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Cross

Best of the Web: Study finds that 45,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the Ukraine War


rferl.org
Tue, 27 Feb 2024 21:22 UTC
russian war dead ukraine
At least 45,123 Russian troops have been killed since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago, according to research by journalists from Mediazona and the BBC's Russian Service who have established the deceased soldiers' identities.


Comment: Note that these two sources, along with the current article you are reading, are vehemently anti-Putin media outlets.


Two-thirds of all confirmed dead -- volunteers, conscripts, ex-inmates, and fighters from private military companies -- were not connected to the military before the start of the invasion, researchers found.

The number includes 5,406 mobilized soldiers, 80 percent of whom were killed in the second year of the war.

Krasnodar, Sverdlovsk, Bashkortostan, and Chelyabinsk are the regions with the highest number of dead.

Journalists have identified 27,906 Russian soldiers killed last year -- 57 percent more than the confirmed losses in the first year of the invasion.


Comment: Again, at that juncture, Western media was breathlessly reporting to its audiences that ten times that figure had been killed.


Comment: The media goes with the fact-free CIA version of reality, which, as you can see, is an order of magnitude off from reality. It's actually Ukraine's casualty toll that is in the hundreds of thousands:

Russian Defense Minister: 440,000 Ukrainian troops have been 'lost' since the launch of the SMO

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Cross

Best of the Web: Russian Defense Minister: 440,000 Ukrainian troops have been 'lost' since the launch of the SMO


TASS
Tue, 27 Feb 2024 21:06 UTC
Russian defense minister announces the liberation of several residential settlements in Donbass, discloses Kiev attempts to prevent the collapse of the front
cemetery war dead ukraine
Slava Ukraini
The Ukrainian army has lost over 444,000 troops since the beginning of the special military operation and has been daily losing over 800 troops and 120 various armaments since the beginning of 2024, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told the Defense Ministry's board meeting.


Comment: 'Losing' troops presumably means both killed-in-action and wounded-in-action. For comparison, the Russian military death toll in the SMO is estimated at just under 45,000, according to a joint Russian (anti-Putin) media estimate.


He reported the liberation of several residential settlements in Donbass, disclosed Kiev attempts to prevent the collapse of the front, and announced plans to rearm the Eastern and Central Military Districts.

Military operation

Since the liberation of Avdeyevka, the Russian forces have been improving the situation in the Donetsk and Kupyansk directions and seizing new strongholds and positions of Ukrainian troops.

Since the beginning of the year, Russia has liberated close to 327 square kilometers in Donbass and Novorossiya (317 square km a week ago). "In the past week, the Ukrainian armed forces were ousted from the settlements of Pobeda, Lastochkino, Severnoye in the Donetsk People's Republic," Shoigu said.

Comment: That casualty toll for Ukrainian soldiers is probably ballpark-accurate. This is why European heads of head convened in Paris on Monday to discuss what to do next: they're at another cross-roads and are considering sending regular NATO forces to fight Russia in Ukraine because their proxy Ukrainian forces are spent.

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Better Earth

Best of the Web: The new multipolar world system and the end of an era

Atilio A. Boron
Al Mayadeen
Tue, 27 Feb 2024 15:26 UTC
putin xi biden multipolar world
The irreversible decline of Western supremacy, under the leadership of the United States, will not be a peaceful process, and it would be naive to think so.

Current diagnoses assert that the international system is going through a period of epoch-making changes. The tectonic plates on which the world geopolitical chessboard rests have shifted, unleashing profound modifications in the structure of the system and in the nature of its main players. This is true, but only if it is recognized that this journey has already reached a point of no return and that the trends that have been operating in recent years have matured to the point of producing an irreversible result: the configuration of a global geopolitical chessboard marked by the emergence of multiple actors endowed with different power capacities that put an end to five centuries of Western supremacy over all nations. Multipolarism has arrived and it is here to stay.

