Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby conniption » Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:37 pm

Global Research
(embedded links)

As Russian Tanks Move Toward Ukraine, the Globe Braces for the Possibility that World War 3 Could Soon Erupt
By Michael Snyder
April 03, 2021

***

At this hour, more Russian military forces are massed near Ukraine’s borders than we have ever seen before. Western military leaders say that they are concerned that the troop movements that we have witnessed in recent days may be leading up to an invasion, and if an invasion does happen it will greatly test the resolve of the Biden administration, EU leaders and NATO brass. In particular, the hawks in the Biden administration would almost certainly not be willing to just sit back and let the Russians conquer all of Ukraine. There would likely be a major response by the United States, and that could set off a chain reaction that could ultimately spark World War 3.

So what made the Russians suddenly move a massive invasion force toward Ukraine?

Well, it turns out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky essentially signed a declaration of war against Russia on March 24th. The document that he signed is known as Decree No. 117/2021, and you won’t read anything about it in the corporate media.

I really had to dig to find Decree No. 117/2021, but eventually I found it. I took several of the paragraphs at the beginning of the document and I ran them through Google translate…

In accordance with Article 107 of the Constitution of Ukraine, I decree:

1. To put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine of March 11, 2021 “On the Strategy of deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol” (attached).

2. To approve the Strategy of deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (attached).

3. Control over the implementation of the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, enacted by this Decree, shall be vested in the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

4. This Decree shall enter into force on the day of its publication.

President of Ukraine V.ZELENSKY

March 24, 2021


Basically, this decree makes it the official policy of the government of Ukraine to retake Crimea from Russia.

Of course the Russians will never hand over Crimea willingly because they consider it to be Russian territory, and so Ukraine would have to take it by force.

This is essentially a declaration of war against Russia, and Zelensky would have never signed such a document without the approval of the Biden administration.

Following the signing of Decree No. 117/2021, we started to see Russian forces pour into Crimea and into separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine at a staggering rate.

For example, you can watch a column of Russian tanks being transported by rail right here.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1376965845172289536

And you can see a massive column of Russian forces on the Crimea bridge right here.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1377062600945635334

In addition, it is being reported that the 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade is on the move, and that is not a good sign at all.

twitter link @ASBMilitary

The Russians are taking Zelensky’s declaration of war very seriously, but the corporate media in the western world is blaming “Russian aggression” for the increase in tensions in the region.

But the truth is that the Russians never would have made any of these moves if warmongers in the Biden administration had not given Zelensky the green light to sign Decree No. 117/2021.

And what most people in the western world don’t know is that fighting has already begun in Ukraine. The ceasefire that was agreed to in July 2020 has been violated hundreds of times over the past week…

The OSCE’s civilian Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has reported hundreds of cease-fire violations in recent days. On March 26, four Ukrainian soldiers were killed and two others injured in the eastern part of the country.

The Ukrainian military said its soldiers were hit by a mortar attack it blamed on Russian troops. Russia denies having a military presence in eastern Ukraine, where it backs separatist forces.


At this point, the ceasefire of July 2020 is completely dead.

In response to the renewed fighting, U.S. European Command “has raised its alert status to the highest level”…

U.S. European Command has raised its alert status to the highest level after fighting resumed between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk Region of eastern Ukraine, marking the end of a June 2020 ceasefire, and Russian forces began building up military equipment along the border.


And we just learned that the chairman of the joint chiefs actually had a telephone call with his counterpart in Russia on Wednesday to address the escalating situation…

In a statement on Facebook on Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that at the initiative of the U.S., chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, had a telephone conversation with his counterpart. “Issues of mutual interest were discussed,” the statement said.


In the days ahead, the corporate media in the western world is going to continue talking about “Russian aggression”, and the Russians are going to continue to blame Zelensky and the Biden administration for the rise of tensions in the region.

Ultimately, we could spend countless hours debating who is in the right and who is in the wrong.

But what really matters is keeping this from escalating into a global conflict. Because if someone does something really stupid and the Russians feel a need to send their invasion force into Ukraine, there will be no going back ever.

I have been warning about a future conflict between the United States and Russia for a very long time, and we have never been closer than we are right now.

With Trump in the White House, relations with Russia were relatively stable, but now Joe Biden is in charge.

Biden is a hothead that is showing signs of advanced cognitive decline, and he is surrounded by a team of warmongers that are determined to put Russian President Vladimir Putin in his place.

The inmates are running the asylum, and it won’t take much of a mistake at all for things to go horribly, horribly wrong.

*
Michael Snyder has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, which are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/russian-t ... pt/5741715
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby BenDhyan » Tue Apr 13, 2021 8:23 pm

Wapo war mongering...

Putin again threatens war with Ukraine. The West must be ready to respond.

Opinion by the Editorial Board April 9, 2021

VLADIMIR PUTIN is facing mounting public discontent over Russia’s stagnant economy and poor response to covid-19. He was embarrassed by a YouTube video — viewed more than 115 million times — of the palace he built for himself, and stung by President Biden’s description of him as “a killer.” With parliamentary elections approaching in September, independent polling shows that only 27 percent say they would vote for his ruling party — and 41 percent, an all-time high, say they do not want him to seek another presidential term.

