Free Republic

The von Moltke of the ring? ;-)

How do you know what the RF plan is? You’ll not get any understanding from the MSM/Neocon sources posted here. Of course, as von Moltke said, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Nevertheless, but for Western interference, the March Istanbul agreement would have prevented the destruction of the AFU and dismemberment of Ukraine, while achieving the RF’s basic objectives. After that, the RF has adjusted its goals as events have unfolded, but the basic objective of attritting the AFU has continued unabated, and there is nothing Ukraine or the West can do to stop it.

Ukraine and the West have spent a fortune on a psyops operation in an effort to maintain political support by spinning a “narrative” of the RF as evil (reflected in your source, and I’ve seen a lot of that elsewhere) and the Zelensky regime as “plucky”, “heroic”, and “prevailing”. What astonishes me is that even as lie after lie by NATO/Ukraine has been exposed people contnue to accept the mendacious NATO/Ukrainian narratives. Here are just a few of them: the “Ghost of Kiev”, the “Snake Island Massacre”, the Russian mass rape hoax (finally admitted to by the Rada, no less), the Bucha massacre hoax, the Zelensky regime hoax about the RF attacking Poland with a missile (actually a Ukrainian missile) in an effort to trigger Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, the hoax that the RF blew up the Nordstream pipeline, fantastical claims about RF soldier and equipment losses (as of 2/12 even the BBC puts verified Russian losses at around 14k soldiers, while even Zaluhzny and Van der Leyen publicly have stated AFU losses at over 100k before the end of 2022), the “Putin is dead or terribly ill hoax”, and the claims that the RF is running out of missiles and ammunition. There are many more, and NATO/Ukraine are contemplating others, as in the AFU (using Russian uniforms) engaging in a false flag operation in Moldova to “justify” attacking Transnistria and seizing the Soviet ammunition there.

As things stand, the RF is demilitarizing Ukraine at a rapid rate. What is worse, the RF is exposing the West as having militaries and military manufacturing capabilities that have been hollowed out.

Unlike many here, I spend hours a day collecting information from various sources, not because I want to get into a war with the “keyboard warriors” waving pom poms for Ukraine, but because I believe that the fallout from the war is likely to reshape the world politically and economically and, consequently, will affect my investments.

So, here are a few thoughts. 1. This war MAY discredit NATO and eventually result in its being severely weakened or broken up. It MAY also result in major changes in the political leadership of Western Europe (and I would hope the US, but I’m not in least confident of that). 2. The war will hasten the demise of the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency and result in alternative international financial institutions (E.g., alternatives to BIS and SWIFT) that are not controlled by the West. 3. It has and will continue to damage the relationship of the West with the Global South. 4. The geopolitical world will become “multi-polar”. 5. Gold and silver are likely to play a role in creating alternative reserve currencies. 6. The weakening of the reserve currency status of the Dollar will significantly impair living standards in the US.

While I agree that neither side has flawlessly executed military operation in the war, it’s simply not true that both sides’ “execution” has been equally flawed. As thnigs stand, the AFU is being forced to “run to the knife” and is being savaged. Even the Pentagon and others in the West have been advising the Zelensky regime against to doing this (as has the leadership of the AFU). On the other hand, while the Russians have stumbled from time to time, for example in Ugledar because of incorrect intel and engineering mistakes, the RF continues to minimize its losses of men and equipment by intelligently exploiting its overwhelming advantage in artillery, missiles, drones, tanks, and air power.

We had all better pray that NATO doesn’t get any more involved than it has, or we all could be facing something catastrophic.

Take care!

Not later than fall, but perhaps by June.

Elements of the AFU along the northern portion of the line of contact (Krasyny Liman to Kupiansk) are already complaining about their lack of ammunition. The despe5rate search for ammunition usuable by the AFU reflects the shortage. As for “opinion”, it is not “opinion” that the SMO’s primary objective is demilitarization of Ukraine. It is not “opinion” that the AFU cannot engage in combined arms warfare because they have little artillery and ammunition, no air force to speak of or many drones, virtually no air defense, and no modern main battle tanks (even its T 64s have mostly been pulled off the line of contact). It is not “opinion” that the RF’s ammo dumps in Transnistria are the largest in Europe and perfectly suited for AFU use. It is not “opinion” that despite transparently false NATO propaganda, Russians are not running out of artillery shells and missiles. That bit of mendacious fluff has appeared from time to time in the Western press since last spring, yet the AFU has had to endure Russian artillery barrages that have ranged from 20k to 60k shells a day. Massive missile strikes continue to occur periodically and are dismantling the electrical and other war fighting infrastructure of Ukraine. That is not an “opinion”. The Zelensky regime’s dragging 16 year-olds, the elderly, and women into the AFU is not difficult to discover. It is not an “opinion” that giving various flavors of modern main battle tanks or aircraft will make no difference in this conflict. Learning to operate a tank at a very basic level takes at least 6 months, but it takes years to learn how to use tanks in combined arms warfare (look for what Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, for example, writes on this topic in “45”, which is an online magazine). As for aircraft, even the extremely pro Ukraine British press admits that the fastest a pilot can become proficient in an F 16 is 35 months (that’s the shortest course). That is not an “opinion”. If you look at how long it takes us to train pilots and tankers, you will understand. I would also mention that there are enormous logistical issues relating to the use of these weapons platforms. Brian Berletic discusses this at length on The New Atlas (he is pro RF, but these are easily verifiable technical issues). It is NOT an opinion that the losses of the AFU were catastrophic in Kherson and Kharkov. In Kherson the AFU never reached the RF lines because of the intensity of the artillery and arial bombardment.

