RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 29 APRIL 2021 by Patrick Armstrong

PUTIN SPEECH. Eng. Rus. Mostly domestic as usual but the foreign bits were memorable – in short: we’ve had enough. We will respond as and when we chose and we’ll do whatever we think we have to. And we’ll decide where the “red lines” are. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Putin make a threat before.

GEOPOLITICAL TECTONIC PLATES. They shifted quite a bit lately, haven’t they? In February Kiev starts moving heavy weapons east; next month Zelensky signs a pompous decree to “de-occupy” Crimea. Moscow moves more men and equipment in less time than NATO could dream of doing anywhere on the planet and makes it clear that it will use it. Wiser heads reflect; they back down. Zelensky now wants to talk. (Silly claims of victory from deluded parties in the West, but let them dream). So that’s it for now: Moscow has shown the world that Washington will fight to the last Ukrainian or Pole and that Moscow can and will respond with whatever violence is necessary. (I repeat my argument that Russia could certainly conquer Ukraine but doesn’t want to – speaking of “red lines”, note my last sentence.) Then there’s a coup attempt revealed in Belarus. The colour revolution was a flop so the next stage: assassination, power outages and cyber attacks on Victory Day followed by the usual appeals, interventions, fake governments and the rest. Except the security forces had it all on tape and the suspects are singing. (We can be confident Moscow and Minsk are telling the truth because of the silence in the West). The bounties story collapsed. Which raises the interesting question of why US intelligence would debunk it just as Biden had referred to it in his latest sanctions. (For your amusement a supercut of TV hairstyles – and Biden/Harris – pushing the story). Prague announces the sudden discovery that the Russians were responsible for an accident in 2014 at a weapons storage facility. On cue Bellingcat provides the “evidence” that the only two operatives the GRU apparently has dunnit. But neither the past nor present Czech President had heard of it – and you’d think they would have. (We already wonder who’s in charge in Washington and now must wonder who’s in charge in Prague.) Merkel insists Nordstream will be finished, Atlantic Council panics – time is running out. Is Washington trying to stop people using the Russian vaccine? There are indications of serious pressure being brought on Germany and Brazil at least (Czechia too?) – can’t let those pesky Russians “sow division” or gain a “propaganda coup”, can we? The neocons struck and they struck out. They haven’t given up because they can’t – that’s who they are – but I smell increasing desperation. Time is running out.

MOSCOW RESPONSE. We’ve already seen the reaction to Kiev’s moves – two corps (armies in Russian terminology) and several airborne units (and Russian airborne troops are not light infantry like the West’s) appear on the spot in a couple of weeks together with lots of air defence, division- and corps-level artillery, missile boats from the Caspian, landing craft, warships, submarines and aircraft. They’ve gone back to base now – some of them – but you may be certain that they can be back, thanks to the practice, even more quickly. (Why tell us about dummy weapons? To mess with NATO’s mind?) Moscow is about to declare some countries as “unfriendly” (Five Eyes for sure but who else?) and will cripple the operation of their Embassies by restricting (or blocking) their chance to employ locals (pretty essential to many operations). I don’t think Russian Embassies hire locals. There will be movement restrictions as well – no more chummy meetings with the “democratic opposition”. And as for the Tabaquis – the Czech Embassy has been reduced to almost no one. Moscow has lost its sense of humour.

BEIJING CLEARS ITS THROAT. Beijing is well aware that it’s on the hit list too and that if Moscow goes down it will be next. Not a formal alliance but “China and Russia will support each other in matters of protecting state sovereignty“. History note: France and Britain did not have a formal military alliance in 1914, but London was committed anyway.

PAPER PUSSYCAT. Pleased to see the GAO agrees with me: “Nearly 2 decades of conflict has degraded U.S. military readiness.” And the same applies to its allies. They spend the bucks but they don’t get the results. We just saw real warfighting capability in the host of Russian weaponry videoed on its way to the frontier. We can only hope that there are serious people in NATO who can see reality. And, further proof, from Israel, that the West does not have adequate air defence.

NUGGETS FROM THE STUPIDITY MINE. MI6 Chief says Russia is an “objectively declining power“.

