Detailed operational Russian-war strategy video published by Weeb Union. Recommended

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW86zSr-E1k

Posted by: Ramsey Glissadevil | Feb 10 2023 16:41 utc | 1

Big question is when the dam bursts open on several fronts at once. The Ukie army is merely a shell, with those doomed conscripts providing a disposable false-front for the remnants of veteran and mercenary effectives. The Russian army has gathered up its forces to the point where it's no longer a comparatively simple "whack a mole" situation. From most indications it seems like the Seversk front is on the lip of bursting.

Many observers are watching these developments with baited-breath.

Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 10 2023 16:45 utc | 2

Re: Transnistria

@Ludovic | Feb 10 2023 11:56 utc | 212 (in previous thread)

Apparently a Russian cruise missile has crossed into Moldovan airspace. Could this be the beginning of a Russian invasion of Moldova in order to further destabilize the European Union, following what NATO alleges was Russian destruction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline?

No. The cruise missile allegedly flew in Transnistrian airspace, not in Moldova proper. This may be a signal that Russia considers Transnistria part of Russia.

Russia will not "invade" Transnistria. Russian troops already control Transnistria and have done so for the last 30 years. So far Transnistria, or the Russian troops there, are not a party to the war. NATO would like the conflict to spread to Transnistria.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Feb 10 2023 16:45 utc | 3

⚡️🇷🇺🇺🇦💡 RF Armed Forces massive Missile Strike on Infrastructure in #Ukraine on 10 Feb 2023 - what is known by 15:00⚡️

💥 The RF Armed Forces have struck critical infrastructure sites in #Ukraine.

During the night, Geran-2 drones were predominantly used. Air defence position areas were opened and several critical infrastructure facilities in the south and east of #Ukraine were hit.

In the morning, the Russian Aerospace Forces launched a series of missile strikes against targets across the country.

🔹 What is known by this hour?

▪️ #Kharkov: overnight 👉 strikes hit the engine room of CHP-5 in the south-west of the city.
➖ In the morning, strikes on enemy facilities in #Kharkov continued, with local authorities reporting power outages in several districts of the city and region.
➖ There were reports of delays in the underground and problems with the internet in the city.

▪️ #Zaporozhye: the target of the 👉 strike was the 1st engine room of the #Dnieper hydroelectric power plant.
➖ The hall has relatively low capacity and old equipment. The likelihood that the damage caused would disrupt the operation of the entire plant is extremely low.
➖ One of the fired shells hit a nearby outbuilding.
➖ Some parts of the city are experiencing power and internet problems.

▪️ #Dnepropetrovsk region: A missile 👉 hit the engine room of the Krivoy Rog TPP near #Zelenodolsk, destroying at least one turbine and damaging steam lines.
➖ One of the generators stopped generating power and was permanently disabled.

▪️ #Khmelnytsky region: several energy infrastructure facilities in Khmelnytsky and Shepetovsky district were hit, with electricity and internet problems observed in the oblast.

▪️ Ivano-Frankovsk region: According to preliminary data, the Burshtyn Thermal Power Plant could have been targeted again - the plant stopped generating power during the massive strikes.
➖ At the same time, the facility's capacity decreased slowly - suggesting that Ukrainian power engineers may have deliberately shut it down before the attack.

▪️ #Kiev and the region: In #Kiev, CHPP-5 and several other targets in other parts of the city were hit. Local authorities reported power grid damage.

▪️ Several strikes are known to have occurred in the #Odessa region. According to local sources, the #Usatovo 330 substation caught fire.

▪️ The RF Armed Forces also struck unspecified facilities in #Kherson region, near #Kremenchuk, #Kramatorsk and #Vinnitsa.

▪️In #Zhytomyr, #Kirovograd, #Nikolayev and #Lvov regions, air defence assets were triggered.
➖ Shortly before the missile attack, authorities conducted preventive power cuts in some regions of the country.

▪️ Following the strikes, Ukrainian Railways reported train delays on the #Kharkov, #Kiev and #Kramatorsk routes.

▪️ #Moldova said that Russian missiles allegedly entered the country's airspace and flew over #Transnistria as well as the #Soroca region bordering #Ukraine.
➖ The republic's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Russian ambassador.

📌 Today's wave of strikes hit more targets than the previous one. It cannot but be gratifying that this time machine rooms were chosen as targets rather than autotransformers, as had been the case previously.

Accurate hits on equipment in turbine halls guarantee extremely long-lasting repairs to facilities, and consequently a dramatic drop in power generation at stations.

Still, such attacks must be carried out systematically. Disabling #Ukraine's power infrastructure would make logistics, as well as repairs to equipment and the enemy's industry, much more difficult.

Posted by: Down South | Feb 10 2023 16:50 utc | 4

Our source reports that one of Zelensky's main real requests at meetings with Western leaders was not even new weapons, but an increase in the transfer of ammunition, which became in short supply from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Ammunition is the most expensive and costly part. If at the peak of hostilities the Armed Forces of Ukraine spends about 6,000 thousand artillery shells (one shell of 155 caliber from $ 5,000), this is 30 million per day. Add here the logistics for the delivery of 6,000 shells (this is at least $ 1-2 million). Also storage and distribution.

In a month of intense fighting, the cost is more than $ 100 million.
Add to this the cost of air defense ammunition, aviation, small arms, UAVs, equipment, etc. In addition, fuel electricity, etc.
The figures are fabulous, and the West ceases to provide extensive funding for this "holiday".

Posted by: Down South | Feb 10 2023 16:52 utc | 5

I think there is one aspect to this war that has not received enough ( or any?) comment. It is the surprising effectiveness of Russian anti missile technology. Even if the numbers are exaggerated, it is remarkable to hear about every sort of projectile being knocked out of the sky. I have always thought the "Star Wars" ideas of the Reagan years were close to a hoax but now I'm not sure. Whatever the case, it looks like Russia is far in the lead. And that by itself should give the West pause.

Posted by: Eighthman | Feb 10 2023 16:55 utc | 6

Bakhmut is being encircled by the Russian forces (mainly the Wagner PMC troops).

For now only one major road remains open in/out of Bakhmut. There is some question that this road may already be under Russia's fire control. Whenever, all the roads are occupied or under Russian fire control to/from Bakhmut, the city will be in operational encirclement.

Even though the Russian forces are pushing all along the zero line, I count the Bakhmut battle as being the most significant because of the buildups of troops and equipment at that location. I have often heard from Alexander Mercouris and others that Bakhmut is the linchpin of defense for Ukraine.

The Western media is already prepping their followers for the fall of Bakhmut by falsely reporting that Bakhmut is not that important. From this false reporting, one can see that the Western media is getting their followers prepped for the coming fall of Bakhmut. One thing you can learn from the lying Western media is the truth if you have some understanding of why they are lying in certain ways.

After Bakhmut is operationally encircled, I don't think the Russians are going to wait until it falls before moving on. Instead, the Russians will surround Bakhmut with regular Russian army troops. Russia's regular troops will set up artillery to grind down the trapped Ukrainain troops until they are either eliminated or they surrender.

Meanwhile, the Wagner troops and other more aggressive troops will quickly move on to cut off even more strategic areas of the Donbas. This approach will cut out weeks or even months out of Russia's time table to take and secure the Donbas.

These rapid moves by the Russians will prevent the Ukrainian army the time they need to build new, strong defenses as they retreat.

I have been saying that "as soon as Bakhmut falls, the rest of the Ukrainain positions within the Donbas will unravel quickly".

