The internet has been flush with talk of nuclear war in Ukraine in the last week, especially since the big two sabotage events – Nord Stream and Kerch Strait. Such talk is a sign of desperation, though, by the side that is losing. And the Russians are saying there will be no nukes used unless there is a threat to the very existence of the Russian state. Russia is under no such threat at the moment. So, will there be nuclear Armageddon in Ukraine? – very doubtful. However Armageddon has been unleashed in Ukraine, of a general kind. For more, read on…
In the previous post in this topic, mention was made of ‘General Armageddon’, Sergey Surovikin, who has ordered the pounding of Ukrainian electrical infrastructure and military targets over the past days. To date, Ukraine has lost over half of its power generating capabilities due to these strikes, along with the ones previous to the sabotage incidents. The situation with its power grid is now critical. The civil war has just been shortened in duration, at least in terms of the major hostilities. Without power and facilities, the Ukrainian forces are markedly debilitated. More on all that in a bit.
Who is Surovikin, then, and what can we expect from him? He was best known before this for his command of the Russian forces during the Russian intervention in Syria, where they were by the invitation of Assad. The general was there in support of the Tiger Forces, Syria’s elite fighting force, led by another fearless general, Soheil Hassan, “aka The Tiger, whom the late Robert Fisk said was one of the scariest men he had ever met.” Surovikin would probably fit that bill, too. Why ‘Armageddon’, though?:
“Because it suggests that he obliterates all that stands in his way, Surovikin’s Armageddon NATO nickname is infinitely more revealing of NATO’s hypocrisy than it is of how either Surovikin or the front line Russian forces he now commands fight their wars. It is the Americans and their British and other toadies who fight like they are The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as witnessed by their shock and awe terror campaign on Iraq and how they levelled the Iraqi city of Fallujah and the Syrian city of Raqqa and all therein.
The Americans destroyed Raqqa because the combined forces of Russia and Syria, along with their gallant allies from the Fertile Belt, stood on the verge of victory. The Americans destroyed their own expendable stooges so they, in Syria’s east, in conjunction with Israel’s air force in the west and south, could continue to pulverize the women and children of Syria and steal their resources. General Armageddon’s Russians, on the other hand, boxed differently. They brokered regional peace deals throughout Syria and even allowed NATO’s cut-throat retreat on the green evacuation buses to Idlib…”
Emphases added. Brokered peace deals, eh? The man’s chart is a little interesting. It is below (bigger, no birth time):
We could conjecture Taurus rising for the general, given his physiognomy, but we will abstain here. The Venus and Libra show through in the chart though. In fact, the brutality and heartlessness portrayed of the general in the Western press just does not fit this chart. The Libra Sun is in a wide conjunction with Venus. Other than that it is not in a major aspect. The Virgo Moon is in an out-of-sign (depending on the time of day) wide conjunction with the Leo Mars, showing a quick mentality, though reactive, the conjunction in turn sextile to Mercury in Scorpio. This adds to the mental quickness and gives an ability to read people’s underlying motives.
The main feature of the chart, though, is found in an aspect combination seen in mid-60s births – Saturn opposite a Uranus/Pluto conjunction. For Surovikin it defines a midpoint, Ura=Sat/Plu: “A person unafraid of danger, the ability to make sudden decisions in the most difficult situations. – Sudden acts of violence.” Couple this with the Moon/Mercury/Mars combination just described and you have a soldier who can read a battlefield and who can act in the blink of an eye under fire. It is the sort of setup one would want in a soldier, not to mention a general.
Then we note there is strong outer planet influence , with Orcus square the Sun from Cancer, denoting a strong disciplinarian. Eris is opposite Venus, which is an interesting aspect in itself. It can denote a “Mirror, mirror on the wall” sort of narcissism in lesser souls, or a kind of mind in relationships that tests the partners as to their loyalties and is not easily won over, or a malcontent who is constantly stirring trouble between people. At the least, it can indicate a person at war within themselves as to how to approach partnerships.
