Author Archives: Lila

UK Military Expert Admits Ukraine Will Cede Territory

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 Sky.com has comments from former General Staff chief Lord Dannatt:

“I think it’s only a matter of time before Mariupol falls completely under Russian control.

“This is going to be a very gruesome and sad end to a very heroic fight by the Ukrainian soldiers.

“Then, of course, the Russians will have achieved one of their strategic objectives, which is to create that land corridor from Crimea, through Mariupol, to the Donbas region which borders Russia proper.

“Securing a land corridor from Crimea – which it secured in 2014 but hitherto has only been accessible by sea. They will have joined up the dots, if you like.”

Lord Dannatt says “Russia will not want to give that up”, offering a hint on what the future could hold for this war.

“Over time Ukraine may have to accept that it’s lost part of its territory,” he says.

Ukies Using Banned US-Intel Linked Company To ID Dead Russians

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Ukrainians are using US facial-recognition software [Clearview AI] to identify dead Russian soldiers and inform their families.

In all, the Ukrainian government has run over 8,600 facial recognition scans on dead or captured Russian soldiers since the war began. The operation has been carried out by the country’s IT Army, which is made up of “a volunteer force of hackers and activists that takes its direction from the Ukrainian government.” The clandestine group says it has used the positive identifications obtained from the US-based technology to harass the families of 582 Russian soldiers.

The Ukrainian communications to the horrified family members included sending them photos of the abandoned corpses.

I am sure at least some of the identifications are going to be erroneous, in which case, there is a strong case of harassment.  As for sending photos of abandoned corpses to Russian families, that is likely- to be a crime. Clearview’s technology has come in for a lot of criticism in its pervasive attack on privacy.  Funds for the company have come from internet billionaire and libertarian, Peter Thiel, co founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook. In other words, the military-intelligence complex.

Meanwhile, in Europe, a coalition of digital rights groups filed complaints with data-protection authorities in France, Austria, Italy, Greece, and the United Kingdom, alleging violations of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In November 2021, the UK regulatory body threatened to fine Clearview AI and ordered it to stop processing data of UK citizens. In December, France also ordered the company to stop processing citizens’ data and gave it two months to delete any data it held. Australia has deemed its practices illegal.

Most recently, in March 2022, Italy’s data protection agency announced a 20 million euro penalty against Clearview AI for breaching the GDPR, ordered it to delete any data on Italians and banned it from processing data any further.

 

Osipov Arrest Confirmed By Russian State Outlet?

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UPDATE ON APRIL 21

I am going to go back to putting a question-mark on this story, because today I came across a site that says there is a fake Russian state website putting out information. Today, the fake story was that Elon Musk’s Starlink Satellite had guided the Moskva fire/strike and that Russia was going to retaliate. That turned out to be a fake. That makes me think that the confirmation below of the Osipov arrest might also have been put out by the fake Russian site and not the real government site and that Crooks and Liars might not have been able to tell the difference. RepublicWorld in India also ran with today’s fake story about Musk and Starlink.

ORIGINAL POST

From Crooks and Liars:

By Ed Scarce — April 18, 2022

The commander of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy, Admiral Igor Osipov , has been removed from his post. This was reported by the portal of the United Russia party ruling in the Russian Federation, citing party chairman Dmitry Medvedev , who is also deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.

“The chairman of the United Russia party announced the dismissal of Osipov I.V. – Commander of  Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy during the investigation of the reasons for the loss of the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet,” the statement said.

Russian social networks also report on the arrest of Igor Osipov. Eyewitnesses claim that the arrest of Admiral Osipov was carried out by people in civilian clothes.

According to Russian publics, Admiral Igor Osipov was on board the Moskva at the time of the attack by the Ukrainian military. Witnesses report that either Admiral Osipov himself or his adjutant was severely beaten during his arrest.

The part about Osipov or his adjutant being beaten has not been verified and is just a report by eyewitnesses circulating on social media sites. Also, pictures of a vessel resembling the Moskva, showing damage and sinking, are not confirmed, although media outlets from the Mirror to the New York Times are running with it.

The Pentagon is claiming that they know the Moskva was hit by two  Ukrainian Neptune missiles.

Russia’s  MOD has only said that there was a fire on board and then an explosion that caused the evacuation of the crew.

Casualty figures are also all over the place. Ukraine outlets have claimed that almost the entire 510 members of the crew were wiped out. But Russia has released a video showing somewhere between 100-200 crewmen who survived. The 26-second video was taken on Saturday and showed the head of the Russian Navy, Admiral Yevmenov meeting with surviving crewmen of the Moskva in the Crimea.

Western media are reporting that family members of survivors claim extensive [200 approx] casualties with severe burns in the Crimean military hospital. Russia has admitted officially that around 50 of the crew did not survive.

