Caitlin Johnstone: Neocons Love the Ukraine War

Empire managers were openly discussing the ways a war in Ukraine would directly benefit the U.S. empire long before the invasion. 

They knew exactly what they were doing when they provoked this war, and they know exactly what they’re doing by keeping it going. 

And they’re loving every minute of it.

One of the dumbest things the empire asks us to believe is that this war simultaneously (A) was completely unprovoked and (B) just coincidentally happens to massively advance the strategic interests of the government accused of provoking it.

By Caitlin Johnstone, September 28, 2023

The Bill Kristol-led group “Republicans for Ukraine” has released a TV ad to help drum up GOP support for Washington’s proxy war against Russia, and it’s surprisingly honest about what this war is really about: advancing US strategic interests using Ukrainians as sacrificial pawns.

Here’s a transcript:

“When America arms Ukraine, we get a lot for a little. Putin is an enemy of America. We’ve used 5% of our defense budget to arm Ukraine, and with it, they’ve destroyed 50% of Putin’s Army. We’ve done all this by sending weapons from storage, not our troops. The more Ukraine weakens Russia, the more it also weakens Russia’s closest ally, China. America needs to stand strong against our enemies, that’s why Republicans in Congress must continue to support Ukraine.”

One of the dumbest things the empire asks us to believe is that this war simultaneously (A) was completely unprovoked and (B) just coincidentally happens to massively advance the strategic interests of the government accused of provoking it. 

From the moment Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 Westerners were aggressively hammered over and over and over again by the mass media with the uniform propaganda message that this was an “unprovoked invasion.”

But ever since then they’ve also been receiving these peculiar messages from U.S. empire managers and spinmeisters that this war is helping the United States crush its geopolitical enemies and advance its interests abroad.

This bizarre two-step occurs because the U.S.-centralized empire needs to convey two self-evidently contradictory messages to the public at all times:

• that the U.S. is an innocent little flower who just wants to help its good friends the Ukrainians protect their democracy from the murderous Russians who invaded solely because they are evil and hate freedom, and
• that it’s in the American interest to continue this war.

The second point is required because the message that the U.S. is merely an innocent passive witness to the violence in Ukraine necessarily causes certain political factions to ask, “Okay, so what are we doing there then? Why are we pouring all this money into something that has nothing to do with us?” 

So another narrative is required to explain that backing this proxy war also just so happens to be a massive boon to U.S. strategic interests abroad while creating American jobs manufacturing weapons at home.

It doesn’t benefit normal Americans at home, but it absolutely does serve the interests of the globe-spanning empire that’s centralized around Washington. That’s why the empire deliberately provoked it.

Empire managers were openly discussing the ways a war in Ukraine would directly benefit the U.S. empire long before the invasion. 

In 2019 a Pentagon-funded Rand Corporation paper titled “Extending Russia —Competing from Advantageous Ground” detailed how the empire can use proxy warfare, economic warfare and other Cold War tactics to push its longtime geopolitical foe to the brink without costing American lives or sparking a nuclear conflict. 

The U.S. Army-commissioned paper mentioned Ukraine hundreds of times, and explicitly discussed how a war there could be used to promote sanctions against Moscow and attack Russia’s energy interests in Europe.

In December of 2021 John Deni of NATO propaganda firm The Atlantic Council authored a piece for The Wall Street Journal, “The Strategic Case for Risking War in Ukraine,” subtitled “An invasion would be a diplomatic, economic and military mistake for Putin. Let him make it if he must.” 

Deni argued that “there are good strategic reasons for the West to stake out a hard-line approach” against Moscow and refuse to negotiate or back down over Ukraine, because if doing so provokes Russia to invade it would “forge an even stronger anti-Russian consensus across Europe,” “result in another round of more debilitating economic sanctions that would further weaken Russia’s economy” and “sap the strength and morale of Russia’s military while undercutting Mr. Putin’s domestic popularity and reducing Russia’s soft power globally.”  

[Related: Biden Confirms Why the US Needed This War – Consortium News]

The minds on the inside of the empire were talking about how this war would benefit the U.S. before the invasion, and they’ve been talking about how much it benefits the U.S. ever since. 

As The Washington Post’s David Ignatius put it this past July: 

“these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”

The managers of the empire are getting everything they want out of this war. In public they rend their garments and cry crocodile tears and call it a terrible criminal atrocity, but every now and then they look at the camera and flash it a quick Fleabag-style grin.

