updated 20 Nov 2024, 10:16 MDT

After our 11/15/22 emergency meeting on the Ukraine War we committed to providing near-daily updates of what we think are some of the most valuable news and analyses for fellow activists. This is that selection. If you find this page helpful please forward it to your friends and contacts. Beginning Nov 16, 2023 we will be updating this page on a semiweekly basis. Stopping this war is of critical, emergency importance. Please do whatever you can.

Unless otherwise noted, the italicized comments below are Greg Mello's.

Highly recommended resource: Judge Andrew Napolitano's video podcast on YouTube.

Nov 20, 2024

Featured • Who Is Authorizing Biden’s Nuclear Brinkmanship While The President’s Brain Is Missing?, Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 20, 2024

It’s so fun how the Biden administration is using its lame duck months to skyrocket hostilities between nuclear superpowers and we don’t even know who’s really making these decisions because the president’s brain is cottage cheese.

These escalations happen as Ukrainians begin moving into a majority consensus that it is time to seek peace. A new Gallup poll has found that a majority of Ukrainians throughout the country now support peace talks to end the war with Russia, with 52 percent favoring peace and 38 percent wanting to fight on.

As usual people are more opposed to continuing the war the closer they are to the frontline, with 63 percent of the respondents in eastern Ukraine supporting peace talks and only 27 percent wanting to continue fighting. The further you are from the effects of this horrific proxy war the more likely you are to support it; it’s just as true inside Ukraine’s borders as it is when you include all the western armchair warriors who want to continue fighting to the last Ukrainian.

“Listen to the Ukrainians,” we were told when all this started. Well, here they are. This proxy war has been waged in the name of defending Ukrainian democracy, and yet it continues to dangerously escalate against the will of the majority, at the direction of a president in Kyiv whose elected term ended months ago.

Fighting a war with Russia always seems like a swell idea until you actually try it. The fact that the majority of Ukrainians now support ending the war is yet another example of this oft-repeated history lesson.

The only way to view Trump as significantly worse than Biden is to take very little interest US foreign policy, and the only way to take so little interest in US foreign policy is to care very little about non-western lives.

Allowing Ukraine use American missiles against Russia is an impeachable act, Congressman Thomas Massie has claimed.

President Joe Biden has violated the US Constitution and ought to be impeached for permitting Ukraine to fire American-supplied long-range missiles into Russia, Congressman Thomas Massie has said.

Multiple US outlets reported over the weekend that Biden had lifted the restrictions on Kiev’s use of US-supplied rockets. While the White House has neither confirmed nor denied the news officially, a volley of missiles was fired at Russia’s Bryansk Region early on Tuesday.

“By authorizing long range missiles to strike inside Russia, Biden is committing an unconstitutional Act of War that endangers the lives of all US citizens,” Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.

“This is an impeachable offense, but the reality is he’s an emasculated puppet of a deep state,” he added.

Emails and internal documents reviewed by The Grayzone reveal details of a cabal of British military and intelligence veterans which plotted to escalate and prolong the Ukraine proxy war “at all costs.” Convened under the direction of the British Ministry of Defense in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the cell referred to itself as Project Alchemy. As British leadership sabotaged peace talks between Kiev and Moscow, the cell put forward an array of plans “to keep Ukraine fighting” by imposing “strategic dilemmas, costs and frictions upon Russia.” The leaks obtained by The Grayzone expose a hidden hand behind Britain’s policy in Ukraine, showing in unusually granular detail how it aimed to engineer a long, grinding war through covert operations that stretched the bounds of legality.

Project Alchemy’s proposed schemes spanned every conceivable field of warfare, from cyber attacks to “discreet operations” to outright terrorism. The secret cell even put forward a plan to “aggressively pursue” and “dismantle” independent media outlets – including The Grayzone – through an aggressive campaign of legal harassment and online censorship, so they “would be forced to close.” The incendiary blueprints were fed to the highest levels of the British state and national security structure, where they were apparently well-received. Founded by a senior British Ministry of Defence official, Project Alchemy is composed of veteran military and intelligence operatives united by a desire for all-out war between the West and Russia. Some have trained Ukrainian forces in clandestine sabotage tactics. Members of the national security cabal tacitly acknowledged that their proposed operations stretched the bounds of British law.

Thus they suggested that London should be “prepared to creatively use the law” to meet its goals, and even be willing to erase “legal restrictions on UK deniable ops” against Russia.

In an interview with PBS News Hour, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called for Ukraine to step up its mobilization efforts as Kiev is facing a manpower shortage. President Joe Biden’s top foreign policy adviser also admitted that advanced American weapons systems have had little battlefield impact.

In his conversation with Nick Schifrin on Monday, Sullivan said, “Our view has been that there’s not one weapon system that makes a difference in this battle. It’s about manpower, and Ukraine needs to do more, in our view, to firm up its lines in terms of the number of forces it has on the front lines.” He continued, “Where is the straightest line between Ukrainian performance and inputs? It’s on mobilization and manpower.”

Kiev has used conscription to fill its ranks as war morale in Ukraine has sunk, and the Ukrainian military has suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Earlier this year, Ukraine dropped its conscription age from 27 to 25. Still, American politicians, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, demanded that Kiev go even further.

Russia’s military operation was initially aimed at Ukraine but quickly became a conflict with NATO, President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. Putin sent troops towards Kiev in February 2022 after the Ukrainian government openly rejected the Minsk Agreements and began shelling the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the Donbass. In an extended interview with Indian media on Tuesday, Peskov was asked why the hostilities have taken 1,000 days and counting, and if he could predict when they might end. “When all this started, it started against the Kiev regime. And now it is continuing as a war between Russia and NATO. That is why it took a little bit longer and will take a little bit longer,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

“It will come to an end as soon as we reach our goals,” Peskov said, adding that Russia would prefer to achieve its objectives through negotiations, but Ukraine has literally outlawed any talks with Moscow. “So that’s why we’re continuing the military operation, because the possibility of peaceful negotiations is now being denied, both by Kiev and their [bosses] in Washington,” Peskov told the Indian media. The initial spring 2022 peace talks between Russia and Ukraine were reportedly derailed by Boris Johnson, the British prime minister at the time, who told Kiev that the West was not ready to make peace with Moscow. The US and its allies have funneled almost $200 billion worth of aid to Ukraine since 2022, including weapons, ammunition and combat equipment such as artillery, tanks, fighter jets and long-range missiles, while insisting this did not make them a party to the conflict.

The new Russian nuclear doctrine recently signed by President Vladimir Putin features several notable articles that were absent from the doctrine’s previous iterations, Russian military analyst Ret.Col. Viktor Litovkin tells Sputnik. “Firstly, the 2020 edition of the doctrine contained no mention of Belarus where we deployed our nuclear weapons and whom we had taken under our ‘nuclear umbrella’,” Litovkin explains. “Secondly, the previous version of the doctrine contained no mention of Russia being authorized to use nuclear weapons if attacked by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear power.” According to him, Russia thus sends a direct warning to the United States and NATO who supply Ukraine with long-range missiles and urge Kiev to use them, effectively waging a war against Russia by proxy.

“This is a serious warning that, if they go too far and long-range missiles are used against Russian territory – and these long-range missiles are programmed by NATO specialists because Ukrainian specialists lack the necessary equipment and expertise, not to mention NATO aircraft and heavy UAVs guiding these missiles – we would be empowered to strike against the sites these missiles are launched from,” he adds. Dmitry Stefanovich from the Moscow-based Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences also points out that the new edition of the nuclear doctrine states that nuclear weapons could be used in case of a threat to Russia’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty” rather than in case of a threat to “the country’s very existence” as before.

Nov 19, 2024

Featured • To Prolong The War In Ukraine U.S. Allows ATACMS Use On Russia, Moon of Alabama, Nov 18, 2024

Nothing has been shown that would provide that there are any North Korean soldiers in Russia. The claim that a division sized contingent of North Korean soldiers is preparing to fight in the Kursk region was made by Ukraine only after a U.S. think-tank had proposed to use it as an item of larger propaganda campaign.

