Tag: Russia

Intelligence of Intent

Ukrainian sources are buzzing with what they believe to be the incipient winter offensive by Russia starting within the next ten days.

The Financial Times writes that Kyiv has obtained “very solid intelligence of intent” by Russia to launch a new attack. The Russian offensive will likely aim to capture the entire Donbas region and may begin in the west of Luhansk Oblast, near the cities of Kreminna and Lyman, where Russia has been assembling forces for several weeks.

The Financial Times also notes that Russia is building up its troops in the south of Donetsk Oblast, with additional forces being deployed to villages around occupied Mariupol. According to the Financial Times, Russia’s goal is to launch the offensive before Ukraine receives Western tanks and weapons.

The anonymous Ukrainian military adviser said a renewed Russian attack would probably be spearheaded by elite units.

It appears the “Russia is out of weapons and totally losing” crowd is about to get an object lesson in what the actual Russian army looks like. If the Turkish earthquakes were the unnatural results of a geophysic strike, one assumes that any last Russian doubts about the wisdom of bringing the war in Ukraine to a rapid end have been settled.

Or perhaps this is just more fog of war being spread about by one of Clown World’s leading media organs. We’ll find out soon enough.

UPDATE: The media preparations for the Narrative shift are underway.

Vladimir Putin is about to make shock gains

With Russia back on the offensive after significant Ukrainian combat successes around Kharkiv and Kherson in the second half of 2022, the past few weeks have been the bloodiest so far of an already bloody war, with both sides taking extraordinarily heavy casualties. Expect it to get worse.

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Surrender Means Success

The neocons are still practicing their insane word magic as they try to convince Russia to let them surrender Ukraine without openly admitting that they lost their proxy war on Russia.

David Ignatius has been a career-long mouthpiece for the US State Department. He has just been called in by the current Secretary of State Antony Blinken to convey an urgent new message to President Vladimir Putin, the Security Council, and the General Staff in Moscow.

For the first time since the special military operation began last year, the war party in Washington is offering terms of concession to Russia’s security objectives explicitly and directly, without the Ukrainians in the way.

The terms Blinken has told Ignatius to print appeared in the January 25 edition of the Washington Post.

The territorial concessions Blinken is tabling include Crimea, the Donbass, and the Zaporozhye, Kherson “land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia”. West of the Dnieper River, north around Kharkov, and south around Odessa and Nikolaev, Blinken has tabled for the first time US acceptance of “a demilitarized status” for the Ukraine. Also, US agreement to restrict the deployment of HIMARS, US and NATO infantry fighting vehicles, and the Abrams and Leopard tanks to a point in western Ukraine from which they can “manoeuvre…as a deterrent against future Russian attacks.”

This is an offer for a tradeoff – partition through a demilitarized zone (DMZ) in the east of the Ukraine in exchange for a halt to the planned Russian offensive destroying the fortifications, rail hubs, troop cantonments, and airfields in the west, between the Polish and Romanian borders, Kiev and Lvov, and an outcome Blinken proposes for both sides to call “a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity”.

Also in the proposed Blinken deal there is the offer of a direct US-Russian agreement on “an eventual postwar military balance”; “no World War III”; and no Ukrainian membership of NATO with “security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5.”

Blinken has also told the Washington Post to announce the US will respect “Putin’s tripwire for nuclear escalation”, and accept the Russian “reserve force includ[ing] strategic bombers, certain precision-guided weapons and, of course, tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.”

Russia isn’t going to accept this offer or even use it as a point to begin negotiations, because they already tried negotiating with the West with the Minsk Accords of 2014 and 2015. But, as Angela Merkel and other Western leaders have publicly admitted, the agreements were a sham from the start, and were only intended to buy Ukraine more time to prepare its defenses.

Various Russian leaders have stated that both the USA and Ukraine are “non-agreement capable” and they are absolutely correct to have reached that conclusion, as Clown World’s leading neocons are still making plans to win a war that was not only unwinnable from the start, but has already been lost.

Because what they really need to prepare for is success, you see!

