Ukraine Updates: Putin’s Advisors Keeping Him in the Dark, Fighting Amplifies in East Ukraine
Ukraine won’t sign a peace agreement unless Russia gets out of the country…completely.
Day 36. Russia is still in Ukraine. The troops might be moving away from Kyiv and other central cities but Russia is still in Ukraine.
Ukraine will not sign a peace agreement until Russia is fully gone from the country.
Live Stream:
Russians Leave Chernobyl
The Russians left Chernobyl after capturing it at the beginning of the full-scale invasion:
“It was confirmed that the occupiers, who seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and other facilities in the Exclusion Zone marched in two columns towards the Ukrainian border with the Republic of Belarus,” Energoatom, the Ukrainian nuclear power company, said in a statement.
Chernobyl is located about 100km north of Kyiv.
“This morning, the invaders announced their intentions to leave the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to Ukrainian station personnel. Currently, a small number of [Russians] remain at the station,” Energoatom added.
Russia Increases Airstrikes
Russia is not going away:
The official said the sorties cast further doubt on Russia’s claims it is de-escalating and relocating forces in Ukraine. The strikes have increased significantly over the past three days, the official said.
The strikes are concentrated around Kyiv, Chernihiv, Izium, Mariupol and the Donbas. The official said the US doesn’t have an update on a Russian-announced ceasefire but has seen airstrikes there over the past 24 hours.
“For all this talk of de-escalation and moving away, Kyiv is very much under threat from airstrikes,” the official said Thursday. “Even as they depressurise the ground presence around Kyiv, they’re still putting pressure on the Ukranians from the air.”
Russia has withdrawn about 20 per cent of the forces it had arrayed from Kyiv, the same as Wednesday, the official said, in another indication Moscow is not serious about efforts to end the conflict.
West Says Gas Payments Remain in Euros/Dollars, But Putin Says Otherwise
The West, especially Germany and France, insist they will keep paying for gas in euros or dollars. But Putin decreed today that Russia could turn off gas as early as tomorrow if they do not pay in rubles:
“To buy Russian gas, they need to open ruble accounts in Russian banks,” Putin told officials in a televised speech Thursday. “It is from those accounts that gas will be paid for starting April 1. If such payments aren’t made, we will consider this a failure by the client to comply with its obligations.”
Buyers should open special accounts in state-controlled Gazprombank to allow foreign currency to be swapped to rubles for settlements, according to an order signed by Putin.
But my friend said it well:
All that matters here is, “we will continue to pay for Russian energy imports”…… https://t.co/t5qNPCC795
— Lynx (@LibertyLynx) March 31, 2022
Fighting Intensifies in Donetsk
Russia will likely destroy eastern Ukraine (look at Mariupol) before it moves back west:
The leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, said offensive operations were intensifying.
“We are well aware that the longer it takes us to liberate our territory – those settlements that are now under control of Ukraine – the more victims and destruction there will be,” he said.
Donetsk includes the besieged port city of Mariupol, which has seen some of the war’s heaviest fighting and bombardment and where about 170,000 people are trapped with scarce food and water.
“We cook what we find among neighbours; a bit of cabbage, a bit more of potatoes, we’ve found tomato paste, some beetroot,” said former steel worker Viktor from Mariupol.
No Peace Until Russia is Gone
Ukraine should not settle for anything else. I hope this includes Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea:
“When we reach the conditional signing of the agreement, or at least the point when it can be seriously discussed, they will have to withdraw completely. And only then will we sit down to sign, endorse or initial it,” David Arakhamia, head of Ukraine’s delegation and negotiating team, said during an interview with a Ukrainian news outlet.
“At the negotiations, we talk[ed] about the return of their troops to their positions as of Feb. 23 this year. As long as they remain in the territories they’ve occupied after Feb. 23, there can be no agreements of any kind,” he added.
Putin in the Dark?
The West claims Putin’s advisors keep him in the dark about the failures in Ukraine:
US officials said Putin increasingly feels he has been misled by military top brass about the scale of losses on the ground and the use of conscripts to fight the war.
The intelligence said the Russian president “didn’t even know his military was using and losing conscripts … showing a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information”.
An official said: “We have information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military. There is now persistent tension between Putin and the ministry of defence, stemming from Putin’s mistrust in the ministry of defence leadership.”
Putin has already sacked eight generals and ordered a purge of intelligence personnel.
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Comments
Purely baseless propaganda from our side.
All vague, nondescript and open to interpretation.
They are trying to fool us- not the Russians.
First, nobody publishes legitimate intel ( it tips the enemy off and often can identify the source and channel and you NEVER let the enemy know what you know)
Second, this is a very bad attempt to “paint” Putin with a false narrative the left “MUST” sell to the sheeple.
Third, we cant trust what they are telling (selling actually) us.
