Ukraine Invasion: Part 32

[MagicFox]

Gosh, that last one filled up quick! Welcome to 32, all 🇺🇦

Any chance you can give a brief overview of these links

I don't like clicking on random links

Interestingly, if you watch pro Ukrainian channels like Warthog in some they show and refer to soldiers who were speaking in American accents, they also refer to French (and English?) troops being there during the counter offensive.

Someone has said something about bio labs in Ukraine too. I thought that Christine Parthemore from the US had been interviewed and said that there were many bio research facilities in Ukraine where the US were working on defensive weapons bio research? This was a few months ago though.

Ukrainian army has an International battalion @WaltzMedley There are bound to be lots of different accents. I'm not clear what point you're making

Are you aware of the International Legion of Defence of Ukraine, WaltzMedley? President Zelensky has actively invited foreigners to volunteer for a formal Ukrainian military unit.

fightforua.org

It's possible that hasn't been covered in the material you read/watch.

Whereas I've seen interviews with Brits, Americans and others going off to volunteer in International legion – and indeed, coming home and talking about it – all on the BBC, so not exactly secret.

I was surprised at how many Americans there were in Sweden when I first moved here. They were literally everywhere. IKEA had more American employees than the American embassy.

Except they weren't Americans, they were natives who'd honed their English accents from watching American tv shows. Lots of none native English speakers sound like Americans when they speak, so hearing soldiers in Ukraine speaking with American accents does not mean there are American soldiers in Ukraine.

With the article, if you google the author (Jacques Baud) and the name of the article ("Situation militaire en Ukraine") it will take you to the source. The site is cf2r which is "centre francais de recherche sur la reseignement" and is a think tank which seems to be long established. I totally understand about not wanting to click on links as you never know what you are being taken to.

The youtube video you can search for by typing in the heading which is "Reasons for the war between Russia and Ukraine". It was hosted by "badvolf"/John Mark Dougan.

Daily Mail have right pissed me off today, even more than normal. They had the headline earlier 'Putin Deposed!' and then went on to say that this was the suggested outcome of the war. Bastards.

Jacques Baud
John Mark Dougan

Nah, I'll not bother thanks all the same

I have seen it, and also seen some of the interviews too. I am not sure I said anything about secret, I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

Just need some Patrick l*ncaater and that Graham Phillips buffoon to complete the set.

Transparent.

@WaltzMedley

Interestingly, if you watch pro Ukrainian channels like Warthog in some they show and refer to soldiers who were speaking in American accents, they also refer to French (and English?) troops being there during the counter offensive.

Serving UK/US/French forces won't be active in Ukraine but nevertheless it wouldn't be surprising to hear a mix of accents, as @LoveLarry has said there's an international battalion and some individuals are active on SM when circumstances allow, so nothing secret about them being there.

Aiden Aslin, a dual Ukraine/Brit national, fighting on the Ukraine side was fairly high profile for a brief while on UK news when he was captured by the Russians earlier this year.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiden_Aslin

Both names were on the original post.

Jacques Baud is ex NATO that is all I know about him. He links a lot of other sources such as Reuters, OSCE which are independent, obviously.

John Mark Dougan is an American who has asylum in Russia. Whatever you may think of him, I would say the film is worth watching because, as I said, it had information which I was not aware of previously, it may well be the same for you.

Anyway, links are there, if people want to read and watch they can.

Private contractors operate in every major war zone. They are being paid in salaries, but many are there to find opportunities, to fight for other treasures, the exact nature depending on their levels of entry and exit. Opportunists will be there to plunder art, history or even scarce natural resources. The idealogical mercenary is rarer these days, though they exist in every war. In the Falklands, private soldiers fought alongside the Argentinian army. Their country of nationality was the US.

we've attracted another one haven't we ;)

I wonder if they're coming out of the woodwork now because Russia is on the run in a number of places?

Funny how @WaltzMedley doesn't want to summarise the articles up front, isn't it.

In the Falklands, private soldiers fought alongside the Argentinian army. Their country of nationality was the US.

