nuclear-news

CNN Shared A Glimpse Of Just How Bad Everything Has Become For Ukraine

The ideal solution for Kiev would be to reach a ceasefire for facilitating its voluntary withdrawal from part of Donbass (ex: Pokrovsk’s surroundings) in parallel with pulling out of Kursk, which are terms that Russia might entertain since they’d advance some of its political and military goals.

Andrew Korybko, Sep 09, 2024, https://korybko.substack.com/p/cnn-shared-a-glimpse-of-just-how

Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion

By Ivana Kottasová and Kostya Gak, CNN, 8 Sept 24

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are in the midst of converging crises caused by the failed counteroffensive, the forcible conscription policy, and Zelensky’s Kursk blunder, which are leading to more desertions, defeats, and ultimately more desperation.

CNN carried out a rare act of journalistic service with their detailed report about how “Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion”. It candidly describes the numerous problems afflicting the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) at this pivotal moment in the conflict as they continue to occupy part of Kursk but are still losing ground in Donbass. Their story begins by introducing a battalion commander who lost most of the around 800 men under his control.

This figure couldn’t take it anymore and thus transferred to a cushy military administrative job in Kiev. He and the five others who CNN spoke to when researching their report informed them that “desertion and insubordination are becoming a widespread problem, especially among newly recruited soldiers.” In the words of one commander, “Not all mobilized soldiers are leaving their positions, but the majority are…They either leave their positions, refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army.”

The reader is then informed that these troops are forcibly conscripted, thus adding context to why they desert, but they also claimed that morale problems began to infect the armed forces’ ranks during the now-resolved impasse over more American aid to Ukraine. While that likely played a role, CNN conspicuously omits to mention last summer’s failed counteroffensive, which proved that Ukraine is unable to reconquer its lost lands despite all the hype and the aid that it received up until that point.  

Moving along after having clarified the real reason behind the UAF’s plunging morale over the past year, drones have made the battlefield more unbearable than before, and the amount of time between rotations has grown since some troops simply can’t leave their positions without risking their lives. CNN then added that “In just the first four months of 2024, prosecutors launched criminal proceedings against almost 19,000 soldiers who either abandoned their posts or deserted”.

They also acknowledged that “It’s a staggering and – most likely – incomplete number. Several commanders told CNN that many officers would not report desertion and unauthorized absences, hoping instead to convince troops to return voluntarily, without facing punishment. This approach became so common that Ukraine changed the law to decriminalize desertion and absence without leave, if committed for the first time.”

The impending Battle of Pokrovsk, which could be a game-changer for Russia on the Donbass front, risks turning into a total disaster for the UAF since “some commanders estimate there are 10 Russian soldiers to each Ukrainian.” Just as alarming is the claim from one officer that “There have even been cases of troops not disclosing the full battlefield picture to other units out of fear it would make them look bad.” Communication problems are also reportedly rife between Kiev’s varied units there too.

The Kursk front isn’t as bad, but it might not have served its political purpose of boosting morale among the UAF unlike what Zelensky has claimed. CNN quoted some sappers who were unsure of the strategy involved, questioning why they were redeployed from defending Pokrovsk to invade Russia when the Donbass front is experiencing such difficulties as was already reported. The piece then ends with a psychological support expert declaring that he’s no longer going to be emotionally attached to anyone.

Reflecting on CNN’s surprisingly critical report, it’s clear that the UAF is in the midst of converging crises caused by the failed counteroffensive, the forcible conscription policy, and Zelensky’s Kursk blunder, which are leading to more desertions, defeats, and ultimately more desperation. In such circumstances, Ukraine can either stay the course by remaining in Kursk at the expense of losing more ground in Donbass, withdraw from Kursk to help hold Donbass, or asymmetrically escalate.

The first two scenarios are self-explanatory while the last could concern expanding the conflict into other Russian regions, Belarus, and/or Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region, seriously damaging Russian nuclear power plants out of desperation to provoke a nuclear response, and/or assassinating top Russians. There are only a few months left before the winter impedes combat operations on both sides, after which the status quo will persist until spring, when one or both sides might go on the offensive.