In this case, with Eris in Aries and Venus in Libra this combination in a military person can indicate a master strategist who knows how to effectively play all sides to his advantage. We recall Eris was the goddess who provoked the Trojan War by stirring discord within the ranks of her rivals. We saw this at work with Surovikin in his command in Syria, where he was able to facilitate negotiations among the warring parties to affect the clearing of cities. It will be interesting to military people how he employs the Chechen forces, experts in urban warfare, when it comes to laying siege to the larger cities in Ukraine.
Lastly, we see the Saturn/Chiron conjunction, opposing Uranus and Pluto, showing a man who has known personal pain under very stressful conditions. If we knew the house position that would reveal where the pain has been experienced.
Then, we combine all the preceding with the Libra Sun/Venus conjunction and we have the general in Syria who oversaw the pummeling of the jihadists and at the same time was able to broker the exit deals with the same, sparing the Syrian cities and saving civilian lives. We can probably expect the same sort of thing in Ukraine. Watch what happens with cities like Odessa as the war there progresses.
In short, we are not going to see the wholesale destruction of Ukraine under Surovikin’s command, much as the Americans would expect. What we see instead is that the targets are carefully chosen thus far to effect the greatest debilitation of the Ukrainian military, and at the same time avoiding civilian casualties. You will hear the exact opposite in Western reporting. In the West Surovikin is described as a brutal and heartless general, as exemplified in a recent incredible and ignorant piece of propaganda. But the general’s mandate is pretty clear, in his own words:
“I don’t want to sacrifice the lives of Russian soldiers in a partisan war of hoards of fanatics armed by NATO. We’ve got enough power and technical means to lead Ukraine to total capitulation.”
What that means, essentially, is the general will be relying strongly on standoff capabilities and artillery, shown in the initial missile strikes. It also means he will be aiming for maximum effect in the shortest amount of time, with the minimal loss of life. Civilian casualties in the missile strikes have been very light since they commenced. Regardless, the Western press has been hyping the cruelty of these strikes. The aim is to get more weapons poured into Ukraine, but NATO’s weapons coffers are beginning to run dry.
Scott Ritter, ex-weapons inspector who fought in the 1st Gulf War and was an inspector in Russia in the ‘90s, had this to say in answer to Western hysteria over the Russian strikes to Ukrainian infrastructure:
“As somebody who participated in Operation Desert Storm back in 1991 against Iraq and understood the full scope and scale of the strategic air campaign that the United States waged against Iraq, I would say that Russia’s attacks today mirrored the targeted approach taken by the United States in Desert Storm against Iraq. So anybody who criticizes Russia’s approach as an assault on civilian infrastructure, an assault on civilians, simply speaking, don’t know anything about war, the laws of war, and if you’re an American making this [claim] or an American ally, then you’re a hypocrite. Because this is the exact same approach that the United States took against Iraq in 1991.
The big difference is that Russia didn’t initiate this conflict in this manner. I mean, we are more than eight months into this conflict, and Russia only now is undertaking the kind of strikes that the United States took on day one. I think it points to the fact that Russia has taken a very restrained approach to this conflict, that this conflict was indeed never meant to escalate to this level, that Russia clearly had limited objectives and was applying limited military means to achieve those objectives,”
Setting aside the propaganda, then, what have we seen thus far since ‘General Armageddon’, as he is called, took command? The missile and drone strikes have targeted electrical infrastructure, fuel and ammo depots, rail intersections, Ukrainian command centers and troop concentrations. Those are all military objectives. The Russian Ministry of Defense publishes its daily ‘clobber list’ (example, in English) where all the items hit are listed. Unless civilians happen to be working in or around such places when the missiles strike, there would only be military casualties.
This is not a general who, by first appearances, is going to leave Ukraine in ruins. But when it comes to fighting Ukrainian (really, NATO) forces, he will live up to his nickname. Instead, except for rail lines and electrical infrastructure, Ukraine will be left intact. The Ukrainian military will be crushed, however. The latter will make small advances in the coming days, which will be widely hyped as ‘Russia being on the ropes’ and that ‘Ukraine can win’, but the end result will be the same. As Putin has said all along, everything in the SMO is going according to plan and will be seen through to its conclusion. The Russians are in no rush.
The Russian strikes have been precise, much as the Western media tries to portray them as ineffective, and further that they deplete ‘Russia’s dwindling stocks of long-range missiles’. Those reports do, however, report the low number of civilian casualties, trying to spin that result as ‘Russian missiles being inaccurate’. Other reports call those strikes a sign of weakness and as ‘Putin throwing a tantrum’. There are a few points of particular interest regarding Western media claims.
Firstly, the number of missiles of all types the Russians have is a closely guarded secret. So, how could any Western source decide the Russians were running out of missiles? But given that Russian military-industrial factories are working 24/7 since the start of the SMO, the numbers of missiles used are probably quickly replenished.
Then, there is the factor of Iranian drones, so-called. There is a mix of drones, Russian and Iranian being used in the Russian arsenal now, it would appear. There again, no one knows for certain. The ‘Geranium’ drones are Russian copies, made in Russia, of Iranian drones, whose design in turn was copied from the United States, whose drone the Iranians captured and reverse-engineered. Why use Iranian and Iranian-designed suicide drones when Russia has their own design capabilities? Several possible reasons come to mind, though we don’t know what arrangement the Russians and Iranians have.
Those Iranian drones are cheap, effective, are probably a kind of payment (barter) for Russian resources, are being tested and adjusted under battlefield conditions (a boon for Iranian engineers), give the Iranians a kind of vicarious revenge for over 40 years of withering sanctions and advertise Iranian military capabilities in the field. Iranian military manufacturing has focused heavily on drone warfare and it is said they have thousands of them in stock. If they are being used in Ukraine, then it allows the Russians to keep their more advanced and more expensive drones for other situations, ‘just in case’.
Those Iranian drones would also send a message to any nation who seeks to threaten Iran militarily. In terms of Russian foreign relations with other countries in the region, this would be a win-win arrangement for Russia and Iran. All the preceding points go for Iranian missiles slated to go to Russia’s arsenal. Iran is now a full member of the SCO and has signed a strategic partnership with Russia.
And lastly, the Russians are hardly running out of ammo and equipment. There continue to be videos uploaded of long echelons of Russian military equipment, especially now in Belarus. Russian artillery shows no sign of slowing down and soon Russian forces (like in a couple of weeks) in old Ukraine will number upwards of 500,000. Ukrainians, on the other hand, are hard pressed to make any gains on the battlefield.
The effects of the strikes undertaken since Surovikin took charge point to a concerted and definite pattern. What is taking place now is preparatory – for what, we do not know. The Russian General Staff is not known for publicizing their war planning. There is a timeline, though. The Russian mobilization will be complete in a little over a week. The American midterms take place in three weeks. We already see that the Russian front has been stabilized by the mobilized units already in place. Russian troops are being placed at the Belarusian borders with Ukraine and Poland. Whether or not those troops are there for an offensive, as a deterrent or as a feint as we saw with Kiev back in March, no one knows. Time will tell.
But along with the items just listed, the biggest ‘tell’ is the destruction of the Ukrainian power grid, described in some detail on John Helmer’s site. What appears to be taking place is setting the stage for an ultimatum to the regime in Kiev – surrender or go dark. That destruction has taken place up to a point, which was outlined here in a previous post, “Ukraine’s dark winter (?)”. We will see in the coming days if the Russians are bringing Ukraine to the point of an ultimatum, likely to come just after the American midterms. If attacks on the power and substations stop in the next days, it will leave Ukraine still with power, but on the brink of collapse. It would take only a few more strikes, properly placed, to bring the entire Ukrainian electrical grid to a cascading catastrophic failure.
