WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia

[mountain_jim]

Tom Luongo on UK situation re Ukraine

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...-across-europe

https://tomluongo.me/2022/09/05/the-...y-the-uk-down/

The Clowns of Winter Harry the UK Down

There Is 'More Than A Whiff Of Desperation & Fear" Emanating Across Europe



All I hear is that lonesome sound
The Hounds of Winter
They harry me down
— Sting

By a narrow margin Boris Johnson’s clownish Defense Minister Liz Truss will become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She doesn’t have a lot of time to put together a government lest the U.K. have to suffer through yet another general election.

Truss, by virtue of her full-throated support for Ukraine against Russia, was the choice of those Tories committed to maintaining the UK’s relationship with the US, leaving it nominally more independent from the European Union.

Davos man-child Rishi Sunak, the darling of the Remainers of City of London the true hounds of winter here, failed to overtake Truss in the end. What started as a Davos-style decapitation of Johnson, who rightfully deserves to be jailed for his undermining Russian/Ukrainian peace talks in April, ended with the female version of him in office.

While I’d like to say I’m happy to see Davos lose another major conflict in Europe, empowering the US neoconservatives is not a win here. In the end, the deep ties between the US and UK intelligence and military services won out in the Tory leadership battle.

Again, there are no winners from our perspective, here.



Truss comes in vowing to fix everything, from lowering taxes (good) to dealing with an energy crisis she helped create by leading the charge to sanction Russian energy to hell and back. She’ll deficit spend like she’s supposed to because making peace with Putin or breaking with Davos over developing Scotland’s energy reserves is verboten.

She wants to be thought of as the new Thatcher, but she has neither the support Maggie had nor one-third her talent or smarts.

And she doesn’t have the trust of the London banks, who themselves are now rightfully staring at a black hole thanks to her manifest stupidity and belligerence.

Truss is a typical midwit just smart enough to know who’s giving the orders and how to make them manifest but not smart enough to rise above that. I remind everyone that this is a woman so unqualified for the job she had that she doesn’t know where the borders of Russia and Ukraine are but believes in the ‘territorial integrity of Ukraine.’

Like all good servants of the elites she represents, she was rewarded for her incompetence.

The choice between Truss and Sunak was another classic Hobson’s Choice — continued war with Russia across every vector (Truss) or the surrender of the UK to the EU and the reversing of Brexit (Sunak).

Either way there is not much hope this morning if you are a Brit.

At best she will be an even weaker leader than Johnson was, since she has no issue to rally the country around, like Brexit, which she won’t even discuss in public. This was reflected in the final party leadership vote where 20% of Tories stayed home.

So, even if Truss is able to cobble together a government and presents it to the Queen to rubber stamp, she will do so with the Tories having been thoroughly discredited as a party. Not that Labour is any useful opposition here.

While the old guard of British politics may have won this fight, it is a Pyrrhic victory for them. It’s still a country with no friends as long as Biden is in power.

British politics have been frozen for months because of this ridiculous affair. All it did was extend everyone’s misery as the UK warmongers cling to the vestiges of their former power.

What’s truly sad is that Johnson backed a Hail Mary in Ukraine surrounding the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) that may now have to be considered the British version of the Bay of Pigs, but with far vaster implications.

The massacre that occurred last week was a plan so retarded it reveals the mendacity and desperation of both British Intelligence and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to escalate the conflict, remain in power and advance their ultimate agenda of weakening global support for Russia at the UN.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces, with significant help from British ‘advisors,’ staged a multi-pronged commando amphibious landing north of the ZNPP. The goal was to attack it and take it over while the Russian garrison had been mostly removed while awaiting the IAEA inspectors.

The idea being to shame the Russians out of the ZNPP to show that it wasn’t being used as a military staging area and attack it while it was lightly defended. Then… and this is the insane part… take the entire IAEA delegation hostage but doing so POSING AS RUSSIAN TROOPS.

Here’s the link to the plan from Intel Slava Z’s Telegram Channel, of course salt to taste.

The Kremlin was aware of the plans of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to take advantage of the arrival of the IAEA mission and carry out an amphibious landing in order to try to seize the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant and make statements for days that it was Russian special forces. Under ideal conditions for the work of the DRG, they calculated the task of taking the mission itself hostage and keeping the nuclear power plant under mines, making demands for the complete withdrawal of Russian troops to the territory of Crimea.

Boris Johnson brought the plan of operation and some of the instructors with him as a demobilization chord of his premiership, but if the GUR was successful, he would have refused to transfer power, referring to an international emergency threatening a catastrophe on a planetary scale. At the moment, 47 DRG fighters have been destroyed, three have been taken prisoner (!), Two are in serious condition between life and death. A group of 12 people is blocked on three sides and cut off from the water and boats, by 15:00 CTO will be over. Zelensky’s statement on this situation is expected in the late afternoon, the head of the IAEA Mission has already been notified of the situation, as well as UN Secretary General Guterres. The operation was coordinated by MI6 officers from their headquarters in the suburbs of Kyiv.

All 64 DRGs have recently completed training in the UK and traveled from Warsaw to Odessa on 29 August.

Now, clearly this is a Russian version of events. But it is backed up by the statements coming from the UN in the aftermath, praising the Russian military for securing the safety of the IAEA inspectors, something they would never have done.

Even if the whole ‘impersonating Russians holding IAEA inspectors hostage’ plan failed, the story is still deeply disturbing, because this type of multi-pronged (5 different invasion points of the area) operation had to have been planned well in advance.

The Russian Ministry of Defense’s version of the story is similar if cleaner, for diplomatic reasons if nothing else. They leave out the ‘impersonating Russians’ part but leave in all of Ukraine’s attempts to insert friendly Western media into the delegation who would then give us the ‘official story’ of what happened.

Moscow has suggested that Kiev’s plan was to capture the nuclear plant and then use the staff of the UN nuclear watchdog as “human shields” to maintain control over it.

What this means is that the Johnson and the US Dept. ofDefense/National Security Council (all staffed by the move virulent Neocons) have been planning something like this for months which is why they refuse to allow the Ukrainians to surrender.

It’s also why the EU/Davos (who clearly want out of this insanity) are throwing Johnson under the bus for blowing up April’s peace talks. Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps tightening the screws on the energy-starved Europeans causing all kinds of havoc there politically.

The timing of his announcement Gazprom was shutting down Nordstream 1 indefinitely while the IAEA inspectors were at the ZNPP is yet another clue to what the real story was. Moreover, note that since this inspection went off without a hitch there was little to no breathless reporting on it.

It vanished from the media as quickly as the prospects for the UK’s economic recovery with the announcement of Truss’ big win.




The Brits under Johnson and Truss have been trying to create a false flag incident to justify official NATO involvement in the Ukraine conflict since the beginning of the war.

The excuse of a multi-country nuclear meltdown incident would more than provide that justification.

This was their big operation to finally turn the entire world against the Russians by saying that in order to suppress the real story at the ZNPP Russia kidnapped peaceful IAEA inspectors and used them as political hostages.

