First, a hodgepodge sample of the kind of recent news: (sorry for the chaotic presentation, I am doing this all under time pressure)
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) wants to sanction a Russian chess player for supporting the Russian intervention in the Ukraine. Hey, losers! This won’t help you! If you remove the Russians, the Chinese and Indians will still take all the titles from you :-P
The Scala in Milan has dropped the Russian conductor Gergiev because he “failed to condemn” the Russian military operation. Bravo Italy! Bravo!
EUFA/FIFA have banned all Russian clubs sine die.
The battle for Russia House is over. That can, I suppose, count as a Nazi victory over Russia. Bravo!
Russia House, a restaurant and dining lounge, in DC has been vandalized. I guess a few local Nazis had their own, private, mini-Kristallnacht. That will show ’em Snow Niggers who’s boss! Bravo!
The EU has closed most of its airspace to Russian carriers.
Russia has closed her entire airspace of carriers from 36 countries.
The Ukies are doing two things at the same time: they are blowing up bridges and explaining that they have defeated the Russian attack and are now counter-attacking on all fronts (Note: blowing up bridges is not what a winning force does).
You know what else the Ukronazis are doing? Distributing huge amounts of weapons to anybody willing to pick them up. Question: is that “tactic” known as something the winning side does? Exactly…
And, finally, Ze has said that anybody in jail who is willing to pick up arms will be freed and armed. As a result, gangs of looters are shooting each other in Kiev and other cities. Question: is that “tactic” known as something the winning sides does? Exactly…
At the same time, a Ukrainian delegation and a Russian one met in Belarus. They are still talking, but I don’t expect anything to come out of this, at least not in the early stages of these negotiations.
Still, apparently the two delegations have agreed to “certain things” and have adjourned for the day. I have no idea what that means, but I certainly do approve of ANY negotiations as long a they do not slow down the Russian movements in the Ukraine (and the current ones do not, the Russians refused to make even a short stop).
There is also REALLY good news: the Zaparozhie nuclear plant is under Russian control. Thus, no false flag there and no false flag in Chernobyl. Good!
The big story today is the gradual closing of the operational cauldron in the East.
Now the latest map:
The big story here is the gradual closing of the operational cauldron in the East. Once it it closed, about 10-12 Ukie brigades will have to choose: surrender or die.
Next, Kiev: the city is blocked from three directions, but the Russians have left one open corridor which anybody can take to safely get out.
Mariupol: the Russians have entered the surrounded city and combats are taking place.
Kharkov: heavy combats are taking place with both sides using artillery and MLRS.
Volnovakha: surrounded but the Russians are not storming the city.
Schastie and Novaia Astrakhan: have been liberated
The Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman has declared that Russia has air supremacy over the entire Ukraine.
In the meantime, the US-NATO base in Achakkov has been totally destroyed by Russian missiles, as shown on this video:
This is crucial – it shows that US or not US, NATO or not NATO, Russia will destroy any threat to herself or to the Russian military anywhere in the Ukraine. This clear warning strongly suggest that NATO hotheads might want to think long and hard before sending in hardware or troops inside the Ukraine.
Finally, A SMALL ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT OUR SERVERS:
Due to the incredibly intense traffic we are getting, we had to do some hardware upgrades on our servers. This is why the blog was down for about 1 hour this night. We hope that these upgrades will give you all a quicker load time (which was very slow over the past 2 days). Please remember that hardware costs money, even rented hardware, so one way for you to help us is send us donations to increase our IT budget, making our servers both quicker and more secure against attacks.
RT is under constant DDoS and their anti-DDoS protection does not work very well.
TASS in English was accessible yesterday, but not the Russian version.
RIA, Izvestia and Commersant are all under DDoS attack.
There is a real possibility that Telegram will be blocked or, at least, throttled down around the Ukraine.
Finally, and let’s be honest here, besides Andrei Martyanov’s “Reminiscence of the Future…” blog and Bernhard Horstmann’s “Moon of Alabama” – there are no news sources which I could recommend to you even though there are A LOT of websites and authors which are desperate to use the situation in the Ukraine to increase their visibility. This is especially bad considering the absolutely HUGE increase in fakes, false narratives, trolls (paid or not) and the hammering of the brains of those who still expose themselves to the western media.
So please be aware of the fact that we are definitely losing the “informational battle” so far.
Now, finally, I have a real gem for you. Remember the Russian spies which were betrayed by Poteev and eventually expelled from the USA? Yes, the one in which the entire western media focussed on the sexy Anna Chapman aka Anna Kushchenko? Well, she was amongst the LEAST interesting of the lot, except for her looks I suppose.
One of these spies, Andrei Bezrukov, now is a teacher and a member of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. He is also often a guest of various Russian talkshows. Yesterday he made rather interesting comments and I ask our new volunteer interpreters to race with each other for a quick translation. This morning, one was already in (thanks N.!!!!!!!). Just to clarify: Andrei Bezrukov used to be an “illegal” (NO COVER) spy for the PGU/SVR, and he is superbly educated (I read his writings and listen to his interviews, he is truly a world-class specialist of the West). Listen to what he (and people like him) are saying nowadays:
Transcript of Andrei Bezrukov’s comments on Russian TV yesterday: (emphasis added by me)
I cannot forget several things…which I would just like to mention
Firstly, I want to state the fact that the West succeeded in dragging us into this war
No matter how we tried to resist this, so, this is their tactical victory.
They succeed in colliding two brotherly nations against one another
From this we can draw the following conclusion – now we have been practically forced, especially after the latest packet of sanctions, into a position where we have no other choice but to totally restructure our economy, financial system, and in essence our domestic policy.
De facto, war has been declared against usWar…I don’t want to say that. Who am I to use such terms?
Nonetheless, we have been put before the fact – our very survival is at risk.
Here we have both danger and a gigantic opportunity
The point is, by tactically winning and by successfully quarrelling us with the Ukrainian people, and war, naturally is the ultimate level of quarrel, they have not understood that now, by doing so, they have totally destroyed the very system which they had built in the world.
It is not visible yet, but in a few months, it will become apparent that the severed financial chains, broken ideological messages and the broken security system –
I agree – this is the breakdown of the security system.Allow me a question:
Given such sanctions, does it make sense for us to stop with Ukraine?
Of course, not! Of course, not.I want to go further…
Two short messages which shows the mentality which we should consider.
We are being intimidated and, in fact, many are now afraid that for decades Russia will be disconnected from everything, will become impoverished, she will lose all her friends, etc. etc. etc.We’ve been through this before. The young Soviet Republic was encircled and even worse off. Then everyone formed diplomatic relations and it all normalized…This does not last long…
But I’m not talking about thisThing is, western people, and especially Anglo-Saxons – all their thinking is based on the concept of “the rational man”…their entire legal system is based on this concept of “the rational man”…All their strategic solutions are built on the concept of “the rational man”.
What does this mean? When you are put before a choice: “Look, we will punish you. You don’t want to be punished, right? Then you must behave in a way to avoid this punishment”… and so on… “If you are threatened with sanctions, you won’t like that, will you? You will do something to avoid it… you will come and negotiate on our terms.”This principle of “the rational man” is in effect now. They think this way even now: “We will push Russia to the limit and she will surrender”. But, for Russian mentality, Slavic mentality, Orthodox mentality, Eastern mentality …
this rational mentality is totally alien!
Here, we have: “I’d rather die than surrender!” It’s a completely different mentality.Here, it’s not about that at all. This they didn’t consider. And the main mistake.
The point is – this is not the time to judge Russia.
It is time to serve Russia. The serving class of Russia has always pulled her out of all the liberal failures – of which there have been four over the last 200 years.I begin with the Decembrists, and so on…
And it has always been the serving class, those people who are in uniform, those who don’t ask a lot of questions…pick up their machine guns and go when they are commanded….those that stand, hungry, for 24 hours at the machine bench …it is these people that have served and will continue to serve… they will pull Russia out!The Russian people don’t think about “Courchevel and iPhones”…in their midst they are thinking about fairness and development…. That is what the people want from their leadership…and they will support it.
For us… now we have an enormous opportunity to build an entirely different economy
Well, they gave us no choice…we will have to. But I remind you, this economy will be based on those principles that we will have to build again, it was the second largest economy in the world… and it was developing the fastest.
So, here I am an absolute optimist.
And if they have committed such a gigantic strategic error, why shouldn’t we show them the whole stupidity of this mistake?Right now, discussions are going on … in the USA, and in other countries… they have rational people there saying: “Look, how we have cornered the Russians…what are we going to get from that? Nothing good. The main thing is, we are not thinking…”
“Never mind” – others are saying: “In the short term, things will be pretty bad for Russia, but in the long term, in a few decades, things will get really bad… and it will just collapse” – I’m talking about the sanctions, how they argue.
In actuality it is exactly the opposite.
It will be really bad for us for a short time. Maybe not for everyone, but, nonetheless…and then, later on, in the long run, it will give us the opportunity to breathe normally, build a self-sufficient economy, because, in that shell that was formed in the 1990’s around us, Russia can no longer live. It cannot remain in that small, tight shell….in Domestic Policy, in Foreign Policy…
They are the ones that have broken that shell.
Tonight I need to leave my home for several hours.
I will do my best to report here again, but no promises.
If not, I hope to “see you” all tomorrow morning, probably with some major news.
Andrei
That is one helluva good article or should I say- Russian analysis. I was getting emotional reading it and I’m a GD Canadian for Christ sakes. I’m here reading and enjoying these articles and stories from Andrei and Dmitry and Pepe and others because I know in my heart that they’re as truthful and sincerely honest as anything I’ve read in the last few years. Everyone must know how the US/UK are destroying the world with their demonic thirst for profits and total control but sadly many millions suffer from a serious case of braincramp or intellectual critical thinking. Thank you Saker for this wonderful site, I truly hope that this awful nightmare of Western hypocrisy and evil subjugation of everyone and everything is finally blunted by the determination of a very stoic people.
