While Western pundits (I think shills is a more apt description) and media continue to insist that Ukraine is pounding the snot out of Russia, the facts on the ground in Soledar and Bahkmut tell a different story.
Before delving into the specifics of the Russian advance, let me highlight some buffoonery from Niall Ferguson, born in Scotland and living in the United States. Ferguson revels in ignorance and delusion while serving as a Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University:
US support for Ukraine since the Feb. 24 invasion has undoubtedly succeeded in weakening Putin’s regime. The Russian military has suffered disastrous losses of trained manpower and equipment. The Russian economy may not have contracted by as much as Washington hoped (a mere 3.4% last year, according to the International Monetary Fund), but Russian imports have crashed due to Western export controls. As Russia’s stock of imported component parts and machinery runs down, Russian industry will face deep disruptions, including in the defense and energy sectors.
Last year, Russia cut off gas exports to Europe that it cannot reroute, as there are no alternative pipelines. Putin thought the gas weapon would allow him to divide the West. So far, it has not worked. Russia also tried choking Black Sea grain exports. But that lever had little strategic value as the biggest losers of the blockade were poor African and Middle Eastern countries.
The net result of Putin’s war thus far has been to reduce Russia to something like an economic appendage of China, its biggest trading partner. And Western sanctions mean that what Russia exports to China is sold at a discount. . . .
The war therefore seems destined, like the Korean War in Cold War I, to drag on until a stalemate is reached, Putin dies and an armistice is agreed that draws a new border between Ukraine and Russia. The problem with protracted wars is that the US and European publics tend to get sick of them well before the enemy does.
https://wwsg.com/speaker-news/all-is-not-quiet-on-the-eastern-front/
How can a guy like this be regarded as an “intellectual” when he trades in blatant disinformation? For example, there is zero evidence that Putin and his government have been “weakened.” Just the opposite. Russia has been busy building a new international financial and trade system that is independent of the United States.
Ferguson’s specious claim that Russia’s military “has suffered disastrous losses of trained manpower and equipment,” is more psychological projection. He is describing Ukraine, not Russia. Ukraine is so short of personnel that it is forcibly mobilizing 16 year old boys and 60 year old men. As I have written before, the last European leader to resort to such desperate recruitment was a guy in Berlin hiding in a bunker beneath the Reichstag while the Russian Army swarmed over Berlin.
Poor Niall also is having a tough time grasping the fact that Russia is a modern industrial society and is producing technologically sophisticated weapons, planes, tanks and ships. Russia, unlike the United States and the United Kingdom, does not depend on harvesting key rare earth minerals and metals from foreign countries. Russia has vast natural resources within its borders to meet its needs. One note of irony, the Brits tried and failed to launch a space satellite today:
Britain’s attempt to become the first European nation to launch satellites into space ended in bitter disappointment early on Tuesday when Virgin Orbit said its rocket had suffered an anomaly that prevented it from reaching orbit.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/tiny-english-seaside-resort-counts-down-western-europes-first-satellite-launch-2023-01-09/
Sorry, could not help myself. Britain does a face plant while Russia continues to provide the rockets and space craft that take U.S. astronauts (and others ) to and from the International Space Station. And Ferguson blindly insists that Russia’s economy is suffering.
After a couple of months of relentless grinding, Russia is on the brink of destroying the Ukrainian forces hanging on to Bahkmut and Soledar. CNN, in a shocker, reported on the unfolding disaster today in Soledar and Bahkmut:
A Ukrainian soldier fighting in the eastern town of Soledar told CNN that the situation is “critical” and the death toll is now so high that “no one counts the dead”.
The soldier is from the 46th air mobile brigade, which is leading Ukraine’s fight to hold onto Soledar in the face of a massive assault from Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries. . . .
He described a dynamic battlefield where buildings change hands daily and units can’t keep track of the escalating death toll. “No one will tell you how many dead and wounded there are. Because no one knows for sure. Not a single person,” he said. “Not at the headquarters. Not anywhere. Positions are being taken and re-taken constantly. What was our house today, becomes Wagner’s the next day.”. . .
The soldier said that he believed Ukraine’s military leaders would eventually abandon the fight for Soledar and questioned why they hadn’t done this yet. “Everyone understands that the city will be abandoned. Everyone understands this,” he said. “I just want to understand what the point [in fighting house to house] is. Why die, if we are going to leave it anyway today or tomorrow?”
The creator of the Russian Wagner Group reported late on Tuesday (Ukraine time) that Soledar was surrounded and Ukrainian troops have been given an ultimatum to surrender:
Units of PMC “Wagner” took control of the entire territory of Soledar. In addition, a cauldron was formed in the center of the city, in which the remains of the UAF militants are located. According to Prigozhin, the number of prisoners will be announced tomorrow.
https://t.me/sonar_21/201
If this is true, this will be another critical milestone in Russia’s Special Military Operation to demilitarize Ukraine.
One of the Russian weapons wreaking havoc on the Ukrainian troops is the TOS 1A with thermobaric warheads. It is a terrifying, lethal weapon. Ukrainian troops hunkered down in trenches are not immune to its devastating effect.
Russia has the USA by the short hairs… USA nuclear power is totally dependent upon Russia. All Russia has to do is shut off our nuclear fuel… Game Over! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VZxHKNEPCs
There is abundant uranium in Canada. It’s really about maintenance of the refining capabilities. Similar issue as oil. There’s lots of it. The shooting one’s self in the foot activities have to stop before the boat turns around.
This. The problem is not necessarily raw materials, it’s the de-industiralization that has lead to the entire infrastructure necessary for the refining and creation of end products degrading into inutility.
No. There is plenty of uranium around. The richest mines in the World are in … Canada. Australia and Kazakhstan are the other major exporters. The fact that the US may have bought uranium from Russia in the past, is not an indication that we depend on Russia for uranium.
Keeping the war in play as you do and you may very well end up with a sudden, unexpected surge in Russian uranium exports, if you catch my drift.
Just joined your Telegram channel. I didn’t know you had one.
Neither did I so I have just joined thanks for the heads up as Larry like Scott Ritter and some few others are to be completely trusted.
Me to thanks.
Can you please share the channel’s name? Thanks a lot!
Please provide the Telegram link. Thanks!
As for Artëmovsk and Soledar, the Ukranazi coup regime seems less delusional than the blueyellow ragwagging nazi fancritters online, so are still hoping for a Ukranazi “victory”.
*who are
Oh, I’m sure they are. While Brit, Yank and Polish mercs are dying in Bakhmut and we’re sending them cash by the plainload yet Zelensky keeps crying for more, more, more……the sons and daughters of Ukrainian oligarchs are doing their part for the cause in French Alpine resorts.
If this doesn’t curl your toes, you ain’t human:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1612999798453329920
pbs loves Niall Ferguson and Niall loves Pinochet. right about the time i started weaning myself off pbs, watched a “documentary” by good ol’ niall.
Anglophiles are in for some tough times. What is poor old public television to do?
Hopefully, defunded…
Once Poland (like the Ukraine before it) has been fully depopulated of all adult and adolescent males – and it’s coming, let there be no doubt about it – the United States will be forced to either call off its participation in the conflict or openly declare war on the Russian Federation. Those are the only two options I see over the next two years. The first option means the imposition of decades of immiseration of Western populations as the inchoate rage of the Zionazis is turned inward on the domestic polity. The second option is fraught with the possibility of the wholesale loss of most human life on Earth. What a terrible fate we all face. I have zero optimism for the future.
Behind the Ukrainians, the Poles and others are in wait. Although antagonistic to the Banderite ideologies, the Poles stand ready and willing to go fight the “Russian threat”. I doubt that this “dubious fight” can ever run short of NATO fighters in a foreseeable future. They can even enlist birds of other feather if need arises, as long as basic armament and indoctrination and captagon are provided. The West is a long way from being broke and destroying Russia seems a very attractive prospect to these crazies. As I see it, this evil insanity can go on for a long time and consume huge resources on both sides. Political and other pressure from the ROW would be required / helpful at this stage to stop the game now.
What / who is captagon?
Googled it. You can too!
What are the effects of Captagon?
Captagon has been reported to be a central nervous system (CNS) stimulator with stronger and longer lasting effects on fighting aggression, detachment, cognitive enhancement, and alertness than one of its main metabolites, Amphetamine.
‘Googled’ once cherished, is now verboten in my household.
In its memory, I once or twice sniffled into a ‘kleenex’ though.
An amphetamine.
Captagon is an amphetamine with neurotic/hypnotic properties . Known to have been used as a basic combat drug by ISIS fighters.
21St century Pervitine.
Also used I think by military age conscripts awaiting their orders in the French Alps: https://twitter.com/i/status/1613113479614930945
My business is in Poland. I can attest than a growing segment of the pop is sick and tired of this non sense. Over 70000 men already fled Poland to avoid conscription. Ukros are despised for their behaving there. But there is a flip side to the coin. The PIS has set its foothold on Galicia and stands as the NATO puppet for escalation. As usual, a few number of people will make the worst decisions ever in the name of the majority
PiS is turning out to be as inept as Sanacja pre-1939
No wonder Polish Government-in-Exile was actually the Opposition in pre-war Poland
Any emerging signs of collective bipolar disorder in Poland, as they march in lock step with the banderites that genocided them?
W Polsce od wielu lat panuje rusofobia. Na złość Rosji, Polacy nawet Banderowców pokochają. A potem delegowani przez USA, ruszą na wojnę walczyć dzielnie za Kijów i interesy Wall Street…
You volunteer Poles so readily you must be an American. I doubt Polish men are sticking around. 5% Poland’s population already lives in UK.
Poland has army establishment strength of 61,000 which is just a bit smaller than British Army.
Quite where you think Poland will raise, train, arm, feed, and pay an army of any scale to enter the Ukraine slaughterhouse is unclear. It would be better to draft all 18 year olds in USA and send them into The Grinder – after all USA could stand losing 1-2 million National Guard and not notice the loss………
You won’t find Poles willing to die in sufficient numbers and Romania only has 43,000 soldiers………..apparently the Poles already in Ukraine are getting unpublicised [ie censored] funerals in a big new cemetery so the enthusiasts are already soaking up artillery fire
Have you not been paying attention. Where did the ukies get the means to fight Russia? The poles are being prepped and primed right now to fight Russia. It is the NC’s wet dream to use the peoples of the former Warsaw Pact Nations to fight their former Russian overlords.
