Eastern Europe/Ukraine [Feb 6th 2015]

[IndraD]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... mum-peril/
Why the Kremlin’s apparent retreat could be Ukraine’s moment of maximum peril


The resistance in Mariupol has days left at most.

There are no lines of supply into the city. Ukrainian soldiers there have turned to battlefield foraging: kill a Russian, strip his food and ammunition.

It may sound heartless, given the horrendous human suffering, but the forces there have one last great mission: soak up the Russians, before they turn north.

War is a series of desperate and disgusting choices.

The Kremlin has suggested it will concentrate its weight of firepower in the east. The blighted, blasted Donbas.

If Ukrainian forces in the east are cut off and surrounded by Russian troops, no matter that 13 of the 16 battalion tactical groups being rushed into the area of operations by Moscow are conscripts, that could be a significant and irreparable blow to the ultimate defence of Ukraine.

Notwithstanding how long the defence can last, even the best soldiers can run out of ammunition.

The Ukrainian army is dug in deep, and can see this fresh offensive coming. And if we’ve learnt one thing about Ukraine’s military chiefs over the last month, it’s that they’ll have a plan.

They retook the strategic city of Izyum, gateway to the Donbas, earlier this week.

They can’t pull out. To do so in contact with the enemy would invite a charge back to the sanctuary of the West Bank of the Dnieper river being harried from three different directions.

That would be military folly. It would also be a difficult political calculus for Volodymyr Zelensky to give up such hard-fought and totemic ground.

Ukraine has been at war with Russia since 2014. That war has been conducted (in plain sight anyway) in the east of the country. And if this conflict is to have a negotiated end - as almost all do - Mr Zelensky does not want to be going into talks with the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts already lost.

Vladimir Putin cannot end this reckless, ridiculous and illegal adventure without the Donbas. He will not survive without it. Equally though, Mr Zelensky cannot allow the area to fall.


But once (and it looks, depressingly, that it is no longer an ‘if’) Mariupol falls, those Russian forces, exhausted and expended as they are, will turn north.

Nothing from the shattered landscape of Kharkiv, to the north, suggests Ukrainian troops would be able to stop the Russians there turning south to link up with their friends moving northwards.

Izyum will bear the brunt.

Any attempt to encircle Ukraine’s 10 battalions in the Donbas could be the fatal blow. It will be fiercely resisted. And not just by Ukraine.

“I hope that's where the Western supply of arms will make a significant contribution to Ukrainian forces,” one Western official said, in a thinly veiled attempt to say, without the Donbas, all this effort could have been for nothing.

For Ukraine, the Donbas has to stand.

The outcome of this war will define Western defence thinking and the shape of European politics for many years to come. The focus of that possible future rests today in a small corner of eastern Ukraine.

[eklavya]

[IndraD]

https://twitter.com/AmbassadeChine/stat ... 8uH7YKa3dQ
Ambassade de Chine en France
@AmbassadeChine

Organisation du gouvernement - Chine
“America is in no position to pretend to be the guardian of democracy and human rights!” Indian anchor debating with an American professor.

[Lisa]

This entire war has been a monumental failure of western foreign policy in that its selfishness in regards to all matters has run into a Russian wall of their needs. Nothing of what has happened should really make the news as these matter were clearly understood and known off many years ago.

Two links, one of a video dated 2015 that I ran into many weeks ago from a professor who has already been discussed and the second from a piece of information that has been conveniently buried as its contents harm the common MSM narrative.

First- Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer

25 Sept 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

Second - A report from the OSCE, the monitors of the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine 16th October 2021

https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/os ... 16-october

Click on the linked PDF, Page 3 paragraph 3 in particular,

"Following agreement reached at the meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on 22 July
2020 regarding Measures to strengthen the ceasefire, from 00:01 on 27 July 2020 until the end
of the reporting period, the SMM has recorded at least 64,923 ceasefire violations in both
Donetsk and Luhansk regions (including 18,060 explosions, 13,091 projectiles in flight,
288 muzzle flashes, 263 illumination flares and at least 33,221 bursts and shots)."

Think about this carefully, 65,000 violations in ballpark 14 months. I do not think that this even happens on the LOC (I may be wrong) but the Russians have NO CAUSE OR REASON to react. Really!

I remain not surprised but almost shocked my how many poster have swallowed the western narrative completely without any real understanding of the actual situation or the bare facts at hand. One here spoke of Zelenskyy's democratic credentials but forgot that the Indian Prime Minister holds the LARGEST democratic franchise in the world and not ONE western democracy has come to his side despite some tens of thousands murdered in Kashmir.