Russia has sufficient forces to eliminate the Ukrainian troops on its ground. It is highly doubtful that any Russian command would agree to include North Korean units in any Russian operation. Thus the 'North Korean soldiers' propaganda claim continues to be just that.

The incoming President Donald Trump has publicly said that he will seek to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible. The Biden administration has not only helped to start that war but is seeking to prolong it as long as possible.

Militarily the use of ATACMS against targets in Russia will not provide any significant advantage to the Ukrainian forces. There is no way left for them to sustain or win in this war. Their defeat is inevitable.

But allowing the use of ATACMS against Russia will escalate the war into a new dimension. It will prolong the path to any peace agreement. This to the sole benefit of those who are politically and financially invested in this war.

Nov 18, 2024

Featured • Operation 'Dark Winter' Resumes as Massive Russian Strikes Again Cripple Ukrainian Power Grid, Simplicius, Nov 17, 2024

The NYT piece is remarkable in its admissions. It says that Trump forcing Ukraine to give up land would look like a major defeat of the West, but no matter—the author writes it is necessary because Ukraine is being devastated and Putin has no reason to stop; finally reality dawns on them!

Despite flashes of spectacular success by Ukrainian forces, the Russian position has gradually strengthened, and there is no reason to expect Mr. Putin to lose the upper hand now. That may sound like defeatism, but it’s also realism.

The even bigger admission is the now naked truth that the war is in fact a proxy war, spurred on by NATO and the West:

I believe it’s right to call Ukraine a proxy war, because I think it’s reasonable to conclude that the Biden administration has supported the war not only in deference to righteous Ukrainian determination to fight off Russia but also because the war was a chance to debilitate our enemy without directly engaging it.

For the first time, MSM makes headway in acknowledging the West’s participation in the Ukraine’s exploitation, even if only by a halfway measure:

Now another cold winter bears down, and Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure is so bomb-wrecked that people are expected to endure daily blackouts of up to 20 hours through the dark and bitter months.

This bleak landscape contains the most extreme and tragic results of the power games that have been played out mercilessly on Ukrainian soil by greater powers. Both Russia and the United States have for decades exploited Ukraine’s internal divisions to undermine each other and jockey for regional influence, usually at the expense of ordinary Ukrainians.

Diplomats and spies from successive U.S. administrations waded into the swamps of post-Soviet Ukrainian power-brokering, where corruption was thick and sharp divisions separated politicians backed by Mosocw from those who saw Ukraine's future - and sought protection from Russia - with Europe.

Well, well, well…

The author even goes on to admit the Bush administration heavily backed the Orange Revolution of 2004, “shower[ing] the pro-Western groups with funding and training.”

The final flourish says it all:

It is this uneasy dynamic — a Ukraine close to the West, striving for inclusion in the West, but not truly part of it — that has defined the U.S. management of this disastrous war. We want Ukraine to function as a protectorate, but ultimately, we are unwilling to protect it. A sensible, ugly strategy — tactically defensible but morally reprehensible.

America is not going to save Ukraine. Maybe we need Mr. Trump — brazen and unscrupulous — to finally say so out loud and act accordingly.

The Politico article strikes the same note, essentially arguing that Trump will be doing the West a huge favor by saving them from their own self-wrought unwinnable catastrophe. According to them, Kiev secretly knows that Trump is a better option than Harris because Trump is more likely to get a deal ‘favorable to Ukraine’ from Putin, whereas Harris and co. would have just prolonged the slaughter indefinitely, keeping to this waffling noncommittal track.

According to the author, everyone will get a ready excuse:...

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a close confidant of US President-elect Donald Trump, has weighed in on President Joe Biden’s apparent decision to officially sanction the use of American missiles on targets deep within Russian territory, agreeing with a post stating “libs love war.” With just two months left in office, Biden reportedly gave in to one of Ukraine’s long-standing demands on Sunday afternoon, authorizing Kiev to use its American-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) in strikes on Russia’s Kursk Region. The decision was simultaneously reported by multiple US media outlets. Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, Reuters reported, citing “two US officials and a source familiar with the decision.” Biden’s decision marks a significant escalation in the conflict. [gm - maybe.]

While Ukraine has possessed ATACMS missiles since April, the US president did not at that time give Kiev permission to use them on internationally recognized Russian territory. To date, they have been used in strikes on Russia’s Crimea, Donetsk, and Lugansk regions, which Washington considers Ukrainian. Responding to the news on X, Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, declared that “Libs [liberals] love war,” adding: “war facilitates bigger government.” “True,” Musk replied. While SpaceX has provided the Ukrainian military with Starlink internet terminals, Musk has long argued that Kiev cannot hope to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield, and that the conflict must end in a negotiated settlement. The tech tycoon endorsed Donald Trump – who has vowed to bring a swift end to the fighting – earlier this summer, and following Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris last week, he has emerged as one of the president-elect’s closest advisers.

Musk is not the only figure in Trump’s orbit to condemn Biden’s decision. Richard Grenell, a close adviser to the president-elect who served as acting director of national intelligence in 2020, accused Biden of “escalating the wars before he leaves office.” “The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., wrote on X. “Gotta lock in those $Trillions. Life be damned!!! Imbeciles!” Trump has vowed to bring the conflict to a speedy conclusion, and is expected to push Moscow and Kiev to agree to peace talks. Musk reportedly joined Trump on a phone call to Vladimir Zelensky last week, speaking directly to the Ukrainian leader at one point, according to reports in the US media.

Putin has made clear that US-supported long-range strikes in Russia would risk nuclear war.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that President Biden had authorized Ukraine’s use of long-range US-provided missiles in strikes on Russian territory, an escalation Moscow has made clear risks nuclear war.

US officials told the paper that Ukraine can now use Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which have a range of up to 190 miles, to strike Russian territory. The ATACMS are fired by US-made multiple rocket launch systems, including the HIMARS. Ukraine can only fire the HIMARS with coordinates provided by or confirmed by the US and its allies, meaning the US will now directly support strikes deep inside Russia.

The US officials said the ATACMS will likely initially be used to hit Russian troops fighting against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Oblast. Ukraine and the US have also said North Korean troops are deployed in Kursk. The US has said the North Korean troops are engaged in combat, but that hasn’t been confirmed by Moscow.

The EU can’t survive without cooperating with Russia and the BRICS states, Russian Federation Council Deputy Speaker Konstantin Kosachev said in an interview with RT on Saturday. Russia, however, needs the EU far less, he said. Kosachev noted that the sanctions imposed on Russia create a significant barrier to any real cooperation with the EU. The bloc has imposed 14 rounds of sanctions against Russia following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. These measures have targeted Russia’s central bank reserves held abroad, major banks, various companies, entrepreneurs, politicians, and officials, along with bans on numerous imports and exports. The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned the sanctions as illegitimate, while President Vladimir Putin has described them as irrational.

Nov 17, 2024

Featured • Moscow continues to warn the West about the risk of nuclear escalation, Lucas Leiroz, Strategic Culture Foundation, Nov 16, 2024

Tensions over the issue of “deep” strikes continue to escalate. Kiev continues to demand permission to strike targets in the Russian Federation’s demilitarized zone, while Moscow continues to make it clear that it will interpret such maneuvers as a declaration of war by NATO. In a recent statement, Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, emphasized how Ukrainians and their partners are “playing with fire” with such threats, promising an “immediate and devastating” response in the event of a long-range strike.

The Russian government has repeatedly stated that the long-range weapons systems supplied by the West to Ukraine cannot be operated without the presence of NATO specialists, who would provide the necessary training and logistical support to the Ukrainians. This is because such weapons are not compatible with the Ukrainian military infrastructure, which depends on continuous intelligence support and strategic guidance provided by the Atlantic alliance. Moscow’s position is clear: authorizing the use of these missiles for strikes outside the official conflict zone, in addition to representing an expansion of Western involvement, would constitute direct NATO intervention in the conflict. Russia would regard any use of these weapons in such circumstances as a direct aggression against its sovereignty by the Western countries themselves, which would require an “immediate and devastating” retaliation.

