https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/trading-with-the-enemy

Posted by: Apollyon | Apr 12 2023 16:30 utc | 1

POSSIBLE PROGRESSION?:

Bakhmut falls --------> Bakhmut is renamed by the Russians to "Artemovsk" -------> Ground dries out --------> Ukraine launches its BIG offensive --------> Russia neutalizes the Ukrainian BIG offensive -------> Russia aggressively counter attacks to take and secure all of the Donbas --------> Russia continues to take most of Ukraine to the East Bank of the Dnieper River -----> Russia prepares for direct nuclear attack of the USA

I guess that this could occur within 3 months.

Posted by: young | Apr 12 2023 16:37 utc | 2

South Korea responses to U.S over leaked documents.

VIDEO https://twitter.com/AbrahamStein8/status/1646191134815797258?s=20

Posted by: Dave Oneil | Apr 12 2023 16:39 utc | 3

Posted by: young | Apr 12 2023 16:37 utc | 2

" direct nuclear attack of the USA"
Do you mean:

" direct nuclear attack on the USA", or:

" direct nuclear attack by the USA"?

Please don't use ambiguous language (and apologies if English is not your first language).

Posted by: Jams O'Donnell | Apr 12 2023 16:44 utc | 4

Posted by: Jams O'Donnell | Apr 12 2023 16:44 utc | 4

I mean "direct nuclear attack upon the USA". The West has no choice but to take this conflict to the nuclear level. Otherwise, the USD will lose its status as the world's reserve currency quite rapidly.

The USA is in a trap and they can't get out.

The Russians are quite aware of the West's escalator of escalation. They know exactly where this is heading. There is no off ramp to prevent it.

Such will become more obvious as the escalator continues its move upward to the next level.

Posted by: young | Apr 12 2023 16:50 utc | 5

Posted by: young | Apr 12 2023 16:37 utc | 2

Hours instead of days, days instead of months, months instead of years, paraphrasing Captain Kirk in ST II. Countries collapse slowly then all at once.

Posted by: Milites | Apr 12 2023 17:01 utc | 6

All,

I wanted to voice a word of caution.

Posting the links to the leaked documents is a violation of several Federal laws. It might be in the best interests of the site and the sites webmaster to remove this post and get rid of the links.

Distributing classified information is the kind of liability this community just doesn’t need. It could easily get the site shut down.

Also, its not necessary to have a good discussion of the issues.

Posted by: James Hendrickson | Apr 12 2023 17:03 utc | 7

Wow... b quotes my Substack Notes... Thanks, b!

Posted by: young | Apr 12 2023 16:50 utc | 5

You may well be correct, but I don't anticipate Russia initiating any such attack absent a clear indication that the US is planning to initiate one. The jury is still out on that. The release of the leaked documents clearly shows there is a Pentagon (and possibly IC) faction that is working against the neocons in the Biden administration.

A much more likely scenario is after Russia reaches the Dnieper that Poland does an incursion into Ukraine, which may or may not be directly supported by US troops (or US troops in Polish uniforms). After Russia annihilates them, and possibly either invades Poland or attacks the Aegis Ashore installations in Poland as part of the counter-offensive, possibly after the US uses those installations to launch Tomahawks against Russian forces or inside Russia itself, nuclear or not, then the risk of a more direct US involvement may arise and thus a Russian preemptive strike - which itself may or may not be nuclear in form.

In short, there are a lot more nuances possible than you consider.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 17:10 utc | 8

Posted by: James Hendrickson | Apr 12 2023 17:03 utc | 7

Hahaha....my rules or no rule.

Is posting a fake beheading video a violation of Federal laws? And was spreading the fake video by Zelensky criminal?

Posted by: KitaySupporter | Apr 12 2023 17:12 utc | 9

Posted by: James Hendrickson | Apr 12 2023 17:03 utc | 7

This is a German site. Granted, Germany is occupied territory, but I doubt Germany has laws making the posting of US classified documents a German Federal crime. Which is not to say other laws might not be applied, but one would expect they would have been before now.

Much more likely is that Germany simply doesn't notice this site, like most of the West ignores almost all alternative sites other than Wikileaks.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 17:13 utc | 10

Posted by: James Hendrickson | Apr 12 2023 17:03 utc | 7

That certainly sounds like a motive to me...a leak to bust people talking about said leak...

Posted by: nathan in WA US | Apr 12 2023 17:13 utc | 11

Young etc.

There is always a danger of the worst case scenario. But Nuclear Winter is bad for business. And the business of empire is business.

I think the Biden/Blinken/Nuland rogue project to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines had a sobering effect on some folks in Europe.

Humans are idiots with imagination. Extinction-level outcomes are real when you understand the folks at the top of the pyramid scheme are magical thinking narcissists who believe they are the direct descendants of the Divine Right of Kings.

But, as they say, the 'lord' works in mysterious ways.

Posted by: gottlieb | Apr 12 2023 17:24 utc | 12

Posted by: gottlieb | Apr 12 2023 17:24 utc | 12
"Humans are idiots with imagination."

Oh, I like that one. I'm gonna steal it, copyright or no copyright. :-)

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 17:26 utc | 13

TRADE WITH THE ENEMY
Amid rampant corruption in Kyiv and as US troops gather on the Ukrainian border, does the Biden administration have an endgame to the conflict?

The Ukrainian government, headed by Vladimir Zelensky, is charging American taxpayers dearly for the vital diesel fuel that keeps the Ukrainian army moving in its war with Russia. It is not known how much the Selensky administration pays per gallon for fuel, but the Pentagon paid up to $400 per gallon to truck or parachute gasoline from a port in Pakistan to Afghanistan during America's decade-long war in Afghanistan .

It is also not known that Zelensky bought the fuel from Russia, the country with which he and Washington are at war, and that the President of Ukraine and many in his entourage siphoned off untold millions of American dollars used to buy Diesel were provided. An estimate by analysts at the CIA put the embezzled funds at at least $400 million last year; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kyiv to that of the Afghan war, "although there will be no professional audits in Ukraine."

"Selensky bought cheap diesel from the Russians," a knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who pays for the gas and the oil? We. Putin and his oligarchs make millions from it.”
Just mentioned this deal

Many ministries in Kiev have, I am told, literally “competed” to set up front companies for arms and ammunition export contracts with private arms dealers around the world, all of whom pay bribes. Many of these companies are based in Poland and the Czech Republic, but there are also said to be companies in the Persian Gulf and Israel. "It wouldn't surprise me to learn that there are other companies in the Cayman Islands and Panama and that many Americans are involved," an American international trade expert told me. Only no one mentions this deal with Russia in western media!
Thanks to Putin's toughness (Sell your enemy what he needs to keep fighting)
Which shows you who has what interest so that NATO empties itself as far as weapons are concerned!
Ergo: Time is Putin's best weapon against the West, the rest is just waiting!
Clever!!!
.
The issue of corruption was discussed directly with Zelensky in January last year in Kiev at a meeting between CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was straight out of a 1950s mafia movie. Senior generals and government officials in Kyiv were angered by Selensky's greed, Burns told the Ukrainian president, because "he took a larger share of the money skimmed than went to the generals."

Burns also provided Selensky with a list of 35 generals and senior officials known to be corrupt by the CIA and other members of the American government. Selensky responded to American pressure ten days later by publicly firing ten of the most conspicuous officials on the list and doing little else. "The ten he got rid of were bragging about the money they had and driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes," the intelligence official told me.
.
Ani mirror
Continue reading
.
https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/2023/neuer-hersh-artikel-korruption-in-kiew-und-konzeptlosigkeit-in-den-usa/

Posted by: mo3 | Apr 12 2023 17:27 utc | 14

young @ 5

I mean "direct nuclear attack upon the USA". The West has no choice but to take this conflict to the nuclear level. Otherwise, the USD will lose its status as the world's reserve currency quite rapidly.

Flawed logic. After the USA gets nuked it's guaranteed that the dollar will be even less the world’s reserve currency.

Richard Steven Hack @ 10

This is a German site.... Which is not to say other laws might not be applied, but one would expect they would have been before now.

The message of the the Assange case, or lack of a case, and his brutal treatment, is that laws don't matter anymore, constitutions and courts in the west are yesterday's news.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Apr 12 2023 17:32 utc | 15

@ James Hendrickson | Apr 12 2023 17:03 utc | 7

John Young of cryptome.org fame has been posting and archiving a myriad of sensitive documents (those freshly leaked TS documents included), and he managed to circumvent subpoenas and take-down orders.
He is a New York resident. Without him and his website, this planet would be a very morally depleted and misinformed place.
The same goes for Wikileaks and all the other brave people, some posting here, who uncover little dirty state secrets that are financed by taxpayers money and go against humanity.

Posted by: whirlX | Apr 12 2023 17:34 utc | 16

Trending on Twitter... ""Nazis in Ukraine" after the Jerusalem Post published this piece:

Kyiv to name street for Ukrainian Nazi collaborator after public vote
A street in Kyiv will soon bear the name of Volodymyr Kubiyovych, one of the founders of the Waffen-SS Galizien, the Ukraine branch of the Nazi military force.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-738940

Who was Volodymyr Kubiyovych?

Prior to the start of the Holocaust, Kubiyovych was a strong supporter of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-M) and in April 1941, he requested the creation of an autonomous state within Ukraine in which Poles and Jews would not be allowed to live.

