@karlof1 99
however we shall never surrender ourselves to hopelessness and the (de)illusion of not being able to influence the matters of stately affairs.
The future is not prescribed.
Because this is exactly what imperial power so much builds upon.
Crush our belief and our fighting will.
That however is not an option.
One of the reasons this very “bar” is so significant.
We are recalcitrant and shall not yield.
Or to quote Tennyson for all that James Bond is worth for:
“We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Posted by: AG | Apr 2 2023 21:08 utc | 104

not us!
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a26857
(the daily New Yorker cartoon)

Posted by: AG | Apr 2 2023 21:17 utc | 106

Time for a song … Jail-House Rock and the next POTUS … enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Mg_albQOyvA

Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 2 2023 21:34 utc | 108

Don F – That is fake news and you know it. POTUS47 is not going to jail for a misdemeanor. Fine at best.

Posted by: LGB! | Apr 2 2023 21:35 utc | 110

Prigozhin just broke a prolongued silence, in honor of VladlEn Tatarsky, Artyomovsk-Bakhmut City Hall has been taken.

We publish a statement by Yevgeny Prigozhin:
“April 2, 2023, 23:00. We hoisted the Russian flag with the inscription “Vladlen Tatarsky good memory” and the flag of the PMCS “Wagner” on the city administration of Bakhmut. Legally, Bakhmut is taken. The enemy is concentrated in the western part.

https://t.me/Prigozhin_hat/2978

Posted by: Paco | Apr 2 2023 21:48 utc | 112

@Steven Starr 102
thanks
Those are very issues I was getting at, of course.
Lieber&Press in their FA text (thx for the pdf!) put down this dim prospect already 15 years ago.
I am yet to work through their latest “Myth of Nuclear Revolution”.
But I assume it has since become only more volatile.
The question is, whether Russian SSBNs are trackable as alleged 20 years ago (I forgot the guys name who pointed this out back then as undervalued success by US analysts.)
And in how far Russian ground radar has been improved.
As for hypersonics – I am getting so many different views on this.
Some say they are mainly a “hype” since much of their alleged advantages are lost through flight&drag and they become easily detectable targets.
I have tried to find some specific “official” records that would put the Lieber/Press assessment into context with NATO expansion TODAY, in ways for instance Marc Trachtenberg unearthed them for the 1950s.
Those documents that showed verbatim how US-plans under Truman for nuclear annihilation of the USSR (and China) looked like and in essence could not have been prevented. (as the tape in Trachtenberg´s possession proves: “lick the Soviets”.)
In Germany neither people nor politicians do understand the potential and real danger for Russian national security (vulgo: existence) from all this.
So I figure a memo addressed to some of these people in parliament, people who do read their voters´ letters, would be appropriate.
But the material with punching quality is scarce.
-It makes no sense to overwhelm laypeople with single complexes like: NATO wars in Libya, Syria et al. Then add the potential attacking quality of ABMs. And on that pile the missile sites in Eastern Europe. And THEN say Russia feels threatened. Since they will always argue, all that were no final prove for anything. They want it written in black&white, like the Trachtenberg records showed: NATO/US attacking plans for Russia. THEN they might believe. –
In fact I have tried to contact Theodore Postol for his comments he made a year ago on Scheerpost, in hope he could provide some indisputable evidence that would scare the hell out of people and make crystal clear what NATO is in for – via US planning. But so far could not reach him.
alas, I guess, most of this is secret.
well, again, appreciate the extensive anwers above!

Posted by: AG | Apr 2 2023 21:58 utc | 114

[…]
Yarnich wrote that a command crew, located in a super-hardened radio command and control center, someplace distant from the National Command Authority (NCA), waits to receive a code from the NCA for preliminary authorization to prepare and transmit the launch order to the Emergency Communication Rockets (which will broadcast a launch order to all surviving Russian nuclear forces to launch, an order that requires no human interaction to launch).
[…]
Posted by: Steven Starr | Apr 2 2023 16:19 utc | 33

Great post, but I have hard time seeing how it would not have to go to fully automatic if hypersonics are situated at minutes flight away from critical targets, and that is what I have seen discussed on numerous occasions as a necessary next step. And if Kazakhstan gets flipped, which they will continue trying to do, and which will be much easier if Ukraine is not comprehensively defeated, then what other options are there?