Success. That’s the potential outcome that the United States, Ukraine, allied and partner governments, and private-sector actors must now prepare to confront. Ukraine’s counteroffensives, backed by expanded and accelerated US and allied support, continue to push Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory, although at a reduced rate. These hard-won successes, however, bring with them possible challenges that also must be addressed.

In the short term, there are fresh threats from Moscow—attacks on electricity, water, and heat as winter approaches, sham annexations of occupied territories, mobilizations of new troops, reduced but persistent nuclear risk, and Russian prisoners to manage. Areas that Ukraine has liberated from Russian forces need immediate governance, cleanup, humanitarian assistance, and economic revival. Over the longer term, Ukraine will have to rebuild destroyed infrastructure; institute the economic and political reforms required for European Union (EU) membership; and be capable of ensuring its security.

How exactly to meet these looming challenges while exploiting present and future opportunities?

It is, of course, up to the Ukrainians to determine their priorities and their supporters to assist as much as possible, which is also consistent with US interests. But what’s urgently needed is a four-front, long-haul strategy for helping Ukraine win the war against Russia and the peace that follows—one built to withstand the dramatic developments that are sure to play out over the coming years, not just over the next weeks and months of this rapidly evolving conflict.

Preparing for victory: A long-haul strategy to help Ukraine win the war against Russia—and secure the peace, Atlantic Council, November 30, 2022

This isn’t quite Hitler in the bunker giving orders to nonexistent divisions levels of delusion, but they’re observably on their way. And, of course, the word magic failed. No deals. I find it particularly interesting that they went out of the way to mention Nuland’s name. I think they’re making it clear they know perfectly well who is calling the shots in Washington.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has dismissed proposals issued this week in Washington by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Under Secretary, Victoria Nuland. Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova has confirmed that Russia’s military plan for the Ukraine will not be interrupted or delayed.

Clown World’s desperation is observably increasing, as both China and Russia have gone largely silent. This leads me to suspect that both nations will make their next major moves in concert with each other. Exactly what those will be, we can only offer our best surmises, but it would not be surprising if both Ukraine and Taiwan are entirely lost to Clown World by the end of this year.

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The Saker Closes Shop

It’s a pity, but it’s understandable that the Saker is ending his very valuable blog given that Andrei understands the difficult position he’s likely to be in once WWIII goes hot much better than most. Anyone who followed the site had a much better idea of what was happening in Ukraine, and why it was happening, than everyone getting their news from the various organs of the mainstream media.

  • First, I will shut down the blog no later than at the end of February.
  • Second, for a host of reasons, I cannot transfer the blog to any one person or group of trusted people. This sounds like a great idea until you look at tons of details and it becomes an impossible one.
  • Third, yes, I would like to keep the entire archive of the blog available somewhere on the Internet.
  • Everything I posted on the blog was licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). Which means that ANYBODY can copy and post and even modify ANYTHING I have ever posted. There is no need to ask for permission or get my approval or anything like that.
  • In practical terms this means this: if you can grab it all (or parts) and reposted it elsewhere, anywhere, you will have my eternal gratitude.
  • Furthermore, I personally would prefer that the archive be available on as many sites as possible (for obvious redundancy reasons). I would therefore not agree to grant anybody “exclusive rights” or anything like that.
  • Please notice that while I never monetized the blog, you are not under any obligation to follow my example, but only as long as you don’t claim any exclusive copywrong “rights” or object on anybody else doing the same thing (or not).

I very much appreciate the landmark work that Andrei has done in effectively chronicling the start of World War III since its inception in 2014, and I suspect future historians will find it extremely useful and informative as well. I wish him well in his future endeavors.

And I would encourage the autists and archivists who read this site to download, archive, and publish mirrors of the Saker’s site for future reference. Regardless of whether the future unfolds in the general direction that we envisage or not, they will be an important record of recent historical events.

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When the Plan Fails

A Rand report published in April 2019 laid out US strategy vis-a-vis Russia, which as you can see in hindsight, was followed fairly closely to the letter. Note that “extending” Russia is shorthand for “causing the Russians to overextend and unbalance themselves”.

