This article was written for the Unz Review.
The latest news craze is about the possible delivery of US anti-tank weapons (the FMG-148 Javelin is often mentioned) to the Nazi junta in Kiev. These stories typically include a discussion of “defensive” vs “offensive” and “lethal” vs “non-lethal” weapons and always display a child-like belief in the existence of some magic technology which would perform miracles on the battlefield. None of that has anything to do with the real world and this is why the folks who write this kind of nonsense like to hide their ignorance by peppering their articles with nonsensical figures such as range, armor penetration, guidance system types or expressions like “fire and forget”. The truth is that all these self-appointed experts all quote each other and all parrot the official propaganda line which tries to suggest that the delivery of weapons to the Ukraine could be a game changer. The latter is actually true, but not in military terms. So let’s try to make sense of all this nonsense.
First, forget goofy concepts like “defensive” vs “offensive” and “lethal” vs “non-lethal” weapons. All weapons are lethal and they are all offensive, at least potentially. Even the putatively “defensive” ones actually can be used to “defend” offensive weapons/units/forces and are therefore play a very important role in the offense. Even a combat fatigue or a flask of water is offensive when used in the offense because it makes the offensive possible in the first place.
Second, modern warfare is simply too complex to make it possible for one weapons system to radically change the face of the battlefield. When Hezbollah used the Russian-made RPG-29, the AT-14 Kornet and the Metis-M and successfully destroyed the most advanced Israeli tank, the Merkava-4, that did not by itself determine the outcome of the war. Yes, the Israelis were shocked by the defeat of their best tank, but no more than by the Hezbollah missile strike on INS Spear, a Saar-5 Class destroyer or, for that matter, by the well prepared fortification system Hezbollah had built over the years right across the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Frankly, this western obsession with military high-tech (along with an equally infantile belief that more expensive weapons are for some reason better than cheaper ones) is a reflection of a culture which has long stopped relying on courage, patriotism and even good tactics to win wars. All this Hollywood like nonsense came tumbling down in 2006 when second-rate Hezbollah forces (the best one were kept in reserve north of the Litani river) defeated the best of the best of the putatively “invincible” Israeli forces, including the famous “Golani Brigade”. And Hezbollah won precisely because Hezbollah fighters displayed the moral and intellectual qualities which are so clearly lacking nowadays in western military forces. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah very clearly explained that during his “Divine Victory” speech when he said:
How could this group of mujahidin defeat this army without the support and assistance of almighty God? This resistance experience, which should be conveyed to the world, depends – on the moral and spiritual level – on faith, certainty, reliance [on God], and readiness to make sacrifices. It also depends on reason, planning, organization, armament, and, as is said, on taking all possible protective procedures.
Needless to say, western military ‘experts’ chose to ignore his words and instead made a truly valiant effort to simply forget it all. Fair enough – what could they have to say about morals or spirituality anyway? As for the regime in Washington, it simply declared that the Israelis won, end of discussion.
This amazing ability to believe your own propaganda is also what is misleading US decision makers to pretend like the delivery of “defensive” anti-tank missiles to the Junta in Kiev will meaningfully alter the balance of power between, on one hand, the Ukrainian army and assorted death squads and, on the other, the Novorussians. It won’t. If only because the US has *already* delivered anti-tank weapons to the Ukrainians (via Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and others). We know that thanks to a recent report by SouthFront which obtained exclusive photos of the contract between the Ukrainian state-run company Spetstechnoexport and the American company AirTronic USA on delivery of lethal weapons to Ukraine (see here). And this is just one example, there are probably many more.
True believers in the US propaganda will reply that the “advanced” Javelins are much more capable than anything seen in the Ukraine so far and that their delivery would really make a difference. Let’s look into this claim a little closer.
It is true that the Javelin is rather complex and high-tech system. Unlike most other anti-tank weapons, the Javelin, once fired, does not need to be controlled as it guides itself against its target, which makes it possible for the firing crew to seek cover and not to have to worry about hitting the target (hence the “fire and forget” characterization). The Javelin can also hit the enemy tank from the top, where the tank’s armor is typically much thinner than in the front or sides sectors. Do these characteristics make the Javelin some kind of super-weapon? Not at all.
For one thing, one should take all the claims about the tactical-technical characteristics of the Javelin with a solid pound of salt. It is one thing to have this system operated by professional experts in perfect conditions and at zero risk, and quite another to try to use it against actual Russian tanks protected by infantry, snipers, artillery and their own missile systems. Add to this a very complex terrain and often extreme weather conditions (mud, fog, rain, heat, snow, winds, vegetation, villages, cities, etc.) and the quasi-miraculous capabilities of any fancy weapon system suddenly begin to rapidly decline. Besides, the Javelin naturally has all the disadvantages inherent to most infrared targeting and guidance systems such as the dependence upon a slow and short-lived cooling system, the fact that the missile cannot be controlled in flight and that its guidance system is susceptible to deception by means of various heat sources.
One of the main problems with the delivery of Javelins by the USA to the Ukraine would be that it would free (politically speaking) the hands of the Russians to deliver their own weapons systems to the Novorussians, including IR-jammers, active tank-protection systems or even their own anti-tank missiles. Nobody knows how the Javelin would actually perform against modern Russian systems, but even if it did a good job against them, the correct use of the Javelin would entirely depend on the training and motivation not only of the actual firing crews, but also on the training and motivation of the forces supporting them and supported by them. After all, an anti-tank position is rarely used “by itself”: typically these weapons are engaged as part of an offensive or defensive effort. The outcome of the encounter is thus simply the product of effectiveness of all the various subunits and systems engaged. Simply put, if your infantry sucks, your anti-tank crews won’t save the day.
But the real problem is not technical, of course, it is political.
Overtly sending these weapons to the Junta would mean that the USA are basically giving up on the Minsk-2 Agreement and that they are also overtly disregarding the views of the West-Europeans (the East-Europeans don’t have “views”, they just compete for the title of most russophobic “ally” of the Neocons; they therefore don’t really matter very much).
The reality on the ground is that the Russian have what is sometimes referred to as “escalation dominance”: they, not the Americans, control how much the conflict can escalate and how fast. For example, Russia can provide more anti-tank weapons systems covertly and in just a few days than the US could in many months. Furthermore, the Russians could choose to respond to any Javelin deployments not only by sending their own anti-tank systems, but by responding “asymmetrically” or even covertly. The range of Russian options is large and includes non-military measures. Would it not be ironic if, after years of anti-Russian sanctions supposedly aimed at discouraging Moscow from backing the separatists, the delivery of anti-tank weapons to the Ukraine would finally convince the Kremlin to do that which it had refrained from doing before but which it can still very much could do: throw its full weight behind the Novorussians and actively begin destabilizing the Nazi-occupied Ukraine, but this time for real. If they realize that there is nothing to lose, that nobody in the West is serious about finding a negotiating solution, the Russians might even recognize the two Novorussian republics and send in their military forces, but this time in full view of the media, with waving flags interviews at the border. What would the USA do in this case? Send in more weapons? Send in NATO forces? Nobody in Europe has any stomach for that, not even the Poles, and that would leave the USA very much alone in a policy everybody would oppose.
The truth is that this entire notion of sending in Javelins is pure political propaganda and that doing so, at best, make no difference and, at worst, can result in a sharp escalation on the ground. Thus, either way, this entire idea makes no sense whatsoever. This is just a way for the Neocons to further humiliate Trump and his naïve plans of working with the Russians. It also is a way to toss the nationalist Ukrainian émigré lobby a short-lived pipe dream about defeating the separatists (in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine the Javelins are presented as super-weapons which totally terrify Putin, of course). There is no doubt in my mind that the US military and intelligence communities fully understand the futile and potentially dangerous nature of this idea, but they simply cannot say so openly.
The slowly fossilizing cold warriors in the USA are having dreams about sending in Javelins to the Ukraine the way the CIA sent Stinger missiles into Afghanistan which, according to the official narrative in the USA, was a key contributor to the Soviet defeat. This narrative is comprehensively counter-factual on too many levels to discuss in detail right now, but I will just mention a few of the key fallacies underlying this dream beginning with the assumption that the Ukie Junta is comparable to the Afghan Mujahideen (or, for that matter, that the Novorussian forces are comparable to the Soviet ones). Also forgotten is the fact that while the Soviets did initially suffer heavy losses from the introduction of the Singers, they did adapt and develop effective counter-measures and counter-tactics to them. Finally, in Afghanistan the Soviet had an overwhelming material and technological advantage against the Afghans, which can hardly be said about the Novorussians. This is all nonsense: the Stingers did not defeat the Soviets and the Javelins won’t defeat the Novorussians.