The discussion about the deployment of Storm Shadow missiles and other advanced weapons systems in “deep” Russian territory is a clear demonstration of the dangerous game the West is playing, ignoring all the limits imposed by Russia. NATO’s role in the war in Ukraine has been a sensitive issue since the beginning of the conflict. Although Western powers insist on their position of supporting Ukraine as a legitimate right to defend it against what they call a Russian “invasion”, many analysts and officials point out that the interventions of the powers of the Atlantic alliance, both in terms of weapons and intelligence, have led to an unnecessary prolongation of the conflict, dragging Ukraine into a proxy war that puts the world on the brink of a nuclear confrontation.

The nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as the United States intelligence supremo has sent shockwaves through the American and NATO establishments. The Western news media – always a dutiful echo chamber for deep-state policymakers – is reverberating with horror at her nomination by President-elect Donald Trump.

That reaction is a good sign that something significant has happened.

The potential appointment of Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence (DNI) could be the most consequential decision yet by Trump in forming his cabinet.

If one move could signal the foreign policy direction under the 47th president, Gabbard’s nomination is the most salient and potentially the most constructive on the key issue of world peace.

Time magazine headlined with the U.S. intelligence community’s response to Gabbard’s selection. “We are reeling,” it was reported. Reuters reported that the Western “spy world is vexed.” Meanwhile, in The Atlantic, an establishment mouthpiece, Gabbard was denounced as a “threat to the security of the United States.”

Ukraine could face civil unrest and even a full-blown “collapse” if US President-elect Donald Trump reverses the outgoing administration’s policy of unconditional support for Kiev, former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has warned. The election of Trump on November 5 prompted fears in Kiev that Washington would end financial and military aid and would strong-arm the country into an unfavorable settlement with Russia. “If the money were to dry up, a new dynamic would come into play, and not all of it on the battlefield. True, bereft of funding, Ukraine could lose ground completely,” Kuleba wrote in an op-ed published in The Economist on Wednesday. He argued that Ukraine could plunge into a civil conflict if the US forces it to sign a bad peace deal.

“If the Trump administration then imposed unpalatable peace terms on Ukraine, and if Mr. Zelensky agreed (an unlikely scenario), part of Ukrainian society would resist. Domestic unrest would risk the country’s internal collapse,” Kuleba wrote. This would give Russian President Vladimir Putin “the victory he has long desired, painting Ukraine as a failed state,” Kuleba suggested, warning that Trump “cannot afford for Ukraine to become his Afghanistan.”

Signed by Washington and Moscow in 2011, the New START is the last agreement of its kind and is set to expire in February 2026.

The US will observe the “central limits” imposed on its nuclear arsenal by the New START Treaty as long as Russia does so as well, a recent Pentagon report has indicated. The document also points to the need for Washington to be able to simultaneously deter several adversaries.

The tightening of mobilization rules earlier this year has failed to solve Ukraine’s manpower shortage on the battlefield, Vladimir Zelensky has admitted, adding that the relevant legislation should be adjusted. In an interview with Ukrainskoye Radio on Saturday, Zelensky said that Ukraine “has not mobilized” enough troops under two new laws were passed this spring after significant back-and-forth in parliament. The first lowered the draft age from 27 to 25, while the second cracked down on draft dodgers, forcing all citizens eligible for conscription to report to military authorities for “data clarification.”

At the same time, Zelensky rejected speculation that Ukraine had drafted half a million men while pointing to problems with the available replenishments for frontline units. “The brigades in the East are exhausted, rotation is needed. The guys are getting tired and leaving. They must be replaced with fresh units,” Zelensky said. He also admitted that the frontline situation is “really difficult” and that Russia has indeed managed to accomplish “slow progress.”

Nov 16, 2024

Featured • Trump Team To Write Off 'Project Ukraine' as Sunk Cost - Analyst, Svetlana Ekimenko, Sputnik International, Nov 16, 2024

Donald Trump repeated his pledge to end the Ukraine conflagration as he addressed a gala organized by the America First Policy Institute at his Mar-a-Lago resort on November 15, saying that "the conflict has got to stop."

There is a general consensus within President-elect Donald Trump’s team that the failed “Project Ukraine” needs to be shut down, British political analyst Alexander Mercouris speculated on his YouTube channel.

“Overall, despite different opinions and nuances among them, they have reached a general consensus that ‘Project Ukraine’ has absorbed a huge amount of energy and resources on the part of the United States, but it has not delivered what it promised. Ukraine has not been successful on the battlefield, there has been no economic collapse in Russia, and President Putin is still very firmly in control of things in Moscow,” the expert said.

In his opinion, these people, who come from the business world in many cases, have taken a simple “cost-benefit view”, and have agreed that “the time has come to close the whole thing down.”

They don’t feel “invested” in propping up Zelensky’s corrupt regime in the same way that the current Biden administration does, according to the analyst.

Iran likely will launch a painful response to Israel before the 20 January Presidential Inauguration. Its riposte will demonstrate Iran’s unexpected and unforeseen military innovation. What the U.S. and Israel will then do may well open the door to wider regional war. Sentiment across the region seethes at the slaughter in the Occupied Territories and in Lebanon.

Trump may not appreciate just how isolated the U.S. and Israel are among Israel’s Arab and Sunni neighbours. The U.S. is stretched so thin, and its forces across the region are so vulnerable to the hostility that the daily slaughter incubates, that a regional war might be enough to bring the entire house of cards tumbling down. The crisis would pitch Trump into a financial crisis that could sink his domestic economic aspirations too.

Nov 15, 2024

 • Fourth Time The Pentagon Is Faking The Books For Ukraine, Moon of Alabama, Nov 15, 2024
It is tedious, but feels necessary, to record here the ongoing fraud.

 • Trump vows to ‘work very hard’ on Ukraine, RT, Nov 15, 2024

In the run-up to the presidential election, the Republican – who has been critical of unconditional US support for Kiev – promised to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours if elected, even before being sworn into office.

While that pledge remains far from fulfilled, media reports have claimed that Trump is already reshaping US policy on Ukraine. A Wall Street Journal report earlier this month indicated that one potential peace plan would force Ukraine to suspend its ambitions to join NATO for at least 20 years and would freeze the conflict along the current front lines in exchange for continued US military assistance to Kiev. In addition, Trump has nominated several critics of Ukraine aid for top government positions, including Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and Matt Gaetz for attorney general. The nominations must be confirmed by the Senate, which the Republicans regained control over in this year’s election.

Moscow has said it is open to dialogue, but has ruled out freezing the conflict, insisting that the goals of its military operation – including Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – must be met. President Vladimir Putin has signaled that Russia is willing to immediately declare a ceasefire and start peace talks as soon as Kiev begins withdrawing troops from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, which voted in referendums to join the country in autumn 2022. Moscow has also ruled out talks with Kiev as long as Ukrainian troops occupy part of the border region of Kursk.

Nov 14, 2024

Featured • Thawing Russia-US Relations?, Ray McGovern, Antiwar.com, Nov 14, 2024

Putin’s words on Friday are as interesting now as his New York Times op-ed was 11 years ago: “The Western-centric world has embraced certain clichés and stereotypes concerning the global hierarchy. There is supposedly a developed world, progressive society and some universal civilization that everyone should strive to join – while at the other end, there are backward, uncivilized nations, barbarians. Their job is to listen unquestioningly to what they are told from the outside, and to act on the instructions issued by those who are allegedly superior to them in this civilizational hierarchy.

It is clear that this concept works for a crude colonial approach, for the exploitation of the global majority. The problem is that this essentially racist ideology has taken root in the minds of many, creating a serious mental obstacle to general harmonious growth. [Emphasis added.]

