Die Associated Press behauptet unter Berufung auf amerikanische Beamte, dass russische Schiffe und Flugzeuge in den kommenden Wochen in der Karibik eintreffen werden, um dort Militärübungen durchzuführen.
US-Behörden gehen davon aus, dass die Übungen eine Reaktion auf die Unterstützung der Ukraine und NATO-Übungen sein könnten. Russische Schiffe können die Häfen von Kuba und Venezuela anlaufen.
Warum sind die Amerikaner so alarmiert? Gefällt mir nicht ? Russland gefällt es also nicht, dass die Truppen von Uncle Sam und ihre Lakaien, NATO-Mitglieder, an seinen Grenzen wimmeln und mit ihren Waffen klappern.
Todo o caso entre a Rússia e os talibãs envolve um pacote enorme, que inclui petróleo, gás, minerais e muita conectividade ferroviária.
No último domingo, em Doha, tive uma reunião com três representantes de alto nível do Escritório Político do Talibã no Catar, incluindo um membro fundador do órgão (em 2012) e um importante funcionário do governo anterior do Talibã, de 1996 a 2001. Por consentimento mútuo, seus nomes não podem ser divulgados.
A reunião cordial foi intermediada pelo professor Sultan Barakat, que leciona na Faculdade de Políticas Públicas da Universidade Hamad bin Khalifa – localizada em um campus excelente e imaculado nos arredores de Doha, que atrai estudantes de todo o Sul Global. O professor Barakat é um daqueles poucos – discretos – que sabem tudo o que importa na Ásia Ocidental e, no caso dele, também na interseção da Ásia Central e do Sul.
Com meus três interlocutores talibãs, conversamos bastante sobre os desafios da nova era talibã, novos projetos de desenvolvimento, o papel da Rússia-China e a Organização de Cooperação de Xangai (SCO). Eles estavam particularmente curiosos sobre a Rússia e fizeram várias perguntas.
O professor Barakat está trabalhando em um ângulo paralelo. Ele está conduzindo o trabalho do Afghanistan Future Thought Forum, cuja 9ª sessão foi realizada em Oslo, em meados de maio, e contou com a presença de 28 afegãos – homens e mulheres – além de uma série de diplomatas do Irã, Paquistão, Índia, China, Turquia, EUA, Reino Unido e UE, entre outros.
As principais discussões no fórum giram em torno da questão extremamente complexa do envolvimento do Talibã com essa entidade difusa, a “comunidade internacional”. Em Doha, perguntei diretamente aos meus três interlocutores qual é a prioridade número um do Talibã: “O fim das sanções”, responderam eles.
Para que isso aconteça, o Conselho de Segurança da ONU deve reverter sua decisão de 2003 de designar vários membros do Talibã como uma organização terrorista e, ao mesmo tempo, a discriminação/demonização/sanções por parte de Washington precisam ser eliminadas. No momento, essa é uma tarefa extremamente difícil.
O fórum – a próxima sessão deve ser realizada em Cabul, possivelmente no outono – está trabalhando pacientemente, passo a passo. É uma questão de concessões sucessivas de ambos os lados, criando confiança, e para isso é essencial nomear um mediador reconhecido pela ONU, ou “conselheiro para normalização”, para supervisionar todo o processo.
Nesse caso, o apoio total dos membros do Conselho de Segurança da ONU, Rússia e China, será essencial.
Somos o Talibã, e estamos falando sério
Saí da reunião no Catar com a impressão de que passos positivos à frente – em termos da normalização do Afeganistão como um todo – são possíveis. E então uma intervenção mágica mudou todo o jogo.
No dia seguinte à nossa reunião, antes de eu partir de Doha para Moscou, tanto o Ministério das Relações Exteriores quanto o Ministério da Justiça da Rússia informaram ao presidente Putin que o Talibã poderia ser excluído da lista russa de organizações terroristas.
O excepcionalmente competente Zamir Kabulov, Representante Especial de Putin para o Afeganistão, foi direto ao ponto: sem a remoção do Talibã da lista, a Rússia não pode reconhecer a nova administração em Cabul.
E, como um relógio, no mesmo dia Moscou convidou o Talibã para participar do Fórum Econômico Internacional de São Petersburgo (SPIEF), que começa na próxima quarta-feira.
Kabulov observou como “tradicionalmente, os afegãos estão interessados em continuar a cooperação na compra de produtos petrolíferos na Rússia e outros bens de alta demanda. É claro que, no futuro, será possível falar sobre as capacidades de trânsito do Afeganistão para expandir o volume de negócios”.
E então o ministro das Relações Exteriores, Sergey Lavrov, também no mesmo dia, em Tashkent, durante a visita oficial de Putin, praticamente fechou o acordo, dizendo que a normalização do Talibã reflete a realidade objetiva: “Eles são o verdadeiro poder. Não somos indiferentes ao Afeganistão. Nossos aliados, especialmente na Ásia Central, também não estão indiferentes a ele. Portanto, esse processo reflete uma consciência da realidade.”
O Cazaquistão já manifestou sua “consciência da realidade”: o Talibã saiu da lista de terroristas de Astana no ano passado. Na Rússia, na prática, o Talibã será excluído da lista de terroristas se a Suprema Corte aprovar. Isso pode até acontecer nos próximos dois meses.
Esse caso de amor vem com um pacote enorme
A normalização dos laços entre a Rússia e o Talibã é inevitável por vários motivos. A principal prioridade está certamente relacionada à segurança regional – o que implica esforços conjuntos para combater o papel nebuloso, obscuro e desestabilizador do ISIS-K, uma ramificação terrorista do ISIS que é ativamente apoiada, na sombra, pela CIA/MI6 como uma ferramenta de “Dividir para Reinar”. O diretor do FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, tem plena consciência de que um Afeganistão estável significa um governo talibã estável.
E esse sentimento é totalmente compartilhado pela Organização de Cooperação de Xangai (SCO) como um todo. O Afeganistão é um observador da SCO. Inevitavelmente, ele se tornará um membro pleno nos próximos dois anos, no máximo – consolidando sua normalização.
Além disso, há a bonança do corredor de conectividade à frente, que é tão importante para a Rússia quanto para a China. Pequim está construindo outra maravilha da engenharia rodoviária no corredor Wakhan para conectar Xinjiang ao nordeste do Afeganistão. E então o plano é trazer Cabul como parte do Corredor Econômico China-Paquistão (CPEC): integração geoeconômica na velocidade da luz.