And so Mr. Putin is turning to a familiar diversionary tactic — raising tensions to just below the boiling point with neighboring Ukraine and its pro-Western government. Since February, a cease-fire negotiated last summer has been shredded by Russian-backed forces in two eastern provinces they have partly controlled since 2014. A number of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, including two this week. Meanwhile, Russia has sent thousands of regular troops to reinforce already-large deployments near the international border and in the Ukrainian province of Crimea, which Moscow claims to have annexed.

Mr. Putin has succeeded, at least, in getting the West’s attention. The U.S. European Command raised its alert level to “potential imminent crisis,” the highest level. In the past week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has received supportive phone calls from Mr. Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised Ukraine in a video call with Mr. Putin last week; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, meanwhile called his Russian counterpart. On Thursday, Ms. Merkel spoke to Mr. Putin again, telling him to reverse the military buildup

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/putin-again-threatens-war-with-ukraine-the-west-must-be-ready-to-respond/2021/04/08/7f292d8e-96f4-11eb-b28d-bfa7bb5cb2a5_story.html



Russian troops on Ukraine border ‘ready to defend country’ in event of war says Defense Minister Shoigu, warning of NATO buildup
13 Apr, 2021

Two detachments of the Russian Army, along with three airborne units, are ready to act in the event tensions with the West escalate into full-blown fighting, Moscow announced on Tuesday following a surprise inspection of troops.

After paying a visit to the soldiers, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told journalists that the personnel met the standards required for the situation. “The troops have shown full readiness and ability to fulfill the tasks of ensuring the country’s military security,” he said. “Currently, these associations and formations are engaged in drills and exercises.”

Shoigu said that the redeployments had taken place “in response to the military activity of the alliance that threatens Russia.” The move comes amid escalating tension with the US-led NATO bloc and after bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine between Kiev’s forces and two breakaway republics.

The politician added that “Washington’s troops are being transferred from the continental parts of North America across the Atlantic to Europe, and these troops are moving through Europe to the Russian borders. The main forces are concentrated in the Black Sea and the Baltic region.”

At the same time, the minister said a new frontier was opening in the conflict between Russia and the West in the frozen far north. “To strengthen the defense capability of the Russian Federation and protect its national interests in the Arctic,” he said, “the Ministry of Defense is systematically working to increase the combat capabilities of the Northern Fleet.”

Last week, Moscow’s diplomats revealed they had held emergency talks with counterparts in Washington as part of efforts to avoid further escalation. “We have had contact with the US administration on the situation in the Donbass, and we have exhaustively explained to their side what is happening,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the time. He claimed that Western rhetoric over Ukraine is increasingly belligerent in tone, and that “Washington should be concerned about the consequences of this coordinated policy.”

The Kremlin has previously described the situation in the region as “frightening,” with spokesman Dmitry Peskov adding that “not just one, but many, provocations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces are taking place.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/520914-troops-ukraine-borders-defend-country/

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby BenDhyan » Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:02 pm

Surprise, two US warships were due to enter the Black Sea in the next couple of days in the face of serious warnings from Russia not to do so, and now Bidon has backed down and cancelled the exercise. Cluck cluck, the hawks will not be happy!

U.S. cancels warships deployment to Black Sea -Turkish diplomatic sources

3 hrs ago

ANKARA, April 14 (Reuters) - The United States has canceled the deployment of two warships to the Black Sea, Turkish diplomatic sources said on Wednesday, amid concerns over a Russian military build-up on Ukraine's borders.

Washington and NATO have been alarmed by the build-up near Ukraine and in Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Last week, Turkey said Washington would send two warships to the Black Sea, in a decision Russia called an unfriendly provocation.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara had notified Turkey's foreign ministry of the decision, the sources said, but did not provide a reason for the decision.

U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/u-s-cancels-warships-deployment-to-black-sea-turkish-diplomatic-sources/ar-BB1fEV7G?ocid=msedgdhp

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby BenDhyan » Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:51 am

The war drums beat on....

Russian military vehicles with ‘invasion stripes’ descend on Ukraine border

By Jesse O’Neill April 15, 2021

More than 100,000 Russian troops in assault vehicles painted with “invasion stripes” were headed to Ukraine’s border Wednesday, intensifying fears of war between the neighboring nations.

The advancing force includes 1,300 battle tanks, 3,700 drones, 1,300 artillery and mortar units and 380 multiple launch rocket systems, according to documents leaked to The Daily Mirror.

Tensions between the countries have been escalating following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea territory in 2014; an attempt by Moscow to keep NATO away from its borders. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but support for the organization has risen in recent years, and the country is allied with many NATO nations — including the US.

https://nypost.com/2021/04/15/russian-military-vehicles-descend-on-ukraine-border/

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby BenDhyan » Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:22 pm

Russia to block Kerch Strait for warships for six months

22:01, 15 April 2021

Russia will close off the Kerch Strait next week for warships and state vessels of other countries. This ban will last until October 2021. This is stated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

Earlier, this information was published by the head of the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies Andriy Klymenko on his Facebook page.

“Who is will it concern ... foreign warships and state vessels (i.e. does not apply to commercial shipping). However, for example, as for warships of Ukraine and ships of the Ukrainian fleet, they are mainly state-owned (mainly for this case - tugboat),” Klymenko wrote.

At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses a strong protest and demands that this decision is revoked immediately.

The diplomatic body noted that such actions of the Russian Federation are a violation of the norms and principles of international law.

https://112.international/ukraine-top-news/russia-to-block-kerch-strait-for-warships-for-six-months-60594.html

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby conniption » Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:01 am

The Saker

The latest US moves against Russia (OPEN THREAD #11) UPDATED!!!

