By John Helmer, Website, 6/24/23

In brief statements issued late last week in Moscow – their significance missed in the western press — President Vladimir Putin ordered a reality check of Russia’s war strategy. He then  answered himself by declaring the war will be over when no Ukrainian army will be left on the battlefield, nor NATO weapons.  

The Foreign Ministry answered by pointing out that Russia does not recognize there is a legal Ukrainian state because the reality is that the mutual recognition treaty between Russia and the Ukraine was cancelled by Presidents Petro Poroshenko and Vladimir Zelensky in 2018 and 2019 ^[3].  

“We can conclude,” Putin said ^[4] at the Security Council meeting on Thursday morning,  “that they can certainly send in additional equipment, but the mobilisation reserve is not unlimited. And Ukraine’s Western allies really seem determined to fight with Russia to the last Ukrainian. At the same time, we must proceed from the fact that the enemy’s offensive potential has not been exhausted; they may have strategic reserves yet unused, and I ask you to keep this in mind when making fighting strategies. You need to proceed from reality.”

Putin was following by a few hours the statement by the Foreign Ministry that Russia does not recognize the legal sovereignty of the regime in Kiev, and that following the cancellation of the treaty between the Ukraine and Russia in 2019, there will be no Ukrainian state left to sign an end-of-war agreement.

At her weekly briefing of reporters, the ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova, was asked “when will Russia initiate a legal procedure to terminate the bilateral treaty with Ukraine on its sovereignty?” Zakharova answered:  “The procedure for terminating the bilateral treaty with Ukraine on its sovereignty is hampered by the absence of such a treaty. In Article 1 of the Treaty on the Principles of Relations between the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR of November 19, 1990, the two republics recognised each other as ‘sovereign states.’ The 1990 treaty was then replaced by the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between the Russian Federation and Ukraine of May 31 ^[5], 1997 (Article 39),  which was denounced ^[6] by Ukraine and terminated on April 1, 2019.”

No army, no state. But the war will continue because it is the one between the US and the NATO powers and Russia. That too will have an ending, but longer.

“If [NATO Secretary-General] Mr Stoltenberg again says on behalf of NATO that they are against freezing the conflict in Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said  on June 21 ^[7],    “this means that they want to fight. So let them fight. We are ready for that. We realised NATO’s true goals in Ukraine some time ago as their plans took shape over the years that followed the coup. Today, NATO is attempting to implement them…they are directly involved in the hybrid and hot war declared on Russia.”

I am reminded, Lavrov added, “of a Soviet-era joke noting that the Soviet Union is located too close to US military bases.” The Soviet Union was dismantled, but the war continues against Russia. It will end when the US is pushed to a safe distance.  How safe, Putin asked Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to explain in answer to two questions?

Putin’s question: “we know that the enemy is to receive additional Western equipment. What does the Defence Ministry think about threats in this connection?”

Shoigu’s answer: “All arsenals, accumulated by the Soviet Union and countries of the former socialist bloc, have now been virtually depleted. We can say the same about former Ukrainian resources… the amount, due to be delivered throughout 2023, as well as those weapons that have already been delivered, will not seriously affect the course of hostilities. Additionally, most of the armoured vehicles and fighting vehicles belong to the previous generation, or even to an earlier generation. On the one hand, their armour is weak and ineffective, compared to modern equipment. Mr President, we do not see any threats here.”

Question: “Mr Shoigu, what is the percentage of Western equipment out of the equipment that has been destroyed since June 4, which Mr Patrushev has just reported giving generalised data? Approximately.”

Answer: “Of the 246 tanks destroyed, 13 were Western made. At the same time, it should be noted that, if we consider the equipment that was delivered, tanks in particular: 81 Western-made tanks have been delivered. Of the 81 Western tanks, 13 [16%] have been destroyed. Of the armoured fighting vehicles, 59 Western ones have been destroyed. To date, Western countries have supplied Ukraine with an estimated 109 Bradley armoured fighting vehicles. Of the 109 BFVs, 18 [17%] have been destroyed. Overall, 59 Western-made armoured vehicles have been destroyed. As for field artillery and guns, here, of course, I can estimate right away that out of the 48 pieces destroyed, about 30 percent were Western made.”

The “reality”, Putin concluded publicly, not for Shoigu or the General Staff, is that the percentage of NATO weapons destroyed on the battlefield will rise sharply because “the enemy’s offensive potential has not been exhausted; they may have strategic reserves yet unused.” When those reserves are defeated, there will be neither NATO arms nor Ukrainian men left.

The significance of this re-tuning of Russia’s war aims was diverted for several hours by the Prigozhin affair ^[8].  

