FAKE NEWS! Moscow Did NOT Shoot a US Drone Down as Retaliation For Crimean Beach Bombings!

You can do better than this, Mr. Escobar

The last time we spoke, I pointed out that it is VERY important for the Kremlin and by extension, ZAnon, to insist that Moscow is enforcing the red lines somehow and retaliating against Kiev + NATO’s aggression.

If the Kremlin is NOT doing anything in retaliation, then we are left to wonder why that is.

The simple fact of the matter is that the red lines are not being enforced and Moscow refuses to punish or retaliate against Kiev in kind. For the first two years, the explanation for this was that Moscow was waging a humanitarian war and was simply too moral to respond in kind. Besides, it would be pointless to do so because the war would be wrapped up in the next two weeks anyway and there would be war crimes trials for the perpetrators.

As we get further and further out from that fantasy, it becomes more important to show some sort of seriousness from Moscow’s side.

AGAIN: the only visible form of retaliation or enforcement from Moscow’s side are the supposed air strikes. If those strikes turn out to be fake, well then the entire ZAnon narrative crumbles.

So, now that we know the rationale for having to lie, we shouldn’t be surprised by the latest whopper released by ZAnon. In particular, Mr. Pepe Escobar has been the one promoting the narrative of “Mr. Kinzhal” eliminating bunkers of NATO officers and decimating supply lines and secret Western weapons. He rose to the occasion again to declare that Moscow had shot down a US drone which had provided the information on where to bomb the Crimean beach to Kiev.

Maybe he didn’t mean the exact drone, but that, in general, these US drones were fair game because of the information that they were passing on to Kiev.

Regardless, Russian Telegram rose up in disgust and called Pepe out on his nonsense. Here is a sampling. From the former Wagner people:

According to the American drone, which one famous lying blogger writes about. No one bothered it or knocked it down. It simply turned off the transponder and returned to its airfield. That's all. Why, after the shame and tragedy in Sevastopol, they are trying to suck an imaginary victory out of thin air, I don’t understand.

This is shameful!

From Tsarev, the Crimean MP and Russian patriot who narrowly avoided assassination:

Looks like wishful thinking.

And from Slavsquat:

i mean ... i knew it was fake without even looking into it. moscow would never do that lol

Indeed. So true.

Even the channel that posted the disinfo backed down after pushback.

Well, there’s no need to make such a fuss about the downing [of the drone].

(…)

We are waiting, OK, everything will eventually be clear to everyone.

In other words, he admitted that he was having a bit of fun at the readers’ expense.

Pepe got the story from this channel and it posts fake news to hype up Moscow’s successes in the war often. Pepe often does this and claims that his sources are “unconfirmed but credible”. This is an improvement because he used to say stuff like “confirmed and reconfirmed” before posting a giant, steaming whopper. His reporting on this news in the West is then recycled by Russian state media in the guise of “Western experts confirm Putin is doing a great job” even though they are just using fake news from Russian Telegram in the first place.

But, once again, I’m left asking the same question as I did last week when pointing out the blatant lying of Ritter and Macgregor.

Why are the “good guys” lying so much about this Not-War?

And how is it that their audience seems more than willing to go along with the disinfo?

I’m sure that these people are honest in their pro-Russia positions, as is Escobar. But who does it serve to tell blatant lies over and over again and to develop a reputation for disinfo that rivals NAFO propaganda whoppers like “the Ghost of Kiijev”? Even the most dim-witted people will eventually catch on, no? Isn’t it disrespectful to the soldiers or Russian patriots at the very least?

Because if they learn that Moscow isn’t doing anything to enforce Russia’s red lines, they’d be able to at least raise a public stink about it. Some sort of public pushback might actually force the Kremlin to do something instead of doing nothing and lying about it. And lying about your own non-action to your own people doesn’t fool the enemy or get them to reconsider their escalatory actions. They know that their drone wasn’t shot down and they know what you are or aren’t hitting with the missile strikes.

Is covering up for Putin’s inaction really the patriotic thing to do, Mr. Escobar?

If you are afraid of ending up in a dangerous position because of the FSB breathing down your neck, Pepe, which may very well be the case, couldn’t you just say nothing, at least?

