No. 9July 31, 2023
Situation in Ukraine Continues to Deteriorate
Dangerous Signs that Poland Seeks to Occupy Western Ukraine
The director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, expressed concerns at a meeting held July 21 with permanent members of the Russian Security Council, that Poland is seriously considering deploying armed forces into Ukraine.
Naryshkin noted: “[T]he Polish authorities are getting more intent on taking the western parts of Ukraine under control by deploying their troops there. There are plans to present this measure as the fulfillment of allied obligations within the Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian security initiative, the so-called Lublin Triangle. We see that plans also call for significantly increasing the number of personnel of the combined Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian brigade, which operates under the auspices of this so-called Lublin Triangle. We believe that it is necessary to keep a close eye on these dangerous plans of the Polish authorities.”
Russian President Putin responded, “I cannot refrain from commenting on what has just been said and on media reports that have come out about plans to establish some sort of the so-called Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian unit. This is not about a group of mercenaries — there are plenty of them there and they are being destroyed — but about a well-organized, equipped regular military unit to be used for operations in Ukraine, including to allegedly ensure the security of today’s Western Ukraine — actually, to call things by their true name, for the subsequent occupation of these territories. The outlook is clear: in the event Polish forces enter, say, Lvov or other Ukrainian territories, they will stay there, and they will stay there for good.” […]
“Today we see that the regime in Kiev is ready to go to any length to save its treacherous hide and to prolong its existence. They do not care for the people of Ukraine or Ukrainian sovereignty or national interests. […] The Polish authorities, who are nurturing their revanchist ambitions, hide the truth from their people. The truth is that the Ukrainian cannon fodder is no longer enough for the West. That is why it is planning to use other expendables — Poles, Lithuanians and everyone else they do not care about. I can tell you that this is an extremely dangerous game, and the authors of such plans should think about the consequences.”
The meeting of the Russian Security Council was followed by a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg on July 23, 2023. They consider that the planning under consideration by Poland in particular, with the collaboration of Lithuania and Ukraine itself, for deployment of armed forces into western Ukraine, would become a permanent occupation and realization of aims of the most reactionary sections of the Polish ruling elite for expansionism and restoration of the Polish empire.
Lukashenko is reported to have said; “This is unacceptable to us. The alienation of western Ukraine, the dismemberment of Ukraine and the transfer of its lands to Poland are unacceptable. Should people in Western Ukraine ask us then we will provide support to them. I ask you [Putin] to discuss and think about this issue. Naturally, I would like you to support us in this regard. If the need of such support arises, if Western Ukraine asks us for help, then we will provide assistance and support to people in western Ukraine. If this happens, we will support them in every possible way.”
Putin did not respond publicly but did speak at some length on Polish revanchism which is in neither Ukraine nor Russia’s interests and will do great harm to Europe as well.
Russian politicians have been quoted saying clearly that any options the U.S. and NATO are considering are fraught with danger. The plan to have Poland (with Lithuania and support from Zelensky) occupy western Ukraine; the plan to freeze the conflict (and then have Ukraine join NATO); the plan to defeat Russia on the ground — these are all pipe dreams floated to convince the naive that the U.S. and NATO have any intention other than fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian standing, they say.
Canada Joins Vain Efforts to Sustain U.S./NATO Proxy War in Ukraine Against Russia
Edmonton action against NATO Summit in Vilnius, July 11. 2023
According to the Globe and Mail, Canada is participating in establishing a repair centre in Poland to refurbish damaged military equipment that NATO has supplied to Ukraine. The repair centre will be built near Rzeszow, which is roughly 100 kilometres from Ukraine’s border.
Canadian government officials deny any “intent to have a large Canadian presence” at the repair centre. Polish officials suggest otherwise. Rzeszow Mayor Konrad Fijolek told the Polish paper Gazeta Wyborcza on June 13 that NATO will station a permanent base near the city, with U.S., UK, and Canadian troops deployed there on a permanent basis.
Rzeszow is a logistics hub for moving NATO military equipment into Ukraine. There are some 1,700 U.S. soldiers and U.S Patriot missile air systems stationed at the airport there. In addition to Canada, U.S. and UK construction and manning of the repair centre, Germany also announced that it has agreed with the Polish government on repair centres for Leopard 2 tanks used in Ukraine. The facilities are expected to be created in Gliwice and Poznan.