Comment: Indeed the hegemon will not go quietly; as Pepe Escobar said in his recent article:
The fact is we are already immersed in a World War that is both existential and civilizational. As we stand at the crossroads, there is a bifurcation: either escalation towards overt "kinetic military action," or a multiplication of Hybrid Wars across several latitudes.
See also:

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Vader

Best of the Web: Bombshell NYT report confirms CIA built "12 secret spy bases" in Ukraine & waged a 'shadow war' on Russia for the last decade

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Mon, 26 Feb 2024 21:46 UTC
Ukrainian commandoes afu cia soldiers winter gear
© Efrem Lukatsky / Associated PressUkrainians such as these civilians shown taking part in resistance training in early February, 2022 in Kyiv have been bracing for a Russian invasion for months. The CIA has been preparing for years.
On Sunday The New York Times published an explosive and very belated full admission that US intelligence has not only been instrumental in Ukraine wartime decision-making, but has established and financed high tech command-and-control spy centers, and was doing so long prior to the Feb. 24 Russian invasion of two years ago.

Among the biggest revelations is that the program was established a decade ago and spans three different American presidents. The Times says the CIA program to modernize Ukraine's intelligence services has "transformed" the former Soviet state and its capabilities into "Washington's most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today."

This has included the agency having secretly trained and equipped Ukrainian intelligence officers spanning back to just after the 2014 Maidan coup events, as well constructing a network of 12 secret bases along the Russian border — work which began eight years ago. These intelligence bases, from which Russian commanders' communications can be swept up and Russian spy satellites monitored, are being used launch and track cross-border drone and missile attacks on Russian territory.
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Yellow Vest

Best of the Web: Farmers' rebellion: 160 tons of Ukrainian grain dumped out of trains at station in Poland


Reuters
Sun, 25 Feb 2024 22:59 UTC
train poland grain ukraine
Police officers, customs officers, and railway workers stand next to piles of corn spilled from train cars in the Polish village of Kotomierz, near the Ukrainian border, on February 25.
Around 160 tons of Ukrainian grain was destroyed at a Polish railway station amid large-scale protests in what a senior Ukrainian official said on Sunday was an act of "impunity and irresponsibility".

Polish farmers protesting this month against what they say is unfair competition from Ukraine and European Union environment regulations have blocked border crossings with Ukraine and motorways, and spilled Ukrainian produce from train wagons.


Comment: Ukrainian grain has been shown to be contaminated with mold, GMO and unacceptable levels of chemicals. Notably American megacorporations have been increasingly buying vast tracts of Ukraine's top agricultural land. But the main reason European farmers are furious is that Ukrainian grain, heavily discounted to pay for NATO's war, is flooding the EU market and hitting European farmers hard.


"These pictures show 160 tons of destroyed Ukrainian grain. The grain was in transit to the port of Gdansk and then to other countries," Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov posted on X with photographs of mounds of grain spilled from train wagons.

Comment: It remains to be seen just who was responsible, however it is clear that farmers across Europe are becoming increasingly incensed with the 'deceptive' concessions their governments are promising them, and are resorting to taking direct action against the inferior products being shipped in to undercut their own: France's farmers storm agricultural fair amid Macron visit, demand his resignation

Footage:



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Eye 1

Best of the Web: How to Fight the Censorship Mindset

L.P. Koch
LucTalks
Sun, 18 Feb 2024 08:32 UTC
sky field sunshine
© L.P. Koch
There's currently lots of hoopla about some crybabies who want daddy to keep Substack clean and safe.

They talk about "Nazis" on the platform, conveniently forgetting to define what they even mean, which, of course, is a feature, not a bug. Seriously, I doubt those who scream "Nazi" the loudest have ever read a serious book about the Third Reich or about Mustache Man. Not that this matters.

