Tag: war

The Partition of Ukraine

The Saker contemplates the partition of Ukraine that he predicted six years ago.

Interesting info today. First, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has, through the statement of a Colonel General, made the following statement (translated by my friend Andrei Martyanov on his blog): (emphasis added)

Translation: MOSCOW, August 16 – RIA Novosti. Western curators have practically written off the Kyiv regime and are already planning the partition of Ukraine, Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Colonel-General Volodymyr Matveev said at the Moscow Conference on International Security. “Obviously, the West is not concerned about the fate of the Kyiv regime. As can be seen from the information received by the SVR, Western curators have almost written it off and are in full swing developing plans for the division and occupation of at least part of the Ukrainian lands,” he said. However, according to the general, much more is at stake than Ukraine: for Washington and its allies, it is about the fate of the colonial system of world domination.

Just to clarify, the SVR rarely makes public statements and when they do, you can take them to the bank as the SVR is not in the business of “leaks” from “informed sources” and all the rest of the PR nonsense produced by the so-called western “intelligence” agencies (which have now been fully converted to highly politicized propaganda outlets).

The same day I see this article on the RT website: “Western countries waiting for ‘fall of Ukraine’ – Kiev” in which an interesting statement the Ukronazi Foreign Minister is mentioned:

Several countries in the West are waiting for Kiev to surrender and think their problems will immediately solve themselves, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba in an interview published on Tuesday. “I often get asked in interviews and while speaking to other foreign ministers: how long will you last? That’s instead of asking what else could be done to help us defeat Putin in the shortest time possible,” Kuleba said, noting that such questions suggest that everyone “is waiting for us to fall and for their problems to disappear on their own.”

Finally, a while ago, Dmitri Medvedev post this “future map of the Ukraine after the war” on his Telegram account. This maps shows a Ukraine partitioned between her neighbors and a tiny rump Ukraine left in the center.

This anticipated partition would be a very good thing, as it would mark to an end the war between Russia and NATO by the surrender of the latter. The problem is that it will almost certainly require the European “partners” to break with the neocons who presently dictate US foreign policy, and the neocons are more than willing to fight to the very last European – yes, European, not Ukrainian – rather than give up their revenge war against Russia.

So, as fearful as the European leaders rightly are – they are terrified of their native populations going all Sri Lanka on their useless, cowardly selves once the winter shortages kick in – I don’t believe they are fully cognizant of the consequences of the Russian victory due to the media gaslighting, so they are reluctant to throw off their globalist masters and give up the fancy pants and lollipops that come with their submission.

Which means that I don’t think the nations that matter – France, Germany, and the UK – will give up and accept the new geopolitical reality until the winter of 2023 extinguishes all hope of reprieve, unless the coming winter is even worse than we’re expecting and the citizenries explode in open revolt.

UPDATE: The historic fissures in the NATO Alliance are already beginning to widen as the failure of the globalists’ European vision is becoming undeniable.

Berlin has plans to subjugate Eastern Europe and has designs on the lands that it lost in the past, Adam Glapinski the head of the National Bank of Poland has claimed, adding that his country stands as a bulwark against those ambitions.

Glapinski offered the grim prediction about Warsaw’s current diplomatic confrontation with Berlin in an interview with Gazeta Polska, which was published on Wednesday. Since the reunification of Germany in 1990, Berlin’s strategic goal is to “regain in some form their former lands, which are now within Polish borders, and subordinate the entire belt of countries between Germany and Russia,” the Polish official said.

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The Nonexistent Counter

You simply cannot believe one single thing that the US and European medias report about the Ukrainian war.

The Ukrainian military has not been able to pull off its promised counteroffensive, and Russian forces are now likely to take over the whole of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a former adviser to the secretary of defense in the Trump administration, has said.

Appearing on a livestream hosted by former US judge and columnist Andrew Napolitano last Tuesday, Macgregor dismissed as “utterly nonsensical” reports in some US media outlets that the Russian military has lost some 80,000 personnel in Ukraine so far. According to the decorated Gulf War veteran, “more accurate numbers are probably thirteen to fifteen thousand dead on the Russian side,” with Ukrainian forces having lost “sixty to eighty thousand.”

