I agree with your irony. Earlier today, I posted ‘Bloody Bakhmut is Falling… into Zelensky’s Shame’ (with a link to MOA regarding Ukraine burning through its resources).
“Since the beginning of the war, I’ve debated Zelensky’s nature with myself, but what’s happened in Bakhmut assured the death of his ambiguity.
Zelensky knew that his men faced better trained and better equipped soldiers in Bakhmut. He knew they were surrounded by missiles and horrifying incendiary weapons. Ordering retreat and regrouping on higher ground was the logical choice. From Kyiv, despite what had happened to nearby Soledar, he effectively and repeatedly ordered his soldiers to die…
…Zelensky must accept that he’s damaged, and that his troops in other places will hesitate if they’re also given stay-until-you-die orders.”

Posted by: Mike Hampton | May 8 2023 12:01 utc | 3

What Havrylov means, is: We will continue to make money (sent to us by the West).

Posted by: Neven | May 8 2023 12:15 utc | 5

“Keep the money rolling in boys, as long as we can.”
I hope the Russians off these people after the war is ended.

Posted by: Judge Barbier | May 8 2023 12:23 utc | 7

“This war will be won on the ground, not on the TV screens, not on the internet.”

Posted by: Jonathan W | May 8 2023 12:25 utc | 9

Thanks b,

“This war will be won on the ground, not on the TV screens, not on the internet.”

Havrylov is correct.

Posted by: Forest | May 8 2023 12:31 utc | 11

https://usa.mfa.gov.ua/en/news/55964-atashe-z-pitany-oboroni-ukrajini-pri-pu-v-ssha-general-major-volodimir-gavrilov-proviv-shhorichnu-zustrich-zi-sluhachami-vijsykovo-morsykoji-akademiji-ssha
Are any posters on this board from USSR era ? Were the Ukrainians as retarded in Soviet times as now ? Last night apparently Andrei Melnyk the mad excuse for an Ambassador to Berlin, now a Deputy FM of the Kiev regime demanded countries in Europe donate 1% GDP to Ukraine as some kind of tribute !
Reading “Die Welt” comments was amusing as people exploded – saying they were sick of seeing top-flight SUVs and Teslas in Germany with “UA” plates…………I have personally seen €100,000 Toyota Land Cruisers with shiny paintwork and UA plates……..and very rarely do you see Ford or similar

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | May 8 2023 12:58 utc | 13

[12]
Saw recently an interview of Henry Kissinger,
Lovely to see a man of 100-1 with his faculties when Joe Biden lost his along the way and Kamala Harris never gained hers…………but I think K’s reputation for being two-faced gets him lost sometimes – after all Nixon recruited him from Nelson Rockefeller and trusted him so little he taped everything in The Oval Office

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | May 8 2023 13:01 utc | 15

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-patriot.html
Ukraine Claims It Shot Down Russia’s Most Sophisticated Missile for First Time
The air force said it intercepted the hypersonic missile with a newly delivered U.S.-made Patriot air-defense battery. U.S. officials confirmed the strike.

Posted by: Jonathan W | May 8 2023 13:07 utc | 17

Havrylov in 2022:

Mr Havrylov has forecast further Ukrainian victories well into winter, arguing his country would not welcome peace talks until it had recaptured every inch of land.

All I can read into this, is NATO saying they will fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.

Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 8 2023 13:08 utc | 19

Urkaine lied about the “Ghost of Ukraine,” lied when their S-300 killed two Polish farmers and lied when they shot down a Russian airliner. Why would anyone believe them now?
The Patriot failed against ancient Iraqi Scuds as well as Houthis missiles in Saudi Arabia. The US has a long history of misrepresenting the Patriot’s performance. I don’t believe Ukraine shot down a Kinzhal. Neither does Ukraine’s air force which has denied the claim.

Posted by: David | May 8 2023 13:25 utc | 21

There are reports of Russia evacuating civilians along the Dnieper regions (MSM so huge grains of salt). Now I hope it isn’t the worse case scenario, which is that the Russians are planning a tactical retreat like they did with Kherson city. At this stage of the war, the idea of giving any more territory back to Ukraine (even under the premise of luring them into a trap) should be completely verboten. Consider that the Ukrainian strategy, once they take over, is to burrow in like ticks within the civilian infrastructure and use civilians as human shields. They can’t be allowed to do that anymore.

