Meddling to Death

Led by the New York Times, the crew who wanted us to believe in the Russian Hacking Hoax of 2016, now want us to believe in the Iran Hacking Hoax in 2024. Worse even than the contempt that the perpetrators of these hoaxes hold for the intelligence of Americans, worse than the fact that this story holds a lot less water than a sponge in the desert, is the evident history of the USA as election meddler par excellence, engaged in the business of color revolution and regime change - intensely, in every corner of the world, since World War Two and probably before that. Where electoral forces are sufficiently robust to withstand the stick and carrot techniques of election meddlers or where such forces barely exist in the first place, the US resorts to out-and-out, covert or overt compulsion.

The Long Wake of a Meddler

Already this saga has been unfolding over two and a half years. Because of it, while Russia’s economy climbs from strength to strength, Western Europe’s industrial powerhouse, Germany, is teetering once more on the brink of recession, suffering the self-inflicted impacts of high energy prices and de-industrialization (see The Bell below); France is in a state of political paralysis brought about by the same displaced fantasies of Atlantacisim; Britain too, pouring its scarce remaining wealth and prestige, in the absence of any rational necessity, and draining its military hardware on behalf of Ukraine so that Ukraine can join an alliance, NATO, the credentials for membership of which it lacks, and a status that even NATO itself refuses to give.

The irrevocable idiocy, self-delusion and contemptuous aristocratic games at play here, are odious in themselves and fatally toxic for the world. We thought that Russia would quickly put an end to this nonsense by taking decisive action. But two years of Russia’s appararently decisive missile and drone attacks across the entirety of Ukraine, and a death and injury toll that surely exceeds a million, have not been at all decisive or not decisive enough, yet, to stem the continuing mischief of NATO weapon flows. Dissident western analysts keep assuring us that the endgame is close, yet it never closes.

This summary of an FT article comes from The Bell:

• Over the weekend it emerged in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that Germany will drastically shrink its bilateral defense aid for Ukraine from an impressive €7.5bn this year to €4bn next, and a measly €500mn in 2027. There is no money this year for any additional Ukrainian requests for ammunition or spare parts.

• Chancellor Olaf Scholz insists that Germany will remain Ukraine’s biggest supporter in Europe. He says Berlin will instead provide military aid via a planned $50bn loan agreed in principle by G7 leaders this summer and secured against frozen Russian central bank assets.  Scholz’s argument is a diversion. The $50bn loan is proving difficult technically to implement and is still potentially hostage to political objections, for example from Hungary’s pro-Kremlin government. In any case, it is not German money.

• As a share of GDP, Germany’s military aid to Kyiv lags behind Denmark, Sweden, the Baltic states, Poland and the Netherlands. It should be doing more not less. Ukraine’s victory — or at least helping it attain a battlefield position where it can secure a just and lasting peace — is fundamental to European security and possibly to the survival of the EU. It should be a top priority for Berlin. Europe needs Germany to step up not step back.

The Battlefields

The Ukrainian calculus is that they can sacrifice territory in the Donbass, a large part of which is historically Russiaphone anyway and would always be a pain the neck of Kiev, in favor of appearing to be doing something useful in the strategically unimportant south of Kursk so as to convince the self-deluded powers of Brussels, London and Washington to invest more their wealth and denude more of their armories.

Since the fall of Bakhmut and of Avdiivka, Russian forces have made significant progress westwards through Ocheretyne. Now, most recently, they are taking half of Novohrodivka, so far, and entering Hrodivka, securing Krutyi Yar and Krasnyi Yar, entering Mykolaivka (north of Novohrodivka), approaching within a couple of kilometers the town of Novopavligrad. They threaten Selynove to the southof Pokrovsk, and are in the process of taking northern Mykhailivka (east of Selynove), together with Terrikom Russia, while entering Memryk and Marinovka (where there is a significant accumulation of Russian forces) and so on.

In broad brush terms we can see a line of Russian control, or near-control, that starts to the south in Karlivka and runs up through Memryk, Marynivka, Selydove, Mykhailivksa to Zhuravka and Ivanivka. Just north of this area, Russian forces are making considerable gains in the Niu-York, Druzba, Toretsk area, and to the south, in the area of Kostiantynivka-Vodiane-Vuhledar from which advances in the direction of Kostiantynopolske and Uspenivkaa can be anticipated.

All this, by the way, has been greatly facilitated by Ukrainian redeployment of troops to Kursk.