They knew exactly what they were doing when they provoked this war, and they know exactly what they’re doing by keeping it going. 

And they’re loving every minute of it.

September 30, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | 2 Comments

It’s Time to Admit the Truth About the War in Ukraine—and Course Correct

If it wasn’t clear to Washington before the offensive started that the fundamentals of combat operations and principles of war indicated Ukraine would likely fail, it should now be crystal clear.

DANIEL L. DAVIS , SENIOR FELLOW, DEFENSE PRIORITIES ON 9/18/23  https://www.newsweek.com/we-can-no-longer-hide-truth-about-russia-ukraine-war-opinion-1826532?amp=1

As leading American politicians, generals, and pundits continue advocating for open-ended support to Kyiv in their war against Russia, a sober, accurate analysis of Ukraine’s nearly completed summer offensive reveals that the heroic sacrifice Ukraine continues to make is producing little to no meaningful progress toward the objective of evicting Russia from Ukraine’s territory.

Washington should instead employ a necessary course correction and form a new policy, based on the harsh, ground-truth combat realities in Ukraine. Revising the objectives would give Washington and Kyiv a chance to preserve Ukrainian lives and American interests.

Washington’s current policies do neither.

Despite great hopes for a rapid success, Ukraine’s months-in-the-making offensive has sputtered from the outset. That shouldn’t have surprised anyone in the White House. On April 5, two months before the start of the offensive, I wrote that “Zelensky’s troops—with little to no air power and a dearth in artillery ammunition—could suffer egregious casualties while gaining little.”

Five days later, The Washington Post revealed the contents of a leaked Top Secret U.S. intelligence assessment which likewise predicted the Ukrainian offensive would probably fall “well short” of expectations, and that “enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive.” Total Ukrainian deaths in the war at that point were estimated to be as low as 17,500.

About a month before the start of the offensive, I again warned that the odds were stacked heavily against Kyiv. To succeed, I explained, Ukraine would “have to conduct the most difficult task in modern land warfare: a combined arms operation into the teeth of a dug-in enemy force that is prepared for an attack,” complicated by the shortage of artillery ammunition along with “limited airpower and minimal air defense.” Nevertheless, on the eve of battle, some Western analysts remained optimistic.

Once the offensive began on June 5, however, that optimism quickly evaporated. In the first two weeks of the fighting, Ukraine’s spearhead brigades suffered massive losses in armor and personnel while capturing virtually no territory. By the end of the third week, they had lost an estimated fifth of their strike force, requiring Ukraine to dramatically change tactics. Instead of leading with tanks and other armored vehicles (which were predictably getting chewed up in minefields and by Russian anti-tank missiles and artillery shells), Ukraine moved to an infantry-centric attack system.

While this change did result in producing incremental gains, the cost was exorbitant. On Aug. 29, the BBC reported that new leaked reports suggested Ukrainian battle deaths exploded since the offensive started. Whereas Ukraine was reported to have lost 17,500 troops in the first year of the war, it is presently assessed to have lost a breathtakingly high 50,000 additional deaths, for a total of 70,000 dead and 120,000 wounded.

If it wasn’t clear to Washington before the offensive started that the fundamentals of combat operations and principles of war indicated Ukraine would likely fail, it should now be crystal clear. Although Ukraine appears to have finally penetrated the first line of Russia’s main defense, the most difficult part of Russia’s defensive system has yet to be overcome: the hundreds of kilometers of dragon’s teeth, tank ditches, and yet more vast minefields.

It is unclear at this point whether Ukraine has enough striking power remaining in its offensive forces to reach, much less penetrate, Russia’s second main line—beyond which is a third main line followed by a fortress-defense at Tokmak, which is still 75 road kilometers from the Azov coast. Given these realities, the best Ukraine can likely do for the rest of the year is to hold what they have and prevent the possibility of losing more territory to a potential Russian counteroffensive this fall.

The United States, however, would be wise to adjust its policies to reflect the reality of Ukraine’s slim chances against Russia’s fortified lines. Washington has spent nearly $113 billion over the course of this war, provided Ukraine with an astounding volume of modern arms and ammunition, and delivered an impressive array of training and intelligence support. After almost a year of preparation, it hardly dented the Russian lines.

