Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Three days ago a mandarin speaker posted an interesting thread about the use of Chinese language phrases to express a threat.

Wen-Ti Sung @wentisung – 5:29 UTC · Jul 27, 2022

A short thread on China's #rhetoric on @SpeakerPelosi 's rumored plan to visit Taiwan. So far Beijing's wording has been far below the threshold of the kinds of words & phrases that China historically used for signaling impending war/brinkmanship.

Let's start with MFA spokesperson's recent words: "China will act strongly to resolutely respond to it and take countermeasures. We mean what we say" (中方必將採取有力措施予以堅決應對和反制。我們說到做到) Many observers take 'forceful response' to mean war. That may be overselling it. Note his key operative words '有力' can mean 'forceful' or 'effective'. If they meant war, they would have said '武力 or 非和平' (military/non-peaceful measures).

China's rhetoric is currently in say borderline 3rd gear. Another level up would be #懸崖勒馬, or "you are standing on the edge of the cliff". Translation: if you take more one step, you'll fall and die". That's unfortunate, but the cliff is a wonder of nature, not a man-made trap. So the fall is partly a tragedy of circumstance. So next levels focus on anthropogenic factors.

Next up, we have '是可忍孰不可忍', or "if we could put up with this, what else can't we put up with?". This means the perceived provocation from others not only threatens China's interests, but threatens its #identity, too. This rhetoric invokes the familiar 'century of humiliation' and Chinese nationalism narratives, and are meant to signal China has no room to back down. It shows a readiness to use #brinkmanship. E.g. China used this language before skirmishes with India (1962), Vietnam (1979).

Finally, top gear is '勿謂言之不預', literally "don't say I didn't warn you", aka 'last warning'. China used this language before skirmishes with India, Vietnam, and Soviet Union (1967).

In short, China's current language is tough but far from its toughest. It can mean either:
1) China is still deciding what to do, so they keep harsher words in reserve for now. OR
2) China is trying (not too successfully) to make it less costly for Pelosi & US to back down.

The upcoming Biden-Xi phone call will tell us whether China has made up its mind, and whether the so-called strategic '#guardrails' they have built up — precisely for containing these tactical-level turbulences from runaway escalation — are effective.

The Chinese English language readout for the Biden -Xi phone call does not use any of the above phrases. The most 'threatening' part is this:

Cont. reading: How China Warns Of Pelosi’s Taiwan Trip

Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Yesterday, on July 28/29 2022 three independent entities stated the obvious fact that the president of the United States is just a front puppet who has no power to fulfill the promises he makes during various interactions with foreign leaders. The dangers evolving from this state are enormous but rarely noted.

Andrew Bacevich, the head of the Quincy Institute, writes:

Something much bigger than POTUS — call it the MIC or the deep state — has de facto veto power on all matters related to national security.

Writing in the New York Times, veteran foreign correspondent Edward Wong reports that the Biden “administration’s approach to strategic priorities is surprisingly consistent with the policies of the Trump administration.”

What ought to be surprising at this juncture is Wong’s surprise.
…
In practice, the power wielded by the most powerful man in the world turns out to be quite limited. Factors at home and abroad constrain presidential freedom of action.
…
Two factors stand out, one structural and the other ideological.
…
The structural factor refers to the institutions whose wellbeing is dependent upon maintaining arrangements that devolved during the Cold War and survived the Cold War’s passing. Call it what you will — the Blob, the Deep State, the military-industrial-congressional complex — it exercises a de facto veto power on all matters related to basic U.S. national security policy.
…
The ideological factor rests on explicit or tacit claims of American Exceptionalism: That it is incumbent upon the United States to lead the world, with leadership tending in practice to become a synonym for global primacy and primacy tending to be expressed in military terms.

With regards to Joe Biden's recent call with China's president Xi Jinping, Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism makes a similar argument:

Cont. reading: What Presidents Say Does Not Matter. It Is The Execution Of Policies That Counts.

