@ Posted by: v | Sep 27 2022 12:12 utc | 201
Yep, Bornholm right in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Lots of fishing boats to base such an operation from… no matter what flag it flew. One imagines lots of subs and underwater drones too, designed exactly for this type of operation. It can also be that upon hearing about the first leak NS2, someone else acted to cause the second on NS1. We just don’t know.
We don’t know exactly where and how far from the Island the leak is. Were it right next to it, i would have to reconsider my Russian theory, which i once again repeat, is just one of many, yet is the one immediately coming under questioning here… go figure.

Posted by: Et Tu | Sep 27 2022 12:31 utc | 203

Et Tu | Sep 27 2022 12:31 utc | 203
Troll, read the previous pages before posting your crap. All 3 leaks are on the island border, outside it but still in Denmark Poland zone. Now get lost

Posted by: rk | Sep 27 2022 12:35 utc | 205

Food stocks in Ukraine is critical, though times ahead with Winter looming for both the Ukrainian civilians and soldiers:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/ukrainians-who-cant-flee-war-increasingly-face-hunger/articleshow/90442299.cms?from=mdr

Posted by: Menz | Sep 27 2022 12:46 utc | 207

Rhino@135
Fascinating speculation. You really gave this one some serious thought.

Posted by: aristodemos | Sep 27 2022 13:22 utc | 209

@Paul Greenwood #125,

the [Kharkiv oblast] area had 2000 DPR and Rosgvardiya personnel facing 40,000 UKR troops

I see this claim pop up here pretty frequently. You understand what this would imply, right? Izyum was a key direction from which to apply pressure on Sloviansk/Kramatorsk, which in turn was key to Russia completing the capture of Donetsk oblast.
If Russia really was only able to muster a few hundred OMON troops to supplement LDNR fighters in garrisoning such a huge & strategically important region, it would mean that Russia has suffered combat losses plus attrition from contract soldiers demobilizing very far in excess of 100,000 since the war started. Of course in reality the claim is false. Just look at the captured equipment – Rosgvardia and LDNR guys don’t operate Zooparks for just one example. And immediately after the Russians withdrew, the high-value Azovstal prisoners were exchanged. Pretty clearly Ukraine captured some high-value prisoners of their own around Izyum.

Posted by: Yenwoda | Sep 27 2022 13:39 utc | 211

Exit polls are in and its 97,97,98,97
While I’m 100% behind Donbas it’s very likey anyone overtly pro-Ukranian in the other territories stayed home or lied to the exit poller.

Posted by: Bob | Sep 27 2022 14:03 utc | 213

Posted by: watcher | Sep 27 2022 3:25 utc | 116
But obviously the Russians wouldn’t carry out such an elective attack when the wind was blowing any other way.

Posted by: John Kennard | Sep 27 2022 14:22 utc | 215

Betting Putin will declare Ukraine ‘a terrorist state’ after the referendums are done and rename the SMO into “counter-terrorist operation” a-la Syria. The hints by the Russian officials (current Crimean head in particular) and the stuff taking place in Odessa sure make it likely.
Posted by: Z_- | Sep 27 2022 9:24 utc | 168

Speaking of counter-terrorism, this from TASS:

Donbass republics to make decision on martial law jointly with Russia, says LPR leader
KRASNODON, September 27. /TASS/. Heads of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) and Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) will make a decision on the introduction of the martial law together with the Russian authorities in case the republics join the Russian Federation, LPR leader Leonid Pasechnik told TASS on Tuesday.
[…snip…]
Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Security Anatoly Vyborny said on Monday that a counter-terrorism operation (CTO) regime might be required in the possibly new regions of Russia in order to fend off Kiev’s terrorist attacks. Vyborny noted that a decision to initiate a CTO is made by the chief federal security executive, while a decree to initiate a special military operation is delivered by the Russian president.

Posted by: David Levin | Sep 27 2022 14:33 utc | 217

It’s going to be hard for Russia to continue it’s war crimes in Ukraine when the country’s motto is seemingly ‘Run Away!’.

