November 2023

Nov 28-30, 2023

Featured • How American Neocons Wrecked the Middle East and Ukraine, David Stockman, Antiwar.com, Nov 29, 2023

Featured • Ukraine ceasefire unlikely in 2024 – Moscow, RT, Nov 29, 2023

Featured • 'Strong, Stable World Order Impossible Without a Sovereign Russia': Putin, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Nov 28, 2023

Russia is at the forefront of the effort to build a more fair, stable world order, and the latter's creation will be impossible without sovereignty, President Vladimir Putin has said.

"I would like to emphasize that without a sovereign, strong Russia, no lasting, stable world order is possible," Putin said in a video address before the World Russian People's Council on Tuesday.

"It is our country specifically that is at the forefront of creating a more equitable world order," Putin said. "As has happened more than once in history, it has fallen to our country today, to the Russian World, to block the path of those who claim world domination and 'exceptionalism.' We are fighting for the freedom of not only Russia, but the entire world."

"Today, Russophobia and other forms of racism and neo-Nazism have become practically the official ideology of Western ruling elites," Putin said. "They are directed not only against ethnic Russians, but also against all the peoples of Russia - Tatars, Chechens, Avars, Tuvinians, Bashkirs, Buryats, Yakuts, Ossetians, Jews, the Ingush, the Mari, and the Altai people. There are many of us, I won't name everyone now, but I will repeat that this is directed against all the peoples of Russia."

Nov 27, 2023

Featured • Ukraine SitRep: High Losses, Political Infighting, Blocked Borders, Moon of Alabama, Nov 27, 2023

Featured • Ukraine Opts for More "Cowbell" as Desperation Sets in, Larry Johnson, Nov 27, 2023

Featured • The United Eunuchs of Europe, Laura Ruggeri, Strategic Culture Foundation, Nov 26, 2023
A very interesting read, which I (gm) for one am not equipped to critique. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the role of transnational elites, continuing and expanding the theme of Bertrand praised by MoA and posted here a couple of days ago. The EU is almost the canonical case of a "semi-state" mostly run by unelected, unaccountable elites, apparently for their own benefit, since so many big decisions taken harm the interests of citizens or are completely out of touch with wider realities.  • ‘Russia will not lose’ – EU member state, RT, Nov 27, 2023

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the US and EU strategy of funding Ukraine’s battle with Russia, in the hope that an unlikely battlefield loss will bring about a regime change in Moscow, is futile. Instead of trying to localize the conflict, the West decided to escalate, making it global, Orban said last week at an event celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Swiss conservative weekly Weltwoche in Zurich. “What was the strategy of the West in that war? I’m simplifying it a little bit, but this is the fact. Our strategy was that the Ukrainians will fight and will win on the front line. The Russians will lose… and that loss will create a change in Moscow,” he explained, according to a video of the speech published by Zoltan Kovacs, a spokesman for the Hungarian government on Sunday.

“That was the strategy: We finance, the Ukrainians fight and die,” he added. However, he said, “where we are now, it is obvious that the Ukrainians will not win on the front line.” “There is no solution on the battleground. The Russians will not lose. There will be no political change in Moscow. This is the reality,” the Hungarian leader stated. “Russia will not lose, and nothing will change in its policy. Therefore, we must face reality. We must switch to Plan B,” Orban reiterated, adding that the European Union currently has no such plan.

“Russia‘s original terms were very fair: number one— no NATO weapons would be located in Ukraine, which would put Russians in danger; and, second, no Nazi genocidal maniacs would be in political positions to continue slaughtering innocent Russians, or outlawing the Russian language and culture in Ukraine. Any reasonable person and nation would’ve accepted these terms,” argued Bennett. Meanwhile, some Russian observers are wondering what BoJo promised the Kiev regime to cause them to rush to nix the deal and throw all their resources into the conflict. Apparently, the British prime minister vowed all-out military support and money from the West. Meanwhile, judging from other Western leaders’ rhetoric, Johnson was not alone in derailing the deal. “This war will be won on the battlefield,” European Union top diplomat Josep Borrell tweeted in April 2022, pledging hundreds of millions of euros for Kiev.

The same month, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin claimed that Washington wanted to see “Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done” in launching the special military operation. He argued that Russia should “not have the capability to very quickly reproduce” manpower and equipment. The US has disbursed over $100 billion in support for Ukraine’s military effort since then. However, a chorus of Western military experts warned Washington from the very beginning that Russia has considerably more resources in every respect, making it virtually impossible for Ukraine to win. Ukrainian officials could have been aware of this balance of forces since the inception of the conflict, yet still they bought into the Western plot.

Sergey Tsekov, a member of the Russian Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, believes that Kiev decided to reject peace with Moscow in 2022 due to a lack of experience. “The people in power in Ukraine got there accidentally – they are shallow, insufficiently experienced, perceiving some momentary tactical successes as successes of a strategic nature,” Tsekov told the Russian press. Per him, many in Ukraine now regret that they failed to resolve the conflict diplomatically at the very beginning. [..] in 2002, then-Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma announced the nation’s goal of “eventual NATO membership” which was reflected in the June 19, 2003, version of law on the foundations of Ukraine’s national policy. In 2010, the government of President Viktor Yanukovich scrapped the plan, embracing the idea of military neutrality.

Following the Western-backed 2014 coup d’etat in Kiev, the nation’s Verkhovna Rada, controlled by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, passed a law reinstating membership in NATO as Ukraine’s strategic objective. In 2019, a corresponding amendment to Ukraine’s Constitution entered into force. Arakhamia failed to explain to the Ukrainian press why the Ukrainian delegation – despite all the obstacles – signed preliminary peace agreements with Russia in Istanbul last year. In June 2023, Vladimir Putin showed the draft of the Istanbul agreement on the Ukraine settlement to an African delegation. “Here it is! It exists!” Putin said, showing the document signed by Ukraine. “And it is called accordingly – the treaty on permanent neutrality and security guarantees for Ukraine. Exactly about guarantees. Eighteen articles,” the Russian president underscored.

No matter how much the West is guilty for derailing the Russo-Ukrainian peace deal, the Zelensky regime is no less responsible for opening the door to bloodshed in Ukraine, per Bennett. “Ukraine is destroyed,” the expert said. “Its military is completely dissolved, and every Ukrainian citizen is going to turn against the Ukrainian political leadership for this unnecessary and destructive war, which should never have happened. Zelensky may very well be assassinated or overthrown by a coup within his own country and prosecuted, and executed as an international war criminal.” “Zelensky is now being abandoned by his staff, his generals, the Ukrainian people, and the international community as a puppet that has lost all use. If questioned, Boris Johnson will most likely pretend to not even remember Zelensky’s name.

The Ukrainian military leadership has absolutely no strategic plan for the ongoing conflict with Russia in 2024, Mariana Bezuglaya, the deputy head of the Ukrainian parliament’s security, defense and intelligence committee, said on Sunday. The top brass only want to mobilize tens of thousands of people every month without a clear understanding of what should be done in Kiev’s ongoing conflict with Moscow, she added. “The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been unable to provide a [strategic] plan for 2024,” Bezuglaya wrote in a post on her Facebook page, referring to Ukraine’s top military commander, General Valery Zaluzhny. The general has absolutely no concept of further conflict, she claimed, adding that he has no plan for any type of warfare, “either large or small… asymmetrical or symmetrical.”

Such a stance by the military leadership has been a major setback for the lawmakers planning the nation’s budget for the next year, the senior MP said. The problems had been growing both in parliament and at the military leadership’s HQ, at least since the summer, Bezuglaya revealed. At that time, the Ukrainian military was in the midst of its much-touted large-scale military offensive launched in early June. The operation was largely unsuccessful as it did not allow Kiev’s troops to gain any major territories but led to heavy losses on the Ukrainian side in both personnel and equipment, including dozens of Western-supplied hardware like tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. According to Bezuglaya, Zaluzhny and other top commanders have so far failed to present any detailed plans for future training, troop rotation, or for the funding needed for some new brigades they supposedly planned to form.

Instead, the Ukrainian military “simply said they would need to draft no less than 20,000 citizens every month,” the senior MP added. “If the military leadership cannot provide any plan for 2024 and all their proposals for mobilization boil down to the fact that more people are needed without any … changes to the Armed Forces system, then this [military] leadership has to go,” Bezuglaya, who is a member of President Vladimir Zelensky’s ‘Servant of the People’ party, said.