Moscou, assim como Nova Délhi, estão de olho nos desdobramentos do Corredor Internacional de Transporte Norte-Sul (INSTC) multimodal, que liga a Rússia, o Irã e a Índia. O porto de Chabahar, no Irã, é um nó essencial para que a Rota da Seda da Índia a conecte ao Afeganistão e, posteriormente, aos mercados da Ásia Central.
Além disso, há a riqueza mineral afegã ainda não explorada, que vale pelo menos US$ 1 trilhão. Incluindo o lítio.
Cabul também está planejando construir nada menos que um centro russo para exportar energia para o Paquistão – tudo parte de um futuro acordo estratégico de energia entre o Paquistão e a Rússia.
O que Putin disse ao primeiro-ministro paquistanês, Shebhaz Sharif, à margem da cúpula da SCO em Samarcanda, em 2022, é imensamente significativo: “O objetivo é fornecer gás por gasoduto da Rússia para o Paquistão (…) Algumas infraestruturas já estão instaladas na Rússia, no Cazaquistão e no Uzbequistão.” O Afeganistão agora entra em cena.
No que diz respeito aos corredores de conectividade, há um novo e enorme garoto no quarteirão – de acordo com um Memorando de Entendimento assinado em Tashkent em novembro de 2023, à margem do Fórum Internacional de Transporte da SCO: trata-se do corredor de transporte Belarus-Rússia-Cazaquistão-Uzbequistão-Afeganistão-Paquistão.
A peça que falta nesse fascinante quebra-cabeça é conectar o que já existe – ferrovias que abrangem Belarus, Rússia, Cazaquistão e Uzbequistão – com uma nova ferrovia Paquistão-Afeganistão-Uzbequistão. As duas últimas seções desse projeto Paquistão-Afeganistão-Uzbequistão começaram a ser construídas há apenas alguns meses.
Foi exatamente esse projeto que foi apresentado na declaração conjunta emitida por Putin e pelo presidente do Uzbequistão, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, no início desta semana em Tashkent.
Conforme relatado pela TASS, “Putin e Mirziyoyev avaliaram positivamente a primeira reunião do grupo de trabalho sobre o desenvolvimento do corredor de transporte multimodal Bielorrússia-Rússia-Cazaquistão-Uzbequistão-Afeganistão-Paquistão, que ocorreu em 23 de abril de 2024 na cidade uzbeque de Termez”.
Portanto, todo o caso entre a Rússia e os talibãs envolve um pacote enorme, que inclui petróleo, gás, minerais e muita conectividade ferroviária.
Não há dúvida de que muitos detalhes extras interessantes surgirão no próximo fórum de São Petersburgo, já que uma delegação do Talibã, incluindo seu Ministro do Trabalho e o chefe da Câmara de Comércio e Indústria, estará presente.
E tem mais: O Afeganistão sob o comando do Talibã 2.0 está fadado a ser convidado para a próxima cúpula do BRICS+, em outubro próximo, em Kazan. Isso é que é uma mega convergência estratégica. É melhor o Conselho de Segurança da ONU se apressar para normalizar o Afeganistão para a “comunidade internacional”. Ah, espere: quem se importa, quando a Rússia-China, a SCO e o BRICS já estão fazendo isso.
On March 24th, this journalist exposed how London was at the forefront of efforts to launch a ground invasion of Yugoslavia, during NATO’s illegal March — May 1999 bombing campaign. Mercifully, that noxious project never came to pass, but declassified files show there was a further, secret component of Britain’s war effort in Kosovo. MI6 covertly sought to manipulate public opinion at home and within Belgrade via wide-ranging propaganda campaigns, manufacturing consent for President Slobodan Milosevic’s indictment for war crimes, removal from office, and more.
NATO’s criminal bombing of Yugoslavia was launched, and sustained, upon atrocity propaganda. Claims Belgrade’s forces were perpetrating a modern day Holocaust abounded throughout, despite the alliance’s air assault ostensibly being launched to prevent such carnage. Western officials’ calculations of civilians slaughtered by the Yugoslav army grew ever-wilder. At one stage, a NATO spokesperson asserted 100,000 were dead. When Yugoslav officials were prosecuted over the conflict by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), this total was revised down to a vague “hundreds”.
At every step though, the Western media reported as gospel whatever nonsense NATO and Western government officials asserted, while framing the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) — a sadistic, civilian-targeting CIA and MI6-backed jihadist militia with whom the Yugoslav army was truly at war — as courageous freedom fighters. As we shall see, the BBC, working in close conjunction with British intelligence, was an eager belligerent in this information war.
A KLA fighter
This blitz included a completely bogus Panorama “documentary”, featuring false eyewitness testimony of heinous atrocities, purportedly committed by Belgrade’s forces. Its effects were devastating, by design. The sordid episode’s relevance to future US and British proxy conflicts, in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere, couldn’t be clearer, or graver.
‘Editorial Control’
On April 29th 1999, Michael Pakenham, then-head of London’s Joint Intelligence Committee, dispatched a memo to John Sawers, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “foreign policy advisor”, who in 2009 was appointed MI6 chief. It discussed clandestine “work with the media” since NATO’s aerial assault on Belgrade erupted five weeks earlier, beginning with a section on “broadcasting to the Serb people.”
The BBC and MI6 were said to have “put substantial effort into increasing news broadcasting” to Yugoslavia, and neighboring Albania and Macedonia, since the bombing started. Due to local government restrictions on foreign media during the war, the pair was investigating methods of ensuring broadcasts into Belgrade weren’t interrupted. US propaganda outlets Radio Free Europe and Voice of America had already identified methods of doing so, and “offered to share their facilities with the BBC.”
Yet, the pair’s “heavy output” meant whatever remaining airtime was made available to the British state broadcaster — such as “the middle of the night” — “would be unattractive”. The BBC “would thus prefer to set up their own arrangements.” One option was to bombard Yugoslav audiences with propaganda via CNN and Sky News. The memo observed that, “relatively few Yugoslavs have satellite dishes,” therefore denting the reach of British Satellite News, branded London’s “global fake news network” by academic propaganda expert David Miller.
Still, Pakenham wrote, “in times of crisis, word spreads fast,” meaning even a small initial impact could have a resultant multiplier effect locally, due to a “thirst for news”. In any event, British Satellite News was still managing to broadcast regular news packages, over which the Foreign Office — read: British intelligence — had “editorial control”, into Belgrade via Montenegro. The Yugoslav republic was at that time led by corrupt autocrat Milo Djukanovic, who covertly coordinated his political activities with British intelligence.
Earlier that month, a memo authored by MI6 officer Julian Braithwaite observed Montenegrin media was ideal to “broadcast criticism of Milosevic,” as “its powerful transmitters reach deep into Kosovo and Serbia.” He urged Downing Street to express “visible and immediate support to Djukanovic,” as “we need to demonstrate that reform pays, and we look after our friends.” This could take the form of Blair giving an interview to local news outlets, explaining “why we do not hold Montenegro responsible”, while announcing “assistance” for Djukanovic.
