By Nightvision for the Saker Blog
Let’s start with the obvious, that all bells are sounding regarding the start of the much awaited ‘Phase 2’ of the SMO. However, I for one am not yet entirely convinced it has fully begun and take the side of caution in line with what the Pentagon and analysts like Colonel Cassad have stated:
“We have not yet observed offensive actions using large forces of infantry and tanks, only local centers of breakthroughs along the Izyum-Kremennaya and Popasnaya lines. In advance, to the east of Gulyai-Polye, where our forces have clearly become more active. Elsewhere, rocket and field artillery, aviation and high-precision missiles are intensified everywhere. But so far the lines of contact have not changed. It is worth noting, perhaps, the deterioration of the weather in the Donbass.”
“The Pentagon is being much more conservative in describing Russia’s military operations in Donbas than Zelensky. U.S. thinks this is a prelude to a bigger offensive, with still adding troops. is now up to 78 BTGs in Ukraine, up 13 from last week.”
I agree in the regard that we haven’t seen the full usage of built up troops yet, nor have all the new troops even fully completed deployment. With that said, certainly a new phase of activity appears to have begun BUT my distinction is simply that it now seems that Russia may ‘ramp’ it up increasingly, and that it won’t be a massive blitzkrieg from the onset as the action we’ve seen the past two days is still relatively limited. This may be a testing phase with some Recon-In-Force actions to probe enemy defenses before larger combined arms activity is observed.
With that said, some updates:
Firstly there was a large Kaliber missile strike on Lyvov and we are now seeing confirmations from several places of what was struck:
“A stockpile of American, German and British anti-tank missiles was destroyed at a military depot in Lvov. According to our source in the SBU, the attack on the logistics base in Lvov was a complete surprise. Several tens of tons of various anti-tank weapons were destroyed at the facility, including German PanzerFausts, British NLAWs and American Javelins. It was expected that these funds should be enough for a month of active hostilities against Russian troops. According to our source, the plant was carried out secretly on commercial and civilian vehicles. Therefore, an investigation is now underway as to why the Russians were able to figure out all three storage sites.”
Good views of some of the strikes: https://www.bitchute.com/video/44FoCSN5aYWV/
(note, some of my links have not been working recently for some reason. If that becomes the case, simply highlight the link, right click it, then “copy” and “paste” it manually into your browser for the video to work)
MSNBC analyst turned ‘military expert’ Malcolm Nance put on quite a performance while larping in Lvov during the ‘air raid’: https://www.bitchute.com/video/dQLaHNLJTlWQ/
While we’re on the topic of Western arms, here’s Scott Ritter confirming something we’ve written about many times, how ineffective the Javelin missile really is: https://www.bitchute.com/video/hEsyUPnRjZdt/
A lot of places were hit in Nikolayev and Kharkov as well, destroying storage facilities and AFU troop gathering points.
In Mariupol, the advances continue in various axes around Azovstal plant, but still only on the outskirts of it. Russian planes and artillery hammer Azovstal nonstop: https://www.bitchute.com/video/l2nFk74hqKVP/
If you notice on the eastern edge of the red outline on this map, there are still some blocks of suburb high-rises just outside the actual industrial grounds of Azovstal. There are still battles and clearings taking place in these northeast districts, but it is only a few blocks left.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HhfML1587du1/
https://twitter.com/200_zoka/status/1516771220208988166
A reported 20-30 new prisoners managed to surrender near Azovstal as well, in this video only a handful are pictured:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/HoX57lvcXi5q/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/GstBaSvsYM2H/
Reports are indicating that 80% of the remaining Azov battalion wants to surrender, but the 20% who don’t are basically holding them at gunpoint and refusing to allow them to surrender. More and more evidence comes to light as proof of this – for instance this video of an AFU soldier who was shot in the back by his comrades, and had leaflets with surrender directions in his hand (18+):
https://www.bitchute.com/video/8IQdm7AmA7YQ/
At the exact 1:13 mark of this video: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Bi9greL7CiHJ/
you can see what the leaflets look like that are being fired by artillery over Azovstal. They have specific instructions on how the prisoners are to surrender (for safety purposes, exactly how they should come out, what they should do, where their hands should be, which corridors they should use, etc). And you can see the same leaflet is under the body of the murdered AFU marine.
And then there’s this:
“According to the content of the radio intercepts, the commanders of the armed formations remaining at Azovstal, realizing the hopelessness of their situation, are ready to lay down their arms, but only on the appropriate order (command) from Kyiv. Without receiving such an order, the commanders of the Ukrainian armed formations cannot make a decision on their own, since a military tribunal with a sentence, up to and including execution, awaits them for these actions in Ukraine.”
There have been written orders from Kiev posted that appear to show a direct no-surrender order from high up. For obvious reasons the elites in Kiev don’t want these guys to surrender, the same ones they were sending upwards of 10 helicopters and boats to try and rescue. Clearly these guys know too much valuable information that they can’t risk to give up to the Russians and so Kiev prefers they are killed and their deeds lost to history.
Serhiy Volyna, commander of the entire 36th Marines Brigade that’s left in Azovstal (and one of the 2 last high ranking people there along with Prokopenko the leader of Azov Regiment) has issued this final desperate plea where he now says there may only be ‘days or hours’ left for them:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/fIZxBfyZ2Qxp/
I’d say there’s still another good week or two left unless they happen to surrender because clearing this giant factory complex will be difficult. Photos have emerged showing how the subterranean system beneath the complex works, and it’s no easy job. The plant was evidently designed to withstand nuclear attack so one can imagine how deep and fortified some of the underground systems are. There’s still no indication of how they truly plan to clear it.
Here you can see some units on the outskirts in that block or two before the factory, one soldier carrying a jury-rigged breaching stick filled with explosives https://twitter.com/200_zoka/status/1516810203953516547
The above map shows some of the incursion areas where troops are entering the industrial grounds at the northeast corner.
In other regions, the largest gains by far of the 2nd phase have been along the Izyum and LPR axis. Russian forces are pushing in from the north downward towards the Donets river.
Rubizhnoe was announced to be totally captured with redirected Chechen SOBR and LPR forces raising the flags at the entrance: https://www.bitchute.com/video/R6d7IWV2mn5P/
However we’re waiting on full confirmation as some sources say there still may be a piece of the city to the south not liberated.
Meanwhile heavy battles continue in Popasna, a key strategic city, and LPR/Chechen troops are said to have advanced past the midway mark of the city, and it is likely to fall in the near future. Reports that as much as 70-80 prisoners were taken here, though a video has only showed a dozen or so thus far:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/GstBaSvsYM2H/
Artillery hammers Popasna: https://www.bitchute.com/video/HmXMdTKK9ew1/
Next to Rubizhnoe, the town of Kreminna was also fully taken. This creates a dangerous risk for a cauldron-within-a-cauldron for AFU forces because once Popasna falls, troops can link up with the ones in the north by Rubizhnoe/Kreminna, thus trapping the AFU forces in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in the following manner:
So because of this threat, there is now increasing reports that AFU plans a ‘mass retreat’ along the Rubizhnoe-Lysychansk-Severodonetsk ‘triangle’, as it’s being called, in order to prevent this cauldron from being formed. One must remember there is a very large AFU grouping in this ‘triangle’ as it is the 2nd largest after the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk-Druzhkivka grouping. However other reports were quick to caution that there will not be any mass retreats, at least not yet, and that AFU continues to hang on. With that said, some captured prisoners in the area stated that higher command officers have already pulled back and fled, but there’s no 100% confirmation of this.
From the frontline:
Map of Popasna city control. Popasna in center. Red is LPR forces, blue is AFU. This is a key city that controls the gateway both west and north to the region.
Northwest of there, Russian forces have made major advances in the Izyum region since the start of Phase 2.
The town of Torske was captured, pictured on this map circled in Red:
As well as several settlements around Lozove such as Yatskivka and Rubtsi were said to be captured by RF forces – slowly working towards Lyman. The forces south of Izyum continued to work towards Slavyansk as well with uncertain results as there is a heavily forested area there that is reportedly difficult to work through, with Ukrainian units deeply embedded all over it.
In short, there is heavy pressure bearing down now from the north onto the cauldron grouping, and we could eventually see the Severodonetsk “triangle” become a cauldron cut off from the rest then sieged.
In the south, Russian forces have made some moves towards Velyka Novosilka and captured a few settlements like Makarivka, Storozhevoe, Rovnopol, and Novoselka, but it’s nothing too big to speak on yet so we’ll wait till next time to update on this front. Either way, this front is still likely waiting for the fall of Mariupol to free up all the reinforcements before it can get into full swing.
In other news: “U.S. has BEGUN training about 50 Ukrainian military advisors on using American provided howitzer artillery systems at an undisclosed location in Europe: senior U.S. defense official Ukrainians should be able to learn to use systems within days, officials believe.”
And the UK is considering sending a “handful” of advanced Stormer armored vehicles with Starstreak missile launchers on them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvis_Stormer
Personally I think this is good news because it will give Russian forces a rare opportunity to ‘practice’ and scrimmage in real time against the top NATO equipment, to learn its secrets and vulnerabilities. So even though it’s a threat, I believe it will only work towards chiseling Russian troops into more capable forces in preparation for future conflict vs. NATO.
And in light of all the vehicle repair shops, workshops, factories, etc, that Russia has been hitting, it appears Ukraine is running out of ways to repair its own vehicles.
“The actions of the Russian missile forces, which over the past few months have been regularly attacking the military industry facilities of the Kiev regime, have borne fruit. Now the repair of damaged equipment of the Kiev regime will be handled by Czech defense enterprises. Since Kyiv is no longer able to repair armored vehicles on its own.
Note that the transportation of damaged equipment to the Czech Republic, its repair and transportation back will take much more time and cost the enemy many times more. In fact, it’s easier to just buy a new one.”
And on that note, there’s reports like this one:
“❗️Poland is secretly preparing a “liberation campaign” against Ukraine. For this purpose, a set of measures is being carried out – the supply of weapons, equipment and mercenaries across the Polish-Ukrainian border. Several formations of the Polish Army – the 18th motorized rifle division and the 6th airborne brigade – are preparing for a “peacekeeping mission”
The Polish Army stepped up measures to the maximum extent possible to complete the units to wartime states. The recruitment of “volunteers” is carried out through the websites of the Ministry of Defense of Poland.”
Unconfirmed of course, and dubious but it’s something to think about, and something many of us have already expected for a long time.
On the topic of funding, it’s been announced total aid is nearing $3 billion from the U.S. alone.
“U.S. has sent $2.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, with DoD weapons reaching the battlefield within 48 to 72 hours: senior U.S. defense official”
What’s interesting about that is, the U.S. spent 3 billion on funding the Taliban in the 80’s, over the course of an entire decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
From wiki: “The thrust of U.S. policy for the duration of the war was determined by Carter in early 1980: Carter initiated a program to arm the mujahideen through Pakistan’s ISI and secured a pledge from Saudi Arabia to match U.S. funding for this purpose. U.S. support for the mujahideen accelerated under Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, at a final cost to U.S. taxpayers of some $3 billion.”
“Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken.[2] Funding officially began with $695,000 in mid-1979,[3] was increased dramatically to $20–$30 million per year in 1980, and rose to $630 million per year in 1987,[1][4][5] described as the “biggest bequest to any Third World insurgency”.[6]”
So this was the “longest and most expensive” CIA operation in history, and ended up at $3 billion in 10 years. But the Ukraine has already gotten $3 billion in a single month. Imagine how much they’re going to pump into it by the end of this year? This goes to show what I’ve said before that this is likely now the single costliest program of this sort in history. And that’s only counting the U.S. aid, NATO/EU are pouring in billions more.
Lastly, like I said in the beginning, I don’t believe we’re seeing the full onset of Phase 2 yet. It appears to still be the opening probing stage as the full available forces have yet to be committed. But we’ll see if this week confirms this view or not.
I’ll leave a few videos from the past day or so:
Tribute to the legendary Red Backpack Man you might’ve all seen leading some units in Mariupol:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Uj5unUEocPC7/
He’s a commander for a unit of the Russian Black Sea Fleet Naval Infantry (Marines) operating in Mariupol.
Illych Plant Cleared (18+) https://www.bitchute.com/video/rS5DTkzHkA9V/
Chechens entering and clearing first parts of Azovstal complex (18+):
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Ul7RCT4PBmfk/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/qpciZxPBLTZD/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/zIqEVyPAW0B3/
RF air defense shoots down AFU Su-25 over Izyum:
I normally don’t care much for Southfront, but there’s an interesting article under their map of Europe for April 19. I’ve read we’re not supposed to post links to that site, so here’s the essence:
WARNING: This post contains rumors regarding Russian and Eastern Ukrainian perceptions of the future of the Ukrainian territories.
To one with a discerning eye, the likely course of evolution of the nation-state of Ukraine is beginning to make itself known based upon the Russian military’s maneuvers in the region. The perception in Russian circles is that in the short-term there will be two Ukrainian states, a southern one and a northern one, the the two vying over the intermediate terms for the allegience of the historical raisons of Ukraine. Russians see this as a generational struggle, with the ultimate outcome not to be decided until the halfway-point of the twenty-first century. Nevertheless, some aspects are already relatively clear.
The “new” Ukrainian state will consist of the southern raisons, initially Odessa, Nikolayev, Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Lugansk, and perhaps ultimately Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv as well. Russians call this “the United States of the Ukraine,” a grouping of people’s republics with a weak central government and tied by treaty to the Russian Federation. The flag would resemble the European Union’s with a seal of circled stars (one for each of the republics) superimposed over the blue and white striped flag of Kherson. This purposefull mimicking of both the United States and the European Union in form is said to be deliberate, both to link the new state’s perception of legitimacy to existing western institutions as well as a not-so-subtle dig at the US and EU. The primary audience for this theater is China and India.
The “unitary” state of Ukraine will consist of the remaining territory. Russians and some Ukrainians see the historical raisons of Ukraine east of the Dnieper ultimately choosing to join the new state, with a seccession movement ultimately arising amongst the far-western Ruthenian territories to break away from the unitary state. This is foreseen to occur over the span of a decade or more.
The “competition” between the two Ukrainian states is seen as pitting the south – with Black Sea access and tied to China’s belt and road initiative via Mariupol as the “European” port of Chinese preference – against the north – which will be a landlocked EU member though not a member of NATO. It is believed that once the southern Ukrainian state is firmly established the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugank will seceed from the southern Ukrainian state and join the Russian Federation as part of a Donbass republic. This will make the “European” port of Mariupol de jure Russian territory. Kharkiv is expected to ultimately join the RF as well, though at a much later time. Russians are confident they are on the winning side of history here….
Well, in my past sitreps I’ve already reported on how both the heads of LPR and DPR both unequivocally stated they will hold referendums to join the Russian Federation as soon as this conflict is over, as did the president of South Ossetia. So a lot of the stuff you mention seems to me like it may happen much sooner than that and the whole partitioned state phase will be skipped. And on top of that, there are many indications that Kherson, Mariupol etc will soon join either DPR or become their own republic by way of referendum. Such as this news:
“Ludmila Denisova, Ukrainian Parliament’s Commissioner for Human Rights, says that the Russians are planning to hold an independence referendum in Kherson during May 1-May 10 to create another DNR and LNR like statelet in southern Ukraine. Ballots are reportedly being printed.”
And the fact that a referendum was just held yesterday in a town of Zaporizhzhia where they voted positively to join the DPR. So it is now expected by most sources that Russia will much more swiftly hold referendums for most of these regions to either join DPR or become their own independent republics, and then like I said DPR / LPR have already stated outright that they will hold referendums to join the RF immediately. So the way it’s looking to me, there won’t be any 2 state Ukraine but rather Russia will simply absorb these regions right away as soon as this conflict ends. Keep in mind Kherson city and every major neighboring city that Russia now occupies like Energodar, Berdiansk, etc is already being fully integrated into the Russian infrastructure and economy. These cities are fully disconnected from the Ukrainian state infastructure including Ukrainian internet, television/news and connected to Russian networks instead, and now Rubles are being used, Russian banks like Sberbank has already opened there and Russia has moved in its own administrators to manage the cities. They are for all intents and purposes now de facto Russian cities so it appears pretty much a given Russia will absorb them very soon and not in a prolonged manner as you’ve described. But anything can happen, so we’ll see
There’s a lot of garbage on Soutfront; this may be more of the same. Still, I think we’re in sort of a wild west phase in southern ukraine right now. The Muriupol thing was what got my attention; real realpolitik stuff.
