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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Battle front news missing from M$M lately. Things must be going "so well" for Kiev!

/snark

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND and THGR reliably get things bass akwards. I've never seen such deliberate stupidity in my life.

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Originally posted by THG:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND and THGR reliably get things bass akwards. I've never seen such deliberate stupidity in my life.

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Russia has been forced to issue old ammunition that was previously declared unfit for use, says UK intel, deepening its struggles in Ukraine

Russia is issuing old military stock that was previously seen as unfit for use, UK intelligence said.

It's so low on ammo that many places on the front now have "extremely punitive shell-rationing."

This is likely a key reason why Russia's new offensive hasn't progressed, the MOD said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-has-been-forced-to-issue-o
ld-ammunition-that-was-previously-declared-unfit-for-use-says-uk-intel-deepening-its-struggles-in-ukraine/ar-AA18BXxZ?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=cbdd9beeeb2a4d2497d6cff7b256a56b&ei=21

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T

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody cares. No more Ukrainian flags to be found anywhere on Twitter, I'm afraid.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Russians Claim Control Over Bakhmut's East

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Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow

DNIPROPETROVSK REGION, Ukraine — The quality of Ukraine’s military force, once considered a substantial advantage over Russia, has been degraded by a year of casualties that have taken many of the most experienced fighters off the battlefield, [i.e.killed] leading some Ukrainian officials to question Kyiv’s readiness to mount a much-anticipated spring offensive.

U.S. and European officials have estimated that as many as 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the start of Russia’s invasion early last year, compared with about 200,000 on the Russian side, [not according to the BBC!] which has a much larger military and roughly triple the population from which to draw conscripts. that as Ukraine keeps its running casualty numbers secret, even from its staunchest Western supporters.

Statistics aside, an influx of inexperienced draftees, brought in to plug the losses, has changed the profile of the that as Ukrainian force, which is also suffering from basic shortages of ammunition, including artillery shells and mortar bombs, according to military personnel in the field.

“The most valuable thing in war is combat experience,” said a battalion commander in the 46th Air Assault Brigade, who is being identified only by his call sign, Kupol, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol. “A soldier who has survived six months of combat and a soldier who came from a firing range are two different soldiers. It’s heaven and earth.”

“And there are only a few soldiers with combat experience,” Kupol added. “Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded.”

Such grim assessments have spread a palpable, if mostly unspoken, pessimism from the front lines to the corridors of power in Kyiv, the capital. An inability by Ukraine to execute a much-hyped counteroffensive would fuel new criticism that the United States and its European allies waited too long, until the force had already deteriorated, to deepen training programs and provide armored fighting vehicles, including Bradleys and Leopard battle tanks.

The situation on the battlefield now may not reflect a full picture of Ukraine’s forces, because Kyiv is training troops for the coming counteroffensive separately and deliberately holding them back from current fighting, including the defense of Bakhmut, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Mar. 6 that he intends to hold the line in Bakhmut, as the brutal battle for the eastern city continues.

Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said the state of the Ukrainian force does not diminish his optimism about a coming counteroffensive. “I don’t think we’ve exhausted our potential,” Yermak said. “I think that in any war, there comes a time when you have to prepare new personnel, which is what is happening right now.”

And the situation for Russia may be worse. During a NATO meeting last month, U.K. Defense Minister Ben Wallace said that 97 percent of Russia’s army was already deployed in Ukraine and that Moscow was suffering “First World War levels of attrition.”

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...
“There’s always belief in a miracle,” he said. “Either it will be a massacre and corpses or it’s going to be a professional counteroffensive. There are two options. There will be a counteroffensive either way.”

... One senior Ukrainian government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid, called the number of tanks promised by the West a “symbolic” amount. Others privately voiced pessimism that promised supplies would even reach the battlefield in time.

“If you have more resources, you more actively attack,” the senior official said. “If you have fewer resources, you defend more. We’re going to defend. That’s why if you ask me personally, I don’t believe in a big counteroffensive for us. I’d like to believe in it, but I’m looking at the resources and asking, ‘With what?’ Maybe we’ll have some localized breakthroughs.”