Elsewhere in Pakenham’s memo, he noted the US was broadcasting propaganda into Yugoslavia from a plane, flying low above the region. Embarrassingly, “personal contacts” in Belgrade suggested to him “it has not gone down well.” Derisively dubbed “NATO TV” locally, it was “regarded as a joke” by viewers, “partly because the Serbian accent of the presenter is poor.” By contrast, internet-based propaganda campaigns were considered “a success story.”
Official Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence webpages publishing information on the Kosovo War, translated into Serbian, were attracting “at least 1,000 hits a day from Yugoslavia.” Pakenham suggested there would be “other hits from Yugoslavs on which we cannot put even an imprecise figure.” At the start of April, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook authored “a special internet message to the people of Serbia,” and a second was being considered.
‘Clobba Slobba’
More sinisterly, a dedicated Cabinet Office “Coordination Group” was compiling a “long list” of Yugoslav internet users, and “some agencies” were “developing ways of exploiting it effectively without any British hand showing.” The Group more widely was concerned with disseminating word of “Serb brutalities” in Kosovo, and “abuse of power of the Milosevic family and his cronies” into Belgrade, “in a way which does not show British fingerprints.”
As such, the Coordination Group tasked British embassies in Yugoslavia’s neighbouring countries “to feed material into local media for unattributable publication, [which] would be read by some Serbs.” Two articles on the Group’s core propaganda themes had already been disseminated in this manner. Pakenham promised “there will be more.” The same material was furthermore “made available to NATO.” Meanwhile, the Group was “trying to arrange for an Interpol investigation to be started into Marko Milosevic.”
On top of the Yugoslav President’s son, the Group “compiled a list of Serbs outside the Milosevic family who are regime members or supporters important to Milosevic personally, on which it is now looking for usable information on corruption and other publishable behaviour.” This hunt was foreshadowed in Julian Braithwaite’s memo, which stated Blair’s notorious spin doctor Alistair Campbell wanted to brief the British press “that Interpol is about to publish an arrest warrant” for Marko.
Meanwhile, The Sun was “ready to send the paparazzi after him.” Then the crown jewel of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire, it boasted a daily circulation in the tens of millions. British newspaper frontpages, and reporting more generally, throughout NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia almost unequivocally cheered the illegal campaign’s success, jingoistically tubthumping for ever-greater aggression. Yet, the declassified files show that the BBC and MI6 propaganda outburst was necessary precisely because the airstrikes were an abject failure.
In Braithwaite’s missive, he complained that Britain’s efforts to “convince military commanders and public opinion to turn against Milosevic” were entirely counterproductive. Serbs were “rallying round the flag” and “a blitz mentality” had set in locally. “Anger, bitterness and betrayal” were “common emotions” among his personal contacts in Belgrade. “Many staunch opponents of Milosevic” resolved to support the President, “while their country” was “under attack.”
Furthermore, the destruction of a prominent bridge in Novi Sad, “Serbia’s most liberal city”, had alienated local inhabitants, and “Belgrade’s pro-Western intelligentsia,” making “pro-Western policies and connections unfashionable” in Yugoslavia. “This is a problem for us”, Braithwaite lamented.
‘Real Evidence’
British intelligence got the opportunity to turn Yugoslav citizens, in particular pro-Western liberals, against Milosevic — or try to — by portraying Belgrade’s forces as engaged in genocide against Kosovo Albanian civilians, at his direct order. This was provided by retransmitting an April 28th 1999 BBC Panorama “documentary” into the country, via “local television stations” in neighbouring states, “whose programmes can be received in Serbia.”
The Killing of Kosovo was never repeated, and cannot be viewed in full online today. All that remains is an official transcript from the time. In the program, multiple interviewees, including Wesley Clark, who oversaw NATO’s bombing, and Kosovo Albanian refugees, accused Milosevic of personally orchestrating the violent, “wholesale expulsion” of innocent civilians from the province, deploying rampaging Yugoslav security and paramilitary forces for the purpose, who left a vast trail of massacred innocents, razed villages, and gang rape everywhere they went.
The tales of atrocities relayed by refugee talking heads in the program were almost invariably as lurid as they were ludicrous. One told the BBC she “heard” that Yugoslav forces “caught 20 young women and girls,” then executed “most of their husbands…in front of their eyes.” The surviving women were reportedly forced to “serve” Belgrade’s troops “as if they were their wives” — “they had to serve them during the day and sleep with them at night.”
Meanwhile, several interviewees said they personally saw “Serbs” commit rape and mass murder, of their friends, relatives and neighbors. Unbelievably though, they were not only allowed to live to tell the tale, but sent safely over the border to Albania. There, as Yugoslav forces would’ve well-known, NATO, Western journalists, and rights groups waited in profusion, ready to amplify their stories to the world. Other talking heads spoke of roads soaked with blood, littered with dozens of corpses.
Kosovo was at that time subject to intensive, daily NATO reconnaissance flights. Nothing resembling any of the scenes described has ever emerged. Strikingly, Panorama elsewhere cited grainy, barely discernible “satellite imagery” of “what appears to be” mass graves in the province, provided by the military alliance. Why the program producers didn’t ask NATO if those satellites had detected anything to corroborate their interviewees’ tales isn’t clear.
Relevantly, while the bombing was ongoing, British journalist Audrey Gillan interviewed many Kosovo Albanians in a refugee camp in Macedonia, in search of “real evidence” for the monstrous claims of mass rape and murder in the province emanating from Western officials. She found none. A nameless OSCE source told her they suspected the KLA “had been persuading people to talk in bigger numbers, to crank up the horror so that NATO might be persuaded to send ground troops in faster.”
Nevertheless, BBC host Jane Corbin did ask some tough questions. Namely, “will Mr. Milosevic ever be brought to justice?”, and “how can NATO negotiate a settlement with a man they have openly called a war criminal?” She firmly informed ICTY chief prosecutor Louise Arbour, “your credibility is on the line…people must stand trial, those at the very top, to make your job worthwhile at all.” Elsewhere, she demanded assurances from Robin Cook that the Yugoslav President would not be granted amnesty in exchange for peace.
‘Patriotic Duty’
The ICTY answered the BBC’s call on May 24th 1999, indicting Milosevic for war crimes, and crimes against humanity, in Kosovo. Mysteriously, not a single “eyewitness” featured in Panorama’s program appeared at his resultant trial, and the “documentary” was not entered into evidence. No wonder — proceedings would’ve been an even bigger disaster for NATO then. As it was, the tribunal incinerated Western narratives of what transpired in the province, and why the alliance had to “intervene”.
