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February 23, 2023
Ukraine Open Thread 2023-45
Comments
zeke2u @ ninety-two
Thanks for the insights. With the Saudis overtly pulling out, the days of the Petrodollar are numbered accounts any more.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 18:30 utc | 101
I hope more people in RoW understand that most of us American citizens are against the nonsense our “leaders” are stirring up. I write as a Vietnam era veteran and would like to make it plain that a significant number of us old vets are opposed to what the crazies are doing. Some thoughts:
https://folkpotpourri.com/ghost-of-empire-to-haunt-the-world/
Posted by: Ozark Grandpa | Feb 23 2023 18:44 utc | 102
@ Ozark Grandpa, §103:
Well said, Ozark.
This is all about seizing Russia´s assets and they said no.
The West is behaving like a Mafia: “plato o plombo?”
And to the surprise of the NATO bully, Russia said “We´ll fight”.
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 18:53 utc | 103
@103
career usaf from 1972, air defense and sac.
usa is not merely immoral, it is insane in expanding NATO since Clinton installed talbot and nuland in 1993
Posted by: paddy | Feb 23 2023 18:53 utc | 104
My 3 letters:
WHAT is a war of aggression? Why does the German mass media use this term incessantly? In the history of all US wars of aggression (from Vietnam to Iraq), there have been no
such vicious accusations against the USA, as is the case now against RU.
I think the water is at the bottom of the West’s lip, and those who are fighting for their survival are not acting rationally, they are lashing out in the hope of reaching the saving shore before the tide comes crashing down on them.
And what is Putin doing? He stirs up a little more wind to fill the drowning people’s lungs with water more quickly.
Posted by: Oberbayer | Feb 23 2023 19:04 utc | 105
Re. oldhippie on Feb 23 2023 @ 18:25 #96
Off topic but, hey…
“Was he CIA? I’ve no idea. Possible. Will strongly recommend Collected Essays Journalism and Letters.” I do not believe Eric Arthur Blair (Orwell) was CIA at any time in his life. It is possible his publisher(s) were funded by the CIA as they had their fingers in almost all publishers AFTER the war. He did have a serious grudge against the Communist left after his experience in Catalonia and the CIA undoubtedly promoted Animal Farm for their own ends. I agree with your recommendation of Collected Essays Journalism and Letters. but would encourage those who want to read it to check their local libraries first as I think the 4 volume hardback set will cost about $100 & up ($20 each) and paperback volumes are about $10 each.
Posted by: Quid Me Vexare | Feb 23 2023 19:07 utc | 106
Boris Johnson and Lindsey Graham are being platformed by The Wall Street Journal.
Their opinion piece is titled:
Ukraine Needs More Weapons and Support From the West
Making sure that Russia loses is the best long-term investment we can make in global security.
Somewhere a circus has lost its clowns.
Posted by: too scents | Feb 23 2023 19:08 utc | 107
After Russia suspends participating in START and saner heads are alarmed over the potential nuclear arms race;
And
Elon Musk accusing her that she’s the top US official pushing war in Ukraine (per RT reports) —
Tass is now reporting Nuland goes begging. Look at this image, can’t be unseen..
US seeks to discuss New START implementation with Russia — Nuland
WASHINGTON, February 23. /TASS/. The US authorities would like to get back to inspections as part of the New START nuclear arms control treaty and have a chance to discuss with Russia the implementation of this agreement, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said in an interview with Washington Post.
When asked if Russia’s suspension of the treaty would make any difference for the US in terms of behavior, the top State Department official said: “We will not [do this] and we’ve made that clear to the Russians.”
According to Nuland, Washington has “no intention or need” to resume testing. “We would like to get back into mutual inspections. We would like to get back to a place where we can sit at a table and talk about implementation [of the treaty],” she said. Nuland also assured that the US is not interested in rebuilding its nuclear weapons.
The top State Department official said the US is trying to understand what Russia’s decision on suspending its participation in New START would mean in practical terms.
https://tass.com/world/1580909
a shameless hussy. After bragging “being well pleased NordStream is a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea” followed by “UKR should bomb Crimea, it’s a legit target” now she would like to sit down for a chat with Russia.
Memo to Cookie:
FFS. It’s over. You were given a Demarche which is the 1st step to a formal break in diplomatic relations. Putin is not bluffing.
Posted by: Likklemore | Feb 23 2023 19:15 utc | 108
@LightYearsFromHome, §9:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTiBksEHGrU
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 19:16 utc | 109
@jared | Feb 23 2023 15:21 utc | 11
“I suspect that in fact the Russian withdrawal from the Kharkiv area was due to a problem in the supply of ammunition or similar logistical issue.”
The first withdrawal from Karkov was largely a goodwill gesture around the negotiations that BoJo scuttled. It was an easy gesture to make because the Russian position was rather tenuous / exposed. In this case the ‘logistical issue’ was that the logistics were vulnerable (along with Russian troops) in the various Russian bridgeheads. (IMO and AFAIK.)
The second withdrawal from Karkov was largely because the Russians were hardly there at all. A skeletal Russian force was creeping up on Karkov because they were meeting relatively little resistance from badly mauled Ukrainians. That force would have been overrun by the new army Ukraine was gifted if it hadn’t withdrawn. That only logistics issue there is that the logistics were vulnerable because of how thin the Russian forces were.
That’s not to say that there were no Russian logistical hiccups, problems with stockpiles or various supplies, or that no Russian logistics were destroyed or intercepted, but the proof is in the pudding. There has been no sign that the Russians have been short of shells or ammo anywhere, despite occasional complaints of units here or there wanting more support. (Russia’s massive overmatch across most things is still finite and choices need to be made.)
Posted by: Another James | Feb 23 2023 19:17 utc | 110
Any body comment on the historic speech by President Putin on February 21. It was a clear warning to the West. ““This means they plan to finish us once and for all. In other words, they plan to grow a local conflict into a global confrontation. This is how we understand it and we will respond accordingly, because this represents an existential threat to our country.”
Posted by: Srang | Feb 23 2023 19:18 utc | 111
There are times when I wonder about the naivete of the Global Times editor displayed in the opening lines of today’s editorial, “Time to jointly press stop button on Russia-Ukraine conflict”:
“On February 24, 2022, when the first gunshot at the Russia-Ukraine border shattered tranquility, most people did not anticipate that it would evolve into the largest military conflict on the European continent since World War II.”
“Tranquility”?!? With Ukie artillery landing all over the Donbas for years?!? The conflict had already become Europe’s largest in 2014-15 which precipitated Minsk that was rejected just like all previous treaties involving the Outlaw US Empire. The remainder of the opening paragraph also has some other errors:
“A year later, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has profoundly changed the international geopolitics, and severely weakened the foundation for international cooperation. Its spillover effects in various areas such as politics, security and the economy have far exceeded people’s imagination. This geopolitical conflict has become a microcosm of the turbulence of this era.”
Most of those conditions already existed as the hybrid war against Russia preexisted the 2014 Coup that launched the Ukraine War–Russia’s intervention didn’t start anything as its aim is to finish it. IMO, the “foundation for international cooperation” has been bolstered as what was a disparate Global Fracture is now coalescing into two main blocs which will help to end the hegemony that caused it in the first place.
A further problem with the editorial is its belief that Ukraine has the ability to forge its own independent foreign policy when that’s clearly not the case as Ukraine was invaded and occupied by the Outlaw US Empire via the 2014 coup. The editorial also fails to acknowledge the fact that NATO broke all three OSCE security treaties which Russia called out in December 2021 and has yet to be openly confessed, although NATO’s behavior since provides enough of a confession. IMO, this statement is just wrong:
“It [the Ukraine conflict] is in itself a failure of the American and European diplomatic and security framework in Eurasia.”
It’s the deliberate outcome of that policy which sprouts from the primary policy to attain Full Spectrum Dominance!!! The Empire’s Neocons openly confessed the aim was to embroil Russia is armed conflict so NATO could destroy Russia. I do agree with the following:
“Resolving the conflict between Russia and Ukraine requires the establishment of a universal and sustainable security concept, rather than a unilateral and hegemonic one.”
However, as I’ve explained several times, the Outlaw US Empire will never willingly agree to any such treaty since its broken every previous one; thus, the need to form two blocs which the Chinese don’t want to see appear, although IMO there’s no way to avoid that. What China must understand to implement the GSI is it will require a series of steps to arrive at the goal–we’re not just going to awaken one day and have it in place; it will take a struggle to implement as the hegemonic bloc must be contained before it gets reduced to its core.
