SITREP 6/4/24: Global Turmoil Trends Bearish for Ukraine
A biblical red glow torments the skies of northern Israel, which now burns with a Zionist’s zeal for Palestinian land, after a series of Hezbollah strikes. The gods of war are smiling favorably on the coming summer, as flashpoints all across the globe heat up. And the mother of all of them threatens to engulf the region in even more flame with the announcement that Israel could launch the long-awaited war against Hezbollah by mid-June, with rumor claiming the Knesset may vote to take action as early as tonight.
This happens to convolve with a host of other ponderous developments, which include Russia’s slow buildup for a large-scale escalation in the north. If Israel truly kicks off another massive war to its own north, it could be the final nail in Ukraine’s coffin.
Recall that in a short 4 months, we will have reached the 1 year anniversary of Israel’s invasion of Gaza and its meandering war against Hamas. If in almost a full year of fighting, Israel can make no real headway against the comparatively tiny Hamas, how long would it take for them to tame Hezbollah in what can only be expected to be a far more ‘high intensity’ conflict?
You can be sure that every available Western munition—particularly of the artillery variety—will be routed to Israel and Ukraine will be historically screwed at the key moment of Russia’s largest scale maneuvers. It would be the ultimate irony should Ukraine fall as consequence of Israel’s actions—but alas, Zelensky and Netanyahu appear locked into parallel fates: both require the continuation of war to survive their political crises.
Now at the same time the pressure of another major pivot point mounts as reports claim that Macron may be set to announce the French ‘trainer’ troops deployment to Ukraine on the Normandy anniversary celebrations on June 6th:
As usual, the above new WaPo article however once more confirms that the ploy is nothing more than the stated attempt to keep Russia ‘guessing’:
It is grounded in his view that the West would be better off keeping the Kremlin guessing about what it is prepared to do, rather than ruling out what it will not do. By shifting to a posture of “strategic ambiguity,” Macron seems to think, Ukraine’s allies could move beyond self-deterrence, shifting to Putin the burden of calculating the risks of escalation.
Of course, what they mean by guessing, precisely, is that they want Putin to believe that NATO will actually come to Ukraine’s full military aid if the time comes—as in, actually engaging Russian troops in combat while fighting side by side with the Ukrainians. But no one seriously believes NATO has the solidarity or spine to do so, and thus the ploy to bring in trainers is apt to fall flat. That’s not to mention that, as the above article outlines, Macron faces the risk of grave humiliation if Russia chooses to strike his French “trainers”—in such a case he may lose domestic support as he did nothing to prepare his people for French soldiers returning in body bags, nor does he have any realistic way of responding to such a technically legal attack on Russia’s behalf.
Either way, it has now been again confirmed by a French ex-colonel that French troops have already long been in Ukraine:
⚡️ French military advisers are already in Ukraine, their task will be to maintain complex equipment and train the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reports Valeurs Actuelles with reference to ex-Colonel of the French Navy Pere de Jong.
The French military has been performing tasks in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. – Valeurs Acteurs. Former commander of the Marine Corps regiment Pere de Jong said that in Ukraine the French accompany the maintenance of French weapons and train the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At the same time, according to the publication, the official announcement of the sending of French military instructors to Ukraine may take place on June 6, during the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Allied landing in Normandy
This just happened to coincide with a new video purporting to show Russian troops capturing a French soldier somewhere on the front:
To be honest, this particular video looks a mite staged to me, but I post it in the event that it’s not. I don’t think Russia is above carrying out a little info psyop of its own to poke Macron in the ribs a bit.
French politician Henri Guaino sounds off:
“That’s how the war in Vietnam began” - ex-member of the National Assembly Henri Guaino about Macron’s idea to send French instructors to Ukraine.
‘Do you remember how the Vietnam War began for the Americans? It all started when they sent instructors. And after 4 years there were 500 thousand of them, and they went to war. It's the same story in this war. This is an escalation. We are playing with fire using the argument that we sent offensive weapons and nothing happened, then tanks - nothing happened, then planes - nothing happened, then we allowed an attack on Russian territory - you will see, nothing happens. But the problem with red lines is that we don't know which one will be the last one. I think this is dangerous. At this stage it deserves a big national debate. Macron has the right to urgently send troops if this is in the interests of France, if it is threatened. There is no emergency here. The nation has a say in something that can and will take us very far."
