#ukrainian military intelligence

[tomorrowusa]

Ukraine is said to have provided intelligence which led to deadly attacks by insurgents on Russian mercenaries in the West African nation of Mali. FYI: Tinzaouaten, the city closest to the attacks in Mali, is 2,440 miles/3,928 km from Ukraine's port city of Odesa.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has claimed it was involved in an ambush that killed fighters from Russia’s Wagner group in the west African nation of Mali, thousands of miles away from the frontline in Ukraine. A Telegram channel linked to the Wagner leadership on Monday admitted the group had suffered heavy losses during fighting in Mali last week. It said Wagner and the Malian armed forces had “fought fierce battles” over a five-day period against a coalition of Tuareg separatist forces and jihadi groups, who had used heavy weapons, drones and suicide bombers. Numerous Wagner fighters, including a commander, Sergei Shevchenko, were killed, the channel said. Andrii Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency, said on Monday that “the rebels received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals”. Yusov did not say whether Ukrainian military personnel were involved in the fighting or were present in the country. He said the agency “won’t discuss the details at the moment, but there will be more to come”. The Mali government, which has been fighting various insurgencies in the north of the country for more than a decade, requested help from Wagner after a military junta took power in 2020.

The Wagner Group is still around but under new management since Putin killed off its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.

So why is Russia in Africa?

The group is also active across Africa, and continues to be so even after Prigozhin was disgraced following a failed coup attempt last summer. He later died after an explosion onboard his plane, widely believed to have been ordered by the Kremlin, but Wagner’s influence in Africa remains. “For Moscow, the African countries where Wagner is present is just a zone of interest that allows it to get hold of resources – gold, diamonds, gas and oil – and the money goes to finance Russian aggression,” said Serhii Kuzan, director of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center in Kyiv, explaining why Ukraine might want to target Wagner in Africa. He added that the raids had additional benefits for Kyiv: “liquidating” some of the most experienced Wagner fighters and lowering the overall military potential of the group, and also exacting revenge for war crimes in Ukraine. “A significant part of the destroyed fighters got military experience in Ukraine, where they carried out hundreds or thousands of war crimes … these crimes should be punished, and Russian war criminals should know that they will never be safe,” said Kuzan.

Ukrainian intelligence has a long reach and Ukraine has a long memory for war crimes committed by the invaders.

On a linguistic note, GUR should realistically be written HUR. The full name of Ukrainian military intelligence is: Головне Управління Розвідки Міністерства Оборони України (Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine). For short, that's Головне Управління Розвідки.

In Russian, Г is pronounced like the English hard G. In Ukrainian, Г is pronounced like a regular English H. There's a separate letter in Ukrainian for English hard G written like this Ґ. But the Soviet Union tried to suppress this letter because its existence was another reminder that Ukrainian is not Russian. So there's been some lingering alphabetic confusion over the use of this letter. But I promise you that it is preferable to transliterate ГУР as HUR.

[workersolidarity]

🇺🇲🇺🇦 🚨

COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS REFUSES TO COMMENT ON THE ABDUCTION, IMPROSONMENT, TORTURE AND EXTORTION OF JOURNALIST GONZALO LIRA BY UKRAINIAN SBU

The United States' Committee to Protect Journalists, headquartered in New York, had no comment on the situation of American-Chilean journalist, Gonzalo Lira, who is being held by the Ukrainian Intelligence Services (SBU).

“We studied the incident and came to the conclusion that it goes beyond the mandate of the Committee to Protect Journalists,” the organization’s press service told Russian State-News organization, RIA Novosti.

When asked why, the press service employee indicated that “in our regional program they said that this is because what he does, according to our criteria, is not journalism."

According to the article, a RIA Novosti correspondent was shown these criteria indicated on the committee’s website. They say, in part, that the committee "defines journalists as people who report news or comment on public issues in print, in photographs, on radio, television or online."

By definition, this would certainly make Gonzalo Lira, a career journalist, qualify. However, no response was given when Ria Novosti journalists pointed this out, nor did they explain why the Committee does not consider Gonzalo Lira's reporting and commentary to be journalism.

