Moon of Alabama – Aug 31, 2022
Some people ask why I read the New York Times and other such outlets of mostly ‘western’ propaganda. One obvious reason is to “know your enemy”, to find out what the propaganda wants us to think. Another one is to find the gems that give a real picture of a situation which often sneak themselves into the coverage, though usually way below the headline.
Today there is a piece about Ukrainian military units which are trading weapons with each other.
A Frontline Shadow Economy: Ukrainian Units Trade Tanks and Artillery
Within the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, Zmei was not just a lowly sergeant. He was the brigade’s point man for a wartime bartering system among Ukrainian forces. Prevalent along the front line, the exchange operates like a kind of shadow economy, soldiers say, in which units acquire weapons or equipment and trade them for supplies they need urgently.
Most of the bartering involves items captured from Russian troops. Ukrainian soldiers refer to them as “trophies.”
Yes, sure, the Ukrainian units catch so many weapons from the Russians that there is a lively trade of those. However, read beyond the first 25 paragraphs of such heroic trade propaganda to get a picture of the real situation and mood at the front lines:
Alex is waiting for his own kind of repairs. He was shot in the right leg during a patrol in May. The bullet shattered his femur.
He and several other Ukrainian soldiers had been on a reconnaissance patrol in the gray zone — the area between Russian and Ukrainian front lines — when he was hit. The mission had carried two objectives, he said: to find Russian positions and to find abandoned equipment.
“We are losing tanks,” Alex said. “If this war goes the distance, sooner or later we’ll be out of Soviet equipment and other Soviet tanks, so we will have to switch to something else.”
Near his subterranean headquarters not far from the front line, Alex’s battalion commander, Bogdan, described the severity of his unit’s situation. The sound of incoming and outgoing artillery echoed in the fields beyond.
“We’re fighting with whatever we captured from the enemy,” Bogdan said, noting that 80 percent of his current supplies was captured Russian equipment.
“It’s no better in other battalions,” he added.
Bogdan’s unit of around 700 troops had arrived to replace Ukrainian forces worn down by casualties and equipment loss. Now, after six months of acting like a “firefighter” by rushing from one frontline hot spot to the next, his troops were facing a similar fate.
“We are losing a lot of men,” Bogdan said. “We can’t cope with their artillery. This, and airstrikes, are big problems.”
Asked about sophisticated, Western-supplied weapons that government officials say will be the big difference-maker, he said that in his brigade, “nobody has foreign equipment,” adding, “We have a great many questions as to where it goes.”
The ‘counteroffensive’ towards Kherson has cost the Ukrainians lots of equipment. At least some of the fifty lost tanks that can be seen in various videos were Polish T-72 with thermal optics. Other videos showed the wreckage of M-113 armored transport vehicles, apparently from the Netherlands. (Those sixty year old aluminum cans offer very little protection and should have been retired decades ago.)
So at least some of the ‘western’ delivered equipment actually makes it to the front lines. Its fate there though is already determined.
But where ALL of the ‘western’ stuff and ALL the money goes is really a great question.
A few weeks ago CBS showed a video report witch provided that only 30% of the ‘western’ military equipment that flows into Ukraine actually reaches the frontline. The rest is sold off to whoever is willing to pay for it. After the Zelenski regime protested against the report, CBS pulled the video to ‘update’ it with new information:
CBS tweeted on Monday that it had removed a video promoting the documentary that included a months-old quote saying most aid was not making it to Ukraine’s front lines.
It said it was updating the documentary, called “Arming Ukraine,” with “new information” about the delivery of military aid to Ukraine.
Among the material removed was a quote the founder of pro-Ukraine nonprofit Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman, who said in late April that only around 30% of aid was reaching the front lines in Ukraine.
CBS said that “Since that time, Ohman says delivery has improved.” It also noted that the US had sent an official — Brigadier General Garrick M. Harmon — to Kyiv specifically to monitor the use of military aid.
CBS also updated an article that had accompanied the original video report. It now has an editorial note attached to it which says:
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect changes since the CBS Reports documentary “Arming Ukraine” was filmed, and the documentary is also being updated. Jonas Ohman says the delivery has significantly improved since filming with CBS in late April. The government of Ukraine notes that U.S. defense attaché Brigadier General Garrick M. Harmon arrived in Kyiv in August 2022 for arms control and monitoring.