“We don’t have the people or weapons,” the senior official added. “And you know the ratio: When you’re on the offensive, you lose twice or three times as many people. We can’t afford to lose that many people.”
Such analysis is far less optimistic than the public statements by Ukraine’s political and military leadership.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described 2023 as “the year of victory” for Ukraine. His military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, touted the possibility of Ukrainians vacationing this summer in Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed illegally from Ukraine nine years ago.

“Our president inspires us to win,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s ground forces commander, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Generally, we all think the same, and we understand that for us it is of course necessary to win by the end of the year. And it is real. It is real if we are given all the help which we have been promised by our partners.”

On the front lines, however, the mood is dark.

Kupol, who consented to having his photograph taken and said he understood he could face personal blowback for giving a frank assessment, described going to battle with newly drafted soldiers who had never thrown a grenade, who readily abandoned their positions under fire and who lacked confidence in handling firearms.

His unit withdrew from Soledar in eastern Ukraine in the winter after being surrounded by Russian forces who later captured the city. Kupol recalled how hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in units fighting alongside his battalion simply abandoned their positions, even as fighters for Russia’s Wagner mercenary group pressed ahead.

After a year of war, Kupol, a lieutenant colonel, said his battalion is unrecognizable. Of about 500 soldiers, roughly 100 were killed in action and another 400 wounded, leading to complete turnover. Kupol said he was the sole military professional in the battalion, and he described the struggle of leading a unit composed entirely of inexperienced troops.

“I get 100 new soldiers,” Kupol said. “They don’t give me any time to prepare them. They say, ‘Take them into the battle.’ They just drop everything and run. That’s it. Do you understand why? Because the soldier doesn’t shoot. I ask him why, and he says, ‘I’m afraid of the sound of the shot.’ And for some reason, he has never thrown a grenade. … We need NATO instructors in all our training centers, and our instructors need to be sent over there into the trenches. Because they failed in their task.”

He described severe ammunition shortages, including a lack of simple mortar bombs and grenades for U.S.-made MK 19s.

Ukraine has also faced an acute shortage of artillery shells, which Washington and its allies have scrambled to address, with discussions about how to shore up Ukrainian stocks dominating daily meetings on the war at the White House National Security Council. Washington’s efforts have kept Ukraine fighting, but use rates are very high, and scarcity persists.

“You’re on the front line,” Kupol said. “They’re coming toward you, and there’s nothing to shoot with.”

Kupol said Kyiv needed to focus on better preparing new troops in a systematic way. “It’s like all we do is give interviews and tell people that we’ve already won, just a little bit further away, two weeks, and we’ll win,” he said.

Dmytro, a Ukrainian soldier whom The Post is identifying only by first name for security reasons, described many of the same conditions. Some of the less-experienced troops serving at his position with the 36th Marine Brigade in the Donetsk region “are afraid to leave the trenches,” he said. Shelling is so intense at times, he said, that one soldier will have a panic attack, then “others catch it.”

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The first time he saw fellow soldiers very shaken, Dmytro said, he tried to talk them through the reality of the risks. The next time, he said, they “just ran from the position.”

“I don’t blame them,” he said. “They were so confused.”

The challenges stem from steep losses....

A German official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid, said that Berlin estimates Ukrainian casualties, including dead and wounded, are as high as 120,000. “They don’t share the information with us because they don’t trust us,” the official said.

Meanwhile, a Russian offensive has been building since early January, according to Syrsky. Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, told The Post last month that Russia had more than 325,000 soldiers in Ukraine, and another 150,000 mobilized troops could soon join the fight. Ukrainian soldiers report being outnumbered and having less ammunition.

... Despite reports of untrained mobilized Russian fighters being thrown into battle, Syrsky said those now arriving are well-prepared. ...
Ukraine has lost many of its junior officers who received U.S. training over the past nine years, eroding a corps of leaders who helped distinguish the Ukrainians from their Russian enemies at the start of the invasion, the Ukrainian official said. Now, the official said, those forces must be replaced. “A lot of them are killed,” the official said.

At the start of the invasion, Ukrainians rushed to volunteer for military duty, but now men across the country who did not sign up have begun to fear being handed draft slips on the street. Ukraine’s internal security service recently shut down Telegram accounts that were helping Ukrainians avoid locations where authorities were distributing summonses.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And we've been doing what Kissinger warned against ever since whenever. Bc, hey, "regime change" is our middle name!

