Mato's Blog: About Ukraine June 2022

It is no fun to write about suffering, death, and destruction, but there are so much misinformations, omissions, and evidence free fairy tales about Ukraine published by mainstream media that another blog post is necessary.

If Russia is clearly the aggressor in this conflict, those who pushed it to this attack are undoubtedly the United States, NATO, and the Ukrainian government.

If the Western leaders had not reneged on the promises made in Minsk, if NATO had not been constantly expanded, if France and Germany had been able to force Kyiv to respect the Minsk agreements and if Zelensky and his clique had not listened to the disastrous advice of their US mentors, we would not be here. To blame Russia alone for this conflict is a misrepresentation of reality, if not deliberate misinformation.

Since 2014, Kyiv rejected any attempt at conciliation, and to the contrary has conducted a reprehensible policy towards the Russian-speaking populations of the Donbass, who were prohibited the use of their language and refused any autonomy within Ukraine, who suffered multiplying harassment, embargoes, and deadly military attacks. No one in Europe denounced this scandalous situation on the pretext that it was Russian propaganda.

Similarly, the West allowed Zelensky and the oligarchs who sponsor him – notably Igor Kolomoïski – to conspire with neo-Nazi groups and integrate them into the army in order to take over the Donbass regions by force. Worse, on February 17, Kyiv deliberately launched a military action to reconquer the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk with the support of NATO, knowing very well that Moscow could not remain passive, thus triggering the crisis.

Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko admitted, that the 2015 ceasefire in Donbass, negotiated with Russia, France, and Germany, and the following Minsk accord were merely aimed to give Kyiv time to rebuild its military. Kyiv had not come to the talks in good faith, but simply wanted a reprieve after a military defeat.

Poroshenko’s government refused to implement the Minsk agreement, claiming it could not go ahead until the border between the insurgent republics and Russia was fully secured. Instead, there was an economic blockade of the rebel areas initiated by Ukrainian nationalist forces.

NATO meanwhile did its best to rearm and rebuild the Ukrainian military, so that Ukraine could retake Crimea and Donbass. A slide put out by the US DoD brags, that since 2015 the USA has trained 5 Ukrainian battalions a year to NATO standards. 30 battalions, put all together, that for sure is a respectable force.

Sanctions and economic war

Skyrocketing prices for gasoline and diesel, fueled by the economic war against Russia and the global rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, have become a key driver of inflation that is rising worldwide and making the cost of living more expensive.

Russia is one of the most autarkic country in the world. It produces nearly everything it needs and has highly desirable products that are in global demand and are especially needed in Europe. Russia also has huge financial reserves. For all these reasons a sanctions strategy against Russia cannot work.

The deepening economic crisis in the West with high inflation, increasing living costs, and the growing likelihood of recession has disillusioned the European public, which no longer becomes sentimental at the sight of Ukrainian refugees. The allegation that Putin is solely responsible for all this won’t fly.

The European Union, until March Russia’s biggest and closest customer, has vowed to end most purchases from Moscow within six months, but India and China are buying more Russian oil. Because of high global prices (117 US$ for a barrel of Brent Crude) Russia earns now even more despite granting discounts.

German Chemical companies may need to shutdowns and mothball plants and refineries in Northern Europe. Replacing Russian oil will need a 6-year investment program to reconfigure refineries for other gravity blends and the returns are not ensured.

Germany and the Netherlands fire up old coal power plants in defiance of climate change pledges, to make up for switched off Russian gas.

The Western economies are facing a systemic crisis. The notion that the dollar-based US economy is impervious to ballooning debt (30 trillion); that the petrodollar system compels the entire world to purchase dollars to finance their needs; that the flood of cheap Chinese consumer goods and cheap energy from Russia and Gulf States would keep inflation at bay; that interest rate hikes could cure structural inflation; and that the damage by using a trade-war hammer in the complex global economic network could be managed, has proven to be utter folly.

When the money printing presses whirred in Europe and the Anglo-sphere, no one felt uneasy about the structural flaws in the system. In a haze of ideological bluster, the Biden Administration and its junior partner in Brussels didn’t pay any due diligence before sanctioning Russia and its energy and resources. Europe is now much worse off than the USA. Inflation in Europe is well into double digits and a European sovereign debt crisis may already have begun.

