what a terrorist is after, before cheering him or her along. Better still, we shouldn’t project our own values on people and countries ‘lightyears’ from where we ourselves are struggling to make ends meet. Less so if our solidarity will leave us losing everything we hold dear, as our own country is wasting valuable resources on fighting wars on the other end of the planet. Within the matrix of Cipolla I referred you to previously, that would be the ‘Helpless’ or ‘Hapless’ people. Always looking for a chance to help others, no questions asked, forgetting about their own needs. The ‘Wir Schaffen Das!’-crowd George Soros and the government of my country is supporting financially, welcoming everyone as long as they are willing to say ’thank you’ while we are emptying our pockets to save their sorry ass. We need more intelligent solutions. And we need them in a hurry!
pl,
I’m not convinced of actual USSF presence behind the lines in Kherson, but the mark of our training and advising of Ukrainian SOF in the fine art of UW is obvious. We have been doing this for years now and the concept is firmly embedded in Ukrainian national defense doctrine and strategy. But the presence of retired and separated Green Beret veterans in the thick of the fighting is a given. There is a unit of foreign SF fighters, a regiment, organized immediately after the invasion by the Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate from the stream of foreign volunteers coming into country.
However, I would not be surprised at all if there was a liaison element of SF officers and NCOs embedded within the Ukrainian SOF command. I’d be more surprised if this was not the case. They’d most likely be wearing Ukrainian uniforms and speaking Ukrainian while harboring strong yearnings to be in the thick of it with their Ukrainian SOF brethren and the partisans of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts. DOL.
Yes, but how effective is it?
Yes, the various assassinations and coups to keep our third world peons in line have been effective, except when they are not and just builds resistance. It generates fear, but not respect. This, along with the Amnesty report that squeaked past the censors, suggests the Ukrainians are not very forgiving to anyone not toeing the line, which doesn’t encourage those already on the Russian side of the line to want to go back to being Ukrainian and act on that regard.
John Merryman,
These are Quislings being assassinated, Quislings and apparatchiks from Moscow. These assassinations are stymying Russian efforts to incorporate Ukrainian territory into Russia with a trumped up referendum. The activities of Ukrainian SOF and partisans has also caused the cancellation of a recently planned Russian solidarity celebration in Kherson. A lot of the Russian-appointed apparatchiks fled to Crimea with their families to save their hides. The interdiction of the Dnieper bridges hastened their flight. Слава Україні!
TTG,
I realize that your Eastern European heritage gives you a negative perception of anything Russian, but it seems that fault line between east and west runs through Ukraine, such that those on the eastern side are not only physically close to Russia, but likely have far more interrelations and connections, than those on the western side. While I might not know much about the particularities, I do know enough about basic human nature to know these sorts of situations are not as black and white as some people would prefer. If you are unable to understand such nuances, I can appreciate that, but it doesn’t mean I would come to you for an objective reading of the situation.
JM doesn’t it just make you shake your head in amazement over the inability of some Lithuanians to offer an objective reading of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why oh why do so many Balts find it hard to be more, well, objective. You know about human nature so maybe you think it is just in the Baltic nature to be biased against Russia?
Bill Roche,
You see the objective truth yourself in “the current Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Balts just see it more clearly after experiencing decades of Russian invasion and occupation in all its hideous glory.
“These assassinations are stymying Russian efforts to incorporate Ukrainian territory into Russia with a trumped up referendum.”
How, exactly? Have the referendums been cancelled?
The Russians are not trying to incorporate Ukrainian territory with a referendum, trumped up or otherwise. They are doing that by conducting military operations against the AFU. The death of a local official has no bearing on the success or failure of those operations.
The two eastern oblasts appear to have settled the independent status of the DPR and LPR by declaring their independence, the success of which action is being guaranteed by said Russian operations.
Whether referendums are necessary is another question. The US jammed Kosovo “independence” down the throats of the Serbians without bothering with no stinkin’ referendum so I don’t know why the morons in control of the USG would have any objections if the Russians merely point out the two oblast just declared their independence. Endsky of storysky.
