This morning a reader brought to my attention a very interesting post by Vladimir Suchan entitled “The Minsk “Ceasefire” Protocol and Russian Diplomacy’s Masterful “Sabotage” which I recommend that you read in its entirety. Suchan quotes a short note of mine where I said the following:
“Knowing the degree to which Russian diplomats are normally maniacally fastidious and pedantic with words, I can only conclude that they have deliberately sabotaged this agreement and that it’s sole use what to deflate the bellicose mood of the NATO summit.”
What is missing is the preceding and following stance. The full section reads like this:
What is certain is that this documents is imprecise, nebulous, ambiguous and otherwise vague to such a degree that I would argue that it is basically impossible to implement. Knowing the degree to which Russian diplomats are normally maniacally fastidious and pedantic with words, I can only conclude that they have deliberately sabotaged this agreement and that it’s sole use what to deflate the bellicose mood of the NATO summit. But as a basis for a real ceasefire it is useless, nevermind a real negotiation for a final status agreement or peace treaty.
Same difference? Let’s see.
POLITICAL SITUATION:
At this point, I am going to have to post a lengthy quote of Suchan’s analysis, I apologize for that in advance, but it is crucial to follow his logical flow: (crucial parts bolded out be me – the Saker)
In other words, the implementation of Putin’s 7-point initiative was written so poorly and badly that Saker concluded not only that it must have been written by Russian diplomats, but that Russian diplomats must have composed the Minsk Protocol so terribly on purpose. For how could someone comparatively intelligent and reasonably well educated produce something so horrible and awful? One does not make something so bad by mistake. One has to be a master to be able to do that. And why would Russian diplomats deliberately sabotage the document and made it so poor and thus making themselves appear as bad as the document they made? According to Saker, this was not because they had any intention to sabotage Novorossiya or its struggle, but because they wanted to sabotage “the bellicose mood” of NATO by appeasing NATO and its bellicosity with the sabotage of the ceasefire agreement. And why exactly would NATO, receiving such awful provisions for Novorossiya, find its “bellicose mood deflated”? Because of being in awe of the horrible work of the Russian diplomats? Or just being stunned by it? Or because in some way this sabotage made their “bellicose mood” much happier and relaxed? So does this mean that we have at last found the secret for deflating NATO and its aggressiveness–by sabotaging our own work, by promising to keep Novorossiya dissolved into several “special regions” for which the Nazis might at some point write their “Law” and run their “new elections”? Is it really by sabotaging genuine peace and actual principles that friends of Russia and Putin can appease, deflate and defeat NATO’s intelligence and plans, which were decades in making, as Avakov said the other night? Does this mean that the worse their work Russian diplomats do, the more they “sabotage,” the more NATO will be deflated and the better and more effective Russian diplomacy is actually going to be?
Now let’ take the key parts one by one:
“In other words“: this is the crucial introductory opening – it indicates that what will follow is not what I actually said, but what Suchan thinks I said and what will be concluded from that is, unsurprisingly, not what I meant, but what Suchan thinks I meant. In plain English – a strawman.
“they wanted to sabotage “the bellicose mood” of NATO by appeasing NATO“: actually that is not at all what I meant. Notice the missing part of my quote now put together into one:
What is certain is that this documents is imprecise, nebulous, ambiguous and otherwise vague to such a degree that I would argue that it is basically impossible to implement. But as a basis for a real ceasefire it is useless, nevermind a real negotiation for a final status agreement or peace treaty.
Now let us not confuse goals and means. In the sentence above I am looking at the means: to create a useless document impossible to implement. That is the means. The goal is not to “appease NATO” as such but to create enough friction inside NATO and the EU to prevent what was supposed to be a “historical summit” come up with anything useful. As far as that goal is concerned, I would say that it has been fully achieved. All that this so-called “historical summit” produced was hot air. Some might say that NATO could not have come up with real actions, but if we recall the various predictions before this summit that is “Monday morning quarterbacking”. Expectations ranged from overtly anti-Russian ABM deployments, to massive assistance to the Junta, to actual troops deployments into the Ukraine, to a the adoption of a “special ally status” for the Ukraine to economic sanctions on Russia. None of that happened. Why? We now know that a number of states blocked that or demanded a “delay” in implementation (which is a diplomat’s way of taking something off the table). So this part of the “plan” worked.
Now let’s look at the two key words I used:
Useless: in other words, it could not be used as a basis to do or achieve anything, it was designed to have no effect, to prevent any meaningful change in the circumstances on the ground.
Impossible to implement: again, that indicates that even if both parties wanted to do something with it, on the basis of it, they could not have done so.
What is the key feature of something useless and impossible to implement? That it collapses on it’s own. Neither the Novorussians or Russia could be blamed for its inevitable and almost immediate collapse.
So we have three characteristics spelled out now:
1) The plan was designed to create friction inside NATO. That worked.
2) The plan was designed to prevent changes on the ground. That worked.
3) The plan was designed to rapidly collapse on its own. That worked.
To suggest, as Suchan does, that this plan could in any way form the basis for a final status agreement (“promising to keep Novorossiya dissolved into several “special regions” for which the Nazis might at some point write their “Law” and run their “new elections”?”) is, at best, mistaken.
Here is the key point which is so often overlooked or misunderstood: the ceasefire agreement was not a strategic move, but a tactical one. It was never designed to achieve anything more than a short term effect on one specific event: the NATO summit.
The real contradiction
Still, those who are upset by the Agreement have, I think, a very valid point. They say that this agreement was not good for Novorussia. I think that they right, but I also think that they very much overestimate its magnitude. Let me explain what I mean.
