US Launches Strikes on Yemen, and Other Updates
It’s a relatively slow news week in Ukraine. But things are on pins and needles, in a state of stasis awaiting the next big move. The most pressing expectations currently on the table are:
The final and decisive resolution of the US congressional deadlock over Ukraine and:
Ukraine and Zelensky’s decisive resolution of the mobilization issue, which is first and foremost in society right now
Some may recall that the Rada has continued to drag its feet, first promising the new mobilization bill late last year, then definitively earmarking it for January 8th. Now we’re on 1/12 and the final bill continues to be rejected, with both sides squabbling over it as no one wants to take the blame for it from society.
However, the important thing to note is that despite not officially approving the major motions, the mobilization has already kicked up into overdrive even without it. People ‘on the ground’ report that some areas are ghost towns with men refusing to walk the streets like never before, so bad has it gotten. It’s just that the Rada has not yet decided on some of the bigger measures: like officially lowering the mobilization age and precisely which medical exemptions can save someone. But apart from that, the severity of the clampdowns has picked up dramatically: new checkpoints, ramped up hounding on public transit by the goon squad, etc.
As for Congress, there is no progress yet there either. The current update is that one of the “compromises” being floated was the alleged discussion by Republicans to allow a certain amount of migrants in through the southern border per day, but having a hard “cap” or quota on the total amount. But so far, even that appears to have gone no where:
In fact, the situation has escalated and taken quite a dramatic turn with the Texas governor Abbott outright seizing control from the Feds, and barring them from entering, one of the parks where illegal immigrants pass through:
To clarify: the Texas national guard has seized the land and its surroundings from the Federal government agents, and is barring the Federal agents from entering. This quite obviously is ‘remarkable’ as the report above states, and is another step toward some form of eventual clash or civil war.
This does not sound like a ‘conciliation’ of the two sides is getting closer, which would seem to indicate that the Ukrainian funding is not going to be resolved any time soon, if ever.
So what other option do they have?
Well, the big news is now that Biden has for the first time publicly signaled his support for finally using those mythical seized Russian funds:
These are the $300B foreign exchange reserves that Russia had sitting in European banks. But experts have warned such an illegal seizure would open up the pandora’s box that would be the final undoing of the dollar. These are sovereign wealth funds. That means they are the money of the Russian central bank. And as we all know, no matter what happens between the ‘mice and men’ of governments and their peons, central banks exist on a higher plane of order. They are a class unto themselves, to an extent. And when ‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’, the schemes of central bankers can never deviate. For a central bank to seize the sovereign wealth fund of another major central bank is akin to two of the largest crime families in a major Godfather film declaring war on each other. These are epochal, ground-quaking movements whose consequences will echo down the generations.
Will they actually do it? I still contend not. I believe it is the same desperate blather and they will remain too fearful to pull the trigger, using it merely as another measure to pump wind in Ukraine’s sails and offer hollow and ephemeral ‘hope’. But this is one of the last resorts currently being discussed.
Ultimately remember that Russia has the same amount of assets it can seize from the West, so the ‘exchange’, were it to happen, would be nothing more than the West illegally robbing its own people of $300B which they could not legally convince their populace to give them for Ukraine.
So these are the two major unresolved dilemmas currently on the docket. Yesterday Schumer even gave another urgent exhortation, ominously warning that if a deal isn’t made right away, the Ukrainian war could take a drastic turn in Russia’s favor within a month:
He was joined by John Kirby declaring that all military aid to Ukraine is effectively suspended at the moment, as there are “no more funds.”
In reality, the US appeared to still have an outstanding $4B or so of presidential drawdown authority remaining. Though it’s not a lot, the fact they refuse to use the remainder of it can mean one of two things:
They are sending Zelensky a strong message to wind down the war and enter negotiations.
They want to save the last bit for real emergency purposes. As bad as Ukraine is doing right now, they are not quite in truly desperate/emergency waters just yet. Clearly their lines are not breaking and being totally overrun. If that were to happen, perhaps the final $4B tranche is being saved as some sort of deus ex machina terminal emergency fund.
Or the money has already been embezzled by the corrupt MIC—who truly knows?
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In the meantime, the only interesting things out of Ukraine at the moment:
The Institute for the Study of War managed to admit not only that Russia has all the initiative but that it has 95% staffing of its units, which allows timely and professional rotation and force generation:
They go on to note:
6/ Russia’s ability to conduct operational level rotations will likely allow Russian forces to maintain the overall tempo of their localized offensive operations in eastern Ukraine in the near term.
In short: Russian units are well-staffed, easily make up for any losses, and have all the operational tempo and initiative. Ukraine on the other hand, we learned in the last update, is suffering 30,000 losses per month and for the first time—according to some reports—was not able to replenish these monthly losses via mobilization recently.
