Ukraine updates
- Thread starter mandrill
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The US should send their M1 tanks they have in storage into Ukraine. I am sure there are plenty of office ladies in Japan who wouldn't mind reliving their high school and university tankery glory days.
at least based on this 100% accurate documentary... well more accurate than new atlas and the HT
Don't know whether it's strategically genius or coincidence but Russia having to protect their borders from these non-state actors will only serve to stretch their lines further. Seems they were so sure that Ukraine wouldn't invade Russian territory that they barely had any forces there.
it's also pretty amusing to see the way Russian propaganda is reacting to this after sending thousands of alleged 'volunteers' to Donbas since 2014.
it's also pretty amusing to see the way Russian propaganda is reacting to this after sending thousands of alleged 'volunteers' to Donbas since 2014.
The Western Media Disinformation Campaign: Fall of Bakhmut, a case in point
Our language is in constant evolution. Partly this is bottom up, from the inventiveness of creative personalities or writers for commercial advertising. Partly it is top down, from the powers that …
gilbertdoctorow.com
TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2023 - 06:05 PM
Authored by Gilbert Doctorow via GilbertDoctorow.com,
Our language is in constant evolution. Partly this is bottom up, from the inventiveness of creative personalities or writers for commercial advertising. Partly it is top down, from the powers that be as they seek to manipulate and control the thought processes of the broad public.
My brief essay today addresses the latter phenomenon and the introduction of the word “disinformation” into common parlance. There is a charming freshness to it, unlike the stale and repugnant word “propaganda.”
The word “disinformation” has a specific context in time and intent: it is used by the powers that be and by the mainstream media they control to denigrate, marginalize and suppress sources of military, political, economic and other information that might contradict the official government narrative and so dilute the control exercised by those in power over the general population. It is to remove “disinformation” from public life that the United States and EU member states ban RT and other Russian media outlets from the internet, from satellite and cable television channels. The censorship here in Europe varies from country to country and is probably most drastic in France and Germany. One would think that these European states are truly at war with Russia, not just giving a helping hand to Kiev.
In reality, it is these censorious states and the mass media that carry their messages with stenographic precision into print and electronic dissemination who are the ones that day after day feed disinformation to the public. It is cynically composed and consists of a toxic blend of ‘spin,’ by which is meant misleading interpretation of events, and outright lies.
The many months long battle for the provincial Donbas city of Bakhmut, or Artyomovsk as it is known in Russia, has been described variously from on high in Washington, London and Berlin. When the likely outcome was unclear, the defense of Bakhmut was called heroic and demonstrative of the brave fighting spirit of the Ukrainians.
Casualty figures issued by Kiev and then trumpeted from Washington suggested that the Russians were stupidly throwing away the lives of their fighting men by using WWI style human waves of attackers who were decimated by the defenders. Russian lives are cheap was the message. The fact that Russian artillery on site outnumbered and outperformed Ukrainian artillery by a factor of five or seven to one was freely admitted by the Western propagandists as they pleaded for increased supplies to Kiev. They, nonetheless, issued casualty reports for the Russians that inverted the force correlation. It was assumed, obviously with reason, that the public was too lazy or too uninterested to do the arithmetic.
At one moment, the spin doctors in Washington, London and Berlin said that Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut made sense because it was pinning down Russian forces and giving time to the Ukrainians to train and position their men for the heralded “counter offensive” during which they would overrun Russian positions at chosen points in the 600 mile line of combat and drive a wedge through to the Sea of Azov, opening the way for recapture of Crimea. Those were grand words and ambitions to justify continued and ever rising Western military assistance to Kiev.
At another point, the spin doctors said it would be better if Ukraine stopped losing men in Bakhmut and launched instead that much vaunted counter-offensive. Now we were told that Bakhmut is just a Russian fantasy, that it has no strategic value.
In the past couple of weeks, the Russian command has issued daily reports on the progressive capture by Russian forces of Bakhmut, square kilometer after square kilometer. We were told they controlled 75%, then 80% and most recently more than 90% of the city proper while artillery bombardment of the remaining blocks of high rise residential buildings that were being used by Ukrainian defenders for their sniper attacks and intelligence reports on Russian troop movements pulverized everything in their path.