Lithuanian banned the transit of Russian goods to Kaliningrad. The Russian enclave Kaliningrad, which is wedged between Poland on the west and Lithuania on the east, is home to almost a half-million Russians and the headquarters for the Russian Navy’s Baltic Sea force.

https://sonar21.com/lithuania-may-have-lit-the-fuze-on-world-war-iii/

The EU sanctions list includes coal, metals, construction materials and advanced technology, and Kaliningrad governor Anton Alikhanov said the ban would cover around 50 percent of the items that the enclave imports. Urging citizens not to resort to panic buying, Alikhanov said two vessels were already ferrying goods between Kaliningrad and Saint Petersburg, and seven more would be in service by the end of the year.

Lithuania is very vulnerable to counter-sanctions, which makes these sanctions a bold and probably unwise move.

Following the closure of its nuclear reactors in 2009, Lithuania became dependent on electricity imports to satisfy its demand. Although most of its 2012 electricity imports came from Russia (63 percent), Lithuania also imports electricity from Estonia (about 26 percent), Latvia (7 percent), and Belarus (4 percent).

Southern Germany depends on French nuclear electricity but 50 percent French capacity is idle, as France experiences technical difficulties at the nuclear power plants. Europe cannot afford the economic war. With 700,000 Ukrainians expected in Germanys social security system (410,000 now) the deficits in both social security and health care will explode.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/6/2/shooting-themselves-in-the-foot-western-sanctions-on-russia
https://www.blackagendareport.com/us-effort-hurt-russia-undermines-itself-and-world

Paradoxically, a long war in Ukraine will only work to Russia’s advantage. President Putin’s speech at the SPIEF at St. Petersburg shows how thoroughly he studied the western financial and economic system and identified its structural contradictions. Putin is adept at using the weight and strength of his opponents to his own advantage rather than opposing blow directly to blow.

Which means: The West’s overextension can ultimately be its undoing.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/68669

More weapons to turn the tide

The USA announced that it has sent M777 towed howitzers, M109 self-propelled howitzers, Harpoon anti-ship missiles systems, and HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) medium-to-long-range guided missile launcher vehicles. The UK is sending three American-made M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System vehicles, and Germany is sending three more.

According to the Pentagon, the US has so far transferred 6.3 billion US$ in weapons to Ukraine since the start of the Biden administration. To date the US has committed:

• Over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems
• Over 6,500 Javelin anti-armor systems
• Over 20,000 other anti-armor systems
• Over 700 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems
• 126 155mm howitzers and 260,000 155mm artillery rounds
• 108 tactical vehicles to tow 155mm howitzers
• 20 Mi-17 helicopters
• 200 M113 armored personnel carriers

The Canadian government has pledged to provide Ukraine with half-a-billion dollars’ worth of armaments.

Germany is set to supply Ukraine its IRIS-T surface to air missile (SAM) system, alongside rocket artillery and counter-battery radars in its latest move to bolster Ukraine’s defenses. The system is intended to defend static installations and mobile forces against drones, combat aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.

New toys with little impact

Some analysts believe Russian commanders held back electronic warfare (EW) units fearing that they would be captured. According to Western analysts at least two were indeed seized. One was a Krasukha-4, which a US Army database says is designed to jam satellite signals as well as surveillance radar and radar-guided weapons from more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. The other was the more advanced Borisoglebsk-2, which can jam drone guidance systems and radio-controlled land mines.

“What we’re learning now is that the Russians eventually turned EW off because it was interfering with their own communications so much,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former US Army commander for Europe. But this assertion could be one of the countless fairy tales used in the war propaganda.

The Kremlin claims to use more than 1,000 small, versatile Orlan-10 unmanned aerial vehicles for reconnaissance, targeting, jamming, and cellphone interception.

Russia has lost about 50 of its Orlan-10s in the war, but “whatever they lost could be a small portion of what’s flying,” said researcher Samuel Bendett, of the Center for Naval Analyses think tank.

Ukraine’s relative UAV strength is unclear, but Ukrainians have adapted such technologies as software-defined radio and 3D printing to stay nimble.

The USA and Britain also supply jamming gear, but how much it helps is unclear. Neither country has offered details. The ability of both sides to disable the other’s drones is crucial with the artillery they scout now so decisive in battles.

Musk’s Starlink is a proven asset. Its more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites provide broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. Severing those connections is a challenge for Russia. It is far more difficult to jam low-earth orbiting satellites than geostationary ones.

Musk has won plaudits from the Pentagon for at least temporarily defeating Russian jamming of Ukrainian satellite uplinks with a quick software fix. But he has warned Ukrainians to keep those terminals powered down when possible — they are vulnerable to geolocation — and recently worried on Twitter about redoubled Russian interference efforts.

