Russian special military operation in Ukraine #17

ucmvulcan wrote:

sundoesntrise wrote:

Erk wrote:

sundoesntrise wrote:

Not only is Ritter a recidivist in failure, Scottie is also an ex-con who served over 2 years in a state prison in Pennsylvania after he got caught trying to hook up with minors as young as 13 (and possibly 11).

But there is more. Scott has been under internal FBI investigation for 3+ years after heavy suspicion emerged that the man was spying for none other than Our Greatest Ally Israel.

The whole pro-Putin grifter clique indeed is a clowns how. Are there any normal people over there?

So rather than debate the points Ritter raises, you chose to personally attack him for something totally unrelated to the Ukraine conflict. What kind of agenda do you really have here?

I learnt a lot about Ukraine and Russia from Ritter, he is a good journalist, he spent many years living in Russia during the nuclear disarmament period. You might be better off reading one of his books about it, rather than posting about FBI smear stings.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/disarmament-in-the-time-of-perestroika-scott-ritter/1141191701

I understand that this conflict awakens tribalism and ideological purity spirals in many, but covering for a convicted pedo and highly probable traitor is something I'll never condone.

As for analysis, they only look good on paper. You can only be wrong so often without losing credentials. Likewise when the local hamburguesa joint (LOL at the guy who thinks I am a Flip) serves me uncooked burgers for 9 days in a row, the 10th day I won't visit his store anymore no matter how appealing his ads look, and no matter how smooth his talks are.

This is basic stuff.

Just thinking aloud, why is it that everyone who goes against the American establishment, especially its intel apparatus is always a traitor, a commie, a terrorist, and/or sexual deviant, and or suicidal, and/or killed in an altercation with law enforcement?  Martin Luther King, remember him? J Edgar worked so hard to get him in bed with a prostitute and ah look it his dissertation was plagiarized and he was a dirty commie and one of his lieutenants was a homosexual and J Edgar Hoover and the FBI made sure everyone knew.  Why would they do that in the 60s? Simple, in the 50s and 60s King and co dared challenge a system.  Fred Hampton,  a leader of the Black Panthers was drugged and assassinated point blank by the Chicago PD and yet the official cause of death shootout with the police, they claimed he fired at them some twenty times and yet the evidence eventually showed one of his lieutenants got off one shot that went into the ceiling.

Moving to more recent times, Abbie Hoffman of Steal This Book fame questioned the power of the FBI and CIA and well the boy done gone shot himself in the 80s and he was an alleged traitor and sexual deviant.  Ed Snowden? Whistle blower and now in Moscow, if ya takes shelter in Putinland you be a traitor.  Julian Assange? Traitor and deviant ignore wikileaks, he raped a girl even though she dropped charges but he is in prison awaiting extradition.  Scott Ritter? Same thing.  Sorry, but always recognize a smear campaign for what it is.

Now let's say for a moment that Scott Ritter and Julian Assange are sexual predators.  Fine, punish them for that, but that in no way should invalidate anything they have researched and brought to life.  

You are looking at it from the wrong perspective.

Pedo Island and Epstein's Black Book show that they are all dirt bags. Scott just got on the wrong side hence they destroyed his reputation. It's a massive sting operation to maintain discipline - they got dirt on basically all. The stick often works better than the carrot.

It's as much intimidation as character assassination. It's how the US Deep State/Mossad work. Some suicide themselves by two bullets to the back of the head, others get in the sex offender registry and called a pedo for life.

But a pedo he still is.

Vann7 wrote:

In short, he says that Russia is killing it in the field, but considering Russia's strategic aims of de-nazification and a neutral Ukraine, taking the Donbass, all of it, and even incorporating it into Russia could still be considered a strategic defeat.

I don't necessarily disagree. Even if Donbass is clear, Ukraine would be more Nazi than before the war considering the only legal party in the country now is the Nazi party led by Zelensky. And its more Nato than before because the west has poured billions of weapons in.

I agree, they need to take the whole thing. Blow up all the rail lines to Western Europe. They need complete capitulation from Kiev. They need to announce well in advance that they intend to take Kiev after Donbass and intend to fully take Ukraine. Civilians should flee Kiev and Liviv as they intend to cut all power, water and comms in the coming weeks and it will be hell. Humanitarian corridors will remain open, but no ones safety can be guaranteed as there may be intensive bombing and shelling underway. Russian govt is the WORST fucking negotiator ever. They are like, WELL when you are ready we are ready. They should say no terms will be available other then surrender of the UAF. Russia is planning to triple its forces and bombardment capacity in the coming weeks to complete the operation.

