SITREP 2/2/24: Biden Launches Attacks as Russia Again Breaches Major Avdeevka Lines
As of this writing, Biden has finally begun his retaliatory attacks, hitting targets in Syria and Iraq. But sources claim that almost every target was known in advance and evacuated, as we suspected would be the case.
But the most interesting development on this front is the following. Recall in the last update I indicated rumors that, amid a welter of secret talks, Israel was considering some kind of full ceasefire and, presumably, an end to the war.
Now there are new reports that the US has fully doubled down on the creation of a Palestinian state—in other words, the long-sought-after two-state solution:
The United States is actively pursuing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel and exploring options with partners in the region, the State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Whitehouse Spokesman Matthew Miller confirmed:
He says the carrot is “security guarantees for Israel”. You have to understand how politi-speak works. In diplomatic/political terms, “security guarantees” is translated as: bribes. It effectively means, we’ll give you x amount of billions of dollars for weapons if you do what we say.
A new WaPo piece confirms these developments by adding that Blinken will soon head to the MidEast to try to finalize this deal by convincing Saudi Arabia to agree to normalize its relations with Israel on the express condition that Israel not only fully ends the Gaza conflict, but commits to creating a Palestinian state which includes Gaza and the West Bank.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to travel to the Middle East soon. He’ll probably stop first in Saudi Arabia, where he hopes for a renewed pledge from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to normalize relations with Israel if — and only if — Israel ends the Gaza conflict and commits to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state that includes Gaza and the West Bank.
It’s difficult not to be somewhat impressed by these developments. For all the corruption and evil of the US regime, we can almost give them credit for coming to reason—under great duress and social pressure, of course—and for once doing the just and honorable thing. What it further means is that the US realizes it has no choice remaining but to hardball an ‘end game’ against Israel, otherwise US risks being dragged into an Empire-ending war with Iran.
It does look more and more likely that such a deal can occur, and the war on Gaza will end. But: one must remember that from the perspective of diehard Likudniks and Israeli rightwingers, such a ‘premature’ cessation would effectively doom Israel for good. We’ve covered the angle at length before, but in essence, due to Israel’s demographic discrepancies with its Arab neighbors amongst other things, to allow a Palestinian state to grow on its borders, protected by a legitimate UN seat (rather than “observer” status), would mean the eventual total dissolution of Israel and the forfeiture of all prophecies of Moshiach’s return.
Thus, the radicals amongst them could never allow this—so it will have to come to a major head, and may get bloody. Israel’s internal situation and stability in many ways mirrors that of Ukraine and its ultra-radical faction.
The final biggest issue, which would be an immense thorn in Israel’s side, and a grave humiliation, is highlighted at the end of the WaPo article:
Then there is the problem of stopping settler violence and relocating as many as 200,000 Israelis from a future Palestinian state. Biden took a strong step Thursday by sanctioning four Israeli West Bank settlers who committed violence against Palestinians. That’s just a start, but it enhances U.S. credibility with Palestinians as peace broker.
Yes, you see, given that Israel has hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers occupying ostensibly Palestinian territory, the creation of a legitimate state would necessitate the total expulsion of all settlers, which would play like a sort of Israeli Nakhba on TV. Recall, the whole point of the illegal settlements was always about one thing only: keeping a Palestinian state from forming. So this would mean the end to a grand plan spanning many decades, and a historic failure of an age-old Zionist vision.
As a sidenote, new reports point to promising normalizations between KSA and Syria as well:
Saudi Arabia prepares to open embassy in Syria
The process of normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and the Assad regime is gaining momentum.
According to a report by Al Watan, Saudi Chargé d'Affaires Abdullah al-Harith and some other diplomats will travel to Damascus on Saturday to resume Saudi consular services.
According to the Saudi newspaper, Al-Harith will present his credentials to the Assad regime's foreign minister and begin work with his team at a hotel in the Syrian capital. Once restoration work is completed on the Saudi Arabian Embassy building in Damascus, the embassy will move into this building.
The United Arab Emirates also sent an ambassador to Syria for the first time in 13 years.
UAE Ambassador Hassan al-Shehhi took office on Tuesday, presenting his credentials to the Assad regime's foreign minister.
I tentatively propose that ‘things are looking up’.
But the most explosive developments come from the Ukrainian front, as usual. There are a few very interesting breakthrough stories to tackle.