I am changing this statement to "when Bakhmut is operationally encircled, the rest of the Ukraianian positions within the Donbas will unravel quickly".

Watch for accurate news of when Bakhmut is operationally encircled. When this happens, watch the Russians continue to quickly take strategic roads and high ground and other strategic locations to more quickly take the Donbas.

There are many good sources which accurately present the battlefield in Ukriane/Russia. I frequent the following for this information: Weeb Union, Alex Christoforu and Alexander Mercouris from the Duran, the military summary channel (Dima), Defense Politics Asia (Wyatt), Theti mapping, History Legends, Brian Berletic at the New Atlas, NWE War Reports, Military and Foreign Affairs Network, etc.

One reason Russia is moving fast to take all of the Donbas is because of the increased rate of Western escalation in the last few months. The escalation is going exponential. So, Russia's time table to take the Donbas has shortened.

When all of the Donbas is taken, get ready for the USA to be taken down soon after. Russia will launch. And that launch will mainly be upon the USA and her territories.

Just because Russia has not yet done so does not mean the West has not already crossed too many of Russia's red lines. The Russians are waiting for the best time for them. Part of that waiting is for Russia to first take out the hostile Ukrainian (NATO) army on its Western border.

Whenever the Donbas is taken, the bear (Russia) will launch against the USA. The USA will be destroyed within one hour. I base this upon the initial stated directives of Putin for the SMO, continual statements by leaders within Russia, the logic that Russia wants the Ukrainian army off its Western border before it engages with the USA, and the prophetic words of Daniel 7:5.

Posted by: young | Feb 10 2023 17:05 utc | 7

"Switzerland rejects Spanish request to re-export Swiss-made anti-aircraft guns"

"Switzerland said on Friday it has rejected a request from Madrid to allow Spain to re-export Swiss-made anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine."

Couple days ago the Swiss were being pressured into dispensing their neutrality. Looks like it didn't work.

Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Feb 10 2023 17:09 utc | 8

From reports on here it sounds like it won't be long before that big Russian hammer comes down,i believe once the Ukrainian defences start to fall to pieces on a wide front it will be game over.

Posted by: Englishman | Feb 10 2023 17:10 utc | 9

Ukraine Hit Today with one of the largest missile attacks in a year. 3 waves of missile's and drones.
Ukraine's largest thermal power plant destroyed.
Of course the Coke Head Dwarf of Kiev is winning. Him and his boys can see the spires of Moscow from his Audi Stretch Limo as him and Bono discuss war plans and snort coke.
Maybe this week end he will wring Putin's neck.

warnews247.gr

Posted by: jgalt | Feb 10 2023 17:10 utc | 10

Zakharova's weekly briefing notes that the 8th anniversary of the Minsk Accords is almost upon us. Her's what Maria says about that:

February 12 marks the eighth anniversary of the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements. In 2015, it was signed by all members of the Contact Group – representatives of Ukraine, the DPR and LPR, the OSCE and Russia in the presence of the leaders of the Normandy format countries – Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine. At that time, it was an outstanding and effective activity of diplomatic thought, consolidation of the capabilities and resources of countries, a demonstration of how the world could unite efforts to overcome the crisis.

Donetsk and Luhansk agreed to return to Ukraine on the terms of granting them a special status and autonomous rights, much smaller than those of the regions of Belgium or the cantons of Switzerland. But still: six months before that, referendums were held there on the intentions of people. Whatever they were called in the West, it was the will of the people. The DPR and LPR stated that under the terms of the Minsk agreements, they are ready for reintegration as part of Ukraine.

The Package of Measures was a real and achievable road map. Someone will say easily doable, someone - with certain costs and compromises for the parties. You can look at it in different ways, but it was a realistic "road map" for overcoming the crisis (definitely not aggravation). There was a guarantee that the implementation of the fundamental points of the Minsk agreements would "insure" everyone against further degradation of the situation. On February 17, 2015, it was approved by UN Security Council Resolution 2202. It was then that the Minsk Package of Measures became an integral part of international law, binding on all.

As it turned out later, neither the Kiev regime, nor its sponsors and mentors planned to follow the path of a peaceful settlement. Sitting at the TABLE of the UN Security Council, they deceived the entire international community by saying that they wanted peace by signing a document on a peaceful settlement. They initially knew (as they say now) that they would act in the opposite direction, their signature does not mean anything and they are not going to fulfill what they signed up for. This is a deception, a substitution of concepts, false intentions, voiced as true.

All these years, Western countries, including Germany and France as co-sponsors of the Minsk process, shamelessly lied about their commitment to Minsk and the UN Security Council resolution. They turned a blind eye to the crimes of the Kiev regime in donbass. They went even further – they accused Russia of non-compliance with the document (it is unclear what our country has to do with this). The main thing is that even then they understood that for them it was just a performance. The Kiev regime, in turn, feeling the support of westerners, imitated the negotiation process and sabotaged the fulfillment of its obligations. We have repeatedly said that as a result of these "negotiation processes", there is a feeling of sabotage, undermining, unwillingness to fulfill and the desire to lead the situation into a deadlock from which there is no way out. As former President Petr Poroshenko admitted, Ukraine was dragging its feet to better prepare for the confrontation with Russia. Former leaders of Germany and France Angela Merkel and François Hollande confirmed this with their statements. In other words, the Kiev regime and the West jointly became the gravediggers of the Minsk agreements.

There's much more to her report on the Ukraine situation and other issues plus the Q&A.

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 10 2023 17:15 utc | 11

@Posted by: Eighthman
Re Anti Missile Tech:

President Reagan Talked about his Star Wars dream with a Smile and Twinkle in his eye.
The Russians took it very seriously, went to work, and made his dream a reality.
While the US just kept releasing worse and worse sequels of the same old tired script.

Posted by: Golddiggr | Feb 10 2023 17:15 utc | 12

Re: Transnistria

@Ludovic | Feb 10 2023 11:56 utc | 212 (in previous thread)

Apparently a Russian cruise missile has crossed into Moldovan airspace. Could this be the beginning of a Russian invasion of Moldova in order to further destabilize the European Union, following what NATO alleges was Russian destruction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline?
No. The cruise missile allegedly flew in Transnistrian airspace, not in Moldova proper. This may be a signal that Russia considers Transnistria part of Russia.

Russia will not "invade" Transnistria. Russian troops already control Transnistria and have done so for the last 30 years. So far Transnistria, or the Russian troops there, are not a party to the war. NATO would like the conflict to spread to Transnistria.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | Feb 10 2023 16:45 utc | 3

Russia should install some s 400 AD there and some missiles.

Posted by: jgalt | Feb 10 2023 17:15 utc | 13

@7

Quote

Whenever the Donbas is taken, the bear (Russia) will launch against the USA. The USA will be destroyed within one hour.

End quote

That’s just silly thinking.

Posted by: Thomas Sharpe | Feb 10 2023 17:17 utc | 14

@ karlof1 | Feb 10 2023 17:15 utc | 11

thanks karl.. appreciate all your posts and this one too..

Posted by: james | Feb 10 2023 17:17 utc | 15

It is easier to recover from losing a conventional war than from winning a nuclear one.

For this reason I believe nuclear weapons will remain unused.

The Russian Winter Offensive will continue as it has for the past few weeks. The slow, methodical destruction of the Ukrainian/NATO armed forces. I believe that the reason Ukrainian forces haven't been ordered to fall back, is that the Ukrainian/NATO command believes that such a maneuver would turn into a rout.

