General Stephen M. Twitty, Former Deputy Commander of United States European Command (2018–2020) (part 2): I learned from the National War College there’s something called ends, ways, and means.

So if that’s your end state—pre-2014—then I’m interested to hear the ways and the means because, from a military standpoint, if that’s the way then the means would be the Ukrainians lack, again, the ability to pull that off to pre-2014. They just lack that ability. They don’t have the combat power.

And I also want to remind you we hear a lot about Russian casualties and Russian losses. We hear very little about Ukrainian losses, and keep in mind they’re losing soldiers throughout this war as well. They started at approximately two hundred thousand. Who knows where they are today?

And so it’s hard to recruit and maintain that level of professionalism in that military. So that’s my first point. The end, ways, and means, they lack that, to be able to go back to the pre-2014.

The second point that I would make is, you know, as you look at the DIME—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic—we’re woefully lacking on the diplomatic piece of this. If you notice, there’s no diplomacy going on at all to trying to get to some type of negotiations. And I don’t think that we can lead that, given where Putin thinks about us.

But if you sit back and think about those that could possibly be a part of this negotiation team, you know, you have the—two of them are in—that I’m going to list are in NATO. One is President Orbán out of Hungary. Perhaps he can help out in the negotiation effort. The other one is President Erdoğan of Turkey. Longtime friends of President Putin, although some view that relationship as transactional. I don’t know. Let’s put it to the test and see.

Don’t forget about China as well. You know, we have a tendency not to put China in this because we view them as a(n) adversary. But President Jinping has a relationship, obviously, and then don’t forget about India with President Kovind as well. And so I think we need to put more pressure on the diplomatic end of this and see if we can come to some type of resolution diplomatically.

And then the last thing I would say... We cannot call the terms on the end game here because here’s something we haven’t seen yet and it’s coming, believe me, as an—an insurgency that is going to brew out of this fight. And regardless of whether we bring the Russians and the Ukrainians to the table at this point—let’s just say tomorrow—you have a lot of angry Ukrainians out there.

They lost their homes. They lost their families. They’ve lost everything. And so there’s going to be insurgency that comes out of this thing whether a settlement happens or not that will keep this war going for some time, in my view. That’s all I have there. https://www.cfr.org/event/russias-war-ukraine-how-does-it-end

Following our subscriber's research, here is a link to Stephen Kotkin interview with Peter Robinson at "Uncommon Knowledge". Stephen Kotkin is a professor of history at Princeton and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. It was recorded a while ago, on January 14, 2022, so is not covering the recent development. However, it shows some of the ideas in the developing. I, personally, liked most the passage from Peter Robinson: "Putin is not a communist. He's a Russian, he stands in a tradition of 1,000 years of trying to assert dominance over that huge Eurasian mass. So why don't we let him have it? What is our interest in the Donbas region of Ukraine? Why should we even have been concerned when he recaptured, annexed, I think is the technical term, when he annexed Crimea, Sevastopol, the Russian port on the Black Sea was, I looked it up the other day, it was established in 1783 by Catherine The Great, it's a Russian holding. Let him expand because that's all he's interested in. He just wants to be Russian and we can live with that." https://www.hoover.org/research/5-questions-stephen-kotkin-1

Definition of war by Prof. S. Kotkin: "War is not I shoot artillery, you shoot artillery. I shoot a missile, you shoot a missile, right? War is about doing things like making cities unlivable, and forcing millions of refugees to flee. It's about shutting down communication systems, transportation systems, right? It's about shutting the lights off and shutting the power off, blowing things up and saying, I didn't do that. It's about decapitating the leadership, war is about eliminating the other society's ability to function, not just the battlefield, it's the society that's the aim. And so in a war game, you don't invade, you turn a country off, you make a country unlivable." That is why what is happening in Ukraine is NOT a war. It is a military operation.

However, there is always a risk and an opportunity for escalation. In his recent interview Putin noted that the supply of American MLRS to Kyiv is connected with replenishing the losses of Ukrainian military equipment. At the same time, the Russian side has an understanding that it is planned to supply missiles with a range of 45-70 kilometers.
“Yes, but if they are and will be supplied (longer range missiles), we will draw appropriate conclusions from this and use our weapons, which we have enough to strike at those objects that we have not yet struck,” Putin said.
Earlier, the United States announced the agreement on the supply of HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems to Ukraine, provided that they will not be used to strike at the territory of the Russian Federation.

Current situation at Severodonetsk and Lisichansk.

⚡️Briefing by Russian Defence Ministry

▫️The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation in Ukraine.