The pulled video summarized reporting and facts gathered over several previous months. The update was published on August 7. The defense attaché arrived in Kiev in early August, just a few days before the ‘update’ was made. If it is even possible to find out to where weapons are flowing in and from Ukraine, it will take him months to get a glimpse of it. His arrival is thus completely irrelevant for the original report. The edited original now says:
Jonas Ohman is founder and CEO of Blue-Yellow, a Lithuania-based organization that has been meeting with and supplying frontline units with non-lethal military aid in Ukraine since the start of the conflict with Russia-backed separatists in 2014. Back in April, he estimated that just “30-40%” of the supplies coming across the border reached its final destination. But he says the situation has significantly improved since then and a much larger quantity now gets where it’s supposed to go.
What does it mean if the loss rate of 70-60%, which previously had NOT reaches the final destination, has now significantly decreased? It is now 45% or 50% of all deliveries that are flowing to where they are NOT supposed to end up?
How come that battalion commander Bogdan has seen none of the foreign supplies?
All those thousands of Stingers, Javelins and other man-portable weapons are of huge interest to various nefarious actors. The weapons that vanish in Ukraine to go somewhere will most likely reach places where they can and will be used against ‘western’ forces or interests.
Those who support the weapon transfers will say that the loss of some share of them does not matter in the big picture. Tell that to those who will die from them.
The British and Americans always tell us what they “spent” on something, never what it was, who used it, how competent they were, and what crooked company got the money into their pockets
The main reason for prolonging this fratricide is the fratricide itself. The elimination caucasian populations and replacing them with an indistinct conglomerate of hybrids that neither has a history nor a tradition. Those, the “unmentionables”, are well on their way to removing their main obstacle to complete hegemony.
lt’s more likely that the common imbecile both the Northern American and European varieties are simply being Bilked and bled by the kakistocracy… (hint: they are!)…
as they were During the ‘Covid’ fraud..
There is no oversight to these transfers… so in effect there is no real ‘proof’ any materials or cash made its way to the Ukraine above or below the 30% claimed by the fake media.. (and that includes vaccine proponent the loon of alabamy)…
just another gay fake facet of the gay fake war.. (stay tuned for the gay fake ‘covid’ REVEALS….Coming Shortly)…
Thank you for this information. The world should be flooded with it, and the black-marketeers in arms must be apprehended and dealt with severely. Leave the criminal Zelenski to protest his hairy heart out.
Isn’t it standard practice for these types of weapons shipment to find their way to Israel so that they can be used as the Mossad perps see fit. or sold-off on the blackmarket to create more wars-for-profit? Adnan Khashoggi did it for years … now the wat America is so corrupt and twisted the weapons manufacturers don’t need clandestine, middle-men any longer. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of free weapons courtesy of the US tax-payer.
Its too bad TTS can’t locate some ‘white nationalist/fascist Ukrainian’ like from Right Sector/SNA/Azov to provide their perspective of the war, instead of all these pro-Commie Antifa Russia bloggers on here…
I would think that these days any competent journalist would have to consider diverse sources on the opposite side of all issues. Still we detect a very strong American bias in many things which come out of Moon of Alabama and I have found that site very quick to fall in line with the US official narrative on many issues. It is not as blatantly controlled as Breitbart but it is most likely controlled. There is very little smacking of real freedom coming from that nation anymore as it falls further and further into its own darkness.
As for the war in the Ukraine, everything about it appears as contrived as Covid. Sure there are real victims, real blood, as with Covid, but it all relates to a very controlled carving up of the world by the superpowers, and their only real enemy is the common people everywhere and particularly in the smaller nations when the people try to take back control of their governments and resources and try to fight for real independence. The Western block is controlled by the central-bankster money power which also controls the major corporations and the agenda for the future is simply more power and wealth for them and the major power blocks with a common currency controlled by the same few who now control most assets on the globe. The US, the UK, the EU, Japan, and China are all resource-hungry nations which feed off the resources of other nations around the globe, usually as a result of exploitive and unconscionable dealings. Oil is just one example.
Russia has resources and the only thing they really peddle on the international market are pipe lines, gas, and arms. It has been joined at the hip with the Western banksters since the 2017 communist revolution. In these times is is useful for yet another pretext to usher in the New World Order.
Espionage has never been less daring or dull. Professional spooks are rarely imperilled these days. Rather, they live long and comfortably, upon the bounty accrued of their honourable service to the lodge. There’s no strenuous grappling in the gold vaults with solidly-built oriental fellows any more. Not a zither pings nor music box explodes. The only mission impossible is the accountant’s – trying to keep the dirty money hidden from the Inland Revenue. With the times as they are, if you were to confidentially alert the intelligence services to the conspiracy of the 39 Steps, they’d probably chase you half way round Scotland, handcuffed to a disgruntled but rather attractive young woman in stockings. That’s how bad it’s got.
Who’s working for whom? Who’s behind the curtain? Who’s hiding in the wardrobe? I hope it’s not Paul Joseph Watson.
