Ukraine SitRep - No Southern Push Yet, Kiev Government Trouble, Tanks And Escalation
Last week, following two days of heavy fighting along the southern front in Ukraine, I concluded that the expected push from the south into the back of the Ukrainian forces at the Donetzk frontline, was finally happening.
Ukraine - Russian Army Activates Southern Front
I was wrong. I, and other analysts following the war, had been deceived by the sudden rush of news from that frontline. It said that Russian forces made progress in a large number of towns. But nearly as soon as I had published my piece that news died down. In the following days nothing happened but the usual exchange of artillery fire and minor local clashes.
I am not sure what happened. But the Ukrainian army also seemed to have believed that something big was coming as it had rushed an additional mechanized brigade to that line.
While the big one has not happened yet there are several probing attacks in the area with some successes around Vuhledar.
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Dima of the Military Summary channel noted (vid) a Russian report which said that two Ukrainian officers had crossed the southern frontline and surrendered to Russian forces. He speculates that the whole fluff up in the news was created as a diversion to allow for a secure extraction of those officers. We have no evidence for that but it may well have happened that way.
It is interesting that this was followed by additional government turmoil in Kiev as another senior advisor of president Zelensky, the deputy head of his office Kyrylo Tymoshenko, resigned. Additionally several deputy ministers and oblast governors were fired:
Deputy Defence Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov also resigned, following reports he oversaw the purchase of military food supplies at inflated prices from a relatively unknown firm. The department called this a "technical mistake" and claimed no money had changed hands.The defence minister himself - Oleksii Reznikov - has been under scrutiny for the same reason.
A host of other top officials were dismissed on Tuesday, including:
- Deputy Prosecutor General Oleskiy Symonenko
- Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Ivan Lukerya
- Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Vyacheslav Negoda
- Deputy Minister for Social Policy Vitaliy Muzychenko
- And the regional governors of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson
I urge people to be careful with corruption allegations in Ukraine. These often come from the extralegal National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). The bureau was setup in 2014, after the Maidan coup. It was created and controlled by the U.S. embassy. NABU was used in various power plays to remove people who the embassy disliked.
In 2020 the supreme court of Ukraine ruled that NABU was outside of the law and should not have the investigative powers it assumed. This came after NABU had investigated several supreme court judges in anti-corruption cases. That fight between two camps of power in Ukraine led to a constitutional crisis.
A year later Zelensky fired the leading supreme court judge who had written the opinion on NABU. The judge appealed the decision and the court took his side. The conflict remains unresolved. The judge fled to Austria where he is now threatened with arrest under a Ukrainian warrant.
There are many of such little reported power plays in Kiev with Zelensky moving more and more into a dictatorial role. Over time his position will become very lonely.
But in the east the battle continues and Ukraine keeps losing the war. The Telegram channel Intel Slava Z notes:
Prigozhin on the objectives of the actions of PMC "Wagner" in the Artemovsk region.“The task of taking Bakhmut is to destroy the Ukrainian army in the vicinity of the city and prevent any offensive actions in any direction of the front. All of their combat-ready units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are sent to Bakhmut. And PMC "Wagner" destroys them, opening up operational opportunities in other areas"
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This confirms my previous observation:
I count the equivalent of some 27 brigade size formations in that area. The usual size of a brigade is some 3,000 to 4,000 men with hundreds of all kinds of vehicles. If all brigades had their full strength that force would count as 97,500 men. In a recent interview the Ukrainian military commander Zaluzhny said that his army has 200,000 men trained to fight with 500,000 more having other functions or currently being trained. The forces which are currently getting mauled in the Bakhmut area constitute 50% of Ukraine's battle ready forces.
There are still Pentagon officials who deny the real situation:
Russian forces took control of the city of Bakhmut almost a year ago after Moscow opened a phase of the war that focused on territories in the Donbas, the far eastern corner of Ukraine comprised of the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.Recent successes by Ukrainian fighters in the Bakhmut area have prompted Moscow to send in reinforcements, said the senior U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity. U.S. and Ukrainian officials have said Ukrainian troops are presently in control of Bakhmut, though Moscow claimed this week that its forces have taken control of a nearby salt-mining town, Soledar.
“Ukraine forces continue to successfully hold and defend Bakhmut,” the U.S. military official said, adding the new Russian troops are being “rushed” to the battlefield “ill trained” and “ill equipped.”
To read such nonsense in the Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for the U.S. military, is quite revealing. Can these people even read a map?
Bakhmut has never been under the Russian forces control. This was the situation near Bakhmut 6 months ago. The Russian held territory is red.
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This is the current situation around Bakhmut. The city is nearly encircled. All major roads leading in and out are under Russian artillery control.
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It is a big meat grinder. The German intelligence service BND says that the Ukrainian forces lose hundreds of soldiers per day in that city alone. The Russian defense ministry does not report on Bakhmut as that is Wagner's territory. But it daily reports if additional hundreds of losses on the Ukrainian side.
In a useless attempt to stop the steady drain of Ukrainian forces the 'west' is moving additional weapons into Ukraine. The U.S. wants to unlock the transfer of tanks by other countries to Ukraine by delivering parts of its own tank reserves:
The Biden administration is leaning toward sending a significant number of Abrams M1 tanks to Ukraine and an announcement of the deliveries could come this week, U.S. officials said.The announcement would be part of a broader diplomatic understanding with Germany in which Berlin would agree to send a smaller number of its own Leopard 2 tanks and would also approve the delivery of more of the German-made tanks by Poland and other nations. It would settle a trans-Atlantic disagreement over the tanks that had threatened to open fissures as the war drags into the end of its first year.