Posted by: Johnny Boy | May 8 2023 13:27 utc | 23

[17]
U.S. officials confirmed the strike.
and just how would they be able to do that ?
The radar on the Patriot system could not track a missile with an unpredictable flight path…….yet as Wikipedia notes…….
According to CNN US officials believe the claim. Prior to this interception, stopping an air launched hypersonic, like the Kinzhal was “theoretical”
CNN……….”believe the claim”……….so the old “We trust Kiev”

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | May 8 2023 13:29 utc | 25

@16, @17. The Ukrainian General Staff have already retracted the claim, and admonished the dweebs who were promoting it.
Still, good enough to fool the Pentagon, apparently. And to get the foolish to salivate like one of Pavlov’s Dogs.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | May 8 2023 13:36 utc | 27

I see no signs of panic from the Russians. Far from it. In fact I would say quite the opposite. They seem to act quite as if they were in the drivers seat. The people of Russia if anything, are calling for a more aggressive posture, not less.
The one thing I am sure of is that globalists have staked everything on this fiasco, are on the clock with eroding public opinion and a deranged Biden facing an election he cannot possibly win without historic cheating. If that happens, then the US may well fall into anarchy. They are cornered and desperate and capable of literally anything no matter how monstrous.
Frankly, I will be very surprised if there isn’t some kind of nuclear false flag event in Ukraine. I would also not rule out another pandemic from one of the US’s numerous biolabs either. They are insane and they will not go down without playing every single card in their psychotic hand, regardless of the consequences to the world.

Posted by: JustAMaverick | May 8 2023 13:46 utc | 29

Let’s put this claim about the Patriot missile to rest, shall we?
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-russia-hypersonic-kinzhal-missile-downed-1798659
The money_shot: “Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said in a statement: “I have already refuted a thousand times, you should have seen it yesterday. There was a possibility of using ballistic missiles, but no ballistic missiles were recorded.”. ”
No. Ballistic. Missiles. Were. Recorded.
It’s a fake story. Even the Ukrainian air force admits that.

Posted by: Yeah, Right | May 8 2023 13:51 utc | 31

re: Patriot Missile. . .from defenseone. . .
In Ukraine, A New Chance to Judge the Patriot Missile
The much-lauded air-defense system has a decidedly mixed record. The Pentagon should watch its performance carefully.

. . .The weapon has a checkered past. In 1991, U.S. officials and media excitedly reported a 100-percent success rate for the system, with claims that Patriots had intercepted Scud missiles launched from Iraq at Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the following year, Congressional hearings found that these claims were misleading and highly inaccurate. I was the lead staffer for the House Government Operations Committee investigation.
Rather than destroying 41 of 42 Scuds engaged, as President George H.W. Bush claimed at the end of the war, investigators from the Congressional Research Service and the General Accounting Office determined that Patriots only hit between zero and four of 44 Scuds engaged. . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | May 8 2023 13:53 utc | 33

why would anybody believe what Ian Williams says? his background looks like a typical Washington war shill.

Posted by: pretzelattack | May 8 2023 13:56 utc | 35

The reason thr Kinzhal is in the news is that Ukraine has no good news stories anymore. They definitely don’t want the news cycle to linger on how a Bayraktar was allegedly hacked and they had to shoot it down over their own capital.
Hence next we will hear about how they blinded Russian satellites with some laser pointers, shot down a Su25 with a bbgun or killed 1000 spetznaz with a pickle jar.
It’s all just fucking lies for the credulous..and the media are burning their credibility faster than the dollar is losing reserve currency status.
The only thing Ukraine is doing now other than their press ganged forces dying en masse to Russian standoff weapons is terrorism. Not exactly the tools of a campaign that’s ascendant.

Posted by: Doctor Eleven | May 8 2023 14:09 utc | 37

OK, the Kinzhal story may not be true but this one must be: “Russia’s energy sector hit as Kremlin forced to increase tax. Putin raises levies on oil and gas groups after G7 imposes price cap on Russian crude.” (Financial Times today).

