What follows is an update on the Russian SMO (Special Military Operation) in Ukraine, now starting its fourth month. Like many readers, we all wonder how much longer it will continue. Perhaps astrology can offer some clues. As of this writing the Azov group has surrendered from their siege in the bowels of the Azovstal plant and the remaining Ukrainian troops in the Donbas republics are being pounded by the Russian and Donbas forces. Their end is nigh, either through surrender or other means.
As a result, it is crunch time in Kiev. The Western narrative about the conflict is beginning to fall apart, reflecting growing divisions among the Western elites. To start, Russia is not at war with Ukraine, strange as that might sound. It is not a conflict that is intended to ‘defeat Ukraine’ or to unseat Zelenskyy. It is more correctly called a police action. This may seem to be splitting hairs and to be Russian propaganda, but a true war between Ukraine and Russia would look very different from what we are seeing. What we see instead is a slow, boring (to the media) grind every day as the Russians pursue their objectives – demilitarization and de-Nazification. Russia has stated those objectives clearly from the start.
With the preceding in mind, watch what the mainstream media is saying, as well as what they are not saying. There are no new stories about atrocities by the Russians, for instance, and haven’t been for the past few weeks. There have been no stories about atrocities committed by Ukrainians at all in the mainstream press, either, but that is usual for war propaganda. Instead, we are seeing fewer and fewer propaganda pieces about ‘Ukrainian victories’ which are not true to the facts. What this tells us is there has been a shift in the narrative.
What we have heard instead is Lloyd Austin calling Sergei Shoigu and calling for a ceasefire. And then there was a recent call by Mark Milley to Valery Gerasimov, the Chiefs of Staff of their respective nations. One does not call one’s opponent making such demands and talking if one is winning. The preceding is leading us to a point of consideration.
Then, we just had the report of the Azovstal ‘evacuation’, which is in fact a surrender to the Russian and Donbas forces, where an estimated 2,500 Azov and Ukrainian forces had been holed up for the past two months. All 2439 of them have surrendered, which included 78 women of the Azov or Ukrainian military. Then as well, there have been major military breakthroughs by the Russian forces in key strategic cities, and there is a lack of any reports from the Ukrainian side of any major factual military victories, the recent failure of Ukraine to re-take Snake Island and so on.
Then, on the economic front, Ukraine is broke. Biden’s request for $40 billion in aid to Ukraine was stalled because of Rand Paul in the Senate, with several senators questioning why it is even needed. But it was eventually passed, much to the shame of Congress. Better to spend it on weapons and in Ukraine than on infrastructure and feeding our babies, we are told. But then, the great bulk of that, even, will not be going to weapons for Ukraine. It will be doled out as follows:
“$8.7 billion will go to replenish the US weapons stockpile (thus not going to Ukraine at all); $3.9 billion for USEUCOM (the ‘office’ that dictates military tactics to Kiev); $5 billion for a fuzzy, unspecified “global food supply chain”; $6 billion for actual weapons and “training” to Ukraine; $9 billion in “economic assistance” (which will disappear into selected pockets); and $0.9 billion for refugees.”
In other words, the 40 billion will be a giveaway to other agencies and arms manufacturers instead of going to help the troops in Ukraine. The Ukrainian army only get 15% of that for their heavy weapons. The total we have spent or tried to in Ukraine (we, being the US taxpayer) is around $53 billion. We are paying the salaries of the Ukrainian military, so of the $53 billion, most of that goes to US arms manufacturers and Ukrainian military salaries and replacing the old weaponry we have sent to Ukraine. That is approaching what the Russians spend on their entire military in a year.
Lastly, Europe has no more sanctions to levy on Russia. The Europeans are now at the limit of what they can do economically to damage Russia and the latest tranche (the 6th lot) has been blocked. As well, Turkey has blocked Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO and Croatia has threatened to do so as well. On top of that, nation after nation in the EU is acceding to the Russian demands to pay for Russian resources in rubles, thus bypassing their own sanctions. And the ruble is now the best-performing currency in the world.
None of these remarks paint a picture of a nation like Ukraine that can win a war with Russia, and NATO will not be putting troops in Ukraine – not openly, anyway. So, what gives? What does the astrology show? The chart for 17 May with directions and transits is below (bigger):
The major points to note are the work of Saturn and Pluto. The directions show the prevailing conditions and undercurrents driving events. We see directed Saturn semisquare the Ukraine Ascendant, showing the heaviness of the public mood and the decisions that have to be made regarding the conflict. The directed Ascendant will begin to square natal Pluto in a month, and that is when the situation in Ukraine will begin to shift more dramatically, as in public opinion beginning to run counter to the government, the government (MC) being ruled by Pluto.
The direction of the Mercury/Jupiter conjunction (representing the high optimism and major spin factor in evidence for the past year) to Mars is now all but finished, with the Saturn influence taking its place. A serious reality check is about to take place in Ukraine.
