Tag: russia

BBC boosts Ukraine’s falling morale by slandering Russia’s war dead

MI6’s BBC outlet is at it again. This time, in a disgusting effort to boost Ukraine’s flagging morale, they featured a story by their crack Russian unit explaining how Russian graveyards are full to the brim of soldiers who fell in Ukraine. As always with the MI6’s B team, it is the sort of misinformed guff that belongs in a badly edited student newspaper rather than in such a globally prominent propaganda outlet.

Or indeed in the website of Ukraine’s Ministry of Misinformation. If we first go to Ukraine’s site, we see that the Russkies are getting a right mauling, with some 442,880 soldiers dead up to April Fool’s Day, 2024. Although Wikipedia parrots those numbers by using the same tainted NATO sources, to put them in context, Wikipedia claim that the United States lost a relatively modest 58,281 dead during its genocide campaign in Vietnam, and the Watson Intstitute claims that the United States lost 7,057 troops in the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns, with a much higher number, 30,177, committing suicide.

Other things being equal then, the Russkies should be up in arms against their government over these deaths in Ukraine. But other things are not, of course, equal. First off, as a quick Google search shows us these numbers of Russian dead are part of a vociferous NATO echo chamber, we can see no need as to why this should be a major NATO news story today unless Russia is experiencing the turbulence the United States did during its Vietnamese cull or if the BBC has brought additional information to light, thus making it a story worthy of coverage today. Or, of course, as we suspect, that the BBC has once again been leaned on to put its shoulder to the NATO wheel.

That is certainly the impression we get from this Politico article, which claims that the morale of Ukraine’s Armed Forces is crumbling as their casualties exponentially mount. The pleas of Clown Prince Zelensky and the rest of Kiev’s circus for more arms, more sanctions and more Swiss bank accounts certainly seems to help counter BBC’s flagging line that Russia is on its knees. As do all the tiktok and Twitter videos of Ukrainian grandfathers and pregnant women being frog marched off to the front.

This is not to negate the BBC argument but to say that the Ukrainian war has got less hands on media coverage than perhaps any other since the Korean war. And, though much of that lack of direct coverage has been due to the use of long range drones and artillery rather than the preponderance of close hand to hand fighting, much more of it has been due to the way both High Commands are conducting their affairs.

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Russian Journalist Calls Out The EU As A Technocracy

Lenin famously defined communism as Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country. In other words, the ideological project of building communism was supplemented by the technocratic project of electrification, the latter being an important source of legitimacy for the new regime.

The present-day European Union is engaged in its own expansive electrification project – the energy transition – that similarly inhabits ground where ideology meets technocracy and underpins legitimacy.

Yet in the past year or so, something has gone badly wrong, and a backlash against the climate agenda and its technocratic enforcers has been spreading across Europe. The energy crisis – far from catapulting the continent further along the path toward a carbon-neutral future as it should have – has exposed just how elusive the goal is, as Europe has scrambled to sign expensive LNG deals and even restart coal-fired plants. Farmers dissatisfied with EU policies that they regard as devastating to their livelihoods have been grumbling for years, but recently their protests have reached a crescendo, and built up political weight. Right-leaning and far-right parties, meanwhile, are gaining ground by the day. Standards of living are dropping and industry is shutting down or moving elsewhere.

Discontent with suffocating bureaucracy and regulation is widespread. A recent survey among German small and medium-sized companies – has registered a massive shift in sentiment against the EU. This is particularly concerning because the so-called German Mittelstand used to be among the strongest pillars of support for European integration.

What is embroiling Europe is deeper than a political crisis – it is approaching what can be called a crisis of legitimacy for the ruling elite. This can be thought of as a metaphysical event that precedes political upheaval, the latter being merely confirmation that such a crisis has taken place. Legitimacy is, of course, a rather nebulous concept, and it defies objective measurement.

Ruling classes throughout history have always advanced various claims about their own legitimacy, without which a stable political order is impossible. In tracing the contours of the current crisis, it’s important to establish what exactly the claims Europe’s technocratic elite have put forth and how they are becoming increasingly difficult to believe.