According to the Committee's website, "The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom around the world. We defend the right of journalists to report news safely and without fear of reprisal."

The SBU, for its part, claims that the American-Chilean journalist tried to flee from justice, and say his imprisonment took place "within the framework of the Law."

As for the claims of Lira's attempts to "escape justice", these are almost certainly true as shortly prior to his re-imprisonment, Lira uploaded a video to the video streaming platform YouTube stating his intention of going over the border to Hungary just before his court date.

However, Lira also told a harrowing account of his time in SBU custody, accusing the Ukrainian State Intelligence Services of abuse and torture, and even claimed the he was extorted for tens of thousands of dollars by the SBU through beatings from fellow inmates and corrections officers.

Previously, the U.S. State Department admitted to being aware of Lira's imprisonment, but declined to comment on any steps being taken by the White House to help free the detained American-Chilean journalist.

The White House Coordinator for Strategic Communications, John Kirby, also refused to comment on Lira's situation.

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[madstronaut]

had to do a double take because this showed in my news instafeed instead of tumblr and i was like wtf? IRL ghost mask on a ukrainian soldier

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Saint Javelin (@saintjavelin)

My first thought was “he must have 3D-printed and handpainted and sewn it himself?!”

[memecucker]

Imagine if one of Russia’s biggest talking points was alleging that the Ukrainian military was engaging in mass rape and beheaded babies in Donbas and never gave evidence of it and a major US newspaper published an article wholly endorsing that narrative still without evidence and it turned out the author was not only a Russian ultranationalist who liked tweets calling for Kiev to be made into “a slaughterhouse” but also worked for Russian intelligence agencies.

That’s what’s going on with the Anat Schwartz and NYTimes shit right now

[komsomolka]

The Ukrainian state is US/Western controlled and, in its alliance and arming, is effectively NATO-like. Washington, according to coup-happy Victoria Nuland in 2014, pumped some $5 billion into Ukraine since the Western-intelligence induced “Orange” revolution in 2004; an additional $15-$18 billion in arms, loans, and grants (from the US and EU) were poured into Ukraine since the 2013-2014 CIA-backed, far-right enforced regime change of the democratically elected Ukrainian government and until before the war began.

With on-the-ground CIA direction, power in Ukraine was consolidated among a small sociopolitical base of venal Russophobes, political pluralism representing genuinely alternative visions to the essentially nationalist, ultranationalist, pro-NATO parties disbanded. The Ukraine army, neo-fascist death squads, and small, Nazi-throwback extreme right-wing parties, celebrated by the new leaders and incorporated into the Ukrainian state, went on a repression spree, a terror campaign, to crush protests and dissent against those who were unhappy with what transpired and to erase all things Russian, including an eight-year shelling and sniping war on civilians designed to create terror and ethnic cleansing in eastern Donbass. This was not a democracy but a monopoly on power to consolidate a vociferously, fanatically anti-Russian state.

Ukraine is (or now, was) merely a platform for a Western proxy war against Russia, a forward operations base, a front line state, its “foreign policy” directed by the American proconsul, its institutions “advised” by American/Western intelligence functionaries and embassy officials, whose job since 2014 was to ensure continuing aggravation and antagonism in Donbass to elicit, in fact, a Russian response justifying long-prepared sanctions, escalation and pretext for “confronting” Russia. [...]

The Russian offensive, therefore, occurred for a much more ominous reason than the Ukrainian state terrorism visited upon eastern Donbass: the US/West’s wordless wish is no less than demoralizing, weakening, bankrupting, and territorially fragmenting the Russian Federation, controlling its markets and resources, indebting its people and rendering them dependent on US-dominated financial institutions, and bringing Russia under American dependency.

A pivotal principle of American hegemony is to obstruct and destroy friendly, normal ties, much less integration, between Russia and Europe, Germany being the fulcrum.

More simply, the strategic US/CIA goal is to ensnare Russia in a protracted war, deplete it, damage it, regime-change it, install a supine leader—all as a prelude to the big fantasy: bringing down China.