Later in the war, in 1943, Kubiyovych took on a key role in the formation of the Waffen-SS Galizien and publicly announced his willingness to take up arms and fight for the Nazi cause.

After the Red Army approached Poland in 1944, Kubiyovych fled to Germany, and then France after the Nazi surrender. In France, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies, the largest academic project taken on by Ukrainian expats during the Cold War.

The Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies was reflective of Kubiyovych's nationalistic views and was intended to preserve Ukraine's heritage under Soviet rule.
Kubiyovych's airbrushed legacy

Today, the encyclopedia exists online, both in its native language and in English and is still frequently updated with articles focusing on Ukrainian heritage and culture.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine avoids mentioning Kubiyovych's Nazi past, instead focusing on his work pre and post-World War Two, saying only that: "During the Second World War he headed the Ukrainian Central Committee (UCC) in Cracow and in 1943 took part in organizing the Division Galizien."

Should add this to my Ukraine Update Substack posts...

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 17:35 utc | 17

leaks only matter is they have to capacity to change the outcome, otherwise they are purely to misdirect or just white noise.

does anyone with a working brain seriously think these leaks will make any difference to how the russian mod finishes off ukraine?

does anyone with a working brain think nato or the pentagon can do squat to alter ukraines ultimate obliteration?

the leaks are at best for momentary entertainment who time has already past.

Posted by: oak | Apr 12 2023 17:36 utc | 18

Latest Brian Berletic...

Ukrainian Air Defenses Dwindling, West Scours World for Arms on Eve of "Spring Offensive"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-qXMJOf9-M

From the description:

24,491 views Apr 12, 2023
Update on Russian military operations in Ukraine for April 12, 2023:

- Russian forces continue taking territory around the fortified cities of Avdeevka and Bakhmut;

- Russian forces now control much of the west bank of the Bakhmutka River;

- A Ukrainian missile fired deep into Crimea (and intercepted by Russian air defenses) may have been a Ukrainian Grom-2, comparable to the Iskander missile with a range of 500km;

- Despite the capabilities of the Grom-2 and potential NATO assistance to produce them (most likely in Poland) it is unlikely these missiles will appear in numbers large enough to overwhelm Russian air defenses;

- NYT admits Ukrainian air defenses are deteriorating, allowing Russia to more freely use its military aviation;

- While Western analysts claim this development may not translate into Russian success, arriving at this juncture is already very much a Russian success;

Also, latest Judge Napolitano with Scott Ritter:

Ukraine Firepower v Russian Firepower w/Scott Ritter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F08lmPZ2VEw

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 17:41 utc | 19

What is the deal with the alleged beheading video? Has anyone conducted an analysis of the footage to ascertain its provenance?

Posted by: Suvorov | Apr 12 2023 17:43 utc | 20

@ oak | Apr 12 2023 17:36 utc | 18

Totally agree. RF will not alter or change anything, because of a few measly NATO forces crawling around and some 80s hardware junk running about.
I mean, if RF doesn't have a way better, more comprehensive and clearer picture than any of the documents that might have been or will leak, then NATO would be shopping for fancy real estate on Crimea last summer.
As it seems, this will never ever happen.

Posted by: whirlX | Apr 12 2023 17:45 utc | 21

Posted by: oak | Apr 12 2023 17:36 utc | 18

Well, while you're likely correct, certainly so with regard to Russian actions, there is the possibility that some consequences may ensue for the Biden administration. As McGovern and Johnson pointed out, the New York Times could have squelched coverage of the leaks, but they didn't. And since these leaks are at "code-word" level security, they are as significant as the Snowden leaks, if not as extensive. They could also surface again during the elections next year.

The question arise as to what will happen if and when the DoD finds the leaker. Does Biden squash it to push it under the rug or does he prosecute and have it raise a major stink, especially if the neocon-launched Ukrainian offensive fails miserably, as it is virtually certain to do.

As the Duran guys and McGOvern and Johnson point out, the Pentagon is then in a position to say, "Hey, we warned Biden not to do this! Now look at where Ukraine is..."

The story isn't over, even if it has zero effect on the battlefield in terms of the outcome there.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 17:46 utc | 22

does anyone with a working brain think nato or the pentagon can do squat to alter ukraines ultimate obliteration?

the leaks are at best for momentary entertainment who time has already past.

Posted by: oak | Apr 12 2023 17:36 utc | 18

Yes, the leaks are a matter for the west, an "internal matter" for everybody else to ignore. It will not be news to the Russians, and they won't "believe" any of it.

Posted by: Bemildred | Apr 12 2023 17:54 utc | 23

"What is the deal with the alleged beheading video? Has anyone conducted an analysis of the footage to ascertain its provenance?"

Who cares? It's war.

Posted by: Apollyon | Apr 12 2023 17:54 utc | 24

@James Hendrickson | Apr 12 2023 17:03 utc | 7

Here you go https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/54524

Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 12 2023 17:54 utc | 25

Speaking of Russian drone jamming amid concern troll posts... also relevant to the leaked docs...

Russia jamming U.S. smart bombs in Ukraine, leaked docs say
A separate technical problem, since fixed, had been causing the munitions to fail.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/12/russia-jamming-u-s-smart-bombs-in-ukraine-leaked-docs-say-00091600

The Pentagon in December began sending Kyiv advanced equipment that could convert unguided air-dropped munitions into precision-guided “smart bombs” that can hit Russian targets with a higher degree of accuracy.

The guided bombs can be launched by a variety of aircraft such as bombers and fighters, and are called Joint Direct Attack Munitions or JDAMs. The longer-range version being sent to Ukraine is called a JDAM-Extended Range, or JDAM-ER.

But the weapons have experienced higher-than-expected dud rates and have missed their targets on the battlefield, according to a leaked slide prepared by the Joint Staff and confirmed by a U.S. official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

In some cases, the bomb fuzes were not arming when they were released, causing the weapon to fail to detonate. The Ukrainian air force put in place a fix to ensure the bombs are arming correctly, according to the slide and the official.

The document includes a diagram of the munition and lays out the technical issue the weapons are experiencing as well as the proposed fix. It also provides a detailed account of the weapon’s failure rate in several recent attacks, including the dates and the number of munitions it took to take out the target. However, POLITICO could not independently verify that information.

A larger problem is that Russia is using GPS jamming to interfere with the weapons’ targeting process, according to the slide and a separate person familiar with the issue who’s not in the U.S. government. American officials believe Russian jamming is causing the JDAMs, and at times other American weapons such as guided rockets, to miss their mark.

“I do think there may be concern that the Russians may be jamming the signal used to direct the JDAMs, which would answer why these munitions are not performing in the manner expected and how they perform in other war zones,” said Mick Mulroy a former Pentagon official and retired CIA officer.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 17:57 utc | 26

After Russia annihilates them ...
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 17:10 utc | 8

---

The thing is that Western action, until now, has depended upon maintaining the illusion that Ukraine is winning. Pulling back the curtain with undeniable losses will take a heavy toll on social cohesion in Borrell's garden.

What story can medias' fabulists invent to continue public support for this war? The impression I get is that most people aren't very happy with the way things are going. Instead they are resigned to their situation. The word in circulation for this condition is "grinding".

The war in Ukraine has been a fine distraction for the golden billion while its conclusions were not too bitter. Putting the public's faith to the test and failing will eventually have consequences.

Posted by: too scents | Apr 12 2023 17:59 utc | 27

Emperor Macron normally a tranquil little church mouse recently visited China where the quiet little rodent was transmogrified into the Mouse that Roared. Upon returning to France his friends, the neo-Con dirty rats set him on the straight and narrow, gave him a little cheese where now he is back to his ole self, a quiet little church mouse…

Posted by: jrc | Apr 12 2023 18:01 utc | 28

If you believe the information of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, the Ukrainian army loses about 500-600 soldiers every day, as well as a lot of equipment. And this is before the offensive! Anyway, that's what they say in the messages The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has provided an update on the progress of a special military operation in Ukraine as of April 12, 2023.

Posted by: Rob | Apr 12 2023 18:07 utc | 29

Just dropped by to check how the Russian winter offensive was going...Have we won yet???

Posted by: I suck Pootin cock | Apr 12 2023 18:12 utc | 30

Trump: "Even now, if [US] president, I would be able to negotiate an end to this horrible war within 24 hours"

If the US has already spent $48 billion on the Ukrainian war, and possibly a similar amount as "black budget", and Russia has lost 17100 men, then the cost to the US is $2.8 million per Russian killed. Add to that the cost of lost business.

It's obvious why Trump would want to end the war: it's bad business.