But what drives these people? Beyond being crybullies, I mean? I think there is a deeper point to make here about discomfort and wishing death upon those with different opinions.
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Light Saber

Best of the Web: Pepe Escobar: The Axis of Asymmetry takes on the 'Rules-based Order'

Pepe Escobar
The Cradle
Fri, 23 Feb 2024 15:59 UTC
The Axis of Asymmetry takes on the Rules Based Order
© The CradleThe Axis of Asymmetry takes on the Rules Based Order
World War III is here, playing out asymmetrically in military, financial, and institutional battlefields, and the fight is an existential one. The western Hegemon, in truth, is at war against international law, and only 'kinetic military action' can bring it to heel.

The Axis of Asymmetry is in full swing. These are the state and non-state actors employing asymmetrical moves on the global chessboard to sideline the US-led western rules-based order. And its vanguard is the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah.

Ansarallah is absolutely relentless. They have downed a $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone with just a $10k indigenous missile.

They are the first in the Global South ever to use anti-ship ballistic missiles against Israel-bound and/or -protecting commercial and US Navy ships.

For all practical purposes, Ansarallah is at war with no less than the US Navy.
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Bullseye

Best of the Web: China tells ICJ Palestinians have 'inalienable right to use armed force' against Israeli occupation


Middle East Eye
Fri, 23 Feb 2024 17:03 UTC
Zhang Jun
FILE PHOTO: Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun Beijing’s UN ambassador has blasted arbitrary seizures of countries’ assets
China has backed the right of the Palestinian people to use armed force to combat Israel's occupation of their land, calling it an "an inalienable right well founded in international law".

The comments on Thursday were made by the Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, during the fourth day of public hearings held by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands.

Representatives of 52 countries are addressing the ICJ on Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land.

Beijing's envoy said there were "various people (who) freed themselves from colonial rule" and they could use "all available means, including armed struggle".

Comment: It seems that the multipolar world are, increasingly, calling out the warmongers and genociders for who they are. And one wonders whether they'll, ultimately, follow up these statements with effective responses, considering that, increasingly, they are the drivers of the global economy:

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Putin

Best of the Web: 'Live as you want, just don't touch the kids,' Putin tells gays


RT
Tue, 20 Feb 2024 19:45 UTC
putin
© Sputnik/Kristina Kormilitsyna
Russia is actually tolerant of people with non-traditional sexual orientations, so long as they don't target children or flaunt their preferences, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

The president made the remarks while addressing visitors to the 'Strong Ideas for a New Time' forum, a yearly event organized by Russia's state-backed Agency of Strategic Initiatives.

"We are quite tolerant towards people with non-traditional sexual orientations. We just don't flaunt it, and we don't believe it's right to flaunt it. Let everyone live - the adults - as they want. Nobody limits them in anything," Putin stated, explaining that, basically, there are only a handful of rules which limit the LGBTQ community in the country.
As for children, I have already said many times: 'Don't touch the children.' That's it. This is the first one. And the second one is, we are, first and foremost, a state that is guided by traditional values.

Comment: It's pretty simple for Putin and most rational-minded people around the world: Keep your sexual preferences to yourself and keep the acts private. Don't throw any of that into the public's face.

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Cassiopaea

Best of the Web: Earth's glaciation periods may be triggered by large asteroid impacts - Yale

Keith Cowing
Astrobiology
Tue, 20 Feb 2024 18:39 UTC
ice age earth glaciation
© NASA
A Yale-led research team has picked a side in the "Snowball Earth" debate over the possible cause of planet-wide deep freeze events that occurred in the distant past.

According to a new study, these so-called "Snowball" Earth periods, in which the planet's surface was covered in ice for thousands or even millions of years, could have been triggered abruptly by large asteroids that slammed into the Earth.

The findings, detailed in the journal Science Advances, may answer a question that has stumped scientists for decades about some of the most dramatic known climate shifts in Earth's history. In addition to Yale, the study included researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of Vienna.

Comment: As is increasingly the case, mainstream science is finally coming to conclusions that have long been put forth by authors and articles here on SOTT, but their finding has much more profound implications than they have yet to acknowledge: Also check out SOTT radio's:


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