Posted by: Jonathan W | May 8 2023 14:17 utc | 39

Ukraine officials making stuff up while losing a war are no different from US officials in the same general situation. Recall the repeated claims of “turning the corner” in Afghanistan.

Posted by: Don Bacon | May 8 2023 14:23 utc | 41

Hard to believe that MSM could be so sloppy (laughing out loud).
Posted by: Jonathan W | May 8 2023 13:54 utc | 34
No mistake, it’s by design in msm. That military guy spoke too soon, unaware of the current’s day story for natostan. Last year they also said the ghost of kiyyyvvv was a fake story, to boost troops morale or something like that. It was even on their official twitter. Almost a year later still no one cares in msm, it is how they say it is and how wikipedia editors want. You have to learn fast the new approved truths so when the social credits appear you know what to say. Like Cleopatra is black, women now are called “chest feeders”, “bleeders”, “womb owners”, “cis women”, “womin”.

Posted by: rk | May 8 2023 14:24 utc | 43

At the outset of this conflict(2014) the the US has been very busy meddling and engineering things.
They have admitted that they are essentially running things in terms of funding, training and command. The most relevant big ticket item here are the 100 or so PR firms that are feeding off US tax dollars trying to spin the entire operation to make it seems as though Ukraine is winning the noble battle for freedom and democracy while Russia is the evil genocidal land grabber. And due to the seemingly limitless ignorance of the general public in the west, it has worked quite well.
Have-re:Love is just an extension of the Big Lie Factory. But in the end, “Metal Talks, and BullShit Walks”.

Posted by: Chevrus | May 8 2023 14:28 utc | 45

For a moment I thought the Byraktar UAV getting shot in Kiev might have been a compliment to the Kremlin getting tagged by a UAV. Basically after hitting the Kremlin optics spread, they would then show how the brave fighting people of Kiev defeated the Rooskies attempt at retaliation!! Of course astute observers quickly pointed out that the UAV was not infact Russian….

Posted by: Chevrus | May 8 2023 14:33 utc | 47

The dialect spoken by most agrarian Ukrainians may be closer to Russian than the extremely Polonized form of language that serves as standard Ukrainian.

That is not far from the truth.

Were the Ukrainians as retarded in Soviet times as now?

The problem is that Khrushchev amnestied the Banderites after Stalin didn’t kill them all down to the last man as he should have:
https://ninabyzantina.com/2023/01/30/why-did-soviet-leader-khrushchev-pardon-thousands-of-banderites-in-the-1950s/

Posted by: shadowbanned | May 8 2023 14:41 utc | 49

If he is making a few bucks on the side by these predictions, those who paid him should ask for their money back. It’s called Flim Flam.

Posted by: Jose Garcia | May 8 2023 14:45 utc | 51

It’s a silly business, with obvious racist undertones, but the reputation of Ukrainians as backward country folk is the basis of the “Polack’ jokes from the US- the ‘Polacks’ being Ukrainian immigrants.
In the real world, however, country people driven by circumstance to look for work in urban industries, Irish, Somerset born, Newfoundlanders, Sicilians or whoever are not stupid, they simply come from different cultures and have developed different skills.

Posted by: bevin | May 8 2023 14:56 utc | 53

Listen to the George
https://youtu.be/_D6hYJkBQ0g

Posted by: Andrew | May 8 2023 15:00 utc | 55

Posted by: Doim | May 8 2023 14:32 utc | 46
Thanks for this. An excellent overview.

Posted by: Mexicana | May 8 2023 15:06 utc | 57

They were held as not exactly the sharpest pens in the case.

