info
Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
Mentifex relays Wayne Madsen Report on Putin's crazy war
4 views
Skip to first unread message
A.T. Murray
May 10, 2022, 1:10:37 AM5/10/22
to
May 9-10, 2022 -- Wartime Report -- Putin's gamble lost and his regime is done
Vladimir Putin, claimed by many to be a master strategist, played a game of Blackjack in his invasion of Ukraine. Putin, by deciding to take a hit on 21, saw Russia's annual May 9 "Victory over Fascism" parade on Red Square only mark the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. Putin's desired victory over what he had termed "Nazism" in Ukraine now lies in disaster after Putin's "Potemkin military" could only show off its big intercontinental ballistic missiles and remaining operational tanks in Moscow.
Not only have Ukrainian forces routed Russia's attempts to seize Kyiv and Kharkiv, but Russia's psychological warfare strategy of uniting pro-Russian sentiment in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, Odessa, and Transnistria now lies in shambles. A large number of Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainians, originally supportive of Russia and its two self-declared "people's republics" of Lugansk and Donetsk, have recoiled at Moscow's scorched earth policy in Ukraine. In witnessing the Russian destruction of cities like Mariupol and massacres in towns like Bucha, Ukrainians of all stripes have turned their anger on Russia and its murderous mercenaries from the Wagner Group, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's Chechen National Guard, and Syrian paramilitaries.
Meanwhile, Putin's Belarusian ally, dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, has publicly bemoaned Putin's Ukrainian "special operation," as the invasion is dubbed. Lukashenko, in a television interview with the Associated Press in Minsk said, "I feel like this operation has dragged on." Lukashenko's complaint to a Western media organization could not have come as good news to Putin and his regime. Lukashenko is also having to deal with a group of homegrown railroad saboteurs, who are damaging key nodes in the Belarus rail system to disrupt the movement of Russian troops and materiel to Ukraine.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is widely believed to have won the first-round presidential election against Lukashenko in 2020 and was forced to flee into exile in neighboring Lithuania, has given a green light to the Belarusian "railway partisans" to continue their sabotage, both physical and cyber, of rail lines in Belarus and in Russia itself. The physical sabotage is being carried out by ByPol, a group of former Belarusian security officers who carry out rail attacks from Polish bases; Belaruski Hajun, an online group that tracks Russian train movements through Belarus; and Cyber Partisans, which launches cyber-attacks on Belarusian critical infrastructure targets, including the software that controls the rail line signaling and switching equipment.
Russia has reacted to the cyber-threat from Belarus by taking control of its Internet and subjecting it to the same Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) security and censorship controls that have been applied in Russia. This has only resulted in more opposition to Russia from within Belarus and increased opposition to Lukashenko, who is seen as a Putin puppet.
Lukashenko's second thoughts on the invasion of Ukraine are a realization that the opposition is tying Lukashenko's ultimate fate to that of Putin. The similarities of the two besieged dictators are likened by the Russian and Belarusian opposition to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini toward the end of World War II.
People in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two self-declared republics, cleaved off from Georgia with Russian military support, are witnessing their military personnel -- officers and conscripts -- return home from Ukraine in body bags. The situation is mirrored in the non-Russian formerly autonomous republics of the so-called Russian "Federation." As ethnic Buryats, Kalmyks, Tuvans, and Don Cossacks bury their war dead, hatred for Moscow and the Russians is steadily growing. Russians, too, are growing tired of Putin's folly in Ukraine. Across the Russian Federation, arson attacks are taking out everything from factories supplying the war effort to railway lines and military recruiting offices.
Perhaps nowhere has seen a reversal of fortunes for Russia more than the Transnistrian Republic, a heretofore pro-Russian self-declared independent sliver of territory along the Dniester River between Moldova and Ukraine. Ever since 1991, the Transnistrian Republic has hosted the 1500-strong Operational Group of Russian Forces since 1995. However, after several recent military operations inside Transnistria were blamed on Russian forces attempting to open up a southern front against Ukraine, even Russian-speaking Transnistrians began to waver in their support for Russia. Transnistria's Ukrainian and Moldovan population needed no convincing about the threat posed by Russia. The net result for Moscow is that Transnistria is now looking toward its perennial opponent, Moldova, from which it declared independence, as a guarantor of its protection from being turned into the next Ukraine.