This timeline adds urgency to the impending Battle of Pokrovsk, which Russia wants to win as soon as possible in order to push through the fields beyond, capture more territory, threaten the Kramatorsk-Slavyansk agglomeration from the south, and possibly prepare to make a move on Zaporozhye city from the northeast. If Ukraine can hold out into next year, then it could have more time to build more defenses beyond Pokrovsk, thus reducing the pace of Russia’s advance if it comes out on top there.  

Even if Ukraine holds on for at least several months or perhaps as long as half a year longer there, the problems touched upon in CNN’s piece will likely only exacerbate seeing as how more forcibly conscripted troops will be thrown into what might by then become the next infamous meat grinder. Morale will probably continue plummeting while defections could spike, both of which could combine to cripple the UAF and create an opening for Russia to exploit in Pokrovsk or elsewhere along the front.

The ideal solution for Kiev would be to reach a ceasefire for facilitating its voluntary withdrawal from part of Donbass (ex: Pokrovsk’s surroundings) in parallel with pulling out of Kursk, which are terms that Russia might entertain since they’d advance some of its political and military goals. It’s better for Ukraine from the perspective of its regime’s interests to have an orderly withdrawal than a chaotic one if Russia achieves a breakthrough, but Zelensky and his ilk aren’t known for their rational decisions.

Nevertheless, those like India and Hungary who are want to help politically resolve this conflict could propose something of the sort, perhaps also suggesting the revival of last month’s reported Qatari-mediated partial ceasefire proposal for eschewing attacks against the other’s energy infrastructure. Zelensky is unlikely to agree, especially since he’s under the influence of uber-hawk Yermak, but it would still be best to informally circulate some variant of the aforementioned proposal sooner than later.

Regardless of well-intentioned third parties’ proposals, the conflict appears poised to continue raging into the next year absent a complete military and/or political breakdown in Ukraine, neither of which can be ruled out though considering how bad everything has become per CNN’s latest report. Ukraine and its Anglo-American “deep state” allies could also stage a major provocation aimed at desperately “escalating to de-escalate” on more of their terms, so observers shouldn’t rule that scenario out either.

September 12, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Tipping Points: UPDATE 2

Russian and Eurasian Politics, by Gordonhahn, September 11, 2024

Outgoing US President Joe Biden has said his administration is working on approval of Ukrainian use of U.S. long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia (https://www.ft.com/content/48289996-e1bf-4c3e-befb-031698e89e1b). The UK is pressuring the US to approve such use, and US Secretary of State and UK’s foreign minister have just arrived in Kiev (https://ctrana.news/news/471869-blinken-i-hlava-mid-britanii-pribyli-v-kiev.html).

UPDATE 1:

Reuters reports US is just about se to send long-range missiles to Ukraine for attacks deep inside Russia:

US close to agreeing on long-range missiles for Ukraine; delivery to take months.

Summary

-Stealthy JASSM weapons have range to hit targets inside Russia

-Decision expected in autumn, U.S. officials say

-Pentagon trying to integrate JASSMs on Soviet-era Ukrainian jets

WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. is close to an agreement to give Ukraine long-range cruise missiles that could reach deep into Russia, but Kyiv would need to wait several months as the U.S. works through technical issues ahead of any shipment, U.S. officials said.The inclusion of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) in a weapons package is expected to be announced this autumn, three sources said, though a final decision has not been made (https://www.reuters.com/world/us-close-agreeing-long-range-missiles-ukraine-delivery-take-months-2024-09-03/).