In the meantime, there are plenty of reasons to fear for the future of the two Novorussian republics. For one thing, the steady flow of weapons and experts from the West into the Nazi-occupied Ukraine could eventually result in a meaningful increase in Ukronazi capabilities. Furthermore, in specific but key areas, such as reconnaissance and targeting, the Junta forces have made a lot of progress. And then there are sheer numbers. Right now, the force correlation is roughly 3:1 in favor of the Ukronazis. That, by itself, is not good. So the real question is how well the Novorussians have prepared themselves and whether they have finally succeeded in correcting the many problems they have had for years. At least one recent report suggests that they have not. I honestly don’t know, but I hope that we will never find out.
Conclusion:
The delivery of Javelins to the Junta could be a game changer, not in militarily terms, but in political terms. It would signal that the US is not interested in a negotiated solution and that the Europeans can’t rein in the US Neocons. This would be as substantial as it would be bad. Right now some Americans are suggesting that these weapons would be kept back in the western Ukraine as a reserve against a hypothetical Russian attack. This is laughable. If, truly, the Russians (from Russia) were to attack, 200 or so Javelins near Ivano-Frankovsk or Lvov won’t make any difference (and neither would they on the line of contact for that matter). Furthermore, this obsession with hardware is really unhelpful and childish, which is what one would expect from politicians, of course, but which serious adults should not engage in. Finally, I would argue that these Javelins are not really aimed at the Novorussians but that they are aimed at Donald Trump. As soon as this fact is taken into consideration, everything else falls in place.
The Saker
“This is just a way for the Neocons to further humiliate Trump and his naïve plans of working with the Russians.”
I’d say it was for trump and his neocon puppet string holders to further humiliate trump supporters for being taken. It is a common attribute of zionazi Jews to rub their victim’s noses in their own humiliation and subjugation. They delight in this, it reinforces their own delusional, but inately cowardly, sense of power to lord their dominance over their victims in such a manner. The things are not satisfied with just being lord and master, they need their victims to be seen grovelling before them.
It could also be an attempt to increase the morale of the Ukronazis. To boost morale after the “Blitzkrieg” against Russia failed Nazi propaganda relied on stories about “Wunderwaffen” that would somehow achieve the “Endsieg”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wunderwaffe
Usa morale will be boosted significantly by ukranian sales to kim jong un skyROCKETING….
The dow will soon set the record of 30000 points mark my words lol
Actually yours is one of the few sensible comments that I have seen on the subject. Donald Trump is the great white hopey changey and is in no way different to Obama. There are still people deluded enough to believe that Obama was a really sincere guy and honestly did his best and they are still making excuses for him to this day. I have no reason to believe that Trump supporters will be any different. Against all the evidence and against all reason they will still support the guy who has reneged on every promise he ever made and they will refuse to accept that it was all a con-job from the beginning. In my opinion, the Donald trump v the deep state saga is just a puppet show to convince the public that they still have a dog in the fight, they don’t.
The Ukies would most likely sell the Javelins for a song… Like other military equipment.
Or russia killing three birds with one stone gives million dollar to donetsk and luhansk to buy the american weaponry from ukraine soldiers disarming ukraine arming the two states and get rid of the dollars in the same time :-)
No need to send russian materiel
“The Javelins are aimed at Trump” – Saker, you’re touching on some really volatile and interesting points here in this latest missive.
For the first time, one can see forces within the US that would deliberately drive events towards a public failure for the US, in order to humiliate its president.
We have speculated for some time that sooner or later a global public humiliation must happen to the United States – undoubtedly caused from its own actions of painting itself into a corner, or walking itself to the brink and then having nowhere to go but over the edge. Indeed, Russia and China almost seem to have gone to great lengths at times to give the US ways to save face and walk back or reconsider its actions.
But now we can see a force within the nation that would actively encourage such a failure, and we can see an internal political gain as reason enough, compelling reason even, to do such a thing. Furthermore, its opponent, the US administration, would in turn shift the blame correspondingly when it happened, in a return volley.
What a perfect – and perfectly baroque – scenario of plausible deniability.
I have been waiting for the time of the great US humiliation and wondering at every turn if this was the moment. I feel almost cheated to think that now it will happen, perhaps even repetitively and routinely, and all the potential lessons will be sucked into a massive blame game that goes round and round.
But after a few rounds of this the energy of denial and accusation will exhaust itself, and the US will emerge as a shrunken, old version of itself.
The proxy war in Donbass is becoming less and less proxy.
The US has special forces on the front lines and through many ranks of the Ukies, training and leading them. This is a morale boost to have US with them.
Most of the Ukie snipers are Poles and Lithuanians.
Other foreign contractors are working as sappers laying mines and IEDs or operating drones.
The Ukie army is far better armed, trained and composed for effective fighting.
But all its inherent weaknesses of a conscription army, a Ukie society institution with all the deficits of Ukie culture are ingrained. Drunkenness, corruption, ineptitude, profound fear that they will be fighting the Russians, not just Donbass military, permeates their ranks.
As Saker indicated, morale and spiritual values are on one side and it ain’t the nazis.
The Ukies have been used as cannon fodder and the conscripts know they face overwhelming firepower when the real combat begins. Having incompetent leadership assures their sense of futility. There aren’t enough Americans to be leading every platoon and company.
Trump will want to see what happens with another round of fighting. He will be hoping to get an advantage so he can force an American solution on the Russians. Presently, the US wants to break the Minsk 2 yoke around Kiev’s neck.
There is no way Putin will allow any changes.
So, the Javelins will be used. So, too the RPGs and new sniper rifles shipped to Ukies.
The real edge Ukraine may spring on Donbass will be drones. If they have a significant swarm of armed drones, it could lead to a breakthrough and rush to the border they want to reclaim so badly.
It looks like the US will pay for one more round of military action. We might call it the Pence Offensive. There is no doubt he’s pumping up the volume for more war against the Russkies.
The soldiers of Novorossiya do have much higher morale than the opposing side, this is a fact. Part of this morale is the fact that NAF, Novorossiya Armed Forces, have no room to retreat without a full scale evacuation of both NAF and 95% of the populace to Russia. This will not happen. Ever.
However many US/NATO/foreign mercenaries are used on the Ukraine side in the end they will not be a game changer for the simple fact of the troops and commanders they are trying to help and in essence command are not of the highest quality. Whilst some Uke troops are highly motivated most are conscripts and many of the best and brightest conscription candidates hightailed it to safety in other countries the moment they understood the game plan.
If there is a Pence/Trump offensive it will end as all the others and the result will be more sanctions on us using the time honored reasoning of ‘I hit you in the face, you did not fall and you hurt my fist with your face so have some more sanctions’.
Auslander
That is not true at all from what I read, the times of the drunk, drug addicted, unmotivated, combat frighted UAF soldier that fled at first gunfire is over. What you have now is Nazis and Islamist, elite Polish, Georgian, Baltic and USA PMCs, and UAF veterans, armed with the best NATO equipment and trained with the best NATO trainers, they are highly motivated VS poor NAT troop with old equipment and moderate support from Russia.
In the beginning you had Ukrainians and Russians veterans from Chechnya and Afghanistan vs conscripted Ukrainians, now you have veteran Ukrainians, eager for vengeance against NAF for killed friends. Combined with all manners of other elite troops, such as Islamist and fanatic Nazis and PMCs form all over NATO.
NAF is not motivated, and why should they be, what are they fighting for? Being a part of Ukraine again, being a part of Russia? Forming a new state? Which one is it now? Malorossiya or Novorossiya or has Malorossiy a been canceled already? The Novorossiyan dream that motivated so many fighters is gone, and left, and what you have instead if LDPR, a miserable place, poorer then Ukraine as corrupt if not more corrupt then Ukraine, Lugansk is basically just a mafia, and very unclear ideological objectives. NAF is not eager and not motivated they fight now because they must because their home is the next town over, but this does not give them eagerness, as UAF competence improves and NAFs remains the same or falls behind, it makes them depressed.
It appears those “motivated for revenge” Ukie’s don’t make any headway in the attacks they make. And usually end up being killed or wounded when they attack. As for your other claims my Donbass friends don’t seem to agree with you. Though they do feel some frustration. Its from not being allowed to destroy the Ukies and free their people. I suspect you are drinking that Bandera koolaid. Be careful with too much of it. It’s been fatal to a lot of other Ukies in the last few years.
Anonymous 07:06
We speak to soldiers from NAF weekly if not more so plus it is High Summer here and thousands of citizens of DNR & LNR are in this AO for holiday. Morale is high and there are frustrations and some equipment problems but in general the frustrations involve not being allowed to finish the job the first two times.
When the next major attack comes, major, that is, that actually makes the news, there will be no third stand down for a third Minsk. NAF will finish the job this time or go down fighting and I would be willing to bet that no one on this side will allow NAF and Novorossiya to perish.
