Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
May 7, 2023
Ukraine Open Thread 2023-109

Only for news & views directly related to the Ukraine conflict.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

Comments

melaleuca @ 298
As with all the Cirillo vids there is no way to know where that was recorded. Usually it is an obvious greenscreen. In all ways too completely clean to be within a day of any front line. Even the concluding “Slava Ukraina” is in American accented English, no indication of exposure to native speakers. May still be a person who can get things done.

Posted by: oldhippie | May 8 2023 14:44 utc | 301

Ukraine’s Big Mistake

From criminality during Perestroika and privatizations to the problem with Russia’s “imperialist war” designation, Natylie Baldwin discusses a wide range of subjects with [Renfrey Clarke] the author of The Catastrophe of Ukrainian Capitalism.

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/05/08/ukraines-big-mistake/
This interview imparts deep historical context behind Ukraine’s troubles, imho.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 8 2023 14:46 utc | 302

@ bullsh | May 8 2023 12:46 utc | 294
@ pretzelattack | May 8 2023 13:11 utc | 297
@ John Kennard | May 8 2023 14:24 utc | 301
I misread pretzelattack’s post, which addresses a different, perhaps not completely unrelated, point.
Maybe I’ve brooded over the points I addressed too long.
“In the beginning . . . .” (Dark Star(1974))

Posted by: John Kennard | May 8 2023 14:48 utc | 303

A few odds and ends (apologies if there are duplicates):
https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/61347

… (the despicable grifter suckup is still at it) “Now that China has entered into negotiations, everything will fall into place. I think that by the end of the year we will be talking about negotiation processes and even real negotiations,” said Kissinger …

https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/61372

🇨🇳The Chinese people will never forget NATO’s barbaric crimes in Yugoslavia, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a briefing on Monday.

https://t.me/CyberspecNews/29976

There are reports that Snake Island was also bombed

https://t.me/remylind21/1745

🇷🇺Orion (Pacer) drone with a UPAB-50 guided glide bomb. (looks like GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb)

https://t.me/remylind21/1738

The arrival of the FAB-500M62 air bomb from the UMPC on the road next to the five-story building in Velyka Novosyolka on Taras Shevchenko Street. The lower floors of the house were used by the enemy as a temporary deployment point.
It can be seen that the new UMPCs still sometimes experience certain problems with the accuracy of hitting the target.

https://t.me/remylind21/1724

In the near future, PMC Wagner will continue to recruit employees from among the prisoners. This option will be checked again. Surovikin’s nocturnal audience with the supreme commander bears fruit.

Posted by: anon2020 | May 8 2023 14:58 utc | 304

anon2020 | May 8 2023 14:58 utc | 307
Could be an error but dropping bombs in front of buildings is something I’ve seen before, must be a reason for it. When zely was placing mlrs in malls last year, the missiles were also falling exactly in front of the building and nothing from the mlrs remained.

Posted by: rk | May 8 2023 15:58 utc | 305

Posted by: rk | May 8 2023 15:58 utc | 308
Could be an attempt to minimise secondary damage or the target might actually be parked outside the building and the bomb landed right on it.

Posted by: anon2020 | May 8 2023 18:12 utc | 306

John Marks # 12:09 utc | 288
“She represents the fearful, uncritical kowtowing to authority that gave us corona, the Ukraine war, climate doom and even the Third Reich itself.
Let us hope she is quickly removed from office and debarred from office in future.”
Indeed. They are an abundant parasite these days.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 8 2023 21:52 utc | 307

jared #13:35 utc | 299

I wonder if Russia/China might have an open dialog on what a diplomatic solution might look like – in Ukraine’s absence. This might help might help the general public to understand what is in dispute. I suspect that at this point, Russia is not going to use Ukraine to settle all the issues with NATO or will they.

