The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday that the “first stage” of its attack on Ukraine is mostly complete and that it will now mainly focus on “liberating” the Donbas region.
“The main objectives of the first stage of the operation have generally been accomplished,” said Sergei Rudskoi, the head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate, according to Reuters.
“The combat potential of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been considerably reduced, which … makes it possible to focus our core efforts on achieving the main goal, the liberation of Donbas,” he added.
A senior Pentagon official said Friday that US intelligence shows Russia is prioritizing the Donbas. “They are prioritizing it and we concur, our information would concur, with that,” the official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
According to Rudskoi, the separatists of the breakaway Donbas republics now control 93% of Luhansk and 54% of Donestk, the two regions that make up the Donbas.
Rudskoi also gave an updated death toll for Russia’s armed forces. He said a total of 1,351 Russian troops have been killed, and another 3,825 were injured. The numbers are far lower than the estimates given by the US, NATO, and Ukraine.
NATO said this week that between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian troops have died, and Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces claimed that over 15,000 have been killed. At this point, the Russian death toll isn’t confirmed, as the West and Ukraine have an interest in exaggerating the number, and Moscow has an interest in downplaying its losses.
Rudskoi claimed that 14,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed in the invasion, and another 16,000 were injured, although the numbers aren’t confirmed. Also on Friday, the UN said it confirmed 1,081 civilian deaths and 1,707 injuries in Ukraine.
Rudskoi also detailed the Ukrainian military hardware he said Russia has destroyed during the operation.
Western media is portraying Russia’s announcement as Moscow backing down from other goals in Ukraine. Russia has taken some significant losses, but it never laid out its strategy as explicitly. At the time Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion he framed it as “defending” people in the Donbas.
Rudskoi said that Russia never planned on taking certain major cities it has launched strikes in, including Kyiv and Kharkiv, although he said it’s not ruled out as an option. “We did not plan to storm these cities from the start, in order to prevent destruction and minimize losses among personnel and civilians,” he said.
If the Russians think they’ll have peace in the Donbas after they secure it, they are sadly mistaken.
The Russians will meet stiff resistance. Unlike Crimea, Donbas is majority Ukrainian (57%) with a minority of Russians (39%) (figures from last census in 2001). Donbas is a lot like Ulster. The history between Russia and Ukraine is a lot like the history of England and Ireland. Ukrainian nationalism grew out of intense resentment of centuries of oppression by Russian overlords and their Cossack functionaries. The indigenous Ukrainian resistance to Russian invaders will be as tenacious as anything the Soviets faced in Afghanistan and it will inevitably end the same way.
For centuries Russians never understood Ukrainian nationalism and that will ultimately be Putin’s undoing. A Russian attempt to sever Donbas from Ukraine will be as disastrous as Britain’s attempt to sever Ulster from Ireland.
The future of Donbas will ultimately have to be settled by negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian communities, not by force of arms.. But neither Russia nor Ukraine can effectively mediate such negotiations. There would have to be a neutral mediator.
Either Russia except the borders of dpr lpr as they were before this latest idiotic miscalculation or they except un organized plebiscite in the expanded Donbas.
I thought that Donbas had been holding its territory since 2014. I also thought that a huge chunk of people opposed to secession had already left.
https://carnegieeurope.eu/2018/09/12/how-eastern-ukraine-is-adapting-and-surviving-case-of-kharkiv-pub-77216
In 2012 the population of Donetsk and Luhansk was about 6.6 million. About 57% of the population is Ukrainian and 39% Russian. Since the 2014 coup about 1.5 million on both sides left. So there are still millions of ethnic Ukrainians in the Donbas.
Donbas is a lot like Ulster. the Russians who were settled there by the Czars and the Soviets are resented much like the Protestants settled by the British overlords in Ulster. If the Russians try to sever Donbas by force, the long smoldering resentment of the Russian overlords by the Ukrainians will engender a resistance that the Russians will not be able to defeat.
Donbas was until a few seeks ago part of Ukraine. of course the people there are Ukrainians, but in the past (before F*** the EU Nuland) there were arrangements for Russian speakers to have certain rights, but that was tossed out by the imposed government in 2014 and ever since. Putin wanted the republics to remain in Ukraine with special status (Minsk accords, accepted by all parties but later repudiated by Uke) but after Duma vote,eventually accepted them to be incorporated into Russia. The “attack on Ukraine” was not a sudden decision with no thought!!
Donetsk and Lugansk republics, between 2014 and 2022, controlled less than half of their territory. The population of the controlled by Kiev territories of Donetsk and Lugansk regions, all those 8 years, was deprived of any rights. They were not allowed to participate in the elections.
Did you notice the success of that with Germany and France mediating? 8 years and the “ukie government” refused any negotiations.
You know that greatest Ukrainian writer, middle 19 century, Gogol, knew nothing about Ukrainians? He used to call them Russians. The Ukrainian anti-Russian project was started by Austrian authorities in the end of 19 century and was further developed by Bolsheviks, then by Germans again and now by Americans. By the way, the greatest Ukrainian nationalistic hero, Petlyura, before Bolshevik coup, was absolutely devoted to Russian Empire.
Tell me about your success in analysis. Perhaps a bit like”US diplomat William Taylor”on a recent video!!!
There is no way to know the true casualty figures. But the Russians obviously failed to occupy the cities, topple the regime or to decisively defeat the Ukrainian military. So exactly what objective did Russia achieve that was worth thousands of military and civilian casualties and the bad will that follows the deaths of hundreds of civilians?
Russia is bogged down in a stupid war of aggression and attrition that Russia can’t win. The claim by Ukraine that its forces attacked and destroyed a major Russian landing ship in the occupied port of Berdyansk appears credible (see video link below).
Berdyansk (50 miles from Mariupol) is occupied but obviously not pacified. Putin, like so many arrogant aggressors before him deluded himself into
believing that the invader’s superior military prowess would guarantee
quick and complete victory over a smaller, weaker nation. Like so many
before him, Putin was blind to the law of blowback. Invasion requires
occupation. Occupation leads to resistance. Resistance leads to reprisals. Reprisals strengthen the resistance. Eventually the invaders leave.
We have seen protracted asymmetrical war befuddle or blow away invaders from stronger countries in Algeria, Vietnam, Ireland, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bisseau, to name a few examples.
The Russian invasion appears stalled. The Ukrainian military has held out longer than anyone expected. I certainly expected Russia to have defeated or obliterated the Ukrainian regular forces by now. The resistance is growing and the Ukrainians appear to have the capacity to make an effective attack
within occupied territory.