The White House declined to comment.
...
The shift in the U.S. position follows a call on Jan. 17 between President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which Mr. Biden agreed to look into providing the Abrams tanks against the judgment of the Pentagon. A senior German official said that the issue had been the subject of intense negotiation between Washington and Berlin for more than a week and appeared to be on the way to resolution.
...
Previously, the Pentagon had ruled out providing the tanks to Ukraine, saying they were too complicated for the Ukrainians to maintain and operate. But White House and State Department officials were described as being more open to providing Abrams to break the diplomatic logjam holding up Leopard deliveries.
U.S. Joint Chiefs Chair Milley and Defense Secretary Austin have been against any tank delivery. They are afraid of the consequences of this steady mission creep. The Biden administration steadily blows through each of its own red lines. Biden had started out by declaring that the U.S. would only deliver defensive weapons. Then came HIMARS and other longer range weapons that hit targets in Russia. Delivering tanks was a red line. What will come next? Fighter planes that have no chance to defeat superior Russian air defenses?
They military are not alone in their fear. The Science and Security Board Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock:
The Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.
Biden is in a bind. He started a war that he is not allowed to lose because losing in Ukraine will come with the loss of U.S. financial hegemony:
The Biden Team cannot withdraw its fantastical narrative of Russia’s imminent humiliation; they have bet the House on it. Yet it has become an existential issue for the U.S. precisely because of this egregious initial miscalculation that has been subsequently levered-up into a preposterous narrative of a floundering, at any moment ‘collapsing’ Russia.
...
This evolving New Order existentially threatens dollar hegemony – the U.S. created its hegemony through demanding that oil (and other commodities) be priced in dollars, and by facilitating a frenetic financialisation of asset markets in the U.S. It is this demand for dollars which alone has allowed the U.S. to fund its government deficit (and its defence budget) for nothing.
...
Team Biden thus has painted the U.S. into a tight Ukraine ‘corner’. But at this stage – realistically – what can the White House do? It cannot withdraw the narrative of Russia’s ‘coming humiliation’ and defeat. They cannot let the narrative go because it has become an existential component to save what it can of the ‘Ponzi’. To admit that Russia ‘has won’ would be akin to saying that the ‘Ponzi’ will have to ‘close the fund’ to further withdrawals (just as Nixon did in 1971, when he shut withdrawals from the Gold window).Commentator Yves Smith has provocatively argued, ‘What if Russia decisively wins – yet the western press is directed to not notice?’ Presumably, in such a situation, the economic confrontation between the West and New Global Order states must escalate into a wider, longer war.
And escalating it is. With ever increasing speed.
Posted by b on January 24, 2023 at 17:05 UTC | Permalink
« previous pagejames | Jan 24 2023 22:12 utc | 167
i am skipping both the troll and those who respond to them.. in fact, if i see someone replying to the troll i am now moving into an approach of completely skipping over their posts regardless if they are directed at the troll or not
Friendly relations to the troll are being sanctioned. Reminds me of ... a certain big country sanctioning everybody who is on friendly terms and trade relationships with, say ... Cuba.
Posted by: grunzt | Jan 25 2023 16:54 utc | 502
Baerbock says Germany is fighting a war against Russia. For this alone she and the whole government should be in jail for breaking the constitution - Art. 26 additionally to Art. 2 of the Zwei-plus-Vier-Vertag. As if the COVID response wasn't enough, the German government breaks the constitution at will at this point. A criminal disaster like no other after WW2.
Posted by: Vikichka | Jan 25 2023 16:56 utc | 503
Ukraine working on agreements with EU countries to deport Ukrainian men of conscription age back to Ukraine.
Posted by: rk | Jan 25 2023 12:03 utc | 431
Most important post today and you missed it Barflies. In 2021, 2/3s of working aged Ukrainian citizens had moved overseas ( to earn realy money versus the 90€/month net take home pay back home)
Posted by: Exile | Jan 25 2023 16:57 utc | 504
Ok, I guess-
https://rall.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/1-25-23.jpg
Posted by: Duncan Idaho | Jan 25 2023 16:58 utc | 505
Posted by: AG | Jan 25 2023 13:24 utc | 448
I believe this analysis rests on the assumption of hypersonic weapons used for trans-continental strikes.
Therein lies it's error, as I believe the Russians would use this weapon to strike forces on/near Eurasia.
In that scenario the weapon would be deadly and unstoppable.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 25 2023 17:01 utc | 506
@Norwegian | Jan 25 2023 16:51 utc | 497
A link to a better copy of the original
Renovation of Sevastopol School #5, Ukraine
Summary
Federal Contract Opportunity for Renovation of Sevastopol School #5, Ukraine N33191-13-R-1240. The NAICS Category is 236220 - Commercial and Institutional Building Construction. Posted Aug 20, 2013. Posted by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (DOD - Navy). The work will be performed at Sevastopol 99000
Posted by: Norwegian | Jan 25 2023 17:01 utc | 507
Hermit @486
Thanks for the uptick. No doubt you have thoroughly done your research. The tracked haulers were news to me as I have no recall of photos of those vehicles. But then most of my studies were books only and decades ago.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 25 2023 17:03 utc | 508
"The $1 Trillion F-35 fighter jet: it's machine gun doesn't work, camera can't pick targets, can't be flown in the rain, the fuel can't be stored near a desert because if the fuel is too warm it won't burn, the helmet doesn't work, the stealth doesn't work. it can't hit ground targets...works perfectly at it's actual mission, which is transferring taxpayer money to Lockheed..."