The same conjunction, just mentioned, is conjunct Ukraine’s Vertex. In fact, those are also joined in a stellium in Leo in the 7th house with Venus and the Sun, showing the natural high optimism, overt pride in their nationality, and overconfidence. That stellium also shows the beauty of the land and Ukraine’s ability to forge partnerships with other nations. It gives them great attractive power and the ability to draw people into their cause, as we have seen since the start of the intervention. That is now beginning to turn sour. We would again expect the influence of Saturn, and indeed there is, by transit.
Transiting Saturn will oppose the stellium (already is, though not exact) and make its retrograde station there in a couple of weeks. Public support outside of Ukraine is waning. Middle class British people, for instance, are starting to turn Ukrainian refugees away. ‘Ukraine fatigue’ across the West is setting in. Americans, Italians and people of many European nations are questioning sanctions and policies regarding Russia, especially regards sending Ukraine weapons.
There was a recent mass shooting in the US, for instance, by a young man who was a fan of the Azov clan. The EU has emptied its warehouses of weaponry to send to Ukraine, and most of it is generally useless to Ukrainian troops anyway. Now the EU faces large expenses to rearm if they wanted to at a time when the EU is really strapped financially and facing huge supply issues.
And inside Ukraine as well, we see women starting to protest the conscription of their men, with large numbers of those men unfit for combat, thrown to the front with little training and even less battle experience. The best troops are in the Donbas and were in Mariupol, which is now totally under Russian control.
There is one more factor to consider regarding Saturn, and probably the most important, and that is the transit of Saturn quincunx Ukraine’s Mars. That transit shows a very jumpy vitality, especially as Mars represents the military in a national chart. The Saturn transit will basically be in effect off and on for the rest of this year and through January next year. The retrograde period of the transit squares the Meridian axis at the start of September.
Saturn makes its retrograde station quincunx to Mars within minutes of orb on 5th of June. We might expect a collapse of the major part of the Ukrainian military around that time. It is already collapsing in real time, from a lack of leadership and wholly untrained troops being sent to the front lines. Mass surrenders are taking place. Troop losses due to death and injury amount to about 1,500 Ukrainian troops daily. To say morale is low among the Ukrainian regular army would be understating the matter. And all the time Saturn has made its transit opposite the stellium it has been transiting on Ukraine’s Moon, one of the more difficult transits one can experience. So, what has just happened?
With the collapse of the Azov group in Mariupol this is a very big deal for the people of the Donbas, because Mariupol was the base for the Azov, from which the Donbas was besieged since 2014. The Azov was supposedly the best of the best of the militant groups in terms of their militarism. It is worth noting they were not a part of the regular Ukrainian military. Now that they have surrendered the Russians will step up their efforts against the remainder of the Ukrainian troops in the Donbas. Casualties on the Ukrainian side are expected to be high. And some very interesting information is set to come out from the bowels of Azovstal. This is one indication of the directed Ascendant square to Pluto. Pluto rules the underworld.
Try as they might, the Ukrainians and Western news services have spun events at Azovstal as an ‘evacuation’, with ‘mission accomplished’. No one in independent media is buying the story. The running meme in social media regarding the ‘evacuation’ story is “I laughed my Azov!” Those Ukrainian troops have been ‘evacuated’ to the Donbas, with a few being taken directly to Russian facilities, where they will be treated (for the wounded), photographed, documents checked, identified, interrogated and possibly face war crimes charges. The Donbas is Russian territory now, for all intents and purposes.
The regular marines who were at Azovstal will probably be exchanged for Russian POWs at some point. The Azov crowd will probably find themselves building cities in Siberia, if they make it out of the Donbas alive. Some ‘evacuation’, but spin is a big part of war.
As for the Americans and Europeans, what are they to expect? And what is their Plan B, since Ukraine is not working out very well for them? There are many theories floating around about what Western intentions are. One of them is for certain: To bleed Russia dry to the last Ukrainian. This has been openly stated. The intention then is to go after China once the Russians are out of the way, so goes the plan. Some of the other theories are as follows:
- To drag the conflict on in an effort to deindustrialize Europe – in other words, to weaken Europe and remove the EU especially as an economic competitor.
- To hold the line at the eastern front long enough to allow the Poles and possibly the Romanians to enter the western half of Ukraine, which they hope would be sometime in the summer. The way things are looking, that will not be possible given the current rate of attrition in Ukrainian forces.
- To mobilize another million conscripts from an already demoralized populace, which would, the regime in Kiev hopes, would buy enough time for the preceding bullet point to emerge. From the linked article (in Russian, machine translate), the idea of a million conscripts is a fool’s errand. Ukraine would collapse, which may be part of the plan anyway. From that article, there is the following:
“The Americans did not initially plan for Ukraine to exist for too long. She was supposed to “die heroically”, causing the maximum possible (mostly moral and political) damage to Russia. From the point of view of Washington’s interests, post-Maidan Ukraine has been living in the world for an unacceptably long time, because its maintenance has completely fallen on the shoulders of the West.
