در جریان سخنرانی و در توضیح روش برخورد متفاوت آلمان و انگلیس در هفته‌های اخیر به مسأله اوکراین این اتفاق مهم در بحث مورد اشاره قرار نگرفت که درست در زمانی که انگلستان بزرگترین افتخارات را نصیب زلنسکی می‌کرد، دولت آلمان پس از دو سال اوکراین را مسبب انفجار خط لوله گازی نورد استریم معرفی نمود که از قرار با همکاری لهستان دست به این اقدام زده است. هم روایت اولیه و اصلی که آمریکا به همکاری نروژ این عملیات را سازمان داد به دست فراموشی سپرده و به این ترتیب دریچه ای به روی مذاکرات پشت پرده با روسیه باز می‌شود و هم در مقابل جاه طلبی های لهستان سدی قرار داده می شود. همزمان خود لهستان نیز مرزهای حمایت خود از اوکراین را با اعلام این روشن کرد که از خاک خود به موشکهای روسیه حمله نخواهد کرد.

بهمن شفیق

۱۷ شهریور ۱۴۰۳

۷ سپتامبر ۲۰۲۴

Ria Novosti

https://ria.ru/20240904/ataka-1970294304.html

Orlovka, Kamyshevka, Nikolaevka, Novozhelannoe, Konstantinovka in the DPR . Stelmakhovka and Sinkovka in the Kharkov region. Prechistovka near Ugledar and Lesovka near Pokrovsk. These are settlements liberated by our fighters in the last week alone. On average, one point per day, or even more.

It is strange that after such a shameful failure, the author of all this ingenious strategy did not have any more questions from the Ukrainian special services. After all, it's probably not for nothing that Alexander Syrsky, a native of the Petushinsky district of the Vladimir Region, graduated from the Moscow Higher Combined-arms Command School. Maybe now he thinks of himself as a Stirlitz and stubbornly transfers the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to fertilizers? There is simply no other explanation.

John Helmer

 https://johnhelmer.net/red-army-honour-president-putin-the-start-of-world-war-iii-the-duran-podcast/

National Interest, James Holmes

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/greats-agree-ukraines-kursk-offensive-strategic-malpractice-212455

Clausewitz

Some years ago I took to calling it Clausewitz’s Three R’s, namely reward, risk, and resources. A new endeavor, that is, must not merely promise nice-to-have gains. It must be “exceptionally rewarding.” He presents no units of measurement for exceptional reward, but his message is stark: if it is not necessary to do this, it is necessary not to do it.

But there’s more to the calculus than forecasting rewards. Clausewitz cautions the commander against running undue risk in the “principal theater” in order to pursue lesser aims elsewhere. And he defines risk in terms of the resources available in the principal theater. Only “decisive superiority” of resources in the main theater can justify siphoning resources into a secondary effort.

Sun Tzu

Now, it is conceivable that the classical Chinese general Sun Tzu, Clausewitz’s companion in the pantheon of arms, would not deplore the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk. Sun Tzu advises the general to take an opportunistic, highly supple approach to battlefield operations, employing “direct”—sometimes translated as “normal,” or “orthodox”—and “indirect”—sometimes translated as “extraordinary,” or “unorthodox”—lines of effort.

Direct operations generally refers to a frontal assault, while indirect operations strike the enemy’s flanks from some unforeseen axis. Sun Tzu enjoins the wily commander to be prepared to shift effort back and forth as the fortunes of battle dictate. He might make the indirect assault the main effort if the direct assault falters, and thus relegate the direct effort to secondary status. He might shift back, and back again, if circumstances warrant. Etc.

On its face Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk might resemble a macro-scale indirect attack apt to warm Sun Tzu’s heart. It certainly took Moscow by surprise. But here’s the thing. Like Clausewitz two millennia later, the Chinese sage fretted constantly about risk and resources. If the general’s army boasts ten times as many soldiers as the enemy, he exhorts the general to order the foe surrounded. If the general enjoys five times the manpower, he should attack.

And so forth. As the force ratio dwindles, the less venturesome the commander can afford to be. Acting otherwise flirts with disaster. “If weaker numerically,” Sun Tzu goes on, “be capable of withdrawing.” And “if in all respects unequal, be capable of eluding him, for a small force is but booty for one more powerful.”

Ukraine Bankruptcy

https://en.topwar.ru/249502-vinovat-kongress-ssha-minoborony-ukrainy-ne-hvataet-sredstv-na-vyplaty-voennym-za-uchastie-v-boevyh-dejstvijah.html

Blame the US Congress: Ukraine's Defense Ministry lacks funds to pay soldiers for participating in combat operations

https://kazan2024-en.rt.com/business/603470-ukraine-rothschild-debt-restructuring/

Timeline

https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/the-coming-collapse-of-britain

Sunday, May 4, 2024: bondholders pressure Ukraine

Back in July 2022, this group granted Kiev a two year grace period to pause repayments of some $20 billion in bonds they had previously issued. That agreement was due to expire on August 1, 2024.

Sunday, June 30 2024: one month to avert default

The Economist published an article titled, “Ukraine has a month to avoid default,” or until the end of July 2024. Something had to be done.

According to the media reports, the interest payments on those debts alone would amount to $500 million annually. I’m not sure how they came up with that figure: the bond issues in question are all listed in this document and the average interest rate on these bonds is about 7.54%, suggesting that Ukraine’s annual interest expense was $1.487 billion, nearly triple what media reports suggested.

And here we’re still talking about only $20 billion out of Ukraine’s total debt of $161.5 billion! Given the catastrophic state of the country’s finances, the repayment of these debts would collapse Ukraine’s government and its economy.

Friday, 12 July 2024: negotiations with bondholders start

Thursday, 18 July 2024: Zelensky arrives in London

Zelensky participated at the European Political Community summit held at the Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire along with delegates of 44 other countries.

The summit concluded, apparently with the participants reaching an agreement to target Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers: some 600 vessels enabling Russia to evade West’s oil sanctions. On the sidelines of the Summit, Zelensky also met with UK’s king Charles III and Prime Minister Starmer. Allegedly, he also met with the representatives of some of Ukraine's financial and corporate backers like BlackRock, JP Morgan, Bridgewater, Blackstone and ArcelorMittal.

Friday, 19 July 2024: Zelensky addresses Starmer’s cabinet

This was the first time another head of state has done so since 1997, when Bill Clinton addressed Tony Blair’s cabinet

Monday, 22 July 2024: we have a deal!

Wednesday, 24 July 2024: Ukraine strikes the Fitch iceberg

Only two days after Ukraine announced the deal with their bondholders, Fitch downgraded Ukraine’s credit rating from CC to C, reflecting extreme credit risk reserved for countries that "entered default or default-like process." Significantly, Fitch made it explicit that “the publication of sovereign reviews is subject to restrictions and must take place according to a published schedule…”

For Ukraine, the next scheduled review date was set for 6 December 2024. However, Fitch determined that there was a “material change in the creditworthiness of the issuer” which would have made it “inappropriate for us to wait…” Thus, Fitch brought forward their credit rating review for Ukraine by nearly six months, either because her financial position suddenly and significantly deteriorated, or because somewhere, someone who had the power to pull strings, decided to capsize Ukraine (and the UK and EU along with it).

Wednesday, 31 July 2024: Zelensky ‘temporarily’ suspends debt repayments

Thursday, August 1 2024: debt repayments freeze takes effect

Tuesday, 6 August 2024: Ukraine launches Kursk incursion

Podolyak

https://en.news-front.su/2024/08/15/podolyak-said-that-kiev-had-discussed-with-the-us-and-britain-the-invasion-of-kursk-region/

Ukraine has discussed planning an invasion of the Kursk region with the United States and Britain, although they deny it, Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser in Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, has said.

ZeroHedge commented that the operation was, “A British Plan With British Weapons.”

Tuesday, 13 August 2024: Ukraine receives EU funds

The European Commission transferred €4.2 billion to Ukraine as part of the first tranche of the Ukraine Facility program.

16 August 2024: Laut einem „FAS“-Bericht soll im Haushalt für das kommende Jahr kein neues Geld für die Ukraine zur Verfügung stehen.

Kwarteng’s “mini budget” was a foreshadowing

On Friday, 23 September 2022, shortly after the new cabinet led by Prime Minister Liz Truss took over, her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng presented his "mini-budget." The markets did not react well and both the British pound and the price of gilts sold off sharply (gilts are British government bonds). This in turn caused thousands of British pension funds to face margin calls.

To come up with cash for those margin calls, the pension funds needed to urgently liquidate some of their gilt holdings. However, by Tuesday, 27 September, there were no buyers for long-dated gilts. To avert a price collapse, the Bank of England had to intervene. As the bank subsequently informed the Parliament in a letter dated 5 October, on September 27 and 28, the system had "come within hours" of collapsing. The bank came through as the buyer of up to £40 billion in gilts.

The dying economy

According to last year’s figures from Trussell Trust, the number of people in the UK who needed emergency food supplies from food banks more than doubled in the last five years, to 3 million. One in five households have trouble paying their water bills, and many more are struggling to keep up with their energy bills. Electricity bills in the UK are over five times higher than the European average and will substantially increase this winter again, as the suppliers’ wholesale costs increased by 20% over the last few months! It’s little wonder that as many as 48% of Britons said that they would have to turn down the heat, or switch it off completely to survive the winter financially.

In February this year, The Guardian published an article titled, "Gordon Brown slams 'obscene' levels of destitution in the UK." Its opening paragraph states that, "Britain is in the throes of a hidden poverty epidemic, with the worst-affected households living in squalor and going without food, heating and everyday basics such as clean clothes and toothpaste..." The Guardian also published a column written by Brown himself titled, "Tables without food, bedrooms without beds. Grinding child poverty in Britain calls for anger - and a plan."

America Is Losing Southeast Asia

https://archive.ph/AwNlR