Ukrainian strike on a Russian base in Crimea earlier in August
Clare Weiss – WSWS.com Aug 19, 2022
Days after the latest major Ukrainian attack on a Russian military base on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea, the US is seeking to further escalate the war with Russia by providing $775 million in weapons and ammunition for Ukraine’s offensive.
Speaking with POLITICO earlier this week, a senior Biden Administration openly endorsed the strikes and encouraged further attacks on Crimea. The peninsula was annexed by Russia in March 2014, following a US-orchestrated coup in Kiev that ousted a pro-Russian government. The official stated that the US supports strikes by Kiev on Crimea and reiterated that the US considered Crimea part of Ukraine.
So far, two major attacks have taken place on Russian military bases on Crimea, on August 9 and August 16. The first attack on the Saki airbase caused the biggest loss of Russian aviation in a single day since World War II, destroying at least seven fighter jets, each worth over $24 million. A Western official told POLITICO on Friday that “more than half” of Russia’s Black Sea fighting aviation fleet had been destroyed in the assault. A Ukrainian official claimed last week that 60 people had been killed and 100 wounded in the attack.
The second attack on Tuesday caused an hour-long fire at a major ammunition depot and damaged railroads critical for the supply of Russian troops. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the strikes on the ammunition depots, in particular, had had a visible effect on the course of the war in easten and southern Ukraine. The two attacks damaged a total of at least 130 residential buildings and led to the evacuation of over 3,250 of civilians.
Another series of explosions were reported in the night to Friday, including again on Crimea as well as at an ammunition depot in the Russian Belgorod region, where two villages had to be evacuated. Russian officials also reported that drones were destroyed by Russian air defense systems and a military warship in Crimea in the area of Sevastopol Bay, where the home base of Russia’s Black Sea fleet is located.
While Russia has so far been markedly restrained in its response to the enormously provocative strikes by Ukraine, Russian officials have repeatedly threatened that they would retaliate in response to strikes on Crimea, including potentially by using nuclear weapons.
It has become increasingly clear that the attacks on Russian military bases in Crimea are part of a beginning counter-offensive by the Ukrainian military that has been prepared and funded through massive weapons deliveries by the NATO powers, first and foremost by the United States.
In recent weeks, in addition to the attacks on the military bases in the Black Sea, Ukrainian forces have used the US-supplied long-range HIMARS rocket systems to disrupt Russian supply routes across the Dnepro and Inhulets rivers by attacking Russian-held bridges. Ukrainian troops have now also amassed near Kherson for an attempt to retake the strategic port city in southern Ukraine, which was the first major city to be taken by Russian forces after the February 24 invasion.
On Friday, the Pentagon announced another $775 million in weapons and ammunitions supplies to facilitate the beginning Ukrainian offensive. This brings the total of direct military aid by the Pentagon to Ukraine since February 24 to $10 billion, an amount that does not include the $40 billion aid package passed by Congress in May.
According to POLITICO, the US will now for the first time be sending 15 ScanEagle surveillance drones “to help the Ukrainians spot and correct the precision artillery and rocket strikes that have taken a toll on Russian forces in recent weeks. The small drones can be moved around the battlefield relatively easily and would be invaluable in the expected push to retake the city of Kherson in the south.”
The deliveries will also include 40 heavily armored MaxxPro mine-resistant vehicles, which were originally developed for the US occupation forces in Iraq. In addition, the Pentagon will provide fighter-launched High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles that have targeted Russian radar systems, as well as TOW guided anti-tank missile systems, sixteen 105mm howitzers and 36,000 rounds, and 2,000 rounds for the Carl Gustav recoilless rifle. POLITICO explained that the Carl Gustav is a “small anti-armor weapon used by U.S. special operations forces…which can be carried easily and is designed to work in close quarters with an enemy, is an indication that the Ukrainians expect close-in fighting in the coming weeks.”
A source told POLITICO that the US is planning to send Excalibur precision-guided artillery munitions in another tranche in the near future.
The deliberate escalation of the war with Russia by the imperialist powers comes even as tens of thousands of soldiers are believed to have died on both sides; over a quarter of the country’s pre-war population of under 40 million has been forced to flee; and over 5,300 civilians have been killed. There are also significant concerns that fighting around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, could lead to a nuclear disaster. After weeks in which Ukraine and Russia traded accusations of shelling the plant, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed on Friday to arrange a mission by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the plant in the coming days.
The developments of the past two weeks have shown beyond any doubt the true character of this war: the imperialist powers are waging a war against Russia, using Ukrainian territory as the staging ground, its troops as their proxy and the civilian population as their hostage. The Russian invasion was provoked to provide a pretext for the implementation of war plans that had long been in the making. It is now used to further a massive escalation of the rearmament of all the imperialist powers who are positioning themselves for a new imperialist redivision of the world.
While Ukraine is currently the main battlefield of the war, NATO has aggressively pushed to broaden its frontiers. Particularly dangerous are the explosive tensions around the Suwałki gap, a less than 100-kilometers-long stretch of land, which passes along the borders of NATO member states Poland and Lithuania and connects Belarus, a Kremlin ally, with Kaliningrad, an enclave on the Baltic Sea that forms part of the Russian Federation.
Kaliningrad. Poland, Belarus, Lithuania and the Suwałki gap. Click to enlarge
In June, Lithuania deliberately sought to provoke a clash with Russia by blocking the transport of Russian goods from Belarus over the Suwałki gap to Kaliningrad. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Lithuanian helicopters are now accompanying many Russian freight trains crossing the Suwałki gap to Kaliningrad.
This week, the far-right Polish government of the Law and Justice Party, which has delivered more weapons to Ukraine than any country apart from the US and the UK, announced that it is planning to close its part of the Suwałki gap. Both Poland and Lithuania announced this week that they will cease to issue passports to Russian citizens (with the sole exception of diplomats). The moves have prompted angry comments in the Russian press, suggesting that the main goal of the new visa restrictions is to prevent Russian citizens from entering Kaliningrad through the Suwałki gap. Some commentators are insisting that Russia had to assert its “right to the Suwałki gap.”
In an indication that the Kremlin is preparing for a potential broadening of the conflict with NATO, Russia has reportedly increased its troops deployments and missiles in Belarus. On Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that it had sent three MiG-31E warplanes equipped with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to Kaliningrad.
The NWO wants to escalate, but not because they have sound reasoning behind this policy.
The NWO is desperate, so must be seen to be doing something. I doubt 7 aircraft were destroyed. They don’t park them close together, and they have bomb proof shelters. Never the less, Russia clearly doesn’t want escalation.
I’ve had a brain wave, which is dangerous. I don’t think the Russians wanted a quick win in UKraine. As much as I wanted it over in a week, using nukes on the 7th day. Clearly the Russians have done a lot of gaming and they’ve done it rather well.
Let’s just assume, and I think it’s right, that everything that has transpired since the start of the SMO has gone the way Russia gamed it. Sure, nothing goes 100%, but less say they’re at 85/90% militarily.
On the geopolitical front, I think it’s much higher, knocking on 100%. I think the Russians expected all the sanctions, they expected Germany to commit economic suicide, they expected more NATO expension, but NATO wants this slowed right down. And they expected, even wanted NATO states to pour weapons into UKraine. Why, because the US and UK are bankrupt. Germany is about to be devestated this Winter. Japan is bankrupt, and even the big corporations are starting to suffer. The UK has many crisis. Huge numbers of businesses are shutting down, but the regime and fake new will hide this for as long as they can. I think it is accepted that Truss will likely win. But the surprise is that her policies are just junky fixes. No one expects the economy to reverse, so her success is based on kicking the can down the road, long enough in the desperate hope that Russia and China will collapse.
As I’ve said many, many times, the designed 2008 financial collapse was the NWO (City of London) attempt to bring down China. They Chinese did a smart thing, they printed around $75 trillion (US 50 t), so they made themselves too big to fail, well, too big 10yrs ago. Like the rest of the world, there’s been no real growth, and this is true in China. They need 8/9% growth every year, just to match population growth and some. They’ve been posting 5/6%, & even this date is manipulated up. Now China has its back against the wall, but I don’t see the Chinese regime collapsing.