Posted by: Passerby | Apr 12 2023 18:16 utc | 31

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230412/pentagon-leaks-5-key-revelations-1109396000.html

Pentagon Leaks: 5 Key Revelations

The appearance online of what looks like secret documents concerning US intelligence assessments of the conflict in Ukraine and their proliferation by media have sparked widespread controversy, with observers divided into two broad camps: those who believe the docs are genuine, and those who have reservations. Here’s what we know right now.
The leak of over 100 photographed pages of documents dated between late February and early March and labeled “Secret,” “Top Secret,” and “NOFORN” (not for viewing by foreign nationals) related to the ongoing NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine continues to generate global headlines. It has also had a real world impact, with Washington officials scrambling to contact and reassure allies amid embarrassing revelations that the US has been spying on its own allies (although, of course, that’s nothing new to anyone who’s been paying attention).
Key Takeaways
As the dust settles and the potential security implications of the leaks (including, potentially, the judiciousness of further US and NATO military assistance to Kiev), several facts seem to stand out among the info gleaned.
1. A page from a “Top Secret” assessment from February highlights apparent major “force generation and sustainment shortfalls” within Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and warns that Kiev would be able to secure only “modest territorial gains” if it decided to launch a spring offensive.
The assessment is significant because it highlights the contrast between the glum internal appraisal by the Pentagon, and the gung ho, everything-is-awesome sentiment expressed by officials in Washington and Brussels, and by President Joe Biden’s brash talk of Kiev’s impressive capabilities to conduct large-scale offensive operations with US support.
The information also raises questions about just where the tens of billions of dollars in US and NATO security assistance to Kiev has gone, given growing concerns about Western weapons sent to Ukraine somehow popping up in the hands of European gangs and African and Middle Eastern rebels and terrorist groups, while the dollar value of arms deliveries to Ukraine comes close to matching Russia’s entire annual defense budget.2. Another significant document, also dating from February, highlights President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recommendation that Ukrainian forces carry out massed drone strikes against “Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast,” and complaints that Kiev does not have the necessary long-range missile capabilities for such strikes.This piece of info is significant because it highlights President Zelensky’s apparent desperation and readiness to attack Russia directly despite warnings by some of his NATO paymasters that doing so might undermine their support for Kiev.3. The leaks challenge longstanding claims by the Pentagon and the Ukrainian military about casualties. A document entitled “Top Secret – Status of the Conflict as of March 01, 2023” estimates total Russian losses could be up to 16,000-17,500 killed in action, and 61,000-71,500 on the Ukrainian side.
That’s a far cry from the assessment by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley in November, which estimated Russian deaths at “well over” 100,000 troops, as well as the Ukrainian military’s pie in the sky “eliminated personnel” figures of 180,050 (i.e. nearly matching the 190,000 troop total that Western intelligence estimated were near Donbass in February 2022 before the escalation of the crisis). Ukrainian officials and Western media have sought to downplay these figures, accusing Russia of “doctoring” the stats (despite possible secondary corroboration) and assuring that Russian casualties are much higher, and Ukrainian ones much lower. Wherever the truth lies, the figures serve to undermine confidence in Ukraine’s NATO-supported and equipped army of super soldiers.
4. Another key revelation relates to the extent of NATO involvement. While alliance officials have consistently assured that no Western forces are on the ground fighting against Russia, a “Top Secret” document dated March 23 indicates that nearly half-a-dozen NATO powers do in fact have “boots on the ground” in the form of special forces troops. These include Britain (50 troops), Latvia (17), France (15), the US (14), and the Netherlands (1).
It’s unclear what exactly these forces are doing there. The document doesn’t say. Apparently realizing the grave implications of this information, Britain’s Defense Ministry offered a catch-all dismissal of the documents, assuring in a Tweet Tuesday that “the widely reported leak of alleged classified US information has demonstrated a serious level of inaccuracy,” and that “readers should be cautious about taking at face value allegations that have the potential to spread disinformation.”
What’s significant about the NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine? Well, for one thing, they serve to confirm longstanding allegations made by senior Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the US and its allies are waging a “total war” against Russia. Moreover, it raises important questions about the dangerous potential future of proxy wars. How, for example, would the US react if Russia or China deployed special forces troops to fight NATO forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, or Yugoslavia? The presence of Western alliance forces in Ukraine has effectively opened that can of worms.5. One final significant piece of information that can be gleaned from the documents relates to the state of Ukraine’s air defenses. A Pentagon assessment dated February 28 projected that Kiev’s stocks of Soviet-made Buk and S-300 missile systems – which make up almost 90 percent of the country’s air defenses, would be “fully depleted” by mid-April and May 3, respectively. A second slide from an assessment from February 23 predicts that Ukrainian forces’ frontline protection would be “completely reduced” by May 23.
This information is significant because it seems to confirm that the US and its allies are running out of time to shore up their client’s air defense protection before Russia gains total air superiority similar to the kind its Air Force enjoyed in the counterterrorism operation in Syria, or the kind the US and its allies typically have when they decide to bomb a third world country.
The US has promised to provide Ukraine with its bulky Patriot missile system and to ramp up deliveries of other anti-air weaponry, but observers have expressed concerns about the ability of the US military-industrial complex to ramp up production quickly enough, and questioned whether Washington will be willing to send additional sophisticated air defense hardware to a conflict zone where losses would mean a significant hit to US weapons makers if the equipment is lost.
Skepticism is Healthy
The leak of the documents online, and the fact that they were picked up by major legacy media resources in the West, has caused understandable consternation in some circles about whether or not they are genuine. After all, these are the same newspapers, outlets, and television networks that have pumped out story after debunked Russia-related story over the years and decades, from the claim that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill US troops in Afghanistan, to the allegation that Moscow meddled in America’s elections in 2016 and secretly installed a “Manchurian Candidate” named Donald Trump.
“We don’t have a position,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Sputnik when asked about the leaks. “Maybe it’s a fake, deliberate misinformation.”
Ryabkov explained that since Washington is a key party to the Ukraine conflict and is waging a hybrid war against Russia, the documents may be a ploy to mislead the Russian side. “I’m not confirming anything, but understand that various scenarios are conceivable here,” he said.
Publicly, at least, officials in Washington have treated the leaks as if they’re the real thing. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin vowed that his department would “turn over every rock” until the “source” of the leaks was found and their extent clarified. CIA chief William Burns echoed Austin’s performance, calling the leaks “deeply unfortunate” and saying they were something the US government “takes extremely seriously.”
Amid reports that the Pentagon has been trying to scrub the leaked docs from the net, Twitter CEO Elon Musk sarcastically quipped that “yeah, you can totally delete things from the internet – it works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all.”
Kiev, predictably, has blamed Moscow, calling the leaks a “Russian propaganda ploy.” Chinese media dismissed these assertions, suggesting that if Russia had gotten its hands on the documents, it would likely hold onto them and use them to its advantage against Ukraine and NATO instead of spreading them online.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the leaks “quite interesting.” As for the suggestion that Moscow might somehow be involved, he said that “the tendency to constantly blame Russia for everything is a widespread disease right now.”
The truth about who leaked the documents and why may never be found. However, a stream of retired US officials, Washington-based security advisors, and CIA analysts have told Sputnik that the “leaks” may be an attempt by “dissenters” and “realists” within the US security state establishment to provide Washington with a much-needed “offramp” from the ever-escalating conflict with Russia in Ukraine before it turns into a world war.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230412/strange-that-pentagon-files-were-released-on-gaming-site-rather-than-to-journalists-or-wikileaks-1109396281.html

Strange That ‘Pentagon Files’ Were Released on Gaming Site Rather Than to Journalists or WikiLeaks

The apparent Pentagon leak seems to be legitimate and has to some extent hurt the US, says author and journalist Daniel Lazare, adding that the alleged whistleblower used photographs rather than the original documents, apparently to disguise their origin.
The scandal over the alleged Pentagon leak is raging on, with a National Security Council spokesman admitting that some documents appeared to be genuine, while others were altered. The files in question contain a wide variety of information, including Ukraine war plans; Washington’s spying on its allies and adversaries alike; and its allies’ concerns about the possibility of being dragged into a conflict with Russia. Some observers don’t rule out that the entire episode is a covert operation. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leak, while the Pentagon has signaled that it is taking steps to restrict access to classified documents. The dump prompted a heated debate over the veracity of the docs and the forces behind the leak.
“I’m inclined to think they’re legitimate,” Daniel Lazare told Sputnik. “How’s that for a waffle? I mean, I think I haven’t seen any strong evidence that they’re not. So I assume they are. But there’s always a possibility that someone is playing a trick on somebody else. As [for] the damage to the US, I don’t think it’s very great, but I think it does. In a few instances it could be significant. I mean, the stuff on Israel, the fact they have inside information that Mossad, the Israeli spy agency, was encouraging anti-government demonstrations against Netanyahu. And that’s pretty something if true. But the Israeli government has denied it. And so we’re sort of left in the dark. So I don’t know what to make of it. Is it much ado about nothing? Is it something real? I can’t see anything terribly earth-shattering here, but I could be wrong.”
Photographs of the allegedly leaked documents first emerged on Discord, a messaging platform popular with gamers, weeks earlier. They remained largely unnoticed until they were shared on Twitter and other popular sites and platforms. The US Department of Defense is continuing to assess the validity of the photographed documents that appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material, as per Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh.

“I don’t know that the fact that they’re photographs rather than the original documents, (…) that may have been an attempt to disguise their origin, to throw investigators off the track,” suggested Lazare. “That sounds possible. I don’t know. It could also indicate that they have a roundabout way of reaching the Internet. That’s also possible. And the fact that they weren’t released to a journalist, but rather to a gamer or a gaming site is certainly strange.”
There is a lively debate as to who could have leaked the documents as well as what the purpose of the alleged whistleblower was. Some experts have suggested that it could be a new Edward Snowden or some disgruntled Pentagon official’s concerns with the Biden administration’s military adventurism in Ukraine. For their part, some Russian military observers have not ruled out that the dump is aimed at diverting Moscow’s attention from Ukraine’s forthcoming spring offensive and contains disinformation regarding Kiev’s ability to launch the advance. Others referred to the US mainstream media’s enthusiasm in disseminating the alleged Pentagon leak, something that the Western press has not demonstrated so far with regard to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s Nord Stream bombshell.
“What strikes me is the real question who leaked it. I mean, clearly the information is contained, reportedly, in self-contained computer units with no access to the Internet. So if that’s true, then it suggests that somebody very high up decided to, you know, to make off with this information. And that’s really interesting. I can’t provide any hard information as to who might have done that or why. But it certainly sets my antenna abuzz,” Lazare concluded.