April 15, 2021 Comments

Bad news all around today. The US has just slammed provocative sanctions against Russia even though the US ambassador to Moscow was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and clearly told that if the US imposes more sanctions there will be no meeting between Putin and Biden.

Then there is this: the US has informed the Turkish authorities that they will not send two USN ships into the Black Sea. This is politically a good sign, but in military terms, this is what the US should be doing if they were preparing for war. Why? Because any USN ship in the Black Sea at the moment of the initiation of a conflict would be sunk withing minutes: not only do the Russians have formidable missiles – Bal and Bastion – they had SIX advanced diesel-electric submarines of the 636.3 class ready to “greet” them. Keep in mind that engaging submarines without air cover is another form of collective suicide.

So, the phone call was a deception and the US is still going down the road towards war with Russia.

In my professional opinion, what I see is a joint preparation by the Ukronazis and the USA (along with the UK and Poland) to attack the Donbass and force a conflict upon Russia.

Considering the extreme nature of these developments, I am reopening an open thread.

The Saker

PS: as for the Ukronazis, they have just used their heavy artillery (banned by the Minsk Agreements) to murder another civilian in his home. They were apparently trying to disable an electric station (a typical move by US-trained militaries before an attack).

It is very hard for me to see how a war could be avoided
.
UPDATE: Biden has just declared a national emergency in the USA in response to the Russian threat. He will make a special address to the nation tonight.

https://thesaker.is/the-latest-us-moves ... thread-11/
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby 8bitagent » Sat Apr 17, 2021 7:05 am

BenDhyan » Thu Apr 15, 2021 1:51 am wrote:The war drums beat on....

Russian military vehicles with ‘invasion stripes’ descend on Ukraine border

By Jesse O’Neill April 15, 2021

More than 100,000 Russian troops in assault vehicles painted with “invasion stripes” were headed to Ukraine’s border Wednesday, intensifying fears of war between the neighboring nations.

The advancing force includes 1,300 battle tanks, 3,700 drones, 1,300 artillery and mortar units and 380 multiple launch rocket systems, according to documents leaked to The Daily Mirror.

Tensions between the countries have been escalating following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea territory in 2014; an attempt by Moscow to keep NATO away from its borders. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but support for the organization has risen in recent years, and the country is allied with many NATO nations — including the US.

https://nypost.com/2021/04/15/russian-military-vehicles-descend-on-ukraine-border/



Blinky(my nickname for Biden since he's always blinking) and Blinken(arch neocon Tony Blinken) absolutely want world war. Aside from talk of infrastructure bills(which I support), and Covid stuff, Tony Blinken and Biden seem to be really focusing on Russia, China and Iran. Trump had a lot of issues and was a fluke he even won, but this Biden/Blinken combo seems like Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld taken to the next scary level. WW3.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine ... re-1584237
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby BenDhyan » Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:12 am

Given that the US were caused to back off sending two US Navy ships into the Black Sea after Putin issued a warning not to enter, this decision by the UK who would be privy to the actual details of the warned consequences to the US, seems to have the intent to do one of two things, either call Putin's bluff or start a war.

UK warships to sail for Black Sea in May as Ukraine-Russia tensions rise-

Sunday Times April 18, 2021 2:01 PM AEST

British warships will sail for the Black Sea in May amid rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia, the Sunday Times newspaper reported, citing senior naval sources.

The deployment is aimed at showing solidarity with Ukraine and Britain's NATO allies, the newspaper reported.

One Type 45 destroyer armed with anti-aircraft missiles and an anti-submarine Type 23 frigate will leave the Royal Navy's carrier task group in the Mediterranean and head through the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, according to the report.

RAF F-35B Lightning stealth jets and Merlin submarine-hunting helicopters will stand ready on the task group's flag ship, the carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, to support the warships in the Black Sea, the report added.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/uk-warships-sail-black-sea-may-ukraine-russia-tensions-rise-sunday-times-2021-04-18/

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby BenDhyan » Mon Apr 19, 2021 3:36 am

What is the precise catalyst for this time around flare up between Russia and Ukraine? I understand that the water supply to Crimea from Ukraine has been severed since 2014, but I wonder if it is Ukraine's ongoing refusal to help out for humanitarian reasons as Crimea fell into drought as a possible cause?

This from October last year.

Govt official says Ukraine won't supply water to Crimea amid Russian occupation

23.10.20

Ukraine will not supply water to Russia-occupied Crimea amid the Russian occupation of the peninsula.

This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Oleksiy Reznikov at the Special Kyiv Security Forum, the RBC Ukraine news agency reported.
According to him, neither formal nor informal negotiations on this issue are currently being held.

He stresses problems with water in Crimea are related with the increased militarization of the occupied peninsula, which entails an increase in water consumption for military purposes.

He reiterated it is entirely the occupying state that is responsible for providing water in the occupied territory.

"Therefore, questions and stories told by the Russian Federation that something is not being resolved there, and that the Ukrainian side should decide are null and of no effect. Today they are responsible for satisfying any humanitarian need, including the water supply," he said.

Water supplies to Crimea: Background

On August 24, Simferopol and another 39 settlements of Simferopol and Bakhchisarai districts started imposing restrictions on the supply of water over drought and the shallowing of reservoirs. Drinking water is supplied to households on schedule in the morning and in the evening. On September 23, restrictive measures for water supply were introduced in Alushta, Partenit and Malyi Mayak. Also, water in cisterns is delivered to 29 villages in the north part of Crimea because groundwater wells have gone dry there.