There is no realistic basis, therefore, to believe that Ukraine has the capacity to attain its stated strategic objective to reclaim all its territory, including Crimea. What is realistic is to continue providing Kyiv with the military wherewithal to defend itself from further Russian incursions. This goal should be combined with shifting an increasing percentage of the burden for additional arms and ammunition to our rich European friends. The U.S. should continue to ensure the war does not expand beyond the borders of Ukraine, and increase diplomatic efforts with all relevant parties to end the war on the best terms possible for Kyiv—all of which are beneficial to American interests.

Rather than repeating over the next year and a half what has already not worked—potentially costing Ukraine yet additional hundreds of thousands of losses—it’s time to try something that has a chance to succeed. In other words, it’s time to acknowledge objective reality and employ policies that can work.

Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow for Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America. Follow him @DanielLDavis1

September 29, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Kiev’s counteroffensive unlikely to achieve its goals – US officials to New York Times

Ukrainian forces will need to pause in a few weeks to restock and recover after summer fighting, the paper reports, citing sources

Officials in Washington have suggested that Ukraine’s military forces won’t be able to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea as part of their counteroffensive or achieve other key goals, the New York Times has reported.

“Some American officials have said that the Ukrainian counteroffensive appears likely to fall short of its strategic goals,” the paper reported in an article on Friday.

Kiev’s forces are struggling to achieve the aim of reaching the Sea of Azov in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region, because the minefields set up by Moscow’s forces, they say, have proven to be “a potent defense,” the Times added.

According to US officials, conducting offensive operations would also soon become even more difficult for Ukraine “as the ground becomes soft and muddy” in the region.

The NYT also said that some in Washington have warned that “within a few weeks, the Ukrainian army will need time to rebuild their stockpile of equipment and to rest forces exhausted by the summer fighting.”………………………………more https://www.rt.com/news/583443-ukraine-counteroffensive-us-zelensky/—

September 29, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New York Times Says ‘Evidence Suggests’ Ukrainian Missile Misfire To Blame For Market Tragedy

Radio Free Europe, 19 Sept 23

The New York Times has published a report suggesting a deadly bombing at an outdoor market in eastern Ukraine earlier this month was likely caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine’s armed forces.

Kyiv rejected the September 19 report by the U.S. daily, again stating that the September 6 blast in Kostyantynivka that killed at least 15 people and injured 30 more was caused by a Russian missile.

The report cites “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.”

It shares security footage appearing to show a missile flying at the market “from the direction of Ukrainian-held territory, not from behind Russian lines,” and images of scarring on the ground near the impact………………………..  https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-nyt-missile-kostyantynivka-market/32599514.html—

September 29, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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

Caitlin’s Newsletter, CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, SEP 24, 2023

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.”……………………

“I understand the moral argument,” says former CIA official Jeffrey Edmonds regarding the weapons transfers into Ukraine, “but I also understand the argument that, well, why would you want to give these things if it’s just going to increase the chances that Russia does something?”

So while we members of the public were blindly speculating about whether or not Russia would attack Ukraine, the US intelligence cartel was fully aware that the US was taking actions ensuring that that would happen. That’s the environment the US security state knew it was operating under when it continued to taunt the idea of adding Ukraine and Georgia to NATO right up until the final moments before the invasion.

It’s been funny to watch the response of empire apologists to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s surprising refutation of a year and a half of empire propaganda by openly admitting that NATO expansion provoked the invasion of Ukraine and acknowledging that NATO powers rejected Moscow’s proposed compromises which could have averted the war. Basically the only argument they now have after this admission is to say that Russia should not have viewed NATO expansion as an existential threat.

Their only remaining trick is to argue with reality; to basically say that yes it’s reality that NATO expansion provoked this war because Moscow saw it as a threat, but reality shouldn’t have been what reality was. They argue that Russia should have felt completely different feelings about a military threat on its border than nations like the United States would feel, since as we’ve discussed previously the last time there was a credible military threat near the US border the US responded so aggressively that the world almost ended.

That’s really all they’ve got: “Yes it’s true that all the people who’ve died and lost their homes in this war did so because we were amassing a hostile military alliance near Russia’s border, but in our defense the Russians should’ve thought different thoughts in their heads than the ones that we ourselves would think about a hostile military threat on our border.”

