Tag: war

Unequivocal Motive

The US State Department publicly threatened to destroy Nord Stream 2 back in January 2022, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine even began.

State Dept vows Nord Stream 2 will be a ‘hunk of metal at bottom of the ocean’ if Russia invades Ukraine

The State Department on Thursday unequivocally warned that if Russia invades Ukraine the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will sit unused at the bottom of the ocean.

By Caitlin McFall

Updated Jan. 27, 2022 08:24 PM

The State Department on Thursday unequivocally warned that if Russia invades Ukraine the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will sit unused at the bottom of the ocean.

The controversial pipeline has become the U.S. and NATO’s biggest bargaining chip in its attempts to preserve Kyiv’s sovereignty.

But reporters questioned the diplomatic agency on whether Germany, which would profit from the functioning pipeline, is on the same page when it comes to countering a Russian incursion.

“We continue to have strong, clear communication with our German allies,” Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”

Her comments echoed those made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week, but reporters pushed back on the ability to enforce this threat given the pipeline’s physical completion.

It’s 100-percent certain that the pipelines were destroyed on the orders of the US government, and most likely, by US military forces. And this unprecedented action unequivocally provides a legitimate basis for a declaration of war on the United States by Russia and by Germany.

And just to add to the gravity of the situation, Germany is on the hook to pay for the gas whether it receives it or not.

Germany is contractually obligated to purchase at least 40 billion cubic meters of Russian gas a year until 2030. Just say no? They can’t: Gazprom is legally entitled to get paid even without shipping gas. That’s the spirit of a long-term contract. And it’s already happening: because of sanctions, Berlin does not get all the gas it needs but still needs to pay.

Suspect Identified

It appears that the Russians not only know that the USA sabotaged the two natural gas pipelines to Germany, but they know which US Navy ship was responsible and how the attack was carried out.

An expeditionary detachment of US Navy ships led by the universal amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge days ago was in the Baltic Sea. It was 30 km from the site of the alleged sabotage on the Nord Stream-1 gas pipeline and 50 km from the threads of Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline.

On September 2, interesting maneuvers performed by an American helicopter with the call sign FFAB123. Then it was assumed that this board was from the USS Kearsarge air wing, and today more details were looked. According to the website http://ads-b.nl , this call sign was used by 6 boards that day, of which we managed to establish the side numbers of three. All of them are Sikorsky MH-60S.

By superimposing the FFAB123 route on the scheme of yesterday’s accident, we get a rather interesting result — the helicopter either flew along the Nord Stream-2 highway, or even between the points where the accident occurred.

And finally, we need to pay attention to the June article in Sea Power, where the Americans brag about experiments in the field of underwater drones, which they put on exercises BALTOPS 22 — just in the area of the island of Bronholm. And YES,there was US military training there

Meanwhile, the Baltic Pipe project is going live, shipping natural gas from Denmark to Poland, and will be running at full capacity at the end of November.

On Saturday, September 24, 2022, Energinet notified the gas market that the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline can be commissioned at full capacity from the end of November 2022, a little more than one month before planned. Energinet planned to commission Baltic Pipe with partial capacity from October 1, 2022, and with full capacity of up to 10 billion cubic metres of gas annually from January 1, 2023.

The most logical explanation for the Nord Stream attacks is that the US Navy destroyed the pipeline in order to prevent Germany from surrendering to Russia, and making it dependent on Poland instead. And since all four referendums went Russia’s way, it would appear that we’ll find out what Russia’s response is within the next 3-4 weeks.

UPDATE: Some Eastern European countries are clearly expecting conflict in the near future.

Poland and Bulgaria’s foreign ministries are recommending all of their citizens leave Russia by any means possible.

DISCUSS ON SG

The US Shuts Off Europe’s Lights

Less than 24 hours after Nord Stream 2 abruptly went down, Nord Stream 1 has been sabotaged as well.

Yesterday evening, pressure in the undersea Nord Stream 2 pipeline suddenly collapsed, and gas could be seen bubbling to the surface of the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm. Shortly afterwards, reports came of a total collapse in the pressure of our other major undersea pipeline connection to Russia, Nord Stream 1, indicating a further rupture.

Government officials assume that the damage is intentional, and the result of an attack by foreign forces:

Due to the timing, the fact that three separate pipelines were affected, and the severe pressure losses in Nord Stream 1, officials expect the worst. “We can no longer imagine any scenario other than a targeted attack,” said a person privy to the assessment by the federal government and federal authorities. They added: “Everything speaks against a coincidence.”

