The Old World Ending

On the Money

Rand Paul in a speech to the US Senate earlier this week appeared to be claiming that Republican and Democratic party leaders were exporting cash directly to Kiev, even as 800,000 illegal immigrants a month were entering the US through its southern border. I have not seen much on this elsewhere building on this speech. So far as the promised $61 billion is concerned, on which the House of Representatives has still to vote (probably negatively) on their return from vacation early in March, Colonel Douglas Macgregor thinks it likely that most of this money is designed to enrich party donors and keep production lines running, propping up European leaders in power, even while it will taken many months, even years, for new weaponry to actually arrive in Kiev, by which time it is certain that the situation on the battlefield will have changed dramatrically and indeed today it did change dramatically.

Zelenskiy Out of Town, Avdiivka Falls

While Zelenskiy is conveniently out of the country signing security agreements withm Germany and France (that will come into effect only after the current conflict, as I understand, by which time there may be no Ukraine at all in its current state), General Syrsky (nicknamed the butcher of Bakhmut, though by Macgregor to be linked to London’s MI6 and Washington’s CIA) is reported early this morning of February 17 to have ordered the evacuation of Ukrainian forces from Avdiivka and the abandonment of that town. Some sources, and Dima of the Military Summary channel is one of them, consider that Syrsky made his announcement only after it was clear that many Ukrainian forces were not following orders and were already evacuating themselves and fleeing the battlefield. Russia is taking many POWs. Ukrainian forces are exhausted; there is little by way of Ukrainian fortifications to the West and Russia has complete superiority in terms of FPV drones, artillery and FAB or glided bombs. It is not clear precisely where Ukraine can hope to stop the Russian advance at this point in time.

Dima reports that the main purpose of Ukraine currently is to reduce their losses in the process of evacuation and escape. Overnight there were many groups of Ukrainian forces in Central Avdiivka seeing access to the west that would allow them to cross the fields on route to villages such as Orlivka. Further, he argues that while the battle for the physical borders of the Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka may have ended, the battle for the general foothold of Avdiivka has just started. He finds strong points for comparison with the previous battles (and Russian victories) in Bakhmut and Mariupol. In both these cases Russian forces were exhausted at the end of their campaign and had to be rotated.

In the case of Avdiivka he hypothesizes that Russian and Ukrainian losses were equivalent, even though Russia ended up with what Dima says now was ony 10% of the entire area (he had previously said 25%), and there is clearly momentum for both more advances and for more casualties as in Russian progress from Industrial Avenue on the west of the settlement to the town or village of Lastochkyne (where yesterday it was reported that Ukraine’s Third Assault Brigade had established positions). Heavy clashes are reported as Russia takes territory across the fields on the way out to Lastochkyne. It seems quite likely that by the end of the day of today, February 17, Russian forces will have reached and begun to penetrate Lastochkyne. Russia is saying that after they have taken this settlement they will move from there to Sieverne while other Russian forces move on Sieverne from Vodiane to the south, and then will move on to nearby settlements such as Tonenke and Orlivka eventually joining up with forces in the Berdychi and Stepove areas where Russia has advanced from the east.

Revolting Soldiers

Further south, Russian forces have taken Nevelske and territory between Nevelske and Russian-controlled territory to the east; Russian forces have penetrated the northeast edge of Novomykhailivka and taken many Ukrainian POWs. Russia has launched a ground operation along the northern edge of the settlement. In Krynky area, much further to the west, in Kherson, there are reports of unrest among Ukainian troops, and of suicides. Protesting soldiers in Siversk area are reported to be demanding that the war be ended and they be allowed home. These popular tendencies may build up further in the coming hours and days - one reason, possibly, Dima speculates, why Zelenskiy is out of the country right now.

Disappearing Banderites

Brian Berletic on New Atlas today calls Russian strategy as “aggressive attrition.” Talking of Ukrainian claims of pro-Russian disinformation networks, Berletic derides the conflation of charges of “disnformation” with the names of prominent and highly intelligent, and incisive, critics of Kiev’s leadership and of Western support for it. He pays particular attention to Western mainstream media attempts to ignore, overlook, background, dand iminish the signficance of clear evidence in Ukraine of extreme right-wing, neo-nazi, Banderite militia and their supporters - followers, in other words of the movement associated with Stephan Bandera, principal culprit of the murders of many tens of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians and other groups in World War Two.

Istanbul Phantom?

Finally, I notice and will return another time to an article today in The National Interest by David Hendrickson which is the latest attempt to reduce the significance of the Istanbul accords of March to April 2022 on the grounds that there were many outstanding points of contention between the two sides. I cannot speak to Hendrickson’s motives in attempting to undermine the significance of this attempt to establish peace within weeks of the start of the war.

I can very well accept that at no point throughout this conflict has the West demonstrated integrity, good faith, skills of diplomacy, military strategic skills, sound financial wisdom, European autonomy from Washington’s own selfish interets, or even impressive armory.

I will argue that (1) of course there were outstanding and difficult issues to be resolved, because there always are in these situations; that (2) nonetheless, the fact that the combatants agreed, so quickly, to enter into peace negotiations was, in and of itself, of dramatic importance (an achievement also of Turkey’s President Erdogan) and offered some real measure of hope to the world; that (3) the two sides were so confident of the potential for progress that both sides signed off on an early draft of the agreements; that (4) there is no way one can presume on the basis of speculation that there would have been insurmountable difficulties further down the road for talks; the presumption that there were would be such difficulties is an expression of utter pessimissim and cynicism; (5) the fact, as indicated on several occasions by Vladimir Putin, that France and Germany and Ukraine persuaded Russia to withdraw its troops from around Kiev and then, after those troops had been withdrawn, immediately threw the agreements into the trashcan, and that the UK prime minister Johnson flew into Kiev to tell Zelenskiy that the West could not support peace talks and that they would supply all the weapons needed to achieve victory, is all indicative of the fundamental lesson we must learn from this conflict namely: the West wanted war with Russia regardless of all other considerations and was recklessly, callously and murderously prepared to countenance the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives in order to achieve its evil objectives, and the fact that Putin had already come to this conclusion is what led him, sensibly and inevitably, to mount the SMO; (6) this narrative uncritically and naively accepts what is likely to have been the SBU/Western intelligence atrocity propaganda coup of Bucha as a pretext for Western deception over the peace talks.