The return of the Wagner columns to their bases in Lugansk, the dissolution of Wagner by the Defense Ministry, and the exit of Prigozhin to house arrest in Belarus remove the distraction from the battlefield and the General Staff’s war strategy.  If Prigozhin cannot bear the silence, the lack of access to the fortune he has accumulated, and his loss of freedom of movement, he may attempt a break-out to Africa, to plot his return to Russian politics. He will also be aware of the Lebed precedent – and the danger of taking helicopter rides ^[9].  

Russian military sources believe the outcome of the one-armed rebellion will be salutary for the key decision-makers including Putin and Shoigu; least of all the General Staff and the chief, General Valery Gerasimov,  who have come out of the affair with greater political leverage over the Kremlin.  According to one Moscow source, “Now that the General Staff have saved the president, the latter will allow General Patience to continue doing its work, as Generals Iskander and Kinzhal seem to be doing theirs now.”

President Putin in a visit to the headquarters of the Dnieper battlegroup near the Kherson front on April 18. Tass reported [11]: “While at the headquarters of the Dnepr battlegroup near the Kherson front, Vladimir Putin heard reports delivered by Airborne Troops commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky [left], Dnepr battlegroup commander Colonel General Oleg Makarevich [right] and other field commanders.”  

The last comment is a reference to long-range missile strikes against Ukrainian command headquarters, airfields, reserve stocks of ammunition and fuel, and NATO storages. After Shoigu had publicly warned on June 20 ^[12] of decapitation strikes if the Ukrainians attacked targets in the Crimea and other Russian regions,  and there was a Storm Shadow attack on the Chongar bridge in the Crimea on June 22, the Defense Ministry reported that it had launched a June 23 ^[13] salvo “ in response to a strike on a road bridge across the Chongar Strait [as well as] , a warehouse with Storm Shadow cruise missiles was destroyed at a Ukrainian airbase near the settlement of Starokonstantinov in the Khmelnitsky region.”  

Left: Missile explodes on impacting the Chongarsky bridge on June 22; right, impact crater on the bridge road surface.  Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk [15]

As for the impact of the affair on the conduct of the war, the assessment reported in the broadcast several hours before the end of the affair, was between next to nothing and not very much. The no Ukrainian army, no NATO weapons, no Kiev state goals are much more important now.

A NATO veteran comments on what he expects to see next at the front. “The Ukrainians are going to have a problem disengaging at the front lines and passing on to a conventional defence. I’ve noticed that the Russians, especially on the Lugansk People’s Repubic/Kharkov front, have massed significant forces and are applying pressure. This is causing the Ukrainians to shift and commit forces to the area either to stop the Russians, or to gain the initiative via attack. Unless they are willing to accept losing territory in favour of sparing their reserves — which they don’t seem to be — they will continue to be ground down at the front. While this is going on, their logistics will disintegrate at an increasing scope and rate due to Russian strikes, made up in large part of cheap Iranian-designed drones augmented by missiles.

“Stavka is moving away from the battalion tactical group as the fulcrum of operations and back to division-level formations. The forces built up on the Kharkov front are indicative of that.  When your enemy knows how you think on a fundamental level, it’s a trifle for them to figure out what you’ll do next. After that,  it’s about how to maneuver the enemy into doing it when and where they choose. I’m going to keep watching Kharkov.”

Listen to the presentation in the third segment of TNT Radio’s War of the Worlds, from Minute 46 ^[16]:   

Source: https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/ [16]

Article printed from Dances With Bears: https://johnhelmer.net

URL to article: https://johnhelmer.net/putin-orders-reality-check-no-ukrainians-left-on-the-battlefield-no-sovereignty-in-kiev/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2872.png&nocache=1

[2] @bears_with: https://twitter.com/bears_with

[3] 2018 and 2019: http://opiniojuris.org/2019/05/01/termination-of-the-treaty-of-friendship-between-ukraine-and-russia-too-little-too-late-%EF%BB%BF/

[4] said: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/71482

[5] May 31: https://docs.cntd.ru/document/1902220

[6] denounced: https://mid.ru/en/press_service/spokesman/briefings/1890329/

[7] June 21: https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1889753/

[8] Prigozhin affair: https://johnhelmer.net/from-pugachev-to-lebed-the-muzhik-rebellion-fizzles-out-without-bloodshed-prigozhin-to-africa/

[9] helicopter rides: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/death-of-lebed-in-crash-may-have-been-sabotage-1.1086774

[10] Image: https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/President-Putin-in-a-visit-to-the-headquarters-of-the-Dnieper-battlegrou.png&nocache=1

[11] reported: https://tass.com/politics/1605705

[12] June 20: https://twitter.com/bears_with/status/1671415275151826946?cxt=HHwWhICxucrVh7IuAAAA

[13] June 23: https://t.me/mod_russia/27812

[14] Image: https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/chongar-attack.png&nocache=1

[15] https://www.dailymail.co.uk: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12221845/British-Storm-Shadow-missile-hits-bridge-Crimea-Russian-territory.html

[16] from Minute 46: https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/war-of-the-worlds-24-june-2023/

[17] Image: https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/webpc-passthru.php?src=https://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/wows-june-24.png&nocache=1

Russia Matters, 6/16/23

When asked by the Levada Center in May whether, to achieve a victory in Ukraine, Russia should (Option 1) or should not (Option 2) use nuclear weapons, some 86% of Russian respondents chose the second option, including 18% who said Russia should probably not use nuclear weapons and 68% who said Russia should definitely not use nuclear weapons in the conflict under any circumstances.

