domingo, 17 de agosto de 2014

THE SITUATION IN THE EASTERN UKRAINE



THE SITUATION IN THE EASTERN UKRAINE

Intro by Hugo Adan. Agosto 17, 2014

Here three articles: The 1st is an introduction to a VIDEO that you really have to see for yourself. The 2nd is an analysis by The Saker based on Orlov’s theory "The Five States of Collapse . The 3rd refers two additional theories mentioned by the same author ,The Saker, whose articles are being translated to several languages, including Russian.
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Saturday, August 16, 2014

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).

VIDEO: It is all fuck up… the Russians are trashing us....

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Dmitri Orlov: "The Five States of Collapse"  is quoted by The Saker http://www.vineyardsaker.blogspot.ca/  in this article:
Ag 16, 2014

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.”

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 yetSure, 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  http://www.vineyardsaker.blogspot.ca/

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POROSHENKO VS CARL SAGAN [1]
THE "DESTROYED RUSSIAN ARMOR COLUMN"

Here is added two theories that you may want o consider, here some EXTRACTS :

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, but not 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.

I am endorsing neither theory at this point, it is too early to call…  (to call what? Theory?).  But I will say that I find the first theory substantially more plausible than the second one.
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OPEN http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39427.htm TO READ the full article
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[1] NOTE regarding "Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary evidence"


Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence was a phrase made popular by Carl Sagan. It is central to scientific method, and a key issue for critical thinking, rational thought and skepticism everywhere.

The evidence put forth by proponents of such things as gods, ghosts, the paranormal, and UFOs is highly questionable at best and offers little in the way of proof. Even if we accepted what evidence there is as valid (and it is highly debatable if we should), limited and weak evidence is not enough to overcome the extraordinary nature of these claims.  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Extraordinary_claims_require_extraordinary_evidence

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