Commenting on these reports in late July, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described the alleged Russian casualty figures as “fake.” He also lamented that even established media outlets are publishing misleading reports these days.

The last time Russia’s Defense Ministry provided an update on the number of casualties was in late March, at which time the official death toll had reached 1,351, with 3,825 service members injured.

When asked to comment on the current state of affairs on the frontline, the former Pentagon official said that the majority of Russian personnel had been given rest, “refitted, reorganized,” to renew the offensive in August. Macgregor claimed that the first signs of that happening were already evident, “particularly down in the south.” He went on to predict that the Russian military would seize the key port city of Odessa, making Ukraine a “landlocked country.”

“Ukrainians have been unable to put together any sort of counteroffensive. So, I don’t see much evidence that the Ukrainians can stop this,” the former Pentagon adviser claimed. Moreover, Macgregor said that the activities of Russian forces south of Kharkov in the east of Ukraine seemed to him like preliminary “shaping operations” meant to pave the way for a major offensive later on.

He concluded that “first comes the operation in the south and then subsequently up in Kharkov,” pointing out once more that the Ukrainian army does not appear to be able to stop either one.

Macgregor added that he expected these offensives to be over by the “end of August-beginning of September.”

No one with any knowledge of military history believed for one single second that there was going to be a Ukrainian counteroffensive this summer. They don’t have the troops, they don’t have the artillery or the air support, they don’t have the supplies, they don’t have the transport, and they don’t have the command-and-control infrastructure. The pattern of false reporting is very clear. The globalist media reports periods of Russian rest and refit as glorious Ukrainian victories, then portrays every successful Russian offensive as Pyhrric victories akin to Stalingrad. Meanwhile, the Russian goal of assisting the Donbass militias to clear their land of the Ukrainian military is very nearly complete within six months of its onset.

Compare this, on the other hand, to the way in which Israel has been unable to demilitarize Gaza despite periodic invasions and bombings, and the way the US military was unable to demilitarize Iraq or Afghanistan.

The proxy war for the Donbass is ending. The question is if it will be followed by a direct war between NATO and Russia for Europe.

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You’re Not Neutral When You Choose a Side

Switzerland belatedly discovers that it can’t redefine the concept of neutrality.

Russia has turned down a Swiss offer to represent Ukrainian interests in Russia and Moscow’s interests in Ukraine because it no longer considers Switzerland a neutral country.

Switzerland has a long diplomatic tradition of acting as an intermediary between countries whose relations have broken down, but Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Ivan Nechayev said on Thursday this was not possible in the current situation.

“The Swiss were indeed interested in our opinion on the possible representation of Ukraine’s interests in Russia and Russia’s in Ukraine,” Nechayev said. “We very clearly answered that Switzerland had unfortunately lost its status of a neutral state and could not act either as an intermediary or a representative. Bern has joined illegal Western sanctions against Russia.”

Switzerland has mirrored nearly all the sanctions that the European Union imposed on Russia over its military intervention in Ukraine.

No independent sovereign nation is going to trust the Swiss any longer or permit them to act as a neutral intermediary now that their federal government has not only taken sides in the NATO-Russian war, but foolishly chosen the losing side. If the current Federal Council had been in charge when WWII started, it would have taken the side of the Axis and gotten the country occupied by 1944.

This really isn’t that surprising. If the federal government ever decides to redefine chocolate to mean “something that isn’t chocolate”, the demand for Swiss chocolate will collapse too.

If you are as others see you, then the recent statement by a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson that “Switzerland had unfortunately lost its status of a neutral state” could be a tipping point in any understanding of what neutrality and Swiss neutrality mean. It is one thing for the 200-year-old Swiss “perpetual neutrality” recognised at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to be questioned internally, but for a major power, a member of the United Nations Security Council, to make such a declaration adds a new dimension to the ongoing domestic and global discussions of what neutrality means.