For German speaking readers: I found an interesting article today on the site http://www.anti-spiegel.ru (which in my opinion is a useful addition to the few English sites we have for info):
https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/2022/warum/
In this article the author asks himself why the military operation was started now and apart from the obvious reasons of coming to rescue of the two republics he points to a possibly even more important probable reason for it, namely a so far undisclosed and very serious threat that manifested in Ukraine and made it imperative to act.
That’s what I think as well. There was some development in the Ukraine that was unknown to the rest of us (and possibly cannot even be advertised) which was of such urgent nature that action had to be taken pronto. I know some would say it had to do with those American constructed biolabs, but I am not even sure about that.
My spider sense tells me there was some kind of an immediate threat which necessitated action, no matter the consequences.
Will we ever know? possibly not (especially if some of my darker suspicions are founded).
I suggest “chill, dude” …
The Russians made their assesments back in late 2021; issued red-line ultimatums; waited respectfully for Xi to finish the Chinese Winter Olympics (mainly for domestic New Year Tiger consumption I suspect); and then started the bulldosers.
Ukraine is just a front yard clean up — soon to be a backyard (the eagle looks both ways) — lawn mowing (de-nazi) first step to going to the boundary fence and telling the annoying neighbors to shut their eFing poodles up or face some serious disputes at the local tribunal. Who the hell wants to live next door the Hells Angles?
Btw, I read somewhere that the World bank (or whatever) is saying the plebs in Europe will only have to wait 5 years of freezing winters until non-Russian gas/energy will arrive. I can see that working (not).
Starting to look like a French “eat cake” time coming up.
Wouldn’t just making peace with Russia, or inviting Russia to join Nato (sarc), be easier and cheaper?
Ukraine needs also very deep pruning..wood is old, it will bear only few fruits. Tree must go down, we could graft on old stalk, but why making problems?
Cut it down, plant new one, plant many more!
After few years, new bloom will arrive, there will be plenty of fruits..they should stay strong for future generations..
I agree that we might never know what really happened or only with some delay, but it might explain the extreme hatred that erupted within just a few days in political circles also in Germany. As if the military operation thwarted a NATO attempt at checkmating Russia. Of course this is all speculation, but as a German I was surprised and I’m quite distressed and disgusted about the ferocity of the media campaign against Russia and the political persecution of Russians in Europe and cancelling of all things Russian. It’s really off the charts… After the totalitarian tendencies that have already manifested during the Covid-19 crisis so far it this development dialed them up several notches and I’m afraid the break with Russia is already impossible to be reversed and will remain so for a long time :( .
I question the logic of this conclusion. In any case it is pure speculation.
Concerning Germany:
Germany is sending lethal weapons to Ukraine that will end up in the hands of the Azov Regiment and the Right Sector militias that are a part of the National Guard of Ukraine. They terrorize the Russian minority. They use the insignia of the German Nazi SS-Divisions. This is much more concerning than street signs with the name Stepan Bandera on them. Germany itself has a Neo-Nazi problem. These groups in Germany have murdered a leading politician, terrorized Social Democrats and murdered many people with a Turkish background. They were covered by local police and probably by certain rogue elements of national security.
So the German Government, which cannot solve the Neo-Nazi problem in its own country, is sending lethal weapons to even more dangerous and criminal Neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. This proves that Germany is a mortal enemy of the Russian minority in Ukraine which Russia has a responsibility to protect!
Surely a far more likely explanation for the timing is the realisation that both the Minsk discussions (after 7-8 years) and the two long table discussions with President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Moscow (6 and 4 hours respectively) were not fruitful and in fact were charecterized by empty words and falseness, and that there was much theatre. So easily could these two have averted the crisis, but they chose not to. It will be difficult for historians to sort this out, but they will have to try since it is indeed a watershed moment of history.
That could well be the case of course and thus especially the German outrage is all the more hypocritical!
I suspect Zelenskys nuclear re-armament speach at the munich conference was a factor. It is also interessting to register the priority of gaining control over the chernobyl plant had in the first moves.
@ Nightvision on February 28, 2022 · at 8:14 pm EST/EDT
Where are those unstoppable TB2’s?
“According to Maxar satellite images the length of Russian convoy is 64km (!). Let’s calculate…. 64km / 27 = 2,3000 pieces of military equipment.”
Hi Nightvision. Where did you get the 27 from, to divide 64km / 27?
27 what?
On another note, thank you for the maps. I agree with The Saker’s estimate the cauldron will be closed tomorrow. The war criminal Nazis have nothing else to do but to bomb civilians and destroy their houses. Once the cauldron is closed, a triage will decide who lives and who wants to die a “hero of Ukraine.”
A lot done in four days, methodically, according to plan. I would like to see the “70 planes” flying from Poland, Russian pilots will have a field day. Great training.
Lone Wolf
Click the link provided, the tweet did the full calculation, I just shortened it for sake of length. But they calculated average length of a kamaz truck and the space between them to generate a ballpark estimate of how many vehicles such a 64km column might contain.
Turkish Bayraktar still no where to be found. Surely it could kill such a tightly packed obvious 40 mile long convoy easily, or so MSM and the Pukies I mean Ukies tell us.
Thanks, Nightvision.
Keep on trucking.
Lone Wolf
Nightvision:
The Western propaganda mill (i.e., 95% of all English language media) is publishing many reports of this 40 mile long Russian column. I am worried that it could be vulnerable to some sort of attack, either Ukie missiles, artillery, Bayraktars, or even bomber jets.
In your opinion, is the column operating with a reasonable degree of protection from Ukie air attacks?
Also, what is the column’s purpose? It’s headed toward Kiev. Does that mean intends to unleash a heavy assault on the city? Or maybe the column is intended to lock an ironclad ring around Kiev, to isolate it?
Judging by what appears to be the current strategic initiative which we infer based on what they’ve been capturing, this is what Russia is currently doing vis a vis Kiev:
The attacks from the northwest where they’ve established their forward-base / bridgehead at Hostomel are just testing attacks where they continuously probe Ukie defenses in and around Kiev. There are infiltrations by SpecOps (and if you believe in rumor, by Wagner mercenaries) into the heart of Kiev itself but these are small distraction type operations.
In the meantime, while one force probes, another large force which is continuously being fed from the north, is slowly looping around towards the West of Kiev and capturing everything in that vicinity. So judging by this and the fact that a different front is approaching slowly from the northeast in the Chernihiv, Bachmak, Konotop area to encircle Kiev from the NE, and East, we can safely infer that the actions on the west are slowly meant to surround/encircle Kiev on the West and then eventually south as we know there has been heavy strikes and “alleged” troop landing attempts on the Vasylkiv area south of Kiev.
So to answer your Q, as the original tweet regarding the long column itself said, this column would be enough to encircle Kiev and that’s basically what I believe it’s intended for. So no, I don’t think it’s for immediate storming of Kiev in some massive rampage through the front gates. I believe it’s meant to first encircle and capture everything in the general area all around Kiev to establish a completely safe corridor and bring in all sorts of defenses to make sure once they do start storming it, no desperate ‘retreat’ of the high command and elite capital guard units would be possible.
As for the safety question. To be honest, even if the column had 0 anti air protection, it is so massive that an entire fleet of planes would not have the ammo to take even a fraction of it out. Certainly a Bayraktar drone with its complement of 4 or so max missiles/rockets would hardly be able to put a dent.
With that said, I think the convoy is well protected because: 1. the entirety of it is WELL within range of S-400’s and other defenses which as I understand are positioned on Belarus side of border to protect staging areas for troops coming from the north. I would imagine it’s less practical to further protect it with mobile anti-air units and so instead it would have a constant air patrol of Su-30 / 35 air superiority fighters as well as possible escort from Mi-24’s and such. If you geolocate the *alleged* TB2 drone strikes on previous convoys (i.e. the 1 or 2 incidents that are claimed to have occurred), from what I recall both of them happened much deeper in the country, not only further south but, critically, further West of Kiev, which happens to be the only “frontier land” left that Russian troops haven’t really touched yet (West Ukraine) and where any remaining Ukie air power of course would come from since they are likely operating out of Poland and western-most reaches of Ukraine around Lyvov and such, which is out of range from Russian radars and missile systems etc.
-“so instead it would have a constant air patrol of Su-30 / 35 air superiority fighters as well as possible escort from Mi-24’s and such.”
Are you certain that the column is being escorted and protected by Su-30/35 air superiority fighters or Mi-24s? I ask only because the leading military analysts on Twitter (i.e., Michael Kofman, Rob Lee, Mark Urban, and certain others) are indicating that the Russian air force seems to be absent from the skies of the country currently called Ukraine.
If a Ukrainian plane enters Ukraine airspace from Poland and heads toward Russian forces, how long do you think it would take for Russian aerial surveillance (satellites, local and long-range radar) to spot it? How long would it take for Russian aircraft sitting on the tarmac with pilots sitting in them to rev up and take off?
Not to mention that Russian convoys, especially ones this big, are going to have Pantsir and related AD deployed along the line of march, supported by longer-range AD radar from Belarus and Russia (depending on where the convoy came from.)
Most of the alleged “Turkish drone” strikes are being debunked as videos from Syria from years ago.
Finally, how do these “experts” know there are no Russian aircraft up? What if some Russian aircraft don’t have their transponders turned on and are flying under the radar in their patrols, or that Russian ECM on them has concealed them from the usual long-range radars? I don’t know how feasible that is, but in any event it doesn’t appear that Russia cares much about the alleged threat – which in itself tells you something.