I don’t care how many solidarity celebrations are canceled or how many apparatchiki flee to the Bahamas. What is going on now is a meat grinder war in which Russia will soon prevail. And the assassins at work are the scum of the earth, agents of a thug regime.
Quislings were people who supported Nazi occupation.
Your comparison is totally inapt.
An apt comparison is to compare
these morally reprehensible actions to
the killing by Vietcong assassins of the RVN officials, and their families, of people who opposed Communism.
Both reprehensible acts.
These are terrible tactics, creating a terrible precedent.
“What goes around, comes around.”
In support of a vile, George Soros-backed, antidemocratic
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-law-bans-pro-russia-parties-zelenskiy-signs/31849737.html
regime.
Your moral certainty about who is right and who is wrong in this intra-Slav conflict seems quite excessive.
“Слава Україні”?
At the expense of America?
No thanks.
We need to work with Russia,
in the American national interest.
kh
INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF A SOVEREIGN STATE IS NOTHING TO YOU I SEE. HOW ABOUT WE TAKE BAJA CALIFORNIA? IS THAT ALL RIGHT BY YOU? IN VN VC AGITPROP CADRES CONDUCTED “PEOPLE’S TRIALS” OF SMALL LANDHOLDERS, MAYORS, POSTMEN, ETC. OUT IN THE WOODS FOR “CRIMES AGAINST THE PEOPLE” THEY WOULD CONDEMN TO DEATH, HAVE THE CONVICTED DIG THEIR OWN GRAVES AND STAD IN THEM WHILE THE VILLAGERS BEAT THEM TO DEATH. YOU THINK THAT IS OK? YOU ARE A MORALLY BANKRUPT ASS. I GAVE EQUAL JUSTICE TO THE AGITPROP PEOPLE. I WISH I COULD HAVE DONE MORE.
Colonel, you asked:
“YOU THINK THAT IS OK?”
What I said above, about the acts I described, was
that they are “Both reprehensible acts.”
(“Both” referred to both sets of assassinations,
those by the VC and those in Ukraine.)
The only way I can make sense of your question is that you have somehow misread or misinterpreted my original statement.
For explicitness, let me say that
I ENTIRELY AGREE WITH YOU
in condemning the acts of the “VC AGITPROP CADRES” that you described above.
Do you still think I am “A MORALLY BANKRUPT ASS”?
What I find inexplicable is the evident combination of
1. your opposition to the acts of the VC with
2. support for assassinations of pro-Russian civilians in Ukraine.
E g., your statement
“This is our preferred mode of operation.”
Am I misinterpreting you?
And BTW, what is “DOL”?
Thank you.
“De Opresso Liber” Would you have sniped VC agitprop cadres conducting trials as I did? One, shot, one kill in the dark. Me, and two or three Montagnards for close in security while I got my shot right. I consider these killings to be highly moral acts of war in defense of the people of Vietnam. This is recounted in my memoir which was cleared by the interagency including the DoD IG and General Counsel. You? Would you have fought for US independence?
KH
I was ALWAYS very careful to see to it that VC and NVA SOLDIERS were treated in accord with US and international law.
Neatly tied the situation in a bow, you did… the war is an inter-slav conflict. No, it is an invasion by one country against another. Thuggery most foul committed by the Ukrainians “forgets” who started the killing and destruction. Ukrainian citizens who support the Russian invasion of Ukraine are quislings. Being a partisan has always had dangers. I have always advocated working w/and being friends with Russia. But not when they invade, kill, and destroy their neighbor. An inter-slav conflict is not what we are witnessing in Ukraine. We are witnessing a war started by Russia on Ukraine. That’s worth remembering as a starting point.
BR
Are you saying that US soldiers in Iraq (and their collaborators) were also fair game because the US (to use your words) invaded, killed, destroyed and occupied a country that did not attack it or threaten it in any meaningful way ?
borko,
US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan were fair game because they were combatants in a combat zone.
