Crocus Hall Narrative Evolution

Inevitably there are changes to the prevailing narrative as time goes by. It now appears according to Russian sources that none of the terrorists were shot on site, and that all four shooters escaped, as we know, by car. The operation now looks a lot clumsier than it previously seemed with the terrorists displaying little by way of training in gunmanship, depending more on bottles of gasoline which were used to start the fire in which most casualties died, and completely disregarded the basics of an operation of this kind (e.g. arriving and leaving their destination in the same car, a car that had features that made it easier for Russian authorities to track).

A statement by Lukoshenko that he was asked by Putin to shut the Belarussian border with Russia has been interpreted by some western sources as an indication that the terrorist’s car was not proceeding towards Ukraine but towards Belarussia, but pro-Russian sources are confirming that the obvious terrorist destination was Ukraine according to the route that the car was taking. It appears that the duration of the incident was only 15 minutes.

Note that the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, when asked by RT if Ukraine, the USA and the UK were involved, replied that “we think this is so.In any case, we are doing further research.” Putin today indicates that he has come to the same conclusion. It is not yet clear what evidence exactly is in possession of Russia. Whatever Russia does know, if it ever does eventually come out, will have consequences for the USA, or the UK, or Israel, or Ukraine?

It is difficult to blame anyone for being extremely skeptical about Western intelligence claims and activities. These organizations have shown themselves repeatedly as capable of doing great evil. It is plausible at the very least that Western intelligence was aware that the attack would happen: for example as Aaron Mate recalls today in interview with Napolitano, former Secretary of State John Kerry once admitted that the US allowed ISIS to grow in Syria simply to put pressure on the Assad regime, using ISIS as a tool for regime change, a policy that only changed when Russia came to the rescue of Syria. Israel also supported ISIS in Syria and provided shelter to wounded Jihadists in Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. And as I noted yesterday, Islamic extremists have fought on the front line in Ukraine alongside the neonazi Azov batallion.

Philip Giraldi tells Napolitano in interview today that it is possible that Nuland is a potential scapegoat for the Administration in this matter.

Feel-Goods for Ukraine

For Ukraine supporters, here are the Guardian’s “feel good” offerings for Tuesday March 26:

Ukraine’s navy claims it has sunk or disabled a third of all Russian warships in the Black Sea in just over two years of war. (My comment: this is a Ukrainian claim solely; it doesn’t bother to remind us of what might be the full size of the remaining two thirds of Russian warships and what kinds of warships these might be, or whether any of the previously damaged ships have been repaired and are back in service - which is surely the case). It doesn’t speak to the current strength of the Ukrainian navy.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has replaced the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, Oleksiy Danilov, with Oleksandr Lytvynenko, 51, head of the foreign intelligence service.

(My comment: this is still somewhat mysterious coming, as it does, just after the Crocus Hall attacks, and just after Danilov earned rebuke for his rudeness from a recent Chinese delegation searching for ways of bringing Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table. The removal of Danilov occurs within a context of a lot of role changing going on in Kiev. This may be symptomatic either of regime insecurity or, kind of the same thing, an attempt by Zelenskiy to consolidate his power before announcing a further extension of a state war without elections).

Ukraine has staged further air attacks on Belgorod, just over the border inside Russia. The regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported damage on the ground and claimed air defence engaged 18 incoming targets.

(My comment: Russia claims that it took down all of the missiles but we should assume that is an exaggeration. The attacks on Belgorod are a form of escalation, yes, but of a kind to which Ukraine is very prone - escalation by recourse to dramatic symbolic acts of aggression that do not do much to change the balance of power on the battlefield, which is steadily worsening for Ukraine. In the meantime, Russia is subjecting the entirety of Ukraine to ferocious missile and drone attacks with the result that three of its leading cities are wholly or partially without power: Kharkiv, Odessa and Zapporizhzhis)

Nato is considering shooting down Russian missiles that stray too close to its borders, Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Andrzej Szejna, has told Polish media outlet RMF24.

