The Kherson Counteroffensive

In Shakespeare's "Othello" the villain of the piece is supposed to be Iago. Today a lot of people would condemn Othello as a villain too, and not a tragic hero "who loved not wisely, but too well." That's because Othello was the one who actually plunged the dagger into Desdemona and killed her.

Still, nobody would let Iago off the hook, since he manipulated Othello to make that happen.

And none of this is to say that Putin's Russia loved the Ukraine and that this invasion is the result of jealousy. But just as Othello would not have killed Desdemona but for Iago's scheming, neither would Putin have invaded the Ukraine but for the USA's installing an anti-Russian government and giving control over its military policy to anti-Russian Nazis. (The descendents of people like our own Crystia Freeland's grandfather.)

Putin just wanted to be a "respectable" member of the "International Community" in the same way that Brazillian fascist Jair Bolsonaro is. The same way Saudi Arabia's Clown Prince Bonesaw is. The same way that apartheid Israel is.

But Putin and Russia are being targeted for the same reason that China is being targeted. Both of these countries are too powerful to be controlled by the USA. (In the same way, weaker countries like Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are being targetted. They have refused to slavishly obey the USA's dictates. They are weaker countries and so they suffer more with less ability to retaliate.)

You liberal fools can blather on all you want about Putin's corruption and authoritarianism and Russia's hopeless economy. That is not the issue for me. I have said again and again that I do not like Putin. I meant it. I recognize the hypocrisy of his "de-Nazification" of the Ukraine given his past support for far-right and outright fascists throughout Europe. But what I have also said, repeatedly, is that there is nothing to choose from between the gangsters in Moscow and the gangsters in Washington. Except that the volume of innocent blood spilled by the gangsters in Washington since 1945 is vaster by far than what was spilled by Russia/USSR. And, since the fall of the USSR, the USA has increased its rampaging throughout the world.

Brief note: Today on my browser homepage where article from across the mainstream internet are offered for my reading pleasure, there was one about Russia's attacks on Ukrainians' water supply. From the title I could also see there would be information about what the USA could do to help these poor Ukrainians. [I'm not going to bother finding the article here and providing a link. You can tons of that sort of garbage easily enough on your own.] The fact of the matter is that, aside from areas of actual fighting, Russia has not carpet-bombed Ukrainian infrastructure such as civilian power and transport and water systems. Mostly because the more destroyed the Ukraine becomes, the more unstable it becomes and the more desperate and angry its people. And the Ukraine borders Russia. (Whereas Iraq, Syria and Libya do not border the USA. Although that reminds me that the USA's leadership knows that its policies in Latin America create refugees that attempt to enter the USA. Indeed, when it recently began attacking Sandinista-governed Nicaragua, that Central American nation had been one of the few countries NOT sending floods of refugees northwards. As opposed to gangster-ridden Honduras ... itself the product of another US-backed coup ... Sandinsta Nicaragua's social services and political stability reduce the desire of its people to flee. I have speculated that the USA's oligarchs welcome these desperate people because the issue riles up the fears of US-American racists and provides a way to manipulate the US-American electorate.)

Regardless as to whether the Russians have been restrained in destroying Ukrainian infrastructure or not, it is another well-known fact that when the USA targets a country for bombing it obliterates civilian infrastructure, including water-supply networks. Furthermore, it will often later impose sanctions on those countries afterwards so that they couldn't rebuild them. And when it doesn't use bombs to destroy infrastructure and thereby increase civilian suffering and death, long-term sanctions can do the same things on their own. So, for some US-American bleeding-heart to talk about Russia's dastardly behaviour and to yammer about what the USA can do to help is the height of brainwashed stupidity and hypocrisy.

