Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

The open thread for other issues is here.

The British Guardian reports that 'black propaganda', issued by the British government, has helped to kill millions of people:

The British government ran a secret “black propaganda” campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas, newly declassified documents have revealed.

The effort, run from the mid-1950s through to the late 70s by a unit in London that was part of the Foreign Office, was focused on cold war enemies such as the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and leaders that the UK saw as threats to its interests

The campaign also sought to mobilise Muslims against Moscow, promoting greater religious conservatism and radical ideas. To appear authentic, documents encouraged hatred of Israel.

Recently declassified British government documents reveal hundreds of extensive and costly operations.

This isn't all new:

Cont. reading: British Info-Warriors Kill Abroad And Sabotage Politics At Home

Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

The open thread for other issues is here.

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• May 9 – Ukraine – Putin On Why The War Started, Failed Attempts On Snake Island, Other Issues
• May 11 – Ukraine – Congress Passes The Bucks, Realism Sneaks In, Poland Plans For More War
• May 13 – If Ukraine Is Winning Why Is The U.S. Requesting A Ceasefire?
  Related:
  – Why Ukraine war has no winners – Indian Punchline
  – Putin, game master? – Jacques Baud (vid, Engl.subs) – Max Milo Éditions
  – Saturday Morning Live With Scott Ritter And Ray McGovern (vid) – Garland Nixon

• May 12 – Matthew VanDyke – Some 3 Letter Agency Dude With An Obsessive Compulsion For Publicity
  Related:
  – The Covert Operation to Back Ukrainian Independence that Haunts the CIA – Politico
    After WWII, officials in Washington sent scores of agents to their deaths in a misguided effort to create an uprising against Moscow.
  – Army of Secret Propagandists in Ukraine Funded by U.S. to Win Western Hearts and Minds for NATO Policies – Covert Action Mag
  – Ukraine war: Military intelligence chief 'optimistic' of Russian defeat saying war 'will be over by end of year' – Sky News
  – Coup to remove cancer-stricken Putin underway in Russia, Ukrainian intelligence chief says – Fortune

• May 13 – U.S. Seeks ASEAN Proxy Willing To Poke China
  Related:
  – Indo-Pacific strategy adrift in an illusion – Indian Punchline
  – Is the Biden Administration Serious About ‘ASEAN Centrality’? – The Diplomat
  – Biden’s summit pushes ASEAN to confront China, runs counter to their interest – Global Times

—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – NOT Ukraine OT 2022-65

Yesterday the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Sergei Shoigu.

Why?

The U.S. readout of the call says:

On May 13, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III spoke with Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu for the first time since February 18. Secretary Austin urged an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication.

Austin initiated the call and the U.S. is seeking a ceasefire in Ukraine!!!

Are we not told that the Ukraine is winning the war? That it will soon push the Russian forces back over the border? The operation to 'weaken Russia', which Austin had publicly announced two weeks ago, does not seem to go that well.

Told ya so!

Gonzalo Lira thinks that the call points to a soon coming collapse of the Ukrainian forces. Let us hope that this is indeed the case because it seems to be the only chance that the war will end soon.

The Ukraine is losing up to 15,000 men per month to the war. The total Ukrainian casualties, dead and wounded, are likely already at 50,000. The weapons the U.S. and others provide, are not sufficient to sustain the war. The Ukraine has only 3 days reserves of diesel and gasoline left. The main parts of its forces are immobile and are getting surrounded by Russian forces. Their situation is hopeless.

The Pentagon of course knows this all and that is why Austin initiated the call and asked for a ceasefire.

The Russia side will not agree to a ceasefire. At least not unless the 'west' offers to take back some of the 6,400 sanction measures it has initiated against Russia.

There are recently a number of other issues that also go in favor of Russia:

Cont. reading: If Ukraine Is Winning Why Is The U.S. Requesting A Ceasefire?

Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

The open thread for other stuff is here.

