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July 13, 2023
Ukraine Open Thread 2023-166
Comments
@AG 198
Thanks for sharing Jacques Baud intervention in Germany.
Unfortunately, I am sure that my German is much worse that your French :).
But good to share.
I read Operation Z from Jacques Baud, good.
This man did not change his mind since I read him.
As I have my own opinion on this whole things, I cannot be very objective.
The 2 ”professors” appear to me as ”Troskards”.
”Troskards” are low educated Trotskisks that will end as neocons.
We have a lot in France, you surely have lot of them in Germany (Berbock?).
I have lot of respect for real Trotskisks even if I do not share their vision.
But that would be another discussion.
Posted by: FromFrance | Jul 14 2023 20:05 utc | 201
@FromFrance 204
wouldnt be surprised if ALB (Anna-Lena Baerbock) did actually not really know who Trotzki was.
But surely she never did have anything to do with him.
I found Operation Z rather helpful. I still have not saved the articles in Baud´s online-footnotes whereas that would be important, since they will disappear one day and with them the evidence.
p.s. Baud´s relatives apparently were killed by Gestapo since they worked in the Resistance.
In fact it was good to see him in real (I have never watched him in conversation on stage, I am a friend of books and texts in such analytical matters) but he comes across even more trustworthy.
Oddly in the German youtube he did not mention WMDs I believe as a major cause for Operation Z. Or I missed it.
Neither did Putin speak about already existing WMDs in his declaration of SMO. And thus there is no factual evidence for that which Baud could present. But on the other hand it is of course clear to everyone. (I hope I dont mix up things here and claim inaccuracies.)
Posted by: AG | Jul 14 2023 20:44 utc | 202
A couple of old articles on Prigozhin that I haven’t seen posted here before for anyone who is interested:
https://intelnews.org/2023/07/11/01-3293/
German spy services had foreknowledge of Wagner mutiny, report claims
https://intelnews.org/2023/06/26/01-3290/
Analysis: Prigozhin’s goal was to survive, not to remove Putin from power
Based on some of the other stories, this site appears to be pretty Western leaning, but it doesn’t seem to be as jingoist as the New York Times or the Guardian. Your mileage may vary.
Posted by: Comacho In Chief | Jul 14 2023 21:13 utc | 203
Ecoutez e repitez.
How I was taught French in a language lab in a modern comprehensive in the 70’s
I think it was about making us receptive to an echo chamber when we grew up.
It seems like they succeeded
Or they are still sticking to that trick. Fortunately there are plenty regulars around here who don’t repeat what we are told.
No matter how many echo chambers are created.
Happy weekend folks. And to us few. Keep on.
Work Brothers.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Jul 14 2023 21:13 utc | 204
@DunGroanin 207
I am being besides the point –
but the language labs built in high schools in the 1970s, when they were “le dernier crie”, were out of operation by the 1990s. Noone used them any more.
It didn´t work.
After all if you dont live in a country you will have to sit down with a textbook or some form of structure to get the idea if things. Even if its just the vocabulary and some basic grammar structures.
I am absolutely no friend of pestering students with this but how are you supposed to create a real life environment of that mother tongue if its not your environment simply.
Once you are over that initial stage “hill” its much easier. At least in the European language groups.
Posted by: AG | Jul 14 2023 21:36 utc | 205
My apologies to S for assumptions made.
I still find the reasons provided for an Army commander to resign to be flimsy.
There are probably more reasons for lacking specialized operators for counter battery radars than equipment itself, and the rotation of front-line troops just doesn’t stand up.
I have no opinion about whether Popov is real or not.
Posted by: Suresh | Jul 14 2023 21:59 utc | 206
re: Popov
lengthy piece on the issue by Simplicius
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-71423-popovs-sound-and-fury?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=email
Posted by: AG | Jul 14 2023 23:05 utc | 207
In a former life I was required to teach the “natural method” of language acquisition — at the university level. Fortunately by then we all knew it was a bunch of hooey and made lots of adjustments in order to sneak in grammar lessons.
Kids learn by the natural method, but sometime between primary school and puberty that ability diminishes radically. Even with several years of language labs and book larnin’ it took me three three months of immersion to master my second foreign language to the point where I could speak an intelligent sentence. (The first one, being Latin, probably doesn’t count because there was no expectation of oral fluency.)
Posted by: malenkov | Jul 14 2023 23:14 utc | 208
Milites @ 203
Respose: Good analysis of military personnel.
I would add the Western media greatly AMPLIFIES and REPEATS any of the short comings of the Russian military it possibly can. Sure the Russians does the same regarding the Ukrainian command. Yet, not anywhere to the scale that the Western MSM does.