Posted by: shadowbanned | Apr 2 2023 22:24 utc | 116

for who is interested –
(“bar fly” Steven Starr brought the late Colonel Yarynich to our attention a short while ago)
here the link to the Foreign Affairs article ‘One Hundred Nuclear Wars’, in which 100 simulations of nuclear war are done:
August 2011
https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs19blair.pdf
“One Hundred Nuclear Wars: Stable Deterrence between the United States and Russia at Reduced Nuclear Force Levels Off Alert in the Presence of Limited Missile Defenses”
by Bruce Blair, Victor Esin, Matthew McKinzie, Valery Yarynich,
and Pavel Zolotarev

Posted by: AG | Apr 2 2023 22:28 utc | 118

The following might be considered OT because advancing dedollarization will degrade the US capacity to make war.
Despite some success by nations in switching to use of local currencies in international trade, the US dollar continues to hold status as the world’s primary international reserve currency. A major impediment to the use of local currencies in international trade is the increased exchange rate risk that such use brings to contracts that extend over more than the briefest periods of time. One way to mitigate this risk would be to price contracts using a more stable standard unit of value while maintaining use of local currencies to settle amounts coming due pursuant to the contracts. The conversion from price in valuation units to price in local currency would be at exchange rates in effect at the date of payment thereby eliminating risk from exchange rate fluctuations. For example, a possible standard unit of value could be a Glint (G) defined as the value of one gram of gold of specified purity. Nations wishing to discontinue use of the US dollar in international trade would agree to price in Gs the goods and services they traded internationally. Increased rigour could be brought to such an arrangement by establishing a referent market where gold of the specified purity is freely traded in the currencies of the participating nations. This arrangement would take advantage of gold’s milleniums-long history as a stable store of value; and it would do so without incentivizing nations to distort the stability of the G unit of value by increasing their gold holdings.
Note that the general acceptance of a standard unit of value defined in purely physical terms could have far-reaching consequences in all areas of economic activity where exchange valuations are involved. Consider how the adoption of the metre as a standard unit of length resulted in the discontinuance or redefinition of literally thousands of measurement units of length, distance, depth, extent, area, volume, capacity, etc. thereby impacting virtually all areas of economic endeavour.

Posted by: hostebbe | Apr 2 2023 22:32 utc | 120

@ unimperator | Apr 2 2023 20:09 utc | 94
The data does not lie.
Look at todays AFU AFV/Vehs losses. Not a single MBT, few IFVs, numerous junk APCs and ‘armored’ vehicles with zero combat power, and since start Dec’23 increasingly pick-up ‘Technicals’ and simply due desperation increasingly civilian 4WD & SUVs. Sample the reports through last four months Ukraine Threads. Along with having their entire logistical vehicle fleet annihilated they are now forced in desperation to use ad-hoc 1,000 Liter water tanks concealed in a civilian passenger vehicle/s to transport & distribute POL. This is an Army on a death-ride.

Posted by: Outraged | Apr 2 2023 22:37 utc | 122

So thanks to the terrorist attack the newspapers now have a headline “Explosion in Sankt Petersburg” instead of “Ukraine loses Bakhmut”.

Posted by: Passerby | Apr 2 2023 22:43 utc | 124

@123
no, nothing exculpatory.
We are heading for a WOII-like inhumanity and cruelty. In Russia voices are becoming louder to just shoot traitors and Stalin rapidly regains his popularity, as people like Medvedev well know. Things have gone much too far for compromise and everyone with a bit of a brain knows who is responsible.

Posted by: Anthony | Apr 2 2023 22:48 utc | 126

I have read one suggestion that Russia could use hypersonic missiles armed with low-yield warheads (several kilotons I suppose) to hit US ICBM silos and the sub bases in Kings Bay, Georgia and Bangor, Washington, which would leave something like 4-8 US SSBNs at sea. Could Russia be sure of eliminating them before they incinerated every major Russian city, and would the US detect the Russian launch and then launch-on-warning before the strike arrived?

Presumably the subs will be disabled in the minutes before the ICBM silos are hit. Poseidon’s real purpose might be that — not the scary cartoonish news reports about a nuclear megatsunami. Something like this: release near the ports where the SSBNs can be tracked (this happens a long time before the first strike), then have it follow them from a distance (it is much quieter than them as it is an UUV with no humans inside), then pounce when the time comes (it is also several times faster than the SSBNs so there will be no escape, and it doesn’t even have to detonate very close to them to destroy them with a warhead in the hundreds of megatons).

