Open Thread

Open Thread

As requested - here is an open thread.
I will be back, God willing, tomorrow.
Cheers,
The Saker

A few more hyper-short items + open thread (IMPORTANT UPDATE!!)

Dear friends,

I am exhausted.  Badly.  Had to spend many hours on the road this week-end so here is my schedule:

Today I will, insha'allah, answer the most (all?) the emails I have to answer.  Then I will write a bunch of emails to try to get a few apparently stuck "balls" rolling again.

Tomorrow I should be back with an analysis of what happened in Novorussia.

Thanks a lot for all the positive feedback about the podcast.  Vox populi: I will try to make a podcast every two weeks.  I will post in invitation to questions a week before which will give you enough time to send them in.  I will also post "show notes" with references to the people/events/sources/etc. I mention.

One more thing: Google drive is useless.  Mediafire and 4Shared saved my bacon apparently.  If any of you had a SSH2/SFTP server with a high bandwidth to host my podcasts I would be very grateful.  Either that, or advice on where I can post them.

Okay, I need to work on them email now.  See you all tomorrow :-)

Cheers and thanks,

The Saker
PS: grab this one for yet another open thread!

UPDATE: Thanks to Martin, the podcast is now available for download at this URL:

http://www.opensxce.org/vineyardsaker.blogspot.de/The%20Saker%20Podcast%20No1.mp3  (thanks Martin!!)

The recent elections and gas deal - survey: who won who lost? & upcoming podcast

Dear friends,

Since I am going to be very busy until Monday morning, I want to leave you with a "semi-open thread".  If you see something interesting, by all means please post it here.  If not, I would like to survey your opinions on two questions:

1. In the latest gas deal between the EU, the Ukraine and Russia - who won and who lost? (The junta in Kiev? Russia? The EU? Novorussia?  The US? The oligarchs? Gazprom?)
2. Who won and who lost in the latest Ukrainian elections? What is the most important conclusion you make from these results?

I will give you my take on this on Monday when I also hope (time permitting) to record my first podcast.  I will make this first one "hyper-informal" so please feel free to post any questions (not here!! and not by email either!!  but here: http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.com/2014/10/podcast-project-lets-give-it-first-try.html) and please feel free to make them questions as informal as you want.  I see this podcast as a chat amongst good friends, not a "proper" and uptight academic exercise.  Even the topics discussed do not need to be serious.  If you want to discuss music, or philosophy - please do so.  I will try to answer as many questions as I can, though I will only answer those inspiring me to answer in the first place (troll, idiots and provocateurs will be ignored).  Anyway - you can post question until Sunday 1800 GMT/UTC.

Kind regards to all,

The Saker

Various small notes + Open Thread

Dear friends,

As you can see, the new blog is still down.  I was told by my IT specialist that it will be back up tonight. As soon as I know something I will let you know too.

Guys, Hebrew is not the second language in the Ukraine.  Rate your sources, okay? 

(FYI - What is true is that the junta wants to make English the second language).

Gubarev was shot at. There are plenty of photos of his car here.

Colonel Cassad (I consider his one of the best sources on the Ukraine) has a very good photo of what I would call "politics in Banderastan".

A 'civilizational choice' indeed

Igor Strelkov, which some "hurray-patriots" had declared as being held prisoner in Putin dungeons, is alive and well, he just visited Cossacks in Crimea:

Strelkov with Cossacks in Crimea

But as to why he does not seem to be doing very much of anything - you guess is as good as mine.

As for Poroshenko and the Ukie Rada, they just passed a new law making the day of the founding of the Banderist "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" (the Nazi Ukies of WWII) the official "Day of the Defender of the Fatherland".   Of course, nobody in the "West" seems to have noticed.

Just as western "human rights defenders" are not at all interested in the massive violations of human rights in the Ukraine.

I will be gone all day, so I leave you with the usual "open thread" which I will try to moderate as often as I can.

Kind regards to all,

The Saker

God's Finger and open thread

Today I am taking care of personal and administrative matters.  God willing, I should be back tomorrow.  I leave you with the latest artwork by Josetxo Ezcurra and an open thread.

Cheers,

The Saker

Saker note: will be gone all day - open thread

Dear friend,

Monday I will be on the road all day.  God willing, I will be back in the evening.  In the meantime - enjoy an open thread.  Cheers,

The Saker

Confirmed: Ilovaisk has been liberated + open thread

Dear friends,

I have a bad case of repetitive stress injury (RSI) due to too much keyboard and mouse use (even though I use an ergonomic keyboard and mouse).  I need to type less today, but I want to confirm that Ilovaisk, the city featured yesterday in this video, has been freed.

Now I must take the rest of the day off.

Open thread!

Cheers,

The Saker

Confession and open thread

Dear friends,

I am exhausted. Totally. Wiped out. And this has shown in the past couple of days when I failed to police comments which never should have made it to begin with. I hope to be able to address what I see as The Key Issue (all in caps!) by Thursday morning/early afternoon: will the US/NATO attempt to attack Russian and/or Novorussia and, if yes, how?

