Big Picture Ukraine Updates

The conflict in Ukraine appears to have reached a major inflection point with the major US and NATO attacks on important Russian infrastructure—the Nordstream pipeline and the Kerch Bridge—and Russia’s massive missile response. The Russian response has caught the collective West flatfooted. The fact is—as commenter Cord the Seeker remarked recently, and as others have also been discussing—the West has never prioritized air defense against such missile attacks, because it’s military focus has been on bombing third world countries back to the fourth world. The systems now being sent to Ukraine are unlikely to change that dynamic.

In that context, let’s start out with a very interesting discussion that appeared on Rumble. What I’ve done is provide a close summary, cleaning up the verbal presentation to give a more readable version. This is only about five or six minutes from a presentation that ran close to half an hour. One of the good things about this discussion is that it hits on some of the points that are making some news in the US and which we’ve discussed here recently. Here we go:

CrossTalk | On Offense

Peter Lavelle = Q

Tom Luongo

Jeremy Kuzmarov

Andrei Martyanov

Q: The Zelensky government has shown very little concern for the lives of its soldiers in the field.

Luongo: That's an important point. The Biden admin has been continuing this because "it's policy". This binder--to turn Ukraine into a war zone, to bleed the Russians white--has been on the shelf at the Rand Corp. or wherever for 20-30 years. It's been the Neocons' dream. Biden's NSC members are the most hawkish of the hawks. This isn't going to end until the Neocons get the message: You go nuclear or you go home. Zelensky is just a figurehead put in that position--no different than Zhou Baidan or anyone else. It's all a puppet show and we're the ones caught in the crossfire--especially the Ukrainian people. For them--the Ukrainian people--this war finally became real for them yesterday [with the Russian missile strikes].

“Go nuke or go home?” I think Luongo is ultimately right about this. All the magic game changing weapons systems have proved not to make any decisive difference. The outcome of this war still looks inevitable—Russia wins, everyone else loses. All that the attempts to escalate do is anger Russia further while Western reserves of military equipment are seriously depleted. The drain on the faltering economies will grow significantly. At a point that probably isn’t too far off, the collective West—meaning, the Neocons who run the US—will be faced with a put up or shut up moment.

Q: Something the pundits miss: This will be over when the Russians decide it's over--that is, when the Russians decide their security interests have been met. The Russians have laid out very clearly what they expect. This has been going on for 8 years now, not just 8 months. The West made the decision not to negotiate--that was the West's decision. So Russia is the one who will decide, now, when this ends. Nobody in the West seems to get that.

The other day I pointed out the statements by former Joint Chiefs head Mullin, saying that it’s time to get off the mark and start negotiating. That’s as clear an indication as you could ask for that the military knows that this thing is lost.

Kuzmarov: The Neocons want this to go on forever. Even if the war ends, they'll continue arming the Ukrainians for low intensity warfare of some kind--sabotage, terrorism.

Q: If they want to continue they can, but there's just diminishing returns. At some point, if the West wants to keep this up, they will also become official co-belligerents. That's when we go down the path of true destruction for everyone involved.

Martyanov: The Neocons may be very hawkish, but don't forget: A lot of the things Russia is doing are very much timed for the Midterms. There is already a strong current of anti-war sentiment among Republicans--I'm not talking about RINOs like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. The Neocons and Baidan can't do this by themselves. Further, the US, the combined West, is not as strong economically or militarily as they thought. The truth is, the stream of weapons is diminishing rather than increasing, because the US is running out of materials to give. Yes, it will continue, but with diminishing returns and it will be up to Russia to decide when and under what conditions it will be ended. We know--after Mr. Medvedev's statement a few days ago about "unconditional surrender"--what Russia's political aims are.

Medvedev is the Deputy Head of the Security Council. Next to Putin he remains a major political player in Russia. His remarks re “unconditional surrender” were presented as his “personal” views, but nobody should be fooled about that. Back in late 2021 Putin’s draft treaties made Russia’s position very clear. Russia is demanding NATO’s rollback, which amounts to unconditional surrender, because no quid pro quo was offered.

Beyond that, I think Martyanov’s remarks about the current state of US politics as important. More below. Next up, Luongo emphasizes what I’ve also been making a big point about—the proportionality and patience that Putin has demonstrated. Russian diplomats and intel personnel focusing on the West, many stationed in the West, spend all day every day focusing on these issues and reporting back to the Kremlin. There can be no doubt but that Putin is an avid and intelligent consumer of these reports. Unlike his Western “partners”.

Q: The war remains popular on an elite level, but many people are not happy. J. D. Vance has said, I don't care about Ukraine. Can conservatives make this into a strategy? This is Zhou's war?

Luongo: The Dems are on auto-pilot, but somebody desperately wants this war escalated, in order to fundamentally change the entire apple cart of the West. What I mean is this. We're headed toward a financial crisis, but at the same time "they" need a war to cover their insolvency and their political losses. The Russians won't give it to them. The Russians keep responding proportionately, rather than escalating. This is frustrating "the crazies in MI6" and causing them to continue to intensify the provocations, the "punches in the mouth that they're giving the Russians," in order to force Putin to do something that he doesn't want to do. But Putin is very patiently saying: "Nope! We're just not gonna give you the war you want." I think he's holding off until after the Midterms because it would be dumb for him to simply react by lashing out. Putin can read the polls, he understands the political situation in the US. There's no consensus for this war at this point, so why would Putin provide a casus belli, a reason for war. That's the Baidan, Whitehall, Brussels strategy right now, but Putin isn't playing into it.

Is this another desperate Deep State throw of the dice to force an escalation? Didn’t work, but all this raises the price of “unconditional surrender.” Will there be accountability for the reckless war mongering elite behind this? These people obviously don’t give a fig for the well being of their own subjects:

Russia Foils Attack On Turkstream Pipeline, Saboteurs Arrested

The Interfax news agency cited a report from the Kremlin about a "foiled attack" on a major natural gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey called the TurkStream, according to Reuters.

The Kremlin said several people were arrested Thursday during an attempt to sabotage the pipeline that links Russia to Turkey and Southern Europe. The pipeline has a capacity of 31.5 billion cubic meters per year and was launched in early 2020.

Here’s a map:

Assurances from the West that they don’t want to go nuclear won’t wash, in the face of determined attempts to cripple the Russian economy. This is existential for Russia, and they have no illusions—especially not regarding the sadsack Macron. For the Neocons, this is a war of choice, that doesn’t have the interests of the subject populations of the West in mind. On the contrary, this is only likely to strengthen Russian resolve.

Macron Declares "We Don't Want A World War" After Pledging Anti-Air Missiles To Ukraine

"In the event of more attempts to stage terrorist attacks on our territory, Russia’s response will be harsh and commensurate with the threats posed to the Russian Federation," Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the start of this week. "Nobody should have any doubts about that."

France's Emmanuel Macron has responded in a statement which he also posted to Twitter on Thursday, "We don’t want a world war." He then followed with: "We help Ukraine to resist on its soil, never to attack Russia. Vladimir Putin must end this war and respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine."

But Macron's apparent attempt to reassure Putin over his red line, namely that Ukraine and its backers are not going to "attack Russia" are unlikely to be taken seriously in the Kremlin, given the West doesn't see Crimea as part of Russia, and it is the Kerch Strait Bridge bombing at issue in the tit-for-tat rhetoric and threats.

Is this a sign of things to come in US politics? A few people can be very disruptive, but as the economy continues tanking—and it is—this will gain traction, and especially in certain key Dem demographics:

AOC Humiliated At Town Hall In Viral Clip: 'Why Can't You Be More Like Tulsi Gabbard?'

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was confronted by anti-war protesters during a Wednesday town hall event she hosted in the Bronx. The crowd at the sparsely attended event was dominated by her own progressive constituency, but who loudly voiced their anger and frustration over selling out on foreign policy, especially when it comes to her positions and votes on the Ukraine war, which has seen the US hand over an unprecedented tens of billions of dollars in weapons and aid. This has made her indistinguishable from her establishment colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including neocon Republicans and hawkish Dems.

One protester loudly denounced her for policy positions that will lead to a "nuclear war" with Russia as seen in a now viral clip. Indeed an article in Unherd observed starting last Spring: The Squad nowhere to be seen as Ukraine package sails through - a trend which has only continued. Though AOC and Democratic party leadership under her friend and "mentor" Nancy Pelosi have worked hard to protect her image as a leading young Progressive, she stood helpless on the stage as the crowd turned against her, calling her out as a fraud.

Here’s a slightly longer version of Adm. Mullin’s remarks that I summarized earlier. It seems difficult to impossible for me to believe that Mullin would not have consulted with his former colleagues before making this statement. It seems a clear signal that the military establishment is alarmed at how things are going, and the effect that it’s all having on our increasingly shaky military preparedness. For examples, there are reports that military exercises have had to be restructured due to the lack of certain weapons systems, that have been sent to their destruction in Ukraine.

Former Joint Chief’s Chair Tells Biden: ‘Negotiate Ukraine War’s End Now’

by Walt Zlotow

Sometimes top military warriors tell US war presidents the painful truth.

That happened yesterday when retired admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, urged President Biden to begin negotiations to end America’s newest endless war.

And a peculiar endless war it is….America squandering its desperately needed treasure so Ukraine can squander its economy, infrastructure and precious blood on a war it can’t win short of America nuking Russia.

President Biden is doing precisely the opposite: funneling endless billions to keep the war going while dismissing negotiations out of hand.

Mullen didn’t mince words, telling Biden to “back off” scaremongering words of nuclear Armageddon and quickly bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table. He called Biden’s remarks as being “at the top of the language scale” and he wasn’t being complementary [sic].

Mullen was channeling those of us in the peace community when he said “As is typical in any war, it’s gotta end and usually there are negotiations associated with that. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

…

Biden and the US war party still view perpetual war as the wealth of the state. More likely it’s the death of the state. This time it may include all of us.

Look. Mullin knows that his remarks were avidly followed by Russian diplomats—and by Putin and the Stavka. They understand what’s going on here. With these dynamics developing—splits in the West between Neocon civilians and the professional military, splits between various governments, splits between the rulers and the ruled, Russia knows that its victory is only a matter of time. They have no incentive to do anything to make things easier for their Neocon enemies.

We get our chance to participate and have voice in just a few weeks.