Andrey Raevsky (The Saker): 50 days of SVO – is the situation clearing up? (vital)

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So, the “special military operation” exceeded 50 days; just between the end of the first phase and the beginning of the second. So I want to start by listing a few things that were unclear/ambiguous/misunderstood and are now becoming clearer or clearer.

There is a saying: “no plan survives the first contact with the enemy.” I would even expand it to “no plan survives first contact with reality.” The first is obvious – the enemy will try to disrupt your plans, but the second is less known – there is always a large element of chaos in the fighting, simply because your entire country and your armed forces are in the same mode until the start of hostilities and because they have to very quickly switch to a completely new reality.

So the point isn’t to stick to Plan A at all costs, but it’s also not about throwing it all away and reinventing the wheel. What is needed is a quick response to identify problems and fix them. I would say that with this in mind, the Russian military has done a very good job of quickly turning an integrated Ukrainian army capable of strategic operations into a fragmented entity, the various parts of which are isolated and unable to support each other.

What is my evidence for this? There was not a single Ukrainian counterattack higher than at the level of a unit (battalion, company). Given that the Ukrainians have the double advantage of being on the defensive and outnumbered, this is indeed a remarkable achievement. Add to this money, weapons and intelligence support from the US / NATO, and this (actions of the RF Armed Forces – ed. ) is nothing short of a triumph.

At the same time, Russia as a whole, and especially the military, have done an absolutely terrible job of communicating with the public, both in Russia and in the West. The only mistake American psych ops made was that they really “overdid it,” which deeply angered and repulsed the Russian public, who very quickly went from “what’s going on?” to “we are fighting for our very survival”… However, in the West, American psy ops actually prevailed and completely defeated Russian counter-propaganda efforts, which, in truth, were primitive, clumsy, slow, and at times even doomed to failure. Does it matter? Yes, very big. Why?

Because most people in “Zone A” (Anglo-Saxon countries – ed. ) sincerely believe that “Russia is losing.” These are the same people who until February 2022 were all virologists / epidemiologists / microbiologists / etc. And who, having accomplished a remarkable feat, overnight became military experts and now sincerely advise the Russians on how to conduct their special operation.

They simply do not believe that some questions require years of preparation to gain the knowledge necessary to understand even the basics. As Andrei Martyanov points out , a bachelor’s degree in communications or law does not turn you overnight into a military expert (by the way, I note a very large “coincidence” between COVID death cult members and couch generals).

Objectively, there is also a double language and cultural barrier. Very few people in Zone A speak Russian fluently or even just well. They understand the Russian mentality even less. So if all the English-language media (including supposedly pro-Russian ones – more on that later) are saying something, there’s no point in expecting most English-speakers to find the right Russian-language telegram channels to get to the other side of the information. As for RT and Sputnik, in their naive and clumsy attempts to appear “objective,” they simply reinforce Western propaganda narratives.

But there is also an interesting phenomenon that has become apparent over the past 50+ days – there are quite a few websites and blogs that pretend to be pro-Russian, but in fact this support for them depends on whether Russia supports their agenda, and if the Russians act differently, these allegedly pro-Russian media are quick to adopt and put forward the same theses as the American psyops. There are also a number of websites pretending to be “liberal”, “leftist” or “anti-imperialist”. They have always been run by the CIA, but over the years they have acquired some (totally undeserved) authority, and some have now suddenly “changed their shoes.”

The result of all this is fear, uncertainty and doubt, of course. And their consequences.
This gives the West a sense of impunity and almost completely hides the extent of the dangers that the Empire of Hatred and Lies faces today – from real food shortages to economic collapse and even continental war in Europe. After all, if the Russians are losing, then “we” should win, so “like” everything is fine.

This strongly encourages Kyiv to fight to the last Ukrainian and to the complete destruction of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Yes, the united West wants to carry out the genocide of Russians through the genocide of Ukrainians. Nothing is more overtly satanic than this!

From all of the above, we need to make some very simple predictions.

What began as a “special military operation” is now turning into an all-out confrontation between the united West and Russia, which means that the goal of the West is not peace, not its victory, but the defeat of Russia. My personal conclusion is that the West will stop redoubling its efforts only if the US territory itself is threatened by Russia’s conventional and nuclear strategic deterrent capabilities.

Russians are slowly but surely coming to the realization that, despite all the concessions and retreats made by Russia since 2013, the Empire of Hatred and Lies will not stop on its own, Russia will have to stop it. Again. As the motto of the Airborne Forces says – “No one but us!”.

Ukrainians have no subjectivity, just like European lemmings. In fact, the US is using both the Ukronazis and their EU servants as cannon fodder, because their calculation is not only that if Russia wins, the Eurolemmings will become scared and even more subservient, but also that the EU will burn itself to the ground, eliminating a competitor. I remind you that US wealth is based on how much the US gained from both World War I and World War II. So why not repeat the same with World War III as long as it remains within the European theater of operations? And this will be doubly true if Russia loses.