Yes, it would be nice if a button could be pressed that stopped then reoriented everything, but that’s fairyland thinking, not serious geopolitical reasoning.
@Aristodemus #40
Many of Djilas’ ideas are resumed and amplified by James Burnham in his “Managerial Revolution”. At the time both Djilas and Burnham were viewed as casting doubt about the continuing relevance of classical Marxist class analysis. Neither bourgeois nor proletarian, the managers did not have to own in order to control.
Posted by: inspector general | Feb 23 2023 19:20 utc | 113
You know, I was thinking today: this war gets more and more like Vietnam all the time.
Posted by: Bemildred | Feb 23 2023 19:20 utc | 114
Boris Johnson interested in applying for post of NATO Secretary-General
Speaking in an interview with The Guardian today, Thursday, February 23, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he is interested in applying for the post of Secretary-General of NATO.
“I see myself as a candidate. This is a very good position, an important one. NATO is now stronger than ever”, said Mr Johnson. According to the ex-premier, Ukraine will join NATO in the future”.
Also in an interview with Sky News, the politician called on Britain to “break the ice” and send the fighter jets that Kyiv is asking for to Ukraine.
“>https://euroweeklynews.com/2023/02/23/boris-johnson-interested-in-applying-for-post-of-nato-secretary-general/
Posted by: Apollyon | Feb 23 2023 19:26 utc | 116
Re: Eton
A amusing book on Eton – Stand before Your God
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61000.Stand_Before_Your_God
Posted by: Exile | Feb 23 2023 19:27 utc | 117
Posted by: BonfireNight | Feb 23 2023 16:39 utc | 53
This has been adequately discussed on this forum already. Find something else to be concerned with.
Posted by: irish al | Feb 23 2023 16:42 utc | 55
Sorry, Irish, no, those Top-Elite-Journalusts of German National Television, funded with more than 8 billion Euros per year, have taken Fact-checking to levels previously unheard of not only in this forum, but anywhere in the universe.
German National Television has interpreted Hersh’s phrase “… plant shaped charges” as “charges shaped like plants”, to then analyse that Hersh must be writing nonsense, as there are no trees at the bottom of the sea whose roots could have been modelled by the charges, and modelling leaves wouldn’t have worked since charges in the shape of tree leaves would have been too fragile to stay in place for any lenthgt of time. The experts of German National Television also correctly state that North stream II hasn’t been in place long enough for forests to grow at the bottom of the sea in which explosive charges could have been hidden.
( In case you wonder, no, there was no alcohol or drugs involved in writing this comment. Can’t speak for the journalists of German National Television doing the fact checking, though, a good dose of cocaine or a half a bottle of Wodka might explain the quality of their work..)
Screenshots up and quotes of the fact checker text on
https://twitter.com/Samy_t42/status/1628793121965211649
Posted by: Marvin | Feb 23 2023 19:31 utc | 118
For karlof1
there are two more infographics:
US’ technological hegemony: monopoly and suppression
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1285966.shtml
US’ military hegemony: wanton use of force
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202302/1286076.shtml
Posted by: Zet | Feb 23 2023 19:31 utc | 119
Boris Johnson interested in applying for post of NATO Secretary-General
Posted by: Apollyon | Feb 23 2023 19:26 utc | 117
#################
Anything is possible in Clown World.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Feb 23 2023 19:31 utc | 120
#115
U.s. casualties 60to 70K
Vietnamese casualties 1 to 1.5 million
And nothing materially changed
Nothing was achieved, in Vietnam
Freedom &democracy was not their cup of tea
Posted by: Dingo | Feb 23 2023 19:37 utc | 121
@unimperator, §39:
Much of this had been achieved by the prior demonization of Putin by Bill Browder, who had heavy financial and political backing. It´s all well told in Alex Krainer´s “Grand Deception” (Red Pill Press, 2018) and in Andrei Nekrasov´s film “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes” (Piraya Films Norway, 2015).
It´s still amazing however that Europe recognized the Nazi menace in the Ukraine´s ´pogroms´ one year – and then cheers them the next year. Bribery springs to mind. I think the money on offer from America is so great that most accept it rather than risk one of the CIA´s “colour revolutions” (which is currently being lined up against Orban in Hungary).
America seems to operate on the Mafia principle: “plato o plombo?”
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 19:40 utc | 122
Posted by: zeke2u | Feb 23 2023 18:10 utc | 92
That is one of the reasons. Too much fiat US debts in German hands. But there is another theory on why German politicians committed national economy suicide to kill NS1&2:
The US Gang of Four neocons might have promised EU members that Russia would collapse under their “shock and awe” sanctions, then EU may get to share the Russian spoils. For a year, the West kept doubling down, may be they are waiting for the proverbial Godot of Russian Collapse?
Posted by: KitaySupport | Feb 23 2023 19:41 utc | 123
Why Gen. Surovikin pulled back to the other side of the Dnieper River is fairly obvious or should be. They decided against further offensive operations and that made the troops vulnerable owing to the possibility that they could be cut off by the river. Along with the need for a bridge that can be taken out, the river itself can be flooded by taking out one or more of the upstream dams. So, go to the safer and easier to maintain position across the river.
Posted by: Jmaas | Feb 23 2023 16:05 utc | 33
There is a slight problem with that though — Kherson is currently constitutionally a regional center of the RF.
So Putin is constitutionally obliged to recover it.
Worse, he was also constitutionally obliged to at least give an explanation for why it was abandoned. The KPRF introduced such an inquiry in the Duma, but it was immediately blocked by United Russia.
What are we to make of that?
P.S. To this day there is a lot of grumbling in Russia about that issue.
The other notable thing about the Russian offence is how tepid it is. Normally an army should be used with a sense of urgency, and apparently the Russians don’t agree because they are not doing it. There are two identifiable reasons for why they are goings slow. One is that they anticipate the possibility of a blowout fight with NATO, with the Ukraine war a side show. The political west lacks the surge capacity in manufacturing needed to replenish the stock of munitions that are being used up in Ukraine, and they are being systematically disarmed by the now ineffective Ukraine army that is burning through whatever supplies it can get. That is, Russia can, apparently, sustain its current supply of munitions, and the Europeans cannot. The longer this war drags out the weaker Europe gets, and thus the better for Russia if a war with NATO develops.
[…]
To sum it up, the Russians are not in a hurry because time is on their side. That is also why the NATO side is thrashing around looking for alternatives. They are too vain to end the war with a Russia win, as say a surrender of some territory, and so they are trying to find an out that will avoid that.
Posted by: Jmaas | Feb 23 2023 16:05 utc | 33
There is a much more ominous possibility, especially after Putin’s speech the other day.
And it is that the Russians have decided that nuclear war is inevitable and that is what they are preparing for. Once that decision is made, the Ukraine war becomes just a sideshow. That would explain why they are doing just enough to hold the front and why Putin doesn’t seem particularly interested in the war.
The second withdrawal from Karkov was largely because the Russians were hardly there at all. A skeletal Russian force was creeping up on Karkov because they were meeting relatively little resistance from badly mauled Ukrainians. That force would have been overrun by the new army Ukraine was gifted if it hadn’t withdrawn. That only logistics issue there is that the logistics were vulnerable because of how thin the Russian forces were.
Posted by: Another James | Feb 23 2023 19:17 utc | 111
Still completely inexcusable.
How many civilians lost their homes having to evacuate into Russian in a hurry and how many of those who stayed were raped, tortured and killed by Nazi death squads?
Russia had an obligation to protect those people, but it betrayed them instead.
Posted by: shadowbanned | Feb 23 2023 19:45 utc | 125
Zet @120–
Thanks for your additions. One mistake being made by many is belief in the economic stats published by the Outlaw US Empire, which are filled with lies just like everything else it says. The GDP measure is by far the one most overstated since the economy’s overhead costs are added as plusses instead of subtracted as the costs they most certainly are which amounts to a double counting on the plus side. The healthcare overhead cost by itself would reduce GDP by $7 Trillion at minimum as I’ve shown before. The primary result is that China now has the world’s largest economy by every measure.
Re. oldhippie on Feb 23 2023 @ 18:25 #96
Off topic but, hey…
“Was he CIA? I’ve no idea. (Im)Possible. Will strongly recommend Collected Essays Journalism and Letters.” I do not believe Eric Arthur Blair (Orwell) was CIA at any time in his life. It is possible his publisher(s) were funded by the CIA as they had their fingers in almost all publishers AFTER the war…
Com’on man. Almost all his books were published before 1947 which is when the year the CIA was founded.