Such an attack on the seabed would be anything but trivial; it would have to be carried out with special forces – for example, by navy divers or a submarine, people informed of initial assessments said.

With regard to responsibility for the alleged attacks, two possibilities are being discussed. First, according to initial speculation, Ukrainian or Ukrainian-affiliated forces could be responsible. With the temporary shutdown of the Nord Stream pipelines, gas deliveries from Russia to Germany and Central Europe would only be possible via the Yamal pipelinje running through Poland or the Ukrainian pipeline network.

The piece that I’ve bolded is of course a lightly disguised reference to the United States or NATO. This should surprise nobody: President Biden said in early February that in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2, we will bring an end to it.”

These are clear and obvious acts of war, not only against Russia, but against Western Europe as well. And not only is the Unidentified State Actor the primary suspect, with the means and the motivation to destroy the pipelines, but the Commander-in-Chief of the US military publicly threatened to do what has apparently now been done.

Biden: “If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Reporter: “But how will you do that, exactly, since the project, the control of the project, is in Germany’s control?”

Biden: “We will. I promise you, we will be able to do that.”

ABC News, 7 February 2022

Gonzalo Lira is absolutely right. This is the modern equivalent of Cortez burning his ships upon arrival in the New World. Occam’s Razor strongly suggests that the global imperialists headquartered in the USA are attempting to prevent the Europeans from surrendering to Russia and thereby freeing themselves from the satanic New World Order.

“Now I realize that the Americans will stop at nothing to destroy all of their allies. Because what’s really happening is that the global American empire is collapsing and they are lashing out in all directions.”

At this point, every nation on Earth would have to be crazy to cooperate with the US government in any way, much less comply with its demands. This destruction of Europe’s energy lifelines underlines the truth of Henry Kissinger’s famous aphorism: “To be an enemy of the US is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”

DISCUSS ON SG

Phase 2 Begins

The significance of the four Novorussian referendums being held on Friday is neither the outcome nor the inevitable flood of propaganda from the Were-Western media, but rather, what they represent about Russia’s immediate intentions. And the fact that Russia has begun a partial mobilization by activating its reserves underlines that significance.

Ahead of votes in four Ukraine regions to join Russia, on Wednesday morning Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization, while vowing to use all means necessary to defend Russia and pledged to annex the territories already occupied by Russia, raising the stakes in the seven-month-old conflict.

Calling the moves “urgent, necessary steps to defend the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Russia,” Putin said that Russia is fighting the full might of NATO. The US and its allies, he said, are seeking to “destroy” Russia.

The partial mobilization means that reservists will be drafted into military service, Putin said, starting immediately. The Armed Forces will draw on military reservists only, and those who have completed national service, the president said promising that they will be provided with additional training along with all the benefits due to people involved in active duty.

The measure is “sensible and necessary” under the circumstances, Putin stated, adding that he has already signed an order for the call-up to start immediately.

In his speech, Putin accused Kiev of backing away from peace talks, acting on direct orders from its Western allies. Instead of negotiating, the Ukrainian government has beefed up its military with NATO-trained troops, many of whom are neo-Nazi extremists, he said.

Putin also accused the west of using “nuclear blackmail” against Russia noting that “if its territorial integrity is threatened Russia will definitely use all the means at its disposal.” to defend Russian territory. “This is not a bluff.”

Russian forces sent to Ukraine in February have secured a large portion of territory claimed by the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as well as parts of Ukraine, and the resulting frontline stretches over 1,000km, according to the Russian president.

Putin also commented on the upcoming referendums in the two Donbass republics and two regions of Ukraine currently controlled to a large extent by Russian troops. The territories which include Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, have announced plebiscites on whether become part of Russia, with the ballots scheduled to start on Friday. Putin said his government will respect the outcome of the four referendums, and provide security for the voting process.

By formally incorporating the four provinces into Russian territory, Russia will transform what was, in terms of international law, nothing more than a civil war between Ukrainians and secessionist Ukrainians into an international war between Russia and Ukraine. This will give Vladimir Putin the opportunity to ask the Duma to formally declare war, not only against Ukraine, but against the various countries providing military assistance to Ukraine through the mechanism of NATO.

This is why the various NATO regimes are howling uselessly about how they will not recognize the legitimacy of the referendums, despite the fact that these votes will clearly represent the long-recognized will of the predominantly Russian-speaking people in those provinces to rejoin the Russian state. But it does not matter if the enemies of Russia recognize the results of these four democratic referendums or not, the only thing that matters is if the Russian government does.

And Putin clearly recognizes that Russia is already at war with NATO. The sooner he makes that clear to the populations living under the misrule of the NATO regimes, the sooner the regime-changing can begin. Literally no one in the West has any desire to suffer, let alone die, for the corrupt Kiev regime’s pretensions.

