On Russian gas transit through Ukraine: https://sonar21.com/ukraine-cuts-off-gas-to-europe-and-the-inflation-double-whammy/
Not to worry for Germany as there is always NS2 if they are in real need. They might have to silence Ursula bin Lying though.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 11 2022 3:30 utc | 203

A most interesting conundrum.
DW recently granted a prize to two intrepid Ukrainian born AP journalists.
The catch 22 was the front cover of the DW award video. Was actually derived from another video clip not shown. In this video M. Chernov in another building across town in Mariupol. Was pointing in the direction of an explosion. He stated “Ah that’s the “maternity hospital”. Which was obscured by many other buildings and hidden from public view.
Now the interview with principle witness . She clearly stated there were no planes and two distinctive explosions.
I smelt a rat on day one. The bomb crater was far too small. Then the big question? This is a maternity hospital. Why is an alleged army medic treating the wounded ? Where are all the doctors and nurses ?
Some days , to assign credibility to information. A quick background check on the reporters is also required.
Conclusion, yet another failed 2% country 404 propaganda trash out put.
Back in 2016/17 , I caught “DW’ telling quite a few propaganda furphies about Venezuela……….:

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | May 11 2022 3:41 utc | 205

@ K & dh – I didn’t know that either! Say it in broken English. ; )
Posted by: lex talionis | May 11 2022 3:10 utc | 200
Gotta say though her voice was rough and raw she sure sang a great rock ballad.
My favourite though sad: The Ballad of Lucy Jordan
Also just read that her father was a British spy in WW2 supposedly a lefty and anti Nazi

Posted by: K | May 11 2022 3:42 utc | 207

What hit this tank?
https://nitter.net/IAPonomarenko/status/1523965115686662146“>https://nitter.net/IAPonomarenko/status/1523965115686662146″>https://nitter.net/IAPonomarenko/status/1523965115686662146
My guess is some kind of artillery.

Posted by: Anonymous | May 11 2022 4:03 utc | 209

When I was a wee lad, I watched monster movie where a pair of monster was slugging out, trampling an enormous city, typically Tokyo, but one of them was a good guy (I am too old to remember why, denizens of Tokyo could rejoice being stomped, together with their entire building, by the good monster, or lament being stomped by a bad monster, so do not move there).
Now another clash of monster is looming, if press is to be believed (a BIG if), for real. Orban vs Oilban. The entire Pannonian plain, plus surrounding Carpathians (Slovakia), Alps (Austria) etc. will lie in ruins, hopefully by Oilban — the good monster. How is it a good monster? Principles are at stake! Which principles? Most importantly ones!
From Politico, author unimportant because he (a Croatian, I guess) repeats the points long in circulation (originality makes you bad these days):

Of course, this is not the first time Hungary finds itself at odds with the rest of the EU. From the rule of law through to gay rights, asylum policy and relations with China, Orbán has made a habit of defying the European consensus, earning applause from the likes of American Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
This time is different.
For starters, there’s the magnitude of the problem. Russia’s war against Ukraine is not just another divisive issue. It upsets the most fundamental tenet of Europe’s political order: that national borders cannot be changed by force and that no matter their size, nations do not hold veto power over the foreign policy choices of their neighbors.

What makes principles most important is that they are more important than others. So democracy, gay rights, asylum policy, and even relations with China (a principle?) go to the back of the room. To the front: unchangeability of national borders (like annexation of Western Sahara or creation of Northern Cyprus and Kosovo), and nations trying to hold veto power over the policy choices of their neighbors.
Unlike European Commission, not a nation, trying to veto a foreign policy choice of Hungary, not its neighbor. Note also that Australia, a nation I guess, is fuming over a policy choice of Solomon Islands, but the principle does not apply, (a) not in Europe (b) they are not neighbors. Kosovo is in Europe, so the most salient point here is that its separation from Serbia was not impose by neighboring Albania or Bulgaria but by more distant countries. In short, logic is ironclad.
But what about democracy, gay rights and asylum policies, all disliked by the power holders in Poland? When they became unimportant (looking into the back of the room, they look pretty sad…). Well, they ARE important, just not as important as Ukraine being subjected to dictats of a neighbor rather than European Commission.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 11 2022 4:15 utc | 211

