“$how MUST Go On” in Ukraine

Freezing the conflict seems to be now the name of the game, supported by Pentagon, Biden Administration, Stoltenberg & NATO. Milley and Stoltenberg Agree: “We must prepare ourselves for a long war In Ukraine”.

Two top Western officials have just said that NATO is preparing to settle in for a “long war” in Ukraine, as the prospect for peace negotiations retreats further and further on the horizon. 

Zelensky, during his American tour, did not get what he thought to and seems to be angry and disappointed.

Poland – Ukraine, wrinkles in the bromance of convenience

Ukraine and Poland’s relationship has apparently reached “the throwing toys out of the sandbox” phase. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on September 19, President Vladimir Zelensky said it was “alarming to see how some in Europe… are helping set the stage for a Moscow actor.” Who could he have been talking about? “I hope these words are not addressed to Poland,” replied a Polish government spokesman. No doubt, Zelensky was accusing Poland of cheating – with Russia.

The meeting between Presidents Duda and Zelensky was canceled for the first time since the beginning of the war. Vladimir Zelensky and Andrzej Duda were supposed to meet during the session of the UN General Assembly. At the same time, Duda called Ukraine a drowning place that could drag those who help along to the bottom.

It was just late spring, when Poland touted the arrangement with Denmark, Finland and Germany to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine. “We will hand over our tanks, together with the others, to Ukraine,” declared Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki at the time. But now, another sound in the bell. “We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki said. In other words, Warsaw has decided that it needs to focus on itself.

Last week, Poland withdrew – along with Hungary and Slovakia – from the EU’s platform to coordinate Ukrainian grain imports. Kiev filed a lawsuit against them earlier this week. This was at the World Trade Organization in response to them maintaining their bans on Ukrainian grain imports despite Brussels’ decision to lift them on September 15. 

Thus, Poland has gone from loudly proclaiming its love for Kiev to suddenly acting like a party to a potentially messy divorce, now taking self-preservation measures against a toxic partner.

The gloves have really come off now, with Ukraine daring to suggest that the EU isn’t united. That threatens to ruin the main theme of unelected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s virtue signaling. Kiev is now threatening that unless the unilateral bans on grain are lifted, it will go after Polish apples and onions and Hungarian cars with retaliatory restrictions.

Brussels elite is currently busy evading criticism from its own member states for lifting the ban on Ukrainian grain, with Hungarian Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy underscoring, in the wake of a meeting of the bloc’s agriculture ministers, that von der Leyen consulted on this topic not with the leaders of member states, but with the Ukrainian president.  He has also suggested that the EU was selling out its farmers in favor of Saudi, American, and Dutch investments in Ukrainian grain production. No wonder, she has got the nickname “von der Lügen”.

The Polish authorities do not intend to hand over to Ukraine the modern weaponry they purchase for their army, Polish President Andrzej Duda told the TVN24 channel. “We cannot transfer our new arms, which we are now buying spending billions for the Polish army to strengthen it, to strengthen the security of Poland, to someone else. “We will not transfer these weapons because we are buying them in order to modernize the Polish army,” Duda continued.

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party has stepped up its rhetoric in recent weeks in the heat of an acrimonious election campaign, ahead of a 15 October vote and it has sprung to the defense of Polish farmers, who feel threatened by imports of Ukrainian grain.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk’s interview on Friday hint that Germany is to blame for his country’s dispute with Ukraine. Poland expects the US to take its side by convincing Ukraine to correct its attitude. Kiev’s decision to publicize its problems with Poland risks weakening the anti-Russian coalition. Germany’s alleged power play to kill Poland’s domestic agricultural industry by flooding it with Ukrainian grain aligns with the geostrategic motives. In brief, it was assessed that Berlin is striving to replace Warsaw as Kiev’s top European partner, all with the aim of further pressuring Poland into returning to its traditional post-communist status as a German vassal.

