Tag: war

The Significance

A lot of the misinformation – as opposed to intentional disinformation – being broadcast across the West can be more correctly interpreted and understood if you consider some of the implications of the statements being released by the Russian Defence Ministry.

▫️ The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.

▫️ The grouping of troops of the Lugansk People’s Republic with the fire support of the Russian Armed Forces liberated more than 90 percent of the territory of the republic.

▫️ Currently, the units of the Lugansk People’s Republic are eliminating scattered groups of nationalists on the southern outskirts of Rubezhnoye liberated settlement.

▫️ In the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue their successful offensive in the northern direction. During the day, they took control of Zolotaya Niva, Novodonetsky, Novomayorskoye and Prechistovka. The advance was 16 kilometers.

Ignore the rhetoric and the various factual claims, which may or may not be true. What do you notice about the specific military elements that are being discussed?

The significant element worth noting here, in my opinion, is that the main offensives are being conducted by the Republican militias. The Russians aren’t even utilizing their second-line infantry against the best Ukrainian brigades in the east, except apparently in Mariupol where the formidable Azov Special Operations Detachment has been surrounded by Russian regulars.

The Russian military is offering artillery, air, and sea support to the militias, as well as air defense, but they are not engaging their armor and infantry forces on every front. This reliance upon the militias for the ground offensive may account for what Western observers consider to be suboptimal tactics and higher-than-expected casualty rates, as well as the observation that it is mostly older, outdated tanks and APCs being destroyed.

The fact that using one’s least-experienced and least-valued forces first has been a common method of warmaking since Xerxes sent the Medes against the Spartans before sending in his Immortals at the Battle of Thermopylae appears to have escaped the media’s military experts. Apparently their grasp of military history and theory doesn’t even rise to the level of Arkhaven comics.

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The Official Story is Always False

The purported meeting of the three Eastern European ministers with Zelensky in Kiev made no sense to me, given the proximity of the Russian troops and the ease with which a train could be destroyed from the air. I even wondered if the globalists were setting up a sacrifice of their minor servitors in order to provide NATO a casus belli to directly enter the war.

But, as it turns out, the meeting was just more fakery to serve the Narrative. The three prime ministers never entered Ukraine. Zelensky isn’t in Kiev either, but in Poland.

The summit meeting of East European leaders, hosted in Kiev by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on March 15 was fabricated by the Polish government, with Polish secret service agents playing the part of journalists, and fake photographs of the meeting, press briefing, and train journey prepared by Zelensky’s press office.

The operation was designed by the Poles to promote their role in support of the Ukraine, the Ukrainian refugees, and in defence of Europe against Russia, and seek new European, American, and NATO alliance funds and military equipment.

According to the Ukrainian publicity, the operation was designed to promote the appearance that Zelensky’s regime is in control of Kiev, and to accelerate their application for admission to the European Union (EU).

The Anglo-American media have reported the meeting, as announced by Petr Fiala, the Czech prime minister, with “the aim…to express the European Union’s unequivocal support for Ukraine and its freedom and independence,”

The result of the summit meeting, according to the Financial Times in London, was “a show of European solidarity even as Russian shelling continued on residential neighbourhoods in the Ukrainian capital. The trip by the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia is the most high-profile visit to Kyiv since Russia invaded the country on February 24.”

“It is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made,” the Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced. “It is here that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance.”

Morawiecki and the western press were lying – there was no meeting in Kiev. Instead, the meeting was staged at the Polish rail junction town of Przemysl, 95 kilometres west of Lvov (Lviv), and 20 kms inside the Polish frontier with the Ukraine.

In a report published by the Associated Press (AP) bureau in Warsaw, “the long journey over land from Poland to Kyiv by Morawiecki, Poland’s deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Prime Ministers Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic and Janez Jansa of Slovenia sent the message that most of Ukraine still remains in Ukrainian hands.”

The evidence gathered from sources in Warsaw and from analysis of the videos and photographs published on the meeting proves there was no “long journey”; no meeting in Kiev or in Lvov, the Galician region capital, which is the operating headquarters of the Ukrainian government. From the evidence provided by the Poles and also by Zelensky’s publicity staff, it is now clear that only a small part of western Ukraine remains in Ukrainian hands. Zelensky himself is now in Polish hands…

The Czech and Slovenian officials flew into Rzeszow Jasionka, the nearest airport to Przemysl; the airfield is also a NATO logistics and security base. They then drove to Przemysl. There the Ukrainians had despatched one of the luxury versions of the regular train service between Przemysl, Lvov, and Kiev. This had been fitted up for fabricated photographs of the Polish, Czech and Slovenian officials meeting as they purportedly travelled towards Zelensky in Kiev. The press which has published these pictures knows them to have been faked and has assisted in concealing the real location.

