Crash Test Dummies
“New Atlas LIVE: Carl Zha on Russian-Chinese Ties, Ukraine's Offensive, Blinken in Beijing & More...“ (The New Atlas).
“The Russian Defense Strategy | Scott Ritter“ (Dialogue works).
“After a month in Russia! Scott Ritter is back on the show!“ (Krupa).
“Graham, NATO will go to war. Putin, Sarmat is ready. DOJ Biden cover-up. Russian book ban. U/1“ (Christoforou).
“$6.9B Found for Ukraine/ Nuke Fears Rumbling w/Jack Devine fmr CIA“ (Napolitano).
“The American Colony of Iraq“ (Tales of the American Empire).
“The Ukrainian Counter-Offensive Had No Chance. NATO Failed To Explain That.“ (Moon of Alabama).
Colonel Cassad via Niqnaq.
“The World Is Yours“ (Shamir):
Within a few days, the Russian army was already at the gates of Kiev. It was fast, it was brief, and it was decisive. At the same time, in Istanbul, the representatives of Russia and Ukraine began and promptly initialized a diplomatic agreement. The agreement was obtained through the services of a Russian Jewish oligarch Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner, who wanted to avoid sanctions. A man who closely followed these events, Mr Oleg Tsarev (he was a candidate for President of Ukraine in 2014) says Mr Abramovich bribed the Ukrainian leadership so they would quickly agree. The agreement was not bad for the Ukraine: they would have to cut down their army, agree to permanent neutrality, and agree to the Donbas going to Russia. It was reasonable, considering the eight years the Donbas had been shelled by the Ukrainian army. But it was not to be: Mr Johnson, the British Prime Minister, came to Kiev and overbid Mr Abramovich. Ukraine agreed to more war. It was a popular decision in Ukraine: the people wanted war.
A few days before the war the subject had been discussed in the popular Ukrainian talk show of Mr Savik Shuster. Surprisingly, almost 90% of the audience voted for the war, rather than abiding by the Minsk accords. The US insisted on war as well. They felt Putin was caught in their trap. Meanwhile, the Russian army had already begun to withdraw from Kiev and the Kharkov area. The Russian generals moved their heavy weapons back to Russian territory and promptly removed themselves. The withdrawal was tactical – the Russian army in the Ukraine was very small, just enough for a lightening raid and not sufficient for an extended occupation. But it was anyway a humiliating exercise.
Worse, the US and its Ukrainian allies staged a copy of Timisoara in the small town of Bucha, with corpses taken out of graves and the morgue, and then accusing Russian soldiers of atrocities. Timisoara is a Romanian miners’ town where a similar massacre was staged by the CIA in 1989 in order to depose and promptly execute the then ruler, Mr Nicolae Ceausescu.
and:
The only important battle (after Mariupol) was the struggle over Bakhmut, a tiny provincial township. It will be forever remembered for a previously little-known man, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He was called “Putin’s chef” for a funny reason: he once owned a catering company that fed schoolchildren in Moscow and St Petersburg. But in 2015, he became the manager and commander of a mercenary company, the Wagner Group, and his soldiers made great impact in Syria and afterwards in Africa. Those are his soldiers that took Bakhmut after “the Grinder”, as they called that operation. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were killed there. Prigozhin is also a master of PR. He mercilessly criticized the MoD (Ministry of Defence), the General Staff, the generals and the Minister of Defence. He accused them of a lack of patriotism, of caring little for the Russian soldiers. The only exception he made was for his old acquaintances from the Syrian campaign, General “Armageddon” Surovikin and the three-star General Michael Mizintsev who commanded the troops in the reduction of Mariupol. A Vologda peasant’s son, Mizintsev was the most senior Russian officer actually in the battlefield, and a Deputy Defence Minister. After the Bakhmut Grinder, Mizintsev retired from his position in MoD and became the second-in-command of the Wagner Group.
Why did Mr Putin allow such ruthless criticism of his MoD? Apparently he wanted to have a balance. He remembered that the Iraqi army was vanquished by the US with the help of Iraqi generals who took American bribes and betrayed their country and their leader. The Wagner Group was insurance against a similar step by the Russian generals.
”Superman's Song”. Currently on tour.