Paid Subscriber Weekly Mailbag Answers - 4/26/23

Apr 26, 2023

All right folks, we had another good showing in terms of question so let’s get to it.

1

Given the recent announcement by Jens Stoltenberg about making Ukraine part of NATO, do you think this is more posturing, or is there something to it? As Ukraine steadily moves towards collapse I foresee the EU and US using NATO enrollment as a last ditch attempt to prevent a Ukraine defeat.

This can’t be anything other than posturing for the following reasons:

First, there is a clause typically bandied around that states a country cannot join NATO if they have active border disputes or are embroiled in a current conflict. This apparently is referring to the Membership Action Plan, although there is no direct such requirement for joining, per se. However, to join NATO you must be voted in unanimously by all member countries. And being embroiled in an open conflict that could pull NATO into WW3 will almost certainly preclude some of the countries from voting for Ukraine to join. Particularly, Hungary and even Turkey are hard to imagine as being among the ‘yes’ voters in such a case.

Secondly, what would be the purpose to ram Ukraine through into NATO, anyhow? Meaning, how would that help Ukraine? Is the thought that by joining NATO, that somehow instantly entitles a country to be militarily rescued by the full combined might of NATO? If that were the case, how would that look, exactly, on paper? If Ukraine were to join NATO tomorrow, what could that possibly entail from NATO, for instance an immediate closing of the skies, or a ‘no fly zone’ or something like that? Such extrapolations are fairly preposterous because NATO would not dare openly declare war on Russia in such a way.

But the most important point many people forget, is that the notorious ‘Article 5’ of NATO does not magically entitle you to be defended by the combined military might of every single NATO country. As Scott Ritter has taken pains to point out previously, Article 5 merely suggests that if a fellow NATO member is attacked, then other countries have the choice to respond ‘either collectively or individually’. In short, it does not magically privilege you with an immediate deus-ex-machina salvation by way of the mighty NATO horde. All it does is basically puts pressure on each country to decide for themselves what they want to do:

Article 5. It's the most prominent one, providing for the use of collective defense in the event of an attack on one of the Allies. But here we also find an important detail. The Treaty requires that the Allies provide assistance individually or collectively, including through the use of armed forces. This means that the Treaty does not contain a direct obligation to use the armed forces of member states for such assistance. According to the regulations and practice, assistance can be provided at the expense of resources, logistics and other kinds (intelligence, technical, etc.) of support. This de jure levels skeptical allegations that Ukraine's accession to the Alliance, provided that the conflict in the East is preserved, will mean the need for an automatic application of Article 5 of the Treaty. Article 5 de jure does not entail an obligation to declare war on the aggressor and necessarily apply force against it. - Source

And so, as a thought experiment, let’s say Ukraine was inducted into NATO. How many countries would actually use Article 5 to ‘decide for themselves’ to wage military war against the world’s strongest nuclear power? For the ones that hypothetically would decide, there is nothing stopping them from doing so right now—they don’t need NATO or the thinly worded Article 5 to do so.

Thus, joining NATO is not some ‘magic pill’ that could instantly save Ukraine, and joining while under conflict is already extremely dubious. So I see the posturing from Stoltenberg and co. as nothing more than a strategy of endless pressure application on Russia, simply never to let up or allow Russian elites think they’re in the clear.

Also, the larger likely reason for it is, they know that joining NATO is one of Russia’s primary, fundamental red lines on which the entire conflict hinges. Thus, by keeping up the false specter of a ‘possibility’ for Ukraine’s joining of the alliance, the West is in effect simply prepping for the inevitable negotiations they expect will take place later on. They want Russia to believe Ukraine’s accession to NATO is an extremely realistic and likely eventuality such that when they later offer ‘no NATO’ as a negotiation tactic, they want to receive the greatest possible commensurate concession in return for that.

If they were to flag on their ‘NATO’ chants and give Russia the impression that Ukraine has no chance at all in joining anyway, then later when they ostensibly ‘take NATO off the table’, Russia would simply shrug and brush it off as that would have already been an obvious inevitability.

So, the real answer, I believe, is that it’s merely preparatory negotiation tactics, and a strategy of applied pressure. There is no real possibility that Ukraine would join any time soon—and even if it did, nothing would happen because Article 5 doesn’t obligate any sort of response and no sane country would go to war against Russia over Ukraine, anyway.

2

I know you’ve addressed this somewhat in the past but I’ve seen a couple things now about the potential attack on an underground NATO bunker from a month or so ago. I’ve heard numbers of 200 to 300 potential victims. Any further information you can provide?

Unfortunately, there isn’t too much newer information regarding this apart from a few rumors and shady sites now claiming that ‘Russia has confirmed’ the details of the strike, without any real corroboration.

Things like the below are being passed around that Russia has ‘discreetly confirmed’ the deaths of hundreds of high ranking NATO members/officers/generals, yet there is no corroborating statements ever given. I assume Gilbert Doctorow may claim to have a ‘source’ that told him; unfortunately, that’s the way of things these days.

There is simply no way for us to confirm this event. The only thing we can say, which I’ve said last time, is the following:

We know the launch of the missiles followed the very big crossing of a ‘red line’ event, where Ukrainian forces not only crossed into Bryansk, Russia, but murdered civilians there.
We do know for a fact that 6 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles were launched, as this was confirmed by top Ukrainian officials themselves on video as well as U.S. military officials and spokesmen—so this fact is not in dispute.
We further know that Russia has never even launched more than one or two Kinzhals simultaneously, and only at targets of extremely elevated importance.
We do know that objects in Lvov region, on Polish border were hit.
We further know that important ‘Western’ command and training centers exist in that region because it is furthest from the frontline (and thus deemed ‘safest’) and closest to actual NATO infrastructure just over the border in Poland. We have confirmation in previous times of other important mercenary bases and such being hit there.
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.

So, if you put all these facts together: that Russia would be seething and looking for revenge after the events in Bryansk, that Russia used an unprecedented six hypersonic Kinzhals, that something in the Lvov region was hit, where NATO/Western/mercenary infrastructure is at its greatest concentration. We can use logical deduction to put two and two together and conclude that at the least something of importance was hit, and likely something with the characteristics of a top, sensitive ‘leadership asset’ or C2/C3 node.

That’s the most I can give you with high confidence. Beyond that, there is unfortunately no way to confirm anything else.

Only other thing is yesterday’s news, which was confirmed by Russia itself: https://www.rt.com/russia/575255-ukraine-georgia-mercenaries-iskander/

This at least gives credence to the fact that Russia is actively striking mercenary and foreign assets, with massive losses, so it certainly raises the plausibility.

3

This is not Ukraine related (sorry!), but I'm curious about the situation in Sudan.
From what I can tell, it's another situation where we (the USA) are attempting to install a govt more amenable to toeing the line than the current govt. What I know about Blinken's public statements pretty much screams that idea.
Your thoughts?

The Sudan situation pretty much goes back to the long-lasting struggle the ‘great powers’ are having over the strategically critical Red Sea and Horn of Africa corridor. If you look at the map of this corridor, you’ll recognize how vital of an economic passage this is:

Russia’s planned Sudan naval base is just ‘up the river’ from friend China’s Djibouti base, a bit further south.

China’s very first foreign military base was built in Djibouti for this very reason. As you can see, the Red Sea feeds into the all-important Suez Canal in Egypt, through which passes roughly 12% of all global trade, 30% of all global container traffic, for over $1 trillion per year in trade, as it is the fastest sea route between Asia and Europe. And in fact, the Suez is the bifurcating point that divides Asia and Africa.

The Suez is one of those points, similar to the Persian Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz, whereby one can literally shut down the global economy by controlling or shutting down these points. Thus, for Great Power nations, this area is critical for maintaining control and defending it preemptively against any threats or ‘funny business’ from rival nations.

India, too, was eyeing building a base not far from Djibouti to counter China. And keep in mind, the U.S., France, and Japan all have bases in Djibouti as well. China, in fact, previously offered Russia to have a ‘corner’ of their Djibouti base, but Russia opted to carve out its own demesne. So, Russia launched into a partnership with Sudan to build only its second foreign military naval base in the world, after the Tartus base in Syria. You can infer the strategic significance of this area by the fact that it is China’s first foreign base, and only Russia’s second.