I am sure that Russia will never let go of the land link to Crimea. So from Crimea to Donbass it’s already Russia. And the entire territory west of the Dnieper River will act as a buffer zone.
Until one day Ukraine returns to Poland. Ukraine with two languages could only function as a Federation. Switzerland is much smaller and owes its success to neutrality and 4 official languages. Because all people must be respected in a nation. Ukraine, unfortunately inflamed by the USA, chose war and will lose. And it will pay dearly for the lives of Russian soldiers.
My question is whether Russia will not also close the Black Sea to Transnistria? And there’s a new state in the Russian Federation, New Russia with its capital in Odessa. What does Nightvision think of New Russia and closing the Black Sea?
There have also been many reports about Melitopol already calmed and ‘converted’ into a Russian city using Roubles, and opening trading links to Crimea…
Yep that’s another one I forgot to mention
I did some hunting and it appears one of the original sources for the Southfront post was a 2014 article in some obscure eastern Ukrainian pubication allegedly based upon leaked documents from pro-Russian Ukrainian sources. I can’t be sure of the accuracy of the translation but there was some additional information in that article, such as:
*Russia had determined as far back as the Munich Conference (2007) that the US and the EU recognized the non-viability of the Ukrainian state and was actively planning for its disintegration.
*The Constitution of Ukraine could not provide a mechanism for the legitimate integration of Eastern Ukrainian and Crimea into the legal framework of the Russian Federation, but the EU’s Assembly of European Regions could. The irony of turning an EU mechanism for absorbtion of Russian regions upon partial disintegrations of the Russian state against the West was not lost on the Russian political elite.
*Russia would establish a de facto (rather than de jure) confederated southern Ukrainian economic association free of Kievian control with the raisons of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk – and to a lesser extent, with Kherson and Odessa.
*The strong electoral influence of the Ukrainian “Batkivschina” party and the economic interests of oligarch Rinat Leonidovych Akhmetov made that same arrangement with the Suny and Donetsk regions problematic. If it could be overcome, however, Donetsk would be joined to Rostov (along with Lughansk) to form a Donbas republic while Suny would be joined to Kursk. Kharkiv would be joined to Belgorod.
the may have been the original plan, but i think events are already accelerating beyond the plan. some of the regions outside of Dontesk & Lugansk that Russia has liberated are already talking about a referendum to declare independence from Kiev with the aim of joining the Russian federation. They are already switching currencies and flying Russian flags on government buildings.
Russia might make them wait a week after declaring independence before joining Russia. But given all the war crimes and human rights abuses these people were subject to under the rule of the Nazis in Kiev I get the feel that Russian public opinion is hardening and there is no willingness to give even a fig leaf of face saving for the EU & US, they are going to win, win big, then rub the EU and US’s faces in it while laughing for all the world to see.
Totally agree. I might add that any permission for Bandera State the siempre of France or Spain is just a pandora’s box. Naziism will continúe snd crimminals getting away with crimes. It needs to go, and never cone back. Nip it in the bud forever.
Especially since the West already went all out on sanction and military support. There is now no reason not to take the territory, because it can not make the situation worse. It only makes it better. That is the fault in the western strategy (if you want to call it that at all), there is no diplomacy, no real discussions, compromises and in the end no motivation to talk at all anymore.
I could no see the sanctions lifted in any realistic situation (well, maybe Putin disappears and Jelzin comes out of his grave). And Russia has realised that.
PS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNBjMRvOB5M Feels really strange. Especially with the yellow/blue colors plus the Russian red.
Nightvision, your sitreps have improved from very good to excellent. Your Operation Z sitreps have become a daily read for me. I appreciate all your hard work.
Hear Hear!!
What they said. Thanks
Great post! Keep up the good work.
Unfortunately there are signs that Russia still wants to negotiate with Ukraine. This is a very, very bad signal for the collective West where this is perceived as great weakness.
Likewise, any empathy or humanism would be seen as weakness.
It seems that some circles in Russia still do not fully understand this conflict and satanic nature of their opponent.
Disagree. The offer of negotiations is first and foremost a humanitarian move. Why contiune a war if terms can be reached? It’s also good PR.
On the other hand it is misdirection of a sort and will be taken by the less informed and highly deluded as a sign of weakness. As Sun Tzu said, make the enemy think you are weak when you are strong, and make them think you are strong when you are weak.
“Why contiune a war if terms can be reached?”
Because you can’t trust lying psychopaths to honor any deal.
That’s true. Russia knows that too.
Show some strength, offer to talk.
Nothing?
Rachet it up a notch. Then offer again.
Rinse and repeat. Eventually it’s either talk or die.
Full agreement with your stance.
The idea is to steal the Ally/vassal of US/West.
If you can get the Ukranian Government to cooperate on Russian side under Russian protection, West loses all legimity, and you have full control over the entire territory.
I see that these calls for negotiations are negatively effecting moral of Russians soldiers.
I seems to me you are the one who don’t fully understand what this fight is about. Russia don’t care what the west think. They care about what God think, because they know it to be good.
That’s why I support them.
You, my dear, are absolutely correct.
The continued offers for surrender and negotiations are paramount for the media war. Only trouble is, the delays cost Russian and civilian lives by being “nice”. We don’t hear much, if anything, about these offers in the Western Media however.
Say to any Russian or Ukrainian Russophone or even ordinary Ukrainophone “Minsk III” and watch their reaction.
There have been various ideas put forth for dealing with the steel plant. I haven’t seen this
( not that it hasn’t been suggested, so correct me) – Could all openings to the outside be pored with heavy steel reinforced concrete and a small force left behind to gaurd?
According to our source, the plant was carried out secretly on commercial and civilian vehicles. Therefore, an investigation is now underway as to why the Russians were able to figure out all three storage sites.”
Really? Just tag all the ua-trucks on german and polish highways. Never seen such a large number in a single night on the road.
There’s a tunnel from kiev south west to other countries. Russia knows.
It’s 300 km from Kiev to the nearest border with Romania, and about 460 km to the nearest part of Poland.
Some tunnel!
Outstanding analysis! Gorgeous graphics, maps, with through explanations. First rate!
I think the Wikipedia estimate of Operation Cyclone is off by at least a factor of 2. Back when the US had an independent media, right after the Cold War, both CIA braggarts and anti-imperialist media regularly gave the figure of 8 billion dollars. This amount is itself suspect given the documentation of massive CIA black market activity in narcotics, arms smuggling and finance during the Reagan era when it operated with effectively zero Executive Branch supervision. Pretending the CIA of the 80s had transparent or auditable financial inputs is itself ludicrous.
And that total doesn’t include the Saudi charity money. There was a lot of that. Maybe still not at this pace, even with the 167% inflation (85-22). The US is so good at pouring dirty money into black holes you’d think it was the point.
It had lots of Executive branch supervision. VP Bush was the leader of the “Enterprise” and signed off on all the CIAs activities.
Of course, the US Dollar was worth 100x more then than now, and none of the money goes to Ukraine, just the worthless arms. And as predicted, the arms caches will continue to be blown up at their concentration points. And the more warehouses get blown up, the fewer there are to hide the weapons.
well I think it’s maybe 3-4 times more than the 80’s if I’m not mistaken, so let’s say the $3 billion by 80’s standards might be 10-12 billion in today’s dollars. At $3 billion in just a month or two so far, they are pretty much on track to already match the Afghanistan operation in under a year, whereas it took them a decade to fund that much in the 80’s. So it’s still quite a massive expenditure by those standards it seems to me
May be a Vietnam in the making? But US is forcing NATO to share the burden, and US is in no shape or form like its 60s.
But some US/UK news media don’t like this comparison at all. They deleted any comparison of Ukraine with Vietnam in the comments section.
Well that’s the concern is that it can turn to a Vietnam for Russia but Russia has some advantages that U.S. lacked in Vietnam that could keep it from ever truly turning into a Vietnam situation. The 2 biggest of these advantages are chiefly:
1. a largely sympathetic population. A large part of Ukrainian citizenry in fact supports Russia or is at minimum neutral between it and the Nazi Regime in Kiev
2. Russia is right on the border of Ukraine and wouldn’t have a lot of the logistics/supply nightmares that U.S. faced in such circumstances as Vietnam etc.
But it’s still possible simply due to the sheer size of Ukraine and their military manpower so we can’t discount anything
And shared language. The US is missing that its issues with long term insurgencies are significantly compounded by language and culture barriers. In Ukraine every civilian can speak directly to every soldier. Counter insurgency is about trust; trust across a language barrier is difficult and triangular with interpreters needing to be trusted by multiple people.
military manpower from all the mercenaries that keep pouring in ? Wow – that’s the information war again raising its ugly head
But once the nazis are gone – and even before – aren’t they getting such a bad name among the various foreign mercenary population ?
Geesh they’re awful – really Satan’s hordes
On one hand, Zelensky seems much dumber than Ngo Dinh Diem (the founder of short-lived South Vietnam). On the other hand, half of Ukraine is a colony where the Russian speakers are servants of the Ukrainian master race. Thus, the chances of the whole war becoming a Vietnam may be high…
Is NATO’s blissless insistence on occupying the eastern and southern colonies of Ukraine actually creating a Vietnam? A Vietnam for NATO, itself? This is THE question the Combined West must address itself…
Nightvision, you’re correct! Like karlof1, I thought your estimate way too low, but according to an inflation tracking site $1 in 1980 is worth $3.49 today. Only 350% in 40 years is surprising. But I’ll bet in the next 40 it’s going to be much, much higher thanks to the Russia-China reset.
The huge investment in escalation, a windfall for US MIC in exchange for mostly obsolete surplus, does betray US/Neocon desperation in trying to end Russia. Alas, as karlof notes, most of it will be destroyed on arrival.
… and the more will be spent on production and sale of new weapons to replace the ones lost. Ka-ching!
Don’t forget 10% for the big guy
All sorts of US, Israeli, and English Politicians, consultants, and journalists are getting vigorish on the billions going to Ukraine. It’s a feeding frenzy of corruption.
I‘m sure everyone here saw the reports last week of Kiev forces selling their weapons for cash to Russian, LPR, and DPR militaries.
I watched the videos of these soldiers. These are not young 18 or 19 old boys, like movies sometimes show. These are large, bearded, battle-hardened, middle aged men that would eat American marines for lunch. If American men soldiers would not last 5 minutes against these guys, then how much worse if a squad of women (girls) soldiers went up against them?
They should show the girls how their last selfie might look like
https://www.bitchute.com/video/TvlQig6L9ZeT/
no use for make-up anymore.
That’s what the US thought about the Viet Cong mate. And the Japanese before that.
How correct you are! But the glaringly obvious mismatch is by design, not accident.
“Photos have emerged showing how the subterranean system beneath the complex works”
This writer ” The V” on Telegram seems to think, that the underground complex of Azovstal is a product of the imagination and western press; for whatever reasons i wonder.
(machine translation)
“The V
Underground enticing fantasies
I came across in some Western media such enticing fantasies about the construction of an “underground fortress near Azovstal”. It’s hard not to pass by, because in my youth I managed to personally and not quite legally😁see many interesting underground structures in Moscow and its environs. Therefore, in this topic, I’m pretty good at rummaging and I’m ready to sort it out with you. Go.
1️⃣Azovstal’s staff is about 10,000 people, not 40,000 at all. These are just two large or several medium-sized bomb shelters.
2️⃣Shelters under workshops are a very rare occurrence , they were built like this only in case of an acute shortage of space, for example, at ZIL in Moscow. At shelter factories, they are usually either under the administrative and amenity complex, or generally freestanding.
3️⃣Almost always, the shelter is isolated from other communications, there are no secret doors and passages. The hideout can open into the basement if it is under a building. If it is freestanding, it simply has two sloping entrances.
4️⃣There really is an underground floor under the workshops, but in fact it is a basement with a rather high ceiling. It is needed for communications, supplying water, gas, electricity and placing the lower part of technological installations. Quite often, the partition between the underground floor of the workshop and the workshop itself is an ordinary metal flooring.
5️⃣There are no levels, long stairs and 6 floors down anywhere . The shelters themselves are also one-story. Even 2 floors in a bomb shelter is an unheard of rarity in the post-Soviet space.
6️⃣All these structures are buried at the level of 5-6, maximum 10 meters. The basis of shelter protection is a concrete mattress on top and a hermetic door. Therefore, when a bomb hits, ordinary factory tunnels will collapse very quickly. By the way, there are not so many of them there, since at factories communications are usually laid on top – there is no need to bury them in the ground.
✅Therefore, the underground fortress of Azovstal is more of a myth and fiction of ignorant journalists, the same as the need for chemical weapons to destroy the Azov militants. The same dungeons are much easier and more efficient to flood, after which the survivors will crawl out on their own. So don’t be fooled and don’t be fooled “
Could be. But I think he’s underestimating it. Not sure why he said “it’s rare in the POST-SOVIET space”. This factory is a soviet not post-soviet factory, and it was once the largest in the world and built to last during thermonuclear war against the U.S. so I’m inclined to believe some of the underground shelters myths because the Soviets were in fact infamous for this in their paranoia of surviving nuclear war against the U.S. they built tons of such shelters everywhere, so I wouldn’t discount it. Also the 10k vs. 40k staff is misleading. Its staff might be 10k NOW because most of the industrial complex is not functioning due to mass overhauls so ofcourse there’s less people NOW working in only a fraction of the space, but the entire complex was designed for and once functioned with 40k+ at its peak and thus its infrastructure supports that many people, particularly (likely) underground.
Most was built in the thirties and although there were no nuclear treats at the time, you are right, the spaces under some of the buildings are nuclear proof, just like the metro. But these were Stalin’s times and everything built then was and stil is unsurpassed. And after the fall of he SSSR nothng new of importance was built there.
There are some underground levels and connections, but they have nothing to do with the western version that has been circulated.
I have been wondering about the reported tunnel system at Azovstal and the cartoon graphic that I think is sourced from a British rag and seemed entirely made up/conjecture/speculation to me. But now with Putin’s decision to seal and not storm the complex, and a note in RT today quoting a DPR official as saying that the tunnel system was “like an underground city” I think some credence must be given to the idea that there IS a fairly serious underground network of tunnels/bunkers lying beneath the industrial area. By GoogleEarth the ground elevation varies from 40 to around 80′ across the complex and the geology consists of the Ukrainian Shield bedrock:
“(also Ukrainian Shield), an uplifted block of basement rock in the southwestern part of the Eastern European Platform, extending along the middle and lower Dnieper. The massif has an area of about 200,000 sq km. The folded foundation is broken up by deep meridional faults into a series of blocks: the Volyn’-Podol’e, Belaia Tserkov’-Odessa, Kirovograd, Dnieper, and Azov blocks.
In places, the massifs crystalline basement is covered by a mantle of Cenozoic deposits. The most ancient basement rocks are the lower Archean amphibolites and the schists of the Kon-ka-Verkhovtsevo series in the Dnieper block. The gneisses and schists of the Volyn’-Podol’e, Kirovograd, and Azov blocks are somewhat younger (upper Archean). Lower Proterozoic rocks form the Krivoi Rog series, which contains pockets of ferruginous quartzites. The Korosten’ and Korsun’-Novomirgorod plu-tons of rapakivi granitoids, the Azov complex of alkaline rocks, and others are attributed to the middle Proterozoic. The upper Proterozoic is represented by the Ovruch series of quartzites, schists, and quartz porphyries in the northwestern part of the massif, where they occur in sharp unconformities.
The Krivoi Rog iron-ore basin is located in the Ukrainian Crystalline Massif. The Dnieper coal basin and the Nikopol’ manganese-ore deposit are associated with the mantle rocks on the slopes of the massif.”
A simple geologic map: https://eng.minerals-ua.info/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/06/metallogenic.jpg
Given the surface elevation and geology, having bunkers 80′ down doesn’t seem out of the question. As the complex was owned by Ukraine’s richest oligarch and was previously a jewel of Soviet industry it also seems plausible that whatever was in place from Soviet times could have been improved and expanded, especially since 2014.
