Paris Panic

Ukrainian Deaths

Reporting on the Military Summary Channel at midday today, February 27, Dima notes that in contrast to Zelenskiy’s recent (ludicrous) claim that Ukraine has lost only 31,000 soldiers killed over the period of the entire SMO, the Russian MoD calculates the actual figure to be 444,000 (although it is not clear to me whether these are simply the dead, or the dead plus severely wounded), and Dima himself calculates the figure at 440,000. Dima sees the purpose behind Zelenskiy’s claim, if I understand him correctly, is to moderate the number of men who will need to be demobilized and then, later remobilized, and to make it appear, possibly, that the new mobilization will appear to be adding significantly to the size of the Ukrainian army, once the “number” of those killed is taken into account (i.e. that the mobilization is something other than simply replacing the dead with young, barely trained troops). The mobilization law is still stuck in the Ukrainian parliament.

Ukraine Defense Lines

On the ground, east of Avdiivka, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Syrsky, has ordered the construction of a new defense belt incorporating Pokrovsk and Selydove. This will be the third defense belt and the furthest west. The first, closest to Avdiivka, connects Ocheretyne, Novobokhmutivka, Semenivka, Orlivka, Yasnobrodivka, and Karlivka. The second defense line connects Prohres, Zhelanne, Novohrodivka, Selydove, Tsukuryne, and Kurakhove.

Dima’s summary appears to confirm that the settlements close to Avdiivka of Lastochkyne and Sieverne are now under Russian control, and that Russian forces are in the process of establishing control over Tonenke which is very close and a little to the west of Sieverne. Orlivka appears to be still held by Ukrainian forces, but is under pressure from Russian forces from three sides. Ukrainian forces in Orlivka fled from Lastochkyne. There are one or two thousand Ukrainian soldiers in the fields west of Sieverne and south towards Pervomaiske (Ukrainian-held but very close to Russian positions). In this area as a whole there may be between ten and twenty Ukrainian forces along the treelines and trenches but they are under Russian surveillance and attack by cluster munitions. A Russian successful advance on Orlivka likely depends on its fortunes in taking Tonenke, whose western border could be a launch pad for attacks on the flanks of Russian forces moving towards Orlivka. Russia’s best chance for Orlivka, therefore, is to attack from the north. Above Orlivka, Russia has control over Stepove but is still trying to move into Berdyche to the immediate west. Further south, Russia is forcing a Ukrainian retreat from Krasnohorivka.

Near Bakhmut, Russia is reducing the buildings of Ivanivske and moving closer to Chasiv Yar. Russia has half of Robotyne. All these may soon fall to Russia, along with Novomikhailivka, Krasnohorivka and other combat zones. There are reports of a massive buildup of Russian forces near Kupyansk, whose fall would open the doors to a Russian seizure of Kharkiv, one of Ukraine’s most important industrial regions. Perhaps it is this potential scenario that is the cause of the Panic Paris (see below). There are reports of hurried attempts by Ukraine to build new fortifications around Kiev.

Aid for Ukraine

In the USA, there is still no clearance of Biden’s proposed $61 billion aid to Ukraine that is being blocked from being put on the floor of the House of Representatives by Mike Johnson, who is also expressing confidence that there will be no government shutdown at the end of this week.

A panic reaction from Europe to the prospect of a cessation of US aid to Ukraie has been marked by an emergency meeting of representatives of European powers, called by French President Macron in Paris, to brainstrom how Europe should react in such terms of finding more shells, putting NATO forces on the ground in Ukraine (as suggested by the prime minister of Slovakia). There was no resolution to this meeting, no consensus on the proposal to put NATO troops into Ukraine (they are already there, of course, but not formally, not legally - and many of those who are there are French so no wonder Macron is involved) but clearly there is a great deal of talk about such possibilities. A few days ago the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, commented that Ukraine should be given the green light to attack Russian forces anywhere they wished, including deep in Russia itself (referring most likely to F16s about to become operational, likely flown from European airfields on Ukraine’s behalf, but possibly out of range for deep strikes in Russia - although Taurus and simiar missiles might permit this). Macron claims that if Ukraine is defeated then there can be no peace in Europe, a fantasy that is the product only of his own imagination and those who think like him. Meantimealmost the whole of Europe seems to be experiencing farmers’ uprisings and other protests that are motivated in part by the declining and deindustrializing economies of Europe, and higher fuel prices that are the result of Europe’s own disengagement from cheap Russian oil and gas. Europe’s economic war has failed. Apologists for European idiocy claim (idiotically) that the US is responsible for this failure because it worried that a collapse of the Russian economy would be bad for the globe.

Mercouris today talks of a mood of gloom and panic across the collective West. Macron notes a mood of “despondency” at the Munich Security Conference and says that he called the Paris conference because he wanted to cheer everyone up.

The Maidan Massacre

Presumably in follow-up to the New York Times’ recent “revelations” of 12 collaborative CIA-SBU stations set up from the very beginning of the US-instigated Maidan coup d’etat in 2014 close to the Russian border (now disbanded apparently, possibly by Russia), Nataylie Baldwin has presented today a paper by Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian emigre in Canada, who has conducted groundbreaking work to prove that pro-coup Banderite forces fired on and killed a large number of innocent Maidan protestors in an effort to smear Russia and incite further action against democratically elected President Yanukovych. Katchanovski reports on a nearly one-million-word verdict from Ukraine’s Maidan massacre trial that recently confirmed “that many Maidan activists were shot not by members of Ukraine’s Berkut special police force or other law enforcement personnel but by snipers in the far-right-controlled Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled locations a decade ago today [February 20]. The verdict, handed down on October 18, 2023, states specifically that this hotel was controlled by Maidan activists and that an armed, far-right-linked Maidan group was in the hotel and fired from it. It also confirms that there was no Russian involvement in the massacre and that no massacre orders were issued by then President Viktor Yanukovych or his ministers. The verdict concludes that the Euromaidan was at the time of this massacre not a peaceful protest but a “rebellion” that involved the killing of Berkut and other police personnel.”

This clearly opens the possibility if not the likelihood of CIA involvement in this murderous scam, and again of its involvement with the SBU in conjuring up the “evidence” that Russia insanely shot down a civilian airliner, MH17, the following summer (allowed by Ukrainian authoritries and by commercial airlines to fly over a war zone in which it was known that Ukraine had positioned many BUK missile launchers).

Why has the NYT story appeared now? Possibly, as Mercouris speculates today, because the writing is already on the wall and because a lot of the information (some or even much of it disinformation) that the story contains is likely to become public or a matter of public controversy in any case, whether the sources of disclosure are US, Ukrainian, European or Russian. Revelations concerning not just the role of the CIA, but also about the multiple US-financed biological warfare labs disclosed earlier on in the conflict (admitted to even by Nuland). It will hardly be the first time that the CIA has basically run a US war (think Afghanistan). The US/CIA may now be pulling their assets out of Ukraine and this could be the basis of the panic that is being experienced in Paris.