The reason, of course, for why Russia and particularly China feel the need to have bases there, to keep an ‘eye’ on the waterway is because, in any potential future conflict, like the upcoming Taiwan one, the U.S. can easily kill the Chinese economy by blockading the Bab al-Mandab Strait, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, Suez Canal, etc., and stopping all Chinese cargo ships from passing. Thus, China has to have a military presence there to protect its vital economic interests and lifelines.

So, now that we know why this region is so important, the rest becomes very self-explanatory. The Great Powers like Russia and China all have a national security interest in being on this vital waterway, and the U.S. and allies have an interest in stopping them for the very reason I mentioned, so that U.S. can retain a trump card in the future in doing massive economic damage to their adversary by blockading their interests. Everything else naturally falls into focus.

In order to stop Russia from having this critical naval base, the U.S. needs to overthrow the Russia-friendly government which is allowing Russia this base. It’s the same reason they needed to overthrow Assad and install a Western backed leader who could boot Russia from Tartus. The same reason they overthrew Yanukovich in Ukraine, so they could boot Russia from Sevastopol.

The timeline:

In 2019, Sudan and Russia signed an agreement, which reportedly gives Russian Navy access to Sudanese ports. In November 2020, Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian Navy would proceed with building a base capable of hosting 300 personnel and four warships on Sudan's Red Sea coast.^[12] In December 2020, the agreement to build the base was signed, which would give Russia a naval base in Port Sudan for at least 25 years. This was compared to Russia's naval base in Tartus, Syria.

One of the reasons this conflict appears confusing on the surface, however, is that the U.S. is not overtly supporting one side or another, simply because they need to do this covertly, as they don’t wish to completely alienate the Sudanese government which could accelerate Russia’s base plans, should the rebels lose.

The U.S. ambassador to Sudan outright ‘warned them of consequences’, i.e. threatened them, just last year, should they go ahead with allowing Russia’s naval base. There really isn’t much more to it than that. And the fact that the media is blaming ‘Wagner forces’ for being behind the RSF rebels tells you everything you need to know, as it is the comically infamous tactic of U.S. intel services to blame you for their own actions.

4

I was also going to ask about the abrupt change in NATO stance concerning getting Ukraine into NATO right away.
In a way I hope it’s just talk but then again in view of the nazification of the Western Alliance that Russia said was necessary early on then this the open door.
Russia all by itself is that we talking about?
If, if’s were horses we’d all be riding I know, but if Ukraine does become apart of NATO do you see a global war with nations aligning themselves with against the Western powers.
I can’t but be anxious nervous is a better characterization

I mostly covered this extensively in question #1, so you can reference that for the large part of the answer. I’ll state again that Ukraine is not going to join NATO anytime soon, and any such promises are simply posturing and political pressure games.

However, the one other thing I’ll add which I forgot to say previously, is that I believe part of the reason for these NATO calls is also to act as a sort of goading ‘carrot-on-a-stick’ for Ukraine. If the West can give Ukraine a bright ‘reward’ to look forward to, and more importantly, to work towards, then they believe it can act as a major bulwark to stem the flow of the AFU’s flagging morale, and that of their society in general.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba said that NATO should present the dates of Kiev's accession to the alliance in 2023.
"What we need is a clear written statement from the allies (NATO - ed.), which sets out the path to joining (Ukraine to the alliance - ed.)," he wrote in an article for Foreign Policy magazine. Kuleba believes that NATO should present the dates of Ukraine's accession to the alliance during the upcoming alliance summit in Vilnius in July or later during 2023.
At the same time, the minister added that Ukraine does not need an action plan with certain indicators of compliance with the requirements of the alliance. "Finland and Sweden have demonstrated that such programs are not needed, and Ukraine is more than ready to join (NATO)," he said.

By promising them the big crowning jewel of a NATO membership as the ‘rainbow at the end of the yellow brick road’, they can squeeze as much effort out of Ukraine as possible. Now, soldiers can be told ‘Come on! Pull up your bootstraps, you’re fighting for a better future, if you win you’ll be in NATO, forever protected, never to be threatened again by Russia!’

Also, another possibility is that, particularly in light of recent developments where it becomes increasingly clear that the West is going to soon attempt a massive Korean War DMZ-style conflict freeze once Ukraine’s ‘grand offensive’ sputters to an inglorious end, they could perhaps attempt a push for Ukraine’s joining of NATO during such a freeze. Keep in mind, I consider it unlikely even during a pause in conflict, much less during ongoing hostilities. BUT, at least it’s a bit of a more feasible and plausible possibility.

The idea would be to use the freeze to massively re-arm and resupply Ukraine, then induct it into NATO. And then, begin the usual games of ambiguous contact line provocations, by shelling the Russian side, saboteur and drone strikes, etc., and then blaming Russia under the cover of fraudulent ‘neutral’ mediating organizations like OSCE. The goal would be to make Russia respond disproportionately so the finger can be pointed at them, and they can be painted as having ‘attacked NATO territory’, to draw NATO increasingly into the conflict against Russia.

At such a juncture it wouldn’t be an all out war, nor would that be the point. The point would be for the U.S. to draw NATO nations into further and further power creep and embroilment, such as, for instance, establishing a NATO no-fly-zone and other initially passive or ‘defensive-minded’ actions.

I could see a scenario like that playing out, as an example. Though of course, that entire hypothetical would rely on the unlikely possibility of Russia allowing the conflict freeze to begin with. With that said, I’m not totally discounting it. Nothing in life or war is a 0% or 100%—everything functions as non-zero probability. And so even this scenario has a percentage of maybe 5-15% of happening, but that could rise in time, depending on how things play out.

5

There were three questions in a row of a similar topic, so I’ll combine them here:

Russia launched two new satellites for war recon recently. They have made more ground advances since then. I read that China is now second behind US in space technology. There are advanced weapons such as directed energy weapons that can be used from space, as well as weather modification. Heavier rain than usual has delayed the Western offensive due to mud. What more can you tell us about how space technology is being used in the war, particularly Russia and China?

There were reports of the unusual bright lights above Kyiv and the rumors were it was a new weapon or a disintegrating NATO satellite. Has it anything to do with Russia reporting it developed the new weapon designed to disable satellites orbiting at 36,000 km?

Greetings, and thank you for all your comments - very interesting and important!
My Question: Nobody seems to know, what that "NASA"-satellite - that alledgedly wasn't - really was, that lightened Kiev shortly. What means does Russia have to "down" US or NATO spy satellites?

Well, it’s true that Russia has launched even more than two satellites recently. In fact, they’ve been launching a lot of military satellites since even last Fall, and three new ones just in March of this year alone, which I covered in a few recent reports.

In terms of China being second behind the U.S., that’s difficult to say. In military space specifically, Russia is still second with over 70 military satellites to China’s 60+, which U.S. having reportedly 120+. But when it comes to commercial space infrastructure, China is ahead. Some lists which show total satellite counts of every type combined:

As you can see, different agencies count things differently.

Regarding directed energy weapons: There is no real ‘directed energy space weapon’ that I know of. Most of that stuff is fictional or theoretical. Laser weapons, for instance, typically have a very short range. In order to give them longer range, you need massive power sources. And to have a large power source in space is very difficult or nigh impossible. The weapon would have to have a nuclear reactor attached to it; and they do have satellites powered by nuclear reactors, but it is still far more difficult than it sounds, and the weapon would still likely not have much power, if any at all, at that distance, particularly given the fact that satellites travel very fast, so some type of laser/energy beam aimed downward at a terrestrial target would only be able to rake the target very briefly.

And you can’t solve this by going ‘geostationary’ because that necessitates an orbit with an altitude in the tens of thousands of kilometers, far too distant for a ‘beam’ weapon to have any effect.

Weather modification is far more realistic, and I’ve written recently that Ukraine has already blamed Russia for the ‘unprecedented, historic’ rains that are currently hampering their efforts not only for Bakhmut counter-offensive, but even withdrawing from Bakhmut. On the other hand, Russia itself is dealing with the weather troubles as recently seen in Kremennaya area, where Russian forces are struggling with swamped trenches and massive rain.

Most of that stuff is unlikely, however. The far more realistic actions revolve around Russia’s ground-based energy weapons, like the new laser systems already confirmed to have been used in Ukraine, and the new anti-satellite jammers that Western press complained about last week.