A Turkish think-tank has suggested that Turkish-made TB2 drones assisted the strike, [see also this] perhaps serving as a distraction. Apparently, this is supported by open-source information indicating Turkish drone activity in the area.

 

St Seraphim of Sarov Church Burned Down In Paris

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St Seraphim of Sarov church in Paris, built in the 1930s, a favorite spot of the French Orthodox community but owned by the Moscow Patriarchate has been burned down.

As you can see, it is Russian Orthodoxy that is under attack, under the pretext of overthrowing a “brutal dictator.” As though, under the right circumstances, the US has not always run directly into the embrace of brutal dictators.

 

 

Kos, Mirror On Moskva Sinking & Osipov Arrest[?]

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From the Daily Kos:

 If the Moskva’s command did not consider the possibility of a shore-based cruise missile attack and failed to consistently enforce the highest condition of readiness, this would have been a serious oversight.

Once the missiles struck, depending on their point of impact, major fires and flooding could have resulted.  Fire is the bane of all sailors and the use of fire-fighting water can exacerbate the flooding and resultant degradation of stability.  The reported explosion of ordnance and fires suggest that rocket motors may have ignited.  Rocket motor fires are very difficult to control as they have their own source of oxygen and cannot be extinguished with CO2 or without using copious amounts of water.  A hit near the waterline would cause massive flooding that might not have been able to be controlled.  Maintaining a high condition of readiness, i.e. all hatches and doors shut might have helped control internal flooding but whether it was in place is unknown.

A ship’s hull that is compromised at or below the waterline is very difficult to right or even move without the assistance of other ships.  In stormy weather, that would be near impossible.  Ships seldom go down upright.  At some point, stability is so compromised they list steeply and usually capsize.

Survivability at sea depends on adherence to strict damage control protocols, assistance from other vessels and heroic, professional action by the surviving crew.  I suspect one or more of these was MIA on the Moskva.

And this:

The Moskva carried a complement of 510, including officers. If 58 is an accurate count of survivors, then 452 men went down with the flagship of the Black Sea fleet….

In the Mirror’s version of the story, all the crew die, although we know now for a fact that at least 50 survived. The Mirror also mentions Osipov’s arrest but at least admits that it has only a Ukrainian source for it.

Vladimir Putin: Monster, Madman, or Mastermind?

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Moscow-based analyst Andrew Korybko debunks the false portrait of Putin promoted in the Western media:

Everyone is trying to figure out who exactly President Putin is and what he’s trying to achieve. Many of his opponents and even quite a lot of his foreign supporters alike have regularly misportrayed him as a strongman who’s obsessed with fighting against the West, each propagating this narrative in pursuit of their diametrically different ideological agenda. This storyline, for as compelling as it may be, is grossly inaccurate and deserves clarification.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is the most talked-about man this century thus far after commencing his country’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine in late February. That dramatic move was intended to uphold the integrity of Russia’s national security red lines in Ukraine in particular and in the region more broadly. It followed the US-led West refusing to respect his security guarantee requests from December, which in turn prompted President Putin to kinetically defend Russia’s existential interests. The unprecedented and preplanned response by the US-led West accelerated preexisting multipolar trends connected to the ongoing global systemic transition and led to what many nowadays consider to be the worst crisis since World War II.
Amidst all of this, everyone is trying to figure out who exactly President Putin is and what he’s trying to achieve. Many of his opponents and even quite a lot of his foreign supporters alike have regularly misportrayed him as a strongman who’s obsessed with fighting against the West, each propagating this narrative in pursuit of their diametrically different ideological agenda.
According to this common interpretation of his motives, he simply can’t get over how the USSR’s dissolution in 1991 led to the erasure of Russia’s former superpower status. In their minds, he’s plotted for decades to make the move that he fatefully did in February, though each side differs over their assessment of how successful it’s been since. This storyline, for as compelling as it may be, is grossly inaccurate and deserves clarification.
Beginning with the viewpoint of his opponents, President Putin is either a monster or a madman. The first implies that he’s a bloodthirsty dictator who couldn’t give a damn for any notion of democracy and human rights, whether the objective understanding thereof or subjective interpretations of them that vary based on society. All that he wants, they claim, is to kill as many people as possible. This leads to the second viewpoint of him possibly being a madman, as in, someone who’s literally gone crazy and surrendered to whatever pathology it may be that supposedly controls everything that he does. Those who ascribe to this interpretation insist that he isn’t a rational actor and therefore mustn’t be negotiated with. Whether a monster or madman, his opponents claim that this man must be contained.
The polar opposite camp employed a proto-QAnon model to explain everything that he does by introducing the idea that he’s a mastermind who plays “5D chess”, “is always winning”, and that everyone who sympathizes with even a single element of his policies should just “trust the plan” exactly as former US President Donald Trump’s most passionate supporters suggested about that American leader.
According to them, President Putin deeply despises everything associated with the West, especially its close partners like Israel and Turkey. Anytime he pragmatically interacts with them and is caught on camera smiling alongside their leaders, they claim, he’s just “playing chess” and “tricking his enemies” in order to supposedly “gather intel” to help defeat them at a later undisclosed time.
Suffice to say, all three interpretations are flat-out ridiculous and have no resemblance to reality. President Putin isn’t a monster, madman, or a mastermind, he’s simply a man who history placed in a very unique position that ultimately compelled him to muscularly defend his Great Power’s existential national security red lines in the most dramatic way possible.

FSB Arrests Commander Of The Black Sea Fleet Ossipov?

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Update 2:

I tracked down the source of this report/rumor passed on by an ex intelligence chief of EU. It comes from a Ukrainian source and it is based on the movement of a plane, which is not enough. So at this point I would put this down as rumor-mongering by Ukrainian propagandists, with some, possible basis.

The origin is this:

There are rumors about the arrest of Admiral Igor Osipov, commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. There is no confirmation of this, but at 3:30 this morning a special flight RA-61712 left Moscow for Rostov. Fontanka wrote that RA-61712 belongs to a special Air Force unit of the FSB, which provides “operational support for the most high-profile cases. In other words, the plane could have been sent to investigate the sinking of the RSC Moskva or to apprehend the leader of the ship. #Ukrainianmilitary hits #Russiancruiser by #Neptunemissiles #cruiserMoskva“

WELL THAT IS QUITE A LEAP. Good God, the BS never ends and I am sorry I ran with this without checking closely. But obviously there is a strong suspicion of sabotage if the FSB is involved, which seems to be the case. The arrest part appears to be just conjectural. Sorry about that.

Update: I cannot find confirmation of this arrest on any Russian state outlet, so I should put a question mark against it, for now.

ORIGINAL POST

Remember this post yesterday about the archpriest Khalyuta gifting a “relic” from the Catholic church to Vice Admiral Ossipov that I posted  on this blog. I linked that post at  comments on Saker.is and on disqus at Martyanov’s site, where it got a downvote.

Lila Rajiva  a day ago

https://lilarajiva.com/2022…

Seems really obtuse to accept some supposed relic from anonymous donors to place inside a flagship, of all things.
The relic is not Orthodox at best, and they don’t know for sure from where it comes, so why accept it? This was probably just staged, in coordination with the mine attack [or whatever] for maximum propaganda effect, but could there also be some technical angle, as for instance, some kind of gps embedded in the so-called relic or a guide for detonation or even some AI device? 

The gifting suggests, does it not, that this whole incident was planned well before hand. Before even Snake Island. And that maybe there was an internal[onboard] element to it?

Then there is this, today:

From Twitter Eerik N Kross Ex intelligence director, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Iraq

FSB arrests the commander of the  Black Sea fleet vice admiral Igor Ossipov. Obviously for the bad weather and an accidental fire on board of Moskva. 8th general out of commission by  action in this war.

5:24 PM · Apr 16, 2022Twitter Web App
Does the FSB usually get involved in oversight, errors, or poor performance in the military? In my layman judgment, no. But if there was sabotage, internally, as was my guess, then they would get involved. That is, if this report is true.
Andrei Martyanov in his last talking head on the subject, laid out what he was careful to say were three contexts for the incident. He was not speculating or putting out a hypothesis, merely contextualizing.
He said, while there was some chance of the explosions/fire being caused by Neptune or other missiles from the Ukrainians, he put it as fairly low, given that he wasn’t even sure if the Neptune missiles were fully operational and given that the Slava/Moskva was well-capable of defending herself from them. [I am writing this from memory of his talk and so cannot recall all the exact military minutiae.]
The second context was that since the Moskva had not been renovated to a state-of-the-art condition, it had some vulnerabilities to attack from underwater diversionary forces. Meaning, some frogmen might have managed to attach a mine to the ship’s hull.
The third context he gave was the possibility of internal sabotage involving people on board  who might have sympathies for the other side, due to propaganda, family ties or something similar.
He also mentioned NATO intelligence support and monitoring, such as, via Romanian private companies in Odessa, but did not feel that the mere fact of NATO support being there meant they were involved. As always, he said to wait and see.
I commented then and posted here about the new jet suits devised in the UK that allow boarding of a hostile ship without helicopters as an example of some cutting-edge technology that might be used to board surreptitiously, because I always felt this was internal sabotage plus NATO involvement.

US Intel Contradicts Biden “Genocide” Claim

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Sputnik News:

The US intelligence agencies do not have information collected to support President Joe Biden’s claims that Russia is allegedly committing genocide in Ukraine, NBC News reported citing senior Biden administration officials.

The report said on Friday that Biden administration officials have said US intelligence reports on Ukraine do not support Biden’s claims that genocide is taking place in Ukraine.
A US intelligence official said in the report that genocide includes the goal of destroying an ethnic group or nation but so far that is not what they are seeing in Ukraine.