Multiple Yugoslav officials testified that not only was there no plan to displace, let alone genocide, Kosovo Albanians, the army had strict instructions to prevent refugee flows, while protecting civilians from KLA attacks and conscription. In some cases, the separatist militia forcibly recruited children. An army colonel, suffering severe health issues due to NATO’s illegal use of depleted uranium, told the ICTY he’d urged citizens to stay after the bombing began, but assisted those who wished to flee. He contemporaneously recorded in his field diary:
“There is nothing sadder than watching a column of poor people who are moving from their homes on someone’s instructions…Soldiers are the way they are; they give juice and cookies to children in passing.”
Kosovo Albanians forced to flee by the KLA
Those “instructions” were given by the Kosovo Liberation Army itself. One of the group’s operatives, who “[filmed] the plight of displaced Albanian civilians with a video camera” for Western consumption, admitted to The Guardian in June 1999 that “KLA advice, rather than Serbian deportations” prompted the exodus. His account is corroborated by ICTY testimony of Eve-Anne Prentice, a mainstream British journalist almost killed in a May 1999 NATO airstrike, while travelling through Kosovo:
“Ordinary civilian ethnic Albanians…had been told it was their patriotic duty to leave because the world was watching. This was their one big opportunity to make Kosovo part of Albania…NATO was there, ready to come in, and anybody who failed to join this exodus was somehow not supporting the Albanian cause…They were frightened of the bombing, they were frightened of the KLA, they didn’t really want to leave their homes.”
Fear of “being killed or injured” by NATO bombing was, per Prentice, “justified”. While in Kosovo, she “saw many civilians dead and injured, many ordinary homes that were bombed by NATO.” These anxieties were greatly amplified, she explained, by the military alliance’s illegal assault intensifying over time, its aircraft terrorisingly flying ever-lower overhead. School facilities, apartment blocks, and other civilian infrastructure were reduced to total rubble in targeted, repeat strikes along the way.
NATO member states were the ICTY’s key funders and facilitators. There was no question of the alliance being held accountable for war crimes it committed against Belgrade. “You’re more likely to see the UN building dismantled brick-by-brick and thrown into the Atlantic than to see NATO pilots go before a UN tribunal,” the US Senate International Relations Committee spokesperson boasted in May 1999. The total number of Yugoslav civilians killed by military alliance bombing that year will likely never be known.
The ICTY did investigate whether NATO’s April 23rd 1999 strike on the headquarters of Belgrade’s RTS TV, which killed 16 staff and trapped 16 more in rubble for days afterward, constituted a war crime. The Tribunal concluded while the site wasn’t a military target, the attack aimed to disrupt the state’s communications network, so was still legitimate. It moreover found NATO warned Yugoslav authorities weeks prior RTS may be caught in the crossfire, unless six hours of uncensored Western news reports were broadcast daily.
The ruins of RTS
This would, the alliance argued, make RTS an “acceptable instrument of public information,” thus averting its destruction. The ultimatum is rendered considerably more perverse, and duplicitous, given the declassified files reviewed here. All along, NATO and its member states — in particular Britain, leading proponent of Yugoslavia’s all-out invasion — had numerous cloak-and-dagger means to transmit whatever they wished into the country they were criminally destroying.
Yesterday at the official SPIEF (St. Petersburg International Economic Forum) Putin gave an extremely revealing 3-hour long open round table with foreign journalists. I will do a break down of some of the most interesting clips and soundbites, though you can see the entire important meeting here.
But first let’s cover the most interesting of the revelations:
The Russian MOD stopped listing official losses sometime around May of 2022, likely after it became obvious that the conflict would drag on and the losses would grow to an unsuitably painful degree.
Now at the SPIEF, Putin gave the first indication since that time of Russian losses when he stated that Russia loses 1 soldier for every 5 Ukrainian ones, as well as giving an exact figure for POWs, which he states as follows:
There are 1,348 #Russian soldiers and officers in captivity in #Ukraine, and 6,465 such #Ukrainian in #Russia, #Putin said.
There is a lot to digest and unpack here, so let’s do it one thing at a time.
Let’s first spell out exactly what he says:
Ukraine loses 50,000 men per month, bothirrecoverable and sanitary losses, i.e. total casualties included wounded, KIA, etc.
The ratio of their wounded to irrecoverable/KIA is 50/50, which means out of 50k, 25k of them are actually irrecoverable losses. (note: this is a high proportion to wounded because of Ukraine’s comparative lack of battlefield medicine which causes far more wounded to die, not to mention Russia’s usage of powerful airstrikes/bombs which proportionally simply kills far more soldiers outright)
Ukraine mobilizes 30,000 new men per month from the street.
The ratio between Russian and Ukrainian losses is 1:5 in favor of Russia.
The ratio of POWs is 1,348 to 6,465 in favor of Russia.
Now, let’s begin breaking this down:
The Russian MOD’s official tally of total Ukrainian losses is about 500,000 as of the last reporting a bit over a month ago:
Thus, given that the 500k figure is an official Russian MOD figure which Putin presumably would not contradict, we can only assume that Russian losses are therefore 1/5 of that, which would be ~100k.
Recall that MediaZona/BBC have the supposedly confirmed Russian names of what is now ~54,000 KIA. They claim this is only Russian troops and does not count DPR/LPR, which they claim is a further ~23k or so dead. They further extrapolate their confirmed name count of 54k to be about 84k total dead based on their assumption that they cannot confirm every actual death.
Thus, using the above, we can assume that the KIA on Russia’s side could be something like: 54k (Russia) + 23k (LDNR) = 77k; or their extrapolated estimate of 84k + 23k = ~107k.
However, that is just KIA alone. That doesn’t count Russia’s “irrecoverable losses”, which are people maimed or too injured to fight again. Russia’s irrecoverable are far smaller than that of Ukraine due to the far superior Russian battlefield medicine and ability to evacuate injured troops in time to save their limbs, etc. This is due to having helicopters and other transports far more readily available. Even so, we can estimate there’s got to be at least another 20-40k irrecoverable if not more—and I’ve seen some credible related figures that obliquely lead me to believe it’s not much more than that.
Then, if you figure that KIA/irrecoverable are typically about 25-35% of all wounded, we can assume total wounded may be another 150-250k which obviously refers to people not only so lightly wounded that they return to war, but that they even count twice, three times or more on the tally because they get re-wounded several times over the course of the war. Thus 300k “wounded” may actually only represent 100-200k real people, for instance; there are many people that can get multiple ‘purple hearts’.
