The Absolute State of This War (III)
Ukraine purge edition
Ukraine is much harder to blog about than Russia. There, the propaganda is thicker. It chokes the entire country with its miasma. As a result, you won’t find many Strelkov equivalents in Ukraine. Instead, you get to choose from enemy propaganda (from Russia) and state media propaganda (from Ukraine) for the most part. Russia, by comparison, is a free speech free-for-all. And it is the people who are on the side of their country, but critical of how well the effort is going that are the ones you want to be reading if you want the real story, always, as a general rule of thumb.
But the regime in Kiev is so brutal that you can’t really have sober heads giving rational criticisms of this insane national suicide via Russia plan. Any level-headed thinking and question-asking would threaten to unravel the hysterical psychosis that is gripping Ukraine. Sadly, the Ukrainian peasants don’t look like they’re going to sober up by themselves any time soon.
The harpy women especially seem to be getting off on this.
…
Probably the closest thing to a pro-Ukraine, but regime-critical perspective is the one provided by Arestovich, who’s name I have decided to spell with an I instead of a Y going forward, because this insane agenda to stick “Y” in where there should be an E or an I is getting on my nerves.
Apparently, we’re also supposed to now call Yulia Timoshenko, Yulia Tymoshenko. Soon it will be Yulya Tymoshynkoy. Just you watch. In the meantime, Russian officials continue to have their names spelled out with the use of I and E as before. This is clearly an attempt to create the further illusion of cultural distance between the people in Ukraine and in Russia. Also, the I and E letters are probably White Supremacist or something.
It is is reminiscent of how formalized Ukrainian was created in the Soviet Union and then the 90s - as an amalgamation of dialects with a strong emphasis on Galician Ukrainian, which appears to be a kind of Polish slang. Or maybe Ruthenian something or other. People get all hung up on this for some reason. Alls I knows is that I can understand Czech pretty well and Ukrainian or Polish not so well.
I think Slav peoples should just speak Czech among one another and then have our intellectuals return to High Sanskrit, which is our ancestral Hyperborean-era language anyways.
I’m only half-kidding.
**
As everyone knows by now, there have been a string of firings in the Ukraine, the most public of which was Arestovich’s.
But the real question to be asked is whether or not these firings are actually corruption-related or something-else related.
So far, Zelensky is saying that this is corruption-related. While I don’t doubt that there’s corruption going on, I do doubt that this was the cause of the firings. Corruption is ever-present in Liberal Human Rights Democracies and is, in fact, a time-honored tradition among them. So, really, you can always find someone engaged in corruption at any given time. The question ought to be: why at this given time?
In Zelensky’s address one is left with the impression that a lot of firings are in the works.
So far, there have been several governors who resigned ahead of time, possibly to get ahead of the expected pink slip headed their way. TopWar believes that the changes will be sweeping:
A number of personnel changes are planned in the Ukrainian power structures. It is noted that the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Timoshenko has been dismissed (VO has already reported about this), as well as the “governors” - the heads of four regional military administrations - Dnepropetrovsk, Sumy, Kherson and Zaporozhye. Recall that the Kyiv regime continues to consider the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Russia as its territory.
The media reported on the likely resignation of three ministers of the Ukrainian government - Ryabikin (Minister for Strategic Industries), Galushchenko (Minister of Energy) and Gutzeit (Minister of Sports).
The press of Ukraine notes that, despite the recent corruption scandal involving Defense Minister Reznikov, he remains in his place, as the parliament and the Servant of the People party stood up for him.
Earlier, Aleksey Arestovich, an adviser in Zelensky's office, lost his position.
In addition, there is unconfirmed information about the possible resignation of the head of the Ukrainian government, Shmyhal, who was closely associated with one of the deputy ministers suspected of corruption. We are talking about contracts for food products for the army, in which most of the goods were purchased at a much higher price from a company with an authorized capital of 1,000 hryvnias.
It should also be noted that now a number of categories of Ukrainian citizens will not be able to travel abroad if it is not on duty, as the President of Ukraine issued a decree on this matter.
According to the decree, people's deputies, ministers and their deputies, heads of services created by the president, heads of the SBU and NBU and their deputies, the ombudsman and his representatives, prosecutors, judges, heads of all local authorities and many others fell under the category of travel restrictions.
It is unclear what will become of them. It is also unclear why they are being replaced at all.
I would guess that it is because they are having back-channel talks with the Russians. This was certainly the case on the eve of the initial Russian campaign and it might be happening now.
