UPDATE
I no longer have a source with access to Putin’s inner circle. I did not pretend to understand the astonishing episode of the Wagner march on Moscow at the time, and plainly it was impossible, if the Russian and Belarussian official narrative were remotely true, that Prigozhin could be allowed to carry on living.
Well, at least I got that right. But I still am no closer to understanding the entire dynamic. Unless Prigozhin has been effectively a prisoner these last few months, it seems incomprehensible that he did not flee.
To move from something I do not understand to something I do.
In comments below the line here, and even more so in replies to the post of this article on twitter, I am intensely irritated by the sheer stupidity of the lines trotted out by the Putin cult.
Ukraine has not lost 400,000 dead. That is half of British Empire casualties in World War 1 – in one year? It is 80% of the size of the Ukrainian armed forces in 2021. To try to give a meaningful comparison, those units of the Iraqi Republican Guard destroyed in the initial 2003 onslaught by vastly superior forces using massive firepower, lost about 20% dead in the most extreme cases. They had broken long before that many were killed in flight.
There would be evidence of fields piled up with thousands of bodies if 400,000 were dead. In all the drone and headcam footage we have seen, there is nothing remotely like that. It is simply a quite extraordinary example of the Big Lie technique. Ukrainian casualties have been serious, but nothing like on that scale.
I wrote below in the original article that ludicrous casualty figures have been claimed by both sides. I really do not need idiots doing so here.
The “Putin is perfect” narrative claims that Russia has failed to entirely subdue Ukraine because a) it never intended to b) Ukraine had an immensely powerful army at the start of the conflict.
Both claims are utter nonsense. Russia sent a column of its finest troops and armour to Kiev from the North at the start of this stage of invasion. It also sent special forces ahead into Kiev with the object of decapitating the Ukrainian command structure. The ground had been prepared by very large sums of money paid to key Ukrainian officials and generals.
The aim was regime change.
The whole was based on very faulty intelligence that there would be little resistance and the Ukrainian people would welcome regime change. Much of the money to have been laid out in bribes had in fact been stolen within the Russian FSB (something, I would add from personal experience, MI6 is not immune from either).
The initial Russian assault on Kiev was a costly failure, with many of Russia’s best forces very badly damaged. The attempt to deny this is pathetic. We all saw it.
Elsewhere the Russian advance meant much better. This is largely because:
It is nonsense to state that Ukraine had very powerful armed forces. In 2021 the Ukrainian army was equipped almost entirely with largely outdated ex-Soviet hardware. There were huge problems in supply chains caused by quite astonishing levels of Ukrainian corruption (though this was true of both sides). A Ukrainian command structure riddled by co-option of large, supply favoured, units of Nazis, which ran on bragadaccio, was hardly efficient either.
The Russian invasion of its far smaller, weaker and corruption-riddled neighbour has been a demonstration of Russian weakness.
Of course Russia will ultimately win – Russia is a lot bigger and it is taking on a smaller, underdeveloped and scarcely functional mafia state.
But that this is all an example of Putin’s genius, and casualty rates favour Russia by ten to one, are claims so divorced from reality they can only come from those who are utterly delusional – or paid to put them out.
END OF UPDATE
For well over a decade, we were used to nightly shots on our television news of British and US forces, in heavy combat gear, storming across desert landscapes in cloud of dust or firing heavy machine guns over the top of mud walls.
These shots were provided by “embedded journalists” with the UK and US forces, swaggering around in the same kind of body armour and helmets as the troops, often distinguishable only by a blue bib with “press” written on it.
Thankfully, we see almost no such screen footage of the proxy war NATO is fighting against Russia in Ukraine. War porn has almost disappeared from our screens. We saw a lot of it when the failed Russian column to Kiev was destroyed in the early part of the war, but since then, very little.
The answer is of course not hard to find. The ratio of Iraqi dead to American dead in the second Iraq war was about 200 to 1, and in the “triumphant” early advance was still higher than that. The embedded journalists travelling as part of US or UK armed forces in their armoured vehicles were posing as heroes, but in little real danger at that stage.
The US forces were a real danger to non-embedded journalists. 16 journalists and 6 other media workers were acknowledged as killed by US forces in Iraq, while scores of other Iraqi journalists disappeared with no certainty as to who killed them. By contrast 2 “embedded” journalists were killed.
The “embedded journalists” were of course not real journalists at all, they were simply functioning as actors, presenting images of the exhilarating triumph of colonial massacre of a technologically inferior people, to a home audience that lapped it up.
By contrast, being in the front line with Ukrainian troops now would be very dangerous indeed. The very tiny number of journalists who have done it are indeed worthy of the name. Streaming along as a passenger in a glamourised turkey shoot in Iraq is much more congenial than being embedded with troops in Ukraine who are fighting where the kill ratio is somewhere close to even.
(There are utterly ludicrous enemy casualty claims by both Ukraine and Russia, which should be treated with equal contempt).
The territorial gain in the vaunted Ukrainian counter-offensive is of the same order as that in the notoriously futile Battle of the Somme. It doesn’t make for glorious television.
You may have noted a repeated Western propaganda meme, that very often when a Russian missile strikes hundreds of miles from the frontline, it is frequently said to have landed close to a hotel, bar or cafe used by western journalists.
I am not sure this is the propaganda win they think this is.
The Ukraine war is going extremely well for those who are making billions from the arms sales and increases to western defence budgets that have resulted. It is going extremely badly for ordinary people all over the world, who have suffered the inflationary and other consequences of the disruption of trade and production and the population flows.
Our rulers would love it to go on like this for years – in fact a quick Ukrainian victory would be a disaster for the profiteers.
This war is going nowhere on the ground. I do not expect a Russian winter offensive will be significantly more successful than the Ukrainian spring offensive. It would be impossible to display frontline coverage that did not demonstrate both abject horror and utter futility. Which is why there is almost none.
I am grateful we are seeing so little war porn on our screens. But I know why.
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So perhaps another (Gabon) pro-western former colonial african state is about to be toppled?
One family has led Gabon for 56 years. Can this election bring a new era?
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/8/26/one-family-has-led-gabon-for-56-years-can-this-election-bring-a-new-era
I took a quick look on the pro-western “Democracy index” site whereas Gabon is considered an authoritarian state
So for 56 years the same people have ruled Gabon and then you have a military posse trying to topple this authoritarian dynasty, what is the reaction in the western media? Oh condemnations and worry – no sympathy with the people — could you imagine if a pro-russian/iranian/syrian-what-have-you former colonial state that have ruled for 56 years were about to be toppled? Well we all know the reporting would be completely reversed!
In Ukraine we keep hearing 24/7 that Russia try to keep their sphere of influence in a neighbouring country and here you have African states trying to rid themselves of their former colonial masters sitting thousands of miles away…but no support by the hypocrite West which would most likely call this a coup, but Maidan…oh that was democractic 100%!
When I happen to hear or listen to MSM these days I laugh at their stupidity and their propagandized and arrogant worldview. No wonder approval of their reporting is steadily going down.
How long have/has Putin and his sidekick Medvedev been in power?
You don’t need a biological family running a country if you control the “security services”…
Is that Melrose?
Putin had been in power on and off for 20+ years, do you and western states support that or what is your point? Because that was my point, why are you and the west supportive of a 20+ year authoritarian state in Africa?
Is that Jack?
I don’t support dictatorships or authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, Turkey or Africa.
Russia is an authoritarian regime. So was Gabon and so were the other Francophone countries now run by their military.
And of course they will remain authoritarian regimes, just run by thugs in uniform..
You must be thoroughly disgusted by this⬇ in that case and will surely condemn the UK political-media class as some of the most disingenuous frauds on the planet.
https://declassifieduk.org/britain-backs-most-of-the-worlds-repressive-regimes-new-analysis-shows/
Let’s see..
Nope. To nobody’s surprise JK vehemently condemns only what a venal British establishment tells him to abhor.
Q. What do you call a centrist with no consistent set of principles, no intellectual integrity and a completely unfounded sense of superiority?
A. A centrist.
They’re all like that.
A map of Ukraine showing in which provinces the (mainly) Western companies are investing in food & agriculture
https://ukraineinvest.gov.ua/industries/agrifood/
(lower part of page)
Moon of Alabama on war casualties, medical aid problems & artillery shell ratio:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/08/ukraine-sitrep-topography-shapes-the-battle-field-abysmal-medical-service-causes-death.html#comments
MoAs final statement of the post:
“This only confirms my take that the 10 to 1 artillery superiority on the Russian side and other factors, like medical services, guarantee that the numbers of Russian casualties in the war are much lower than the Ukrainian ones.”
re: on RU artillery superiority, EL PAIS, engl.
March 1, 2023
“Ukraine outgunned 10 to 1 in massive artillery battle with Russia”
https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-02-20/155mm-howitzers-the-nato-weapon-proving-crucial-to-ukraines-defense.html
“According to data from the European Commission to which EL PAÍS has had access, Russia fires between 40,000 and 50,000 artillery shells per day, compared to 5,000-6,000 Ukrainian forces expend. The Estonian government, which has been one of largest contributors to Kyiv’s war effort, puts the average use of artillery at between 20,000 and 60,000 Russian shells per day, and 2,000 to 7,000 Ukrainian rounds, according to a document sent to EU Member States by Tallinn, to which this newspaper has had access. These numbers equate to between 600,000 and 1.8 million Russian shells fired per month, compared to between 60,000 and 210,000 by Ukrainian artillery.”
(…)
In a single day in Ukraine, Russia fires the equivalent of the monthly artillery production rate of Europe, which stands at between 20,000 and 25,000 shells per month according the Estonian analysis, which also notes that the potential exists to increase production sevenfold.”
“The Spectator” apparently has published a first piece on the medical aid issue:
“Ukraine’s real killing fields: An investigation into the war’s first aid crisis”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ukraines-real-killing-fields-an-investigation-into-the-wars-first-aid-crisis/
MoA comments: “The medical evacuation on the Russian side is reportedly much better.(…)I have no way to verify that data. But I also have not found even one complain about medical frontline services on the Russian side while the sorry state of medical help on the Ukrainian side has received some notice.”
Moon of Alabama is a good source of commentary.
YES!
but one has to dig for the sane first. Or use it regularly to know who to follow after a while.
and its a good source as archive. If one knows what to look for.
Part of the problem is that west cannot read Putin:
Putin’s attitude to Western sanctions shocked Scholz – Bild
https://swentr.site/news/582022-putin-scholz-macron-ukraine/
Biden doesn’t understand Russians – Orban
https://swentr.site/news/582075-orban-biden-misunderstands-russians/
In fact Putin is not hard to read at all just hear what he is saying and you will understand where he stand.
Too much to ask for apparently…
It´s part of a bigger problem which has kept me busy since Febr. 22.
Before I thought its the usual superficial tabloid group think selling sensation as news. But that wouldn´t explain how the intellectual class has become the hardcore centre of this ideology in the past 18 months.
So I figure it must be deep-seated racism, or at least far-reaching prejudice.
If Finnish have a problem with too much alcohol or a high suicide rate we see that as an expression of friendliness and too much sensitivity.
If Russians have too many drunkards and a high suicide rate its proof of their primitive life style, their lack of manners and culture and their midieval Russian “soul”.
If Swedish wear animal fur its because of low temperatures.
If Russians wear animal fur its their backwardness.
If the Brits, the French, the US talk about their nation, nationalism is a sign of pride and reliability.
If RUs talk about their nation, nationalism is totalitarian and a threat to the rest of the world.
If MI-6 sends out spies to do covert operations those are gentlemen.
If FSB sends out spies to do covert operations those are malign sociopaths without human emotions.
If New York ballerinas are practicing their feet are blue.