It’s true that there were a few ‘strange’ atmospheric occurrences around Kiev recently. The first occurred last month, in March, when a photo of these lights made headlines:

However, it was later explained to be Russian ballistic missile launches near Belgorod, as seen from the Kharkov region, and likely photographed with a delayed shutter camera effect which made the rocket exhaust look like beams.

Last week this bizarre explosion was seen in the skies above Kiev:

https://twitter.com/its_maria012/status/1648837114807848961

It was first thought to be a falling NASA satellite, though NASA quickly dismissed this, saying their satellite did not fall. However, it is likely just air defense hitting something above the city.

I know it’s very alluring and ‘tantalizing’ to think of exotic weaponry being used when we see strange lights in the sky, but in reality it’s simply not the case.

Russia’s anti-satellite weaponry would not produce any special, exotic, or colorful lights. They are merely jamming systems that look like radar stations.

With that said, I’ve reported before how Russia already has the Peresvet laser system, and a new one called Zadira, which they’ve reportedly already tested in Ukraine. Read the section marked #2 from this article to get a more detailed explanation I’ve written about before:

Simplicius's Garden of Knowledge

All Seeing Eye: Can Russia Break Through The West's ISR Overmatch?

“Any war at the turning point of technological epochs ( and we are just in a state of such transition) is burdened by a lack of understanding of the principles of operation of new weapons and tactics of their use, as well as the overall strategy of the entire complex of military and political actions…

3 years ago · 132 likes · 91 comments · Simplicius The Thinker

I also spoke about the limitations, and how hard it likely is to actually disable a satellite with a laser. And that’s really only for low earth orbit ones, a laser is not going to reach geostationary orbit at 50,000km ranges. Those satellites you can only hope to jam or outright destroy them with anti-satellite missiles like Russia’s Nudol.

As for the question of what are Russia and China using, I don’t believe they are using anything overly exotic. Just the usual opto-electrical satellites, which are the standard recon/spy sat in low earth orbit that is basically a telescope that takes photos of needed targets. Then there are SARs (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellites which use radar to ‘map’ the terrain, but can also include targets in that mapping. And then there are SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) satellites which intercept radio and satellite signals.

As to China, they have been accused by multiple sources of providing Wagner with satellite intelligence. The U.S. even sanctioned the Chinese satellite firm which they claim was behind it. However, Prigozhin denied this, and claimed that “Wagner has its own satellites which can see anywhere in the world at all times”.

The Tobol system made headlines for reportedly jamming Starlink.

It’s difficult to do this, or rather impossible to jam Starlink completely because they have over 800 tiny satellites. This article gives a detailed look of the Tobol system in question.

The only other bit of interesting information I have in this regard in light of all the new allegations of Russian jamming of satellites, EU Space Agency released this image, which appears to show their Sentinal-1 being jammed by Russian electronic interference over the Azov Sea region.

The interference is said to be ‘the strongest ever detected’:

Sentinel-1 data suggests that #Russia has a new toy which has tested/activated somewhere near Rostov-on-Don. Still hard to pinpoint the source, but the interferences recorded by the C-SAR satellites are among the strongest ever detected and have a unique pattern.

This is the only direct proof I’ve seen of such jamming in action.

At the end of the day, there’s far too many satellites in the sky to successfully jam or even destroy an appreciable portion of them. The only way to totally disable satellite observation of every kind (be it signal, optical, etc.) is the concept of total space Kesslerization, which I’ve spoken about before. This would entail destroying enough satellites as to cause an unstoppable cascade or domino effect where debris will destroy more satellites, which creates more debris, which further destroys more, etc. This continues on until all of orbital space is completely uninhabitable by any satellites. It would make space entirely too dangerous to fly into and would create a sort of perpetual dark age in regard to satellite/space exploration. This is the only real way to disable all space ISR and would only potentially happen if there was a critical, existential WW3-style conflict.

6

What’s your take on: @21:24 https://www.youtube.com/live/b6SMVTGCRw4?feature=share

Firstly, let me say that I’m a big fan of Alastair Crooke, I’ve been reading his articles for a long time, and have quoted him before.

His thesis appears to be: Putin is intentionally slow-rolling the Ukrainian war in order to bring Europe to the brink of war so that the scale of the tensions can be converted into a commensurate scale of renegotiations of the security architecture of Europe.

This is a nice thought, and likely it could be an afterthought that comes more as a byproduct of the realities on the ground. However, I don’t think that it is the main driving force in Putin actually, deliberately slowing the pace of the SMO in order to affect this condition.

Let’s be real folks—there are a lot of people on our side who still cling to this notion that Russia is all powerful and everything they’re doing is perfectly according to some plan, no mistakes are ever made, no weaknesses exist, etc. In short, it’s the extreme end of the infamous “5D Judo” framework of the conflict.

But we have to be realistic. The fact of the matter is, if Russia could make the conflict go faster, it would. If it could end it today, it would. No one truly wants to drag it out forever. Putin is not a belligerently-spirited man. The truth is, Russia is taking a long time and going slow because this is the best they can do with the current resources they have.

Now, let me qualify and temper that somewhat: in reality, Russia could smash and squash Ukraine in probably a week or less if they went full WAR. This would include declaration of war, allowing the usage of all conscripts (freeing up hundreds of thousands of new bodies), as well as a new full mobilization, rather than a ‘partial’ one, activation of all strategic assets, and complete abnegation of all previous rules of ‘civility’ that Russia still adheres to, such as no strikes on leadership targets, only lukewarm strikes on civilian infrastructure, full transfer to war-time economy, etc.

If Russia went ALL OUT, they could wrap Ukraine up in a matter of weeks or less. But I’m discounting this option in my hypothetical above because going ‘all out’ in such a fashion would have major political, economic, social, socio-economic costs, and is likely not going to happen.

What I’m saying is, under the currently accepted realities, with the paradigm we have to deal with, Russia is already doing the best that it can. It is struggling with many aspects of production; they are improving every day, and tremendously so. But the fact of the matter is, Russia is, too, suffering from shortages of every kind, from munitions to armor/vehicles, etc.

So the contention that Russia could easily speed up and wrap this up right this moment, but refuses to do so because Putin wants to renegotiate a new Westphalian Peace with Europe is a little on the side of wishful thinking.

As I said, I do think the idea behind that is real, and Putin does likely have such a prospect as part of the overall plan. I’m simply saying that, it’s not the driving factor of the operation’s pace; it is a collateral objective in and of itself.

With that said, I don’t want to characterize the current seemingly static phase of the conflict as Russia being out of ammo and defenseless. It’s not a black and white issue: Russia is not “completely out of ammo”, just as it’s not “absolutely brimming with years’ worth of ammo”. It has enough to even launch a major offensive right now if it wanted to, but it is biding its time for other strategic reasons for the moment, and building up its stocks to even greater amounts. These reasons of course include the simple fact of the weather and awaiting the complete end of the mud season, but could also include things we’ve talked about before like wanting to wait for Ukraine to launch their offensive first so that their forces can be conveniently destroyed ‘out in the open’, allowing Russia to then launch its own offensive against a gutted force.

This is a contradictory and hypocritical sounding topic because I myself have stated in the past that Russia could prefer to draw out the conflict for a variety of strategic reasons, such as bankrupting NATO/EU, etc. But as I said, that is more of a secondary afterthought corresponding to the realities that Russia has no choice. Of course, if you have no choice but to go slow, you’re going to construct your strategy around those realities and then add elements to maximize that so it works in your favor as much as possible. But ultimately, if Russia had an absolute choice, I would think that of course they’d rather end it quickly. You could argue that all those “renegotiations with NATO” about the security architecture of Europe could in truth be done from an even stronger position if Russia were to slam down the gavel and run Ukraine through in devastatingly efficient fashion.

Unfortunately, it’s not currently possible, so Russia will maximize what it has, and build out its strategies from there.