This report examines a range of possible means to extend Russia. As the 2018 National Defense Strategy recognized, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report examines Russia’s economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then analyzes potential policy options to exploit them — ideologically, economically, geopolitically, and militarily (including air and space, maritime, land, and multidomain options). After describing each measure, this report assesses the associated benefits, costs, and risks, as well as the likelihood that measure could be successfully implemented and actually extend Russia. Most of the steps covered in this report are in some sense escalatory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter-escalation. Some of these policies, however, also might prompt adverse reactions from other U.S. adversaries — most notably, China — that could, in turn, stress the United States. Ultimately, this report concludes that the most attractive U.S. policy options to extend Russia — with the greatest benefits, highest likelihood of success, and least risk — are in the economic domain, featuring a combination of boosting U.S. energy production and sanctions, providing the latter are multilateral. In contrast, geopolitical measures to bait Russia into overextending itself and ideological measures to undermine the regime’s stability carry significant risks. Finally, many military options — including force posture changes and development of new capabilities — could enhance U.S. deterrence and reassure U.S. allies, but only a few are likely to extend Russia, as Moscow is not seeking parity with the United States in most domains.

Key Findings

Russia’s weaknesses lie in the economic domains

  • Russia’s greatest vulnerability, in any competition with the United States, is its economy, which is comparatively small and highly dependent on energy exports.
  • The Russian leadership’s greatest anxiety stems from the stability and durability of the regime.

The most promising measures to stress Russia are in the realms of energy production and international pressure

  • Continuing to expand U.S. energy production in all forms, including renewables, and encouraging other countries to do the same would maximize pressure on Russia’s export receipts and thus on its national and defense budgets. Alone among the many measures looked at in this report, this one comes with the least cost or risk.
  • Sanctions can also limit Russia’s economic potential. To be effective, however, these need to be multilateral, involving (at a minimum) the European Union, which is Russia’s largest customer and greatest source of technology and capital, larger in all these respects than the United States.

Geopolitical measures to bait Russia into overextending itself are likely impractical, or they risk second-order consequences

  • Many geopolitical measures would force the United States to operate in areas that are closer to Russia and where it is thus cheaper and easier for Russia than the United States to exert influence.

Ideological measures to undermine the regime’s stability carry significant risks of counter escalation

  • Many military options — including force posture changes and development of new capabilities — could enhance U.S. deterrence and reassure U.S. allies, but only a few are likely to extend Russia, as Moscow is not seeking parity with the United States in most domains.
Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, RAND, 24 April 2019

This was followed up by a report five months later, which provided specific actions intended to achieve the objectives identified in the initial report, entitled Overextending and Unbalancing Russia: Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options.

Insert deep movie trailer voice: They did not correctly assess the impact of the cost-imposed options.

What’s fascinating is that now RAND is rapidly backtracking on the idea of extending Russia, because the US attempts to extend Russia have turned out to extend the USA, its NATO proxies, the other European states, and Clown World itself. Remember what I said in the previous post about NATO needing to win fast? That’s why Rand wants to pull a Vietnam/Afghanistan, call it a win, and get the US military out of Eastern Europe as quickly as possible.

The Andrew Anglin committee has correctly assessed the situation.

Here’s the deal: everyone understands that Russia is only a power capable of competing with the US because it is backed by a much larger and much wealthier country called “China.” Russia needs their economy to survive. India wouldn’t be standing up to the US, nor would Saudi or any of the other former allies pushing back, if they weren’t getting cover from China.

The think tanks were all pushing for China to be the target of the next US war.

However, Pentagon people said Russia is much weaker, so they went with that. Now it’s a boondoggle. The West is destroying its economy, they are alienating the whole world, and they’re accomplishing what exactly? Russia can keep fighting indefinitely. It’s not costing them anything…

The US can’t possibly open up the China front while the Ukraine is ongoing, and time is on China’s side over there.

This is why RAND is mad.

However, wars do not take place in a vacuum and they have a way of creating a new reality that is unforeseen even by the architects of the best-laid warplans. There is no reason for Russia to let NATO and the US military off the hook just because it suits RAND, and there is absolutely zero chance that Xi Xinping and the extremely astute Chinese warplanners are going to be blind to the advantages of making sure that the first front stays active until the second one is opened by one of the two parties concerned.