Rob Lee and Koffman are western shills. They are ok analysts and attempt to once in a while act with a semblance of objective reporting but in reality if you’ve followed them for long time, you’ll know they typically only get their info from western sources and copy/paste only enemy propaganda accounts. So as I said in my long writeup the other day, their analyses is inherently structurally flawed because they are not incorporating the most up to date data because they are only using the highly corrupted/propagandized data of ONE side. Me personally I subscribe to the accounts of both sides so I can see what they’re both reporting and have a good sense for when even our side is lying/exaggerating. Lee and Kofman are sadly completely ignorant on the actual situational developments because they are glutting themselves on a diet of Ukie hasbara which constantly repeats the same lies of “Russian air force is missing, blah blah”. When in reality there’s no actual proof or data to support this. And btw for the record as I mentioned in other threads, Su-34’s and other standoff range heavy bombers don’t swoop down to ground level like in hollywood movies. They primarily operate from 20-30k feet and up and so the lack of video footage of a lot of planes does not mean they’re not there, the morons simply expect them to act like the unprofessional Ukie MiG-29 which swooped down to 500feet altitude for a comical ground attack that would never happen in a professional air force. I suppose these Western fraud ‘analysts’ also missed the footage yesterday of the Su-34 flying overhead and the Ukie civilian filming it saying that that’s the “7th one” that just flew over him.
Btw especially with the expected influx of massive stinger missiles and manpads from Western “partners”, you likely won’t see much videos of Russian jets because they will all be operating well out of camera range and manpad range, at 30k+ altitudes dropping precision munitions.
” is the column operating with a reasonable degree of protection from Ukie air attacks?”
Common sense and logic would assure us that the convoy is protected. RuF control the airspace. Why would you doubt that the Russian planners neglected to protect 2,000+ vehicles with their personnel and equipment?
I raise the question only because there have been many reports in recent days of Russian columns being wiped out. There are numerous videos purporting to document these disasters on Twitter. And I am only referring to those attacks which have been verified as true by leading military experts on Twitter.
As to how the Ukies annihilated these Russian columns, I don’t know. But the incidents don’t appear to involve small columns. These reports, and accompanying video evidence, are quite dismaying.
There was really only one major ‘column’ wipe out and that was the assault north of Kiev when Ukies blew a bridge and entrapped some forces them shellacked them with MLRS. 95% of the destruction you’re seeing on the Russian side is by way of Ukie grad systems, NOT any phantom air power. The only incident of any sort of Ukie air attack comes from the questionable and unconfirmed TB2 footage which by the way never wiped out any columns, even in the videos if you’ve watched them, they hit 1 or 2 vehicles at most. The vehicles themselves were IN a column, but none of the column was harmed apart from the vehicle struck and in fact the missiles on a TB2 are not even strong enough to do more damage than that. So don’t think these drones are capable of ‘carpet bombing’ an entire column. That’s only possible if there’s a whole fleet of them and clearly (if the incident is even real) they’re using only 1 at a time in some sort of slippery in and out attack fashion
You have to reset your parameters, you’re all talking about a Russian convoy that doesn’t exist. You’ve all been taken for a 64kms ride by the deceitful MSM.
Sorry.
Lone Wolf
“Anna Chapman aka Anna Kushchenko? Well, she was amongst the LEAST interesting of the lot, except for her looks I suppose.”
Oh, yeah, I got pics of her on my hard drive. Of course, she’s only one of several thousand babes I have pics of. But she was smokin’ hot. I can see how she did her spying. IIRC she became something of a celebrity in Russia and even did a recruiting video for the Russian armed forces. :-) Also, last I heard, she still denies she was ever a spy in the US. For all I know, she could have been framed by the FBI – wouldn’t be the first time.
https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1498478598264664066/photo/2
“an official account of the armed forces of ukraine claiming that ukrainian pilots in jets provided by EU countries will be flying combat missions from polish territory sounds pretty dangerous if it’s not true”
https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1498481048791003136
———————————————
^^ What I’ve already been saying for days is only now being slowly prepared into the public consciousness. Don’t be fooled, I’m sure it’s already been happening.
A point I forgot to mention in my last comment on this issue…
This is obviously an attempt by NATO to trap Russia into launching a strike against Polish airfields hosting these aircraft and the Ukrainian aircraft that fled on the first day. That would enable Poland to scream “Article 5” and get NATO to declare war on Russia.
I won’t bother to mention that “be careful what you wish for” applies here, as I’m sure you get that.
Equally obviously, Russia will not fall for this trap. They don’t have to. They have more than enough aircraft to take down a bunch of aging Soviet-Era stuff. They also know that none of this is going to alter the outcome of the campaign.
If any of this is even true.
I agree about the NATO bait thing. London/Washington would love to sacrifice the Poles/Ukies for their aims.
Btw couple major problems no one’s mentioning:
1. MiG-29 is not a long distance interceptor. It was designed for frontline defense and has extremely limited range compared to other planes. In fact, the distance from the Polish air base of Rezsenow they’re talking about to Kiev and back (I just measured) is almost the full extent of a Mig-29’s range capacity with full tanks, much less any further than Kiev where the jets would basically drop from the sky, out of fuel. So the whole thing either sounds fishy/unrealistic or they intend the jets as a last desperate measure to try and protect Western Ukraine only. Of course depending on how they plan to use them and what armaments they have, they could attempt to just use them to fire BVR missiles at enemy planes but to be honest even the R-77 only has range of like 80km and the Mig would need hundreds of kilometers more than that to make up for its lack of fuel tank.
2. Secondly, time is not on their side. The more Russia establishes safety corridors and brings in the real long range radars and systems, the more fu##ed Ukraine is. For now they might slip by at times when mobile/advancing Russian units are forced to use much shorter range Tor/Pantsir etc systems. But once Russia starts bringing in s300/400 etc with ranges like 500-700km or more, then nothing coming out of Poland will stand any chance of staying in the sky for more than a few minutes as they will be detected and destroyed looooong before the Mig can get into any sort of range to do anything as S400 has 10 times the range of any Mig missile.
2 quick bits of info:
RUMINT: “The mood among the Donbass soldiers right now is that the Russian MoD (Ministry of Defense) are ‘Geniuses’.”
When asked if they mean ironically or literally, the reply was: Literally. “Because they encircled in a double envelope the whole Ukrainian Army Eastern of Dnipro…
Ukraine will be without tactical infantry within the next 2 to 3 days…”
Morale amongst the troops is super high, they’ve been waiting 8 years for this liberation.
-On related note: Poll in Russia shows:
“Today’s opinion poll in Russia.
68% in Russia support the military operation in Ukraine.
22% – against
10% – not sure”
source: https://wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/specialnaja-voennaja-operacija-v-ukraine-otnoshenie-i-celi
“now we have an enormous opportunity to build an entirely different economy”
This is crucial. The new economy must be based on physical, scientific principles of development. Not consumerism, hedonism and money printing. This is an “enormous opportunity” to chase the money-changers from the Russian temple. Along with China, build a new and just world order.
Mathew
Ukrainians have been putting heavy artillery in residential areas while refusing to evacuate towns. That is a warcrime in itself.
Russia should never agree to any ceasefire like the Serbs did and prolong the war.
US Colonel MacGregor: “The Ukrainians will be defeated”. https://youtu.be/HUnGxac1ZjE
Article from 2014….
In 2008, a plan emerged for the provision of US aid to the Ukrainian Health Ministry, and in October 2009, a development concept for a ‘Biological Threat Reduction Programme’ was put forward.
With the support of the US, the first biological centre in Ukraine was opened on 15 June 2010 as part of the Mechnikov Anti-Plague Research Institute in Odessa in the presence of US Ambassador John Tefft. The Odessa centre has been assigned a level allowing work with strains used in the development of biological weapons. In Ukraine, the decentralised storage of dangerous pathogens is common practice. In this regard, the question arises: could there be a link between the work being carried out at this centre and the mass murder of people at the Odessa trade union building on 2 May 2014? A number of local activists and media outlets declared that an unknown substance was used on that day to kill large numbers of people.
In Ukraine in 2013 alone, biolaboratories were opened in Vinnytsia, Ternopil, Uzhhorod, Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Simferopol, Kherson, Lviv (three laboratories at once in this town!) and Lugansk with the support of the US.
Today, the Pentagon’s biolaboratories are gathered around Russia in a semicircle.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/11/24/pentagon-biological-laboratories-ukraine/
Ze is opening doors to foreigners visa-free to Ukraine to fight the Russians: https://www.rt.com/russia/550905-ukraine-foreign-legion-visas-zelensky/
Debunking yet another Western MSM lie: 64kms long convoy, or 64 kms from Kiev?
@ GW on February 28, 2022 · at 10:17 pm EST/EDT
@ Nightvision
Nightvision:
The Western propaganda mill (i.e., 95% of all English language media) is publishing many reports of this 40 mile long Russian column. I am worried that it could be vulnerable to some sort of attack, either Ukie missiles, artillery, Bayraktars, or even bomber jets.
In your opinion, is the column operating with a reasonable degree of protection from Ukie air attacks?
Also, what is the column’s purpose? It’s headed toward Kiev. Does that mean intends to unleash a heavy assault on the city? Or maybe the column is intended to lock an ironclad ring around Kiev, to isolate it?
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GW & Nightvision,
Twitter and the Western presstitutes are, as usual, twisting and manipulating information.
In order to verify if the Russian column is in fact 64kms long, or 64kms from Kiev, and only 5kms long, I went to the Maxar page in Reuters business section, which carry the news.
https://www.reuters.com/companies/MAXR.N
The Russian column is 5kms long, 64kms from Kiev. Voila.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-convoy-ground-forces-fuel-tanks-moving-toward-kyiv-maxar-2022-02-27/
WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Satellite imagery taken on Sunday showed a large deployment of Russian ground forces including tanks moving in the direction of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv from approximately 40 miles (64 km) away, a private U.S. company said.
The images released by Maxar Technologies Inc (MAXR.N) showed a deployment comprised of hundreds of military vehicles and extending more than 3.25 miles (5 km), Maxar said.
The convey was situated northeast of the Ukrainian city of Ivankiv and contained fuel, logistics and armored vehicles including tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and self-propelled artillery, it said.
The satellite images also showed damage caused by recent airstrikes on the Antonov airport in Hostomel, and heavy fighting in and near the airport, Maxar reported.
Maxar has been tracking the buildup of Russian forces for weeks. Its images could not be independently verified by Reuters.
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All the MSM is pushing the ominous “64kms” long convoy, and no one has bothered to go to the source, to verify the news. Nowadays, and following the old adage about the first casualty of war is truth, plus the enormous campaign launched against Russia, any information needs to be double-checked and verified.