(My comment: it is palpably obvious that Russia has no interest - at this stage of the war - in striking targets outside of Ukraine. This is just another form of rhetorical escalation from some of NATO’s least controllable actors and, if acted upon, would help create accidents or events that could trigger something much worse).

Ukraine’s government is flooding money into its defence industry, budgeting nearly $1.4bn in 2024 to develop weapons at home – 20 times more than before Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Associated Press has reported. A huge portion of weapons are being bought from privately owned factories sprouting up across the country, such as a mortar factory in western Ukraine making roughly 20,000 shells a month. To help with labour shortages, the government has exempted defence industry workers from military service.

(My comment: this is total rubbish. Ukraine has no money of its own. It can barely get sufficient finance to sustain its administration from one month to the next - at a cost of $5 billion a month, money which, up until now, has come from the collective West. Any capitalists who are investing in weapons production in Ukraine right now are doing so in a context in which there is a dire shortage of relevant factory workers and skills, many of their potential labor force are about to be mobilized, they will find it hideously difficult to get insurance, they will be primary targets for Russian missiles and drone swarms. If they manage to produce 20,000 shells a month, that is the equivalent of 240,000 a year. This is only a third of the number of shells that Ukraine annually fires, and a seventh of the number of shells that Russia regularly fires, probably less than an eighth of the number of shells that Russia produces each year).

Compared with last year, Ukraine’s output of mortar shells is about 40 times higher and its production of ammunition for artillery has nearly tripled, said Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s minister of strategic industries. There has also been a boom in drone startups, with the government committing roughly $1bn on top of its defence budget.

(My comment: none of this compares to the absolute scale of Russian production of all kinds of weapons, or to the expansion in its weapons-producing infrastructure and capability, to the superiority of many categories of Russian weapon).

There are about 200 companies in Ukraine now focused on drones, delivering 50 times more of them in December compared with a year earlier, according to Mykhailo Fedorov, the minister of digital transformation. Ukrainian-made sea drones have proven to be an effective weapon against the Russian fleet in the Black Sea.

(My comment: such a large number of companies, if true, is testimony to the inevitability of high costs of production and inefficiencies in supply routes, production and distribution. Drones are no substitute for air defenses, which are now in shockingly low supply in Ukraine; nor for airplanes; nor for men. Russia is leaping ahead in the production of drones and, in particular, of sophisticated guided drones, and in electronic warfare techniques designed to intercept and redirect drones)

Ukraine’s surge in military spending has occurred against a backdrop of $60bn in US aid being held up by Congress and with European countries struggling to deliver enough ammunition. Ukraine couldn’t defeat Russia without massive support from the west, said Trevor Taylor, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based thinktank. “Ukraine is not capable of producing all the munitions that it needs for this fight.”

(Well, this one doesn’t need my comment - Ukraine can only continue to fight this war at the cost of the lives of many more Ukrainians, and even as it fights the scale of its defeat is enhanced).

Ukrainian security officers arrested two people suspected of acting on behalf of Russia as they tried to blow up a railway line used to supply weapons to the front, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said. The detainees, from the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, planted an explosive device by the line in central Poltava region and planned to detonate it remotely but were caught red-handed, the SBU said.

(My comment: much has been written about how Western Ukraine would continue to make life uncomfortable for Russia in the event that the conflict was frozen or Russia secured control over the entire region of Ukraine east of the Dnieper. But this story is a reminder of potential guerrilla actions from pro-Russians in Ukraine that would make life uncomfortable for the rump Ukraine).

In Kharkiv and parts of the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, 200,000 people remained without electricity after last Friday’s attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure. Emergency power outages have also reportedly been introduced in Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa.

(My comment: Indeed, and the cities of Kharkiv, Odessa and Zapporizhzhia are among the most cited in terms of those that Russia is most likely to absorb into the Russian Federation, along, possibly, with Kiev).

Russia is trying to expand its forces in its own north-west, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in an update, adding that most of Russia’s troops remain dedicated to fighting in Ukraine.