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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And we've been doing what Kissinger warned against ever since whenever. Bc, hey, "regime change" is our middle name!

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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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I am telling you, again, that you have the quote incorrect. The correct quote says exactly the opposite. It goes like this:

Henry Kissinger said in November 1968, after Richard Nixon was elected U.S. president but before he took office: “Nixon should be told that it is probably an objective of Clifford to depose Thieu (South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu—ed.) before Nixon is inaugurated. Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem, the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

The part of the Kissinger quote that you cut off -- "that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem" -- is very important to understanding the whole sentence. Who is Diem? Read all about that Vietnamese President at "Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_assassination_of_Ngo_Dinh_Die
m#US_reaction

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A newly declassified report by the Inspector General of the United States Central Intelligence Agency reveals that the South Vietnamese generals who overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 used CIA money “to reward opposition military who joined the coup”.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

To have the USA assasinate TWO South Vietnamese leaders in such a short span .... well, that wouldn't do, would it? (Especially if you consider the CIA's role in regime chnages elsehere) because, yanno, it really WOULD cement the idea already floating around that "to be America's friend is fatal.

Kissinger was being ironic, not naive. I'm sticking with my quote. You can continue to bitch about it all you like.



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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Battle of Bakhmut: Ukrainian soldiers worry Russians begin to ‘taste victory’

DONETSK OBLAST – Just days before heading back to fight in the Battle of Bakhmut, a Ukrainian soldier Volodymyr, 54, said he felt ill-prepared.

"When they drive us to Bakhmut, I already know I'm being sent to death," Volodymyr told the Kyiv Independent during his brief stay in Kramatorsk, a city in Donetsk Oblast some 25 kilometers west of the front line.

Volodymyr, an infantryman from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, said he struggled to eat after fighting in Bakhmut for months. He looked shaken as he talked.

For two months, Volodymyr's unit was tasked with guarding Bakhmut against small Russian assault groups creeping into the city. The brigade was constantly under mortar fire as soldiers were outdoors where shrapnels could wound or kill them at any moment.

"(The Russians) keep firing at us, but we don't have artillery – so we have nothing to attack them back with," Volodymyr said. "I don't know if I will return or not. We are just getting killed."

Ukrainian infantrymen interviewed by the Kyiv Independent described the fighting in Bakhmut as a desperate survival challenge against Russia's "infinite" stocks of artillery munitions and manpower. With just their machine guns and rifles, they say they braced relentless Russian mortar and artillery attacks until their hideout was eventually destroyed.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

MORE AT https://kyivindependent.com/national/battle-of-bakhmut-ukrainian-soldi
ers-worry-russians-begin-to-taste-victory

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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The point is not to let America "befriend" you bc you'll get fucked over.

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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The point is not to let America "befriend" you bc you'll get fucked over.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Voltaire said that humanity invented hell to dissuade people from doing wrong when they noticed there didn’t seem to be any consequences for it here on Earth. Signym, your quote is still wrong.

Henry Kissinger said in November 1968, after Richard Nixon was elected U.S. president but before he took office: “Nixon should be told that it is probably an objective of Clifford to depose Thieu (South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu—ed.) before Nixon is inaugurated. Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem,. the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal”

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Yanno, you insisted for weeks that I got the meaning of my previous quote wrong, too. Until you learned something of the social cost of British industrialization.

And you've got this one wrong, too. I changed the emphasis to make Kissinger's point clearer.
Did you know that Saddam and Assad were once presented as a secular bulwark against Iranian extremism and that Noriega worked with the CIA? Ukraine and Germany are also "friends of the USA"...and look what's happening to them.

Anyway, I see you're now threatening people with hell, Mafia-style?



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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Yanno, you insisted for weeks that I got the meaning of my previous quote wrong, too. Until you learned something of the social cost of British industrialization.

And you've got this one wrong, too. I changed the emphasis to make Kissinger's point clearer.
Did you know that Saddam and Assad were once presented as a secular bulwark against Iranian extremism and that Noriega worked with the CIA? Ukraine and Germany are also "friends of the USA"...and look what's happening to them.

Anyway, I see you're now threatening people with hell, Mafia-style?