@ uncle tungsten | May 11 2022 3:46 utc | 206 who makes USA corruption sound like an aged and valued single malt….grin
You nailed it!
”
On USA corruption – I guess it is the essence of european corruption triple distilled and cellared in old gunpowder barrels for a century or two. It started with the vast accumulation of wealth in Venice that in the 1600’s Managed its risk by franchising to London, Amsterdam and Madrid. It has gotten stronger and more vile as the decades roll on.
”
On another note more related to Ukraine.
I exchange jokes online regularly with a retired union fork lift truck driver I taught to talk to computers as part of a computerized inventory management system back in the 80’s…and he is in his 80’s now but still online…anyway, today he forwards me an email that has a video of Stinger and Javelin weapons taking out Russian military and showing that Ukraine is winning…..sigh

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 11 2022 4:25 utc | 213

Orban vs Oilban.
Western politics has generally out satized satire. Still some good phrases crop up though.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | May 11 2022 4:28 utc | 215

Posted by: Piotr Berman | May 11 2022 4:15 utc | 209
Ah, Godzilla vs King Kong…and Godzilla vs Mothra…And Godzilla vs Ghidrah…and…and… How many of those were made I couldn’t tell you, but it was a lot. I also wondered why anyone celebrated being the grass under two elephants fighting. Now it’s Russia vs the US, not just Orban vs the EU. That’s just the warmup act, as is Ukraine itself.

Posted by: CharlesLutherThanos | May 11 2022 4:39 utc | 217

IMO, the decision to reduce the flow was made in Washington, so it must be aimed at Germany and Northern Europe. The attempt by EU to impose an EU-wide embargo on Russian oil imports failed, so this move might be tied to that failure to further destabilize Europe.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 10 2022 18:33 utc | 26
___
Bingo! I’m surprised so many are puzzled by “Ukraine’s” motives, forgetting anew who really runs the place. Zelensky needs a hall pass to visit the boys’ room.
In addition to destabilizing Europe, there’s also blaming Russia for “weaponizing” oil and gas, just more demonization. Easy to refute, but so was Bucha; didn’t matter for a credulous populace. (As learned from Obama, you can fool most of the people most of the time. That con artist could hustle the gold out of people’s teeth and they’d thank him for it.)

Posted by: Doug Hillman | May 11 2022 4:52 utc | 219

From Rybar Telegram channel…A short update on apparent Ukrainian plans for counteroffensives…

The main results of the SVO in Ukraine for May 10, 2022
The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to expand the zone of control north of Kharkiv. An offensive is being prepared on Cossack Lopan and Tsupovka, battles are going on in Liptsy and Rubizhnoye.
At the same time, a counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Izyum is being prepared. It is planned to force the arm and capture Rudnevo and Ivanovka. Tanks and reinforcements from the defense system have been transferred to Elizavetovka and Razdolie.
Ukrainian Air Force lost 2 Su-25s and 1 Su-27 in air battles in Dnipropetrovsk, Nikolaev and Kharkiv regions. A Ukrainian Mi-8 was shot down near Kherson.
The Russian Armed Forces attacked the barges that blocked the entrance to the Dnieper Bay. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are preparing for an attack on Oleksandrivka and Kherson.
#video #digest #Russia #Ukraine
@rybar

Posted by: CharlesLutherThanos | May 11 2022 5:42 utc | 221

Posted by: james | May 11 2022 5:44 utc | 220
Most of that was their stupid operation trying to recapture Snake Island. Even the MoD clearly thought that was a stupid move for just a PR benefit, to try to get a “win” to spoil Victory Day. Let’s hope they some more. They appear according to Rybar as posted above to be planning counteroffensives in various places – good luck with that, Ukies. 🙂

Posted by: CharlesLutherThanos | May 11 2022 5:50 utc | 223

@ richard… it is a very poor reflection of the type of thinking leading ukraine here… this level of stupidity can’t survive for long – pr, or no pr… they are essentially fucked if they keep this up.. on the other hand, maybe it was cia – m16 encouragement… with friends like these, you don’t need enemies..