~ Scott Horton
http://scotthorton.org/interviews/2015/01/21/12115-william-hartung/
Posted by: Laura Roslin | Jan 25 2023 17:06 utc | 509
Aristodemos @ 492
I agree with all that, thanks.
A few years ago I came across a detailed diagram of these tanks showing all the weak spots (a dozen or so)
Fire seemed the main vonrabilty along with air intake tracks and visabilty from within.
I still feel the only consiveable use would be in urban block to block fighting.
Also no air cover. Plus this will be untried territory up against modern drones.
If the west has decided to go for full on western NATO aggression toward Russia this could start it.
Love all your posts.
Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 25 2023 17:06 utc | 510
After the tank delivery, next step could be Russia invites its nationals to leave NATO countries.
If Western countries, their ideological elites and zombie populations really want war, let Russia go all nuke on their asses.
I am French and a father but I would rather burn in nuclear apocalypse than see the continuation of their NWO and their so-called "End of History". Enough is enough. Millions think like me in Russia and elsewhere so that's something.
Posted by: America is defeated | Jan 25 2023 17:07 utc | 511
@jonku | Jan 25 2023 3:14 utc | 284
You may want to read Information Warfare at Wikipedia. "Information warfare ... is a concept involving the battlespace use and management of information and communication technology (lCT) in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent. Information warfare is the manipulation of information trusted by a target without the target's awareness so that the target will make decisions against their interest but in the interest of the one conducting information warfare." [My emphasis]>. Pretty much what the wealthy and powerful have always done.
In 2013, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act and, on parallel, signed into law the (Republican) Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which eliminated the prohibition on domestic dissemination of propaganda produced by the US government controlled media, including the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the nation’s foreign broadcasting agency, contained in the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, also known as the Smith-Mundt Act.
Posted by: Hermit | Jan 25 2023 17:08 utc | 512
karlof1@488
You give proof positive that the RF is the world-master in yet one more category: Education. On the American side, John D. Rockefeller engaged John Dewey and James Bryant Conant to head up a new concept department at Columbia University, ca 1919. Both those two certifiable Yankees and the institution were provided with considerable grant money.
In one of Dewey's "missals", paraphrased here: "We don't need these people to learn the classics, deep history, geography or physics and calculus in our public schools. They should be basically literate and mathematically competent at the elementary levels. We merely need them to work in our factories, shops, offices, mines and farms."
Elitism is endemic in the U$$A, particularly on the East Coast with its private secondary schools and Ivy League snobbery.
Columbia served as the original template for colleges of edjumacasion all across the fruited plain. The 100+ year deliberate dumbing down of the American populace was on the roll.
Meanwhile, Russia sought to establish an educational system which would raise the level of understanding amongst the masses of the people...perhaps deemed essential as the Bolsheviks had "liquidated" much of the previous educated class during their counter-revolution in 1917.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 25 2023 17:15 utc | 513
Posted by: America is defeated | Jan 25 2023 17:07 utc | 508
Frankly, those who survive the blast, will die of the radiation or simply starve to death. It's rather agonizing.
Posted by: Vikichka | Jan 25 2023 17:21 utc | 514
Posted by: America is defeated | Jan 25 2023 17:07 utc | 508
You know, Russia can also invite all like-minded people of the West to immigrate by somehow providing safe information and passage. I must confess, I sometimes think of emigrating with my family there but am way too afraid to look for information as we can then be argeted/baited and cancelled.
Posted by: alek_a | Jan 25 2023 17:27 utc | 515
James @498
Probably the greatest living peace activist, Diana Johnstone, who among other publications created a book which many consider as the definitive volume on how the NATOstanis destroyed Yugoslavia. During that era, the Minnesota born Parisian expat, now well into her 90's, began affiliating with the Greens. It didn't take her long to become disabused, as the original peace and love activists were superseded amongst the German Greens in particular, by a consortium of ideological freaks.
It would seem that much of the intellectual classes in Germany, an occupied nation since 5-8-45; have devolved into some form of neurosis, bordering on psychosis. Fraulein Baerbock is a stunning example of that devolution.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 25 2023 17:28 utc | 516
Arch Bungle @403
One would hope that the hypersonics of the kinetic variety would be efficacious in striking the Eye of Sauron, located in a private bank in City of London.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 25 2023 17:31 utc | 517
@ grunzt | Jan 25 2023 16:54 utc | 499
lol.. fair enough.. i think i get your point!
@ aristodemos | Jan 25 2023 17:28 utc | 513
its rather shocking.. i live in one of the few ridings in canada that voted in a green party candidate federally... i know the man and he is a good guy... he would never go along with this insanity this lady is pushing... its insane... btw - thanks for your posts on these threads.. i appreciate it! i tend to agree with your take on opport knocks too.. cheers..
Posted by: james | Jan 25 2023 17:31 utc | 518
"Delivery of Western-made uranium shells to Kyiv will be regarded by Moscow as the use of dirty nuclear bombs - Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation in Vienna"
Leopard, Bradley and Marder can use them.
So the great general staff of weekend warriors is only now worried about depleted uranium shells? Did they just google it today or what? Well... they were unable to stop the shelling of ZNPP in 6 months, so what can we expect from team Shoigu.
Posted by: rk | Jan 25 2023 17:47 utc | 519
Hypersonics not useful according to the Americans?
Didn't La Fontaine write a fable about something similar...sour grapes and all that...?