The occupying authorities of Crimea announced that they were preparing for a "worst-case scenario" with the water supply to the peninsula.

Ukraine provided up to 85% of the peninsula's needs for fresh water through the North Crimean Canal, which linked the Dnieper River with the peninsula.

After the occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, water supplies to the peninsula were severed.

https://www.unian.info/politics/russian-aggression-ukraine-won-t-supply-water-to-crimea-amid-occupation-11192942.html

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby dada » Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:54 pm

I'm wondering if the difficuly in pinning down the catalyst for this round of escalations isn't by design. The Russian strategy is still the evolving chaos of hybrid warfare, military escalations and de-escalations are just tools in the kit. The objective, I think, is still prolonged destabilization, with restabilization under the weakened bond of federation of the fractured.

So the media coverage is also difficult to analyze fully, since it is also a call and response initiated with the same hybrid warfare design in mind. Even accurate information, employed correctly, is an active measure in the overall strategy of reflexive control.

Which I guess is why I still think the email leak, revealing the hybrid war tactics being used on Ukraine, was also a hybrid war tactic.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby conniption » Mon Apr 19, 2021 10:25 pm

The Saker

Putin’s Ukrainian Judo
(embedded links)

Comments

By Dmitry Orlov and posted with special permission
April 14, 2021

A terrible war is about to erupt on Russia’s border with the Ukraine—or not—but there is some likelihood of a significant number of people getting killed before project Ukraine is finally over. Given that around 13 thousand people have been killed over the past seven years—the civil war in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine has gone on for that long!—this is no laughing matter. But people get desensitized to the mostly low-level warfare. Just over the past couple of weeks a grandfather was shot by a Ukrainian sniper while feeding his chickens and a young boy was killed by a bomb precision-dropped on him from a Ukrainian drone.

But what’s about to happen now is forecasted to be on a different scale: the Ukrainians are moving heavy armor and troops up to the line of separation while the Russians are moving theirs up to their side of the Ukrainian border, a position from which they can blast any and all Ukrainian troops straight out of the gene pool without so much as setting foot on Ukrainian territory—should they wish to do so. The Russians can justify their military involvement by the need to defend their own citizens: over the past seven years half a million residents in eastern Ukraine have applied for and been granted Russian citizenship. But how exactly can Russia defend its citizens while they are stuck in the crossfire between Russian and Ukrainian forces?

The rationale of defending its citizens led to conflict in the briefly Georgian region of South Ossetia, which started on August 8, 2008 and lasted barely a week, leaving Georgia effectively demilitarized. Russia rolled in, Georgia’s troops ran off, Russia confiscated some of the more dangerous war toys and rolled out. Georgia’s paper warriors and their NATO consultants and Israeli trainers were left wiping each others’ tears. Any suggestion of arming and equipping the Georgians since then has been met with groaning and eye-rolling. Is the upcoming event in eastern Ukraine going to be similar to the swift and relatively painless defanging of Georgia in 2008? Given that the two situations are quite different, it seems foolish to think that the approach to resolving them would be the same.

Is it different this time and is World War III is about to erupt with eastern Ukraine being used as a trigger for this conflagration? Do the various statements made at various times by Vladimir Putin provide a solid enough basis for us to guess at what will happen next? Is there a third, typically, infuriatingly Russian approach to resolving this situation, where Russia wins, nobody dies and everyone in the West is left scratching their heads?

The Ukrainian military is much like everything else currently found in the Ukraine—the railway system, the power plants, the pipeline systems, the ports, the factories (the few that are left)—a patched-up hold-over from Soviet times. The troops are mostly unhappy, demoralized conscripts and reservists. Virtually all of the more capable young men have either left the country to work abroad or have bribed their way out of being drafted. The conscripts sit around getting drunk, doing drugs and periodically taking pot shots into and across the line of separation between Ukrainian-held and separatist-held territories. Most of the casualties they suffer are from drug and alcohol overdoses, weapons accidents, traffic accidents caused by driving drunk and self-harm from faulty weapons. The Ukrainian military is also working on winning a Darwin award for the most casualties caused by stepping on their own land mines. As for the other side, many of the casualties are civilians wounded and killed by constant shelling from the Ukrainian side of the front, which runs quite close to population centers.

The Ukrainian military has received some new weapons from the US and some NATO training, but as the experience in Georgia has shown, that won’t help them. Most of these weapons are obsolete, non-updated versions of Soviet armaments from former East Bloc but currently NATO nations such as Bulgaria. These really aren’t of much use against an almost fully rearmed Russian military. A lot of the Ukrainian artillery is worn out and, given that Ukrainian industry (what’s left of it) is no longer able to manufacture gun barrels, artillery shells or even mortar rounds, this makes the Ukrainian military quite literally the gang that can’t shoot straight. It’s a great day for them if they manage to hit a kindergarten or a maternity clinic and most of the time they are just cratering up the empty countryside and littering it up with charred, twisted metal.