Because even if Ukrainian forces stormed the plant, do you think the lying British media would tell you a story even remotely pro-Russian?

No. These are the same people who have been trying to convince you that Russia was shelling its own troops there for weeks now.

This may have allowed Neocon-backed Johnson to stay in power through emergency powers and set the precedent for Biden to do the same thing before the mid-terms. Truss’ election as the head of the Tories in the UK ensure this type of insanity will continue uninterrupted because she’s too stupid to see the obvious ploy to discredit both the UK and the US while Europe plays the victim.

Playing through their strategy, any kind of ‘accident’ at ZNPP can be coordinated with a collapse of capital markets as NATO officially gets involved in Ukraine and vast nationalization of whole swaths of the West’s industrial base then ensues.

Thankfully the Russians escorting the IAEA inspectors into the ZNPP and the amphibious assaults vaporized (which they have), this entire disgusting affair ends.

I bring this up not because I believe the entire story. I don’t. But it is emblematic of the mindset of the people in charge.

There is more than a whiff of desperation and fear emanating from all across Europe, but especially from the UK as they have been brought to the edge of extinction by inept leadership refusing to accede to the reality that not only has the sun finally set on the British Empire, but it’s not likely to rise again anytime soon.

The only hope the UK had was in the US supporting its bid for independence from the EU via Brexit. Once Biden was selected that hope died, minus an Oliver Cromwell moment.

What they got was Liz Truss.

The reason I’m so set on my thesis about the Fed being against Davos is the actions of the UK in this conflict. It was clearly an operation that both the US/UK neocons and the Davos globalists saw common ground in using Ukraine to attack Russia.

Their interests aligned all during the eight year lead up to Russia’s invasion.

They really did believe their own clownish stories about the fragility of Putin’s government, Russia’s economy and the depth of the West’s financial and legal power to extract pain from those that defied them.

Once it became obvious that the economic ‘shock and awe’ campaign to isolate Russia had failed and Putin’s Energy Counter-Offensive began, the cracks in the relationship opened and the power of ‘Outside Money’ — gold, commodities — exposed the weakness of ‘Inside Money.’

The failure of the Biden junta to secure the Fed means that not only did the Davos/Neocon alliance crack but US sovereigntist forces saw the opportunity to take out City of London and Amsterdam in the chaos. Now both the UK and the EU are caught between the Fed draining them dry in the capital markets and the Russians refusing them much needed energy.

When I look at a long-term chart of the British Pound all I see is oblivion.



It’s on pace for the lowest close in history this year. And thanks to Gordon Brown there are no gold reserves left to back the currency nor any new energy sources to stabilize it. It, along with the Canadian dollar are the ultimate form of ‘Inside Money.’

And Inside Money is falling fast, first to the US dollar (USDX knocking on 110 and rising) and then to the broad commodity sector and eventually gold itself.

The Euro chart is worse.

Russia and Putin understand this and all they have to do is continue doing nothing, or more explicitly pumping nothing, and the collapse will finally be complete. All the Fed has to do is stay its course.

So, while City of London thought they were circling the Brexiteers and Russia going for the kill, they were themselves encircled by the real dogs of war.

Maybe Davos wants this collapse. Sure, they talk a good game about Building Back Better and the Great Reset, but they didn’t imagine it would be on someone else’s terms, namely both the Americans’ and the Russians’.

Yes, they are selling the carbon-free future to their people but at what price and with what capital?

Yes, they believe they can consolidate their financial problems in the ECB, a European-style Resolution Trust bad bank, then default through George Soros’ idea of Perpetual Bonds and emerge with a clean balance sheet. But who is going to invest in them ever again after the pain they put everyone through?

Not Russia. Not China. Maybe a weakened US. Europe will be a smoking ruin for decades if this happens.

Putin is not only interested in finally besting Russia’s centuries-old enemy, Britain. He’s also no longer smitten with the ideas of old Europe. If there is to be détente between Europe and Russia it will be on Russia’s terms, not Europe’s.

So far the EU is doubling down on its stupidity because it fits their plan, as stupid as it is, much as I expect Truss to double down on Johnson’s because of legendary British arrogance and stubbornness. Just don’t expect Putin or Powell at the Fed to come to their rescue anytime soon.

Liz Truss is a woman more bloodthirsty than Hillary Clinton with one-tenth of her gravitas. The British people certainly deserve better because no one should be treated to such depravity. She is a band-aid on an open wound festering as the hounds of winter circle in for the kill.

[Vicus]

NATO struggling to supply winter uniforms to Ukraine – Der Spiegel
Kiev has reportedly asked the military bloc to urgently provide it with hundreds of thousands of uniforms and other equipment

NATO members have been scraping the barrel in their efforts to supply Ukraine with sufficient winter uniforms and field camp equipment, Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine reported on Monday. Kiev has apparently called on the bloc to urgently provide the necessary equipment before the cold weather sets in.

According to Der Spiegel, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov wrote a letter to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg back in late July, calling on the military alliance to provide cold-proof field tents along with clothing for as many as 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers. The uniforms and equipment should be delivered as quickly as possible, the minister added, according to the magazine.

Several NATO nations have since been searching their warehouses for the needed supplies. The organization confirmed to Der Spiegel that it is in contact with member states on the issue. According to reports cited by Der Spiegel, so far the US and Canada, as well as Sweden and Finland, which are yet to join the military grouping, have together promised deliveries that could cover up to 50% of Ukraine’s demands.

Military officials from various NATO members argue, though, that most of their nations’ stocks are reserved for the national armies, Der Spiegel says. The defense alliance has reportedly offered to replace the uniforms and equipment member states hand over to Kiev, using the so-called NATO trust fund, amounting to $40 million.

Germany also reportedly plans to join the effort, although it had earlier struggled to equip its own troops with the necessary gear, Der Spiegel says. By sending winter clothing and field camp equipment, Berlin could make “an important contribution” to Ukraine’s defense ahead of the approaching winter, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said.



According to Der Spiegel, the German military is “quite critical” of the idea of handing over its equipment to Ukraine. Lambrecht herself repeatedly stated earlier that the German Armed Forces – the Bundeswehr – are about to reach the limits of what they can give away when it comes to weapons.

https://www.rt.com/news/562239-nato-...iform-ukraine/


Well, General winter is at the gates... and for anyone wanting to know what fighting a winter war against Russia is like, they only need to review the history Western colonial leaders Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, neither of whom survived their winter war adventures against Russia.

[Vicus]

BRICS growing stronger and challenging West, professor tells RT
The influence of the emerging economies is on the rise, says Wang Wen from the Chongyang Institute

Trade between BRICS partners, Russia and China, has been hitting record highs despite Western sanctions, Executive Dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies (RDCY) Wang Wen told RT on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. He pointed out that now is the best time to strengthen economic cooperation.

Wang also indicated that more countries want to join BRICS, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan. “So, I think that means a new civilization model for emerging economies like China and Argentina because they want to rise up peacefully. These countries will bring to the world more cooperation and trade… I think we are in the new civilization age.”