Let’s put it this way:
National animal and symbol of Russia? The bear
National animal of Belarus? The European bison
What people associate Ukraine with? Pigs.
And their national food is salo (which is basically salted lard — at least American bacon has some meat on it, but salo is just fat).
Which reminds me — everyone should watch the Свинка В Обмороке cartoons:
https://vk.com/video/playlist/-212026411_5?section=playlist_5
They just dropped a new episode the other day.
However, despite that association between Ukrainians and swineherding, it only really applies in reality to rural Ukraine. In Soviet times Ukraine was actually the high-tech industry center of the USSR. But that was the big cities — Kiev, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, etc. Which were Russian speaking (yes, including Kiev; still is — watch the video of something hitting Kiev last night and the curses in pure Russian in the background).
The main institute of cybernetics in the 1950s and 1960s was in Kiev, and surprisingly, it still exists, and it still bears Victor Glushkov’s name (Glushkov was Russian; expect them to rename it if Kiev is not Russian again soon). Gluskov was the guy who wanted to create OGAS — a Soviet version of the internet through which all the bureaucracy and logistics of the country would be run (imagine Amazon-like logistics system and e-government, but in the 1970s and 1980s; what could have been…) but was blocked by the bureaucrats because that would make corruption impossible and take away their power.
Dnepropetrovsk was a closed city in Soviet times because that is where Yuzhmash was, which made ICBMs. And so on. Ukraine was the most developed and most industrialized part of the USSR.
All of that has been destroyed by now.

Posted by: shadowbanned | May 8 2023 15:18 utc | 59

Posted by: Comandante | May 8 2023 15:05 utc | 57
Stupid people don’t achieve what the American have historically achieved.

Posted by: Milites | May 8 2023 15:26 utc | 61

Posted by: bevin | May 8 2023 14:56 utc | 53
So what’s the basis for Swedes telling Norwegian jokes, apart from every society wanting to believe it’s superior to it’s near neighbour.

Posted by: Milites | May 8 2023 15:29 utc | 63

@shaddowbanned #49
Thanks for that nina byzantina link. I’ve always had suspicions about Krushchev. I think he should have been shot, along with Yezhov, back in the late ’30’s. Stalin was too nice a guy. He liked and didn’t want to have Bukharin shot, either. I think he was losing his revolutionary edge. But releasing all those Banderites and “gifting” Crimea to Ukraine was the icing on the cake after all the lies he told at the 20th congress. I find it hard to believe someone like Voroshilov went along with all this and how Krushchev was ever elected to his position. It only strengthens my argument that the war really was responsible for diluting the ideological purity of the party, so much so that people weren’t able to see through and resist the revisionism Krushchev promoted.

Posted by: zeke2u | May 8 2023 15:35 utc | 65

It only strengthens my argument that the war really was responsible for diluting the ideological purity of the party, so much so that people weren’t able to see through and resist the revisionism Krushchev promoted.
Posted by: zeke2u | May 8 2023 15:35 utc | 67

That is correct. The war focused everyone’s attention on survival. Ideological purity was an afterthought. Then they emerged from the war exhausted and in ruins, and while it gave a moral boost for a few decades, there was simply no appetite for sacrifices and harsh enforcement of rules anymore. What was completely unacceptable previously became permissible. And it was a one-way road to ruin after that.
One more reason why the war was a win officially, but a loss in reality.

Posted by: shadowbanned | May 8 2023 15:42 utc | 67

Volodymyr Havrylov will continue to say anything and the Ukies will continue to make up stories because that is the only way the money will continue to flow into their pockets. The EU is the loser.