Full disclosure: Pepe agreed to having a talk with me a year ago. As the date of our talk approached, he accused me of being a fake fan after I asked whether or not he was on Moscow time and blocked me without giving me a chance to respond. This sudden hostility came out of nowhere because in that same week he had reposted my work in his channel on Telegram several times and was quite polite and even eager to talk to me prior to that moment. I don’t want to take out my frustration on Pepe if he was simply doing what he was told to do by his handler, and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. I hope everything is OK for him and that he’s not in too deep and forced to say things that he doesn’t believe.

I wish I could extend the benefit of the doubt to other ZAnoners though.

Macgregor, fresh after his prediction that Kharkov would be in Russian hands by now, pivoted to claiming that Putin has raised a new shadow army almost a million strong to take the rest of Ukraine:

Not even the Kremlin claims that they’ve raised 800k men though.

How would this even be possible without mobilization?

And the West knows that there is no 800k fresh army hiding in the Urals. This disinfo is aimed at us peasants. No one is fooled in the Pentagon. If anything, this kind of propaganda justifies sending over more money and weapons to Kiev. The war hawks continually play up the threat that Putin poses while not reporting the many speeches that Putin gives begging for peace and emphasizing how he respects the rules and how committed he is to integrating Russia into global government.

In contrast, the famous Chechen-era war correspondent Alexander Sladkov, who we have covered before, and who is Kremlin-aligned now, even on speaking terms with Putin, has released a video warning that Kiev now has more firepower than Moscow has. He said:

Russian artelleryist have discovered that for every 3 shots of their own, the enemy shoots back with 20 shots of their own. The activity of the enemy has radically increased.

(…)

The enemy’s battle capabilities have drastically increased relative to Russia. New weapons and supplies have been delivered.

This is worrying because Russia has enjoyed a significant shell advantage over the UAF for most of this war. The artillery advantage that Russia enjoyed was used as justification for the crazy K/D ratios that people like Ritter and others were spreading. We heard that Russia was killing anywhere from 100 to 1, to 14 to 1. Within the first year of fighting, all of the ZAnon analysts were giving casualty counts of 200k or 300k or even 1 million because artillery apparently counted for a lot and Kiev was sending their soldiers into killing fields to be torn to bits for no reason whatsoever.

Sure, the artillery advantage helped Russia make up for the lack of men and mobility and the fact that they were attacking fortified enemy strongpoints head on with inferior intel, less supplies, poorer quality troops and so on.

But, now that the enemy has the shell advantage, ZAnon will suddenly declare that it makes no real difference anymore. Just you watch.

As things stand now, the UAF has the following advantages:

• vastly higher amounts of drones of all kinds

• real-time satellite intel sent directly to commanders on the front lines

• secure communications

• far more men, fresher soldiers who are rotated out

• more and better quality mercenaries

• better generals

• and now, possibly, far more shells than Russia

Moscow was forced to go begging bowl in hand to North Korea, a serious state, asking for supplies. Now, riddle me this Multipolaristas: if China is Russia’s war factory, or if Putin has nationalized the economy, why does Lavrov need to go to Pyongyang to ask for weapons and ammo?

Wasn’t China backing Russia to the hilt?

That is what the BRICS people led me to believe … but all I see is news of China tightening Western sanctions on Russia, shutting down Siberian gas pipelines … is that all kayfabe maskirovka as well?

…

Speaking of propaganda, Vladimir Shapiro/Soloviev recently declared that he wanted to see the cities of Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Nikolaev wiped off the map by Russian bombs.

This sort of propaganda serves everyone’s purposes except for the Slavic people’s.

The West and Kiev get to play this propaganda as proof of Moscow’s genocidal intentions to stiffen the war resolve of the Ukrainian peasants they are conscripting. It is quite easy to portray this war as existential thanks to the efforts of people like Shapiro (descendent of literal gulag administrators in the USSR) to portray the Russians as unhinged killers. And yes, this sort of rhetoric serves to shore up people’s waning trust in Putin. If his right-hand propagandist is talking like this, surely Putin is quite serious, no? That is how the logic in the average TV-watcher’s brain goes.

