The MSM and government officials in the West refer to this as 'Putin's War.' The fact of the matter is Putin could die in his sleep tonight and the trajectory of this war would not change. There is a universal understanding amongst those who govern the Russian Federation that a NATO aligned Ukraine is an existential security threat to Russia. The war would go on.
Joe Biden insists that there will be no American boots on the ground in Ukraine (or at least none that are acknowledged). Might things change if he were to be re-elected in November? Three US presidents, all Democrats, swore up and down to the voters that they would NOT send our 'boys' to fight in overseas wars when they were running for re-election. They were Wilson in 1916, FDR in 1940 and LBJ in 1964. All reneged on their promise and committed US forces to combat. Might Scranton Joe be number four? He has repeatedly stated that "Putin must not win."
Finally, the West has repeatedly gloated about Ukraine's successful attacks against Russia's Black Sea fleet. Russia is a land power and its navy played a strictly minor supporting role in both World War I and II. In fact, during World War II many Soviet sailors were used as infantry. The sea battle here is a side-show; the operations that matter are the air/land battle.
Seems to me that recent changes at State and the Pentagon, not to mention geostrategic logic, indicate increasing focus on China rather than mostly less significant Russia.
I don't understand Macron's posturing, but the French since De Gaulle have always wanted more independence from the new neocolonial power (and greater French leadership in Europe) after WW2.
I agree Kiev's sole successes against the Russian navy are pretty irrelevant strategically, if good for Ukrainian and bad for Russian morale.
But then I think they're more UK-NATO successes largely controlled by the SBS and others.
The Rusiians have been very clear that they know about the numbers and operations of NATO special forces and other operatives on the ground, and seem to me to suggest that a few more combatants in NATO uniforms wouldn't be a game-changer - thereby helping the US, Germany and others pour cold water on the new Napoleon's theatrics.
Seems to me that the Pentagon and Putin's military understand each other fairly well, and know that neither wants major escalation.
Maybe the Pentagon understands, maybe some do and some don't, but it is not the Pentagon calling the shots. It is State, CIA and White House that run the game. DOD does what it is instructed and as it is under tight political control it "supports" whatever stupid policy foisted on it. DOD (including the military) lacks strong leaders and good thinkers. That is one of the reasons they purged the Office of Net Assessment and turned it over to a bunch of bimbos. Meanwhile DOD contents itself to invest in weapons it does not need and spends billions on unadulterated crap, which of course is wasted.
Well, Milley who I respect faced down Trump, Rubio and others over his proactive intervention to de-escalate tensions with China in Autumn 2020, citing his oath to defend America and its Constitution, not any politician.
Apart from his appeal to China hawks - though he's talked down an imminent threat - we still have to see what Brown is made of... though he does indeed seem keen to spend money on 'new ideas'.
I doubt he'll be advising escalation in Ukraine, any more than Milley who, taking a realiist strategic view as chief military advisor to the administration, suggested in November 22 that talking to Russia might not be such a bad idea.
2,000 or even 20,000 french troops won't be enough to do anything. Nor will the Taurus missiles, which Ukraine will get, sooner or later. If necessary, france and the various other eurovassals will remind germany of something called "european solidarity", which is one of those nebulous concepts that europoliticians use to enforce compliance, only to withdraw when it no longer is convenient.
20,000 french troops will just get mangled. The problem is that, if and when that happens, Macron won't just take his bat and ball and go home. It's the escalation after that that concerns me. With every reckless escalation, the sunk cost of leaving Ukraine grows. That, combined with the fact that european leaders themselves never face any consequences, leads them to keep doubling down. This abuse of The Sunk Cost Fallacy is entirely intentional.
No, that escalation will not be popular. Macron doesn't care, nor do the other vassals, puppets, lackeys, catamites and buttbois in office in europe. Nor are they bluffing. We've seen that with every other escalation in this war. They are deadly serious when they would burn all of us, if that is what it takes for Russia not to win.