Posted by: Oblomovka daydream | Apr 12 2023 18:24 utc | 32

One thing struck me, the US/Ukraine has had what? approx 8 years to prepare for what was an inevitable war with Russia. Russia has had approx 8 years to prepare for what might be an inevitable war with the US.
Now, it would appear that Russia has made the best use of its 8 years to prepare for war with NATO/US.
Has the US been so arrogant as to adopt a 'couldn't care less' attitude? Or, does it have something it thinks makes it the Alpha Male?
I mean, the US running out of ammunition, really?What have those defence industries been doing for the last 8 years? For me, there is a whiff of an odour that doesn't smell right here...Just sayin'

Posted by: Ken Tucky | Apr 12 2023 18:27 utc | 33

@ Ken Tucky | Apr 12 2023 18:27 utc | 33

A free market is the most profitable way to run an arms procurement business.

Posted by: too scents | Apr 12 2023 18:34 utc | 34

b - thanks for acknowledging richard steven hacks contributions to the discussions here... cheers james

Posted by: james | Apr 12 2023 18:45 utc | 35

@26

Jdam is a usa weapon development system case study.

early on the contractor could not delivery at cost, corners were cut, reliable kits never a sure thing.

the failure modes with the bomb fusing do not Count!

another failure mode is connection to the aircraft. which are kluge to make jdam talk to the old Soviet aircraft

ascribing failures to Russian jamming hides the problems with jdam and hanging them with duct tape to migs

most usa wunderwaffen are not ready for war

Posted by: paddy | Apr 12 2023 18:56 utc | 36

@ KenTucky: The only thing that could possibly be tricky about the leaks is that it paints Ukraine, the USA and NATO is a light that is less favorable than the reality... But I rather doubt that Russia would be lulled into anything resembling complacency. As far as weapons procurement the MIC in the USA is rotten to the core and has been for decades. Much like the Germans in Barbarossa, the USA & "Friends" are guilty of arrogance and believing their own propaganda. If they were smart they would have ramped up rather than sitting around sniffing their own farts, but there it is.

The heaviest impact the leaks could have is on the perception of people in the West that have little to know knowledge of anything to do with this conflict. Most folks here are likely not surprised at all , but the chowderheads that have been smoking the copium are probably taken aback. If anything it has "pre-lubricated" the general populace for the Grand Pivot and Circling Back that will inevitably happen!

Onward

Posted by: Chevrus | Apr 12 2023 19:03 utc | 37

@ Oblomovka daydream | Apr 12 2023 18:24 utc | 32

thanks for your post... all of it speculation, but regardless whether anyone finds out or not - the fact is that all this info is out their now in the public sphere and is having an impact no matter what the source or intent was... for all we can all agree! all the rest is speculation and on some important level, it matters not... cheers james

Posted by: james | Apr 12 2023 19:08 utc | 38

Hersh only provides the top portion of his articles to non-subscribers. Here is the full version.

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY

President Biden with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Wednesday, December 21, 2022, in the Oval Office. / Official White House photo.
The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zalensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.

What also is unknown is that Zalensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”

“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.

Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. Many of those companies are in Poland and Czechia, but others are thought to exist in the Persian Gulf and Israel. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are others in places like the Cayman Islands and Panama, and there are lots of Americans involved,” an American expert on international trade told me.

The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie. The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.”

Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.

Zelensky’s half-hearted response and the White House’s lack of concern was seen, the intelligence official added, as another sign of a lack of leadership that is leading to a “total breakdown” of trust between the White House and some elements of the intelligence community. Another divisive issue, I have been repeatedly told in my recent reporting, is the strident ideology and lack of political skill shown by Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. The president and his two main foreign policy advisers “live in different worlds” than the experienced diplomats and military and intelligence officers assigned to the White House;. “They have no experience, judgment, and moral integrity. They just tell lies, make up stories. Diplomatic deniability is something else,” the intelligence official said. “That has to be done.”

A prominent retired American diplomat who strenuously opposes Biden’s foreign policy toward China and Russia depicted Blinken as little more than a “jumped-up congressional staffer” and Sullivan as “a political campaign manager” who suddenly find themselves front and center in the world of high-powered diplomacy “with no empathy for the opposition. They’re decent pols,” he added, “but now we have the political and energy world all upside down. China and India are now selling refined gasoline to the Western world. It’s just business.”

The current crisis is not helped by the fact that Putin also is acting irrationally. The intelligence official told me that everything Putin has been “doing in Ukraine is counter to Russia’s long-term interests. Emotion has overcome rationality and he’s doing things that are totally nonproductive. And so are we going to sit down with Zelensky and Putin and work it out? Not a chance.”

“There is a total breakdown between the White House leadership and the intelligence community,” the intelligence official said. The rift dates back to the fall, when, as I reported in early February, Biden ordered the covertdestruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. “Destroying the Nord Stream pipelines was never discussed, or even known in advance, by the community,” the official told me. “And there is no strategy for ending the war. The US spent two years planning for the Normandy invasion in World War II. What are we going to do if China decides to invade Taiwan?” The official added that the National Intelligence Council has yet to order a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on defending Taiwan from China, which would provide national security and political guidance in case such does happen. There is no reason yet, despite repeated American political provocation from both Democrats and Republicans, the official said, to suspect that China has any intention of invading Taiwan. It has lost billions building its wildly ambitious Belt and Road Initiative aimed at linking East Asia to Europe and investing, perhaps foolishly, in seaports around the world. “The point is,” the official told me, “there is no working NIE process anymore.

“Burns is not the problem,” the official said. “The problem is Biden and his principal lieutenants—Blinken and Sullivan and their court of worshippers—who see those who criticize Zelensky as being pro-Putin. ‘We are against evil. Ukraine will fight ’til the last military shell is gone, and still fight.’ And here’s Biden who is telling America that we’re going to fight as long as it takes.”

The official cited the little-known and rarely discussed deployment, authorized by Biden, of two brigades with thousands of America’s best army combat units to the region. A brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division has been intensively training and exercising from its base inside Poland within a few miles of the Ukrainian border. It was reinforced late last year by a brigade from the 101st Airborne Division that was deployed in Romania. The actual manpower of the two brigades, when administrative and support units—with the trucks and drivers who haul the constant stream of arms and military equipment flowing by sea to keep the units combat ready—could total more than 20,000.

The intelligence officials told me that “there is no evidence that any senior official in the White House really knows what’s going on in the 82nd and 101st. Are they there as part of a NATO exercise or to serve with NATO combat units if the West decides to engage Russians units inside Ukraine? Are they there to train or to be a trigger? The rules of engagement say they can’t attack Russians unless our boys are getting attacked.”

“But the juniors are running the show here,” the official added. “There’s no NSC coordination and the US army is getting ready to go to war. There’s no idea whether the White House knows what’s going on. Has the president gone to the American people with an informative broadcast about what is going on? The only briefings the press and the public get today are from White House spokespeople.

“This is not just bad leadership. There is none. Zero.” The official added that a team of Ukrainian combat pilots are now getting trained here in America to fly US-built F-16 fighter jets, with the goal, if needed, of flying in combat against Russian troops and other targets inside Ukraine.” No decision about such deployment has been made.

The clearest statements of American policy have come not from the White House, but from the Pentagon. Army General Mark A. Milley, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of the war last March 15: “Russia remains isolated. Their military stocks are rapidly depleting. Their soldiers are demoralized, untrained, unmotivated conscripts and convicts, and their leadership is failing them. Having already failed in their strategic objectives, Russia is increasingly relying on other countries, such as Iran and North Korea. . . . This relationship is built on the cruel bonds of repressing freedom, subverting liberty and maintaining their tyranny. . . . Ukraine remains strong. They are capable and trained. Ukrainian soldiers are . . . strong in their combat units. Their tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored vehicles are only going to bolster the front line.”

There is evidence that Milley is as optimistic as he sounds. I was told that two months ago the Joint Chiefs had ordered members of the staff—the military phrase is “tasked”—to draft an end-of-war treaty to present to the Russians after their defeat on the Ukraine battlefield.

If worse comes to worst for the undermanned and outgunned Ukraine army in the next few months, will the two American brigades join forces with NATO troops and face off with the Russian army inside Ukraine? Is this the plan, or hope, of the American president? Is this the fireside chat he wants to give? If Biden decides to share his thoughts with the American people, he might want to explain what two army brigades, fully staffed and supplied, are doing so close to the war zone.

Posted by: First Time Poster | Apr 12 2023 19:13 utc | 39

the leaks are at best for momentary entertainment who time has already past.
Posted by: oak | Apr 12 2023 17:36 utc | 18

I thought that the leaks were an extremely well constructed fig leaf for Ukrainian defeat.

I have not underestimated DIA (the Defense Intelligence Agency) since the Vietnam war. They clearly know what is going on. How it filters up and gets massaged for higher level consumption, WH and DoS included is a different story.

I have worked deep inside the beast of another Federal Agency where the lower levels had the accurate detail. The rules are the same.

