Let’s begin with the tragic event that has eclipsed everything else: a large terrorist attack on a packed Friday night shopping center at the outskirts of Moscow. But while there are many dead, and the event is clearly momentous, there is actually not much of substance to be said on it yet, without rehashing the same baseless gun-jumping discussions from Twitter and elsewhere.
There’s simply too little solid verifiable information, so we’ll only gloss it over for now, and tie it into events on the ground in Ukraine at the end.
The more directly salient events occurred last night, when Russia launched one of the larger and more impactful strikes of the war, hitting numerous Ukrainian hydro-electric power plants, including the big one in Dnipro—one of the largest in Europe—Zaporozhye, and a plant in Kharkov, as well as dozens of other military production sites in Kiev and west Ukraine.
The city of Kharkov was said to be entirely de-energized and even Ukrainian figures again confessed that little of the strikes was actually stopped by AD:
The important question revolves around why these sudden attacks?
There are a few possibilities:
1. It’s merely part of the pre-planned campaign to degrade Ukraine’s infrastructure, particularly in advance of a planned larger Spring military campaign. The attacks’ association with Ukraine’s recent provocations, i.e. terror strikes on Belgorod, are merely coincidental.
2. The strikes are a direct response to Ukraine’s recent provocations, including targeting of Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure, terrorist actions against Belgorod region, etc. This is Putin’s way of signaling to Ukraine that they’ve crossed a red line.
3. Or a combination of the two.
One of the reasons for the third option being most likely is that it’s very plausible that Russia was forced by political necessities to make at least some kind of show of repaying all the recent criminal actions of the Kiev regime.
However, at the same time, there are increasing reports about various Russian mass buildups and preparations for a large offensive later this year. One of the interesting little mentioned aspects is that—if you’ll recall—both before and after Kakhovka dam was destroyed, Ukraine played water level games with the Dnipro dam, by opening the sluices to further exacerbate the flooding and destroy Russian positions all along the Dnieper River.
But what the Biden admin doesn’t want is for Putin to go “gloves off” and turn Ukraine into a giant skidmark on the eve of what could be a historically catastrophic election for the Democrats.
Unfortunately, they may have been too late, as Peskov has apparently let the cat out of the bag last night, seemingly inaugurating Russia’s new posture toward the conflict when he announced that this is no longer a Special Military Operation, but is now a proper War:
Here’s the actual clip:
Naturally, many are making a big deal out of this. Some even believe Putin will soon “declare war”—as always—on Ukraine, because now that his election is over, and his six years’ rule solidified, he can act with a “free hand” and really ratchet up the war without fear of political repercussions. That could be, or it may very well be Peskov putting his foot in his mouth again
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