Posted by: Steve | May 8 2023 15:45 utc | 69

Posted by: Forest | May 8 2023 12:31 utc | 11
how so? pls articulate, thanks

Posted by: DS | May 8 2023 15:53 utc | 71

I see no signs of panic from the Russians. Far from it. In fact I would say quite the opposite. They seem to act quite as if they were in the drivers seat. The people of Russia if anything, are calling for a more aggressive posture, not less.
The one thing I am sure of is that globalists have staked everything on this fiasco, are on the clock with eroding public opinion and a deranged Biden facing an election he cannot possibly win without historic cheating. If that happens, then the US may well fall into anarchy. They are cornered and desperate and capable of literally anything no matter how monstrous.
Frankly, I will be very surprised if there isn’t some kind of nuclear false flag event in Ukraine. I would also not rule out another pandemic from one of the US’s numerous biolabs either. They are insane and they will not go down without playing every single card in their psychotic hand, regardless of the consequences to the world.
Posted by: JustAMaverick | May 8 2023 13:46 utc | 29
Right On, JustAMaverick, thanks for the sane and sound synopsis of what we are up against. Refreshing departure from the CIA trolls chanting Baghdad Bob blurbs for the 4th Reich Schwab Nazi agenda, or the pollyannish fantasyland hopium-smokers who think ‘deep state Orange Hair will save us even though he death jabbed us at warp speed and put the ultimate swamp creature Bill Barr in charge of sanctifying Biden’s election fraud.”
We are captives of a Satanic elite that is worshiped by the 97-percenter masses who joined a Zombie Death Cult – They are mindlessly walking a cliff with a blank stare because the Kool Kids on CIA-TV told them to.
Yes the US-EU Nazis will stage a nuclear false flag and blame Russia because false flags are the ONLY thing they do effectively. And it will ‘work’ in the sense that it will garner universal ‘5 Eyes-nation’ support for global suicide among the idiot masses who suck Lindsay Graham or Chuck Schumer knob (i.e nearly everybody).
But it will also prompt Moscow to play the Strategic Nuclear Ace hand that they hold. Unlike the US masses who are brainwashed to worship the suicidally stupid MAD doctrine that in a nuke war “killing all people on earth is good” and “killing weapons is bad,” the Russian strategists (like Suslov in the old cold war and now Gerasimov in this new hot one) believe that DIS-ARMING your global death wish enemy is better than mass suicide. That means counterforce knockouts of Columbia class subs, junky old Minuteman IIIs etc. We are begging to get Sarmats up the ass so that is what we will get.
It does not take a rocket scientist to see this will end in apocalyptic disaster of rthe 5 Eyes Neo-Nazi nations (i.e. Deagel saw it coming). It just takes someone with the balls and awareness to face the obvious truth.

Posted by: CrashDavis | May 8 2023 15:56 utc | 73

66 – Tet pretty much destroyed the VC. The NVA were very much in the Communist driving seat after that, and the 1972 Easter Offensive was not only NVA-dominated but quite conventional, with extensive use of tanks. (Most of the crews trained in the Soviet Union.)

Posted by: Waldorf | May 8 2023 16:06 utc | 75

76 – This has got to be one of the most telegraphed-in-advance “counteroffensives” in military history.

Posted by: Waldorf | May 8 2023 16:14 utc | 77

Rokossovsky #66
Yeah, like Wikipedia is the be all and end all of sources of info. Militarily it was an operational defeat for the NVA and Vietcong. But in the end, was it a strategic victory?? The Marines spent days getting their opponents out of Hue, the old capital. The flattened it. More long term resentment of the population.
There are random saboteurs in RF liberated cities, but I doubt platoon sized armed soldiers to engage at sites, no storming of Russian mayoral or oblast buildings. They can not swim in the sea of people in Melitipol, etc.
The events at the US embassy in Saigon seen in a timely manner (I believe film flown as fast as possible to a satellite uplink) were crucial in shifting the narrative and the beliefs in the usOfa.
As a final thought, think of the steadfast solidarity of the NVA (mostly volunteers early on) and the Vietcong as opposed to the state of the present 2nd or 3rd army of UA.

Posted by: paxmark1 | May 8 2023 16:15 utc | 79

Simplicius has a photo of the supposed kinzal within his latest update, and it’s a howler. He does a good job of explaining and showing why the last corner of Bakhmut is called The Citadel and is being bypassed.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 8 2023 16:19 utc | 81

53 – The sort of person who liked to tell such jokes probably could not really tell one nation of Eastern Europe from another.

Posted by: Waldorf | May 8 2023 16:21 utc | 83

Given the way people on this forum have being shitting their panties about Depleted Uranium which has a radioactivity of nearly zero, he might be right if only one platoon of tanks assaults a Russian position.

Posted by: Elmer Fudd | May 8 2023 16:28 utc | 85

Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 8 2023 14:37 utc | 48
I wonder why Dmytro Dontsov has never been translated into English? I am curious to read him. I read Mein Kampf, too, so I can stomach these people. Russians can probably understand 80% of Ukrainian. It seems to me that the differenced is like that of Spanish or Portuguese.
Posted by: shadowbanned | May 8 2023 14:41 utc | 49
That is a very interesting link. Thank you.