That is what is planned hence the no direct US involvement. Straight out of the Rand report and from the mouth of L Austin to fight a long war to weaken Russia. They did not say though who would be doing the fighting and dying.
But Russia has other idea’s and soon you will see what their intentions are.
You live near Poland do you ?
You know the country ?
You think US runs the puppet show by buying politicians ?
You seem convinced Poles are docile sheep like Americans
I don’t think the Poles will go full on in a conflict with Russia. They can read the tea leaves and although sending mercs to Ukraine, they won’t destroy their nation to fight Russia. Better to give lip service and let all the Ukrainians die.
dopo la guerra, consiglio vacanze in Ucraina e Polonia: le donne sono molto belle, e non ci saranno più uomi
Larry, what do you really know?
I mean, just today on CNN they told us (https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/10/politics/russian-artillery-fire-down-75-percent-ukraine/index.html) that Russia is running out of artillery shells and everything else really. They are losing, sad and incompetent as they are.
Three “journalists” from CNN said so, against one of you and of course I believe them – for crying out loud, they are JOURNALISTS and being American, they are automatically OBJECTIVE and CANNOT LIE. One of them is barely in their early 30s and already a “national security correspondent”. I mean, all your years of experience and you know less than some fresh grad. I am thinking of going to get a degree in humanities or something and then maybe in two to three years I can be a Pentagon correspondent for MSNBC? Do you think that’s doable?
In conclusion, Soledar has not fallen. CNN said so as much and BBC even says there are “competing narratives about it”. CNN also said that Prigozhin only wants the salt mines. Prigozhin is a bastard (we know he is, he is a Russian OLIGARCH after all) for wanting the mines but Dick of Halliburton fame was an angel and rightfully so to take all the oil from Iraq. Right?
Even if Soledar does fall, CNN says it is not important and Bakhmut is not important either.
Thank you.
World class snark-trolling. Bravo!
There is a part of the article that gives it away. A Pentagon official says that still massive artillery in areas of basically heavy fighting like in Bakmut. No problem in those areas that matter with shortage of shells.
That I have wondered about. Ukraine has wasted plenty of rockets on places like Donetsk and killed thousands of civilians. They still keep firing as if there is no end to the supply.
Ukraine has wasted a lot of shells on places like Donetsk, instead of on the Russians.
Same was with Mariupol,
when MSM wailed, “if Mariupol falls, Ukraine falls,” and after “oh, Mariupol was no biggy.”
At one time a very smart, well read person could get a challenging real world education taught by honest experienced instructors. There are some who are a cut above and just get stuff a whole bunch faster than the rest of us. Now it is rare and the “know it all’
attitude is everywhere. I think of Zuckerberg’s statement he didn’t pay
attention to what those over 30 had to say- they had screwed the world up and now he and his peers will make it perfect. Obama would toss people out that brought up history of a country in discussing policy. He alone knew the best course. Clown.
Ze Russians : we gonna make Christmass truce.
The BBC : LIARS!!!
two days later :
The BBC : Russian have no ammo left ! They nearly stopped shelling !
BBC & CNN , my preferred comic duo , they never miss an occasion to be laughable 🙂
My older brother’s famous snark is that US cable TV evening news is the best comedy on television–and that was said before the Ukraine SMO!
‘Russian artillery fire has declined by 75% from its wartime high’
Or there are less targets to hit. Russia isn’t going to mindlessly keep the same uniform firing rate every day just for the sake of firing it.
The Soldedar/Bakhmut narrative is being spread by the Zelensky gang to lighten the load of bad news from the front. They’re getting slaughtered.
Now I know what Nuland did with the cookie cutters used to make those poisoned cookies for Maidan. One for each mainstream outlet.
i’m a little afraid of the salt mines. will they be waiting in there? and why don’t they retreat to them?
I suspect that they may not want to retreat to the salt mines because they know what happened in Mariupol. Who wants to be stuck underground getting bombed and shot at until you slowly run out of food and water? The Mariupol guys thought they would be rescued. These guys know that they won’t.
In a novel, there would be a tunnel leading to a secret back door miles from the fighting that they could escape out of. Not too likely in a real mine.
Because there are very limited ways in/out of mines. Were someone to hide in a mine you simply barricade the mapped entrances, vent raises and any emergency exit raises (if equipped). Then you turn off the power. There is nowhere so dark as an underground mine without the massive energy that lights (and ventilates) it.
These mines could probably sustain diesel exhaust without ventilation for a while in places because they’re quite large chambers. But not that long.
Another excellent article. It is indeed the “Endgame”. Or maybe as I write in my articles, “the tunnel at the end of the tunnel”, meaning the end of the game leads to another, insofar as the Ukraine is just one battlefield in a larger war – a world war. I just reposted Larry’s “Cowbell” article — complete– as part of my “what comes next” commentary on Substack.
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/soledar-and-bakhmut-about-to-fall
The fact that even CNN is starting to report Ukrainian horror stories is telling. My guess is that they must turn the defeat of Ukraine into a story of sacrifice and heroism. That “We must never forget” thing. Just as the Brits turned their defeat at Dunkirk into a kind of victory.
What the Brits never mention is that Hitler allowed them to escape. His generals wanted to destroy them after they had them backed against the sea, but Hitler, who believed the Brits were brothers, prevented that.
VICTOR
i have read that also. he hoped that if he let them go relatively unmolested the brits would sue for peace which of course never did happen. Also read that he did not want to risk the infantry and panzers since there was still a very large french army to the west to deal with and left it up to the luftwaffe to reduce the british forces down.
yu might find these 2 programs interesting from suvorov on barbarossa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov
Viktor Suvorov’s presentation at the U.S. Naval Academy, Eurasia Forum, in Annapolis, Maryland (October 7, 2009).
the comments are quite interesting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYSy80WlmWY
Viktor Suvorov speaks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. via C-SPAN2 (February 2009).
http://www.c-span.org/video/?283856-1/book-discussion-chief-culprit
REGARDS,
ralph
Thanks for the links.
Have you read his book – The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Stat World War II?
Very interesting perspective.
Victor – no i have not. the 2 books of his that i have read are inside the soviet army and icebreaker which are very informative.
thanks,
ralph
It’s not General Winter, it’s the hot iron burning the Ukrainian Nazis and their allied godfathers. Ukraine an enslaved people.
Larry! Happy New Year! Been busy lately, falling down on the job of keeping up, heh..That TOS1A (and I believe there are variants) is a very serious weapon. Every thing inside the shock circles out in the open is either killed or badly wounded, worse if they’re in the trenches where the pressure builds. Internal injuries, blown ear drums and eyeballs, and those are the lucky ones, if they live. If you want to call that lucky.
And another thing, Larry, I was listening to an interview of Col. MacGregor this morning, the interviewer said he’d be interviewing you today, also. Today being Tuesday that is. I was searching you on Youtube, but found nothing recent. Know where we can find it?
Good work the past few days, as always. The salt mines are intriguing. Reminded me of the big granite mines down in Missouri that tractor trailers drive through for ten miles delivering Kraft Cheese products and other goodies, I have a friend that was a trucker down there. I got a tour of coal mines outside Morgantown, WV. back in the service (a buddy lived up there, we visited, his Pop was a mine inspector). Spooky being deep underground. Our coal miners are a very ballsy lot of folks. Be well!
I was not interviewed by anyone today. Who was it?
I cannot say for sure it was one of The Gaggle guys, who do great interviews. They did an hour-and-change with the good Colonel. But MacGregor turned around and did yet another interview after that and that was the guy that said he was getting an interview with you. Convoluted, no? Hey, if you aren’t aware, I’m going with that. Maybe he misspoke, but I heard what I heard, your honor. Meanwhile, you have one coming with someone. That’s what you guys do and good thing.
I also heard the remark. It is on U-tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G37kdKo_aGY
I think that particular channel – Douglas Macgregor col – just aggregates and rebroadcasts the Colonel’s previous interviews from various outlets. So, it’s possible the original airing (and the reference to the upcoming interview with Larry) was several days or longer ago. Scott Ritter has a couple of them as well. I don’t know that either of them have any direct control or involvement with these particular channels.
“this war is going to end on Russian terms when the Russians decide to end it and I think we’re staring at that in November and December…”
Video was released Jan. 9 but probably done in October..
Hi, could you please post a link to the interview w/ col MacGregor?
Thanks
Hey Kem! Better than a link, I suggest you go to YouTube, search “Napolitano with Macgregor”, click on any of those videos with the Judge and the Colonel, even older ones. Then click on “subscribe”. You can do the same with Scott Ritter and others. Also, Andrei Martyanov has his own channel called smoothiex12 if you want his videos as they’re released. When you subscribe to these they’re on a roll in the pane to the right in youtube. Hope that helps ya out.
Blast-Related Traumatic Brain Injuries Secondary to Thermobaric Explosives: Implications for the War in Ukraine
Justin K. Zhang,Kathleen S. Botterbush,Kazimir Bagdady,Chi Hou Lei,Philippe Mercier,Tobias A. Mattei
World Neurosurgery
November 2022
Blast-related traumatic brain injury (bTBI) is a significant cause of wartime morbidity and mortality. In recent decades, thermobaric explosives have emerged as particularly devastating weapons associated with bTBI. With recent documentation of the use of these weapons in the war in Ukraine, clinicians and laypersons alike could benefit from an improved understanding behind the dynamic interplay between explosive weaponry, its potential for bTBI, and the subsequent long-term consequences of these injuries. Therefore, we provide a general overview of the history and mechanism of action of thermobaric weapons and their potential to cause bTBI. In addition, we highlight the long-term cognitive and neuropsychiatric sequelae following bTBI and discuss diagnostic, therapeutic, and rehabilitation strategies, with the aim of helping to guide mitigation strategies and humanitarian relief in Ukraine. Thermobaric weapons produce a powerful blast wave capable of causing bTBIs, which can be further classified from primary to quaternary injuries. When modeling the hypothetical use of thermobaric weapons in Odessa, Ukraine, we estimate that the detonation of a salvo of thermobaric rockets has the potential to affect approximately 272 persons with bTBIs. In addition to the short-term damage, patients with bTBIs can present with long-term symptoms (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder), which incur substantial financial costs and social consequences. Although these results are jarring, history has seen radical advancements in the understanding, diagnosis, and management of bTBI. Moving forward, a better understanding of the mechanism and long-term sequelae of bTBIs could help guide humanitarian relief to those affected by the war in Ukraine.