Posted by: Sid | Sep 27 2022 15:52 utc | 219

@170 jpc
why would the Russians blow up their own pipelines? Just when Putin again offered to supply gas via NS2?
Even a schoolgirl can see through your deflection.
Posted by: grippo | Sep 27 2022 10:14 utc | 176
Read again carefully!
I said that the Germans wouldn’t say anything if they knew that it wasn’t the Russians and they actually had evidence of the perpetrators.
“If the German government had unequivocal proof it’s not the Russians.
And could identify the actor’s.
They wouldn’t open their mouths”
Posted by: jpc | Sep 27 2022 9:25 utc | 170

Posted by: jpc | Sep 27 2022 16:44 utc | 221

aristodemos@220
I look in the mirror every day and what I see is not a troll. I am born in Russia, but don’t live there atm, maybe you can understand why. I am not getting my money from some 3 letter agency, but work with Itsec.
I am not in love with US/West and there media, but Russia is just as bad and give us the same BS. If you can’t see that you in total denial, brainwashed or on the Russian payroll. It is as simple as that.
I don’t “babble about trolls” – it is you that call people who make posts, you dont like, for trolls. Just read your old posts again: troll troll troll all the time.
and for the rest:
“Depressing Debbie” namecalling
“That abandoned equipment was “boneyard” stuff, not worth the time and effort of dragging it out of the thin-air redeployment zone” – You only got the russians word for that –
“Good luck to the Ukies attempting to repair that stuff as Russian high-precision missiles are constantly bombarding their repair shops” – making fun over people getting killed –
“If you keep falling for these narratives one may conclude that you are either a terminal case of pessimism…or something else again” – namecalling / hate
and thats is only 1 post –

Posted by: Snowflake | Sep 27 2022 17:52 utc | 223

You can’t call Meloni and her party populists without falling into the Richard Hofstadter (Cold War) heresy of conflating populism with right wing authoritarianism. Real populism unites the oppressed and confronts the power of wealth and hierarchical tradition. Tom Watson was a populist, So was Cyclone Davis. Togliatti was an Italian populist- Mussolini was a tool of the ruling class and bankers, as is Meloni. As is Steve Bannon.
“With the help of people like Steve Bannon, Meloni was able to rise like a toxic slime on the surface of a sea of contaminated waste.”
“…The Italian Parliamentary election has concluded and the neofascist Giorgia Meloni is ready to emerge as the new prime minister of a divided country with no clear mandate from around 60 percent of eligible voters, in one of the lower voter turnouts in history. The choices were quite grim and the system rigged along the lines of the anti-democratic US election model after years of neoliberal forces working to create a bipolar schizophrenic and easily destabilized political system.
“Berlusconianism, the creation of a disastrous neoliberal and US/NATO controlled Democratic Party modeled after the United State’s own corporate-driven party—coupled with a general malaise and degradation of Italian culture—overall have contributed to create the ingredients for the Steve Bannon-groomed Meloni to rise to the top, like a toxic slime on the surface of a sea of contaminated waste.
“Italy has become like a country of spoiled children that has lost its identity. It has been colonized and lobotomized by multinational corporate interests, the mythological concept of the American dream, mass consumerism, US/NATO dictated militarism, and crass materialism. For almost 30 years—from Berlusconi’s first election in 1994 and even going back to the post-WWII era when the United States asserted its sphere of influence by steamrolling an anti-communist agenda in order to maintain geopolitical control over the peninsula—Italy has been slowly but steadily pulling out its historical roots and erasing its historical memory.
“Giorgia Meloni is the aggressive, bombastic, volatile, and narcissistic woman that leads the far right, racist, anti-immigrant, anti LGBTQ+, Italian first, neofascist party called Fratelli di Italia (Brothers of Italy). Several of her party’s candidates have been arrested for corruption scandals as recently as last week, and it is a political party with strong ties to Italy’s organized criminality….”
https://countercurrents.org/2022/09/introducing-giorgia-meloni-how-the-united-states-opened-the-door-for-fascisms-return-to-italy/?swcfpc=1

Posted by: bevin | Sep 27 2022 18:23 utc | 225

@ 225
What you don’t understand is that at present the oppressed have no voice at all. Anywhere. In any political party. So you can call out Fratelli all day long and the oppressed still have no place else to go. If one person at Fratelli speaks directly to the people they will be listened to and supported. This is why working people listen to Trump. I think we can agree that Trump is a consummate SOB and an enemy of the workers by any interpretation. But he speaks directly to people and they listen. Not one other person in the Democratic Party or Republican Party – or DSA or any other party – dirties themselves by even speaking to workers.
Would it be possible for a political party to exist in Italy without some connection to organized crime? Is there a government anywhere that does not work closely with organized crime?
Also I doubt you bothered listening to even the linked 2 minutes of Meloni.
One of my old professors was a lover to Palmiro Togliatti. He had a good line of patter, he was as elitist as any of them.