MILITARY SITUATION
It is true that the Novorussian Armed Forces (NAF) were on the offensive and that the Junta Repression Forces (JRF) were in full retreat on all fronts. And it is true that in Mariupol the panic was such that most Ukies were on the run. I don’t think that the NAF was about to retake Debaltsevo, but I will accept that Mariupol was within reach. The strategy chosen to take Mariupol was to envelop it from the north and surround it. Some (not in the NAF, but commentators who were clearly civilians) even spoke of going all the way along the coast to “open a land bridge to Crimea”. Now let me ask this: does “creating a long but narrow advance along a barrier” remind you of something? Did we not see something like that tried out pretty recently?
Sure did.
That is what the Ukies did earlier this Spring with the ill-conceived attempt to encircle Novorussia along the Russian border. The NAF let them walk in, then they stopped them, then the cut their supply route, then the cut them into sectors and then the finished them off. And they achieved all that with numerical inferiority on their side. Now let’s look at the situation around Mariupol. Here are the latest figures for the NAF forces surrounding it:
About 6’000 soldiers, 28 tanks, 90 armored vehicles, 60 mortars, 60 artillery guns, 20 MLRS. 2’500 of these 6’000 soldiers are needed to occupy the towns around Mariupol and to keep the ONLY highway connecting the NAF forces to their rear bases in Novorussia.
What does the JRF have inside Mariupol? The same source provides the following figures: 3200 soldiers, 50 tanks, 150 armored vehicles, 120 mortars, 140 artillery guns, 70 MLRS. True, the NAF has much better morale and tactical combat skills. And the population is massively on the NAF side. But consider this: just north of Mariupol the JRF also has 3000 soldiers, 100 tanks, 200 armored fighting vehicles, 150 mortars, 140 artillery guns, 100 MLRS. So, in the operational vicinity of Mariupol the NAF is literally sandwiched in between no less then 6’200 soliders (vs 6’000 for the NAF), 150 tanks (vs 28 for the NAF), 350 armored vehicles (vs 90 for the NAF), 270 mortars (vs 60 for the NAF), 280 artillery guns (vs 60 for the NAF) and 170 multiple rocket launchers (vs 20 for the NAF). There are three very important things to keep in mind here:
1) the NAF force around Mariupol is most definitely the best and most powerful one in the NAF.
2) the figures above do only include the JRF in the operational vicinity of Mariupol and do not include the other JRF available to the Junta from it’s strategic depth.
3) there is only one highway connecting the NAF force around Mariupol to the rest of the NAF controlled Novorussia. This is why the NAF has had to put 2’500 of 6’0000 of its soldiers in protection of the rest of the NAF force available to attack or blockade Mariupol.
Are you starting to see where I am going here? If not, I will put in plainly even though I know that the amount of hate-mail is going to spike after I post this.
The attack on Mariupol was an extremely dangerous operation and those who believe that it would have been a first step towards smashing the JRF, going to Crimea or even to Kiev simply don’t realize how weak the NAF really is.
[I believe that the Russian General Staff fully understood that and that one of the factors in favor of the otherwise “useless and impossible to implement” was that it made it possible to a) stop the advance of the NAF beyond Mariupol b) talk to the NAF leadership and make them realize the risks of this move and c) probably to provide enough time to get the hell out of there before it is too late. I have no evidence for this and this is purely my guess. Hence I will put this in brackets].
What evidence do I have for the (relative) weakness of the NAF?
- The Donetsk airport is still not taken
- There are several “cauldrons” deep inside NAF controlled territory which have still not been cleared up
- Not only has Debaltsevo not been re-taken, it is under huge pressure
- The NAF offensive towards Schiastie is, so far, going nowhere.
- There is a dangerous NAF offensive from Telmanovo which puts the NAF forces in the south at great risk
I know that some will say “yes, precisely, if not for that idiotic ceasefire all these problems would have been solved by now”. Except that these “problems” have not been solved for *weeks*, not days.
I will spell out again in clear what I am trying to demonstrate with all this:
1) The ceasefire did not have a significant impact on the military situation on the ground
2) The ceasefire might well have frozen a disaster in the making
I am sorry that it took such a long way to address a topic which, apparently, Suchan does not feel needs addressing at all (he does not say a single word about the military situation on the ground) and which I feel is crucial.
The impact of the Agreement on the military situation has been twofold: it gave the JRF time to regroup and to bring in reinforcements. From that point of view it is a negative impact for the NAF and Novorussia. Let me be clear here, I AGREE that this is bad for the NAF and Novorussia. But I also think that the negative consequences of this indisputable drawback of this Agreement are dwarfed by the problems which the NAF is facing right now which have nothing to do with this Agreement. In fact, I am not even sure that the negative consequences of this Agreement are worse than one would have happened if the NAF had pushed further or attempted to take Mariupol, which I think they were about to do, and successfully so, but at the cost of creating a cauldron for themselves in fact cutting off the best and most capable part of the NAF from the rest of the NAF forces in Novorussia at a time when the Ukies were threatening from at least three directions (Schastie, Debaltsevo, Volnovakha).
Now let me ask you this: let’s suppose just for a second that I am correct and that the NAF forces in and around Mariupol would be “cauldroned-off” by a JRF counter-offensive along the Mariupol-Novoazovsk highway or an attack from Telmanovo towards Novoazovsk. Can you imagine what would happen to the rest of Novorussia if at the same time the (very large) Ukie force north of Lugansk would have gone on the offensive or if Gorlovka would have been surrounded?
So, again, I will clearly spell-out my concern: the tactical offensive towards Mariupol (unless Mariupol is taken this would not be an operational one) potentially puts at risk the very survival of Novorussia.