Assassination of city officials serves no military purpose. It’s pure terrorism.
Anything is possible in these base times but I doubt that SF’s preferred mode of operation includes that. It stinks more of the par-for-the-course Ukrainian thuggery
Richard Ong,
See my reply to John Merryman.
Dear Richard Ong,
What part of ‘traitors hang’ do you not get? To rid the body of sickness, the disease must be eradicated. Have you ever had an infection? That’s how it works.
When was it determined that summary execution is the norm in Ukraine? Some fanatic with a pistol can just kill someone he thinks is a “traitor”? The designation of someone as a “traitor”and killing him are not a military responsibility. That is murder.
There is no military purpose in killing a civilian. None.
The only objective of such assassinations is to terrorize or intimidate the locals. No different from locking civilians in a church and setting it on fire.
It’s up to the courts to determine what laws were broken.
Richard Ong
Justice in an occupied territory necessarily takes on a different character, as the courts themselves are de facto under occupation by the enemy. Justice in such circumstances therefore operates on as wide a spectrum as does collaboration. High profile collaborators facilitate military occupation and ought to expect a summary form of justice. That there will inevitably be episodes of unjust extrajudicial killing does not obviate the necessity for resistance of every kind, it is merely a tragedy of war.
Have you ever lived in a liberated territory? I have and the families of those who collaborated still carry the stain after 3 generations. Those who resisted will be remembered for many more.
A mayor plays no part in the military contest to decide control of territory. That is what is happening. There is no occupation to be facilitated. Murder of ten or 20 or 100 civilians, officials or otherwise, does nothing to impede the Russian operations that have no need for licenses, approvals, permits, liquor licenses, day care inspection, or zoning waivers.
At such time as the Russians secure whatever territory it is their intention to occupy then it is up to the civilian authorities to enforce the laws and repair the roads. You assume that the local authorities will be part of an enemy regime but that is almost certainly incorrect. The Donbas region is apparently heavily ethnic Russian and it’s citizens have clearly wished to be part of Russia. The enemy regime to those people has been the government of Ukraine that killed 14,000 of them with artillery and were preparing to kill more.
We’re the Ukrainians to prevail they would have to re-establish civil government in their own way but heaven help the locals in that event. My impression is that they are a vile bunch and our association with them is a stain on our honor.
Perhaps you were in France. The communists we’re responsible for thousands if not tens of thousands of extra-judicial murders after VE Day and you can be sure it was according to the usual grotesque communist viciousness and arbitrariness. As for the women who were publicly humiliated that has always struck me ignoble. Grant was magnanimous in victory and it seems to me that human weakness in matters of the heart should likewise have been magnanimously overlooked.
There are few circumstances where anyone should be subjected to summary justice. Vigilante justice is appropriate when there is no civil authority or it is terminally ineffective.
Richard Ong,
A traitorous mayor aiding the invader to incorporate Kherson into the RF plays a very important role in the contest to decide control of territory. Another assassinated official was an apparatchik from Russia actively arranging for the kidnapping of Ukrainian children. These people make their choices in a struggle for national survival and best be prepared to pay the price for their choices.
“Sickness” and “infection” are medical terms.
To apply them to political differences requires a totally subjective judgement.
Cobo,
Have you ever heard of the term, “autoimmune disorder?”
You are right of course. When the first Ukrainian soldiers crossed the border into Russia and began destroying its cities and killing its people they became Zelinskyy’s thugs. But he never sent soldiers into Russia. The thugs were in Moscow. It seems some choose to forget that Russia started the war, Russia attacked, Ukraine is the victim. The invasion, destruction, and brutality all began in Moscow.
I suppose such activities are a simple and cost-effective way of keeping everyone’s attention fixated on the idea of The Great Kherson Offensive than never seems to actually, you know, happen.
Reminds me of a Samuel Beckett, though I can’t recall the name…..
Still, look over here! That’s right, over here!
