"Flirting with War and Extinction"
The quote comes from a former senior Pentagon official, Stephen Bryen, writing in the Asia Times and is a reference to current NATO and Washington behavior in straining against the decades’ old terror of nuclear war - from all those leaders, in other words, whose bizarre blend of foolishness and corruption stands to be exposed when they lose power in the aftermath of a collapse of Ukraine, specifically, and of the Washington global counterrevolution against multipolarity in general. It does look as though they are going down. The reference to extinction, interestingly, is not a reference to the end of human kind, although that surely is on the cards, but to the extinction of NATO, which would certainly make the former less likely.
Le Poseur Poses
President Emmanuel (means “God is With Us” in Hebrew) Macron today hosts US President (“Genocide Joe”) Joe Biden for the D-Day celebrations in honor of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany. This world war was essentially won by Russia with some help from the Allies, most notably US and Britain (half of France was occupied by Germany).
To this celebration Russia was not invited.
Ray McGovern points out today in his Napolitano show that Russia was originally invited but the Biden camp insisted that he be disinvited so that Biden, doubtless so preoccupied with his support for neo-Nazis in Kiev and participation in the slaughter of well over 36,000 children, women and men in Gaza and the West Bank, would not have to suffer the embarrassment of having to stand next to or near to the essential victor against fascism in World War Two and against the Nazi Holocaust (it was Russia that liberated Auschwitz) - victor not only of World War 2 but also of the NATO proxy war, over the bodies of 600,000 (?) Ukrainians, with Russia.
So, of course, Emmanuel will have been doing a lot of busy posing today. And nothing better to pose with than an offer of more Western aid to Ukraine, this time in the form of an unspecified number of French Mirage fighters (France is believed to have a total of 20 to 30 of these machines still available; they were produced mainly for export purposes but did not sell as well as hoped), training of Ukrainian pilots to fly them, and French trainers for a new Ukrainian brigade of 4,800 men (possibly supplemented with other French weapons like the Leclerc tanks, of which the French army had a fleet of 200 in 2021).
The provision of Mirage fighters, possibly the result of a deal reached several months ago when the failure of Ukraine’s much-vaunted counteroffensive of 2023 was becoming too apparent, crosses one of the few “Red Lines” that Russia has actually articulated. That is, opposed to the Red Lines that Western countries claim that Russia had articulated, but hadn’t.
As we discussed yesterday, Russia’s response to this latest crossing of a Red Line is linked both to Russian concern about the proliferation of cruise missiles provided by Western countries, and fired on Russian targets in Russia with the indispensable aid of NATO personnel, and, within this compass, the possibility of massive damage by cruise missiles on Russian nuclear infrastructure, most notably Russia’s nuclear early detection radar stations (which have already been successfully targeted by both drones and missiles).
I do not know to what extent cruise missiles can be used for nuclear warheads or, rather, which specific cruise missles can be used for nuclear purposes. Russian hypersonic Kizhal and Zircon missiles certainly can carry nuclear warheads. Might the same possibly be the case, say, of ATACMS, HIMARS, Storm Shadows or Scalps? I am not sure. But I do take seriously the concern articulated the other day by Moscow-based commentator Mark Sleboda that Russia is unable to detect whether a cruise missile, perhaps fired from an F-16 or a Mirage 2000-5 (built to fire long-range Scalps or Storm Shadows and guided bombs, which the F-16s are not, apparently), is or is not equipped with a nuclear warhead. We may assume that they can be fitted with cluster or high explosive fragmentation (HEF) warheads (used by Russia on 101 missiles against the Ukraine Su-24s).
With respect to the nuclear capability of F-16s which has been asserted by Russia, this from Stefano d’Urso Aviation in June, 2023: “A topic that is often being talked about for the U.S. Air Force is the modernization of the tactical nuclear capabilities. Every now and then, the government releases some updates about the new B61-12 that is being developed and tested as a replacement for all the older variants of the nuclear weapon. The service, in fact, is putting great emphasis on the use of Dual Capable Aircraft like the F-15E, the F-16C and the F-35A as part of the nuclear triad).