Am I correct? At this point I don’t know for sure. Maybe not.
But if we see a NAF withdrawal from Mariupol then this will be a sign that I might be. Besides, according to Russian sources, Mariupol is not fully surrounded anyway and the Ukies are reinforcing their garrison there through corridors on the northeast of the city. If that is true, the NAF will have to withdraw.
IN CONCLUSION
“Lasciate ogni speranza“
But here is the really nasty thing: IF the NAF withdraws from Mariupol the Putin-bashers will immediately blame the ceasefire agreement for this instead of realizing that this was the only way to avoid a strategic disaster. I have concluded that no amount of facts or logic will in any way affect this group. In their minds Putin has betrayed, period, Novorussia has been backstabbed and sold-out and the Kremlin is firmly controlled by Russian oligarchs. Frankly, I have given up any hope of even marginally affecting their certitudes or to make them doubt. Every time I try, I just get more hate mail or even full posts on other blogs explaining that I am either a complete idiot or a Putin groupie. Fine, I will plead guilty to both charges and I will go on writing for those who prefer facts and logic over strawmen and ad hominems :-)
For the rest of you
I will admit that I am worried. I have already spelled out what my main concern in my Q&A/FAQ+RFC, but I will repeat here that the main danger to Novorussia is:
“political infighting. I don’t know if this is possible right now, but I would like to see the emergence of an undisputed Novorussian leader who would have the official and full support of Strelkov, Zakharchenko, Borodai, Mozgovoi, Kononov, Khodakovski, Tsarev, Bolotov, Gubarev and all the other political and military leaders. This has to be a truly Novorussian leader, not just a “Putin proconsul”, a person capable of negotiating with Putin for the interests of the people of Novorussia. (…) Until that happens, I will always be worried for the future of the people of Novorussia”
I have always said that the interests of Russia and Novorussia are not the same. For one thing, Putin was not elected to fix the Ukraine or, much less so, start a war with NATO. My personal sympathies go to both the people of Russia and the People of Novorussia, whom I see as one and the same, really. But the fact is that Novorussia is not part of Russia (yet?) and that the people of Novorussia have not elected Putin to represent or, even less so, defend them. The Russian people have. Putin clearly has his first priority the interests of Russia and the Russian people who have elected him, and this is how it should be. To expect him to have a higher loyalty to the Novorussian people would be simply foolish. But these self-evident facts do not mean that Putin does not care or wants to “sell out” Novorussia. Guys, now please pay attention here, if Putin had wanted to “sell out” Novorussia he had the *perfect* opportunity to do so earlier this Spring. And if anybody seriously believes that the immensely successful NAF offensive last month happened without Putin’s full support – I have a bridge to sell to you!
Where do we go from here?
I don’t know except for one thing: this will be a very long struggle. Barring a successful JRF offensive in the next week or so, the frontlines will probably stabilize and freeze up. The “military action” will be replaced by the “economic and social” action as the Junta-run Banderastan collapses on its face and serious turmoil begins.
Do I think that the JRF is about to launch a counter-offensive? Yes. Or, should I say, I know I would if I was in their position. Do I think that their counter-offensive will be successful? Probably not or, at least, not much. The NAF forces around Mariupol can probably fight their way back to their rear, they might even preempt the need to do that and withdraw before any such counter-attack (that is what I would do in their place). I think that the best the JRF can hope for are a few tactical successes, but I think that by and large the NAF forces will hold. And if that is not the case, Russia will make sure that it does (as she did earlier this year). This is not about Putin, this is much bigger than him, and the Russian people or “Russia” as a nation will not allow Novorussia to be run-over by Nazis. They stopped that one this Spring and, if needed, they will do it again. And after that, they will again seek a negotiated agreement. As far as I know, not a single person in position of authority in Russia supports the idea of a “move to Kiev”, not by Russian forces, not by NAF. So two things will not happen: the Nazis will not overrun Novorussia and the (Novo)russians will not invade/liberate Banderastan. That is something the Ukrainian people will have to do themselves.
The Saker
Personal note 1: Please forgive me if I don’t reply to comments or answer emails today. I am exhausted and, frankly, rather disgusted and discouraged by this feeling that I am banging my head against a brick wall. If I do post today, it will not be on the “Putin backstabbing Novorussia” bullshit any more. Besides, I need to make a post thanking the donors to this blog, so I will do that later today (a far more pleasant task then to deal with the ugly stupidity I mention in the next personal note).
Personal note 2: I strongly urge all those who want to post hostile, rude, condescending, hateful, vitriolic or otherwise nasty comments to hurry to do so now. The first rule of the moderation policy on the new blog (I hope to have it ready very soon now) will be to immediately toss out any comment which is not 100% polite and courteous to me, the host of this blog, to any guest author or to any other person posting comments. I have put up with so much crazy shit and outright nasty attitudes on this blog that on the next one this rule will be absolutely inflexible. You will have full freedom to disagree with anything anybody writes here, but you will have to make it with absolute courtesy. But until I move to the new blog, knock yourself out, insult me to your heart’s content – that will only strengthen my resolve to toss any such comments to /dev/null on the new blog :-P
＠Ｈａｒｒｙ，
Q: Are NAF leadership incompetent idiots?
R: The person responsible for the attack on the Donestk airport in the earlier days of this conflict most certainly was.
Personally [from the comfort of my living room], I would not have stopped and kept on annihilating those KFK goons by the busload and have kept that momentum going. The Ukrainian Netanyahoos are as sincere in pretending to be all about peace as the Apartheid State’s Führer is.
However, you can’t expect Mr. Putin to run over eggshells, he has to maneuver very carefully. The west is literally aching for war, because their collective economies are stalling.
