Let’s start with the obvious — Chef Prigozhin. Three days ago he was in full meltdown and vowed to take his boys and abandon the fight in Bakhmut to the Akhmat Battalion. Now, all things are swell, the Wagner Group continues to advance in Bakhmut, General Surovikin is watching over Prigozhin and Wagner continues to clobber Ukrainian positions with ample supplies of ammo. When it comes to temperamental Chefs, the irascible Gordon Ramsay, a British Celebrity Chef, is a piker compared to Prigozhin. I remain convinced that Prigozhin was doing a mega troll routine to distract the West from Russia’s true intentions.
In the aftermath of Prigozhin’s public rant, the Russian military has carried out three days of intense bombing, artillery and missile strikes on Ukrainian warehouses filled with Western military equipment and ammunition and on troop assembly areas. Russia is not giving Ukraine any breathing room to gather its forces for a long promised counter offensive.
At the start of the “Special Military Operation” more than a year ago, the Ukrainian Army outnumbered the Russians by a factor of three. Even with their advantage in numbers, the Ukrainian defenses failed to stop the numerically inferior Russian force and failed to expel the Russians from the Luhansk and Donetsk territories.
We now are being enticed to believe that Ukraine, with a numerically inferior force compared to Russia’s current troop deployment, is going to mount an offensive, despite a severe lack of tanks, armored vehicles, mobile artillery and air cover, that will drive the Russians from fortifications erected during the last six months.
Ukrainian officials persist in making wild claims about Russian defeats, low morale and catastrophic casualties. There is a very simple test you can do to evaluate the Ukrainian claim about Russia’s losses — find the social media and count the photos and videos. If Russia had suffered the number of killed and wounded cited by Ukrainian and Western officials and pundits, then it would be impossible to hide those photos and videos. Social media and smart phones are ubiquitous and grieving wives, girl friends, parents and friends are not easy to corral.
Images and videos like the following are widely available on Ukrainian Telegram channels. The opposite is true when it comes to finding comparable material on Russian channels. There are a few photos of newly dug graves in a Russian military cemetery, but nothing like the quantity of images recording Ukraine losses.
When the history of this Special Military Operation/War is written, the first week of May 2023 will mark a watershed moment when Russia massively employed its fixed wing air capability in launching bombing raids on Ukrainian positions throughout Ukraine. But we are still not getting a comprehensive report or assessment from either side about the success (or failure) of these glide bombs.
The Russian Ministry of Defense is the only one providing a “detailed” daily brief on military operations carried out during the preceding 24 hours. But even these briefings are deceptive. They rarely provide any details on the particular Russian forces carrying out those operations. If you were asked to write a summary report on Russian military activity during the past year the material you could quote paints a picture that portrays the bulk of the fighting being done by the Chechens and the Wagner Group. The Russian General staff’s picture of the overall battlefield is deliberately opaque; not because they are losing but because they are playing their cards close to their vest. The Russians continue to employ Maskirovka, but have adapted it to the world of comprehensive ISR.
If you watch RT television you would hardly know there is a war going on. Reports from the front lines are scarce. When RT correspondents do file stories they generally are designed to promote a particular narrative. If you compare the coverage of the battle for Mariupol in May 2022 with the battle of Bakhmut, the reporting on Mariupol was quite extensive in comparison to the news out of Bakhmut. It is only in the last couple of weeks that reports from inside Bakhmut have ticked up. I think that it one of the most telling indicators that the battle is in the end stage for Ukraine.
One final note on the report that Russia destroyed a NATO command center in March:
Several Twitter and Telegram posts, totaling hundreds of thousands of views in late March 2023, purported that a NATO HQ in Ukraine was destroyed, with “up to 300 people” killed in the strike.
“A terrifying strike of the Russian supersonic missile ‘Dagger’ at a depth of 130 meters on the NATO command center in Ukraine!”: Greek Pronews writes about the huge losses among NATO officers as a result of the missile attack,” one post read:
“A terrifying strike of the Russian supersonic missile “Dagger” at a depth of 130 meters on the NATO command center in Ukraine!”: Greek Pronews writes about the huge losses among NATO officers as a result of the missile attack.
Mark this down as an important development — Newsweek finally got something right. There is no way that the West could hide the deaths of dozens of NATO senior officers. Once again, apply the social media test. I have seen zero evidence of grieving widows, parents and friends mourning dead NATO Generals, Colonels or Majors via posts on social media channels. Not one. I have checked with friends who still have access to intelligence information and they have seen no reports on such casualties from that one strike.
As I write this it is 5:30 am in Moscow and Kiev on May 9. There are no reports corroborating stepped up Ukrainian attacks. However, the Russian bombs and missile strikes continue to fall on Ukrainian positions. That is the reality hampering Ukraine’s ability to mount its counter offensive.
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern today on Judge Nap’s show seems convinced that there was indeed a strike in western Ukraine on a NATO bunker…
I think that both Ray McGovern and Larry are correct. There was a strike in Western Ukraine on a bunker, which may have been intended as a sanctuary for high ranking officers at one time. Were there high ranking NATO officers there? Not likely, as Larry suggests. Was the bunker destroyed by the missile. Probably. I write about this in my recent article on Substack, where I also quote Larry on the Kremlin drone attacks.
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/counteroffensive-kremlin-drone-attack
I wrote: “The Russians sent a message when they used Kinzhal hypersonic weapons against a NATO bunker in Ukraine. People argue about how many NATO people died, if any — that’s not the point: the bunker was supposed to protect against atomic weapons!” I should have written it was “reportedly” supposed to protect against atomic weapons — because there are is not a lot of hard evidence. We just know that a Kinzhal was used to hit a bunker deep under ground. That’s the message. “You can run but you can’t hide”.
As for Prigozhin, Aleks at Black Mountain has an excellent article on him here:
https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/opinion-piece
Ray McGovern is correct. So is Larry. There was a strike in Western Ukraine on a underground bunker intended as a bomb shelter, reportedly against atomic weapons. But it is unlikely that it was full of ranking NATO officers! That is not really the point. As I write here in article on the CounterOffensive and Kremlin drone attack (quoting Larry extensively):
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/counteroffensive-kremlin-drone-attack
“The Russians sent a message when they used Kinzhal hypersonic weapons against a NATO bunker in Ukraine. People argue about how many NATO people died, if any — that’s not the point: the bunker was supposed to protect against atomic weapons!’
As for Prigozhin, Aleks at Black Mountain has a good piece on him.
https://bmanalysis.substack.com/p/opinion-piece
Correct! And it wasn’t the Russian MOD that spoke of more NATO Generals in a bunker in a theater of operations than there exist in all the armies of Europe! Like 3 days to conquer Kiev. All counterinformation from the US to discredit the Russian MOD!
the mere fact that there are no reports on social media from the grieving widows of high-ranking NATO officers in no way proves that no NATO officers were killed in a russian kinzhal strike: in fact, the idea that NATO officers clandestinely operating in ukraine would entertain a social media presence is fairly preposterous in and of itself.
Maybe there was a strike on a bunker, but not a 130 meter deep one. That’s 426 feet deep. I don’t even think a nuke would destroy a properly built bunker that’s 426 feet underground.
how about two kinzhals dropping on the same spot, one after the other…
You are missing the revolutionary aspect of hypersonic missiles. Momentum.
