[Federalist] With The Affirmative Action Myth: Why Blacks Don’t Need Racial Preferences to Succeed, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley has written another clear-eyed analysis of affirmative action policies. This latest book serves as a follow-up to Riley’s 2014 title, Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed, and both are lucid, well-written arguments from a black perspective against special considerations.
Much has happened in the intervening ten-plus years since Please Stop Helping Us — particularly the emergence of critical race theory and the host of pseudo-intellectuals promoting it, such as Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, and Nikole Hannah-Jones. Riley quickly debunks these people and the projects they promoted, including the 1619 Project, the campaign for reparations, and the dubious research regarding "redlining," upon which arguments for reparations are based. Black home ownership between 1940 and 1980, like many measures of advancement, rose at a greater pace than it did for whites.
Indeed, the postwar period saw "black upward mobility" — even amidst "laws, policies, and customs that openly discriminated against blacks." As an illustration, Riley refers to the popular 2016 movie Hidden Figures, based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly about three black female mathematicians working for NASA in the 1950s and 1960s. Shetterly’s "sketches of black America in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century," Riley writes, "may surprise readers in the twenty-first century who have come to associate black communities with crime, violence, underperforming schools, empty lots, solo parenting, and high levels of unemployment."
#1
In the late 60's & early 70's years I saw A-A put in place in several places.
The problem I saw, even as a teen, was how to hire the productive ones willing to actually do the job, vs those milking the untouchable A-A hired that did little or nothing.
Many employers took to hiring former military who had multiple enlistments, to resolve that.
Face it, this ain't the 60's. A-A isn't needed in the same way it was. Now we have lawyers and race pimps always there running their mouth to rake in $$$$$.
[FoxNews] Army pledges to prioritize drone capabilities, AI-driven systems and combat readiness over 'parochial interests'
Since becoming secretary, I have been alarmed to find that our Army is at risk of falling behind other major powers across the globe, including China. Why? For decades, antiquated processes and bureaucratic bloat shackled our innovation and modernization efforts. If we continue business as usual our national security will be at risk.
The gap between the Army we have and the Army we need is growing fast. Our soldiers are innovative, resourceful and capable – they are our nation’s best. But they are being held back by lobbyists and complacent stakeholders who prioritized parochial interests over our soldiers’ lethality and readiness.
No lobbyist ever took a hill. No lobbyist ever won a war. Our soldiers deserve better. And our nation deserves better. That’s why Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently directed the Army to accelerate change.
We got to work immediately.
The Army Transformation Initiative (ATI) is how we break free from entrenched government bureaucracy, enable our soldiers and outpace our adversaries.
This is the way forward:
1. Get battle-winning gear to the front lines
Our soldiers must out-survive and outfight the enemy on the battlefield. Today, they need drone and counter-drone capabilities, AI-driven decision-making and lethal, battle-ready tanks and attack aircraft. We have been slow to put these tools in our soldiers’ hands, not for lack of vision, but because of outdated acquisitions practices. That ends now. Our mission is clear: cut red tape so we can quickly equip troops with the best capabilities available.
2. Out-innovate the enemy
We will channel America’s bold and innovative spirit, not just in words, but in action. We will fuel market competition, back industry-led research and development, and streamline the process by placing users, testers and developers shoulder-to-shoulder in the field. We will embrace change and fight system inertia, keeping us agile, lethal and one step ahead of our enemies.
3. Unloading what we don’t need
For far too long, our hands have been tied by parochial interests propped up by swarms of lobbyists. We have been forced to buy gear that we no longer want or need. With ATI, we’ll ensure that we use American taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars effectively. If a capability no longer benefits our soldiers and does not make our Army more lethal, we will not buy it.
4. Efficiency over bureaucracy
We are transforming the Army from the ground up, not just upgrading our processes and equipment. We are building an organization that will drive process improvements, leading to better products and better outcomes for soldiers. As a start, we will consolidate organizations within the Army to eliminate redundancies and reduce bureaucratic overhead.
5. Getting soldiers out from behind desks
We will refocus resources on our fighting formations by cutting overhead, starting within the Army headquarters. We will get our soldiers back where they belong: training to dominate the battlefield and win wars.
Our soldiers and the American people deserve an Army that is equipped to fight and win anywhere, anytime, against any adversary. Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, that’s exactly what the Army Transformation Initiative will deliver.
Make it so. They’re having issues over on the watery side of the Service:
Trump’s shipbuilding agenda is sinking.
I returned this week from shipyard tours in California to a flood of calls and DMs from DC and none of the news is good.
