Category Archives: Ukraine

Ukraine, Russia, and NATO’s Prevarication

10 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

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“Russian Railways, 04/10/2021”

Given that Vladimir Putin continues to annoy the west with displays of feudal-medieval political methods, starting with disinformation and rumor mongering and putting a point on it with hybrid warfare and passportization, NATO would seem well advised to hasten Ukraine’s accession to its defense community.

Today’s Ukraine is not only a security recipient, but a security donor in its region. Ukraine has been successfully countering Russian aggression for almost seven years now, protecting not only itself but a wider region between the Baltic and Black Seas. Ukraine has gained invaluable experience deterring Russian aggression on the traditional military battlefield and in the realm of hybrid warfare, which extends from cyber to disinformation and beyond. These factors would appear to make Ukraine a strong candidate for NATO membership.

That is the rational side to answering President Zelenskyy’s question. However, there is also an emotional side to consider. Perhaps the best way to understand this dialectic is by adopting a neuroscientific approach and exploring both the rational and the emotional approaches to Ukraine’s future membership in NATO.

Kuleba, Dmytro. “Why is Ukraine still not in NATO?” Atlantic Council, February 16, 2021.

That emotional side accesses the same arguments the KGB has woven into the Palestinian narrative to see Fatah and Hamas elites — and all their cousins — at once loot the refugees of UN funds (and much else) while claiming their defense (see the rest of Dmytro Kuleba’s insightful essay as noted above and listed below). The arguments — essentially forms of “Accusation in a Mirror” — have been the same that have excused numerous vain and ruthless personalities on their way to establishing brutal dictatorships under cover of popular “revolutions” that bypass always those who believed they were going to get some attention at last.

In that Russian autocratic power from the Imperial Period through the Bolshevik Revolution with its imperious, omnipresent, and totalitarian Party, and right through to the rein of “Vertical of Power” Putin has long played this game against Russians, what makes Ukrainian Russians think the establishment of greater Russian military presence would actually defend either their economic or ethnic interests? Most would be dumb and duped to believe the malarkey passed along from Russia’s traumatized and trauma-producing and now perpetuated medieval political tradition.

Drawing from my impression of Euromaidan seven years ago, Ukrainians wish to be democratic, lawful, and modern — not fodder for barbaric medieval throwbacks inclined to threaten geopolitical space with massed forces or through incursion install corrupt elites inclined to be just as ruthless with Russian speakers as with Ukrainian ones.

I’m sure Alexei Navalny would have something to say about that were he in good health and free to speak.

Related Online

Al Jazeera. “Russia warns NATO against deploying troops to Ukraine.” April 2, 2021.

Kramer, Andrew E. “Russian Troop Movements and Talk of Intervention Cause Jitters in Ukraine.” The New York Times, April 9, 2021.

Holodomor 1932-33: Famine Genocide in Ukraine.

Khurshudyan, Isabelle, David L. Stern, Loveday Morris, and John Hudson. “On Ukraine’s doorstep, Russia boosts military and sends message of regional clout to Biden.” The Washington Post, April 10, 2021.

Kuleba, Dmytro. “Why is Ukraine still not in NATO?” Atlantic Council, February 16, 2021.

Macias, Amanda M. “U.S. concerned about Russian troop movements near Ukraine, discussing regional tensions with NATO allies.” CNBC, April 8, 2021.

NATO. “Relations with Ukraine.” November 11, 2020.

Sabbagh, Dan. “Ukraine urges NATO to hasten membership as Russian troops gather.” The Guardian, April 6, 2021.

Simmons, Ann M. “Russia Warns of Full-Scale War in Eastern Ukraine, Blames Kyiv.” The Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2021.

YanukovychLeaks National Project.

Wikipedia. “Ukraine-NATO relations”.

Posted by A Whisper to a Roar, “I Am a Ukrainian”, February 10, 2014.

https://liveuamap.com/en/2021/9-april-military-echelon-filmed-in-rostovnadonu

“Military echolon filmed in Rostov-na-Donu”, April 9, 2021, 47°13′N 39°41′E.