US/NATO’s goal is to keep Russia committed to a protracted war in Ukraine that removes Russia as a military and political counterweight to US/NATO imperialism in the Middle East and Africa. So far, US/NATO are achieving their objective without directly committing their military forces by sacrificing the Ukraine and its people.US/NATO deliberately provoked Putin into launching a preemptive war of aggression. Putin took the bait. And now Russia is bogged down in a protracted war of attrition on its own borders that it can’t win.
You have no idea what you’re talking about and the problem with all you NATO fan boys is that you think in supremacist US/ western terms.
This is not a war against a defenceless African or middlee east opponent bombed to stoneage after years of starvation due to sanctions and US trained terrorists that you cowards are used to and still can’t win. This is a war between US and Russia through brotherly nation that US have poisoned into a proxy mortal anti Russia state and armed with bioweapons and whatnot.
They don’t want to go full US and kill millions of innocent people. Their job is to root out the Nazi regime and its death squads that US have been nurturing for decades. Those are the ones that is being killed or eventually dragged to the tribunals and in this regard Russia is winning but the cities will be left until the Nazi’s surrender. What remains now is mopping up operations.
And u have lost perspective in ur pro Russian zeal. NOTHING he said makes him a Russian fanboy. Go look at Russian demands at the start of the conflict and the current demands.
For the record, I am anti-imperialist, therefore anti-NATO. I opposed US/NATO’s decades long scheme to encircle and destroy Russia. I support Putin’s demands for a neutral Ukraine outside of NATO. But I drew the line when Putin gave in to NATO by stupidly invading Ukraine. Putin’s blunder was tragic because it removes Russia as a counterweight to US/NATO imperialism in the Middle East and Africa.
Putin is doing exactly what US/NATO wanted him to do. Why do you think Biden was doing everything he possibly could to provoke Russia to invade Ukraine?
I agree with you on all of that. Yes, it was a blunder.
I do think it is going to break the US stranglehold on the global economy, though. Every country, especially those not nearly as big and powerful as Russia, is now looking at the US dollar as maybe something it doesn’t want to be holding onto when Washington decides to sanction it. The sanctions are probably pushing India off its fence onto the Russian side, away from the petrodollar.
The calculation used to be “if we have the choice between trading with the US or anyone else, it’s the US that’s most profitable.” Now it’s becoming “we can trade with the US or everyone else, and everyone else can’t screw up our economy by throwing a tantrum, so that’s less risky.”
All the major economic players in the world (including the larger EU countries) are looking for an alternative to the global financial system dominated by the US. That resentment has rapidly increased because of the abuse of sanctions by Trump and Biden. The worlkd is ready for a change.
The key is China. For almost 50 years China’s economic, foreign and military policy has been guided by the belief that time is on China’s side. China has tried to avoid unnecessary confrontation with the US which it regards as a declining power. The US sanctions against Russia may tempt China to break from the dollar economy. But I think China will prefer to wait until it believes the the EU will follow its lead. The breaking point may come if the US scuttles the JCPOA and imposes secondary sanctions of the EU.
What were his options to invading? Wait for Ukraine to join NATO and then after that was accomplished to wait? NATO had already an office in Kiev that they had to pack and leave before the invasion. Putin’s hand was forced. I am sure that it was not very palatable for Putin.
Exactly. It was now or never for Russia. Ukraine was a de facto NATO member, with NATO training and armed to the teeth. In February, Zelensky was demanding nuclear weapons… and might have had the ability to make them himself with remnants of Soviet weapons programs.
I disagree that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a just war, as in, no other options. I have a hard time understanding why a Ukrainian soldier – born in Ukraine, wearing a Ukraine army uniform, while in Ukraine – deserves to be killed by invading Russians – seems unjust that he should be killed by invading army. this looks like a war of aggression against a state, which is exactly what Lavrov credibly said about what the US/NATO did to Libya.
US imperialism wouldn’t stop with Ukraine any more than it did with East Germany. The Balkanization of Russia would proceed with “color revolutions” in every ethnic division all the way to Siberian Manchuria.
That has been the US/NATO plan since Gorbachev’s time. In the 1990’s when the CIA was encouraging nationalists demanding the break up of the Soviet Union Samir Amin noted that the Russian nationalists being funded by the CIA didn’t realize that the US goal was the breakup of Russia. That being said, invading the Ukraine was a stupid move that in the long run will hurt Russia’s security.
That last is the party line; but, when looked at globally,
1.) CIA engineered coup in ’14, using Ukra-nazis for shock troops shooting into the crowd for false-flag to blame on legally elected regime, and installation of client government.
2.) Apartheid laws laws against Jews and ethnic Russians. Burning to death 40 ethnic Russians protestors in Odessa.
3.) Signing and reneging on Minsk Agreement, twice; and default of guarantors France & Germany.
4.) Hundreds of US special op’s training elite NAZI corps.
5.) US flooding the country with latest weapons and targeting.
6.) Full on 8 yr war against separatist Donbas, shutting off electricity, banking system, …killing 14k.
7.) Escalation of CIA generated spurious and shrill anti-Russian rhetoric, and demonization of Putin as rationale for
full-scale economic war.
8.) Violation of Pres. GHW Bush promise not to expand NATO in return for liquidation of Warsaw Pact.
9.) Followed by step by step withdrawal from all mutual security treaties, ABM, INF, Open Skies.
10.) Accompanied by incessant stream of direct threats from War Party officialdom at the highest levels of US Gov.
and their MSM.
Russia/Putin appears rather a paragon of silent long-suffering restraint.
Those death squads are based all over Ukraine, not just the occupied or contested parts of East Ukraine.
To what extent the Kremlin listens to anti-Western westerners, those selling the idea of easy Russian victory over Ukraine were clearly wrong.
Yes, the Kiev government has no real indigenous support, but neither do Ukrainians trust Moscow.
Most people are guided by a desire to be left alone; being invaded and shot at is not being left alone.
Skywalker’s analysis was coherent and the comparison with Ireland insightful, even if you don’t agree.
Russia knows how to bomb; witness the destruction on the Islamic State in Syria. Yet no Shock and Awe in Ukraine. This has cost lives on both sides and threatened the ‘success’ of the war.
Russia knows how to operate with indigenous allies like Syrian regional PMU strongmen, but Ukrainian nationalism wasn’t taken seriously. Instead of seeking an underground alliance with moderate Ukrainian nationals, they were all given over to extremist neo-Naziism and left to fend for themselves.
There’s no rivalry more toxic than a poisoned sibling relationship.
Is Irish language a dialect of English?
Irish-English (Hiberno-English, Anglo-Irish) is a dialect of English. Indigenous Irish language is a branch of Gaelic.
