Of Course, He Does.

Was there ever any doubt?

The city of Artyomovsk, or Bakhmut as it is known by Ukraine, is of more symbolic than operational importance, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has claimed. The battle for Artyomovsk – a major stronghold and logistics hub for Kiev’s forces in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) – has continued for months, being described by some as the fiercest in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Asked about the city during his trip to Jordan later the same day, Austin suggested that the city was “more of a symbolic value than it is [of] strategic and operational value,” according to Reuters. Yan Gagin, an adviser to the DPR’s acting head Denis Pushilin, said on Monday that Russian forces have encircled the key city, trapping around 10,000 Ukrainian troops inside. The Pentagon chief, however, said he wouldn’t consider it a strategic setback if  Ukrainian troops decide to reposition themselves on new defense lines west of the city.

Well, Monty Python saw this decades and miles away. 

Now those brilliant "operational minds" from London and D.C. command those clowns from VSU's General Staff to throw their best reserves in a desperate effort to maintain some opening for Bakhmut cauldron, which makes little sense since they lose those there in industrial quantities under incessant Russian fire, since Russian Army has now a full fire control (aka operational envelopment) of the whole cauldron and last remaining opening. 

Meanwhile Russia continues the removal of Western NGOs, finally, and the new kid on a chopping block is Transparency International. 

МОСКВА, 6 мар — РИА Новости. Генеральная прокуратура признала нежелательной деятельность Transparеncy International на территории России, сообщило ведомство в своем Telegram-канале.Подчеркивается, что такое решение принято после изучения материалов, поступивших в надзорный орган.

Translation: MOSCOW, March 6 - RIA Novosti. The Prosecutor General's Office recognized the activities of Transparency International in Russia as undesirable, the agency said in its Telegram channel. It is emphasized that this decision was made after studying the materials received by the supervisory authority.

Russia also stopped providing info about her Armed Forces to OSCE (in Russian) and that also is about time. Generally speaking, the whole spectrum of West dominated institutions from OSCE to UN should be completely destroyed and then reconstituted in some other form, e.g. new UN and its HQ should be removed from NYC. UN is an absolutely corrupt organization and is due for major cleaning operation for a very long time. It is a travesty that such economic and military pip squeaks as France and UK are permanent members of UN SC, while India with her massive economy and serious military and nukes is not. Time to rethink UN. I am also on record that International Olympic movement is dead and stinks to heaven with its corruption--that thing should simply be killed off. I omit here pure propaganda BSers such as IMF and WB. 

James Kunstler today brilliantly described the issue:

We’re waiting for financial markets, banks, and monies to blow, as an engine will when submerged in water. It can’t not happen, though every known device has been deployed to keep up appearances. The credibility of finance was thrown overboard a long time ago. Capital was sloshing around in the bilges as the ship heaved and pitched in the angry waters, and it had to go somewhere. The next turn will be when you go looking for where it went and you discover to your nauseated chagrin that the capital is just… gone! Through some legerdemain of physics, it disappeared… turned into a kind of anti-matter… fell through a black hole (possibly ripped by that iceberg), or up the smokestacks, like it was never there at all.

Parallels with Titanic are not just warranted, but irresistible. This is your Monday primer.

Larry On Bakhmut (Artemovsk)...

Yesterday a good sitrep from Larry with, finally, proper map with the scale. 

Larry asks the question:

Is Russia Closing the Cauldron Around Bakhmut?

This morning we have the answer--yes. Morning reports tell already about tactical, not just operational, envelopment of Bakhmut and trapping there by unreliable 404 sources of 2,500 VSU (primarily from Western Ukraine (in Russian)), by other, much more reliable sources (I know them personally), of about at least 3-4 times this number. Also, officially is reported that the number of bodies of VSU littering the battlefields around Bakhmut is simply appalling and Wagner Group formed special teams for removing those corpses in order to prevent further decomposition and smell with the risk of infections. 

But by far more important news is this bit of CIA Director Burns complaining that:

Burns said on CBS that the meeting with Naryshkin was “pretty dispiriting,” describing the Russian as “defiant” and displaying “cockiness.” “There was a very defiant attitude on the part of Mr. Naryshkin,” Burns said. “A sense of cockiness and hubris, in sense reflecting Putin’s own view … that he can make time work for him, that he believes he can grind down Ukrainians, that he can wear down our European allies, that political fatigue will eventually set in.”

Somebody has to explain to Burns that he should be grateful that Naryshkin agreed to meet him at all, especially on the BS occasion of the US "warning" Russia against the use of... nuclear weapons. Naryshkin's attitude is indicative not just of Putin but of the fact that Russian military-political elite views, absolutely correctly, present US Administration as a collection of amateurs, ideologues and fanatics. Burns, who is a classic modern US "diplomat", meaning ignorant, uncultured and a political appointee, as a current Director of CIA should learn things other than how to conduct PR BS and study Russian military doctrine and, surprise-surprise, the actual state of the affairs in the United States. 

But then again, anyone who agreed to serve in Biden's Admin should be automatically disqualified as professional and a person with integrity. Burns' tenure as US Ambassador to Russia didn't contribute to his education in the matter. Per military part--most people within the Beltway are clueless in such matters and Burns is an Exhibit A of this. In other words, Naryshkin, when speaking to Burns, was talking to an amateur who wouldn't know shit from shineola and there is no other way anymore to talk to Biden Admin's people. In related news, another train in the US has derailed today. Is anyone in Biden's cabinet minding the country which literally tears at the seams?

Of Note.