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Ukraine: ‘Bidenlain v Putler” — Russia Adds Heat to Its ‘Frozen Conflict’ with Ukraine

07 Wednesday Apr 2021

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Joint Forces Operation: 14 ceasefire violations yesterday. 2 Ukrainian soldiers were killed

https://liveuamap.com/en/2021/7-april-joint-forces-operation-14-ceasefire-violations-yesterday

. . . the enemy fired proscribed 82mm mortars, tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns, and heavy machine guns near the village of Nevelske.

They also used 82mm and 120mm mortars, tripod-mounted man-portable antitank guns, hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and automatic rifles near the villages of Pisky and Opytne.

https://www.unian.info/war/donbas-war-escalation-14-attacks-on-april-6-two-soldiers-killed-11379409.html

“Bidenlain” meets “Putler”?

Putin appears to be searching for the limits of threat while weaving into his takeover of Ukraine new prepared forces — and large ones, conventional and new — with impunity. Ukraine has fed its children, one to a few at a time, into the fire at the edge of the margin of the Atlantic Alliance and Europe.

NATO appears prepared but supine with an America’s President asking for “clarifications” and a State Department whining about Russia’s attitude toward publications adverse to its aggression.

The American public appears distracted by issues abetted or stirred by Russian trolls — possibly agent provocateur; certainly disinformation — and the encouragement of Far Out Left and Far White Right elements.

And much of the American public appears ill-educated, unprepared, and too parochial (on the Right) or self-centered (on the Left) for understanding how Putin’s aggression in Ukraine threatens the very freedoms, privileges, and traditions they take for granted (while the government takes care of their foreign affairs and related security, so they believe), a posture (if true) that then leaves their Presidents, even the former Trump, alone and weak).

Even America’s Gun Culture (as expressed in enthusiasm for signing up with militia) appears more concerned with its arms and predominantly white cultural traditions than with the greater freedom of all Americans and the support of bedrock American principles and values at home and abroad.

In Russia, Putin has effectively removed from the public sphere his most brave and notorious critic Navalny while ignoring the complaints of ordinary Russians. The man without a face has turned out a man without a purpose or soul apart from his own malign and piratical narcissism.

Related Online

Meyer, Henry, Daryna Krasnolutska, and Kateryna Choursina. “Russia Stages Mass Military Drills as Ukraine Tensions Climb.” Bloomberg, April 6, 2021.

RFE/RL. “U.S. Secretary of State Expresses Concern Over Russian Attempts to Restrict RFE/RL.” April 7, 2021.

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Russia v Ukraine – Fast Note

05 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ukraine

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6 hours ago – 48°0′N 37°48′E
Head of occupation authorities in parts of Donetsk region threatens there is little chance to stop military conflict at Donbas

https://liveuamap.com/en/2021/5-april-head-of-occupation-authorities-in-parts-of-donetsk – Noticed about 9:30 a.m. EDT.

Russia’s earlier mobilization, the production (fake, false flag, etc.) or reporting of a casus belli (scroll down), and this day’s direct signal may spell other than heightened activity in this frozen conflict zone in which Russia has every day violated ceasefire agreements.

While Ukraine has reluctantly shouldered The Bear through two Administrations in Washington, this following on the heels of the Easter Holiday will challenge the Biden Administration to step up and forward instead of stepping back and sitting down to watch a sapping low-intensity conflict that appears to have transformed.

Related Online

At home, Putin faces parliamentary elections in September with his approval ratings in a slump and support for his United Russia political party collapsing. A military adventure in nearby Ukraine could act as a convenient distraction and serve to revitalize Putin’s personal popularity. In a worrying indication of Moscow’s intentions, the Kremlin-controlled Russian media has recently stepped up its propaganda attacks on Ukraine and begun accusing the Ukrainian authorities of plotting an offensive of their own.

Hopes of achieving a favorable peace agreement with Zelenskyy have also now largely evaporated.

Dickinson, Peter. “Is Putin about to launch a new offensive in Ukraine?” Atlantic Council, April 4, 2021.

Mikovic, Nikola. “The Donbass conflict: Waiting for escalation.” The Interpreter, February 4, 2021.

Roth, Andrew. “EU pledges backing to Ukraine after Russian military buildup.” The Guardian, April 5, 2021.

Stewart, Will. “The Kremlin accuses ‘Ukrainian beasts’ of executing a boy, 5, with a drone as tensions rise between the two countries and Russia moves troops and tanks to the border.” Daily Mail, April 5, 2021.

