This month will decide world politics for next 30+ years

• Russia massing in southeast Kharkov,
• Where are all the dead Russians???
• My goodness… another fascist militia! 
• Failed evac of Ukraine VIP’s in Mariupol,
• Kill Lists! Death Squads!,
• What happened to the Ruble?
• And other developments…

The Bridgehead  

What you are looking at is far more important than anything you might have seen on CNN. 

The above picture and below video show Russian vehicles crossing a temporary bridge over the Seversky Donets southeast of Izium this past Saturday or thereabouts.  Based on the handsome forest in the distance, this may be in the area east-southeast of Sinichino.  The vicinity of the bridge saw two weeks of fighting and Ukrainian artillery bombardment, which killed among others the deputy head of engineering for Russia’s Western Military District.  But as of the filming of this video, the bridgehead is so large that there is evidently no need for guards, defensive emplacements, or air defense within sight of the bridge.   

 

This is/was the route for Russian forces to bypass Ukrainian holdouts just south of Izium (who may have been cleared out already, as of now), so as to begin staging for an advance down the M-03 highway to help effect a historic encirclement of Ukrainian garrisons in Slaviansk-Kramatorsk (and Severodonetsk-Lisichansk.)

Uncle Sam with his eyes-in-the-sky is keeping Kiev abreast of how many Russian assets have crossed the river, but Russia’s not advertising it, so you and I can only guess.  If it’s not a lot already, it will be. 

Russian forces are now advancing near the border of Donetsk and Zaporozhia, west of Ugledar.  This is a big development as it suggests that Russia’s strategic reserve in the Crimea has been committed. 

The involvement of “mainland” Russian (not just Donetsk and Lugansk) forces in the central and northern Donbass fronts has increased markedly in recent days.  

With heavy artillery support, Donetsk forces are slowly advancing through very difficult enemy defenses west of Gorlovka, north of Donetsk city.  It may be that Russia wants to establish a bulge west-northwest of Gorlovka so as to allow for more effective reach and more flexible direction/re-direction of its artillery fire within the pending Donbass cauldron. 

In recent days, the Ukraine has redeployed many thousands of personnel, to include special forces of both the army and the Ukraine Security Service, from the Kiev area and other areas towards Dnepropetrovsk, in anticipation of either de-blockading its Donbass army group or at least preventing a deepening of the encirclement in the direction of Dnepropetrovsk. 

(As I told readers of my email newsletter many times since early March, the entire point of Russia’s Kiev offensive was to keep the Ukraine high command’s attention and its special forces out of the Donbass until it was hopefully too late to do anything about the Donbass.  It looks like this function has probably been fulfilled.  Everything else that you’ve heard about the Kiev front from the MSM and unnamed “Pentagon officials” is crap.) 

It will be difficult for the Ukraine to use regular motorized forces on the offense in this area, as they would be traversing flat, open country, and would be hugely susceptible to air and rocket strikes, especially as Russia has largely finished off the Ukraine’s high-altitude air defenses east of the Dniepr in the last week.  However, in place, they could conceivably blunt a Russian effort to deepen the Donbass blockade substantially westwards in line with the Little Saturn (1942-1943) playbook. 

What happens here (and how it happens) will determine the fate of Russia, the Ukraine, Europe, and U.S. global military hegemony (to include on the Pacific Rim) for decades to come.  If Russia is able to complete its Donbass mission by the end of April as I have predicted, then Uncle Sam’s Ukraine project is basically over—we’ll have to find another stick to poke in Russia’s side, and to keep our military-industrial lobby in the bonbons. 

Where are all the dead Russians?  

Below is a video of Ukrainian (probably mostly of the Nazi-oriented Azov regiment) bodies stacked like firewood in Mariupol. 

Caution, this video contains unpleasant material, namely dead human bodies; watch at your own risk; do not watch if you are easily upset.

Sure, 10 or 15 bodies on video doesn’t prove anything, but where are Ukrainian videos of “bulk quantity” dead Russians?  The biggest number of Russian corpses I’ve seen, was in a Ukrainian video of prisoners having been shot in a line, and more prisoners being walked up to the same spot to get shot.  Aside from that, there’s been one Russian body here, one body there, and almost nothing at all (aside from the prisoner shootings) for the last few weeks. 

We were told by our MSM and unnamed “Pentagon sources” even three weeks ago that 6000 or 10,000 or 15,000 Russians have been killed, so where are they, where is the proof?  

To be clear, in the urban warfare of the Donbass, there are serious casualties on both sides, but since the Russian/Donetsk/Lugansk forces end up advancing, they own any given point within a few days, and the enemy is partly killed, partly taken prisoner, and partly driven back, and thus is in no position to report to command any credible figures even as to its own losses, let alone the other side’s. 

As I have said many times, everything from the Ukrainian side is totally made up. 

Whose flag is this?

The below video, from somewhere in the Donbass, shows the destruction of an emplacement under the red-and-black flag of the “Right Sector” movement, a quasi-fascist militia and business empire with roots in far western Ukraine, which since 2014 has been allowed by Ukraine’s government and army to maintain various bases of operations in the Donbass, operating under its own flag and essentially being an authority unto itself.  How do you think the locals felt about it?   

Mariupol “VIP’s” trying to get out

The below video shows the wreckage of one of three Ukrainian transport helicopters that were recently shot down (two of them on Thursday morning) while trying to evacuate Azov regiment commanders from Mariupol.  I picked the video with the fewest bodies visible, however, there were many.  It seems the two helicopters shot down on Thursday were making the return trip to Dnepropetrovsk, reportedly flying at a height of as little as seven meters so as to avoid radar detection, and may have had dozens of crew and passengers between them. 

Caution, this video contains unpleasant material, namely dead human bodies; watch at your own risk; do not watch if you are easily upset.

Kill Lists!  Death Squads!  Ain’t Freedom Grand?

After a month of war, the Washington Post finally woke up to the fact that Ukrainian military assets are oftentimes positioned inside residential neighborhoods.  My goodness!  Wait till they hear about the Kill Lists and the Death Squads. 

By now, many hundreds of “politically unreliable” persons across the Ukraine have been detained, many of them disappeared with no communication and no trace; it is likely that many have been killed. 

Among the more well-known detained are prominent human rights and Russian language rights activist (not the ice skater) Yelena Berezhnaia; socialist party leader Vassilii Volga; writer and journalist Dmitrii Zhangirov; writer, lyricist, and Orthodox activist Yan Taksiur; Odessa journalist Yurii Tkachev; and many others.  These people and their peers are the intellectual nucleus of what’s left of independent, “pre-2014”, non-fascist public opinion in the Ukraine.  All have been denied legal counsel.  Volga was seriously injured during his arrest and denied medical treatment; Taksiur is said to be having heart trouble, is untreated, and is likely to die soon, if he hasn’t already. 

Nonetheless, these are the LUCKY ones—they are fairly big names, and had the “good fortune” of being taken in by the Ukraine Security Service, not by amateur local thugs.  It’s likely that many of the lesser-knowns and unknowns (including random citizens who were simply careless on social media) who were “taken in” and disappeared by local thugs have simply been killed, probably like the guy in the photo below. 

The socio-political field is being cleared and cleansed, something that—despite all the media outlet closures since last year—the Ukraine could not fully accomplish under the daylight of peacetime.  Now, they can get away with anything. 

Perhaps the Washington Post will acknowledge it in a year or two.  You know, the same way they report on harassment of anti-Putin people in Russia.  Might take a while, but who knows?

To all the democracy crusaders, as always, “You began as idealists and ended up as apologists for mass murder.” 

At least in the case of Russia, there are no ideals, just cold, clear, national interests.  There may be brutality, but there’s no hypocrisy. 

The Ukraine running dry 

A modern army runs on diesel.  At least three-quarters of diesel storage capacity east of the Dniepr has been destroyed by Russian air and (mostly) cruise missile strikes.  It is very likely that Russia will soon target oil refineries, of which there are only two or three in all of the Ukraine.  It’s likely that such attacks will occur at night, and damage will be to peripheral areas of the facilities, or their connecting transport infrastructure, so as to allow them to be brought back online quickly after the war.  Of course, you can expect to hear howls of “they’re destroying civilian infrastructure!” from the MSM peanut gallery.    

More “Hamas Tactics”

An al-Jazeera video news crew has recorded a number of fully-armed and armored Ukrainian soldiers exiting an ambulance van that is evidently being used as a troop transport.  At this point, anyone believing “They’re targeting civilians!” claims from the Ukrainian side is an idiot who enjoys being lied to.  

Ruble not dead?  Someone tell Psaki 

On Wednesday evening, the USDRUB currency pair reached 75.5.  This means that, at least briefly, and with the prospect of soon returning there, the ruble was stronger than before the invasion. 

The main reason for this, is that some players in the currency market are scooping up rubles to have on hand to sell to those sensible European countries (Hungary, Greece, perhaps Italy) who are likely to crack and pay for their Russian gas in rubles without much fuss.  And in a thin, restricted market, it doesn’t take much to swing the price.

As readers may recall, I predicted this in my last piece.  Once Russia’s “You stole 300 billion Euros of our reserves, so now pay us for gas in rubles!” scheme gets going, and is extended to the products of other Russian state concerns (such as uranium fuel rods) and perhaps non-state firms as well, I expect USDRUB to reach 60 or lower.  This will act as a MASSIVE damper of inflation within Russia, and potentially a serious blow to the Euro currency.  

This isn’t happening!

The below video is of an apartment block in Donetsk city that was hit by what’s been described as an Uragan MLRS rocket launched from Ukrainian territory.  Apparently, the building was hit in a critical support element, and it just collapsed this top corner like a deck of cards.  Of course, civilians, to include several entire families, were killed, or “buried alive” pending disposition.  But, this isn’t happening.  The Ukraine doesn’t do this—these people are obviously bombing themselves!

The End Game

As well stated by Colonel Douglas McGregor, Russia’s end game is likely to be fluid. 

If it turns out that the Ukraine can’t accept and recognize its permanent loss of Crimea, Donetsk, and Lugansk, then the war—despite any ceasefire or temporary accord—will never really end, and the Ukraine will never cease to be a totally captured, bought-and-paid-for agent of the USA against Russia.  In this case, Russia would be better off incorporating all of southeastern Ukraine, or else making of this region a “parallel” Ukraine.  On the ground, we are now seeing the first tentative steps towards leaving this as a real option; more on this later.

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