As the Russian Army has ably demonstrated; a retrograde action requires skill and discipline to perform correctly. The half trained Ukrainian troops at the front, lack this.

Posted by: ZhukovG | Feb 10 2023 17:35 utc | 16

@2, the Ukrainian army was cracked some time ago, but 100 billion dollars and tens of thousands of soldier/mercs covered it up.

If that cracks it'll get nato regulars in nato equipment under a blue and yellow flag. They'll all be medics and humanitarian volunteers of course but there won't be any dam open, so don't get your hopes up.

Russia can only try to leverage its home field advantage more to survive. It's more about Russia cracking more, nato has barely touched its inventory and dead Ukrainians don't add to war weariness. They are expendable and better off dead than red from natos view point. Already nato is assuming the adversarial role to the hilt. No more pretending it's just some concerned neighbour's.

Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Feb 10 2023 17:37 utc | 17

LoL there is no such thing as winning a nuclear war.

Posted by: Comandante | Feb 10 2023 17:38 utc | 18

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 10 2023 17:15 utc | 11

The charming and often powerfully irritated Mrs. Zakharova is the teacher here, because repetition is the mother of all learning, especially for such personalityless people as Macron, Scholz, Baerbock and the English Indian.
The whole circus, which these lickspittles Mr. Bidens at the expense of their taxpayers, shows us more than clearly, how it came to the WK II.Who were the string pullers.Berthold Brecht warned once: The lap is still fertile, from which that crawled.
Either Mr. Scholz is mentally underexposed-or else, and that would be far worse-he has crawled out of this womb.
The vast majority of us East Germans reject arms deliveries against Russia, because we are Germans and not Americans like our Western relatives.
Thank you karlof for your contributions.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) from german original

Posted by: Oberbayer | Feb 10 2023 17:38 utc | 19

Posted by: ZhukovG | Feb 10 2023 17:35 utc | 16

Indeed, the Ukranians haven't shown the ability to retreat in order during the entire war. When they try to retreat they get either Mariupol or Lysichansk.

Posted by: catdog | Feb 10 2023 17:44 utc | 20

@18 of course there is. Radiation dies down quick after 48 hours and stays at background cancer levels after 2 weeks. Much of it ends up in water which can be diluted.

Strategies to hold on and adapt are readily conceivable to the right kind of mind and if you hang on while your opponent disintegrates, then you've won. If it's worth it depends how much you hate.

Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Feb 10 2023 17:44 utc | 21

Not much talk about missile/drone strikes in MSM lately, anyone else noticed that?

Posted by: Jzo | Feb 10 2023 17:47 utc | 22

"Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Feb 10 2023 17:44 utc | 21"

You are talking about surviving a nuclear attack. LoL

Thats completely different from winning a nuclear war (ie a war where multiple nuclear missiles are exchanged between rivals)

There is no winning from that. There MIGHT be surviving. But not winning. Both rivals would be obliterated beyond recognition.

Posted by: Comandante | Feb 10 2023 17:52 utc | 23

@14 “That’s just silly thinking.”

Totally agree. RF is winning/will win militarily, and in the West the tide of public opinion is rapidly turning against UKR. It does not compute that RF would risk retaliatory thermonuclear annihilation when they are otherwise victorious in UKR and their objectives have been achieved.

Posted by: UBAN | Feb 10 2023 17:55 utc | 24

@23 lol OK you'll survive but i win.

I really don't want to try though, of course.

Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Feb 10 2023 18:00 utc | 25

Down South @ 5

You are just quoting but the post need to be called for arithmetic. Almost no one who is a scribbler can perform third grade arithmetic. Thirty million a day for thirty days is not 100 million. It is 900 million. Adding in the associated logistics costs it is over a billion.

Cost of $5000 for a 155mm shell is preposterous. I will believe the US Treasury is billed at that price and pays the invoice. It does not cost that much to make a shell.

Posted by: oldhippie | Feb 10 2023 18:02 utc | 26

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 10 2023 17:15 utc | 11

The usual, by now, widely-known western perfidy.

If you piss on a peace agreement, and shit on another, you're obviously asking for war.

If then you get it, don't fucking complain.

Posted by: Arganthonios | Feb 10 2023 18:07 utc | 27

Posted by: oldhippie | Feb 10 2023 18:02 utc | 26

That's one of the disadvantages of the Nazi-Anglo Treaty Organization against Russia, China, Iran.

They only ever do anything for profit.

Which means that the price of every dsmned thing is inflated to the roof - arms and ammunition included.

Posted by: Arganthonios | Feb 10 2023 18:14 utc | 28

Have to give it to Prigozhin, his info war has a lot of panaché. Interviewed by warGonzo's Pegov I saw the spoiler, a couple of years to the Dniepr, year and a half to close all Donbass and if needed we go to La Manche, I have a great plan to do it he said.

I'm gonna watch the full interview, here:

Gonzo - Prigozhin

Good that it is not on the tube, otherwise censored.

Posted by: Paco | Feb 10 2023 18:16 utc | 29

Yeah Arganthonios, you got that right! But that doesn’t mean they wont piss and moan the whole time.
I get the sense that we are about to hear the sound of crushing bones when Artemovsk and Ugledar are fully encircled.
As per the above it seems like AFU forces are in disarray, not cohesive and cannot perform a retreat. We shall see.

Posted by: Chevrus | Feb 10 2023 18:19 utc | 30

Does anyone know anything about whether Bakhmut is connected to any other cities via tunnels, caves, mineshifts?

I read that there are gypsum mines in the area and huge underground spaces for storage, but nothing on precisely where the entrances to these mines are.

The Russians are good at tunnel warfare, remember when they took and held the Roki tunnel in South Ossetia?

Posted by: GoFast | Feb 10 2023 18:21 utc | 31

Took a 400 mile round trip from Portland area to southwestern BC last week. Saw exactly 1 UKR flag sticker on the trip. Spent several days in Whistler. Saw exactly 1 smallish poster with UKR flag on shop windows.

I participate in several online groups where the tide is turning as more lurkers chime in with realistic analyses.

Posted by: Paul Spencer | Feb 10 2023 18:22 utc | 32

Thomas Sharpe@14- Yes, young's is silly thinking. But there is an important grain of truth behind it.

One of the results of the Cold War was that conventional war between nuclear armed peers became impossible. The only conventional wars involving nuclear powers were asymmetrical, and generally unsuccessful, attempts to suppress popular uprisings by military force.

This was a situation that was abhorrent to the Pentagon, NATO and military everywhere: it meant that there would be no more big wars, no more conscript or even mass volunteer armies. No More Parades!

It also meant that military budgets would be heavily weighed towards the production of delivery systems for nuclear weapons and the means of defending against them. Again, for the Pentagon etc this was very ominous- it meant the virtual automation of warfare with the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of military jobs, not to mention the disappearance of the largest clothing contracts, shipbuilding, small arms orders, ammunition production and the entire web-from home construction to military education- of related jobs and positions.
A planet minutes away from MAD needs very few soldiers, hardly any ships at all and even manned aircraft are obsolescent (of course they always are).

Ukraine has seen the re-emergence of the war between Great Powers or blocs. And, curiously it has found everyone unprepared.
NATO, champing at the bit for war since 1949, now turns out to be an empty shell- extremely well equipped in the General and Staff level but embarrassingly short of squaddies, the poor bloody infantry.