Remember, the failure of a plan doesn’t mean it never existed, it simply means it didn’t work.

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NATO Calls the Shots

The Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee pulls the curtain away and reveals that the “alliance” is in fact the military bureaucracy of the US empire.

NATO is prepared to fight Russia if a direct conflict erupts between the two, Rob Bauer, the chairman of the alliance’s Military Committee, said on Saturday. In an interview with Portuguese RTP TV, when asked whether the US-led military block is ready for a direct confrontation with Russia, Bauer unequivocally stated, “We are.”

The official noted that when the hostilities broke out in Ukraine in February 2022, NATO already had a number of battle groups along its eastern flank. During a summit in Madrid which took place in June 2022, the alliance’s leaders decided to create four more battle groups in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, Bauer said.

Bauer went on to say that for decades, many NATO nations thought they were the ones who decide when and where to deploy their forces, but the Ukraine conflict was a gamechanger.

If a nation isn’t able to decide when and where to deploy its own military forces, it isn’t a sovereign nation anymore. This is why signing up for all of these supranational organizations was always short-sighted and foolish, as they intrinsically necessitate giving up sovereignty and democracy.

The Russian generals get more of a vote where the NATO generals establish their forces than the elected leaders or the people of any of the NATO nations.

As for whether NATO is ready for direct war with the Russian military, well, its proxies haven’t fared very well against the Russian proxies. I suppose they’re about as ready as they’re ever going to be, I just don’t think “readiness” should be confused with “having a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning”.

Remember, we’re talking about a military that can’t even defend its own borders.

UPDATE: The US empire is apparently not ready to fight China, however.

A four-star US air force general predicted that the US and China will be at war in two years, most likely over the Taiwan region, and called on troops under his command to pursue battle readiness in a recently disclosed memo, a move Chinese experts on Saturday decried as a reckless and provocative hyping of “China threats,” which would inflame tensions and deepen strategic mistrust between the US and China when ties are already at a low ebb.

It cannot be ruled out that the move may serve as a way of putting pressure on China to gain more leverage ahead of a potential China trip by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, analysts said.

In the memo, first obtained by NBC News on Friday but dated February 1, General Michael Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command (AMC), said that “my gut tells me will fight in 2025,” as both US and Taiwan regional authorities will have elections in 2024, and the US will be “distracted,” which gives the Chinese mainland an opportunity.

Minihan listed his goals of military preparation for a “fight with China” to his soldiers in the AMC, including building “a fortified, ready, integrated, and agile Joint Force Maneuver Team ready to fight and win inside the first island chain,” according to an NBC report.

Better beat those Russians fast…

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No Part of It

Croatia very sensibly wants no part of NATO’s war on Russia:

Commenting on the German foreign minister’s declaration that Europe is “fighting a war against Russia,” Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday that this was news to him, and wished Berlin better luck than in WWII. Croatia “should in no way help” Ukraine militarily, Milanovic said…

“Now the German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I didn’t know that. Maybe Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck, maybe this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago.”

Neither, apparently, does France.

Decisions by the US, Germany and several other countries to supply main battle tanks to Ukraine do not mean NATO is at war with Moscow, the French Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. The comments from Quai d’Orsay come after a controversial speech by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in the European Parliament earlier this week. “We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said on Thursday, according to AFP. “The delivery of military equipment… does not constitute co-belligerence.”

But while it takes two to tango, it only takes one to war. And Russia is now “at war with NATO and the West” thanks to the neocons’ successful escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia is now at ‘war against NATO and the West’ and has taken the invasion of Ukraine to a ‘different stage’, a senior EU official has admitted, raising the terrifying spectre of a global conflict.

The Asian and Arab nations have already taken Russia’s side. The African nations don’t really matter, but they will do so as well. I expect that more than a few European nations will follow suit once it becomes abundantly clear to even the most casual observer that NATO has zero chance of winning the war. And when I say zero, I mean ZERO. None whatsoever.

Based on a comparison of the technological and industrial capacities, the United States and the UK have about the same chance of defeating the Sino-Russian alliance as Japan had of defeating the US/UK alliance in WWII. Which is just one reason why no American or European should lift a finger, let alone risk his life, for Clown World and its wicked disorder.