Firstly, the Zelensky-Zaluzhny affair heats up. As reported last time, there is further confirmation that Zelensky plans to issue a decree to fire Zaluzhny:
In fact, Seymour Hersh dropped another “bombshell” today claiming that his sources told him the reason behind the coming dismissal is that Zaluzhny has been conspiring with the West to not only oust Zelensky—an obvious point—but to end the war entirely:
While I’m on the fence about Hersh’s sources, the fact is that I myself have reported a month or two back on various rumors that a Zaluzhny faction was forming, with Poroshenko working to recruit various oligarchs like Akhmetov to back the embattled general, with some even claiming that there were associated talks on secret deals with the Russian side.
From the TASS article above on the Hersh piece:
The new US policy on Ukraine envisages support for Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, a cessation of hostilities, economic reforms and an end to President Vladimir Zelensky’s rule, Hersh said.
"The actual concept is far more complicated and far more ambitious, I was told by the official, and envisions sustained support for Zaluzhny and reforms that would lead to the end of the Zelensky regime," Hersh wrote on his blog on Substack.
He said that forging a new strategy requires "consultation and education of key patriotic and realistic Ukrainians."
"The danger with such reform is that there will be leaks to the press and an effort by the entrenched corrupt beneficiaries of the US ‘free lunch’ policy to derail the process," the journalist continued.
"The strategy now being proposed is to settle the war and settle the financial plan for Ukraine," he quoted a US official as saying.
Now an avalanche of new “intrigues” has ensued. For instance: Zaluzhny was involved in a seemingly indirect threat to Zelensky with the posting of this photo, exemplifying his far-right radical nationalist backing:
Zaluzhny on eve of his expected firing by Zelensky shows his backing from far-right, which has power to overthrow Zelensky. Zaluzhny takes selfie with leader of far-right Right Sector & commander of Right Sector brigade of Ukrainian military in front of portrait of Nazi collaborator & far-right OUN leader Bandera & red & black flag of OUN-UPA & Right Sector.
It would be a way of hinting to Zelensky: “Don’t try me, or I’ll send the real wolves after you.”
That’s not to mention that after news of the attempted dismissal, Zaluzhny immediately released a new article on CNN:
Though it deals with the mechanics of the war, it does take a couple of arguable swings at Zelensky and co., for instance:
We must acknowledge the significant advantage enjoyed by the enemy in mobilizing human resources and how that compares with the inability of state institutions in Ukraine to improve the manpower levels of our armed forces without the use of unpopular measures.
Finally, we remain hamstrung by the imperfections of the regulatory framework in our country, as well as the partial monopolization of the defense industry. These lead to production bottlenecks – in ammunition, for instance – which further deepen Ukraine’s dependence on its allies for supplies.
I do plan to delve more indepth into the article in a planned coming piece of my own, which deals more specifically with the issues of the current war, so for now that’s all I’ll say on it.
But the simple fact he released the unapproved article could be viewed as a double-edged blow because if you recall, the last time he penned such an unsanctioned piece following the counter-offensive he angered Zelensky, drawing immediate censure. Thus, this too seems like an intentionally timed bit of defiance and needling on Zaluzhny’s part, and new ‘rumors’ from Ukrainian Legitimny channel do claim that Zelensky is already furious about the latest stunt. Partly, it likely also has to do with the fact that the carefully timed release is meant to show Zaluzhny as the intrepid commander, still in charge and powerful, dissertating on doctrinal matters to the world. It becomes difficult to ‘dismiss’ such a man who appears active and engaged with solving Ukraine’s military tasks.
The fact that he hammers on the ‘too few soldiers’ theme is an obvious jab at Zelensky and the ongoing mobilization saga, which is at the center of Zaluzhny’s ongoing removal from power. I said last time that Zelensky tried to pin the mobilization on his general, so Zaluzhny immediately wrote an article stating mobilization is one of the main reasons for AFU losing, implying that this is on the leadership—i.e. Zelensky.
This was followed by alleged leaks of a Zaluzhny telephone call, where he reportedly savages Zelensky with a slew of colorful epithets:
While as of yet this is unsourced and therefore questionable, it does follow in accordance with previous confirmed stories of SBU wire-tapping Zaluzhny’s office from a few months ago. Further, a new video from Zvezda shows Ukrainian ex-SBU—now defected to Russia—Vasily Prozorov discussing another ‘leaked’ letter potentially written by the SBU, that claims to reveal that Zaluzhny was being ‘insubordinate to Zelensky’, or in other words, stopped taking orders from Zelensky entirely:
❗️EXCLUSIVE ❗️
Zaluzhny may leave his post so as not to become a “scapegoat” - Prozorov showed a secret letter about the generals’ disobedience to the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
The letter was “leaked” from the SBU, it could have been prepared by the military themselves so that Zaluzhny would have an official reason for dismissal, ex-SBU officer Vasily Prozorov, who received the document from his Ukrainian sources, said in the Open Air program on the Zvezda TV channel.