Neutrality means not taking sides. If you take a side, if you engage in economic sanctions or military conflict, then you obviously are not neutral. It’s not just the Russians who recognize that Switzerland is no longer a neutral state, but China and the rest of the BRICSIA coalition too. And what is the significance of “international law” that 80 percent of the global population does not recognize or respect?

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Indefinite Exercises

China announces that its military exercises blockading the island of Taiwan, scheduled to end on Sunday, have been extended:

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Monday continued military exercises and training activities surrounding the island of Taiwan, marking an extension from the previously announced schedule. Drills like these will not stop and are expected to become routine until reunification, as the Chinese mainland shows its determination to push forward the reunification process after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s provocative visit to the island last week that seriously violated China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, experts said.

The drills not only lock the island from inside out, but also from the outside in, telling external forces that the PLA has powerful area denial capabilities in the region that even the US cannot rival, analysts said.

The PLA Eastern Theater Command continued realistic combat-oriented joint exercises in sea and air space around the island of Taiwan on Monday, focusing on joint anti-submarine warfare and sea assault operations, the PLA Eastern Theater Command said in a statement.

Monday’s exercises mean that the PLA has extended its drills surrounding the island of Taiwan, which were originally scheduled to conclude on Sunday noon.

“As long as the Taiwan question is not solved, drills like these will not stop,” Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Monday.

I suspect the Chinese are very aware that the US military is going to be unable to interfere with its actions in the South China Sea, being distracted by the Ukraine situation as well as what appears to be the incipient arrest of President Donald Trump.

This doesn’t mean that the final reunification push is on yet, but it is an indication that it might be coming.

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The Fall of NATO

NATO member Turkey has definitively chosen Russia over its so-called allies:

Russia and Turkey are switching to payments for Russian gas supplies in rubles, on which the two presidents agreed at negotiations in Sochi on Friday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said.

“The presidents have agreed that we are beginning partial gas supplies and payments for them in rubles,” Novak told journalists.

Russia currently ships about 26 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey annually.

“We are gradually switching to payments in national currencies, and part of the shipments will be paid for in Russian rubles now. This is a new stage indeed, which opens up new opportunities, including for the development of our monetary and financial relations,” Novak said.

Putin and Erdogan also discussed cooperation in the financial and banking sector, he said.

“Our commercial companies and our citizens should have an opportunity to pay [in national currencies] during their tourist trips and in the process of trade turnover,” Novak said.

Therefore, “the presidents discussed the financial-banking block, on which major agreements have been reached,” he said.

The NATO Nazis are very well advised to be concerned:

Western officials are “increasingly alarmed” that Turkey, a NATO ally and prospective EU member, is deepening its cooperation with Russia, the Financial Times has reported. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently returned from Sochi vowing to boost trade after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Six unnamed Western officials told the newspaper that they were “concerned” about the plans of Russia and Turkey to cooperate on trade and energy. One EU official said that Brussels was monitoring relations between Ankara and Moscow “more and more closely,” given how Turkey seems to be “increasingly” becoming a platform for trade with Russia.

Turkey has rejected its formal allies because its leaders are more concerned about its national interests than the fancy pants and lollipops promised them by the Prometheans; Erdogan also knows that the USA sponsored the failed coup that was aimed at unseating him two years ago and is giving refuge to the man who was intended as his replacement. So, the Turks have clearly decided to place their bets on the side of the BRICSIA economic alliance despite being members of NATO.

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An Absence of Sanctions

Israel is pounding the hell out of the Palestinians in Gaza again.

Israel has bombarded Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) positions in the Gaza Strip for a third day today with 31 Palestinians killed, while militants fired hundreds of rockets back amid escalating violence.

Six children are among the dead since the conflict began Friday, while 275 people have been wounded, said health authorities in the enclave where several buildings were reduced to rubble.

Israel launched its first bombardment on Friday as part of a surprise operation named ‘Breaking Dawn’ that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said was a ‘pre-emptive strike’ designed to thwart a planned PIJ rocket attack.