If Moscow ballerinas are practicing their feet are full of blood.
When the Russian President was drunk dancing and following our oders he was a dancing bear and a nice cozy guy.
When the Russian President was not drunk dancing and not following our orders he was the evil sick genius planning to kill everyone and take over the world.
You think “Rocky IV” was just a movie? Think again.
This is a funny list by former Saturday Night Live writing staff Jon Schwarz from The Intercept with everything not yet sanctioned:
“We Still Need to Ban These 10 Russian Things
Sure, we’ve expelled Russian cats from international competitions and renamed Russian dressing. But there’s so far to go.”
April 2, 2022
https://theintercept.com/2022/04/02/russia-ban-censorship/
AG
Exactly, good points,
I follow up with some examples too:
When the Soviet union accidentally shot down an airliner (KAL 007) in 1983 it was no mistake according to the west but a pre-planned evil act.
When the US struck Iran Air Flight 655 some years later, it was a simple mistake according to the west.
When western media find a russian soldier with a swastika tattooed on his arm, west have a whole article about it.
When Ukraine have every other soldiers with nazi-tattoos and chevrons and when even Zelenky have meetings with real actual nazis (https://swentr.site/russia/581278-zelensky-azov-neo-nazi-biletsky/) west do not even report it.
When a russian missile accidentally kill some civilians you hear it for the rest of the day in the news, prime-time.
When ukrainian drones are repeatedly attacking civilian targets killing innocent russians, you hear west saying nothing but understanding of the obvious terrorism.
If Russia offer to build a new gas pipeline to the west to build better relations and provide EU with chap gas, the west refuse and claim this is a evil plot by Russia that they ” weaponize ” the gas.
If Russia say they plan to curb gas deliveries to the EU, that is proof of an evil plot too!
When Russia is accused of warcrimes by any so called human-right org. you hear condemnations and that this is the true face of the russians.
When Ukraine is accused of warcrimes, you hear the same west condemn the human right org. for their report on Ukraine!
(https://www.npr.org/2022/08/06/1116179764/experts-widely-condemn-amnesty-international-report-alleging-ukrainian-war-crime)
If russian sportsmen/women are being successful, it is proof of either foul-play or that these russians are forced to exercise and train to physical exhaustion in secret gulags by evil sadistic trainers.
When western sportsmen/women are being successful, well then it a sign of great free willpower that should be hailed.
If one see commentary on the internet, commentary that agree with the russian standpoint, that is proof of an evil web of propaganda troll activity stemming from shady buildings in Russia that must be put under state surveillance.
If one see commentary on the internet that support US, Nato, Ukraine, well then it is simply the truth according to the west.
One can go on forever, in the west this old, outdated phenomenon below still rule obviously:
If you believe in the Manichean idea of dualism, you tend to look at things as having two sides that are opposed. To Manicheans, life can be divided neatly between good or evil, light or dark, or love and hate. When you see Manichean, think “two.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism
yep!!!!
(As the old joke goes: “Lets beat him up, he has a hat on.” Next day: “Boss he has no hat on.” “He forgot it. So lets beat him up because of that.”)
AG
Haha, yeah that remind me of another thing.
It is when the west claim that the all-controlling Russia is about to meddle in a election to help candidate y to win against candidate x.
The elections is then over and and candidate y did not win.
Well west then proceed to claim it it must be because Russia really wanted candidate x to win or that Russia have of course found out another way of meddling that west simply have not found about yet.
That is, whatever Russia is doing or not doing, they will be blamed for both. If we have no proof that Putin killed Jesus, well that is because we simply have not found the evidence yet.
+1 Craig Murray suffers from selective presentation of information.
I’m surprised CM hasn’t mud shovels and washing machine chips. Quoting extreme examples (eg 400k is dead plus wounded iirc) in order to bolster an argument that Russia is a corrupt Mafia State is rather rich coming from someone who has been on the receiving and of UK Mafia style corruption which ended up getting him 6 months in prison. Old habits and prejudices are hard to shake off.
Kaiama (I am not English or Scottish) in your opinion, how long do you believe that a Russian who publicly criticized Putin, the Putin regime and Putin’s war would remain at liberty?
For all the “Zapod”‘s many faults, citizens are rarely dragged off the streets by uniformed thugs for criticizing the government.
In the Russkyi Mir, things are ….. different.
I am going to need a source for citizens being dragged off the streets by uniformed thugs. Sounds like you watch too many Hollywood films. You did remind me of Zelenskiys regime though, not allowing Russian songs to be sung with threats of disappearance. Saw a card reading streamer get visited by the uniformed thugs for giving a tarot card reading about Zelenskiy. Countless of armed thugs grabbing Ukrainians off the streets for cannon fodder. and this is not counting his extracurricular murdering of citizens in former Ukr. If I was a ‘current thing’ supporter I would stay away with such accusations of Mr Putin, at least while his foes aren’t some actual wannabe Nazis, trying to get the fourth Reich going. The internet seems to have been a bad thing for the world, could you.. take some weeks off it please? Social media in general.. thanks!
This is you second time you mentioned Russkyi Mir.
I have heard of Pax Americana but never of Russky Mir. Are you making it up?
Russian World==Russkyi Mir.
Oof, it also sounds like you missed Mr Murray latest article. This is hilarious! The “‘Zapod'” really did create a fake boogeyman from Russia/China so they can get all Gestapo with you and claim the other side is doing it, if we dont, they will get us!! You’re only safe in the West because you only feel enboldened to repeat safe MSM opinions, try speaking against ‘current thing’.(I mean loudspeaker and protest, getting airtime, getting your accounts cancelled on any soc media[cept tiktok]) I will personally write to you in prison, wont be that lonely! Bigger oof for your “‘Zapods'” freedom, 18 yrs jailtime for a unannounced field trip of Capitol Hill. Mmm O can smell the “‘Zapods'” freedom from here.
Hello Shaun. That’s a bit incoherent if you don’t mind my saying so?
The 18 years comment refers to sentences passed on some “Proud Boys”?
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/31/politics/proud-boys-biggs-sentencing/index.html
Hardly peaceful protest.
as far as I remember Chris Hedges´ comment back in Febr. – this CNN item fails to mention that half of the Proud Boys on trial were snitches working for the FBI to spy on Antifa – of all groups – at the same time.
If I find the Hedges piece I will post it. Its important, I thought, since he points out that these court rulings will be significant regarding future rulings under non-Democratic administrations, that is e.g. against leftists, and then they could very well turn out much worse. Or so he argued…
@ JK , dont mind, no. Incoherent thoughts do not deserve coherent responses. somehow you linked it together though, proud of ya! Nazi supporters deserve nothing but frontline action, do check yourself before spewing trash, thanks!
since it concerns GB:
daily “taz” has a prop piece on Ben Wallace, just for the fun of it:
“Departure of a great politician – Ben Wallace saw the war coming, and he pioneered Ukraine solidarity. With him, Great Britain loses a piece of its radiance.”
https://taz.de/Verteidigungsminister-Ben-Wallace/!5952859/
(why post it? Because this very paper used to be one of the major progressive independent papers in Germany. Basically still is owned by its subscribers, who are mostly, now, rich Green and so-called left – thus money is not always the issue.
It’s deeply embarassing. Especially considering what kind of people used to edit this paper, like Hans-Christian Ströbele, a former lawyer of the terrorist RAF, and leading Green Party MP who died last year, or Bascha Mika, a progressive feminist very early on, without any false ideology, who eventually left the paper. And many others.)
“Ben Wallace is a phenomenon. Personally unimpressive, the British conservative has repeatedly shone politically. What other European defense minister in early 2022 would have dared to raise the question in an article on the Ukraine crisis of what it would mean “for all of us in Europe” if “on a cold January or February night, Russian forces again invaded sovereign Ukraine”?
That was on Jan. 17, 2022, more than a month before Russia’s invasion, the day Britain pledged anti-tank weapons to Kyiv while Germany was still hoping for Putin’s kindness and sending its foreign minister to Moscow. Ben Wallace’s analytical vision, coupled with Boris Johnson’s political instincts, made Britain a pioneer of international Ukrainian solidarity at the time.”
“The new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, did not begrudge him any further increase in defense spending. And in the next elections in 2024, his constituency fell victim to the regular demographic adjustment of constituency boundaries.”
“Nevertheless, with Wallace’s resignation, the United Kingdom has lost some of the charisma that made it temporarily the leading European nation, at least at the beginning of the Ukraine war.”
Alexander Mercouris today stated that Ben Wallace “had adopted the case of Ukraine as his own” and apparently over his “passion” had a conflict with some in the US admin. which cost him his job and his prospect as new NATO SG.
May be correct may be not.
AG, In the days of the British Empire, Wallace’s reported behaviour was known as “going native”, as in
“What about Wallace?”
“No, I don’t think so, he’s gone native about Ukraine”
Another more famous case is “Lawrence of Arabia” who displayed his Arab sympathies in his book,”The Seven Pillars of Wisdom” fairly clearly. The book is an account of Lawrence’s role in the Middle East during the WW1 and in particular his role in the”Arab Revolt”, a somewhat failed attempt to create a new order from the Ottoman Empire using the Sharif of Mecca’s sons as the kings of the newly created countries ie Jordan, Iraq etc.
I think the implication is that the person has acquired emotional baggage concerning a certain country, calling their “objectivity” into question. They see the people/place as having value in itself, not as a geopolitical chess piece to be sacrificed when the moment is propitious, as imperial realpolitik demands
what would an “adult” assessment be of Lawrence regarding an updated view with Global South background knowledge?
Frankly his book is standing behind me, just like a pillar, and moved as little, for lack of time.
p.s. speaking of him King Muhamad Ali of Egypt comes to my mind but that´s again another pot of problems…
It is hard to imagine how famous TE Lawrence was after WW1. Winners need heroes more than the losers – I get the feeling that it was almost cult-like adulation. Lawrence got a job teaching at a uni (Oxford I think) and is mentioned in poet Robert Graves’ autobiography “Goodbye To All That”, a striking description of Graves’ part in the carnage on the Western Front during WW1 and it’s aftermath. In this memoir Graves portrays Lawrence as kind, clever and a righter of wrongs – a friend of the weak.. He details an incident when Lawrence humiliates an intellectual bully, a professor, in front of Graves and several other students. It is a telling description of Lawrence, the person and the myth and the tension between an individual and the shadow they cast in the world.
At a later point in Lawrence’s life he joined the RAF under a fake name, apparently to escape his past as one of the British Empire’s most famous paladins. His awareness of the betrayal of the Arabs coloured the rest of his life. He died in a motorcycle accident in 1935 and there are several sources who believe he was assassinated, though this is a minority view.
Several right-wing writers/journalists have recently been trying to claim him for their own, suggesting he was murdered because of a move towards Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know. At any rate I prefer the image Graves offers rather than a proto-fascist Lawrence that those like Ron Unz and several other modern sources suggest.
His book, “the Seven Pillars of Wisdom” is worth at least a look IMO, there is something about it that I am unable to pin down or sketch but there is definitely something there.
“Is that a man in there?”
Dr Blair in John Carpenter’s The Thing
Anatol Lieven with a good piece on Sarkozy´s latest statements (its funny what kind of people one has to side with nowadays)
” Sarkozy vilified for speaking uncomfortable truths about Ukraine – The former French president offers a diplomatic way out — the commentariat responds with reflexive ‘pro-Putin’ invectives.”
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/08/31/sarkozy-vilified-for-speaking-uncomfortable-truths-about-ukraine/
Interesting apart from the other thoughts, this small insight:
“On French President Emmanuel Macron’s previous efforts to negotiate with Putin, Sarkozy said that these had been correct, but that Macron had failed to follow up with any concrete proposals for compromise, partly “due to pressure from eastern Europeans.”