Hole wrote:
The first time I recognize this. So the nominal and the PPP method take the american system and the Dollar as base. Otherwise the numbers would change for the US.
In other words: even the PPP method is pure western financial voodoo garbage.

The graph is garbage because the PPP in the Russian MIC sector is higher than in the consumer sector. Russian missiles and submarines cost much less than a
factor of 2.x relative denominator compared to their US counterparts. Same goes for MIC services. A good starting point is to multiply the Russian military budget
by a factor of 6.

sundoesntrise wrote:
It's obvious that the some of the reasoning and subsequent conclusions are a stretch. Talking about a possible collapse of Russia is at this point as much a pipedream as some of the 'Russia can defeat NATO IN Europe at any given moment' nonsense that was flooding this board months ago.

What this speech (NOT an interview, and Gao is from the looks of it a respected member of China's diplomatic corps/ 'expert' community/ CASS) does highlight is the discrepancy between official Russian propaganda narratives and Chinese discourse behind closed scenes. One for the dumbed downed masses and the other one for well informed individuals with skin in the game. For that reason alone it is worthwhile posting here, as it will make the parish go into bunkermode which is always a sight to behold.

And I do agree on Chinese resilience or better said lack their of. Their mercantilist/isolationist tendencies coupled with this conflict-avoiding attitude reek of weekness. When the Aussies+US threatened military action around the Chinese base in the Solomon Islands they dropped the issue and simply walked away. But very soon they won't be able to walk away anymore as the US is prepping conflict in Taiwan. Even 'Beijing Biden' got recently wheeled out to Warhawk on China. That nickname never did made a lot of sense in the first place.

I will leave any comments on Gao's allegiance or personal character traits to others, as I do not know this man nor his background nor his (un-official) standing. But yes there still is somewhat of a power struggle going on in China with the Bo GuaGua faction/Shanghai Clique/ Jiang Zemin faction clearly allied with the globalists/Soros. Official Chinese media on more than one occasion has stated that the State is in the process of 'removing the remaining poison'. The Shanghai Covid1984 debacle coupled with Soros' February 2021 speech (wherein he predicts a massive outbreak) leave room for speculation. Shanghai+ Zhejiang are a powerbase for the Jiang Zemin faction and the (purposely?) mutiny on Xi's Zero Covid policy (which is a matter of national security in the eyes of the Chinese) reek of treason.

Heh you remember... "a few stand off, well placed Kinzhals will do the trick" remember? "if the US can do it in the M.E why can't Russia?" Sorta funny how it all shifted to: "Well what do you expect?" "The rate of the advance is slow cause Ukraine has the support of the combined West".... "It's actually impressive 4x Belgium landmass has been liberated..." wait what... But there is so much more to look back to and laugh.... Total clown show.

It's to be expected for there to be genuine as well as manufactured (through agents of influence of the British/American/Jap psy-op kind) division within the Chinese political and economic elite over big geopolitical decisions and topics, specially considering those of the magnitude that concern a reconfiguration of the world order and bring their skin to the game. They rather sit it out and watch all their rivals, friend or foe alike whittle away peacefully in some Sun tzu dream but that ain't gonna happen. There will be a confrontation and they will have to face it, the outcome of which will decide the new world order, they'll either win it with their entourage of allies, big and small, or lose it.