Posted by: Anthony | Jan 25 2023 17:54 utc | 520
"U.S. Joint Chiefs Chair Milley"
Is he a chair, Bernhard? Is Milley a piece of furniture? Don't you mean he is the chairman? Why then do you use the feminist propaganda word "chair" to eliminate "-man" or "-woman"? Will you also start calling wives and husbands "partners"? And should a couple say "we are pregnant" when the woman is pregnant, to eliminate the mention of biological differences, like in Hollywood shows?
Should we call a person "they" instead of "he" and "she" like in Hollywood propaganda?
"dollar hegemony"
Mainstream bullshiht. That has NOTHING to do with this war, it's what people say when they are too cowardly to mention why the leftists hate Russia. They hate it because it is conservative, and Putin banned homosexual propaganda in the schools. Putin has also condemned the mass immigration of non-Whites to the West that the Left relies on to win any elections.
The leftists used this hatred of conservative Russia as the basis for their lie that "Russia hacked the election" in 2016, which for years has intensified their hatred.
And above all, the non-White media bosses hate Russia for supporting the pro-Palestinian Syria and Iran. Any Middle Eastern country that opposes the Tribe's taking of ever more Palestinian land must be destroyed. And anyone who helps them must be destroyed. THAT is why they target Russia.
If Russia had been pro-Zionist and had opposed the Palestinians, Syria and Iran this war would never had happened, because Biden wouldn't have given Zelensky free reins to attack Donbass in February 2022.
Posted by: Tenet | Jan 25 2023 18:02 utc | 521
aristodemos | Jan 25 2023 17:31 utc | 518
The Eye of Sauron - will that information let me find the cordinates in Google maps, to the required precision?
Posted by: grunzt | Jan 25 2023 18:02 utc | 522
One of the two authors of the ISW piece is a brother of Robert Kagan, the neo-con husband of Victoria Nuland.
Kagan, Nuland, Bill Kristol, George Soros. Biden being promoted after he's proven his loyalty by marrying off his children to the Tribe. Kamala Harris being picked as she's married to one of the Tribe. Zelensky, and his financier the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, currently residing in Israel. Biden's close ally and financier Larry Fink, head of Blackrock that got to buy large swaths of Ukrainian land in 2021 most likely after bribing Zelensky. Several of Larry Fink's operatives sit in the Biden administration.
Top names in CNN, the NYT, the MSNBC and all the other media that hate Russia.
A Russia that has supported Iran and Syria, which are targeted because they oppose the Palestinian genocide.
But then again, MoonOfAlabama tells us the war is ACKSHUALLY about "dollar hegemony". How? Don't know! Doesn't need to be explained. It's about greedy White capitalists, you know! No need to prove it.
Posted by: Tenet | Jan 25 2023 18:07 utc | 523
Germany's foreign minister Annalena Baerbock declares war on Russia:
"We are fighting a war against Russia."
https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1618217167388053504
Horrifying.
Posted by: Jim H | Jan 25 2023 18:07 utc | 524
@ malenkov | Jan 25 2023 15:58 utc | 479
@ james | Jan 25 2023 16:54 utc | 498
Only mentioned a select mini-subset of posts given we're into over 500 now (600 coming up?). Specifically in the context of this individual thread, as an 'Abstract', perhaps.
Somewhat doubt many are into self-flagellation given the number of posts & certainly am no awards committee of one.
Karlof1 is an implied standing given(Shout-out!), along with numerous other posters ;) Moi has not yet contributed to this deluge.
So, exiting meta ...
There are less than two Brigades(!) of combat worthy MBTs & IFVs on the table, and as we've all discussed & detailed in previous threads prior they are weeks & months away, piecemeal. Too little, far too late.
Untrained individual crew position members, untrained formed crews, not experienced on platform, tank & sub-unit commanders ? Write-em off as KIA before they even hit the starter motor.
IF, and it's a big IF, the US actually ever sends Abrams, it will be older/est models due to be scrapped rather than monthly rolling rebuild/refurbish/upgrade. The new manufactured (IF) over minimum 2 months(15/mth surge production) allotted will replace the derelicts proffered.
No Air, no effective Operational/Tactical mobile Air Defense systems, no CAS, untrained forced conscripts, shattered logistics, extreme issues of interoperability, massive loss of combat effectiveness & extinction of former experienced AFU Combined Arms Troops/NCOs/Officers, desperate shortage of Arty tubes let alone ammo that are increasingly blind on the battle field ?
It is over.
This is a Political/Narrative, treading water exercise, of nil military significance, given they're trapped in a Catch-22, without any viable plan or strategy re the kinetic military aspect, since Feb2422.
On MBTs. It is not the individual crew served PLATFORM(Tank) that counts the most, but the skill, capability & experience of the crews and their skill/experience in operating & co-operating with other units/formations & arms, along with functioning service/repair/sustainment/logistics train, that makes the difference.
Zee German Panzers(Tanks) up to late '42 almost always in European theater were seriously individually inferior AFVs fighting against superior enemy tanks re individual specifications from armament to armor, yet zee Panzers regularly won out.
Crews. Training. Experience. Logistics.
The big cats that war porn addicts, War Thunder aficionados & Panzerblitz gamers get excited over, along with propaganda myths & tropes, didn't rock up til latter stages of WWII and in reality actually shortened the war & weakened the Panzer Corps re reduced production output of over-engineered, overly complex, too expensive, unreliable, maintenance heavy, not yet combat capable WanderWaffen, in dramatically reduced numbers.
Things that make you go, hmmm ... ?
Yet RF will see this, if goes ahead before AFU collapse, as de facto if not de jure belligerency & quite probably dramatically escalate to pre-emptive, actual War, IMV. Bad idea US/NATO. Kiss Poland/Baltics, Bulgaria & Romania, maybe Finland too and all of Ukraine goodbye, in terms of the declared strategic objective of, minimally ... demilitarization.