As to Russia. Its problem is that it had had the sense to realise that wars of the sort now developing in Ukraine were outdated, irrational and doomed to lead to a resort to nuclear weapons. It realised that spending on the level of the US and NATO had no real military purpose and was explicable only in the narrowest partisan political terms (see Bernie Sanders on the F-35). That is why it chose to spend the money it raised in taxes (please hold off here MMT fans) on projects benefitting its constituents (the people and the kleptocrats alike) rather than on a strategy that could only find its consummation in a radioactive Armageddon.

That was why it cut the size of its armed forces dramatically and concentrated its expenditure of missile defence and the perfection of its nuclear weapon delivery system. Which, after all is what these hypersonic missiles are really about, nobody builds a khinzal to deliver an HE warhead to a transformer station. And Russia never did. When it uses a khinzal it is telling the "west" that it has the capacity, at any moment, to put an end to all their nonsense.

But the Pentagon, NATO and our cultures are divided into those who are calling Russia's bluff, convinced that nuclear war is as impossible as the defeat of capitalism or the end of the Empire, and those who have long since given up trying either to understand or to influence the world.

The Pentagon (and yes those carefully coiffed and elegantly dressed 'Generals" and silly sounding Admirals actually are allowed to take the decisions, there) is calculating that US policy is forcing Russia into mobilising its population and economy-devoting everything to winning a war which it must win in order to survive. It is a calculation based upon the belief that such a shock to Russian society will make it easy for the 'soft power', 'colour revolution' forces to get to work and bring about the collapse of Russia's system of government and the permanent removal of the challenge that an independent Russia still poses to imperial hegemony.

This leaves Russia three alternative courses-so far as I can see- the first is to defy NATO's calculation, re-arm in an intensely nationalistic war for survival and crush the imperialist proxies.

The second is to mirror the imperialist strategy- put military bases in Latin America, take the continent under its nuclear umbrella, transform its militaries (it would not be hard the gringo is not a popular figure even among Colombian fascists) into an alliance to defend the continent against US bullying and exploitation. Activate a Eurasian military alliance, using the enormous potential of the Asian powers and Russia, to make alliance with the imperialists an expensive and dangerous game, even for such satraps as Japan and south Korea. And, in effect, tell the "west" that Eurasia doesn't want to fight, But, by jingo, if they (must) do, they have the men (billions of them), the guns and they have got the money too.

The third alternative is for Russia to follow the logic of its longstanding policies which is to resign itself to the inevitability of undertaking, without warning or notice, a massive first strike designed to decapitate its enemy. The only alternative, which Moscow has placed its bests on since 1946, being World Peace and humanity's concentration on the things which really matter, such as poverty, environmental degradation and disease.

Posted by: bevin | Feb 10 2023 18:28 utc | 33

"@23 lol OK you'll survive but i win.

I really don't want to try though, of course.

Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Feb 10 2023 18:00 utc | 25"

You win nothing. Just like any country that loses 10+ of their largest cities to nukes. LoL

Posted by: Comandante | Feb 10 2023 18:28 utc | 34

The website technology.org (google "how much does a 155mm howitzer shell cost?") quotes a deal for 10K shells for approximately 3,300 euros per shell. It's small deal, and probably doesn't reflect any sort of volume discount. The site mezha.media.en estimates about $2K per unit with a mix of higher end shells included. Given the above, a reasonable estimate for the cost for a barebones shell now, in the midst of very high demand is at least $1K (pre-war estimates were the barebones shell without fuses, etc was around $500). Of course shipping everything to Ukraine is also very expensive, so $2K may not be too far off for an all-in price. This would yield a cost of $12 million per day for 6,000 shell, or about $360 million per month. Considering that's just shells, and doesn't include barrels, maintenance, etc. on those howitzers, that's a lot of money.

Posted by: CoupLeeBob | Feb 10 2023 18:29 utc | 35

🚨 An AFU detachment attempted to break through Soledar, with around 3,000 Ukro warriors advancing towards the town. The Nazis were dealt a harsh retaliatory blow, the PMC Wagner detachment took the AFU group into the circle.

❗️ The strikes were carried out using newly developed Peresvet weapons, now there is a pile of BURNT AFU bodies and NATO equipment at the site of the battle.

According to preliminary reports, the attempt to retake Soledar cost the Ukrainian side no less than a thousand men dead alone.

https://t.me/druschbaFm_en/12789

Posted by: unimperator | Feb 10 2023 18:30 utc | 36

@oldhippie | Feb 10 2023 18:02 utc | 26

155mm ammo cost - here is a 2021 article on the general subject. A quick search comes up with a range from $2k to "less than $10k" with the lower estimates likely referring to 'regular' shells rather than high explosive or extended range versions.

Posted by: the pessimist | Feb 10 2023 18:32 utc | 37

Neofeudal future @17

"Nato has barely touched its inventory...." Sez who? Sez you. From virtually every source I've checked out, the NATOstanis are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Concern, a bit?

Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 10 2023 18:33 utc | 38

Took a 400 mile round trip from Portland area to southwestern BC last week. Saw exactly 1 UKR flag sticker on the trip. Spent several days in Whistler. Saw exactly 1 smallish poster with UKR flag on shop windows.

I participate in several online groups where the tide is turning as more lurkers chime in with realistic analyses.

Posted by: Paul Spencer | Feb 10 2023 18:22 utc | 31

Yep, and the political class will be the last to notice the shift.

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Feb 10 2023 18:34 utc | 39

"...The vast majority of us East Germans reject arms deliveries against Russia, because we are Germans and not Americans like our Western relatives..." Oberbayer@19

I am sure that there are millions in other eastern european countries, including those run by emigre CIA agents, who feel the same way. Sensible Poles, Bulgarians, Czechs etc cannot want what NATO promises.

Posted by: bevin | Feb 10 2023 18:34 utc | 40

Neofeudal @21

So how much do you hate? To whom is your hatred directed?

Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 10 2023 18:35 utc | 41

Spencer & Opport

Short attention spans in the U$$A and in Canuckistan. Those overwaished masses are feeling the economic squeeze at an almost exponential basis. They are bored and tired about all those dollars going down the Big $wirly in Kiev and figure that they, personally are not benefiting in the least. Some are even showing slight signs of getting pissed-off. That sentiment will metastasize fairly rapidly. The chosen and connected ones who are pushing the entire narrative have been getting increasingly nervous.

Thus, one or more false-flag attacks may be a bit past the early planning stages.

Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 10 2023 18:48 utc | 42

More censorship.
TASS today:

"UK will chair a summit of 30 nations to coordinate an international response to fears that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be able to participate in Olympics,' according to the statement.

Lucy Frazer, the Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), said commenting on the statement that 'We cannot allow Russian athletes to line up alongside Team GB and everyone else on the world stage.' "

Pathetic. UK gets The Most Valuable Toady award.

Posted by: Elmagnostic | Feb 10 2023 18:55 utc | 43

@ Posted by: young | Feb 10 2023 17:05 utc | 7

What if the "big arrow" assault is more like 1 medium, and a bunch of small arrows?

Russia learned the first time, a quick surrounding got lots of world sympathy. A slower but steady advance of the whole front doesn't have the same appeal to the MSM, or general population.

Posted by: BroncoBilly | Feb 10 2023 19:05 utc | 44

re: citizens vs. politicians
...from Edward Abbey, anarchist. . .
"Democracy--rule by the people--sounds like a fine thing; we should try it sometime in America."

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 10 2023 19:06 utc | 45

Interesting times.

One USS propaganda media reports indicate the US supplied obsolete Himars target list in the DPR/LPR/RF transition states. The civilian infrastructure is allegedly supply exclusively by the USSA Poopagon. What an interesting can of worms.