Irish English is dominant with around five regional dialects, but modern Gaelic remains spoken throughout as a second language outside Northern Ireland.
Excellent antidote for the skidiver!!
Everything said is bullcrap. That landing ship was hit by a fragment of a Tochka missile that was shot down, a piece hit the ship and it caught fire. they scuttled it to put out the fire. It will probably be lifted and repaired after the war is over.
Everything else you said is nonsense. It’s not worth going through it in detail here. Go read Larry Johnson’s update on the situation at his blog.
When they said it was a landing ship and failed to mention how many soldiers were attempting to land, I assumed it was an overblown headline. But the details you provided here are most appreciated.
You underestimate the strategic and tactical significance.
Apart from a large shipload of materiale sunk at dock, its more than one berth shut down; Berdiansk as a port is shut down.
The two other vessels there took off and it would be folly to re-dock and try and unload them.
So what? There is no evidence that this is going to affect the outcome of the operation. Stuff happens in war. The Russians will adjust.
Even for armchair generalship that’s a particularly dense response.
As the attacker, Russia needed a 3:1 advantage, but entered Ukraine at a 3:1 disadvantage.
Every shipment of materiale counts.
I think you are not stating the goald of Rusdian military. I believe those are our expectations of what was supposed to happen.
Here is from an article in Indian Punchline
Most important, the mission to liberate Donbass is about to be accomplished. Simply put, the main objectives of the first phase of the operation have been achieved.
We are still none the wiser about other phases.
Donbas region, that is Lughansk and Donetsk were much larger prior to secession, as secessionists were unable to defend it. This liberation of Donbas is therefore about libersting its original territory.
And it is never wise to base our opinions on the information exclusively from one side of the conflict.
Example, Ukrainins destroyed Russian warship, False, the ship in question was a military cargo ship in Mariupol port offloading supplies,
I suspect supplies were ammunition, and Russia quickly sunk the ship to prevent explosion.
There are theories about what started the fire, again just theories — but anything is better than claiming that a warship is lost. Fire on the ship is in video, as well as smaller fires breamung out on bmnearby ships, The tbeory is that jtvwas an anti missile debris falling down and setting a major fire on one and smler fires in the others.
Tbere are VERY different perspectives, We must keep in mind the Western Ukraine Catolics and the rest of Ukraine Orthodox have been in the state of confluct since 2014, I doubt very much that Russia is deliberately harming Russian civilians — majority in Mariupol, who aredefende by Azov battalion!
Unless we know who are “Ukrainians” and wherd different loyalties lie — we cannot understand the conflict,
And if you take just this one article as an example, public is misinformed about something that could be a straight translation. Like have they completed Phase I that is largelly liberating Donbas, OR after completing Phase I. Russia will focus in Donbas? Which one is it?
Donbass is not about to be liberated.
Apart from taking the coast, Donetsk has not moved far beyond the contact line.
Where do you get this notion? Once the cauldron is closed and the heat turned up, there is no other outcome possible. Donestk and Luhansk will be liberated. It may not be tomorrow, it may take a couple or even a few weeks, but frankly I doubt the Russians will wait that long before bringing down the hammer. They’re already using TOS-1 thermobaric weapons in various areas and I suspect a general deployment of that and air power will be resorted to if they don’t see a lot of surrendering in the near future.
By the way, “Russian news agencies quoted the defence ministry as saying that
Russian-backed separatists now controlled 93% of Ukraine’s Luhansk
region and 54% of the Donetsk region – the two areas that jointly make
up the Donbass.”
The contact line has moved substantially. The LDR forces have captured scores of towns. Go follow the Defense Politics Asia guy on Youtube. He has the maps.
Afghanistan 2: Electric Boogaloo. But you don’t need a weatherman to tell you that blowback blows both ways. My latest on CounterPunch covers this toxic reality. https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/25/a-perfect-recipe-for-the-next-9-11/
Your article in CounterPunch is excellent. I agree that there is a good likelihood that US and NATO support for the neo-Nazis in the Ukraine could blow back across the Atlantic and strengthen American neo-Nazis.
Its too late for Putin to back own.
Only Kherson oblast went down more or less according to Plan Z. Losses are to great to back down without perceptible victory.
If the Ukraine problem isn’t solved, while regime change on Putin may still be farfetched, his reputation and that of Russia will take a severe blow not only domestically but internationally.
Most of the non-Western world staked for Russia. If Russia can’t deliver security on her own borders, it undermines Russian ability to promote their security as well.
Kherson’s conquest is more proof of Putin’s failure. Kherson shows what Putin planned for the other Ukrainian cities. The Russian offense stalled and could not capture the cities.
Perhaps the best proof that the first month of the invasion was a strategic failure is the complete failure of Russia to stop the flow of arms across Ukraine’s borders. Securing the borders, controlling the airspace and eliminating the Ukrainian navy had to be primary goals of any Rusisian military campaign in Ukraine. The failure to achieve those is clear evidence of Russian stategic failure.
Putin had bad choices. But declining superpowers have to deal with bad choices. The invasion has weakened Russia strategically and diplomatically and undermined the credibility of its military. Russia needs to reboot and rebuild. But trying to conquer the Donbas, with a large Ukrainian majority, will be another failure.
Kherson highlights the kind of opposition Russian war planners expected, certainly. The lack of Russian success elsewhere, though, may have people in Kherson worried maybe they chose wrong.
Russia isn’t a declining superpower, but a rising top-middle power. NATO wouldn’t care as much if Russia were the way it was throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
The Ukraine navy is destroyed, and so is the air force, or Zelensky wouldn’t be asking for aircraft donations.
However, these big-ticket items were never going to form the core of an Afghanized Ukraine.
This was always going to be an infantry fight backed by anti-air defenses and missile warfare.
Kherson was a success, but AFU forces from Mykolaiv oblast are pushing back in, placing Russian forces there are at risk. There also a swath of Kherson across the river that is not captured.
It will be interesting to see if Russia ca hang on to Kherson or if extremists can flip the oblast back to Ukraine.
Excellent article. Thanks.
“Invasion requires occupation. Occupation leads to resistance. Resistance leads to reprisals. Reprisals strengthen the resistance. ” Good point. Im sure it never crossed the planners minds.
“US/NATO deliberately provoked Putin into launching a preemptive war of aggression. Putin took the bait. ” I guess Russia had two options. Either attack now or appease NATO and fight them in a few years in Russia. Neither palatable. One thing is for certain; NATO and the US will think it twice before d’cking Russia again in Ukraine and so will Ukraine.