None of this is a matter of favoring one side over the other. Ukraine is potentially a few missile strikes short of losing its electrical grid (do you know that the Ukrainian train system, which is the AFU’s main logistical asset, is almost all electric and that the Ukrainian guage is incompatible with Europes’, so that European diesels can’t pick up the slack? That is not an “opinion”.); the AFU’s position is precarious all along the line of contact.

I agree that the RF could have crushed Ukraine at the beginning, but that was not the objective of the SMO. Had the West not pressured Zelensky to walk away from the agreement he had hammered out with the RF in Istanbul in March, the RF gamble on a very limited military operation would have proved correct. Unfortunately, Zelensky did walk away. Now we don’t know what the RF’s end game will be. My suggestion about that end game IS an opinion. Whatever the details of the final settlement, there will be no Ukraine as it existed at 2/24/22.

If you are truly interested in fair-minded, fact-based (but far from infallible) information about the war, you can get detail on what is happening on the line of contact down to a granular level on The Military Summary Channel, and a broader perspective that includes both military and geopolitical issues is available from Alexander Mercouris. Berletic is pro-Russian, but he is extremely good on technical issues and always provides extensive links to his sources. The first two post every day, and Berlectic posts 2-3 times a week. Mercouris is a former lawyer and tries scrupulously to be as fair as possible.

I wish you well.

You are wrong. The Russian Federation is winning. Taking territory is not the primary objective; it is, as has been stated from the beginning, the demilitarization of Ukraine.

The Zelensky regime has been begging for weapons precisely because the Russian Federation destroyed most of the military equipment Ukraine began the war with by early summer. Ukraine was resupplied with a new army’s worth of equipment, and that was destroyed in the disasterous Kherson and Kharkov “offensives”, in which Ukraine lost brigades and brigades worth of men and equipment. The number of Ukrainian soldiers killed and wounded is astronomical, which is why Ukraine is now enlisting down to 16 year-olds and conscripting up to 60 year-olds. Women are being put into service, and men are being dragged off the streets and sent to the front with no training.

The Russians continue to destroy Ukrainian equipment, and Zelensky continues to demand more arms. Unfortunately for him, the West has been shown to have squandered it’s wealth on the welfare state and our militaries are nearly hollowed out, as is also the case with our ability to manufacture arms. There is almost nothing we can spare now to send Ukraine in the way of ammunition or other arms.

Demands for tanks and aircraft are idiotic because of the time it takes to train on these systems so they can even theoretically be used effectively. It’s theoretical because those weapons systems can’t be used effectively except in combined arms campaigns, which Ukraine cannot support (not nearly enough artillery, air defense systems, ammunition, etc.), and the West can’t provide them in any relevant time frame.

The Russians have been content to take their time. They pound strongly fortified Ukrainian positions with massive firepower day after day, and then they send in the their tanks and infantry to finish the job. Most of the time the Ukrainians keep feeding reserves into the positions they are trying to hold, and the Russians continue the destruction with their artillery. If, as the Russians say, the Ukrainians want to continue “running to the knife” the Russians are content to continue with their target practice.

It will not be long before the AFU collapses somewhere along the line of contact, and the Russians will then move, having preserved its men and equipment. How much territory will the Russians take? In March they would have settled for recognition of Crimea and semi-autonomy for the Donbass. Now, given the extent of Western intervention, who knows? Perhaps the line will be drawn along the Dnieper from the north and sweep around to the south to Transnistria.