I agree with you in that many Ukraine units are better but just as many are not. From the very beginning some Uke units were very good but were hamstrung with, to be kind, mediocre ability command structures. At this time the two sides are not evenly matched. Ukraine has the numbers and is increasing in combat ability but NAF is already formed, quite well trained and very good plus NAF is defending their own homes, families and friends and this alone can make a significant difference in morale and willingness to stick it out to the end.
@Anon: Just check on South Front what is happening in Syria to NATZO’s “elite highly motivated AlQaeda veterans, armed with the best NATO equipment and trained with the best NATO trainers” versus “poor Syrian troop with old equipment and moderate support from Russia.”
“NAF is not motivated, and why should they be, what are they fighting for?”
Survival.
Revenge, justice.
Depressing picture you are painting , Anonymous . I put faith in the thought that ” An army of sheep lead by a tiger will defeat an army of tigers lead by (a) sheep “. What then of the strenght that comes from the persistanse of fighting for yours and your families survival ? Can turn any sheep into a tiger .
Hello Auslander, US Troops & Trainers are pussies with issues Removed. Please make comments without the level of insults. Mod
http://www.combatreform.org/georgianwar.htm
Rob from Canada
The war in Gruzya started on 08.08.08. Military wise that is ancient history albeit said history is never forgotten and continuously learned from. The link you provided seems to have been written by a 15 year old who plays computer war games too much. Also, when you provide such a link kindly note that there are parts that are not suitable for women and children.
Auslander
The sad thing is that the army might actually be the best and most effective uki institution. Getting 6% of GDP, being flooded by arms and PMCs and russophobic volunteers from all over the world, some of it is bound to stick and increase efficiency.
“nd Hezbollah won precisely because Hezbollah fighters displayed the moral and intellectual qualities”
-That was a guerrilla war, that is not the same as a conventional war, like the one going on between NAF and UAF.
You think Israeli air power, tanks and armor against fixed positions was guerrilla war?
I do believe you have it wrong. Hezbollah did move from firing position to position, but those were prepared tactics. They out-strategized the IDF with preparations and training.
And israel was not used to fighting with the tanks they even forgot to use the smoke screen greneades on the tanks as one commander explained
American/NATO/European/Martian weapons have been delivered and used in the Novorossiya conflict since late summer of 2014. Foreign troops and mercenaries have been serving since the same time and while some have been captured almost always the anointed ones are quietly sent back. It is possible that in a few cases the foreigners are resting in forever unmarked and forgotten graves but this statement is open to conjecture.
There is no omnipotent Queen of the Battlefield just like there is no omnipotent weapon of the battlefield to hurt the Queen. Ukraine has no modern main battle tanks, their latest tanks are late 1980’s models left over from the Ukraine SSR days and many tanks of earlier manufacture. Their weapons are the same but on the other hand make no mistake, an antique 1941 model T34/76 will kill you just as dead as the most modern Armata MBT if given half the chance.
As for the much vaunted Javelin, the first deliveries happened two years ago, a few US air transports landed at Kharkov full of personnel plus various and sundry goodies. I have not heard of any Javelins being used in the war in Donbas but that means nothing. On the other hand, the weapons in the hands of both sides are in general more than adequate to destroy any armored vehicle in use by either side.
Javelins have been used in numerous conflicts over the last years, in particular Syria. It is patently obvious that the videos of the system being used in Syria are crewed by well trained American operatives and/or their NATO counterparts. The system takes intensive training and hands on live fire to master and the system, while quite good, is not a game changer. After the first encounters between Syrian Russian made tanks and the Javelin (and other NATO systems of the same ilk) field expedient countermeasures were quite rapidly developed. These measures were helped along by examining captured, or in the case of Ukraine purchased, late models of the Javelin system. The expedients worked and are now in use on many Syrian tanks in the conflict. There are videos, a few, of T 72’s spoofing Javelins and one of a T 72 taking a hit from a Javelin and surviving with nothing but damage to the commander’s hatch plus a needed skivvy change for the crew.
However, politically I agree with Saker, the open supply of these weapons would be a public repudiation of the Minsk Agreements. This repudiation has been obvious to even a fried snail before the ink was dry on both agreements and US, who is not a party to Minsk, plus NATO/EU/Germany/France/UK et al have studiously ignored the Minsk protocols and have precisely zero intention of ever seeing the agreements put in effect. The Minsk agreements, which Ukraine reluctantly signed but used a non government politician to do so, are a poison pill of the instant death variety. At the time, and even today, Ukraine had no choice but to agree to the Minsk papers. It is up to Mother Merkel to make Ukraine adhere to the Minsk protocols and this she will never do until USA changes her orders and tells her to do so.
The very fact that US publicly admitted to fomenting and financing the maidan coup shows exactly what the intent of US was and is. The prize for the coup, Sevastopol and Krimu and hence mastery of the Russian Lake, was snatched from their clutching hands by the citizens of Sevastopol and Simferopol while maidan was still smoldering and US will never forget, nor forgive, this act.
For the foreseeable future US/NATO will continue to keep the war in Donbas going simply as a running sore for Russia, hoping against hope that the Russian People will eventually turn against President Putin from both the war and the at times odious sanctions imposed on Russia and her citizens. Part of this encouragement for continued engagement and fighting in Donbas is the steady supply of Wunder Waffen to Ukraine with the personnel to train Ukraine troops in their use and to serve alongside the Ukraine military both as hands on trainers and to stiffen the Ukraine lines and military organizations. However, whatever Wunder Waffen are supplied by US/NATO you can rest assured that Novorossiya will somehow obtain weapons needed to address any advantage Ukraine/US may obtain, however fleeting that advantage may be. For instance the latest Russian RPG antitank weapon is a dual charge thermobaric system that is every bit as lethal if not more so than the vaunted Javelin system plus it is instant fire weapon unlike the Javelin. Then you have the Russian Kornet…….Action and reaction, a system as old as warfare itself.
Auslander
Author
Never The Last One http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK
An Incident On Simonka https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ERKH3IU NATO Is Invited To Leave
Hi Auslander.
I would like to point that the guided missiles used by rebels in Syria, that the Americans provided are TOW missiles not Javelins. TOW is cable guided! And the system is quite bulky… while Javelin is man portable and infrared guided. Till now there is no evidence of Javelins in Syria but quite a lot of videos and pictures of TOW use… even captured by the Syrian army. The Iranians also produce an reverse engineered copy of the TOW
See here… to compare both systems
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin
Cheers
F. Man
You do not have access to some that I see plus first hand reports from soldiers rotating in and out of Syria. With all due respect I stand by what I wrote.
Auslander
Missiles, drones, mercenaries…
Nothing.
US/NATO strategists forgot their basic textbooks and started believing in their own lies.
They forgot how Hitlers iron legions invaded the Motherland, with millions of tough, brave and motivated soldiers and total air superiority.
And they are still there, sleeping under the sunflowers, under Stalingrad, in Kursk and Tcherkassy fields for eternal warning to the would-be conquerors.
But neocons think that their few piddly thousands of ukrainian nazis and few hundreds of mercenaries will make a difference (not forgetting the poor ukrainian conscripts, which will run away faster than you can say “Here comes Volodia”).
Such fools.
Hi Auslander,
Last year or so, I recall seeing some video out of Syria, showing tanks with miniature lighthouses prominently mounted on their turrets. Perhaps a link you supplied, I don’t recall. If it was you, thank you.
It was interesting to see the dazzlers switched on and twinkling, the video must have been recorded in the infrared. They were remarkably bright.. Many of the commenters did not seem to understand their purpose.
Such video is rare, as the engineers are understandably reticent to share details of wavelengths, timing, etc. of these devices.
“send in their military forces, but this time in full view of the media, with waving flags interviews at the border. What would the USA do in this case? Send in more weapons? Send in NATO forces? ”
-I thought you said that as the neocon plan from the beginning, that was what they were hoping for, and that USA would launch heavy sanctions then and be able to make EU follow suit, so heavy that it sent Russia back to the stone age, that it would be a NATO dream that would convince everyone not already in NATO that Russia aggression is real and everyone would want to join NATO, that it would “prove” to the world how aggressive Russia crushes tiny democracies, how it would restore the usefulness of NATO in western Europe eyes, and put them even more firmly under the boot of America… Have you change your mind now and suddenly it is ok for Russia to send in its real army?
There are few European states not under NATO control now. So if they were stupid enough to join NATO because Russia finally acted to save their brothers in Ukraine “so be it”. They then win the chance to be added to the nuclear target and cannon fodder list. But the Banderastan wouldn’t be one of them. Because the junta would be dead or in prison by then. And Ukraine would be free.Personally,I consider that a good trade off,but maybe that is just me. As for sanctions.They have them already. And if they want to increase them with say,refusing to buy Russian gas with winter around the corner. That might be pretty interesting. A whole bunch of freezing Europeans raiding their bank accounts to pay 2 or 3 times for any gas they can find around the World. That’s a thought that should warm the heart of many people in Novorossia .For just about any other sanction item notable to be bought from the West, can almost certainly be bought from China or India. While the US and EU can sanction Russia. UN sanctions would never get through the UNSC.