China's power resides in its industrial strength and mercantilist trade, economic in nature, not militarily. Thus  the Chinese understand where their strengths are and what their deficiencies are. They're resource starved and can't keep their economic activity at such a level if disruptions to their resource bases occur. The only safe ones are found, you guess it, in land, within China, and from Russia (for the most part). Anything that comes from the sea is disruptable. The U.S/West know that too obv. Thus it's obvious why the U.S/West push for military encirclement of China and why China cries about "bloc mentality". They cry about it because they lack what their rival has and they know it's a powerful weapon. The U.S/West command an allegiance network capable of bringing down the Chinese economy to a halt through a naval blockade, full, soft or selective, and the Chinese won't be capable of combatting it effectively without pressing the Nuke button. The U.S can manage such, Taiwan independence being the torch light... once the cards are positioned well enough - at least that is the American goal, and that is what they're working on. The purpose of the QUAD, and bringing European NATO into the frey all work in tandem towards preparing for that moment. The Chinese are outmanned, outgunned and outflanked. That's why the Changs are on an accelerated drive to build a blue water navy but even with a blue water navy you still need an allegiance structure, a bloc, to back you up, and strategically help you in the confrontation. The U.S is smart in harassing China for every move they make to try to get Naval bases established in third countries. The Chinese are desperate to break from the first island chain grip and with India in the fray, the South China Sea also got a visegrip on. It's a tight grip. Neither Russia's Central Asian allegiance network nor the Russian Navy are capable of counter balancing the seafaring power strengths and capacity to blockade China trade. The only thing Russia is useful for is keeping the Europeans in check for a gang rape of China, and as a stable resource base to avoid complete collapse once seaborne trade and seaborne resource imports are blocked or semi-blocked in case of such a stand-off.

Thus, faced with such horror, the will of the Chinese will truly be tested and your guess is as good as mine as to whether they'll wistand the stand off and win or capitulate and enter into an understanding with the U.S (relegated to underling status, simply a bigger Japan). As of today, they're clearly not ready for such a stand-off, and the U.S isn't ready either for such a maneuver, both are working around the clock to get to their desired positions faster. Am I sold on Chinese progress on this front, not quite in the least. Russia is much more self-sufficient than China, despite having severely less upside (for decisions that are fresh, some decades or even centuries old).

sundoesntrise wrote:

ucmvulcan wrote:

sundoesntrise wrote:

Erk wrote:

sundoesntrise wrote:

Not only is Ritter a recidivist in failure, Scottie is also an ex-con who served over 2 years in a state prison in Pennsylvania after he got caught trying to hook up with minors as young as 13 (and possibly 11).

But there is more. Scott has been under internal FBI investigation for 3+ years after heavy suspicion emerged that the man was spying for none other than Our Greatest Ally Israel.

The whole pro-Putin grifter clique indeed is a clowns how. Are there any normal people over there?

So rather than debate the points Ritter raises, you chose to personally attack him for something totally unrelated to the Ukraine conflict. What kind of agenda do you really have here?

I learnt a lot about Ukraine and Russia from Ritter, he is a good journalist, he spent many years living in Russia during the nuclear disarmament period. You might be better off reading one of his books about it, rather than posting about FBI smear stings.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/disarmament-in-the-time-of-perestroika-scott-ritter/1141191701

I understand that this conflict awakens tribalism and ideological purity spirals in many, but covering for a convicted pedo and highly probable traitor is something I'll never condone.

As for analysis, they only look good on paper. You can only be wrong so often without losing credentials. Likewise when the local hamburguesa joint (LOL at the guy who thinks I am a Flip) serves me uncooked burgers for 9 days in a row, the 10th day I won't visit his store anymore no matter how appealing his ads look, and no matter how smooth his talks are.

This is basic stuff.

Just thinking aloud, why is it that everyone who goes against the American establishment, especially its intel apparatus is always a traitor, a commie, a terrorist, and/or sexual deviant, and or suicidal, and/or killed in an altercation with law enforcement?  Martin Luther King, remember him? J Edgar worked so hard to get him in bed with a prostitute and ah look it his dissertation was plagiarized and he was a dirty commie and one of his lieutenants was a homosexual and J Edgar Hoover and the FBI made sure everyone knew.  Why would they do that in the 60s? Simple, in the 50s and 60s King and co dared challenge a system.  Fred Hampton,  a leader of the Black Panthers was drugged and assassinated point blank by the Chicago PD and yet the official cause of death shootout with the police, they claimed he fired at them some twenty times and yet the evidence eventually showed one of his lieutenants got off one shot that went into the ceiling.

Moving to more recent times, Abbie Hoffman of Steal This Book fame questioned the power of the FBI and CIA and well the boy done gone shot himself in the 80s and he was an alleged traitor and sexual deviant.  Ed Snowden? Whistle blower and now in Moscow, if ya takes shelter in Putinland you be a traitor.  Julian Assange? Traitor and deviant ignore wikileaks, he raped a girl even though she dropped charges but he is in prison awaiting extradition.  Scott Ritter? Same thing.  Sorry, but always recognize a smear campaign for what it is.

