For the Saker Blog by Saker Staff

Looking back at the bigger picture, i.e., Russia is too slow, and other canards:

February 21 president of Russia Vladimir Putin signed a decree to recognize the independence of the DPR and LPR and promised to support the republics. On February 24, President Putin announced a special military operation in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the republics of Donbass with a request for help.

The President stressed that Moscow’s plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. Since that time, an operation has been underway on the territory of Ukraine to denazify the country and liberate the civilian population from the Kiev regime.

So that is a refresher on what the focus and objectives are of Russia’s SMO.  Keep this in mind in your commenting.

“Reach Out and Touch Someone”

Highly recommended by Andrei Martynov, Larry Johnson tells us exactly what this means:

A common theme marshaled to “prove” that Russia is failing in its war with Ukraine is that Russia failed to quickly take Kiev and, in fact, was forced to retreat from Kiev. In addition, the military analysts that populate the cable news channels in the United States insist that the Russians are bogged down and not making the rapid progress they (the Russians) expected.

This is nonsense. I defy anyone to show me one statement by Putin or the Russian General Staff where a specific timeline was established or identified. This is a construct of western military analysts who do not have access to Russia’s military plan and are projecting their own wishful thinking as “evidence” of a flailing Russian military.

Russia is not sitting on its haunches licking its wounds. Rather than send troops against fortified positions, Russia continues to hit targets throughout Ukraine with precision missiles. Here is the activity reported on May 4:

  • Russia attacked railway substation in Pyatihatki with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked railway substation in Tymkove with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked railway substation in Volovets with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked railway substation in Lviv with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked railway substation in Pidbirtsi with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked military assets of the AFU near Protopopovka with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked military assets of the AFU near Novaya Dmitrovka with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked military assets of the AFU near Sandjeika with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked military assets of the AFU near Krysino with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked military assets of the AFU near Volnyansk with a high-precision missile;

  • Russia attacked military assets of the AFU near Novoalexandrovka with a high-precision missile.

Larry goes further with a video of a bombardment of Mykolaev aka Nikolaev explaining the  “reach out and touch someone” strategy and explaining that if you think that enduring this kind of shelling is inconsequential, then you have no appreciation of the limits of human endurance to such a sustained barrage.

Russia is reaching out and touching someone with each of their actions!

Read the whole thing and seriously revise the canard of ‘Russia is moving too slow’.  Take a note of The Ukrainian supply lines (just about non-existent), the economy, and the nature of the Russian ground strategy.  He says:

“… I am offering an alternative explanation for Russia’s ground strategy. They are under no deadline. They are not going to send their military units into head-on assaults and risk unnecessary casualties.

And they are going to bomb Ukrainian units relentlessly until they surrender or are destroyed. Time is on Putin’s side.

The Russian Timeline Critique in the Ukraine

Russia is raining a curtain of steel:

Then we will look at another westerner commenting on the Russian strategy.  Brian Berletic is an ex-marine and he has published for many years from the east.  He explains what Russia is doing now on the ground by saying they are raining a curtain of steel.

A summary:

The US and its allies spent 8 years building up the military the Ukraine had at the beginning of Russian military operations in February 2022. This Ukrainin military failed to prevent Russian forces now from shaping the battlefield in Donbas creating the conditions for Ukrainian forces there to be cut off, encircled, and systematically destroyed.

After 8 years – this was the best the US and its allies could do to prepare Ukraine. Despite the urgent (reported) flood of weapons and money into Ukraine now along with remedial training programs – nothing now can be done better or quicker than over the past 8 years – Russia is removing Ukrainian combat capabilities off the battlefield faster than the Ukraine and its allies can replace or regenerate it.

For detail of the past 24 hours, fierce fighting is still taking place.

Take a look at the Readovka report:  https://readovka.news/news/96041
Yandex will give you the best translation.

There is much FUD being spread about the Red Babushka.  Please be very careful what you read and watch, as the last video is a propaganda of the Ukies.  We wait!

Ukrainian fighting forces are fierce but they have some help:

One of the fighters of the nationalist battalion who laid down arms told about combat drugs used by Ukrainian fighters to suppress fear and lower the threshold for pain. These drugs were supplied to them by volunteers.

💬 “…I can tell you about some medication called Ephedrine, supplied by volunteers to our unit. We used this drug just before the fight, after that we lost the feeling of fear, we could calmly go into battle, being afraid of absolutely nothing…”

https://t.me/mod_russia_en/1356

Another canard needs some debunking.  RT (bless their socks!) had a headline that Putin apologized for Mr.Lavrov’s comments on Jewishness.  And this is being passed around (by our own FUD delivering colleagues) as how bad Mr. Putin is.  Well, here is the readout.  Confirm for yourselves, there is no apology there. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68356

And it would be a good thing to question all the various announcements and pronouncements on new weapons being supplied to the Ukraine.  Frequently the announcement and the presser are done to the applause of the collective west, but the weapons never make it.   Ukraine is not getting the 40-year old Gepard tanks as it was promised.  Reason, no ammo.  Switzerland makes ammo for these, but they cannot supply to conflict zones.  (Or perhaps, they have none?).