Ostensibly, the EU’s ruling elite has staked out the green transition as its raison d’être. They claim to have the mandate, vision and competence to see it through and have set clear targets to measure their success.

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Ukraine Moves to Force Fighting-Age Men Into the Meatgrinder for U.S.

Dmitry Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, posted on X Tuesday that Kyiv is moving to pressure Ukrainian men who fled the country to avoid war with Russia by potentially cutting off their access to essential government services.

Ukraine will be receiving $61 billion in funding from the U.S., but it is having a hard time fielding a capable army. Thousands of men have fled and it is believed that up to 500,000 have died on the battlefield since the start of the war.

Kuleba posted on X that it is unfair that men who left the country would be treated the same as those who stayed.

”How it looks like now: a man of conscription age went abroad, showed his state that he does not care about its survival, and then comes and wants to receive services from this state. It does not work this way. Our country is at war,” he posted, according to RT, the Russian outlet.

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What Can We Learn From Our Forever War in Ukraine?

It has been a while since the United States won a war.  It looks as though we are about to lose yet another one – the war in Ukraine.  This is a proxy war justified as an effort to “weaken and isolate” Russia.  Our strategic defeat in this effort now leaves us with three unpalatable alternatives.  We can continue to support Ukraine as Russia grinds it to bits and reduces it further in size and population.  We can escalate the war, as French President Emmanuel Macron has advocated, despite the Russian threat to answer us with counter-escalation, possibly to the nuclear level.  Or we can face up to failure and save what we can of Ukraine by negotiating with Russia.  I know which of these choices I would prefer, and I suspect you do too.  And, however this unwise and unnecessary war ends, we need to ensure that there are no more like it in future.

They say that a mistake is only a mistake if you don’t learn from it.  Our country has recently made a lot of mistakes in its foreign policies.  Sadly, we don’t seem to be learning much of anything from this experience.  We have instead invented something uniquely American called a “forever war.”  Such wars routinely fail.  Still, we keep launching them.

I want to speak to you this evening about why we do this, why we shouldn’t, and how we can stop doing it.  My focus will be the forever war with Russia in Ukraine.

Forever wars can take many forms.  They can be economic or technological, like the one the Trump administration kicked off against China and that the Biden administration has enthusiastically doubled down on.  They can be military, like our twenty-three year “global war on terrorism.”  That has taken us into combat in over eighty countries, killed over 900,000 people, and cost us an estimated $8 trillion.  Forever wars need not be direct, as our proxy war in Ukraine illustrates.  They can even be covert, as our multiple barely concealed interventions in Syria demonstrate.

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The Ukraine war is lost, but Hollywood and DC don’t know it

On April 10, stars in Hollywood joined politicians in D.C. in demanding that Congress take up a war aid bill authorizing $60 billion in new assistance for Ukraine. 

But they’re all wrong. The war is lost. In fact, 90% of people in Europe believe that to be true. 

If that comes as a surprise, it shouldn’t. In late February, the Times of London published the results of a poll asking residents throughout the continent a very simple question: 

Can Ukraine win the war against Russia? Only 10% said yes. 

So, what do they see that Hollywood stars, the White House, and leaders on Capitol Hill do not? 

Three things. 

First, Ukraine lacks the soldiers to win. Kiev has lost at least 70,000 killed in action, with another 100,000 otherwise combat ineffective. 

And that’s a crisis. As Ukraine’s Commander of Joint Forces said on April 11, there are seven to 10 times more Russian soldiers than there are Ukrainians on the battlefield. 

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America’s Shame: It’s Sunday And We’re At War With The World

I know “the right side of history” is a goofy leftist trope—as if “history” were an entity, an organism of some sort, a knowable whole—but you do have to wonder what a future generation will think about what America has been doing to the world. I’ll let readers decide when we started downhill, who—or what ideologies—was/were responsible, and so forth. Interestingly, some GOPers are adopting that trope—leftist readers take note!