[eklavya]

FT:

https://www.ft.com/content/61bb9bad-e7e ... 562e7bfae1

Mikhail Khodorkovsky: we must win the struggle for the minds of the Russian people
Amid a propaganda onslaught my fellow citizens are afraid to resist, but risk is the price we pay for survival

The writer is an exiled Russian businessman and member of the Anti-War Committee of Russia

For the first few days of the war in Ukraine, I couldn’t sleep. And now, after watching the latest footage from the conflict, I can’t sleep again. For 10 years in Vladimir Putin’s prisons I slept soundly. Even the night I was stabbed in the face, I walked to the infirmary to get stitched up, returned to bed, turned over the bloodied pillow and fell back asleep like a baby. But now I can’t.

Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mariupol — blood, pain, suffering. Peaceful lives ruined. Children murdered. Corpses upon corpses. And for what? An old mafioso who, as often happens, is obsessed by the notion of restoring an empire as he nears the end of his life.

Putin has tested these waters many a time. In 1999, when he rose from obscurity amid acts of terrorism and the war in Chechnya, he understood that empire was a note that tugged on the heartstrings of Russian society. In 2008, even as he handed the presidency to Dmitry Medvedev, he provoked a war in Georgia and ensured his grip on power. In 2014, as widespread popular discontent poured on to the streets, he annexed Crimea and support skyrocketed.

And now, following his mismanagement of Covid-19 and a decade without economic growth, he launches a new war.

How will Russia respond? Countless Russians have relatives, friends and roots in Ukraine. My own family left 100 years ago during the Russian Revolution. Moscow is my hometown and that of my parents, but Kharkiv, Zhytomyr and Odesa are not foreign to us. My ancestors are buried there, and I have — had — relatives living there. Tens of millions of Russians can say the same.

How are they — we — reacting? The polling appears terrifying: it shows 65-75 per cent of Russians support the war. Serious sociologists, however, refuse to take these polls at face value; polling conducted in a dictatorship, particularly one at war, means nothing. Only a small proportion dare to answer and of those, many will be too afraid to say what they really think.

Still it must be acknowledged that support for the war is widespread. People know that something is not right but are either afraid to resist or just don’t know how. If you come out on to the street, you will lose your job or end up in jail, and few can afford that in a poor country. An unarmed crowd is powerless against Putin’s armed guard.

Denying the facts offers a psychological escape and the onslaught of propaganda gives people the tools for this: “We are not at war with the Ukrainian people, we’re defending them from Nazis”; “We are not bombing cities, the Ukrainians are doing it to themselves”; “We are not fighting Ukraine, but the Americans and Nato.” And so on.

Very few people wish to be outsiders, standing against what “everybody thinks”. Defining what “everybody thinks” is the main task of propaganda. That is why the Kremlin shuts down social networks not under its control.

Russians safely in the west remain gripped by the same propaganda. They have relatives, friends and sources of income in the motherland. They want to be able to visit. The outcome is a successful attempt to convince oneself that the situation is not so simple.

Something needs to be done. Besides humanitarian considerations, we must stop an extremely dangerous process. Russian society is at risk of becoming not simply a hostage to the Kremlin’s fascist ideas and crimes, but an accomplice. This would be an extremely dangerous development, not only giving the Kremlin a mandate for continuing aggression, but actually encouraging it.

It is precisely for this reason that sanctions against Russia as a country (something I have always previously been against) are imperative. What is more, they should not be easily lifted.

I have never favoured pushing people, my fellow citizens, to resist in the face of serious risk, but this is war. Either you kill or you get killed. In some places this is still just figurative, but in Ukraine it is very real. In this situation, risk is the price you have to pay for survival, for your own life, for those of other people, and, at the end of the day, for freedom.

I made my own choice on this long ago. Had I wanted a safe and quiet life, I had such an opportunity. I am delighted that so many of my fellow citizens are also now making this choice. Thousands, even tens of thousands, are coming out on to the streets. Hundreds of thousands have left, among them many public opinion leaders who the Kremlin is squeezing out in a targeted fashion.

These people are continuing their struggle from abroad, trying to break through to the minds and hearts of our fellow citizens. We have created the Anti-War Committee of Russia and are trying to act together. We are helping refugees and getting our joint message across to Russian audiences that number millions, and to those in the west who understand that this tragedy is something common to us all.

We will win the struggle for the minds of the Russian people, defeating not only Putin, but the very phenomenon of Putinism. For this, we — Ukrainians, Russians, Britons, western Europeans, Americans — need to understand that this is not just a war against Ukraine, this is the first stage of a new struggle pitting democracy against fascism and dictatorship. It is in our hands to ensure that it will be the last.

