Tag: russia

Ukraine Situation Report: Black Sea Fleet Commander Reappears After Kyiv Declared Him Dead

Aday after Ukrainian Special Operations Command (SSO) claimed that Russian Adm. Viktor Sokolov was among dozens of officers killed in the Sept. 22 cruise missile attack on the headquarters building of the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) in Sevastopol, the BSF commander was seen apparently very much alive Tuesday during a meeting held by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The SSO said it is now clarifying its original report, without stating it was in error.

As Shoigu talked about the current status of the war in Ukraine, Sokolov appeared to be seen on a video feed during a meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry Board Session held in Moscow. In this image below, published on the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) Telegram channel, Sokolov is seen on the bottom left on the large screen, just under Shoigu.

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This War Wasn’t Just Provoked — It Was Provoked Deliberately

In an interesting speech about the way US imperial aggression provokes violence around the world, antiwar commentator Scott Horton made reference to an April 2022 article from Yahoo News that had previously escaped my attention.

The article is titled “In closer ties to Ukraine, U.S. officials long saw promise and peril,” and it features named and unnamed veterans of the US intelligence cartel saying that long before the February 2022 invasion they were fully aware that the US had “provoked” Russia in Ukraine and created a powderkeg situation that would likely lead to war.

“By last summer [meaning the summer of 2021], the baseline view of most U.S. intelligence community analysts was that Russia felt sufficiently provoked over Ukraine that some unknown trigger could set off an attack by Moscow,” a former CIA official told Yahoo News’ Zach Dorfman, who adds, “(The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.)”

Dorfman writes that initial support provided to Ukraine during the Obama administration had been “calibrated to avoid aggravating Moscow,” but that “partially spurred by Congress, as well as the Trump administration, which was more willing to be aggressive on weapon transfers to Kyiv, overt U.S. military support for Ukraine grew over time — and with it the risk of a deadly Russian response, some CIA officials believed at the time.”

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New York Times Admits Kiev’s Counteroffensive Has Failed

According to a recent report in the New York Times, the Pentagon are no longer pushing the idea that Ukraine’s much vaunted counteroffensive is succeeding. In fact, their tacit admissions are a damning indictment of the entire ‘counteroffensive’ narrative. 

Things are so bad now that Ukrainian armed forces have admitted that they will need to ‘pause’ for weeks, or even months, in order to ‘restock and recover’ from a disastrous  summer military campaign, according to sources cited.

Their capitulation, combined with the ambiguous statements coming out of Washington and NATO top brass, demonstrate a real schism between the regime in Kiev and its American paymasters who believe Ukraine should be focusing more on the southern regions. According to sources, American officials believe that “the fight in Bakhmut has become something of an obsession for Mr. Zelensky and his military leaders.”

Incredibly, President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared during his latest fundraising tour of Washington – that his Armed Forces would somehow liberate the town of Bakhmut ‘by the end of the year’ – a specious idea which seems directly at odds with US war planners.

Moreover, officials in Washington believe that Ukrainian forces won’t be able to sever Russia’s land bridge from Donbas to Crimea by reaching the Sea of Azov in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region – a reality which alternative media have been reporting since last spring.

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US Can’t Deal with Defeat

One could say that it is facing defeat — or, more starkly, that it is staring defeat in the face. Neither formulation is appropriate, though. The U.S. doesn’t look reality squarely in the eye. It prefers to look at the world through the distorted lenses of its fantasies. It plunges forward on whatever path it’s chosen while averting its eyes from the topography it is trying to traverse.  Its sole guiding light is the glow of a distant mirage. That is its lodestone.

It is not that America is a stranger to defeat. It is very well acquainted with it: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria — in strategic terms if not always military terms. To this broad category, we might add Venezuela, Cuba and Niger. That rich experience in frustrated ambition has failed to liberate Washington from the deeply rooted habit of eliding defeat. Indeed, the U.S. has acquired a large inventory of methods for doing so.

Defining & Determining Defeat 

Before examining them, let us specify what we mean by “defeat.” Simply put, defeat is a failure to meet objectives — at tolerable cost. The term also encompasses unintended, adverse second-order consequences.

No. 1. What were Washington’s objectives in sabotaging the Minsk peace plan and cold-shouldering subsequent Russian proposals, provoking Russia by crossing a clearly demarcated red line, pressing for Ukraine’s membership in NATO, installing missile batteries in Poland and Rumania, transforming the Ukrainian army into a potent military force deployed on the line-of-contact in the Donbass ready to invade or goad Moscow into preemptive action? 

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Next Arms Package For Ukraine Includes More Internationally-Banned Cluster Bombs

President Biden’s expected new weapons package being announced when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Washington on Thursday is expected to have more internationally-banned munitions, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Sources told Reuters that the package will be worth $325 million and is expected to include the second tranche of widely-banned cluster bombs in the form of 155mm artillery shells. The US began providing Ukraine with cluster munitions in July despite their history of killing and maiming civilians.

The cluster munitions the US is providing Ukraine are packed with 72 submunitions, known as bomblets, that are scattered over a large area.

Cluster bombs are so hazardous to civilians because many of the submunitions do not explode on impact, and can be found years or decades later. Due to their indiscriminate nature, cluster bombs are banned by over 100 countries by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the US, Ukraine, and Russia are not signatories to the treaty.

A US official also told Reuters that the new weapons package will not include Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which can be fired from the HIMARS rocket systems and have a range of up to 190 miles.

ATACMS have been long sought by Ukraine, and recent media reports said they could be soon on their way, but the White House said this week no decision has been made.

Providing ATACMS would mark a significant escalation of US support for Ukraine as they could potentially hit targets inside Russia. When asked earlier this month about Ukraine using ATACMS to target Russian territory, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said targeting decisions are up to Ukraine.