Both Russia and China are being actively threatened by NATO. Russia for the many decades and now China has to witness some crappy NATO flotilla floating around its Taiwan province and threatening to annexe it. Ukraine is the warning shot as far as Russia is concerned. See Putins communique of 12 December 2021 to both NATO and USA. For China just read their leaders foreign policy communiques for the past few years.
NATO expansion will be confronted in EU for the decades ahead.
In the South China Sea, Nato will likely be bluntly and vigorously rebuked well before they consolidate their colonial adventure any further. You see China remembers the repetitive racist colonial insults for the past many centuries. They have had enough of the west’s shenanigans.
Unless you believe that the USA will back off. I don’t think they know how.
Time will tell.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 8 2023 22:05 utc | 308

anon2020 | May 8 2023 14:58 utc | 307
Could be an error but dropping bombs in front of buildings is something I’ve seen before, must be a reason for it. When zely was placing mlrs in malls last year, the missiles were also falling exactly in front of the building and nothing from the mlrs remained.
Posted by: rk | May 8 2023 15:58 utc | 308
One of the effects of a bomb blast outside a building is to create clouds of inbound shattered glass from windows. Its like shrapnel and many inside would be seriously injured, with glass being harder to find in flesh than metal.
This was why, during the IRA bombing campaign on mainland Britain back in the 70s, most government offices had net curtains in the windows.

Posted by: JohninMK | May 8 2023 22:16 utc | 309

@259
More than that, though I agree spending hasn’t been done too wisely. But consider: the generation of imported WOII German (often NAZI, like von Braun) engineers has died and the level of competence (education) of American engineers has sharply declined. Not much Feynman’s left I’m afraid. Because look at the money an Elon Musk has – but can you imagine him really pulling of a manned space launch to the moon? I will believe it when I see it.
Personally I really don’t know if the moon landings were a hoax or not, but I did hear what some Russian authority said the other day…politically expedient or not. It is however clear that enormous hoaxes existed with hundreds of people keeping silent, however hard to believe. Like 9/11: bringing three buildings down with two planes etc…Well how do they manage to keep so many mouths shut?

Posted by: Anthony | May 8 2023 22:17 utc | 310

rk #15:58 utc | 308

Could be an error but dropping bombs in front of buildings is something I’ve seen before, must be a reason for it. When zely was placing mlrs in malls last year, the missiles were also falling exactly in front of the building and nothing from the mlrs remained.

I tend to think it is targetting error either by an operator or a software issue. The ‘precision’ likely means a circumference of 30 meter within target. If they are GPS or similar dependent then 10 meters is best afaik.
They might be guided bombs but we should not expect the accuracy of CNC controlled engraving apparatus. I am sure there will be a room full of people somewhere analysing all the parameters to get close to ‘within a meter’ after a journey of 2 to 200 kilometers and accommodating variables like wind and signal delay.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 8 2023 22:24 utc | 311

USA Today (as reported by RT): the Abrams tanks for Ukraine will be downgraded so as not to let sensitive/sophisticated features fall into the hands of the Russians. What utter nonsense is that. Of course, if they burn, they can say “but it wasn’t the real stuff, our real stuff would never burn”. The arming of Ukraine by NATO is both malignant and farcical.

Posted by: Anthony | May 8 2023 22:29 utc | 312

Anthony #22:17 utc | 313
“Well how do they manage to keep so many mouths shut?”
Terror and threat. Photographs, send the loose lipped one the address of their child and a photo. Occasionally make an example of someone.
Julian Assange.
and so many more.
It is a well organised criminal gang.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 8 2023 22:29 utc | 313

Ukraine is a global terrorist state.
see:https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/2023/die-ukraine-bestreitet-die-beteiligung-an-politischem-morden-in-russland-nicht/

It is not surprising that the Ukrainian government is now generally regarded as a terrorist organization in Russia, because in Russia it is certain that the Ukrainian secret service – with the help of Western intelligence services – is behind these terrorist attacks. By the way, in Ukraine, anti-Russian agitators are not blown up by Russian intelligence. Unlike Ukraine, Russia respects the protection of journalists.
Western media like to portray it as if Kiev’s involvement in these terrorist attacks is Russian propaganda. This will certainly continue to be the guideline of the Western media, although even Der Spiegel now reports under the headline “Attack on Zakhar Prilepin – Ukrainian secret service leaves involvement in the attack on Russian nationalists open” that Kiev does not deny involvement in terrorist attacks at all:
“A representative of the Ukrainian secret service SBU has left open whether they had anything to do with the car bomb attack on the pro-Kremlin writer Zakhar Prilepin on Saturday morning. In response to an inquiry by the Internet newspaper »Ukrayinska Pravda«, it was said that involvement in such attacks »would neither confirm nor deny«.
It is commendable of Der Spiegel to report on this for a change, but once again Der Spiegel has not told its readers everything that has been announced in Kiev these days. Yahoo has asked the director of the intelligence service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (GUR) Kirill Budanov about the murder of Darya Dugina in Moscow in August last year. According to the US intelligence services, this was also the work of Ukrainian services. Budanov replied:
“Don’t talk about this topic any further. All I can say is that we have killed Russians and will continue to kill Russians all over the world until Ukraine’s complete victory.”
In doing so, he directly admitted that Kiev is hunting down Russians. But Der Spiegel didn’t mention that.