Even Germany, that economic powerhouse is already indebted up to 80% of its GDP. Somethnig has to give way and peace most certainly is not the answer or an option.
War is a racket.
Winter is here
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-10/russian-retaliation-begins-gazprom-limiting-eu-gas-cuts-poland-supplies-20-past-two-
I’ve just finished reading the interview at Itar-Tass with Lavrov.
http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/748935
It took some time. Very interesting from a man who I consider wise. Some interesting points in it under the Ukraine “ceasefire” regarding the Nazi “punitive” militia battalions.
Well worth the read.
Mulga Mumblebrain: The term ‘fascist’ gets thrown around so often and so loosely that it has lost much of its meaning.
Trotsky viewed fascism as a decayed form of capitalism. But capitalism is not, imo, crypto-fascism and I think it is safe to say the EU is not yet in the control of fascists thus construed. Clearly some European governments are seeing a modest and even substantial increase in support for fascist parties (thinking Greece’s Golden Dawn, for example, or France’s Front National). For the moment, though, the bourgeois liberal democracies still hold.
This is what makes Ukraine so important and explains why fascists from Europe at large have been flocking there to staff the paramilitaries and death squads of the Junta. If fascism can be defeated in Ukraine, it can be defeated anywhere it tries to establish a beachhead. So Ukraine is of enormous importance psychologically to all anti-fascists, myself included.
@ Sampanviking,
One thorough look at the Nuremberg protocols tells you everything and anything you’d ever want to know about the ‘Western taste for True Justice’
“Those ff-ing Huns did bomb the s*** out of London…”
“We started the blitz, sir…”
“We did what?”
“We bombed Germany first, sir…”
“That’s a malicious lie, you ff-ing closet Nazi. Now, fetch me another brandy!”
“We firebombed Dresden and Tokyo too, killed hundres of thousands of civilians…”
“Guards! Shoot the anitsemite [Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians excluded] in my bedroom!”
For one reason or another ‘justice’ always sides with he victor/s.
Suchan often ties himself up in cerebrations which appear to derive from a frustration unrelated to issues at hand. The spirit often seems improperly aligned, which is a shame, as there’s an intellect there that could be useful if it weren’t so obsessive and rageful without ground. A touch of the poète maudit, perhaps. Now deep in his cups, cursing incomprehensibly at your blog:)
You called it right on the risks of retaking Mariupol at this juncture, and much of your analysis on the ceasefire, to which Russia is a signatory, is apt as well. As Mercouris noted, “Its signature gives Russia grounds to act if the terms of the Protocol are breached. Russia has not had clear cut grounds to act up to now. As a party to the Protocol Russia is in effect its guarantor and it now does.”
Important development! (rather puts into context the pessimistic, defeatist views of an individual intellectual).
See this link – British trade unions take a position in solidarity with anti-fascist struggle in Ukraine
http://ukraineantifascistsolidarity.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/british-tuc-opposes-use-of-british-forces-in-ukraine-offers-support-to-antifascists/#more-549
Here’s to ‘revolutionary patience’ and unity!
Ignore the idiots that second guess. If they’re so damn smart maybe they can try to do what you are doing. They won’t of course because they are either idiots or working for the other side and trying to get you pissed off so you tire and slow down on providing the insights and analysis. Ignore the idiots. Thank you for your work. It is appreciated.
Just in passing, not from a high level strategist but from a guy who has done a lot of winter camping. A major consideration in being outdoors the winter is short daylight — already its getting dark early, and it makes everything more difficult (and uses more fuel), especially when trying to see where you are geographically.
Second, from looking at the meteorology and climate shifts — and I’m hardly expert in this — it looks like the weather might not be so much cold as wet this winter. Too cold to just stay wet, as in summer, but not cold enough to be dry in cold snow, though: wet, even above freezing, with mud and freezing rain, is a recipe for misery. This is not good conditions to engage in military attacks.
__Blue
Mulga Mumblebrain said…10 September, 2014 23:49
“CharlieH, I fear that ‘fascists’ already control the EU. Capitalism is crypto-fascism (one author calls the US social dispensation ‘friendly fascism’, or did twenty years ago, it being rather less ‘friendly’ these days) in periods of economic growth and social peace, but when the interests of the tiny, parasitic, elites for whom it exists are threatened, as they most certainly are now, it transmutes itself into really existing fascism-corporatism plus state power.”
Sounds like you are referring to Bertram Gross and his book “Friendly Fascism”?
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Friendly_Fascism_BGross.html
Agree that capitalism is more or less fascist. It may not be initially, but eventually it becomes fascist as power is concentrated among the most wealthy, who naturally then become the most powerful.
Fan of your comments, BTW, sayan Bernard at MoA will be damned to a hell without male goats for eternity for banning you from his site. ;)
CharlieH said…11 September, 2014 00:39
“The term ‘fascist’ gets thrown around so often and so loosely that it has lost much of its meaning…I think it is safe to say the EU is not yet in the control of fascists thus construed. Clearly some European governments are seeing a modest and even substantial increase in support for fascist parties (thinking Greece’s Golden Dawn, for example, or France’s Front National). For the moment, though, the bourgeois liberal democracies still hold.”
Fascism, and nazi, I’ll throw in, have not “lost much of their meaning”, the meaning has changed to reflect current circumstances and public attitudes. That’s what happens with words over time. Fascism/nazi has come to mean fanatical control freak. The Ami TV character, “soup nazi”, is a pretty good example of the new meaning. When applied to governments, it usually means a strong big business-government alliance with little tolerance for dissent. As real dissent is not tolerated in the ZPC/NWO “west”, and that includes Europe, and the bb-g marriage is now old news, these regimes qualify as fascist, as that term has now come to mean.
