WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia [Archive] - Page 32 - The Project Avalon Community Forum

Tintin

7th January 2023, 11:37

https://twitter.com/PeterMcFar/status/1611215518559600642

1611215518559600642

https://twitter.com/I_Katchanovski/status/1611244574990548992

Very good - thanks for sharing the resource :thumbsup:

Well, if they don't wish to publish it, we will :) The paper is now in the Avalon Library (https://avalonlibrary.net/Ukraine/Maidan_massacre_February_2014/%5BPAPER%5D_The_Maidan_Massacre_in_Ukraine-Revelations_from_Trials_and_Investigation_%28Ivan_Katchanovski%29_November_29_2021-SSRN-id4048494.pdf) along with the other video resources (https://avalonlibrary.net/?dir=Ukraine/Maidan_massacre_February_2014/Ivan_Katchanovski_resources) - 7 in all - cited in his tweets.

A direct link to a paper source is here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4048494

----------------

The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: Revelations from Trials and Investigation
75 Pages Posted: 28 Mar 2022

Ivan Katchanovski
University of Ottawa

Date Written: November 29, 2021

Abstract
This study examines evidence revealed by the ongoing trial and government investigations concerning the Maidan massacre in Ukraine. The massacre of the protesters and the police during the “Euromaidan” mass protests in February 2014 contributed to the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and ultimately to a start of the civil war in Donbas, Russian military interventions in Crimea and Donbas, the Russian annexation of Crimea and an international conflict between the West and Russia. The research question is as follows: What does evidence made public by the Maidan massacre trials and Ukrainian government investigations reveal about which of the parties of the conflict was involved in this mass killing? This paper analyzes several hundred hours of video recordings of the Maidan massacre trials and information concerning investigations of this massacre in over 2,500 court decisions from the official court decisions database in Ukraine. It examines trial and investigation testimonies of wounded protesters, relatives of the killed protesters, prosecution and defense witnesses, and top officials of the Yanukovych government. The study also analyzes results of forensic ballistic and medical examinations and investigative experiments, and videos and photos of the Maidan massacre made public during the trial. It includes several online video appendixes. They contain testimonies of wounded protesters and witnesses concerning snipers in Maidan-controlled locations and content analyses of synchronized segments of American, Belgian, Belarusian, British, Finish, French, Dutch, German, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian TV videos, recordings of live online broadcasts, and social media videos of this crucial massacre.

The Maidan massacre trials and investigations have revealed various evidence that four killed and several dozen wounded policemen and at least the absolute majority of 49 killed and 157 wounded Maidan protesters were massacred on February 20, 2014 by snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings and areas. Such evidence includes testimonies of the absolute majority of wounded protesters, several dozens of prosecution witnesses, dozens of defense witnesses, and 14 self-admitted members of Maidan snipers groups. Videos presented at the trial showed that times of shooting of the absolute majority of protesters did not coincide with times of shooting by the Berkut policemen, who were charged with their massacre. Forensic medical examinations determined that the overwhelming majority of the protesters were shot from steep directions from the sides or the back. Initial ballistic examinations did not match bullets extracted from the bodies of killed and wounded protesters to the Berkut Kalashnikovs. Forensic examinations of the bullet holes by the government experts for the Maidan massacre trial suggested that Berkut policemen were shooting in the Hotel Ukraina snipers above the Maidan protesters and in trees and poles. The analysis shows cover-up and stonewalling of the investigations and trials by the Maidan governments and the far right. The prosecution denied that there were any snipers in the Maidan-controlled buildings. Not a single person is convicted or under arrest for the massacre of the protesters and the police almost 8 years after one of the most documented mass killings in history.

Keywords: Ukraine Conflict Violence Trial Criminal Justice

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 14:29

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1611717888691380231

1611717888691380231

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1611704500972036096

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1611721207308587008

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1611715452362969095

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Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 14:32

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1611691595388043264

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1611701504662011909

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1611689529756504067

1611689529756504067

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 14:36

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1611658805733097477

1611658805733097477

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 14:47

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1611706218745303042

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https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1611706231701508100

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https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611730604143280128

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Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 14:51

Ukraine Says Russia Shifting Away From Bakhmut

gT6cDWh4G0g

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 14:55

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1611703894001713153

1611703894001713153

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1611691271265062912

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Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 15:04

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1611610478089740289

1611610478089740289

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1611484438872969227

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https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611677274440433666
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https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611677283487518720

1611677283487518720

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 15:11

https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611633081978322946

1611633081978322946

https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611638577053536257

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https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611646645560647680

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https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1611631332408303616

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Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 15:15

A prophecy

https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611682805691387907

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Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 15:20

https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1611603480065748992

1611603480065748992

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https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1611621109102673920

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Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 15:32

Some more about the unfulfilled prophecy

https://twitter.com/JSO_Kula/status/1599103182482702336

1599103182482702336

https://twitter.com/JSO_Kula/status/1599103191261806592

1599103191261806592

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 15:36

https://twitter.com/Orthodoxy2019/status/1540281341685768192

1540281341685768192

https://orthochristian.com/146878.html

A TALK BY METROPOLITAN ARSENY OF SVIATAGORSK LAVRA, IN GENTLER TIMES
Part 1. On the “homestead” Lavra, revival, and an abbot’s prophecy

The Sviatogorsk Lavra is one of the Orthodox treasures of eastern Ukraine. Situated on the high banks of the Seversky Donets River in the Donetsk region, it was frequented by the future St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco, who was born and raised not far from there. It has been housing refugees from the war that started in 2014, when Ukrainian forces began shelling the breakaway republic. With the Russian “special operation” and the Ukrainian army’s response, the Lavra has found itself under fire. In the months of May and June, 2022, due to artillery fire its buildings were damaged, two of its sketes were destroyed, and four monks killed. To honor the heroism and suffering of this famous monastery, we have translated a talk by the abbot, Metropolitan Arseny (Yakovenko) given during more peaceful times.

***

One of the most striking impressions for Orthodox media workers from Ukraine and Russia at the fifth Orthodox Media Festival, which this year [in 2012.—Trans.] took place in the Donetsk region, was a pilgrimage to the Holy Dormition Sviatogorsk Lavra. It would seem that everything was known about the Lavra for a long time, but it prepared many surprises for the forum participants, and everyone will agree that the most impressive one was the communication with the monastery abbot, Archbishop [now Metropolitan] Arseny of Sviatogorsk, Vicar of the Donetsk Diocese. During the talk, which lasted several fascinating hours, Vladyka Arseny impressed everyone with his sincerity, openness and wisdom. Expecting to see a strict father-superior who had managed to turn a ruined monastery into a great Lavra of Ukraine and revive the nearby villages, the Orthodox media reps. unexpectedly beheld an archpastor with a simple view of Divine and earthly things. His stories about Church matters were far from “high style” cold moralizing. Vladyka seemed to be telling a tale, alternating it with local words and popular jokes, with examples of spiritual strength from the Lives of the saints, and funny moments from the life of the brethren and the laity.

On the Lavra and “Sviatogorsk disease”. Twenty years later

True, twenty years is not a very long period. In 1992, the restoration of the ancient monastery, closed in the Soviet era, commenced. Although it began far from the Lavra...

There were only eight of us. When we came here, many fingers were pointed at us that we were a bunch of imbeciles who, at most, would last a couple of months and then scatter. Fr. Tikhon from Lugansk [Hieromonk Tikhon (Ilgov).—Ed.], who is now sitting in the hall, can confirm this.

We had to wash ourselves in the Seversky Donets River, the only shower was in the boiler room of the then sanatorium, and instead of beds we had door panels. It was a time when pilgrims had nowhere to stay; and in fact, the brethren themselves had nowhere to live. And now we can simultaneously accommodate 1,000 people in the Lavra hotels. Since 1859 we had a tradition of providing everything for free.

On his deathbed the first restorer of this monastery, Archimandrite Arseny (Mitrofanov), a spiritual son of the holy elder, Abbot Philaret (Glinsky), left this will and testament: “All pilgrims should be received, accommodated and fed free of charge. As long as you do this, the monastery will not lack anything.” And to this day we do not disobey this blessing; and, glory be to God, everything is still fine...

The town of Sviatogorsk is unique. In the Soviet era it was a resort town with pioneer camps, recreation centers and holiday homes. During perestroika all this was abandoned or destroyed. However, now the recreation centers are experiencing a new lease on life—some spots have been bought out and restored by private entrepreneurs or enterprises (for example, by Stirol the concern of Gorlovka).

If at first people came to us as tourists, then they begin to travel here as spiritual children of our priests. And this happens quite often. Thanks to our monastery many have found new meaning in life or have been healed.

Miracles of healing often occur at the Sviatogorsk Icon of the Mother of God, among which there are many cases of cures from cancer and barrenness. There are many testimonies when families did not have children for eleven to seventeen years, and after prayers at the miracle-working icon they were able to conceive. Parents told their friends about this, and now 15,000 to 20,000 people flock to the icon of the Mother of God for its feast on July 30. As the saying goes, you do not go to an empty well for water.

We could tell you that in such and such a year we restored one thing, and in such and such a year the authorities returned another thing to us. You can see for yourself what has been done. In a nutshell, we can say that when we came here, birch trees grew in the Holy Protection Church, and we removed 2,600 tons of garbage from the Dormition Cathedral. Most importantly, over the twenty years of its recent history the monastery has produced spiritual fathers, whose advice is sought by people from everywhere, and men of prayer for our Holy Orthodox Church, thanks to who tens of thousands of people have become integrated into Church life.

We even have the concept of “Sviatogorsk disease”. In olden times it was said that there was a “Jerusalem disease”: Once a person visits a holy place for the first time, he wants to return there again and again. We have the same here...

The rest is here,

https://orthochristian.com/146878.html

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 15:45

(Remember Gogol was mentioned on this thread recently (about him being born in Ukraine))

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1611710520175755265

1611710520175755265

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 15:57

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1611708405139361794

1611708405139361794

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 17:31

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1611769334837149698

1611769334837149698

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“Underground cities with tanks near Bakhmut”

https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611768042404429826

1611768042404429826

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 17:54

https://twitter.com/Levi_godman/status/1611758544713293824

1611758544713293824

https://twitter.com/Levi_godman/status/1611758552586010624

1611758552586010624

kfm27917

7th January 2023, 20:44

DECEMBER 28, 2022
https://asiatimes.com/2022/12/russia-winning-the-electronic-war-in-ukraine/

A Krasukha electronic warfare system at Nikolo-Aleksandrovsky training range in Stavropol Territory. Photo: AFP / Denis Abramov / Sputnik
Russia may already be gaining the upper hand over the electronic war in Ukraine, knocking out the latter’s drones and potentially blinding its artillery.

In an article this month in Forbes, David Axe cites a November report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) that Russian electronic warfare (EW) capabilities have knocked out the majority of Ukraine’s drones, with the average lifespan of a small quadcopter drone reduced to three flights, and that of fixed-wing models to six.

According to the RUSI report, 90% of the thousands of drones Ukraine managed to amass before Russia’s invasion in February were shot down or crashed by summer, forcing Ukraine to request replacement drones and fighter jets from the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Axe also notes that Russia’s EW has blunted Ukraine’s intelligence advantages, which enabled its much smaller artillery force to punch far above its weight early in the war.

In a May article for Forbes, David Hambling noted that Ukrainian artillery crews were using various drone models to deliver precise artillery fire against Russian positions, making the most of its limited artillery ammunition stocks by hitting critical targets to maximize the strategic effect.

This advantage may have saved the city of Kiev during the early days of the war. In an article this month for Insider, Michael Peck claims that it was mass fire from old-fashioned Ukrainian artillery that repelled Russia’s February assault on Kiev, not high-tech drones or anti-tank guided missiles.

But Axe says that as Ukraine’s drones are falling out of the sky at an alarming rate, this complicates artillery fire control, removing any precision advantage, increasing the survivability of Russian forces, and allowing them to reconsolidate for further offensive operations.

In addition, Ukraine’s artillery batteries may soon be firing blind, compounding its artillery ammunition woes and further straining US and NATO strategic patience in supplying Ukraine to keep it in the fight.

Ukraine’s air force is also buckling under the effects of improved Russian EW capability. Axe says Ukraine’s fighter pilots were the first to feel the effects of enhanced Russian EW, noting that the pilots frequently discovered that their air-to-air and air-to-ground communications were jammed, their navigation equipment suppressed, and their radars knocked out.

Given these reports, the drone war in Ukraine has potentially changed course. Asia Times has previously reported on the early successes of Ukraine’s Bayraktar TB-2 drones, which inflicted huge losses against Russian forces, and could be behind the most significant casualties of the war, such as the loss of the cruiser Moskva and critically damaging the frigate Admiral Essen.

However, these early successes may have been due to the Russian military’s shortcomings rather than the combat effectiveness of the TB-2. In a report last year by the Turkish think-tank SETA, the TB-2’s success can be ascribed to Russian shortcomings.

The source says Russian forces acted out of their standard tactics, techniques, and procedures that required them to operate under an extensive air defense umbrella with EW capabilities, leaving them vulnerable to TB-2 strikes. In addition, the report states that Russia has yet to establish air superiority fully over Ukraine, which may be due to the latter’s substantial Soviet-era air defense network.

The source says poor coordination and logistics and sub-par maintenance have left Russian forces vulnerable to ambushes and drone strikes. Also, it says Russia’s Soviet-era air defenses are not optimized to deal with the TB-2, as it is small, quiet, does not show a sizable thermal signature, and flies below the minimum detection altitude of long-range radars.

Further, the lack of coordination between Russian combat and EW units may have prevented the latter from using their capabilities to full effect against the TB-2 during the early phases of the Ukraine war.

But in a July article in IEEE Spectrum, Bryan Clark wrote that Russia’s EW was gaining an advantage as the Ukraine conflict turned into a war of attrition.

Clark wrote that during the early stages of the conflict, Russian columns were moving along multiple axes into Ukraine, could not send EW drones over the horizon, and had Ukrainian units interspersed among them. As a result, he says any Russian jamming would have also taken out Russian radios, which forced limits on using EW capabilities.

Moreover, Clark noted that the densely populated areas around Kiev resulted in mixed civilian transmissions and military communications, which prevented Russia from using its EW capabilities to pinpoint and target Ukrainian troops.

He also noted Ukraine’s use of NATO SINCGARS (single channel ground and airborne radio system) jamming and interception-resistant radios to phase out their older Soviet/Russian units, which had back doors built into them for Russian intelligence agencies.

Also, Clark says that during the war’s mobile early stages, Russian forces were unable to advance and change positions quickly enough, resulting in their EW affecting themselves. At the same time, he notes that as Russian troops could not stay for long in their positions, it prevented them from setting up larger, more powerful EW systems to blind NATO satellites and airborne radars.

However, Clark says that as the fighting is now concentrated in less-populated eastern Ukraine and that Russian forces are dug in and no longer thinly spread out, Russia is now using its EW capabilities to detect and degrade Ukrainian communications to support a strategy of incrementally capturing territory using its 10-to-1 advantage in artillery firepower.

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 22:46

Russia On Brink of Capturing Soledar, Ukraine Bakhmut Defences Crumble, West Rushes Weapons, Ukraine

QEIsQSoMx1U

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 22:50

https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611826194923528192

1611826194923528192

https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611826202255278080
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https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1611826208257228802

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Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 22:58

https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1611799406164205568

1611799406164205568

Ravenlocke

7th January 2023, 23:03

https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1611857782738649088

1611857782738649088

shaberon

8th January 2023, 06:39

So they say over at the Cabinet (https://sputniknews.com/20230106/theyre-helping-a-lot-biden-praises-non-existent-patriot-systems-in-ukraine-1106086263.html):

‘They’re Helping a Lot’: Biden Praises Non-Existent Patriot Systems in Ukraine.

“We’re going to – we’re going to pr- - we’re going to provide an additional Patriot air decis- - air defense battery. They work, and the Russians are beginning to realize that. They function well, and they’re helping a lot,” Biden said in a cabinet meeting at the White House Thursday.

“Germany has also announced that – today that it’s going to provide the Ukrainians a – the – to deal with air attacks, a Patriot air defense system,” Biden added.

The president did not elaborate on how the air defense systems, which by all accounts haven’t been sent yet, were “helping” Ukraine at the moment.

Mashika

8th January 2023, 06:49

If you look at this, these howitzers are blown up badly but very 'clean', there's no mass destruction of the road or anything around it, no giant crater or several as when the usual mortars are used

This means two possible options:

1. Tanks hit them directly, but this would be a bit odd since these howitzers seem to be on the road and not in battle positions (two close to each other and like they were just moving across, not in attack or defensive positions)
2. Something hit them hard and direct from above (not a UAV)

5C-fuAPXqF8

I think Russian army is now using Gran guided shells. Which means an almost 100% certain death for the target. Gran shells glide across the sky, so to speak, guided by a drone, so they can hit directly even if a target is moving, it will follow it and redirect itself as a kamikaze UAV would do, but with the full power of a 122/152 mm shell, blowing up the target way beyond what a UAV could possibly do

That this are now over there means that there's very little air defense from Ukraine in those parts, since these shells need now a drone directing the shell to the target

This is going to be massive if that's true, and it will lead to the killing of thousands. I wonder if this is what's happening now based on these images

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AL9nZEVUd27-zMp0InpPRLJSJzOOuFNRLMAfkroZiEE9q1iT8kwq7Htp4wB9KZeSSwF-EONfw7dVDFIfWwLvGHbkWVP9VfmGDIclvOgnIZj8ulftrqOI-8-66zY9UCEVI8YmtjKMHYwUUfknKstj8IPKDvdz=w1280-h720-no?authuser=0

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AL9nZEX43vkAQLqG3G14rvtr9Umli7K2M7jS8Pe4yDgGdnMPbDpSL4rclSixGEpzclrtr3Xd-wFrK8YsBqlm3Awuf14K4Y21reJyVY0XNEB5rYW1G7yUox2cdY33AXbb9CRwTVmhTKsV4t139-WFDe70YW9z=w1280-h720-no?authuser=0

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AL9nZEVjhdVaop0UsSVJ7RKmSLsJMlNp1c_CCMtAUzpluCwEgdse6IaB6mthyxfoE2XFj_g1N_jX08Af-PYUUEGQjxFroNJIZQnPYq_KtUgiBFGe5YDrJDjQjVIk90GAvXpyTDt0KQ054gudB_9XjrB1FvcF=w567-h647-no?authuser=0

But the maniac psychos at the US mil must be celebrating this, as it empowers and enables them to 'send more help' with the excuse that these soldiers are dying, and therefore more cash is sent their way

I bet lots of bonuses will be received because of this

Maybe Biden should also be proposed for a Nobel Peace Price

It seems like making money for the military and this in turn helping in the continuous advance of the mass murder and destruction of everything and everyone not bending the knee to the US gov demands is considered 'peace and rule of law"

Just what kind of psycho says stuff like this and brags about it? How mentally ill someone has to be to consider talking about murdering thousands and thousands of people and then claim they are "peaceful" and then just what kind of system enables this mad man to continue walking on the streets as if nothing had happened?

tRVmguzRujA

We know the Serbia thing was fake, as usual, just to make money for the US and to move forward the imperialist agenda, Ukraine is no different now

If Russia had fallen to the US as planned in the 90s, then we would probably be seeing a war of Russia against China, or any other country that would be considered troublesome for the agenda. Ukraine would not even be on the picture because the original plan was for Russia to become a burned down wasteland, just like they turned Ukraine into, so that they could use it later on for their personal purposes

I hope all those ridiculous ignoramus supporting the mass murder of Ukrainians for the benefit of a few corrupt murderous psychos in the US are happy with the results. It brings good money so it must be good right?

Money is the only God they answer to

Rizotto

8th January 2023, 10:13

Aren’t more (if not most) Ukrainians by now aware that they’re just being used by the USA imperialistic delusions to try and fight Russia “to the last person” (to quote Lindsay Graham). Those soldiers who know this, and try to surrender to Russian forces are being shot dead by Ukrainian militants. How does this work? Are those militants imbedded with Ukrainian battalions?
Would it be possible for the Russian side to encourage the surrender of Ukrainian soldiers? It would be a game changer if surrendered Ukrainian soldiers would be publicly speaking of the atrocious misuse of power by the Zelensky regime sending them into the hopeless meat grinder, just to please the USA imperialist masters.

Bill Ryan

8th January 2023, 12:59

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 15:04

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1612087931081998338

1612087931081998338

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1612087935150473217

1612087935150473217

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1612071404673073153

1612071404673073153

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 15:10

January 4th,

https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1610606306385330176

1610606306385330176

https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1610606312634580992

1610606312634580992

https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1610606318372503558

1610606318372503558

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 15:20

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1612061172211105792

1612061172211105792

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1612064819422576641

1612064819422576641

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 15:26

https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1612095999648071693

1612095999648071693

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 15:30

https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1612090880189661185

1612090880189661185

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1612059671103442944

1612059671103442944

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 15:35

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1612104425652330496

1612104425652330496

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 15:43

https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1612095999648071693

1612095999648071693

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1612091226643210240

1612091226643210240

Vicus

8th January 2023, 19:46

https://www.sott.net/image/s33/666388/large/Biden_Zelensky.jpg

I'm speechless...

Mashika

8th January 2023, 21:20

I think Russian army is now using Gran guided shells. Which means an almost 100% certain death for the target. Gran shells glide across the sky, so to speak, guided by a drone, so they can hit directly even if a target is moving, it will follow it and redirect itself as a kamikaze UAV would do, but with the full power of a 122/152 mm shell, blowing up the target way beyond what a UAV could possibly do

That this are now over there means that there's very little air defense from Ukraine in those parts, since these shells need now a drone directing the shell to the target

This is going to be massive if that's true, and it will lead to the killing of thousands. I wonder if this is what's happening now based on these imagesVery very interesting. :highfive: I forwarded this to Brian Berletic (The New Atlas (https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewAtlas/videos)), and there's a chance he just might see it.

Thanks!

Couple corrections:

- The gran is 120 mm, that's why it caused a massive blow but not enough to create the usual crater, there is another system named Krasnopol which more or less works the same but it's 152 mm, that one would probably have left a crater because of the size. These are very precise and fast, i think i posted a video before of a tank or ivf getting hit by a a shell and completely blowing up without also leaving a crater, it must have been a similar shell that hit it
- Previously, a laser fire control system was used that required a small team to get closer to the target or have it visible from a distance, kind of like forward observers do, they would use their fire control to direct the laser at a target and then the shell would hit there. But i heard these were upgraded with a drone base fire control system, this requires the drone to be able to see and follow the target but it seems the drone has to be moving a bit slow to keep the target focused with the laser, this would make it easy to take down by a manpad for example or other AD. But looks like no one is around to protect these howtizers/tanks anymore and a tank without proper protection or forward observers is a blind/dead tank

This was the video, the drone remains stationary on air watching and possibly signaling the IFV, then the shell hits with great accuracy and completely blows up the IFV beyond this world. The drone is just hanging there in mid air and this makes it easy target for MANPAD.. but if you know there are none around... :)
v0HMhqHEPoo

I also found this article from TASS
https://tass.com/defense/1477229

The projectiles are automatically homed on a target, illuminated by a laser designator.

"An optical laser seeker is installed on a drone, for example an Orlan-family drone. The drone points at a target, and a projectile hits it," the source said.

But this is the first time i see this in use, it looks like those were in Donbass since 8 July 22 but not used much, now we are seeing video of them, i think it's because now Ukraine is running out of AD systems

For reference, the previous fire control system was a land based one, "Malakhit"
http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/land-forces/automated-artillery-fire-control-systems/malakhit/
http://roe.ru/upload/resize_cache/iblock/d4e/415_500_1e3cd68611aa859771f9d287689e58ce0/d4eb55cb1b778b072134833e029941a5.jpg

This required people on the ground, a drone can move all over the place and signal several targets in a very short amount of time, and a set of drones, like 5 or so, could do massive damage in 30 minutes that would be impossible to do before with land based fire control systems and forward observers

Bill Ryan

8th January 2023, 21:21

Mashika

8th January 2023, 21:34

https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1611857782738649088

1611857782738649088

Wherever there are Ukrainians there are Nazi symbols and idolatry lol

Like walking on the street and you see a manhole and remove the cover and thousands or little Waffen SS symbols start running all over the place... :facepalm::ROFL::ROFL::ROFL:

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 21:46

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1612199650458583040

1612199650458583040

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 21:49

:facepalm:

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1612199986275520513

1612199986275520513

Ravenlocke

8th January 2023, 21:54

https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1612047572969086976

1612047572969086976

https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1612047578937303042

1612047578937303042

Michel Leclerc

8th January 2023, 22:05

(...)

Maybe Biden should also be proposed for a Nobel Peace Price

(...)

Yess! Very probably, based on their country’s foreign policy record, the Norwegians have already initiated the awarding procedure.

shaberon

8th January 2023, 23:16

Would it be possible for the Russian side to encourage the surrender of Ukrainian soldiers? It would be a game changer if surrendered Ukrainian soldiers would be publicly speaking of the atrocious misuse of power by the Zelensky regime sending them into the hopeless meat grinder, just to please the USA imperialist masters.

They do encourage it and it happens all the time.

But there is no "public speaking".

There are large cemeteries, but they do not talk.

Strange as it may seem, many oppressed peoples, whether Ukrainian conscripts, Indian farmers, or African miners do not jump up and verbally explain the correct state of affairs to western audiences. We are used to that because of so many prepared NED statements, where again this year over a billion in funds are being pumped for the purpose. Those who are not on the CIA payroll typically just try to fix their lives.

Secondly, enormous piles of evidence have recently shown that American imperialists are deaf. They can't process the input. Only lies are true, reality is blocked.

The potential difference is a mutiny, if a significant enough portion of Ukrainian military on the scale of a colonel's command decides to overpower a smaller force of Azov or other "enforcers", then there will be an event. Without this level of force, Zionists, Americans, Ukrainians, etc., do not care if you "talk about it". They themselves are not "agreement capable", as shown by the NATO and Minsk procedures. Only responds to force (such as eviction by the Taliban). And, of course, there is the standing offer:

unconditional surrender of the Ukrainian state.

In the most literal sense, conscripts are sent to the very front lines and are told that the next defensive line behind them will kill them if they try to flee. Recently I saw that some have never met the commanders, who are back in Slavyansk. You are dropped off nowhere, with nothing, and nowhere to go. To even be able to surrender on a personal level probably takes some maneuvering.

The way in which all this violence is considerably beyond making sense is similar to these views from Kadyrov (https://tass.com/politics/1559463):

"I see that some are worried about the foreign aid to Ukraine. Do not worry! This is a working money laundering scheme. Western and Ukrainian officials will embezzle these funds, and no more than 15% of the entire aid will reach the trenches," he said.

Kadyrov also noted that there is no need to worry about hostilities currently happening on Russian territory.

"These are our regions, which opted to join our state for the sake of protection of their people from Satanist actions of Ukrainian and NATO nationalists," he underscored.

Or Zakharova (https://tass.com/politics/1559429):

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova branded Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s decision revoking Ukrainian citizenship of 13 priests of the canonic Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) as Satanism.

Ravenlocke

9th January 2023, 00:42

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1612177254833963009

1612177254833963009

https://twitter.com/Cyberspec1/status/1609830152665731075

1609830152665731075

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Ukraine Admits Heavy Losses, As Russia Takes Podgorodnoye, Most Soledar, Encircling What's Left

wuofdfbt7MY

aoibhghaire

9th January 2023, 01:04

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/01/ukraine-hiding-bakhmut-salt-mines/

Storage of who knows what.

Communication with ???

Lots of possibilities

Ravenlocke

9th January 2023, 01:47

https://twitter.com/RealLoriSpencer/status/1612061361592303616

1612061361592303616

How Nazis Infiltrated America's Intelligence Agencies | Nazis In The CIA | Timeline

Florian Hartung and Dirk Pohlmann have reconstructed a previously unknown dimension of the collaboration between Nazis and the CIA in the Cold War. Drawing upon recently released documents, the film exposes for the first time a perfidious, worldwide net that reaches deep into the power structures of the Federal Republic of Germany. Lending their authority to the fact-finders’ mission are high-ranking statesmen, journalists and historians.

LhES-TshLdk

Ravenlocke

9th January 2023, 01:55

https://twitter.com/RealLoriSpencer/status/1612240288671473664

1612240288671473664

WtF7QJAzJLY

https://twitter.com/RealLoriSpencer/status/1611991485112815616

1611991485112815616

Bill Ryan

9th January 2023, 12:18

Critical military aid at last reaches Ukraine from Denmark.
(Clearly Russia must surrender now :) )

https://projectavalon.net/Russia_must_surrender.jpg

Bill Ryan

9th January 2023, 12:28

Western media is losing the battle too. :)

https://projectavalon.net/Ukraine_fatigue.jpg

Vicus

9th January 2023, 17:39

More than 600 Ukrainian troops killed in ‘retaliation operation’ – Moscow

The strike in Kramatorsk was a response to the Ukrainian shelling of Makeyevka on New Year’s night, the Defense Ministry says

More than 600 of Kiev’s troops have been eliminated in a Russian missile strike in the Ukrainian-held city of Kramatorsk in the Donbass, Russia’s Defense Ministry has claimed.

The bombardment on Sunday was a “retaliation operation” carried out in response to “a criminal attack” by Ukraine on a temporary housing area accommodating Russian servicemen in the city of Makeyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on New Year’s night, the ministry said in a statement.

Over the past 24 hours, the Russian military has managed to uncover and confirm the location of Ukrainian troops in Kramatorsk in the DPR, the statement read. This data revealed that dormitory No.28 in the city was hosting more than 700 Kiev soldiers, with 600 more staying in dormitory No.47.

“As a result of a massive missile attack on these temporary housing areas of the Ukrainian military’s units, more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen were killed,” the ministry said.

The Ukrainian military, however, has denied sustaining heavy casualties as a result of the strikes. A spokesman for the Eastern Grouping of Ukrainian Armed Forces, Sergey Cherevaty, dismissed Moscow’s statement as a “psy-op” intended to distract from Russia’s own heavy losses of equipment and personnel.

On January 1, at precisely 0:01am, Ukrainian forces targeted a temporary housing area containing Russian troops in the city of Makeyevka. Six missiles from a US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launcher were fired at the building. Two of them were intercepted by Russian air defenses, but four made it through, causing massive damage to the facility. The death toll from the strike has reached 89, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

Earlier this week, Moscow said several HIMARS systems operated by Ukraine had been destroyed in Donbass, including the launcher that was used in the strike on Makeyevka.

The strike on Kramatorsk took place following a 36-hour truce announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin to allow Orthodox Christians, who make up the majority of the population in Russia and Ukraine, could go to church and celebrate Christmas safely. The ceasefire by Russian forces was unilateral, and the Ukrainian military continued to shell multiple areas in the newly incorporated Russian territories of Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, Moscow said.

https://www.rt.com/russia/569559-kramatorsk-retaliation-operation-makeyevka/

kfm27917

9th January 2023, 19:18

Putin is not the biggest threat: A critical juncture for the West

As the Kremlin takes the major step of national mobilisation to fight a war of aggression against a nascent Western democracy, and once again repeats nuclear threats against the West as a whole, it would seem that our values and way of life are under threat from an outside actor. And sure enough, we are threatened. But the biggest threat we face at this perilous and delicate historical juncture is not external. Vladimir Putin is a mouse in comparison to what threatens our way of life from within, ostensibly in the name of our very Western values.

Before I begin elaborating on what I have to say, it is important that you understand what I mean by 'the West': despite the name, it's not a geographical location or even an ethnicity, but a system of fundamental values and way of life. For historical and bio-evolutionary reasons, these values and way of life still correlate with particular geographies and ethnicities, but to me this is entirely circumstantial. For instance, one of the most unambiguously Western voices in the media today is Fareed Zakaria. And a disproportionate number of those who threaten the Western way of life today are caucasians born in the Western hemisphere. So no, to be Western is not an ethnicity or a domicile; it is to espouse a system of fundamental values and a way of life.

