Snow Leopard Financial Group’s Post

War is the continuation of politics by other means. The Kursk incursion is still bewildering to military analysts, who have a lot more questions than answers. Washington wasn't forewarned. Probably Kyiv wasn't either -- it took days for Kyiv to acknowledge the operation, and when it did, a close advisor to Zelensky suggested that it was a Russian uprising. I think we can rule that out. So, what are the politics? Maybe it's setting the stage for a coup. How might that play out? Russia responds by sealing the border with its still-vastly-superior air power. Then they have Kursk as kill box. The current mass evacuations may be about limiting "friendly fire" civilian casualties. Then the Ukrainian media gets saturated with protests from would-be coup-leaders saying that the defeat was really the West's fault: Ukraine not being allowed to use NATO weapons to rescue those troops. They can finger Zelensky for kowtowing to that policy. And why not? His popularity has been dropping. The coup leaders might be fine with ousting him, but not necessarily with a negotiated end to the war. A successful military coup opens up two possibilities, depending on who emerges at the top. What if it's the now-sidelined Zaluzhnyi, who was demoted by Zelensky for going around him to the Western media, with more realistic assessments? It might lead to that negotiated ceasefire. Zalushnyi is the man to do it. He was as popular as Zelensky, but more trusted. If it's Zaluzhnyi's replacement-- Syrskyi, notorious for throwing troops into meatgrinders -- then NATO-supplied weapons could come into play in Russia, in defiance of Washington's policy, which is also incumbent on virtually all NATO members. Then it becomes a matter of how the West responds, since those weapons are still nowhere near enough to prevail against Russia's mobilized war economy and its vastly superior air power. John Mearsheimer, who predicted this war, which happened for the reasons he gave, says, "America always doubles down", no matter how stupid it is. But if it's doubling down on the status quo ante, the only way is to throttle arms support to Ukraine. If it's doubling down on supporting Ukraine no matter what, then it would need to at least ease up on its ban on using U.S.-supplied weapons inside Russia. The fly in the ointment: how to call such a coup a democratic transition. This was easier in what some have called a coup: Euromaidan. What's being sold now is a "democracy" that amounts to a military dictatorship under Zelensky (whose term office has expired, conveniently for any coup). The reality? Ukraine has been an unstable country for decades, with corruption levels not too much better than Russia's, with lots of low-information voters, and with Kyiv going back and forth between pro-EU and pro-Russia presidents with the power to appoint oblast governors -- often the highest bidder for the office. It's a lot more like the Philippines than any country in the EU.

Things went better than expected for Ukraine at NATO’s Washington summit. But President Biden sent President Zelensky home without the one thing he needs most: permission to strike back at air bases inside Russia that are being used to kill Ukrainian civilians. With this overly cautious decision, Biden is letting Russian President Vladimir Putin play for time and wait for a possible change in U.S. leadership and policy. Instead, Biden should allow Ukraine to regain the advantage before the November election — which could, in turn, improve his own political prospects. In remarks this week at the @ReaganInstitute , Zelensky said Ukraine needs permission to strike Russian air bases within 500 kilometers (about 300 miles) of the Ukrainian border. Every day, Russian jets fire guided bombs into Ukrainian territory from these bases with impunity, Zelensky said. Russia has thousands of these bombs, so no amount of air-defense systems can keep up. The only way to thwart this tactic is to hit the air bases. “Imagine how much we can achieve if all the restrictions are lifted. … We are waiting for this step,” Zelensky said. “Manage this problem, and children will live.” If next year a Trump administration does try to pressure Ukraine into negotiations with Russia, Ukraine’s hand should be as strong as possible. For that reason alone, the Biden team should now give Kyiv a longer leash to act. Lifting restrictions on Ukraine would also save lives — and make sense politically. Biden likes to say the United States will support Ukraine for “as long it takes.” The reality, as he, Zelensky and Putin all know, is he might have only six months left with the power to keep that promise. Read the whole column The Washington Post https://lnkd.in/eViVn23D