Precise description. The picture above is laughable.
Exactly. The economic cost required to create such a non-productive facility would prevent it’s construction.
It looks very similar the drawings that were put out for Bin Laden’s “hideout” after nine-eleven. That was extremely laughable too.
Another example of the modern-western mindset. Read nightvision’s comment above. The main buildings are from the Soviet era, when they were expecting a nuclear war.
Any factory from that era has bomb-shelters to with-stand a hit or two- for the whole workforce. Russians actually have a tradition of taking care of it’s people. A strange concept here in the west.
“Russians actually have a tradition of taking care of it’s people. A strange concept here in the west.”
Yes. I think the new Russian Donbass anthem speaks to the strength and solidarity of Russian people quite well – here is the song with English subtitles. (note: I would change smog to smoke) a few other minor changes but I think it reflects the message in translation reasonably well).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSlw9-qfAZM
Powerful! I have seen it before, but not with the subtitles. Now, I admire it even more.
I did wonder about the “photograph” of underground installations. Does someone have an X-ray camera?
What has presumably happened is that verbal accounts were collected and given to an artist, who drew a realistic-looking cutaway picture.
As a boy I often drew elaborate cross-section illustrations of “underground fortresses”. I was greatly helped by my complete ignorance of such unpleasant practicalities as water tables, supply requirements, and the difficult situation of people in a bunker 60 metres down when all the tunnels above them are crushed by bombs.
Furthermore, I dont know about the geology of mariupol, but is it at all possible to build 5 storeys deep that close to the sea ?
The WTC (World Trade Center) was secured by the “bathtub” to provide the protection – for both buildings had sub basements that went many floors below the surface – I forget the number – the distance to the river was less than 500 feet before the landfill created Battery City a decade later.
You are correct to ask this question. The British built a fortification below Dover Castle where Churchill is said to have used as a lookout. Essentially if one looks at the iconic White Cliffs of Dover, once can just barely see tiny slits in the surface of the chalky rock. What no-one knew, even 50 years after WW2, was that these fortifications went much further down than the 2 levels that were discovered. Further excavations showed that there were 3 further floors below but had become waterlogged. In hindsight it made no sense at all to build tunneling so close to the waterline and particularly in as soft and porous a rock as the chalky cliffs. But maybe they did serve a purpose for a short, important time…curiously no-one has expanded further on the history of this construction. Maybe it has to do with the Official Secrets Act….
But the London Underground as well as New York subway have pumps working day and night due to the water table pushing upward…so there might yet be evidence of pump systems in Avozstal Mariupol.
In which case I would suggest instead of pumping water into azovstal, just cut the power to the pumps and wait for them to crawl out. That can’t be difficult..
All they need to do to clear out the factory is to take delivery of about 20 tons of dry ice, which is frozen CO2. Dump the dry ice in all of the air intakes. Everyone inside will be dead within 30 minutes, and no chemical weapons are necessary. This would also preserve the factory.
David, I like how you think.
Azovstal is the size of 6 Monakos, how much ice is needed again?
I don’t understand why some such solution has not been tried.
Perhaps just stun the trapped iwth a temporary nerve gas—so that they can be interrogated.
What is the use of a chemical industry if it can’t come up with a simple solution to this kind of situation?
These people are basically trapped inside, like in a mine, right?
If I were in there that would be my biggest fear—not being able to breathe.
They are nowhere near the building where the entrance is yet. At this moment all they can use is bombs and such.
The factory is comprised of many structures. Many of them enormous. It will take time, but it will be done properly.
Then it’s time to bring in specialists.
I think that Russians have blueprints or maps of underground. Azov has probably made modifications. But overall, although there is a technical problem, these guys are in difficult position, susceptible to being drowned, suffocated or buried alive. They have nowhere to go.
Ask some the 30 US bioweapon facilities in Ukraine. Im know for sure the US can help with a solution.
Heheheheh, I like that idea with dry ice.
In fact, the stuff you propose is still chemical weaponry, just another sort.
As I mention in a recent reply, it seems that there is no satisfactory practical definition of “chemical weapon” as everything is made of “chemicals”.
I am afraid that using CO2 in that way would make it a chemical weapon. But then there seems to be no satisfactory definition of a chemical weapon!
Wikipedia: “…a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapon
OPCW: “A Chemical Weapon is a chemical used to cause intentional death or harm through its toxic properties”. https://www.opcw.org/our-work/what-chemical-weapon
Those two definitions are hopelessly inadequate, as almost everything is made of “chemicals”. As far as I can see, any artillery shell or hand grenade fits both definitions. The explosives they contain are made by chemical processes, and are designed to inflict death or injury. To my mind CO2 is a “chemical”, and the use suggested by David Sant is explicitly intended to kill or injure.
I do not mean to criticise David Sant or anyone else who proposes such means. Rather, it has suddenly dawned on me that the term “chemical weapon” is effectively meaningless, as everything is “chemical”.
Perhaps a better definition would involve specific reference to poisoning rather than “toxicity”. Any weapon that explodes or burns could well be considered “toxic”.
The problem is the civilian hostages they have in there.
Why go storming in? The Nazis are trapped like rats in there. They will run out of food, water or sanity eventually, especially if the Russians manage to cut off the power and thus have them live in perpetual darkness.
Honestly, if Poland goes into Ukraine I wouldn’t shed a tear if all their “peacekeepers” were wiped out in less than 24h of entering Ukraine with a barrage of well placed missiles.
But it could be the casus belli to start ww3, so we’d better watch such a development carefully if it happens.
One interesting thing you just reminded me of that I keep meaning to include in a SitRep and hopefully will remember next time, is Scott Ritter brought up a very good point is that the actual Article 5 of NATO, if you really read it, does not say every state is obligated or mandated to respond to a strike on any other state. It says that all other member states would simply be asked to CONSIDER a response but they in no way shape or form are obligated to actually respond in any way. So that means Russia could very well blow Poland to hell, and most of NATO can simply decline to respond fully in accordance with the infamous ‘Article 5’.
Except that would mean the US system of alliances would then crumble. US plays a very dangerous game here. If Russia calls their bluff and for example hits logistical hubs in Poland and the US then abandons Poland then their allies in Asia would switch sides and align with China. So, while the US would I think be more than ready to abandon their vassal (as Afghanistan recently demonstrated) I am not sure they can afford to do so, because they could then loose other, much more important vassals.
What is actually saddening for me personally is the stupidity or servility or both of our (I am a Pole) puppet politicians who put our country at risk for US interests. Poland should be acting like Hungary or even support Russia in this war by eg. sharing intelligence. Nazi Ukraine armed to the teeth, run by Bandera-worshipers is a deadly menace for us, much more than for Russia actually. And the degenerate West is an existential threat to our actual existence not just as a nation, but simply as humans. But instead an anti-Russian hysteria is created here in the media while we send ammo and other supplies to our enemies.
My Polish/Malorussian family has been in the US since the early 20th century, and I’m upset that my country is arming and supporting people who’d ethnically cleanse me if they had the chance. Can’t imagine what it’s like to be a Pole right now.
It is hard, I feel like the whole country is engulfed in insanity, a media-fueled hysteria. Ukrainian flags everywhere, Ukrainian language versions added to all websites and services (which shows ignorance as most refugees don’t speak Ukrainian but Russian), banners, posters etc. etc. plus huge privileges for the refugees, free transportation, no parking fees, free accommodation etc., right now they are getting tax waivers. Any public criticism of this means you are a Russian footwrap (‘ruska onuca’) and will be ostracized to the point of getting fired from work, deplatformed on social media etc. etc. At best you will be asked if you really envy them as they run away from war. Interestingly, most refugees never saw any fighting.
Actually, when they did put Ukrainian flag on top of the Polish parliament building (Sejm) only one representative (poseł) objected (this goes against all flag regulations and standards) and he was forcibly thrown out from the room. Plus all the news from Ukraine are from Ukrainian sources and everything they say is taken to be true. Same with what Pentagon says. Most people I deal with professionally fully believed both the “Isle of snakes” and “Ghost of Kiev” stories.
Russians are evil, all they say is a lie because they are Russians etc. And this is actively fueled by the mainstream media. I remember listening to a news bulletin on the radio recently – first the speaker was saying that Russians have killed hundreds of civilians in Bucha, this was presented as an established fact. Any objection to this or pointing out any information from Russian sources – see above, you are Russian footwrap etc. etc. Same if you mention Wolyn. Same if you mention Polish minority in Ukraine being denied right to us their language. Same if you point out the fate of Polish historical heritage in Ukraine (starting with the Lviv cemetery and famous lion statues by the entrance which have been covered with plywood for years). Its like talking to a person under hypnosis – no rational though, just emotional reaction.
The most zealous are the people who bought fully into the Covid-19 narrative – as one colleague observed that his neighbors who didn’t invite their unvaccinated family members for Christmas are now living with an unvaxed, unmasked family from Ukraine.
Add to this the widespread belief that Russian army is weak and in disarray, Russian equipment breaks down and doesn’t work and Ukrainians are actually winning. Again, this is supported by the media in full blast.
All of this looks like preparations for a war with Russia with clever exploitation of both human emotions (poor refugees, poor killed civilians) and particular Polish complexes and fears in regards to Russia. People have been whipped up by incessant propaganda into a highly emotional state. I have half-laughed when Russians were talking about russophobia, but now all it takes for me to experience it firsthand is to say something positive about Russia or Putin in a casual conversation.
People who think like me talk on clandestine Telegram channels in small groups. No idea how many of us are here, maybe 25%? This will end badly for Poles and Poland. We should be behaving like Hungary right now, building relations with Russia instead of destroying them. But our leadership consists of traitors and idiots. Medvedev very nicely summed it up. Our enemies love this – this will end up with Poles and Russians killing each other thus sowing new layers of hate and making a possibility of peaceful, good relations in the future even more unlikely.
I actually think of packing up & leaving, the problem is where to go…
Take care and be careful. I have a hard to seeing a future where Poland isn’t violently destabilized by this. What happens when the Banderites decide that Poland hasn’t been as helpful as it should be, or when the press of so many “refugees” becomes a social and economic strain? Pretty clear that the Polish government assumed the refugees would be dispersed throughout Europe and the the US, but they were fools to believe that. The US won’t take any and Western Europe is done. They’ll just be left for Poland to manage. The West always abandons the Poles.
Zorard, I understand and truly truly hope for understanding among Russians of the difficult situation many like you are in now. Divide at impera, that’s it. It is sad and destructive how many people, nations and ethnicities are pitted against each other. Cui bono?
Take care. The good will prevail.
Article 5 says only in defense. Defense is when you’re attacked without any provocation
Here it’s not the case
So Poland can be hung out to dry
Article 5 could be triggered if Russia was to initiate attacks against a Nato country such as Poland.
Wiping out Polish forces if they entered Ukraine would not be a trigger as Russia hadn’t attacked a Nato country.
There is one thing that has been bothering me for a while now: why Russians did not attack from the north somewhere between Luck (Łuck) and Rivne (Równe) and then south to the Moldova’s border? In other words, why they did not cut off the supply lines from Poland and Slovakia through which ammo and equipment (and recently even fighter jets!) have been flowing? In military terms it makes no sense whatsoever – if not for those supplies Ukrainians would have had to surrender by now. With those supplies they can keep on fighting. Why allow your enemy to be constantly resupplied if you could cut them off?
I am not a military expert, which is why I ask: why Russia is not cutting the supply lines by such a move? I hope knowledgeable people on this forum – and maybe Nightvision or The Saker themselves – could share their opinion on this.
One possibility is that Russia is in no hurry for this to end. In some sense the current military operation in Ukraine is just one battle field in a far larger asymmetrically waged world war whose purpose is to effect a sea-change in the post-war order. Both sides seem to be waging this war for the same reason and both sides believe they will win if it goes on for long enough so neither side wants it to end until the other side is clearly reeling from its effects.
In this regard it seems to me that the US is far more vulnerable than Russia. Russia spans 11 time zones and has a symbiotic alliance with China going back over a decade now, so even though some of its western markets are now closed a huge percentage of the world population with which it shares the same continent remain open. Meanwhile Europe is US’s vassal in many ways and the US is on the verge of experiencing the most unstable period in its history since the Civil War with an illegitimate regime on the verge of collapse at the same time that the country is in increasing chaos, the borders are open (no doubt soon with blooded CIA-trained white supremacist militants with tons of arms flooding in from Ukraine), inflation is rampant and now supply chains are halted by perfectly timed Chinese lock down of many major cities and food shortages are rumored to be right around the corner. Team Atlantica has Big Finance but real resource issues; Team Eurasia has abundant resources and dynamic momentum along with the sort of strong politico-social cohesion that their opponents must surely envy – esp. in the US.
Imagine this going on a full year. Which side do you think is going to be stronger in 12 months? I’d say there’s a chance that the US will be in full melt-down mode by then. Meanwhile Russia will be building new industries and businesses to replace those that left in March, Eurasia will be trading gangbusters with each other and because of a Taiwan kerfuffle between China and the US all trade from China to the West will be cut off along with Russia’s making a major depression in the West but only in the West a high probability. I’d say Eurasia is holding most of the cards. And also: it seems that the Biden administration is bent on bringing the country to its knees as quickly as possible, possibly part of a WEF ‘great reset’ approach or some such. Be that as it may, the result is that the US is unable to wage war right now no matter what its Presstitutes keep saying.
Militarily, most likely Russia is as much learning and probing NATO-US hardware and methodology right now rather than revealing their best toys and strategies. Time is on their side. Time is running out for Europe. If Germany starts to lose its heavy industries due to power shortages the stress this will put on the ability of the US to keep lording it over them as they have done since 1945…. well maybe, just maybe, Russia’s attack in Ukraine might help Germany finally break free and become a sovereign nation again. Stranger things have happened.
-> ” In some sense the current military operation in Ukraine is just one battle field in a far larger asymmetrically waged world war whose purpose is to effect a sea-change in the post-war order”
that’s it!
Hmmm…wonder, in fact, if Ukraine turns out to be a “frozen lake.”
Zorard, I could not agree with you more. As the sort of armchair general for whom the Saker has contempt, I have been looking at the same thing for two months now. Russia surrounds the Ukraine on three sides and stops. She surrounds Kiev on three sides and stops. Why not finish the job? Why let the enemy be resupplied? It looks like a trap, a lure for a NATO invasion from the west, maybe from Poland. The stupidest thing that NATO can do at this point is to send a ground force into the Ukraine from the west. The smartest thing that NATO can do is just to stay out of it.
When President Putin sells the Germans the oil that they need in order to manufacture weapons for the Ukraine, he sells the Germans the rope that they need to hang themselves in the hearts of the Russian people. He must justify to the Russians what he knows they will soon suffer. He is a man of his culture.
No movie better portrays the culture of West Texas than Hell or High Water. No movie better portrays the culture of the diamond districts of New York and Philadelphia than Uncut Gems, and it is a metaphor for the war that has begun in the Ukraine. In its last scene, Howard Ratner is NATO, Arno is the Atlantic Integrationist, Phil is the Russian Sovereigntist, and Julia De Fiore is the American Oligarch, while the security doors are America’s nuclear arsenal. The plot is the classic tragedy.
Russia is crucial at this time not because she is at war with the Ukraine but because she is at war with the United States of America. This is World War III. The war may have begun gradually, but it can end very abruptly. Many may be annihilated.
President Putin is ever so much more intellectual than President Biden. He can be expected to have thought every permutation of moves to the end, while the same cannot be expected of President Biden. This is an unequal intellectual match. All the intellect is on the Russian side.
America is run by swindlers. President Putin, by contrast, got his start as an extortionist for the KGB. He was a lieutenant colonel when he entered politics, and he thinks like a general. Russia is a cornered animal. A cornered animal is dangerous, because it will not back down but will escalate instead.