How is it going?

Russian forces are steadily advancing in the region of Donbass and stabilizing the frontline in other sectors. The most intense fighting is ongoing in the Severodonetsk-Lysichansk area and around Slavyansk, but the situation is also tense in the Kharkiv region as well as around Mykolaiv and Kherson in the south.

A defeat in Donbass will be catastrophic for Ukraine, as the destruction of its best military units deployed there virtually leaves the southern regions as low-hanging fruit for Russian forces. For NATO too, its international standing will be seriously eroded.

57 high ranking Ukrainian officers, including generals, were killed in a single air strike, when a Russian cruise missile launched from the Black Sea struck a village called Shirokaya Dacha, in the Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, abruptly ending their gathering. The officers operational working group known as "Alexandria" included the commanders of the "Kakhovka" parachute troopers and several other units operating in the Nikolaev and Zaporozhie fronts.

There are rumors that Russia's strike on the command post was made possible by informations from Ukrainian officers.

Three people were wounded and a search is under way for seven missing workers after Ukrainian forces attacked drilling platforms in the Black Sea owned by the Crimean Chernomorneftegaz energy company. The rigs are located off Ukraine's south coast in the Black Sea, 71 km from Odessa.

Russian officials are concerned over Ukrainian threats to target Crimean infrastructure — such as the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia.

The TASS new agency reports that the village of Toshkivka, about 25 km south of Sievierodonetsk and on the main southern road towards Sievierodonetsk, over which Russian and Ukrainian forces have been fighting for weeks, has been taken. Russian forces have also taken Metyolkine, a district on Sievierodonetsk's eastern outskirts.

A UK defense ministry assessment said Ukraine was suffering desertions among its ranks. "Combat units from both sides are committed to intense combat in the Donbas and are likely experiencing variable morale." It continued, "Ukrainian forces have likely suffered desertions in recent weeks."

Ukrainian forces are also taking high losses in battle, with casualties as high as 1,000 a day, including 400 deaths.

https://rumble.com/v18xud2-ukraine-war-update-and-analysis-wscott-ritter-danny-haiphong.html
https://rumble.com/v18rux9-scott-ritter-nato-has-killed-ukraine.html
https://rumble.com/v194v8h-ukraine-update-june-18-2022-with-scott-ritter-and-ray-mcgovern.html
https://eng.mil.ru/en/special_operation/news/more.htm?id=12425943@egNews

War crimes

Right now the Ukrainians are shelling Donetsk city with artillery and MRL rockets. Many civilians are dead or injured. The Donetsk News Agency shows pictures of burning stalls at the Maisky market and several bodies on the ground.

Ukraine has shelled Donetsk for eight years but no Western mainstream media journalist wrote anything about it. HRW and AI suppressed any material about these war crimes.

The shelling by Ukrainian forces is being conducted at the range limits of the howitzers and MLRS artillery, which means that there is no targeting and no accuracy. At range limits, artillery is guaranteed not to hit a particular target. There is no doubt that the Ukrainian artillery strikes are done not for military tactical reasons, but only to terrorize the population.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiGWY0-I9U&t=196s

Ukraine in the last few days allegedly used new M142 HIMARS and M777 howitzers provided by USA. These weapons are more accurate, but the targets which they strike are still exclusively civilian.

Russian soldiers, which were taken prisoner by Ukraine, are treated with inhuman cruelty. They are shot in the knees, which will make them disabled for the rest of their lives, they are beaten till unconsciousness, and subjected to any other kind of torture. Many of these barbarous acts are documented by videos which Ukrainian militants have proudly uploaded to social media platforms.

What will remain of Ukraine?

David Arakhamiya, head of the parliamentary faction of the ruling Ukrainian “Servant of the People” party, admitted that up to 1,000 members of the Ukrainian armed forces are being killed or wounded every day in the battle in East Ukraine, with between 200 and 500 dying each day on average.

There are currently 5,600 Ukrainian soldiers in Russian captivity.

Ukraine experienced a sharp demographic decline even before Russia launched its SMO (Special Military Operation). The Ukrainian population fell from 52 million in 1993 to just over 41 million by the start of 2022. For that matter, it would have been declining even if the Soviet Union had not disintegrated and Ukraine had not acquired its independence. However, the Russian military not only killed thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and led to the emigration of several million more, it also suppressed the birthrate while increasing the death rate among those remaining.