The Taurus can carry a non-conventional payload so using it could trigger a non-conventional response since the attacked party would not be able to determine if it carries a conventional or non-conventional payload.
If Ukraine has Taurus missiles that are nuclear capable and can reach well inside Russia then that is a game changer. Russia would have to escalate immediately upon launch of a Taurus because there is no guarantee it is not nuclear armed and aimed at a Russian city, possibly Moscow. They would feel compelled to launch a nuclear weapon at a major European Capitol in retaliation. Which would be the beginning of the end for us all.
The irony is that the German greens want to give these cruise missles and risk a nuclear escalation after closing Germany's nuclear powerstations because of their hysterical fear for nuclear energy.
Read any good history on WW ONE and the stories of the generals sitting at home ordering the soldiers out of the trenches, over the top, charging the enemy into machine guns. Tens of thousands dead in minutes. The royalty and generals never saw the carnage they created. Tut tut old boy.
Do any of you think that attitude has changed one iota? Scholz, Macron, the EU LEADERSHIP are the inheritors of those miserable bastards!
It’s not just Europe that is facing defeat in Ukraine. It is the United States, the Biden Administration, all those who have supported its foreign policy.
ESPECIALLY the US. Remember, this war would not have happened if the US neo-cons had not thought it was a brilliant move on the geostrategic chessboard.
This may be true, but as far as the US is concerned I think it’s politically irrelevant. Ukraine has been displaced by Gaza, and everything is about to get displaced by the presidential election. America with blithely move on from the collapse of Ukraine as it did from Afghanistan, and all the parties responsible for failure will fall into lucrative consulting and think tank gigs where they can start selling the next war to Save Democracy.
One thing to keep in mind is that France is among the countries who have given the least amount of military aid to Ukraine. Its 0.64 billion euro contribution is less than that from tiny Estonia (0.89 b) and is completely dwarfed by what the Germans have given (17.7 b). Are we really supposed to believe that now Macron is suddenly some sort of super hawk? Perhaps his talk of sending NATO troops is just a sly way of highlighting Ukraine's manpower problem. I mean, Biden is still pushing the line that the Ukrainians only need the tools to defend themselves. Someone has to come out and say that is not true.
Does Europe and the United States need a war to distract the masses from what is really going on? My fear is that war with Russia will be used as a reason to infringe on common people’s rights. I agree that the prolonging of the conflict has only allowed Russia to educate leadership at all levels of command to better tips and practices. In 2025 the Russian army will be vastly improved over the army of Spring of 2022. Now that new tanks and fighting vehicles are being built to replace losses who can even say that this will end with a Ukrainian victory???
True enough but I don’t think so. Russia, after a very bad start has played this very well. Attacking Poland or the Baltic states would squander their success.
Leastwise that’s the view of a Canadian in Florida. (Which is to say what the hell do I know?)
Russia now has a junior officer corps with experience in modern warfare that will be the envy of the world for as long as there still is a world to envy them.
It all seems to be an unoriginal plan by the Atlanticists, to get European countries to fight Russia. With Ukraine's absurd sacrifice of their country and people apparently insufficient. Anyway I think the Euro political class, at least those East of the Rhine, comprehends that there's no upside in this for their countries. They just can't bring themselves to step out of line.
Fortunately, they don't have the means to take on this battle for the time being. There's going to be a lot of huffing and puffing, but the path of least resistance is that US coughs up more money - there are signs of this now in the House - and everything continues in the attritional mode.
The EU is done for, and not just in the military way. Europe is declining rapidly in importance in the world and will end up as an agrarian (&tourist) backwater within another generation or two.
The only way out the EU leaders seem to see is an (economic) expansion east. Without access to the riches of Russia, the EU is doomed.
Of course, Europe could trade for these resources, but then the EU would end up a satellite to Russia, which is probably not what they want.
If Europe is facing a defeat in Ukraine, then US is facing a very good victory as head of CIA wrote in a recent article " war in Ukraine has been a good business for USA".
On the other hand it's enuf to see the differences in Military spending where US Government and Pentagon and CIA money laundry Tax payers money for almost 1 Trillion while Russia or Cina are around 250/300 billions.
By those numbers you quickly understand who started the War in Ukraine or in Gaza or in the Middle Est since 2001, just to not go back too far from now...
And as skeptic people, curios people and people with a deep sense of criticism of the "System" know, the US main goal was to annoy, disturb and check Russia, but the second not even secondary "mission" was to weaken Europe as they did with WWII, and cut the good relations and strong economic ties between Europeans and Russians that grew much within this new century. Because as Russia, as Putin, we Europeans like peace, prosperity, deals and collaborations, not genocides, wars, destruction as Americans (and not only their Government and Agencies) do.
Regarding actual European leaders, I mean, should I laugh or cry or kill them all? Those are just mainly American's puppets as Zelensky is! A Chirac in France or a Schmidt in Germany or a Craxi in Italy, would have shown a big fat middle finger to Trump - Biden actors!
The World has a big problem, and that problem is USA. Do not forget and do not be that ignorant to not know it. Txs!
update - looks like RF did indeed respond to the previous UA strikes on energy infrastructure. RU telegram reports multiple strikes vs natgas distribution equipment near Stryi, 49.3603510, 23.9051056 (source: https://t.me/boris_rozhin/117779). This region happens to be also where Ukraine's largest underground natgas storage is located, the Bilche-Volytsko-Uherske facility, with 17 bcm capacity as of 2021. If that was the target, it would be a big deal. Ukraine's capacious gas storage, inherited from better times, is also used by EU to buffer peak gas demand in winter. This would not be a comfortable game to play for EU, though it can be done. EU itself has a little over 100 bcm storage, UA has 30 ish. The main result is likely to be more natgas price volatility. (reference - https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2974/1*c4wWh-drtbRLGRhbR00wrg.jpeg - random google image search, no endorsement of the source)
I always go back to the 1993 George Soros article about using an Eastern European former Soviet satellite to fight a proxy war with Russia and use their military rather than any NATO forces to defeat Russia and split up Russia. - https://archive.org/details/toward-a-new-world-order
I do feel sorry for all the young Ukrainian's who are being used while they have their patriotism used for less than patriotic goals.
It's funny that the silhouette of a Russian MiG-29 was used in the picture with the Taurus rocket! Yes, I know that this plane is also in the Ukrainian Air Force, but it's still a Russian plane!
Getting a bit ahead here (in various senses) I guess...
But the President of the elite Russian Alpha Veterans, Goncharov, who is well placed to analyse the Crocus attack, while dismissing Medvedev's kneejerk blaming of Ukraine says he thinks Budanov was probably involved.
The denials from Kiev follow an established pattern following Budanov's terrorist activities outside Ukraine.
Why were they captured near the Ukrainian border on their way to Kiev?
...not far from the area where Budanov's 'Siberian Battalion' of Tengrists were recently crossing in the other direction.
The obvious escape route back to Tajikistan would be southeast from Moscow through Kazakhstan.
It's reminiscent of escapes or attempted escapes of Budanov proxies after the Dugina and Tatarsky assassinations, like Nordsteam vehemently denied by Kiev.
And Budanov recently threatened 'big surprises' and 'terrorism' in Russia, while Washington again warned him to no avail against attacks on refineries &c.
Maybe it was just Islamist psychopaths with good logistics, or maybe they had help from.a psychopath in Kiev.
7 others have also been arrested. I guess we'll soon learn more about them. The atrocity is sickening, and my first thought was 'Not even Budanov would go that far'.
I think we have to see where the Russian investigation leads. So far there is no confirmed information about the terrorists other than they were not Russian citizens. The Russian authorities have confirmed they were heading to Ukraine where they had "contacts." What makes this unlike ISIS operations is the fact that the killers had an established escape route. Typically ISIS killers die resisting arrest.
They were intercepted on the M3/E101 near the village of Khatsun, after the Bryansk fork between roads to Belarus and Ukraine (contradicting Western reports that they might have been heading to Belarus)
If there was as Putin claims a prepared 'window' on the heavily guarded border, it could have been in some forested area near Ryzhivka, where the 'Freedom.of Russia Legion' is based - and from where, supported by the GUR, they recently crossed the border and partly occupied the village of Tetkino, capturing some Russian soldiers.
So the escape route - rather than standard martyrdom - would probably have left the E101 to Kiev at Georgievskii.
"Former State Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomaryov told Novaya Europe that the Freedom of Russia Legion he represents was in no way involved with the terrorist attack in Moscow, but thinks the authorities may still try to blame them.
" 'I think we will be blamed for this, but it’s obvious that no forces that work with us are in any way involved in any actions directed against civilians. It is no less obvious that what has been done has been done by Putin.' "
20,000 French troops in Odessa means another 20,000 graves for French troops.
And that’s their whole army, the one Infantry division. A division that doesn’t have the Russian advantage of three years of institutional memory of how to fight a modern war, and three years of developing veteran NCOs and Lieutenants and Captains who will be the backbone of the Russian army for decades.
So when the French army aka Infantry Division is mauled … what next? French conscripts? The Luxembourgian Glider Battalion? Beach an RN battleship and try to take Novgorod?
Three observations....
The MSM and government officials in the West refer to this as 'Putin's War.' The fact of the matter is Putin could die in his sleep tonight and the trajectory of this war would not change. There is a universal understanding amongst those who govern the Russian Federation that a NATO aligned Ukraine is an existential security threat to Russia. The war would go on.
Joe Biden insists that there will be no American boots on the ground in Ukraine (or at least none that are acknowledged). Might things change if he were to be re-elected in November? Three US presidents, all Democrats, swore up and down to the voters that they would NOT send our 'boys' to fight in overseas wars when they were running for re-election. They were Wilson in 1916, FDR in 1940 and LBJ in 1964. All reneged on their promise and committed US forces to combat. Might Scranton Joe be number four? He has repeatedly stated that "Putin must not win."
Finally, the West has repeatedly gloated about Ukraine's successful attacks against Russia's Black Sea fleet. Russia is a land power and its navy played a strictly minor supporting role in both World War I and II. In fact, during World War II many Soviet sailors were used as infantry. The sea battle here is a side-show; the operations that matter are the air/land battle.
What about Obama? He campaigned on ending what he called the stupid war in Iraq ( Afghanistan was ok by his lights). He didn’t.
Seems to me that recent changes at State and the Pentagon, not to mention geostrategic logic, indicate increasing focus on China rather than mostly less significant Russia.
I don't understand Macron's posturing, but the French since De Gaulle have always wanted more independence from the new neocolonial power (and greater French leadership in Europe) after WW2.
I agree Kiev's sole successes against the Russian navy are pretty irrelevant strategically, if good for Ukrainian and bad for Russian morale.
But then I think they're more UK-NATO successes largely controlled by the SBS and others.
The Rusiians have been very clear that they know about the numbers and operations of NATO special forces and other operatives on the ground, and seem to me to suggest that a few more combatants in NATO uniforms wouldn't be a game-changer - thereby helping the US, Germany and others pour cold water on the new Napoleon's theatrics.
Seems to me that the Pentagon and Putin's military understand each other fairly well, and know that neither wants major escalation.
Maybe the Pentagon understands, maybe some do and some don't, but it is not the Pentagon calling the shots. It is State, CIA and White House that run the game. DOD does what it is instructed and as it is under tight political control it "supports" whatever stupid policy foisted on it. DOD (including the military) lacks strong leaders and good thinkers. That is one of the reasons they purged the Office of Net Assessment and turned it over to a bunch of bimbos. Meanwhile DOD contents itself to invest in weapons it does not need and spends billions on unadulterated crap, which of course is wasted.
Well, Milley who I respect faced down Trump, Rubio and others over his proactive intervention to de-escalate tensions with China in Autumn 2020, citing his oath to defend America and its Constitution, not any politician.
Apart from his appeal to China hawks - though he's talked down an imminent threat - we still have to see what Brown is made of... though he does indeed seem keen to spend money on 'new ideas'.
I doubt he'll be advising escalation in Ukraine, any more than Milley who, taking a realiist strategic view as chief military advisor to the administration, suggested in November 22 that talking to Russia might not be such a bad idea.
2,000 or even 20,000 french troops won't be enough to do anything. Nor will the Taurus missiles, which Ukraine will get, sooner or later. If necessary, france and the various other eurovassals will remind germany of something called "european solidarity", which is one of those nebulous concepts that europoliticians use to enforce compliance, only to withdraw when it no longer is convenient.
20,000 french troops will just get mangled. The problem is that, if and when that happens, Macron won't just take his bat and ball and go home. It's the escalation after that that concerns me. With every reckless escalation, the sunk cost of leaving Ukraine grows. That, combined with the fact that european leaders themselves never face any consequences, leads them to keep doubling down. This abuse of The Sunk Cost Fallacy is entirely intentional.
No, that escalation will not be popular. Macron doesn't care, nor do the other vassals, puppets, lackeys, catamites and buttbois in office in europe. Nor are they bluffing. We've seen that with every other escalation in this war. They are deadly serious when they would burn all of us, if that is what it takes for Russia not to win.
The Taurus can carry a non-conventional payload so using it could trigger a non-conventional response since the attacked party would not be able to determine if it carries a conventional or non-conventional payload.
If Russia wanted to escalate, it would have done so.
If Ukraine has Taurus missiles that are nuclear capable and can reach well inside Russia then that is a game changer. Russia would have to escalate immediately upon launch of a Taurus because there is no guarantee it is not nuclear armed and aimed at a Russian city, possibly Moscow. They would feel compelled to launch a nuclear weapon at a major European Capitol in retaliation. Which would be the beginning of the end for us all.
The irony is that the German greens want to give these cruise missles and risk a nuclear escalation after closing Germany's nuclear powerstations because of their hysterical fear for nuclear energy.
Ukraine will get Taurus missiles sooner or later with or without assurances that these are no nuclear armed..
For that matter, one could make a similar argument with respect to the F-16s that Ukraine is receiving.
For that matter, if Russia did believe that a nuclear armed Taurus was aimed at a Russian city, how would Russia respond?
Keep in mind that NATO would be delighted if Russia were to respond with tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
Read any good history on WW ONE and the stories of the generals sitting at home ordering the soldiers out of the trenches, over the top, charging the enemy into machine guns. Tens of thousands dead in minutes. The royalty and generals never saw the carnage they created. Tut tut old boy.
Do any of you think that attitude has changed one iota? Scholz, Macron, the EU LEADERSHIP are the inheritors of those miserable bastards!
I'm sorry to say it but the US role here isn't any better. Who encouraged Ukraine to take on the Russian and left them hanging there half way?
I’m not implying anything about our idiots.
Joseph K I was thinking along those lines - these scum send boys to die knowing they die for nothing - but you said it so much better.
It’s not just Europe that is facing defeat in Ukraine. It is the United States, the Biden Administration, all those who have supported its foreign policy.
ESPECIALLY the US. Remember, this war would not have happened if the US neo-cons had not thought it was a brilliant move on the geostrategic chessboard.
This may be true, but as far as the US is concerned I think it’s politically irrelevant. Ukraine has been displaced by Gaza, and everything is about to get displaced by the presidential election. America with blithely move on from the collapse of Ukraine as it did from Afghanistan, and all the parties responsible for failure will fall into lucrative consulting and think tank gigs where they can start selling the next war to Save Democracy.
One thing to keep in mind is that France is among the countries who have given the least amount of military aid to Ukraine. Its 0.64 billion euro contribution is less than that from tiny Estonia (0.89 b) and is completely dwarfed by what the Germans have given (17.7 b). Are we really supposed to believe that now Macron is suddenly some sort of super hawk? Perhaps his talk of sending NATO troops is just a sly way of highlighting Ukraine's manpower problem. I mean, Biden is still pushing the line that the Ukrainians only need the tools to defend themselves. Someone has to come out and say that is not true.
Does Europe and the United States need a war to distract the masses from what is really going on? My fear is that war with Russia will be used as a reason to infringe on common people’s rights. I agree that the prolonging of the conflict has only allowed Russia to educate leadership at all levels of command to better tips and practices. In 2025 the Russian army will be vastly improved over the army of Spring of 2022. Now that new tanks and fighting vehicles are being built to replace losses who can even say that this will end with a Ukrainian victory???
Angry J, who can say?
True enough but I don’t think so. Russia, after a very bad start has played this very well. Attacking Poland or the Baltic states would squander their success.
Leastwise that’s the view of a Canadian in Florida. (Which is to say what the hell do I know?)
come on! attacking who? Do u really believe in propaganda?
Russia now has a junior officer corps with experience in modern warfare that will be the envy of the world for as long as there still is a world to envy them.
Exactly… the war has been killing off all the slow horses.
AJ: You are right about rights. What miserable scraps of citizen’s rights that are still recognizable will simply evaporate by executive order.
It all seems to be an unoriginal plan by the Atlanticists, to get European countries to fight Russia. With Ukraine's absurd sacrifice of their country and people apparently insufficient. Anyway I think the Euro political class, at least those East of the Rhine, comprehends that there's no upside in this for their countries. They just can't bring themselves to step out of line.
Fortunately, they don't have the means to take on this battle for the time being. There's going to be a lot of huffing and puffing, but the path of least resistance is that US coughs up more money - there are signs of this now in the House - and everything continues in the attritional mode.
The EU is done for, and not just in the military way. Europe is declining rapidly in importance in the world and will end up as an agrarian (&tourist) backwater within another generation or two.
The only way out the EU leaders seem to see is an (economic) expansion east. Without access to the riches of Russia, the EU is doomed.
Of course, Europe could trade for these resources, but then the EU would end up a satellite to Russia, which is probably not what they want.
If Europe is facing a defeat in Ukraine, then US is facing a very good victory as head of CIA wrote in a recent article " war in Ukraine has been a good business for USA".
On the other hand it's enuf to see the differences in Military spending where US Government and Pentagon and CIA money laundry Tax payers money for almost 1 Trillion while Russia or Cina are around 250/300 billions.
By those numbers you quickly understand who started the War in Ukraine or in Gaza or in the Middle Est since 2001, just to not go back too far from now...
And as skeptic people, curios people and people with a deep sense of criticism of the "System" know, the US main goal was to annoy, disturb and check Russia, but the second not even secondary "mission" was to weaken Europe as they did with WWII, and cut the good relations and strong economic ties between Europeans and Russians that grew much within this new century. Because as Russia, as Putin, we Europeans like peace, prosperity, deals and collaborations, not genocides, wars, destruction as Americans (and not only their Government and Agencies) do.
Regarding actual European leaders, I mean, should I laugh or cry or kill them all? Those are just mainly American's puppets as Zelensky is! A Chirac in France or a Schmidt in Germany or a Craxi in Italy, would have shown a big fat middle finger to Trump - Biden actors!
The World has a big problem, and that problem is USA. Do not forget and do not be that ignorant to not know it. Txs!
update - looks like RF did indeed respond to the previous UA strikes on energy infrastructure. RU telegram reports multiple strikes vs natgas distribution equipment near Stryi, 49.3603510, 23.9051056 (source: https://t.me/boris_rozhin/117779). This region happens to be also where Ukraine's largest underground natgas storage is located, the Bilche-Volytsko-Uherske facility, with 17 bcm capacity as of 2021. If that was the target, it would be a big deal. Ukraine's capacious gas storage, inherited from better times, is also used by EU to buffer peak gas demand in winter. This would not be a comfortable game to play for EU, though it can be done. EU itself has a little over 100 bcm storage, UA has 30 ish. The main result is likely to be more natgas price volatility. (reference - https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2974/1*c4wWh-drtbRLGRhbR00wrg.jpeg - random google image search, no endorsement of the source)
Actually, I think that the core problem here is that Europe is _not_ facing up to their impending defeat.