StopFake. “Fake: A child died in Donbas as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack.” April 5, 2021.

StopFake. “Ukraine is Barbaric: StopFakeNews with Marko Suprun (No. 3018).” April 2, 2021.

UNIAN. “Russian deploying air assault division to occupied Crimea — OSINT group.” April 5, 2021.

Wikipedia. “Russo-Ukrainian War”.

Related to Russia’s Projection of Greater Threat to EU/NATO (Examples)

RFERL. “Putin Warns of Risk of Nuclear War, Talks Up Russian Economy in Annual Press Conference.” December 20, 2018.

RFERL. “Russian Fighter Jets Moved to Annexed Ukrainian Region.” December 22, 2018.

Posted by StopFake English, April 2, 2021.

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Revisiting Ukraine – A Start

08 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, Ukraine

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Crimea and Donbass, Ukraine, February 8, 2021, Liveuamap screen capture.
Live at 1 p.m., February 8, 2021.

Former American President Trump’s tenure proved the nation’s distraction from all but itself with the exception of China for Trumpian finger pointing over the “Wuhan Flu”. Now the state’s perhaps a little startled to find itself again a part of the free and do-good world of the Atlantic Alliance. With concern for Russia’s now baldfaced aggression in Ukraine, President Biden will have to pick up on Russia’s crude squatting there and degrading and subverting industrial and other Ukrainian assets in the process of its imposing its largely unwelcome presence and will.

Posted while live — I’m inclined to take notes.

Related Online

Coffey, Luke. “The Black Sea should be a US and NATO priority.” MEI, February 6, 2020.

Council on Foreign Relations. “Conflict in Ukraine.” Global Conflict Tracker, n.d., last updated February 5, 2021.

Trenin, Dmitri. “Dealing with Biden’s America.” Carnegie Moscow Center, February 8, 2021.

Ukrainian Prism.

Posted to YouTube by Intelligence Fusion, February 2, 2021.

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Europe Medieval or Europe Modern?

20 Monday May 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, France, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, Ukraine

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DW, posted to YouTube May 20, 2019.

Europeans who may wish to see fewer “3rd world country people” in their neighborhoods would do well to address the state leaders who sent them: Putin, Assad, and Khamenie.

How?

By applying “Reflexive Control” in the manipulating of Islamic Terrorism and the shaping of their wars.

—

http://www.businessinsider.com/exploring-al-qaedas-murky-connection-to-russian-intelligence-2014-6

Reflexive Control Process: “Allahu Akbar Terrorism” -> New Nationalism –> Neo-Feudalism

Syria – Assad – ISIL – Background

Method #1: detect and amplify any present national, racial, or religious suspicion into self-righteous anger and resentment — and crank it up;

Method #2: develop and deploy appropriate agitprop and agent provocateur — and for the Devil’s sake, don’t worry about anything having to do with ethics, ideals, principles, or values: in fact, dispense with the possession of conscience altogether and reduce all complexities — also, all cultural richness and intercultural relations to two essential dimensions: will and survival.

Method #3: Prepare the violence to come: arm convinced militia and move the same toward perceiving slights or promoting provocations, for either will serve the dual purposes necessary for the inhabiting of a renewed medieval world governed by feudal arrangements in support of “absolute power” (to be shared between political criminals and similar life forms).

Method #4: In hybrid, highbrow, and lowest manner, infiltrate target organizations and states for purpose of abetting their destabilization, perpetuating disinformation, and for ultimately exploiting legitimate business and labor for gain leveraged by bribery or extortion / reward for cooperation and threat for independence in either thought or action.

Also accessed in the writing of this blog:

Hinnant, Lori. “French yellow vest movement dogged by intolerance, extremism.” Daily Herald (Chicago), January 29, 2019.

Oltermann, Phiip. “Austria’s ‘Ibiza scandal’: what happened and why does it matter?” The Guardian, May 20, 2019.

Centrist leaders across Europe hope the fallout from the “Ibiza scandal” will be felt beyond Austria in the European parliament elections this week, in which populist, nationalist and far-right parties have been forecast to make gains.