I oppose the expansion of NATO as well as the right wing coup in Ukraine. I support Putin’s demands for a neutral non-NATO Ukraine. But the reality is that even a NATO-aligned Ukraine does not significantly increase the security threat posed to Russia with NATO forces already on Russia’s borders stationed in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania as well as Turkey. So Ukraine could never pose enough of a security threat to Russia to justify a preemptive war.
Generally I’d agree.
However, Ukraine’s US sponsored WMD program combined with not being constrained by NATO obligations, and fanatical Russophobia made Ukraine a serious threat to world peace.
Putin’s error was, in the sport of geopolitics, a ‘forced error’ caused by the US and NATO resetting the standards of honorable conduct well beyond precedent.
Putin should have supported an indigenous Ukrainian resistance movement. The predictable blowback from the invasion strengthened the anti-Russian elements in the Ukraine.
After pro-Russians were burned to death at the Trades Building in Odessa?
Crimea already had an 80 000 strong Russian force based there. Russians in Lugansk and Donestsk spawned separatist movements from the very beginning.
Elsewhere, no such anti-Nazi movement was possible; the extremists were too quick to assassinate and outright murder amid largely moderate populations. Ukinazis aren’t ‘normal’ Ukrainians.
Nor is this the Russian way of war; they only work with existing movements; they don’t make them up like the West does. Ukrainians put their heads down and hoped the troubles would blow over.
Putin and Larov also played an honest geopolitical game, and were winning by it.
Only by radically departing from civilized rules of engagement were the Khazarist neocons able to turn, or rather, break the table on the Russians.
They did. They supported the separatists ethnic Russians which led to a 13 year stalemate and people dying every day. They tried a coup and failed a few months back. Time was not on their side and Ukraine was next door.
Putin and Larov would have needed to set aside their paternalistic blinkers and acknowledged some Ukrainians aspired to national independence.
Then quietly supported them without getting nationalist moderates outed and killed by the extremists, something well short of a resistance movement.
Fostering a genuine Ukraine national identity was an alien concept to elite Russians, with the creation of Ukraine tacitly regarded as a foundational error of the Soviet Union.
However, while the original Bolsheviks did exaggerate Ukraine’s geography to weaken Russia, regional localism was already there.
Whether or not this was as well-defined an identity as the Irish is debatable. Ukraine means ‘borderlands’; the inhabitants were always a little unique.
Really? And how would you know what posed a threat to Russia? Three invasions came thru that area.
Heck, we were scared s**tles of ISIS (10,000 miles away) and as result bombed Mosul and Raqqa to the ground and eliminated that threat. What do you think we would have done to Mexico if ISIS took roots in Mexico?
Putin’s most effective option would have been to support a native Ukrainian anti-Nazi resistance movement. Putin also should have had a more mature appraisal of the strategic threat posed by a Ukraine aligned with NATO. To put it bluntly a pro-NATO Ukraine would not fundamentally alter the strategic threat to Russia which already has NATO forces onits borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania as well as Turkey nearby and Trident submarines patrolling the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the Pacific. If the only choices were going to war of dealing with a hostile Ukraine, the cost of war would be greater than the slight improvement in Russia’s security that a pro-Russian regime would provide. But Putin’s fiasco has only made the right wingers and anti-Russian nationalists stronger. war was the wrong choice. To summarize, Putin’s best choice would have been to fund and support a native Ukrainian resistance.
While it seems that war was a bad choice and it strengthened NATO, it gave the sale of gas market to the US and better tool to control Europe, it killed Nordtream 2 and gave Russia a headache that they would have to deal with for a while, I am sure that Moscow did the analysis and came to the war conclusion.
The question that nobody can answer and it is somewhere in the Kremlin, is: what was the alternative?
Maybe a buffer state is obsolete with all the missiles and submarines etc.
You can also ask the question of what was the US/NATO intention in installing a pro-US government, training Ukraine in all sorts of warfare, showering them with weapons, attacking the Donbass, installing bio-labs after Obama prohibited Gain of Function Research in the US in 2014, just before the coup. Heck, releasing a virus across the border is not the same as releasing the virus in Poland and hoping for the best.
Maybe nothing would have happened and peaceful NATO would just stay in Ukraine and dream the same dreams that Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler did; so much land for such a few worthless persons.
While the Russians steadily and carefully — and successfully — execute their military operation, the West executes — with overwhelming success — its propaganda tsunami. While propaganda “conquers” minds, it nevertheless does nothing to counter military facts-on-the-ground.
MSM propaganda is a loud, hyperbolically triumphalist, chest-thumping fiction. Since there is virtually no access to the Russian side of the story, the inescapable Western propaganda owns western minds.
Yet despite the near total western Dominance of the Narrative, the internet still enables the truth to leak out. Not from Russia, but from dissident voices from the West. Aaron Maté and Max Blumenthal — and MANY others in the emerging podcast media — have interviewed both Col Douglas Macgregor and Scott Ritter. These two proponents of reality are vigorously blowing the whistle on the propaganda.
So the truth of the real is out there.
What I find interesting is the larger picture. The Ukrainian proxy war against Russia — and by extension China — is the first shot in the war of a rising power — China and junior partner Russia — against a fading hegemon — rightly labeled The Empire of Lies.
The Thucydides Trap has been sprung and the world will now bleed until one side bleeds out. My guess is that Europe, starting with Germany, will see the writing on the wall and quickly step back from the hegemon’s economic war; the hegemon will then stagger; Russia/China will prevail; and the US will then collapse more rapidly than anyone expected, and be left to implode in an internecine paroxysm of all blaming all.
From the available evidence, I assess that it is not in the nature of the Neocon Empire to “go gently into that good night”.
Good luck to you all.
Great comment. My only quibble would be how “successfully” Russia has been conducting its campaign. That truly remains to be seen. Russia looks pretty brittle to me … very strong, but not deep. If this was China running this campaign, I’d feel very differently about the sureness of the outcome.
If you were to judge Russian objectives by US and West set standsrds — sure, it looks not up to the task.
But the report on Phase I delivered as
Biden was in Europe, shows exactly the focus. Liberate Donbas. Donbas in its original boundeds prior to Minsk. The phase is largely complete. There is a messge there: no desire to militarily take towns, but will if need be.
For us is to pass the intelligence test: who is engendering population of Mariupol — vast majority Russian, Russians or their “defenders”, Azov battalion?
Yet, somehow, in our media the informstiin was distorted to mean FOCUS on Donbas.
Just because they never said what is Phase II or III — does not mean those do not exist.
One does not have to have a knowledge
of military affairs to notice that various cities being cut off, and road network controlled, just insures that Ukrainian forces
are pinned down and cannot get reinforcements to areas of Russian operations.
It is important to know thst as of now, Ukraine has no navy.