Given the dismal state of the Russian economy, Transnistrians see a better deal by moving closer to Moldova, Romania, and the European Union. Since 2014, Transnistria has been wooed closer to the European Union with tariff relief on certain exports to the EU, as well as visa-free travel for Transnistrians possessing valid Moldovan passports. Russia has countered the EU's largesse by providing Transnistria with free natural gas from Gazprom. However, the severance of energy links as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has served to wean Transnistria and Moldova off of Russian gas.
The same situation is playing out in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic. The largely Russian population of the territory, now cut off from neighboring Poland and Lithuania, have grown more accustomed to living under the virtual umbrella of the European Union than Russia. Kaliningrad, which hosts Russian naval and air bases, is ripe for the same sort of homegrown sabotage that is currently being experienced in Belarus and throughout Russia.
Faced with resentment among the population of Transnistria, Russia has sought to inflame tensions in Gagauzia, a generally pro-Russian Turkic autonomous region in Moldova. The Assembly of Gagauzia in the Gagauz capital of Comrat revolted against a Moldovan government ban on the display of the Russian nationalist St. George ribbon -- a black and orange symbol -- to avoid stirring up tensions during the May 9 Victory in Europe celebration. The Gagauz government decision has turned Gagauzia into the "new Transnistria." The Russians are also trying to stir up ethnic tensions between ethnic Bulgarians, known as Banat Bulgarians, and the governments of Romania and Moldova. The more Russia resorts to ethnic operations in NATO and on its periphery, it is guaranteeing similar actions by NATO in Russia's restive ethnic republics and regions.
https://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/may-910-2022-wartime-report-putins-gamble-lost-and-his
https://mobile.twitter.com/igorsushko?p=s
http://ai.neocities.org/Dushka.html -- Russian artificial intelligence
Vladimir Putin, claimed by many to be a master strategist, played a game of Blackjack in his invasion of Ukraine. Putin, by deciding to take a hit on 21, saw Russia's annual May 9 "Victory over Fascism" parade on Red Square only mark the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. Putin's desired victory over what he had termed "Nazism" in Ukraine now lies in disaster after Putin's "Potemkin military" could only show off its big intercontinental ballistic missiles and remaining operational tanks in Moscow.
Not only have Ukrainian forces routed Russia's attempts to seize Kyiv and Kharkiv, but Russia's psychological warfare strategy of uniting pro-Russian sentiment in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, Odessa, and Transnistria now lies in shambles. A large number of Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainians, originally supportive of Russia and its two self-declared "people's republics" of Lugansk and Donetsk, have recoiled at Moscow's scorched earth policy in Ukraine. In witnessing the Russian destruction of cities like Mariupol and massacres in towns like Bucha, Ukrainians of all stripes have turned their anger on Russia and its murderous mercenaries from the Wagner Group, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's Chechen National Guard, and Syrian paramilitaries.
Meanwhile, Putin's Belarusian ally, dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, has publicly bemoaned Putin's Ukrainian "special operation," as the invasion is dubbed. Lukashenko, in a television interview with the Associated Press in Minsk said, "I feel like this operation has dragged on." Lukashenko's complaint to a Western media organization could not have come as good news to Putin and his regime. Lukashenko is also having to deal with a group of homegrown railroad saboteurs, who are damaging key nodes in the Belarus rail system to disrupt the movement of Russian troops and materiel to Ukraine.
Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is widely believed to have won the first-round presidential election against Lukashenko in 2020 and was forced to flee into exile in neighboring Lithuania, has given a green light to the Belarusian "railway partisans" to continue their sabotage, both physical and cyber, of rail lines in Belarus and in Russia itself. The physical sabotage is being carried out by ByPol, a group of former Belarusian security officers who carry out rail attacks from Polish bases; Belaruski Hajun, an online group that tracks Russian train movements through Belarus; and Cyber Partisans, which launches cyber-attacks on Belarusian critical infrastructure targets, including the software that controls the rail line signaling and switching equipment.
Russia has reacted to the cyber-threat from Belarus by taking control of its Internet and subjecting it to the same Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) security and censorship controls that have been applied in Russia. This has only resulted in more opposition to Russia from within Belarus and increased opposition to Lukashenko, who is seen as a Putin puppet.
Lukashenko's second thoughts on the invasion of Ukraine are a realization that the opposition is tying Lukashenko's ultimate fate to that of Putin. The similarities of the two besieged dictators are likened by the Russian and Belarusian opposition to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini toward the end of World War II.
People in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two self-declared republics, cleaved off from Georgia with Russian military support, are witnessing their military personnel -- officers and conscripts -- return home from Ukraine in body bags. The situation is mirrored in the non-Russian formerly autonomous republics of the so-called Russian "Federation." As ethnic Buryats, Kalmyks, Tuvans, and Don Cossacks bury their war dead, hatred for Moscow and the Russians is steadily growing. Russians, too, are growing tired of Putin's folly in Ukraine. Across the Russian Federation, arson attacks are taking out everything from factories supplying the war effort to railway lines and military recruiting offices.
Perhaps nowhere has seen a reversal of fortunes for Russia more than the Transnistrian Republic, a heretofore pro-Russian self-declared independent sliver of territory along the Dniester River between Moldova and Ukraine. Ever since 1991, the Transnistrian Republic has hosted the 1500-strong Operational Group of Russian Forces since 1995. However, after several recent military operations inside Transnistria were blamed on Russian forces attempting to open up a southern front against Ukraine, even Russian-speaking Transnistrians began to waver in their support for Russia. Transnistria's Ukrainian and Moldovan population needed no convincing about the threat posed by Russia. The net result for Moscow is that Transnistria is now looking toward its perennial opponent, Moldova, from which it declared independence, as a guarantor of its protection from being turned into the next Ukraine.
Given the dismal state of the Russian economy, Transnistrians see a better deal by moving closer to Moldova, Romania, and the European Union. Since 2014, Transnistria has been wooed closer to the European Union with tariff relief on certain exports to the EU, as well as visa-free travel for Transnistrians possessing valid Moldovan passports. Russia has countered the EU's largesse by providing Transnistria with free natural gas from Gazprom. However, the severance of energy links as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has served to wean Transnistria and Moldova off of Russian gas.
The same situation is playing out in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic. The largely Russian population of the territory, now cut off from neighboring Poland and Lithuania, have grown more accustomed to living under the virtual umbrella of the European Union than Russia. Kaliningrad, which hosts Russian naval and air bases, is ripe for the same sort of homegrown sabotage that is currently being experienced in Belarus and throughout Russia.
Faced with resentment among the population of Transnistria, Russia has sought to inflame tensions in Gagauzia, a generally pro-Russian Turkic autonomous region in Moldova. The Assembly of Gagauzia in the Gagauz capital of Comrat revolted against a Moldovan government ban on the display of the Russian nationalist St. George ribbon -- a black and orange symbol -- to avoid stirring up tensions during the May 9 Victory in Europe celebration. The Gagauz government decision has turned Gagauzia into the "new Transnistria." The Russians are also trying to stir up ethnic tensions between ethnic Bulgarians, known as Banat Bulgarians, and the governments of Romania and Moldova. The more Russia resorts to ethnic operations in NATO and on its periphery, it is guaranteeing similar actions by NATO in Russia's restive ethnic republics and regions.
https://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/may-910-2022-wartime-report-putins-gamble-lost-and-his
https://mobile.twitter.com/igorsushko?p=s
http://ai.neocities.org/Dushka.html -- Russian artificial intelligence
0 new messages