Experts on all sides are united in predicting that Ukraine will soon face a demographic collapse, with its population projected to fall as low as 30 million by the end of this decade, and perhaps 20 million by the end of this century. Worse still, some Ukrainian specialists do not see any way for the Ukrainian authorities to halt this drop on their own. Such a decline will severely limit Ukraine’s ability to recover from the devastation of the war, let alone raise an army to defend itself in the future.The census Ukraine had planned for 2023 almost certainly will not be held, and so demographers and sociologists will be forced to use alternative (and almost by definition unreliable) means of measuring changes in the population.

Ella Libanova, director of the Institute of Demography and Social Research at Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, has taken the lead in warning about these dire prospects. In a series of interviews and articles, she has outlined what she argues is a fateful combination of factors, intensified by the war, that will cast a shadow on the demographic, and hence social and political situation in the country for decades to come.

According to Libanova, “the war has inflicted a crushing blow on Ukrainian demography. In addition to military losses, the total number of which is still unknown, no fewer than 4,000 civilians have died and approximately 5 million have saved themselves from death by fleeing abroad. Some of these people have already rooted themselves in other countries and will not return home.” Together with pre-war trends such as falling fertility rates, an aging population, rising death rates, and outmigration by young specialists, Ukraine will find itself in “a new demographic hole.” Specifically, it will struggle to make the recovery necessary to overcome the impact of the war, which includes forming a large workforce, raising an army with so few young men, and collecting sufficient taxes not only to rebuild but to improve the lives of Ukrainians. Without massive assistance from abroad, the prospects of compounding problems for Ukraine are truly worrisome, she argues.

Full revival will be all but impossible, Libanova says. Because of the departures of so many women of prime child-bearing age, a post-war baby boom is unlikely. In turn, the echoes of the war “will continue for several generations.” Along these lines, her institute explicitly predicts that there is little Kyiv can do on its own to fundamentally change this trajectory.

She further points out that beyond the increase in mortality, the war has also deteriorated the health of all Ukrainians, who are living under enormous stress and often cannot receive medical care in a timely fashion, if at all. All these losses by themselves do not have a catastrophic character, but the cumulative impact together with the departure of millions to live abroad will become an unsolvable problem.

Far more Ukrainians have fled than have died, Libanova says. Many of those who have gone abroad, especially younger women with children who can take advantage of social welfare programs in other countries, and IT specialists who have no difficulties in finding work, are not going to come back. Instead, they will remain abroad, and once the fighting is over, they are likely to be joined by husbands, making their return even less likely. Either way, the longer the war goes on, the more will remain abroad, even if the rate of outmigration slows.

Regardless of how many (or how few) Ukrainians remain, who will govern them?

According to Denis Pushilin, head of the DPR (Donetsk People's Republic), the Russian army and the People's Militia of DPR and LPR should not stop at the borders of the republics after taking Donbass, and all Russian cities, including Odessa, should be liberated. This would of course include Nikolaev and the remaining Black Sea coast till Transnistria. It would also include Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, maybe Dnipropetrovsk.

As the Ukrainian army becomes more disillusioned, a military coup seems possible. Zelensky surely will be finished off at some point and the Ukraine will be dismembered.

Yet the US controlled NATO alliance will still be there, vowing for revenge for the loss of Ukraine. Russia will never achieve a retreat of NATO back to its 1997 borders, but it can try to politically and economically weaken and break the European Union, which subsequently will break NATO.

It is doubtful that NATO will dare to attack Russia head on. Russia is not only “demilitarizing” the Ukraine, but at the same time also NATO, because stocks of military hardware in NATO countries are quickly depleted. Weapons and other material are sent to Ukraine to be destroyed by Russia. Some East European NATO members suddenly have no air-force, because they transferred all their MIG and Sukhoi jet fighters to Ukraine.

The fact that Russia apparently is able to defeat a NATO-trained und numerical superior army may give Western strategists pause of thought.

Deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council Dmitry Medvedev suggested, that Ukraine may not survive as a sovereign nation.

China stands with Russia

Chinese-Russian relations have never been better and although there is no formal alliance, the two countries do have an informal agreement to synchronize politics and coordinate measures against the USA and NATO.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in February declared a “new era” in the global order and endorsed their respective territorial ambitions in Ukraine and Taiwan. They unveiled a sweeping long-term agreement that also challenges the United States as a global power, NATO as a cornerstone of international security, and Western style representative democracy as a model for the world. “Friendship between the two states has no limits,” they vowed in the communique, released after the two leaders met on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics. “There are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”

Speaking on his 69th birthday over the phone with Putin, Xi Jinping said Beijing will support Moscow’s “sovereignty and security” and “core interests” with the aim of achieving “closer strategic cooperation.”