At this point, the attention of Western media defending truth against Russian disinformation was directed at the Ukrainian “successes” in recapturing settlements on the flanks of Bakhmut. Just three days ago The New York Times was telling its readers that these “breakthroughs” by the Ukrainians put in jeopardy the Russian forces holding the city proper: they might be surrounded and compelled to surrender or die. The possibility that the offensives on the flanks were only intended to facilitate withdrawal of remaining Ukrainian soldiers from Bakhmut and were tolerated by the Russians to avoid bloody fights to the death – that possibility crossed no one’s mind at the NYT, it seems.
Midday yesterday, 20 May, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group which did most of the fighting for Bakhmut on the ground, claimed total victory. In the evening, President Vladimir Putin announced to the Russian public that Bakhmut was taken. Joyous messages of congratulations filled the internet message services in Russia as the broad public celebrated a victory as iconic as the Battle for Stalingrad.
Meanwhile, the defenders of the Western public against Russian “disinformation” were hard at work, straining their brains to find what to say. This morning’s New York Times still speaks of the battle for Bakhmut as undecided, pointing yet again to the Ukrainian hold on the flanks.
Given their losses in men and materiel defending Bakhmut, the surrender of the city to the Russians will be a great blow to Ukrainian fighting morale when it is finally admitted. So will the fate of their Commander in Chief General Zaluzhny who, according to Russian sources, has been hospitalized for the past two weeks and remains in critical condition after falling victim to a Russian strike on a provincial command center which killed most of the high officers around him. If nothing else, this speaks to the amazing success of Russian military intelligence directing their firepower.
Meanwhile, Western media attention to Ukraine is conveniently redirected at the nonstop travels of President Zalensky who went from his European tour on to the Middle East, where he attended the meeting of the Arab League, and thence via French military jet to the G7 gathering in Hiroshima where he held talks with fellow heads of state and joined them for the obligatory group photos. All the talk was about when the U.S. will formally give its consent to the dispatch of F16s to Kiev. For the disseminators of Western disinformation this is a wonderful distraction from a war that clearly is going badly for Kiev and in particular a distraction from the counter offensive that looks less likely with each passing day of Russian military strikes on the command centers and weapons stores of the Ukrainian side.
The plume of radioactive smoke and ash that rose from the Khmelnitsky store of British depleted uranium artillery shells in Western Ukraine after a Russian missile strike, just like the extensive damage to the Patriot air defense installation near Kiev by a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile tell us all what will be the fate of future Western arms deliveries to Ukraine. It is an interesting question how much longer the Ukrainian military or politicians will put up with their high flying, good life President while the country is well on its way to hell.
Despite Russian Propagandist Addict2Sex claiming it was false and spin, members of the Russian Duma (aka Government representatives) have admitted that at least 50,000 Russian service members served in the Donbas from 2014 until the formal Russian invasion.
War - NATO Beaten By "A Restaurant Owner & A Bunch Of Convicts"?
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2023 - 02:00 AM
Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
In Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, all of NATO, all 31 member nations, were defeated by a restaurant owner and a bunch of convicts, is how I saw someone describe it. That of course caricatures the situation somewhat (Wagner is well-organized), but it’s not that far off. And that spells a serious problem for NATO.
All of those 31 members may have lots of control over their media, but in the end you can’t endlessly deny being defeated.
So what will NATO do now? They will double down, and then again.And at the end of the “doubling down road” lie nuclear weapons. Not Russian nukes, because as my friend Wayne wrote the other day, their high-precision hypersonic missiles make nukes look crude and primitive, Middle Ages territory. But NATO/US never developed such weapons. They spent 10+ times as much money on weapons, still do, and -comparatively – ended up with bows and arrows.
Nuclear bombs are good only to create widespread panic and destruction. But that includes your own destruction, because of Mutually Assured Destruction protocols. Which also go back almost as far as the bow and arrow. If you fire a nuclear missile, one very much like it will land on your head a few minutes later. End of story, end of you.
US/NATO, the “collective west”, the hegemon, has lost. And has missed the moment when that occurred. Because hegemon equals hubris. Look at what they’ve all still been saying, and you notice they can’t see, and can’t acknowledge, that -and how- the world has changed. Not just this weekend, and the 9 months before, in Artyomovsk. It’s the entire story of Ukraine: it illustrates how the West “lost it”.
