Globalism / Great Reset –
President Biden on Thursday nominated Ajay Banga, the former CEO of Mastercard, to be president of the World Bank with an eye towards focusing on climate at the international agency. Banga is listed as a representing Mastercard as a ‘stockholder’ at recent Davos meetings.
OBSERVATION – The WEF has its moles throughout the system, just like they bragged about a few months ago. They are enabled by people like biden.
Economy –
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre says the next Fed Chair will be hired based on how diverse they are, not strictly on their experience with monetary policy.
OBSERVATION - Well that is reassuring, put the least incompetent nutjob in the position that holds the trigger to destroy the national economy. Sleep well.
Oh, the nominee has to go through that nasty senate confirmation hearing.
**
The Q4 GDP was revised lower on weaker consumer spending, revised downward to 1.4%. With the revision of Personal Consumption, real GDP was revised downward to 2.7% annualized QoQ.
OBSERVATION – How much playing with the numbers did the regime have to do to limit the downward correction in the GDP numbers?
Invasion of Illegals –
Illegals pushing thru the US into Canada is causing the neighbors to the north all kinds of issues and are calling on the US to stop the movements.
Biden / Harris watch –
Harris had to seek moderator help in getting an audience to applaud during a recent speech.
CW2/Domestic violence –
Considerable number of pundits giving their two bits on the call for a national divorce.
POLITICAL FRONT –
Liberal heads continue to explode as previously unseen J6 video footage continues to be released.
Domestic / International Terror (modified)-
A division of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation indicated in a recent study that physical attacks on the U.S. power grid spiked by 71% in 2022 over the previous year, reported the Wall Street Journal.
There were at least 108 human-related events reported during the first eight months of 2022, compared with 99 in 2021. WSOC-TV reported that by year end, there were 163 reported incidents of physical attack, vandalism, suspicious activity, or sabotage on the U.S. grid.
According to the grid oversight body’s Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center division, vandalism, ballistic damage, and intrusion drove the increase.
OBSERVATION – Percentages can be tricky, that is why I posted the reported numbers to see just how they pan out, to filter out my confirmation bias. There have been some troubling attacks recently on substations, and that trend needs to be monitored. However, from a terrorist standpoint, other than displaying the weakness in our system, the increase appears to be more crime related than terror.
China –
China urges Russia, Ukraine to resume talks, reach ‘peaceful settlement’. They offered a 12 point “plan” that is straight up a bunch of fluff. This ‘plan’ may well be a fig leaf attempt to deflect from the reported plans to sell critical items to Russia. Focus being on “dual purpose” items like helicopter drones that can be adapted to drop bombs.
Also rumors Russia is trying to obtain 100 loitering drones like those from Iran.
**
The U.S. plans to deploy between 100 and 200 troops to Taiwan in the coming months, up from roughly 30 there a year ago. The planned increase would be the largest deployment of forces in decades by the U.S. on Taiwan, according to US officials - WSJ
OBSERVATION – A ‘trip wire’ action.
**
Taiwan is scheduled to rotated a mechanized battalion task force to the US for training and evaluation of tactics that could be employed against any Chinese invasion. This is the largest deployment by Taiwan to the US.
**
37 PLA aircraft and 6 PLAN vessels intruded into the Taiwan defense zone.
OBSERVATION – This is nearly a daily activity by China to try to wear down the readiness of Taiwan. This count from yesterday was much higher than previous. Increasing numbers of planes and ships involved are precursors of an eventual operation of some kind.
North/South Korea –
North Korea has stated tonight, “If the U.S. continues its Hostile Practices against the Country, it will be considered a Declaration of War”, this comes after Table-Top Nuclear Exercises were reported between the U.S. and South Korea earlier today.
OBSERVATION – The war is still technically a war, no peace treaty has ever been signed and approved.
Russia -
WAR WATCH - First Anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Feb 24th, 2022
CURRENT ASSESSMENT
Russian forces have initiated an offensive who’s declared goals are to reach and secure the Luhansk and Donetsk oblast borders — an objective that Russian Chief of General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov had also outlined on December 22, 2022. Troop and equipment build up is being noted
This offensive action is focused on several fronts – 1) the Svatove-Kreminna front, 2) Bahkmut region, 3) Donetsk region and 4) Zaporizhizhia Oblast around the town of Vuhledar.