Meanwhile, further to the east: Pisky has fallen, and Russian troops have entered Bahkmut. It will fall in a week or two.
But let’s not discuss that. Kherson. Kherson. Kherson.
Annnnnnnny day now. Annnnnnnny day.
silly
shallow
wpo
NOTHING CAN BEAT THE CRAVEN SUBMISSION OF THE REAL “SURRENDER MONKEYS.”
PAT LANG
I ASK ALL YOU SOFTIES. IF KHERSIN WERE IN OCCUPIED FRANCE IN 1943, WOULD YOUR RULE ABOUT THE SANCTITY OF CIVILIAN OFFICIALS APPLY TO FRENCH OFFICIALS HELPING THE GERMANS RULE FRANCE ANDEXPORT PEOPLE TO SLAVE LABOR AND/OR DEATH/
Nothing I posted has any relation to your all-caps retorts.
Not. A. Single. Word.
I said what I said: stories such as this are promulgated in the press in order to distract attention away from events in Donbass.
From a REAL offensive in Donbass that is ongoing, and towards a NON-EXISTANT offensive in Kherson that hasn’t started and is unlikely to start.
That’s what I said, and so that’s what I meant.
I didn’t advocate that Zelensky surrenders.
I didn’t advocate quislings are sacrosanct.
I said what I said, which is that both TTG and you have taken your eye off the ball.
WPO
I was ill and it was easier to turn caps on and type.
WPO –
Some RU troops have reached Pisky, but it had not yet fallen at the time of your comment. Maybe today or tomorrow, but you are jumping the gun. You can’t believe anything that the Putin fanboys say.
And Bakhmut is still being shelled by the DPR/RU fascists as we speak. No way they have entered that city yet. Will they? Maybe, but at great cost. More gifts of a Lada to Russian mothers for the death of their son. The Russian Army is destroying itself for Putin’s vanity.
Your catchphrase of “Annnnnnnny day now Annnnnnnny day” pertains more to the huge cauldron that ‘b’ and ‘rybar’ and other Putin apologists have been claiming now for five months or more. When is that going to happen?
Meanwhile, Ukrainian partizans are softening up both RU troops and their collaborators in the occupied areas. Carrying on in the great tradition of WW2 Soviet partizans, most of whom were Ukrainians, Belarussians, and Balts
Leith, you appear to be 48 hours behind the times.
ISW assessment of August 7th gave grudging credence to the idea that Pisky was under Russian control.
Their assessment of August 8th conceded the point, as it had become impossible to deny it any further (though, I’ll point out, the Ukrainian General Staff continued to deny it and, therefore, so do you).
Fancy being slower than Freddie Kagan to recognize, however grudgingly, that a battle hasn’t gone Ukraine’s way.
“No way they have entered that city yet.”
Donetsk forces have already entered Bakhmut.
“Will they? Maybe, but at great cost.”
If the Ukrainian General Staff says so then that must be true.
There is this French guy, Adrien Bocquet who supposedly volunteered in Ukraine to do humanitarian work. Among other things, he claims to have been in Bucha and witnessed the Azov guys unloading corpses and laying them on the ground in a preparation for a false flag plant.
here’s the interview he gave to a French Sud Radio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoKnhXnp-Zk
It seems unlikely to me that Azov would let some random French guy witness such an operation.
In fact there is a site that thinks this a complete fake.
https://www.stopfake.org/en/how-the-frenchman-adrien-bocquet-whitewashed-russian-war-crimes-in-bucha/
Has any of the French speaking members of this forum seen this podcast? Is this guy full of **** ?
Borko what I said earlier was that it is necessary for some to be reminded that Russia was the aggressor, attacked Ukraine, destroyed its cities and killed its people. Even Russophiles need to admit that as a starting point. I doubt you need a geography lesson from me but we were talking about Ukraine, not Iraq. However if you’d like to talk about the American invasion of Iraq by Bush the II, I said then we never should have done it, it was wrong, and it brought America much sorrow. It was an incredibly stupid move by a stupid man. But the year is 2022 and this spring the Russian Army attacked a neighbor w/o provocation. Partisans knowingly “play w/fire” w/i a theater of war. This has ever been so.