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:

The NATO-Russia Ukrainian war is at a tipping point; one that leads to a Russian march to the Dniepr River and the relocation of what remains of pro-NATO Ukraine’s populace to right bank Ukraine and its Maidan government away from the western banks of the Diner and deeper into western Ukraine, likely Lvov. Not surprisingly, Kiev therefore is desperate and trying to escalate in ways that implicate or bring deeper, more direct NATO involvement, which has been deep and escalating on NATO’s part for years. For Kiev, ideal would be a full-scale NATO military intervention. The West’s previous strategy of gradual escalation –  ‘boiling the frog’ by providing redlined air defense systems, then short-range missile/artillery systems, then tanks, then F-16s – hasd run its course.

The only options now are permitting Kiev to use Western missiles to hit deep inside Russia and target Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top leaders. Until now neither Kiev nor the West has crossed any Russian or ‘Putin red lines’ because there have not been any Russian-declared ‘red lines’ but Western MSM-set red lines. One would-be hard-pressed to cite even one clearly expressed Putin ‘red line.’

I fear the Western escalation will continue up to crossing an actual ‘red line’ that Russians have indirectly hinted at – Ukraine’s use of long-range Western missiles such as American ATACMs and British Storm Shadows to strike deep into Russia – will be crossed one way or another, likely after the U.S. presidential election on November 5th.……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/11/ukrainian-tipping-points-update-2/—

September 12, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Tipping Points: UPDATE

by Gordonhahn September 3, 2024 https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/03/ukrainian-tipping-points-update/

Rueters reports US is just about se to send long-range missiles to Ukraine for attacks deep inside Russia:

US close to agreeing on long-range missiles for Ukraine; delivery to take months

Summary

-Stealthy JASSM weapons have range to hit targets inside Russia

-Decision expected in autumn, U.S. officials say

-Pentagon trying to integrate JASSMs on Soviet-era Ukrainian jets

WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. is close to an agreement to give Ukraine long-range cruise missiles that could reach deep into Russia, but Kyiv would need to wait several months as the U.S. works through technical issues ahead of any shipment, U.S. officials said. The inclusion of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM) in a weapons package is expected to be announced this autumn, three sources said, though a final decision has not been made (https://www.reuters.com/world/us-close-agreeing-long-range-missiles-ukraine-delivery-take-months-2024-09-03/).

September 6, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Tipping Points

Paid liars from Washington, Stanford, London and elsewhere have tried and likely will continue to try to tell you ‘Ukraine is winning’. It is not and cannot do so without a full-scale NATO intervention and a likely resulting World War III.

Russian and Eurasian Politics, Gordonhahn, September 1, 2024

The NATO-Russia Ukrainian war is at a tipping point; one that leads to a Russian march to the Dniepr River and the relocation of what remains of pro-NATO Ukraine’s populace to right bank Ukraine and its Maidan government away from the western banks of the Diner and deeper into western Ukraine, likely Lvov.

Not surprisingly, Kiev therefore is desperate and trying to escalate in ways that implicate or bring deeper, more direct NATO involvement, which has been deep and escalating on NATO’s part for years. For Kiev, ideal would be a full-scale NATO military intervention. The West’s previous strategy of gradual escalation –  ‘boiling the frog’ by providing redlined air defense systems, then short-range missile/artillery systems, then tanks, then F-16s – has run its course.

The only options now are permitting Kiev to use Western missiles to hit deep inside Russia and target Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top leaders. Until now neither Kiev nor the West has crossed any Russian or ‘Putin red lines’ because there have not been any Russian-declared ‘red lines’ but Western MSM-set red lines. One would-be hard-pressed to cite even one clearly expressed Putin ‘red line.’

I fear the Western escalation will continue up to crossing an actual ‘red line’ that Russians have indirectly hinted at – Ukraine’s use of long-range Western missiles such as American ATACMs and British Storm Shadows to strike deep into Russia – will be crossed one way or another, likely after the U.S. presidential election on November 5th.

