English Alarabiya

Russia’s armed forces on Tuesday prevented an attempt by a group of Ukrainian saboteurs to cross the border into Russia’s Bryansk region, the region’s governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said in a post on Telegram.

Missile Strikes in Western Ukraine, closer to Polish border

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-updates-russia-fires-missiles-at-several-regions/live-66531277

Large crater in Lviv @ Anton Gerashchenko

Newsweek

Last Week Sergei Shoigu claimed Poland has plans to occupy western Ukraine

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on Wednesday that Poland has created plans presumably for security but are in fact for the “occupation of Western Ukraine.”

“There are plans to create on a regular basis the so-called Polish-Ukrainian connection supposedly to ensure the security of Western Ukraine, but in fact – for the subsequent occupation of this territory,” Shoigu said according to state news agency TASS.

Poland moved 10000 troops to the border with Belarus/Ukraine

https://nord.news/2023/08/15/10000-more-polish-troops-to-border-with-belarus/

NATO has significantly increased its defensive presence in the eastern part of the alliance in response to Russia’s aggressive actions, and we continue to do what is necessary to deter any threat and protect every inch of allied territory,” Lungescu said, as quoted by the Associated Press.

I’ve long thought Poland intended to occupy Western Ukraine- It’s previously held territory, so I don’t take issue with Shoigu’s claim- In fact Poland has moved additional troops to the area, reported above

Jarosław Kaczyński, the chairman of Poland’s ruling party, has described his main election rival Donald Tusk as “the personification of pure evil” and called the opposition “traitors [who] must be morally exterminated”.

The Law and Justice (PiS) leader, who also serves as deputy prime minister, was speaking at a series of “military picnics” being organised by the defence ministry around Poland.

At one today in the town of Uniejów, central Poland, Kaczyński declared that “Tusk is the personification of evil in Poland, pure evil”.

He accused the opposition leader of “gathering all dark elements under his banner in order simply to win, to implement a plan that is not Polish, but [a plan] of the Brussels bureaucracy”. The only way to prevent this from happening is “voting for Law and Justice, for a strong Poland”.

Yesterday, at another military picnic in the southeastern town of Zawichost, Kaczyński warned that “in Poland there is a truly powerful camp of national treason that today is striving for power”.

“Someone here among the audience said that traitors should be exterminated,” the PiS leader continued. “Yes, they must be morally exterminated.”

For his part, Tusk recently suggested that Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is supported by – and shares a mentality with – unemployed men who beat women and children.

Donald Tusk. I remember the name very well. Rose to prominence years back when Poland lost most of it’s government in a very odd plane crash-

Bribes and hiding at home: the Ukrainian men trying to avoid conscription

“I knew there was no way I would be able to sit in a trench, so I took my savings and contacted a ‘fixer’. Everyone knows where to find them. I paid in cash, they sent me to a hospital to do a spinal MRI; the hospital gave me a medical report claiming I had a major spinal defect, and with that I could get papers allowing me to leave the country. I had the feeling that, at every stage of the way, people knew what was happening and were getting a cut,” said the man.

It is believed that tens of thousands of Ukrainian men have left the country illegally since the full-scale war with Russia started last February, many by paying bribes.

Left illegally? So, they weren’t free to leave Ukraine?

Reports that Russia had struck Odessa on a mass scale, Monday, yet Ukraine claimed to have intercepted every incoming missile, drone etc.,

Russia launched three waves of drones and missiles against the southern Ukraine port city of Odesa, officials said Monday, though the Ukrainian air force said it intercepted all the airborne weapons fired during the nighttime attacks.

Falling debris from the interceptions of 15 Shahed drones and eight Kalibr missiles damaged a residential building, a supermarket and a dormitory of an educational facility in the city, Odesa Gov. Oleh Kiper said.

There are contradictory claims regarding the strikes on Odessa- suggesting Ukraine didn’t intercept everything. Also, as Ukraine attempted to intercept, Russian military was able to locate the placement of these air defense weapons and take them out.

Western media is acknowledging that the “counter offensive” is going badly. Ukraine is sustaining real human losses. I’ve heard the number 25,000 to 26,000 dead in this latest. Considering the numbers of those killed have already ranged between 300-350,000. The additional dead push this number ever higher. This is a tragedy. That never had to occur. Sigh.. Stick to already signed agreements (Minsk)- Follow through on the ones that were nearly completed in March 2022. Getting them signed and sticking to them. But, no… The US would have none of it. They are happy to use the Ukrainians. And Zelensky is happy to see them used.

And now we may be looking at Belarus and Poland squaring off in western Ukraine.

As always share some thoughts..

Posted on June 24, 2023 by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

The Kremlin leadership has acted decisively to meet the threat of an armed insurrection by the Russian oligarch and self-styled ‘founder’ of Wagner Group of military contractors, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

In a series of videos released on Friday, Prigozhin alleged that the Russian government’s justifications for military intervention in Ukraine were based on lies. He accused the Russian Defence Ministry under minister Sergei Shoigu of “trying to deceive society and the president and tell us how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO.” He claimed that regular Russian armed forces had launched missile strikes against Wagner forces, killing a “huge” number.