Friday marks 45 days since the president signed the Executive Order mandating a full shipbuilding review in 45 days.… pic.twitter.com/UAt84Zz0gx
…in 45 days. So far, only one Cabinet Secretary has shown any urgency, and only in the past few days.
I pray I’m missing something, but sources inside every relevant department say otherwise. There’s no indication
@SecDuffy
,
@KristiNoem
, or
@SecDef
are prioritizing this effort.
Reports from inside DOT are disturbing: they’re 20 years behind on their mandated shipyard survey to Congress. DOT should be the lead agency on this—but they’re failing.
Trump’s pick to lead
@DOTMARAD
—known for shaking things up had his nomination pulled by Duffy days before confirmation. No explanation, but rumors swirl about ties to Project 2025 and the anti-Jones Act Heritage Foundation.
The replacement is a strong candidate on paper, but shipbuilding is his weak spot and he has deep ties to
@Maersk
, which prioritizes Chinese shipyards.
No Deputy Administrator at MARAD has been named. DOT also hasn’t filled the critical Assistant Secretary role for policy and planning.
The acting head of MARAD is a West Point classmate of Mark Esper—yes, the same Esper who helped auction off the Army’s watercraft fleet. Sources claim he’s undermining both Trump’s and Esper’s maritime goals.
Lobbyists hold major sway at MARAD, making the General Counsel role crucial. A well-known, pro-Trump maritime executive with a stellar résumé applied, he was sidelined by Duffy. Instead, a woman with zero shipbuilding experience was installed this week. Initial reports about her are terrible.
Several of the most capable Trump loyalists at MARAD who held the line during the Buttigieg years have resigned in frustration.
On the Navy side, there’s no serious effort underway to reorganize the 83,000-person shipbuilding & repair enterprise. The critical SUPSHIP AGM role is still up in the air.
No admirals have been fired. No CNO appointed. The acting CNO is offering nothing but bureaucratic word salad.
The Secretary of the Navy remains verbally committed but no action plan has been released. Sources say he’s overwhelmed with internal crises & not getting enough support from the admirals and SES
Not one admiral has publicly endorsed shipbuilding as a national priority.
At USCG, a culling of admirals is underway & DHS is quietly investigating but the rot runs deeper than expected. Until that’s fixed, real shipbuilding effort is impossible.
Meanwhile, the individual making the most shipbuilding waves in DC? A former Obama donor who runs a CIA-linked registry exposed by
@DataRepublican
.
Trump promised a dedicated shipbuilding office during his state of the union speech. This idea was nixed along with shipbuilding desks at OMB, NEC, and a new White House office. Instead, Waltz expanded his NSC maritime team but progress stalled as Waltz fell out of favor. A leaked memo lists staffers to be purged this week & two of them work on maritime.
Interim Director Rubio has barely been seen or heard from at NSC. Nothing’s moving.
At State, the maritime team is small, and slow.
No one with real, hands-on experience building commercial ships at world-class yards has been hired.
Finally, after a promising bipartisan start, several top maritime leaders are breaking ranks publicly voicing concern about last-minute changes made to the bill and there are rumors that Mark Kelly’s strong anti-Trump rhetoric could sink the effort.
The clock is ticking. We started drifting without power when the dedicated WH shipbuilding office idea was nixed then lights went out Duffy pulled the nomination for MARAD. Now the ship is taking on water.
Silver lining? Trump & JD are, by all accounts, more interested in shipbuilding lately, not less. They just seem to be too trusting that Hegseth, Duffy and Noem are following commander’s intent.
#2
McCrystal, you uncultured swine, martial arts is not just a physical ability but also a mind set. A mind set you don't get by playing candy crush in between diabetes shots and DEI streaming videos.
Even the Starship Troopers movie, intended to be a parody of the book, acknowledges this.
#3
Time to weed out the careerists and really start holding people accountable. F* the staff report, it is not a substitute for making the hard decisions. If you don't want to make the decision, retire. Keep your f*ing fingers out of the process. Build for today not waiting for something that may or may not come along in time. If you can not settle the designs, fire those who are delaying it.
Since becoming secretary, I have been alarmed to find that our Army is at risk of falling behind other major powers across the globe, including China
No you are not falling behind other 'major' powers. All those other powers are regional. They don't project far from their borders. The Chinese are salivating over Taiwan not Alaska. The Russians are tied up in the Ukraine. The Euros are lame unless Putin's on their border. The Iranians need to keep their reliable Revolutionary Guards at home to keep the population in awe.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Denis Davydov
[REGNUM] On the sixth anniversary of Zelensky's presidency, which he vowed in 2019 to serve only one term to "change the system for the future" and then hand Ukraine "into the hands of a new generation of politicians," the country's leading publications are writing about all sorts of things.
