Tag: Russia

Zelensky is lurching from one senseless act of desperation to another in a futile attempt to improve Ukraine’s negotiating position vis-a-vis Russia. These acts are futile, because Russia is not going to negotiate with him, and turning him and his cronies over for trial are almost certainly going to be one of the Russian conditions when it negotiates the surrender of Ukraine with its NATO masters.

The 2024 Kursk Offensive was a small and feeble echo of the Unternehmen Wacht am Rein, the final, failed offensive of the Wehrmacht in 1944. Its failure means that missile strikes on nuclear plants are about all the Ukrainians have left to offer in the way of threats.

There was still some hesitation on my part on whether the Kursk madness was truly a sign of an AFU reaching its critical end point or not, though mostly I leaned on the affirmative. However, the latest desperate move seems to fully avow this interpretation of events. But, I believe there are a few multi-varied nuances to properly interpreting Zelensky’s threatening signal.

First: it can be said that this act of desperation was a strong signal to Zelensky’s own “partners” in the U.S. and the West. I predicted long ago—last year—that once things finally grind down to the gristle for Ukraine, Zelensky would have no choice but to begin threatening his partners through escalation to save his own hide. He would threaten not only pushing Russia’s red lines in unnerving ways which would pose the threat of nuclear annihilation to the U.S., but as a last ditch effort he would also float the threat of unveiling many secrets and ‘skeletons in the closet’ of his Western partners as blackmail.

But what’s happening now is in effect a double nuclear blackmail. Not only was Zelensky trying to reach the Kursk nuclear plant for this very purpose, but has now acted out his furious frustration at the ZNPP, as well. It’s difficult to know for certain, but captured AFU POWs have in fact now attested to the Kursk plant as being the objective, or Kurchatov, the town where the plant sits. This was supposed to have been reached in the first day or two, which now appears to have been a miserable failure being covered up by more antics.

But getting back to the second point. I believe the ZNPP strike was also a double threat toward Russia. ZNPP may be currently inactive, but Kursk is in operation, and Zelensky likely meant to send a symbolic message that the Kursk nuclear plant may be “next”. In essence, it is saying: “Be wary, the Kursk plant is in my sights. This is just the first demonstration of my seriousness.”

But why would Zelensky threaten his partners as well? The obvious answer is to shock them into providing more aid and committing totally to Ukraine’s victory. “Give us everything or we’ll take the entire world down with us in a ball of nuclear flame.” Funny how much similarity there is between Zelensky and Israel, what with their Samson Option and all.

The only answer to a Samson Option is to call the bluff. It may not be entirely a bluff, but it’s almost certainly a partial one. And for the citizens of most countries across the West, the threat to eliminate their capital cities is not necessarily seen as a negative anymore. To paraphrase Ivan Drago, if we die, we die. Otherwise, you live in a permanent state of submission to the whims of a weak psychopath, which is obviously worse than death. These acts of increasing desperation by the Kiev regime are indicative of both its weakness as well as its awareness that it is rapidly running out of options.

Apparently, the enemy, relying on the help of its Western masters… is striving to improve its negotiating positions in the future. But how can we talk about negotiations with those who conduct indiscriminate strikes on civilians, civilian infrastructure, or try to threaten nuclear energy facilities?
– President of Russia, Vladimir Putin

To say nothing of those who have absolutely no electoral mandate to govern, represent, or speak for the people of Ukraine.

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But not so desperate that they’re willing to die right here, right now. Andrei Martynov comments on the recent revelation that the USA ordered Ukraine to stand down on what would almost certainly have been a failed attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin:

The Ukrainian special services were preparing an assassination attempt on Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of the country’s Ministry of Defense Andrei Belousov at the parade on Navy Day in St. Petersburg. According to Deputy Head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov, whose words were aired on the Rossiya TV channel, several days before the parade, Belousov contacted US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin by phone and urged him to persuade Kyiv to abandon its plans.

I was wrong thinking that it would be either Bortnikov or Patrushev conveying this type of message to Burns, but, evidently, it took Russian Defense Minister to explain what would happen to Kiev and Washington, if D.C.’s own criminals would have even tried to do so. Kiev would cease to exist (no need to use conventional weapons) and, after some time so would D.C. with most of the US if the US would have decided to play it tough. Boys in D.C. they cannot fight real fight, neither can inbred losers in London. So, they resort to terrorism. The fact that Ryabkov specifically singled out “some other countries” is telling.