The Chinese readout of this call also emphasized Putin’s support for China on Taiwan, as well as on Hong Kong and Xinjiang, home to the country’s Uyghur Muslim minority.

China's President Xi has offered the most unambiguous declaration of support to Putin since the invasion of Ukraine, vowing to underwrite Moscow’s “sovereignty and security" and dropping earlier calls to respect the territorial integrity of all countries.

Xi also gave a video address on Friday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

While Xi Jinping continues to regularly talk to Putin - this is his second call since the invasion of Ukraine - he has yet to ever communicate with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky. Referring to the "legitimacy" of Russia's security concerns during his call with Putin, Xi once again has made it clear that China will not criticize Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, and indeed continues to stand out amongst countries for the high level of support it offers Russia.

Xi Jinping and other leaders in China believe that Russia was forced by an expanding NATO to move into Ukraine, and place the blame for the conflict squarely on the shoulders of NATO, and in particular the USA. Beijing believes that they face a roughly parallel situation in the Indo-Pacific where they see the USA as expansionist and threatening China's core interests, particularly with Washington's military and other support for Taiwan.

China's crude oil imports from Russia soared 55 percent from a year earlier to a record level in May, displacing Saudi Arabia as the top supplier.

On the road to World War III

Washington’s earlier boasts of driving Putin from power, destroying Russia’s capacity to make war, and halving the size of the Russian economy, look ridiculous in retrospect, as in fact the Russian economy is remarkably stable and the Ukrainian army is on the verge of collapse.

And yet, in the midst of a deepening economic crisis and escalating military debacle in the war against Russia, all factions of the US political establishment are driving ahead with accelerating the war in Europe while simultaneously working to provoke a war with China.

Western governments are planning for many more months, if not years, of warfare against Russia, which will inevitably cause more and more mass casualties among Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and is threatening to provoke a global conflagration.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared, “We must ensure that Ukraine receives weapons, equipment, ammunition and training more rapidly than the invader.” He boasted: “British instructors trained more than 22,000 Ukrainian troops, an achievement that happened over seven years. Now we need to move faster, training that sort of number in months. So the UK plans to work with our friends to prepare Ukrainian forces to defend their country, with the potential to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, who is facing a wave of strikes and has just lost parliamentary elections, announced at a military trade fair four days before his trip to Kiev that France and the EU were “living in a war economy in which we must become permanently organized.”

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announced the formation of a new “Territorial Leadership Command,” largely unnoticed by the public, which will be responsible for the defense and logistics of NATO in Germany as well as for “Homeland Security.” The domestic operations of the German armed forces (Bundeswehr), which are in fact constitutional forbidden, are thereby placed under the same command as the war offensive against Russia.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in a weekend interview told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper that in the alliance’s estimation, the Ukraine war could wage for years.

“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine. Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices,” Stoltenberg said.

The remark signifies a deeper NATO involvement in the war based on the belief not only that Russia can be defeated in Ukraine but that the costs shouldn’t matter.

The US press meanwhile calls for further escalation: “Where Are the Rockets for Ukraine?” demanded the Wall Street Journal, declaring that “the USA hasn’t provided nearly enough launchers to blunt the Russian equipment advantage.”

While the Washington Post published an editorial titled “As Russia advances, U.S. and Europe must redouble aid to Ukraine,” calling for “hastening and broadening military aid to Kyiv.”

In an internal message to military service members, seen by the BBC, General Sir Patrick Sanders, the new head of the British Army, effectively stated that the UK had to prepare for an imminent third world war against Russia.

He wrote, “There is now a burning imperative to forge an army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle.” Chillingly, Sanders concluded, “We are the generation that must prepare the army to fight in Europe once again.”

The US Senate Armed Services Committee approved 817 billion US$ for the Defense Department in the 2023 budget, a figure 45 billion greater than the Biden administration’s budget request, which was already the largest military budget in US history.

The bill further authorizes 29.7 billion US$ in military programs in other departments, mostly for nuclear weapons production by the Department of Energy. 10.6 billion will be provided for “defense-related” programs, bringing the total to 857.6 billion US$.

Separately, the US House of Representatives has introduced an “Indo-Pacific Engagement Act,” which would provide billions more dollars for the US conflict with China.

A few links:

Mato's Blog

21.06.2022

About Ukraine June 2022

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