If all westerners deeply understood all the suffering and danger that has been unleashed upon our world by this war, and deeply understood the fact that their own governments played a role in starting it, the political status quo of the western world would be impossible to maintain. Which is why such unprecedented levels of propaganda and internet censorship have gone into preventing westerners from coming to such an understanding.  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/this-war-wasnt-just-provoked-it-was?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=137340680&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

September 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Cannon Fodder: Number of Ukrainian Amputee Soldiers Going Through the Roof

Ekaterina Blinova, 21 Sept 23

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have become amputees, while many more sustained other injuries or died on the battlefield. The scale of amputations in Ukraine has reached that of the First World War, according to Western media.

Between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers have lost one or more limbs since the beginning of the conflict, Western press has reported.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense recently announced that 40% of wounded Ukrainian soldiers have serious limb injuries that appear to be incurable.

However, it is difficult to know for sure how many Ukrainian soldiers have disabilities, because this information is top secret, according to a Norwegian media outlet.

A commonly cited ratio for dead and injured in wars is 2-4 people wounded for each person killed. Sometimes, the number of those wounded may be 13 times as high depending on what weapons systems are used on the battlefield. One could easily calculate what price Ukrainians paid for the counteroffensive encouraged and sponsored by the West.

As per the Russian Defense Ministry, over 71,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed during the three months of the Kiev regime’s counteroffensive.

Given that Ukraine and Russia have been involved in high-scale counter-battery duels since the outset of the conflict, most of the wounds at the front have been caused by shrapnel and artillery fire, military personnel and war correspondents have said. Meanwhile, Ukrainians also sustained heavy losses while trying to storm Russia’s sophisticated defense lines and minefields, which have been largely blamed by the Western press for the failure of the Kiev regime’s offensive operations.

Ukrainian Amputees Evoke Scale of WWI

Western journalists assume that during 18 months of the special military operation in Ukraine, there have been at least 10 times the number of Ukrainian amputees than Americans with the same sort of injuries over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

For their part, US medical experts say that injuries of this magnitude had not been seen by Western military surgeons since World War II. The First World War saw at least 67,000 Germans and 41,000 British amputees, according to some estimates.

Several clinics in Ukraine cite 20,000 amputee cases, but the actual figure may be higher as it takes time to register patients after undergoing the amputation procedure, per the media. Some patients have to wait for weeks or even months for the surgery as the Ukrainian healthcare system is overwhelmed.

During the unfolding conflict, the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered a scale of losses for which the army’s medical service was unprepared, Tetiana Ostashchenko, commander of the Medical Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told a Ukrainian broadcaster on August 26.

“Neither the legislative framework nor the system itself was designed for such volumes of medical care,” Ostashchenko stressed.

She said that new problems emerge every day and despite the nation’s healthcare system trying to solve them, it is not working as quickly as required.

To complicate matters further, the battlefield first aid straps used by Ukrainian during combat to stem bleeding, are often fitted too high to the injured limb and left on for too long. As a result, the cells in the limb die and a whole arm or leg will need to be removed instead of just part of it. What’s worse, sometimes these surgeries are done in horrific conditions, according to the British press.

Prosthetics is yet another problem faced by Ukrainian military amputees. One arm could cost $100,000 while a hook in place of a hand is an additional $8,000. A number of Western charities help some Ukrainian soldiers to get new artificial limbs but there are too many amputees returning from the battlefield.

Kiev Throws Ukrainians Into ‘Meat Grinder’

Previously, former Prime Minister of Ukraine Nikolai Azarov stated that Kiev is deliberately hiding the figures of real losses in order to avoid payments to the families of fallen soldiers, attributing them to the number of missing people instead.

There have also been cases when wounded Ukrainian soldiers were left to die by their fellows on the battlefield. On September 12, captured Ukrainian serviceman Yevgeny Zinovik told Sputnik that he had been abandoned by the Ukrainian military and laid on the ground suffering from wounds for four days, until Russian reconnaissance officers found him. Zinovik confessed that he was glad to be captured after all this suffering. He said that he had undergone treatment in a Donetsk hospital.

………………………………………………………………………….. Ukrainians Hide Abroad or Surrender

A glaring indicator of Kiev running out of military personnel is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s order to conduct a full review of all mobilization exemptions granted by Military Medical Commissions (MMCs) starting from February 24, 2022.

