Talkin' Ukraine Escalation Blues

I’ll keep this brief. We’ll start with three rumored escalations:

• Poland is said to be in discussions with Ukraine regarding providing long range surface to surface missiles.

• Poland and Lithuania are also said to be in discussions regarding sending “peacekeeping” forces into Western Ukraine. Alex Christoforou suggests that this could be a ploy to insert NATO forces—redline by redline—to establish a “frozen conflict”.

• The US is said to be in the final stages of approving the provision of long range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. This per the WSJ, which says the US sees a “new urgency”.

Needless to say, any of these moves would be highly provocative to Russia. Either of the Polish missile system or the ATACMS would be able to strike fairly deep inside Russia and would provoke a major response.

Next comes a report from the Russian side.

Mark Sleboda

@MarkSleboda1

More evidence supporting reports that NATO has secretly transferred new Electronic Warfare systems to their proxy Putsch regime in Kiev.

Similar reports have come from the Donetsk front.

1/2 Russian drones run into Ukrainian EW: Russian Telegram reports that "search, detection and strikes by Lancet-3 and FPV drones around Antonovsky Bridge is complicated: the operators lose the signal in that area. This may be due to EW units activity." https://t.me/uav_tech/17276

9:54 AM · Jun 29, 2023

Here is a video of Scott Ritter. I’ve cued it up for the start of his discussion of the Russian strike on NATO personnel at the restaurant in Kramatorsk. Among other things, Ritter says he saw numerous persons who were clearly Americans, and that two Blackhawk helicopters took off from Romania and turned their transponders off as they entered Ukraine. These were clearly casualty evacuation flights for military personnel, he says.

This is actually part of his discussion of the willingness of the US and other NATO countries to accept increasing casualties—a question I’d like to see presented to all politicians, and especially presidential candidates: How many dead Americans will it take to win this war, how many will you tolerate? Now, Ritter maintains that the strike in Kramatorsk was Russian retaliation for the Prigozhin farce coup, and he has quite a bit to say about the connections to Western intel agencies—especially MI6. For my part I’m not totally convinced. I wonder whether this obvious escalation and retaliatory strike may actually have something to do with the EW warfare systems referenced just above. After all, this strike was probably directed at NATO personnel who were conducting hands on operation of weapons systems of one sort or another. Perhaps retaliation related to the Prigozhin farce will come later. Nevertheless it’s an interesting discussion. If Russia is now about to increase its targeting of NATO personnel, as Ritter maintains in the wake of the Kramatorsk strike, then the question of how many body bags Americans will tolerate becomes pressingly important:

With regard to the American presence in Ukraine, how many Americans could find themselves at higher risk, the number is not public. This article does discuss the issue: Just how many US troops and spies do we have in Ukraine? My guess would be that the number is quite substantial. I find all this quite troubling—too much crazy.

I would also highly recommend this MoA article: Prigozhin Affair - Kramatorsk Missile Attack. The article contains this sensible comment regarding Surovikin:

The U.S. propaganda campaign that falsely claims that Russia has been weakened by Wagner's armed mutiny continues. While citing only 'western' intelligence affiliated sources the Washington Post headlines Putin’s standing as global strongman in jeopardy after revolt. Where please is evidence for that?

The New York Times assists in a useless attempt to sow fear and doubt on the Russian side:

A senior Russian general had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership, according to U.S. officials briefed on American intelligence on the matter, which has prompted questions about what support the mercenary leader had inside the top ranks.

The officials said they are trying to learn if Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former top Russian commander in Ukraine, helped plan Mr. Prigozhin’s actions last weekend, which posed the most dramatic threat to President Vladimir V. Putin in his 23 years in power.

Gen. Sergei Surovikin of course knew that something was up with Wagner. The whole Russian leadership knew of it. Orders were obviously given for everyone to stand down and to let Prigozhin do what he had planned to do.

There was zero action taken by the border guards, the internal security force Rosguardia, by the police and the Russian military. That is unexplainable unless there was an order from very high up to step back instead of seeking a fight. President Putin's primary aim was to avoid unnecessary casualties which he largely achieved.

One miscalculation happened. Wagner had a mobile Pantsir-1 air defense system that tried to cover its convoys on their trip towards Moscow. Several Russian helicopters and a plane where shot down when they came too near to them. It seems that the Pantsirs were a surprise.

Wagner was not supposed to have them:

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