In addition to the hapless conscripts and reservists there are also some volunteer battalions that consist of hardcore Ukrainian nationalists. Their minds have been carefully poisoned by nationalist propaganda crafted thanks to large infusions of foreign (mostly American) money. Some of them have been conditioned to think that it was the ancient Ukrs who built the Egyptian pyramids and dug the Black Sea (and piled the left-over dirt to build the Caucasus mountain range). These may or may not be more combat-capable than the rest (opinions vary) but, much more importantly, they are a political force that the government cannot ignore because they can quite literally hold it hostage. They have been known for stunts such as shelling the offices of a television channel whose editorial policies they found disagreeable and physically assaulting a busload of opposition activists.

It is these Ukro-Nazi zealots that stand directly in the way of any peaceful settlement of the situation in eastern Ukraine and an inevitable eventual rapprochement between the Ukrainians and Russia. There is a deep and abiding irony in that these über-antisemitic Ukro-Nazis are about to be ordered into battle against Russia by a Jewish comedian (Vladimir Zelensky, president) who got elected thanks to a Jewish oligarch (Igor “Benny” Kolomoisky). Are they going to be annihilated? Quite possibly, yes. Will their annihilation make Ukraine and the world a better place? You be the judge. To the Russians these Nazi battalions are just a bunch of terrorists and, as Putin famously put it, it is up to him to send terrorists to God and then it is up to God to decide what to do with them. But there is a more efficient strategy: let them remain somebody else’s problem. After all, these Nazi battalions have almost zero ability to threaten Russia. Eventually the Europeans will realize that the Ukraine must be denazified, at their own expense, of course, with Russia offering advice and moral support.

To understand where this Ukrainian nationalist menace came from without venturing too far down the memory hole, it is enough to appreciate the fact that at the end of World War II some number of Ukrainian war criminals who fought on the side of the Nazis and took part in acts of genocide against Ukrainian Jews and Poles found a welcoming home in the US and in Canada, where they were able to feather their nests and bring up the next several generations of Ukrainian Nazis. After the collapse of the USSR, they were reintroduced into the Ukraine and given political support in the hopes of thoroughly alienating the Ukraine from Russia. In the course of serial color revolutions and unending political upheaval and strife they were able to become prominent, then dominant, in Ukrainian political life, to a point that they can now hold the Ukrainian government hostage whenever it fails to be sufficiently belligerent toward Russia, to maintain strict anti-Russian censorship in the media and to physically threaten anyone who voices disagreement with them.

Russophobia and belligerence toward Russia are, in turn, all that is currently required of the Ukraine by its US and EU masters, who wish to portray the Ukraine as a bulwark against a supposedly aggressive Russia but in reality wish to use it as an anti-Russian irritant and to use it to contain (meaning to restrict and frustrate) Russia economically and geopolitically. To this end the Ukrainian school curriculum has been carefully redesigned to inculcate hatred of all things Russian. The Ukraine’s Western mentors think that they are constructing a pseudo-ethnic totalitarian cult that can be used as a battering ram against Russia, along the lines of Nazi Germany but with much tighter external political control, or, to use a more recent, updated CIA playbook, along the lines of Al Qaeda and its various offshoots in the Middle East.

The rationale that’s used to serve up all this is “countering Russian aggression.” But it is inaccurate to describe Russia as aggressive. It is much closer to the truth to describe it as, by turns, assimilative, protective and insouciant. It is assimilative in that you too can apply for a Russian citizenship based on a number of criteria, the most important of which is cultural: you need to speak Russian, and to do so convincingly you have to assimilate culturally. If an entire Russian-speaking region starts waving the Russian tricolor at rallies, singing the Russian anthem and then holds a referendum where a convincing majority votes to rejoin Russia (97% in Crimea in 2014), then Russia will annex that territory and defend it. And if lots of people in a Russian-speaking region individually apply for Russian citizenship, swear allegiance to Russia and are issued Russian passports, then Russia will try to defend them individually against attack.

All would be sweetness and light with this scheme of voluntary accession if certain Russian regions didn’t periodically start demanding independence or if the Russians themselves didn’t periodically shed their self-important and ungrateful dependents. As this has happened, Russia has granted them sovereignty, which, more often than not, they didn’t know what to do with. At various times, Russia has freely bestowed national sovereignty on a whole slew of countries: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, the Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Rumania, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan… For some of them, it granted them sovereignty several times over (Poland seems to be the prize-winner in that category). The political elites of these countries, having become used to suckling at Mother Russia’s ample bosom, naturally look for someone new to invade and/or liberate them and then to feed them.

After the collapse of the USSR, their new masters naturally became the US and the EU. But as these newly sovereign nations soon found out, not as much milk has flowed in their direction from their new masters, and some of them have started casting furtive glances toward Russia again. The twentieth century was a confusing time for many of these countries, and many of them are puzzled to this day as to whether at any given time they were being occupied or liberated by Russia. Let us consider, as a mini case study, the three Baltic mini-nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. With the exception of the Lithuanians, who had their 15 minutes of fame during their brief late-medieval dalliance with Poland, these three ethnic groups never made good candidates for sovereign nations. They were first dominated by the Germans, then by the Swedes.

Then Peter the Great purchased their lands from the Swedes with silver coin, but after that they continued to toil as serfs for their German landlords. But then in mid-19th century the Russian Empire abolished serfdom, starting with Estonian and Latvian serfs as an experiment. It then introduced compulsory schooling, wrote down the local languages, and invited the more promising native sons to come and study at St. Petersburg. This started them on the way toward developing a national consciousness, and what a headache that turned out to be!