Ukraine could not continue to play the role of serving as the proxy for the U.S. and NATO to conduct their war against Russia without huge infusions of cash to keep the Kyiv government afloat. The latest such infusion came on July 26. The state budget of Ukraine received U.S.$1.5 billion in concessional financing, provided under the guarantee of the Government of Japan through the World Bank Trust Fund facility. Since the start of the U.S./NATO proxy war, the EU has provided substantial financial assistance through a Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) instrument. Through several MFA packages adopted in the course of 2022, 25.2 billion euros was committed covering the period to the end of 2023. Until now, 16.2 billion euros have been disbursed.
In June 2023, the Commission proposed to establish a Ukraine Facility as a framework to provide financial support (grants, loans and guarantees) for the period 2024-2027. In 2023 alone the U.S. allocated more than $45 billion to keep Ukraine afloat: $13.37 billion to sustain the Kyiv government operations; $9.3 billion is intended for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative to provide training, equipment, weapons, logistics support, supplies and services, salaries and stipends, sustainment, and intelligence support to Ukraine’s military; $14.5 billion for military equipment transfers. Of this latter amount, $11.88 billion will actually go to replenish U.S. stocks of equipment sent to Ukraine through Presidential drawdown authority.
Canada has committed more than $8 billion to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 special military operation began, including over $1.5 billion in military aid. NATO needs to keep Ukraine afloat in order to have a figurehead to prosecute its proxy war against Russia. It is clear Ukraine will never financially recover.
Meanwhile, Ukraine media report that the parliament approved two bills on July 27 extending martial law and general mobilization for another 90 days. Both measures have been prolonged several times since the start of the full-scale war. President Volodymyr Zelensky first declared martial law on February 24, 2022, at the start of the Russian special military operation. The new legislation extends martial law from the current August 18 expiry date until November 15. Under martial law, elections are cancelled and Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60, with some exceptions, are not allowed to leave the country because they may be called up for military service.
Ukrainian “Counter-Offensive” Is Without Traction
The New York Times and other media sources doing propaganda for waging the proxy war in Ukraine for as long as it takes to defeat Russia are saying that Ukraine had begun the main thrust of its so-called counteroffensive. As usual it is all up beat and positive messaging despite the huge losses Ukraine is suffering — losses which the same propaganda sources had to acknowledge only weeks ago. One such source, Politico.eu, recently wrote: “The push this week may be the start of the first real breakthrough for Ukrainian forces so far in the counteroffensive.” Top Pentagon officials acknowledged that the counteroffensive is going slower than some had hoped, but said Kyiv is biding its time. The Pentagon and pro NATO propaganda sources paint a fantasy world claiming Ukraine is only conducting “probing actions” looking for weak spots in Russian defences, while holding its best-trained forces in reserve for its “major counter offensive.”
Kyiv Post on July 27 confirmed earlier Russian reports that Ukraine has renewed the “major offensive” begun at the beginning of June, but scaled back after massive losses. In the last week of July, Russian sources announced the Ukraine major offensive had been renewed across the line of contact, again with devastating results for Ukraine. Russian President Putin reported: “I can tell you without any exaggeration that our soldiers and officers have demonstrated mass heroism on a vast scale. The enemy used armoured machinery in large numbers by sending 50 pieces of military hardware into battle. Of them, 39 units of equipment, including 26 tanks and 13 armoured personnel carriers, have been destroyed. The personnel of the units I mentioned earlier destroyed 60 per cent of them, while our combat pilots destroyed the other 40 per cent.”
Retired U.S. military analyst with extensive experience Scott Ritter rejects the Pentagon/NATO narrative that Ukraine to date has only engaged in “probing actions”. He writes that NATO picked its two best-trained and best equipped Ukrainian brigades for the launch of Ukraine’s offensive on June 8 both of which had been trained by the U.S. in combined arms tactics and tasked with employing full force along the line of contact. The Ukrainian soldiers were deliberately misled to believe that the Russian troops assigned to these two units would run away or surrender at the first sign of serious fighting.
Ritter says NATO put the blame for the failed offensive squarely on the shoulders of Ukrainian officers saying they failed to employ properly the tactics they had been taught in at the U.S. military base and training installation in Grafenwoehr, Germany. “A leaked German intelligence report highlighted the shift by Ukraine away from massed armor attacks to smaller infantry-driven assaults as representing a total departure from the combined arms operations taught by NATO. What the German report failed to address is the reality that NATO tried to take operational art that requires months, if not years, to master, and squeeze it into training that lasted only a few weeks.”
