Duh!

Wow, what a secret has been disclosed, not. 

Soldiers of Ukraine’s ‘Thor’ special operations group use satellite data provided by the CIA to choose targets when conducting drone strikes against Russian forces, the unit’s commander told the Times. The 27-man group, which is formally a police special operations unit, functions independently from the Ukrainian army and works in close collaboration with Ukraine’s military intelligence, the GUR, which provides them with ammunition and intel. According to the Times, the unit has complete license to select its missions, where they barrack and when they fight. The unit’s commander, whose name is said to also be Thor, claims he uses a special application on a tablet that is synced to a CIA satellite to select potential targets for their attacks. “We select targets in the program, and targets can be placed there both by the CIA satellite and by our own satellite, which our volunteers pay for. Information is collected from all kinds of sources there. We choose, then we arrive and conduct our own reconnaissance,” Thor told the outlet.

In related news--water is wet, fire is hot and the sky is blue. The US runs a tight routine here between completely discrediting itself as "the finest fighting force in history" which cannot fight a real war and a power who hides behind proxies. As I stated not for once, in real war with Russia the US satellite recon and navigation constellation would have been gone in about 72 hours. But then again, Washington knows the ultimate outcome, not for 404 which de facto doesn't exist as a real state anymore, but for itself. 

Medvedev, meanwhile, is on a roll:

Russia is rapidly boosting its military production capacity to meet the demands of the Ukraine campaign, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of the country's national security council, has told journalists. “Our enemies thought that our industry would be overwhelmed,” the official, who also has previously served as Russian president and prime minister, said by videolink on Wednesday. “There were endless claims: munitions are running out, tanks are running out, missiles are running out.” Medvedev said he'd witnessed military factories working round the clock during his inspections. And new manufacturing capacities are being built, he added. “Sure, we didn’t think it would be necessary sometime ago. But it became a necessity,” he said of the expansion.

And here is the trick, Western "democracies" and FIRE "economies" cannot do that even if they will allocate (print, that is) needed sums of money. Recalling what Jeffrey Sachs once said about Russia:"We cut the patient open and learned that it has a different anatomy." I continue to write about this for years--Russian economy differs dramatically from those of the combined West. As Medvedev stated:

Where Russia lags behind, Medvedev acknowledged, is in designing and producing large strike drones. However the country has “several models that have already gone into series production.” “I am certain that [putting these to use] is a matter of several months,” he promised.

This is the point, at this stage Russian Military-Industrial Complex and economy in general are the only entities in the world capable to R&D, introduce and ramp up dramatically the mass production of the advanced weapon systems in a very short period of time. Guess what Main Organizational Mobilization Directorate of Russian General Staff does? Yes, it constantly plans and counts, counts, counts and, believe me, they know how to count. They also know when and how NATO nations lose any capacity to measure up to a modern war--and that holds the answer to the puzzle of Russia's strategy in SMO.

About Borisov's New Post.

A huge event: a removal of Rogozin from the position of the head of a mighty Roscosmos and appointment of Yuri Borisov to this post. This event created a major splash in Russian media with people immediately beginning to speculate that now Russian space program will begin to focus more on military applications (in Russian). But let's recall who Yuri Borisov is--yes, he is one of the major driving forces behind modernization and rearmament of Russian Armed Forces which underwent fast and dramatic update which turned them into arguably best fighting force of today. Borisov's role in this is huge, to put it mildly. 

Borisov is one of those military-technological, engineering and organization geniuses who are a very rare breed and seldom appear at the highest levels of political power. It is especially true for modern military-industrial complex of any superpower, because huge swaths of those complexes are in effect dual technologies producing industries. Borisov was instrumental in turning Russian military-industrial complex into R&D and manufacturing powerhouse it is today. Moreover, Borisov is a former cadre military, a general, with military academy behind his belt. Him, taking the command of Roskosmos may mean very many things and all of them good for Russia. Remember, it was on Borisov's watch that the Russian Armed Forces started to deploy some extremely advanced weapon system, many of which have no analogues in the West. Some--never will. In other words, Borisov is a specialist in the most advanced military and dual use technologies and bringing them to serial production. 

One of the results of Borisov's guidance are such as new carrier of the Poseidons, Belgorod submarine transferred to the Russian Navy several days ago, or newest Peresvet combat laser complexes, let alone RS-28 Sarmat or 3M22 Zircon--this all happened on Borisov's watch. Borisov leaves Russian Military-Industrial Complex in a top shape and Denis Manturov who comes into supervision of it knows this and he understands his position as "if ain't broke, don't fix it". Borisov is appointed to Roscosmos post to INTRODUCE into full production some revolutionary space technologies of which we know only about nuclear tug Zevs, but what else? Expect some big news relatively soon. What can it be? I hate speculations, you know that, but the talk and rumors about Russia's 6th generation fighter capable to transition from air to space flight and back are persistent. The full line of Angara, rockets and development and introduction of a super-heavy carriers will also be a priority. As will be a further development of counter-measures to US military space programs. Borisov's appointment fits extremely well into the program of Russia's full technological independence. With people like Borisov this independence is not only feasible but is already happening. 

In related news, imbeciles in the West still think that they have (magic) powers to prevent Russia from killing the US Dollar and do what she needs to do.