I also wonder about the ability of Russia to use hypersonic weapons, carrying only conventional warheads, to hit and destroy hardened US ICBM silos, etc. But could Russia be able to launch these without the US detecting them? Because the new generations of Russian missiles have close to unlimited range and can fly over the South Pole, I don’t know if the US has the ability to see such an attack coming, unless they are able to detect the intial boost phase, which seems to be more easily detectable.
Posted by: Steven Starr | Apr 2 2023 21:01 utc | 102

I have never seen this discussed explicitly, but at some point it dawned on me that the purpose of Sarmat maybe isn’t so much to evade missile defenses — US ABM doesn’t really work well, and even if it does, they have very few launchers in just a handful of locations and can be completely overwhelmed by a mass attack. If that wasn’t the case, presumably North Korea would have been attacked a long time ago.
The purpose of the Sarmat being able to fly low and with such a long range might instead be to evade the early warning radars. The public map shows there is supposedly no gap in Central America:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/NuclearWarningSystemMap.png
But who knows in practice, and that is presumably about higher flying objects at that distance — it might be possible to sneak through below the radar through Mexico, and release the HGVs when and where they are completely unstoppable.
Maybe shortly before the launch satellites are blinded too for a few minutes and they miss the initial launches (that will presumably cause confusion rather than a quick reach for the red button), and with that maybe we have a viable first strike plan.
Also, the recent announcement that there will be no warning provided about missile test launches anymore is extremely ominous when you consider all of the above.

Ever since 2006, when Lieber and Press announced that the U.S. had “nuclear primacy” over Russia, I think we have been in big trouble, because this is exactly what the neocons want to believe.

In retrospect and with the benefit of hindsight (for outside observers, insider analysts should have been able to see through it), we were in big trouble from the moment the Cold War ended. That ensured the US would lose all restraints, and will eventually directly go after even Russia.
Let’s never forget that the CIA Ukraine operation didn’t start with the Maidan. It started in 1946, then kicked into overdrive in 1992.
What the hell the Russian three-letter agencies and elites were thinking is a key question here. I have hard time imagining the KGB had no idea who the neo-cons were prior to blowing up the USSR, and the KGB had very good long-term analysts. What unfolded after that surely must have been outlined in general terms in numerous internal reports. And yet…

Posted by: shadowbanned | Apr 2 2023 22:53 utc | 128

@128
the mid-course interceptor is a 3 stage affair boosting a kinetic kill vehicle which does not work
boeing is being paid to do it again the jury is out!
note boeing failed at a hypersonic weapon, and has not met requirement on kc-46 air refueled based on its 767
the rest of stars wars is problematic

Posted by: paddy | Apr 2 2023 23:00 utc | 130

“There will be no alert on your phone. Most people will never even realize what has happened.”
Even better then. LoL
I partly agree to what you say that Russians are more prepared. I read a while ago that there is an underground “city” right under Moscow that can accomodate every single Moscovite.
Also I read aboit massive bunkers under the Urals that can accomodate thousands and thousans of people.
There is no such thing like that in the West.
Oh well. Hopefully my city is nuked while Im sunbathing and halfway drunk. LoL

Posted by: Comandante | Apr 2 2023 23:02 utc | 132

re: AG | Apr 2 2023 22:28 utc | 118
For the record, both Smaller and Safer and the corresponding “One Hundred Nuclear Wars: Stable Deterrence between the United States and Russia at Reduced Nuclear Force Levels Off Alert in the Presence of Limited Missile Defenses” were really developed and written by Valery Yarynich, not Bruce Blair, but it was Blair who was put in charge of the project by NTI and he called the shots and got the credit.
It’s a nice spring day in Missouri and I am going back to working outside for a while, will attempt to reply to other posts later in the day.

Posted by: Steven Starr | Apr 2 2023 23:06 utc | 134

“Posted by: shadowbanned | Apr 2 2023 23:04 utc | 133”
Russia is not a terrorist state.

Posted by: Comandante | Apr 2 2023 23:09 utc | 136

The credibility of US power in the eyes of its Islamist sycophants is at an all time low. Erdogan has jacked. Saudi Arabia and Gulf states have jacked. Iran and Iraq have jacked. Pakistan and India have jacked.
There is a tiny echo chamber in the nest of spies in London consisting of onecstring and two tin cans. If Israel loses to Russia in Ukraine, they have excellent relations with Moscow, so they might also Jack and take UK and Europe with them, and if UK Jack’s, the Islamists jack with them and join Kadyrov under Putin.
Turns out that supporting Nazis was a bad PR move, and they might have to take in the Nazis themselves or farm them out to Canada or Rwanda. Nothing is going to plan with the Straussians in charge. By the time the shit load of weapons arrives in Ukraine, the US won’t even have a fan.
7