“This is what makes Ukraine so important and explains why fascists from Europe at large have been flocking there to staff the paramilitaries and death squads of the Junta. If fascism can be defeated in Ukraine, it can be defeated anywhere it tries to establish a beachhead. So Ukraine is of enormous importance psychologically to all anti-fascists, myself included.”
Those Ukrainian fascists/nazis are being supported by the regimes of the USA, Israel and Europe a lot more than by the various nazi political orgs in these countries – who themselves are fully integrated within the ZPC/NWO power structure. The idea that the fascists running amok in the Ukraine are independent of the ZPC/NWO fascist western hierarchy, and are not their paid mercs, but some “wildcats”, is plain ludicrous. The same rubbish was used to distanance the crimes of Latin American regime death squads from their American and Israeli handlers in the 80’s by the zio media and their echos.
вот так
I wonder that there are still arguments in Novorossiya about the ceasefire.
I think the ceasefire doesn’t restrict the NAF on anything. That Mariupol wasn’t taken wasn’t the fault of the ceasefire but due to a lack of strength of the NAF. Why do I think so? After the ceasefire was agreed the fightin around Mariupol continued. And, after some days into the ceasefire, the NAF had some successes in securing some villages to the northeast of Mariupol. But for more, the strength of the NAF was simple not there. And even when one presumes that the NAF could have shifted gear and liberated Mariupol without the ceasefire, what then? The hold on Mariupol would have been fragile, NAF forces even more stretched than they are now, and as a result the whole hold of the NAF on Novorossiya might have become fragile.
And even more: what kind of a navy had the NAF to protect Mariupol against a Ukie counterattack from sea? None. Now the NAF have time and space to hastily build a navy, train coastal defence and so on.
And then: I think there is currently a much more important task to do. Prepare for winter. And that relates to civilian infrastructure as well as for the NAF. Winter in Novorossiya is pretty cold. The NAF would be good advised to do major overhauls of the newly captured Ukie equipment. Lot’s of that was so poorly maintained that it hardly functions when it’s summer. How will that equipment work when it’s real frosty?
That would bring a chance, too. the Ukies will likely become in deep trouble in winter. All teir pplannings were made for a quick victory. There were many reports that there equipment barely functions, if at all. If Novorossiya manages to make the few equipment it has working in winter and the Ukies don’t manage that, I think that would be a good premise for a larger NAF offensive in winter.
One more: Schastye hasn’t been liberated yet, but in recent days there is a steady stream of news of villages liberated close to Schastye. Today there were news that Stanitsa Luganskaya was finally liberated. So operations to liberate Schaste seem to go on in what seems to be an operation for encircling that Ukie bastion, in what some call an “intensive” ceasefire, accompanied by the friendly exchange “peace” artillery shells and so on, as a result of which the Ukies sometimes suddenly decide to “voluntarily” leave some occupied towns and villages.
Why does Russia want to bring out a 5th gen fighter by 2015? Yea the US have them and the Chinese are working on one which is far better and capable than the F22’s to be out in the next few years but they are only good as offensive weapons and Russia is far far behind in its capabilities. India needs them because of its no first strike policy and its part of having multiple options. Is Russia trying to intimidate the US? That could get expensive and also make the other guy defensive as well as belligerent. Also Russia had a good chance to get the order for those 250 fighter jets thats in limbo with france. But because of Russia’s problems with delivery with Iran and delays even inferior domestic versions are preferable. If infrastructure does not exist well that can be built. Next to the US India has the best chemical and medical based infrastructure, it has saved hundreds of millions of people who cant afford western solutions. No one else can touch it. But that does not mean you don’t share it with others because of silly reasons. Here again that Russian bias of just support us until we can gain parity with the west so we are equal again, and later when we think you have grown up you too can share in the spoils. Thats not cooperation, its more like big brother..
No one has ever given India credit for saving such a huge number of lives and it is not well known or even talked about. The US might be the technology leader but the vast majority of people can not afford most of that technology or advances. It is not just being able to build a remote control that can do magic that makes you.. It is also what you do for others and also how you help others to advance.
>>
In contrast to the Russian enthusiasm, the Indians are somewhat sceptical about the future. According to recent articles in the local media, India has complained about lack of transparency from the Russian side, as Moscow is not meeting its obligations of technology sharing in the current pre-developmental phase of the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA). The preliminary design phase was completed in 2013, under a collaborative investment split between India and Russia. However, Indian officials have complained that although they paid for half of the program the Indians are moderated out of the program.
As 5th generation aircraft the PAK-FA and PMF will use highly advanced composite materials and special airframe coating to maintain low radar signature and low weight. The powerplant will also get unique shields of exotic materials to reduce infrared observability. The Russians insist that these requirements will demand unique manufacturing capabilities that do not currently exist in India. But these advanced technologies are kept close to the chest of the Russians. The Indians suspects the Russians seek to further erode the partnership into a financial partnership rather than a technological collaboration
Indian sources claim their engineers are moderated from the program, as Moscow is not keen to share technical details about its next generation stealth fighter, on which the Indian version will be based. Indian pilots are not allowed to fly the aircraft either. The Russians claim foreign pilots are barred from flying in their airspace, although this issue has not prevented Indians to fly MiG-29s and Su-30s in the past…
http://defense-update.com/20140901_from_russian_t50_pak-fa_to_indian_pmf.html
Mohamed and Nora !
This is off topic but you might like this video of the creator of Alibaba :
A lovely human being
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUwmakdaye4&feature=player_embedded
Dear Alexander Mercouis
Thanks for your comment.