The multifaceted war on Russia has been ongoing since at least the late 1990s, but really, it never stopped with the Soviet state’s disappearance. This veiled hostility and aggression certainly existed when Boris Yeltsin was in power (a good vassal according to Washington, this silly and funny man that made Bill Clinton laugh) but took off around 2005, after Washington understood that Vladimir Putin was putting Russia on an independent course, reversing the conditions overseen under the preceding, deplorable Yeltsin era, including steep economic, social, military, and developmental decline and the immiseration of the vast majority of the population, looting oligarchs, and economic “liberalization” designed in Washington. [...]

Russia has literally allowed itself to be cornered since 2014, though it needed time to achieve a conventional and nuclear deterrent. It’s not hard to see reality: Russia is given no quarter, no voice, its real concerns and grievances dismissed, its leader demonized, its marginalization doggedly pursued at every level of international and bilateral social and cultural interactions. No appeal to reason, to international law, to security, to evidence will do for the West, no amount of patient legal argument, explanation of Russian concerns, appeals, professional warnings, consummate diplomacy and transparency of Russian interests made an impression. Instead, the Western response was and is always to double down. [...]

Finance capitalism, the system of speculative bubbles, derivatives, debt, declining standards of living, and hyperinflation, is ruining Western economies, states and societies, destroying the middle classes. The US cannot tolerate Eurasian integration and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, determined to stop any alternative development model to hyper-capitalism enriching the few, cannibalizing the many; that reduces the US to one of a handful of important multipolar players.

Washington’s grave mismanagement of international relations, its self-defeating policies, has actually weakened genuine American interests and national security and the well-being and safety of the American people, a phenomenon that cannot be naively attributed to Democrats or Republicans, this or that president. Instead, the war-state is deeply embedded in the American political economy, in factions such as the “intelligence community,” the military-industrial complex, influential establishment neo-cons, and liberal interventionists, all living in a world of yesterday.

We are rushing headlong into extremely dangerous times in which facts are a threat to the state narrative and any dissent or differing opinion is treachery. Fascism does not come from below, always from the top.

[she-is-ovarit]

Ukrainian saboteurs who are alleged to have poisoned and killed 46 Russian soldiers are on the run in annexed Crimea after a shoot-out with police, a local report says. Two young saboteurs who had poisoned members of the Russian military in Simferopol and Bakhchisarai fled when authorities attempted to detain them in Crimea, Telegram channel Kremlin Snuffbox said on Tuesday. The police went to apprehend the female suspects at a private house in Yalta but were surprised to find them "well armed" and "well prepared," the post said.

The saboteurs opened fire and fled the scene in a car, and authorities do not know their current whereabouts. Three officers were killed and two were wounded in the shoot-out, a source in Russia's Federal Security Service told the Telegram channel. It was reported in December that members of a Ukrainian partisan group called Crimean Combat Seagulls poisoned and killed 24 Russian soldiers after lacing their vodka with arsenic and strychnine. At the time, Snuffbox quoted unnamed sources as saying that "two nice girls" tricked the unit in Simferopol, Crimea, into drinking the vodka, per the Kyiv Post translation. In another incident, saboteurs killed 18 and hospitalized 14 Russian personnel in Bakhchisarai, Crimea, by putting arsenic and rat poison in pies and beer, Kremlin Snuffbox previously reported. Russian military personnel stationed in Crimea have been asked not to take any food or any drinks from strangers and to detain any suspicious young women who approach them to prevent further incidents of poisoning. Business Insider could not independently verify the report. There were also been reports of two mass poisonings of Russian troops in Mariupol in 2023. Acts of sabotage by Ukrainian resistance and partisan groups are used to harass Russian soldiers in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014, and other occupied territories, and supply intelligence for Ukrainian strikes on military installations.

[apas-95]

“American officials are worried that Ukraine’s adjustments will race through precious ammunition supplies, which could benefit President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and disadvantage Ukraine in a war of attrition. But Ukrainian commanders decided the pivot reduced casualties and preserved their frontline fighting force.