As to the idea of NATO attacking. It might be important to remember that in the St Petersburg region there are more people than the total population of the Baltic States combined. Just by mobilizing that one area there are more than enough troops to push back any NATO attack and occupy those States. As well as a freed Ukraine and Belarus combined is much larger in population than Poland. So an attack from Poland would fail. And the return attack with just those forces would alone overrun Poland. Now in case NATO thought foolishly to use Georgia. Kadyrov’s Chechen forces alone should quickly eliminate any Georgian force. And should be able to occupy the entire country.All the while the main Russian forces can do their work on the rest of NATO.Freezing Europeans might actually welcome Russian liberation and gas (yes a bit of sarcasm. But a lot of truth as well).
@Uncle Bob:
With all due respect, I think you are being a tad too optimistic here on all fronts. The total population of a city (St. Petersburg) or a region do not count for much in warfare. The relative sizes of well-trained contending armies, equipment, and supply lines are the relevant factors. NATO have Russia surrounded, have created a festering and dangerous sore in Ukraine, have a tentative chokehold on the Russian economy via sanctions … sadly this is a long list.
Sadly, Putin has been a decade late (too late?) in coming to Russia’s rescue. The last decade of the USSR, and the 10-15 years following the Soviet state’s collapse, put Russia on a very, very weak footing relative to the West. And the large number of educated Russians wanting to be “A part of the West” constitute a serious danger to the integrity of Russia. The US/NATO seized this window of opportunity to lock in their advantages.
I wish things were not so, or that I am simply wrong in my assessment. But time after time, Russian actions – and more importantly lack of actions – simply don’t make sense. I see a losing hand being played.
@guest. NATZO is not nearly so well trained as the Nazi Wehrmacht, yet look what the Russians did to them: chewed up 80% and left the remnants to be finished off by the US/UK armies at leisure. The Germans remember that. And we Brits remember our army scuttling away from the Wehrmacht at Dunkirk, and only daring to come back 4 years later with our big Uncle, after the Russians were already on the way to Berlin. The French remember that too; they also remember Napoleon, “Able was I ere I saw Moscow”. Who can the 700 million strong, multi-trillion indebted NATZO alliance boast of having defeated? Serbia pop. 7 million; Libya pop. 6M; Iraq pop.30M; and a few similar size countries – each of those little countries picked off one by one, alone. But bloated NATZO hopelessly unable to defeat even a little country like Syria when that little country finds a few allies: Hezb’Allah, Iran and Russia. Also, there is motivation: people in the NATZO countries are beginning to notice that the only countries which they have been asked to sped blood and treasure “liberating” are the countries who happened to possess a central bank that was not owned by Rothschild, and/or mineral reserves that could be transferred to Rothschild companies and their accomplices. There is even a phrase for this: socialize the costs (we pay for Rothschild’s war) and privatize the profits (we give them to Rothschild). The 700 million people of NATZO (Brits, Yanks, French, Germans, Poles, ScandiWegians, Latins, Turks? etc etc) will be fighting ad majorem gloriam Rothschild, while the 1,700(+?) people of the remaining free countries (Russians, Iranians, Syrians, Iraqis, Chinese, Koreans, Indians? South Americans? Africans?) will be fighting to escape a return to Anglo Capitalist Colonial slavery.
Now basically Russia is option-less, it cannot force Kiev to fulfill the Minsk 2 agreement and it cannot send its armed forces into defeat UAF, since the population in Ukraine is brainwashed any attempt to establish Malorossya or Novorossiya will be violently rejected.
All Russia can do is let UAF controlled by USA constantly drain Russia’s resources as UAF grows stronger and stronger. And one day when UAF can cause maximum causalities on NAF and Russia, and in the worse possible circumstance, USA will order UAF to attack.. Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, perhaps not in three years.. But Russia has no option but to to wait.
I don’t see Russia as option-less at all. I disagree that Novorossia can’t be established. The problem was/is the lack of will in Russian circles to do so. They had/have (?) the idea that they could deal with the EU. The sooner that fallacy is dismissed the better. As for the Ukrainians being brainwashed that is partly true.But there are many,many,that aren’t. I know Ukrainians in Novorossian areas (occupied by the Ukrainian junta) that await liberation. And many others that don’t care which side wins. They will side with the winners.The statistics given in the Ukrainian elections show a lot. The anti-junta parties win almost all the Novorossian areas. And that is even with the attacks on them by the fascists. And the Ukrainian soldiers themselves say in Donbass 80% of the “people” support the NAF,and not them. Certainly there are diehards among the fascists to deal with. But that is true of any revolution.Once they are taken care of,peace can and will return. So the problem isn’t one of options,its one of will.
Just wondering,as Kommersant today is reporting usa may close 1 of the Russian consulates there,and a German politician saying today Crimea’s situation could/should be ackowledged….should diplomatic situation worsen or escalate so all consulates close and diplomatic relations freeze….would this then
give some ” empowerment ” or motivation to Russia to say what the heck….lets take care of Donbass completely…..resulting in more division/separation of EU from usa (excepting of course Baltics and Poland,and Poland risking losing its eu membership)…..?????? Just wondrin’……
Everything is deteriorating in regards to the United State’s confrontational situation on a global level. They are buffoons without a strategy Vs some smarter and more cohesive rivals. It goes without saying that this would be well noted in the big game.
I say watch out for the unexpected, just like the Russian task force arriving in Syria
I think the bluff will be called at an unexpected place and time and catch them off guard
Weakness and over extension in the US is being telegraphed – it will be exploited at a key moment
Yes, the game board has changed significantly. I am watching for action that will certainly not be symmetrical. With the US new sanctions and the reduction in force of the US diplomatic staff in Russia, Putin said something to the effect that they gave sufficient time for the new US administration to settle in and for these issues to be attended to. They were not attended to. So now there is a big old vacuum and a changed game board with a resultant change in balance of power. We hear somewhat different stories from the EU as well, for what they are worth these days, because they don’t want to be cold without Russian gas. US cannot do its own destabiizing inside of Russia effectively because it does not have the personnel and of course it cannot collect as much human intelligence.
So, watch for the asymmetrical response at the right time. Somehow it feels like just a nudge here and a little push there will tumble the house of cards.
On a very humerous note, perhaps Russia has Trump on its side, inadvertently. Trump said about the US diplomatic core size reduction that it will benefit the US payroll. That is such a businessman’s response but does not serve the US cause, good or bad, whatsoever.
No strategy, no plan, no friends, internal destabilization and polarization, nobody wants to work for Trump and his administration, more interest in what strange sexual orientations can be brought into the defense forces than in effective forces, and in Afghanistan, the old Blackwater with a new name seems to be lobbying hard to take over the work of the defense forces – no hardened military.
Can effective weapons of war overcome this situation? I’m not an analyst but it looks bleak for the US. They, the empire may just be toast and only able to hand out the last dollars for destabilization here and there like in Venezuela.
>>I say watch out for the unexpected<<
I tend to agree Scott.
We now have the US/NATO establishing a base (bases?) in Moldova which the Russians have said is the build up to war with Transnistria. That will almost certainly mean confrontation with the Russian peace-keepers there. It happened before in Georgia and we know how that turned out but in that instance Russia was a next door neighbour. The situation with Moldova is more difficult being essentially surrounded by NATO members.
If these Javelin AT missiles are deployed and the Russians realize, as Saker said, that there is nothing to lose, that nobody in the West is serious about finding a negotiating solution, they "might even recognize the two Novorussian republics and send in their military forces, but this time in full view of the media, with waving flags interviews at the border."
Such a move then allows Russia to move their military to the 'front line' with Ukraine and reduces the distance between the Russian Federation and Transnistria if a land-bridge or clear skies corridor needs to be established either to support or evacuate the peace-keepers.
Recognition of the Novorussian republics would, I suspect, be unexpected by both NATO, EU and the US and with Moldova being non-NATO any subsequent Russian action action against Moldova would not provoke the precious common defence article in the NATO constitution. Just a thought!
“Recognition of the Novorussian republics would, I suspect, be unexpected by both NATO, EU and the US ”
In the current context it would be. But as I’ve mentioned several times in the past 3 years. NATO in 2009 did a report about the possibility of Ukraine breaking apart. So they were aware it could/would happen. And the report was that they would “accept” it (whine about it,but accept it). They assumed (sadly wrongly) that Russia would support the breakup. And that since they didn’t want war with Russia (nuclear war) they’d just have no choice but acceptance. It was/is the damnable schism in the Russian government that saved Ukraine’s fascists (and NATO) from that. Once they saw that Russia “wouldn’t” support that breakup. Then they saw the chance to “have all Ukraine” for themselves. And started acting tough,and whining about “Russian aggression”. They figured (so far rightly) that since Russia wasn’t going to do anything. Why not make great propaganda points off of saying all the problems in Ukraine were Russia’s fault.They could “have their cake and eat it too” as the saying goes.