I would suggest, GW, you keep your questions until the correct size of the convoy has been ascertained without a doubt.
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Australian media is saying the 64kms convoy, “If it started in Sydney’s CBD, it would stretch west past Penrith.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-01/satellite-images-ukraine-russian-forces/100870676
They combined the dangerous size of the Russian column with “A report by the Institute for the Study of War says the next major Russian attack is likely within 24 hours.”
The Russians are cooomingggg…again. There you have it, 64kms long Russian convoy, with a report from the ISW, a dangerous mix.
Passing by, worth to take a look at the ISW propaganda.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-28-2022
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Military Times got it right.
https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/ukraine/2022/02/27/russian-military-convoy-traveling-toward-kyiv-satellite-images-show/
“…According to a release from Maxar, the convoy extends for more than 3.25 miles and is moving in the direction of Kyiv, which is about 40 miles from the photographed location. There are hundreds of military vehicles in the convoy, including tanks and self-propelled artillery…”
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Lone Wolf
Haa, funny stuff. Thanks for checking. I figured it was b.s. one way or another. I assumed by 64km they really meant the start and end of it were 64k apart, but there was huge gaps in between so it wasn’t an actual continuous train 64km long. With that said, realistically speaking I suppose a 5km long convoy is still pretty damn long. By my calculations that would still put it at several hundred vehicles.
I guess MSM will use any opportunity to depict Russia as some unstoppable evil barbaric force, marching in endless columns of orcs. I’ve already seen CGI videos from Ukraine depicting Russia as the imperial army from Star Wars and the Ukies as the poor rebels.
“I would suggest, GW, you keep your questions until the correct size of the convoy has been ascertained without a doubt.”
But the only way I can ascertain the truth of any of these MSM and “expert” reports is by raising the questions here, very early, before all the facts have been ascertained. So I think there’s value in asking these questions. Not being able to do so is sort of like putting me under a gag order.
@ GW
No gag order, common sense to double-check info, and follow The Saker instructions, stay away from MSM, period. He has pointed out news sources you can trust.
Lone Wolf
The Associated Press reports that 70 Ukie soldiers were killed by a Russian artillery attack this evening. Happened in the past two hours. This is a very rare instance of the Western propaganda machine allowing reports of Ukie casualties to surface publicly.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-live-updates-ee7cdf19bdab43a22cb1391c98c62b4d
I love this part at the bottom of the article:
NEW YORK—Three major Hollywood studios have moved to pause their upcoming theatrical releases in Russia, including rolling out “The Batman” in theaters there this week.
Warner Bros., the Walt Disney Co. and Sony Pictures s aid Monday that they would “pause” the release of their films in Russia. Each studio has significant upcoming releases that had been set to debut internationally in the coming weeks. “The Batman,” one of the year’s more anticipated films, launches Friday in North America and many overseas territories.
Warner Bros.′ move closely followed a similar decision Monday by the Walt Disney Co. The studio had planned to open the Pixar film “Turning Red” in Russia on March 10. That film is going straight to Disney+ in the U.S.
Sony followed suit, saying it would delay its release of the comic book film “Morbius” in Russia.
Russia is not a leading market for Hollywood, but the country typically ranks in the top dozen countries globally in box office.
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So you mean the satanic degenerate pedophile hollyweirdos are finally getting their diseased low grade smut out of Russia? Sounds like a major victory to me………
Btw you’ll be seeing more and more stories like this in coming days. Opening days of war was just fast/light units probing defenses all over the country while slower units like the lumbering TOS-1 system were working their way down for past few days towards the frontline. Once Russia gets the slow moving, REAL killers like TOS-1’s, 2S19’s and such situated on the frontlines, you’re going to see a lot of large, dug-in troop groupings simply go ‘SPLAT’ in ways that even the failed MSM cronies won’t be able to hide.
America is expelling another 12 Russian diplomats from the States even as Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s Ambassador to the UN was meeting the press.
The fact that the capricious and incorrigibly wayward US withholds visas, sanctions, or dispels Russian diplomats at will surely the time is ripe for Russia and China to initiate a new int’l format in place of the UN, and in another country. As it is it has no means nor power to resist the US. The immense influence that the US exerts over the IOC, WADA, UEFA, FIFA, individuals, over media, over many other int’l bodies/industries et al, the world is held hostage. This dysfunctional and disproportionate influence and abuse of power by the US needs to be circumscribed. Many operating under such a stultifying environment and unwieldy shackles would surely welcome a move to establish new forum to mediate and overcome conflicts and differences through peaceful means, open, construction and mutually respectful dialogue. The current US way destroys trust, cooperation, and fear.
Early morning videos showing Russian troops entering Kherson unmolested so far. Major news if true and they end up taking it because Kherson is one of the most strategically important with very large population where Russia has had its 2nd biggest losses so far or possibly its most losses. If Kherson falls then Odessa comes in cross hairs soon.
“After rolling through the city on day 1 or 2 & advancing further, it looks like Russian forces are now finally securing Kherson for good. They took full control of Kherson’s airport after shelling it and entrenched themselves on the northwestern outskirts of the city”
https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1498530770314530820
https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1498531211265949697
If Polish airfields are used to attack the peacekeepers; Moscow will attack the command and control centers in Ramstein and Aviano etc.
Hypersonic missiles have their uses.
How reliable is Colonel Cassad? I follow this and Intel Slava Z on Telegram for an idea of what’s going on. Both seem reasonable – the Ukie nonsense is fairly easy to spot. C.Cassad is in Russian, but with my schoolboy Russian from 55 yrs ago ( which is improving by the day) and on-line translation apps, it’s easy enough to figure out what’s up.
NATO E-3 sentry right on Ukie border. With 700km-ish radar range, this thing would be able to be Ukraine’s eyes and ears all the way up to Kiev or just about, and would allow Tb2 drones and planes flying from west Ukraine or Poland to know exactly when the airspace was “clear” of any Russian planes, so they can sneak in a quick strike then jet out.
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1498518259016032256
It may show when skies are clear of Russian jets but they will still have to contend with Pantsir, s-500 etc.
I wanted to suggest an alternative strategy for the “Information Battle” (discussed by Saker in this article). It has coalesced in my mind recently by reading some key articles (mostly by Russians) and I have written a brief overview of the potential themes that could be deployed. Perhaps, I inspire someone to write the story of pirates versus merchants.
Firstly, it is not the ‘information war’ that needs to be won. It is an analytical war. An ‘information war’ is low quality bombardment over a long period to cause fatigue and disorientation. An analytical war requires one digestible analysis (video or article) that reaches each person once. One analysis to rule them all! Saker has 5m readers … each sends it to 5 others … and more.
Let’s not participate in an Information war by returning fire from the trenches with comments like “Look how stupid they are” or outrage porn. It is a strategic mistake to assume the other side is stupid. Is the West really that stupid?
The core of this is a 1,000 year battle over Eurasian integration (promoted by land powers China and Russia) or Eurasian disintegration (by sea powers United States and UK). Two world wars (which were arguably both manufactured, funded and continued by the USA and the UK) both targeted Eurasian disintegration, the destruction of Russia and the plundering of Russia, the largest and most resource rich country (by proxy). Russia could be considered Monopoly’s Park Lane (ie second best property) on the geopolitics board.
This is described in many different ways. It could be conisdered a battle between a dystopia for the few, pirates, USA franchisee model (monetary, banks, central banks, no local development), west vs. humanists, merchants (physical economy), society for the many. The Great Reset (injections, Dystopia passport, Dystopia Wallet, monetary centralisation) is just an upgrade to the (cabal and USA empire) franchisee models implemented by the local politicians. Perhaps, pirates vs merchants is probably most intuitive to the public.
The sea powers have extracted tribute by controlling sea trade, restrcited development and created advanced economies in illogical places. The logical place for advanced civilisation was always Eurasia, and has been Eurasia, before the Opium Wars in 1840s displaced China from its position as number 1. The land powers were subjugated. China went through a Century of Humiliation and Russia was defeated twice (according to Putin) in 1920s and 1990s.
The sea powers are primrily concerned with GDP market share: (1) USA franchisee model – USA and its corporations own 50% of GDP, and (2) Cabal franchisee model – the high concentration of corporate ownership with 1,400 companies owning 40% of GDP and controlling 80%.
300 years of West (and its proxy NATO) expansionism of market share was planned to ultimately climax in World War 3 in a few years using Ukraine as the proxy to attack Russia. They have been successful for 200, 300 or 1,000 years. All they USA have to do is nuke Russia (or get Europe to do it), Europe (or get Russia to do it), nuke China, implement local police states, wipe away all their debts, and they can rinse and repeat the Bretton Woods and rebuild the world with the USA at its heart. Mission accomplished!
Russia simply acted first and, arguably, with millenium timing and averted a World War in a few years in which the USA and NATO were comprehensively prepared.
The land powers including two thousand plus year civilisations (Russian and Chinese) are implementing a global, multipolar physical economy design (which has been joined by 160 countries) to serve humanity. The 4Feb22 China-Russia manifesto provides an introduction. Dismantling empire is part of the process.
The Europeans were given the choice (1) cheap Russian gas, a possibility of re-industrialisation, peace in Europe, European sovereignty, demilitarisation, Eurasian integration and common prosperity, OR (2) very expensive and inadequate USA gas, continuing USA servitude, Eurasian disintegration, poverty for citizens, Great Reset police state dystopia remilitarisation, permanent wars, and nuclear war risk.
The Europeans chose Option 2 – Dystopia not society, Nazis not People, Suicide not prosperity, Servitude not sovereignty
Let’s tell a story of pirates versus merchants! This includes a clear summary of where we are going in this 1,000 year battle between West and East, including the NATO expansion climax in Ukraine. Russia had no choice but to invade and it thwarted
What happens now? Sanctions from hell are being implemented by incompetent poltiicians consumed by unidentified emotions. Given European politicians have clearly declared war on Russia (Option 2 above), the Russia is justified in implementing its one in a millenium opportunity. Demand gold for ALL Russian exports or simply deny ALL exports. Perhaps, the USA is also denied all or some or all trade from Russia. Russia can live permanently without the USA and Europe, but Europe may only last 6 weeks and the USA a few months. The article belows suggest that European social disintegration occurs within 6 hour, not 6 weeks. Again, Russia has very little choice, but to take this strategic step given the declaration of war by the USA and Europe. Russia plans anticipate every scenario.