BR
I’m not disputing your claim that Russia invaded Ukraine and is
causing much harm. Likewise I agree that top officials in the occupied regions of Ukraine are fair game for partisan activity.
What I’m interested to see if you are willing to apply the same thinking when it is the US boys and girls that come home dead and maimed because of the partisan activity in places like Iraq.
The US was the aggressor in Iraq yet it never suffered the same consequences as Russia is today. No sanctions, no isolation, expulsion from Swift, sporting events etc. Not even close.
Btw, how would you describe the legal status of US forces in Syria today, especially those forces that deny the Syrian government access to its oil fields in the east of the country ?
Do you support partisan activity against these US forces by those inside Syria that consider them a foreign invader and occupier ?
I am happy to talk about Iraq and Syria although the conversation was about Ukraine dealing w/partisans actively involved in undermining the security of Ukraine and had nothing to do w/American involvement in the M.E. I already told you I was against US invasion of Iraq. I don’t think I could have been more clear. I was equally against US involvement in Syria. The US was in both countries as an invader and occupier. This was wrong. Is there more I can add to help you understand my view?
INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF A SOVEREIGN STATE IS NOTHING TO YOU I SEE. HOW ABOUT WE (INVADE AND OCCUPY IRAQ?)
For Americans to hold forth that Russia doing this is, “The supreme international crime” (Quote from Justice Jackson on Nurnberg), is just a tad hypocritical when one considers we went thousands of miles from our borders and our continent to attack Iraq while Russia at least attacked an intimate neighbor.
APols
I am on record as having opposed the invasion of Iraq ad the occupation throughout.
@Pat Lang: I have followed you since the inception of the Iraq war and I recall your position on it. So I didn’t mean you in my recent remark. I referred to a common American attitude, displayed by most pundits.
@ TTG: “Supreme international crime” is not my words; it’s a quote. Do you know who Justice Jackson was?
A. Pols,
Supreme international crime? No, but an international crime nonetheless.
The bottomline is whether killings by people who claim to act on behalf of the people can count on the support of those people. It is no secret that many Ukrainians despised the corrupt clique in Kiev. To argue that those in Moscow are worse may not register if the civil servants put in place were seen as an improvement, or at least not worse. I cannot be the judge of that either way, since I do not live in the area. But it struck me that the Russians killed a grain-tycoon recently, which was kind of odd, unless this tycoon was seen as part of the problem people in the south of Ukraine were complaining about, when they listed corruption of well-placed individuals as something stifling economic growth in this country which could have been one of the richest in Europe without ‘rent-seekers’ killing the market, only enriching themselves, while leaving the people with the tab for military recklessness, seeking a confrontation with a powerful neighbor.
NATO has a reputation of blowing it when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of the people in countries they invade. They invariably think that they will be welcomed as liberators, and they can’t figure out why, in the end, they are made to abandon the project, because they happened to serve the wrong kind of people. This Afghan stooge took off from Kabul with truckloads of cash, and he was out of the country before everybody else. ‘But he won the elections!’ No he didn’t. He won a beauty contest between carefully groomed ‘partners’ acceptable to NATO. Same in Kiev after 2014. It doesn’t work out.
Jake,
“It is no secret that many Ukrainians despised the corrupt clique in Kiev.”
It’s even less of a secret that a vast and growing majority of Ukrainians despise Moscow and the actions of her armies.
I had a six month TDY in Helsinki in ’70. I was in civies and while walking with a Finnish friend on Mannerheim Blvd three Soviet soldiers in uniform approached. “Just be calm and do what we all do” he said. The three Russians approached and every Finn turned away from them and faced the street. I did likewise. “My friend, Finns don’t forget ’40 but we are in no position to do anything about it today”. Putin’s Great Ukrainian Adventure has reminded Russia’s neighbors why they don’t like her. Finns, Balts, and Slavs know “Mother’s” nature can be unkind, and domineering. Putin thought he could roll up Ukraine and frighten the neighborhood. Finland joining NATO demonstrates Russia frightened them all right.