These clips will be played at the Nuremberg-style trials for Russian officers as proof of the Holocaust they committed on the Ukrainians. And as far as I know, not even Nazi Germany created such damaging and discrediting propaganda. I’m not comparing Moscow to Nazi Berlin, mind you. Hitler was running a serious state and fighting a serious war. Putin’s government is doing nothing of the kind.

But you can tell that to the judges at the ICC when you’re extradited for your trial, big guy. It will be kind of like what they did to your old pal Milosovic, who you helped Washington arrest and put on trial. The ICC has already issued warrants for Shoigu and Gerasimov. What happens when the comprador elite that you have built around yourself calculates that they have more to lose by letting you stay at your post than they would by handing you over to the West?

Who will you have in your corner then?

The Chechens? The Uzbeks? Chabad?

Good luck.

In terms of the actual, real Moscow response to the recent escalations, well, here it is:

Yes, another firmly-worded warning by the new Minister of Defense delivered to the Pentagon’s resident diversity hire. My insider sources also confirm and reconfirm to me that there may have been some aggressive finger-wagging directed Austin’s way as well. Belousov also stamped his foot a few times, but held back from hurling a shoe at Austin. The Kremlin is holding back that particular ace in the hole for when Kiev bombs downtown Moscow next.

Meanwhile, for our final bit of news, it turns out that Donetsk is still being bombed by Kiev.

This, despite the fact that we were told that the taking of Marinka and Avdeevka would create a safety cordon around the city. Now, I hate to pull out the calculator, but it seems that NATO’s weapons can shoot the 20 some km from their contact lines to reach Donetsk. Sure, some their artillery pieces and mortar teams can’t range the city, but are we still pretending that Kiev is suffering some sort of shortage in long-range weapons or that Biden’s government is preventing them from using these weapons to not risk escalation?

Remember: technically and legally and rhetorically speaking, Donetsk is as much a part of Russia as Moscow is now. What would the US do if Mexico bombed Austin, Texas? Would they shrug and pretend that Texas was an exception because it wasn’t LA or New York? What would the US do if Guantanamo Bay, which is our Crimea equivalent for this example, were bombed by a Russian ally like North Korea or Belarus?

Rhetorical.

And yet, I am told that the United States government is on its last legs and that the state is falling apart. But which government is really tottering and on its last legs? The one that is getting bombed regularly and doing nothing about it, and which (barely) survived a full-blown military mutiny on its capital or the one sitting with its feet up at the desk sending making a killing in arms sales and not losing a single enlisted soldier in the process of fueling a grueling civil war?

Rhetorical x2.

But that kind of simple and common sense rhetoric doesn’t get you far in these pseudo-patriotic circles. For that I need your guys’ help. I didn’t paywall this and I’d appreciate it if you hit the restack button to get this article in front of more people’s eyeballs. You didn’t do this the last time I asked, even though it is free and costs you nothing, casual reader. I raged at my audience and went paywall mode. Remember that? But perhaps you simply don’t know what I am referring to or asking you to do.

Here, do you see the last two icons — the one with the arrow and the circle with arrows?

Just press the circle and it will be shared on Substack. Press the arrow and it will give you a link to be shared on other platforms. If my casual readers take the time to help me out, we can go back to open article mode. And if not, well, I prefer writing for just the Stalkers anyway. I make more money and get into less trouble.

It’s up to you though.

Perhaps the nonstop lying doesn’t bother you all that much.

All I know is that it bothers me. Maybe that isn’t very worldly or clever of me to feel that way. But, sometimes I feel like I was literally chosen by higher powers for this job simply because no one else in the entire world had both the language skills, political knowledge and raw fucking nerve to say what needed to be said despite the fact that no one wanted to hear it. And, isn’t the truth important on some level even if it isn’t profitable and alienates you from your colleagues? Isn’t it important to say the truth sometimes, despite the moral condemnation that you will receive? Doesn’t there have to be at least one or two people saying it that you can check in on from time to time, even if you aren’t quite ready to agree with what they are saying?

Rhetorical x3