“American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.” …

In an article published Thursday titled “U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal,” The Washington Post cited anonymous “U.S. and Western officials” to report that the massive losses Ukraine has been suffering in this counteroffensive had been “anticipated” in war games ahead of time, but that they had “envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia’s main defensive line.” …

In an article published last month titled “U.S. Cluster Munitions Arrive in Ukraine, but Impact on Battlefield Remains Unclear,” The New York Times reported unnamed senior US officials had “privately expressed frustration” that Ukrainian commanders “fearing increased casualties among their ranks” were switching to artillery barrages, “rather than sticking with the Western tactics and pressing harder to breach the Russian defenses.”

“Why don’t they come and do it themselves?” a former Ukrainian defense minister told The New York Times in response to the American criticism.

The Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed western military officials “knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons” needed to dislodge Russia, but that they had “hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day” anyway. …

In the same article, The Wall Street Journal cited a US Army War College professor named John Nagle admitting that the US itself would never attempt the kind of counteroffensive it’s been pushing Ukrainians into attempting.

“America would never attempt to defeat a prepared defense without air superiority, but they [Ukrainians] don’t have air superiority,” Nagl said, adding, “It’s impossible to overstate how important air superiority is for fighting a ground fight at a reasonable cost in casualties.” …

Last month The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote an article explaining why westerners shouldn’t “feel gloomy” about how things are going in Ukraine, writing the following about how much this war is doing to benefit US interests overseas:

“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”

“Other than for the Ukrainians” he says, as a parenthetical aside.

[mariacallous]

Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy presented his Victory Plan at the Verkhovna Rada on October 16, stressing the end of the war depends on Ukraine’s partners and not on Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin.

The Victory Plan consists of 5 points and 3 secret subpoints.

"If the plan is supported, we can end the war no later than next year," Zelenskyy said. "If we and our partners don't strengthen now, Putin will significantly strengthen next year.”

The President emphasized that Moscow is not interested in peace.

"Russia isn’t seeking an honest peace. Putin only wants war. We must change the circumstances so the war ends regardless of what Putin wants," Zelenskyy said.

The key points from President Zelenskyy’s address are as follows:

Invitation of Ukraine to NATO: Zelenskyy emphasized that Ukraine's invitation to NATO would serve as a "proof of determination" and signal how NATO partners envision Ukraine’s role in the future "security architecture."

Strengthening Defense: This point includes operations in strategic locations to prevent the creation of buffer zones within Ukraine, enhanced anti-aircraft defenses, joint efforts with partners to shoot down Russian aircraft, expanding the use of Ukrainian drones and missiles, removing restrictions on the use of weapons, and providing access to partner intelligence.

Deterrence: Zelenskyy called for the deployment of a comprehensive non-nuclear deterrence package aimed at protecting Ukraine from Russian aggression and limiting Russia's capabilities.

Development of Strategic and Economic Potential: Zelenskyy also highlighted the need to strengthen Ukraine’s strategic and economic potential, as well as intensify sanctions against Russia.

Post-War Contribution to NATO: After the war, the Ukrainian military could apply its experience to bolster NATO and European defense efforts. The President also suggested that Ukrainian forces could eventually replace the U.S. contingent in certain areas.

According to Zelenskyy, the second, third, and fourth points have secret sub-points that are revealed to the US and certain EU countries, including Britain and Italy.

Zelenskyy had planned to unveil his Victory Plan to Ukraine's Western allies during the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Germany's Ramstein airbase on October 12. However, the gathering was canceled after US President Joe Biden postponed his overseas travel due to Hurricane Milton.

[quotesfrommyreading]

Much of the public discussion of Ukraine reveals a tendency to patronize that country and others that escaped Russian rule. As Toomas Ilves, a former president of Estonia, acidly observed, “When I was at university in the mid-1970s, no one referred to Germany as ‘the former Third Reich.’ And yet today, more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we keep on being referred to as ‘former Soviet bloc countries.’” Tropes about Ukrainian corruption abound, not without reason—but one may also legitimately ask why so many members of Congress enter the House or Senate with modest means and leave as multimillionaires, or why the children of U.S. presidents make fortunes off foreign countries, or, for that matter, why building in New York City is so infernally expensive.

The latest, richest example of Western condescension came in a report by German military intelligence that complains that although the Ukrainians are good students in their training courses, they are not following Western doctrine and, worse, are promoting officers on the basis of combat experience rather than theoretical knowledge. Similar, if less cutting, views have leaked out of the Pentagon.

Criticism by the German military of any country’s combat performance may be taken with a grain of salt. After all, the Bundeswehr has not seen serious combat in nearly eight decades. In Afghanistan, Germany was notorious for having considerably fewer than 10 percent of its thousands of in-country troops outside the wire of its forward operating bases at any time. One might further observe that when, long ago, the German army did fight wars, it, too, tended to promote experienced and successful combat leaders, as wartime armies usually do.

American complaints about the pace of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and its failure to achieve rapid breakthroughs are similarly misplaced. The Ukrainians indeed received a diverse array of tanks and armored vehicles, but they have far less mine-clearing equipment than they need. They tried doing it our way—attempting to pierce dense Russian defenses and break out into open territory—and paid a price. After 10 days they decided to take a different approach, more careful and incremental, and better suited to their own capabilities (particularly their precision long-range weapons) and the challenge they faced. That is, by historical standards, fast adaptation. By contrast, the United States Army took a good four years to develop an operational approach to counterinsurgency in Iraq that yielded success in defeating the remnants of the Baathist regime and al-Qaeda-oriented terrorists.

A besetting sin of big militaries, particularly America’s, is to think that their way is either the best way or the only way. As a result of this assumption, the United States builds inferior, mirror-image militaries in smaller allies facing insurgency or external threat. These forces tend to fail because they are unsuited to their environment or simply lack the resources that the U.S. military possesses in plenty. The Vietnamese and, later, the Afghan armies are good examples of this tendency—and Washington’s postwar bad-mouthing of its slaughtered clients, rather than critical self-examination of what it set them up for, is reprehensible.

The Ukrainians are now fighting a slow, patient war in which they are dismantling Russian artillery, ammunition depots, and command posts without weapons such as American ATACMS and German Taurus missiles that would make this sensible approach faster and more effective. They know far more about fighting Russians than anyone in any Western military knows, and they are experiencing a combat environment that no Western military has encountered since World War II. Modesty, never an American strong suit, is in order.

  —  Western Diplomats Need to Stop Whining About Ukraine

[tomorrowusa]

F-16 fighter jets are apparently now in Ukraine and under Ukrainian command. 🇺🇦

Ukraine has received the first batch of fourth-generation U.S.-made F-16 jets, Bloomberg reported on July 31, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The news comes a year after the allied "fighter jet coalition" took shape at the Vilnius NATO summit under the Danish and Dutch leadership. The deadline for the transfer of F-16s was late July, the sources told Bloomberg. Ukraine received "a small number" of the planes, the sources said. Ukraine is expected to receive at least 79 F-16s from the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway, with the deliveries to continue in the coming years. The fighter jet coalition also pledged to help train Ukrainian pilots and technical staff to operate the jets. It is unclear whether the trained Ukrainian pilots will be able to use combat aircraft immediately or the process will take longer, unnamed people told Bloomberg. Kyiv is yet to confirm these reports. The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American air superiority fighter that Kyiv has begged for since the start of the full-scale invasion. Although some defense experts do not expect F-16s to become game-changers in the war, the jets may strengthen Ukraine's air defense capabilities and shield the country's population centers from Russia's daily bombardments.

Earlier this week we heard that Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) was involved in successful attacks on Russian mercenaries in the West African nation of Mali. Now there's news that Ukraine was behind an attack on a Russian base in Syria – a Putin client state.

Ukrainian special forces strike Russian base in Syria after Putin-Assad meeting

The military intelligence's special unit Khimik struck Russian military equipment at the Kuweires airfield, located east of Aleppo and occupied by Russian forces, NV's sources in the HUR confirmed. The Kyiv Post published a video showing a Russian electronic warfare mobile complex being destroyed, followed by drones attacking Russian military facilities at the airfield. [ ... ] The Defense Intelligence conducted the attack a day after Russian dictator Vladimir Putin met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on July 24. The Kuweires airfield has been controlled and used by Russian forces for military purposes since 2015.