Posted by: james | May 11 2022 5:53 utc | 225

Posted by: james | May 11 2022 5:53 utc | 223
Yes, I was thinking that sounded like CIA thinking. But the Ukies seem also to be good at that sort of thinking. Idea could have come from Arestovich since he’s in charge of Ukie propaganda apparently. We have to remember that a lot of Zelenskyy’s “crew” apparently come from the same entertainment world he does. In other words, all cocaine-induced flair and no substance.

Posted by: CharlesLutherThanos | May 11 2022 5:55 utc | 227

@199 K | May 11 2022 3:02 utc – “The Vietnam protests are still I believe the largest in history, little did we know that no matter how many of us said no the PTB were never going to listen. The fault of our generation is that we didn’t have the base of solidarity (it having been wiped out decades before) to protest the political establishment behind the war. We were naive and that’s pretty natural for teenagers.”
I agree with this and I want to add a little more.
First, I recall a discussion here where someone said they wished the 60’s generation had actually achieved something. A commenter – I think either Walter or Bemildred but it could be another – said that he thought that that generation gave it a good shot, but “they murdered all our leaders and flooded the country with dope.”
I remember that phrase because it sums up in quintessential terms what actually happened. What killed the hippie spirit was heroin, and for this we can only look to the CIA. What killed the political superstructure buoyed by this spirit was the death of its spiritual inspirations, and the chilling effect that happened deeply in the human soul.
~~
As you say, we didn’t know what we were up against. But I do observe that the spirit of the sixties fueled a change in social consciousness that is still with us. And people in the sixties saw that this might be the only legacy that could endure – that, in other words, if one couldn’t bring on the revolution now, one could at least plant the seed that couldn’t be extinguished, and that could change society softly, over time. This, I believe, endured, and worked.
What we didn’t know was that the evil would endure also. We thought the enduring of the good would outlast the evil.
And so we now have a western society wherein all the tenets of the sixties ideals remain on the table, coexistent with all the tenets of the evil that opposes them. But the point is that all these things are visible. And they were evidently not visible back in that day.
And I propose that this must be considered an advance.
I suspect that those who have grown up in the Internet don’t understand how a change in consciousness can occur without computers, but LSD and a hip generation managed to form some kind of a part of that. So there is much hope – even if they take the Internet away from us – that the power of the people and their dreams (and of old “Cosmo”, as the Pranksters called it) are far greater than any authoritarian, criminal conspiracies against those dreams.
~~
We sneer at the dreamer, and never think to be in awe of the fact of dreams.

Posted by: Grieved | May 11 2022 6:04 utc | 229

@ richard… come back tomorrow.. i am sure it will be fine… many folks appreciate all your posts.. thanks..

Posted by: james | May 11 2022 6:11 utc | 231

grenade cup idea is pretty ingenious..
Posted by: james | May 11 2022 5:55 utc | 224
Like one of Heloise’s handy housekeeping hints!

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 11 2022 6:26 utc | 233

@CharlesLutherThanos | May 11 2022 1:15 utc | 169

Why the hell do they make it so damn hard to find an official channel on Telegram? It drives me to distraction the idiocy.

It makes it harder to censor if you can’t find it 🙂 Maybe the idea is that the censors are below average smart.

Posted by: Norwegian | May 11 2022 7:04 utc | 235

Posted by: CharlesLutherThanos | May 10 2022 21:56 utc | 100
They work as advance force for NATO, do they not?
If anything happens to them, our war mongers will scream for massive intervention.
I suddenly remember that Kiev tried to introduce legislation last year preparing for conscription of women. (They claimed it had to do with inroducing EU standards.) Now I wonder if Kiev had already set the date for this war.