The expert stressed that “Without the West the world still works and is doing very well,” particularly in terms of cooperation between Russia and China.

“Actually, nowadays the West is declining, it cannot dominate the world anymore,” Wang said, adding that at the same time “the rest of the world, including China, Russia, Brazil, or the other emerging countries have different values and thinking, so they are gathering in Vladivostok to discuss the future which is very significant.”

https://www.rt.com/business/562262-b...llenging-west/

[Mashika]

Perhaps, if this is how things are for your army, then you should negotiate peace and stop the madness?

But that would be logical and reasonable, and we know that the west has already decided that this war will go on until the last Ukrainian, so instead of doing the most reasonable thing to do in a losing situation, let's ask for more money and guns, and then send even more people to their meaningless deaths. The west demands more blood, it is not enough yet

https://t.me/DonbassDevushka/23351

[Mashika]

Posted by mountain_jim (here)
Again, there are no winners from our perspective, here.

[ExomatrixTV]

• Russian Foreign Ministry Now Hinting At Europe-wide War

• dutch 🇳🇱 (+ Multi-Language Options). 🦜🦋🌳

[ExomatrixTV]

Fact Check This!

• The Military & Constitution Regulated Inauguration – President Trump by Derek Johnson
• Covert Operation by Derek Johnson
• What’s REALLY Happening in Ukraine by Derek Johnson
• Optics 101 by Derek Johnson
• Hindsight is 2020 by Derek Johnson
• Military Aircraft Operations & Optics by Derek Johnson
• Aircraft Operations Continued – Aug 2022 to Present Day by Derek Johnson

[Bill Ryan]

A great piece from Bernhard at The Moon of Alabama, arguably one of his best. Here, he presents the real horrors of war.

• https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/0....html#comments

Ukraine Loses Soldiers - Europe Its Economies - All For No Gain

When the Ukraine launched its Kherson 'counteroffensive' on August 29 I was pretty aghast and judged that it was destined to fail:

To break the reinforced Russian lines now would have taken more troops than were available. I am sure that the Ukrainian military knew that this offensive would fail.
For political reasons Zelenski ordered them to launch it anyway. There are now another 1,000+ Ukrainian and Russian lives lost for nothing other then some sensational headlines and political optics.

More than 3,000 Ukrainians have died by now in the Kherson offensive without having made any significant progress. Hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles were lost. A dozen Ukrainian planes and helicopters have been shot down. All the material had come from the 'west' which has now emptied its stock of Soviet weapons. No more will be coming anytime soon.

The Ukraine thereby blew its chance to hold a line against any significant new moves from the Russia side. Those moves will be coming.

But what really bothers me is the human toll of this offensive.

I have never been at war. But I have had a decent full time military officer training over several years plus several month long reserve stints in active duty battalions. I have read lots of books and watched dozens of movies about frontline fighting in World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan etc. If one reflects on those events and the details described in the depictions one gets a 'feel' for such conflicts. Then there is the operational math like the numbers of artillery rounds fired per square kilometer, troop density and the toll such artillery bombardments will inevitably take.

The Ukrainian soldiers never had a chance to withstand the might of the Russian military. None whatsoever. That was recognizable from the very onset of the war. That the Ukrainian government and its backers tried to withstand the onslaught was illogical.

The 'west' should have given up and make the concessions that Russia had demanded. It will have to make those anyway.

The Ukrainian government has tightly controlled the media and any reporting from the frontline. We have only had Russian reports of high numbers of Ukrainian casualties. Some doubt the numbers the Russians give. I don't. They mostly fit with what I learned and with calculations.

Now a Washington Post reporter got access to hospitals where wounded Ukrainian soldiers involved in that 'counterattack' try to recover. John Hudson's report is grim even as it is not from the frontline and holds back on the most grievous scenes:

Wounded Ukrainian soldiers reveal steep toll of Kherson offensive

As the piece is behind a paywall I will extensively quote from it:

(Note from Bill — the article is here: https://archive.ph/1l1Zi)

~~~

In dimly lit hospital rooms in southern Ukraine, soldiers with severed limbs, shrapnel wounds, mangled hands and shattered joints recounted the lopsided disadvantages their units faced in the early days of a new offensive to expel Russian forces from the strategic city of Kherson. The soldiers said they lacked the artillery needed to dislodge Russia’s entrenched forces and described a yawning technology gap with their better-equipped adversaries. The interviews provided some of the first direct accounts of a push to retake captured territory that is so sensitive, Ukrainian military commanders have barred reporters from visiting the front lines.
...
“We lost five people for every one they did,” said Ihor, a 30-year-old platoon commander who injured his back when the tank he was riding in crashed into a ditch.
...
Russia’s Orlan drones exposed Ukrainian positions from more than a kilometer above their heads, they said, an altitude that meant they never heard the buzz of the aircraft tracking their movements.

Russian tanks emerged from newly built cement fortifications to blast infantry with large-caliber artillery, the wounded Ukrainian soldiers said. The vehicles would then shrink back beneath the concrete shelters, shielded from mortar and rocket fire.

Counter-battery radar systems automatically detected and located Ukrainians who were targeting the Russians with projectiles, unleashing a barrage of artillery fire in response.

Russian hacking tools hijacked the drones of Ukrainian operators, who saw their aircraft drift away helplessly behind enemy lines.
...
Oleksandr said the Russian artillery fire was relentless. “They were just hitting us all the time,” he said. “If we fire three mortars, they fire 20 in return.”

The Ukrainian soldiers said they had to carefully ration their use of munitions but even when they did fire, they had trouble hitting targets. “When you give the coordinates, it’s supposed to be accurate but it’s not,” he said, noting that his equipment dated back to 1989.
...
Russian electronic warfare also posed a constant threat. Soldiers described ending their shifts and turning on their phones to call or text family members — a decision that immediately drew Russian artillery fire.

“When we turn on mobile phones or radio, they can recognize our presence immediately,” said Denys. “And then the shooting starts.”
...
The Ukrainian claims of retaking villages such as Vysokopillya could not be confirmed, though soldiers interviewed said they were able to advance into some previously Russian-controlled villages. Those soldiers declined to name the villages, citing instructions from their superiors.

A group of Washington Post journalists who traveled within three miles of Vysokopillya, in northern Kherson, on Monday were prevented from entering the village by Ukrainian troops and could not ascertain its status. A local official said Ukrainian and Russian forces were still battling for control.

A clear picture of Ukraine’s losses could not be independently assessed.
...
Denys, sitting upright on his hospital bed, said almost every member of his 120-person unit was injured, though only two were killed.

A 25-year-old soldier being treated for shrapnel wounds said that, within his unit of 100 soldiers, seven were killed and 20 injured. Ihor, the platoon commander, said 16 of the 32 men under his command were injured and one was killed.

Ukraine’s injured soldiers have been spread out to different hospitals across southern Ukraine to free up the main medical facilities near the Kherson region for incoming patients.

~~~

The soldiers in the second 'counteroffensive' attempt southeast of Kharkiv will have a similar fate.

