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Ukraine – Who Is Firing At Whom And Who Is Lying About It?
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has an observer mission along the line of control between the government and rebel side in south east Ukraine.
It reports that on Friday the number of ceasefire violations around the rebellious Donbas region of Ukraine had again nearly doubled:
- In Donetsk region, the SMM recorded 591 ceasefire violations, including 553 explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 222 ceasefire violations in the region.
- In Luhansk region, the Mission recorded 975 ceasefire violations, including 860 explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 648 ceasefire violations in the region.
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The ever lying New York Times claims that it is only the Donbas rebel side that is firing artillery:
Artillery fire escalated sharply in eastern Ukraine on Saturday and thousands of residents fled the region in chaotic evacuations — two developments rife with opportunities for what the United States has warned could be a pretext for a Russian invasion.
Russian-backed separatists, who have been fighting the Ukrainian government for years, have asserted, without evidence, that Ukraine was planning a large-scale attack on territory they control.
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At the same time, the firing of mortars, artillery and rocket-propelled grenades by separatist rebels along the front line roughly doubled the level of the previous two days, the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs said. Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and five wounded, the military said.
Ukrainian officials said the shelling came exclusively from the separatists, who are seen as a proxy for Russia.
New York Times reporters at the scene witnessed shelling from separatists and saw no return fire from the Ukrainian forces, although residents in the separatist regions said there was shelling from both sides.
The OSCE observer mission helpfully provides maps in its daily reports that show the impact points of artillery attacks. Yesterday a large majority of those were within the rebel controlled areas.
Here is a cutout from the OSCE map below.
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The Times claims:
Intense artillery barrages targeted a pocket of government-controlled territory around the town of Svitlodarsk, a spot that has worried security analysts for weeks for its proximity to dangerous industrial infrastructure, including storage tanks for poisonous gas.
The concentration of impacts on the left of the above picture is a bit south-east of Svitlodarsk. Artillery rounds landed on both sides of the line of control but the vast majority of them exploded on the Donbas side. The same can be said for the impacts north-east of Luhansk. On Thursday both of these areas were also the aim of artillery concentrations. These are likely crossing points through which the Ukraine military plans to direct its upcoming attack.
The full map of Friday's impacts:
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This is an information war in with the Russian side is mostly trolling the U.S. side while the Biden administration and its associated media like the NYT are lying through their teeth.
Today's Washington Post has European officials complaining that the Biden administration has presented them with no evidence for all the claims it has made:
However, some European allies questioned the United States’ conviction that the Kremlin will launch hostilities, saying that they have not seen direct evidence suggesting Putin has committed to such a course of action.
One European official told The Washington Post in Munich that “we have no clear evidence ourselves that Putin has made up his mind and we have not seen anything that would suggest otherwise.” Another said that although the situation is grave, “at this stage we do not have such clear intelligence” that Putin has decided to invade.
The officials said they have been told little about the sources and methods the United States used to arrive at its conclusions, limiting their capacity to make independent decisions about how much weight to give statements from Biden that Putin has made a decision to attack.
“It’s always the raw material that they do not share,” said one senior NATO diplomat who has had extensive conversations with top American policymakers in Brussels.
These Europeans have their own satellites and military intelligence analysts. They also talk to each other. They obviously do not see what the U.S., without presenting evidence, claims to be seeing.
While the OSCE observer mission is not completely neutral it is at least professional in its work. It also helps that the U.S. and Britain have retracted their people from the OSCE mission and have less abilities to fudge the results. They were replaced by officers from other European countries.
The OSCE observer mission reports can be found among its press releases. The daily updates are here and the longer term Trends and Observations reports are here.
When in doubt of what is happening take a look at them.
SOMEONE WANTS WAR
…but who is it?
The United States and Britain desperately want a Russian invasion of Ukraine, but they not be the ones making the decisions on the ground. Russia says it has no intention of invading Ukraine, but if this was true under all circumstances, then the Russian deterrence would have no effect. So who is behind the escalation in Donbass?
I will repost some old comments and some new analysis.
Russia needs Chinese approval to invade Ukraine. China would not approve an invasion until the Olympics were over.
Operation Olympic Truce – Jan 27, 2022
The Russian Eastern Military District has been assigned the task of maintaining international peace during the Beijing Winter Olympics. The best place to perform this task is in Belarus, near the border with Ukraine.