BTW, keep an eye on Transnistria and Moldova. Kiev is trying to pull Moldovans into the war so Ukrainians can seize Transnistria. Why? Because the largest ammo dumps in Europe are there full of Soviet era ammunition that Ukraine desperately needs because the West is unable to supply ammunition in the quantities needed. Of course, the propaganda line is that the Russians are planning to takeover Moldova. While it is likely that a majority of Moldovans support the Russian Federation, look at a map. At this stage of the game there is no point for the Russians to add another theatre of war, certainly one far behind Ukrainian lines that would involve very difficult logistics. Ukraine, on the other hand, is right on the border of Transnistria/Moldova and has an existential imperative to invade. My guess is that Ukraine will collaborate with the West-friendly Moldovan government to fabricate claims of an attempted Russian coup as a pretext for military action. There may be a coup, but if there is it will be because the the Moldovan people lack food and heat - no Russians needed. In any event, the Russians will have to do something to prevent Ukraine from seizing the ammunition in Transnistria.

This is a US proxy war against the Russian Federation that should never have happened. If the American people had been asked if we wanted to foment a war in Ukraine the answer would have been a resounding “No.”

“Common ground in “winning” by election fraud”

That is certainly the truth. Brazilians tell me that a lot of the vote fraud took place in NE Brazil.

Crenshaw is a WEF narcissist. Unfortunately, he’s in a safe district masquerading as a “conservative”.

VDH, like other “conservatives”, fails to recognize that k-12 government schools are the main instrument of the destruction of our culture. It was been a slow process, but the government schools are now so toxic that only the willfully blind can overlook the hideous danger they pose to children and the culture. Government has no legitimate role in education in a free society, yet “conservatives” love the socialist education model and, by now, dishonestly argue that they can be “reformed”. Yeah...just like Soviet collective farms could be reformed. Government schools are systematic child abuse.

This bit about the “persecution” of Galileo is almost entirely untrue. 1. The heliocentric theory was Copernicus’s, not Galileo’s. Copernicus was a Catholic cleric, and the Church published his work, which circulated for decades freely. 2. Galileo, like many gifted people, was arrogant, and he was so infatuated with Copernicus’ theory that his championing of the theory overlooked critical facts and was presented in a poorly disguised ad hominem tirade against the Pope. 3. The Copernican theory did NOT predict well because it assumed that orbits are circular. The Ptolemaic geocentric theory, though complicated, made more accurate predictions about the movements of the planets. At the time, it was clearly the better theory based on the evidence. 4. Cardinal Bellarmine investigated the controversy and concluded that the heliocentric theory was promising, but wasn’t supported by the facts, which was correct. 5. It wasn’t until Kepler theorized that orbits are elliptical, not circular, that the deficiencies of Copernican model were corrected. This was long after Galileo’s death. 6. Galileo was financially supported by the Church, and that support continued after the investigation until his death. Galileo was never tortured, never held in a prison, or in any other way physically abused. 7. This Galileo myth is largely a 19th Century invention and has been repeated endlessly because it has been useful to the secular left in the culture wars. There are many other examples of tales about the “war” between “science” and Christianity that are nothing but useful, false narratives.

Unfortunately, this nonsense is endlessly repeated. Historians of science, however, know better.

I see you have gotten a lot of intense responses. Again, I think the problem is the use of the term “rooting”, which frames this very serious issue in an unserious way. I understand that the term originated from another poster, and the vitriol might be better directed toward him. In any event, I want to be clear: 1. The West is ultimately responsible for this war and is using the Ukrainians as pawns who are being manipulated by a successor to a US installed coup government. and 2. Despite the bilge being reported by the vast majority of the government subservient Western press, the AFU is being systematically destroyed. It has no air power or significant artillery, and the brave, but poorly trained and equipped AFU soldiers, are being used as cannon fodder for Neocon geopolitical and domestic political purposes. I am also astonished at how people here uncritically accept this new “Russia, Russia, Russia” Biden administration/Western narrative, as exemplified by crudely dishonest Daily Mail articles. From the Ghost of Kiev to “Putin is dead or dying” to the Russians are out of ammunition and missiles to the Russian economy is collapsing, we have been treated to one obvious lie after another obvious lie, and yet people here don’t stop to think that perhaps that they are being misled. On the moral side Russia has the better case. On the empirical side (how each side is doing), the Russians have been far more effective than the people in the West realize, and I expect that the RF will take and hold what they want. The idea that Ukraine will push them out is a fantasy. The next few months will tell. The main thing that worries me is that the small cabal of fascists who constitute that “ruling class” in DC and the rest of Nato are likely contemplating a nuclear false flag to escalate the war when they can no longer hide that the conventional war has been lost. Given that the RF has not threatened to use nuclear weapons (and wouldn’t want to even if it were consistent with its longstanding nuclear doctrine because winds would likely spread radioactive fallout to Russia and Belarus), the Biden administration’s warnings to the RF not to use nukes can only represent an effort to condition the public to think that the RF has been threatening nukes so that it will be easier to sell a false flag. I’m not saying that the false flag will happen - there are people in the Pentagon, for example, who are appalled by this Neocon gambit and are pushing back - but the narcissistic evil that governs DC right now shouldn’t be underestimated.

