The Israeli conflict has again begun escalating to what looks like a major war in Lebanon. I say ‘looks’ because I personally am still quite skeptical such a thing will happen for a variety of reasons we’ll mention.
But first let’s cover some of the developments. Israel carried out its pager and radio attacks. Many initially thought the pagers’ batteries exploded, but this is nonsense. They planted explosives inside and activated them likely with a phone call. The reason we know this is one of the videos of them exploding, one can hear various beeping sounds or ringing mere seconds before the explosion.
Secondly, there was a preponderance of eye injuries, which appears to imply the pagers rang or beeped, causing the victims to bring them up toward their face to inspect the number or message, after which the explosion hit them directly in the eyes:
As such, it seems the classic phone activation you see so often in movies.
By the way, listen to China’s UN rep Fu Cong’s blistering condemnation of Israel, which uses very uncharacteristically strong language:
Now it’s clear that Israel is desperate to provoke Hezbollah in attacking it first, so that it can have the casus belli and global consensus in waging another genocide to cover for the first one in a sort of genocide-Ponzi scheme.
The IDF’s 98th Ha’Esh Division completes its arrival at the Lebanese border from the Gaza Strip.
Here’s Israeli media showing its true face in declaring that Lebanese civilians are indistinguishable from Hezbollah ‘terrorists’, a precursor to the whitewashing of the planned genocide:
But what’s been understated is the true reason for why Israel is suddenly so desperate to expand the war to Lebanon. There are several reasons, of course, with varying importance; and while each play a part, let’s look at the most significant.
1. Firstly, Israel’s economy is in danger of crumbling partly owing to the fact that the productivity of the entire north has been disrupted by ongoing repercussions of the Hezbollah fight. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of settlers have fled, farms have been abandoned, etc. This much Netanyahu has openly stated even yesterday in a new speech—that the north must be ‘secured’ in order to bring people back, otherwise it can turn into an abandoned wasteland as Israelis don’t quite have the same taste for subsisting amid open hostilities as the nearby Arabs whom they’ve subjected to such conditions for years.
This was exacerbated today when Hezbollah unleashed a large attack which pierced the Iron Dome and slammed into several neighborhoods. The damage seemed unclear but houses, cars, etc., appeared on fire from published videos.
We’ll call this reason the most overt and ostensibly ‘official’ one, for the sake of political optics. But there are deeper ones.
2. Another major reason that few have gleaned or spoken of is a broader strategic one. Israel has not only likely deduced its time is running out due to the wane of the US Empire which is its chief sponsor, but more specifically, Israel may be taking advantage of a short window of unprecedented American weakness and absence of leadership.
As most know, there is pretty much no one in the ‘driver’s seat’ of the executive branch at the moment. The entire US government is being run managerially by deep state operatives, members of the cabinet, etc. After Joe Biden was openly couped months ago, he has effectively been placed in a kind of holding cell, where he appears to have been instructed to keep quiet, out of the spotlight, and run out the clock under threat of consequences. The country is now being entirely run by a slew of minions like Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken, etc.
If you need any proof of this, just observe two exemplar videos from the past day alone, which are outright shocking.
The first is an absolutely wasted, mentally unfit, and enfeebled looking Biden croaking out some frail introduction to his wife, who is now unprecedentedly heading the Cabinet meeting in his stead. It is the first Cabinet meeting since October of 2023—an entire year—and it’s being run by Jill sitting at the head of the president’s seat:
Then there was this incident when visiting PM Modi was humiliated by a Biden that seemed to have glitched out in introducing him:
NY Post:
A confused-looking President Biden fumbled and snapped at staffers after forgetting which world leader he was supposed to introduce at a press conference event for a during the Quad summit Saturday.
Biden, 81, was supposed to call India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the stage, but appeared to be unsure which of the three visiting heads of government he was meant to name.
Getting back, this is all to say that Israel may see its historic chance to do as much damage and go as ‘off-script’ as possible in light of the leadership crisis suffered by the US. Israel may like its chances in getting away with murder, no pun intended, without much consequences. Even more diabolically, Israel may sense the opportunity in the confusion of US’ disastrously floundering executive branch to pull the US into a wider war with Iran.
In short: it is a strategy of taking advantage of America at its weakest point for maximum gain.
3. The final reasons are fairly academic: Netanyahu’s attempt to save his regime by expanding the conflict indefinitely—not dissimilar from the trap Zelensky is in.