There is political brinkmanship here along with a game of political ‘chicken’, seeing who will raise the white flag first – the US, Europe, Ukraine or Russia. Consensus of opinion among independent commentators is that the West will double down instead of giving in, since they care nothing about Ukraine. Ukraine will collapse and disintegrate, if so. In the Western halls of power, this conflict is all about defeating Russia ‘over there’, using Ukraine as the proxy force. The ball is in Russia’s court, and they have the military dominance in the theater.
Ukrainians are afraid that after the midterms, if the Republicans make a sweep of the houses of Congress, that their American aid will dry up. That is probably true, too. Republicans are increasingly opposed to sending more aid to Ukraine, and instead want to focus on China. That aid is already drying up. There are protests in Europe against sending any more aid to Ukraine. Only Brussels and Washington want it to continue. The Russians could end the war militarily relatively quickly. If so, why have they gone so slowly up to now, and even now, why is there no ‘shock and awe’ on the part of the Russians? Then there was this recent post from one of the Ukrainian Telegram channels, supported in other posts as well:
“Our source reports that damage to the energy system of Ukraine is already 40%. Colleagues correctly write that the unified energy system is facing the risk of complete collapse. If the Russians continue to hit non-stop, then in a week there will be nothing left. Add to this the shortage of spare parts and components, and you will understand that Ukraine will soon be in a “complete blackout”. That’s when the hardest times begin. This also applies to western Ukraine, which hoped that they would carry over and all the hardships, as usual, would fall on the south-east of Ukraine.”
The de-electrification of Ukraine appears to be on course, too:
There was some rather interesting comment recently regarding the slow progress of the Russian offensives (translate from Russian) in Ukraine. Such slowness is misinterpreted by Western analysts and psy-ops as weakness. Putin and the Russian diplomatic corps walk a very fine line when it comes to Ukraine. The aim is to keep the non-aligned countries on-side, or at least leaning that way. If Russia went in with all guns blazing, like NATO does, it would send a sour message to those non-aligned states, as in “We could be next.”
Being very vigilant to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible sends the message to those non-aligned states that Russia is adhering to its original stated purpose in their SMO – de-Nazification and demilitarization. By showing restraint, Russians have gained respect among the non-aligned nations, as they see Russia is not out to conquer territory or subjugate people.
On the military side, we see Sun Tzu at play regarding the Russian General staff (RGS) – appear weak and incompetent to your enemy when in fact you are strong. Americans especially do not appear to understand this, saying constantly that Americans always talk from a ‘position of strength’. Boys will be boys, we might suppose.
There had been chatter in Telegram channels about Gerasimov and Shoigu being on the ropes and demoted after the Russian retreats in Kharkov and Kherson, none of which has appeared. The RGS appointed Surovikin. He wasn’t appointed by Putin. Shoigu remains Minister of Defense, with Gerasimov still head of the RGS. More fog of war regarding alleged problems with the RGS. There are the strong leaders and then there are the merely powerful.
In all this, Russia controls the timeline. For the West the clocks are ticking – midterms, rising inflation, growing civil unrest, approaching winter. For Russia, they have the time. Astrologically, from past posts on Ukraine here, the timeline still appears to hold, although one cannot discount the unintended consequences of war. We recall this, from “Ukraine’s dark winter (?)”:
“Saturn turns direct on 23 October, square to Ukraine’s Pluto. It will again square that nation’s Meridian axis on 7 December, with Ceres having transited to Ukraine’s Mars. Directed Saturn will be semisquared to Ukraine’s Ascendant, with the directed Ascendant squared to Ukraine’s Pluto. That combination of factors looks like a capitulation…”
And by the end of this year or thereabouts. We will see, and time will tell. For now, we watch as the situation develops in Ukraine. Going forward, the words of General Armageddon ring true every morning now:
“For the enemies of Russia, the morning does not start with coffee.”
Featured pic from Metro