My best guess is that Ukrainian losses are not five but ten times those on the Russian side. An attack, through the open steppe, on an armored force that is technologically superior is a suicide mission.

Russian soldiers are not allowed to carry mobile phones. Why Ukrainian soldiers are allowed to have then and use those is beyond me. Do they want to commit suicide?

Suicide is what European politicians have committed their economies and societies to. Who knew that one needs energy, as cheap as possible, to smelter steel, aluminum and glass?

SGM World News @SGMWorldnews - 10:13 UTC · 7 Sep 2022 BREAKING: 40 CEOs of European metal producers have wrote an open letter to Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission warning of an "existential threat" to industry as power prices surge.

No steel smelter, no taxes from steel smelters and their workers. No steel smelter, no payback of credit given to it. The big banking losses coming now will cause another severe banking crisis. Less money for the state means less pensions and healthcare.

This is ruinous for European states and their inhabitants. Meanwhile the U.S. politicians, neoconservative ideologist and money men behind the whole plan of using the Ukraine against Russia are laughing their asses off.

Tuomas Malinen @mtmalinen - 8:53 UTC · Sep 7, 2022 I am telling you people that the situation in #Europe is much worse than many understand.
We are essentially on the brink of another banking crisis, a collapse of our industrial base and households, and thus on the brink of the collapse of our economies.
We are also totally at the mercy of the authorities, and we have very little knowledge what they have planned.
Will they be able to stop the onset of the banking crisis, yet again? I don't know, but I am doubtful. 🤷‍♂️🤔
...

Germany is probably in the worst situation. Chancellor Olaf Scholz reacted to the Russia military operation with hysterical moralizing that was beyond any rationality. His government depends on the Green politicians in his cabinet. These are pigheaded ideological nuts.

Germany, under severe threat of blackouts, will now decommission three perfectly fine nuclear power plants and restart dirty old coal fired power plants that were supposed to be dismantled. How Green is that?

Here is the how the president of Russia is seeing it:

Europe is about to throw its achievements in building up its manufacturing capability, the quality of life of its people and socioeconomic stability into the sanctions furnace, depleting its potential, as directed by Washington for the sake of the infamous Euro-Atlantic unity. In fact, this amounts to sacrifices in the name of preserving the dominance of the United States in global affairs.
...
The competitive ability of European companies is in decline, for the EU officials themselves are essentially cutting them off from affordable commodities and energy, as well as trade markets. It will come as no surprise if eventually the niches currently occupied by European businesses, both on the continent and on the global market in general, will be taken over by their American patrons who know no boundaries or hesitation when it comes to pursuing their interests and achieving their goals.

The next federal elections in Germany are three years away. One really hopes for some kind of coup but I see little movement yet in such a direction.

Where are the rational politicians who can take over?

[Bill Ryan]

Here's the entire Washington Post piece referenced in The Moon of Alabama's article above. (Of course, it's very anti-Russia. But the personal stories told will be real.)

• https://archive.ph/1l1Zi

Wounded Ukrainian soldiers reveal steep toll of Kherson offensive


A Ukrainian soldier wounded during early fighting in the new offensive in the Kherson region is cared for at a medical facility in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces are pushing to retake territory occupied by Russia.

In dimly lit hospital rooms in southern Ukraine, soldiers with severed limbs, shrapnel wounds, mangled hands and shattered joints recounted the lopsided disadvantages their units faced in the early days of a new offensive to expel Russian forces from the strategic city of Kherson.

The soldiers said they lacked the artillery needed to dislodge Russia’s entrenched forces and described a yawning technology gap with their better-equipped adversaries.

The interviews provided some of the first direct accounts of a push to retake captured territory that is so sensitive, Ukrainian military commanders have barred reporters from visiting the front lines.

“They used everything on us,” said Denys, a 33-year-old Ukrainian soldier whose unit fell back from a Russian-held village after a lengthy barrage of cluster bombs, phosphorous munitions and mortars. “Who can survive an attack for five hours like that?” he said.

Denys and eight other Ukrainian soldiers from seven different units provided rare descriptions of the Kherson counteroffensive in the south, the most ambitious military operation by Kyiv since the expulsion of Russian forces at the perimeter of the capital in the spring. As in the battle for Kyiv, Ukraine’s success is hardly assured and the soldiers’ accounts signaled that a long fight, and many more casualties, lie ahead.


Ihor, a 30-year-old Ukrainian platoon commander, injured his back when the tank he was riding in crashed into a ditch. He is being cared for in a medical facility in southern Ukraine.

“We lost five people for every one they did,” said Ihor, a 30-year-old platoon commander who injured his back when the tank he was riding in crashed into a ditch.

Ihor had no military experience before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. He made a living selling animal feed to pig and cow farms. His replacement as platoon commander also has no previous military experience, he said.

The soldiers were interviewed on gurneys and wheelchairs as they recovered from injuries sustained in last week’s offensive. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid disciplinary action. Others, like Denys and Ihor, agreed to reveal only their first names. But most spoke plainly about the disadvantages they faced.

Russia’s Orlan drones exposed Ukrainian positions from more than a kilometer above their heads, they said, an altitude that meant they never heard the buzz of the aircraft tracking their movements.


A wounded Ukrainian soldier, Serhii, 30, at a medical facility in southern Ukraine.


Serhii was shot in the knee while fighting in Ukraine's new offensive to retake occupied territory in Kherson.

Russian tanks emerged from newly built cement fortifications to blast infantry with large-caliber artillery, the wounded Ukrainian soldiers said. The vehicles would then shrink back beneath the concrete shelters, shielded from mortar and rocket fire.

Counter-battery radar systems automatically detected and located Ukrainians who were targeting the Russians with projectiles, unleashing a barrage of artillery fire in response.

Russian hacking tools hijacked the drones of Ukrainian operators, who saw their aircraft drift away helplessly behind enemy lines.

Ukraine has discouraged coverage of the offensive, resulting in an information lag on a potentially pivotal inflection point in the nearly seven-month conflict.

When Ihor fired on Russian soldiers with his Kalashnikov rifle this week, he said, it was his first time shooting at a human being. “You don’t think about anything,” he said. “You understand, if you don’t do it, they will do it.”

Despite the challenges, Ihor said he is eager to return to the front line as soon as he heals. “My people are there. How can I leave them?” he said.

Other soldiers won’t be returning to the battlefield.

Oleksandr, a 28-year-old former construction worker, lost his arm in a mortar blast during the counteroffensive last week. He winced with phantom pain in his hospital bed on Sunday, saying he felt a sting from the fingers and hand that were no longer connected to his body.


Oleksandr, a 28-year-old Ukrainian soldier, lost his arm while fighting Russian forces occupying Kherson, which is part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's coveted “land bridge” to Crimea

Oleksandr said the Russian artillery fire was relentless. “They were just hitting us all the time,” he said. “If we fire three mortars, they fire 20 in return.”