But what way of life? What fundamental values? It is almost inevitably unfair and inaccurate to summarise the answer to these questions in a simple statement. Yet, with that in mind, I will try: to be Western is to hold the uniqueness of individual expression in the highest regard. For us, people are not mere numbers, anonymous drones or cogs in a sociopolitical machine; people are unique individuals who must be allowed to express themselves in their own way, for each and everyone has something unique and valuable to contribute. And by 'expression' I mean much more than just freedom of speech, although the latter is entailed by it as well: individual expression is about being in the world in our own unique ways. This individual expression is as much embodied in speech as it is in art, philosophy, science, profession, hobbies, relationships, and behaviour in general. Westerners hold as sacred our right to be who we are, and to live life in our own unique ways—as determined by our muses, daimons, souls, or whatever you want to call it—as long as doing so does not infringe on the rights of other individuals to do the same.

continues at https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2022/09/a-critical-juncture-for-west.html

ExomatrixTV

9th January 2023, 23:30

'We Are Facing The Entire NATO In Ukraine': Kremlin Says, As UK Mulls Battle Tanks (https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/kremlin-says-military-confrontation-nato-already-happening-uk-mulls-sending-tanks)

Vicus

10th January 2023, 11:53

Key Donbass town close to liberation – DPR head
Fighting is now taking place in the Western part of Soledar, Denis Pushilin says

https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2023.01/m/63bd3b7e2030270ce9048dbf.jpg

Russian forces are about to seize the key town of Soledar from the Ukrainian military, the acting head of Russia’s People’s Republic of Donetsk Denis Pushilin has said.

“The events [in Soledar] are developing in the exact way that the town is close to liberation,” Pushilin told Channel 1 on Tuesday.

The fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops is now taking place in the Western part of the settlement, he added.

Soledar, which had a population of some 10,000 before the conflict, is located ten kilometers north of Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, and control over it is believed to be crucial for the Russian operation to encircle the major Ukrainian stronghold.

Pushilin’s claims were backed by the UK Defense Ministry, which said in an intelligence report on Tuesday that “in the last four days, Russia and [Russian private military company] Wagner forces have made tactical advances into the small Donbass town of Soledar and are likely in control of most of the settlement.”

However, the British ministry suggested that this “increased pressure” still won’t allow the Russians to envelop Bakhmut/Artyomovsk as “Ukrainian forces maintain strong defensive lines in depth and control over supply routes.”

On Monday, the Pentagon’s Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh also said that, according to US data, there is "a good portion of Soledar that the Russians have in their hands.” Singh described as "savage" the artillery exchanges between the sides in the battle for the key town.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged in an address on Sunday that the situation in Soledar was “very difficult” for the country’s military.

The area around Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, which includes Soledar, was “one of the bloodiest spots along the front line,” he said, promising that Ukrainian troops will continue resisting the Russian offensive “no matter what.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/569642-soledar-bakhmut-pushilin-ukraine/

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 16:23

Scott Ritter: Russia is WINNING in Ukraine as Zelensky BEGS for Weapons

YeZQe4hVSsE

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 16:27

About the Artyomsol salt mines

https://twitter.com/Navsteva/status/1612841379700277252

1612841379700277252

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 16:34

https://twitter.com/Navsteva/status/1612842713790947329

1612842713790947329

[url]https://scooptrade.com/underground-fortress-of-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine-what-is-the-complexity-of-the-assault-on-soledar/?amp=1

Underground fortress of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: what is the complexity of the assault on Soledar

January 4, 2023

Over the past few days, the assault detachments of the Wagner PMC have made significant progress in Soledar and have almost reached the famous mines of the Artyomsol enterprise. Why they represent the main difficulty in the storming of the city – we explain in our material.

The forces of PMC “Wagner” are currently fighting fierce battles on the front from Yakovlevka (already liberated) to Kleshcheevka, which is still under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The main efforts of the “musicians” are focused on the destruction of enemy manpower and equipment in the Bakhmut area, where the Kiev command has deployed almost all combat-ready units of the armed forces of Ukraine.

According to military correspondent Alexander Simonov, there are units of 27 brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and territorial defense, 5 separate battalions, a combined detachment of special operations forces and militants of the Azov National Regiment * (banned in the Russian Federation) in the city. Due to heavy losses, the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are forced to regularly withdraw from the line of contact to the rear areas in order to be understaffed with mobilized ones, and then return again to the Bakhmut meat grinder, which was arranged for them by Wagner PMC.

Meanwhile, shortly before the New Year, the “musicians” began to storm the city of Soledar, located northeast of Bakhmut. And while some of the units are advancing from Yakovlevka, other forces are advancing in the city itself from south to north. According to the latest data, the advanced detachments of the Wagner PMC are already very close to the famous salt mines of the Artyomsol enterprise. They will become the main difficulty in this direction.

Salt mines of Soledar

Prior to the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Artyomsol was the largest enterprise for the extraction and sale of table salt in Central and Eastern Europe. It consists of five salt mines, which are located within the city limits of Soledar and Praskovievka: mines No. 1, No. 3, No. 4, No. 7 and the Volodarsky mine. They are interconnected by rail and road, as well as a developed system of underground communications, which, after the outbreak of hostilities, were improved by the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Concrete-reinforced mine shafts have a depth of 150 to 280 m. Below are chambers that can reach 17 meters in width and 13 m in height. Rail transport was used to deliver salt extracted by drilling and blasting to the mine shaft. Thus, now under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Soledar and neighboring Praskovievka there are huge interconnected and fortified underground premises at a depth of several hundred meters.

To understand the scale of these structures, it can be noted that before the beginning of the NWO, salt mines were the only local attraction. Group excursions were taken there, thematic exhibitions, concerts of symphony orchestras were held there, and in one of the caves the Salt Symphony speleosanatorium was organized at all. And this is all in parallel with the ongoing production of more than two million tons of salt per year.

Underground fortress of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The Artemsoli salt mine system is already being used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine as an underground fortress. Ammunition depots, quarters for personnel, and in some places even hangars for equipment are equipped at great depths. And “get” them from the surface is almost impossible. Underground communications are also used by Ukrainian military personnel to move between positions, and the approaches and some entrances to the mines are mined and ready to be blown up. In terms of difficulty for the assault, the Artemsol mines can easily compete with the famous Azovstal in Mariupol.

It is not worth expecting an early liberation of the territories of the enterprise and its environs, however, the divisions of the Wagner PMC are quite capable of this difficult task. Moreover, the experience necessary for this already exists – One can recall the underground tunnels of the terrorists of the “Islamic State” * (banned in the Russian Federation) in Syria, which were successfully cleared out by the “Wagnerites” in 2015-2018, and the jewelry assault on the Uglegorsk thermal power plant in Svetlodarsk.

Therefore, the complete liberation of Soledar is only a matter of time.

* – a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 16:43

https://twitter.com/colonelhomsi/status/1612834547653300224

1612834547653300224

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1612844369916366848

1612844369916366848

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 16:51

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1612799348936417281

1612799348936417281

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1612821370953502720

1612821370953502720

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 16:56

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1612771629808902144

1612771629808902144

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1612815670382673920

1612815670382673920

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1612826054468505601

1612826054468505601

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 17:09

2hours ago,

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1612814647530500096

1612814647530500096

4 hours ago,

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1612786466039500800

1612786466039500800

18 hours ago,

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1612572798660104210

1612572798660104210

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 17:15

https://twitter.com/Levi_godman/status/1612856150046965762

1612856150046965762

https://twitter.com/TheHumanFund5/status/1612853553344794624

1612853553344794624

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 17:23

Yesterday in Kherson,

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1612539384594632704

1612539384594632704

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 17:33

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1612534585874587658

1612534585874587658

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 17:42

https://twitter.com/WorldWarNow_/status/1612557753742151681

1612557753742151681

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 17:47

Ukraine's Donbass defense system collapsing. (36 minute update)

HolYxZ6s4tY

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 17:51

https://twitter.com/TobiAyodele/status/1612867101357920256

1612867101357920256

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 19:54

In English,

“They really need more help”…….”they’re fighting for our freedom”…

https://twitter.com/rybar_en/status/1612880057952833551

1612880057952833551

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 20:07

https://twitter.com/colonelhomsi/status/1612888058126340098

1612888058126340098

https://twitter.com/imetatronink/status/1612894657318629376

1612894657318629376

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/defnotfsb/status/1612829760463437824

1612829760463437824

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1612884792562880539

1612884792562880539

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 20:10

Russia Presses Ukraine in Soledar, Bakhmut, Ukraine Mulls Retreat; Patrushev Says Russia Fights West

1DMYp1MoPZE

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 20:15

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1612881942126465024

1612881942126465024

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 20:28

https://twitter.com/miladvisor/status/1612899316334485504

1612899316334485504

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 21:43

https://twitter.com/Judgenap/status/1612924801668243456

1612924801668243456

q46eEGWekRQ

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/Levi_godman/status/1612922148506554372

1612922148506554372

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/mdfzeh/status/1612923178740858887

1612923178740858887

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 23:06

https://twitter.com/200_zoka/status/1612943219427315718

1612943219427315718

Ravenlocke

10th January 2023, 23:10

https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1612944643854843904

1612944643854843904

Bill Ryan

11th January 2023, 11:11

Light relief: :)

https://t.me/CyberspecNews/15993

CyberspecNews/15993

But this is the sobering truth. (A battalion is anything between 300 and 1000 soldiers, so 14 Ukrainian battalions lost = probably 5,000—10,000 men.)

There are hundreds of Telegram posts now confirming this.

https://t.me/intelslava/43282

intelslava/43282

Tintin

11th January 2023, 13:28

A Saker update on the situation around Soledar from January 10th (yesterday)

-------------------------

The Ukraine loses Soledar and Artemovsk

January 10, 2023

Source: The Saker (https://thesaker.is/the-ukraine-loses-soledar-and-artemovsk/)

Having abandoned the Christmas truce, Kiev received painful breakthroughs in the defense line in the Donbass. The Russian Armed Forces have achieved decisive success in Soledar and Artemovsk-important strategic points that the Ukrainian command is trying to hold at any cost, including for political reasons.

As of January 9, fighting is already underway in the center of Soledar and in the area of five-story buildings in the north-east of the city. Two railway stations, a number of salt mines, and residential buildings in the south and southeast along Oktyabrskaya Street have come under the control of the Russian Armed Forces. The village of Bakhmutskoye in the south-west of Soledar has also been cleared. Units advancing from the east, from the village of Yakovlevka, went to the area behind the Transfiguration Church, and assault detachments – to Yurchina Gora, cutting the section of the highway to Blagodatnoye, that is, stopping the supply of the group in the strategically important Seversk.

According to the newspaper VZGLYAD, by midday fierce battles began for the building of the Soledar administration and for the neighboring House of Culture, in other words, for the city center. Satellite images show a large fire near the central square. The defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has become fragmented, it no longer has a single management and is divided into separate groups.

The day before, the withdrawal of the 128th separate mountain Assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began, which quickly turned into a flight. The 61st Separate Mechanized Brigade also began to leave its positions, despite attempts to urgently strengthen it with reserve battalions. As a result, it abandoned its positions, which led to the flight of the 10th mountain assault brigade, as well as the 17th tank brigade-it was the last operational reserve that was supposed to hold Soledar and plug holes in the defense.

However, ideologically motivated units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including the special forces “Karpaty” and separate units of mountain assault brigades, tried to hold observation posts in five-story buildings on Karpinski Street, so it was premature to talk about the occupation of Soledar. But on Monday, Ukrainian units (or rather, their remnants) retreated to the north-west of the city in the area of “Artemsoli” and the railway station “Sol”.

Theoretically, this can be called the third line of defense, which boils down to an attempt to stay on the outskirts until the reinforcements announced by Zelensky appear (it is assumed that we are talking about newly formed “numbered” brigades from those mobilized in the Chernihiv region, which have been undergoing combat coordination at the Goncharovsky training ground for the last month).

The second task of the AFU remnants in the city is to prevent Russian troops from quickly reaching the north of Soledar and cutting the road to Seversk. In fact, it has already failed, since the intersection of the road to Seversk (the corner of Oktyabrskaya and Pionerskaya streets) has already been put under fire control by the Russian Armed Forces.

The situation also changed dramatically near Artemovsk (in the Ukrainian manner – Bakhmut). By the morning of January 9, units of the Russian Armed Forces had dislodged the combined detachments of the 60th and 17th Separate Mechanized brigade from the village of Podgorodne, which opened up the possibility of encircling Artemovsk from the north. In the south and south-east of the city, the destruction of fortified areas in the villages of Opytne and Kleshcheyevka and the cleaning of the territory around the gypsum factory (KNAUF) on Patrice Lumumba Street took place.

The AFU constantly transferred reinforcements from the reserves of the 60th Separate mechanized brigade, as well as two armored groups of the 28th mechanized brigade, separate special forces companies and teroborona to Artemovsk. Presumably, the nearest reserve of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be the 58th ompbr and 93rd ombr from the same Chernihiv region. A couple of numbered brigades, which are being hastily transferred from the Zaporozhye direction to Bakhmut, will not have time to go there.

The main form of defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Soledar and Artemovsk was indiscriminate shelling by the artillery division of the 60th Separate Mechanized brigade and the 17th tank Brigade, which are located outside the contact combat zone. Five Su-25s and two MiG-29s were also connected from the Mirgorod airfield.

The comical fortifications built on the central streets of Soledar in the form of traditional anti-tank shafts made of welded rails turned out to be of no use to anyone.

According to some data, the active transfer of AFU reserves near Soledar and Artemovsk will be able to begin no earlier than January 20. Consequently, they will hold a new line of defense, west of the broken Artemovsk – Soledar – Seversk system.

In the middle of the day on January 9, reports began to arrive that assault detachments began clearing Opytne south of Artemovsk and entered the villages of Krasnaya Gora and Paraskoviyevka. The last two are small, even by local standards, settlements along the railway, but they are tactically important positions, as they close the encirclement of Artemovsk from the north, cutting off the local Ukrainian garrison from Soledar. When this success is consolidated, the entire area between Artemovsk and Soledar will come under the control of the Russian Armed Forces.

The clearing of small villages south and southwest of Artemovsk threatens the supply of the local garrison. The new line of defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be built, as in Soledar, along the western outskirts of the city, and then along the settlement of Chasov Yar, which over the past few months has been turned by the Armed Forces of Ukraine into the main stronghold of the entire Ukrainian group, as well as into a distribution point for incoming reserves.

Chasov Yar is a good position, historically located in this town are quarries of refractory clay (the factories themselves have not been working for a long time, but they are a convenient “promka”for defense). In addition, the Seversky Donets – Donbass canal flows right in front of Chasoviy Yar, which even in cold weather (on Monday in the Donbass minus 12-15 Celsius) is a defensive position.

The loss of the entire Artemovsk – Soledar – Seversk defensive line threatens the Ukrainian Armed Forces with far-reaching consequences.

First, the pressure on Kremennaya and Lysychansk will stop, and the entire flank of the Ukrainian front will sag in this direction.

Secondly, the creation of a new line of defense (approximately around Chasova Yar) will require special efforts from Kiev. Already, about six numbered brigades that made up the garrisons of Artemovsk and Soledar have been almost destroyed, and they need to be rotated and re-equipped with new recruits.

In recent weeks, these garrisons have been maintained at the expense of “veteran” units, including mountain assault units, highly motivated “svidomykh” and special forces. The new numbered brigades, made up entirely of ideologized sergeants and veteran officers mobilized with a small participation, show poor effectiveness.

At the moment, the line of defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is broken, and the Ukrainian command will not be able to return the situation back. However, it is still too early to talk about the full occupation of Artemovsk – Kiev will hold this locality until the last one for ideological reasons.

Even now, its further defense is meaningless, but there are no signs of withdrawal of the AFU units from the city. Moreover, there is evidence that in the center of Artemovsk, fortified areas are being created on the model of Soledar, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to insist on strengthening the grouping in the city, including at the expense of units from the southern direction.

On the other hand, there are reports that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are increasing their presence in Ugledar, which may also mean preparations for a counteroffensive in the southern direction. So far, the pace of the Russian Armed Forces ‘ advance in Soledar and around Artemovsk is quite high, but unpleasant surprises are still possible.

Tintin

11th January 2023, 13:54

Ukraine Arms Trafficking: The Waltz of Bloody Clowns
Source: 21st Century Wire (https://21stcenturywire.com/2023/01/02/ukraine-arms-trafficking-the-waltz-of-bloody-clowns/)
Published January 2nd 2023
Author: Arnaud Develay

Ukraine has a long and sordid history in the illegal arms trade, and the recent proxy war between NATO and Russia has turned what used to be an obscured black market into a major international weapons enterprise – financed and supplied with western public money.

https://21stcenturywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Ukraine-Arms-Trafficking.jpg

Arms trafficking by Ukrainian gangs has made it possible to diversify stocks placed on the market at unbeatable prices in the countries of the European Union.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Through an unprecedented outpouring of solidarity (especially with regard to the management of the health crisis), Europe has sent massive arms to Ukraine. Weapons that will undoubtedly end up killing Pierre, Jacques, Anne, even you or me.

This is the boomerang effect already seen through the ridiculous imposition of “sanctions trains”: before releasing 100 million euros to equip the Ukrainian armed forces, it is hard to believe that French President Emmanuel Macron did not understand the risk that its weapons will be used to equip entities that do not care about France’s interests in protecting its own population. (1)

Since last March, the NATO and G7 countries have been massively feeding President Zelensky and his clique with weapons of all kinds. (2)

The hunger of Kiev’s bloody clown is never satisfied, however.

In doing so, many of these weapons also end up in the hands of various terrorist groups around the world, including in Africa, fueling political instability there. (3)

The director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, indicated that Ukraine spends “the staggering amount of six billion dollars each month” on the war, this sum being provided to Zelensky by his Western ‘partners.’ (4)

These are hundreds of thousands of pistols, assault rifles, submachine guns and grenades, and hundreds of millions of cartridges of various calibers exported to Ukraine over the past eight months. Even NATO-supported Kosovo Albanians have not benefited from such largess.

Based on multiple western mainstream media reports, it can be argued that all deliveries to Ukraine are controlled by arms barons, be they Ukrainian criminal syndicates linked to Kiev oligarchs and politicians, as well as international crime. This is in no way Russian contraband. The operation is completely under Ukrainian control. Although the Finnish authorities have already raised this threat, Helsinki has been asked not to make waves. (5)

These “warlords” are building fortunes by reselling the various systems on the black market. The latter is fed thanks to the diversion of all the models of portable arms which happen to be registered on the so-called lists of “solidarity supplies” for the Ukrainian army. In some cases, darknet traders boast that the weapons were “tested in the war against Russia”.

By taking a closer look at this most lucrative market, we learn, for example, that packs of 5.45 mm NATO caliber cartridges (1,080 cartridges) are selling like hotcakes at 120 dollars apiece. The prices are convertible in all currencies. An old Kalashnikov (AK-74, AKMS) assault rifle with a barrel that fired 10,000 rounds costs barely $300. The Makarov pistol (9 mm, Soviet standard) is estimated at $400. A model F.1 grenade (prized during the Soviet era and similar to the French Alsetex LU 213) is resold for $100.

Ukrainian Kalashnikovs are sold and bought by mafia networks at prices lower than those parlayed during the conflict in Serbia. At the time, all the mafias in Europe were supplied with assault rifles through Albania.

Today, it is not only AK-74s that can be bought from Ukraine. The list has been expanded and completed to the delight of buyers.

Manual bazookas are on sale starting at $500 a piece. The blackmarket price of the SPG-9 grenade launcher is set at roughly 3,000 USD. A sniper rifle with NATO unification optics is available for 1,200 USD.

The price of a Javelin ATGM anti-tank guided missile (stolen or sold at the point of delivery from the United States to the Ukrainian army) is 30,000 USD.

Among the latest Ukrainian offerings is the remotely piloted Turkish Bayraktar TB2 with 4 suspended guided munitions.

Prominent Ukrainian blogger Shariy investigated Ukraine’s massive purchase of these combat drones and concluded that it was a corruption scheme involving the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. (6)

In view of the profits at stake, we should not expect Europol, which from The Hague has been fighting against the arms market in the European Union, to launch an investigation.

By way of illustration, our readers will note with interest the screenshots (see photos under the article) of the correspondence exchanged between the participants in one online transaction among many others.

They both have Russian names…..and communicate in Russian (it is easier for Ukrainians to communicate in Russian). The Bayraktar system (Turkish-made drone) arouses the lust of the buyer.

“Information on this topic (sale of combat drones) appeared,” writes the seller. The two individuals negotiate the price of a drone bearing the serial number 211100021 (PN-11005220100) (See photos below).

Buyer Mikhail acknowledges that the product is of good quality. He offers Dmitri (presumably a Ukrainian army officer) to buy the pilot block and the missile block from him for $20,000. Dmitri demands 25,000: “Moldovans demand more” (the arms smuggling corridor from Ukraine to the EU market passes through Moldova and Romania). The parties agree to use crypto money “as usual”.
The risks and threats linked to mafia wars, religious extremism and psychopaths have not disappeared from Europe after Macron and Ursula von der Leyen showed their solidarity with Zelensky.

Tens of thousands of automatic weapons, hand grenades and bazookas, tons of Semtex and TNT, were shipped to Europe through the same Albanian arms trafficking channels, via Romania. Interpol and Europol turn a blind eye.

We will all be sad and heartbroken to learn that a Ukrainian Fort 301 sniper rifle bullet shattered the fragile little hope of a president working for peace on the steps of the Élysée Palace. But beware of the boomerang effect.

If France engulfs 155 mm Caesar howitzers in the black hole of deals concluded with the Mafia Banderiste, we should not be surprised one day to see these individuals appear in our towns and villages.

Meanwhile, dreams of democracy in Ukraine have spawned a monster in Europe.

https://21stcenturywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Article-ventes-armes-4-vertical-768x769.jpg

https://21stcenturywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Article-ventes-armes-5-768x1024.jpeg

norman

11th January 2023, 14:48

When all the human battalions of selectively gathered fight capable men are dead and defunded, and the war is conducted by autonomous drones, using a global satellite intelligence and control network, how will anyone know 'who' is doing it ? The combatant distinctions are already becoming blurred as more remote controlled devices are deployed.

The current rules and diplomatic trigger points will be obsolete by then, just as the law has not kept up with silicon valley's developments and big pharma's developments. When all of these sectors become one big corporate technological unity it will be a global technological killing machine active in all regions, versus low social credit score humans.

Drone use is widening in Ukraine, bringing with it potential dawn of robotic killing machines
Tuesday, January 10, 2023 by: JD Heyes

https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-01-10-drone-use-in-ukraine-robotic-killing-machines.html

https://www.naturalnews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/91/2023/01/Drone-Military-Bomb-Render-Uav-Aircraft.jpg

Like all wars, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago has spawned a wave of new and innovative ways to kill other human beings, as both sides adapted to standard weapons platforms and looked for ways to defeat them.

And while the use of drones as killing platforms predates the Ukraine war, uses and tactics involving the use of the devices have dramatically advanced over the past roughly 11 months.

The Associated Press reported this week (https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drone-advances-6591dc69a4bf2081dcdd265e1c986203) that the longer the fighting lasts, the faster “a long-anticipated technology trend” will move, bringing about “the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare.”

“The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers,” the AP added.

If — or rather, when — this happens, experts say it will usher in a revolution in military technology that was as monumental to warfare as was the machine gun, which actually began with the hand-cranked Gatlin guns at the end of the American Civil War (which also ushered in other advances, such as the rifled bullet, improving accuracy, and the cartridge, which signaled the end of the musket).

Already, Ukraine is employing semi-autonomous attack drones on the battlefield as well as counter-drone weapons that utilize artificial intelligence, the report added. And while Russia is also claiming to be employing AI weaponry, so far, those have yet to be confirmed. Still, there are no confirmed cases where any country has deployed a fully robotic combatant on a battlefield that has killed humans entirely on their own. But experts warn those days are coming sooner rather than later, and it could be either country that deploys them.

“Many states are developing this technology,” Zachary Kallenborn, a George Mason University weapons innovation analyst, told The Associated Press. ”Clearly, it’s not all that difficult.”

The AP notes that liberal activists aren’t going to be happy:

The sense of inevitability extends to activists, who have tried for years to ban killer drones but now believe they must settle for trying to restrict the weapons’ offensive use.

Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, agrees that fully autonomous killer drones are “a logical and inevitable next step” in weapons development. He said Ukraine has been doing “a lot of R&D in this direction.”

“I think that the potential for this is great in the next six months,” he told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Unfortunately, the development of autonomous systems (https://www.militarytech.news/2022-11-09-iran-admits-supplying-russia-with-combat-drones.html) will also come as a result of manpower shortages. Ukraine is much smaller, population-wise, than Russia, and President Vladimir Putin’s army is getting beaten up badly, with more than 100,000 lost thus far, according to reports, which is making the war very unpopular in his country and will complicate efforts for him to recruit enough men to refill depleted ranks.

Lt. Col. Yaroslav Honchar, a Ukrainian military officer, is a co-founder of the combat drone innovation nonprofit Aerorozvidka. In a recent interview near the front lines in the country’s east, he said human soldiers cannot make decisions and process information nearly as fast as a machine. He added that while Ukrainian military leaders and the country’s civilian leadership currently do not permit the use of fully autonomous lethal weapons, that may change in the future, especially if Russia continues targeting the country’s infrastructure and neighboring Belarus joins forces and sends troops into Ukraine as expected.

“We have not crossed this line yet – and I say ‘yet’ because I don’t know what will happen in the future.” said Honchar, whose group has led drone innovation in Ukraine (https://dronewatchnews.com), converting cheap commercial drones into highly lethal weapons.

These systems will make their debut on some Ukrainian battlefield in the not-too-distant future. Count on it.

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 16:28

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1613203453949485059

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https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1613206441401139201

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Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 16:35

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613184304938369024

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613175593851564032

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Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 16:40

8 minute analysis with topographical images,

Front Update | Bakhmut Analysis | The Implications of The Fall of Soledar | What's Next?

https://twitter.com/WeebUnionWar/status/1613202433907347459

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Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 16:57

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613161179743981569

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613161190158368772

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613161197045534721

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613161203177512960

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613161209439875072

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https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1613179519162290177

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https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1613207823193604096

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Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 17:19

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1613220659454431236

1613220659454431236
https://www.rt.com/russia/569712-gerasimov-appoints-ukraine-operation/

Moscow explains appointment of new head of Ukraine operation
The head of the Russian General Staff, Army General Valery Gerasimov, has been appointed to lead Moscow’s joint forces group in Ukraine, the defense ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The former commander of the military operation, Army General Sergey Surovikin, has been made his deputy.

The need to “raise the operation command level” was linked to an “increased scale of the combat missions,” and the need for closer coordination between various services and branches of the armed forces, the ministry said.

The move will also improve logistics support and command effectiveness for the Russian forces in Ukraine, it added.

It comes just around three months after the defense ministry appointed Surovikin, the Russian Air Force commander, to lead the effort.

Gerasimov is known as one of Russia’s top military commanders and a renowned strategist, who has earned the respect of Kiev’s top commander, Valery Zaluzhny. Back in September, Zaluzhny told Time that he had “learned from Gerasimov.”

Zelensky aide confirms Ukraine tried to kill top Russian general READ MORE: Zelensky aide confirms Ukraine tried to kill top Russian general
“I read everything he ever wrote… He is the smartest of men, and my expectations of him were enormous,” the Ukrainian general admitted at that time.

Gerasimov has visited troops fighting in Ukraine on several occasions to improve coordination between the forces, but did not take over direct operational command until now. In December, Kiev admitted trying to kill Gerasimov during one of his unannounced visits back in April 2022, despite the US objections.

Previously, the New York Times reported that Ukrainian forces had shelled the positions where Gerasimov was thought to have been, but the general was unaffected by the strikes. Moscow never officially confirmed that the general even visited troops at that time.

Putin holds top brass meeting on Ukraine
Putin holds top brass meeting on Ukraine
In the West, Gerasimov is alleged to have been the author of the “Gerasimov doctrine.” This term was coined in 2013 by writer and ‘Russia watcher’, Mark Galeotti, and overhyped by Western media as a unique Russian hybrid warfare system, combining military and non-military methods. Moscow never confirmed the existence of any such doctrine. Gerasimov himself, however, said back in 2019 that it was the West that was using “hybrid warfare” methods against Russia.

Two other generals were also appointed as Gerasimov’s deputies in the ongoing military campaign in Ukraine. One of them is the Russian Ground Forces commander, Army General Oleg Salyukov. An experienced career officer, he served as a battalion commander and head of the Far-East Military District before becoming a deputy head of the General Staff and then Ground Forces commander.

The other is Colonel General Aleksey Kim, a deputy head of the General Staff. He previously headed Russia’s Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces and is known as an experienced military specialist. He is also a professor and holds an academic degree in military sciences.

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https://tass.com/politics/1560977?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=smm_social_share

DPR official says 500 Ukrainian troops may be trapped in Soledar

It is reported that some of the Ukrainian servicemen that have been left behind in and around Soledar are most likely wounded or demoralized

DONETSK, January 11. /TASS/. About 500 Ukrainian troops may be trapped in Soledar, a town that’s gone under the control of Russian forces, Yan Gagin, a military analyst and an adviser to the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic told TASS on Wednesday.

Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin said several hours earlier that the fighters of the private military company Wagner seized control of Soledar and there was a pocket of resistance in the city center. Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday that Russian troops had blocked Soledar from the north and south and battles were raging inside the city. Some news media reported that up to 500 Ukrainian troops may remain surrounded.

"That’s about how many servicemen they could have left there. Not even on purpose. Leave someone behind, or it’s someone who hadn’t heard about the retreat. It’s an approximate number that’s named. By our commanders on the ground," he said.

Some of the Ukrainian servicemen that have been left behind in and around Soledar are most likely wounded or demoralized, he said, and they will hardly be able to put up serious resistance to Russian forces.

"It’s like Azovstal here: You are either dead or captured. Many of them [Ukrainian soldiers] are wounded," the analyst said.

According to Gagin, the Ukrainian servicemen would do best to surrender and save their lives rather than "face a silly and inglorious death in a town that’s already been liberated."

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 17:22

https://tass.com/politics/1560901?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=smm_social_share

Russian paratroopers block Soledar from north and south, fighting is on — top brass

Russian forces also liberated the community of Podgorodnoye southwest of Soledar, eliminating about 80 Ukrainian troops over the past day

MOSCOW, January 11. /TASS/. Russian Airborne Force units blocked Soledar from the north and the south and are battling Ukrainian troops in the town, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Wednesday.

"Airborne Force units have blocked Soledar from the town’s northern and southern parts. The Russian Aerospace Forces are delivering strikes at enemy strongholds. Assault groups are engaged in a battle in the town," the spokesman said.

Russian forces struck 74 Ukrainian artillery units over the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Konashenkov reported.

"Operational-tactical and army aviation aircraft, missile troops and artillery struck a battalion command and observation post of the Ukrainian army’s 57th motorized infantry brigade near the town of Artyomovsk in the Donetsk People’s Republic. Also, 74 Ukrainian artillery units, manpower and military hardware were struck in 113 areas over the past 24 hours," the spokesman said.

Russian forces delivered strikes at amassed manpower of two Ukrainian army brigades in the Kupyansk area, destroying over 30 militants in the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In the Kupyansk area, artillery and army aviation strikes at amassed manpower of the Ukrainian army’s 92nd mechanized brigade and 103rd territorial defense brigade in areas near the settlements of Sinkovka and Kislovka in the Kharkov Region, and also Novosyolovskoye in the Lugansk People’s Republic eliminated over 30 Ukrainian servicemen and two motor vehicles," the spokesman said.

The Ukrainian military suffered roughly 90 casualties in the Krasny Liman area over the past day as a result of damage inflicted by Russian artillery and combat aircraft, Konashenkov reported.

"In the Krasny Liman area, artillery fire, assault and army aviation strikes inflicted damage on the assault groups of the Ukrainian army’s 95th and 80th air assault brigades and 25th airborne brigade in areas near the settlements of Torskoye in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Chervonaya Dibrova, Makeyevka and Chervonopopovka in the Lugansk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.

Russian troops also eliminated four Ukrainian subversive/reconnaissance groups in the Lugansk People’s Republic and in the Serebryansky forestry. In all, the enemy lost as many as 90 troops killed and wounded, two armored fighting vehicles and three motor vehicles in that area over the past 24 hours, the general specified.