Michael Tracey @mtracey

Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly dropped to his knees in prayer for guidance on how to handle the Ukraine matter. Always fascinating when the voice of God becomes interchangeable with the voice of the National Security State

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Ukraine Gets Their Billions Despite CIA Director Reportedly Warning Zelenksy To Stop Stealing So Much Money

Democrats cheered and waved Ukrainian flags, chanting “Ukraine, Ukraine!” in some pavlovian response to Congress passing a bill that will send (another) $61 billion to Ukraine with no questions asked

Ukrainian president Zelenskyy was very pleased, personally thinking Speaker Johnson

I am grateful to the United States House of Representatives, both parties, and personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track.

Democracy and freedom will always have global significance and will never fail as long as America helps to protect it.

The vital U.S. aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger. Just peace and security can only be attained through strength.

We hope that bills will be supported in the Senate and sent to President Biden’s desk. Thank you, America!

‘War is Peace’, America!

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Unhinged Democrat Rep. Gerald Connolly Declares ‘the Ukrainian-Russian Border Is OUR Border’

Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat, declared on the House floor that “the Ukrainian-Russian border is OUR border” during an unhinged speech.

Connolly was raging at Republicans opposing the aid package to Ukraine before Saturday’s vote.

“Some say, well, we have to deal with our border first,” Connolly claimed. “The Ukrainian-Russian border is our border! It’s the border between depraved autocracy and freedom-loving people seeking our democratic way of life! Do we have a stake in that outcome? Yes. Undeniably, yes.”

Connolly echoed the sentiment in a post on X, writing, “The border between Russia and Ukraine is the border between depravity and democracy. Between autocracy and freedom. We undeniably have a stake in that outcome of that fight.”

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Ukraine’s Opposition To The Assimilation Of Its Refugees Is Extremely Hypocritical

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba warned on Friday that “It has become clear that assimilation would be extremely fast if we do not change our policy towards Ukrainians abroad”, calling on these refugees to “remain Ukrainian” with the innuendo that they shouldn’t plant roots in the West.

He didn’t explicitly say so, but it’s strongly hinted that he hopes that those millions who’ve fled the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict over the past two years will eventually return home to their country.

Kiev-based economist Alexey Kushch said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Yury Romanenko last week that “I estimate that [after the conflict is over] Ukraine’s demographic profile <…> will be made up of 25 million people, including ten million senior citizens, five million children and two to three million disabled persons and veterans receiving social benefits. About seven to eight million working adults will make up the core of the economy.”

These two developments coincided with Ukraine’s passing of a new conscription law that doesn’t include a demobilization clause, which the media reported has left troops feeling “betrayed” while a member of the Rada described it as a “point of no return” in terms of turning citizens against the government. Kuleba obviously hopes that unassimilated Ukrainians will feel so unwelcome in the West that they’ll return home to risk their lives in the meatgrinder and then rebuild their country when the conflict ends.

Basically, he’s manipulating them on a faux “patriotic” pretext into creating problems for themselves abroad so that they’ll consider moving back to Ukraine, but his rhetoric is extremely hypocritical since it’s the opposite of how Kiev itself treats minorities.

It was observed that “The West Would Never Talk About Its Minorities The Way That Ukraine Talks About Its Russian One” after Rada speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk denied their very existence and associated rights last fall.

In other words, Kuleba wants Ukrainian refugees not to assimilate into their host societies, with a wink and a nod that they should exploit the liberal–globalist West’s related legislation and socio-cultural norms to preserve their culture as much as possible.

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Russia’s Military Is Bigger Than Before Invasion

A top US general told Congress last week that Russia’s military is 15% bigger today than it was before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, an acknowledgment that the goal of “weakening” Russia has failed.

“The army is actually now larger — by 15% — than it was when it invaded Ukraine,” Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the head of US European Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Cavoli said that over the past year, Russia had increased its “front-line troop strength from 360,000 to 470,000,” which he said was due to Russia raising the maximum age of conscription from 27 to 30.

He described that this means Russia will have the ability to elarge “the pool of available military conscripts by 2 million for years to come.”

“In sum, Russia is on track to command the largest military on the continent,” he said. “Regardless of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia will be larger, more lethal, and angrier with the West than when it invaded.”

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell recently made similar comments, saying the US had “assessed over the course of the last couple of months that Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily.”

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