“War 2023”: More news from Russia that you will not find in Western mainstream
A few weeks ago, I remarked that following the Russia-Africa Summit in Petersburg, Russian journalists could look forward to the usual dog days of summer and take it easy until the BRICS summit at the end of August.
I spoke too soon.
Yes, several of Russia’s top journalists are now vacationing. Vladimir Solovyov is putting in short weeks. The general director of all state television news services, Dmitry Kiselyov is away. Likely he is tending the grapes on his vineyard in the Crimea. But the hosts of the Sixty Minutes news and panel discussion show, Yevgeny Popov and Olga Skabeyeva, seem to be skipping their annual time off and are going full steam on their twice daily two hour broadcasts. They are right to do so: they are not short on very important material to present, material which you will not see on your television screen or read in your newspaper if you stay with Western mainstream media.
Indeed, the FT today ignored the Russian events I describe below in favor of coverage of the hike in the Russian Central Bank lending rate to 12%, which it gloatingly related to the sharp fall in the ruble-dollar exchange rate over the past several weeks. This, they remind readers, has been the consequence of Russia’s reduced currency earnings from oil exports thanks to Western sanctions. Of course, the issue is more complicated, but merits a separate discussion. Shining a light on Russia’s political successes and weapons sales this week would not serve the paper’s editorial prejudices.
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Two parallel military-related events in Russia this week have attracted delegations from many ‘friendly’ foreign countries. These are the 11th annual Moscow International Security Conference, said to have guests from 60 countries, and “War 2023” which, from what I caught ‘on the fly,’ appears to have participants from 30 countries.
The most important of the foreign delegations, judging by the attention it is receiving on Russian television, is the one headed by Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu. We have heard so far that he was in side meetings with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. Russian commentators see as the main purpose of the talks alignment of Russian-Chinese countermeasures to the latest U.S. and NATO activities in and around Ukraine, as well as Belarus, and in Taiwan and the Far East more generally. It has been pointed out that, exceptionally, this is the second visit of Li Shangfu to Russia this year. It may well be that he will be received by President Putin, in keeping with President Xi’s having received Shoigu during the latter’s visit to Beijing a few months ago. After his stay in Moscow, Li is expected to visit Minsk.
Earlier today, the conference on security heard an in-person speech by Defense Minister Shoigu which was notable for several sound bites carried by Russian state television. He said flatly that Ukraine has ‘exhausted its military reserve.’ This suggests that the Russians will be initiating their own strategic offensive in the coming weeks. He also said that the experience of the Ukrainian attacks over the past two months show that the supposed superiority of U.S. and NATO doctrine and practice, the superiority of their military hardware, is all a myth. This is what the Ukrainians received from the West, and it is what the Russians have overcome handily. Said Shoigu, even Soviet era armor appeared to be superior to the latest heavy weapons from the West. Surely his most damaging remark for the Pentagon was his stated readiness to share with ‘friendly countries’ what Russia has learned on the battlefield about the vulnerabilities of U.S and NATO equipment and combat methods.
For his part, Vladimir Putin delivered a speech to the conference by video from off-site. He denounced the Collective West for its ‘geopolitical adventurism and egoistical, neocolonial actions.’
Quote
In various regions of the world, they are fanning the embers of outdated conflicts and provoking new ones. The objective of those doing this is obvious: to further extract advantage from human tragedies, to strangle peoples, to force states into vassal-like submission in the framework of a neocolonial system, to mercilessly exploit their resources.
Unquote
Putin has picked the raisins from the cake of the Marxist critique of the West that the Kremlin leadership promoted on the world stage for three generations.
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The “War 2023” exhibition that is running concurrently with the security conference is a showcase for the latest Russian military hardware available for sale to friendly countries. Accordingly, the foreign delegations were led by procurement officials. It is also a showcase for friendly states, in particular for China and Iran, to show off their wares. Both are presenting their latest achievements in drones, for example.
But there is another aspect of “War 2023” which will probably evoke more enthusiasm from the general public when the exhibition opens to them on Friday: the display of several thousand ‘war trophies’ from the battlefield in Ukraine. In particular that relates to the French wheeled tank, to the British armored personnel carriers, to American artillery pieces, to special battlefield vehicles made in Sweden and much more that was brought back from the battlefield in near mint condition after being abandoned by their Ukrainian crews who ran for their lives. This may well be the best piece of outdoor advertising for the strength of Russian arms. It is surely going to be a bone in the throat of U.S. and European arms vendors.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023