      The crossing of all previous red lines drawn largely by Western media produce a demonstration effect of supposed Russian weakness, which many play up in order to also facilitate a NATO decision to cross the long-range missile red line or to intervene overtly and officially on the ground in the war. The latter has been Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s goal since the war began and even before during the Minsk ‘ceasefire’. The repeated targeting of civilian areas in Donbass and now in Russia proper, bombing harvesting combines in Belgorod, and the now failed Kursk invasion itself is of the same genre. This desire, indeed desparate need to draw NATO ‘all in’ stands behind Zelenskiy’s fakes –Bucha, Russia attacked Zaporozhe Nuclear Power Plant Rus controls, a children’s hospital, schools, the Kramatorsk train station, etc., etc. This fakery is all part and parcel of the simulated reality that has been the Maidan and its resulting regime, built on legends of police brutality and mass shooting perpetrated by the Maidanists themselves.

Western propagandists use the alleged ‘failure of Putin to respond’ to Western-created ‘Putin red lines’ and to West-Ukraine provocations in order to give the impression that Russia is a paper bear and beatable, that Ukraine is winning and can win, and that the West and Ukraine should continue escalating and intensify its support and perhaps have NATO intervene full-scale. Zelensky himself – the premier propagandist and stage director in today’s West — has pointed to the mini invasion into Kursk as proof that Moscow’s ‘red lines’ are “illusory” and appealed to the leaders of Britain, France, Germay, and the US to allow the use of long-range missiles to strike air bases on Russian territory (www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/kursk-incursion-proves-putins-red-lines-are-a-bluff-says-zelensky-bdc893ztw).

At the same time, the West has played up ‘Putin’s nuclear threats’ – of whch there have been none. Russia has a clearly stated and codified nuclear use doctrine: nuclear weapons will be used only in the event od an existential threat to the survival of the Russian state……………………………..

So far, Washington has conducted a controlled but likely open-ended escalation until dominance is achieved; hence the relative U.S. restraint and its constraning of the UK, Poland, and others hitherto. But this restraint and constraint should not be overdrawn. The U.S. will escalate as far as is imaginable if it is safe to do so in order to deal a ‘strategic defeat’ to ‘Putin’s Russia.’ …………………………………………

Thus, the defeat of Kiev on the left bank augurs for a long standoff with Western support for continung attacks of various kinds across the Dniepr against Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine that will likely lead to a second phase of the war in right bank Ukraine. The only way to avoid this outcome is by way of a negotiated treaty involving at least Kiev and Moscow; the West is an unlikely partner in a peace endeavor, given the chaos now reigning in Washington. ……………………………..

The threat of such developments is peaking now. Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians are desparate given the not-so-long-coming collapse of Ukraine’s defense across the entire front; hence the desparate throw of the dice that is the Kursk invasion—a last desparate attempt to turn the tables on Moscow……………………

…………………………………………………Paid liars from Washington, Stanford, London and elsewhere have tried and likely will continue to try to tell you ‘Ukraine is winning’. It is not and cannot do so without a full-scale NATO intervention and a likely resulting World War III.

Western ‘experts’ and intel propagandists have failed Ukraine and their own peoples by their ignorance of Russia and their professional malfeasance. They have misunderstood and underestimated Russia for 35 years ………………..

……………. They underestimated how Russia would respond to NATO expansion and the broken promise it entailed, a Western-backed. ………………………….

………………………The grave failure of Western rusology, academia, and government, I suspect, is bringing the world back to schism and nuclear confrontation. 

………………………………….. The U.S. Democrat Party-state and the media-academic-military-industrial-congressional complex cannot allow prior to the presidential election neither an obvious Ukrainian collapse to materialize as an ‘October surprise’ nor a a major escalation that brings or clearly risks U.S. troops or the homeland. 

But there should be no doubt; there are domestic options of an escalatory nature being examined in Western decisionmaking and research centers. When one of the next Western or Western-backed Ukrainian escalations is enacted – regardless if it is engineered under a Trump or Harris administration or the guise thereof – there will follow, as sure as night follows day, a Russian response targetting not just ruined, disappearing Ukraine but the West.  https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/01/ukrainian-tipping-points/

September 2, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Tangible Panic Grows in Ukraine Amid Donbass-front Collapse

Each paragraph below is illustrated on the original, with explanatory sources – quotes, videos, maps )

Simplicius, Aug 29, 2024  https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-82824-tangible-panic-grows?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=148194067&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email—

Ukraine is slowly descending into a panic regarding the collapse of the Donbass front, and in fact that collapse is seemingly accelerating. Some semblance of a normalcy bias continues to grip the more obdurate observers, but the keen-eyed are seeing the writing on the wall.