7

The Russian preemptive invasion in February 2022 appears to have been triggered ultimately, in the face of the Ukrainian troop buildup in the east, by the increased shelling of the Donbas, encouragement of the Ukraine to join NATO and the announced intention of the Ukraine to develop nuclear weapons.
I am interested in what could trigger an another preemptive military action by Russia.
While a decisive, demilitarizing Russian offensive in Bakhmut seems to be close to fruition, the NATO gang is apparently building up troop levels, equipment supplies and repair facilities outside the Ukrainian border. The failure of sanctions, SWIFT cutoff of Russia and the attempted price cap on Russian oil sales to bring down Russia does not appear to have dampened western neocon enthusiasm for suicide-by-Russia.
I offer the following predicates to my question in conclusory form to own my position.
It occurs to me that the financial plumbing in the G7 is close to collapse, accompanied by an inability to ramp up weapons production in the short run. Russia has the industrial capacity to support this war. Economic time appears to favor Russia. I am persuaded that the “leaks” of US intelligence were a calculated effort by powerful factions in the US military to avoid a bigger war against Russia the US military believes it can’t win. In addition, there is no particular enthusiasm in the US populace for this war. It is not a major political issue today. However, there is an increasing loss of popular confidence in the US government.
The Russians likely are balancing these factors against one another when considering what strategy best serves Russia.
The one factor that seems to me to represent a call for an “existential” military response from Russia would be the use by NATO of depleted uranium munitions in the Ukraine.
What do you think?

I agree with what you wrote. The only thing I’d say is that we shouldn’t be too confident about the various notions of ‘collapse’ and lack of supplies, etc. While it could happen, in reality the human animal is capable of taking quite a lot in terms of poor conditions, if you ‘boil them’ slowly like a frog. So I think that Europe can go quite a long ways yet towards bankrupting themselves and throwing all their financial resources towards endless war escalation. I’m not saying I actually expect that to happen. I’m simply saying we shouldn’t discount that possibility; any ‘collapse’ is merely a possibility not a guarantee, or even a likelihood.

With that said, it definitely is a ‘race towards the bottom’, and Europe has a major headstart. Some of my statements may sound very ditheringly nebulous, but one certainty I can give is that Russia most definitely can outlast Europe in any such long term economic standoff. This is due to Russia having the resources and the direct connection and relation to the most powerful economic pole of the future, that of China, Asia, Africa, etc. So if the West thinks it can ‘outlast’ Russia, it will never win. I simply am cautioning that this may take longer than some might hope, and that near-term ‘collapse’ of any sort is improbable.

But yes, the going theory is that the leaks were representative of an interior rebelling faction of the deep state who’s tired of the calamitous march to war, however we can also say that this form of protestation could likely prove futile in curtailing the deep state’s continued escalation and seemingly insatiable appetite for war. After all, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of repercussions.

You’re right that Russia is balancing all these factors, even the timelines. For instance, Russia knows that the U.S. is soon to enter a critical election cycle in 2024, and Russia could very well be aiming to take advantage of that by launching operations that will make the conflict extremely unpopular and unfavorable in the American news cycles, putting huge pressure on the establishment candidates.

As for the DU munitions, I don’t think that will trigger any ‘existential’ response from Russia. In fact, Putin already commented on this in an interview, and oddly hinted that Russia could simply retaliate with their own DU munitions as well. I’ve previously called this ‘odd’ because, obviously, it seems strange that he’d be supportive of using DU on what is technically his own land. But the larger point is that, his response appears a firmly tacit admission that there will be no ‘existential’ style response to Ukraine’s DU usage.

In fact, Ukraine already openly shelled what is Europe’s largest and most powerful nuclear reactor (Energodar), even hitting and damaging the containment building. This comes extremely close to a Chernobyl style event which could potentially see the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens. Russia didn’t have any ‘existential’ type of reaction to that, so what makes you think it would to a relatively minor usage of DU?

Keep in mind, though it may sound like it, my tone was not critical of Russia. In fact, I support Putin’s decision to not overreact to DU usage. Not because I think there’s no danger in DU, on the contrary I think it’s very dangerous. But simply because I don’t think there’s much that can be done. What are the choices? To nuke Ukraine and risk WW3 because they fired some DU pellets? There really isn’t any good alternatives that would not risk a worse outcome than the DU itself.

Some will say, ‘Russia can hit “decision centers”’. Most of that talk about ‘decision centers’ is a red herring anyway. If Ukrainian leaders know Russia is gearing up to hit decision centers, they will bunker up—if they aren’t already—and will be safely squirreled away. Others could say, ‘Hit the UK/Western supply bases which are feeding Ukraine the DU.’ I say to that: so you want Russia to attack a NATO member and start WW3 because a few DU shells are landing on their ground? What’s worse some DU poisoning, or the entire destruction of the human race? Sometimes you have to take a hit in order to win the overall fight. These are provocations meant deliberately to unbalance Russia.

What else can Russia possibly do that it isn’t doing already? The only true response should be to firm up their resolve and just make sure to take this conflict all the way to the end: destroy the AFU so this can never happen again.

Plus, at the end of the day, as I’ve written about before, most of Russia’s responses to broken red lines on behalf of the West will come in the form of asymmetrical ones. I’ve already recounted how Russia continues to asymmetrically wreck the West all over the world, feeding coordinates to Iranian militia who just gave severe ‘brain trauma’ to 25+ U.S. servicemen in Syria, including one dead contractor. Chasing France out of Africa, etc.

P.s. you might appreciate this speech:

https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1649811936350023680

8

I’d like to see Russia give Washington a dose of its own medicine.
By that I mean developing proxy forces in Latin America, especially Mexico, which currently shares a porous and thinly patrolled border with USA.
I think we’re all aware of Lavrov’s recent trip to the region, as well as Russia’s longstanding security relationships with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
That’s all good. But it seems to me more could be done. I read somewhere that Russia had started training Mexico’s narcotics-enforcement police - an excellent pretext for more aggressive activities.
Moreover I recall another press report, not long ago, to the effect that Russia had set up a GLONASS station in Managua’s SW outskirts, just 2 km or so from the US embassy.
So my question .... Given the parlous state of US border security; given that Texas in particular is full of GOP hacks like Dan Crenshaw who are slaves to the military-industrial complex; and given the recent floods of Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan ‘refugees,’ what is Russia doing - and what more might Russia do - to exploit these own-goal, self-created US vulnerabilities?
I think about the murders of Vladlen Tatarski and Darya Dugin ... and all I need to do is turn on the TV or pick up a paper to develop a ‘target list’ of US figures who desperately deserve to be silenced.
Sorry if this is too edgy. It comes from the heart.

It’s difficult to say with certainty what Russia is doing, if anything, in this regard. The closest we can come to gleaning something is the recent breaking news that the FBI and justice department have charged several Russians and Black nationalists in Florida and elsewhere with a series of indictments related to the types of things you mentioned.

The allegation is that Russian ‘operatives’ worked in funneling money and ideological directives to these particular Black/African nationalist groups in the U.S., suborning them into ‘spreading disinformation, sowing dissent and discord, election interference,’ etc.

As we know from previous years, with cases like the infamous Anna Chapman spy case, as well as that of Marina Butina, Russia does appear to use operatives in the U.S. who go around agitating certain groups and sowing division at critical socio-cultural junctures. In Butina’s case, she allegedly targeted the NRA and other conservative groups for infiltration, then working from the inside out to help fuel the cultural war in the U.S.

You asked about other limitrophes so I’m simply using these examples to indicate that it’s likely Russia is doing similar things in other countries. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any instances offhand. We can extrapolate though, from the fact that the Soviet Union was said to have many deep cover programs of this type, particularly of the ideological subversion variety. If you’re a follower of the Yuri Bezmenov mythos you’ll know the rabbit hole goes quite deep in these types of operations. So I don’t see why Russia would not continue the tradition.

For all we know, Russia could very well be contributing to the southern border crisis. After all, there’s a trove of evidence for the fact that Mexican cartels have long been under the control of Mossad. That alone is a deep rabbit hole for another time, but the point is, if Mossad can do it, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Russian intel agencies can’t get in on the gig as well.

Also, recall that since the start of the SMO, there has suddenly been a huge spate of fires and explosions in various infrastructural centers, warehouses, etc., all across the U.S. Hell, there was just a huge warehouse fire near Philadelphia yesterday. One can only speculate that these are not ‘coincidental’.

As to ‘what more should Russia do’, I believe Russia should primarily continue their focus on Africa and the Middle East, weeding out the West from these areas. This to me is even more important than going tit-for-tat with the U.S. by stirring provocations directly on its borders. And kicking them out of Africa and the Middle East will have much more powerful compounding effects that will obviate the need for the other type of actions anyway, as it would literally bring down their empire and end their global hegemonic rule.

9

I wonder if you can comment on Mark Sleboda claim that the counter-offensive is coming and that Ukraine has troops and arms to execute it. He has discussed this in his interview here.