Saker ! I can’t get over how honored I feel to be able to read the comments on your blog…its like being close to the pulse beat of the new dawn.
Suchan has been unfair several times with things.
Thanks for the explanation regarding Mariupol. One imagines that the reason some in the NAF feel that they should have kept up the fight is that the morale of the Kiev forces was largely broken. New and rested troops will be a different matter. As for why they didn’t take the cauldrons or a couple of other areas, perhaps they felt that starving them out was the proper approach. They need equipment, and may have expected the supplies in some cauldrons to run out soon.
Perhaps the bigger problem is that people in Novorossiya have been bossed around for a long time as the slaves that Avakov refers to them as. Thus they are very sensitive to being treated as pawns by the Novorossiyan leadership, who seem to be just puppets for the Kremlin with perhaps a fair bit of Akhmetov in the mix.
A lot of people who are being called Putin-bashers are not really bashing Putin. They suspect that the Kremlin and Putin are trying to straddle an impossible gap between Russia’s economic and geostrategic interests. This is not simply that oligarchs want to keep their villas in Italy. It is the jobs of millions, and the future hope of keeping a relationship with Europe. Thus, Russia gives the NAF a bit of help, and then backs off when the EU talks sanctions. Something like that. Some of us feel that this is likely to fail at some point. In other words, as you argued in a post months ago, use the time to prepare, but to actually expect the EU to disobey the US and banksters seems unrealistic.
Some even argue that Putin would be more than willing to make more decisive steps, but the problem is that it could break the system of Russian governance over the last 15 years. They say that Putin is a kind of consensus figure, and that him acting on the views of simply half of the Russian power elite would risk things like what has happened in the Ukraine over the last year.
Saker, there is a world of fools and villains out there. They cause me as much despair and anger as they do you.
Know, however, that I and those I communicate with hold you in the highest regard. I find no other analyst who comes close to your strategic view of events in Ukraine and Novorossya. You are indispensable to those of us who try and sort the world in a world full of bullshit, you are not a diamond in the rough but a full-faceted brilliant, flawless.
Years ago I read Nietzsche’s challenge: How much truth can you stand? and took it as a personal challenge. Whether you are familiar with the quote or not, I believe you accepted that same challenge and hope to share the fruits of that long ordeal and battle with others.
Most folks (“folks”-an Obamaism) have not nor will do so. Ignore them. For those of us who have done so, you push our frontiers further and we thank you for it.
Pat Buchanan refers to it as “preaching to the choir”. Well, Amen to that! You’re not
in the business of saving lost souls; you’re in the business of assisting those who want to understand.
Keep it up!
Macon Richardson
Penang Island, Malaysia
Bandolero at 4:17 – I agree , it’s very weird how the ceasefire has split the analysts into two camps, as someone noted up-thread. As Mercouris noted, it’s astonishing that everyone is taking a few words so seriously (rather than conditions on the ground).
I agree with everything you wrote and I’m quoting your last paragraph for the pure pleasure of seeing it again:
“One more: Schastye hasn’t been liberated yet, but in recent days there is a steady stream of news of villages liberated close to Schastye. Today there were news that Stanitsa Luganskaya was finally liberated. So operations to liberate Schaste seem to go on in what seems to be an operation for encircling that Ukie bastion, in what some call an “intensive” ceasefire, accompanied by the friendly exchange “peace” artillery shells and so on, as a result of which the Ukies sometimes suddenly decide to “voluntarily” leave some occupied towns and villages. “
Also, in a previous thread Alien Tech gave a link to a wonderful piece in Voices From Russia commenting on the true strength of the NAF, which the author calls the VSN. He highlights the Ukraine professional soldiers and Berkut who also left for Russia and received top-up training and are now in the NAF, deadly professionals fighting against the junta’s ragged troops.
I wasn’t aware of the site but it’s a good one (thanks Alien Tech). Here’s the concluding paragraph from the article:
“Note well that the VSN withdrew from some exposed positions without combat… that’s what pros do after they capture a large swath of territory. What they didn’t secure, they fell back from, so as not to expose themselves unnecessarily to counterattacks. The purpose of the VSN is to destroy the enemy… the junta wants to seize territory and terrorise civilians. You can see which one is the army and which one is the mob. Keep all the above in mind as you read the increasingly fictive accounts in the Western press. The prewar Ukrainian Army still exists… in the patriot ranks of the VSN. It’s the only way that decent normal people can rid themselves of the Galician Uniate fascist thugocracy in Kiev. Keep it focused, for the times are evil.”
Link to the article – I highly recommend the whole piece, it’s quite short and to the point, very enjoyable to read.
dear saker,
thank you for your excellent analysis, insight & plain common sense on this whole issue,
I’m sorry, I haven’t had time to read all the above comments, but I have two things to say –
1. I am a huge putin groupie & unashamed of it, so are more than 80% of the russki narod, I believe he will be seen by history to be one of the great leaders of all time, he knows what he is doing, none of us can second guess him,
2. I am a huge ‘the saker’ groupie & can hardly survive without my daily dose – leave him alone please, he does his best (which is fantastic) with the available evidence & is far better sighted that the knee jerk commentators (although some of them deserve medals for their heartfeltness)
kindest,
jg
What I think the problem with people who see the ceasefire as a betrayal is, that they don’t understand that there is a stage between strategic defense and strategic offense, called the strategic stalemate, where both armies can’t defeat the other entirely.
Mao – his abilities as statesman are questionable, but there’s no doubt he was a great military leader – wrote about it lengthy in “on protracted war” (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_09.htm)
Quote: “The second stage may be termed one of strategic stalemate. At the tail end of the first stage, the enemy will be forced to fix certain terminal points to his strategic offensive owing to his shortage of troops and our firm resistance, and upon reaching them he will stop his strategic offensive and enter the stage of safeguarding his occupied areas.”