Here is another story that demonstrates the incompetence and arrogance of the Biden administration.

The New York Times reports of a potential prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia:

[T]he Biden administration has proposed trading the merchant of death for the imprisoned basketball player as well as a former marine held in Russia on what are considered trumped-up espionage charges. In the harsh and cynical world of international diplomacy, prisoner exchanges are rarely pretty, but unpalatable choices are often the only choices on the table.

Whether the swap would go through remained unclear. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made the offer public in part to reassure the families of Brittney Griner, the basketball player, and Paul N. Whelan, the former marine, that the administration is doing all it can to free them.

Russian officials, who have long sought the release of the arms trafficker Viktor Bout, confirmed the discussion on Thursday but said Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov was too busy to talk with Mr. Blinken now.

Typically prisoner swaps are not talked about publicly before they happen:

Some veteran hostage negotiators were perplexed that Mr. Blinken made the offer public. “It is baffling why the U.S. would announce this proposal in the midst of the negotiations,” said Rob Saale, the former head of the F.B.I.-led Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell. “If you’re in sensitive negotiations why would you want to air this out publicly? It makes me wonder if the Russians haven’t already declined the deal.”

Mr. Saale suspicion was justified as the Washington Post now reports:

Cont. reading: A Panicking Biden Administration Seeks Talks With Russia

Yves Smith is aghast about the U.S. eyepoking of China:

The neocons above all seem unable to process that the days of US hegemony are over. It boggles the mind that they are not just eyepoking but escalating greatly with China via the still-planned Pelosi visit to Taiwan in August. As we’ll explain, China is fully cognizant of the fact that Pelosi is number two in line after Harris should something happen to the increasingly addle-brained Biden. And they don’t buy for a second that Pelosi is operating without the explicit approval of the Administration.

Note that it’s entirely possible that Pelosi revived her Taiwan trip plan (recall she put it off after coming down with Covid) all on her own. The Pentagon gave her a face-saving out by saying they didn’t recommend it.

China, which is routinely screechy when it is upset about what it perceives to be foreign transgressions, has managed to find new registers in its objections the proposed Pelosi visit.

Pelosi is not only number two in line but has been hostile to the Chinese government for more than 30 years. In 1991 she and two other members of Congress made a stunt on the Tiananmen square where two years before protests had taken place.

Cont. reading: Provoking Beijing

Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

The current open thread for other issues is here.

The hostile behavior the 'west' is showing towards China and Russia has consequences.

The International Space Station is losing the Russian modules it needs to maneuver. The U.S. will immediately have to build new propulsion modules if it wants to save it.

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Russia to withdraw from International Space Station after 2024

Russia has said it will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 to focus on building its own orbital outpost.

Yuri Borisov, who was appointed to lead the state-controlled space corporation Roscosmos earlier this month, said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia would fulfil its obligations to other partners before it leaves the project.

Mr Borisov said "the decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made."

The U.S. had planned to operate the station until 2031:

Cont. reading: Exclusions And Sanctions Help ‘Enemies’ To Build Their Own Capabilities

Only news & views related to the Ukraine conflict …

The current open thread for other issues is here.

News & views NOT related to the war in Ukraine …

A few hours after the revelations about the failed Ukrainian secret operation to hijack Russian fighter airplanes were published, Bellingcat's lead Russia investigator Christo Grozev added a few more flimsy excuses for his deep involvement in the failed clandestine scheme:

Christo Grozev @christogrozev – 14:52 UTC · Jul 25, 2022

An important P.S. based on questions from readers.
The Ukrainian operation was not a project of either SBU or GUR. (If it were, there'd be no way we would – or want to – get access to it). It was organized by maverick ex operatives whom we got to know in the Wagner investigation.

So all the Russian statements from today – claiming this was a "GUR" (Military Intel) operation "with support from NATO" – total, unadulterated bollocks. The whole of the FSB CI were fighting tooth and nail against a bunch of, essentially, volunteers. And not for the first time.