However, if true or not? The wanker who pushes the button and the CO chain all the way to the top of the Country 404 military command. Does not absolved themselves from war crimes. Every time a civilian dies as a result. Along with the Poopagon employees supllying the GPS co-ordinate target list. Up to and including General M's boss. Where the buck stops.

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Feb 10 2023 19:13 utc | 46

The price of gold has been surprisingly resilient given the big increase in interest rates. 3 month Treasuries are paying 4.6%.

De-dollarization happening in slow motion ?

Posted by: Exile | Feb 10 2023 19:19 utc | 47

Translated, abbreviated, MOD Clobber list(10.02.23)

📊 In total, since the beginning of the special military operation destroyed ((+?) over preceding 24hrs):
384 aircraft, (Daily avg 1.1)
207(+1) helicopters, (Daily avg 0.6)
3,069(+12) unmanned aerial vehicles, (Daily avg 8.8)
403 surface-to-air missile systems, (Daily avg 1.2)
7,812(+14) tanks and other armored combat vehicles, (Daily avg 22.5)
1,014(+2) multiple rocket launchers, (Daily avg 2.9)
4,046(+12) field artillery and mortars, (Daily avg 11.6) and
8,313(+11) special military vehicles. (Daily avg 24)

Comment:

A comprehensive MOD Summary. Sustained rear of FEBA Ammo depots/stores destruction. Further escalation re preparation & shaping of the battlefield.
Multiple double envelopments threatening AFU.

Sustained Op tempo targeting 122 locs, characterized by,

1. Strikes by army aviation & artillery fire ...
2. Strikes by operational-tactical & army aviation, artillery fire ...
3. Air strikes & artillery fire ...
4. Strikes by operational & tactical aviation & artillery fire ...

RuAF heavier aircraft along with Close Air Support(CAS), as well as Army tactical aviation in combination with rocket/artillery barrages, is sustained in application of massed combined destructive firepower, in not one locale, but along the FEBA on four fronts.

The AFU has no defense(No near FEBA AD) against nor effective counter-response to the above at & rear of the FEBA.

Consequent significant 'immediate' ongoing increase in AFU attrition (Particularly manpower losses) on four fronts, whilst further degrading their already fragile & insufficient logistics train & supplies, given six forward Ammo dumps destroyed in only 24 hours(Qty 10 previous 24hrs)(Part of ongoing priority tasking).

Two Grad MBRLS, four US M777 artillery systems, four D-30 howitzers, two D-20 howitzers, a Gvozdika SPH & one MSTA-B howitzer were destroyed.

Three MBTs were destroyed. Six ammunition depots were destroyed. One US counter-battery radar was destroyed.

HQ of the 93rd mechanized brigade of the AFU was hit. RuAF fighter aircraft shot down an AFU Mi-8 helicopter.

Posted by: Outraged | Feb 10 2023 19:22 utc | 48

Posted by: Eighthman | Feb 10 2023 16:55 utc | 6:

(....)Whatever the case, it looks like Russia is far in the lead. And that by itself should give the West pause.

The West would not pause! Period. The sanctions didn't work, did the West pause? The battle field results were horrid, did the West pause? Food and energy related inflationary trends flew into the skies all over the West, did they pause?

The West doesn't know how to pause, or does not want to pause. Some of them has no dogs of their own in the field, they don't need to pause. Some of them have a gun at their head, they wouldn't dare to pause. Some of them are so stupid that they simply don't know how to pause.

They may pause when the last Ukrainian hit the 6 feet underground pit, only because now that they have exhausted the fuel to keep on keeping on. But they will start again soon after, because Poland is right there, the Baltic sillies are right there, The Bulgars/Slovens/Slavaks/who-so-ever et al. are right there. They have plenty fuel to go on even after the last Ukrainian.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Feb 10 2023 19:33 utc | 49

unimperator | Feb 10 2023 18:30 utc | 35

I don't know why they think it's Peresvet. That is a laser to blind satellites, finished in 2017. Probably it was TOS.

Posted by: rk | Feb 10 2023 19:35 utc | 50

via MOSCOW, February 10. /TASS/ --
"About 90% of all military equipment sent to Ukraine goes through Poland, which acts as a sort of a transit corridor for its transfer" Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreyev said on Russian TV Friday.

Should the Russia-Ukraine conflict geographically enlarge Poland will suffer first from it. Then which nation? I'd predict the EU member with the largest industrial capacity, and so forth.

Posted by: MOSCOW, February 10. | Feb 10 2023 19:37 utc | 51

Russian government illegally 'nationalized' the assets of Rinat Akhmetov.
https://tass.com/society/1574955

Posted by: Marine | Feb 10 2023 19:40 utc | 52

@Oberbayer | Feb 10 2023 17:38 utc | 19:

The charming and often powerfully irritated Mrs. Zakharova is the teacher here, because repetition is the mother of all learning, especially for such personalityless people as Macron, Scholz, Baerbock and the English Indian.
.....
Berthold Brecht warned once: The lap is still fertile, from which that crawled.
Either Mr. Scholz is mentally underexposed-or else, and that would be far worse-he has crawled out of this womb.
_________________________

Just two remarks concerning the two snippets of text above:

1.»Repetion is the mother of all learning«. There is a much nicer Latin saying for this issue: »Repetitio mater studiorum est!«

For that matter: Mrs. Sacharova - despite the seriousness of things - surely more often than only one time seemed to a bit pull the legs of the current Western political geniuses named above. Wouldn't it be really nice, if she prospectively could attach mottoes like above to her further »lessons« in a widely visible fashion?

2. Despite certain other possible misgivings concerning Mr. Scholz, I think most people would rather see him unsuspicious especially in terms of your remarks. Though its in itself surely embarassing to see him on the current Value-Western bandwagon towards war with Russia, nonetheless he is well aware of the »global«oney currently going on. As far as he seems to simply be compelled taking part in this shit, to me its a great deal of really bad luck he's cursed by, being German chancellor just now plus the country's general status given.

Posted by: Yogi | Feb 10 2023 19:42 utc | 53

Posted by: unimperator | Feb 10 2023 18:30 utc | 35

An interesting but odd report. Peresvet‘s an anti aircraft / anti satellite laser system that seems to be designed semi-stationary deployment rather than mobile engagement of ground targets.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peresvet_(laser_weapon)

Posted by: anon2020 | Feb 10 2023 19:43 utc | 54

Biden will party in Poland Feb 20-22

Posted by: rk | Feb 10 2023 19:47 utc | 55

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Feb 10 2023 19:13 utc | 45

Pants-are-gone?

Posted by: rk | Feb 10 2023 19:35 utc | 49

What you said.

Posted by: anon2020 | Feb 10 2023 19:53 utc | 56

@37,40 Aristodemos

I don't hate anything enough to justify everyone dying, mostly because I'd like my enemies to see how I seize power and grind them into dust and out of memory. Top 10 cities destroyed though is quite conceivable, in theory depending on the circumstances.

It's like make Berlin the front time, given the stakes, anything can be considered expendable, if not quite everything.

Posted by: Neofeudalfuture | Feb 10 2023 19:53 utc | 57

@47 outrages

What dors the acronym FEBA stand for?
Thanks

Posted by: daniel_s | Feb 10 2023 19:54 utc | 58

via Moscow, February 10,,,, 90 % of arms to Ukraine come via Poland . One would think that the Poles by now would tire of being the ' Bullseye " of conflicts in Eastern Europe. Poland currently is rebuilt, a progressive , growing Nation. Why are you tempting destruction again ? GO, TOTALLY NEUTRAL !