The swindlers who rule America think that President Putin is a chump, but he is no chump. While they focus their attention on money and lies, President Putin focuses his on the nuclear warheads atop the missiles at the American bases surrounding his country and on the genocidal intention that American bioweaponry reveals. His aim is to eliminate every American missile and bomb in Europe, by diplomacy if he can, and by force if he cannot. President Putin thinks like a general and an extortionist. He worries about his country being vaporized and about how to eliminate American missiles and bombs, from Europe, without vaporizing his country in the process. He pays little attention to money and lies.
Today the swindlers rub their hands with glee. They think to themselves that President Putin has finally fallen for their deception. Some of them seem to presume that now they can advance a small NATO force into the middle of the Ukraine, tip the scales the other way, engage Russia in protracted warfare like Afghanistan, and glory in the profits to, and kickbacks from, armament manufacturers for years to come. President Biden recently led his troops in the 82nd Airborne Division to understand that they would soon be sent into the Ukraine, saying, “You’re going to see when you’re there.”
Led by swindlers, rather than by generals, NATO forces sent into the Ukraine will advance straight into an encirclement. When President Putin takes no prisoners, will the swindlers respond with nuclear strikes against the Russian forces remaining in the Ukraine?
If so, President Putin will vaporize EUCOM in its entirety. The Belgians, Dutch, Germans, Italians, Poles, Romanians, Turks, Ukrainians and many Americans will then experience a come-to-Jesus moment. They will learn the hard way that war with a nuclear power is more than a steady stream of profit and a few dead Deplorables. The elimination of the nuclear component of EUCOM is President Putin’s ultimate objective, whether by diplomacy or otherwise, and it has nothing to do with the Ukraine. The Ukraine is just a diversionary tactic for him.
Can you imagine the looks on the faces of President Biden, Vice President Harris, and General Austin when they are told that EUCOM has been vaporized, together with every country which it occupies? Their thoughts of money and lies will flee to the hills, leaving them without a thought in their heads, like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
The Ukraine has even gotten the attention of the Pope, but the papal consecration of March 25, 2022, falls short of the mandates of Fatima. Should Pope Francis manage to survive the vaporization of Italy, it is not unthinkable that he might move the headquarters of his Church elsewhere, such as to Buenos Aires. Should he not survive, the next man to be elected Pope may move the ecclesiastical headquarters, just the same. The prophecies attributed to St. Malachy, the twelfth century Archbishop of Armagh, foretell Pope Francis to be the last pope of Rome. The prophecies of St. John (Rev 17-18) are relevant as well, as are the prophecies of Fatima, which foretell “that many nations would disappear from the face of the earth.”
As the Saker said, “the West will only stop doubling down if the US homeland itself is threatened by Russian conventional and nuclear strategic deterrence capabilities.” The destruction of Europe is precisely this point. All the anti-Russian hysteria in the media serves only to convince President Putin’s troubled conscience that his apparent stratagem is the right thing to do and that the risk is worth taking.
Please don’t advocate ‘vaporizing’ our beautiful European cultural heritage, with beautiful architecture, paintings, sculptures and libraries! And many good, although brainwashed people living ordinary lives in the midst of unspeakable evil and corrupt (although incompetent) leaders.
The man who goes by the stage name of “Francis” is an antipope. Benedict XVI never canonically resigned the papacy. The coup that happened in February 2013 mirrors the coups of 2014 and 2020. Benedict remains the pope. Everything that the abomination that is Bergoglio is null and void. We could be in a run of antipopes, who knows. There will be another holy pope but may not be elected by the cardinals who have stabbed Benedict in the back.
“Why not finish the job?”
To force the enemy to fight, attack something he MUST defend.
At the start of the conflict, the Ukrainian forces were poised to attack the Donbas region.
Much of their force were dug in, entrenched, ready for war.
By putting Kiev and other cities under threat, you force the Ukrainians to redeploy. Suddenly lots of forces and weapons had to be moved in response.
Forces on the move, and especially the heavier equipment, is much easier to take out then forces that have been dug in and fortified.
Forcing the Ukrainians to move forces around in response to this or that threat, means being able to pick them off much easier and cheaper, than trying to dig them out of fortified positions.
My guess about Kiev is that by moving the threat away from Kiev, the Ukrainians now have to decide to either leave the entire garrison there, not using it to fight the Russians, or they have to try to move the troops to where the fight is, once again bringing it out in the open, where it can be picked off. If they leave it in Kiev, the rest of Ukraine falls, and if they bring it to the fight, they lose a lot of it in transit.
IF they do bring it to the fight, the Russians can always move to treaten Kiev again, forcing the Ukrainians to move again…
Rinse repeat, until there are no longer a significant force able to garrison Kiev, and you can take it much easier and much cheaper in Russian lives, if you decide in the end that you DO want to even take Kiev.
Keep attacking things the enemy has to defend, pick off anything that moves. If the enemy manages to mount a defense, move to threaten something else, and keep doing it until the enemy has nothing left, or refuses to move. At that point you take everything he refuses to defend, and either starve out the rest, or graciously accept their surrender.
So in summary, I don’t believe for a second that the Russians wanted to take Kiev, they only needed to put it under threat, to force Ukraine to redeploy. Once it was clear the Ukrainians were unwilling or unable to redeploy any further, the Russians no longer needed to have Kiev under threat. Having sucked all the forces available into Kiev, they can now crush the forces inside the Donbas cauldron. Then probably start trying to make the Ukrainians redeploy all over again.
Most generals think tactics, good generals think strategy, the greatest of generals think logistics.
In this case it’s the supply of Russian troops is at risk in an area of the Ukraine they are less welcome in.
A note regarding the seemingly Russian “open borders” policy until recently when it comes to Western supply.
Russians have a long and proven tradition of thorough planning when it comes to military matters (even Bismarck pointed it out a while ago) and so it would be reasonable to assume that to keep the borders open was an intentional and planned move.
i.e. : it does seem rather unlikely that it was purely coincidental that when things started to heat up on the Eastern/Donbass front, Russians “finally” started to target significant storage facilities (a couple of days ago it was one week worth of ammo/weapons, now one month worth) while in the same time articles about stocks running low started to pop up in Western media (first Greece, Germany…then the US “arsenal of democracy”).
As said, unlikely to be a mere coincidence.
Assumption would be :
1. mass flow of “refugees” towards Western borders was to be expected, so limited scope of action initially when it came to targeting (or even identifying) the supply roads/facilities in Western part of Ukraine.
2. not much guesswork would have been needed to determine what kind of “support” would be provided, due to specific/limiting factors such as logistics, detection probability, potential/actual efficiency on battlefield, UKR capacity to use such weaponry, etc…put simply: overall for the US a kind of Afghan/Soviet war redo when it comes to the military support provided – stingers and modern avatars, anti-tank weaponry… to make it even more a 2022 remake rather than mujahiddin u got fanatic nationalists and nazis.
3. it can also be reasonably assumed that Russian Intel had rather good (if not accurate) estimates of the actual stocks of such weaponry, in US and NATO countries, as well as of the production capacity when stocks would come low – apparently mass/fast production for replacing supplied stocks won’t happen so fast anywhere in US-NATO sphere, even less if poor efficiency in real conditions is accounted for— then designing new weaponry will require even more time – smart move for RUS to have kept the goodies out of the UKR battlefield, making NATO blind and making design of efficient weaponry quite difficult.
4. same, it can be assumed that Russian planners did account for the fact that a significant % of such supply would never reach the battlefield (corruption/mafia, black market, various factions within UKR defense forces – regulars, Azov and alike, local militias, etc…) as confirmed recently
so to summarize: such “open borders” policy appears to make sense and to be rather a smart one:
i.e. let weapons, ammo, etc…flow in, identify roads, facilities, etc…let the stocks grow knowing stocks are depleting quickly on the suppliers side, for what it’s in actual use, you got a real-life test of NATO weaponry + direct access to the technology, and can also both adjust, develop counter-measures and reverse-engineer if you wish…and when it’s time to take care of one of the main objectives, you start to blow most of the acquired stock not still on the battlefield…that is most of the actual supply provided.
maybe all was scheduled and timed in a sync manner. A Russian variant of “one shot, two birds” except here more than two birds.
Big picture being: Ukraine is understood to be only one of the battles in the great war btw US/NATO and Russia, so “open borders policy” benefits 1. direct experience of some NATO weaponry capacity (opposite is not true), 2. proven poor efficiency in real war situation, 3. depleting stocks, all together = you have a better head start for the next battle, either in Ukraine or elsewhere.
Well, don’t know seems to make sense of it in a rational way… I don’t believe in coincidence, more on fine-tuning on the Russian side.
Pretty straightforward: let the supplies flow in and blow ’em up! If they blocked the transit routes, NATO would have to sneak them in elsewhere and they would be more difficult to track. NATO reserves are being drained faster than Russia is using up it’s missiles (500 more staff taken on recently at the Kaliber factory). It’s a win for Russia!
The answer is very simple: Russia doesn’t have the manpower/troops to secure the entire western Ukrainian border and still have troops left to prosecute the campaign in the east. They COULD if they used all of their troops or did a mobilization but clearly Putin is not doing that, at least not right now, so with the force they’ve allocated for the operation there is simply not enough as you’d need probably 100k-150k men or more to secure that entire western border and then there’d be nothing left for Mariupol, Kherson, Kharkov, Donbass, etc, etc.
The Russians have enough spies in Ukraine to see exactly where these weapons are going
They also have satellites
They wait until these weapons arrive even close to the eastern front and then wipe them out.
Actually that’s what they doing since weeks.
All those weapons did not change any thing on the battlefield
In the same time the western retarted Russia hating countries weaken their own defenses because they empty their warehouses of weapons and must buy now much more expensive weapons what will weaken their finances as well and all this in the middle of a financial crisis
I guess soon the EU will be history when the shit hits the ventilator and that’s what the Russians would want I guess
And me too by the way
The chaos that the EU is creating now is suicide
For me that’s the only reason that the Russians don’t bomb the supply chain from the west that I could think of
Thanks, Nightvision. I live for these updates! I am thinking that Russia will raise the stakes very soon (after the Sarmat demo) and shoot down transport planes with military equipment and perhaps strike bases in Poland near the boarder.
If the Azovs think that some foreign power is going to negotiate a deal wherein the Azovs are allowed to escape Azovstal and go to a third country, they are delusional.
As far as the east Ukraine caldron is concerned, I personally would like to see more Shock and Awe.
They had that butthole nance on the news in full military gear the other night, but his gloves were so big and fat the fingers wouldnt even fit through the trigger guard on the rifle. Laughable what people will soak up…STANDBY! STANDBY! ITS ANTI SHIP CALIBER CRUISE MISSLES!!!! COMING FROM THE EAST!
….
clown world
Not a single test of Tsirkon.
Excellent sitrep – thank you…
We don’t know what horrors are being played out under the azovstal. There must be a lot of pressure and tempers flying down there. Hunger will eventually take its toll, and these people will either surrender or die.
One thing that I have noticed is the extremely low number of civilian deaths during this war. The illustration of the bunker complex under the Azovstol industrial plant offers insight. Videos of Ukrainian civilians show them seeking refuge in basement rooms with heavy steel and concrete doors. Unlike the United States which succumbed to propaganda about nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union actually understood nuclear weapons effects and how to mitigate them. One quarter meter of concrete reduces the radiation by about 90%. Buried bunkers or just basements of steel reinforced concrete can withstand a strategic nuke barely a kilometer away. People sheltering in these bunkers will survive unless the building collapses on top of them.
I believe that the best tactic for Russia is to just flood these bunkers with water from the sea of Azov. Your going to have to rebuild anyway. Of course NATO will complain that H2O is a chemical weapon.
Maybe you should watch Patrick Lancaster’s latest vid…..he finds all the dead civilians, Maripol is littered with dead civilians….not sure he’ll ever be the same again, no one there ever will. Just listen to his voice as he describes what he sees…..add all the disappeared civilians, may as well include Gonzalo, killed by death squads, interred in mass graves….no one will ever know how many civilians died.
Cheers
you’re right, personally I’ve seen massive civilian casualties so far. It’s now been admitted by numerous Azov / AFU POWs that they were ordered or saw their fellow servicemen slaughter many civilians. You can read some testimony here, and there’s video of this guy as well
https://i.postimg.cc/mrntYfr5/FQz-Q5c-WXw-AUL-Bt.png
https://i.postimg.cc/SR6RbnfB/FQz-SM3s-Xw-AAfuo.png
https://www.bitchute.com/video/VFSRdLYfDy2U/
Not to mention areas like Bucha and Kramatorsk railway strike where there was mass casualties. There were many such events. Civilians are being killed en masse by the Zelensky regime
” Of course NATO will complain that H2O is a chemical weapon”.
Correct! Of course, as I have argued above, the definition of a “chemical weapon” is hopelessly loose, allowing virtually anything to be so described.That must be deliberate.
It’s not water! It’s Dihydrogen Monoxide!
https://www.dhmo.org/dihydrogen-monoxide/
:-)
Di-Hydrogen Oxide is highly dangerous – 7% of all deaths, 236 000 annually.
Add in a deadly component, Sodium-Chloride, and we’re talking WMD. Vast amounts stored in the Sea of Azov.
This stuff makes Novichok look amateur!
Years ago, someone with my sense of humor persuaded a city council to enact an ordinance to ban di-hydrogen oxide.! This was one of the many city councils who enacted a “nuclear weapons free zone.”
RE: Funding. Anyone wonder where exactly the shekels are going? Apparently the US doesn’t know either:
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/us-weapons-ukraine-intelligence/index.html
Yes it’s from CNN, interesting how they are reporting this. Probably a smoke screen from this media organ of the Left degenerates.
So arms shipments get to the Polish border depots, and by the time they cross into Lyvov they get hit. One after another. Extremely doubtful that any get further east, and certainly not to the active cauldrons. Perhaps this flow of arms isn’t intended to get to the west but are being stockpiled covertly in western Ukr at a theoretical line dictated by the Pentagon, say Kiev west and south to Vinnystya? That would be a conservative approach by US MIL planners, thinking that the SMO would eventually get to this line. Also not all these arms from USNatoGlobalhomo are expected to be delivered effectively and deployed by the Ukronazis. This seems like a deluge of arms shipments with a minority delivered. All funding the US and Nato MIL. Win-win. Never let a good crisis go to waste.
The Polish “peacekeeping” mission seems like a reconquista of Lwow. Let ’em have it. They won’t do sh*t east of there, sorry pierogi bros.
“Operation Maidan and the following 8 years was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken.” Fixed (apologies).
TY for your sitreps ночное видение
What about the idea to flood the underground at Azovstal? Seems like a simple solution and gives them time to surrender before drowning.
Hi all! Great analysis as always. One question however:
Does anyone have any info regarding the size of the air force Russia has committed to this operation?
Im sure someone somewhere is at least trying to keep track of this or maybe in one of the RuMoD briefings that was mentioned.. I read on several places that the number of sorties daily is huge and that it keeps growing. That planes are flying around the clock mission after mission, but how many?
So tldr: how many airplanes are involved from the Russian side?
Thanks!
No one knows for sure how many planes or the size in general, we only know the sorties as reported by the Russian MOD which were usually in the 150 per day range though this week supposedly have upticked to 250. I’ve read an interesting paper (from a western military viewpoint) how this is a way too small sortie count, and that the U.S. with 400k+ troops in Iraq allegedly flew 1500 sorties a day, so this seemed to imply a ratio of about 3 or 4 to 1 needed for sorties over your troop commitment. So using that logic if Russia is using let’s say around 150k troops, they’d need 600 sorties a day to properly assist all those troops on their individual frontlines. I don’t know how true this really is but we’ve already established that Russia is doing a much different ‘low intensity’ sort of campaign which is why they’ve titled it a S.M.O. and so I don’t think they’re trying to compete with a blitzkrieg ‘shock and awe’ manner of mass sorties etc. If you estimate that they can average maybe 2-4 sorties per aircraft per day give or take then the 200-250 they’re supposedly now doing might be done with as little as 50-60 aircraft total which is roughly what I’d guess they had simply from the satellite photos I’ve seen of their airfields in Belarus and such that they were using.
But it’s hard to say with any definitiveness but like I said, as I understand it right now they’re doing about 200-250 sorties a day. Keep in mind in Syria they did something like 50-100 a day max from what I recall.
“The operational tempo of Russian air operations in Syria was quite high from the start.