About the results of the elections in Romania, about the 17th package of EU sanctions, about how Trump was "charmed by the dictator" in a telephone conversation. But not about the fact that the government has outlasted all conceivable terms, and not about the promises it made.
The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology even made a modest gift by re-rolling the results of 74% trust in Zelensky this week, which were dragged into all the news. With the obvious goal of showing that the 73% of votes received in the presidential elections have not disappeared.
But this time, sociology was done with a bonus: in a telephone survey of 1,010 people, again done “on their own initiative,” respondents were asked to decide which politicians they trusted, which they didn’t, and which they didn’t even know.
It turned out that, in addition to the first person, half of the "Ukrainians" (as the media correctly calls them) trust only the head of the largest volunteer fund, Serhiy Prytula, also a former comedian and TV presenter. All the rest are below 50%, including the famous boxer and mayor of Kiev Vitali Klitschko, whom, as it turns out, not everyone knows.
According to KIIS, 34% of respondents do not know the “traitor” of the ruling party, Dmytro Razumkov, former speaker of the Verkhovna Rada and head of this very party, and it turns out that 43% of respondents of Kiev sociologists are not familiar with the head of the banned party “Nashi”, Yevgeny Murayev, who gathers a multi-million audience on YouTube.
"And no one from the media wants to ask why Valeriy Zaluzhny has somehow "strangely" started to disappear from the ratings ? Accordingly: if Zaluzhny had been in the poll, then it would have been possible to draw 74%?" - the fugitive ex-MP Igor Mosiychuk, who has repainted himself as a people's oppositionist, is surprised.
But this question is also posed incorrectly.
Six years ago, the young and handsome Zelensky spoke bluntly from the podium during his inauguration: “I want to assure you right away that I am running for one term, to change the system for the sake of the future.” He then planned to hand this system over to a new generation of politicians.
But, as follows from the KIIS table, no new generation has emerged: the main political opponent is ignored, four are “experienced, systemic, pompous politicians” against whom people voted six years ago; one is closely affiliated with the government, two are professional opportunists, and two more fled to avoid being killed.
"I have often been asked: what are you ready to do for the sake of a ceasefire? A strange question. And what are you ready to do for the sake of the lives of your loved ones? I can assure you that I am ready to do anything to ensure that our heroes do not die anymore. And I am certainly not afraid to make difficult decisions, I am ready to lose my popularity, my ratings, and if necessary, I am ready to lose my positions without hesitation so that peace can come. Without losing our territories," Zelensky said in his inauguration speech.
Now, for peace to come, he is not ready for anything at all. Perhaps this is his most amazing transformation - when living people have turned into statistics, into expendable material, into dust on which the former actor walks in blood-stained boots.
Although in May 2019 he claimed that “each of us is a president.” And that his mission is “to do everything, Ukrainians, so that you don’t cry.”
But he went against his promises quite deliberately, disrupting the Minsk Agreements, disrupting the Istanbul talks, disrupting any chances for peace talks now. Under Zelensky, Ukraine has not become, as planned, a country of other opportunities, "where everyone is equal before the law, where there are fair and transparent rules of the game, the same for everyone."
What it has become is best described by news from pretrial detention centers and prisons, where Ukrainian citizens, imprisoned on charges of treason, separatism, collaborationism, etc., are offered for exchange. “ These are businessmen, underage “photographers of arrivals and military facilities,” car arsonists, ideological pro-Russians, and those who were simply set up,” says a source for the publication “Strana.”
And sources of the Regnum news agency add that a price is added to such proposals: if you want to leave, you have to pay. Only this formula is applicable to all categories of citizens who want to live and work: the entire system of power from top to bottom is permeated with unprecedented levels of corruption associated with exemption from mobilization.
From the “land of other opportunities” they flee through inaccessible mountainous terrain, risking their lives, because other routes are already blocked and carefully guarded by an entire army fighting against their own fellow citizens.
"Of course, besides the war, there are many other troubles that make Ukrainians unhappy. These are shocking tariffs, humiliating salaries and pensions, painful prices, non-existent jobs. This is medicine, the improvement of which is spoken about most by those who have never been in a regular hospital with a child. These are mythical Ukrainian roads that are built and repaired only in someone's wild imagination," - this is another quote from the inauguration speech, which then got all TV viewers to the very giblets with its piercing honesty and folk style.
After the presidential term and another year, Ukrainians can see that tariffs have become even more shocking, while salaries remain just as humiliating.
Over the last year alone, the average increase in utility costs has been 20%, and over the 10 years since Maidan, electricity tariffs for the population alone have increased by 700%. At the same time, the average salary in relation to the dollar exchange rate has remained at $380.