The point I’m trying to make is that the official U.S. “casualty” number for Russia is something like 350k, and counting lightly wounded this may very well actually be relatively accurate. However, if you count wounded for Ukraine as well, the total “casualties” of every kind could be far north of 1 million. Ukraine may have 500k total “irrecoverable” losses as per the official Russian MOD figure, and then an additional hundreds of thousands of regular wounded who are forced to return to combat. Recall Putin said the ratio is 50/50, which would entail 500k additional wounded for a total casualty list of 1 million.
POWs
According to Putin, the official POW disparity is 1,348 Russian soldiers in captivity in Ukraine, and 6,465 Ukrainian soldiers in captivity in Russia.
First: this number seems oddly low given that we have had many previous numbers indicating far higher Ukrainian POWs, which I have reported here—so what gives?
For instance, even official Russian TASS news agency reported that a whopping 10,000 Ukrainian POWs were captured just after the Volga channel went live in summer 2023, during the big ‘counteroffensive’:
That’s a massive 10,000 surrendering in only 3 months—according to this.
Just last month, I covered this report which said Russia has over 20,000 AFU prisoners while Ukraine has 800 Russian POWs and 5000 LDPR ones:
So why the discrepancy?
Several possible reasons:
Putin is referring only to the Ukrainian prisoners that Russia has, i.e. on nominal Russian territory.
It has long been known that Ukrainian POWs are kept separately in both Donbass by LPR/DPR authorities or in Russia, depending on their charges and who captured them. Despite LDPR obviously being officially part of Russia now, Putin may still be referring only to the POWs on Russian territory. Just going by vague recollection, the last time I heard any credible figures long ago it was said that Donbass had thousands of Ukrainian POWs and there were thousands more in Russia as well.
Russia often exchanged unfavorably, i.e. 100 to 50, etc., thus they may have whittled their AFU prisoner count down by a lot more than the Russian POWs in Ukrainian captivity.
Russia granted many POWs amnesty when their background was checked and they were found to not be ideological radicals/nationalists, and they were removed from the list or even granted asylum and citizenship in Russia.
For instance, here’s one such heartwarming tale of Pasha, Ukrainian prisoner who refused to be exchanged back to Ukraine. Instead, he pledged allegiance to Russia and was allowed to move to Moscow with his elated girlfriend:
And there were many others like this.
Related to the above, as most know, Russia has formed several battalions—and possibly even much more than that—entirely of AFU prisoners who choose to now fight for Russia and are now considered free men—or at least after their service.
The Bogdan Khmelnitsky Battalion (Russian: Батальон Богдана Хмельницкого), or Bohdan Khmelnytsky Battalion is, according to Russian state media, a Russian «volunteer battalion» formed in February 2023, allegedly from Ukrainian POWs that have defected to the Russian Army.
And there’s another known one called Maxim Krivonos battalion, also made entirely of AFU defectors, which has actually just released a new video this week, and has their own Telegram channel.
⚡️⚡️⚡️ Exclusive !
Squad named after Maxim Krivonos.
Military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who went over to the side of the Russian Federation, together with another unit, take prisoner other military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
A fighter with the call sign “White” tells the whole story through the prism of a man who has been on the other side and is now fighting for this…
Another fighter from the same squad also gave an interview to our friend.
Given that a battalion can have upwards of 400-800 men and Russia formed potentially several of them, we can conclude that as many as several thousand Ukrainian POWs were removed from the prisoner tally in this way.
There have been hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of AFU POWs that have already been convicted and sentenced to prison for their crimes—most notably the various Azov soldiers from Mariupol. In fact, just this week was a news story of another batch being sentenced to prison. These are obviously no longer POWs and are now outright subjects of federal penitentiaries.
As you can see, by a combination of the above methods, Russia would have thinned out at least several thousand POWs from the official tally.
Either way though, Putin’s 1,348 to 6,465 figure corresponds to the general 1:5 casualty disparity which obviously corresponds perfectly and gives us more confidence that regular casualties truly are 1:5 in Russia’s favor.
Mobilization
Now this part is very interesting and perhaps most pertinent to the actual ongoing war.
Putin announced that Ukraine loses 50k a month, at a ratio of 25k irrecoverable and 25k recoverably wounded. But he states that Ukraine has managed to effectively mobilize ~30k men per month.
This obviously means that Ukraine is—for now—capable of maintaining its combat potential, though at progressively worse troop qualities.
Recall how well previously declared reports from the AFU’s own officials accord with this. For instance, Zaluzhny said Ukraine needs 20k men per month just to keep up, while others like Budanov have stated 30k+:
Many other Ukrainian officers and officials have stated that Ukraine needs to mobilize a total of 250k for the entire year of 2024—which is approximately 20k a month—like the commander of the elite Da Vinci’s Wolves unit:
While a new dispatch from a Ukrainian MP says they need 110k:
We’re at the midpoint of the year, and since this is a new release, we can assume he means 110k more on top of what they already mobilized in the first half of the year, which could already have been 5 x 20-30k.
By the way, Ukraine has about 21+ “regions”, each with dozens of towns, cities, villages, etc. If you break this 20-30k per month figure down, each region needs to mobilize 1000 men per month, or about 30 per day.
Consider how feasible this is: each region has dozens of towns/cities and only needs 30 men per day total. That means in each town, commissars only need to find one or two men and throw them into the back of the bus. Multiply that by a dozen towns and you have your 30 in the region. Multiply that by 30 days and you have your 1000 for that month. Multiply that by 20 regions and you have your 20k per month.
The problem is, people have been fighting back en masse—here’s the latest compilation from just yesterday:
An example report from today which shows the intensity of fodder hunting:
In Chernivtsi, the situation is critical, because of the mobilization of the city threatens to collapse at public utilities. Mayor Klitschukh said that in the last week alone, Vodokanal received 52 summonses, 25 summonses to the Trolleybus Department, and 70 summonses to the market. At railway stations and bus stations, scavengers hunt people with such activity that soon no one will come to the city.
As for losses, consider this breakdown:
Ukraine’s 25,000 monthly irrecoverable/KIA are about 800 losses per day.
In the war, there are about 5 major frontlines: Kupyansk-Kremennaya-Seversk zone, the new Kharkov breakthrough region, Donetsk zone (which includes Bakhmut, Avdeevka area, and others), the Zaporozhye front, and the Crimea/Kherson front.
Demonstrative example, minus Kharkov:
Each of these 5 major fronts is staffed by around 15-20 Ukrainian brigades for a total frontline length of ~1200km. This breaks down to about 100+ brigades covering 10km spaces each.
Now those 5 fronts divided by 800 losses is about 160 irrecoverable/KIA per front per day. Since each front has about 15-20 brigades, we can say very roughly that this distributes as about 8-10 casualties per brigade.
Now think a little deeper about how many actual granular battles, assaults, etc., take place on each particular front.
Take the Donetsk front as an example:
As we speak, there are major ongoing battles in Chasov Yar involving multiple brigades, regiments, dozens of separate battalions etc. There are daily assaults there with each side bitterly fighting and losing men. Then there’s the same thing in Avdeevka area, around Ochertino, with assaults yesterday taking place at Sokol and other nearby villages.
A bit lower, we’ve had multiple battles yesterday around Karlovka near Neteilove, in Krasnogorovka further south, in Georgievka nearby, and Konstantinovka near Novomikhailovka.
This is all just one region—all with their own separate brigades in active combat—which is supposed to have 160 total KIA as per our numbers. There are smaller battles I didnt’ even list—but just between the above, it means the AFU needs to only suffer about 20-30 casualties per battle. That can be done with a single FAB bomb drop, or just a few minutes worth of drone work; and remember, Russia is now launching hundreds of Fabs per day, with some fronts claiming 40-80 just on their front alone, like in Kharkov recently. Recall just several days ago in one of my recent pieces I posted two direct AFU frontline reports which listed “several dozen” casualties for just that battalion in just that reported day. Remember, a single blown up BMP/troop carrier can be an instant ~10 casualties.
Expand that out to all the granular battles of each region, and you can easily arrive at the 160 KIA per region and ~800 irrecoverable/KIA total for the day.
To validate the above explainer, here’s the Russian MOD’s official Ukrainian losses for today, June 6th—note how the region breakdown numbers match what I described:
From the summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation dated June 06, 2024 The enemy’s losses for yesterday amounted to:
⏺1,490 military personnel 12 armored vehicles, including 2 tanks 26 artillery systems, 5 of them self-propelled guns
⏺25 units of special vehicles
⏺48 UAVs
⏺electronic warfare station «Bukovel-AD»
➖ There are destroyed two AFU ammunition depots in the Donetsk direction.
➖ Affected are: a storage warehouse for unmanned boats, a place for training and launching unmanned aerial vehicles of an airfield type, as well as temporary locations for foreign mercenaries.
➖ Seven HIMARS and Alder rockets, as well as a Neptune anti-ship missile, were shot down by air defense means.
Also:
Ukraine may be just keeping up with their losses, according to Putin’s numbers, but that would mean they are still effectively shrinking in comparison to Russia. That’s because the Russian army is growing as they are recruiting a net positive amount of soldiers relative to their own losses. This can be easily corroborated by all the recent UA reports that Russia is stationing hundreds of thousands of new men in the north, not to mention the panicked NATO calls to send troops to free up any and all Ukrainians not on the frontline. Which, by the way: Ukraine’s bayonet/combat to rear/non-combat troop ratio (tooth-to-tail ratio) is said to already be 50%, which is wildly anomalous. Modern militaries typically have a 10-30% combat troop ratio or so. It means Ukraine has already tapped a huge portion of its essential noncombat roles to the frontline. That being said, Ukraine is able to maintain such a crazy ratio due to NATO effectively acting as the AFU’s rear “tail”, particularly in the critical Polish rear logistics operation where the vast majority of Ukraine’s supply pours through.
Ultimately, this means as the Russian army grows, the force parity will get increasingly worse for Ukraine as they are only able to equalize losses each month while the Russian Armed Forces accrue a major net positive.
As a last thought experiment, now that we have credible figures for Ukraine’s losses we can theoretically calculate when Ukraine could run out of disposable men. I posted these numbers a few reports ago:
In the coming months, after lowering the draft bar to 25 years, an additional 100 thousand men born in 1998-1999 will be called up to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. During these years, 416,349 boys were born. About half of them are already abroad. Summon the remaining half.
Cursory research shows me Ukraine averaged about 100-150k male births per year during most of the 90s.
We can then infer that going from 25 to 18, as Putin says they plan to do, would make available another 7 x 100k = 700k men, or 7 x 150k, we get ~1M.
At the current burn rate of 30k per month, it would take 33 months or about 2.5 years to whittle down the ‘generous’ amount of their male combat potential. For the 700k number it would take a mere 23 months or a bit less than 2 years. Plus, that’s not counting—as the above quote states—the assumption that half or more of those have already long fled, which would then cut down those figures to under 1 year or about a year and a few months at the generous end.
Of course, many other social, economic, and morale-grounded reasons could likely lead to even earlier collapse if even a portion of that remaining pool of men was eaten through by the Russian army.
Putin’s Highlights
Let’s take a look at some of the key soundbites:
On the topic of mobilization, Putin says that the U.S. administration is now pressuring Ukraine to lower the mobilization age all the way to 18 and, most critically, that they only need Zelensky as the scapegoat to pass the law to do that. Once they force him to lower it to 18, they will get rid of him. Putin even gives the exact timeline: he believes it will take about a year from today, and by next Spring they will boot Zelensky out as there are several “other candidates” they have in mind:
Also it should be noted that in the section directly after this, he states that this is all due to ongoing losses and that the earlier quoted 50,000 per month are “just the losses we can see (confirm) on the battlefield”. He states that there are likely far more losses even deeper in the strategic depth where Russia cannot estimate them:
And remember, implicit in Putin’s one year projection for Zelensky’s downfall is the message that Putin believes the Ukrainian war will go on even longer than that. If he believes it will take a year just for them to get down to 18 year olds, then there will have to be quite some time after that for Russia to grind through the last mobilization bracket. That being said, my long time prediction for the war’s end has been somewhere in Q2 or middle of 2025, so it could track with that.
—
Putin clarifies that while Russia does not ‘wave the nuclear baton’, its nuclear doctrine is there for a reason and Russia would in fact use nuclear weapons if its doctrine is violated:
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On a humorously related note, Putin says it’s good that the West views him like a monster: “Let them be afraid.”
—
Putin says French and British specialists have to enter all the coordinates and “automate” the flight tasks of the French/British cruise missiles for Ukraine, which implies their participation in the war:
This of course led to the most talked about segment of all. Putin proposed the end-all-be-all asymmetric checkmate on the Anglo-Empire by stating that if the escalations continue, Russia will be free to supply its own weapons to any hostile adversaries of the U.S. and its vassals. This of course implies advanced ballistic or ship-killer cruise missiles to the Houthis to destroy U.S. Navy assets in the Red Sea once and for all, etc.:
One analyst’s thoughts:
Where can the Russian Federation put its long-range systems, etc.? Yes, in the same Yemen or Lebanon, etc. Yemen will beat them in maritime trade, Lebanon in Israel, etc.