The Ukrainian soldiers said they had to carefully ration their use of munitions but even when they did fire, they had trouble hitting targets. “When you give the coordinates, it’s supposed to be accurate but it’s not,” he said, noting that his equipment dated back to 1989.

Oleksandr had never traveled to Kherson before the war, but he said the goal of expelling Russian invaders was worth sacrificing a limb. “It’s our country,” he said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine’s forces retook two villages in the Kherson region, and one of his aides posted an image of the Ukrainian flag being hoisted over the village of Vysokopillya over the weekend.

“Ukrainian flags are returning to the places where they should be,” Zelensky said in a video address. But it was impossible to gauge what progress Ukrainian forces have made in their push to expel the Russian invaders from Kherson.

The region, which was captured by Russia earlier in the war forms a crucial part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s coveted “land bridge” to Crimea, the peninsula that Russia invaded and annexed in violation of international law in 2014.


Petro, 30, is one of many Ukrainian soldiers now being treated at medical facilities in southern Ukraine as casualties mount in Ukraine's offensive to retake Kherson.

However bloody the fight, the Ukrainian soldiers said they saw no alternative.

“If we don’t stop them, they’re going to just rape and murder our people like they did everywhere else,” said Oleksandr’s roommate in the hospital, a 49-year-old conscripted soldier who asked to be called by his nickname, “Pinochet.”

Pinochet said his knee was shattered by shrapnel from a mortar that was fired after a drone spotted him in last week’s counteroffensive. He said that while Ukrainian casualties are significant, the side that wages an offensive always loses more soldiers.

“There’s nothing we can do about it,” Pinochet said. “And we can still win.”

Russian electronic warfare also posed a constant threat. Soldiers described ending their shifts and turning on their phones to call or text family members — a decision that immediately drew Russian artillery fire.

“When we turn on mobile phones or radio, they can recognize our presence immediately,” said Denys. “And then the shooting starts.”

Despite the ban on media visits to the front line, there were signs that Russia’s grip on Kherson might be loosening.

In a statement on Monday, a Kremlin-backed occupation authority said that plans for a staged referendum in the Kherson region, a precursor to Russian annexation, were put on hold due to security issues. The Russian statement was later walked back, but it gave the Ukrainians optimism and suggested that, at the least, the counteroffensive was causing some disarray for the Russians.

Kyiv is hoping that the Kherson counteroffensive will boost national morale and demonstrate to Western governments that their billions of dollars in economic and military assistance is paying off, even as sanctions against Russia have raised energy prices and inflation and raised fears of an even more expensive winter.

The Ukrainian claims of retaking villages such as Vysokopillya could not be confirmed, though soldiers interviewed said they were able to advance into some previously Russian-controlled villages. Those soldiers declined to name the villages, citing instructions from their superiors.

A group of Washington Post journalists who traveled within three miles of Vysokopillya, in northern Kherson, on Monday were prevented from entering the village by Ukrainian troops and could not ascertain its status. A local official said Ukrainian and Russian forces were still battling for control.


Ukrainian soldier Ruslan, 30, was wounded while fighting in Kherson.


Russian forces have repeatedly targeted hospitals and medical facilities like this one in southern Ukraine, where Ruslan was treated for battlefield injuries.

A clear picture of Ukraine’s losses could not be independently assessed.

Denys, sitting upright on his hospital bed, said almost every member of his 120-person unit was injured, though only two were killed.

A 25-year-old soldier being treated for shrapnel wounds said that, within his unit of 100 soldiers, seven were killed and 20 injured. Ihor, the platoon commander, said 16 of the 32 men under his command were injured and one was killed.

Ukraine’s injured soldiers have been spread out to different hospitals across southern Ukraine to free up the main medical facilities near the Kherson region for incoming patients.

On Sunday, a hospital in Mykolaiv, a city near Kherson, came under Russian shelling. The facility’s pediatric clinic was so badly damaged it was no longer functional.

When it comes to casualties, Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said Ukraine must make sure it retains a fighting force large enough to fend off Russian advances in the east, given Moscow’s far larger armed forces.

“If they’re taking heavy casualties and it continues for a long period of time, it can be a problem,” Lee said.

Ukraine’s reliance on inexperienced soldiers is also a vulnerability but not one that is exclusive to its forces.

At the start of the conflict, Russia and Ukraine fought with professional military units. After suffering heavy losses in the eastern Donbas region, each side began deploying volunteer or reservist units with less experience.

The Kherson counteroffensive is now testing Ukraine’s forces in new ways, Lee said.

Ukrainian soldiers who faced off with Russians over the last few months gained new battlefield acumen “but much of that experience likely involved holding defensive positions,” he said. “Conducting offensive operations is far more difficult, and it takes time and training.”


Oleh, a Ukrainian soldier who was being treated for injuries in southern Ukraine, rescued a kitten from the front.

The flurry of action at the hospitals made clear the soldiers weren’t in the fight alone. Doctors, nurses and hospital staff worked around-the-clock to provide care for the large influx of wounded troops. One nurse snuck a kitten into the trauma unit for a soldier named Oleh, who rescued the feline from the front lines after its mother was killed by shrapnel.

Volunteers brought toiletries, including toothbrushes and deodorant, and bags of new clothes for the soldiers to wear after physicians used scissors to cut through their shirts and pants to expose their wounds.

Each soldier said it was impossible to predict when Kherson might be liberated, and many said it would depend on when the Ukrainians receive enough artillery from allies.

When one soldier appeared uncertain if the counteroffensive would be worth the toll it has taken, Oleksandr, who has cultivated a reputation as the “hospital comedian,” said it was important to maintain a positive attitude.

“You have to make jokes to keep your spirits up. We can have this outlook because we’re Ukrainians,” he said. “We’re kind if you don’t touch us.”

[Mashika]

The hypocrisy of the west doesn't go unnoticed, and it's now exposed at world level events

https://t.me/SputnikInt/20373


https://t.me/antinatocoalition/957


ETA:

I forgot the land of the free, where free speech is a most important right, had censured all Russian official media so that they could control their false/nasty narrative

Here's the video of Putin i posted above, which is censured all over the 'free world'

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dZeHJ19kIIY

And remember, according to how the US acts and deals with the Donbass situation, Texas should never had been allowed to join the US and should be immediately returned to Mexico. That's how dumb and illiterate the US government acts and reasons

[Mashika]

It's actually funny to think about it, i live in 'one of the most repressive nations in the world, controlled by a totalitarian government who doesn't allow free speech and very little human rights, and at the top there's a dictator killing civilians left and right and invading countries every other week/month'

Yet i can see/read/watch/listen to media from all over the world without any limitation, and people in the west are forbidden to do the same, they just have been told not to and measures were taken to enforce it (yet we are totalitarian lol)

And second, now it turns out that if you dare to heat your home you may face fines and even jail. And you can go to jail too for pro-Russian views, and get cancelled and lose your means of life as well. Even your life can be at risk if you show you are anti-nazi now

Talk about totalitarianism

[shaberon]

Posted by Mashika (here)
Yet i can see/read/watch/listen to media from all over the world without any limitation, and people in the west are forbidden to do the same, they just have been told not to and measures were taken to enforce it (yet we are totalitarian lol)

Talk about totalitarianism

I will.

