Autumn has come and gone. Winter. Spring. All gone. But at least now we have the Hollywood trailer for the upcoming Ukrainian offensive. Summer? Anyone? For months now, Ukraine has been preparing a ‘fist’ of new units, armed with the very latest in shiny new NATO toys. According to the leaked Pentagon information, bean-counted and…
The Kuenssberg Parallax
On 28th May 2023, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, (onetime Political Editor and now host of the flagship BBC Political ‘show’ ‘Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg’) penned an article for the BBC News, entitled ‘Ukraine War: Russian Ambassador Andrei Kelin issues warning of escalation in Ukraine.‘ This article was an accompanying piece to an interview with the…
Ukraine ~ A General Overview
Across Ukraine, a similar situation can be found along the entire contact line, from North to East to South. With a few notable exceptions, the Russians are simply holding firm and are not engaging in ‘big arrow’ offensives; sweeping advances by large formations intent upon capturing swathes of territorial or geographical real-estate. In the bulk…
Ukraine – April 2023
I have written a couple of general overviews of the Russo-Ukraine conflict (March 2022 and December 2022) in which, I believe, the included assessments and predictions have – so far – proven accurate. It’s now April 2023 and as I believe this conflict is nearing the ‘end-game,’ it’s time to bring my thinking up-to-date. As…
Causality and Consequence
With regards to the current conflict in Ukraine, I have been musing over the ‘terrorist sabotage’ attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines on September 26th 2022 that sabotaged three of the four Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines. Why did it happen and how? Nord Stream Background The company behind Nord Stream…
Simple.
According to western governments and media, and consequent popular public opinion, Russia invaded Ukraine, a democratic, freedom-loving, innocent and harmless sovereign nation in February 2022, with no provocation. Why would Russia do such a thing? Well, to fulfil Putin’s imperial aspirations to rule and conquer Ukraine. As a first step to invade and dominate the…
Steve the Narrative Meister
Steve Rosenberg, State Propagandist-in-Chief for the BBC in Russia, posted this… Here’s Steve. Note he has three phones. Oh sorry, four. Uber-connected professional. Steve’s piece is a shining example of propaganda narrative at work, wherein Steve interviews local Russian residents of Belgorod and then blatantly inserts words they never spoke; Steve’s words. Steve hears the…
Silent BBC Edit
On 3rd December, Matt Murphy (Senior Journalist – BBCNews and BBCWorld) wrote a piece that appeared on the BBC website regarding a ‘new’ building in Mariupol. Here’s the original piece (you can find it on the Internet Archive). The ‘Russian Army Base’ Matt is referring to is actually a 60-bed civilian hospital completed by the…
A Glaring Media Blindspot
On Monday 5th December, Ukraine launched a pair of adapted Soviet-era Tu-141 Strizh Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) at two airbases within Russia. One struck Dyagilevo Air Force Base in Ryazan Oblast, a training center for Russia’s strategic bomber force. Another struck Engels Air Force Base (Engels-2), a strategic nuclear bomber military airbase in Russia located…
Revisiting Military Predictions
In this post from March 4th 2022, I made a number of predictions regarding the military situation in Ukraine and how it might develop over the course of the conflict. Given recent (credible) reports (from a variety of sources) that estimate Ukrainian losses of 100,000 killed and 400,000 wounded, I thought I would revisit and…