So, Mr. Shoigu said these key words: 

During a Russian Defense Ministry meeting on Wednesday, Shoigu proposed a number of measures to strengthen the security of the Russian Federation, including creating a special grouping of troops on the country’s northwestern border and expanding Russia’s armed forces to amount to 1.5 million servicemen in total, with some 695,000 of them being contract soldiers. ... Shoigu went on to suggest creating a number of new military groupings, including five new artillery divisions, eight bomber aviation regiments, and one fighter regiment, as well as six army aviation brigades. 

How about  5 (Five) new naval infantry divisions (!!! holy-molly), three motor-rifle divisions, two air-assault division, a number of brigades will be transformed into divisions, among other measures. This is NOT about VSU, which is primarily a spent force right now and Russia slowly, in economical way, annihilates the remnants of Ukraine's mobilization "potential". No, this is about NATO and where it will be moved back. Recall December 2021 Ultimatum? This is about NATO and finishing off US "hegemony", which is being finished as I type it. 

Here is something to consider:

China’s imports of oil, pipeline gas, LNG, and coal from Russia have hit a total of $68 billion since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, up from $41 billion for the same period last year, as Western buyers shun or have banned imports of many Russian energy products, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.  

You also heard about India, right? 

For India, the reorientation of Russian economic diplomacy toward the Asian region presents huge business opportunities. Who would have thought nine months ago that Russia was going to be the largest supplier of oil to India, leapfrogging Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the US? According to Reuters, India purchased about 40% of all export volumes of Russian Urals grade oil transported by sea in November, when European countries accounted for 25%, Turkey 15% and China 5%. The figures speak for themselves: in November, while Russia supplied 909,000.4 barrels of crude oil to India per day, the corresponding figures were for Iraq (861,000.4), Saudi Arabia (570,000.9), and the US (405,000.5) Suffice it to say that when Modi upfront listed energy as his talking point with Putin, it reconfirms that India is giving a wide berth to the G7’s hare-brained scheme to impose a price cap on Russian oil exports.

And Eurasian dynamics is such that even with consuming EU's, grossly inadequate, resources, the US is no competition to an emerging military and economic giant of BRICS and associated members. But grasping at the last straw is what makes Washington MO and Russia is fully ready. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will provide $1.85 billion in military aid to Ukraine, rolling out funding for a Patriot missile battery as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington for his first known trip out of his country since Russia invaded in February. The White House announcement came just hours before Zelenskyy landed at Joint Base Andrews, just outside the capital. The package includes $1 billion in weapons and equipment from Pentagon stocks, including the Patriot battery for the first time, and $850 million in funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. Part of the USAI will be used to fund a satellite communications system, which likely will include the crucial SpaceX Starlink satellite network system owned by Elon Musk.

As I am on record--Patriot's, including PAC3 version, record is dismal, as is of all other types of NATO weapon systems availed to Kiev regime, and the only way NATO can avoid of a single battery of Patriot PAC3 to be annihilated immediately is to deploy it in the midst of civilian infrastructure--a MO of VSU--such as apartment blocks, kindergartens and other buildings of such a nature. As is reported:

The decision to send the Patriot battery comes despite threats from Russia’s Foreign Ministry that the delivery of the advanced surface-to-air missile system would be considered a provocative step and that the Patriot and any crews accompanying it would be a legitimate target for Moscow’s military. But the White House is pushing back against the notion that delivery of the Patriot amounts to an escalation of U.S. involvement on behalf of Ukraine. A senior administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said that Biden has been clear that his administration would “lean forward” in supporting Ukraine but it is “not seeking to engage in direct war with Russia.”

As I am also on record--the only war the US can fight against Russia is a nuclear one, but we all know what it means, so the semantics game and usual media spin form Washington are already unfolding. Russia, however, has no illusions about West's intentions. So, in a larger scheme of things all this is not significant in relation to the overall situation at the front in former Ukraine or to the economic collapse in progress in the EU and, to a certain degree, in the US. 

Here Brian Berletic gives a good explanation on how Western media obfuscate, a euphemism for outright lying, a dire situation for VSU in Bakhmut. 

I am telling you--one can literally develop a cottage industry of debunking shit of Western media and make a living just on that alone. But, we need to constantly keep our eyes on a bigger prize. Could the biggest of them be a destruction of NATO as such, not just rolling it back to the borders of 1997? Possible. Some European clowns begin to get the idea. 

French President Emmanuel Macron has reiterated his belief that the conflict in Ukraine will inevitably be resolved at the negotiating table, and that the West and NATO in particular will have to come up with security guarantees not only for Kiev, but Moscow as well, to secure a lasting peace. “The day of peace will involve discussions. First and foremost for guarantees to Ukraine, for its territorial integrity, its long-term security. But also for Russia, as a party that it will be to an armistice and peace treaty,” Macron said in an interview with the TF1 and LCI channels broadcast on Tuesday.

But the term "negotiations" as perceived by Russia now has a much more menacing for the combined West connotation--a dictation of the terms of surrender. Even this event tells the story.

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Tuesday that Ukraine “is not an ally” of his country and warned against bringing “war” to the Balkans. “Ukraine is not an ally. It’s being forcibly made into one. It was cynically granted the status of an EU candidate. That’s what the EU is today: squalor, zero.” Talking to reporters, he also hit out against Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic for his proposal to have Ukrainian troops trained in Croatia. Milanovic said such a move would “bring war” to the country. “You keep pushing moral blackmail,” he addressed Plenkovic, “but you have no morals yourself. Go to Ukraine and fight.”

You know, as they say, the writing is on the wall. Can they read in Washington? We'll see. As I always stress--in historic terms 10 years is nothing, a second really. I can only imagine what we will be talking about in a couple of years time. If humanity survives the death of the West.