Courtesy of Mish.
In the wake of renewed fighting following the breakdown of the Ukraine ceasefire agreement, Nato Accuses Moscow of Helping Ukraine Rebels to Carve Out State.
That Russia is helping the rebels is certainly believable. Yet, some of the NATO statements are so preposterous that everything NATO says is suspect. Let’s take a look.
NATO: “We have seen columns of Russian equipment, primarily Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defence systems and Russian combat troops entering into Ukraine,” General Philip Breedlove said on a trip to Bulgaria as fears mounted that a tenuous ceasefire would collapse.
Mish: Where can you hide a tank? More importantly, where can you hide “columns of equipment, primarily tanks“? If columns of tanks were heading from Russia into Ukraine, both US and NATO would have satellite images. So where the hell are the images?
Other statements by NATO appear more reasonable.
NATO: A Nato military officer told the Financial Times that the alliance believed Russia now has around 8 battalions – equivalent to as many as 6,400 men – in a state of high readiness on the border with Ukraine. The number of Russian special forces soldiers operating already inside Ukrainian territory has increased from 300 to between 400-500 in recent days, the officer said. The deployment of sophisticated modern weapons systems has become a particular concern.
Mish: Is it believable Russia massed troops on Ukraine’s border. Yes. 6,400 men? Who knows? I don’t. But where are the images? Can you hide 6,400 men? The problem regarding men is that even if NATO does provides border images, those counts are not necessarily believable unless one can prove when they were taken.
Are there 400-500 Russian special forces in Ukraine? That’s certainly possible, even believable. But are those “special forces” volunteers or were they ordered by Putin? And by the way, isn’t that much smaller than previous Ukraine estimates that pegged the number of special forces at 2,000-5,000?
BBC Chimes In
The BBC reports Russian Troops Crossed Border, Nato Says
NATO: Nato’s Supreme Commander in Europe General Philip Breedlove has confirmed that over the past two days, Nato has seen columns of Russian armour, artillery and crucially – combat troops – entering Ukraine.
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