The original post which triggered this bizarre thread was referencing the 1954 animated movie “Animal Farm”, which was funded by the CIA.
“For George Orwell, there was nothing pro-American about Animal Farm. The CIA, however, had other ideas. Karl Cohen tells the remarkable story of how US intelligence secretly funded a landmark British movie.”
The Cartoon That Came in From the Cold
Posted by: Opport Knocks | Feb 23 2023 19:47 utc | 127
P.S. More about Kharkov, to illustrate what was happening back then:
https://t.me/grey_zone/17334
(automated translation, so beware of the associated issues)
Archive. Kharkov tank plant. 300-meter train with tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Guess the result?
That’s right, the missiles were urgently needed to eliminate two bandero moles in the fields of the Kharkov region (a breakthrough may have been prevented). And the composition went on their business to the front.
(50.0219711, 36.1870615)
*the material is no longer of intelligence interest to either side
There were multiple occasions like that.
The whole Kharkov fiasco could have been stopped even with the skeleton force there. Russia had the standoff weapons to prevent the accumulation of Ukrainian forces and destroy them long before they started the offensive. The military bloggers were screaming about missiles strikes needed at such and such locations, nothing was done.
This continues to this day, BTW.
Strange war, very strange…
Posted by: shadowbanned | Feb 23 2023 19:50 utc | 128
@aristodemos, §50:
It´s the Mafia method: “Plato o plombo?”
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 19:59 utc | 129
@BonfireNight, §53:
Tell me, Bonfire who are these Solomonic “fact-checkers”?
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 20:01 utc | 130
@The Accountant, §54:
And when the money turns out to be toilet paper, like the Weimar German mark, what then?
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 20:04 utc | 131
Memo to Cookie:
FFS. It’s over. You were given a Demarche which is the 1st step to a formal break in diplomatic relations. Putin is not bluffing.
Posted by: Likklemore | Feb 23 2023 19:15 utc | 109
These messages are for the internal public. Like the story with chips from washing machines and other brain farts. They do the same thing in Taiwan. Will increase US forces, more weapons, local weapon factories, new visit from Pentagon. If Russia and China accept it, why stop? The only thing that can force peace where US wants war is a real army, big and strong. Russia has a small and weak army in Ukr, will never achieve peace no matter how many years of medieval artillery duels they do. Terrorists will continue attacks, no need for Ukr soldiers, they’re only to meat grind Russians, no winning planned.
Posted by: rk | Feb 23 2023 20:06 utc | 132
WHAT is a war of aggression? Why does the German mass media use this term incessantly?
Posted by: Oberbayer | Feb 23 2023 19:04 utc | 106
Its just propaganda for people who can’t think for themselves. Similar to “hate crime” as if you’d do crime because you love the victim. German mass madia is insulting the intelligence of the people and they pay for it.
Posted by: Vikichka | Feb 23 2023 20:07 utc | 133
Posted by: KitaySupport | Feb 23 2023 19:41 utc | 124
Probably all of these russophobe states were promised by CIA or Biden or Nuland etc. that Russia will collapse. That’s what Borrell said days before SMO even began.
Now that she did not, the a-holes don’t know what to do and don’t know how to quit. So suddenly Stoltenberg started talking about “logistical war” which he knows nothing about and need to “make more artillery shells” n stuff. They have absolutely no clue. So now they made up this Transnistria provocation, and US shipped hazardous chemical or radioactive containers to Odessa. Once Russia blows that warehouse(s) up, they will spread that stuff and claim it was a nuke. That’s their next escalation plan. And one doesn’t need to guess twice whether the dumbed down western population will swallow it.
Russia already told US before that they consider US nuclear provocation in Ukraine a nuclear attack on Russia, so we’re once again hanging on a single thread here. In last July 2022, or so, when the media was last time banging up nuclear threat and advising everyone to get iodine tablets was the last provocation plan, which failed due to Russian MOD exposing it to every defense minister and nation in the world. Now is the other one, but MSM doesn’t say anything about similar threat.
Like they say, the revolution isn’t televised.
Posted by: unimperator | Feb 23 2023 20:09 utc | 134
karlof1 @ 113
Yes, it would be nice if a button could be pressed that stopped then reoriented everything, but that’s fairyland thinking, not serious geopolitical reasoning.
Michael Hudson, true to form, nailed it right at the start of the SMO – Hybrid war, 10-20 years to resolve.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Feb 23 2023 20:15 utc | 135
@too scents, §83:
Unbelievable!
He´ll be worse than StolenTurd.
WW3 is getting too close for comfort.
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 20:21 utc | 137
Rumour has it Ukraine is big time fortifying their side of the border with Belarus.
I’m lacking a primary source.
Anyone got one?
Posted by: Irish | Feb 23 2023 20:25 utc | 138
@aristodemos, §86:
Chatham House is the British government´s think tank where their equivalent of NeoCons live. And they´re much more psychotic than your NeoCons. Funded by UK taxpayer.
Tavistock Institute is the outfit that run the gender-bending Tavistock Clinic, now closed down in disgrace! But the association keeps going and runs all “human resources”, manipulating appointments to fit ´quotas´, etc. Funded by UK taxpayer.
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 20:29 utc | 139
Marvin @ 119
German National Television has interpreted Hersh’s phrase “… plant shaped charges” as “charges shaped like plants”
Yikes! If I accept that twitter as correct, and no reason I shouldn’t, then what little respect I have left Germans goes out the window. Not so much for the creators of the tweet, or the readers, or the handful that ingested and in their limited way processed it, but for German society as a whole where such nursery school level brainwashing is both manufactured and absorbed. Where nothing is deemed too stupid to not be worth trying, that someone saw a large enough audience of imbeciles worthy of this effort, if effort is the right word for tweets.
You have to wonder how such simplistic dullards manage to make such nice industrial products and run such a clean and presentable country. Idiot savants? And, apologies to the Germans on MoA, you are excluded from my ridicule.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Feb 23 2023 20:32 utc | 140
Posted by: Buffalo_Ken | Feb 23 2023 17:52 utc | 84, 87 & 88
Honestly Ken, if you’re still around, you didn’t miss anything. The original post #1 was a copypaste of a post that has popped up in several different threads; it never adds anything to the discussion, just rehearsing points that are long since out of date and the poster (who has used several different handles to post the same thing BTW) never returns to engage with anyone else, or uses the same username if he does.
I suspect it’s a troll who simply seeks to derail things, so there isn’t any censorship involved, just clearing out a nuisance like a drain blockage.
Although I have never directly responded to your posts (there’s just too much going on at times!) I have found value in them, so if you read this and decide to return there’s a drink in the till for you.
Posted by: West of England Andy | Feb 23 2023 20:34 utc | 141
ah what, russia dies every evening and revives every morning like a phenix
I mean Putin is Omnipotent ( he can win a election for trump with 5 rubles but didnt care this time)
So not even sure what they mean russia can “disintegrate”
Posted by: Macpott | Feb 23 2023 20:35 utc | 142
Can someone please tell me why the Russian troops in Transnistria don’t blow up the ammo storage facility? The Ukes are desparate for ammo and this is 100% going to be attacked very soon. Blow it up, and there’s no more threat.
Posted by: Webulls | Feb 23 2023 20:42 utc | 143
Posted by: Irish | Feb 23 2023 20:25 utc | 139
Ukraine fortification on Belarus border. Looks like just over 2m high trenches with wooden sidewalls, just like WW1.
https://t.me/intelslava/45022
Dima on Military Summary has an interesting view on China. He thinks China will join the SMO for several reasons. There were Ukraine source rumors that Xi had presented Zelensky some kind of vision of how peace could come in Ukraine and what needs to be done. Zelensky supposedly denied and refused the whole plan outright.
Secondly, China needs somewhere to test their weapons, so they don’t get any surprises when encountering US near Taiwan or elsewhere. The one thing they are suffering about they aren’t getting any real weapon testing or battle experience and in that sense dropping behind everyone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC2kSgm5fC8
Posted by: unimperator | Feb 23 2023 20:48 utc | 144
Posted by: Quid Me Vexare | Feb 23 2023 19:07 utc | 107
You can get just about all his stuff, now public domain, at https://libgen.is/.
I remember reading Down and Out in Paris and London – a lesser known work – when just out of high school and for reasons to this day I find hard to determine it changed my life. On the surface it’s a short book describing his time as a tramp in England and a plongeur (dishwasher) in Paris, both ‘lowest of the low’ positions in society which serve as an introduction, for the reader of generally priviledged and English background, an unvarnished glimpse into lower class life. (As I recall there is also a section describing the family life of typical miners in Wales but perhaps this is a muddled memory.)