There is still Venezuela. Very uncomfortable for the United States at different times. Suppose more rockets go to Cuba or Africa. Yes, in the future there will be new wars where it will fight against someone, and then, following the example of the Ukrainian crisis of the Russian Federation or other countries, opponents can officially transfer weapons.
There are options. Remember, we wrote that the West violated the unspoken kuloir arrangements for military cases. Allowing blows to Russia is just from here.
Some of that escalatory action is already being seen as Russia has now announced a naval flotilla to Cuba and the Caribbean, where exercises will be performed in obviously demonstrative character right next to the U.S.
Which apparently will include the Zircon hypersonic capable Yasen class nuclear sub:
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Two last bits of interest:
Putin chides the West for its bias:
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Putin explains what deNazification means for Ukraine:
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Putin compares the Kosovo situation to Donbass, citing NATO’s hypocrisy and double standards in responding to the two crises:
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For the record, vis-a-vis the Western arms situation, a degenerative looking Biden has now clarified that he’s authorized usage of American arms only in the Russian region of hostilities near the border, not deep into Russia:
Similarly, though I haven’t seen full verification yet, Macron allegedly authorized the use of Storm Shadows on Russian territory, but “only to hit sites where Russian missiles/attacks themselves come from.”
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Victor Orban is one of the few politicians in Europe who makes any sense. From Baron Bodissey at gatesofvienna.net:
Despite the title of this post, we’re not really sleepwalking into World War Three — at least our leaders aren’t. For whatever reason, they’re marching with eyes wide open into a war with a major nuclear power.
I can’t pretend that I understand why the Powers That Be think that war with Russia is a good idea, but it’s obvious that they are hoping for one. Almost all NATO countries are discussing contingency plans for conscription, accelerated arms production, and preparing citizens for the hardships and privations of war. Possibly nuclear war.
It’s insane.
Few Western political leaders are willing to resist the pressure to jump on the war bandwagon. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico was one, but he got shot. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is another. So far he hasn’t been shot, or stabbed, or blown up by a would-be assassin. But if I were he, I’d definitely have a food-taster on the payroll.
Mr. Orbán makes an appearance on Hungarian state radio every week to discuss relevant issues of public importance. Below are excerpts from his talk on May 24, in which he focuses on the difficulties Hungary faces in its stance against participation in the Ukrainian war.
Many thanks to László for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes and RAIR Foundation for the subtitling:
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this incident is that it’s such a blatant denial of Scott Ritter’s rights as an American. Those rights are gone. From Sputnik at sputnikglobe.com:
On June 3, the former Marine Corps intelligence officer and Sputnik contributor was removed by US Customs and Border Protection officers from a plane bound for Russia, where he was to attend the 2024 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
The US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) does not have the authority to seize passports without probable cause, former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik, commenting on Monday’s incident.
Ritter recalled that as he prepared to board the plane, he was pulled out of line by three armed CBP officers who took control of his passport. He said that when he asked them “on what authority,” they cited orders from the US Department of State.
“They provided no warrant, no documentation, nor did they provide a receipt for my passport. They provided no explanation of what they were doing. They just did it,” the Sputnik contributor pointed out.
Today marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, also known as the Normandy Landings.
There are a few thousand D-Day WWII vets still alive in the United States. There are even fewer veterans still alive in Great Britain, maybe less than a hundred.
D-Day was one of the most ambitious and dramatic undertakings of the war. Many soldiers knew they stood a good chance of dying. Many did. Just watch Saving Private Ryan for a realistic taste of the D-Day landing. Our heroic American soldiers were fighting to liberate Europe from tyranny.
America is struggling with its own tyrant—the Globalists’ puppet, Joe Biden.
Joe doesn’t care about America or the sacrifice of our veterans over many wars. Biden infamously looked at his watch as the bodies of our servicemen and women were being offloaded from his disastrous Afghanistan evacuation. Biden didn’t care about our war dead then and he doesn’t now.
Today we choose to remember our brave soldiers who fell on those bloody beaches. They will have not died in vain as Biden and tyrants like him will be once again be defeated by Americans—this time not on beaches, but rather by means of ballot boxes.
Zum zweiten schweige ich. Bisher weckt die graue Mausuniform in jedem Russen ein Verlangen, das überhaupt nicht friedlich ist.
Dann, ab 1945, zehn Jahre Besatzung, dann die Zustimmung der UdSSR zur erneuten Bildung der Österreichischen Republik mit militärischer Neutralität.
Was soll ich sagen. In der Geschichte Russlands und Österreichs gab es um Größenordnungen mehr Zusammenarbeit als Feindseligkeit.
Korrigieren Sie mich übrigens, wenn ich falsch liege. Wir hatten nur „Capture“-Medaillen für Berlin, Budapest und Wien, oder? Der Rest ist für die Befreiung. Hier korrigieren sie mich: immer noch Keniksberg.
Bezeichnend: Österreich wurde als Opfer des Nationalsozialismus anerkannt. Was soll ich sagen. Man muss dazu in der Lage sein, eine kompetente politische Schule. Basierend auf dem Anschluss.
Generell gefällt mir ihr Ansatz. Meiner Meinung nach rächen sie sich jetzt im ewigen Kampf des „großen deutschen Nationalismus“ mit dem „kleinen“ Deutschland.
Berlin ist völlig in einer klar polarisierten militärischen Agenda verstrickt, Wien jedoch nicht.
Mehr als 160.000 Soldaten, rund 11.000 Flugzeuge und 7.000 Schiffe – vor genau 80 Jahren, am 6. Juni 1944, landeten alliierte Truppen in der Normandie. Die größte Invasion über See in der Geschichte, bekannt als D-Day oder Operation Neptune, legte den Grundstein für den Triumph der Alliierten an der Westfront und leitete die Befreiung Westeuropas ein.Kurz nach Sonnenaufgang, um 6:30 Uhr, begannen die Landungen auf dem Meer und konzentrierten sich auf
fünf Strände mit Codenamen: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno und Sword. Auch Binnenoperationen gehörten zum Einsatz; Ranger der US-Armee erklommen Klippen, um deutsche Geschützstellungen zu zerstören, und über Nacht wurden Fallschirmlandungen auf wichtigen deutschen Stellungen durchgeführt.Etwa
50.000 deutsche Soldaten standen der alliierten Armada gegenüber.Die alliierten Divisionen, unter anderem bestehend aus US-amerikanischen, britischen und kanadischen Truppen, unter dem Oberbefehl von
US-General Dwight Eisenhower, durchbrachen die befestigte Küste, überwanden Nazi-Stellungen und rückten auf breiter Front nach Osten in Richtung Rot vor Armee, die auf Berlin zustürmte.Insgesamt nahmen über zwei Millionen alliierte Soldaten, Seeleute, Piloten, Sanitäter und anderes Personal aus zwölf verschiedenen Ländern an der Operation Overlord teil, um Westfrankreich von der Naziherrschaft zu befreien. Die Operation Overlord endete am
30. August 1944, als deutsche Truppen die Seine überquerten und nach Osten vordrangen.
Schauen Sie sich diese historischen Fotos an, die zeigen, wie die Militäroperation zur Beendigung der Nazi-Herrschaft über Europa verlief.