Russian forces liberated the community of Podgorodnoye southwest of Soledar in the Donetsk area, eliminating about 80 Ukrainian troops over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In the Donetsk area, Russian troops liberated the community of Podgorodnoye in the Donetsk People’s Republic as a result of successful offensive operations," the spokesman said.

As a result of battles in that area, Russian troops destroyed as many as 80 Ukrainian servicemen, one tank, three armored fighting vehicles and two motor vehicles of the Ukrainian army’s 61st mechanized and 17th tank brigades, the general specified.

Russian troops eliminated roughly 25 Ukrainian militants as a result of strikes on enemy forces by combined firepower in the southern Donetsk area over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In the southern Donetsk area, as many as 25 Ukrainian servicemen, an infantry fighting vehicle and two motor vehicles were destroyed as a result of damage inflicted on Ukrainian army units by combined firepower in areas near the settlements of Nikolskoye, Prechistovka and Novosyolka in the Donetsk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.

Fighter aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down a Ukrainian Su-27 plane in the Donetsk People’s Republic over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"Fighter aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces shot down a Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 plane near the community of Popov Yar in the Donetsk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.

Russian troops destroyed two US-made counter-battery radars of the Ukrainian army in the Donetsk People’s Republic over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In addition, AN/TPQ-50 and AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery radar stations of US manufacture were destroyed in the areas of the towns of Artyomovsk and Dzerzhinsk," the spokesman said.

Russian troops also destroyed a Ukrainian Uragan rocket launcher near Kotovka in the Kharkov Region, two Ukrainian 2S7 Pion self-propelled cannons near Raigorodok in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a D-20 towed howitzer near Kolodezi in the Donetsk People’s Republic, two D-30 howitzers near Berestovoye in the Kharkov Region and Pobeda in the Donetsk People’s Republic and a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer near Pavlovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the general specified.

Russian forces destroyed a US-made M777 howitzer in the Donetsk People’s Republic over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In the counter-battery warfare, an M777 artillery system of US manufacture was destroyed at firing positions near the community of Belogorovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.

Russian air defense forces intercepted five HIMARS and Olkha rockets in the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In the past 24 hours, air defense capabilities intercepted five rockets of HIMARS and Olkha multiple launch rocket systems in areas near the communities of Debaltsevo and Yenakiyevo in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Kartamyshevo in the Lugansk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.

During the last 24-hour period, Russian air defense systems destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the communities of Pavlovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Kremennaya in the Lugansk People’s Republic, and also shot down an American HARM anti-radar missile near the settlement of Bryanka in the Lugansk People’s Republic, the general added.

In all, the Russian Armed Forces have destroyed 371 Ukrainian warplanes, 200 helicopters, 2,868 unmanned aerial vehicles, 400 surface-to-air missile systems, 7,473 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 976 multiple rocket launchers, 3,809 field artillery guns and mortars and 8,006 special military motor vehicles since the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine, Konashenkov reported.

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 17:27

https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/status/1613146533553229825

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Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 17:33

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1613194416478474241

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Vicus

11th January 2023, 18:33

Wagner group claims full control of Soledar
Ukrainian troops are reportedly trapped in the key Donbass town

https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2023.01/thumbnail/63bddb8c2030273fe0018070.jpg

Wagner Group units have taken control of the “entire territory” of Soledar, the head of the private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed on Tuesday evening. Fighting is continuing in the center of the town, where an unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers has been encircled.

“There is a cauldron in the center of town, where urban fighting is taking place,” Prigozhin said in a statement released to the media. “We’ll announce the number of prisoners tomorrow.”

He added that “no other units” apart from Wagner personnel had taken part in the storming of Soledar.

A video showing two Wagner fighters standing outside the town administration building was released on social media earlier in the day. Such recordings, usually accompanied with geospatial coordinates, have commonly been used during the conflict to announce territorial control.

Named after its salt mines, Soledar had around 10,000 residents before the conflict. The Ukrainian army turned it into a strongpoint after being pushed out of Popasnaya in mid-2022. Russian control over the town creates problems for Kiev’s forces in the embattled bastion of Artyomovsk, which Ukraine has renamed Bakhmut.

Prigozhin said last week that his objective was not necessarily to take the towns, but “the destruction of the Ukrainian army and the reduction of its combat potential.”

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in Soledar was “very difficult” and called it “one of the bloodiest spots along the front line,” but vowed that Ukrainian troops would continue to hold “no matter what.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/569673-wagner-soledar-control-donbass/

Vicus

11th January 2023, 18:39

NATO member sending banned cluster bombs to Ukraine – media

Türkiye has been supplying Kiev with weapons that are banned in many countries, sources told Foreign Policy magazine

Ukraine has been receiving consignments of controversial cluster munitions from Türkiye, Foreign Policy magazine has reported. Kiev had been asking Washington for the Cold-War-era weapons for months.

The shipments have been taking place since November, current and former US and European officials told the outlet. It was unclear how many of the munitions had been received, or whether they had yet been used on the battlefield.

The weapons in question are called dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, or DPICMs. They were designed during the Cold War era, when NATO was planning to deploy them against a large-scale Soviet invasion of Europe. The rounds are filled with dozens of submunitions, intended to strike personnel and light-armored targets, scattering over a large area for increased lethality.

Like many other cluster munitions, DPICMs tend to produce long-lasting hazards, as some submunitions can fail to detonate and have the potential to maim or kill somebody years after being deployed.

US law prohibits the exportation of any cluster weapons with a failure rate over a certain threshold. The same regulations require guarantees that cluster munitions will not be used in areas where civilians may be present. Washington has repeatedly rejected requests from Kiev for the supply of DPICMs.

Most European NATO members are signatories of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which bans this type of weapons. Türkiye is not one of them, but has observer status in the Geneva-based organization that oversees the implementation of the treaty. It has indicated that it abides by the rules, though it’s not obliged to.

According to Foreign Policy, the weapons supplied to Ukraine were manufactured during the Cold War under a co-production agreement with the US. Turkish companies made 155mm and 122mm cluster artillery rounds, the magazine claimed.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine are parties to the CCM, and both have reportedly used their Soviet-made cluster munitions in their armed conflict. In March, a Tochka-U missile with a cluster payload killed more than 20 people and injured dozens more in the city of Donetsk. Moscow blamed Kiev for the attack, but this was denied. International watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) later stated that it could not investigate the incident.

https://www.rt.com/news/569679-ukraine-t%C3%BCrkiye-cluster-munitions/

Bill Ryan

11th January 2023, 19:06

his is the sobering truth. (A battalion is anything between 300 and 1000 soldiers, so 14 Ukrainian battalions lost = probably 5,000—10,000 men.)

There are hundreds of Telegram posts now confirming this.

https://t.me/intelslava/43282

intelslava/43282It seems it may be even worse than that.

https://t.me/Slavyangrad/28472

Slavyangrad/28472

I looked on the BBC to see what they were reporting:

https://bbc.com/news

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. :)

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 19:29

https://twitter.com/TobiAyodele/status/1613243519224668173

1613243519224668173

https://twitter.com/TobiAyodele/status/1613243519224668173

1613243519224668173

https://twitter.com/TobiAyodele/status/1613244849972469762

1613244849972469762

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613245924465336320

1613245924465336320

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613240012404842522

1613240012404842522

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 19:33

Detailed summary of the Defeat of Solidar 2.18 minute video summary,

https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1613243733973032984

1613243733973032984

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 19:37

Yesterday January 10th

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1612961057571479552

1612961057571479552

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 19:48

Two hours ago reported from the Ukrainian perspective,

https://twitter.com/HarZizn/status/1613219529202536452

1613219529202536452

https://twitter.com/HarZizn/status/1613219144941592581

1613219144941592581

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 20:01

https://twitter.com/Hawkeye1745/status/1613065457845821441

1613065457845821441

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1613253846679027712

1613253846679027712

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1613256896915603456
1613256896915603456

https://twitter.com/RWApodcast/status/1613260624569724929

1613260624569724929

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 20:05

https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1613255376711061504

1613255376711061504

Ravenlocke

11th January 2023, 22:05

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1613216852037234688
1613216852037234688

[url]https://jackmurphywrites.com/169/the-cias-sabotage-campaign-inside-russia/

THE CIA IS USING A EUROPEAN NATO ALLY’S SPY SERVICE TO CONDUCT A COVERT SABOTAGE CAMPAIGN INSIDE RUSSIA UNDER THE AGENCY’S DIRECTION, ACCORDING TO FORMER U.S. INTELLIGENCE AND MILITARY OFFICIALS.

The campaign involves long standing sleeper cells that the allied spy service has activated to hinder Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine by waging a secret war behind Russian lines.

Years in the planning, the campaign is responsible for many of the unexplained explosions and other mishaps that have befallen the Russian military industrial complex since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, according to three former U.S. intelligence officials, two former U.S. military officials and a U.S. person who has been briefed on the campaign. The former officials declined to identify specific targets for the CIA-directed campaign, but railway bridges, fuel depots and power plants in Russia have all been damaged in unexplained incidents since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.

While no American personnel are involved on the ground in Russia in the execution of these missions, agency paramilitary officers are commanding and controlling the operations, according to two former intelligence officials and a former military official. The paramilitary officers are assigned to the CIA’s Special Activities Center but detailed to the agency’s European Mission Center, said the two former intelligence officials. Using an allied intelligence service to give the CIA an added layer of plausible deniability was an essential factor in U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to approve the strikes, according to a former U.S. special operations official.

While command and control over the sabotage program resides with the CIA for legal reasons, the NATO ally has a strong say in which operations go forward since it is their people taking the risks. Sources repeatedly pushed back against any notion that the NATO ally was a CIA proxy, describing it is a close partnership. The European ally whose operatives are conducting the sabotage campaign is not being named here because doing so might endanger the operational security of cells that are still operational inside of Russia.

Any covert action undertaken by U.S. agencies must be authorized by a presidential finding. After the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russia had interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, President Barack Obama signed such a finding for covert action against Russia before he left office, according to The Washington Post. The finding involved the National Security Agency and the military’s Cyber Command in addition to the CIA and included a scheme to plant “cyberweapons in Russia’s infrastructure,” according to the Post.

That 2016 finding also included language about sabotage operations, according to a former CIA official. Other former officials said that the current sabotage campaign would have required either an entirely new finding or an amendment to a pre-existing finding on Russia.

CIA spokesperson Tammy Thorp denied any agency involvement in the wave of mysterious explosions that have struck Russia’s defense and transportation infrastructure in 2022. “The allegation that CIA is somehow supporting saboteur networks in Russia is categorically false,” the spokesperson said. Under Title 50 of the U.S. Code which authorizes covert actions, the CIA can lawfully deny the existence of these operations to everyone except the so-called “Gang of Eight” – the chairmen and ranking minority members of the congressional intelligence committees, the speaker and minority leader of the House of Representatives, and the majority and minority leaders of the Senate.

The NATO ally’s campaign overseen by the CIA is only one of several covert operations efforts being undertaken by Western nations in Russia, according to two former U.S. special operations officials. Alarmed by Russia’s February invasion, other European intelligence services have activated long-dormant resistance networks in their own countries, who in turn have been running operatives into Russia to create chaos without CIA help, according to a former U.S. military official. In addition, as has been widely reported, Ukrainian intelligence and special operations forces are running their own operations behind Russian lines.

The multiple sabotage campaigns are having an impact, according to Mick Mulroy, a former CIA paramilitary officer. “I do not know who is behind these attacks, but their value is substantial and serves multiple purposes,” he said. “Russia has had a significant problem keeping up with its logistical supply lines. These attacks further complicate its effort to supply its forces.”

They also serve to sow doubt in Kremlin minds, because they show that Russian President Vladimir Putin “does not have control over what is happening in his own country,” said Mulroy. “Is it a covert program, is it disgruntled Russians sabotaging their own plant, or is it pure incompetence of the workers? I don’t know, and perhaps the Kremlin doesn’t either. This matters to paranoid autocrats.”

Indeed, by refusing to take credit for individual acts of sabotage committed by the European spy service under the CIA’s direction the two agencies hope to send the Kremlin a message while sending Russia security services scrambling in all directions to find the culprits, according to a former U.S. military official. “With sabotage and subversion, there is a psychological component,” the former official said.

“There have been many fires across Russia over the past few months, particularly in weapons-manufacturing plants and other crucial sites,” said Russia analyst Olga Lautman, a non-resident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “Russian media has reported on these fires as separate incidents. They have not created any propaganda around these incidents and treat them as accidents.”

For instance, when a Russian Aerospace Defense Forces building burned down in late April, killing more than 20 people, Russian state media reported that the blaze was caused by faulty wiring. But the Kremlin understands that these are not just accidental fires and industrial accidents, despite what official media broadcast, according to a former U.S. intelligence official.

The overlapping nature of the various covert action campaigns behind Russian lines has created problems for the Western spy services running those missions. Over the summer, it became clear to CIA officers that there was increasingly a need for deconfliction amongst their own surrogate forces in Russia, according to two former military officials. Numerous incidents took place in which rail lines or power lines were cut that unintentionally interfered with other missions, one of them said.

Worse yet, two sabotage cells compromised each other while casing the same target, according to the two former military officials. One operative died and another was captured in the resulting firefight with Russian security services, they said. A lot of work has been done since then to prevent a repeat of such incidents, according to one of the former special operations officials.

Excerpt from a military sabotage manual
The roots of these sabotage missions inside Russia go deep. The allied spy service had emplaced some of the caches of explosives and gear used by these cells more than a decade previously, according to two former military officials. At the time, that spy service was acting unilaterally, without any CIA participation, according to a former U.S. special operations official and a person who has been briefed on the sabotage campaign.

The CIA became involved in reaction to Russia’s 2014 partial invasion of Ukraine. After the Kremlin occupied the Ukrainian territory of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, the agency began planning with the allied spy service to push more operatives into Russia with orders to lay low until they were needed. The first of these sleeper cells under the combined control of the CIA and the allied spy service infiltrated into Russia in 2016, according to a former U.S. military official and a U.S. person who has been briefed on the campaign.

With the CIA’s knowledge, the allied spy service provided the undercover sleeper cell operatives with what the intelligence community calls “legends” – false biographies that would explain their presence in Russia – and the documents to back those cover stories up. There is also what a former military official called “an extensive network” of front companies that were established as platforms to support such behind-the-lines operations. “Some of them go back almost 20 years,” the former military official said.

Both intelligence agencies have made it a priority to ensure that the operatives had plausible deniability should they be discovered by the Russian security services, according to two former intelligence officials. Another priority is to minimize the risk to Russian civilians. “Part of their targeting guidance is to stay away from civilian deaths,” said a former military official.

After the 2016 infiltrations, more teams slipped into Russia over the next several years. Some smuggled in new munitions, while others have relied on the original caches, according to two former military officials and a person who has been briefed on the sabotage campaign.

Two days before February’s invasion of Ukraine, the allied spy service through which the CIA is running the sabotage campaign used a covert communications system to activate its sleeper cells across Russia, according to a former military official and a person who has been briefed on the campaign. Those cells discreetly moved to the locations of buried munitions caches around the country and dug up explosives and other material needed for upcoming operations. After inventorying and checking their equipment, the operatives waited for the orders to hit their targets.

When Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border on February 26, the sleeper cells were standing by, ready to act.

Some of the first sabotage attacks behind Russian lines occurred outside Russia, in Belarus, when “a clandestine network of railway workers, hackers, and dissident security forces” began attacking rail lines that connected Russia and Ukraine, according to The Washington Post. “Starting on Feb. 26, two days after the invasion began, a succession of five sabotage attacks against signaling cabinets brought train traffic to an almost complete halt,” the Post reported, quoting a former railway worker now living in Poland.

As the war in Ukraine has continued, some of the teams overseen by the CIA and the NATO ally’s spy service have moved back and forth across international borders to collect more munitions and to conduct mission rehearsals, according to a former military official.

The CIA and the host nation’s elite special operations unit have overseen some of those mission rehearsals, which are conducted in the allied spy service’s home country, according to a former U.S. military official and a person who has been briefed on the campaign. JSOC has also supported the sabotage operations with targeting information from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, such as drones, that can see and hear deep into Russia, they said.

“The elite-level teams that we have the best relationships with are almost always given air surveillance support for major sabotage ops” behind Russian lines, the person who has been briefed on the campaign said, adding that some of the ISR platforms are models that have never been publicly revealed. “Drones we don’t even know about yet are loitering all over the Ukrainian and Russian airspace,” the person said.

Excerpt from a military sabotage manual
The CIA has been conducting sabotage operations since the agency’s inception in 1947. During the Cold War the agency planned and executed such operations from Cuba to Vietnam and throughout Central America. Similar missions were also a key part of the agency’s plans for Western Europe, should the Soviet Union ever have invaded.

But while those plans for a Soviet-occupied Europe involved so-called “stay behind” networks of partisans – civilians living normal lives until the enemy invades, at which point they activate to begin conducting sabotage and espionage missions – the current campaign inside Russia itself bears a closer resemblance to CIA operations ahead of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In the run up to that invasion, CIA Ground Branch paramilitary officers trained 70 Kurdish cells and then deployed them into Saddam Hussein-controlled portions of Iraq, targeting infrastructure. “We ended up with a lot of teams…operating inside Iraqi-controlled space,” said former CIA operations officer Sam Faddis, who led one of the agency teams. Their activities included derailing a 90-car train and blowing up the office of an Iraqi intelligence officer. “It’s a way of saying screw you, we’re here, this is over,” Faddis said.

While sabotage may seem like a dated concept, recalling the exploits of T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”) in World War I and the Office of Strategic Services in World War II, it remains a relevant tool for disrupting an enemy’s logistics and sowing confusion in his rear areas.

Rail and power lines are linear targets that can be destroyed using explosives and other techniques. “While materials have improved, the assembly of rail lines has remained essentially unchanged since trains were invented,” writes Army Maj. Daniel Meegan in his 2020 Naval Postgraduate School thesis “Breaking Other People’s Toys: Sabotage in a Multipolar World.”

Meegan used three case studies in his research: Lawrence’s campaign against the Turks in World War I, OSS operations in Greece in World War II and the Weather Underground’s domestic terrorism activity in the United States in the 1970s. He concludes that such operations “show that very small groups of saboteurs can have dramatic impacts on much larger enemy organizations. This utilization of small sabotage forces allowed leaders and planners to focus their limited manpower and materiel elsewhere while presenting their enemies with multiple dilemmas.”

Excerpt from a military sabotage manual
The U.S. government has met news of the mysterious fires and explosions in Russia with silence. But Ukraine has been goading the Kremlin on social media about the events, suggesting more than once that careless smokers are responsible for unexplained fires at Russian military facilities. After a mysterious August fire destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in Belgorod just across the border from Ukraine, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Twitter account taunted Moscow with a warning that “smoking kills!”

“Another detonation of ammo ‘due to the heat’ in the Belgorod region in russia,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry quipped on Twitter in August after news of an explosion at an ammunition depot in Belgorod. “In a few months we will find out whether russian ammo can explode because of the cold.”

Ukrainian officials have also begun to hint at their own ability to strike targets with guerrilla operations behind enemy lines — both within occupied parts of Ukraine and in Russia. In August, a senior Ukrainian official told The New York Times that an attack on a Russian airbase in Crimea was carried out by “partisans” and that a Ukrainian “elite military unit” was responsible for blowing up a Russian ammunition depot on the occupied peninsula.

“It’s been widely reported that after the 2014 invasion of Crimea, U.S. intelligence started a robust training program for Ukrainian special operations forces. It is likely that these same forces are leading the effort of these sabotage operations in Crimea now,” said Mulroy.

Meanwhile, the mysterious explosions deep in Russian territory have continued. While these acts of sabotage can have both a psychological and substantive impact on the Kremlin’s offensive, they also run the risk of escalating conflict between the Western world and Russia beyond either side’s ability to estimate — or control.

So far, the targets struck by the operatives being run by the CIA through the allied spy service have largely been of tactical, rather than strategic, value. However, the danger exists that the acts of sabotage could, along with battlefield losses, potentially paint Putin into a corner and risk nuclear escalation.

Such strikes let Russia’s leaders know that they can be hit in their backyard. That could have a double effect of constraining Russia’s military options while encouraging Putin to escalate the conflict further, according to observers. “Though their military value can be debated, such acts might play to Putin’s greatest concerns and have outsized impact on his escalatory calculus,” said former CIA officer Douglas London.

But such considerations need not necessarily inhibit covert operations, according to Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at the Center for Naval Analyses. “There is always the danger of miscalculation regarding an adversaries’ red lines,” Kofman said. “It is a persistent risk, but it must be weighed against one’s objectives and an opponent’s likely options for retaliation. The key is to navigate a space between risk aversion to the point of paralysis, and wanton recklessness.”

As the war has dragged on, some NATO allies have backed away from supporting behind enemy lines operations in Russia. As the war matured, the political implications of such operations frightened some governments, however the United States and its key NATO ally running the sabotage programs have remained aggressive and forward leaning.

The longer the war lasts, the more likely it is that the sabotage campaign will become more brazen, according to a former special operations official, particularly if Putin escalates to the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction. “As we need to send a stronger message to Putin, you may see ops in Moscow and other key cities,” the former official said.

A note on the publication of this article:

Many will ask why an article of this importance is appearing on my personal website rather than in a prestigious publication. I will not detail the entire journey this article took at this time, but will say that while working with editors at mainstream publications I was asked to do things that were illegal and unethical in one instance, and in another instance I felt that a senior CIA official was able to edit my article by making off the record statements, before he leaked a story to the New York Times to undermine this piece.

I don’t begrudge the intelligence community for attempting to keep covert operations out of the newspapers. That’s their job, and in this case they were quite effective at it. However, I do blame the press for not fulfilling the most basic premise of their job.

This article went through a vigorous fact checking process, and was deemed newsworthy as the strategic bombings of Laos and Cambodia or the CIA’s secret drone campaign in Pakistan. Yet, it nearly never saw the light of day. Journalists can lack the circumspection to examine how their organizations come to mimic the institutions of power that they claim to speak truth to. At some point the equities they build with the intelligence community and military commands become more important than informing the public.

Indeed, the Russian government knows perfectly well who is sponsoring these sabotage strikes. Moreover, the intelligence community wants them to know. The only party left in the dark is the public at large, left unaware of the shadow war taking place behind the scenes.

Ultimately, I felt that I was being asked to compromise my work and put careers ahead of my own integrity.

That’s why this piece appears here.

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 02:11

https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1613325101356695553

1613325101356695553

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/LogKa11/status/1613146569741582336

1613146569741582336

Waldo

12th January 2023, 03:56

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR : UKRAINE WAR UPDATE

v2294sy

ExomatrixTV

12th January 2023, 05:33

Further Provoking Russia, Biden Announces Ukrainian Troops Will Be Trained ON US SOIL

MIQJsF2ARbo

Tintin

12th January 2023, 12:44

Source: Southfront (https://southfront.org/wagner-declared-full-control-of-soledar-21/)

Wagner Declared Full Control Of Soledar
(21+)

https://s2.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/wagner-768x598.jpg

On the evening of January 11, the head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced the complete liberation of the city of Soledar in the Donetsk People’s Republic.

According to the head of the PMCs, Wagner fighters have completed the mop up operation on the streets and begun to mop up the salt mines located under the city. Some Ukrainian militants may still be hiding there.

Mr Prigozhin joking with his fighters in the salt mines:

https://avalonlibrary.net/Ukraine/2022_Russian_invasion_%28Operation-Z%29/Video_%2B_photographic_coverage/Conflict_zones/Soledar%20%28January%202023%29/Yevgeny_Prigozhin_%28Wagner_PMC%29_in_salt_mine_2023-01-11.mp4

According to Prigozhin, civilians were evacuated from the war-torn city. Those Ukrainian servicemen who did not surrender were destroyed. The Ukrainian military lost about 500 people.

Mr Prigozhin assured that there would be no humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian prisoners. This option cannot even be discussed.

Graphic content (21+):

Wagner fighter showed the buildings, where Ukrainian soldiers were hiding, using civilians as human shields:

https://avalonlibrary.net/Ukraine/2022_Russian_invasion_%28Operation-Z%29/Video_%2B_photographic_coverage/Conflict_zones/Soledar%20%28January%202023%29/Wagner_fighter_shows_buildings_where_Ukrainian_soldiers_were_hiding_using_civilians_as_human_shields _%28January_2023%29.mp4

The 46 separate assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, part of the airborne assault troops of Ukraine, was among the Ukrainian units which held the defence of Soledar. It was considered one of the most trained combat units of the Ukrainian Army.

The 46th Brigade of the AFU was formed in 2016-2017 with the active assistance of NATO instructors. For many years, the military personnel have been actively trained, including at foreign military bases abroad. The soldiers of this brigade were prepared specifically to conduct assault operations in the Donbass area. They who were supposed to be among the first to attack pro-Russian militia in the LDPR according to the plan of a large-scale offensive of the Ukrainian military in 2022. However, the plans were thwarted by the Russian military.

As a result of fierce battles against Wagner fighters, only 10% of the personnel of the whole brigade which reportedly numbered up to 2,000 soldiers managed to escape. The other 90% were killed, wounded or captured by Russian forces.

Ukrainian soldiers from the 46th brigade attempted to escape from Soledar but were ambushed. The first Ukrainian vehicle ran into a mine-explosive barrier, the second which turned out to be a French VAB armored personnel carrier,came under fire of Russian large-caliber Cord machine gun:

https://avalonlibrary.net/Ukraine/2022_Russian_invasion_%28Operation-Z%29/Video_%2B_photographic_coverage/Conflict_zones/Soledar%20%28January%202023%29/Ukrainian_soldiers_from_the_46th_brigade_attempted_to_escape_from_Soledar_but_were_ambushed_%28Janua ry_2023%29.mp4

Tintin

12th January 2023, 12:57

jaybee

12th January 2023, 13:27

Copied from a Southfront article, and this rather speaks for itself :flower:

{snipped see above}

Ukrainians and Russians, two Slavic brothers pushed into a blood bath by NATO.

Damn NATO... and all the politicians sending weapons and money to keep the whole thing going -

Damn Boris Johnson for stopping the Peace Talks at the beginning of the Special Military Operation -

Those young men... someone's son, grandson, brother, friend... maybe father...

The care and effort involved with raising a child - for this!!! So upsetting and unnecessary...

I rarely watch videos of the military action but I watched this one because I felt I should and I will never forget those three young men caught up in it all - the 2 Ukrainians and the one Russian - but as the quote says... Slav Brothers...

:(

edit to add... and if NATO pushes Russia too far and all this spreads + escalates it will be our sons and daughters, grandsons and grandaughters...maybe all of us - dying for nothing......

this has got to stop

the lies and insanity has got to stop...

Tintin

12th January 2023, 14:50

Bad error gateway messages and 'forbidden access' messages prevent one from going direct via Wikileaks home page, but this link here shows this now quite famous cable (https://wikileaks.jcvignoli.com/cable_08MOSCOW265) in its entirety.

The particularly poignant paragraph is numbered 5

Source: https://wikileaks.jcvignoli.com/cable_08MOSCOW265

5. (C) Ukraine and Georgia's NATO aspirations not only touch
a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about
the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does
Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine
Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears
unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would
seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us
that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions
in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the
ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a
major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In
that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to

intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.

Mashika

12th January 2023, 15:29

1613541556606349313

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 15:37

More Twitter accounts that report Russian side are being restricted but here’s this for now,
Wagner had reported that some chemical weapon was being used on them just a while back, so here’s more evidence before the tweet gets restricted.

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1613535650422345728

1613535650422345728

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 15:46

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1613495678197538822

1613495678197538822

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1613493320533118978

1613493320533118978

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 15:52

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1613527586444828675

1613527586444828675

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1613528398919245827

1613528398919245827

https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1613563601767235584

1613563601767235584

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/TobiAyodele/status/1613521512211808256

1613521512211808256

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 15:57

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613555000147431424

1613555000147431424

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613565502131146752

1613565502131146752

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1613564468146880514

1613564468146880514

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 16:00

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613522822441193477

1613522822441193477

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 16:04

Early on this am,

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613468391121068032

1613468391121068032

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 16:12

https://twitter.com/200_zoka/status/1613557896939290630

1613557896939290630

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1613497938520440833

1613497938520440833

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613566784166133762

1613566784166133762

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 16:20

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1613560070305898496

1613560070305898496

https://www.rt.com/russia/569756-kremlin-soledar-offensive-continue/

Kremlin gives update on major Donbass battle
Russia will continue its Donbass offensive, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday, after the country’s Defense Ministry reported that airborne troops had blocked the Ukrainian-held mining city of Soledar. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Russian private military company Wagner Group, later confirmed that his soldiers had completely seized the city.

“Truly gigantic work has been done,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He described the fighting as “absolutely selfless, heroic actions not only in Soledar, but in many other areas where offensives are taking place.”

Peskov said the Russian advances would continue. “It is not the time to stop and celebrate. The main work still lies ahead of us.”

The fierce battle for Soledar, a city with a pre-conflict population of around 10,000, has been raging for several months. Prigozhin said in a statement to the media on Tuesday that his soldiers had managed to seize the “entire territory” of Soledar. He added the next day that Wagner fighters had begun clearing the city’s vast underground tunnel network.

Wagner group filmed in salt-mine tunnels of embattled Soledar READ MORE: Wagner group filmed in salt-mine tunnels of embattled Soledar
The Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily briefing on Wednesday that Russian airborne troops had blocked Soledar from the north and the south, while “assault units are fighting inside the city.”

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and the country’s general staff, meanwhile, claimed on Wednesday evening that the battle for Soledar was ongoing and the Donbass frontline was “still holding.”

Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February, citing the need to defend the people of Donbass. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, together with two other former Ukrainian territories – Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions – became part of Russia after holding referendums in September. Crimea had done the same shortly after the 2014 coup in Kiev

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 16:38

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613553989253054470

1613553989253054470

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613544362285170692

1613544362285170692

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613547828340744193

1613547828340744193

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613574161787662338

1613574161787662338

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 16:46

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1613526220951486464

1613526220951486464

[url]https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1613525254302830595

1613525254302830595

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1613524095752372224

1613524095752372224

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1613522594287816704

1613522594287816704

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 16:50

https://twitter.com/GarlandNixon/status/1613559222226001923

1613559222226001923

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 16:55

https://twitter.com/MoonofA/status/1613248140089384976

1613248140089384976

[url]https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/01/ukrainian-defense-lines-and-what-happens-when-they-are-breached.html

Ukrainian Defense Lines And What Happens When They Are Breached
January 11, 2023

Soledar has fallen to Russian troops. Bakhmut (Artymovsk) will follow soon.

This constitutes the breach of Ukraine's second defense line within the Donetzk and Lysichansk oblasts. I will discuss those lines with the maps below.

The first map shows the range of land taken by Russian forces by April 1 2022 (Kiev region not shown).

Russia had invaded with a small force of some 100,000 soldiers supported by some 50,000 soldiers of the Donetzk/Luhansk Republics. The opposing forces were 250,000 regular Ukrainian army troops which quickly grew to 450,000 and then 650,000 by mobilization of reserve forces plus the Territorial Defense Forces. During the first weeks the Russian forces had taken a huge amount of land that they barely had the numbers to hold.

At that point Russia was still hoping that the negotiations held at that time with Ukraine in Turkey would have a positive outcome. As a confidence measure it had already started to pull back from around Kiev. However, after phone calls from and a visit by the British prime minister Boris Johnson the Ukrainian government ended the negotiations by suddenly adding demands the Russia would never agree to. The troops from Kiev were pulled back anyway and moved to the east of Ukraine where they started an attack on the first defense line (yellow) of the Ukrainian forces.

This first defense line, like later ones, ran along railway and road communication routes that connect major cities. In the map above the cities that constituted the first defense line were, north to south, Siverodonetsk, Lysichansk, Popasna, Svitlodarsk.

By July 1 2022 the first Ukrainian defense line was breached and defeated by Russian forces. The Ukrainian troops moved back to their second defense line. However, the defeat of the first defense line had taken its toll of the small Russian Special Military Operation force.

The second Ukrainian defense line, north to south, ran from Siversk to Soledar, Bakhmut, New York agglomeration and then along the old ceasefire line of the Donetzk Republic.