Posted by: oldhippie | Sep 27 2022 18:38 utc | 227

Source: Vesti https://www.vesti.ru/article/2962158
In the LPR, the turnout exceeded 92 percent , more than 98.5 percent voted for reunification with Russia. In the Zaporozhye region, 90 percent of voters voted, 93 percent voted in favor. In the Kherson region, more than 87 percent answered positively to the question of joining our country.
DPR: voted with smiles and tears
On the final day of the referendum, hundreds of polling stations opened their doors throughout the Donetsk People’s Republic. September 27 was the fifth day of the election marathon. Already the day before, the turnout in the republic exceeded 86 percent. They voted with smiles and with tears of joy in their eyes.
——————
Curious that the turnout of the voters in the DPR is now the lowest: 86 percent

Posted by: Oblomovka daydream | Sep 27 2022 19:19 utc | 229

Referenda results:

                              Turnout  “Join Russia”

% of     % of    % of
voters   votes   voters

Donetsk People’s Republic*  97.51    99.23   96.76
Lugansk People’s Republic   92.6     98.42   91.14
Zaporozhye oblast*          85.4     93.11   79.52
Kherson oblast              76.86    87.05   66.91

* The turnout figures must have been calculated only for areas under Russian/DPR/LPR control⁠. For example, it would be impossible to achieve 85% turnout in the entire Zaporozhye oblast, as the city of Zaporozhye, which accounted for 43% of Zaporozhye oblast population as of January 2022, is still under Ukraine’s control. This is further confirmed by the fact that the live map of referendum results displayed at Zaporozhye oblast electoral commission headquarters was only a part of the map of the entire Zaporozhye oblast. Hence, it can be argued that only those districts of the DNR and Zaporozhye oblast that took part in referenda can be considered part of Russia.

Posted by: S | Sep 27 2022 22:51 utc | 231

Blinken’s declaration means Outlaw US Empire is party to war against Russia:
“Ukraine can use Western weapons against ‘territories seized by Russia’ – US”
In his diatribe, Blinken puts forth something he certainly didn’t think through: Who/what created Ukraine and gave it its lands, and was there any reason to think such a gifting would be permanent given Ukraine’s behavior toward its creator?
Given the Outlaw US Empire’s actions and statements/confessions, once Ukraine has lost and disappears from maps, will the Outlaw US Empire try to liberate it, or will it be content to have ruined Europe’s economy and snapped up most of its important companies at pennies on the euro?

Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 27 2022 23:25 utc | 233

Report above from ABC news australia.
I love brilliance of such reports
a) The network was active throughout the summer.
versus
b) Meta said it had identified and disabled it before it could get a large audience.

Posted by: SeanAU | Sep 28 2022 0:14 utc | 235

@239 “I feel Russia should explain the logic for sake of settling the matter.’
Settle the matter? For who? Why would Russia bother explaining anything that just gets twisted and thrown back at them?

Posted by: dh | Sep 28 2022 1:44 utc | 237

I think the only real issues are where very large population centres fell outside the zone of control ie where voting was not possible.
I think this most certainly does NOT apply in Lukansk or Kherson, and probably not Donetsk, since the main cities are included. I reserve judgement on Zaporizhia, to the extent that all areas currently controlled are incorporated into Russia immediately, with a future vote on the major city.
However after the pipeline sabotage, we must accept it is war so all bets are off.