But tomorrow I will be gone. All day. I will go and hide and recharge my "emotional batteries" deep in the Florida wilderness. Somewhere with very few people, if any, but lots of wildlife and a pristine wilderness. I have to leave all my electronics at home, I just take my survival gear and my photo camera. Before I leave I will try to moderate comments one more time. After that I will be gone. I should be home by 8PM (nobody sane wants to remain in the Florida boonies after sundown). The weather tomorrow? 90F/32C, sunny, humidity 60%. Atlantic Ocean water temperature: 84F/29C. Perfect :-)

See you all tomorrow evening!

The Saker

PS: I leave you with one of my favorite songs on one of my favorite albums: Paris' "Sonic Jihad". 2003, but still one of the best ever.  I hope you enjoy it.

Short news items & open thread

A couple of quick things:

1) The so-called "interview" with Alexander Khodakovskii (not Mikhail Khodorkovskii) is a fake made by Reuters in which different parts of the real interview were re-mixed together in order to make it sound as if Khodakovskii was saying that the Resistance had a BukM1.  Video and audio proof of that fact that this was a fake was shown on Russian TV today.

2) The "new, democratic and free Ukraine associated to the EU" has just banned the Communist Party from the Parliament.  Welcome to the "civilizational choice" of Europe.

Not SITREP from Mindfriedo today (yes, he too has a life in meatspace), but hopefully one from Strelkov via Gleb Bazov, but later today.

I will be back in a few hours, in the meantime, open thread (with my friend /dev/null keeping an eye on the proceedings).

Kind regards,

The Saker

Preliminary but very good news and open thread

Dear friends,

I am sorry to report that I will again have to be away from my keyboard for most of the day.  Therefore, I will again leave an open thread for you to use to keep the discussion going.  Please do not use that time to attack anybody personally.

Right now I will just say this:

There are reports from different sources which all point to the same fact: it appears the Ukie force in the "southern cauldron" has been thoroughly defeated and that what is left of it is retreating in chaos and panic.  Apparently the Resistance managed to defeat this large force (3'000-5'000 soldiers supported by heavy equipment) with no fire support from the Russian side.

The Ukie forces are also apparently retreating form Donetsk even though some sources are also claiming that Donetsk is under attack.  Russian sources report that Strelkov imposed a curfew on the city.  Still, there is pretty good evidence that some towns near Donetsk have been abandoned by retreating Ukie forces.

Still no clear news from the Lugansk airport.  I think that what is going on is that the Ukies control only part of the airport, but that this part is very heavily fortified and very well defended.  So even though the Ukies are surrounded, the Resistance cannot "crack" their defenses yet.  I wonder when the newly "acquired" Resistance artillery will be used to put an end to this siege.

The best info so far is on the Russian version website of Colonel Cassad:

http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/

There is an English version which, of course, is delayed by the time needed to translate:

http://cassad-eng.livejournal.com/

If I get any SITREPs I will post them this evening (GMT-5).  Until then, I live you the open thread.

Kind regards to all,

The Saker

Small update and open thread

Dear friends,

I will be gone most of the day and unable to do much besides moderating comments from my car.  If I get SITREPs today I will post them this evening.  I just wanted to let you know that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the hell was really going on at the Lugansk airport and my best guess is that the Ukies are still on control of it and that they are still surrounded.  I am extremely unsure about that as both sides continue to claim that they control it.  My best guess is that a Ukie column did succeed in breaking through the Resistance positions and join the Ukie forces at the airport, but that it was greatly weakened by numerous Resistance attacks and that the airport is surrounded again.  In other words, the Resistance statement that the airport had been taken appears to be false.

I have see no fresh news from the "southern cauldron" or from the Donetsk airport.  Two Russian paratroopers were apparently killed by Ukie fire on the Russian border.  That's all I have right now.

See you all this evening, now the thread is yours.

Kind regards,

The Saker

Open Thread June 27th

I will be gone for the full day, so I leave you with an open thread (and *please* spare me the Nazi apologetics at least for today!) and this "wonderful" photo.  Kind regards,

The Saker
-------

EU signs association with a Nazi regime.  Bravo!

OPEN THREAD (June 11-14)

Well, here is the promised open thread.  In homage to the heroes in Novorossia who are fighting the Nazi death squads every day, here is a music video about prevailing against terrible odds and a famous monologue from the movie "Brat 2":

Вот скажи мне американец, в чём сила! Разве в деньгах? Вот и брат говорит, что в деньгах. У тебя много денег, и чего? Я вот думаю, что сила в правде: у кого правда, тот и сильней! Вот ты обманул кого-то, денег нажил, и чего — ты сильней стал? Нет, не стал, потому что правды за тобой нету! А тот, кого обманул, за ним правда! Значит, он сильней!

See you all on Saturday and God bless,

The Saker
-------