Russia is also capable of launching more cruise/ballistic missile attacks directed against Ukrainian infrastructure -primarily its power grid, but massively reduced inventories of such missiles means these barrages will be further apart.
While Russia has nuclear capability, the probability is low that any will be used in the near future.
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One year ago Russia invaded Ukraine and thus begun one of the nastiest conflicts in my life time. After initially achieving gains, the Russian effort bogged down due to Ukraine mud, abysmally poor logistical support and a very stout defense put up by Ukraine. Since then Ukraine has recovered over half the territory initially lost, while Russian army has turned into a rag-tag bunch of mostly unwilling conscripts being force mindlessly into the meat grinder Ukrainian defense.
You can refresh yourselves to the build up to that start as it was tracked here in TM at the following link.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4026005/posts?page=1#1
NUCLEAR THREATS –
United States says that there is “no evidence” Russia is changing its nuclear posture despite Russia suspending New START Treaty.
Logistics –
The U.S. and Germany have warned China not to deliver weapons to Russia. According to information obtained by DER SPIEGEL, however, Beijing and Moscow are said to be negotiating the purchase of 100 strike drones, which could be delivered as soon as April. These drones can carry a warhead of up to 50 KG.
Constructed by Chinese drone manufacturer Xi’an Bingo Intelligent Aviation Technology, Bingo has reportedly agreed to manufacture and test 100 ZT-180 prototype drones before delivering them to the Russian Defense Ministry by April 2023.
Sources believe that the design of the unmanned aerial vehicle could be similar to that of Iran’s Shaheed 136 kamikaze drone.
Ukraine -
WEATHER FORECAST – Temperatures rising to the mid 30’s – lower 40s with rain/snow over most of the forecast period
RUMINT –
Russia had been anticipated to try something to get their offensive up and moving better – but nothing has hit the radar screen yet.
24 HOUR ROUND UP –
Russia continues to focus on the seizure of Bahkmut, making incremental gains on the east and south overnight. Scattered artillery all along the LOC.
OUTLOOK –
Russia is continuing the same old slog in the east. Weather conditions are becoming warmer, restarting the infamous Ukrainian mud and making Russia’s offensive even harder to execute. Russia is simply running out of time before things gumbo up again and Ukraine is gaining time to bring the new western weapon systems on line.
Fighting continues to be centered around Bahkmut – with Russia continuing to make marginal gains. They apparently want to capture the town rather than bypass and isolate it. As a result they are expending tremendous resources.
There are numerous looks backs over the past year on the course of the war, I’ll leave it to them. One deciding factor has been the development and success of Ukraine’s targeting of Russian supply depots. Early in the war, Russia followed its basic war plan of not enough supply trucks to keep forward units supplied with fuel and ammo. This contributed to the bogging down of the invasion all across the board as Ukraine quickly caught on to interdicting these convoys with artillery and TM-2 drones. Remember the famous huge long convoy that was enroute to supply forces near Kyiv and was being eaten alive by Ukraine forces?
Russia then worked place stockpiles closer to the front. However, Ukraine quickly again and focused fire to destroy these dumps. Russia moved them out of artillery range – just in time for the HIMARS to come on line and once again – boom. Now they have pushed these stockpiles even further back and once again are facing a shortfall from not having enough trucks to haul the supplies forward without being interdicted.
A significant part of Ukraine’s successful interdiction of Russian supplies is their adaptation of US fire controls and excellent actionable intelligence from Ukrainian Partisans. Russia has attempted to interdict Ukrainian supply lines, but with far, far less success. This is in part to the burdensome chain of command that fire control missions have to slog thru to get approved. By the time they are approved and the fire orders reach the batteries, the target is gone (but the battery is not informed of that). Add to it that the intelligence is not as accurate at that obtained by Ukraine.
