Munich Pomp and Insecurity

The Munich Security Conference drew scornful comments from critical analysts for the contrast that it underlined between effete and privileged Western leaders smiling and laughing in cocktail dress while Ukraine’s army was totally collapsing in Avdiivka. Many thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were losing their lives and thousands of POWS were being captured by Russian forces - there is no evidence for the Western mainstream claims that Russia lost 17,000 in Avdiivka, but Russian losses were likely heavy even if not nearly as heavy as those of Ukraine - and within days of the killing by Russian missile of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in a training center in a location to the west of Avdiivka.

Alexander Mercouris this morning on The Duran describes a consequent “pre-coup” situation in Kiev possibly involving Zelenskiy critics and Kiev mayor Wladimir Klitschko and former Ukrainian President Poroshenko. Klitschko may be looking to Germany for support (he and his boxer brother have long had German connections); Poroshenko may be turning to Washington (Zelenskiy wont even allow him to leave the country).

Alexander Navalny’s wife Yulia had been invited to Munich, prior, presumably, to Navalny’s death in prison, vowing to continue his legacy and to “reveal why Putin killed him.” On this question I was interested to note that Ray McGovern in interview earlier today with Judge Napolitano had picked up approvingly on the musings of Gilbert Doctorow, who tends to point the finger of culpability towards Britain, both for the recent downing of the plane carrying Ukrainian Azov battalion POWs on their way to a prisoner swap, and for the death by poisoning of Navalany just a few days ago - something, he says, that would be quite easy for Britain to orchestrate through Kiev’s network of Ukrainian spies resident in Russia and even present in Navalny’s prison.

Driving Doctorow’s thoughts is the fact that some other poisonings for which Russia is routinely blamed (e.g. Litvinenko in 2006) have taken place on British soil, and let us not forget how the poisoning (by “Novichock”) of the Skripals (father and daughter) took place within a few miles from Britain’s military research facility of Porton Down (now known to have carried stocks of and likely to have researched “Novichock) and that, as far as we know neither they, nor Navalny (supposedly poisoned by “Novichock” in 2020 on a journey from Tomsk in Moscow, ending up in a German hospital that Russia permitted Navalny to move to and from which the allegations of Novichock use were forthcoming) were actually killed by this substance, undercutting its billing as one of the most dangerous substances on earth. Not to mention the extreme dangers that would be involved in the preparation, transportation, delivery and application of such substances.

Critical commentators (that noble species!) have compared the indignation of pro-Establishment supporters of Navalny over what, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, they already assert is his murder “by Putin,” with the silence from these same quarters of the long and cruel imprisonment in a British prison of Julian Assange, in conditions that a UN rapporteur has considered amount to torture, for imagined “crimes” that mainly amount to his publication of well-sourced evidence (including the leaks from Chelsea Manning) of Western war crimes, and even as Assange may tomorrow face extradition to the USA. Here, as Ray McGovern told Napolitano this morning, he may face further torture of the kind threatened him (as we know, courtsey of another Wikileaks exposure) by a former chief of State Department security. Commentators have also contrasted the furor of Western indignation over the detention and death in a Russian prison of a Russian citizen, with their total absence of concern for the detention and death in a Ukrainian prison of an American (and Chilean) citizen, of independent social media commentator Gonzalo Lira, who received no aid from the US embassy in Kiev.

Nobody in Munich seems to have thought of the possibility of talking to Moscow about anything.

Dima on the Military Summary channel this morning references not only what has become a familiar list of zones in which Russian advances have been achieved or are in process or likely to come about very soon - e.g. in the vicinity of Avdiivka like Marinka, Pobieda, Novomykhailivka (hopefully Russian can soon take Korakhove, from, which, apparently, Ukraine can still fire on civilian populations in Donetsk City; the industrial city of Kramatorsk is already under Russian fire); Staramaiorkse, Orizhaine, Pervamaiorske, and Vuhledar; many of the settlements around Bakhmut, like Bodychai and Ivanivkse, up to Chasiv Yar; the Robotyne and Verbove “Bradley” salient (note that Russia entered Robotyne from the western flank today, February 19); Lyman (near Terny) and Kupyansk - but also adds some surprisingly high figures for the presence of Russian troops (as many as 120,000 in Kupyansk, 40,000-60,000 in each of Avdiivka, Bakhmut, and Robotyne areas). The size of the northern armies may indicate a likely offensive on Kharkiv but Mercouris today, taking note of statements from Gerasimov’s No. 2., considers that it is too early to expect that Russia would attempt a “big arrow” offensive. Dima on the other hand is expecting something pretty big…

In addition to taking note of the sheer size of these armies, coupled with Russian superiority in the air (note that Ukrainian claims of shooting down Russian jets over Avdiivka are almost certainly wrong) as Ukrainian air defense continues to crumble, and the continuing elapse of time - at least two weeks - before there is a resusumption of aid for Ukraine from Washington (which may not happen at all, and, even if it does, will make little difference to Ukrainian chances on the battlefield before Russia wins the war), we should also consider the vast increase in Russian weapons production capability. This is something simply not possible in the West whose system is totally different from Russia’s. In Russia, it is presumed that production capability must be sustained in conditions of readiness that allow for its immediate ramping up in emergency, and in a context of understanding that the economic interests of the weapons industries must be subservient to the needs of the State).

The Russian MOD has confirmed that the Chemical Coke plant in Adviika is now under the complete control of Russian forces suggesting therefore that the forces of the Third Assault battalion (former Azov brigade) who had hidden in the underground facilities of the plant have surrendered or have been killed or wounded. A state of chaos pertains throughout much of Avdiivka and all around it. I noticed yesterday the angry mood of Zelenskiy who is contemplating the investigation and punishment of troops in Avdiivka who he considers did not obey orders or who initiatiated negotiations with local Russian forces, and agree with those who suspect that should he continue along any such trajectory will almost certainly arouse the Ukrainian army to opposition against him.

The European Union has promised a million drones for Ukraine. One skeptically wonders whether this promise will meet the same fate as the EU’s last years’ promise to supply a million 155mm shells (but later reduced to 300,000). In any case, Russia can produce a much higher number of shells. Denmark, meantime, is offering the remainder of its artillery to Ukraine and is encouraging other European countries to make similar gestures. The reality is that there is not much left of Denmark’s artillery; and what remains is probably of relatively little value; much the same can be said of most of Europe’s armory.

In the Middle East we must expect that the upcoming UNSC vote on a ceasefire in Gaza will be voted down by the USA, as the US sustains its military aid to Israel (and its culpability for an ongoing process of genocide which so far has taken approximately 30,000 Palestinian lives and 70,000 wounded). In the Sinai some reports suggest that Egypt is building a walled encampment and there are disturbing references to the preparation of concentration camps. At the International Court of Justice we can look forward to a consideration of the history of the dispossession and suppression of Palestinian people since before the foundation of Israel. Or at least so we can hope, that considerations do not conveniently stop in 1967 but continue back to very roots of an apartheid trajectory. I am not anticipating that this will take us very far but I welcome the opening of the debate, the fact that for the first time in my lifetime, the door is opening towards a rexamination of first causes and it is becoming publicly acceptable to look without fear at the depth and the darkness of this never-ending and abusive horror.