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War Plan Zero

NATO’s plan to defend the European countries that are actively taking part in its war against Russia is to hope that Russia doesn’t attack them.

NATO countries are not in danger of being attacked by Russia, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, Kirby was asked whether the US-led military alliance has enough troops to repel a possible Russian strike on its eastern flank in case of a major escalation in the Ukraine conflict.

“All I can tell you is we’ve seen absolutely no indication that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has designs on striking NATO territory,” the spokesman said

While I have no doubt that Russia has no desire to invade and occupy Western Europe, I wouldn’t be so certain that the military with the best hypersonic missiles in the world is going to permit the European nations to wage war against them without holding them accountable for it.

It’s a bold plan. We’ll see how it works out for them.

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Germany Declares War on Russia

UPDATE: This isn’t an exaggeration. While it is an informal declaration of war, it is a material one by the relevant government minister that will be taken at face value by Russia, whether the moronic woman realizes it or not.

I have said already in the last days, we have to do more on Ukraine. Yes, we have to do more on tanks. But the most important part, and the crucial part, is that we do it together and that we do not do the blame game in Europe, because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.

– Annalena Baerbock, Foreign Minister, Federal Republic of Germany, 25 January 2023

The German politicians caved, presumably after being shown their blackmail files, and agreed to formally take part in the NATO war against Russia by sending German tanks to Ukraine. The Russians have made it very clear that a) they are not fooled and b) there will be consequences for Germany getting directly involved in the war in Ukraine.

Russia branded the move a ‘blatant provocation’, with Moscow officials warning the new Nato supplies will ‘burn like all the rest’, while one raging Putin mouthpiece called for the German parliament to be destroyed.

Around 30 M1 Abrams tanks will be sent from the US, while Berlin will initially supply 14 Leopard 2 tanks and permit other Nato nations to send their own. Russian storage facilities have around 10,200 tanks, while an estimated 3,300 have been deployed in Ukraine, with 1,640 destroyed.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s officials hailed the move as a ‘punching fist’ for democracy, while Russia had warned it would cause a ‘global catastrophe’ and escalate the war beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Today, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: ‘I am certain that many experts understand the absurdity of this idea. The plan is disastrous in terms of technology,’ he said.

‘But above all, it overestimates the potential it will add to the Ukrainian army. These tanks burn just like all the others.’

Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Moscow Institute of the Middle East, told Waldman-LINE channel that nuclear tipped missiles should be used on the centre of German democracy.

He said: ‘German tanks with crosses on their armour will again march across Ukraine attacking Russian soldiers. I have a natural reaction to this – the Soviet Union bombed Berlin in 1941. And to me this is a signal that the Reichstag, or Bundestag, which now replaces the Reichstag, simply should not remain standing any longer. Flat, slightly radioactive, melted-down ground [will remain in its place].’

Meanwhile Putin’s favourite propagandist Vladimir Solovyov also ranted over the tank move which he plainly sees as a significant blow to Putin while also being proof in Russian eyes that Germany has directly joined the war.

‘It’s time to send a clear, resolute message that we now consider Germany a direct party to the conflict, rekindling memories of WW2. German tanks appearing will definitely mean we consider German territory, military bases and other sites as legitimate targets. NATO wants to fight in this cunning way, pretending that it’s not fighting.’

At this point, it’s fairly obvious that the Trotskyite Clown Worlders now ensconced in the USA are primarily waging war against Europeans by forcing Russians to kill them. The NATO-Russian war is something of a Xanatos Gambit; while Clown World hoped to use Ukraine and NATO to defeat Russia, their primary enemy, they’ll happily settle for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, Poles, and Germans, all of whom they hate nearly as much as they hate the Russians.

But while the Europeans haven’t figured this out yet because they’re all post-Christians steeped to their eyeballs in Clown World propaganda, the Russians, the Chinese, and most of all, the Arab world are very well aware of who is responsible. Which means that it may not just be government buildings in Germany that experience hypersonic missile attention when the Russians launch their offensive.