Almost 42% of citizens surveyed by the analytical platform Vox Ukraine can only afford food and some household services. About a quarter of Ukrainian individual entrepreneurs are talking about closing in the near future. However, by the end of last year, 17 thousand new millionaires appeared in the country — those who, one way or another, make money from war and evasion of it.
Apparently, they are the “new generation of politicians” to whom Zelensky is ready to hand over power. As well as those who openly call for “killing the Russians,” while “defending Ukraine” by committing linguocide against the Russian language and destroying memorial plaques. Zelensky, who remains a Russian speaker outside of cameras and microphones, no longer cares about the rights of those like him.
Today, he is a classic character in the Game of Thrones series, the finale of which coincided with the inauguration in 2019 and six years later intertwined with the storyline of the Servant of the People series. There was a very clear message that any fighter against a bad system eventually turns into a dragon himself and burns people for the sake of a crazy idea. And according to the laws of the genre, the same ending always awaits madmen - although they are sure that their power is eternal.
And it is unlikely to be any different now, since along with the external war, Zelensky is already clearly getting an internal one.
The “elite”, tired of his manic and hysterical manner of single-handedly managing all processes, formed over the years in the USAID and Soros Foundation system, is already actively promoting the thesis that Zelensky is incapable of managing processes in the face of a long war of attrition. That he is weak and corrupt, and that his “diplomatic line” in negotiations with Russia has failed miserably.
In addition, he has obviously become unwelcome to the US, and Putin is not going to negotiate with someone who has personally insulted him. That is, Zelensky is the main obstacle to the formation of more favorable conditions for a possible peace.
It should be replaced by a "strong hand" or a "government of national unity", the idea of which is actively promoted by former President Petro Poroshenko, who considers himself a much more skilled diplomat. Politicians broadcasting from the outside are also actively talking about a coalition transitional government.
So far, the propaganda machine, disconnected from financial support by a strong-willed decision of the new administration in Washington, has not gone anywhere. Fighting corruption, exposing the "criminal government", promoting a single narrative - this is what they have been learning for years. And showing how the one who promised "not to trade the country for the sake of preserving power" is trading the country can be done without much trouble.
And for this machine to start spinning, grinding “74%” to zero, all that is missing is some kind of precedent, after which all of Zelensky’s plans for a reboot and maintaining power will dissolve, as the Ukrainian national anthem states, “like dew in the sun.”
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Yaroslav Karpikov
[REGNUM] Two years ago, on May 20, 2023, the longest and most difficult battle since the beginning of the Central Military District ended with a victory for Russian weapons - the 9-month battle for Artemovsk.
In the Kyiv information field, the city was long called nothing other than “fortress” (borrowed from Latin via Polish for a fortress). The city itself was renamed in 2016 from Artemovsk to Bakhmut — which was part of the Ukrainians’ struggle with the “heavy colonial” Russian and Soviet legacy. But by changing the Soviet name Artemovsk to the historical name Bakhmut, Ukrainian nationalists — without intending to — emphasized the Russian history of the city and the region.
In Ukraine, since gaining independence in 1991, a historical phantom of a “Cossack state” has been created. On the pages of literature textbooks, Taras Shevchenko “suffered” about the bygone time of hetman glory. School history textbooks were filled with victories of the glorious Zaporizhian Cossacks, who supposedly gave the first examples of Ukrainian statehood back in the 17th century.
In this mythical Cossack country "from San to Don" modern Ukrainian historiography (and essentially political mythology) includes the lands of the South-East, which ended up within the borders of the Ukrainian SSR. The following formulas were developed: Slobozhanshchina - Cossack autonomy, Donbass - "palanka" (district, from the Turkish palanka) of the Zaporizhian army, Novorossiya - the land of the Zaporizhian Cossacks.
Many pro-Ukrainian regional historians of Donbass from the period 1991–2022 actively developed the theme of the “Kalmius palanka” — supposedly an administrative-territorial unit of the Zaporizhian Sich in the south of Donbass in the 18th century, naturally “zagrabany” (“captured”) by the insidious Russian Empire.
But were there Cossacks in Donbass and specifically in Bakhmut? What kind of Cossacks were they?
FAIRY TALES TELL THE TRUTH
The city of Bakhmut and the surrounding lands are historically connected with Voronezh. It was in the Azov (Voronezh) Governorate that Bakhmut was located during the first half of the 18th century, forming a province with a number of other towns and villages within the Voronezh Governorate. And only with the creation of the new Novorossiysk Governorate in 1764 and at the personal request of the first governor, Lieutenant General Alexei Melgunov, the Bakhmut Province was transferred from the Voronezh Governorate to Novorossiya.