On Wednesday, May 11, the Associated Press published a piece of the election in Philippine which included some dubious editorial assertions:

Marcos presidency complicates US efforts to counter China

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s apparent landslide victory in the Philippine presidential election is raising immediate concerns about a further erosion of democracy in Asia and could complicate American efforts to blunt growing Chinese influence and power in the Pacific.

Marcos, the namesake son of longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos, captured more than double the votes of his closest challenger in Monday’s election, according to the unofficial results.

If the results stand, he will take office at the end of June for a six-year term with Sara Duterte, the daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, as his vice president.

Duterte — who leaves office with a 67% approval rating — nurtured closer ties with China and Russia, while at times railing against the United States.

The whole piece is much longer than the quote. But it nowhere explains why a free and fair election, like the one the Philippines just held, would lead to 'a further erosion of democracy in Asia'. It also does not explain why anyone might doubt the results when indeed nobody really does.

What it does explain well is why Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will not become a U.S. puppet:

Cont. reading: U.S. Seeks ASEAN Proxy Willing To Poke China

• Matthew VanDyke: US citizen held in Libya emerges on Syria's frontline – Guardian, Nov 9 2012

An American who fought alongside Libyan rebels, and who was detained in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison for six months before returning home to Baltimore in late 2011, has turned up on the frontline of the uprising in Syria.

Matthew VanDyke said that he was in Aleppo to film a documentary alongside the Syrian rebel army. But he claims he is also advising the rebels on weaponry based on his experience in Libya.

"I go to sleep and wake up to the sound of artillery shells, and Assad's jets flying overhead and bombing the city," VanDyke, 33, wrote in the first of a series of emails with the Guardian. "Most of these booms signal the death of more civilians in Aleppo."

VanDyke claims to be a journalist-turned-freedom-fighter-turned documentarian, but others accuse him of being a misguided thrillseeker who repeatedly puts himself at risk.
…
He said he was also offering advice on weaponry, including the anti-aircraft Dushka machine guns he used while fighting in Libya, though that claim has been questioned by people who know him and who have spent time on the ground in Syria.

• Matthew VanDyke and Obsessive Compulsive Freedom Fighting, Wrath-Bearing Tree, Apr 12, 2015

Cont. reading: Matthew VanDyke – Some 3 Letter Agency Dude With An Obsessive Compulsion For Publicity

After a lot of talk about defeating Russia in the Ukraine and an alleged lack of Russian fighting abilities Congress passed another $40 billion fund for weapons and economic support. That brings the total to some $53 billion for Ukraine.

Most of the money will go to the U.S. weapon industry, the CIA and to various Ukrainian oligarchs. Hardly anything will be received by those in need.

With that packet now passed reality is allowed to sneak into U.S. media reporting on the issue.

Not one but two reports in the New York Times suddenly lament about the huge area of land the Russian troops have taken in east Ukraine:

• How much of Ukraine does Russia hold?
• Ukraine War’s Geographic Reality: Russia Has Seized Much of the East

From the later:

Nonetheless, the Donbas seizure, combined with the Russian invasion’s early success in seizing parts of southern Ukraine adjoining the Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, gives the Kremlin enormous leverage in any future negotiation to halt the conflict.

And the Russians enjoy the added advantage of naval dominance in the Black Sea, the only maritime route for Ukrainian trade, which they have paralyzed with an embargo that could eventually starve Ukraine economically and is already contributing to a global grain shortage.

I have often pointed out that the Ukrainian frontline will have a huge number of casualties from Russian artillery strikes. It is even worse than I had thought:

Cont. reading: Ukraine – Congress Passes The Bucks, Realism Sneaks In, Poland Plans For More War

(The post for today didn't work out. I had to trash it. You will have to talk to each other instead.)

Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

The open thread for other stuff is here.

Updates below (17:15 UTC)

It is Victory Day. As Ernest Hemingway said:

Anyone who loves freedom owes such a debt to the Red Army that it can never be repaid.

