By Amarynth for the Saker Blog

We start with the broader environment:

It is Zelensky’s decision, says the Chorus of the Great Walkback.

“The people and the government of Ukraine, led by President Zelensky, must decide on their own the issue of the possibility of territorial concessions.” – US Secretary of State Blinken. According to the head of the State Department, the United States does not intend to impose its position.

(You have lost, and you don’t want to say it Blinken!)

We see more and more western statements that Ukraine can end the war, via loss of territories. This is sheer desperation to avoid even an iota of responsibility for the loss of lives that they caused. They don’t know how to get out, they have to get out, they have to save face for their domestic audiences in the face of a spectacular loss of prestige, so again, Zelensky is being thrown under the bus and the Ukraine is an orphan.

Russia in any event says nyet! It will be on our terms, not yours.

A moment of skewed brilliance struck the former commander of NATO forces in Europe, Wesley Clark. He says that without the direct intervention of the Alliance, it will not be possible to end the war in the Ukraine. He is of course wrong, but his calculus is interesting:

Moreover, if NATO does not intervene in Ukraine, it may dissolve itself. “The idea that Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is now advocating, and which finds support among other members of the alliance – that NATO can not actively intervene unless it is directly attacked – this idea has remained in the 90s.”

So, he wants to order the Russians to cease fire.

“It’s time to learn the lessons “NATO must intervene. Let’s officially recognize this and order the Russians to cease fire.”

According to this retired US Army general, the alliance must either “go beyond the outlined framework, or stop its activities.”  (But .. but, all this time, you said NATO was only a defensive alliance.)

Maybe, at last, he got it! The idea here is to push NATO back to its own borders and if it won’t go, the Russians will make it go!

Maria Zakharova, perfectly on time and topic during the St Petersburg Economic Forum:

“If you’re looking for media objectivity, best not focus on the West’s portrayal of Ukraine.”

Meanwhile in China, Xi Jinping signed a legal framework as to how China’s military forces will operate in a war, that is not a war. Like, as an example, a special military operation. And then, Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation today. “China is ready to continue to support each other with Russia on issues of sovereignty and security” – Xi Jinping in a conversation with Putin. Your guess here is as good as mine, but it looks like the two leaders are expecting more Special Military Operations, or military/technical work.

From there, we again follow Dmitry Medvedev: “I saw a message that Ukraine wants to receive LNG from its overseas owners under Lend-Lease with payment for delivery in 2 years. Otherwise, next winter it will simply freeze.
Just a question.

And who said that in two years Ukraine will even exist on the world map? Although the Americans don’t care anymore – they have invested so much in the “anti-Russia” project that everything else is a trifle for them.”

The Great Walkback is visible to all who care to look!

And he did not stop there and spoke on sanctions: It turned out that the specially gifted characters I wrote about began to realize that Russia is our beloved Motherland. And it also dawned on them that without our country they could not survive.
After all, otherwise they will not receive:
– food for their citizens;
– fertilizers to produce food for their citizens;
– sources of energy for the production of food and heating of their citizens;
– metals and other products for the production of machines and mechanisms for their citizens;
– fuel for European and American nuclear power plants, which provide 20-40% of electricity to their citizens.
The list goes on.
Now we are looking forward to the next package of European sanctions and Grandfather Joe’s great sanctions decisions, about which the authors of these same sanctions immediately begin to come up with circumvention schemes.
I will not remind you about inflation, prices for all types of fuel and forecasts for the fall of economies. All data is publicly available.
And this is only the first month of summer.
We are waiting for autumn… when we will have to collect the main sanctions harvest.
In the meantime, the locomotive of their economy of services and digital currencies is flying into the wall at full steam. Smile, gentlemen, smile!”
https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/110

On the battlefield, it is mostly a replay now.

The work of the humanitarian corridor from the Azot plant in Severodonetsk was disrupted by the Ukrainian side on its first day, 1 person came out, the DPR military reported.

Latest Russian Mod Statement:  https://t.me/mod_russia_en/2197

And Military Summary from Rumble is as detailed as possible during another Grind phase. https://rumble.com/v18fye1-ukraine.-military-summary-and-analysis-14.06.2022.html

Some comments say that they still do not understand the small Ukrainian environment vis a vis the SMO and even less of the broader environment viz a viz a move to a multipolar world. Here is a Ukrainian map of the oblasts, and then, we follow with a Readovka map. Simply eyeball the two maps, and you will see the progress.