"CrossTalk | Long War?" (Lavelle with Wilkerson, McGovern, Brana). Typically good Crosstalk.
"Update on Ukraine, Moscow vs NATO, US Biolabs, IAEA-ZNPP, Crisis of values-US, Banking crisis-West.." and "Ukraine Update, US F-35 Fleet, Erdogan Talks Peace, US Top LNG Exporter, Russian External Debt.." (Gudadze).
"German politician Sahra Wagenknecht on Ukraine: "Diplomacy instead of weapons"" (acTVism Munich).
"Cheerleading versus shivers down your spine: what will the coming Ukrainian counter-offensive bring?" (Doctorow):
". . . I see that both Scott Ritter and Col. Douglas Macgregor continue their cheerleading of Russian forces with daily predictions of a rout of the Ukrainian army. They are both talking nonsense, and bring their fake news to very large Western audiences. Why do I say nonsense? Because no one really knows what the situation on the ground will be when the Ukrainians launch their counter offensive next month.
Both sides have imposed strictest secrecy on their current operations and plans for the coming couple of months. Though the Russians continue to make progress in their capture of Bakhmut and Avdievka, there is little movement elsewhere on the very long front. Both sides are engaged in minor sorties to find out weak spots in the defenses of the other side for purposes of the big battle to come.
In the past few days, Zelensky has played down the Ukrainian military potential for the purpose of squeezing more and more aid from the West and to make the possible Ukrainian breakthrough during the counter offensive appear all the more remarkable if it indeed occurs.
The Russians have been digging in, literally, with spades to fortify their defensive positions in a series of lines. The Russians are nervous over what the USA and NATO actually have dispatched to Ukraine, which they believe may be much more advanced than what the newspaper accounts are saying. Forget the tanks, which are a side show. The real threat is long range ballistic missiles and other weaponry that can reach into the supply depots, regional command centers and barracks of reservists in Crimea and the Russian oblasts bordering the Donbas.
Should Russian fears, which we hear set out in some detail on the daily talk shows these days, be justified and not merely a message to their own leadership to take maximum precautions and not to be giddy with success, then you and I should be very, very nervous. Why? Because if the United States indeed goes va banque and throws in as a further guarantee of success NATO piloted aircraft and battalions of infantry, then the possibility of Russians resorting to tactical nukes raises its head."
and:
". . . sadly and reluctantly, I take back my words about the impossibility of Russian use of nuclear weapons in the field. I have done this privately in a letter to Professor Mearsheimer. Now I do so publicly.
If US assistance to the Ukrainian counteroffensive goes over the top, we may all become collateral casualties of war, both here in Europe and on the mythically secure shores across the Atlantic."
Frankly, it seems that this big counter-attack is just a way for Ze to get more loot, and not a real threat, but we'll see (and, as Doctorow points out, the consequences of a counter-attack might be huge, nuclear WWIII huge, which is exactly why (((Nuland))) picked Crimea as the target).
"‘Russia alone can already confront the entire West…’" (Bhadrakumar).
Synder is the most relentlessly stupid cheerleader of the American Empire amongst the hegemon's captured accademics: "Putin, Trump, Ukraine: how Timothy Snyder became the leading interpreter of our dark times" (Baird). George Saunders (!) blurbed one of his books.
"Washington’s Summit for Democracy reaches new heights of hypocrisy" (Martin).
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