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White House Reportedly Worried About Russia’s Sudden Momentum Months After Biden Declared Putin ‘Already Lost’ War

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6 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By NICK POPE

 

Manpower is a factor of growing significance for the Ukrainians, according to numerous reports. The war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, according to The Associated Press

White House officials are reportedly concerned that Russia may soon change the course of the conflict in Ukraine, less than a year after President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin “already lost” the war, The New York Times reported Wednedsay.

Some aides and officials inside the Biden administration are concerned that Russia may be turning the war’s tide despite the U.S. government’s April approval of $61 billion of fresh aid for Ukraine, according to the NYT. The current level of concern stands in contrast to Biden’s comments in July 2023 that Putin had “already lost the war” and that there is “no possibility” the Russians prevail in the conflict.

“Putin’s already lost the war,” Biden said during a July 2023 press conference alongside then-Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. “Putin has a real problem. How does he move from here? What does he do? And so, the idea that there’s going to be, what vehicle is used, he could end the war tomorrow, he could just say ‘I’m out.’ But what agreement is ultimately reached depends upon Putin and what he decides to do, but there is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine.”

Eighteen months ago, Biden administration personnel debated among themselves whether or not Ukraine could fully expel the Russians from their territory, according to the Times. Now, a number of officials and aides are reportedly viewing the next few months as critical toward determining the conclusion of the conflict, whether that takes the shape of a negotiated cease-fire deal or some other resolution.

Russian forces captured a considerable amount of territory near Kharkiv in Ukraine’s northeast over the weekend, and the Ukrainian command has been forced to divert some of their own forces to the region, leaving other parts of the front less well-manned. Recent gains in the Kharkiv region represented the most mileage that the Russians have captured in a short period of time over the course of the whole war, excluding its earliest stages.

Notably, manpower is a factor of growing significance for the Ukrainians, according to numerous reports. The war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, according to The Associated Press, and the Ukrainian government has lowered the minimum age of conscription from 27 to 25 and started to send certain types of convicts to the front lines.

Ukrainian forces have also reportedly struggled to quickly train enough pilots to operate costly and sophisticated F-16 fighter jets provided by the U.S. Another issue on the front lines is that Russian forces have learned to use electronic techniques to counter drone and artillery systems provided to Ukraine by the West, according to the Times.

The Department of Defense (DOD) also believes that congress’ delays in authorizing the $61 billion package has contributed to the current situation on the front lines, a DOD spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. However, there is hope that the situation will improve as weapons covered by the aid package approved in April begin to arrive at the front lines en masse, with U.S. officials currently expecting that the weapons will begin to make a real difference in July, according to the Times.

“On Friday, we warned that we had been anticipating that Russia would launch an offensive against Kharkiv and were anticipating that Russia would increase its attacks in an attempt to establish a shallow buffer zone along the Ukrainian border – and we have been coordinating closely with Ukraine to help them prepare,” the DOD spokesperson told the DCNF. “As we have said previously, Congress’ months-long delay in passing the supplemental put the Russians at an advantage, and it will take Ukraine time to regain the initiative. It is possible that Russia will make further advances in the coming weeks, but over time, the influx of U.S. assistance will enable Ukraine to withstand these attacks over the course of 2024.”

The DOD is “moving heaven and earth” to get weapons to the Ukrainians as soon as possible, and the agency is also preparing a new aid package to assist Ukrainian forces, the spokesperson added. Since the war started in February 2022, the U.S. alone has spent more than $100 billion to support the Ukrainian war effort, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

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US and UK authorize missile strikes into Russia, but are we really in danger of World War III?

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From LifeSiteNews

By Frank Wright

Hopefully a world war appears unlikely, but the decision to allow Ukraine to shoot U.S. and U.K.-provided missiles into Russia once again reveals the lengths to which the ‘neocon globalists’ will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.

News that the lame duck President Joe Biden has authorized long-range strikes into Russia using NATO systems was announced with the alarming warning that he had “started World War III.”

The following day, U.S.-supplied and operated ATACMS missiles were fired into Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the authorized strikes as an “escalation” showing that the West wants war.

“The fact that ATACMS were used repeatedly in the Bryansk region overnight is, of course, a signal that they want escalation,” he said, according to Reuters.

Lavrov continued: “Without the Americans, it is impossible to use these high-tech missiles, as Putin has repeatedly said.”

Why would the U.S. president finally give the green light to use NATO systems to attack Russia? German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has refused to follow suit and supply German-made Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine – because he does not want to see Germany drawn into a direct war with Russia.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded by suggesting it is only a matter of time before U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles strike deep into Russian territory.

The U.K. government has been behind a long campaign to escalate the war in Ukraine, a move seen as an attempt to secure continued U.S. commitments in Europe. The Trump camp has long signaled its desire to draw down its security provision to leave a “dormant NATO.”

In an indication of the dangers of the U.K.-backed move by Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced an alarming amendment of the Russian nuclear doctrine.

The policy change, announced in September and published following Biden’s announcement, says “an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia,” according to the BBC.

Russian nuclear doctrine has long included the use of low-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons in “conventional” warfare – a significantly lower threshold than that of NATO.

While Russian officials urged Western leaders to consult the text, Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that “we strongly are in favor of doing everything to not allow nuclear war to happen.”

As Reuters reported, this latest provocation is “unlikely to be a gamechanger.” Western media outlets have moved from a narrative of Ukrainian victory to mulling how or even if the state of Ukraine can survive its “inevitable” defeat.

Yet it is not only Ukraine which faces an uncertain future with a Russian victory. The entire globalist order faces a significant blow should the war conclude. Statements from figures such as George Soros, U.S. General Mark Milley, E.U. chief Ursula von der Leyen, and the former head of NATO stressed that their liberal-globalist regime is threatened by defeat in Ukraine.

