WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...93488369516544

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...91633275105281

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...85156938366979

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...75538287812608

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...72674370904064

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...75267885129729

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...72544477421569

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...70720152313858

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...74600596627456

[Ravenlocke]

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/0...-lessons-.html

Ukraine - Air Defense Lessons

This is factual:

Patriot Missiles Won’t Save Ukraine - National Interest - May 9, 2023

Patriot systems are limited to pinpoint defense of major assets and are designed to operate in tandem with air defenses engaging targets at higher and lower altitudes. Without these additions, Patriot will have too many threats to engage and the result will either be porous coverage that doesn’t protect its defended assets, or coverage that quickly subsides when Patriot runs out of interceptors.
Moreover, Patriot systems are themselves vulnerable. Operating a Patriot radar system gives away its location, making it an open target for Russian attacks. This means that Patriot is not a one-stop-shop for defending Ukraine’s military assets or its people.

Those facts were proven last night.

War Monitor @WarMonitors - 1:23 UTC · May 16, 2023
⚡️I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but after careful review of this video, it appears that the air defence battery (most likely patriot) tried to save itself, but failed. It most probably got toasted.
Embedded video

Those were expensive two minutes for the 'West':

Fennec_Radar @RadarFennec - 1:45 UTC · May 16, 2023
I counted 30 Patriot PAC-3 MSE launches here.
The FY2024 costs of these per missile is about $$5,275,000
That was $158,250,000 fired in about two minutes. And as we see, the battery or something else likely got blown up. So it failed in its mission.
Embedded video

This though is likely not true. Kinzhals are simply too fast to be hit by any of Ukraine's air defenses:

Defense of Ukraine @DefenceU - 6:40 UTC · May 16, 2023
Last night, russian terrorists attacked Ukraine with:
- 6 Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles
- 9 Kalibr missiles
- 3 ground-launched missiles
- drones

ALL TARGETS SHOT DOWN.
Glory to the Ukrainian Air Forces!
We are grateful to our partner states for strengthening our air defense capabilities.

The casualty numbers in today's clobber report by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation may be a bit exaggerated but the general operational facts are usually true:

The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation launched a combined attack with long-range precision-guided air- and sea-based weapons against the AFU units, as well as depots of ammunition, weapons and military equipment supplied by Western countries.
The goal of the attack has been reached. All the assigned targets have been neutralised.

U.S.-manufactured Patriot surface-to-air missile system has been struck by Kinnzhal hypersonic glide vehicle in Kiev.
...
Fighter Aviation of Russian Aerospace Forces have shot down Su-24 and Su-25 aircraft of Ukrainian Air Force near Varvarovka and Krasnoarmeysk (Donetsk People's Republic).

Air defence forces intercepted seven Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles, three HARM anti-radar missiles and seven HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system projectiles.

Air defence facilities have shot down 22 unmanned aerial vehicles close to Ivanovka and Yevgenovka (Donetsk People's Republic), Topolyovka (Lugansk People's Republic), Inzhenernoye, Blagoveshchenka (Zaporpzhye region), and Krynki (Kherson region).

Ukraine does not have an integrated air defense that can attack all air targets at all levels. Russia though has such an integrated system of systems. It makes for a huge difference.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Then I checked how much they cost: $4 million each. (And each launcher is $10 million.) So 32 missiles all fired in about a minute and a half = $128 million.

That's A HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS.

Seems my cost estimate may have been low.

https://twitter.com/RadarFennec/stat...87607938162690

[Ravenlocke]

Text:
Nice job Wyatt
@DefensePolitics
coining the term "Citadel" for the dense high-rise residential sector in western Bakhmut (along both sides of Levanevskogo st).
We are fast seeing its fall.

It became more recently divided into sections known to us as "Nest", "Constructor" and "Domino".

The first & second are quickly falling (or have fallen), with UA forces retreating to Domino, pressured from RU forces on 3 sides now that fighting has reached the Children's Hospital.

The Citadel turned out not to be able to hold as well as the NW sector of Bakhmut which would allow the former's encirclement. The area around the Olympic school and Post office were fiercely and intelligently defended, and the entire low-lying area was dominated from the high ground in the north and the high rises in the Citadel itself.
(discussed that possibility earlier here:
https://twitter.com/ZimermanErik/sta...47056173031429 & elsewhere, but still advised against it here https://twitter.com/ZimermanErik/sta...93018033491970)

Wagner, now expert in urban combat seems to be able to advance in a dense urban environment with relative ease (under the right conditions of course, not any). Ukrainian forces meanwhile, correctly defended the NW corner with everything they got, and prefer to retreat from areas of the Citadel while they remain unblocked, then remain there while they give ground in the critical NW sector.