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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Signym, previously you were quoting William Blake "Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake". Blake has been dead for two hundred years, and the conditions that Blake wrote about don't exist anymore,

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

This is where you're wrong. Like you're wrong about nearly everything.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

This is where you're wrong. Like you're wrong about nearly everything.

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Must be a wonderful feeling for you, Signym. Here is a review for you, where you are always right and I am always wrong. In this review, the American empire is crumbling:

Unrest around Russian borders shows when empires crumble, they become murderous

The new eruptions of the old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan add to the general picture, namely, instability all around the Russian borders

Dmitry Kosyrev March 16, 2023 16:03:15 IST

Dmitry has recently read Caroline Elkins book Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire and he makes predictions about what America will do by looking back at the fall of the British Empire. Since Dmitry works for the Russian State agency website ria.ru, he sees the Ukraine war as the fall of the American Empire.

"Elkins’ book was mostly about the retreating, not about an attacking empire. So why they could not retreat without war and mayhem? After all, they’ve had enough. Look at these attempts to estimate the riches, plundered from India in 200 years, amounting to today’s $45 trillion, with about 165 million premature deaths between 1880-1920. Not to mention the hunger of 1943 or the victims of Amritsar in 1919. But why should the outgoing empire start an operation in Palestine after the Second World War? Why build concentration camps for 230,000 people in Kenya in 1953?

The American lady gives a lot of good answers for that. And most of these answers are about the mentality of the masters of the world when they see that something wrong happens with their power. The reviews are quoting her lines about the sadistic methods that marked the last acts of empire, being not an anomalous aberration but learned behaviours of imperial power."

More at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/unrest-around-russian-borders-shows-
when-empires-crumble-they-become-murderous-12303052.html

Download Caroline Elkins free books from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.boo/search.php?req=Caroline+Elkins
1) Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire
2) Imperial reckoning: the untold story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya
3) Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century: Projects, Practices, Legacies
4) Time for Reparations: A Global Perspective



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'll save your post for the future.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody cares. No more Ukrainian flags to be found anywhere on Twitter, I'm afraid.

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Elon Musk owns twitter. If he turned off the Ukrainian flags on twitter, that makes perfect sense since Elon Musk also owns Star Link, which he turned off in Ukraine because it was being used to support Ukrainians. Elon Musk also told Ukraine to surrender to Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_satellite_services_in_Ukraine#D
rone_control

Elon Musk Fans Horrified as He Suggests Ukraine Give in to Putin's Demands
"You are assuming that I wish to be popular."
https://futurism.com/elon-musk-fans-ukraine

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
No. Your posts aren't worth reading past the the first couple of sentences anyway. It's just one more stupid post in a long string of posts that in a year, will prove how wrong you were.


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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Tweedledee and Tweedle-dumber Dissemble on Ukraine

16 March 2023 by Larry Johnson 34 Comments

What a juxtaposition of absurdity versus reality. On the same day that the Kyiv Independent publishes a horrific report detailing the catastrophic losses of Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut, Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley compete for the “Who is the most stupid” award. I think it is a tie. Judge for yourselves.

Let us start with the article from the Ukraine publication, the Kyiv Independent. We will use this as the benchmark to evaluate what Austin and Milley said at their press conference on Wednesday.

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Battle of Bakhmut: Ukrainian soldiers worry Russians begin to ‘taste victory’

Just days before heading back to fight in the Battle of Bakhmut, a Ukrainian soldier Volodymyr, 54, said he felt ill-prepared.

“When they drive us to Bakhmut, I already know I’m being sent to death,” Volodymyr told the Kyiv Independent during his brief stay in Kramatorsk, a city in Donetsk Oblast some 25 kilometers west of the front line.

Volodymyr, an infantryman from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, said he struggled to eat after fighting in Bakhmut for months. He looked shaken as he talked.

For two months, Volodymyr’s unit was tasked with guarding Bakhmut against small Russian assault groups creeping into the city. The brigade was constantly under mortar fire as soldiers were outdoors where shrapnels could wound or kill them at any moment.

“(The Russians) keep firing at us, but we don’t have artillery – so we have nothing to attack them back with,” Volodymyr said. “I don’t know if I will return or not. We are just getting killed.”

Ukrainian infantrymen interviewed by the Kyiv Independent described the fighting in Bakhmut as a desperate survival challenge against Russia’s “infinite” stocks of artillery munitions and manpower. With just their machine guns and rifles, they say they braced relentless Russian mortar and artillery attacks until their hideout was eventually destroyed. . . .