Russians know that the West will try to stage a provocation or war during the Olympics. This year it would take the form of a Ukrainian attack on Donbass. To prevent this, Russia has to establish escalation dominance on every level of potential escalation, from local to European to global, from tactical to strategic to nuclear. As part of this, all fleets of the Russian Navy have been ordered out to sea.
Americans seem to be baiting Russia to invade Kiev and half of Ukraine.
Will we soon see a “Republic of Lemberg” – Feb 14, 2022
Is there any reason for Russia to invade Ukraine now? Russia has already achieved every last one of its war aims, regime change in Ukraine and end to any NATO aspirations.
I said earlier, that if Russia invaded Kiev they would not establish a puppet government. Instead they would demand that Zelensky stay on as president. What needs to go is the true power in Kiev, the US occupation regime. Every last military instructor, NATO bureaucrat and CIA agent embedded in the SBU has now left Ukraine. Is there anything more that Russia could demand?
I hear that the US ambassador is still in Ukraine, but has moved the embassy to Lviv. A very welcome development. Maybe they will establish a “Republic of Lemberg” or something.
On February 16th Russia once again declared that the claims of and Russian invasion on that day had been Western fake-news. The situation changed on the morning of February 17th. Ukraine started shelling Donbass. Maybe Russia was too early to declare the “Russian invasion” stories a hoax.
Russia is ready for war – Feb 19, 2022
All the preparations for a major invasion of Ukraine have now been made. The last stage of preparations is done today, when Putin will personally practice pressing the nuclear “button”.
The Russian attack or counter attack – if it is to come – may happen north of Kharkov. Russia has been offloading a huge number of main battle tanks at the railway station in Tomarovka, west of Belgorod and 27 km from the Ukrainian border. The tanks are then seen driving west along the road to Poltava. If the tanks are to take action, then the likely target is the Dnieper river, bypassing Kharkov from the west.
TicToc, or “TankToc” as it is now being called in Russia has tens of videos of the tanks leaving the Tomarovka railway station. I tried to search for Tomarovka on Google. Surprisingly the top results are about WWII. Two new books are among the top ten results. “From the Don to the Dnepr: Soviet Offensive Operations” by David M. Glantz from 2014 and “Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943” by Prit Buttar from 2019.
I have no idea what if anything will happen next. I am however sure nothing will happen until Monday February 21st when the Winter Olympics are over.
During previous rounds of escalation Russia has placed light armor in Rostov, ready to move into Donbass and help the defenders. This time they have placed the 1st Guards Tank Army and the 4th Tank Division near Kharkov, ready to cut Ukraine in half.
One reason for the Russian invasion preparations can be knowledge of Ukrainian attack plans.
Is the Ukrainian attack plan real or fake? – Feb 19, 2022
The photo does not show the original Ukrainian plan, but a recreation based on alleged intelligence. As such it has no more probative value than any “Russian attack plan” drawn up by Julian Röpcke for the German BILD magazine. The West will claim that the map is yet another “false flag” or provocation intended to justify a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Some new data has come to light may help validate the map. American NPR radio is claiming that the order by Denis Pushilin to evacuate DPR civilians was recorded two days before it was broadcast on February 18. There is nothing shocking in this, as any such evacuation would have to be planned in advance and coordinated with Russian authorities.
The two weeks up to February 16th, the recording date, had been exceptionally quiet at the front. A Joint Control and Coordination Commission (JCCC) officer at the front noted that it had in fact been “dangerously quiet”. The current escalation only stared at 5 am on February 17, 2022. The evacuation order can thus not be a response to the current round of shelling.
The evacuation is part of a larger plan agreed upon with Russia. The plan also includes Russian preparations for a potential invasion. Detailed knowledge of Ukrainian attack plans could explain the recent moves.
The strongest proof of Ukrainian attack plans is the 150 thousand battle-ready Ukrainian troop in the trenches in Donbass – totally unacknowledged by Western media. Are they all needed to defend against the 35,000 Novorossiyan forces? They are not there to defend against a Russian invasion. Why would Russia attack through the heavily fortified positions in Donbass, when they can simply walk over the border from Belgorod to Kharkov?
Does Ukraine have a death wish? If they really believed that Russia is about to attack Ukraine, they would move their forces to defend Kiev and Kharkov, instead of shelling Donbass.
Maybe we need to reinterpret the Biden-Zelensky phone call. Was Biden warning Zelensky that he should not attack Donbass and instead move his troops to defend Kiev and Kharkov? Did Zelensky want to attack anyway?
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Feb 20 2022 23:12 utc | 24
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