You are getting your info on Russia from “experts” who are clueless. Try Andrei Martyanov’s blog “Reminiscence of the future” for a new perspective.
You may try for a change some Ukrainian bloggers. For example Shary. He has over two millions subscribers and his party was quite popular in Ukraine in the last years. Or, you may try some pro-Russian Ukrainian bloggers. Mikle One, for example. He knows what he is talking about because most of the information he receives from his friends who are living in different parts of Ukraine.
Not you the expert again.NOTHING but the Ukie/US/EU pov is to be found on western media. I am in France and every outlet tells us these gloomy lies.
“Russia looks pretty brittle to me … very strong, but not deep.”
Russia is back-stopped by China. China is Russia’s “depth”. Because China knows very well, the US having broadcast it to the world, what the US has planned for China.
The US is in steep decline. The Wolfowitz Doctrine steadily destroying it. The economic war against Russia will blowback on the US — as did the US Covid bioweapon attack against China — and accelerate the US collapse.
China will be patient and insulate Russia from the sanctions war. Europe will be forced to capitulate to Russia and pay for Russian energy in rubles, no matter the brave posturing of Germany’s Scholz declaring that Germany won’t comply. Without Russian energy, Europe will literally collapse economically.
Thus Putin has demonstrated how to ***economically*** weaponize Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. Note the technique: “Russia is fully committed to faithfully fulfilling its contractual requirements. However, payments must be in a form that cannot be weaponized against Russia.” Translation: “Pay in rubles or we will ***legally*** cut you off for non-payment (and sell you gas and oil to China, bitch).”
The US is dying of its Neocon cancer; China and Russia are terminating The Wolfowitz Doctrine.
What remains to be seen is whether the US elite’s stubborn refusal to accept the end of “American Exceptionalism”, aided by a thoroughly propagandized US population clinging desperately to the dying myth of American unipolar greatness, will end in nuclear war.
We shall see.
“While the Russians steadily and carefully — and successfully — execute their military operation, the West executes — with overwhelming success. . .”
You can’t claim overwhelming success when the Ukrainians sink a Russian naval ship in an occupied port and the Ukrainian air force and navy are still conducting operations. But the most significant proof of the failure of the first month of the invasion was the failure of Russia to stop the free flow of weapons to Ukraine across the borders of the neighboring NATO countries. Securing the borders with the NATO countries had to be a key strategic objective of any Russian military campaign. Failure to secure the borders is the clearest indication of overall Russian strategic failure.
By the Kremlin’s own numbers, the 1,351 Russian soldiers were killed in the first month plus nearly 5,000 Russians wounded. The admitted deaths amount to more than half the total U.S. fatalities in 20 years of war in Afghanistan or about one year of Soviet casualties during the USSR’s war in Afghanistan. Russia simply did not win anything worth such a meat grinder operation.
The war did not go well for Russia. And attempting to sever Donbas from the Ukraine will result in a ferocious resistance that will tie down and over extend the Russian army there. Ethnic Russians are a minority in the Donbas. The Ukrainian majority sees the Russians as descendants of settlers who colonized Donbas in service to the hated Czarist oppressors.
Putin’s war was a mistake. Continuing the war will only further damage Russia’s security. The Ukrainian regime posed a real security threat to Russia. But that threat could best be managed diplomatically and by supporting an indigenous Ukrainian resistance. The Russian invasion is damaging Russia’s security worse than a hostile Ukrainian regime could.
.
I acknowledge your point of view while noting the peak propaganda campaign which informs it.
Now we will wait as we witness to the progression of “facts on the ground”.
Last night I watched a Vice video showing the suffering of innocents in Mikolaiv. It was a heartbreaking reminder of the ***REAL COST*** of war.
That said, the responsibility for the suffering, every single life lost or destroyed, lies comprehensively at the feet of the Neocon criminals — Zionist agents of Israel — who have taken control of the US State Department and US foreign policy, installing The Wolfowitz Doctrine as the centerpiece of that policy.
Americans, Ukrainians and Russians — not to mention the rest of the effin world — now reap the “benefits” of Zionist subversion.
Yes, it’s that bad.
Do we really need a repeat of what every “Western expert” has spouted for weeks? It is a bit boring, skywalker. Maybe you are a high as a kite, like hero Zelinskyy!
You can’t “fail” at something you never intended to do in the first place. Putin made it very clear from the beginning (maybe you missed the first few weeks of the war?) that the objective was military targets and Nazis. Neither of those goals require occupying cities or toppling the regime. As for defeating the Ukrainian military, only a fool would assume that a military that is encircled in cauldrons and cities, has absolutely no air power, is full of Nazis killing Ukrainian civilians, and using Cold War-era weapons (generously donated by the West) can win a war against hypersonic missiles and a disiplined army. Dream on.
“The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday that the “first stage” of its attack on Ukraine is mostly complete and that it will now mainly focus on “liberating” the Donbas region.”
It should now be clear by now, to anyone paying attention, on which side high civilization resides. Sullivan, Blinken, and Nuland are punks; Biden and Pelosi, self-deluded old fools.
Interesting question:
Are the Russians going “sour grapes” because their operations in the west didn’t work out for them?
Or was I correct in hypothesizing that the Donbas/land corridor to Crimea was the real objective the whole time, and that the operations in the western part of Ukraine were just feints to prevent Ukrainian forces from focusing/concentrating on those eastern objectives?
And I wonder specifically how the “exulting over every Russian claim to the tune of the Imperial Death March — Putin is invincible! Ukraine will be taken and de-Nazified!” crowd here will spin the sudden change of tune?
With regards to ur hypothesis, they really fell for their own propaganda and now they r trying to salvage the situation.
Could be. My basis for the hypothesis was that Putin wasn’t stupid/crazy, and therefore knew quite well that his forces weren’t capable of “taking and de-Nazifying” Ukraine.
But I could be wrong. Maybe he got high on his own supply and is only just now coming down and wondering what the f*ck he was thinking.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. I know, big surprise to me, too.
True, if by “know what I’m talking about” you mean “reproduce Russian Ministry of Defense press releases as if they constitute any more reliable information than their US equivalents.”
They do. It’s as simple as that. You only have to look at the maps. Russian advances everywhere, one Ukraine town after another taken, major cities being cleared. Russia is winning this handily. You’re just butthurt because you don’t like Russia winning a war.
“You’re just butthurt because you don’t like Russia winning a war.”
Neither, actually. I don’t give a shit who “wins” this war. And I don’t mind being wrong, when it turns out that I am wrong, in making predictions, etc.
You, on the other hand, seem to have a giant personal investment in having been right vis a vis real Russian intentions.