The US plotted a coup and moved NATO’s borders east, and Russia reacted exactly how they said they would. No nukes, no nazis, no NATO. They got the last two, and know they can expect the first too. But still the west maintains Russia’s special operation was entirely unprovoked. Look, they’re not even listening anymore. They would like to negotiate and end all this, but negotiate about what? Putting AZOV back on the borders of the Donbass, so they can kill more Russians there? Not going to happen.
It’s not only about weaponry, though that plays a major role: the hegemon can no longer make its demands based on military might. It’s been surpassed.
Nor can it make demands based on the dollar’s reserve currency status, and it caused that itself. Weaponization of the currency has backfired to the extent that de-dollarization has become a process that can no longer be halted.
The moment that Saudi prince MbS turned his back on “Joe Biden” is a milestone. Because once he did that, it was obvious many would follow. In central Asia, if you are Kazachstan or Uzbekistan, why on earth would you opt to go with G7/US/NATO instead of BRICS? Why go with the power that is waning, and not the one in ascendancy? Russia is your biggest neighbor, strongly connected to China which is building its BRI network in your region, and the nearby Arab states are about to join that network. Why would you link yourself to the G7? When you know all your neighbors do not?
Then there are the voices that say the US will push for a bigger and wider war, perhaps including American troops. First, because NATO is losing, and second, because it could mean American boots on the ground, and presidents don’t lose elections in wartime. I’ve said before, I would expect them to go with Polish troops first, possibly on Polish territory too. But the Polish don’t appear all that eager anymore. And neither would any other European NATO country. German and French and Dutch troops are in no shape for war, and in the US over 70% of potential troops are grossly overweight and/or handicapped in some other way.
Ukraine had perhaps the best boots on the ground force in Europe, financed and trained since 2014 by NATO, and they lost to a caterer and a loose group of hired hands. You’re not going to win that. Your only option is long distance weapons, missiles, planes, you name it. But NATO has no advantage in that over Russia. To put it mildly.
The sole thing that’s in your favor is that Russia doesn’t seek to destroy you. They want to live in peace and trade with you. Same thing for China. NATO equals unipolar. But the world has moved towards multipolar. Ergo, NATO is obsolete. Ukraine will never reconquer its “lost” territories, and Zelensky will move to some property in Italy or Florida, never to be heard from again, unless perhaps in his obituary. The deaths of some 300,000 of his countrymen will be on his conscience.
But also on that of all the “leaders” who have sent their second-hand armory to Kiev. They are just as responsible for all those deaths. The world has changed a lot in the past few years, and ignorance is no excuse if you are a “leader”, or a “Joe Biden”. Not even if you’re “just” a voter or reader. Those deaths will be on your head when you go see St. Peter at the gate.
PS: Don’t be surprised if “Joe Biden” sends US boots on the ground anyway. No hegemon has ever given up power lightly. That part of the road is yours, US and EU voters. You may have to fill up the streets like you’ve never seen. The rest, the majority, of the world will be waiting to see if you do or not. They’re prepared for either of the two options
* * *
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2023 - 02:00 AM
Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
In Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, all of NATO, all 31 member nations, were defeated by a restaurant owner and a bunch of convicts, is how I saw someone describe it. That of course caricatures the situation somewhat (Wagner is well-organized), but it’s not that far off. And that spells a serious problem for NATO.
All of those 31 members may have lots of control over their media, but in the end you can’t endlessly deny being defeated.
So what will NATO do now? They will double down, and then again.And at the end of the “doubling down road” lie nuclear weapons. Not Russian nukes, because as my friend Wayne wrote the other day, their high-precision hypersonic missiles make nukes look crude and primitive, Middle Ages territory. But NATO/US never developed such weapons. They spent 10+ times as much money on weapons, still do, and -comparatively – ended up with bows and arrows.
Nuclear bombs are good only to create widespread panic and destruction. But that includes your own destruction, because of Mutually Assured Destruction protocols. Which also go back almost as far as the bow and arrow. If you fire a nuclear missile, one very much like it will land on your head a few minutes later. End of story, end of you.
US/NATO, the “collective west”, the hegemon, has lost. And has missed the moment when that occurred. Because hegemon equals hubris. Look at what they’ve all still been saying, and you notice they can’t see, and can’t acknowledge, that -and how- the world has changed. Not just this weekend, and the 9 months before, in Artyomovsk. It’s the entire story of Ukraine: it illustrates how the West “lost it”.