This is exactly what is happening in Mariupol and other JRF occupied territories now. In this stage the NAF is not yet strong enough to destroy the enemy with a decisive blow. It still needs to take advantage of guerilla warfare and hit the enemy where he is vulnerable. Becoming overconfident right now and attacking fortified positions in force would be careless, if not outright stupid.
I hope the commanders and leaders have the wisdom to do the right thing, right now. One should not forget, that the enemy also tries to sow discord amongst us and will do everything to encourage adventurism on our side.
The Saker is right, we have to prepare for a lengthy battle and right now, winter is coming. Stay cool, stay vigilant!
MAGNES. Your are right! We need Saker s energy in more important issues than responding to critics/provokers. Hope he listens your advice.
@ JohnM
Good article.
The only way to stop the lunacy and warring ways of the West is to hold a color revolution in the USA.
If there’s a color revolution in the US, there would doubtless be similar movements in other nations. Recall the Occupy Wall Street movement, similar protests followed in other Western countries.
The only way to defeat the NNWO is to wake the masses from their hypnotic spell, the spell cast by MSM.
Although the US elite are equipping the police with military grade weapons and monitoring dissent via the internet, what the people from Novorossiya have proved is that spirit of the people can defeat the power of the gun.
So get going Americans, do your bit for world peace. Occupy Capitol Hill.
what’s up with the NEWS that Russia withdrew a crapload of soldiers and tanks from NAF? True or Ukie-Propaganda?
Damn, I wish Putin would support them more, at least so they can clean up all the cauldrons inside their territory and protect their are better and a bit further away from current frontlines.
Dear Saker,
Please don’t get too upset about people criticizing you. I think that your analyses are very valuable and insightful. Thank you for all your work. Concerning the articles on slavyangrad.org: I don’t recall any ceasefire agreement that was not followed by accusations of betrayal or even treason because one of the conflicting parties was supposedly about to “win”.
Those who think that Ukraine and Novorossiya is an isolated battlefield may be tempted to believe that NAF should have run all the way to Kiev. In my opinion the war in Ukraine is a proxy war led by the US with the goal of destabilizing Russia. After reading this blog for several months it seems to me that The Saker has repeatedly analyzed the developments correctly by keeping an eye on the broader picture. This broader picture, I believe, makes it necessary to see the ceasefire agreement in the context of the Wales summit.
Although legally and formally this ceasefire agreement may be de facto worthless, I think that the implications are huge, and that in the end they will turn out to be positive for DPR and LPR.
Kiev has signed an agreement with representatives of DPR and LPR – people that Kiev officially considers as “terrorists”. This is already a major disaster for the Kiev propaganda. The text may be flawed but it was a minimal agreement that could be reached in short time. If ideological disputes are now erupting among the supporters of NAF after this ceasefire, I can only imagine that such tensions are much stronger between various fanatic branches of the junta.
There is also a global component. Tactically it may be right to say that the NAF was conducting a successful counteroffensive that has stopped because of the truce. But strategically, further gains would have been risky. The narrative adopted by the West was that the fighters were not NAF forces but Russian troops. Because of this, Europe was on the verge of starting a conflict that could have directly led to WWIII. In that case, even if NAF had succeeded to proceed to Kiev, this would not have been much of a victory if most of the northern hemisphere ceased to exist after the detonation of a couple of nukes. Without this agreement, an alternative outcome could have been a Korean solution with Ukraine divided along the Dnjepr. This would probably lead to long-lasting immense military and political tensions within Ukraine and between the EU and Russia.
I think that the Kiev regime needs the war to keep itself together. It is like oxygen needed to keep the fire burning. The Kiev regime will probably disintegrate in a few months if it cannot keep up the fairy tale of an external aggressor.
By presenting herself as a peace- (or truce-) bringing superpower, Russia has made it virtually impossible for the EU representatives to join the bellicose US-led NATO rhetoric.
In my opinion this is a good solution. Probably not the final one, and certainly not a perfect one either, but possibly one of the best that could be achieved.
Dear Saker
The people who are offensive and Putin-bashing are doing precisely what they are tasked to do. To troll this site, much like they troll RT.
To hijack intelligent discussion, to write lengthy posts with seemingly conflicting points, to bury the constructive comments in a mire of gibberish…. are but some of their ploys to turn people away.
You can ignore them just as easily as I can or as you put it, bin them to /dev/null.
Keep up the great work! You are helping us true peace lovers to win the information war against the evil empire of the MSM.
@HadEnough said…
As for the “Occupy Capitol Hill” hope – the Capitol Hill is distanced from the rest of the country by large swathes of open space and protected by heavily armed check posts as the tell-tale of the war which the regime is waging on its own people…
@Mulga Mumblebrain:
By definition, fascism is, in fact, the “revolutionary” movement to save crapitalism.
Crapitalism has had 3 phases:
1. dynamic crapitalism,
2. static crapitalism,
3. decadent crapitalism – also known as supercrapitalism.
When the world is in the the supercrapitalism phase, the role of fascism is to “rescue” it.
You can check these definitions and theorems with the highest authority on fascism – the creator himself – Il Duce.
;-)
Extending JohnM’s link to Russian FM Lavrov’s interview, you will note that Lavrov makes a thinly veiled mockery of Julian Assange who is not really a ‘leaker’ because all that Assange has divulged is commonly known, according to Lavrov. ;-)
I always thought that Assange was on the CIA payroll… after all, Assange is very much anti-911 conspiracy theorists. I think the Russian FM confirmed my suspicions that Assange is just a side-show, tasked to lead freedom lovers the world over down the road to nowhere.
