WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia

[Ravenlocke]

https://twitter.com/NinaByzantina/st...03557816012800

[shookid]

Posted by Ravenlocke (here)
https://twitter.com/ArthurM40330824/...99466403217408

Big Shot wants to do a lot of things sitting in his comfy chair but wouldn't raise his voice to anyone in person for fear of having the life smacked out of him. These are the people running our affairs, the ones that were stuffed in lockers, had no friends and were uptight assholes. Now is their chance to prove Daddy wrong, that you are not a worthless loser. This was the douche who wrote the letter signed by 51 "Intelligence Officials" stating the Biden laptop was Russian propaganda. OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

[Gwin Ru]

...

... YouTube bans military analyst Scott Ritter

Ilya Tsukanov
Sputnik
Fri, 11 Aug 2023 20:00 UTC

Former United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector on Iraq Scott Ritter talks to readers during the presentation of his book Disarmament Race, dedicated to nuclear security, at the Pobeda Culture and Leisure Centre in Novosibirsk, Russia. © Sputnik/Andrey Bortko

The site has completely scrubbed the channel of the former US intelligence officer, who has repeatedly voiced support for Russia

The veteran former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, UN weapons inspector, geopolitical observer and Sputnik contributor has spent over a year providing incisive commentaries about the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, challenging the Western mainstream narrative and offering his own perspective on the origins of the crisis.

Google-owned video hosting giant YouTube has deleted Scott Ritter's YouTube channel

.A banner reading "This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy prohibiting hate speech" greets anyone trying to navigate to Ritter's channel.

Screenshot of the page you will see if you try to navigate to Scott Ritter's YouTube channel. © Sputnik/Screenshot

The company did not provide any information about the nature of these alleged "multiple or severe violations," or how Ritter's mostly Ukrainian crisis-related commentaries and interviews constituted "hate speech."

YouTube allows for user-based reporting of any alleged "hate speech," prompting concerns from content creators over the years that the video hosting giant lets organized online activists to silence voices and views they might not like or agree with, or which challenge important state and corporate narratives.

Ritter reacts
"There was never any hate speech involved in any of the episodes of The Scott Ritter Show, unless one views unique content from silenced voices hateful," Ritter wrote. "Knowledge is power, ignorance is weakness. YouTube, through its actions, makes America and Americans weak," he added.

Screenshot of Scott Ritter's reaction to the deletion of his YouTube channel. © Twitter / @RealScottRitter

Pointing out that his channel was removed the same day that Ask The Inspector, another of his channels, got scrubbed, Ritter emphasized that "this is a targeted effort by YouTube to remove/minimize my voice, and those of my guests and the people who took the time to ask probing questions about the pressing issues of the day."

Part two of Scott Ritter's reaction to YouTube's decision to deplatform him. © Twitter / @RealScottRitter

"Those who are behind this should know - you won't succeed. There is a vast social media world out there beyond YouTube. And for those voices who still use YouTube as the primary vector to your audience, understand this - conform or perish. If you're doing a geopolitical show, and you're still platformed by YouTube, ask yourself why. And be willing to live with the answer," he added.

Ritter is no stranger to censorship by major online platforms.

Last year, he was suspended from Twitter after calling Joe Biden a "war criminal" and accusing him of "seeking to shift blame for the Bucha murders" on Russia. He was later reinstated, but suspended again after a "test, test, test" tweet stating that "Bucha was a war crime," and that "Ukraine did it." He has since been reinstated again. Ritter has faced a seemingly organized campaign against him on the microblogging platform, with users appealing to the site's owner to have him permanently banned.

SOTT Comment: Apparently Rumble remains a bulwark (for now) for free speech. Ritter's channels are still up here and here.

[ExomatrixTV]

• YouTube Deleted The Scott Ritter Show:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6FLnFYrlC4I

Scott Ritter The Duran Valuetainment PBD Podcast Douglas Macgregor Stephen Gardener Jeffrey Sachs Official John Mearsheimer

[shaberon]

Posted by Ravenlocke (here)
Either we immediately return to our Mother Church, or a catastrophe even worse than the one we have recently faced awaits us.

I'm trying to help him out.