Nov 25-26, 2023

Featured • Ukraine conflict could have ended in Spring 2022 – Kiev’s top MP, RT, Nov 24, 2023

Featured • Maidan: A Road to War: RT Documentary (PG-13), Nov 2022, an historical documentary; or the following

Featured • Donbass. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow - The history of the Donbass conflict, Mar 1, 2022

 • Ukrainian Official Confirms Russia Was Ready to End War in March 2022 If Kyiv Agreed to Neutrality, Kyle Anzalone, Antiwar.com, Nov 25, 2023

 • Its Official - U.S. & UK Pressed Ukraine To Reject Peace Deal With Russia, Moon of Alabama, Nov 25, 2023

 • Maidan 10 Years On… The Western-Backed Coup Unleashed Nazism, War and Destruction That Ultimately Exposes Western Fascism, Editorial, Strategic Culture Foundation, Nov 25, 2023

 • Russia Claims to Foil Major Ukrainian Attack on Crimea, Kyle Anzalone, Antiwar.com, Nov 24, 2023

Nov 22-24, 2023

Featured • On 'Sub-Imperial Power', Arnaud Bertrand, Moon of Alabama, Nov 24, 2023

 • Gloom Falls Over Ukraine As Recruitment Dwindles And Israeli War Steals Spotlight, ZeroHedge, Nov 24, 2023

 • Kiev Faces Struggle on Battlefield and in Rear, SouthFront, Nov 23, 2023
Give it up. You lost. Save lives. Save what's left of your country. Sue for peace. Today's terms would not be as good as yesterday's but they are better than tomorrow's.

 • Dems Fear Ukraine Might Not 'Survive' Until 2024 as House Stonewalls Funding, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Nov 23, 2023

The crisis in the Middle East, the possibility of a government shutdown, and the election of a new House speaker have shifted Washington’s attention away from Ukraine, with officials in the Pentagon and civilian agencies sending increasingly desperate warning signals that they’re running out of cash to sink into NATO’s proxy war against Russia.

White House officials and Democratic lawmakers lobbying for the extension of US economic and military assistance to Ukraine have sounded the alarm over GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson’s perceived foot-dragging in setting up a vote on the issue.

Citing recent attempts to include Ukraine funding into omnibus, must-pass funding measures, Democratic lawmakers pointed out that the next stopgap funding bill won’t be coming until late January or early February of 2024, and expressed fears about whether Kiev can hold out for that long.

“I don’t know that Ukraine can survive until February of 2024,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told Beltway media this week. “My sense is they start to run short of ammunition in the next several weeks.”

“We have to bear down, get this done and get this supplemental passed soon because the brave Ukrainians who are fighting as winter is coming are looking at losing the supplies they’ve needed for ammunition, for missiles, for drones, for defense, for armor, and we cannot possibly afford to abandon Ukraine,” his colleague, Democratic Senator Chris Coons concurred.

However, fatigue from the fighting is mounting for everyone. Losses are enormous and finding replacements are problematic. Many combat units are 30-40 percent short of personnel. Almost everywhere, there are hidden desertions. Soldiers, sergeants, and officers feign illness and try to stay at headquarters and in rear units - anything to avoid the front lines.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced a freeze on public spending for the rest of the year on Monday. Applicable to almost the entire budget for 2023, the decision was made due to “the need to review the overall budgetary situation for the federal budget,” as per a statement from the ministry. The move came in the wake of a bombshell ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court last week. The judicial ruling stated that the €60 billion (over $65 billion) earmarked for the pandemic response cannot be repurposed for other initiatives, like advancing green manufacturing practices or boosting solar energy production. The court said Berlin was bound by the country’s constitutionally enshrined fiscal rules that limit budget deficits to 0.35% of gross domestic product in normal times.

The implications of the move are such that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is now facing a dilemma. The increasingly unpopular Scholz Cabinet had been counting on a flood of spending on “green-energy projects and technology,” along with multibillion-euro-worth subsidies to construct chip-making plants, the WSJ underscored. Now, Berlin will either have to go ahead with painful budget cuts or raise taxes, or even both. But most importantly, in the short term, Berlin will need to decide whether priority shall be given to boosting Europe’s collective defense, and directing more aid to the Kiev regime, or “cushioning the impact of surging energy prices and inflation on businesses and households,” the outlet said. Nevertheless, Berlin will continue supporting a €50 billion four-year Brussels budget package for Ukraine for next year, according to cited German sources conferring with the bloc’s officials on November 17.

Nov 20-21, 2023

Featured • Ukraine End Game: Putin and Medvedev Discuss Maps, Putting Kiev on the Menu, Yves Smith, naked capitalism, Nov 20, 2023

Featured • US Media Acknowledges True Situation in Special Op Zone, Anatoly Dontsov, Sputnik International, Nov 20, 2023

Featured • New Raft of Articles Tighten the Screws on Zelensky, Plead for Course Correction, Simplicius, Nov 19, 2023

Featured • A Look At Others' Notes On Ukraine, Moon of Alabama, Nov 20, 2023 See embedded links and quotes for additional thoughtful overviews. E.g. Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism...("Ukraine End Game: Putin and Medvedev Discuss Maps, Putting Kiev on the Menu")

Quote chosen by b:
Militarily, Ukraine is approaching a catastrophic condition. That does not mean a collapse is imminent; key variables include whether the Ukraine military leadership revolts against Zelensky and how hard Russia pushes into growing Ukraine weakness. Russia may prefer to go slowly (mind you, it is making a concerted effort to crack the well fortified Avdiivka), not just to reduce losses of its troops, but also to more thoroughly bleed out Ukraine and give the West time to adjust psychologically to Ukraine’s prostration.

Nov 16-19, 2023

Featured • Some Neo-Cons Slowly Coming to Grips With Reality in Ukraine, Larry Johnson, Nov 18, 2023

 • Urging Ukraine To Sue For Peace, Moon of Alabama, Nov 18, 2023

 • CIA's Desperate Gambit in Kiev, Kim Dotcom, Nov 16, 2023
Several articles on this. Also Yermak, near Zelensky, is/was in DC to talk to Blinken and Sullivan at the same time. The arrival of CIA Director William Burns in Kiev signals a critical juncture in the Ukraine conflict. As the situation intensifies, Burns' urgent mission is a stark indicator of Ukraine's dire state.

 • End ‘magical thinking’ about defeating Russia – US experts, RT, Nov 16, 2023

 • CIA Chief's Ukraine Visit Linked to Looming Palace Coup Against Zelensky, James Tweedie, Sputnik International, Nov 16, 2023

 • Washington raises stakes on ‘losing hand’ in Ukraine – Jeffrey Sachs, RT, Nov 16, 2023
Link to Greenwald interview

 • Set The World On Fire, The Automatic Earth, Nov 16, 2023

 • Heads will Roll in Ukraine after the Offensive Failed, Pietro Pinter, SouthFront Nov 14, 2023

Nov 15, 2023

Featured • The Shift in Focus from Ukraine to the Middle East Raises the Chances of World War, Paul Craig Roberts, Nov 14, 2023
PCR believes the world is a (much) more dangerous place because of Russia's "hesitancy." While I don't agree, there are points in favor of his arguments. Russia did badly misjudge the sincerity and willingness of the U.S. and its European allies to negotiate. The U.S. wanted a big war in Ukraine, well before as well as after Russia began its "Special Military Operation," and led the way in spiking negotiations that were near to ending the war in March and April of last year, because, it was thought, Russia had not suffered enough.

Here, PCTR suggests that absent a clear Russian victory, with the Western press meanwhile spinning the destruction of Ukraine's armed forces as a "stalemate," and painting Ukraine's neo-Nazi infested government where dissenters are jailed, diplomats and mayors murdered, churches closed, etc. as a "democracy," U.S. neoconservatives are all too free to move on to their next military debacle, this time involving Iran and Syria. (They are always debacles, aren't they, with horrific effects on the populations involved.)

This thesis seems correct to me.

Brzezinski thought Ukraine was the ideal anti-Russia. It looks a lot less than ideal now --it is basket case. So a new one must be found. Russia, as a sovereign, independent state, must be destroyed one way or another.

Gaining control over the entire Middle East and much of the world's tradable oil is the next obvious gambit, granting the ability to impede China's growth and prosperity as well as hurt Russia. That strategy has been a neocon dream since the day our intel and law enforcement agencies allowed the attacks on 9/11/01 to go ahead despite abundant intelligence. Israel is key. Even before 9/11, there were plenty of people in high places who yearned for a sufficient U.S. casus belli to gain more control of the region's oil and gas, once described by the State Department as the greatest material prize in the history of the world.

In any case, bringing the armada and other assets to the Middle East serves several purposes, none of which need be all that coherent, taken in isolation from the others.

The big military-diplomatic problem for the neocons is that the armada in question, huge though it is, will not a win a war against Iran, or even against Syria if the latter is defended by its friends. Neither can the U.S. defeat Hezbollah, if it is supported by Iran. Iran has all sorts of ways to hurt the U.S. badly. With Israel rampaging in Gaza, Arab states are closer to unity than at any previous time. Iraq, though conquered, is not stable either. The Global South, and a lot of people in the U.S., will see all this for what it is.