In October, an average of 45 sorties per day were carried out by a total of 34 airplanes
and 16 helicopters. The pace of the operation also increased over time, rising from
approximately 20 sorties per day at the start of the operation to around 60 per day at its
initial peak on October 8-9”
If the above is true and they were doing 45 sorties with 34 fixed wing and 16 choppers that puts it at a 1:1 ratio of 1 sortie per craft per day, which – if you use the same formula – would mean they’d be using 200-250 craft in Ukraine but I don’t think they’re doing that few, I think each craft can average at least several sorties per day. But once again, there’s nothing to confirm this yet.
Hi NightVision,
Hello. I’m no military expert, in fact I’m reading your SitRep alongside stuff on how to up the ante on a marketing initiative for an eyecare centre.
And I find these your SitReps to be too good. Too good, in fact.
Hopelly, as such, you could allow me to pose to you a legit question: aren’t you letting in too much to the enemy??? I’m asking this because your sitreps appear to be way, way too vastly enriched by info that appears to be many, many factors way better than anything that can be called “average”. Take your last SitRep for instance… the one you posted immediately before this one. That SitRep might as well have been written by an actual Russian military commander in the field on the Donbas frontline: complete with maps, troop movements, targeting intel, operational localities etc. If these your excellent SitReps are even just 40% accurate, and if all the deployed NATO expertise that is said to be hellbent on finishing off the Russian soldiers is as hellbent as as is reputed, aren’t we endangering the SMO by revealing:
1. Russian Troop Numbers
2. Russian fielded weapons
3. Estimates of Russian combat aircraft; “If you estimate that they can average maybe 2-4 sorties per aircraft per day give or take then the 200-250 they’re supposedly now doing might be done with as little as 50-60 aircraft total which is roughly what I’d guess they had simply from the satellite photos I’ve seen of their airfields in Belarus and such that they were using.
4. Descriptions of localities, intent and direction of the Russian troop movements.
5. Publishing of military maps
6. So much more???
Rarely do we see NATO publishing a list of all weapons to be sent to Ukraine, the routes they’ll follow, nor the actual maps featuring these routes. It’s only due to Russian superior intel that these caches are being so comprehensively hit. It’s also no coincidence that the Russian MoD appears to be publicizing the results of their plans in their briefings rather than the plans themselves.
As I pointed out in a past comment on this Saker blog, the sheer quality, quantity and frequency of the excellent military analytical commentary here, as well as the very obviously superb quality of the commentators themselves as well… are sufficient just on their own to produce a crashing win in this war.
In fact, it’s very possible that this Saker blog is left unharassed by western search engines owing to the highly valuable insights as regards the conflict in Ukraine that they continue to glean from here. This is because, on Google here in Nairobi Kenya, even RT News is blocked. On my free to air TV set, RT News is no longer on the search menu (though my still unsent, long letter and much detailed proposal to Margarita Simonyan (written two years ago) on how to market and promote the RT News TV channel in Nairobi/Kenya is still in my desk drawer).
In 2014, the Russian armed forces staged a most stunning element of military surprise when the famous “Little Green Men” popped up suddenly in Sebastopol and Crimea to deliver that most admirable of a sucker punch to the Ukrainian military. And so much an incredible military achievement with nary a shot fired, as compared to now when all types of munitions are going off in all directions constantly.
Barring any possible benefits of possible “Maskirofte”, if the ultimate “Art Of War” is to keep your plans “dark as night”, then aren’t we endangering the lives of Russian service men with all these excellent revelations? I would truly love to hear your thoughts on this. Meanwhile, I’ll sign off today by inviting you to carefully audit all the questions posed to you on this your today’s SitRep and pick out the ones that will not put Russian troops in danger on the battlefield… all or some?
I will take the liberty to answer to your question.
No, reports like those published here by Nightvision, generally are not harmful. I say “generally”, because if Nightvision start reporting local details, that.’s going to be a differrent story. There s nothing in these reports that is not already known by all involved parties. There are no fools in the Ukrainian army,, they know all of that. Differrren matter what is publicly announced, or most important – what is not announced. When you read something from the Ukrainian official/non official media or government about the situation, just check it against the Army reports.
BTW, in Ukrainian controlled territory on the left bank of Dnepr river they are taking the phones from people, because the locals use them to report exactly those local details to the Russians.
Hello R,
I’m in receipt of your response to my concerns with lots of thanks. But like I said, I’m no military person. The Russians are fighting for the whole world, and it matters to some of us that the Russians are as safe from harm as possible so as to successfully execute their rout of neo-colonialism. The last time the Russians/USSR sacrificed so much (WWII), the majority of colonialists suddenly lost most of their holdings in Africa, with one colonialist after another tumbling like dominoes, and with African countries gaining independence one after another. I’d like to state here that here in Africa, this is not forgotten, and this monumental sacrifice will never be taken for granted by any of us over here…
What the Africans are now rightly sensing is that when the SMO gets done, the remaining neo-colonial tentacles smothering the continent will finally get jettisoned. That’s why the majority of African countries- through the African Union- have refused to participate in supporting the sanctioning of Russia.
… so thanks, R, for taking your time to shed some light on my query to NightVision…
The Russians don’t need nearly so many sorties, because their intelligence is so much better.
It has been my impression for weeks that the air-war has largely been one of missiles, rendering comparison with other conflicts futile.
The real offensive will not start until at least Tuesday next week. Russia will not start anything until the 3 days of Easter have passed…24th-26th April.
“U.S. has sent $2.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, with DoD weapons reaching the battlefield within 48 to 72 hours: senior U.S. defense official”
What’s interesting about that is, the U.S. spent 3 billion on funding the Taliban in the 80’s, over the course of an entire decade.
$3 Billion doesn’t buy what it used to. Annual tuition at the University of Minnesota was $1050 when I graduated in 1979. It is now $15,254 (for Minnesota residents). They have only spent a couple hundred million 1980 dollars so far.
It was $203 a year ($71 a quarter) when I graduated from the University Minnesota in 1962. Back then, the state considered education for everybody as far as they could go an investment in its future. The actual inflation since then has been in the order of 10x to 12x: steep, but far less than the increase in tuition.
Most of the money is for “personnel” and funding retirement plans
If all that crap was taken out, schools remained schools without being an “experience” tuition today at any UC system would be 10K a year in-state, not what they want today
And, btw, UC is a well run system. If you look at the others the travesty is a tragedy
Salaam-If it’s okay to sleep when not so wet why not flood the belly of the Azovstal plant with water.The rivers and lakes and drains around pipes or hoses and pumps running 24/7.The few occupiers will soon have enough to drink ,but it would be hell moving up and down in water/slush/sludge and mud.
Even better, dump raw sewage down the shafts… rats like shit though, so maybe that’s not a great idea.
Remember the freedom fighters will have to go in there at some stage to clean up, although I suppose you could send in the Ukrainian School Cleaners Union Members and POW’s with buckets & mops, hoses and detergents.
Two Points –
Putin/Russia are determined to free as many civilians as possible. Most of them belong to allies who’ve requested Russia’s care & assistance.
There’s folks down there who NATO tried desperately at great loss to free. Who lurks yonder who’s so valuable? Could be the cherry on the cake if it’s a brood of NATO commanders.
When will Russia begin the much-warned Phase 2 of its Ukraine offensive?
Perhaps it has already started. Maybe it will start in the next few days. Or, who knows, never.
In the early days of the conflict, a naval attack on Odessa was expected, followed by a landing of troops. While at the north, a Russian column tens of kilometers long was advancing towards Kiev.
As we know today, both operations did not materialize.
Russia’s declared long-range strategic objective is to put an end to total US domination, with the demolition of the unipolar world that followed the collapse of the USSR.
In this sense, the theater of operations in Ukraine is not an end in itself, as it is subject to a long-range strategic objective.
Therefore, the pace of the Russian offensive will certainly be determined by a broad and deep-spectrum war, even not limited to the military field.
On the economic front of this war, Russia has managed to face sanctions, fend off the attack on the ruble and strengthen its alliance with China.
The Russian presence in the already de-Nazified cities in Ukraine ranges from extensive humanitarian assistance to the population, until the holding of plebiscites for accession to the People’s Republics of Donbass (or even the creation of new similar republics).
The test carried out today with the ICBM Sarmat is also part of the strategic objective, showing Russia’s determination to achieve it.
The suffocation of the Ukrainian logistical infrastructure tends to irreversibly weaken the resistance of its troops. The trend is to increase yields.
At the same time, the impact of the European counter-coup of economic sanctions against Russia will be felt more and more. The trend is social and political deterioration in many European countries, starting with their main economy: Germany.
Conceived by the Imperium as another Afghanistan for Russia, the war in Ukraine could become a new Vietnam for the US.
PS: superb SitReps, congratulations.
Machine translator was not good enough, i mean:
“The trend is to increase surrenders.
At the same time, the blowback on European of the sanctions against Russia will be felt more and more.”
I hope a heavier than air gas does not get pumped through broken pipes into all them tunnels under the steal plant, it might be hard to pump out to try to save any people down there!
Some videos for today.
DPR special forces clear Azov steel plant in new footage:
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/RuptlyMariupol_wide:a
Russian-led forces advance on Mariupol, focusing the fight on Azovstal:
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/Murad_Mariupol_20:3
A Patrick Lancaster video showing the active and ongoing clearing of the Azovstal industrial area:
https://odysee.com/@Baked:e/russian-forces-eliminate-ukraine-forces-subs:0
Evacuated civilians greet Russian troops & media after weeks in basements near Azov Steel plant:
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/civilians_evac_20:d
The DPR’s “Somali” battalion is in Mariupol:
https://rutube.ru/video/74654e88398da6a912771f14a842a0c1/
‘Bal’ missiles fly toward Kiev-regime military facilities:
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/bal_20:1
Russian Su-34 jets carry out airstrikes amid ongoing special op:
https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/su_34_20:f
One video not directly related, but shows today’s successful test launch of the Sarmat ICBM:
https://rutube.ru/video/47531e10ae128fc908c0f6fdece72f2a/
Hi Nightvision,
Sorry for such a BASIC QUESTION:
But where are all of the Gazprom GAS PIPELINES in all of this??? I would think that all it would take is a couple of artillery shells on these and the EU would be out of natural/blue gas? Does anyone know where these are, how they have managed to avoid damage and why (if these are not targets) aren’t the Azov Battalion units hiding nearby or around them? And do these pipelines have any bearing on how Russia is deploying forces?
It just seems a little strange for the gas to keep flowing to the EU amidst a massive war going on? So, it might be of some value to see how these are overlaid on a military operations map?
Sorry if this has been answered before, but I tried to search in other updates and comments and didn’t find much.
Thanks for all of your hard work and posts!
I think there’s two major pipelines: one from Perm in Russia to Ukraine and the other from Saratov in Russia down through to Odessa. Neither one of them get near the Azov sea.
What’s interesting is that if you look up where Ukrainian gas pipelines are it appears one of the Russian ones runs right through north Luhansk near where Rubizhnoe would be, such as in this image:
https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-560w,f_auto,q_auto:best/newscms/2014_10/224841/ukraine-natgas-map.png
And a week or two ago I posted a graphic video showing tons of Ukrop fallen troops in the Rubizhnoe area, and if you watch the whole video several times you can see them right around a pipeline as if they were guarding the pipeline, but by the end of it the LPR tanks are driving along the pipeline route
Video (18+) https://www.bitchute.com/video/vTO597qvbvUt/
@ R on April 20, 2022 · at 7:24 pm EST/EDT
Precise description. The picture above is laughable
——————————————————————
Laughable or not, the real issue is whether the graphic is verifiable as an authentic rendition of the bomb shelter. At first glance, it looks too fancy to believe it is a Soviet era structure, however, there were all kind of structures built during the Soviet era, many of them now abandoned (several nuclear bomb shelters included), that would surprise us even now.
Given the possibility of flooding it, an option that has recently circulated, the building needs to have watertight hatches as in a sub, otherwise the protection against nuclear bombs becomes, in this case for sure, laughable. There should be structural engineers and architects in Russia that knew or know of this project, or similar ones, that could offer their views about the impregnability of it, its weaknesses and vulnerabilities. I regret not having bookmarked an article in https://m.vz.ru/, that provided a long description of the building, and offered flooding as a viable option.
It would have served to compare it to the graphic above, which, as in the Bin Laden example another poster pointed out, it can be a concoction of the highest order.
Lone Wolf
There are undeground structures, no resemblance to the graph.
+Nightvision
LOL. Reading you reminds me of Moon of Alabama. Same style. Both do great work during the infowar vs Empire of Hate and Lies
Kadyrov says that Azovstal will be liberated by “lunch time”………. Hey Azov Nazis: Do you think that Kadyrov is F–king around?
@ Anton Gorbatow on April 20, 2022 · at 10:04 pm EST/EDT
Kadyrov says that Azovstal will be liberated by “lunch time”………. Hey Azov Nazis: Do you think that Kadyrov is F–king around?
—————————————–
As I described Kadyrov earlier, “We know Kadyrov is a good man, a true patriot, heart in the right place, just a bit boastful.” That was because he was boasting his troops had taken Rubizhnoye, after the “Lugansk Information Center” reported the UkroWehrmacht had abandoned their positions, before the Russian/Chechen/LDNR troops arrived.
His boastful attitude does not make him a lesser man, on the contrary, in Chechen culture, it adds to his manly man profile. Look at videos of Chechen brothers during battle breaks, and you will notice they like to boast about their achievements. I don’t think Kadyrov is a man that f….s around, he’s a man of his word, however, his boastfulness can lead him sometimes to promise thinks he cannot comply with.
He’s doing all he can to finish the job, that’s for sure. He hates nazis as the reincarnation of the shatan, and we Muslims couldn’t have a greater enemy.
Lone Wolf
Aggree.
You are aware that there are Chechens ( Ichkerians) fighting for the other side, aren’t you?
Thanks John MR.
And Anton Gorbatow: I wouldn’t hold my breath, Kadyrov is a bit of a hot head that’s usually jumping the gun on everything. After all he personally flew into Bucha last month to oversee the glorious Chechen conquest of Kiev only to fly home empty handed after that turned to a failure. Then he similarly flew into Mariupol weeks ago when it seemed like it would fall and here we are weeks later still grinding it out. Nothing against him, I like the guy but he’s clearly very excitable and not someone to necessarily trust on strictly military matters. With that said, of course he might be right, I’m sure he knows better than I. But personally I’m not holding my breath and as I said in the sitrep I think they can hold out another week or two if not more. The complex is gigantic, in fact the Azovsteel complex on its own is larger than many of the towns/settlements that RF forces have battled over in Ukraine. I’m not expecting it to go quick but of course I’d love to be wrong and for this to somehow all conclude ASAP but I don’t think that will be the case. There’s still upwards of 2000 of the hardest most fanatical of the Azov and Marines and they aren’t all just sitting shivering in some basement, many of them are taking up positions all over even outside of the factory in the highrises bordering the complex and they’re still giving big problems to advancing forces so this doesn’t seem to be over by a long shot to me but once again I’d LOVE to be wrong on this and for this Mariupol nightmare to end already.
Regarding the topic of funding, the Russian central bank head (Elvira Nabiullina) committed the biggest Russian indiscretion of the war. She indicated that the Russian economy is being effectively sanctioned:
“At the moment, perhaps this problem is not yet so strongly felt, because there are still reserves in the economy,” “But we see that sanctions are being tightened almost every day,”
“…the period during which the economy can live on reserves is finite.” -NYT
Seems to me the opposite. Nabiullina did EXACTLY what all you economically black-pilled guys were claiming she would never do because she’s a controlled 6th columnist or whatever the story was. Everything the black-pilled economic wizard Glayzev demanded of her she actually did by de facto tying Russian ruble to commodities, stabilizing the currency and THEN making a massive unexpected 300 basis points cut on the interest rate which went from 20 to 17% with an outlook for possible more cuts in the future. So it seems Putin chose well, she’s “one of us” after all? i.e. a white-hat resistance champion, so on and so on.
I just think it was an indiscretion to admit that the economy is living on reserves and that the period for that is finite. Putin said the sanctions “blitzkrieg” failed.