@Tenet 523
Using "chair" as an abbrevation for "chairman" is an ages old custom and has nothing to do with any wokism. In fact, a chair can chair a meeting. So your comment seems a bit misplaced.
And as to the Dollar hegemony: watch the USA lash out when the Dollar risks becoming despised by the rest of the world...that could be the most dangerous moment of this century...
Posted by: Anthony | Jan 25 2023 18:21 utc | 526
@dh | Jan 25 2023 1:45 utc | 245
"Appeasement" was a canard when Churchill used it to attack Chamberlain after Munich, and remains so now. Nobody but belligerent idiots imagine that war is preferable to politics. Pardon the length of the quotation, but I am trying to convey the almost universal a'probation of avoidong war.
«"On September 30, 1938, ... the prime minister flew home from Munich to Heston
aerodrome. Emerging from his plane smiling, Neville Chamberlain waved aloft the declaration he and Hitler had signed that morning.
“I’ve got it!” he shouted to Lord Halifax. “I’ve got it!” “Here is a paper which bears his name.”
Drafted by Chamberlain and Sir Horace Wilson, three sentences long, the Munich Accord read: “We, the German Fuehrer and Chancellor and the British Prime Minister ...regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two never to go to war with one another again.”
At the request of George VI “to come straight to Buckingham.Palace so that I can express to you personally my most heartfelt congratulations on the success of your visit to Munich,” Chamberlain was driven to the palace to receive the gratitude of his sovereign.
Though the trip was only nine miles, so dense were the crowds it took an hour and a half.
“Even the descriptions of the papers give no idea of the scenes in the streets as I drove from Heston to the Palace,” wrote Chamberlain. “They were lined from one end to the other with people of every class, shouting themselves hoarse, leaping on the running board, banging on the windows, and thrusting their hands into the car to be shaken.”
At Buckingham Palace, Chamberlain and his wife were invited by the King to “join him on the balcony . . . as a token of the ‘lasting gratitude of his fellow countrymen throughout the Empire.’ ” “It.was . . . the first time a ruling monarch had allowed a commoner to be acknowledged from the balcony of Buckingham Palace.” Thus did George VI and his queen render a royal blessing to appeasement. Beside his sovereign, the prime minister “stood there smiling, the most popular man in the world, more universally acclaimed than any states-
man has ever been.” From the palace, Chamberlain was driven to 10 Downing Street, where another throng awaited, singing over and over, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” From the window at Number
10, Chamberlain, in the shortest, most famous speech he would ever deliver, declared, “My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street
peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.”
“Peace with honour” was the phrase Disraeli had used when he returned from Berlin after redrawing the map of Europe with Bismarck. “Peace in our time,” from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, was the title of a 1928 collection of speeches by Neville Chamberlain’s half brother Austen, the architect of the Locarno pact and winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace. “In repeating the phrase,” writes a British historian, “Neville believed that he had completed his
late brother’s unfinished business: the pacification of Europe.”
When French Premier Edouard Daladier flew home from Munich, he was stunned to see a huge throng gathered at Le Bourget. He circled the field twice, fearful the crowd was there to stone him for having capitulated to Hitler and betrayed France’s Czech allies by forcing them to surrender the Sudetenland. Daladier was astonished
to find the crowd rejoicing and waving him home as a hero of peace.
Across the Atlantic, FDR, who had bid Chamberlain Godspeed on his Munich mission with the cryptic telegram “Good Man!,”
wanted to share the glory. Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles went on national radio, where he referred to “steps taken by the President to halt Europe’s headlong plunge into the Valley of the Shadow of Death.” Credit for Munich, Welles told the nation, must go to Franklin Roosevelt: “Europe escaped war by a few hours, the scales being tipped toward peace by the President’s appeal.”
In a letter to Canada’s Mackenzie King, Roosevelt wrote, “I can assure you that we in the United States rejoice with you, and the world at large, that the outbreak of war was averted.”nA week later, FDR wrote
to Ambassador William Phillips in Rome, “I want you to know that I am not a bit upset over the final result [Munich Agreement].”
The New York Times echoed FDR: “Let no man say that too high a price has been paid for peace in Europe until he has searched his
soul and found himself willing to risk in war the lives of those who are nearest and dearest to him.” Declared the New York Daily News: “[Hitler] has made a significant gesture towards peace. . . . Now is the time for haters of Hitler to hold their harsh words.”
The British press outdid the Americans. The morning after the prime minister’s return, the London Times’s story began: “No conqueror in history ever came home from a battlefield with nobler laurels.” Margot Asquith, widow of the prime minister who had led Britain into the Great War, called Chamberlain the greatest Englishman who had ever lived. Old ladies “suggested that Chamberlain’s umbrella be broken up and pieces sold as sacred relics.” From exile
in Holland, the Kaiser wrote Queen Mary of his happiness that a catastrophe had been averted and that Chamberlain had been inspired by heaven and guided by God Himself.» [Buchanan Patrick J. (2008-05). Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. Crown.]
Posted by: Hermit | Jan 25 2023 18:24 utc | 527
@ grunzt | Jan 25 2023 16:54 utc | 504
it is weeding thru the needless shit that i find tiring... i am sure you do too... it is best not to respond to the troll posts.. anyone who does is adding to the bullshit here as i see it..
@ Outraged | Jan 25 2023 18:19 utc | 527
i find threads this long impossible to stay on top of.. one has to be a full time dedicated reader of threads! thus, i will look out for posts by some and opt to ignore and bypass others.. thanks for your work here and i do agree with you too!