Bill, personal experiences are a bitch when you project them onto the general population. I never had a similar experience in Finland, of open disgust for Russians, in or out of uniform. Worse, from your perspective, I was in St Petersburg when it was still called Leningrad, under Soviet rule, and the streets and hotels were crawling with people from Finland, and Sweden. And yes, mainly because of the cheap vodka, because these Scandinavian people sure love their booze! Which they had in common with the Russians back then.
Moreover, Finland had plenty of long term contracts with Russia, and exports between the countries have been booming both ways. Exports of Russian goods and services grew at over 5% per year during the past twentyfive years.
I related an experience I had in downtown Helsinki in the fall of ’70 to show that Finns (at least then, after all it was over 50 years ago) d/n like the Winter War imposed upon a peaceful Finland. This is similar to Russia’s invasion of non threatening Ukraine.
Commerce tends to grow when one party does not invade the other. It must cause you to question why Finland would choose to join NATO when it was enjoying a 5% growth in goods and services (more financial capitalism?) with Russia. But Finland did. “Memories, memories, dreams of days gone by”, are lyrics to an old victorian era piano song. Finland seems still (in 2022) to have some memories of 1940.
Mr. Roche, surely you just about Ukraine being non-threatening.
It has been crawling with NATO trainers for about a decade and today I read that total US aid to Ukraine is short of $12 billion. NATO has relentlessly expanded eastward and Mr. Putin pointedly asked against whom is this expansion directed?
Romania has permitted the stationing of a radar ostensibly to be used to detect missile launches from Iran. I am not making this up. Needless to say, that radar and its accompanying NATO missile battery(ies) obviously. . . obviously. . . . have profound implications v-a-v a first strike against Russia because a retaliatory strike could be neutralized by the Romanian battery — and the Polish one.
The problem with that assertion is that it’s unlikely Russian retaliatory assets would be concentrated close to the western borders of Russia. Still, the radar and batteries are there and the NATO lies about them flow like water.
Russians request to establish a new security arrangement were reasonable given their hideously painful experience with invasion from the west and the abandonment of communism notwithstanding the pronouncements of inveterate cold warriors who think ketchup is a communist delicacy.
It, the request, was contemptuously dismissed by the pussy willow of a SoS that we have. What could have possibly convinced the Russians that they are dealing with honorable people devoted to peace?
Should the Russians, having asked, “Who’s there?”, have been satisfied with the reply, “Just us chickens, boss”?
TTG,
Like I wrote: ‘I cannot be the judge of that either way, since I do not live in the area.’
The drift of my comment is that only time will tell which ‘party’, the Russians or NATO will be most successful in convincing the population of their good intentions. In my mind, a party which ‘provides’ basic needs and a perspective of greater personal wealth is usually more successful, than a party which relies on nationalistic sentiments. In Ukraine many living in the east and south of Ukraine, generating 80% of GDP, loathed the kleptocrats based in the western and northern parts, and abroad, or parking their money in tax-havens, and from my perspective Russia is trying to appeal to them, slowly advancing, giving the ‘rent-seekers’ a chance to flee, while the productive people stay behind. Because they have to, or because they are done with the ‘rent-seeking’ kleptocrats, and trust the Russians to do better. It doesn’t matter how we, in the west, think about the Russians and what Putin is doing, but many appreciate what he did after the ‘Harvard-Boys’ sold Russia down the line.