Andrei Martyanov commented a few weeks ago that he’d heard it was successive strikes by multiple missiles. It might be possible that way.
This would be classic counterintelligence spin. Let’s say 20-30 NATO personnel were killed in a bunker 13 feet deep. Cannot deny an attack happened, so use all media to promote the story than 200-300 NATO officers were killed in a 130 foot deep bunker. Then the entire story is dismissed as impossible.
Have no idea whether the story’s true or not.
However, a heavy gravity bomb can penetrate 200 ft of concrete then explode, so maybe someone in the know can speculate on what a lighter kinzhal at a much higher impact speed could achieve in soil, rock & concrete.
A diagram from the original proposal for the Massive Ordnance Penetrator from 2004. The GBU-57A/B will penetrate 200 ft (61 m) of 5,000 psi (34 MPa) reinforced concrete, 26 ft of 10,000 psi (69 MPa) reinforced concrete or 130 ft (40 m) of moderately hard rock
The MOP is deployed from high altitude and allows gravity to add momentum to its 30,000 pound weight so that it hits with enormous kinetic energy.
The bulk of the reinforcement in a bunker is on the dome. If you pass through it, the rest is relatively weaker.
I would suspect that a large Missile, loaded with a Tungsten-Carbide (Tool Steel, and Expensive) Solid Shot, hitting at 10+Mach, would very easily penetrate 200 Meters or more of Rock. Any Explosive Device, especially one as Delicate as a Nuclear Weapon, cannot withstand Ground Impact, and so has to be Fired (Fused) to Detonate as close as possible to the Surface- with the possibility of Hitting the Ground and Failing to Fire.
As to speculation about “NATO Officers” being in any particular Location, and getting Killed, every effort would (and is) being made to “Classify” and Cover Up these incidents. What if every Family Member of those (supposedly) Dead Officers was handed $10 Million in Cash, and told to Sign the NDA, or be immediately taken to Gitmo? Not beyond the possibility for “Clownworld”.
Touche!
Here’s a thought. The bunker in which the alleged attack took place was supposedly located in Lvov, on Ukrainian territory. That makes it a legitimate target for any Russian attack, and a very juicy one at that.
The Polish border is 65km away which means that if the bunker was located only a short distance west it would be on NATO territory and therefore as safe and protected as if it was in Brussels or Washington DC, if in fact the “officers” even needed to go underground to do their job.
Why would NATO fill a bunker in Ukraine with high-level officers when they could safely operate out in the open only a short distance away, and when those officers came off duty they would have access to some of the finest Polish whores, booze and food? Only saying.
I thought that story had hair on it from the first time I read about, with no disrespect to the very well-informed commentators who have vouched for it, and nothing I’ve seen since has changed my mind.
By that reasoning why did NATO open bases in Ukraine to train Ukrainian troops in the same region? NATO Could also train them in Poland! But Ukraine is a sovereign state and its officials and its troops operate in Ukraine! And the biggest proof that it is true is that the news never leaked from the Russian MOD like other attacks on NATO officials in Odessa where the British have the aquatic drone program! On the Russian side, it was just a sign that NATO is not safe anywhere on the territory of Ukraine! And the US, afraid that the Russian MOD would publicize the attack, set up a counterintelligence operation to deny it. Then Putin was sentenced by the ICC and flights with strategic bombers began in the Baltic. Because they got fucked!
I agree, it doesn’t make sense to risk dozens of NATO officers’ lives by puting them in a Ukrainian bunker just 65km away from the Polish border.
What you wrote, including the part about whores, food, and safety for NATO officers on the Polish-side of the border, is exactly what Jacob Dreizen said on his blog site two or three weeks ago.
Jacob who? Sorry, but I must have missed the memo. It’s a comment I’ve used before when I wrote on Telegram about the NATO military only being interested in “whores, food and booze” rather than fighting a real war.
“What you wrote, including the part about whores, food, and safety for NATO officers on the Polish-side of the border, is exactly what Jacob Dreizen said on his blog site two or three weeks ago.”
That part has become a common thing for modern wars a while ago. If you first read it two or three weeks ago, then you have a lot of catching up to do.
Larry is probably right about the absence from the social media of massive crowds of family members mourning for those supposedly lost high ranking officers. But what if they were not all of them Americans? US media might find it difficult to hide the loss of 10 active US generals or colonels, but how about the loss of 10 high ranking NATO officers from all over Europe who had retired recently in order to join the war effort in Ukraine as private contractors? Like one Spaniard, one French, one Pole, one Greek and so on… And signed fat contracts of no disclosure with their families in case of death?
With regards to the bunker hit, it could be successful if successive hits were made by a series of high precision missiles targeting that structure.
Not saying that I know if it happened or not, but you can always delay news, or even spread them over some time.
For example, if those officers were there secretly, they may have been there for months with infrequent calls home. If that is the case, you could simply keep quiet about it and if family asks, you can say that they are in some top secret location without access, then you could just say to one family at a time that they are missing or dead and that way spread out the loss.
For top secret stuff you could even chose people without family or with estranged families in order to minimize exposure.
Simply said, when conflict is this important as this one is, nothing can really be counted out, especially when you control all types of media as thouroughly as they are controlled.
However, regarding this particular case, it doesn’t make sense for me to even have NATO bunker inside UKR, when you could easily house thousands of officers in Poland (if location is important) and just bring information to them, where they are 100% safe in a simple building.
perhaps the paranoid soviets built such a bunker and the Poles never did. To build a bunker at that depth would be expensive (someone has to pay for it) and time consuming (contracting would take years), and probably outside Polish or NATo capabilities to pull off in less than five or six or ten years – NATO has shown it can’t do anything quick – too much bureaucracy.
And they thought it 100% safe!
It, reportedly, was not a NATO bunker but a Ukrainian communications centre with mixed Ukrainian/NATO staffing. I have even heard that it was not around Lvov but outside of Kiev!
If it happened at all, I think @julianmacfarlane nails it. AN unused oe lightly staffed comms centre/bunker used as an object lesson.
That makes sense. Similar facilities existed in Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union must have built some.
Agreed on all counts. My first pick for Prigozhin was trolling. I also think that he may be a bit nuts, but whatever, that is secondary to the story.
The sad thing (for demented Joe and the cocaine midget) is that Russia is just getting started. In other words, the game of cat and mouse is ramping up to the cat starting to seriously mess with the mouse.
Meanwhile, we are descending into Soviet Union 2.0 – the Ministry of Truth has been restarted in USA and this time even promoting narratives will land you in trouble (https://www.rt.com/news/575936-us-foreign-disinformation-intelligence-redundant/). And the Oscars now have rules about what constitutes a movie that is “allowed” to be in the run (must have actors from “under-represented groups” :). You can’t make this sh*t up (https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/08/entertainment/richard-dreyfuss-diversity/index.html)
Starting to remind me of Ayn Rand and her long, 1000 page book, as difficult it was to read, now seems a prophecy.
But yeah…. banks are OK, economy is improving, we are all in good hands. Move on, nothing to see.
