Thread by @les_politiques

"#Ukraine's army was undermined by the corruption of its cadres...in the March/April 2014 recall of reservists, 70 percent did not show up for the first session, 80 percent for the second, 90 percent for the third, and 95 percent for the fourth."
thepostil.com/the-military-s…

"In Oct/Nov 2017, 70% of conscripts did not show up for the recall campaign. This is not counting suicides & desertions (often over to the autonomists)...Young Ukrainians refused to fight in the Donbass & preferred emigration, which explains...partially the demographic deficit"

"The Ukrainian Ministry of Def turned to #NATO to help make its armed forces more 'attractive.' I was asked by NATO to participate in a program to restore the image of the Ukrainian armed forces. But this is a long-term process and the Ukrainians wanted to move quickly." #Ukraine

"So, to compensate for the lack of soldiers, the Ukrainian gov resorted to paramilitary militias. They are essentially composed of foreign mercenaries, often extreme right-wing militants. In 2020, they constituted 40% of the Ukrainian forces & numbered about 102,000 men" #Ukraine

The extreme right-wing militants incorporated by #NATO into #Ukraine's military "were armed, financed and trained by the #US, #UK, #Canada and #France. There were more than 19 nationalities—including Swiss."

"Western countries have thus clearly created and supported Ukrainian far-right militias. In Oct 2021, the Jerusalem Post sounded the alarm by denouncing the Centuria project. These militias had been operating in the #Donbass since 2014, with Western support." #Ukraine

"Even if one can argue about the term 'Nazi,' the fact remains that these militias are violent, convey a nauseating ideology and are virulently anti-Semitic." #UkraineFarRight

"These militias, originating from the far-right groups that animated #Euromaidan in 2014, are composed of fanatical and brutal individuals. The best known is the Azov Regiment, whose emblem is reminiscent of the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer Division, which is revered in the #Ukraine"

"Among the famous figures of the Azov regiment was... Roman Protassevitch...a revealing investigation produced by an American NGO highlighted Protassevitch’s far-right militant activities. The W conspiracy movement...and unscrupulous media “air-brushed” his biography" #Ukraine

"The characterization of the Ukrainian paramilitaries as 'Nazis' or “neo-Nazis” is considered Russian propaganda...But that’s not the view of the Times of Israel, the Simon Wiesenthal Center or the West Point Academy’s Center for Counterterrorism..." #Ukraine

"the West supported and continued to arm militias that have been guilty of numerous crimes against civilian populations since 2014: rape, torture and massacres." #UkraineFarRight

"But while the Swiss government (and other western govts) has been very quick to take sanctions against #Russia, it has not adopted any against the #Ukraine, which has been massacring its own population since 2014."

"In fact, those who defend human rights in the #Ukraine have long condemned the actions of these groups, but have not been supported by our governments. Because, in reality, we are not trying to help the Ukraine, but to fight #Russia."

The #US, #NATO and their satellites in Europe are dumping a lot of taxpayers' money on #Ukraine out of pure hate for #Russia. Hate is costly and I do not know any war that can be won based on the sole motivation of hate.

"The integration of these paramilitary forces into the National Guard was not at all accompanied by a “denazification”...(they are) called “volunteer battalions”...also known by the evocative name of “reprisal battalions”...they now defend ... Kharkov, #Mariupol, Odessa, Kiev"

"As a former head of the Warsaw Pact forces in the Swiss strategic intelligence service, I observe with sadness—but not astonishment—that our services are no longer able to understand the military situation in #Ukraine."

"We have to go back to March24, 2021...#Zelensky issued a decree for the recapture of Crimea and began to deploy forces to the south...At the same time, svrl #NATO exercises were conducted...accompanied by a significant increase in reconnaissance flights along the Russian border"

"#Russia then conducted several exercises to test the readiness of its troops & show it was following the situation. Things calmed down until Oct-Nov with the end of the ZAPAD21 exercises, whose troop movements were interpreted as a reinforcement for an offensive agst #Ukraine"

"In violation of the #Minsk Agreements, #Ukraine was conducting air operations in #Donbass using drones, including at least one strike against a fuel depot in Donetsk in October 2021. The American press noted this, but not the Europeans; and no one condemned these violations."