But it is much more than that. I think perhaps what he did was by giving his reader a glimpse of lived reality in hard conditions he penetrated the veil of typical class estrangements that exist in all sorts of ways – and especially back then in Britain – to reveal raw human experience without class considerations, humanity before the Art that is the essence of civilizationally imposed behaviours, including linguistic and other conventions. The result is not that the reader watches the main characters from afar as if getting a glimpse of life on the other side, but somehow Orwell has everyone meeting everyone at the same eye and heart level. Or something. It’s a very unusual work and although I might not find it of any interest today, at the time I found it changed my perception of humanity considerably – and for the better.
kudos to @oldhippie for bringing him up. Fascinating that he might be a fictive identity or some such. Though I suspect more MI6 than CIA. Tons of Old Harrovians and Etonians in the secret services. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Life is an endless parade of post-prandial in-house performances, after all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDIHrX-Jp2E
Hilarious
Paco @ 85
This is why he is a great writer. Immense quantity of tittle tattle may be brought forward against Orwell. It never matters.
Posted by: @yahoo.com | Feb 23 2023 20:53 utc | 146
Who do they want to read this?
Posted by: oldhippie | Feb 23 2023 15:53 utc | 29
Rest of World. duh.
Posted by: sln2002 | Feb 23 2023 20:53 utc | 147
Re: Webulls @144,
The Russians no doubt, could detonate the ammo dumps very quickly (it would probably take 3-5 hours to do it safely once they get the order). The issue would be could the Ukrainians rush the ammo dumps before the guards are ready, which is quite possible (I think some of the dumps are within an hour’s drive of the boarder). However, even if the Ukrainians capture the dumps the Russians would almost certainly level the dumps with missile strikes long before the Ukrainians could move all of the supplies out (note: there are civilians near some of the dumps so the Russian might hold back on a few of the sites, but most of them are clear of population centers), so I don’t think the ammo dumps are the magical cure all for the Ukrainians ammo woes. logistically speaking, it would also be extremely difficult for the Ukrainians to move the supplies back into Ukraine, they would need hundreds of trucks so even in the best case I dont think the Ukrainians would be able to walk away with more than a 1/3 of the supplies, which would only be enough supplies for 3-4 month.
Posted by: Kadath | Feb 23 2023 20:55 utc | 148
Irish @ 139
Rumour has it Ukraine is big time fortifying their side of the border with Belarus. I’m lacking a primary source. Anyone got one?
It’s been all over TG since the end of summer, at this point I’d hazard that a primary source isn’t needed. In a way it’s a good sign, hundreds of kilometers of minefields supposedly, which would impede a AFU assault into Belarus as much as a attack from Belarus. But, I’ve no idea if an attack from Belarus was in the planning, the big winter offensive or maybe the surrounding of Kharkov, so it may have successfully put the Russians in check like the Russian fortifications put the AFU in check along the Crimean land bridge from Kherson to Zaporizhzhia and also around Belgorod. It really is like WW1, ugly, nowhere for anyone to go but into a meat grinder, back and forth for a few kilometers. Belarus will stay well away from that.
Word on TG is also of constant taunts from the AFU as if they want Belarus to slam into their fortifications. Between Ukraine’s fortifications and Poland’s military build up along their border Belarus appears boxed in and immobilized, which is not a good thing for the MoD but buys the Belarus military time which I really bet it needs. Seems we can check off Belarus?
I think the Chinese should send a division or two or three of “peacekeepers” to Belarus to help protect it, just like the west likes to do, good for the goose, good for the gander. That would free up the Belorussian and RF forces there. Are you listening China? 🙃
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Feb 23 2023 21:04 utc | 149
@shadowbanned #126
I recognize Putin is no Stalin, who once said (I’m paraphrasing) that the atomic bomb is to atomic energy what the electric chair is to electricity. If things are as ominous as you suggest, then perhaps you might be able to answer a question I’ve grappled with for a while. It doesn’t have anything to do with nuclear war. But it’s a question that has really bugged me and from reading past posts of your, you might have some insights. I know that the party included many great people like Manuilsky, Voroshilov, Zhadanov, Kaganovich and Molotov. And surely, there were many other great people who were among ~27 million who died in WWII. My question is why weren’t people in the party able to see through Krushchev – his lies, vilification, slander of Stalin and resist his revisionism?
Posted by: zeke2u | Feb 23 2023 21:06 utc | 150
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Feb 23 2023 15:09 utc | 5
2022 G7 Summit n Schloss Elmau, Bavaria
(l-r): IT, EUCo (vdL), US, DE, UK. CA, JP, FR, CoEU (Michel)
9 heads of the G7
Posted by: sln2002 | Feb 23 2023 21:08 utc | 151
Webulls @ 144
Can someone please tell me why the Russian troops in Transnistria don’t blow up the ammo storage facility? The Ukes are desparate for ammo and this is 100% going to be attacked very soon. Blow it up, and there’s no more threat.
I’m no expert, there was a poster here from the PMR who could answer that, but off hand I’d say and awful lot of people live near the place? There’s over 8 billion people on the planet, people live near everything. Maybe there’s something really huge to blow up near where you live?
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Feb 23 2023 21:11 utc | 152
Posted by: West of England Andy | Feb 23 2023 20:34 utc | 142
Your kindness is appreciated. I got it…I’m embarrassed to say, I came back to read here after my “temper tantrum”, but I think it is time for me to focus on matters close to home – I’ve got peppers I’m tending to. My “URL” link is different this time and I slipped another different one in one time, but I didn’t point it out. I can be reached and I will respond directly. I respect the posters here and I’m sorry for getting upset. I have a fierce temper – I was born with it. My daughter’s temper is even more fierce – like father like daughter I reckon. Sorry for being sappy.
I have an aversion to editing in the background, I think it is better to just let the posts stand and readers discern, but of course tis the discretion of the host. Sometimes my emotions get the best of me – precarious times we are living in – sad in a way but exhilarating….I want to watch the video of the Russian WWII memorial place, but it is “no longer available” and that pisses me off.
I think I’m advising myself to be a lurker rather than a poster, and frankly I’m very concerned because I think matters are most serious. I hope wiser minds prevail, and I salute you.
BK
Posted by: Buffalo_Ken | Feb 23 2023 21:16 utc | 153
Conventional wisdom, aka “everybody knows”, is congregating around the idea that enthusiasm for supporting the government of Ukraine is declining. And that maybe that’s a good thing.
Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti aren’t the equivalent of Walter Cronkite during the Viet Nam war*, it’s just that their bland but with high ratings show draws in the kind of audience that is typical of voters who are open to changing their minds when the information they’re getting dictates that’s for the best.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Cronkite#Vietnam_War
US, Global Support For Ukraine Aid PLUMMETS | Breaking Points
Krystal and Saagar discuss new polling data from The United States and around the world on how much support for continuing aid to Ukraine has dropped.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3XGJwMDT90
Posted by: Babel-17 | Feb 23 2023 21:16 utc | 154
Hoping more Europeans come to the realization that some of us Yanks now understand. The leverage power of the Bank$ter elite is such that each and every significant institution in the U$$A has become massively corrupted due to the ability of those enemies of common humanity to employ a combination of blackmail and bribery to control influential individuals in positions of influence and power.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 16:35 utc
Just know this…BlackRock and their Alladin AI control 70% of the U.S. Stock Market as concerns HFT. The U.S. Government & Treasury are all in cahoots with them as is their Proxy investor Group Vanguard. I’m curious how the likes of BlackRock and now J.P. Morgan are going to invest in the Ukraine when all is said and done. The Term “Banker Wars” gets new meaning.
Posted by: Cond Zero | Feb 23 2023 21:26 utc | 155
inspector General @114
Amazing, Grace: All one has to do here on MoA is cite some historical reality at whatever level we understand it and another poster will fill in the blanks. Thanks… If recall is correct, Burnham in the U.S. was yet another disenchanted Marxist, likened to Djilas and Koestler. Centralized regimes inevitably appear to devolve into the Iron Law of Bureaucracy; where the apparatchiks take over from the idealists…the bigger the country, the more extreme the devolution.
Yes, the workings of psychohistory are quite amazing in how revolutions seem to rapidly devolve into devolutions.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 21:28 utc | 156
G20 is not “defunct”. 2022 presidency was Indonesia, and G7 + ROK were politely handed their asses on the “sidelines” for trying to ram Ukraine “solidarity” down everyone’s throats.
2023 presidency is India.
