Zelensky Charms CBS, as Trump Throws Impatient Tantrum
Today brings us a new 60 Minutes interview with Zelensky, which was rife with ‘interesting’ moments, the first being Zelensky’s proclamation of his undying hatred for Putin:
More than just eyebrows, this clearly raises questions as to how it could be possible to negotiate with a character of this unstable bent, who exemplifies such unadulterated and unprofessional bias.
The now duly-unelected Narcocrat went on to admit Ukraine is incapable of retaking lost territories by force:
The most interesting statement was made by CBS itself, attributed to Zelensky on social media—that Ukraine has up to “100,000 soldiers dead”:
Zelensky’s press office immediately sprang into damage control:
Zelensky did not mention the alleged 100,000 killed soldiers in the interview with CBS - Zelensky's press secretary.
According to Serhii Nykyforov, CBS News attributed their own figures to president Zelensky. Ukraine's losses stand at 45,100 KIA soldiers as of February.
So, Ukraine is still officially toting the 45k dead line. Funny how back in May 2022, Zelensky essentially admitted 100 KIA per day in the much lower intensity fighting:
I say ‘low intensity’ because this was long before the Russian mobilization—at this point maybe 150-200k total Russian troops had been involved in the war, compared to the 600k+ seen today. The war is now on day 1145, if you multiply that by 100 KIA per day, you get a minimum of ~115,000. But as I said, the frontline was much smaller back then, and we can expect for the casualties to have skyrocketed by now, which one can extrapolate to mean that the real figure is far higher than 115k.
For his part, Trump erupted over the interview, calling CBS a failed station, and other predictable insults. The problem is, Trump has been floundering on his Ukraine position, digging himself a deeper hole out of desperation to save face over the failed talks with Russia. In his efforts, he has made quite a few contradictions. Sensing people’s increasing view that he has now ‘owned’ the reputationally-toxic Ukrainian conflict, Trump went on the offensive to claim it is Biden’s conflict, after all. But at the same time, he goes on to brag that he was the president to give Ukraine its first big military boost with the Javelins, which won them their ‘first big battle’ and allegedly destroyed a lot of Russian tanks:
So, whose war is it, really?
This reeks of infant desperation:
In fact, Trump is getting really antsy about Russia’s steadfast adherence to its long-held principles. Lusting for the PR boost of ending a pesky war he knows nothing about, Trump is nearly begging for Russia to stop advancing and winning:
Russia has got to stop the war because too many people are dying? From the lips of the man who just bombed Yemen, tearing apart dozens of children and civilians?
No, we aren’t fooled so easily. He cares nothing whatsoever about any imagined ‘deaths’ in Ukraine, otherwise he’d be blowing his shofar just as loudly about the ongoing genocide in Palestine, aided in full by his administration, not to mention the senseless slaughter in Yemen. In reality, Trump is likely getting anxious for two reasons: the first, as stated before, to score political points for his floundering administration; the second is likely because all the MIC deep state operatives around him are putting heavy internal pressure on him to reorient to China, and he knows the Ukraine conflict is a huge drag on the US’ resources.
There’s likely even more secretive reasons, like not wanting Russia to expand its control and influence too much in Europe, as think-tank influencers have likely apprised Trump of the consequences of that: Russia’s fast-tracked clinching of superpower status.
Circling back to the topic of casualties, there is another set of interesting figures that have trickled out the past few days. First, there was the ‘shocking’ report from Verstka Media that military recruitment has been soaring in Russia, even more than normal:
A German data analyst crunched the numbers and found that Russia may be recruiting as many as 1,400+ people a day:
The analyst notes in the thread his belief that Russia suffers ~200 KIA per day in the war, which would mean by his own numbers Russia is vastly out-generating the losses.
Sibreal.org also published a study:
Military recruiting is soaring in Russian regions, per Sibreal.org, officials hiking signing bonuses and aggressively pushing contracts. In Irkutsk as of March 1, new recruits receive 1.4 million-ruble bonuses; more than an entire average annual salary.
The first Verstka piece is a major failure of propaganda; not only did they uncover that Moscow region experienced a record number of signups in April—which flies in the face of crude claims about Russia ‘exploiting’ poorer regions at the benefit of ‘rich Muscovites’—but also that Russians are signing up not for the money, but for revenge for Kursk, and most critically, boosted morale from the perceived growing successes of the Russian army:
Speaking about what motivates Moscow volunteers to join the army today, the source who selects them notes that this is, among other things, the success of the Russian army on the battlefield, propaganda and a desire for revenge. To the first point, the selector refers the liberation of the Kursk region, and to the second-reports of pro-government media about possible crimes on the part of the Ukrainian military.
The above is about as bad a development for Ukraine as can be imagined: it means Russians are growing confident, and their boosted patriotism is only expanding the army’s size and strength.
But it gets worse: Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office Pavel Palisa released another devastating data point in an interview with BIHUS Info, as reported by Ukrainian Pravda:
Ukraine: despite being offered a one-time cash benefit of 1 million hryvna (US$24k) "only 500 people between 18 and 24 have signed up for the army" Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Pavel Palisa
So, while being offered virtually the same $24k+ signing bonus as Russian troops, Zelensky’s newly much-vaunted 18-24 recruitment drive bagged a grand total of…. 500 signups.
No, not just in April so far, but since the inception of the entire program in February. That means from this critical 18-24 cohort, despite record monetary incentives, they managed to recruit—from the entire country, no less—only 160 or so people per month. This is while Russia is recruiting over 1,000 per day total.
