By The Saker - January 2, 2023

There is no doubt that NATO is trying hard to escalate the war in the Ukraine. Just before the end of the year there were two drones strikes against a major Aerospace Forces base in Engels. The attacks were not very successful, but Russians did die when shrapnel hit a fuel truck which exploded. The importance of that attack was that Engels is located deep inside Russia.

Then there were assorted small attacks against various Russian border posts and towns near the Russian border.

And now this on one day:

Ukrainian drone hits energy facility inside Russia – governor
https://www.rt.com/russia/569285-ukraine-drone-bryansk-fire/

and

Dozens dead in Ukrainian strike on Russian troops – Moscow
https://www.rt.com/russia/569298-makeevka-strike-ukraine-casualties/

What is left of Russian barracks in Makeevka following a HIMARS strike

Let’s first deal with the second headline. The first thing we need to say is that this was clearly a legal target under the laws of war: NATO hit Russian military personnel, and that is a fully legal target. However, if we look just a tad deeper, we realize that the HIMARS attack was clearly conducted by western “volunteers/advisors”, that is to say NATO personnel who took off their uniform and are under cover. Still, this is still yet another direct NATO attack on Russian soldiers.

[Sidebar: this is the type of attack HIMARS are very good at: precision strikes against fragile targets. HIMARS has very good range and precision, but their warheads are too small to successfully take out harder targets, such as bridges or bunkers. HIMARS, especially backed by the full US/NATO C4ISR capabilities, do represent a major threat to any “soft” targets like, in this case, wooden barracks]

I would note that only a clueless civilian could expect NATO to never do anything, offer no resistance, take no counter-measures, never succeed or hit Russians were in hurts. The truth in warfare is that the enemy will shoot back (at least in a real war, not a counter-insurgency operation against a vastly inferior adversary).

But what about the rest of these strikes, especially those aimed at Russian territory (as it was before the liberation of Ukrainian regions)?

So we need to ask a basic question: what is the goal of these strikes?

Let’s begin with some truisms:

First, none of these strikes will make ANY difference on the actual course of this war. Just like the Israeli strikes against Lebanon or Syria (latest one today, killed two Syrians and damaged the facilities). However, while the Israeli strikes on Syria are for “psychotherapeutic reasons” (I have explained that MANY times in the past), this is not the case with NATO strikes, including the “non-claimed” ones against Engels.

Second, after each of these strikes many people will wonder what Russia will do about it. The precedent is the attack on the Crimean bridge which gave Russia a pretext to switch off the lights in Banderastan. And yes, it was clearly only a pretext, as such massive strikes campaign cannot be quickly planned and executed in a few hours/days. The self-evident truth is that the Russians were quite ready to unleash their strikes long BEFORE the Crimean Bridge attack, but that they were more than happy to have that attack as a pretext (as opposed to a *reason*) to strike.

And, if you wonder, Russia is still conducting such strikes on a daily basis, including strikes involving hundreds of missiles! These follow on strikes are almost not reported in the western media because 1) “Ze” banned any images/videos of the results of these strikes and 2) reporting their true magnitude would undermine the official narrative (including the one about Russia running out of ammo).

Still, NATO does not act just to show that it can act. There is a real, military, purpose behind these strikes. And it is not “just” to provoke Russia into some kind of response (not with tens and even hundreds of Russian missile strikes every day already taking place).

The war is already going on, the Russians are already fighting along a very long frontline, the Russian Aerospace Forces are already striking targets over the entire Ukraine, so what is there more to provoke/trigger?

I submit that there is only one thing which the Russians have not done yet, and that is the fullscale combined arms operation the Russian General Staff is obviously preparing. And since this major offensive is almost certain to happen, the only thing which such NATO strikes could affect is the timing of the attack. And since there is no way that these NATO (pinprick) strikes could delay the Russian offensive, their only possibly goal would be to make it happen sooner.

Why would NATO want the Russian offensive sooner rather than later? In all its other actions, the AngloZionists have tried to draw out this war for as long as possible, so why would they want to make the Russians attack sooner rather than later?

Because the Russian General Staff is waiting for all the “ducks to be lined” up before attacking. Thus by trying to force the Russians into a premature attack date, NATO is, very logically, trying to prevent all the said “ducks” to be “lined up”. In other words, NATO is trying to force the hand of the Russian General Staff by increasing the pressure on the Kremlin to “finally take action”.

Trying to force your enemy into a premature attack makes perfect military sense (as would any effort to seize the initiative and impose your tempo on your enemy).

These efforts are greatly aided by the following categories:

- Civilians who don’t understand warfare
- Infantiles who get outraged every time NATO successfully strikes Russian targets
- Western (fake) “friends of Russia” who mantrically repeat that “Putin is weak/indicisive/naive/fill_the_blank“
- Western PSYOPS who want to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubts) in the Russian general public

These four groups form a rather loud crowd who act EXACTLY as the AngloZionist want them to.

So how effective are these NATO efforts?

Here we need to mention a deep cultural difference between the Russian society and the western one: most Russians have a much better understanding of war than the folks in the West. This is true for civilians all the way through the generals. There are many reasons for that, but just to name a few:

- Many Russians have military training (basic or more advanced)
- Almost every Russian has lost family members during WWII and, therefore, know how ugly war is.
- Russian culture, from books to movies, is chock full of war stories, and not of the Tom Clancy type, but the real thing.
- Wars in Chechnia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Georgia, Syria, Armenia and many more conflicts have “educated” the Russian society about the painful realities of war.

Unlike the hallucinations of the (fake) “friends of Russia” in the West, the “Strelkovites” and other assorted “allislosters” in Russia have very little traction or credibility with the Russian general public. Simply put – Russians trust Surovikin (and Putin!) much, much, more than these hysterical FUDers because they instinctively feel that what is needed is not anger, but focus.

Conclusion:

NATO is trying really hard to force the Russians into a “NATO schedule” and out of their planned schedule. An added beneficial side-effect from such “for optics only” strikes is to give the morons in Congress a rationale to put even more money into the US MIC.

As for forcing Russia to attack in suboptimal conditions, that won’t happen . . .

[SNIP]