“They (the Ukrainian military) understand perfectly well that they need a “scapegoat” on whom all military failures will be blamed. Zaluzhny understands that the last one [to be in the post] will be blamed for everything. But leaving on his own is not nice. And if Zelensky fires him by his decree, then “the scoundrel president simply devoured him almost on takeoff,” the expert noted.
Prozorov’s theory is that Zaluzhny actually wants to “get out of dodge” himself because when Ukraine is forced to surrender to Russia, the general doesn’t want to be made the scapegoat.
The other huge news is another startling ‘surprise advance’ has occurred on the Avdeevka front:
This time it was from the north, and was initially confirmed via geolocation of a Ukrainian FPV attack on advanced Russian forces:
It’s difficult to tell how definitive it is because of that, since it could have just been forward scout units. However, there’s been so much hubbub about it now from reliable sources that it appears they have begun to dig in, though we’ll know for definite over the next few days or so.
Julian Roepcke, of course, once more led the pack in alarm:
As the former platoon commander of the nationalist battalion "Aidar" Yevgeny Dikiy said, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will apparently have to leave Avdiivka.
According to Dikiy, the likelihood of the Ukrainian Armed Forces withdrawing from Avdeevka is growing every day for one reason: “shell hunger”, as well as the approach of Russian troops to the supply route.
—
On that note, it’s not looking good for the AFU, and the given reason continues to be due to mass shell hunger and inability to fire artillery. Several new articles evocatively delve into this topic, as well as other revealing matters. One from Politico:
One of the revelations is that the EU will only end up scrounging up 524k total shells of the promised 1M for Ukraine. If you recall, last time they were “on track” for 600k+, but the total number keeps dwindling:
The European Union had promised to send a million shells by March but won't meet that target. EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said this week that the bloc will ship only 524,000 shells by then, while promising 1.1 million by the end of the year.
The quote of the article goes to this, however:
They repeat the same tired spiel about their FPV usage as replacement for artillery, but one soldier even admits that FPVs can’t entirely do the job. And he’s right, you can go far with them but nothing can totally replace the ‘god of war’.
Another one from Bloomberg hits the panic button:
The common theme with both is that Ukraine has too few ammunition not merely to go on assault or “win”, but even to defend and hold back Russia’s troops:
Recent waves of Russian missile attacks killed dozens in Kyiv and other cities as Ukraine’s air defenses, which rely heavily on expensive interceptors provided by the allies, weren’t able to destroy as many of the incoming weapons as in the past, according to a European diplomat.
The next piece is from Der Spiegel:
Here’s one summary of the article’s most poignant points:
‼️🇺🇦 Soldiers share trenches with the dead, out of 100 company soldiers, only 20 can still fight, - Spiegel about the situation at the front
🔸The Armed Forces of Ukraine do not have enough personnel, and those soldiers who are currently fighting are tired of the fighting and difficult conditions of service.
🔸The wife of a soldier who has been near Bakhmut for more than a year reported that her husband “is sitting in a dirty, cold position, less than 100 meters from the enemy.”
🔸 “Sometimes he shares the trench with the dead, because the shelling is so strong that no one can take out the bodies. Once he went to the position and there was no contact with him for 10 days,” said Irina Topinko, a resident of the Zhytomyr region.
🔸The military says that mobilization needs to be strengthened, but now it is taking place “not according to clear criteria developed in public discourse, but secretly, with accusations of arbitrariness and corruption.”
🔸"Anyone who doesn't have money or connections, or simply doesn't act quickly enough, can fall victim to increasingly brutal methods. Authorities catch men on the street or at work and drag them to training camps."
🔸But those who end up at the front this way are often incompetent soldiers.
🔸 “There are alcoholics among the recruits, says one of the commanders of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleg. They couldn’t even dig trenches, and the military police detained them for drunkenness.”
🔸Therefore, there are “fewer and fewer soldiers” on the front line.
🔸 “Soldiers report that out of almost 100 people in their company, only 20 can still fight. There are not enough people in all units,” - Spiegel interlocutors say.