So much so that when the Russian Ministry of Defense, which you’ve been quoting multiple times per day, contradicts you, it turns out they don’t know their own intentions as well as you do. Which seems rather unlikely.
Now you’re making me laugh when you say you “don’t mind being wrong.” I hope so because you usually are. The MoD has not contradicted me – nor have they contradicted Putin who is the person I look to explain what Russia is doing.
Actually, it’s kind of the opposite: You haven’t contradicted MOD or Putin.
You’re swallowing their line because it’s their line. Facts don’t matter; you believe what you want to believe because it’s what you want to believe.
And any hint that there’s a remote possibility that you might ever be even a little bit wrong about anything sends you into terrorized denunciation mode.
Which is fine. Annoying to those of us who choose to live in the real world but fine.
Putin is extremely smart so were the neocon handlers of Dumbo bush. Ofcourse, unlike the neocons who suffered from hubris, putin is a level-headed person but west not playing by the rules and deaths of Russian loyalist civilians in Donbas fueled putin’s anger and clouded his judgment
Even if Putin could annihilate every last Nazi in Ukraine, there are Nazis in lots of other places that would be happy to come to Ukraine to kill Russians. And I’m confident that the United States government would be happy to facilitate it. I’m also confident that Putin is smart enough to know that.
Qui bono?
What could Russia gain by rampaging around the Ukraine, causing thousands of casualties, killing hundreds of civilians, engendering a war crimes investigation, and making their armed forces look inept? What has Russia gained to justify its losses?
The debacle of the past month looks much more like a miscalculation gone awry than a master plan. It was Putin who boasted about de-Nazification on February 23rd , a goal which has been dropped. The thrust at Kyiv sure looked like a bona fide attempt to seize or lay siege to the capital. The subsequent dispersal and retreat of the attacking armored column without winning any strategic objective doesn’t advance any Russian strategic goal. Was the sinking of the Saratov and the demolition of the numerous Russian tanks part of Putin’s master plan? And why is the Ukrainian air force still flying and its navy still operating?
For centuries Russians have denied the legitimacy or Ukrainian national identity. In the days leading up to the invasion Putin declared that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people.” If he believes that, it is likely that he underestimated the intensity of Ukrainian nationalism or the depth of resentment Ukrainians feel about their centuries of subjugation and oppression by Russian overlords.
My further prediction s that Putin will not be able to pacify the Donbas where the majority of the population is Ukrainian.
You know nothing about anything.
There is no change. All Russian objectives remain in play.
It was always obvious that the bulk of the Ukrainian army in Donbass was the primary target, both because of the need to protect Donbass (and by the way, they’re doing a lot of the fighting, with Russian assist) and secondly to eliminate that major portion of the Ukrainian army, estimated to be between 30% and 50% of the Ukrainian military and in addition their best troops with the most armor.
Once that’s done, and Odessa is taken and the coastline, all those forces involved in that operation, along with the LDR forces, and the Russian reserve sitting on the Ukraine border, will be free to plow across the rest of Ukraine, meeting little resistance since the Ukrainian army will have very little left. Russia has destroyed much of the Ukrainian logistics network and killed an estimated 30,000 Ukrainian troops. Once the Donbass crowd either surrenders or is annihilated, that’s another 30-60,000 gone. That’s about half or more of the functional Ukrainian army.
The rest are stuck in the cities. If they come out, they get shelled and bombed out of existence or encircled and starved until they surrender. Russia will bypass most of them except for certain strategic cities like Kiev and Lvov. Once Russia has control, any holdouts can be rolled up later.
After that, the real objectives come into play: “de-NATOing” the Ukrainian military, “de-Nazification” of the Ukraine government, a new caretaker government, a new Constitution, new elections, reorganization of the military and security services, etc., etc.
All of which is entirely doable. Russia will not be “occupying” Ukraine, they will be “controlling” Ukraine, temporarily. After the objectives are reached, and in some cases even before, the main Russian force will leave.
Eventually, however, Russia will negotiate Russia military bases with strategic weapons inside Ukraine and Belarus. That is the ultimate goal of the operation, as Russia repeatedly stated: “military-technical measure”.
An armed occupation is an armed occupation; not being able to enter major cities doesn’t change what armed occupation means.
Yes, it does. The US runs around sticking their noses into everything in their occupations. The Russians couldn’t care less about less than important regions in Ukraine. That’s one reason they’ve been bypassing numerous towns in order to seize the strategic ones.
Russian armed forces can’t bypass positions from which Ukrainian forces can snipe, bombard, and raid from.
Which is just about everywhere in Ukraine, built up for 8 years to be another Afghanistan for Russia.
Not going to happen. Unlike the neocon fools in the State Dept, the Russians learn from their past mistakes. Just look at the difference in tactics between the first and second wars in Chechnya as proof.
You could be right. Regardless, it’s too soon to assume (as almost everyone has done) anything. I have some doubts about the taking of Odessa, though, given how little attention it has gotten so far.
Odessa is not that immediately important. You have to take the stuff in front of it first. Russia hasn’t committed all its forces yet. The forces it has committed have specific objectives focusing on the Donbass, secondarily on the coast, and Kiev is to pin down Ukraine forces in the west. Phase 2, once Donbass is freed, will involve all those forces, plus the LDR forces, plus probably those reserve forces currently sitting on the border. That will magnify Russia’s ability to take the rest of Ukraine, given that most of the Ukrainian military will be out of ammo and fuel and armor.
And just to add, as Lavrov has stated, Russia still has plenty of forces not involved in Ukraine, but ready to defend against NATO if it should be so foolish as to attack. Lavrov: “One of the main reasons why Russia chose a low-manpower strategy is precisely because the bulk of the Russian military is ready for any type of war against NATO and the US, even a nuclear one if needed.”
1. Probably, they all wanted denazification, de-militarization, and official neutrality; but, the cost would have entailed doing a Fallujah on Kiev et.al., – US style all-out war. Presumably, they (with Chinese) input) made a prudential and humane decision.
2. Had they gone maximal, not only would they have incurred Euro-street disgust and hatred; but, unlike the US/Zionist mid-East (where Powell was wrong about the Pottery Barn rule), would have had to rebuild, manage, and support it. Best to be satisfied, consolidate your considerable gains, and temporize the rest, … and see how NATO likes living with and subsidizing the Ukra-nazi regime in Kiev.
Well, that’s one thing: A “Fallujah on Kyiv” wasn’t possible. The fight in Fallujah was infantry supported by armor. The new generation of anti-tank weapons has made that approach as obsolete as lining infantry up in ranks for volley fire from single-shot muzzle-loading muskets.
Missiles
Missiles are useful weapons.
