A Peculiar Math.

Mr. Burns, CIA Director, gives his "estimates". 

ASPEN, Colorado (Reuters) -The United States estimates that Russian casualties in Ukraine so far have reached around 15,000 killed and perhaps 45,000 wounded, CIA Director William Burns said on Wednesday, adding that Ukraine has also endured significant casualties. Nearly five months since President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Russia's neighbor, its forces are grinding through the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and occupy around a fifth of the country. Burns, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, said those gains have come at great cost.

Burns, who heads an organization which HAS to know, which most of the time is not the case nowadays, heard about this ratio--a very rough one--of one to three of KIAs to wounded during combat and, using his math skills decided to come up with a base number of Russian forces' KIAs and then multiply it by 3. So, 15,000 KIAS x 3 = 45,000 wounded. Sure. The only issue here is that Burns, evidently, doesn't understand how this works in real life and what it takes to provide hospitalization and transportation of those both KIAs and wounded to the rear areas and there is no med-evac activity, even through open sources (remember, OSINT--Open Source Intelligence), which is even remotely commensurate to Burns' claims. 

Yes, there are KIAs and wounded on Russian side, not to mention the fact that the bulk of those also comes from LDNR militias, but if Mr. Burns would be a serious and responsible professional, not an average US political appointee who needs to lie for a living, the real number would have been--estimates only--about 15,000 wounded and, by following this 1 to 3 ratio, about 5,000 KIAs on Russian side. But then again, even the brief look at the American "elites" today tells one everything one needs to know. When even Pentagon begins to express grave concern:

President Biden issued some surprise comments weighing in on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's upcoming Taiwan trip, telling reporters Wednesday that the US military think's it's "not a good idea" for her to visit the island.When asked specifically about the potential trip which days ago began to widely be reported, earning condemnation and a warning of "forceful measures" from China, Biden said, "The military thinks it’s not a good idea right now, but I don’t know what the status of it is.”

Pelosi also wants to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, so, as you can see, the legislative activity in the House is at its peak and this old mummy is getting involved fully into foreign policy without having a clue what she is doing, which is a normal Modus Operandi for Washington. 

In related news, what everyone knows in Russia has been reiterated today (in Russian)--HIMARS are controlled by NATO personnel and the tactics is pretty primitive: "hide" HIMARS rockets behind VSU's salvo of MLRS (such as Smerch or what have you), allow local Russian AD to expend its missiles shooting initial salvo down and then launch HIMARS rockets while Russian AD complexes reload. Well, it is a kindergarten thinking which already was addressed by "portioning" of AD assets in any given locality, reserving missiles for shooting down HIMARS missiles. They are being shot down in large numbers. Even when one considers almost real time targeting provided by the US to VSU, Pentagon doesn't have a concept of modern and effective front line air defense and the only thing which they have going for them is the high mobility of HIMARS which leave the position immediately after the launch. Nothing new, really. In general, this is the extent to which Pentagon realistically can get involved without beginning to lose personnel and assets in Middle East. That is easily arranged. 

Now they want to send combat aircraft to 404.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force is working to decide how best to train Ukraine’s pilots as the embattled nation’s air force looks to modernize. In comments at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Wednesday, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown said Ukraine will need to shift its air force away from legacy Russian MiG and Sukhoi fighters and toward more modern Western-made aircraft. With the supply of Russian spare parts for MiGs cut off, Brown said, Ukraine will have to eventually move to other fighters. It remains to be seen which platforms make sense, he said, but there are many possibilities — not just U.S.-made fighters such as the F-15 and F-16, but the Eurofighter, Swedish Gripen and French Rafale could also be options for Ukraine’s air force. “Part of this is understanding where Ukraine wants to go, and how we meet them where they are,” Brown said. “All of our allies and partners have an interest in ensuring Ukraine can provide for its own security.” Later at Aspen, asked why the U.S. doesn’t give Ukraine some of its aging A-10 Warthogs — which the Air Force has long sought to retire — Kendall said it’s “largely up to Ukraine” to decide the aircraft it wants.

Sure, let those arrive to Ukraine, LOL. I am positive there are many Russian pilots of Su-35s and Su-30SM (will omit now Su-57s) and crews of S-400s and S-300V4s who are salivating at the possibility to down a few F-15s or Rafales. Per A-10, it is not even serious, A-10 is a good CAS aircraft, but it is very slow and it never faced anything like S1 Pantsir or Tor M2, let alone Buk-M3. Not to mention first rate air force. But sure. Looks like this Aspen Forum was one huge concentrated fantastical thinking and butt-hurt gathering. 

Meanwhile Ukies and Washington continue to masturbate to Russian mobilization in the piece from Ukie propaganda outlet titled: General mobilization in Russia would mean Putin's failure in Ukraine – Ukraine’s intelligence

According to the official, the Kremlin regime now considers it better to conduct so-called covert mobilization, which does not require the declaration of martial law, as well as recruiting mercenaries. Skibitsky confirmed that Russian losses in Ukraine are significant, but at the same time not critical, since Russia has large mobilization resources. "But we already see the problems they have," he said.

