Tag: Russia

Death of a Patriot

Simplicius analyzes Russia’s recent destruction of at least one Patriot missile battery:

Here’s what is known so far: Russia was said to have conducted a layered, multi-vectored attack which came from various sides including north, east, and south, which included both Geran drones as screening cover, Kalibr missiles, Kh-101s, and finally the Kinzhals. The attack also likely included other cheaper types of drones as decoys to saturate the air defense, and in fact Kiev does attest to that, as in their official ‘shoot down’ graphic they include several drones they comically ID’d as Orlan ‘Supercum’ which was later changed to ‘Supercam’.

First, let’s break down how such an attack happens. Most logically, the cheaper decoy drones are sent in first to see if they can bait out any of the air defense into opening up on them. Kiev would try to use only its less important SHORAD (Short Range AD) systems against them, such as German Gepards and any Tunguskas/Shilkas and such that they might have.

Next would come the cruise missiles in order to bait out the true high value AD that may have held back with the first wave, and which Ukraine’s SHORAD systems may be useless against. Once the Patriot/SAMP-T/Iris-T/NASAMs/Crotale, etc., start opening up on the cruise missiles, Russia will be watching as closely as possible, with a variety of methods, in order to try to identify the air defense positions. I’ll get to those methods a little later.

It should be stated that there are certain positions Russia already knows are likely, and are prefigured into their search matrices. For instance, Mim-104 Patriot system is an extremely complex and large system, you can’t just set it up anywhere, like in the middle of an apartment building courtyard or something like that. These systems not only require a lot of room but also, since they are much less mobile than drivable units like Gepards and such, they are preferably situated somewhere that doesn’t have a lot of civilian ‘eyes’ in the area, so that no one films or rats them out, whether accidentally or not.

This leaves only a few real, solid choices where you can put such a system. And they are almost always put in airports, as an example. It comes as no surprise then that during the attacks on 5/16, word now has it that two of the Patriots were located at Zhuliany airport in Kiev and one at or near the Zoo.

Coordinates: 50.452699, 30.459805

As for the airfield “Zhulyany”, footage from the surveillance camera got into the Network. In the video, you can clearly see the launches of 32 missiles (a total of 16 for each launcher), as well as the work of barreled anti-aircraft artillery – apparently, the Patriots were covered by the Gepard.

After the ammunition load was used up, an explosion was heard: the Russian “Kinzal” managed to hit the positional area, despite “Patriots” and one “Gepard”. One was destroyed, the second was seriously damaged, but survived. The third launcher escaped damage.

Anatomy of MIM-104 Patriot Destruction, Simplicius, 18 May 2023

If it hasn’t become clear by now, the reason Russia and China are refusing to take the offensive is because the NATO forces, which chiefly consist of the US military and its resources, are being rapidly and irreparably drained in the current environment. There is, therefore, no reason to take an aggressive stance so long as the NATO forces are throwing themselves into the vortex of assured destrucution.

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Clown World Incoherence

A longtime opinion-leading clown performs a 180 on Ukraine’s membership in NATO:

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger has signalled a U-turn in his views on Ukraine’s prospective NATO membership. The veteran politician told The Economist that he now believes peace in Europe cannot be achieved without Ukraine joining the US-led military bloc.

Last fall, Kissinger insisted that “it was not a wise American policy to attempt to include Ukraine into NATO.” He said the bloc’s eastward expansion since the fall of Soviet Union in 1991 had essentially removed Russia’s historic “safety belt,” but insisted that was no justification for Russia’s “surprise attack” on Ukraine.

However, in his interview on Wednesday with the British outlet, the politician, who turns 100 on May 27, suggested that “for the safety of Europe, it is better to have Ukraine in NATO.” He acknowledged that he currently finds himself “in the weird position that people say, ‘Look at him, he’s changed his mind. Now he’s for membership of Ukraine in NATO.’”

The reason for such shift is “twofold,” Kissinger said. “One, Russia is no longer the conventional threat it used to be. And, secondly, we have now armed Ukraine to a point where it will be the best-armed, most modern country and with the least experienced leadership in Europe,” he explained.

Translation: Kissinger has gotten the message that Clown World has gone all-in on Ukraine. They believe their Clown World Order will fall anyhow if Russia defeats Ukraine, so they might as well take the risk of direct conflict and an open Russia-NATO war. Because NATO is no longer anything more than Globohomo’s Rainbou Army.