The modern world tolerates neither arrogance nor wanton disregard for others being different. To build normal relationships, above all, one needs to listen to the other party and try to understand their logic and cultural background, rather than expecting them to think and act the way you think they should based on your beliefs about them. Otherwise, communication turns into an exchange of clichés and flinging labels, and politics devolves into a conversation of the deaf.”

It is possible to hope that, on Ukraine at least, U.S.-Russian talks can quickly move beyond cliches and labels, to stop the killing. Mutual trust is also possible, but it will take some time to rebuild it.

Perhaps it helps to recall that it almost happened just 13 years ago.

The Ukrainian military and civilian leadership are keeping Vladimir Zelensky in the dark about the desperate situation of his country in the conflict with Russia, The Economist reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

As Kiev is forced to gradually yield to Russian troops, and with the prospects of continued US military aid unclear following Donald Trump’s election victory, the “deteriorating situation on the front lines is already rippling through society,” the outlet reported.

According to The Economist, to avoid spreading panic and defeatism, the Ukrainian military is attempting to censor the most negative news from the front line. One unnamed senior military official confirmed this, telling the magazine that some Ukrainian leaders are seeking to insulate Zelensky from the hard truth. “It’s not even that he’s being kept in a warm bath,” he said. “He’s being kept in a sauna.”

Nov 12, 2024

Featured • The West’s very fundamental accumulating contradictions, Alastair Crooke, Strategic Culture Foundation, Nov 11, 2024

They tell us that on the one hand that the world does not accept the western vision as being of universal application – and on the other hand, the West doesn’t have the financial clout to pursue global primacy – if it ever did: Zugzwang.

Nov 11, 2024

Featured • Why Is WaPo Reporting A Trump-Putin Call That Did Not Take Place?, Moon of Alabama, Nov 11, 2024
Talk about the fog of war. What actually happened? Is the real story the uncertainty?

Featured • Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Gives Credit to Trump for Admitting Sickness of US Society, Sputnik International, Nov 10, 2024

Donald Trump, who won the US presidential election, must be given credit for a more realistic assessment of the United States as a sick society, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told Sputnik. Donald Trump, who served as US President from 2017 to 2021, won the presidential election that took place on November 5. “We must give credit to Trump, he certainly said it as it is. American society is sick, that’s what he said. If before the election the slogan was ‘let’s make America great again,’ now it’s ‘let’s make America healthy again,'” Zakharova said. “This is a more realistic assessment. In these circumstances, we will need to interact with this country in some way.” She added that there were wonderful moments of cooperation in the history of relations between Russia and the United States that are worth striving for.

But today it is noticeable how Russophobia is encouraged in the United States, which “is becoming a sector of the general American philosophy,” she added. Trump became the first US politician since the 19th century to return to the White House after a four-year hiatus. Trump’s victory was announced by all leading media outlets counting votes: the Associated Press, Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS.Democratic candidate Kamala Harris addressed supporters and announced that she would concede, while incumbent US President Joe Biden spoke with Trump and congratulated him. The Electoral College from the states must vote for candidates in accordance with the will of the voters on December 17, and the new Congress will approve the voting results on January 6.

The inauguration will take place on January 20. The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden may create problems for Russia for another couple of months while still in power, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman added. “Regarding bilateral relations, we need to understand and be realistic. The US presidential election has taken place. It has been recognized as such within the United States. The losers acknowledged the winner, but he [US President-elect Donald Trump] still needs to take office. Please do not forget that the outgoing administration still has a couple of months in their pocket. During this time, and we know them, a lot can be done to make a mess, I think their Russophobia has not gone away,” Zakharova said. The current administration has failed in implementing much of its Russophobic policy, Zakharova added. “The concept of creating an anti-Russia on the territory of Ukraine has failed. The idea of isolating Russia has failed. After all, this is not just a myth. This was an attempt to bring it to life. And much was done for this,” Zakharova said.

The outgoing Biden administration is seeking to fully use funds allocated for Ukraine to deliver additional weapons to the country, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing unnamed White House officials. The plan, however, is reportedly facing logistics hurdles as the US further depletes its already thinned out stockpiles. Washington has more than $7 billion left in drawdown authority, enabling the Pentagon to transfer weapons and ammunition to Kiev, as well as another $2 billion to fund long-term equipment contracts for Ukraine, the WSJ noted. The pending delivery involves some 500 anti-aircraft missiles for various systems, including Patriots and NASAMS, a senior Biden administration official has said. The cache of missiles is expected to get delivered to Ukraine in the next few weeks, where it will meet the country’s air defense needs for the rest of the year.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is deeply concerned about Donald Trump’s triumph in the US presidential election, fearing it could lead to a suspension of military and financial aid from Washington, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said. In an interview with Radio Slovensko on Saturday, Fico discussed how Trump’s policies could impact global politics and the Ukraine conflict. The prime minister claimed that when he saw Zelensky during the EU summit in Budapest, Hungary, on November 7, the Ukrainian leader appeared visibly shaken. “Have you ever seen a person who is afraid that the war will end? I saw him, and his name is Vladimir Zelensky,” Fico told the host, adding that Zelensky seemed “shocked that Trump won and that there could be a halt to aid from the United States....There is still an opinion that if we keep supporting Ukraine, we will bring Russia to its knees, but that does not work,” he argued, urging the bloc to recognize that this logic is flawed. “The EU is a peace project, and the war must be stopped.”

The administration of outgoing President Joe Biden has lifted a de facto ban on deploying US defense contractors to Ukraine to repair American-made armaments, Reuters and CNN reported on Friday, citing anonymous Pentagon officials. This reversal of previous US policy comes as Donald Trump, who has been skeptical of providing funding and military assistance to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, secured his second term in the White House. While it is unclear whether Trump would have continued the prior policy, he has promised not to put American lives at risk and to rapidly conclude the conflict once in office again. The potential American presence on the ground will be “small” and located “far” from the front lines, and they are not expected to engage in combat, Reuters wrote on Friday, citing an anonymous US official.

The Biden administration has brought the US to the edge of World War III while completely failing at domestic policy, Dennis Kucinich has said.

US president-elect Donald Trump will have his hands full fixing the mess in foreign and domestic policy left by incumbent leader Joe Biden’s administration, according to Dennis Kucinich, two-time Democratic presidential primary contestant and retired eight-term US congressman.

In an interview with Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi broadcast on RT on Saturday, Kucinich said that the success of Trump’s presidency will depend on his ability to shift the focus of US politics from the “globalist aspirations of the State Department” to problems at home.

The veteran politician welcomed Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris in this week’s election, saying that it represents a “historic shift” in US politics towards “populism.”

“[The US] has come through a very dark period where the government put this country to the edge of World War III, and people don’t want that,” Kucinich stated, noting that ordinary Americans worry about simple things like paying bills and generally “making ends meet,” which he called “very practical aspirations they have in common with people around the world.” He said Trump’s presidency “will depend on not getting further involved in foreign entanglements.”

Nov 9, 2024

Featured • SITREP 11/8/24: Trump's Arrival Throws Things Askew, Simplicius, Nov 8, 2024
Excellent overall review of the Ukraine war and the possibility spectrum of Trump's impact. Short version: a lot of trial balloons, a fantastic non-starter, and dangers.

Featured • EU ‘lacks brains’ – Putin, RT, Nov 8, 2024

The EU lacks leaders who act based on the national interests of their countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. He also claimed that the bloc’s current economic policies are devised by people with insufficient expertise who are guided by “vassalage” to the US. “When I talk to my colleagues and experts – I don’t want to offend anyone – but I often ask them what the EU lacks. They answer that it lacks brains,” Putin said at the Valdai International Discussion Club in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi on Thursday. “It is not that they are stupid, but that the decisions in the economic sphere are made by politicians who have nothing to do with the economy,” the Russian leader stated. As a result, the steps taken by the bloc, such as anti-Russia sanctions, are “politicized, ill-considered, and baseless,” he added. We see that many European countries – and almost all NATO members – they take steps that work to the detriment of their own interests and only benefit US politics and economy.