Strache’s apparent eagerness to embrace corruption is in stark contrast to the “drain the swamp” rhetoric populists routinely deploy in their attempts to portray politics as a battle by decent ordinary people against a venal elite. The FPÖ is a key member of an alliance of European nationalist parties led by Matteo Salvini of Italy’s League.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/austria-ibiza-scandal-sting-operation-what-happened-why-does-it-matter

Sheldon, Michael. “The Small World of French Foreign Fighters.” Medium, February 4, 2019. Primary Source: Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Add to the title: “We want to be free.” Posted to YouTube on February 10, 2014.

BackChannels has embedded with many posts the key word or phrase, “medieval v modern”, and that has worked for the editor, but what has emerged in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and elsewhere also could be called a “Reactionary Conservatism” that fits with the anti-democratic and piratical renewal of feudal absolute power. Where such has succeeded, so far, the same has devolved into patently criminal cronyism.

Added 5/23/2019 —

BBC on Orban’s Hungary and its “Populism” — Posted to YouTube May 22, 2019.

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Ukraine’s Portent: A Dying West or Continuous Resurgent and Robust Democratic Revolution?

04 Saturday May 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Russia, Ukraine

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Once inured to suffering associated with Russian arms and will, the liberal democracies of the west risk watching the heat rise — or the surroundings change — while being lazed into unconscious acceptance.

Screen capture LiveUA Map May 4, 2019.

Ukraine’s five-year-old “frozen conflict” has not been forgotten by EU / NATO, which methodically if slowly has focused on containing the irritating Bear now pummeling Mariupol and targets north by northwest along a line of embattled territory on the western edge of Donetsk Oblast. In addition to a vigorous round of military exercises conducted by NATO in 2018, typified perhaps by the 31+ nation Trident Juncture 18, the United States has continued training-related deployments to Ukraine in a “train-the-trainers ” effort to improve Ukraine’s defense against greater incursion by Russian forces.

Not to flack the rah-rah: Ukraine has been made to pay a near daily — or daily — price in injury and death for having become a Russian test bed (no different than Syria) for Moscow’s defense technologies and “hybrid warfare”.

Russia’s cynical “Passportization” program appears also under way with the only resistance to it to be found in Ukrainian disinterest.

The Russian propaganda mill plies a familiar routine with web videos: the most recent shelling appears to come from Ukrainian forces without cause (I’ll leave the look-up on such as “Donetsk, fighting” to the reader). However, as displayed on any given LiveUAmap, Russia’s military-integrated activity should seem clear enough.

Primary source for this section:

Chang, Felix K. “Are the Russians Coming?: Russia’s Military Buildup Near Ukraine.” Foreign Policy Research Institute, February 25, 2019.

Drawing from the above source, this is what BackChannels tallies for undeniable Russian military presence in proximity to Ukraine’s border:

12 Battalions
340 Helicopters
500 Tactical Aircraft

Derived from the same source but focusing on what has been observed in relation to Russia’s military presence on the Crimean Peninsula:

A-50 AWAC (1)
BMD-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles
IL-76 Military Transport Aircraft
S-300 Air Defense Batteries (2)
S-400 Air Defense Batteries (5)

Analyst Felix K. Chang’s winter 2019 observation for the Foreign Policy Research Institute:

“Together with two other S-300 air defense batteries nearby, Russian land-based air defenses in the region could simultaneously launch as many as 192 surface-to-air missiles. Interestingly, their crews have been training to counter not only hostile aircraft, but also sea-launched cruise missiles, seemingly in preparation for a NATO intervention. Whatever the case, the airspace above Crimea and Donbas has quickly become among the most well-defended in the world.

For cruising through related offerings on YouTube and elsewhere on the web, the open source seems short of up-to-the-minute Ukrainian war reportage but for the Live UA Map, a conflict pin board, and reporting by Michael MacKay via Twitter and through his column in Radio Lemberg.

BackChannels has been seeing the numbers, finding Russian-side videos (in which the fire always comes from Ukraine, not the Russian-backed separatists that provoke it), and finding videos from when the conflict was all bloody new, shocking, and hot. Now it’s still bloody and plenty hot, but it has become a part of the daily fare in the world’s conflict-related horror show.

Perhaps a warning should be issued: once inured to suffering associated with Russian arms and will, the liberal democracies of the west risk watching the heat rise — or the surroundings change — while being lazed into unconscious acceptance.