Posted by: Martina | May 11 2022 8:03 utc | 237

jesus, but that was a brutal overview in your post from the russia mod…..
james | May 11 2022 5:44 utc | 220
Part and parcel of giving Lavrov the middle finger. Now they have to deal with Shoigu who doesn’t talk much. That old saying – action speaks louder than words.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | May 11 2022 8:20 utc | 239

Don Bacon [212]
.from Kyiv Post:
Economist Timothy Ash: Time on Ukraine’s side in war, Russian economy squeezed
…but the IMF predicts the Russian economy will shrink by 8.5% this year, and Ukraine’s will fall by a whopping 35%.
. . .and the World Bank says Ukraine economy to contract by 45% in 2022
Well under that Star of Western Politico-Media Boris Yeltsin Russian GDP fell >47% 1991-2000 bearing in mind the sage advice of Chicago School/Washington Consensus economists advising Chubais.
Yeltsin simply shelled the parliament with US support and had US advisers to rig the elections.
Ukraine is finished as a country. EU and US now want that grain exported as payback and Gayboy has to starve his population to generate currency. Funnily, Lithuania wants a “corridor” through Belarus to ensure grain reaches them.
Time for Lukashenko to offer a perpetual corridor linking Belarus to Kaliningrad and thereby ensuring distribution of grain.

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | May 11 2022 8:23 utc | 241

S #135

Address of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko at a ceremony on the occasion of the 77th anniversary of Great Victory at the Victory Monument in Minsk (President of the Republic of Belarus, May 9, 2022)
(This official translation into English is slightly different from the original speech in Russian, so one may want to machine-translate the latter.)

Thank you. That was a great speech. I admire this Lukashenko for his direct style and sincerity. These are times of great words and powerful imaginings of peace, I trust that many in the west will hear.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 11 2022 8:27 utc | 243

Grieved #226

We sneer at the dreamer, and never think to be in awe of the fact of dreams.

Thank you for the reminder. Much was achieved and much stillborn yet we still ride Further.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 11 2022 9:12 utc | 245

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | May 11 2022 8:26 utc | 239
It was the MoD who declared it a PR stung.
“The Kiev regime’s mindless PR campaign to seize Snake Island on the eve of Victory Day resulted in the senseless deaths of more than five dozen Ukrainian fighters and members of elite AFU units, the loss of 4 aircraft, 10 helicopters, 3 boats and 30 unmanned aerial vehicles.” – MoD
There may be good reason to place a Russian radar on the island. They’ve had control of it for weeks. So it seems odd that just before Victoria Day they make a desperate effort to seize it. So I call your theory a speculation at best and defer to the MoD.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 11 2022 9:22 utc | 247

Posted by: Martina | May 11 2022 8:03 utc | 234
“Now I wonder if Kiev had already set the date for this war.”
I’m convinced they did. There were very large NATO exercises scheduled for February 2022, involving 60+ thousand NATO troops, and hundreds of NATO planes and ships. I suspected that would be used for cover or even participation by NATO in the attack on Donbass. Then suddenly after the war all the information those exercises disappeared even from the NATO Exercise Schedule on NATO’s Web site.
So Russia preempted that.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 11 2022 9:27 utc | 249

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 11 2022 8:27 utc | 240
Yeah, thanks to S for the speech. You won’t hear this kind of speech in the West anymore. Whenever a Western politician gives a speech it’s mostly a stream of lies and platitudes, but there is almost always also this little unexpected thing that’s intended to prepare you for getting more of your freedom or money taken away from you. The media will jump onto it and a month later that “little unexpected thing” is now firmly accepted by the public.

Posted by: Sarmat | May 11 2022 9:30 utc | 251

ooops to my #249
I should add that the Romanians might be enticed/goaded/bribed by USA to ‘occupy’ it for essential maritime security purposes as well if left ‘vacant’.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 11 2022 9:42 utc | 253

The result of the arrival of an air bomb at Azovstal
Looks like nazis getting their nuts roasted.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 11 2022 9:48 utc | 255

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 10 2022 18:18 utc | 15
Thank you for that excellent observation, Aleph_Null! And b, bless you — so many of my posts I realized after the fact have not ‘turned out’ ——– and yet I foolishly turned them out! You are wise in exceptionally holding back – a lesson I need to learn!
I am up in the wee hours – something we oldies love to do when all around us is sleeping. Courage and patience all, and thank you for the good reading I will be doing here as cheese and crackers keep me company!
Not only has Putin put his people first, but also reversed the order of command for his regiments, which they, being of a similar mind, will not mind at all. Plus, he marches with his people. Bravo, Putin! Bravo, Russia!