In addition to bringing young and elderly to the front, the Kiev regime has requested European states extradite Ukrainian draft-age adults. However, EU states are resisting those requests, citing European laws that prevent them from deporting refugees or altogether refusing to send Ukrainians back home. One should bear in mind that Ukrainians are a source of cheap labor in Europe…………………..
 https://sputnikglobe.com/20230921/cannon-fodder-number-of-ukrainian-amputee-soldiers-going-through-the-roof-1113563445.html

September 24, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Biden’s phase’ of Ukraine war is beginning

This Week, Blinken explicitly stated for the first time that the US would not oppose Ukraine using US-supplied longer-range missiles to attack deep inside Russian territory, a move that Moscow has previously called a “red line,” which would make Washington a direct party to the conflict. 

SEPTEMBER 17, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR Indian Punchline

The ground war in Ukraine has run its course, a new phase is beginning. Even diehard supporters of Ukraine in the western media and think tanks are admitting that a military victory over Russia is impossible and a vacation of the territory under Russian control is way beyond Kiev’s capability.

Hence the ingenuity of the Biden Administration to explore Plan B counselling Kiev to be realistic about loss of territory and pragmatically seek dialogue with Moscow. This was the bitter message that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken transmitted to Kiev recently in person. 

But President Zelensky’s caustic reaction in a subsequent interview with the Economist magazine is revealing. He hit back that the western leaders still talk the good talk, pledging they will stand with Ukraine “as long as it takes” (Biden mantra), but he, Zelensky, has detected a change of mood among some of his partners: “I have this intuition, reading, hearing and seeing their eyes [when they say] ‘we’ll be always with you.’ But I see that he or she is not here, not with us.” Certainly, Zelensky is reading the body language right, as in the absence of an overwhelming military success shortly, western support for Ukraine is time-limited.

Zelensky knows that sustaining the western support will be difficult. Yet he hopes that if not Americans, European Union will at least keep supplying aid, and but may open negotiations over the accession process for Ukraine possibly even at its summit in December. But he also held out a veiled threat of terrorist threat to Europe — warning that it would not be a “good story” for Europe if it were to “drive these people [of Ukraine] into a corner”. So far such ominous threats were muted, originating from low ranking activists of the fascist Bandera fringe.

But Europe has its limits, too. The western stockpiles of weapons are exhausted and Ukraine is a bottomless pit. Importantly, conviction is lacking whether continued supplies would make any difference to the proxy war that is unwinnable. Besides, European economies are in doldrum,’ the recession in Germany may slide into depression, with profound consequences of “deindustrialisation.” 

Suffice to say, Zelensky’s visit to the White House in the coming days becomes a defining moment. The Biden Administration is in a sombre mood that the proxy war is hindering a full-throttle Indo-Pacific strategy against China. Yet, during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Blinken explicitly stated for the first time that the US would not oppose Ukraine using US-supplied longer-range missiles to attack deep inside Russian territory, a move that Moscow has previously called a “red line,” which would make Washington a direct party to the conflict. 

The well-known American military historian, strategic thinker and combat veteran Colonel (Retd.) Douglas MacGregor (who served as advisor to the Pentagon during the Trump administration), is prescient when he says that a new “Biden’s phase of the war” is about to begin. That is to say, having run out of ground forces, the locus will now shift to long-range strike weapons like the Storm Shadow, Taurus,  ATACMS long-range missiles, etc. 

The US is considering sending ATACMS long-range missiles that Ukraine has been asking for a long time with the capability to strike deep inside Russian territory. The most provocative part is that NATO reconnaissance platforms, both manned and unmanned, will be used in such operations, making the US a virtual co-belligerent. 

Russia has been exercising restraint in attacking the source of such enemy capabilities but how long such restraint will continue is anybody’s guess………………………………………………………… more https://www.indianpunchline.com/bidens-phase-of-ukraine-war-is-beginning/

September 24, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The harrowing truth about the war in Ukraine.

Russian press reports the high proportion of amputees among injured Ukrainian soldiers – perhaps up to 50,000. (Of course they don’t mention the Russian casualties, – that figure could be the same, – or likely more.)