Posted by: james | Jan 25 2023 18:25 utc | 528
@DakotaRog | Jan 25 2023 1:22 utc | 238
Extinction events do not have survivors amongst the keystone species, because they are dependent on the health of the entire underlying biosphere.
Posted by: Hermit | Jan 25 2023 18:33 utc | 529
@Realist | Jan 25 2023 9:48 utc | 399
Well there is an affirmation that somebody should be ignored as a pernicious troll if ever I saw one.
Posted by: Hermit | Jan 25 2023 18:37 utc | 530
@Colin | Jan 25 2023 8:21 utc | 376
Also the earliest samples found are from the sewers of Barcelona on March 12, 2019.
Posted by: Hermit | Jan 25 2023 18:55 utc | 531
james | Jan 25 2023 18:25 utc | 530
I have not looked in detail at his postings (the troll). Seems he is just as much pro-western as we are pro-Russian (most of us). Sometimes, I cannot resist taking them on, just to see what they are made of, or how they will defend their positions. Problem with me: Allthough I prefer harmony, I still cannot keep my mouth shut, if anything triggers my curiosity.
Posted by: grunzt | Jan 25 2023 19:06 utc | 532
Arriving now not a year from now, vid link below. Don’t believe what the msm headlines and social media echo chamber tell you. Best you can do is rely on past history, reading btwn the lines, and scattered tidbits gleaned off non-conventional media, while that lasts:
Large echelons of Abrams tanks and Bradley BMPs spotted in Poland en route to the east.
Biden's statement about transferring tanks to Ukraine is not been news for a long time. The decision has been taken in advance, and his speech with pathetic rhetoric is nothing but dust in the eyes of voters.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad/30613
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jan 25 2023 19:07 utc | 533
> " additional government turmoil in Kiev "
It was being speculated based on some sources during the Roundtable discussion #45 from Gonzalo Lira with Brian Berletic, Military Summary & Weeb Union, that this turmoil could be the result of a transfer of war & country management from British to American intelligence.
There are reasons to believe this is a half truth. It looks more like preparation for transferring management from joint intelligence services to US State department and Pentagon. Which automatically would require as a minimum to remove any obvious trace of corruption. And removal of officials who just don't want to have the last bits of formal control given away like that. No way tanks and all that is needed to support a modern, western tank army would be sent without further integration into the "Ukraine Workgroup" for all major decisions. Hence we see now a "clean-up", changing from a relative "dirty" management (leaving a lot of things as they are) while focusing on intelligence, supply routes and some political cover, to now preparing a more full-on management at State level. It's clearing the way for that stage, in my view. And it might be realistic?
Like with every war, all options and feasible scenarios have to remain on the table. But my guess would be that this is about management in the likely case of further collapse of the Ukrainian front and the start of Russian "drastic measures", cutting off part of the country from supplies.
Posted by: John Dowser | Jan 25 2023 19:49 utc | 534
It’s looking pretty obvious: obsolescent models, time taken to train/deploy, that the armoured come-back tour being delivered to Ukraine is unlikely to be a high-tech schwerpunkt, but the core of an armoured brigade dedicated to defending Rumpkraine.
I really don’t think the West wants to ruin it’s hard won reputation, amongst gamers, arms dealers and the combat virgins who operate these vehicles, that they are at the pinnacle of armoured warfare. Pictures of burning Leopards, Chally’s and Abrams, which the Russians will gleefully show, will seriously affect the Western public’s perception of not only the war, but their country as well. It will destroy the perception, still held by the majority, that Ukraine is or can win the war and undermine any residual confidence people might have in the competence of their respective regimes.
If they ever are deployed in an offensive they will probably find very few armoured targets to engage and probably suffer the fate that their enemies they ‘defeated’ suffered; taken out by long range ATGW’s or CLPGM. There was a reason the Cold War load-out of the Soviet 125mm armed tanks was roughly 2/3rds HE/HEAT, doctrinally they were not principally tank killers. Additionally drones and net-centric tech/tactics mitigate so much of NATO tank doctrine that determining their combat power is a moot point.
Posted by: Milites | Jan 25 2023 20:08 utc | 535
@Outraged | Jan 25 2023 15:51 utc | 482
Thank-you. To your list, I'd add yourself, karlof1, Down South, Steven Starr, and unimperator as usually (highly) recommended voices of sanity offering solid information and sensible opinions. I'm sure I have omitted some important contributors. Please forgive me if you belong on this list, but these are recent posters whose words resonated with me.
Posted by: Hermit | Jan 25 2023 20:40 utc | 536
As some of us have been pointing out
Gould Joe (2023-01-23). US defense industry unprepared for a China fight, says report. DefenseNews..
With the USA claiming to be shipping 'improved nuclear weapons' to Europe (whatever that is supposed to mean, it is wrong), and red lines being violated in all directions, my recommendation is a global movement to mandate that all great artworks and heritage materials be moved to designated bunkers located where neither war nor rising oceans will destroy them and where they can be inspected by involved parties to avoid accusations of cheating. Having their art collected for preservatio might cause a few influential people to realize that none of us are likely to survive a thermonuclear war and it's sequelae, and perhaps cause some people driving towards such a war to back-off a little, if it is not already too late. And if it is too late, perhaps leave a legacy for some more fortunate, or at least less aelf- destructive, species from another planet to appreciate.
Posted by: Hermit | Jan 25 2023 21:04 utc | 537
@ Outraged | Jan 25 2023 18:19 utc | 527
Things that make you go, hmmm ... ?