There is a story that hasn’t been told, or simply needs to be told in one simple statement. Maybe this starts the process of “a tale of pirates versus merchants” in comprehensive but digestible detail. One large bomb in an anlytical war, not return fire in the information wars. If worthy, feel free to run with this idea, no attribution required.
Source articles and videos:-
1000 year old drang nach osten everything? 28Feb22
https://aftershock.news/?q=node/1070718 (Russian. Machine translation required.
If you read the following 2014 article by the same author, then you would understand why it would be a service to Russia for him not to write anything further. It also invites the question whether the lack of action and by Russia in Ukraine since 2014 was simply a tactical step to a 1 in 1,000 year strategic opportunity.
Basic Adventurer scenarios (written 2006-2007)
https://aftershock.news/?q=node/53
“It is not sad, but the Adventurer again (mistaking the timing) turns out to be right.” The scenarios were probably delayed by Empire’s ability to print a theoretically impossible amount of worthless fiat currency (to purchase foreign companies, fund mortgages, develop rental income streams, finance wars, finance deficits) that was accepted by USA vassals.
Rereading the Adventurer (selection about Ukraine) 22Feb14
https://aftershock.news/?q=node/210179
Dmitry Orlov: Russia incursion into Ukraine necessary for security 1Mar22
https://www.bitchute.com/video/A_PAubHe48I/
NATO Too weak to face Russia: Scott Ritter on Russian Offensive Feb22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GkmdCaBECs&t=1s
Out of characters, will create another comment on implications for Australia.
ps: A Quality crash course on Geopolitics available at:
https://russia-insider.com/en/dmitry_orlov
One thing I question, Maurelius: ‘Europe chose Option 2’.
NO, Europe did NOT choose option 2. A small number of slave politicians who work for the USA, not for those who elected them (in the case of politicians, not EU functionaries).
It is entirely appropriate at this juncture to ask the people to adjudicate on such a choice through Referendum.
Of course, the polity have long since tried to take the big decisions autocratically without public discussion.
If Russia wishes to initiate ‘cardinal change’, then it is going to need other nations of the world to demand a vote on this matter.
I am telling you now that a majority of the citizens of Europe will vote for cheap Russian gas.
Neither Ursula van der Leyen nor Josip Burrell have any democratic legitimacy: they are appointed functionaries. They have zero moral right to take decisions of this magnitude without specific electoral mandate.
Of course, the USA was instrumental in framing the nature of the EU as it wanted unelected bribable prostitutes it could control through the EU instrument. They have done an excellent job of it, even though the UK populace voted to get out. As Boris Johnson is amply demonstrating right now, getting out of the EU does not stop the USA continuing to control UK affairs….
What Russia needs to promote is the primacy of a VOTE.
I’d love to hear Joe Biden saying that he hates democracy so much that he won’t let Europeans vote on such a fundamental issue. I’d love to hear von der Leyen, Federica Mogherini, Guy Verhofstadt, Emmanuel Macron etc say the same.
These dinosaurs of the ‘how can we stop democracy manifesting itself?’ professional polity are the ones who needed to be confronted.
Not with nuclear weapons, but with the far more incendiary mechanism of 500 million votes cast one way or the other……
Very harsh and threatening words. But truth is, it is no different than ever. The EU cabal has always been waging economic terror on Russia.
“EU Will Wage Total Economic & Financial War Against Russia, French Finance Minister Says”
https://sputniknews.com/20220301/eu-will-wage-total-economic–financial-war-against-russia-french-finance-minister-says-1093473057.html
Very interesting analysis, it sounds about right to me. One thing I’d add is in regards to one of the most ridiculous statements, sending Jets. It makes zero sense, with the exception that it could possibly be used as a negotiation tool, same with the rest of the weapons that are supposed to come flooding in.
It’s fairly simple once you see it. “If you don’t end this war in way that’s somewhat favorable or face saving to the West, then we will fight you to the last drop of Ukrainian blood”. As threats go it’s fairly weak, were the hell are they supposed to operate from? However, it might be the best they have at this point and it sounds good in the press. Plus if an agreement is made, even if they didn’t get anything extra due to the threat, they will still claim they saved the day with their threats anyway.
Over 90% chance I’m right on this one. Not that they would NEVER go through with it, but mostly it’s meant to give Z’s team something to use.
Brad Smith 7th id(L) 5/21 HQ S2. (Operation Just Cause and Operation Promote Liberty)
Ps. They armed the Dignitary Battalions in Panama (civilians), 90% idiot thugs who we had to chase down and ventilate, nobody missed these scum. They did horrible shit to the people of Panama before we could put them down. One in ten of them were patriots that hated our guts for invading. Most of those guys gave up and went home to their families but many of them died too and that was a terrible shame. You hated to kill some poor schmuck who thought he was defending his family or town.
Pss, I know it seems odd to think that the Ukrainian people could be friends with Russians after this, but traveling to Panama, even for Vets, isn’t a problem so long as you stay away from Colon or a few other places. In fact they love us in many towns. People are strange, you would think they would still hate us but it wasn’t even universally true on the day we invaded and bombed the shit out of them.
Another whim:
I hereby challenge the notion that “Russia is losing the information war” on account of the fact that this statement, so oft repeated now in amateur analytical circles, presupposes that it is some form of conflict Russia willingly engaged in and has now “lost” or is losing. I put forth, to the contrary, the following:
1. Russia never intended to fight an information war, nor win one. Russia knew it’s impossible to go against the social media / twitter / technofascist centralized octopus, and as such it was never even in their calculus to attempt to win some sort of cyber ‘hearts and minds’ war. Russia intended only to win the war of perception on the actual ground, for the real Ukrainian citizens and population who witness with their own eyes and ears how Russia treats them, and is not against them but only the nazi’s in power.
2. As per usual, this faulty basis / presupposition causes all sorts of amateur analysts to extrapolate completely erroneous conclusions based on logical fallacies. Starting with the completely wrong premise, they then attempt to bridge it to the ‘deduction’ that since Russia intended to win the info war, it is now ‘surprised’ and is thrown off-balance by their sudden loss in this space, then further extrapolate all sorts of fallacious meanings and deductive digressions from this that purports to predict what Russia will do next, or how it will react in order to alleviate this loss of dominance of the information space. They then incorrectly characterize Russia as having been caught with its pants down and thus was not prepared for the various repercussions/consequences that are currently precipitating due to this loss of informational dominance.
But all of this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Every single thing that’s currently happening has been 100% gamed and accurately calculated by Putin/Russian strategic planners. This is not just some misguided wishful thinking on my part, but the result of analysis of the relevant data/proof that we have.
We know for a fact that Putin acted in advance (and thus foresaw) many of the current ‘calamitous consequences.’ Just to give one of the biggest examples. I myself commented in the very first day of the war (back when the prospect of Turkey closing the straits would have been ludicrous to me), that there was something very strange going on with the Russian Navy. Inexplicably Putin sent the entire Black Sea fleet into the Mediterranean in what was described the largest such grouping Russia’s ever had in the region.
This action can only be explained logically in hindsight by the fact that Putin and his planners accurately mapped out every step of the Western reaction including the eventual closure of the Bosphorous, and the ONLY possible way to have accurately calculated these moves is if the Russian planners acknowledged from the getgo that the theatre of information warfare would not be winnable and would deteriorate to the exact situation we currently have where rabid critical mass of Twitter concensus drives entire EU/Nato/Western policy into predictable drastic measures.
There are other examples, but the point is that Putin can only have known of these upcoming measures and prepared for them IF he had from the onset predicated all his moves on the premise that the information war will not be winnable and thus there is no point in Russia even wasting its time attempting to win it, because that would only be a waste of time/resources. If Russia had any hope in actually fighting that war and potentially winning it, then Russia would not have taken all the measures that it did which proved the complete 100% accurate foreknowledge of every action the EU/Nato/West ended up so far taking.
So in summary, to me it’s a rather pointless and misleading argument to say “Russia is losing the information war”. No, Russia never fought the information war and doesn’t intend to fight it–at least, like I said, not the one on Twitter. So Russia is not “losing it” rather it has bypassed it just like it’s bypassing encircled towns in Ukr and striking rearforces to keep the operational initiative.
I would agree that Russia isn’t seriously waging an information war; but only because the West already has control of both social media and international news media; similarly to how Russia has control of the air space over Ukraine. It’s pointless to send a jet fighter into Ukraine at this time, just as it would be pointless for Russia to mount an effective information war when the opponent already controls the medium.
This does make a difference in the sense that if it were possible to mount an effective information war, the opposition in western countries which currently is non-existent might emerge. Without that, there is zero pressure on the ruling class.
In Vietnam War days, there was opposition and meaningful dissent; even on TV. Those days are gone. There is nothing Russia can do about this unfortunately. So the war will play out.
My View: Dialog and negotiation are all very well. But if there is a war going on one must not be distracted by talk that may not lead anywhere at this time. Ukraine has been turned into a de facto Nato proxy, this is the national security problem that must be solved. Then there is the security of the ethnic Russian minority that has been bombarded since 2014 and whose human rights have been violated by language laws and in other ways. This is a matter of the security of a minority which Russia has a responsibility to protect.
I copied the following article which was highlighted earlier to my mailing list along with the famous Obama quote “never underestimate the ability of Biden to screw thing up” jhttps://newspunch.com/stunning-admission-u-s-intel-baited-russia-last-december-by-pretending-ukraine-was-joining-nato/
Not really relevant, since there is not much difference between joining and being a de facto or prospective member of Nato.
This was on Sputnik today.
“Some French minister out there said today that they have declared “economic war” on us. Watch your words, gentlemen! And do not forget that economic wars in the history of mankind often turned into real ones,” Medvedev wrote on Twitter.
