News From the NATOstan-Imposed Meat Grinder

Q: What is your assessment of the situation right now on the ground in Bahkmut and going forward as we enter this winter phase of this proxy war going on in Ukraine?

Scott Ritter: Well first let's understand that the battle for Bahkmut has been going on for many, many months now. Bahkmut is the "Gordian knot" of the Ukrainian defensive belt that exists in Donestk. A defensive belt that has been constructed on a continuous basis since 2014. It is one of the most extensive, fortified defense systems in modern history. It is manned with troops. It has the support of heavy equipment, artillery, etc. And the Russians have been in the business of grinding it down for many weeks and what we see right now is basically we are seeing the culmination of all of the Russian effort.

I always laugh when people say, "How could Ukraine be outgunned." I don't know maybe because they only have x number of artillery pieces and the Russians have x times 10. I know that when I have more artillery pieces than you I am going to win that fight generally speaking especially in positional warfare where you have made is pretty easy for me by sitting in your positions that I can identify using my intelligence resources and pound you into submission.

You know there are two aspects to this fight. One is that the Russians are more than happy to let the Ukrainians sit in place and suffer casualties. Often times the Ukrainian battalion will rotate into the front lines and days later will rotate out suffering 60% casualties without ever having seen a Russian. They'll just show up and they die. Then they leave and another battalion comes in . And that's the thing. The Ukrainians are rotating battalions in. Every once in a while The Ukrainians will fail to rotate in on time; leave some chink in their armor and if that time is right the Russians will carry out an assault on that position. This is extraordinarily bloody combat, close quarters combat of the most intimate nature. They will face-to-face in trench; hand grenades, knives, bayonets, rifle stocks, bullets at close range and the Russians tend to prevail, seize the position and then they wait and start the process of grinding down the next position.

The goal of the Russians, of course, is to kill as many Ukrainians as possible and fortunately for Russia Ukraine is giving them plenty of opportunities to do just this by their tactics. One has to wonder at what point in time Ukrainians will recognize that the price of holding on to Bahkmut is too high. That Ukraine would be better off preserving these forces; some of who are well trained and using them as a mobile defense capable at least of lowering the casualty ratio. Right now Russia is enjoying an 8 to 1; 10 to 1 ratio primarily because it can exploit its artillery advantage. Even when Ukraine has modern Western artillery such as the M777 from the United States...the HIMARS, other artillery systems from other NATO countries they don't exist in sufficient quantities to level the battle field."

This morning I read the Pepe Escobar (Independent geopolitical analyst, writer and journalist) article (scroll down) which further develops what has apparently become the Russian strategy for winning this proxy war against NATO. What I find particularly interesting about it is the concept that massive offensives may not be necessary for their success. No winter offensive?

Is their plan just to continue to attrit (read: kill) Ukrainian soldiers until there is nothing left to fight except Poles?

Mid-autumn, near Kherson. A detailed analysis of one of the battles between soldiers from the Far East and AFU paratroopers.

A group of paratroopers from the 46th AFU airmobile brigade, traveling along the line of contact, are ambushed by a subdivision of our 38th motorized rifle brigade.

The first grenade launcher hit the side of the armored vehicle, forcing it to stop and the troops inside and on the armored vehicle to disperse. Most of the fighters run into the woods, while the rest hide in the grass and behind the armored vehicle. After the second grenade launcher hits the unit in ambush, it opens deadly fire from small arms on the insurgents. As a result, all the enemy personnel was annihilated.

An interesting fact from the participant's account of this battle: out of the 16 killed AFU paratroopers, only two had Ukrainian documents. The remaining 14 were Polish citizens

❗️The checkpoints in Kharkov and Nikolaev are manned by girls and mercenaries

According to Strana V sources, there are only girls and foreign mercenaries at the roadblocks in front of Kharkov and Nikokolev.

💬"Most of the large checkpoints are manned exclusively by female soldiers," one of the channel's interlocutors said.

According to another source, there are fewer Ukrainian soldiers in Kharkov, but there are still mercenaries speaking French, English, and German.

Somewhere in her private pantheon, Pallas Athena, Goddess of Geopolitics, is immensely enjoying the show.

No one ever lost money capitalizing on the unlimited nonsense spewed out by the collective deer caught in the headlights also known as Western mainstream media – complete with showering Person of the Year awards on a megalomaniac, cocaine-fueled lousy actor impersonating a warlord.

The non-stop trashy parade of Western military analysts is now “assessing” that the first targets of an incoming, joint Russia-Belarus attack on the 404 black hole formerly known as Ukraine will be Lviv, Lutsk, Rivne, Zhytomyr, and why not throw Kiev in the mix straight out of a second axis.

The Russian General Staff is attentively monitoring all the action and may even follow the advice of such “analysts”.

And then there’s outright panic, as the Ministry of Defense announced that the Strategic Missile Forces have loaded two Yars ICBMs into their intended silos. Cue to widespread shrieks of horror of the “Russia Readies Nuclear Missile Capable Of Striking Deep Into US” variety.

