Twenty-one days into the Russian attack on Ukraine, there do appear to be some very fine cracks starting to be seen in Putin’s Dike of Disinformation, if one looks closely enough.
Is the Russian war plan grinding to a halt? Or is this a calm before the storm? That’s the question before us as Russian advances on Ukrainian territory have slowed dramatically over the past week.
The head of the FSB’s Fifth Bureau and his Number Two are reportedly under house arrest in Moscow as of last night. The Fifth Bureau was supposedly deeply involved in planning this war. Putin may be looking for scapegoats under his bed.
It is reported this morning that that Ukrainian forces have killed Russian Maj. Gen. Andrey Kolesnikov. If true, this would be the third flag-level officer KIA in the past 10 days. This is likely the result of the Russian incompetence in destroying the 3G and 4G cell phone towers in Ukraine last week; their encrypted cellphones with which they planned to communicate are now unusable as a result and they are forced to communicate “in the clear,” which makes finding a general’s itinerary and planning to introduce him to the kind of surprise Admiral Yammamoto received back in 1943 much easier.
On Day 21, the Russians have still failed to take Kharkiv, Mariupol, or Kyiv.
Satellite imaging company Maxar released photos on Thursday suggesting that Russia had repositioned its infamously stalled convoy to launch artillery strikes on and storm Kyiv. The “repositioning” turns out to be moving smaller units into the surrounding forest, where they are less of a target. This makes sense, since the “40 mile convoy” has been a nice easy target for Ukrainian forces operating in the forest to take out with Javelins. Some 30-40 tanks were hit while motionless among the other vehicles. Many of the vehicles had broken down with bad tires or run out of fuel.
Today, the Russians launched missiles at far western Ukraine, which has not been previously attacked.
The White House warned yesterday that Russia may be about to deploy a chemical weapons attack. The U.S. ambassador to the UN declared in the Security Council meeting Russia called for today to “investigate” the U.S. “Bioweapons labs in Ukraine” that there are none and that U.S. activity had been to deactivate the Russian labs in the country from the Cold War.
Jennifer Griffin, Fox News national security reporter told Sean Hannity on Wednesday night that there was nothing to the Russian claims of imminent biological warfare from the alleged U.S. biolabs. Fucker Carlson, the Swanson’s frozen TV dinners heir who has yet to have a real job in his life, spent all day yesterday and today accusing Griffin of being a “tool” of “Pentagon disinformation.”
Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine continue (I love the description of one observer that “it’s like negotiating with the arsonist who is lighting your house on fire”). The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency came to the negotiations and demanded something be done to allow Ukrainian engineers to stabilize Cheernobyl, which has been without power or water for two days; at the end of the day it was announced that a deal had been struck to deal with this.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed during the talks on Thursday that Russia “did not attack Ukraine.” The Kremlin’s spokesman didn’t mention the “denazification” of Ukraine as part of Russia’s war goals during a briefing; Putin himself said on Friday that he saw some “positive shifts” in Ukraine’s position. President Zelens’kyi told ABC that he had “cooled off” on Ukraine joining NATO, a key Russian talking point.
Kherson fell to the Russians earlier this week and the world was treated to video of Ukrainians waving their flags as they stood atop Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles; this may change soon, since it was reported last night that RosGvardia - Putin’s Goon Squad for enforcing internal security - troops had entered the city and some prominent resisters had been arrested. There were threats a week ago that when Russian forces took the cities, that there would be public executions of those engaged in resistance to the invaders.
It was reported today that in Mariupol, where heating, electricity and food have been cut off, that “people were attacking each other for food.”
Twenty-two days ago, I was e-mailing my friends in Kyiv about when they were going to send me the most recent plastic model kit they had created, for my review. That seems in only three weeks like a conversation that took place in another universe. In a sense, it did. We have been living through “decades in days,” to quote Lenin.
Alternatively, everything may be about to get far, far worse.
We need to stop looking for easy solutions. Anywhere.
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I suspect everything is about to get far, far worse. We've allowed the "Fucker Carlson" types way too much leeway and given the despots and dictators way too much leniency. Sometimes I think we don't deserve to have a whole planet to kill each other over.
Indeed. The disinformation being pushed by "Faux" News is right out of Putin's playbook. I dread the night and waking up the next morning to what happened in Ukraine overnight. People try to psychologize Putin but I don't think that will work. Maybe the pandemic has gotten everyone on edge. I heard a really fine German political scientist tonight Herfried Munkler, who teaches at the University in Berlin analyze the situation, and he figures that Putin has permanently broken the framework of world cooperation. He figures there will be something else take its place - 5 spheres of influence - United States, Europe, Russia, China, India. He also says Russia will likely become a vassal of China because of this great blunder Putin has made.