Dozens of Ukrainian government websites, including the ministry of defence, were hit with a coordinated massive cyberattack on Friday (Jan 14). Hackers, suspected to be Russians, then left a message on the foreign ministry website – “Ukrainians! … All information about you has become public. Be afraid and expect the worse. It’s your past, present and future”.
Is Russian supremo Vladimir Putin preparing to invade Ukraine? Washington believes so because the cyberattack was not any ordinary cyberattack. After all, about 200,000 Russian troops are currently positioned along the country’s border with Ukraine. In fact, U.S. Intelligence said they saw signal of a ground invasion of Ukraine within the next 30 days.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, press secretary Jen Psaki said U.S. defense analysts had noticed as recent as last month (December 2021) coordinated social media misinformation to destabilize the Ukrainian government. She said – “The Russian military plans to begin these activities several weeks before a military invasion, which could begin between mid-January and mid-February.”
Moscow, of course, has rubbished the White House’s revelation as nothing but information pressure. Russia said it is against war, and the statements by the White House was part of a psychological game – even lies – which if repeated often enough will become the truth. The Russian Embassy in the U.S. said Moscow prefers diplomatic solutions to all international problems.
If Russia refrains from invading Ukraine just to prove the U.S.’ prediction was wrong, Washington will win and can boast that it has succeeded in stopping Kremlin. But if Russia eventually invades Ukraine, Washington also wins and can claim that it was right all along about the Kremlin’s aggression. Could the cyberattack orchestrated by the U.S. as part of information warfare to trap the Russians?
However, Moscow may or may not invade Ukraine, depending on the concessions it could extract from the United States. President Putin may not wish to invade, but wanted the U.S. to think otherwise in order to force Washington’s next move. Any military movement from NATO or the U.S. could provide justifications for Russia to launch pre-emptive strike.
The U.S. will look extremely weak if it does not respond sufficiently – even if President Biden had no intention at all to retaliate militarily. During a 50-minute conference call on Dec 30, Mr Biden renewed a warning to Mr Putin that Russia would face “severe economic sanctions” if Moscow attacked Ukraine. But exactly what type if economic sanctions are open to interpretation.
Still, the burning question is whether the European Union or NATO will join the U.S. in the so-called unprecedented economic sanctions on members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. As the largest supplier of oil, natural gas and coal to Europe, Moscow could retaliate by shutting down the energy flows from Russia to the rest of the world – triggering an energy crisis.
If Putin strongly believes NATO will remain “No Action, Talk Only”, he would most likely invade Ukraine to not only boost his image as the strongman, but also to humiliate the military superpower U.S. as well as the “Sleepy Joe”. Putin cannot afford to waste any time as Washington-Moscow talks had reached a “dead-end” and saw no reason to continue them.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday – “While our proposals are aimed at reducing the military confrontation, de-escalating the overall situation in Europe, exactly the opposite is happening in the West. NATO members are building up their strength and aviation. In the territories that are directly adjacent to Ukraine, on the Black Sea, the scale of exercises has increased many times recently.”
As Moscow has pre-emptively prepared its justifications to invade Ukraine, Washington has also pre-emptively revealed how the Russian will start its invasion. Apparently, the U.S. Intelligence claims it has information that indicates Russia has prepositioned a group of operatives to conduct something called a “false-flag operation” in eastern Ukraine.
Psaki said – “The operatives are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy forces.” As part of this false narrative, Psaki claimed that Russian proxies on social media are already accusing Ukraine of readying an imminent attack against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.
Hence, when Putin gives the order for the prepositioned Russian operatives to carry out a stealth attack on Russian-backed forces in Ukraine, Moscow could justify a Russian intervention by pointing to its prior accusation and blame the Ukrainians for the attack. Pentagon claimed it has evidence of “an operation designed to look like an attack on Russian-speaking people in Ukraine.”
In truth, since the collapse of Soviet in 1991, NATO has aggressively expanded eastward towards Russia. As early as 2018, Moscow has warned that the Aegis Mark 41 (MK-41) Vertical Launching System deployed by the U.S. in Romania and Poland could easily be converted to launch conventional or nuclear strikes deep into Russian territory.