The Military Collegium created by Peter I was responsible for all military issues in the Russian Empire in the 18th century. It was in charge of both irregular troops - the Cossacks - and the garrisons of fortresses.
From the moment of the beginning of industrial salt mining in Bakhmut and Tora (modern Slavyansk), as well as on the bridge over the Seversky Donets River near the fortress city of Mayak, the peace of the salt workers from Tatar raids was protected by Cossacks specially settled there. They did not come from the Dnieper steppes, but from the Great Russian lands. This can be judged, for example, by the "fairy tales" - censuses of taxpayers.
For example, on June 25, 1722, a 40-year-old mounted Cossack, Konon Kozmin son Boklanov, a resident of the Tor fortress, a native of the Yezdotskaya settlement of Stary Oskol, now the Belgorod region, submitted a tale about himself.
From Stary Oskol, Konon and his father moved to Tor 25 years ago (in 1697). At first, he served as a Cossack in the Izyum Slobodsky Regiment, but in 1713, by order of Colonel Fyodor Shidlovsky, he was assigned to Bakhmut, where he served, guarding the salt industry.
Most of the Torsk mounted Cossacks were natives of Livny, now a city in the Oryol region. In addition to them, there were people from Belgorod's Valuyki, from Yelets and Chernavsk (modern Lipetsk region) and from Oboyan, a city halfway between Kursk and Belgorod. Thus, the documents confirm that the first settlers of both the future Slavyansk and the future Artemovsk were natives of Great Russia.
"THEY PROTECTED UKRAINE FROM THIEVES AND TRAITORS"
On February 27, 1736, the Military Collegium received a letter from Field Marshal Count Christopher Minich, which is still kept in the archives.
The famous military leader reported that the Russian Cossacks Tora and Mayakov had submitted a petition to him. They wrote that for many years "our grandfathers and fathers and relatives" had settled in these places "and they served in the mounted Cossack service" together with the Cherkassians (that is, with the Cossacks who had moved to Russia from the Little Russian lands that belonged to Poland). Together, the Great Russians and Cherkassians "protected Ukraine from the hostile Tatars, thieves and traitors." Let us recall that "Ukrains" then meant the outlying lands of the Russian state.
Until 1692, the Torsk and Mayak mounted Cossacks received a cash salary from Chuguev (a city in the Russian borderland, now in the Kharkov region of Ukraine) - after which the payment of salaries from the government ceased.
Therefore, the Cossacks, just like their "colleagues" from Bakhmut, began to make a living by boiling and selling salt. Also, in their petition, the Torsk and Mayak Cossacks wrote that they participated in the Poltava battle of 1709, went on campaigns to Poland, and participated in the suppression of the rebellion of Kondraty Bulavin.
In 1711, 150 Cossacks led by Ataman Vasily Shabelsky were in permanent service in Bakhmut. The fortress artillery consisted of 10 cannons of different calibers with four barrels of gunpowder for them.
1711, as well as 1713, were especially difficult - then the Crimean Tatars "ran up" to Tor and Mayaki, devastating the surrounding area. In addition, among those who attacked the border towns, the constant heroes (or rather antiheroes) of the history of the southern Russian frontier - the "Khartsyz" - are often mentioned.
"Khartsyz" in Turkic languages literally means "robber" (in this sense, the etymology of the name of the Donbass city of Khartsyzsk is interesting). This term was used to designate impoverished people who fled the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and who engaged in robbery in the Wild Field - on the territory of modern Donbass - and often conflicted even with the Zaporozhian Host. This term was also used to designate "lumpenized" Zaporozhian Cossacks, who created problems, including for the Cossack elders themselves.
In a petition from 1736, Russian Cossacks Tora and Mayakov wrote: in 1713, “they had a strong resistance and battle... against the Tatars and Khartsyz.”
And in 1730, an attack by the "Khartsyzsk gangs" of a certain Bulava was repelled. After the battle, "Bulava was taken prisoner." Judging by the documents stored in the archives, the Bakhmut residents reported more than once about frequent raids on the city by "enemy Tatars and traitorous Zaporozhians," who stole livestock and horses.
Unfortunately, the constant military work of the defenders of Russian Bakhmut and the city of Tor, the future Slavyansk, was not always appreciated. Petitions that the Cossacks submitted "to the authorities", including the aforementioned complaint transmitted through Field Marshal Minikh, contain evidence that the Tor, Mayak and Bakhmut Cossacks did not receive wages from the treasury. Obviously, the money from the sale of salt was not always enough "to live on".