Clown intellectuals like Kissinger, Kagan, and Kristol never “change their minds” in response to changing circumstances. Notice that none of the negative points upon which Kissinger based his previous opinion have changed. What they do is their masters’ tea leaves and adjust their public narrative accordingly.

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The Treason Interview

The Washington Post omitted significant sections of its recent interview with Vladimir Zelensky. From Russia Today:

The Washington Post has deleted a large tract of an interview with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in which he lashed out at alleged “traitors” in his ranks. RT is publishing the entire section that the US newspaper would rather keep hidden.

The following section appeared in an interview with the Ukrainian president published on Saturday. By Sunday it had been removed with no explanation. After discussing a trove of recently leaked Pentagon documents, which revealed – among other things – that the US monitors Zelensky’s communications, the newspaper presented him with a fresh allegation that has not yet been reported in the US media.

Note that Evgeny Prigozhin is the founder and head of the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company currently fighting in the Donetsk People’s Republic.

WaPo: The documents indicate that GUR, your intelligence directorate, has back-channel contact with Evgeny Prigozhin that you were aware of, including meeting with Evgeny Prigozhin and GUR officers. Is that true?

Zelensky: This is a matter of [military] intelligence. Do you want me to be convicted of state treason? And so, it’s very interesting, if someone is saying that you have documents, or if someone from our government is speaking about the activities of our intelligence, I would also like to ask you a question: With which sources from Ukraine do you have contact? Who is talking about the activities of our intelligence? Because this is the most severe felony in our country. Which Ukrainians are you talking to?

WaPo: I talked to officials in government, but these documents are not from Ukraine, they are from…

Zelensky: It doesn’t matter where the documents are from. The question is with which Ukrainian official did you talk? Because if they say something about our intelligence, that’s treason. If they say something about a specific offensive plan of one general or another, this is also treason. That’s why I asked you, which Ukrainians are you talking to?

WaPo: About these specific documents? You are the first person I am talking to about them.

Zelensky: Okay.

WaPo: And I can read you what information exactly there is about Prigozhin and the GUR. On February 13, Kirill Budanov, chief of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, informed you about a Russian plan to destabilize Moldova with two former Wagner associates. Budanov informed you that he viewed the Russian scheme as a way to incriminate Prigozhin because “we have dealings” with him. You instructed Budanov to inform Moldovan President Maia Sandu, and Budanov told you that the GUR had informed Prigozhin that he would be labeled a traitor who has been working with Ukraine. The document also says that Budanov expected the Russians to use details of Prigozhin’s secret talks with the GUR and meetings with GUR officers in Africa…

Zelensky: Listen, to be honest, well, you just read something, you say something. I just don’t understand where you get it, whom you talk to and so on. You talk about how I met with Budanov. This suggests that you – how do you put it? It looks like you have people who have some records or you have some evidence or you have something, because that’s what it looks like.

Here are the Zelensky ‘treason’ quotes the Washington Post deleted, Russia Today, 14 May 2023

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Zelensky knows the days of the Kiev regime are numbered. Both the USA and the UK are taking bigger and bolder risks with their anti-Russian activity while the media clowns are cranking their narrative machine up to eight or nine in the hopes that they can somehow alter the situation through their word spells.

And, in the meantime, both China and Russia are saying less and less, even as the Russian Air Force begins to strike more heavily at targets in western Ukraine. It feels as if something has to break soon, but what and when cannot be known with any degree of confidence.

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The Russians Call Out NASA

For decades, Boomers who believe in the Moon landing narrative more firmly than they believe in God, Family, or Country have argued that the landings couldn’t have been faked or the Russians would have called out NASA. But now the former head of the Russian space agency is doing precisely that.

The former head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, has expressed doubt that the US Apollo 11 mission really landed on the Moon in 1969, saying he has yet to see conclusive proof.

In a post on his Telegram channel on Sunday, Rogozin said he began his personal quest for the truth “about ten years ago” when he was still working in the Russian government, and that he grew skeptical about whether the Americans had actually set foot on the Moon when he compared how exhausted Soviet cosmonauts looked upon returning from their flights, and how seemingly unaffected the Apollo 11 crew was by contrast.

Rogozin said he sent requests for evidence to Roscosmos at the time. All he received in response was a book featuring Soviet Cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov’s account of how he talked to the American astronauts and how they told him they had been on the Moon.