Some facts though never change. Number One is NATO as a figment of the collective West’s – extremely impaired – imagination. If push ever came to shove – as Straussian/neo-con armchair warriors hope and pray – Russia can conveniently defeat the whole of NATO as there is hardly anything “there”.

That, of course, would require a massive Russian mobilization. As it stands, Russia may look feeble in a few quarters as they activated at best 100,000 troops against possibly 1 million Ukrainian troops. It’s as if Moscow was not exactly seduced by the idea of “winning” – which may be the case, in a quite twisted way.

Even now, Moscow has not mobilized enough troops to occupy Ukraine – which, in theory, would be imperative to completely “denazify” the Kiev racket. The operative concept though is “in theory”. Moscow in fact is busy demonstrating a completely new theory – irrespective of the fact that a few exalted souls have been peddling that Putin should be replaced by the FSB’s Alexander Bortnikov.

With its array of hypersonic missiles, Russia can knock out all NATO bridges, ports, airports as well as power stations, oil and natural gas storage, Rotterdam oil and natural gas installations, in a matter of a few hours. All energy production equipment across NATOstan would be destroyed. Europe would be shut off from natural resources. A dazed and confused Empire would be unable to move troops, any troops, to Europe.

And still provocations run unabated. The recent attack by Tu-141 Ukrainian drones against Engels-2 airbase was blamed by Moscow on Kiev – which predictably denied all responsibility. Yet what really mattered was Moscow’s strategic messaging to US/NATO, with Putin flirting with the notion that sooner or later the response may be up a serious notch in case US/NATO weaponry supplied to Kiev is used to strike deep into sensitive Russian Federation territory.

The current Russian doctrine even allows Moscow to respond with nuclear strikes; after all Engels-2 airbase is home to nuclear-capable bombers, prime strategic assets.

The drones were certainly launched by infiltrated agents inside Russian territory. If they had originated from outside Russia, and interpreted as nuclear missiles, that could have triggered the launch against NATOstan of hundreds of Russian nuclear missiles.

Putin himself made it – ominously – quite clear at the Eurasia Economic Council summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, a week ago:

“I assure you, after the early warning system receives a signal of a missile attack, hundreds of our missiles are in the air (…) It is impossible to stop them (…) There will be nothing left of the enemy, because it is impossible to intercept a hundred missiles. This, of course, is a deterrent – a serious deterrent.”

Not, of course, to the stupidity-corroded Straussian-neocon gang who are actually running American foreign “policy”.

It’s no wonder reliable Russian intel sources established that the missiles that hit Engels-2 were locally launched, though the Kiev regime desired it to be believed otherwise.

And that turns the whole charade into a Dadaist farce – with a dazed and confused Empire still bound to a maniac in Kiev who still believes that the Ukrainian S-300 that hit Poland came from Russia. Cue to the whole world – and not only Washington – as hostage to a “Person of the Year” maniac with the – virtual – power of provoking a worldwide nuclear war.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Russia has gone Deep Operations Strategy, big time. In several spots along the extensive frontline, they attack the points that are most likely to draw out poor Ukrainian reserves hiding in the second line of defense. When reserves come out through barren, muddy lands and terrible roads to the rescue of frontline units, entire battalions are massacred.

Russians never go deep into the third line – where command and control may be located. What’s in play is attrition warfare under Deep Operations Strategy, straight out of the playbook of the legendary “Red Napoleon”, Field Marshall Mikhail Tukhachevsky.

Russia saves soldiers, personnel and equipment. The whole thing works wonders in difficult terrain where vehicles get bogged down in rainy roads. This rinse and repeat tactic, day in day out, for months on end has led to (at least) 400,000 Ukrainian casualties. Call it the epitome of Attritional Warfare.

Historians will relish that the whole scenario resembles the Battle of Agincourt – where wave after wave of French Knights (playing the role of present day Ukrainians, and Polish/NATO mercenaries) kept running uphill against English archers and knights who just stood still and let them come, hitting the second line again and again.

The difference, of course, is that Russians are employing attritional warfare tactics day after day for six months now, while Agincourt was just one battle in a single day. By the time this meat grinder is over an entire generation of Ukrainians and Poles will have gone to meet their maker.

The collective West’s myth of a Ukrainian “victory” against the Russian war of attrition does not even qualify as cosmic delusion. It’s a lousy, lethal joke. The only way out would be to sit down at the negotiating table, now, before the hammer (the next Russian offensive) comes down on the anvil (the existing frontline).

But NATO, of course, as Stultifying Stoltenberg keeps reminding the world, does not do negotiations.

Which, in a sense, may be a blessing, as NATO may end up breaking up in myriad pieces, totally humiliated on the ground despite all its elaborate warmongering plans.

Andrei Martyanov has been peerless tracking the collective West’s complete economic, moral, intellectual – and most of all military – degradation, everything drenched in lies, lousy P.R. twists and “stupefying incompetence across the board.”