Posted by: juliania | May 11 2022 10:12 utc | 257

@Sarmat | May 11 2022 9:16 utc | 243
You may try MoD telegram channel instead. The reports are there. xttps://t.me/mod_russia_en

Posted by: aquadraht | May 11 2022 10:22 utc | 259

Posted by: pachinko | May 10 2022 19:13 utc | 47
Many good suggestions from others on how to discern the truth (or at least a reasonable approximation).
One thing I found instructive to understanding spin and cognitive manipulation is to read newspaper headlines that are months out of date. The patterns of manipulation repeat constantly. You just need to find someone with a pile of old papers and bingo, all becomes clear.
The other insight I can provide is finding reliable sources (which takes a while) and then expanding your network based in their recommendations. Rinse and repeat.

Posted by: drezzo | May 11 2022 11:00 utc | 261

For those who want an alternative perspective to the Western mainstream BS, all you have to do is download Telegram It’s a superior Russian whatsapp.
It works on various platforms.
There are lots of channels giving the Russian view in English: including MoD Russia English, Intel Slava Z, Xoaquin Flores, ASB Military News, Victor Victop55, are ones I follow.
Incidentally you will rapidly come across *horrific* videos of dead Ukrainian soldiers, their positions blasted apart by artillery or airstrikes. That’s how I know Russia is winning massively: there are hardly any such videos from the West. Russia’s infantry just go into film the dead: there isn’t anything to do, and there aren’t any wounded. Dozens per day, which is only a fraction, I think, of the actual total.
The West is responsible for these deaths, Ukraine should have capitulated weeks ago.

Posted by: JulianJ | May 11 2022 11:06 utc | 263

#—Posted by: c1ue | May 10 2022 22:14 utc | 107
Iran is even longer: the US had a clear role in the original installation of the Shah, leading to the Iranian Revolution, leading to the October Surprise and Reagan, leading to JCPOA under Obama and JCPOA repeal under Trump – with sanctions on Iran all the while.
The Shah seemed to have pulled his shackles, if not to say shekels – is that why he was ousted?
He wanted to link oil to commodities, to the detriment of the petro-dollar.
https://youtu.be/XrCK6CD1dKM
Is that why he was ousted? Like in black was the first orange?

Posted by: Anne B | May 11 2022 11:28 utc | 265

How can Europe be bribed away from this?
https://www.rt.com/business/555286-greece-inflation-double-digits/

With inflation surpassing 10%, Greece became the ninth country in the Eurozone in which official inflation has reached double digits, following Bulgaria (10.5%), Slovakia (10.9%), the Netherlands (11.2%), Czech Republic (11.9%), Poland (12.3%), Latvia (13.2%), Lithuania (16.6%), and Estonia (19%).

Posted by: Anne B | May 11 2022 11:36 utc | 267

Posted by: K | May 11 2022 0:32 utc | 154
By “doctrinaire Marxism” I was referring to the difficulty in obtaining complete knowledge of his work. The early Marx is different from the late Marx and I am no expert on his opus.
A recent comment appeared to critique my interpretation of Marx and I went back to the source material fearful of having made a mistake.
The UK enclosures caused the extinction of communal and semi communal forms of landholding and created a pool of surplus labour which was commoditized and exploited by the capitalist class. I did not see how my post contradicted this summary, or the analysis contained in Part VIII of Capital Vol. 1. Marx made his analysis clear in Value, Price and Profit when he replaced the term “primitive accumulation” by the term “original expropriation.”
Doctrinaire Marxism involves this form of hair-splitting detail which on one level is critical to an understanding of Marx and on another level is extremely tedious and unproductive. Marxist analysis introduces concepts of “social power” and coercion absent from earlier works on political economy such as Adam Smith.
When a capitalist owns a factory he also owns the means of production i.e. the workspace and all the associated equipment. In software development the means of production are located between the ears of the departing employee. These skills are not commodities but extremely specialized and difficult to replace.
Weber’s description of class includes this human capital component of the labour force more fully developed in Harry Braverman’s Labour and Monopoly Capital. Marx omits this distinction as Marxist labour power is an undifferentiated commodity.
I agree with your comment on the wisdom of Marx refusing to provide a “cookbook.” It can be argued that some claimed implementations of his theory are inconsistent with his analysis.
To return to the topic of the Ukraine.
The same poster reminded me of the work of R Cobb who wrote an extensive analysis of the French revolution of 1789. He made the claim that only a minor portion of the French population were actively involved in the revolution. I was disbelieving of this given the bloodshed and mayhem that resulted, the shattered foundations of Europe, the wars fought to secure the revolution. It was incredible to me that all this war and upheaval was the product of a small minority.
It is reported the Ukrainian state was seized by AZOV and related militant factions constituting less than 5% of the population. Today we witness carnage and social displacement, a series of shocks to the global economy that will affect every person on the planet. All of this is due to only 5% of the Ukrainian population. This vindicates Cobb’s assessment of the 1789 revolution. But it is stunning to contemplate such massive effects from such a small group.

