RUSSIAN MOD PRESS RELEASE
25th March 2022 - situation overview
March 25 2022, press release by the Russian Ministry of Defense:
The results of the 1st month of the SVO from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation:
1. The offensive of the Russian troops disrupted the plans of the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the DPR [Donetsk Republic] and LPR [Luhansk Republic] using artillery, missile systems and aviation.
2. On January 22, Russian intelligence intercepted the order of [Ukrainian] General Balan about the need to complete preparations for offensive operations by February 28, so that in March the Armed Forces of Ukraine could go on the offensive [against the republics] .
3. The [Russian] operation is progressing according to plan. The main tasks of the first stage of the operation have already been completed.
4. The main priority remains the preservation of the lives of the civilian population. [In territory of the republics where most of the fighting is, the population is mainly Russian.] Hence the tactics of high-precision strikes against the military infrastructure and armed forces of the enemy.
5. The [Russian] blockade of large cities ensures the fettering of the forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and prevents the Ukrainian command from transferring reinforcements to the Donbass [the area of the republics]. The main operation at the moment is in the Donbass. In the DPR and LPR, 276 settlements have already been liberated. 93% of the territory of the LPR and 54% of the territory of the DPR were liberated. The group now defending in Mariupol has more than 7,000 people.
6. Air supremacy was won by the Russian Aerospace Forces in the first two days of the operation. The organized air defense system, the Ukrainian Air Force and the Ukrainian Navy actually ceased to exist.
7. [Russia] destroyed up to 70% of all military stocks of Ukraine as a result of systematic attacks on warehouses. Destroyed 30 key objects of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine. 68% of the enterprises where military equipment was repaired have already been destroyed. At the same time, since the beginning of the NMD, the Ukrainian army has destroyed 127 bridges.
8. All organized reserves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already been put into action, there are no new ones. Hence the stake on the mobilization of an untrained contingent. In Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 6,595 foreign mercenaries are fighting.
9. Total losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the month of the operation. About 14,000 killed and about 16,000 wounded (total losses of the AFU [Armed Forces Ukraine] grouping in Donbass amount to 26% of the personnel). Out of 2416 tanks and armoured fighting vehicles combat-ready as of February 24, 1587 were destroyed in a month. Out of 152 military aircraft, 112 were destroyed, out of 149 helicopters – 75, out of 36 Bayraktar TB2 drones, 35 were destroyed. Out of 180 S-300s and Buk M1 – 148, out of 300 radars for various purposes – 117.
The Russian Defense Ministry will promptly respond to any attempts to close Ukrainian airspace for the Russian Aerospace Forces.
10. According to the RF MoD [Russian Federation Ministry of Defense], at least 10 Ukrainian naval mines are now drifting uncontrollably in the Black Sea, posing a threat to shipping.
11. The Russian Defense Ministry transferred captured weapons to the DPR and LPR. Among other things, 113 tanks and 138 Javelin anti-tank systems were transferred.
More than 23,000 applications have been received from citizens of 37 states wishing to fight for the DNR and LNR. There are also a lot of such applications from Russian citizens.
12. Official [Russian] losses since the beginning of the NWO [the Russian intervention in Ukraine]. Killed – 1351. Wounded – 3825.
13. The operation will continue until the full implementation of all goals.
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“Those who rely on Western media have the impression of a stalled Russian campaign in Ukraine with demoralized Russian soldiers deserting and surrendering to Ukrainians in order to get something to eat. Russian soldiers are even allegedly shooting holes in the gasoline tanks of their motorized equipment so that they cannot advance, out of sympathy for the innocent Ukrainians.
This propaganda has been so effective on NATO that NATO is considering deploying troops in Western Ukraine where Russian troops are not operating. This would be a fatal mistake, but propagandists usually end up believing their own propaganda.
To prove our solidarity with the official narrative, we in the West are supposed to believe only the narrative and not anything knowledgeable commentators or the Russian Ministry of Defense say. Only Russian agents and dupes believe the truth.” ~ comment from Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, who has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, has been released by Random House. Visit his website.
March 26 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during a meeting of the Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund in Moscow, charged that the U.S./NATO/EU combination is already waging a hybrid war on Russia and that its objectives are no different from those of Hitler in 1941. “Today we have been declared a real hybrid war, a total war,” he said, adding that the latter term “was used by Hitler’s Germany” and “is now voiced by many European politicians when they talk about what they want to do with the Russian Federation.” The goals are not hidden, they declared them publicly—to destroy, break, exterminate, strangle the Russian economy and Russia as a whole, he said.
Lavrov lashed out at the “sanctions spree” against Russia, pointing out that it is becoming clear that all values that those in the West have been preaching to Russia, like freedom of expression, a market economy, the sanctity of private property and the presumption of innocence, are not worth a red cent.