The blast wave as seen on the on the video Larry posted are at over 400 psi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwScTlCf5IQ&ab_channel=MedCram-MedicalLecturesExplainedCLEARLY
Wonderful news. After the organ donations have been made, neuropathologists worldwide will now have the opportunity to widen their skillset for the good of humanity.
Who ever said: War, what’s it good for?
All those Western so called experts are nothing but propagandists, just like their journalists.
Yes, the end game in Bakhmut is fast approaching. I am curious how far back Ukraine will have to fall to establish another defensive line once that happens. I know Bakhmut is a stepping stone to the last “big” cities in the Donbass, but how far back are those and how defensible are the lines? It will be interesting to see how things change once the retreat begins.
As for Britain failing its satellite launch…. HAHAHAHAHA! So enjoyable to see any country associated with NATO and the EU fall on their face….
Probably Kramatorsk given its size and river passing through. Not sure if it has eight years of fortification like some of the other cities. I did hear a source claiming the Ukranians are preparing new lines to the rear.
There are some villages roughly between them which could be used, but mostly big green rectangles.
So far, looks like nothing exciting in the salt mines. At least in Soledar.
Niall Ferguson; committing academic suicide by reality denial? Well, maybe. More likely to be angling for a promotion. But it’s easy to see how the message keeps being propagated in the face of facts that don’t suit the narrative. A Reuters report appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald today headlined: ‘Land covered in corpses’ as Russia strives for first big Ukraine gains in months.
It reads: Kyiv: “Britain says Russia has probably captured a mining town in eastern Ukraine where Kyiv accused Moscow of sacrificing wave upon wave of mercenaries and soldiers in a horrific and senseless battle over wasteland.
“The British Defence Ministry on Tuesday (Ukraine time) said Russian troops and fighters of Wagner, a mercenary company run by an ally of President Vladimir Putin, were probably now in control of the salt mining town of Soledar after four days of advances.
“If confirmed, it would be Russia’s most substantial gain since last August, after a series of humiliating retreats throughout much of the second half of 2022. Russian forces have been fighting for months to capture the nearby larger city of Bakhmut, a few kilometres to the south-west.
“But any victory would come at a massive cost, with troops from both sides having taken heavy losses in some of the most intense combat since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago. Kyiv has released pictures in recent days showing what it says are scores of Russian soldiers strewn dead in muddy fields.”
To get the full treatment go to: https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/land-covered-in-corpses-as-russia-strives-for-first-big-ukraine-gains-in-months-20230111-p5cbov.html
There are lies and distortions packed into every paragraph. Australians, like the rest of the collective West these days, closely resemble mushrooms when it comes to getting their information on what is going on in the world – kept in the dark and fed sh*t.
So true. I’m in Oz as well and have been following this story since before 2014.
I have no friends that will take the time to do the reading of overseas content to peel back the curtains that Australian media has draped over us.
It’s so sad because all the information is out there.
Fine point: it is US media draped over us. Murdoch has not been an Australian citizen for decades.
I always shake my head when the sheep whine about foreign investment, foreigners immigrating, etc, but have no trouble at all allowing foreign media to shape their “opinions”.
Murdock still has a 70% media market penetration in Oz. On top of this his ex-Minions have been infiltrated into the ABC executive staff and his Sky crap is piped directly into every federal politicians office in Parliament House.
Why pick on Murdoch? The Nine media group (ex Fairfax and Packer properties) and the long-term leftist taxpayer funded ABC push all the leftist and deep state drivel.
If some ex Murdoch staff have joined the ABC, they just might make it a little less deranged and dishonest. They certainly couldn’t make it any more so.
Not sure what your 70% figure is meant to convey. Murdoch certainly doesn’t have a 70% media market share when the ABC is included.
Fellow Aussie here too also. Glad to know i am not alone. When i told my neighbour there could have been peace talks last March, but Boris Johnson and his US handlers scuttled it, she looked at me as if I was nuts.
I guess the western media still thinks that those retreats in the second half of 2002 were humiliating. I wonder what adjective they want to attach to the NATO pullout from Afghanistan not so long ago….
Yep.. we’re as big a bunch of suckers as anywhere. Yet I reckon most of us think we’re more savvy. Nup. Just as gullible. Maybe worse as usa has a tier of left libertarian outlets who may be a bit flaky on some stuff but are all over this flip narrative b/s from med. Ppl like Jackson Hinckle have huge younger demographics subscribing. And they’ve attempted to hit his payt. apparatus. So they know he’s hurting them.
Ferguson and Michael McFaul are both at Stanford, degrading its reputation.
Two dodos of a feather create their fantasies together.
One has so little trust in Western “elites” these days, its hard to know what Ferguson’s motivations are. It looks like he’s trying to save face, and maintain some intellectual dignity, while not pissing-off his patrons in the US deep state.
“Britain’s attempt to become the first European nation to launch satellites into space…”
Reuters never heard of Ariane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_(rocket_family)
First class jernalists!
I have to smile. Ever heard of V2 (aggregate 4). For the first time broke through the border to space (100km limit). I don’t want to count peas, but humanists (a euphimistic term for storytellers) are probably even further from reality than the rocket launched by the British. 😉
Launching satellites is still one step above V-2 style rockets. The real joke is that Jeff Bezos Space Program is exactly on the V-2 level. Seeing that in the news is almost as funny as watching reports about Elon Musk inventing tunnels in order to avoid traffic jams.
I still have one. At a time when Russia (Soviet Union) was still part of Europe, this nation launched the first rocket into space, launched a Sputnik, then sent up Leika and then Gagarin. And the value west of the time looked on at first.
I remember very well the Western propaganda of the time, when Russians were routinely labeled as backward and technologically and militarily inept and only half-heartedly copied everything from the superior West. In the 1960s, German entrepreneurs also laughed at the constantly smiling guests from Japan with their “funny” cameras. As of the late 1970s, the Japanese were still smiling. Some German entrepreneurs lost their smiles. 😉
As one of those froggies I was about to comment that piece of news.
I was really shocked to discover that or I’ve been lied to all my life (more than three scores of years) or that France is not a European country —and it would have spoken volumes about EU expansion. 🙂
“Britain’s attempt to become the first European nation to launch satellites into space …”
This top level jernalism instantly made me want to write a comment. It’s not just that they don’t count Russia as part of Europe, but that they don’t count France too, and all the members of European Space Agency including UK itself.
Yes I was wondering about that strange. But i guess not so strange now a days.
Just write whatever comes to your mind seems the motto.
I’m pretty sure that Reuters and others wrote “The first attempt to launch a satellite from western Europe (first launch out of the United Kingdom).” The Ariane rockets are launched from French Guiana which is in South America – which is most definitely not in Europe
That’s because good positions for lauch sites are determined by physics. You either want to be close to equator or to poles. Those are still French rockets, just like those launched from Kazakhstan are Russian. For a launch site in Western Europe, Scotland would be suitable:
https://orbitaltoday.com/tag/scottish-spaceport/
Insightful as always, Larry. I have sent this article to friends and family alike. Keep it up!
That is horrific. But read on….
Just been told by a fat man serving retail land fill that Ukraine has had 100K dead and Russia 250K dead. Putin finished by next Wednesday.
Walk out of the shop to go home and a gentleman with two toy dogs exits the male toilet.
He holds the fluffy dogs tail up, dog spreads it’s little legs and the gentleman proceeds to wipe the dogs arse with tissue paper while the other dog looks on.
I kid you not. I stagger on and sit down waiting for a bus and re reads Larry’s article and watch the Vid again.
Between the fat man, the slaughter and the fluffy dogs arse, maybe l am the one that’s gone mad or going mad. Or has the bloody planet that’s gone mad?
Been told to see a Cardiologist again, do l or don’t l, bother going?
Because a US Marine General “Ball Squeezer.” just announced in Japan that Ukraine is a win and now it’s onto Taiwan. The Generals gonna need a lot of tissue paper forsure.
It has long been obvious that Niall Ferguson is the sleaziest kind of brown-nosing greasy pole climber. Of course he is going to say whatever his Beltway audience expects to hear.
But look more closely at what even someone like Ferguson is saying. Financial power is not enough — a nation needs the capacity to manufacture arms, and without relying on imports, but the US can no longer do that. He points out that the US annual production of shells would supply only about 10 days of a limited proxy war like the Ukraine. He recognizes that China, not the US, is now the manufacturing powerhouse in the world. He virtually states that the Ukraine will have to give up land to get a cessation of the conflict.
And Ferguson warns the Biden MalAdministation: “Kissinger is right to worry about the perils of a world war.”
For a brown-noser like Ferguson, he has gone almost off the Beltway reservation. He can see which way the tide is flowing.
Don’t know. I read what Larry posted a few times over. Seems he’s following a pattern that’s starting to emerge with this lot:
Starts with the de rigueur main stream bullshit and then slips in some reality-based thought that a partition’s eventually in the works.
Think of deciphering these guys as if you were training a dog while reading his inner thoughts.
Niall Ferguson is a nostalgic imperialist who has been divorced from reality for quite sometime. I think he is a little too stupid and deluded to be a propagandist.
In reviewing one of Ferguson’s books, the Indian intellectual Pankaj Mishra describes Ferguson thus: “(he) sounds like the Europeans … who ‘wanted gold and slaves, like everybody else’, but also ‘wanted statues put up to themselves as people who had done good things for the slaves.'”
The hegemony/globalists claim that they are concerned about the environment yet they keep supplying weapons to the little zio-troll Elensky, how much should they pay for wanton destruction, carbon emissions, human and animal suffering? If the Collective West talking heads really did care about human suffering and the environment this proxy war would have never happened, Putin is correcting calling them satanists.
Soledar has fallen – Wagner Group shouldered the entire assault. Ukrainian troops trapped in cauldron in the center of Soledar – POW # will be forthcoming. This is one of the keys to picking the lock on Bakhmut.
That’s a significant point: that in this battle, the RF army proper is still only providing support, they’re still fighting at a fraction of their real power, keeping the Russian population angry at NATO but still quite insulated from the SMO. This is fighting your opponent while puffing on a cigarette.
Thermobaric shells vaporizes you.
So what are the morons in DC going to do when Ukraine becomes rump Ukraine in the near future? Since politicians never take responsibility for anything, this is going to be yet another wonderful clown show with the excuses. I wonder if some of the comatose public will actually wake up to the lies? Not holding my breath but it would be a good thing. Ditto with covid, climate, elections, border etc.