So how far would the U.S. go, to not lose in the Middle East, after such a commitment? This is PCR's question. The Ukraine debacle has been bad enough for the U.S. and NATO. Doubling down in the Middle East, then? All or nothing?

13. Eusa wuz angre he wuz in rayj & he kep pulin on the Littl Man the Addoms owt strecht arms. The Littl Man the Addom he begun tu cum a part he cryd, I wan tu go I wan tu stay. Eusa sed, Tel mor. The Addom sed, I wan tu dark I wan tu lyt I wan tu day I wan tu nyt. Eusa sed, Tel mor. The Addom sed, I wan tu woman I wan tu man. Eusa sed, Tel mor. The Addom sed, I wan tu plus I wan tu minus I wan tu big I wan tu littl I wan tu aul I wan tu nuthing.

14. Eusa sed, Stop ryt thayr thats the No. I wan. I wan that aul or nuthing No. The Littl Man the Addom he cudn stop tho. He wuz ded. Pult in 2 lyk he wuz a chikken. Eusa screamt he felt lyk his oan bele ben pult in 2 & evere thing rushin owt uv him.

15. Owt uv thay 2 peaces uv the Littl Shynin Man the Addom thayn cum shyningnes in wayvs in spredin circels. Wivverin & wayverin & humin with a hy soun. Lytin up the dark wud. Eusa seen the Littl 1 goin roun & roun insyd the Big 1 & the Big 1 humin roun insyd the Littl 1. He seen thay Master Chaynjis uv the 1 Big 1. Qwik then he riten down thay Nos. uv them.

16. Thay dogs howlt & a win cum up. Thay ded leavs wirlt & rattelin lyk ded birds flyin. Thay grayt dogs stud on thear hyn legs & talkin lyk men agen. Thay sed, Eusa aul thay menne leavs as rattelt thats how menne peapl yu wil kil. Then thay dogs begun tu tel uv tym tu cum. Thay sed, The lan wil dy & thay peapl wil eat 1 a nuther. The water wil be poysen & the peapl wil drink blud.

Meanwhile, quite to the contrary of the cherished delusions of those who dreamed of inflicting a mortal wound upon her, Russia — by virtually every meaningful measure — is now stronger by leaps and bounds than she was just two years ago. People may close their eyes, press their hands to their ears, and shout “na na na na na” as much as they’d like, but they cannot alter this now readily discernible reality. They may retort with the trope that “Russia has not taken ground; they have not conquered Ukraine. Russia is weak.” They simply do not understand The Object of War. The object of war is to destroy the army (or, in this case, armies) of your enemy. All other strategic objectives follow from that fundamental principle.

And, as I have argued in more or less identical terms since the Russians had, by July 2022, methodically wrecked the first iteration of the Mother of All Proxy Armies in Ukraine, Russian strategy, tactics, and operational results in this war will be admiringly studied by military historians for generations to come. As far as the current moment in time is concerned, I submit that the Russian armed forces, fighting on its own ground, on and under its adjacent seas, and in the air above its spheres of control, is the most potent and battle-hardened military force on the planet. It is also increasingly evident that a significant contingent of the military minds in Europe, London, and Washington know this to be true — at least to the degree that it has convinced them to press for a disengagement from the war against Russia, and the abandonment of Ukraine to its inevitable fate....

The Russians will dictate the terms of the conclusion of the war in Ukraine, and the inept masters of the rapidly declining empire will be left to try to spin it as a “strategic victory” in the eyes of their reliably gullible populace.

Nov 14, 2023

Featured • Wild Day as the Ukrainian Game of Thrones Revs Up!, Simplicius, Nov 13, 2023

 • Ukraine's Demographics Dictate To End The Fight, Moon of Alabama, Nov 14, 2023

 • Is Zelensky Being Prepped to Join the Friends of the U.S. Club?, Larry Johnson, Nov 13, 2023

 • Ukrainian Soldiers Training in Europe Face Grim Future on the Battlefield, Kyle Anzalone, The Libertarian Institute, Nov 13, 2023

 • Visualizing $233B in Ukraine Aid, Marcus Lu, Bruno Venditti, & Bhabna Banerjee, Visual Capitalist, Nov 12, 2023

Nov 13, 2023

Featured • Dmitry Trenin: The US Could have ruled the world, but this one weakness ruined it all, RT, Nov 13, 2023

Thirty years ago, at the end of the Cold War, the US, as the world’s principal power, had an opportunity to begin building a multipolar world in which it would secure the role of a balancer and moderator. There was even a historical precedent for such a course. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s blueprint for the UN was headed precisely in that direction. In 1991, the situation was uniquely propitious for that – much more so than in 1945. Russia, having just shaken off communism, was dreaming of integration into Western institutions and councils. China was busy building capitalism and focusing on itself. The Oslo accords sent a ray of hope that the Middle East could be reformed on a platform of peace.

Sadly, America’s political class chose instead to celebrate its victory in the Cold War, and then indulge itself in unipolarity, indispensability, and exclusivity. Our wars of today are the price people in various parts of the world have to pay for Washington’s dereliction of its duty as the architect of a world order. Never before in the history of the world has so much depended on a single power. But that power failed them all.

Nov 12, 2023

Featured • Scott Ritter: Time for US to Dump Zelensky, Sputnik International, Nov 12, 2023

In the weeks and months ahead, the collective West will have to find the means to discard Zelensky and Ukraine. The current conflict between Hamas and Israel appears to have provided a convenient excuse for accelerating this process, with military resources that otherwise might have been made available to Ukraine being diverted to Israel, a reality that will exist for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps it is high time for the CIA scriptwriters to craft an ending to the tragedy they helped create. “I have no ammunition left,” Zelensky could be quoted as saying. “I need a ride.”

The 19th century American showman P.T. Barnum is best known for his aphorism “There’s a sucker born every minute.” This is precisely the kind of cynical card cheat who epitomizes America’s political establishment today in the view of Russian expert observers and legislators appearing on the widely watched talk show Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. They have in their crosshairs not just what they call “the Collective Biden,” meaning the senile, disoriented fool who has his finger on the red button plus the Deep State that writes his speeches and steers him to and from his speaking engagements. It also takes in scoundrels in the U.S. Senate like Chuck Schumer, my classmate (Harvard ’67) Mike Blumenthal and the ever notorious Lindsey Graham. Their sound bites are very frequently put up on the screen for the audience to better understand what Russia’s erstwhile “partners” abroad are saying.

Those of you who had experience watching RT (Russia Today) have never been exposed to this kind of trenchant analysis and utter contempt for the American political classes. This goes much farther than what you might imagine when Western mainstream media concede that ‘there is little trust between the sides.’

If we dig a bit deeper, the contempt of the Russian political commentators, many of whom hold advanced academic degrees, is built on their conviction that American politicians, like their European Union counterparts today, are poorly educated if not simply ignoramuses....

We all may have had a laugh at the expense of the utterly stupid German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock who said several months ago that “Vladimir Putin must change his course by 360 degrees.” But then in Moscow the biggest laughs have come at the expense of the seemingly well-turned out, Yale-educated Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser to the President, and his never to be lived down quote from a couple of weeks before the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel that “the Middle East is quieter now than it has been in two decades.”

However, these Russian panelists are laughing through their tears. The value of an Ivy League education, once considered the nec plus ultra by ambitious oligarch parents in Moscow, has been shown to be nil. More to the point, they see no alternative to preparedness for the worst atrocities to be unleashed by the United States against Russia’s allies, like Iran, at any moment. That is the unsubtle hint they read into the stationing of a nuclear-armed U.S. submarine in the Red Sea at present. They foresee the outbreak of direct warfare with Washington at any moment. Hence, the Russians are determined to further increase military expenditures and to boost the military industrial complex several times over in the immediate future. To put things in the perspective of Leo Tolstoy in his Epilogue to War and Peace, Vladimir Putin is the instrument of Russian elites as much or more than he is their pathfinder.

I mention all of the foregoing to help readers appreciate how the Russian political elites and the Kremlin look at the suggestions now surfacing in U.S. and Western media that the Russia-Ukraine war has reached an impasse and that it is time for the sides to negotiate a peace....

However, from the standpoint of Russian elites the war in Ukraine has tilted decisively in Moscow’s favor now that Kiev has largely exhausted its human and material reserves for waging war. These elites have no interest whatsoever in a Korea-like solution, in a ‘frozen conflict’ that could be warmed up again at some time in the future when Washington so decides. No, they will not sit down at a negotiating table until and unless Kiev capitulates and accepts what amounts to neutrality and removal of the neo-Nazi directed Zelensky regime. Moscow is ready to fight on ‘as long as it takes’ to achieve its objectives. (emphasis added)

Nord Stream:

Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack - Washington Post

Aaron Maté @aaronjmate - 1:05 UTC · Nov 12, 2023

Your first clue that the Washington Post's new NordStream scoop -- which blames a senior Ukrainian intel officer for the bombing -- is yet another CIA cover story is in the second graf:

"...U.S. and Western officials have called" the NordStream bombings "a dangerous attack on Europe’s energy infrastructure."