While NATO is planning further provocations as indicated here:
https://twitter.com/TheLimpCrane/status/1770503639552991366?t=CW3pCW_Ueg6e-tD6E8rgSg&s=19
Part of me would love to see the French being kicked in their *ss bit then I prefer the killing would finally stopped.
I always go back to the 1993 George Soros article about using an Eastern European former Soviet satellite to fight a proxy war with Russia and use their military rather than any NATO forces to defeat Russia and split up Russia. - https://archive.org/details/toward-a-new-world-order
I do feel sorry for all the young Ukrainian's who are being used while they have their patriotism used for less than patriotic goals.
It's funny that the silhouette of a Russian MiG-29 was used in the picture with the Taurus rocket! Yes, I know that this plane is also in the Ukrainian Air Force, but it's still a Russian plane!
Getting a bit ahead here (in various senses) I guess...
But the President of the elite Russian Alpha Veterans, Goncharov, who is well placed to analyse the Crocus attack, while dismissing Medvedev's kneejerk blaming of Ukraine says he thinks Budanov was probably involved.
The denials from Kiev follow an established pattern following Budanov's terrorist activities outside Ukraine.
So far the Russians have skirted around the Ukraine issue. The four shooters were all Tajiks.
Why were they captured near the Ukrainian border on their way to Kiev?
...not far from the area where Budanov's 'Siberian Battalion' of Tengrists were recently crossing in the other direction.
The obvious escape route back to Tajikistan would be southeast from Moscow through Kazakhstan.
It's reminiscent of escapes or attempted escapes of Budanov proxies after the Dugina and Tatarsky assassinations, like Nordsteam vehemently denied by Kiev.
And Budanov recently threatened 'big surprises' and 'terrorism' in Russia, while Washington again warned him to no avail against attacks on refineries &c.
Maybe it was just Islamist psychopaths with good logistics, or maybe they had help from.a psychopath in Kiev.
7 others have also been arrested. I guess we'll soon learn more about them. The atrocity is sickening, and my first thought was 'Not even Budanov would go that far'.
But he's unhinged, in a corner.
Who knows?
I think we have to see where the Russian investigation leads. So far there is no confirmed information about the terrorists other than they were not Russian citizens. The Russian authorities have confirmed they were heading to Ukraine where they had "contacts." What makes this unlike ISIS operations is the fact that the killers had an established escape route. Typically ISIS killers die resisting arrest.
They were intercepted on the M3/E101 near the village of Khatsun, after the Bryansk fork between roads to Belarus and Ukraine (contradicting Western reports that they might have been heading to Belarus)
If there was as Putin claims a prepared 'window' on the heavily guarded border, it could have been in some forested area near Ryzhivka, where the 'Freedom.of Russia Legion' is based - and from where, supported by the GUR, they recently crossed the border and partly occupied the village of Tetkino, capturing some Russian soldiers.
So the escape route - rather than standard martyrdom - would probably have left the E101 to Kiev at Georgievskii.
"Former State Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomaryov told Novaya Europe that the Freedom of Russia Legion he represents was in no way involved with the terrorist attack in Moscow, but thinks the authorities may still try to blame them.
" 'I think we will be blamed for this, but it’s obvious that no forces that work with us are in any way involved in any actions directed against civilians. It is no less obvious that what has been done has been done by Putin.' "
20,000 French troops in Odessa means another 20,000 graves for French troops.
And that’s their whole army, the one Infantry division. A division that doesn’t have the Russian advantage of three years of institutional memory of how to fight a modern war, and three years of developing veteran NCOs and Lieutenants and Captains who will be the backbone of the Russian army for decades.
So when the French army aka Infantry Division is mauled … what next? French conscripts? The Luxembourgian Glider Battalion? Beach an RN battleship and try to take Novgorod?