Posted by: leocz | Feb 10 2023 19:55 utc | 59

@Jzo, #22:

If there is no news about the War on Western MSM, it's very likely very good news in the opinions of most of us here in this bar.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Feb 10 2023 19:59 utc | 60

When French, Germans and Ukrainians signed the Minsk treaty, they have no intention of implementing the treaty. A peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia may receive a similar fate. When regions of Ukraine vote in referendum they wish to join the Russian federation, the US does not recognize the referendum. What to do?

Perhaps the solution is simple. The president of Ukraine sells four regions of Ukraine to Russia. A sales contract is made, a price is paid, and the matter is settled forever. One can point at Alaska, Louisiana, Florida, or even parts of various European countries as precedents. If the US or the EU contest the sale of Ukrainian oblasts to Russia, then part of their territory can also be contested.

Posted by: Passerby | Feb 10 2023 19:59 utc | 61

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Feb 10 2023 19:59 utc | 59

There's very little news on Ukraine, but what little news there are is completely hyperbolic, like Putin is in panic and preparing to escape Russia in 2 years.

Meanwhile, if you look at AZgeopolitics and other channels, they have videos claiming failed Ukrainian counter attack near Ugledar (guess they tried to capitalize on their own victory within last few days, which was smaller than they thought) with a few tanks burning and another video from Svatovo with 3-5 armored vehicles burning.

Posted by: unimperator | Feb 10 2023 20:07 utc | 62

@35, 49, 53

Probably not refering to Peresvet at all. I bet they are actually talking about the Krasnopol Laser Guided 152mm Shell. I've been seeing plenty of videos of these shells hitting MOVING point targets from 15 klicks away. Pretty sure RF is using the Iranian drones with laser designators to guide these shells. Also agree with 49, armor gets the Krasnopol rounds and the infantry gets saturated with thermobaric hellfire from TOS-1. These 2 weapon systems are doing the bulk of the work for Russia.

As soon as I saw RF regularly hitting moving vehicles with freakin howitzers I knew there is no chance for NATO. Yeah NATO has similar munitions, but no way they can mass manufacture this specialized ammo and apply it at scale like RF has.

Posted by: Angry Minuteman | Feb 10 2023 20:08 utc | 63

@ daniel_s | Feb 10 2023 19:54 utc | 57

Military acronym, the Forward Edge of the Battle Area(FEBA), same as the Forward Line of Own Troops(FLOT), the Line of Contact(LOC)(or Contact Line), there are other analogous terms/acronyms.

Essentially the front line, where the dug in(Entrenched)/positioned troops are. In WWI trench warfare, where each sides forward trenches/positions face their opposing enemy, with No-Mans Land in between. In this conflict No-Mans Land is often referred to as the 'Greyzone', as it may at times be very many kilometers wide with civilians residing/living in hamlets in between. See: Internet search, Military Acronyms.

Cheers

Try to look unimportant - the enemy may be low on ammo :- Murphy's Laws of Combat Ops

Posted by: Outraged | Feb 10 2023 20:19 utc | 64

Yeah NATO has similar munitions, but no way they can mass manufacture this specialized ammo and apply it at scale like RF has.

Posted by: Angry Minuteman | Feb 10 2023 20:08 utc | 62

*************************************************

Yeah, but they pay 10X times as much for it as RF does and NATO 'junk" is 5X as unreliable as RF!!!

Posted by: Garry Owen | Feb 10 2023 20:21 utc | 65

Just in:
"The US has allegedly shot down a second high-altitude balloon over northern Alaska"

You can't make up this stuff.

Posted by: Elmagnostic | Feb 10 2023 20:21 utc | 66

# 46 4.6 return for three months, very appealing. Thanks .

Posted by: Dingo | Feb 10 2023 20:21 utc | 67

Once more on cost of shells. RF is expending ten times the shells 404 fires off. RF is not spending ten billion a month on shells. The Excalibur guided round is priced at $112,800 each. I would expect the similar but better RF Krasnopol round is no more than $5000US. Krasnopol is mass produced, excalibur is not.

Currently US manufactures about 12,000 rounds a month. That is almost at level of artisanal production. Which is more costly and also a really stupid way to make an industrial item.

Posted by: oldhippie | Feb 10 2023 20:22 utc | 68

@Elmagnostic | Feb 10 2023 20:21 utc | 65

"The US has allegedly shot down a second high-altitude balloon over northern Alaska"

You can't make up this stuff.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 10 2023 20:33 utc | 69

@63 outraged

Thanks

Posted by: daniel_s | Feb 10 2023 20:34 utc | 70

There is evidence of more active use of RF attack aircraft, and this means the end of dug-in Ukrainian resistance in urban areas of the Donbas. The 10 story concrete apartment blocks that can withstand howitzer and tank fire will be collapsed by heavy aircraft bombs. This is how ISIS was crushed in Raqqa. An airstrike obliterated every building in which there was stiff resistance.

Posted by: HH | Feb 10 2023 20:40 utc | 71

@67

Yes this is the problem with US military expenditure, we get basically nothing for our money anymore. The MIC has dropped all pretenses of producing effective arms, now they merely produce avatars in exchange for trillions in freshly printed dollars. The F-35 is a poster child for this process.

The big tell here is that NO ONE is calling for F-35s in Ukraine, because watching them get shredded by RF AD would be too much of a dose of reality for the western powers, and reality is the only thing they hate/fear more than Russia.

Posted by: Angry Minuteman | Feb 10 2023 20:40 utc | 72

Biden will party in Poland Feb 20-22

Posted by: rk | Feb 10 2023 19:47 utc | 54

Perhaps Poland could Anwar Sadat him and blame Putin. Polish "Leaders" seem bent on being partitioned again.

Posted by: kupkee | Feb 10 2023 20:45 utc | 73

Translated from Intercept (Z) - TG

Our sources in the Office of the President told us that Zaluzhnyi reported at the bet that the number of casualties in the last month of the Ukrainian army has increased, exceeding last year's monthly losses, not least because both the RF Armed Forces, the DNR/LNR, and the Wagnerites are seeking to inflict maximum defeat. The new phase of the war is very different from the methods of 2022, when the Russian army used moderate combat tactics, but now it uses a strategy of exhausting the AFU with maximum artillery and air strikes.

&

As a result of Russian missile and drone attacks and occupation of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, Ukraine has lost 44 percent of its nuclear generation and three-quarters of its thermal power plant capacity.

This was stated by Prime Minister of Ukrvina Denis Shmygal during a government meeting.

"On the whole, almost two dozen power units of thermal power plants remain damaged due to constant attacks. If we add to this the fact of occupation of some of our power facilities, Ukraine has temporarily lost 44% of nuclear generation, 75% of TPP capacity and 33% of block heating plants," said Shmygal.

&

Another wave of kamikaze drones are attacking areas close to the front lines.

The strategy has long been to target UAVs at short-range targets, as UAV speed is slow and AFU aircraft have often intercepted them, thereby dropping effectiveness.

There is an opinion that in this way they are trying to draw the AFU air defense and aviation to the front lines to make it easier to hunt them down.