Posted by: young | Jul 14 2023 23:42 utc | 209
Posted by: young | Jul 14 2023 23:42 utc | 212
Agreed, and one of their most trusty weapons was projection, so that many of the faults ascribed to Russia, we’re in fact failings of Ukraine. Anyway, the post-operation report by the Russian authorities should be interesting reading, if the previous ones are anything to go by. I remember the scathing conclusions about the efficacy of frontal aviation, after Georgia, and the list of recommendations made.
Posted by: Milites | Jul 15 2023 0:08 utc | 210
Exile @ 143
Time on who’s side ?
If the 87% holds together plus accelerates de-dollarization, then Washington goes bankrupt. The global war ends
Response: If de-dollarization continues, there will be a point that the United States Dollar (USD) will lose its reserve status. When this happens, the value of the USD will go in free fall. You would not recognize the USA 6 months after this happens. The USA would go from riches to rags for the vast majority of the people. The amount of chaos and rioting and other would be unbelievable.
To prevent this terrible situation the USA will continue to escalate the war in Ukraine.
That escalation is no longer on a linear progression. It is on an exponential progression. Now cluster ammo is in Ukraine and soon Abrams tanks. Soon after that will be the F-16s with B61 bomb carrying and delivery capabilities.
The problem is that the USA knows that is can not win on the battlefield in Ukraine. This is the snare that the USA is in. It can’t get out of the snare. Otherwise, it will lose its USD’s status as the world’s reserve currency.
Someday the hunter (Russia) will come to inspect his snares. On that day the snared prey (USA) will be taken down.
Posted by: young | Jul 15 2023 0:21 utc | 211
Exile @ 146
“Interesting insight – Yellen is certainly worried about the rapid pace of De-Dollarization. On the other hand, the Pentagon isn’t remotely ready for peer-to-peer fight. I’d hate to think that the DNC thinks having a glorious counteroffensive in 2024 will unite-the-nation-behind-out-President.
Maybe you are correct – the pressure for NATO to go full on attack next year must be immense.”
Response: Exile, you are correct about the Pentagon not “remotely ready for peer-to-peer fight” with Russia.
This is the snare that the USA is in. It can’t win on the battlefield. So, it has no choice to escalate to the nuclear level. And it must do so soon before the BRIC nations cause even more acceleration of de-dollarization.
I was watching some of the clips from the Vilnius Summit of NATO’s General Secretary, Jens Stoltenberg. Having watched prior presentations of Stoltenberg and comparing. I could see the pressure he was under, even while giving canned speeches.
Stoltenberg does not like the position he is in. That is why he tried to get out of it last year.
Those in the know like Stoltenberg know what is coming. And they don’t like it nor are they going to breathe a word of what is coming outside of those who need to know.
The rest of us can use a little logic and a little reality and a little tuning down of our own bias and a little humility. This opens the eyes to what is possible and even to what is coming.
Posted by: young | Jul 15 2023 0:50 utc | 212
Milites @” 213
Agreed, and one of their most trusty weapons was projection, so that many of the faults ascribed to Russia, we’re in fact failings of Ukraine.”
Response: Good observation about projection. I count such to be the height of hypocrisy. Blaming one’s enemy for the very things you are doing.
Ukraine is a master at this technique of deceit. I have also seen a lot of this within USA politics.
Most of the gullible Western peoples eagerly gulp up the lies because they don’t want to face the realities. It helps them to cope today. Yet, it removes them further from the not-so-pleasant realities of tomorrow.
Posted by: young | Jul 15 2023 1:07 utc | 213
@young | Jul 15 2023 0:50 utc | 215
Stoltenberg does not like the position he is in. That is why he tried to get out of it last year.
Correct. He is completely captured though.
22. July 2011.
Posted by: Norwegian | Jul 15 2023 7:25 utc | 214
That lack of respect and reality again
Missed this bit of news.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/baltic-sea-labelled-nato-lake-after-summit-in-vilnius/5825807
Posted by: jpc | Jul 15 2023 7:30 utc | 215
I have not seen this asked or answered: Why does not — or will not — Russia bomb the Western munitions as soon as they enter the country? They obviously come by truck, train or air, and in all cases the Russians surely have the intell and capability of destroying them. Why wait until they are used?
Posted by: Michael David Morris | Jul 15 2023 8:20 utc | 216
Posted by: Ernesto Che | Jul 14 2023 16:05 utc | 5
Or the military are being played as much as the public, by the Nuland clan and their intel enablers. I’m beginning to suspect that most of the overly-optimistic official statements, about Ukrainian gains, are based on deceptive assessments that originate from the, so called ‘Fourth Branch of government’. If I’m correct, then the support of Ukraine, with conventional ‘heavy equipment’, is a policy designed to discredit the traditional platforms by placing them in situations that accentuate their inherent weaknesses, whilst providing them few opportunities to succeed. Unsupported, thrown against fixed defences, their sketchily trained crews provide footage that bolsters the need for a ‘new, leaner, army of the future.