💥High-precision, long-range air-based missiles of the Russian Aerospace Forces have destroyed T-72 tanks and other armoured vehicles supplied by Eastern European countries and housed in the buildings of a car repair facility on the outskirts of Kiev.

💥High-precision air-based missiles in Kramatorsk, Druzhkovka and Chasov Yar (Donetsk People's Republic) have destroyed the factory shops where military equipment damaged during the hostilities was being repaired and restored for the Ukrainian armed forces.

▫️In addition, the command posts of the 81st and 95th Airborne Assault Brigades of the AFU, as well as 6 areas of Ukrainian manpower and military equipment concentration have been hit during the day.

▫️The attacks have resulted in the destruction of 2 Osa-AKM anti-aircraft missile launchers near Cherkasskoe (Donetsk People's Republic) and Orekhov (Zaporozhye Region), 2 multiple-launch rocket launchers near Korotych (Kharkov Region), 3 missile and artillery weapon depots near Mayaki and Slavyansk (Donetsk People's Republic), and 1 US-made counter-battery radar (AN/TPQ-50) near Seversk (Donetsk People's Republic).
Operational-tactical and army aviation have hit 3 command posts, 65 areas of manpower and military equipment concentration, and 3 ammunition depots.

▫️The attacks have resulted in the elimination of more than 350 nationalists, 10 tanks armoured and motor vehicles, 2 Grad multiple rocket launchers, 9 artillery pieces, 14 special vehicles, as well as tanks with fuel, near Konstantinovka railway station, destined for a group of AFU troops in Donbass and 2 ammunition depots near Bakhmut (Donetsk People's Republic) and Loskutovka (Lugansk People's Republic).

💥1 MiG-29 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force has been shot down during an aerial battle near Slavyansk (Donetsk People's Republic).

💥Russian air defence means near Odessa have shot down 1 An-26 military transport aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force carrying weapons and military equipment.
Also during the day, 10 unmanned aerial vehicles have been shot down near Vidrodzhennya, Ryasnoe, Svyatogorsk (Donetsk People's Republic), Kirovsk, Prudovka, Borovenki, Varvarovka (Lugansk People's Republic), Volchiy Yar, Bolshie Prokhody (Kharkov Region), Zazornoe (Zaporizhzhya Region), including 1 Bayraktar TV2 near Berezovka (Kharkov Region).

▫️In addition, 2 Tochka-U tactical missiles have been intercepted over Novogeorgievka (Nikolaev Region), and 3 Ukrainian Uragan multiple rocket launchers have been shot down near Sukhaya Kamenka, Dolgenkoe and Kamenka (Kharkov Region).

💥Missile troops and artillery have hit 46 command posts, 123 artillery and mortar units at firing positions, as well as 498 areas of AFU manpower and military equipment concentration.

📊In total, 189 Ukrainian aircraft and 129 helicopters, 1,114 unmanned aerial vehicles, 330 anti-aircraft missile systems, 3,416 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 470 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,778 field artillery and mortars, as well as 3,419 units of special military vehicles were destroyed during the operation.

#MoD #Russia #Ukraine #Briefing 
@mod_russia_en

Ukrainian UAV is hit by an antiaircraft missile - first person view perspective.🧐

The plant in Darnitsa (Kiev) is burning well.
According to the statement of the Russian Ministry of Defence, T-72 tanks from Eastern Europe were concentrated at the plant (most likely, work was underway to equip the vehicles and install dynamic protection systems).

⚡️A few minutes ago, the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched a massive artillery strike on the center of Donetsk

40 rockets from BM-21 Grad were fired in the center of Donetsk.

⚡️Несколько минут назад ВСУ нанесли массированный артиллерийский удар по центру Донецка

По центру донецка выпущено 40 ракет из БМ-21 «Град».

"Solntzepek" (Sun heat) systems in action somewhere in Kherson area.🔆

Videos of alleged missile hits at the storage sites of T-72 tanks near Kiev are published in social networks.

The author of the shooting speaks of at least four rocket arrivals.

Experts believe that on the basis of the Darnitsky car repair plant in the eastern part of Kiev, they could not only store T-72 tanks transferred by Poland, but also install dynamic protection on them, which was initially absent.

Barrage ammunition of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is hitting the objects of the military infrastructure of Ukraine.

Video of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and @rt_russian

Operation Libiration

‘They [Ukrainian army] are fascists; there’s nothing else to say. There is no Ukraine there... We weren’t the ones who came to them; they’ve come to us,’ a DNR militiaman, codename ‘Yakut’, told our camera crew in 2014.

