i actually spend a good portion of each day lately reading the local Russian media, from multiple outlets, as well as European outlets and even our own suspect NYT/WaPo. What i get is a very complex picture that is fraught with risk for all.
I absolutely see Moscow setting conditions for what could be a false flag op, bc there is no doubt that the forces they have arrayed within striking distance of Ukraine and the overall combat power (and pointedly combat
support units) mobilized around the country, they have amassed sufficient power to unleash a crushing attack that would almost certainly be successful.
Concurrently, Russian officials at virtually every level have been singing, in many cases verbatim, the same song: "of course we aren't going to attack Ukraine; we're not a threat to
anyone - but, the US/NATO could spark a war or the Ukraine armed forces could attack Russians in Donbas, and there would be the most severe consequences if that happens."
A typical example of how that language is conveyed can be seen here yesterday from a Tass release examining the allegation Moscow was setting a pretext to invade: "Concerns
over Moscow’s alleged preparations for an invasion into Ukraine have been increasingly announced in the west and in Kiev recently. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov castigated these statements as an empty and groundless escalation of tension, emphasizing that
Russia posed no threat to anyone. At the same time, the Kremlin press secretary did not exclude some possible provocations to justify such claims and warned that the attempts to resolve the Ukrainian conflict by force would carry
extremely serious consequences."
However....
As some on this listserv have noted in just the past 24 hours, we ourselves have an awful track record of using false flag ops to justify mil intervention. Not only are our hands not clean on such concepts, there remains legitimate potential that we, too, are
setting conditions for a false flag op. There is some evidence around the periphery that could indicate a plan to do so, but as is the case with Russia, its opaque (by design, naturally).
Bottom line, either side could use a false flag op to spark conflict, calculating doing so would give them an advantage (and that includes the Ukrainian side, btw). No matter who might do such a thing, it would be catastrophic, in my estimation, bc running
a false flag exposes the arrogant position by the instigator (whomever it might turn out to be) that the violence and results can be controlled. In this case more than nearly any in recent memory, the chance of controlling what happens if bullets start flying
back and forth across the Ukraine/Russian border is close to nil. If any fighting breaks out, we enter a grave period of danger for all...
And btw, a comment on the positioning of Ukrainian forces:
The bulk of their troops have been stationed across the line of contact since things settled into stasis by early 2015. Nothing new or surprising about that. What is telling, tho - in more ways than one - is the absence of troops near the northern border with
Belarus.
Regardless of what anyone says, nations must go off what other countries do. Russia has positioned meaningful mobile combat power in Belarus from which they could strike a lethal blow into Ukraine, with a pretty direct path to Kyiv. That Zelensky hasn't repositioned
any forces there indicates either bc he's an awful tactician at the national level (unsurprising, given his background) or that he doesn't have a sufficiently mobile and modern force that has the capacity to reposition quickly (that is almost certainly the
case - and one of the reasons they would be cut to ribbons if Russia attacked in force).
From: Gilbert Doctorow <gdoctorow@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, February 4, 2022 12:47 AM
To: salon@listserve.com <salon@listserve.com>; salon-request@listserve.com <salon-request@listserve.com>
Subject: [Salon] Look at the map!
Look at the map!
Where are the Ukrainian military forces concentrated?
As I have indicated en passant in prior articles devoted to the unfolding crisis in and around Ukraine, a substantial part of the added value I seek to bring to reporting and analysis is derived from my following
the Russian electronic and print media closely, whereas the vast majority of commentators who populate Western television news and op-ed pages only offer up synthetic, rearranged factoids and unsubstantiated claims from the reports and analysis of their peers.
Investigative reporting does not exist among mainstream. Reprinting handouts from anonymous sources in high places of the Pentagon and State Department is the closest they come to daily fresh “news.” Such is the nature of the latest front page stories coming
from British intelligence about false flag events in Donbas now allegedly being prepared by the Kremlin to justify Russia’s coming invasion.
Last evening’s Vladimir Solovyov talk show on Russian state Channel One provided yet another justification for paying close attention to what
they are saying in Moscow. The program was dedicated to the Donbas and included several politicians and political scientists from both Kiev and the Donetsk-Lugansk republics. The most interesting remarks were made by a Russian speaking
Rada member who noted that Western mainstream is every day publishing maps showing the positioning of Russian forces at the several common borders of Russia/Belarus and Ukraine. They also carry maps showing the likely routes to be used by the Russian invaders.
But Western media are never showing the positions of Ukrainian troops, which one might expect are there to counter Russian threats.
The speaker went on to say that now two-thirds of the Ukrainian military or about 150,000 troops are all concentrated on the line of demarcation with Donbas.
That is to say, there are almost no Ukrainian forces in the northeast facing Russian military or in the north to face the combined Russian-Belarus military.
If this is true, then Mr. Zelensky’s insistence that he does not expect a Russian invasion is justified by Ukrainian boots on the ground.
If Russia is holding a pistol to the head of Ukraine, as Boris Johnson stated earlier this week, then Kiev is holding a pistol to the head of the rebel provinces.
Solovyov’s guests further explained that after eight years of facing down one another across about 200 meters of no-man’s land at the line of demarcation, the situation between Ukrainian armed forces and
Donbas forces is very tense and volatile, so that it would be very easy for a provocation staged by British or American special forces, who are known to be in the area,
to touch off a major conflagration. This is surely the accident threatening to upset the ongoing negotiations between the United States and NATO on one side and Russia on the other side.
The guests further assert that in effect the Ukrainian forces at the line of demarcation are not under the control of President Zelensky, whose power is very circumscribed by other political actors, oligarchs
and militia chiefs in Kiev, not to mention by U.S. and U.K. forces on the ground in his country.
Many of these general observations cannot be verified from here. But the map of Ukrainian military positions can be verified.
I challenge The New York Times, the Financial Times and others to post such maps on their pages now.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022