Early on, the waste of artillery fire by Russia wasn’t so terrible as they held a 10:1 and greater advantage in tubes. As the fight as progressed, Russian losses of ammo, artillery pieces and gunners has reduced this advantage to near parity. The case in point being the Ukrainian defense of Bakhmut. Russia technically has the Ukraine forces encircled – controlling supply lines into the city via artillery coverage. Yet Ukrainian forces seem to be well resupplied to continue the defense. Russian artillery dedicated to massive, planned, concentration of fire in support of the ground offensive has little left over for timely interdiction of supplies and the associated slow response times.
Moldova/Transnistria - ALERT MODE
The US Government has told i that it is “deeply concerned” by reports of a Kremlin-backed coup to overthrow the Government of Moldova. The message from Washington comes as fears grow that Putin is plotting to take the capital city and use its airport to open a western front the war in Ukraine.
“The United States firmly supports Moldova’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a US State Department spokesperson reported. “We are deeply concerned by reports of a plot by Russia to destabilize Moldova’s democratically elected government. Russia has a long history of malign influence, both in Moldova and the region and we have worked closely with Moldova to build its political resilience and counter longer-term efforts by Russia to undermine Moldova’s democratic institutions.”
Tensions in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau are mounting after Putin revoked on a 2012 decree that underpinned the nation’s sovereignty on Tuesday.
OBSERVATION – Tensions remain high, though I’m relatively certain that at this stage things will not be going sideways any time soon.
**
The authorities of Moldova have been ready to sabotage the runway of Chisinau International Airport since the first days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The plan, meant to curb a potential invasion of Moldova by Russia, was revealed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nicu Popescu to the local channel Jurnal TV.
OBSERVATION – Moldova considers the Russian threat to be serious. Russia made it a strategic goal to create a land bridge all the way to Transnistria early on.
Belarus -
See Poland beefing up border defenses below.
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“So far, as recent days have shown, neither from the territory of Poland, nor from the territory of Lithuania, let alone Ukraine, do we notice the concentration of troops in order to drag us into the war. We evaluate it positively.” - Lukashenko
OBSERVATION – Invasion by foreign troops is the tripwire Lukashenko has held to in order to stay out of committing Belarus troops to the Ukraine war. He appears to be saying there is no evidence of an impending invasion of Belarus.
Poland –
Poland’s minister of national defense: We have started a preventive expansion of security measures on the border with Russia & Belarus. This is part of our defense and deterrence strategy. The first fortifications are already being placed on the border with Kaliningrad.
Israel –
Oman opens airspace to civilian Israeli planes.
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Considerable rioting in Gaza, Jenin and Samaria, making rocket attacks from Gaza a distinct possibility in the near future.
Earlier, Egypt conveyed a message to Gazan factions: “Israel will severely respond if any escalation blows in the West Bank “
OBSERVATION – More of the ongoing stife as Hamas tries to take leadership of the West Bank from the PA/Abbas.
Iran –
Analysts are trying to figure out what was happening in the city of Karaj, Iran, overnight following reports of several explosions east of the town. Air defense systems were activated and were firing on something. It is reported that there are facilities that produce Shahed-drones in this city.
OBSERVATION – Iran claims it was just a drill.
Economy –
On Friday, the January’s PCE report showed 0.6 percent month-over-month inflation while estimates called for just 0.4 percent. That’s the PCE’s largest increase since last June, mirroring inflationary spikes measured by the Consumer and Producer Price Indexes. Year-over-year, PCE inflation hit 5.4 percent, also beating the expected 5.0 percent. On both a monthly and annual basis, PCE showed accelerating inflation at the start of 2023.
What’s more, Friday’s PCE release revised December’s monthly read up from 0.3 percent to 0.4 percent. That is, inflation is ticking back up and accelerating quickly in the wrong direction.
As Bloomberg noted in its report on the latest inflation number, “the easing that was celebrated at the end of last year has largely been erased after revisions and the acceleration in January.” Their report also quoted Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester as saying there’s still a “need to keep raising rates” and the latest PCE read is “consistent with the fact that the Fed needs to do a little more on our policy rate to make sure that inflation is moving back down.”