Posted by: Outraged | Feb 10 2023 20:46 utc | 74

Video of Russian underwater drones hitting a bridge in Odessa region.

https://t.me/s/Slavyangrad/32900

Posted by: chunga | Feb 10 2023 20:54 utc | 75

New article by Thierry Meyssan on Ukraine and corruption

"The Hunter Biden / Ihor Kolomoïsky affair
"The Biden Administration is finally reacting to the scandals that have arisen from the computer of the president’s son, Hunter Biden. This loser, whose only known activities are those of a junkie and a pimp, managed to become the director of a large gas company; a job he knows nothing about. A man of straw, he signed all sorts of big contracts, in different countries, where he travelled -without right- in official US planes. His father is now launching an operation to cover up his affairs, which has led him to clean up the Ukrainian government..."

https://www.voltairenet.org/article218800.html

Posted by: bevin | Feb 10 2023 21:02 utc | 76

I think the hyperbolic reaction of Ukraine’s media supporters to the ‘disaster at Ugledar’ is a telling indicator of how badly the conflict is going for them. It reminds me of the die Deutsche Wochenschau commentary from late 44-45, grasping at any evidence that the unfolding nightmare can be reversed. If the Ukrainians were fighting as well as they and the Western media claim there would be no need to magnify the significance of a modest tactical setback and there would be plenty of other evidence available of similar Russian repulses. Where, for instance, is the footage of the 120 Russian tanks claimed destroyed on the Kherson front, or corroboration of the human wave attacks being shot down in Bakhmut?

Warfare is a gruesome exercise in profit and loss accounting and the side that has to exaggerate its gains and conceal it’s losses is rarely winning. Perhaps the operation was led by Col Fukitup, whose G2 was more interested in his Fortnite account, but, equally, perhaps it was planned and executed as an operation to force the deployment of reserves and the revealing of artillery assets. From memory, they lost 6+ tubes, a number of ammo dumps, over two brigades engaged and severely attrited and had to call on reserves from Kremmina; not a bad return for less than a BTG damaged, with very few TK’s, mostly MK’s from mines and therefore recoverable and their crews and dismounts largely unscathed.

As for the battlefield killers, the TOS 1A and CLGP are deadly but, historically, I think the humble mortars (120mm and auto 82mm) are the unsung killers, especially as their FO’s have access to drones and their crews GPS.

Posted by: Milites | Feb 10 2023 21:10 utc | 77

Peace is achievable without prolonged negotiations The war ends when Saudi Arabia ditches the Petrodollar. The US war machine will have no more cash to fund their wars let alone afford imported baby formula

Posted by: Willow | Feb 10 2023 21:14 utc | 78

just a tricky question

if poland so itchy for parts of ukraine

can't germany just give berlin to poland?

I mean win win

Posted by: Macpott | Feb 10 2023 21:20 utc | 79

Foreign mercenaries are being withdrawn from Artemovsk on an emergency basis. The city is being prepared for surrender

Residents of Chasov Yar, which lies outside Artemovsk, have reported that foreign mercenaries are being evacuated from the city for the second day in vehicles in the direction of Kostyantynivka and Kramatorsk.

Locals have also noted helicopters flying twice a day at low altitudes in the same direction. This mode of transport is probably used to evacuate important foreign specialists and wounded mercenaries.

Mobilized Ukrainians are sent to "compensate" the departed foreigners to hold the front.-a mercenary is far more expensive for Kiev than a forcibly mobilized citizen of Ukraine.

Posted by: Down South | Feb 10 2023 21:20 utc | 80

Putin responds to the Hersh article on the Nordstream pipelines.

His ultimatum is if the negotiations that underway fail then the West has 72 hrs to evacuate everyone from the Nuclear Strike Zones he picks.

https://warnews247.gr/apantisi-rosias-stis-apokalypseis-s-chers-an-oi-diapragmatefseis-apotychoun-o-v-poutin-tha-dosei-prothesmia-72-ores-prin-tin-chrisi-pyrinikon-oplon/

Posted by: jgalt | Feb 10 2023 21:24 utc | 81

I would like some assurances I will still be able to fly my kite.

Posted by: Elmagnostic | Feb 10 2023 21:27 utc | 82

Outraged

Not to nitpick, but a FEBA is not the same as a FLOT, as it does not include covering or screening forces. I’m wondering if any poster here knows the Russian terms or if they even differentiate between the two.

Posted by: Milites | Feb 10 2023 21:32 utc | 83

🇳🇱Netherlands will not deliver its 18 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Ukraine unlikely to be sent British jets until war is over, Ben Wallace says — The Telegraph

Swiss gov't rejects request from Spain to allow it to re-export anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine -Reuters

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has taken a cautious stance on the prospect of NATO allies sending fighter jets to Ukraine.

This was reported by The Times.

"You have to be absolutely sure that you are not getting into a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia," Rutte said.

Meanwhile, Belgian Prime Minister Alexandre de Croo said his country's air force could not provide the planes that patrol national airspace and participate in NATO's operation in the Baltic Sea.

"We really need our planes and we cannot give them away," he said.

Earlier, doubts about the transfer of the fighter jets were expressed by Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Allengren.

👆👆👆
Big, big, promises. Too little to show for it. Now, the West is wondering if is it really worth going to war with Russia. They became more and more convinced that Russia means business. And that it will not stop. Collateral damage in all this play show is Ukraine. In the exact same way, the West helped Afghanistan, it will help Ukraine.

Of course, Arestovich realized that. I assume many from the ruling class of Kiev as well. They won't surrender. They can't. Nothing will justify them in the eyes of history why they lost the country. But, aside from philosophical reasons, they know they can't stop because of lunatics they helped create, such as Azov and similar scum will kill them on the spot.

Now, it is just buying time, waiting for something to happen. What is that something, they don't know themselves .

Posted by: Down South | Feb 10 2023 21:33 utc | 84

Today a so-called "Aktuelle Stunde" was held in the German Bundestag, regarding the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines. It was called for by the AfD fraction on the occassion of Seymor Hersh's article.

In this session (which I quit watching the live stream while the SPD MP was talking, since I almost got ear cancer) the CDU MP Jürgen Hardt said the following according to an article of the "Berliner Zeitung" ( https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/wirtschaft-verantwortung/nord-stream-debatte-im-bundestag-wo-sitzt-der-feind-li.316499 ):

Jürgen Hardt, a member of parliament from the CDU, said during the question time that he was proud that all speakers from his parliamentary group were members of Atlantikbrücke e.V., because he could not remember that the Americans had ever done anything wrong

Now....seriously. This does it. This quote puts the final point under my alienation from Germany and the western world as a whole.
Finished. Period. I had it now.

Posted by: Helmuth von Moltke | Feb 10 2023 21:36 utc | 85

Now I see the beginning of the Great Balloon war of 2023.

China could probably manufacture 1,000 balloons at a cost of perhaps $10 each. Add another $10 for assembly and $30 for some electronics (an out of date smart phone). Total cost $50,000. Add $20,000 to launch them and release on a trajectory likely to fly over the USA.

Result: for $60,000 the USA expends about $10 million on missiles to launch at the balloons.

Posted by: watcher | Feb 10 2023 21:37 utc | 86

Russian Market@runews
Old habits die hard

The video speaks for itself

Slava Cocaini (as rk likes to say)

Posted by: Down South | Feb 10 2023 21:38 utc | 87

"Biden will party in Poland Feb 20-22"

Posted by: rk | Feb 10 2023 19:47 utc | 54
-------------------------------------------

Again, Poland, "the hyena of Europe" (Churchill), will be the destination for a "great speech" by the liberal US President on European territory. The marriage between nationalism and liberalism is an appropriate symbol in our time: Not only do nationalist elites in Poland still openly dream of a dismantle and decolonization of Russia, from whose bait they would greedily feed themselves - for years, the states of Eastern Europe have willingly formed the dividing line between old Europe and Russia that Washington longed for, which Biden personally kinda wanted to blow up, whereupon officials in Poland immediately thanked Washington.