Ah. Sure. The following is just a weird 'unadulterated bollocks' coincidence …

Russians With Attitude @RWApodcast – 16:27 UTC · Jul 25, 2022

Zelensky has removed Ruslan Demchenko from his position as First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council & dismissed Grigoriy Galagan as commander of the AFU Special Operations Forces, replacing him with Viktor Horenko

Cont. reading: Bellingcat Denies Ukrainian Officials Responsible For Failed Plot – Zelenski Promptly Fires Them

In May 2018 the Ukrainian secret security service SBU faked the murder of the Russian 'journalist' Arkady Babchenko in Kiev for very questionable reasons. The murder had first been blamed on Russia.

The SBU claimed that by faking the murder they would uncover a real Russian murderer which made no sense.

It later turned out that the whole thing was part of a corporate raid:

The staged murder, with a fake cadaver, a fake killer and a fake operator behind it, was endorsed (video) at the highest levels of the Ukrainian government.

"Western" media used the hoax to accuse and defame Russia and its president Putin without the slightest supporting evidence. That alone is already a serious mess and reveals the utter failure of "western" journalism and media.

The background of the case, a takeover of a company by illegal means, demonstrates the total social failure of the "western" coup in Ukraine. The worst of the worst, robber barons like Poroschenko and criminal bankers like Kolomoisky went on to steal billions of "western" aid while the Ukrainian state fell apart. Defying the courts the power of the state is secretly abused for slapstick worthy plots to grab up industrial assets.

The victims are the people of Ukraine who get robbed of their means and their security. Russia, the permanent boogeyman of the "west", is least to blame for it. 

In August 2020 there was another crazy SBU plot which a month later unraveled:

On August 7 we reported how the Ukrainian intelligence service SBU, in the guise of a private military company, hired former Russian and Ukrainian soldiers allegedly for jobs in Venezuela. All the hired men had previously fought on the 'Russian side' of Ukrainian civil war in the Donbas region. The men were told to go to the Belorussian capital Minsk from where they were supposed to be later flown to Venezuela to guard oil installations.

The Ukrainian SBU then told the Belorussian security service KGB that the Russian mercenaries, who were then waiting in a resort near Minsk, were in Belarus to overthrow its president Lukashenko. The men were arrested and Lukashenko made a public fuss about the alleged Russian coup against him. Ukraine then asked for the extradition of the men. It had plans to indict them for their involvement in the Donbas war.

But just a few days after the men were arrested the whole plan unraveled. Russian media proved without doubt that the men had been tricked to go to Belarus and that they had no plans to overthrow Lukashenko. The Belorussian president apologized and the men were returned to Russia. As the Russian broadsheet kp.ru summarized (machine translation):

…

That version of the story has since been confirmed by the Ukrainian side (see below).

The original plot was indeed to get the former Russian soldiers (who had fought in Donbas) to Kiev by high jacking their plane on the way from Minsk to Turkey. Someone in the Zelensky government had prevented that by contacting the Belorussians.

Today we learn about another crazy Ukrainian plot. The Russian news agency Tass reports of it (machine translation):

FSB thwarted Ukrainian military intelligence operation to hijack Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft

Cont. reading: Another Crazy Plot By A Ukrainian Secret Service Just Blew Up – Flimsy Excuses Follow

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• Jul 18 – Three Other Writers With Thoughts On Ukraine
• Jul 19 – When You Lack Real News Just Rewrite Yesterday's Story
• Jul 20 – Lavrov – Extended Range Weapons In Ukraine Will Lead To More Loss Of Its Land
  Related:
  – Servant of the Corrupt – Consortiumnews
  – In Ukraine, a proxy war on the planet – Aaron Maté
  – Foreign Fighters in Ukraine Could Be a Time Bomb for Their Home Countries – Intercept