Posted by: Giyane | Apr 2 2023 23:10 utc | 138

I partly agree to what you say that Russians are more prepared. I read a while ago that there is an underground “city” right under Moscow that can accomodate every single Moscovite.
Also I read aboit massive bunkers under the Urals that can accomodate thousands and thousans of people.
Posted by: Comandante | Apr 2 2023 23:02 utc | 132

Soviets built bunkers everywhere (it’s also why the war is so hard for Russia now — they have to fight against their own Soviet-era defenses).
The problem is it will be hard to actually use them. Run the scenarios:
How much time is it going to take to evacuate a 15-million city into the underground bunker system? Hours? Days? With modern Russian society which, after three decades of domination of mindless consumerism and neoliberal rot, is full of the same undisciplined spoiled brats that populate the West?
Even an hour is way too long — the very act of doing it gives a clear signal you are going to launch a first strike, which means the enemy launches everything preemptively, and you fail at the critical task of destroying his launch systems before they hit you.
OK, so that doesn’t work. Let’s then start drilling people so that it can be done in half an hour or so on a moment’s notice, which would perhaps be viable.
Problem is that if you start running such drills, that too sends a clear message to the enemy about what your plans are.
It was perhaps possible to do such drills in the 1950s without being noticed, but in the modern highly connected world there is no hiding it.

Posted by: shadowbanned | Apr 2 2023 23:12 utc | 140

Artyomovsk-Bakhmut City Hall has been taken.
Posted by: Dalit | Apr 2 2023 23:11 utc | 139
Lol, so after 8 months of fighting and tens of thousands dead, Wagner took City Hall? Do you have any idea how pathetic that statement is? The stupid, it hurts.

Posted by: Longhorn | Apr 2 2023 23:19 utc | 142

@ Posted by: Chris | Apr 2 2023 15:21 utc | 17
Chris,
Heavy snow favored Russian forces.
Why?
If you can recall two videos from the past 3 months.
The first was look inside the Ukraine command post in Bahkmut.
There were several large screens, some with four camera views. The reporter indicated that they use quad copters for surveillance of both their own forces and enemy. There were listed by each camera view the units that they were monitoring, or were supplying the feeds.
The second was an interview that Willie OAM had with a non Ukrainian associate in Bahkmut. It was this interview that was generally negative about how Ukraine forces run things that made Willie startled.
What the man on the scene stated was that Wagner had many more tools at their disposal, full NVG’s and BFT. NVG’s meaning Night Vision Goggles, a clear advantage. BFT means Blue Force Tracker, which is a US/NATO system. Of course Wagner doesn’t have that system, but a similar one. (In western war games, you are always the blue force) Any Force tracker system uses a radio comm type system that is encoded. It usually doesn’t track each person, but a squad leader or vehicle.
OK, so now you are thinking, so what?
Light weight quad copters can’t operate in snow, especially when heavy snow is coming down. (the same can be true for most helicopters)
Ukraine lost their Command and Control for a day or two. Wagner using radio based system did not. Wagner took advantage of a temporary condition and attacked. Ukraine could not resist the attack effectively, because of C&C problems.
Russian troops also “dug in” last week in the north and south of Bahkmut. Fresh Ukrainian forces were on the counter attack. In a snow environment, all movement leaves tracks. Defense leaves far fewer tracks than attacks. Russian jets probably had some very successful missions in a few days, as movements were easy to spot.
The last clobber report seemed vehicle heavy vs manpower reduction. That may be because vehicles left tracks, and running vehicles leave great IR signatures in the snow.
Anyhow, my take on things.

Posted by: BroncoBilly | Apr 2 2023 23:23 utc | 144

AG # 118
Thank you for the link.
My own modeling that I performed decades ago convinced me that missile defense systems on BOTH sides would be extremely stabilizing. This is largely because hardened missile silos are far easier to defend than civilian targets such as cities or industry. The Russians are deploying their new SARMET ICBMs with effective but limited range defensive systems that can severely limit the probability of a nuclear warhead surviving to get close enough to destroy the silo. As a result, Russia has an overwhelming motive to not preemptively launch the Sarmets during a crisis.
The synergistic effects of missile defenses combined with bomb shelter networks to protect civilians are also not as destabilizing as Robert Macnamara and his death cult presume. No sane leader is going to initiate a nuclear war that will result in the destruction of 90% of their GDP because they are confident that 90% of their population will survive. The unmitigated disaster of the war in Ukraine has been highly educational.