I fear we are only heartbeats away from WW III.
“So please be aware of the fact that we are definitely losing the informational battle so far”
The good thing about kinetic warfare, as conducted by the russians, is that the PR matters not. Except in westerners’ minds, of course, which for the russians at this point is irrelevant.
As the old bulgarian proverb says – Не е важно какво говорят за теб, важното е да надживееш копелетата .Lit. translated: It doesn’t matter what they say about you, the most important thing is to outlive the bastards.
And the russians are definitely positioned to outlive all of them ;-)
“Igor Strelkov’s analysis, 1 March
– An operation to surround the city of Nikolaev will be launched today
– Russian units in the south will eventually start moving towards cutting off the Ukrainian army group in the Donbass
– The enemy is withdrawing troops from Donbass to Dnepropetrovsk with heavy losses
– Mariupol is not completely surrounded, but aerial and artillery bombardment make troop movement impossible
– The Armed Forces of Ukraine are withdrawing from the Lugansk region in an organized manner, but with heavy losses
– Severodonetsk will not be abandoned without a fight, I expect the battle there to begin today
– Fierce urban battles were going on all over Kharkov yesterday
– Until Kharkov is taken, progress further west will be stalled
– The battles for Kharkov will not end today, it will take another day or more, depending on the enemy’s morale
– There is no doubt Kharkov will be liberated, it is only a question of “when”
– I expect a lasting insurgency in Kharkov in the future
– The siege of Sumy and Chernigov continues, and Russian troops are advancing on Poltava; these cities have not yet been captured because of a lag in army units arriving in the region
Kiev front
– Russian troops advanced to the suburbs of Kiev – Brovary, and began to form the eastern front of the siege of the city
– I do not expect any direct attacks on Kiev until sufficient forces are concentrated here
– Russian troops are likely to attack the Boryspil airport and cut off the southbound highway
– Russian troops cut the Kiev – Zhitomir highway and are moving to cut the Kiev – Belaya Tserkov highway. The main Russian efforts today will be directed towards the latter, but the enemy will provide fierce resistance there to avoid encirclement
– The Kiev region is very built up, surbuban, and industrial, which is especially difficult for the attacking force – it requires lots of forces, but those forces are coming, I know that for sure.
– The garrison of Kiev will soon be surrounded.”
Map shows this…
Looks like “the cauldron” has been closed possibly? From Sputnik’s live report section: “52 minutes ago
Forward Detachments of DPR’s Militia Joined Russia’s Forces on Donetsk Border, MoD Says
The Russian Defence Ministry has announced that forward detachments of the DPR’s militia have joined Russia’s forces on the Donetsk border. According to the Russian military, access of Ukrainian forces to sea of Azov has been completely blocked.
Germany is passing a law that requires the operators of the gas reservoirs located in Germany to fill the reservoirs to 90% of capacity before the heating period starts.
Several of those reservoirs in Germany are operated by Gazprom. Gazprom is only storing the amount of gas purchased by their customers. Who spent this year reselling that gas on spot market without ordering additional gas, so the reservoirs were quite empty.
And after impsing our sanctions from hell, we expect Russia to fill up the reservoirs as fast as they can and without a customer who guarantees to pay for it?
Nice.
Germany can pass a law requiring the temperature to stay above 0 Celsius. Or they are intending to steal the property of Gazprom.
Gazprom should empty and then ‘disable’ permamently their underground depots in Germany.
Some significant developments today. Russia has hit the city square in Kharkov with a missile. https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1498563326405660675 According to Ukrainian authorities 1 civilian was killed, several wounded. The source in the link I posted says the building was used to store ammo and to station troops. They also posted photos of the square being used as recruiting volunteers for the Azov Battalion. https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1498584596421779459
Russian forces have entered Kherson, reports claim they are either in partial or full control of the city which they have taken largely unopposed.
YouTube has banned RT and Sputnik from its platform, I have checked personally and neither are available here (Serbia – which is not in the EU, by the way).
https://sputniknews.com/20220301/moscow-considers-unacceptable-behavior-of-us-ii-giants-conducting-anti-russian-propaganda-1093482944.html
https://sputniknews.com/20220301/rt-says-instagram-blocked-all-its-accounts-in-27-european-countries-1093484221.html
The same goes for TikTok.
Latest reports have it that Donetsks is being heavily shelled.
https://sputniknews.com/20220301/lavrov-us-nuclear-weapons-in-europe-are-unacceptable-for-russia-time-to-return-them-home-1093476238.html
The latest statement from Lavrov strikes me as a subtle trolling, Russian style. Unlike two days ago, there seems to be no sabre rattling by NATO but the EU and the full force of Western media propaganda machinery are waging total informational warfare against Russia.
I’m asking the Twitter military experts to comment on reports that cauldrons have formed (or nearly formed) in Mariupol and Donbass. If they are not willing to address this issue – which potentially has huge and fatal consequences for Kiev’s war effort – then we know they have ulterior motives which constrain what they are or are not willing to discuss.
BTW, Mark Ames, a very experienced maverick reporter on Russia affairs, is saying that reports about the Mariupol cauldron are true.
That guy in the video sure swears a lot!
There is this scholar that has a channel called ‘Coach Red Pill’ that has a honest view of the current situation, perhaps too honest that points out the reality of the situation, which happens to favor Russia… anyway, I wanted to give him a warning but I don’t have any social media whatsoever… so if someone here maybe can tell him to “bugout from Kiev asap, on foot if necessary using the Russian’s corridor out of the city towards Poland, get the hell out of Ukraine now!”. All I going to say is that folks notice descent… people can disappear in no time in Ukraine never to be heard again as we all know.
He is not in the West, he showed who/where he is, what he thinks, stupid and naive and placed a massive target on his head… with his big mouth he wont last long.
Hope this message gets him well.
Not to worry TriariusX,
He just returned to his home in Kharkov. Somehow the trains were re-started from Kiev to Khakov!!
I think his home city is now in hands of Russian AF..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zXeIBIpXfc
RUMINT:
Военкор М.А. Келлер
@zxcKeller
По неподтвержденным данным, первый в этой войне обмен пленными произошел в Сумской области. Сообщается, что одного российского офицера обменяли на пятерых военнослужащих ВСУ.
Translated from Russian by
“According to unconfirmed reports, the first exchange of prisoners in this war took place in the Sumy region. It is reported that one Russian officer was exchanged for five servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
There’s a Twitter account under Igor Girkin’s name. I am a follower because I assumed it consists of tweets from the real Igor Strelkov. But now I’m not so sure. I’m wondering if this a fake account using Girkin’s name.
https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin
that’s not real girkin. that’s some pro Ukie propagandist who posts nonstop fake psyop videos
Thanks for the feedback. I just blocked the account.
I think real Girkin used to post only on VK and telegram, not sure if he still has accounts there
Random bits of info/updates:
-Poland/Slovakia/Bulgaria have all now officially denied supplying any planes. At this point we may still assume there may be secret transfers but issue will no longer be in public sphere.
-Kharkov is now “effectively being governed by the National Corp, the political party that grew out of Azov Battalion.’ This comes a day after the arrest for treason of the mayor who we previously showed videos of, who was declaring to the citizens that Kharkov should ‘surrender.’
-Not only Turkish military planes landing in Poland https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1498671748329394189 presumably for the delivery of more TB2 drones and/or attendant parts/supplies, but also U.S. army blackhawks are buzzing like hungry hyenas all over Polish/Ukraine border https://twitter.com/IaamNooB18/status/1498674060800446464
This is after yesterday’s posting of E-3 Sentry Awacs from NATO also doing the rounds in the same place on the Polish side of border.
-Very large Russian convoy headed to Kharkov to finish the capture of the city https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1498610306616025088
-Multiple reports are indicating Belarussian troops have finally entered Ukraine in Chernihiv region but Lukashenko was said to have officially denied this. Mark this one down also for something that may end up happening in the ‘unofficial’ sphere and Belarus troops operating in Ukraine may never be fully confirmed. We’ll see.
-Ukie journalist is being condemned after proudly bragging that Ukrop forces are destroying Russian tanks from the rooftops of civilian buildings (which are filled with people), inviting the destruction of said buildings.
-U.S. officials now state Russia has dedicated 80% of its allotted forces to the conflict. This is in line with reports yesterday that Russia would be injecting the 2nd of 3 waves for an escalation into a new phase.
-MUST SEE VIDEO. Alert to Saker in particular. Very eye-opening video of a presentation on February 5th of far-right leader in Kiev with translation provided. The things he says are jaw-dropping and pretty much reveal why Russia had to do what it did https://twitter.com/UrOrientalist/status/1498298842864922635
-Chinese foreign minister officially threatens to reduce U.S. forces to “scrap metal” if U.S. continues on its path of aggression against China https://twitter.com/CaoYi_MFA/status/1498688052193071106 Very uncharacteristically belligerent words from China
-Lukashenko accidentally shows military map depicting Russian invasion forces going into Transnistria? Also seems to show the partition of Ukraine into 4 zones
https://twitter.com/Conflicts/status/1498689718657204229/photo/1
https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1498673348183744518
-A repeat in case some haven’t caught this one: #Russia #Ukraine #UkraineRussia
The governor of #Sumy region announced that 70 Ukrainian servicemen were killed in a Russian missile attack on a military unit in the city of #Okhtyrka.
This is significant because in opening days of the war Russia is now confirmed to have deliberately avoided targeting troop BARRACKS, not wanting to inflict mass troop deaths on Ukraine with their initial ‘soft touch’ approach. Now apparently Russia is ratcheting up the attacks onto troop concentrations. Be prepared to see more mass casualty events from Ukrop forces from now on
-“RusijeMinistry of Defense of Russia: To suppress information attacks on Russia, high-precision weapons will strike at the technological facilities of the SBU and the 72nd main center of psychological special operations in Kiev. Information attacks on Russia are being carried out by the 72nd main center of the information-armed forces of Ukraine and the cyber operations force SBU, using hardware and software systems and means of communication in Kiev, the ministry announced.”