• Jul 20 – In The Multipolar World Iran Will No Longer Fear U.S. Sanctions
  Related:
  – Neutralism returns — and gets more powerful – Boston Globe
  – The Corners of the Multipolar World Order – American Conservative
  – Saudi Arabia's balanced foreign policy aligns with multipolar trends – CGTN

• Jul 21 – Why Nord Stream II Must Be Opened Immediately
  Related:
  – Sinking Germany – New Left Review
  – IMF says Russian gas embargo could heavily impact central Europe – Aljazeerah
  – With wavering sanctions, time for EU to see the situation and untie with US – Global Times

• Jul 21 – Australia Finally Recognizes That The AUKUS Deal Makes No Sense At All
  Related:
  – AUKUS, Technology and Militarising Australia – Modern Ghana
  – Fleet of nuclear submarines will be sent by Britain to Australia as a warning to China – Daily Mail
    (Britain has a total of five non-strategic subs …)
  – Report on the Nuclear Proliferation Risk of AUKUS Collaboration on Nuclear-powered Submarines – China Arms Control and Disarmament Association (CACDA)

• Jul 22 – 50 Sick Headlines About Vladimir Putin's Health
  Related:
  – Strong Ideas for a New Time – Vladimir Putin
  – Calling Putin ‘Hitler’ to Smear Diplomacy as ‘Appeasement’ – FAIR
  – ‘Washington needs to stop stealing Syrian oil’: Vladimir Putin – The Cradle

• Jul 22 – U.S. Attempts To Make China An Enemy Require A Lot Of Fantasy
  Related:
  – Pelosi muddies the waters of the Taiwan Strait – Asia Times
  – White House clash with Pelosi over Taiwan spills into the open – Politico
  – China’s SMIC Is Shipping 7nm Foundry ASICs – Semianalysis

• Jul 23 – Ukraine Grain Exports – Myths And Reality
  Related:
  – Status anxiety and the war in Ukraine – Paul Robinson
  – A short ethnic history of Ukraine… …courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of the Census. – Yasha Levine

  – The Ukrainian Interfax.ua news service listed the main points of the grain export agreement with Turkey and the UN:

  The Parties will not undertake any attacks against merchant vessels and other civilian vessels and port facilities engaged in this initiative.

  Yesterday's Russian hits on military targets in Odessa are thus in conformity with the agreement.

  Even the ever lying New York Times had to grudgingly concede that:

  Russia may not have technically violated the deal, since it did not pledge to avoid attacking the parts of the Ukrainian ports that are not directly used for the grain exports, according to a senior U.N. official. If there were military targets nearby, Russia may have been trying to exploit a loophole.

Red and orange is where the missiles hit. No grain silo was harmed.

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—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2022-113

A deal between Ukraine and Russia aims to ease the global food crisis. – New York Times – Jul 23, 2022

BRUSSELS — Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement in Istanbul on Friday to free more than 20 million metric tons of grain stuck in blockaded Black Sea ports in Ukraine, a deal aimed at bringing down soaring grain prices and alleviating a mounting global hunger crisis.

The highlighted claims are as false as much of the other NYT reporting on Ukraine.

Ukraine grain exports reach 47.2 million tonnes so far for 2021-22 – World-Grain.com – Jun 6, 2022

KYIV, UKRAINE — Ukraine has exported 148,000 tonnes of grain in the first five days of June, pushing its July to June 2021-22 marketing year total to 47.2 million tonnes, the country’s agriculture ministry said on June 6, Reuters reported.

The ministry said the total volume included 18.578 million tonnes of wheat, 22.4 million tonnes of corn and 5.7 million tonnes of barley, with corn shipments dominating the June start, Reuters reported.
…
Ukraine reached 54.9 million tonnes of wheat, corn and barley exports in 2019-2020, but dipped to 44.9 million tonnes in 2020-21, mostly on lower wheat production, according to the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Feb. 1 Foreign Agricultural Services (FAS) quarterly report. Before Russia's invasion, Ukraine had been projected to export 63.7 million tonnes of the grains in 2021-22.

