Who Are These Troops?
BY Herschel Smith
2 years, 1 month ago
No insignia were visible and Ukrainian officials said it was not possible to tell if the troops belonged to the regular Russian army or were from Russian-controlled separatist units, The Guardian reported.
Hmm … high speed gear, cutout helmets, comms, every one of them with pistols and carbines, matching cammy pattern, self-confident, good trigger discipline, hip holsters (not the stupid drop holsters).
My best guess? Spetsnaz. They would eat the girls in the 82nd Airborne alive.
I continue my call for full scale war.
On the Southern border of the U.S. Shoot them when you see them.
We have absolutely no business in Ukraine doing anything at all. It isn’t our business. It isn’t our “near abroad.”
On February 22, 2022 at 11:53 pm, Dan said:
Hmmm. Kind of reminds me of the “Ottawa Police”. No names or or insignia, no way to even know if they were even actual Canadien “Police” and not imported from somewhere else.
On February 23, 2022 at 12:37 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
Re: “We have absolutely no business in Ukraine doing anything at all. It isn’t our business. It isn’t our ‘near abroad.'”
The bottom line reason that we’re meddling around in the Ukraine is remarkably similar to why we were also meddling around recently in Syria, namely that these are key pieces in the high-stakes game of who shall control the billions in profits at stake from lucrative energy development deals for oil and liquid natural gas.
If you, dear reader, believe that George Soros, Barack Obama/Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland care about the ‘human rights’ of Ukrainians, then I have a bridge I’d like to sell to you, moderately used and for a good price! Guys like Soros don’t get out of bed in the morning for less than eight figures and more like nine, in potential profits. He’s there – meaning his NGOs and other cutouts – because he smells money, and lots of it.
The Ukraine was just fine-and-dandy for our billionaire oligarchs, as long as the former regime of President Viktor Yanukovych was set to sign a lucrative energy development deal with the western elites, but when he changed his mind and decided to deal with Putin and the Russians instead, the oligarchs told Obama and his people that he – Yanukovych – had to go.
So the black-bag boys from the CIA, MI-6 and other western/NATO intel assets went to work to topple the elected government of that nation…. just as they have done in so many other nations around the world since the 1950s. George Soros’ non-profits already active in the country, ostensibly for humanitarian reasons, were actually cut-outs for active agency ops, deniable cover for their personnel busy fomenting rebellion and revolt.
By and by, a revolt took shape, fueled by western resources and funding, which culminated in the massive Maiden Square demonstrations in 2014 in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. The black bag ops guys were issued untraceable sniper rifles and ammo, and then stationed in high-rises surrounding the square, and told to fire indiscriminately into both sides of the standoff between the authorities and demonstrators. The intent being to ratchet up the intensity level and hostility and bring things to a head. Pure false flag and wet ops all the way.
The gambit worked, Yanukovych was deposed in a de facto coup and the western oligarchs installed the present neo-Nazi puppet government now in power in Kiev.
The template being used is the now-familiar “color revolutions” pattern, which keeps getting used because it works and continues to work. The only exception being Syria, but that contest hasn’t ended so the result cannot yet be called.
So, long story short, who wants to go to war in Ukraine so that George Soros and his billionaire buddies can add another billion or so each to their portfolios? Because after one strips away all of the diplomatic jargon, high-sounding but false rhetoric, and all the rest of the nonsense and falsehood, that is what this whole mess is really all about. The rich want to get richer, and they are prepared to sacrifice the lives of your sons to attain their goals.
On February 23, 2022 at 6:28 am, Fred said:
@gb61, excellent summary. It’s amazing to me that the ostensibly Left oligarchs keep installing fascist governments. America too is run by commies at the mid and low levels but it’s government and big biz cozy structure at the top is purely fascistic.
On February 23, 2022 at 9:36 am, George 1 said:
I suspect the “Color Revolutions pattern” is over, at least in places that border Russia. Putin learned a lesson from the Ukraine affair and put a stop to the attempted color revolution is Kazakhstan.
It seems that if you send in serious special forces types and shoot some of the “Color Revolutionaries” in the head the rest will scurry away like cock roaches when the lights come on. Who knew!
On February 23, 2022 at 9:41 am, George 1 said:
By the way. What type of rifles are they carrying? They look very much like M-4s but I can’t be sure.
On February 23, 2022 at 9:55 am, Herschel Smith said:
IDK.
I suspect it’s an AK-74 or some variant that shoots the 5.45X39. Pic is too dark to tell.