As I said in the opening, however, I remain skeptical about the war breaking out uncontrollably given that the Iranian-Hezbollah side does not seem to have a taste for major conflict at the moment, nor even consensus between the two. After all, Hezbollah has reportedly expressed disappointment and even irritation at Iran earlier for not carrying through with larger action against Israel.
It seems clear Iran is not interested in a large-scale conflict and Hezbollah is not keen to go it alone against Israel—that’s not to say they won’t if absolutely pushed to the brink. But the point is merely that the signaling seems to suggest the Resistance side is leaning on playing the Long Game, bleeding Israel from many different vectors a little at a time. This is of course mostly due to Iran being cognizant of Israel’s plan to goad it into full-scale war against the US, particularly given Iran’s new leadership, said to be less openly belligerent.
For instance, just as of this writing, Hezbollah was said to have shut down Haifa airport in the north by strikings its fuel tanks:
Many people only analyze the one-dimensional, purely-kinetic military ramifications on the ground, but overlook the even more significant outlays of political capital Israel is hemorrhaging on the world stage. Iran is likely fine with watching Israel slowly lose its global standing, becoming the black sheep of the civilized world, all while its socio-economic and political fabric comes undone.
So what I mean to say is that, even should Israel continue escalating its mass attacks in Lebanon, I see the Resistance playing it much more asymmetrically, with the continuation of the status quo guerilla responses and strikes on north Israel’s infrastructure, rather than posturing into some type of full-scale conventional war. This is what Israel would like, in order to get its casus belli and pull allies into an all-out conflict.
Many people view this as Iran and co. being “weak”, humiliated, etc. So be it. This is how major civilizational states survive for thousands of years, by not reacting to every kneejerk provocation.
Contra the fake #9 placement above, Israel has existed for barely 70 years. Iran will exist long after the bones of all the simpering chuds on social media have mouldered and turned to phosphate for the worms, and the social medias themselves have become a forgotten blink in the sprawl of time.
In Ukraine, there are a couple significant updates worth looking at.
To me, the most significant are reports that Russia plans to begin targeting Ukrainian nuclear plants:
The reason this is significant is because for a few months now there have been reports that Russia has knocked out over 70% of Ukraine’s conventional power-generating capacity, and pretty much all that remained was Ukraine’s nuclear power stations, with many pro-RU commentators wondering whether Putin would be “man enough” to finish Ukraine’s power grid off for good.
This appears to be the first indication that Putin may very well have decided to completely de-energize Ukraine. Mind you, this doesn’t mean striking the nuclear power plants themselves to create Chernobyl-like catastrophes, but rather their substations and other surrounding infrastructure to effectively ‘neutralize’ the nuke plants’ ability to provide, or at least deliver, power.
Europe is preparing for this consequence but in a way that leaves much to be desired, given that Russia can easily disable their so-called dismantled and re-assembled plants:
Russia has also struck a ship in the Black Sea it detected was transporting weaponry to Ukraine, proving that Russia has the capability to take out Ukraine’s so-called “grain corridor” if it wanted to, but allows it leniency at its discretion.
This again highlights how Russia continually attrits Ukrainian munitions stocks which compensates for Ukraine’s occasional destruction of Russia’s warehouses like seen recently. In fact, just in the past three days, Russia has struck over half a dozen weapons depots including in Odessa port, the ship that was en route to offload, and several other places.
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Zelensky has now finally traveled to the US for his grand—perhaps final—tour:
He himself appreciates the momentously foreboding nature of the curtain call. From his account:
This fall will determine the future of this war. Together with our partners, we can strengthen our positions as needed for our victory—a shared victory for a truly just peace. Right now, the legacy of the current generation of world leaders is being shaped—those in the highest offices. In the coming days, we will have meetings with leaders from the Global South, G7, Europe, and heads of international organizations— with many who are helping to consolidate the world. We will also have important meetings with representatives of the United States. True peace and a true victory for Ukraine and international law—this is what we need.
Can you guess his very first stop in the country?
Scranton, PA to beg directly for more shells in person at the General Dynamics 155mm shell factory:
Scranton, Pennsylvania. I visited a plant that manufactures 155 mm artillery shells. Now, for our warriors who are defending not only our country, not only Ukraine, the plant will be ramping up production. I began my visit to the United States by expressing my gratitude to all the employees at the plant and by reaching agreements to expand cooperation between Pennsylvania and our Zaporizhzhia. It is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail. Thanks to people like these—in Ukraine, in America, and in all partner countries—who work tirelessly to ensure that life is protected.