Well you could be right, maybe she spoke out of order in that regard. But it comes down to ‘patriotic speech’ in time of war (i.e. propaganda) vs. truth. And in this case she’s slightly more on the side of truth. The reason being is that it’s clear to see to anyone that Russia certainly is being hurt by these sanctions, it’s simply that the entire world economic system is now crumbling and its’ a “race to the bottom” and the other side is being hurt even more and will likely beat Russia to the bottom. But just as an example, the newest ‘inflation’ numbers were released by country and inflation rates are historic / through the roof everywhere, 7-12% for most European countries. Russia was ahead of the pack at a whopping 18%, so clearly things are not very rosy. But Putin did not lie, in the overall “big picture” the blitzkrieg which was meant to utterly devastate and instantly destroy the Russian economy and bring it to its knees – yes, that failed. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t do any damage. It clearly did a lot. And like I said, Nabiullina is likely right about what she said. But in the end, I think Russia will win economically of course, so it may be a moot point.
All true.
Actually, Russian people’s ability to process the truth is constantly underestimated by politicians, media, and what not. Russian people hate the rosy presentations and instantly become suspicious. Russian people want the truth, right now they want it more than at any other time. The truth is not going to change their patriotism, not a bit.
She fixed that already. It had to be fixed too! Maybe the full context was not given, but her words were wrong. She made a partial picture be the whole picture. It may reflect her true analysis as an economist. Unfortunately, that thought (doubt) remains.
Yes, Putin has it right: Sanctions hurt but they fail to achieve their objective. In the long run, they are beneficial to Russia (again).
I notice you refer from NYT, and whatever Nabiullina said to NYT, she has every right to make smoke in that smut paper too.
Note that by linking the ruble to real home based commodities, Nabiullina can print whatever amount of ruble to Russia she like. I guess thats why Putin spells out so confident about the strategy.
The NYT provides all I wanted from them about the Russia-Ukraine conflict. There’s nothing “smut” about their Time Machine feature. With it, you can have any NYT issued since the early 1850s.
On the ruble, it should work, but a success cannot be traced solely to it in the future, because Russia appears to be going through a transformational experience (including psychic or soul-mind changes) that affects everything as a result, including economic results. They have powerful friends that push them toward greatness (irony).
Nightvision,
Your reaction to this comment:
“The intensification of shelling of the DPR’s rear may be a sign that the Ukrainian armed forces are preparing active operations in the region in order to divert Russian and DPR forces from other areas of military operations.
If such an attempt succeeds, it would mean the loss of the strategic initiative of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the transition of the conflict to the stage of a protracted war, where the forces of NATO countries will be directly or indirectly involved on the side of Ukraine.”
Thanks
Which “rear” is this comment referring to? I’m not aware of any shelling to any rear but it’s hard to say as it’s so vague I mean the DPR is a vast territory it can refer to a multitude of things.
The only Ukrainian action to the rear lines I’m currently aware of is they keep attempting to do some limp-wristed offensive on Russian rear lines northwest of Izyum by Kharkov. Their hope is that they can pin down and distract Russian forces there such that RF will reroute its main advance force currently pushing towards Slavyansk, and be forced to send it back north to deal with the Ukrainian harrassing force on these rear lines. But so far from what I understand the Ukie attacks have not worked and they suffer losses each time they try it as, like I keep saying, they have very little armor to actually launch any sort of attacks/counterattacks at all, their force is really only fit for defense or guerilla/insurgency style ISIS tactics of roaming technicals, etc.
So this is the only ‘rearguard’ action I’m aware of that they’ve been attempting to do. The only “shelling of DPR’s rear” I can possibly think of is they continue to launch Tochka-U missiles towards rear of DPR, killing civilians as usual. I think today they launched one at Shaktarske in the rear and either killed or seriously injured several civilians after Russian AD shot the Tochka down but it still landed somewhere. Which is actually right next to the place where MH17 was shot down, about 9km away.
This link to the “desperate plea’ for extraction has sound and English subtitles.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ULqRN2VSzsE
He doesn’t look so desperate to me for someone with only “days or hours” left — well-fed, healthy, clean/clear face, clean clothes, though the (fake?) mustache is a bit droopy on his left side. Whether fake or not the key point he’s making is we’ve got hostages, “hundreds of civilians, including women and children” (and we’re not letting them go even if we don’t have food or water). Despicable.
Praying on Putin’s generosity of spirit and humanitarianism.
The scoundrel
@ arkx Brasil on April 20, 2022 · at 8:56 pm EST/EDT
When will Russia begin the much-warned Phase 2 of its Ukraine offensive?
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It was officially announced yesterday by RF Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, in an interview with “India Today” that was posted in this venue this morning.
Problem some people are having, is expecting 20,000 Russian cannons roaring à la Red Army before Berlin, a conventional, WWII style war. Sergei Shoigu said today that “the adoption of new forms of warfare will allow the troops to better adapt to the conditions of modern military confrontation,” (see “Russia Eyes New Forms of Warfare, https://www.rt.com/russia/554157-shoigu-meeting-new-warfare/), and other experts have been warning about expecting a classic, by the book, conflagration.
For example, see,
https://m.vz.ru/politics/2022/4/19/1154358.html
The big offensive in the Donbass began with a small town
“…The offensive itself in the Donbas will not go according to the canons, so that the Ukrainian General Staff could not predict it, suggests the former head of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the Russian Air Force special Forces Command, Reserve Colonel Sergei Khatylev. “There will be no classic offensive, when artillery is used at a distance of hundreds of kilometers along the front, and then tanks, planes and so on enter the battle. Most likely, everything will happen in a form that we have not yet seen. Pinpoint missile strikes will disable key facilities and headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Then, relatively speaking, the tanks will go to the left, the infantry-to the right, the aircraft will shred from the flanks. Everything will be twisted in such a way that Ukrainian officers will not have time to figure out what is happening, ” Khatylev explained to VZGLYAD newspaper…”
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See also,
https://m.vz.ru/world/2022/4/19/1154516.html
What will the second phase of the special operation in Ukraine look like?
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The offensive so far has targeted key positions to be used later as launch pads for the echelons waiting in the wing, e.g. this is still a preparation for what is coming.
Hope that helps.
Lone Wolf
It would help a lot more if the links were in English.
@ Johnny Dollar
It would help a lot more if the links were in English.
——————————————————————-
Language is not anymore an issue in the digital era.
Many browsers have embedded, instant translation, and they do a great job at it.
Try Yandex, you’d like it.
Hope that helps. :-)
Lone Wolf
Pressing the right mouse key gives, “Translate to English” (a clear immediate translation).
Almost in passing, the 2nd of your links mentions a rather startling bit of news:
DeepL translation:
That >20k fully provisioned AFU troops apparently made the ~500km trek from Kiev under the noses of the Russians is astonishing, no?
Assuming VZ ain’t simply generating more fog, how did they do it without getting destroyed en route? It’s more or less open farmland all the way down. Or, is it that they were allowed, even lured to come south? If they really did arrive north of Donbas, then I’d venture that Ph. 2 will not involve the Donbas beyond keeping those >20k troops busy there while the real hammer strike falls where nobody’s looking for it.
Kiev?
Would you rather fight those 20k soldiers inside of Kiev, or let them come out in the open, even inserting themselves into the cauldron you have set up for them?
I would let every last soldier come out of Kiev, if they are willing to let them go, and only once it is clear they have no more they are willing to send, do you close the cauldron behind them.
The more soldiers you can draw into the cauldron, the fewer will be left to fight you anywhere else, once those in the cauldron are taken care of.
Of course.
My conjecture was that Russia’s feigned attack that pinned AFU forces in Kiev in the early stages of the war may have been followed by a 2nd one (namely, the withdrawal) to lure them away when the time was right.
If that is so, we may be able to look forward to a sudden, “nobody saw it coming” attack on Kiev in a week or 2. My speculation is, of course contingent on the VK report being reliable. If 20-25k AFU troops made it to Donbas, they did so at the the pleasure of the Russian forces and at the expense of weakening Kiev’s defences. That leaves it vulnerable to a lightning attack south out of Belarus.
Thanks.
-> “Problem some people are having, is expecting 20,000 Russian cannons roaring à la Red Army before Berlin, a conventional, WWII style war.”
Exactly what i meant. As @Scorpion wrote above:
“In some sense the current military operation in Ukraine is just one battle field in a far larger asymmetrically waged world war whose purpose is to effect a sea-change in the post-war order”.
Looks like Russians are taking their time to bankrupt Nato with all their arms spending going on in Ukraine.
First: America did *not* arm the Taliban in the 1980s for the simple reason that the Taliban only came indy existence in 1994. America armed the Mujahideen, who began their own vicious civil war in 1991. The Taliban was created to fight the Mujahideen.
Secondly, $3 billion 40-30 years ago would buy considerably more than $3 billion today, not excepting the fact that of the $3 billion to Ukranazistan at least $1 billion can be reliably expected to be stolen.
Third, I just realised something that I should have long ago. The prisoner murder videos, I’d assumed, were not just Ukranazi psychopathy but intended to demoralise Russian forces (which of course they wouldn’t, anyone but a Ukranazi could have told that). But suddenly I had an epiphany after reading on Telegram how surrendering Ukrainian regulars were astonished at not being tortured or killed by Russia. The idea behind the prisoner murder videos was to make Russian soldiers retaliate in kind and so scare Ukrainian troops off surrendering. Which is a failing strategy, but can be hastened along by Russia hacking Ukrainian soldiers’ mobile phones and messaging them about surrendering and that they will come to no harm.
1. point taken
2. $1 from 1980 is $3.49 today. That means 3 billion in the 80’s is about, let’s just say an even $10 billion today. That $10 billion of 80’s money was given to the Mujahideen over 10 years. That averages to $1 billion per year. Ukraine has already gotten $3 billion in aid in 2 months, and in fact it’s much more because that’s not counting the aid from the other NATO countries. That means using the same metric, Ukraine is on track to dwarf the CIA’s Mujihideen spending in a mere 6 months or so. Hope that helps you understand the comparison better.
3. That’s a good point, I didn’t think of that and it’s probably partly right
thanks so much for detailed sitrep – must have taken hours to put this together.
Thanks again – its ugly about that underground complex.
It seems like the Chechens go first – they are outstanding. – no pun intended. Fiercest and most organized and bravest fighters in the world…its very cool to be able to see them in action
Thanks to Saker for even educating me this much about them
I reckon Hizbollah are equally fierce, organised and brave – and they have proven it many times. Don’t forget they defeated the Jewish military and with just their “B” team,
But the Chechens are the most cheerful fighters on the planet, it’s as if they are born for war/combat.
Imagine an army with combined Hizbollah and Chechen soldiers, they would be unbeatable.
He does it quickly (just kidding, but we don’t know).
This is the way to do it if you want to have the best one, though.
An Italian gives an example of soldiers through history:
https://t.me/OpenUkraine/14493
You forget the nato, american, hiding behind all of them .
The number one , the exceptional , from the home of the brave .
IMHO,
The RUS+Secessionists Military Operations are in a Phase02 Transition/Commencement Phase with Air/Artillery/Drone/StandOff Missile Strikes until the Roman Catholic Easter, Jewish Passover, Russian Orthodox Easter, and Islamic Ramadan Holidays Pass On.
Cultural/Religious Holidays are a bit sensitive – UN suggested a Cease-Fire for a few days; but I don’t think the Astute amongst the RUS+Secessionists want to give the Bandera-Nazi opportunities to re-arm and strike Civilians+Positioned_Troops during the Holiday Cease-Fire. Likewise, the Religious who can’t manage Communing where he/she stands would try to participate in Services and/or Communicate with Family.
Tricky for the Masses; and Dangerous because the Bandera-Nazi can’t be Trusted At All.
Hence the “Transition/Commencement Phase” with StandOff Artillery/Munitions at the Cauldrons until the Religious-Cultural-Familial Holidays Pass…
That being said, I’m not an Atheist nor an Anti-Theist.
I’m an Unaffiliated Ex-Christian (because Jesus-never-existed-dot-com // Christianity being a 4thCE Cult Sponsored by Constantine at Nicea which amalgamated the previously disdained Chrestus/Do-Gooder Cult with the Cults of Dionysus/Mithras/Dagon as their rendition of Judaism’s Messiah – attempting to Hijack Judaism’s Creation Lore, History, and Supposed Prophesied Existential Future).
Sick Part of all this is that this War Theater are being run by many a Khazar-Ashkenazi Jewish-Tribals, owned Vassals Catholic Biden, all for the AngloMurican Zionist-Masons Hegemony.
I have to agree with others, Nightvision’s sitreps are definitely improving. I am just curious, is it worth delaying updates by a day or three?
I have no doubt much of this information is available to many states with an interest in the events in Ukraine or to those analysts with access to open source, their own contacts or experience. I don’t know why we, as an interested public, need information that is written in such detail while some events are still in process of unfolding.
I really appreciate the updates but would be interested in understanding why such immediacy is deemed necessary?
Thank you Nightvision.
Kind regards.
Ad
Don’t come to this site if you think the info is not necessary.
For the rest of us we look forward to reading it!!
Student,
Thanks for the feedback. I didn’t say the information was not necessary. I’ve been coming here and to alternative news sites to Western MSM as well as reading a lot of publicly available information that is not made easy to find for a long time. I will continue to do all those things.
I asked a fairly specific question in a polite way. The updates are very specific and clear and Nightvision’s knowledge and sources are of eminent value. My question was simply about the timing of the release of the sitreps.
Kind regards.
You said the information was not necessary every one or two days, and I agree with Student that we look forward to reading it and prefer it every day, actually, but every two days is great. “…why such immediacy is deemed necessary?” Careful you don’t say it should only be reported when it’s over.
ad hominem removed … mod
Delay, not that it was not necessary daily. The daily/regular updates, as I stated above are of great value. The timing of them is the only thing I was questioning. Very much in the same way some people were asked to refrain from the detail they were putting in their regular map updates. This is a similar situation due to the depth and detail of the analysis that Nightvision is managing to bring us now.
I most definitely did not say or infer the sitreps should be reported when it was over. Trying to put words into my mouth that were never stated in an attempt to lend weight to your own point of view isn’t very logical.
Thanks for the opportunity to voice an opinion.
Kind regards.
Hi,
Just to let you know, bitchute is blocked here in Russia. Not sure if from the Russian side or thier side.
Ironically, YouTube isn’t.
To the credit of the USA, it doesn’t happen here. Bichute, RT, even presstv are accessible.
Thank you for you efforts Nightvision.
The graphic of Azovstal is just an artist’s conception and is just more propaganda. No one has shown the civil drawings of this plant. It is at sea level so the water table will be high. All the industrial plants that I’ve worked in have sub levels and tunnels to run utilities through. There with be rooms under ground for substations, pumps, and acess to the underside of equipment. But that drawing is over the top.
Just a thought, these guys that want to surrender, could it be possible that Russia offers them asylum so to escape being executed by the ukie regime?
The Russian military doesn’t have to be in a hurry clearing the Azovstal, right away. As it looks the entire plant is one giant- very well built industrial complex that can be put in operation once the war is over. It’s illogical and uneconomical to demolish such a valuable complex. However, they could mine the entire periphery, with the option of cleaning them later. In the mean time allow the Azov militants and their civilian prisoners and injured people remain at the site for as long as their supplies (water, food, medicine, etc…) last. Eventually they would need to surrender, but for how long? At any rate, it should let most of the professional army units of the Russian Army head north-east toward the Donbass combat zone.
Thank you for the detailed answer. I figured no one really wrote about it, even when there are dozens if not hundereds of published articles on the size of Russian ground forces.
I have an impression that RUAF is using mostly the SU25 (prob in the range of up to 20 of these)
Total number of tu22 + mig31 involved is probably~5 and the same for su34.
Some 20ish su27 and its variants (few of those are su35)
+ Several SU24
And at least 60 helicopters Id say.
And still, given the target rich environment and the fact that Russia has established air superiority very early as well as proximity to the Russian territory I expected for this to be at least double the number I wrote above. But this might prove as an understatement yet.. Remains to be seen.
Thanks again!
‘So this was the “longest and most expensive” CIA operation in history, and ended up at $3 billion in 10 years. But the Ukraine has already gotten $3 billion in a single month’.
