Posted on 05/26/2022 1:26:04 PM PDT by delta7
Ukraine is the Holy Grail of international corruption. That $40 billion can be a game-changer for only two classes of people: First, the US military-industrial complex, and second, a bunch of Ukrainian oligarchs and neo-connish NGOs, that will corner the black market for weapons and humanitarian aid, and then launder the profits in the Cayman Islands.
A quick breakdown of the $40 billion reveals $8.7 billion will go to replenish the US weapons stockpile (thus not going to Ukraine at all); $3.9 billion for USEUCOM (the ‘office’ that dictates military tactics to Kiev); $5 billion for a fuzzy, unspecified “global food supply chain”; $6 billion for actual weapons and “training” to Ukraine; $9 billion in “economic assistance” (which will disappear into selected pockets); and $0.9 billion for refugees.
US risk agencies have downgraded Kiev to the dumpster of non-reimbursing-loan entities, so large American investment funds are ditching Ukraine, leaving the European Union (EU) and its member-states as the country’s only option.
Few of those countries, apart from Russophobic entities such as Poland, can justify to their own populations sending huge sums of direct aid to a failed state. So it will fall to the Brussels-based EU machine to do just enough to maintain Ukraine in an economic coma – independent from any input from member-states and institutions.
These EU ‘loans’ – mostly in the form of weapons shipments – can always be reimbursed by Kiev’s wheat exports. This is already happening on a small scale via the port of Constanta in Romania, where Ukrainian wheat arrives in barges over the Danube and is loaded into dozens of cargo ships everyday. Or, via convoys of trucks rolling with the weapons-for-wheat racket. However, Ukrainian wheat will keep feeding the wealthy west, not impoverished Ukrainians.
Moreover, expect NATO this summer to come up with another monster psyop to defend its divine (not legal) right to enter the Black Sea with warships to escort Ukrainian vessels transporting wheat. Pro-NATO media will spin it as the west being ‘saved’ from the global food crisis – which happens to be directly caused by serial, hysterical packages of western sanctions.
Take, for instance, BMW board member Milan Nedeljkovic telling Reuters that “our industry accounts for about 37 percent of natural gas consumption in Germany” which will sink without Russian gas supplies.
Washington’s plan is to keep the new ‘long war’ going at a not-too-incandescent level – think Syria during the 2010s – fueled by rows of mercenaries, and featuring periodic NATO escalations by anyone from Poland and the Baltic midgets to Germany.
Last week, that pitiful Eurocrat posing as High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, gave away the game when previewing the upcoming meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council.
Borrell admitted that “the conflict will be long” and “the priority of the EU member states” in Ukraine “consists in the supply of heavy weapons.”
Then Polish President Andrzej Duda met with Zelensky in Kiev. The slew of agreements the two signed indicate that Warsaw intends to profit handsomely from the war to enhance its politico-military, economic, and cultural influence in western Ukraine. Polish nationals will be allowed to be elected to Ukrainian government bodies and even aim to become constitutional judges.
In practice, that means Kiev is all but transferring management of the Ukrainian failed state to Poland. Warsaw won’t even have to send troops. Call it a soft annexation.
The steamroller on the move
As it stands, the situation on the battlefield can be examined in this map. Intercepted communications from the Ukrainian command reveal their aim to build a layered defense from Poltava through Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhia, Krivoy Rog, and Nikolaev – which happens to be a shield for the already fortified Odessa. None of that guarantees success against the incoming Russian onslaught.
It’s always important to remember that Operation Z started on February 24 with around 150,000 or so fighters – and definitely not Russia’s elite forces. And yet they liberated Mariupol and destroyed the elite neo-Nazi Azov batallion in a matter of only fifty days, cleaning up a city of 400,000 people with minimal casualties.
While fighting a real war on the ground – not those indiscriminate US bombings from the air – in a huge country against a large army, facing multiple technical, financial and logistical challenges, the Russians also managed to liberate Kherson, Zaporizhia and virtually the whole area of the ‘baby twins,’ the popular republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russia’s ground forces commander, General Aleksandr Dvornikov, has turbo-charged missile, artillery and air strikes to a pace five times faster than during the first phase of Operation Z, while the Ukrainians, overall, are low or very low on fuel, ammo for artillery, trained specialists, drones, and radars.