If so, I doubt that this pressure from the small Eastern European states took place without coordination with D.C. or against D.C.s will.
The ties there are way too close.
So that would be another example for sabotage of possible peaceful resolution.
Which again forces the question: How long could France and Germany have withstood an expansion of NATO?
p.s. which brings us to Tucker Carlson´s latest fearmongering – or is it not? – over a hot War with the US. Is it to increase his viewer numbers? Is it paranoia? Or is there substantial evidence for a shift?
Yes good on Sarkozy, more and more people begin to say what “we” have said for months. I wish that another veteran ex-leader – Mrs Merkel – had the same courage to speak out, Merkel was not perfect but she was way way better than the ridiculous Olaf Scholz that lack the vital diplomatic approach/trait a great leader need to have on foreign policy topics, instead he is a proud lackey for US interests.
Recently he called for more arms to Ukraine and blasted pro-peace demonstrators.
Scholz wants ‘immediately effective’ weapons for Ukraine
Most citizens supposedly support Berlin’s “well-thought-out” military and financial aid to Kiev, the German chancellor has claimed
https://swentr.site/news/582106-germany-immediately-effective-weapons-ukraine/
‘Fallen angels from hell’ – Scholz slams critics of his Ukraine policies
The German chancellor told an event in Munich that his detractors were posing as peace doves
https://swentr.site/news/581597-germany-scholz-booed-weapons-ukraine/
Frankly I haven´t followed Scholz´ statements.
I guess I just don´t care. It´s so meaningless.
People who used to know this machine internally say that Scholz, his aide Schmidt, et al. have no clue how to solve things.
I assume it´s essentially trying to get over the finish-line next election. Just like the Dems in the US.
As to “Mama” Merkel. I could be wrong but she had the luck of history not to be in charge any more by 2022.
I always remind people of her deal with Biden in 2021, that Nordstream would be finished in case RU attacked.
That deal was thus agreed on long before the war did indeed start (as “envisioned” by Biden´s administration.)
Did she enforce Minsk? no. Did she push the EU to enforce it? no. Did she stop arming Ukraine? no. What did she do when NSA bugging her phone became public? Nothing. Did she stop delivery of new WMDs to US bases? no.
So what DID she accomplish which would be out of the ordinary.
(I only mean to point out a few things from my domestic POV. Hope you don´t mind that.)
What would Sarkozy do were he now in Macron´s place?
Sarkozy was in prison. He has not many people to stay loyal to any more.
“Nothing more dangerous than a man who has nothing to loose” – good phrase in every Hollywood B-crime-movie.
And Merkel is retired. Why piss off possible hosts in nice holiday resorts?
p.s. as usual but I forget to express it, thx for the links!
AG
I just felt that about her, generally speaking. Merkel was much more cautious and diplomatic, she was like the only one Putin could talk to, and she could speak russian (and Putin could speak german), they had a great bond from what I understand.
Russia have also said just this quite recently:
Former Russian President Laments Low Quality of Current European Leaders
“I don’t mean to offend anyone, but it’s obvious to everyone that Mario Draghi is no Silvio Berlusconi and Olaf Scholz is no Angela Merkel,” Medvedev wrote on social media, comparing the current and former leaders of Italy and Germany.
https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/14010402000487/Frmer-Rssian-Presiden-Lamens-Lw-Qaliy-f-Crren-Erpean-Leaders
Not to say Medvedev is a great diplomatic leader, but Putin is undoubtedly.
Who can they talk to today in europe? There is no one that got what it takes, sometimes Macron show maturity but unfortunately even more times he is showing immaturity.
For Putin’s sake Jack.
Berlusconi famously referred to Merkel as an “un****able lardass”.
Medvedev is proving himself an idiot.
And while you may prefer Berlusconi’s populist Russophile policies to Draghi’s managerialist Europhile policies, Draghi’s CV
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Draghi
exposes Berlusconi as the Trump lite that he was.
Melrose
You mistunderstand, Medvedev was speaking on the subject that Russia have no competent leaders to talk to in the EU. Nothing else.
Not sure what Draghi CV is to show? If anything it prove the other discussion earlier, that some elites become corrupted.
Here is shaking hands with the annexation and warcrime-ridden Israel. So much for principles huh?
“Energy and stronger relations: Draghi in Israel”
https://decode39.com/3623/draghi-israel-energy-gas-egypt-lng/
Do you support Israel also perhaps?
(re: “Scholz wants ‘immediately effective’ weapons for Ukraine”
mentioned Iris-T doesn´t work, as Patriots do not.
And the little they can provide for artillery won´t change anything.
So the arms manufacturers can be happy as can the US SoS.
Next dinner gala can take place. Everyone in a good mood.)
AG.
This discussion of polling results re attitudes to the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine may be of interest.
https://landgeist.com/2023/08/26/is-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-a-threat-to-the-security-of-the-eu/
JK redux, thx!
I just, well, don´t really trust those numbers by substance.
Of course if the question is posed in reference to German economy, e.g., it could make sense. Like: Do you think German economy is going to suffer as a consequence from the war (which was started by Russia?).
And so on.
For instance, I really think a lot of people share Hersh´s reading of the Nordstream affair (Way more than 20%!).
And those people have a very different view of this war. Because one is connected to the other.
I didn´t have time to look further where those numbers came from in detail. Since it didn´t show on first sight.
WSJ e.g.publicized a poll in UKR May 2022, where 59% were in favour of NATO-membership. Not 80 or 90%. 59%. Less than in countries like Finland.
So go figure.
(I didn´t look into the WSJ source, but the info came from Nicolai Petro, and I trust him.)
just a quick link:
“Rude Awakening: Germany at War, Again
By Wolfgang Streeck ”
(the title seemed to fit the dicussions)
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/08/rude-awakening-germany-at-war-again/
a few excerpts that won´t do justice since its a long text touching on a lot of topics:
(as to France, I personally never bought into the schism, that WMDs would buy you any real political power unless you had thousands of them.)
“(…)
Subsequently, Germany sought to defend by all means the monetary union and the euro in their original form, regardless of the damage they were causing in the southern member states. Rather than allowing the relevant treaties to be reopened for EMU to be renegotiated, German European policy centered on short-term concessions to the political elites of the Mediterranean countries, designed to enable them to convince their voters to stay in the monetary union, regardless of its adverse institutional conditions.8 For Germany, as Europe’s economic hegemon, it was important that its concessions to its southern partners were inconspicuous enough for German voters not to notice them, while at the same time allowing the pro-European governments of member states on the southern periphery to present them to their publics as lasting improvements achieved through political pressure on rich Germany.
This could not have gone on forever, and one can assume that on the inside everyone was aware of this. Given the de facto impossibility of a fundamental reform of EMU, European governments had already before the war relied on jointly cultivated hopes that the deluge would be long enough in coming that dealing with it would be left to their successors. The so-called Corona Recovery Fund, launched extra legem under the label Next Generation EU (NGEU), and celebrated as a final act of salvation for “Europe,”9 soon proved to be no more than another emergency bandage. Merkel’s last trump card before her departure was the installation of the monetary technician Mario Draghi as Italian prime minister and German-European viceroy. Draghi was supposed to keep Italy quiet for a few more years with the help of creatively borrowed pan-European debt, but his administration lasted only briefly. A little over a year after taking power, Draghi threw in, leaving the farm to an outsider seen by the right-thinking as “post-fascist.” The increasingly real possibility that what was needed to save monetary union would be too much for Germany, while what Germany could afford would be too little for Italy, was never considered in Angela Merkel’s Germany and its “pro-European” political “discourse.”
(…)
As chancellor, Merkel never opposed the 2 percent target; not within NATO councils, as far as one knows, and certainly not in public. Nor, at the same time, did she do anything to achieve this target, perhaps hoping that later American administrations would somehow forget about it.13 France also pushed for higher German arms spending, probably because the French nuclear force is so expensive to maintain and modernize that the French military’s conventional capabilities suffer from atrophy. Particularly for the “European strategic sovereignty” France is seeking for itself, not least in Africa, it would prefer to have its nuclear force supplemented by conventional German forces. Merkel managed to put off both the United States and France until some undefined time in the future, avoiding a decision between NATO on the one hand and Europe—more precisely, a European army first within NATO, then perhaps increasingly outside of it—on the other. Promising France expensive joint armament projects in the future, Merkel gladly continued to buy weapons off the shelf from the United States. Together with Sarkozy, she blocked the admission of Ukraine to NATO in 2008, for which the United States had pushed. Then, starting in the mid-2010s, while still missing the 2 percent target, she sent German troops, at French request, on what soon turned out to be hopeless missions in various Sahel states.
(…)
(2) Germany and the United States. The American departure from “end of history” globalism came as a surprise to Germany, which in its wishful thinking had, for much longer than the United States itself, believed in the “rule-based” elimination of nation-state interests and power politics. For some time, Russia and China had been uncomfortable with the status assigned to them by the United States after 1990. When in the following decade, after years of economic growth, they felt sufficiently well-endowed to pursue something like strategic political autonomy, the price of their subordination to U.S. hegemony became too high for them to bear. As for Germany, as a non-nuclear power, it was too small to claim a say at the global level. It also had been a major beneficiary of borderless markets under U.S. law and with U.S. money. German industry prospered by buying cheap inputs in China for expensive final products sold there, while buying from Russia a good part of the energy needed for their production. This had long attracted the displeasure of American mercantilists, which Germany was increasingly made to feel as U.S. industry declined and tensions with the two breakaways from the American New World Order, Russia and China, grew.
(…)”
@Craig – “war porn” is constantly on in the mass media of eastern Europe: daily reports from the frontline, drone camera feeds, bombing of troops, killed civilians, made-up casualty numbers, you say it. But you’ll need to go beyond the English-speaking media to see it.
Of course, most readers are fed up with it. Ukrainians laugh that the war is much more spoken about in eastern EU than in Ukraine itself. War porn still attracts enough clicks there, close to the frontline, that commercial media doesn’t hesitate to keep the show running.
Zelensky have begun turning against his former friends:
Ex-Zelensky sponsor charged with money laundering
Billionaire Igor Kolomoysky is suspected of laundering and siphoning off more than $10 million from Ukraine
https://swentr.site/russia/582261-kolomoysky-ukraine-laundering-suspicion/
And as usual, this is considering just fine, if Putin was targeted rich influential russian citizens like this it would be proof of his dictatorial schemes.
Putin turns a blind eye to any of his supporters who are on the make. That’s the difference.
https://www.ecpmf.eu/putins-russia-how-propaganda-bolsters-corruption/
these are 1+4 links re: the Far Right in Ukraine:
Found them last week. Initially wasn´t sure whether to post.
1) Nicolai Petro with very good 10 crisp minutes on the essence of the problem.
Recommended to everyone.
In his usual mild-mannered and reflective way that I so much respect in today´s media frenzy. It is an excellent link for any acquaintance who has no time (link via US-RU Accords):
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2tqd1uDoJfSDPXup5204SG
“Nicolai Petro on why he thinks Ukraine can still be discriminating against
its eastern, Russian-speaking citizens, even when the country has a
president from the eastern, Russian-speaking part of the country. And,
further thoughts on the influence of far-right nationalism.”
2) – 5)
English/US TV-Channels with short items about Far Right aired between 2014 and 2019:
I don´t really like any but
BBC is the most decent for me:
7 min.
01.03.2014
Neo-Nazi threat in new Ukraine: NEWSNIGHT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
THE GUARDIAN
13 min.
05.09.2017
Ukraine’s far-right children’s camp: ‘I want to bring up a warrior’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiBXmbkwiSw
VICE
Out of Control: Ukraine’s Rogue Militias
25.05.2018
22 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMMXuKB0BoY
TIME
Inside A White Supremacist Militia in Ukraine
8 min.