MacKay’s tweet, much in line with thinking by America’s Democrats and possibly some Republican moderates, begs a few questions about Ukraine’s “frozen conflict” among others: how much “patience” has the west? How much destruction and how many lives lost is acceptable before jawing about Russian barbarism and kleptocracy and posturing about western defense support and strength lose their charm?

Russia has recently claimed victory in Syria. This is what that looks like:

Ruptly, January 20, 2016

With the winter-is-coming cloud of nuclear warfare hanging over east-west confrontation — and with the incredible billions of dollars laundered out of transnational criminal enterprise spiked into the bloodstreams of states — the way forward for the democratic attenuation of political power and the promotion of faith in rule of law may be difficult to see. While one may hope for hope in that regard, locking related conflicts into one place without limit seems itself dispiriting and on the side of evil.

For how long may Ukraine be expected to endure a Moscow-engineered “status quo”?

And for how long may EU / NATO — already somewhat compromised by Moscow’s use of Islamic Terrorism and Syrian mass migration to induce / “inspire” the western “New Nationalism” — abide Moscow’s favor for Feudal Political Absolutism (worldwide) and its concomitant eroding of the ideals, principles, and values associated with democracy and the still open societies of the west?

PBS NewsHour, May 2, 2019. For more information online:
Wilmont, Simon Lereng. The Distant Barking of Dogs.
VOA, April 9, 2019, prior to elections.
UATV English, April 30, 2019

Related on BackChannels:

Reflexive Control Process: “Allahu Akbar Terrorism” -> New Nationalism –> Neo-Feudalism

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

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One, two, three + 1: Tired Phantoms of the Soviet

21 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Fast News Share, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela

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One, two, three — Ukraine, Venezuela, Sudan — each dictatorship associated with Soviet / post-Soviet political methods. Yesterday, it was the great talk of communism and socialism that yielded so much power to so despicable a kind of peacock thug among leaders — Yanukovych, Chavez and Maduro, al-Bashir, leading their states not to greatness but into dependence on themselves, at best, and state practices that may be regarded as rule of the strong by way of brutality.

Ukraine

Ukraine challenges Russia’s veto right at Security Council. February 20, 2019. Related: https://www.unian.info/politics/10454169-poroshenko-time-to-deprive-russia-of-its-veto-right-at-un.html

The next headline from UNIAN: “33 European states call on UN members to consider non-recognition measures against Russia for Crimea” (February 20, 2019).

Venezuela

Two days earlier the 29-year-old was running through his neighbourhood with a wide grin, draped in a Venezuelan flag.
“Maduro get out, you son of a bitch,” he cried in the empty road outside his home in a defiant a video uploaded to social media.
Then the feared Special Action Forces (FAES) police unit came knocking. “The people who killed him were wearing uniforms and had ski masks,” a family member who didn’t want to be identified out of fear of more violence told The Telegraph.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/20/nicolas-maduros-special-police-unit-keeping-working-class-neighbourhoods

Sudan


UC26E11 POETRY FOR SUDAN, Posted to YouTube February 20, 2019.

Sudan-Related Online

Africa News. “Sudan protest hub: Sit-in by top private telecom employees.” February 21, 2019.

AP. “Sudan Government Arrests Opposition Leaders Ahead of Protest.” VOA, February 21, 2019.

Posted to YouTube February 20, 2019.
Posted to YouTube February 21, 2019.

Bonus: Syria

If the world is able to look back on this period . . . it will be sick with its memories. Bashar al-Assad with the support of Vladimir Putin and Ali Khamenei managed to physically destroy half of his state while running about half of its population as well. Now that the he has regained some areas, the past has come knocking for the release of prisoners.

Posted to YouTube February 20, 2019.

Scanning for news, rejiggering it, “scraping” as bloggers may call it — all takes time. Of late, BackChannels has been wondering what one has gotten back — or just created — from each days sail out into the sea of web-borne news. In the spirit of philosophy, one might enjoy the consolation of having seen and relayed a very small shard of time in the world.