That was why MiG-31 with hypersonic missiles, which could strike back at military bases in Romania in 4 minutes, are standing by in Crimea. If deployed in Ukraine, the MK-41 launcher, which is capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles, could strike Moscow in 4-5 minutes. Hence, Putin has described the NATO’s eastward expansion as a “red line” that poses security threats to Moscow.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – known as the Baltic nations – achieved independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and have become NATO members since 2004. Since 2002, Ukraine has sought entry into NATO, where the alliance’s “Article 5” clause states that an attack on one member country is considered an attack on all of them.
Regardless whether Russia has again revisited its playbook in 2014 with Crimea, the U.S. appears to be ill-prepared for the eventuality of an invasion of Ukraine. Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, has revealed that the U.S. has prepared 18 response scenarios in case Russia decides to invade Ukraine, as feared by the Western countries.
To show that he has other cards to play, Russia has deliberately floated the idea of military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela. By recreating the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, it would change the game entirely, putting tremendous pressure on the U.S. as the last thing it wants is Russian nuclear weapons in its backyard. Mr. Putin said last April – “Russia’s response will be asymmetrical, fast and tough.”
As a warning to the U.S., Vladimir Putin has personally suggested in November that Russia could deploy submarine-based hypersonic missiles within close striking distance of Washington. But it’s highly likely that Russia will launch a cyber-attack, not hypersonic missiles, against the U.S. if President Biden imposes economic sanctions.
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January 16th, 2022 by financetwitter
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Comments
There’s nothing like a real big war between superpowers, I can’t wait much longer for a good proper bit of real fighting between Russia and the US. For decades now, wars that have taken place had only been in the form of the US attacking puny countries barely able to fight back against the might of the US – which was able to carry out a hefty but unhealthy amount of massacres with sheer impunity.
It will be at long last, and, after too much talking over Ukraine, a proper showdown if the US finally quit the continuous game of brinkmanship and game of chicken with Russia, get real, give us a show by attacking Russia, it’s time the US, in fact, the West, find meaty adversary to pick on. Or at least properly provoke Russia into a proper war. A nice little “incident” like Tonkin, WMD, false flag, and so on would help with the justification, ethical, moral (or immoral) aspects. It is easy to find the house niggah of the like of My Lai (me lie) Massacre Whitewash, Colin Powell to bring a vial of detergent (Bersih?) and give a dramatic show at the UN about WMD and Iraq to pave the way for massive bombings, take Iraq back to the Stone Age.
It has gone rather boring the long series of tos and fros mouth battles between all the players around Ukraine, NATO, the West, and Russia. It’s time to stop all that and put the money – or rather bullets and bombs where the mouth is, give us a nice show. Fireworks on a gigantic scale are always fun to watch.
A big show like a big war has never been a disappointment for the merchants of death, the arms manufacturers of the West. Indiscriminate killing has made many a killing for the arms industry. In fact, wars have kept the economies of quite a few countries in the West afloat throughout history. There is no time like now to have a nice big war to save many Western economies seriously affected by Covid and the results of it.
It would also be a useful distraction for the US as it veers towards civil war, finding an enemy to fight elsewhere would save the warring parties from turning on each other and especially on the ruling elite. The West can conveniently get rid of any insurrectionists and the unemployed to die elsewhere and solve unsavoury economic problems with the help of the Russians.
Since there are those in Bolehland who have the expressed desire to die for the US, they should volunteer to go to the battlefields, “colour revolutions” don’t work these days. We have those who would go and die for others in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, we sure can have others to die for the West.
The US and those countries that act as its lapdogs desperately need to keep the old social order with the US acting as top dog leading the good fight to save their “values”. You can’t do that with Russia in the way, how would you like to live in a gulag and enjoy Russian pop music? What’s worse, with the Chinese these days as its accomplice and rich brother, the coming world order would most likely be dictated by China’s immense wealth, big money talks very loud!
How would the West like it if it has to struggle with learning Chinese and speaking it? What about starving while struggling to use the chopsticks?
To continue to show the world who’s boss, the US needs to fight a pretty major war with Russia – and win that convincingly. The war may even escalate into one where tactical nuclear weapons have to be used. That means both sides would be using them and that might not go down well with the US as Russia would have to take the war to the US itself, you don’t get much out of dropping a nuclear warhead on the clown Zelensky.
The great idea the Russian might site military bases in Venezuela and Cuba already terrifies the Yanks, who know full well fighting with Russia is not a picnic, worse still when China would definitely lend a hand. The Chinese would surely park their nuclear-armed submarines next to the Russians’, ready to deep fry a good number of Yanks to test their toys, chances are the Chinese have already parked their submarines next to the US coasts – while the West gets frantic trying to hunt down Russian subs wandering round the Mediterranean.