Head of the top Ukrainian channel “Deepstate UA”—which is basically the Ukrainian ‘Rybar’—calls the situation complete chaos:

Arestovich wrote a long post on his official account where he called the situation around Pokrovsk an “operational crisis”.

Rada deputy Goncharenko was beside himself, calling the situation catastrophic. He added that after Pokrovsk, the road to the entire Dnieper will be wide open:

It’s almost pointless even updating the exact captures and advances anymore because right now they’re simply happening so fast that within hours of the Sitrep’s release, the information is already obsolete, and Russians have advanced even more. But suffice it to say, this time there were even several major captures in areas other than Pokrovsk.

Russian forces captured the remainder of Konstantinovka on the Ugledar line:

Ugledar is now becoming in danger of being surrounded for the AFU in the near future.

Ukrainian military channel:

Then Russians captured most of Grodovka, after having just entered it days ago:

At this pace, it will be captured in the next day or two it seems.

After capturing New York, they’ve already entered the next settlement north of it, Nelipovka. And nearby, they’ve advanced deeper into Toretsk, gaining hundreds of meters inside the important city.

As of now, they’re mere kilometers from Pokrovsk, and right at the outskirts of its neighboring city of Mirnograd:

Nearby, they’ve now entered Selidov for the first time, and are already working through it:

Another Ukrainian account:

“Battles for Selidove have begun! The enemy is actively pushing our defenses on the eastern outskirts of the city, the fighting continues in the area of ​​the stadium and the park, slowly moving towards the high-rises, also the podars are trying to level the front and are starting to press from Mykhailivka to the south and push from the highway in the east. The same squeeze situation occurred in New York.”

In light of the ongoing collapse, the potential for dangerous escalation rises because Zelensky gets increasingly desperate to engineer some kind of black swan event that could overturn the table and upend events.

With this in mind there continues to be a slew of rumors for what Zelensky’s next move might be. For instance, there continue to be reports of AFU preparations on the Zaporozhye front:

There is some credence to the above given that in the past few days the Russian airforce has carried out at least 2 separate air strikes along the Black Sea toward Odessa—one was at Snake Island, and another at oil platforms just east of there which Ukrainian GUR was using to stage landings toward Crimea.

This is roughly how Zelensky’s potential plan is meant to play out:

A simultaneous mass landing by special forces around the Kinburn Spit area to harass the ‘rears’ of Russia’s Dnieper grouping, while other amphibious forces directly strike at the Energodar plant and then the main logistics force tries to wrap around from Zaporozhye city along the river to connect with them.

No one quite knows why this happened, but there are a few potential conjectures:

1. Lukashenko foresees Ukraine attempting to create some provocation as part of the earlier mentioned ‘black swan’ to involve NATO forces, and is taking appropriate deterrence measures
2. Lukashenko is trying to help Russian troops by pinning or ‘fixing’ Ukrainian border guards along the Belarus border, given that Ukraine was said to have removed many of the border forces to use them in Kursk
3. Least likely: Russia and Belarus plan some kind of joint final decapitation invasion to finish off the war

Most likely it’s a combination of 1 and 2.

Partly related to the heightening tensions, we now have a new very interesting statement by Lavrov which appears to vindicate my recent reporting about potential changes to the Russian nuclear doctrine, given the West’s unceasing escalations against Russia’s red lines.

There’s an undercurrent of tension now running through events as other somewhat peculiar happenings have gone on. For instance, Belarus suddenly moved a lot of forces to the Ukrainian border again, and for the first time they appear to have a tactical symbol of a ‘B’ on them, as if they are preparing for direct combat:

August 30, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment