Ukraine civil war- update 08/16/2014

Which side is getting crushed 

- see for yourself

First, I have to tell you that I don't know when or where this video was shot. I would say that it is very recent and that it was show somewhere outside the combat zone. It seems to show a Ukie column stopped on the side of a highway which is being approached by civilians offering the exhausted soldiers some water and beginning a conversation. The rest is self-explanatory (make sure to activate the "cc" option to see the English subtitles).

You will notice that at one point the conversation centers around three, possibly four, destroyed brigades which might be interpreted as 10'000 dead Ukies. The brigades are the 72nd, 79th, 24th and 25th. When the civilian asks again how many people were killed, the soldiers answer "go figure!".

Now, that kind of roadside "interview" does not prove anything, much less so that 10'000 Ukies died or that 4 Ukie brigades were wiped out. But it does show that this is what these Ukies soldiers believe, that the "military rumor mill" on the Ukie side is all about doom and gloom and not about how "we are just about to liberate Donetsk and Lugansk from the terrorists". Notice also the utter contempt for their commanders and the reference to a completely broken chain of command.

I will also say that reports of that kind are shown every day on Russian TV and on the Russian blogosphere and Internet. I wish somebody had the time to parse YouTube and make a long video of all the many short video reports showing masses of burned down Ukie armor and desperate, disgusted and depressed Ukie soliders (btw - 17 more crossed into Russia today).

On the Resistance side ALL I saw is videos of bombed buildings, killed civilians, and massive artillery strikes from the Ukie positions. I have yet to see a single video showing a destroyed Resistance unit. Mind you - this is war and I am sure that this also did happen, but I did not see it (yet).

Anyway, here is the video (thanks to Larchmonter445 for drawing my attention to it). See and decide for yourself.

Kind regards,

The Saker

PS: one more small detail: the language of the subtitles is *less* rude than the one actually used in this video which is densely saturated with profanities (yet another sign of a demoralized unit).

A couple of short pointers about the situation in the eastern Ukraine

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/a-couple-of-short-pointers-about.html

Guys, I came home late after a pretty crazy day and I can't write a proper SITREP, if only because of the still very confused situation in the eastern Ukraine.  Still, I want to share a couple of short pointers with you.

The "destroyed Russian armor column": Poroshenko vs Carl Sagan

I cannot prove a negative.  But then, I am not the one making the claim.  The Ukies and a few British reporters did.  And they presented ZERO proof.  As Carl Sagan so well put it "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and the notion that Russia would send in only 23 armored vehicles, with no protection, in broad daylight is quite extraordinary.  As is the notion that in a region chock-full of Russian military units nobody would have taken any action to save the column.  So even if a Russian unit got into the Ukraine by mistaken (at the age of GPS and GLONASS, yet another extraordinary claim!) the notion that those who sent it did nothing to protect or extract their own men is also extraordinary.  As for the British reporters, they don't even have a cellphone to show even bad images, maybe taken from far away?  They have nothing at all?  Quite extraordinary again.  Last, but not least, there is one more extraordinary element to this story, but one which I do believe.  I just heard that the British Foreign Office summoned the Russian ambassador to the UK over this Russian incursion.  Excuse me -but since when is the Ukraine part of the British Empire of Commonwealth?  What business does the Foreign Office have in this matter? 

I am quite sure that there are *lots* of destroyed armored columns all over the Donbass.  In fact, the Resistance always makes a point of filming them.  I just came across this one today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV5Y7OaDBng (sorry, no translation yet).  So maybe the Ukies did show some burned armor to the British journalists.  Ukie armor, of course.  As for Poroshenko, he is desperately trying to convince the world that the Russians are about to invade, possibly by using their humanitarian convoy.  What is sure is that until I see some rock solid evidence, with a credible scenario explaining how this could have happened, I will continue to side with Carl Sagan and dismiss this story completely.

The change of the Novorussian leadership

Unlike the previous story, this one is also quite extraordinary, but it comes with plenty of extraordinary evidence: there is no doubt possible about the fact that all the key figures in Novorussia have been replaced.  Strelkov is alive and apparently not under duress.  What could explain this?

As much as I hate baseless speculation, I will say that two theories seem to make sense to me.  I present a summary of both of them here for discussion's sake, and I am at this moment endorsing neither one.

Theory One: a "grand deal" is in the works.

Under this theory, some key individuals in the Kremlin and the Ukie oligarch Rinat Akhmetov are trying to stop the war and hammer out a deal in which Novorussia would remain part of a single Ukrainian state, but with very large autonomy, especially in cultural, linguistic, political and economic terms.  Some speculate that the Ukraine would not join NATO.  This theory is similar to the "secret Putin-Merkel deal" theory also put forward recently.  The strongest argument for this theory is that from the onset of the conflict Moscow's #1 goal has always been a unitary but neutral and stable Ukraine, butnot a russophobic, Fascist or NATO one.  Russia neither wants nor needs the Ukraine or even the Donbass.  What Russia needs is a stable, predictable and safe neighbor on its eastern border.  The biggest problem with this theory is that for the majority of those who took up arms against the Nazi junta nothing short from a complete separation from Kiev is acceptable.  This does not, however, mean that such a solution is also unacceptable to most of the people in Novorussia a majority of whom have not taken up arms.  There is only one actor which has the means to conduct a survey of majority public opinion in this war zone, and that is the Russia state.  Thus, I submit that only the Kremlin knows what a majority of Novorussians want or would settle for.  Finally, let me be clear here.  We are not, repeat, NOT discussing any type of "sellout" or "betrayal" or "backstabbing" of Novorussia by Putin.  Yes, all the Putin-bashers (paid or not) will present that like this, but even a close friend of Strelkov like Pavel Gubarev has unambiguously stated that there was zero chance of that happening.  What we are talking about here is a compromise deal with would probably be acceptable to some parties (most non-fighting Novorussians, the Kremlin, Rinat Akhmetov, the EU) and non-acceptable by others (Kiev, Uncle Sam, most fighting Novorussians).

Theory Two: a "grand counter-attack" is in the works.

Contrary to a lot of comments I have seen posted here over the pas few days, I see exactly zero reasons to believe that the Resistance is about to be crushed.  In fact, from all the reports I have seen, it is the Ukie sides which at tremendous costs has achieved exactly nothing.  Furthermore, the re-taking of Saur Mogila by the Ukie forces might well result in yet another cauldron for them.  Add to this the very persistent rumors and hints by various commanders on the ground that a big counter-offensive is in the works and I get feeling that the Ukies might well have reached a breaking point.  Please be careful to notice that I said that such a hypothesis is consistent with the available data, I did not make a prediction that this will happen.  However, in this hypothesis what happened is that all the key Russians-from-Russia figures have been  replaced by local, Russians-from-Donbass people.  The rationale would be to avoid the impression that "Russian forces are invading the Ukraine" and to show, instead, that "Ukrainian forces are liberating their own land".  The best argument in favor of this hypothesis is that if the Resistance was to go on the offensive it would need a more complex headquarters and that this is why Strelkov was "promoted" to "chief of staff" of the Novorussian military.  The best argument against this hypothesis is that I simply don't see the Resistance which yesterday was only a militia of volunteers become an effective military force capable of operational-level actions.  Now, if there really is nobody between the Ukie troops in the Donbass and Kiev, maybe such a move could be achieved by a constant series of tactical-level engagements, but I just don't see that happening.

As I said above, I am endorsing neither theory at this point, it is too early to call and there are way too many "unknown unknowns" (to borrow Rumsefeld expression) to make categorical statements.  But I will say that I find the first theory substantially more plausible than the second one.

The half-empty trucks

That is a simple one.  The Russian convoy of trucks is composed of trucks roughly loaded at 50% of max capacity to make sure that no truck stops in route or has any difficulty getting through very bad terrain.  It was planned this way and the Russians announced that on day 1.

A nationalist Maidan against Putin this fall

I am not a big fan of the Dugin-Fedorov-Limonov crowd because they tend to do what I call "headline baiting": they always predict the most extreme events (such as a US nuclear attack on Russia) and they always get the most attention form the general public.  The case in point is this notion of a nationalist backlash against Putin.  First, you will notice that this very idea implies that Putin would betray Russian national interest.  He might do that tomorrow morning.  But as of right now there is absolutely zero evidence for that.  Again, I would never place my faith in the hands of a politicians, and I don't want people to "trust" or, even less so, "believe in" Putin.  But I am saying that the theory that tomorrow morning Putin will "sell out" Novorussia or "betray" the Russian national interests has as much factual or logical basis as the theory that tomorrow Putin will join the Hare-Krishnas: zero.  There is a HUGE difference between "possible" and "probable" or "likely" and while "possible" requires very little, if any, substantiation, it is amateurish and often irresponsible to call "probable" something which is only "possible".  Second, right now Putin's rating is at a stratospheric 87% - higher than ever before - and even his way of dealing with the anti-Russian sanctions has made him more popular than before.  Third, there are many lies and inanities written by the MSM about "Putin the Dictator" but one thing is true: Putin has complete control over the Russian security services and the Russian security services are more powerful now than ever before.  Lastly, how can one seriously think that the Russian people have seen the horrors of the Ukie Maidan only to start one of their own.  This is utter nonsense.  My strictly personal advice would be this: take anything Dugin-Fedorov-Limonov have to say with a couple of cubic meters of salt.

The countdown to Dmitry Orlov's stages 4 and 5

One more thing.  All these topics are just like the proverbial trees hiding the forest.  The real story is that we are living a countdown to a huge explosion in Banderastan.  We all know that the rump-Ukraine is broke, but we forget what that means and what this really means.  Dmitri Orlov, in his absolutely fantastic book "The Five States of Collapse" explains that collapses happen in the following sequence:

Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed to resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out and access to capital is lost.

Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.

Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.

Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost, as local social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush in to fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.

Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity.” Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I can die tomorrow.”

art: Josetxo Ezcurra

By the way, Orlov correctly notes that the collapse of the Soviet Union stopped at Stage 3.  Now think about the rump-Ukraine lead by the Nazi junta in Kiev.  It is already more or less at Stage 3 and the economic collapse has not really made landfall yet!  Sure, the junta's western patrons are keeping the Hrivna artificially high (have you ever seen the currency of a country in the midst of a civil war remain more or less stable?  Of course not! The western banks are buying that useless toilet paper for political reasons!) and fake short term loans can give the illusion that "so far so good", but the reality is catching up really, really fast.  Within the next couple of months Banderastan will full enter Stages 4 and 5 of Orlov's collapse model and then things will get really ugly.  At this point the introduction of some kind of dictatorship is simply inevitable.  Either that, or a "Somalization".  In either case, this is really going to be hell on earth and this is were the real focus should be right now: how to prepare for the absolutely inevitable explosion.

As for the EU, the Russian sanctions are beginning to bite.  Badly.  Hence more and more EU politicians are frantically trying to climb out of the hole they dug for themselves.  The really weird thing is that Russia has, so far, avoided to enter a recession in spite of the outflow of speculative capital.  Oh sure, eventually, factors such as the recession in the EU, the war in the Ukraine and western sanctions will hurt Russia, but it is quite remarkable so far Russia is doing better than predicted.

Bottom line: very soon the rump-Ukraine will either completely explode or see a new regime, this time openly dictatorial.  The EU economies are likely to begin really hurting and the combination of these two phenomena will leave the USA without any viable puppet to use against Russia.  Things might get so ugly that we might even see a moment in which the EU will welcome a Russian intervention in the Ukraine.

That's it for tonight.  Hopefully the very confused and murky situation will become clearer soon at which point I will try to sit down and write a halfway decent SITREP.

Kind regards to all,

The Saker

Did Ukraine Attack Its Own Tanks? White House "Can't Confirm Russian Convoy Was Destroyed By Kiev"

Zero Hedge,

16 August, 2014

While today's trading session was marked by news which at first blush correlated with what may be the 2014 equivalent of the Archduke Ferdinand shooting, in retrospect the newsflow made painfully little sense. Let's recap:

1. Yesterday afternoon, two UK reporters working for the Guardian and Telegraph, supposedly located by the border in east Ukraine, reported that they were "eyewitnesses" as a convoy of military trucks crossed the Russian border into the breakaway Donetsk republic, aka Ukraine. While there have been photos of the military trucks that have accompanied the Russian humantiarian convoy on Russian territory, there has so far been no proof, aside from said eyewitness reports, confirming Russian military vehicles entered or were in Ukraine.
   