G20 (est’d. 1999) FR, DE, IT, ES, JP, UK, US, EU-CO, EU-EC, AU, CA, KR; RU, CN, AR, BR, IN, ID, MX, SA, ZA, TR
So. What do these nations (bold face) have in common?
Posted by: sln2002 | Feb 23 2023 21:28 utc | 157
Posted by: Light Sleeper | Feb 23 2023 21:18 utc | 156
Anti-zionism is always correct. Always.
Posted by: irish al | Feb 23 2023 21:28 utc | 158
@Oberbayer, §106:
Succinct and to the point, as usual, Oberbayer.
As an Oberösterreicher, I agree with every word you say.
Why can´t Sara Wagenknecht and Cristina Anderson get together and sort Germany out?
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 21:29 utc | 159
Can someone please tell me why the Russian troops in Transnistria don’t blow up the ammo storage facility? The Ukes are desparate for ammo and this is 100% going to be attacked very soon. Blow it up, and there’s no more threat.
Besides the safety angle, some that ammo is useful to Russia. Pre-emptively wasting it makes zero sense unless you somehow believe that the military is incapable of blowing shit up, which is basically their core competency.
Posted by: Chris | Feb 23 2023 21:30 utc | 160
Shadowy One @126
Once again your “concern” is underwhelming.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 21:31 utc | 161
@too scents, §108:
Lindsey Graham and Boris Johnson are two of the most dangerous, psychotic fools wandering the Earth today.
Both should be packed off to the recruiting station in Kiev.
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 21:33 utc | 162
John Marks @132
Curious how those 1923 hyper inflated Marks were probably far cheaper than standard grade buttwiper.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 21:34 utc | 163
rk @133
Are you off your RocKer? Russia with a small and weak army in Ukrainian occupied western ethnic Russia? I mean that’s just stoopid trolling. Paid professional trolls usually do a bit better…especially when plenty of info is available as to the actual or probable #’s of Russian troops on or near the battlefront.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 21:37 utc | 164
US raising its troop counts in Taiwan from 100 to 200. It is a provocation, but won’t by itself result in anything. AFAIK most people in Taiwan oppose US generated escalation. Unless Taiwan or US attacks first, nothing will happen. In case of blockade attempts of US, there might be some physical response.
I think the stops are pulled for China re. Ukraine. If they beat the USA there, they will have an easier time later in their home waters and turf.
Meanwhile it’s reported that the situation in Transnistria is getting more serious and UAF is placing artillery in position, and flying drones overhead. It will most likely be tomorrow?
Posted by: unimperator | Feb 23 2023 21:38 utc | 165
John Marks @140
Thanks for the uptick on Chatham House and the Tavistock Institute getting funding on the sweat of the British taxpayer. If there were any decency in City of London, the Rottenchild Crime Clan should totally fund their own front-organizations.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 21:40 utc | 166
Scott Ritter discusses the ammo inventory here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg7UoIKnW1c
I guess Transnistria is a great lure for the nazi forces and I hear Dima telling of nazi forces massing at the border and an invasion any minute and enough ammo to supply Ukies for a year etc, etc. Time will tell.
Its a small place and I guess there is a fairly wide exclusion zone around each arsenal by now. So perhaps we get to see nazis rush in and – boom. Regardless any concentration of Uke army is a target for the turkey shoot.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Feb 23 2023 21:40 utc | 167
Kadath | Feb 23 2023 20:55 utc | 149
Count trains in as a means of moving ammunition quickly. I have seen various mentions of empty wagons (and empty trucks) on the Ukrainian side. Plus a lot of vehicles which could be used for mobile forces in Bulgaria or moving from Odessa.
Note also the possibility of a diversionary attack from or near Kherson (Even as far upstream as Zaphorizhia Nuclear plant) or the Kinburn Spit. Evidently there are about five armoured boats that have been “delivered” recently. (This could mean that the British Navy forces might be involved?)
@Posted by: zeke2u | Feb 23 2023 21:06 utc | 151
My question is why weren’t people in the party able to see through Krushchev – his lies, vilification, slander of Stalin and resist his revisionism?
The leadership were a bunch of middle-aged mediocre men who had survived being next to Stalin for many years, while watching so many removed/demoted/executed and being terrorized themselves (Stalin even jailed one of their wives). Khrushchev had allied with General Zhukov and had Beria (head of secret police) executed. Some of them may have been happy to see their tormentor slandered and vilified. The hardliners did try to remove him in 1957 and very nearly succeeded (he was helped here by Zhukov), then finally succeeded in 1964 after his failures and embarrassments on the world stage. What followed was the Brezhnev years when bureaucracy, power centres, corruption and nihilism set in. One of the biggest mistakes they made was to get rid of extra pay for extra output and not to rotate bureaucratic heads to remove the possibilities of individual “kingdoms” being established.
@Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 23 2023 19:45 utc | 127
One mistake being made by many is belief in the economic stats published by the Outlaw US Empire, which are filled with lies just like everything else it says. The GDP measure is by far the one most overstated since the economy’s overhead costs are added as plusses instead of subtracted as the costs they most certainly are which amounts to a double counting on the plus side. The healthcare overhead cost by itself would reduce GDP by $7 Trillion at minimum as I’ve shown before. The primary result is that China now has the world’s largest economy by every measure.
So true, the counting of fee-based financial services as output rather than a cost, the fiddling with the inflation rate to make it lower and therefore real GDP higher, the MIC weapons produced at great costs and intentionally produced to be complicated enough to optimize profits and ongoing maintenance costs being shown to be next to useless, monopolies, oligopolies and monopsonies everywhere … it goes on and on. A rentier economy full of economic rents counted as output. A significant amount of the value-added produced abroad is also counted as US “output” given the US-owned nature of many of the Global Value Chains and the accounting for profits on foreign production (rentier profits on foreign production counted as US production).
Light Sleeper @156
It would appear that you have a dog in the fight…ethnic brotherhood perhaps?
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 21:47 utc | 170
re: Transnistria/PMR: I have a question that’s puzzled me for a while now, how has Russia been supplying, rotating, sending home on leave, etc etc the ~1500 RF soldiers stationed there? Have they been marooned there since the start of the SMO? Are Russian military flights going in and out of the PMR?
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Feb 23 2023 21:49 utc | 171
Are you off your RocKer? Russia with a small and weak army in Ukrainian occupied western ethnic Russia? I mean that’s just stoopid trolling. Paid professional trolls usually do a bit better…especially when plenty of info is available as to the actual or probable #’s of Russian troops on or near the battlefront.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 21:37 utc | 166
He is correct.
They went in with a small and weak army, then Ukraine mobilized and was armed to the teeth by the West, so it became even more mistmatched, and the reaction to that was a pathetically insufficient partial mobilization by RU with most of those forces still sitting in Russia, not in Ukraine. So the army in Ukraine is still small and weak.
Also, technically right now there are almost no Russian forces in Ukraine at all — only in that small northeastern corner of Kharkov oblast.
Other than that there are only a lot of Ukrainian forces in Russia — in Kherson, Zaporozhye, DNR and LNR.
Posted by: shadowbanned | Feb 23 2023 21:49 utc | 172
Posted by: oldhippie | Feb 23 2023 18:25 utc | 96
Orwell was Information Research Department.
E. Howard Hunt curated the movie version of “Animal Farm” which I was very much impressed with as a child.
Posted by: Cherrycoke | Feb 23 2023 21:50 utc | 173
Cond Zero @157
Thanks for the further info on Blackrock and Vanguard. Their ability to control all those pension funds, et al indicates to me that their undisclosed ownership established them with plenty of initial capital courtesy of their control over the Bank$ter dominated printing presses, most particularly those enabled by the U$$A Department of the Treasury, which has been headed up by a control agent from Goldman-Sachs, to the most recent of my research, being a holding of the descendants of the most powerful of the Turn of the Century prime minion for the central string-pullers, Jacob Schiff.
Fascinating that the daughter of Al Gore Rythms, father of the faux department of climate concern global-warning freaks, married UP into the Schiff legacy inheritants.
Posted by: aristodemos | Feb 23 2023 21:52 utc | 174
Thank you Barflies for the awesome insights!
I’m sensing that something more is being added to the fortifications in the last days?
will keep searching…
surprised that Belarus hasn’t joined Russia yet.
watching China and waiting for their move (possibly tomorrow in Xi’s speech) is blowing my mind.
objectively, this is fascinating to watch unfold and roll out.
but then i remember that i live on this planet, with those i love, and it turns to a slow rising terror from places of knowing deep inside.
i will be happy with a multipolar world…not sure about the process of getting there though.