This is wrong. First, who is this nameless “they” whose intentions and motives you’ve spotted out so perfectly?
Second, the idea that you can apply some simplistic little mental rule such as “nobody publishes legitimate intel” to discern the truth is itself hopelessly naive and facile.
The reality of human behavior and the conflicts that grow out of it is much more messy and unpredictable.
One might say that the only rule of deception in spycraft and warcraft is that there are no hard and fast rules, and any simpleton who bull-headedly insists on squeezing the multifarious variegation of human experience into neat little analytical boxes with no room for exceptions may find himself frequently in error.
It should be obvious common sense—but is not, judging from the up votes on your comment—that military commands or spy agencies sometimes may have good reasons to disseminate the absolute truth and other times will have reason to suppress the truth. For example, let’s say Ukrainian defenders beat back a large Russian assault. Doesn’t it make sense for the military command to release this information to journalists? Actually, the answer is, maybe. We don’t know a priori if releasing this info is judged to be useful or if making claims to the opposite may be even more useful. But it’s clear that in some circumstances the truth is just as potent as lies. For example, quoting a verifiable truth may enable the organization doing the quoting to establish and accumulate a reputation as trustworthy which then helps sow other, more subtle lies in future dealings.
Perhaps the best we can do as consumers of information is to be highly discriminating, and always try to answer, or at least consider in full awareness, questions of identity, attribution, motive, audit, and so forth when evaluating a new piece of information.. This can help us at least to be aware of the possibilities of misdirection and mistakes to be introduced into our chains of reasoning.
But rejecting a new datum out of hand because “nobody publishes legitimate Intel” and “you NEVER let the enemy know what you know” and “we cant [sic] trust what they are telling us” is bound to cause one to err badly over time as the course is never corrected on the other side, and as all the turns are in the same direction, eventually leading to a species of circular logic.
.
Well, Sh!t for Brains, let me give you a quick lesson in reality.
My analysis comes from ACTUALLY BEING IN THE FIELD and doing it ( without violating my NSA statement) and even doing it in those theaters and against/with some of the actual players in a military and civilian capacity.
I have forgotten more about “the craft” that you will know even with 3,256 years of googling and playing Call of Duty in your mothers basement.
So instead of pontificating on things you don’t have the slightest clue about- SHUT UP, listen and learn from those who actually do.
The ads at LI have become intolerable.
I am being forced to watch low Quality junk ads, some of them dynamic which frankly make reading this great content impossible for me.
The screen is 30% LI content and the remainder is trash ads.
As always my favourite ads are those which block website content. It is a shame.
The ads blocking the conscience are bad enough. But I’ve noticed of the past few days a deterioration in the type of ad. Lots of is your liver dead type stuff. The next thing you know we’re going to see pictures of people boil lemon slices in a pot. It is a shame that the side is starting to resemble a lot of the other right of center sites. The ads with the scare tactic type stuff about health simply make the site look cheap.
Contents…
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I wasn’t. Nor was I looking to find out anything about my liver. And I don’t use Google.
To put the “slow” progress Russia is making in perspective the conquest of Chechnya took 9 months.
Hopefully Ukraine isn’t listening to it’s own propaganda. Russia right now is still winning. The winning side isn’t shutting down it’s steel industry, the steel industry is essential in any war you defend your industries from getting to the point of needing to be shut down if you could.
By the way it took 3 years for us to defeat the Iraq insurgency when the Iraqi’s figured out we would occupy the country as we attempted to turn it into California instead of leaving.
Putin not knowing what is going on by the way is so overtly propagandistic that I am shocked that anyone believes it. The following men knew exactly what went on in their armed force
1. Adolph Hitler
2. Joseph Stalin
3. Mao Zedong
Our press shouldn’t be engaged in a propaganda campaign because if the American voter believes the nonsense they may actually vote for a war with Russia.
How is Russia winning?
Russia is using civilian vehicles for logistics because they’ve lost so many military ones. Russia is calling on mercenaries because they’ve lost too many of their own forces. Russia is deploying its military training experts to Ukraine because they’ve got nobody else to send. Russians are refusing to be deployed to Ukraine, and lawyers are defending them on the grounds “it’s not a war”. Russia never achieved aerial dominance. Russian troops have abandoned their arms and vehicles and gone home. Russia can’t even take Mariupol, despite levelling it. Russia’s sacked 8 generals. Half a dozen Russian generals have been killed. Russia has committed 70% of its army to Ukraine leaving it weak and vulnerable elsewhere. Russian intelligence chiefs have been put under house arrest. Russian conscripts have been killed despite Russia claiming they weren’t involved. Russia have lost 350 tanks, 110 artillery guns, a dozen bridge layers, 10 bridges and a landing ship. Russians are fighting in shops over sugar. Russian troops are having to loot shops because it’s the only way they can get food. Russia can’t build tanks because they haven’t got the needed components. Russia is running out of missiles. Russia is having to withdraw from Ukrainian territory it should never have fucking been in to start with.