There's never been any convincing evidence of this and the MoD publically denied it.

www.nytimes.com/1982/08/23/world/around-the-world-no-us-mercenaries-in-falklands-british-say.html

The Ministry of Defense today rejected a newspaper report today that United States mercenaries fought alongside Argentine soldiers in the Falklands conflict.

The Observer reported that a British soldier in the Third Parachute Regiment was convinced that two prisoners taken during the battle of Mount Longdon were United States citizens and part of a mercenary force.

A Ministry of Defense spokesman said: ''We have no formal knowledge of an incident of this kind. Clearly if there had been any known incident of this type we would have done something before now.''

Officials noted that Argentina's special 601st Regiment contained several Anglo-Argentines, some of whom were educated in the United States.

A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 23, 1982, Section A, Page 5 of the National edition with the headline: AROUND THE WORLD; No U.S. Mercenaries In Falklands, British Say. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Thought I'd look at the Centre Francais de Recherche sur la Reseignement referred to above, because it's good to look for different perspectives.

Colonel Jacques Baud (Switzerland) is under "TECHNICAL ADVISERS (INTELLIGENCE)", along with his colleague:

Colonel Igor Nicolaevich Prelin (Russia)
Veteran of Soviet intelligence who served his entire career (1962-1991) at the KGB where he successively held positions in the Counterintelligence Service, the Intelligence Service (Guinea, Senegal, Angola), the School of Intelligence – where he was notably the instructor of Vladimir Putin – and as a press officer for the last president of the KGB, General Kriouchkov.

So I'm sure this Cf2R does provide different perspectives.

However, the one of Baud's articles that I looked through (not the one linked by a PP), was not a different perspective at all.

It was same old same old: a straight regurgitation of Kremlin messaging I've seen elsewhere. Eg, Ukraine isn't really a nation; Russia didn't fail to take Kyiv but instead never wanted to; Azovstal defenders are Nazis; Zelensky wanted to negotiate for peace but the West sabotaged this by giving him weapons; grain can be exported more economically by train (via Belarus!) than by ship; there's no sign that Wagner operates in Ukraine. And so on and so forth.

So if I were interested I can't see why I'd bother reading Baud, when I could just get it straight from the horse's mouth and follow the Russian media we discuss here (had I but world and time enow).

Sorry, should have given the links.

Staff info of this Cf2R:
cf2r.org/le-cf2r/gouvernance-du-cf2r/

Baud article containing the above (and more of the same) is called
BULLETIN DE DOCUMENTATION N°29 / JUIN 2022
LE POINT SUR LA SITUATION MILITAIRE EN UKRAINE AU 2 JUIN 2022
JACQUES BAUD

@PerkingFaintly passes a wine to wash away the leftover taste of nonsense

Thank you, Ijsbear.

@PerkingFaintly Thanks for doing that research for us. You took one for the team.

So even Colonel Jacques Baud is a Russian shill. What a waste of time. Better to hear it from Poots himself.

And BTW thank you to the highly informative posters here.

If I hadn't been following these threads, I probably wouldn't have seen, eg the video of Prigozhin recruiting for Wagner in a prison; or learned the detailed history of the Azov Battalion and the changes it has undergone over time.

I think it's elsewhere that I saw the figure about grain export. So I was aware of the hopelessness inadequacy of train capacity for exporting Ukraine's grain, compared to the capacity of grain ships. We probably discussed it here too, however, so that may have been what prompted me to go look it up.

In the Falklands, private soldiers fought alongside the Argentinian army. Their country of nationality was the US.

Second @MissConductUS comment....

It's a story that surfaced in the UK press just after the conflict finished, AFAIK the route of the story seems to have been one single witness who claimed two Americans supposedly surrendered during the battle of Mount Longdon.

Over the years no other evidence has ever turned up to show that there's any truth to it.

It kinda is a shame that we get so many bad-faith actors. It does put more genuine and perhaps wanting-to-be-informed posters in a bad position.

What do we all think of the rapid Ukranian advances?. Is this going to be a case of a quite spectacular Russian collapse with widespread surrender and retreat or are the Russians likely to reinforce certain parts of the territory they hold?

If this is the beginning of the end how soon will it come and what will it look like? Will ultimately there have to be some negotiated peace or will a simple.retreat of Russian units back into Russian soil sufice?