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In the meantime, in their effort to maintain a continual stranglehold of tension NATO has released plans of logistics ‘corridors’ in a potential war against Russia:
What this boils down to is the perennial rolling out of the old ‘military Schengen’ plan, where they envision how to facilitate NATO movement through countries during time of war without any administrative red-tape restrictions:
Most interesting though is this new alarmist announcement is hinged on the admission that in a two-way conflict with Russia, all of NATO’s logistics bases and ports would be immediately destroyed from the outset—thus the need to create secondary backup routes:
Thus, at least they have ceased exaggerating their own strength and now concede their own vulnerabilities. But in the end, as always: NATO can only remain relevant—and thus, funded—if it maintains the illusion of its own essential indispensability; so churn that fear!
Russian programs, by the same token, are responding to the latest escalations with renewed talks of striking Poland:
RUSSIA: POLAND IS A CANDIDATE FOR NUCLEAR WAR Russian political scientist Konstantin Sivkov made the remarks on state television as he described how Poland “could become a small theatre of nuclear war.”
“If we allocate 2 nuclear missiles to each city, that’s only 30-40 missiles. This is just a salvo from one Iskander division. In 10-15 minutes, both the state of Poland and the Polish people disappear. Europeans must understand this.”
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Now to the battlefield.
Reports of Russia’s growing northern force continue unabated. Here’s one where residents near Sumy claimed to have seen a several-kilometers-long Russian column moving:
A week ago, on the border of the Kursk region and Sumy, not far from the town of Sudzha, local residents noticed long columns of the Russian Army several kilometers long - literally 10 kilometers from the border, as if everything had returned to February 2022. Everyone seems to know what this is fraught with, except for the organizers of these columns.
Of course, a day or two later this was confirmed in a not-so-ideal way with footage of a Ukrainian FPV attack taking out a large column of trucks in precisely the Kursk region:
You can see the ‘creative editing’ shows the same few trucks hit over and over from 5 different angles. Geolocation of attack: 51.2475770, 35.1472438
Miraculously, Russian sources claim no casualties were suffered as the—per usual—highly edited Ukrainian video shows a few trucks hit while the rest seemed to scatter.
However, it did confirm that large Russian columns are beginning to build up on that side of the border, though it could always be maskirovka, as Russia has used the same technique before in Kherson region: openly moving around large columns to feign force build ups in a given misdirected area.
Ukrainian reserve officer Tatarigami corroborates the buildups:
While Russian correspondent Marat Khairullin reports from Volchansk in the Kharkov region and hints at something big being prepared there for the future:
In general, from the second half of his report you can see Russia’s strategy clearly stated: they wait for Ukrainian reserves to build up in one place, then they melt them down with mass TOS-1 and Kab attacks. Unfortunately, there have been some gruesome videos attesting to this fact.
Khairullin mentioned 500 Ukrainian corpses already laying there and states that just in the village of Liptsi alone—east of Volchansk—the AFU suffers 150-200 daily casualties. This has been partly corroborated by Ukraine’s own reports which speaks of massive ongoing losses, like the following.
In another new WaPo piece, a Ukrainian commander confirms how exhausted brigades are being sent to the slaughter to shore up Russia’s north Kharkov breakthrough:
“We lost almost the entire battalion.”
They speak of the harrowing onslaught of nonstop glidebombs turning their positions into mulch, and the latest drone shot of Volchansk from above does seem to confirm that grim portrait:
Observe the devastation, then try to reconcile pro-Ukrainian propaganda claims that it is Russia taking the heavy losses in Volchansk. Ukrainian positions filled with large concentrations of men are simply being blown apart, particularly given that both sides admit Ukrainian forces at the moment outnumber Russian ones here by much more than double, after AFU sent most of its remaining reserves to plug the gaps.
There was a video of a claimed Russian soldier speaking of alleged heavy losses on the Russian side that Ukrainians were passing around. But he speaks of a company or two suffering heavy 300 casualties in the opening breach on Volchansk: he specifically says the 200s were low, but many suffered 300 (injuries). And as I said, he was referring to the opening days of the assault which are always fraught with losses, like when those mass armor pushes first began to flood Avdeevka last October. Once Russians reached the current positions and dug in, the few opening losses diminished to very little. Anyway, no one says Russia isn’t suffering losses—but it doesn’t compare to Ukrainian commanders outright admitting entire battalions are being wiped out like in the WaPo piece above.
Russians have now even been seen using the new 2S43 Malva gun, which has entered serial production, on the Volchansk front:
Some have complained this new gun is poor by modern standards because it has a mere ~24km range, compared to NATO’s most advanced guns like the Caesar. I beg to differ: those people don’t understand the economics of war. This gun adapts the Msta-s barrel into a very affordable and mass-produceable platform that is meant to be highly mobile, with less than a minute setup time. Its 24km range with standard rounds is still slightly higher than NATO’s standard rounds fired from Ukraine’s most numerous guns like the M777. And of course the armchair amateurs also wouldn’t have any clue about the fact that the super high pressure barrels which produce “extreme” firing ranges wear out much quicker, which is why “longer range” is not always better—particularly not in the philosophy of the Total War, where longevity and lasting power is prized above all.