The thing is – the media is so full of reports about who’s winning, and what lovely new weapons that Ukraine needs in order to win, and how the war will go on “as long as it takes“.

That seems to mean “as long as there are any fit-enough Ukrainian soldiers left”. Russia has four to five times as many soldiers as Ukraine has. So, the brutal reality is, Russia can afford to lose more casualties. On both sides, the leaders apparently don’t care . So, logically – it’s sort of unlikely that Ukraine can win, isn’t it?

That consideration doesn’t seem to matter to the West. No attention is given to what sort of state Ukraine’s people, and its environment will be in, as this forever war goes on.

As I pointed out, Russian media is not stressing their numbers of amputees. And Western media publicises the medical care that USA is giving to a few of the Ukrainian amputees, while not mentioning the total horrible picture.

The real human toll is ignored. Isn’t it time that the slaughter in Ukraine is ended?

This is one reason why I might appear to be giving constantly a pro-Russian point of view.

It’s not really pro-Russian. It’s pro-truth. The Western media continually vomits forth the lie that Ukraine will win. This lie suits the USA purpose of weakening Russia, which has nothing to do with the well-being of the people of Crimea, or the Donbass, or Ukraine in general.

September 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

We’re Being Prepared For The Ukraine War To Last Into The 2030s

So western empire managers and their agenda-setters in the mass media are making it as clear as could be that the US-centralized empire has found itself in yet another endless war, another “grinding war of attrition” featuring unfathomable destruction and suffering with no exit strategy, which once again pours vast fortunes into the coffers of the military industrial complex. The only difference is that this time it comes with the added bonus of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, SEP 23, 2023 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/were-being-prepared-for-the-ukraine?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=137313925&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

Western officials and media pundits are now directly acknowledging that Ukraine’s much-touted “spring counteroffensive” has been a catastrophic failure, but rather than seeing this as a reason to reconsider the mainstream political consensus on this war, they are instead telling everyone that the counteroffensive’s failure means we must commit to the status quo of bloodshed and nuclear brinkmanship for years to come.

In a recent article titled “US and G-7 Allies Expect War in Ukraine to Drag On for Years,” Bloomberg reports that the US-centralized power structure expects to be backing its proxy conflict against Russia for a very long time, potentially into the 2030s. 

Bloomberg reports:

“The US and its allies in the Group of Seven now expect the war in Ukraine may drag on for years to come and are building that possibility into their military and financial planning.

“A senior official from one European G-7 country said the war may last as much as six or seven more years and that allies need to plan financially to continue support for Kyiv for such a long conflict.“

“That’s much longer than many officials had expected earlier this year, but slow progress in Ukraine’s counteroffensive in recent months has tempered expectations.”

In a recent interview with CNN, outgoing Joint Chiefs chair Mark Milley said that achieving Kyiv’s official goal of fully recapturing all Ukrainian territory is going to require “very significant effort over a considerable amount of time.”

“I can tell you that it’ll take a considerable length of time to militarily eject all 200,000 or plus Russian troops out of Russian-occupied Ukraine,” Milley added. “That’s a very high bar. It’s going to take a long time to do it.”

In a recent interview with German newspaper Berliner Morgenpost, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also pounded home the point that this war will drag on for a very long time.

“Most wars last longer than is expected when they first start. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.

“We are all wishing for a quick peace,” Stoltenberg added. “But at the same time, we must recognize: If President Zelensky and the Ukrainians give up the fight, their country would not exist anymore. If President Putin and Russia laid down their weapons, we would have peace. The easiest way to end this war would be if Putin withdrew his troops.”

You see this claim from empire managers and their apologists all the time: that the only obstacle to peace in Ukraine is Russia refusing to leave. This of course ignores the many extensively-documented western aggressions which are known to have provoked Russia’s invasion, a fact that Stoltenberg himself admitted to earlier this month. 

Demanding that Russia end its aggressions without the west agreeing to end its own aggressions which led to this conflict is just demanding that Russia lie down and submit to being ruled and dominated by the western empire. It’s not a call for peace, it’s a call for the total victory of Washington and its cohorts.

Stoltenberg reinforced his point that this war will drag on for years by affirming that Ukraine will gain NATO membership when this war is over, which is effectively a message to Moscow that if it still finds NATO membership for Ukraine unacceptable it must either annex Ukraine into the Russian Federation entirely or keep this war going on forever.