Posted by: Sushi | May 11 2022 12:16 utc | 269

Communism verses Capitalism. How convenient for the “City of London” to keep the discussions centered around only 2 alternatives. The real fear of “The City of London is:
“In his National System of Political Economy, published in 1841, List systematically developed the concept of an economy based on the nation state, as opposed to what he called the “private economy” (the household or individual enterprise) or the “cosmopolitical economy (the world taken as if a unified whole).” It is through the nation state that conditions for increasing the “power of producing wealth” (which List says is much more important than wealth itself) are created. He writes: “The present state of the nations is the result of the accumulation of all discoveries, inventions, improvements, perfections, and exertions of all generations which have lived before us; they form the mental capital of the present human race, and every separate nation is productive only in the proportion in which it has known how to appropriate these attainments of former generations and to increase them…”
List thus has taken up Hamilton’s concept of the productive powers of labor, and made even more explicit the powers of mind which determine them.”

Posted by: GEORGE M CHAMBERLAIN | May 11 2022 12:35 utc | 271

Posted by: PaulH | May 11 2022 12:19 utc | 267
“Also, anyone up with the current status of the Azovstal ‘stand-off’?”
Same-same as before. Occasionally someone surrenders. Occasionally someone tries to break out or sneak around and gets captured or killed. The rest of the time the Russians bombard it with artillery, tank fire and aircraft. Supposedly they used ground penetrating radar to determine exactly which spots in the factory contain the Ukrainian troops. Otherwise they’re waiting them out.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 11 2022 12:50 utc | 273

Alexander Vindman is back. You remember him, traitor to his uniform. He publicly testified that his
loyalty was to the Deep State and not to the Constitution nor the President.
[In testimony he informed us what the Deep State calls itself, “The Interagency”.]
He has penned an article which can be found, not surprisingly, at “The Bible of the Deep State”, Foreign Affairs mag.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-05-11/america-embrace-ukraine-victory-goal
He proposes:

With new long-range firing capabilities delivered by the United States, Ukraine would be able to strike farther into Russia and destroy militarily relevant targets, thus reducing Moscow’s capabilities and limiting its potential for further offensive attacks.

His article reads like a Raytheon wet dream.
The current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, was on the Board of Directors of Raytheon before becoming Secretary.
Before him there was Mark Esper a former VP of sales at Raytheon.
And before Esper it was General Dynamics turn with Jim Mattis. Mattis came from the board of directors and then returned there
after his stint as Secretary.

Posted by: librul | May 11 2022 12:59 utc | 275

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | May 11 2022 9:27 utc | 246

There were very large NATO exercises scheduled for February 2022, involving 60+ thousand NATO troops, and hundreds of NATO planes and ships.

All the force structure, objectives, and logistics planning for those exercises required a lead time of at least a year. I suspect they were timed to coincide with the completion of NATO training of the Uki Donbass forces. You can throw the Kazakhstan kerfuffle into the mix as RF would have faced a two-front conflict. Donbass in front, Kazakhstan in the rear.