Mutual recriminations between the Dems and Repubs and their respective media agglomerations is what I expect, along with no one taking responsibility for anything re Ukraine and continued gridlock over everything else, except the “Defense” budget which will keep growing.
Actually, the British piece of news was necessary to announce once again that the Collective West does not consider Russia a part of rhe Europe. Otherwise, the talk about being the first European nation to launch satellites is slightly outdated
It’s not just that they don’t count Russia as a part of Europe, but that they don’t count France too, and all the members of European Space Agency including UK itself. This is Monty Python level stuff.
This is my one site I literally check every day. Incredibly good work here Larry. And an educated bunch of commentators. As you say, Bakhmut is done. The question is what is next? I honestly have never believed the strike down from Belarus option. Or the “BIG” strike anywhere in all honesty. I think the Russians are just going to grind forward to the Dnieper River. They probably will not go after Kharkiv. A line south of there. Maybe Mykolaiv in the deep south. And cut off Dnipro and let them contemplate their sins. But the spring muds will be here quicker than you might think. And of course, the pound, pound, pound of Ukrainian infrastructure dying. And the slow grinding death of every economy in Europe. Which is greatly helped by the Fed raising interest rates by the way. Never underestimate the evil of Washington, DC. Whether they lose this war or not? They just destroyed a prime economic competitor in the EU. But in doing so, they have forced a shotgun wedding of Russia, China, Iran, and India. And for that matter, possibly Turkey.
The loss of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and most of Africa is the nail in the coffin for the West. Mackinder was correct. The US seems to be causing trouble in Peru and Bolivia now.
The west does not realise how much hate has been built up over 500 years crimes. The global South has been shown another way out by Putin and Xi, and they are bolting.
I expect a US military dictatorship will be contrived in the US so the MIC can maintain their wealth and power.
I submit the name Niall Ferguson to this year’s Nincompoop of the Universe Prize.
I also dare and double dare anyone to come up with a better candidate for the Nincompoop of the Universe Prize.
nial is friends with evelyn or was and jacob rothschild he has worked as an in house and an out house historian from waterloo on.
real history for real believe me
a good egg honest decent true you can take those words to the bank
wall street and the rise of hitler, stalin and the bolshevik revolution the empire of the city of london and rome holy see
Ferguson merely repeats the wishful thinking of those that wanted this war in the first place (and paid him for this essay). And that is certainly not the Russians nor the ordinary Ukrainians. His statements are tragi-comic, loads of sour grapes, and intended for western audience – almost exclusively.
His affiliation with Stanford may lend some credibility in the eyes of those who consider the top US academic institutions as trustworthy and respectable as they once were. And they were once fantastic!!! Unfortunately, their reputation is eroding fast thanks to the general decay we are witnessing since the Clinton era…
The sole reason for me to write this long comment/dissect Ferguson’s institutional BS paragraphs is to remind ourselves of some factual realities and avoid falling victim to the insane smokescreen blown our way while we are being robbed in broad daylight.
“…but Russian imports have crashed due to Western export controls. As Russia’s stock of imported component parts and machinery runs down, Russian industry will face deep disruptions, including in the defense and energy sectors.”
— so far this did not prevent them from sourcing the important components domestically or from other import sources.
Today’s West is a diminishing source of industrial products that are irreplaceable. The waves of sanctions levelled against Russia over the past 23 years have resulted in it becoming cvasi – autarkic in every economic sector, and very successful at it. VVP once remarked at a Valdai discussion forum that the Russians are actually grateful for being forced to become more self sufficient… and use their Motherland to its full potential for their own benefit.
“Last year, Russia cut off gas exports to Europe”
— BS! gas is still flowing to Europe, albeit less than a year ago.
The “cut off” was a buyers revolution driven by the US to forcefully acquire market share and deindustrialize EU in the process…in the meantime every imaginable and insane act of vandalism was thrown into the mix by the west to achieve max cut off.
One must also understand that the US oil and gas industry is suffering enormous economic setbacks since 2008, 2014-2015, 2020! contrary to what the media makes one believe. In the US gas and oil production is waaay more complex and costly than anything heard from the ME.
If folks in the US would understand a tiny bit of what it took for the US to produce as much oil and gas as it does today, they would be proud and supportive of this industry (that also puts soles on their shoes and affordable textile on their bodies, to name a few products of the petrochem industry); some may be pissed off about the financialization of this industry, but let’s say that’s just part of the complexity…
“… that it cannot reroute, as there are no alternative pipelines.”
— total ignorance and jealousy. How about the Power of Siberia P/L? or look at this map https://theodora.com/pipelines/asia_oil_and_gas_pipelines_map.jpg
Gas is also moved as LNG… by special tankers.
“Putin thought the gas weapon would allow him to divide the West. So far, it has not worked. ”
— Au contraire! he wanted strong customers who can pay for goods. That is why so many long-term contracts were negotiated by gazprom with favourable terms to all parties, and then the “green’s ” walked back to spot market… in the name of Agneda 2035! we heard this nonsense of energy weapon from Trump et al. and before that…
“Russia also tried choking Black Sea grain exports.”
— shameless rubbish! it was ukie+nato that did that, and in the end 90% of the grain went to the “starving” EU countries instead of Africa, ME, etc…
“But that lever had little strategic value as the biggest losers of the blockade were poor African and Middle Eastern countries.”
— indeed, thanks to Nato and EU, the countries cheated out of their wits are looking up to Russia now.
Anybody ever wonder how much grain is left for the Ukrainian population in reserve for the next year or so? factoring in the enormous loss of harvest in 2022… Perhaps the humanitarian EU commission reps quietly emptied the pantry while the trains and ships could move, assuming that if they fight the war to the last Ukrainian, there won’t be any mouth left to feed. Common thieves have more honour than these rotten folks.
“The net result of Putin’s war thus far has been to reduce Russia to something like an economic appendage of China, its biggest trading partner. ”
— the EU and US would die for this “reduced role”… (let’s not forget the several 100 billion dollar ANNUAL trade deficit bw US and China…) BTW, India has risen as a huge trading partner or RUS. and BRICS is growing … Numbnut didn’t hear of Zoltán Pozsár’s articles… Credit Suisse. Never mind the dreaded Russia-China-Iran&Saudi trade deals…
“And Western sanctions mean that what Russia exports to China is sold at a discount. . . .”
— probably; we are not privy to the contract details. The price must be acceptable, otherwise the trade would stop. We don’t know how much China invested in oil and gas production there… so the discounts are probably meaningful, and not emotional.
Must note that Russia produces over 10 million barrels per day and exports some 7.5 million barrels of oils daily! Russia and US produce approximately the same volumes daily (some fluctuations exist). US consumes as much or more than it produces.
Russia exports about 1.5 times more than what Canada produces in total, which it is the 5th largest in the world.
Canada is supplying ~40% of its total production to the US at a huge discount, the rest is used domestically; can’t sell much oil&gas to other countries, but it can import… Check this out:
https://boereport.com/2023/01/10/heavy-crude-discount-tightens-further-2/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/566855/crude-oil-exports-from-canada-by-receiving-region/
The US invested trillions of $’s in Canadian energy industry at every stream over the last 50-70 years (hardly ever mentioned around Canada), so one should understand some of the real reasons behind the discounts.
“The problem with protracted wars is that the US and European publics tend to get sick of them well before the enemy does.”
— Really? People fighting an existential war don’t give a rats ass about the EU+US public perception. Is this guy afraid of becoming irrelevant in the local media?
Actually, the US/EU plebs will get very angry with their local politicians as soon as the shelves go empty, heat&lights are out… those existential threats are/will be local to US/EU just not sure if they are able to do anything about it.
The Tos1A …”is a terrifying, lethal weapon.”
It sure is. Imagine if one of them emptied their 24 bay pod by firing a full salvo. Holy crap! Or if two of them joined up and fired one full salvo after another! Hundreds of thermobaric warheads raining down in a few short minutes, wreaking death and destruction on a imbecilic enemy who has decided to defend his country by manning pre-dug graves, also known as trenches.
A battery, of Tos1As, this is what we might call such a grouping of two tubbed artillery pieces working in a coordinated fashion. Unthinkable!
Or a battery of three. Or seven. Or twelve!
Sorry, but I feel for the men of the DPR. I really do. Yet again this morning, I was watching one their regiments clearing trenches and thinking, you boys sure got the short end of the shit stick. At least the people in the Wagner Group are getting paid top dollar (top ruble?) for doing the same thing.
“Ferguson’s specious claim that Russia’s military ‘has suffered disastrous losses of trained manpower and equipment’ …”
That’s my point Larry, and I will keep making it, as I have since April. The Russian military is no where to be seen, so how can it be suffering “disastrous losses.” How can it be suffering any significant losses at all?
Once the Russian Army gets into this fight, the war in the field will be over in a matter of days. Then it will come down to sieging Ukraine’s major cities, for as long as it takes.
Because the fleeing Ukies, and any other intact elements of the Ukraine Army, will retreat into their cities, because where else can they go?
Note: Again, to avoid parsing, a siege does not mean you must engage in pointless street to street battles or reduce the city to ashes with your heavy weapons.
You simply surround it and turn out the lights. Then you toast some marshmellows, and wait for the enemy to agree, to give you Odessa.
And anything else you want.
” … wreaking death and destruction on a imbecilic enemy who has decided to defend his country by manning pre-dug graves, also known as trenches.”
Funny! Good writing and trench-ant (okay, sorry) analysis.
Based on the first half or your post, I’ve got the feeling that you will like this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiZdxaYZY7c
Just the first 15 seconds, where we see a coordinated rocket barrage by 5 or 6 Russian Grad varients on firing range in Siberia. It also looks like the Russians spared no expense in this exercise, expending at least 15 rockets all at once!
Hey, I’m just trying to protect my boys in the Donbas militias. If the Russian Army is incapabable of chipping with the ground work, the least they could do is provide proper fire support.
The part with the ballistic missiles and the mushroom cloud, not so much. This is a conventional war. When we get to the nuclear phase, I let my feelings known at that point as to what should and shouldn’t be done, if I have the time.
Good tuneage btw. Especially liked the vocals.