The irony of the so-styled “democracies” opposing yet another free and democratic act of self-determination, as they previously have in Catalonia, in France, and in Ireland, should not escape you. Not for nothing are they described as “the Empire of Lies”.

It’s probably not a coincidence that Russia is taking this step so soon after Putin met with Xi, Modi, and the other SCO members. The question is: what other actions by other nations will mark the beginning of the second phase of World War III.

DISCUSS ON SG

The End of Strategic Ambiguity

Joe Biden makes it clear that the US will fight China over Taiwan

President Joe Biden once again claimed that Washington is willing to use military force to defend Taiwan from Beijing, if necessary, while insisting that the US still adheres to ‘One China’ policy and is “not encouraging” the island’s independence.

During a ‘60 Minutes’ CBS News interview aired Sunday night, Biden was asked if the US would become directly involved to “defend the island” in a potential conflict between Beijing and Taiwan, including through the use of military force.

“Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack…” Biden replied, before the broadcaster cut away to clarify the controversial statement.

Checkmate, Xi!

DISCUSS ON SG

I Suspect They’re Dragging Their Feet

And it’s going to take a lot longer than 30 months once the power goes out:

Germany has agreed to provide 18 self-propelled RCH-155 howitzers to Ukraine, on top of the heavy weaponry that Berlin has already pledged to hand over, Die Welt has claimed. However, the first shipment is at least 30 months away, the outlet reported Saturday, citing the manufacturer.

In 30 months, it’s entirely possible that neither Ukraine nor the EU will exist. And I’m not the only one who is skeptical that the EU can survive being used by the US neocons to fight an economic proxy war for them.

Orban again lashed out at EU sanctions imposed on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, saying the bloc had shot itself in the foot with those curbs. The energy crisis, which occurred as a result of those restrictions, could force 40% of European industry to shut down this winter, he reportedly added.

In his speech, the Hungarian leader also allegedly revealed that European leaders are expected to decide on prolonging the sanctions for another six months later in autumn, insisting that an attempt should be made to prevent that extension.

The way things are going now, the eurozone and the EU itself could cease to exist by 2030, Orban was quoted as saying.

DISCUSS ON SG

Why Russia Hasn’t Mobilized

The refusal to order the mobilization of Russian military forces has puzzled a lot of people who don’t understand what Putin is talking about when he uses the phrase “hybrid war”:

One of the most important dimensions of this war is the economic front. Europe is being driven to the brink by the energy crisis. The Wall Street Journal keyed in on what I believe to be the most apt descriptor of the crisis, warning of a “new era of deindustrialization in Europe.”

A full mobilization would be very costly for Russia’s economy, risking the edge that it currently holds in the economic confrontation with Europe. This, I believe, is the main reason that the Russian government was quick to quash rumors of mobilization today. There are other steps on the escalation ladder before going to total war footing.

There are already rumors that Russia is planning to change the formal designation of the war, from “Special Military Operation”. While that could mean a formal declaration of war, I think that is unlikely. Rather, Russia will likely give the Ukraine operation the same designation as its operations in Syria, loosening the rules of engagement and beginning to target Ukrainian assets in earnest.

We saw a foretaste of this last night, when Russia wiped out over half of Ukraine’s power generation with a few missiles. There are many more targets that they can go after – more nodes in the electrical grid, water pumping and filtration facilities, and higher level command posts. There is at least some probability that Russia begins targeting the command facilities with NATO personnel in them. Plausible deniability works both ways; because NATO is not officially in Ukraine – only “volunteers” – targeting their personnel is not an overtly aggressive act.

Russia also has many ways to boost its force deployment in Ukraine that fall short of full mobilization. They have a pool of demobilized contract soldiers that they can call up, as well as a pool of reservists that they can raise with a partial mobilization.

The Russian line is hardening. Just in the past 24 hours, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were “no prospect for negotiations” with Ukraine, and Putin said “Unfriendly forces are targeting us, and we must take initiative in order to succeed in confronting them.” Medvedev went even further just now: “A certain Zelenskyy said that he will not hold a dialogue with those who issue ultimatums. The current ‘ultimatums’ are a warm-up for kids, a preview of demands to be made in the future. He knows them: the total surrender of the Kiev regime on Russia’s terms”

If you believe the Russian government is utterly incompetent and duplicitous, feel free to view statements like this as bluster. But given the warning shot at Ukrainian power generation yesterday, my sense is that Russia is preparing to escalate to a higher level of intensity, which Ukraine cannot match with its indigenous resources. The only other player on the escalation ladder is the United States.