Posted by: Sushi | May 11 2022 13:04 utc | 277

…
I guess one of the westies main objectives is to see what tactics and weapons and defence systems the Russians can really roll out. A sort of live fire expose of the Russian arms bazaar.
…
Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 11 2022 9:27 utc | 245
Yes, almost certainly the NATO/US electronic surveillance isn’t even primarily to inform attacks on RF during the SMO, rather it’s to capture and analyse/mine every scrap of electromagnetic data on Russia’s integrated “warfare complex”: ships, subs, aircraft, missiles, air/sea/land defense, tanks, drones, artillery, C&C, anything and everything that gets used.
The electromagnetic signature of RF systems could conceivably be used to design automated target acquisition profiles for loitering-type munitions, at the very least it will surely make them much easier to identify with existing NATO capabilities.
Hypersonics have been revealed because they can take out heavily defended targets and, crucially, seeing them used in anger probably doesn’t make them noticeably easier to counter. RF might also have hoped for a deterring effect but they west is crazy, so no dice yet.
Putin’s already said out loud that there are previously unseen weapons in reserve, ready to be used, with the obvious implication that, if used, their impact would be decisive.
This clearly seems to be part of a general RF strategy of keeping the SMO as low tech as possible, even at the expense of RF casualties, in order to preserve the effectiveness of a whole range of systems (i.e. not just just super weapons) whose use would only accompany a significant escalation, such as direct NATO/US engagement.
What we’re seeing so far might be a kind of Phoney War but with real shooting … a kind of musket showdown with a few modern weapons used where they can have the greatest effect and whose use is least likely to prejudice a serious shooting war.

Posted by: anon2020 | May 11 2022 13:08 utc | 279

…And it occurs to me that that may also have much to do with the rather conventional nature of the conflict so far, the Russians don’t want to show too much. Typical Putin, use the minimal calibrated amount of force to get the job done, and it looks like he is going to (well, may) leave another “frozen conflict” behind this time too.
Posted by: Bemildred | May 11 2022 13:07 utc | 275
Ha, we said basically the same thing but I waffled on for a bit, our comments must have crossed in cyberspace =)

Posted by: anon2020 | May 11 2022 13:29 utc | 281

Residents of Kherson could be given a referendum on whether to join the Russian Federation or not.
https://tass.com/politics/1449323

Posted by: Republicofscotland | May 11 2022 13:39 utc | 283

The US to push a propaganda war aimed at Russians in the hope they turn against Putin, this stinks of desperation to me.
“The US Department of State has laid out the objective for its controlled non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to discredit Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine among Russian society, Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin said in a statement on Wednesday.
“According to information coming into Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the US Department of State has set the objective for its controlled NGOs to launch a crusade to discredit the special military operation in Ukraine in Russian society,” the intel chief said.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | May 11 2022 13:43 utc | 285

Ha, we said basically the same thing but I waffled on for a bit, our comments must have crossed in cyberspace =)
Posted by: anon2020 | May 11 2022 13:29 utc | 278
Thank you, I expect others would know that too, I just wanted to get the point in the record. I thought your explanation had its merits, I tend to be impatient when writing, a legacy from once being much too busy.

Posted by: Bemildred | May 11 2022 13:52 utc | 287

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hits back at the possibility of food shortages and other shortages that the West is blaming on Russia, the Wests illegal sanctions will be the cause of shortages.
“Russia’s actions have in no way influenced and cannot influence the global food problem, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday at a news conference following talks with Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Bin Hamad Bin Hamood Al Busaidi.
“Our actions have in no way influenced and cannot influence the problems that have now been mentioned and that have been created solely by bans, illegal sanctions that have been imposed by Western countries,” he said in reply to a question about the impact of Russian actions on the global food problem.
As the minister noted, restrictions by the West have destroyed the convenient transport and logistics chains that have existed for many years. “We believe that this is an absolutely aggressive policy in relation to the world economy, world trade and to all countries of the world,” he added.”
https://tass.com/politics/1449349

Posted by: Republicofscotland | May 11 2022 13:58 utc | 289

I find this statement by Lavrov to pretty accurate.
“The European Union fully relies on Washington’s line and has no independent foreign policy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference after his visit to Algeria.
Lavrov called on EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell not to forget that he is “a top diplomat, rather than a military leader in the European Union.”
“However, probably soon we will see that this position of the EU’s top diplomat will be eliminated because the EU has almost no foreign policy and is in full solidarity with those approaches imposed by the United States,” he said.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | May 11 2022 14:09 utc | 291