How soon before the PowerPoints are being created with slides talking about the need to ‘create a force for the future, diverse, sustainable and deadly? Traditional armour will be consigned to the history books, with its heavy cannon replaced by drone munitions and steel plate by the ‘shield of stealth and speed’. Russian losses, inflated naturally, will provide the other part of the equation, showing how traditional platforms, products of a ‘male, phallocentric society’ are not fit for purpose and need to be replaced by, remote systems, laden in net-centric buzzwords. The approach was tried in the opening stages of the century, but now there is a sense of urgency, with recruitment levels collapsing and a need for the armed forces to be loyal, what better solution than a largely drone based force. If they cannot get their victory over Russia they will use that failure to push for a radical overhaul of their cultural and philosophical enemy, their own armed forces.
Posted by: Milites | Jul 15 2023 9:28 utc | 217
Posted by: Michael David Morris | Jul 15 2023 8:20 utc | 219
I have not seen this asked or answered: Why does not — or will not — Russia bomb the Western munitions as soon as they enter the country? They obviously come by truck, train or air, and in all cases the Russians surely have the intell and capability of destroying them. Why wait until they are used?
The first answer that comes to mind is that Russia only controls the Eastern end of a very large country which happens to share more than 1000 km of border with Western countries.
Posted by: robin | Jul 15 2023 9:51 utc | 218
@Milites #203:
Assuming everything about Popov is true, so what?
Exactly. There’s nothing crazy or even unusual in Popov’s grievances. It does not at all follow from his comments that “Russia is losing the war” or anything like that, so there’s no need to immediately jump to crazy theories that Popov is a fictional character in order to protect “the honor of the Russian military” (=one’s highly unrealistic, idealized view of the Russian military).
Posted by: S | Jul 15 2023 12:00 utc | 219
@Suresh #209:
My apologies to S for assumptions made.
Apology accepted.
I still find the reasons provided for an Army commander to resign to be flimsy.
Perhaps it was not what he said to his higher-ups, but how he said it.
Posted by: S | Jul 15 2023 12:10 utc | 220
208 – there was a language lab in my university in the 1980s. I sometimes used it. I don’t recall my school having one.
Posted by: Waldorf | Jul 15 2023 12:51 utc | 222
via Intel Slava Z Telegram
Together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Investigative Committee, the preparation by the Ukrainian special services of the murder of the chief editor of Rossiya Segodnya and RT Margarita Simonyan was prevented.
In addition, the murder of Ksenia Sobchak was planned.
In Moscow and the Ryazan region, neo-Nazis from the Paragraph-882 group were detained, who carried out reconnaissance at the addresses of Simonyan and Sobchak.
The detainees confirmed that they were preparing assassination attempts on the instructions of the SBU for a reward of 1.5 million rubles for each murder.
FSB
Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Jul 15 2023 13:06 utc | 223
ThusspakeZarathustra | Jul 13 2023 19:36 utc | 61
And i don’t hold out much hope of him getting back into “acting” again.
The gift that keeps on giving… The dude issued some 40 “thankyous” in one of his last public addresses. Most if not all politicians are narcissistic psychopaths, to varying degrees. They will not tolerate being ridiculed… especially by someone they consider inferior (and rightly so, on many counts, given the status of Ukraine as one the most corrupt and dysfunctional), if not a tool altogether, a tool of their own making. Their legitimacy is questionable and their decisions are perceived as dubious enough already to let someone else — now from within the “conspiracy”– tarnish their public image, making them the butt of his jokes and qualifying their policies as “absurd.” Either he shuts up his “freedom of thought and expression” or he is a goner.
Posted by: Nomad | Jul 15 2023 15:49 utc | 224
@badjoke | Jul 13 2023 19:39 utc | 64
[Concerning Hans-Benjamin Braun’s information about Nordstream being nuked]
“displacement of water would have been seen and none was”
Displacement of water was indeed seen, dispersion of large clouds of aerosoles and winter-lasting heating of 4 degrees – gradually decreasing but longlasting
Braun said there was a sesmic reading corresponding to the strength minimum 130 ton tnt
Whether this must be thermonuclear or not doesnt seem to be the main thing but the release of a less revealing radioactive fingerprint might be an interesting feature of the novel types.
According to many older articles on VT there does exist thermonuclear mininukes and stronger charges that may be dialed
over a wide range of strengths
Thos dialed types are the ones the US has been spreading around the NATO vassals
Braun concludes that the strength of the charge was not necessary for breaking the pipelines but were aimed to demonstrate the potential to launch a tsunami against Kaliningrad. A warning.
The Russians would not have to be detailed about the possibility to just increase the strength.
Posted by: petergrfstrm | Aug 1 2023 14:03 utc | 225