Posted by: Elmer Fudd | Apr 2 2023 23:33 utc | 146

I think 70% chance of a nuclear war isn’t an unreasonable prediction. I’d say more like 55%-60%. The collapsing empire is desperate and increasingly unhinged. I don’t think they will allow Ukraine to lose without at least trying a no-fly zone and a no-fly zone leads to nuclear war.

Posted by: DaemosAerothaine | Apr 2 2023 23:41 utc | 148

@ alek_a #131
Scientifically speaking, Gold (Au) is a really pretty useless metal. It does not react with anything …
On the other hand, it makes excellent roofing material.

Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 2 2023 23:43 utc | 150

@ unimperator, #94
I don’t think the tipping point of the AFU totally reliant on non-Soviet era weapons (logistics is probably another story) has yet to be reached, although it may be getting there. I’ve watched at least 15+ hromadske videos of them being on the lines with the AFU since fall (each of these videos are 15-45 minutes in length) and the only western weapons I’ve seen is maybe a MG down by Kherson in the late summer and some Azov guys that had western rifles this winter. Now, perhaps the AFU command doesn’t want the hromadske crews to see western weapons, I don’t know but that’s what I’m seeing. I posted one of their videos this morning on the earlier thread that ended today and that GRAD crew was using a 1972 Czechoslovak made version of that weapons system.

Posted by: DakotaRog | Apr 2 2023 23:46 utc | 152

@ LGB! #110
Trump is POTUS #45…

Posted by: DakotaRog | Apr 2 2023 23:50 utc | 154

FREE DRINKS AT THE BAR…..FREE DRINKS AT THE BAR…..FREE DRINKS AT THE BAR…..FREE DRINKS AT THE BAR…..FREE DRINKS AT THE BAR…..FREE DRINKS AT THE BAR…..FREE DRINKS AT THE BAR…..FREE DRINKS AT THE BAR…..
Bakhmut is now Artyomovsk – the city hall has been taken
C E L E B R A T E

Posted by: HERMIUS | Apr 2 2023 23:51 utc | 156

Hermius @157. Now this is really good news! The work put in by Wagner PMC is inestimable. I love Preghorzin! BTW mine’s a very, humungously large Scotch and American Dry with some olives as an accompaniment!!

Posted by: Jo Dominich | Apr 3 2023 0:04 utc | 158

“Lol, so after 8 months of fighting and tens of thousands dead, Wagner took City Hall? Do you have any idea how pathetic that statement is? The stupid, it hurts.
Posted by: Longhorn | Apr 2 2023 23:19 utc | 142”
LOL, just think what its like to be the loser, Ukraine and NATO. You reveal yourself by the utter shallowness of your comments.

Posted by: JustTruth | Apr 3 2023 0:07 utc | 160

@Passerby

So thanks to the terrorist attack the newspapers now have a headline “Explosion in Sankt Petersburg” instead of “Ukraine loses Bakhmut”.
True, but does it matter?
The western media are not worth paying attention to. They lie, lie, lie. It is more unusual when they let the truth slip out, which happens less and less these days

Posted by: Chris | Apr 3 2023 0:14 utc | 162

They will not be able to cover up 130 MILLION + votes this time around. We the People are pissed and the DS is about to get to the FO part of FAFO.

Posted by: LGB! | Apr 3 2023 0:23 utc | 164

Sorry dh #159, I left out your by-line on my last post

Posted by: DakotaRog | Apr 3 2023 0:32 utc | 166

Prigozhin just broke a prolongued silence,…
Yeah. I’d noticed he hadn’t said anything for almost a week .

Posted by: Melaleuca | Apr 3 2023 0:35 utc | 168

Good news day
Artyomovsk has fallen. All roads to Kiev are now open. Whatever remains of the AFU are hiding in the various forest belts. Inside country 404. Completely lacking in mobility or offensive capability.
The trash removal is approaching the end stage. As has been predicted by the Chinese earlier.
The C.I.A./Cheltenham GCHQ liars are out in force fighting the no-win war with sewer-grade poopaganda…………

Posted by: Bad Deal Motors On | Apr 3 2023 0:45 utc | 170

Jo Dominich@158 HERMIUS@161
You can’t beat a Moscow Mule at times like this.