And this is becoming a big theme. Today Rob Lee’s tweet made the rounds, wherein he acknowledged that Ukraine faces a shortage of infantry:
To anyone with a brain, the reason why that is, is obvious.
Putin confirmed something I’ve been long proclaiming: that the POW ratio between Ukraine and Russia is 10:1 in Russia’s favor. From RT:
And here in Putin’s own words:
This is finally official confirmation of what I’ve been solely compiling for a long time, based on official statements from both sides, as well as tracking the actual facilities Ukraine uses to house POWs. The fact is, Ukraine only has a few hundred Russians while Russia has had anywhere between 10,000-15,000 Ukrainian POWs at various points, fluctuating with exchanges.
Given the fact that each category of casualty should scale relatively comparatively, this means we can expect a similar disproportionality to exist between Russian-Ukrainian KIA figures.
Commenting on the above, one analyst wrote:
Putin said that the proportion of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners is approximately 1:10. And why? What does it mean?
Option 1: Does this mean that the ratio of losses between the Russian army and the Ukrainian Armed Forces is 1: 10?
Option 2: Or are the losses comparable, but the morale of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is so much less than the morale of the Russian army that Ukrainian soldiers surrender 10 times more?
My answer is both. The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are approximately 3 times greater than Russian losses.
But the morale of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is significantly lower, so that prisoners surrender in a proportion 3 times higher than the proportion of losses.
And the third option is tactics. The Russian army surrounded many Ukrainian Armed Forces in Mariupol, the largest city liberated.
His rationale makes sense. The KIA doesn’t have to be exactly 10:1 like the POW ratio owing to, as he states, the disproportionately lower morale of the AFU. However it could still be much closer to the 10:1 than the 3:1 he posits. Either way, we know it means for a fact that Ukraine’s KIA figures are far higher than that of Russia’s, and Putin’s is the highest level confirmation of this.
To touch on something else quickly: I’ve been keeping tabs on the thread regarding NATO’s escalations toward Russia, particularly in line with their future designs. We have a couple new developments in light of that.
This new article from the Netherlands states the following:
Next in the troubling trend, a new Polish poll states that most Poles support for Poland to effectively help Ukraine create a ‘no fly zone’ for Russian missiles in the west of Ukraine:
The article discusses the possibility of Poland using its air defense to protect Ukrainian airspace up to a depth of 50km under the guise of concerns for Russian missiles crashing in Poland—despite the fact that it was already determined that the largest such incident was a Ukrainian falseflag.
But most interesting is what’s at the bottom of the article. Polish Brigadier General Stanislav Kozey—if I’m reading it correctly through the spotty auto-translation—appears to suggest that the Western bloc should basically annex some of western Ukraine under the auspices of this ‘air umbrella’:
"It could indicate that we are an active actor in the strategic field," adds Stanislav Kozey. - Today we can talk about a soft border, which can be violated by Russia accidentally or intentionally. Such actions could deter Russia and increase the security of our territory, and would also be a win-win for Ukraine, " he said.
General Kozey recalls that Western Ukraine is to some extent integrated into the hub, which is located in Subcarpathia, from where military and humanitarian aid goes to Ukraine. In his opinion, the seizure of the territory of Ukraine by the Western alliance should be publicly announced” " so that Russia knows what it can expect."
Obviously, the designation of such a zone will require changes in the response procedures of the military, including NATO. Now it works in a peaceful mode. Legal changes will be required to allow shooting down alien missiles or drones, he adds. A separate issue should be finding out with Ukraine who bears the costs of possible damage caused by downed missiles.
I think the autotranslation may be referring to a ‘seizure’ of the air defense space, but either way, this is something I long predicted in some of my earliest articles: that the Western bloc would “slide in” to Ukraine in very gradual and subtle fashion that would appear, initially, to be provisional or relating to some humanitarian issue.
On that note, the final item which ‘coincidentally’ ties into the above is a new report that the UK has ‘offered’ to send a NATO force into Ukraine, as well as establish a ‘no fly zone’:
MOSCOW, February 2-RIA Novosti. The United Kingdom has offered its NATO allies to consider sending an alliance expeditionary force to Ukraine, an informed source told RIA Novosti.
"Due to the unfavorable development of events in the Ukrainian theater of operations (Theater of Operations) for Kiev, Britain suggested that NATO allies consider sending an alliance expeditionary force to Ukraine, as well as establishing a no — fly zone over the territory controlled by the Kiev authorities, and increasing the supply of weapons and equipment to the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the source said.