Everyone is at the moment split into the two opposing camps of: Ukraine has a massive 200k man, fresh army, stocked full of munitions, ready to assault. And the other side believing that they’re faking, putting on a facade, have nothing left, and will only effect a ‘token’ show of force in any coming ‘offensive’, simply to give the appearance of being alive so their allies don’t completely give up on them.

Sleboda here appears to be staunchly in the first camp, though, by his tone, I don’t get the sense that he’s a ‘doomer’ and thinks this offensive will ultimately be successful, but rather will score an initial success.

Previously, for the last few months, I myself was in Sleboda’s camp. However, over the past few weeks my personal evaluation of the situation has begun to change, where I now lean more and more convincingly into the second camp. This is not so much due to the leaks, which as we know could be a psyop meant for that very purpose—of pulling down our guard. No, it’s simply an amalgamation of everything I’ve seen and registered from the Ukrainian side in recent times, from the big, telegraphed sentiments, to the smaller nuanced and subtle things read between the lines.

Everything I’m mentally registering tells my instincts that Ukraine is putting on a front. Now, as per usual, this isn’t an all or nothing, black and white issue. They certainly do have tens of thousands of relatively fresh troops, tons of new equipment, etc. However, we also have it on good authority that many of these new, ‘fresh’ troops have already been squandered by being sent to Bakhmut to plug critical holes. And while all the new equipment is spiffy, I’m not as convinced as Sleboda in that they have stockpiled adequate munitions for an offensive.

Sure, the recent drought in their shelling could theoretically imply a deliberate draw down for the sake of building up their stocks. However, as someone who’s followed the numbers closely, and done the math before in many of my previous reports, the numbers tell me that even with the drawn down in shells, I do not see the West having enough current supply capacity to fulfill Ukraine’s shell demand. Even if they manage to stockpile as much as possible, it would likely only be enough for a very brief ‘high-intensity’ period at the most.

But, since by ‘shells’ I’m mostly referring to various artillery types of munitions, what has a strong possibility of happening is the following: Since Kiev is suicidal and doesn’t care at all for its ‘cannon-fodder’ troops, they’re likely to launch the offensive anyway even absent the required artillery coverage. This means they will be banking on a fast-moving ‘ambush’ style armor assault to overwhelm Russian defenses, without any real artillery assistance from their own rear.

This could work, in theory, for a preliminary push. However, should they get bogged down into a positional posture even for a second, they will get torn apart by Russian artillery without any means of their own to rebuff or countervail it by way of counter-battery fire, etc. Their only hope would therefore reside in a suicidal mad dash forward on their fast new armor groupings, and bank on Russian defenses being overwhelmed, overrun, demoralized, etc., and fleeing outright.

This is not too dissimilar to what happened in the Kharkov Counter-Offensive of last September, so the AFU probably likes its chances. Plus, where they lack in artillery, they will hope to make up in mass drone attacks, which they’re believed to be planning to unleash on the eve of this offensive. The drones will play the role of counter-battery asset by targeting Russia’s batteries in the rear.

In short, if you’ve ever played RTS games like Starcraft, their strategy would boil down to the Zerg rush, where they’ll need to bet their entire hopes on one early mass rush, which, should it fail, would pretty much collapse their entire game.

10

Why are the NATO nations continuing to support Ukraine? They lost cheap energy, especially after the US (who else) blew up NordStream. Their economies are collapsing. They are being flooded with yet more refugees. The only beneficiary seems to be Uncle Sam who is making a killing selling LNG to Europe, as one example. Hungary seems to be a lone voice in the wilderness.

The reason is because the global deep state has contrived a very successful filtration system which allows them to always put in power candidates who are loyal to the ‘team’. The deep state I refer to is basically the interlinking web of the EU technocrat superstructure, as well as the American ‘hidden hand’ which applies its various coercions at key pressure points.

From time to time, we’ve been given a peek through the window to see how this functions in practice. For instance, in the leaked Nuland calls after Ukraine’s Maidan, where she nonchalantly discussed who they will install in power: “Yats is our guy!”

But the true heart of the system, the most critical component and mechanism of filtration is the global-corporate-media-industrial-complex. The MSM is completely controlled and compromised—how could they not be when they’re literally owned and funded by the same exact interests who benefit from war, etc.?

The media is used to immediately blackball, blacklist, deplatform, defame, or outright destroy any nascent political figure who even so much as remotely poses a threat to the establishment. Through the process of going through this system, politicians learn the game, feel out the ‘edges’ of the mechanisms, and learn to adapt by compromising themselves in ways that limits the ‘offending’ characteristics so as to make them palatable.

For instance, I wrote recently about how Le Pen was once an enthusiastic and open Russia supporter, but after getting completely blacklisted in France, she’s now re-emerged as a more milquetoast, reformed version of herself, now sporting a Ukrainian flag pin on her lapel. This is how ‘they’ control the candidates, slowly molding each candidate into acceptable Overton windows of conduct and platforms.

So, in short, to answer your question, why are NATO nations supporting this? Because it really has nothing to do with the people: it’s the way the system functions in filtering in exclusively pro-establishment, compromised politicians who will always do the bidding of the higher EU ‘superstructure’ which is essentially a centralized one world government system. The people have no say in it whatsoever, because real democracy doesn’t exist, all elections are fraudulent and compromised in every way imaginable, particularly from the standpoint of media and social media, which ‘game’ the elections for one side with their total monopoly on propaganda and deplatformization.

11

Is it "Donbas" or "Donbass" or doesn't it really matter? I always thought it was an abbreviation of "Donets (river and coal) Basin" so I don't know where the second 's" comes from. But then again, Midwestern American English doesn't have much nuance in our wording ...

It seems you’ve already gotten good answers in the comments beneath yours to this. Donbass is in fact a portmanteau of the Donets Basin. And Donets itself is a sort of elongated, diminutive form of the root word Don from Don River, which is the fifth longest river in Europe, and from which the Don Cossacks, Donets, Donetsk, Donbass all stem. Donets to Don is basically like doggie from dog.

And Don itself apparently stems from ancient Scythian-Aryan roots for the word ‘danu’ that means river, water, or liquid.

The word Donbass is transliterated from Ukrainian: Донба́с as ‘Donbas’. But in Russian it is written Донба́сс which transliterates into Donbass, with two S’s. The reason for this is the root word of Basin, which is part of the Donbass portmanteau is басейн in Ukrainian, one “S”. And бассейн in Russian, which has two S’s.

So, as I understand it, Donbass appears the more correct Russian version and Donbas the Ukrainian.

12

I do have a question: I don’t know a lot about historical battles, but from everything I’ve been hearing of this grand offensive seems like they think they can do a repeat of the IDF battle in breaking through the Egyptian army in ‘73 the days after the Egyptian offensive of Yom Kippour. In this case through to Melitopol instead of Cairo.
I think they’re (bleeping) delusional. Different time, place, adversary but hey, they’re stuck. Whatever.
Is there some analogy there?

Though I’m not extremely well-versed in the war, I know the basics and grand gestures. And from what I recall, I don’t quite see any similarities or parallels unless you compare it to a prospective invasion of Crimea. I could see a Ukrainian attempt to punch through into Crimea over the Isthmus of Perekop as perhaps being similar to Israel’s risky attempts to cross the Suez canal to assault towards Cairo.

However, I highly doubt we’ll even get that far to draw those parallels, as it is very unlikely Ukraine will make it that deep.

The only other parallel I can think of is the fact that Egypt was caught off-guard with poor intelligence—at least from my recollection—which resulted in their repeatedly downplaying the threat of Israel’s advance; basically, strategic blunders which allowed Israel to sneak in under their nose, punching through and surrounding some of their forces.

Similarly, those who have faith in Ukraine’s prospective operation believe Russia’s “proven” ability to blunder in not properly anticipating Ukraine’s attack vectors could lead to AFU successes in breaking through and potentially cutting off their forces.

The biggest difference that makes the two quite unlike each other, to me, is how Ukraine’s attempt will hinge largely on a very particular scenario where the Russian fortress of Crimea—as large, bristling with firepower, and secure as it may appear—is in fact precariously vulnerable to being cut off. There is only one main lifeline and ‘MSR’ (Main Supply Route) which supplies Crimea by way of the northern landbridge, which is the M14 highway through Mariupol, Berdiansk, and Melitopol.