Sad but true on the “Soviet Union 2.0” front. We get nothing but propaganda. Vanguard and Blackrock, two WEF/Davos darlings, buy more of Fox than Murdoch owns, and presto – Tucker Carlson gone. I think that’s the starkest example of how far these guys are willing to go to push their narratives on us. Meanwhile, Facebook, who censored factual information re COVID, is now censoring factual information on Antarctica that doesn’t fit the climate narrative. It’s everywhere in social media and MSM.
Thank God for sites like this one. And for critical thinkers such as are found here.
Do we make a difference, though? Big chunks of the population act like Trump personally led an armed insurrection, or that Biden was following Trump’s Afghanistan pullout to the letter. The virtue signal as their own friends and family are victimized. America has a broken, brainwashed and mongrelized population. I see no way back to sanity.
“Agreed on all counts. My first pick for Prigozhin was trolling. I also think that he may be a bit nuts, but whatever, that is secondary to the story.”
My thoughts are that the “Chef ” is a very passionate man. He loves his men.
If he thought that he was losing his assets due to bureaucratic incompetence, he might very well lose his mind temporarily.
Maskirovka, what a good word to describe my new understanding of things Russian.
Ron Unz yesterday took apart the “NATO bunker attack” myth in detail on his site. I still wonder what made Pepe Escobar embrace the hoax with alacrity. It didn’t do much for his credibility.
It always had the ring of propaganda. The Russians don’t seem to direct too much of it at western audiences because when propaganda is found to be false it hurts credibility. Pepe lets his emotions run his mind so he doesn’t worry about such things.
That may be so but nobody, regardless of how historically accurate and reliable they might have been gets it right all the time. Perhaps Pepe was relying on some source he had developed big trust in and hence relied on that.
Generally Pepe is pretty good in his reporting.
What do we know?It was reported that Russia launched 6 Kihnzals in one night.Where did these missiles land?This is not a weapon you can hide very well.I have not heard anything about massive damage to anything.Call the Police,Iwant to report 6 missing Khinzals.Conspicuos by their abscence.
I read halfway thru Unz’s article re The Bunker Attack and when he referenced Snopes I stopped and closed the page.
Agree. Ron is also denying any major covid jabs side effects… Nato officials ‘no comment’ reply to this matter speak volumes to me
💯
With all due respect to Ronald Unz, he’s a businessman and writer. When it comes to actual warfare, I’ll put as much credibility to his analysis as I would in Tom Clancy’s novels as manuals how to conduct a military engagement or a covert op.
We’ll probably never know what was destroyed within that bunker; the miltary commands on both sides seems to keep closed lips on the subject (albeit for different reasons, I reckon).
💯
As Ron Unz mentioned in his article, if a person wants, with all their heart, for a piece of information to be true they’re much more likely to fall for a lie. Pepe Escobar, along with millions of others, wanted that NATO-bunker-attack rumor to be true, this clouded their judgment, and they fell for it.
His credibility no longer exists after he shilled for the obviously stolen election in Brazil.
While we’re at it, Tucker Carlson same way. And Carlson shilled for the fake pandemic too.
Meant to say “this time even saying what you think can be construed as promoting narratives” – whatever that means.
Священная война (Концерт “Песни военных лет”). Поёт Елена Ваенга.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y4_2Qa0QQs
You have to kill all of them…
As Gonzala Lira would say: “Understand what is going on”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-house-warns-default-entirely-avoidable-economic-catastrophe
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-05-08/unprecedented-chart-one-month-treasury-rates-causes-concern-among-investors
The United State is entering govt economic default. They print, we get inflation. They don’t print..the banks collapse
Russia knows..as does China…the Islamic states. Everybody knows, except those that get their info from corporate state controlled media.
That’s for sure Mark J
People really need to pay attention to what is happening in the financial world and what China and Russia especially are up to in this space.
All the big hot wars have their roots in the economic/financial wars that precede them.
Massive monumental changes are about to take place in the next few years which seems very likely to strip the middle classes in the Anglo-American-EU nations of their wealth.
Please view this 18min presentation by Vince Lanci
his brief bio: https://www.kitco.com/ind/vincelanci/bio.html
This might be amongst the most important breaking news of recent times and marks the road ahead. Take careful note of the role that Jamie Dimon / J P Morgan seems to be playing.
Vince Lanci: At 3 AM, China Just Made Gold Money Again
18min YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so2nqcbAakc&ab_channel=ArcadiaEconomics
Completely agree. Too bad the Neocons can no longer force India, SA, Brazil and others to prop up the US dollar which would allow for more printing at home without any problems. In fact they will have to increase interest rates even higher in near future which would practically kill all business activities in US and EU. Now if people start to pull their cash out of thousands of small-mid size banks then it is officially the End of the Empire of Lies..
India till 15-20 years back wasn’t much of an exporter. In fact exports constituted less than 15% of it’s GDP.
Only of late India has moved up the export ladder slightly. Still India accounts to less than 3% of world trade .
What India is good at is food security. It imports 85% of it’s Oil and consumes very little Gas compared to most countries.
Earlier most of its oil imports were from Middle East. Now Russia has climbed in the import order.
India does have a massive 600 billion foreign currency reserve mostly in dollars. Nearly Half of it is from software exports to US and Europe.
Yes exactly. Just like other countries that have accumulated massive amounts of US$ foreign currency, India too is waiting to see if they need move faster toward the New Eurasian World Order, of course once NATO is handed its ass in Ukraine. But for sure India won’t gang up with AUKUS against Russia-China-Iran-SA alliance to just make sure its foreign currency reserves keep their value. In fact when the New OPEC+ led by Russia and regional countries begin seriously selling energy in other currencies, New Delhi will – without hesitation – jump on board playing its own important part in the security of the Indian Ocean-Persian Gulf-Red Sea region. The US has some leverage vis a vis dollar-affiliated 5-6th columnists and elites inside India’s software/computer… sector, Kamala Harris, Rishi Sunak etc.. But due to a large population, history, geography and other considerations the deep estate of the Mahatma Gandhi Party in India will definitely join the Eurasian integration system.
Yes MASR India right now is metaphorically speaking like one of the great old steam engines just leaving the station, slowly but steadily building up a head of steam and will in a few years (sooner than most realize) be charging along at exponential growth speed – just as China burst out of the gates in the early 2000s but perhaps with even greater depth and growth velocity. Trade between India and China and Russia will dramatically support their mutually aligned development and combined growing economic strengths.
India is vastly underestimated in terms of future potential and does not have the demographic problems of China and many other nations, including Russia to a lesser extent.
Indian people are also huge holders of gold and silver. The rich Indians horde the gold and the poorer (but getting wealthier) Indian farmers hold silver – they hold so much gold and silver in private possession nobody really knows how much. In the poor harvest seasons when crop yields are poor those Indian farmers sell their silver to pay the bills and put food on the table. They sell so much silver in the poor seasons it affects spot prices downward noticeably and they have the reverse effect driving prices higher in the good seasons when there is high crop yields and productivity across the land.
Catherine Austin Fitts is very positive about India future prospects. I am sure many readers will know about Fitts. She was Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in America during George Bush Snr government. Fitts discovered and exposed the missing tens of trillions of dollars that have been stolen from US taxpayers by the Deep State gangsters.