The above numbers are more than 6 weeks old. Back then the difference between projected exports and exports up to June 5 was 63.7 – 47.2 = 16.5 million tons.

Ukraine's grain exports to reach 2 mln tonnes in June – deputy minister – Reuters – June 20, 2022

Ukraine’s grain exports will increase to 2 million tonnes in June from 1.7 million tonnes in May and reach the maximum volume that Ukraine can ship by land routes, First Deputy Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskiy said on Monday.

Since the first report a further 3 million tons of grains have been exported. The total left to export from the last season is thereby likely down to about 13 million tons.

Where the New York Times found '20 million metric tons' 'stuck in Black Sea ports in Ukraine' (because the Ukraine has mined the approaches)  is unexplained.

As for 'soaring grain prices' please consult these charts.

Cont. reading: Ukraine Grain Exports – Myths And Reality

The U.S. weapon industry needs U.S. enemies. Without those it is hard to justify an ever growing war budget. The most lucrative enemy, besides Russia, is of course China.

But there is a problem. China has no interest in being a U.S. enemy and certainly not in being THE enemy. In its view that only takes away resources that are better used elsewhere.

That is the reason why China avoids talks with the U.S. about military and strategic issues.

CIA columnist David Ignatius thus laments:

China wants to ‘reduce misunderstanding’ with the U.S. It could start by talking.

ASPEN, Colo. — Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang assured a foreign policy gathering here this week that Beijing wants “to reduce misunderstanding and miscalculation” with the United States. If that’s true, why does China continue to resist a U.S. proposal to discuss “strategic stability” between the two increasingly competitive countries?

What have talks about 'strategic stability' to do with reducing misunderstanding and miscalculation? The later can be achieved in very simple low level talks between ambassadors or politicians. There is nothing 'strategic' needed about them.

President Biden said on Wednesday, before his covid-19 diagnosis was announced, that he expects to talk with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the next 10 days, and a senior administration official said the president’s agenda will include a renewed emphasis on the risks in the relationship, and the need to establish better communications. But, so far, the official said of the Chinese, “they haven’t taken us up” on a U.S. proposal for the stability talks.

The Chinese do not see and do not want instability so there is no need to talk about it. What they sees is a U.S. trick that would make it possible to designate China as an 'enemy'.

Ignatius' next paragraph demonstrates that:

Cont. reading: U.S. Attempts To Make China An Enemy Require A Lot Of Fantasy

Over the last months the British MI-6 disinformation service had fun with strewing rumors over Vladimir Putin's health, mostly via British tabloids. It used its usual tools – a former MI-6 chief, 'former' MI-6 spies and the ever available 'anonymous' Russian oligarch who lives in London. Like its other propaganda claims these were obvious nonsense but found a reliably echo in the gossip media.

• Putin Laughs Off Rumors of Ill Health
   Reuters / NYT – Mar 16, 2015
• Opinion: Is Putin dying? Is he mentally ill? The emerging field of ‘Putinology’
   LA Times – Mar 5, 2022
• Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko attacks Putin: 'He's sick, he's an unhealthy man' – EXCLUSIVE
   Yahoo – Mar 18, 2022

Cont. reading: 50 Sick Headlines About Vladimir Putin’s Health

In September 2021 Australia, the UK and the U.S. announced AUKUS, a new alliance under which Australia would buy nuclear submarines from either the U.S. or UK and ditch its contract for French diesel driven u-boats.

I spelled out the details and the negative consequence of the deal:

To Protect Itself From U.S. Hostility Australia Decides To Buy U.S. Submarines

This is a huge but short term win for the U.S. with an also-ran booby price for Britain and a strategic loss of sovereignty and budget control for Australia.