In Kursk, Ukraine has retaken Borki on the eastern flank, while on the western flank, south of Glshkovo and southwest of Snagost, it appears to be taking control of a small pocket of territory from Dihtiarne in the west to Gordeyevka in the east.

Russia is now bombing Ukrainian forces in Russia’s own town of Sudzha. It is subjecting Ukrainian forces in the most northerly direction of Ukraine’s advance (around Russkoe) to very heavy bombing and destruction. Russia retains control of Malaya Loknye, and west of Korenevo Russia has recaptured the settements of Zhebolovka, Durova, Zhuravli, re-entered Olgovka, and restored control over the southeast of Koreveno.

The Lieven Perspective

“But while Putin might accept what he would regard as a compromise now, everyone with whom I spoke in Moscow said that Russian demands will be determined by what happens on the battlefield. If the Ukrainians can hold roughly their existing line, then it will be along this line that an eventual cease-fire will run”.

Almost always I find that western analysts (and sometimes Russian too) overlook the significance of the big picture, and the big picture is about the reshaping of the world order in order to facilitate the establishment of multipolarity and the end of Western hegemony. Why is this so difficult to understand? If Russia accepts some mediocre deal that not just falls well short of this objective but actually makes it more difficult to achieve then it will have failed itself and failed the world. This is not a war between Russia and Ukraine; it is not even a war between NATO and Russia; it is a war between the Global South and the Rest. An appropriate site for the resolution of this war should be the UN and the UNSC but these institutions have been hopelessly compromised by the colonialist, neoliberal ideology of Western corporatocracy and plutocracy. Ultimately, the UN, yes, but the UN itself needs first to be reformed.

The Klintsevich Perspective

“In short, the Zelensky gambit that is being enabled fully by the United States is not a PR stunt but a full-blown invasion intended to be the vanguard of what will be an air assault on Russia’s strategic assets far in the rear using JASSM, Storm Shadow and other long-range missiles launched from F16s”.

He worries that the real purpose of U.S. aircraft carriers and their escorts now in the Eastern Mediterranean is for all-out attack on Russia using their jets to deliver nuclear strikes.  Doctorow comments that this may be related to the attempted knock-out of Russia’s early warning radar stations in the south of the country by Ukrainian drones a few weeks ago.

From the International Peace Coalition today, the same warning is picked up from the mouth of Russian Akhmat Special Forces Commander Major General Apti Alaudinov who has issued a direct appeal to the people of America and Europe:

“You probably do not see or hear that your leadership is doing all it can to launch a nuclear war ... as you’ve been trying with all means to make Russia cross the red line and start protecting itself using all these nuclear weapons. I don’t think this is something you really want. If you don’t want this to happen, speak out! Go to the streets and stop your government!…In any case, if you want Russia to lose the war, you have to understand: the Russian nuclear state will not lose the war. After all, why do we need the world if there is no Russia? That’s why I’m saying: you either wake up and go to the streets to stop your government, or you all (will) appear … in the Third World War zone. This is the issue of the nearest future!”

Restrained Power

“In terms of various markers such as the destruction on a societal level, the number of civilian casualties, and the frequency with which civilian infrastructure like water treatment facilities and hospitals are struck, the conflict has gone on as close to the letter of international law as has happened practically since the creation of the concept”.

Russian forces have refrained from strategic bombing of the large Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, L’viv, Kharkiv, and Kherson; indiscriminate bombing has not occurred; there have been less than ten instances of major attacks on railway infrastructure and less than ten targeting trains carrying civilians; one was located in Russia. In Lviv, bombing has caused the deaths of around 21 civilians in the entire county in which the city is located; the organized hunting and killing of Russia’s enemies in Ukraine has not occurred.

Wretched Western Mainstream Media: Defense Stenographers

“The only critical voices that appear are Conservative shadow ministers, hawkish think tank spokespeople and military ‘experts’, all speaking about how vital it is to boost defence spending, which currently stands at £64.6bn a year (2.32% of GDP).”

MoD statements are liberally incorporated – without challenge – into news reports. None featured comments about the huge political and economic risks of increasing defence spending and a possible acceleration, not reduction, of instability. Broadcasters are in love with dazzling images of the latest military hardware. Their cost be damned.

Explanations for the complicity of British defense correspondings have revealed the

“Preferential treatment of favoured journalists, sanctions against those who ask tough questions, the close contacts between correspondents and defence and security-related officials and indeed the existence of a revolving door between journalism and military PR”.