No, top US officials -- namely Blinken and Nuland -- have openly celebrated the NordStream bombings as a "tremendous strategic opportunity" that they're "very gratified" by.

(https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1576326018893492225)

(https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1618763049007198208

The WaPo piece also blames General Zaluzny ...

From the detailed reconstruction of the March peace efforts 6 conclusions emerge:

1. Just one month after the start of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had come very close to an agreement for a ceasefire and to an outline for a comprehensive peace solution to the conflict.

2) In contrast to today, President Zelensky and his government had made great efforts to negotiate peace with Russia and bring the war to a quick end.

3) Contrary to Western interpretations, Ukraine and Russia agreed at the time that the planned NATO expansion was the reason for the war. They therefore focused their peace negotiations on Ukraine’s neutrality and its renunciation of NATO membership. In return, Ukraine would have retained its territorial integrity except for Crimea.

4) There is little doubt that these peace negotiations failed due to resistance from NATO and in particular from the USA and the UK. The reasons is that such a peace agreement would have been tantamount to a defeat for NATO, an end to NATO’s eastward expansion and thus an end to the dream of a unipolar world dominated by the USA....

Nov 11, 2023

Featured • Another Snapshot of Kiev’s Military Collapse: But It Ain’t Over Yet, Pepe Escobar, Strategic Culture Foundation, Nov 10, 2023

Enter the Zelensky-Zaluzhny Show – especially after the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) admitted on the record that the war has “reached a stalemate” – code for “we’re deeply in trouble”. He also referred to “positional defense” – code for “we’re gonna keep losing more and more territory.”

The dogfight comes complete with Mafioso overtones, as in 39-year-old Zaluzhny assistant Gennady Chistyakov “accidentally” detonating a grenade received as a gift, seriously injuring his daughter and duly blowing himself up....

That brings us to yet another snapshot of what’s really happening on the frontlines....

The report states that the 116th separate mechanized brigade is “incapable of conducting offensive operations because of high losses and high numbers of soldiers that need psychological and medical assistance.”...

The report details that the brigade’s losses are 94 soldiers dead; 1122 wounded; and 95 missing. That corresponds to 25% of the total number of personnel.

When it comes to the moral-psychological front, at least 153 soldiers are deemed in need of immediate psychological rehabilitation.

This brigade is a quite significant unit; what’s implied is that a moral-psychological debacle is now inbuilt as a System Error at the heart of the Ukrainian military. Consequences, short and middle term, will be dire....

None of the above means that things from now on will be a cakewalk for Russia. For instance, the Russian Army still has not been able to destroy the Ukrainian bridgehead on the Dnieper in Kherson.

Ukraine will not stop fighting Russia until it takes back all the territories it considers its own, President Vladimir Zelensky told Reuters in an interview this week. Withdrawal of US support would hardly affect Kiev’s policies in this regard, he added....

“If it will change your foreign policy, so what can I say? Ok, we will fight without you,” Zelensky said, adding that it was supposedly the will of the Ukrainian people. He went on to say that the only “real way to stop the war” was for Russian forces to withdraw from all the territories claimed by Kiev. He also said he was sure that Moscow’s troops “will do it,” without elaborating.

Read more: ‘We have a plan’ – Zelensky

In his interview with Reuters, the Ukrainian leader also said that “any” US president would help Ukraine if they knew “all the challenges and the result and the damage of the war.”...

Earlier this week, Zelensky also claimed that Kiev had a “plan” that would help it prevail on the battlefield and show some “results” by the end of the year. His words came as Ukraine’s much-touted summer offensive had barely brought about any changes to the frontlines following months of heavy fighting and massive material and personnel losses on the Ukrainian side.

Ukraine’s top commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, told the Economist last week that the conflict between Moscow and Kiev had entered a World War I-style stalemate in which Russia had an upper hand due to larger resources. The Pentagon also said this week that it only had around $1 billion left for military aid to Kiev and would have to ration it from now on.

"We were forced to curtail work on the draft statement of the UN Security Council President on the investigation into the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. It was blocked by the West," the diplomat said.

According to her, Western representatives pointed out that the UN Security Council had no reason to interfere in the national investigations of Germany, Denmark and Sweden. However, these states have failed to present even preliminary results to the international community and refuse to cooperate with the countries that suffered damage.

Zakharova emphasized that this indicates their unwillingness to "identify the organizers and perpetrators of the terrorist attack." "Or they have already identified them and are covering for them," she added.

Today, the idea of a "World War III " is fathomable. Nevertheless, a similar situation to World Wars I and II seems inadmissible at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, although some commentators see similar features in the armed conflict in Ukraine. Structurally, however, the state of affairs is very different.

The presence of nuclear weapons in the hands of the world's major players and a very complex range of significant and diverse players in international politics rule out (and make highly unlikely) a head-on collision between the major powers or their blocs, as was the case in the last century. However, the changes taking place on the world stage and in the balance of power are so serious that they are "worthy" of a confrontation on the scale of a world war.

In the past, such shifts have led to major military clashes. However, now the "world war" that some repeatedly talk about is a chain of large but localized confrontations, each of which in one way or another involves the main players, balances on the verge of spilling over from the original zone, and is indirectly linked to other hotbeds of instability. This sequence of military events began with the Middle East conflicts of the last decade (Yemen and Syria), continued in Ukraine since 2014, then the South Caucasus and now Palestine. It is clearly too early to put an end to this list....

The disappearance of the status quo means that the world has entered a long period of turmoil in which new frameworks have not yet been established (and it is not clear when they will be) and the old ones are no longer working. The formal end of the era of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (Russia has withdrawn from it, the other countries have announced the suspension of their participation) is an example of the dismantling of existing institutions. The unprecedented intensity of the wave of assaults on the UN from all sides is an attack on the main bastion of world order established after 1945.

The current "World War Three" is likely to endure over a long timeframe and be scattered in terms of locations. But based on its results – and there will be some – a different structure of international organizations will emerge. This is always the case. This does not mean that the UN, for example, will disappear, but there will definitely be a profound correction of the principles on which it operates.

Nov 10, 2023

 • US aiming to ‘kill’ major Arctic energy project – official, RT, Nov 9, 2023

 • Russia may downgrade diplomatic relations with US, senior diplomat says - Russian Politics & Diplomacy - TASS, Nov 9, 2023

Still, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov stressed that Moscow did not plan to initiate the severance of diplomatic ties with Washington.

So as Kiev’s woes compound and the world’s gaze shifts towards Gaza, it seems the truth about the West’s intimate relationship with the SBU is now being pulled out of the closet, not by a whistleblower or dissenting investigative journalist, but by a stalwart of the US intelligence community, the Washington Post. The question we should all be asking is why? How does this benefit or promote a Western 'victory' in Ukraine? The answer may well be that it’s not a victory that these revelations are supposed to facilitate. It’s more likely that it’s part of a strategy of edging Kiev towards accepting the undeniable reality that the entire US project in Ukraine is set to fail, and for Zelensky to seek accommodation before there’s nothing left to negotiate with.

The task now is to end it as painlessly as possible for NATO and Kiev’s exhausted backers, and to move on to the next crusade, leaving a devastated and dysfunctional Ukraine to be consigned to the growing graveyard of bloody US foreign policy misadventures.

Nov 9, 2023

 • Ukraine Takes Credit for Car Bombing That Killed Politician in Luhansk, Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, Nov 8, 2023

Ukraine’s CIA-backed military intelligence has taken credit for a car bombing that killed a politician in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine on Wednesday.

Mikhail Filiponenko, a member of the local Russian-backed legislature in Luhansk and former police chief, was killed in his car outside of his house. He was born in the Ukrainian oblast and joined the separatists who declared the creation of the Luhansk People’s Republic in 2014 following the coup that ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych....

Andriy Cherniak, a representative for the GUR, told POLITICO that the Wednesday killing of Filiponenko was “our operation.” The GUR said in a statement that it had the addresses of all “traitors” and warned that “all war criminals and collaborators will receive a fair retribution! The hunt continues!”