What would you rather have, a long firing gun that takes 30 months to produce a single one? Or a shorter ranged one that can be produced at a pace of several in one month?
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The electricity situation is getting worse and worse in Ukraine, with regular power outages now scheduled each day to preserve their grid:
During a live news broadcast, the lights even evocatively went out, with the anchors doing their absurd best to keep up Zelensky’s charade of normality in a country that’s slowly coming apart at the seams:
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The Ukrainian soldier problem is getting so bad that ISW now tries to repackage the AFU’s inability to even train its troops as some sort of ‘advantage’ over Russia:
They’re basically whitewashing and sugarcoating the fact that Ukraine can no longer even consistently train its troops in the rear, but rather sends newly gang-pressed conscripts straight to the front and forces them to “learn on the job” as they die en masse.
In fact the situation is getting so bad that numerous new videos show Ukrainian civilians now actively fighting back against the commissars in widespread fashion.
Arestovich now predicts that Ukraine will be defeated in “a year and a half” after the AFU simply loses its ability to fight back:
He states the new mobilization will fail, and the AFU will “flutter around” for another 1.5 years until its combat potential is totally exhausted—and that is the “ideal” or optimistic scenario, according to him. The pessimistic scenario would likely see Ukraine ‘kick the bucket’ even much sooner.
It’s interesting, by the way, that MSM articles like this latest FP one, also cite the 18 month period as being tied to the war’s end:
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As for granularly direct battlefield updates, Russian forces continue to inch forward, capturing positions on a variety of fronts in the Donetsk region and elsewhere, with Andreevka and Paraskovievka said to have been totally captured.
The key move is now Russian forces beginning to move toward Konstantinovka and assault the critical main supply route connecting it to Ugledar, seen below:
This is the general drive of pushing the AFU back to the Vovcha River along the entire Donetsk-Pokrovsk line.
The usual suspects are of course in tatters:
Here’s the AFU’s official 79th brigade completely broken up about their losses in Paraskovievka:
There were also a host of small advancements along the entire Zaporozhye front (Rabotino area and elsewhere), as well as further north in Chasov Yar and even on the Seversk front, near Razdolovka.
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Another matter to briefly comment on. After the hubbub surrounding Ukrainian permission to fire into Russian territory, the next wave of uproar centered on the alleged permission for Patriot missiles to be used against Russian planes flying over Russian territory: this is meant to be another ‘game changer’ of some sort.
But several connected Russian commentators came forth to dispel the disinformation. For instance, FighterBomber revealed that Patriots have already been utilized against Russian aviation on the Kharkov border for the past 6 months, and the Russian airforce has already successfully coped with it while continually carrying out their work:
In general, for more than six months, our crews on our territory have been attacked by Patriot almost every night. The last time Patriot worked on our aircraft located on our ancient territory was just last night. To no avail.
That is, “Patriots” have been standing at “working distances” for a long time.
And these distances are different depending on many factors, from 30 to 50 km from the LBS.
Therefore, the Air Force personnel look at all these statements and permissions with bewilderment, and continue to beat the Ukrainian.
In general, this means that Russia already knows at least roughly where the Patriots operate from and are able to neutralize or work around them by launching glide-bombs from the appropriate distance out of range.
Another analyst filled in the details:
Permission to use Patriot air defense systems to defeat our aircraft over the territory inside « old » borders, unlike permission to beat with Scalps, Storms and Khaimars, looks funny and naive. For such attacks, permission is not needed, the same HARM PDPs shoot long ago, and if they could, then they would have shot down our plane with Patriot. Here, the main role is played not by the notorious permission, but by our struggle against the enemy’s air defense.
To shoot down planes over our territory is to expose rare and extremely expensive complexes of mortal danger. We in the Kharkov direction already carried out the IEE of the air, and so much so that now there is not a single radar between us and Kharkov, as well as in its immediate vicinity. All that remained, the AFU pulled significantly deeper. The same goes for air defense systems.
Our air scouts and here, of course, first of all, it is necessary to note the best of the best, that is, the calculations of Grom-Cascade, literally etched the enemy’s anti-aircraft missile systems as cockroaches. I am sure that for the opportunity to hit Patriot, these brave guys will not sleep and eat for weeks, just to destroy the shit. So let's see if a crest of complexes worth milliards of dollars to the border is pulled up or if you prefer to lose tharas under the blows of the FABs, which are almost free.