Look at the pictures. This is quite literally fake news. Now ask yourself what else is being passed off as real by the imperial media?

In not-unrelated news, the Italians have discovered munitions being hidden in “humanitarian” flights to Ukraine:

Nelle scorse ore è emerso che dal Cargo Village sito presso l’aeroporto civile di Pisa sarebbe dovuto partire un volo contenente casse di armi, munizioni ed esplosivi, in contrasto con lo scopo stesso del viaggio, data la sua natura umanitaria. Infatti, il volo avrebbe dovuto fornire cibo, medicinali, e altri prodotti utili alla popolazione ucraina, in difficoltà a causa dei combattimenti delle ultime settimane.

Ai lavoratori dell’aeroporto “Galileo Galilei” di Pisa era stato chiesto di caricare degli aiuti umanitari destinati all’Ucraina. Quando si sono ritrovati però di fronte a casse contenenti materiale bellico hanno deciso di non eseguire l’ordine.

Pisa, armi al posto di aiuti umanitari: gli aeroportuali bloccano volo per l’Ucraina, 15 Marzo 2022

As Karl Denninger notes, this echoes how the USA arranged its entry into WWI, a war which the American people had clearly and unequivocally indicated they had no wish to fight.

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An Alternative Application

Didact’s Mind explains how the failure to translate and understand Clausewitz makes it difficult for US strategists and analysts to make sense of Russia’s approach to making war:

The fundamental difference between the American and Russian ways of fighting probably comes down to understanding one of the greatest mistranslations in history.

That one quotation from the legendary Prussian general, Carl von Clausewitz, that you probably remember from school – assuming you were misedjoomuhcayted in an American public indoctrination camp school, that is – likely goes something like this:

“War is politics by another means”.

It is an elegant aphorism. And it is wrong.

The true quote is this:

“Der Krieg ist nichts als eine Fortsetzung des politischen Verkehrs mit Einmischung anderer Mittel“.

In Ye Olde Queene’s Englishe, which of course Americans don’t speak, this literally translates as:

“War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with the interference of other means”.

Pay close attention to the difference between “BY another means”, and “WITH (the interference of) other means”. In this slight difference in wording lies a vast, yawning gap of understanding.

The Western way of war dates back to the Greek hoplite phalanx formations, and essentially consists of two armies smashing against each other until one or the other is dust, at which point, the victor dictates terms to the vanquished. In that way of thinking, war is almost an all-or-nothing exercise in achieving a very specific end.

The Russian way of war involves using military force in combination with negotiation. They take the Clausewitzian doctrine literally to mean, “use war and violence to force the other guy to the negotiating table and get him to agree to your terms – and if he doesn’t, ratchet up the pressure on him until he does”.

Put simply, the West seeks to decapitate and destabilise. The Russians seek to strangle and supplant.

Or for those who are stronger in military history than military theory, simply compare the maps of Russian offensives in WWII to the maps of the current Ukrainian situation. Note, in particular, the amount of time that separates each offensive. Doing so should dispel any notion that the special military operation isn’t proceeding more or less as the Russians intended.

This also explains why one so often sees the word “cauldron” utilized in translations from Russian sources instead of the Western “envelopment” or “pocket”. It is a fundamental element of their theory, as opposed to a strategical maneuver to be utilized when the opportunity presents itself.

And then, think about what a geostrategic cauldron might look like in terms of global unrestricted warfare.

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Why Trump Failed

Donald Trump’s failure to cross the Rubicon is explained by his reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Former President Donald Trump admitted he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was only trying to ‘negotiate’ when he sent troops to the Ukraine border and was ‘surprised’ when the Kremlin leader actually invaded the country.

‘I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,’ Trump told the Washington Examiner during a Tuesday evening phone interview from his Mar-a-Lago estate. ‘I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.’

Trump, who seemingly developed a close working relationship with Moscow during his presidency, said Putin has ‘very much changed’ since the pair last worked together.

‘I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along,’ Trump said. ‘And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.’

I’ve mentioned this observation before, but Trump’s character has never been demonstrated more clearly than by this comment about Vladimir Putin. Trump’s strength is that he is a legitimately great negotiator. However, as with all successful men, his weaknesses are related to his strengths. Trump is a talker, not a doer. He is a negotiator, not a warrior. He conflates speech with action. He’s not a fighter, and never having been punched in the face or thrown down another man in the judo ring, he doesn’t understand men who are.