Soviet Union made enough of those rockets to fight NATO for years. Firing them is probably cheaper than properly disposing after their “best use before” date passes. 🙂
The vocal is standard Orthodox Christian style chant, but it somehow perfectly fits with hard rock music and heavy weaponry. I’ve ran into it while watching random clips from the fronline. I’ve just tried few Youtube searches, and an a cappella verision popped up. It turns out there’s more to this. That’s a priest from Donetsk anathemising (if that’a word) newly created Ukronazi church.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta0FTteBrtE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Juao6hfolf8
Most of those “imbecilic enemy” are Ukrainians, including large numbers of Slavs, impressed into this conflict by force by the Zelensky regime, which has given a pass to Zelensky’s tribal group who were allowed to leave Ukraine rather than be forced to fight.
This is ethnic cleansing of Ukraine by Zelensky and his people, murdering hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian Slavs. He is also no doubt happy to see Banderites being killed as well. It’s just his and Blinken’s and Fink’s people who are exempt from the carnage wrought on others.
The US government is joined at the hip in this ethnic cleansing on behalf of the group that controls the US and Ukraine.
You’re spot on re Mr Ferguson’s comments. Swapping Russia and Ukraine in the first two sentences gives a description of reality. I think the following better describes the economic situation:
“The European economy may not have contracted by as much as Washington hoped (a mere n.n% last year, according to the International Monetary Fund), but European exports have crashed due to Western export controls.”
The Hoover Institution and their ilk are supposed to speak truth to power, however, Mr Ferguson seems to be looking for a job as Ear Tickler-in-Chief.
An “anomaly” is rocket science for “it blew up”. The Virgin Orbit 747 used for the launch is called “Cosmic Girl”. These comments from the RT article are worth repeating:
“What are Cosmic Girls pronouns?”
“If only Branson had used one of his transgendered planes…next time lady boy.”
Hope Russia can wrap up the Donetsk operation just like it did with Lugansk some months back. Then decide what to do next. Perhaps the remaining of the Zaporozhye region east of the Dnieper? Or try their luck again in Kharkov? Losing Kharkov would be a huge psychological blow against Kiev, though I can’t imagine it being easy to accomplish.
Today I was informed by Canadian state broadcasting that the Wagner Group was composed of nothing but satanic Russian ex-convicts, dying in their tens of thousands at the hands of UAF heroes in Soledar and Artemovsk. Then it was on to some Brit barely out of shorts who informed us that Russian casualties are immense and that they are running out of ammo — daily shellfire down 60% since September.
Right.
And Rishi Sunak is a ex-colonial social genius leading the UK to a new era of fame and fortune, wherein bankers, retired military gorphs and short-pants academics sip sherry before dinner and port and madeira afterwards while discussing how to rule their new island Empah full of foreign wogs. Reduce services, raise interest rates, raise food and energy prices, hike rents, allow zero wage and salary increases across the board, and pretty soon the place will be fighting fit as brown and black people flee back “home” to achieve a better standard of living.
I refuse to call Artemovsk by its Ukie name of Bakhmut. Lets call it what it was historically called from 1924 until 2016, because sure as sh!t, the Russians always will and they’ll own it.
Bakhmut is not Ukie name. Both names are Russian.
And Rishi Sunak is a ex-colonial social genius
Sunak is Brahmin
His family arrived in UK in 1966
His father was a GP and his mother ran the NHS Pharmacy – a very lucrative arrangement not always approved of by the auditors
Anyway it paid for children born in UK to go to private Prep School, then elite Schools where they could avoid the sordidly of non-affluent English and wallow in inherited wealth until dear Rishi could find a Brahmin girl to marry at the Stanford Pot-Luck Mating Dinner
“The problem with protracted wars is that the US and European publics tend to get sick of them well before the enemy does.”
So at least Ferguson got something right.
I reckon the West is not so much looking for an off-ramp in Ukraine as it’s looking for an on-ramp to something else. And when they find it, Zelensky will discover just how indifferent his former buddies can become.
For the last year the world has loved to love this plucky little battler taking on the mighty Russians while in his t-shirt. But a poorly dressed whinging looser on the bite will soon find himself thrown under the bus.
Imagine the poor State Department reps having to pitch Poland and other locals on why they should be the ones to pick up the fight against Russia when Ukraine is completely exhausted of men.
I can’t even satirize what that exchange would sound like. This approaches WWI levels of gratuitous sacrifice.
Niall Ferguson can sleep tight knowing that NATO will soon be on Russia’s border. And Russia’s even helping out – they’re going to move their border to NATO’s so NATO won’t have to do anything to claim success. I’m sure he’ll publish a paper saying it was a huge victory for the west over evil Russia. He seems to be that stupid.
Congratulations. Soledar has been liberated. Artemovsk (Bakhmut) will be next. So far Russia’s liberation mission in the Donbass is moving forward according to plan. Before that everyone believed the AFU-NATO would soon launch a major attack from Kherson all the way to Crimea after the Russian military withdrew from the west bank of Kherson. What happened to AFU-NATO military planners? Now this money pincher Scottish conman posing as a specialist but in fact a charlatan working for the neocons who is mostly concerned about his own salary than what’s really happening in the world, says Russia is losing, very funny. Likely, in the next two months Artemovsk will be liberated too. Then the long expected Russian winter offensive aimed at liberating the entire eastern parts plus Odessa and Transnisteria, should begin.
‘According to plan’?? I very much doubt this was the plan. The original plan was a 2-week ‘shock and awe’ followed by the fall of the Zelensky government. Russian soldiers greeted as liberators. It did not happen. Ever since ‘the plan’ has been updated over and over. First update, retreat to the Southeast and slowly gain territory and kill Ukrainian soldiers, without damaging the cities too much and with a very minimal number of soldiers. Second update, cities had to be destroyed as Ukraine was using them as forts. Third update after losses in Kherson and Kharkov regions … draft an additional 300,000 soldiers and start gearing up industry for a real war. Fourth update? Keep grinding or launch a major offensive(s).
Who knows? Internal politics in Russia are impossible to decipher.
Russia is waging a war not performing a civil engineering project. We have a war plan and we have what they call an engineering blueprint plan for construction projects using the Autocad, for example. There’s a big difference between the two. What you are referring to is a very narrow way of looking at the art of war planning as if everything must be according to the original blueprint with a margin of tolerance of only about +/- 0.01. If you are that precise then recommend you ask the US Army of its experiences in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea…Anyway the purpose of war is to defeat the enemy and this is exactly what Russia will be doing one way or another whether we like or not.
Steve, what document can you show that the original plan was a 2-week shock and awe? Where did you get that from?
And if the Russians weren’t greeted as liberators, how do you explain the result of the referenda some months ago when millions of people voted to reunite with Moscow?
The Wagners took over Soledar
This is really wunderbar
Now let’s go to Bahmut
Und alles wird gut
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GGU1P6lBW6Q
love the song- wagner is my favourite classical composer. that was before i heard of the wagner group.
cheers,
ralph
I much prefer Prokoviev, as he spins a lyrical tale of Alexander Nevsky smashing the invading Teutons into ice crystals. 😉
According to Russian sources, Soledar should have been already taken by Wagner:
https://tass.com/politics/1560519
If Bakhmut/Artemovsk is about to fall into Russian control soon, that would be another huge success for the Russian armies and their commander Sergey “Matador” Surovikin!
Happy New Year!
Russia is fighting NATO/EU in Ukraine and they have both by the balls.
They very likely do. Which of the two you figure will have a mental breakdown first or are they so tied to the hip now that it’s an immediate twofer?
“Which of the two you figure will have a mental breakdown first or are they so tied to the hip now that it’s an immediate twofer?”
More likely an accumulator in open sight in hope of encouraging others to place their bets since some cabarets are not restricted to the stage.
” … wreaking death and destruction on a imbecilic enemy who has decided to defend his country by manning pre-dug graves, also known as trenches.”
Funny! Good writing and trench-ant (okay, sorry) analysis.
…..The problem with protracted wars is that the US and European publics tend to get sick of them well before the enemy does…..
He is arguing for massive escalation asap. He wants Gulf War I
Mr. Johnson i looked at nial fergusons wikipedia page. it looks like somebody got to him bigtime when you look at the below last year where he put out some truth at least compared to the total company line stuff he wrote that you commented on. Looks like he is in this just for a paycheck know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 22 March 2022, Ferguson wrote: “I conclude that the U.S. intends to keep this war going. The administration will continue to supply the Ukrainians with anti-aircraft Stingers, antitank Javelins and explosive Switchblade drones. … It helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire. … Prolonging the war runs the risk not just of leaving tens of thousands of Ukrainians dead and millions homeless, but also of handing Putin something that he can plausibly present at home as victory.”[165] He also criticized the political rally held in Moscow for justifying the invasion and described it as “fascistic”.[166]
Ferguson, Niall (22 March 2022). “Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S.” Bloomberg.
Ferguson, Niall (22 March 2022). “Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S.” Bloomberg. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-22/niall-ferguson-putin-and-biden-misunderstand-history-in-ukraine-war?sref=xzGl1Vcx
he also wrote this book so he understands a little about world history
The house of Rothschild : the world’s banker, 1849-1999
https://archive.org/details/houseofrothschi000ferg/page/n9/mode/2up
————————————————————————————————
Gonzalo lira just had a one sided discussion with 2 nato supporters. I came to the conclusion that they brought a knife to a gun fight. It was not pretty. Gonzalo did not treat them very well. I would put Mr. Ferguson in the same category as the guys gonzalo took apart as he should and i believes knows better in my opinion; but will do whatever it takes to keep his fame and standing in life.
The Roundtable #40: Talking to NATO Supporters Destiny and LazerPig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ourA3GVrlLQ
regards,
ralph
Gonzalo lira used to start off his shows with the line where is tiffany dover. i think he would find this interesting.
https://turfseer.substack.com/p/where-have-you-gone-tiffany-dover
regards,
ralph
I hear Wagner dudes in addition to GRU boys will soon be paying visits deep inside Europe and allied nations. Instead, for the centers of political, economic and military power in the these countries, Russia has been working 24/7 for almost a year now to augment its enormous military stocks, but this time with huge supplies of Zircons, Kinzhals and a host of other goodies. Bear in mind that a single ship, like the heavy battlecruiser Admiral Nahkimov, which is currently undergoing a refit, will be able to deliver 60 Zircons to its adversaries in any engagement. To understand the damage of the kinetic energy released from its impact on a surface vessel, 1 Zircon can sink a ship of 30,000 tonnes. With 60, immagine what one ship like the Nahkimov could do!
Re Virgin Orbit.