Jake the “anti-rent” movement was a socialists economic idea which had currency from c. 1880 to 1920. It’s not new. Making people pay rent is evil was its premise. Your economic guru (what’s his name) brings it up anew and markets it as “financial capitalism”. He’s selling the same old idea (and making good money doing it). Providing living space for a fee is just another service. Someone risked their money to purchase an apt. hoping they could rent it to another. Apts. must be built, maintenance, utilities and taxes must be paid. The “evil financial capitalist’ will have to shell out for these items. But the apt. is there as a housing option for those who need it. Risking capital on a factory that makes stuff is no different than risking your capital on making apts. Financial vs Industrial Capitalism is a silly distinction.
Unless, you are not a fan of private ppty. You also believe that the gov’t which provides services (hmmn, is financial capitalism good if a socialist gov’t provides it?) is more important than the gov’t which encourages patriotism, nationalism. I think you are a hopeful one world socialist and I suspect you hold a dim view of private ppty. Has your study of socialists gov’ts taught you how they dealt with “dissidents”. It wasn’t/isn’t pretty. We don’t have to “talk” about what they did, it is there, on the books. I think we’ll soon see how the Russian rape of Ukraine will end. There is talk of N. Korean troops for Russia and Lukashenko is still being badgered by Putin to add Bylorussian troops to the war. Will Poland, allow this direct threat to Poland? Do you know any Poles? They are very nationalistic. The Finns and Balts are too. This threat to world peace d/n have to happen. I suggest you not lose sight of the starting point. Although Ukraine d/n threaten Russia, Russia invaded Ukraine. Surely that must fill you w/wonderment.
Bill, you simply don’t get it. ‘Socialism’, in the original concept, was the natural outcome of ‘Industrial Capitalism’, when decent wages would benefit both the industrialist, AND the ‘worker’. ‘Financial Capitalism’ is about obtaining assets through the ‘money-printing press’, and buying politicians who will do the bidding of the banks and financial monopolists, like ‘Blackrock’, ‘owning’ everything, including you.
That system existed before Adam Smith wrote his ‘Wealth of Nations’, which was evidently meant to liberate the people from the feudal class who owned everything through controlling the money and the decision-makers. He was telling the people that feeding unproductive ‘Rent Seekers’ was stupid, as these people lived of what the productive class, industrialists as well as workers, created.
We are being shown exactly why that is stupid, in our present day western, Financial Capitalist world, where the middle class is being erased from memory as we speak, to be replaced by a ‘grey goo’ of ‘peasants’, and a tiny ‘wealthy class’ who own everything, and possess their own army, NATO. You and I are left with ‘voting’ in a beauty contest, between groomed candidates producing ‘hot air’, with no inclination to do as they said they would do.
Support for ‘Davos’, for this Financial Capitalist system, is not limited to the wealthy ‘owners’ like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and George Soros, to name just a few, but also by the ‘Dreamers’ who desperately want an egalitarian outcome, enforced on the people, to save the ‘Climate’, or whatever, as by the ‘Drones’, the subordinates doing the ‘dirty work’ for the upper class, which includes going to war with people, or countries, which refuse to hand this elite the keys to the printer creating money out of thin air. A fair number of so-called ‘Gold Bugs’, people advertising gold as the only money worth anything, are on my side of the argument. Compare:
https://skwealthacademy.substack.com/p/why-gold-is-a-central-issue-in-the
jake
“the natural outcome of ‘Industrial Capitalism’,” You could not be more marxist. I will tolerate you for a while.
Pat, I’m simply referring to what the original thinkers who ‘designed’ this concept of ‘Industrial Capitalism’ anticipated. Which included Adam Smith. And why his original, revolutionary thesis advocated the wealth of NATIONS as a goal. An ideal the Founding Fathers in your own country adopted, rejecting (British) colonial rule and matching imperialism, which was, and is, typical neofeudal, Financial Capitalism as it manifests itself today.
Socialism in those days meant that everybody within a country would benefit, more or less, resulting in a society which would be peaceful, tolerant, with a rising standard of living, and which would refrain from dictating others how to live. With growing wealth, more would be possible as a ‘community service’, which in turn would grow the business-volume, as long as the number of people who had to be paid by the productive people, industrialists and workers, remained at a bare minimum. Which most prominently included the military. In fact, Adam Smith urged his readers to stay away from imperialism, and financing huge, and costly armies, since it would sink the entire Capitalist concept for sure. If that rubs you the wrong way, I’m sorry, but that was what Capitalism was about back in those days.