But for some reason this, oh so desired, mobilization doesn't come. I addressed this issue yesterday in my latest video and the unraveling of the guiding myths of America's self-proclaimed global status continues with acceleration and desperation now oozes from every pore of what's left of the contemporary so called governance in the United States. We ain't seen nothing yet.

Pardon My French...

But no shit! Didn't I warn about it more than seven years ago? So, now the US side admits it.

The world is reshaping into a tri-polar configuration, with the US, Russia and China being the "great powers," a top American general has said. He then explained why he thinks the US must "put a premium" on keeping its influence. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, admitted that the years of US domination may be over.

We're entering into a tri-polar world with the US, Russia and China being all great powers. Just by introducing three vs two you get increased complexity.

Milley believes that maintaining the peace between the "great powers" in a tri-polar configuration will be significantly more difficult than in Cold War times, when two powers were at odds. Rapidly developing technologies also add up to the complexity, according to the general, with the world becoming "potentially much more strategically unstable than, say, the last 40, 50 or 60 years."

I am not going to lie--for the last decade or so I don't take any geopolitical and military assessments coming from the United States' establishment, even less so from the European one, seriously. And here is the issue, the use of tenses is wrong; this one because we are not "entering into a tri-polar world" we are ALREADY in it. But hey, as they say, better late than never. There is no military solution for the West's crisis because West will cease to exists as such in case it tries. Yet, some signs are hopeful. 

We don't know what CIA Director Burns and Nikolai Patrushev really talked about, but I can bet my ass on that "hackers" issue was not the most important item on their agenda. 

CIA Director William Burns met with a top Russian security official on Tuesday, a spokesperson from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow confirmed. At President Biden's request, Burns was leading a delegation of senior American officials on a two-day trip to Moscow."They are meeting with members of the Russian government to discuss a range of issues in the bilateral relationship," the spokesperson said.  The interaction comes amid simmering tensions with the Kremlin, although at the same time, the Biden administration is trying to foster a more stable and predictable relationship after issuing a raft of sanctions for past offenses in April.  

What did they talk about? I will go out on a limb here and will say that at the center was a discussion of the American "proposition" on how to "divide" the world into the spheres of interest without unleashing a major war. Russian media were extremely sterile when reporting on this visit--couple of general words and that's about it. The acceptance of the fact that Pax Americana is no more is a good start but that is not enough. By far the most important issue here is recognition by the United States of its own real scale and power. This seems to be a good start.

The Biden administration is reportedly considering a revision to US nuclear doctrine, with national security officials said to be debating whether to declare that the “sole purpose” of its atomic stockpile is deterrence.The National Security Council is holding a series of inter-agency meetings this month regarding changes to the US’ “nuclear posture,” according to the Washington Post. Unnamed officials told the paper a new nuclear policy would be announced in early 2022.President Joe Biden is said to be in favor of the revision, which would narrow the circumstances in which the US would use nuclear weapons. If ratified, they would be used only to deter a direct attack or retaliate after a strike. During his campaign for the presidency in 2020, Biden expressed his support for a ‘sole purpose’ declaration and pledged to put it into practice.

But that is not enough, If this happens--great, but the combined West is in a full scale "warm" war against Russia and until the issue of Country 404 is resolved a lot remains to be talked about, because Russia DOES NOT want to feed this shithole. 404, however, is desperate to start some shit in a desperate attempt (on advice from its US and European curators) to get Russia involved, not understanding that such an involvement will mean a catastrophic end to 404's statehood and utter demolition of its military, security and political institutions. I am 100% positive that Patrushev explained to Burns how this may end badly. I am pretty sure that was one of the main issues discussed in Moscow and Burns was, most likely, put on notice that once 404 decides to "go big", Russia wouldn't care how many American (NATO) military and "intelligence"instructors, who infest 404, will die in the first 30 minutes of Russia's response. 

CIA played and continues to play a crucial role in destabilization of 404 but Russians are not exactly Taliban, which still handed a humiliating military and political defeat to the United States, and they have the exact targeting for most places where NATO people are concentrated. So, once 3M14s and X-101s get airborne those people will have around 20-30 minutes to get out of the way, if those will be Iskanders and Kinzhals--they will have no time. Make your own conclusions, Iran, at least, gave ample warning. 

 

In related news, Vladimir Putin basically confirmed what we all already know that Zircon begins serial procurement starting in 2022 (in Russian), he also pointed out that he is satisfied with both Kinzhal and Peresvet confirming their "unique" characteristics. He also stressed (yet again) the importance of AI and speaking about GOZ-2033 (State Defense Order) he mentioned some new weapons, without specifying them, so, I guess, more robots, faster hyper-sonic weapons, increased speed of decision making and who knows what else, I am sure some S-600 or 700 is already in works. I am also sure the so called 6th generation aircraft will appear down the road there too. All that to provide Russia with state-of-the-art defense capability which also will ensure that the planet remains relatively peaceful any cataclysms in the combined West notwithstanding.