Showing posts with label Ukrainian national suicide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ukrainian national suicide. Show all posts
Friday, February 27, 2015
Police beating people protesting currency collapse in Kiev
This is the note by Tatzhit Mihailovich under the YouTube video:
Remember how under the "dictator" Yanukovich, the police didn't disperse the protesters but only repelled extremists advancing on Congress and President's Administration? Yeah, that is no longer the case.
And how back then police didn't open fire even when the protesters burned a police armored car with Molotovs? Here, at 5:07 one can clearly hear them say several times: "touch us, and we will shoot to kill".
Oh yeah, and the reason those people are protesting: under Yanukovich, dollar cost 8 hryvna. Now, it costs 34! Those people have dollar loans - if before paying back say $50 a month took a quarter of their salary, now it may be more than they earn.
Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss?
UPDATE (full story at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e65_14... ) :
This event is more interesting due to reaction to it, not the fact that police beat some protesters up. This far from the first time we see the new government being worse than "dictator" Yanukovich, starting with dispersing the original Maidan, mass arrests against Kharkov austerity rallies, clashes by the Rada, etc. This may be the first time the capital police do this to a non-violent crowd, but hardly something shocking.
What's interesting is the reaction: the event is exploding over a lot of Ukrainian media and social networks, apparently. Some popular bloggers are claiming it may be a staged excuse to topple Poroshenko, much like the carefully planned "Christmas tree" clash ultimately toppled Yanukovich.
Whether this is truly engineered, or the explosion of discontent is simply because common people and media alike smell the "blood in the water" (panic over the hryvna collapse just made the whole government hugely unpopular) is uncertain and may even turn out to be irrelevant - all that matters is what long-term fallout we will see. And this is already going way beyond a few hurt protesters and ruined tents...
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Thursday, February 26, 2015
At the finish line of deindustrialization: how Ukraine loses its industry
source: http://www.odnako.org/blogs/na-finishnoy-pryamoy-deindustrializacii-kak-ukraina-teryaet-promishlennost/
By Ivan Lizan
Translated by Eugene
Ukraine's refusal to cooperate with Russia in the military, scientific and technical fields has already begun to bear fruit. Naturally, this Kiev’s policy forced the citizens of Ukraine to eat only one (poisonous) kind of "fruit”: unemployment, poverty and deindustrialization.
Thanks to the West and Kiev for this
The goal of this break in cooperation, initiated by the Western curators of Kiev - while talking heads in the government only announced Washington's decision, wrapped in the slogan “Not a single spare part for the occupier!" - was actually the disruption of the state defense order of the Russian Federation.
"Geniuses" of the Ukrainian political thought expressed the intention to force Moscow’s capitulation by refusing to cooperate and to export components. For example, the Ukrainian political "giant" Yuri Lutsenko suggested to use the Yuzhmash plant as a means to blackmail Russia. The argument was truly "deadly", but, as turned out, not for Russia: "... all Russian nuclear missiles can be serviced only by our Yuzhmash. Without this service, the whole world will sing la-la-la-la" [reference to the obscene ditty “Putin huilo la-la-la-la” popular among anti-Russian Ukrs] - Lutsenko repeated in mid-July last year.
However, the negative effect of breaking the bonds is almost always mutual and is not immediate. Because, all of a sudden, it turned out that the mastodon of Ukrainian engineering - the backbone of Ukrainian rocket-building – Yuzhmash found itself between life and death. Yet, Russian companies still keep working, for reasons still unclear to Kiev.
How the flagship of rocket-building dies
The plant had problems before. They were not critical, but accumulated from year to year.
Americans were first to refuse cooperation with Yuzhmash because of the exploded Anthares rocket. Formally, the Americans are going to work for about a year on finalizing the technical solution for their rocket, so Yuzhmash will be left without US orders during this time. In reality, if Washington decides to renew the cooperation, they will not find anyone to talk with, as by that time the company will be reduced to just a pile of equipment.
The final nail in the plant’s coffin was the refusal of the Russian Federation to procure launch vehicles Zenit; they will be replaced with [Russian made] Angara.
As of mid-October 2014, about fifty employees were leaving the company on a daily basis. And they were the most valuable workers that could not be replaced by anyone else. The situation was aggravated by endless waves of "mogilizations" [wordplay: mobilization/mogilization as “mogila” means “grave” in Russian] announced by Kiev in the framework of the civil war in the East.
The number of mobilized workers is not precisely known, but the more employees will lose their jobs, the more will be sent to the ranks of the Ukrainian army - thus not only enhancing the country's defense, but also "creating new jobs." Therefore, the damage to the personnel potential will increase in direct proportion to the duration of the war and the number of layoffs at the plant.
Death of the enterprise: Just the facts
One can learn about the state of the company from the interview of its former director Victor Shchyogol, but here we are only interested in the facts and consequences of the plant’s closure:
-- over the past three years, the volume of production at the plant fell more than 4 times, and the volume of contracts with Russia decreased by 60 times, as calculated in hrivnya equivalent;
-- the closure of the plant will result in the loss of about 50 000 jobs at Yuzhmash and associated enterprises;
-- about 70% of the components for the launch vehicle Zenit was produced in cooperation with Russia;
-- contracts with the Brazilians and maintaining working relationships with the US will allow to employ only about 10% of the plant’s personnel;
-- cooperation with Russia terminated completely, resulting in the loss of more than 80% of the plant’s revenue;
-- employees of the company have not received wages for over seven months;
-- out of the total workforce of 7000, more than a thousand employees have left the company;
-- even two years ago, orders from Ukraine amounted to the miniscule 10 million hryvnia (just over $1 million at the 2013 exchange rate), now there are no orders at all.
Who is next?
The next candidates for demise are Antonov ASTC [Aviation Science and Technology Complex] and other machine-building enterprises.
On January 30 the IMF mission arrived in Antonov ASTC. They acquainted themselves with the work of the enterprise and visited the laboratory of static tests, the engineering and piloting stand, the trainer AN-148, assembly shops for both experimental and serial productions, and also learned about promising projects.
It is unknown, what was the real purpose of the visit by IMF clerks, but it is doubtful that the sharks of the Western capital were interested in a speedy recovery and development of the enterprise. Most likely, it goes to its liquidation. Probably, the closure of a number of high-tech industries is one condition for the disbursement of IMF loans to Kiev.
Remarkably, the dying Yuzhmash and Antonov are connected by industrial cooperation – the chassis for the aircraft family AN are made in Dnepropetrovsk.
The situation is no better in railcar construction - in the first half of last year, they assembled only about 3,500 cars with a capacity of 38 thousand. The Kharkov plant Electrotyazhmash has lost $41 million due to the cancellation of orders from Russia for the supply of turbine generators, electric motors and mine-drilling equipment. The losses of Yuzhkabel amounted to $12.4 million.
Only Turboatom and “Motor Sich" managed to survive - so far.
Next in line – the death of metallurgy, which remains in a state of depression for several years already. The destruction or loss of the Avdeevka coke plant will force Kiev to switch to imported coking coal, while the transition of Mariupol under the authority of DPR [Donetsk People Republic] will lead to the loss of the major port for exporting rolled metal. With diminished metal production, the state budget will lose a large share of its foreign currency earnings.
In the framework of the war between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk, the ferroalloys sector, which is controlled by Igor Kolomoisky, could potentially die as well. Ferroalloys plants have not been modernized, and this is an incredibly energy-intensive industry. So far, the only thing that saves the industry – is the supply of electricity from Russia and the unwillingness of Kiev to confront Kolomoisky.
Quite vague are the prospects of chemical and food industries, however, the situation is no better in other areas of the economy that are suffering from young reformers and "visiting warriers" from the Baltic states and the US.
***
One can say with certainty that at the end of its civil war, the Ukraine will complete the process of de-industrialization, and what is left of it, will be able to grow only grains.
The existing objects of infrastructure are irrelevant to Kiev rulers, while the workers capable of servicing power plants and producing high-tech goods at miraculously survived factories will either die at the front, unable to avoid "mogilizations", or travel outside the country to escape from poverty. It is safe to admit that the administrative staff are absolutely incompetent, which is confirmed by regular accidents at Ukrainian nuclear power plants, which only narrowly failed to repeat the Chernobyl disaster.
The financial default, which Kiev will have to declare, inevitably, will only hasten the death of the industry. Together with the production shut down, Kiev will get a reduction of foreign exchange earnings, a decline in budget revenues, and, therefore, an approaching collapse and tens of thousands of lost jobs - not because of some Moscow’s policy, but from Kiev’s own desire to kill itself to spite Russia.
Because each new closed plant will only bring closer the start of large-scale urban riots and increase the number of opponents of the bankrupt project "Ukraine".
-------
Saker note @EVERYBODY PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS ON THE NEW BLOG!
This blog will CLOSE for comments on March 1st. The new
one has the popular threaded comments and faster moderation.
http://thesaker.is/blog/
By Ivan Lizan
Translated by Eugene
Ukraine's refusal to cooperate with Russia in the military, scientific and technical fields has already begun to bear fruit. Naturally, this Kiev’s policy forced the citizens of Ukraine to eat only one (poisonous) kind of "fruit”: unemployment, poverty and deindustrialization.
Thanks to the West and Kiev for this
The goal of this break in cooperation, initiated by the Western curators of Kiev - while talking heads in the government only announced Washington's decision, wrapped in the slogan “Not a single spare part for the occupier!" - was actually the disruption of the state defense order of the Russian Federation.
"Geniuses" of the Ukrainian political thought expressed the intention to force Moscow’s capitulation by refusing to cooperate and to export components. For example, the Ukrainian political "giant" Yuri Lutsenko suggested to use the Yuzhmash plant as a means to blackmail Russia. The argument was truly "deadly", but, as turned out, not for Russia: "... all Russian nuclear missiles can be serviced only by our Yuzhmash. Without this service, the whole world will sing la-la-la-la" [reference to the obscene ditty “Putin huilo la-la-la-la” popular among anti-Russian Ukrs] - Lutsenko repeated in mid-July last year.
However, the negative effect of breaking the bonds is almost always mutual and is not immediate. Because, all of a sudden, it turned out that the mastodon of Ukrainian engineering - the backbone of Ukrainian rocket-building – Yuzhmash found itself between life and death. Yet, Russian companies still keep working, for reasons still unclear to Kiev.
How the flagship of rocket-building dies
The plant had problems before. They were not critical, but accumulated from year to year.
Americans were first to refuse cooperation with Yuzhmash because of the exploded Anthares rocket. Formally, the Americans are going to work for about a year on finalizing the technical solution for their rocket, so Yuzhmash will be left without US orders during this time. In reality, if Washington decides to renew the cooperation, they will not find anyone to talk with, as by that time the company will be reduced to just a pile of equipment.
The final nail in the plant’s coffin was the refusal of the Russian Federation to procure launch vehicles Zenit; they will be replaced with [Russian made] Angara.
As of mid-October 2014, about fifty employees were leaving the company on a daily basis. And they were the most valuable workers that could not be replaced by anyone else. The situation was aggravated by endless waves of "mogilizations" [wordplay: mobilization/mogilization as “mogila” means “grave” in Russian] announced by Kiev in the framework of the civil war in the East.
The number of mobilized workers is not precisely known, but the more employees will lose their jobs, the more will be sent to the ranks of the Ukrainian army - thus not only enhancing the country's defense, but also "creating new jobs." Therefore, the damage to the personnel potential will increase in direct proportion to the duration of the war and the number of layoffs at the plant.