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We all know why he’s in the US, to present his grand ‘peace plan’ to his masters. Now, Bloomberg has allegedly learned of what the plan contains.
Apparently the plan hinges on Biden extending a NATO and EU invitation to Zelensky, not to mention commitments for endless arms supplies thereafter. I’ve no idea how that will create peace, but I suppose it would mean a ‘victory’ for Ukraine, were it to actually happen. Unfortunately the chances of Ukraine getting an invitation to either of those are below zero. Perhaps the real plan is to have the US threaten Russia with a NATO invitation as consequence of Russia not accepting an unfavorable peace deal. But that would be nonsensical, given that it would only cause Russia to fight harder in order to subjugate Ukraine and prevent it from ever threatening Russia as part of NATO.
This is now the chief hangup vexing the establishment:
The latest WaPo piece describes a state of disarray in the West political class when it comes to a way forward against a clearly defiant and unbending Russia. You see, all the provocations, games, and peace ‘tricks’ were meant to bow Russia to the West’s leverage, but the Empire is finding that, after decades of dealing with shallow vassals, confronting one of the last remaining truly sovereign nations in the world is a glaringly different endeavour.
Most vexing is Putin’s national consensus, another cryptic koan to the West so habituated to their leaders’ gutter status as pariahs amongst a populace ruled only by ‘virtue’ of stolen elections, mass propaganda, and an iron fist.
Even as Putin faces Western efforts to isolate him, he seems increasingly invincible at home. Putin’s most formidable challenger, Alexei Navalny, died in prison in February. Any sign of political dissent is quickly crushed. What is left of the Russian opposition is now largely in exile. And even embarrassing military setbacks, such as Ukraine’s recent incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, have not weakened Putin’s grip on power.
Flummoxed, the West finds itself between pillar and post:
“There are no good choices here — it’s just degrees of bad going forward,” said Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at Rand, adding that “accepting Russian conditions that are unacceptable” would be a mistake. Instead, he urged “a combination of deterrence and potential negotiations.”
The article finishes on the grand vision of combating Putin, which is in effect, creating a supranational new totalitarian deep state order to rule over the West permanently, in order to Trump-proof and, in general, future-proof the West’s anti-Russian hostility, so no truly democratic force can emend it later on:
Because Russia is a long-term threat, Hill said, the structures to address that threat must also be long-term or Putin will always claim the advantage. She urged a more consistent response, spanning administrations — creating “a kind of permanent secretariat” with allies to maintain a consistent Russia policy.
Trump, meanwhile, has stirred uncertainty. He has boasted that his rapport with Putin, Xi and Kim would allow him to swiftly sort the world out on American terms. But the deepening ties between Moscow, Beijing and other adversaries complicate the picture.
A “permanent secretariat” to maintain a “consistent” policy in perpetuity. I’ll translate the Newspeak: create a permanent central authority which no “sovereign” nation can question to make sure populist leaders can never revolt against the globalist totalitarian dictatorship and its quest to enslave the planet under one hegemonic rule.
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In light of the above article making mention of the ‘overpowering global reach’ of Russian ‘propaganda’, and the concomitant push for global dictatorship to fight against this, it’s now clearer than ever what the controllers intend to do when it comes to “disinformation” policy.
Just today the UN signed the ‘Pact for the Future’, which includes the ‘Digital Compact’ of new vast censorship powers against all dissenting voices. Secretary-General António Guterres plainly announces the assault on freedom:
Is it any surprise, then, that this call is being mirrored all over the Western world? Here in the UK:
On the surface, it hasn’t been the prettiest week for Russia in the war. Two new depots were struck after the large Toropets one, which included the smaller brother of the Toropets, GRAU 23, just a few kilometers to the south at geolocation 56.36033513129649, 31.64913480746371:
On top of this, the RS-28 Sarmat test I had warned about in the last report turned into a disaster, as the missile apparently failed in its Plesetsk cosmodrome berth, catastrophically destructing without taking off:
So yes, there have been quite some setbacks for Russia this week. Not every week is going to look sterling.
However, it was a week of contrasts of extremes. While Ukraine scored some big moral victories, no doubt planned for a long time with a lot of saved up fancy drones to coincide with Zelensky’s big US victory tour to conclude the war, Russia has now activated a number of advances, marking today in particular as the single most operationally successful day of arguably the whole year.
Literally on every single front Russia captured major territory today in what’s looking more and more like the beginning of that collapse Arestovich gloomily predicted last time. There were captures in Rabotino, Ugledar, Krasnoyarsk, Pokrovsk-Ukrainsk region, Toretsk, Klescheyevka-Chasov Yar, all the way up to Makeevka toward the Kupyansk zone, and of course Kursk.