Now if Russia did finally (3 years late) decide to do what they should have done in 2014. Then yes,it would be a shock for NATO. And they’d be stuck with the same question they had in that 2009 report. Do they want nuclear war with Russia.Or will they “whine and accept” fate. We know their 2009 answer (which would have been their 2014 answer). But what their 2017 answer will be I don’t know. I suspect they still don’t want to test themselves in a nuclear war with Russia. But as crazy as Russia has let them became over these last 3 years by inaction. I can’t say for sure.
And in case we aren’t sure about 2014, as some maybe will say. Take a look at Crimea. What happened when Russia didn’t just support a Crimean independent breakaway from a collapsing Ukraine. But instead they allowed Crimea to rejoin Russia directly.And what was NATO’s reaction? The same one they planned in 2009. They “whined,and whined,then accepted it”. Sure they say “we don’t accept it”. But that “and” a couple of dollars will buy them a cup of coffee. They are stuck with it,and they know it. Just as they knew it in 2009.And as they would have acted if Russia had either supported a free Novorossia. Or sponsored a counter-coup and freed all Ukraine.
As I never tire at pointing out. When you allow a bully to get their way. They don’t think “OK,now I’ll stop”. No,they go for more,and more. As we are seeing plainly over North Korea today. And may see in Ukraine in the future.Some day (hopefully before its too late) Russia will wake-up to that. If an article in a Chinese paper with government connections is true,the Chinese may have finally woke-up (its too early to say). It says if the US tries to ““overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so”. I’ll have to assume they don’t mean with “protest marches”. But instead with Chinese military forces.That message (if its a true statement) ,we can hope will reach the US government. And they will realize that China isn’t playing anymore. But we’ll have to wait and see. That is the same type of message the Russian press should have reported in 2014 over the maidan coup. And certainly after the attack on Donbass began.We would not have had all the terror in Ukraine for three long years if we had had that response in 2014,but we didn’t. So we are stuck with the reality of 2017 to deal with.
As an American, I hate the fact that the Deep State – neo-cons, ideologues, military-industrial complex, corporations with oil and other interests, in conjunction with the Western media and the university intellectuals – has unleashed on the world by means of propaganda, economic sanctions, proxy wars and now, it seems, gloves-off war a wave of destruction of life, limb and property as well as the destruction of national and civic life in country after country, this all in the name of the American people. Yes, a number of Americans are enthusiastic supporters of the Deep State; a vast number are simple sheeple; there are, however, no few of us who see through all of this and who abhor it.
As a Southerner, I have ingrained in me a deep respect for the martial tradition and the profession of the soldier. This tradition and profession have been betrayed by the Deep State. The men of that tradition and profession have been warped into war criminals. Thankfully, some few have seen through their prostitution and have resigned, retired or simply quit.
For those of you who are not Americans, be assured that there are a remnant of us who are disgusted by what has been and is being done in our name. Our recourse is limited, however.
With friends and relatives fighting in the armies of the Deep State, it is difficult for me to hope for their defeat – possibly death or maiming – on the battle field; yet, the Deep State must be defeated. They – the friends and relative fighting for us – will have to bear the cost as will we all who either refuse to challenge the Deep State or who simply lack the political means.
Very, very well put, Mr Peters.
The real battle that will utlimately determine safety, security (peace) for ALL of humanity and honorable right action and redemption for Americans is the battle within their own hearts and minds.
Trouble is, a great many Americans have not yet “heard reveille” for that battle, which actually commenced 54 years ago, with the CIA shots ordered in Dealy Plaza, Dallas.
And they were deaf to the reveille they should have heard, Loud & Clear:
https://youtu.be/FT8FAm3TQ-M?list=RDFt2WqkvIhXY
But many more are now hearing trumpets a tad bit closer to their ears.
Could someone with more knowledge perhaps answer a question about the Ukraine situation which has been bothering me for a while?
As I understand it the people of the DPR and LPR have been getting shelled almost daily for quite a long time, taking numerous civilian casualties, suffering destruction etc etc
Despite this endless aggression they don’t eliminate the forces shelling them or fight against them.
Is this because they are valiantly and unilaterally observing a cease fire as per the Minsk agreement or is there another reason?
Thanks.
Officially, NAF does not shoot back, it’s against the Minsk 1 & 2 agreements. DPR and LNR signed the agreements as did a representative, but not an official member, of the Government of Ukraine plus Germany and France as guarantors of both agreements.
President Putin is a bit of a stickler for adhering to agreements although Russia and President Putin are not a party to either agreement nor did any Russian government official sign either agreement.
That being said, the Ukes have yet to honor or perform a single item of either agreement. Merkel and Golland (France, now Macron’s baby) have not said one word to the Government of Ukraine urging it to honor the agreements.
The shooting never stopped and a lot of little details, not the least of which was Donetsk Aerodrome was to be in DPR, were and are ignored by the Ukes/Germany/France. In essence DPR/LNR have stood and taken it from the Ukes at the behest of President Putin for three years.
How much longer this will continue I have no idea but I know for a fact that NAF have from time to time been given permission to use counter battery suppression fire and have done so with alacrity. Of course, within seconds of the first shell impacting on the Ukrainian artillery OSCE started to scream. As for the shells, rounds, mines, destruction and death in Novorossiya, OSCE is silent. I wonder why?
Auslander
Author
Never The Last One http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK
An Incident On Simonka https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ERKH3IU NATO Is Invited To Leave
@ Auslander
“President Putin is a bit of a stickler for adhering to agreements although Russia and President Putin are not a party to either agreement nor did any Russian government official sign either agreement.
I keep running across this statement, usually posted by someone whom I believe to be well informed.
But — I also keep running across this list — in this case from Wikipedia:
“Signatories
The document was signed by:
Swiss diplomat and OSCE representative Heidi Tagliavini
Former president of Ukraine and Ukrainian representative Leonid Kuchma
Russian Ambassador to Ukraine and Russian representative Mikhail Zurabov
DPR and LPR leaders Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky”
So which is correct?
There is not one word in the Minsk 2 Agreement and 13 steps that is addressed to Russia or makes one word of it an obligation of Russia.
Ukraine has all 13. Donbass has a few.
The Normandy Four are Ukraine, France, Germany and Russia.
The Contact Groups are officials from Kiev and officials from Donbass.
The US is zero. Has no participation.
It is presently trying to weasel inside the Normandy Four by using Volker.
Surkov will be meeting him in Moscow in a few weeks.
There is a UNSC resolution that backs up the Minsk 2 and obligates fulfillment of Minsk 2 by Ukraine. In fact, if Ukraine violates the agreement, it is subject to forcible compliance.
The US is running interference for Kiev.
But Russia has no legal connection to the 13 steps of Minsk 2.
Read it:
Text of the Minsk-2 Ceasefire Agreement, signed in Minsk, Belarus on February 12, 2015 and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 17, 2015
From Wikipedia. The full text of the agreement is as follows:
1. Immediate and full ceasefire in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine and its strict fulfilment as of 00:00 midnight EET on 15 February 2015.
2. Pull-out of all heavy weapons by both sides to equal distance with the aim of creation of a security zone on minimum 50 kilometres (31 mi) apart for artillery of 100mm calibre or more, and a security zone of 70 kilometres (43 mi) for multiple rocket launchers (MRLS) and 140 kilometres (87 mi) for MLRS Tornado-S, Uragan, Smerch, and Tochka U tactical missile systems:
for Ukrainian troops, from actual line of contact;
for armed formations of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, from the contact line in accordance with the Minsk Memorandum as of 19 September 2014
The pullout of the above-mentioned heavy weapons must start no later than the second day after the start of the ceasefire and finish within 14 days. This process will be assisted by OSCE with the support of the Trilateral Contact Group.
3. Effective monitoring and verification of ceasefire regime and pullout of heavy weapons by OSCE will be provided from the first day of pullout, using all necessary technical means such as satellites, drones, radio-location systems etc.
4. On the first day after the pullout a dialogue is to start on modalities of conducting local elections in accordance with the Ukrainian legislation and the Law of Ukraine “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts,” and also about the future of these districts based on the above-mentioned law. Without delays, but no later than 30 days from the date of signing of this document, a resolution has to be approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, indicating the territory which falls under the special regime in accordance with the law “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts,” based in the line set up by the Minsk Memorandum as of 19 September 2014.
5. Provide pardon and amnesty by way of enacting a law that forbids persecution and punishment of persons in relation to events that took place in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine.
6. Provide release and exchange of all hostages and illegally held persons, based on the principle of “all for all”. This process has to end – at the latest – on the fifth day after the pullout (of weapons).
7. Provide safe access, delivery, storage and distribution of humanitarian aid to the needy, based on an international mechanism.
8. Define the modalities of a full restoration of social and economic connections, including social transfers, such as payments of pensions and other payments (income and revenue, timely payment of communal bills, restoration of tax payments within the framework of Ukrainian legal field). With this aim, Ukraine will restore management over the segment of its banking system in the districts affected by the conflict, and possibly, an international mechanism will be established to ease such transactions.
9. Restore control of the state border to the Ukrainian government in the whole conflict zone, which has to start on the first day after the local election and end after the full political regulation (local elections in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts based on the law of Ukraine and Constitutional reform) by the end of 2015, on the condition of fulfilment of Point 11 – in consultations and in agreement with representatives of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts within the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group.
10. Pullout of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, and also mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under OSCE supervision. Disarmament of all illegal groups.
11. Constitutional reform in Ukraine, with a new constitution to come into effect by the end of 2015, the key element of which is decentralisation (taking into account peculiarities of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, agreed with representatives of these districts), and also approval of permanent legislation on the special status of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in accordance with the measures spelt out in the attached footnote (appended) by the end of 2015.
12. Based on the Law of Ukraine “On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts”, questions related to local elections will be discussed and agreed upon with representatives of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group. Elections will be held in accordance with relevant OSCE standards and monitored by OSCE/ODIHR.
13. Intensify the work of the Trilateral Contact Group including through the establishment of working groups on the implementation of relevant aspects of the Minsk agreements. They will reflect the composition of the Trilateral Contact Group.
If you find any mention of Russia, the RF or Putin or any of his canines, let me know.
The Minsk 2 Agreement obligates Ukraine. It was virtually a surrender treaty at Debaltcevo.
In fact, if Porky had not agreed, the war would have finished off a few thousand Ukies and 700 NATO (mostly Polish) caught at Debaltcevo boiler. That was the rush to Minsk by Merkel and the French poodle, Hollande. They were desperate to save the huge embarrassment of hundreds of NATO prisoners marched through Donetsk, and thousands of Ukies slaughtered in the boiler.
It was a case of a “guaranteeing” signature instead of a “participant” signature. I think that is what he meant by that. Their signature along with,as you see,the OSCE official. Was as to say “we are here guaranteeing the legality of the signatures on the document”.But as the document clearly shows in print .Not a signal part requires anything of Russia. As it does clearly of the participants.
The NAF returns fire and often destroys the mortars or artillery/tanks used.
However, in many cases, the Ukies hit peaceful villages in the gray zone. There is no NAF near to return fire. In other cases, the Ukie arty is many kilometers away. So return fire takes drones to spot the culprits. And there are many videos showing the Ukies embedded in locations right next to homes or apartment buildings. Thus, return fire is too risky to use.
But names and data are recorded. Unit commanders and unit team members are all logged by Donbass, and in some war crimes incidents these are sent to Moscow for their war crimes investigation files. Justice comes by kinetic means or later by legal rectification. Russia has a long, long memory and is fastidious with record-keeping.
The present trench warfare and gray zone combat reduces civilian losses by 90% compared to all out warfare. It is significant that Ukies practice their sniping on isolated sentinels and grandmothers in their gardens. Shows the real fear they have to take on the Donbass army.
The latest actions of the Ukies have been disasters. They lurch, take a few hundred meters of new position and lose 6-9 KIA, similar number of wounded, some armored vehicles or tank is a typical offense. Firing 90 shells or mortars over a 24 hour period is a typical effort.
Several months ago, Porky was ordering 3000+ shellings a day. But almost always, the NAF returned a similar number. Ukies have continued to show enormous loses when the action increases and the various locations along the hundreds of miles of front are assaulted by their cannons and mortars. They try to hide it, but we have seen reports from hospitals and morgues in the nazi-held cities of Donbass where the Ukies can’t hide their disasters.
The Donbass military has had for a long time fire suppression technology that crushes the Ukie mortar teams and artillery and tanks very accurately. It isn’t everywhere and probably mainly held toward the rear in large numbers.
If you recall the way Motorola and Givi’s battalions acted, they were held back and rushed in where needed. Thus, Spartak and Somali were tactically equipped to counter any serious Ukie advances or firepower. Having interior fighting lines gives the Donbass tactical advantages for their highly mobile battalions. The trench warfare, static lines nullifies their advantages. But they are ready in depth to counter and then move North and West when the next round begins.
Always remember this fact. The Russian Military Command runs the Donbass warfare. Generals and Colonels watch over Donbass as part of Western and Southern District defense.
Look at the map at this link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_districts_of_Russia#/media/File:Military_districts_of_Russia_2016.svg
And it is good to recall 08-08-08. Putin acted with surprise and ferocity. That was distant compared to Donbass. You can expect, when he acts, that the Ukies will be ‘eating their ties’, also, as they run for their final destination in Poland.
Thanks. That gives a clearer picture of events because just reading “Novorussia today” with endless reports of civilian casualties it does seem that the people of the DPR and LPR are just being attritioned in a slow motion massacre, but obviously that is not completely accurate.
Is Minsk long dead, and have the EU given up on trying to get the Ukrainian regime to comply and what are the US up to with their new military basein Ochakiv?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see but it won’t be anything good, that’s for sure.
EU/US never tried for a moment to get Ukraine to abide by either Minsk 1 or Minsk 2, both agreements were because of Merkel and Golland running to Moscow and willing to sign anything to stop the successful counteroffensives of NAF.
President Putin knew exactly what he was doing and he gave Ukraine a poison pill that it can not swallow or it will be dead the next day. However, a representative of the Ukraine government, not a member of government but their representative, did sign the agreements as did DNR & LNR, Germany and France, Germany and France as guarantors of the agreements being put in force.
I agree with Larchmonter, Russia has been keeping meticulous records of who did what, where and when and when all is said and done the war crime trials will start. Russia has a very long memory and a very long arm. In Germany and Europe, 35 years after the war particularly unsavory actors from the war were turning up quite dead. All the criminal acts during this war will be punished in the end and this includes the large numbers of foreigners who have participated in the actions of the Ukrainians.
Auslander
If you mean Minsk 2 is dead because the Ukies did not fulfill it, then it was dead on arrival.
However, Minsk 2 was designed by Putin, 13 steps to hell for the junta, as a means to strangle Porky, to divide and conquer Kiev, to freeze the war, to save lives, to save cost, to give time for Donbass to stabilize and grow economically.
Thus, Minsk 2 is alive and well and doing exactly what its intention (not the 13 steps) was constructed to do.
The people who wanted Russia to invade don’t understand that Russia (Putin) had his eye on Syria. He was “in” Syria getting daily reports for several years, designing the campaign he would launch at the last moment to save Assad, to save Syrian Military and to destroy ISIS and AQ-al Nusra. That was his geopolitical gambit no one saw coming. Minsk 2 enabled that to go forward.
Now Russia is the geopolitical partner for Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Libya, as well as the force controlling Israel’s attempts at a wider war to destroy Hezbollah, overthrow Lebanon, destroy Syria as a nation, and begin a regional war on Iran. At some point, Trump may withdraw from the ME. He can’t win anywhere. Even Mosul is considered an Iraq victory not a US victory.
Minsk 2 has huge import to Russia as a superpower. Tartus naval base and the Latakia AFB are now Russian bases for fifty years. This makes Russia an Eastern Mediterranean power. It expands the power of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea.
Minsk 2 is one of the most brilliant pieces of geopolitical leverage ever designed.
It splits the EU from US with fissures that widen each day. It frustrates NATO. It infects Ukraine and poisons the junta who now has to open a war front against all the Nazis.
Minsk 2 is a masterstroke. It’s not dead. It was never meant to be the “thing in itself”. It had other utilities.
Folks just kept looking at the trees and didn’t see the forest.
Putin is a genius strategist. How many times does he have to prove it before folks understand.
Watch how China behaves now that Russia has China’s “six”.
@L445
I agree, I find it heard to believe that people do not get this whole trap against Putin. The point is: He can not make an aggressive move. He has to wait for the other side to make a move, and I mean real war.
@L445 addition,
Wonderfully enough, today an interesting article showed where the author says and I quote:
“… Simply said that means, that the party which initiates a war is responsible for all crimes committed in the context of this war. … As is generally known the Nazi leaders were hanged after World War II. During the war they and most of the people in their country didn´t think that such a fate was going to come upon them. … Today things are not very different. I´m not going to puzzle over who of the present political leaders likely will end being hanged, if the presently waged wars will be followed by a new Nuremberg Tribunal. … Until a Stalingrad 2.0 will pave the way to a Nuremberg 2.0 we´ll have to live with the situation, that those who oppose this lunacy will be labeled as “terrorists” while the actual terrorists are moving around freely.”
The last quote is a clincher answering the question what is V.V. Putin waiting for.