Putin helped Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad crush the Arab Spring uprising early in the 2010s. There are still Russian forces in Syria. Apparently Russia is recruiting mercenaries in the country to fight in Ukraine.

Ukraine is putting Putin on notice that Russian military activity anywhere on the planet is a valid target for Ukrainian forces.

[thelostdreamsthings]

{Why is Telegram a big headache for the Jews, USA and France?

Why did they decide to literally kidnap the owner Pavel Durov at the Paris Airport?

Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested today in France, there are different charges against him.

Telegram is the main source of information about the Israeli genocide and massacre in Gaza.

Thousands of videos of Jews massacring children have been posted on Telegram channels by journalists living in Gaza.

Israel is trying to stop that flow of information and that is why it has killed over 100 journalists in Gaza alone.

The most accurate information about the situation on the ground in Ukraine comes out on Telegram, and NATO can't control it.

Many people use Telegram as their source of information because the information comes directly from the field.

Many dead NATO soldiers appear on Telegram and the CIA and NATO command can no longer hide their direct involvement in the war broke out in Russia.

Telegram did a lot of damage to the French army in Africa.

The Africans organized all their protests, resistance and everything else against the French occupation forces through Telegram.

Russian mercenaries, obviously, use different platforms, but Telegram played for them an important role in accelerating the deterioration of France's military posture, especially in Africa.

This is a famous photo of Telegram founder Pavel Durov giving Putin his middle finger.

In 2011, Durov said that the Russian government had requested him to cancel the accounts of anti-government figures on his social media platform.

Durov not only did not follow, but also publicly released this photo of "raising the middle finger to Putin" in the media, which received cheers from the West.

After the 2014 Ukrainian coup, Durov refused to provide the Russian government with information on users involved in the Ukrainian colorful revolution.

In the same year, he left Russia, claiming that Russia was "unable to keep up with the information age". Shortly after, he acquired French and UAE citizenship and stated that he had no plans to return to Russia.

Today, Durov was arrested by France on charges of using the platform to "support terrorist activities" and "pedophilia" after refusing to provide user information to the United States and Israel, facing 20 years of imprisonment.

Durov helped Ukrainians stage a coup d'état in 2014.

Then the whole West glorified him.

He also trolled the Russian FSB and sent them the “encryption keys” to telegram in 2017.

Back then the west cheered his fight on.

The founder of Telegram has been detained by French intelligence services at Le Bourget Airport in Paris while exiting a private jet.

He is expected to be presented to a judge later this evening, facing multiple charges, according to TF1.

Potential charges include terrorism, drug-related offenses, complicity, fraud, money laundering, concealment, and possession of child exploitation content.

The main concern of EU authorities regarding Telegram is its encrypted messaging, as reported by TF1}

{And despite Durlov helped NATO in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, Russia is working to free Telegram founder Pavel Durov after he was arrested in France.}

If Pavel Durov could be arrested on these charges, then any country can arrest the leaders of Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft… any tech company that helps people communicate!

France is a 🤡 puppet of USA and Israel, who are mad at not having backdoor to Telegram.

Regarding Pavel Durov, Julian Assange, TikTok, Scott Ritter etc. etc. ⬇️

"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater." Frank Zappa

[democratthatlovesguns]

Putin's Folly

For all his intelligence and military training, Putin has misunderstood his strength. He believed, erroneously, that a small demonstration of violence would convince a free and sovereign nation to submit to his will. He believes himself an exception (an anomaly); that is, he believes he will be the first strongman/dictator in the history of the world to abuse his power freely and not be undone by it.

Everyone has the power to take life; yet no one has the power to give life. It is a lesson every dictator eventually has to learn.

Putin, like many before him (including Hitler), believes he alone can give life to a people zealously loyal to his vision of a free and happy society. He believes he has the answer to the meaning of life - and by it, that he is given the right to tell any other human being how to live his or her life (they/them) purposefully.

He has created so much bad blood, that in his absence (not that many years from now) Russia will fragment itself even more than any other time in history. All his fellow Russian strongmen will feel equally entitled to the throne - many of them will die tragic deaths trying to consolidate power - and none will succeed.