A recent report from The Washington Post detailed how the CIA helped build up the GUR and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), including tens of millions of dollars in funding since 2015. A former US intelligence official described the GUR as “our little baby” and said the US provided “all new equipment and training.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky submitted legislation to the country’s Verkhovna Rada – the parliament – extending martial law and general mobilization in the country for another 90 days starting from November 16 this Tuesday. The move comes as the Kiev regime is struggling to increase the number of troops in the nation’s army after the botched summer counteroffensive claimed the lives of over 90,000 soldiers. A general mobilization in Ukraine was announced immediately after the beginning of Russia’s special military operation on February 24, 2022. Under the law, military reservists between the ages of 18 and 60 have been eligible for conscription. In September 2023, Kiev called upon EU member states to deport alleged Ukrainian “draft dodgers” – something which European countries have largely refused to do so far – while in August, Zelensky ordered a full review of all mobilization exemptions granted by Military Medical Commissions (MMCs) starting from February 24, 2022.

It was earlier reported that those Ukrainians who did not want to fight gave hefty bribes to MMC officials to get fraudulent passes. In the course of the conflict, reports and video-evidence have emerged showing Ukrainian men being forcibly grabbed by conscription officers in various part of the country. Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) report that morale is low and that many conscripts are pushed to the frontline as “cannon fodder”, without proper training, protection or ammo. Meanwhile, a US newspaper has drawn attention to the Kiev regime’s effort to fill its soldier gap by mobilizing more Ukrainian women. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, roughly 43,000 women now serve in the nation’s armed forces which constitute a staggering 40% increase since 2021. Accordingly, the Ukrainian military canceled restrictions which prevented female recruits from serving as machine gunners, tank commanders, snipers and truck drivers. It also raised the age limit for women eligible for conscription from 40 to 60.

Ukraine has a strategy to continue its stalled counteroffensive push against Russia and will try to yield victories shortly, President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed. The president made the remarks on Wednesday as he appeared at the Reuters NEXT conference via a video link. “We have a plan. We have very concrete cities, very [concrete] directions where we go. I can’t share all the details but we have some slow steps forward on the south, also we have steps on the east,” Zelensky stated. While largely avoiding naming any exact locations where such activities are expected to happen, Zelensky promised certain “good steps near Kherson Region,” without elaborating further. Ukrainian forces have a plan for next year, but will “try” to show “battlefield results” by the end of 2023, Zelensky insisted.

“I am sure we’ll have success. It’s difficult,” he added...While “some people”expected quick success, the drive ran into “certain difficulties,” Zelensky admitted. However, he somewhat shifted the blame for the lack of progress to Kiev’s Western backers, stating the country received less weaponry from abroad than it had originally hoped for. The botched counteroffensive has resulted in little to no territorial gains for the Ukrainian military, which sustained heavy personnel and material losses. According to Russian estimates, Kiev lost more than 90,000 soldiers in the push, with hundreds of military hardware pieces – including assorted Western-supplied vehicles – damaged and destroyed.

The Russian president made a direct connection between the American drive to extend “its global dictatorship” and the policy obsession with promoting non-stop chaos: “This chaos will help it contain and destabilize its rivals or, as they put it, their geopolitical opponents, among which they also rank our country, which in reality are new global growth centers and sovereign independent countries who are unwilling to kowtow and play the role of servants.” Crucially, Putin made a point to “repeat again” to both his internal and Global South audiences that, “the ruling elites of the United States and its satellites are behind the tragedy of the Palestinians, the massacre in the Middle East in general, the conflict in Ukraine, and many other conflicts in the world – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and so on.”

It is a vitally important point. By conflating the perpetrators of the Ukraine conflict and the war on Gaza – “the United States and its satellites” – the Russian president has effectively lumped Israel in with the western Hegemon and its agenda of “chaos.” Essentially, what this tells us is that the Russian Federation unequivocally aligns itself with the overwhelming majority of Global South/Global Majority public opinion – from the Arab world to all the lands of Islam and beyond, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Interestingly, Moscow aligns with the analyses by Iranian Leader Ayatollah Khamenei – a strategic partner of Russia – and Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, in his searing, sophisticated, Sun-Tzu tinged address this past Friday, on “the spider that is trying to entangle the entire planet and the whole world in its cobweb.”

Exhibit B on Russia’s official position, specifically on Israel-Palestine, came from Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, at a special UN General Assembly session on Palestine two days after Putin’s address. Nebenzya made it abundantly clear that Israel, as an occupying power, does not have “the right for self-defense” – a fact supported by a UN International Court consultative ruling way back in 2004. At the time, the court also established, in a 14 out of 15 judicial vote, that Israel’s construction of a massive wall in occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem, was against international law. Nebenzya, in legal terms, nullified the endlessly evoked “right to self-defense” argument brandished by Tel Aviv and the whole NATO galaxy. The Hegemon, Tel Aviv’s protector, recently vetoed Brazil’s draft humanitarian UN Security Council just because it did not mention Israel’s “right to self-defense.”

Even as he underscored that Moscow does recognize Israel’s right to ensure its security, Nebenzya stressed this right “could be fully guaranteed only in case of a fair resolution of the Palestinian problem based on recognized UN Security Council resolutions.” The record shows that Israel does not respect any UN Security Council resolution on Palestine. Exhibit C on Russia’s stand regarding Israel/Palestine was provided by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a press conference with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah Al-Sabah, two days after Nebenzya’s intervention at the UN. Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s priorities already stressed by Putin and Nebenzya: an urgent ceasefire, humanitarian corridors, and a return to the table to negotiate “an independent Palestinian state, as envisaged by the UN Security Council within the 1967 borders, which would coexist in peace and security with Israel.”

Lavrov stressed once again that several US-Israeli diversionary tactics are being employed “aimed at delaying (if not burying) the UN Security Council’s decision to establish a Palestinian state.” This, says the Russian foreign minister, implies condemning the Palestinians “to an eternal existence without rights. This will ensure neither peace nor security in the region, it will only drive the conflict deeper. And you won’t be able to drive it deep. The next ‘grapes of wrath’ will be sown, which will quickly ‘sprout.’” Lavrov’s analysis, as much as Putin’s, converges with Khamenei’s and Nasrallah’s: “This is not about Gaza, but about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The State of Palestine is an integral part of that solution.”

Russia is sowing the seeds to exercise the role of trusted mediator for all parties in Israel/Palestine – a role totally unsuitable for the Hegemon, especially after the tacit approval of the current Israeli ethnic cleansing of Gaza. It’s all here, clearly formulated by Lavrov: “It will be fundamentally important for us to know the unanimous opinion of the Arab world.” That is a message specifically targeting Sunni regimes vassalized by Washington. Then, when they get their act together, “we will support the Arab solution to this very difficult issue.”

Nov 8, 2023

Featured • Marching Toward a Night of the Long Knives in Ukraine, Simplicius, Nov 7, 2023

Featured • Is an End Game in Sight for Ukraine?, Tony Kevin, Consortium News, Nov 7, 2023

Those at the helm of the EU and NATO, Ursula von der Leyen, Josef Borrell and Jens Stoltenberg are damaged goods now. Viktor Orban in Hungary has increasing weight and prestige, and Slovakia has a new anti-war government. Poland, Scandinavian countries and the Baltics have fallen silent.

The other big reason Putin may want to wait is the dangerous instability in the Middle East. Strange as it may seem, I suspect Putin may be concerned to not dangerously overburden the weak and erratic decision-makers in Washington.

He may want to give Biden and his advisers some political space to try to rein in Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and get the Gaza humanitarian crisis, now in tragic free fall, under some sort of U.S. control. As pretty much the only adults in the room now, the Russians and Chinese need to handle Biden with consideration and care.

The so-called stalemate in Ukraine therefore is an illusion. It thus suits both Russian and Chinese statecraft to let Ukraine drift for a while.

“Our allies in Ukraine can no more afford a delay than our allies in Israel,” replied Patty Murray of Washington, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee....

According to the Pentagon, the US has sent Ukraine over $44 billion in military aid since February 2022, including weapons, equipment and ammunition. The US has insisted this does not make it a party to the conflict with Russia, however. American taxpayers have also contributed around $4 billion in humanitarian aid and almost $27 billion in “economic assistance,” including paying the salaries of Ukrainian government employees.

An alleged secret deal with the White House to fund Ukraine cost the former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy his job in early October, leading to a three-week deadlock in the lower house of Congress. The new speaker, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, has voted against continued funding of Kiev and expressed support for single-item bills.

The Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which the Pentagon has used to buy new equipment for Kiev from the US military industry, ran out earlier this week, according to the White House. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has told the Senate that Ukraine would lose the conflict with Russia without continued US assistance.

Nov 7, 2023

Featured • Zelensky Shifts Goal Posts as Legacy Media Readies American Public for Ukraine’s Defeat, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Nov 7, 2023

A visibly agitated President Volodymyr Zelensky defiantly denied on Sunday that the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine had entered a “stalemate,” assuring in an extensive interview with US media that Moscow has not “checkmated” Kiev, and that Ukraine still has many “different plans” to maintain the initiative.

