An End to the Restraints of Law (RR)
Losing Stoltenberg
The head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has just visited Kiev where he says that NATO members must prioritize Ukrainian needs by sending their weapons to Ukraine and forgetting about their own security (clearly indicating that he does not really consider Russia a threat to Europe and that European countries have nothing to fear). The people of Europe, if not now, soon will see through the horrendous arrogance of such a command.
Stoltenberg says that Ukraine must one day become a member of NATO, but only not now (after Ukraine has spent over 500,000 lives as down price for the privilege of belonging to this wondrous institution - that is, over 470,000 more lives than the 31,000 that Zelenskiy admits to); while Zelenskiy assures his people that Ukraine has done everything that it needs to do in order to start negotiations for entry into the EU, which is, to be honest, difficult to see actually happening any time soon.
Zelenskiy also says he wants a ten year security agreement with the US, an objective that may have as its unstated purpose the idea of making it difficult if not impossible for a Trumpian presidency to retreat from support of Ukraine, just as recent sanctions-related legislation now sets sanctions in relative stone, making it impossible for a President to cancel sanctions unilaterally without substantial congressional support.
Meanwhile western mainstream media are opening up considerably to the idea that Ukraine is, if not rapidly losing the war, then finding itself, as Ukrainian commander Syrsky admits, in a difficult period. Perhaps most significant, in the light of a lot of talk of a likely major Russian offensive on Kharkiv from Russia’s Belgorod border with Ukraine is that Russia has almost completed a major new airfield in Alexeyevka which would be highly serviceable for attacks across eastern Ukraine on the presumption that it is not itself too highly vulnerable to attacks from Ukrainian forces.
There has been speculation that the West may be working with Ukraine to attack the Kerch Bridge on or around Russia’s Victory Day celebration of the defeat of Nazi Germany on May 9th. Alexander Mercouris has recently suggested that there might have been a secret deal between the US and Russia top the effect that the US would not allow Ukraine to destroy the Kerch Bridge for as long as Russia exercised restraint vis-a-vis the bridges across the Dnieper. The main problem with this theory is that there have actually been at least two Ukrainian attacks on the Kerch bridge.
A source for Mercouris claims that Russia did indeed consider destruction of the bridges earlier in the war, but that after construction of the Surovikin Line of fortifications following Russia’s withdrawl from Kherson and Kharkiv in 2022, it was decided not to destroy the bridges, as these would allow Ukraine to conduct their disastrous summer 2023 counteroffensive and give Russia amply opportunity to win a war of attrition. This explanation, which I consider very unlikely because it involves far too great a level of confidence by Russia that the counteroffensive would collapse, does not entail a deal between the US and Russia. The source confirms that Russia does indeed have the ability to destroy the bridges should they choose to do so.
If there is a major attack on the Kerch bridge then presumably the Dnieper bridges will become a great deal more vulnerable and Ukraine will find it even more difficult to sustain its military supplies into eastern Ukraine. This will indeed help facilitate a rapid Russian “dash for the Dnieper.”
Politicized Intelligence and Russia’s Unseen Victory
Both Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter, in separate interviews with Judge Napolitano today, decry the politicization of intelligence that has reached the extent that the CIA’s Bill Burns regularly just tells the President what the President wants to hear or wants the media to be told, and comes up with intelligence findings that suit the Democratic Party’s agenda. In the case of the Director of National Intelligence, James Klapper, McGovern tends to think the man actually believes the antidiluvian Cold War nonsense that he regularly spouts. Given Klapper’s sleazy role in ordering up the fateful Intelligence Community’s “Russiagate” report of January 2017, I am far from convinced that the man is sincere, or at best, I suspect that he weilds deeply dishonest measures in order to secure the silly, simplistic and dangerous ends in which he may believe.
Scott Ritter, also in interview with Judge Napolitano, reminds his audience today that the West’s tensions with Russia following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 - starting with the first “NGO” revolution of the Yeltsin period - have all along been designed to break up the Russian Federation. They have persisted through the period of Western meddling behind the Chechnyan wars of the 1990s and through the relentless expansion of NATO in the 1990s and Noughties for the sole purpose of bringing down Russia, in a process that for US benefit has also required the punishing of Europe for its dependence on cheap Russian oil and gas.
Yet for all that, none of these things have come to pass. Russia has won - “the unseen victory of Russia”: it is winning in the battlefields, it has overcome and rebutted Western sanctions, it has expanded its weapons production capability well beyond that of the collective West. All told, Russian has deployed a total of two million troops in covering for all aspects of the Special Military Operation. It has weapons, supersonic and hypersonic, that are in advance of the best air defense systems that are deployed in the USA, in Ukraine, in Israel. In addition, these are air defense systems that can be degraded by large quantities of cheap drones, mixed with far more lethal missiles. This applies to Israel’s “iron dome,” based on the Patriot system, and which failed to protect Israel against the full force of Iran’s assault a couple of weeks ago. It cost Israel $2-3 billion to shoot down the drones and missiles that Iran fired (according to Israel’s Hebrew press). A few nights of such attacks would bankrupt the country and render it defenceless.
Having just returned from a two weeks’ visit to Russia, Alaistair Crooke today confirms to Judge Napolitano what I proposed in a recent post namely, that Russia’s experience of the Ukraine conflict, of Ukrainian terrorist activity in mainland Russia, in the context of a booming Russian economy, has created a very determined, confident, stimulated and unified Russian people. Deluded European talk of boots on the ground and increased military and defense expenditure, may lead us into a whirlpool that will take us to a third world war, and for no obvious purpose (and certainly not for a “democratic” Ukraine, which is a contradiction in terms, particularly in a country whose President will no longer be legal after May 20).