Yes, you are right there, but there are still some things that make me go, hmmmm. Also, ohmmm.
Very valuable contributions here and offering so many diverse angles from rather very smart people, and one can only thank b. for giving the opportunity for such expression, being politely and positively provoked by his highly appreciated analysis.
And it will probably continue as SMO gets really less boring now.
But SMO is very efficient. Somehow, a hypnotic grind managed to bend NATO/US backwards to the point where the only strategy is to pour in all possible systems that are mutually incompatible.
Probably many systems are already delivered or on the way now somewhere within or near Ukrainian borders. RF and all of us that are on the right side of the history should and probably is not believing anything that NATO/US is saying or claiming. By the time they announced HIMARS significant numbers were already in the western Ukraine, getting prepared.
Same with those tanks. I am sure there are many in and on the way right now. But it will not help.
I hope that RF can react promptly and neuter those and keep on making again fools of NATO/US, however a grain of caution there. RF is dealing with dangerous, cynical hyenas, and those will bite and squeal until having the head crushed in.
By panzering and abramsing Ukraine, blackmailing countries left and right, twisting arms, one is pretty sure that NATO/US are betting all in, but at the end it is a Russian set, game, and match.
We are waking slowly from a dark winter stasis and I really hope that RF will do Victory day parade this time properly and on time.
What I mean is that USSR (CCCP) managed to parade 57.000+ war prisoners in Moscow in May 1944, some more in 1945, and I am pretty sure RF might want to do the same.
Ukrainian government made a false promise to NATO/US that it'll liberate Crimea for them. It will never happen, and those that do not see that are pretty blind and stupid.
EU is finished thanks to Germany now, and with it NATO is going to fall apart as a melted nougat.
RF officials are right to state that any depleted uranium shell will be treated like a dirty bomb. I expect them to act accordingly.
I also like what Putin stated today at Lomonosov University and it tells a wider end game outcome:
“Europe will regain its sovereignty, but it'll take some time.”
Posted by: whirlX | Jan 25 2023 22:01 utc | 538
@wlodek 396
thx a lot for 2 links
(just my very private overlong remark:
in link no. 2 by "bmanalysis" however I find this Leopard 2 argument - as a German I have particular interest in this topic since no meaningful political resistance formed against its delivery - unconvincing.
In fact I consider it as sentimental: No German tank should touch Russian soil - for what reason? Because of history that dates back 80 years? Otherwise all contact to Russia would cease?
I know of the importance of feelings to individuals, to groups, besides having enough Russian friends who know many stories about the Great War. But one should not confuse anecdotes with structural military and technological analysis which the blogger usually is delivering well.
You could argue with Abrams and US special forces, or Challengers and the Brits in 1919 in the Civil War. You could argue with Leclerc and the French Invasion 1812. How long do you want to go back?
Eventually it doesn´t matter what kind of vehicle shoots your comrade to pieces.
And then he builds his major geopolitical idea: "This in fact would be the final goal of the Americans, for its own preparation for the multipolar world, to split the heartland (Germany from Russisa). Europe would still be under the US grip. The rest would be truly multipolar" on the very shaky argument of German tanks making for bad optics on a lonely field in Russia.
That´s not how geopolitics work. personal remark end)
What is horrendous is the notion of literally abusing Ukraine males as "material" as if it were WWI. The numbers of fallen are already a tragedy.
This is outrageous. And regardless of any alleged or true Russian war crimes - all our politicians - yes I am talking to you Anna-Lena - should stand trial for sabotaging peace.
I have a Ukrainian friend. In 2014 he managed to duck away from conscription. I don´t know of his whereabouts now.
And here they are handing out art awards to anything Ukrainian unless of course the artist is, god forbid, critical of the Ukrainian government.
Posted by: AG | Jan 25 2023 22:43 utc | 539
oppert knocks @427If you are telling the truth about your ethnic background, then how is it that you are so Talmudophilic?
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 25 2023 15:55 utc | 483
Though I have never read it, I am fairly certain the word "schtik" (yiddish slang) does not appear in the Talmud. Perhaps you need to travel around more, instead of living out in the schticks ;-)
If you can't travel, this mensch can help you out, Mazel Tov!!!
https://youtu.be/rkhkAo9VpfE?t=206
Posted by: Opport Knocks | Jan 25 2023 22:57 utc | 540
whilst i am critcizing some tiny item by "bmanalysis" this one via Naked Capitalism also including Germany is much better
"Economics and Empires 2 - Endgame Germany"
https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/germany
Posted by: AG | Jan 25 2023 23:07 utc | 541
@ Opport Knocks | Jan 25 2023 11:53 utc | 431
Funniest (American) Jewish joke ever, from Richard Lewis, as I remember it, although I've never been able to find it again:
"I was raised an Orthodox Jew, and have always considered my spiritual home to be New York City."
Posted by: John Kennard | Jan 25 2023 23:26 utc | 542
@ whirlX | Jan 25 2023 22:01 utc | 540
Hear ya. The last few days RF official statements/comments have become unsheathed steel. Tolerance is at an end.
Though RF having invested in its major defensive works all along the FEBA is unlikely to discard that force/combat multiplier until or unless the AFU is about to or actually collapsing, on its knees. RF lives matter & must always keep in mind possible US/NATO belligerency. Unless further materially provoked/threatened.
US/NATO has demonstrated it's batshit crazy & irrational in military strategy/policy terms, IMV.