"On Feb7, #Macron reaffirmed to #Putin his commitment to #Minsk, a commitment he would repeat after meeting #Zelensky the next day. But on Feb11, in Berlin, the meeting of the “Normandy format” ended w/o result: #Ukraine refused to apply Minsk...under pressure from the #US"

"#Putin noted #Macron had made empty promises and the West was not ready to enforce (#Minsk), as it had been doing for 8yrs

Ukrainian preparations in the contact zone continued

Russian Parliament...asked Putin (Feb 15) to recognize the indep of the Republics, which he refused"

"On 17 Feb, #Biden announced that #Russia would attack the #Ukraine in the next few days. How did he know this? It is a mystery. But since the 16th, the artillery shelling of the population of #Donbass increased dramatically, as the daily reports of the OSCE observers show."

"neither the media, nor the EU, nor #NATO, nor any W gov reacts or intervenes...In fact, it seems that the European Union and some countries have deliberately kept silent about the massacre of the #Donbass population, knowing that this would provoke a Russian intervention."

"At the same time, there were reports of sabotage in the #Donbass...Donbass fighters intercepted saboteurs who spoke Polish with W equipment seeking to create chemical incidents in Gorlivka. They could have been CIA mercenaries “advised”...to carry out sabotage action in Donbass"

"The massive increase in shelling against the population of #Donbass on Feb 16 told the Russians that a major offensive was imminent..." #Ukraine

Ceasefire violations in #Donbass observed 19-20 Feb 2022

"as early as Feb 16, #Biden knew the Ukrainians had begun shelling the civilians of #Donbass, putting Vladimir #Putin in front of a difficult choice: to help Donbass militarily & create an intern'l problem or to stand by and watch Russian-speaking people of Donbass being crushed"

On Feb 21, #Putin "agreed to the request of the Duma...recognized the indep. of the Donbass Republics and...signed friendship & assistance treaties w them.
The Ukrainian bombardment of the Donbass population continued...on 23 Feb, the Republics asked mil assistance from Russia"

"On 24 Feb, #Putin invoked Article 51 of the UN Charter, which provides for mutual military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance."

"In order to make the Russian intervention totally illegal in the eyes of the public we deliberately hid the fact that the war actually started on Feb 16. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the #Donbass as early as 2021, as some Russian & European intel were well aware"

Bear with me, continuing to quote from this fantastic article by former colonel of the General Staff, ex-mbr of the Swiss strategic intel, Eastern countries specialist, Jacques Baud, on #Ukraine. We now move to our interpretation of the military operation. thepostil.com/the-military-s…

"visibility on the course of the operation is limited: the Russians have an excellent security of ops (OPSEC)... the details of their planning are not known. But...the course of the op. allows to understand how the strategic objectives were translated on the operational level"

On demilitarization:
"ground destruction of Ukrainian aviation, air defense systems & reconnaissance assets;
neutralization of command & intel structures, as well as main logistical routes in depth of territory;
encirclement of the bulk of the UA massed in the southeast."

On Denazification:
"destruction or neutralization of volunteer battalions operating in the cities of Odessa, Kharkov, and Mariupol, as well as in various facilities in the territory." #Ukraine

"The Russian offensive was carried out in a very “classic” manner...with the destruction on the ground of the air force in the very 1st hrs. Then...simultaneous progression along several axes...advance (ing) everywhere where resistance was weak and leave the cities...for later"

"The idea that #Russia is trying to take over #Kiev...to eliminate #Zelensky, comes typically from the West—that is what they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and what they wanted to do in Syria with the help of the Islamic State."

"Many Western commentators were surprised that the Russians continued to seek a negotiated solution while conducting military operations. The explanation lies in the Russian strategic outlook since the Soviet era." #Ukraine

"For the West, war begins when politics ends... the Russian approach follows a Clausewitzian inspiration: war is the continuity of politics and one can move fluidly from one to the other, even during combat. This allows to create pressure on the adversary & push him to negotiate"

"in 6 days, the Russians seized a territory as large as the UK...The bulk of the Ukrainian army was deployed in the south of the country in preparation for a major operation against the #Donbass. This is why Russian forces were able to encircle it from the beginning of March"

"At this stage, Russian forces...are no longer under time pressure. Their demilitarization goal is all but achieved and the remaining Ukrainian forces no longer have an operational and strategic command structure." #Ukraine

The de nazification is taking place in Mariupol, Kharkov and next, Odessa. It will take time as the paramilitary militia holding these cities are taking civilians as hostages. As in #Syria, the noose will be tightened slowly but surely and humanitarian corridors will be opened.

"Videos showing civilians trying to leave #Mariupol and beaten up by fighters of the Azov regiment are of course carefully censored here (in the West)."

"Our media propagate a romantic image of popular resistance. It is this image that led the European Union to finance the distribution of arms to the civilian population. This is a criminal act." #Ukraine

"In my capacity as head of peacekeeping doctrine at the UN, I worked on the issue of civilian protection. We found that violence against civilians occurred in very specific contexts. In particular, when weapons are abundant and there are no command structures." #Ukraine

"command structures are the essence of armies: their function is to channel the use of force towards an objective. By arming citizens in a haphazard manner...the EU is turning them into combatants, with the consequential effect of making them potential targets." #Ukraine

"This is what happened in Tawarga (#Libya) from 11 to 13 August 2011, where 30,000 black Africans were massacred with weapons parachuted (illegally) by #France." #Ukraine

"The EU is repeating the disastrous experience of the 3rd Reich in the final hrs of the Battle of Berlin...when one side has lost, it must be admitted. And if there is to be resistance, it must be led and structured. But we are doing exactly the opposite" #Ukraine

"Some intel services see this irresponsible decision as a way to use the Ukrainian population as cannon fodder to fight #Putin’s Russia. This kind of murderous decision should have been left to the colleagues of Ursula von der Leyen’s grandfather..." #Ukraine

Some specifics on how this war is being covered in the West: the case of the #Mariupol maternity hospital...

"it is not the Ukrainian army that is defending #Mariupol, but the #Azov militia, composed of foreign mercenaries...(These) militias...are encouraged by the intern'l community not to respect the customs of war."

And, like ISIS, none of them will be tried for war crimes...

"In reality, we do not know exactly what happened. But the sequence of events tends to confirm that Russian forces struck a position of the #Azov regiment and that the maternity ward was then free of civilians." #Mariupol

"Western politicians have accepted civilian strikes in the #Donbass for eight years, without adopting any sanctions against the Ukrainian gov. We have long since entered a dynamic where W politicians have agreed to sacrifice intern'l law towards their goal of weakening #Russia."

"As an ex-intelligence professional, the...thing that strikes me is the total absence of Western intel services in the representation of the situation over the past yr...In fact, it seems that throughout the Western world, intel services have been overwhelmed by the politicians"

"while some intelligence services had a very accurate and rational picture of the situation, others clearly had the same picture as that propagated by our media." #Ukraine

"In this crisis, the services of the countries of the 'new Europe' played an important role...I have found them to be extremely bad at the analytical level—doctrinaire, they lack the intellectual and political independence necessary to assess a situation with military 'quality'"

"in some European countries, politicians have deliberately ignored their services in order to respond ideologically to the situation. That is why this crisis has been irrational from the beginning...all the documents...presented to the public...were...based on commercial sources"

"Some Western politicians obviously wanted there to be a conflict. In the US, the attack scenarios presented by #Blinken to the Security Council were only the product of the imagination of a Tiger Team working for him" #Ukraine

#Blinken "did exactly as Donald #Rumsfeld did in 2002, who had thus “bypassed” the CIA and other intelligence services that were much less assertive about Iraqi chemical weapons" #Ukraine

"The dramatic developments we are witnessing have causes that we knew about but refused to see:
-on the strategic level, the expansion of NATO;
-on the political level, the Western refusal to implement #Minsk;
-operationally, the repeated attacks on the civilians of #Donbass"

"we can...condemn the Russian attack. But WE (the US, France & the EU in the lead) have created the conditions for a conflict...if we had had a modicum of compassion for the...refugees of #Donbass massacred by their own gov...for 8 years, none of this would prob. have happened"