Russia now targeting the Ukrainian CIA/KGB equivalent (SBU) directly in order to suppress their psychological warfare campaign.
-Great video with the most up to date map. The Kherson front has completely collapsed for Ukraine and Russia is already storming Nikolayev (videos show troops penetrating city), after that falls, Odessa blockade will begin and Russia could reach the Transnistria border within the next day
https://youtu.be/GhICD2SrKUA?t=28
Also note on the map how far Russian spearhead has penetrated to east of Kiev. I see it in other sources as well. Kiev now blockaded on west, north, and east, with the new column from Belarus slowly winding down around to south side for full enclosure
Why is Russia not doing a better job of informing people of its views and about what is going on at the embassy level? Russian embassy sites everywhere need to present Russia’s point-of-view and reasons why it took actions in Ukraine. I don’t see that in the country where I live. It’s like they’re asleep while the 5th column NATO disinfo echo chamber goes full-on schitzo.
Mark Ames, a famous, strongly independent journo who has always decried the unreliability of Western MSM, just tweeted this:
“getting a sense that some accounts that have been quite reliable are downplaying how badly military situation going for Ukr over the past 24+ hours (not out of some devious propaganda design, but even the clearest headed analyst has emotional and social investments here)”
https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1498718831686168577
I think Ames is talking about the prominent military analysts on Twitter such as Michael Kofman, Rob Lee, and Mark Urban. Note that up to this very minute, Kofman, Lee, and Urban are just talking about the Russian army’s alleged disorganization, logistics problems, low morale, and equipment losses.
Not a single one of these experts is saying anything – pro or con – about the reports of an unfolding Ukie military disaster in the east. You’d think these experts would at least be willing to debunk this news if they had any reason to think it’s untrue.
Yeah it’s a bizarre psychological impairment/cognitive dissonance occurring in western ‘analyst’ reportage, they’re incapable of reconciling the 2 contradictory poles of “Russia is being destroyed and losing + but every major Ukrainian city has either fallen or is enveloped and about to fall.”
It’s par for the course though for western descriptions of Russia as we have seen in the past 20 years it was one of their noted hallmarks that has become a sort of global meme, where the West routinely refers to Russia as a ‘3rd rate power with an economy the size of Rhode Island (or whatever)” and at the same time lists it as the ‘gravest military threat’ to the United States, and continuously produces excuses for how such a ‘weak country which is just a gas station masquerading as a country’ can push the U.S. out of the middle east and humiliate it in Syria by confronting it openly, etc. etc.
Every single facet of what’s happening on the ground is being completely misread by these low IQ, fraud analysts.
-When captured Russian soldiers were shown on video to say “I don’t know anything” -these frauds Kofman/Lee espoused that the Russians are suffering from ‘low morale’ because “they were not even told by Russian command what was happening!” No, dumbasses, it’s the complete opposite. These are the courageous declarations of troops with very high morale who are REFUSING to “rat” out their countrymen. They are saying “I don’t know anything” as in, “I won’t tell you anything”.
-Similarly when now 100% disproven mass Russian plane shootdowns allegedly occurred, these analysts incorporated that into their ongoing analysis which formed the bedrock, “Russian command is in complete disarray, they are launching inexplicable suicide attacks with their VDV and wasting them.” You are making analysis from phantom / hologram events! The analysis is therefore completely invalidated at the core level.
But honestly, all of that will be quietened soon because major population centers are set to fall as early as tonight with Mariupol and Kharkov both being stormed. Once those 2 major cities are down, and then freed up troops from Mariupol axis stream north to close the huge cauldron, these people will be in an unprecedented state of cognitive dissonance and denial because half of the country will be gone and it will no longer be possible even for the absolutely most twistedly propagandized ‘analyst’ to deny the reality of the situation.
But of course I already predict what the shift of narrative will be. They will try to deflect to now switch the goalposts to an entirely different topic. They will forego commenting on strategic territorial capture and will focus their ‘analysis’ 100% from that point onward onto the “war crimes” and “civilian casualties”. Mark my words and remember my prediction. Soon as these cities fall that will be the new narrative nonpareil. You will no longer hear of Ukrainian army’s complete destitution and subjugation, but will ONLY hear the hysterical documentation of Russian “crimes” against civilians/civil infrastructure from that point forward.
This shift of narrative was already foreshadowed this morning by a article on Slate which described all of Russia’s “failures,” including but not limited to those you but saying Russia will still eventually win through bombardment of cities:
“Putin and his generals can be expected to turn up the heat, shelling — and recently, bombing — cities, destroying whatever they can destroy, for destruction’s sake… at some point, superior firepower will win out, at least in the short run…
…And the more Putin resorts to chaotic destructiveness, the more organized the defenses become.”
The article is titled “No, you’re not imagining it: Russia’s army is inept”
The last sentence neatly segues with a very astute comment somewhere above which said Russia didn’t bother engaging in the information war, they just preempted every ploy.
Sorry to everyone for bringing up this source, but as I said, I believe it’s using propaganda to foreshadow something.
“They will forego commenting on strategic territorial capture and will focus their ‘analysis’ 100% from that point onward onto the “war crimes” and “civilian casualties”. Mark my words and remember my prediction. ”
Yes, I agree. In fact, it’s already happening. Over the past 24 hours, reports have proliferated on Western MSM that Russians are now killing civilians and committing war crimes. Bizarrely, at the same time, none of the reports mention the presence of Ukie troops engaged in combat with the Russians.
Concerning Kofman, Lee, and Urban, I have my own theory on why their analysis is lopsided. Consider the facts about these guys. They have prestigious positions with think tanks and major news outlets. One reason they obtained those positions is because, over the course of their careers, they have exceled at cultivating and maintaining contacts with important statesmen, military figures, the Pentagon, the US State Department, and at NATO headquarters. Therefore, the continuing career success of these analysts is linked to whether they say things that flatter the policies and rhetoric of their powerful contacts. Should Kofman, Lee, or Urban utter a peep to the effect that the Ukie army in the east is in desperate straits, then their powerful contacts would blacklist them. Their careers as pundits would then flounder.
One parting thought. Western media’s eerily whitewashed coverage of the Ukie army’s situation is really an extension of US war censorship practices. Ever read about how the US media reported on the South Vietnamese army’s deteriorating situation during the first few years of the Vietnam War? If so, you’ll recall that the Pentagon managed to put some kind of gag order on US media, ensuring that ARVN defeats, casualties, and flagging morale were never reported to the American public. That’s because South Vietnam was a US proxy state. Same difference now, concerning the country currently called Ukraine, which is also a US proxy state. The US State Department and Brussels don’t want to trigger mass panic in UKR – or demoralization and defeatism in the US and Europe – by allowing the American, Euro, and Ukie publics to be aware of Ukie military reversals and casualties. I’m sure you understand what I mean.
1000% agreed, I think you said what I said but more elegantly. This is the ‘social pressure’ thing Mark Ames mentioned about these analysts. They have immense social pressure to stay invested into the sort of eco-system and narrative orbit that they’re in. And since they’re higher profile they can’t stray from expected narrative.
Now if you want to see what the TRUE experts say about the Russian military beneath the surface, away from the false dichotomies and various hologramic infowar stuff of the media and ‘visible’ world, read this document from official fort benning military address https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/earmor/content/issues/2017/spring/2Fiore17.pdf
From several years ago but the experts who analyzed Russian battalion tactical groups allegedly operating in Ukrainian war previously, repeatedly states that they have the advantage over equivalent American BCT (Brigade Combat Teams) in most areas including according to the internal report, anti-air capabilities, artillery and raw firepower capabilities, and EW electronic warfare capabilities, and the document says that advantage is SUBSTANTIAL, not modest. American BCT’s on the other hand have an advantage in communications and flexibility. Furthermore, the document purports that when Russian BTG’s entered Ukraine in support of Donbas rebels in 2014-2015, they easily routed and devastated Ukrainian forces. How can this be reconciled with today’s reportage when we hear that even far more modernized Russian BTG’s are now being easily routed and humiliated by Ukraine? But several years ago the real internal experts in the U.S. army said these same BTG’s had easily overrun Ukraine and were far superior to the Ukrainian army to such an extent that it set off the whole frenzy of theorycrafting in the U.S. army on how they can conceivably stop them in hypothetical and likely future conflicts (thus the birth of this document).
“The BTG will presume fires(artilery), EW and ADA(anti air) superiority in the anticipated fight”
“Although some BTG systems are technologically superior to the corresponding U.S. equipment….”
“The Russian army deployed BTGs to control terrain. In the opening months of the 2013 Ukraine crisis, Ukrainian
regular-army forces largely defeated the separatist militias in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. To prevent
the catastrophic defeat of the separatist movement, whole Russian Army units entered the theater, achieved
tactical and operational surprise, and destroyed a large percentage of Ukraine’s regular maneuver force. ”
“Russian BTGs field a brigade complement of artillery that outrange and outgun U.S. BCTs….. BTGs assume that fires(artillery) and air-defense superiority gives them the
freedom to employ long-range strikes whenever visual or electronic contact is made, regardless of infrastructure
and civilian damage. Local fires superiority gives BTG artillery the confidence to remain in place, and it provides the
BTG with constantly available indirect-fire support.”
^^^^ This is internal army documents admitting that Russian tactical groups’ firepower outranges and outguns anything in an equivalent American tactical group.
“Finally, the king of all Russian protection assets is their integrated air-defense system. Although Russian ADA was
not employed against warplanes or bombers, the Ukrainian Army lost six helicopters and a transport plane early in
the conflict to well-coordinated Russian ADA systems. Also, shoulder-fired missiles are ubiquitous at all levels of
regular units.”