My first takeaway here is that a direct military conflict involving NATO and Russia is now likely. This in itself is simply terrible, but here is the simple truth: if the Anglos once again want to burn the European continent to the ground, then Russia may not be able to do anything to prevent this. And forget the suicidal Eurolemmings. Russia can win this conflict, and it will win – but, again, at a huge cost. And that’s exactly what the Anglos want.

So is there any ray of hope here, or is there only doom and gloom?

In fact, there is – this is the reaction of the Russian public to rather ambiguous, and sometimes frankly strange things that members of the Russian government did and said at different levels. Like that terrible press conference of Medinsky , which completely pissed off most Russians. Or the rumor that negotiations between Moscow and Kiev are being conducted by Abramovich (!). Oh, I know it’s just another rumor, but given the deplorable work of the Russian news services, this rumor and hundreds of others are causing public harassment and anger.

But if anyone really should be credited with reassuring the Russian public that no “negotiators” would stab the Russian military in the back, that honor should go to the Biden administration , which “convinced” Zelenskiy to end any negotiations and repeat the Ukronazis’ most extreme demands ( including about LDNR and Crimea). Now it has indeed made negotiations not only pointless, but virtually impossible. Thank you Biden!

Thanks also to Josep Borrell , High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the Eurolemmings, for saying “this war must be won on the battlefield”! When EU diplomats use such language, it has an almost miraculous effect on those who want to cling to the “peace camp” in Russia.

There is no doubt that during the special military operation, Russia fought superbly, and there is no doubt that the Russians probably calculated that “merely” a special operation would be enough to achieve their goals (immediate: defense of the LDNR, intermediate: denazification and disarmament of Ukraine and long-term: changing European and world collective security measures). But now it is becoming almost obvious that much larger actions will be required to crush the Ukrainian army, and they will have to be fought with much greater forces and means.

The Empire of Hatred and Lies has decided to “go all out” and is acting in exactly the same way as it would in preparation for a much larger war in Europe. For example, with a constant stream of mass expulsions of Russian diplomats, there is a very real possibility that Russia and the US/NATO/EU will break off their diplomatic relations, which is traditionally seen as the last step before declaring war.

One of the best things the Kremlin could do now is take a close look at how the Iranians have been successful since 1979:

– Never allow yourself to be drawn into a war that they did not want (with the exception of the one that the West and the USSR unleashed after the Islamic revolution, which, by the way, was won by Iran);

– To keep the Anglo-Zionists from direct attacks on Iran;

– Survive both sanctions and even blockade;

– Defeat the US specialists in the field of psychological operations (remember Neda Aga-Soltan *?);

– Actively promote the liberation of other countries around the world and especially the Middle East;

– It is great to combine political pragmatism with deep religious piety and idealism;

– Save your economy (albeit with great difficulty, but do not fall apart!);

— Preserve their Islamic social and civilizational model;

— Remain truly sovereign;

Maintain an unwavering morale all the while.

If Iran could do it, why can’t Russia? I have an answer to this question, but I will not offer it until the end of hostilities.

As I have mentioned many times, Russia is a project, a “moving target”, a society that is recovering from at least 300 years of foreign domination (especially spiritual and political), and a society that is still changing – very quickly and in many ways. aspects.

Russian air defense systems shot down a Ukrainian military transport aircraft in the air near Odessa with a large batch of weapons supplied by Western countries. This was informed by the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Igor Konashenkov.

Yes, Russia has a superior military and vast resources. But this is not enough.
Some say that the next “New Russia” was “born in the LDNR”, and I hope they are right – not in the sense that Russia needs to copy all the decisions (often bad ones!) of the LDNR, but Russia really needs to purge those who, while in power, are simply stuck in the past or cannot adapt to new realities.

Can Russia denazify the planet? Alone – no. At best, it can destroy the entire “Area A” militarily, but only as a result of a mutually suicidal act of desperation (the US nuclear triad is still basically functioning despite its problems). But can Russia and the rest of the “Zone B” (the rest of the world, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon countries – ed. ) Denazize the planet? Absolutely. Even “only” Russia and China put together are more powerful than the rest of the planet put together. Add to this India, and you get a truly unstoppable force.

The Empire is already dead, but like a stinking unburied corpse, it still has enough “toxic momentum” to continue to threaten the planet until the US is denazified and disarmed. It will take a long time, even with the recent significant pace of developments.

So there will be no quick fix, no quick fix, no quick win (or loss, for that matter). This is not what Russia wanted, but this is what it can get.

May it make the most of it to transform into the civilizational realm that it has been for centuries. This may be the greatest tribute to those who are fighting for the future of Russia today.

Author: Andrey Raevsky  – published under the pseudonym The Saker – a well-known blogger in the West. Born in Zurich. Father is Dutch, mother is Russian. He served as an analyst in the Swiss armed forces and in the research structures of the United Nations. Specializes in the study of post-Soviet states.

Translated by Sergei Dukhanov . Published with permission .

* Neda Agha-Soltan is an Iranian girl who was killed by the Basij during a protest in Iran in 2009. One of the protesters managed to capture the death of the girl on a mobile phone camera, and later, when this video was published on the Internet, Neda became a symbol of the opposition .