The most important part of Vladimir Putin's speech to the Victory Parade on the Red Square is the narrative that explains how the current war in Ukraine began. Putin is correct in seeing this as a NATO proxy war against Russia:

[D]espite all controversies in international relations, Russia has always advocated the establishment of an equal and indivisible security system which is critically needed for the entire international community.

Last December we proposed signing a treaty on security guarantees. Russia urged the West to hold an honest dialogue in search for meaningful and compromising solutions, and to take account of each other’s interests. All in vain. NATO countries did not want to heed us, which means they had totally different plans. And we saw it.

Another punitive operation in Donbass, an invasion of our historic lands, including Crimea, was openly in the making. Kiev declared that it could attain nuclear weapons. The NATO bloc launched an active military build-up on the territories adjacent to us.

Thus, an absolutely unacceptable threat to us was steadily being created right on our borders. There was every indication that a clash with neo-Nazis and Banderites backed by the United States and their minions was unavoidable.

Let me repeat, we saw the military infrastructure being built up, hundreds of foreign advisors starting work, and regular supplies of cutting-edge weaponry being delivered from NATO countries. The threat grew every day.

Russia launched a pre-emptive strike at the aggression. It was a forced, timely and the only correct decision. A decision by a sovereign, strong and independent country.

Cont. reading: Ukraine – Putin On Why The War Started, Failed Attempts On Snake Island, Other Issues

Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• May 2 – Why Shouldn't Russia Threaten US Carriers?
• May 6 – U.S. Pushes Fake Stories To Goad Russia Into Escalation
  Related:
  – Return of the King – Wolfgang Streek / New Left Review <— This week's must read!
  – How Putin’s invasion returned Nato to the centre stage – Guardian
  – The War Is Getting More Dangerous for America, and Biden Knows It – Tom Friedman(!) / NYT
  – First IMF report issued after the nuclear war
    "Bright prospects for global recovery" just released in Beijing – Branko Milanovic

> Last Summer’s adoption of Renminbi by Europe, and significant food aid from the countries of the African Union have stabilized, to a degree, the macroeconomic situation. It should be noted, however, that due to the severe difficulties of collection of information and inability of Staff to travel to the Formerly Belligerent Areas (FBAs) (separately), all National Account data have to be taken with a great dose of caution.
…
Labor and social issues. Staff note that in the conversation with all  FBA (separately), it has been pointed out to the massive high-skill labor shortages. In the United States, the number of people with college degree has been reduced by an estimated two-thirds (in line with the overall casualty rate), but the outflow of high-skilled workers to other countries has additionally exacerbated the problem. It was thus estimated by the Bismarck authorities that the US has lost more than 80% of its college graduates. The US authorities mentioned the plan to build a wall which would stop further outflow of skilled labor but the costs of construction (especially given extremely high level of US foreign indebtedness; see below) are prohibitive. <

• May 2 – Ukraine's Army Is In Very Bad Shape – More Fighting Will Only Destroy It
• May 5 – Ukraine's Forces Are Told To Hold The Line Where Russian Artillery Is Pulverizing Them
  Related:
  – The Russians Continue Grinding – Larry Johnson
  – CIA Ineptitude, Russian Cauldrons and the Ukrainian Mafia – Larry Johnson
  – ‘If I panic it will be worse.’ In Donbas, weary civilians try to cope. – CSM

• May 3 – Democrats: The Ukraine War Is Over. Let's Talk Abortion Rights.
  Related:
  – Ben Franklin Put an Abortion Recipe in His Math Textbook – Slate

• May 4 – On Lavrov's Spat With Israel – Who Is Right?
  Related:
  – Putin apologises for Lavrov’s Hitler remarks, Israel’s PM says – Al jazeerah
  – Telephone conversation with Prime Minister of Israel Naftali Bennett (no apology in there) – Kremlin.ru
  – No comments from Kremlin spokesman about Putin’s alleged apology for Lavrov’s remarks – Tass