Posted by: bevin | Apr 3 2023 1:12 utc | 172

@dh, #166
I don’t think many of the ‘Merican cash hoarders have a problem in using credit cards, they never have seemed as “real” to most people as something physical, at least my generation. And besides, who’s going to collect on the credit card debt if the big banks are fighting for their very lives. The hegemonic financial cartel will probably have to zero out everything for the non-elites and start over anew with the central bank digital currencies…

Posted by: DakotaRog | Apr 3 2023 1:15 utc | 174

Big News?
“More than 200 members of the ruling Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) have signed an open letter, drawn up by former Chancellor Willy Brandt’s son, historian and SPD politician Peter Brandt, calling on incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz to facilitate negotiations to resolve the Ukrainian conflict.
“The letter, circulated on Friday, advocates peace negotiations and was signed, among others, by former European Commissioner for Enlargement and former Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Guenter Verheugen, former co-leader of the SPD Norbert Walter-Borjans, ex-Bundestag president Wolfgang Thierse and over 200 other SPD members…”
Sputnik News Berlin

Posted by: bevin | Apr 3 2023 1:34 utc | 176

DakotaRog @ 174.
Seems like credit cards have become almost indispensable. I know a lot of people use them to run up debt but they still have to make monthly payments. And that means they need to have money in the bank.
Gold and Bitcoin seem to be popular again now.
But where is the $150 billion that Commandante (# 151) says was withdrawn ‘this weekend alone’? Or is he just trying to sow panic? I have a few billion and I need to find a safe place :).

Posted by: dh | Apr 3 2023 1:48 utc | 178

I never bother to check as it would be such a negative task; tho I cannot help but wonder if those so-called supporters of the Russia/Donbas/Luhansk team who pollute these pages with links to dead ukie soldiers and hugely celebrate ukie casualties are one and the same as those who are currently bemoaning the speed that the Russia/Donbas/Luhansk team are advancing.
The reasons for the seemingly snail pace are several but one of them & the one I support most is that the team are trying to avoid what the western dehumanisers refer to as ‘collateral damage’.
There is one difference in definition though as the west’s spinners often consider damage to buildings and other structures as major collateral damage. One only has to see that even now in western fishwraps they murmur on about the vast damage which Mariupol has ‘suffered’ nevermind that construction/replacement of damaged buildings has been proceeding at speed since the nazis were chased out. Although west spinners attempt to allude to the contrary, actual numbers of human collateral damage during the Mariupol liberation was tiny, especially in comparison to what the west’s soldiers get up to. Towns such as Fallujah or MyLai come to mind Fallujah for the sheer numbers of people slaughtered deliberately with the use of anti-human devices such as white phosphorus, My Lai because despite its small population, more than 500 innocent civilians killed, this was much higher than the numbers of innocent civilians killed in Mariupol a considerably larger town. N.B we also know now that MyLai was very much not an ‘isolated instance’.
The combined forces chasing the nazis out of east Ukraine are proceeding slowly primarily in order to ensure that the civilian population many of whom, including Russian speakers, will be feeling that normal human emotion felt when someone deemed to be ‘an outsider’ comes into your country. If there is to be any lasting peace on completion of de-nazification it is vital that there are as few as possible incidents where civilians have been injured or killed via the team’s actions.
Of course there are other domestic political concerns for the RF government, such as keeping Russian casualties as low as possible so as not to repeat the error many believe USSR made in Afghanistan.
If the combined team were to speed things up they would probably get the job done considerably faster; however balanced against that is the certainty that an increase in speed would cause the deaths of many more civilians as well as Russian troops. It is not difficult to conclude that the team is currently going about things in the best way possible.
Wars are foul nasty things where few truths come from either side and there are always going to be incidences of horror filled outrages caused by overwhelmed people stocked with assorted machines of death committed by some in all ‘sides’.
The Russia/Donbas/Luhansk team’s efforts to minimise that is to be celebrated, not denigrated.

Posted by: Debsisdead | Apr 3 2023 2:11 utc | 180

“Lol, so after 8 months of fighting and tens of thousands dead, Wagner took City Hall? Do you have any idea how pathetic that statement is? The stupid, it hurts.
Posted by: Longhorn | Apr 2 2023 23:19 utc | 142”
Longhorn should read this comparing the fake Iraq war and the Russian SMO.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/the-iraq-war-was-a-sham