The US plotted a coup and moved NATO’s borders east, and Russia reacted exactly how they said they would. No nukes, no nazis, no NATO. They got the last two, and know they can expect the first too. But still the west maintains Russia’s special operation was entirely unprovoked. Look, they’re not even listening anymore. They would like to negotiate and end all this, but negotiate about what? Putting AZOV back on the borders of the Donbass, so they can kill more Russians there? Not going to happen.
It’s not only about weaponry, though that plays a major role: the hegemon can no longer make its demands based on military might. It’s been surpassed.
Nor can it make demands based on the dollar’s reserve currency status, and it caused that itself. Weaponization of the currency has backfired to the extent that de-dollarization has become a process that can no longer be halted.
The moment that Saudi prince MbS turned his back on “Joe Biden” is a milestone. Because once he did that, it was obvious many would follow. In central Asia, if you are Kazachstan or Uzbekistan, why on earth would you opt to go with G7/US/NATO instead of BRICS? Why go with the power that is waning, and not the one in ascendancy? Russia is your biggest neighbor, strongly connected to China which is building its BRI network in your region, and the nearby Arab states are about to join that network. Why would you link yourself to the G7? When you know all your neighbors do not?
Then there are the voices that say the US will push for a bigger and wider war, perhaps including American troops. First, because NATO is losing, and second, because it could mean American boots on the ground, and presidents don’t lose elections in wartime. I’ve said before, I would expect them to go with Polish troops first, possibly on Polish territory too. But the Polish don’t appear all that eager anymore. And neither would any other European NATO country. German and French and Dutch troops are in no shape for war, and in the US over 70% of potential troops are grossly overweight and/or handicapped in some other way.
Ukraine had perhaps the best boots on the ground force in Europe, financed and trained since 2014 by NATO, and they lost to a caterer and a loose group of hired hands. You’re not going to win that. Your only option is long distance weapons, missiles, planes, you name it. But NATO has no advantage in that over Russia. To put it mildly.
The sole thing that’s in your favor is that Russia doesn’t seek to destroy you. They want to live in peace and trade with you. Same thing for China. NATO equals unipolar. But the world has moved towards multipolar. Ergo, NATO is obsolete. Ukraine will never reconquer its “lost” territories, and Zelensky will move to some property in Italy or Florida, never to be heard from again, unless perhaps in his obituary. The deaths of some 300,000 of his countrymen will be on his conscience.
But also on that of all the “leaders” who have sent their second-hand armory to Kiev. They are just as responsible for all those deaths. The world has changed a lot in the past few years, and ignorance is no excuse if you are a “leader”, or a “Joe Biden”. Not even if you’re “just” a voter or reader. Those deaths will be on your head when you go see St. Peter at the gate.
PS: Don’t be surprised if “Joe Biden” sends US boots on the ground anyway. No hegemon has ever given up power lightly. That part of the road is yours, US and EU voters. You may have to fill up the streets like you’ve never seen. The rest, the majority, of the world will be waiting to see if you do or not. They’re prepared for either of the two options
* * *
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And you accuse me of spin? Which NATO militaries were deployed in Bakmut? None. Which NATO nation's service battalions were providing logistics? None. Which NATO nation's air force was providing air superiority, ground attack, or close air support? None. Which NATO nation's artillery regiments were engaged in ground support or counter-battery fire missions? None. Which NATO nation's armored squadrons/battalions were providing armored support? None. Which NATO nation's Army Air Wing was providing air mobile or TacHel support? None. Which NATO nation's infantry regiments/brigades/battalions were in the line of battle? None.
At best, SHAPE is providing support for J2 and J5 staff.
If you think one country that spends $66 billion would honestly defeat an alliance that spends $1.3 trillion, you're a complete moron. Besides the US, 2 other NATO nations spend as much on defence as Russia.
I half agree. In order for them to be "just as responsible," Russia (specifically Putin) has to be responsible too. That's the half I agree with: Putin is responsible. But he's 100% responsible.
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Strategically unimportant:
"the fortress of our morale.” - Zelensky
"no one will surrender Bakhmut – we will fight as long as we can" - Zelensky
"We consider Bakhmut our fortress.” - Zelensky
"Bakhmut has delivered and is delivering one of the greatest results during this war, during the entire battle for Donbas." - Zelensky
"We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction" - Zelensky
"we have to stand strong in Bakhmut" - Zelensky
PS.