Posted by: Acco Hengst | Apr 12 2023 19:16 utc | 40

If Ukraine air-defense dearth has major gaps?

Will Russia take advantage by flying massive sorties until West reloads Ukraine air-defense?

Posted by: Ramsey Glissadevil | Apr 12 2023 19:18 utc | 41

Posted by: Suvorov | Apr 12 2023 17:43 utc | 20

The same old western psyop..isis style execution for the pleasure of the beggar elensky.

Posted by: LuBa | Apr 12 2023 19:21 utc | 42

I see one out and out troll in above comments but this one struck me

"Also, its not necessary to have a good discussion of the issues."
Posted by: James Hendrickson | Apr 12 2023 17:03 utc | 7

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 19:22 utc | 43

More droning on about drones!

An article that is sceptical about the transformative impact of drones

https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/46/4/130/111172/Why-Drones-Have-Not-Revolutionized-War-The

Podcast looking at future trends, emphasising swarming systems

https://rusi.org/podcasts/western-way-of-war/episode-10-realities-and-future-swarming-and-drones

Countering swarming tactics

https://ndupress.ndu.edu/JFQ/Joint-Force-Quarterly-107/Article/Article/3197193/countering-swarms-strategic-considerations-and-opportunities-in-drone-warfare/

Posted by: jared | Apr 12 2023 16:43 utc | 280

Plenty of evidence from frustrated Ukrainian drone operators and their decreasing effectiveness. These stories are bolstered by the changing Western narrative, from boasting about superior numbers and capabilities to stories about Star Wars actors pleading for more basic models, which is somewhat indicative of increasing difficulties operating against Russian kinetic/electro-magnetic defences.

Posted by: Milites | Apr 12 2023 19:26 utc | 44

You may well be correct, but I don't anticipate Russia initiating any such attack absent a clear indication that the US is planning to initiate one. The jury is still out on that. The release of the leaked documents clearly shows there is a Pentagon (and possibly IC) faction that is working against the neocons in the Biden administration.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 17:10 utc | 8

Russia may not be ready yet.

They may need 50-100 deployed Sarmats, the A-235s fully rolled out, wider deployment of S-500s, more Poseidons (presumably the other submarine out at sea), and a lot more deployed hypersonics on ships and submarines, plus whatever it is that their plan to disable/trick early warning systems fully worked out, in order to both launch a first strike and survive what remains of the second strike in a reasonably tolerable condition.

That is the charitable interpretation for why the war is being dragged this way when it could have been concluded much more forcefully. It also may be why the US is ramping up the provocations (because they know their own window is closing), and why they forced Russia to start the war at this particular time to begin with.

The uncharitable interpretation is that the traitor faction in Russia is still in power and has no intention of solving the problem decisively.

On the basis of currently available evidence, the latter cannot be excluded by any means, and is in fact the more likely one.

But nuclear war is where this is logically headed, unless the traitors in Russia make another deal like in the late 1980s. Which will probably be worse than a limited nuclear exchange -- if we end up with, say, the UK, Finland, Poland and Romania plus the US bases in Germany, Belgium. Netherlands, Italy and Turkey being glassed, but then a better, still largely intact world emerges on the other side of it, that's a better deal than the destruction of Russia and the continuation of current trends.

Posted by: shadowbanned | Apr 12 2023 19:27 utc | 45

Good grief with the fear mongering. There is no danger to simply re-publishing a link documents that are already leaked to the public domain. As I said yesterday, if that were the case, then anyone who ever clicked on Wikileaks (or any other leak site), shared a link to a leaked US document there or reported on those items would have been arrested and convicted long ago. That's why they had to go to such extreme lengths to indict Assange on computer hacking in order to use the Espionage Act. Nobody has ever been charged for sharing a link to leaked files once they are in the greater information ecosystem and being reported on by the official organs of Empire like NYT and WaPo, FFS.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 19:27 utc | 46

Posted by: First Time Poster | Apr 12 2023 19:13 utc | 39

If they truly believe this part:

“Russia remains isolated. Their military stocks are rapidly depleting. Their soldiers are demoralized, untrained, unmotivated conscripts and convicts, and their leadership is failing them. Having already failed in their strategic objectives, Russia is increasingly relying on other countries, such as Iran and North Korea. . . . This relationship is built on the cruel bonds of repressing freedom, subverting liberty and maintaining their tyranny. . . . Ukraine remains strong. They are capable and trained. Ukrainian soldiers are . . . strong in their combat units. Their tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armored vehicles are only going to bolster the front line.”

.. then their ‘intelligence’ is even more broken than any amount of leaked documents might reveal. Utterly delusional.

Posted by: West of England Andy | Apr 12 2023 19:31 utc | 47

I mean, the US running out of ammunition, really?What have those defence industries been doing for the last 8 years? For me, there is a whiff of an odour that doesn't smell right here...Just sayin'

Posted by: Ken Tucky | Apr 12 2023 18:27 utc | 33

It's really quite simple. The bloated US "defense" budget mostly goes to "service" providers and wasteful fighter jet programs. Furthermore, the USA has been busy fighting wars on countries that aren't even close to peer status and who mostly lack basic air defense systems. Plus, and this is big, there is very little profit in manufacturing 155mm (or smaller) artillery munitions (or there wasn't until this war started anyway). The USSA functions - in every facet of life, economy and government - as a "Just In Time" enterprise focused on squeezing maximum profit out of minimal effort, in the shortest term possible. The only long-term planning here is done by the elements of government that are aimed inwards at us citizens. Ya know, building prisons, adding to the criminal code and implementing ever more intrusive methods of surveilling the population so as to crush domestic dissent.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 19:33 utc | 48

Hersh has an exceptional good track record as an investigative journalist.

I watched an interview some weeks back in which he expressed some views that made me very wary of him. He is smart and not just a dumb American but the views he expressed.... nord stream was the bait to pull the suckers in.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 19:35 utc | 49

RE Milley,

.. then their ‘intelligence’ is even more broken than any amount of leaked documents might reveal. Utterly delusional.

Posted by: West of England Andy | Apr 12 2023 19:31 utc | 47

Yep, it he actually believes that, then he is dumb as a brick and should run for Congress. I don't know if you can be that dumb, and still be where he is. Thirty years ago, I would have said most likely not. Today it is all political.

But off hand, he looks spooked to me, he is not that dumb.

Posted by: Bemildred | Apr 12 2023 19:42 utc | 50

Posted by: Oblomovka daydream | Apr 12 2023 18:24 utc | 32

me as well is still in the about it got published. Beside that I am amazingly happy about finding all necessary informations here just in a bar, but the fact that the docs got leaked through an enthusiast thread of gamers about smo and stays there for weeks without notice makes it amazing. Is it really just a government officials with security clearance who wanted to win a conversation?
Its like getting published through a heated moa discussion. only you can't past photos directly here.
After the conversation past week about b´s possible exposure to security pressure I find it extremely brave to highlight the in legal terms illegal content. But thanks, to Steven for translation and compiling this folder, to b for everything. I am in when it goes this way further. Only truth will set us free.

Posted by: rico rose | Apr 12 2023 19:46 utc | 51

This massive promotion of the leaked documents by the US media...According to McGovern and Johnson they are genuine as being from the US military establishment but I watch the massive promotion by the US media and have to wonder if they were drawn up for the purpose of the leak.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 19:49 utc | 52

I thought that the leaks were an extremely well constructed fig leaf for Ukrainian defeat.
Posted by: Acco Hengst | Apr 12 2023 19:16 utc | 40

A lowering in support from some of natoids, yes. Defeat is impossible if all Russia does is stay in Bakhmut or somewhere else in Donbass. At most, the leak is a trick to have a cease fire so nato has time to fill it again. Lula arrives in China to present his piss plan, the one where Russia has to give back Donbass.
Btw, Poland said today that they want to manufacture DU ammo for Ukr.

Posted by: rk | Apr 12 2023 19:50 utc | 53

Bemildred | Apr 12 2023 19:42 utc | 50

Milley is a bit of an oddball. Some time ago he blurted out the facts of life then had to quickly cover it with bullshit.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 19:53 utc | 54

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 19:53 utc | 54

Yeah, exactly. One thing you learn is keeping incompatible facts apart so they don't interfere with what you need to say.

Posted by: Bemildred | Apr 12 2023 20:06 utc | 55

@Ken Tucky #33

'Has the US been so arrogant as to adopt a 'couldn't care less' attitude? Or, does it have something it thinks makes it the Alpha Male?

Nope. It is the Alpha Mule!

The Federation is sorting it out.

Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 12 2023 20:09 utc | 56

Well since it was repeated here then I may as well.

Clown cake
‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾

James Hendrickson:
Спасибо, дорогая мама! :D

Will you send us cake when we are stuck in Guantanamo? If you send enough the guards and torturers will die of cardiac arrest since they'll steal and eat it.

Unless Outraged has made us FOAD (not food) first for whatever reason, then no Cuba for us!

Clownery for the clown world.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Apr 12 2023 19:58 utc | 293

Or maybe that last part should instead be:
clown leaks for the clown world.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Apr 12 2023 20:12 utc | 57

I can't tolerate Dima who is muddled headed, hyper, and scattershot but I can deal with the History Legends guy. Here he plays devil's advocate and lays out what Ukraine could have in the works. It's a well reasoned presentation and if true, even in part, Russia has a long, hard row to hoe. It ain't ending in Artemovsk.