Death of the enterprise: Just the facts
One can learn about the state of the company from the interview of its former director Victor Shchyogol, but here we are only interested in the facts and consequences of the plant’s closure:
-- over the past three years, the volume of production at the plant fell more than 4 times, and the volume of contracts with Russia decreased by 60 times, as calculated in hrivnya equivalent;
-- the closure of the plant will result in the loss of about 50 000 jobs at Yuzhmash and associated enterprises;
-- about 70% of the components for the launch vehicle Zenit was produced in cooperation with Russia;
-- contracts with the Brazilians and maintaining working relationships with the US will allow to employ only about 10% of the plant’s personnel;
-- cooperation with Russia terminated completely, resulting in the loss of more than 80% of the plant’s revenue;
-- employees of the company have not received wages for over seven months;
-- out of the total workforce of 7000, more than a thousand employees have left the company;
-- even two years ago, orders from Ukraine amounted to the miniscule 10 million hryvnia (just over $1 million at the 2013 exchange rate), now there are no orders at all.
Who is next?
The next candidates for demise are Antonov ASTC [Aviation Science and Technology Complex] and other machine-building enterprises.
On January 30 the IMF mission arrived in Antonov ASTC. They acquainted themselves with the work of the enterprise and visited the laboratory of static tests, the engineering and piloting stand, the trainer AN-148, assembly shops for both experimental and serial productions, and also learned about promising projects.
It is unknown, what was the real purpose of the visit by IMF clerks, but it is doubtful that the sharks of the Western capital were interested in a speedy recovery and development of the enterprise. Most likely, it goes to its liquidation. Probably, the closure of a number of high-tech industries is one condition for the disbursement of IMF loans to Kiev.
Remarkably, the dying Yuzhmash and Antonov are connected by industrial cooperation – the chassis for the aircraft family AN are made in Dnepropetrovsk.
The situation is no better in railcar construction - in the first half of last year, they assembled only about 3,500 cars with a capacity of 38 thousand. The Kharkov plant Electrotyazhmash has lost $41 million due to the cancellation of orders from Russia for the supply of turbine generators, electric motors and mine-drilling equipment. The losses of Yuzhkabel amounted to $12.4 million.
Only Turboatom and “Motor Sich" managed to survive - so far.
Next in line – the death of metallurgy, which remains in a state of depression for several years already. The destruction or loss of the Avdeevka coke plant will force Kiev to switch to imported coking coal, while the transition of Mariupol under the authority of DPR [Donetsk People Republic] will lead to the loss of the major port for exporting rolled metal. With diminished metal production, the state budget will lose a large share of its foreign currency earnings.
In the framework of the war between Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk, the ferroalloys sector, which is controlled by Igor Kolomoisky, could potentially die as well. Ferroalloys plants have not been modernized, and this is an incredibly energy-intensive industry. So far, the only thing that saves the industry – is the supply of electricity from Russia and the unwillingness of Kiev to confront Kolomoisky.
Quite vague are the prospects of chemical and food industries, however, the situation is no better in other areas of the economy that are suffering from young reformers and "visiting warriers" from the Baltic states and the US.
***
One can say with certainty that at the end of its civil war, the Ukraine will complete the process of de-industrialization, and what is left of it, will be able to grow only grains.
The existing objects of infrastructure are irrelevant to Kiev rulers, while the workers capable of servicing power plants and producing high-tech goods at miraculously survived factories will either die at the front, unable to avoid "mogilizations", or travel outside the country to escape from poverty. It is safe to admit that the administrative staff are absolutely incompetent, which is confirmed by regular accidents at Ukrainian nuclear power plants, which only narrowly failed to repeat the Chernobyl disaster.
The financial default, which Kiev will have to declare, inevitably, will only hasten the death of the industry. Together with the production shut down, Kiev will get a reduction of foreign exchange earnings, a decline in budget revenues, and, therefore, an approaching collapse and tens of thousands of lost jobs - not because of some Moscow’s policy, but from Kiev’s own desire to kill itself to spite Russia.
Because each new closed plant will only bring closer the start of large-scale urban riots and increase the number of opponents of the bankrupt project "Ukraine".
-------
Saker note @EVERYBODY PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS ON THE NEW BLOG!
This blog will CLOSE for comments on March 1st. The new
one has the popular threaded comments and faster moderation.
http://thesaker.is/blog/
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Saturday, February 21, 2015
The Maidan - one year later
Today is the first anniversary of the deal made between Yanukovich and the "opposition" and guaranteed by foreign ministers Radosław Sikorski of Poland, Laurent Fabius of France and Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany. As we all know, the deal resulted in a withdrawal of the security forces from the Kiev city center immediately followed by an armed insurrection which overthrew the government. Predictably, Poland, France and Germany did not object. I won't recount all of the events which happened since this infamous day, but I think that it is important to look at what has changed in a year. I think that it also makes sense to compare what I had predicted might happen with what actually happened simply to see if a person if a person with no access to any classified data and who is using only "open sources" for his analysis could have predicted what happened or if this was all a huge and totally unpredictable surprise.
So let's look at my predictions in a chronological order.
November 30th, 2013: in "The Gates of Hell are Opening for the Ukraine"
My point is not to congratulate myself (I sincerely wish my pessimistic predictions would have turned out wrong), but to demonstrate that anybody armed with a) basic knowledge of Russia and the Ukraine b) access to open sources information c) basic common sense could have made all of these predictions.
There are, however, also events which I completely failed to foresee: the amazing inability of the Ukrainian military to get anything done. On July 1st, 2014, in a post entitled "Novorussia - Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and settle for anything in the middle" I wrote:
Military analyst always tend to be very cautious and assume the worst-case, and this is how it should be when lives are at stake, but I cannot explain away my complete failure to predict the Novorussian successes by some professional inclination. What happened is that I got the Novorussian mentality completely wrong by assuming that their initial passivity was a predictor of their ability to fight. A fundamentally flawed and mistaken assumption.
Still, I mostly got it right and so could have done all the advisors, analysts, area specialists, etc. working for the governments involved in that crisis and I bet you they did. But either the politicians did not want to listen, or they wanted precisely that outcome.
The shameful and utterly disgusting fact is that everything that took place was completely predictable. In fact, Putin, Lavrov and many more Russians officials *did* try to tell everybody that the Ukrainian people were cheerfully waltzing straight into a precipice, but nobody was willing to listen. Instead, western politicians blamed the Russians for everything, which is just about the most intellectually dishonest and hypocritical thing they could have done.
In one year an entire country was destroyed, tens of thousands of people were murdered and millions are now left with nothing not even hope: the Ukraine is a failed state, having now gone through Dmitri Orlov's "five stages of collapse". Kiev is in the hands of a regime of incompetent Nazi freaks and the only alternative to them looks even worse.
Make no mistake, if the Donbass is now probably safe from any future junta attacks, the risks for the rest of the rump-Ukraine are still huge and an even bigger bloodbath could happen next.
What is evident is that Poroshenko is a "goner": this sad buffoon promised peace to the Ukrainian people and instead he gave them a year long bloodbath culminating in a strategic defeat which cost the Ukrainians about half of their more or less combat capable forces. The only thing which keeps Poroshenko in power now is the political support of the USA and the political recognition by the EU and Russia. But the rest of the freaks in power don't care one bit about the EU or Russia and I predict that they will try to eject him at the first possibility. When I look at list of freaks likely to succeed Poroshenko I get a knot in my stomach: if Poroshenko was a political prostitute and a spineless, incompetent imbecile, he was at least not clinically insane. Most of his likely successors are. As for Iats or Turchinov, I personally think that they are demoniacally possessed which is arguably even worse than being clinically insane.
In conclusion I will just say that if I believe that all the horrors of the past year were fully avoidable, I also believe that the horrors of the next, upcoming, year are not: the Ukraine has plunged over the cliff and is now heading for the very same future as Libya (another western "success story"). I hope that I am wrong and that I am missing something crucial, but I personally do not see any way to stop the implosion of the rump-Ukraine and my advise to anybody still living there would be to get out while you can.
In them meantime in Moscow there was a "anti-Maidan" demonstration planned for 10'000 people. 35'000-50'000 showed up to say "we will not forget, we will not forgive" and "no Maidan in Russia". This anti-Maidan movement which was just formed very recently has a very bright political future because after watching the horrors right across their border and accepting close to a million refugees from the Ukraine, the vast majority of Russians want nothing to do with a Maidan-like event in Russia. Combine that with the still 80%+ popularity of Putin in spite of western sanctions, and you will see that Russia is safe from the kind of events which happened in Kiev a year ago.
The virus which killed the Ukraine will act as a vaccine for Russia.
The Saker
So let's look at my predictions in a chronological order.
November 30th, 2013: in "The Gates of Hell are Opening for the Ukraine"
The supposedly "pro-Russian" Eastern Ukrainians
They have no vision, no ideology, no identifiable future goal. All they can offer is a message which, in essence, says "we have no other choice than sell out to the rich Russians rather than to the poor European" or "all we can get from the EU is words, the Russians are offering money". True. But still extremely uninspiring, to say the least.
The future of Yanukovich
I am beginning to fear that this will all explode into a real and very dangerous crisis for Russia. First, I am assuming that the the Eurobureaucrats and the Ukrainian nationalists will eventually prevail, and that Yanukovich will either fully complete his apparent "zag" and reverse his decision, or lose power. One way or another the the Eurobureaucrats and the Ukrainian nationalists will, I think, prevail. There will be more joyful demonstrations, fireworks and celebrations in Kiev, along with lots of self-righteous back-slapping and high-fiving in Brussels, and then the gates of Hell will truly open for the Ukraine.
The real risks for Russia
Being drawn into the inevitable chaos and violence with will flare up all over the Ukraine (including the Crimean Peninsula), stopping or, at least, safely managing a likely flow of refugees seeking physical and economic safety in Russia and protecting the Russian economy from the consequences of the collapse of Ukrainian economy. Russia will have to do all that while keeping its hands off the developing crisis inside the Ukraine as it is absolutely certain that the Eurobureaucrats and the Ukrainian nationalists will blame Russia for it all. The best thing Russia could do in such a situation would be to leave the Ukrainians to their private slugfest and wait for one side or the other to prevail before trying to very carefully send out a few low-key political "feelers" to see if there is somebody across the border who has finally come to his/her senses and is capable and ready to seriously begin to rebuilt the Ukraine and its inevitable partnership with Russia and the rest of the Eurasian Union. As long as that does not happen Russia should stay out, as much as is possible.
Sarajevo on the Dniepr
Right now, all the signs are that the Ukraine is going down the "Bosnian road" and that things are going to get really ugly.
It is hard to tell, but my sense is that when the local authorities in the southeastern Ukraine threaten not to accept any regime change in Kiev they probably do really mean it. This very much reminds me of the repeated warnings of the Bosnian-Serbs that they would not accept to live in an Islamic state run by an rabid fanatic like Itzebegovich. At the time, and just like today, nobody took these warnings seriously and we all know how that ended. The big difference between Bosnia and the Ukraine is first and foremost one of dimensions: Bosnia has an area of 19,741 square miles and a population of 3,791,622 while the Ukraine has an area of 233,090 square miles and a population of 44,854,065. That is a huge difference which make a direct foreign intervention a much more complicated endeavor.