• More Ukraine related links:
  – American progressives join the War Party – Asia Times
  – Unity on Ukraine is crumbling in Eastern Europe – Unherd
  – EU Haggles Over Ban on Russian Oil Imports – Energy Intel
  – The Blind Alleys of European Politics – Alastair Crooke / SCF
  – Greetings to Ukrainian Great Patriotic War veterans – Vladimir Putin / Kremlin.ru

—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – NOT Ukraine OT 2022-61

Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

The geniuses (not) at the National Security Council want to goad Russia into direct attacks on U.S. forces or interests. That would give the U.S. an excuse to further escalate the war in Ukraine into an open confrontation. It would also diverts the attention away from domestic problems.

To achieve this the NSC has pushed a number of stories to the media which claim that alleged Ukrainian successes are based on U.S. intelligence.

U.S. Intelligence Is Helping Ukraine Kill Russian Generals, Officials Say, May 4, NYT

Cont. reading: U.S. Pushes Fake Stories To Goad Russia Into Escalation

The Russian military forces are grinding down Ukrainian ground forces by extensive use of heavy artillery. The Ukrainian artillery has been destroyed or lacks ammunition.The Ukrainian forces have orders to stay in their position and to hold the line. That only makes sure that Russian artillery strikes will destroy them.

The order was given because the ‘west’ has pushed the Ukrainian president to not make peace with Russia. The consequence will be the assured destruction of the Ukrainian military.

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There are claims that the Russian progress in Ukraine has been slow or has even come to a halt:

Cont. reading: Ukraine’s Forces Are Told To Hold The Line Where Russian Artillery Is Pulverizing Them

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in a spat with Israel over its support for Nazis militia in the Ukraine.

The immediate cause is a passage in an interview Lavrov had with the Italian TV network Mediaset:

Question: This is how you see it, while Vladimir Zelensky puts it differently. He believes denazification doesn’t make any sense. He is a Jew. The Nazis, Azov – there are very few of them (several thousand). Vladimir Zelensky refutes your view of the situation. Do you believe Vladimir Zelensky is an obstacle to peace?

Sergey Lavrov: It makes no difference to me what President Vladimir Zelensky refutes or does not refute. He is as fickle as the wind, as they say. He can change his position several times a day.

I heard him say that they would not even discuss demilitarisation and denazification during peace talks. First, they are torpedoing the talks just as they did the Minsk agreements for eight years. Second, there is nazification there: the captured militants as well as members of the Azov and Aidar battalions and other units wear swastikas or symbols of Nazi Waffen-SS battalions on their clothes or have them tattooed on their bodies; they openly read and promote Mein Kampf. His argument is: How can there be Nazism in Ukraine if he is a Jew? I may be mistaken but Adolf Hitler had Jewish blood, too. This means absolutely nothing. The wise Jewish people say that the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews. “Every family has its black sheep,” as we say.

The Zionist entity in Palestine reacted with harsh words:

Cont. reading: On Lavrov’s Spat With Israel – Who Is Right?

Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

On day 69 the war in Ukraine fell off the top of the news pages.

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The emotional outrage of the Democrats has now been redirected to the Supreme Court. This happened after Politico published a leaked draft of the majority opinion on constitutional protection of reproductive rights:

The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.

Chief Justice Roberts has confirmed the authenticity of the 'leaked' draft but added that it does not represent the courts final decision.

The draft is dated February 10 2022. It was likely a tactical decision by Democrats to let it 'leak' now.

Cont. reading: Democrats: The Ukraine War Is Over. Let’s Talk Abortion Rights.

The French news agency AFP has published a report by Daphne Rousseau from near the Ukrainian frontline. It allows us to gain some realistic view of the state of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Exhausted Ukrainian soldiers return from eastern front

Here is a current map of the frontline. Kiev is in the upper left corner.

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I will quote the AFP report piecemeal and add my observations:

Cont. reading: Ukraine’s Army Is In Very Bad Shape – More Fighting Will Only Destroy It