“Our military are coming up with different plans, with different operations in order to move forward faster and to strike the Russian Federation unexpectedly,” Zelensky said, in stark contradiction to Zaluzhnyi’s comments about the counteroffensive’s utter failure to penetrate Russian defenses.

“As far as the situation on the front is concerned, of course I cannot provide all the details to you but nevertheless we are holding the initiative in our hands. You can imagine what over two years of a full-scale war is like. Everybody gets tired. Even the iron gets tired,” Zelensky said. “I don’t think that this is a stalemate…We have done a lot,” he assured....

The Ukrainian president rejected any possibility of negotiations with Russia, saying he didn’t “want to make any dialogue with terrorists,” and dismissing former President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to end the conflict in “24 hours.” Instead, the Ukrainian leader suggested, it would take him “24 minutes to explain [to] President Trump that he can’t manage this war.”

“Ukraine today finds itself worse off than it was last November. Its troops are exhausted and depleted, its weapons stocks are running low, and Western publics are more polarized over further support,” one pundit writing in a major US newspaper wrote...

The shift in messaging by Zelensky and some Western media comes months after independent observers did the same thing.

In late September, an anonymous US intelligence official told veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh that the Ukraine war was “over” and that “Russia has won.”

“There is no Ukrainian offensive anymore, but the White House and the American media have to keep the lie going. The truth is if the Ukrainian army is ordered to continue to offensive, the army would mutiny. The soldiers aren’t willing to die any more, but this doesn’t fit the BS that is being authored by the Biden White House,” the intelligence official added.

Barely a month later, Zaluzhnyi’s bombshell comments, Zelensky’s shift in tone and Western media’s new language redefining what "victory" means have served to confirm what Moscow has been saying all along: that it is “impossible” for the West to defeat Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine, because Moscow, unlike Kiev's Western sponsors, is fighting for its vital interests.

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced the move on Tuesday, saying the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) had “finally become history” after prior steps to withdraw, the first of which dates back to 2007. While it originally “played a certain stabilizing role,” the deal was largely ignored by NATO members and thus has “ceased to meet the interests of Russia,” the ministry said.

“The authorities of NATO member states and client countries of this bloc have clearly demonstrated their inability to negotiate. At this stage, no agreements with them in the field of arms control are possible,” the statement added.

“Only when life forces them to return to constructive and realistic positions could appropriate dialogue be revived as part of the effort to shape a new European security system.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky explained that he is opposed to holding elections in 2024. The Ukrainian leader claimed his government would be unable to hold elections due to the ongoing war....

“We need to recognize that this is a time for defense, a time for battle, upon which the fate of the state and its people depend. … I believe that elections are not appropriate at this time.”

“And finally, the waves of any politically divisive things must stop.” The Ukrainian leader continued, “And if we need to put an end to a political dispute and continue to work in unity, there are structures in the state that are capable of putting an end to it and giving society all the necessary answers. So that there is no room left for conflicts and someone else’s game against Ukraine.”

Nov 6, 2023

Featured • Western Officials Increasingly Pushing "Peace Talks" + War Updates, Simplicius, Nov 5, 2023
Long, detailed, but a good summary on political and military issues in Ukraine.

Featured • The Great Schism – Will It Be Quietly Ignored?, Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture Foundation, Nov 6, 2023

Nov 5, 2023

 • Why West is Terrified of Transferring Seized Russian Assets to Ukraine, Ilya Tsukanov, Sputnik International, Nov 5, 2023

Part of the problem may relate to difficulties finding the money. While it was initially reported that some $300+ billion in Russian Central Bank funds got trapped abroad in February 2022, Washington-based financial experts revealed at the end of that year that the actual amount seized was closer to $80-100 billion, and that the US and the EU have had trouble finding the frozen funds. This past February, US business media reported that actually only about $36.5 billion had been found by the EU (which was estimated to contain over two thirds of seized funds to begin with), to date.

But the real problem isn’t technical or legal, but relates to reputational risks. In an op-ed in a major British business newspaper on Sunday, commentator Martin Sandbu explained that “legal obstacles” are only the “ostensible justification” for the failure to deliver Russian money to Ukraine, since, theoretically, Western countries could join Canada in making changes to legislation and citing legal arguments claiming Russia has “no legal resource” to its money to justify the seizure and transfer.

But the West hasn’t moved against Russia, given “the fear that confiscating Russia’s assets will make other non-Western countries pull their own reserves out of the West, in case one day the same treatment could be meted out to them,” the observer noted.

“The concern,” Sandbu writes, “is that this could destabilize the global financial system and in particular diminish the dollar’s and the euro’s captive investors among central bank reserve managers. The European Central Bank has issued a strong warning to European policymakers against even taxing EU companies making windfall profits on blocked Russian assets – which seems the most that the sanctions coalition is currently willing to contemplate.”

The West is probing Zelenskyy on concessions to Russia. Russia and Ukraine were ready to sign a peace deal in 2022. It was blocked by Joe Biden. Since then 600k+ people died, the EU economy lost $1.5 trillion, Ukraine lost 20% of its territory and the US added 3 trillion in debt. Russia is now in a much stronger position. It won’t trust any deal with Ukraine due to past treaty breaches instigated by the West. Ukraine is running out of money and forces. The US, EU and NATO have lost their proxy war and Russia can keep this conflict going for a long time thanks to failing sanctions. Low cost Russian arms production and artillery shells from partners cause the West to deplete their reserves and bleed billions more into the black hole that is Ukraine.

Russia will likely take more territory in Ukraine and turn it into a rump state without access to the Black Sea. Ukraine will not be allowed to become a NATO or EU member. Russia will ensure that the US coup in Ukraine will be reversed and that a pro-Russian Govt will be installed. Only then will the conditions improve for Ukraine. The NATO big-mouth alliance will crumble after this embarrassing defeat. The US and EU will fall into a deep recession and the BRICS alliance will grow in power and influence. The US dollar will lose reserve currency status and excessive US money printing will cause hyperinflation and devalue most US assets to junk status. The failure in Ukraine will be Biden’s and Zelenskyy’s legacy. They will be remembered as the most inept leaders of our time. Most of the EU leaders will be seen as failed US puppets who followed a dementia patient and a comedian into the sewer of history.

China is the big winner in all of this. They get the discounted Russian energy that made Europe a manufacturing powerhouse and the multipolar alliance of BRICS countries can turn decades of global wars and chaos into the most peaceful era of growth and prosperity for humanity. That’s how it should be. But the most likely outcome is that the evil empire of lies will not leave the stage quietly. The US Govt will smash the geopolitical chess board against the wall and go out in a tantrum of nuclear war that will end civilization as we know it. Only the American people could prevent this from happening but I wouldn’t bet my money on that. Most US brains have been fried by endless propaganda or dumbed down by a Neanderthal education system and TikTok. The best insurance for your family is to have a Plan B in the far south of the southern hemisphere. That area will have the most survivors. May the force be with you.

The White House is running out of funds to finance arms deliveries to Ukraine, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said, urging Congress to approve US President Joe Biden’s request for more aid that has been stonewalled by Republicans. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, the spokeswoman said that the Pentagon had announced new arms deliveries for Ukraine. The latest package, which is worth $425 million, includes HIMARS and NASAMS missiles, artillery rounds, and other military equipment. Of this sum, $300 million was from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which the Pentagon uses to contract new equipment for Kiev. The remaining $125 million came from the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the Biden administration to transfer weapons from US stocks without congressional approval in case of an emergency.

Jean-Pierre noted that this package “exhaust[s] the remaining USAI funds currently available to support Ukraine.” She added that while the White House still has PDA authorities to “fulfill Ukraine’s immediate battlefield needs,” the US is starting to provide Kiev with “smaller PDA packages in order to stretch out our ability to support Ukraine for as long as possible.” With this in mind, she urged Congress to approve Biden’s supplemental aid request and send “an important message” to the world that the US continues to stand with Ukraine. Last month, the Biden administration asked US lawmakers to greenlight a security package to the tune of more than $100 billion, including $61.4 billion for Ukraine, and $14.3 billion for Israel. But some Republicans have opposed aid to Ukraine, accusing Biden of lacking a strategic vision for the conflict and insisting on more accountability.

They have also insisted that the issues of aid to Israel and Ukraine be treated separately. On Thursday, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill on aiding Israel in its conflict with Hamas, to which Democrats voiced strong opposition, with some accusing their colleagues across the isle of politicizing the issue. Another provision listed in the legislation included defunding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), also a non-starter for Democrats. Meanwhile, Mike Johnson, the newly installed House speaker, has yet to reveal his plans for Ukraine funding, vowing that the relevant discussions “will come in short order.” Russia has repeatedly warned the West against sending weapons to Ukraine, arguing that doing so only prolongs the conflict while making it a direct participant in the hostilities.