All this while Russia prepares “for yet another ‘defeat’, like retaking all of Donbass and then… Who knows what then. A quick win for Russia would be a loss because NATO would still exist. No, Russia has to pace this so as it sucks in NATO into the grinder.”

Somewhere in her private pantheon, Pallas Athena, Goddess of Geopolitics, is immensely enjoying the show. Oh, wait; she’s actually reincarnated, and her name is Maria Zakharova.

“This is not a credible source. Founded in 2010, the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research, and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. SCF completely lacks transparency by not listing owners or editors.”
Strategic Culture Foundation - Media Bias/Fact Check

mediabiasfactcheck.com/strategic-culture-foundation/

I’m expecting Russia to win and I think the West is playing this game more poorly than many would think. We are throwing money into a fire and believing propaganda which is unbelievable. Yes, it’s true, the Russian propaganda is also unbelievable. But every time I read Ukrainian propaganda telling me how much they are winning, it just makes me think Russia has this well under control.

“Your source works for Russian intelligence and the Defense Ministry of Russia....Just sayin.”
______________________

Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist and geopolitical analyst. His column “The Roving Eye” for Asia Times regularly discusses the multi-national “competition for dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia.”

Cut-and-Paste Cathi doesn’t check sources - she relentlessly scours the internet look for any story that confirms her belief that the Russians are on the verge of resounding victory, and ignores those that describe how the Russians are running out of, well, everything, and will probably collapse. There are about hundred time more of the latter story than of the former, but CPC doesn’t care.

“Your source works for Russian intelligence and the Defense Ministry of Russia....Just sayin.”
______________________
Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian journalist and geopolitical analyst. His column “The Roving Eye” for Asia Times regularly discusses the multi-national “competition for dominance over the Middle East and Central Asia.”

Cut-and-Paste Cathi clearly cut and pasted that blurb about Escobar from Wikipedia (she’s so lazy) but curiously left out this:

The United States State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC) has identified several outlets that publish or republish work by Escobar as being used by Russia for propaganda and disinformation. In 2020, the GEC stated that both the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) and Global Research, two online journals where Escobar's work has appeared, acted as pro-Russian propaganda sites.According to the GEC, "Pepe Escobar began writing articles for Global Research in 2005 and ten years later became an SCF author.

Escobar has also been a commentator for RT and Sputnik News; both outlets were highlighted in a 2022 GEC report as members of "Russia's disinformation and propaganda ecosystem."[31] Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Yermolenko describes Escobar as an example of "anti-Western intellectuals" hosted by RT, adding that Escobar suggests "dividing Ukraine between Poland and Russia."

In 2012, Jesse Zwick at The New Republic asked Escobar why he was willing to work with RT; Escobar replied, "I knew the Kremlin involvement, but I said, why not use it? After a few months, I was very impressed by the American audience. There are dozens of thousands of viewers. A very simple story can get 20,000 hits on YouTube. The feedback was huge.”

On February 25, 2022, the Spanish newspaper ABC criticized Escobar's Sputnik comments concerning Ukraine and other topics, calling them "the usual ones of Russian disinformation: 'Yankee' imperialism, NATO excesses, Russian victimization."

I wonder why.

“I follow Escabar and find him VERY credible.”

That’s because you are a fellow traveler.

Escobar is a notorious leftist, who is viscerally anti-west.
That’s why he is so well-received in such bastions of “objectivity” as Salon, the Huffington Post, The Nation, RT, Sputnik, The Real News, etc.

You find him credible because you see the world as he does.

Just as you find uber-leftist Sharon Tennison credible. A known apologist for Putin, and a fierce critic of NATO and supporter of Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea, Tennison is what in the old Soviet days was known as a “useful idiot.”

Your bias towards Russia and your animosity towards the United States is readily apparent. When votes come up in the UN condemning Russia’s actions you make snide comments to the effect that the only reason parties voted for the condemnation is because the United States bribed them. Per your post #32 on 12/21/2022: “And there wouldn’t even have been the whole 82 who voted yes had it not been for the fact that we bribe and threaten countries to support our positions at the UN.”

Be an adult, Katya, and admit your bias.

“mediabiasfactcheck.com/strategic-culture-foundation/”

Oh, the people who claim that the NY Times is only ‘Slightly Biased’? The newspaper that LED THE WAY with Trump/Russia Collusion?

Nice Try.

New York Times: LEFT-CENTER BIAS These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/

No matter how much some want to believe Escobar, Ritter and others backing Russia inevitable victory are right, they have all been wrong for ten months. It does not matter how knowledgeable they sound, how much confirmation bias they provide, they have been wrong since the war began.

For those who know better, Ritter is playing games. He flips Russia and Ukraine on the battlefield, and Russia and NATO off the battlefield, to make it sound like Russia is winning. To those who figured this out, he is not informed or bnknowledgeable. He is lying, and not all that well.

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