Another example: on February 27, 1716, a petition was submitted to the Senate chancery by Captain Shabelsky “with his comrades,” in which they reported that they had been transferred to the Bakhmut fortress from the Trinity fortress (modern Taganrog), and complained about the meager salary, which “made it impossible for them to feed themselves.”
All these problems were solved by the authorities manually - as a targeted response to petitions coming from the border. And the Cossacks and other service people, enduring inconveniences, continued to guard the restless frontier.
IVAN VASILIEVICH, THE SOUL OF THE COMPANY
In the archives we find materials for the biography of one of the Bakhmut commanders - “servants of the tsar, fathers of the soldiers”, or rather, the Cossacks.
On March 28, 1748, by decree of the Military Collegium, all three mounted Cossack "companies" - units were ordered to come under the command of the Bakhmut fortress. In the same year, the Bakhmut Cossack Regiment was created - by analogy with the Azov Cossack Regiment at the fortress of St. Anna (near the modern village of Starocherkasskaya in the Rostov region).
The question arose as to who would be the colonel, the commander of the new unit. The choice fell on the captain of the Bakhmut Cossack company, Ivan Vasilyevich Shabelsky, the son of the aforementioned ataman Vasily Shabelsky.
Captain Shabelsky had a good service record and, as they would say now, brilliant recommendations. His certificate was signed, among others, by three colonels, one lieutenant colonel, an engineer captain, a second major and representatives of the Cossacks themselves.
According to the certificate, Ivan Vasilyevich Shabelsky began his service in 1733. On September 23, 1735, he was already fighting the Crimean Tatars in the steppe on the upper reaches of the Tora River, freeing prisoners. On November 9, 1735, in a skirmish with the Tatars at the top of Zheleznaya Balka, where he recaptured Russian prisoners. In April 1736, the Cossack fought with the Tatars sent by the Crimean Khan at the upper reaches of the Blizhnie Stupki River, the battle took place at night, the Tatars were defeated, and two captured Crimean Tatars were sent to Kharkov to General Prince Nikita Yuryevich Trubetskoy.
In the same year of 1736, Ivan Shabelsky took part in the campaign against Crimea under the command of Field Marshal Minich, being subordinate to Major General Hein, he took part in the battle at the Bolgunak River, where he captured two Turkish Janissaries (for which he received a monetary reward from Minich).
On August 12, 1737, while on patrol with his brother Prokofiy near the Bakhmut fortress, Ivan "encounters the Tatars", successfully repels the raid and takes two people prisoner. In 1737, Shabelsky was engaged in the supply of provisions under the command of Colonel Bogdan Bibikov. For good results, he was granted the rank of ensign of the Bakhmut company by Field Marshal Minikh from the ranks of the Cossacks. In 1738, he was patrolling the border from Bakhmut to the Dnieper River, discovered the horde of the Crimean Khan heading for the city of Izyum in time and informed Lieutenant General Baron von Spiegel.
In the same year, he was in continuous patrol of the border from Bakhmut to the Mius River - on the lands of today's DPR.
In 1739, Ivan Shabelsky, while on patrol near the Krynka River, discovered 500 Tatars and notified the garrison of the Bakhmut fortress in time to prepare to repel the raid. The year 1738 turned out to be a sad one for Shabelsky, when his brother Prokofiy was captured by the Tatars, and later died in captivity in Constantinople - Istanbul.
The appointment of Ivan Vasilyevich Shabelsky as a colonel in the new Bakhmut Cossack Regiment opened a new stage in the history of the city-fortress of Bakhmut. Now the city was under reliable protection. Already on June 11, 1764, the irregular Cossack regiment was "promoted" to a regular - pike regiment and received the name Lugansk. Subsequently, on June 28, 1783, the regiment received a new name - Mariupol. But that's a completely different story.
Let us just add that the Bakhmut "dynasty" of the Shabelskys produced not only military men. Judging by the documents, the son of Colonel Ivan Shabelsky, Semyon, studied at the school of poetics at the Kharkov Collegium under Grigory Savvich Skovoroda himself, one of the founders of Russian philosophical thought, during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna.
But as for the city of Bakhmut itself, for many decades this Russian outpost, which had advanced far to the south, was — one could say — a city of military glory. History has a way of repeating itself — both the history of liberation in 2023 and the history of the subsequent defense of Artemovsk-Bakhmut. The place of the Tatar ertouls — the mounted detachments of the vassals of the Ottoman Empire — was taken by numerous mercenaries working for Western private military companies and PMC Ukraine.
As for those who consider themselves the descendants of the “glorious Zaporozhian Cossacks,” they, alas, have become modern-day Khartsyz — who attack peaceful Russian villages near the same Artemovsk. And today, modern-day “Shabelskie” are fighting off these raids.