Testing has two purposes:
1. Ideally, to confirm the system works as intended.
2. Alternately, to find unforeseen points of failure.
A test that reveals an unforeseen point of failure is actually a successful test, it identifies something that needs fixing, and fixing it will improve operational reliability. Elon Musk has the right attitude, build it, test it, fix whats broken, test again, repeat until reliable, then start operations.
A quick search indicates this may have been only Virgin’s fourth shot at orbit. The first in May 2020 did not achieve orbit but successfully identified a point of failure in a fuel line. The second and third flights achieved orbit and released cube sats.
This fourth flight did not achieve orbit for a so far unknown/unrevealed reason.
Going into this launch with only two of three orbital successes, Virgin grossly over-hyped what is clearly a vehicle still in its development and testing phase. Virgin’s loss of face/embarrassment is richly deserved but could easily have been avoided by a more forthright explanation of the program status.
Meanwhile, the link to “Technology” at virgin Orbit’s website https://virginorbit.com/technology/ takes us to 404 (not Ukraine!)
“-404
HOUSTON,
WE HAVE A PROBLEM.
It seems that you are lost in a perpetual black hole. Let us help guide you out
and get you back home.
Take me home.”
Really!
The concept is proven, though. The similar, smaller Northrup Grumman Pegasus has had 40 successful orbital insertions from 1990 to 2021.
The bottom line: Ukrainians and Russians kill each other and get poor, while the Anglo-Saxon elites, the main instigators of this hell, live care-free and make tonnes of money.
Where is karma when you need it?
I think it was ex-British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray who said you could read all of Niall Ferguson’s “Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World” and never know of the many atrocities and wrongs committed by the British Empire. Murray made this comment in relation to the Hut Tax War in Sierra Leone which I’m pretty sure is missing from Ferguson’s book.
Didn’t Mel Gibson mace one of Ferguson’s ancestors in bed in Braveheart?
since it is quite clear that the hub of the ukraine defenses in the east at Soledar and Bahkmut will fall quite soon and leave the areas west , south and north of that wide open to attack am speculating what ukraine should do.
https://www.worldatlas.com/maps/ukraine
if i was an evil nuland type neocon in charge of the ukraine which of course i never will be for the army would conduct a fighting retreat and take all my forces to the west side of dnieper river up to the border of poltava. in the meantime build a new defense line from the poltava border of the dnieper river to the east side of the city of poltava and the east side of the city of sumy. this would involve giving up 1 and a half more mainly russian speaking eastern provinces but the remaining part would be all mostly pro-ukrainian speakers. would then declare a minsk 3 unilateral freeze to the hostilites that am sure that russia would oblige and at least for know hostilities would come to an end. At least this way would be able to keep the odessa and an ocean port in my hands for trade and to menace the russian black sea fleet. this would also keep hungary, romania and poland from seizing 3 western provinces they have historical claim too. would then off course bring in blackrock to begin the ukraine rebuilding plan which of course will not benefit any of the people.
to make the above happen would need to blame the battlefield failures on zelensky and nordstream blowup on mr. green sergeant schultz of germany and replace them with different puppets. perhaps a staged palace coup would be in order for both countries. Am saying this for germany only if they want to get the nordsteam gas rolling back into germany and europe to rebuild the economies for a future war with russia which happened when germany was rebuilt when the iron curtain desended on europe 78 years ago
.
Would of course then want to rebuild the ukraine and nato especially poland armies for round 3 a decade from know after putin is gone which would know since russia knows what the game is be much harder to achieve since for industry nordstream would need to be reactivated. in the meantime would move the regime change efforts to refocus on china using japan as a major proxy and trying to get pakistan against india stirred up again. would do everything i could to keep turkey , syria and iran from becoming friends. One way to undermine turkey would be to get a conflict between the turks and cyprus-greece hot again. would also try real hard to get brazil away from the brics and pretend to help build up maduro`s oil industry in venezwela again so at the right time he could also be replaced with another palace coup.
i also think the main problem to the neocons have is that they have invested so much into this they cannot back off without suffering severe blowback too their great agenda 2030 LGBQT reset which i think the world wide bug was a part of . allot of this is also contingent on the russian ,chinese and even indian economies being in tatters which is the opposite of what they expected with the sanctions. In addition moving all of the european industry to the usa will not work out as well as i think if russia and china are still in the game since if russia decided enough is enough and keeps on rolling westward if europe especially germany is in a horrible depression with little heat and food would probably welcome the russians as liberators.
the speculation above would make what the military summary channel proud lol
regards,
ralph
Writing BS about Russia is a lucrative racket in the West. The sad thing is that there are some poor students learning from the type of Niall Ferguson.
Extraordinary. Tuesday morning, Ukraine nowhere to be seen on the BBC mobile app.
I am looking forward to the day Donetsk city stops being shelled.
Not only Ferguson is a captive of the “Ukraine will win” bubble, there is another, beside countless other, supposed to be intelligent persons captivated in that bubble. Ben Hodges is his name, Hodges became commander of United States Army Europe in November 2014, holding that position for three years until retiring from the United States Army in January 2018. He said quote, the Ukraine army has no manpower issues, it is getting stronger by the day and they will have “liberated” the Crimea Peninsula no later then August 2023.
Britain was already a hollow power in 1914. That’s why they had to drag the U.S. into the war in 1917, to avoid a catastrophic blow to their egos and pride.
I don’t think much of their claims of overwhelming superioty in war, and in all other things, as well. They’re at times, reasonably competent, not exceptional. But they don’t want to hear that bit.
Not really James. Britain was the major sea power, it never had a large land army. Nevertheless it was the small well trained British army that first checked the German spearhead at Mons, that force was noted for its effective rifle fire, a lesson learnt from the failings in the Boer War. France and Britain were exhausted by the fight, it being true that US intervention tipped the balance.
Really ? It was the British Empire fighting – Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand not just that little piece of rock off the coast of France. Most views see the entry of Woodrow Wilson’s cohorts as having prolonged the war after they engaged in combat in October 1917………interestingly enough the same month Lenin’s revolution overthrew the Kerensky regime in Russian Empire………
Germany had been looking for an exit since 1916 and in December presented peace proposals to return to status-quo-ante.
Thanks Larry. This certainly looks like a new turning point.
Meanwhile. I turned on the radio this morning here in the UK to hear an “expert” from the British army talking about how Ukraine is winning the war and that everything is going to plan. The presenter – who I used to think was a serious journalist due to their strong Covid skepticsm – simply nodded along to it all with the usual guff about the “unprovoked” war.
It seems that our entire MSM has undergone a lobotomy since Feb 2022, when the intellectual no fly zone was first enforced.
The question I always ask myself is: Do these people actually believe what they say?
The question I always ask myself is: Do these people actually believe what they say?
You’d be amazed to find that people will go to the most absurd lengths of self-deception to maintain their high opinion of themselves.
There’s also some theory out there, or maybe not, that if one ascribes some higher authority, morality etc. to a collective one is a member of, then all one’s own shortcomings, defects, moral deficits are somehow washed clean from the psyche.
Ah, it’s an old theory now I think about it. Was all the rage post WWII trying to explain how nazi atrocities could have been so easily embraced by the German public. Maybe it’ll have a comeback post Ukraine war.
Usa and their private military organisation Nato live on blood and sweat other nations and countries…no more.Keep going Russia.Fight for the Words Freedom.
“Putin dies and …”
This is the essence of everything that The West does/says/thinks. They are always one dead man away from world peace & prosperity. Everything will be great once this guy named Stalin dies, or Saddam, or Gaddafi, or Al-Assad, or whoever the villain of the month is. Xi Jinping is in good position there, because no one in The West can even pronounce his name.
The sad thing is that the population is still buying it. I guess it’s what you get when you grow up on Hollywood education, where all problems are solved by some Tom Cruise character killing the main bad guy right before saving the girl/world and getting the money. After that everything is fine, until the sequel.
I wanted to post a link to a satirical song about Osama bin Laden’s death, made by a Youtube comedian back in the day, but it is gone from his channel for some reason. Luckily, some reuploaded versions with added translation are still there. Just replace “Osama” with “Putin”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCY61imp1o0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXzbYy9CeBI
Great stuff, thanks …!
“What is Captagon?”
Pep pills aka speed. It was made in Bulgaria and generously distributed to Al-Nosra “freedom” fighters in Syria by the Empire.
Captagon worked well against Syrian soldiers in 2012-13, but as high as you are you can’t prevent a Russian 250kg bomb to annihilate you.
Thank you Vlad!
Hello Mr. Johnson, I’ve been following your site for weeks now with, and pretty much is my first visit every morning.
Regarding your continuous comments on the insanities posted by 3rd parties in news articles related to Ukraine, why don’t you refer to them as “bubble wrap”, “popsicles” or something similar? Don’t get me wrong, but if I, in my infinite ignorance, have realized for years that most crap coming out of op-makers, “news” outlets and assorted parafernalia is just for internal consumption of the masses, keeping the bubble up and running on our illusion as being the GOATs (we, in the “Western” world) why are you still surprised by this phenomena? (You do it for the drama, right?)
Keep up the good work, be my guest if you ever wish to reach out if you visit my country (Por).
Pretty darn frustrating that the western world is either too dumbed down to attempt to get to the truth or do not care. Could it be as simple as a generational thing? Correct me if I am wrong but it seems a divide is an age thing. Seems the only concerned people are over a certain age. Seems only the older doctors were the only ones warning about vaccine dangers. Same here on the war….unless they are on the payroll. Take Gonzo trying to talk to those 2 buffoons in the last livestream he had. Typical of todays young westerners. Keyboard warriors who can’t think too far in advance if this thing spirals out of control. If you think the propaganda is bad now and western society brainwashed just wait for this “chatgpt”. On the bright side it will put a lot of Niall Fergusons out of work.
“Correct me if I am wrong but it seems a divide is an age thing. ”
No fortunately it is more complex than that including, but not limited to, the desire to divide became an age thing with “The Silent Majority” whom some of the divided thought were silent because they were dead.
Age is a component part though, even with the balancing effects of the opioid epidemics and bankruptcy by “health treatment”.