The Russian forces tried to avoid a costly direct attack on the second Ukrainian defense line. It launched an operation to breach into the Donetzk oblast behind the second Ukrainian defense line from the north (now gray area). The battles for Izium and Lyman were fought for that purpose. However, the wooden area north of the Siversky Donets river that runs east to west as well as the river itself proved to be difficult to cross. Several attempts to move significant forces across it failed.

At the end of August 2022 the exhausted Russian forces had switched to a defensive posture and into an 'economy of force' mode. Troops that were holding the Kharkiv area north of the Donetzk oblast were reduced. The other forces were moved to the eastern front to strengthen the Russian lines on that front.

Meanwhile Ukraine was openly discussing and preparing for an attack on the Kherson region north of the Dnieper river with the final aim of crossing the river to then move towards Crimea. Russia responded by further reducing the troop numbers in the northern Kharkiv region to a few thousand men and by using the others to further strengthen its positions in the south around Kherson.

During the fall the Ukrainian attacks on the Kherson region all failed with high losses. However U.S. intelligence advised the Ukrainian command that the Kharkiv region, while still held by Russian forces, was practically empty. The command switched the active front towards the north and successfully moved into the Kharkiv region while Russian troops still positioned there moved further east.

This was a quite fast operation that looked very successful. But the speed also meant that the heavy Ukrainian artillery cover was thin to not existent. This while the retreating Russian forces used their own artillery to attack Ukrainian front formations in pre-planned fire missions. After proceeding fast over some 70 kilometers from west to east the Ukrainian attack force had taken high losses and ran out of steam. It came up to a new Russian defense line (red) covered by two rivers that proved difficult to cross. The Kharkiv front has since stabilized.

The Ukrainian 'victory' in the Kharkiv region gave the Russian government the necessary public backing for the mobilization of additional forces. 300,000 reservists were called up. Some 70,000 additional men joined as volunteers. The Wagner private military company increased its force size to some 50,000 men. Over the last three month of 2022 all those forces were supplied with the necessary equipment and went through refresher training.

Meanwhile a new Russian commander, General Sergey Surovkin, took over. He warned immediately that he would have to take some difficult decisions. This was related to the situation in the Kherson region north of the Dnieper. Constant attacks on the river crossings with U.S. supplied missiles made the logistic situation very difficult. The command decided to pull back behind the river. This operation was remarkably successful. Ten thousands of civilians plus some 25,000 soldiers with all their equipment were removed from the area with only few if any losses.

By the end of the year the shortening of the front lines and the introduction of fresh forces had allowed the Russian forces to regain the initiative. They launched intense attacks on Ukraine's second defense line. With the successful taking of Soledar that line has now been breached. This makes the situation of Siversk, north of Soledar, and of Bakhmut, south of it, much more difficult. No Ukrainian troops or materials can now be moved on the roads and railways that were part of the line. The breach of the line will allow Russian troops to move west of it to the north and the south to then create cauldrons for the other positions within that same line. 'Rolling up a defense line' is a description of that process.

The now heavily reduced Ukrainian forces will likely have to give up on holding the second defense line to then create a third one to the west of it.

The third Ukrainian defense line will run from Sloviansk in the north through Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, Kostantinovka to the New York agglomeration. I expect the complete defeat and cleanup of the second Ukrainian defense line by the end of March. The third Ukrainian defense line will probably fall by the mid of the year. Whatever is left of the Ukrainian forces will then try to hold a fourth defense line along the string of smaller towns west of it.

This will be the last Ukrainian line in the Donetsk oblast. It likely to fall before by the end of September.

The Russian moves against the third and fourth Ukrainian defense lines will likely be supported by a move from the south that will liberate the rest of the Zaporiziha and Donetsk oblast.

Aside from those operations the Russian command has sufficient number of troops available to run another major attack. This could come from the north into the Kharkiv regain behind the Ukrainian troops currently attacking the Russian lines further east.

The Russian forces in Ukraine were tasked with liberating the oblast that Russia had recognized as independent states (Donetzk and Luhansk) as well as those that had additionally voted to become part of Russia (Zaporiziha and Kherson).

With the breaking up of all four Ukrainian defense lines in Donetzk oblast that task will be fulfilled. This with the exception of the part of the Kherson region north of the Dnieper river which will require a separate operation on its own. The Russian command may want to wait for this until more Ukrainian forces have been destroyed while holding their defense lines.

Another task given to the Special Military operation was to 'demilitarize' and 'denazify' Ukraine. The Ukrainian tactic of holding fixed lines anchored on major cities at any price has come at a significant cost. Russian artillery is superior to the Ukrainian by a factor of ten. The Russian forces use it to destroy Ukrainian troops holding the lines while taking only few losses on their own side.

Today's Wall Street Journal finally noted that this Ukrainian battle tactic is not a winning one:

Western—and some Ukrainian—officials, soldiers and analysts increasingly worry that Kyiv has allowed itself to be sucked into the battle for Bakhmut on Russian terms, losing the forces it needs for a planned spring offensive as it stubbornly clings to a town of limited strategic relevance. Some of them say that it would make sense to retreat to a new defensive line on the heights west of Bakhmut while such a pullback can still be organized in a coordinated fashion, preserving the Ukrainian military’s combat strength.
“It’s not me, it’s King Leonidas who figured out that you should fight the enemy on the terrain that is advantageous to you,” said one Ukrainian commander in Bakhmut, referring to the ruler of Sparta who battled the Persian Empire at Thermopylae. “So far, the exchange rate of trading our lives for theirs favors the Russians. If this goes on like this, we could run out.”

The Ukrainian soldier is right. However, a different form of fighting the war would be a mobile delay and retreat action from which local counter offensives would be launched. This requires a lot of equipment, battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, that the Ukraine no longer has. It also requires troops and larger formations trained for that type of fight. Some 60 year old mailman drafted during Ukraine's 9th mobilization wave will not be able to learn this during his two weeks training course.

Had the professional Ukrainian army that exited before the war been allowed to give up on cities and had it used a mobile combined arms tactic of delay-retreat-counterattack it probably would have been more successful. But that army has by now been destroy with Russian artillery because Kiev insisted on holding cities and lines at any price.

The U.S. will only now start to train Ukrainian troops in combined arms and joint maneuvering. It will be too little too late to make any difference.

As of current news, today we see fake news headlines like this from NBC:

Putin replaces commander of Russia’s war in Ukraine after just 3 months
Valery Gerasimov takes over from Sergei Surovikin, who will now serve as one of his deputies, Russia's defense ministry said Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has replaced the commander leading his forces in Ukraine just three months after he handed him the job.
Gen. Valery Gerasimov will take over from Sergei Surovikin, the country’s defense ministry said on Telegram Wednesday, a change that comes as Kyiv warns Moscow is planning a major new offensive after months of battlefield setback.

The above is a misinterpretation of a simple naming change.

Russians With Attitude @RWApodcast - 16:09 UTC · Jan 11, 2023
As I understand it, we went from 1 to 2

https://www.moonofalabama.org/cdn-cgi/mirage/2a7337c4230333c594db76dcab74560a77604a2057d3d56108fd0d10dcea25cb/1440/https://www.moonofalabama.org/15i/lines7-s.jpg

Neither was Surovkin pushed aside or demoted nor was Gerasimov promoted to a new job. Surovkin will continue to run the theater force in Ukraine. This move did not change command responsibilities but lifted the importance of the whole operation by making it the highest military commander's priority.

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 17:08

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https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1613391160361517056

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Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 17:13

https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1613584076748853269

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Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 17:18

https://twitter.com/GonzaloLira1968/status/1613570978314948608

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Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 19:16

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1613592897005158423

1613592897005158423

https://www.rt.com/news/569764-ukraine-peace-summit-un/

Ukraine reveals date for ‘peace summit’ without Russia
The Kiev government is pressing ahead with a “global peace summit,” Ukrainian ambassador to Türkiye Vasily Bodnar said on Thursday. The event will be held at the UN headquarters in New York on February 24, Bodnar told Anadolu Agency. Though Russia has said it was open to talks, there was no indication that it would be invited.

The event was first proposed last month by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, who said it would be based on a 10-point “peace plan” previously outlined by President Vladimir Zelensky and should coincide with the anniversary of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres said he would be ready to mediate such talks, but only if all parties agreed.

Ukraine, however, insisted that Russia must meet its conditions beforehand – including withdrawing to borders claimed by Kiev, paying reparations, and submitting to war crimes tribunals. Bodnar reiterated those conditions on Thursday, adding that Ukraine was fighting “a war for liberation and independence.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said repeatedly that he is open to talks on Ukraine, but that Kiev refuses to negotiate. As for preconditions, the very least Kiev must do is “recognize the reality on the ground,” including the new status of the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as parts of Russia, the Kremlin has said.

Kremlin explains lack of peace talks on Ukraine
Kremlin explains lack of peace talks on Ukraine
On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reminded journalists that Kiev’s backers in the West had no intention of negotiating with Moscow.

“Under the circumstances, in which Westerners are apparently not prone to allowing Kiev any flexibility on the issue, we cannot say that there is any potential [for negotiations] at the moment,” he said.

There has been some diplomacy between Moscow and Kiev, however. Human rights commissioners from the two countries met in Ankara this week, on the sidelines of an international conference. Türkiye has also helped negotiate an arrangement for exporting Ukrainian grain through a safe shipping corridor in the Black Sea.

Peace talks held in Istanbul last March, however, fell through after the West informed Kiev they wanted the conflict to continue, according to Ukrainian media.

The Istanbul example “clearly shows that they were slapped on the hand and told: ‘It’s too soon, you haven’t exhausted Russia to the point we Americans think is enough’,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview last month.

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 19:32

https://tass.com/politics/1561505?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=smm_social_share

Russia to beef up forces to liberate Artyomovsk after taking control of Soledar — DPR

It is reported that fierce fighting is in progress in the vicinity of Artyomovsk

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. After taking control of Soledar in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the Russian military will beef up its troop strength on that front in order to liberate Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine), military-political expert Yan Gagin, adviser to the DPR leader, said.

"Now, following the taking of Soledar, rather serious forces will become available for Artyomovsk. Our armed forces will be bolstered precisely on that front to build on the successes already attained. Both Soledar and Artyomovsk are keys to Kramatorsk and the further advance, including Slavyansk. Both Slavyansk and Kramatorsk won’t be easy to storm because they [the Ukrainian army] were getting ready, all their forces retreated there and now they will boost their groups there," he told the Rossiya-1 TV channel on Thursday.

He added that these municipalities have morphed into fortress cities. "We will encounter similar fortress cities with a rather vast industrial zone and readied, multiple-layered defenses. Yet, by building on the triumphs now, I think, we will continue to be successful on that front in the future," the official said.

In the early hours on Wednesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of Russia’s Wagner private military company, said that the city of Soledar was taken under control by the PMC’s units. On Wednesday, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov reported that Russian troops blocked Soledar in the north and south and clashes in the city were underway.

Fierce fighting is in progress in the vicinity of Artyomovsk. Earlier, acting head of the DPR Denis Pushilin said that Russia’s forces were systematically working on cutting off the supply routes of a Ukrainian group in that region and surrounding it. According to him, capturing this city will pave the way to liberating the republic’s northern zone. That said, the DPR and LPR repeatedly reported that the Ukrainian command keeps redeploying reinforcements to the Artyomovsk front but the Ukrainian units there still suffer substantial losses.

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https://tass.com/politics/1561475?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=smm_social_share

DPR says taking of Soledar allows direct fire at Artyomovsk[

Andrey Bayevsky also said control over Soledar was important from the perspective of isolating Artyomovsk

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. Andrey Bayevsky, a lawmaker at the legislature of the Donetsk People’s Republic and a colonel of the People’s Militia, on Thursday said on Solovyov Live television that the main benefit of capturing Soledar is the opportunity to open direct fire on Artyomovsk.

"Seizing control of Soledar means direct sight of the highway from Slavyansk to Artyomovsk and the opportunity to fire on it practically directly," he said.

Bayevsky also said control over Soledar was important from the perspective of isolating Artyomovsk. It means "the cutting of supply routes for the Artyomovsk grouping and the cutting off of all opportunities to provide it with personnel and ammunition."

He described Soledar as an important step in in the assault on Artyomovsk.

"Soledar opens the way for artillery fire toward Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and Konstantinovka, let alone Artyomovsk. The targets that will be defined by the command will be hit with artillery fire. It’s extremely important for the softening of the enemy’s defense," Bayevsky said.

That would make it possible to take control of these settlements with fewer losses and ram through Ukrainian defenses faster, he said.

According to Bayevsky, Soledar is generally under Russian control while fighting with the remnants of Ukrainian forces still goes on.

Businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin said Tuesday night into Wednesday morning that Soledar, which had been at the center of battles in recent days, was seized by the fighters of the Wagner private military company. Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday that Russian troops had blocked Soledar from the north and south and battles were raging inside the city.

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https://tass.com/politics/1561679

Over 150 residents of Soledar evacuated to DPR’s Shakhtersk, say authorities

A portion of the evacuated Soledar residents were sent to hospitals in Lugansk
DONETSK, January 12. /TASS/. Over 150 residents of Soledar have been evacuated to Shakhtersk in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Mayor of Shakhtersk Alexander Shatov told TASS on Thursday.

"More than 150 people from Soledar have been evacuated to our city. Basically, these are people who were not seriously affected. They receive medical care, are accommodated and provided with food," Shatov said.

According to the mayor's information, some of the evacuated said they wanted to leave for other regions of Russia. The first group of 24 people will depart on January 13.

A portion of the evacuated Soledar residents were sent to hospitals in Lugansk, Shatov specified. "We are ready to provide the able-bodied population of the city with jobs at our enterprises. We will provide everything they need," he added.

Earlier, the emergencies ministry of the Lugansk People's Republic specified that an ambulance team took a three-year-old child with frostbite from Soledar to a hospital in the city of Stakhanov (LPR).

On Wednesday night, Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin reported that Soledar, where fighting has continued in recent days, was taken under the control of the Wagner private military company, and that a pocket had formed in the center of the city, where fighting was underway.

On Wednesday, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said that Russian troops had blocked Soledar from the north and south, and fighting continued in the city.

According to Andrey Bayevsky, a lawmaker at the legislature of the Donetsk People’s Republic and a colonel of the People’s Militia, Soledar is generally under Russian control while fighting with the remnants of Ukrainian forces still goes on.

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https://tass.com/politics/1561481?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=smm_social_share

Putin to speak with IAEA chief Grossi if necessary — Kremlin

The last time that the Russian leader and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) met was in October 2022, in St. Petersburg

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin will speak with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi if necessary, but such a meeting is currently not on the Russian president’s work schedule, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"There are no planned meetings on [Putin’s] schedule if we are speaking about Grossi," Peskov told journalists, adding that the Russian president and the IAEA chief agreed during their meeting in St. Petersburg last October "to carry on with the dialogue if necessary."

"This is why, if the need should arise and there is a corresponding request, a telephone conversation or a meeting is definitely possible," he said.

The last time that Putin and Grossi met was in October 2022, in St. Petersburg. The IAEA director general called relations with the Russian leader extremely important from the point of view of ensuring the safety of nuclear power facilities, including the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.

Peskov added that "Grossi’s key partners to talk to on the issue are [the Russian civilian nuclear power corporation] Rosatom and its Director General [Alexey] Likhacyov as well as the Russian Foreign Ministry."

The presidential spokesman noted that the situation regarding the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant "was still alarming," adding that the "Ukrainian side believes it is acceptable to keep shelling the plant."

IAEA head Grossi announced on Wednesday his plans to visit Ukraine next week and possibly travel to Russia afterwards, hinting at a meeting with Russian President Putin.

On December 2, 2022, IAEA Director General Grossi announced at the Mediterranean Dialogues international conference in Rome that an agreement on creating a security zone around the Zaporozhye NPP could be reached shortly.

Alexey Likhachyov, who heads Rosatom, the Russian civilian nuclear power corporation, earlier said that the security arrangement being discussed with Grossi ruled out any bombardments of the Zaporozhye nuke plant.

On November 17, 2022, the IAEA adopted a new resolution on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, calling on Russia "to immediately abandon its baseless claims of ownership of the plant." Russia and China voted against this resolution while India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, South Africa, Kenya and Namibia abstained from voting. Russia’s permanent mission in Vienna chided the IAEA’s resolution as going beyond the UN nuclear watchdog’s mandate.

The Zaporozhye nuclear plant, located in the town of Energodar, is the largest in Europe and has a capacity of about 6,000 MW. It used to generate a quarter of all electric power in Ukraine. In March 2022, the Zaporozhye facility was placed under the Russian army’s control. Since then, the Ukrainian military has been periodically bombarding both Energodar’s residential quarters and the premises of the Zaporozhye nuke plant, employing drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems.

Bill Ryan

12th January 2023, 19:40

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1613592897005158423

1613592897005158423

https://www.rt.com/news/569764-ukraine-peace-summit-un/

Ukraine reveals date for ‘peace summit’ without RussiaThe danger here, it seems clear to me, is that if such a thing is held and receives enough media support and applause from political talking heads (even if Russia, China, India, Iran and most of the global south all stay silent and uninvolved), this could 'justify' sending armed UN 'peacekeepers' to Ukraine which would be a backdoor way of formally and 'legally' getting American troops on the ground.

I've not posted about this personally, but I have quite a few serious, heavy-duty concerns about how all this might escalate this year (2023). As many analysts have pointed out (those who really understand all the facts in play!), it's increasingly hard to see a way that the US globalist neocons would back down and quietly admit defeat in the face of overwhelming Russian superiority and control in many areas both on and off the battlefield.

The ultimate risk is that the US might bring down everything around them rather than lose their global hegemony which they pathologically feel is somehow God-given. Last year I felt sure this could not happen, but now, for whatever reasons, I do find myself feeling the chances are no longer exactly zero.

Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 20:47

https://twitter.com/MayaSashenka/status/1611022723115012098

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Ravenlocke

12th January 2023, 20:52

https://twitter.com/MayaSashenka/status/1613479710113120256

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https://twitter.com/MayaSashenka/status/1613613706163941377

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Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 02:42

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1613725016993980419

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https://www.rt.com/russia/569751-t%C3%BCrkiye-zelensky-plan-russia/

Russia reacts to Turkish support of Zelensky’s ‘peace plan’

Türkiye’s stated support of the “so-called peace plan” formulated by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky does not change the fact that Russia considers it unacceptable, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

Zakharova was asked about remarks made by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who stated that his country backed the ten-point proposal for peace in Ukraine promoted by Kiev.

“It is unlikely that Ankara’s support of this project would promote the search for an optimal way towards peace in Ukraine,” she said, citing Russia’s previous rejection of the Ukrainian formula. “I don’t see any sense in any additional comments on it.”

The ‘peace plan’ was presented by Zelensky at the summit of G20 leaders in Bali, Indonesia, in November. It involves a full Russian withdrawal from territories that Kiev considers to be its own and long-term support of Ukraine by international donors.

Ukrainian proposal is not ‘a peace plan’ – Kremlin
Ukrainian proposal is not ‘a peace plan’ – Kremlin
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who represented Russia at the gathering, called Zelensky’s virtual address “militant, Russophobic and aggressive” and dismissed his ten-point agenda as “unrealistic and inadequate.”

The Kremlin called such proposals a non-starter, insisting that if Ukraine wants peace it should take into account “the new realities,” referring to the four former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia last fall, after Crimea did the same in 2014 following a coup in Kiev.

Cavusoglu expressed Türkiye’s positive stance towards Zelensky’s proposition on Tuesday during a press conference in South Africa. He touted Ankara’s role as a mediator between Moscow and Kiev and said his government wanted to see a resolution to the conflict “the sooner the better.”

Zelensky floated the idea of a UN-sponsored ‘Global Peace Summit’ to discuss his ideas, suggesting that it could take place in February 2023. His foreign minister, Dmitry Kuleba, stated that Russia would have to be tried by an “international court” before being allowed at the table.

ExomatrixTV

13th January 2023, 03:06

1611331605573865476

shaberon

13th January 2023, 07:24

I had to look that one up:

A tamga or tamgha (from Old Turkic: 𐱃𐰢𐰍𐰀, romanized: tamga, lit. 'stamp, seal'; Turkish: damga; Mongolian: tamga; Adyghe: тамыгъэ, romanized: tamığə; Kabardian: дамыгъэ, romanized: damığə) was an abstract seal or stamp used by Eurasian nomads and by cultures influenced by them. The tamga was normally the emblem of a particular tribe, clan or family. They were common among the Eurasian nomads throughout Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Still used in Mongolia for its original purpose, branding.

Also used as tax stamps and on coinage.

Here is the Mughal one over the Taj Mahal:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Taj_Mahal_top_of_finial.jpg/640px-Taj_Mahal_top_of_finial.jpg

I am not sure a "Moloch Sigil" can claim to be in the same league.

As to any significance why the Ukrainian might "look" Khazarian, the implied continuity is not really there, viz. in recent findings:

...analysis of the DNA remains of an actual Khazarian nobleman shows no significant commonality with Ashkenazi DNA.

Violet3

13th January 2023, 08:09

The danger here, it seems clear to me, is that if such a thing is held and receives enough media support and applause from political talking heads (even if Russia, China, India, Iran and most of the global south all stay silent and uninvolved), this could 'justify' sending armed UN 'peacekeepers' to Ukraine which would be a backdoor way of formally and 'legally' getting American troops on the ground.

I've not posted about this personally, but I have quite a few serious, heavy-duty concerns about how all this might escalate this year (2023). As many analysts have pointed out (those who really understand all the facts in play!), it's increasingly hard to see a way that the US globalist neocons would back down and quietly admit defeat in the face of overwhelming Russian superiority and control in many areas both on and off the battlefield.

The ultimate risk is that the US might bring down everything around them rather than lose their global hegemony which they pathologically feel is somehow God-given. Last year I felt sure this could not happen, but now, for whatever reasons, I do find myself feeling the chances are no longer exactly zero.

I agree with this. I have been listening to daily analysis from The Duran and their guests, as well as from ex-military sources such as Colonel McGregor, and they are also sounding warnings that the US will tolerate no stop button and is actively provoking further conflict with Russia wherever possible through the Ukraine proxy in spite of the huge losses, devastation and military failure already incurred. This could lead to boots of the ground by 'peace process concensus' and that will fail- due to Russian superiority in troops, training, weapons (offensive and defensive), resources and industrial capacity. Then, would anyone put it past these mad cowardly liars to use a nuclear option?

Violet3

13th January 2023, 08:13

sorry I don't post often and could not work out how to quote properly and get rid of the huge blank spot

shaberon

13th January 2023, 08:44

Then, would anyone put it past these mad cowardly liars to use a nuclear option?

I do not think that will happen.

It will be somewhat self-contained, because the first few minutes of total war looks like this:

All of the U. S. bases in Europe and the Middle East are dead.

That's not months of trading shots over a front line, it's dead. Non-starter. It has nothing to do with any need for nuclear weapons. When you throw that into the mix, the U. S. air defenses, are, approximately, none. If the mainland is of any use to you, and, a dozen of them go off in, say, Yellowstone, what then?

Meanwhile, Russia has significant air defenses. It may be possible to hit some targets, but, you won't make it go away in the blink of an eye.

As to significant ground weaponry, yes, as long as there are Ukrainians, Poles, or anyone else left standing You better believe they will be supplied with something. I wouldn't be surprised if they taught a four-year-old how to pull the pin on a grenade. There is no limit to the blood that can be shed in losing eastern Ukraine.

The other thing you should understand about the U. S. government is that they know fully well that bread-and-circuses cannot run out for seventy-two hours. You can make the price of gas go wonky, so to speak, and no one will do anything; but if it were to stop, you would have, at the most, probably about seventy-two hours before widescale looting and violence. No one "cares", per se, except that is not paying taxes and progressing along cheaply. So there is a kind of obligation-by-jungle-law as to what they can get away with. That is why Economics moves violence "down the street" where we don't see it. If the fairy dust goes poof for too long, this quite fragile management of tensions will suddenly explode.

Tintin

13th January 2023, 11:14

sorry I don't post often and could not work out how to quote properly and get rid of the huge blank spot

No problem, I've fixed it now :highfive:

:focus:

Bill Ryan

13th January 2023, 11:45

A small good-news story, encouraging and refreshing to read at a time where many Telegram posts are documenting slaughter. :flower:

https://t.me/Slavyangrad/28660

Slavyangrad/28660

Tintin

13th January 2023, 13:52

A historical reference point regarding Ukrainian aspirations to join NATO dating from 2006 - cable dated January 26th, 2006

Source: Wikileaks mirror site (https://wikileaks.jcvignoli.com/cable_06KIEV336?hl=Ukraine)

------------------

[Extracted]:

NATO
--------------

4. (C) Noting the door was always open for participation in
NATO, ASD Flory said the U.S. strongly supported Ukrainian
aspirations for NATO membership. At the same time, the onus
was on UKRAINE to demonstrate that it had implemented
political and military reforms and shared the political,
economic, and social values required to join the
performance-based organization. ASD Flory complimented
UKRAINE for its significant progress in military reform,
particularly in the last year, both in carrying forward
existing programs as well as in adopting new legislation
allowing new programs to begin.

5. (C) ASD Flory praised UKRAINE's contributions to
international security, beginning in the mid-1990s in Bosnia,
following through with contributions of forces for Iraq and
Kosovo, and looking forward to future participation in 2006
in Operation Active Endeavor. UKRAINE had provided welcome
relief assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for
which the U.S. was particularly grateful, and after the
Pakistan earthquake. ASD Flory welcomed UKRAINE's decision
to contribute airlift for transport of African Union troops
to Sudan. He said the U.S. was ready to assist in the
transformation of UKRAINE's military so that it could be more
capable to respond to future challenges.

6. (C) A/S Fried noted that, throughout the process of NATO
enlargement, membership in NATO hinged not so much on NATO's
views but on the determination of the candidate country to
join. When countries such as Poland and Romania moved
decisively forward in their bids for membership, opinion
within NATO consolidated in their favor. A/S Fried noted
that public attitudes in NATO candidate countries were more
important than many people realized. NATO, while not yet
concerned, was mindful of the low levels of popular support
within UKRAINE for NATO membership. NATO would look to the
Ukrainian government to implement a public education campaign
after the March 2006 parliamentary elections.

7. (C) MFA NATO Department Deputy Director Vladislav Yasnyuk
acknowledged that Ukrainian public opinion was divided on
NATO membership, with about a third of the population in
favor, a third opposed, and the remainder undecided. The
Ukrainian government had appropriated funds for a public
education effort only about a year ago, but UKRAINE was
encouraged by the example of new NATO members that had been
able to double public acceptance of NATO membership to the
60-70 percent range in two or three years. Furthermore,
Ukrainian law designated NATO membership as an element of its
approach to national security. The parliamentary action
provided the foundation for unified action by the
government's executive and legislative branches. Finally,
President Yushchenko had identified NATO membership as an
important goal of Ukrainian foreign policy.

8. (C) DFM Khandohiy said the NATO Membership Action Plan
(MAP) was the main priority of UKRAINE's interaction with
NATO. UKRAINE hoped to be included in what NATO itself had
identified as the "NATO enlargement summit" in 2008. Much
work remained to be done to achieve this goal, however. MAP
would provide the impetus and the framework for the necessary
steps to move toward NATO membership, Khandohiy emphasized.
If NATO approved a Ukrainian MAP early in 2006, then UKRAINE
would have more than two full MAP cycles, which normally
started in September, before the 2008 summit. He asked for
USG support for a NATO-UKRAINE meeting on the margins of the
NATO informal summit in Sofia to consider this possibility
further.

9. (C) Khandohiy said President Yushchenko had recently
designated Deputy Foreign Minister Anton Buteyko as his
Special Representative for NATO. Yushchenko had asked
Buteyko to visit NATO capitals in this capacity with a letter
from Yushchenko underscoring UKRAINE's desire to receive a
MAP this year.

Vicus

13th January 2023, 19:14

Ukraine legalizes foreigners in neo-Nazi regiment
https://www.sott.net/image/s33/662195/large/azov.jpg

The Ukrainian parliament on Thursday passed a new law that expands perks offered to foreigners who sign up to serve in the country's military. Sponsors of the bill specifically singled out the controversial Azov regiment as an intended beneficiary of the measure.

Azov originated as a group of far-right volunteers who in 2014 took up arms against Donbass forces with Kiev's blessing. The unit was incorporated into the National Guard, a structure separate from the army, in November of that year.

The new legislation has added the wording "and other military units" to several laws that previously only covered the main Ukrainian armed forces. A formal justification of the bill said that there are many foreign nationals serving in Azov, but that the existing legal framework makes their presence in Ukraine illegal and does not allow them to request Ukrainian citizenship. The new law is meant to change that.

Azov is arguably the best known internationally of the Ukrainian nationalist units. Before the conflict between Moscow and Kiev escalated into open hostilities last February, Western officials and media outlets acknowledged that many of the unit's members espoused problematic ideology and that some were neo-Nazis.

An expose published by Time magazine in 2021 called Azov the focal point of "a network of extremist groups stretching from California across Europe to New Zealand." Over the years, it managed to recruit an estimated 17,000 foreign fighters from 50 nations, the report claimed, before describing the dominant role the Azov extremists play in the movement.

After Russia deployed troops to Ukraine, the Azov underwent a rebranding, disposing of its Nazi-inspired official insignia and posing as heroes of resistance. Some prestigious US institutions, such as Stanford University, provided platforms to members of the group.

https://www.sott.net/article/476250-Ukraine-legalizes-foreigners-in-neo-Nazi-regiment

Vicus

13th January 2023, 19:18

Western-mediated Kosovo and Ukraine deals were lies - Serbia

The 2013 EU-brokered Brussels accord between Belgrade and Kosovo was just as deceptive as the doomed 2014-15 Minsk peace agreements that were designed to end the bloodshed in Ukraine, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Friday. The statement came after a recent escalation over the breakaway region.

Serbian forces left Kosovo in 1999 after NATO bombed the country in support of the Albanian armed insurgency. The bloc's peacekeepers have been stationed in the region ever since. Kosovo declared independence from Belgrade in 2008. Serbia, however, with the support of Russia and China, has resisted US and EU pressure to recognize the independence.

Serbian officials have been accusing the Kosovo authorities of violating the Brussels-mediated deal by deploying heavily armed police units to quell Serbian protests in the northern part of the region. "We were not too happy about the Brussels Agreement. It was a goodwill gesture by Belgrade," Dacic told Serbian Prva TV after a meeting with Derek Chollet, a counselor at the US State Department. "But it later turned out to be a big lie, just like with the Minsk Agreements."

"I told Chollet that there is no one in Serbia who will accept the independence of Kosovo and Metohija," Dacic said, referring to the region by its official name. "The safety of the Serbs must be guaranteed," the minister stated, adding that the West must pressure the Kosovo authorities on the matter.

The Minsk accords brokered by France, Germany and Russia were meant to create a path for the peaceful reintegration of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics into Ukraine. However, the agreement was never implemented, and former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko admitted last year that the deal had allowed Kiev to buy time in order to rebuild its military and the economy. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, the ex-president of France, later confirmed this in separate interviews.

Russia cited Kiev's failure to implement the Minsk accords as one of the reasons for launching its military operation in Ukraine in late February. President Vladimir Putin said that the recent statements by Western leaders have shown that "nobody intended to fulfill any part of the Minsk agreements."

Commenting on Merkel's interview, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, meanwhile, stated that Belgrade would draw lessons from the fate of the Minsk deal.

https://www.sott.net/article/476249-Western-mediated-Kosovo-and-Ukraine-deals-were-lies-Serbia

Vicus

13th January 2023, 19:24

German tank deliveries for Ukraine hinge on US - Politico

https://www.sott.net/image/s33/668181/large/63bfb9e62030275bd47e641a.jpg

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will follow US President Joe Biden's lead on whether to support Kiev with Leopard 2 main battle tanks to help in its fight against Russia, Politico reported on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources.

The UK announced that it would provide Ukraine with main battle tanks, and Poland said it would transfer a company of Leopard 2 panzers to Kiev "as part of coalition building." Berlin, however, has yet to greenlight Poland's re-export of the hardware.

According to two unnamed German officials, Scholz's position on the matter "depended heavily" on Biden. In a joint statement last week, both leaders announced that Washington would donate Bradley infantry fighting vehicles to Kiev, and Berlin would send a batch of Marder IVFs and a Patriot air defense system.