It "was" totalitarian in the days of Hard Kill Communism. You seem weird, you are shot. Oh, this still goes on some places. Not so much in post-Soviet Russia. Here, they always used to wave the flag of how evil that stuff was.


Russia broke free, is now more similar to the White Army than to Bolsheviks. No, you can't easily get rid of every single possible Atlanticist, but the grip is gone.


We did not break free. We are in Soft Kill Communism. Or Totalitarian Democracy.

To include Covid or almost anything you want.


I consider myself in an existential struggle against the same thing that Russia found.

It is so bad, I am not sure English is salvageable. We might ought to annihilate this culture without any trace. After going around trying to un-Kurd or un-Welsh or erase whoever's identity, just can the English.


Putin said we were just isolating ourselves. India is glad to gobble up any surplus energy that might happen to be for sale. How can a bunch of moronic English speakers expect to keep up with Russians and Indians? Not without guns and force. Oh, we are twenty years behind the arms race now. Can't hit a military target with HIMARS, but it can threaten more people than a pistol does.


I just want to chime in that I finally heard of a high level suicide. The CEO of Bed, Bath, and Beyond jumped off a building in Tribeca. Inspiration for us all. That sort of explains "Germany", whatever that may be, or maybe the Green Party while forcing it to run on coal.

I would suggest to Germans to revert to Bavarians and Thuringians and so on. How is that federal union helping you?

Oh--"incompetence is rewarded".

The last great, really big, sole power in Europe was.

Source of any major world religion? Nope.

I think it has a high pedigree in Deceit. But that is just what it does. They are stupid and they suck at it.

The problem here is pulling everyone off the farms. When I was in school, you could quit at fourteen for farm work. But now it is Agri-businesses. These are the things we need not.

A transportation system, yes, I am a huge fan of out-of-season apples from Argentina. But not the totalitarian systems of exploiting labor by capital. Our recent analysis of inflation showed:

8% due to increased wages/payroll

58% due to corporate profits (unprecedented by a factor of ten or more)


And if you read into the markets then you see the "cash slush" between the Fed and then of course the frauds of Covid vaccines and weapons for Ukraine, etc., that is about cash. Control of energy and "stuff" is kind of in another realm which most of us pay relatively little attention to. Wade Frazier's thread is good on this.

The shell game that can go on during "crises" such as Covid and Ukraine draws massive suspicions, but the dirty facts are being shoved under our noses basically as they happen.


That is what amazes me. No, we are not under some kind of restrictions that tells us what to say or do or not. It is more like hypnotism and I am walking around a school of goldfish. Orwell predicted that you would just keep quiet because every opinion would be despised by one's peers. My grandfather just told me "you won't even be able to talk to each other". That is more accurate than anything else.

I have not heard anything more about western companies owning more than half, like 60 million hectares of Ukrainian agricultural land. We heard it second hand. I don't believe much unless there are actual source documents showing transactions or ownership, etc., so I don't know. But if so then that is probably extremely significant.

Russia simply does not allow weird lab stuff in agriculture.

If you want to know, this started ca. 1890 with hybrid tomatoes.

When you re-grow these hybrids from their own seed, only about 30% come up the way it is supposed to be. That means you have to get a fresh batch of newly-hybridized seed from a company every year.

Theft in progress, dependency inserted.

We have articles about some inspectors going in to Iraqi vaults to seize heirloom grains native to Mesopotamia for ages. Iraq understood what was at stake, and they lost it.


The way I see it is that Russia wants agriculture at a certain standard that does not defray into insanity, is closer to organic, and Ukraine just wants the most money per limited resources.

Everything about population control or de-population flows through this.


It shows great vigilance to realize that there are parts of "progress" that must be rebuked.

[9ideon]

Posted by Mashika (here)
It's actually funny to think about it, i live in 'one of the most repressive nations in the world, controlled by a totalitarian government who doesn't allow free speech and very little human rights, and at the top there's a dictator killing civilians left and right and invading countries every other week/month'

Yet i can see/read/watch/listen to media from all over the world without any limitation, and people in the west are forbidden to do the same, they just have been told not to and measures were taken to enforce it (yet we are totalitarian lol)

And second, now it turns out that if you dare to heat your home you may face fines and even jail. And you can go to jail too for pro-Russian views, and get cancelled and lose your means of life as well. Even your life can be at risk if you show you are anti-nazi now

Talk about totalitarianism

It is becoming dangerous to talk about Russia these days. My confused fellow country people are being bombarded with lies and half truths all the time.

Look at this teletext news by the fearless Nos.



How they are spinning it is that Russia is shelling Nikopol (true) which is insinuated as shelling the nuke plant, they do not say it directly, but are definitively implying it. See translation.

The Ukrainian city of Nikopol, near the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, has again been under fire. The governor reports that the city has been hit by Russian
rockets and heavy artillery.

Obviously Putin is also waging a war on the People through his energy shenanigans and we are all in it together (?!?!). Feckers.

There's no coverage on the protests, not the ones in Holland and not the ones in other parts of Europe and the World. They are talking about a permanent Corona Law and mandatory vaccinations, instead of this illegal govt stepping down, they are doubling down and are going to introduce totalitarian laws with the help of the corona scare. People here are so badly informed on events across the Globe they're actually forlorn to Humanity, I cannot see this change. There's always an unless though, I just leave it at that.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mashika (here)
The hypocrisy of the west doesn't go unnoticed, and it's now exposed at world level events

https://t.me/SputnikInt/20373


https://t.me/antinatocoalition/957


ETA:

I forgot the land of the free, where free speech is a most important right, had censured all Russian official media so that they could control their false/nasty narrative

Here's the video of Putin i posted above, which is censured all over the 'free world'

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dZeHJ19kIIY

Yes, it was a major event. I don't have the official Russian transcript (though it can probably be found quite easily), but here are some interesting extracts, with commentary, from Clayton and Natali Morris at Redacted. There's a very long half hour video intro, so start in at 39:55.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J3dziCeR9z8

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mashika (here)
It's actually funny to think about it, i live in 'one of the most repressive nations in the world, controlled by a totalitarian government who doesn't allow free speech and very little human rights, and at the top there's a dictator killing civilians left and right and invading countries every other week/month'

Yet i can see/read/watch/listen to media from all over the world without any limitation, and people in the west are forbidden to do the same, they just have been told not to and measures were taken to enforce it (yet we are totalitarian lol)

And second, now it turns out that if you dare to heat your home you may face fines and even jail. And you can go to jail too for pro-Russian views, and get cancelled and lose your means of life as well. Even your life can be at risk if you show you are anti-nazi now

Talk about totalitarianism

And Russia has hot water, too.

https://twitter.com/fabushka_/status...15097437769729

[Tintin]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Mashika (here)
The hypocrisy of the west doesn't go unnoticed, and it's now exposed at world level events

https://t.me/SputnikInt/20373


https://t.me/antinatocoalition/957


ETA:

I forgot the land of the free, where free speech is a most important right, had censured all Russian official media so that they could control their false/nasty narrative

Here's the video of Putin i posted above, which is censured all over the 'free world'

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dZeHJ19kIIY

Yes, it was a major event. I don't have the official Russian transcript (though it can probably be found quite easily), but here are some interesting extracts, with commentary, from Clayton and Natali Morris at Redacted. There's a very long half hour video intro, so start in at 39:55.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=J3dziCeR9z8

The full (?) transcript of Vladimir Putin's address can be viewed here: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69299:

It's claimed that these are excerpts (again) but it's very long and feels like it may be the whole thing (I haven't seen the video yet).