Here is Fitts comprehensive biography to confirm her bona fides:
Refer: https://profilesinfo.com/catherine-austin-fitts-wiki-networth-age/
And following link is to Fitts website about the missing trillions for those who might be unaware of the grand larceny and stealth theft of the trillions:
Refer: https://missingmoney.solari.com/
So coming back to India:
In recent interview in YouTube when the host asked Fitts what she thinks is the best country long term investment she replied that if she were traveling out into space and was unable to return to earth for twenty years that she would invest her money in India – she maintains that in that time India is likely to have become the number one economy in the world surpassing China (that is assuming the Anglo-American gangsters haven’t nuked the human species to oblivion).
India has extremely competent and intelligent diplomatic depth and is very adroitly positioning itself as a balancing power-broker through its growing partnership with Russia and the BRICS – with Russia successfully assisting in relationship development between India and China as they are slowly managing to put their differences aside so they can pursue the much more beneficial BRICS multipolar shared-power world which will see the Western fools squabbling amongst themselves and shafting each other in the back seat.
What a voice. And the clenched but controlled fists.
I have lived in Russia. Looking around the audience gives you an idea of what true resolve looks like. I’ve seen it first hand.
Holy War
(Concert “Songs of the War Years”). Elena Vaenga sings.
While the west evolves towards greater immorality… RU still embraces Orthodox Christianity as the “state religion” Sure…lots of mafia….lots of poverty… there are sectors that don’t agree with the state…like every place else. Still… the history of the land… pulls them all together.
Part of it..the Russia experience..is the border lands are flat. Perfect for chariots, or… tanks. Others that don’t get along, such as India and China…have a huge topographical fence… huge mountain ranges that separate the competing cultures.
They’re not going any where. Attempts to break up Russia…will be met with a dead man’s switch on every piece of nuclear weaponry they have. If there is no Russia, there is no other life on earth.
Any other thought process…. “NATO”…. is lunacy. Just a bunch of crooks any more… NATO has experienced a coup…. another discussion for another time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtvsn9_y9S8
Ойся ты ойся (Dancе with swords)
Excellent analysis as always from Larry. He was spot-on again with Prigozhin acting out Bolshoi Theater performance before the battle to augment Wagner’s position and distract the UKR army. What are we to think of the Kinzhal attack on the bunker? I am pretty much convinced there was a bunker there, but who was there in general, and approximately how many died, mostly Ukrainian generals?
This analysis gives fairly convincing evidence that the “Nato officers killed” story is fake:
https://www.unz.com/runz/did-a-russian-missile-strike-kill-200-nato-officers-in-a-ukrainian-bunker/
Said to be a glide bomb attack on May 4th.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/JUTSR6sBs9jj/
The Russians could take Kiev and the entire county. It is quite questionable if the half the American electorate would see that as anything other than a triumph for the USA. Anderson Cooper would tell than that. The White House. Austin, Milley would say that . The greatest American triumph since WW2.
I think you are onto something there: the Ukrainians launch some kind off offensive like the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, which gets militarily defeated but produces huge headlines for the Western media. Then, when it sputters, Biden calls Putin to sue for peace.
But the Western media reports that Putin called Biden after a very successful Ukrainian offensive. And as most Americans don’t know where Ukraine is on a map, they announce that Russia has agreed to relinquish all claims to land West of the Dnieper, and that West agrees to cede Crimea and Odessa to Russia in exchange for its pledge to stay East of the Dnieper. Furthermore, the West agrees to a neutral Ukraine in exchange for Russia formally recognizing that Sweden & Finland are officially members of NATO. The American public is so uninformed that it will think all of the above is a victory and agree to July 5th being celebrated as “Ukrainian Victory Day”.
Hi Larry, long time I did not post. Thanks for your daily updates.May I propose you this VERY interesting video?
An Ex-Intelligence Analyst’s View on Ukraine
0:00 – Intro
3:06 – Lee’s background
3:30 – War in Ukraine and possible outcomes
10:20 – History leading up to current war
15:00 – Derussification
18:00 – Comparing Ukranian and Russian military
25:30 – Western intervention
32:30 – War’s role in economic crisis and US election
38:30 – Afghanistan
43:30 – If we fight Russia and lose
49:25 – US and EU need to solve their own problems
57:55 – How do we get back on the right track
1:05:45 – Taiwan
1:20:20 – Realistic evaluation
1:26:30 – Wrapping up, plugs
https://youtu.be/Rkkg6MWjqQs
The Kinzhal attack on the bunker reminds me of the old Radio Erevan jokes that used to circulate in the Soviet Union, like:
“Radio Erevan: A listener asks us if it is true that composer Shostakovich bought a Zil car?
Yes it is true, except that it was not a car, it was a motorcycle and he didn’t buy it, he parked in the street and it was stolen.
So, yes, there was an attack but not on a bunker, on a munitions depot, and no US generals were killed there, only a few Ukrainians and some Latvian volunteers
Great comment Larry
There is much more to Prigozhin’s performance than those who dismiss it as him having lost it and had a meltdown
Andrew Korybko presents interesting perspective
It Appears That Putin At Least Partially Agreed With Prigozhin’s Plea For Help
https://korybko.substack.com/p/it-appears-that-putin-at-least-partially
The NATO bunker is a myth? What’s next, a Patriot didn’t actually shoot down a Kinzhal? /snark
Ukro Air force official denied ANY missile shot down
Given the ubiquity of ‘social media’ amongst a significant proportion of Western populations, esp. those under 40, with its almost total reliance of visual – as distinct from verbal – depictions, it is beyond belief that the pics from the ‘war’, even or particularly in the MSM, show nothing of the sort.
The only moving pics are so obviously constructed like an ad for any product and the stills are often ‘out of time’ green trees in midwinter, bare limbs in high summer, intact buildings visible in the background, complete with windows to illustrate yet another ‘vicious Russian attack on civilians’.
It’s not uncommon to see weeds amongst the rubble and other indications of deceptive depictions.
Why can’t those supposedly visually literate (sic!) SEE that what they are being fed is unreliable at best?
One of the points of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 was not that people were unable to read but that they chose not to do so, much preferring the White Clown on their wall screens each evening, amusing themselves to death. (Nod to the prescient Neil Postman RIP.)
We know that the ability of people to absorb information is entirely independent of their understanding it, else most politicians would be laughed off the public purse.
James, I believe that the majority of the people are busy to bring food on the table! By doing that they provide the basis for still functioning society, however bad it might look. Only if that is threatened, people start to revolt.
The economic needs are driving our lives!
True that the majority of the people are busy to bring food on the table, however they have the weekends and evenings to search for the truth in this world.
But they don’t look. They plonk their lazy obese bodies on the couch and watch the “news” to stay “informed”, then for further brainwashing watch a made in USA shit movie. Their minds are lazy too.
Next day at work everyone is talking about the same events, totally parroting the govt. narrative, which further reinforces their misguided belief that they know the truth.
Revolution is rarely more than 3 missed meals away – how many in the West have ever known true hunger in the last half century?
The MiG-31 is a case of engineering ingenuity where an aircraft is successfully tweaked and repurposed to a new role. It started as the MiG-25, a Mach 3+ interceptor designed to defend against the B-70. The B-70 never went into service, and the MiG-25 needed to have the engines overhauled after every sustained Mach 3 flight, so the MiG seemed to be redundant. However it was still a powerful and fast aircraft so it was improved into the MiG-31 and given a new mission as a supersonic carrier that extends the range of large hypersonic missiles.