However, if UA forces do not leave Domino pretty soon, they will face at least an operational encirclement there as well, as the NW sector including the "last line of defense" is finally collapsing.

https://twitter.com/ZimermanErik/sta...55879769903105

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/Hawkeye1745/stat...23471305531395

https://twitter.com/Hawkeye1745/stat...51193692147716

https://twitter.com/Hawkeye1745/stat...25774011326464

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/st...81763583406083

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/TVajrayana/statu...86390940930048

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/its_maria012/sta...80542759915521

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/its_maria012/sta...84712325533697

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/dana916/status/1658490765532872708

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/mazzenilsson/sta...78146755391488

[Bill Ryan]

A new 30-minute video from The Duran, well worth watching for those who follow their analyses. Alexander Mercouris (who is very grounded, cautious and balanced), usually holds the floor.

But in this update, Alex Christoforou is clearly showing signs of frustration — which I can entirely understand.

They cover the recent gigantic explosion, very likely including a stockpile of UK-donated Depleted Uranium shells, as well as the Pope's visit to Zelensky (OMG ), new weapons supplies, Zelensky's future, behind-the-scenes US political arguments about the war, and much more.

Russia destroys collective west weapons, as Zelensky tours Europe

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

[atman]

Adding to the complexity of the Ukraine/Russia conflict is the fact that Americans, Poles, Ukrainians as well as ethnic separatists of the Russian Federation have long been envisionning and planning the dismantling of Russia into several (and up to 34) separate states.

I just read the French translation of an appendice to the editorial that was published in the February 2023 edition of the Italian magazine of geopolitics LIMES and that talks specifically about that fact.

Here's an English translation of the article (done mostly through DeepL translator — thus not a perfect translation, but close enough):

_____________________________________________

PLANS OF RUSSIA'S DISMANTLING

Several projects aim to dismantle Russia and divide it into several states. These projects, carried out by Poles, Americans and Ukrainians, reflect both a fear of Russia and an expansionist geopolitical vision.

The Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum, a framework for dialogue that brings together the independence demands of ethnic minorities and regional realities in Russia (and their Euro-Atlantic sympathizers—Americans, Poles and Balts), met in the European Parliament on January 31, 2023 for its fifth meeting. The group presented in Brussels its project of "decolonization and reconstruction" of the Russian Federation, sponsored by the Polish component of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR Party).

Anna Fotyga, MEP and former Polish Foreign Minister (Pis, Law and Justice party) who has been involved in the work of the Forum since its inception, reiterated its founding mission:

"As in the case of the German Third Reich, the Russian Federation, as an existential threat to humanity and the international order, should undergo drastic changes. It is naive to think that Russia, after being definitively defeated, will remain within the same constitutional and territorial framework. The international community cannot adopt a comfortable position waiting for developments, but must undertake a (...) re-federalization of the Russian state, taking into account the history of its imperialism and respecting the rights and desires of its constituent nations."1

DISMEMBERING THE FEDERATION

- Among the speakers at the last forum was Polish-American analyst Janusz Bugajski, a former advisor to the Departments of State and Defense, who has been called "the new Brzezinski" without good reason. His latest book, "Failed State. A guide to Russia's Rupture" has found itself in the crosshairs of the Russian press, presented as a breviary of American plans to dismember the Federation by encouraging ethnic separatism.2

- Since its inauguration (on May 8 in Warsaw), the Forum has gained notoriety and membership. The first map produced by the group (published in the 9/22 issue of Limes 3) envisioned an implosion of Russia from which more than thirty different states, delineated along disparate ethnic and cultural lines, would emerge. We reproduce an update here (color map 6): the most important change is the reduction in the size of the Moscow region in favour of new ethnic-national projects.



- For example, some representatives of the Pskov and Tver regions (former principalities not represented in the previous version) as well as the Smolensk/Smaland region announced the birth of the "East Kryvy Platform", a grouping created with the aim of "integrating the peoples of the Great Baltic" and leaning "towards the East European variant of the Euro-Atlantic path, which implies the preservation of the identity and cultural and demographic foundations of countries and peoples."4

- In the new version of the map, the Caucasian republics of Ingushetia, Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria also gain space and specific borders. According to their own authors, this matrix map is open to potentially infinite variations. As long as they serve a single purpose: to imagine "strategies for a controlled, constructive, and nonviolent dismantling of the last colonial empire in Europe."5

UKRAINE'S VISION OF THE DIVISION

- Russian separatists and their Euro-Atlantic mouthpieces are not the only ones engaged in such mapping exercises. On a wall in the office of Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, photographed by journalists during an interview, is the color map 6 b. Drawn in felt-tip pen, Kiev's imagined dividing lines of Russia contest and replace the current federal borders: Japan (Япония) gets the disputed Kuril Islands, Germany (ФРГ) Kaliningrad (Königsberg), Finland (Ф) Karelia, and part of the Russian northwest. China (Китай, to which the letter К corresponds) includes all of Siberia and the Far East.