Dark times area ahead for Ukraine – and perhaps for Americans on the other front of this war.

As the Allies proved in WWII, and as the Chinese colonels recognized in their landmark Unrestricted Warfare work on military grand strategy, war is a human activity that is a subset of economics. And the battle for control of Europe will be dictated by energy resources, not by population size or tactical brilliance.

Napoleon didn’t lose to the Coalition Powers because he lacked manpower, technology, or military prowess, but because England controlled the seas. The outcome was always inevitable unless France could somehow break that control. NATO cannot defeat Russia because Russia is energy self-sufficient and Europe is not. So, the question is: how long are Europeans willing to freeze and starve at the behest of US-based neocons in the name of Ukraine?

Russia hasn’t mobilized because doing so would, counter-intuitively, weaken its grand strategic position. Which, of course, is why the NATO forces are attempting to provoke it into doing so. But unless someone in Europe or the USA can introduce a new energy source, NATO cannot win this war. And it’s very clear that Putin, Xi, Modi, and the other BRICSIA leaders all understand this. And the nature of the war will become increasingly apparent as US attempts to escalate the military elements are met with energy-related escalations as well as military responses.

And apparently, some of the NATO leaders realize this too.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey’s goal is membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

DISCUSS ON SG

Germany Doubles Down

I don’t think seizing Russian energy assets is going to convince Russia to turn on the gas and prevent Germans from freezing this winter.

Berlin is taking control of German subsidiaries of Russian oil major Rosneft, Rosneft Deutschland (RDG) and RN Refining & Marketing, putting them under trust management for six months, the German Ministry of Economics announced on Friday.

According to the ministry, control will be given to the grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency of Germany). The ministry explained that the step was taken to ensure the operation of three Rosneft oil refineries in Schwedt, Karlsruhe and Vohburg, which was jeopardized after critical service providers, insurers and banks allegedly refused to work with the Russian company.

“The legal basis for the order was Article 17 of the Energy Security Act. According to it, a company that operates critical infrastructure in the energy sector can be placed under management if there is a specific risk that without management the company will not be able to perform its tasks that ensure the functioning of society in the energy sector, as well as if there is a risk of disruption of security of supply,” the ministry said in a statement.

Rosneft enterprises account for about 20% of oil refinery capacities in Germany, making it one of the largest in the country.

At this point, I’d be surprised if the Russians don’t start hitting targets outside of Ukrainian territory before the end of the year. The neocons wanted this war and I expect they’re going to get it good and hard. It’s not as if Putin and his generals don’t know who has been pushing for this since before 2008.

Which is the reason I just doubled our wood supply. Just, you know, in case. But why would Germany ever do something this obviously stupid? Oh, that’s why.

Last Sunday, the US ambassador to Berlin, Amy Gutmann, told the German broadcaster ZDF that she expects Germany to “take on a greater leadership role.” She acknowledged Berlin’s military assistance to Kiev, but said her expectations are “even higher.”

“So far, Germany has done what we asked for,” a US official told Die Welt on Thursday, adding that Berlin could be moving “faster.” The paper reported that Washington has “doubts” about Germany’s fundamental loyalty to Kiev, questioning whether it wants Ukraine to “win” or just “not to lose.”

DISCUSS ON SG

Stupid Think Tanks

A Russian leader points out that the continued escalation of NATO involvement will result in a transition from proxy war to direct war:

Western “half-wits” from “stupid think tanks” are leading their countries down the road of nuclear armageddon with their hybrid war against Moscow, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday. Endlessly funneling weapons and support to Ukraine while pretending not to be directly involved in the conflict will not work, added the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council.

The “security guarantees” proposal unveiled by Kiev on Tuesday was “really a prologue to the Third World War,” said Medvedev, calling it a “hysterical appeal” to Western countries engaged in a proxy war against Russia.

If the West continues its “unrestrained pumping of the Kiev regime with the most dangerous types of weapons,” Russia’s military campaign will move to the next level, where “visible boundaries and potential predictability of actions by the parties to the conflict” will be erased and the conflict will take on a life of its own, as wars always do, Medvedev argued.

“And then the Western nations will not be able to sit in their clean homes, laughing at how they carefully weaken Russia by proxy. Everything will be on fire around them. Their people will harvest their grief in full. The land will be on fire and the concrete will melt,” Medvedev wrote, before citing a Bible verse from Revelations 9:18.

“Yet still the narrow-minded politicians and their stupid think tanks, thoughtfully twirling a glass of wine in their hands, talk about how they can deal with us without entering into a direct war.