The Mig 31 is still a faster interceptor than any western fighter currently in service. Bomber or strategic fighter! And the MiG-31BM will be around until 2030 with new weapons, now it even carries hypersonic missiles and a longer range radar that automatically tracks 24 targets and can simultaneously engage eight. I think.
An interceptor with an updated fuselage, more wing payload, more raft range and thrust area. The deadliest jet in Ukraine! At age 50 and the US fails to modernize 40-year-old fighters. Because the structure no longer allows it. Which is what I most admire in Russia. Build quality that stands the test of time.
The Foxbat was typical Soviet arrogance. Or Maskirovka as Larry says!
About Prigozhin’s last Maskirovka, please Larry! Prigozhin actually trolled Zelensky a lot about the meat grinder operation in Bakhmut until May. But when he start calling Kadyrov’s father a traitor and corrupt because Russia didn’t win the conflict in Chechnya(?!). Or the conflict in Syria, when in reality prevented the fall of an ally like Asad and stopped the Islamic terrorism that Russia always sees as a big threat. Or even worse, repeating sound bites from the ukie propaganda, about Russia having fled from Kherson (!?) a more than announced bridgehead retreat – is not a Maskirovka!!! Ultimately, it’s treason! And this time when the ukies came right away to say that Wagner was not going to abandon Bakhmut, they probably even hit the target. Prigozhin, for pure personal promotion, turned the meat grinder operation in the last few days into an operation to conquer Bakmut until the 9th and fell into the trap that NATO had always prepared to kill Russians in the great fortresses in the defense rings!
Out of pure personal ambition, he defamed the MOD and Russia itself like another narcissist such Strelkov and spoiling everything he had done so far! And when he realized that he could not conquer Bakhmut until the 9th, as Alexander Khodakovsky says, he began to demand the best of both worlds. From a small and agile organization like the PMC and from an organization the size of the MOD! And for some reason the Kremlin at this stage preferred to lower the profile. Perhaps because of the proximity of the day of victory and Prigozhin’s popularity, but Prigozhin’s unforgivable behavior does not end there! I heard a good discussion on the topic on Gaggle with DimitrI Babich who also sees Strelkov’s twilight in Prigozhin! Flags are not carried for meat grinder operations! And it seems that many times we forget the difficulty of an operation like SMO which is not a total war where collateral damage with civilians is much more accepted. Especially in eastern Ukraine, with the mostly Russian population!
And if I were asked to write a summary report on Russian military activity during the past year, I would write mainly about the DPR and LPR militias – proportionally with more casualties – and especially about Russian artillery. As is normal in a war of attrition! Artillery, gunners and drones were undoubtedly the main protagonists of last year! In Peski, Popasna, Sverodontesk, Lisychansk, etc. And I also agree that the Ukrainian offensive today doesn’t stand a chance when we’ve already started to see the power of the Russian air force!
Finally, about the retaliatory attack, yet another terrorist operation, of the supersonic missile ‘Dagger’ in a bunker with NATO officials in western Ukraine, if it were not true, it would not reach Dr. Gilbert! Perhaps there are still no widows because they still haven’t recover the bodies from the wreckage at a depth of 130 meters.
Andrei Martyanov described it best the other day on his YT channel. He was terse and to the point with the figure of Prigozhin. According to him, Prigozhin is just a figure-head, a person without any military background to stand on and as such, can not be the “military” commander of such an important Russian state-controlled military organization, which in Martyanov’s words, is the best urban combat fighting group in the world. Scott Ritter had praised Wagner’s urban warfare combat skills and preparation months before to the same tune. To Martyanov’s understanding, the true military head of PMC Wagner is its recently appointed Deputy Commander, Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev.
I also understood General Mizintzev was the MOD’s or Kremlin’s first response to Primadonna Prigozhin’s outburst of rage. Maybe tactical damage control! And Surovikin the second answer, perhaps more political!
Bunker think is probably true – presence of so many natostan generals not…
Russia is turning things upside down (winning on offensive with 1/3 less people, 1/10 kill ratio without even employing more than 20% war capability), Maskirovka continuous to work even in 21 century isr chatgp4 enviroment :)…
I was reading UNZ – just remember how he “debunked” all anti injection cough people also…one year after his statements, the result of the gene therapy is everywhere…youth people falling .
Pepe profile is economics – he cited his source as euroleming parlament one…
Reality is – printing press is booming, but less and lesser are buying the production, private musical army + help from Russian army overcame the whole natostan…Germany and Co has 1-3weeks amonition if real conflict comes…also 40-50% of flying luftwaffe…gas is over, so will many commodities – what is the future of Europe?
Unz is, and always has been, a charlatan. And since 2020 a complete covidiot and tragic vaxtard.
He’ll likely stroke out soon with all the other Kool Aid drinkers.
I’ve watched maybe 100 videos from China recently. Most of the videos have been made by Western bloggers on the spot for Youtube. No matter what criticism one may have of the Chinese system, the future already exists in China! Most Chinese are content with their lives and patriots. In contrast, Western countries are developing countries. I don’t usually bet. But we can bet on which areas China and Russia will be technology leaders tomorrow. The West is less and less capable of succeeding in peaceful competition. On the contrary. Look at the videos from China. Compare the reality on the ground with the reality at home. New Yorkers and Berliners should compare the Chinese metro infrastructure with that in their own city. Germans and US-Americans can compare the railroad infrastructure with the one in China. LOL Some time ago I chatted with a Chinese woman in Inner Mongolia. She told me that she often goes to Beijing by train. I said, “Wow, quite far.”. She dryly replied, “No problem. It only takes two hours.”. Oh my gosh. Oh, I see, the trains go 300 to 600 km/h. Wink.
The West will destroy itself through this war. The alternative for the benefit of all people would be cooperation in economy, trade, sciences, culture and tourism. I often read in Russian sources about the end of the old era. This does not mean governments, but systemic. The “club of 0.1%” is not capable of learning. Politicians are only their puppets.
Are dead generals buried in Arlington?
If so a check on who was buried lately would give a clue.
Here Simplicus76 speculates on kinzha attack he may have some valid points.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/paid-subscriber-weekly-mailbag-answers answer no 2
We know that Kinzhals would only be used for very specific purposes that normal cruise missiles can’t accomplish.
Keep in mind, Russian cruise missiles are arguably the most advanced in the world (Kalibr and Kh-101), and there is almost nothing they can’t hit or destroy.
So ask yourself, why would Kinzhals be used instead?
There are only two reasons: either to hit a fortified underground bunker, which a hypersonic missile with massive kinetic energy could penetrate much better than standard missiles.
OR: to hit a very ‘time-sensitive’ target, a target that has very high surveillance and early warning capabilities which allows them to ‘scram’ at the first hint of impending attack.
Hypersonic missiles, which could take under a minute to go from Russian territory to Western Ukraine would do the trick here.
Both of these point to some type of high value leadership asset.
Interesting that he reports that Ukr confirmed 6 Kinzhals being fired. That’s the same # that Martyanov reported a while back. That’s a lot.
“If you watch RT television you would hardly know there is a war going on. Reports from the front lines are scarce. When RT correspondents do file stories they generally are designed to promote a particular narrative. ”
If you read war correspondent Aleksander Kots’ articles in Komsomolskaya Pravda, which appear almost daily, you’ll get an idea of whats happening at the front.