[Tintin]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Mashika (here)
It's actually funny to think about it, i live in 'one of the most repressive nations in the world, controlled by a totalitarian government who doesn't allow free speech and very little human rights, and at the top there's a dictator killing civilians left and right and invading countries every other week/month'

Yet i can see/read/watch/listen to media from all over the world without any limitation, and people in the west are forbidden to do the same, they just have been told not to and measures were taken to enforce it (yet we are totalitarian lol)

And second, now it turns out that if you dare to heat your home you may face fines and even jail. And you can go to jail too for pro-Russian views, and get cancelled and lose your means of life as well. Even your life can be at risk if you show you are anti-nazi now

Talk about totalitarianism

And Russia has hot water, too.

https://twitter.com/fabushka_/status...15097437769729

Yes, indeed.

Gonzalo Lira linked this on Twitter too and one had to chuckle, a lot

[Isserley]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
And Russia has hot water, too.

https://twitter.com/fabushka_/status...15097437769729

Again me not liking what i see here. It's really not that funny. Enjoying someone else's misfortune and remember - that misfortune will not happen to Ursula von der Lyer, Biden, Macaron or their families but to me and other average people.. Even those people you consider blind sheep who only believe the official narrative are not to be blamed entirely bacause as Norman wrote in Reversing The Spell thread:

I'm beginning to think that part of reversing any spell there ( and I'm sure there IS at least one ) is going to have to be a screening/blocking of technologically generated influence-at-a-distance.
In comically simple language, we need tin foil hats first before we can really get our true selves back into the reasoning and thinking arena of solving the problem.

At this point, I really don't think there is any remote place on the planet to run to where we can escape it. It's almost certainly coming at us from satellites above our heads

So Bill maybe you'll need hot water tour as well.. (I really don't wish that on anyone)

[kfm27917]

Some *very* basic stuff about Russian defenses in the SMO


Yesterday I posted a short SITREP about the Ukrainian offensive on Balakleia. And, sure enough, there are 72 comments on this already! Many of them show a total misunderstanding of the nature of the SMO (it was a mistake for me to post a map which, obviously, most people cannot make sense of!).

So all I propose to do today is to explain something really basic about the concept of defense (in reality defensive operations are much more complex!).

First, this how Hollywood and the mainstream media present defense: you stand and fight, and if the enemy overruns your defensive position, you lost.

The reality could not be further from this silly notion.

For one thing, the USA never fought a real war, nevermind a defensive one. As for the Europeans, they are used to the kind of terrain you would have in central Europe, i.e. a terrain with a lot of geographical and topological features which favor a dug in static defense. For example, I did my basic training in an electronic warfare unit which was mostly deployed in the Swiss mountains and I can tell you that a single mountain infantry company (in some extreme cases even a well prepared platoon!) can fully lock a narrow valley or a pass against an entire mechanized/armored battalion (especially if that mountain infantry is supported by well concealed – mountains are ideal for that – and powerful long range artillery!). Much of Europe is what is called “mixed terrain” that is to say a mix of fields, forests, small town and villages, many rivers (often with steep banks and rapid currents), bigger and stronger regional towns, etc. etc. etc. In that terrain you are naturally inclined to make the best use of these features and hold on to good defensive positions. In fact, in this kind of terrain it is often impossible to deploy a full mechanized/tank brigade or division (they are too big!) and you are simply forced to fight mostly infantry battles with smaller subunits.

The Ukraine is totally different. The eastern Ukraine, the Donbass, has a lot of small towns, and this is why the Ukrainians dug in and hold towns like Avdeevka. However, once you leave that more heavily populated line of towns and villages, you mostly have open steppe with a few rivers and scattered forests, many of them pretty small. This is why only small Ukronazi units can hide in these small forests, their bigger units mostly hide inside towns and cities, basically using the local civilians as “human shields” and since these Nazis hate the local “separs” anyway – they have no illusions about the real sympathies of most Ukrainians in the south and east – they don’t care at all if scores of civilians die in Russian strikes! In fact, in a recent video Gonzalo Lira, who is currently in Kharkov, stated that since most of the anti-Russian locals are under no illusion about the inevitable outcome, they have long left Kharkov, hence the SBU’s “hunt” for “separs” and other “pigdogs” and “biomaterial” amongst the remaining population. Yet another reason for the Russian to go everything humanly possible to avoid civilian casualties!

So in the case of warfare in the Ukraine, I think that it is helpful to think of it as “a land version of a naval battle” which centers not on the control of this or that wave, but on destroying the enemy forces while not getting destroyed yourself.

The next thing which I need to bring up is force concentrations. The war in the Ukraine is more similar to soccer in which attackers and defenders fight each other all over the field than to US football in which there is a clear line of scrimmage and where everything is about “conquering” more terrain or advancing downfield. This means that there are always temporarily unoccupied “grey zones” (think of them as parts of the soccer field which happen to be empty but which could quickly become a “combat area” if a pass is made there and two players will fight each other for control of the ball).

Just these two facts very strongly suggest that a mobile defense is the way to go on such terrain. These are generalizations, of course, but by and large they apply.

Next, when you have enough manpower, you normally would organize your defense into two, more rarely three, defensive echelons so if the enemy breaks through the first line, he is faced with a second line of defense and his flanks are potentially exposed to envelopment from all sides. And just to make sure that your defenses hold, it is recommended to have a reserve force behind the 2nd line of defense ready to “plug” any “holes” and/or to be used in a counter-attack (and if things go well, this reserve for can be used as a maneuver group to counter-attack). With a few crucial exceptions, this is not the case in the Ukraine, especially not for the Russian forces who are roughly at a 1:3 numerical disadvantage. This 1:3 figure is misleading, because it ignores the kind of force ratios which can be achieved locally.

Conversely, the Russians have an advantage in 1) firepower 2) maneuverability (they can move under the protection of Russian airpower and artillery, which the Ukrainians cannot) 3) logistics 4) reach (the Russians can strike even in the far western Ukraine 5) C3ISR 6) morale and 7) training.