I would also guess that there is a faction within Ukraine that was starting to make its own plans. We have to admit that it is rather strange that all of these firings and shufflings are happening just as Arestovich starts publicly criticizing Zelensky and his government’s “retarded” policies.
Arestovich seems genuinely concerned about what is going to happen next.
Whether he is more concerned about the second attempt to swoop down from the north by Russia or Poland taking over Ukraine, or is just trying to make moves against Zelensky, I don’t know.
Murky, murky, and murkier still.
**
And then we had the Germans pretending to protest the delivery of tanks to Ukraine only to announce that they were going through with it anyways.
Did anyone really expect an alternative outcome? From the occupied territory known formerly as Germany? Really?
I can’t pretend to be a tank expert, but I do know that Russia is loath to deploy their better T-90M tanks for some reason. This, despite the fact that they’ve spent a lot of time hyping them up.
The actual “main” Russian tank is the older T-72. I think it is good news if the Russians are indeed bringing out the new gear. At the very least we know that they didn’t sell it all off and kept a few for themselves.
There have also been a new wave of strikes unleashed on Ukraine - probably as a way of demonstrating Moscow’s displeasure at hearing the news about the tanks scheduled to be delivered in March. In the meantime, the Russian blogger community ponders and debates the question: why can’t we just start bombing the countries providing the arms?
Canada pledged 4 tanks, actually.
On the one hand, it is obvious why Russia can’t and won’t do so. But, on the other hand, you also have the Kremlin saying that they are now at war with NATO and Germany’s foreign minister saying the same thing.
So, again, there is a disconnect between actual policy and rhetoric on both sides. We are left to ponder what they’re actually discussing through backroom channels.
Just ot be clear: Putin has NOT threatened to bomb NATO as of this point:
But I have a sneaking suspicion that such plans will be uncovered in the coming months to justify yet more US escalation in this war. The fact that they are carefully and deliberately bringing the topic up in the media is a dead giveaway.
For now, they’re saying that there are no Putin plans to attack NATO. But what they’re really doing is they’re seeding the key component ideas of Putin + attack + NATO + ? in people’s minds. Once the suggestions are already floating around in the masses’ heads, the media just have to rearrange them in the manner that they want.
Next, they say that there are indeed such plans in the works.
Vigorous debate ensues.
Political parties score cheap points against one another accusing the other side of lying about the danger or doing the opposite.
The peasants see a lot of headlines and hear loud noises coming from the political class and assume the worst.
And just like that, the next hysteria hoax has already started and the herd is stampeding in panic.
**
Finally, I think that the recent Russian attacks in the Zaporozhie ought to be understood in the context of the expected increased NATO aid to Ukraine. As Ukraine runs out of Soviet weapons, they will begin transitioning to NATO ones. Russia probably wants to attack before the rest of the NATO hardware comes into play. That gives them until March before the tanks show up, and then, F-16s probably by the summer. But what we’re seeing in the south is not a large scale offensive. We’re still waiting for that to begin in the north.
NATO is actually moving quite slow. They are doing so because they know that they have all the time in the world. They know that Russia is dilly-dallying. They know that Russia can’t win outright in this war fighting the way that they have so far. They prefer to build their case for why it was necessary through the use of carefully staged hoaxes to shock and confuse the masses. It’s the standard US MO. It is known.
Also, I believe that the unflappable Colonel MacGregor is on record predicting that the great Russian winter attack would occur on the first full moon of January.
Before that, he was pretty darn sure that the massive Russian offensive would occur at the end of December. And November before that.
Perhaps this time he was only off by about two weeks.
Either way you look at it, no one in the Slavlands is winning from this horrific war which is now equal parts attrition trench warfare and mini-Stalingrads that have to be blown to smithereens before being taken.
Only Washington wins, really. It only remains to be determined how much more Ukraine and Russia will lose before its all over.
Leopards have a three fold purpose imo:
1) Widen the wedge between Germany and Russia (long term)
2) Give the Ukraine a few more day's
3) Show the world who runs Germany really
I somehow doubt that we will see Abrams in the Ukraine anytime soon.
(Let the world see Leopards burning.... that'l drive up the sales of US equipment)
(Btw: I read that the US can only barely produce Abrams anymore... another reason to be terse with deliveries?)
It's been surreal watching russia refuse to use all the weapons they've been bragging about since 2018.Where's all the good shit?Why are they using Afganistan era tanks? If you have high tech weapons and don't have the will to use them,you don't have high tech weapons.