2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy910FG46C4
Far right in Russia:-
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/if-russia-serious-about-de-nazification-it-should-start-home
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/russias-far-right-campaign-europe
Far right in the US
https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-united-states
Far right in UK
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-changing-face-of-the-british-far-right/
Far right in France
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230712-recent-french-riots-boost-support-for-far-right-rhetoric
Far right in Germany
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/18/germany-afd-polls-krah/
There’s not a country in Europe that doesn’t have some kind of problem with the far right. Possibly a knee jerk reaction to rising immigration and increasing ‘woke’ policies. Does that justify them being invaded by a nation that really needs to get its own house in order first?
Pears Morgaine
Why do you repeat this claim even though you have been proven wrong repeatedly on this issue.
Video of Ukraine’s president meeting with Azov founder Biletsky in a bunker somewhere in Donbass
https://swentr.site/russia/581278-zelensky-azov-neo-nazi-biletsky/
A nazi that not only created Azov but created even the more openly neo-nazi antisemitic party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Corps
This is like if the US would have KKK-David Duke as a top military leader in the US army and Joe Biden would casually hang out with him.
Simply put, there is no more neo-nazi like regime like Ukraine in the world, and you know this.
Pears
I believe at least one of those video pieces (hopefully I dont mix ´em up in my memory) talks lenghtly about the internat. far right scene.
You can assume that in Western media if Ukraine was discussed they would want to try to always “soften” the issue by pointing out that other countries too have problems.
Last year I posted the very long survey made by DIE ZEIT weekly, which was/is available in English too, from early 2021 I think. It was mainly about internat. connections in the neo-nazi scene.
In Germany .e.g. in 1981 they polled 13% people with far right attitudes.
What that number would mean in detail is an entirely different matter. But this year again they have double digits in these polls.
Would anyone claim that Germany is a facist country? No.
I never contested the idea that other countries, among them RU, have a Far Right. That would be childish.
But this is not the issue here. Nicolai Petro puts it very well in his 10 minute conversation.
And others as well have said it: The numbers alone don´t say much about the realities in politics.
A small group if “allocated” smartly can execute big power. And this has grown substantially since 2022 of course.
Besides, it is known traditonally the West in Ukraine has racist views they same way many Eastern Europeans, see Romania/Hungary, have racist views towards Gypsies for instance (I don’t know the British PC term).
A friend of mine from Mongolia had major problems whenever he was flying back home via Moscow.
These are all phenomena that have also been covered up by the Communist system. And after 1989 they came back to the surface.
You have had Neonazis in Germany since 1945. Continuously so politically. That didn´t have an impact on human rights, the Constitution et al. the way it had in Ukraine.
But while in RU there is an anti-fascist / “Soviet” “Culture”, in Western Ukraine, despite the major Jewish now gone communities, there is an anti-Russian, nationalistic “culture”.
Pears
last post I hope:
a bit peculiar but to exemplify my point:
Just now a minor right-wing party in Southern Germany in a government with the major, as much right-wing party, has a big PR-scandal at its hand: Its head Hubert Aiwanger (a truly Bavarian name) is said to have published an anti-semitic leaflet in 1987 when he was 17.
Several papers have taken this up, naturally. Discussing it every day.
The one particular daily with the scoop (albeit said leaflet had been on public display in the museum of the Dachau concentration camp for many years but no one had cared) is of course trying to topple the politician which however won´t happen, as it seems.
The Green party´s paper TAZ, which I already mentioned here, has a piece about far right youth networks in Germany in the 1980s. Many of those high schoolers were not some poor WASPs.
Now this article speculates in how far this politician was involved back then. Naturally the article is polemic.
You would never find a single article of the same polemic kind about Ukraine. Not one in the paper named TAZ.
Even though many people were killed and Ukraine´s far right is in fact a real threat on a national scale. Not 37 years ago but now.
TAZ didn´t say a single word when openly racist Neonazi leaders from Ukraine came to visit German VIPs. People with guns, tanks, planes.
TAZ hailed the Ukrainian poet for receiving the peace award from German book publishers. Despite his racist lyrics.
Had it been a German right wing, which is inconceivable, they would have long before started a campaign against.
I could go on.
The article:
“Right-wing Tendencies in the FRG of the 1980s
What kind of time was it when the Aiwanger brothers went to school? It was a dark brown time in which an extreme right-wing youth culture emerged.”
https://taz.de/Rechte-Tendenzen-in-der-BRD-der-1980er/!5954767/
So this is not about muting far right in other countries. Its about an extraordinary form of double standard and hypocrisy in the Western media. Which is not new. But which ignores the perilous situation which it has brought about and its causes.
(And yes I believe that without those nationalistic forces full of hatred againt RU (and the West btw) we would not find ourselves in this situation.)
Most if not all of the former Eastern European states are a bit ‘backward’ regarding attitudes to minorities. Non-white refugees, aid workers and reporters have been abused and assaulted in Poland.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/02/people-of-colour-fleeing-ukraine-attacked-by-polish-nationalists
The rise in nationalism has seen an increase in racist attacks in Russia too.
In each case it’s a problem for the nation itself to sort out not a pre-text or an excuse for military invasion, which is unlikely to bring about an improvement anyway.
Pears Morgaine
LOL that is the issue people trying to tell you: in majority of nations – or I would say in 99.9% nations – nazis/parties with power is considered a problem, in Ukraine it is not considered a problem according to the ruling elite.
Stop defending Ukraine since you have no obviously have no idea what you are defending.
Russia doesn’t consider it a problem as far as the Wagner Group and the Imperial Movement are concerned so why might it be a problem elsewhere? Various elements of the Wagner Group have been linked to far-right extremism, including white supremacy and neo-Nazism. Some founding members of Wagner belong to the far-right ultranationalist Russian Imperial Movement and Wagner’s first commander, Dmitry Utkin, is a neo-Nazi who has several Nazi tattoos and greets subordinates by saying “Heil!”. He was seen wearing a Wehrmacht field cap around the unit’s training grounds, and to have occasionally signed his name with the two lightning bolt runes of the SS.
Utkin is said to have chosen the group’s name due to his passion for the Third Reich (Wagner being Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer). A Wagner sub-group, “Rusich”, was founded by self-proclaimed neo-Nazi Alexey Milchakov and is open about its far-right ideology. Wagner members have also left neo-Nazi graffiti on the battlefield,] such as swastikas and the SS emblem.
Pears Morgaine
No Wagner are not a nazi organisation per-se, it is a mercernary organization – thus bringing all kinds types of people; RIM have no power within Russia whatsoever.
Compare that with Ukraine, which you for some reason do not want to talk about, considering the constant what-about deflections.
It’s interesting, on the one hand you defend Ukraine and their nazi affiliations, but you are making a fuss if you find a russian nazi. What is it, you cannot sit on two chairs. Either one are against nazism or one are not.
Btw stop copy-paste huge segments of text from what you just googled. It just proves once again you have no clue what you are defending in Ukraine by adhering to such desperate measures.
He’s merely following the lead of a mendacious and morally bankrupt political-media class. They spent the previous half-decade labelling Corbyn – an honest man and life long antiracism campaigner – an antisemite. Now all these ostentatious “protectors” of Jewish people are desperately trying to whitewash Nazism in Ukraine.
No, Russia is the far right kettle calling the Ukrainians black. Wagner is far right (just proscribed as a terrorist organisation) and Putin has the support of the far right in Russia and across Europe and the US. Why then is it a problem in Ukraine?
Pears
Great, I just pointed out how you try to sit on both chairs and using whatabout-bs and you go and do it again.
Sure we can go on if you want:
Here you have former ukrainian PM under Zelensky government going to a nazi concert. He was not fired.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-pm-minister-attended-neo-nazi-concert-in-kyiv/
Here you have the military of chief in Ukraine posing with busts and posters on the wall of ukrainians involved in WW2 genocide. This man is hailed in Ukraine, You know why? Because this is normal in western-backed Ukraine, One of the depicted persons are Stepan Bandera, involved in genocide, he is considered a hero to ukrainians – and he is not even worse by those depicted as busts on the table!
Do you consider other pro-nazi people from the WW2 a hero Pears? What about Hitler? A hero?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/10/15/ckti-o15.html
Or why not check out the fun children camp being led by nazis in Ukraine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsHBdyqKpfo
You do not find this behavior in other nations, you simply support Ukraine as a useful idiot. The worst kind of support a human can ever give to another state.
Joel
Yep, another fresh example:
Israel and the US have condemned the public celebration of Admiral Miklos Horthy, a Hungarian statesman who aligned his country with Nazi Germany and persecuted Jews during World War II.
https://swentr.site/news/582500-israel-blasts-hungary-past/
I agree with their criticism. It is just weird that US and Israel keep missing when Ukraine glorify nazi collaborators way way more.
Apparently there are good nazis and there are bad nazis; huh, who would have thought! Sigh.
Exactly. No coherence whatsoever.
Alexander Mercouris is quoting Kyrylo Budanov, chief of SBU, who allegedly commented that AFU is suffering very heavy losses. He wouldn´t give numbers. Budanov added that UKR would have to cease fighting after a month without Western support as AFU is now completely dependent.
in case:
54:00
https://theduran.com/rus-stops-ukr-advance-verbovoye-heavy-ukr-losses-failed-kerch-bridge-attack-us-dismayed-xi-g20/
Alleged|? Isn’t he sure??
Budanov may have been talking about Russian casualties.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/08/25/7417047/
this was rather my incorrect English, I rather wanted to stress that Mercouris said that Budanov said, but that I did not check myself and look into the original source on Budanov.
So lets just remain with “Budanov said”
re: war effort / “Counter-offensive” (wonder why anyone took it seriously)
John Mearsheimer with a new Substack entry:
“Bound to Lose
Ukraine’s 2023 Counteroffensive”
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/bound-to-lose
Mearsheimer´s footnote #4 states:
“As best I can tell, the only Western policymaker or establishment pundit who argued that the counteroffensive would fail was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He said it “would be a bloodbath” and that Ukraine would not win a meaningful military victory. https://www.rt.com/news/577355-orban-hungary-ukraine-counteroffensive/ It is worth noting that General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued in November 2022 that Kyiv should negotiate a settlement, because its prospects on the battlefield were only going to deteriorate moving forward. His advice, which was rejected by Ukraine and the White House, would seem to argue against launching the counteroffensive. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/26/ukraine-counteroffensive-negotiations-milley-biden/ Finally, there are several individuals who operate on alternative media who argued that the counteroffensive would fail before it was launched. They include Brian Berletic, Alex Christoforou, Glenn Diesen, Douglas Macgregor, Moon of Alabama, Alexander Mercouris, and Scott Ritter.”
” Brian Berletic, Alex Christoforou, Glenn Diesen, Douglas Macgregor, Moon of Alabama, Alexander Mercouris, and Scott Ritter.”
The usual suspects who all scoffed at the idea of Putin invading Ukraine in the first place. He wouldn’t be so stupid they all said.
I don’t think they did all make that mistake. I did.
You’re not professing to be an expert in military matters though Craig. You haven’t continued to put forward opinions dressed as analysis timer after time which have proved to be laughably incorrect, taken the RT shilling nor regurgitated Kremlin propaganda (eg 420,000 Ukrainian dead).