Putin mentioned former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whom he praised for acting “solely” in the interests of the German people. He cited one such example as being the construction of the Nord Stream pipelines, through which Russia supplied gas to Germany until their partial destruction due to sabotage in September 2022. “Schroeder did not do that in the interests of Russia, did not do it in order to create conditions for us to obtain economic benefits, but solely in the interests of the German people, fighting to ensure that the best conditions for the supplies,” Putin stated. Schroeder “deliberately risked his political career” by making decisions “completely unpopular” among his peers, Putin added. The Russian leader lamented that “very few” politicians in Germany or the broader EU can do that today, arguing that this is why their economies are in a state of crisis.

The Russian leader also criticized EU politicians for abandoning Russian gas amid sanctions linked with the Ukraine conflict. This is “incomprehensible,” Putin said, as these same politicians “made so much noise” about their green goals, only to seek alternative supply sources and restart coal plants amid the energy crisis that resulted from their actions. Putin stressed that the bloc needs more politicians such as Schroeder, who “have their own opinion,” are “consistent” in their policies, and act in the interests of the people. “People see what’s really happening. If the gap between the ruling elites who are guided by other’s interests and the bulk of the population increases, nationally oriented political forces will grow… Everything will eventually lead to a weakening of this vassalage [to the US],” he stated.

US President-elect Donald Trump will pull his country out of the Ukraine conflict, leaving EU leaders in an “uncomfortable and difficult position,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. “The situation on the front line is obvious. It’s a military defeat. The Americans will get out of this war,” he told Kossuth Radio on Friday. “Europe alone cannot finance this war.” Some EU leaders want to keep pouring money into a lost cause but the silence is growing among those with such an opinion, Orban said, while others are calling for a policy reassessment. Meanwhile, the few nations that have been advocating de-escalation and talks, including Hungary itself, as well as Slovakia and the Vatican, have been vindicated, he added. Orban’s prediction of a change in US foreign policy follows Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election earlier this week.

Ukraine’s deep manpower shortage has overshadowed the steady flow of Western arms deliveries. Against the backdrop of Russia’s steady advance, Kiev regime military personnel have been surrendering and deserting in droves, while over a million men of military age are estimated to be on the run across Ukraine. Almost a fifth of Ukraine’s soldiers have gone AWOL from their positions, The Economist cited a source in the general staff as saying. An overwhelming collapse in morale on the front line amid Russia’s steady advance is driving mass desertion, a senior Ukrainian military commander has claimed. Despite more Western weapons in the pipeline for Ukraine, these is a “breakdown of trust between society, the army and the political leadership” in Kiev, according to the outlet.

It added that Ukraine has been struggling to replace vast battlefield losses with conscription, “barely hitting two-thirds of its target.” Rampant draft dodging and desertion forced the Volodymyr Zelensky regime to adopt a new draconian mobilization law this year, while also lowering the recruitment age from 27 to 25. Ukrainians are increasingly resisting being sent into the meat grinder of a proxy conflict. Earlier, in October, Ukrainian media reported that since the beginning of 2022, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has registered some 60,000 criminal cases of unauthorized abandonment of a unit and about 30,000 cases of desertion.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has demanded that the $300 billion of Russian sovereign assets currently immobilized by sanctions in Western financial institutions be given to Kiev. He raised the issue of Western aid, particularly the possibility that US President-elect Donald Trump could cut aid for Kiev, at a press conference following the European Political Community summit in Budapest on Thursday. Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the US and its allies froze an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank. The bulk of the funds, around €197 billion ($213 billion), are being held at Euroclear. The Brussels-based clearinghouse has estimated that the impounded Russian assets generated €5.15 billion ($5.55 billion) in interest in the first three quarters of this fiscal year.

“Everyone says: What will you do if Trump does not support you financially? Where will you get weapons? Let me answer you. Can we take the $300 billion that rightfully belongs to us?” Zelensky said. This would allow Ukraine to buy armaments for itself, he claimed. “Is it possible for us to decide for ourselves what kind of weapons we need? Can we decide for ourselves what to do with this money?” he added. The US and its European allies have so far allocated more than $218 billion in aid to Kiev since the escalation of the conflict, according to stats from Germany’s Kiel Institute. However, in recent months, the payments have been getting smaller and the larger aid allocations have instead been loans.

In October, G7 states finalized a massive $50 billion loan for Ukraine to be backed by profits accrued on the frozen Russian assets currently immobilized in the West. Despite US pressure to confiscate the assets in their entirety, the IMF has so far opposed this course of action, raising concerns that it could undermine trust in the Western financial system.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the plenary session of the 21st Annual Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club on Thursday. While criticizing Western leaders for failing to serve the interests of their people, Vladimir Putin also sent a positive signal for the future, Geoffrey Roberts, emeritus professor of history at University College Cork, Ireland, told Sputnik. “Very clearly, he [Putin] is signaling continued resistance to Western hegemony, Western dominance. He also makes his point, time and again, that European political leaders aren’t serving their country’s best interests […] by the policy that they’re pursuing in terms of global politics,” he noted.

However, at the same time, the Russian president “made it clear that Russia is not going to run after the West to restore relations, but the door is open if that’s the choice that the West wants to make,” the leading British scholar on Soviet diplomatic and military history underscored. It’s not clear whether US President-elect Donald Trump will pursue friendly relations with Russia, but the chances are much higher now, Roberts speculated. “[Vladimir Putin] said that if Trump wants to improve relations, he is open to it,” Roberts said after attending Putin’s speech and a Q& session at the Valdai Club. “It would be a while before we know what’s going to happen. I think a big factor will be who he [Trump] appoints to key positions in foreign policy and national security… I also think Trump will be very reluctant to increase the American commitment to NATO in any way and to see further expansion of NATO […] in Europe or elsewhere.

But as I say, that’s a matter for speculation,” the emeritus professor noted. According to the academic, Putin was “very relaxed, very confident” throughout his appearance at the event, and “performed brilliantly in terms of being on top of his brief, having all these facts and figures at his fingertip, being very articulate, being very clear, answering questions directly.” “He’s responding on the spot to comments, statements, questions that the people at the meeting, the members of the Valdai Club, are making. I can’t think of any other political leader in the world who could perform in that kind of way,” Roberts remarked.

Nov 8, 2024

 • Trumpquake, Pepe Escobar, Strategic Culture Foundation, Nov 7, 2024

My inbox is infested with loads of weepy reports from U.S. Think Tankland wondering, in disbelief, why Kamala could possibly lose. It’s quite straightforward – apart from her sheer incompetence cum utter mediocrity literally cackling out loud.

The legacy of the administration she was part of is ghastly – all the way from Crash Test Dummy to Little Butcher Blinkie.

Instead of bothering to care about the abysmal state of affairs, at every level, concerning that mythical entity, “the American people”, they chose to invest everything on a neocon-manufactured proxy war to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia – stealing Russian assets, unleashing a tsunami of sanctions, shipping an array of wunderwaffen. The weaponization of Ukraine led to countless Ukrainian dead and the inevitable, fast-approaching cosmic humiliation of NATO in the black soil of Novorossiya.

They invested everything to support a genocide in Gaza conducted with a huge arsenal of American weapons: a lebensraum-coded ethnic cleansing cum extermination op directed by a bunch of Talmudic psychos – and marketed under the “rules-based international order” spewed out by Butcher Blinkie in every bilateral or multilateral gathering.

It’s no wonder that West Asia and the wider Global South soon got the message of what may happen to anyone daring to go against the Hegemon’s “interests”. Thus the counterpunch: the strengthening of BRICS and BRICS+, celebrated for all the world to see two weeks ago in Kazan.

