Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:
- June 12 – Ukraine SitRep: Destruction Of Its Third Army – Issues To Negotiate
- June 13 – Did Russia Destroy The Nova Kakhova Dam?
- June 16 – On The Failure Of The Ukrainian Counterattack
Related:
– Russia, Learning From Costly Mistakes, Shifts Battlefield Tactics– New York Times
– Russia aims to defeat counteroffensive with mines, artillery and aviation – Washington Post
– Ukraine’s Armor Appears To Have A Russian Attack Helicopter Problem – The Drive
– Final Battle In Russia-Ukraine War? | Maj Gen GD Bakshi's Grand Strategy on Kiev's Counteroffensive (video) – Republic World
– 10 minutes summary of the Lancet suicide drones at work … – @MyLordBebo
– Russian Defence Ministry report on the progress of the special military operation (18 June 2023) – Ru MoD
b: If my summing up is correct the report lists Ukrainian losses due to failed mass attacks over the last 24 hours as:
68 tanks, 64 Infantry Fighting Vehicles, 74 Armored Combat Vehicle and 860 950 personnel. Those were enough combat vehicles for two complete brigades!
- June 14 – Astroturfing For More War In Ukraine
Related:
– Exposed: Disturbing Details of New Pentagon “Perception Management Office” – Mintpressnews
– Seymour Hersh: Russiagate’s Missing Pieces – Scheerpost
- June 15 – Drifting To Oblivion, We Drown In Beauty by beq
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Other issues:
Assange:
- PETER HITCHENS: There is still time for us to do right – and save Julian Assange from dying in US dungeon – Daily Mail
Aukus:
- Dreadnoughts and Virginias: why is Australia paying more than twice the price for submarines? – Michael West
RIP Daniel Ellsberg:
- MY FIFTY YEARS WITH DAN ELLSBERG – Symore Hersh
- Daniel Ellsberg Is Dying. And He Has Some Final Things to Say. – Politico
> During the course of our hour- and-20-minute interview, Ellsberg contended America still runs a “covert empire” around the world, embodied in the U.S. domination of NATO. He believes Washington deliberately provoked Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine by pushing its seat of power eastward toward Russia’s borders; that the mainstream media is “complicit” in allowing the government to keep secrets it has no right to withhold; and that any notion Americans are ever the “good guys” abroad “has always been false.”
…
“I think very few Americans are aware of what our actual influence in the former colonial world has been, and that is to keep it colonial,” Ellsberg says. “King Charles III [of Britain] is no longer an emperor, as I understand it, but for all practical purposes Joe Biden is … Here’s a point I haven’t made to anyone but would like to in my last days here. Very simply, how many Americans would know any one of the following cases, let alone three or four of them?” Ellsberg then rattles off a series of U.S. orchestrated coups, most of them fairly well documented, starting with Iran in 1953, and then in Guatemala, Indonesia, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Brazil and Chile. <
Nukes:
- A Difficult but Necessary Decision – Sergei A. Karaganov / Russia in Global Affairs
We will have to make nuclear deterrence a convincing argument again by lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons set unacceptably high, and by rapidly but prudently moving up the deterrence-escalation ladder. - Seymour Hersh: Partners in Doomsday – Scheerpost
As Ukraine begins a counter-offensive and Biden's hawks look on, new rhetoric out of Russia points to a revival of the nuclear threat. - Sergei Karaganov’s latest controversial article in ‘Russia in Global Affairs’ – Gilbert Doctorow
Hersh's rambling … - Plenary session of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum – Kremlin.ru
> Vladimir Putin: I reject this. It is certainly theoretically possible to use nuclear weapons this way. For Russia, it is possible if there is a threat to our territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty, an existential threat to the Russian state. Nuclear weapons are created to ensure our security, in the broadest sense of the word, and the existence of the Russian state.
First, we see no need to use it; and second, considering this, even as a possibility, factors into lowering the threshold for the use of such weapons. This is my first point.
The second point is that we have more such nuclear weapons than NATO countries. They know about it and never stop trying to persuade us to start nuclear reduction talks. Like hell we will, right? A popular phrase. (Laughter.) Because, putting it in the dry language of economic essays, it is our competitive advantage.<
The 'popular phrase' was 'Fuck you'.
Use as open (not Ukraine related) thread …