Posted by: Surferket | Apr 3 2023 2:49 utc | 182

⚡️🇷🇺🇺🇦⚔️ #Chronicle of the Special Military Operation for 1-2 Apr 2023⚡️
🔹St Petersburg:
Our colleague and war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in a terrorist attack in St Petersburg.
➖ At least 24 other people were injured.
🔹#Russia’s Border Areas:
▪️ In the #Kursk region, Ukrainian terror formations shelled border villages. In #Iskra and #Dronovka there were no casualties, in Nikolayevo Daryino seven people were wounded.
▪️ In the #Belgorod region, the enemy struck an agricultural enterprise and houses in the village of #Novopetrovka, civilians were not harmed.
🔹#Starobelsk (#Svatovo) Direction:
▪️ There are no changes in this section of the front. Both sides are engaged in artillery duels along the line of contact, position battles continue in the #Serebryanskoye forestry and near Balka Zhuravka.
🔹#Soledar (#Bakhmut) Direction:
▪️ In Orekhovo-Vasilyevka, the situation has not changed significantly, with neither side having stable control over the settlement.
▪️ In the north of #Bakhmut, Wagner PMC assault squads are advancing along Levanevsky Street in the Selischevsky district. Fighting is also taking place on the approaches to the railway station.
▪️ In #Bakhmut’s south, Russian units have begun storming the enemy positions on Bakhmutskaya Street. The enemy is being encircled on both sides along Mira Street and Vasil Pershin Street near the local city council.
▪️ Southwest of the city, heavy position fighting continues for control over the #Bakhmut – #Konstantinovka highway. The enemy is moving new reserves to hold the strategically important route for defence.
🔹#Donetsk Direction:
▪️ In the #Avdeyevka sector, the situation remains steadily tense, with Russian units continuing a systematic offensive from the direction of #Kamenka and #Krasnogorovka, striking fire at the enemy strongholds.
▪️ Ukrainian terrorist formations once again fired indiscriminately at the #Donetsk agglomeration. Among others, #Donetsk, #Yasinovataya, and #Yelenovka came under fire. More than ten houses were damaged and one man was wounded in #Gorlovka.
➖ According to local authorities, three 110kV power lines were damaged as a result of the strike on the Kurakhovskaya TPP, leading to emergency blackouts in the Pokrovsky district.
🔹#Zaporozhye Direction:
▪️ On #Melitopol, the AFU terrorists fired missiles from rocket artillery at residential buildings and infrastructure. At least six civilians were wounded with varying degrees of severity.
🔹#Kherson Direction on #SouthFront:
▪️ Artillery duels continue along the entire line of contact. Russian forces hit enemy concentrations in #Kherson, #Berislav and #Dudchany.
➖ In turn, the Ukrainian terrorist formations shelled the left bank of the #Kherson region, including civilian facilities in Novaya Kakhovka, #Tavriysk and #Alyoshki.
🔹 Political Developments:
▪️ Ukrainian authorities continue to illegally take away the Kiev Cave Monastery from the canonical UOC MP. Metropolitan Pavel, the Lavra’s primate, was placed under house arrest on Saturday night.
▪️ In #Khmelnitsky, in the Holy Intercession Cathedral of the UOC-MP, a fight took place between a Ukrainian militant and a priest – the first one threw off the Gospel and urged believers not to attend the churches of the Moscow Patriarchate, after which he was expelled by force.
➖ Against this background, a crowd of citizens came to the temple and began to threaten the priests. The mayor of Khmelnytsky, for his part, promised to take away all plots of land from the temples of the UOC-MP.

https://t.me/sitreports/6652

Posted by: Down South | Apr 3 2023 3:17 utc | 184

Re the murder of V Tatarsky, St Petersburgers are bringing flowers in tribute (Telegram link).
Meanwhile the Living Saint Martyanov calls Tatarsky a criminal and also makes sure to insult Sladkov and Podolyaka as “low lives”.
I don’t know enough about Podolyaka to have an opinion, but I have spent the last year watching Sladkov tour the frontlines, talk to prisoners and soldiers, and repeatedly put himself in danger while not sugar coating any deficiency or problem.
Meanwhile Martyanov is a self promoting bag of rotting porcine excreta who hasn’t the moral courage to be in the same hemisphere as the SMO, and isn’t fit to kiss the boots of the lowliest DNR conscript, let alone people whom he routinely insults and abuses.
Right, Martyanov worshippers, you can jump up and down hooting like rabid hoolick gibbons at me now.

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Apr 3 2023 3:55 utc | 186

Posted by: Debsisdead | Apr 3 2023 2:11 utc | 180
Well-said! What happened at Fallujah was a publicly endorsed genocide lasting generations to come, thanks to DU. It was worth it, according to a Czech-born demoness called Marie Jana Korbelova.
My Lai massacre was much smaller in scale, but re-iterated the only thing the US army could possibly do, outside Hollywood scripts – raping and pillaging.