The unbiased Wikipedia labels Kots as a propagandist.
Wikipedia tells us that the Skripals are living in New Zealand under assumed names.
Larry I don’t know. All the info about the alleged bunker strike has become so blurred… Conspicuously blurred, I think. As if someone was trying to forcefully label it as Russian propaganda, “and that’s all I have to say about that”, if you know what I mean. But well, what do I know?
On one thing I disagree with your reasoning: You can’t control the social media of 20, 30, 50 thousand grieving families, that’s true. But you can control the social media of the families an inner circle of 100 middle to big NATO fishes, specially if they died in a war operation. The families would understand and swallow their pain.
So, I don’t see that argument applying for the non-strike onto the phantom bunker. And that’s all I have to say about that.
By the way, terrific work you do there, always a pleasure to read your posts.
https://off-guardian.org/2023/05/08/39-questions-about-the-war-in-ukraine/ Mr Larry could address this long 39 points analysis of the Russian SMO by a Russian thanks much for you daily analysis
Strelkov is right about some of those things. All militaries are to some degree incompetent and corrupt; it’s a facet of large bureaucracies. Russia isn’t an exception. Things like not paying attention to drones was a class I fuckup. And mistakes were made, because not only do mistakes get made but the enemy gets a vote.
But Strelkov, including in his valid accusations against segments of the Russian state, is demanding a sort of perfection that no government or nation is capable of. And he defines that perfection by what he wants and he would do. Yet he’s not willing to go back to the front and joint Wagner when invited.
He feels personally betrayed because he was an original protagonist. In the immediate time of then he’s right about how things could have turned out. In the grand scheme of things including Russia’s relations with the rest of the world and it’s economic sufficiency, he’s assuming that what we see know is what we would have seen then. But the sanctions might have worked then.
Some of those criticisms like the $300B are unfounded, given how little of it can be found to actually seize. Some of them like his call for total war assume that all Russians believe the same way he does and would be happy with total mobilization. Again, he got an offer to return to the front and declined so he might not be for total mobilization if it includes him fighting.
His valid points lack some context. And some are internally inconsistent. True, much of phase I could not have gone according to plan. So the last 9 months of gearing up for what the reality is weren’t just dicking around but changing gears. His expectations tilt towards underpants gnome territory sometimes.
Regarding the alleged strike on the bunker with NATO officers, I don’t know whether it happened or not but I’ll make a few observations: any military in the world will go to extreme lengths to conceal from the public losses among its high officers ranks. If such a thing happens, those who need to know, know, those who don’t know, don’t need and aren’t supposed to know. Inconvenient deaths can be classified TS. The simple truth is, there is no evidence that it happened and there is no evidence that it didn’t happen. However, if the rumour mill goes on, it will damage one side more than the other and that side will have more incentive to stop it. How it stops the rumours will be an interesting hint.
“Helicopter accident”.
Yeah, I remember they had a few back in the spring of 1999.
Two were alleged to have collided in Alaska not long after the bunker missile reports.
About the bunker: There was probably an attack, but no mass casualty of NATO officers. Probably not in the sense that American and British officers were there. It is possible that some Poles or Lithuanians died.
About Prigozhin. It doesn’t necessarily have to be trolling. It’s more a question of character. I was a participant in the war in Bosnia and I know how difficult it is to communicate with commanders of irregular units like Wagner. They are vain, paranoid. It is the same with Prigozhin. It is likely that the Russian command has slightly reduced the supply of weapons to him because they want to strengthen other front lines in anticipation of the Ukrainian offensive. Prigozhin understood it as an attack on himself, revenge of the leading Russian generals who are allegedly jealous of him, etc.
And why is he allowed to behave like that? Stalin said: It doesn’t matter what color the cat is as long as the cat catches the mouse…
As a Greek, I can assure you that ProNews is NOT a reliable source of information…
If any large number of NATO personnel had been killed, it would be impossible for there to have been zero UK fatalities. It would not be possible to hide this story from UK MSM, no matter how corrupt we know them to be.
As an aside, this is published on OffGuardian. It originates from “Russia’s Angry Patriots Club”… a new group for me.
OffGuardian aren’t a first port of call for me, but they have never seemed ‘state’ either. The RAPC piece could just be disinformation, the OffGuardian author puts the following disclaimer on it… “Most of their questions are highly pertinent; some of them are a bit superfluous; a few—in your correspondent’s humble opinion—are misguided and a bit silly”
It’s a bit lengthy, but I found some of the questions raised “pertinent”… but what do I know…_
In NI in the early 70’s when the IRA were rampant, and before the British Army adapted and developed the intelligence networks and tactics that stalemated the conflict from about 75/76, it was widely believed that actual British Army casualties were much higher than officially reported.
At the time, 73 or so, I was informed by a first responder of an incident where all occupants of a Saracen APC were killed, but only 1 or 2 officially reported.
Some were attributed to car accidents in Germany. Others, if the soldier had not registered any next of kin, were simply not reported.
Today, deaths of NATO personnel assigned to duty in Ukraine would not be reported as combat deaths, but instead attributed to a variety of causes; training accidents, MVAs, suicides, natural causes, etc. These reports would be spread out over time to avoid clusters corresponding to specific events.
The only way to detect this would be through statistical analysis of military personnel death rates from all causes for several years. If there have been a significant number of, say UK personnel killed in Ukraine, this would show up as an excess death rate of military personnel in 2021 and 2022.
“It would not be possible to hide this story from UK MSM”
You are forgetting the Official Secrets Act and D Notices.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Official Secrets Act and D notices are worthy causes and I’m sure they have there place. But so do leaks and whistleblowers.
Official sources not properly recording another loved comrades death could easily be hushed up at the time…. but over time? …_
«I remain convinced that Prigozhin was doing a mega troll routine to distract the West from Russia’s true intentions.»
An excellent observation. As irascible as commanders like Prigozhin can be, what counts are the results of this campaign. In this regard, Prigozhin has been positive in the hard-hitting special military operation.
At this point, the longer the campaign lasts, the worse it will be for Ukraine’s military and its allies.
Prigozhin is not a soldier yet he’s been on the front lines with his men. He is not trained as they are to deal with the horror and violence.
Any combat vet understands the difference between a civilian at the front lines for months on end vs. seasoned soldiers.
Prigozhin’s presence inspires his soldiers I’m sure, but he needs to take a break and recover. One would never see U.S. military contractor company owners in the trenches with their men. I give him a lot of credit.
Chutzpah!
From Colonel Cassad….
https://t.me/bayraktar1070
We run with a distance of 30 meters, jumping over the railroad tracks. You need to run quickly to the nearest shelter. Our guide warned that a sniper had recently appeared here, though it is not at all clear where he was shooting from. In addition, on this trail, in addition to the 120th mortar, a kamikaze drone can also strike. A machine gun is working on the side of the building – it covers our sprint over bumps.
We get to the right house. There is time to smoke a little before the next jerk. While we are resting, the entrance of the five-story building opposite is simply crumbling before our eyes, raising a huge cloud of dust.
– It’s good that the address was not mistaken – the conductor jokes. “They took this house out of the tank for several days, and everything there burned to the ground.