There is another rule of thumb which should not be taken as dogma, but which is still helpful to keep in mind: a successful attack often requires a 3:1 advantage for the attacking side. This ratio can go up to 6:1 and even higher in strongly built cities. Since the Russians already have an overall 1:3 DIS-advantage in manpower, it is quite possible that in specific segments of the front, that disadvantage might locally peak at even much worse ratios, yet another argument for the Russians to first grind down Ukronazi forces, if needed by conceding terrain, before engaging in any counter-attack/counter-offensive. And this is why

All these Russian advantages all dictate a flexible, mobile, defensive strategy to counter Ukrainian attacks.

In other words, it would be absolutely INSANE for Russians to try to hold a static defensive line at all cost just to prevent the Ukronazis to claim yet another “immense victory”. So, keeping this in might, let’s revisit the Ukrainian “counter-offensives”, bullet style.

These supposed “counter-offensives” were announced weeks in advance (which the Russians noticed)
Then the Ukrainians began by sustained artillery strikes to weaken the Russian defenses (and, thereby, indicate again to the Russians where they planned to attack).
Then the Ukrainians concentrated large forces (which the Russians saw, of course) and then threw them all into a (relatively) mass assault on what they believed were the weakest spots in the Russian defenses.
This is what happened north of Kherson and this is what is happening just north of Balakleia now. And it will happen again on other parts of the immense frontline. And, each time, the Russians will resist if/when possible, but they will quickly concede terrain and fall back if pressed hard, not only to save Russian lives (why waste them for a few trenches or buildings??) and to “pull in” the Ukrainians into a network of mobile defenses.

So how does a mobile defense work?

Basically, it uses the Russian advantages (firepower, maneuverability, logistics, reach, C3ISR, morale and training) to save as many Russian lives as possible while killing as many Ukrainian soldiers are possible. Why? Because while terrain can always be re-conquered, dead soldiers cannot be resurrected.

So let me repeat this again: the Russians retreating before a determined Ukrainian attack is not the exception in this war, it is the rule. So we should EXPECT the Russians to do that every time the Ukrainians launch a mass assault and sends entire battalions into the Russian meat grinder.

Some have suggested that this is bad tactic since it gives Kiev a good PSYOP/PR opportunity. To this I will reply two things:

Kiev does not need anything anchored in reality to declare “heroic victories”, they can literally take a photo in the “grey zone”, then quickly run away and present that as a huge victory (they did just that a few days ago)
Russian commanders will not sacrifice Russian soldiers for a short lived PR victory. That would be both immoral and totally self-defeating.
Think of the Russian advantages for a second (again: firepower, maneuverability, logistics, reach, C3ISR, morale and training) and realize that they are all dependent on the Russian ability to fight against the Ukronazis with lower manpower which, in turn, should suggest to you that the single most precious element of the Russian warfighting machine is the Russian solider: if the Russians tried to emulate Ukrainian “tactics” (i.e., throwing as much meat in the meatgrinder as available) they would quickly run out of the required manpower which, in turn, would create both military and political problems for the Kremlin.

And now, a flashback of sorts.

Remember when before the Russian SMO many observers including myself said that Russia would not invade the Ukraine simply because the Russians did kind of numbers needed to invade the Ukraine? Well, this was true then and this is STILL true!

The SMO is not a regular combined arms operation and the Russian STILL do not have the kind of manpower to “occupy the Ukraine”. However, what the Russians did is the following:

First, they gave the US/NATO (not the clowns in Kiev) and ultimatum which they knew the West would reject.
Next, they basically destroyed the Ukrainian military as a coherent whole and broke it up into smaller, uncoordinated forces. Oh sure, after a week or so, the Ukrainians still had a few aircraft left, plenty of subunits (brigades and below), some air defenses, etc. but what they lost is the ability to use all these resources as part of a single plan!
Then the Russian began slowly and methodically grinding down the huge Ukrainian force in the Donbass (that is the force whose attack the Russians preempted).
They pushed hard along the coast creating a southern front which the Ukrainians had to protect, tying down Ukrainian forces (which are still terrified by a possible Russian land and amphibious assault towards Nikolaev and Odessa).
And now they are basically waiting for the Ukrainians to come to them instead of going after the Ukrainians. Oh sure, when possible, the Russians will push forward, but they will concede terrain if/when needed.
Which leaves one last parameter: time.

Banderastan is a bloody mess, a failed state, a country 404 which is turning into a horror show run by a mix of local Nazis and US Neocons (what an ugly pair these two make!). Western governments, ALL OF THEM, are in really bad shape, all the western economies have gone over the edge and are now falling into a recession and even into a fullscale de-industrialization. The biggest western power, the USA, is run by a brain-dead old man, a former call-girl and with a Neocon ruling class which is absolutely terrified of the upcoming elections.

In sharp contrast, the Russian economy’s contraction will be in the 2% range by the end of the year, Putin is as popular as ever, as is Mishustin, the vast majority of Russians fully support the SMO and the Russian economy (a real economy, not a FIRE based one!) is flush with money and has the support of most of the planet.

So whose side is time on? I think that the answer is obvious. So the full list of Russian advantages should also include time: firepower, maneuverability, logistics, reach, C3ISR, morale, training and time.

[Sidebar: right now there is still plenty of forest and foliage in the Ukraine, but with the winter coming, this “green” cover will become very thin, making it even harder to hide for the Ukrainian forces! That is also one more reason why the Russians are now mostly waiting]

Remember how “Ze” spoke of a “million soldiers army”? Well, that is nonsense, of course, but it shows one thing:
“Ze” feels that his biggest advantage is to thrown tens and even hundred of thousands of soldiers in suicidal attacks. As for the West, it poured so much money, manpower and hardware into the country 404 that many western leaders now complain that their countries have now compromised their own reserves of weapon systems. The US alone is spending 228 million dollars PER DAY on the Ukrainian fiasco. In sharp contrast, Putin is now openly saying that the SMO has been “beneficial” for Russia!

Apparently, “Ze” and his Neocon masters want to try to “drown the Russian military in Ukrainian blood“. If you sincerely believe that this is a winning strategy, please contact me as I have some super bridges to sell you for very cheap prices :-)

Having said all that, if the next time the Russians retreat for a few kilometers you want to either freak out and declare that “all is lost” or proclaim with great gravitas that “Russia is losing the war”, by all means, feel free to do so. I will just ignore these claims simply because, frankly, I am sick and tired of repeating the same truisms over and over and over again, especially when plenty of “commentators” don’t even bother reading what I wrote, they just want to flood the comments section with their talking points!

If you rather trust Girkin-Strelkov or Arestovich that is fine by me as long as you don’t have to parrot their nonsense in the comments section which I consider as “deliberate pollution of the comments section”. That will get you banned and, once we have the “comments for signed-up commentators only” thing ready, I will simply remove you from the approved list.

Anyway, that is all I had to say for right now. I hope that the above has been helpful (though I am under no illusions: as I said, trolls don’t even bother reading what I write, they just need to populate the comments section with their slogans).

http://thesaker.is/some-very-basic-s...es-in-the-smo/

[kfm27917]

Hi Shaberon:
Just for your info: it was the c F o of Bed, Bath and beyond that jumped.
I guess that leaves some C-class people to suicide !
Always the best to U !
K