The most utilitarian component parts from 1968 onwards were “smart people” emigrating to avoid the draft, senator’s sons being “excluded from the draft, whilst simultaneously “The United States of America” was accelerating their unviability adopting alchemy to turn gold into paper, electing would like to be tricksters who deemed neo-liberalism to be new, and Star Wars were akin to Hollywood actors disagreeing on who should be first on the bill matter, and when that caused some embarrassment, with the exception of one not a complete idiot not restricted to matters peanut who made them uncomfortable by attempting to tell the the truth, they elected comedians instead, including one who may have been nocturnal given his slogan of “Morning in America” perhaps based upon a belief that it/they were/are so exceptional that previously they always operated in the dark thereby accelerating even more the unviability of “The United States of America”, which catalysed even more coercive relations for the many including but not limited to “student loans”.
Mr. Gandhi when asked his opinion on British culture, he responded that it would be a good thing.
However in 1969 when some pondered “American intelligence” they thought on balance it would not be a good thing, and from then onwards many in the world agreed with their observations predicated upon absence makes the heart grow fonder and familiarity breeds contempt facilitated by experience – not for all though since contempt is an emotional response limiting focus and as Mr. Shakespeare observed – All the world is a stage upon which most performances are comedies.
“ENDGAME FOR UKRAINE IN BAHKMUT?
“While Western pundits (I think shills is a more apt description) and media continue to insist “
“What’s so bad about conquering all of Ukraine and restoring the Soviet Union?”
By 1969 some understood that not only was “The Soviet Union” emulative of another network of coercive social relations misrepresented as “The United States of America”, but they were mutually supportive.
In addition some understood that neither “The Soviet Union” nor “The United States of America” were viable but that “The Soviet Union” had more potential vectors, including internal ethnic nationalisms, to accelerate their non-viability faster than that of “The United States of America”, whilst the increasing non-viability of “The Soviet Union” would accelerate the non-viability of “The United States of America” whilst being not perceived in the early stages by “The United States of America” since they would likely “interpret” differential velocities as “evidence of them winning”, thereby encouraging them to engage in over-extended practices which would accelerate their transcendence thereby increasing incidences and velocities their roles as force multipliers, further facilitating their complicity in their own transcendence.
Consequently from 1969 onwards some have been active in transcending “The Soviet Union” and “The United States of America” through co-ordination of differential velocities, including but not limited to lubricating attempts at creating “nation states” from “Soviet Republics” but not limited to the internal near abroad, as an incomplete phase in lateral processes of externalising vectors facilitated by ethnic nationalism.
“War” is not restricted to things that go bang, and neither is geo-politics, although not all agree, particulary those whose purpose is the hoped for sustainability within acceptable linear tolerances of “The United States of America” – “the rules based order by order of rulers” in forms of coercive co-operation with their perceived “friends” not limited to “Ukrainian nationalists”, Mr. Francis Fukuyama, or Mr. Neill Ferguson, in hope of finding “prostitutes with hearts of gold” as some Johns believe exist in Las Vegas, despite Neil Young still searching for a heart of gold and getting old.
““While Western pundits (I think shills is a more apt description) and media continue to insist “
You are likely being reflexive Mr. Johnson.
They are acting as force multipliers, just not for the force they think they are.
Likely no consequences except doubling down will occur since some little big men observe that contrarians tend to ride their horses backwards.
“including but not limited to lubricating attempts at creating “nation states” from “Soviet Republics” but not limited to the internal near abroad,”
“Likely no consequences except doubling down will occur since some little big men observe that contrarians tend to ride their horses backwards.”
https://www.voltairenet.org/article218649.html
He is also incorrect as to who first disrupted gas supplies to Europe. It certainly wasn’t the Russians who first put sanctions (Trump) on and then refused to certify Northstream 2 and subsequently blew it up.
Poles and Ukrainians have also played a role in stopping pipeline operation through those territories. Not to mention EU sanctions on Russia ..
https://t.me/parstodayrussian/120174
So, Canada announced they would purchase AD in USA to gift them to Ukraine.
Maaan, i admire how yankees are milking their vassals!
Canada has a rather large Ukrainian diaspora population who have political clout – including our deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, so it is not only USA pressure on our government.
Who, of course, do not care much about either the wishes or welfare of “ordinary citizens”. And, sadly, as bad as our current government, neither of the ‘opposition’ parties will care either once in power. We are doomed 🙁
Niall Ferguson has long been overrated. Glasgow seems to have produced two errant historians for Oxford – the late Norman Stone and dear Niall, whose claim to fame rests on one tome.
Both seemed to be money-obsessed with Ferguson known for making himself available to Murdoch’s Times to set himself on the money trail. He later found performing for Hedge Funds a lucrative venture……..
He envisages himself as a Monetary Economist and Military Strategist continually reinventing himself as a cash generative machine. He ditched his wife – who had been his editor at The Sunday Times and marrying Ayaan Hirsi Ali………
There is something quite tasteless about Ferguson masquerading as an historian rather than a polemicist. He view himself as more important than the subject and is perfect for a US marketplace which desires propagandists and cheerleaders rather than sagacious academics
” sagacious academics”
“The United States of America” as a function of their purpose in attempting to sustain “the United states of America” within “reasonable” spectra of oscillation, has precluded the facilitation of “sagacious academics ” by various means from at least 1970 onwards, including through what some refer to as “praxis of theory and practice” which is known to others as scientific method, in addition to vectors outlined in MirrorGazers says
11 January 2023 at 11:52 above.
Funny, I was always under the impression that the very first satellite was launched by a European nation. But they keep changing the definition of words these days, so I suppose I am out of date.
Mr. Owl you are not out of date. You are just missing a piece of the puzzle. From an AP article about the failed launch:
“British officials and space scientists said Tuesday they were disappointed but not deterred after the first attempt to launch satellites into orbit from the U.K. ended in failure.”
If you accept that Russia is not part of Europe, then a successsful launch from the UK would have been the first successful satellite launched from a European nation.
Am currently reading The Guns of August, a fact-filled tome about WW1. What struck me was the European (mostly British and French) depiction of the Russian military under the Czar as incompetent, poorly equipped, untrained, etc. Looks like the West is stuck in the 1913 image of Russia, and it will be in for a rude awakening.
At what point in time did The West not depict Russian military as incompetent, poorly equipped, untrained, etc.?
Leadership is totally fake. Most leaders who advance and go up the ladder are the ones who do not question stats quo and do what the top orders. It is everywhere now from academia, military to corporations. He is paid not to think and question but rather promote what bosses want him to do.
In my opinion, the Bakhmut, Soledar node on the contact line (front) is strategic.
But it is one node on a 650 miles front.
And the reaction from Neoconservatives suggest Bakhmut is strategic, however, publicly, neocons, downplay its significance.
But a prominent neocon (Michael Rubin) has suggested bombing military industries deep in Russian territory… he wants a General European War before he will give up on the Ukraine Project.
This is the danger, neocons will destroy before they accept defeat.
And if a neocon can’t get “Regime Change”… their top goal… then destruction becomes their goal.
There is a nihilist tendency in neocons: suicide before defeat… it’s an attitude that leads to nuclear war.
“he wants a General European War ”
Life can be disappointing since, from at least 1914 it has never been restricted to a “European War”, although some “Generals” and even Mr. Wilson believed it was a “General European War” from which they could prosper facilitating “unexpected consequences” that remain until today, since attempts at divide and rule became divide and facilitate “constant war”, sometimes delicatley described as competition/contre-tempts/passing fancies/the spells of “evil doers”/not us we always mean well; that’s why we have god on our side.
The founder of the Wagner PMCs, Yevgeny Prigozhin, confirms the cleaning of Soledar
“Once again I want to confirm the complete liberation and cleansing of the territory of Soledar from the units of the Ukrainian army. Civilians were withdrawn, Ukrainian units that did not want to surrender were destroyed. Two hundred killed about 500 people. The whole city is littered with the corpses of Ukrainian servicemen. There can be no question of any humanitarian corridor. We are starting to clean up the mines,” the press service quotes Prigozhin’s words.
“Britain’s attempt to become the first European nation to launch satellites into space…”
Sweden launched its first satellite in 1986:
https://www.rymdstyrelsen.se/contentassets/2c83ee6d4551467f9448237444a59f4d/svenska_satellitregistret_2017_juni.pdf
The news story was not about Britain being the first European nation to launch a satellite into space, it was not. The news story was about Britain being the first European nation to launch a satellite into space from Europe.
The Viking satellite that you referred to was launched in 1986 on an Ariane rocket from the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou in French Guiana, South America.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/tiny-english-seaside-resort-counts-down-western-europes-first-satellite-launch-2023-01-09/
The news story was about whatever it is written in it, not about what it was supposed to be written. It is written in plain English, and starts with a blatant lie. It doesn’t matter much if those that wrote it are intentionally lying, or are just plain dumb. Why would you defend them anyway?
I have no idea what you mean by “Why would you defend them anyway?” Defend who, Reuters? I don’t read Reuters.
Out of curiosity I decided to read this article. This is a classic case of lazy, cut and paste journalism.
From one of the numerous articles I read:
“The mission had been hailed as not only the first satellite launch from the UK, but also the first from Western Europe. British Science Minister George Freeman prematurely claimed that the UK had won the race to be the first satellite launch nation in Europe…
The launch failure means that the race to be the first company to orbit a satellite from Western Europe is wide open again. Several vertical launch providers are vying to claim the title with potential launches from Norway, Scotland and Sweden in 2023.”
https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/commercial-space/virgin-orbit-launcherone-failure-caused-anomaly-second-stage
So what to make of articles that make claims like this:
“Britain’s attempt to become the first European nation to launch satellites into space”.
Are they intentionally lying? Are the authors incompetent ? I personally think that the authors are subject matter illiterate. When writing articles using the cut and paste method you should at a minimum possess a basic understanding of the subject. Cutting out a word or a phrase from a sentence can completely change its meaning.
Image of Wagner Cheka with Prigozhin standing inside the Soledar salt mine museum, near the western outskirts of Soledar:
https://s2.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/photo_2023-01-11_00-09-40.jpg
Game over.
Just went to feed the Sparrows.
Too late, storms a coming!
The mundane astrologer contemplates the whole stuff from high up, the eagle’s view.
“At the same time Russia a protecting a civilization of respect and
dignity worldwide, according to it’s own reality as the only civilization
which was never colonized and has never colonized in the western
style and whose original peoples live free. In the cold north,
pardoxical conserved, are coexisting soul and spirit of a peace, hard
won again and again, sovereign through a millenium, sovereignty –
prolofic for the entire planet – while the West is ongoingly inventing
‘moral wars’.
So sad, the ‘moral west’ is way down below
Who is sacrificed? Europe – the west of the east, say, the west-tip of Eurasia.