It had absolutely nothing in common with State Capitalism, or communism as we came to label it, which relied on a dictatorship of the ‘workers’, and the state as the only employer. That doesn’t work. Marx himself was a bit of an oddity, and he sure inspired developments which resulted in mass poverty, spread at an industrial scale, when ‘Marxists’ took over entire countries. As a scientist he had some interesting observations to share, in a world which had changed dramatically since Adam Smith and the early ‘liberal thinkers’, because of the rise of commercial banking, and the use of ‘Fiat Money’. Still, I’m no ‘Marxist’.
Few people understand that bankers do not earn their money by passing on savings, or profits to people who are seeking a loan. In the ‘Fiat’ world bankers obtained the right to ‘print’ money, if you will. The FED, which issues the Dollar, is a private enterprise, owned by the banks, and not by the people. They issue debt far beyond the savings backing up these loans, up till twenty times the amount. Money which doesn’t exist, until they issue it. That didn’t exist, or not on such a scale as today in out part of the world, when Adam Smith and others like him developed this concept of a ‘Free Market’.
What pains me most, is that so many people who stand to lose ‘Big Time’ from supporting Financial Capitalism, have been lured into supporting it through ‘easy money’, and employment in the service of this racket. This is not going to end well. But if you feel I’m a communist rag for saying so, so be it.
if only war were as formalized, clear & clean as some of you believe it can be, we could just make a game of it & run the numbers.
I am again reminded of Jan Karski’s memoir of the Polish Underground during Nazi occupation – Story of a Secret State. He was present at a meeting of leaders from all orgs: Catholics, Socialists, Commies, Jews… (one more I can’t recall). they were to determine the fate of one of their own who had broken the no fraternization rule. a good & valuable patriot who went off script to help another in grave need – putting many others conducting critical ops at great risk. well, they all felt badly, but war apparently has its bad side. he was executed within days.
on the other hand, the Poles never surrendered… it was war until it wasn’t. & that style of warfare kept tens of thousands of troops on occupation duty in Poland. hard work… & you never can be sure what will work. they just fought till they died, or won. the Catholics, the Socialists, the Commies, the Jews – the Poles. maybe they were sick of getting treated like shit … who can know? maybe even the youth had an urge for independence.
if you haven’t been there, maybe take off your purity rings for awhile & read Secret State… maybe you won’t cry at the sacrifices of so many for their country against invasion & eradication (by Germany… & that other bunch). ahhh forget it… ideology is so comfortable… & cold.
I think what is being ignored in this war is the will of the people of Kherson or any other Ukrainian oblast. If a majority want to join Russia just leave them alone.
The same commentors who have claimed through this war that Russia is on the verge of defeat, which clearly is not true, also claim to know the will of Khersonians, or Donbassians.
They’ve been repeatedly wrong on the first claim; why should we accept their opinion on the latter point.
Klapper
I’ve heard one separatist soldier for DNR describe the mood of the people in Kherson/Zaporizhie region something like this:
“Most of the people do not oppose us and go about their business as best they can.
On the other hand if tomorrow Ukraine retook the area, they would act the same way.”
I have a friend (Harvard Navy ROTC, late ’60s) whose son (Naval Academy, now civilian) married a Ukrainian girl a few years back. His son related (wife explaining why we rarely heard domestic dissent) that civilians NEVER spoke openly about “politics”. Instead, they’d go on walks to forests & when amidst thick trees would then have intense discussions. Civilians under duress in totalitarian states have a decisively pragmatic way of avoiding the midnight knock.
“citizens in totalitarian states etc etc.” Did Pres. Trump just get a mid night knock on his door last nite? If such a visit could be done to a former President were plain ole citizens frightened about the FIB calling at their house?