Sushi | May 11 2022 12:16 utc | 266:

It is reported the Ukrainian state was seized by AZOV and related militant factions constituting less than 5% of the population. Today we witness carnage and social displacement, a series of shocks to the global economy that will affect every person on the planet. All of this is due to only 5% of the Ukrainian population. This vindicates Cobb’s assessment of the 1789 revolution. But it is stunning to contemplate such massive effects from such a small group.

Except it isn’t so simple. That 5% are not acting alone. The 5% in the Ukraine are just the ones in the limelight committing the most visible crimes. Furthermore, socialist movements are always acting alone and are opposed by all of capitalism’s tools of power: employers (of course), the State (police, courts, political system, etc), mass media, the educated elites (universities), the Church, and even big business arts and entertainment. With fascist movements all of these forces line up behind the fascists, while they always join forces against socialists.
So you see it is not just the 5% of the population scraped from the bottom of the Ukraine’s societal garbage bin that acted alone to seize and maintain power. The entire breadth of the Ukraine’s middle class (the so-called “Professional-Managerial Class” – PMC) are backing the fascists. Sure, the CIA and US State Department organized the whole thing and greased the palms of key players, but the coup and resulting fascist government required the support of the Ukraine’s middle class, even if they don’t dirty their hands in the actual commission of the ultraviolence.
Equating fascist coups with socialist revolutions is illogical. They are polar opposites of each other.

Posted by: William Gruff | May 11 2022 14:24 utc | 293

@CharlesLutherThanos #151
Wargames are what they are. There are reasons why a Western military is incentivized to appear to be losing – bigger budgets being a primary reason.
Nor do I automatically believe even what mid-level officers say like McGregor, Baud, Ritter etc. However, the specific details these people put forward are verifiable, and have been verified.
In contrast, what is publicly known about the US and EU military analysis of Russian capabilities and their public pronouncements of Russian progress (or lack thereof) are equally scrutinized for consistency and presence of fact.
b posted an article where the author reviewed the public analysis of Russian attacking forces and logistics in late 2021 – that analysis is transparently, 100% wrong. Milley’s public pronouncements have equally been wrong.
NATO pronouncements about net 0 Russian casualties between mid-March and the end of April = utter credibility destruction on the pronouncing entity. It is simply nonsensical.
Then there are the pronouncements about Russia running out of tanks, of missiles, of soldiers, etc etc. These have been 100% wrong to date.
In contrast, the warnings about the US/EU running low on stocks of Javelins, Stingers etc – those are completely believable with even a cursory examination of the manufacturers’ history, plus I know someone who literally worked in the TI Defense plant making Stingers 40 years ago.
But I am very open to conflicting data.
The problem is that I am just not open to conflicting garbage – which is all I see from MSM sources these days.

Posted by: c1ue | May 11 2022 14:33 utc | 295

CharlesLutherThanos @ 225
The cup grenade trick was used in Yugoslavia during the break up except it was a grenade in a glass left as booby trap just inside a door. It is an old trick.
Some examples…
A grenade or similar device, with pin pulled, was placed on a table in a jar or glass attached to a door handle. When opened, the device fell, and the jar broke, releasing the grenade spoon, allowing it to explode.
Grenades or explosives were wired to stereos, TVs, radios, VCRs, or other valuable items so that they would detonate when the item was lifted. Additionally, grenades were rigged against the tops of doors so its spoons would disengage when the door was opened.
A small hole is drilled through a table top. Fishing line was passed through the hole and attached with glue to a glass at one end and an explosive at the other. When the glass was lifted, the string set off the explosive.

Posted by: circumspect | May 11 2022 14:40 utc | 297

How does the War Party elegantly walk away ? How can the war party declare its lame efforts a success ?
If Moscow doesn’t have an answer to this question, then the war party will escalate and keep escalating because they have no other way of thinking

Posted by: Exile | May 11 2022 14:47 utc | 299