“Europe is America’s Lunch” says Andrei Martyanov .”
https://astromundanediary.blogspot.com/2023/01/ukraine-is-model-of-lost-middle-self.html
Larry & friends
On Poland; Polish procurement has been on a shopping spree, F35 & Abrams tanks got the attention, but also huge orders from South Korea. Training/light attack aircraft, tanks, APCs. It appears to be either complete re-equipment of the armed forces or expansion. For a huge price tag! Federal election coming too, leader of opposition is Donald Tusk, liberal eurocrat. A month ago, a Polish magazine published Pole casualties as 1k dead, 2.5k wounded.
Britain in WW1, was mostly broke in 1916. Brit could not manufacture the volume of ordnance required. Huge money was owed in New York. The fear that London would sign a bad treaty, & not repay was a factor in Washington’s decision to enter the war. It’s an interesting area of history; huge PR campaign from Washington for war, first use of US soldiers in europe & allegations that the money owed in New York was to Jewish bankers & price was the ‘Balfour Declaration’!
It is my opinion that Bakhmut is not only important as part of the defensive line, but that tunnels below it are probably used to safely store supplies, which would be the reason why it is protected at all cost, because if it is lost, there are no other really big safe positions anymore.
If you think it through – if there are secure tunnels in Bakhmut, all that UKR side would need to organize supply of troops in entire Donbas is to bring them to Bakhmut (by train, truck, pickup, whatever) assemble them in tunnels and from tunnels drive them to the fighting positions, which would overall allow them to supply their troops pretty much from the center of fighting, and greatly reduce supply lines as massive storage could be present there.
Also, it is quite possible that Bakhmut was being filled with supplies for previous 8 years if they have calculated that underground tunnels are safe enough
Ofcourse, I could be wrong, but it does make sense at least in my opinion
There is apperently 50,000 employees of Wagner PMC…. probably alot deployed in Africa and Syria….but there was speculation that there was 17 Ukrainian battalions allotted to Soledar…also apperently another U.S armoured shipment hit the Netherlands…240 MBT and IFV….SP howitzers and many wheeled vehicle…. with suddenly everyone on board with shipping MBT..I suspect this second defensive line is about to fall with a third being the last obstacle till the Western border and NATO is preparing intervene to save as much of their proxy as possible….these Western tank formations will be operated by Western crews….there is no time for training Ukrainian crew….I think the Tank Armies in the line will hit the last defensive line and penetrate deep and fast into Western Ukraine at least to the Dnieper. Unusual Russian naval movements today as well…. dispersion or deployment?
If your “Tank Armies” refer to Western/NATO forces making a dash to the Dnieper, we’re instantly catapulted into full-scale war. Perhaps more accurately, NATO would catapult itself into an existential disaster.
That’s the sort of scenario I originally thought Shoigu’s Command shuffle anticipated. There is certainly a danger of that, but its extraordinary rashness makes me think the West wouldn’t dare such a stunt.
Russia’s full activation of its air defence and aviation complex would mean that the West would be unable to establish air superiority. The “Tank Armies” would be driving to the Dnieper under fire from ground and air, and would remain under fire when they got there with little hope of decisive support from the air, or hope of meaningful re-supply.
Then there’s the possibility that (as I suspect) the grouping in Belarus has been “maskirovka’d” into appearing to be much smaller than it is. MacGregor says that the Russians have sent their top-line combat commanders to Belarus. Those two dots connect into a massed operation from the North, which would trap any “Tank Armies” on the plains of central Ukraine. Not a happy place to be without reliable air cover and re-supply.
The action would be based on the deluded assumption that the Russians would fold rather than expand the war, or pure delusion that the Russians really have run out of men and materiel and would be unable to respond adequately.
IMHO, that’s 2 delusions too far, even for the West. Russia knows too well what folding would mean, and I have to believe that there remain pockets of sobriety somewhere in the US’/NATO’s planning structures that would be waving red flags and ringing alarm bells.
What? I guess I should have been more specific…first there is no NATO tank Armies in the line …they are sitting in Romania Poland and Latvia and maybe Moldova or…..the Ukrainian attack on new Years eve was on the the Second Guards Tank Army so my contention is there are Russian tank Armies in the Russian line and once the third and final Ukrainian defensive line is breached .. these armies will penetrate West…at least to the Dnieper River
Fair enough.
The reason for my “mis-interpretation” is the prominent references you (rightly) made to the large quantities of armour entering the Euro theatre. One indeed wonders what that may mean.
The fact is that the US/EU/NATO has sat paralysed at its Go Big or Go Home moment for some months now. Arguably, since the SMO started. We’ve seen a lot of public hemmin’ ‘n hawin’ coming out of Washington, Brussels, London & Berlin, along with all manner of delusional tales being spun as it tries to figure out which way to go, but reality says that the Moment has actually long passed.
They’ve known for some time that they ain’t got nuthin’ to Go Big with. The political implications of Going Home being almost unimaginably damaging, but lacking any workable strategy, they’ve settled on hope. Namely, they’ll keep feeding Ukrainians into the Russian meat grinder in the vague hope that the grinder eventually chokes on them. If not on Ukrainians, then perhaps it’ll choke on Poles and/or Romanians. That it reaps dividends for the participants is what keeps the hope alive.
I further think that the Dnieper is no longer the demarcation line it may have been at the start of the SMO. With what’s happened over the last 6+ mos, I think the Russians have concluded that they’ll have to solve the Ukrainian problem once and for all, and that they’ll achieve that only by dissolving the Ukrainian state. They’re gonna roll the tape back to 1914-ish, and re-boot.
Wow, Neal Ferguson, although born a Scot is the consummate POM, despite living in the USA. Whoever has wasted their time reading Colossus or Civilization cannot miss the White Supremacist tone, This coming from the woke sector of society? I am at a loss.
Russian sources add there is no evidence that in planning the conversion of the special military operation to the general military operation, the Kremlin, the Stavka, and the General Staff are not taking this into account. What this means, said one source, is that the de-Nazification objective of February 24, 2022, is now practically impossible. “The DMZ is impossible for us because it will leave the Ukrainian nazis to keep rearming, exactly as Merkel and Hollande have said. This means there can be no demilitarized zone – there must be Ukrainian capitulation and surrender.”
http://johnhelmer.net/the-ukrainain-demilitarized-zone-negotiations-start-at-dead-end/
There was rampant drug use in the Ukrainian military before the SMO. Early in the SMO, there were regular reports of Ukrainian soldiers standing straight up from the foxholes during firefights, and being sent directly to Bandera. The reports placed the cause of that insanity on the drugs, which may have been the result of captagon.
Speaking of endgames, it seems Russia is juggling its lines in preparation for… well, something…
I was, frankly, a little shocked at this development. Mostly, because it suggested to me that Russia is anticipating the end of the SMO and a widening escalation of the war.
Russia has but 7 full Generals (called General of the Army). 2 of these are, in fact civilians, making it 5 “real” Generals of the Army at the top of the Command structure. To put 3 of them, including the Chief in control of a “limited military operation” seems paradoxical, even alarmist.
When one reads up on the Gerasimov Doctrine, one gets an inkling of the possible reasons behind Shoigu’s unexpected move.
“The doctrine calls for a 4:1 ratio of non-military to military action.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerasimov_doctrine
A couple of months ago, one of the Telegram channels I follow (I forget which) said that up to half of the 300k callups were in fact being re-trained as MPs, Military Police rather than brushing up on their front line combat skills. IOW, for law & order duties in already pacified areas. My reaction was “Huh???” at the time and I dismissed it as war fog, but it’s starting to make sense now.
The upshot is that if the Russian braintrust has calculated that the AFU has been brought to the verge of collapse, helping manage the aftermath will soon be the Allied Forces’ primary task.
After El Alamein Nov, 1942, Churchill famously said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
I suspect that Shoigu is echoing Churchill in anticipation of the fall of Bakhmut and with it the rest of the Eastern Front.
It’s no longer strictly true that “…Russia continues to provide the rockets and space craft that take U.S. astronauts (and others ) to and from the International Space Station.”
Since May 2020, Americans and others have been able to ride to orbit and dock with the ISS aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. The new spacecraft can carry four people in much greater comfort and style than Soyuz, which can carry only three squeezed in like sardines. About 26 astronauts have flown on CD to the ISS thus far plus another 4 on a civilian mission to higher orbit. SpaceX even has its own snazzy flight suits which are custom made for each astronaut.
Crew Dragon is reusable after some refurbishment which includes, I think, replacement of its heat shield. Also, it launches on the Falcon 9, the first stage of which can be used for more than a dozen launches. There have been only a few minor glitches (e.g. a malfunctioning toilet) with the system, and a Russian woman actually flew on a mission launched to the ISS in October 2022. Meanwhile, Russia has been having some problems with its equipment. For instance, a week or two ago a docked Soyuz sprung a leak in a collant system (?) and made a show of spraying liquid into space for a few days.
“It’s no longer strictly true that …”
He did not say that Russia is the only one providing transport (which it was for a while), but that it still continues doing so (which it does). Musk did joined in, but he did not replace Russians.
“… much greater comfort and style … squeezed in like sardines … snazzy flight suits … custom made …”
Is this a sales pitch or something? In other news, scientists have found that brand new SUV is more comfortable than Lada Niva, and more stylish too.
“Meanwhile, Russia has been having some problems with its equipment.”
As an engineer, I can confirm that all complex things have some problems all the time. Someone not having problems with equipment would be newsworthy item.
https://t.me/sonar_21
That Nial Ferguson was the guy who througgh mathematics simulation made the prospects on how deadly the Covid pandemic would be leading to the lockdowns and the ruin of most of Western eonomies.
I am seeing that he is also part of the War of Ukraine effort…waht should tell you something that both events are interconnected with the goal of submitting Europe.
BTW, he is one of the guys who goes to Davos, along Avril Haines, Samantha Powers, and an assort of RINOs and Democrats….
Significantly, from the list I have seen posted on TG , Russia and Turkey are absent, except for the leader of a Turkish opposition party….
From the UK, head of MI6 Moore and Keir Starmer…
It will be interesting to see what the Ru MoD does after the Soledar-Bakhmut/Artyomovsk area is secured.
Without a doubt, one of the most deadly weapon systems operating in the Ukie-naziland Theatre is the Uralvagonzavod TOS-1A and TOS-2 MLRS “Flamethrower”
Thermobarics are BRUTAL.
Interesting times ahead.