It is another U.S. slap into the face of France and the European Union. The deal will piss off New Zealand, Indonesia and of course China. It will upset the international nuclear non proliferation regime and may lead to the further military nuclearization of South Korea and Japan.

It was easy to predict that the deal would screw up the development schedule of the Australian navy. It would obviously also cost much more money than its budget can provide:

Cont. reading: Australia Finally Recognizes That The AUKUS Deal Makes No Sense At All

Next winter Germany, and other European countries, will have an energy crisis. This crisis, we are told, is caused by the proxy war between the U.S. and Russia in Europe. They say that Russia has cut us off from its natural gas deliveries.

That is a lie.

The Ukraine and Poland have shut off some pipelines that bring in gas from Russia to western Europe. Germany has not delivered on the contracted maintenance that is required to keep the Nord Stream I pipeline at full capacity. The German government has blocked the certification of the Nord Stream II pipeline which is technically 100% ready to work at full capacity.

The energy crisis Europe will experience was created by the governments of those European countries who stop the pipeline flow of gas from Russia and who's citizens will have to bear the consequences.

It is solely on them to stop that coming catastrophe.

Here is how one man, known for his attention to details, correctly portrays the issue:

Question: Mr President, a serious energy crisis is developing in Europe, which is discussing the possibility of Gazprom cutting off gas deliveries. The company has allegedly issued an official notification to one of its German clients, citing force majeure circumstances.

Are there grounds for accusing Russia of causing this energy crisis? Will Gazprom continue to honour its obligations

Vladimir Putin: First of all, Gazprom has always honoured, and will continue to honour its commitments.

Cont. reading: Why Nord Stream II Must Be Opened Immediately

Today the foreign minister of the Russian Federation, Sergei Lavrov, announced the extension of the land in Ukraine that Russia intends to capture.

It will depend on the maximum weapon range of the systems the Ukraine will have under its control.

Via RIA Novosti (machine translation):

Lavrov: deliveries of long-range weapons to Kyiv will expand the geography of the special operation

MOSCOW, July 20 – RIA Novosti. If Ukraine receives long-range weapons from Western countries, then the geographical tasks of the special operation of the Russian troops will change, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT and the Rossiya Segodnya media group.

"The President said very clearly, as you quoted him – denazification, demilitarization in the sense that there are no threats to our security, military threats from the territory of Ukraine, this task remains," the minister stressed.

At the same time, he recalled that during the meeting of the negotiators in Istanbul at the end of March, the situation on this issue was significantly different.

"Now the geography is different. It is far from being only the DPR and LPR, it is also the Kherson region, the Zaporozhye region and a number of other territories, and this process continues, and continues consistently and persistently," the head of Russian diplomacy added.

He pointed out that as the West, in impotent rage or in a desire to make the situation as bad as possible, pumps more and more long-range weapons into Ukraine, for example, HIMARS, the geographical objectives of the special operation will move even further from the current line.

“Because we cannot allow the part of Ukraine that Zelensky will control or whoever replaces him to have weapons that will pose a direct threat to our territory and the territory of those republics that have declared their independence, those who want their future decide for yourself," he concluded.

Note to Washington: If you deliver HIMARS missile to Ukraine with an extended (300km instead of 80km) range, Russia will have to move further into Ukraine to secure its own and the Donbas republics borders.

Cont. reading: Lavrov – Extended Range Weapons In Ukraine Will Lead To More Loss Of Its Land

Dear Reader,

twice a year I ask for your help to keep Moon of Alabama going. This is the last call for this biannual drive.

Here are some reasons why you should consider it.

Roderic Day @RodericDay – 16:41 UTC · Jan 9, 2022
Retweeting @MoonofA

I don’t know exactly what @MoonofA’s political orientation is, but their articles are always full of verifiable sources for claims, and you can form your own opinion based on what they report.

They also self-criticize well.

We all need to write more in this style. link to MoA

Cont. reading: Please Support Moon of Alabama