Inflation! You must divide today’s sums by 2-3 to get a fair comparison.
Also, of course, the US government is happy to “print” unlimited amounts of money. It costs virtually nothing; not even the cost of paper and ink now that computers are used. Like Macbeth, the US government and economy are “in blood [debt] / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er”.
In for a dollar, in for $3 billion.
I do not think we can simply compare worth of “assistance” in monetary units. They can put any price tag they want. And US elite wants badly to cover untold amount of expenses they made in recent years. They simply empty military stashes of useles early versions of super-expensive weapons and write off their artificially inflated cost from the books. How much that adds up to difference between Ukraine and Afghanistan, we can not possibly know for now.
So the difference in worth of those billions of dollars is even bigger.
Maybe better starting point for comparison is Vietnam war with Afghanistan as middle point on the graph. We can see that embezzlement is rising exponentialy, while effectiveness drops.
Wild guess is that West should inject hundreds of billions into Ukraine to achieve similar effect as in Vietnam. And still lose in the end.
I’m confident that Denis Prokopenko was killed or died sucumbung to wounds with the the last 2 days.
All the death and misery is happening in the East. Mainly from the Nazis from the West in the East.
The Nazi West still remains untouched. Their families have already fled to Poland.
Why the Nazi West has remained untouched is a right head scratcher. The Nazi West families are having a glorious war. While civilians in the East keep dying.
I just don’t get it.
I would have sent Lviv and Western Ukraine back to the stone age. Any Nazis and their families who have fled to Poland should never be allowed back in.
1) Phase 2 – Agreed that what we are seeing now is only preliminary phase 2 activities. My guess is mid-May for any full on action.
2) Counter Offensive – NATO is openly gearing up for a massive counter offensive. The forces will be a combination of Ukrainians, foreign volunteers, and NATO military. The scale of forces being created for a NATO style counter offensive will be in the 350k to 500k range. My guess is these forces will be ready in Spring 2023.
Nightvision – again thank you for making this report happen.
For our french speaking audience, interesting video:
https://youtu.be/tbQEYtSsEi0
The war in Ukraine is a central issue in the control of the heartland. The heartland, is theorized by the British geographer Helford John Mackinder in his famous article The Geographical Pivot of History, as the “global geographic pivot”, is an immense territory which extends from the Volga to the Yangtze, and from the Himalayas to the arctic. And according to the founding father of modern geopolitics: “Who controls Eastern Europe controls the Heartland. Who controls the Heartland controls the World Island. Who controls the World Island controls the world. »
But, we can multiply the examples of authors who draw a parallel between the Russian invasion and the fundamental role of this pivotal region, seeing in this parallel the proof of the grand strategy of Russia and the upheaval of the world order. , the intentions displayed by Moscow remain nebulous.
According to an article published on March 16 by the Financial Times, the neutrality plan at the heart of the peace talks between Russians and Ukrainians obviously requires kyiv to give up its ambitions to join NATO, and to welcome possibly, military bases or foreign armaments, in exchange for the protection of allies such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Turkey.
The question therefore arises, what interest would Russia have in negotiating an Anglo-American protectorate for Ukraine? And why the Kremlin is cautious about the dialectic by qualifying, for example, its intervention in Ukraine as a “special military operation”. However, this war does not completely disregard the geoeconomic context. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia turns out to be a catalyst for de-globalization after the fact, as Jacque Sapir, the economist specializing in Russia for “de-Westernizing the world”, points out.
Indeed, according to IMF statistics, the weight of the G7 countries in the world economy has been on a downward trend since the 1980s. From 50% in 1980, the weight of the G7 in world GDP fell to 34% in 2010 , to 31.2% in 2020. Opposite, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has clearly gained ground since the end of the 2000s. In this, Putin’s last historic decision to demand payment for gas in counterpart of the ruble could only support this irreversible process… Is this for all that, the end of a unipolar Atlanticist world?
Questions to which Karine Bechet Golovko, doctor of public law and visiting professor at Moscow State University, and Rachid Achachi, expert in geopolitics, will try to provide some answers.
I too believe that Mackinder’s World Island Hypothesis is a central key to much of this. Imo the Eastern expansion of both the EU & NATO is what this is all about. Controlling Eastern Europe is essential to block the free flow of trade between the wealthiest areas, likd the EU and the productive regions to the East. One reason I believe, can be easily seen by looking at Mackinders Map in comparison to the usual Mercator projection maps of the World. The US, Aus/Nz and Japan and to some extent the UK become relegated to becoming peripheral lands and increasingly insignificant as the heartland nations develop and grow, all aided by spanking new infrastructure like high speed rail etc. Trains direct from China to Duisberg in Germany.
Sapir is a well known Russia expert – he proposed in 2015 ‘national liberation fronts’ by Italian former Deputy Finance Minister Stefano Fassina to end the EU neo-liberal war machine.
Mackinder’s geopolitics of King Edward VII is the root of 2 world wars, NATO.
Unfortunately for the City of London it is now the playground of infantile imperialism (Patrick Lawrence) , the D.C. Mackinder-garten.
The majority of the world see infantile imperialists playing with fancy war gadgets at the Mackinder-garten.
The remedy for the Mackinder-garten is the World Landbridge – to make a maritime empire redundant, or bankrupt.
Capital goods transport overland high speed rail with production centers along the way – The BRI, is the end of maritime imperialism.
Who ever saw a 300,000 ton container ship ever produce capital goods during its 48 day trip?
In physical economic terms, they run at a loss.
Capital good production overland is a net gain. Mariupol lies exactly on this Land-Bridge as Pepe Escobar reports here.
USA has forgotten that was the reason for the transcontinental rail – to flank the British maritime empire.
Linking the US transcontinental to the Eurasia Land-bridge via the Bering Straits is a job to be done ever since Colorado Governor Gilpin proposed mid 1800’s. See this original map :
https://i0.wp.com/canadianpatriot.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/7bfd1-image838.png?ssl=1
I believe that there is some suspicion about the sinking of “Moskva” cruiser.
Does anyone know if the submarine was responsible? There sre reports of russian Tupolevs searchng for them in the Black Sea.
The cartoon drawing of the underground complex at the factory is from the Daily Mail, it’s pretty well known that they just fake stuff like this.
«in preparation for future conflict vs. NATO. […] “Poland is secretly preparing a “liberation campaign” against Ukraine. […] are preparing for a “peacekeeping mission”»
I suspect that the “special military operation” in Ukraine will end up like the Korea war of the 1950s, which became a direct fight between “U.N.” (mostly USA) forces and chinese forces: a direct fight between NATO forces and russian forces.
The first question is whether USA forces will be part of the NATO forces in Ukraine or it will be entirely delegated to the polish etc. military.
The second question is if they are part of that, whether USA forces were to enter Ukraine I wonder whether they would be part of the push into Odessa or Lvov or both.
🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russia has refused the UN Secretary General’s request for a four-day Easter truce in Ukraine
“The calls for peace and a cease-fire sound very false and insincere in these conditions, which in practice mean only a desire to give the Kiev nationalists and radicals a break so that they can regroup, get new batches of drones, ATGMs and MANPADS, and simultaneously arrange new inhuman provocations,” the Russian representative to the UN Security Council said.
The point of Shakhnazarov’s reasoning is as follows: Russia is the world’s leading power in terms of nuclear arms. An overthrow of Putin would lead to chaos, and very likely to genuine radicals assuming power. Their aggressive inclinations for policy to the West would be underpinned by the vast majority of the Russian population, which, in Shakhnazarov’s view, is now overcome with pure hatred for the West brought on by the sanctions, by the rampant Russophobia that is now public policy in Europe and the USA. If the conflict should escalate to use of tactical nuclear missiles and beyond, then Russia would no longer limit its strikes to military installations but will happily target all capitals and populations centers in Europe and, we may assume, in North America. In a word, Shakhnazarov equates destabilization of Russia with nuclear Armageddon.
I repeat, these are the fears of a highly responsible and publicly visible Russian general manager in the arts. Is anybody in the West with comparable standing even beginning to imagine the coming catastrophe let alone speak out about it?
Before closing, I redirect attention to a major newsworthy development in Russia yesterday afternoon which even our Western media have reported on this morning: the test launch of Russia’s new Sarmat ICBM, which sets new records for speed, distance, destructive force of its MIRV warheads and, surely most important, imperviousness to all known and projected anti-missile systems in the West. Part of the invulnerability of the Sarmat is a function of its range, which extends to every point on planet Earth. Sarmat’s trajectory can be set for travel via the South Pole, thereby evading American tracking systems, which look to attack from the Northwest.
The Sarmat can travel at 18,000 km/hour. Its 7 or 15 nuclear warheads can each also evade ABM systems and head for target at hypersonic speeds. Starting in September, the Sarmat will be installed in silos till now housing the world’s most powerful ICBM, the Voevoda, which will be gradually retired and redeployed as launchers for commercial satellites.
In his words of congratulations to the designers, project developers, and manufacturers of the Sarmat, President Putin stressed the importance of the new armaments as Russia’s dissuasion directed against those in the West who would threaten the country militarily. Is anybody listening?
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/04/21/they-must-be-out-of-their-minds-how-the-collective-west-is-stumbling-towards-nuclear-armageddon/
Where do these stories of bunkers under Azovstal come from?
Azovstal is built on top of alluvial deposits from the Kalmus river and extensive landfill in the Sea of Azov. Such terrain would have a very high water table and any deep structures would need continuous pumping to prevent flooding. In pictures it’s obvious that all the services for the plant are above ground.
The Ilyich plant was about the same size as Azovstal and there were no mention of massive bunkers there. I’m coming to think that the bunkers of Azovstal are as much a legend as Bin Laden’s secret base.
Agree, and from a perspective of someone who inspects industrial facilities and mines. I’m sure there are tunnels (utility, conveyor, etc) but unless the place has a pretty miraculous emergency generator system, any deep tunnels or bunkers would be uninhabitable by now due to flooding and/or ventilation issues.
Just the standard tunnel systems would be hellish to clear. They’re disorienting places that are dark and cramped; rats nests of pipes, wires and conveyor systems. In a plant like this, parts of the conveyor system are underground so that stock piles can pushed into a drop point rather than lifted, then the conveyors move above ground and to height for dropping into systems. Avostal looks like it is fully, vertically integrated with its own power plant, ore mill and steel mill. Massive amount of material handling necessary.
If at all similar to US installations of similar vintage, I’d guess 3 stories down in some places. I agree with you on the ability to build our serious bunker space. Maintaining below grade space in hard rock mines is a huge undertaking and requires massive energy inputs from the surface to maintain. Just the sheet piling to build the assumed underground structures would be a modern marvel type engineering feat given the water table.
I’ve seen from Patrick Lancaster’s videos and other how the whole city slopes towards the Azovstal complex were it’s flat as a pan and level with the sea. I think the place was swamp and shallow water before the plant was built. It was selected I think because of access to water transport and being mostly unoccupied.
Azovstal is an integrated steel mill with a six million tons a year capacity. There’s five blast furnaces, BOF and open hearth converters, casting and rolling mills, power plant, machine shops and all support facilities. Everything seems to have been built on caissons and pilings so that it doesn’t sink in the soft soil. I don’t think there’s any bunkers, try to dig a tunnel in that muck and it will simply liquify.
Azovstal isn’t a forteress, it’s a trap for a defeated army, it’s surrounded by water on three side and there’s room for entrenchments on the fourth, they’re out of supplies, no relief is ever going to come, in my opinion the local Russian commander has written them off as a serious military threat.
I think the decision as been to avoid further casualties and damage to the plant and establish a siege, it’s their decision, surrender or die of hunger and disease.
There’s no bunkers or secret labs, there’s just a steel mill were the debris of a defeated army has taken refuge.
Secret facilities? Why would anyone in his right mind put them in a busy place like an operational steel mill?
Mariupol Liberated!!!
Russia declared Mariupol liberated, minus the 2 to 3 kms of Azovstal, the last hold out of the Ukronazis. The declaration came after a report from Sergei Shoigu to President Putin, in which Putin was presented with the option to continue the assault to Azovstal, and he considered it “inadvisable.” Instead he ordered a tight encirclement of the Azovstal installation, from which “a fly cannot fly out.”
Russia didn’t even consider the petition from the Ukronazis to walk out of the siege with their personal weapons, aided by a mysterious “third party.” The decision means to let them stay until they run out of food, water, medicines, etc., a slow death for many of their wounded, and even slower for the rest of them.
After all, Ramzan Kadyrov might have know something was coming, when he stated Mariupol will be taking today.
Look forward to the “March of the Immortals” coming May 9 in Mariupol.
Long live those who have been martyred in the struggle against nazi-fascism and the Empire of Lies!!!
https://voenhronika.ru/publ/vojna_na_ukraine/mariupol_osvobozhden_putin_prikazal_zablokirovat_nedobitkov_azova_i_zastavit_ikh_kapitulirovat_21_aprelja_13_video/60-1-0-11943
This morning, Russian Defense Minister Shoigu presented a report to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the situation in Mauripul.
The last militants of the regiment “Azov” are blocked on “Azovstal” (territory 2 by 3 km), they do not have heavy weapons, the ability to break through – there are not even mortars. Putin said that it is necessary to protect the strength of the soldiers: “there is no need to climb into the catacombs,” but it is necessary to block the territory of Azovstal so that even a fly does not fly out.
At the time of the encirclement of Mariupol on March 11, the total number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, nationalist formations, as well as foreign mercenaries, was more than 8100 people. During the liberation of the city, more than 4,000 were destroyed. 1478 surrendered, the remaining group, more than 2000 – blocked in the industrial zone of the plant “Azovstal” – Shoigu.
Soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are afraid to surrender – “they can shoot from there and there.”
Ukraine has once again demanded that the Russian Federation open an urgent humanitarian corridor from Azovstal, Minister of Reintegration Iryna Vereschuk said. They demand to release the Azov with weapons. This proposal is not even being considered by the Russian side.
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Lone Wolf
As Azovstal rots it might well attract more rotor-winged flies, and certainly more concerned calls from certain humanely-minded European capitols.
Only 8,000 Kiev Troops at start of siege ?
We all estimated 15,000 to 20,000.
If they have access to water, they will be able to survive at least for 30 days in a fastening modus.
After that it will go down hill, and only cannibals feeding on rotting flesh will be left in the end.
I would be very scared of whatever is able to walk out of there in 2 months time.
Complete report from Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu to President Putin on the completion of the taking of Mariupol.
Congratulations from Putin to Shoigu, and to all the soldiers who participated in that effort.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7570885.html
Mariupol was taken. Assault on Azovstal canceled
Sergei Shoigu: Mr President,
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the People’s Militia Forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic liberated Mariupol. The remnants of the nationalist formation took refuge in the industrial zone of the Azovstal plant.
Mariupol is a major industrial and main transport hub on the Sea of Azov. In 2014, the Kiev regime declared the city the de facto temporary capital of the Donetsk region, turning it into a powerful fortified area and refuge for radical Ukrainian nationalists in eight years. This is actually the capital of “Azov” – the battalion “Azov”.
A large number of heavy weapons, military equipment, including tanks, MLRS “Smerch”, “Uragan”, artillery systems of high power, missile systems “Tochka-U” were gathered in the city. Tochka-U has a range of 120 kilometers, and our Taganrog is 94 kilometers from Mariupol, the capital of the Southern Federal District, Rostov, is located approximately at this distance.
Stocks of missiles, ammunition and fuel and lubricants, food for long-term hostilities have been created. The main objects of urban infrastructure, including the seaport and the fairway, were mined and not only mined, but also blocked by floating cranes. The ships that were there were mostly foreign vessels.
In total, if we talk about armored vehicles – tanks, armored fighting vehicles, there were 179, 170 guns and mortars of various kinds, including multiple launch rocket systems, which I have already mentioned, “Tornadoes” and “Hurricanes”. At the time of the encirclement on March 11, the total number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and nationalist formations, as well as foreign mercenaries, which were also enough, was more than 8100 people.
During the liberation of the city, more than four thousand were destroyed, 1478 surrendered, the remaining group – more than two thousand – was blocked in the industrial zone of the Azovstal plant.