Zelensky’s visit to the US / the UN General Assembly session / Canada / US latest aid package – disappointed Zelesky

Washington and some NATO partners made a strong effort (Blinken’s recent visit to Kiev) to see, if President Zelensky could be “forced” on a peace track with Russia but the effort failed and Zelensky’s visit to the UN and Washington is aimed at asking support to continue the war – in particular, achieving a commitment from Congress to approve another $25 billion aid package and new weapons for Ukraine’s warfare.

Since 2022, it has been the US that torpedoed any peace process but that opposition was before American and NATO weapons’ arsenals were emptied and before the attempt to overthrow Putin and his administration failed. Trying to compensate this failure, Biden administration and NATO have armed up Ukraine to break through Russian defense lines, which did not materialize. On the contrary, AFU lost majority of its strategic reserves and two most important brigades, the 25^th Air Mobile and the 82^nd Air Assault, suffered so massive losses that became combat-ineffective and were withdrawn from the frontline.

The Ukrainian president traveled to the US amid Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, which has already claimed the lives of more than 75,000 Ukrainian servicemen. President Zelensky’s visit to the US proved to be a failure rather than a success.

Chilly feeling in the Congress

What a difference can a 10 months’ time and a grinding war make, as Republicans vow no more ‘blank checks’ for Ukraine. Zelensky returns to a vastly changed landscape in Washington Thursday Sept. 21, as a growing number of GOP lawmakers have expressed their reluctance — or outright opposition — to continued funding for Ukraine. Zelensky faced chilly GOP reception in Washington.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy refused to convene a special event at which Vladimir Zelensky could speak to legislators. Before McCarthy authorizes more Ukraine funds, he needs to see Zelensky getting NATO countries to pony up more money. Russia is on their doorstep, not ours. American taxpayers are not the world’s financiers.

As the New York Times’ Andrew Kramer put it: the last time Zelensky was in the nation’s capital, he was given a “hero’s welcome.” This time around, he added, the Ukrainian president is on a “more delicate political mission,” both because of a slow-moving counteroffensive in Ukraine and domestic politics in Washington.

The increased opposition to aid reflects shifts in Republican public opinion. A CNN poll from last month showed 71 percent of Republicans believed that Congress should not authorize new funding. However, while some of the loudest voices in the House are speaking out against more aid, advocates of continuing support are trying to paint a more nuanced picture.

Congress is currently weighing President Joe Biden’s $24 billion aid request for Ukraine, part of a larger battle over funding the U.S. government for the next fiscal year, which begins October 1.

In Washington, not only has the push against continued funding from Congressional Republicans grown in number and in intensity but the debate over sending more money to Ukraine is only a part of a larger battle over the government budget. Conservatives in the House have threatened to force the government to shut down, if a list of demands, including no “blank check” for Ukraine, are not met. As Rep. McConnel put it “American support for Ukraine is not charity. It’s in our own direct interests – not least because degrading Russia helps to deter China.”

Even the American mainstream media has started release truthful stories no events in Ukraine like that in New York Times. Also, Reuters published the similar analysis on the event.

On September 6, a missile strike rocked Kostiantynivka, a town in the Donetsk region under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The missile hit a bustling city market at 2:04 p.m. local time, leaving 16 dead and 33 injured. But evidence collected and analyzed by The New York Times, including missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defense missile fired by a Buk launch system.

UN General Assembly session

When the Ukrainian President Zelenski recently spoke at the UN General Assembly the hall was pretty empty. Ukrainian media edited the audience for Zelensky’s speech at the UN to make it look like everyone was listening, including Zelensky himself. As a result of editing, it turned out that Zelensky was sitting in the hall next to Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, listening to himself from the podium.

Yet, more aid by Biden administration

September 21, the US administration made decision to send a military assistance package worth $325 million containing air defense and cluster munitions to Ukraine, according to a statement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken released on Thursday.

“I am authorizing additional security assistance for Ukraine, which will provide $128 million worth of US arms and equipment from Department of Defense stocks. The Department of Defense will also be providing $197 million in arms and equipment under previously directed drawdowns,” the statement reads.