The context of what he is saying is not really aimed at Jews and Muslims. It is at the "strays", that is, the various denominations that call themselves Christian churches. Whether because they are theologically different, or, on a historical basis, most of the conflicts derive from the RCC/C of E/Protestants, which are all deviations. I certainly don't understand how you can take an English interpretation based out of a Latin Bible and even begin to compare it to the original, and in the Orthodox view, this is the worst thing that could possibly happen. Making imitations. That is why their messages are full of language like "come home".

As an outsider--someone who has no credence in Abrahamic tenets at all--it is easy to see and understand this point, as well as to see that the "splinters" do not appear capable of self-examination. In turn, it is hard to foresee that this leads to anything other than the disintegration of "western civilization" built on its "new, improved" ideas. I have not heard a word of justification as to how it might possibly be or work better. Pretension, yes, but not any kind of sustainable defense.

[ExomatrixTV]

• Piers Morgan Gets DISMANTLED Over Ukraine War:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1jq2w0cNp5U

[ExomatrixTV]

• Scott Ritter: GAME OVER ZELENSKY! | MOATS with George Galloway:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gnHHBFiobv4

00:41: 🌍 Scott Ritter discusses potential conflicts in Indonesia, Iran, China, and Niger and expresses concerns about the outcomes.
03:53: 🌍 Scott Ritter discusses conflicts in Africa and the Ukraine war, highlighting the influence of external powers and the shifting dynamics of power.
06:45: 🔍 Scott Ritter discusses the contradictory messages being broadcasted and the reality of the situation in Ukraine.
09:32: 🔍 Concerns about the future of the current leader in Ukraine and its impact on the peace process.
12:41: 😳 Scott Ritter expresses concern about the potential consequences of Ukraine trying to retake Crimea and advocates for a negotiated end to the conflict.
18:13: 🔒 The United States military budget is primarily driven by greed and corruption, rather than national security. Trillions of dollars have been lost and unaccounted for by the Pentagon.
19:13: 💰 Money is being taken from American taxpayers to fund job programs that enhance political viability, and the defense industry prioritizes profit over national security.

[Bill Ryan]

From The Moon of Alabama yesterday:

• https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/0...sive.html#more

Ukraine SitRep: The End of the Counteroffensive

Western media have finally change course. They are now admitting that the much promoted Ukrainian counter-offensive has failed. In fact, the acknowledge that it never had a chance to win in the first place.

The Hill, the Washington Post and CNN now agree that the Ukrainian army will never achieve its aims.

That makes it difficult for the Biden administration to get Congress approval for $24 billion in additional 'aid' to Ukraine. It does not make sense to pay for a cause that is evidently lost.

The Polish President Duda has also acknowledged that the counter-offensive has failed. Relations between Warsaw and Kiev have gotten worse and Polish interests will not allow for more support or active intervention.

Nothing has come from the 'peace conference' which Saudi Arabia arranged on Ukraine's behalf.

Despite the onslaught of bad news the Ukrainian army is still trying to take Russian positions in the south and east of Ukraine. But it simply does not have enough in men and material to break through the lines.

Even if they would manage to get a local breakthrough there are not enough reserves to push for the necessary follow up. Just one of the NATO trained brigades has still been held back. All others have been mauled in their various deployment zones.

In the northeast around Kupyansk the Russians have started their own offensive which has the Ukrainians on the run. Ukraine has ordered the evacuation of the area:

A mandatory evacuation has been ordered for the Ukrainian city of Kupyansk and its surrounding areas, as Russia intensified shelling of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region and claimed to have captured Ukrainian positions near the city on Thursday.

But Kupyansk is a Russian city and people refuse to leave.

The Russian campaign is slowly speeding up. As the Ukrainian Strana.news reports (machine translation):

Also in Ukraine, it is recorded that from Kupyansk to Bakhmut, Russia has increased the number of attacks. "Over the past month, the total number of attacks in the Kupyansk, Limansky and Bakhmut directions has grown significantly. In July, during the week there were 6-6.5 thousand attacks, during the last week-9 thousand attacks, " - said the representative of the National Guard Ruslan Muzychuk.
According to him, the Russian Federation does not experience "shell hunger".
Aviation is also actively used, and over the past few weeks, more than 50 air attacks have been taking place every day, and sometimes more than 80.

That is bad news for the Ukrainian side which lacks the reserves to counter the Russian onslaught. There are also less weapons coming in from the West. F-16 fighter jets will be delayed for another nine months due to training issues. Tanks and other material are in short supply.