Ukraine on the other hand has more tanks than it started the war with.
Your reply to your own post is deeply ironic, because you’re sounding like Hitler claiming that he was winning while German soldiers were freezing to death in Stalingrad.
Putin’s just as deluded at Hitler was, and has about the same chances of winning.
1. Russia just shut down Ukraine’s steel industry. Name one example of a nation that allows its vital military related industries to be shut down by enemy operations. Russia has penetrated deeply into Ukraine, has cut off multiple Ukrainian military units, has surrounded a major port, has forces in place to attack an important point for surrounding Kiev. We have propaganda about Russian losses, that is being run without the context of Russian victories. But hey since Ukraine is going to be storming the Kremlin in 30 seconds well why should we be concerned?
2. You know Ukraine’s number of tanks based on what Ukraine is saying. You could believe that or you could look at what a map looks like compared to one month ago.
3. Adolph Hitler knew exactly what was going on in all portions of his military through the entire war. German officers brought all relevant information to him. Stalin was also routinely informed of what was going on in his army. Claiming Putin is being kept in the dark would mean that Russian officers are more afraid of Putin than German officers to Hitler, or Russians to Stalin. You seem to just be offended at the idea that the U.S. Government is providing propaganda. The idea that Russian officers are more afraid of telling Putin what is going on than Hitler’s officers is just propaganda.
You are free to uncritically believe propaganda, but it is clear the Ukrainians don’t believe it because they are demanding a no fly zone.
I forgot to address your point about “mercenaries” don’t worry Russia will just call them contractors like we did when most of our personnel in Iraq had the title of “contractors”. Whatever a piece of paper says mercenaries are just part of a modern war, from Iraq to Ukraine.
Well Danny,
Let it never be said I don’t call it down the middle based solely on the facts in the information.
I commend your reasoning and analysis as posted so far in this thread as highly accurate. It matches up very well with my own military and civilian experience in all those theaters.
Its clear that Putin is a black propaganda target for Western press (for reasons probably yet to be fully defined but i suspect more than 1) and I advise ALL to be HIGHLY SUSPECT of the accuracy, context and completeness of any “reporting” coming out of that area.
Rest assured, Putin is NOT in any way insane, a madman or not in control of every part and parcel of this operation.
Do not believe for a second that the Russian military is not a world class fighting force- ( they are) on par and superior to most on this planet. ( they have many inherent weaknesses but that’s beyond the scope of this post)
Do NOT believe the armchair hype of these “experts”. This is Russia’s fight- they are controlling the tempo ( for an agenda yet to be fully known), they are in no way losing ( or going to).
Russia is NOT fighting an action such as we did in the Gulf War ( the military goal of a swift decisive victory)- they are deliberately fighting a protracted engagement for reasons known but to them.
All this hype about all these Ukraine “successes” in the media is nothing more than a real world application of one of the WWE scripts to make the “jobber” look like there is actually a chance of pinning the “heel” until the poor guy gets power bombed off the top rope to get the crowd going.
This is a Godzilla v. Bambi fight and the Ukraine doesn’t and never had a chance at prevailing in a military sense (excluding outside intervention) no matter what arms they are sent.
re: “Rest assured, Putin is NOT in any way insane, a madman or not in control of every part and parcel of this operation.”
Good to hear.
Please forgive my utter confusion that Putin would choose to lose so many men, so many vehicles, so many senior officers.
Please excuse me not understanding why Putin chose to use trucks with shredded tyres to hand all his supplies to Ukraine.
Please overlook my bewilderment that Putin decided to hand over his newest electronic warfare designs to the US via Ukraine.
Please make allowances for my ignorance into Putin’s reasons for arresting his intelligence chiefs, sacking his generals and utterly fucking up this entire farce of an invasion.
Because, between you and I, I don’t understand it, and frankly I don’t think Putin does either.
I’ll help you on a few
From you
>>>Please forgive my utter confusion that Putin would choose to lose so many men, so many vehicles, so many senior officers.
This is a very common tactic in Communist Countries where the leaders make examples of those who “don’t deliver”. We have relieved commanders too. ( we don’t usually execute them but Communists do). Without knowing all the facts this is just a media story.
>>>Please excuse me not understanding why Putin chose to use trucks with shredded tyres to hand all his supplies to Ukraine.
Media hyperbole- the fact is his supplies ARE getting to the battle and he is WINNING. Also, he is clearly “consuming’ his “old stock” ( cold war stuff) to make room for new stuff. We do this too. Those ‘shredded tires” can run flat so that doesn’t impede the vehicle either.