Now let's say for a moment that Scott Ritter and Julian Assange are sexual predators.  Fine, punish them for that, but that in no way should invalidate anything they have researched and brought to life.  

You are looking at it from the wrong perspective.

Pedo Island and Epstein's Black Book show that they are all dirt bags. Scott just got on the wrong side hence they destroyed his reputation. It's a massive sting operation to maintain discipline - they got dirt on basically all. The stick often works better than the carrot.

It's as much intimidation as character assassination. It's how the US Deep State/Mossad work. Some suicide themselves by two bullets to the back of the head, others get in the sex offender registry and called a pedo for life.

But a pedo he still is.

He's not a pedo ffs. He was caught in a setup by the FBI. The female involved probably looked 20 but was 16 or something.

If anything he's a gullible idiot. And a moron who sends dick pics.

But for me , the amount and extent of the lies that the US empire makes to anyone who crosses them just means I'll just never believe anything they say.

Maybe Scott did nothing and the whole thing was a fabrication.

You can only go 50/50 at best.

sundoesntrise wrote:

Erk wrote:

sundoesntrise wrote:Wall of text

This is old news, it was covered weeks ago on May 11th.

Gao Yusheng comments have been largely censored as they don't represent the view of the Chinese government, they sound more like something the Epoch Times would have come up with.

Also, they don't seem to represent the reality on the ground in Ukraine.

*Doesn't represent the official view of the Chinese government.

Chinese are a smart bunch, whose foreign policy is based in long term strategic thinking and the school of realism. You'd have to be seriously delusional to think that they buy the Russian' everything according to plan' line behind closed doors.

Russia was supposed to bring military expertise and raw horsepower to this new (post April-May 2021) alliance. Turns out that was quite a stretch. All alarm bells have started going off in Beijing, no doubt about that.

This is hilarious. Alarm bells are ringing alright because they know what they face in Taiwan. And unlike Russia , China has zero experience in real hybrid warfare and diplomacy.

China could have stood up to the west in Libya. But it said nothing and evacuated 60,000 of its ppl and watched the US burn it's investments in the country to the ground.

Alternatively Russia actually put boots on the ground and stopped a US regime change in Syria. Did China help even at all ? No. They could have sent some troops or planes to get a feel for the real world but they didn't.

Who sent a plane load of special forces to Venezuela when the regime change was happening there ? China? Nope. Russia.

Maybe China was counting on Russia to help with Taiwan. Now they are worried that Russia is too busy. On ya China. This one is on you.

Big_Gazza wrote:PPP is not a bad metric, but its not perfect by any means.  It still does not take into account factors such as institutional efficiencies and value-for-money.  One dollar (PPP equivalent) buys much more military capability in Russia or China than it does in the US. Private owners of US MIC companies extract heavy profits, adding to costs, and the Pentagon has no real leverage over the quality or performance of the systems delivered, so it receives junk systems that fail in real warfare conditions. Javelin and Stinger, to name but a few.

Michael Hudson has explained very well how financial capitalism, unlike industrial one, steals wealth and produces nothing in exchange. By design our elites have set up the rules of the economy so that the productive sectors can be bled for their interest instead of attending the social needs it should support. Hardly surprising, then, that Western MIC is as inefficient as is unrepairable, since it is not intended to produce value for the defence of the country but to extract wealth.

Sondoesntrise looks like that Chinese troll that used to lurk and get his China superiority complex cheap shots in. The guy who had a drone as an avatar.

It's funny how these douchbags like Van and F and a few others always claim that this is some kind of pro Russia echo chamber. It's anything but.

Pseudo objective Putin skeptics always seem to control the narrative. Remember during the Syria it was TOW-mageddon ? There was jerkoffs constantly posting every TOW video that came out. And insinuating that Russia was losing.

Then during Libya they posted all about the Pantsir losses.

Then we had a jerkoff live blogging Navalnys latest color devolution attempt. He was updating the amount of views the studio mansion video was getting every hour

Now we got 2 arrogant loud mouth jerkoffs basically spouting F-16.net talking points.

And the sneaky little Chinese troll getting his licks in. And they didn't seem to notice that I actually posted about Scott Ritter CRITIQUING Putin. Not singing his praises. It was my attempt at critisizing something about the war and I got the expected result. Cheap shot artists piled on. Instead of having a discussion.

It's all just a function of the English language. Nothing can escape the echo of Anglo propaganda.