Bakhmut Was A Trap

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Apr 12 2023 20:15 utc | 58

Question: Why does Ukraine even want the Donbass region anymore? Is there some rich concentration of resources there? Otherwise it would seem like they wouldn't want territory inhabited almost exclusively by people hostile to their genocidal Russophobic bent. I guess I could see a "Shock Doctrine" type scenario where Ukraine gets a ton of IMF or other loans to rebuild it but most of the money is really pocketed by Western Ukrainian oligarchs and members of Zelensky's administration, but the previous thoughts still hold. Seriously, what's in this for Ukraine other than misplaced pride or goading from the USSA?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 20:19 utc | 59

Zelensky is ready to transfer several western regions of the country to Poland in exchange for full-scale military assistance to the Ukraine army in the seizure of Crimea. This was stated by the former intelligence officer of the British intelligence service MI6 Alistair Crook.
https://twitter.com/MZakhar...

Posted by: crone | Apr 12 2023 20:36 utc | 60

Posted by: crone | Apr 12 2023 20:36 utc | 60

Your link is broken.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 20:41 utc | 61

just for those who care ( I dont if anyone here does )

but lets say - the russians will be cool with the fat guys later - think what you might about that :D

Posted by: Macpott | Apr 12 2023 20:43 utc | 62

fyi

Russia Ukraine War: Ukraine’s Hypocrisy on India Exposed | Vantage with Palki Sharma

[5 mins]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UADLJYWRUg8

subtext Zelenski wants to speak at G20 - think Modi will tell him to take a hike

Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 12 2023 20:46 utc | 63

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 20:19 utc | 59
«Question: Why does Ukraine even want the Donbass region anymore?»

It does not matter, I think that is just a pretext for the USA to start and keep going a proxy war with the RF, and then an insurgency against the RF. Anyhow it is all about fanatics who want to become again the noble ruling class of the lithuanian-ruthenian-polish "Intermarium" empire.

«Is there some rich concentration of resources there?»

It was the most industrialized part of the country, plus coal and allegedly some other stuff. The RF does not need it, they have already plenty of riches, but the ukrainian government obviously does.

«Otherwise it would seem like they wouldn't want territory inhabited almost exclusively by people hostile to their genocidal Russophobic bent.»

From the point of view of the ukrainian government those people in the Donbas and Crimea and further out up to and including Rostov and Voronezh, are just invading squatters who have been polluting with their presence sacred ruthenian ground for centuries and have no right to continue doing that.

«scenario where Ukraine gets a ton of IMF or other loans to rebuild it»

They have already got IMF money, and a previous commenter reported:

Posted by: John Schmeeckle | Feb 27 2023 16:52 utc | 6
“3. One of the conditions of Ukraine’s IMF loan was that Ukraine re-conquer the breakaway Donbass republics, which had a lot of Ukraine’s heavy industry -- important for generating revenue to repay the IMF loan.”

Posted by: Blissex | Apr 12 2023 20:46 utc | 64

# 30
As I walk toward, ahead
Every so often, and quickly
I turn my head around.
Noticing, all the things
I have left behind,
On purpose. Your post reminds, me of that.

Posted by: Dingo | Apr 12 2023 20:50 utc | 65

Posted by: John Schmeeckle | Feb 27 2023 16:52 utc | 6
“3. One of the conditions of Ukraine’s IMF loan was that Ukraine re-conquer the breakaway Donbass republics, which had a lot of Ukraine’s heavy industry -- important for generating revenue to repay the IMF loan.”

Posted by: Blissex | Apr 12 2023 20:46 utc | 64

Definitely missed that bit. Thanks. Now that I think about it, I also seem to recall something about needing not to be at war and to have territorial integrity to join the EU or NATO. The whole thing is either a well designed Catch-22 or a major clusterfuck.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 20:51 utc | 66

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 20:19 utc | 59

It can be an inaccurate statement, but I believe the Donbas region is rich in coal and also was heavily industrialized prior to the SMO.

But anyway, it does not seem to me that the Ukrainian struggle in Donbas has, today, any connection to Ukrainian objectives, desires or needs, rather than foreign ones...

Posted by: C Khosta y Alzamendi | Apr 12 2023 20:52 utc | 67

Thanks ... works for me ...

here's tweet url https://twitter.com/MZakharova0/status/1646042421078179840

Posted by: crone | Apr 12 2023 20:52 utc | 68

According to Wikipedia, which is never wrong, "The word Donbas is a portmanteau formed from "Donets Basin", an abbreviation of "Donets Coal Basin".

One imagines that there's a lot of coal there.

Posted by: Boris Badenov | Apr 12 2023 20:56 utc | 69

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 20:19 utc | 59

Question: Why does Ukraine even want the Donbass region anymore? Is there some rich concentration of resources there?

Short answer: yes there is.

Unfortunately I don’t have the details directly to hand, but lurking around various blogs and forums over the last few months, several have posted maps and analyses of mineral deposits (mainly non-ferrous metals, though I can’t recall rare earths featuring greatly); I think Z.H. and possibly The Saker have looked into this in the past. Plus there have been reported reserves of shale gas, as well as (via Kherson/Crimea) access to Black Sea gas reserves.

Added to these, the Donbass is (or was) home to a good deal of heavy industry - the huge steelworks at Mariupol being an example of this.

So there is certainly an incentive for the oligarchs and their Western backers to try and grab all these potential riches.

Posted by: West of England Andy | Apr 12 2023 20:57 utc | 70

Btw, Poland said today that they want to manufacture DU ammo for Ukr.
Posted by: rk | Apr 12 2023 19:50 utc | 53
--------------------------------------------------
Poland likes to whore around. Shame free.

Right now they are the best noisemaker for the Blinken cabal, IMHO.

Posted by: Acco Hengst | Apr 12 2023 20:57 utc | 71

Posted by: james | Apr 12 2023 18:45 utc | 35

And thanks for your continued support over the years, James.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 20:58 utc | 72

Posted by: First Time Poster | Apr 12 2023 19:13 utc | 39

Thanks for the full Hersh piece.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 20:59 utc | 73

I'm sure the Chinese will be even more impressed and intimidated than with Macron's visit!

Germany foreign minister embarks on post-Macron 'damage control' in China trip

German foreign minister heads to China on inaugural trip Baerbock should show EU solidarity on China, politicians say No interest in economic decoupling from China, Baerbock says

Wonder if she reads the memos?

Posted by: upstater | Apr 12 2023 21:10 utc | 74

Reports say that the 'leaked' documents were shared by gamers in January, in a debate on the video game chat platform Discord. If so all the political speculation of ‘who what why’ is pointless.

Posted by: olaf22 | Apr 12 2023 21:12 utc | 75

Posted by: West of England Andy | Apr 12 2023 20:57 utc | 70

In a YouTube video posted early last year, Markus Reisner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Reisner) suggested that whilst the territory occupied by the Russians constituted only 25% of Ukrainian territory, it accounted for 90% of Ukrainian GDP. Apart from minerals and the industry base, the south-east also incorporates some of the most fertile soil in Ukraine, the "chernozem".
I've also seen suggestion that, as a consequence of some legal jiggery-pokery, a lot of that agricultural land is now owned by US agricbusiness.

Posted by: PM | Apr 12 2023 21:27 utc | 76

@RHS
I spent some many hours trawling sites to locate those leaked docs.
I even took flack from you while doing so:

Richard Steven Hack | Apr 11 2023 6:57 utc | 163

Melaleuca.. Why would anyone care who was the first 4chan slug to upload the pics? Who knows where the hell he got them? Does anyone actually think they are going to OSINT something amazing about these pics? That ain't gonna happen.
I haven't even looked at them closely yet, as everyone else seems to have already done that and published their analyses, so what am I likely to add to it?
As I said, they're on my Google Drive for download by anyone with the link, posted above.
People are coming on here and making confident assertions that the leaks are this, that and the other thing. They're all blowing smoke out of their ass - as usual here. No one knows and whoever does know is not telling.
And where the hell are the alleged "hundreds of documents"? Until someone shows me a download link at Pastebin, that's all bullshit, too.

I might not have “pastebinned” to satisfy your demand.
But I did spend many hours.. many hours.. finding the next tranche of docs.
An acknowledgment would have been gracious….

Posted by: Melaleuca | Apr 12 2023 21:27 utc | 77

The Donbass is rich - and the Russians exploited its richness ... and Lenin's little error is about to be corrected ... I've seen estimates that it constituted ~65% of the GDP of what used to be known as Ukraine.

Its main resource, of course,is its Russian population

Donets Basin (Донецький вугільний басейн; Donetskyi vuhilnyi basein; also known as the Donets Coal Basin, Донбас; Donbas, or Donets region). The most important fuel source and industrial region of Ukraine and all of Eastern Europe, the location of highly developed coal industry, ferrous-metallurgy industry, machine building, chemical industry, and construction industry, enormous energy resources, diversified agriculture, and a dense transportation network. The Donbas lies in southeastern Ukraine and partly in the western Russian Federation, between the middle and lower Donets River in the north and the northeast and the Azov Upland and Azov Lowland in the south. The coal basin extends from west to east through most of Donetsk oblast and the southern half of Luhansk oblast in Ukraine and includes some of the western part of Rostov oblast in the Russian Federation. In Ukraine that basin covers an area of 23,000 sq km.