And again a jerk. More precisely dive into the basement. Somewhere you can hear the sounds of arrivals, but you can already exhale. In the dim light, the guys meet us. All strong, bearded. In appearance, they look like the Vikings, who, by some miracle, were brought into this ass by their longship.
These guys the day before took a whole block of high-rise buildings on the move in a day. They worked hard and well-coordinated, well, as they say, luck helped. We get out of the basement and see a huge building, which everyone here calls “The Book” because of the characteristic roof. It can be seen from almost every point of Bakhmut – it is located at the highest point in the west.
We’ll have to take it soon. We are thinking how to approach it now. So our guys are already in front of him, about forty meters away. But until the “book” is outflanked, we will not turn our backs. It will most likely be mined – and this is a trap and a mass grave – Viking explains to us. “But once we take it, it will be much easier to burn them out of the Nest.”
“Nest” is a quarter with a dense multi-storey building. In fact, the last stronghold of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the city. But they got on well with him. Unlike the city center, trenches have been dug between the buildings from basement to basement, pillboxes are located. There is almost no enemy on the upper floors. He fires from machine guns, preventing the attack aircraft from advancing.
While there is time, I ask Viking how he and his fighters maintain such good physical shape in these. He jokes that there are enough calories in dry rations. I ask him to say something from himself to the camera for the film.
– Now is not the time to pump iron and hit a pear, although I fought a lot. But now is the time for real men to be here. Our task is to take Bakhmut. And this task will be completed – he straightens the belt of his machine gun and I notice the rune of a warrior on his body armor.
The Viking group took the “Book” in a couple of days. The Armed Forces of Ukraine wanted to undermine it, but their sappers were cut off the path. Already after the assault, Viking and one of his fighters were wounded. As they said, he will be back in service in a couple of months.
Over the next week that I was in Bakhmut, I noticed an increased density of Ukrainian fire. They began to hit planned targets in the quarters of the city, to conduct a counter-battery fight. Apparently, they were given good radars to determine the coordinates of our artillery. Therefore, she has to actively maneuver in order not to be “covered”. Outside the city, something constantly bangs and smokes – apparently, these are our guns working along the supply roads of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, where fierce battles are taking place.
The “nest” has to be literally burned out with fire. With RPGs, ATGMs, “boots”, infantry mortars, Wagner attack aircraft alone, it will be difficult to take this fortified area and smoke the enemy out of pillboxes and basements. We need dense and accurate suppressive artillery fire, which actually caused a problem. But, as Viking said, the task will still be completed. Get better if you or your comrades read this.
Thought everyone would appreciate this cogent description of combat in Artemovsk.
INDY
All the many pieces I’ve seen on the “NATO Bunker” story alternatively claim the bunker was in Lvov in the West, and Kiev in the North.
There doesn’t seem to be any clarification of which it is, which does not instil confidence in its veracity.
Has anyone worked out where this bunker even is?
The Wagner Group issues have been resolved. They are back in Bakhnut, fully armed and clearing buildings.
https://abeldanger.blogspot.com/2023/05/clearing-buildings-in-bakhmut-requires.html
Why should NATO officers go to work in a bunker in Ukraine? What valuable work they could do there, which they could not do elsewhere?
Any grouping of soldiers is dangerous, because with one strike all got killed.
The Ukrainian army can do their trainings in Poland.
So, a bunker may be hit, but I doubt whether this was a central location for NATO officers.
You say that since there’s no social media or other news about it, therefore it did not happen, listen all your readers, the wide awake ones know how this is going to end, yet there are millions of people who think RU is losing, western MSM is very effective at selling a narrative, they are also very effective at hiding the truth by just not talking about it, those Nato guys are not meant to be in Ukraine so therefore they are not, so they did not die because they were not there, even though maybe they did.
Good point!!!
Looking at the picture with the line of Ukrainian dead reminded me of Mark Knopfler’s lyrics:
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms
Call out those who send boys to their death so they can hoard another shekle.
Sanctions made without UN authority are illegal.
The EU wants more sanctions on Russian oil to “punish Russia”.
Enough of this rubbish.
Admix Russian oil into ALL oil shipments and then give the EU its sanctions by with holding all oil cargoes; give them what they want.
It is the EU that needs punishing for its disgusting racism and illegal sanctions.
>>There is no way that the West could hide the deaths of dozens of NATO senior officers.<<
That is true. But the absence of evidence, etc. NATO might be aware of the impact that a sudden volume of officers KIA would have. IF this happened and NATO wanted to keep it quiet, watch for a tragic helicopter/munitions accident that would explain the deaths.
A depreciation of military leadership might go to explain the delay in the ballyhooed spring offensive.
Igor’s briefs are how they need to be. Often late on the events, ever partials about the facts unless several times confirmed. This is not Oryx …
For who follow the events on the ground on a daily bases you can find some gold nuggets in it, what you can’t find in it are toughs and prospective , and unconfirmed infos , the guy is not a guest on a Russia1 talk-show at 2AM , he’s spokesman of the RF MoD during a SMO…
The contrast with people theoretically not even involved in those events like Milley or Austin bragging nonsense about any press dogs barking is refreshing. The contrast is refreshing , the content is still a macabre body-count, not something to brag about anyway… unless having lost all common sense.
BUNKER
I read a version in a (msm) Russian paper, which claimed two successive daggers hit a bunker near Kiev. It claimed they entered the ventilation shaft.
This makes more sense.
1. Why a bunker HQ near Lviv when you are almost safe in Poland?
2. Not even a meteor can penetrate 130m dug in bunker of reinforced concrete — there are equations to calculate penetration potential of a war head and kinetic force.
Regardless, the evidence is vague and the likelihood small.
The part about ventilation shaft makes sense only on Death Star.
Idea USA is concerned about anyone missing in action must be place in historical and factual perspective. . . .
“Why Has John McCain Blocked Info on MIAs?
The war hero has long sought to bury information about POWs left behind in Vietnam.
By Sydney H. Schanberg
September 18, 2008”
See:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-has-john-mccain-blocked-info-mias/
These facts were of no interest to anyone in big government, big tech or big media when McCain passed away.
Those who knew about this wife-beating maniac understand perfidy of stabbing all the MIAs in Vietnam in the back, and his direct role here.
Getting to the bottom of the reported RF strike in Ukraine suffers from the same old same old: [[Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain’s role in it, even as McCain has made his military service and POW history the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War have also turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn’t talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them. ]]
[[The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a Special Forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington and even sworn testimony by two defense secretaries that “men were left behind.” This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number–probably hundreds–of the US prisoners held in Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.
The Pentagon had been withholding significant information from POW families for years. What’s more, the Pentagon’s POW/MIA operation had been publicly shamed by internal whistleblowers and POW families for holding back documents as part of a policy of “debunking” POW intelligence even when the information was obviously credible.]]
Etc. etc. etc.
-30-
“As I write this it is 5:30 am in Moscow and Kiev on May 9. There are no reports corroborating stepped up Ukrainian attacks. However, the Russian bombs and missile strikes continue to fall on Ukrainian positions. That is the reality hampering Ukraine’s ability to mount its counter offensive.” PURE LARRY GOLD.