The U.S with the Kurds control 1/3 of Syria, the resource rich part, while the Turks and terrorists control parts of the north and Syria is a frozen conflict with no end or political solution in sight.

Folks here boast about Russia grabbing the resource and geopolitical significant portions of Ukraine but at the same time turn into Stevie Wonder on Syria. Consistency is the key.

ATLASCUB wrote:The U.S with the Kurds control 1/3 of Syria, the resource rich part, while the Turks and terrorists control parts of the north and Syria is a frozen conflict with no end or political solution in sight.

Folks here boast about Russia grabbing the resource and geopolitical significant portions of Ukraine but at the same time turn into Stevie Wonder on Syria. Consistency is the key.

Sigh. You dunderhead. The war between Russia and the US isn't about resources at all. It's about hegemony and power. Assad had to go for no other reason than because the US said he had to go. And what the US says gets done. No questions.

And Russia put itself on the line and challenged this power. The US said Assad must  go and Russia said Assad stays. And Assad is staying. And not long after , the King of Saud paid a visit to the Kremlin for the first time ever. Why ? Because Russia proved itself.


As if Assad falling was going to usher in the US's grand strategy for the region. There was no grand strategy.

On Ukraine , it will be pretty cool that Russia can finally make the grain OPEC it always wanted. But this was also about power. Not resources.

Johninmk and Ipsan do a great job of elaborating on the main movements in this war

But basically you can see the biggest movement is in the east from Popasnaya

That salient is the nail in the coffin for the highway to Lisichansk from bakhmut

The ukrops dumb enough to stay in the pocket are gone, they are pawns caught in a fork move by rooks and bishops

Towards Slavyansk, Russia won't go straight for it

Look west towards Barvenkovo

They're building there , and that's how they will approach slavyansk and kramatorsk , once svyatogorsk and the north east are sanitized

Bakhmut was a logistics hub, and it's value is nullified now that they are cutoff from lisichansk

Also the value of Avdeyevka is diminished now, donetsk is cleaved

Once donbass is rolled up

There's a lot to consider

Rotating forces means no need to wait

But Odessa first? Or finish Kharkov and Dnipro?

Or maybe both at the same time now that the VSU is obliterated

Has anyone heard about the Ukrainian general that's angry with Zelensky?

Some weird noise is coming from Ukrainian military and azov

I sense the endgame soon after donetsk

ATLASCUB wrote:The U.S with the Kurds control 1/3 of Syria, the resource rich part, while the Turks and terrorists control parts of the north and Syria is a frozen conflict with no end or political solution in sight.

The government of Syria controls the whole coastline and the major population centers. So what.
The US gets a drop of oil and loads of wheat from the Kurds. Russia lacks neither of those things.

There is also little chance either Turkey or Iran will allow the creation of an independent Kurdish state.
In fact US support for the Kurds might be the final straw which will make the Turks leave NATO at this rate. The current brouhaha Turkey is making about Sweden and Finland joining NATO being one example of this. Turkey is currently conducting its own SMO both on Northern Iraq and Northern Syria against the Kurds simultaneously. But sure just ignore that.

If the smart dimwitts say so. So much nonsense to unpack in two posts it's not even worth the effort.

In the middle east, the balance of power is still in U.S favor. As for the rest of the fantasies, you all can believe what you want to believe.

Assad had to go for several reasons:

To deprive Lebanon of a key ally (and make collapse and a Civil War in Lebanon easier - benefiting both the U.S and Israel).
To deprive Russia of a key M.E ally.
To deprive Iran of a key M.E ally, and deprive Iraq of any attempt to look beyond its own border and American control.
To build a pipeline from Qatar to the EU to ship gas to eat into Gazprom market share.
To export terrorism to the Russian underbelly.
To tilt the Shiite/Sunni balance.
To create Kurdish separatism with the potential to spread to Iran.

While many of the objectives failed to materialize the U.S and company have been able to achieve:

A frozen conflict.
A humanitarian catastrophe.
Set back Syria development decades back.
Hold hostage Syria's main resources.
Stirred separatism, and keeps it alive.
Exported terrorism with varied degrees of success to areas of geopolitical interest.
Stopped Syria from being a normal functioning country that can be a net positive economic player in the region for allies such as Lebanon, Iran, Iraq or Russia.
All at a modest cost of investment.