Biden’s decision has been seen as an attempt to frustrate Donald Trump’s declared agenda – to clear out the “deep state globalists” whose “neocons seeking confrontation … such as Victoria Nuland” have led the U.S. into endless wars since that in Iraq.

An escalation to all-out war with Russia would not only be a disastrous precursor to nuclear escalation, but would also preserve the dominance of the same “neocon globalists” whose “forever wars” Trump has pledged to end.

Arch-neocon Robert Kagan said Americans who support ending wars are “intolerant.” He went on to author two articles which Hitlerized Trump and appeared to incite the assassination of a man who promised in his 2024 victory speech, “I’m not going to start wars. I’m going to stop wars.”

This follows a long series of claims in the same vein.

“I will end the war in Ukraine,” Trump declared in February 2023, saying he would also end “the chaos in the Middle East” and “stop World War III.”

 

This move by Biden has no military significance in improving Ukraine’s chances of victory. Russia claimed to have shot down seven of eight ATACMS fired into its Bryansk region. Yet prolonging or even escalating this war has enormous political significance.

Since the publication of the RAND Corporation’s 2019 paper “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia,” a strategy of bleeding Russia on the battlefield to collapse its government has been clear. Russia’s near-limitless mineral wealth would provide an obvious boon to a Western system self-sabotaged by sanctions and the destruction of the Nordstream gas supply.

The enormous significance of the war is found in its use as an attempt to extend and consolidate the power of the same system of neocon “globalism” which Trump has vowed to end.

This context explains why the U.K. government has consistently pressed for escalation since the 2022 intervention of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems to have sabotaged peace in favor of an all-or-nothing gamble towards “regime change” in Russia.

Since then, the U.K. government has urged the authorization of long-range strikes into Russia, and it has supplied cruise missiles to attack Russian over-the-horizon nuclear radar warning systems, which play no role in the Ukraine war.

Reports have confirmed “terrorist operations” in Russia, including attacks on the Kerch Bridge leading to Crimea were U.K.-led. A recent expose by The Grayzone revealed that the British state appears to be training Ukrainians to fight a guerilla war, extending hostilities even beyond any ceasefire.

Ukraine’s recent and failed offensive into Russia’s Kursk region appears to have also been a British operation – to secure the kind of “morale boost” which Alastair Crooke says is the only significant war-fighting contribution of the authorization of “wonder weapons” like ATACMS.

The ATACMS authorization was heralded as a turning point in the war by Foreign Affairs. Yet the suspicion of Responsible Statecraft that it was a “sideshow that may become a tragedy” appears to have been confirmed.

The grim reality of this war is underscored by the fact that measures taken which will result in even more needless loss of human life are done so to legitimize useful propaganda headlines. This is undertaken to sell a war which has long been predicted to end as it now seems certain to do so: with a victory on Russian terms.

Though it appears unlikely that a world war will result from this latest reckless move, what has been demonstrated once more is the lengths to which the “neocon globalists” will go to throw a lifeline to their failing business model.

That lifeline is perpetual war, and when they end – so do the careers of so many whose livelihoods and reputations depend on keeping them going.

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Putin Launches Mass-Production of Nuclear Shelters for his People

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From Armstrong Economics

By Martin Armstrong

Russia has begun mass production of mobile nuclear bunkers. This is in response to Ukraine’s use of Western US and British missiles to attack deep inside Russia to destroy its conventional capability so NATO can launch an invasion by March/April 2025.

nuclear_doctrine Putin 11 2024

This has coincided with Mr Putin’s change of Russia’s doctrine to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons to include the use of conventional weapons by Ukraine. Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine attacked an ammunition stockpile in the Bryansk region using missiles supplied by the US military’s MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

Russia has also ordered the production of its mobile nuclear bunkers to protect citizens. They are shelters capable of protecting people from the light radiation of a nuclear explosion and radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment. These are known as “KUB-M” and will protect 54 people for 48 hours from the air shock wave and light radiation of a nuclear explosion; penetrating radiation and radioactive contamination of the area; high-explosive and fragmentation effects of conventional weapons; falling debris from building structures; dangerous chemicals; fires. Unlike traditional, stationary bunkers, mobile bunkers are built to be easily moved from one location to another, often on vehicles or trailers. They can be equipped with advanced shielding, air filtration systems, and other necessary survival equipment to withstand the harsh conditions of a nuclear event.

Zelenskyy Johnson

The Western press keeps putting out the Neocon and NATO propaganda that Russia will never fire a nuke and Ukraine can win the war. But this is all a smoke screen for NATO will invade Russia, and they are using Ukraine as our Hesbolla, the same as Iran is using Lebanon. Zelensky claimed he invaded Russia to force Putin to peace. But they had a peace deal. Boris Johnson ran to Kiev and instructed Zelensky he was not allowed to sign a peace deal, and now far more than 1 million Ukrainians have been killed so Europe can invade Russia.

Just as Robert McNamara said about Vietnam and the Weapons of Mass Destruction that did not exist in Iraq, what if these people are wrong AGAIN? There goes Europe! Not a single European leader cares about their own people.

Either the Ukrainian people rise up and take their country back, or Putin needs to nuke Kiev to show the world he is serious. Otherwise, we are sleepwalking into World War III. Our press will NEVER write a single word for peace. It is always Putin is bluffing. What if you are wrong again?

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev was just shut down after Biden gave the go-ahead to use long-range missiles. Hm. If this was to win the war, then why flee Kiev? They know Putin will respond forcefully against Zelensky. Russians get nuclear bomb shelters, and we get Fake News – Don’t worry – he’s bluffing.

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