Commenting on the UK's initiative to supply Ukraine with tanks, the German government spokesman said that "there is no change in the situation now because of the step that the British government has announced." He added that he was not aware of any requests from allies to send Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.

In recent weeks, Germany has faced mounting pressure to provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks, but has been reluctant to do so, with Scholz arguing that no other NATO country has sent this type of tank to Ukraine, and Germany should not be the first. He added that such moves should be coordinated with allies.

Russia has repeatedly warned Western countries against sending arms to Ukraine, arguing that it will only prolong the hostilities. On Tuesday, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov accused NATO and the US of "definitely taking part in this conflict, although indirectly, by proxy," as they continue to send weapons.

https://www.sott.net/article/476204-German-tank-deliveries-for-Ukraine-hinge-on-US-Politico

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 20:18

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613982580222693377

1613982580222693377

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613992666194411521

1613992666194411521

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 20:22

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613954826223718417

1613954826223718417

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613955937756119052

1613955937756119052

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1613961414816989185

1613961414816989185

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 20:37

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1613930837917196290

1613930837917196290

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 21:07

https://tass.com/politics/1562175

Over 400 foreign mercenaries fled to Seversk from Soledar — LPR officer

Colonel Vitaly Kiselyov suggested that nationalist units were stationed in Soledar as an anti-retreat force
LUGANSK, January 13. /TASS/. Around 400 foreign mercenaries and members of Ukrainian nationalist battalions fled the recently liberated city of Soledar and are now in the DPR city of Seversk, Colonel Vitaly Kiselyov, a military analyst in the Lugansk People’s Republic, told TASS on Friday.

"Residents reported seeing English-and Polish-speaking military in the city of Seversk. We have no information about how many mercenaries are currently there, maybe approximately 300-400 people. It is possible that those mercenaries <…> fled Soledar. Also, [members of] Kraken [Ukrainian nationalist battalion] and the Right Sector [Ukrainian nationalist organization, outlawed in Russia] were spotted in Seversk," he said.

Kiselyov suggested that nationalist units were probably stationed in Soledar as an anti-retreat force.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday that Russian troops had liberated the city of Soledar, which saw heavy fighting in the past few days. The coordinator for inter-parliamentary relations with the People's Council of the LPR, first deputy chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots, Viktor Vodolatsky, later told TASS that about half of those fighting on the Ukrainian side near Soledar were foreign mercenaries and military personnel from NATO countries.

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 21:13

https://tass.com/russia/1562161

Over 100 people evacuated from Soledar to temporary shelter in Shakhtersk

Acting DPR head Denis Pushilin said earlier that he had signed a decree to put Bakhmutskoye and Yakovlevka, two recently liberated villages near Soledar, under the administrative jurisdiction of Shakhtersk city authorities
SHAKHTERSK, January 13. /TASS/. A group of around 100 evacuees from the city of Soledar in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) arrived in another DPR city, Shakhtersk, on Friday, a TASS correspondent reported.

According to the reporter, the group will be accommodated at temporary shelters in Shakhtersk. There are 108 people in the group, city authorities said.

Acting DPR head Denis Pushilin said earlier that he had signed a decree to put Bakhmutskoye and Yakovlevka, two recently liberated villages near Soledar, under the administrative jurisdiction of Shakhtersk city authorities.

On Monday, 60 Soledar residents were evacuated to a temporary shelter in the city of Torez.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday that Russian troops had liberated the city of Soledar, which saw heavy fighting in the past few days. According to Andrey Bayevsky, a member of the legislature of the Donetsk People’s Republic and a colonel of the People’s Militia, Soledar is important because control over the city opens the way for direct artillery fire on the road between Slavyansk and Artyomovsk, and allows the artillery to hit targets on the Artyomovsk axis. He described the capture of Soledar as an important step toward storming Artyomovsk.

https://twitter.com/Levi_godman/status/1613958098380795904

1613958098380795904

https://tass.com/politics/1562125

Soledar residents say they came under Ukrainian fire as they were leaving town

One of the residents said she was sure that Ukrainian forces were aware they were shelling fleeing civilians
SHAKHTYORSK, January 13. /TASS/. People that fled Soledar and are now housed in a temporary settlement in Shakhtyorsk have told TASS that Ukrainian forces opened fire on them as they were leaving the embattled town.

Soledar resident Tatiana said she was sure that Ukrainian forces were aware they were shelling fleeing civilians. Some other people in the temporary settlement also said the shelling of the evacuating people was deliberate.

"We were afraid of going outside for three days," Tatiana recollected.

She said her home had been destroyed by Ukrainian shelling.

"The house was falling apart, engulfed by fire. That was scary," she said. "We have nowhere to go back to. We are basically homeless."

Another town resident, Larisa, recounted two instances of looting by Ukrainian troops. She also said a complaint by a local resident that his car had been stolen was followed by Ukrainian shelling of his garages with incendiary munitions.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday said Russian troops had liberated Soledar on the evening of January 12, after days of fighting.

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 21:21

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1613982114076041218

1613982114076041218

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 21:25

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1613990363751976975

1613990363751976975

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 21:35

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1613535650422345728

1613535650422345728

More videos of chemical weapons

https://twitter.com/Dpol_un/status/1613887931021774849

1613887931021774849

https://twitter.com/CheriB2022/status/1613735826047012866

1613735826047012866

https://twitter.com/defnotfsb/status/1614013153284706315

1614013153284706315

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 21:49

https://twitter.com/Alexey2332423/status/1613902807538581506

1613902807538581506

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1614009057576353792
1614009057576353792

https://twitter.com/Hawkeye1745/status/1613981720025481217

1613981720025481217

https://twitter.com/MayaSashenka/status/1613977876394647552

1613977876394647552

https://twitter.com/KhersonFrom/status/1580744184025473025

1580744184025473025

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 22:03

https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1613497143964188672

1613497143964188672

Bill Ryan

13th January 2023, 22:24

Copied from a Southfront article, and this rather speaks for itself :flower:

Juan Sinmiedo described the situation emotionally and rightly in his Telegram channel:

I do really somehow feel sorry for those two Ukrainian guys killed in the video this morning, they are obviously sent to die as cannon fodder, in the video they were down in the trench, didn’t know what happened, didn’t understand how someone at their backs would not be one of them, probably their “colleagues” on their flank or the rear ran for their lives long ago.

They died for Zelensky and for the Western hegemony, the young Russian soldier risked his own life, in the middle of a blood bath, to give them a chance to lay down arms, he exposes himself, selfeslesly, it’s clear he didn’t want to kill those men unnecessarily, I’m sure moments like this will hunt him for the rest of his life, but this moments are the ones that mark the difference between remaining human in hell or becoming the same as the Ukrainians who torture and murder POWs.

Ukrainians and Russians, two Slavic brothers pushed into a blood bath by NATO.Here's the video:

https://s2.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IMG_7841.mp4

Below is a very astute and human commentary, from https://t.me/SLGAnalytica/289.

The video does deserve a warning.

The Russian soldier was just doing his job. No-one who's never been on a real battlefield could ever properly put themselves in his position. Yet, one has to have compassion for the two Ukrainians one sees being shot and killed on camera at close quarters. It simply shows infantry warfare as manifests daily in Ukraine thousands of times a month in encounters never filmed.

I'll copy the text here, as many might not be able to access that channel.

