Dear Readers:
Today concluding my review/translation of this piece by war correspondent Alexander Kots. Where we left off: Having taken Lozovoe, and in the classic style of Russian warfare, Russian soldiers are slowly pushing Ukrainian soldiers into the cauldron. The Ukrainian soldiers have no choice except to go where they are being nudged: If they try to withdraw to a safer location, or surrender, they will be shot by their “own” guys, the so-called “Rear-Defense” units which are staffed by fanatical Nationalists. Under better leadership, the Ukrainian soldiers would have had many more options than just this one…
Kots: Factually, our [Russian] troops are reproducing, almost to a tee, the offensive operations of the Ukrainian army back in 2014, when they were trying to take Slavyansk. The “O” grouping is marching on Yampol and Krasny Liman, with the purpose of closing the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration from the Northeast. [Other] troops, marching on from Izyum, are closing the gap from the Northwest. From the Southeast march [other] Russian troops and units of the LPR. And from the Southwest, march troops of the Russian Federation and the DPR. The overall picture of the Battle for the Donbass is slowly emerging in its clarity.
Starring Blinken And Blinken!
Dear Readers, having concluded that serious piece about serious soldiers, it’s time for a little bit of fun with conspiracy theories. Oh, I know, I know — even the mainstream Russian press says it really happened, namely the Blinken/Austin comedy duo really did physically fly into Kiev for the meeting with Zelensky. But I am still dubious, and I think they are covering up for something, for whatever reason. Frankly, the photographs from that visit look so fake to me, as if they were done with crude split-screen Hollywood technology from the 1950’s!
Like, the way it’s done to make it appear that this cute little girl has a twin: They shoot the same scene twice, but with, first the right side matted out, and then the left side matted out (with green screen), and then they splice the two films together. If you look closely you can see exactly where the middle line is cut. Of course, in the case of Blinken and Zelensky (according to my conspiracy theory), the two actors are not actually on the same set together. Each is filmed separately, in a separate studio (on two continents!), but each studio has been set up to be a double of the other. You can see where the middle line is, and you can also see that Blinken’s hand is clutching Zel’s in not quite the right place (too far up the thumb). Stipulating again that this is all just for fun…
Awful Avalanche 
I have a lot of trouble caring where they’re meeting & whether it’s really in the flesh. If I were running Ze’s security detail, I’d want him in Lvov or Poland, rather than Kiev, but that’s really neither here nor there.
That being said, there shouldn’t be two stones left together of any of the main government buildings in Kiev, at least not by my lights.
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Then there wouldn’t be any Ukrainian government left to negotiate with. Russia is still hoping it can get a deal at the end of this, though it’s taking more pressure than they had hoped. Russia doesn’t want to run most of Ukraine, it wants a compliant and neutral government in Kiev to have to run the trashed basketcase of a country that is left behind after the war.
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True, but I think Russia has come to realize that Zelensky is not the guy, he’s too nutty. Maybe they should go with Plan B and parachute Yanukovych back in?
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You’re right, Stephen, I shouldn’t even care about whether they meet in person, or not. It’s not important, totally agree. It’s just my whimsical side, because I watch too many movies!
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Well, “which videos re fake ?” has a fair bit of entertainment value, so no problem there.(And I really liked “The Parent trap”, if I have the original split screen film right, back in the day)
The reality is neither Ze nor anyone else in the Kiev regime has any autonomy for negotiation, as has become painfully clear, so I think it’s squash the Ukrainian army in the bits that Russia wants, deal with whatever Moldovan / Romanian / Polish / other EU – NATO intervention happens, and then negotiate with “The big guy”, assuming a full-on nuclear exchange can be avoided mid stream.
What a world!
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Yeah. Seems like “the big guy” is mentally demented though. And the Russophobes claim that Putin has Parkinson’s. So imagine a world where one guy places his trembling hand on the nuclear trigger — ooops! while the other guy goes full-on Alzheimer and starts screaming: “Kill them all!”
What a world, what a world…
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Speaking of the Ukrainian commissars, there was a vz.ru piece from the first few weeks of the war that went into some detail about their existence and prevalence, which I haven’t been able to find again. Would you happen to know the one I’m talking about, yalensis?
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Hm… not sure, Ben.
I did a string-search on the vz site using the search word заградотряд, and then filtered for after start of war.
Maybe this one:
https://vz.ru/news/2022/2/27/1146028.html
?
In any case, it is common knowledge (I think) that the Ukrainian army uses these Nationalist fanatics to keep the regular soldiers in line. It’s almost funny how these virulent anti-Communist Ukrainians ape the stereotypes of how Stalin’s goons allegedly behaved in the army. Stalin, at least, was smart enough to get rid of the ideological Commissars fairly early in the war, and just let the Generals do their technocratic thing. Zelensky is like a harlequin parody of Stalin.
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