“Ukraine will become a member of NATO — all allies have made that clear,” Stoltenberg said, adding that Ukraine will need NATO protection when the war ends, otherwise “history could repeat itself.”

The western media are conveying the same message. Notorious empire propaganda rag The Economist has a new article out titled “Ukraine faces a long war. A change of course is needed,” featuring a Ukrainian flag with the words “TIME FOR A RETHINK” scrawled across it. If you didn’t know anything about The Economist you might assume at first glance that this was an article about rethinking the approach of backing an endless proxy conflict — especially after its opening paragraphs acknowledge that “The plan is not working” and “Ukraine has liberated less than 0.25% of the territory that Russia occupied in June.”

You would be wrong though. What The Economist means is that we should switch from thinking of this as a war that can be won in a timely fashion to one which will continue for the foreseeable future:

“Both Ukraine and its Western supporters are coming to realise that this will be a grinding war of attrition. President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington this week for talks. ‘I have to be ready for the long war,’ he told The Economist. But unfortunately, Ukraine is not yet ready; nor are its Western partners. Both are still fixated on the counter-offensive. They need to rethink Ukraine’s military strategy and how its economy is run. Instead of aiming to “win” and then rebuild, the goal should be to ensure that Ukraine has the staying power to wage a long war — and can thrive despite it.”

So western empire managers and their agenda-setters in the mass media are making it as clear as could be that the US-centralized empire has found itself in yet another endless war, another “grinding war of attrition” featuring unfathomable destruction and suffering with no exit strategy, which once again pours vast fortunes into the coffers of the military industrial complex. The only difference is that this time it comes with the added bonus of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

All for what? To advance the US empire’s goal of total planetary domination, a status quo that it can only maintain by brandishing armageddon weapons at its enemies with increasing hostility year after year. 

When it comes to the war in Ukraine it is definitely time for a rethink, but not by the same monsters who thought us into this horror in the first place.

September 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Pentagon blames Russian e-warfare for failed Ukraine counteroffensive

By Al Mayadeen English, Source: Agencies, 15 Sep 23  https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/pentagon-blames-russian-e-warfare-for-failed-ukraine-counter

The US Military Commander Josh Kozlov reveals that the Pentagon is “taking notes” on the Russian tactics to prepare for future direct hostilities. 

The failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive for the past three months has been blamed on Russia’s advanced electronic warfare (EW) capabilities, according to the British Royal United Services Institute and other military expert organizations. However, as revealed by US Military Commander Josh Kozlov, the Pentagon is “taking notes” on the Russian tactics to prepare for any future direct hostilities. 

A report by the Financial Times published on Monday said that the NATO member nations are gearing up for what is being billed as the largest military exercises since the Cold War. The drills set for spring, titled “Steadfast Defender,” will involve the participation of the organization’s joint command, alongside approximately 41,000 military personnel. The primary focus of these exercises is to simulate the defense against a hypothetical Russian attack on a NATO member state

A military-focused US media outlet quoted Koslov as saying that during the Air, Space, and Cyber Conference in Maryland. 

Koslov, the head of the US Army 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing established two years ago to match rival electronic warfare, stated that both Russia and Ukraine have shown impressive abilities on the ground. 

He said: “The agility being displayed by both parties, in the way that they’re executing operations in the spectrum, is awesome,” adding that “Both sides are doing the cat-and-mouse game very, very well… In the future, for us, if we do confront a peer, being agile and being rapid is the key to success in the spectrum”. 

Failed Western testing

Russian EW tactics have previously intercepted drones from attacking Russian territory, affected Western targeting systems, and disrupted communications between Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine has been trying to up its game by resorting to desperate measures such as repeatedly asking the West to provide it with weapons while offering its land as a testing range for weapons.

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in June that “for the military industry of the world, you can’t invent a better testing ground,” than the battlefield in Ukraine. 

Ukraine’s not even handling either the weapons or the Western-provided funds correctly, as Ukrainian authorities have embezzled over 100 billion hryvnias ($2.7 billion) from the state budget through the procurement of overpriced and subpar ammunition, equipment, and air defense weapons, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said last week.

“According to the most conservative estimates, more than 100 billion budget hryvnias were misappropriated,” Azarob said on his official Telegram channel.

September 20, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment