RUNNING UPDATES ON THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE - 20.04.2024
Including geopolitical issues affecting the balance of power in the ongoing end game war to establish our common future, a closely monitored prison planet or tolerance for diverse modes of governance.
THE ROAD TO THE ULTIMATE CONCLUSION OF WORLD WAR III RUNS THROUGH HERE.
Please note: We will be in Italy for the next ten days
Updates will be sporadic and perhaps absent during much of this time.
Our apologies for this alteration to your daily updates.
*** WHO AMONG THE COLLECTIVE WEST WILL BE NEXT TO ESCALATE? ***
“Ukraine. What is the truth...?
Why won’t western media tell both sides…?”
VIRTUALLY UNREPORTED ATROCITY IN LUGANSK, 2nd JUNE 2014
A lot has been said about atrocities in the western media claimed to have been perpetrated by the Russians, for example at Bucha and Mariupol among others. These assertions are conveyed on the say so of the Ukrainian authorities. How willing though are western news broadcasters to convey atrocities attributed to the Ukrainians? The following will I think provide the answer.
If anyone wonders if they are receiving accurate coverage of the conflict in Ukraine I would suggest watching the video below of an event which occurred on the 2nd of June 2014 and ask themselves if they recall hearing about it on any mainstream media news channel at the time.
The video is harrowing to watch. The bodies (five women and three men) are real. Yet across western media there was only one single news report that occurred a day later. This was from CNN and occurred only because a CNN team happened to be nearby at the time of the atrocity and so the network could hardly ignore it as all others so obviously did.
The video below shows the unvarnished truth that was not considered newsworthy in western mainstream news.
THE SINGLE WESTERN MSM REPORT ON THE LUGANSK ATROCITY, 3rd JUNE 2014
The video at the CNN link below is the crime scene sanitised by CNN, though played straight with honest reporting on the scene not playing things to Kiev’s tune.
(There was a time early in the war in the Donbass when CNN were not afraid to contradict the Ukrainian regime in Kiev.) Watch, because it's the first and last time you will see this.
5 women and 3 men died, all civilians.
Air attack on pro-Russian separatists in Luhansk kills 8, stuns residents.
COLLECTIVE WEST-UKRAINE <-> RUSSIA
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Infrastructure strikes, Donbass push and anti-drone warfare: The last week in the Ukrainian conflict.
Moscow has reported making new gains in Donbass, while continuing its campaign against critical Ukrainian facilities.
The past week in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has seen continued active combat at multiple locations along the front line, with the most intense hostilities in Donbass, where Moscow continues its effort to push westwards.
Russia also launched large-scale, long-range strikes on critical Ukrainian infrastructure, including multiple thermal power plants, completely obliterating the largest facility in Kiev Region.
New gains in Donbass
On Saturday, the Russian Defence Ministry announced the liberation of Pervomayskoye, a village located some 20 km to the west of the Russian city of Donetsk. The village has been an important foothold for Ukrainian troops, as it stretches along an elaborate system of canals, ponds and dams.
READ MORE: Ukrainian strikes inside Russia ineffective – Pentagon
Pervomayskoye has provided cover for the southern flank of Ukrainian forces which had been attempting to entrench at the Orlovka-Tonenkoye-Berdychi line after the liberation of the strategic town of Avdeevka mid-february.
While the Russian westward push in the area has seemingly slowed, the military reported minor gains to the west of the now-breached defensive line.
Among the three settlements stretching along a canal system, only the village of Berdychi remains under partial Ukrainian control, with the situation expected to worsen for Kiev following a successful advance by Russian troops to the north of the village, reported on Wednesday
Critical infrastructure strikes
Russia has continued with its renewed campaign against Ukraine’s critical facilities, prompted by Kiev’s growing efforts to attack the country’s oil refineries and other energy facilities. Last Thursday, the Russian military hit multiple energy plants across Ukraine, including the Tripolskaya Thermal Power Plant, the largest in Kiev Region. This is the first time the facility has been targeted.
The plant was hit by multiple projectiles, including new, lighter, Russian Kh-69 cruise missiles, which sparked a major fire that completely destroyed the generator hall. The Kh-69s are significantly smaller than other cruise missiles in Moscow’s inventory and can therefore be launched by fighter jets and frontline bombers, rather than by strategic aircraft, allowing for a more agile use.