- In the central part of the current Federation, a "Central Asian Republic" should then be born, under the name of ЦАР (Car). Russia proper, decapitated from its eastern head, is left with the territory marked by the letters РФ (RF). In correspondence with the Caucasus, we read "Ičkerija," the name of the Chechen separatist republic proclaimed in 1991, as well as the territory that the Ukrainian parliament recently recognized as "temporarily occupied" by the Russians,6 which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had already done for the Kuril Islands.7 The territory of the Caucasus is marked with the letters "Ičkerija," which is the name of the Chechen separatist republic proclaimed in 1991. Most importantly, the Ukrainian borders include not only Donbass and Crimea, but also the Kursk, Belgorod and Kuban regions. Budanov was asked whether the map represented Kiev's plans for territorial expansion once the 1991 borders were restored. His answer was cryptic: "Everyone sees what they want to see. Perhaps it is a rough indicator. Or maybe not."8,9

- If the first map divides the body of the Russian Federation along ethnic lines and according to the "indigenous" criterion of historical rights, the second is reminiscent of the projects for the partition of Eurasia into spheres of influence elaborated by a certain strategic current of the American apparatus.10 The first map is a map of the Russian Federation, which is not a map of the Soviet Union. Americans, Poles, Ukrainians and ethnic separatists imagine different geometries of disintegration, depending on their respective geopolitical projections.

But what is most important to note, apart from the plausibility of the scenarios that are envisaged, is precisely the dissemination and growing resonance of such maps, a sign of the recovery of the geographical dimension in the grammar of the powers that be. This return of geographical concerns perhaps also sanctions the obsolescence of the thesis of the end of history.

References/further reading:

0-Link to the original image of the two maps
1- A. Fotyga, "The dissolution of the Russian Federation is far less dangerous than leaving it ruled by criminals," Euractiv, 27/1/2023.
2- Read also: « Russie-Turquie, un défi à l’Occident ? » (Russia - Turkey, a challenge to the West?)
3- V. Nikiforova, "V SŠA obnarodovan plan razrušenija Rossii" ("In the United States was made public the plan to destroy Russia"), Ria Novosti, 9/16/2022; V. Kornilov, "It's time to abandon our illusions, the West is waging a war to destroy Russia," RT, 9/20/2022
4- Vostočno-Krivskaja Platforma, 16/1/2023, http://bit.ly/3DmRKDO.
5- From the Forum's Telegram channel, http://t.me/freenationsrussia.
6- "Ukrainian parliament declares 'Chechen Republic of Ichkeria' Russian-occupied territory," Meduza, 10/18/2022.
7- "Ukraine declares Kuril Islands Russian occupied territory", Meduza, 7/10/2022.
8- "Interv'ju - Kyrylo Budanov: Naši podrazdelenija zajdut v Krym s oružiem v rukakh" ("Interview with Kyrylo Budanov: Our units will enter Crimea armed"), http://liga.net, 26/12/2022.
9- Read also: Russia becoming a diplomatic Gordian knot for China
10- See for example Z. Brzezinski, "A Geostrategy for Eurasia", Foreign Affairs, vol. 76, no. 5, 1997.

[Bruce G Charlton]

I would again like to thank Ravenlocke and Bill for bringing so much to attention on vital emerging news items, about which there is literally zero coverage in the UK media (until, maybe, after media bosses have received instructions on what 'line' to take, on how to filter and invert the narratives).

I so seldom use mainstream media, that I keep forgetting how truly vast is the gulf between what really happens and is important, and what they are propagandizing about.

And this despite that I actually wrote a book about the psychological aspects of the mass media, published a decade ago, and also available free online:

https://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.com/

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/TheIntlMagz/stat...63968178003969

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/Hawkeye1745/stat...16859740643331

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/s...19909859577858

Article here,

https://eisenhowermedianetwork.org/r...ine-war-peace/

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/Daark_web/status...43990206083072

Text:
🇷🇺🇺🇦🇺🇲❗One of the US MIM-104 Patriot air defense systems was probably damaged in a Russian nighttime missile attack on Kiev - CNN.

The American TV channel CNN reports this with reference to an unnamed representative of the US administration. The source said the US is still assessing the extent of the damage to determine whether the air defense system needs to be completely disabled or whether the Ukrainians will repair it on the spot.

IntelSlavaZ

https://twitter.com/dana916/status/1658532095168327680

[Ravenlocke]

Text:
Czech banks close accounts for Russians and Belarusians without warning.

It is reported that at the moment, two banks - Creditas and UniCredit Bank - have confirmed that they are canceling the accounts of Russian and Belarusian citizens. In addition, ČSOB clients also report similar practices.

https://twitter.com/dana916/status/1658554870100639746