I’ll answer – Because I believe that V.V. Putin will be the one doing the hanging.
For anyone wanting to read the article, it’s here:
http://katehon.com/article/actual-terrorists
So well said. I hope future historians who have to weave ‘Minsk 2’ into their narrative of early third Millennium history will do so with your little expose among their ‘primary sources’. : )
Minsk is mysterious an incomprehensible in that it is simultaneously dead and alive. The Ukrainian army thumbs its nose at it daily and keeps shelling and inflicting mysery to the hapless population of the Donbass. But at the same time it is supposed to be a brilliant agreement and a poisoned pill. It was supposedly conceived by Putin, and signed by, among others, the Russian Ambassador to Ukraine and Russian representative Mikhail Zurabov (according to Wikipedia) but somewhow Russia is said not to be a party to it.
In short, Minsk is like a playing card marked with the picture of a jester. Is it a wild card? Maybe. It can be wild or it can be tame, it can be alive or it can be dead, depends what mood you’re in.
I really have no idea what Minsk is.
Demonstrably so.
Try reading the information above your post. Slowly.
The all to common misconception is that the so-called Neocons are not some anomoly nor an outlier group but rather an integral part of the system. In other words they are the embodiment of the establishment. The root cause is not some individuals (who might actually believe that they are in control) but the system itself. I’m referring to the economic system of course….Capitalism. Remember economics always precedes politics. Today’s version is the natural evolution of Capitalism known as Neolliberalism. The paradox is that it controls the individuals (basically reducing them to beauracrats and technocrats no matter how high they are up in the hierarchy) and NOT vice versa. The reason why is because they (institutions actually) have to function within the confines of the rigid structural apparatus. This concept is Diogo comprehend because of its abstract nature. Peter Joesph (Zeitgeist fame) is known for this most accurate diagnosis.
I learned when I was in high-school that most reporters don’t know Jack about the topics they report on.
I was a bright young lad fascinated by physics in the 1970’s. Especially nuclear power. So, I knew a bit about it when Three Mile Island occured in the USA. What I quickly noticed was that the talking heads on TV would stand there and give a report. What struck me was that while sometimes they used the right words, they often used them in the wrong ways.
I could quickly thus picture a person who’d studied “journalism” in college listening to someone who knew what they were talking about give a briefing, taking notes, then later trying to put together a short TV report. They wrote down the right words. But they didn’t really understand what was being told to them, so their TV report parrotted the right words, but scrambled them up and put them in the wrong orders and in the wrong combinations and thus came out as total nonsense to a bright young kid fascinated by physics who’d been learning about nuclear power plants and how they worked.
The root of the problem was of course that while they had studied ‘journalism’ for years in college, they didn’t have the knowledge about the subject matter that a high school kid who liked to read had already acquired.
And that was back when there was some integrity in journalism. Nowadays, a ‘journalists’ job is to produce propaganda, so more knowledge about the techniques of how to mislead are required, and even less real knowledge about what the heck they are talking about. So, it doesn’t surprise me a bit that these propaganda artists go and find the sales brochures from the Merchants of Death and fill an article with some nonsense about the range and other stuff from the brochure while misleading the uniformed reader that these killing missiles are somehow ‘defensive’.
Fifty, seventy years of word scrambling to make propaganda, (” you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs”), and voila, we have the the fast food/word industry of of twitting and texting. Short and sweet generation, or short and sour. Anyway, it is against the inherent human instinct towards the spiritual and the moral, to think the lie, so nobody rational will think it to the end.
How to write the script to destroy yourself, the propagandist’s best selling book title.
The AngloZionist media has been trying to couch the Ukrainian conflict in terms the American sheeple would understand–Russia want to “take” the Ukraine. Maybe that is why it is so easy for the US to believe that Russia has (on several occasions /s) “invaded” the Ukraine. And the US understands this, because that’s how the US operates–it is a nation of “consumers” who are all too willing to use force to take from weaker peoples what they need to consume.
Most Americans don’t understand that Russia never wanted the Ukraine. Why would they? To strip them of natural resources? No, Russia is awash in natural resources. To steal their wealth? What wealth? The only money to be stolen are funds from the IMF, which were never designed to actually reach the Ukraine, but do a quick U-turn at the border and head straight for the pockets of the Western bankers and military complex. No, the Ukraine was always a basket case, a black hole for money, and Russia knows this full well. That is why Russia has been so reluctant to be officially involved with the Ukraine, thinking that if the EU and US were so sure they wanted her, they could dance with her for a while and bleed their resources into that pit, with little to show for it. Also, Russia only barely survived the ’90s raping it received at the hands of the neoliberal Western advisors and their pet oligarchs, but the Ukraine never had that core of honorable people, and certainly never had a strong, unifying leader like Putin, so essentially they are the answer to the question what becomes of a people subjected to truly unbridled capitalism–crushing poverty, corruption, and impotence.
I think more than international condemnation or sanctions, Russia feared with the coup and engineered civil war it was being presented with a trap, an Afghanistan II. It did not hesitate to act, and succeed almost completely, in Georgia, but I think they were truly concerned with how corrupted and westernized much of the Ukraine had become, even in the Donbass. Accepting Novorussia into the RF would not only be adopting a money pit, but a cancer. Perhaps there is some thought within the Kremlin that Novorussia needs to re-learn how to stand on their feet, and demonstrate some inclination to take on their own oligarchs, before Russia will be ready to commit more fully to adopting them. Even then, I suspect Russia will prefer for the East and South of Ukraine to remain outside the RF, whether as new independent entities or quasi-independent, self-ruled regions–but either way, with Russian “peacekeeping forces” stationed there, the formula which worked so well in South Ossetia and Abkazia. Because the Russian populace doesn’t really want an “invasion” of Ukraine, I suspect barring something truly horrific Putin will avoid massive escalation prior to the next elections, but after that I could see the next decent provocation being used as an excuse to formally intervene, clear out the East and South, and declare that by way of settling the conflict they will stay as peacekeepers and that Germany or Poland (or perhaps the new EU army?) is welcome to station their own peacekeepers in the nazi half.
Follow the money.
The US military complex is driven by the sales of expensive weapons systems. US officers who near the end of their 20 year hitch are thinking about lining up a cushy job with a massive war supplier. They thus focus on weapons, because that’s where the money lies. Likewise, a junior reporter would like a job with the PR dept of the same companies. And of course, Congress lives on torrents of money flowing from these same companies.
Thus, several conclusions.
1) This is all good PR for whoever makes these missiles. After the flood of stories in the fake American media about what great super-weapons these missiles are, what paid-off Congressman is going to vote against a massive order to buy many more of these for the US military so every cook can properly defend his kitchen from the evil Russian tanks that are certain to pour across the border any second now.
2) Its an immediate smaller sale for the company. Presumably these are being bought with US taxpayer dollars, so the company gets to cash the check and send out the missiles and put a graph on the screen at the next stockholders meeting showing how they are selling more and more of these missiles.
3) CNN admitted in an undercover video that the media runs stories like this for ratings. By now, I suppose that’s a snowball effect, as so many fake news stories about scary Russians have created a demand for more scary stories about Russians. Somewhere down the line there are bonuses for management in all of this.
4) Blowhard, armchair warrior politicians, and Trump has definitely become a full-fledged member of this club, love to talk tough and come up with meaningless actions that appear to back up the tough talk. So, Congressmen get to go home and talk at town meetings (or tour the local missile factory) and brag about how they’ve defended the USA’s drive to destroy democracy by sending these missiles to the resurgence of fascism in modern Europe.
The US is delivering weapons to the Baltics. Here is a story about A-10s landing in Estonia. Given the size of Estonia, if they undershoot they will end up in Russia and if they overshoot they will end up in Latvia.
Have a look at this priceless piece of work, presumably from actions in Afghanistan, but with parallels in Iraq and Syria.
Never in the field of human conflict have so many aircraft dropped so many bombs on so many targets with so little effect
The Saker would have a lot more gravitas if he didn’t insist on using the vapid smear-word “Nazi” unironically.
I don’t care one bit about gravitas. This is the very last thing on my mind. I call it as I see it. That’s it. I couldn’t care less about approval.
Cheers,
The Saker
The Kornet missile didn’t defeat Israel even though it was successful beyond belief, it was the collective(individual) self interest of the Israelis. Not sure what to call it as it is a national individual self serving culture. The individual Israeli is not comfortable with dying for their country, for their family, for their way of life. When it comes down to self sacrifice, they are only willing for other Israelis to do that. Sure they promote Israeli interests as their national heritage/foundation, when it comes down to as they say, nut cutting time, they are fading out the back door. Call to mind when Hezbollah troops had a company of Israeli troops pinned down on the road way and about 1/3 of them had literally peeded their pants. I think we are seeing throughout the world of the elite “entitled”, an over population of rats. When rats over populate and run out of food supplies they turn on each other for food, literally eating their young and infirm. The win/loss of these modern wars aren’t going to be won by super weapons but by the commitment of the people. That’s why mercenaries in the, See above nut cutting, are never there unless trapped. They aren’t comfortable with “dying for the cause”. If technology won wars, then we, US, would have never lost a single skirmish since WW2 and yet we are 0-??? in nation invasions…. BTW the Ukraine is likely plan B(lost too) for the Israelis when they lose in the Mid East. They really should have gone for Madagascar when Hitler offered it.
