“Ukraine – Russia”

Russia has one of the largest and most powerful armed forces in the world, but that has not been apparent in its initial invasion of Ukraine. Many military analysts in the West have been surprised by its performance on the battlefield so far, with one describing it as “dismal”.

Its military advances appear to have largely stalled and some now question whether it can recover from the losses it has suffered. This week, a senior Nato military official told the BBC, “the Russians clearly have not achieved their goals and probably will not at the end of the day”. So what has gone wrong? I have spoken to senior Western military officers and intelligence officials, about the mistakes Russia has made.

While most of Ukraine’s armed forces have been quietly engaged in the grind of a gruelling tug-of-war with Russia, one battalion has been busy putting out slick videos and images trumpeting its own achievements.

In a photograph released this week, a burly man in dark-blue uniform lies unconscious on the snow-covered ground, his right side caked in blood.

“Azov has eliminated a major general! And by thy sword shalt thou live!” reads the caption.

The unnamed officer was reportedly the fourth Russian general to have been killed in Ukraine. His killers? The extreme right-wing Azov Battalion.

Canada trained the Azov battalion.

Kirzner-Roberts was referring to a recent report from an institute at George Washington University in the United States revealing that Centuria, a far-right group made up of Ukrainian soldiers linked to the Azov movement, boasted they received training from Canada and other NATO countries. Researchers with the university tracked social media accounts of Centuria, documenting its Ukrainian military members giving Nazi salutes, promoting white nationalism and praising members of Nazi SS units.

I wonder if Freedolph knew?

Ten European Union (EU) member-states have been exposed for selling hundreds of millions of euros worth of military kit to Russia between 2015 and 2020, despite sanctions.

EU member-states including France, Germany, and Italy potentially broke a European embargo on selling arms to Russia, issuing more than 1,000 arms licenses after the ban was imposed on August 1st 2014.

h/t INGENUI

Russia says it used its newest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine to destroy a weapons storage site in the country’s west.

Russia’s Interfax news agency said it was the first time Russia had deployed the hypersonic Kinzhal system since it sent its troops into Ukraine on February 24.

“The Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic aeroballistic missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region,” defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday.

Launch of Putin's 'unstoppable' missile similar to one he just fired at Ukraine

FULL STORY 👉 https://t.co/RQ0qmdozgw pic.twitter.com/gqxV38Xvv4

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) March 19, 2022

The Treaty of Versailles, doling out spoils to the victors at the end of the First World War, was a Carthaginian peace that sliced and diced Germany, surrendering provinces to Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and cutting homeland ties to seven million ethnic Germans. Three and a half million landed in the eastern region of the former Czechoslovakia, then called Sudetenland.

Anti-imperialist activists won’t let go of America

Last week, Philip Bump of the Washington Post wrote a column about Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and referred, in passing and without elaboration, to “Right-wing pundit Glenn Greenwald”. The results were predictable. Greenwald’s defenders protested that he had previously supported the likes of Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, doggedly opposed the last Bush administration, and used to write for the Guardian and the Intercept, which he co-founded.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has run smack into the irony of history. History records that wars start because various heads of state or their commanders believe in at least three ideas: first, this war will be comparatively short; second, this war will end in a victory for our side; third, the cost of war, in terms of military and civilian casualties and economic losses, will be comparatively small relative to the expected gains. In addition, net assessments of the enemy’s goals and capabilities, when they are done at all, are frequently obtuse and based on outdated information or biased interpretations.

Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald said the same people who pushed the U.S. into war with Iraq and Afghanistan for Republicans are now back to do the same for the Democrats with a war against Russia. Greenwald told FOX News’ Laura Ingraham on Thursday that people should be cautious when the two parties are in lockstep when it comes to war because that means there was very little debate and people were coerced.

Greenwald also said Russiagate and the hatred and distrust for Russia that was created is one of the reasons why the Russia-Ukraine conflict could not be solved diplomatically.

Vladimir Putin has today given a tub-thumping speech to tens of thousands of banner-waving Russians in an attempt to drum up support for his stalled invasion of Ukraine, as he peddled debunked claims about why the war started and shilled a false narrative of Russia’s battlefield ‘success’.

The despot took to the stage at Moscow’s Luzhniki World Cup stadium dressed in a £10,000 Loro Piana jacket – despite his country’s economy crumbling under the weight of Western sanctions – to address a crowd waving Russian national flags and banners marked with the letter ‘Z’, which has become a potent symbol of the invasion.

Putin, who called the rally to mark the anniversary of the last time he attacked Ukraine to annex the Crimea region, spoke of sharing a ‘common destiny’ with Crimeans, of ‘de-Nazifying’ the region in 2014, and of the ‘bravery’ of soldiers currently fighting in Ukraine. He was met with chants of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.’

On Wednesday morning, when the Ukrainian president addressed the US Congress he tried to appeal to Americans. He spoke of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and 9/11. And he tried to summon up the foundational ideals of this country.

He said that “Just like anyone else in the United States I remember your national memorial in Rushmore, the faces of your prominent presidents, those who laid the foundation of the United States of America as it is today.”

The reference was touching, but wildly outdated.