Posted by: Irish | Feb 23 2023 21:55 utc | 175
@karlof1, §113:
Maidan wasn´t the first American coup against the Ukraine.
They tried it ten years previously with their “orange Revolution”.
But the Ukrainians threw the EU-leaning PM out at the next election and elected Yanukovich.
So, in 2014, the Americans decided to make sure and Victoria Nuland picked the new PM and ensured the army was anti-Russian – by promoting Banderites (i.e. neo-Nazis)!
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 21:56 utc | 176
@shadowbanned | Feb 23 2023 19:50 utc | 129
Re:Kharkov
I don’t blame any front line unit for wanting all of the support in the world to be flying over their heads, but as far as the suggestions of butthurt Russian ultra nationalists go it’s pretty apparent that the Russian MoD didn’t like opportunity cost of trying to destroy the Kharkov grouping of the Ukrainian forces with standoff weapons.
If I recall correctly the 2nd Kharkov withdrawal was the first Russian withdrawal during the first of the Ukrainian offensives. It went the least smoothly, and I recall some Russian aligned forces needing rescue, etc. That hardly makes it a fiasco.
Despite the howling of butthurt Russian nationalists, and the cheering in the pro-Maidan camp, hindsight shows that the series of Russia withdrawals was the right call. Ukraine won great media victories but squandered their offensive potential. The Russians suffered light losses, and stabilized the front.
Posted by: Another James | Feb 23 2023 22:01 utc | 177
Cond Zero | Feb 23 2023 21:26 utc | 157
All the “big” boys are already heavily invested in Ukraine. However, Blackrock has some sort of deal with Zelensky, where Blackrock is the one controlling (or dolling out) the parcels of assets.
The biggest question (about this situation) is how much the trillion dollar derivatives market is “based” on using “assets” from Ukraine as collateral. A total implosion of the Corporates and Oligarchs who have used, a now theoretical, asset owned in Ukraine as collateral for speculation, could even sink the whole pile of interlinked daisy chains. Now THAT would be a sudden collapse of the shit show.
Posted by: shadowbanned | Feb 23 2023 21:49 utc | 174
as I understood they grow bigger,
200 first volunteers
Posted by: Macpott | Feb 23 2023 22:04 utc | 179
re: stonebird,
Yes, Trains are the preferred way of moving artillery shells (which is what I think the Ukrainians really want from these dumps), however I’m not sure how well the train systems are working on the Ukrainian side. if the Ukrainians do have the trucks and trains to move the supplies out of the ammo dumps it would still take several days, maybe a week, to move everything out for the ammo dumps, so the ball would fall into the Russian court, do they destroy the dumps before the Ukrainians take the supplies or not? The Russians obviously know where the dumps are and people have been mentioning the potential for the Ukrainians to try and seize them for several months, so one would think they have a plan to counter that.
Posted by: Kadath | Feb 23 2023 22:06 utc | 180
I recognize Putin is no Stalin, who once said (I’m paraphrasing) that the atomic bomb is to atomic energy what the electric chair is to electricity. If things are as ominous as you suggest, then perhaps you might be able to answer a question I’ve grappled with for a while. It doesn’t have anything to do with nuclear war. But it’s a question that has really bugged me and from reading past posts of your, you might have some insights. I know that the party included many great people like Manuilsky, Voroshilov, Zhadanov, Kaganovich and Molotov. And surely, there were many other great people who were among ~27 million who died in WWII. My question is why weren’t people in the party able to see through Krushchev – his lies, vilification, slander of Stalin and resist his revisionism?
Posted by: zeke2u | Feb 23 2023 21:06 utc | 151
Who said people didn’t see through it?
The thing that everyone needs to understand about the Stalin years is that he was in constant internal war with much of the party. He wasn’t an all-powerful dictator by any means. Maybe for a brief period after the war he approached that level, but not before it.
The Trotsky/Stalin split is well known, and I am on Stalin’s side of it, but that doesn’t mean Trotsky wasn’t correct about a lot of things. One of them was the prediction that eventually a new bourgeois class will emerge from the ranks of the party as an entrenched bureaucracy develops. He wasn’t alone in that — this issue occupied the Bolsheviks from the start, it is forgotten now because it was buried by the party itself in the later decades (it was inconvenient to discuss it because of the implications) and then became taboo once communism collapsed because such discussions would expose the real reasons why it collapsed (which would undermine the triumphalist Western capitalist narrative).
Stalin had a solution — we will do purges, through which we will both renew the bureaucracy periodically and cut the head of the snake before it grows too much.
That is what the 1930s purges were about, although he walked a very tight rope there as it got really out of control and for quite some time there was real danger he himself may have ended in the basement of Lubyanka.
The problem is that then the war came, and the country was devastated and exhausted. There was no appetite for further purges after that.
So Khrushchev comes and you move from a system in which if you were in charge of some enterprise and were incompetent and/or corrupt, you either got shot or sent to a GULAG camp (which is about the only system ever designed in human history that works without corruption and for the common good), to one in which you only got demoted. Then Brezhnev comes and even that went away, if you f****d up, you got moved horizontally to an equivalent in rank position but in a different field. Then eventually even that stopped and it became rare for people to be punished.
Once that condition set in, the system became feudalized and that layer of the nomenklatura decided to dismantle it because it was more beneficial to them to move to capitalism (where they would be free to loot without constraints). Precisely as Trotsky had predicted.
Again, many people did see it in the 1950s and 1960s (those open discussion about that issue were still fresh in memory then), but society was tired and exhausted and didn’t have the energy to fight another vicious internal war and stop the process.
This is one of the many reasons WWII was a loss for the USSR despite it being a winner on the surface.
The Anglo-Saxons eventually got what they wanted out of it — they pitted the Germans against the Soviets in order to destroy and subjugate both, and although it took a few decades, eventually both objectives were achieved.
Posted by: shadowbanned | Feb 23 2023 22:07 utc | 181
unimperator #145
Dima on Military Summary has an interesting view on China. He thinks China will join the SMO for several reasons. There were Ukraine source rumors that Xi had presented Zelensky some kind of vision of how peace could come in Ukraine and what needs to be done. Zelensky supposedly denied and refused the whole plan outright.
Secondly, China needs somewhere to test their weapons, so they don’t get any surprises when encountering US near Taiwan or elsewhere. The one thing they are suffering about they aren’t getting any real weapon testing or battle experience and in that sense dropping behind everyone.
Sometimes I think Dima is toking on Peganum Harmala aka Syrian Rue.
The Chinese inventory of military drones is mighty advanced but I doubt they need real battle conditions to reveal their capacity. Russia likely has or can no doubt rapidly acquire same kit either locally or otherwise if they deem it necessary. Better to keep essential surprises for USA when they try to invade the China province of Taiwan.
The USA is now doing real weapon testing and battle experience in the Ukraine and clearly wants no more to do with that other than propagandise. Once you lose in Afghanistan and then Ukraine in two years you are left with some writing on the wall to be deciphered.
This NATO battle is for the long haul and I see in telegram we are soon to be insulted by Boris the Menace as NATO head fool :/
Annalena Baerbock is likely next after the German public gets to the polls.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Feb 23 2023 22:07 utc | 182
I don’t blame any front line unit for wanting all of the support in the world to be flying over their heads, but as far as the suggestions of butthurt Russian ultra nationalists go it’s pretty apparent that the Russian MoD didn’t like opportunity cost of trying to destroy the Kharkov grouping of the Ukrainian forces with standoff weapons.
Posted by: Another James | Feb 23 2023 22:01 utc | 179
What opportunity cost?
They were hitting empty repair shops while trains with tanks, SPG and soldiers were left untouched.
For still completely unfathomable reasons.
There were plenty of missiles to do the job (flying at other indisputably much less important targets), officers in the field were requesting missile strikes, they didn’t come.
Why?
And why are no missiles flying at AFU along the PMR border now? Same situation.
Posted by: shadowbanned | Feb 23 2023 22:11 utc | 183
My 3 letters:
WHAT is a war of aggression? Why does the German mass media use this term incessantly? In the history of all US wars of aggression (from Vietnam to Iraq), there have been no
such vicious accusations against the USA, as is the case now against RU.
I think the water is at the bottom of the West’s lip, and those who are fighting for their survival are not acting rationally, they are lashing out in the hope of reaching the saving shore before the tide comes crashing down on them.
And what is Putin doing? He stirs up a little more wind to fill the drowning people’s lungs with water more quickly.