Let’s run down each sector briefly:
I reported days ago that Syrsky had begun pulling units from Zaporozhye in order to reinforce the crumbling Kursk and Pokrovsk lines. Russian forces have taken advantage and begun advancing on multiple sectors. Advances were recorded in Rabotino as well as further east along the Urozhayne-Staromayorsk axis.
Russian forces reportedly advanced south of the village of Makarivka in the Velyka Novosilka direction. Following the consolidation of positions north of Staromayorske and Urozhaine, it appears that Russian forces restarted offensive operations here. On the western bank of the Mokri Yaly river, Russian forces on motorbikes reportedly advanced from positions south of the trench fortifications in the red. Infantry then likely dismounted and captured positions in the treelines and groves just south of Makarivka. There is still one more trench fortification in the way of Makarivka that Ukraine holds before the Russians can enter the settlement.
Big news came with reports of Russian glide-bomb Fabs being used on the Zaporozhye line for the first time in a large-scale, systematic way, which seems to herald the initiation of more active operations here.
Moving on just east of there, one of the largest movements occurred in Ugledar, which Russian units are almost entirely enveloping now. Several maps from Deep State, Suriyak, etc.:
Ukrainian report:
In fact the commander of the 72nd at Ugledar was reportedly dismissed immediately after:
Some reports even claimed Russian forces have begun entering the town itself:
Now moving further north from there, Russian forces took several positions on the Kurakhove axis, near Gostre and Tsukuryne:
Julian Roepcke gave the usual howls of pain:
In fact, here’s a video from Ukraine’s 46th Airmobile brigade defending Gostre which shows the vast scale of Russia’s attacks. This one alone claimed to involve “52 Russian vehicles”. As per usual, they did their best editing tricks in an attempt to show some kind of hits, but in reality very few losses of Russian materiel is observed and Russian forces verifiably captured their objectives:
One of the problems is, most of these videos now consist of quick-cuts of FPVs hitting moving ‘sheds’—tanks with huge anti-drone weldings. These constructions are known to often take many FPV hits. One recent video of a Russian crew said their ‘Tsar Mangal’ turtle tank withstood over 100+ FPV strikes. Thus, seeing a clip of an FPV descending on a shedded tank means nothing, and in almost every case the attack is repulsed.
The above video consists of upwards of an entire tank battalion with potentially hundreds of ground troops involved, yet the Ukrainian brigade could only show a single “burning” vehicle, which could very well be their own—and not a single Russian casualty. That’s bad news for them and indicates a massively successful assault operation.
Further north of there Russian forces made advances deep into Toretsk city itself:
As well as here on the flank:
“Beer” above is supposed to read Pivnichne.
They made a long parallel advance on the outskirts here as well, just north of already-captured Niu-York:
And north of this region we get to Klescheyevka, where Russian forces made surprise new advances:
Then all the way north toward the Kupyansk zone, Russia made several creeping advances.
Here from “Sandy”—which is supposed to be Pishchane—they advanced toward the Oskil River:
South of there but on the same axis they captured new territory further west of Makeevka and Nevskoe nearby:
These are west of Kremennaya on the Kharkov-Donetsk border. According to the Ukrainian report below it was a surprisingly large assault for such a ‘sleepy’ sector:
The Russian army defeated the enemy in Nevsky, effectively liberating the village
▪️Yesterday, the Ukrainian military confirmed that Russian troops broke through the Ukrainian Armed Forces front and entered the village of Nevskoye during the offensive in the Krasnolimansk direction;
➖»The Russians were able to break through our defense north of Terny with a mechanized assault and entered Nevskoye,» admitted 24th separate assault battalion militant S. Bunyatov yesterday afternoon;
▪️Another militant, «Raver», reported in the evening that the Russians attacked with 32 armored vehicles and took Nevskoye, and Ukrainian troops were forced to retreat from the settlement.
▪️According to our information, the «West» group has practically liberated the village of Nevskoye, the village is being cleared, after its completion and consolidation, the capture of the village will be officially announced.
RVvoenkor
Here is a handy Deep State map showing the progress in that Kupyansk zone over the course of just the past few weeks—the main middle salient is Pishchane:
One can see Russian forces making steady progress here despite most having forgotten this ‘backwater’ area.