In this environment, the Kiev regime is being encouraged to continue to behave badly. Lavrov charged that the Kiev regime, in fact, has been getting away with bad behavior for years, with complicity of the Western corporate news media, particularly with respect to its crimes in the Donbas region. “All throughout these years, when the Ukrainian leadership evaded its obligations under the Minsk Accords, nationalists were openly wiping out civilian facilities, schools, hospitals. It was well-known and all facts were regularly reported by our mass media, but were swept under the rug by the Western media,” Lavrov said. “It included the slaughter of civilians and you may all know well that the death toll among the population exceeded 10,000,” he declared. “No one in the West cared at all about the inhumane economic, trade, transportation or food blockade of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.”
The Kiev regime’s bad behavior has extended into the Russia-Ukraine talks as well. Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation at the Russia-Ukraine talks, accused the regime of seeking to drag out the talks: “They are in no hurry, obviously thinking that time is on their side, and say it openly that they have many decision-making centers they have to agree on these or those solutions with. This is the reality we are in,” he said, reported TASS. “Regrettably, as far as we understand—they make no secret of it, they are limited in making independent decisions. So, the current state of things inspires little optimism,” he stressed, adding he doesn’t share the Ukrainian delegation’s optimism, when it speaks about “great progress.” He said that “So far, there is no progress on matters of principal importance the Russian side insists on.”
Biden Calls for Regime Change in Moscow
March 26 (EIRNS)—In a speech described by the New York Times as a “a forceful denunciation” of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military operation in Ukraine, President Joe Biden declared at the end, apparently ad lib: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” He cast the war as the “test of all time” in a decades-long battle to defend democracy. White House officials scrambled to walk Biden’s remarks back from what strongly appears to be a demand for regime change in Moscow. “The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official said in a statement to reporters. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”
“Russia’s choice of war is an example of one of the oldest human impulses—using brute force and disinformation to satisfy a craving for absolute power and control,” Biden declared before a crowd of hundreds of people. “In this battle, we need to be clear: This battle will not be won in days or months either. We need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead.”
Biden was particularly incensed at Putin’s call for the denazification of Ukraine. Biden called that claim “a lie,” invoking the already-discredited argument that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and his father’s family was killed in the Holocaust. “It’s just cynical. He knows that. And it’s also obscene,” Mr. Biden said.
Aside from that, Biden described the war in Ukraine as an extension of the Soviet Union’s history of oppression and war against democracy going back to Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. “Today, Russia has strangled democracy and sought to do so elsewhere,” he said.
British Pushing Biden on Nuclear First Use Policy
March 26 (EIRNS)—The headline in the Daily Telegraph blared out yesterday: “Joe Biden Ready To Use Nuclear Weapons First in ‘Extreme Circumstances.’ ” The blurb reads: “U.S. President abandons plans to water down policy to ‘retaliation-only’ amid fears Vladimir Putin may deploy weapons of mass destruction.”
What this concerns, at least ostensibly, is the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and Biden’s earlier statements suggesting that he would dial down U.S. policy on nuclear weapons, if not to a no-first use policy, at least to a statement that, as he said in 2017, “The sole purpose of our nuclear arsenal is to deter and, if necessary, retaliate, for a nuclear attack against the United States and its allies.” Candidate Biden repeated this statement in 2020, making it part of his election policy.
While there has long been opposition from U.S. allies and from the Republican Party in Washington against going to a no-first use policy, in the present circumstances, clearly additional pressure is now on Biden not to go “wobbly” on Russia. “In the current situation, it’s very challenging to make the case for ‘sole purpose.’ The optics are extremely bad when Russia is being as threatening as it is. You don’t want to look weak,” an arms control expert who consulted with Biden’s nuclear policy officials told the Telegraph. “It was on the President’s desk, awaiting his decision, then Ukraine happened. Pre-Ukraine, there was a chance the President would have gone ahead and made a ‘sole purpose’ declaration. He wanted to do that, but he didn’t have a lot of support in the Pentagon.”
Biden’s new decision, made earlier this week under pressure from allies, holds that the “fundamental role” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal will be to deter nuclear attacks, unnamed officials told the Wall Street Journal. That carefully worded formulation, however, leaves open the possibility that nuclear weapons could also be used in “extreme circumstances” to deter enemy conventional, biological, chemical and possibly cyberattacks, says the Journal. Such a formulation, coming in the context of threats now being made against Russia for supposedly considering the use of such weapons in Ukraine, is particularly ominous.
The NPR, whenever it’s finally finished, is expected to cancel the ship-launched nuclear cruise missile that Donald Trump’s NPR had mandated and retire the B83 nuclear gravity bomb but continue all the other modernization programs that have been underway since the Obama administration, including production of the B61-12 gravity bomb as well as the new ICBM, the B-21 stealth bomber, the Navy’s new ballistic missile submarine and the Air Force’s nuclear cruise missile.
Even US propaganda is getting its knickers in a twist....
https://nypost.com/2022/03/26/president-bidens-putin-speech-in-poland-is-a-catastrophe/?utm_source=gettr&utm_campaign=android_nyp