And Russia in all that?January 26th, 2014: Yanukovich's latest move might make a partition of the Ukraine unavoidable:
I can only repeat that Russia should stay out of whatever happens in the Ukraine. The Russian government should prepare for an influx of refugees and the Russian military should be placed on high alert to avoid any provocations or cross-border violence. A special goal for Russia should be to use all the means possible to avoid any violence on the Crimean Peninsula because of the presence of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol which can find itself in the position of the 14th Army in Transdniestria when it simply had not other choice than to get involved due to the high number of officers with relatives living in the republic. If, God forbid, the nationalist try to militarily take over the Crimean Peninsula or Sevastopol I don't see how the Black Sea Fleet could stay uninvolved - that is simply impossible and this is why that situation needs to be avoided at all costs.
The partition of the Ukraine is inevitable
This has, of course, not been reported in the western Ziomedia, but the eastern Ukraine is now also bubbling with political actions. To make a long story short, the folks in the southeastern Ukraine have no desire whatsoever to let folks like Iatseniuk, Klichko or Tiagnibok rule over them. In fact, several local assembles - including the Parliament of Crimea - have adopted resolution calling on the President to restore law and order and warning that they would never accept a "regime change" in Kiev.March 1st, 2014: Obama just made things much, much worse in the Ukraine - now Russia is ready for war
Russia is ready for war
Something absolutely huge has just happened in Russia: the Russian Council of the Federation, the equivalent of the US Senate, has just UNANIMOUSLY passed a resolution allowing Putin to use Russian armed forces in the Ukraine, something the Duma had requested earlier. Before the vote took place, Russian senators said that Obama had threatened Russia, insulted the Russian people and that they demanded that Putin recall the Russian ambassador to the USA. I have never seen such a level of outrage and even rage in Russia as right now. I hope and pray that Obama, and his advisers, stop and think carefully about their next step because make no mistake about that RUSSIA IS READY FOR WAR.April 23rd, 2014: The US plan for the Ukraine - a hypothesis
The US will try to force Russia to intervene in the Donbass
The eastern Ukraine is lost no matter what. So the junta in Kiev have to pick on of the following options:So let's summarize the above:
a) Let the eastern Ukraine leave by means of referendum and do nothing about it.
b) Let the eastern Ukraine leave but only after some violence.
c) Let the eastern Ukraine leave following a Russian military intervention.
Clearly, option 'a' is by far the worst. Option 'b' is so-so, but option 'c' is very nice. Think of it: this option will make it look like Russia invaded the Eastern Ukraine and that the people there had no say about it. It will also make the rest of the Ukraine rally around the flag. The economic disaster will be blamed on Russia and the Presidential election of May 25th can be canceled due to the Russian "threat". Not only that, but a war - no matter how silly - is the *perfect* pretext to introduce martial law which can be used to crack down on the Right Sector or anybody expressing views the junta does not like. That is an old trick - trigger a war and people will rally around the regime in power. Create a panic, and people will forget the real issues.
As for the USA - it also knows that the Eastern Ukraine is gone. With Crimea and Eastern Ukraine gone - the Ukraine has exactly *zero* value to the Empire, to why not simply use it as a way to create a new Cold War, something which would be much more sexy that the Global War on Terror or the really old War on Drugs. After all, if Russia is forced to intervene militarily NATO will have to send reinforcements to "protect" countries like Poland or Latvia just in case Putin decides to invade all of the EU.
Bottom line - the freaks in power in Kiev and the USA *know* that the eastern Ukraine is lost for them, and the purpose of the imminent attack is not to "win" against the Russian-speaking rebels or, even less so, to "win" against the Russian military, it is to trigger enough violence to force Russia to intervene. In other words, since the East is lost anyways, it is much better to lose it to the "invading Russian hordes" than to lose it to the local civilian population.
So the purpose of the next attack will not be to win, but to lose. That the Ukrainian military can still do.
Two things can happen to foil this plan:
1) The Ukrainian military might refuse to obey such clearly criminal orders (and becoming a target of the Russian military might help some officers make the correct "purely moral" choice).
2) The local resistance might be strong enough to draw out such an operation and have to come to a grinding halt.
Ideally, a combination of both.
- Yanukovich will be overthrown. Check
- The Donbass will rise up. Check
- The Ukraine will be partitioned. Check
- A civil war will break out. Check
- The US will try to pull Russia in. Check
- Russia will protect Crimea. Check
- Russia will say out of the Donbass. Check
- Russia will have to deal with refugees. Check
- The US/NATO will not intervene like in Bosnia. Check
- The Ukrainian economy will collapse. Check
My point is not to congratulate myself (I sincerely wish my pessimistic predictions would have turned out wrong), but to demonstrate that anybody armed with a) basic knowledge of Russia and the Ukraine b) access to open sources information c) basic common sense could have made all of these predictions.
There are, however, also events which I completely failed to foresee: the amazing inability of the Ukrainian military to get anything done. On July 1st, 2014, in a post entitled "Novorussia - Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and settle for anything in the middle" I wrote:
The worst which can happen is that a lot of Novorussian defenders get killed, that the towns of Slaviansk, Kramatorsk, Krasnyi Liman and others will get basically flattened and most of their inhabitants killed, that the road between Donetsk and Lugansk gets cut-off by the Ukies and that Ukie forces enter deep inside these two cities.What really happened took my by complete surprise: initially the Ukrainian forces did move in, but soon they were bogged down and then gradually surrounded by the Novorussians. In fact, both during the junta's summer offensive and during it's winter offensive the Novorussians succeeded in crushing the Ukrainian forces even in open terrain: steppes, hills, fields and forests. The other amazing thing which happened is that for the first time in the past 200 years there were more combatants killed on the Ukrainian side than civilians. The German intelligences sources estimate the number of victims of this war at about 50'000. That figure sure makes sense to me. That kind of outcome and these kinds of figures can only be explained by a huge, truly immense, difference in combat capabilities between the junta forces and the Novorussians. Unimpressed as I was by the Novorussian behavior in February-March I failed to imagine that this rather passive and peaceful folk would turn into formidable combatants who would so radically defeat a vastly superior force (at least on paper), not once, but twice. Even as late as October 24th, in a post entitled "What could the next Junta offensive against Novorussia look like?" I again failed to predict the almost immediate defeat of the junta's winter offensive. I wrote:
I have to be honest here, there is a pretty good chance that all of the above will happen in the next 24 hours.
If that happens, I would like to remind you all that entering into a city is one thing, taking control of it is quite another. Think Beirut, think Grozny, think Baghdad, think Fallujah, think Gaza, think Bint Jbeil. Even if Poroshenko announces that Donetsk and Lugansk have "fallen", this will be only a empty statement on par with Dubya's "mission accomplished". What will *really* happen is that the type of warfare taking place will change. Not only will it change, but the new (urban) type of warfare will almost completely negate the current huge advantage in aviation, artillery and armor of the Ukie side. So if these cities "fall" - please do not despair.
I hope that Novorussians will be able to resist the Ukie attack, but I also know that by all accounts the kind of firepower the junta is using now is truly huge - we are dealing with a merciless and massive attack with everything the junta could muster and we have to accept that the Novorussian Defense Forces might have to retreat deeper into the cities or even go underground. While heroic for sure, it is not smart to stay in the open when your enemy is using Smerch and Uragan MRLS against you or even the building you are in. During the first Chechen war the Chechen retreated deeply inside Grozny and did not even bother defending the outskirts, in part because the city center buildings were far stronger than the flimsy houses in the suburbs. I never studied the layout of the cities of Lugansk and Donetsk, but if they are typical of the way the Soviets liked to build, then retreating into the city center and giving up the suburbs would probably make sense.
The first defensive option is to let the Ukies enter the suburbs and then cut them off, envelop (surround) them, and then attack them. If that works, great! But if the Ukies clear the way with massive sustained strikes and flatten their way in, then it will become necessarily to switch to "plan B" and retreat deeper into the cities. If the Ukie advance is multi-pronged and too fast, or if the city center defenses were not adequately prepared (for whatever reason), then plan "C" is to go more or less underground and switch to an active mobile defense centered on short but intense ambushes followed by immediate retreats.
What the Ukies are preparing is rather obvious. They will pick several key axes of attack along which they will unleash a massive artillery attack. This fire preparation will serve to prepare for a push by Ukrainian armored units (this time around we can expect the Ukrainian infantry to properly defend their tanks and not the other way around). The Ukrainians will not push deep into Donetsk or Lugansk, but rather they will try to, again, cut-off and surround Donetsk in a pincer attack and then negotiate some kind of quasi-surrender by the Novorussians. At most, they will try to enter a few important suburbs. I don't expect much action around Luganks - Donetsk is far more exposed. Now, if I am correct and this is what happens, then please understand and remember this: the correct Novorussian response to this plan is to begin by retreating. It makes no sense whatsoever for the Novorussians to sit and fight from positions which are densely covered by Ukrainian artillery strikes. During the first Ukrainian attack I was dismayed to see how many people clearly did not understand the importance retreats in warfare. The "hurray-patriots" in particular were adamant that the initial Novorussian retreat was a clear sign that, as always, "Putin had betrayed Novorussia" (when the NAF went on a long and brilliant counter-offensive, these "hurray-patriots" fell silent for a while until the moment when Moscow stopped the NAF from seizing Mariupol, at which point they resumed chanting their mantra). The fact is that retreating against a superior forces is the logical thing to do, especially if you have had the time to prepare for a two, possibly, three echelon defense. While I do not know that for a fact, this is what I expect the Novorussians have been doing during all the length of the ceasefire: preparing a well-concealed and layered defense. My hope and expectation is that once the JRF attacks the NAF will, again, carefully retreat, pull the JFR in, and then being to gradually degrade the attacking force. I particular hope that the Russians have finally send some much needed guided anti-tank weapons through the voentorg.I was completely wrong. Not only did the Novorussians stop the junta offensive more or less along the line of contact, but they went on the counter-offensive where they seized the heavily fortified Donetsk airport and then the entire Debaltsevo cauldron. To say that I am extremely impressed is an understatement.
Military analyst always tend to be very cautious and assume the worst-case, and this is how it should be when lives are at stake, but I cannot explain away my complete failure to predict the Novorussian successes by some professional inclination. What happened is that I got the Novorussian mentality completely wrong by assuming that their initial passivity was a predictor of their ability to fight. A fundamentally flawed and mistaken assumption.
Still, I mostly got it right and so could have done all the advisors, analysts, area specialists, etc. working for the governments involved in that crisis and I bet you they did. But either the politicians did not want to listen, or they wanted precisely that outcome.
The shameful and utterly disgusting fact is that everything that took place was completely predictable. In fact, Putin, Lavrov and many more Russians officials *did* try to tell everybody that the Ukrainian people were cheerfully waltzing straight into a precipice, but nobody was willing to listen. Instead, western politicians blamed the Russians for everything, which is just about the most intellectually dishonest and hypocritical thing they could have done.
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| The next Ukie president? |
Make no mistake, if the Donbass is now probably safe from any future junta attacks, the risks for the rest of the rump-Ukraine are still huge and an even bigger bloodbath could happen next.
What is evident is that Poroshenko is a "goner": this sad buffoon promised peace to the Ukrainian people and instead he gave them a year long bloodbath culminating in a strategic defeat which cost the Ukrainians about half of their more or less combat capable forces. The only thing which keeps Poroshenko in power now is the political support of the USA and the political recognition by the EU and Russia. But the rest of the freaks in power don't care one bit about the EU or Russia and I predict that they will try to eject him at the first possibility. When I look at list of freaks likely to succeed Poroshenko I get a knot in my stomach: if Poroshenko was a political prostitute and a spineless, incompetent imbecile, he was at least not clinically insane. Most of his likely successors are. As for Iats or Turchinov, I personally think that they are demoniacally possessed which is arguably even worse than being clinically insane.