Reports like the following continue to roll out in corroboration:
Here’s the truth of it though:
On the tactical front, Ukraine is showing itself extremely well. In many cases they are even superior to the Russian forces on a given front or level, owing to their defensive positions and the advantage thereof, as well as their craftier use of UAV technology and NATO ISR capabilities.
However, where a lot of the disproportionate damage is being done is in the field of totally unstoppable operational depth Russian strikes. Ukraine’s air defenses are now more depleted than ever, and conversely, Russia’s air arsenal is stronger than ever because all of its PGM (precision guided munition) productive capacities have continued to go up parabolically. They are firing more missiles and other types of weapons than ever, particularly the growing portfolio of UMPK bombs.
In the last report we learned about Russia adapting RBK-500 cluster munitions, now we have full confirmation they are also using 1500kg Fabs as well as even ODAB-1500 thermobarics. Today Shoigu visited the UMPK assembly line, giving us a rare firsthand look at some of the innovations being done in real time:
In the above you can even see a never-before-seen test of one of the bombs, showing how it turns over after release before spreading its wings.
Given these increases, Ukraine’s positions in the rear are being struck with major losses incurred each time. For instance, since the last report—where I listed several “rear sites” that were hit with major losses—there has been a new hit on a mercenary hotel in Kharkov.
The drone war also continues to heat up, with a recent article admitting Ukrainian soldiers are forced to outright abandon their vehicles because Russian drones mercilessly destroy them all:
Men of his unit said that for the past few months, they had been leaving their armored vehicles behind and walking six miles to positions on the front line, the Times reported. "You can only go in on foot," the guardsman added.
Men of the 117th Brigade in the Zaporizhzhia region faced an unpleasant four-mile hike in the rain and mud, an intelligence commander told the Times. If they took their vehicles to drive ammunition or food to the front line, Russia's drones could attack from above.
Last time we reported rumors of Russian AI integration into FPVs, now we have the actual confirmation of that from Ukraine’s premier drone master, the infamous commander Magyar:
Unfortunately, despite these advances, Russian troops are not in too much better a position. Ukraine’s own drone mastery is soaring to new heights and Russian vehicles are being overwhelmed by them on almost every front when going on assault. As I explained before, Russia’s rear areas seem well protected, but no one has yet mastered good drone repulsion on assault, when you’ve overextended past your rear EW shield.
Ukraine has even begun rolling out vehicle protection units like the following for their most valuable armor, like this German Marder below:
Ukrainian Armed Forces equip armored vehicles with Sania anti-drone silencers.
The social network published footage showing a German-made Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicle, belonging to the 10th Army Corps of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, equipped with the Sania system, designed to counter drones with a first-person view (FPV).
The Sania system offers a dual approach to UAV defense: detection and suppression. The system detector scans for the presence of FPV drones within a radius of 1.5 km. When they are detected, an anti-drone “jammer” is activated, capable of suppressing signals that control the UAV at a distance of up to 1 km.
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By the way, interestingly, as the war goes extremely ‘high tech’ in one direction, it contradictorily goes backwards in others as a response to this. You see, because the present post-modern battlefield is so infused with signal noise and electromagnetic oversaturation, Russian forces are finding some recourse in ancient technologies.
Below it can be seen, they are collecting disused WWII era telephone and communications lines because they have proven to be most reliable and resistant to the modern EW environment:
Furthermore, such physical ground lines of communication are especially suited for the current positional type of warfare where not much forward advancement is made in a short period of time because it allows you to lay direct lines between various headquarters and units without worrying that it will all need to be relaid when the battalion headquarters shifts up several kilometers during advance.
Keep in mind though, physical comms wiring is normal and standard even besides this, as there is nothing that beats the reliability and security of it, but I think it’s now being used even more than ever. This is particularly due to the fact that one of the Russian army’s biggest and most disappointing weaknesses, which the war helped to reveal, is their communications systems.
There are some good systems and their communications are typically all right when it comes to the higher levels of the echelons, i.e. brigades talking to corps and higher, but when it comes to smaller formations and sections communicating, it often gets messy. The Russian army standard encrypted Azart radios—the equivalent of American Harris systems—have been lampooned since the beginning as plagued with scandal, forcing many Russian units to rely on cheap consumer grade Chinese Baofengs which are infinitely crackable and interceptable.
As a rule, usually the cheaper Baofengs and such are used within close range only, like for instance an artillery battery commander communicating firing directions to his gunners inside the self-propelled howitzer nearby. This is deemed relatively safe because the radios don’t have huge range anyway, so their signal cannot be reliably intercepted. Communications to distant units are typically done with encrypted and more standardized sets like Azart—but there are still many issues that need to be worked out and Russian troops often complain of communications problems between units at medium distances of 5-15km.