While the Russian Empire held together they remained under control, but after the Russian Revolution they gained independence and swiftly turned fascist. As World War II neared, the Soviet leadership became justifiably concerned over having little pro-Nazi fascist states right on their border and occupied/liberated them. But then as the Germans advanced and the Red Army retreated, they were re-occupied by the fascists/liberated from the communists. But then as the Germans retreated and the Red Army advanced, they were re-occupied/re-liberated again and became, for a time, exemplary Soviet Communists.

And so they remained, occupied/liberated, being stuffed full of Soviet-built schools, hospitals, factories, roads, bridges, ports, railways and other infrastructure—until the USSR collapsed. They were the first to demand independence, singing songs and holding hands across all three republics. Since then they have squandered all of their Soviet inheritance and have progressively shed population while serving as playgrounds for NATO troops who get a special thrill, I suppose, by training right on Russia’s border. Their political elites made a tidy little business of Russophobia, which pleased their new Western masters but gradually wrecked their economies. Having reached their peak during the late Soviet era, they are now hollow shells of their former selves.

And now, lo and behold, an embarrassingly large chunk of their populations is pining after the good old Soviet days and wants better relations with Russia (which, in the meantime, seems to have largely forgotten that these Baltic statelets even exist). Their political elites would want nothing more than for Russia to occupy/liberate them again, because then they could be rid of their noisome constituents and move to London or Geneva, there to head up a government in exile and work on plans for the next round of occupation/liberation.

To their horror, they are now realizing that Russia has no further use for them, while their new masters at the EU are sinking into a quagmire of their own problems, leaving them abandoned with no kind master to care for them and to feed them. They thought they had signed up to administer a vibrant new democracy using free money from the EU, but instead they are now stuck administering a depopulating, economically stagnant backwater peopled by ethnic relicts. In eras past, they would have only had to wait until the next wave of barbarian invasion from the east. The barbarians would slaughter all the men, rape and/or kidnap all the prettier women, and the naturally recurring process of ethnogenesis would start again. But now there are a dozen time zones of Russia to their east and no hope at all of any more barbarian invasions, so all they can do is drink a lot and, by turns, curse the Russians and the Europeans.

The situation is much the same throughout Eastern Europe, in a great arc of semi-sovereign, pseudo-sovereign and (in the case of the Ukraine) faux-sovereign nations from the Baltic to the Black Sea and on to the Caspian Sea and beyond. The many serial occupations/liberations have given their political elites a wonderful weathercock-like quality: one moment they are wearing Nazi insignia and heiling Hitler and the next moment they are good Soviet Communists reciting the 10 Commandments of the Builders of Communism. The Ukraine (getting back to it, finally) is no different in this respect but different in another: by no stretch of the imagination is it even a nation, or a combination, assemblage or grouping of nations; it is, strictly speaking, an accidental territorial agglomeration. As a failed attempt to create a monoethnic nation-state it is a chimera.

The following map, labeled “Dynamics of agglomeration of Ukrainian territories,” shows the process in detail. The toponym “Ukraine” (“Ukraina”) is most likely of Polish origin, meaning “border zone,” and it seems to have first become a thing in 1653 when the red-colored region below decided that it had had enough of Polish Catholic dominance and discrimination (its inhabitants being Orthodox Christians) and chose to rejoin Russia. The region became known as Malorossia, or Little Russia, and the yellow-colored districts were added to it over time. And then, after the Russian Revolution, came the big gift: Malorossia and neighboring districts were formed into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and to make it something more than just a rural backwater Lenin saw it fit to lump in with it a number of Russian regions shaded in blue. It was this mistake that paved the way to the current impasse in what is but by all rights should never have been eastern Ukraine.

Then, right before, and again right after World War II Stalin lumped in the green-shaded western districts, which were previously part of he Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its inhabitants were Austrian, Polish, Hungarian, Rumanian and most of the rest, though initially Russian, had spent five centuries under foreign rule and spoke a distinctive, archaic dialect that served as the basis for creating the synthetic language now known as Ukrainian, while the rest of what is now Ukraine spoke Russian, Yiddish and a wide assortment of village dialects. It was this alienated group that was used as leavening to fashion a synthetic Ukrainian nationalism. In turn, Ukrainian Bolshevik leaders used this faux-nationalism to fashion the Ukraine into a regional power center within the USSR.

And then came the final mistake when Nikita Khrushchev, very much a product of the Ukrainian regional power center, paid it back for helping to promote him to the top job by giving it Russian Crimea—a move that was illegal under the Soviet constitution which was in effect at that time and a prime example of late Bolshevik political corruption that was undone in 2014 with great jubilation.

Image

There are those who think that the solution to the Ukrainian problem is to take the Ukraine apart the same way it was put together. Behold the following map. Moving east to west, we have the Russian tricolor over Crimea (the only factual bit so far), then the flag of Novorussia covering all those territories that were arbitrarily lumped into the newly created Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by Lenin in 1922. Further west we have the flag of the state of Ukraine. And to the west is the flag of the Right Sector, a nationalist party with distinct Nazi tendencies that is currently active in Ukrainian politics.

Image

I believe that, with the exception of Crimea, this map may very well turn out to be complete and utter nonsense. It seems outlandish to think that the Ukrainian Humpty-Dumpty, which is in the process of being knocked off the wall most unceremoniously by just about everyone, including Russia, the EU and the US, is going to break apart into such tidy, historically justifiable pieces. For one thing, national borders don’t matter so much any more once you are east of the Russian border, all of Europe now being one big unhappy mess. With millions of Ukrainians trying to eke out a living by working in Russia, or Poland, or further West, the distinctions between the various bits of the Ukrainian territory they are from are just not that meaningful to anyone.