It would take too much time to find evidence that they all made that mistake. Much has been taken down, probably out of embarrassment, and Scott Ritter’s Youtube channel has been cancelled. Not a decision I agree with although his sorry two part smear attack on Zelensky might well have been libellous. I did find this though:-
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2021/12/russias-plan-to-invade-ukraine-exists-only-in-the-us-and-nato-imagination/
Meanwhile in the much maligned MSM.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10503627/Foreign-Office-tells-Britons-Ukraine-commercial-means-available.html
They got the wrong Wednesday but if a rag like the Wail can get it right it doesn’t say much for Ritter et al.
thx for the links.
Still amazed how many outlets (re: TRANSCEND Media Service) exist notwithstanding the censorship which of course tries to focus on the few popular platforms. After all its not about truth or no truth. Its about keeping the own population from getting a big variety of news and info. Which would make them start to question things.
p.s. I don´t share any of the castigating for not predicting the war. Frankly that´s absolutely secondary.
The main point is to acknowledge or to ignore the reasons for the conflict.
p.p.s Declassified UK with a new shorter-than-usual piece on the destroyed Challenger tank and rising fears of uranium contamination
(might turn out the destroyed tank does more harm than the intact.)
https://declassifieduk.org/contamination-fears-after-ukraine-loses-british-tank/
You keep making the same mistake of not trusting Pears Morgaine and the MSM.
Why?
“Don’t believe I’m taken in by stories I have heard,
I just read the daily news and swear by every word”.
(Steely Dan – “Barrytown”)
That’s you to a tee that is, Pears.
See above.
Your posts usually contain hyperlinks to various articles which purport to back up your arguments, like the one from the Daily Heil above but when people like AG and Jack provide the same for you, your usual reply is along the lines of
” Read the first syllable………” or “Watched the first ten seconds……” You seem to be someone who doesn’t like to have your existing prejudices challenged. Open your mind just a little ffs. You never know, might just learn something.
Increasing war madness:
The Duran quoting UKR MoD which intends to pull out those university students and conscript them who started their studies with the outbreak of the war. Number goes as high as 60.000 apparently.
Furthermore they try to find ways to get back those men who live in the EU and are UKR citizens.
In Germany alone over 100.000.
Additionally they have started to conscript women (doctors, pharmacists etc.)
starting TC 20:00
https://theduran.com/elensky-fires-reznikov-ukr-eu-extradition-mobilization-protecting-kolomoisky-porsche-tanks-u-1/
So there is your umpteenth army to perish in winter untill the Spring Offensive 2024 will start.
No one tell me these people are not rotten and crazy. The Far Right making its founding fathers proud.
What else would you expect them to do?
Meanwhile in Russia:-
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/13/1169464889/russia-military-draft-ukraine-war
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2022/9/28/photos-russians-flee-to-neighbouring-countries-amid-mobilisation
“What else would you expect them to do?”
That verdict would be reminiscent of a Charlton Heston holding up his Winchester yelling: “Only from my cold dead hands”.
see Heston´s speech at the NRA 2000, just 2:45 min. long
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ju4Gla2odw
“The siren sounds first in the hearts of freedom´s vanguards / The smoke in the air of our Concord bridges and Pearl Harbours are always smelled first by the farmers who come from their simple homes to find the fire and fight” – why wouldn´t Selenskij quote Mr. Heston…
I am aware that people say it´s the government´s right. A Scott Ritter would most likely (haven´t checked now) agree as a frm US-MC.
At least he did in the past on issues of national sacrifice. Still at a certain point I find support of these policies simply a crime. They are primitive and from ancient dark times.
I would instead argue with Kant. Very plainly. After all the government´s rights are not God-given.
In the light of The Enlightenment they are simple machinations of suppression, manipulation and power.
If one does not counter such argument the way to hell is paved with good intentions dripping with moral self-righteousness.
We are individuals capable of independent thinking and rationality.
The Spartans laid down their arms getting themselves killed on the battlefield if the gods told them to do so.
Naturally to claim the peril is ultimate and the enemy is truly evil and no negotiating with him (Hitler = Putler) this, otherwise fascist ideology of self-sacrifice, is miraculously turned into an honorable call for justice, liberty and freedom. “Give me liberty or give me death”. Not without cause have all these quotations of „woe, ruin, destruction and decay“ and heroism outlasted centuries and millennia.
Manichean ideals as Jack stated above.
If that´s the case still, if Shakespeare provides us still with how to navigate the 21st century, then fuck the UN Declaration of Human Rights and all that comes with it. And then please nobody quote article 51 no more and lets just get over with it and end it all in a big bloodbath.
p.s. read the Mearsheimer above carefully: “As best I can tell, the only Western policymaker or establishment pundit who argued that the counteroffensive would fail” – he was merely referring to this last issue: “the counteroffensive would fail”.
No statement about a crystal ball in Febr. 2022, no reading cards in 2014 by Berletic and Co.
AG
Ukraine running out of soldiers? Accepting HIV and other ukrainians with severe diseases into the military now.
https://thepressunited.com/updates/ukrainian-military-to-conscript-hiv-patients/
Every time I hear such news I automatically doubt them, because it seems so out of proportion and mad.
Every time I eventually must concede in fact they are true.
This is Douglas Macgregor on Judging Freedom not about tactics but about a simple truth that RU wants to live with the West and Ukraine, whereas the West says we want you destroyed which puts the problem of the equation into a nutshell:
Just the very end of the show:
TC 20:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLMxSYYsAKU
p.s. Of course this mess was the desired outcome. Even Macgregor doesn´t want to see it as most critics in the West. They still cling to a benign USA.
” RU wants to live with the West and Ukraine ”
They’ve an odd way of showing it. if the RU is content to live with Ukraine why the denial that it exists as a separate entity and the ongoing campaign to destroy it?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66509180
Pears
John Mearsheimer with Mercouris & Diesen, 80 minutes on NATO, „Putin“, the narratives:
https://theduran.com/an-endgame-for-the-ukrainian-war-w-john-mearsheimer-alexander-mercouris-and-glenn-diesen/
p.s. Perhaps I find time to respond to the BBC piece more extensively. However too often did I start composing answers in the past which I could not finish due to lack of time and thus never posted.,
I find the BBC item a typical piece of smart but very dishonest propaganda / disinformation, call it what you want, which however is not reckognized as such any more by the critical public.
But the omissions and distortions presented form the core cause for why the left is split on this, which frankly I find very much a tragedy.
” I find the BBC item a typical piece of smart but very dishonest propaganda ” Why so? Can you identify which quotes are untrue?
Sorry but I haven’t got 80 minutes to listen to three Kremlin trolls pontificate. Mearsheimer I find almost impossible to listen to anyway. Is there a transcript I could read?
John Mearsheimer posted his latest piece on le monde diplomatique.com now freely available
“Great power rivalries: the case for realism
When assessing the geopolitical landscape, the primary aim of any state, whether democratic or authoritarian, is to ensure its own survival. That comes down to military might and alliances.”
https://mondediplo.com/2023/08/02great-powers
” There is no evidence that Putin wants to incorporate all of Ukraine into Russia ”
That’s just not true.
re: history of propaganda, war and flow of information
An important new German historic study (professorial dissertation) has come out about foreign correpondents working in Nazi Germany.
“World Publicity and Dictatorship. The American Foreign Correspondents in the “Third Reich”, by Norman Domeier, Univ. of Stuttgart
I mention it since we have often discussed the lack of free flow of information.
I had read in a Chomsky interview last year that even during the Third Reich the Americans knew more about Germany than today about Russia via their papers. This study would offer some background to Chomsky´s rather cursory short comment. But he made an important point which resonated.
a few good excerpts from the German review:
“In March 1932, 406 foreign correspondents were accredited in Berlin, including 73 Americans. Even after the outbreak of war and the departure of the British, French and Poles, about 250 foreign correspondents still worked in Berlin until 1942.”
“The American foreign correspondents were interned after the United States of America entered the war and exchanged for their German colleagues in the USA in the spring of 1942; nevertheless, the USA remained present in Berlin as a global media power: The New York news agency Associated Press (AP) continued its cooperation with the National Socialist regime, disguised as “Büro Laux,” a secret establishment of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Foreign Office with German staff. A deal approved by the U.S. government resulted in approximately 40,000 press photographs being exchanged between the U.S. and the “Third Reich” from 1942 to 1945. Every day, couriers transported photos to and from the wartime enemy, the U.S., by air to Lisbon, and from 1944 to Stockholm. AP supplied more than 1,400 newspapers in the U.S. and around the world with news and press photos and ensured that pictures from the Nazi state, the occupied territories and from the fronts were distributed in the international press.”
on press and the Holocaust:
“Building on the research of Lipstadt, Shapiro, and Leff, Domeier then explores the question of what the world public could know about the murder of European Jews. It is true that the American press repeatedly reported on individual Nazi crimes against the Jews and on the extermination camps. But the mass murder remained one topic among many, mostly covered only on the inside pages of the newspapers and subordinated to the coverage of the course of the war. Domeier offers two new explanations for the media’s lack of interest. First, the star correspondents who reported from Germany until 1941 did not deal with the genocide. Only William Shirer had occasionally tried to draw the attention of the American public to the subject. Secondly, the American press was “saturated” with news and pictures from the “Third Reich” due to the AP deal, so that there was little interest in the Holocaust.”
Perhaps it will be translated into English. I would hope so.
The German review
https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-98832?title=n-domeier-weltoeffentlichkeit-und-diktatur
* * *
The Duran with good 30 min. conversation on how Western papers manipulate reporting on how the war goes
https://theduran.com/putin-ukraine-offensive-is-not-stalled-it-is-a-failure/
a new Ukrainian Poll which might make it into British press has been published by Western-backed VOX back in late June.
It makes clear – even though VOX´ staff did not like it – a lot of Ukrainians appear to not follow the Western narrative re: the reasons for the war:
43% of respondents in Ukraine and 36% abroad disagreed with the statement “Nazi and/or neo-Nazi ideology is not widespread in Ukraine”;
29% of respondents in Ukraine and 35% abroad disagreed with the statement “The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2013-2014 was NOT a coup”;
26% of respondents in Ukraine and 29% abroad agreed with the statement “Russia is fighting against the West/NATO in Ukraine”;
25% of respondents in Ukraine and 29% abroad agreed with the statement “The West is using Ukraine for its own purposes in the war against Russia”;
32% of respondents abroad agreed with the statement “Russian speakers are oppressed in Ukraine”.
I haven´t read the VOX homepage thoroughly for lack of time.
Instead watched correspondent Lev Golinkin commenting this survey on the show “Useful Idiots” with Halper & Maté. He is in fact trying to be ironic, but I needed a little to understand that.
Lev Golinkin beginning at 17:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frD1bk9tRX4
He says: keep in mind its a Soros-funded poll. Keep in mind that Crimeans are not in the group polled. Keep in mind UKRs who fled to RU are not included either. All of which would even more alter the results unfavouring the Western “talking points”.
Vox original link from June 26th:
https://voxukraine.org/en/the-ability-of-ukrainians-to-distinguish-messages-of-russian-propaganda-results-of-public-opinion-research
Wow.. That is remarkable given the suppression and intimidation of dissenting voices in Ukraine. Good find.
and this poll from RU (via Moon of Alabama):
“Two opinion polls about the mood in Russia at the moment.
The first is by Levada Centar, a western funded organisation located in Estonia.
50% of Russians are for peace negotiations, 38% believe military operations should continue no matter what.
But only 20% believe that for the sake of peace and the end of the NWO, it is possible to make concessions to Ukraine.
71% believe that there is no need to make concessions.
Most Russians are ready for the sake of peace to agree to exchange of prisoners of war (82% are totally in favour, another 10% find it acceptable).
55% consider an immediate ceasefire preferable, another 17% acceptable, although here we have a significant 21% who are categorically against it.
But Russians do not agree under any circumstances that Ukraine will be able to join NATO (categorically against – 76%) or returning new territories to Ukraine (76% are categorically against the return of the LPR and DPR, 68% are categorically against the return of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions).