Posted by: watcher | Sep 28 2022 1:46 utc | 239

Bevin @225
You appear to be a Neo-Marxist, in part, of the “woke” school. Where you really go off the rails is when you kvetch about Italians being “anti-immigrant”. With the Bank$ter imposed sanctions on Russia and also connected with the consumerism you rightly denounce; there is no longer room or surplus food in Italy to take care of a bunch of mostly economic immigrants. Very few of those people are actually fleeing dictatorial regimes.
Now, if thousands of Americans fled to Italy, I could understand that it would have to do with the current puppet regime in the Di$trict of Corruption and its oppression in the “homeland” echoing aggression abroad.

Posted by: aristodemos | Sep 28 2022 2:19 utc | 241

Oblomovka @229
Perhaps the reason why the DPR had the lowest turnout is that some were fearfully hiding in their basements, concerned about yet more murderous artillery and rocket fire from the UkroNazis. Thank you for the inside information. These referenda will mark a glorious day in human history.

Posted by: aristodemos | Sep 28 2022 2:30 utc | 243

@244 “Where you really go off the rails is when you kvetch about Italians being “anti-immigrant”.”
Bevin really went off the rails, for me, when he started talking about ‘lily-white fascist governments’ in Scandinavia being ant-immigrant.

Posted by: dh | Sep 28 2022 2:32 utc | 245

Watcher @235
On what data do you claim that a majority in northern Zaparozha would vote to stay in the kleptocracy which is the former Ukraine SSR? I find that statement speculative at best. BTW: Don’t feed trolls such as Mutt-Hacker.

Posted by: aristodemos | Sep 28 2022 2:36 utc | 247

SeanAu @237
Just who the hell is Meta and who provides their funding? Is it something like BBC, which was originally created by British intel services and remains under their control to this day.

Posted by: aristodemos | Sep 28 2022 2:47 utc | 249

Channel 4 investigating Cambridge Analytica and Facebook and the subsequent UK inquiry about that … no one got busted put in jail, nothing has essentially changed. A short term storm in a tea cup, then back to business as usual (under a different name/s).
Posted by: SeanAU | Sep 28 2022 2:54 utc | 253

What did they do that was illegal, rather than merely unethical?
They consolidated data that people provided voluntarily and used that information to redirect or influence their opinions and actions. Been happening since the time of Bernays, only now on steroids.

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Sep 28 2022 3:11 utc | 251

Posted by: S | Sep 27 2022 22:51 utc | 231
Thanks for this detail.
Apparently thousands participated in the referendum (outlawed by Kiev) and then voted No. Must be libertarians.

Posted by: Browser | Sep 28 2022 4:40 utc | 253

I haven’t read this guy Kunstler in many years, but David Stockman has a decent new piece over at antiwar.com
https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2022/09/27/washingtons-pointless-war-on-behalf-of-a-fake-nation/
and that brought this article to my attention, and here’s part of it below that I liked the most.
& remember folks, when in the USA or the collective West aka The Empire of Lies, all you have to say is Russia Russia Russia!
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/joe-bidens-last-stand/
“Joe Biden’s” Last Stand
“….Let us agree that the place called Ukraine was never any of America’s business. For centuries we ignored it, through all the colorful cavalry charges to-and-fro of Turks and Tatars, the reign of the dashing Zaporozhian Cossacks, the cruel abuses of Stalin, then Hitler, and the dull, gray Khrushchev-to-Yeltsin years.
But then, having destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and sundry other places all on a great hegemonic lark, the professional warmongers of our land and their catamites in Washington made Ukraine their next special project. They engineered the 2014 coup in Kiev that ousted the elected president, Mr. Yanyukovich, to set up a giant grifting parlor and international money-laundromat.
The other strategic aim was to prepare Ukraine for NATO membership, which would have made it, in effect, a forward missile base right up against Russia’s border. Because, well, Russia, Russia, Russia!…..”

Posted by: michaelj72 | Sep 28 2022 5:50 utc | 255

There we have it. Italy’s new PM praise Ukraine/Zelensky!
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/10653

Posted by: Zanon | Sep 28 2022 7:51 utc | 257

Posted by: aristodemos | Sep 28 2022 2:36 utc | 250
Apologies i should have added a qualifier. I was really just doing the maths. I very much doubt that even 20% of residents of Zaporizhia would vote to stay in Ukraine, but I was trying to show that there would still be a majority even if Zaporizhia opposed.

Posted by: watcher | Sep 28 2022 9:35 utc | 259