The key reason for the collapse of Germany’s ruling coalition was the refusal of Finance Minister Christian Lindner to support a budgetary plan that would increase aid to Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said. On Wednesday, Scholz fired Lindner, the leader of the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), which is one of three parties comprising Germany’s so-called ‘Traffic Light’ coalition government alongside the Social Democrats and the Greens. The rift between Scholz and Lindner reportedly came to a head after a meeting in which the coalition partners failed to find common ground on how to plug a multibillion-euro hole in next year’s budget and revive the struggling economy. At a press conference the same day, Scholz said that, by dismissing Lindner – who walked out along with other FDP ministers, he had sought to “turn away damage from our country.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Donald Trump on his electoral victory and confirmed that he is ready to talk with the US president-elect. Putin hailed Trump’s “courageous” response to the attempt to assassinate him in July. Speaking at a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in the southern Russian city of Sochi on Thursday, Putin said that he wished to “offer my congratulations on [Trump’s] election as president of the United States.” Putin noted that Trump has expressed a desire to end the Ukraine conflict, and that such statements “deserve attention, at the very least.” The Russian president then paid tribute to Trump’s actions during an attempt on his life in Pennsylvania this summer, when then-candidate Trump rose to his feet and raised his fist after a bullet grazed his ear. “I was impressed. He’s a courageous person,” Putin said.

Talking about a cessation of hostilities along the existing line of contact is unlikely to be taken seriously in Moscow. Such a scenario would be nothing more than a pause, after which the conflict would flare up with renewed vigour and probably greater intensity. The nature of the future Ukrainian regime, its military and military-economic potential, and Kiev’s military-political status are of paramount importance to Russia. In addition, new territorial realities have to be taken into account.

It will be difficult to expect the new Trump administration to agree to substantive dialogue on these issues, let alone to take Moscow’s core interests into account. If it is willing, the dialogue will begin, but even then agreement is far from guaranteed. A separate issue is what can be regarded as satisfactory guarantees in conditions where both sides do not trust each other at all. The two Minsk Agreements (in 2014 and 2015) have been violated, and the third attempt – initialed in Istanbul in 2022 – was thwarted, so a fourth is unlikely.

The only guarantee Russia can rely on is a guarantee to itself. The good news for now is that Trump says he wants to cut military aid to Ukraine. Despite the likely partial offsetting of this with extra Western European support for Kiev, if it happens, it will bring peace closer.

There is ample evidence that Ukraine’s armed forces are close to complete collapse. After nearly three years of intense fighting against Russia, the Kiev regime no longer appears to have enough strength to sustain its war efforts in the manner it has done previously. Despite the almost endless supply of Western money, weapons, and mercenaries on the battlefield, a number of material and psychological conditions are making it impossible for Ukraine to continue its operational and strategic capabilities. Since 2022, one of the main internal issues of the Kiev regime has been how to keep ordinary soldiers active on the battlefield, despite their family, ethnic and cultural ties with Russia – as well as their disbelief in any possibility of real victory on the battlefield.

...It is possible to say that Russia has already won the current conflict for a very simple reason: Ukrainians do not want to fight anymore. For the regime’s soldiers, the war is a burden. All they want is to get away from the front. Kiev makes this situation even worse by making it clear that fighting in the most difficult missions of the conflict is a “punishment” – something to be avoided. Meanwhile, most of the Russian military personnel in the operation are volunteers who deliberately want to defend the country against the Western enemy. Morally and psychologically, Ukraine is already defeated. The experience in Kursk makes it clear that for Moscow, victory is only a matter of time.

Nov 7, 2024

Featured • Trump And Ukraine, Moon of Alabama, Nov 7, 2024

To continue to arm Ukraine while keeping a ceasefire is an obvious delaying tactic - nothing that will solve the conflict. Russia will only agree to something that concludes the war for good. The assumption that Russia would condone European NATO forces on the ground in Ukraine is also delusional.

Other ideas are just a variant of the above...

The only real way to stop the war is for the U.S. to drop all support for Ukraine. The Europeans would bicker about that but, if only for budget reasons, would likely follow through. It would then be up to Ukraine, having lost all support, to make nice with Moscow.

Trump will likely select (neo-conservative) hawks to run his defense and foreign policies. They will take all possible measures, even against Trump's declared will, to keep the war going. For them it is down to the last Ukrainian, then down to the last European - if only to show that the U.S. will never give up.

To cover for this Trump and his acolytes may well offer an immediate ceasefire. But that will not work.

...The war will go on. Russia will have to, as Gordon Hahn predicts, cross the Dnieper, retake Odessa and threaten Kiev. Zelenski is unlikely to politically survive such a situation. Other forces would come to the fore:

The pivot of decision-making will then shift to Kiev and the question of whether Zelenskiy or any Ukrainian leader is able to start peace talks at all, no less ones that presuppose loss of territory as part of any settlement with Moscow, without prompting a domestic political crisis. The resulting coup poker game could involve a Kiev-based coup led by intelligence and security forces, the HRU and/or SBU, or emerge from the periphery at the front with ultranationalists and neofascists such as the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps (DUK), Azov, and others, well-armed as part of Ukraine‘s armed forces, turning their guns around and marching on Kiev in order to seize power.

...

A U.S.-backed coup might pre-empt, precede or facilitate such a turn of events. Washington and Brussels might gamble that easing or allowing the radicals‘ rise to power is he only way to rally what remains of the Ukrainian nation so the effort to hand Moscow a 'strategic defeat‘ can be realized and further NATO expansion can be secured.

But a fascist coup, supported by the U.S. or not, will not be able to change the situation on the ground. Russia would still have the upper hand and win the war.

Only a direct intervention by NATO, could be able to change that trajectory. That however would likely expand the war into a global contest that not even Trump's hawks will want to pursue.

How will western media report the fall of this city? If The Economist and BBC reports are anything to go by, with some zeal one would imagine. It’s as though big media, in particular British, is anxious to stay on the right side of history when things start to fall down and emerge from the dust as wise old men with that “I told you so” sparkle in their eyes. It’s also about collective guilt. Western Media has blood on its hands as the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers sent to the “meat grinder” is partly attributed to the support U.S. and UK media gave Zelensky.

What we are witnessing now from Zelensky is a panic mode which is accelerating at the same pace. His so-called “victory plan” hasn’t been taken seriously by any western leaders and he looks stupid now, alienated. His recent outburst about Biden leaking to the press about the ludicrous idea of using U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles might have been a defining moment which history writers obsess over then they write his eulogy.

For now, the panic isn’t really even about the battlefield, although it must be hard for Zelensky to read the dispatches each day of the losses in Kursk which could be considered Ukraine’s own Battle of the Bulge where German troops fought hard at the end of WWII against larger, bigger numbers of allied soldiers in the Ardennes and ultimately lost. In many ways Kursk was a trap which Zelensky set for himself, as the failure to capture the nuclear power plant pales into insignificance compared to the losses of men. Kursk is the ultimate meat grinder for Ukraine soldiers. No one comes back alive.

A top priority for the next European Commission will be making Europe self-reliant and ready for war, as the US is likely to focus on China in the coming decades, said Andrius Kubilius, the nominee for the EU’s new top defense post.

The White House intends to expedite up to $9 billion in new military aid in a last-ditch effort to bolster Ukraine against Russia, before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, according to sources within the outgoing administration. The plan is driven by concerns that Trump, who has criticized President Joe Biden’s generous support for Kiev, may halt or significantly reduce US taxpayer-funded aid, as reported by sources speaking to Reuters and Politico on Wednesday. “The administration plans to push forward… to put Ukraine in the strongest position possible,” a senior official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Politico described the plan as “the only option” to maintain the flow of weapons to Ukraine, although its sources acknowledged “immense” challenges. US officials worry that even if Biden approves new aid, it could take the Pentagon months to actually deliver munitions and equipment to Ukraine, and the next commander-in-chief could halt shipments at any time.

It remains unclear whether the US military would be willing to draw more deeply from its stockpiles – risking its own readiness – to expedite the deliveries. Since February 2022, the US Congress has approved more than $174 billion to support Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. The latest tranche of $61 billion was delayed for several months amid a standoff between Republicans and the White House. Of that package, only $4.3 billion remains, along with another $2 billion allocated for new contracts with the US arms industry. With $2.8 billion in previously announced shipments, the White House has just over $9 billion available for emergency supplies to Kiev. Trump’s victory will not change Washington’s antagonistic stance towards Moscow, but will make it more difficult for Kiev to access American taxpayers’ money, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday.