In conclusion I will just say that if I believe that all the horrors of the past year were fully avoidable, I also believe that the horrors of the next, upcoming, year are not: the Ukraine has plunged over the cliff and is now heading for the very same future as Libya (another western "success story"). I hope that I am wrong and that I am missing something crucial, but I personally do not see any way to stop the implosion of the rump-Ukraine and my advise to anybody still living there would be to get out while you can.
In them meantime in Moscow there was a "anti-Maidan" demonstration planned for 10'000 people. 35'000-50'000 showed up to say "we will not forget, we will not forgive" and "no Maidan in Russia". This anti-Maidan movement which was just formed very recently has a very bright political future because after watching the horrors right across their border and accepting close to a million refugees from the Ukraine, the vast majority of Russians want nothing to do with a Maidan-like event in Russia. Combine that with the still 80%+ popularity of Putin in spite of western sanctions, and you will see that Russia is safe from the kind of events which happened in Kiev a year ago.
The virus which killed the Ukraine will act as a vaccine for Russia.
The Saker
Monday, December 15, 2014
Ukraine As Seen Through The Eyes Of A Geologist
by Vadim Zolotaryev, http://matveychev-oleg.livejournal.com/1722656.html
via http://worldcrisis.ru/crisis/1729991
translated by Eugenia (thanks so much!!)
A matter-of-fact view backed by numbers
07-12-2014: By profession, I am a geologist, not a fortune teller or a psychic. I have no way of knowing what Putin is currently thinking of or what Poroshenko and Obama talked about yesterday. I am not on intimate terms with oligarchs of different countries involved in the events in Ukraine and have only a vague idea about their financial machinations. But I know the mineral resources that are the foundation of the Ukraine economy and, based mostly on that knowledge, I am offering my understanding of the current situation.
In the Soviet Union, Ukraine was above all the premier metallurgical region.
The Krivorozshskiy ore field is the second largest in the world (the first is the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly). The Donetsk coalfield is located close to the Krivorozshskiy ore field. The distance between them is only 300-400 km. There is no other place in the world where ore and coking coal are found in such quantities so close together. The Nikopol deposit of manganese ore needed for Siemens-Martin process of steel production is also nearby. In addition, the Kremenchug, Belozersk, and Kerchensky ore deposits were also exploited.
On this base, Ukraine developed metal-intensive manufacturing: equipment for factories and mining industry, rail transport, sea ships, agricultural equipment, etc.
The byproducts of the iron and coke making were used in the chemical industries (acids, plastics, mineral fertilizers).
All these industries developed in the proximity to the sources of raw materials, and that process created the industrial South-East of Ukraine.
The project Novorossiya includes precisely these territories (Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozye, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolaev, Kherson regions).
I want to emphasize: Novorossiya is a unified industrial complex and not at all the place of concentration of the Russian-speaking population.
Nevertheless, it is directly connected with Russia. Since the Ukrainian industry was created in the USSR, the products of that industry were manufactured according to the standards suitable specifically for the former Soviet countries, i.e. Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus.
In contrast, the Ukrainian industry is unsuitable for Europe or America. Everyone knows about the differences in the width of rail tracks, different European electrical outlets, but there are thousands of such incompatibilities. Therefore, the West can only make use of the Ukrainian raw materials.
But this makes all Ukrainian factories redundant, and, consequently, workers in these factories become redundant as well, followed by people that feed, cloth, and provide medical services to the workers. There is a reason why the West speaks about the need to reduce the population of Ukraine to 15 million people. And it does not matter which language these people speak.
The whole mess started not because of the language problem but because of the dispute where should Ukraine go: to the EU or ECU.
The authors of the project Novorossiya reasonably supposed that the South-East of Ukraine could be equally successful as an independent republic maintaining close ties with Russia or as a federal subject within the Russian Federation. However, as a part of Ukraine the South-East could be successful only if Ukraine keeps as close a relationship with Russia as existed in the Soviet times.
As a separate entity, Novorossiya could exist without Odessa or Nikolaev, thereby losing the shipbuilding industry, or without Kharkov, with its Kharkov Tractor Plant, but it cannot survive without its raw material base: Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozye regions with their iron and manganese ore and Donetsk and Lugansk with their coalfields.
On the other hand, Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic by themselves have no means of existence.
Soviet geologists and economists had recognized the problems of the Donetsk coalfield. In order to understand these problems, let us discuss what is Donbass – the most renowned coalfield of the Soviet Union.
Firsts, this is a relatively small coalfield. Below, I list the resources of the main coalfields of the USSR for comparison:
Lensk – 2647 billion ton;
Tunguska – 1745 billion ton;
Kansk-Achinsk – 1220 billion ton;
Kuznetsk – 805 billion ton;
Taimyr – 583 billion ton;
Pechersk – 344 billion ton;
Donetsk – 240 billion ton.
By its structure, the Donetsk coal basin is, simply speaking, a large basket of ancient igneous rock approximately 70 thousand square km in size and 8 km deep. That basket is filled with sedimentary rock intermixed with layers of coal. But these layers are not horizontal but folded, disrupted, distorted, and displaced.
Total of 300 coal seams have been found. About 50 seams have the thickness from 50 cm to 2 m and are good for mining. Although now in Donbass ever the seams as narrow as 20 cm are being exploited.
For comparison: in Kuznetsk coalfield the thickness of mines coal beds reaches 20 m, and the seams are horizontal and located very close to the surface.
In Donbass, however, all productive coal beds lying close to the surface have already been exhausted. Now it is necessary to reach deep (1000-1200 m) to extract coal, and this is considering that sudden explosive ejections of coal, gas, and rock are possible starting from the depth of 500-700 m.
In order to ensure normal conditions for people working at great depths under high pressure and temperature, new technologies are constantly needed to remove gases from seams, provide ventilation and air conditioning in the mines, to develop and use special equipment allowing for the coal extraction without people, etc. All this requires enormous capital investments.
In the USSR, the same investment yielded 3 times more coal in Kuzbass than in Donbass.
Significantly, the rate of adoption of new technologies in Donbass started to decline back in the 1980s when the marked forces made inroads into our economy. This had an immediate impact on the annual coal production:
1940 - 94 million tons;
1970 - 218 million tons;
1980 - 223 million tons;
1985 - 200 million tons;
1991 - 165 million tons;
2000 - 75 million tons.
As can be seen, with the beginning of perestroika, the annual coal production in Donbass declines rapidly, because the exploitation of the Donbass coalfields was no longer possible without constant technological innovations. However, capitalists would not invest more capital into unprofitable enterprises. That is why Donbass mines are closing one by one, and mining accident after accident claim human lives.
At the same time, the quality of the Donbass coal is very high. Anthracite of such quality is ideal for metallurgy. Because of that, Soviet economists insisted that this high quality expensive coal should be used in a most effective manner, i.e. exclusively in Ukrainian metallurgy. Lower quality coal produced without additional expense alongside high grade anthracite could be used for burning.
The energy sector of Ukraine, as a part of the energy complex of the USSR, was meant to use Russian oil and gas as well as transfer of electricity from the power stations working on the low grade Ekibastuz and Kansk-Achinsk coal (these are the open-cast coal regions, with the production cost 10 times lower than in Donbass) and development of the atomic energy.
However, just a few mines in Donbass could supply the amount of coal required by the Ukrainian metallurgy sector, with just 1/100 of all Donbass miners needed to operate them.
Precisely the problem of Donbass miners was what kept the Donbass mines in the Soviet Union fully operational and the entire region subsidized by the state. Clearly, the elimination of townships, relocation and retraining of such an enormous number of people would raise an avalanche of protests. Since the people’s interests still dominated over the interest of the economy, a gradual re-specialization of the Donbass mining region was planned, with building of new, mostly equipment manufacturing, plants.
Naturally, after Ukraine’s independence, there could be no building of new plants; all over Ukraine, existing enterprises were going bankrupt and disappearing. The Donetsk coal was considered only as burning coal for energy production. However, producing burning coal at such cost is not just unprofitable, it is criminal, given that in the capitalist conditions the production expenses are often covered by human lives.
Yet capitalism went even further in its criminality. Instead of unprofitable coalfield, Donbass is now considered as a promising region for shale gas production.
Unfortunately, I do not know for sure what amount of shale gas is predicted to be in Donbass. Theoretically, in such a coalfield all rock should contain gas to a certain extent. Drilling for gas is much cheaper that mining for coal (both in the cost of the equipment and of the work force). Besides, drilling could be done at considerably greater depths. Thus, for investors there are all the reasons to expect the conversion of the unprofitable region into a more or less profitable one.
But that is for the investors. For the citizens of Ukraine, and particularly those of Donbass, such re-purposing of the region is turning into a tragedy. The main trouble is not ecological. The tragedy is that, with the shale gas production conducted on a large scale in the former coal-producing region, most of the Donbass population will become redundant, lose their jobs and means of existence. (Donbass is the most densely populated region of Ukraine, where most of the residents are connected to the coal mining industry). Moreover, a larger part of the South-East of Ukraine will become redundant as well, since only ore mining companies will survive, whereas all metallurgy plants will close followed by machinery and equipment plants, pipe rolling plants, shipyards – all this industry will cease to exist.
I cannot say that I admire Putin or that Russian oligarchs are dearer to me in any way than oligarchs of other countries. But the fact that Russia has the intention of preserving the Ukraine’s metallurgic complex makes me an unwavering supporter of Putin’s policy. This policy is, of course, completely devoid of altruism or disinterested love to the Russian-speaking population of the South-East. Equally, the Poroshenko government could not care less about the Ukrainian people.
The pro-American government of the today’s Ukraine is deliberately doing everything to destroy the Ukrainian metallurgic complex, to isolate the Ukrainian ore deposits from the coalfields, to destroy Donbass.
The military actions destroy first the infrastructure of the Donbass towns. Schools, hospitals, communications are being targeted; mines are being destroyed. Indiscriminate artillery fire terrorizes the population causing mass departure; the residents feel increasing hatred toward the Ukrainian army and Ukraine as a whole. Throughout Ukraine, antipathy is being inflamed towards “colorads” that want to present a piece of Ukraine to Putin.
However, Russia is not interested in Novorossiya, as represented by Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Russia has plenty of its own coalfields and gas deposits that, in contrast to Donbass, are profitable. The cost of coal production in Donbass is considerably higher than in any Russian coalfield. Furthermore, Russia would like to preserve the metallurgic complex of Ukraine, i.e. to keep the link between Donbass and the Ukrainian iron ore deposits.
That is why Russia is in no hurry to recognize the independence of Novorossiya. The separation of Donbass from Ukraine is an American project. The project that will bring suffering first of all to the people of Donetsk and Lugansk regions as well as to all the people of Ukraine.
Currently, self-proclaimed republics are running election campaigns, and there is a real danger that the power will be assumed by people who, while fighting for the independence of the republics, are trying to attain the independence precisely to achieve the objectives of the American project.
Donbass does not need independence. Donbass needs to unite with other industrial regions of Ukraine, primarily Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozye. Donbass needs the entire Ukrainian industry to be preserved.
The survival of the Ukrainian industry is a necessity for the Ukrainian nation as a whole. But the majority of Ukrainian people do not understand their true interests, do not understand that Ukraine, with its resources and population, cannon be an independent state, that to ensure employment for the people Ukraine requires labor-intensive industries. The products of that industry should be exported, and it can only be exported to the former Soviet countries, and the separation from these countries, first of all from Russia, would mean ruination for the Ukrainian nation.