I thought that readers might be interested to know, that at his article of August 21st 2022, “The Salman Rushdie Stabbing Was Staged” the intrepid Miles Mathis, briefly mentions the Sears Robuck heiress and maniacal Zionist, Nina Rosenwald, who is only tangentially connected to the Rushdie affair, via her association with the Rushdie-sympathetic Zero Hedge website. It’s Miles Mathis’ incongruous postscript to his investigation that’s so peculiarly noteworthy;
“I am reminded by a reader that Nina Rosenwald is aka “Dr.” Lasha Darkmoon, whose moniker Darkmoon is the tell as usual. I guess she sees herself as Lilith. She writes for the Occidental Observer and Veteran’s Today – two more CIA fronts.”
Bizarre, eh? It doesn’t square at all to me. Rosenwald must be eighty-odd. Miles Mathis has a worldwide fan base. Lots of people sincerely believe that he is of surpassing intelligence.
Spy vs. spy but which side is which? Does anyone know anything more about any of this?
All the way from the Munitions factories on a temp visa to ‘Somewhere’ UKraine,
Then all the way back at an inflated price to Bradford , Keighley, Burnley, Blackburn, Dewsbury, Oldham.
Eventually, all “our young lads’ will be shipped off for the show down at Meggido or where ever it will play out,
& the Paki-Sambo alliance will be plugging our women & take over with ease, without hardly firing a shot.
And still there’ll be no organized resistance.
And still, even then.. the gormless so called police, will be prosecuting the last OAP patriots alive, for resisting confronting the local primary school, for letting the gay shit houses for reading ‘Goldilocks & her three Uncles” to the minors.
We are so far in the hole now, There isn’t a ladder long enough.
@ Andy…
lf one pays attention to Mathis’s methodology.. you’ll note that after the initial outline of his chosen ‘subject’ most of his ‘theories’ hinge on ‘Burkes peerage’ and his protagonist or some distant relative having a vaguely similar name to some other fool he’s pulled out of his arse or googled.. he’s also an ignoramous when it comes to his second favourite ‘method’ of deduction which seems to be ‘fake’ photo montage..
and vintage and digital photography in general…
he also writes fake articles written in his own hand pretending he’s some ridiculous female who ‘thinks’ ‘miles’ is more handsome and younger looking than that imbecile ‘Brad Pitts’.. who he seems to be fixated with..
According to his metrics l should be featured in Springmeiers Bloodlines of the illuminati…and related to the Rothschilds..
what an imbecile…
NB: l should clarify my position and where l concur with Mathis… ahem ‘society’ is indeed mainly staged and populated with discombobulates with fake histories… and all published materials tainted with propaganda and mercenary intent (as is the nature of the Ahrimanic realm)…
But… one must pay careful attention to which way the weft and weave go..
because of course that’s where the fun is… and ultimately Salvation..
@ chesterton
I’m pleased to hear that you’ve come to your senses with regard Miles Mathis. I always knew that you were too intelligent a man, to not ultimately perceive the artifice informing the output of the secret secret agent, Mathis. The last time that the poster-boy was a topic of conversation between us, you were still leaning toward his authenticity. I argued that the persona named Miles Mathis was, in fact, three distinct people. I still hold to that.
The problem with the genealogical papers, as you say, is not that the methodology is invalid but rather, that it is applied at convenience, in an often slipshod or gratuitous manner, without any fast scholastic application. In his essays, it’s quite often apparent to me, that Mathis has lost interest in his subject and instead of pursuing the problematic aspects of his thesis to a conclusion, he eschews such laboriousness to hasten himself to a trite summation and a compulsive recap of his signature themes.
I do wonder how many people actually deliberate over the core evidence that he presents. Much of the time, it’s a barely coherent slew of aristocratic titles, names, assumed names, homonymous association of names and jumbled dates, with the occasional Loki-like hi-jinks thrown in for the author’s pleasure.
If Mathis were really concerned with revealing truths, he’d allow for his audience’s ready skepticism. He’d delineate his arguments more clearly and he’d surely make an effort to present the data pictorially, where appropriate. His research cries out for illustration, be it, by way of genealogical maps or family trees or even annotated photographs, explaining the fakery that he perceives in an image.
Miles Mathis is a carousel. He goes up and down and round and round, without any discernible variance; a quality for which, he is rightfully held in high esteem, among the on-line Asperger’s community.
@ chesterton
By the way, I wouldn’t have thought that looking like Brad Pitt would be too onerous. I’ll have to revise the mental image that I had of you though. I always pictured you as a Peter Cushing, in a red velvet smoker’s jacket.