As with how the Gamma male who hides behind redefinitions and contorted reasoning to disguise his attacks on others is educated by a punch in the face, it appears the Germans are soon going to be administered an important lesson in how word magic is no defense against material reality.

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Pressuring the Fake President

Clown World is desperate for one last big roll of the dice to salvage its project in Ukraine, and Joe Biden, of all people, is standing in the way:

No one should be surprised that Joe Biden’s ‘classified documents problem’ has emerged at the same time a key city in Ukraine (Soledar) has been liberated by Russian troops. All of the recent reports from the frontlines indicate that the Russian army is steadily seizing more territory in the eastern part of the country while inflicting heavy casualties on the over-matched Ukrainian forces. In short, the Ukrainian army is being beaten badly forcing US war planners to rethink their approach. What the US needs to do to prevail in its proxy-war with Russia, is to enlist a coalition of nations (US, Poland, Romania, and UK) that are willing to commit combat troops to the conflict with the tacit understanding that NATO will not directly participate in any ground war with Russia. Biden previously rejected the idea of sending troops to Ukraine acknowledging that it would be tantamount to launching a Third World War.

But as the ‘classified documents’ scandal gains momentum, the malleable president will likely fall-in-line and do whatever the hawkish foreign policy establishment demands of him. In short, the documents flap is being used by behind-the-scenes powerbrokers who are blackmailing the president to pursue their own narrow interests. They have Brandon over-a-barrel.

Most readers will recall that Hunter Biden’s laptop contains an abundance of information related to the Biden family’s vast influence peddling operation. All of this information was deliberately suppressed in the mainstream media in order to pave the way for Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. So why—we wonder—has this new scandal become headline news while the laptop story was completely buried? And why are the most hawkish neocons in the senate, like Lindsey Graham, calling for a “special counsel” when they made no such effort to reveal the sordid details of the laptop?

So, now Lindsey Graham is a champion of truth and transparency?

Don’t make me laugh.

I assure you, if Biden announced the deployment of US combat troops to Ukraine tomorrow, Graham would withdraw his request for a special counsel immediately. This is about Ukraine, not classified documents or potentially unlawful presidential behavior. And—whatever you think of Biden—he doesn’t want to be the president who starts WW3. Unfortunately, the elites who control the media, the politicians and most of the nation’s wealth—are determined to widen the conflict which is why the narrative in the media has dramatically changed in the last week.

That article was published nearly two weeks ago, and since then, the pressure on Biden has only increased. From the revelations of the classified papers stored in his garage to a large diamond given to his son, more and more heat is being applied to Biden for some reason.

It could simply be pressure to resign in favor of Kamala Harris, who is more willing and able to do as she’s told. It could be, as the author reasonably surmises, pressure to unleash the US military openly against Russia. Or, what is more likely, it’s a combination of both.

However, if Biden is a fully-owned creature of the Chinese government, then it’s not going to be possible for him to give into the pressure, because China can break him more completely than Clown World can. Clown World can certainly impeach him and remove him from office, but that is a process which will take more time than the Ukraine Project likely has. Still, it is remarkable that even a dementia-addled elderly man who can barely remember his own name knows better than the evil geniuses of Clown World how crazy it is to take on Russia in a land war if your last name isn’t “Khan”.

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US Disavows Navy SEAL

Do they seriously think no one has ever seen Mission Impossible or SEAL Team? We all know that the posthumous disavowing of a special forces operative or an intelligence agent doesn’t mean that the individual wasn’t on a government-sanctioned mission.

The US Navy confirmed on Friday that a member of the elite SEAL force was killed in eastern Ukraine, but said that Naval Special Warfare Operator Daniel Swift was in “active deserter status.” Swift died on January 18 from injuries sustained in combat with Russian forces, an unnamed US Navy official told reporters in a background briefing.

This means that World War III is already hot, if only on a small scale. US soldiers have been fighting in Ukraine against Russian forces for weeks, if not months. I suspect we’re eventually going to learn that there have been a lot of “active deserters” who have been operating as “foreign mercenaries” in Ukraine.

“Active deserter status” = black ops.

UPDATE: Swift is the sixth US citizen to be confirmed killed in Ukraine by the State Department.

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