However, nobody explains any of this to the Ukrainian people. The pro-American mass media are filled with russophobic propaganda, while Russian mass media focus on the defense of the Russian-speaking population saying that Ukraine is no more, that it has never really existed and should not exist, thereby, from its own side, inciting hatred between Russian and Ukrainian people and promoting the separation of Donbass.
via http://worldcrisis.ru/crisis/1729991
translated by Eugenia (thanks so much!!)
A matter-of-fact view backed by numbers
07-12-2014: By profession, I am a geologist, not a fortune teller or a psychic. I have no way of knowing what Putin is currently thinking of or what Poroshenko and Obama talked about yesterday. I am not on intimate terms with oligarchs of different countries involved in the events in Ukraine and have only a vague idea about their financial machinations. But I know the mineral resources that are the foundation of the Ukraine economy and, based mostly on that knowledge, I am offering my understanding of the current situation.
In the Soviet Union, Ukraine was above all the premier metallurgical region.
The Krivorozshskiy ore field is the second largest in the world (the first is the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly). The Donetsk coalfield is located close to the Krivorozshskiy ore field. The distance between them is only 300-400 km. There is no other place in the world where ore and coking coal are found in such quantities so close together. The Nikopol deposit of manganese ore needed for Siemens-Martin process of steel production is also nearby. In addition, the Kremenchug, Belozersk, and Kerchensky ore deposits were also exploited.
On this base, Ukraine developed metal-intensive manufacturing: equipment for factories and mining industry, rail transport, sea ships, agricultural equipment, etc.
The byproducts of the iron and coke making were used in the chemical industries (acids, plastics, mineral fertilizers).
All these industries developed in the proximity to the sources of raw materials, and that process created the industrial South-East of Ukraine.
The project Novorossiya includes precisely these territories (Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozye, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolaev, Kherson regions).
I want to emphasize: Novorossiya is a unified industrial complex and not at all the place of concentration of the Russian-speaking population.
Nevertheless, it is directly connected with Russia. Since the Ukrainian industry was created in the USSR, the products of that industry were manufactured according to the standards suitable specifically for the former Soviet countries, i.e. Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus.
In contrast, the Ukrainian industry is unsuitable for Europe or America. Everyone knows about the differences in the width of rail tracks, different European electrical outlets, but there are thousands of such incompatibilities. Therefore, the West can only make use of the Ukrainian raw materials.
But this makes all Ukrainian factories redundant, and, consequently, workers in these factories become redundant as well, followed by people that feed, cloth, and provide medical services to the workers. There is a reason why the West speaks about the need to reduce the population of Ukraine to 15 million people. And it does not matter which language these people speak.
The whole mess started not because of the language problem but because of the dispute where should Ukraine go: to the EU or ECU.
The authors of the project Novorossiya reasonably supposed that the South-East of Ukraine could be equally successful as an independent republic maintaining close ties with Russia or as a federal subject within the Russian Federation. However, as a part of Ukraine the South-East could be successful only if Ukraine keeps as close a relationship with Russia as existed in the Soviet times.
As a separate entity, Novorossiya could exist without Odessa or Nikolaev, thereby losing the shipbuilding industry, or without Kharkov, with its Kharkov Tractor Plant, but it cannot survive without its raw material base: Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozye regions with their iron and manganese ore and Donetsk and Lugansk with their coalfields.
On the other hand, Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic by themselves have no means of existence.
Soviet geologists and economists had recognized the problems of the Donetsk coalfield. In order to understand these problems, let us discuss what is Donbass – the most renowned coalfield of the Soviet Union.
Firsts, this is a relatively small coalfield. Below, I list the resources of the main coalfields of the USSR for comparison:
Lensk – 2647 billion ton;
Tunguska – 1745 billion ton;
Kansk-Achinsk – 1220 billion ton;
Kuznetsk – 805 billion ton;
Taimyr – 583 billion ton;
Pechersk – 344 billion ton;
Donetsk – 240 billion ton.
By its structure, the Donetsk coal basin is, simply speaking, a large basket of ancient igneous rock approximately 70 thousand square km in size and 8 km deep. That basket is filled with sedimentary rock intermixed with layers of coal. But these layers are not horizontal but folded, disrupted, distorted, and displaced.
Total of 300 coal seams have been found. About 50 seams have the thickness from 50 cm to 2 m and are good for mining. Although now in Donbass ever the seams as narrow as 20 cm are being exploited.
For comparison: in Kuznetsk coalfield the thickness of mines coal beds reaches 20 m, and the seams are horizontal and located very close to the surface.
In Donbass, however, all productive coal beds lying close to the surface have already been exhausted. Now it is necessary to reach deep (1000-1200 m) to extract coal, and this is considering that sudden explosive ejections of coal, gas, and rock are possible starting from the depth of 500-700 m.
In order to ensure normal conditions for people working at great depths under high pressure and temperature, new technologies are constantly needed to remove gases from seams, provide ventilation and air conditioning in the mines, to develop and use special equipment allowing for the coal extraction without people, etc. All this requires enormous capital investments.
In the USSR, the same investment yielded 3 times more coal in Kuzbass than in Donbass.
Significantly, the rate of adoption of new technologies in Donbass started to decline back in the 1980s when the marked forces made inroads into our economy. This had an immediate impact on the annual coal production:
1940 - 94 million tons;
1970 - 218 million tons;
1980 - 223 million tons;
1985 - 200 million tons;
1991 - 165 million tons;
2000 - 75 million tons.
As can be seen, with the beginning of perestroika, the annual coal production in Donbass declines rapidly, because the exploitation of the Donbass coalfields was no longer possible without constant technological innovations. However, capitalists would not invest more capital into unprofitable enterprises. That is why Donbass mines are closing one by one, and mining accident after accident claim human lives.
At the same time, the quality of the Donbass coal is very high. Anthracite of such quality is ideal for metallurgy. Because of that, Soviet economists insisted that this high quality expensive coal should be used in a most effective manner, i.e. exclusively in Ukrainian metallurgy. Lower quality coal produced without additional expense alongside high grade anthracite could be used for burning.
The energy sector of Ukraine, as a part of the energy complex of the USSR, was meant to use Russian oil and gas as well as transfer of electricity from the power stations working on the low grade Ekibastuz and Kansk-Achinsk coal (these are the open-cast coal regions, with the production cost 10 times lower than in Donbass) and development of the atomic energy.
However, just a few mines in Donbass could supply the amount of coal required by the Ukrainian metallurgy sector, with just 1/100 of all Donbass miners needed to operate them.
Precisely the problem of Donbass miners was what kept the Donbass mines in the Soviet Union fully operational and the entire region subsidized by the state. Clearly, the elimination of townships, relocation and retraining of such an enormous number of people would raise an avalanche of protests. Since the people’s interests still dominated over the interest of the economy, a gradual re-specialization of the Donbass mining region was planned, with building of new, mostly equipment manufacturing, plants.
Naturally, after Ukraine’s independence, there could be no building of new plants; all over Ukraine, existing enterprises were going bankrupt and disappearing. The Donetsk coal was considered only as burning coal for energy production. However, producing burning coal at such cost is not just unprofitable, it is criminal, given that in the capitalist conditions the production expenses are often covered by human lives.
Yet capitalism went even further in its criminality. Instead of unprofitable coalfield, Donbass is now considered as a promising region for shale gas production.
Unfortunately, I do not know for sure what amount of shale gas is predicted to be in Donbass. Theoretically, in such a coalfield all rock should contain gas to a certain extent. Drilling for gas is much cheaper that mining for coal (both in the cost of the equipment and of the work force). Besides, drilling could be done at considerably greater depths. Thus, for investors there are all the reasons to expect the conversion of the unprofitable region into a more or less profitable one.
But that is for the investors. For the citizens of Ukraine, and particularly those of Donbass, such re-purposing of the region is turning into a tragedy. The main trouble is not ecological. The tragedy is that, with the shale gas production conducted on a large scale in the former coal-producing region, most of the Donbass population will become redundant, lose their jobs and means of existence. (Donbass is the most densely populated region of Ukraine, where most of the residents are connected to the coal mining industry). Moreover, a larger part of the South-East of Ukraine will become redundant as well, since only ore mining companies will survive, whereas all metallurgy plants will close followed by machinery and equipment plants, pipe rolling plants, shipyards – all this industry will cease to exist.
I cannot say that I admire Putin or that Russian oligarchs are dearer to me in any way than oligarchs of other countries. But the fact that Russia has the intention of preserving the Ukraine’s metallurgic complex makes me an unwavering supporter of Putin’s policy. This policy is, of course, completely devoid of altruism or disinterested love to the Russian-speaking population of the South-East. Equally, the Poroshenko government could not care less about the Ukrainian people.
The pro-American government of the today’s Ukraine is deliberately doing everything to destroy the Ukrainian metallurgic complex, to isolate the Ukrainian ore deposits from the coalfields, to destroy Donbass.
The military actions destroy first the infrastructure of the Donbass towns. Schools, hospitals, communications are being targeted; mines are being destroyed. Indiscriminate artillery fire terrorizes the population causing mass departure; the residents feel increasing hatred toward the Ukrainian army and Ukraine as a whole. Throughout Ukraine, antipathy is being inflamed towards “colorads” that want to present a piece of Ukraine to Putin.
However, Russia is not interested in Novorossiya, as represented by Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Russia has plenty of its own coalfields and gas deposits that, in contrast to Donbass, are profitable. The cost of coal production in Donbass is considerably higher than in any Russian coalfield. Furthermore, Russia would like to preserve the metallurgic complex of Ukraine, i.e. to keep the link between Donbass and the Ukrainian iron ore deposits.
That is why Russia is in no hurry to recognize the independence of Novorossiya. The separation of Donbass from Ukraine is an American project. The project that will bring suffering first of all to the people of Donetsk and Lugansk regions as well as to all the people of Ukraine.
Currently, self-proclaimed republics are running election campaigns, and there is a real danger that the power will be assumed by people who, while fighting for the independence of the republics, are trying to attain the independence precisely to achieve the objectives of the American project.
Donbass does not need independence. Donbass needs to unite with other industrial regions of Ukraine, primarily Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozye. Donbass needs the entire Ukrainian industry to be preserved.
The survival of the Ukrainian industry is a necessity for the Ukrainian nation as a whole. But the majority of Ukrainian people do not understand their true interests, do not understand that Ukraine, with its resources and population, cannon be an independent state, that to ensure employment for the people Ukraine requires labor-intensive industries. The products of that industry should be exported, and it can only be exported to the former Soviet countries, and the separation from these countries, first of all from Russia, would mean ruination for the Ukrainian nation.
However, nobody explains any of this to the Ukrainian people. The pro-American mass media are filled with russophobic propaganda, while Russian mass media focus on the defense of the Russian-speaking population saying that Ukraine is no more, that it has never really existed and should not exist, thereby, from its own side, inciting hatred between Russian and Ukrainian people and promoting the separation of Donbass.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
US flag proudly flies over the SBU building in Kiev
Well, we all knew that the last floor of the SBU (the Ukrainian terror police) building in Kiev was fully occupied by US CIA agents and that no Ukrainians access to it. But this is even better. Apparently, the US decided to fly its flag on the building's main entrance, just next to the Ukrainian one. See for yourself:
There is also a video showing the same scene: http://youtu.be/UffhTyUcUwc
The SBU, by the way, is an amazing organization. In its entire 23 year long history it never caught a single foreign spy (except fake Russian ones, of course). The Russians even made a hilarious video about a SBU "capture" of a FSB agent:
(the video is in Ukrainian so please make sure to press the 'cc' button for English subtitles)
But, seriously now. Not a single American, or German or Brit. Not *one*. In comparison, just in one year (2011) the Russian FSB officially caught 41 foreign spies and 158 Russian citizens who spied for foreign intelligence agencies. Assuming that 2011 was a 'normal' year, that would be roughly the equivalent of catching 943 foreign spies and 3643 Russian traitors for a 23 year long period. The SBU caught *zero*. This is why I call it "terror police" and not "security agency".