Clown World’s grand strategy has always been based in delusion. The clowns simply don’t seem to understand that neither China nor Russia are susceptible to regime change tactics of the sort that have been used dozens of times in small countries over the last 70 years. Major powers are not one-man shows; Putin’s successors will almost certainly be considerably more aggressive and less circumspect than the man himself has been.

However, it is good to know that there are still a few rational actors in command of Clown World. One hopes that they will have the perspicacity, and the courage, to admit to their inevitable defeat and surrender while it is still possible to do so.

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According to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, by the end of the year, the Russian invasion force will have grown nearly 7x from the initial 100,000 in February 2022:

Syrskyi is Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief. His unenviable task is to defeat a bigger Russian army. Two and half years into Vladimir Putin’s full-scale onslaught, he acknowledges the Russians are much better resourced. They have more of everything: tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, soldiers. Their original 100,000-strong invasion force has grown to 520,000, he said, with a goal by the end of 2024 of 690,000 men. The figures for Ukraine have not been made public.

“When it comes to equipment, there is a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3 in their favour,” he said. Since 2022 the number of Russian tanks has “doubled” – from 1,700 to 3,500. Artillery systems have tripled, and armoured personnel carriers gone up from 4,500 to 8,900. “The enemy has a significant advantage in force and resources,” Syrskyi said. “Therefore, for us, the issue of supply, the issue of quality, is really at the forefront.”

It is this man and machine superiority that explains recent events on the battlefield. Since last autumn Ukraine’s armed forces have been going steadily backwards. One of his first acts when he got the job in February 2024 – replacing Valerii Zaluzhnyi, now Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK – was to order the withdrawal of his troops from the eastern city of Avdiivka. The retreat coincided with a six-month gap in the US supply of weapons.

As Simplicius points out, this means that Russia invaded with only 40 percent of the troops that the Western media reported. And far from running out of ammunition and tanks in two weeks, the Russians have doubled the number of tanks and tripled the number of artillery systems. Also, since about two-thirds of the initial invasion force was provided by the rebel Donbass militias, that means that as few as 30,000 Russian troops were utilized against an initial Ukranian army of 250,000 that has now been completely destroyed.

Just to make matters worse, the British, French, and US militaries have already lost dozens, if not hundreds, of soldiers in a war they supposedly are not fighting.

Colonel of the Spanish Army Reserve Pedro Baños:

So, the Russians carried out an attack on Odessa, which killed 18 members of the British Special Air Service and injured 25 more. And they tell me that French soldiers died. These are not mercenaries who are French, no, these are soldiers of the French army. They were killed in large numbers, I was told that the number was greater than in Algeria. These are scary numbers because we are talking about NATO countries.

The sooner this foolish, unwinnable war ends, the better. Vladimir Putin clearly doesn’t want to take all of Ukraine, but he will do that and more if NATO – or to be more precise, Clown World – doesn’t permit its Ukrainian puppet state to stop the bleeding and surrender.

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From a Polish reader:

Today 08.07.2024 Prime Minister Donald Tusk signed an agreement (upon the acceptance of President Duda) with President Zelenski for military support. This agreement, as Mr. Tomasz Piekielnik says on his youtube channel, engages us in the war with Russia. Legions of Ukrainian soldiers are to be formed in Poland. Secondly, Poland will launch Russian missiles that will be hitting Ukraine. This agreement also contains records of the possibility of stationing Polish troops in Ukraine.

The agreement is kept secret from the public opinion. It could not be found on government websites or through the legal information system.

It’s possible that Poland is attempting to enmesh NATO formally into the war against Russia. Alternatively, it’s also possible that Poland is playing the Kiev regime to carve out some Ukrainian territory for itself, as a number of observers have been predicting.

In either case, it’s clear that the vulnerability being shown by the now-illegitimate Kiev regime is leading to a new phase of the conflict.

UPDATE: Confirmed, more or less.

Poland and Ukraine sign ‘unprecedented’ military agreement. Kyiv has committed to exploring new ways of shooting down all Russian missiles and drones in Ukrainian airspace that are headed in the direction of Poland together with Warsaw, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Monday. Zelenskyy shared the news of the security agreement in a post on X, saying the “unprecedented document” also includes forming and training a new volunteer Ukrainian military unit, the Ukrainian Legion, on Polish territory.

More word games and rhetorical legalisms aren’t going to fool anyone.

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