Text taken from a news article posted on kadmitriev
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics:
[ColonelCassad] One of the participants in direct negotiations with the US, Kirill Dmitriev, on the current state of the negotiation process between the US and Russia on Ukraine.
The dialogue between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump is extremely important for the US to understand the root causes, essence and possible solutions to the conflict in Ukraine. The fact that this dialogue contributes to the balanced and constructive position of the Trump administration so far is causing hysteria among European politicians, European and British media.
Titanic efforts of Western politicians and media are aimed at disrupting the constructive dialogue between Russia and the US.
We will continue to work on possible mutually beneficial projects with the US in the investment and economic spheres.
Western media on the shock of European leaders following the call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump - Part 1
Axios: Trump's compliance with Putin stunned European leaders during the call Barak Ravid, Dave Lawler - Axios
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and five other European leaders joined a conference call with Donald Trump immediately after his conversation with Vladimir Putin on Monday. They were hoping to hear that Putin had agreed to a cease-fire — or that the U.S. would sanction him if he refused.
Instead, Trump said Putin had agreed to talks, emphasized that the U.S. would not participate in those talks, and opposed sanctioning Putin at this stage, two people on the call and one familiar with the details told Axios.
Why It Matters: Trump seemed closer to walking away from the issue entirely, the people said. Some leaders on the call were “surprised” or even “shocked.”
“I think something’s going to happen. If it doesn’t, I’m just going to step aside and they’re going to have to continue on their own. This was a European situation and it should have stayed a European situation,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office hours after the calls.
◾️How it happened: Trump spoke briefly with Zelensky on Monday morning and, according to sources, asked him what to tell Putin.
Zelensky was happy that Trump called him for advice. He asked him to demand an immediate ceasefire, threaten new sanctions against Russia, and not make any concessions to Putin without Ukraine’s approval.
◾️Behind the scenes: After the call with Putin ended, Trump contacted Zelensky again — this time, the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Finland, and the European Commission also participated in the conversation.
“The second call was longer and different in nature from the first,” Zelensky later said.
While one of the European participants called the conversation “constructive,” another source said Zelensky found it “bad.” The White House declined to comment.
Trump told the leaders that Putin had agreed to immediately begin direct talks on a ceasefire. According to one of the sources, there was a few seconds of confused silence.
Zelensky recalled that Putin had agreed to talks before, with the first round taking place in Istanbul on Friday. Trump, according to the sources, did not respond directly to this.
The sources also say that Zelensky and several other leaders pointed out to Trump that it was he who had previously proposed starting peace talks with an immediate 30-day ceasefire.
Western media on the shock of European leaders after the call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump - part 2
◾️Tension point: Other European leaders on the call asked about the possibility of US sanctions against Russia, but Trump responded that he thought it was a bad idea and stressed that, in his opinion, Putin wanted to make a deal.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni intervened to ask why it was not possible to declare a ceasefire for at least two weeks while the talks were being prepared. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz asked what concessions Russia would be willing to make.
Trump responded that Putin would present a “memorandum of peace” with terms for a ceasefire and an end to the war. One of the sources said Trump asked Putin to come up with “something we can work with,” rather than a proposal that would be rejected out of hand.
Zelensky, according to the sources, noted that previous talks, including meetings last week, had yielded no results and stressed that unless Trump pressed, Putin would not budge.
Between the lines: Participants in the call were surprised that Trump seemed pleased with what Putin had said and presented it as some kind of progress, although the Russian leader’s position had essentially not changed, the sources said.
◾️What’s next: Trump said that Russia and Ukraine could hold direct bilateral talks without intermediaries, since they are the ones who best understand the details of the conflict.
Meloni and Merz disagreed and insisted that the US and European countries should be involved in the negotiations.
“Somebody has to be the judge,” Meloni said. Merz suggested a meeting with all parties.
Trump later suggested the Vatican as a possible venue for the talks.
“I think something will happen. And if not, I’ll just step aside and they’ll have to carry on. This was a European situation and it should have stayed European,” Trump repeated to reporters.
◾️What’s happening now: Finnish President Alexander Stubb asked Trump what the next steps are.
“I don’t know. Somebody has to come out and say whether the talks are going well or not, and then we’ll decide what to do,” Trump replied.
Europe's main problem is that the US and RF did not let it into the negotiating table on Ukraine, although Europe really wanted to.That is why Europe has a great desire to disrupt separate negotiations between the US and RF, where Ukraine is discussed without Ukraine.
Over the past week, the US and RF have turned all the EU's "red lines" into "brown lines".