And the following is straight out of my playbook, which I outlined precisely to this effect in some of my earliest predictions:
Nevertheless, the British side expects that with a significant weakening of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the successful advance of the Russian army deep into the territory of the former Soviet republic, the allies will approve the initiative, the source said.
He clarified that the kingdom offers to secretly transfer large highly maneuverable NATO forces to Ukraine from the border areas of Romania and Poland to occupy defensive lines along the right bank of the Dnieper.
My long-time readers will recall that I always said at the moment when Ukraine was near to total collapse, there will come a point that NATO will strongly consider creating some kind of ‘event’ or justification for them to save western Ukraine from falling into Russia’s hands. I talked about the American 82nd and 101st going from Romania to ‘block’ Odessa in the same way Russian forces once did in the Pristina airport incident. As well as other forces potentially in western Ukraine, particularly those that can create a shield for a Ukrainian government-in-exile once Kiev falls.
Britain intends to complete the preparation of such a scenario by May of this year, the source concluded.
And speaking of that, on the issue of the Zaluzhny dismissal, some recent articles have begun to cite plans to eventually relocate the Ukrainian ‘government-in-exile’ to Lvov, as I had long spoken about.
From AsiaTimes:
Here is my own prediction from many months ago:
On that note, there is again increased talk of mercenaries everywhere. As Ukraine runs out of men, NATO hawks hatch their plans for a desperate last-bell save, as well as pump their disrobed soldiers into the country to stem the losses. Not only have recent Russian reports mentioned a lot of ‘German chatter’ in intercepted comms in Kupyansk, but more and more foreigners have been eliminated in recent strikes.
Earlier today:
Of course, they call them ‘aid workers’, as always.
A female German merc was just laid to rest as well:
Not to mention this Polish specimen seen in a video today, discussing with his Wehrmacht reenactment enthusiast partner how to take Moscow:
As well as French:
Some sundry items:
I found this unearthed admission in New Yorker interesting. Zaluzhny told Milley in late 2022 that “Ukraine had almost no jet fighters left”:
It’s eye-opening for the reason that many people claim Russia hasn’t attrited the Ukrainian airforce while I have said repeatedly that Ukraine has continued to get re-ups from ‘partners’, relaying many odd stories about Migs dumped in the ‘woods’ on the UA border to be ‘found’. Well, here’s proof from the horse’s mouth that Russia had already brought them down to nearly zero in 2022.
Next:
The type of people in leadership positions in Ukraine:
Former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Lutsenko admitted that he enjoyed killing Russians. “Of course, I hate Russians too. I honestly say that I killed them and enjoyed it. I counted 14 corpses and for me it was a gift,” he said proudly.
Next:
Ukraine sank another middling Russian boat, of a ‘cutter’ class by Soviet designation—project 1241. Problem is, Russia seized four of these from Ukraine itself:
So who’s really up on the exchange?
Next:
AFU soldier dejectedly tells host there is no hope:
- Nobody survives at the front. It's impossible to do.
- Is there a real scenario of how you can survive there?
- There's no such thing.
- Why are so many guys sent there? The best of the Ukrainian nation?
- There are no such people anymore.
Next:
Ukraine now not only has the lowest fertility rate on earth, but its male life expectancy has dropped to 57 years. How low will it go before the conflict ends?
That’s according to this new Times article:
Next:
Putin gives a very honest appraisal of Russia’s weaponry. He openly admits that many NATO systems are slightly superior to the older Soviet designs, but Russia’s newest stuff is nonpareil:
And lastly, on a humorous note, when commenting on sanctions, Putin proudly tells Western countries that he’d like to give them a very ‘familiar gesture’, but he won’t do so because there are ladies present:
“I would like to show the West a well-known gesture, but I will not do this - there are many girls here,” Putin said.
For unfamiliar Westerners who may be thinking of the middle finger, Putin instead likely had this in mind:
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My sources tell me that Saudi & UAE proxies in Yemen are already mass defecting to Ansarallah courtesy of their principled, moral stance on Palestine & Gaza. Basically, the American 'project' in West Asia is rapidly collapsing as we speak: 'Israel' has been repulsed by the Palestinian JOR & the Axis of Resistance have done irreparable harm to the Northern settlements. At this point, the only outcome is Iran's Ascension to Great Power Status in the region, in tandem with a full US-retreat.
The USA "for once doing the just and honorable thing. " I'll believe it when I see it.