The capabilities in this package include AIM-9M missiles for air defense, additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Avenger air defense systems, machine guns to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems, 105mm and 155mm artillery rounds, Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles, Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems, over 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition, spare parts, maintenance, and other field equipment, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The key item of the aid package would be ATACMS missiles, which proved to be an odd story. Already before the visit, the supply of these missiles was banned by the administration. On September 21, US Presidential National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that ATACMS tactical missiles would not be sent to Ukraine. Washington still considers an opportunity of their transfer to Kyiv, he added. This “yes & no” game continued but at the end of the day it seems that ATACMS missiles will be delivered in small, limited quantity to AFU.

NBC News and the Wall Street Journal quote unnamed US officials as saying Mr Biden told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that Kyiv would get “a small number” of ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles. The two leaders met at the White House on Thursday. The WSJ adds that the weapons will be sent in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the Washington Post cited several people familiar with the discussions as saying Ukraine would get ATACMS armed with cluster bomblets rather than single warheads.

It seems like a growing discontent within some key sectors of the military and intelligence bureaucracy over the Biden policy towards Ukraine but the Biden national security team continues to insist it will back Ukraine to the bitter end. However, despite the tough talk, Biden continues to balk on sending some weapon systems that could transform the Special Military Operation into a full-blown war with Russia. But this type of disagreement does not mean the Biden team is ready to do a volte-face and find a way to end the conflict. To the contrary, they are doubling down on doing everything they can to keep the war going.

Finally, it is important to notice that Biden administration made the delivery decision of ATACMS missiles secretly. Why and why Ukraine is so interested in getting them. All is simple – French and British cruise missiles, although long-range, are launched with the help of Ukrainian aircraft, the existence of which will soon become history. But American missiles require less – just HIMARS systems, which the AFU have enough of, and they won’t have to be retrained for several years. Besides, the range of the missile is so large that a lot of new valuable Russian targets will be reachable to AFU strikes.

Scandalous meeting in Canada

Zelensky returned to Europe via Canada, where he met Prime minister Justin Trudeau and had a meeting in the Canadian parliament. Although Zelensky received the promise of C$650 million aid package, the meeting will be remembered because of “Nazi scandal”. Zelensky, Trudeau and the whole Canadian parliament gave a standing ovation to Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunta.

The Russian Embassy in Ottawa is sending a note to the Canadian Foreign Ministry and the office of the country’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in connection with the appearance of a Ukrainian Nazi served in the SS division “Galicia” in the Canadian Parliament, Russian Ambassador to Ottawa Oleg Stepanov told to the media.

Military aid to Ukraine, by top ten countries, end August 2023

In the list below, especially two donor countries have conducted their commitments based on 100% debt money. Those two are the United States and Finland.

Today also, the UK and even Germany have fallen in a such category, where the public spending is largely based on debt money. Poland is a specially interesting case, where the debt money for Ukraine is “resettled” by the 100% American debt money. Very smart indeed.

Russia – NATO & US, final showdown

Cracks in European NATO

A tragicomic dispute burst open this week revealing the lack of confidence among the NATO alliance supposedly defending Ukraine against purported Russian aggression. The chief antagonists in the latest row are Poland and the Kiev regime but the spat may shake the whole “unanimous” facade of NATO and the EU in supporting Ukraine.

Poland this week said it would halt the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Warsaw declared that its priority was to modernize its armed forces. This is a surprising U-turn by the Polish authorities who up to now have been one of the most steadfast supporters of the Kiev regime.

The subsequent panic is palpable. Germany has accused Poland of “playing politics” in its solidarity towards Ukraine, while Lithuania and the other Baltic states are urging for drastic mediation.

The United States-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is subjecting its supposed European allies to tremendous tensions that ultimately are threatening to shatter both the EU and the NATO military alliance. The European economies are buckling from the huge costs of the war, including the crippling loss of affordable Russian energy sources and the vast military expenditures. Hungary is independently looking other approaches to many issues and problems.