What American armchair and TV generals simply cannot comprehend is that in Russia’s view of this war – which military expert Andrei Martyanov defines as a “combined arms and police operation” – the two top targets are the destruction of all military assets of the enemy while preserving the life of its own soldiers.
So while losing tanks is not a big deal for Moscow, losing lives is. And that accounts for those massive Russian bombings; each military target must be conclusively destroyed. Precision strikes are crucial.
There is a raging debate among Russian military experts on why the Ministry of Defense does not go for a fast strategic victory. They could have reduced Ukraine to rubble – American style – in no time. That’s not going to happen. The Russians prefer to advance slowly and surely, in a sort of steamroller pattern. They only advance after sappers have fully surveilled the terrain; after all there are mines everywhere.
The overall pattern is unmistakable, whatever the NATO spin barrage. Ukrainian losses are becoming exponential – as many as 1,500 killed or wounded each day, everyday. If there are 50,000 Ukrainians in the several Donbass cauldrons, they will be gone by the end of June.
Ukraine must have lost as many as 20,000 soldiers in and around Mariupol alone. That’s a massive military defeat, largely surpassing Debaltsevo in 2015 and previously Ilovaisk in 2014. The losses near Izyum may be even higher than in Mariupol. And now come the losses in the Severodonetsk corner.
We’re talking here about the best Ukrainian forces. It doesn’t even matter that only 70 percent of Western weapons sent by NATO ever make it to the battlefield: the major problem is that the best soldiers are going…going…gone, and won’t be replaced. Azov neo-Nazis, the 24th Brigade, the 36th Brigade, various Air Assault brigades – they all suffered losses of 60+ percent or have been completely demolished.
So the key question, as several Russian military experts have stressed, is not when Kiev will ‘lose’ as a point of no return; it is how many soldiers Moscow is prepared to lose to get to this point.
The entire Ukrainian defense is based on artillery. So the key battles ahead involve long-range artillery. There will be problems, because the US is about to deliver M270 MLRS systems with precision-guided ammunition, capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 70 kilometers or more.
Russia, though, has a counterpunch: the Hermes Small Operational-Tactical Complex, using high precision munitions, possibility of laser guidance, and a range of more than 100 kilometers. And they can work in conjunction with the already mass-produced Pantsir air defense systems.
The sinking ship
Ukraine, within its current borders, is already a thing of the past. Georgy Muradov, permanent representative of Crimea to the President of Russia and Deputy Prime Minister of the Crimean government, is adamant: “Ukraine in the form in which it was, I think, will no longer remain. This is already the former Ukraine.”
The Sea of Azov has now become a “sea of joint use” by Russia and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), as confirmed by Muradov.
Mariupol will be restored. Russia has had plenty of experience in this business in both Grozny and Crimea. The Russia-Crimea land corridor is on. Four hospitals among five in Mariupol have already reopened and public transportation is back, as well as three gas stations.
The imminent loss of Severodonetsk and Lysichansk will ring serious alarm bells in Washington and Brussels, because that will represent the beginning of the end of the current regime in Kiev. And that, for all practical purposes – and beyond all the lofty rhetoric of “the west stands with you” – means heavy players won’t be exactly encouraged to bet on a sinking ship.
On the sanctions front, Moscow knows exactly what to expect, as detailed by Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov: “Russia proceeds from the fact that sanctions against it are a rather long-term trend, and from the fact that the pivot to Asia, the acceleration of reorientation to eastern markets, to Asian markets is a strategic direction for Russia. We will make every effort to integrate into value chains precisely together with Asian countries, together with Arab countries, together with South America.”
On efforts to “intimidate Russia,” players would be wise to listen to the hypersonic sound of 50 Sarmat state-of-the-art missiles ready for combat this autumn, as explained by Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin.
This week’s meetings in Davos brings to light another alignment forming in the world’s overarching unipolar vs. multipolar battle. Russia, the baby twins, Chechnya and allies such as Belarus are now pitted against ‘Davos leaders’ – in other words, the combined western elite, with a few exceptions like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Zelensky will be fine. He’s protected by British and American special forces. The family is reportedly living in an $8 million mansion in Israel. He owns a $34 million villa in Miami Beach, and another in Tuscany. Average Ukrainians were lied to, robbed, and in many cases, murdered, by the Kiev gang he presides over – oligarchs, security service (SBU) fanatics, neo-Nazis. And those Ukrainians that remain (10 million have already fled) will continue to be treated as expendable.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir “the new Hitler” Putin is in absolutely no hurry to end this larger than life drama that is ruining and rotting the already decaying west to its core. Why should he? He tried everything, since 2007, on the “why can’t we get along” front. Putin was totally rejected. So now it’s time to sit back, relax, and watch the Decline of the West.
no wonder 5 million people fled immediately.