The Dobrotvorskaya Thermal Power Plant in the west of Ukraine was also targeted for the first time since the beginning of hostilities. The plant was simultaneously hit by two missiles, footage circulating online suggests.
Anti-drone tactics
Kamikaze FPV drones have become a growing problem for both sides over the course of the conflict, prompting servicemen to come up with additional means to protect their armored and soft vehicles, particularly from strikes from above and the rear. Crude anti-drone grilles and nettings, as well as factory-made armor, colloquially known as “grills,” have become a common sight.
The protective contraptions have become increasingly unsightly and sizeable. To this end the Russian military apparently fielded materiel featuring ultimate anti-drone protection: the “Tsar grill.” A T-72 tank, boasting an anti-drone shell fully covering the vehicle, debuted last week near the town of Krasnogorovka, to the west of Donetsk, which has seen intense combat over the past few weeks.
The tank, footage of which promptly went viral, actually fared well in combat. The vehicle, which apparently acted as a heavy APC, spearheaded a successful attack on Krasnogorovka, allowing Russian forces to reach residential areas on its southeastern outskirts.
The tank survived the attack and has since starred in a new video that emerged this week. The vehicle has apparently received new modifications, becoming even more ungainly, and now features a tower of drone jammers on the roof of the ‘grill.’ The tank has been seen rolling through central Krasnogorovka, as well as successfully leaving the settlement, despite several close explosions.
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ISRAEL-PALESTINE-IRAN-SYRIA-IRAQ-LEBANON-YEMEN-DPRK-TAIWAN
Israel Can't Afford Escalation With Iran and Gaza.
The Gaza war and tensions with Iran have taken a toll on Israel's economy, leading major agencies to downgrade the Jewish state's credit rating by one notch with warnings that further cuts may occur if the ongoing conflicts escalate.
S&P Global Ratings downgraded Israel's credit rating from 'AA-/A-1+' to 'A+/A-1' as its economy slowed and geopolitical risks increased, marking its latest demotion since Moody’s rating relegation in February.
The Gaza war, amplified by the escalation in tensions between Tel Aviv and Tehran, has taken its toll on the Israeli economy since October 2023. In the fourth quarter of 2023, it contracted a whopping 20.7%, far exceeding the initial projection of a 10% slump. The nation's debt increased by $43 billion last year, $22 billion of which was accumulated since the beginning of the hostilities. Israel's national currency, the shekel, has depreciated by more than 4% against the dollar in 2024.
How is the Israeli Economy Weathering the War?
"The Israeli economy has shown remarkable resilience," argued Professor Avi Weiss, president of the Taub Center for Social Policy Research in Israel and professor of economics at Bar-Ilan University, while speaking to Sputnik. "After absorbing the initial shock, the labor market is steadily returning to normalcy. Even the construction industry is returning to function (indicating that the Israeli Arabs are back to work). The number of men on reserve duty has been steadily declining and currently, out of the labor force, it numbers about 70,000. This is still high, but half the number registered in the initial phases."
"As a result, the Israeli economy is expected to grow at 1.5-2% in 2024, and over 5% in 2025. Significantly lower than 'normal,' 3.5%, in 2024, but right on target over the two year period. In addition, it maintains a more or less constant per-capita level in 2024," the professor highlighted, admitting, however, that a lot depends on whether the military situation will stabilize, including Israel-Iran tensions.
Dr. Steven Terner, the manager of Terner Consultancy, a leading geopolitical and business consultancy based in New York, holds an opposite stance:
"The Israeli economy has not been resilient," Terner told Sputnik. "It has suffered immensely from the war."
"The Israeli economy ground to a half when the Gaza war began because virtually the entire country was mobilized for the war effort. … Hundreds of thousands of Israelis were displaced in October, and many remain so to this day," the official underscored. "Those people are unable to work or pay their bills, including their mortgage and rent payments for the homes they evacuated in northern and southern cities six months ago."
Terner added that while "the tourism industry, a major source of revenue, was destroyed by the Gaza war as well, it will recover eventually. But [it] will not begin to do so until the war is over."
The analyst further pointed out that foreign investment to Israel had also decreased in 2023. Indeed, in the first quarter of 2023, foreign direct investment in Israel fell by 60% over political and social turmoil caused by the Israeli government's judicial overhaul.
The Gaza war has only exacerbated concerns with regard to Israel's future growth. All in all, foreign direct investments went down by 28.7% in 2023, compared to 2022, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).