The result will be a full restoration of the Ukrainian territory and Russia partitioned into north and south, east and west.

The world will know yet again, that this story is as old as time - just ask the Romans, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Mayan, the Spanish, the British, etc.

[justacynicalromantic]

We, Ukrainians, are famous for making memes. We love memes. So much so it reflects in others areas of our lives.

Symbol of Russia's main military intelligence agency - a bat. Their slogan: "Only stars are above us".

Ukraine' military agency's symbol was created much later. It is an owl. Holding a sword pointing at Russia on the map. It's slogan? "Sapiens dominabitur astris" - "The wise rule the stars"

Want more? Here you can see a picture hanging on the wall of Budanov's (the Chief of UA Intelligence Agency) Office - that is nothing BUT pure meme🤣

[follow-up-news]

South Korea on Monday demanded the immediate pullout of North Korean troops allegedly deployed in Russia as it summoned the Russian ambassador to protest deepening military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow. South Korea’s spy agency said Friday it had confirmed that North Korea sent 1,500 special operation forces to Russia this month to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier said his government had intelligence that 10,000 North Korea soldiers were being prepared to join invading Russian forces. During a meeting with Russian Ambassador Georgy Zinoviev, Vice South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun “condemned in the strongest terms” North Korea’s troop dispatch that he said poses “a grave security threat” to South Korea and the international community, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

[komsomolka]

One notable instance of this proxy war occurred in mid-September, when Ukrainian forces, in coordination with militant groups in Syria, including Al-Qaeda offshoot Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS - formerly known as Al-Nusra Front), launched a series of drone attacks on Russian military facilities in Syria. [...]

The operation involved Ukrainian private mercenaries called "Khimek,” affiliated with the Main Directorate of Ukrainian Intelligence, working alongside Idlib-based militants to target a drone production and testing site in the southeastern suburbs of Aleppo, according to a Kiev Post report on 18 September. The following day, further drone attacks were carried out on ten Syrian military positions in Aleppo, the southern Idlib countryside, and in northeastern Latakia. In early October, two major Russian military sites - the Hmeimim Base and a weapons depot near the coastal city of Jableh — were repeatedly targeted.

But these operations were not the first initiative aided by Ukrainian military and intelligence agents in Syria. On 26 July, in what militant forces described as a “devastating” and “complex” strike, they targeted Kuweires military airport in Aleppo's east, used as an airbase by Russian troops, one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad in Moscow.

The alliance between Ukrainian intelligence and Syrian militant groups, with support from NATO, is a relatively new but significant development. It began earlier this year, when a Ukrainian delegation visited Idlib to negotiate with the HTS leadership for the release of several Chechen, Georgian, and Uighur militants being held in HTS prisons — estimated at between 750 and 900 prisoners — to enlist as mercenaries for the Ukrainians. The concluded agreement involved the release of militants detained by HTS in exchange for 250 Ukrainian military experts providing training, particularly in the use of drones. The trainees include Turkmen Salafists tasked to manufacture drones and photograph potential Russian and allied Syrian military targets, particularly the 25th Division special forces and National Defense Forces in Hama, Aleppo, and Latakia. [...]

US military forces occupying northeastern Syria play a connection and transportation role in this setup. It is the main actor in managing these various conflict zones and coordinating the positions and cooperation of its proxies.

In early August 2024, the US facilitated the arrival of Ukrainian experts in areas near Jabal al-Zawiya in Idlib and helped transfer aircraft parts - in exchange for transporting extremist fighters, via US bases in Syria, to areas north of Donetsk Oblast. [...]

The militant groups themselves benefit from this alliance in several key ways. With Turkiye edging toward reconciliation with Syria, and Russian-Iranian military cooperation advancing, these groups are left increasingly vulnerable. Aligning with Ukraine and NATO provides them with new resources and support, ensuring their continued survival in the face of changing regional dynamics. The cooperation also offers Syrian extremists access to advanced technology, particularly in drone warfare, which has become a crucial element in their ongoing fight against Syrian and Russian forces.