In Kyiv, residents of the capital praised Zaluzhny for telling the truth, and urged Ukrainian politicians to heed his words.

"We all hoped for the best, but we all prepared for the worst," said 19-year-old Krystyna walking near the iconic Maidan square with her mother.

And she warned against the consequences of not acting.

"All the guys and girls who died there, and all the civilians, and all the military, everything will have been in vain."

Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that corruption in Ukraine is almost legalized and the West will not be able to fight it. He added that this is why he was not surprised by reports about Ukrainian weapons in the Middle East.

"There [in Ukraine] this corruption, it is actually legalized. Why are Americans trying to fight this corruption and nothing is working? I think it will not work," Putin said at a meeting with the new members of the Civic Chamber of Russia.

Putin recalled that Ukrainian politicians and high-ranking government officials told him that every issue can be solved for a price, and that his "jaw dropped" when he heard this, meaning that he was shocked by the blatant corruption.

Nov 4, 2023

Featured • The Ukraine Peace Talk Trial Balloon, Moon of Alabama, Nov 4, 2023

A trial ballon has gone up on the NBCnews website. It is testing the public reaction to the upcoming U.S. and NATO acknowledgment of their defeat in Ukraine:

U.S., European officials broach topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine, sources say - NBCnews - Nov 03 2023

WASHINGTON — U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, according to one current senior U.S. official and one former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions.

This comes the same week that saw a Time piece about Zelenski's unwillingness to consider the real situation on Ukraine and to admit defeat. The same week the Economist interviewed General Zaluzny who optimistically spoke of a stalemate at the front even while his army is on the cusp of disintegration.

Taken together the three pieces might well be part of a U.S. administration campaign to concede its defeat in Ukraine while blaming its Ukrainian proxy forces for the results of its blunder....

Russia will likely agree to peace talks. But it probably will demand more than Ukraine is willing to give. At a minimum that is the full control over the five oblast it has annexed, including Crimea, and no NATO relations with Ukraine. The current Ukrainian parliament will probably reject those requests which will then lead to further Russian demands.

Kiev has yet to acknowledge reality. The Ukrainian state has been bleeding out - financially as well as physically. Its masters have found that their aim at the start of the war - to weaken Russia - has led to the opposite. Russia now has a bigger and better armed military with more real war experience than any of its possible opponents.

Russia has won.

U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, according to one current senior U.S. official and one former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions.

The conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal, the officials said. Some of the talks, which officials described as delicate, took place last month during a meeting of representatives from more than 50 nations supporting Ukraine, including NATO members, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the officials said.

The discussions are an acknowledgment of the dynamics militarily on the ground in Ukraine and politically in the U.S. and Europe, officials said.

Nov 3, 2023

Featured • If the Army says Fight the War, Russians Agree - If the Kremlin says Stop, Russians Agree on Conditions the Army Decides, John Helmer, Dances with Bears, Nov 1, 2023

Russians have never had a higher level of confidence in the Army since the end of World War II, according to a national poll just published by the independent Levada Centre of Moscow. This also means a record level of confidence in the General Staff to outwit the principal enemy of the country, the United States, and defeat it and its allies on the Ukrainian battlefield. Most Russians now believe this war will take the Russian Army at least another six months, and more likely a year to finish. This new poll signals that most Russians believe it prudent not to fight the US with the same intensity in two long wars at the same time – in the Ukraine and in the Middle East — because the Army has decided so. This is despite the overwhelming Russian support for the Palestinians in their fight for survival against Israel. No poll is allowed to measure and publish this support, and the emotional reaction the majority of Russians feels towards the operations of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the US military to destroy the population of Gaza.

“We should not, we have no right and we cannot allow ourselves to be carried away by emotions,” President Vladimir Putin announced on October 30. “We must clearly understand who in reality is behind the tragedy of peoples in the Middle East and in other regions around the world, who has been organising this lethal chaos and who benefits from it. In my opinion, it has already become clear to everyone, as the masterminds brazenly act in the open. These are the current ruling elites in the United States and its satellites who are the main beneficiaries of the global instability that they use to extract their bloody rent. Their strategy is also clear. The United States as a global superpower is becoming weaker and is losing its position, and everyone sees and understands this.”....

“But those who really stand up for truth and justice, who fight against evil and oppression, against racism and neo-Nazism, which the West encourages, are now fighting at the front – near Donetsk, Avdeyevka, on the Dnieper. I repeat: these are our soldiers and officers. And the choice of a real man, a true warrior, is to take up arms and stand in line with his brothers, to be there where the fate of Russia and, indeed, of the whole world, including the future of the Palestinian people, is being decided.”....

“There’s something much bigger left unsaid,” a well-informed Moscow source adds, “which puts the people behind the war effort in the last week, and that is what Israel is doing to Gaza. That is what Brits and Americans did to Dresden and Hiroshima. That is what Germans did to Leningrad and Stalingrad. Russians, accused of anti-semitism and sympathy for Hamas by the usual media mouthpieces put two and two together and understand what awaited Russians of Donbass. They see Gaza and understand the race hatred and cruelty of the western axis. The bombing of Gaza reminds Russians what was done to their grandparents and what would be done to them if they do not win this war.”

After the laptop story was axed by 51 retired top intelligence officials, Joe Biden managed to win the election. However, it was later revealed that the FBI already knew the laptop was real at the time it was smeared. According to McGovern, Joe Biden and almost everyone in his inner circle fear that they could be held accountable for their questionable conduct if they lose power, so they are eager to engage in risky military adventures to avoid that and keep their positions.

"Was this illegal what Blinken did with his intelligence comrades? Yes, it's got to be illegal. Does he fear being held accountable for that? Does he fear lacking this sense of impunity if Biden loses? Yes, he does. And I won't go on about this, just to say that Jacob Sullivan is the author, the intellectual author of ‘Russiagate’, Russia ‘hacking into the DNC’, which never happened, and it's proven to never have happened in court testimony. He, too, has a personal stake in making sure 'don't lose anywhere, especially in Ukraine, don't lose the election'."

"There is no practical point in such meetings," the diplomat stressed. "The so-called Copenhagen format is a mechanism invented by Kiev and the West to impose Ukrainian ultimatums. It is incapable of leading to peace," he pointed out. Polishchuk recalled that the Malta meeting was the third after Copenhagen and Jeddah. "Their added value is close to zero," he stressed.

At the same time, the senior diplomat pointed to the fact that at such meetings "unscrupulous techniques are used." "New participants are first involved in discussions on such seemingly neutral issues as food, energy, nuclear and environmental security, and then they [the supporters of Ukraine] pass it off as support for the whole 'formula,' the central element of which is the defeat and punishment of Russia," he concluded.

Nov 2, 2023

Featured • Ukraine SitRep: Technologies And Stalemate - Zaluzny's Failures, Moon of Alabama, Nov 2, 2023

 • Public support for Ukraine falling in US – Gallup poll, RT, Nov 2, 2023

Last month, another survey conducted by Reuters-Ipsos also found that a growing number of Americans were opposed to supplying additional military aid to Ukraine, with even Democratic support seeing a sharp decline in the past several months.

The poll found that only 41% of respondents felt Washington should continue to provide weapons to Ukraine. In June, that number stood at 65%. Among Democrats, support for military aid stood at 52% in the October poll, compared to 81% in June when Kiev’s forces launched their much-touted counteroffensive that was expected to be a turning point in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The administration is still pushing for the massive $105 billion spending package it has requested.

Biden administration officials are arguing that the US needs to fund the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to send a message to China in their pitch for Congress to authorize a massive $105 billion spending package that includes military aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

“What happens in Ukraine, what happens in the Middle East, also matters for the Indo-Pacific. Beyond Europe, we know that our allies, as well as our adversaries, as well as our competitors, are watching that conflict. They’re watching our response,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday, according to The South China Morning Post.

“So the funding request … is vital to secure a free and open Indo-Pacific in the face of mounting challenges in that region,” Blinken added. The hearing came after Republicans in both the House and the Senate introduced bills to separate military aid for Israel from other issues.

Nov 1, 2023

Featured • SCOTT RITTER: John Kirby v. Russian Military, Consortium News, Oct 31, 2023

Russia has assumed an offensive posture; the initial reading from the battlefield is that it is enjoying greater success in the first few weeks of its attacks than Ukraine had for its five-month-long counteroffensive.

To add insult to injury, U.S. News and World Report just published the rankings of the world’s most powerful militaries and Russia edged out the United States for the No. 1 spot...

Surrounding Avdiika, Trukhan said, is not the objective. The Russian goal is to put the Ukrainian command in a dilemma, where abandoning Avdiika could lead to the collapse of morale among the Ukrainian defenders and staying could lead to a massive loss of life due to the difficulties associated with reinforcing the garrison.