The former official wrote that he continued with his efforts when he was appointed head of Roscosmos in 2018. However, according to Rogozin, no evidence was presented to him. Instead, several unnamed academics angrily criticized him for undermining the “sacred cooperation with NASA,” he claimed. The former Roscosmos chief also said he had “received an angry phone call from a top-ranking official” who supposedly accused him of complicating international relations.

Rogozin concluded by saying he still cannot believe that the US was able to pull off the feat, but is now unable to, despite the incredible progress in technology since the late 1960s. What he claims to have found out, however, was that Washington has “its people in [the Russian] establishment.”

Translation: NASA faked major elements of the space program and everyone in a place to know better kept quiet for fear of being targeted by Clown World. But now it is becoming increasingly obvious and the official Moon landing narrative is rapidly crumbling.

I very much doubt this will be the only historical hoax to be exposed by the Russians over the next decade.

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Preparing for Defeat

Clown World’s pet politicians and intellectuals are beginning to change the Narrative and prepare the public for its inevitable defeat in Ukraine.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine may not end in victory for Kiev, and its Western backers should prepare for such an outcome, Czech President Petr Pavel has told The Guardian newspaper.

“I think we should do anything… at our disposal to encourage Ukrainians and to support them to be successful. But internally, we should also be ready for other contingencies,” said Pavel, who was in London for the coronation of King Charles III.

A lot will depend on the outcome of Ukraine’s planned spring counteroffensive, explained the Czech leader, who has a background in intelligence and served as chairman of the NATO Military Committee between 2015 and 2018.

The outcome is not in doubt. While the game still needs to be played out, the Russians are as confident of victory now as they were in 1943, when Stalin, post-Tehran, commented: “Roosevelt has given me his firm word to open extensive actions in France in 1944. I think he will keep his word. And if he doesn’t keep his word, we are strong enough to crush Hitler and Germany on our own.”

Notice that Clown World strategist emeritus, who was among the first clowns to recognize that the neoliberal world order was in decline back in 2014, is now openly predicting a negotiated settlement brokered by the Chinese.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has told CBS News that the conflict in Ukraine may be approaching a turning point, and that Chinese-brokered peace talks could begin by the end of 2023.

“Now that China has entered the negotiation, it will come to a head, I think by the end of the year,” the 99-year-old diplomat told CBS in an interview broadcast on Sunday. By that time, he continued, “we will be talking about negotiating processes and even actual negotiations.”

Kissinger drew the ire of Kiev last year when he suggested that Ukraine should accept a return to the “status quo ante,” or relinquish its territorial claims to Crimea and grant autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, in the name of peace. He has since suggested that these territories become the basis of negotiations after a ceasefire and Russian withdrawal.

I have no doubt that Kissinger is sending a signal to Putin that Clown World is finally willing to compromise, but I am dubious that the Russians – or the Chinese – will be short-sighted enough to settle for what is on offer, given that it is already within their grasp. Putin has openly stated that the Russian objective is not merely the declowning of Ukraine, but of Europe and the West.

And there is no reason for China to encourage a settlement on the Ukraine front when peace there would permit the military forces of Clown World to concentrate on Taiwan. Which is why I anticipate, to the contrary, the opening of a third front somewhere else in the world, most likely either a) the Middle East or b) Africa.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, the clowns in the EU are just digging themselves in deeper:

The European Union is seeking to tighten its economic screws on Russia by sanctioning Chinese companies that conduct trade with Moscow, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

They’ve clearly learned absolutely nothing from the way their anti-Russian sanctions boomeranged on them. And now they’re encouraging the biggest manufacturing country on the planet to remove itself from the shrinking “global” economy.

Watching Clown World try to throw its nonexistent weight around is disturbingly like seeing an obese 50-year-old former cheerleader strutting around in a miniskirt still thinking she’s hot.

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Past as Prelude

One of the great advantages of being conversant with history is the ability to recognize reoccurring patterns and apply one’s knowledge of the events of the past to observe current events in order to successfully anticipate the events of the future.

The great Soviet marshal Zhukov wrote the following in his autobiography concerning the turning point of WWII on the Eastern Front:

The Wehrmacht’s defeats in the summer and autumn of 1943 destroyed whatever was left of the confidence that the satellites of Nazi Germany had in the Hitler regime. The fascist bloc began falling apart. A still more favourable strategic situation developed for the Soviet Armed Forces. And the Supreme Command exploited it skilfully when preparing the 1944 operations.