Posted by: lex talionis | May 8 2023 16:33 utc | 87

Posted by: Petri Krohn | May 8 2023 14:37 utc | 48
“what god hath joined, let not man sunder…”
lots about Ukraine people like me don’t know. but the obvious fact remains the nazis stepped in to stop the interbreeding.
the manufactured linguistic division is proof of this.
marriage and sex:
as reported by wsws, the NYT had a glowing article the other day about the Aryans saving their sperm, so that, among other things, when the rapey russians are wiped out, pure bloods can be bred.
while in reality, the sex crimes will not be committed by the party that is fighting for its home. this is a capitalist enterprise, which is why the west won’t ever stop, it can’t. but just like in iraq (Shia vs Sunni) and everywhere, they destroy the unity that already exists and the criminalize it.
at the linguistic level. lest we be infected, by the Russian language.
what’s to be done w/the nazification of the West?
join the Jehovah’s Witnesses (in the US), just for conscientious objector status?
signifying one will never fight, never ever, never, for the USG.
something more proactive in this heavily-armed nation of obese underachievers so obsessed w/the transgressions of others’ sex lives.
take the outcast, the immigrant, into the home, treat them like family, ie, marry them, love “the enemy”, rebuild the home, and defend the family. and then put your guns to good use.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | May 8 2023 16:34 utc | 89

From a ZH article. “Turkey Angrily Rejects US Request To Give Ukraine S-400 Air Defense System”
So far Turkey has said no. But going by Turkey’s past “NO’s” to NATO, this is extremely likely to be accepted soon. In fact, none of the “NO’s” by Turkey have ever lasted more than a few months before they acquiesced.
That means, Russia had better get used to the idea of facing S-400’s in the near future by NATO provision.
Not what I would call a positive development for Russia although how much of a winning move by NATO/Ukraine it will prove to be remains to be seen. Still, there will be many in Russia now seriously regretting selling the S-400 to a NATO country.

Posted by: JustAnotherAussie | May 8 2023 16:36 utc | 91

Up North | May 8 2023 16:18 utc | 80–
There’s nothing the Outlaw US Empire can do to cause great harm to Russia–the economic war was supposed to accomplish that and was a complete failure. Now, it’s the Empire that faces a massive crisis as Hudson reveals in this recent interview, “The Hard Iron Financial Fist”, and is depicted in this political cartoon. The Neoliberalcons refuse to look at the fire burning at their feet that’s slowly spreading and will soon engulf their entire house–they are defeated but incapable of admitting the truth. And in their insanity, they think they can pivot and escalate their attack on China. The only explanation I’ve been able to arrive at is that those behind the curtain are afflicted with a combination of Megalomania and Pleonexia, which only seem to have one cure–the death of those afflicted.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 8 2023 16:38 utc | 93

It it just me or does it appear that a bunch of sock puppets have sidled up to the bar. Lots of shaddowbanned love goin’ on…
What a daft banner to march under, heh heh

Posted by: comrade simba | May 8 2023 16:48 utc | 95

On the principle of hope for the best but plan for the worse.
That neatly explains Russias action or in action so far. It’s a prudent policy going forward.
Second worse possibility is full on war with NATO. (Worse for everyone).
If that kicks of ther will be no warning from the west. Hours.
That would explain Russias massive build up of weapons and army, so far unused.
So the worse worse possibility is nuclear.
No winners, all losers.
Russia is ready for that to minutes not even hours.
If that happens Russia would have so far kept the moral high ground.
That to some of us means a lot.

Posted by: Mark2 | May 8 2023 16:54 utc | 97

These cyber kids, these information warfare crétins remind me of Robert McNamaras Pentagon “whiz kids” who won the contest on how Vietnam would be conducted. Flash….it did not work then and it will not work now. Those who for decades have been “perception building” through what has become a mind-fucking media, are now victims of their own vices. Remember “for whom the gods destroy they first make mad.”

Posted by: WT Baker | May 8 2023 16:58 utc | 99