Of course he thought Putin was negotiating by mobilizing the Russian Army, threatening an invasion, and issuing an ultimatum, because he thinks everything is a negotiation. Hence his failure to take action after the fraudulent election of 2020; there probably wasn’t any chance of him actually doing so even if the US military could have been relied upon to obey its Commander-in-Chief – something we can’t know either way despite what various people claim – because for him even an approach to the Rubicon would have been a negotiating point rather than the beginning of a military action.

Remember, the Senate was massively surprised when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome, because despite his military successes on the Mediterranean and in Gaul, they knew him to be a skilled politician and negotiator. And negotiators always prefer jaw-jaw to war-war.

So Trump is a negotiator and Putin is a fighter. What, one wonders, is Xi Xinping?

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The Coming False Flag

We haven’t seen the false flag we were all expecting at the start of the Russian special military operation, but Gonzalo Lira, a Chilean resident in Ukraine, appears to believe that one is imminent and that it will likely involve chemical weapons.

The Americans are planning a false flag operation in Ukraine. the word is that they plan to use
chemical weapons in Ukraine, probably Kharkov where I’m located right now and the word is that they want to use chemical weapons because NATO and the United States have said that chemical weapons are a red line and if anybody uses chemical weapons they will invade.

Now the reason that they’re saying this is because the mainstream media in the United States is claiming that the Ukrainians are winning this war against Russia and that the Russians are just outmatched and out of desperation, the Russians are going to use chemical weapons and that’s why we have to stop them, we have to go in there and be the cavalry. You know, the white hats riding in on our white horses and show those evil Ruskies that chemical weapons are a no-no.

Well, this is a big lie. Right now the Russians are winning this war and winning it decisively. The fact is that the Ukrainian army’s command-and-control system is completely broken. The Ukrainian forces do not have an overall defensive strategy, for all intents and purposes, each unit is on its own. The Russians have successfully surrounded Kiev and Kharkov, the major cities. They’ve also surrounded and are in the process of pacifying Mariupol, so in the end, the Russians are winning. And most important of all, the Russians seem to have completely surrounded, and are currently, in all likelihood, annihilating the 60,000-strong army of the Ukraines which is currently in eastern Ukraine.

Not many people are talking about it but you should pay attention to that, that’s really important, because those 60,000 men represent the cream of the crop of the Ukrainian armed forces and they are
surrounded. Not only are they surrounded, there is no possibility of them being refueled or resupplied so it’s only a matter of time to either overwhelm them, overrun them, or annihilate them. It’s as simple as that….

So if you’re American, you should understand that the media is lying to you. The russians are winning, clearly winning, and I don’t need anybody to report and and tell me that the Russians are winning, I can tell all on my own. You know how? Because every day, I hear the shelling of the Russians and it’s getting closer every day. I’m in the center of Kharkov and I’m telling you every day the Russians are getting closer, so I know that they’re winning….

Those thugs of the Zelensky regime, they want NATO intervention. They’ve been calling for it from day one and if they figure that doing a chemical attack false flag will get NATO in, they will not hesitate, not for a second. So understand what’s going on. I am here to tell you what is going on. The Zelensky regime and different factions in the United States mean to start a false flag so that they can get involved in this war.

A lot of predictions are being made. Most of them will prove to be incorrect. But this one is at least consistent with recent NATO troop movements in Poland and the large military exercise, Operation Cold Response, that began yesterday in Norway.

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10 to 14 Days

And then it will be all over because the Russian military is exhausted. That’s the current globalist media narrative, anyway.

‘Ukraine has Russia on the run’

Russian forces may only be able to sustain full fighting capacity for another ‘ten to 14’ days, senior UK defence sources indicated last night. By that time they may struggle to make any significant progress – while finding it difficult to hold ground, according to the latest intelligence.

Despite another day in which bombs rained down on Ukrainian cities including Kyiv and Kharkiv, resistance to the onslaught has seen the invasion fall behind schedule, allies of Vladimir Putin admitted for the first time on Monday. And American officials said the ground advance, now in its third week, had largely stalled.

A senior UK source said last night: ‘Ukraine has Russia on the run. It is running out of manpower and running out of energy. As long as we keep pressing they’ve got ten to 14 days before reaching their culminating point. That’s when the strength of Ukraine’s resistance should become greater than Russia’s attacking force.’

Time will tell. I am extremely dubious, so I’m mostly posting this here for the record. We’ll revisit this professional military analysis on March 24 to see how it looks then. I’m anticipating it will look rather similar to the old “14 days to flatten the curve” approach.