[Lisa]

Wow, convicts can now write in the FT!

[Jay]

This entire war has been a monumental failure of western foreign policy in that its selfishness in regards to all matters has run into a Russian wall of their needs.

This is not a failure, this is a design feature of Neo Western hegemony. This is one area where the entire Western Hemisphere feels united and the goal is to exert influence and leverage over non Western world. As much as I'm not fond of what Putin's missteps has led to, I hope there's a truce at this point because if not Russia will be losing its leverage with every passing day.

[eklavya]

Wow, convicts can now write in the FT!

Indeed, Lisa-ji. Speaking of which:

The Kremlin’s assault on Navalny and the truth

The Kremlin’s assault on Navalny and the truth
New sentence suggests Russia’s inner circle fears its support is brittle

March 22 2022

Russia has versions of various western TV shows, but the courtroom genre would be particularly tricky to adapt to a country where big trials are always a foregone conclusion. There was never any doubt Alexei Navalny would be found guilty of new charges of stealing Rbs356mn ($4.7mn) of donations to his own anti-corruption foundation — even while he was already in prison for alleged parole violations. Only the length of his sentence was in question. Nine years was less than the 13 that prosecutors sought, but no less disgraceful for that. It threatens to silence one of the most vocal critics of Vladimir Putin and his war against Ukraine amid an intensifying crackdown on dissent.

Navalny has demonstrated extraordinary courage. The activist survived an attempted assassination with a highly toxic nerve agent that left him in a coma and having to be airlifted to Germany. He then helped to investigate his own poisoning and duped the secret service agent allegedly responsible into describing the hit in a phone call that Navalny then published. He returned to Russia despite facing likely arrest for missing parole hearings — while convalescing in Germany — linked to earlier bogus corruption charges.

In adding new accusations to extend his existing two and a half year prison term, the authorities followed the model used with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch who clashed with Putin in the 2000s. Just as Khodorkovsky’s oil company was destroyed, Moscow has banned Navalny’s foundation for “extremism”, prompting dozens of his supporters to flee Russia.

The determined efforts to muzzle Navalny demonstrate just what an irritant to the Kremlin his exposés of the lavish wealth of Russia’s ruling circle had become. His video of a billion-dollar Black Sea palace allegedly built for Putin, complete with casino, skating rink and vineyard, has notched up almost 123mn views (Russia’s president has denied any connection to the building). Within weeks of its release, the independent pollster Levada reckoned a quarter of Russians had watched it.

Hours before Navalny’s sentencing, his team tweeted photographs of a luxury yacht they admitted was only “rumoured” to be Putin’s, but whose crew list allegedly consists almost entirely of Russians from the Federal Protection Service that guards the president and top officials. Work by Navalny’s team has provided a trove of data being used to help target western sanctions on Moscow’s inner circle.

Navalny has continued to post messages on social media via his lawyers even from a penal colony. But associates worry the new sentence, in a maximum-security prison, will isolate him from the outside world as Moscow bolsters its information monopoly.

For all the impact of Navalny’s probes, the state-owned pollster VTsIOM said this month that 71 per cent of Russians supported the Kremlin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. Though results in such a repressive climate — Putin last week threatened to spit out “scum and traitors” — probably overstate the reality, they still demonstrate the power of Moscow’s propaganda and nationalist narrative.

Yet the energy with which Moscow has pursued its critic suggests it worries its support is brittle and could crack. Navalny may now be less able to continue his campaigning and faces a new battle to preserve his health and safety in the ruthless surroundings of a high-security facility. But he announced on Tuesday his foundation would become an international organisation that would “fight until we win”. Inspired by his example, others will continue the work of holding an ever more dangerous Kremlin to account.

Alexei Navalny gestures via a video link provided by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, as he speaks with Penitentiary Service officers during a court session in Pokrov, Vladimir region, east of Moscow on Tuesday

[Kati]

WION is back after a week-long blockade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ7vy2JxH0U

[yogeshkumar]

Eklavya - all the US/EU propaganda that you have been posting, this one about "Alexei Navalny" takes the cake.

SO let me get this straight:
- Russia poisoned Alexei Navalny. But Somehow poison was not good quality that he survived? Is that it? So Russia can't manufacture radioactive polonium/uranium anymore?
- Then Russia let him get admitted to Hospital? Why would Russia allow that to happen? According to your propaganda, Russia would want him to die anyway?
- Lo and behold, then Russia allows him to flee to Germany for better treatment? Why would Russia allow that?
- Oh wait..that's not it. Then Russia allows him to come back to Russia. Why would Russia allow him to then come back?

At what point do we start shaking our head at such propaganda of US/EU? Its an insult to someone's intelligence.