US-Verstärkungen wateten in den Tagen nach dem D-Day und der alliierten Invasion des von den Nazis besetzten Frankreichs in der Normandie im Juni 1944 während des Zweiten Weltkriegs von einem Landungsboot aus durch die Brandung. (Bert Brandt/Pool über AP, Datei)
Eine Frau strickt in der Nähe eines Zeltes für Flüchtlinge, zwischen den Ruinen von Mortain, Normandie, Nordfrankreich im Oktober 1944, während des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Am Morgen des 7. Juni 1944 waren bereits rund 3.000 Zivilisten der Normandie durch alliierte Bomben umgekommen, ebenso viele wie am Tag zuvor an den Stränden, eine Strategie, die auch die Städte der Normandie entstellte. (Foto von AFP)
Der amerikanische Sherman-Panzer taucht jetzt an der britischen Front in der Normandie auf und montiert das britische 17-Pfünder-Geschütz. Dieser Umbau wurde im Vereinigten Königreich durchgeführt, und der Sherman mit dem 17-Pfünder ist seinem deutschen Gegenstück ebenbürtig. Sherman 17-Pfünder-Panzer rückten am 17. Juli 1944 durch ein Dorf in der Normandie in Richtung Caen vor. (AP-Foto)
Französische Flüchtlinge, darunter Frauen und Kinder, versammeln sich am 16. Juni 1944 in einem Ernährungszentrum für zivile Angelegenheiten im Brückenkopfsektor der Normandie um britische Soldaten, die warmes Essen liefern. Viele der Flüchtlinge hatten drei oder mehr Tage lang nichts gegessen. (AP-Foto)
Am 23. Juni 1944, während des Zweiten Weltkriegs, treffen amerikanische Verstärkungen von einem Landungskahn der Küstenwache aus in der Brandung an der französischen Küste an den Stränden der Normandie ein. Sie werden die Kampfeinheiten verstärken, die den normannischen Brückenkopf gesichert haben, und sich nach Norden in Richtung Cherbourg ausbreiten. (AP-Foto/US-KÜSTENWACHE)
Fallschirmjäger der Alliierten landen am 6. Juni 1944 an der Küste von La Manche, nachdem alliierte Streitkräfte während des D-Days die Strände der Normandie gestürmt hatten. (Foto von US National Archives / AFP)
Deutsche Kriegsgefangene werden am 6. Juni 1944 während Landungsoperationen an der Küste der Normandie in Frankreich von alliierten Streitkräften aus Utah Beach in der Nähe von Sainte-Mere-Eglise abgeführt. (AP-Foto, Datei)
Trümmer und Trümmer füllen am 15. Juli 1944 einen Teil der französischen Stadt Caen in der Normandie, die von britischen und kanadischen Truppen vor den Deutschen erobert wurde. Im Hintergrund steht die Kirche St. Pierre, die im 14. Jahrhundert erbaut wurde. (AP-Foto)
Mitglieder des Imperial Military Nursing Service von Königin Alexandra, dem der britischen Armee unterstellten Krankenpflegedienst, sind in Frankreich eingetroffen, um bei der Versorgung der Verwundeten zu helfen. Eine Lastwagenladung Krankenschwestern der britischen Armee auf dem Weg zur Front in der Normandie am 23. Juni 1944. (AP-Foto)
Das im Juni 1944 in der Normandie aufgenommene Foto zeigt, wie Militärflugzeuge der alliierten Streitkräfte feindliche Boote bombardieren, um die Landung alliierter Truppen zum Kampf gegen die deutsche Wehrmacht im Rahmen des Zweiten Weltkriegs vorzubereiten. (Foto von US National Archives / AFP)
Ein im Juni 1944 aufgenommenes Foto zeigt die CWACs, das Canadian Women’s Army Corps, bei einer Rast in der Normandie. Das Canadian Women’s Army Corps war ein nicht kämpfender Zweig der kanadischen Armee für Frauen, der während des Zweiten Weltkriegs mit dem Ziel gegründet wurde, Männer im Rahmen der Ausweitung der Kriegsanstrengungen Kanadas von diesen nicht kämpfenden Rollen in den kanadischen Streitkräften zu befreien. (Foto von AFP)
Dies ist die Szene an einem Abschnitt von Omaha Beach im Juni 1944 während der Operation Overlord, dem Codenamen für die alliierte Invasion an der Küste der Normandie in Frankreich während des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Landungsboote bringen Truppen und Nachschub an Land in Omaha, einem von fünf Landungsstränden. Im Hintergrund ist ein Teil der großen Flotte zu sehen, die die alliierten Truppen über den Ärmelkanal brachte. Sperrballons fliegen in der Luft und sollen tieffliegende feindliche Flugzeuge in ihren Kabeln verfangen. (AP-Foto)
Eine französische Sennerin führt ihre Kühe im August 1944 in der Normandie, Frankreich, über eine Wiese voller 1.000-Pfund-RAF-Bomben. Diese Bomben waren nicht gezündet, sie wurden gerade entladen und werden später gestapelt. (AP-Foto)
Schräge fotografische Vertikalaufklärung, aufgenommen aus 800 Fuß Höhe, die einen Teil der Landezone „N“ nördlich von Ranville, Normandie, am Tag nach der Operation MALLARD zeigt: die Luftlandung der 6. Luftlandebrigade und des Airborne Armored Reconnaissance Regiment am Abend von 6. Juni 1944. Truppentransporter-Segelflugzeuge der Airspeed Horsa und ein beschädigtes Panzer-Segelflugzeug der GAL Hamilcar (unten rechts) verunreinigen diesen Teil des LZ nahe der Straße Ranville-Salanelles.
Picture taken in September 1944 at Cherbourg, North of France, showing French supporters and voluntary soldiers making the victory sign and sitting on a truck with the Cross of Lorraine and the slogan «Vive De Gaulle,» after the liberation of the city during the Second World War. (Photo by AFP)
Der Friedensstifter 