Also forgot to mention. The chief problem with these ‘analysts’ is they have created an echochamber where they rebound only the same 1 dimensional narrative from sources from ‘their side’. This speaks to the ‘social investments’ Mark Ames mentioned in his tweet. These analysts are sort of pressured into following only others of their ilk, and feel like it’s a betrayal on their part to get any information from the “enemy camp” by following any of the analyst/reporting accounts that are nominally on the Russian side. And so they inadvertantly construct this echo chamber that feeds only the same flawed, one sided propaganda back and forth to each other which makes their analysis extremely blinkered and unable to see the fuller situational picture on the ground. They are seeing nothing BUT the “reports” of complete Russian dissolution, equipment destruction, morale degradation, etc, etc. I guarantee not one of them have seen the dozens of videos posted from Russian reporters showing highly trained troops with high morale, making statements that their heart is in the fight and they can’t wait to liberate Ukraine etc etc. They only see the videos of captured soldiers demoralized via torture and forced into making some statements under duress that incorrectly is attributed to the Russian army being demoralized.
In short, the echo-chamber has completely destroyed their credibility and ability to see the situation accurately.
Was Turkish “Bosphorouso Closure” overhyped? Meant only as a sound-bite to appease NATO masters when in reality Turkey is allowing Russia to transit whatever it wants with only mild “suggestion” for what Russia should do in order to de-escalate rather than an actual legal declaration of anything being closed or off limits?
“Ragıp Soylu@ragipsoylu⚡️⚡️Turkey says Russian warships have a right to return to their own naval ports, ships belonging to Black Sea fleet can enter the Black Sea.
“However we asked all countries to not use this option to de escalate the situation,” senior Turkish official Kalin says”
“Kalin says Russian warships who are in Black Sea but belong to other fleets such Baltics fleet have also a right to return to their ports through the straits.
“But we don’t want countries to use this,” he said. “We told them don’t make us. There has been no application so far””
I’ll share this information strictly for laughs. I don’t want to insult anyone’s intelligence by suggesting that this data is accurate. I’m sure it’s BS. Nonetheless, it’s remarkable because it is the VERY FIRST time someone on Twitter has made allegations about Ukie war losses.
Until now, there were numerous sources claiming these kinds of catastrophic losses by the Russians. From reading those tweets, you would have thought the year is 1241 and the Mongol Hordes were destroying Russian armies all the way to the last man.
FROM A TWITTER SOURCE:
#Ukraine’s military losses so far, according to inside sources:
1. 7275 Ukrainian soldiers killed.
2. 125 Ukrainian battle tanks destroyed.
3. 350 armoured vehicles destroyed.
4. 60 MRL systems destroyed.
5. 40 aircraft destroyed.
6. 80 AD systems destroyed.
https://twitter.com/kutsuit
@ GW
IMHO, you should stop spreading misinformation, even for laughs. The Saker was categorical about the spread of misinformation. To my eyes, you’re beginning to look like a troll in disguise. You should research news before you come here asking “is this true?” while spreading fake news.
We are all swimming in a cesspool of fake news, let’s use this venue to have a clean and fresh perspective, not for more pollution.
Lone Wolf
@Lone Wolf
Be aware that I track the news very, very closely across a wide range of media outlets, including MSM and the blogosphere. I do my best to ascertain the verity of war news I find anywhere.
However, the only way I can obtain insight into this news is by posing questions to militarily sophisticated people (who understand the Russian perspective) on blogs like this one. That’s one of the major reasons why I come here. Also, I believe my questions are valid. The answers I’ve received from people here about Russian military realities are invaluable.
I’m sorry that you regard me as a troll. That’s unfortunate.
Concerning Twitter information I share here, most of it concerns evidence that the most Russophobic journos and analysts out there are finding it increasingly difficult – if not impossible – to deny that the Ukie military is in trouble. Big trouble. That’s what I’m looking for. It’s what I want to see. And, given that this is a site sympathetic to the Russian cause, I think it’s okay for me to share this data with people here. I don’t see how that qualifies as trolling.
As for the war, I am very well read in Russian history and the international situation that led to this conflict. I firmly believe that Russia’s position is 100% justified, morally and politically. For Russia, the stakes are enormously high: US and NATO political and military influence must be rolled out of the country currently called Ukraine. That country must also be Finlandized. If US and NATO expansion is checked in Ukraine, the world will be a safer place.
Here’s how to do a reality check. You compare current conflict to recent similar scale conflicts.
Nagorno-Karabkh War occurred a year ago. It was a blood bath with actual footage of bodies piled several feet high every day with artillery and air strikes (drones etc) provably taking out entire squads of troops multiple times a day. The conflict lasted almost a month and a half and official statistics are about 3000 losses for Azeri, and 4000 for Armenia.
It’s very difficult to imagine that 4-5 days of Ukrainian war EITHER side already has anywhere near the losses that it took over a month for the bloodbath in Armenia to accumulate.
With that said the #1 thing you have to be careful with statistics is the semantics involved. Many reporting institutions or countries define “casualty” and other terms completely differently. To some, casualty includes injured or otherwise impaired from the battlefield. The U.S. for instance plays the neat trick of “combat casualties/losses” where they substitute ‘combat loss’ in reports for typical blanket losses and it has a very narrow window of definition. If you die in a medivac helicopter 2 minutes after it took off from the field of combat, you are conveniently no longer counted as KIA / combat loss. And the majority of soldiers died of hemorrage/blood loss during transport to field hospital and are written off and not counted in official combat losses which keeps the U.S. losses always looking very low.
Anyway, 7000 ukies dead is probably unrealistic just as anything more than a couple hundred Russian troops dead is unrealistic. I’d put estimate to anywhere in 300-700 range so far and that’s ONLY because Russia has been using kid’s gloves and deliberately avoiding mass deaths such as intentionally NOT targeting troop barracks during opening night salvo on first day, etc. But now they are upping the ante and hitting troop gatherings so expect the figures to drastically start rising over 1000+ soon etc.
The materiel destruction on that list is accurate though and seems in line with what Russian MOD themselves announced.
p.s. just look at Georgia-Russo war 2008. Lasted about a week, similar scale (a bit less but at least comparable) and estimates put losses for Russia in 60-70 range and Georgia in the 200 range. This should help mentally calibrate a more realistic general estimate of where the current losses in Ukraine probably lie.
Just on RT. Have been aske about links to Kiev court case proving NATO orchestration of the Maidan Massacre;
Re: Maidan Massacre
https://journal-neo.org/2017/12/15/the-maidan-massacre-us-army-orders-sow-chaos/
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-hidden-origin-of-the-escalating-ukraine-russia-conflict
Posted by: Martin Summers | Mar 1 2022 20:03 utc | 136
Even Washingtonpost admits what I’ve been saying for days:
““During the campaign against Iraq in 1991, for example, the average pace of the U.S. force was a little over 1 mph. Even the fastest division barely managed a little over 2 mph — the speed of a leisurely walk.””
“More recently, the U.S.-led campaign to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991 — widely regarded as one of the most successful military operations of modern times — had its supply headaches. For example, the ground portion of the war famously lasted just over four days, but the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division nearly ran out of fuel on Day 3 while trying to attack the Iraqi Republican Guard.”
Wait so you’re telling me, the thing you’re now accusing Russia of, i.e. “running out of fuel” is exactly what happened to the mighty U.S. army in 1991?
“There were close calls during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, too. The U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division was supposed to be resupplied two days after the invasion began. But a confluence of events conspired to delay the first resupply until six days into the offensive. By then, despite stretching their initial supply of food and water as far as possible, some units had only enough on hand to last them a few more hours.”
Wait, wait, wait! So you’re telling me, that the U.S. army forces literally RAN OUT OF FOOD? And had only a few hours worth of food left? And this was in 2003? But I thought it’s the Russian army currently is “running out of food” and its demoralized soldiers are “starving”! How can this be, the mighty U.S. Army ran out of fuel and food and was reduced to crawling 1mile per day. Maybe Putin hacked the WashingtonPost!
“Articles written in the midst of combat operations cited fears that the forces would soon run dry of critical supplies or provided descriptions of isolated problems. Later accounts catalogued lists of shortfalls, such as no spare parts delivered during combat operations, or described the sustainment system as one that was close to failure.”
“The striking speed and maneuverability of modern tanks notwithstanding, military forces rarely advance at anywhere near the top speed of their vehicles. During the campaign against Iraq in 1991, for example, the average pace of the U.S. force was a little over 1 mph. Even the fastest division barely managed a little over 2 mph — the speed of a leisurely walk.”
“The 2003 invasion of Iraq was no faster. It took U.S. forces about two weeks to cover the 350 miles from the Kuwait border to the outskirts of Baghdad. Some units took indirect routes and some sprinted over short distances, but the net pace of the invasion was about the same as in 1991.”
“These speeds may seem slow, but they are not unusual. In an old but still very useful study on how fast large forces advance during military operations, Robert Helmbold found that “even the most rapid advance rates of land combat forces are at least one or two orders of magnitude below that of their principal modes of movement.” Most military units, it turns out — even those participating in a successful invasion — spend the vast majority of their time standing still.”
Nope! Lies! This can’t be. I’m convinced Putin and the KGB hacked the WashingtonPost….
So…anyone else still claiming Russia is ‘advancing slow’?
https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1498517153422602246
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/28/russia-ukraine-logistics-invasion/
I’ve got a subscription to the Washington Post, but over the past month, I stopped reading their Russia and Ukraine articles. That’s because 98% of their information is anti-Russian, pro-Ukraine propaganda. Since the war started, The Post has really been laying it on thick and heavy about “Ukrainian victories” and “Russian defeats.” The newspaper is also doing its best to whip up anti-Russian hysteria in the populations of English speaking countries.
We know The Post is nothing but a giant Western propaganda mill if, over these past five days, they mentioned not a single word about Ukie military disaster at Mariupol, which is now an open secret among all Western journos.
The Post has no credibility with respect to diplomatic, geopolitical, and military news concerning Russia. The newspaper just parrots US State Department and Atlantic Alliance rhetoric. I’m convinced that WaPo journos, editors and contributors are mostly opportunists who seek to enhance their career creds by trashing Putin and Russia.
I still check The Post’s headlines, though. I’m trying to glean any info to the effect that something negative is happening to the UKR army. If and when The Post begrudgingly admits something like that, it’s a sure fire sign that the truth must be a million times worse for the Ukie position.