:flower::flower:

~~~
A helmet-mounted camera shows a Russian soldier’s view as he grenades, then storms an AFU defensive pit. There, he confronts 2 injured Ukrainian soldiers, shooting them dead at point blank range after a brief attempt to take them prisoner.

The video is explicit and horrifying. Most reviews of the video focus on analysis of fault; attempting to justify (or condemn) the actions of the Russian soldier, or conversely the dead AFU troops. Others provide a doctrinal critique of the Russian’s infantry skills and discipline. People want to nit-pick the video, draw conclusions aligned with their preferred narrative, and move on. Along the way, the pure horror in the clip is forgotten.

Thanks to the released footage, this isolated horror will be witnessed by thousands. Including perhaps your neighbour’s teenage child. Including friends and family of the deceased men. Including the type of people who seek out violent content as entertainment. War is Hell, and we are all in it.

Ravenlocke

13th January 2023, 23:22

Mashika

14th January 2023, 04:27

I'm on the complete opposite pole of being "American" and still i felt all wrong and uncomfortable about this, i didn't felt like laughing at all, it's offensive and disgraceful. And let's not even talk about the failed symbolism attempt, this is even worse than the Ukrainian Angel Warrior one.

Poor girl, she could not do much about it, she was used in a very shameful way. I feel this is offensive. I'm about to throw up...

There is a comment on that thread that says "Perfect metaphor for the stumbling Empire."
1613969952171757568

Also, this was classless and the arrogance portrayed is beyond cringe. Perhaps this actually belongs on the Multipolar thread?

Hym

14th January 2023, 05:35

😂😂 That was awkward as hell...laughing is appropriate...especially seeing her behind trailing all of that weight...the weight of the world, and do not expect her to get the irony at all..
the fact that all we'll recall is her bum,
and the stars coming out of her arse.....

Americans don't take any of it seriously, nor do they expect the women to protest the embarrassment it presents.

If you don't laugh at anyone even considering any of it being a matter of pride
you may not get the cruel joke...🤪
Someone, somewhere in america thought that the symbology of farting stars was a good idea....and in a twisted sister way it just may be...

How far a stretch is it to understand just how out of touch with reality the country has been, and how far that galactic distance is from the truth of the lives of strangers, strangers just as alive as everyone we love, lives taken by its controllers....the price of profit, now being extracted from them also, rewards for their silence in the midst of decades of killing for democracy's pulp fiction, in lands raped for resources...

Yes, it's a country with stars coming out of its ass, where showing the reality of foreign wars will never be seen, but are destined to be felt in every home and in many a broken heart...And where I'm not proud for writing like this....
using words when I should be praying...as I am praying

That's why it's good for westerners to see Mexican t.v. every now and then, where the pictures showing victims of the sicarios/cartel hitmen are common and at least one truth is never denied...

Like how the California Highway Patrol interagency magazine, though not for public use, would post full, unedited pictures of those dead in highway crashes....and every single day each CHP officer knows what saving lives is about...incentives for prevention, burned into the working psyche...guys who protected me more than once....

Something americans should be reminded of, visual and audio truths about the most intense tragedies of war.

Living in the states, you get used to that kind of 🤮 , rarely watching anything like it,
even as we dearly appreciate the one who took the time to pull the clip out and post it.

I do get the connection, the inference to the song...
I do see the Star Spangled Banner in that video, but I doubt the designer, in putting such a heavy stress on her spine, esp. her neck and lower back, even had the awareness to see the humor she had to bear...

shaberon

14th January 2023, 05:50

Poor girl, she could not do much about it, she was used in a very shameful way. I feel this is offensive. I'm about to throw up...

This is certainly a spoof on a very old design:

The ancient Roman goddess Libertas was honored during the second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) by a temple erected on the Aventine Hill in Rome by the father of Tiberius Gracchus. In a highly political gesture, a temple for her was raised in 58 BC by Publius Clodius Pulcher on the site of Marcus Tullius Cicero's house after it had been razed. When depicted as a standing figure, on the reverse of coins, she usually holds out, but never wears, a pileus, the soft cap that symbolised the granting of freedom to former slaves. She also carries a rod, which formed part of the ceremony for manumission. In the 18th century, due to antiquarians misunderstanding the shape, the pileus turned into the similar Phrygian cap carried on a pole by English-speaking "Liberty" figures, and then worn by Marianne and other 19th-century personifications, as the "cap of liberty".

Libertas had been important under the Roman Republic, and was somewhat uncomfortably co-opted by the empire; it was not seen as an innate right, but as granted to some under Roman law. Her attribute of the pileus appeared on the Ides of March coin of the assassins of Julius Caesar, defenders of the Roman republic, between two daggers with the inscription "EID MAR" (Eidibus Martiis – on the Ides of March).

Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers.

So this cap and rod were legal instruments. As with most things covered by "classical education", it was dumped into nothing for centuries until revived in the 1700s by Dutch and others. Of course, at this point, there are a lot of competing political ideas and so forth, so then what the symbol "means" in the hands of "whoever" does not necessarily concern freedom in Roman Law. The "famous" adaptation sent from France to the United States is also along the lines of throwing up:

In 1865, Edouard de Laboulaye (a French political thinker, U.S. Constitution expert, and abolitionist) proposed that a monument be built as a gift from France to the United States in order to commemorate the perseverance of freedom and democracy in the United States and to honor the work of the late president Abraham Lincoln.

The Statue of Liberty was designed by the French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi when there was no liberty in France (Second Empire).

However:

Her attribute of the pileus appeared on the Ides of March coin of the assassins of Julius Caesar, defenders of the Roman republic, between two daggers with the inscription "EID MAR" (Eidibus Martiis – on the Ides of March).

The medieval republics, mostly in Italy, greatly valued their liberty, and often use the word, but produce very few direct personifications. One exception, showing just the cap of liberty between daggers, a copy of coins by the assassins of Julius Caesar, featured on a medal struck by Lorenzino de' Medici to commemorate his assassination of his cousin Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence in 1547.

I can understand the one that is between the Caesar daggers, but, whoever has got this mixed up with the success of Lincoln's Empire has conflated two drastically different ideas.

In England she was seen as a champion of Cromwell's revolution. So this was inherent to English colonies. However the "new land" had already been granted the identity of "Columbia".

Personification of the Americas in Meissen porcelain, c. 1760, from a set of the Four Continents:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/The_Four_Continents_%28America%29%2C_Johann_Joachim_Kaendler_and_assistants%2C_Meissen_Porcelain_Fac tory%2C_c._1760%2C_hard-paste_porcelain_-_Wadsworth_Atheneum_-_Hartford%2C_CT_-_DSC05373.jpg/883px-thumbnail.jpg

America was depicted as a woman who, like Africa, was only partly dressed, typically in bright feathers, which invariably formed her headdress. She often held a parrot, was seated on a caiman or alligator, with a cornucopia. Sometimes a severed head was a further attribute, or in prints scenes of cannibalism appeared in the background.

So Columbia for a while merged with "Liberty" in a certain way, but, as one might imagine, her imagery was a bit strong for certain types and she became more "Christianized" and "Statue of Liberty" in appearance after Lincoln.

I, personally, hold with Garibaldi who refused Lincoln's command offer because he knew the slavery speeches were propaganda. And so at that point we say R. I. P. America that we knew that had started with the right values, pretty similar and friendly to Russia, and then we can watch the "person" of the "freed slaves" in the Amendment to our Constitution turned around and used by businesses to define a corporation as such a "person".

The idea of slavery, that a person is property, has been reversed to "property is a person".

A little further down the road, and we have the opportunity to "liberate" France, who has played the role of a boxer "taking a fall" where the stakes are about subjugating Germany to the "world order"--of course, to the happiness of several fake Germans. From there to the dumb stuff in Israel and Korea. This has already gone so far from any "Liberty" that I would particularly care to celebrate, and now that was seventy years ago and nothing changed and here we are.

Now. The difference between a debt-wage slave and an actual slave is that you have the freedom to travel across multiple jurisdictions.

Is that making anyone feel much better?

This mess is so stifling that I might as well ask permission to go to the bathroom.

Syrian Partisan Girl has already done more for me a long time ago than these silly parade symbols ever will.

Correspondingly, here is something copied from the French mainstream (https://tass.com/world/1561887):

PARIS, January 13. /TASS/. The Ukrainian conflict is existential for the United States, which, in the event that friendly European economies become exhausted, will run the risk of losing its grip on world finance, French historian and anthropologist Emmanuel Todd said in an interview with Le Figaro.

In his commentary, he recalls a piece of analysis offered by Professor John Mearsheimer, of the University of Chicago, who argued that whereas for Russia this conflict was "existential," for the United States it was just another game among other countries, and that victory or defeat in it would be of little importance to the US. "But this analysis is insufficient. [U.S. President Joe] Biden now has to hurry. America is fragile and the Russian economy’s resistance is pushing the US imperial system towards the abyss. Nobody had expected the Russian economy would be able to withstand the ‘economic power’ of NATO," Todd said.

He is certain that the United States is in a phase of long-term decline and, against the backdrop of its waning influence in the world, it has decided to press for greater influence in its "original protectorates," acquired after World War II, in other words, Europe and Japan. Against this background the European economy’s collapse, the expert notes, is fraught with great risks for the United States itself.

"If the Russian economy offers long-term resistance to sanctions and manages to bleed the European economy white and manages to survive with Chinese support, US monetary control of the world will collapse, and with it, the US’ ability to finance its mammoth trade deficit for next to nothing. This war has become existential for the United States. It cannot get out of the conflict before Russia. They cannot let go. This explains why we are now in an open-ended war, in a confrontation that is bound to result in the collapse of one side or the other," Todd says.

Economic and social problems

The conflict in Ukraine "leads to a real economy that allows for gauging the real wealth of states and their productive capacity," the expert states. In particular, he points to a two-fold increase in Russia’s wheat production after the first major sanctions were introduced in 2014, as well as Russia's leading position in building nuclear power plants, not only at home, but also abroad.

The outcome of the conflict "will depend on the ability of both systems to produce weapons," Todd believes. The historian notes that the transition to a war of attrition reduces the influence of advanced US military technologies, being used by Ukraine. It brings to the forefront the availability of skilled personnel, material resources and industrial potential. "At this point the

West’s fundamental problem of globalization begins to intervene: we have moved so many industries [from our territory] that we don’t know now whether our military plants will be able to maintain the desired production pace," he added.

In addition to natural and industrial resources the expert notes the great role of human resources and education. He points to the United States’ more than twofold advantage over Russia in population, but advises his readership to remember that in the United States only 7% of students master engineering professions, while in Russia there are about 25% of them, which ultimately gives Russia a competitive edge. "The United States is filling this gap with foreign students, mostly Indians and even to a greater extent, Chinese. This substitution resource is unreliable, though, and is already dwindling," he said.

Clash of ideologies

Todd also urged not to forget about the "ideological and cultural balance of power." He recalled that during the Soviet era, the Communist ideology was used as soft power, which won acclaim in China, and partly in India and Europe. However, for the Muslim world, that ideology was not attractive due to its official atheism, the expert believes. "Today, Russia, which is again positioning itself as a great power, not only anti-colonial, but also patrilineal and conservative in relation to traditional mores, can attract far greater support," he explained.

"Western newspapers are tragically funny: they keep saying: 'Russia is isolated. Russia is isolated.' But when you take a look at the votes at the UN, it will turn out that 75% of the world does not follow the West, which at such moments looks very small," Todd says. "The current conflict, which our media tend to describe as a clash of political values, at a deeper level is a conflict of anthropological values. It is this lack of awareness and depth that makes the confrontation dangerous."

Global confrontation

"The reality is that World War III has already begun. It is obvious that the conflict, initially a limited territorial war, has evolved into a global economic confrontation between the entire West, on the one hand, and Russia, supported by China, on the other, to have become a world war," Todd believes. He speculates that given current economic and demographic factors, the hostilities should be expected to end within five years.

He believes that one way or another the European countries are "participating in killing Russians" by supplying military equipment to Ukraine, even though they do not put themselves at risk. "The Europeans are primarily focused on the economy. We can feel the real involvement in the war through inflation and shortages of various goods," the expert stressed.

Russia, he says, while participating in an economic war [with the West], is partially restoring the military economy, but at the same time it is doing its utmost to take care of the people."

"This is the purpose of the pullback of troops from Kherson that followed the pullback from the Kharkov and Kiev regions. We are counting the square kilometers captured by the Ukrainians, while the Russians are waiting for the fall of the European economies. We are their main frontline," Todd stated.

Ravenlocke

14th January 2023, 07:19

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1614128145996587011

1614128145996587011

Ravenlocke

14th January 2023, 07:23

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1614112987970928641

1614112987970928641

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1614113652079984643

1614113652079984643

Ravenlocke

14th January 2023, 07:44

https://twitter.com/Geopolitics_Emp/status/1612643777801322497

1612643777801322497

Ravenlocke

14th January 2023, 07:52

https://twitter.com/Geopolitics_Emp/status/1614059691180531713

1614059691180531713

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88qp5k/the-us-cant-make-enough-plutonium-triggers-for-its-nuclear-warheads

The U.S. Can't Make Enough Plutonium Triggers for Its Nuclear Warheads

American power relies on the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. One of the reasons the U.S. military is so powerful is that the country is sitting on more than 5,000 potential world-ending nuclear weapons. But those nukes are aging and America hasn’t been building more. The Pentagon’s goal is to spin up production and make 80 plutonium pits—the trigger mechanism for nukes—a year by 2030. A new report from federal investigators said that’s a pipe dream.

A nuclear pit is a hollow ball of plutonium. On a basic level, nuclear weapons work by surrounding one of these balls with high explosives. When the high explosives go off, they apply uniform pressure to the plutonium pit and cause a nuclear explosion. They are a key ingredient in nuclear weapons, but America hasn’t made a new one since 1989.

America’s nuclear infrastructure is crumbling and in desperate need of modernization, according to the Pentagon. To keep America’s nukes running, the Pentagon wants to start production again. According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), it’s not going well.

This isn’t shocking. The National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) warned Congress in 2022 that the official plan to meet a deadline of 80 pits produced per year by 2030 wasn’t going to happen. According to the GAO, the NNSA doesn’t even know how much it will cost to create the infrastructure to build these pits, what resources it will need, or how long the project will take. “According to officials, such a life cycle cost estimate has not been completed because of concerns about releasing preliminary or uncertain information,” the report said.

For a brief period after the end of the Cold War it seemed like broad nuclear disarmament might be possible. That didn’t happen and now the U.S. is falling behind on modernization goals it set for itself.

U.S. nuclear weapons programs have been marred by problems for the past decade. After the end of the Cold War, people and government officials began to ignore nuclear weapons. Neglected, missiles and bombs capable of ending the world began to age. At Los Alamos, where plutonium pits are made, safety lapses have stalled work repeatedly in the past few years. The U.S. Command and Control computers were still using large floppy disks as recently as 2019. And Airmen watching over Minuteman nuclear missiles admitted to dropping acid while on the job in 2015 and 2016.

There is a renewed nuclear arms race with China and Russia. Moscow had repeatedly made nuclear threats during its invasion of Ukraine and Putin has teased new advanced nuclear weapons over the past five years. China, which once had a relatively low amount of nuclear weapons for a global superpower, has been building more.

Meanwhile, America has pushed to modernize its nuclear forces. The U.S. Air Force is building a new intercontinental-ballistic missile and revealed a new stealth bomber last year with the fanfare of a Super Bowl halftime show. But these fancy new weapons require plutonium cores, and it doesn’t look like the U.S. can build them fast enough.

Mashika

14th January 2023, 08:06

For the Ukrainian Nazis, every single Ukrainian, citizen or military, is disposable as soon as it doesn't serve the main goal. This won't stop until the real free world acts on the corrupt western and Ukrainian governments (Free world meaning the countries not on the NATO payroll, every other one is compromised by money and fear already. Or in other words, they could find themselves on the bad side as soon as they don't toe the NATO line, so fear keeps them in place and aligned to the main goal)

The UN is a corrupt, pointless and useless organism, and the leadership has more blood on their hands than Napoleon or Stalin could ever brag about

"The UN Secretary General disbanded the UN commission to establish the facts of the shelling of the colony (https://t.me/Reality_Theories/7819) with Ukrainian prisoners of war in Yelenovka.

This commission did not and could not give birth to anything intelligible, because it could not openly say that it was the AFU that shelled the colony with its own prisoners of war. For the same reasons that the IAEA cannot say that the AFU is shelling the nuclear power plant, and the OPCW cannot admit that the militants are staging chemical attacks in Duma..."
Reality_Theories/10936

Mashika

14th January 2023, 08:16

They are so corrupt they can't speak up, even if they wanted to (they don't)

And this compliance to the main narrative has made them slaves. They have fear of ending up 'cancelled' if they turn their backs on this fake reality that is pushed hard on the general population of all western NATO/US aligned countries. This is the fear that keeps them under control, this slow, silent allowing of Nazi Fascism has gained power by the way of "with us or with them" and since the US has a lot of dirt on the "partners" the choice is not a choice at all, it's a "with us or else" command they can't avoid following

So yes, the entire western world has been already dominated by fascism, coming directly from the German Nazi groups that were integrated into the culture and power structure of the US right as soon as they WW2 ended, we all know how and when. Then it just expanded its reach until it managed to grab 'the enemy' and turn it around from the inside out and into the new face of Nazism

This should be very obvious by now

Soon this will turn into a greater scale of "With us or with them", the axis will come up soon enough and i think we are already seeing, mostly, what side most 'freedom and demo-crazy' loving countries are being forced to chose.

The question is, will they follow through?

Mashika

14th January 2023, 08:23

The rewriting of history is already in full process, erase the past so it can be repeated is not knew, burning of books, cancelling of cultures is all done before, we just have a newer version of it, digital cancelling by the way of how people learn about things these days. Cancel entire channels on youtube, cancel journalist website by way of removing the from searches, cancel journalists by way of declaring them criminals and removing their accounts from social media, etc

It's the same as before, just adapted to the current times

You don't burn books, you burn the social media presence of the author, remove their bank account, etc, then they don't have a voice anymore and then you can lie openly with no one to expose your BS to the rest of the world

Do this until 'free' means 'serf' and then people thank their masters for punishing them for 'looking into the forbidden texts' (using a proxy or reading the wrong telegram channels)

Conditioning takes care of that, and kids in the western world are pre-conditioned to accept this as the 'right thing to do' and 'reality'. So that they grow into it and can't understand or are even aware there is another way to be 'free' that doesn't require you to bend down to a master the way it is being inculcated and enforced right now

It is true that this war is not about Donbass or Russia/Donbass vs NATO/Ukraine, it is about values, about culture and about plenty other things related to it

Most US veterans from WW2 would see this clearly, i have no doubt about it, there is no 'truth' veil that would hide reality from them, they went there and saw, they knew. The newer generations in the west have a veil that prevents them from seeing the truth, they have not gone and seen, they believe what they read and are told.

This is the reason of it all, they are not able to go and see, they are made weak and dumb so they don't even try, and the ones who do try, are 'cancelled' and lose it all, and their families are hurt as well.

It's a Yakuza move "That's a nice life/family you have there, it would be a shame if something were to happen to it"

It's the mob mindset, at the top of the western governments. These are not educated people, they are entitled beasts who consider other people's lives disposable

Mashika

14th January 2023, 08:45

Here's another thing a lot of people need to realize

Ask and wonder, what were the top/main countries in the USSR?

Answer: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

Followed by: Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia

Where are the most conflicting zones now in post-soviet USSR territories?

If you list all of the above you win!

Why is there a specific involvement of the US/West in those countries just before they become unstable or something like the current war happens?

How odd, right? It's like if the US goes and visits, then immediately something bad happens and people die and it gets unstable and then war happens and the country 'needs help'

In general, if you have not realized, the main goal of this entire operation is to take down, destroy, burn down and completely obliterate the culture, governments, people, history and future of all the main countries that could possibly bring back the Union

This is the main goal, take them down 'preemptively' so a reunification never happens. But this goes beyond that, it is meant to take over the control of the land so all the very valuable resources can be extracted and taken away, so that the unipolar world can continue for centuries to go while the people in these parts are diminished and put to the side of history, turned into meaningless serfs that only work for cents a day and are so llimited they could never even attempt to take back their own land, as they are so weak, uneducated, lacking of will and power, they just simply accept their fate (as Banana republics)

This is obvious to me and in general 'us' on this side of the planet, but not so obvious to the western people, as they tend to see all from their own point of view where things happens 'unfortunately' and then they need to 'help' by giving jobs to the poor people.

The thought that those people would not be poor in the first place if their governments had not meddled and ensured their poverty and misery never crosses their minds

ETA: Can a mod please help me cross-post this to the Multipolar world thread? Thanks :highfive::sun:

From Bill:
Yes, done (and also your post #7907 (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?114491-WW3-Ukraine-US-vs.-Donbass-Russia&p=1538039&viewfull=1#post1538039) above)
:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Mashika

14th January 2023, 09:04

And Boris Yeltsin realized this was the plan and there was no plan ever to 'make Russia a friend of the US" and then he selected Putin as the next president before removing himself. This is something most people even these days don't know

He betrayed the US at the last moment, and chose Putin, who was not even in the picture as a candidate, it was prepared months and months in advance behind the backs of all the western 'partners', then he came out with it and even before elections took place Putin had already been selected and positioned as president of Russia, then he came into full power with an already developed plan to restore Russia and remove all influence from the west

You think some guy just comes up with a multi decade plan to restore a country in a month or two? Putin wasn't that guy, this was a very hard work that took lots of time, all behind the scenes and all carefully planned, and it was a multi-layered agenda, it did took decades but that was part of it all. It was like that, to prevent the situation i described above from happening, that the west would take over the lands, destroy and erase the culture and then rape the land until there was nothing left

By the time Putin took power, the US plan to decimate Russia was already going strong, poverty, drugs, and other corruption was rampant, like pedophilia and other things became very popular in 90s Russia, it took years to remove that and now the west calls this removal of corruption and cultural bizarre rotten mindset a "fight against freedom" or a clear sign of 'totalitarianism' from the Russian government

Behind all that fakery and rotten agenda, there is a truth. The west had big plans for Russia, and none of them involved a nice future for Russians, or even one at all. IT was all about the power and resources and nothing much more

And we see it now, Ukraine fell for it, Russia didn't, Ukraine is a rotten wasteland, Russia isn't, neither is Belorussia because they agreed and planned as well to not accept 'western help' the way Ukraine did

If anything, the stupidity of the US government has pushed Russia and the other post-soviet states they could not buy (coerce) into considering a reunification (Greater Russia or similar). Not a Soviet one, but a Russian Empire one

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot

ETA: Also, The Ukrainian Nazi are like a 'great value' version of the real ones

The real ones, back in the west, are still around, In Canada, The US, Britain and other places that took them in and then allowed them to work their way up to the top in the countries internal power structure until they were the ones directing and controlling education, direction of the country and in general the entire agenda both internally and in foreign policy

This has been proven and it's obvious by how every Nazi infiltrated country acts in the international space, they take over and kill without any remorse, extract all money and resources they can and let the people die and become miserable and they don't look back. Why? Because those people do not belong to the master race, they are disposable and a resource to be used by "God's right" for the main goal

This is unchanged right now, we are just getting closer to the end goal, the signs are obvious, they (the Nazi) are losing patience and have decided to move on with the greater goal. But if you are not asleep you should be able to go look back some decades ago and see the world domination plan is/has been in good progress for very long, just under a different flag and concepts (The perversion of the US original/real culture goes here)

US patriots are considered evil, mentally ill, freaks and in general demonized just like Russians are demonized

There would be no need for US patriots, if those people would not realize that their culture and country is being destroyed. Otherwise they would live normal, happy lives. Why do they turn out this way? Because they notice the change and realize the purpose behind it. Just as Russians did in the mid 2000s once the western induced corruption started to be cleaned out of the country.

By definition we are the same, patriots, and demonized and treated as mentally ill/corrupt/etc people because of it

Be a serf or die, 'with us or with them'. Division is the favorite tool of fascism

Ravenlocke

14th January 2023, 16:01

https://twitter.com/MoonofA/status/1614275313810169857

1614275313810169857

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/01/emmanuel-todd-on-the-third-world-war.html

Emmanuel Todd On The Third World War
January 14, 2023

The French Le Figaro has an interview with the well known anthropologist Emmanuel Todd.

Emmanuel Todd: «La Troisième Guerre mondiale a commencé»

"The third world war has began" is his new thesis. Todd is quite famous for correctly predicting the devolution of the Soviet Union long before it happened. He was quite alone at that time.

I once had a piece on Todd's later predictions for the U.S. and Europe which still seems spot on. I also quoted him in a piece on social decline as a national security issue.

Unfortunately the Figaro piece is paywalled. But Arnaud Bertrand has done us the favor of translating the gist. Here is his slightly edited thread:

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand - 15:42 UTC · Jan 13, 2023
Emmanuel Todd, one of the greatest French intellectuals today, claims that the "Third World War has started."

Small 🧵 translating the most important points in this fascinating interview.

He says "it's obvious that the conflict, which started as a limited territorial war and is escalating to a global economic confrontation between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other hand, has become a world war."

He believes that "Putin made a big mistake early on, which is [that] on the eve of the war [everyone saw Ukraine] not as a fledgling democracy, but as a society in decay and a “failed state” in the making. [...] I think the Kremlin's calculation was that this decaying society would crumble at the first shock. But what we have discovered, on the contrary, is that a society in decomposition, if it is fed by external financial and military resources, can find in war a new type of balance, and even a horizon, a hope."
He says he agrees with Mearsheimer's analysis of the conflict: "Mearsheimer tells us that Ukraine, whose army had been overtaken by NATO soldiers (American, British and Polish) since at least 2014, was therefore a de facto member of the NATO, and that the Russians had announced that they would never tolerate Ukraine in NATO. From their point of view, the Russians are therefore in a war that is defensive and preventive. Mearsheimer added that we would have no reason to rejoice in the eventual difficulties of the Russians because since this is an existential question for them, the harder it would be, the harder they would strike. The analysis seems to hold true."

He however has some criticism for Mearsheimer:

"Mearsheimer, like a good American, overestimates his country. He considers that, if for the Russians the war in Ukraine is existential, for the Americans it is basically only one 'game' of power among others. After Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, what's one more debacle? The basic axiom of American geopolitics is: 'We can do whatever we want because we are sheltered, far away, between two oceans, nothing will ever happen to us'. Nothing would be existential for America.

Insufficient analysis which today leads Biden to proceed mindlessly. America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system towards the precipice. No one had expected that the Russian economy would hold up against the 'economic power' of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it.

If the Russian economy resisted the sanctions indefinitely and managed to exhaust the European economy, while it itself remained, backed by China, American monetary and financial controls of the world would collapse, and with them the possibility for United States to fund their huge trade deficit for nothing. This war has therefore become existential for the United States. No more than Russia, they cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go. This is why we are now in an endless war, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other."

He firmly believes the US is in decline but sees it as bad news for the autonomy of vassal states:

"I have just read a book by S. Jaishankar, Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs (The India Way), published just before the war, who sees American weakness, who knows that the confrontation between China and the US will have no winner but will give space to a country like India, and to many others. I add: but not to Europeans. Everywhere we see the weakening of the US, but not in Europe and Japan because one of the effects of the retraction of the imperial system is that the United States strengthens its hold on its initial protectorates. As the American system shrinks, it weighs ever more heavily on the local elites of the protectorates (and I include all of Europe here). The first to lose all national autonomy will be (or already are) the English and the Australians. The Internet has produced human interaction with the US in the Anglosphere of such intensity that its academic, media and artistic elites are, so to speak, annexed. On the European continent we are somewhat protected by our national languages, but the fall in our autonomy is considerable, and rapid. Let's remember the Iraq war, when Chirac, Schröder and Putin held joint anti-war press conferences."

He underlines the importance of skills and education: "The US is now twice as populated as Russia (2.2 times in student age groups). But in the US only 7% are studying engineering, while in Russia it is 25%. Which means that with 2.2 times fewer people studying, Russia trains 30% more engineers. The US fills the gap with foreign students, but they're mainly Indians and even more Chinese. This is not safe and is already decreasing. It is a dilemma of the American economy: it can only face competition from China by importing skilled Chinese labor."

On the ideological and cultural aspects of the war: "When we see the Russian Duma pass even more repressive legislation on 'LGBT propaganda', we feel superior. I can feel that as an ordinary Westerner. But from a geopolitical point of view, if we think in terms of oft power, it is a mistake. On 75% of the planet, the kinship organization was patrilineal and one can sense a strong understanding of Russian attitudes. For the collective non-West, Russia affirms a reassuring moral conservatism."

He continues: "The USSR had a certain form of soft power [but] communism basically horrified the whole Muslim world by its atheism and inspired nothing particular in India, outside of West Bengal and Kerala. However, today, Russia which repositioned itself as the archetype of the great power, not only anti-colonialist, but also patrilineal and conservative of traditional mores, can seduce much further. [For instance] it's obvious that Putin's Russia, having become morally conservative, has become sympathetic to the Saudis who I'm sure have a bit of a hard time with American debates over access for transgender women in the ladies' room.

Western media are tragically funny, they keep saying, 'Russia is isolated, Russia is isolated'. But when we look at the votes at the UN, we see that 75% of the world does not follow the West, which then seems very small.

With an anthropologist reading of this [divide between the West and the rest] we find that countries in the West often have a nuclear family structure with bilateral kinship systems, that is to say where male and female kinship are equivalent in the definition of the social status of the child. [Within the rest], with the bulk of the Afro-Euro-Asian mass, we find community and patrilineal family organizations. We then see that this conflict, described by our media as a conflict of political values, is at a deeper level a conflict of anthropological values. It is this unconscious aspect of the divide and this depth that make the confrontation dangerous."

There you go. Is he right on everything? I don't know, but Emmanuel Todd is certainly always a very singular and interesting thinker, with a vastly different analysis from the depressingly predictable bad takes that usually dominate French media.

Todd's thinking rhymes well with that of Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson as reproduced at Naked Capitalism.

Economists Radhika Desai & Michael Hudson Explain Multipolarity, Decline of US Hegemony - Original here

Yves Smith introduces it:

Yves here. Some rousing weekend listening! Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson are launching a bi-weekly talk show, Geopolitical Economy Hour. The opening segment gives an overview, starting with the breakdown of US dominance and how it has been accelerated ironically by self-defeating efforts to preserve the system. It seems trivial at this point to observe that American defense of its hegemony has helped forge a strong Russia-China alliance. But will this partnership wind up dominating other countries, and stymie the development of a truly multipolar order?
Good food for thought ...

Mashika

14th January 2023, 16:02

Elensky wants

https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/538/495/807/clown-a-nuclear-explosion-explotion-nuclear-clown-nuclear-clown-hd-wallpaper-preview.jpg

Ravenlocke

14th January 2023, 20:11

Russia Missile Strike, Advances Bakhmut; German Criticism Tank Transfers, US Navy Stocks Depleted

DbiQELQId4o

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1614297778406195201

1614297778406195201

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1614280298291683331

1614280298291683331

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1614313954901393408

1614313954901393408

Ravenlocke

14th January 2023, 20:15

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1614343226315444227

1614343226315444227

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1614313706346668033

1614313706346668033

Ravenlocke

14th January 2023, 20:20

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1614346895366692865

1614346895366692865

Ravenlocke

14th January 2023, 20:45

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1614344097065492480

1614344097065492480

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/thesiriusreport/status/1614339527019229184

1614339527019229184

Kryztian

15th January 2023, 04:47

shaberon

15th January 2023, 09:57

So yes, the entire western world has been already dominated by fascism, coming directly from the German Nazi groups that were integrated into the culture and power structure of the US right as soon as they WW2 ended, we all know how and when.

"Yes but"

These German Nazis were in essence the product of UK/US to begin with. The whole Eugenics thing for sure is pure Anglo science. We could think of Germany as being intentionally re-armed in order to eventually be destroyed. The tipping point was that the Nazis did have some very intelligent ideas and one of them turned out to be a true national currency, which, of course, goes totally against the international collective or Atlanticists, which, having perhaps twenty or thirty powerful influential men in Germany, was able to send it on its course.

Then yes, of course, nothing would make it plainer than Operation Paperclip that a good number of those "responsible" certainly were not going to be "held responsible".

I would say that London Capitalism is directly behind what came out as Fascism. Germans were used to do some dirty work as Ukrainians are now.

Right there in the UK, the idea had only recently come out (1600s) that the world had been created in a few days in 3,054 B. C., and that was the mindset of some of these men. And in that condition, they were able to determine, from the Bible, this German and Russian racist thing about the end of days and so forth. Germany was not unified, and various devastations were wrought which brought the Bank of Prussia into prominence. This remains significant to today.

The unified Germany has been made to pay for the re-construction of Europe and the Zionist state. If I am not mistaken its final reparation was paid only a few years ago.

I think they are paying in a different way for something else now, the "future" of that once-viable plan.

The situation now is a bit like Hitler ignoring von Schliefen and opening a second front in Russia, which is where he turned into a stooge, as it was desired for him to "hurt" Russia in the process of losing Germany. Our Neocons, so to speak, have opened a front in Ukraine, which is just going to lose and defeat Germany again.

I am not sure if a simple name can be put on it, but, it is a kind of problem of "modern science" characterized by the American Ivy League and Oxford and Cambridge in England. Along with Eugenics, most of our still-current problems, starting from hybrid seeds, allopathic medicine, petroleum, Capitalism, propaganda, interlocking directorates, foundations, this all came flying out like a hot ball of wax representing the pinnacle of man's achievement. Most of the time it is mixed with what sounds to me like a rather strange religion.

Its adherents had only recently come to the decision to stop burning women.

You think some guy just comes up with a multi decade plan to restore a country in a month or two? Putin wasn't that guy, this was a very hard work that took lots of time, all behind the scenes and all carefully planned, and it was a multi-layered agenda, it did took decades but that was part of it all.

That is why I was a bit "surprised" when Putin said he was "surprised" about Merkel's confession to the fake Minsk Accords. That may be one thing he has said that I am not sure I can believe, I think it is probably true at the diplomatic table but not in actuality.

In retrospect, this tells us two things:

As soon as the Soviet Union was removed, Atlanticism must have bit deep and hard.

Almost as soon as the effects of this were visible, there must have been at least some Russians who became aware and reactive.

Let's see. I am positive there has been a plan to dissolve Russia in this manner since the early stages of the Great Game. The problem in Afghanistan was a successful lure, costly in its own right, but, in addition, turned into an avenue for the delivery of counterfeit cash that this made a crippling blow to the Soviet economy. Then of course the assumption was, we stick in our tentacles and parasites, and soon it all belongs to whoever was the Black Rock of the day, Fred Flintstone probably. Strangely, this did not seem to run its course too well.

It may have taken ten years for anyone to have a clue to suggest Putin how to operate, but, it appears to be defeating a much older idea.

I have checked for the last time that the United States was attacked by Russia, Korea, or Iran, and I'm still checking.

What I found was a pretty solid two hundred years of a wish to break Russia, the people, into a bunch of internecine civil wars between petty statelets. It has not worked there, despite the fact that it has in a large number of other countries.

Putin or any other statesman cannot really go to a dialogue and say "I know you are lying and all this is useless", however, it seems to have played out that way. It has managed to "out" the liar by natural progression. In my experience, this is exactly how you fix problems. You don't just yell or make a big scene when something trips your sensors. You develop a peculiar sense of timing, like when a Ukrainian army has massed at the frontiers of Donbass and Russia, and then you succeed.

You have managed to plant an evidence trail saying, well, we had x, y, z agreements, which are clearly broken, and everything changes.

The statecraft that has gone on there is impressive.

The one here is Satan with no mask.

Snoweagle

15th January 2023, 10:31

Another week, another report on the scientific achievements of the country ostensibly 'crippled and buckling under the weight of sanctions:

A new large gas field was discovered near the Power of Siberia gas pipeline and the ESPO oil pipeline in the Olekminsky district of Yakutia. Its recoverable reserves are estimated at 34.8 billion cubic meters. The deposit is multi-layer, low-condensate, with a minimum content of hydrogen sulfide. The field was named "Mukhtinskoye".

The Proton-PM enterprise has mastered the technology of growing medium-sized metal blanks using the wire arc surfacing method. This will make it possible to master a new range of parts and assembly units of the RD-191 liquid-propellant rocket engine for Angara launch vehicles and other serial orders faster and with greater economic efficiency, to manufacture non-standard equipment, pilot batches and single products in the interests of strategic industries.

The first enterprise in Russia for deep processing of milk was opened in Kalach, Voronezh Region, the plant will produce milk protein concentrate. The Molvest plant will produce 2.5 thousand tons of products, which will reduce imports by 25%. Milk protein concentrate is used for baby food, in the production of cottage cheese and soft cheeses, as well as in sports and dietary nutrition.

The Kuibyshev Refinery has started production of Class 1 winter diesel fuel with a pour point limit of –26°C using a new technology. The refinery's technologists have halved the use of an additive that affects the pour point of the fuel, while improving one of the key properties of the resulting oil product - cold storage stability.

Metalloinvest has modernized the metallization unit of the complex for the production of hot briquetted iron at Lebedinsky GOK. The production capacity of HBI-3 increased by 3% to over 2 million tons of briquettes per year. The reliability of equipment has been increased, downtime during maintenance and repair of the metallization plant has been reduced. Investments in the project amounted to about 2.5 billion rubles.

St. Petersburg plant "KMZ" Izhora-Metal "" increased the production of steel billets, investing 1 billion rubles in the creation of a new production site. The main customer of the plant's products will be the shipbuilding industry. The capacity of the new production is 4,000 tons of press forgings per year. The total annual capacity of the plant has increased to 16 thousand tons of products.

The crew of the special-purpose nuclear submarine "Belgorod" has completed a series of throw tests of the Poseidon torpedo mock-up. The purpose of the throw tests was to check the operation of the Poseidon launch system, it was achieved. Throw firing of the Poseidon super torpedo model was carried out in order to clarify the behavior of the submarine at different depths after the launch.

A scientific and educational laboratory has opened in Moscow, where they will teach how to use big data technologies in the healthcare sector. The laboratory was created to improve the efficiency of personnel training, the implementation of joint research work with leading Russian and international research teams. Students of medical, technical and physical and mathematical universities are accepted for internships.

Rossiya Airlines, on the basis of the Technical Support Department, performed the first maintenance of the Superjet 100 aircraft in the "heavy" form of maintenance, which is carried out every two years. The aircraft with tail number RA-89129 is approved for flights. In 2023, the airline’s ATO forces are planning to carry out C-check on eight more aircraft of this type.

Ruselectronics Holding has expanded the range of antenna systems for satellite communications designed for various types of transport. The new antenna systems will allow passengers to use high-speed Internet and stable communications established through domestic satellites in orbit, to access various multimedia services, including video conferencing, IP telephony, and monitoring information.

Source: Telegram - Donbass Debuska

Tintin

15th January 2023, 11:54

A truly nauseating moment at the Golden Globes. Sean Penn utters these words:

In no uncertain terms, the freedom to dream is not simply a human luxury, but rather a human need that must be fought and sacrificed for. If the freedom to dream were a spear, I proudly present a human being who tonight represents that spear's most honed tip."

and then guess who suddenly appears to speak? (Hint: his last name begins with a letter of the alphabet that his own government was attempting to ban)

At the 2:50 mark below:
9KhHe8I4T4c

I haven't watched this, and am unlikely to in all honesty, but, the whole never-ending theatre being played out here really really grates.

It's all, as you say, nauseating, in extremis, and rage inducing too. (Rage: this I'm really having to manage, by the way.)

These whores of the Ahrimanic force are enjoying their moment in the sun, but it won't last forever.

Mashika

15th January 2023, 12:28

Nevermind...

Bill Ryan

15th January 2023, 12:36

Matthew

15th January 2023, 13:06

[B][SIZE="4"][I]CENSORED