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Evidence suggests errant Ukrainian missile hit busy market

Evidence suggests a deadly explosion at a busy market in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka this month was caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Ukraine has said the Sept. 6 blast, which killed at least 16 people, was caused by a Russian missile.

“Evidence collected and analyzed by The New York Times, including missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defense missile fired by a Buk launch system,” the newspaper reported.

Reuters could not independently verify the report.

The press service of Ukraine’s SBU security service, asked about the report, said that according to an investigation still underway, the Russians were responsible for the strike, which it said had involved a Russian S-300 missile system.

“This is evidenced, in particular, by the identified missile fragments recovered at the scene of the tragedy,” it said, adding that the investigation was also examining other materials that pointed to Russian involvement in the shelling.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the circumstances were being studied by law enforcement agencies and that “the legal truth will be established”.

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U.S. HELPED PAKISTAN GET IMF BAILOUT WITH SECRET ARMS DEAL FOR UKRAINE, LEAKED DOCUMENTS REVEAL

SECRET PAKISTANI ARMS sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on.

The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.

The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed.

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Hyping Ukraine Counteroffensive, US Press Chose Propaganda Over Journalism

It has been clear for some time that US corporate news media have explicitly taken a side on the Ukraine War. This role includes suppressing relevant history of the lead-up to the war (FAIR.org, 3/4/22), attacking people who bring up that history as “conspiracy theorists” (FAIR.org, 5/18/22), accepting official government pronouncements at face value (FAIR.org, 12/2/22) and promoting an overly rosy picture of the conflict in order to boost morale.

For most of the war, most of the US coverage has been as pro-Ukrainian as Ukraine’s own media, now consolidated under the Zelenskyy government (FAIR.org, 5/9/23). Dire predictions sporadically appeared, but were drowned out by drumbeat coverage portraying a Ukrainian army on the cusp of victory, and the Russian army as incompetent and on the verge of collapse.

Triumphalist rhetoric soared in early 2023, as optimistic talk of a game-changing “spring offensive” dominated Ukraine coverage. Apparently delayed, the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in June. While even US officials did not believe that it would amount to much, US media papered over these doubts in the runup to the campaign.

Over the last three months, it has become clear that the Ukrainian military operation will not be the game-changer it was sold as; namely, it will not significantly roll back the Russian occupation and obviate the need for a negotiated settlement. Only after this became undeniable did media report on the true costs of war to the Ukrainian people.

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You’re Not Supporting Ukraine Enough Until the Nuclear Blast Hits Your Face

What happened to Elon Musk this past week showcases how completely unhinged and dangerous U.S. policy to Ukraine has become. The condemnation began when the Washington Post published excerpts from a new biography on Musk revealing that he turned down a Ukrainian request to help launch a major sneak attack in September 2022 on the Crimean port of Sevastopol. There were numerous, legitimate reasons why Musk refused to activate his Starlink internet services for Ukraine to carry out the unprecedented, surprise attack on Russian naval vessels: Musk was providing terminals to Ukraine for free; he was not on a military contract at that time; the late-night request came directly from the Ukrainian—not American—government; and Starlink had never been activated over Crimea because of U.S. sanctions on Russia. Most importantly, Musk was concerned that enabling the attack could result in serious “conflict escalation.” He worried that he was being asked to turn on Starlink for a “Pearl Harbor like attack” and had no wish to “proactively take part in a major act of war,” possibly provoking a Russian nuclear response.

In response to this nuclear aversion, Musk was called “evil” by a high-level Ukrainian official and “traitor” by American war enthusiasts. Rachel Maddow on the Russia conspiracy network MSNBC said Musk was “intervening to try to stop Ukraine from winning the war.” Not to be outdone, CNN‘s Jake Tapper described Elon as a “capricious billionaire” who “sabotaged a military operation by Ukraine, a U.S. ally,” an act that demands “repercussions.” For his part, chief Iraq war salesman-turned-Democrat-darling, David Frum, said that Musk must be stripped of his U.S. government contracts for not reflexively acceding to the Ukrainian Starlink request, and former “progressive,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, called for an immediate Congressional investigation “to ensure foreign policy is conducted by the government and not by one billionaire.”

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Russian hawks push Putin to escalate as US crosses more ‘red lines’

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken signaled that the U.S. would not stop Ukraine from using American-made, long-range missiles to attack targets inside of Russia.

“In terms of their targeting decisions, it’s their decision, not ours,” Blinken told ABC before adding that “we haven’t encouraged and we haven’t enabled any use of weapons outside of Ukraine’s territory.”

Blinken’s comments, which come on the heels of reports that the U.S. will soon send long-range missiles to Ukraine, are the latest example of Washington’s slow-moving approach to breaking through Russian red lines in the conflict. President Joe Biden had long argued that providing Kyiv with Army Tactical Missile Systems, better known as ATACMS, would be a bridge too far for the Kremlin, but that view has apparently lost purchase as Moscow has failed to back up its threats of escalation.

Meanwhile, Russian hawks have grown increasingly frustrated with President Vladimir Putin, with many prominent figures arguing that the Russian leader must do more to deter American involvement in the war. This increase in pressure could push Putin to make a drastic move, according to George Beebe of the Quincy Institute.

“The danger is that as Washington grows more confident that it need not fear Russian retaliation, Putin is coming under growing pressure to enforce redlines against the West,” Beebe argued. “His critics are arguing that unless he draws a firm line soon, there will be no limits to what the United States might provide to Kyiv.”

With the risk of escalation continuing to grow, it’s useful to look back at how pressure on Putin has grown in response to Western decisions to cross his red lines.

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