But you can’t take a city with them.
Putin’s originally stated goal of De-Nazification was euphemism for regime change. The 40 mile convoy to Kyiv was an effort to either capture the capital and the major cities or a feint to force the Ukrainian armed forces into a decisive battle. The campaign appears to have failed. If Russia’s real goal was to conquer Donbas and secure a land corridor, why would they have devastated the country in a campaign that produced thousands of military and civilian casualties, destroyed civilian infrastructure and generated lots of negative publicity and accusations of war crimes?
I believe the Russians thought a sizable part of the population of Russian speaking Mariupol would welcome them. Instead they destroyed significant civilian infrastructure and inflicted many civilian casualties. While the Russians did not deliberately target civilians, it appears they did not do enough to prevent collateral damage and may have committed war crimes.
Putin’s plan A failed. He now hopes to concentrate Russia’s forces to secure and expand the rebel controlled Donbas and thereby secure an honorable exit or at least a permanent cease fire with Donbas and possibly a land corridor behind Russian lines.
The only problem for Putin is still Blowback. Donbas is majority Ukrainian and the Russians will not be able to defeat the Ukrainian resistance there any more than the British could defeat the Provisional IRA in Ulster.
Ironically, the Russian invasion will likely strengthen the Nazis and their allies in the Ukraine.
Kiev forces deliberated fortified themselves in civilian areas; eventually those areas would have to be attacked to get at the military assets hidden there.
No, they don’t. When they run out of food, water, ammo and fuel – because they aren’t getting any more – they will surrender. Any holdouts can be mopped up. You really have zero comprehension of how Russia is fighting this war.
Ukraine is not a ‘civilized’ European war.
https://southfront.org/shocking-evidence-of-ukrainian-regimes-essence-video-21/
Did the 1980s or 2010 Afghanis run out of food, water, ammunition, and fuel?
Did the Islamic State run out of food, water, ammunition, and fuel?
No. They ran out of bodies able to fight openly.
The IS had almost no indigenous support in Syria and Iraq, and Russia in Syria and the US in Iraq drew upon alliance with an indigenously supported local government to prevail.
The Afghanis were still able to operate underground until they could remove the superficial layer of NATO occupation and its puppet government.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. The Afghans had territory. ISIS has territory. They had resupply. The Ukrainian army is bottled up in cities.
There’s no point talking to you. You just drift from one meaninlessg talking point to another, fueled by total military ignorance.
The Russians always said that they were not planning an invasion but a ” military procedure” or whatever.
If they had just focused their effort on the Crimea land corridor and Donbas and had sent no troops to Kiev I am sure that NATO troops would have been sent to Kiev.
As far as the war crimes accusations, it should not go anywhere as there have been plenty of war crimes committed starting with WW 2 and ALL the other wars and attacks.
Accusations of chemical weapons etc. is a tool in the propaganda war chest.
You are misinformed. The Russians deliberately avoided bombing civilian infrastructure. The proof is that in Kiev and other cities, there’s still water, internet and electricity — unlike what NATO did in its “shock & awe” bombing of Iraq. The Russians, unlike their Nazi enemies, also did not commit war crimes, use civilians as human shields, or create high civilian casualties. You are clearly getting your news from the biased MSM. Pity.
I was always surprised that Russia did not take the land corridor to Crimea right after annexing Crimea. I guess they were not ready for it. After all, you choose your battles when you are prepared and you have chances of winning.
The Russian invasion BS and the “Russian’s invasion has stalled” after two days in Ukraine is just propaganda.
Idiots think this means the other goals of Russia will not be pursued. Nonsense. Once this stage of the war is over, i.e., the elimination of the bulk of the Ukrainian army in Donbass, and the taking of Odessa and the coast, all of those forces plus the LDR forces plus the reserve forces sitting on the Ukraine border will enable Russia to ploy across all of Ukraine with great speed, because the Ukrainian military will have little left to oppose them. They will go all the way to the Polish border. Then the final stage will be implemented, which is to say full “de-NATOing”, “de-Nazification, the creation of a new Constitution and a new government, and more.
Nice fan fiction you wrote. Putin will never be able to conquer all of Ukraine
Are you going to be butthurt when he does.
The fog of war is a truly difficult phenomenon to deal with, especially in the case of a war that is being covered so one-sidedly here in the west. Every Ukrainian success, real or imagined, is celebrated wildly; every Russian setback magnified beyond belief.
If indeed the Russian aim was simply to make the separated republics secure (as well as give Russia more guaranteed neutral border space) then the effort thus far has been far too aggressive and therefore allowed a far more punitive response by the west. Russia’s relationship with Western Europe has been totally ruptured. Why did Russia not focus entirely on the Donbass region, justifying their attack on the failure of Ukraine to implement Minsk and the continuing attacks on the civilians? That would have seemed much more defensible locally and in the court of world opinion.
It wouldn’t be possible to focus just on the Donbass region.
When the Russia entered the Donbass, shelling didn’t stop for long and only increased.
The only way to stop the shelling would be to remove Kiev artillery which was extensive and deep into Ukrainian territory.
A military-oriented Shock and Awe campaign would have done this, but Russia didn’t build up those airpower resources.
But it doesn’t gain Russia’ security concerns. That requires taking all of Ukraine. Donbass is merely step one. Kiev is just intended to pin Ukraine forces there while the Russian encircle the city (more or less, leaving open some corridors.) Once Donbass is sorted out, Russia will move west.
A deal was struck, Mr Z has now pledged Ukraine will not join NATO which was the main Russian objective. This leaves the US with egg on its face, spoils all its plans of continued conflict.
West Information War For Ukraine
This is not what he said. The first phase WAS liberating Donbas, and it is largelly complete. And he said that it was not their intention to militarily control towns, but it is not ruling it out, if needed. What is he referring to? To town like Mariupol in Donetsk area, Kharkov and Sumy in Lughank area. Already taken over Kherson in Crimea area. Kharson region was linked to Crimea before, and it looks like might be annexed.
The resson for having to militarily take over those towns is simple: Population mostly Russian — defenders the Nazi battalions. Those could have surrendered, but are encouraged to stay by propaganda about their heroics and populatiin suffering. People are suffering, but not because of Russians — but because of Nazi battalions not allowing them to leave by corridors to Russia controlled areas — but only into area controlled by Azov or Right Sector. Towns became hostages. But our media will never say any of that.
But it does look like Biden’s visit to Poland included some bargaining. Poland is eager to get back its historical lands in Western Ukraine, and it cannot be ruled out its forces entering Galicia. But that would cause the panic in traditionaly Belarus areas, or Hungarian areas.