On February 23, 2022 at 10:49 am, Chris said:
If Obama had given Hawaii to the Chinese as a present, wouldn’t future US Presidents be justified in using force to get it back? That’s what happened to Russia under the USSR, and Putin is taking back what was once theirs.
On February 23, 2022 at 12:31 pm, J said:
No war. All bullshit hype from the mainstream for their puppet masters. The underlying fact that they global banksters want to get more power is true. Putin has been schooled, ain’t happening.
On February 23, 2022 at 2:09 pm, scott s. said:
Apparently “sovereignty” wasn’t such a big deal when NATO decided that the break away region of Kosovo should be protected. But now for the Donbas, no way, at least if it is Russians doing the “protection”.
On February 23, 2022 at 3:20 pm, Fred said:
Never forget, billy boy defended the muz in Kosovo and bombed the Christians mercilessly.
You know who always gets the worse end of US sanctions? We do. This game is old and tiresome mostly because we never see any tangible improvement. It’s more debt, more inflation, more death, lower standard of living, less good jobs, on and on it goes.
On February 23, 2022 at 4:45 pm, The Mad Scot said:
Either Spetznaz or GRU and look AK-103’s…
On February 23, 2022 at 4:47 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Fred
Re: “Never forget, billy boy defended the muz in Kosovo and bombed the Christians mercilessly.”
Yep, that’s exactly right. Not only did Billy Bob Clinton side with the Muslims against the Christians in Serbia, he (under the auspices of NATO) nearly started a hot, shooting war with Russia in the process. Clinton, Secretary of State Albright, and that moron General Wesley Clark handled the Balkans situation so badly we came within a hair’s breadth of war with Russian peacekeepers deployed there.
If they’d known that Russia dating back to the Czars has had a long relationship with the Serbians, and consider the smaller nation a client state in the present, then the Clintonistas might have avoided the problem. But they were historically-illiterate, arrogance and ignorant – which is a dangerous combination, to say the least.
On February 23, 2022 at 5:46 pm, George 1 said:
@The Mad Scot
I went to the Newsweek link and looked at the enlarged photo. The rifles look like something other than AKs to me. The rifle being held by the guy on the left looks like it has a brass defector. Not sure though.
On February 23, 2022 at 8:53 pm, Joe Blow said:
Didn’t we bomb their embassy, on ‘accident’?
On February 23, 2022 at 10:19 pm, Hudson H Luce said:
“In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of war, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.” -James Madison, June 29, 1787.
If they can’t run on their domestic achievements and policy, they’ll start a war. Works most of the time, too. Those Romans sure knew their stuff.
On February 23, 2022 at 11:16 pm, sumdude said:
From what I can tell, based on the buttstocks, the optics, and curvature of the magazines, they appear to be M4 variants. And there are insignias present, but it’s impossible to know what they are, due to the darkness of the picture and the blur.
Could they be Spetznaz carrying Western weapons for a false flag op, or plausible deniability? Or, Ukrainian forces? I’ve see video footage of Ukrainians carrying a wide variety of small arms.
So, who knows?
On February 23, 2022 at 11:54 pm, George 1 said:
Looks like something is happening over there. Of course it could all be for the news cycle, I guess we will see.
My guess is that the Russians will not invade Ukraine proper. They might attack and remove the remaining Ukraine military forces and militia units in the two breakaway provinces. Putin might also take the opportunity to destroy any heavy weapons stores that can be located as well.
On February 24, 2022 at 12:32 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Fred
Re: “It’s amazing to me that the ostensibly Left oligarchs keep installing fascist governments. America too is run by commies at the mid and low levels but it’s government and big biz cozy structure at the top is purely fascistic.”
One of the most-pernicious historical lies of the 20th century and since then, has been the notion that fascism is a phenomenon of the political right. This is false, and the early history of fascism in places like Italy proves it. Benito Mussolini, “Il Duce,” the Italian strong-man and fascist dictator during the mid-20th century, widely-regarded as the founder of modern fascism, had previously been a hard-core socialist and communist. Mussolini regarded fascism as the final “perfection” of socialist communism, and so did his most of his comrades, not just in Italy but across Europe.
In Germany and later around the world, National Socialism (in German, Nationalsozialismus) became known by its acronym, “Nazism” and those who practiced it were “Nazis,” but their proper name included the world “socialism.” That’s no accident, but as a result of how Hitler and his supporters viewed their ideology and movement.
In reality, communism and fascism – in the person of Stalin and Hitler – eventually fought not because they were so different, but because they were so similar as to be rivals. Indeed, communism and fascism lie adjacent to one another on the far-left collectivist end of the political spectrum.