Parties to Ukraine conflict should promote de-escalation — Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lin Jian stressed that "all sides should responsibly contribute to cooling down the situation and create conditions for achieving a ceasefire and political settlement of the crisis as soon as possible" BEIJING, July 9/ Moscow and Kiev should keep a cool head in the Ukraine conflict, and work to de-escalate the situation, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lin Jian said at a briefing, answering a Ukrainian journalist about allegations that Moscow bombed a hospital in Kiev. "China's position on the Ukrainian issue is consistent and clear: all sides should responsibly contribute to cooling down the situation and create conditions for achieving a ceasefire and political settlement of the crisis as soon as possible," Lin Jian said. The spokesman did not respond in any way to a clarifying question whether the Chinese side could condemn the strike or offer condolences. Lin Jian recalled the importance of adhering to three principles to de-escalate the conflict: not to allow fighting to spread beyond the battlefield, not to allow the war to escalate, and not to allow anyone to add fuel to the fire. "All sides should show calm and restraint and avoid actions that could further escalate the situation," Lin Jian summarized. Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Russian Armed Forces in response to attempts to attack energy facilities on Russian territory on July 8 launched a precision strike on military facilities and airbases of the Ukrainian armed forces. The strikes all hit their targets. The ministry noted that statements from the Ukrainian authorities about an alleged deliberate missile strike by Russia on civilian facilities do not correspond to reality, as photos and video from the scene confirm that the destruction occurred due to a Ukrainian air defense missile crashing into the facility. The Russian Defense Ministry stressed that "this kind of hysteria from the Kiev regime has been going on for years, each time occurring on the eve of another meeting (summit) of its NATO patrons." Russia's First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy has said that a meeting of the UN Security Council on Ukraine will be held on Tuesday. At the meeting, Russia will provide the UN Security Council members the facts that refute the Ukrainian version of the strike on Kiev. #business #finance #financialservices

https://lnkd.in/ehc8TYAM Front lines are collapsing for the Ukrainian army, whole units surrendering. Top commanders are fired. Faced with complete disarray of the U.S.-NATO instigated war in Ukraine, U.S. militarists are doubling down. According to the Ukrainian constitution, President Volodymir Zelensky’s term in office is over. But he remains in power by martial law. This has led Ukrainian workers to hold strikes and work stoppages. But this news is ignored in the Western media. A national truckers’ work slowdown inside Ukraine moved traffic to a 5-mile-an hour crawl and halted grain exports based on national anger at the expanded draft mobilization made by Zelensky, now an unelected president. (yahoonews.com, May 18)  Ukraine’s combat units are so severely understaffed that the government would have to triple its mobilization in order to continue the current level of fighting, according to Eric Ciaramella, former U.S. National Intelligence Council official. The draft can’t fill the current gap, nor can even kidnapping men off the streets. U.S. Failure on Two Fronts *U.S. efforts to dismember Russia appear to have utterly failed. Economic sanctions, price caps, the protracted war on Russia’s border and tens of billions of dollars, along with hundreds of U.S. and other NATO member troops sent as trainers, plus mercenary contractors can’t hold the corrupt Ukrainian military machine together.  *At the same time, on the world stage the one strategic ally of the U.S. in Western Asia, Israel, has utterly failed in its genocidal war on Gaza. Both setbacks mean that U.S. political dominance is being challenged in fundamental ways.  *U.S. strategy toward Russia aimed to partition and dismember the country, destabilize the border and block China’s Belt and Road development plans in Central Asia. *U.S. strategists considered all these steps crucial in preventing People’s China from surpassing the U.S. economically. The opposite has happened. What imperialist strategists have warned about for decades and sought to prevent is now the reality.  *China and Russia’s relations of intense cooperation and a merge of common interests is unfolding steadily. This was further cemented during the very warm state meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on May 16.  *That means U.S.-NATO plans are in total disarray. Rather than reconsider their strategy, which has brought setbacks and defeats in Ukraine and for Israel in Gaza, this has led to an ominous escalation in U.S. military threats.  *The threat to dangerously escalate the war in Ukraine arises from the plans to give Ukraine high-speed missiles and allow the Kyiv regime to use the weapons to strike inside Russia. This threat is not just from a single statement or one delivery of weapons.... *

The reason for the Korea Stalemate in 1953 was China amassed troops at the northern border of Korea, ostensibly to help the communists. That was an example of war by proxy. Today we are fighting Russia, Iran, and Iran's own terrorist proxies, by proxy, via Ukraine and Israel. What if we helped our allies with food and medicines instead, our closest with intelligence, but not with weapons? What if we admitted that taking other countries' assets by force constitues theft that would eventually set most of the world against us? Tariffs so high they constitute sanctions at the level of economic blocs? Who gave us the right to threaten other nations who refuse to honor the sanctions the U.S. puts in place? Why are we comfortable calling Russia's leader a murderer and Japan xenophobic? Realize that America today is not only weakening, but the rest of the world is getting stronger and standing up for themselves and their sovereignty. We are become the common problem of most of the world with our hubris, hegemony, SWIFT and US$ dominance. The world sees it as the problem it is for them, and they are moving to countenance all that. First in economic terms, ultimately in military terms. We need leaders whose eyes are open, not geriatrics whose brains have been petrified stiff by the cold war...~r

Jean-Louis Bourlanges, chairman of the #French parliament's foreign affairs committee, called on #Paris to lift the taboo on #Ukraine's strikes on Russian territory with French weapons. According to Le Figaro, #Bourlanges wrote a letter to the French leadership, calling for the abandonment of “restraint and a decision” following the example of Britain, which allowed Ukrainian troops to use its weapons against Russia. “The time seems to have come... The right to self-defense excludes the right to inviolability of the aggressor's territory,” he emphasized, adding that the change in the doctrine would be completely legal, as it would put an end to the asymmetry between the aggressor and the victim. At the same time, Bourlanges emphasized that neither France nor other Western partners of Ukraine want to go to war with Russia. “Therefore, it is not about them intervening in the theater of war, but about removing an unjustified taboo,” he wrote in his letter. Strikes by Western weapons against Russia Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine has been restricted in its right to use weapons received from #Western countries to strike Russian territory. Usually, this restriction was explained in the #West by the fact that they were giving Ukraine weapons to defend itself against Russia, not to attack it. This year, however, there have been some developments in this regard. For example, after his visit to Kyiv, #British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Ukraine has the right to strike at Russian territory with British weapons. At the same time, the United States still adheres to its policy of restricting Ukraine's strikes against Russia. However, during a visit to Kyiv in May, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Ukraine chooses how to wage war, but the US does not encourage strikes against Russia. https://lnkd.in/dUjBxuqE

"Crucially, Russia does not need to send tanks and jets to such places. A victorious, emboldened Russia, engorged on Ukraine and with spare capacity, could rely on hybrid warfare tools, utilising “little green men” both on the ground and in the information space to convince the West that a conflict in there is internal and, therefore, in the case of the Baltics, does not trigger Article 5. This is what German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius meant when warned that Russia could attack a Nato member state within “five to eight years”. It need not be as obvious as tanks rolling across a Nato border. In fact, Russia is already working to destabilise Europe. In May, Nato warned that Russia is waging an “intensifying campaign” of cyberattacks and other “hybrid” operations against its members. British intelligence has cautioned that Moscow is even planning “physical attacks” on the West. We know Russia is recruiting far-Right extremists to carry out attacks on individuals, and European intelligence agencies say that Moscow, seeking to weaken us, has staged violent acts of sabotage across Europe and is planning more. The Russians are already attempting to interfere in this month’s European Parliament elections, and the U.S. elections in November are no doubt on Putin’s menu, too. Meanwhile, Russia is using its hybrid warfare machine to foment chaos in Nato’s soft underbelly: the Western Balkans. Using information operations and corrupt influence, Moscow aims to stoke ethnic tensions between Serbia and Kosovo and within Bosnia and Herzegovina. As Georgia faces massive protests triggered by a proposed law that targets civil society and its aspirations to join the EU, Russia is calculating security assistance. With the elections in Moldova and its vote on EU membership this year, Russia will likely not miss an opportunity to sow further discord in the country. A Russian victory over Kyiv would also carry serious implications in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. If Moscow is able to outlast the West in Ukraine, Beijing may conclude it would face feeble resistance to Chinese military aggression against Taiwan. Fundamentally, Russia and China believe the decline of US global power is essential and have been advocating for a multipolar international system not led by Washington. The West can only win this war if leaders understand Putin’s game. Since Putin first came to power, he has conducted an offensive aimed at gaining “reflexive control” of the West. “Reflexive control” is an old Soviet concept, foreign to most Western nations. It encompasses interfering in another country’s decision-making until the government is compelled to take actions in the Kremlin’s interest. In the words of Russia’s Ministry of Defense, Russia’s war game works through “massive psychological manipulation of the population to destabilise the state and society.” This is what Moscow did with some success in Ukraine before its Maidan Revolution in 2014 when the people fought back."

From the FT which seems prepared now to report outside of the recieved western narrative. Shocking that diplomats admit that realistic talk of a peace deal was “taboo” even six months ago. So because nobody was prepared to break a talking “taboo” thousands have died and suffered life changing injuries, and Ukraine is in a weaker bargaining position than before. Touches on the equally predictable threat of a post war Ukraine now becoming a sort of post-WWI Germany with a Dolchstoßlegende animating an extreme right wing. “Once buoyed by hopes of liberating their lands, even soldiers at the front now voice a desire for negotiations with Russia to end the war.” “Ukraine’s staunchest supporters in Europe may wish to keep it in the fight but lack the weapons stockpiles to do so and have no plan for filling any void left by the US.” “US officials were unimpressed by Zelenskyy’s “victory plan”, which includes requests for massive amounts of western weaponry.” “We’re talking more and more openly about how this ends and what Ukraine would have to give up in order to get a permanent peace deal,” says one of the diplomats, who was present in New York. “And that’s a major change from even six months ago, when this kind of talk was taboo.” “There will always be a radical segment of Ukrainian society that will call any negotiation capitulation. The far right in Ukraine is growing. The right wing is a danger to democracy,” says Merezhko, who is an MP for Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party.

Situation gets bleaker for Ukrainian military, US thinks about negotiations — news agency Columnist Hal Brands pointed out that none of the plans of US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris so far provide an answer to how to "turn a deteriorating battlefield situation into a decent peace" for Kiev NEW YORK, October 18/ Prospects for Ukraine are getting gloomier and gloomier, that's why pressure is growing in Washington for a negotiated settlement of the conflict, Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands said in an article. According to him, the Ukrainian armed forces are losing and are running out of manpower and ammunition. "As the outlook in Ukraine darkens, there is growing pressure in Washington for a negotiated settlement," the columnist wrote. At the same time, Brands pointed out that none of the plans of US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris so far provide an answer to how to "turn a deteriorating battlefield situation into a decent peace" for Kiev. Earlier, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said that the United States is discussing with Ukraine Kiev's needs for arms supplies, but did not comment on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky's plan. On October 16, Zelensky presented his plan for ending the conflict, in which he ruled out territorial concessions. It includes a call for an immediate invitation to NATO, the transfer of new military aid to Ukraine, long-range strikes deep inside Russia, and the use of European air defenses to protect Ukrainian territory. The plan also calls for the creation of some kind of "comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package" on Ukrainian territory and the post-conflict reconstruction of the country with the assistance of Western countries. The document contains secret annexes that were presented only to NATO states with significant military capabilities. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed Zelensky's ideas as a series of incoherent slogans. According to her, he is pushing NATO into a direct conflict with Russia. #business #finance #financialservices