“Fair enough – what could they have to say about morals or spirituality anyway?”
Greed is good! And we’re number one!
Unquestionably exceptional in that respect and also in our implementation of the many “moral and spiritual” lessons that we learned from Joseph Goebbels and Edward Bernays. Unfortunately, their inculcation no longer seems to be working as well worldwide as they’ve worked for so long with the domestic population. Very frustrating. More “smart bombs” and drone kills of kids gathering firewood should help to get the point across.
Commandante Fidel said a few years ago that he thought that “the time for weapons has passed”.
Of course no one is tossing their revolver into the abyss, not yet – so what did he mean?
You cannot decide a conflict at this time in history except by consensual agreement, and weapons cannot create the ground for such agreement.
Of course the weapons do something – they “teach” several things…
They teach that violence makes more cost and trouble than it solves, and it’s unpleasant…so violence (weapons) teach people to object to violence – ie fight back.
And violence teaches people to band together to object…as VVP smiles…
And violence teaches people how to defeat the weapons…
The Commandante? He was right.
So the “Javlenz” only undermine Empire further…
LZ
In all this proxy warring, it occurs to me that Russia (& now probably China) are being forced to “show their cards”.
Well, I don’t have a military or strategic cell in my brain, so perhaps my 2+2 adds up to 6,
but :
– I think it’s a given that “MAGA” is actually “MAGMA” where Trump is charged with fast tracking new technology to ‘Make America Greatest Military Again’ (and God help us all with what diabolical ‘stuff’ is on the production line & drawing boards). But in the meantime, ground operation intel is needed on all the cards Russia may have up their sleeve.
And the military and money moguls reign supreme in Trumplandia and more mega military budget
– There was a US military analyst report I read summarising interviews (intel gathering?) of Uke soldiers experiences – tanks being immobilised, electronics knocked out etc. Perhaps this is “normal” foreign force battle review?
– Could the 59 Tomahawks have been more for the purpose of testing the S-whatever shield?
– Just as the ?Dutch supa-dupa stealth submarine sent to Med ….and met with a ‘complaint’ report by Russia of it “being dangerously close” when it was a long way off Syria waters.
ie “Weeeeeee seeeeee yoooooooo!” (“Yes, and now we know from what distance you see us”).
Dear Saker,
I read your analysis every time and i couldn’t say more than to thank you for opening my eyes.
Yes morale, you always talk about it and i totally agree that a group which has the highest morale in fighting for a just course would always be the last one standing.
Today on rt:
https://www.rt.com/news/399310-china-prevent-us-strike-nkorea/
Pavel Zolotarev, a retired Russian major general said:
“Every country’s military has to elaborate deployment strategies for any eventuality. It is politicians – not the military – who decide on whether or not to use such plans… So, if the North Korean military talks of such plans, it means it actually has them,”
Thank you Saker.
“The North Korean military may inflict significant damage to US forces during a conventional conflict. Though their equipment is far behind the American assets, their combat readiness and military morale are much higher,”
The US can just Nuke the NK and theres nothing anybody is going to do about. Its the best military option and the one I think Trump plans to use on the first provocation. Maybe the Guam missile test will do the trick.
I doubt it. That act alone would convince beyond question Russia and China that the US was like a “rabid dog”. And they would know they’d have to “put it down” for their own survival,sooner and not later.You would then see what Putin meant when he said, he learned growing up in St Petersburg, that when a fight was unavailable,hit first.
Assuming that we know, when we do not know, it the precondition for conflict…lacking only action.
No one can know what NK or anybody else will do if NK is, as is mooted above, “nuked”.
Contrawise, steady logical argument based on sound economic and national character and custom…that works. And it’s far more predictable, and cheaper.
These are not secret. Therefore we assume that the Empire desires an unpredictable event. What can go wrong?
LZ
“The US is like a rabid dog”
After Yugoslavia, Iraq & now Syria, is this still in doubt? I dont think so.
Trump is tweeting that the US is “Lock & Loaded” , but are they? There seems to be no preparation for a conventional strike.
The prospect is that NK will let everything go after the first hint of a strike, so the destruction of NK military needs to be done rapidly, almost instantaneously. Conventional weapons can not achieve this, it would take weeks or even months to fully subdue the NK strike capability. In that time SK will be severely damaged.
If Trump is “Locked & Loaded” then it can only be nuclear strikes along the contact line and on all other missile and nuclear sites. Not necessary to Nuke Pyongyang. By going Nuclear first it could be (will be) argued that they are saving lives.
Would China , Russia counter strike? You have to consider that life is good in those countries, better than it it has been in all of resent history. Is NK worth ending the world when things are good? I dont think so. Now if China decided to strike the US, then Russia will immediately follow, they have to. But China would have to know they are no match in a nuclear war with the US.
More likely Chinas response will be to invade NK to stop any thought of a US takeover and thats where the standoff will be. I dont think the US wants to chew up a lot of their forces having a ground war with China.
BobHNZ:
But China would have to know they are no match in a nuclear war with the US.
China may have fewer nukes than the US, but do those sort of comparisons matter anyway? (especially if Russia would join the game)
China can not hope to survive a nuclear war with the US. The thing with nuclear war is you can not just fire a few missiles and see how it goes. When you go the lot goes. If China fires 200 missiles at the US, they know theyre going to get 500 coming back. Its just not possible for China to retaliate against a US nuclear strike on NK.
So as much as the world may not like it, the US will get away with nuking NK. And I cant see any other way the US can stop NK from developing a substantial nuclear deterrent.
The US under the recent 100% vote in Congress for more sanctions are aimed at Donald Trump too.
In fact those sanctions spoke to the fact the Europeans cannot ever defeat the US Neo-cons. The Congressional Globalists triumphed.
9/11 was to split Europe apart too and has done so quite effectively. As Borosso did allowing the free use of the interactive brain chip technology on any and all infants born as they emerge.
The US wanted the Nazis to win WW11, and still intend them to win now. What do you think the ACTA trade policies were all about/
Read “The Rise of the Fourth Reich” by Marrs and “Vault 7” by the USA CIA.
“Furthermore, this obsession with hardware is really unhelpful and childish, which is what one would expect from politicians, of course, but which serious adults should not engage in.”
The US “elites”, especially the political parasites, uniformly stopped serving voluntarily in the US Armed Forces before the Vietnam War. In fact most went to great lengths to dodge the Vietnam War draft (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump just to name a few). Therefore they have no contextual experience with which to judge military matters. They quite often use the military option as an ill-conceived “first resort” instead of it being the “last resort.” Then when immediate success isn’t forthcoming they lose interest and generally successfully evade responsibility for all of the waste in lives and treasure.
The US political parasites also like to resort to threats that they are not at all prepared to back with action. Most boys learn on elementary school playgrounds that threats are meaningless when not backed by action. They also learn the those making the most vocal threats are likely also the greatest cowards. The privileged and protected elites apparently were too sheltered to learn those lessons. They don’t know what to do when someone responds to their empty threats with, “bring it on asshole, let’s see what you’ve got!”
Most American public elementary school children are wiser than the American political parasites.
I was just a while ago standing outside talking to a Norwegian friend, who is a welder, talking about the excessive taxes raised in this land to serve the aristocracy. He mentioned something about health care and education and I conceded that taxes could be used for those purposes, but that the same taxes are used to buy 56 JSF fighters from the aristocrat masters to be stationed at Oerland island and Bodo airport, resp. of the coast of Stjordal in Middle Norway and Bodo in North Norway. We also reflected briefly on the huge APS weapons stocks built up in the region and the placement of 300 US warriors on Stjordal airport. Stationed there because from there they will have the shortest route to the forthcoming Baltic war theatre. My neighbor was more than aware of what he called the slavery of the Norwegians to their US masters and more than worried about the provocation this poses from Norway to Russia. I toned him down a bit, by just referring to Norway’s vassal status, and admitting that my own government (Netherlands) is equally a vassal of the US DS/MIC aristocracy. Then I rubbed some salt in the wound referring to the excessive flag waving, Norwegians indulge in each summer, while not being aware they are vassals of the MIC/DS aristocracy. But then again, the Dutch vassals do the same waving their orange colored drapes. Point is, vassal states like Netherlands and Norway are following the dictates of the aristocratic master, while provoking Russia for a possibly very painful retaliation.
Same goes for Germany, of course.