I’ve written far too much in prior posts and messages trying to correct misunderstandings, and have discovered that very few here are interested in serious analysis and evaluation of sources. So, I’m done commenting on this.

“Rooting” is unserious linguistic smog. Asking why many people here believe that in this particular situation Russia is in right and the Biden administration and its neocons are in the wrong would have been a reasonable question, except that those here who oppose the Biden administration on this have explained this ad nauseam and are amused at how allegedly “solid conservatives” are posting utter nonsense from our government/NATO controlled media as if suddenly WAPO, Daily Mail, and Yahoo have become credible sources.

I don’t know who AAABEST is, but I’m sorry you got dragged into this.

Bear in mind, there are 2 separate issues: 1. which side is right and which is wrong and 2. accuracy of daily MSM reporting. There is no question that reporting on Ukraine is a psyops operation as well funded and executed by our government and other goverments, including co-opted media outlets, as the Covid psyops atrocity.

This isn’t a sporting event, and no one is rooting for Putin. The question indicates you don’t understand the the issue, and why are you asking for someone else? Trolls perhaps?

This “missile strike” business is nonsense. Everyone knows that the RF is out of weapons and men. These strikes were actually carried out by flying babushkas riding their broom handles and handbagging Ukrainian infrastructure into rubble. Apparently, the RF hasn’t run out fo babushkas. Even the Daily Mail hasn’t claimed that.

From a military point of view, I agree. I do believe that the RF was somewhat constrained militarily, though, because it had to consolidate markets and acquire new ones to counter sanctions. That, in turn, involved having to bring China,India, and the Global South to the RF side, at least implicitly. China, in particular, is sensitive to anything that encourages secession movements. Samarkand resolved that, and the Kerch Bridge incident provided a very public reason for going after Ukrainian infrastructure.

You do have a sense of humor.

We live in a time when achieving “consensus” within a university setting is a vice. The leadership that is needed would make changes the left would never accept.

The so-called “Doomers” come at this with a level of anaytical sophistication that resembles fans rooting for a sports team, and there is no evidence that they are critical consumers of “information”. Yesterday (Saturday), Mercouris, the Military Summary Channel, and The New Atlas did a good job of putting things into perspective in a environment of uncertainty regarding developments.

Holding territory during this phase is not the RF’s only objective. Demilitarization is also a key objective. Letting the AFU “run to the knife” has resulted in enormous AFU losses, and tactical retreats preserving Allied lives have also given the AFU what can only be considered pyrrhic victories. With additional troops, the RF should be able to radically increase the army’s operational tempo.

I missed the humor. I apologize.

The allegation of possible involvement with the Nord Stream attacks are pure nonsense. The existence of the sub and its weaponry is a fact.

Sorry, but you simply don’t know the history, and I don’t plan to teach you 5th grade or 7th grade Texas State History.

1. There’s no “again”. The vaunted “Kharkov offensive” was undertaken after (and because of) a Russian tactical withdrawal that left a token force that itself was quickly withdrawn once the offensive started. The “mighty AFU” moved into empty space and suffered a brutal artillery and areospace bombardment and may have suffered as many casualties as in Kherson. The RF losses were minimal. So, no “again”.

2. There is also no “again” in Liman. Some sources say the losses by the AFU in its many unsuccessful attempts to take Liman exceed Kherson. What is sure is that they are substantial. As for “fire control”, I’ll take the Military Summary Channel as a better source than yours, although no source is infallible. MSC says the road and other means of egress are still viable IF there is a need. MSC thinks the final battle for Liman is on now since the AFU is conducting night attacks. Some sources say that elements of the Wagner Group have moved in and that the AFU is again failing. But we will see.

Of course, lost in this little drama is the fact that Izyum and Liman are of no strategic importance. The RF withdrew from Kharkov because they concluded that attacking Slavyansk from the Izyum bridgehead wasn’t worth the cost involved in clearing “Sherwood Forest”. So, they withdrew, established as easily defensible line, and severely bled the AFU, which was performing for its Western sponsors. I doubt that Zaluzhny recommended either the southern or northern “offensives”.

It is also interesting that this minor battle around Liman is getting so much press, yet the increaingly desperate situation of the AFU in central Donbass, especially Bahkmut, is being ignored.

Liman may fall or not. Looked at as a whole, Liman doesn’t matter much. The AFU is running out of ammunition, machines (Slovenia had to send 28 T 55s), and other weapons. The RF army is poised on the border to move, and I don’t think the trolls and Tards will like the result. His Fraudulency, President Depends, needs to avoid an AFU collapse before the mid-terms and to maintain the illusion that the Zelensky regime is doing well. If President avoids an embarrassment like Afghanistan before the elections, it won’t be by much.