Simplicius considers the implications of Russia putting the unelected dictator of the Kiev regime on its wanted list:
The most interesting development surrounds the Kremlin having designated Zelensky himself—as well as several other top Ukrainian officials and generals—as “wanted”, though oddly enough, the precise legal reason is unclear and not listed on the Russian Interior Ministry’s site.
The most immediate repercussions of this are:
- Russia may be sending a signal and setting the groundwork for the revocation of any “peace deals” with Zelensky, as placing him on the wanted list ensures that the Russian state cannot legally parley with a wanted criminal.
- Even more darkly, it potentially sets the stage for Russia to eliminate him following his total loss of legitimacy on May 21st, when the Ukrainian presidential inauguration would have taken place.
As to the first point, there have been a lot of signals from both the West and Ukraine itself about coming back to another ‘negotiations’ within the Istanbul mode, particularly given the upcoming global ‘Peace Summit’ in Switzerland on June 15th. Russia may be sending the West a message that no matter what they come up with during this summit, it will be impossible to treat with a man considered not only illegitimate but even a wanted criminal at the state level.
One of the other interesting things in Simplicius’s article is a reference to Russian prisoners being held by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. First, the prisoner ratio is 3.45:1, which implies that the Ukrainian casualties over the course of the operation have been more than three times that of the Russian forces. Second, and more importantly, only 13.8 percent of the Russian prisoners are actually Russian. 86.2 percent are described as “separatists”, which proves exactly what I have been pointing out from the start: the Russians have been mostly saving their professional military forces for the potential conflict with NATO and relying heavily upon the Novorossiyan militias, with support from the Russian army’s air and artillery, to defeat the Ukrainian armies.
And recall that a fair number of those “Russian” prisoners are quite likely prison-mercenaries from Wagner and the other private companies or Chechen light infantry. In fact, the initial blitz attempt on Kiev had a heavy complement of Chechen fighters, who were ultimately driven back from Bucha.
This suggests that if the Russian generals decide to utilize their own ground forces in one of the expected summer offensives, the results might be considerably more negative for the Kiev regime than is commonly anticipated. Meanwhile, the Russians also appear to be stepping up their warnings to the NATO regimes propping up their Clown World counterpart in Kiev.
A blaze has engulfed a plant in Berlin belonging to German arms manufacturer Diehl, the local fire department has reported. The company produces the IRIS-T air defense system, several units of which the German government has supplied to Ukraine since late 2022.