MORE NONSENSE. Bulgaria imitates Czechia. Putin weaponises Syrian crickets.

UKRAINE. The non-existent nazis hold a parade. If you don’t recognise the symbol, look it up.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

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23 Responses to RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 29 APRIL 2021 by Patrick Armstrong

  1. Ed Lindgren says:

    Following is a link to a photo of USAF COL Brittany Stewart (our defense attaché in Kiev) apparently saluting the grave marker of a member of the neo-Nazi Ukrainian battalion Right Sector:

    https://www.facebook.com/pressjfo.news/photos/pcb.1094924784333470/1094914971001118

    I picked this up from a recent post at the website of the American Committee for US-Russia Accord:

    https://usrussiaaccord.com/from-the-archive-kievs-atrocities-and-the-silence-of-the-hawks-by-stephen-f-cohen/

    Scrolling through the Facebook photos, I noticed that COL Stewart doesn’t wear wings on her uniform, so I took a look at her Linkedin page. Based on her service history it would appear that her AFSC is probably 14NX (intelligence):

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittany-stewart-26537b8a

    I also checked out the US Embassy Kiev webpage. The following is a description of the responsibilities of the Defense Attache Office at the embassy (note the last line):

    “Comprised of representatives from all four branches of the United States military, the DAO liaises across a broad spectrum within the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. In cooperation with their Ukrainian military counterparts, members of the DAO execute events and programs associated with both the Security Cooperation and the European Command (EUCOM) Military-to-Military contact plans that build Ukrainian Armed Forces combat capabilities and advance the Ukrainian military toward NATO interoperability.”

    Apparently the goal is to make the Ukraine part of NATO in all respects with the exception of actual membership. Will Kiev get an Article 5 guarantee?

    https://ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/sections-offices/defense-attache-office/

      • Tess says:

        I very doubt she ignored who she was paying homage and with whom she messes…

        All these nazi battallions, Azov, C14, Right Sektor, were trained during months previous to Maidan coup in Polish territory…

        Then you have the massacres of the snippers in Maidan Square and Odessa´s House of Unions performed by the same people.

        I very doubt the planning of all this went unnoticed by certain embassies supporting the coup and funding and making the trainning of these effectives, in fact death squads.

        Taking into account this is part of the “Cancel Culture” order ( and never better said, as this is the train ticket to obscurantism and the new Middle Ages…) we should ask ourselves why this obvious minority ( see the tiny number of people they really are..and thus how they must encourage themselves, and at the same time try to provoke terror, by marching under heavy metal music…) can imposse their will over the whole Urkainian population, and nobody in Europe, neither Borrell, nor Von der Leyen, nor Merkel, nor Macron, nor Dragui, says a word about this…

        In the first times of the nazi coup and Maidan which brought these nazis to power under protection of the West, I suggested this was but a dressed rehersal of what it was to come over Europe…

        These are not but the new GLADIO troops…

      • J says:

        Patrick, Colonel,

        FYI here’s an interesting backgrounder on Stewart on one of her previous assignments. She was Lt. Col. Brittany Stewart, Air Attaché with the U.S. Defense Attaché Office at the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
        So she Knew Better regarding her actions as Defense Attache in Ukraine. She should be immediately removed from her Attache role, and sent state side to a corner desk.

        https://www.afcent.af.mil/News/Features/Display/Article/501270/captains-bars-passed-on-through-combat-zone-history/

  2. J says:

    Speaking of ‘crickets’, seems that some Biden White House types’ are now hearing ‘crickets;, and the MSM are blaming Russia for it.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-investigating-directed-energy-attack-near-white-house

    Regarding the Defense Attache USAF COL Brittany Stewart, IMO she should not be given a pass, period. She knew what she was doing, and should not have been done on her part especially given her assignment and office!

  3. Leith says:

    Patrick –

    You missed the Victoria Nuland confirmation as Under Secretary for Political Affairs. It was by unanimous consent, no objections from anyone in either party. It may well cause some steam in both Moscow and the EU.

  4. J says:

    Patrick,

    What I find sad is that is few seem to know the history and ties between Crimea and Russia.