How would you like to be cannon-fodder for DC Neocon dreams of global domination?
Don’t forget that ‘big guy’ gets to ‘wet his beak’ to the tune of a modest 10%.
The elites wants all but 500 million of us dead. Nuclear war is a great way to get it, and I believe they are pushing for it.
It’s always important to remember that Operation Z started on February 24 with around 150,000 or so fighters - and definitely not Russia’s elite forces.
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Then why were their best trained elite Airborne units wiped out? BS article.
Then why were their best trained elite Airborne units wiped out? BS article.
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I don’t think you get it, it is a war of attrition, grinding down resources ( Vlad has huge uncalled upon military resources), Ukraine factories, arms, weapons depots all getting destroyed. No production, nothing, ecomony halted. Vlad will do as he said.
As I stated before, Vlad will simply bury his dead and move on with the Crimea and Donbass provinces “ liberated”. The Ukies will bury their dead, then have to move on with rebuilding their destroyed nation for decades, with US taxpayers footing the bill ( minus 10 percent for senile Joe). The corrupted little begger Zelensky is already on record calling for $5-600 billion in “ rebuilding “ Ukraine.
Don’t get sucked in.
Russian Navy removes mine danger in Mariupol port waters — Defense Ministry
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4066408/posts
Times of India, 5/25/22: “Moscow says Mariupol port reopened after demin ing”
Yawn
That confirms Vlads “ intentions”, he could very easily have flattened Ukraine,militarily and economically, he hasn’t- yet. Most westerners have not been able to grasp “ special operation “, very carefully worded but has revealed his intentions, not the same as all out war.
That said, some of his Congress ( Duma) is starting to support a full blown mobilization and war declaration. Vlad is most certainly exercising much restraint.
Good points.
Great article, close to the truth.
You asked a dumb question which you cannot answer, but can only answer by stating the obvious.
Go back to your FSB handlers and ask to be reassigned.
“NATO vs Russia: what happens next?”
Russia loses.
Again.
After the pictures of the atrocious war crimes came out from Bucha and other areas that the Russians had occupied, and were confirmed by investigators from many countries, the West collectively decided that Russia could not be allowed to win, and reward such barbarity.
There will be no peace for Russian forces in the Ukraine, and no piece of the Ukraine for Russia in a settlement.
They can fight that tar baby until they bleed themselves dry Militarily and economically. NATO just has to write checks, that are much cheaper than fighting Russia directly.
There will be no peace for Russian forces in the Ukraine,
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Lughansk and Donetsk provinces are Russian, been ethnic, Russian speakers for centuries. The LDR and DNR states are fighting rather well against the Ukies for their Independence. Their troops had a major part in securing Marioupol, as did Kadyrov and his band of Chechens.
“The Ukie war cheerleaders would do well to get off the western MSM bottle and read both sides- reality always wins.”
With the impending liberation of entire Donbas, the West will have to soon decide how much more of Ukraine it plans to cede to Russia.
Most interesting.
“Lughansk and Donetsk provinces are Russian, been ethnic, Russian speakers for centuries. The LDR and DNR states are fighting rather well against the Ukies for their Independence. Their troops had a major part in securing Marioupol, as did Kadyrov and his band of Chechens.”
I think a lot of the Neocons here don’t even realize that this is more a CIVIL WAR than an invasion. If it were an invasion, the lights in Kiev, for example, would have been out on Day 1, just with the Hypersonics. What Russia is doing is helping to liberate Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine from a horrific and brutal government...otherwise there wouldn’t even be LDR and DNR militias, and Russia would have to do the fighting completely on their own...and they’re not, they’re fighting hand-in-hand with those militias.
Helpful information:
Russian strategic culture: Why Russia does things the way it does
By Martti J. Kari, former intelligence Colonel in the Finnish Defence Forces
“What Is Truth?