May one suggest it's not the semi-regular open public shuffling of BN & BDE sized AFV cargoes that matters. It is the shipment & movement of fuel tankers/bulldozers/cargo trucks/heavy machinery/tentages/field hospitals/toilet paper & myriad massive quantities of supplies/POL of all kinds that must be pre-positioned & dispersed in advance to support US/NATO Ops in numbers that matter.
The absolute minimum would be 150,000 combat ready troops including all arms materiel.
There are forward deployed stores to support the US/NATO High & Rapid Ready Reactions Forces which are typically 9 BNs, boosted now to 9 Brigades(3 Division Equivalent) & independently detached Brigades of an Airborne Division, yet these are widely dispersed through Romania, Bulgaria, Poland & the Baltics primarily, they are not concentrated as a main force.
Then there is the pre-deployment of same for USAF combat & cargo aircraft & all their logistic & support requirements plus mass personnel before the fixed & rotary air squadrons can be ferried & dispersed. Similarly within EU/NATO member states militaries. Airborne Div is crippled/disarmed Light Infantry without the Air assets.
Am not seeing it.
RF & Belarus, without breaking a sweat, could go on ground offensive sweep through Poland & the Baltics with ~100,000+ heavy Tank/Mech(Motor Rifle) troops with AF support under AD umbrella, without even calling upon a single element RF ~85% regular formations, which even now remain uncommitted. And RF/Belarus forces are activated, deployed with wartime logistical supplies & trains in place.
Uncommitted RF regular forces just down the rail line or highway amount to up to ~50+ heavy Divisions, plus 4 Airborne Divs & a Marine Div equivalent, excluding various brigades, internal security & 2 Divs equivalent Spetsnaz ... RuAF committed in support ?
Will RF be impelled to cross the Rubicon ?
Posted by: Hermit | Jan 25 2023 17:08 utc | 514
Thanks Hermit for this citation:
[In 2013 Obama signed the] Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which eliminated the prohibition on domestic dissemination of propaganda produced by the US government controlled media, including the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
I'm still looking for the recent quote on MoA about the weaponization of information, perhaps by a US official. My goal is to support the argument that western media are sourced mainly from the three press agencies (hat-tip james for the below) and those sources are tainted, deliberately and admittedly so.
The Propaganda Multiplier: How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on GeopoliticsThe news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily media outlet can manage without them.
...
Conclusion
In this case study, the geopolitical coverage in nine leading European newspapers was examined for diversity and journalistic performance using the example of the Syrian war.The results confirm the high dependence on the global news agencies (63% to 90%, excluding commentaries and interviews) and the lack of own investigative research, as well as the rather biased commenting on events in favor of the US/NATO side (82% positive; 2% negative), whose stories were not checked by the newspapers for any propaganda.
I encounter this all the time, "You are relying on Russian sources, when you should just read Reuters or AP to get the truth."
Sisyphean, but worthwhile all the same.
Posted by: jonku | Jan 26 2023 0:00 utc | 544
the russians better pray the mighty merkva with crews are not sent a 100 would be a game changer
Posted by: danny golan | Jan 26 2023 0:00 utc | 545
I'm still looking for the recent quote on MoA about the weaponization of
information, perhaps by a US official.Posted by: jonku | Jan 26 2023 0:00 utc | 545
Might it have been In a break with the past, U.S. is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn't rock solid.
Posted by: David Levin | Jan 26 2023 0:36 utc | 546
The temptation in Russia and Belorussia will be to sign up for tank crews now. Bagging a few Abrams and Leopards will be bragging rights now.
Posted by: Wokechoke | Jan 26 2023 0:55 utc | 547
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 25 2023 17:31 utc | 519
the Eye of Sauron, located in a private bank in City of London.
It certainly would be, for the means available to the Americans (to whatever degree they're effective) are not available to the rulers of Perfidious Albion ...
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Jan 26 2023 7:37 utc | 548
@# 545: ...
Will RF be impelled to cross the Rubicon ?
____________________
Possibly the question is already answered - but without Russia required doing that step.
One day after the potentially most hazardous decision of the already well-known Value-West's most trigger-happy nations to let their tanks roll eastward, one obscure guy from Rochester University (out of those warmongering-experts) in a way proclaimed Rubicon being crossed (by the West, making that decision). But, as if this wasn't enough, only that one day later the Dutch seem to freak out completely. Surely put »diplomatically«, their message to the Ukros in clear text reads nothing different than: »Hey, we've got some F 16's! Don't want them or some?«. Possibly it is only left to hope the conception of NATO-members falling out with each other will really effectuate. But the worst coming to the worst, possibly the exact opposite may happen with lunatics step by step fortifying each other in their loss of reality.
Posted by: Yogi | Jan 26 2023 22:50 utc | 549
The comments to this entry are closed.
@ Outraged | Jan 25 2023 15:51 utc | 477
thanks and that was funny and sad, all at the same time... yes - kudos to those top notch posters sharing their insights and understanding here - @ karlof1, hermit, xor, rsh, lightyearsfromhome and various other posters, and you too outraged...
@ passerby.. thanks for the couple of posts you shared on this thread as well..
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i liked the part about sending the tanks from germany while germany struggles over energy... how does germany make tanks moving forward, when they are now dependent on energy prices, that are triple the cost? i can see how this works for the usa, but i can't see how it works for germany... meanwhile bonehead baerbock - green party leader - is openly stating and egging on a full on war with russia... its ironic that this is the ''green'' ideology... it is the exact opposite of green.. more like black... what a freak she is... i hope the usa and corps are paying her handsomely while making anyone in germany who votes for her look like a complete idiot.. ditto @ xor input..
Posted by: james | Jan 25 2023 16:54 utc | 501