This post has featured web artifacts dated February 20 and 21, 2019 having to do with four conflict-hot states: Ukraine, Venezuela, Sudan, and Syria. Central to the historical narratives of each: autocratic and still medieval Russia, Imperial, Soviet, Post-Soviet. The bereft and hungry of the North established tribes in Kiev around the 9th Century and lived and ruled in the feudal manner by way of the standards of the age. Contracts, expansions, hardships exceeding in excessive suffering practically every possibility short of the Holocaust — I have in mind the Mongol Invasion — and here . . . at the end of two modern revolutions and three distinct experiments with government unable to escape a paternal (and these days criminal) paternalism, . . . well here comes perhaps a different end to empire: Moscow has invaded Ukraine and Kiev is fighting back, making the sacrifices every day it must for freedom through democracy.

Venezuela’s “mafia state” will never be able to return Moscow’s “investment” in post-Soviet support — another more responsible government is needed for that.

Sudan has only this day to lose an ageing despot whose control of his state has come down to “shadow brigades” and the muzzling of truth-telling journalists. He doesn’t like the way he looks in Sudan’s newspapers. I wonder how he’ll feel when he sees himself in history.

And al-Assad: behold his greatest near accomplishment across eight punishing years of the KGB theatrical, “Assad v The Terrorists”:

Posted to YouTube January 5, 2017

Similar: Aleppo; Damascus suburb; Raqqa.

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Ukraine, Russia, CW Disinformation, Annex Consolidation, Massing

26 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

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UA-Crimea-Krug-CDAA-181226-0200EST

Liveuamap indicates Russian “KRUG CDAA” circular radar arrays installed in Sevastopol as well as the beefing up of its air force (reported four days ago)  in Ukraine’s invaded and captured space.

Note from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wullenweber —

. . . . used by the military to triangulate radio signals for radio navigation, intelligence gathering and search and rescue. Because its huge circular reflecting screen looks like a circular fence, the antenna has been colloquially referred to as the elephant cage. The term wullenwever was the World War II German cover term used to identify their secret CDAA research and development program; its name is unrelated to any person involved in the program.

Regarding the deployment of Russian fighter jets to its base in Sevastopal:

Of late, Russia has been playing up what appears to BackChannels as a false-flag operation  — or perhaps just disinformation promoting an unsavory image — accusing Ukraine of chemical weapons preparation.  While Moscow’s disinformation / propaganda campaign moves along on Twitter, here’s background on the matter from UNIAN:

Moscow’s persistence in claiming that Ukraine is plotting a chemical attack in the occupied Donbas raises serious concerns, says Ukrainian MP Dmytro Tymchuk, who is also a coordinator of the Information Resistance OSINT group. Even more worrying is the timing of Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Maria Zakharova revisiting the issue on the eve of the two major events that will take place in December this year – the holding of the Unification Council for the creation of the United Local Orthodox Church in Ukraine and consideration by the UN General Assembly of the draft resolution on militarization of the occupied Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as parts of the Black and Azov Seas, Tymchuk wrote on Facebook.

From RFERL as cited in caption earlier, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lists the following Russian Federation assets in the region of the so-far annexed Crimea:

  • 80,000 troops
  • 1,400 artillery and multiple rocket launch systems
  • 900 tanks
  • 2,300 armored combat vehicles
  • Hundreds of aircraft

The news may be warmed over but none can miss the portent: having invaded and annexed Crimea, Ukraine, Russia has moved to tighten its grip on its prize while preparing for “expansion” through intimidation and force.  As is — and as visiting the liveuamap service tells, there have been no ceasefires in Ukraine: shelling, injury, and death have become part of daily life in what must be for Ukraine’s military a grinding lottery of evil.

For Russia, Crimea, Ukraine must also serve to leverage the west in the middle east, for what happens between Israel and the forces sponsored or supported by Moscow and Tehran may insult a degraded EU / NATO about to be pinched between the two fronts.  By “degraded”, BackChannels refers to the following: a Germany dependent on Russia for energy supply; a Hungary that becomes more each week the feudal estate of the Orban family; a France too easily given to the “Active Measures” encouragement of Right Wing Populism; and a Turkey that has become for all intents an anti-democratic and illiberal sultanate whose highest purpose would seem to be the cultural annihilation of the Kurdish Community and the eventual destruction of Israel — the “leadership” in Ankara has more in common with Moscow and Tehran (specifically, the penchant for feudal political absolutism laced with anti-Semitism) than with London, Paris, and Washington. It both loves Moscow’s power and political prowess, and it fears it.  It’s continued NATO status and (the latest Patriot Missile deal) has more to do with the latter than any set of heartily defended liberal ethics, principles, and values.

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