This is one area where the US and NATO have a distinct advantage. However, it must be said this advantage is mostly on paper and not proven in a real life EW contested environment. I say that because there are many reports hinting at major NATO problems in this field as well; for instance reported problems in German Marders/Leopards in training grounds specifically citing their comms systems not functioning, and commanders being forced to open the hatch to “yell” instructions to nearby units.
Also:
And from their actual wikipedia:
As you can see, this is a problem many of the world’s top armies struggle with.
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What remains to be commented on:
The US and its tiny isolated rabble of servile ‘allies’ attacked Yemen in an absolutely impotent strike that did nothing and will have no effect whatsoever on Yemen’s continued blockade of the Red Sea.
Russia launched over 7500 missiles at Ukraine—a country that has most of its infrastructure out ‘in the open’, and many people regard Ukraine as hardly having been industrially attrited after 2 years of such continued bombardment. Now imagine what a measly pittance of 70-100 aging Tomahawk missiles is going to do to a country with highly decentralized military structures spread across the deserts.
In short: nothing.
NATO’s 3 month long 24/7 bombardment of Serbia destroyed a whopping dozen tanks and could only degrade the AD by 50%. Without boots on the ground, US’s failed coalition can do nothing to Yemen—and they’re not going boots on the ground so the strikes can only be regarded as a feeble ‘warning’ toward Iran, which will only inspire hearty guffaws in Tehran.
The world can see the US terror regime has no clothes. It looks increasingly weak, particularly given the announcement that Raytheon Lloyd helmed the strikes from—I kid you not—his hospital bed. Yes, he pulled the trigger on a laptop while soiling his bedpan:
A decrepit regime led by a senile president and debilitated secretary of state, launching illegal massacres from their nursing homes and hospital beds against the poorest nation on earth—virtually on the same day as their own bloc ally faced genocide and crimes against humanity charges at The Hague.
You can’t make this up: the optics have never been worse for the Empire of Lies.
That’s not to mention the fact that US apparently took losses and is now trying to cover them up after Ansar Allah forces claimed to have downed a US plane as well as hit a ship:
The “plane” was at least in part corroborated, though it appeared to be a heavy-class drone:
And the problems aren’t going away. Both Tesla and Volvo announced a total cessation of production due to supply disruption problems:
German de-industrialization continues ramping up:
All while Russia is having a renaissance in manufacturing. PMIs are sky high and the Russian tool and die industry is having a major historical resurgence:
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Lastly, there is the sad news that Ukraine has murdered Gonzalo Lira.
Grayzone reported that the US state department had communicated with Lira’s father just days ago:
And a frail Gonzalo himself scribbled this note to his sister from prison, which his father said he received on January 4th:
"I have had double pneumonia (both lungs) as well as pneumothorax and a very severe case of edema (swelling of the body). All this started in mid-October, but was ignored by the prison. They only admitted I had pneumonia at a Dec. 22 hearing. I am about to have a procedure to reduce the edema pressure in my lungs, which is causing me extreme shortness of breath, to the point of passing out after minimal activity, or even just talking for 2 minutes."
There is not much else to say. Lira was a controversial figure due to his previous stint as a dating advice coach, but that did not make him deserving of death by the Ukrainian regime. For all the accusations made against Russia, no American journalist or figure has died in Russian captivity, while an American citizen has now not only died in Ukrainian captivity, but under various forms of torture, at that. He described some of that torture in his final video, including things like his eyeballs being scraped by sharp objects and other ghoulishly medieval techniques. But of course, no one in the Nazi-complicit US regime cares; another in a long line of gross hypocrisies from the people that brought you the farcical “Rule of Law” and “Rules Based Order”.
Here are Gonzalo’s final resonantly fateful words, taken from the last minute of his last video right before he crossed the border, never to be seen again:
I didn’t watch him often, but when I did I found him clever and his analysis usually intelligent. But two things which are indisputable were poetically immortalized by the eminent Armchair Warlord:
Rest in peace, Gonzalo.
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Thank you for acknowledging Gonzalo Lira's tragic end. He was a courageous man, shedding light on what was really happening in his adoptive country, betrayed by the country of his birth. I hope his loved ones take comfort in the impact he had. May he rest in peace.
I usually lurk, but I wanted to thank you for your hard work in getting the truth out to us in this age of censorship and persecution.
American Impotence is now visible for all to see. The Regime seeks War with Iran (courtesy of its Neocon 'leadership') but lacks the Ability, Will & Readiness to do so.
The Strikes against Yemen's Ansarallah only emboldens Axis of Resistance members to escalate attacks against the Anglo-Zionist architecture in the region.
Many have already said (in private) that they will settle for nothing less than the complete dismantling of Sykes-Picot as we know it... they may soon get their wish!