In short: he’s saying that Russian forces have already hunted Ukrainian AD systems out of existence in the Kharkov region to the point that any extant ones have been pulled far back significantly out of range, and thus no one is impressed by the latest Patriot ‘threats’.
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After several new persistent rumors that Russia intends to take action against NATO’s Black Sea surveillance drones, today an interestingly ‘anomalous’ incident occurred. The American RQ-4B Global Hawk was said to have disappeared from radars, spurring headlines that it was shot down, but soon after reappeared—seemingly indicating it had turned off its transponders at a certain point near Crimea:
However, that’s when things got even stranger. Amid other rumors that it was ‘jammed’ and even sent out an SOS signal of malfunction, the RQ-4 immediately flew back to Romania and did several circles—itself a non-standard action. Then it continued to the Black Sea again, but this time did its tracks much further south than usual, near Turkey’s coast:
The obvious conjecture would be that—for now—Russia has resorted to messing with it electronically. The operators first panicked and took it to the safety of NATO airspace to make sure all systems were nominal, then upon return they flew it out of Russian EW range for the remainder of the flight. That’s my “educated guess” as to what could have happened, and I would assume it would serve as ‘warning’ to the U.S.
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An interesting update:
Many people forget that Russia’s closest allies likewise have their own 152mm shell production which can supplement Russia’s own manufacturing:
Important news from Belarus! At the facilities of JSC Legmash in the city of Orsha, recently integrated into the military-industrial complex of Belarus, large-scale production of 152-mm and 122-mm artillery shells for cannon artillery was launched (including howitzers D-30, D-20, Msta-B, Giatsint -B" and their self-propelled modifications), as well as 122-mm unguided rockets of the 9M22U-1 line to replenish the ammunition of the 9K51 "Grad" MLRS Chairman of the State Committee for Military Industry Dmitry Pantus introduced the head of state Alexander Lukashenko to the production process
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Photos have appeared showing racks upon racks of spent HIMARS rounds:
There are two ways of looking at this, but one of them is that it is demonstrative of the fact that Ukraine is launching mass amounts of these systems and yet you don’t really hear much about them anymore beyond the occasional success here or there. They’re launching them everywhere and Russia is intercepting the vast majority of them.
Yes, a new S-300 system was hit in Belgorod region, but as I said—the HIMARS “successes” are getting really few and far in between these days, for the amount of expenditures they’re using. Not to mention a new video claims to show a HIMARS destroyed by a Lancet earlier today.
Recall that a year ago Russia had announced the doubling of S-300/400 production:
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Lastly, a new article from Foreign Affairs (the CFR’s journal) has one quite eye-opening bit.
So, we’re officially at the stage of the war where they’re literally advising Ukraine it’s okay to withdraw from Kiev. That’s not to mention they call for the entire AFU to abandon brigades and be broken up into tiny guerilla groups:
Well, that can’t be a good sign for the war effort.
And since we’re on the topic of the CFR, it’s only fitting we end with Kissinger.
In a new Time magazine interview, Biden says that Kissinger called him 10 days before he died, and that his final words to Biden were a premonition of Russia’s threatening resurgence:
I suppose it’s satisfying to know until his last dying breath, Russia lived rent-free in that ghoul’s rotting brain—and, who knows, maybe even contributed to the hyper-tension which likely led to his earlier than expected demise.
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Amid all the drama on the various fronts, Ukraine's loss of electrical generating capacity perhaps doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. But it could be a huge factor in determining the war's outcome. Note that already Ukraine can't keep their most important cities operating. Industry and homes alike are going dark. That desperate situation was brought about with relatively few Russian missiles, and no doubt what remains of Ukraine's electrical grid is equally vulnerable. If that goes, then it's back to rubbing two sticks together to make fire, figuratively speaking.
It's difficult to see how any country could prosecute a large scale modern war without having a functional electrical system.
The US won't go nuclear because it would mean the end of the MOTUs (Masters of the Universe) because they would lose everything they have. It's just an empty threat. Furthermore, NATO doesn't stand a chance against Russia because Russia doesn't stand alone. Rest assured that quietly, in the background, China is monitoring this conflict as a close ally of Russia. Russia and China's fate depends on each other as losing one country to the West would pose an existential threat to the other country. Russia may appear to fight alone but China is ready to back it up if needed. In addition, the US forces are far too split up and quite vulnerable if major conflict were to break out. The US chess pieces are scattered against concentrated forces fighting on its own turf. The NATO-backed US hegemon is cruising into a death spiral with a broken financial system, no industry, poor planning and gross incompetence. We are witnessing the early transformation of a new global order with the US peeking in from the outside. It's just a matter of time.