For another, all of the Ukraine is now owned by the same bunch of oligarchs whose fortunes are tightly integrated with those of transnational corporations and of Western financial institutions. None of them care at all about the people that once inhabited this region and their varied histories and linguistic preferences. They care about translating economic and financial control directly into political control with a minimum of diplomatic politesse. The Ukraine has been in the process of being stripped bare of anything valuable for 30 years now, up to and including its fertile soil, and once there is nothing left to loot it will be abandoned as a wild field, largely uninhabited.

But we are not quite there yet, and for now the only map that really matters is the following one, which shows the two separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, collectively known as Donbass, short for Donetsk Basin, a prolific coal province that was mainly responsible for fueling the Ukraine’s former industrial might, which to this day continues to produce anthracite, a valuable, energy-rich coal that is now scarce in the world. It is that relatively tiny but densely populated sliver of land along the Russian border, less than 100km across in many places, that is the powder keg that some believe may set off World War III.

Image

The Ukrainian military has been massing troops and armor along the line of separation while the Russian military has pulled up its forces to their side of the border. Shelling, sniper fire and other provocations from the Ukrainian side are intensifying, with the hope of provoking the Russians into moving forces onto Ukrainian territory, thus allowing the collective West to shout “Aha! Russian aggression!” Then they could put a stop to Nord Stream II pipeline, scoring a major geopolitical victory for Washington and follow that up with plenty of other belligerent moves designed to hurt Russia politically and economically.

For the Russians, there are no good choices that are obvious. Not responding to Ukrainian provocations and doing nothing while they shell and invade the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk, killing Russian citizens who live there, would make Russia look weak, undermine the Russian government’s position domestically and cost it a great deal of geopolitical capital internationally. Responding to Ukrainian provocations with overwhelming military force and crushing the Ukrainian military as was done in Georgia in 2008 would be popular domestically but could potentially lead to a major escalation and possibly an all-out war with NATO. Even if militarily the conflict is contained and NATO forces sit it out, as they did in Georgia, the political ramifications would cause much damage to the Russian economy through tightened sanctions and disruptions to international trade.

Those being the obvious bad choices, what are the obvious good ones, if any? Here, we have to pay careful attention to the official pronouncements Putin has made over the years, and to take them as face value. First, he said that Russia does not need any more territory; it has all the land it could ever want. Second, he said that Russia will follow the path of maximum liberalization in granting citizenship to compatriots and that, in turn, the well-being of Russia’s citizens is a top priority. Third, he said that resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine through military means is unacceptable. Given these constraints, what courses of action remain open?

The answer, I believe, is obvious: evacuation. There are around 3.2 million residents in Donetsk People’s Republic and 1.4 million in Lugansk People’s Republic, for a total of some 4.6 million residents. This may seem like a huge number, but it’s moderate by the scale of World War II evacuations. Keep in mind that Russia has already absorbed over a million Ukrainian migrants and refugees without much of a problem. Also, Russia is currently experiencing a major labor shortage, and an infusion of able-bodied Russians would be most welcome.

Domestically, the evacuation would likely be quite popular: Russia is doing right by its own people by pulling them out of harm’s way. The patriotic base would be energized and the already very active Russian volunteer movement would swing into action to assist the Emergencies Ministry in helping move and resettle the evacuees. The elections that are to take place later this year would turn into a nationwide welcoming party for several million new voters. The Donbass evacuation could pave the way for other waves of repatriation that are likely to follow. There are some 20 million Russians scattered throughout the world, and as the world outside Russia plunges deeper and deeper into resource scarcity they too will want to come home. While they may presently be reluctant to do so, seeing the positive example of how the Donbass evacuees are treated could help change their minds.

The negative optics of surrendering territory can be countered by not surrendering any territory. As a guarantor of the Minsk Agreements, Russia must refuse to surrender the Donbass to the Ukrainian government until it fulfills the terms of these agreements, which it has shown no intention of doing for seven years now and which it has recently repudiated altogether. It is important to note that the Russian military can shoot straight across all of Donbass without setting foot on Ukrainian soil. Should the Ukrainian forces attempt to enter Donbass, they will be dealt with as shown in the following instructional video. Note that the maximum range of the Tornado-G system shown in the video is 120km.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kUmPlv6Cbw
Video info ..................................................


And should the Ukrainians care to respond by attacking Russian territory, another one of Putin’s pronouncements helps us understand what would happen next: if attacked, Russia will respond not just against the attackers but also against the centers of decision-making responsible for the attack. The Ukrainian command in Kiev, as well as its NATO advisers, would probably keep this statement in mind when considering their steps.

The Donbass evacuation should resonate rather well internationally. It would be a typical Putin judo move knocking NATO and the US State Department off-balance. Since this would be a large humanitarian mission, it would be ridiculous to attempt to portray it as “Russian aggression.” On the other hand, Russia would be quite within its rights to issue stern warnings that any attempt to interfere with the evacuation or to launch provocations during the evacuation process would be dealt with very harshly, freeing Russia’s hands in dispatching to God the berserkers from the Ukraine’s Nazi battalions, some of whom don’t particularly like to follow orders.