All this is in addition to Russian concerns about being “blinded” to the extent that their early warning of incoming ICBM missiles is degraded (the amount of warning is already inferior to the early warning that the US would have of incoming Russian ICBMs), exponentially adds to uncertainty and unpredictability in the context of a potential third world war that the collective West is constantly pushing towards, yet cannot win, and which Russia warns the West is increasingly fraught with the danger of a transition to nucleare threshold.
Which is less threat, in my view, and more a statement of fact.
There are two important insights relevant to this situation that have been shared today by Alexander Mercouris in his daily broadcast. The less significant perhaps is that the French offer of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets is yet another instance of Western offloading of obsolete equipment for the purpose of - well, yes - posing, posing as the magnificant archangels flying in to help out that giant Churchillian figure, one Volodymyr Zelenskiy (excuse me while I vomit into my soup).
Yes, these planes, like the F-16s and Soviet MiG 29s, are ancient machines, doutbless modified and updated in many ways but long surpassed by more modern machines such as the French Rafale. If they bring added value to Ukraine it is to replace the Ukrainian fleet of Su-24s that has been all but destroyed. But nuclear-capable they are (although the Mirage is designed for air-to-air combat) and if Russia is serious for its own security, which of course it is, it needs to destroy these before takeoff (which could be Poland but, given that the Mirage supposedly requires less runway and less smooth runway than F-16s, might also be in Ukraine). Destruction will be relatively straight forward given that these are not stealth fighters, can easily be detected, and targeted by adequate Russian air defense systems.
European Nukes
In another indication of a Western compulsion to escalate, Politico reports that the head of the EU’s biggest political grouping (Manfred Weber, leader of the center-right European People’s Party EPP), is calling for Europeans to prepare for war without support from the United States and to build their own nuclear umbrella. France is the only EU member that is also one of the world’s nine nuclear powers, along with the US, UK, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. The proposal reflects European fear of Russia (which, as I have consistently argued over the past two years, is misplaced but which could conceivably generate the very thing that European leaders are most afraid of ) and also a concern in Europe that a Trump presidency in the US might bring about disengagement of the US from NATO. President Biden has signed a law requiring that a withdrawal from NATO be approved by Congress. In addition, French (300m nuclear warheads) and British (260 warheads) nuclear arsenals are available for defense of Europe anyway, through NATO or otherwise, said Burroughs. NATO currently relies heavily on U.S. nuclear warheads on six military air bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. The vast majority of EU member states have signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non-nuclear-weapon State Parties.
European aggression rests on a fear of Russia that simply ignores history. It is Europe that has on several occasions invaded Russia. Russia, of course, did invade Germany towards the end of World War Two. Only once before did Russia invade Europe, briefly and alongside Austria and Prussia in 1814, to rid Europe of Napoleon whose demise was largely the result of his trying to invade Russia). More importantly European aggression and fear ignores the clear advantages - over continuation of the conflict - of a meaningful peace initiative. That would not, however, be the Swiss peace conference soon to take place, haivng been organized by President Zelenskiy’s office as much by the Swiss, and which is designed as a European fashion show to pass off an illegimate President as legitimate de facto).
The Red Lines
Which brings me back to the second of the two insights offered today by Alexander Mercouris, which has to do with Russian “Red Lines.” As has been very evident since the war began (or at least since the 2022 phase of a war that began in 2014), NATO has steadily increased the scale and ferocity of its participation,and on each occasion of scaling up (e.g. to “state-of-the-art” tanks such as Leopard 2s) claiming that it was crossing a Russian Red Line when, in fact, Russia had not articulated any such Red Line. But lately, the West has been telling itself that because Russia, it claims, has not responded to constant Western violations of Western-attributed “Red Lines", that therefore Russia will not respond to further violations and the West can do what it wants.