Nov 6, 2024

Featured • Westward Ho, Hum — The General Staff's Map and President Putin's Map are Different, Dances with Wolves, Nov 5, 2024

Big Serge is an American approach, Russian military sources believe, and it underestimates the neo-Nazi, race war doctrine which is driving both Ukrainian and US strategy in the present war. “It’s much the same strategy as the Germans developed and bent the entire will of the country toward — a fascist, racist, imperialist, colonial project. We know it by the names of Generalplan Ost, New Order, Drang nach Osten, and Lebensraum. It’s a strategy that has been absorbed, coopted, and adopted by the US-led West. The theory of victory is that via economic sabotage, Fifth Columns, terrorism, invasion, mass murder, destruction of infrastructure and social cohesion, and anti-Russian, anti-Orthodox racism, Russia will be destroyed. As the years have gone by and the war has unfolded, it has become obvious that there is little to no purpose for the Ukraine as anything but a base of operations for the wider western neo-Nazi project.”

Can the American neo-Nazi project be stopped by a DMZ established by the Russian offensive?

According to Putin announcing the Special Military Operation on February 24, 2022, “I would like to additionally emphasise the following. Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, those who will never forgive the people of Crimea and Sevastopol for freely making a choice to reunite with Russia… Comrade officers, Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine… The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine.”

Four months ago, in his restatement of his end-of-war terms, Putin repeated that demilitarization and denazification remain parallel operational objectives. He claimed the terms of the Istanbul agreement he instructed Vladimir Medinsky to sign in March 2022 “meant that a law would be adopted in Ukraine banning Nazi ideology and any of its manifestations. All of that was written there.”

Putin added that his terms for Istanbul-II are “I repeat our firm stance: Ukraine should adopt a neutral, non-aligned status, be nuclear-free, and undergo demilitarisation and denazification.”

Outside the Kremlin there is no military source who believes that denazification of the Ukraine can be implemented and enforced by “a law banning Nazi ideology and any of its manifestations”. Leaving Kiev and Lvov outside the DMZ, the sources believe, would amount to abandoning denazification of the Ukraine in Russian strategy.

Redrawing the DMZ map in the lead image, withdrawing Russian red territory eastwards, creates a zone for the negotiation to come of the denazification objective. The future for Sumy, Kharkov, Poltava, Dniepropetyrovsk, Nikolaev, and Odessa will depend on this.

A Ukrainian lawmaker has called for the conscription of women into the country’s struggling mobilization campaign. MP Mariana Bezuglaya has insisited that it is high time to start targeting women to meet quotas, as Kiev’s military resources dwindle amid ongoing territorial loss on the frontline of the conflict with Russia. Ukraine currently allows for drafting men over the age of 25 and accepts female volunteers. Bezuglaya, however, has repeatedly advocated for expanding conscription to both sexes in the name of equity. “We currently have illegal discrimination against men,” Bezuglaya wrote on her Telegram channel on Monday. “Moreover, if women get mobilized, fewer men will get mobilized – this is one of the reasons for men to support the mobilization of their fellow [female] citizens.”

Nov 5, 2024

Featured • Ukraine needs 500,000 new troops – lawmaker, RT, Nov 4, 2024

Ukraine needs at least 500,000 new recruits to replace combat losses and outfit new units, lawmaker Roman Kostenko has said in an interview. Kiev’s current plans would fall 300,000 men short. Kostenko is the secretary of the Verkhovna Rada’s Defense and Intelligence committee and a former officer in the Ukrainian military. His comments came in an interview with the TV channel Priamyi (Direct) over the weekend. Taking into account the situation, the estimate floated at the end of last year by former military chief Valery Zaluzhny seems more relevant than Kiev’s current figures, Kostenko said. “Zaluzhny did not take those numbers randomly. I rather agree with him here that after all, such a number is more relevant than what we’ve gathered, than what we were told before, that we don’t need that many,” Kostenko said. Zaluzhny had called for a mobilization of 500,000 men in December 2023.

Vladimir Zelensky initially agreed with that assessment, but backtracked due to a public backlash. Zaluzhny was relieved in February – reportedly due to disagreements about the draft – and named Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK. While Zelensky did not specify how many troops would have to be drafted, the authorities in Kiev spoke of 160,000 by the end of the year, following changes to the mobilization rules this spring. According to Kostenko, the goal was actually 200,000 troops but mobilization rates dropped in September and again last month. This “cannot be allowed under any circumstances,” he said, as mobilization rates need to keep up the pace with battlefield attrition. According to Ukrainian media, Kiev’s armed forces currently number 1.05 million. Additional troops are needed to replace combat losses as well as allow frontline units to be rotated out for fresh brigades.

Ukrainian lawmakers have revealed that over 100,000 troops have deserted since the start of the conflict. Mobilization officers have resorted to hunting men down in the streets and markets, often hauling them away by force as onlookers record the incident. Moscow is currently waging “one of the most powerful” offensives since 2022, according to Zaluzhny’s replacement, General Aleksandr Syrsky. Ukrainian units are in “constant demand for the replenishment of resources,” Syrsky has said. Russian forces have made major advances in Donbass over the past several months, taking Ugledar and Selidovo and approaching Kurakhovo while maintaining pressure all along the line. The Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Ukraine’s total losses – killed and wounded – at over 500,000, or around half of its [current] total manpower [i.e. about 1/3 of the total deployed to date].

The Economist magazine reports this week that “Russia is slicing through Ukrainian defenses” and Ukraine is subsequently “struggling to survive.” Across the Western media, the public is being prepared for defeat and painful concessions in future negotiations. Journalists are changing the narrative as reality can no longer be ignored. Moscow's coming success has been obvious since at least the summer of 2023, yet this was ignored to keep the proxy war going.

...Back in 2022, the political-media elites weaponized empathy to get public support for war and disdain for diplomacy. The Western public was convinced to support the proxy war against Russia by endless messaging about the suffering of Ukrainians and the injustice of their loss of sovereignty. Those who disagreed with NATO’s mantra that ‘weapons are the way to peace’ and instead suggested negotiations were quickly dismissed as puppets of the Kremlin who did not care about Ukrainians.

Support for continued fighting in a war that cannot be won has been the only acceptable expression of empathy. For the postmodernists seeking to socially construct their own reality, great power rivalry is largely a battle of narratives. The weaponization of empathy enabled the military narrative to become impervious to criticism. War was virtuous and diplomacy treasonous as Ukraine was allegedly fighting Russia’s “unprovoked” war with the objective to subjugate the entire country. A strong moral framing convinced people to deceive and self-censor in support of this noble cause.

...The Ukrainian proxy has been exhausted, which ends the proxy war unless NATO is prepared to go to war against Russia. As NATO is preparing to cut its losses, a new narrative is required. Soon it will be permitted to call for negotiations as a display of empathy for Ukrainians.

A narrative pushed by the Western media about a small team of Ukrainian divers being behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022 is hard to believe, Dr Sven Thomas, a renowned German diving specialist, has told Bild over the weekend. Damage sustained by the Russian undersea pipelines suggests that much more powerful explosive charges and a much larger vessel were used to render them out of commission, he said, adding that a small yacht the media keep reporting about would never suffice. American and German media have repeatedly claimed that the blasts were linked to a small Ukrainian crew that rented a leisure yacht called Andromeda at a German port and set off armed only with diving equipment, satellite navigation, and open-source maps. The operation was reportedly given a green light by Ukraine’s then-commander in chief, Valery Zaluzhny.

Nov 4, 2024

Featured • Jeffrey D. Sachs: The BRICS Summit Should Mark the End of Neocon Delusions, Scheerpost, Nov 3, 2024

The recent BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia should mark the end of the Neocon delusions encapsulated in the subtitle of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Global Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. Since the 1990s, the goal of American foreign policy has been “primacy,” aka global hegemony. The U.S. methods of choice have been wars, regime change operations, and unilateral coercive measures (economic sanctions). Kazan brought together 35 countries with more than half the world population that reject the U.S. bullying and that are not cowed by U.S. claims of hegemony.