Russia plans to create its own national oil benchmark in 2023 as a means to protect its oil export revenue while the West is stepping up sanctions against Russian oil, a document seen by Bloomberg News showed on Friday. Russia’s oil producers, its central bank, and relevant ministries are working to launch a national trading platform for Russian oil in October this year. The goal would be to attract enough foreign partners to buy Russia’s crude and generate enough volumes so as to set up a national oil benchmark at some point between March and July next year, according to the document Bloomberg News has seen. Russia’s efforts to create a national oil benchmark come as the Western allies are looking at ways to impose a price cap on Russian oil traded globally. The price cap is expected to hurt the huge oil revenues Vladimir Putin is currently getting from energy exports.Russia, for its part, is looking to protect its oil revenues, and one of the ways it has come up with is a national oil benchmark.

Can anybody explain to those morons that it is impossible to cap oil price and that the bench-marking of her own oil by Russia has much broader aims than "avoiding a price cap". But then again, it is Bloomberg--a bunch of illiterate (and very butt-hurt) journos with useless "economics" degrees and lack of any grasp of a completely new geopolitical reality. 

Larry Johnson On Intel Matters In War. Plus Some Other Quick Observations.

Excellent historic introspective from Larry about deception operations in real wars and some historic lessons as applied to SMO today. 

Unless you are a student of the history of World War II, you probably do not appreciate the role that DECEPTION operations played in pinning down German forces and the relevance of such operations to what is going on in Ukraine.

Read the whole thing. Larry arrives to the conclusion which is very solid:

Well, looks like Russia was feeding the western allies a big load of bullshit.

And you already learned by now, I guess, that "intel" US and other media were spewing about Shoigu having "artificial heart attack" or some 20-odd Russian generals "arrested" turned out to be..of course, a complete BS. Obviously, Shoigu just yesterday held a Ministry of Defense Council (Kollegia) being in perfect health and a good mood and spoke about both State Defense Order (GOZ) and about dramatic (orders of magnitude) increase of the speed of targeting exchange for Russia's stand off high precision weapons such as Kailbrs and Kinzhals (in Russian). 

Meanwhile, the great German strategist, reincarnation of Erich Von Manstein and Schlieffen in one body, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz delivered his military wisdom:

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday said the Russian armed forces shouldn’t be allowed to win in Ukraine, APA reports citing TASS. He made the statement at a news conference following talks that Western leaders held by video link. The leaders included presidents Joe Biden of the US, Emmanuel Macron of France, Andrzej Duda of Poland, Klaus Iohannis of Romania, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, European Council President Charles Michel, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

As you can see, this statement was made in the company of people (Western leadership, really) who never served a day in any armed forces and wouldn't know shit from shinola, or LGBT from BTG of BCT. Scholz dealt Russians a severe damage because of the deadly bouts of the hysterical laughter they had upon hearing about intentions of Germany not to allow such a victory. Right. In related news, Germany and EU should reject all Russian hydrocarbon contracts and concentrate completely on powering their industries by electricity from the wall sockets, because this is where real electricity (which is clean energy) resides--it is so easy, just plug in and voila'. Just ask Greta Thunberg or any Hollywood celebrity, they nailed this plan to the minute details. 

In other related news, a technical and military genius, first Vice-Premier Yuri Borisov explains why Russia is not running out of high precision weapons. English WiKi gives totally abrogated bio on him, but Borisov graduated both military academy with focus on Radio-electronics of Air Defense Systems and then graduated Moscow State University, the department of Applied Mathematics and Cybernetics (in Russian). What a loser, he should have gone to study marketing or journalism, or become a lawyer as the last resort, but no-o-o, those stubborn Russians prefer this type of people running their crucial industries. How they can run anything when they don't even have a Tik-Tok accounts and don't follow Sean Penn, what a bunch of losers. 

Anyway, here is Borisov verbatim on why Russia will not run out of high precision stand-off weapons. 

From as early as 2011, all our defense procurement programs have focused on the production and deployment of high-precision weapons. All this time, we have also been building up our manufacturing capacities. As a result, today, we can fully meet the demand of Russia’s armed forces for precision weapons.

Recall Bismarck: "A Russian makes a plan when even going to a toilet." So, there you are--you plan (of course based on this proverbial OODA, which the West cannot and doesn't use for a number of reasons), based on situational awareness, execute, check the process of the execution, make adjustments if needed, correct the mistakes, get the desired result. Obviously, for carrying out such plans one needs very many good professionals on all levels, but especially at the top, decision-making, circuit. EU government in general, and Germany's in particular are opposite of that, and that is why they still believe in Ukraine's "victory".   

As they say, hope dies last. Somebody show those leaders these well-known facts:

Europe is desperate to replace Russian gas, which has driven the U.S. to export as much LNG as it possibly can.

12 new LNG projects in the U.S. have already been approved, but they are unlikely to all be completed due to long-term uncertainty.

While Europe is currently desperate for natural gas, its long-term goal is to move away from fossil fuels, which means some of these projects aren’t economically viable.

Pitch-forks times in the combined West, especially Europe, are coming--I omit here issues of food altogether--but the process of economic and cultural suicide at this stage is very robust and probably is not reversible in Europe by merely peaceful means. But that is the separate topic in and of itself.