Apart from that, there is only the Kerch Bridge. If you can sever them both, Russia will be in massive trouble—at least theoretically. In reality, unlike the Kherson situation, Russia could massively resupply Crimea by way of large landing ships from Novorossiysk, but it would still present an unprecedented dilemma.

In Yom Kippur, Israel didn’t have any such trump card to my knowledge, by which they could completely checkmate the Egyptian army with one decisive blow that would leave them completely surrounded, or cut off, etc. There are likely better parallels to the scenario I described, though I can’t think of any offhand. Maybe a war history buff can chime in in the comments about a historical battle that more closely resembles this.

The other huge difference is that in the Yom Kippur War, Israel clearly had the upper hand in airpower which allowed their airforce to act as the breakthrough factor which destroyed Egyptian installations and ground targets. But Ukraine has no such ability or parallel, which is why they’re unlikely to see any success similar to that of Israel.

If anything, the closest parallel to me is actually the original battle of Kherson from Russia’s side. Russia had to cross the perilous Dnieper River by way of bridges to rout the Ukrainian army in capturing Kherson and outlying milieu.

In any case, while it’s true that Ukraine is delusional to an extent, I wouldn’t be so fast to completely underestimate the fundamental logic of the offensive, which is sound. The reason being the aforementioned factors about how vulnerable the M14 and Kerch Strait are.

Most might not remember, that only months ago, Ukraine had already bombed or sabotaged a portion of the M14 near Melitopol which partly disabled the highway. And, of course, they’ve successfully disabled the Kerch as well. Of course, simply hitting the M14 highway with bombs or sabotage won’t nullify it as an MSR as Russia can create fairly quick workarounds, but especially if they can get within artillery range of Melitopol and the highway, they can create problems. And for them to get within that range, they’d only have to advance about 35km south from Orokhov, which really isn’t a lot. Hell, that’s a twenty minute vehicular drive.

As for Kerch, it’s a trickier proposition, but not impossible. They’ve already been ‘testing’ Russian defenses there in the past two weeks by shooting their new GROM-2 ballistic missile, an analog to the ATACMs they hope to get, or perhaps have already secretly gotten, which they hope could be the answer to hitting and disabling the Kerch Bridge from long range. However, thus far Russian AD has proven impenetrable, and has shot down the GROM just north of Kerch about a week ago:

❗️ 🇷🇺🇺🇦 About the attempted strike of the AFU on Kerch from the Grom-2 OTRK

Today, at around 08.30, Ukrainian formations tried to deliver another blow to the Crimean peninsula from the Grom-2 operational-tactical missile system.

The missile was shot down over the waters of the Sea of Azov near Kerch by anti-aircraft gunners of the 3rd division of the 18th air defense division of the 31st air defense division of the Russian Armed Forces Armed Forces. There were no casualties or injuries, fragments fell into the water.

Unlike the two previous strike attempts in Gvardeisky and Feodosia from the Odessa region, the AFU changed the position area of the Grom-2 OTRK - this time the launch was carried out from the outskirts of Zaporozhye, and the distance was about 290 km.

At the same time, last night, Ukrainian formations tried to strike at Armyansk in the north of the peninsula from the Alder multiple launch rocket system at a distance of about 100 km. All shells were shot down by air defense crews.

🔻 The intensity of shelling at the current moment remains the same. However, the movement of the Grom-2 OTRK to Zaporizhia indicates that the test of the battery consisting of four complexes in Tuzla in the Odessa region has been completed and the OTRK has been put into combat strength.

The new positional area in Zaporizhia allows expanding the geography of the use of tactical missiles not only in the Crimea and near the Kerch bridge, but also in the south of the Zaporizhia region and in the DPR. In addition, the transfer of the OTRK fully correlates with the preparation of the AFU for the offensive.

But the AFU is testing the defenses for now, so the guard cannot be let down.

13

1. Technical. What advantages are left in a stripped down Abrams tank, once you pull out all the stuff Americans don't want Russia to find out. 2. Looking at how easily the turret was ripped off of Germany's WonderTank in the Poland training field, is that an Achilles Heel? The Rotex Bearing should have sufficient strength to survive being rammed by another tank, therefore a hand grenade could do the same trick. Sans KruppStahl, or Fabrique en Chin ?
2. Does your ear on the ground and the Czech protests tell you anything about when the majority of European Countries are going to remove their bloodthirsty yet myopic Leaders? Months ? Years ?

Firstly, it appears confirmed that U.S. will be sending versions of Abrams with its depleted Uranium armor stripped off. This appeared at first glance no different than their standard M1A2S export version offered to Saudi Arabia and similar countries.

Although, my understanding is that U.S.’s special DU armor was only on the front turret cheeks/mantlet and front glacis of the armor, which means it wouldn’t have made much difference anyway for hits from the side, rear, etc. 90% of tanks killed in Ukraine are not killed with direct strikes to their front glacis/turret.

I heard rumors that there was other ‘sensitive electronics’ that would be stripped, but have seen no confirmation as to what that could be. The only guesses I have is thermals/sights perhaps downgraded from 2nd Gen to 1st Gen, or perhaps some of the special communications/tactical networking equipment that allows the tanks to see each other’s positions on a digital map, etc.

Here’s a good new thread from a tank expert about the types of thermals Ukraine will be getting in their new Western tanks, and how most of them appear to be inferior to Russian counterparts:

https://twitter.com/pati_marins64/status/1650674026073735168

Unfortunately, it’s only discussing Leopard and Challenger thermals, not Abrams.

However, the aforementioned Abrams news was about the eventual main Abrams package they had planned to send, which now is reportedly heavily delayed until late this year, if not later. The new narrative is that, in order to ‘drastically speed up deliveries’, U.S. will in fact be sending the much older M1A1 Abrams variant. These lack a lot of the modern systems compared to the M1A2, such as independent commander’s thermal sights, and the digital battlefield networked system I mentioned. Also, I believe it has the oldest first generation gunner’s thermals which would be inferior to most tanks Russia uses like T-80BVMs, T-72B3Ms, and T-90Ms.

Russia is expected to send its top tanks to whichever theater Ukraine chooses to commit its Western tanks to. Just today news came that Russia even intends to send its latest T-14 Armatas to the frontline where Leopards will appear. This came on the heels of news that Armatas are already operating in Ukraine and even firing on targets, but so far only from ‘closed positions’ in the rear, not yet participating in assaults.

To be honest, I’d have more favorable things to say for the Abrams if it was the M1A2, but now that we know they’re sending the M1A1 instead, and a stripped down one at that? That would really have no advantage against anything on the battlefield apart from the oldest T-62s and T-55s, if Russia actually utilizes any of those. And in fact, even the T-62s are being upgraded to T-62Ms which have good second gen 1PN96MT-02 thermals some, like the tank expert in the previous Twitter thread, say are even better than the Leo/Challenger thermals, let alone the old M1A1 Abrams.

At least the British are sending deadly DU ammo for their Challengers, but U.S. has chosen not to send DU for the Abrams, so there is very little advantage to speak of. The largest advantage of an Abrams in the hands of the actual U.S. would be their ability to network with each other—at least the latest versions. This allows them to see each other on a digital map, in relation to their own tank, and is highly favored and advantageous on the battlefield. But given the ‘hodgepodge’ of Western tanks Ukraine will be operating, that won’t be a possibility. Here’s a good video comparing Russia’s T-90M to the latest Abrams M1A2 SEP V3. This has relevance because the video finds the T-90M having many advantages even over the absolutely latest Abrams model, so compared to the oldest possible model, the T-90M is leagues ahead. And while Russia has fewest of the T-90Ms compared to other tanks, the T-90Ms are still far more numerous (250+) than all Western tanks in Ukraine combined, which so far will be only 30-40. And plus, Russia is said to be currently pumping out new T-90Ms all the time, factory fresh.

And it’s funny you mention the Leopard’s turrets, this new thread details the fact that Leopard’s turret rings are in fact an ‘Achilles Heel’ in their manufacture:

https://twitter.com/T_90_M/status/1648713903084388360

Apparently the turret ring was not made to handle the later armor upgrades that were added to the turret, which greatly increased their weight. Turns out it’s a known problem, that a lot of their turret rings end up failing and busting:

"As a result of the installation of protection modules [...], the weight of the turret is increased by 2.5-3.5 tons. Due to a static increase in mass, damage or cracks may occur [...] especially when the tower is rotated." from the Feb. 2002 issue of "Soldat und Technik"

As to your second question, when will the Europeans remove their leaders—unfortunately, I have no good answer. I think the pressure will continue building, but it won’t happen anytime soon. Years, rather than months. It has to do with what I mentioned in an earlier answer, that there is an iron-clad system in place, built by the one world government technocracy which runs the EU. Through their control of the media-corporate-industrial-complex, they’re able to filter in only the candidates that fit their narrow criteria. This allows them to repeatedly recycle candidates over and over.