In the Kazan Declaration, the countries underscored “the emergence of new centres of power, policy decision-making and economic growth, which can pave the way for a more equitable, just, democratic and balanced multipolar world order.” They emphasized “the need to adapt the current architecture of international relations to better reflect the contemporary realities,” while declaring their “commitment to multilateralism and upholding the international law, including the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (UN) as its indispensable cornerstone.” They took particular aim at the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies, holding that “Such measures undermine the UN Charter, the multilateral trading system, the sustainable development and environmental agreements.”

Time has run out on the neocon delusions, and the U.S. wars of choice.

The majority of official surveys monitoring American and European support for Ukraine are many months old now. The last time we saw a flurry of polling on the issue was this summer and the media has been rather quiet on the issue since. Why? Because public support for the proxy war is in steep decline. The last numbers show that 52% of Americans no longer want additional funding for Ukraine. With Donald Trump increasingly likely to return to the White House in 2025 the Ukrainians are already preparing for steep cuts to military aid (the US provides the vast majority of arms to Ukraine). This leaves the EU to pick up the slack. However, Europe simply doesn’t have the capacity to provide enough military aid to make a difference in the war and is currently discussing schemes to transfer frozen Russian assets to the effort while simultaneously scaling back their own funding. Central EU nations like Germany are already cutting their contributions in half in the coming year.

The decline in aid follows two important factors: Public support for the war in America and Europe is waning. And, Ukraine is clearly losing the conflict with their defensive lines in the east collapsing. Ukraine has received well over $200 billion in the past two years from NATO nations, which eclipses Ukraine’s annual GDP of around $160 billion. In other words, the war cannot continue without NATO. The disconnect between US and European governments vs the desires of the general public could not be more obvious. Even the Washington Post admits: “As they signaled enduring support for Ukraine last week, European leaders worried about how long they can sustain it…” “European leaders promise to support Ukraine as long as it takes, but they are increasingly threatened by public fatigue, a weakening of the political center and the prospect of Trump’s return…”

The more agreements with Russia and other parties the Ukrainian government violates, the less territory will remain under Kiev’s control, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned. During his speech at the 16th Assembly of the Russian World in Moscow on Saturday, Lavrov reiterated the country’s readiness to search for a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Kiev. According to Moscow, an integral part of the political settlement should be “protecting the rights and freedoms, as well as the legal interests of the Russian people and Russian speakers… alongside ensuring Ukraine’s non-aligned, neutral, and non-nuclear status, and eliminating any and all threats to Russia’s security that may come from within its borders,” he said. “Acknowledging the actual state of affairs on the ground is of paramount importance,” the minister stressed. Lavrov urged Kiev against delaying the launch of substantive negotiations any further.(emphasis added)

The Russian Defense Ministry offered to hand over 935 Ukrainian prisoners of war this year, but Kiev took only 279 of them, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. “This year, the Russian Defense Ministry handed over to the Coordination Headquarters for the Handling of Prisoners of War a proposal to give back 935 Ukrainian prisoners of war to the Ukrainian side as part of exchanges,” the diplomat said in an online news conference. “How many of this number of people do you think the Kiev regime took back? I will emphasize they are its own citizens. Only 279.” “These are practically 700 people who could have returned to their families in Ukraine,” Zakharova went on to say.

“They were simply shrugged off by the Kiev regime, and yet its representatives continue to travel to Canada and around the world and supposedly call on, and negotiate with the international community for mediation efforts and, as [former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry] Kuleba said, for protection of Ukrainian nationals in Russia.” The spokeswoman called such actions of the Kiev regime “political tourism on the blood of its own citizens, its own servicemen.”

Nov 3, 2024

Featured • NY Times Announces Ukraine Narrative Change, Moon of Alabama, Nov 2, 2024
Will they say the Los Alamos Study Group and other reality-based people were right all along? Naw.

We are through the looking glass. Reality is not seen until it hits the collective us in the face.

Featured • NY TImes Concedes Ukraine is in Trouble, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Nov 2, 2024
I don't think Larry's figure for "close to one million" Ukrainian KIA is right, based on what Simplicius has done, but it might be close to right for KIA plus heavily wounded. Johnson makes the excellent point about training the largely hypothetical new thousands of recruits. It takes time, which Ukraine does not have, and it takes a safe place to train, which Ukraine also does not have except in NATO countries. And it takes motivation and morale, which Ukraine is losing rapidly, as reality intrudes. The reality of winter will be worse. Ukraine should make peace right now. It should have made peace in January 2022, and in all the yesterdays since then. But for Ukraine, every today is better than every tomorrow for peace negotiations. There needs then to be a political reassessment in which the Nazis are kicked to the curb and Ukraine, hopefully, becomes a neutral country. If the U.S. persists in its cruel folly past the remaining exit signs, Ukraine could end up a rump basket-case of a state. This is not in anybody's interest.

Featured • SITREP 11/2/24: Another Big Tone Change as West Now Fears Ukraine's Doom, Simplicius, Nov 2, 2024

Nov 1, 2024

Featured • The Forest and the Trees: Ukraine's Strategic Dissipation, Russo-Ukrainian War: Autumn 2024, Big Serge, Oct 31, 2024
For an appetizer see the excerpt Larry Johnson has published.

 • US Provides Proof that North Korean Troops are on the Ground in Ukraine, Larry C. Johnson, SONAR21, Oct 31, 2024

October 2024

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April 2024

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December 2023

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July 2023

June 2023

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March 2023

February 2023

January 2023

December 2022

November 2022

 • Stop the War in Ukraine While We Can, Greg Mello, LASG Vlog, Jun 24, 2024
 • What we’re up to, and reflections on some opportunities and dangers at hand, Greg Mello, VFP Webinar, Jun 20, 2024
 • Can U.S. seize the moment for peace?, Greg Mello, Santa Fe New Mexican, Jun 16, 2024
 • Bulletin 346: Momentous events, and two op-eds, Jun 16, 2024
 • Press backgrounder: U.S. Considers Expanding Its Nuclear Arsenal, Jun 10, 2024
 • Bulletin 345: Ukraine strikes Russian early-warning radar against nuclear attack, May 25, 2024
 • "Russophobia, the Ukraine war, and nuclear weapons," LASG presentation, Peter Kuznick, Steven Starr, & Greg Mello discuss the dangerous phenomenon of "Russophobia" in the West in the context of the potentially widening war in Ukraine, with its attendant nuclear dangers, video, Apr 16, 2024
 •Bulletin 342: Russophobia, the Ukraine war, and nuclear weapons," panel discussion in Santa Fe Tuesday April 16, 6 pm / Pit production: myths and contradictions, Apr 10, 2024
 • LASG friends ltr: "Russophobia, the Ukraine war, and nuclear weapons" -- panel discussion Tuesday April 16, 6 pm, St. John's United Methodist Church, Santa Fe, Apr 8, 2024
 • Bulletin 341: Pit seminar materials available; Russophobia seminar postponed; big jump in FY24 warhead spending as arms race takes hold; Ukraine losing war sparking panic in West, Mar 4, 2024
 • Bulletin 340: "Year in Pits;" Zoom update & discussion on pits 2/27; rich opportunities in the land of nuclear (dis)enchantment; end the Ukraine carnage and genocide in Gaza, Feb 22, 2024
 • The Real Purpose In Making The Bomb Was To Subdue The Soviets. Now Its Happening Again, On A Vast Scale. Why? July 22 At Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos Reporter, Jul 19, 2023
 • LASG friends ltr: Ukraine over the tipping point; more on July 22 event in Los Alamos; comment on generic "nuclear disarmament," Jul 12, 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
 • LASG friends ltr (06/15/2023) Pit production zoom today; halt military "aid" to Ukraine, which just kills more Ukrainians, accept peace
 • 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