   
2. This morning Ukraine military’s spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, shocked the world when newswires reported that Ukraine forces had attacked an armed convoy from Russia, and "destroyed" a part of it. This was subsequently reiterated by the president of Ukraine himself who said that "the given information was trustworthy and confirmed because the majority of that machines had been eliminated by the Ukrainian artillery at night", and by the secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said that the alliance had detected an “incursion” of vehicles from Russia last night, adding that “what we have seen last night is the continuation of what we have seen for some time." Alas, as in the case above, just more verbal reports, with zero actual evidence.
   
   
3. Shortly thereafter, Russia responded when the Russian defense ministry said that there was no Russian military column that crossed into Eastern Ukraine, and that the above reports are based on "some fantasies."

This is where the breakdown of logic occurs, because for Russia to make such a formal statement it clearly implies that Russia believes there is no evidence of destruction of a Russian convoy in Ukraine territory, something which obviously would exist if indeed as Ukraine's president had claimed, the "majority of the machines had been eliminated."

If true, it also implies that either Ukraine had fabricated the entire story, and certainly the part about the destruction of the convoy and by extension that Russians had ever entered into East Ukraine. Furthermore, that would also suggest that the reports of the British reporters were also a fabrication.

Unless, of course, there is evidence, in which case the credibility of the both the Guardian and Telegraph reporters can be preserved, Ukraine can not be accused of fabricating a story to suit what some may say its own warmongering ambitions, and the onus is on Russia to explain why it lied about there being no invasion.

More to the point, the onus is on Ukraine to present some evidence, in fact any evidence, of a destroyed Russian military convoy instead of merely building upon a story conceived by the two UK media outlets, because if Ukraine indeed has no evidence, then its story falls apart and what's worse, the credibility and reputation of its government, of NATO and certainly of the UK press would be in tatters.

So what other possibility is there? Well, one that is all too unpalatable for Ukraine, namely that in its excitement to blow something up, it may have well destroyed some of its own military vehicles. A possible lead to such a turn of events comes from this Interfax report citing the leadership of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic.

The leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic has dismissed the Ukrainian government's statement on destroying a convoy of what appeared to be Russian armored vehicles in eastern Ukraine.

"We haven't received any armored vehicles from Russia. No Russian units, including Russian armored vehicles, have crossed the border. Hence, no Russian armored vehicles could have been destroyed," DPR First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin told Interfax on Friday evening. 

Purgin claimed that, on the contrary, the militias destroyed about 100 Ukrainian armored vehicles.

"A lot of Ukrainian armored vehicles were destroyed today, 7 at one place, 12 at another. And the same all over the DPR territory. A total of about 100 of them," Purgin said.

The implication is clear: while 100 or so Ukraine armored vehicles may or may not have been destroyed, one wonders if indeed the Ukraine army was responsible in "aiding" the separatists with what would appear to be a friendly-fire incident?

But perhaps the most damning evidence comes from none other than the White House itself, which according to CNN just admitted that while it accuses Moscow of "incursions" it can't confirm the convoy was destroyed by Kiev. 

Jim Sciutto        ✔ @jimsciutto

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WH accuses Moscow of "repeated Russian & Russian-supported incursions" into #Ukraine tho says can't confirm convoy destroyed by Kiev

10:36 AM - 16 Aug 2014

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Perhaps for the simplest reason that there is no evidence to help with the confirmation process?

Which is rather unpleasant, because as explained above, without confirmation of a destroyed convoy, the whole story falls apart as merely yet another unprecedented warmongering fabrication, one involving not only the Kiev regime, but NATO and the UK press as well!

What is worse, is that if indeed the specter arises that Ukraine is lying about an event that nearly gave the market a heart attack on the belief that a new international war involving Russia may be about to break out, was Ukraine also lying about flight MH-17. And else may the Kiev regime been lying about?