Strana also report of an interview with a knowledgeable Ukrainian soldier (machine translation):

Continuing the topic of the situation at the front, an interesting interview was given by a Ukrainian sniper fighting near Bakhmut with the call sign "Grandfather". On the air of political scientist Yuri Romanenko, he was introduced as Konstantin Proshinsky (this is a pseudonym). The fighter spoke in detail about his vision of the situation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Russian army.

1. Mobilization. In his opinion, it is conducted incorrectly. Recruits are sent to the front who have never been trained, and they are often over 50 years old and with a whole bunch of diseases.
...
2. No rotation. The soldier says that "the same brigades" are fighting at the front, and people are not taken out of the front line for six months or more. Whereas by Western standards, they can be kept in a war zone for no more than three months.
...
3. Behavior of mid-and high-level commanders. According to Proshinsky, many of them are trying to arrange a "mini-Stalingrad" on the positions, forcing them to go into frontal assaults on well-fortified Russian positions.
...
4. The Russian Army began to fight better.
...
5. Proshinsky believes that Russia has not yet used much of what it has against Ukraine.

The soldier thinks that the Russians will not move from their positions and that a stalemate peace like in Korea would be the end result.

I believe that to be wrong. Russia's aim is to liberate at least the four regions that it has claimed for itself. For political reasons it can not stop before that is done.

Should the Ukraine continue to fight after that, Russia is likely to set new aims and take more land.

[Tintin]

An interesting short piece of footage filmed by a Ukrainian woman from a café....in Russia, where she can speak her language and eat traditional Ukrainian food, and listen to Ukrainian songs without fear of intimidation or harassment

[Vicus]

The Russians Advanced In Five New Directions. Military Summary For 2023.8.11

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PQVcUyFKmQ0

[Vicus]

Fresh missile attacks on Crimean Bridge foiled, local reports say 12 Aug, 2023

The head of the region Sergey Aksenov has reported that two projectiles have been downed and the key transport infrastructure remains intact



Russian air defenses have shot down two incoming missiles in the vicinity of the Crimean Bridge, the region’s head, Sergey Aksenov, reported on his Telegram channel on Saturday. Photos and videos have been circulating on social media depicting what appears to be several columns of smoke coming from the transport infrastructure.

In his post, Aksenov wrote: “Air defenses have shot down two enemy rockets in the Kerch Strait area.” He added that the “Crimean Bridge has not been damaged,” and called on local residents to remain calm.

Meanwhile, Aksenov’s aide Oleg Kryuchkov, revealed on his Telegram channel that a “smoke screen has been set off by the special services.” He also wrote that the Crimean Bridge would be reopened to vehicles “very soon.”

Later in the day Aksenov issued another message, saying that one more missile had been downed over the Kerch Strait. The official also expressed gratitude to the Russian air defenses for their “professionalism.”

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukraine “attempted to conduct a terrorist strike on the Crimean Bridge using a guided air-defense S-200 missile converted into a strike version” around 1pm Moscow time on August 12.

It said Russian air defenses had “detected the Ukrainian rocket in a timely manner and intercepted it in mid-air.”

The statement added that the foiled missile attack had not caused any casualties or destruction.

Commenting on the latest attempted missile strikes on the Crimean bridge as well as a separate thwarted drone attack on the peninsula early on Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova strongly condemned these “terrorist attacks.”

She went on to stress that despite the bridge being a “purely civilian infrastructure,” it has been attacked repeatedly since last fall.

According to the Russian diplomat, Kiev is targeting the transport artery in retaliation for its faltering counteroffensive, which has so far failed to live up to high expectations.

Zakharova concluded that by engaging in such “barbaric actions,” Ukraine is showing its true face to the international community. The official also warned that Russia would retaliate.

https://www.rt.com/russia/581186-cri...ssiles-downed/

[Vicus]

Ukrainians underprepared by NATO training – report 12 Aug, 2023

The 35-day ‘crash course’ administered by the alliance is geared toward members’ experience in Middle Eastern counterinsurgency


Ukrainian troops training to use German self-propelled anti-aircraft guns © AFP / Sergei Supinsky

Western military instructors are leaving their Ukrainian charges “underprepared” to fight Russia, a Ukrainian Army officer told think tank OpenDemocracy on Wednesday.