"Considering the security risks of the war, the international unpopularity of the Israeli military’s heavy-handedness in Gaza, and the ongoing strikes and protests in Israel over numerous political issues, foreign investment will not be coming in for a while," Terner projected.
S&P expects Israel's general government deficit to grow to 8% of GDP in 2024, with net general government debt peaking at 66% of GDP in 2026. The rating firm also projects Israel's Gaza war will continue throughout 2024. S&P indicated it will review the nation's rating once again on May 10, suggesting it could make deeper cuts if ongoing conflicts involving Tel Aviv widen.
How Could Military Escalation Backfire on the Israeli Economy?
Remarkably, the agency's decision to cut Israel's rating by one notch came before the Jewish state's apparent Friday attack against Iran. Having conducted its counterstrike on April 13 to avenge the death of two top Iranian generals in Damascus, Tehran warned that even the slightest Israeli attack would be met with strong retaliation.
On April 19, an Iranian base near the city of Isfahan was subjected to a drone strike. As per EU and US governmental sources, the attack was conducted by Israel.
In response, Tehran said the drones were successfully destroyed and signaled it would not retaliate "immediately."
However, with the risk of escalation lingering, the future of the Israeli economy appears to be hanging in the balance. Continuous tit-for-tat attacks between Iran and Israel would be a disaster for the Israeli economy, according to Benjamin Bental, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Haifa.
"If you think about every couple of months or every month or every week or whatever - a rocket attack from Iran, which requires overnight expenditure of something like $1 billion in defense in one night, that is, of course, not sustainable," Bental told Sputnik, suggesting that this is an unlikely scenario.
Israel's continuous standoff with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis is also fraught with risk of exhaustion for the Jewish state economy.
"The optimistic scenario includes the repatriation of the hostages, a civil administration in the Gaza Strip that replaces the Hamas, a political arrangement with Lebanon/Hezbollah, a balance of deterrence with Iran and a political agreement with Saudi Arabia," suggested Weiss. "If this happens, Israel will be able to gradually reduce its military expenditures and restore its standing in the international capital markets. This means returning to the path that was abruptly disturbed on October 7."
"Any deviation from this scenario will carry a cost," the professor warned. "Specifically, continued tensions along the northern border will prevent restoration of that area and maintain the high geopolitical uncertainty. This will mean high security costs and a continued high level of reserve duty. As a consequence, Israel will not be able to realize its potential and economic growth will be low, meaning a stagnating standard of living for a considerable period."
Resolution of Palestinian Issue is Key to Stop War
Regardless of when exactly the Gaza war will eventually come to a close, the damage to the Israeli economy and society has already been done, according to Rodney Shakespeare, a visiting professor of binary economics at Trisakti University in Jakarta, Indonesia.
"The conflict will not be over until there is a resolution of the Palestinian issue," Shakespeare told Sputnik. "Israel is now an unstable entity whose existence is predicated upon the genocidal destruction of others – and most of the world is now aware of this."
For his part, Terner believes that a political overhaul in Israel that brings into power more moderate and centrist forces could be a possible solution to the unfolding crisis and the Palestinian issue.
"Assuming the next government is not an ultra-nationalist coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu, but rather a centrist coalition led by Benny Gantz, the wheels will be in motion to slowly repair the political issues that are weighing on the economic system," Terner concluded.
Israel Can't Afford Escalation With Iran and Gaza
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MULTIPOLARITY - RUSSIA-CHINA / BRICS
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NON-ENGLISH NEWS
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VICTORY BELONGS TO RUSSIA: IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME
Each day that passes makes a conclusive Russian victory in the Donbass and beyond more certain. As Russia bolsters her forces, and weaponry, those of Ukraine decrease. Russian forces gain ready access to rest and recuperation as troop numbers increase. The increasingly exhausted and demoralised Ukrainian troops have an ever decreasing prospect of such respite. This situation is likely to bring them to complete breakdown as Russia unleashes the firepower of the more modern and advanced weaponry that is arriving with the newly mobilised Russian troops.
The various Ukrainian offensives are now weak when confronted by the reinforced Russian lines. A few futile efforts achieve quite miserable results before fire reigns down on the Ukrainian troops and they are forced back to their starting positions.
And now, all this being said, we have arrived at the wet, and later, freezing conditions where these pathetic Ukrainian forces will be subject to myriad forms of abject misery with death and injury all around them while they lie sodden or frozen, abandoned to their fate by Kiev.
