More hubris pours out from the western leadership this time from NATO's Mark Rutter at the defence ministers summit in Brussels. Russian planes will be escorted from western air space because Russia is 'weak' and NATO is 'strong'. Rutte also learnt from the film Red October that Russia only has 1 limping submarine so nothing to worry about there.

Meanwhile the retired US General Ben Hodges says if Russia attacks then both Kaliningrad and Sevastopol would be “annihilated” in the very first hour, presumably he thinks Russia won't respond because Russia would be too scared.

Meanwhile Trump has said he 'destroyed' BRICS (not sure when that happened) and the Russian economy is about to collapse. Then comes Trump's Tomahawk threat, new information says that the US only makes less than 100 a year though does have a stockpile of maybe 4,000 but will need to save most for real enemies like China and Venezuela.

Experts say that probably 100 might be sent to Ukraine (similar numbers as the himars and ataacms) but given that it took 40 of the missiles to disable an air base in Syria that was then back up and running the next day so 100 missiles won't make a lot of difference.

Then there remains the problem of launching them, the Typhon launcher takes 4 Tomahawks, they travel in a 40 foot container that can't be loaded onto the back of a truck but maybe 'they could be mounted on a barge in a river somewhere', yeah, like the Russians won't see that. The Tomahawks are just a bluff.

Which is why Zelensky talks about them non-stop every day, has phone calls with Trump every day and visits Washington at least once a week.

All this rhetoric and fake news is suddenly being pumped now for a reason. Ukraine is in big trouble. Russian troops are now on the edges of Mirnograd, and Shakhove, the city in the west cauldron and the town in the east cauldron of the Pokrovsk breakout. Pokrovsk itself has Russian troops at its centre and covering all roads leading in.

Big armour attacks are back on the menu and is an indication that the Russians are ready to push on and close up the Pokrovsk cauldrons while Russian troops are also fighting in Kupiansk, Konstantinovka and Siverk. This Ukrainian line of defence made up of a string cities contains the major part of Ukraine's total fighting force is collapsing. And behind them is nothing but the Dnipro river, the bridges of which the Russians have left intact.

What plan the Russians have in allowing these important supply crossing routes between west and east is not clear but they do seem to want to be able to use them themselves rather than the river being a hard barrier. The Russian army could use them to move north and west (into Kharkov and Odessa) moving on the right bank of the river (as viewed by river flow to the sea) behind any other Ukrainian defences.


Brian Berletic: Trump's War on Russia & Pending Retaliation