This interview with Scott Ritter provides some interesting background on Wagner and Prighozhin.

By Tony Kevin, Consortium News, 6/14/23

On Friday [June 9th] The Guardian Australia website carried a news report, with a follow-up piece on Monday, whose implications for free speech are profoundly disturbing.

They concern a Radio New Zealand, or RNZ, broadcasting employee — unnamed, but everyone in the small New Zealand broadcasting world will soon know who it is — who has been placed on leave while their professional conduct is investigated.  Obviously, a career hangs in the balance. 

The malign ghosts of Orwell’s 1984 stalk this story.

‘Russian Garbage’

This unnamed person in RNZ committed the cardinal sin of “inappropriate editing” of incoming Reuters news feeds on the war in Ukraine to insert “Russian garbage” in the contemptuous words of Paul Thompson, chief executive of RNZ. That is to say, they drew on Russian news sources to insert balancing pro-Russian material to the incoming Western news agency feeds.  

The Guardian tells us that in fact accurate information about Ukraine was added to the Reuters copy:

“The articles in question made a range of amendments: adding the word ‘coup’ to describe the Maidan revolution; changing a description of Ukraine’s former ‘pro-Russian president’ to read ‘pro-Russian elected government’; adding references to a ‘pro-western government’ that had ‘suppressed ethnic Russians’; and on several occasions adding references to Russian concerns about ‘neo-Nazi elements’ in Ukraine.” 

And more truth was added to the story, The Guardian says:

“In one article, a paragraph was added reading: ‘The Kremlin also said its invasion was sparked by a failure to implement the Minsk agreement peace accords, designed to give Russia speakers autonomy and protection, and the rise of a neo-Nazi element in Ukraine since a coup ousted a Russian-friendly Ukrainian government in 2014.’

Another added that Russia launched its invasion ‘claiming that a US-backed coup in 2014 with the help of neo-Nazis had created a threat to its borders and had ignited a civil war that saw Russian-speaking minorities persecuted.’”

This, it seems, is an offence not to be countenanced any longer in New Zealand. “An RNZ spokesperson, John Barr, said in a statement after the first article came to public attention that ‘RNZ is taking the issue extremely seriously and is investigating how the situation arose,’” the newspaper wrote.

The Guardian, in its effort to “correct” the story, says: “Ukraine says these claims are discredited Kremlin propaganda … The anti-corruption movement was peaceful and had widespread public support. Yanukovych fled to Russia months later after his security forces shot dead more than 100 unarmed protesters.”  

[Consortium News has published numerous stories laying out the facts of the events of 2014, including these two exhaustively corroborated accounts: On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine and Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev]

‘Gutted’

The RNZ executive Thompson was “gutted” to learn what has been going on under his watch. We read that 250 past published articles have been gone through “with a finetooth comb” to investigate and counter such offensive inserted material, and thousands more are being reviewed.

Sixteen such offending  articles have been found and warning commentaries added to them. Investigations continue while the staffer remains indefinitely suspended. The responsible minister is being briefed. Clearly these editors have not delved very deeply into the Ukraine story.

Luke Harding’s Involvement 

Both Guardian articles carry a tagline that says “Additional reporting by Luke Harding.” This should be a key warning to everyone in New Zealand’s and Australia’s broadcasting world, indeed in the entire English-speaking world.

Harding carries a formidable reputation as an inveterate anti-Russian British journalist with alleged strong links to the U.K. anti-Russian disinformation system and even to MI6, the U.K.’s secret intelligence service.

He was heavily involved in the Julian Assange affair and in the now discredited campaign to label former U.S. President Donald Trump as under Russian control. He is known as a leading Western disinformation warrior.

Normal Editorial Practice

Australian Broadcasting Company journalists edit incoming feeds from Reuters and other wire services all the time. They add context, link to previous stories, add Australian-relevant material. 

The problem is, this person in RNZ was adding such context from the “wrong ‘side.’”