No longer did Nazi Germany’s allies and the neutral countries believe that Hitler’s regime could escape total defeat. But the main thing was that the elements in Germany which had brought Hitler to power and had supported him in every way during the years that followed, also lost trust in the Nazi leadership. Most Germans began to see that they had been dangerously deluded by the easy victories of the first period of the war, and that Germany could not stand up to the Soviet Armed Forces and the anti-Hitler coalition.

Marshal of Victory, Georgy Zhukov, 1974

One can easily substitute NATO for “the Wehrmacht”, the USA for “Nazi Germany”, the neoliberal rules-based world order for “Hitler regime”, and the G7 for “the fascist bloc”. The failure of US proxy forces in Ukraine, combined with their failures in Syria and Afghanistan, have caused the majority of the world’s nations to lose trust in the leadership of Clown World.

As with the Germans 80 years ago, most people outside of Clown World now recognize that the seemingly inevitable triumph of the neoliberal world order was a delusion based on nothing more than an easy victory over an inept Iraqi army, neoclown influence in the media, and the false economic ideology of cheap credit, free trade, and mass immigration.

What is truly remarkable is the way that these decisive events of 80 years ago took place in precisely the same geographic region as they are taking place today.

The second blow was struck in the Ukraine to the right of the Dnieper. This was an intricate operation and, in fact, consisted of a series of major offensives which were carried out chiefly in February and March 1944 in the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky area and on the Southern Bug. The German troops were routed and flung across the Dniester, and finally all the Ukraine to the right of the Dnieper was liberated. The Soviet troops reached a favourable line for a subsequent advance into Europe’s south-eastern regions, for an offensive on the Balkans against Romania where the fascist Antonescu was still in the saddle, against Horthy Hungary, and other enemy forces. In April and May 1944, the Red Army delivered its third blow in the region of Odessa and in the Crimea. Odessa, Sebastopol, and the Crimean Peninsula were cleared of the enemy.

ibid.

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Anywhere and Anytime

In what can hardly be described as an “assassination attempt”, two drones launched at the Kremlin were shot down by Moscow air defenses this morning. The Russians don’t appear to be particularly worked up over it:

Russia reserves the right to retaliate “anywhere and anytime it deems necessary” in response to the drone attack on President Vladimir Putin’s residence, the Kremlin has said. Officials said two Ukrainian drones attempted to strike the Kremlin early on Wednesday morning, but the raid was thwarted. The president was not hurt in the “terrorist attack,” and the Kremlin complex did not suffer any damage, Putin’s office said.

Russia Today, 3 May 2023

Compare the dry description by Russia Today with the histrionic version that appears in The Daily Mail.

Russia has accused Ukraine of attempting to assassinate Vladimir Putin in a double drone strike on the Kremlin overnight.

Moscow furiously decried the attack as ‘a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the life of the President of the Russian Federation.’

The allegation of the failed assassination attempt was made by the Kremlin today and reported by Russian news agencies.

It said two drones had been used in the alleged attack, but had been disabled by Russian defences. Extraordinary video purportedly showed the moment the drone struck the Kremlin, with flames and smoke seen erupting from the domed roof.

‘Two unmanned vehicles were aimed at the Kremlin… the devices were put out of action,’ Moscow’s statement read. In a chilling threat, Russia made clear it reserved the right to respond to the alleged drone strike.

The Daily Mail, 3 May 2023

Meanwhile, the Kiev regime is drafting men over 60 and forcing them to join the military. From a Ukrainian expat whose father has been drafted:

Other men from my father’s church have also been taken into the military. Men that I grew up around, who have wives and children. One was at an interview to work for the railroad, because they are supposedly exempt from military service due to their contributions. A prerequisite to acquiring the job was to go to a military instillation to provide updated medical information. They took him immediately into service without barely any notice to say goodbye to his wife. Apparently there has been an order put out to basically bring on board as many men into service as possible for a major counter assault. Old men (early 60s) are being taken away from their homes by military police and being put into service because they ignored the draft letters.

Things appear to be coming to a head soon. Considering that neither Napoleon nor Hitler managed to defeat Russia, I wouldn’t bet a wooden nickel on Biden, Zelensky, and Victoria Nuland. I suspect that the main reason Russia continues to bide its time is because the economic war is absolutely ravaging its enemies and steadily improving its relative position.