The point is that, this is a dire bellwether for the critical 18-24 cohort: it means virtually no one in that age range wants to willingly serve in the war. As a kind of trial run for a necessary future forced mobilization of this group, it shows that virtually no one from the group wants to voluntarily serve, and that forcing them to fight when the time comes will be a very messy affair.
That comes at a time when there are again increased reports of women being recruited into the ranks, even from prison:
A captured soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the 425th assault regiment "Skala" reported during interrogation about the conscription of women from prisons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They have been preparing them for a month and a half, and now there are 2-3 women in the assault unit of 8 people. The men in the Rock are about 45 years old, and the women are about 30.
Not to mention the first reported deaths from the new 18-24 cohort, including a 21-year old girl who was featured in a video proudly discussing her signup to the 1 million hryvnia bonus program:
Not long after, she was reported deceased on the front, along with another 18-year old of her cohort:
The first deaths have been reported among those who signed a contract under the “18-24 program” with the Ukrainian army. It’s an 18-year-old guy named Alexander and a 21-year-old girl named Veronika.
What’s really interesting here is that, judging by the obituary, Alexander died on April 5th. Even if he signed the contract on the day the program was announced, February 11th (which is unlikely), from the moment of signing to the moment of his death, just over 50 days passed instead of the promised 3 months of training (basically 45 days + 14 days + 14 days). It’s obvious that these promises are simply not being kept, and the young recruits are being sent to the front way earlier.
A few last items:
Reports that the “coalition of the willing” to galvanize boots on the ground for Ukraine has failed again:
At the same time, Mad Macron’s feisty frogmen are apparently champing at the bit over in Romania:
🇫🇷⚔️🇷🇺 The French army is preparing to fight Russia on the border with Romania, - Le Figaro
▪️French military maps the territory on the border of Romania with Ukraine and Moldova in case of a possible clash between NATO and Russia.
▪️In 2024, soldiers from the 28th separate military unit of the French ground forces, the only military topographic unit in the republic, arrived in Romania to update the maps of the area. The military paid special attention to mapping the Focsani Gate, a corridor between the Carpathian foothills and the Danube, which, according to NATO, could be used by the Russian army for an offensive.
▪️In combat conditions, troops must be prepared to continue operations even if satellite signals are suppressed.
➖"The Allies needed updated information on the expected battlefield," explained the unit's commander, Colonel Guillaume Schmidt, the purpose of the mission.
▪️The result of the joint work of French military topographers and the National Cartographic Agency of Romania was a three-dimensional map of the area.
➖“It will allow us to accurately determine the location of bridges and possible crossings,” explained Sergeant Joannie.
▪️A battle between the French army and the Russian army on the eastern borders of Romania is only possible if the Russian Armed Forces capture the Odessa region and Moldova before that.
RVvoenkor
Read the last part again:
A battle between the French army and the Russian army on the eastern borders of Romania is only possible if the Russian Armed Forces capture the Odessa region and Moldova before that.
The opposite is true: they’re clearly there to map out routes to seize Odessa swiftly in the case Ukrainian defenses collapse and Russian troops bear down on the key city.
This comes after The Times shared Trump envoy Keith Kellogg’s alleged vision for how Ukraine could be partitioned between zones of influence like Germany after WWII:
Kellogg himself sputtered out a refutation:
The Times article misrepresents what I said. I was speaking of a post-cease fire resiliency force in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty. In discussions of partitioning, I was referencing areas or zones of responsibility for an allied force (without US troops). I was NOT referring to a partitioning of Ukraine.
The Trump admin has no real clue how to end the conflict, and Lavrov mentioned yesterday that the US still has not come close to acknowledging Russia’s core interests in the war. The two sides had again just met in Istanbul days ago, but it was said that Ukraine was hardly even discussed at all, rather other areas of preliminary rapprochement between the two countries took precedence.
Witkoff did follow up by meeting Putin, and released a promising summary of the “five hour long meeting”: that Putin effectively for the first time in person articulated the exact conditions it would take to achieve a ceasefire.
That means the Trump administration no longer has any real excuse in pretending to not understand Russia’s demands and security interests.
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Trump is a damned fool for not immediately cutting off all aid to Ukraine after being inaugurated. He could have and should have blamed Biden for the entire mess, and simply let Russia finish the job. Instead, he allowed the neocons to influence him and now Ukraine has become a tar baby that he cannot free himself from! 🙄
Russia will end that war on its own terms. Trump has ZERO leverage and there is nothing he can do about it. The Euro-Trash also have nothing to say about it.
I had hoped the neocons would be neutered after the last election, but like a bad case of venereal disease, they just keep coming back, over and over again.
To be fair, back when Zelensky was playing piano with his penis as a Kolomioski butt boy, he really liked Russians, possibly because he grew up in a Russian community as a Russian speaker. When he ran for President, he was all for equal rights of Ukrainian minorities, including ethnic Russians and Russian speakers. He campaigned to implement the Minsk 2 Accords and as a peace candidate. The Ukrainian people elected him overwhelmingly (even though the Donbas Russians could not vote).
I saw video of Zelensky at the front line ordering the Azov Battalion to stop shelling the Donbas and withdraw, according to Minsk. They not only laughed at him, they threatened his life. Back in Kyiv one of the Right Sector boys told him to shut up about Minsk or he would hang in Maidan.
So, we have either Stockholm Syndrome or "if you can't fight 'em, join 'em." Of course he is batshit crazy and coke-addled as he knows the Banderites will kill him as soon as he is no longer useful.