The ABC has long been exposed as an obedient servant of the U.S.-dominated Five Eyes intelligence network and runs along approved anti-Russian and anti-Chinese editorial lines. RNZ, by contrast, is still widely respected in New Zealand. But it committed the sin of allowing counter-perspectives to be heard on the responsibility for the present tragic war in Ukraine.

Read the two Guardian articles to see what exactly Harding in London and his colleagues in U.K. disinformation appear to be objecting to. It sends a strong message across the Tasman Sea, from New Zealand to the Australian media world: We watch every word you say and every word you write.

Cancelled for the Same Thought Crimes  

The examples of journalistic misconduct identified in the two articles match exactly research and opinions on the historical context and causes of the war in Ukraine and mounting Russia-West tensions that I have been trying to express publicly in Australia as an expert former senior diplomat since publication of my book Return to Moscow in 2017.

As a result I have been cancelled, unpersoned, silenced — dropped down the Australia Broadcasting Company memory hole, never to be allowed on its airwaves again. 

[Related: Caitlin Johnstone: 60 Minutes Australia Churning Out War-with-China Propaganda]

An innocuous interview I conducted from Moscow with Paul Barclay for the respected ABC program “Big Ideas” in February 2022 was “disarchived” — yes, you read it right — a few weeks later, under pressure from unidentified critics.

Ukraine is Losing

The war in Ukraine now winds steadily towards its inevitable pro-Russian denouement. Russia clearly has the military edge and this will not change now. Billions of dollars’ worth of supplied U.S./NATO equipment continues to be destroyed in combat.

In suicidal offensives ordered by the doomed Zelensky regime in Kiev, an estimated half a million Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or crippled since February 2022. [Exact casualty figures are very hard to come by]. Many more proxy warriors will die in coming weeks as this brutal war of attrition demanded by the U.S. and NATO continues to destroy what is left of poor Ukraine. 

Australians and New Zealanders with naïve faith in the professional integrity of their national broadcasters will continue to be insulated from these tragic truths. 

Fortunately, for those who dare to read them, there are now plenty of accessible reliable sources of alternative perspectives on Russia-West relations and the pivotal importance of the war in Ukraine in transforming the world. This world now looks very different from outside the Western laager. We are in the midst of huge global changes.

But, thanks to the likes of Harding and his Anglo-American friends, we won’t find such information anywhere on the ABC or RNZ. We Antipodeans in the colonies  will be the last to know. 

Tony Kevin is a former Australian senior diplomat, having served as ambassador to Cambodia and Poland, as well as being posted to Australia’s embassy in Moscow. He is the author of six published books on public policy and international relations.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

Some details have come out about the deal that Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko brokered to end the crisis. Yevgeny Prigozhin will be exiled to Belarus and Wagner forces who participated in the mutiny will not be prosecuted but will not be contracted into the Russian military while those who did not participate will be allowed to sign contracts with the Russian military.

While this serious crisis was fortunately ended quickly through negotiation with little bloodshed, it was an embarrassment for the Kremlin. But, at this time, I think that comments from various quarters that this means the Putin government is especially weak are exaggerated.

First of all, no Russian officials or high military commanders went against the Putin government to support Progozhin’s escapade. As other analysts have pointed out, Turkey’s Erdogan faced a coup attempt in 2016 that involved some of his military leaders and Erdogan is still going pretty strong. This event didn’t even rise to that level.

Time will tell what kind of substantive damage this has done to the Putin government. I’m open to changing my opinion based on how things unfold.

Of course, many in the western chattering classes, true to form, didn’t waste any time in putting out bad takes while the crisis was ongoing, breathlessly hoping for the Putin government to be overthrown or at the very least for a civil war to erupt. Some of these folks were suddenly rooting for a guy they’d condemned five minutes before as a war criminal. This just goes to show – if you needed anymore evidence – that for these people it doesn’t have to make sense. Anything they perceive to be bad for Putin and/or Russia is cause for celebration and the long-term consequences of major instability in a nuclear-armed country aren’t to be seriously considered unless you want to be seen as a party-pooper fascist.

These same people, after they recover from their profound disappointment that there’s no civil war in Russia and Putin isn’t hanging from a lamp post, will go back to having their garbage posted at The Atlantic or The New Yorker as if they just got drunk one night and showed their rear end at a party and everyone tacitly agrees not to bring it up. After all, the educated professional class doesn’t like to be too judge-y about personal and professional foibles.

This whole fiasco with Wagner has brought to mind a point that Putin made several years back to the west at the UN. He scolded the west (rightly) for using terrorists to achieve their geopolitical goals against opponents and how it leads to unintended consequences because such forces cannot be controlled. Similarly, Putin used a loose cannon (Progozhin) to conduct certain operations with the short-term benefit of fewer casualties for the Russian army and it blew up in his face. Because he was a loose cannon, Prigozhin got full of himself, went off-leash and became a chaos agent. Putin should have known better.