Compared to the same poll in February of this year, more Russians consider it unacceptable to return the New Territories to Ukraine. The position on Ukraine in NATO has not changed at all since last year.
70% say they support the actions of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. In July it was 75%, in June 73%.
In another, by VTsIOM, a large russian institute, 67% of Russians support shifting the priorities in its relations from Europe and US to Eastern countries. 11% are against, 15% say they don’t care, 7% find it difficult to answer. Young people are more likely to be indifferent, but not to be against it.”
Have not double checked original sources.
AG. Is the term “New Territories” widely used in the Russkiy media?
It is quite the euphemism.
Like “General Government” for Nazi occupied Poland… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Government
I don´t know about the media. Tatyana may be?
Here is the original source for the Levada Center Poll:
“Levada: Russians Still Support Peace Talks More Than War, But There’s a Caveat”
September 07, 2023
Simon Saradzhyan
https://www.russiamatters.org/blog/levada-russians-still-support-peace-talks-more-war-theres-caveat
p.s. of course it is not a good sign for our era that whatever info we get from Russia or China (whatever the political position may be) is almost exclusively from the US, a bit from Europe. One would expect to look at the countries subject of the reporting in the age of information. I doubt its the same the other way around. More Russians speak English than English-speakers Russian.
AG.
The YouTube channel https://youtube.com/@russianmediamonitor?si=pc46qVAOPjrOTjPQ
is a useful source of insights into Russkiy media output.
It usefully dispels any illusions about the nature of Russkiy “news media”…
Melrose
What “illusions” does it “dispel”? It is also run by a fanatical ukrainian born- Russiagate-extraordinare woman named Julia Davis so perhaps you should be a bit more critical if you seek unbiased news.
What a nutter, look at her articles: https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/julia-davis
Jack.
Are you saying that the English subtitled extracts from Russkiy TV on https://youtube.com/@russianmediamonitor?si=pc46qVAOPjrOTjPQ are not genuine?
If they are genuine then they speak to the deranged nature of Russkiy political life, irrespective of the motives of the translator.
Melrose
Again, what “illusions” is this youtube-channel supposed to “dispel”, you said the following:
It usefully dispels any illusions about the nature of Russkiy “news media”…
So what did you mean?
Seems like a ridiculous channel where the author, Davies?, even photoshop the russian faces to make them look stupid.
Be a bit more critical I would advice you Melrose.
—
[ Mod: Kindly address other commenters by their chosen name. There is no justifiable reason to assume that ‘JK redux’ and ‘Melrose’ are the same person. Please leave sockpuppet detection to the moderators, who have access to more information than commenters do. ]
Melrose
Again, what illusions are dispelled by this youtube-channel?
Name 3 and link the videos accordingly.
Jack.
You didn’t respond to my question as to whether in your view the English subtitled extracts from Russkiy TV are genuine.
I have no reason to think that they are faked.
Do you think that they are faked?
Here’s a link again: https://www.youtube.com/@russianmediamonitor
If not then perhaps you agree with me that they exhibit (on the part of the presenters) virulent hatred of Ukrainians and of the democratic Zapad?
They also imo put on show the deranged propaganda beamed at Russians who rely on TV for information.
(By the way I have no idea who “Melrose” is. I see that the town so named has as its symbols a hammer and a rose. Charming. https://scotlandstartshere.com/point-of-interest/melrose/ )
Melrose
I have not said they are fake, you made that straw-man to deflect from my question:
As I thought you could not even bring 3 examples and therefore there is no need to further engage with you whatever nick you might use.
And it is not “ruskies” or whatever slur you use to get your troll attention, if you want to refer to the people living in Russia, they are called russians.
Jack.
Glad that we agree that the clips shown and translated on the YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@russianmediamonitor are genuine.
I don’t see any need to pick some out for you. Imo they speak for themselves and posters here may wish to glance at them. Nasty stuff. And revealing.
Jack, in case you missed the moderation notice earlier, it has now been made public. To reiterate: please leave sockpuppet detection to the moderators.
You have now gone on to accuse the same commenter of being a troll, contrary to the moderation rules for commenters:
“Fair Play
Play the ball, not the man. Address arguments, not people. Do not impugn the motives of others. No taunting.”
“Will EVERYBODY please tackle the arguments commenters make, and not refer to their motives for making them – which you cannot know – or that people are paid, or their personality traits, or somebody else. What interests me is the arguments people put. I think most of the imputations made on all sides are probably inaccurate, but even if they were accurate they are irrelevant. A man or woman may be a one-eyed former contract killer with a cocaine habit in the pay of the state of Israel, but may still make an argument that is absolutely correct. Please address the argument, not the person. Posts which fail to do this will be deleted when seen.”
In view of the above, you can take a break from commenting on this thread. Your comments are still welcome under other articles, although they may require moderator approval for the next couple of days.
this post from Slavyangrad channel “About Ua capabilities”:
(Slav. has a tendency to be apodictic and exaggerated at times but all in all a serious and useful source. Interesting also because contradictory as it cites different original sources. E.g. it now claims in one thread full mobilization will happen in a different one rather contradicting info.)
“Now, those attacking in Zaporozhye & Donetsk are Western and domestically trained troops, heavily armed, in significant amounts with Western weapons. Now, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, and claim something, but Artemovsk was delaying action, and paid dearly by an AFU. Ukraine’s high command decided to buy time in the blood (tbh, they couldn’t do it in another way) but sent those with lower combat value, to save troops for the main attack.
Now, after all this time, the main attack wasn’t decisive nor lethal, as some feared. In Ua HQ don’t sit idiots. They are trained in the same schools as Russian generals. If you believe in the opposite, you are wrong. They tried the form of blitzkrieg attack, which proved futile, probably under the influence of NATO Generals. However, they are still attacking. A logical question arises. Why are they attacking? Is it time to call it off?
Often the used answer is: 1) They can’t do it, NATO doesn’t allow it; 2) It’s for the PR. I will offer answer no 3) which you may agree or disagree with. The offense is the best defense. While the grouping currently fighting is being spent, (at this point, already over 80.000 Kia/Wia/Mia), Ua is doing the same thing that the Artemovsk group did – meaning: forming, training, and equipping another main battle group, and at the same time creating, again, a secondary group which will consist of defense units.
The job of the latter will be to take and try to absorb the Russian counter-strike as much as possible without the need to sacrifice too much of the main strike group, in terms of the men and equipment. The idea is similar to ours, allow the enemy to attack, slow him down, wear him as much as possible and when the time is right, strike again with a newly created main group. Then repeat if needed.
You see, Ua complains about men, but maybe not because of what we are thinking of.
Recruitment centers were under pressure to fulfill quotas. Being corrupted, they let go of many. Kiev and bigger cities are full of military-capable men. The problem is in inefficiency of recruiters. All those fit will go to better training to create a new main group.
All those unfit, young, old, women (maybe), who are intended to contain the Russian attack will get minimal training. They don’t need better, except knowing how to shoot, because they would be sitting in the trenches and fortifications, waiting for the Russian army to flush them out, but at the same time to wear themselves down in the process
Everything that we have seen so far, from the beginning of the SMO and onwards, led us to think that such development is not only possible but has already been used on several occasions. Such an approach is paid dearly in terms of human lives and it’s not honorable, but that who fights with honor, obviously didn’t wage war.
In fact, similar examples we can find in the old Soviet manuals and teachings, some directly from the battlefield of WW2 against Germans, where, some divisions of low quality were put first, to try to weaken the Germans, thus allowing more worthy Soviet troops to capitalize on weaken enemy. Both sides know that.
Regarding weapons lost, losses in hardware are big for UA, but they have plenty of. Keep in mind that weapons are flowing non-stop. The news that the USA is sending 190 MRAPS a few days ago passed almost unnoticed. There are many such cases. So, no, Ukraine will not run out of weapons anytime soon.
Personally, I believe that the path to victory in this conflict, chosen by Moscow, is to break the possibility of Ua waging war for generations to come. Degradation, exhaustion, will-breaking, and utter defeat, a kind of war of attrition, but on a much grander scale is the solution accepted. Similar also writes in Soviet strategic doctrine. That means that the war will not end anytime soon.
After that, it won’t be any Ukraine anymore”
German parliamentarian Andrej Hunko from THE LEFT Party who I have often quoted here before talked about the UKR/RU peace negotiations in March 2022:
Hunko is also member of EU parliamentary institutions.
The EU Council (all Prime Ministers of the EU) were having a 2-day summit while the RU/UKR peace negotiations in Istanbul were going on.
Hunko afterwards was briefed by the Chancellory. He asked whether during those 2 days did the Council speak about the peace negotiations at the same time going on – the answer was NO.
Additionally Zelenskyy called into the EU meeting. Hunko asked whether the Council asked HIM about the peace negotiations. the answer was again: NO.
So we can be pretty sure, the EU on its highest level gave a fuck about a swift and bloodless resolution of the war.
Every single piece of info that has surfaced since confirms this.
Craig:
“In comments below the line here, and even more so in replies to the post of this article on twitter, I am intensely irritated by the sheer stupidity of the lines trotted out by the Putin cult.
Ukraine has not lost 400,000 dead.”
Respectfully Craig, your eye seems to be some way off the ball with respect to Ukraine.
Further to my previous comment here, Colonel Douglas MacGregor, no Putin cultist he, quoting Austrian sources that calculated 382,000 Ukrainian military fatalities in 2022 alone, again reaffirms his view that Ukraine has lost over over 400,000 military personnel.
Watch from 18:10 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjkwGDtiVU8
Since you mention Austria I took a quick search.
(p.s. I could find the Austrian site only using yandex.com. Google did not offer that result. It´s excruciating.)
This report MacGregor is quoting apparently is originating with the Ukrainian mobile phone service “Kyivstar” and the Austrian altern. media site tkp.at which appears to be a decent outlet. See their report here:
https://tkp.at/2023/08/28/ukrainische-verluste-und-demografie/
tkp had come up with 400.000 dead. Kyivstar would later confirm those numbers:
excerpts:
“The most popular Ukrainian mobile operator has now confirmed this figure. In a promotional video posted on TikTok last week, the mobile phone company “Kyivstar” calls on its subscribers to thank the fighters who died in the war against Russia. They should send only the word “Thank you” to the number of Ukrainian soldiers who have since died. The ad text reveals how many that is: “400,000 heroes will never be able to answer the call and the message.”
Russian mobile technology expert Eldar Murtasin had already reported on his blog mobile-review.com in late July that the representative of a Ukrainian provider had told him:
“Since the beginning of July, in the east of the country, we have lost 5,500 weekly SIM cards every week, and other operators have the same numbers. The Ukraine has objectively deprived itself of its future.”
tkp.at had first published their own findings by among others quoting former Ukrainian Prime Minister of Ukraine (2010-2014) Nikolai Azarov:
“(…) According to information from the Ministry of Defense, the Russian news agency TASS reported that the Ukrainian armed forces lost 4,855 soldiers last week. This may be Russian propaganda.
Nikolai Azarov, Ukrainian prime minister before the Maidan coup 2014, reported on his Telegram channel that, “In fact, the Ukrainian General Staff admits that every month it loses 10,000 soldiers. Last week, a spokesman for the General Staff said that at least 10,000 men would have to be drafted each month to keep the number of soldiers on the front lines at a steady level.”
The exact number of those killed is a state secret, Azarov said. In order not to shock citizens, Kiev is keeping secret not only the number of the dead, but also the number of wounded soldiers. However, it is impossible to hide such huge losses for a long time, the politician stressed. For example, the hospitals in Odessa have not accepted wounded for a week because the facilities are overcrowded.