I want 2020's cringe back. I watched a medley of dancing doctors and nurses to try and unsee this. Please convert the video to Base64 and print it out then burn it and then ban Kryztian and Tintin for posting and or quoting it and anyone else whos seen it including me.

Open Minded Dude

15th January 2023, 14:08

When I started this thread in April 2021 already (cannot believe it!) I posted an article by T. Roeper a German living in Russia (and feeling Russian).

He always has good insights and directly translates into german from Russian sources. Every now and then I will add some translated bits again using google translator.

This one is informative about the 'useless' tanks that are being delivered by 'us' Germans.

https://www-anti--spiegel-ru.translate.goog/2023/welche-wirkung-koennen-die-leopard-2-panzer-in-der-ukraine-haben/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

What effect can the Leopard 2 tanks have in Ukraine?
The supply of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine is currently a dominant topic in the media. However, important details are kept secret.
from
January 15, 2023 2:00 am

Western media and politicians are acting as if the delivery of the 14 Leopard 2 tanks from Poland and more Leopard 2 tanks from Germany, or even some British Challenger 2 tanks, could be decisive for the war. Sure, the tanks will have some effect, but first of all it's a PR campaign, because in Ukraine there is no infrastructure and no personnel to service and repair these tanks. The effort to build all this to maintain a few dozen tanks will be gigantic.

It would be easier to supply Ukraine with Soviet tanks that Eastern European countries have in their arsenals. But that has already been done and apparently the Ukrainian army is losing its tanks so quickly that Western models will have to be used if Ukraine is not to be left completely tankless in the near future.

However, not all Leopard 2s are the same. Poland has one of the oldest modifications of Leopard 2 tanks, the Leopard 2A4 version, which was produced from December 1985 to March 1987. So it's hopelessly outdated technology, lacking the modern armor and other details of today's Leopard 2s. And Finland, which wants to deliver Leopards to Ukraine, also has the 2A4 version in its arsenal.

Apparently, these countries are less interested in helping Ukraine and more interested in getting modern tanks from Germany for their outdated tanks as part of the so-called ring swap.

This and some other interesting details, such as the "successes" of the 2A4 version in combat, were reported by Russian television and I translated the Russian report .

Start of translation:

Poland puts pressure on Germany to get Berlin to deliver Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Previously, Warsaw had expressed its desire to send a company of these vehicles to Ukraine. Specialists believe that this is the 2A4 modification.

Given the hunger for tanks that the Ukrainian army is currently experiencing, the dozen Leopards does not change anything. They're huge, intimidating, and outdated. The Leopard 2A4 is the most produced model of the German main battle tank and was produced in the late 80's.

They have long since been phased out in Germany, but the Poles still use them. They are hoping for a renewal of their vehicle fleet.

Yet when military experts make lists of the best tanks of our time, the Leopard 2 always seems to be there. However, these are newer modifications that differ greatly from the 2A4 model.

As for this tank, some of its features are objectively outdated: weak protection, vertical tank turret. And quite banal its dimensions: it is 3 meters high. That's too good a goal.

Experts believe that it makes no sense to compare the Leopard 2A4 with Russian main battle tanks, especially the T-90. Our tanks are lighter, smaller, more maneuverable and better protected, and the weapons are newer and more powerful.

But what's probably even more frustrating for Kyiv is the fact that even their own Oplot tanks - a modification of Soviet tanks that have been scrapped by the Russian army - are by and large no worse than the Leopards.

“The manufacturing countries rarely sell their best models to other countries. Models of the second and third kind are executed. Ten German tanks of any outdated modification will not change anything,” stressed military expert and veteran of the US Armed Forces Stanislav Krapivnik.

And who will serve and repair the tanks in Ukraine? Ukrainian tankers and engineers are used to Soviet tanks. You will need to be retrained. But is there even time for that?

“The tuning of the tanks is planned in German, the orders are given in German. The frequencies are German and have no connection to the Ukrainian control systems. You need a different grade of fuel and different filters. Many things remain unclear,” noted military expert and reserve colonel Roman Nasonov.

All these homeopathic "gun injections" are only needed to ensure that Ukrainians continue to die for the criminal Zelensky regime. Already the losses are staggering. The Ukrainian army needs new cannon fodder. The next wave of mobilization in Ukraine will basically be a hunt for men in the streets.

Foreign mercenaries are also fleeing the front lines in large numbers, as Mark Lindquist, a US Army veteran and American mercenary, told the camera, weeping: “We are all tired. Our money is gone. There are no weapons we can do anything with, all we can do is sit in the trenches and wait to be shot at."

It didn't turn out to be the safari I expected. Incited by anti-Russian propaganda, the poor Yankee apparently expected to fight New Guinean Papuans in the Donbass. But he didn't end up in a health resort, but in the "meat grinder of Verdun".

That's not the moon, that's what the area around Artemowsk (Bakhmut) looks like now. The gray spots are craters. The German tanks have nothing to gain here, our tankers are ready to recycle the western tanks.

https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/artjomowsk.png

“We are waiting for the American and German tanks to see how they burn. Because we know their weak points and we know what to aim for and what to aim for," said this soldier.

We know that leopards burn well. Unlike many other NATO tanks, they have fought in Syria and Afghanistan. The result: the Kurds and Islamist fighters have "declassed" the German military-industrial complex.

In the battle for the Syrian city of Al-Bab alone, the Turkish armed forces lost a third of the Leopard 2A4s at their disposal. And this defeat of the frightening leopards brought about homemade explosive devices and the simplest anti-tank systems.

This means that the Russian military would not have to reinvent or come up with anything for a hypothetical hunt for leopards. They are easily cracked by the Russian Fagot and Kornet anti-tank missiles and anti-tank mines. Not to mention specialized combat vehicles.

“We developed 'Terminators', special vehicles that can destroy multiple tanks at once. We have successfully started using Kamikaze drones. They can destroy any armored target. We are quite capable of destroying the Leopards both at long range and with a direct shot," said military expert, reserve colonel Roman Nasonov.

But it's not the technology that decides everything, it's the people. Russian tankers improve their skills every day in combat conditions. You successfully defeat the enemy, gaining unique experience along the way.

These images are going viral on the internet. A drone filmed a Russian tank setting fire to two Ukrainian tanks from just 500 meters away. Our soldiers have decided on a clever move. While one crew was conducting a daring operation, two other armored vehicles were used as "hunters". The enemy saw through the maneuver and even opened fire on the Russian tank first, but was destroyed.

https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/leopard-schrott.png

It is noteworthy that yesterday the heroic guys who literally attacked the enemy with their hands at a short distance were civilians.

There is no doubt that if German tanks enter Ukrainian soil again, they will end up like their predecessors did 80 years ago.

Mashika

15th January 2023, 14:32

This is the Ukrainian Youth Army. They are now deployed to the front? So it seems if this post is true

Yes, it is. :flower: I saw a whole bunch of photos of Ukrainian kids with guns in uniform, as young as 15-16, a few days ago. It may well have been on the https://t.me/s/Slavyangrad channel. I had immediately thought of yourself. :heart2:

It's all, as you say, nauseating, in extremis, and rage inducing too. (Rage: this I'm really having to manage, by the way.)
Likewise. Almost daily now I have to control my own gradually growing anger at the insanity, ignorance, and sheer inept malevolence that's proliferating everywhere in the so-called civilized west.

The picture i had posted was a fake, but i can see now that yes there are real ones out there, and real reports of this being true, the youth army has been deployed indeed

So yeah, i wonder how the world will handle this once the bodies of 14 year old kids show up all destroyed out there. Will they blame Russia for it? Will they finally admit that Ukraine has gone too far?

And i wonder, what will the UN do? Perhaps this is how they find an excuse to send "peacekeepers" and then save Ukraine from defeat? I won't put it past them to use kids as a way to enforce intervention once they can't stop the defeat or hide the reality much more from the west, as they do now with their fake news

Like i said before, any person in Ukraine is disposable, the US/UK have been clear about that since long ago with their "To the last Ukrainian" famous quote

I also almost feel like predicting this, as you may remember once i told you about how we used to change from uniform to regular clothes before scouting the other side

I suspect they will do the same once more, so if battle comes and kids get killed in mid battle, they will show a kid with no uniform and say "see? Russian soldiers are killing kids", and there will be no mention of the reality, that this dead kid was fighting at the front line as a regular soldier and had all the training as an adult would have. That fact will be ignored and hidden away from the public

But i know how all of that works, we did that before, so i expect something like that to happen at some point, and people will eat the lie 100%

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 16:57

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1614550650221887489

1614550650221887489

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1614550655909208064

1614550655909208064

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1614550661361803264

1614550661361803264

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 17:00

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1614651753781141504

1614651753781141504

https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1614662510086426624

1614662510086426624

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 17:06

https://twitter.com/Sprinter20000/status/1614583218526625794

1614583218526625794

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 17:18

https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1614372407510269952

1614372407510269952

https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1614606221247406080

1614606221247406080

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 17:33

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1614612435385589762

1614612435385589762

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 17:38

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1614615887855730688

1614615887855730688

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 19:52

Please watch, part of opinion is

“What Russia represents is a resistance to a Unipolar world led by the United States and NATO”

https://twitter.com/upholdreality/status/1613153895638863876

1613153895638863876

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 20:06

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1614706856597032960

1614706856597032960

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 20:11

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1614702610946170885

1614702610946170885

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1614703638177357827

1614703638177357827

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 20:22

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1614544267376005121

1614544267376005121

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 22:50

https://twitter.com/BrettHar123/status/1614729333368848384

1614729333368848384

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 22:57

https://twitter.com/PelmenlPusha/status/1614743983825235968

1614743983825235968

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 23:04

https://twitter.com/DagnyTaggart963/status/1614744574299078656

1614744574299078656

Iran and Russia, major economic cooperation, transport links

WAJ5cB9PTZw

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 23:12

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1614343226315444227
1614343226315444227

RT is also reporting about the above news.

https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1614736808792788996
1614736808792788996

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 23:32

https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1613976096021843968

1613976096021843968

Ravenlocke

15th January 2023, 23:52

https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1614372407510269952

1614372407510269952

https://twitter.com/witte_sergei/status/1614481919781261314

1614481919781261314

Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 00:00

https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1614691663170920450

1614691663170920450

https://riafan.ru/23847625-nezavidnaya_sud_ba_milonov_rasskazal_o_400_unichtozhennih_pol_skih_naemnikah_v_donbasse

Unenviable fate: Milonov reported 400 Polish mercenaries destroyed in Donbass

The fate of the recently destroyed 400 Polish mercenaries in the village of Markovo clearly shows the unenviable fate that awaits everyone who continues to serve the Kiev regime with weapons in their hands. Meanwhile, ordinary Ukrainians should remember that their authorities do not send their own children to participate in hostilities. This was stated by State Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov in the author's column of the FAN.

400 coffins for destroyed Polish mercenaries
Not far from here is the village of Markovo. It was there that 400 Polish mercenaries were housed until recently. No, they are not Ukrainians, not Kievans, and not even Westerners. These are ordinary Polish mercenaries who, under the guise of volunteers, were sent here to kill Russians. Here, near Artemovsk, or, as they say, Bakhmut. Fortunately, now there is another problem - to prepare 400 coffins that will go to Poland, because we tracked them down and destroyed them in time. Destroyed a building with Polish mercenaries.

Why risk your life for Zelensky's sake?
I have a question, do Polish mothers know what their children are going to, what fate awaits Poles who come here? Fate is unenviable. Most likely, they will die. How many coffins are you, Poles, ready to take to your home for the sake of the incomprehensible purpose of helping Vladimir Zelensky? Honestly, how many coffins are Ukrainian families ready to see, it is useless to send their children as soldiers here, near Bakhmut? One option, you all know very well: Bakhmut will be Russian. It was Russian and will be a Russian city. It's senseless resistance. You will spend your life for what? In order for your family to be given a crumpled "zhovto-blakit" flag, this rag of incomprehensible flowers, they cried with you forgot you? They won't lose their children. Zelensky and his sponsors do not risk their lives. You risk your lives.

Capture is the last chance to survive for Ukrainian soldiers
Soldiers of Ukraine, you have the only way to stay alive - surrender, leave your positions. Go away! Go in any direction. If you want to go to Europe, if you want, to us in captivity and soon you will return to normal life, but just don't die. Honestly, I feel sorry for you, but the result will always be the same: you will be destroyed.

Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 00:22

https://twitter.com/upholdreality/status/1614105409857486848

1614105409857486848

https://m.vk.com/@580896205-the-full-patrushev-interview-they-want-to-turn-russia-into-m

The Full Patrushev Interview: "They want to turn Russia into Muscovy"
Karl Sanchez
Karl Sanchez·10 Jan at 7:54 pm
Today, Argumenti i Facti provided the remainder of its interview with Nikolai Patrushev. What follows is a machine translation with all emphasis and formatting from the original, with the outtakes and photos omitted. Those can be seen/read at the link above.

"They want to turn Russia into Muscovy." Nikolai Patrushev-about the West and Ukraine

What actions of the West are being prepared for in Moscow and what policy can be opposed to this? About this aif.ru told the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev.

Turbulent environment

Vitaly Tseplyaev, aif.ru Question: Nikolay Platonovich, how do you assess the current situation in the world at the beginning of this year?

Nikolai Patrushev: The situation in the world is extremely complex and has a turbulent character. Many countries in different regions are simultaneously in a military-political, economic, social and spiritual crisis. Let's hope that this year there will be positive changes.

— You once said that the leadership of Western countries does nothing to improve the situation not only in the world, but even in their own countries. Please explain what you are talking about.

Western politicians do not have the strength and opportunities to change life in their countries for the better, because they are no longer independent figures. Everyone has connections to big business, lobbyists, and foundations. They don't even hide these facts. There are very recent examples. As it turned out, dozens of MEPs were controlled by the structures of J. R. R. Tolkien. Soros, and the European Commission, at the behest of one of the world's largest American pharmaceutical companies, created a number of corruption schemes for the purchase of vaccines worth tens of billions of euros. It is obvious that the real power in the West is in the hands of resource-rich clans and multinational corporations.

— You don't mean the Rockefellers and Rothschilds, do you?"—

In fact, there are many more such corporations and clans. Thus, the total revenue of the 500 largest companies in the world, according to unofficial data, reached almost $ 38 trillion in 2021. The main share of multinational companies is accounted for by corporations with headquarters in the United States. Their revenues brought in about $ 16 trillion with a net profit of $ 1.8 trillion.The capital of a number of multinational companies exceeds the GDP of most of the world's economies, and the funds created by them for further enrichment claim to be a supranational mechanism for managing humanity. The same Soros Foundation has become almost the main world center for planning and implementing "color revolutions".

Two actors in one play

— Are you saying that even the US authorities are not pursuing an independent policy?—

In fact, the American state is just a shell for a conglomerate of huge corporations that rule the country and try to rule the world. For TNCs, even US presidents are just extras who can shut their mouths like Trump. All four murders of American leaders are linked to a corporate trail. It is no coincidence that an increasing number of Americans say that Republicans and Democrats are just two actors in one play that has nothing to do with democracy.

The US government, which has grown together with big business, serves the interests of multinational corporations, including the military-industrial complex. The assertive foreign policy of the White House, the unbridled aggressiveness of NATO, the emergence of the AUKUS military bloc and others are also a consequence of corporate influence. The draft US budget for 2023 is the best proof of Washington's plans to unleash new wars to the detriment of the well-being of its own citizens. Of the total amount of planned federal government spending of $ 1.7 trillion on defense, half will be allocated-more than $ 850 billion. Only for the continuation of hostilities in Ukraine and prolonging the conflict, it is planned to allocate 45 billion rubles.

This is despite the fact that the United States itself and its minions are irrevocably sliding into debt. Americans have a national debt of more than thirty-one trillion dollars. The debt of England — 2.4 trillion pounds sterling — was the highest since the Second World War and exceeded 101% of gross domestic product. The world record for the ratio of debt to GDP — more than 2.6 times — was set by Japan with a national debt of almost ten trillion dollars. Only countries that consider themselves masters of the world are not going to repay these debts.

Earlier, the West came to prosperity and achieved world domination through colonial conquest. This is exactly how multinational companies behave today, preferring to increase their capital by siphoning resources from other countries. At the same time, they use their own system of fooling the masses for all sorts of imposing on the population of the planet the idea of certain rules that they themselves have come up with and that do not comply with international law.

Global operation

— In other words, do you really believe that when operating in various countries of the world, TNCs seriously influence local political and socio-economic processes?

"That's right. On the one hand, they introduce new technologies and increase labor productivity through foreign direct investment. Only the population cannot take advantage of these results, as companies permanently displace the local producer, becoming monopolists. By taking the bulk of their profits abroad, they deprive countries of the opportunity to increase their national wealth.

National legal regulation is not sufficient to solve this problem. The current international legal regulation of the economic activity of TNCs is formed in the interests of the corporations themselves and with their direct participation. Its change in favor of the national interests of countries is being torpedoed.

In the face of dramatic changes in the world, the goal of corporations is to preserve the system of global exploitation. It is headed by an elite of businessmen who do not associate themselves with any state. Under it — the so-called developed countries of the world, as well as the "golden billion". And then — the rest of humanity, contemptuously called the "third world".

— According to this logic, it seems that Russia does not have the most enviable place in this hierarchy.

— There is no place for our country in the West. A handful of world rulers are annoyed by Russia because it has rich resources, a huge territory, smart and self-sufficient people who love their country, its traditions and history.

Multinational corporations are unnerved by Russia's ideological and ideological divergence from countries under the control of Western capital. Corporations are aimed at enriching and developing the consumer society. Russia defends a reasonable balance of spiritual and moral values and socio-economic development.

In this regard, Westerners seek to weaken our country, dismember it, and destroy the Russian language and the Russian world. They have long worked out the technology of undermining their rivals from within and splitting them into small states. This was also the case earlier, when, for example, London destroyed empires following the First World War and stamped dozens of countries out of them. This is still the case today. A striking example is Yugoslavia. The State, which had an independent voice in the international arena, is divided into six parts.

What do the events in Ukraine mean?

— At the end of December, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the USSR was celebrated. In your opinion, how did the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 affect the policy of the United States and its allies?

"He inspired them. 15 new subjects of international law have emerged in the former Soviet Union. Of course, none of them can compare in terms of their influence with the USSR, with the exception of the Russian Federation, which, having preserved its centuries-long international authority, is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and plays a crucial role in the world, defending national interests. Therefore, the Westerners ' plans remain to continue to pull Russia apart, and in the end simply erase it from the political map of the world. Today, they are still shouting loudly that Russia should not remain united, it should be driven into the framework of Muscovy of the XV century. To do this, they do not disdain anything, including inventing a completely false history of our country, shifting their responsibility for the oppression of other peoples to it, which Russia has never done.

The whole story with Ukraine was started in Washington in order to work out the technologies of dividing and pitting a single people. Millions of people are forbidden to speak their native Russian language from birth, forced to forget their origins. The West, for the sake of its ambitions, practically destroys the Ukrainian people, forcing the active generation to die on the battlefield and driving the rest of the population to poverty.

The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kiev, but a military confrontation between NATO, and above all the United States and Britain, with Russia. Fearing direct contact, NATO instructors drive Ukrainian guys to their deaths. With the help of a special military operation, Russia is liberating its regions from occupation and must put an end to the bloody experiment of the West to destroy the fraternal Ukrainian people.

— But in the world, on the contrary, Russia is accused of seizing the territory of Ukraine, attacks on its infrastructure...

— We are not at war with Ukraine, because by definition we cannot have hatred for ordinary Ukrainians. Ukrainian traditions are close to the people of Russia, just as the heritage of the Russian people is inseparable from the culture of Ukrainians. Please note that in Crimea, the Ukrainian language is preserved as one of the state languages. Ukrainian cultural centers and ensembles of Ukrainian song and dance continue to operate in many cities. In the south of the Far East, given the large share of immigrants since the time of Stolypin, a significant number of residents consider the culture of the Ukrainian people native.

And the sooner the citizens of Ukraine realize that the West is fighting Russia with their hands, the more lives will be saved. Many people have long realized this, but they are afraid to declare it for fear of reprisals. The West does not plan to save anyone's life at the expense of its own enrichment and other ambitions. At the same time, Americans, British and other Europeans often create the illusion that they are protecting civilization from barbarism.

— Are you referring to the events in Afghanistan, where the United States declared a fight against terrorism, and then rather ignominiously left?

— Not only in Afghanistan, but also in other regions. They themselves created and fought terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or ISIL to achieve their goals. Arranging a demonstration of the elimination of terrorist leaders like Osama bin Laden, hundreds of new ones were trained and armed.

The US presence in Afghanistan has resulted not in the fight against terrorism, but in the creation of multimillion-dollar corruption schemes and a multiple increase in drug production. The sudden withdrawal of the Americans from this country, as it turned out, was largely due to focusing on Ukraine, where, according to their estimates, the preparation of the Kiev puppet regime for offensive anti-Russian actions was going well. By the way, this was confirmed by US Secretary of State Blinken, who said that if the US military had not left Afghanistan, Washington would not have been able to allocate so much money to Ukraine. In addition, some of the equipment exported from Afghan soil was transferred to Europe, mainly to Poland, allowing the Europeans to militarize the Kiev regime.

— On February 24 last year, Russia called the "demilitarization" and "denazification" of Ukraine its goals. Are you still confident that these goals will be achieved?

"Neo-Nazi criminals who have been rampaging in Ukraine in recent years will inevitably be punished. However, it is possible that the most odious ones will try to save their curators in order to use them in other countries, including for organizing coups d'etat and performing sabotage tasks.

This scheme was developed during the defeat of Nazi Germany. After 1945, the Americans, the British and the West German authorities under their control reported on the denazification of their zone of occupation of Germany, while the Nazis who were saved from punishment were used to create the armed forces of Germany, as well as an agent network of American and British intelligence, including for secret operations against the countries of the socialist camp.

The CIA, which until 1948 was called the Office of Strategic Services of the United States, actively used former employees of the Abwehr and the Imperial security office of Hitler's Reich to create new German special services.

In the post-war years, the Americans actively involved Nazi criminals in the development of new types of weapons, including weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. The same applies to the use of American and Japanese war criminals who developed and used chemical and bacteriological weapons.

The potential of humanity is far from exhausted"

— Let's return to the topic of the influence of multinational corporations on the politics of different countries. You claim that it is practically limitless. And what methods do you think TNCs have in their arsenal?

— These methods are the most cynical. Some of them are experiments with dangerous pathogens and viruses in military biological laboratories under the supervision of the Pentagon. They are unceremoniously engaged in the moral and moral decomposition of society. The West has mastered the zombification of people through mass propaganda, and now seeks to use cognitive weapons, influencing each person point-by-point with the help of information technologies and methods of neuropsychology. It inculcates neoliberal and other values, some of which are inherently directly opposed to human nature. They act consciously and do not hide in their circle that the LGBT agenda is a tool for gradually reducing the number of" extra people "who do not fit into the framework of the notorious"golden billion". Just yesterday, they advertised GMOs without caring about the health consequences of such products, and today they are calling on women not to have children in order to fight climate change. Overseas science suggests evaluating people by the amount of carbon they leave behind. They measure and count humanity in the same way that Nazi scientists once measured skulls in search of criteria for separating "higher" and "lower races".

— You paint a rather gloomy picture. Like the end of humanity is just around the corner...

The potential of humanity is far from exhausted. There are structures that are designed to influence this situation in a positive way. This is the UN and the UN Security Council. Such associations as the SCO, BRICS, ASEAN and others are becoming increasingly popular. However, the West is not interested in the effectiveness of their work. The Anglo-Saxons are obsessively trying to push the world community to think that these institutions have outlived their time, and we must live by the rules they invented. Those who disagree with their hegemony are labeled as "rogue states"," terrorist countries " or states that pose a threat to national security. At the same time, Western countries do not notice that they are gradually becoming a minority themselves, as they are already tired of the strategy of power and threats in the world.

Strength in people—

How is the Russian leadership going to build its strategy taking into account the above-mentioned problems?—

Our country is on the path of creating a strong, modern, independent economy in order to achieve economic sovereignty. Russia has all the resources to do this. We need a culture of their use, careful and economic attitude to our treasures — not only natural, but also intangible. Russian business should be nationally oriented. Private capital, as well as the authorities, should think about the long-term development of the country.

Russia needs financial independence, as well as technological sovereignty. We have plenty of our own Lomonosovs and Kulibins. The problem is to notice them in time. It is necessary not just to develop science and education, but to revive the real cult of the scientist, engineer, and worker. The younger generation should be inspired by the ideas of creative work for the benefit of our Motherland, and not sit in the offices of Western corporations.

The enduring strength of Russia lies in our hardworking people, whose advantage lies, among other things, in their different views on life, in their multiethnic and multi-confessional nature. It is important to understand that we have a unique and distinctive culture, that Russia is not Europe, not Asia, and certainly not "anti-Western". This, by the way, is our fundamental difference. For a Russian person, hatred, by definition, cannot be a unifying principle. Only Westerners who openly call us opponents are full of hatred. But they need to be reminded of their unsuccessful military operations in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and other countries... In the face of new military threats, it is important for us to have such armed forces and special services that the opponents of Russia do not even think that they can fight with us.

Vicus

16th January 2023, 16:39

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvcjTCJl8ZU

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZToKlO8Ol_I

Vicus

16th January 2023, 16:46

US launches expanded training for Ukrainian troops in Germany

The goal is to return 500 fighters to the battlefield in five to eight weeks, General Mark Milley says

Washington kicked off its expanded training program for Ukrainian troops in Germany on Sunday, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said.

“This support is really important for Ukraine to be able to defend itself,” Milley said on Monday, as quoted by AP. “And we’re hoping to be able to pull this together here in short order.”

The plan is for a battalion of some 500 troops to get back to fighting Russia in five to eight weeks, according to the general.

The launch of the training program follows an announcement by the US earlier this month that it would be sending dozens of Bradley infantry vehicles to Ukraine, with Germany and France also promising to supply similar armor. At the weekend, the UK officially confirmed that it would provide 14 Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Kiev, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg considering the provision of more “heavy warfare equipment” for the Zelensky government from the West in “the near future.”

It would be “ideal” if the newly trained Ukrainian troops were back in action and able to use this hardware “sometime before the spring rains show up,” Milley said.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to visit the Grafenwoehr training base in Germany’s Bavaria on Monday to take a first-hand look at the program.

The so-called combined arms training will see US instructors teaching Ukrainian servicemen to better coordinate their company- and battalion-size units, jointly using artillery, armor and ground forces. Those skills should allow them to resist Russian attacks more effectively and carry out offensive operations of their own, according to AP.

Milley pointed out that the US had been providing this type of training to the Ukrainians before the conflict between Moscow and Kiev began. Since last February, the Americans have been more focused on teaching Kiev’s soldiers to operate specific US-supplied equipment, including HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and M777 howitzers. Over 3,100 servicemen have received such training so far, the general

https://www.rt.com/news/569928-ukraine-training-us-germany/

Vicus

16th January 2023, 16:52

West sees Ukraine as a Cold War 'prize' – exiled opposition leader

The US wanted to block EU-Russian integration and control the former Eastern Bloc, Viktor Medvedchuk insists

The West’s insistence that it won the Cold War and was entitled to the spoils of victory – at the expense of Russian interests – is at the root of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Kiev's exiled opposition leader has warned.

Viktor Medvedchuk was forced to leave his home nation, after his arrest on treason charges. He claims they are politically motivated, and part of President Vladimir Zelensky's crackdown on the country's opposition.

His Opposition Bloc – For Life party was the second largest group in the Ukrainian parliament and advocated reconciliation with Moscow. It is now a rump faction, closely controlled by Zelensky allies.

In an article published by Russian newspaper Izvestia on Monday, Medvedchuk analyzed the causes of the current crisis, arguing that the origin of the conflict lies in the matter in which the end of the Cold War is perceived by Washington and Moscow.

“The West definitely considers itself as the winner and Russia as a defeated party,” he said. Consequently, it considers ex-Soviet territories as “legitimate prey for the US and NATO."

From Moscow’s standpoint, it wanted to end confrontation when it abandoned communism, he asserts. Since the 1990s, it had sought friendly relations with Western nations, as well as economic and political integration with the EU, Medvedchuk wrote.

American goals, as evidenced by the expansion of NATO in Europe over Moscow's objections, were at odds with opening the door to its Cold War opponent. Ultimately, Washington derailed EU-Russian engagement, he insists.

Conflicts like the Balkan wars are further evidence that the West had moved to gobble up the former Eastern Bloc, he continues, since they helped to “make it easier for the winner to take it over.”

The West targeted Ukraine for absorption and saw the country as part of its rightful prize, but a lot of resistance had to be overcome in order to split it from Russia, considering Kiev’s historical ties with Moscow, and its economic interest in maintaining good relations, Medvedchuk argues.

Kiev antagonized the eastern part of the country, which was both economically stronger and more pro-Russian than the nationalist lands in the east, he suggested. And even then, both Zelensky and his predecessor, Pyotr Poroshenko, had been elected on a peace platform only to become “war party” politicians after taking office.

The current conflict can be resolved only if pro-peace politicians are allowed to make their case, and Western nations must recognize that Russia has legitimate interests in Ukraine. Otherwise, it will “grow further, spilling over to Europe and other countries,” and has the potential to escalate into a nuclear war, he warned.

https://www.rt.com/russia/569936-ukraine-cold-war-medvedchuk/

Vicus

16th January 2023, 16:59

Russia allows Kazakhstan to use its pipelines to transport oil to Germany (?)

Astana will export 1.2 million tons of crude to Berlin this year to cover some of the volume previously supplied by Moscow

The Russian Energy Ministry has approved the delivery of Kazakh oil to Germany using the infrastructure run by Transneft, a state-owned pipeline transport company and operator of Russia’s section of the Druzhba pipeline.

Oil transportation company KazTransOil will deliver 300,000 tons of crude in the first quarter of 2023 “in the direction of the Adamova Zastava oil delivery point for further delivery to Germany,” the company’s press service said in a statement on Friday.

The operator added that shipments of this amount of crude are scheduled for the transit of oil from CIS member states through Russia via the system of main pipelines.

Berlin stopped imports of Russian oil via pipelines on January 1, despite the fact that the latest EU embargo exempts piped deliveries of crude to the bloc from the sanctions-hit nation.

Earlier, Kazakhstan’s energy minister, Bolat Akchulakov, said that in 2023, the country would supply 1.5 million tons of oil to Germany with a possible increase of future shipments to 7 million tons.

Transneft spokesman Igor Demin noted that the “volumes that used to flow from Russia to Germany cannot be replaced by Kazakhstan.” He explained that while Russia once shipped up to 20 million tons of oil a year to Germany and another 10 million tons to Poland via Druzhba, Kazakhstan is only able to pump 3-7 million tons.

On December 29, Kazakhstan’s KazMunayGas applied for the transit of 1.2 million tons of oil in 2023 via Russia. Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said that Moscow was ready to approve Kazakhstan’s request.

Germany confirmed that the refinery in Schwedt had booked capacity in the pipeline system for Kazakh oil for January onwards. Schwedt is the country’s fourth-largest refinery with a capacity of 11.6 million tons of oil products per year. It supplies 90% of the fuel in Berlin. Russian oil giant Rosneft held a 54.17% stake in the enterprise until last September, when Germany placed the company’s local units in trusteeship, handing control of the refinery to the country’s energy market regulator

.https://www.rt.com/business/569834-russia-kazakhstan-germany-oil/

Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 19:45

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1614936364574711808

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Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 19:53

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1614992117570408451

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Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 20:01

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615028567141761024

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615033237541093385

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https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1615066640885973006

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https://twitter.com/Sprinter20000/status/1615070022635749377

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Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 20:10

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1614861824800985088

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https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1614889968387620866

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https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1615052697463361536

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Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 20:17

Russia Prepares Bakhmut Cauldron; German ex General Calls for Peace, Says West Risks Defeat, WW3

3Ma1vma5pH8

Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 20:25

https://twitter.com/ReadovkaWorld/status/1615007197146005511

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https://twitter.com/johnnyjmils/status/1614912837150986240

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Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 21:25

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615083025297014802

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Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 21:36

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1614928509641564160

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Snoweagle

16th January 2023, 22:44

Source: Expose the Cabal - Telegram

🇮🇱 Satanists jews will show you, Orthodox Russians in Ukraine ☦️ how we'll turn your churches, into devil 😈 worshipping parties

🇺🇦 After the forced transfer of Ukrainian Orthodox churches to a new structure, the so-called “Poroshenko-Zelensky Church”, the new owners decided to “modernize the services” a little, now services in churches periodically look like this.

As the saying goes, “the toastmaster is good and the contests are fun”, but it’s not clear what Orthodoxy has to do with it ...

Cabal ✡️ wanted to make new 🇮🇱 Israel in 🇺🇦 Ukraine close to 🇪🇺
Europe. All was there, their presidents since 90s, banking, industry, Mossad CIA SSU intelligence, real estate...everything they controlled.
2022 was a year of physical immigration from Israel 🇮🇱 to Ukraine, first elites, then the rest.
Current Israel 🇮🇱 will be smashed soon by Arabs, ✡️the cabal know they stole this from Palestine 🇵🇸, so Ukraine would be their cabal's second place.
But here came the Russians and fcuked hell our of them.
So in deadly agony they attacked the churches.

Furthermore, protests and near riots in Israel

WEF opens with Klaus Shwab appealing to the congregation for unity facing the existential crisis facing them.

And of course, we have Q and Trump stating "Israel last"

A very strong team play between USA and Russia.

(Posting from mobile)

Mashika

16th January 2023, 23:02

Mashika

16th January 2023, 23:25

At least they didn't name her "Kiev" lmfao!

1615124704490291200

"Western style cultural appropriation madness has entered the Ukrainian chat" :handshake::waving:

Matthew

16th January 2023, 23:30

...

Because think about it, if i wanted to discuss internal issues of Russian government, with other Russians, i would do it on my own language and not a foreign one... Are these people stupid? Or desperate for attention or what's going on here?
...

👌🔥

http://paula.avalonlibrary.net/smilies/red-line.gif

New York street art:

source twitter (https://twitter.com/Ebr0sHassan/status/1614860305410166784)

ninesixzero @Ebr0sHassan #ZelenskyWarCriminal 🇺🇦🦗THE PLAGUE FROM KIEV:
Another graffiti appears, this time in New York, depicting the Ukrainian President as a vermin sucking the life out of the West by depleting its budgets.

Subscribe @IntelRepublic

https://i.postimg.cc/yNNJz1G1/image.png

The comments for the tweet are a collection of memes that aren't memes like zombie memes - re-purposed, previously funny memes with *thing* swapped for *anti-Russia*. And loads of brightly coloured swear words which aren't memes, they're just fancy swearing. There are very few descent memes. Were is their self-awareness? It's out of view, have they locked themselves in a corner of hate and can't see anything? That's what I get :raining:

Here's one of the less sweary comments. It's so mediocre though so sorry in advance if it drains your soul.

Literally going the trope of depicting people as cockroaches, wow.

Ravenlocke

16th January 2023, 23:56

Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 15:38

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615360725244837888

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615361275315240962

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https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615362173030514690

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Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 15:44

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615368577833668608

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https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1615335833749409792

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https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1615334862591762434

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https://twitter.com/vicktop555/status/1615034555890532378

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https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1615329023068078080

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Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 15:50

https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1615310496097247235

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Mashika

17th January 2023, 15:51

Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 15:53

Streamed three hours ago

NATO wonder weapons w/Brian Berletic from The New Atlas (Live)

FYRaNFY2zPw

Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 16:06

I only have one doubt about all these morons

Why do they discuss internal issues of Ukraine on Twitter, in English language? Are they afraid they can't speak proper Ukrainian and only know Russian as a first language?

Because think about it, if i wanted to discuss internal issues of Russian government, with other Russians, i would do it on my own language and not a foreign one... Are these people stupid? Or desperate for attention or what's going on here? Perhaps they are afraid that if they speak Ukrainian and mess it up, like Elensky has done in the past, they will be called on it and show to the world that they 'proud' Ukrainians, learned Russia as a first language, just like Elensky did :) So they rather talk in anything but Russian, and can't properly speak Ukrainian so English it is :ROFL::thumbsup:

1615113063681691648

It might be that their comments have been translated to English because Ania Konieczna also tweeted about using yandex translate?

https://twitter.com/AniaKoniec/status/1614811621351723008

1614811621351723008

Yes! I failed to check on that, also i just did on Chrome and there's an option to auto-translate the entire page and it does look very similar. Should have double checked before posting... :)

But I agree with you wholeheartedly I would expect those “morons” to talk among themselves in their native language. When I was growing up in Toronto which was very multicultural with so many immigrants from different countries, they all spoke in their native tongue when they were together like on the bus, subway, grocery store, mall, etc. That way their conversations were private to those that didn’t speak their language. So we had Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Chinese, Pakistani and Indian, etc. (and even had neighborhoods that would be a polish or Italian etc.)

Mashika

17th January 2023, 16:09

For the friends reading this from the outside (not involved much into the current situation in Ukraine)

The reason why what Arestovich said is considered a major issue goes like this

Normally, Air Defense systems are placed outside the city, so they can't harm the population, as they will be so far away that they can intercept incoming missiles or other dangers out there in the country side where no one will be harmed by the falling pieces of the downed rocket (There is no way to down a rocket without causing a lot pieces to rain down in a helll storm for hundreds of meters )

So, by Arestovich own words, the Russian missile was downed inside the city's territory, which leads to one of two options:

1. The rocket was way about to hit the target and it was downed too late
2. The rocket was intended to hit that building in the first place, and not a government target

What this means, therefore is also one of the following

1. If downed on top of the city and then allowing it to hit civilian buildings, it means the Air Defense was not on the outside of the city, it was hidden inside, in between civilian buildings. Which is a crime since it immediately implies the Ukrainian government is using civilians as a shield to avoid getting their AD hit by Russian missiles
2. The Ukrainian government has been lying all along to the west, when they said they were constantly taking down most/all Russian rockets, and then hiding the fact that they can't do that