While Russian casualties on the Bakhmut front are assumed to be very high, Ukraine is also taking heavy losses as it holds on to the city, soldiers’ testimonies reveal. NATO intelligence estimates that at least five Russian soldiers were killed for every Ukrainian loss, CNN reported on March 6, citing an unnamed official with the alliance.

Valeriy, a Ukrainian infantryman, says that most of his fallen comrades were fatally wounded by projectile fragments.

“It’s a pity that probably 90% of our losses are from artillery – or tanks and aviation,” Valeriy told the Kyiv Independent a few hours after leaving the Bakhmut front. “And much less (casualties) from shooting battles.”

Valeriy counted that “only a few” of the original 27 members of his platoon got out of the Bakhmut front with him, though he explained that most of them were wounded, not killed.

“The Russians have so many weapons, and there are so many of them,” Valeriy said. “They are firing at us all the time. Sometimes, you hear an incoming (shell) every second.”

Russian forces have intensified their assault on Bakhmut since mid-January after capturing the nearby salt-mining town of Soledar, which sits some 15 kilometers northeast of Bakhmut.

The author of this piece tries desperately to put lipstick on the pig of Ukrainian losses by repeating the bogus CNN claim that Russia is losing troops at a five to one ration compared to Ukraine. Yet, the Ukrainian soldiers tell the real story. Russia is shelling them with a seemingly limitless supply of artillery shells and the Ukrainians have no shells to fire in return.

I repeat what I have written before — the side that fires the most artillery shells inflicts the most casualties. Just wishing that Russians are dying in droves does not make it so. The picture painted by the Kyiv Independent is grim and horrific. So keep that in mind as you listen to the Austin/Milley clown show. (I am providing key portions of the transcript below.)

Lloyd Austin: This contact group has pushed hard to ensure that Ukraine can defend itself from Putin’s Imperial aggression. Brave Ukrainians stood firm during Russia’s ground invasion with the help of their new anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles which contact group countries have provided and Russia hopes to grind down Ukraine in a war of attrition.

But Ukraine has been supplied by more than 40 countries. Meanwhile Russia has had to depend on Iran and North Korea and has had to use equipment dating back to World War II. So Russia is running out of capability and running out of Friends. Putin has now had a Year’s worth of proof that the United States and the contact group will support Ukraine’s right to defend itself for the Long Haul

Austin is delusional and a liar. He fails to note that those 40 countries can no longer supply Ukraine with 155 mm artillery shells. That includes the United States. He repeats the canard that Russia is running out of ammunition, weapons and missiles and is forced to use 80 year old equipment. Has no one briefed him on the Kinzhal hyper sonic missile that continues to wreak havoc on Ukraine? Austin reminds me of Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz (“There is no place like home, there is no place like home). Somebody buy that man some Ruby slippers.

Austin apparently believes that if he keeps repeating the mantra that “Russia is running out of capability and running out of Friends”, it will become true. But the facts show otherwise. The new alliance between Russia and China means that Moscow has a powerful new friend. It also has strengthened relations with India and Saudi Arabia. Russia is busy creating a new multi-polar alliance that falls outside the U.S. sphere of influence. Austin betrays his ignorance and shallowness by such nonsensical claims.

Austin was not the only buffoon at the podium. General Milley demonstrated his skill as an unrepentant sychophant:

General Milley: Russia launched, and has continued for over a year now, a war of aggression and flagrant violation of international law. This is and remains a Russian frontal assault on the rules-based international order that has been in place for 80 years eight decades since the end of World War II. In the face of this act of aggression in a war of Conquest, this group remains unified. NATO is United, the people of Ukraine are unyielding. They are standing steadfast in the face for the Russian onslaught.

Russia remains isolated their military stocks are rapidly depleting. The soldiers are demoralized, untrained, unmotivated conscripts and convicts, and their leadership is failing them having already failed in their strategic objectives. Russia is increasingly relying on other countries, such as Iran and North Korea. As the secretary pointed out they’re using Iranian drones to continue to terrorize Ukrainian civilians. This relationship is built on the cruel bonds of oppressing Freedom subverting Liberty and maintaining their tyranny yet free people will not return to the shackles of tyranny.