But it is not such a crazy idea as it seems. Lvov must be protected as an alternative Ukrainian polity even if Kyev government collapsees.
Best analysis on Biden’s trip and Russian military status report can be founc in Bhadrakumar’s recent article in Indian Punchline.
Correct. I’d love to see Poland try to seize Ukrainian territory. Russia simply won’t allow it. To do so, Poland will have to amass troops on the border. Russian ISR will be all over that. Poland won’t get one foot inside Ukraine before being trashed and sent running.
you would “love to see Poland try and seize Ukrainian territory”?
I would hate that.
that sounds like an escalation, and we need to be moving towards an immediate cease fire and settlement.
more invasions is the wrong direction. more weapons is wrong, too.
Kiev was just a diversion. It pinned Ukrainian troops around the Ukrainian capital while the real objective was the Donbas.
Pretty much so. There are still sensitive and dangerous operations left in Donbas region — that is the original Donbas not the one defended after March 2014. Sensitivity is in. dealing with desperate and vicious militants and protect population.
But the newc phase is coming.
Quote from Indian Punchline, The unkindest cut of it all is that the Russian Defence Ministry chose Biden’s trip as the perfect backdrop to frame the true proportions of success of its special operation in Ukraine. The US and NATO’s credibility is perilously close to being irreparably damaged, as the Russian juggernaut rolls across Ukraine with the twin objectives of ‘demilitarisation’ and ‘denazification’ in its sights.
What is the title of the article you quote from?
Graphic of the percentage of Ukrainian military assets destroyed by Russian forces…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/018a07ee325c869bcc6d5a1693e4585cf9acde8624e4a4e5e422e61e29dd97f4.jpg
From where is that graphic derived?
Sorry to say I’ve completely forgotten. I think it’s an English translation of a Russian one, but I can’t remember where it came from. It might be from the Rybar Telegram channel or Intel Slava Z or similar. In fact, looking at it again, I think it’s a graphic from a Russian MoD daily report with the figures replaced by English translations. Yes, that’s it. It’s very similar to a recent Russian MoD briefing. It has the same numbers. I don’t know if the Russian MoD actually made the graphic or if someone else did, but the numbers are from the MoD.
Is there any “impartial” confirmation of this, or for that matter, anything either the Russians or the Ukrainians say about the war?
And for this you have 3.7 million Ukrainians moving to other countries. Taking the chance. You could help 100 times more people in the area where they live, instead of paying for free TVs and the rest when they go to the West. Anyone who hasn’t done anything in his life, who never studied in school, and anyone who’s been doing drugs and drinking, and the ones wanted by the police, will simply walk across the border and say “I’m a refugee!” no matter where in Ukraine he comes from, and then he’ll get free money and housing.
He will stay in Poland, or go to Germany or Sweden to maximize the free stuff. Fast-tracked permanent residency and then citizenship, free education, money to pay rent and everything else every month. Vote for the Social Democrats who always promise the most free stuff – they’d never let in the flood if they voted for the Right. Of course he won’t go back, and the politicians will fall over themselves to show how pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian they are, by giving him more than the retired Germans and Swedes get. Filling every city so there is no apartment to rent for young people, and definitely not to buy.
An Iranian doctor in biology, who applies for residency? Waiting years and years, nothing for free. Iranians and Asians are sacrificed in the system, closely watched to see if they don’t get all their university credits so they can be thrown out of the dorm building or the country, as the media focus completely on “I’m a refugee!” Arabs, Africans and Afghans. And now Ukrainians.
But hey! That’s the benefit in the neocon wars. Bill Kristol drooled over the Afghans.
The hospitals are already bogged down, nothing works as it should, because of the flood of Arabs and Afghans who claimed to be “Syrians”. Now you have Arabs claiming to be “Ukrainians who are just paperless“. Old people don’t even get to stay in the hospital when they need it, they’re sent home, and in the chaos no one even checks if they have the key to the apartment with them, or if their children have it. Happens every day, the hospital drivers say. And of course they’re forced to sell their homes and live in tiny apartments, as the taxes, explicitly and without hiding it, are kept high to “take care of refugees”.
Whenever you move the consideration is, where can you escape the trash thrown everywhere, the crime in the streets, the attacks in the school hallways? How much can you afford to pay to live in the most German or Swedish neighborhood so your children aren’t robbed for their cellphones and jackets, while the media silence the victims? Even children’s shows on state-run TV now play out robberies of children, teaching the children they must not resist, and then the state-appointed court frees a large gang robbing and humiliating a boy because “he didn’t resist”. The media owners and the politicians live in safe neighborhoods and never have to see the subway, they have the money. They’d never live in the neighborhoods taken over by their imported voters.
Talk about a racist rant if I never saw one. Calling refugees moochers and bums while attacking Arabs and Africans for NATO involved wars.
How bigot of you.
Lots of interesting commentary here. I don’t claim to know who is wrong or right about Putin’s plans or goals or his success so far in achieving them. But I’m pretty sure that the United States involvement in this is not for the benefit of humanity.
Anyone know where the actual Russian Ministry Defense doc can be found? There are reports the press is misinterpreting what Rudskoi actually said.
Govt site is being blocked —
https://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12414732@egNews
Available at The Saker blog. And yes, they are misinterpreting him.
The Donbass cauldron could have as many as 100,000 NATO trained troops. Eliminating them would be a big help
Getting rid of the bellicose, hyper aggressive and war mongering NATO would have been a bigger help. AND it would have prevented those 100,000 Ukrainian from being in this position in the first place.
Why the quotation marks for liberating and defending????
The reporting from both sides is certainly skewed. Half-true (and sometimes even false) propaganda grows like weeds in war time. Let’s admit two truths.
1. Russian forces have not been applying their full strength to Ukraine. They currently have the upper hand in the conflict. If they wanted to go “full blitzkrieg” in Ukraine, they would be in Kyiv in a few days.
2. At the same time, the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian resistance has been surprising and the Russians have encountered more defeats and losses than anyone expected.
There is no “shift” in Russian objectives. The Russians are proceeding exactly as Putin initially outlined. The problem is that the West never listens. It didn’t listen when Putin asked it to consider Russia’s security requirements, and it didn’t listen when it demanded that Ukraine stay out of NATO and never get nukes. The situation in Ukraine is the consequence of the West’s devious anti-Russia campaign for the last 30 years. Western armchair military strategists would do themselves a favor by reading Clauswitz’s writings on war, because that’s the book Russia is winning by. Encircling cities, rather than bombing them to sh_t, is a tactic, not a “stall.” And getting rid of the Nazis on Europe’s doorstep was actually a favor — for which Europe should be grateful.
Z !