‘Dutchman’, a senior intelligence sergeant in Kiev’s 41st Mechanized Brigade, complained that his country’s NATO benefactors simply do not understand the differences between the counterinsurgency wars they have waged in the Middle East in recent decades and the realities of the fighting in Ukraine.

“For the most part, [Western instructors] have fought wars in cities and towns – urban settings,” the officer pointed out, arguing that the NATO commanders’ experience of kicking in doors to hunt “insurgents” in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria was “not really relevant to us.”

NATO commanders typically plan “with a weaker enemy in mind,” he said, confident they can overwhelm their enemies with superior firepower and other technology – a strategy that has failed to dislodge the well-armed Russian military.

Dutchman acknowledged that NATO instructors flying to Ukraine to teach new recruits how to more effectively kill Russians was a violation of the alliance’s “no boots on the ground” policy, which is ostensibly intended to avert a direct clash with Moscow.

“From a legal, regulatory, safety, and permissions perspective, we can’t do [the type of training Ukrainians want], unless we make some fairly serious policy changes,” analyst Nick Reynolds of UK think tank the Royal United Services Institute agreed.

NATO rules aside, the US military has been training Ukrainians locally in offensive tactics since at least 2014. The CIA has trained operatives in Ukraine for decades – long before the 2014 coup that removed democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych from power – and stepped up its presence in 2015, offering weeks-long courses in weapons, intelligence and stay-behind network strategy. While Washington officially categorized these as non-offensive, a former CIA official told Yahoo News a month before Moscow’s military operation began that the US was “training an insurgency,” teaching Ukrainians “to kill Russians.”

https://www.rt.com/news/581194-ukrai...gency-tactics/

[ExomatrixTV]

• THE IRONY

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=c_gE5cdNmEY

[Michel Leclerc]

Meant as a comment on: CIA director Morell laying out plans for Russia, Syria and Iran


Interesting body language, position, facial contortions.

[shaberon]

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)
Meant as a comment on: CIA director Morell laying out plans for Russia, Syria and Iran


Interesting body language, position, facial contortions.

2016--*Former* director.

Remember the "Assad must go" crowd? Any of them still in office??

That plan half worked--at least in Trump's clarification "we're there for the oil".

Now, of course, they have a Russian perma-base and a spate of "rude" incidents between RuAF and various American flying things. In usual terms it would be said "America entered as a co-belligerent with Israel"--which, after all, is an ongoing war. Dr. Assad is pretty nice, in that once having liberated the main arteries of Syrian settlements, he has not turned violent on the Americans or Israelis, and Russia appears to respect this. Physically, they could vaporize the American Al-Tanf in a few hours. Iran could do the same.

One of the few things that has ever surprised me is the Saudi switcheroo. This probably has a lot more to do with the actual state of affairs than any western press dares mention. I guess they don't mind exposing themselves in terms of being ignored in Africa, but, cannot bear to mention how the "Saudi plans" that worked so well for some 200 years have slipped away in the direction of reality.

[Rizotto]

"SECRET Cable Shows Biden State Dept Pressured Pakistan TO REMOVE Khan For CHALLENGING NATO: Report"
(more specifically, Khan wanted to remain neutral regarding the Ukraine conflict, while maintaining communications with Putin)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=H4kbF4mLs7E

[Gwin Ru]

...

... Ukraine War - Fighting is Fierce, But No Movement w/Ray McGovern fmr CIA 22:02

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom

Streamed 26 minutes ago #Ukraine #Putin #Russia

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FYRZLXNX6qQ

[Vicus]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7KZPuvK7Xi0

[Vicus]

‘Dehumanizing Russians’ has backfired – ex-Zelensky aide 13 Aug, 2023

The hateful behavior of “collective Ukrainians” has gifted Russian troops more purpose to fight, Aleksey Arestovich has claimed


A toilet, meant to symbolize alleged looting, is seen on grass outside the closed Russian embassy in Kiev in June, 2022. © AFP / Sergei Supinsky

A general Ukrainian effort to “dehumanize” Russians has become the main “mistake” made by the country in the ongoing conflict, Aleksey Arestovich, a former adviser to President Vladimir Zelensky said on Sunday.

Speaking to journalist Yulia Latynina, Arestovich condemned the systemic efforts to “dehumanize” Russians, stating that the strategy has clearly backfired and purportedly only gave Russian troops more reasons to fight.