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With Tongues of Neoclowns

European puppets are speaking words that are literally put into their mouths. Notice the particular choice of language utilized by the EU commissioner that is being specifically criticized by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov:

In a desperate attempt to assert its dominance by punishing the disobedient, the United States has moved to destroy globalization, which for many years it extolled as the greatest good of all mankind.

Now the United States and its allies blacklist anyone who dissents from their “golden billion” and tell the rest of the world, “those who are not with us are against us”.

Yet the “Western minority” has no right to speak for the entire world.

Its “rules-based order” amounts to rejection of sovereign equality, the key principle of the United Nations Charter, as evidenced by European Union commissioner Josep Borrell’s infamous statement about the European “garden” and the “jungle” outside it.

In addition to the string of United States military “adventures” from Yugoslavia and Iraq to Libya, the worst violation of the United Nations Charter was its meddling in the affairs of post-Soviet states,

As examples are the “color revolutions” in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan and the 2014 coup in Kiev.

The garden and the jungle is a geopolitical metaphor popularized by Robert Kagan, the neoclown intellectual who writes deceptive little instructional pamphlets that inform Clown World leaders what rhetoric they should be utilizing and also happens to be married to the notorious neoclown color revolutionary, Victoria Nuland.

While “the rule of the jungle” first appeared in George Bush’s “New World Order” speech in 1991, there is not a single reference to the jungle/garden metaphor in either Present Dangers (2000) or The Return of History and the End of Dreams (2009). But the metaphor is the framework for The Jungle Grows Back (2018), which concludes thusly:

The liberal order is as precarious as it is precious. It is a garden that needs constant tending lest the jungle grow back and engulf us all.

Based on Lavrov’s criticism, the Russians are clearly aware of the servile nature of those who speak with the tongues of neoclowns. And they’re clearly not inclined to accept the imposition of the new narrative upon “the jungle” either.

Moscow will not abide by the “so-called rules” invented and imposed by “certain countries,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, as he delivered a speech at a meeting of Russia’s Council of Legislators in St. Petersburg.

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The War on Clown World

One side bans wickedness. The other side bans any insufficient enthusiasm for wickedness. It’s not really that hard to determine who the good guys are, and who the evil servants of Satan are:

Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor officially approved on Wednesday an expanded set of criteria for what is to be considered ‘LGBTQ propaganda’, which can be grounds to block access to websites.

This comes after the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications issued an order to broaden and specify the definitions of LGBTQ propaganda and pedophilia online.

The new set of norms will come into effect on September 1, and will be valid for the next six years, according to the document, which was published on Russia’s official internet portal of legal information.

Under the order, Roskomnadzor will be authorized to block access to websites that feature content depicting children imitating or taking part in sexual activities, child genitalia in a sexual context, information about obtaining, creating, or sharing child pornography, as well as content aimed at provoking sexual attraction towards children or justifying sexual relations with minors.

In case you don’t understand why I am very, very pleased to be among the Unauthorized, all I can say is that if you’re not persona non grata among the wicked of Clown World, you really need to contemplate whether you are truly on the side of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True or not.

Because Clown World is at war with everything good, everything beautiful, and everything true.

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Who’s Isolating Whom?

The countries that have sanctioned Russia may soon find themselves on the wrong side of the exclusion equation.

The India-based Megh Updates platform, one of the world’s largest online informational platforms in terms of views, has stated that BRICS countries have officially overtaken G7 in share of world PPP GDP, and that this trend can be expected to continue.

The BRICS currently include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, while the G7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the European Union. The BRICS is also expanding – Bangladesh, Egypt and the UAE have all just joined the BRICS New Development Bank, with numerous other countries poised to do the same.

A real shake up is also to be expected these coming days with Mexico, long part of the North American free trade bloc NAFTA (now superseded by the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) agreement) poised to join BRICS. That will be seen as a direct affront to Mexico’s US relations and a sign that global economies, even on America’s border, are having serious doubts about the US ability to trade on fair and equal terms.

The current BRICS five now contribute 31.5% of global GDP, while the G7 share has fallen to 30%. The BRICS is expected to contribute over 50% of global GDP by 2030, with the proposed enlargement almost certainly bringing that forward.

It’s going to be particularly interesting when Mexico and other countries in the Americas agree to host Chinese military bases and Russian missiles. Because, in the aftermath of Ukraine and other imperial engagements, the rest of the world simply isn’t listening to the US narrative anymore.

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