He is a CIA spy. Do you know what US does to spies? Lethal injection!
What about Julian Assange? he has been in brutal prison conditions for decade plus now. All for what? For exposing the fact that US NSA spies on its own citizens.

[Lisa]

Yogeshkumarji,

Notice the similarities between all these freedom lovers and BIF's. Notice the similarities between NGO clampdowns both in Russia and India and also similarities in western protests against such clampdowns.

Amnesty International India put up a video in 2018 to explain how bad such and unfair these Indian laws were. Its still online and in some 4 years it has less than 500 views. Think about this carefully, 500 views in a country of 1,400,000,000 in 4 years and India needs them!

Similarly, these are "useful idiots" in Russia and many fall for their fables.

[yogeshkumar]

Yogeshkumarji,

Notice the similarities between all these freedom lovers and BIF's. Notice the similarities between NGO clampdowns both in Russia and India and also similarities in western protests against such clampdowns.

Amnesty International India put up a video in 2018 to explain how bad such and unfair these Indian laws were. Its still online and in some 4 years it has less than 500 views. Think about this carefully, 500 views in a country of 1,400,000,000 in 4 years and India needs them!

Similarly, these are "useful idiots" in Russia and many fall for their fables.

You're 100% right Lisa. It is no secret that NGOs (world wide) are funded covertly and overtly by CIA, as well as sheeples in US. CIA then embeds useful idiots in these NGOs. NGOs perform different objectives in different countries.

In India, they are tasked to obstruct the development of India. And, to show India in bad light (that India is torturing minorities), as well as a perception that Indians are culturally poor.

India has the best culture in the whole world. It is a pity that poverty (induced by UK/US over last 200 hundred years) has caused people to be aggressive towards each other due to lack of space and resources in India.

[John]

Ukraine had 6 years to prepare defensive positions in the Donbass, where the bulk of their army is based. That's why it is so difficult to dislodge them now. A `Donbass only' thrust (which is what I expected),would have meant very slow advances, with the Ukrainians feeding in reinforcements and
weapons from NATO into the Donbass front. A thrust on multiple axis forces Ukraine to defend everything and threatens to encircle the Ukrainians in the Donbass, instead of frontal attacks. Of course, that is the theory. The Russians have (in my opinion) been unprepared for a war of this magnitude and managing a war with multiple axis of advance - though we did that in 1971 in Bangladesh.

Yea the forces there are dug in but with proper use of Artillery, MRL and Airpower (incl drones) they aren't impossible to dislodge we are not talking about a mountainous terrain. Also given Russia's aviation assets dropping sp ops forces behind enemy lines would have worked perfectly. Azerbaijan was able to break thru Armenian defenses using that strategy in 2020, granted Azerbaijan offensive seems to be far better executed. As for reinforcements, Threat of further escalation would I think kept NATO and reinforcements back.

Anyway I suppose hindsight is 20/20.

[Cyrano]

A very interesting perspective from Samo Burja, actually many things we say here in BRF are echoed in his articulate analysis.

Pay heed to what he says at 38:00

[kit]

A very interesting perspective from Samo Burja, actually many things we say here in BRF are echoed in his articulate analysis.

Pay heed to what he says at 38:00

Western values becoming more like the ones they are opposing ., China and Russia

[Cyrano]

He says Indian govt would be traitorous if they don't replace western social media with domestic alternatives.

[Bart S]

A very interesting perspective from Samo Burja, actually many things we say here in BRF are echoed in his articulate analysis.

Pay heed to what he says at 38:00

Western values becoming more like the ones they are opposing ., China and Russia

One of the gems from that interview was:
"Western values do not require/justify the the Western Empire"

[kit]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_Lai_massacre

Along with the No Gun Ri massacre in South Korea 18 years earlier, Mỹ Lai was one of the largest publicized massacres of civilians by U.S. forces in the 20th century

[kit]

[kit]

Post needs more verified details. ,missing in Google censored pages !

[kit]

[eklavya]

the Russians remembered who Scholz's grandfather was. The Russians also remembered an old saying that an apple does not fall far from the apple tree.

NYT:

He Convinced Voters He Would Be Like Merkel. But Who Is Olaf Scholz?

Born in Osnabrück, northern Germany, Mr. Scholz grew up in Hamburg, the city he would later run as mayor. His grandfather was a railway man, his parents worked in textiles. He and his brothers were the first in his family to go to university.

[sanjaykumar]

Nothing escapes the NYT, except intestinal gas.

[dnivas]

A lot of forward movement tby the Russians he past 48 hours. attacks in lviv, and all across the board.

[ManuJ]

The war is entering the bloodiest phase.