Just look at how technocrats in the EU are recycled from one position to another. Stoltenberg, Draghi, Von der Leyen, and many others. They’ve held endless positions and sinecures, and continue their duty as soldiers of the elite super technocracy, being merely reshuffled from one appointment to the next. And even in individual countries, like for instance the UK, you have the same people like Johnson coming back over and over even after being booted previously. The reason is this corporate-media-industrial-complex controls the candidate pool filtration system by way of their iron-clad ability to deplatform, shadowban, blacklist, and blackball anyone who strays from the company line.

As a recent example in the U.S., for instance, just look at how Tucker Carlson was just fired for crossing too far over the line, proving that even ‘dissident’ Fox News is controlled by interests that seek to maintain the proper orthodoxy. And then it was just announced that the Democrats will not allow debates in the primaries to be held. This is a clear example of the ‘filtration system’. They know that other ‘dissident Democrats’ like RFK Jr., for instance, would have mopped the floor with the senile mummy Biden in any open debate, therefore they’ve literally cancelled debates pretty much ensuring Biden’s nomination as the Democratic candidate because no other party member will be able to challenge him. These are the small screws and levers of their control mechanism which ensures proper filtration, and they are similar if not identical to the tricks used in the EU as well.

The only thing to say is that the Ukrainian conflict could accelerate the process. If Russia can win decisively in a way that blows the lid off their lies and misdeeds, the people of Europe will be brought much closer to revolt. Particularly if they “put everything” into this conflict and then lose in a humiliating way, I believe it will bring them much closer to the brink. The reason is, they are gambling a vast amount for this victory. If Ukraine wins, the European technocrats like Macron and co. will be able to rejoice and righteously say to their populace: “See! I told you your suffering and economic destruction was worth it! Look at the glorious victory we achieved over the evil imperial barbarians!” However, if and when they lose, it will be catastrophic for their political careers because it will expose that the massive gamble on all the citizenry’s livelihoods and economic futures was a disastrous loss. It will open their eyes to the fact that they threw away their economic futures, prosperity, freedoms for nothing because Russia will remain as prosperous and victorious while Ukraine will be defeated and decrepit Europe left holding the bag. This could be the ‘final push’ that will lead to more serious revolts.

14

Reading the comments on the "New York Times's" story today concerning Ukraine getting pounded by bombs, missiles and drones was very depressing as it revealed the uninformed hopium that the PMC of the US holds with regard this conflict. "Time for Nato to get involved", "take the gloves off", and "start delivering the fighters" constituted the bulk of comments.
My question: is there any solid evidence concerning Nato forces participating presently?

It depends what you mean by ‘NATO forces’, exactly. The most solid evidence of all, of course, is their direct admission in the recent ‘Pentagon leaks’ that they have over 100 special forces in Ukraine. However, a part of me believes this portion of the leaks was deliberately meant to obfuscate an even much larger proportion of clandestine work.

Then there are previous admissions by the U.S. that there are certain forces in the country, but they are ostensibly there for the purpose of ‘accounting for the delivered weaponry’. I.e. they’re characterized sort of as watchmen who are making sure some of the more sensitive weapons don’t fall into the wrong hands, or are sold on the black market, etc.

I’ve posted it before but at the 1:30 mark of this video, the CNN correspondent states there’s a special, secret ground operation that works alongside the HIMARs launchers to make sure they’re safe. There is heavy implication from everything we know, these are Western special forces. How can we infer this? You have to know how to read between the lines, have to have followed conflicts for a long time and know how they operate. For instance, in a separate earlier release regarding Western tanks, which I posted in another report, it was openly stated by the West that they are considering sending “special forces” to stay behind their Challenger 2 tanks, etc., in order to make sure that if the tank ever gets ‘disabled’, it can be retrieved and not fall into Russian hands. These are the small subtle hints from which you can infer. When you read a direct report like that from Western defense ministers, then you see a CNN report which euphemistically says there are secret forces nearby the HIMARs to watch it, then you can fairly guess what that means.

Further, we have many other big hints like in this video where a high ranking Austrian army commander ‘states the quiet part out loud’ when he’s asked whether Western/NATO officers will be crewing some of the high value equipment sent to Ukraine. Listen to his answer for yourself. The questioner even states there are over 20,000 Polish servicemen already secretly in Ukraine which the Austrian commander doesn’t deny. He goes on to say that it’s as easy as taking off your uniform and putting on a Ukrainian one, then smugly hints that this is how there are “no NATO soldiers in Ukraine”. He’s implying that there are tons there but, of course, they can’t be rightly called ‘NATO soldiers’ as the ‘change of uniform’ gives them plausible deniability.

We have tons of other adjacent proof of this. I can sit here and post proof all day long as I have dozens of such examples. For instance, this video shows Ukrainians in a trench openly admitting that Polish soldiers are manning the AH Krab artillery pieces, which heavily implies that many of the high value Western systems are likely manned by the native soldiers of those countries, as many of us long suspected. There are several other videos pertaining to the Krab specifically which corroborate this.

There are also tons of “less solid” evidence, like the 200 bodies found in a Polish mine shaft, which turned out to be some type of soldiers with their organs harvested—some believe to be secret Polish soldiers hidden away so as to disguise their participation in the conflict. But this is more speculative, the examples I gave above are direct and solid. There are also many videos like this one, where Russian troops stumbled upon dead mercenaries with their hands and heads cut off in order to deliberately conceal their identity, although they were later proven to be Polish fighters by other articles found on them.

Even days before the invasion began, British news services reported that British special forces were in Ukraine, we can assume they never left.

And an article from April, months into the conflict, openly stated that British forces are in Ukraine but only for the purposes of ‘training’ Ukrainian troops, which of course is a lie.

There are many other examples, for instance the American soldier who defected to Russia explaining how certain American members of the foreign legion had special/secret satellite phones with direct contacts to the CIA, which fed them Russian troop location and targeting data, implying that these “foreign legion mercenaries” were likely just CIA plants working deep cover missions.

15

I'd like know more about the characteristics of the battles in/near Avdeevka, to drive the vipers out.
And other efforts to create a buffer zone west of Donetsk city, wide enough to put the city out of range of HIMARS and other longer range systems used by the Ukro-Nazis.
I know Avdeevka is heavily fortified and the Ukies have built tunnels, so it's a very tough grind to liberate the town. Is there hope that in the near future, say a month or 2, that the Ukros can be driven back and finally be prevented from targeting open markets and other civilian areas and killing people in Donestsk city, Gorlovka, etc.?

First, let me illustrate the rough distances required to put the center of Donetsk out of artillery range:

A quick mockup, but you can see the white line is a bit over 30km from the city center, which is, give or take, artillery range, depending on system. The red arc shows what can be expected to fall once the full cauldron dissolves Avdeevka, based on the fact that Krasnogorovka is one of the areas where the gradual advance is happening.

The point being that, once that area falls, it leaves only a small buffer of a few kilometers between the white line which would put at least Donetsk city center—where most of the important markets are—out of artillery range. On the other hand, we know in this area that even a few kilometers can take years to capture. But there is reason to believe it will happen in the semi-near future simply because Russia has been putting more resources here and progress has been relatively fast in the last month compared to all previous times. And if the Ukraine decides to launch their grand southern offensive, this area could be left neglected while Ukraine prioritizes its reserves, equipment, etc., into the offensive front, which could give Russia the final opportunity to completely collapse this cauldron.

Of course, conversely, it’s possible Ukraine could launch a counter-offensive into this very area as part of their coming offensives so it’s difficult to say with full certainty. In fact, Russell Bentley recently wrote an explosive diatribe about how he believes Ukraine will in fact hit the Donetsk and Gorlovka area rather than the expected ‘southern direction’, as these are the areas he believes most vulnerable and neglected, defense-wise on the Russian side. Of course, as I wrote in an earlier report, Bentley lives in Donetsk and has personal reasons driving his fears, but he could have a point—no one knows for certain.