After south-eastern Ukraine did not support the coup in Kiev, the new government started shelling civilians. According to the UN, more than 6,000 people died in the first year of the standoff.

Moreover, all the while, the Ukrainian military was preparing for an offensive in Donbass. By the end of 2021, a grouping of 150,000 people was concentrated on the region’s borders.

Russia could not allow further bloodshed and decided to support the Donbass. For a chronology of events, see the premiere of Operation Liberation.

#premiere #Donbass

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Following from: Have you ever seen someone changing his views as a result of an argument?

We are not impartial, but we are passionate about what we believe is true. We do war-time propaganda here. Yes, we would like more people to understand and share our views. However, we realise that it is impossible because of the different life and educational experience, which matters much more than anything you may find here or anywhere, as long as the neural network in your brain has reached maturity.
We respect your right to think differently. If you would have known what we know, you would be thinking like we do. But you don't. And it is not your fault, but it is our opportunity.
Propaganda in itself is not good nor evil. It is a method, it is a weapon. Honest propaganda does not hide, that it is propaganda. You may watch and listen and decide for yourself. Do not let the "nanny state" to limit your access to the information, any information. We believe that you can make sense out of it all.

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DNR artillery continues to destroy the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Maryinka. Artillery fire is traditionally corrected with "useless", "meaningless" and "ridiculous" quadcopters operated by "non-professionals".

War in Ukraine: Why the Ukrainian Armed Forces Do Not Want to Withdraw from Donbass. Made by famous Ukrainian analyst Yuri Podolyaka.

The British and Americans, in suggesting that the UAF withdraw from Donbass and thus save themselves for future fighting, do not understand one important circumstance. They do not understand that the UAF is able to hold out as long as they are covered by civilians.

And if they do not feel sorry for the inhabitants of Donbass, they may have problems with the other population of Ukraine. Because it is one thing to hide behind those whom you already in your heart consider to be outsiders, and quite another thing to hide behind your own...

Russia destroyed Mariupol? - A German journalist Anna Lipp talked to the local resident.

DON'T TEST US: Russian president Vladimir Putin WARNS of strikes on NEW targets after U.S. announces LONG RANGE ROCKETS for Kiev.

On March 24, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law that threatens those who steal, sell or misuse humanitarian aid and charitable donations with up to 12 years in prison.

Yet several cases of alleged profiteering have emerged.

This week, the deputy head of the military administration in Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine, Artur Muntyan, was arrested for allegedly using donated ambulances to provide private, for-profit services rather than for their intended uses.

In April, the acting mayor of a city near Lviv, also in the west, was arrested on charges that he had accepted a bribe worth $4,300 from a charity group for the transfer of a minibus donated by a humanitarian group in Finland.

And police in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia arrested a government employee last month for the illegal sale of firearms and ammunition. It is alleged that the head of a local rescue team was selling weapons intended to be used on the front against Russian soldiers, including an anti-tank grenade launcher, two Kalashnikov rifles and a quantity of rifle cartridges.

Ukraine has what the Global Organized Crime Index in 2021 called “one of the largest arms trafficking markets in Europe.” Experts have called for greater accountability and tighter controls over weapons shipments, in part to ensure that they are not diverted to the black market or for the personal profit of public officials. https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2022/06/04/ukraine-is-getting-rockets-and-tanks-from-the-west-but-front-line-soldiers-scrounge-for-bullets.html

Just recently we have posted a message from Donetsk about yet another shelling from Ukrainian side. Now, be careful, that is a translation from UNIAN website (Ukrainian):

On Saturday, June 4, the temporarily occupied Donetsk was under artillery barrage.
As the Centre for Counteracting Disinformation under the National Security and Defence Council notes, the invaders fired at the centre of Donetsk in order to create a “picture” in the media that would be beneficial to Russian propagandists.
"In the evening, the propaganda media reported that "a series of explosions sounded in Donetsk... The Armed Forces of Ukraine fired 40 shells from Grad, hitting the centre of the city." However, such statements by the Russian media are shattered by reports of eyewitnesses from occupied Donetsk" ...
"In general, the actions of the propagandists are aimed at intimidating the inhabitants of the occupied territories and justifying the "special operation", and once again emphasize the cynicism of the invaders that they are ready to fire on the civilian population for the sake of another news headline," experts say.

So, they really are trying to continue with the same "they shoot themselves" or "air-conditioning exploded" stuff as they were doing for the whole eight years... The most terrible (apart from meaningless loss of life) is that there are people who may still believe it.