I don’t obsess about the past. Bunker strikes in March? Who cares. What I care about is Larry’s above. No Ukrainian counter offensive. Every time so much as two of them gather to Seig Heil each other they get whacked. Russia has their military production in high gear. They finally have enough troops there. And the minute those filthy Nazi’s gather in any force, they get whacked. Oh, and by the way? The Russian public is in full support and WANTS Putin to pull his finger out.
They have so many troops they are rotating people in and out. This is a fucking training op for Russia. And a weapons test bed. This is Franco Spain. And Russia is learning and improving.
Did you notice that blood-soaked butcher Kissinger the other day? China needs to step in and broker peace by years end. They are preparing the narrative. And they THINK that Russia will just take another peace deal. So that they can arm and prepare these fucking Nazi’s for another run after the 2024 election.
I don’t see Russia taking that carrot again. The insane loons in Washington DC have blundered from fuck up to fuck up for decades. And we were so powerful they survived. I think they have officially stuck their dick in the blender here. US hegemony dies this decade.
In regards to the bunker in Lviv, it was said that 200-300 people were
in there with some Nato officers (i.e., majority Ukrainians) so a handful of causalities from different countries can be masqueraded by each in their own way.
One fact of life as mentioned above six khinzals were launched on March 9, so where did they go?
Prighozin’s mental meltdown makes sense as maskirovka. First in the video calling out Shogiu, Gerasimov and those in the rear, it can flipped to Zaluhny, Srsky and the Kiev Regime, why are you not providing resources to and caring for your own troops? After all Wagner was the ones cleaning up their dead in Bakhmut and sending the bodies home to the newly created widows and orphans. This will matter to a frontline solider when the enemy shows more humanity to you than your own chain of command.
Second is his letter of 6 May explaining the shell shortage situation, he provides base calculations for conducting military operations and its relation to casualties. Again, something that will matter to those at the front, especially when they see how short handed they are. Also, he mentions 50,000 killed in Bakhmut alone, which should put pressure on the Kiev Regime to account for the losses to those widows and orphans.
Demilitarization can be achieved from annihilation or collapse, with latter being the humane goal. With the intensification of attacks on Ukrainian supply depots, storage areas, and assembly areas to prevent the Great Spring Counter Offensive before it can get going, it shows the Russians would prefer collapse over annihilation.
Don’t be surprised if Prighozin’s future in politics is as Military Governor of Ukraine.
Thomas
Looks like Prigozhin’s exit ramp is getting steeper and steeper! Today also came to say that Shoigu deceives Putin?! A minister from Putin’s inner circle with whom the President has been working for 20 years!! But it looks like Putin doesn’t know Shoigu either?!
Prigozhin definitely wanted to turn a MOD meat grinder operation into his big victory in Ukraine to appear today at Victory Day celebrations as Julius Caesar? According to him after Russia’s great defeats in Chechnya, Libya and Syria?! Defeats that only the world and the US did not notice and that is why the US has wanted to overthrow Putin for over a decade! And I’m sorry to say that its increasingly difficult for me to see this dramatic show by Prigozhin without a co-production with the CIA’s millions! Because this destabilization of Russia was everything the US dreamed of in the Ukraine proxy war! The real goal after cut Europe of Russia. And now that Prigozhin is getting dumped and is going to end up like that narcissistic idiot Strelkov, Prigozhin doesn’t say anything that makes sense anymore? Strelkov, a nationalist whom neoliberals in Russia also love to hear sing?! More schizophrenic was impossible!But Navalny also went from trampling emigrants like cockroaches into the pockets of the CIA! Why is it that no one with a brain appears in the political opposition in Russia?
“Why is it that no one with a brain appears in the political opposition in Russia?”
I guess those with brain understand what’s going on, and don’t want to work for the enemy.
My understanding is that we haven’t heard anything of funerals yet because they have not dug many out – very deep, filled with steel and concrete.
it makes me sick the way you in the last couple of articles and you buddies the Alexses – and even the guy that I thought knew everything Brian Berlectic have behaved towards Prigozihn I’d like to see any of you say it to his face. I lost respect for all of you
“I’d like to see any of you say it to his face”
Why? Would he shoot them or something? Would you lose respect for him if he doesn’t shoot them, or if he does?
Prigozhin is back at it, saying that the MoD “tricked” him. Yesterday, both he and Surovikin expressed their satisfaction with the deal. Today, not so much.
There’s more to this than maskirovka.
The Russian nomenklatura are as divided as its elites are. Czar Pyotr Veliky’s legacy has not gone quietly into the night. The collective Putin has done much to reduce its influence, incalculably assisted by the incompetence of the West’s current elites, but Pyotr’s legacy lives on in the role of a spoiler.
Though the SMO has provoked a less acute crisis within Russia’s political structure than it has in the West, I continue to see a purge in the MoD’s future (and elsewhere). It remains to be seen whether that can be managed as elegantly as Xi managed China’s. If the Western crisis is born of hubris backed by a lack of vision and resources, the Russian crisis is born of competing visions of the ends to which Russia’s overabundance of resources should be deployed.
Prigozhin’s role has been described in many ways. I’d submit that his role is most akin to that of a medieval Court Fool who’s ridiculous public persona and lack of overt political ambitions allowed him to speak truth to power. The medieval Fool could say things that politically vested interests could not. Wise Monarch’s heeded their Fools as much or more than they heeded their Ministers. Indeed, the Fool was often how the Monarch learned what his Ministers were up to, and often the only member of his government he could trust to deliver messages he did not wish to convey himself.
Prigozhin appears to have the confidence of his Monarch.
A jester he is. Some of his trolls are obvious, others not so much. That ambiguity enabled him to get away with many things. Filming those dead bodies for a viral video was a bit too far for the most.
I don’t think it’s about having “confidence of his Monarch” as much as it’s about not giving a fuck. He’s an old man that has been trough stuff. Those people don’t mince their words.
What speaks for the bunker theory:
– It was reported to be an air defence node. If true, it must have been integrated with the Ukrainian air defence network. There may have been pre-existing communication facilities that were difficult to replicate on the other side of the Polish border. It would have been even more difficult if the bunker was located somewhere around Kiev, which is much farther away from the Polish border than the Lvov area.
– As others have noted, a large number of Kinzhals, some say six, were fired on that day, unaccounted for. Firing six of them at an underground bunker in a staggered attack would make sense. The Kinzhal still has a CEP that must surely lie in the range of several meters at least. But with six of them all targeted at the same spot it sounds plausible that that may have allowed the Kinzhal earth works crew to “dig” deep enough to achieve bunker breakage.
– The political aspect of placing NATO officers on Ukrainian territory. It may have aimed at boosting the morale of higher echelons of the Ukrainian power structure, who would have known about the deployment. “See, we are here, we put skin in the game” (if only by placing them in a bunker we deem safe).
– The unprecedented occurrence right after the supposed attack of a B-52 simulating a bombing run against St. Petersburg by flying into the Gulf of Finland.
– The possibility of hiding an appreciable number of casualties. Wasn’t it once reported that Russia had attacked a Western intelligence node in Syria, with several officers dead? If true, that got also hiddden. Poland is obviously “hiding”, to some extent, the number of soldiers killed in Ukraine. Then there are so many NATO countries to boot, hiding the death of an officer here and an officer there may have been not so difficult as it sounds.