I think Russia has done better than they expected economically. They are selling less gas and oil, but are making more money. In one month, Russias reserves grew by over $5 billion. Inflation is falling, and is way lower than rigged UK inflation.
So yeh, I now think Russia is fighting its SMO at a slow pace, so they can drain the NWO, and it is working. Let’s say the Russians don’t escalate through the Winter. What will the NWO look like by April 2023?
The UK regime are highly likely to lockdown this Winter, if only to hinder social unrest. As one Daily Fail presstitute said the other day in response to Martin Lewis, he said we do ‘stiff upper lip, we just get on with it’. Yep, that does sum up pretty well, the thicko British sheeple. How many old sheeple will die of cold this winter? The bankrupt regime will love it. Houses being sold, pensions payouts being saved.
How many bullets can the NWO shoot in their feet before they get the message?
Carl Jones–no-one needs “growth” except the bankers and their endebting role. You side with them
Welcome to Holodomor II.
The Jews & Commies didn’t like the rapid rise & expansion of ‘white nationalism’ (Azov/Right Sector/SNA/S14 etc) in Ukraine since 2014. The fear of the Zionist-Communist scum was that a mass organized white fascist force would eventually obtain political power & institute a white Ethnostate, similar to Nazi Germany. (Remember according to the subhuman Jews & Commies, Whites aren’t allowed to govern their own nations). Thus they ordered Antifa Russia to invade & demolish their towns/cities & extirpate the ‘Nazis’. That’s the main motive behind the war. Now you know, thanks to me.
next atack on krimea Putin should
respond a nuke on washington !
they want it !
The greatest thing Russia could do for herself and all decent citizens of the world would be to send nuclear armed hypersonic missiles screaming into a few select targets and vaporize Jew York, The City, the putrid sewer that is Washington DC, Tel Aviv, Jewrusalem, Basel, Lost Angeles, and direct pinpoint strikes on Parliament (while in session, of course) and every Rothschild estate.
But Russia won’t do anything of the sort because Russia and Putin, a cuckold to the satanic cult of Chabad Lubavitch, are just playing their role in a distractionary dog & pony show to keep the plebs from thinking too much about the vicious lie that has been covid-1984, the enormous crime of the system of”central banking”, and the claws of Jewry being the moving force behind most of the degradation and destruction in the world.
Humanity is utterly doomed while Jewry controls the systems of credit & currency, the media, and the courts, and there will never be peace and stability while Jews are allowed to continue to pollute societies.
@Umbra Bellator
About your last paragraph, people either fail to understand the essence of the problem, or are afraid to name the only possible solution. You say that humanity is doomed while Jewry controls it and that there will be no peace and stability while Jews pollute mankind. This is true bit it is just the first part of the equation, the second part is that the Jewry will always control and pollute, subvert and deceive, steal and manipulate, because this is its nature and and it will never change. Jews, the evil, genocidal tribe, the eternal parasites and the destroyers of worlds because they want a hell of their own, never change their ways because they are of their father, the Devil, the murderer, the lord of lies, the master of deception. The jews always wreak havoc and bring decay, ruin and death wherever they go yet people fail to understand time and again that there is no peaceful solution between mortal enemies, something that the jews know perfectly. Peoples of the world cannot get it that jews are really chosen but not by God, their deity to whom they serve is the Devil and they are his progeny as the Serpent tempted Eve and the bloodline of the Serpent came through Cain, the first murderer. To put it short and simple- mankind and jewry cannot coexist, either the parasite will kill the host or the host will get rid of the parasite. A parasite cannot be expulsed, it always comes back, one does not expel cockroaches, one exterminates them. But as mankind is totally spell-bound by jewish lies, manipulations and deceptions I think it is doomed and it will not survive the jewish onslaught unless there is an external intervention of a higher power. Yet there is one thing I agree with Jews- the goyim are stupid, they are inhumanly stupid, and they have reached a level of stupidity that makes life impossible.