RUNNING UPDATES ON THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE - 18.05.2024
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.
*** RUSSIA & CHINA UNITED IN STRENGTH AS NEVER BEFORE ***
“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
The Bloom | The Battle For Southern Vovchansk Has Started | The Strike In Odessa | MS For 2024.05.18
ALEXANDER MERCOURIS of THE DURAN: Kiev Panic, Demands Hundreds Patriots, F16s; Rus Sumy Offensive; Rus More Volchansk; Ukr 70% Losses.
ALEX CHRISTOFOROU of THE DURAN: Putin; EU vassals, Kharkov cordon sanitaire. Elensky, US help to strike Russia. Kirby & the hug.
THE DURAN: US Without a Strategy in Ukraine? - Stephen Bryen, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen.
Field Hospitals in Sumy | Battle For Liptsy | The Russians In Chasiv Yar. Military Summary 2024.5.18
LEVAN GUDADZE: Russian Northern Offensive, Ukraine demands 130 US-made F-16 fighters, Moscow warns the West again...
THROUGH THE EYES OF... ANIA: ROBERT FICO'S HEALTH CONDITION. UKRAINE: CONVICTS TO JOIN THE ARMED FORCES AND NEW PENALTIES.
JACKSON HINKLE: Antony Blinken, strumming while Ukraine burns.
Russia already outperformed Ukraine’s 2023 ‘counteroffensive’ – WaPo.
Moscow’s troops are advancing both north of Kharkov and elsewhere.
Russian forces have taken more territory in six weeks than Ukraine managed in six months last year, the Washington Post admitted on Friday, describing the 2023 effort by Kiev as “lackluster” and “disappointing.”
The spring counteroffensive was war-gamed by British and American generals in Germany and supplied with 1,500 armored vehicles – including Leopard, Challenger and Abrams tanks, and Bradley armored vehicles. Once it finally began in June, it got stuck in Russian defenses and resulted in gains of only 199 square miles (515 square kilometers) worth of territory by December, according to the Post.
Russia has taken 553 square miles (1,432 square kilometers) so far this year, of which 294 (761 square kilometers) just since the beginning of April, the US outlet noted.
Those numbers came from the Institute for the Study of War, a DC-based think tank run by Kimberly Kagan – sister-in-law of Victoria Nuland, the former US State Department official in charge of Ukraine.
Experts from two other US think tanks told the Post that the Russian advances in Kharkov Region might be part of a strategy to press the Ukrainians everywhere and stretch their reserves, but not actually take Ukraine’s second-largest city.
British intelligence had warned Ukraine of the impending Russian attack, The Guardian reported on Friday, blaming the government in Kiev for not preparing the defensive lines better. Ukrainian soldiers who spoke to the Post said they could not bring up heavy machinery because the Russians would destroy it, and the lack of ammunition coming from the West meant they could not shoot back.
Ukraine’s 125th Territorial Defense Brigade, charged with holding a 43-kilometer section of the front, relied on surveillance drones to keep an eye on Russian movements. They lost all video feeds on the morning the advance began, due to Russian electronic warfare. The Starlink satellite internet feed – provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX since 2022 – also went down completely, for the first time ever.
Russian forces continue to advance in Kharkov Region, though Kiev has moved dozens of units north to reinforce the line – weakening their positions elsewhere. There have been reports of Russian advances in Chasov Yar, Krasnogorovka, and Netaylovo this week. Moreover, Ukrainian troops have lost Rabotino in Zaporozhye Region, the only town they managed to capture in last year’s counteroffensive.
Russia already outperformed Ukraine’s 2023 ‘counteroffensive’ – WaPo.
Putin responds to Kiev’s ‘peace formula’ ultimatum.
Russia won’t be pressured diplomatically, just as it cannot be defeated on the battlefield, the president has said.
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, China. © Sputnik / Sergey Guneev
Russia will not yield to ultimatums from Ukraine and its Western backers as they try to gain diplomatically what they have failed to gain militarily, President Vladimir Putin has said.
In mid-June, Switzerland will host an international conference to discuss Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called “peace formula.” Russia was excluded from the event.
Speaking to journalists on Friday, Putin reiterated Moscow’s perception of the upcoming event as a mere ruse by Kiev and the West.
”They want to gather as many nations as possible, convince everyone that the best proposal is the terms of the Ukrainian side, and then send it to us in the form of an ultimatum,” he said. “Is that the way one negotiates seriously? Certainly not.”
Russia and Ukraine had a preliminary agreement on a peace deal in 2022 which would have been beneficial for both sides, Putin noted. But after the general terms were negotiated, Kiev backtracked and declared it would be seeking a military victory instead. The attempt to force its demands on Moscow will fail just as the attempt to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia has failed, Putin vowed.
Read more: Ukraine situation ‘incredibly dire’ – Washington
The agreements made in Istanbul could serve as the basis for a future peace treaty, the Russian leader said. The benefits for Ukraine in the document were proposed by Kiev’s side, presumably with Western consent, if not authorship, Putin suggested. However, any future agreement “will have to take into account the realities on the ground,” he added.
Following the collapse of the peace talks in 2022, four regions of Ukraine held referendums in which they voted overwhelmingly in favor of breaking away from Kiev and joining Russia. The Ukrainian government has rejected the votes as a “sham.”
The Ukrainian ‘peace formula’ demands the return of the four regions and Crimea, which voted to become part of Russia in 2014, war reparations, a tribunal for the Russian leadership, and long-term global support for restoration of the country. Putin called it a “wish list” rather than a serious foundation for talks.
Putin responds to Kiev’s ‘peace formula’ ultimatum.
SCOTT RITTER: NATO is the Embodiment of Stupidity.
PROFESSOR JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Donor Class vs. the First Amendment.
DANNY HAIPHONG - THE DURAN: Russia is DESTROYING Ukraine's Army and Zelensky is FINISHED.
REDACTED: Russian forces are STUNNED by what they just found in Ukraine.
COLONEL LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Blinken Shreds Guitar, IDF Shreds Rafa.
INTEL Roundtable w/ Larry Johnson (Ex-CIA) & Ray McGovern (Ex-CIA): Weekly Wrap Up.
DANIEL DAVIS: Should We Believe Putin? LIVE from London w/ Matt Hoh.
JACKSON HINKLE: The Ukraine government murdered Gonzalo Lira and US didn’t say boo.
NATO Nation Germany 'Punishes' 7 Ukrainian Soldiers For Using Nazi Insignias, Warns Others.
EMIL COSMAN: BRICS Leaders won't attend Zelensky's "peace conference." Russia arms India. The Club is set.
Zelensky blames the Whole World for his MISTAKES. Typical behavior. It's not his fault in Kharkiv.
Brave, Logical Hungary against EU. Vetoes Zelensky. Putin smacks West's incoming ultimatum.
Putin Aide Issues Warning To U.S. Amid Russia-Ukraine War; ‘If West Chooses Path Of Escalation…’
BORZZIKMAN: Russia Wiped Out The Enemy Base Along With French Soldiers In KHARKIV ┃ AFU RETREATS ┃ NATO Is SHOCKED.
Ukraine War for Dummies: how and why it started. (filmed in the war zone - unlike 99% of the rest).
Putin reveals plans for Kharkov.
Russian combat operations are not aimed at capturing the city, the president has said.
Russia has no intention of capturing the Ukrainian city of Kharkov, which is close to the Russian border, President Vladimir Putin has said. Moscow’s forces have been making notable gains in the area in recent days.
Speaking to reporters at the Harbin Institute of Technology during his two-day visit to China, Putin commented on Russia’s operations in Kharkov Region, asserting that Moscow is achieving success on the battlefield by acting “strictly according to plan.”
When asked about Russia’s goals there, Putin noted that Ukraine is to blame for recent fighting in the area, as it “unfortunately continues to shell residential blocks in the border areas, including Belgorod.”
“Civilians are dying out there. Everything is crystal clear. They are firing directly at the center of the city,” the president said, recalling that he had publicly warned Kiev that Russia would be forced to establish a “cordon sanitaire” in the areas under Kiev’s control if the attacks continued.
This is what we are doing. As for [the capture of] Kharkov, there are no such plans for today.
Russian forces went on the offensive in Kharkov Region last week, pushing Ukrainian troops back and capturing several border settlements. In light of this, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky canceled all upcoming foreign trips and traveled to Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city.
Read more: Here’s why Russia’s Kharkov offensive is far more than just a military setback for Kiev
In an interview with ABC News on Thursday, he described the situation as “very serious,” stressing that Ukraine “cannot afford to lose” the city. Kiev also earlier announced the redeployment of reserves to this sector of the front.
In similar remarks, US Department of State spokesman Vedant Patel called the situation in the area “incredibly dire.” Several media reports suggested that the ease of Russia’s advance in Kharkov Region was due to Kiev’s failure to set up any proper defenses.
Putin first spoke of a “cordon sanitaire” back in March, following several particularly deadly attacks on Belgorod that left dozens of civilians dead. Russian border regions have also been the target of incursions by the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps and Russian Freedom Legion, which are composed of Russian defectors and fugitive neo-Nazis. Both groups have been designated terrorist organizations by Moscow.
Putin reveals plans for Kharkov.
ISRAEL <-> PALESTINE-IRAN-SYRIA-IRAQ-LEBANON-YEMEN
PROFESSOR JOHN J. MEARSHEIMER: Donor Class vs. the First Amendment.
COLONEL LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Blinken Shreds Guitar, IDF Shreds Rafa.
KATIE HALPER: American Doctors TRAPPED In Gaza.
Houthis Shoot Down U.S.’ Advanced MQ-9 Reaper Drone With Iranian Surface-To-Air Missile | Watch:
THE JIMMY DORE SHOW: Video: Students Force Police Off Campus.
College Protesters Know EXACTLY What They’re Protesting About.
On Cam: Israel Vs South Africa Argument Over Rafah Attack; Will ICJ Order Netanyahu To Stop? | Gaza.
COLLECTIVE WEST <-> GLOBAL MAJORITY
The US Dollar Total Collapse Begins. Major Countries DROP The Dollar.
USA
SEAN FOO: Economic Danger: IMF Slams The U.S. Over China, WARNS Of Cold War Fragmentation.
MULTIPOLARITY - RUSSIA-CHINA / BRICS
Putin and Xi pledge "new era" of Russia-China partnership.
DANNY HAIPHONG: What Putin and China just did is SHOCKING and the U.S. is in Real Trouble.
"US Sanctions Stupid, Illegitimate" | Putin Flaunts $240B Russia-China Trade, Vows Oil-Gas Pipeline.
Could a Russia-China alliance challenge perceived Western dominance?
SEAN FOO: Russia END Of U.S. Dollar, China Massive Treasuries SELL-OFF, Xi Plans Economic Dominance.
CYRUS JANSSEN: China’s MASSIVE Ocean Project Is About To Change The World!
EMIL COSMAN: BRICS Leaders won't attend Zelensky's "peace conference." Russia arms India. The Club is set.
US ‘abuse’ of markets fueling inflation – Putin.
Restrictions on Chinese and Russian goods are “dishonest competition,” the president has said.
© Bloomberg Creative
The West’s import bans and restrictions on numerous Russian and Chinese products will drive up inflation in the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned.
The comments came during a press conference the Russian leader gave in the city of Harbin during his two-day trip to China.
Putin was referring to the escalating trade war between Washington and China, and to the sanctions imposed by the US, the EU, and their allies on a wide range of Russian products following the start of the Ukraine conflict.
“They have imposed sanctions against [a variety of] goods. What will this lead to? To inflation in the United States, that’s what it will lead to. Because they will try to produce [the goods] themselves, on their own sites, pay wages to their own workers, using their own expensive metal, using their own expensive energy,” Putin said, as quoted by RIA Novosti.
READ MORE: US slaps steep tariffs on China
The US has previously placed bans and restrictions on imports of Russian energy resources and metals such as nickel, copper, and aluminum.
Washington also hiked tariffs on Chinese products earlier this week. Duties on electric vehicles (EVs) were quadrupled to over 100%, and new levies were imposed on computer chips, solar cells, and lithium-ion batteries. The White House claimed the new measures are intended to “protect American workers and businesses.”
Putin suggested that the US imposed restrictions against Chinese car imports because the quality of vehicles from the Asian nation is improving, and that Washington wants to prevent strong competitors from entering the American market.
He described the US approach as “dishonest competition.” As soon as a new country emerges as a manufacturing power and becomes more competitive, it is suppressed in the US and in the EU alike, Putin argued.
READ MORE: US bans import of Chinese ‘genocide’ cotton
Such “abuse” of the market will create inflation, Putin stated, describing the decisions made by the West as “foolish.”
Inflation in the US and across the EU has hit its highest levels in decades over the past few years, fueled by restrictions against Russia, a leading energy exporter, and the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.
US ‘abuse’ of markets fueling inflation – Putin.
EUROPE
Meloni Back to China Begging for Economic Help!
NON-ENGLISH NEWS
ALEXANDRE GUERREIRA: Andrey Perla: entrevista - o mundo, a Rússia, Putin, Belousov e o futuro - legendas (PT, ING, RUS).
MAPPING CHANNEL UPDATES
The Bloom | The Battle For Southern Vovchansk Has Started | The Strike In Odessa | MS For 2024.05.18
Field Hospitals in Sumy | Battle For Liptsy | The Russians In Chasiv Yar. Military Summary 2024.5.18
Battlefield Ukraine The Iron Rain Continues.
Russian Forces Breaking Ukrainian Lines Across The Front With Numerous Assaults.
[ Ukraine SITREP ] Day 813-814 (16-17/5): THREE settlements NEAR CAPTURE; FOUR new BATTLES coming.
WAR UPDATE: Key Russian Gains Towards NEW Defense Line.
Ukraine's Strategy Becomes Clear, Russia's REAL Goal In The North - Ukraine War Map Analysis News.
EXPATS IN RUSSIA
FULL INTERVIEW with Big American Family in Russia | Traditional Catholics @homeinrussia
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.
ADVOCATING TRUE FREEDOM INSIDE THE MENTAL ASYLUM OF WESTERN NORMALITY
How free are we? How free from conditioning by legacy media or subtle indoctrination by political/media talking heads? Or, even from self-imposed limits of everyday life where blissful banality rules?
They come across as honest brokers don’t they? They are given utmost respect by interviewers on your TV. They are well-dressed and equally well-rehearsed. They wouldn’t hurt a fly, would they?
After all, these are the defenders of free speech, human rights, democracy and all the western values we all enjoy. These are virtual saints are they not, the good guys and gals, those with the ‘right stuff’ to guard us all and keep us safe from those foreign savages ‘over there’.
You are used to them and their ways, their sometimes rumbustious politics, their silly arguments, the to and fro of normal politics. It’s all just harmless normality, crude, sometimes contemptuous… but not dangerous. Not dangerous. Mostly harmless…
Yet take a deeper look into the effects of such men and women away from the ‘Yah boo sucks!’ Punch and Judy show of everyday politics. Look at them in the milieu of the larger theater of their geopolitical ambitions, their global maneuvering and their ultra-serious determination to retain their power to manipulate, dominate, interfere in, undermine, bring war and chaos to and exploit nations far from their borders. That is where you will see these harmless “saints” for the criminal, and often totally murderous cabals that they truly are.