Resisting, the nationalists turned almost all residential buildings into long-term firing points. Armored vehicles and artillery were installed on the first floors, and snipers were installed on the upper floors. Separate detachments – with ATGMs. On the middle floors and in the basements, all the inhabitants were collected, turning them into a human shield. They were held both on the middle floors and in the basements. It was actually in every home.
Retreating, the Ukrainian army, nationalist battalions in Mariupol, as in other Ukrainian cities, hid behind the civilian population. Here we have many cases when, leaving to cover their departure, in any case, we have recorded four such cases, covering their departure, they drove people out of the basements.
By the way, it was just four days ago, when the port area was vacated and they drove almost everyone from high-rises to the streets in order to hide themselves, leaving behind complete destruction, including socially significant cultural facilities.
Liberating Mariupol, the Russian army and dpr people’s militia units took all measures to save the lives of civilians. On your instructions, Mr President, humanitarian corridors have been opened daily since March 21 to evacuate civilians and foreign citizens.
Soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and militants of nationalist battalions were invited to lay down their arms. They were guaranteed, of course, life, safety and medical care.
As for the planned humanitarian actions – I call them “actions”, they combined both corridors and transport supply, these were ambulances and buses, we had days when there were up to 100 such buses, and 25-30 ambulances each – we daily notified and were in contact with Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine [Iryna] Vereshchuk.
Diplomatic missions of foreign countries that appealed in one way or another, because there were [their] citizens – by the way, many of them were released and taken out of Mariupol in the process of these humanitarian actions – the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the relevant OSCE structures, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations, they were officially notified about the time and place. And, of course, at some point we even demanded their presence, in order to, of course, comply with all the humanitarian rules in this part, as far as possible with the constant, continuous conduct and non-continuous firing from Mariupol by the National Troops and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Despite their opposition – both militants and everyone else – we managed to evacuate 142711 civilians from Mariupol after your instruction. All hostages in the commercial seaport have been released, including the crews of seagoing vessels from whom the hijackers destroyed all communication systems so that they could not contact anyone. The port is mined. The sea area is blocked. I hope that now they will have the opportunity to leave this port.
Today, the whole of Mariupol is under the control of the Russian army, the people’s militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic, and the territory of the Azovstal plant with the remnants of nationalists and foreign mercenaries is securely blocked.
Over the past two days, again on your instructions, we have been declaring a ceasefire regime from 2 to 4 p.m., all hostilities are being completely stopped, and humanitarian corridors have been opened for civilians who may be on the territory of the Azovstal plant to leave.
We have prepared for them about 90 buses, 25 ambulances. Naturally, bearing in mind that all this is constantly distorted, we installed video conferencing cameras, and there was almost a live broadcast here, to our control center. No one left Azovstal. But other civilians, more than 100 people, were able to leave. During these days, this is perhaps a great deal of work that we have done with all international organizations.
At present, the situation in the city is calm, allowing to begin to restore order, return the population and establish a peaceful life. As for those who have disappeared at the Azovstal plant and are thoroughly blocked there and around the perimeter, it takes us about three or four days to complete this work at Azovstal.
The report is over.
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Vladimir Putin: I consider the proposed storming of the industrial zone to be inappropriate.
Sergei Shoigu: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: This is a case where we must think – that is, we must always think, but in this case even more so – about preserving the lives and health of our soldiers and officers. There is no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground through these industrial facilities.
Block this industrial area so that the fly does not fly by.
Sergei Shoigu: Yes.
Vladimir Putin: Invite once again all those who have not yet laid down their arms to do so. The Russian side guarantees them life and decent treatment in accordance with the relevant international legal instruments. All those who are wounded will be provided with qualified medical assistance.
The completion of the combat work on the liberation of Mariupol is a success. Congratulations. Convey words of gratitude to the troops. Please submit proposals for awarding our distinguished soldiers to state awards. It is clear that in such cases there is no other way, these are different awards, but I want them all to know: in our understanding they are all heroes, in the understanding of the whole of Russia. They’re all heroes.
In this regard, in addition to fulfilling all social obligations to our servicemen, especially to those who were injured, to the families of our fallen comrades, it is necessary to ensure the unconditional fulfillment of all social guarantees.
But it seems to me that this is not enough. It is necessary to think about additional measures of support, and in some cases to think about perpetuating the memory of those of our comrades who showed truly heroism and sacrificed their lives for the peaceful life of our people in the Donbass and to ensure the peaceful life and existence of Russia itself, the peaceful existence of our country. These people, by their actions and their attitude to the oath, deserved it.
As for the Defence Ministry, please work on it. I will issue a corresponding instruction to the Presidential Executive Office, I will talk to my colleagues in the regions, and they will carry out the relevant work in the municipalities of Russia.
Of course, bringing such an important center in the south as Mariupol under control is a success. Congratulations.
Sergei Shoigu: Thank you, Mr President.
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Lone Wolf
Thank you for this, Lone Wolf. It reveals Russia’s culture, vision, strategic goals and tactics to be genuinely decent and humane, in stark contrast to the US-EU, which care not a wit for their own people or humanity. Where there is no vision, the people perish. Viva Russia! It must prevail.
Lone Wolf,
Thank you for the report. Taking the city of Mariupol was a huge military achievement. Congratulations to all. It revealed the degree of professionalism of the Russian Armed Forces. Now, if it were the Americans they would have bombed the entire Azovstal and the rest of the city, then declare victory. As for people dead, they have a handy term called collateral damage which they like using when the US military murder unarmed civilians.
Frankly, one couldn’t expect otherwise from the nation that gave the world Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Borodin, Stravinsky, Gagarin and many other cultural/scientific icons.
Thank you, Maskazer.
Let me add painters like Schischkin, Repin, Levitan and Kandinsky, many fine dancers like Pavlowa and Nijinsjy, the impressario of the Ballet Russe, Diagileff. The writers Dostojewskij, Tchechow, Lermontow, Gogol, Gorki and Puschkin, the musicians Oistrach, Milstein, Rubinstein, Giles – to name only a few. Slawa Russia and each single of her brave soldiers.
These words of Putin tell so much about what a fine character he is who cares for his people. God bless him and his men. God bless Russia!
On 21/04/2022, Putin pondered with Russian Defense Minister Shoigu about storming over the steel mill Azovstal, in whose underground the neo-Nazis are confined:
《We should always think about the life and health of our people. No need to crawl down to the catacombs. Just seal them up. And even the flies can’t get out.》
And this is valid for this war as a whole.
The unipolar world is rotting in the grave it opened for itself. You don’t have to go down to the hell of its sepulcher, just block the flies from getting out.
https://t.me/vicktop55/3315
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jnq3H8r_mkw
Is the plant connected to external electric supply…or are generators plus fuel storage available….elec required for temp control ..ventilation…cooking..recharge radio and phones….lighting.
What “waste” facilies…and water supply sorage and treatment …what would be the timescale planned for before surfacing after a nuke threat and bombfalling….ie how long was it designed to be “self sufficient “for in such circumstances? And does that apply now. Presumably it was all tested out some time in the past?
The French Maginot Line frotresses that were attacked by the German army in WW2 could expect to survive without outside help for three months. They had their own generators and artesian wells. But they were specially prepared to resist a seige. Maybe Azovstal is too. Many of them were never captured but made to surrender by the army chiefs who were negotiating capitualtion with the Germans for all French forces.
As long as Azovstal is not liberated Russia and DPR can’t declare the liberation of whole town. MSM is claiming now how ineffective RF has been even taking Mariupol. It’s also useful to notice that there were never 14,000 to 20,000 Ukie soldiers in Mariupol, just around 8,100. This is only 4% of whole Ukie trained and well equipped forces of 200,000 soldiers (+ more than 300,000 reservists with lower battle value).
It’s hard to believe there were 100,000 Ukies in Donbas-Mariupol area, more likely hardly even 50,000. All claims of Ukie personal military losses should be rethought. Ukrainian forces have been decentralized and that’s the reason why their losses have hardly been 40,000. More likely half of that.
Russia MoD says 23,000 UAF ‘unrecoverable’ losses.
Kiev says 2000 lost, and Russia asks ‘on which street’?
There were 8100 in city itself when it was encircled, certainly more in wider Mariupol area. As for efectiveness of Russians, they were quite effective considering this was as much a humanitarian as military operation. And it is also relevant that Pretorian Guard, most fanatical troops of Ukraine were gathered in Mariupol.
I think that the Impire of Lies is very much (very much!) afraid of the facts
that will emerge after the war. And that is one of the motifs
of wanting to prolonge the hostilities. Congratulations for having liberated
the beutiful city of Mariupol. I look forward seeing it rebuilt in its natural splendor!
God bless Russia!
Mariupol looks like Berlin in 1945, even though carpet bombing/artillery was not used.
Incredible to look at today – reconstruction took a Marshall Plan.
Will D.C. use stolen Russian assets to reconstruct Maripol? More likely to bail out US agencies hit by the sanctions boomerang.
I’m sure that Putin will read your post and reconsider his directive.
It’s so difficult to see through the Fog of War when you’re so close to the fog. Thank heavens there are people who are 8,000 km away, receive no combat reports, read only blogsites and MSM for their information who can so clearly cut through the fog and deliver their well measured advice and opinion.
Ukraine just did a front line rotation in some area, frontline forces out, new forces in. The frontline forces left, no one came to replace them. They are on their third call up in country, Ukrainians outside Ukraine, males between 18 and 60 are to return home for service. Looking at the average age of Orc pows, 30 year olds and up many 50 plus….they have serious manpower issues. Old rule of thumb was 10:1 support staff for every combat infantry soldier in the field. The accountant is a soldier, the cook is a soldier, the barber is a soldier, the laundry staff are soldiers; not all soldiers fight. So numbers are really moot, cause big old arty shell doesn’t care what it kills.
You don’t have to believe anything other than it is real, and lots of people are dying.
“It’s also useful to notice that there were never 14,000 to 20,000 Ukie soldiers in Mariupol, just around 8,100. This is only 4% of whole Ukie…”
Who says 14,000 and where do you get 8,100 from?
“It’s hard to believe there were 100,000 Ukies in Donbas-Mariupol area, more likely hardly even 50,000. All claims of Ukie personal military losses should be rethought. Ukrainian forces have been decentralized and that’s the reason why their losses have hardly been 40,000. More likely half of that.”
More likely? They “must” be rethought? Why? Why could they not have thought that 50,000 was not enough soldiers and that twice as much was necessary? Without explanation or links, your affirmations are unclear.
The media coverage of the Sarmat missile test was most interesting. More or less nine out ten times they wondered about its unique effectiveness and how ready it was, and they also concentrated on Putin’s decision to carry out this test. They spoke about the supposed speed of the missile since they had to report Putin said that it could evade all defenses. Just this much is passable reporting, okay? C- performance. However, then comes the omission that does not allow any passing grade to any thinking person, and they must get an F for their incomplete report. Do you know it?
One out of ten times (if that) they mentioned that it is a “hypersonic” weapon. There can be no passing after that. It’s no “conspiracy”; it’s worse in this case. It’s how they are. You don’t need to teach them, coach them, pressure them – it comes naturally. The gender does not play a role at all and it can include all the new gender categories, the newest being I-don’t-know, which, excuse me, is a real problem if everybody else must not know, or else. I-don’t-know’s report is or would be the same. Any gender could be the one exception, truly. We can imagine that if they say “hypersonic”, some say “hyper-what”? They must explain “hypersonic” then, and that it is no bluff that nobody else has it. Nevertheless, what I didn’t know and learned from their report is that the missile is not just faster than all others but also (according to Russia) that its detonation is supposed to be also much more powerful. I think Russian engineers are famous in universities for their brilliance. An American geology professor told me that his Russians students were clearly superior to his American students, that it was not even close. There’s the kernel of why Russia and no one else has such hypersonic weapons. The following nobody mentions, you have to think about it on your own: Russia spends half of what China spends on the military and 18 times less than what the U.S. spends according to official figures published. (More than “brains” is involved in this result. It is also a matter of “organization.”)
Solution: You don’t compete where you are going to lose. I think someone gifted like that does not necessarily have to be a better strategist. Needless to say, the best thing is to become friends.
How many have considered that the 100s of thousands attributed to the Ukie army may be just paper units, deserters and draft dodgers. Ukraine is a fantastically corrupt society, in how many cases do corrupt officials sign papers saying something has been done and then pocket the money? It’s well, like Afghanistan…
The massive reliance on the the Nazi bataillions is due to the lack of reliable troops in a country were over half of the population is politically unreliable.
Even many Galicians don’t really trust NATO, elsewhere it’s far worse, in the east the Ukie forces are simply an army of occupation.
Why do the Russians have such clairvoyance about where to aim their missiles? The Ukie government and military is completely infiltrated by the FSB and the GRU, they probably have better knowledge of what happens in Ukraine than the government in Kiev.
I don’t know. My comment was mainly on the Sarmat missile test. I think you meant to reply to Ernest.
I wouldn’t mind about what US say it spent on weapons. As they just overrate everything to please the producers. If you take a look at all the prices in US, they are inflated: even for health care. A surgery that in US will cost hundreads of thousands, it only cost a few thousands in Russia.
They just inflate everything to export their inflation across the world and empoverish their own citizens, while some Globalists takes it all.
Just because they say they spent that amount of money means nothing.
Red Cross spent 120 million out of 500 million – the help for Haiti on ”projects”: 25% of the money on management, a contingency fund, and “program costs,” even though the organization repeatedly has stated that nine out of every ten dollars it receives in donations are spent on programs.
https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/red-cross-spent-25-percent-of-haiti-donations-internally-report-finds
They said they will build houses for 130 000 people and at the end, with 500 millions, they built 6 houses:
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes
This is the case with everything: even the weapons they said they delivered to Afghanistan: is like one thing that cost 1 dolar they evaluate at 20 dolars. And this is well known.
So: US say spent x amount, maybe they bought less than Russia with x divided by 10 or 20
It is eerie to think how the underground steel vaguely echos the situation in the famous Ukrainian/Russian made Metro video games about people surviving in the Moscow Metro system twenty years after a nuclear apocalypse. In the games they even had one of the factions in the Metro labelling themselves as The Reich and adopting WW2 German symbols.
The US has bunker buster munitions that can penetrate the types of structure shown here and I’m sure Russia has as well, but they are expensive and inventories are small. In addition the Azovs are claiming they are holding civilians which is credible given their demonstrated practice of using Russian speakers as human shields. The Russian command is probably concerned that might be true and are therefore reluctant to use bunker busters that would kill innocent civilians as well as fighters.
So Putin decreed that the Mariupol Steel complex will be sealed from the perimeter and the combatants essentially starved into submission.
Question: Can hardcore RF begin to now disengage from Mariupol and redeploy deeper into Donbas?
Thanks again Nightvision for excellent work
On Russian RT an article https://russian.rt.com/ussr/article/993214-kombinat-azovstal-istoriya appeared, in which the metallurgist Irina Butorina assesses the state of the Avostal plant. Well, she suggests that it is better to turn the whole complex into a garden and redesign the seaside of Mariupol into a health resort. In the past the bad location of Avostal caused the city of Mariupol to be covered by its exhausts. Also the steel products from Avostal are not up to date anymore. They used to produce 25 meter rails while nowadays 100 meter rails are the standard. Irina Butorina knows Avostal well and estimates that there are typical bomb shelters from the Stalin times present. She refers to the mythic existence of a tunnel between Avostal and Ilyich, which are 5 km apart (and somehow has to cross the Kalmius river). So summa summarum: It is best just to flatten the site with bombs. Avostal is outdated and without Avostal Mariupol can be rebuild in such a way that the new city will be without bad memories…
@ Depth Charge on April 21, 2022 · at 5:41 am EST/EDT
The cartoon drawing of the underground complex at the factory is from the Daily Mail, it’s pretty well known that they just fake stuff like this.
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Are you sure about that? If that’s the case, we can really discard it as a figment of the imagination in steroids of a good graphic artist. Nightvision should be more careful about his sources, TDM is a right-wing rag, a Russophobic supermarket tabloid with the reputation of a presstitute. The graphic looks impressive, that’s the end of it. Having nothing else to verify it against should light up a red light.
Lone Wolf
Good work !!!!