But they did kill *a lot* of people, including politicians, journalists and activists. They are also pros in various torture techniques.
And now the US flag flies over that building.
The entire US intelligence community can be very proud of this.
The Saker
There is also a video showing the same scene: http://youtu.be/UffhTyUcUwc
The SBU, by the way, is an amazing organization. In its entire 23 year long history it never caught a single foreign spy (except fake Russian ones, of course). The Russians even made a hilarious video about a SBU "capture" of a FSB agent:
(the video is in Ukrainian so please make sure to press the 'cc' button for English subtitles)
But, seriously now. Not a single American, or German or Brit. Not *one*. In comparison, just in one year (2011) the Russian FSB officially caught 41 foreign spies and 158 Russian citizens who spied for foreign intelligence agencies. Assuming that 2011 was a 'normal' year, that would be roughly the equivalent of catching 943 foreign spies and 3643 Russian traitors for a 23 year long period. The SBU caught *zero*. This is why I call it "terror police" and not "security agency".
But they did kill *a lot* of people, including politicians, journalists and activists. They are also pros in various torture techniques.
And now the US flag flies over that building.
The entire US intelligence community can be very proud of this.
The Saker
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
The future of the Nazi Ukraine in 90 seconds
Check the sad and, frankly, pathetic footage recently taken at the Ukrainain-Polish border: these poor people are trying to storm the Polish checkpoint every day to try to sell or barter something, or to find a job. This has been happening every day. The saddest thing about that is that this is only a timid beginning for a phenomenon which will inexorably grow. The poor Ukies can sing "Ще не вмерла України" ("The Ukraine has not died yet", the Ukrainian national anthem, itself a bad copy of the Polish one) but it sure looks to me like the Ukraine is dying.
The Saker
The Saker
Monday, October 27, 2014
Bizarre participation figures in Ukie elections
According to Vzgliad quoting TASS, these are some of the figures of participation: On average over 30%. The lowest was in the Zakarpatia Oblast: 12.20%; the highest in the Zaporozhie Oblast 36.75%.
Then, somehow, the Ukies managed to get 14.65% Donetsk and 13.07% in Lugansk.
And then this figure: in Odessa 13.22%.
Uh?! Does that mean that there were fewer people voting in Odessa then in Donetsk or Lugansk regions?! If that is true - what does this tell us about what is happening in Odessa?
Can somebody confirm these participation figures from other sources?
The Saker
Then, somehow, the Ukies managed to get 14.65% Donetsk and 13.07% in Lugansk.
And then this figure: in Odessa 13.22%.
Uh?! Does that mean that there were fewer people voting in Odessa then in Donetsk or Lugansk regions?! If that is true - what does this tell us about what is happening in Odessa?
Can somebody confirm these participation figures from other sources?
The Saker
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Is the US Getting Ready to Dump Poroshenko?
It looks like Poroshenko's days are numbered. His most likely replacement? The extreme right.
originally written by The Saker for Russia Insider
So the "great genius" of Ukrainian military strategy, the man who promised to organize a victory parade for the Ukrainian army in Sevastopol was fired.
Officially, of course, Ukrainian Defence Minister Valerii Geletei submitted his resignation which was accepted. But the truth of the matter is that Heletey was sacked for gross incompetence and for making idiotic claims that the Russian military had used two tactical nuclear weapons at the Lugansk airport. The question is, of course, whether that will solve Poroshenko's problem.
After all, if Geletei promised a victory parade in Sevastopol, Poroshenko promised one in Donetsk. He did get one, but not the one he hoped for: a parade of Ukrainian prisoners followed by street-cleaning trucks. Poroshenko also promised to liquidate the "terrorists" in a matter of days, but instead his military suffered a crushing and most humiliating defeat. Finally, Poroshenko did go to the US to get a special ally status for the Ukraine, a conference of "friends of the Ukraine", lethal aid and lots of money. In the end, he got nothing besides standing ovations and smiles. The critical question is, why did the US gave nothing meaningful to Poroshenko? Could it be that the US has decided that he is unable to deliver anything useful?
Most analysts agree that the Ukrainians are about to attack Novorussia again and that the only reason for the current "kind of" cease-fire (the Ukrainians are continuing to shell and kill people every day) is that the government in Kiev does not want to take the risk of yet another humiliating defeat right before the elections. But as soon as the elections are over the regime will resume the war. It is quite possible that the US has decided that Poroshenko cannot be trusted with this task again.
The rump-Ukraine is officially a parliamentary republic and president's powers are limited. The current prime minister, has in reality more power than the president, especially over budgetary decisions which is what really matters. Which leaves Poroshenko the title of Commander in Chief of the armed forces, no necessarily a safe title to hold in the current situation.
Things look very grim for Ukraine. There is a very real possibility that many deathsquad leaders (aka "volunteer battalion commanders") will make it into the Rada (parliament), that extreme right-winger Lyashko will become the next Rada Speaker and that the next Rada might be generally even more extremist than the last one. The cold season has barely started and already there are shortages and protests in many places. The economy is dead and in free fall.
What all this means is that Poroshenko is in a hopeless situation and that seems to be the conclusion in Washington too. The question now is who would the US appoint to replace him? Yatsenyuk or Turchinov are probably the best candidates, but just as the US lost control of al-Qaeda/ISIS in Syria and in Iraq, there are increasing signs that it is losing control of the situation in Kiev and it is by no means sure that a 3rd Maidan would leave these two men in power.
Will the US turn to the extreme-right next?
originally written by The Saker for Russia Insider
So the "great genius" of Ukrainian military strategy, the man who promised to organize a victory parade for the Ukrainian army in Sevastopol was fired.
Officially, of course, Ukrainian Defence Minister Valerii Geletei submitted his resignation which was accepted. But the truth of the matter is that Heletey was sacked for gross incompetence and for making idiotic claims that the Russian military had used two tactical nuclear weapons at the Lugansk airport. The question is, of course, whether that will solve Poroshenko's problem.
After all, if Geletei promised a victory parade in Sevastopol, Poroshenko promised one in Donetsk. He did get one, but not the one he hoped for: a parade of Ukrainian prisoners followed by street-cleaning trucks. Poroshenko also promised to liquidate the "terrorists" in a matter of days, but instead his military suffered a crushing and most humiliating defeat. Finally, Poroshenko did go to the US to get a special ally status for the Ukraine, a conference of "friends of the Ukraine", lethal aid and lots of money. In the end, he got nothing besides standing ovations and smiles. The critical question is, why did the US gave nothing meaningful to Poroshenko? Could it be that the US has decided that he is unable to deliver anything useful?
Most analysts agree that the Ukrainians are about to attack Novorussia again and that the only reason for the current "kind of" cease-fire (the Ukrainians are continuing to shell and kill people every day) is that the government in Kiev does not want to take the risk of yet another humiliating defeat right before the elections. But as soon as the elections are over the regime will resume the war. It is quite possible that the US has decided that Poroshenko cannot be trusted with this task again.
The rump-Ukraine is officially a parliamentary republic and president's powers are limited. The current prime minister, has in reality more power than the president, especially over budgetary decisions which is what really matters. Which leaves Poroshenko the title of Commander in Chief of the armed forces, no necessarily a safe title to hold in the current situation.
Things look very grim for Ukraine. There is a very real possibility that many deathsquad leaders (aka "volunteer battalion commanders") will make it into the Rada (parliament), that extreme right-winger Lyashko will become the next Rada Speaker and that the next Rada might be generally even more extremist than the last one. The cold season has barely started and already there are shortages and protests in many places. The economy is dead and in free fall.
What all this means is that Poroshenko is in a hopeless situation and that seems to be the conclusion in Washington too. The question now is who would the US appoint to replace him? Yatsenyuk or Turchinov are probably the best candidates, but just as the US lost control of al-Qaeda/ISIS in Syria and in Iraq, there are increasing signs that it is losing control of the situation in Kiev and it is by no means sure that a 3rd Maidan would leave these two men in power.
Will the US turn to the extreme-right next?
Friday, August 29, 2014
"Manifest" by Andrey Avramenko, Kharkov
I envy the Russians, I envy these "katsaps" and "the Moskals"!
I envy their Olympics and their army. I have many friends and relatives in Russia. I see how they change and grow. They believe their President. They believe in their army. They are proud of their great history, achievements and victories.
It was once our common history ... victories and achievements. Not so long ago. They have found their ground. They don’t care about the West we worship. They move on and grow, despite of what we are told on our TVs and various social forums. I know that it’s us who are losing, and not them. We have become weaker, and they have gotten stronger.
No matter how loud we keep shouting "Glory to Ukraine!" we can’t stop it.
Not so long ago we were gloating when they had Chechnya.
Today the Chechens are no less Russian than the Russians themselves. They are ready to fight for their revived and great country, of which they are a part. Today we are the one to be frightened with the Chechen battalions. How did this happen???
They were killing each other just yesterday. But the reason is simple: the Chechens were able to remember that they were Russian, and they were part of the great Country and the Great People.
We gloat when they have terrorist attacks and disasters.
However, they overcome them over and over again and become stronger! Even though the whole world is against them!
They fall and rise again. Stand and grin. And just spit blood through their teeth.
We are screaming that they are slaves. That they will soon fall apart, the oil will fall, NATO will attack, and they will be struck down with another punishment. But they are us! We spit on our own reflection. On ourselves.
We must remember that we are a whole. And once we begin to understand and realize it, only then will come the feeling that once our ancestors had. A sense of inner strength, hope, faith, and pride that we are also the Russians.
It doesn’t matter who our ancestors were: Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, Buryats, or Uzbeks. It doesn’t matter who we are by faith: Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims or Jews. This is not important. What’s important is that we are Russians! That we're a part of the Great people and the Great country.
Yes, our Great Country and our Great People still have a lot of problems. But if we remember that we are Russians, we will change everything forever! Everybody is afraid of that.
They are afraid that we will remember and will be together again.
That’s why they are building spider webs of lies and deceits. This lie and hatred is being maintained by us and in Russia.
They do not allow us to wake up. And if we do not remember who we are, you will never wake up.
About the situation, occupation and others.
Who shouts the loudest that we need to protect "our" independence, unity and freedom? The same officials, oligarchs and parliamentarians. They are terrified that they will have to answer for everything that has happened to our Motherland over the years.
Maybe this is not the occupation? Perhaps, this is the liberation? And our people came, when we lost all our hope, when we almost gave up.
Perhaps, we need to stand together and destroy all these lying politicians, oligarchs, mayors and officials, who are foaming at their mouths and screaming that we need to go and die! To die for their villas, yachts and castles, for their bank accounts, for their freedom to rob us, and for freedom from answering for their actions.
I understand that this Manifesto will be cut out from the web. There will be thousands of angry comments, screams that I'm a traitor, that I was sold out to Putin, that I am katsap and Moskal. I don't care. I know that the truth is with me.
I am a patriot of Ukraine, a true patriot, and now the fate of my people and my Ukraine is being decided.
Either we remember who we are, or we will perish.
I love my Ukrainian people, our ancestors and our culture.
I'm Ukrainian, but more than that I am Russian!