The IDF early this morning continued their intense aerial and artillery bombardment of the Iran-backed group, which has fired hundreds of rockets in return since Friday.

Now, I understand that this bombardment is probably in response to sound intelligence concerning an attack on the Israeli people. Whether the preemptive strike is proportional or not, one cannot possibly say, it almost certainly wasn’t launched without some provocation. However, it should be kept in mind that the Russian special military operation was also in response to a series of ongoing attacks on the Russian people of the Donbass for more than eight years.

It would be interesting and informative to learn how many munitions were expended by the Ukrainian military and paramilitaries over the last eight years in comparison to how many were expended by the Palestianian Islamic Jihad and the Israeli Defense Forces over that same period.

Because if there is no reason to sanction Israel over its bombardments and invasions of Gaza, there is no clearly no reason to sanction Russia over its bombardments and invasions of Ukraine.

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A Quiet Response

In lieu of shooting down Nancy Pelosi’s plane, China opts for a considerably more brutal economic response:

For the past two days, there seemed to be no other news in the world than the visit of the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to Taiwan. Nancy Pelosi’s plane overshadowed both the fighting in Ukraine and the global financial and energy crisis. As a result, a representative of the American establishment did visit the island, and China confined itself to a series of extremely harsh political statements. This fact triggered an avalanche of alarmist statements from all kinds of experts trumpeting China’s strategic defeat. The emphasis was made exclusively on the military aspect, while completely overlooking the fact that we are talking about an Asian country, that is, a state with a different mentality, power system, political scenarios and approaches from the European one.

While everyone was watching the maneuvers and exercises of the PLA Navy, Beijing delivered an imperceptible, but perfectly calibrated and crushing blow. Since August 3, it has been strictly forbidden to send sand to Taiwan. For Taiwan, this is far worse than a direct military invasion and an amphibious landing.

The disruption of imported supply chains of construction sand and quartz sand could potentially send not only the Taiwanese economy, but the entire global electronics industry, from game consoles to the “brains” of modern missiles and fighter jets, into a deep knockout.

Watching the maneuvers of air units and warship formations off the coast of Taiwan is extremely fascinating. Anyone who has read the works of Sun Tzu understands that this is only a beautiful backdrop and that if you sit on your sandy shore long enough, one day an entire island will come to you.

Anyone who has read Unrestricted Warfare will not be surprised to see China eschew a direct and obvious response that would accomplish nothing but military escalation in favor of a more subtle asymmetric response that will cause severe strategic harm to its adversaries.

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No Worries, It’s Just a Drill

The Chinese provide details on their recent series of joint military exercises:

This is the first time the PLA will launch live long-range artillery across the Taiwan Straits, in a move that will demonstrate the PLA’s firm will and strong capability to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and thwart secessionist attempts by “Taiwan independence” and external interfering forces, Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the Naval Research Academy of the PLA, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

“If the conventional missiles of the PLA were to be launched from the mainland toward the west of Taiwan and hit targets to its east, this means that the missiles would fly over the island, which is unprecedented,” Chinese mainland military expert Zhang Xuefeng told the Global Times.

He also pointed out that five of the drill zones are set to the east of the so-called median line of the Taiwan Straits, and this means that the existence of the line is denied through the concrete action of the PLA.

Some drill zones are also for the first time set to include areas within 12 nautical miles to the island of Taiwan, but since Taiwan is a part of China, Taiwan’s so-called territorial sea is also China’s territorial sea, Zhang Xuefeng said.

Also, the PLA drills surrounding Taiwan are intended to show that it is capable of blockading the entire island and of resolving the Taiwan question through non-peaceful ways, if the situation becomes irretrievable, observers said.

So, the Chinese military has announced they’re going to be sailing vessels into previously respected territorial waters and firing missiles directly over the island. Which presumably means that the Taiwanese will have to be circumspect about ships and missiles approaching the island.

Hmmmm….

I don’t think China has any need to invade Taiwan, which is why I concluded that the eventual reunification with the mainland will be a mostly peaceful one akin to the recent Hong Kong reunification. But the stage has certainly been set for an invasion in the aftermath of the Pelosi visit.