I personally believe that during Russia’s own coming offensive, they will seek to prioritize the areas you mentioned simply because the primary objective for Russia first and foremost, even before all the newfangled ideas of grand destruction of the AFU, ‘demilitarization’, ‘denazification’, capture of Odessa, and things of this nature—no, the primary objective is what’s constitutionally mandated. Putin signed LPR and DPR into law in September, 2022 as part of the Russian Federation; they are now sanctified by law into the Russian constitution as a federal republic of Russia. In fact, the entire mobilization itself was done for the sake of liberating these new republics because the announcement of Russia’s mobilization and the official referendum and annexation of Donetsk and Lugansk were only days apart in late September, 2022.

That means it is utmost priority to completely liberate these lands and free them from the threat of constant artillery bombardment and mass genocide that AFU perpetrates daily on Donetsk citizens, so I do think Russia will prioritize this very soon.

And as for Gorlovka, there is reason to believe that will happen as well only because there have been inklings from Wagner that the next phase of their operations after Bakhmut’s fall may include a southern expansion to collapse the Toretsk region. This would presumably be in line with slowly enveloping Konstantinovka, which is a key corridor into that final big Kramatorsk-Slavyansk agglomerate. Konstantinovka can almost be thought of as the Soledar equivalent to Kramatorsk, in a sense. And we know Wagner had to take Soledar first before attempting to assault and envelop Bakhmut.

Gorlovka city center to the edge of Konstantinovka is almost exactly 30km, so should they succeed in that it would put at least the center of Gorlovka out of artillery range.

This is the region in question:

So this may be one of the next regions targeted by Wagner for assault, which would finally give Gorlovka breathing room.

However, you did ask about HIMARs rather than artillery. Unfortunately the range on those is so long that those cities will not be out of HIMARs range any time soon. And by the time that happens, Ukraine may already have GLSDBs, ATACMs or other toys which will still put the cities in range. I focused on artillery because at least HIMARs has a good chance of being shot down, whereas artillery there’s no chance and thus is the bigger threat. We won’t see those cities out of HIMARs range until maybe next year at the earliest if not later. In fact, it’ll sooner be that Russia would destroy all the HIMARs launchers in the coming offensives rather than liberate the territory required to put that region out of range.

But ultimately, will that happen in the next month or two? No. Expect the aforementioned captures of Avdeevka and Toretsk area to take at least until later this year. But it will all depend on whether ‘the big one’ in terms of Russia’s own offensive comes or not. If it comes by this summer, we could see much bigger gains much sooner.

16

I’ve seen rumblings of the T14s deployment in the SMO - my question to you is what do you think their role will be and, to broaden the scope, how is this conflict changing the use cases, demands, and vulnerabilities of tanks vs previously imagined doctrine?

Yes, the T-14 is now reportedly confirmed as engaging in combat but from closed positions, which means it’s basically being used to fire at enemy fortifications from long, safe ranges to put it through its paces, and not in active assaults. However, the same report which confirmed the above, stated that the T-14 is planned to be used in whichever theater/frontline Ukraine’s new Western Leopards/Challengers/Abrams will be deployed. So a big showdown of world’s top tanks is expected soon, as the T-14s will be put to the test as ultimate Western-tank-hunters.

Of course, I doubt you’ll see them used in a frontline role charging in head first like we see, for instance, T-90Ms doing in Marinka and Bakhmut, where they are fighting literally nose to nose, hundreds of meters away from the enemy. The T-14’s superior systems, optics, fire-control, etc., will allow it to stay far back and act as a ‘sniper’ to engage Western tanks. Its superior communications and networking capabilities will theoretically allow it to see the battlefield situationally and be fed information from forward observers as to where a given high value target like a Western tank might be. Then they can move into position and snipe it from long range.

With that said, I don’t actually expect to see much tank on tank engagement of this sort, at least vis a vis the Western tanks, simply owing to the fact that there’re so few of them and so few of the T-14s that for the two to run into each other on the battlefield would take extraordinary luck.

Beyond the Western tanks though, there are a number of dangerous Ukrainian tanks from Poland, such as the PT-91 Twardy, which is a heavily modified T-72, which some experts believe is even superior to the Western tank variants being sent. So the T-14 could also be sent to hunt the much more numerous Twardys.

I should note that the Armata was already confirmed by the Russian MOD to having been tested in Syria previously, so this is not completely new waters for it, but will likely be the first time the tank is up against other equals, or even other tanks in general.

As to your second question, the conflict has spurred a huge wave of expert discussion about the role of tanks in modern and future conflicts. One of the central places these debates have raged is the WarOnTheRocks site, one of the top defense industry, insider military blogs:

Some have decried tanks as completely obsolete, while others argue they still have a strong role. It’s interesting, vis a vis this argument and the above headline, that yesterday’s announcement was that the Switchblade-300 is being cancelled, having proven worthless in Ukraine; U.S. will not be purchasing any more of them.

The truth is, the tank is functioning on the modern battlefield with very little difference to previous conflicts. I’ve posted it before, but there is a certain kill ratio per day of conflict for tanks, which has remained relatively stable from the era of Israel’s Yom Kippur War for instance to now. Keep in mind the outliers of the completely fraudulent American invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., don’t count as I’ve already made it clear how those non-wars were total hoaxes to pump up the image of American invincibility. If America fought any real war against even a remotely near-peer foe, they’d suffer the same tank losses as everyone else.

My point in bringing that up is, to me, this conflict doesn’t necessarily prove any difference in the role of battle tanks. Only younger observers not familiar with past conflicts stare goggle-eyed and remark how all the drone kills and such must mean that tanks are obsolete compared to the past. In reality, I don’t think much of the modern weaponry has changed the tank’s role at all. For instance, the Lebanon War of 2006 saw Israel lose just as many tanks on average, comparatively speaking. Ignore the fake “official stats” posted on Wiki and such, the people who were actually there on the ground report Israel lost 100-200+ tanks or more in only a few short weeks of combat. Many of them, of course, were not ‘total losses’, i.e. they were repairable, but it still goes to show.

Even 100 tanks lost by what is often considered the most ‘modern’ and ‘capable’ military in the world in a month of fighting, would extrapolate into 1500 lost after 15 months of fighting, which is where the Ukraine conflict is at. And that number is roughly around where Oryx claims Russia’s tank losses are.

The other thing is that, Ukraine has taught us that Javelins and all the fancy Wunderwaffen anti-tank weapons are really not the silver bullets they claimed they were. Their performance in Ukraine can be described as anything from ‘completely useless’ to ‘mediocre at best’. The vast majority of tank kills still happen by way of the most old-fashioned methods which have existed for over 100 years, artillery, classical airpower, etc.

So personally I don’t think the tank’s role has changed much at all, it’s barely more vulnerable than it has been in the past. And new, contemporary defensive improvements make up for the slight increase in vulnerability anyway. The next stage will be mass rollout of hardkill APS systems which will make tanks even more protected and could turn them nigh invulnerable. The Armata is supposed to already come stock with its own Afghanit APS, the T-90Ms are supposed to start receiving Arena systems en masse by 2025:

Arena was just officially certified weeks ago, after having passed state trials against captured Western weapons, which means it can defeat Javelins and everything in between.

The Armata, meanwhile, is already stealth in the thermal IR range which may not even allow Javelins and other types of weaponry to lock on to it.

So to answer your question, how has this conflict changed tank doctrine? I don’t think it changed it at all. Only in minor cosmetic ways. Sure, you have to be more careful, do your due diligence in taking more precautions as to how you operate, where you store the tanks, repositioning after firing, outfitting it with a variety of adhoc things like nets or cages just to help protect a little more against drones and certain weapons. But as a generality, not much has changed. And the next generation of tanks have all sorts of countermeasures that will ensure the tanks prolonged dominance.

Drones are the biggest coming threat, however for now there remain some very simple adjustments that can mitigate the threat. For instance, placing ERA (Explosive Reactive Armor) blocks on top of turrets and the topsides of hulls (where they previously were not deemed important to place) can help deal with FPV kamikaze drones attacking from the top, and has in some cases already proven to do so. A recent video shows a Russian tank shrugging off a FPV drone attack which hit its newly placed Kontakt ERA blocks on the front turret / hull area.

As I said, the vast majority of tanks still die to mines and artillery, just like in the 1940s. Far less has changed than our modern egos would like us to admit.

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