“The main thing we did was to allow ourselves to dehumanize the Russians. This is our main mistake. At first we held on and then we delved into all that with pleasure. The collective Ukrainians, I mean. We allowed that to pour into the internet,” Arestovich stated. He added that such behavior gave average mobilized Russians –not professional soldiers– “an excellent motivation to fight.”

The former aide to the Ukrainian president didn’t elaborate on when “collective Ukrainians” had switched from what he called “behaving like a European nation” to “demonizing” Russians, with ordinary citizens in a neighboring state “creating an image of an orc.”

From the early days of the conflict, Ukrainian propaganda has been actively portraying Russian troops as primitive savages who’d never seen basic home appliances, toilets or even paved roads. This disinformation also alleged widespread looting, as well as the torture and rape of Ukrainians. The charges against Russia were amplified by top officials, among them the then-human rights chief Lyudmila Denisova, who ultimately was sacked after most of the rape claims turned out to be fake.

Senior Ukrainian officials have repeatedly made hateful remarks about Russians during and even well before the years of hostilities between the two countries turned to the recent fighting. For instance, Aleksey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, claimed earlier this month that a presence of “humanity” was the key difference between Ukrainians and Russians.

“I’m fine with Asians, but Russians are Asians. They have a completely different culture, vision. Our key difference from them is humanity,” Danilov stated live on Ukrainian TV, which itself became a heavily censored, state-approved “broadcasting marathon” amid the hostilities.

The top presidential aide Mikhail Podoliak has also repeatedly made hostile remarks, claiming that Russians are universally “hated” by Ukrainians, as well as voicing calls on a daily basis to “kill Russians” by the thousands.

Moscow has for years voiced outrage over rampant Russophobia in Ukraine, arguing it has been fostered by Kiev into a state-level policy. Ukraine has passed laws severely restricting the use of the Russian language in education, media, and everyday life, with the situation deteriorating even further after the conflict between the two nations escalated to military action in February 2022.


https://www.rt.com/russia/581214-ukr...ans-backfired/

[Vicus]

‘At the front, you start looking at things differently’: An interview with a Russian conscript fighting Ukraine

How do mobilized soldiers feel about the war, their enemy, and civilian life? 13 Aug, 2023



Almost a year has passed since partial mobilization was announced in Russia. In September of last year, around 300,000 men were called to the front. Although all of them had previously done their army service, they were ordinary workers, office clerks, managers, and businessmen before being conscripted. A soldier with the military call sign ‘Ural’, who used to work in the entertainment industry, was one of the first to receive a military summons.

In an interview with RT, he talked about how he and his fellow soldiers accepted the challenge to take up arms, the difference between conscripts from Russia and Ukraine, what happens to someone who switches from a civilian lifestyle to a military one, and what Russian soldiers are fighting for.

“If they call me up, so be it”
RT: How did you feel when you found out about the mobilization?

Ural: About a week before the mobilization was announced, I started thinking that this might happen soon. Things like changes in legislation, the consideration of draft laws on desertion, etc., naturally gave rise to such thoughts. I immediately thought that this is where things were going.

Of course, I was worried to a certain extent because it was unclear what this would all lead to, how big the mobilization would be. It wasn’t clear whether we were expecting a total mobilization or a partial one, as it turned out to be. I was in a state of uncertainty, so to speak.

RT: How did you react when you received the summons? Did you want to leave Russia in the interim between hearing about the mobilization and receiving the summons?

Ural: Actually, I even had the option to do so, but no, I didn’t leave. As the time of the mobilization announcement approached, I became convinced, “If they call me up, so be it. It means I’m needed. And if I’m not needed, they won’t call me up.” So when the president announced the start of the mobilization, I had already decided “come what may.” On the second day, it turned out that I was drafted into the army.

RT: After all the time you’ve spent at the front, how do you feel about people who decided to leave the country before receiving a summons?

Ural: My attitude is twofold. On the one hand, I understand that everyone chooses their own fate. We’re all adults, and we understand. But, on the other hand, this is a situation where some people were, so to speak, nurtured by their Motherland but chose to simply abandon their country. These people may be considered cosmopolitans to a certain extent. They were not interested in the fate of their country or what would become of it, so they left. It’s their choice.

continue: https://www.rt.com/russia/581056-rus...hting-ukraine/