The West would be left with the following status quo. The Donbass is empty of residents but off-limits to them or to the Ukrainians. The evacuation would in no sense change the standing or the negotiating position of the evacuees and their representatives vis-à-vis the Minsk agreements, locking this situation in place until Kiev undertakes constitutional reform, becomes a federation and grants full autonomy to Donbass, or until the Ukrainian state ceases to exist and is partitioned. The Ukraine would be unable to join NATO (a pipe dream which it has stupidly voted into its constitution) since this would violate the NATO charter, given that it does not control its own territory.

Further sanctions against Russia would become even more difficult to justify, since it would be untenable to accuse it of aggression for undertaking a humanitarian mission to protect its own citizens or for carrying out its responsibilities as a guarantor of the Minsk agreements. The Donbass would remain as a stalker zone roamed by Russian battlefield robots sniping Ukrainian marauders, with the odd busload of schoolchildren there on a field trip to lay flowers on the graves of their ancestors. Its ruined Soviet-era buildings, not made any newer by three decades of Ukrainian abuse and neglect, will bear silent witness to the perpetual ignominy of the failed Ukrainian state.

History is as often driven by accident as by logic, but since we cannot predict accidents, logic is the only tool we have in trying to guess the shape of the future. Rephrasing Voltaire, this, then, is the best that we can expect to happen in this the best of all possible worlds.
___
My other writings are available at https://patreon.com/orlov and https://subscribestar.com/orlov. Thank you for your support.

https://thesaker.is/putins-ukrainian-judo/


~~~

Ukraine Situation with Mark Sleboda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYXmKv4qejM
•Streamed live on Apr 12, 2021
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby dada » Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:02 am

So I guess the point I'm making here is that to understand Russia's strategy in Ukraine, it is first necessary to "think like a Russian." Something I'm afraid our poor friend Orlov has forgotten how to do.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby BenDhyan » Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:12 am

Preparing?

Ukraine leader signs law to call up reservists for military service

April 21, 2021 4:43 PM AEST

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has signed a law allowing reservists to be called up for military service without announcing mobilization, his office said on Wednesday.

Approved by parliament late in March, the measure makes it possible to significantly boost the armed forces, amid escalation of tension with Russia in eastern Ukraine.

"This will make it possible to quickly equip the military units of all defence forces with reservists, thereby significantly increasing their combat effectiveness during military aggression," the office said.

On Tuesday, Zelenskiy challenged his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to meet him in the Donbass region for talks to end the conflict there and ease tension between the neighbours. read more

Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame over increasing clashes in the Donbass, where Ukrainian troops have battled Russian-backed forces in a conflict that Ukraine says has killed 14,000 people since 2014.

Ukraine, its Western allies and NATO have accused Russia of a "provocative" build-up of troops on Ukraine's eastern border and in Crimea. In turn, Russia has accused the United States and NATO of "provocative activity" in the Black Sea region.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-leader-signs-law-call-up-reservists-military-service-2021-04-21/?taid=607fc8c43f50910001b1e04a&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby BenDhyan » Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:22 am

Preparing?

Russia Further Ramps Up Military Pressure on Ukraine
.
BY AMY MACKINNON, ROBBIE GRAMER | APRIL 20, 2021, 3:11 PM

The Russian military buildup near Ukraine is expected to reach a combined force of 120,000 in a week and has already exceeded levels seen in 2014, when the conflict in Ukraine first broke out, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday. The buildup includes potential offensive capabilities, such as paratroopers, Iskander ballistic missiles, advanced fighter jets, and electronic warfare systems capable of jamming communications across Ukraine.

“We cannot know for sure whether Moscow will decide to begin a new stage of aggression against Ukraine, but it is certain that they will be prepared already to do so in [a] few weeks,” Kuleba said.

The motivation behind the very public saber-rattling is harder to discern. Some believe it is simply posturing, meant to test U.S. President Joe Biden and ramp up pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It could also be a bid by Russian President Vladimir Putin to deflect criticism over domestic woes with another foreign adventure as he did successfully in 2014. Others fear it is the precursor to new offensive operations against Ukraine.

“I’ve become much more worried now than I was a week ago,” said Jim Townsend, the former top U.S. Defense Department policy official on NATO and Europe during the Obama administration. Russia’s military buildup has “reached a critical mass,” he said, with a mixture of military forces and missile systems that could indicate Russia is planning a full-fledged operation, not an exercise.

“I just can’t believe they are going to use that much force for a little bit of coercion. … It’s not just about the numbers; it’s also the type of forces Russia is deploying,” he said.

On Tuesday, Russia announced it was blocking flights over Crimea and parts of the Black Sea surrounding the Crimean peninsula during naval exercises set to take place between April 20 and April 24. More than 20 warships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet conducted exercises with fighter jets on Tuesday, Interfax reported. The number of Russian warplanes moved to the Crimean peninsula is greater than previously thought, according to commercial satellite imagery reported by the Wall Street Journal, as images from April 16 show Su-30 fighter jets lined up along a runway at a Crimean air base.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/20/russia-ukraine-black-sea-nato-biden-putin-zelensky-military/

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Re: Libya, Syria And Now Ukraine - Color Revolution By Force

Postby DrEvil » Thu Apr 22, 2021 11:37 am

Probably just waiting for China to go full unification with Taiwan before the CCP's 100th birthday (and before Taiwan finishes their submarines) to split the West's attention.

/tinfoil
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