Nothing has changed in the intervening month and weeks that will change the outcome of a renewed “major offensive” by Ukrainian forces, Ritter says. They still do not have air superiority or artillery and missile capacity to suppress Russian forces and give themselves any hope of success. In fact it is quite the opposite and so long as Russian forces control the airspace and have massive artillery superiority, not to mention well fortified defensive lines, Ukraine attempting to implement NATO’s demand to show results, is suicidal, he says.
Unless Ukraine demonstrates a will and ability to prevail against Russia, the “west” will have no choice but to begin seeking “a diplomatic off-ramp” from the war. Such a negotiated settlement could compel Ukraine into accepting the loss of territory currently claimed by Russia as part of the conditions, something that is anathema to the Zelensky government, he says.
Anti-War Demonstration in Budapest
A demonstration of more than 200 people was held in Budapest on July 26 giving voice “to the anti-war will of the sane-minded majority” demanding peace in Ukraine, an end to arms shipments and the constant escalation of the conflict against Russia. Forum for Peace civil movement, a recently established coalition of ten political and social organizations, initiated by the Hungarian Community for Peace, said they intend to stop “those who put profit before the lives of others, and are ready to sacrifice the peace of the whole world on the altar of their selfish goals of power.” Their statement read: “Let us declare that the Hungarian people do not wish to make sacrifices for the power of the depraved Kyiv clique that oppresses the people and uses its compatriots as cannon fodder, nor for those who want to keep it in power.”
The Forum for Peace called for a more uncompromising and consistent stance towards Russia. “Let the government decide whether it considers Russia to be an aggressor, or whether it recognizes the legitimacy of its security demands and pursues an active policy of neutrality for reconciliation with Russia,” the statement reads. “We are not interested in confrontation, but in good relations with both East and West. Here, in the heart of Europe, on the path of historical wars, peaceful cooperation with the West, with which we conduct 80 per cent of our trade, and with Russia, which satisfies 80 per cent of our energy needs, is a vital issue for us. All our interests are linked to peace and progress.” The statement said Hungary should stop giving financial support for Ukraine, and use these funds instead to help the Hungarian people who themselves are facing difficulties as a result of the conflict and EU sanctions against Russia.
Prior to the formation of the Forum for Peace, a public appeal was made on social media by the Hungarian Community for Peace calling on “all individuals, communities, social and political organizations who consider Hungary’s peace and our country’s good relations with both the East and the West to be a national interest, to jointly declare their will to protect the peace of our country!”
The appeal explains the fundamental goal of the Forum for Peace as follows: “We protect the peace of Hungary! We prevent anyone, for any reason or pretext, from plunging our country into war against Russia or anyone else, so that Hungarian blood does not flow again for foreign interests; to live in peace and on good terms with both East and West, to this end, we must come to terms with Russia, and we also require our Western allies to come to terms with it on the basis of the principle of mutual guarantee and indivisibility of security. In accordance with the requirement of respect, equality and peaceful cooperation: let us promote the creation of a world order of cooperation by building bridges so that Hungary can live and develop in peace and security. We are ready to listen to the opinions of others, to take coordinated joint action. In the Peace Forum, we want to turn the jointly designated goals into concrete actions in consultation with the partner organizations! We want to do our work in the spirit of equality, mutual respect, thinking and acting together with goals in mind!”
Majority of Parliamentarians in Hungary Boycott Sweden NATO Membership Vote
On Monday July 31 members of the Hungarian Fidesz party, which holds a 2/3 majority in the Hungarian legislature, boycotted a crucial vote in Parliament effectively postponing a decision on Sweden’s membership in NATO. The failed vote means it will have to be revisited at a later date. Both Hungary and Türkiye have yet to give their consent to Sweden’s membership in NATO. As NATO members they are both under significant pressure to approve Sweden’s accession.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban wanted to delay the vote until September, when the legislature returns from recess. Orban and his cabinet do not accept the NATO narrative of continued military support for Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” Hungary instead calls for unconditional peace talks, highlighting the cost of the hostilities to all parties involved, including members of the EU that were hurt by their own sanctions on Russia.
Türkiye’s National Assembly is expected to consider Sweden’s NATO membership in the autumn as well.
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