Where's the US hypersonic?
oh yeah, on the drawing board of some clueless diversity hire
FJB... GO TRUMP GO.. MAGA
For the uninformed......
1. Prighozny has never been in the military he is just a front.
2. WAGNER is composed exclusively of Russian/ex Soviet previous contract soldiers including all officers and enlisted men.
Previous contract soldiers remain what they are...with or without a criminal conviction.
3. All the support arms and logistics for WAGNER activities are supplied by the regular Russian Army
4. The regular Russian Army has been going about its business quietly, efficiently and successfully
What General Surovikin achieved (in tandem with Prighozny) was to keep Zelensky, the UKi General Staff, NATO and the Western MSM fixated on Bahkmut.
They successfully created the rabbit hole that > 500,000 killed and wounded UKi's fell into, never to return.
Talk of Wunderwaffen planes and Spring offensives are mere Kabuki Theatre.....the UKi, NATO, the West have nothing in their locker that will affect the eventual defeat and dismemberment of country 404.
Be under no illusion. The Russian General Staff have broken the back of the UKi NAZI Beast.......
1. Prighozny has never been in the military he is just a front.
2. WAGNER is composed exclusively of Russian/ex Soviet previous contract soldiers including all officers and enlisted men.
Previous contract soldiers remain what they are...with or without a criminal conviction.
3. All the support arms and logistics for WAGNER activities are supplied by the regular Russian Army
4. The regular Russian Army has been going about its business quietly, efficiently and successfully
What General Surovikin achieved (in tandem with Prighozny) was to keep Zelensky, the UKi General Staff, NATO and the Western MSM fixated on Bahkmut.
They successfully created the rabbit hole that > 500,000 killed and wounded UKi's fell into, never to return.
Talk of Wunderwaffen planes and Spring offensives are mere Kabuki Theatre.....the UKi, NATO, the West have nothing in their locker that will affect the eventual defeat and dismemberment of country 404.
Be under no illusion. The Russian General Staff have broken the back of the UKi NAZI Beast.......
So why didn't Russia take Kyiv and Kharkiv and hold Kherson, Addyovsky?
Seriously, Vatnik?
Literally a phrase I've never said on these forums. Is your mind that addled? This is literally spin; it's a strawman. You're saying I engaged in spin by giving a phrase I never said? You're as fake as Stolen Valour was.
Before I put you on ignore, because I'm not going to discuss with someone who strawman's me, let me just recommend you read "They Thought They Were Free", because you're on the wrong side of history, supporting a war criminal because you bought some bullshit propaganda, and maybe, just maybe, reading and other people who fell for propaganda will help you see reality.
This proxy war:
The war has nothing to do with wokism. Western governments are only wokist because that is how they intend to divide and disrupt the people from making a consolidated stand against them.
The war is about trying to conquer the resources and the land of a perceived weaker power. The fact that the warmongers in the West see Russia as weak and easily defeated tells you all you need to know about their lack of historical education and their belief that they can win anything if they wish on it hard enough.
They are like little kids, playing in the sandbox, clueless as to the ramifications of what they are doing.
Go Trump Go! I believe Trump will end this proxy war within 24 or 48 hrs. Fired the deep state! Trump 2024 ! MAGA !
The war has nothing to do with wokism. Western governments are only wokist because that is how they intend to divide and disrupt the people from making a consolidated stand against them.
The war is about trying to conquer the resources and the land of a perceived weaker power. The fact that the warmongers in the West see Russia as weak and easily defeated tells you all you need to know about their lack of historical education and their belief that they can win anything if they wish on it hard enough.
They are like little kids, playing in the sandbox, clueless as to the ramifications of what they are doing.
Go Trump Go! I believe Trump will end this proxy war within 24 or 48 hrs. Fired the deep state! Trump 2024 ! MAGA !
But if the West sees Russia as "weak and easily defeated", why is it just enabling and supporting a limited defensive war in Ukraine and not actually invading and seizing those valuable polar bears in Siberia?
Ukrainians taking out Russian substations in prep for the counteroffensive.
Wouldn't be surprised if the actual number is higher.
Russia Wagner Boss Says Over 20,000 Died in Bakhmut Battle | Time
Watch: Wagner chief slams Russian officials in graphic video | CNN
Russia Wagner Boss Says Over 20,000 Died in Bakhmut Battle | Time
Watch: Wagner chief slams Russian officials in graphic video | CNN
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