OBSERVATION – This is not good news and being released on Friday may cause more ripples when next week rolls around. This increased PCE is a harbinger of increasing inflation - meaning that the Fed may shift its thoughts yet again to larger rate increases rather than the smaller increases and slowdown they discussed a couple weeks ago. Rates are at their highest level since the financial crisis of 2007-2008 — Friday’s PCE report means that the chances of a so-called “soft landing” for the economy as it slows are dwindling.
Biden / Harris watch –
Press: “Are you planning on traveling to East Palestine?”
Biden: “At this moment not. I was, I did a whole video, I mean, uh, you know, the uh, what the hell? Zoom. All I can hear every time I think of Zoom is that song of my generation, ‘Who’s Zoomin’ Who?’”
CW2/Domestic violence –
NC House Speaker Tim Moore, his security and Rep. David Willis were involved in a car accident this evening, in which another car rammed into their vehicle several times on the interstate. Circumstances are under investigation.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman and highway patrol told Axios that James Matthew Brogden of Goldsboro was arrested and charged with misdemeanors for the following: driving while impaired, resisting a public officer, injury to personal property, speeding to elude arrest, failure to heed blue lights and siren, hit and run, failure to reduce speed to avoid a collision and damage to property.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman and highway patrol told Axios that James Matthew Brogden of Goldsboro was arrested and charged with misdemeanors for the following: driving while impaired, resisting a public officer, injury to personal property, speeding to elude arrest, failure to heed blue lights and siren, hit and run, failure to reduce speed to avoid a collision and damage to property.
OBSERVATION – Alcohol can remove restraint on an individual’s urges. Combined with the recent murders of two NJ(?) republican state representatives I am growing increasingly concerned over the potential that on a state / local level republicans are becoming targeted for violence.
**
MSNBC extremist contributor Jason Johnson declared Thursday that the Republican Party no longer exists and that it is now just a front for a terrorist organisation. Johnson made the comments during a discussion centered on the release of previously unseen footage from the January 6th Capitol incident.
House Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s provided the unreleased security camera footage to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, immediately triggering the far left.
Johnson commented on the move, stating “I’m not being incendiary when I say this, I’ve been saying this for a long time… There is no Republican Party. They’re a dime store front for a terrorist organization.”
OBSERVATION - While this dude is just a bloviating wannabe, his comments pull back the curtain of thought from the Marxist left on their thoughts and ultimately their goals to try to eliminate the right. The MSM doesn’t just shill out its TV time for anyone/anything and is interconnected to the Marxist swamp as a propaganda mouthpiece. Most certainly his views reflect those of the leftist leadership of this country.
IN RELATED – I haven’t commented on this arrogant ignoramus with delusions of adequacy before, but it reflects the observation above. Joy Behar thinks residents of East Palestine got what they deserved because they voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Yes, she will be allowed to show up for work next week to have more sewage spill out of her mouth, but once again – she is reflecting the thoughts and desires of the hard left that is pulling the strings of media and govt.
Russia -
WAR WATCH - First Anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Feb 24th, 2022
CURRENT ASSESSMENT
Russian forces have initiated an offensive who’s declared goals are to reach and secure the Luhansk and Donetsk oblast borders — an objective that Russian Chief of General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov had also outlined on December 22, 2022. Troop and equipment build up is being noted
This offensive action is focused on several fronts – 1) the Svatove-Kreminna front, 2) Bahkmut region, 3) Donetsk region and 4) Zaporizhizhia Oblast around the town of Vuhledar.
Russia is also capable of launching more cruise/ballistic missile attacks directed against Ukrainian infrastructure -primarily its power grid, but massively reduced inventories of such missiles means these barrages will be further apart.
While Russia has nuclear capability, the probability is low that any will be used in the near future.
********
One year ago Russia invaded Ukraine and thus begun one of the nastiest conflicts in my life time.
You can refresh yourselves to the start of that war as it was tracked here in TM at the following link.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4026005/posts?page=1#1
The anniversary date came and went with Russia unable to tout any success in their current offensive – a very telling tale indeed.