The lie that they were dissimilar probably began in earnest after the Second World War when communist intellectuals in the West and their counterparts behind the Iron Curtain in places like East Germany were anxious to put distance between themselves and their erstwhile pre-war friends the fascists. So the lie was planted, spread to the Western counter-culture and you know the rest.
The evident similarity between fascism and communism in so many aspects illustrates how well and easily they can coexist in the same regime. Obama demonstrated that, and now Biden in his turn.
A final thought: Due to leftist brainwashing, the popular image of fascism has been indelibly linked with jack-booted SS-thugs in black uniforms with Death’s Head insignia, but Mussolini himself opined that he wished his system had been named “corporatism” instead of fascism for the seamless manner in which it merged the state and the largest corporations.
On February 24, 2022 at 1:47 am, Ostap Bender said:
If you would have taken the time to read the description of the picture that can be found here, you would see the following: “1/1 SLIDES © ARIS MESSINIS/Getty
Ukrainian troops patrol in the town of Novoluhanske, eastern Ukraine, on February 19, 2022.” And the rifles are M4 or AR15.
@Georgiaboy61: I am Romanian. After the World War II, Romania was occupied by the Russian troops. Now, should your beloved Mr. Putin take Romania back? Part of Romania (i.e. Moldavia) is still separated from Romania, being under Russian influence. Part of Moldavia is occupied by the Russian army. So, should that army come and occupy my entire country?
On February 24, 2022 at 2:14 am, Ostap Bender said:
https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1496712887045439491
It would be interesting if in the same time the Chinese would do something nasty in Taiwan. But they would only take back their territory, right?
On February 24, 2022 at 1:56 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@Ostap,
Apples and oranges. Two completely different situations.
Taiwan seceded from China on their own without any assistance or agitation by anyone (esp. us). Furthermore, we aren’t threatening to extend our military infrastructure to the borders of China (like China, BTW, is trying to do in Mexico against us).
The U.S. caused the recent trouble in Ukraine and basically hand-picked the president. In fact, it was Soros money that caused it to happen, and they were after oil. Soros didn’t like the fact that Ukraine wanted to deal with Russia rather than the West with his energy.
Soros apparently doesn’t think he has enough money yet.
In Ukraine, we are basically threatening to install our military infrastructure on Russia’s border. If you doubt that, study comments made by idiot Gen. Petraeus some while back.
EDIT: Oh and BTW, I don’t like Putin. He is a gun controller. I dislike him for that as much as I dislike gun controllers here in the U.S. Putin is not my buddy.
I dislike all gun controllers. Everywhere. Forever. No exceptions.
On February 24, 2022 at 2:07 pm, George 1 said:
Yep. Obama, Soros and many others started the whole thing in the Ukraine for their own nefarious purposes. Now Putin is going to give them a color revolution, Russian style.
On February 24, 2022 at 2:57 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Ostap Bender
Re: “I am Romanian. After the World War II, Romania was occupied by the Russian troops. Now, should your beloved Mr. Putin take Romania back? Part of Romania (i.e. Moldavia) is still separated from Romania, being under Russian influence. Part of Moldavia is occupied by the Russian army. So, should that army come and occupy my entire country?”
Giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are whom you claim to be, and not some drone posting pro-war propaganda on the government’s dime, you seem to be intent upon setting some sort of record for the most logical fallacies committed in a single paragraph.
“Beloved Mr. Putin”? Nowhere, on this discussion or anyplace else, have I claimed to love, or even like Putin. How could I? I don’t the man? You are attributing statements to me I never made. Putin is ex-KGB, which means he can’t be trusted, at least not completely. That’s fallacy number one, an ad hominem attack.
Fallacy two is that you are guilty of a straw man argument, namely trying to shift the discussion from the topic in question to something else. The subject being discussed is the Ukraine, not Romania.
But in the spirit of cooperation, I’ll address your claim anyway. I have stated many times over the years when discussing the situation of Eastern Europe, vis-a-vis Russia, that the former Warsaw Pact nations do not belong to Russia, and that any aggressive move by Moscow to retake Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland,et al. – would be a legitimate cassus belli or “cause of war.”
A Polish friend once asked me if I would fight to protect that nation in the event of a Russian invasion, I answered “Yes, of course.” My answer hasn’t changed.
Moreover, I have friends and family in Europe or with ties to there. I am very much aware of what those nations have at stake, including your own, and their welfare is never far from my mind. But – at least for the present – that’s not what the situation in Ukraine is about.