Andrey Avramenko, Kharkov
source: http://svetoven.pogled.info/
I envy their Olympics and their army. I have many friends and relatives in Russia. I see how they change and grow. They believe their President. They believe in their army. They are proud of their great history, achievements and victories.
It was once our common history ... victories and achievements. Not so long ago. They have found their ground. They don’t care about the West we worship. They move on and grow, despite of what we are told on our TVs and various social forums. I know that it’s us who are losing, and not them. We have become weaker, and they have gotten stronger.
No matter how loud we keep shouting "Glory to Ukraine!" we can’t stop it.
Not so long ago we were gloating when they had Chechnya.
Today the Chechens are no less Russian than the Russians themselves. They are ready to fight for their revived and great country, of which they are a part. Today we are the one to be frightened with the Chechen battalions. How did this happen???
They were killing each other just yesterday. But the reason is simple: the Chechens were able to remember that they were Russian, and they were part of the great Country and the Great People.
We gloat when they have terrorist attacks and disasters.
However, they overcome them over and over again and become stronger! Even though the whole world is against them!
They fall and rise again. Stand and grin. And just spit blood through their teeth.
We are screaming that they are slaves. That they will soon fall apart, the oil will fall, NATO will attack, and they will be struck down with another punishment. But they are us! We spit on our own reflection. On ourselves.
We must remember that we are a whole. And once we begin to understand and realize it, only then will come the feeling that once our ancestors had. A sense of inner strength, hope, faith, and pride that we are also the Russians.
It doesn’t matter who our ancestors were: Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, Buryats, or Uzbeks. It doesn’t matter who we are by faith: Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims or Jews. This is not important. What’s important is that we are Russians! That we're a part of the Great people and the Great country.
Yes, our Great Country and our Great People still have a lot of problems. But if we remember that we are Russians, we will change everything forever! Everybody is afraid of that.
They are afraid that we will remember and will be together again.
That’s why they are building spider webs of lies and deceits. This lie and hatred is being maintained by us and in Russia.
They do not allow us to wake up. And if we do not remember who we are, you will never wake up.
About the situation, occupation and others.
Who shouts the loudest that we need to protect "our" independence, unity and freedom? The same officials, oligarchs and parliamentarians. They are terrified that they will have to answer for everything that has happened to our Motherland over the years.
Maybe this is not the occupation? Perhaps, this is the liberation? And our people came, when we lost all our hope, when we almost gave up.
Perhaps, we need to stand together and destroy all these lying politicians, oligarchs, mayors and officials, who are foaming at their mouths and screaming that we need to go and die! To die for their villas, yachts and castles, for their bank accounts, for their freedom to rob us, and for freedom from answering for their actions.
I understand that this Manifesto will be cut out from the web. There will be thousands of angry comments, screams that I'm a traitor, that I was sold out to Putin, that I am katsap and Moskal. I don't care. I know that the truth is with me.
I am a patriot of Ukraine, a true patriot, and now the fate of my people and my Ukraine is being decided.
Either we remember who we are, or we will perish.
I love my Ukrainian people, our ancestors and our culture.
I'm Ukrainian, but more than that I am Russian!
Andrey Avramenko, Kharkov
Sunday, August 17, 2014
A very telling video on Ukie assault tactics
Check out this interesting video of a Ukie battalion commander. His frustrated speech clearly shows the following:
1) The basic Ukie tactic: choose a spot on the map, hammer it with artillery fire for a few hours and then send in soldiers as canon fodder to "mop it up". What is important to understand here is that well-trained military forces know how to dig in an protect themselves from artillery fire. Proof: the Ukies surrounded by the Resistance in the "southern cauldron" managed to survive *weeks* of very heavy Novorussian and Russian artillery fire and survive (even if with lots of casualties). So if *weeks* of artillery fire cannot wipe out a force in more or less open terrain, a few hours will not wipe out a well-entrenched force. Another example? The long stance of the Resistance forces in Slaviansk. The fact is that in an urban environment you need to send in very well trained urban assault teams. Just bombing will not do the trick unless you use FAE (fuel-air explosives) munitions, heavy flame-throwing systems like the TOS-1 or tactical nukes. What the Ukies do seems to shoot enough artillery to kill civilians, but not enough to meaningfully degrade the Resistance forces, and then send in the infantry to supposedly "mop-up" an urban area which is full of well-entrenched high-quality Resistance forces. Hence the huge losses on the Ukie side.
2) Noticed his comment about the BMP's main gun stopping after 15mins? The BMP's gun is one of the most trustworthy ever made and there is only one thing which can explain that kind of occurrence: gross neglect of even minimal maintenance. That is also telling of the condition of most Ukie equipment: old and not maintained.
3) Morale: in such circumstances it is not surprising at all that Ukie morale is at rock-bottom. Nobody wants to die in stupid operations, under-trained, under-fed, under-protected - neither conscripts not pros. I have yet to see a video showing some good morale on the Ukie side. Conversely, I have yet to see a single video showing poor morale on the Resistance side.
Botton line: the Ukies are in a terrible situation which is only getting worse.
See for yourself this interesting video:
1) The basic Ukie tactic: choose a spot on the map, hammer it with artillery fire for a few hours and then send in soldiers as canon fodder to "mop it up". What is important to understand here is that well-trained military forces know how to dig in an protect themselves from artillery fire. Proof: the Ukies surrounded by the Resistance in the "southern cauldron" managed to survive *weeks* of very heavy Novorussian and Russian artillery fire and survive (even if with lots of casualties). So if *weeks* of artillery fire cannot wipe out a force in more or less open terrain, a few hours will not wipe out a well-entrenched force. Another example? The long stance of the Resistance forces in Slaviansk. The fact is that in an urban environment you need to send in very well trained urban assault teams. Just bombing will not do the trick unless you use FAE (fuel-air explosives) munitions, heavy flame-throwing systems like the TOS-1 or tactical nukes. What the Ukies do seems to shoot enough artillery to kill civilians, but not enough to meaningfully degrade the Resistance forces, and then send in the infantry to supposedly "mop-up" an urban area which is full of well-entrenched high-quality Resistance forces. Hence the huge losses on the Ukie side.
2) Noticed his comment about the BMP's main gun stopping after 15mins? The BMP's gun is one of the most trustworthy ever made and there is only one thing which can explain that kind of occurrence: gross neglect of even minimal maintenance. That is also telling of the condition of most Ukie equipment: old and not maintained.
3) Morale: in such circumstances it is not surprising at all that Ukie morale is at rock-bottom. Nobody wants to die in stupid operations, under-trained, under-fed, under-protected - neither conscripts not pros. I have yet to see a video showing some good morale on the Ukie side. Conversely, I have yet to see a single video showing poor morale on the Resistance side.
Botton line: the Ukies are in a terrible situation which is only getting worse.
See for yourself this interesting video:
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Which side is getting crushed - see for yourself
First, I have to tell you that I don't know when or where this video was shot. I would say that it is very recent and that it was show somewhere outside the combat zone. It seems to show a Ukie column stopped on the side of a highway which is being approached by civilians offering the exhausted soldiers some water and beginning a conversation. The rest is self-explanatory (make sure to activate the "cc" option to see the English subtitles).
You will notice that at one point the conversation centers around three, possibly four, destroyed brigades which might be interpreted as 10'000 dead Ukies. The brigades are the 72nd, 79th, 24th and 25th. When the civilian asks again how many people were killed, the soldiers answer "go figure!".
Now, that kind of roadside "interview" does not prove anything, much less so that 10'000 Ukies died or that 4 Ukie brigades were wiped out. But it does show that this is what these Ukies soldiers believe, that the "military rumor mill" on the Ukie side is all about doom and gloom and not about how "we are just about to liberate Donetsk and Lugansk from the terrorists". Notice also the utter contempt for their commanders and the reference to a completely broken chain of command.
I will also say that reports of that kind are shown every day on Russian TV and on the Russian blogosphere and Internet. I wish somebody had the time to parse YouTube and make a long video of all the many short video reports showing masses of burned down Ukie armor and desperate, disgusted and depressed Ukie soliders (btw - 17 more crossed into Russia today).
On the Resistance side ALL I saw is videos of bombed buildings, killed civilians, and massive artillery strikes from the Ukie positions. I have yet to see a single video showing a destroyed Resistance unit. Mind you - this is war and I am sure that this also did happen, but I did not see it (yet).
Anyway, here is the video (thanks to Larchmonter445 for drawing my attention to it). See and decide for yourself.
Kind regards,
The Saker
PS: one more small detail: the language of the subtitles is *less* rude than the one actually used in this video which is densely saturated with profanities (yet another sign of a demoralized unit).
You will notice that at one point the conversation centers around three, possibly four, destroyed brigades which might be interpreted as 10'000 dead Ukies. The brigades are the 72nd, 79th, 24th and 25th. When the civilian asks again how many people were killed, the soldiers answer "go figure!".
Now, that kind of roadside "interview" does not prove anything, much less so that 10'000 Ukies died or that 4 Ukie brigades were wiped out. But it does show that this is what these Ukies soldiers believe, that the "military rumor mill" on the Ukie side is all about doom and gloom and not about how "we are just about to liberate Donetsk and Lugansk from the terrorists". Notice also the utter contempt for their commanders and the reference to a completely broken chain of command.
I will also say that reports of that kind are shown every day on Russian TV and on the Russian blogosphere and Internet. I wish somebody had the time to parse YouTube and make a long video of all the many short video reports showing masses of burned down Ukie armor and desperate, disgusted and depressed Ukie soliders (btw - 17 more crossed into Russia today).
On the Resistance side ALL I saw is videos of bombed buildings, killed civilians, and massive artillery strikes from the Ukie positions. I have yet to see a single video showing a destroyed Resistance unit. Mind you - this is war and I am sure that this also did happen, but I did not see it (yet).
Anyway, here is the video (thanks to Larchmonter445 for drawing my attention to it). See and decide for yourself.
Kind regards,
The Saker
PS: one more small detail: the language of the subtitles is *less* rude than the one actually used in this video which is densely saturated with profanities (yet another sign of a demoralized unit).
Monday, August 11, 2014
Emergency appeal - 'Stirol' chemical plant shelled by Ukraine!
Please make sure to press on the 'cc' button to see the English subtitles
Friday, August 8, 2014
The wave pain for the EU is now slowly turning into a tsunami of mutually reinforcing problems
This is great stuff! RT reports:
Beautiful, no?
The wave pain for the EU is now slowly turning into a tsunami of mutually reinforcing problems.
Well, the sure deserve it. As I said yesterday: you wanna be Uncle Sam's bitch? Pay the price!
The Saker
Ukraine ready to impose sanctions against any transit via its territory, including air flights and gas supplies to Europe, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Friday. Ukraine's Parliament will vote on the sanctions on Tuesday. Kiev has also prepared a list of 172 Russian citizens and 65 legal enitites to put under sanctions for “sponsoring terrorism, supporting the annexation of Crimea, and violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Yatsenyuk said at a briefing on Friday. Proposed sanctions include asset freezes, bans on certain enterprises, bans on privatizing state property, refusing to issue licenses, and a complete or partial ban on transit- both aviation and gas.Let me see if I got this right: the US/EU impose sanctions on Russia because Russia does not stop the Novorussian Resistance. In retaliation, Russia imposes sanctions on the EU and a ban on Ukie overflights over Russia. And in response to that, the Ukies prevent gas which the EU badly needs and which it paid for from reaching the EU. Who will get hurt by that? The EU, of course. So, in fact, these idiots in Kiev, no doubt under US orders again, are now strengthening the Russian sanctions against the EU! We can think of it as "Russia cutting off gas supplies to the EU in a way for which it cannot be blamed".