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You’re the Insurgent Now

Former service members volunteering to fight the Russians in Ukraine are discovering that war isn’t quite as fun when the other side has air supremacy for a change. This is from a series of Reddit posts purporting to be from a volunteer military veteran in Ukraine:

Yes, I was here today and blown off the top bunk of my bunk bed in the barracks by the first missile. This is where all the foreign legion troops are, the 35 killed were all Ukrainian mostly due to a direct hit on their barracks next to mine. The base is destroyed, the weapons depot destroyed, possibly the end of the legion. About 60 people with their heads on straight including myself left after the attack. They’re sending untrained guys to the front with little ammo and shit AKs and they’re getting killed. The guys who stayed got bombed again in the afternoon and casualties aren’t clear. If you still want to to join them I’m not sure what the process will be since literally all the infrastructure supporting the training/assignments of volunteers is all destroyed. The guys who are there now will all be going to Kyiv and many will die, the legion is totally outgunned and has a few crazy Ukrainian leaders. After the attack one officer wanted to march everyone to Kyiv and fight. Absolute insanity. Stay home.

I didn’t go to Ukraine for the clout. I asked the right questions, deleted my posts, actually bought a plane ticket and brought my ass over. I said in another comment that yes it was 35 Ukrainians killed because their barracks got directly hit. The 180 bullshit is real Russian propaganda. If you think I’m a Russian agent you’re just in denial that the situation is absolutely fucked. Go ahead and join the legion, by all means, but be very aware of how bad Kyiv is going to get and be aware that Russians have warplanes and you will have next to nothing. Be very acceptant of the possibility of death. Those of us who left, including SF operators from multiple countries, are simply risk mitigating. No one wants to die in an unfair fight, and after getting absolutely fucking pummeled by massive cruise missiles today – yeah I kind of want people to think twice before turning their life upside down to go and volunteer.

Like a lot of dudes there have experience and really wanted to shape the battlefield and impact their advance, but ultimately they’re manning frontline positions that are going to get hammered with artillery and airstrikes, buried under rubble and your family never gets your body. That’s when a lot of guys say yeah this isn’t our fight, not like this.

Such are the perils of believing the globalist propaganda factory. These Western volunteers thought they were going to be going on patrols and hunting Russians in the same way they hunted jihadis in Afghanistan and Iraq. A dangerous sport, to be sure, but an activity that is more sport than war nonetheless. But, as they quickly discovered not long after their arrival, they’re not up against an ill-equipped, irregular 4GW insurgency, they’re up against one of the three most formidable professional militaries in the world.

Russia deliberately blew up foreign fighters and arms shipments at a Ukrainian base close to the Polish border on Sunday and has vowed to carry out more strikes in a direct warning to the West. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for Russia’s ministry of defence, said the base at Yavoriv – 12 miles from NATO territory – was struck by ‘long-range, high-precision’ weapons because it was hosting ‘foreign mercenaries and a large shipment of foreign weapons’. He added: ‘The destruction of foreign mercenaries who arrived on the territory of Ukraine will continue.’

Putin deliberately targeted Ukraine’s ‘foreign legion’ with strike 12 miles from NATO border, Daily Mail, 14 March 2022

The effectiveness of the Russians can be seen in the way they have effectively destroyed the entire Ukrainian foreign legion with a single missile strike without it ever even having the chance to enter the battle space.

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Foreign Fighters in Ukraine

It’s increasingly clear that the Ukrainians were planning an invasion of the Donbass that was prevented by the Russian special military operation in light of the fact that foreign military contractors were already present, armed, and organized into units in Ukraine weeks before the operation began.

ONE of the first British fighters in Ukraine told yesterday of his ferocious battle with Russian troops at the Battle of Antonov.

Jason, who served two tours of Iraq, told The Sun: “The Ukrainians fought like lions and I’m proud I was alongside them. What Putin is doing is terrorism. He’s bombing kids and families for nothing. He’s a war criminal.”

He flew to Ukraine at the start of last month. He recalled: “When I told my mates they were like, ‘What, are you mad?’. I’m a qualified combat medic and have done seven years working as a private military contractor. I wanted to go and do some good.”

He set up home in Kyiv and linked up with foreign fighters ahead of the invasion. Jason was sleeping when a pal woke him on the morning Putin’s troops and tanks invaded.

He told The Sun: “The world just blew up. You could hear rockets coming over the buildings. In the distance there were bright lights flashing all over the city from the Russian bombardment. It was completely surreal.”