Lastly, even all the way up in Kursk, Russia made new advances, as again highlighted by an inconsolable Roepcke:
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The Ukrainian echo-chamber is now filled with triumphalism centered on the strikes on Toropets, Oktyabirsk, and Tikhoretsk arsenals, while the AFU is literally crumbling before our eyes and all the signs of a major snow-balling collapse are beginning to show.
As always, the “nibbling” style of advancement may seem inconsequential from one perspective because a little bite here, a little bite there does not make a big visual splash on a map. However, it’s undeniable that Ukraine’s front is cracking and the most damningly understated factor is it doesn’t really matter if Ukraine lowers mobilization to 19 or 21 as many expect to happen within the next few months. That is because the issues are not of pure manpower alone, but rather of motivation, training, and skill level of the forces. The leading complaint at this point at the front is the lack of troop training and motivation to fight. This will only get worse and the frontline collapses will accelerate until it begins looking quite noticeable on the maps even from afar.
To play devil’s advocate and give a fair shake to the other side, Ukrainian sources claim they have ample mobilization potential, citing this recent chart which claims to show mandatory registrations for service:
What it claims to show is over 4.5 million Ukrainians “fit for service” still in the registration pool. This appears to be as official an account of the total remaining Ukrainian manpower as we can get.
Let’s suppose this number is accurate: realistically speaking, a large fraction of that number will end up escaping in some way and will never actually fulfill any kind of obligation to show up at the recruitment office when it’s their time. Is that number greater than 50%? Most likely, but we don’t know how much exactly.
Either way, that could theoretically leave over 2 million Ukrainians still left to fight. Of course, the current Russian MOD estimates are averaging a track of something like 400-750k Ukrainian casualties per year, which could deplete most of that reserve pool in 2-3 more years of fighting.
Now Ukrainska Pravda reports that Ukraine recruits 6,500 volunteers monthly:
I’m not sure if they’re distinguishing voluntary recruits as opposed to another distinct number of mobilized ones like this one from today:
Either way, it’s a paltry number compared to what Russia’s hauling in.
Speaking of losses. Last time I wrote about the single cemetery which allegedly saw 19,000 soldiers’ graves added. Now the networks have produced a second example after Zelensky yesterday forcefully refuted that Ukraine has 80k dead in the war. He had the gall to say the number is “significantly less” than that. Accordingly, a second big Kharkov cemetery was studied, and the conclusion was that 10,000 new soldiers were added here alone, totalling nearly 30,000 when added to the previous cemetery. Thus, in two sample cemeteries 30k people were said to be found, and there are hundreds and thousands of such cemeteries throughout Ukraine.
Well, we’re back to the topic of cemeteries and, accordingly, the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Since Zelya refuted media reports about losses in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (Western resources reported 80k killed), I believe that the topic will be interesting and relevant.
The name «Bezlyudovka» speaks for itself.
The eighteenth cemetery of Kharkov is located on the outskirts of this very settlement. Its volume is significant, which means that it will not be difficult to notice the expansion of its territory. There are about 450 bodies per square. There are 96 squares in the cemetery. Since not all cells are the same size, we will take 400 bodies and 80 cells as average values.
Thus, the total capacity of the cemetery is 32 thousand bodies.
Before the start of the SVO, in 2020-21, 50×400=20,000 Ukrainian citizens found their final resting places.
Today, the cemetery is almost completely full and continues to be actively replenished.
Since the population of Bezlyudovka in 2022 was about 10 thousand people, we will neglect the replenishment of the cemetery due to civilians; the numbers there will not be significant.
As a result, it turns out that about 10 thousand servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were comfortably accommodated in this cemetery.
In total, we looked at only 2 cemeteries, and the total figures for losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were around 25-30 thousand.
How many cemeteries are there still in Ukraine?
antiseptic_channel
Some final sundry updates:
Another HIMARS was reportedly destroyed by Iskander somewhere in Sumy region near the border:
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More and more Russia’s Orion drone is apparently operating on the northern front, destroying swaths of Ukrainian armor:
It’s being noticed all over, with AFU’s top radio-electronics expert Serhiy Flash again making note of their electronic signatures:
Attention PEPs of all levels.
The Orion UAV is increasingly operating near the borders. This is a Russian Bayraktar on minimalka. They are afraid to fly to our rear. They work with rockets along the front.
They just hit one of the positions, good smart guys already know how to recognize it even on pocket analyzers.
Zvezda released an entire write up on the resurgence of the heavy UCAV drones:
It’s a detailed article for those interested that gives a run down of the drone’s development as well as explanation for why they’re now being utilized on the Kursk front.
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Der Friedensstifter 