I don't for a second doubt the sincerity of the concern of the brainwashed denizens of the West for the wellbeing of the Ukrainians. But it is so self-evidently stupid and hypocritical when these fools call for further support for the war. Ukraine cannot win this war. Indeed, most Ukrainians did not want this war. This is war caused by fascist vermin (of the same foul ilk the US always supports like ISIS, Latin American death squads, thieving rapist pedophiles in Afghanistan, Israeli nazis and Saudi zealot fanatics), corrupt, cynical Ukrainian oligarch, at the behest of their Washington D.C. puppet-masters.

Vladimir Putin had no intention of "re-creating the Czarist/Soviet empire" because he's not an idiot.

If Othello would never have killed Desdemona but for Iago's manipulation, how much blame for her death should go to Othello and how much to Iago? How much of the bloodshed of innocent Ukrainians can be blamed on the USA since this war would NEVER have happened but for the USA's machinations?

So, apparently, the much-vaunted Ukrainian "counter-offensive" that I'd read about first at deluded pro-USA narrative blogs like "Cathy From Canada" and "Balloon Juice" and (in a rare return) "Lawyers, Guns & Money" has turned out to be a complete disaster.

The plan was crazy to begin with. The whole area is flat open steppe. The troops would have had to created a 50 kilometer (30 miles) long corridor through open hostile land. The towns on the way are mostly one or two street agricultural mini-villages with one story homes that offer little protection. The Ukrainian forces have no air defense or air attack capability to cover advancing troops. Its artillery capabilities are a tenth of what the Russian military can provide in the area. It was obvious from the beginning that this was a suicide mission.

Reportedly the Ukrainian military command was against this mission. But the Ukrainian political leadership, the Zelenski regime, ordered it to proceed. It was under political pressure from its foreign supporters to show at least some success.

The attack was launched on August 30. The Ukrainian military created three river crossings over the Inhulet near Andriivka. This already smelled bad. Why didn't the Russian airforce or artillery immediately destroy those crossings?

It was obvious that this was a trap.

...

For three days the Ukrainian military sent battalion after battalion into the salient. These were good professional troops trained by Britain. They were equipped with modernized Polish T-72 tanks and up-armored Dutch Infantry Fighting Vehicles (YPR-765 IFV). But while these force were able to create a deeper salient it would soon become their grave.

Late yesterday the Russian air force made its first real showing in this 'counteroffensive' affair. It attacked Ukrainian forces at the front of the salient in the tiny village of Bezimene with some 24 'dumb' 500 kilogram bombs. This ended the existence of the village and of all Ukrainian forces in it.

The Russian airforce then proceeded to destroy all river crossings over the Inhulet.

The Ukrainian forces are trapped:

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They have one choice. Give up, wave white flags or die.

Also from that MoA piece: Apparently the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors (who were being held-up by the Ukrainian side) have reached the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Station. A Ukranian force sent to capture it beforehand was discovered by the Russians and destroyed. With the presence of the IAEA, the shelling by artillery in the area has slowed considerably. Western imbeciles genuinely pondered whether the Russians were shelling themselves (to threaten the world 'natch) or whether the Russian "claims" that it was the Ukrainians had any merit. Gahhhhhh!!!!

Again: I don't doubt the sincerity of these brainwashed fools. But in their gullibility and their cheerleading for this evil stupidity they have covered themselves in filth. I don't trust either side's reporting on this issue. But, obviously, something is going wrong for the Ukrainians. The facts that are indisputable (such as the relatively small number of troops Putin is using/the fact that Russia has been able to keep most of what it has taken/the advanced ages and lack of training of Ukrainian cannon-fodder) show that the Ukraine is losing. It is clear for anyone who isn't a brainwashed chump that Zelensky is a corrupt, evil man allowing himself to be used as a puppet. And that he deliberately sent his countryment to their deaths for political reasons. I can sympathize his desire for self-preservation from the murderous threats of the fascist maniacs the USA has given weapons to. But I cannot sympathize with his cowardice at sending other innocent men to their deaths in the futile hope of showing some sort of fighting ability to his masters.