Getting a lecture from General Milley on the sanctity of “rules based international order” is like listening to Jeffrey Dahmer warn about the risks of high cholesterol if you engage in cannibalism. I am sure that the peoples of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, just to mention a few, would have some scathing comments about the U.S. commitment to “rules based international order.”

Milley also is lacking in self-awareness and irony. He insists that because Russia is allegedly relying on Iran and North Korea for weapons that this is sign of weakness and failure. Hello? And Ukraine receiving aid from 40 countries is a sign of strength?

---

https://sonar21.com/tweedledee-and-tweedle-dumber-dissemble-on-ukraine/


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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Quote:

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Tweedledee and Tweedle-dumber Dissemble on Ukraine

16 March 2023 by Larry Johnson 34 Comments

What a juxtaposition of absurdity versus reality. On the same day that the Kyiv Independent publishes a horrific report detailing the catastrophic losses of Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut, Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley compete for the “Who is the most stupid” award. I think it is a tie. Judge for yourselves.

Let us start with the article from the Ukraine publication, the Kyiv Independent. We will use this as the benchmark to evaluate what Austin and Milley said at their press conference on Wednesday.

Quote:

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Battle of Bakhmut: Ukrainian soldiers worry Russians begin to ‘taste victory’

Just days before heading back to fight in the Battle of Bakhmut, a Ukrainian soldier Volodymyr, 54, said he felt ill-prepared.

“When they drive us to Bakhmut, I already know I’m being sent to death,” Volodymyr told the Kyiv Independent during his brief stay in Kramatorsk, a city in Donetsk Oblast some 25 kilometers west of the front line.

Volodymyr, an infantryman from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, said he struggled to eat after fighting in Bakhmut for months. He looked shaken as he talked.

For two months, Volodymyr’s unit was tasked with guarding Bakhmut against small Russian assault groups creeping into the city. The brigade was constantly under mortar fire as soldiers were outdoors where shrapnels could wound or kill them at any moment.

“(The Russians) keep firing at us, but we don’t have artillery – so we have nothing to attack them back with,” Volodymyr said. “I don’t know if I will return or not. We are just getting killed.”

Ukrainian infantrymen interviewed by the Kyiv Independent described the fighting in Bakhmut as a desperate survival challenge against Russia’s “infinite” stocks of artillery munitions and manpower. With just their machine guns and rifles, they say they braced relentless Russian mortar and artillery attacks until their hideout was eventually destroyed. . . .

While Russian casualties on the Bakhmut front are assumed to be very high, Ukraine is also taking heavy losses as it holds on to the city, soldiers’ testimonies reveal. NATO intelligence estimates that at least five Russian soldiers were killed for every Ukrainian loss, CNN reported on March 6, citing an unnamed official with the alliance.

Valeriy, a Ukrainian infantryman, says that most of his fallen comrades were fatally wounded by projectile fragments.

“It’s a pity that probably 90% of our losses are from artillery – or tanks and aviation,” Valeriy told the Kyiv Independent a few hours after leaving the Bakhmut front. “And much less (casualties) from shooting battles.”

Valeriy counted that “only a few” of the original 27 members of his platoon got out of the Bakhmut front with him, though he explained that most of them were wounded, not killed.

“The Russians have so many weapons, and there are so many of them,” Valeriy said. “They are firing at us all the time. Sometimes, you hear an incoming (shell) every second.”

Russian forces have intensified their assault on Bakhmut since mid-January after capturing the nearby salt-mining town of Soledar, which sits some 15 kilometers northeast of Bakhmut.

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The author of this piece tries desperately to put lipstick on the pig of Ukrainian losses by repeating the bogus CNN claim that Russia is losing troops at a five to one ration compared to Ukraine. Yet, the Ukrainian soldiers tell the real story. Russia is shelling them with a seemingly limitless supply of artillery shells and the Ukrainians have no shells to fire in return.

I repeat what I have written before — the side that fires the most artillery shells inflicts the most casualties. Just wishing that Russians are dying in droves does not make it so. The picture painted by the Kyiv Independent is grim and horrific. So keep that in mind as you listen to the Austin/Milley clown show. (I am providing key portions of the transcript below.)