During the last visit in April last year, the US President muttered something about regime change in Russia and "that Russia will never, um... that the Russian military will never be able to launch an attack again"...whatever, now it could be a speech of freedom, resistance, war crimes and tribunals, sacrifice and rising democracy -- yawn.

The White House announced the date for the President's visit after it was revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin will deliver his State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly on February 21.

Three days later, on the anniversary of the military special operation, eastern Ukraine could already experience a third wave of a greater Russian offensive launched by the "Red Army":
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Detailed operational Russian-war strategy video published by Weeb Union. Recommended

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW86zSr-E1k

Posted by: Ramsey Glissadevil | Feb 10 2023 16:41 utc | 1

Posted by: Konrad | Feb 10 2023 21:43 utc | 88

@85 watcher

"Result: for $60,000 the USA expends about $10 million on missiles to launch at the balloons."

I'm fairly certain a single F-22 Intercept mission would exceed $10m

Posted by: Angry Minuteman | Feb 10 2023 21:43 utc | 89

War is hell.

Liam Clancy sings Waltzing Matilda:

Take a break and listen ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFCekeoSTwg

Posted by: Don Firineach | Feb 10 2023 21:43 utc | 90

The situation in Artyomovsk (Bakhmut): On the night of February 10, assault groups of the RF Armed Forces crossed the E-40 highway and made their way to the settlement of Orekhovo-Vasilyevka, 20 km from Artyomovsk (Bakhmut).

Safe supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and movement along the Artyomovsk-Seversk, Artyomovsk-Slavyansk, Artyomovsk-Konstantinovka, and Khromovo-Chasov Yar routes is impossible. The roads are under the control of attack aircraft, Orlan-30 drones, rocket and self-propelled artillery of the RF Armed Forces. https://t.me/ukraina_ru/131781

Posted by: Down South | Feb 10 2023 21:45 utc | 91

reply to 83

What puzzles and horrifies me is the utter passivity of Ukrainian males, going off to their deaths obediently, overall. Fighting to not be loaded into a van is pathetic, too little, too late. Impressment gangs that visit small villages should never be seen again, not grudingly complied with. Fragging should be common and automatic. Where's the open rebellion? Another hundred, another thousand lost..... and nothing. Mercouris respectfully recoils at the phrase, 'meat grinder' but what empathy should we feel about this obsequious behavior as if the lives of fathers and husbands mean little - to themselves? Who's the enemy - the Russian who calls for surrender or the Ukr. officer ordering suicide?

Posted by: Eighthman | Feb 10 2023 21:47 utc | 92

@ Milites | Feb 10 2023 21:32 utc | 82

Analogous.

A FLOT may, or may not, include screening or covering forces. It simply means the frontline, being where the forward most bustard is. FLOT is typically used where a light screen is deployed ... forward ... such as armored cavalry elements or use of armored recon elements as a screen. Am not aware of RF doing either, which doesn't mean diddly-squat.

Posted by: Outraged | Feb 10 2023 21:47 utc | 93

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Naval UAV strike on the bridge in Zatoka @rybar

Footage of an attack by an underwater unmanned vehicle of the RF Armed Forces on the railway bridge in Zatoka in the Odessa region appeared on the network.

It is difficult to talk about the scale of damage based on the available footage, but, apparently, the bridge supports were damaged.

This is the only railway bridge leading to the western part of the Odessa region directly through the territory of Ukraine. An alternative shortest route is the road, which runs almost 8 km through the territory of Moldova.

Previously, Russian troops have repeatedly struck at the object and the very fact of the attack is not something out of the ordinary.

However, there were no reports of the use of underwater UAVs by the Russian Armed Forces.

The appearance in the arsenal of new tools involved in combat missions is positive.

Coordinates: 46.0765466, 30.4701274

Either a guided torpedo or a UAV came over the bridge in the bay.

If they hit this bridge, then they are possibly preparing a springboard for landing in the south of the Odessa region.
The next one should be the bridge in the lighthouses.

Here, the Moldovan case played with other colors with the information that Sandu is preparing provocations with the involvement of the Transnistrian track in the game in order to open a second front for the Russian Federation.

Perhaps this is a distraction for the APU.
We are watching.

Posted by: Down South | Feb 10 2023 21:49 utc | 94

The non-verbal propaganda is insidious. Just watched a little bit of AC Milan vs Torino in the Italian Serie A football league and for a few minutes I was wondering what on earth Milan had done to their kit, it was a hideously dull shade of green. Then the penny dropped, it was what I can only describe as ‘Zelensky T-shirt’ green.

I changed the channel once I realised what was going on.

Posted by: West of England Andy | Feb 10 2023 21:52 utc | 95

@Oriental Voice, §48:
Yes, I think that´s American thinking and possibly EU and British thinking.
The American and British leadership certainly seem to have no ´pause´ button, achieved (particularly in England) by total muzzling of the press and TV. And with the 77th brigade it´s become a STASI society.
The EU is a patchwork with a veneer of unity spread by the European Commission. But Austria-Hungary particularly and Italy and Spain also, but less strongly, are rocking the EU boat. Germany and France are powder kegs and their leadership is totally out of touch with their peoples. The Netherlands are insulated but there is much resentment bubbling up against the tyrannical Rutte. Belgium, aka Greater Brussels, we need not consider.
And, further east, I don´t think even Poles, Baltics and Czechoslovaks are that thick, especially after they see what´s happening to the Ukraine. No Lithuanian wants a "fight to the last Lithuanian".

Posted by: John Marks | Feb 10 2023 21:56 utc | 96

Richard Medhurst interviews Pepe Escobar on his live stream.

Pepe Escobar and Richard Medhurst on BRICS, Ukraine War, Russian Oil & Much More (1 hour 51 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3gEJPc3Zl8

The Duran guys talk with Jeffrey Sachs on the Nord Stream sabotage.

Nord Stream pipeline & sabotaging peace w/Jeffrey Sachs (Live) (30 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySNyAaw4VEI

Brian Berletic's latest live stream.

New Atlas LIVE: Missiles, Earthquakes & Pipelines - US Hegemony Fighting on All Fronts (1 Hour, 5 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlcsko6resY

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Feb 10 2023 21:57 utc | 97

Richard Medhurst interviews Pepe Escobar on his live stream.

Pepe Escobar and Richard Medhurst on BRICS, Ukraine War, Russian Oil & Much More (1 hour 51 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3gEJPc3Zl8

The Duran guys talk with Jeffrey Sachs on the Nord Stream sabotage.

Nord Stream pipeline & sabotaging peace w/Jeffrey Sachs (Live) (30 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySNyAaw4VEI

Brian Berletic's latest live stream.

New Atlas LIVE: Missiles, Earthquakes & Pipelines - US Hegemony Fighting on All Fronts (1 Hour, 5 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlcsko6resY

Posted by: CharlesLutherThanos | Feb 10 2023 21:58 utc | 98

@Down South | Feb 10 2023 21:38 utc | 86

The video speaks for itself
Slava Cocaini (as rk likes to say)

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 10 2023 21:58 utc | 99

@Leocz, §58:
Leocz for Polish PM!
At least one Pole can see that "fighting to the last Pole" for American NeoCons is not the way most Poles want to go.

Posted by: John Marks | Feb 10 2023 22:02 utc | 100