This NATO mercenary state of Ukraine will be slaughtering its way across Russia and Europe for decades. It will be supported in its silencing of the lambs by the ‘intelligence apparatus’ of UK and EU until their citizens take firm control of the state and policing apparatus.
Perhaps the film Brazil will shed some light on this prospect.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | May 8 2023 22:47 utc | 314

Ah, Brazil, one of the best films ever made (imho).
Strong recommendation for film from last year which saw last week, Triangle of Sadness.
Netflix is discontinuing their DVD mail service in September. Not sure what will do to see quality films in the future.

Posted by: Thurl | May 9 2023 3:23 utc | 315

uncle tungsten | May 8 2023 22:47 utc | 317
Yes, they are, but Russia forgot to declare them as terrorists, not even individuals like that guy. They had no problem with the new leaders after the coup either. Even azovs were banned long time after smo was started. If it’s ok for them, you shouldn’t worry.

Posted by: rk | May 9 2023 9:35 utc | 316

@ bevin | May 7 2023 15:37 utc | 9
How about CPC is the international-Communism-friendly rendition, and CCP the nationalist?

Posted by: John Kennard | May 9 2023 12:56 utc | 317

@ uncle tungsten | May 8 2023 22:29 utc | 316
Mostly kompromat.
For example, once you take a bribe you’re on the hook.

Posted by: John Kennard | May 9 2023 13:02 utc | 318

Posted by: Anthony | May 8 2023 22:29 utc | 315
Imagine a weapon so advanced it could never be used …
Either one believes this or one accepts a view more in line with baseline reality:
The American MIC knows their technology will not cut it on the battlefield …

Posted by: Arch Bungle | May 9 2023 13:35 utc | 319

If the US fools around too much, I hope Russia zaps their satellites to disable them, turn them into giant space knick knacks. There goes the US eye in the sky.
How likely is this

Posted by: Featherless | May 9 2023 14:10 utc | 320

Another incident where UA apparently uses HIMARS to missile its own people in RF custody. Did someone incriminate Arestovych again?
https://t.me/Slavyangrad/45177

❗️ Ukraine strikes premises where Wagner PMC was holding captured AFU fighters – Prigozhin
Prigozhin stated that the Ukrainian Armed Forces struck the premises where the captured fighters were held. According to him, everything tentatively indicates that the strike was carried out from HIMARS. It is not yet known exactly how many prisoners were killed.
An investigation team has already been summoned to the site and will soon establish the exact weapon used in the strike and from which direction it was used.

https://t.me/CyberspecNews/30119

Characteristic fragments of M31 GMLRS missiles fired from HIMARS/M270 rocket launchers found by military correspondent @brussinf on the ruins of a building allegedly used as a place for Ukrainian prisoners of war.
🎻 none of the prisoners died

https://t.me/CyberspecNews/30104

Some media are reporting that the Himars strike mentioned by Prigozhin was in the town of Pervomaisk (Lugansk region)

https://t.me/Slavyangrad/45189

Presumably, the footage of the firing of HIMARS missiles at the location of the AFU prisoners. …

https://t.me/ZandVchannel/63809

🇷🇺👉🇺🇸🏴‍☠️🇺🇦 A report from the site of a USA and AFU missile attack on their own prisoners of war.
They were at the facility of Wagner PMC. The prisoners of war were getting ready to eat.
❗️There were four hits from HIMARS. To the dismay of the Ukrainian and American leadership, none of the Ukrainian prisoners died.
🇺🇦🏳️ The prisoners themselves are shocked by what happened and do not understand why their own command wanted to kill them. They say “we are not needed” and “we are cannon fodder”. It’s hard to argue with them after what happened.

Posted by: anon2020 | May 9 2023 15:35 utc | 321

I have been viewing this action it seems for months now and find it incredible that Russian army still cannot take Bahkmut. I am very unimpressed with Russian ground forces they really suck.i mean Donetsk oblast is size of Massachusettes it’s not a big place yet after 15 months Donetsk city is still being shelled. I have no doubt Ukrops will succeed in their offensive.

Posted by: Lou Cypher | May 12 2023 1:34 utc | 322