  5. Alves says:

    Here is a link to some of the problems found by ANVISA (the brazilian FDA like institution) with Sputnik V:

    https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/04/28/brazil-rejects-the-gamaleya-vaccine

    Basically, one of the vaccine vectors, the ad5, can mutate back into a replicating virus during its production process at levels way above the most indulgent standards tolerated in the first world (300 times above what FDA tolerates, for example).

    Also, that is not the vaccine vector that went through safety and efficacy trials in Russia.

    Due to the fact that the russian fund that markets the vaccine smeared ANVISA all over the place, earlier today Brazil released the documents provided by the vaccine maker itself that points to the exhistance of replicating virus and parts of the taped meeting with the russians where the issue was discussed, acknowledged and the only explanation we got was that to go back and redo the part of the problematic production process would take too much time.

    Hard to trust them again after that, to be honest. We were about to buy vaccines for 20 million people or so (1/10 of our population).

    • steelyman says:

      There’s currently a rather noticeable campaign to denigrate the Sputnik V vaccine and, by extension, Russia, ongoing in the Western MSM. These efforts include a truly spurious and evidence free current front page story on the Guardian and the link of the type provided by Alves in his post.

      Here’s just one report refuting the Alves link (from RT):
      https://www.rt.com/russia/522481-brazil-delay-approval-sputnikv/

      This latest salvo of anti-Sputnik “stories” (I refuse to describe them as articles which might imply a certain degree of journalistic effort/integrity) seems timed to the ongoing and terrible situation in India caused by the impending collapse of their health infrastructure and also by the related lack of vaccines and an effective vaccine program, the latter of which Russia is trying to alleviate by flying over a few hundred thousand doses and this latest action has gotten a fair amount of headline attention (positive for RF) in South and East Asia.

  6. Seward says:

    Very good description of Russian DVD (airborne) forces, as “not light infantry.” But the video you reference is a bit misleading: It shows air-dropped “Airborne” (парашютно-десантные) forces in action, whereas most DVD units, 2/3 or more, are “Air-assault” (десантно-штурмовые). The latter are air/helicopter transportable, rather than air dropped, with somewhat heavier equipment, including 30 T72 tanks added to each division recently. There’s a good description of the difference at https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Десантно-штурмовые_формирования_Сухопутных_войск_СССР (which pertains to Russia also), There are good videos of Air-assault units at https://www.russiadefence.net/t89p75-vdv-airborne-videos .

  7. English Outsider says:

    This is all very complicated. I believe Lavrov on this. Or rather, I don’t trust HMG an inch on such matters so it comes to the same thing –

    “As far as the relations between Russia and Europe are concerned, I still believe that the UK is playing an active and a very serious subversive role. It withdrew from the European Union, but we see no decrease in its activities on this track. On the contrary, they are trying to influence EU member states’ approaches to Russia to the maximum possible extent.”

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/04/28/lavrov-calls-out-perfidious-albion-in-eu-diplomat-spat/

    A puzzle. I can well believe HMG is Washington’s faithful poodle in such matters now that the Dems are back. We might even claim that we got the Dems back, given the Steele affair. But it’s all very well being a faithful poodle. What about the other end of the lead? Biden seems to be anti-Brit. Is he being a faithful master?

    • Mal says:

      Biden as an anti Brit………it’s a switch and bait, Brit’s specialize at it, see; Steele Dossier and all those involved never had to answer for it…….all the Russia Bad bs, right of of Integrity Initiative’s play book……..Trump tried, but America has been played for a very long time, follow the money. Where does it go….clue, private banks (thinking FED) but Coutts works just as ‘well’ if you are ‘heeled’. Still dancin’ with the ones that brung ya! No one specializes better at divide and conquer than the Brits…..a little red, a little blue, wonder what they have in store next……..thinking gun cabinet contents, lots of mass shootings till they get what they want, a neutered disarmed public…….it’s a Brit thing, check the Constitution, Amendment #2.

      Cheers

    • Tess says:

      Mr. Lavrov also made it known to the audience that while the UK government and its intelligence services, through their multiple “initiatives”, including offical news channels and unofficial ones, promote a harsh Russophobia, they keep in contact with the Russians in the back door….