Posted by: Oberbayer | Feb 23 2023 19:04 utc | 106
Just polemic propaganda that is also flung about anything they want to discredit. Fling in Unrechtsstaat, SED-Regime, Diktator, you name it. Whether it is against former East Germany, Russia, China or whomever they have in their sights. Blatant one-sided propaganda at a very basic level.
As for Angriffskrieg, have a look at this article (German)
https://publikumskonferenz.de/blog/2023/01/22/angriffskrieg/
There is not a single war “fought” by the US of A or NATO that was anything but a “war of aggression”, but history for Western mass media lives only in the here and now, and what happened before February 2022 is of no concern. I truly wonder how these quality media chaps and experts can actually look into the mirror every day and not suffer a stroke because of the gutless, cowardly and lying creature that looks back.
Posted by: CM of Berlin | Feb 23 2023 22:11 utc | 184
Cherrycoke @ 175
Just checked that. Seems correct and widely known. I was not one of those who knew. Thank you.
Orwell’s health was failing by this time. Could not have devoted that much time to the job. And says something that he gave what energy he had to the task. Difficult and unlikely that any escape their class origins. Also amazing that work produced to order still has literary value and has use to those who completely oppose the IRD.
Just saw a couple accounts of Orwell “turning in” Communists. Laughable. Look at who they were. All members of the club. Sure they shared some laughs over this episode.
Posted by: oldhippie | Feb 23 2023 22:12 utc | 185
@ Chris, §162:
Another reason why the Russians should make Odessa their first priority.
Blow the bridges over the Dniester and secure the Black Sea coast´s western border.
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 22:17 utc | 186
I don’t blame any front line unit for wanting all of the support in the world to be flying over their heads, but as far as the suggestions of butthurt Russian ultra nationalists go it’s pretty apparent that the Russian MoD didn’t like opportunity cost of trying to destroy the Kharkov grouping of the Ukrainian forces with standoff weapons.
Posted by: Another James | Feb 23 2023 22:01 utc | 179What opportunity cost?
They were hitting empty repair shops while trains with tanks, SPG and soldiers were left untouched.
For still completely unfathomable reasons.
There were plenty of missiles to do the job (flying at other indisputably much less important targets), officers in the field were requesting missile strikes, they didn’t come.
Why?
More on that:
That job didn’t even need Iskanders, a couple Tornado MLRS systems operating from Belgorod would have taken care of the whole problem.
Even the argument that trains are linear targets so a single explosion isn’t sufficient doesn’t work here.
First, the Tornado-S GMLRS rockets are independently targetable (unlike HIMARS) so you can cover the whole train with a single salvo.
Second, Tornado-S has special anti-armor rockets with self-targeting submunitions that descend upon armored vehicles from above (the top is usually the weakest part) and destroy them one by one. That was developed to take out armored formations on the move — 8 x 9M533 rockets x 5 submunitions, and there go 40 armored vehicles in one salvo. Somehow that hasn’t been used at all so far in the war as far as I can tell…
Why?
Posted by: shadowbanned | Feb 23 2023 22:19 utc | 187
My first ever post. I felt the need after watching the BBC news at 10 in the U.K.
They are claiming 60’000 dead Russians & only 20’000 dead Ukrainians. Their source is the U.K ministry of defence.
The brainwashing has reached epidemic proportions.
Posted by: Deadshot | Feb 23 2023 22:19 utc | 188
@aristodemos, §168:
You´re so right, aristo.
So many of these quangos (NGOs) pursue their vested interests – and put in their bill for their time on Joe Public!
They once had things called “quango-culls”. One is long overdue now.
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 22:21 utc | 189
@John Marks 188
Yes, this would be a good time for that move. Gaming it out, what if while the Ukrainians made their desperate raid on Transnistia, the Russian operation to take Odessa sprung into action? Then trap the Ukies in Moldova.
I worry about the Russian troops around that ammo dump being held as human shields so that Mr. Kinzhal can’t arrive. Not sure about the geography, but one option might be to retreat into Moldova and blow the dump up on the way out. I don’t think the Ukies are capable of surrounding the dump, but it should be a contingency plan. This next week smells like trouble.
Posted by: Chris | Feb 23 2023 22:23 utc | 190
@ stonebird, §180:
What a delightful prospect!
Blackrock et al. must be putting the pressure on Congress and the three fools (Blinken, Nuland & Sullivan) to keep up the pressure on Brandon, doubtless waving all Hunter´s kompromat before him.
Would they push it to WW3?
Posted by: John Marks | Feb 23 2023 22:31 utc | 191
@shadowbanned, #185
They were hitting empty repair shops while trains with tanks, SPG and soldiers were left untouched.
For still completely unfathomable reasons.
There were plenty of missiles to do the job (flying at other indisputably much less important targets), officers in the field were requesting missile strikes, they didn’t come.
Why?
I have been asking myself the same question for some time now! Don’t they want to – if so, why – or can’t they do it better?
Posted by: Hardrockfan229 | Feb 23 2023 22:33 utc | 192
I see everyone is referencing Simplicius’s articles at his Substack that I’ve already pointed out.
i second that. Everyone should be subscribed to Simplicius Substack. It’s free and full of good analyses of the Ukraine situation. Link is:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/
Also I’d like to thank the four bar members who subscribed to my Substack just in the last 12 hours. A huge percentage of my subscribers have come from MoA, and I appreciate that. I just wish I did more competent marketing elsewhere. 🙂
Meanwhile I don’t recall anyone posting this here yesterday:
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and Ray McGovern address UN Security Council on Nord Stream investigations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_EX-VwKjng
McGovern also posted this at Antiwar.com:
Washington Post Lets Hersh’s Dangerous Cat Out of the Bag
https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2023/02/22/washington-post-lets-hershs-dangerous-cat-out-of-the-bag/
Here’s an edited summary account by the UN of our testimony at the Security Council session:
SACHS: As the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines on 26 September 2022 constitutes an act of international terrorism and represents a threat to peace, it is the Council’s responsibility to take up the question of who might have carried out the act, help bring the perpetrator to justice, pursue compensation for the damaged parties and prevent such actions from recurring in the future. Countries need full confidence that their infrastructure will not be destroyed by third parties.
The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines required a very high degree of planning, expertise and technological capacity, he continued, adding that only a handful of State-level actors have both the technical capacity and access to the Baltic Sea to have carried out this action. These include the Russian Federation, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Norway, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, either individually or in some combination.
Sweden has perhaps the most to tell the world about the crime scene; that country has kept the results of its investigation secret from the rest of the world. It has refused to share its findings with the Russian Federation and turned down a joint investigation with Denmark and Germany.
Pointing to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s detailed account of the Nord Stream destruction, he said his work attributes the Nord Stream destruction to a decision ordered by United States President Joseph R. Biden and carried out by United States agents in a covert operation. The Biden Administration has described Hersh’s account as “completely and utterly false” but did not offer any information contradicting Hersh’s account and/or any alternative explanation.
RAY MCGOVERN: Mr. Hersh attracts whistle-blowers because of his perfect record of protecting their identities and accurately publishing what they reveal, despite Government attacks. While some are now smearing Mr. Hersh, such critics do not themselves have a good record of credibility…
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) more than doubled in size, despite its promises not to. When Crimea was annexed by the Russian Federation, President Vladimir Putin noted that the country had to annex Crimea due to a February 2014 coup, and due to the prospect that medium-range ballistic missiles will be placed in already operational systems in Romania and Poland. Despite being disguised as anti-ballistic missile systems, they can easily accommodate hypersonic missiles.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Feb 23 2023 22:38 utc | 193
Stonebird @ 180
The biggest question (about this situation) is how much the trillion dollar derivatives market is “based” on using “assets” from Ukraine as collateral. A total implosion of the Corporates and Oligarchs who have used, a now theoretical, asset owned in Ukraine as collateral for speculation, could even sink the whole pile of interlinked daisy chains. Now THAT would be a sudden collapse of the shit show.
Nah, the entire neoliberal economy is Bad Debt, it’s a feature not a bug, and to the parasitic class that benefits from it worth destroying the world over it. The whole financialization scheme is understanding that the other side of debt is an asset. Bigger the debt, bigger the assets. The plebs think debt is a hole into the abyss but the other side is a mountain of wealth, the infundibulum opens into a cornucopia of self licking ice cream cones.
Here’s the clincher, non productive debt, economically, culturally, personally, debilitating debt, societally corrosive debt, in other words Bad Debt, equals Bad Wealth. It’ll all come crashing down, probably slowly, likely in fits and starts, not all at once only because it’s enormous and pervasive – it’s our world after all, but it will unwind.