Think tanks are, by and large, pretty stupid. My belief is that the neocons driving the war with Russia have always wanted a direct war. They simply utilized war-by-proxy and hybrid war because they couldn’t get the politicians to sign on to a direct war. So unless the people or the politicians bring it to an end, they will get the war they wanted.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the war will end the way they assumed it would….

DISCUSS ON SG

Ukraine is the New Hannibal

And apparently the media would like us to believe that the recent Ukrainian offensive is the greatest military maneuver since the double-envelopment at Cannae and Vladimir Putin is now out of options. Checkmate, Putin!

Ukraine has pulled off ‘one of the greatest counter attacks in modern history’: Military expert JUSTIN BRONK says Vladimir Putin has NO good options and Russia’s entire invasion force could COLLAPSE in worst defeat since WW2.

The long awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake the southern city of Kherson finally began late last month.

However, many were dismayed by the relatively cautious pace at which Ukrainian forces were advancing, and pointed out that by making it so obvious that a counter-offensive was being prepared in Kherson, Kyiv had given the Russian Army more than a month to move some of its most elite remaining units and large numbers of supporting reserve units to block it.

The brilliance of this strategy his been revealed as of Wednesday last week, as a second Ukrainian force launched a smaller scale but much more mobile counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region to the north.

After initially breaking through the Russian frontlines at the town of Balakliya, Ukrainian armoured and mechanised brigades did not stop to consolidate their gains, but instead drove rapidly throughout the next two days and nights, deep into Russian-occupied territory.

As the Ukrainian commanders urgently rushed reinforcements in to consolidate and widen the narrow corridor of liberated towns, the spearhead units isolated and then bypassed the limited Russian reserve forces that tried to halt them at the small village of Sevchenkove and reached the southern edge of the crucial junction city of Kup’yansk on Friday morning.

In less than a week, more than 3,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory had been liberated, massive stockpiles of ammunition, weapons and armoured vehicles captured for use by Ukrainian forces, and the entire Russian position in North-Eastern Ukraine completely destabilised.

Russian forces have not suffered such a serious and rapid military defeat on the battlefield since the Second World War.

Worse still for Putin is that fact that he has no good options for how to react now.

The majority of his potentially mobile and elite units in Ukraine are still concentrated in Kherson to the south, and are facing a serious and ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensive operation that cannot be ignored.

Furthermore, by signalling for so long that Kherson was target for liberation, Ukraine has baited Russia into accepting an attritional battle in a very militarily disadvantageous position.

If his forces stay put in the south, then the majority of Russia’s usable combat power will be trapped with their backs to the river and steadily ground down by a Ukrainian force that has much better supply lines, more troops and so can sustain an attritional artillery duel for longer.

However, if the Kherson front were to collapse, it would be such a political and military disaster coming soon after the stunning defeat in Kharkiv that Russian military morale might totally disintegrate, or Putin might even find himself threatened by discontented factions within the Russian power structure at home.

The media is reaching a level of detachment from reality that one seldom sees outside the economic news. Remember, most of the manpower being utilized in Ukraine are no more part of the Russian military than the Ukrainian forces are part of the US military. The Russians haven’t even bother to mobilize yet, which should tell you how little they are worried about the operations in Ukraine.

Except for the specialist arms supporting the militias, the Russian military is being reserved for the direct confrontation with NATO forces that is coming. Now, it may be that NATO forces are directly involved in the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives, which they actively boast about planning, or it may be that the Russians have been withdrawing to lure the Ukrainians out of their fortified positions in order to eliminate them more easily. We simply don’t know.

While estimates vary wildly, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had recaptured roughly 6,000 square kilometers – equivalent to the combined area of the West Bank and Gaza – of Ukraine’s overall land mass, around 600,000 square km. Russia had taken control of around a fifth of Ukraine since February 24.

Imagine if the media had covered the Ardennes Offensive this way.

What we know is that Russia still isn’t making use of its energy stranglehold over Europe, nor is it striking at the power plants of Germany, Poland, the UK, and other countries with which it is at war, even though doing so could probably force a complete surrender by the EU and Ukraine alike. Furthermore, Putin’s party, United Russia just won between 65 percent and 86 percent of the vote in the recent regional elections; Russian sentiment is very pro-Putin and to the extent that he is being criticized, it is because he has not prosecuted the war against NATO more aggressively.

So, what we can safely conclude is that this is just more “Ghost of Kiev” war fiction meant to justify the constant flow of money and arms to Ukraine, albeit on a grander scale.

DISCUSS ON SG