Lloyd Austin: This contact group has pushed hard to ensure that Ukraine can defend itself from Putin’s Imperial aggression. Brave Ukrainians stood firm during Russia’s ground invasion with the help of their new anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles which contact group countries have provided and Russia hopes to grind down Ukraine in a war of attrition.

But Ukraine has been supplied by more than 40 countries. Meanwhile Russia has had to depend on Iran and North Korea and has had to use equipment dating back to World War II. So Russia is running out of capability and running out of Friends. Putin has now had a Year’s worth of proof that the United States and the contact group will support Ukraine’s right to defend itself for the Long Haul

Austin is delusional and a liar. He fails to note that those 40 countries can no longer supply Ukraine with 155 mm artillery shells. That includes the United States. He repeats the canard that Russia is running out of ammunition, weapons and missiles and is forced to use 80 year old equipment. Has no one briefed him on the Kinzhal hyper sonic missile that continues to wreak havoc on Ukraine? Austin reminds me of Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz (“There is no place like home, there is no place like home). Somebody buy that man some Ruby slippers.

Austin apparently believes that if he keeps repeating the mantra that “Russia is running out of capability and running out of Friends”, it will become true. But the facts show otherwise. The new alliance between Russia and China means that Moscow has a powerful new friend. It also has strengthened relations with India and Saudi Arabia. Russia is busy creating a new multi-polar alliance that falls outside the U.S. sphere of influence. Austin betrays his ignorance and shallowness by such nonsensical claims.

Austin was not the only buffoon at the podium. General Milley demonstrated his skill as an unrepentant sychophant:

General Milley: Russia launched, and has continued for over a year now, a war of aggression and flagrant violation of international law. This is and remains a Russian frontal assault on the rules-based international order that has been in place for 80 years eight decades since the end of World War II. In the face of this act of aggression in a war of Conquest, this group remains unified. NATO is United, the people of Ukraine are unyielding. They are standing steadfast in the face for the Russian onslaught.

Russia remains isolated their military stocks are rapidly depleting. The soldiers are demoralized, untrained, unmotivated conscripts and convicts, and their leadership is failing them having already failed in their strategic objectives. Russia is increasingly relying on other countries, such as Iran and North Korea. As the secretary pointed out they’re using Iranian drones to continue to terrorize Ukrainian civilians. This relationship is built on the cruel bonds of oppressing Freedom subverting Liberty and maintaining their tyranny yet free people will not return to the shackles of tyranny.

Getting a lecture from General Milley on the sanctity of “rules based international order” is like listening to Jeffrey Dahmer warn about the risks of high cholesterol if you engage in cannibalism. I am sure that the peoples of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, just to mention a few, would have some scathing comments about the U.S. commitment to “rules based international order.”

Milley also is lacking in self-awareness and irony. He insists that because Russia is allegedly relying on Iran and North Korea for weapons that this is sign of weakness and failure. Hello? And Ukraine receiving aid from 40 countries is a sign of strength?

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
If Putin said "The sky is blue and water is wet" and Tucker Carlson said "The sky is blue and water is wet" I'm sure SECOND would bray that Tucker is parroting Putin.

Occasionally different people say the same thing because they're talking real-world truth.

We'll never have to worry about SECOND posting truth, tho. If he hits on a real fact once in a while it's totally accidental.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
And may child rapist Zelensky shovel shit in hell soon.

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
If Putin said "The sky is blue and water is wet" and Tucker Carlson said "The sky is blue and water is wet" I'm sure SECOND would bray that Tucker is parroting Putin.

Occasionally different people say the same thing because they're talking real-world truth.

We'll never have to worry about SECOND posting truth, tho. If he hits on a real fact once in a while it's totally accidental.

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Signym, you are a Russian troll working for Putin.

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Another example of SECOND posting lies.

We DEFINITELY don't have to worry about SECOND accidentally colliding with the truth!



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" It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Another example of SECOND posting lies.

We DEFINITELY don't have to worry about SECOND accidentally colliding with the truth!

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Quote:

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Originally posted by second:

Quote:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
And may child rapist Zelensky shovel shit in hell soon.

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Putin has a criminal need for children: The International Criminal Court said Friday it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/putin-arrest-warrant-ukraine-war-crimes-i
cc-international-criminal-court/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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