Constant bickering between the US and Russia

Since the start of Russia’s special military operation (SMO) against NATO’s crawling encroachment on its borders, the US has stubbornly argued that it’s “not a party to the conflict” and that it supposedly “doesn’t want escalation with Moscow“.

However, time has proved both of these statements to be patently false. Zelensky’s administration has repeatedly admitted that the US plans, controls and commands the whole warfare of AFU, provide intelligence and satellite data and communication as well as targeting of every long-range weapon deployed by the Kiev regime forces.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is certainly aware of all this, although basic diplomatic etiquette prevented him from stating the obvious in the past. Now, after two years blatant hypocrisy of the political West, Russian Foreign Minister said that the US is waging war against Russia. Strong statement, one might say but who could possibly refute it given the ongoing events?

Just recall Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin’s admission that Washington DC wants to see a “strategic defeat” inflicted on Russia and President Joe Biden’s Freudian slip that “Putin cannot stay in power“. As to the evidences in weapons delivery, the most significant decisions are, no doubt, ATACMS missiles and F-16 fighter jets.

Practical examples of US&NATO involvement in AFU strikes are plenty and the number is growing every day. The recent air strike on Sevastopol Navy HQ tells that the attack was carried out with British Storm Shadow missiles, supported/managed by US Navy P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft and planned by British MI6.

The hit was typically a target of “optics”, hyped by the western MSM (mainstream media), the attack is primarily for PR reasons, militarily it has a very low value. It was the historic HQ building of the Russian Black Sea Fleet but the media do not understand that the real performance of the Fleet Command is situated in completely other places (100% protected underground bunkers).

Poseidon aircraft was scanning electromagnetic picture of Sevastopol’s Air Defense during attack for “library” reasons and transfer of data to AFU for the next attack. In real war, there would have been no US assets anywhere above the Black Sea, because they would have been all shot down.

Typically, Secret Service of Ukraine (GUR) launched a false story that the commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Viktor Sokolov, was killed following a bombing of the headquarters of the Russian fleet from the Black Sea to Sevastopol. That is complete fake news.

Webservice “moonofalabama” released an excellent article “How Will The Biden Administration Cope With Its Loss In Ukraine?” on September 21, 2023. I recommend reading this article.

In addition, two interesting statements by professional analysts, here below:

Seymour Hersh, a well-known American journalist claims that he is only transmitting the knowledge of a senior US intelligence official by claims that the main Ukrainian units have stopped the counter-offensive and emphasizes: “If they ordered the Ukrainian army to continue the offensive now – there would be a rebellion in it.” Hersh firm opinion is: The war is over – Russia has won, Ukrainian soldiers don’t want to die anymore.

Finally, an interesting piece of information – next step of NATO escalation?

Russian reconnaissance group destroyed Leopard-2 tank with fully-German crew.

A Russian reconnaissance group had destroyed a German-made Leopard-2 main battle tank of the Kiev forces with a crew of Bundeswehr service members in the Zaporozhye direction, the commander of the group told on September 23.

“When we curbed another offensive and destroyed the Leopard, we moved out to the burned vehicle. Then we saw that the crew’s driver-mechanic was severely injured and the others were dead. Once he awoke, the mechanic started yelling “nicht schießen” (“do not shoot” in German),” the commander of the reconnaissance group said. The driver stated that he was not a mercenary but a German service member and that he and the rest of the crew were members of the same Bundeswehr unit.

The alleged German service member named his brigade and revealed its deployment position while receiving medical aid, the commander said, adding that he died from his wounds minutes after he was found despite efforts to save him.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has not yet confirmed or denied the information reported nor has the Bundeswehr.

If confirmed, the participation of German service members in the Ukrainian counteroffensive could lead to a very serious military escalation. Russia may consider this a direct attack by NATO.

PS.

I recommend to enjoy this video. Top experts discuss on the Ukrainian war.

An Endgame for the Ukrainian War w/ John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen, September 2023