>>>Please overlook my bewilderment that Putin decided to hand over his newest electronic warfare designs to the US via Ukraine.
You can rest assured that didn’t happen. It is common for them ( and us) to sell our hardware (Tanks, missiles, jets and so forth) to allies and satellites WITHOUT the key components that make ours lethal but with generic systems that make them operate. ( software, hardware, stable gun systems and all that) That’s why the Iraqi “SCUD” in the GW I was nowhere near its Soviet counterpart in terms of accuracy, countermeasures and lethality.
>>>Please make allowances for my ignorance into Putin’s reasons for arresting his intelligence chiefs, sacking his generals and utterly fucking up this entire farce of an invasion.
I already explained part of that but since he is not only WINNING and basically told the world to FO ( and is going to win)- exactly what specifically do you think he is “fucking up” and since he is there and achieving his objectives- how is this a “farce’ of an invasion?
What are you gauging it against?
>>>>Because, between you and I, I don’t understand it, and frankly I don’t think Putin does either.
We wont understand because we are not privy to the “war room” level of intel ( neither is the media) so the best we can hope for is a “looks like” analysis and even that is suspect based on the way the media lies outright to promote an agenda.
None of that shows Putin to be stupid or incompetent in any way.
In this war, propaganda is flying from all sides. British intelligence, American intelligence, no matter. What comes out of Ukraine is not much better. It is war after all and there are several battlefields.
Putin feels he is being misled!
Translation: The search for scapegoats is well under way. Putin, himself, demands he be protected from the consequences of his evil.
Why are you publishing this crap
I honestly don’t know what to believe. Just prior to the beginning of kinetic action in the first Gulf War, we kept seeing a gigantic armored column sitting on a highway, a sitting duck. I was in a CP listening to a briefing from a man who would later become CJCS. He commented that he believed Saddam must be up to something because no one is dumb enough to park a column like that, a logical presumption. But, as it turned out, he sure was simply that stupid.
While its hard for me to believe that Putin – a capable and ruthless KGB agent from all accounts – is this stupid, naive, you never know. How many times in our own country have we seen fucking imbeciles rise to the top? Too many.
There are a LOT of unanswered questions about what has and has not happened during this invasion. For instance, why is Putin keeping his AF largely in reserve? Why has there been virtually zero engagement in Odessa, arguably the most critical port on the Black Sea not currently in Russian control? Why did they pick the end of winter (on the first night of a FULL moon, no less), when tracked vehicles operate poorly in the deep mud, when they could have gone a couple months earlier or later giving them much more advantageous conditions (drier or frozen) to operate in?
Maybe there are good answers to these questions other than ‘stupidity & incompetence’….or maybe it’s just Russian stupidity & incompetence.
Maybe it is propaganda, but Putin appears to have sacked several General Officers for lack of progress. No surrendering Russian conscripts? I thought was was pretty solid.
The sort of systemic lying is pure USSR. It’s what cause Chernobyl.
Shrug. It’s quite plausible.
Recall the old joke that they’d continue to pretend to work as long as they continued to pretend to pay them.
I had the misfortune to work with a large shipbuilder in Gulfport that had a very toxic culture. The owner, Charlie, didn’t like being given bad news (I think he fired folks for it) soooo, everyone told Charlie Good News 🙂 and kept their jobs as long as they could continue to fake it. Serious culture clash with our company – we were lied to all the time. So, ya, Russian rumors are plausible as hell. But I wouldn’t bet the house on it.
“…they’d continue to pretend to work as long as they continued to pretend to pay them.”
Compare that to our country where you have those who would not even pretend to work no matter how much you paid them.
The headline is purely propaganda &/or speculation. How can anyone except Putin and other Russian insiders know that “advisors are keeping him in the dark”? Also, note the present tense — they apparently keep on keeping him in the dark. We know that they are doing it, but Putin himself doesn’t?
C’mon L I, this is not like you.
In the unlikely event Putin didn’t know he does now, which makes the statement either obvious propaganda (.i.e. a lie) or an astonishingly stupid intel leak.
Right now the US is firmly on the globalist fascist side of the war and Putin/Xi on the national fascist side. This is a gray war… not black and white. As much as I dislike Oliver Stone, a Venn diagram does show some overlap. While the movie slides into the weeds at the end, “Ukraine on Fire” … now on Rumbl, has some very interesting points.
Or as Kamala Harris once said, “I am here, standing here on the northern flank, on the eastern flank, talking about what we have in terms of the eastern flank.”
“Ukraine should not settle for anything else. I hope this includes Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea.”
What idiot actually believes this is a realistic goal????
The far more likely scenario is that all three of those go to Russia and the Crimea is definitely off the table for them.
Eight years, 2 years, in progress. A Slavic Spring does not easily give way to summer.