And Azarov added: “If the growing number of dead can be seen from the fast-growing cemeteries, then the number of wounded soldiers is revealed by the information from hospitals. Every Friday, seven platoons of seriously wounded soldiers arrive in Kiev. On other days, there are four platoons at a time. This is reported by the staff of military hospitals.”
In early August, the Russian General Staff had reported that Ukraine had lost 43,000 troops over the course of the then two-month offensive. With 10,000 more in August, even allowing for some Russian exaggeration, the figure of 50,000 may be close.
“The decision of the Selenskyi government to accelerate the construction of the largest military cemetery in Europe near Kiev is also such an indication. It is to have an area of 266 hectares.” (…)”.
This last statement would confirm what Larry Johnson on “Judging Freedom” said today:
Ukraine was preparing a cemetary for 600,000 corpses.
He argues no comparable news are heard from RU which, were they covered up, in today´s world of social networks could not be held secret for long. This would concur with the fact that apparently medical support on AFU side is much worse than on RU side.
However I do not find a more detailed analysis on the Austrian site. At least not in this article. To take numbers from hospitals, trains with wounded and cemetaries is a good step but as presented lack depth. More detailed numbers most likely exist by now but are not being used in this article.
So those 400,000 could as well be 200,000. Both horrendous however.
AG,
Good work, thanks, but the source of MacGregor’s comment is the Austrian publication Zeitung Der Arbeit.
MacGregor gives an English translation (and url) of the article in this recent blog post:
http://futuredefensevisions.blogspot.com/2023/09/reports-up-to-400000-ukrainian-soldiers.html
thx for pointing out!
I have no time to go into it now.
But then we seem to quote two different surveys 1 year apart from each other (If my quick glimpse didn´t deceive me)
both stating around 400.000 casualties…
* * *
p.s this link for all:
https://usrussiaaccord.org/ending-the-war-with-a-negotiated-peace-a-proposal-from-detente-now/#more-6978
A peace proposal by German VIPs was published 2 weeks ago. But almost no German major paper would pick it up, which was a disgrace.
I had thought about translating it and putting it up here.
Thankfully US-RU Accords has done that job now. (Speaking of prophets)
“Ending the War with a Negotiated Peace: A Proposal from Detente Now
Detente NowSeptember 12, 2023
Berlin-based peace advocacy group Detente Now has released a negotiation proposal authored by Professor Dr. Peter Brandt, Professor Dr. Hajo Funke, General (ret.) Harald Kujat and Professor Dr. h. c. Horst Teltschik.”
Brandt is former German Chancellor Brandt´s son, a historian. Kujat is Germany´s former Mark Milley. Teltschik was Helmut Kohl´s security advisor. I used to go on demonstrations against Teltschik when I was young. That´s funny.
According to Andrej Hunko from the LEFT PARTY and OSCE this is the most comprehensive peace memo so far. And I would agree.
p.s. listening to MacGregor – he brings up this issue of the US providing tactical nukes to the Ukrainians, and I would not discard this completely. So any freezing of conflict will be regarded by the Russians as a window of opportunity to undertake such foolish things by the Americans. Not sure the German government actually is aware of this. I doubt they take it into account. Even if it were just to “entertain” RU and the EU so the US can engage with China.
correct names:
Since Lapsed Agnostic correctly pointed out:
It´s Douglas Macgregor
but Ray McGovern.
I should get used to it after so many months.
” Colonel Douglas MacGregor, no Putin cultist he ”
I think he is. Another who predicted that the war would be over in ten days. A racist too.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/04/politics/kfile-douglas-macgregor-german-ambassador-pick/index.html
Yes. Magregor’s military predictions re the inevitability of an early Russian victory have been consistently wrong.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Macgregor
A brave combat officer but blinded by his admiration for Putin and authoritarian regimes generally.
From his Wiki page: Three days after the war began, he said “The battle in eastern Ukraine is really almost over,” and predicted “If [Ukraine] don’t surrender in the next 24 hours, I suspect Russia will ultimately annihilate them.” Macgregor said he believed Russia should be allowed to seize whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted. In his second appearance, he revised his prediction: “The first five days Russian forces I think frankly were too gentle. They’ve now corrected that. So, I would say another 10 days this should be completely over… I think the most heroic thing he
could do right now is come to terms with reality. Neutralize Ukraine.”
Not a reliable guide to the disastrous Russian invasion imo.
a 60 min. conversation which I found very much recommendable:
Robert Wright discussing – UKR Maidan political economic issues – with feminist activist Almut Rochowanski based in Austria with RU background doing the interview fom Maine, USA.
https://nonzero.substack.com/p/a-people-centered-view-of-russia#details
Naturally I don´t agree with it all. And she does state herself that she is an activist not a scholar. So there are some things she is no expert of. Such admission however one seldomly hears in public.
TC Stamps:
0:55 Almut’s work as a feminist activist in the former Soviet Union
11:25 How economic anxiety helped tear Ukraine apart
22:44 The very complex coalition behind the Maidan Revolution
29:56 Could wiser European Union policy have averted the Russia-Ukraine conflict?
36:43 Queer feminists and the ultra-right in Ukraine
47:52 The nature of Ukrainian nationalism
A decent text by Olga Baysha, Professor in Communication at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, trained in Boulder, Colorado, originally a journalist from Kharkov and Kiev.
“Zelensky without kitsch: From TV president to neoliberal autocrat”
https://multipolar-magazin.de/artikel/zelensky-without-kitsch
p.s. Whether RU did or did not support the Donbas after 2014 is to my knowledge still completely open a question and still debated by genuine historians like Roberts, Petro, Sakwa or Robinson – Baysha in contrast is an economist and journalist which becomes visible in the text and where it is more detailed.
AG.
I don’t mean to be unkind to Olga Baysha but the courses that a Professor of Journalism in Moscow might teach could plausibly include; “Assassination Avoidance”, “Obedience to Government Directives”, “Uncritical Reporting of Government Statements”…
OK that was a little sarcastic but her published work puts her squarely in the Russian Government camp.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Olga-Baysha
So difficult to treat her as a respectable or decent academic imo.
JK redux,
sry for my long response:
I look into various sources and it is a constant (hopefully) progressive process.
This particular text by Baysha in itself brings no piece of brand new info. Everything concerning the neoliberal turn before the war, and outlawing opposition has been said and written before by various people inside and outside of Ukraine. Baysha basically sums up.
I am trying to not be snobby about CVs and credentials since I have learned that regarding research and syntheses in these areas it is meaningless whether a person is a “renowned scholar” or not. What counts is in the particular paper.
E.g. compare Baysha´s take on neoliberalism with my above link to the interview with feminist activist Almut Rochowanski.
They both say the same thing in essence.
A couple of months ago I posted the major agricultural study by the US based Oakland Institute which goes very much in depth and very critically so about the sellout of land by the UKR government to mainly Western multis. The study is accordingly titled “War & Theft of Ukrainian Agriculture”. The Ukrainian grass-roots groups, unions etc. were protesting fiercely in Dec 2021 or 2022 (I forgot) against new laws to be passed by RADA which would have meant a major blow to small business peasants and families.
Those were the same folks who would go to the front unlike UKR /US/EU CEOs. But it were the latter who would get UKR subsidies and offers for buying the land.
In fact the family businesses withstood the war crisis much better than the multis, but still the multis got the funding the families the blood.
The land issue is additionally, I only assume now, as well a move to block China, which did have some takes in agriculture in UKR. I don’t know the numbers. But you know well these geopolitical matters operate on various levels.
The neoliberal turn, and that is common place by now, is a truism for all of Eastern Europe.
The political backlash in UKR is as well confirmed by many sides. You check the names imprisoned or put under house arrest, they are true people. As well as a couple of reporters who have been killed by the far-right in the past 10 years who were on that odd terrorist list (which is sort of idiotic, but anyway).
As well the pressure by the Far Right on the Zelenskyy Cabinet is considerable. These people operate with fear. Any attorney in UKR will tell you that. But going public with criticism in Europe might cost you your reputation or sympathies or your job, maybe by now a prison sentence even, if you cannot pay the fine (Germany) – but in UKR you can be beaten up, or killed, or put in prison under much more dangerous conditions than in Germany. Frankly UKR is turning into a hellhole in certain areas for people with certain agendae.
And what she said about the TV series and its significance politically was confirmed to me by Ukrainian friends back then (pre 2022). Everyone know it.
Maybe that fiction-turn’s real aspect is the craziest of all. You can watch Zelenskyy´s series I believe on Netflix and perhaps still the French channel ARTE.
You don´t have to agree. But I really believe more info is better than less. And our media landscape in the West, I had to learn the hard way in the past 2 years, is worth very little by now if you wish to be informed in comprehensive and truthful, responsible, wise ways.
It has turned into propaganda. Unimaginable 20 years ago. But perhaps I didn´t look closely enough then.
AG.
Thanks for that interesting response.
I suppose that where we may disagree is that Ukraine faces an existential crisis. (You know the argument that Russia can end the war by leaving Ukraine but Ukraine can only end the war by winning?)
Accordingly (just like in Britain during WW2) the Ukraine Government doesn’t have the luxury of allowing internal opposition. (Nor of course did the USSR during WW2 or long after.)
How long would the Bundesrepublik Deutschland permit internal opposition if Putin was mad enough (yes) and strong enough (no) to push through Poland to the Oder–Neisse line?
Moon of Alabama has a piece on UKR war veteran numbers to be expected:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/09/ukraine-sitrep-the-war-by-numbers-of-humans.html#more
He starts by quoting a link via Naked Capitalism to a Jamestown Foundation study suggesting a UKR population of 20 mio.
https://jamestown.org/program/ukraines-personnel-needs-reaching-a-critical-threshold/
Then follows the suggestion of 300,000 disabled:
“Two million have already entered the Ukrainian army. Many of those have been wounded or killed.
Due to the war the number of people with disabilities in Ukraine has sharply increased (machine translation):
During the year and a half of the full-scale invasion, the number of Ukrainians with disabilities increased by 300 thousand.
Previously, 2.7 million people with disabilities lived in Ukraine, and now this figure has reached 3 million.
This was announced by the Minister of Social Policy Oksana Zholnovych at the opening of the All-Ukrainian Center for Comprehensive Rehabilitation for Persons with Disabilities, Ukrinform “Укрінформ”reports.”
https://life.pravda.com.ua/society/2023/09/19/256633/
Eventually the estimate would be 4 mio. Ukrainian war veterans:
https://mva.gov.ua/ua/news/ce-kategoriya-potuzhnih-lyudej-ministr-u-spravah-veteraniv-rozpovila-pro-dopomogu-veteranam-i-yihnim-rodinam
“Twenty million minus the pensioners minus women and children leaves maybe some 6 million men that can potentially be mobilized. But many are still needed to run the economy and keep the trains rolling. The Minister of Veteran Affairs expects that there will be, in the end, some 4 million war veterans.
The war will likely end before that number is reached.”
p.s. One of the major political TV panel discussions on German TV last night was about how to tackle the problem of immigration. The show was torture to watch for various reasons. Most striking: Present were the major ministers and 2 fig leaf sociologists (one right wing one not). None of them addressed the true causes. Since to tackle those would question the political and economic capitalist foundations of Europe in its essence. Instead you could witness them playing mirco-bureaucatic checkers. Shifting around numbers. Total intellectual failure.
” But many are still needed to run the economy and keep the trains rolling. ”
Answer to that is simple. Mobilise the women as the UK and the US did during WW2. In the UK women did every job on the railways except drive trains, it was felt that the training took too long. Admittedly many have left the country but a sizeable number still remain.
why not instead of escalating this war by transforming Ukrainian economy 100% into war mode by your brilliant suggestion and rather agree to be neutral and keep UKR out of NATO and stop this madness (It worked miracles for Finland and Austria e.g.).