The pitiable young and old of Ukraine have been frogmarched to their deaths as cannon-fodder while the bestial elites of the collective West urge their "president" to add more to their number there at the gates of Hell and their doom. We must feel for the majority of them as they are not the Nazis we revile, in most part they are decent men, fathers, sons, brothers, husband and uncles, who no doubt saw through the coup of 2014 for what it was. But sadly, their fate seems sealed.
Nothing will stop Russia now. Every factor favours them. Victory will be Russia's. In Donbass and beyond and in due course across the world.
Victory belongs to Russia: It is now only a matter of time.
UPDATES TO BE ADDED HERE AS AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
UPDATES TO BE ADDED HERE AS AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
WHY WE MUST FIGHT FOR A MULTIPOLAR WORLD
The first reason why we must fight for a multipolar world is simply because the alternative is well known to us and is essentially a world always at war.
The second reason is that the alternative, if the currently dominant regional power, the western world, succeeds in its quest to become not only dominant regionally but eventually globally, the ultimate outcome will be a virtual prison planet.
The collective west is seeking to subdue all powers outside its current orbit, to weaken and subvert them in order to subsume them under its control. This quest encompasses both reasons above in that:
The likelihood is that the collective west’s goal of regime change for all nations not under its control will never succeed, at least not in our lifetime and most likely not ever. However, the wars initiated will breed ever more conflict leading to the ‘forever war’ scenario envisaged by some.
In the extremely unlikely event of the collective west achieving its goal of subduing and replacing all current national leaderships and systems of governance and replacing them with proxies that accept collective west leadership then the prison planet scenario will emerge.
There were times in recent history when it seemed that we might overcome the scourge of war as an ever-present reality. However, looking at the world as it is today we can see that this was a vain hope if present geopolitical realities continue without substantial change.
In the unlikely event of the collective west, led by the United States gaining full global control after subduing all nations not now under its control, we will find ourselves increasingly monitored for risks to the new global system of governance that would come into existence with the supreme dominance of the West. Surveillance from near space would become a global reality. Hardly a single gathering, phone call, email or financial transaction would escape logging, and where considered necessary, follow up action. George Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ would well and truly become our everyday reality.
If you adhere to the school of thought that says, “If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear”, i.e. that global monitoring would be a good thing in that policing, and therefore personal safety, would be enhanced. However, if you feel that ‘Big Brother’ knowing so much about you is a threat and would be abused by those in authority then you will agree that this is an unwelcome eventuality.
A unipolar world where one power completely dominates all others or a near unipolar world where one region is constantly instigating and fighting wars to become the universal power with ‘full spectrum dominance’ can be quite easily seen as a world where fear of one kind or another will certainly dominate.
A multipolar world where power is shared among nations, where each nation has inviolable sovereignty no matter what form of governance prevails is, I would argue, a world far more likely to realise goals such as reasonably permanent stability and every prospect to deliver peace. Nations who share power and who prioritise trade above all else where agreements are formed outside of potential areas of disagreement such as the religion practiced or system of governance will surely have much less reason to fight wars. With the most significant reasons for war having little to no priority, i.e. religion and politics, the business of building bridges between cultures can progress far more successfully than now.
The urge of the collective west to impose its religion, values and political structures on others with the aim of converting all nations into its own likeness, often by subversion, sanctions, propaganda or regime change wars, is the primary cause of the instability and perpetual conflict we see occurring today. This drive for supreme dominance is, more likely than not, doomed to fail, the reasons for which Professor John J. Mearsheimer has eloquently explained in his video lecture and book ‘The Great Delusion’. This does not mean that the western powers will ever be in any mood to give up this goal. Not unless some means is found to convince those leaders of a better way forward. Failing this the only remaining way to achieve this will be to build a great enough resistance to the western way of war.
The BRICS group best exemplifies the principles that would underpin a future multipolar world. Nations working together building trading networks of cooperation and mutually beneficial agreement, irrespective of diverse factors between them such as religion or systems of governance. A world therefore of sovereign nations of diverse backgrounds, cultures, religions and political modes of governance where tolerance not intolerance (of these factors mentioned) exists as a constant background to peace and stability.
These are the reasons why we must fight for a multipolar world.
https://open.substack.com/pub/larrycjohnson/p/israel-vs-iran-is-that-all-there