The Donets Basin or Old Donbas is a territory where the strata of the productive Carboniferous period come to the surface or are overlaid with thin strata of later deposits. It was named the Donets Basin by Yevhraf Kovalevsky, who explored its stratigraphy and geology and studied its coal and salt reserves in 1827. Salt extraction and coal mining expanded in the second half of the 19th century and particularly in the 1930s. In the 1950s more coal deposits were discovered in eastern Dnipropetrovsk oblast (western Donbas) and north, south, and east of the Old Donbas, where the strata of the productive Carboniferous are covered with strata of later geological deposits, 500–600 m and more thick. These coal regions, called the New Donbas, along with the Old Donbas constitute the Great Donbas (Velykyi Donbas), which extends for 650 km from east to west and 70–170 km from north to south. The area of the Great Donbas is 60,000 sq km, of which about 45,000 lie in Ukraine and the remainder in the Russian Federation. The smaller, eastern part of the Donbas lying within the boundaries of the Russian Federation had a narrow western slice that was briefly (1920–4) part of the Ukrainian SSR; it, too, was partly populated by Ukrainians.

The Donbas Industrial Region has expanded in a westerly and northerly direction, and since 1975 has been expanding in a southerly direction as well. With functional linkage to the Dnipro Industrial Region in the west, the Kharkiv Industrial Region in the northwest, and the Mariupol Industrial Region in the south, its growth peaked in the 1980s. All the territory of Donetsk oblast and Luhansk oblast (53,200 sq km) is often included in the Donbas, although this territory also includes purely agricultural regions north of the Donets River and the Sea of Azov coastal region. This article will focus on the Old Donbas in Ukraine (an area of 23,000 sq km).

The geographical location of the Donbas facilitated industrial growth: it lies only 120–150 km from the Sea of Azov, 350–450 km from the Kryvyi Rih Iron-ore Basin, 300–350 km from the Kerch Iron-ore Basin, 300–350 km from the Nikopol Manganese Basin, and close to the largest consumers of its coal—the metallurgical, energy, and other industrial centers. A dense network of railways and highways served the Donbas and connected it with the main centers of Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe.

Read on:

http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CD%5CO%5CDonetsBasin.htm

Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 12 2023 21:32 utc | 78

Zelensky is ready to transfer several western regions of the country to Poland in exchange for full-scale military assistance to the Ukraine army in the seizure of Crimea. This was stated by the former intelligence officer of the British intelligence service MI6 Alistair Crook.
https://twitter.com/MZakhar...

Posted by: crone | Apr 12 2023 20:36 utc | 60

-------------

Hah, then Duda is a f**king crack-head.

They'd FUBAR Poland, end Ukraine as a viable polity and utterly demolish the NATO narrative in one fell swoop.

Also are these latter day "winged hussars" going into battle on horseback like their ancestors? Because the Polish army has given away loads of it's own equipment.

Oh, and it wouldn't work...

Posted by: Urban Fox | Apr 12 2023 21:32 utc | 79

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Apr 12 2023 20:12 utc | 57

Well, I suspect that of all of us here, I have the most time in a Federal prison, so perhaps I can advise those of you who are Americans. LOL

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 21:33 utc | 80

Saw this in comments at a German site, but unable to track it down in English or any other language.

It's been a while since anyone (Down South) published a sitrep here, so I'm curious as to the accuracy of it.

Here goes...

Scott Ritter released exclusive footage of the news this morning that Ukraine's Armed Forces had been deployed to Bakhmut. A few hours ago PMC Wagner fighters spotted an approaching detachment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, more than 6,000 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were on their way to Bakhmut. About 3,000 soldiers were squeezed in a bag of fire, more than half were eliminated, an air attack was launched on the advancing positions with the FAB-3000 aerial bomb."
Sad but true., about 1500 dead Ukrainians in one day ONE attack but you won't read about it in the media

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 21:33 utc | 81

OK, thanks to all who answered and I now know that Donbass region has a lot of coal and some gas, but the industrial base has been mostly destroyed now, has it not? And as someone mentioned, the real riches were in the workers of the region, most of whom are "ethnic" Russians or Russian speakers with loyalties to Russia. Thus I think the money's in the depopulation->repopulation->rebuild and that the US-IMF won't hesitate to provide even more usurious loans (to the people of Ukraine anyway, not Zelensky and the oligarchs) if they manage to retake and hold it. It may even be about farmland.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 21:36 utc | 82

Posted by: upstater | Apr 12 2023 21:10 utc | 74
"Wonder if she reads the memos?"

Wonder if she can read.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 21:37 utc | 83

Sigh...@82 what I meant to say was that future loans (and the ones already made) will be extremely usurious to the people of Ukraine, whoever's left, with austerity and misery while _elensky and his crew of oligarchs will further enrich themselves and stash as much $ as possible off-shore.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 21:38 utc | 84

@C Khosta y Alzamendi | Apr 12 2023 20:52 utc | 67

@Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 20:19 utc | 59

Eastern Ukraine is the most industrialized region and has extensive coal and salt deposits among other things, as well as good agricultural land. The coal went to Russia to industries tailored to it's characteristics - steel making for one - and also as fuel for power plants. The ports along the Azov Sea coast are important as well.

https://images.slideplayer.com/2/743668/slides/slide_3.jpg

a search on the economy of Ukraine will give more details.

Posted by: the pessimist | Apr 12 2023 21:40 utc | 85

I mean, the US running out of ammunition, really?What have those defence industries been doing for the last 8 years? For me, there is a whiff of an odour that doesn't smell right here...Just sayin'

Posted by: Ken Tucky | Apr 12 2023 18:27 utc | 33

Martyanov is generally a blowhard that is more often wrong than right, but on this issue his analysis is on point.

Basically it boils down to the real meaning of the word "defense".

The US is protected by oceans and weak neighbors, nobody is going to invade and conquer it, at least not until it has collapsed internally. Under that sort of conditions there is no real need for weapons other than a strategic deterrent. Certainly not for the kind of weapons needed to fight a major land war. After all, who are you going to fight a land war with? You only start expeditionary wars against opponents that can't really resists, and you don't need WWII-scale armaments for such purposes.

So the whole MIC is free to degenerate into a gigantic scam whose primary purpose is a massive wealth transfer from the taxpayer into the pockets of politicians and corporate CEOs and shareholders.

Worse, the whole MIC being private corporations, because they have to be private corporations for ideological reasons (few people realize it, but even much of the nuclear weapons infrastructure is not under direct governmental control in the US), not only does it have zero incentive to maintain idle capacity just in case, but in fact idle capacity is something that must absolutely be avoided as it is inefficient and hurts profits.

And this is why production is not just so anemic, but there is little spare capacity to scale it up -- because production normally only happens if there is a guaranteed contract, and if there is none, then capacity is not maintained.

Russia, on the other hand, has been invaded regularly throughout its history, as it does not have the same geographic luxury that the US enjoys, and has been gradually encircled over the last 30 years, with a fairly clear intention. Under such conditions you don't have the option of allowing the MIC to degenerate the same way as it has in the US, and the word "defense" has an existentially real meaning. Also, the MIC was inherited from the Soviets, and never fully transitioned to a market model of operation (to contrast with the US, everything having to do with nuclear weapons is 100% under governmental control; whole cities are dedicated to it, and they are still closed to outsiders). And the Soviets always built everything with a future large scale war in mind, with huge redundancies (ironically, this is why cracking the Ukrainian nut is so hard). So even with all the degradation of overall industrial capacity that happened after the Soviet collapse, there is still plenty spare capacity that can be ramped up in times of need.

P.S. A corollary of all this is the rarely appreciated fact that if they had wanted to, the Soviets would have eventually won the Cold War. All they had to do was wait it out for the neoliberal revolution to fully corrode the power of the West. But the union was betrayed from within and it was never meant to be.

Posted by: shadowbanned | Apr 12 2023 21:41 utc | 86

@ Melaleuca | Apr 12 2023 21:27 utc | 77

melaleuca - i certainly appreciate and value your input at moa and on this topic specifically.. cheers buddy - james

Posted by: james | Apr 12 2023 21:43 utc | 87

The human turd known as Baerbock recently met with an Azov garbage. What a disgraceful human being, her and her bloody "Green Party".

German Foreign Ministry Embraces Neo-Nazi Commander’s Wife — Media

Berlin’s Foreign Ministry, led by the Green Party’s Annalena Baerbock, invited Katerina Prokopenko, the wife of, a commander of the notorious Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, for a discussion, local media has learned.

The ministry said Katerina took part in an expert talk on "the situation of Ukrainian soldiers in Russian captivity and the burdens on Ukrainian society caused by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine," according to Junge Welt.

Critics noted that the meeting between Prokopenko, a civilian Azov figurehead in her own right, and the supposedly left-wing Baerbock’s ministry was done with little media attention or announcement before German reporters noticed it after the fact.

Subscribe to RT

Posted by: Ricardo Ramirez | Apr 12 2023 21:43 utc | 88

Posted by: Melaleuca | Apr 12 2023 21:27 utc | 77

I believe I did mention you in posts here. On the Substack Notes post, I didn't because you had nothing to do with posting anything there. Substack Notes is a small post, not a full article, so I didn't take the room as well. That post was to expose the collection to random people on Substack, which is Notes purpose, similar to Twitter.