Logistics –
- Iranian made Shahad 136 drones have been absent from the battlefield since Feb 13h, suggesting that Russia’s stockpile of the systems is gone. Russia is suspected on trying to obtain more from Iran. These drones have had a high rate of being shot down, but have served to locally overwhelm air defense systems, giving higher powered Russian ballistic and cruise missiles a better chance of hitting their targets.
Economic Impact –
- The US marked the anniversary of Ukraine war with sanctions against Russian banks, military industry, semiconductor access.
Ukraine -
WEATHER FORECAST – Temperatures rising to the mid 30’s – lower 40s with rain/snow over most of the forecast period
24 HOUR ROUND UP –
The majority of the fighting continues to be along the Donetsk-Kreminna line, again focused on Bahkmut, where Russian forces continue to eke out minor gains at a high cost of men and machines. Russian scattered artillery attacks all along the LOC from Kherson to Sumy Oblast.
OUTLOOK –
I can see no real changes in the current general stalemate in Ukraine. It is becoming more evident that Ukraine is executing an economy of force operation in the east (particularly Bahkmut) that is freeing up resources to train and fall in on modern, western tanks, APCs and other weapon systems – in order to have all put together for an offensive. The Russians appear to be losing the race to preempt that offensive and are frittering away its resources in ill-designed operations that in the long run will help Ukraine’s offensive.
Its been a while since a big Russian missile attack on Ukraine and lots of talk of increased Russian naval vessels with cruise missile launching capabilities being deployed in the Black Sea – an indicator of an impending attack. Monitoring the Russian AF strategic bomber nets to see if they activate and start sending out the formatted (they are encrypted) message for that component of an attack. My guess that Monday is the next window – as Russia has had a habit of doing such attacks on that day.
Moldova/Transnistria - ALERT MODE
Russia’s foreign ministry says that any actions threatening Russian peacekeepers in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria will be seen as an attack on Russia - TASS
OBSERVATION – Some of the dust appears to be settling from all the rhetoric this week. It seems to me that Russia was attempting to sow some seeds of misdirection and discontent here as well as rumored false flag operation against Belarus to drag them into the war.
The EU has adopted new sanctions against Russia. These include bans on exports of technology, imports of asphalt and synthetic rubber, provision of gas storage capacity to Russians The EU has also suspended the broadcasting licenses of RT Arabic and Sputnik Arabic
Israel –
Balance of power and operations is shifting as Russia draws closer to Iran for support in the war in Ukraine. Israel has had an under the table agreement to coordinate with Russia — which largely controls Syrian airspace — in order to carry out strikes on Iranian/Hezbollah targets. Now that Russia is moving to supply Iran with fighter jets to Iran as part of an expanding military cooperation effort that has seen Tehran ship growing quantities of weaponry to Moscow for use in the invasion of Ukraine, this balance with Israel is becoming upended.
This is trending two ways. First, Israel is gradually opening up to supplying Ukraine with weapon systems. Second, Israel is preparing for potential Russian attempts at preventing Israeli interdiction of Iranian shipments – raising the concern for a direct Israeli-Russian confrontation over Syria.
Iran –
Iran will likely send air defense systems to Syria, Iranian state television reported Friday, a move apparently meant to protect against Israeli airstrikes.
“Syria needs to rebuild its air defense network and requires precision bombs for its fighter planes,” the Iranian state broadcaster said, according to Reuters.
“It is very likely that we will witness the supply by Iran of radars and defense missiles, such as the 15 Khordad system, to reinforce Syria’s air defenses,” it added.
OBSERVATION – Syrian S300/400 systems have had only marginal success against Israeli bombing missions against Iranian/Hezbollah targets in Syria. Iran is seeking more support to protect its operations to prepare for an eventual attack on Israel. Iran is losing billions of dollars in destroyed arms, munitions and material annually to Israeli strikes and is desperate to find ways to mitigate that.
**
Iran released a video of the new Iranian cruise missile named Paveh with a reported range of 1650 km.
Syria -
See Iran potentially suppling ADA systems above.
Turkey -
Quick note on the current death toll from the quake. Numbers of dead now exceed 50,000 and are still climbing.