      This is only an intend to keep the EU hostage for the UK/US markets and corporations.

      From when there still existed those videos subtitled into English by the Russian news channel Vesti News ( today strangely dissapeared and just another symptom on that the Russians do not care about the West anymore, as this channel was doing a huge effort in production, broadcasting several subtitled videos every day…I have not kept record about this, but could it be the dissapearance of the channel´s subtitled videos coincided in time with the dissapearance, from scene at least, of Mr. Surkov…Last words Twitted by him in February this year in his account were “Mission accomplished”…) I recall Mr. Sechin in one of those multiple business meetings they organize in Moscow and St, Petersburgo, joking with CEO of BP who, amongst many others, wanted to make a personal appointment with him, calling him quite familiarly “Big Bob”….

    • Seward says:

      Fat fingered as usual. The Russian airborne troops are called VDV in Russian, not DVD. Literally: Military Landing Troops: the D stand for Desantnye — Landing.(Must take time to proofread.)

  8. J says:

    EO,

    Why does HMG seem to have such angst against modern-day Russia? Putin put a stop to the West’s rampant theft of Russian treasures after the fall of the former Soviet Union. That’s the only reason I can figure out why HMG (and NATO for that matter) have such angst, as they can’t steal Russian treasure anymore.

    • Tess says:

      The angst is to keep the huge EU market isolated from everybody else, only for themselves…Who cuts the cod in NATO?
      The US and UK. Look what happens in the Ukraine…What the EU thinks gives them a damn, as Nuland left clear through the telephone.
      They will start another war in Europe unless nobody else sells there except them.
      That of security whatever is an alibi, as they both make busiens with both the Russians and the Chinese…in the dark….
      This is the same story of WWII…

  9. English Outsider says:

    David Habakkuk writes extensively on that. He has a look at current Western misconceptions about Russia here –

    https://turcopolier.com/pt-one-rather-material-element-in-delusions-about-russia-alike-in-my-country-as-in-yours-is-that-people-still-appear-to-h/

    Unfortunately his comments, which are very informative about such matters as the Steele affair, aren’t all indexed, or not that I can get at. But they show a deep seated Russophobia in the English Establishment that is still very much in evidence. Ironic, therefore, that for some over the last five years it was an article of faith that Putin caused Brexit and that Johnson and his circle are in Putin’s pocket. I’m not sure how that is to be reconciled with the fact that Johnson is firmly committed to the Russophobic narrative that still informs UK politics.

    UK politics boths sides, I suppose. Sir Keir Starmer, our current Leader of the Opposition, is the one UK politician member of the Trilateral Commission.

    On Russian treasure, I’m afraid we do still get our share. The Oligarch diaspora is well represented here and invests heavily.

    But my initial comment was more of a question than a statement. Blinken is unequivocally pro-EU when it comes to Brexit –

    https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/westminster-news/joe-biden-appointment-calls-brexit-a-mess-6443798

    – as is President Biden. There’s a video on that link that shows a UK politician as good as saying that Biden should butt out of the UK’s affairs when it comes to Brexit. I find that difficult to reconcile that with our running around doing Washington’s bidding in Europe.

  10. J says:

    Biden Executive Order Strips Americans Of Their Rights If They ‘Directly Or Indirectly’ Aid Russia

    Executive Order Canceling the Constitution

    By Leo Goldstein

    On April 15, Preident Biden signed an Executive Order on Blocking Property with Respect to Specified Harmful Foreign Activities of the Government of the Russian Federation. Contrary to its title, this EO is not about Russia. It is designed to allow the Biden administration to deprive American citizens and organizations of their rights and property by arbitrarily linking those persons to real, imagined, or vaguely defined activities of the Russian government.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/04/executive_order_canceling_the_constitution.html

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/04/15/executive-order-on-blocking-property-with-respect-to-specified-harmful-foreign-activities-of-the-government-of-the-russian-federation/

  11. J says:

    Russia mulling a scenario of disconnecting from SWIFT system

    https://russian.rt.com/business/news/858923-zaharova-rossiya-swift

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