Right now, they have put themselves into a giant mess, in which they said "we can't take down these Russian missiles, the rocket was targeting that building and it went through directly to hit it" Which is denied by the videos out there, and also completely twists all the reports they made over the past months that they were able to completely take down the Russian missiles

It can't be both, you can't say "We took down all the missiles" but then as soon as your AD makes yet another mistake and civilians die, then say "we have never been able to take down all their missiles". You can't have your cake and eat it too

Arestovich, either by mistake or in purpose, has exposed a giant multi layered lie. So now he has to go and possibly even face criminal charges or "die in unexected ways" because he clearly displayed the corruption, lies and at an international level, how Ukraine uses their own civilians as human shields

The AD was inside the city, within buildings, that's why once the rocket was downed, the pieces fell into the buildings, there's a video showing that, it fell in pieces and took down more than just that one building

If, in accordance to law, the AD had been placed outside the city, so the rocket would be taken on the country side, where no one lives, there would have been no victims. This is why the Kiev government is going to punish that guy, there's no way, even if they don't say so, that the other countries in the planet don't realize what truly happened. Arestovich talked too soon, and too much, before the narrative machine could run their PR strategy at a global level

So now, everything Kiev says about the downing of that missile over civilian buildings sounds like a bad lame excuse and a lie trying to hide away the fact that they are using their own as shields

This is unforgivable and Arestovich is going to pay for it, who knows how

The Kiev regime is trying to convince the 'international community' that the Russian rocket was already intending to hit that building, and that no AD took any part on the building getting hit. That was the narrative they were planning to use, but Arestovich spoke about the reality of how it happened and now the lies are useless, no one for a second believes that rocket was targeting the building, and now everyone knows that yes, Ukraine uses civilian buildings as shields and also uses the death of their own, by Ukrainian hands, to accuse Russia or war crimes

No one will say much more about it, and everyone will continue with the lie, but they are already very well aware they can't play this game anymore for much longer. And this harm to the 'innocent Ukraine' narrative was caused by Arestovich in a matter of a few minutes :thumbsup::dancing:

Mashika

17th January 2023, 16:29

Some of the people on that thread need to learn about sarcasm...
1615375181995995138

kfm27917

17th January 2023, 17:48

America’s strategy of failure comes to Ukraine
from https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/americas-strategy-of-failure-comes-to-ukraine/

Since the failures of the US military missions in places like Afghanistan and Iraq – and many other Muslim nations like Libya – critics of the US mission in the “global war on terrorism” have lamented the lack of a coherent strategy.

As the tired line from Carl von Clausewitz goes, “war is an extension of politics through other means.” Warfare, therefore, is an inherently political act. More precisely, it is the use of violence by a state or non-state actor to affect a political outcome.

Thus whenever military force is used it must have clear ends set forth by the political leadership ordering the use of that military force. Those clearly defined political ends must be supplemented by reliable ways to achieve that realistic political objective. The means are the resources that must be brought to bear in order to accomplish the political end. see URL for the rest

Open Minded Dude

17th January 2023, 17:50

T. Roeper:

https://www-anti--spiegel-ru.translate.goog/2023/der-spiegel-und-die-tragoedie-von-dnipro/?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

The Mirror and the Dnipro Tragedy
In Dnipro, a rocket hit a residential building that collapsed, burying at least 40 people. Der Spiegel speaks of a "Russian terror strategy against Ukrainian civilians." what really happened from Jan 17, 2023 4:51 p.m

Under the headline “ Russia's war against Ukraine – 950 kilos of explosives on a prefabricated building ”, Der Spiegel reported on the rocket impact on a high-rise building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro and spoke of a “ Russian terror strategy against Ukrainian civilians ”. With this, Der Spiegel gives the impression that Russia had aimed fire at the apartment building, as suggested by the original headline of the Spiegel article, which read “ Ukraine War – Russia’s Rocket Attack on an Apartment Building in Dnipro ”

In the Spiegel article one can read at the beginning:

“A ten-meter-high mountain of rubble has been smoking since Saturday afternoon where a nine-story prefab building once stood. Victory Embankment 118 in Dnipro, Ukraine's fourth-largest city, is the target of what is probably Russia's most serious single attack on a residential building, on Ukrainian civilians. (...) The Dnipro catastrophe is a sign that the new Russian Chief of General Staff, Valeriy Gerrassimov, will not take civilians into consideration - or, on the contrary, will intensify the attacks on civilian targets."

So let's look at the facts
Ukrainian contradictions

On videos of the incident, a loud explosion can be clearly heard, and only then does the house hit and the second explosion occurs. Since there were no other Russian attacks in Dnipro at the time, what was the first explosion?

Everyone who, like me, has already been to the conflict area knows the answer, because you often hear that there. The first explosion was anti-aircraft guns, which shot down an incoming missile. This is very loud, as I have experienced there. That means that the Ukrainian air defense shot down the Russian missile and then it fell into the apartment building and exploded there. This was also publicly stated by the Ukrainian presidential adviser Alexei Aristovych.

The Ukrainian air defense is thus to blame for the accident, but this does not fit into the picture. Der Spiegel also mentions this and at Spiegel it sounds like this:

"Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, announced after the disaster that the armed forces do not yet have the means to bring down a Kh-22 from the sky. Only western anti-aircraft systems such as Patriot PAC-3 or SAMP/T, which could be made available in the future, would be able to do this. »Since the beginning of Russia's military aggression, more than 210 missiles of this type have been fired on the territory of Ukraine. None of them were destroyed by anti-aircraft systems,” he pointed out.
This clarification had become necessary because Oleksiy Aristovych, adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office, had previously speculated in a television program about the downing of the Kh-22: it was perhaps the Ukrainian air defense that deflected the approaching missile from the path and onto the block of flats ."

As is so often the case with Ukrainian propaganda, one asks oneself: Well, what now?

The reason is that Ukrainian propaganda regularly reports intercepting up to 80 percent of Russian missiles, including Kh-22 missiles so far. Now, however, Ukraine is telling the opposite, to distract from its responsibility for the tragedy and once again to demand Patriot systems. And of course the mirror joins in.
The resignation

In Ukraine, the pressure on Aristovych was so great that he has since resigned, because he has been accused in Ukraine of being an instrument of the Russian missile for his statement that the Ukrainian air defense system shot down the Russian missile, after which it crashed into the house to be propaganda. This is absurd, after all, Aristovych was previously known as one of the loudest anti-Russian agitators. But that's how Ukraine is today.

Aristovych published a photo of his resignation on Telegram with the words:

"I wrote a letter of resignation.
I would like to give an example of civilized behavior:
A fundamental error means resignation.”

Who Attacks Civilians?

Western propaganda gives the impression that the Russians are constantly attacking civilian targets and killing civilians. That this is not the case can even be seen indirectly in the Western media itself: when a tragedy like the one in Dnipro occurs, the Western media report extensively for days on end and accuse Russia of targeting civilians with fire.

The Russian army has been shelling Ukrainian territory very intensively for weeks because they have been taking action against the power supply in Ukraine for some time, which brings advantages for the Ukrainian army, not least because the power supply allows the electrically operated railways to bring supplies and western weapons to the front bring. Incidentally, according to international law of war, the power supply is a legitimate goal in such a case.

If the Russian army were also to indiscriminately attack civilians, the Western media would be constantly full of such reports. Since this is not the case, this is a clear indication that the Russian army avoids civilian damage whenever possible and that – tragic as each individual case is – they are the exception.

The Ukrainian army, on the other hand, attacks civilian targets in Donetsk on a daily basis. I even recently had to cancel a planned trip to Donetsk because the shelling is so intense that I was strongly discouraged from traveling. Alina Lipp was in Donetsk for a few hours a few days ago and reported on the shelling .

For example, on January 16, the Ukrainian army fired a HIMARS missile at the Kalininskyi district of Donetsk, killing at least two civilians and wounding four. A supermarket, a residential building and a pharmacy at the bus stop opposite the meat processing plant were hit. The British journalist John Miller, whom I met in Donetsk, also reported on it and published his own pictures .

The Ukrainian army fires dozens of rockets at Donetsk every day, so that only so few civilians are harmed, even if entire prefabricated buildings collapse – as in Dnipro – because hardly any people live in Donetsk. Almost all of them have fled to Russia from the Ukrainian shelling since 2014.

What happened in Dnipro is undoubtedly a tragedy. But Western reporting can only be described as mendacious if it laments events like the one in Dnipro for days (and reports them untruely at the same time), but on the other hand conceals the daily shelling of civilians in Donetsk.

Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 19:37

https://twitter.com/Judgenap/status/1615425086558769167

1615425086558769167

wzjqGDPmDlw

S4Qs21LFWtQ

Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 20:01

https://twitter.com/narrative_hole/status/1615310092731047936

1615310092731047936

Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 20:09

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1615436944145584129

1615436944145584129

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1615434166174195712

1615434166174195712

Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 20:12

https://twitter.com/Sprintero20000/status/1615409585434595332

1615409585434595332

https://twitter.com/Sprintero20000/status/1615409591130415107

1615409591130415107

Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 21:17

https://twitter.com/MoonofA/status/1615412990836150288

1615412990836150288

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/01/ukraine-sitrep-media-ignorance-counter-artillery-war-three-lost-armies-.html

Ukraine SitRep - Media Ignorance, Counter-Artillery War, Three Lost Armies
January 17, 2023

Yves Smith asks:

What if Russia Won the Ukraine War but the Western Press Didn’t Notice?

She points to several headlines which, despite decisive Russian victories like its taking of Soledar, present the Ukraine as winning the war:

Nevertheless, Soledar has fallen and the loss of Bakhmut looks baked in, absent horrific Russian errors. The so-called Zelensky line is breaking even before Russia has put its recently-mobilized forces to work in a serious way. Regular commentators are waiting for the Russian hammer to fall, although Russia may simply grind more forcefully by pressing harder at more points along the very long line of contact. Remember one concern on the Russian side is avoiding “winning” in a way that leads to NATO panic and desperate action ... not that the Collective West’s fragile emotional state can be readily managed.
With that context, you’d expect some members of the press to have worked out that things are not going very well for Ukraine and the classic cowboy movie rescue of the calvary riding over the hill (here in the form of tanks and artillery) will be too little, too late.

Instead, the media seems to be trying to integrate snippets of facts on the ground with the heroic tale of inevitable Ukraine victory.

That is certainly correct for the wide majority of the stories, which claim that Soledar and Bahkmut, are irrelevant towns, but some pieces are creeping up that differ. A few days ago the Washington Post headlined:

Bloody Bakhmut siege poses risks for Ukraine

Ukraine faces difficult choices about how much deeper its military should get drawn into a protracted fight over the besieged city of Bakhmut, as Kyiv prepares for a new counteroffensive elsewhere on the front that requires conserving weapons, ammunition and experienced fighters.
Russia has escalated its assault in the area in recent days, unleashing savage fighting that has underscored the high cost of the battle. Russian mercenaries and released convicts from the Wagner group pushed into the neighboring salt-mining town of Soledar and inched closer to Bakhmut, the capture of which has eluded them for months despite an advantage in firepower and the willingness to sacrifice troops.

The piece quotes several Ukrainian soldiers which speak of huge losses on their side. But the U.S. is still egging them on:

The senior U.S. official cautioned against completely dismissing Bakhmut or neighboring Soledar as nonstrategic places that Kyiv can simply relinquish, noting that the salt and gypsum mines give the area economic significance. Theoretically, the Russians could use the deep salt mines and tunnels to protect equipment and ammunition from Ukrainian missile strikes. Moscow has also endowed the city with import.
“To some degree, Bakhmut matters to [Ukraine] because it matters so much to the Russians,” the senior U.S. official said, noting that control of Bakhmut is not going to have a huge impact on the conflict or imperil Ukraine’s defensive or offensive options in the country’s eastern Donbas region.

The official added, “Bakhmut is not going to change the war.”

I believe the senior U.S. official to be very wrong. Soledar and Bakhmut are bleeding the Ukrainian army dry. That is of relevance. Look at the insane number of Ukrainian units deployed on that only 50 kilometer (30mi) long sector of the front.

I count the equivalent of some 27 brigade size formations in that area. The usual size of a brigade is some 3,000 to 4,000 men with hundreds of all kinds of vehicles. If all brigades had their full strength that force would count as 97,500 men. In a recent interview the Ukrainian military commander Zaluzhny said that his army has 200,000 men trained to fight with 500,000 more having other functions or currently being trained. The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine's battle ready forces.

Zaluzhny has pulled units from other fronts like the Kreminna and Svatove sector further north in Luhansk province to feed them into Bakhmut. That has minimized any chance that the Ukrainian forces in those sectors will be able to make any progress.

What nearly all reports from Ukraine seem to miss is the huge damage that Russia artillery is causing on a daily base. Ukraine has little artillery left to respond to that and whatever it still has is getting less by the day.

A few weeks ago the Russian military started a systematic counter artillery campaign which has since made great progress. The typical western way of detecting enemy artillery units is by radar. The flight path of the projectile is measured and the coordinates of its source are calculated enabling ones own artillery to respond. But counter-artillery radar itself depends on radiating. It is thereby easily detectable and vulnerable to fire. Over the last months Russia deployed a very different counter-artillery detection systems with the rather ironic name of Penicillin:

Penicillin or 1B75 Penicillin is an acoustic-thermal artillery-reconnaissance system developed by Ruselectronics for the Russian Armed Forces. The system aims to detect and locate enemy artillery, mortars, MLRs, anti-aircraft or tactical-missile firing positions with seismic and acoustic sensors, without emitting any radio waves. It locates enemy fire within 5 seconds at a range of 25 km (16 mi; 13 nmi). Penicillin completed state trials in December 2018 and entered combat duty in 2020.
The Penicillin is mounted on the 8x8 Kamaz-6350 chassis and consists of a 1B75 sensor suite placed on a telescopic boom for the infrared and visible spectrum as well as of several ground-installed seismic and acoustic receivers as a part of the 1B76 sensor suite. It has an effective range for communication with other military assets up to 40 kilometres (25 mi) and is capable to operate even in a fully automatic mode, without any crew. One system can reportedly cover an entire division against an enemy fire. Besides that, it co-ordinates and corrects a friendly artillery fire.

The Penicillin system can hide in the woods and stick up its telescopic boom to look at and listen to the battlefield. As it does not radiate itself there is no good way for an enemy to detect it.

The system pinpoints Ukrainian guns as they fire. They are then eliminated by immediate precise counter-fire. As the artillery relevant part of today's 'clobber' list provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense claims:

Operational-Tactical Aviation, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have neutralised an artillery ordnance depot of 114th Territorial Defence Brigade near Veliky Burluk (Kharkov region), as well as 82 artillery units at their firing positions, manpower and hardware at 98 areas.

Counterbattery warfare operations have resulted in destruction of:

one Polish-manufactured Krab howitzer near Peschanoye (Kharkov region);
one U.S.-manufactured M109 Paladin howitzer, and one fighting vehicle equipped with Grad multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) near Lozovaya (Kharkov region);
one D-20 howitzer near Terny (Donetsk People's Republic);
two Giatsint-B howitzers near Maryinka and Orlovka (Donetsk People's Republic);
two Akatsiya self-propelled howitzers near Nevskoye (Lugansk People's Republic), and Preobrazhenka (Zaporozhye region);
five D-30 howitzers near Zmiyevka, Novokairy (Kherson region), Sofiyevka (Donetsk People's Republic), and Orekhov (Zaporozhye region).
Four U.S.-manufactured counterbattery warfare radars have been destroyed:

two AN/TPQ-50 stations near Mylovoye and Dudchany (Kherson region),
one AN/TPQ-36 counterbattery warfare radar near Ugledar (Donetsk People's Republic),
one U.S.-manufactured AN/TPQ-48 counterbattery warfare radar near Senkovo (Kharkov region).
Air defence facilities have shot down six Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles near Kremennaya (Lugansk People's Republic), Nikolskoye, and Petrovskoye (Donetsk People's Republic).

14 rocket-propelled projectiles launched by HIMARS and Olkha MLRS have been intercepted near Udy (Kharkov region), Smolyaninovo (Lugansk People's Republic), Donetsk, and Khartsyzsk (Donetsk People's Republic).

One U.S.-manufactured anti-radiation missile has been shot down near Radensk (Kherson region).

One Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missile has been shot down near Berdyansk (Zaporozhye region).

The above is the equivalent of two artillery companies (batteries with six guns each) eliminated in just one day. Ukrainian counter-battery fire against Russian artillery is no longer possible as the necessary detection equipment gets eliminated and as Ukrainian counter-fire is shot down by Russian air defenses.

This Russian counter-artillery campaign has been going on for several weeks. It has disabled large parts of what was left of Ukrainian longer range capabilities. Meanwhile the Russian artillery keeps on knocking down Ukranian troops that hold the frontline. Only when all parts of the Ukrainian trenches have been hit by intense fire will the Russian infantry move in to clean up whatever is left behind.

This form of battle is causing huge losses on the Ukrainian side while the Russian forces incur just a minimum of casualties.

In his recent talks Col (ret.) Douglas Macgregor put the deaths in Ukraine forces at 150,000 and casualties at 450,000. I, like Yves Smith, doubt that number of wounded is that high. As the system of Ukrainian battlefield extradition and hospitalization is in a bad state there will be less wounded and likely more dead.

In a huge contrast to U.S. waged wars, the civilian death count on the Ukrainian side is remarkably low:

Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential staff, said at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, “We have registered 80,000 crimes committed by Russian invaders and over 9,000 civilians have been killed, including 453 children.”
Feeding more troops into the battle in the Bakhmut sector, as the Ukrainian side has been doing, is not a good use of resources.

We can state that Ukraine has by now lost the nominal equipment of two larger armies.

At the beginning of the war the Ukrainian army was said to have some 2,500 tanks, 12,500 armored vehicles and 3,500 large artillery systems. It is doubtful that more than half of those were in a usable state but they may have received enough repair to be workable.

The Russia military claims that most of those have been eliminated:

7,549 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 984 fighting vehicles equipped with MLRS, 3,853 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 8,081 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation.
If one doubts those numbers one has to ask why the Ukraine has needed to import so many more weapons and is still short of them:

410 Soviet-era tanks delivered by NATO members in former communist bloc, including Poland, Czech Republic and Slovenia.
300 [Armored/Infantry Fighting Vehicles], including 250 Soviet-designed IFVs from former communist states.
1,100 [Armored Personnel Carriers], including 300 M113 troop carriers and 250 M117s.
300 towed howitzers. 400+ pieces of self-propelled artillery, of which 180 is on order.
95 [Multiple Rocket Launchers]
There were also a number of fighter airplanes, helicopter and air-defense systems. The above was the second army, after Ukraine's original one was mostly gone, that has by now been nearly eliminated.

The Russian clobber list now regularly reports of combat with Ukraine forces that kills, for example, one tank, three armored vehicles and a number of pick-ups and motor vehicles:

One Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group has been eliminated near Liman Pervy (Kharkov region). The enemy has lost over 50 Ukrainian personnel, one tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, and two pickups.
...
[In Donetsk direction] over 60 Ukrainian personnel, one tank, three armoured fighting vehicles, and six motor vehicles have been eliminated.
...
Two AFU sabotage and reconnaissance groups have been eliminated in the area to the north of Levadnoye and Vladimirovka (Donetsk People's Republic). The enemy has lost up to 40 Ukrainian personnel, two armoured fighting vehicles, and three motor vehicles.
Pick-ups and unarmored motor vehicles should avoid the frontline and certainly not be part of force attacking the immediate frontline. If these reports reflect the current structure of Ukrainian forces, as I believe they do, than its state is indeed dire.

In his Economist interview General Zeluzhny has requested a third army to be delivered to him immediately:

“I know that I can beat this enemy,” he says. “But I need resources. I need 300 tanks, 600-700 IFVs [infantry fighting vehicles], 500 Howitzers.”
As the Economist writer dryly noted:

The incremental arsenal he is seeking is bigger than the total armoured forces of most European armies.
The stocks of two complete armies have by now been destroyed in Ukraine. The resources for a smaller third one will be delivered in the next rounds of 'western' equipment deliveries during the next months. Russia will dully destroy Ukraine's third army just as it has destroyed the first and second one. It is doubtful that the 'West' has enough material left to provide Ukraine with a fourth one.

That then leaves only two options. Send in 'western' armies with the equipment they still have or declare victory and go home.

The neo-conservatives as ever favor the first option. President Joe Biden may still be against sending U.S. soldiers but this could change if he indeed gets blackmailed into doing it:

[A]s the ‘classified documents’ scandal gains momentum, the malleable president will likely fall-in-line and do whatever the hawkish foreign policy establishment demands of him. In short, the documents flap is being used by behind-the-scenes powerbrokers who are blackmailing the president to pursue their own narrow interests. They have Brandon over-a-barrel.
There is no evidence that this is happening but the signs are there.

The second option is to declare a non-existent victory and to forget about the whole issues.

But will the 'western' media, as Yves asks, notice any of this?

As commentator David correctly remarks at Yves' site:

I’ve said for a long time now that the West will be able to claim “victory”, or at least not defeat, by establishing fantastical victory conditions that the Russians never had and never wanted, and then claiming credit for frustrating them. With luck, this will just about enable western elites to hang onto power, at least temporarily.
"Putin tried to conquer Europe but we stopped him after he took only half of Ukraine," will sound like victory. But it is of course extremely far from the truth. Anyway, the media may well buy it:

But in the wider sense, we’re seeing the latest and most degenerate stage of the stupidity and ignorance which has afflicted the western media and pundit class over the last year. They didn’t know about the war in the Donbas, nobody told them Russia had the strongest army in Europe, nobody knew about the defensive lines in Donbas, nobody understood the seriousness of the Russian threats, nobody realised the Russians hoped for a short, sharp war to bring the Ukrainians to their senses, nobody understood why Russia went over to Plan B while it mobilised, nobody realised the Russians had been stockpiling weapons and ammunition for years; nobody knew what attrition warfare was …. In other words, the most disgraceful example of ignorance and stupidity of any ruling class in modern times. It will go on to the end, and “victory” will be proclaimed.

The war the U.S. provoked in Ukraine has been won by Russia even when no one wants to note it.

Ravenlocke

17th January 2023, 21:29

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/status/1615449929597476876

1615449929597476876

Gwin Ru

18th January 2023, 14:24

...

... INTERVIEW: #Ukraine (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/ukraine) is throwing in troops to face certain death defending #Bakhmut (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/bakhmut) 28:02

https://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AMLnZu_iZARDM6gZfa25i1wNthhD3-8cn7ZKlTKm3Y2Dug=s48-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj (https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgeGallowayOfficial) George Galloway (https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgeGallowayOfficial)
55,404 views Jan 17, 2023

"INTERVIEW:#Kyiv (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/kyiv) installed three defensive lines but the Russians are gradually grinding through them, explains #GonzaloLira (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/gonzalolira). #Soledar (https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/soledar), which has fallen, was the penultimate town of the penultimate defence line.

Ts-BVW6ujT8

seehas

18th January 2023, 17:57

Bill Ryan

18th January 2023, 18:09

Today a Helicopter crashed onboard 14 people died, one of them was Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyy.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/18/who-was-denys-monastyrskyy-ukraines-interior-minister

Ive read that the whole cabinet was in that Helicopter, that makes you really wonder where they wanted to go, on a normal flight they would never take the risk to put them all in one hellicopter, was this an attempt to leave the country?https://t.me/CyberspecNews/16567

CyberspecNews/16567

There are reports that the helicopter was on fire in the air before it crashed, indicating a strong likelihood that it was shot down. Following the forced disgrace of Zelensky's spin doctor Oleksiy Arestovich yesterday, these may all be signs of a significant (and maybe violent) rift within the Ukrainian government.

Matthew

18th January 2023, 19:05

...

There are reports that the helicopter was on fire in the air before it crashed, indicating a strong likelihood that it was shot down. Following the forced disgrace of Zelensky's spin doctor Oleksiy Arestovich yesterday, these may all be signs of a significant (and maybe violent) rift within the Ukrainian government.

I find this easy to believe. It crossed my mind it would be a great time for a culpable senior government person or people to disappear with loads of money and death could be a great cover. What gave me this idea is how unwise it is for so many senior people to travel together. Even corporations have operating procedures against that, so governments at war...? Either way it stinks of desperation.

Mashika

18th January 2023, 19:45

The "Accident" has now clearly been proven to be anything but

As usual, if something like this happens, and it's immediately used in this way, then we can use the rule that "Everything Ukraine says is projection and a sign that it is the opposite of what they are claiming"

1615774741893111808

And also, Arestovich woke up with the news that he's now on the peacemaker kill list
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AL9nZEXal5tNftIdr50heKDEgpBd1OLpC3sYcGDfJxzwPsJcq7T6vEL9eg-EuHSZ6ZvjLV7Fpjg7zDY6_cslIlF038ydIIwkMSiIsz1EXKVQyPuSQ5GNCr80Wn402Z_k_p-1MPXGSjyn6N0LV7Lf57NJ8umA=w2145-h1190-no?authuser=0

https://myrotvorets.center/criminal/arestovich-aleksej-nikolaevich/

Professional provocateur. Implementation of public information sabotage in favor of the Russian invaders. Participation in acts of humanitarian aggression against Ukraine. Conscious participation in activities that undermine the defense capability of Ukraine by demoralizing the armed forces of Ukraine. Discrediting State bodies of power and administration.

All he said was that the rocket that hit that building was downed by Ukrainian AD and this caused major issues with the "international community" so now he's on the kill list. But it was the truth... :)

What a fall from glory, freedom and democracy and freedom of speech, Ukraine is ready to enter the EU as a primary 'partner', no doubt

They sure kept a lot of dirt to use against him since years ago

Assigned role: speaker of the TCG and adviser on information policy to the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Minsk Group, adviser to the head of the President's Office, blogger, actor.
Nickname: Lusya, Russian propagandists call him Karamelka Also organizer of
OLEKSIYA ARESTOVICH CHARITABLE FUND (since
2017 ) Birth: 08/03/1975 Place of birth: Georgia, Tsiteli-Tskaro (Dedoplistskaro )

— 11.06.2022. In the edition of the Feygin Live program (June 11, 2022), presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said that Ukrainians should not criticize the authorities for granting citizenship to the Russian Nevzorov or other opposition Russians. According to the adviser, such decisions have positive consequences, because they do not allow Ukraine to become a "big country with a small culture".
— 17.01.2022. The authorities of Ukraine completely left the society of internal solidarity, propagandizing the hatred of one part of the ego for the other,
and also showed unforgivable weakness in relation to persons suspected of high treason. The former adviser to the head of the office of the president of the country and the speaker of the Ukrainian delegation in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) for Donbass
wrote about this on his Facebook page —
https://lenta.ru/news/2022/01/19/arestovich_ua/ , https://ria.ru/20220119/arestovich-1768548794.html
“According to the former adviser to the head of the Presidential Office, the Ukrainian state is “infinitely weak in the administration of its functions (otherwise a person suspected of treason would have been put face down on the floor right in Zhuliany) and infinitely strong, like a gigantic machine for the production of injustice.
https://gordonua.com/news/politics/slabosti-ya-prostit-ne-mogu-arestovich-rasskazal-pochemu-on-uvolilsya-s-dolzhnosti-glavy-op-1591481.html
- 17.03.2021. - Discussed with Dmitry Gordon the so-called. "The Wagner Affair". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyyNXDuIG0o
- We discussed with Sergey Leshchenko the attempt of some unfortunate people to galvanize the corpse of the "Wagner case",
after landing by Lukashenko's regime of a plane with a Belarusian oppositionist : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB9NDef_91U
, since this violates the law of Ukraine “On State Secrets” and may result in criminal punishment ... Therefore, the number of people who run around the expanses of our vast motherland and tell whether this operation took place or not makes me, in some way, dumbfounded. I don't comment. I still do not know if this operation took place or not.
All I can say is that the informational version that was thrown at us does not withstand any criticism, neither elementary logical verification, nor factual verification.
https://ru.slovoidilo.ua/2021/03/17/novost/politika/arestovich-nazval-obsuzhdenie-vagnergejta-razglasheniem-gostajny-i-napomnil-otvetstvennosti
- 12/24/2021. As Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine and speaker of the Ukrainian delegation to the TCG, said, Ukraine is the "authors" of Russia and the Soviet Union. He stated this on the air of the Politeka Internet channel. Earlier, Arestovich announced the date of Russia's "attack" on Ukraine. According to him, the Russian Federation will “attack” Christmas.
https://newsua.ru/news/68972-my-avtory-dvukh-imperij-arestovich-zayavil-chto-rossiyu-i-sssr-pridumali-ukraintsy
https://newsua.ru/news/68972-my-avtory-dvukh-imperij-arestovich-zayavil-chto-rossiyu-i-sssr-pridumali-ukraintsy
- August 2021 - Arestovich called the Zelensky government's mistake the continuation of Poroshenko's language and cultural policy and Vyatrovich. Arestovich said that, in his opinion, culture and sport are outside politics. And to refuse to watch Russian-language films, to deny Russian culture just because this or that actor who played in them supports Putin's policy is stupid. —
https://strana.news/news/347518-arestovich-raskritikoval-zelenskoho-za-prodolzhenie-politiki-poroshenko.html
- 07/05/2021. The user posted a screenshot of an article in the British newspaper The Guardian, dedicated to the scandal in Ukraine over parade rehearsals, during which the cadets marched in high-heeled shoes, and noted Arestovich, who devoted several posts to defending this choice of equipment. “Let me remind you that Aleksey Arestovich is a shameful fag,
” added the anonymous source. Arestovich appeared in the comments under the publication exactly five minutes later and responded to his opponent in the same manner, calling him “x… illiterate esos”. He stated that marching in heels is the desire of the cadets themselves, who "were given the opportunity to choose from two types of shoes more comfortable." https://news.myseldon.com/ru/news/index/253787337
— 04/15/2020. President Volodymyr Zelensky is just as politically responsible for the persecution of patriots and Maidan participants as Yanukovych's supporters. Military expert Alexei Arestovich spoke about this on the air of “Direct”.
“The question is what kind of policy is pursued or allowed to be pursued by President Zelensky. I very much hope that there will be either a journalist or one of the politicians, in particular people's deputies, who will ask Zelensky to publicly qualify Maidan as a phenomenon: what President Zelensky considers Maidan to be. I want to hear this answer - what does he consider Maidan to be. And this will be Zelensky's main speech for the year of his term. Because from how he qualifies Maidan and how he will behave when answering this question, we will understand: he is a person who takes the position of Yanukovych in the Maidan case, or he is an independent politician who has his own conviction, his own understanding of what there is Maidan,” Arestovich said.
https://prm.ua/ru/esli-zelenskiy-razdelyaet-vzglyadyi-yanukovicha-na-maydan-to-eto-yavlyaetsya-osnovaniem-dlya-impichmenta-arestovich/
July 2020 — death of Sergeant Yaroslav Zhuravl — https:// rusdnepr.ru/149369-2/
- 12/29/2020. He led a group of snipers into the minefield. https://ukrainenews.fakty.ua/364530-zavel-na-minnoe-pole-krivonos-obvinil-arestovicha-v-gibeli-dvuh-bojcov-vsu
Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the head of the presidential Office, decided to respond to the accusations against him from Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Sergey Krivonos. Major General Krivonos considers Arestovich involved in the death of a group of snipers. The adviser, in turn, claims that he is not to blame for what happened. In addition, in a comment to LIGA.net, Arestovich said that he also had questions for Krivonos.
https://amp.ukrainenews.fakty.ua/ru/364553-est-voprosy-k-krivonosu-arestovich-otvetil-na-skandalnoe-obvinenie-zamsekretarya-snbo
- 18.02.2020. Oleksiy Arestovich, the speaker of the Ukrainian delegation in the Trilateral Contact Group, apologized for spreading the information of the Russian side about the killed fighter of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,
who was allegedly drunk at the time of his death. The position of the speaker is published in the Telegram channel of the delegation.
Prior to this, a group of delegates reported on social networks that on December 14, the military man, "being intoxicated,
made an unauthorized transfer to the side of the enemy (without weapons) and died of alcohol or drug intoxication."
A little later, information about the intoxication of the military was removed from the post, noting
that he ended up in uncontrolled territory “under unspecified circumstances” and died there.
https://www.5.ua/ru/obshchestvo/tekhnycheskaia-oshybka-arestovych-ofytsyalno-yzvynylsia-za-to-chto-obnarodoval-versyiu-okkupantov-o-hybely-voyna-vsu-232256.html
https:/ /ukrmir.info/arestovich-po-oshibke-ozvuchil-versiyu-okkupantov-o-gibeli-nashego-voennogo/
https://sharij.net/arestovich-izvinilsya-za-versiyu-okkupantov-o-gibeli-pyanogo-bojcza -vsu ,
https://t.me/UkrdelegationTCG/117 ,
https://t.me/UkrdelegationTCG/122
- 02/19/2018. “Four years later, it is quite clear to me that all our troubles stem from the fact that good Ukrainians did not shoot at those who beat them with sticks.
Our rebels preferred not to go on the offensive. They preferred to listen to those who wanted to replace the regime,
but did not want to replace the System, those who eroded the offensive movement of the Maidan, and now lead it.
.... But - good people, idealists who came out against the alliance of top officials with organized crime, led by an external enemy - did not shoot.
https://inforesist.org/idite-v-nastuplenie-trebuyte/
- 12/21/2017. “Ukrainian blogger and military expert Alexei Arestovich made an unexpected statement.
On the eve of the New Year, he decided to admit that since the beginning of the armed conflict in the Donbass, he had been engaged in propaganda and deliberately distorted information.
Arestovich wrote about this on December 21 on his Facebook page.
- Dear friends! I have lied to you a lot since the spring of 2014.
I launched the distortion of information along two main lines: the creation of a patriotic lubok, in which we “strengthen together, we strive for heroism”,
and shining prospects await Ukraine,
black propaganda against the Russian Federation.
https://kp.ua/politics/595546-voennyi-ekspert-arestovych-ya-mnoho-vral-vam-nachynaia-s-vesny-2014-hoda ,
https://www.facebook.com/alexey.arestovich/ posts/1755456667851739
- 10/16/2017. Blogger and military expert Aleksey Arestovich in an interview with Apostrophe spoke about the new US game against Russia, the
important role of Ukraine in this process, the benefits of presidential laws on Donbass,
about the threats of upcoming opposition protests in the center of Kyiv and the fault of the authorities in the current situation.
https://charter97.org/ru/news/2017/10/16/266127/
-2015 — Europe doesn’t care what happens to Ukraine — https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=DNXkwu0hx0w
— 2014 — https://www.kharkovforum.com/showthread.php?t=3539404 ,
http://odessa-daily.com.ua/news/voennyj-ekspert-i-psiholog-aleksej-arestovich-v-programme- pryamym-tekstom-id61555.html ,
https://blogs.korrespondent.net/blog/politics/3848373/ , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUq4KVI245I
2013-2014 - so-called. Warm Ocean Strategy — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xylSqQa8bfI
Social media pages:https://www.facebook.com/alexey.arestovich, https://www.instagram.com/alexey.arestovich/, https://vk.com/alexey_arestovich,
https://vk.com/public84121252, https://twitter.com/arestovych; 20 02 2020 — https://www.facebook.com/100001622678632/posts/3071769606220432/;
https://youcontrol.com.ua/catalog/executives/a/arestovych-oleksiy-mykolayovych/,
https://youcontrol.com.ua/catalog/executives/a/arestovych-oleksiy-mykolayovych/founder/,
https://youcontrol.com.ua/ru/catalog/company_details/34832176/
Биография:
https://www.dsnews.ua/dosie/oleksiy-arestovich-24022021-416782
- In February 2005, Korchinsky and his "solar initiator" Arestovich, together with Dugin , will present the "Eurasian Anti-Orange Front" in Moscow. https://abramshlimazl.livejournal.com/949363.html
- In 2008, their political course changed radically, and Arestovich and Korchinsky were already building a "Crimean defense strategy" from Russian invaders. In early 2009, they jointly organized the “Get Usіh” civil initiative, in which Arestovich's main tasks were to organize actions in Sumy, Odessa and Kyiv with the participation of entrepreneurs and truckers to fight the current government.
The civil initiative did not last long - it organized several small actions (400-500 people each),
lit up on the Savik Shuster show and calmed down. Further, Korchinsky, Arestovich and the company headed for Odessa.
In 2009, Korchinsky sent his "right hand" Arestovich to Odessa to organize and carry out actions in support of his friend,
then mayor of Odessa, Eduard Gurvits. For the sake of completeness and scope of authority, on June 3, 2009, Gurvits appointed Aleksey Arestovich to the post of Deputy Chairman of the Primorsky District Administration and even generously ordered him to be awarded the 9th rank of a civil servant and
to assign a 50% bonus to his salary, taking into account bonuses for rank and length of service. But, apparently, something went wrong, and three months later he dismissed Alexei from his post.
In 2010, he graduated from the Absalom Podvodny School of Psychology and, as a certified psychologist,
began to give lectures, trainings, consultations in the field of group psychology, and to act in films. In 2013, as a counseling psychologist and specialist in conflict resolution, he participated in the filming of the show "Teach Us to Live" on the ICTV channel.
Arestovich appears in the media field after 2014, he is often shown by the media as a military expert, and his comments are given as an “expert” on Donbass. For a long time, from the Kyiv sofa, Arestovich told very radical things about the Donbass.
For example, commenting on the situation during the battles around Debaltseve in February 2015, Arestovich wrote:
“Even the loss of 30,000 dead is not the most noticeable loss in terms of the stakes and the scale of the game that is developing here.”
https://www.dsnews.ua/politics/vdart2827
https://comments.ua/dossier/item/person/52-arestovich-aleksey-nikolaevich.html
— https://strana.today/news/372119-arestovich-ushel-ot-zelenskoho-prichiny.html ,
— https ://ru.espreso.tv/krysy-s-korablya-kak-lgal-i-pochemu-iz-bankovoy-bezhal-arestovich ,
speaker of the OPU:
April 2022
April 2022 2

Note 2005
_ _ org.ua/manifest-bratstvo.htm https://politkrytyka.org/2016/03/15/dobrovolcheskie-vooruzhyonnye-formirovaniya-i-radikalnyj-natsionalizm-v-poslemajdannoj-ukraine/ https://web.archive.org /web/20140130125239/http://evrazia.info/article/2231

The Peacemaker Center asks law enforcement agencies to consider this publication on the website as a statement about the commission by this citizen of deliberate acts against the national security of Ukraine, peace, the security of mankind and international law and order, as well as other offenses.

Ravenlocke

18th January 2023, 19:47

Garland Nixon with Scott Ritter

BATTLEFIELD UPDATE 17 WITH SCOTT RITTER - THE BATTLEFIELD SHRINKS (a Rokfin exclusive)

ybM94lq4Tnc

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/thesiriusreport/status/1615771874851713024

1615771874851713024

Ravenlocke

18th January 2023, 19:57

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615703296559443977

1615703296559443977

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615759313150291968

1615759313150291968

Ravenlocke

18th January 2023, 20:05

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615727930403074051

1615727930403074051

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615688733797552128

1615688733797552128

https://twitter.com/Cyberspec1/status/1615620108487110657

1615620108487110657

https://twitter.com/Cyberspec1/status/1615630050610774017

1615630050610774017

Mashika

18th January 2023, 20:07

Mike from iEarlGrey has posted Sergey Lavrov full interview with English translation here:

Sergey Lavrov Speech - ENGLISH TRANSLATED - Russian Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Press Conference
9w3MB44X8us

3 hours long :) Someone at the White House is going to have a very hard time summarizing this for the president

Ravenlocke

18th January 2023, 20:14

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615767300522627072
1615767300522627072

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1615767306755260423

1615767306755260423

Bill Ryan

18th January 2023, 20:21

3 hours long :) Someone at the White House is going to have a very hard time summarizing this for the presidentMaybe they'll include this. :)

https://t.me/CyberspecNews/16613

CyberspecNews/16613

Ravenlocke

18th January 2023, 20:26

https://www.rt.com/russia/570078-lavrov-press-conference-recap/

US deception, future of Ukraine conflict, and no business as usual with West: key points from Lavrov’s big Q&A

Washington ruined relations with Moscow in its push to dominate in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Now, even the written commitments of the US and its allies cannot be trusted, he added.

The senior Russian diplomat spoke to journalists on Wednesday about Russian foreign policy, the possible resolution of the crisis in Ukraine, and opposition to what his nation perceives as a colonialist approach by the US to world affairs.

Military action in Ukraine justified

The goals of the Russian military operation in Ukraine were “not invented” and instead are based “on core, legitimate security interests,” and the nation “cannot” simply stop pursuing them, Lavrov stated.

Ukraine, just like any other Russian neighbor, must host no “military infrastructure directly threatening our nation,” he asserted. There also must be no “discrimination, persecution of our compatriots who happened to become citizens of the Ukrainian state” and want to preserve their ethnic Russian roots.

In 2021, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky called Ukrainians sanctioned by his government “specimens” and told people in Donbass who cherish their Russian ethnicity to leave, Lavrov recalled.

No meaningful proposal on talks with Kiev

Kiev is not free to decide its own foreign policy, so talking to the Ukrainian government makes no sense, Lavrov said. Western nations are seeking to inflict more damage on Russia by arming Ukraine and prolonging hostilities, which are part of a larger proxy war against Moscow.

He described as “nonsense” the notion that other nations must not say “a word about Ukraine without Ukraine.” In reality, “the West decides for Ukraine,” the foreign minister argued.

Russia would “react to any serious proposal” for overcoming the crisis, Lavrov pledged, but none has been set out so far.

Biden asked for meeting of top spies

The November meeting between the heads of the CIA and the SVR, two prominent foreign intelligence agencies in the US and Russia respectively, happened at the request of US President Joe Biden, Lavrov revealed. The US leader asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for the meeting, he said.
CIA Director William Burns and SVR head Sergey Naryshkin met in Türkiye, but the US official didn’t say anything beyond Washington’s public stance, as is typical for “sporadic” US-Russian contacts, Lavrov remarked. Nevertheless, it had some value.

It is the US whose policies have ruined bilateral relations with Russia, and it’s up to Washington to fix them, the diplomat added. “We will not be running after them saying ‘Let’s be friends again,’” he said.

No business as usual with West

Russia has had enough of deception by the US and its allies and simply cannot trust them anymore, Lavrov stated.
NATO’s expansion in Europe is one example, he said, asserting that this went against both the promises given to the Soviet leadership and pledges to uphold indivisible security on the continent by the US-led bloc. The same was true for the Minsk agreements, which Ukraine, Germany and France apparently signed in bad faith, he said.

He listed several other international treaties, which he suggested “the West never intended to implement.”

“They simply lied to our face when presidents and prime ministers solemnly signed commitments,” the minister said.

Washington has colonialist mentality

Washington has a colonialist attitude towards other nations in the sense that it seeks to subjugate them one way or another, and exploit their resources for its own benefit, the Russian diplomat said.
He mentioned as an example a bill introduced in the US Congress, which seeks to create a strategy to “counter the malign influence and activities” of Russia in Africa.

“I believe that in their heart, even those who wouldn’t comment on American provocations such as this one are convinced that this [proposed] law hurts Africans first and foremost,” Lavrov said. The document shows “colonialist mentality in a new dimension.”

Three most important words

A journalist asked Lavrov which three words he would call “the most tragic and the most hopeful” for diplomacy last year, and “the one that the entire world should hear now.”

The foreign minister seemed amused by the request for poetic commentary and remarked that his department usually dealt with “concrete matters” but agreed to answer anyway.

He picked “war” as the most tragic word, because the crisis in Ukraine “is our response… to the hybrid war that was unleashed upon us and under the banner of which the West is promoting its agenda.” The word “victory” is appropriate for the two other categories, he added.