In respect of a global theater of operations these elite westerners, these designer-suited, well-coiffured and apparently highly urban, liberal-minded innocents, take on the value-systems and degree of integrity found in confidence tricksters, psychopaths and mass murderers.
You will find these people directing assassinations, engaging in plots to bring down presidents and prime ministers through manufactured scandals, you will find in this political cesspool, men and women creating non-governmental organizations to train activists in the art of bringing down governments, you will find them arranging black sites where torture can take place away from the scrutiny of human rights organization. In short you will find these western “saints” indulging in the most heinous and unconscionable acts of criminality imaginable.
In spite of all the above and it being reported time and time again by those not in the pay or sway of these political chameleons most of you will be mesmerized by the large, black, rectangular frame through which the facade of their respectability is incessantly delivered right to your brain. The very normality of this process will corrupt and condition most of you to one extent or another.
Your mind will revolt against the idea that these decent-appearing, normally-talking men and women can be anything other than what they appear to be. Nothing out of the ordinary will arrive through legacy media to disabuse you of this deeply conditioned belief.
At least not while you are not motivated to, too tired or too uninterested to look deeper than what that thin screen tells you.
Looking deeper can be an uncomfortable and in fact highly discomforting experience. The apparently normal and relatively cozy world where few questions are asked except for those most banal and commonplace, the usual fare, no challenge to the intellect in terms of any challenge to the accepted and acceptable norms of the average western life.
Moving from that shallow but predictable, and highly reassuring life of the banal everyday, has risks that the average subconscious may well warn you against. What’s in it for you? Only more grief perhaps? Extra anxieties you hardly need when you have more than enough already in terms of your work or relationships? Perhaps it’s best to stay comfortably numb, plumbed securely in the land of blissful ignorance and avid consumption that the average western life consists of.
Yet, slowly but surely the western way of life is unraveling. The headlines concerning social unrest, societal decay, violence, increasing chaos, anarchy, drug-taking and both physical and mental diseases are having their effect, disturbing your vicarious enjoyment of mind-numbing normality. Slowly but surely the decay outside is entering inside. Disputes within the home are becoming more frequent and solutions to family disorders of one kind or another are rising.
Money is growing short, rents, mortgages and prices in general are rising. It’s getting ever harder to make ends meet. And all the while you feel sicker and sicker in both mind and body. Are your politicians taking care of you? Truly? Is the system of blissful ignorance still working for you?
While you continue to suffer as one of the classes well below the level the political and media elites who manipulate you, these latter are in their element. Democracy has been transformed from something that once had some power of choice behind it for the elector is now a sham, a duopoly fix where your very limited intellect is guided and coaxed to choose between two extremely similar possibilities.
You are being taken for a ride on a merry-go-round that is no longer merry at all but has become a fixed circular loop with no exit. Except to venture out of the mainstream mental institution where blissful ignorance has you in a strait-jacket.
Until the day dawns as in the film ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ when the inmates get free (for a while) the criminals who run things in the West will keep giving you your daily dosage of reassuring banality and comfy distortion. The tranquilizers that have worked to mollify and sedate you until the day you broke free will now have no effect. On that day you will be TRULY free, not kept captive within the semantic mindtrap of what western politicians and media call freedom. You will be among the truly awoken and will never again be mesmerized in any way by the insistence that you be liberal, woke or a supporter of western wars. You will be free and on the outside.
There, in a totally new mindspace you will see with crystal clarity that those you believed were ‘normal’, the very usual, smiling, semi-convincing political class who run the western asylum are just as manipulative, just as cold-hearted and just as criminal and desirous of seeking your perpetual imprisonment as Nurse Ratched in Ken Kesey’s book and Miloš Forman’s film starring Jack Nicholson, ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’.
You may not be instantly happy at that point… but at the very least you will at last be truly free.
