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For over two years now we’ve been reading, listening and watching the mainstream propaganda machine’s laughable claims about “Russia losing”, with the likes of the New York Times effectively becoming tabloids in all but name only with reports that Russia supposedly “lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers”. Simultaneously, they kept parroting the Neo-Nazi junta’s official numbers about “just over 30,000 of its own soldiers who have been KIA” (killed in action).
However, ever since last year’s much-touted counteroffensive failed, they low-key started changing that narrative.
In the last few months, that effectively turned into a full panic mode, with either “doomsday scenarios” popping up or the “Ukraine war” sections, previously overflowing with reports about the Kiev regime’s PR “victories”, now replaced by regular updates about the solar eclipse.
However, ignoring reality won’t change it and a lot of people have questions about the situation on the ground. Why is Russia winning “all of a sudden”? Why are the sanctions not working? Better yet, why is there an opposite effect, with Moscow’s economy breaking records and becoming the largest in Europe, while the political West is going through an unraveling of sorts? And yet, instead of looking in the mirror and finding a way to actually deal with all that, the US-led power pole is resorting to more of the same – good old war propaganda. Namely, the troubled Biden administration is now insisting that “Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily”. Last week, on April 3, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said so at an event hosted by the infamous pro-Democrat and neoliberal extremist/warmongering neocon mix Center for New American Security (CNAS).
“We have assessed over the course of the last couple of months that Russia has almost completely reconstituted militarily,” Campbell stated.
He added this happened despite the political West’s sanctions that were supposed to “dent [Russian] military supplies, funding and capabilities”. Defense News found Campbell’s assessment quite surprising, as it “contradicts those of the Pentagon and America’s allies in Europe”. Namely, just last month, during the 20th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that “at least 315,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded” since the special military operation (SMO) started. He also added that Russia has allegedly spent “up to $211 billion to equip, deploy, maintain and sustain” its forces in Ukraine and that this will supposedly cost it “$1.3 trillion in previously anticipated economic growth through 2026”. If the numbers are true, that would be quite impressive for a country that’s supposed to be a “gas station with nukes“.
However, given the history of the US-led political West’s blatant lies about pretty much anything, one must take such claims with a truckload of salt. In fact, these numbers may very well be an admission of NATO’s own expenses and the Neo-Nazi junta’s losses, as both usually just flip the actual figures and report the ones they don’t like as Moscow’s supposed “losses”. Expectedly, the advance of Russian troops in several sectors of the frontline is attributed to the “drop in American aid, leading to ammunition shortages on Ukraine’s front lines”. Interestingly, Austin’s claims were preceded by other Western officials’ laughable statements that Moscow’s forces would “take years to rebuild”. Namely, back in mid-January, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, Chair of the National Security and Defense Committee in the Lithuanian Parliament, said it would “take Russia 5-7 years to reconstitute its forces”.
And yet, Campbell’s assessment suggests this happened in just two months. This pretty much tells you all you need to know about “well-informed Western officials”. Defense News attributes the “rebuilding process” to the rise in Russian defense spending, assessing it now stands at 6% of Moscow’s GDP. However, isn’t its economy “in tatters”, and if that’s the case, how come that the “evil Kremlin” is able to increase spending? All this shows that the mainstream propaganda machine keeps getting caught in the web of its own lies and “reality bubbles”. However, as those keep bursting, the political West is desperately trying to (re)construct its propaganda narratives for domestic consumption. It now goes as far as to blame Russia’s resilience on not only China, but also North Korea and Iran. Both Campbell and another senior official of the troubled Biden administration said so.
“We’ve really seen the [People’s Republic of China] start to help to rebuild Russia’s defense industrial base, essentially backfilling the trade from European partners that lapsed when Russia invaded,” the other official said, speaking with reporters this week on the condition of anonymity.
President Joe Biden reportedly raised the issue in a call with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, while US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did the same during a recent visit to China. However, Beijing seems completely unconcerned, as it has repeatedly stated that Washington DC’s threats regarding its close ties with Moscow mean nothing, particularly as the United States and its vassals and satellite states keep escalating their aggression in the Asia-Pacific. It seems that simply maintaining normal economic and financial relations with Russia now boils down to “helping” its efforts to push back against NATO aggression in Europe. After all, even if countries like China, Iran and North Korea are building closer ties with their northern neighbor, it can only be expected that countries that the political West keeps threatening will find ways to unite their forces and push back together.
Interestingly, the Defense News report also effectively admits the staggering losses of the Neo-Nazi junta, as it claims that “Moscow’s success has added pressure to the government in Kyiv, which this week lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 amid losses on the frontlines”. If the Kiev regime’s manpower losses amount to only 31,000 KIA, they certainly wouldn’t be lowering the age for forced conscription. Worse yet, it’s now even considering the possibility to tap into over three million childless Ukrainian women, demonstrating once again just how desperate it is. However, manpower alone doesn’t mean much if around 80-85% of soldiers on both sides die due to artillery, drones and long-range weapons. And the battlefield data shows that on average, precisely Russia has a 10:1 advantage in all those systems, which further explains the Neo-Nazi junta’s staggering losses.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from InfoBrics