Beautiful, no?
The wave pain for the EU is now slowly turning into a tsunami of mutually reinforcing problems.
Well, the sure deserve it. As I said yesterday: you wanna be Uncle Sam's bitch? Pay the price!
The Saker
Monday, August 4, 2014
Ukraine SITREP by Gleb Bazov
The Shrinking Cauldron - The Surrender of the 72nd Brigade
The Southern Cauldron has entered the final stages of its existence; the agony of the units deprived of provisions has begun.
The Surrender of the 72nd Brigade
Original: Colonel Cassad LiveJournal
Translated from Russian by Gleb Bazov
Today, the remnants of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade fled into the territory of the Russian Federation. According to Russia Today:
Four hundred and thirty eight Ukrainian servicemen have requested asylum in Russia and moved into the Russian territory. According to ITAR-TASS, this was announced by the Border Guard department of the Federal Security Service ("FSB") of Russia.
Map: Operational information from the Cauldron.
No agreement with respect to the surrender of all the surrounded has been reached yet (the negotiations that were reported earlier are still ongoing). Accordingly, the Cauldron is starting to break up into parts. The 72nd Brigade for all intents and purposes has ceased to exist due to ammunition and food rations running out. They held on while they still had resources and then began to exit into the territory of the Russian Federation – at first in separate groups, followed by the surviving remnants of the once full-fledged brigade.
The hardware was all abandoned at their positions, which continue to be controlled by Junta troops that have not yet surrendered. When militiamen would drive up on tanks as close as 400 metres away from the positions of the Junta, there was no return fire – there is simply nothing to fire back with. Some of the soldiers of the 72nd Brigade had no rounds left during the surrender; others had 1-2 magazines per automatic rifle.
There is also information that among those who did not surrender there are Polish mercenaries, which essentially explains the stubbornness of the resistance (a serious international scandal is possible).
Those who remain in this part of the Cauldron were given an ultimatum to surrender and exit to Russia and not to touch the hardware. Otherwise, the Grads will start working again. Strained arguments are ongoing there now; military commanders are reasoning that the potential for resistance has been exhausted and that they must surrender so as not to kill people in vain. Pravoseki [Note: Praviy Sector militants], mercenaries and the political zealots are demanding that the resistance be continued at all cost. As a result, a complete surrender is likely impossible – the majority of the military personnel will surrender and others will be leveled [with Grad MLRS], particularly in view of the fact that they have nothing to respond with.
I expect that this group will cease to exist in the course of 2-3 days, following which the Cauldron will shrink in half, and the Militia will start dealing with the remnants of the 24th and the 79th Brigades.
Map: Predicted Retreat Routes for the Troops Surrounded in the Southern Cauldron.
In order for you better to understand what has happened, those who surrendered were the remnants of the 72nd Brigade that were driven from Izvarino and Sverdlovsk toward the border with the Russian Federation. At the same time, the Cauldron continues to exist in the gap between Marinovka and Birukovo, where the remnants of the 79ths Separate Aeromobiles Brigade and the 24th Separate Mechanized Brigade, as well as the various reinforcement units and punitive formations, continue to hold defensive positions.
Overall, the Southern Cauldron now has truly entered the final stages of its existence; the agony of the units deprived of provisions has begun.
Photograph: Ukrainian Troops After Crossing into the Russian Territory.
And this note by Russia Today is specifically about those who intend to cross the Russian border in the nearest future. They simply face the same problems as the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade (“OMBR”).
One more group of Ukrainian servicemen intends to cross the border into Russia after almost 440 soldiers and officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces crossed into the territory of the adjacent country in the night of August 4th. As reported by ITAR-TASS, quoting the head of the press service of the Border Guard department of the FSB in the Rostov region, the exact number of servicemen that intend to cross into the Russian Federation is still unknown.
The Junta’s Version
A group of servicemen of the 72nd Motorized Brigade was forced to retreat into the territory of the Russian Federation because they ran out of ammo during a battle with the terrorists. This was announced to RBK-Ukraine by Alexey Dmitrashkovskiy, a representative of the press-centre of the antiterrorist operation in Donbass.
According to Dmitrashkovskiy: “Servicemen of the 72nd Brigade divided into two units. The first unit broke through the ring of terrorists, and the second unit covered these servicemen. After that, one of the units had their ammo and provisions run out. Military hardware that was on the battlefield was damaged. After that the personnel was forced to transport into the area of the border crossing checkpoint in Russia. According to latest information, the servicemen are in the territory of Russia. The number of the servicemen is being confirmed.” According to his statements, reinforcements have already arrived to assist the servicemen that covered those who were breaking through the ring of terrorists.
Earlier, the Russian Federal Security Service (“FSB”) stated that more than 400 Ukrainian soldiers have requested asylum in the Russian Federation. As it was clarified, a humanitarian corridor was opened for the Ukrainian military and they were allowed to cross into Russia.
The remnants of the 79th Aeromobile and the 24th Motorized Rifle Brigade and Battalion Shakhter continue to remain in the Southern Cauldron. Just south of this grouping is Battalion Azov.
The 72nd Brigade
Original: El Murid LiveJournal
Translated from Russian by Gleb Bazov
Negotiations with respect to the surrender of one more group of the punitive forces are ongoing. The identity of the specific unit involved has not been disclosed.
Most likely, the sonderkommando Azov and Shakhter will not be surrenedering. Other than that, the shattered units of the 3rd Spetsnaz Regiment also continue to remain near Izvarino. Accordingly, it is too early to talk about the Southern Cauldron being liquidated. According to all indication, it will likely shrink in size and the Militia will continue to blockade it. In principle, as it is, this grouping has been sitting there quietly, only occasionally shooting. When we drove from Krasnodon to Sverdlovsk, we passed through the territory formally controlled by the grouping – without any problems whatsoever.
It appears that the only benefit that can be gained from the fact of the surrender of the punitive forces is the shrinking of the frontlines and the freeing up of a relatively small part of the Militia forces. It looks like this reserve (if it is at all created) will be redeployed to Snezhnoye and Shakhtersk to reinforce the positions there.
Now, I know Berezin raises a lot of eyebrows and his statements here certainly will. I leave it to your discretion what to do with this, but sending anyways. GB
[Note by the Saker: I concur with Gleb, the Ukies have already declared THREE partial mobilizations, where does all that manpower go? The real casualty figures on the Ukrainian side must be staggering and absolutely horrible. The Saker]
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Three Statements by Fyodor Berezin (Strelkov's Deputy)
Preamble: Provided for you in reverse chronological order are three recent statements by Fyodor Berezin, Igor Strelkov's Deputy, with respect to the Ukrainian army's losses at the front in Donbass. His statements will appear to many to be controversial. The writer of this note, for one, has no difficulty believing Berezin, who bases his reports on concrete information received from the battlefront.
August 3, 2014 - Video: Fyodor Berezin, DPR Deputy Minister of Defence Speaks About the Ratio of Forces at the Front
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yjx2HGdiis
Reporter: So, not too long ago, a resource called “The Free Information Zone” published an article comparing the weaponry of the Militia with that of the Ukrainian army. And so, we were hoping to have this information either confirmed or denied and, in general, to obtain some kind of commentary. According to this article, the Junta’s advantage in terms of military hardware is six hundred to five. In other words, where we have five tanks, the Ukrainian Junta has six hundred. The advantage in personnel is ten to one. In other words, the Junta has about thirty five thousand men, while we have five to seven thousand. This is according to various information. What can you say about this article by an allied resource?
Fyodor Berezin: It is elementary. It is understandable that Ukraine has hoarded a lot of tanks dating back to the days of the USSR. Right? And all of them have been concentrated here, against the Donetsk Republic. And if some Romania attacked now, it would occupy the entire Ukraine – it would be that easy. There are no tanks and no Grads left there, and probably no soldiers too. Unless they call up the disabled.
With respect to the ratio of the forces – it is obvious that a whole bunch of regions of Ukraine will exceed two regions, considering, particularly, that they are incomplete. Accordingly, there do possess superiority – it is there – but so what? In whose favour is the real ratio of losses at the front? In other words …
Reporter: Well, thirteen thousand Ukrainian died – the Junta’s soldiers – so we can see …
Fyodor Berezin: I do not know how many of them died [in total]. I know that this night and the previous night, just in the area of Shakhtersk, there is approximately a thousand dead on the Ukrainian side. That is an ocean of blood. A sea of dead Ukrainian soldiers. And they keep crawling and crawling here. And conscription centres keep recruiting them; they keep crying that they are forcibly conscripted. So what is it? They are forced to go to war to their death, and they do not resist? Do not join this army that sends you to your death!
First it is forty of them, then it is one hundred and twenty five, then one hundred, and so on – I mean just tanks, BMPs, and other armoured vehicles. Whole columns of them are destroyed; every night we destroyed several of them, and it is all left burning there. And inside them are people, all these Ukrainian guys that decided to come to fight here, to demonstrate their patriotism. They perform their so-called duty to their Ukie motherland – to Poroshenko’s fascist motherland.
Ukrainian mothers, please take your children back. Wives take back your husbands. Children take back your father, while they are still alive. Or the entire Western Ukraine soon enough will lose its gene pool. Otherwise all of them will find their death here. Despite everything, we will expel them all. If they resist too much, we will escort them further. They should leave before it’s too late and leave the hardware here, while it is still functional. Give it another few days, and it will all be destroyed.
Be it one to a hundred or one to ten, there is no difference. Understand, they burn and burn regardless.
15:29 – July 3, 2014 – Commentary from Fyodor Berezin (Strelkov’s Deputy)
And nevertheless.
Judging by the reactions to my previous posting (with respect to the enemy’s armoured vehicle losses, totaling 125 units, near Shakhtersk) nobody believes anything.
No wonder. I would not have believed it myself. Even in my books I have always tried to make losses fifty-fifty. However, today the situation is different. Here is something, just for your information.
On average – on regular days – the Kiev Junta loses between 30 and 40 armoured vehicles a day. The main area where they suffer losses is Shakhtersk and Snezhnoye. Now also added to that is Maryinka and one more direction near Donetsk.
On average, every one or two days, the Junta army sustains very serious losses. I.e. up to 100 units of military hardware and between 700 and 1000 soldiers killed. And these are not fairytales.
I do not know how much armour the Juntoids have left. Do not have time to engage in analytics. I presume, and there is information that confirms these speculations, that they are already using old tank stocks from the Warsaw Pact. We have evidence with respect to Polish hardware.
We catch mercenaries. Moreover, from very remote areas of the world. For now, not everything can be disclosed.
And, as usual, an appeal to the moms of the western regions. Take away your children from Donbass. Otherwise, every single one of them will burn in the “boxes” [Note: armoured vehicles] or next to them.
22:48 - July 29, 2014 – Briefing from Fyodor Berezin (Strelkov’s Deputy)
Yesterday [July 28, 2014], Shakhtersk witnessed the Prokhorovka of our times.
The total enemy losses of military hardware over the past day in Shakhtersk are 125 (one hundred and twenty five) vehicles, including tanks, BMPs, BTRs. Multiply this number by the size of their crews, and you get a very impressive result.
We warned them, did we not? Get the hell out of Donbass! And you did not believe us. Mothers, wives, sisters! Take your Ukie warriors back! Or you will completely lose the Ukie nation’s gene pool. Where are the Maidans protesting the mobilization? Poroshenko, my chocolate one, your own will soon tear you to pieces!
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