Hey, Saker, where are the 2 of my 3 comments??!
@Antikapitalista: Hey, Saker, where are the 2 of my 3 comments??!
Dunno. Did you use CAPS or were you rude to somebody? If not, please re-post. I sure don’t remember sending anything of yours to /dev/null/
HTH,
Cheers
The Saker
Kannst du nicht allen gefallen durch deine Tat und dein Kunstwerk,
mach’ es wenigen recht; vielen gefallen ist schlimm.
-Schiller
Dear Saker,
I expressed delight at your “RFC” the other day because it reminded me of the way software engineers and particularly the open source sector used constructive criticism … um … constructively. Apparently the same is true with political discourse even when much of the discourse is satirical or otherwise non-constructive. In any case you have done an excellent job refining your argument while addressing some of your critics.
Something else is at play for now which has informed dissatisfaction with the protocol. Just as psychologists speak of the stages of grieving their are powerful emotional effects washing over everyone involved in whatever just happened in Novorossiya and everyone knows that we are entering a new phase. I won’t pretend to understand the “stages” that lie ahead but fear and the unknown as well as the sense of loss surely come into it. Perhaps if Novorussian culture was more American they would be pounding their chests and howling at the recent full moon. I trust some are calmly counting their blessings as they prepare to build on their successes.
Please note that I’ve seen a number of comments in support of your position on blogs which lampooned your analysis by way of “straw man” arguments. Hopefully your detractors will soon have cause to notice that their “sky is falling” claim may have been off the mark.
Brian
@Brian_J
Nice quote by F. Schiller. Didn’t know that one. Wise words indeed.
@Brian_J and @TimeWillTell: Ricky Nelson said it as well or better (in his song ‘Garden Party”):
See it’s all right now
I’ve learned my lesson well
See you can’t please everyone
So you’ve got to please yourself.
It’s definitely a great Schiller quote though :)
HadEnough, I couldn’t agree more. I figure Assange is an ‘asset’ like Lee Harvey Oswald who suddenly wakes up one day to discover that his future usefulness for ‘Da Boss’ is as a fall-guy or patsy. As Lavrov said the Wikileaks stuff that poor young Chelsea was allowed to steal was low-level stuff that the establishment shit-rags that Assange collaborated with utterly misrepresented, using them mostly as propaganda for the Real Evil Empire, not against it. The juicy tid-bits showing Imperial malfeasance were ignored and suppressed. The deranged ravings of low-level US diplo-thugs were presented as concrete, cold, fact. Julian will eventually wind up in super-max, with forty years to ponder his foolishness, unlike Oswald, whose end was rather more ‘extremely prejudiced’-or less, I suppose.
Anon, 2349, thank-you for the kind words. MOA can take a flying (deleted) at the Moon, as far as I am concerned. You have the book correct, too. It is somewhere in a pile in the cabin. Antikapitalista, thank-you for your observations-they are quite invaluable, and accord with my own experience and resulting opinions. Fascism is rapidly creeping up on us here in Australia, with ever more Draconian laws against protests, against boycotts etc, and a really insane campaign of brainwashing for the Zionazi ‘Clash of Civilizations’ project by the local MSM, dominated (70%) by the Murdoch cancer. As John Pilger observed in a powerful speech I was lucky enough to attend last night, the mad-dogs (my usage, not his) of the USA have pushed us back to the brink of nuclear war. Gorbachev’s idiocy that he would ‘Take away the USA’s enemy’, is reaching its hideous final consequence. As far as the psychopaths of the ruling US and Western stooge regime elites are concerned, other people, including one another, are the eternal enemy. As long as this type dominates humanity, peace will never materialise and destruction is one misstep or one ecological catastrophe ignored away.
CharlieH, I found Antikapitalista’s three stages of capitalism rather close to my own thinking. Capitalism, I believe, is everywhere and always about exploitation and impoverishment of the many and the looting of the natural world in order to maximise profits and build up capital in a purely neoplastic fashion that cannot survive stasis or retrenchment, in order to feed the insatiable greed of the psychopathic parasites who are the capitalist elite. As McMurtrie says, it always ends up cancerous, and I think that the pre-cancerous features are observable in even its most primitive forms.
For a period from 1945 to about 1970 the capitalist elites allowed some social advance in the big capitalist states, but only out of fear of communism and socialism. Once their patience ran out, about the time of the infamous Powell Memorandum of 1971, they moved, using the hideous misanthropic ideology of the Mont Pellerin reactionaries, to destroy social mobility, extirpate unions, increase labour exploitation, loot and pillage all the common wealth through privatisations and generally establish the neo-feudalism we see in the USA and Western Europe today. At the same time they used the economic hit-men of the IMF, World Bank, WTO etc to destroy the social advances made in the de-colonised states of Africa and Latin America, and cunningly trapped them in perpetual debt slavery. Only China escaped, India, to a vastly lesser extent, Cuba, perhaps the ASEAN states (thanks to China) and Russia after Putin cleaned up the detritus of the reign of theft under the vodka receptacle, Yeltsin. The capitalist powers always resort to militarism, terror, repression and intimidation when this process of immiseration rouses the serfs to rebellion. The means can be called fascism, or Nazism, the ‘War on Terror’ or ‘moral purity’, depending on your biases, but I really do think that it is an inevitable outcome of inescapable and inherent capitalist mechanisms.
many many thanks for your analysis. Very lucid and somewhat reassuring. If i were a dadaist poet i would say ‘You are the sun that melts bullshit’ :-)