Ukraine debt/assets is just a mere drop in the bucket, it won’t be the straw that broke the camel’s back, camel’s been dead since 2008, it’s like the movie “Don’t Look Up” – don’t look at the dead camel.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Feb 23 2023 22:43 utc | 194
@180
@192
Yes.
Follow the money.
Not a lot of Big Money to made in peace time. War it is.
Imagine, continuing to maintain on paper the value of what have become theoretical assets but nonetheless still recognised (until they’re not) AND making crap tonnes of more money on the rebuilding of those same assets.
Double dipping.
The beauty of derivatives and hedgefunds and Wall St. and all the bullshit.
Posted by: Irish | Feb 23 2023 22:44 utc | 195
poll smoke, “United West, divided from the rest: Global public opinion one year into Russia’s war on Ukraine,” fanned by European Council on Foreign Relations appeared today in an SCMP column.
Yesterday(22.2.23) the UNGA passed a resolution, A/ES-11/L.1 (full text), demanding that Russia violation of Article 2 (4) of the Charter, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine, and immediately and unconditionally reverse the decision related to the status of certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Vote split, Yes 141, No 5, Abstain 35, is an interesting departure from last year’s resolutions and ranks “condemning” Russia.
Posted by: sln2002 | Feb 23 2023 22:46 utc | 196
Posted by: Deadshot | Feb 23 2023 22:19 utc | 190
Welcome aboard, there are a few of us Brits here, most of whom have long since given up taking the British MSM seriously.
As for the respective casualty figures, they are clouded by the fog of war, but Ursula von der Leyen accidentally let slip a figure of 100,000 Ukrainian deaths some weeks ago. Retired US Col. Douglas MacGregor (I think) has gone on record with a figure of 257,000. Many commentators on ‘alt’ forums reckon the casualty ratio is 10:1 Ukraine:Russia.
Even the BBC themselves started to compile figures for Russian deaths, by trying to observe public records, obituaries, family notices etc. They gave up on this when the numbers they found were too low to support the Empire’s narrative.
Posted by: West of England Andy | Feb 23 2023 22:47 utc | 197
I have been asking myself the same question for some time now! Don’t they want to – if so, why – or can’t they do it better?
Posted by: Hardrockfan229 | Feb 23 2023 22:33 utc | 194
They definitely can.
If missiles are precisely hitting objects in Vinnytsia while forces are amassing undisturbed in Kharkov, you know that the latter are left untouched not because of lack of technical ability to hit them.
That sort of thing is the reason why so many people in Russia are deeply worried about another grand betrayal coming.
In the West the people interested in the conflict are split in two camps — those following the official narrative and the pro-RU side. And the pro-RU side is strongly dominated by the view that Putin is some grand genius and completely committed to winning a decisive victory, and any setbacks are part of the grand master plan.
That is not at all the case in Russia — there is a very large sector of society there that watches absurd actions/non-actions such the ones we are discussing here, and sees another betrayal coming, from the very top. Because they have seen many such betrayals in the past, and their instincts are sharpened from the experience.
The pro-RU side in the West, which is pro-RU mostly for its own internal domestic and ideological reasons, not because it has always and sincerely been pro-RU, does not share that long painful experience.
Thus the disconnect.
This is also the origin of the “concern troll” name calling, calling for me to get banned from here, etc.
Posted by: shadowbanned | Feb 23 2023 22:48 utc | 198
shadowbanned #185
Perhaps the concept of ‘inept’ or ‘novice’ might apply. From what I see through my life of the most aggressive army on earth – USA – inept and even novice seems rife in these forces too. However, the Russian force is clearly sucking in and destroying nazis and Uke soldiers along a narrow band at the front line plus infrastructure around the Ukraine.
This battle will go on for some time and it is certainly confounding at times but the main game is Uke capitulation and transformation. Are there lessons from the German 1945 defeat here that guides Russia?
The Transnistria defence or loss could be a watershed for the Russian army. Now Transistria is sandwiched and it is almost too late to transform the defence of the garrison but then there is always the Kazakhstan style rushed defence but I would class that as an extremely risky move. All Russia is left with is demolition in the worst case. They just need to be prepared and even then I will believe it when I see it.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Feb 23 2023 22:52 utc | 199
On to Moscow!
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/on-to-moscow-the-nato-leader-said/
Some comments from an interview with Stephen Kotkin, historian of the Soviet Union, firmly on the the side of Ukraine, but has some interesting and realistic observations more people should hear and think about. Excerpts:
So here we are with Ukraine, and their definition of victory—as expressed by President Zelensky, who has certainly more than risen to the occasion—is to regain every inch of territory, reparations, and war-crimes tribunals. So how would Ukraine enact that definition of victory? They would have to take Moscow. How else can you get reparations and war-crime tribunals? They’re not that close to regaining every inch of their own territory, let alone the other aims.
If you look at the American definition of what the victory might look like, we’ve been very hesitant. The Biden Administration has been very careful to say, “Ukraine is fighting, Ukrainians are dying—they get to decide.” The Biden Administration has effectively defined victory from the American point of view as: Ukraine can’t lose this war. Russia can’t take all of Ukraine and occupy Ukraine, and disappear Ukraine as a state, as a nation.
But what would Biden—and U.S intelligence and the U.S. military—really like to see, in terms of a shift in attitude, if that’s the case?
We are slowly but surely increasing our support for Ukraine. First it was “Oh, no, we’re not sending that.” And then we send it. “Oh, no, we’re not sending himars,” the medium-range rocket systems. We sent them. “Oh, no, we’re not sending tanks.” Well, yes, we’re sending tanks. So there’s been a kind of grudging, gradual escalation because of the fear of what Putin could do on his side in an escalatory fashion. And so we’ve given enough so that Ukraine doesn’t lose, so that they can maybe push a little more on the battlefield, regain a little bit more territory, and be in a better place to negotiate.
Here’s the better definition of victory. Ukrainians rose up against their domestic tyrants. Why? Because they wanted to join Europe. It’s the same goal that they have now. And that has to be the definition of victory: Ukraine gets into the European Union. If Ukraine regains all of its territory and doesn’t get into the E.U., is that a victory? As opposed to: If Ukraine regains as much of its territory as it physically can on the battlefield, not all of it, potentially, but does get E.U. accession—would that be a definition of victory? Of course, it would be.
Says you, but would the Ukrainian leadership and the Ukrainian people accept a situation in which they’re in the E.U., but Donbas and Crimea remain in Russian hands?
Well, you accept it or you don’t accept it—meaning you continue to fight. And, if you continue to fight, your country, your people, continue to die, your infrastructure continues to get ruined. Your schools, your hospitals, your cultural artifacts get bombed or stolen. Your children get taken away as orphans. That’s where we are right now. I understand they want all of that territory back. But let’s imagine that they can’t take all the territory back on the battlefield. What then? We’re in a war of attrition right now, and in a war of attrition there’s only one way to win. You ramp up your production of weaponry, and you destroy the enemy’s production of weaponry—not the enemy’s weapons on the battlefield, but the enemy’s capability to resupply and produce more weapons. You have to out-produce in a war of attrition, and you have to crush the enemy’s production.
But he thought that he could take Kyiv, and arrest or kill Zelensky. That was the plan, that it would be a matter of days or weeks, tops. It hasn’t gone that way. On the use of nuclear weapons––it’s been made clear to him by representatives of Western governments and the United States precisely what kind of retaliation he could expect.
Yes, I think that’s a great policy. I’m very happy that that happened. But here’s the problem. He has the capabilities. He’s got a lot of capabilities short of nuclear weapons. He could poison the water supply in Kyiv with chemical and biological weapons. He could poison the water supply in London, and then he could deny that it’s his special operatives that are doing that. He could cut the undersea cables, so that we could not do this radio broadcast. He can blow up the infrastructure that carries gas or other energy supplies to Europe. He’s got submersibles, he’s got a submarine fleet, he’s got special ops who can go right down to the ocean floor where those pipelines are located.
What does restrain him?
We don’t know. You tell me. When someone has these capabilities, you have to pay attention. You can’t say, “Oh, you know, that would be crazy if he did that. That would be totally self-defeating. What idiot would do that?” And the answer is: O.K, but what if he does it?
We have to be concerned about escalation. I have been in favor of greater supply, more quickly, of more weapons to the Ukrainians from the beginning. But not because I’m blasé about the capabilities that Russia has.
Posted by: Irish | Feb 23 2023 22:53 utc | 200