In Bakhmut, the Russians were able to kill, wound, or capture more than 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers, representing roughly the number of troops that had been gathered and trained by NATO to carry out the counteroffensive.

Trying to hold on to Avdiika could prove fatal to the entire Ukrainian defensive effort, as the Ukrainian reserves have been depleted and Ukraine is forced to take troops from elsewhere on the line of contact, creating additional offensive opportunities for the Russian soldiers. ...

All those new men in uniform, on top of the 300,000 mobilized reservists and 300,000 volunteers for the Special Military Operation — that’s an increase of 1.2 million men under arms at a time the NATO collective struggles to form up a 300,000 rapid reaction force and the United States finds itself some 15,000 recruits shy of a 60,000-recruiting goal.

The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States has just published a final report that finds that the United States needs to dramatically increase the size of its conventional military force.

The question of how this will be done beyond allocating money is not addressed. But even a modest increase of 150,000 men at a time when the U.S. Army is unable to recruit sufficient manpower to sustain the current force structure seems like a mission impossible.

Danilov expressed outrage with the Time article, which was published on Monday, stating that it was playing into Russia’s hands. The fact that the outlet granted anonymity to some of its sources – a normal practice that allows officials to discuss problems candidly, “raises many questions,” according to him.

“If you … do not believe that our country can achieve victory, you have no right to be near our president,” Danilov declared.

He suggested that the anonymous sources inflicted harm on Ukraine before stating: “I believe our security agencies should give an answer to the question who those anonymous people are.”

Of late, the world has been seen old, frozen conflicts getting re-ignited, Lukyanov said, listing as examples the Nagorno-Karabakh hostilities, the Russia-Ukraine standoff and the new escalation in the Middle East.

The ongoing array of conflicts is effectively the new World War, which appears to significantly differ from the two global conflicts of the 20th century, Lukyanov, who is also a research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club, suggested.

There is a chain of conflicts affecting the whole world. In fact, World War III is already underway. In this sense, it is still better than the wars that happened in the 20th century, but there is little joy.

“We instinctively expect that the war will begin just like the Great War or the [Second World War]. But such wars probably won’t happen anymore – after all, there are nuclear weapons, which are still holding back many,” the expert said.

The escalation in the Middle East is not the last conflict to come, with more hostilities expected to break out worldwide soon – and no one seems to be capable now of stopping them, he also warned.

 • ‘The Real Purpose In Making The Bomb Was To Subdue The Soviets.’ Now It’s Happening Again, On A Vast Scale. Why? – July 22 At Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos Reporter, Jul 19, 2023

 • Bulletin 330: "'The real purpose in making the bomb was to subdue the Soviets.'* Now it's happening again, on a vast scale. WHY?" A conversation with acclaimed historian Peter Kuznick and Greg Mello in Los Alamos, July 22, Jul 7, 2023

 • Ukraine War Makes it Harder to be a Nuclear ‘Dove’ | Our Land, Laura Paskus, New Mexico in Focus, Jun 30, 2023

 • Bulletin 329: Russia rules out nuclear disarmament negotiations; second week of Ukrainian offenses fail; what will US and NATO do? Build 60 projects in LANL's Pajarito Corridor?, Jun 17, 2023

 • Ukraine; Biden's Manicheism; the U.S. cannot even conduct a nuclear arms race, let alone win one, LASG friends ltr, Mar 16, 2023

 • Ukraine protest and updates, pit production delays and cost increases in NNSA's new budget, LASG friends ltr, Mar 14, 2023

 • Antiwar rally 2 pm Saturday in Albuquerque; LANL pits delayed, endorse the "Call for Sanity"; Ukraine update; the Nordstream investigation (and likely impeachment) "imperative" LASG friends ltr, Mar 11, 2023

 • Ukraine losses mount toward critical point; ANSWER rally against the war is now 2 pm (not 1 pm), March 18, Albuquerque; nearly half U.S. citizens believe WWIII is near, LASG friends ltr, Mar 7, 2023

 • Ukraine news and views; antiwar rally March 18; pending guest editorial; pit production precis, LASG friends ltr, Mar 3, 2023

 • Bulletin 325: Understanding the Nordstream sabotage and punishing those responsible, Feb 18, 2023

 • Ukraine news with comments and excerpts; bookmark for future reference if desired,LASG friends ltr, Feb 8, 2023

 • Bulletin 324: Opposition to Ukraine war gains visibility in New Mexico and via our web site, more broadly, Feb 6, 2023

 • Anti-nuclear activist opposes helping Ukraine, encourages peace, Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb 5, 2023

 • Bulletin 323: "Nuclear Hotseat" interview / Ukraine war updates, Feb 4, 2023

 • Bulletin 322: Right and Left To Join in D.C. Protest: ‘Not One More Penny for War in Ukraine’ / Bulletin of Atomic Scientists resets clock, blames Russia, Jan 25, 2023

 • $10 Trillion for Nuclear War: Racing to the Nuclear Cliff, The Socialist Program with Brian Becker, Jan 10, 2023

 • Bulletin 321: Last day for 2022 donations! / A few quick updates, Dec 31, 2022

 • Bulletin 320: Neocon humiliation -- or nuclear exchange / The centrality of war resistance in moral politics / 3 days left for 1:1 donation match!, Dec 29, 2022

 • Bulletin 319: Ukraine; NDAA: omnibus appropriations bill; fundraising --thank you; some matching funds still available, Dec 21, 2022

 • Stop the war now, Jean Nichols, The Taos News, Dec 19, 2022

 • Bulletin 318: Speak out now against further U.S. escalation in Ukraine; daily updates for your use, Dec 14, 2022

 • Agenda for tonight's emergency Ukraine meeting in Albuquerque, and by Zoom, Nov 15, 2022

 • Bulletin 314: Reminder re next week's antiwar, disarmament, & nuclear safety events: come if you can or tune in, outreach needed; pit interview on KNME tonight 7 pm; fundraising drive continues; erratum, Nov 11, 2022

 • Bulletin 313: Important meeting about Ukraine next week; DNFSB hearing in Santa Fe; more, Nov 7, 2022

 • Biden Administration releases aggressive nuclear strategy envisioning "first use" of nuclear weapons in wars like Ukraine, press release, Oct 27, 2022

 • Bulletin 310: Speak up! We urge you to take up the call for peace in Ukraine, Sep 25, 2022

 • Pope Francis: "World War III has been declared." We agree. Stop LANL's pit factory; Stop the U.S. war against Russia, presentation, Jun 15, 2022

 • Bulletin 301: Oppose the war! Demand and create accountability for lawmakers who fund and promote more war in Ukraine, May 16, 2022

 • Grave dangers loom in Ukraine war votes and escalations; opportunities open for journalists and citizens; We urge news media to widen debate, pose questions, create accountability, press release, May 16, 2022

 • LASG friends ltr: Thursday evening public discussion in Albuquerque: Ukraine, propaganda, progressives supporting Nazis and war, May 10, 2022

 • Escalation in Ukraine: The Nuclear War Danger is Real, Brian Becker & Greg Mello discuss the U.S. policy of waging proxy war on Russia, BreakThrough News, May 4, 2022

 • Bulletin 299: Emergency call to action: stop Biden's proposed $33 billion war escalation, Apr 28, 2022

 • Bulletin 298: Talk on pits & renewed U.S. nuclear weapons production Tuesday evening 4/26/22; antiwar billboard; what you can do, Apr 25, 2022

 • The core debate, Searchlight New Mexico, Mar 23, 2022

 • Bulletin 294: Please consider forwarding this fine statement from UNAC re Ukraine, Mar 23, 2022

 • Nuclear expert speaks on the dangers of war between the US and Russia, World Socialist Website, Mar 15, 2022

 • A Proposed Solution to the Ukraine War, Consortium News, Greg Mello, Mar 7, 2022

 • Bulletin 293: Ukraine conflict: If you want a ceasefire (as we do), stop firing, Mar 5, 2022

 • Bulletin 292: Statement on the Ukraine conflict and war with Russia, Mar 1, 2022

 • "What can we in New Mexico do?," LASG letter, Feb 23, 2022

 • Bulletin 288: US nuclear weapons since 2020: continuity and change, Dec 7, 2021 (see discussion of US, NATO, and Russia)

 • Nuclear experts speak on the dangers of war between the US and Russia, World Socialist Web Site, Apr 15, 2017

 • US Leaders Reject “Nuclear Winter” Studies, Ignore Existential Danger of Nuclear War. Turn a Blind Eye towards Armageddon, Steven Starr, Global Research, Nov 1, 2016

 • The Ukraine Conflict: What's Behind It? Why Is It Important?, Sep 26, 2015

 • Bulletin 200: Warhead budget bloat; U.S.-caused Ukraine catastrophe at the brink; hello peak oil, Feb 8, 2015