Posted by: _newbie_ | Apr 3 2023 4:14 utc | 188

Ritter’s opinion about inevitability of Nuclear conflict is viable I think..
Posted by: Joe | Apr 2 2023 19:08 utc | 78
On the other hand, the war seems to following the script dreamt up by American think tanks to letter. America sends 5 % of it’s annual defence budget to Ukraine in the form of outdated weapons and ammunition, mostly junk they’d otherwise have to pay to scrap. Oh, and it’s on loan, not donations . Ukraine will have to pay for decades!
Otherwise, the US just sits on the fence, counts the money it’s NATO-“Allies” send over, while Europeans are doing the heavy lifting.
Why would the States risk all the benefits for a nuclear war they can’t win? They are in a position to end the war at any time they wish. Just inform Selensky there will be no more weapons, no more real time intelligence, and the war is over within days, one way or the other.
The war will continue als long as there is money to be made for our arms dealers and generals. But before nuclear weapons come into play, NATO will move on to another country to “liberate”.
Just like they did with Afghanistan. Syria. Libya. Irak.

Posted by: Marvin | Apr 3 2023 4:51 utc | 190

Biswapriya Purkayast | Apr 3 2023 3:55 utc | 186
Nothing Martyanov says ever bothers me.
You know why?
I never visit his site.
And I have even less interest in opinions about Martyanov and his site posted here.
It’s graffiti. And just as disrespectful.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Apr 3 2023 5:12 utc | 192

@Valid Point #147
US inflation, the cooked reported number is still double that of target inflation. Even McDonald’s just closed it’s US offices to deal with layoffs. Alphabet,Meta,twitter and Amazon have all been busy laying people off, the so called future jobs are starting to vanish, growth is lagging behind inflation, there is a disaster unfolding

Posted by: OohCanada | Apr 3 2023 5:35 utc | 194

@ newbie 188
Fallujah had no significance at all until the US decided to use it for target practice. But its insignificance is a massive symbol of everything that is wrong about quwata Amerki / US power. They have zero understanding of the local inhabitants and zero local intelligence. I will never forget the photo of the Muslima, maybe black US female soldier who propped up her weapons at the back of the local Iraqi mosque and prayed behind the men at the back.
What a beautiful trusting soul in the midst of Hollywood disaster movie. She knew implicitly that the brothers would respect her, unlike the US military that were shooting up the village of Fallujah at about the same time.
The US has no understanding whatsoever of Ukraine.

Posted by: Giyane | Apr 3 2023 5:47 utc | 196

#197
Ukraine and the west, even when all is lost
A resounding military defeat
Will refuse to accept reality.
That is truly a dangerous mind-set

Posted by: Dingo | Apr 3 2023 6:48 utc | 198

Twitter: Trollstoy
“Legally, as of 03.04.2023, as a result of taking under control of the Bakhmut District Administration Building by PMC Wagner troops, Bakhmut is now a subject of the Donetsk People’s Republic – Russian Federation.”
>>…Evgeny Prigozhin:
“April 2, 2023, 23:00: We hoisted the Russian flag with the inscription ‘Good memory to Vladlen Tatarsky’ and the flag of PMC Wagner on the City Administration building of Bakhmut. Officially, Bakhmut is taken. The enemy is concentrated in the western regions.”
https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1642643662264737792
Bakhmut District State Administration, City Cultural Center building and Freedom Square in the Central District of Bakhmut are under PMC Wagner control by several Russian and one Ukrainian source. Should be clarified in near future.
Southern parts of AZOM Industrial District (the workshop of the Bakhmut Electrotechnical Plant, the ruins of the glass factory Artyomovsk, Research Institute “Ukrtsvetmetobrabodka” and the administrative building that was under construction) are still with the AFU presence.
Reassessment of Bakhmut – Chasov Yar frontline, DPR – Donbass region 02.04.2023 23:00 MSK – AFU troops pushed PMC Wagner south of T0504 highway (Bakhmut – Chasov Yar), 3 quarters S of Avangard Stadium are still with AFU presence in Central District;
https://twitter.com/Trollstoy88/status/1642636136106323973
[The taking of Bakhmut: It’s not a sportsball, where the score is on display in the stadium. ]

Posted by: Melaleuca | Apr 3 2023 6:55 utc | 200