Prigozhin declared: “The council of commanders of PMC Wagner has made a decision – the evil that the military leadership of the country brings must be stopped.” He vowed to march on Moscow and hold those responsible to account.

The Federal Security Service or FSB (formerly the KGB) has called it “an armed rebellion”; Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg has been sealed; Prosecutor General’s Office said “this crime is punishable by imprisonment for a term of 12 to 20 years.”

In an address to the nation at 10.00 am Moscow time on Saturday,  President Vladimir Putin strongly condemned the developments describing it as “an armed mutiny” and calling for the “consolidation of all forces.” Putin drew a parallel with the insurrection in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in February 1917 that led to the Bolshevik Revolution and a protracted civil war with large-scale western military intervention, including the United States, “while all sorts of political adventurers and foreign forces profited from the situation by tearing the country apart to divide it.”

He promised, “Decisive actions will also be taken to stabilise the situation in Rostov-on-Don (700 kms south of Moscow where Prigozhin is located with Wagner fighters.) It remains difficult, the work of civil and military authorities is actually blocked.”

Putin vowed that those “who organised and prepared a military mutiny, who took up arms against his comrades – betrayed Russia,” will be punished. Significantly, Putin never once mentioned Prigozhin’s name.

This face-off has been in the making for several months and is traceable to tensions in the working relations between the Wagner forces and the Russian ministry of defence, Prigozhin’s personal antipathy towards Defence Minister Shoigu and the Russian top brass, his bloated ego and overvaulting political ambition, and, most certainly, his business interests.

Prigozhin has crossed the red line that Putin famously drew right at the beginning of his rule in the Kremlin in the summer of 2000 in a historic meeting with 21 of the richest men in Russia — the rapacious “oligarchs,” as Russians had come to derisively call them — who had risen seemingly out of nowhere, amassing spectacular fortunes as the country around them descended into chaos through shady deals, outright corruption, and even murder and had seized control of much of Russia’s economy, and, increasingly, its fledgling democracy. At the closed-door meeting, Putin told them, face to face, who was really in charge in Russia.

Putin offered the oligarchs a deal: ‘Bend to the Russian state’s authority, stay out of the way of Russia’s governance or domestic politics, and you can keep your mansions, super-yachts, private jets, and multibillion-dollar corporations.’ In the coming years, those  oligarchs who reneged on this deal paid a heavy price. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, worth $15 billion, and once ranked 16th on Forbes list of billionaires, is the most celebrated case, who harboured political ambition and now lives in exile in the US, lavishly funding American think tanks and Russophobic activists all across the western world, spewing venom against Putin.

But, on the other hand, the “loyalists” who stayed back went on to became filthy rich and live off the fat of the land like nobody’s business. Prigozhin, a man of humble origin, stayed back to amass great wealth. In a way, he symbolises all that has gone so terribly wrong with Russia’s post-Soviet reincarnation. 

However, the dividing line is often blurred as even those who stayed back took care to keep a significant part of their loot in western countries, in bank vaults or as moveable and immoveable assets beyond the reach of Russian law. Which means, the oligarchs are also highly vulnerable to Western blackmail. Unsurprisingly, the western capitals fancy that the oligarchs could lend a hand to undermine the Kremlin regime from within or create a social implosion to destabilise Russia and throw into disarray its war effort in Ukraine.

Prigozhin’s antecedents are anybody’s guess. But it is entirely conceivable that this man who is credited with extra-large influence in the Kremlin’s corridors of power has been in the cross-hairs of the western intelligence. Prigozhin is worth at least $1.2 billion in personal wealth.

Additional information available at opening link

Moscow is no longer in the Soviet-era business of promoting national liberation movements. But it also cannot be impervious to the regime changes that Russia’s main western opponents routinely promote to serve their geopolitical interests

Suffice to say, the taming of Prigozhin has proved to be difficult, although Russian intelligence would have been aware that western intelligence was in touch with him. Indeed, his increasingly defiant public posturing was becoming a serious distraction for the Kremlin. One possibility is that Russian intelligence gave him a long rope to hang himself. Equally, Kremlin’s preference would have been to pacify and co-opt him in the war effort. Putin even met him.

Significantly, the FSB has directly accused Prigozhin of treason, which could only have been on the basis of intelligence inputs and with Putin’s approval. The fact that Prigozhin’s mutiny comes bang in the middle of the Ukrainian offensive when the war is nearing a tipping point in Russia’s favour must also be carefully weighed in.

In the final analysis, this macabre attempt at mutiny won’t fly. Oligarchs are a detested lot in the Russian opinion. Any western hopes of staging an insurrection in Russia and a regime change under a renegade oligarch’s banner will be  an absurd idea, to say the least.

The immediate challenge will be to isolate Prigozhin and his hardcore  associates from the bulk of Wagner fighters.

Of course, share, share, share your own thoughts.

I have serious doubts this was a psyop as some are suggesting. I believe Putin has had enough of Prigozhin’s drama.

My husband begs to differ. He thinks it was a psyop.

Oh, dear a divided camp at home! Shocking! LOL

Have a good night everybody!