With Kremlin publicly stating its minimalistic final goal being 'liberation' of the entire Donbass region, anything less will be a defeat for Putin and thus would be unacceptable to him.
On the other hand, the best and most battle-hardened units of the Ukraine army are entrenched in that region in force. Ukraine must have war-gamed this possibility and come up with a plan. Most critical from their point of view would be to ensure that those troops are not encircled. Mariupol defenders with their tenacity have provided Ukraine crucial time.

This war will not be over anytime soon. Negotiations are meaningless now because Ukraine will never concede the entire Donbass region.

[Manish_P]

No big surprise really.. The gene is buried deep in the DNA of the followers of the book... from the times of the crusades

[anmol]

Ukrainians Shooting Russian POWs in the Legs (DIRECT LINK): https://files.catbox.moe/wcdy0g.mp4

[Tanaji]

Biden had asked for regime change in Moscow and thr White House has hurriedly rowed back his comments after the Kremlin pointed out it was for Russian people to decide democratically.

Wonder what gives with the WH?

[IndraD]

https://indianexpress.com/article/world ... t-7838548/

UK says Russian sanctions could be lifted with Ukraine withdrawal
Ukr war being used by UK establishment to undo the Brexit business damage!

[rsingh]

The war is entering the bloodiest phase.

With Kremlin publicly stating its minimalistic final goal being 'liberation' of the entire Donbass region, anything less will be a defeat for Putin and thus would be unacceptable to him.
On the other hand, the best and most battle-hardened units of the Ukraine army are entrenched in that region in force. Ukraine must have war-gamed this possibility and come up with a plan. Most critical from their point of view would be to ensure that those troops are not encircled. Mariupol defenders with their tenacity have provided Ukraine crucial time.

This war will not be over anytime soon. Negotiations are meaningless now because Ukraine will never concede the entire Donbass region.

Can you back your statement with facts? Was there any statement from krmlin stating that Donbas or defeat to Putin? I do not think so. Your statement about Ukrainian entrenched and maripaul defenders are based on western wishful thinking. Well other side says these people are using school, hospitals. Firing from apartments thus making these establishments legitimate target. Western media show schools destroyed but never tell whole story..

[Pratyush]

https://indianexpress.com/article/world ... t-7838548/

UK says Russian sanctions could be lifted with Ukraine withdrawal
Ukr war being used by UK establishment to undo the Brexit business damage!

This is the surest evidence that Russia is winning and this is one of the last throws of the dice by the western power's to get Russians to take the bait.

The issue is if the Russians were going to take the bait. The war would never have happened.

[eklavya]

Ukraine asking its allies for aeroplanes and tanks:

[Tanaji]

He is asking for 1% of Nato tanks and planes. The sense of entitledness is at Paki levels

[Aditya_V]

But Bayraktar TB2 have blown away the Russian AIrforce and destroyed its army, why does he need any more Nato Planes and Tanks.

[Pratyush]

He is asking for 1% of Nato tanks and planes. The sense of entitledness is at Paki levels

That is actually not much. Under a 100 tanks and a similar number of jets.

[Cyrano]

This is some bullshit demand from Zel-the-weasel. So if they get say 100 Leopards and Leclercs or 100 mirages/typhoons/migs/rafales, Ukr will suddenly take out of its Musharraf troops trained to operate them and skilled to execute effective combat tactics against the Russians to win the war ? This clown show is only for the most ignorant and gullible, which most EU people and leaders are.

[Tanaji]

He is asking for 1% of Nato tanks and planes. The sense of entitledness is at Paki levels

That is actually not much. Under a 100 tanks and a similar number of jets.

That is still a lot of money, most of which will be written off. This is on top of the said he has already gotten and the amount bordering countries will pay to house the refugees.

This is still entitled at Paki levels.

[Pratyush]

That is correct. This is all about making the west pay for Ukrainian nationalists desire to build Ukrainian nation.

They are governed by the simple notion, Ukraine is not Russia.

What is a mystery is why the US and UK are playing along with that delusion. Why is it so important to deny Russians some breathing space.

French and German efforts to make peace before the onset of the war are relevant in that regard. Sadly Ukrainian's have messed things up beyond repair.

[Tanaji]

Is Baniansky the Bhindrawale of Ukraine? In the sense that he was propped up and encouraged by US and UK initially and now has grown too big and out of control. He can be restrained but only after tremendous costs in life, property and money.

Baniansky is now wagging the dog, and US and UK don’t have 100% control over the narrative.

[kit]

But Bayraktar TB2 have blown away the Russian AIrforce and destroyed its army, why does he need any more Nato Planes and Tanks.