(My comment: the UK MoD is a very unreliable source. Russia has enormous assistance from Belarus in the north-west, while in the north-east it is aiming to establish what would eventually constitute a buffer zone)

Battlefields

Zelenskiy’s visit to Sumy yesterday may indicate Ukrainian anticipation of a Russian offensive from the north-east as previously discussed here. Today, Russian forces have been bombing the city of Kharkiv with guided FABs, and have also attacked the settlement of Dharkiv to the north-west, showing readiness to enter into Kharkiv itself (which is currently without power). Other than that there has not been a lot of significant action recently in Kupyansk or Lyman areas.

That Moldova has started to return aspiring Ukrainian escapees from military service back to Ukraine may bring some comfort to Kiev, the news that Denmark has decided to sell its remaining 24 F-16s to Argentina will not. Denmark has previously provided, or is committed to provide, 19 F-16s to Ukraine. As previously noted, many of these planes may be relatively old and close to their technological expiry, and they need better airfields than Ukraine currently has if they are to launch from Ukrainian soil.

Chatter about NATO troop deployment has subsided over the past day or so. French Television has identified a number of possible uses to which a deployment of 2,000 French troops could be put, including the defense of factories, demining, training, defense of Odessa, policing the border zone with Belarus to release Ukrainian soldiers for the combat lines (Ukrainians must be delighted with such a prospect!), and fighting shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainian soldiers in the trenches. Whatever they are used for, they will be targeted by Russia as Russia has clearly said that it would. It may that the initial deployment will be used for clearly non-combatant roles but that in later iterations the deployment will move closer to direct combatant status.

Among the more striking of recent developments is the Russian shelling of a NATO combat headquarters in Chasiv Yar which may have killed a Polish Brigadier General and his staff. This will consolidate Russian control over Ivanivska but in both cases of Ivanivska and in Bohdanivka to the north, as also in Bilohorivka Russia has still to secure Ukrainian positions in local areas over highland areas. It is making moves down the railways from Ivanivske to Andrivka and Klishchiivka. Russia will likely advance on Chasiv Yar from Khromove in the very near future.

Near Avdievka, Russia is making further advances on Berdychi, whose imminent fall seems inevitable. Russian forces are now well west of Orlivka and moving north on Semenivka, perhaps compelling a Ukrainian retreat westwards towards Novoselivka Persha. Further south, Russia is still in intense clashes with Ukraine for Krasnohorivka, where Russia occupies the south of the settlement and is taking out Ukrainian artillery and drone systems to the north. Further south the situation in Novomykhailivka has not changed dramatically, with Russia taking more warehouses and plantations to the north, but Ukraine is so far hanging on in the northwest of the settlement. Ukraine has in any case by-passed Ukrainian positions here and is advancing further west.

In Robotyne, pro-Russian sources are reporting that the settlement is about to fall to Russia.

Palestine

A number of sources, including John Measheimer are ridiculing Washington claims that the UNSC ceasefire is “non-binding.” The resolution is clearly binding. If Israel ignores the resolution (Israel continued its murder rampage even after the resolution was passed), the reputation of both the US and of Israel will sink even further than it already has. Israel is not even a formal ally of the USA, yet Biden is unwilling to put serious pressure on Israel, with the consequences that Israel can pretty much do what it wants, says Mearsheimer in interview with Napolitano today, at the expense of Biden’s electoral chances in November. Biden continues the flow of weapons to Israel, despite the fact that shipmentsunapproved by Congress are falling outside the law, which requires among other things that they be sent in the event of a genuine emergency that is to immediate to allow for Congressional consideration, to a recipient who will use the weapons responsibly. It is obvious that these weapons are being used for genocidal purposes, and that Israel is blocking international aid to a population suffering in severe famine conditions.

Fanatic Israeli defense minister Ben Givir has proposed legislation in the Israeli Knesset that would make it legal for police to kill Palestinians on the street. Already, Israel is making it very easy for settlers to acquire automatic weapons. We should also be cognizant that there are thousands of Palestinians who have been detained in Israeli prisons and detention centers, often if not usually without charge, often for political reasons, often for considerable periods of time, many of them children , and we must worry about the threats to them in this period.

Empire, Communication and NATO Wars

Depravity Narratives