The goal of the war, which the United States initially considered lost by Kyiv, was to completely destroy the South-East and destroy as many Ukrainians as possible, so that Russia would end up with literally scorched earth with a sparse population in a state of humanitarian catastrophe. The state of tension, and even proxy wars, could be maintained by the United States with the help of the Polish-Romanian and Baltic limitrophes, while Russia would have to spend forces and resources on restoring normal living conditions in Ukraine, which would become the closest for the troops opposing the Eastern European members of NATO rear. That is why we see how Ukrainian artillery spends thousands of shells on shelling the peaceful cities of Donbass.”
Or the Ukrainians could be shelling those areas out of a sense of revenge and nationalism. We don’t know for certain. All of the preceding points are theories for now, as we do not have any access to military planning from any side.
The thing is, regarding the preceding quote, lights and water are already being restored in liberated regions. Mariupol is slowly returning to life. Ukrainian prisoners are being set to work in those areas, cleaning up debris and starting the process of rebuilding. This would be no different from prison labor in the United States, for instance, and it gives the prisoners something to do. Russians generally treat the Ukrainian POWs according to the Geneva Convention, though remembering Russia has not declared war on Ukraine.
What we see from the Russian side is exactly what they call it – a special military operation – which in essence is a police action. In an all-out war we would be seeing civilian infrastructure and cities being hit, with high civilian casualties. But the Russians are not targeting cities or civilian infrastructure. In the cities the lights, water, internet, phones, etc., all still function. The Russians instead are hitting military sites and infrastructure.
Specifically, the Russians have declared war only in one sense – against the Azov and fanatical right wing factions in Ukraine who have committed war crimes against civilians in the Donbas since 2014. Other than that, Russia is leaving civilian Ukraine intact, despite the horror stories we hear in the mainstream news. No, the real war has been declared by Washington, against Russia, without putting it in exactly those terms.
Biden openly stated at the outset of the Russian intervention that there were only two choices of action against Russia – sanctions and WWIII. So, the actions by the Biden administration and NATO in response to the SMO was war – either an economic war which was supposed to cause regime change in Moscow, or a hot war via NATO. Both options were reckless proclamations.
NATO is in no way prepared for a war against Russia. We see this by the refusal of NATO nations to put their own troops in harm’s way. Western leadership is ill-suited for war, even by looking at European defense ministers and foreign policy officials. The Western weapons are often ineffective and had often been criticised by Ukrainian troops. NATO troops have not been up against a near peer in many decades – since WWII.
In short, the only possible option for winning a hot war against Russia would be the nuclear option, and even at that there is no way the US would win. It would be a murder-suicide, and for the entire planet. The nuclear option is thereby not an option. The Pentagon knows it, too. Knowing these points, we can probably rest assured the war will not expand past Ukraine’s borders.
As to the economic war, the blowback from the sanctions was immediate and painful for the West and much of the Third World. Famine is a real possibility now due to the lack of wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia and the lack of fertilizer. This is a result partly of the conflict and partly because of sanctions. But in fact, the biggest problem with food and energy supplies have been as a result of the pandemic. Gasoline and diesel prices in the US will remain high for some time. And Europe especially will suffer, which brings us to the main purpose of the war, as Washington sees it:
From a recent Crosstalk show, ‘Victory’ for the planners in Washington will come when they have completely broken the economic ties that have been built up between the EU and China-Russia. Even that is now looking increasingly unlikely as the EU powers are one-by-one beginning to realize Russia will win the conflict, and they are starting to hold out olive branches, like the recent one for a peace plan by Italy. The Big 3 in the EU – Germany, France and Italy – are all now back-tracking on the sanctions. Italy even now is importing four times more Russian oil than it did at the start of February, for instance. Our petrol prices here have not gone up appreciably since the start of the SMO, which gives an indication.
In truth, this is a war about super-profits, especially for the American military-industrial complex. Washington will sacrifice its allies in Europe for the sake of maintaining its war economy. German investment in and trade with Russia was 10X that of the United States prior to the conflict.
The preceding paragraph goes to the very reason NATO was created – the keep the US in, the Russians out and Germany down. The EU is to be eliminated as a peer economic competitor to the US, and Ukraine is being used as the cudgel to do so, Europe be damned.
As to the Ukraine itself, it has been a semi-criminal, money-laundering enterprise since its independence, but more so after the 2014 coup. Now, as well, it is a military dictatorship. There is no fight for ‘freedom and democracy’ in Ukraine. We are supporting a dictatorship , complete with neo-Nazi elements. Biden, the US security state and Wall Street have been up to their necks in the enterprise since 2014 and even before. Ukraine is also a de facto NATO state, having been trained and supplied by NATO nations and having participated in military campaigns with NATO troops. So goes Ukraine, so goes NATO, and the outcome is not looking good for NATO.
What happens in Ukraine over the next few months will bear careful watching, especially regarding the aftereffects in Europe. But what looks to be developing is a collapse of the main part of the Ukrainian military and within the next few weeks. The fall of Azovstal and the Donbas will be a major blow to Ukrainian morale once the truth of the surrender of Azov and the defeat of the Donbas troops to Russia sinks in. The folks in DC must be in a state of apoplexy over the whole affair.
Featured pic from ABC News Australia