Russian Cauldrons
A number of potential Russians cauldrons appear to be well in the making notably, (in the southern Avdiivka area) from Soloviove to Berdychi in the north to Semenivka and Orlivka in the east and Umanske in the south, leaving the main exits for Ukraine through Novoselivka, Mezhove and Skuchne in the west; and (in northern Avdiivka area) from Ocheretyne to Keramic and Novokalynove in the east, Novooleksandriva and Arkhanhelske in the north. Russian forces have a strong potential for moving directly westwards from Soloviove to Sokil and some reports say they have already moved on the village of Novopokrovskoye inside the emerging cauldron.
North of Avdiivka, in the area of Bakhmut, the major focus of attention continues to be Chasiv Yar, with a Russian ground offensive still some ways off and most likely to take place initially against the eastern section of the settlement, east of the Donestsk cana, while Russia continues to bomb and shell the center of the settlement, and prepares forces to advance from the north (Bohdanivka area), from the east (whenever Russia manages to retake Klishchiivka and Anrivka and to encirlce Ukrainian positions between Klishchiivka and Ivanivske) and from Ocheretyne in the south. Smaller potential cauldrons may be forming around Vyrmky and Spirne, where Russia’s main ambition remains Siversk to the west. Further north in the Kupyansk area, the main Russian activity is taking place south of Yahidne where Russia has penetrated the settlement of Kyslivka and is expected to move on to nearby Kotliarivka, while the main medium-term ambition lies westwards in Pischanne.
A little further south, Russian forces are reported to be occupying 30% of Natailove, and advancing towards Karlivka and Karlivka Reservoir (which lies west of Pervomaiske). Advances continue to be made in Krasnohorivka and the fields between Krasnohorivka and Heorhivka from which Russian forces have the potential to move on towards Hostre. An operational pause continues to be in effect following Russia’s recent victory in Novomykhailivka, while the settlement of Kostyiantinivka to the immediate west is increasingly recognized by both sides as a highly important supply hub for the entire Ukrainian combat line in Donbass, including for the city of Vuhledar to the south which Russia continues to pummel on a daily basis after several weeks. The rest of the combat line southwards and westwards through the Vermevka Ledge and Robotyne salient are fairly quiet. In Kherson, Ukrainian forces continue to occupy islands in the Dnieper.
Palestine
Blundering Blinken believes that Hamas has been offered an “extraordinarily good” deal by Israel (in meetings in Cairo) whereby Hamas can stagger its release of hostages in return for a six weeks ceasefire, involving a short delay in Israel’s plans to move on Rafah, after which Israel will then proceed to murder many more Palestinians than the 34,000 that it has already murdered, ostensibly in retaliation for Hamas’ October 7th attacks - which were planned in an attempt to redress a seventy year Israeli occupation and suppression of Palestine - when more Israelis were likely killed by Israel than by Hamas. Hamas is clearly not cowered. The Israeli genocide of Palestinians is the most powerful possible recruiting tool for Hamas.
The “extraordinarily good” deal comes from a repugnant, fanatical, genocidal regime that deceitfully conflates anti-genocidal views with being “anti-semitic” and lectures US governors, police and campus presidents to crack down on students who are practising their rights to free speech on university campuses across the nation and who are being treated by their own government, even their own campus presidents, and by the police, as enemies. As enemies….not as defenders of the Constitution and the First Amendment, which is what they are. We have entered a repeat of the era of anti Vietnam War fervor, only far more intense, with far more - if such a thing can be imagined - to protest and to be angry with (a million My Lais). Such a thing could very well bring about civil war.
Neither White House nor State Department can manage a word of reproof for the audacity of Israel’s leader.
Israel claims that the ICC is about to issue arrest warrrants against Netanyahu and his fellow murderous criminals: I was not sure that these reports of imminent ICC warrants were real, or if they had been manufactured by Israel to incite criticism. It seemed very unlikely that the ICC, whose chairman is in the pocket of Washington, whose jurisdiction is not recognized in Washington or in Israel, and bearing in mind that this is the authority that within days of the start of Russia’s SMO issued arrest warrants for Putin (to Biden’s publicly expressed glee at the time), so helpful to the collective West, would do anything so bold as to be critical of a genocide that trhe collective West has helped engender. Yet in the evening of April 29th I read in Common Dreams that White House Press Secretary had reaffirmed the Biden administration’s opposition to the ICC’s potentially issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. White House Press secretary Jean-Pierre said that the White House did not believe that ICC had the jurisdiction. Apparently Netanyahu had spoken with Biden on Sunday in an effort to “head off” possible arrest warrants for Israeli ministers Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevi. Netanyahu wanted Biden to help prevent the ICC from issuing warrants. Neither Israel nor the US is a party to the Rome Statute of the ICC that established the tribunal, but Palestine accepted its jurisdiction in the occupied Palestinian territory in 2015. The ICC launched its war crimes investigation in the occupied Palestinian territories in 2021, looking into crimes from 2014. A group of over 90 lawyers, including 20 who work in various departments of state for the Biden administration, are urging Biden to cut off military aid to Israel on account of the unlawful nature of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza.