Ukraine War Day #309: Missile Strikes + Mozart Criticizes Ukrainians

Dear Readers:

We’ll start off with a quick note about the missile strikes that Russia launched again against Ukraine just today. This time Russia is focusing on Ukrainian anti-air defenses and military objects such as weapons factories, and not so much on civilian or dual-purpose infrastructure. I am glad to hear that, as I genuinely do not like the thought of ordinary people suffering, or even just being inconvenienced. (I know how much I hate it when I am inconvenienced in my daily life, and I am still capable of feeling empathy.) Nonetheless, there is bound to be some suffering/inconvenience involved: For example, I heard that the Kharkov Metro stopped working, along with all other electricity-driven transport in that unfortunate city. To give credit to the Ukrainian proletariat, their electricians and linemen are often able to repair these things fairly quickly. But the main thing is to take out Ukraine’s air defenses and military objects. “Demilitarization” being the operative word. The Russian government knows it simply cannot live with such a hostile and belligerent neighbor. It’s just not possible any more.

Mikhail Zvinchuk, aka Rybar

Many readers have heard of the Russian blogger/military analyst who goes by the name Rybar, this is the pseudonym for a man named Mikhail Zvinchuk. He used to work at the Press service for the Russian Ministry of Defense, and was recently invited to join Putin’s Presidential Council on mobilization issues. People who have been following his telegram tweets in the course of this war, regard Zvinchuk as one of the most reliable sources for tactical, as well as strategic, information. He doesn’t lie, he doesn’t sugarcoat, and he doesn’t pull any punches, especially when it comes to criticizing the khalatnost of the Russian military bureaucracy. Here is what he had to say about the latest batch of strikes:

С момента предыдущего массированного огневого поражения прошло две недели. Судя по всему, такой срок был выбран неслучайно: учитывая общую бюрократизированность аппарата Минобороны России, именно столько времени нужно на уточнение результатов, оценку последствий и планирование нового удара.

Вот только, как мы и говорили ранее, на Украине к таким срокам успели приспособиться. И если не начать менять подход и ускоряться, то результаты огневого поражения с каждым разом будут скромнее.

TRANSLATION:

Since the time of the previous massive strikes, two weeks have passed. Judging by everything, this delay was not coincidental: Taking into account the bureaucratization of the Ministry of Defense apparatus, that is exactly how much time is needed in order to compile the results, draw conclusions, and plan the next strike.

It’s just that, like we said before, the Ukrainians have been able to adapt to this schedule. And if we don’t start to change our approach and speed things up, then the results of each strike will become ever more modest, every time.

Global Norms

Next I have this piece by reporter Olga Ivanova. It contains a short video (just over a minute). Anglophone readers who click on the video will see that the people are speaking in English. Subtitles and explanations are given in Russian for the Russian audience. I am not sure if there is a more direct source for this on the English-language internet; but this is what I found, so I’ll go with it.

These are not the same people.

There is an American private military company (sort of like Blackwater, only this one is called Mozart). Wiki makes sure to disambiguate that this Mozart Group is not the same thing as the Polish Cabaret and String Quartet of the same name. Although, to be honest, I’d much rather be listening to the String Quartet than to the intoxicated ramblings of a mercenary.

The group that we are talking about was founded just this past March, by an American retired Marine Colonel named Andrew Milburn, for the explicit reason of helping the Ukrainians to fight against Russia. We hear from time to time about the Mozart guys facing off against Russia’s Wagner guys on the Donbass Front. Which would be sort of an amusing meme (a battlefield Music Slam!), if this war wasn’t so horrible.

This video is rather interesting, because I would not have expected somebody like Andrew Milburn to say negative things about the Ukrainians. The Kiev regime has a way of making their supporters believe that all Ukrainians are noble heroes, white and fluffy angels who shoot rainbows out of their asses. Gullible Westies, especially Americans, raised on comic books and television trash, want to believe this nonsense, because they hunger for a cause to believe in, for peerless heroes to adore. People who, a year ago, could not point to the Ukraine on a map, now fervently believe that Ukraine is a holy place filled with positive heroes: stalwart soldiers, honest, brave, ferocious and yet somehow kind and generous at the same time. Mercilessly killing a Russian with one hand, while saving a kitten with the other. Just like the action heroes on TV. (In past times, these same positive qualities were also attributed to Afghan mujahadeen, or Chechen jihadists, or any other people who happened to be fighting against Russia at the time; the universal constant being that Russians are always the baddies!)

Well, Andrew Milburn, apparently, is just a little bit smarter than that, or maybe just world-weary. Leaving idealization of heroes to the adolescent-minded, one gets more cynical as one gets older. Thanks to the internet, I found an image of Milburn, so I know what he looks like. His wiki says that he grew up in the United Kingdom, which explains his slight British accent. (Not knowing that, I actually would have pegged him as Australian.) I don’t know who the other two men are. The Russian text explicates that the interview was “very informal”, so that nobody was really curbing their tongues. Looks like three guys just sitting around and mellowing out with the help of a couple shots of whiskey. Milburn’s voice is slightly slurred, like he drank a little too much and said a bit too much. For our purposes, I’ll call the guy with the laptop “Laptop Guy” or LG. He only has one line in this play, and the third guy says nothing. As an exercise for myself in comprehension/dictation, I attempted a literal word-by-word transcription of the short clip:

Andrew Milburn

Milburn: [Ukraine] is a corrupt, fucked-up society. You know, so I’m not a big fan of Ukraine. The Ukrainians are in violation of the Hague Convention. There is a, I forget the exact phraseology, but it is, we looked at this closely, and it is, yeah, there should be no filming of… uh, the terminology is, “bringing attention, blah blah blah blah” to media. Um. And yes, the Ukrainians are violating that. You know.

LG: These violations are atrocities…

Milburn: Yeah, it still is, you shouldn’t kill, you shouldn’t kill dudes who, I mean, heaven knows, who have surrendered. I mean, um, and there was plenty of that. But my point is, it’s not about Ukraine. We’re not like, I happen to have, you know, a Ukraine flag tied to my bag, but I’m not [adopting falsetto voice]: “Oh my god, Ukraine is so awesome…” you know, because it’s.. I understand, plenty of fucked-up people running Ukraine. It’s not about that, it’s about global norms.

LG: Right.