Your knowledge of Russian history needs brushing-up, for the region now disputed by Moscow has been part of Russia going back centuries to the czars, and the region has been Russian much longer than it has been independent. In particular, the Crimea is key ground for them, since the Black Sea is their lifeline to a warm-water port in the Med, at Tartus in Syria.
Finally, the eastern half of the country is full of ethnic Russians being persecuted by the regime in Kiev. Russia has every right to see that they are not attacked or subject to aggression.
In the U.S. we have an expression that it is unwise to “bear bait,” meaning that only a fool repeatedly pokes a sleeping bear with a sharp-stick until it awakens enraged and looking for trouble. Over the last thirty years, that’s what the U.S. & NATO have done to Russia.
Promises were made that NATO would expand no further, promises that the West promptly broke. There were many other wrongs and missteps committed. There was a genuine opportunity to reset relations with Russia on better terms, but thanks to the dishonestly, lies and perfidy of the ruling class and the U.S.-NATO foreign-policy establishment, that didn’t happen.
Back in 2014, the U.S. and the West toppled via a coup de etat the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych, killing scores of innocent people in the process. Total false flag op all the way. The oligarchs then installed a pro-western neo-fascist regime, a puppet government which does as it is told by the western power brokers. And what was Yanukovych’s “crime”? Changing his mind about signing a lucrative energy development deal with the western multi-nationals.
Turning the tables, wouldn’t you be concerned if someone else toppled your government or the government of a region right on your border? If a power halfway around the world fomented revolution there? Sorry to break the news to you, but NATO isn’t the victim here. If there is a victim, it is arguably Russia, followed by the people of the Ukraine themselves whose nation was turned into a plaything for the globalist billionaires.
Putin matters nothing to me. My sole concern is trying to prevent an elective, unnecessary war which could plunge mankind into the horrors of a nuclear holocaust. Recklessly antagonizing a major world power armed with nukes strikes me as just about the dumbest thing anyone could do, but that’s what is happening at present.
Romania should join the Visegrad Four alliance to protect herself. Those nations,located as they are in Eastern Europe, have the perfect right to organize along those lines, for both economic and geopolitical (self-defense) reasons. And such an alliance if it was done properly, would be much less provocative and alarming to Moscow. Especially if the major nuclear-armed NATO powers were excluded from it, including the U.S.
That is, if all of us survive the bungling and serial-idiocy of the current occupant of the White House, and live into the foreseeable future.
On February 24, 2022 at 5:17 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
Typo alert: “How could I? I don’t the man?” should read “I don’t even know the man”….
The People’s Republic of China is now probably eyeing seizing Taiwan while the world’s eyes are on Ukraine. That would make an already volatile situation even more dangerous.
Unlike Russia, who is a reluctant enemy of the West, the communist Chinese are the real deal. And now thanks to the irresponsibility of our foreign policy elites, the two of them are working in concert. Lovely – just what humanity needed, another world war.
Paul Craig Roberts posted Putin’s warning to the U.S. and the West, for those who dismiss the danger of nuclear Armageddon….it reads:
(Roberts) “The imbalance of force has been corrected, and since force is all that the West understands, Russia is using force to end the use of Ukraine as a pawn against Russia. In the past the stupid and arrogant West ignored Russia’s warnings. In his address this morning Putin gave another warning. If the dumbsh*t Western leaders do not hear this warning, the West will cease to exist:
(Putin) “I would now like to say something very important for those who may be tempted to interfere in these developments from the outside. No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history. No matter how the events unfold, we are ready. All the necessary decisions in this regard have been taken. I hope that my words will be heard.”
Don’t poke the giant bear with a sharp stick. Bad things might happen. The bear might try to tear your head off. And if the West isn’t very careful, those bad things will happen.
On February 24, 2022 at 7:36 pm, Fred said:
“The People’s Republic of China is now probably eyeing seizing Taiwan while the world’s eyes are on Ukraine. That would make an already volatile situation even more dangerous.”
Ooh, a fight with two near peers! It’s the Pentagon’s fondest dream. Problem is the DoD uses near peer to refer the lesser capable major military powers, but dear end of empire realists, we know that the US is the inferior fighting force.
On February 24, 2022 at 9:57 pm, George 1 said:
Brandon could have done two simple things to avoid the whole situation by agreeing to not allow Ukraine into NATO and forcing Ukraine to stop the hostilities against the Eastern Ukraine.
Now I would guess that by the time this all shakes out a new government will be established in Ukraine and there will probably be a permanent Russian presence up to the Dnieper River.
Lets Go Brandon!!