The Russian idea of truth is interesting. After all, language tells how people think, how they perceive the world, and how society thinks. The United States has two words for positive rights: “liberty” and “freedom.” Russia has two words for truth and three words for lie. This is certainly not a coincidence.
There’s the word “pravda,” which is truth but not absolute truth. Rather, the kind of truth that gets rid of awkward or bad situations. It’s like tactical truth. “Istina” is the opposite of a lie. Istina is true, as true as can be. But pravda is rather… sometimes it can be true, at other times not so true.
There are three words for lie. “Vranyo” is a white lie but on the strategic level. It is also kind of a way to get rid of nasty situations. The Russians know it, but we don’t realize it. We think that there are only truth and lies in the world. It’s just black and white. But the lie in Russia was born under Mongol rule; violence and lying were the way to survive. This tradition has been in their system ever since.
Russia has the word “krugovaya poruka,” or gang guarantee. It means that when we have some set of people with a common goal. Be it the Kremlin leadership or the Russian armed forces or whatever. We have a common goal so I step out of the circle and lie to an outsider. My gang hears that I lie but they don’t judge me as a liar because they understand that I am using tactical truth (vranjo) to achieve the greater goals of our gang. The use of tactical truth, or a lie, is accepted if it is done for the benefit of the in-group. Just like you can steal when you don’t steal too much or from the wrong guy. You also get to lie if you lie for the sake of the gang.
It’s a form of doublethink, as Orwell showed in 1984. At the kitchen table, different things are said than outside the home. Everyone understands that Bob speaks very differently around the kitchen table than he does in public. Everyone understands why he does so. The in-group creates their own story. For example, “We had nothing to do with the poisoning of Skripal.” Or that “We have nothing to do with the shooting down of the Malaysian plane.” This is based on the fact that we in the West, under the rule of law, when we make an argument we need to be able to unequivocally prove our claim to be true. But when Russia makes an argument, there are always small gaps left here and there. We Westerners start to think about it, “Is that really so?”
The notion of lie and truth works differently in Russia. For example, in 1939, Russia installed a puppet government in Finland. They pushed the narrative that the working population of Finland was tired of Marshall Mannerheim’s “fascist junta” even though it was the rightful government of Finland. When Russian troops invaded Finland, they noticed it wasn’t so. We don’t realize the use of Russian tactical truth.
When they went to Crimea, Putin said, “They are not Russian forces.” If our commander-in-chief of the Finnish Defence Forces were to deny that a Finnish soldier was a Finnish soldier, that would lead to unfortunate situations. The soldier would go on a strike or get depressed or something. But the Russians were proud that the president was able to use tactical truth. Putin said, “They are not Russian forces.” We started thinking here in the west, “Well, who are they then? Where did they come from?” This gave Russia the two or three days needed to take over Crimea completely. Then Putin remembered, “Oh, they were Russian troops after all.”
Or the shooting down of a Malaysian plane. It has been proven unequivocally that the missile that shot that plane down was from a Russian Air Defense Brigade. The wildest stories that were moving in Russia were that, when the situation was at its hottest, the people were already dead there on the plane. This story was spread. Those people who died in the accident did not die in the attack but they were already dead (before the missile struck). But no one questioned it because the Russians knew it was a tactical truth. They did not question how the captain agreed to fly a plane full of dead people, about to be shot down. No one questioned it because they knew it was a tactical truth.
Or, in the Donbass region, brave miners fought the “fascist junta”. However, some so-called civilian protesters had apparently forgotten to remove their Russian Armed Forces tags. Or “We have nothing to do with the hacking of the DNC, the US Democratic Party.” In fact, they got caught, both the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service, and the FSB, the civilian intelligence, were both caught on the servers. Or that “We don’t have anything to do with the poisoning of Skripal.” Except that there was a Russian intelligence colonel who had received the Hero of the Russian Federation honorary medal from Putin. There was also a doctor present who was tasked with making sure Chepiga, who was performing the poisoning operation on Skripal would not be exposed to the poison himself.
The funniest thing here is that Chepiga’s grandmother, who lives near Arkhangelsk, in her foolishness had published a picture of Chepiga receiving the medal from Putin himself. You’ll never guess what happened to Grandma after that? Grandma disappeared.