Jason dashed out of his city centre flat in full body armour and carrying an AK-47. His unit quickly joined a detachment of Ukrainian troops heading to defend Hostomel Airport.

The fact that Jason subsequently ran away and is already back in the UK giving interviews to the British media should suffice to indicate how well the war is going for Ukraine. The March 13 report from the Russian Ministry of Defense tends to generally accord with the foreign fighter’s decision to go home.

During the special operation, the Russian armed forces disabled 3,687 military infrastructure facilities of Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday. According to him, 99 aircraft, 128 unmanned aerial vehicles, 1,194 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 121 multiple rocket launchers, 443 field artillery pieces and mortars, 991 units of special military vehicles were destroyed.

Once the dust has settled, it will be interesting to compare the Russian reports with historical US reports and determine which were more accurate at the time of the report. All armies – indeed all soldiers – tend to overreport enemy capabilities and casualties.

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Zelensky’s Challenge

The president of the neocon puppet regime sounds like a leader who cares deeply about “his” people, doesn’t he:

Volodymyr Zelensky has slammed the West for its inaction, saying today he ‘doesn’t see any bravery from NATO’ as he pleaded for more involvement from allies in peace negotiations and offered to pay for more anti-missile systems. In response, the US made lukewarm promises of taking ‘diplomatic steps’ to help the Ukrainian government.

Zelensky, who claimed 1,300 Ukrainian troops have been killed so far and 500 Russians surrendered yesterday, also said Putin’s forces can only take Kyiv if they ‘raze the city to the ground’, with Kremlin troops inching closer to the capital and conflict raging nearby today, endangering attempted evacuations.

Ironically, Russian President Vladimir Putin observably cares more about the Ukrainian people than their so-called “President” does.

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The Proxy War

Game theoretician Alex Macris shares his perspective on the special military operation in the Ukraine.

In order to maintain hegemony, the United States needs Russia to become a Western satellite before the petrodollar system collapses.

As long as Russia is a pro-Chinese authoritarian state, China can:
1) reliably get food, oil, and gas without needing to worry what the US thinks
2) focus all of its military might on population control (internal) and power projection (vs Taiwan, southeast Asia, and South China Sea) without worrying about its border with Russia
3) develop the Belt & Road initiative into Europe without worrying about Eurasian continental interference

These three factors, in turn, spell doom for the American hegemony. The first factor means that it can detach from the petrodollar, and therefore detach from SWIFT; the second factor means that it can be a one-front power rather than have to be a two-front power like the US, doubling its budget-per-theater; and the third factor means that it can neutralize America’s blue ocean sea power and thalassocracy.

It’s thus no surprise that the US has systematically and methodically worked towards turning the former USSR into a Western client. It has rolled EU and NATO membership eastward. When it has encountered resistance, it has staged color revolutions (twice, in Ukraine’s case). It applies sanctions, propaganda, and soft power. Since 2015 the CIA has been training anti-Russian insurgents.

Since I know this, we can safely assume that Russia knows this, too. Putin knows, for a fact, that his regime is the prime target of the West. Not because they are afraid of Russia, but because they are afraid of China. Controlling Russia is the method to keep China in check.

Moreover, China knows this too. China has Russia’s back. If China is going to unseat America as hegemon, it needs Russian oil, gas, resources, food, and access through its territory. Russia didn’t just get China’s permission to attack Ukraine — it collaborated with it on timing and intelligence.

During the Cold War, the US would not go to war with the Russians directly, but it took every opportunity to go to war with Russia via proxies. What we have now is another such proxy war. The proper lens to understand the Russia-Ukraine War is that it is a proxy war between China and the US.

What makes this a uniquely dangerous situation is that this time the proxy has nukes.

I see it as less a proxy war and more of a nationalist alliance against The Empire That Never Ended. But I completely agree that the conflict is much bigger than Russia vs Ukraine, and I suspect one reason for NATO’s sudden reticence to throw its weight around militarily is that it not only fears the possible consequences of facing Russia’s A-Team and losing Eastern Europe, but that any such direct action would cause China to open a second front against the imperial globalists.

There are, in fact, certain signs that China is preparing for action. While it’s possible that its revived anti-Covid campaign is nothing more than a lingering fear of the virus, in light of the fact that the Chinese authorities have seen Covid disappear in the West, I suspect the campaign is being used as cover for the various preparations now being undertaken for the second stage of what will not be known in the future as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The relative equanimity with which Russia has endured the all-out economic assault of the globalist institutions, and its obvious anticipation of the unrestricted nature of the assault, tends to suggest that it knows it is holding a very substantial ace in the hole. And that ace would appear to be a second front in Asia.

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