With China’s support, the Russian would have nothing to worry about with Western sanctions. Further, Russia has been preparing for the West to sanction it even more, and, in recent years done much to cushion itself from being crippled by such financial weapons. It is doubtful sanctions can do much to Russia, the best way of getting any satisfaction out of hurting Russia would be for the West to fight a war with it, first through their proxies, then directly.
The US has failed to drive a wedge between Russia and China. In fact, through its own failed approach at it, the West has driven Russia and China closer to each other. The responses of Russia and China to Western machinations to cause trouble appear coordinated, the two countries clearly work closely with each other and in synch. What’s further bad news is Russia supports China in the military area providing China with access to advanced technologies. While the US and Russia face each other on one side, the Chinese may be itching to fire their hypersonic weapons up the arses of the Yanks.
Anyway, there should be plenty of interest in the military of all the countries involved in the confrontation with Russia and China. What cards each side hold by way of military hardware will be fun to watch. What one side will throw at the other would make good theatre. It would be wonderful to see the use of those super-duper hypersonic toys at last, not just the latest in aircrafts, drones, artillery pieces, rockets, tanks, shells, and even the gear the soldiers carry on them. Watching all these used in real life would be infinitely more interesting and exciting than playing computer games.
We’ve not had a large scale conventional war with worthy opponents from both sides for a very long time, getting hands on experience from some great battles would be useful and the best replacement for mere talk and mere threats. Most of us punters are bored and fed up with all the talk and posturing, settling all scores via a real war would finally settle all the questions for the world over who’s going to lead the world, be the world policeman, who’s going to survive, who has to take the back seat in international politics, blah blah… Hopefully, with a real contest all such questions will be answered for everyone. It’s all quite easily done to find the answers, just cross Russia’s “red lines”, let’s not keep us in suspense, do that soon.
We can’t be forever waiting in the front row seats for the big talks, threats, posturing to go on and on, or calling the bookies each day for the betting odds, the show has to start or everyone will get tired and bored with the non-show. It won’t help the righteous cause of the West if all we are getting from Western sermons on “values” are front row tickets with no value. We need to see the West triumph and trump Russia, though the West getting a good battering and hammering from the Russians is just as great. We need to know, and the West and Russia too, which side is better equipped to lead the world in a new order. Or which side has enough alive after a good fight to do that.
For the Ah Bengs in the street, it may be prudent to start learning Russian, choose and change adopted half-angmoh names to Vladimir, Boris, Anya, Vodka, and so on.
So guys, no more warnings and threats, there’s just too much of that, just go straight to the battlefields, and fire away, nothing like a grand firework, I like those names like Khinzal, Kalibr, Avangard, Topol, Satan, Iskander Kutty… be fun to watch how they work in a real theatre. Would be fun too to find out how the latest in submarines, torpedoes, even lasers and sonic weapons work. If possible, the use of weapons for a space warfare would be a bonus, we always love the two free gifts.
“Common sense, and presumably good warfare tactics says, if you wish to invade, you do it swiftly and decisively to secure a quick victory!”
There’s also reverse reverse psychology, so, for Bolehland armchair generals they might end up catching no balls.
Bolehland does have a mighty huge army if it unleashes them from manning barriers, roadblocks, events where our big shots grâce, night markets etc etc. I bet there’s a proliferation of generals too.
The sight of elderly over-weight school dropouts, Ali, Ah Bengs, Muthusamyvellus, Nur Aishah, Siti Aminas, etc in their very colourful ill-fitting uniforms would easily terrify many a lesser opponent like those from the US, NATO, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, etc.
Now that there’s no Covid to take care of, I vote we send our warriors with their generals to the coming battlefields, tell our plastic army they are going on a long holiday and they can take the tapau grubs, and we solve the problems of having to hide our massive unemployment of the unemployables.
If you understand what I’m saying, you will make the field marshal rank, I just have to find the padi field for you.
With all these hype about a war breaking out over Ukraine, the mind-boggling issue that stares back at everyone is that if the Russians are planning to invade Ukraine, they certainly would look silly to tell the American about their detailed plan of how they will do it … and also sit on their butts instead of …. just invade! Common sense, and presumably good warfare tactics says, if you wish to invade, you do it swiftly and decisively to secure a quick victory!
The question then is, who is actually banging the war-drums here?