They conveniently - or, rather, dangerously, recklessly - forget that the very war itself is the result of Russian responses to Western provocations. The SMO was a response to the West’s deliberate reneging on Minsk II, the West’s assistance to Ukraine for violence against Ukraine’s own people in the Donbass, assistance in Ukraine’s build up of forces for a war againsat the People’s Republics, the West’s positioning of nuclear weapons in Poland and Romania and, as it would have transpired, in Ukraine.
That Russia responds is not in doubt; that Russia generally responds in a very deliberate and measured way may be read more as a testament to sane and intelligent leadership than as a sign of weakness, inability, or lack of determination.
For the moment, the collective West exhibits simultaneously indications, firstly, of determination to double-down on failure, persevering in a war to the last Ukrainian, in the hope that this will somehow preserve US and European prestige. In the meantime and as a result, the fissures within NATO grow - note Hungary and Slovakia and the increasing diffidence of Italy and, of course, Turkey, which is now eying the BRICS as a safer place of refuge. Secondly, there are contrasing indications of retraction. In saying the other day that there was no current hope that Ukraine could become a member of Ukraine, President Biden may have been signalling to Russia that on this matter of Russia’s most singular condition for peace - Ukrainian neutrality - the West was already willing to concede. Except of course, at the same time, individual members of NATO have been signing bilateral security agreements with Ukraine (though they do not come into effect until after the war is over) merely underlining the inherent untrustworthiness and incoherence of NATO and European policy.
The Battlefields
Russian forces continue to claim modest advances in the northern sector of Vovchansk by penetrating the industrial area, and attacking the Ukrainian-held eastern end of that sector from the north. In the Lyptsi area there has been a Russian raid on Ukrainian forces in the forest to the south of Lyptsi, which Russia claims to have given it access to high ground over the settlement.
But Ukrainian counterattacks continue to be very numerous and very evident such that some pro-Russian commentators acknowledge the possibility that Russian forces may be pushed back from Hlyboke, Lyptsi and Vovchansk. There continues to be an expectation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive towards the northern border, even as there is also an expectation of a Russian offensive south towards Sumy. Ukraine has ordered the evacuation of all settlements within ten kilometers of the Russian border in the Sumy area. The Russian invasion could take place against Tyotkino to the northeast of Sumy (embracing attacks on Vorozhba and Iskryskivshchyna) or Sudzha to the northwest, or from the Grayvoron area (embracing attacks on Velyna, Pysanivka and Dmytrivka), and cutting rail links betweemn Sumy and Kharkiv.
In the Kupyansk area Russian forces continue to pound Stepova Novoselivka, an area that the Ukrainians have mined; bridges across the Oskil; and are advancing on the settlement of Novosadovo on the road that connects with Makiivka, Neveske and Myrne. Near Siversk, Russian forces are advancing on Rozdolovka, very likely with the goal eventually of establishing Russian control over a square of territory marked out by Vyimka, Vesele and Rozdolivka. Russian forces continue to bomb Spirne, but there is as yet no ground operation.
In Chsasiv Yar, fierce fighting continues, focused largely on territory around Kalynivka where Russian forces have likely established a cauldron around Ukrainian positions prior to advancing south to Chasiv Yar and in the eastern microdistrict of Chasiv Yar, east of the Canal - another instance in which reports day-by-day never seem to take one very far. In the Ivanivske area Russian forces have retracted somewhat in the face of Ukrainian counterattacks.
As for Avdiivka, things are much the same as I reported yesterday; likewise in the Kostyantynivka area, where, just seven kilometers south of Kostyantynivka, Russian forces are reportedly now in control of the T-05-24 highway that acts as a supply route to Vuhledar. To the West, in the Vremevka Ledge area, Russian forces are moving from Staramaiorske towards Rivnopil, and west of Piatykhstky there are intense clashes that might herald a Russian advance in the directions of Stepove and, eventually, Kamianske.