There is no law of nature that would dictate and force your brain to take up arms instead fo negotiating peace and protesting against going to war.
I don’t care if its Article 51 and so-called self-defence. “Self-defence” has killed tens of thousands of people. So what is “self-defence” worth? We don’t live in the Middle Ages any more when kids were taught honorable deaths and chivalry in killing – even Stoltenberg acknowledged just last week in a press conference that RU went to war provoked by NATO since 2014. Well, then I would suggest to end that provocation – cause and effect. It’s not a complicated concept.
Of course there is Putin, who is brainwashing and killing everyone who disagrees…I keep fogetting that all the time. I just don’t understand what good it will do for him to get everyone killed. But I assume that must be some particular Russian “war” gene that I am missing.
* * *
Regardless of how far apart our views are in this regard you cannot ignore what will happen to Ukrainian citizens, to Ukraine´s civil society, to their everyday lives – (the stuff that no paper outside Ukraine will be reporting because it’s not sexy – dissolution of social services, unemployment, forced to do demeaning work, constant threat from the extreme Right against forming unions, privatisation of the public sector – everything the EU wanted ten years ago) – the entire country being turned into a grand playing field for greedy Western investors and major conglomerates.
The plans of how to exploit Ukraine are all out there already. It’s no secret. I have already posted proof a few times that domestically Ukrainian organisations are well aware of this threat.
If this war will wind down without it turning into something world-ending, investors will move in and they will rip apart the country in the best Third World tradition with consulting agencies working out laws like they do for the EU, instead of Ukrainian politicians and their regional offices who know what is going on and what remedy and what policy would in fact help. And many families will live of support from members working in the west.
I’ve seen enough credible reports and analysis to believe that total casualties are half million in the conflict across all parties so far and have accelerated during the summer phase.
The Wagner monument itself states 20,000 id’s that supposedly does not count actual Russian troops.
Also not included are the Ukranians who have been injured and killed by Kiev since 2014.
When conscription rules in the ukraine have been changed to enable younger , older and these who were considered medically unfit until now, it obviously means they are desperate to get to the last Ukrainians willing , unwilling or incapable.
Including pregnant women as seen on their advertisements recently! The deluded young Nazis singing happily about being Nazis who bomb Donbass and wanting to exterminate all Russians. Having bought into the whole demented invented histories and origin stories – sieg heiling in the streets.
Turdeaux , welcoming an actual living WW2 Galician SS trooper with a standing ovation in the Canadian parliament yesterday! Having cuddled the current minime greenclad barbie doll, who has been busy dismantling any opposition, media and elections for his Masters.
It will be quite a shock for many that we were not told about the casualty numbers by our governments and we were deprived of basics to enable that slaughter. The truth of our side being actual Nazi loving scumbags going back to WW2 when we protected them by evacuating many to their hideaways in Canada, US, Oz and yes even parts of Blighty! So they could be bred again into doing Nazi stuff after attaining powerful positions in our military, governments and media.
Pushing Russia yet again into action as an existential matter against dissolution and takeover of resources , as it seems to have been the pattern twice a century by the Europeans then, and the Collective Waste now.
What really is the main brain fuck is how easily we have excepted xenophobia and cancelling of ALL things Russian!
The process of racism that’s being going on for decades now. Accelerating since the noughties.
Based on a hatred of a single individual, who obviously is part of a team in the Kremlin. A team so ably on display at the UN and militarily in Syria and other squares of the Chessboard set up since the 90’s.
The declaration of a unipolar supremacy and an ‘end to history’ – the lunatics really convinced themselves they were in charge of the Aslylum and the 85% of the worlds population would just go along with the delusion. It took me a few years to get over the lifetime’s propaganda and there is not a chance in hell that anyone will convince me to return to that dumbed down perspective.
That the multipolar is emerging from its chrysalis daily and we are sitting here deafened and blinded to it by our captured media and lying cheating thieving bastard politicians and their gangster masters demanding a 2% protection racket fee! Where racism is accepted and wokism is the new God. One that can throw down the old beliefs and their believers with brutal disdain. As the Communists supposedly did to the Catholic Church a hundred years ago.
“Don’t worry yourselves look there’s some footy on”
(The RWC also -which had the best game last night with Irelands win over World Champions South Africa btw)
” The truth of our side being actual Nazi loving scumbags going back to WW2 when we protected them by evacuating many to their hideaways in Canada, US, Oz and yes even parts of Blighty! ”
What would you have preferred? Concentration camps and mass extermination in gas chambers? Oh wait…. Post war the British administration in Germany hanged over 200 Nazi war criminals. Lesser Nazis were sent off to be re-educated.
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/hameln.htm
Talking of Nazis citizens in the ‘liberated’ Donetsk have been told by their Russian appointed leader that they are now subject to a curfew, can expect to have their letters read and electronic communications intercepted by military intelligence.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-installed-head-donetsk-imposes-5-hour-curfew-2023-09-24/
The Russian news agency TASS has added that Donetsk citizens must always carry ID and that breaking curfew is ‘dangerous for life’; ie they’ll be shot on sight. They add that residents have been told not to park their cars near to administrative buildings. The latter can only be because of a fear, real or imagined, of car bombs.
Should have hung a lot more of the murdering Nazi scum.
Concentration Camps is what we British do. Ukrops even talk on their tv about how Crimea will be cleansed by the Brits as we are the experts.
Gas chambers are what many of these SS, now fully integrated western natzos were involved in.
We shouldn’t project imperial British mores and methods and our Nazi sympathisers and promoters of WW2 upon the Great Red Army that survived and won so miraculously that we had to scramble to land some troops in Normandy before they rolled all the way to the Channel.
Most of these turned over to Stalin ended up on the gulags doing their punishment for being murderous dumb ducks who tried to exterminate Russias many peoples.
20 + million dead in that War.
When there is war and infiltrators, a basic security of curfew is pretty sensible and ID for these wandering about. Don’t you think?
The boundaries of east and west Europe were agreed before D-Day which is why US troops stopped their advance into Germany when they reached the Soviet zone and why Soviet forces withdrew from the area of Austria they’d occupied. Stalin never stopped pressing the other allies to open a second front against Germany. He knew he couldn’t do it all by himself.
It’s important not to sink to the level of the Nazis.
The oppressive measures imposed in Donetsk go further then just ‘basic security’, opening people’s mail and tapping ‘phones is just what the Gestapo did. Them and Stalin’s NKVD and the post-war Stasi of course.
80% of the Nazi Axis casualties were at the hand of the Red Army – so there was no need for the Allies to land and Stalin wouldn’t have begged. – no reason why it wouldn’t have been 99%!
The Yalta agreement was only made after the Reich was already defeated in 43.
The Normandy landings were not designed to defeat the Germans but to encourage them to scarper to their Eastern Front to delay as long as possible the Red Amy, so that we could take over Western Europe from the Nazis to keep it safe from the Commies. That’s why the Denouement was slowed down. Except we failed to tell a few hundred plucky Poles the plan, they single-handedly corked the Falaise Gap while the allied commanders looked on, hoping the Germans would fight through.
The D-Day bullshit was invented from day 1 of that plan – most of the landings were a cakewalk, most of the Germans were curiously absent and stayed absent. Most of the allied trips didn’t have to even go down as far as the Pyrenees or the Mediterranean to ‘liberate’ France.
He’ll even to the Atlantic Wall – which would have given the Russians La Rochelle
Otherwise there was no stopping the Red Army all the way to France and the Channel and most of the eastern Mediterranean.
As soon as Peace was declared we got the 4th Reich going as Nato and actually installed quite a few Nazi general staff to run it!
Gladio for the rest under Soviet control. Aerodynamic and Banderites for the Ukraine. Killing thousands through the 50’s.
The rest as they say is history, right upto Nazi scions in western governments and their murderous beliefs yet again on the loose in Europe hating and killing Russians.
Not in my name – Wallace (Tonto) and Shappshiffter (Gromit) can take a running jump along with all the media natzo presstitutes daily in the U.K.
I would suggest to not mix up Gestapo, NKVD and Stasi.
Those were three very different entities. Especially keep out Stasi from that lot.
Incarcerating people, building up the biggest spy force per citizen ratio in that part of the world, inducing fear etc. is no nice thing to do. But killing millions is a different matter entirely. And that they did not.
There are also differences between Gestapo and NKVD which might appear as cosmetic to some. But Germany´s nation state was never put into question by outside powers and interference the way it happened with the early USSR.
To the dead and tortured these details will not matter. But historic research should keep those details in mind. Only looking at the finer lines will let us understand. (Whether that helps has not been proven so far but I am not giving up.)
And while we’re at it: Why not start adding South American terror groups, African butchers and the CIA in Indonesia when discussing this.
One major downside of German´s fixation on Holocaust studies is academia´s lack of wisdom to relate to and acknowledge][ genocide carried out in other parts of the world, by the forefathers of today´s “Collective West” in what we now call “Global South”.
a.k.a (Neo)Colonialism.
Moon of Alabama quoting Shoigu, with outlook into war going on well beyond the US election.
In fact RU naturally by now won´t give a damn about any of that. Since they have eventually accepted the sad fact that the US is out for their scalp. No matter who is in charge in the WH.
“Yesterday the Minister of Defense in Russia, Sergei Shoigu, gave an update (in Russian) on the war in Ukraine. The speech seemed to include a time frame for the war to end (machine translation):
The United States and its allies continue to arm the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the Kiev regime throws untrained soldiers into senseless assaults, for slaughter.
Such cynical actions by the West and their cronies in Kiev only encourage Ukraine to self-destruct.”
“Under these conditions, we continue to increase the combat power of the Armed Forces, including through the supply of modern weapons and improving the training of troops, taking into account the experience of a special military operation. Consistent implementation of the activities of the Action Plan until 2025 will allow us to achieve our goals.”
Shoigu expects the war to run throughout 2024 and into 2025. But if the current loss rate of the Ukrainian army continues the country will be running out of soldiers and armored vehicles before the end of next year.”
AG
If a Russian victory is inevitable:
“Shoigu expects the war to run throughout 2024 and into 2025. But if the current loss rate of the Ukrainian army continues the country will be running out of soldiers and armored vehicles before the end of next year.”
then supporters of the Russian regime and military need only wait in patience for their desired outcome to arrive.
Some posters here seem to be angry and unsettled about the present situation.
Be calm, Putin knows what he is doing.
(I’d say so, anyway… 😎)
“need only wait in patience”
sadly so.
Since there is a very cold numerical thinking behind that which is just what military has been doing for centuries.
This could have been averted though. All political leading sides know this. And it could still be to prevent more dead human beings.
But for that hegemony is not an option…
Before 9/11 the CIA warned that increased US violence in the Middle East would eventually make things worse for US citizens and personnel. For any security apparatus such an analysis however presented even more reason to carry on. That’s simply because any political entity or institution will try to do everything to make sure of its continued existence.
Not many people understand the reasons why Russia assisted Syria in turning the war against the 3 stooges, what was going on in the Kremlin at the time and what was providing assistance on NATO strategy as well as other. If you are able to get numbers for suspected Russian agents in the UK from January 2012 until October 2019 you might notice something. The march to Moscow is not complicated and other than that I cannot spell it out here. The Americans would like to know why, many people want to know why. I’ve noticed how people react to actual real information, they disbelieve it, it cannot be true. They want to know until they know. They can never be satisfied. What was going on between the Kremlin and it will never be public, why would it. If you understand what the west is you would be a fool to get noticed. Sometimes ordinary people come across highly sensitive information, if that happens to you i’m sure you would would destroy it without looking.