We need to understand that the use of Russian truth and falsehood is completely different from our thinking. If they say something, they won’t necessarily mean it but the tactical truth is meant as an instrument to slip through a slightly open doorway to get out of a nasty situation.”
The latest:
“ Luhansk Claims Around 8,000 Ukrainian Soldiers Taken POWs In Donbass Region Amid War
“Currently, there’s active advancement towards Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, there are lot of small fortified areas, and number will grow,” said Miroshnik.
Ukrainian prisoners in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LNR and DNR) taken prisoners of war now stands at about 8,000, Ambassador of the Lugansk People’s Republic Rodion Miroshnik told the Soloviev Live on May 26. “There are a lot of Ukrainian POWs,” claimed Miroshnik, adding that more Ukrianian service members have been captured on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic. “We also have a lot, and now the total number is around 8,000. This is a lot, and literally hundreds are being added daily,” Luhansk People’s Republic’s Rodion Miroshnik said.
‘There will be more POWs in eastern Donbass region..’: Luhansk Ambassador
Miroshnik further warned that there will be more POWs in the eastern Donbass region as their commanders are deploying the units of territorial defense in the region. Russian troops recently shifted focus to Ukraine’s eastern oblasts to force Kyiv into surrendering part of the country’s territory. Ukrainian army units have been concentrated heavily in eastern Ukraine, the contentious region where they have been fighting with Moscow-backed separatists for over eight years. Moscow has been planning to encircle and destroy the Ukrainian forces in the country’s industrial heartland to potentially split it into two. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asserted in a recorded address that his country will not cede even an inch of the Ukrainian territory to Russia as fighting continues to rage.
“Currently, there is an active advancement towards Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, there are a lot of small fortified areas, and, in my opinion, the number will grow,” said Ambassador of the Luhansk People’s Republic Rodion Miroshnik.
Luhansk ambassador went on to iterate that the number of Ukraine POWs and those killed will increase, since now instead of the trained units of Ukraine’s armed forces or the nationalist battalions, the territorial defense battalions are being deployed to the frontline.” The ambassador asserted that those fighters are the people who were handed foreign weapons. “And they were essentially promised that they will defend their vegetable lots, stand at roadblocks somewhere about two thousand kilometers away from the line of engagement,” Slavyansk, Kramatorsk said. These fighters were brought to Donbass in a provocative move, and now they either surrender or die on a rather large scale because they cannot wage this war, he added.
READ | Russia-Ukraine war: Crimean official says ‘Sea of Azov is forever lost to Ukraine’
The fighting in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics has intensified with massive bombardments and shelling by Russia’s troops and the Ukrainian armed forces. Ahead of the invasion on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin had declared the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts as “independent.” Russian State Duma and the Federation Council on February 22 ratified laws acting in response to heads of the Donbass republics, according to Putin’s televised speech. Putin justified the “special military operation” saying that it was to “demilitarize” Ukraine and a response to genocide committed by Ukraine on Russian speaking population for eight years.
Finally it appears more “ reality” is being reported. The western MSM has to finally throttle down the western war cheerleading and misinformation as to avoid embarrassment when Vlad closes the Donbass pocket and the Ukies start retreating all the way back to the Dniepner.
I have noticed the western fantasy pieces like the Ukie ghost pilot shooting down a squadron of Ivan fighters and Ukie grandmothers destroying twenty T72’s has been absent from western MSM fake news.
That said, the DNR and LDR have earned a reputation with the third rate Ukie Territorial Defense Units, not UA regulars- the problem now is the Territorial Defence units were never armed like the UA regulars and seem to feel they were made cannon fodder by the little beggar Zelensky. Numerous reports out that they were never supplied with our US weapons , just small arms, no support what so ever ( could be Vlad destroyed them enroute, which would make sense)
Time will tell,but Zelensky will have to answer to a lot of betrayal questions.
no wonder 5 million people fled immediately.
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The western MSM stated more like 6.5 million, many males of fighting age. The Kiev mayor is on record early on warning the Ukie males of fighting age they should not leave as they will be turned back if found exiting the country and immediately drafted into service.
That said, the little beggar Zelensky has had a “ treason” problem, as we know Ukraine is approximately a little less than half Russian speakers ( ethnic Russians), many were suspected of giving information to the Ivan’s about the foreign fighters barracks, locations of ammo dumps, fuel depots, etc….all to be expected in a civil war.
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