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Were the Chinese Bluffing?

A lot of people seem to think so, particularly Karl Denninger, in light of the failure of the Chinese to follow through on the threatened military response to Nancy Pelosi landing in Taiwan. And while that’s obviously the likely explanation, it should be kept in mind that “exercises” and “training operations” have often been historically utilized as cover for incipient invasions:

Beijing has begun conducting military drills off Taiwan after promising to launch a series of “targeted military operations” in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the self-governing island, Chinese media reported.

“The Eastern Zone of the PLA Combat Command is consistently conducting a series of joint military operations around the island of Taiwan,” CCTV reported hours after Pelosi arrived on the island.

Pelosi touched down in Taipei late on Tuesday despite repeated warnings from Beijing against attempting to visit territory that it regards as an integral part of China.

“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is on high alert and will launch a series of targeted military operations to counter this, resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolutely thwart external interference and ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist attempts,” defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian said, without providing any further detail.

In a separate statement, China’s Eastern Theater Command announced joint military drills off Taiwan, live-firing in the Taiwan Strait and missile test-launches in the sea east of Taiwan. The exercises kicked off early on Wednesday, footage circulated by Chinese CCTV shows.

I would not assume that the crisis has necessarily passed, as the exercises are scheduled to continue through August 6th. And remember, the Chinese seldom operate on a Western time frame. To simply back down and kowtow to the US military in front of the entire world just one day after celebrating the 95th birthday of the People’s Liberation Army strikes me as a rather improbable response.

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The Sacrificial Lamb Approaches

The only logical explanation for Nancy Pelosi’s much-rumored “secret” visit to Taiwan is for her to serve as a sacrificial casus belli to start the war that the neocons want with China at the earliest opportunity.

Taiwan has relocated French-supplied Mirage 2000 fighter jets and other military hardware, according to local media, ahead of a possible visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Eight additional aircraft were moved to the Chihhang Air Base, adding to the two Mirage 2000 fighters already stationed there, the Taiwan-based China Times reported on Tuesday.

The base is located in the southeastern part of the island, from where Pelosi’s plane is expected to approach, the outlet said. The facility was put on high alert, it added.

Meanwhile Taiwan’s Navy deployed two additional anti-submarine helicopters to patrol the waters near the island, the report said.

Meanwhile, the USS Ronald Reagan is said to be approaching Chinese waters as Chinese social media is reporting that both the Shandong and Fujian aircraft carriers have left their bases. China’s position remains very clear, and was repeated by the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry yesterday.

Reuters: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is scheduled to visit Southeast Asia and East Asia this week and Taiwan is not mentioned in her itinerary. What’s China’s comment?

Zhao Lijian: Recently, the Chinese side has repeatedly made clear to the US side our serious concern over Speaker Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan and our firm opposition to the visit. We have been stressing that such a visit would lead to serious consequences. As President Xi Jinping stressed to US President Joe Biden in their phone call, the position of the Chinese government and people on the Taiwan question is consistent, and resolutely safeguarding China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity is the firm will of the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people. The public opinion cannot be defied. Those who play with fire will perish by it. We believe that the US side is fully aware of China’s strong and clear message. 

We are closely following the itinerary of Speaker Pelosi. A visit to Taiwan by her would constitute a gross interference in China’s internal affairs, seriously undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, wantonly trample on the one-China principle, greatly threaten peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, severely undermine China-US relations and lead to a very serious situation and grave consequences. 

We want to once again make it clear to the US side that the Chinese side is fully prepared for any eventuality and that the People’s Liberation Army of China will never sit idly by, and we will make resolute response and take strong countermeasures to uphold China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, What the US should do is to abide by the one-China principle and the stipulations of the three Sino-US joint communiqués, fulfill President Biden’s commitment of not supporting “Taiwan independence” and not arrange for a visit by Speaker Pelosi to Taiwan. 

It will be interesting to see if China decides to take the bait and initiate or if it finds another way of saving face. Either way, we may witness the long-expected opening of the second front soon.

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