The flack I gave you was my opinion at the time. Still is in fact. I'm still waiting for the rest of the alleged "100 documents" from whoever had them. And again, who cares who was the first 4Chan slug to post them? What matters is who walked out of the SCIF with them - if that even matters. What matters is who generated the docs in the first place. The provenance on the Discord server is almost irrelevant except maybe to the DoD.

Not here to assuage your butthurt, as a final point. Too bad if b didn't notice your earlier post but noticed mine.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 21:45 utc | 89

@Tom_Q_Collins

Now that I think about it, I also seem to recall something about needing not to be at war and to have territorial integrity to join the EU or NATO. The whole thing is either a well designed Catch-22 or a major clusterfuck.

They will try to circumvent this problem by merging Poland and Ukraine:

Imagine instead that, at the end of the war, Poland and Ukraine form a common federal or confederal state, merging their foreign and defense policies and bringing Ukraine into the EU and NATO almost instantly. The Polish-Ukrainian Union would become the second-largest country in the EU and arguably its largest military power, providing more than an adequate counterweight to the Franco-German tandem—something that the EU is sorely missing after Brexit.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/26/its-time-to-bring-back-the-polish-lithuanian-union/

The author of this piece is a senior fellow of the NeoCon-think-tank American Enterprise Institute:
https://www.aei.org/profile/dalibor-rohac/

Posted by: Apollyon | Apr 12 2023 21:46 utc | 90

I see the concern troll has arrived. My cue to exit.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 21:48 utc | 91

European Council president says EU cannot ‘blindly, systematically follow’ Washington.

European leaders are becoming increasingly favorable toward French President Emmanuel Macron's push for "strategic autonomy" away from the United States, European Council boss Charles Michel said Tuesday.

As controversy swells around Macron's comments that Europe should resist pressure to become "America’s followers," Michel suggested that the French politician’s position was not isolated among EU leaders. While Macron spoke as the French president, his views reflect a growing shift among EU leaders, Michel said.

"There has been a leap forward on strategic autonomy compared to several years ago," Michel told French television show La Faute à l'Europe (which has a partnership with POLITICO) in an interview set to air on Wednesday.

CLOTHILDE GOUJARD in Politico APRIL 11, 2023

Posted by: Antonio Ferrao | Apr 12 2023 21:48 utc | 92

Posted by: Ricardo Ramirez | Apr 12 2023 21:43 utc | 88

I understand Baerbock is going to visit China now, that should be very interesting too.

here

Posted by: Bemildred | Apr 12 2023 21:49 utc | 93

Question: Why does Ukraine even want the Donbass region anymore? Is there some rich concentration of resources there? Otherwise it would seem like they wouldn't want territory inhabited almost exclusively by people hostile to their genocidal Russophobic bent.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Apr 12 2023 20:19 utc | 59

First, the Donbass was always the richest region. Something like a third of Ukrainian industry was there. It is also why it is so hard to take -- had they been fighting over Lutsk, Rovno and Zhytomyr rather than Lugansk and Donetsk, it would have been long over. But the Donbass being so heavily industrialized makes it a fortress. The plan has always been to do ethnic cleansing and then take over the natural resources.

Second, even with that very important consideration in mind, the Donbass is secondary. The primary objective is Crimea. And not so much because Ukraine needs it, but because NATO does, in order to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. Without Crimea, Russia is reduced to the coastal strip from Novorossiysk to Sochi in the Black Sea, of which only Novorossiysk is kind of defensible (but nowhere near as defensible as Sevastopol -- look at the maps and you will see why). This means that the Black Sea becomes a NATO lake, just as the Baltic Sea is a NATO lake now. Then Russia is reduced to Murmansk and Vladivostok, and those are only partially warm water ports, and it is also boxed in even more tightly in terms of encirclement. That is why Putin, even though he didn't want to do it even then, had no choice but to secure Crimea in 2014.

The Ukrainians need Crimea too, but for the same reason -- because for the Ukrainian project to succeed, Russia needs to be destroyed. Otherwise it will always absorb Ukraine back eventually.

Third, back to the Donbass -- this is a bit more speculative, because we are in the era of strategic weapons, and who is going to launch a ground invasion into Russia under such conditions, but if it ever comes to that, take a look at the map, and go back to WWII. Back then Hitler tried to cut off Russia from the Caucasus and the Caspian, thus Stalingrad being so important. And he launched from the general vicinity of the Donbass. But back then Kazakhstan was not even independent. Now it is, which has created a narrow strip of land between the Azov Sea and the Caspian Sea that is under Russia control but can be much more easily cut off than ever before.

P.S. Expect efforts to flip Kazakhstan to intensify. The situation there is not that dissimilar from Ukraine -- local elites have been pushing an anti-Russian line for a long time in order to cement their own power, and Moscow has been, as usual, asleep while the US has been hard at work. But Kazakhstan is strategically an even bigger vulnerability than Ukraine...

Posted by: shadowbanned | Apr 12 2023 21:57 utc | 94

I see the concern troll has arrived. My cue to exit.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Apr 12 2023 21:48 utc | 91

Your cue to finally drink that cyanide cocktail.

Posted by: shadowbanned | Apr 12 2023 21:59 utc | 95

>>Imagine instead that, at the end of the war, Poland and Ukraine form a common federal or confederal state...

They claim that most of the industry and agriculture in Ukraine is in the eastern end. If so, giving Poland the western end wouldn't add much value to the union. For myself, if I was Putin, I would be more territory hungry than he is. Annex no less than a third of the country. If what is left of Ukraine isn't going to be a friend, then it needs to be small and weak. Let a couple different countries grab off pieces.

Posted by: Jmaas | Apr 12 2023 22:05 utc | 96

Richard Steven Hack, you must be feeling a bit better now. Congratulations on (your words) being featured by b! Well deserved.

I must warn everyone that Russia's prevailing is not guaranteed - this beggar might be successful and it could make all the difference!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018885769/senior-ukrainian-defence-advisor-in-new-zealand

I think we (NZ) could supply them with lots of road cones and high visibilty clothing.

A few months ago I saw footage of some Ukrainian troops executing a very well performed surrender. I like to think they owe their survival to training (surrender procedure) they received from NZ troops that have been part of Uke soldier training.

Posted by: Ново З | Apr 12 2023 22:08 utc | 97

First Time Poster@39:
"There is evidence that Milley is as optimistic as he sounds. I was told that two months ago the Joint Chiefs had ordered members of the staff—the military phrase is “tasked”—to draft an end-of-war treaty to present to the Russians after their defeat on the Ukraine battlefield."

Worst case of chicken before the egg ever by a total piece of crap general.

Posted by: morongobill | Apr 12 2023 22:08 utc | 98

Let's go back to 2014 ... Land and BigAg

Corporate Interests Behind Ukraine Putsch
March 16, 2014

Behind the U.S.-backed coup that ousted the democratically elected president of Ukraine are the economic interests of giant corporations from Cargill to Chevron which see the country as a potential “gold mine” of profits from agricultural and energy exploitation, reports JP Sottile.

Despite the turmoil within Ukrainian politics after Yanukovych rejected a major trade deal with the European Union just seven weeks earlier, Cargill was confident enough about the future to fork over $200 million to buy a stake in Ukraine’s UkrLandFarming. According to Financial Times, UkrLandFarming is the world’s eighth-largest land cultivator and second biggest egg producer. And those aren’t the only eggs in Cargill’s increasingly-ample basket.

On Dec. 13, Cargill announced the purchase of a stake in a Black Sea port. Cargill’s port at Novorossiysk, to the east of Russia’s strategically significant and historically important Crimean naval base, gives them a major entry-point to Russian markets and adds them to the list of Big Ag companies investing in ports around the Black Sea, both in Russia and Ukraine.

Cargill has been in Ukraine for over two decades, investing in grain elevators and acquiring a major Ukrainian animal feed company in 2011. And, based on its investment in UkrLandFarming, Cargill was decidedly confident amidst the post-EU deal chaos. It’s a stark juxtaposition to the alarm bells ringing out from the U.S. media, bellicose politicians on Capitol Hill and perplexed policymakers in the White House.

[...]
Big Ag Luminaries

And what a committee it is, it’s a veritable who’s who of Big Ag. Among the luminaries working tirelessly and no doubt selflessly for a better, freer Ukraine are:

–Melissa Agustin, Director, International Government Affairs & Trade for Monsanto

–Brigitte Dias Ferreira, Counsel, International Affairs for John Deere

–Steven Nadherny, Director, Institutional Relations for agriculture equipment-maker CNH Industrial

–Jeff Rowe, Regional Director for DuPont Pioneer

–John F. Steele, Director, International Affairs for Eli Lilly & Company

And, of course, Cargill’s Van A. Yeutter. But Cargill isn’t alone in their warm feelings toward Ukraine. As Reuters reported in May 2013, Monsanto, the largest seed company in the world, plans to build a $140 million “non-GM (genetically modified) corn seed plant in Ukraine.”

And right after the decision on the EU trade deal, Jesus Madrazo, Monsanto’s Vice President for Corporate Engagement, reaffirmed his company’s “commitment to Ukraine” and “the importance of creating a favorable environment that encourages innovation and fosters the continued development of agriculture.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/16/corporate-interests-behind-ukraine-putsch/

Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 12 2023 22:10 utc | 99

Melaleuca | Apr 12 2023 21:27 utc | 77

The former bankrobber transitioned into a doddering basement game boy is what it is.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Apr 12 2023 22:12 utc | 100