Yesterday, the cocaine Fuhrer again squealed that Ukraine will not withdraw its troops from the occupied territories and will not recognize them as part of Russia. And he will not refuse to join NATO either. A bid for the summer campaign.
[BPN via ZERO] Sriram Krishnan, Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, joined the Monday edition of TBPN to explain why the U.S.-UAE AI Partnership is a strategic victory for the United States in its race to lead AI development against China, a perspective largely (and unsurprisingly) overlooked by mainstream media.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] A characteristic document from 1945 showing the real attitude of the Red Army command to the topic of rape and looting on German territory.
The guilty, regardless of rank or position, should be arrested and strictly judged
April 30, 1945.
CIPHER Message #872
From: 47th Army
TO CORPS COMMANDERS, CHIEF OF TROOPS, CHIEF OF POLITICAL DEPARTMENT, MILITARY PROSECUTOR, CHIEF OF ARMY OKR "SMERSH".
I am transmitting for management and strict execution the directive of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front #254 of April 30, 1945.
Receipt of the directive and its dissemination to personnel are to be conveyed.
"Several cases of outrages by front-line servicemen against representatives of foreign states not allied with us /embassies/, trade missions, journalists, correspondents/ of Japan, Switzerland, Ireland and others, located on the territory of Germany, have been noted.
Thus, complaints were received from representatives of the Japanese and Irish embassies about the looting of their property, the rape of the wife of a Japanese correspondent, etc.
All these phenomena could have occurred due to the connivance of senior commanders and political workers, military prosecutors, who are not truly fighting for the implementation of the directive of the Front Military Council No. 0143 and the manifestation of political short-sightedness on their part.
The Front Military Council demands:
I. Immediately bring to the attention of all personnel that diplomatic and trade representatives, correspondents, journalists of foreign states not at war with us, located on the territory of Germany, their property enjoy the right of inviolability and any attempt at arbitrariness against them may entail serious complications in the relations of their states with our state. Any serviceman, officer first of all, in case of detection of such missions or persons in his area, is obliged to take measures to protect them and their property and immediately report on command, not leaving them unattended until the arrival of senior commanders.
2. Only officers from the regiment commander and above, heads of the counterintelligence agencies "SMERSH" may personally inspect the premises of missions of foreign states, check documents. Other persons are strictly prohibited from doing this.
The seizure may be carried out only with the permission of the Military Council of the Front.
3. The Military Council of the 47th Army, the Military Prosecutor of the Front immediately and thoroughly investigate the case of the rape of the wife of the Japanese correspondent, the guilty, regardless of rank, position, - arrest and strictly judge.
4. Henceforth establish that for such cases of arbitrariness against representatives of foreign states not at war with us, unauthorized seizure of their property, along with the culprits, the unit commander and his deputy for the political department, whose subordinates are to be removed from office and brought to trial committed this crime, and the commander of the unit and the head of the political agency must be severely punished along administrative and party lines, up to and including removal from office.
Report the time of receipt of the directive and measures to bring it to the attention of personnel.
Report immediately all foreign missions discovered in their zones, as well as persons guarding their property.
№254 ZHUKOV TELEGIN".
TROOPS COMMANDER MEMBER OF THE MILITARY COUNCIL OF THE 47TH ARMY /PERKHOROVICH/
GUARDS LIEUTENANT GENERAL MAJOR GENERAL OF THE 47TH ARMY /KOROLEV/
CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE ARMY LIEUTENANT GENERAL /LUKYANCHENKO/
Archives of the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. F. 1021. Op. 1. D. 225. L. 311-313.
Similar draconian orders were issued regarding looting, rape and other crimes committed by individual soldiers and commanders of the Red Army in Poland and Germany. Punishments there were also harsh - from demotion in rank and deprivation of state awards to sending to camps. Zhukov acted here as a conductor of Stalin's policy, which he carried out in the liberated territories of Eastern Europe, where it was necessary to suppress any outrages at the grassroots level.Which, of course, did not prevent Nazi and Western propaganda from then cultivating myths about "raped Germany" and "rape policy".
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Andrey Rezyapkin on FB raised the personal file of Grandfather Baerbock and closed the question: "Against the backdrop of Annalena's latest appointment, the Baerbockiad around her grandfather has intensified again. The first Bild report (already emotional) was supplemented with new details from the declassified dossier on the ardent Nazi, member of the party and SS, colonel and holder of the Golden Knight's Cross of Military Merit. All this, of course, is being erased from the World Wide Web and hidden again in a distant drawer.
In order not to be late, we will also open the very personal file that excited correspondents and social networks - PERS 6 / 226922 (BA-MA, Freiburg) - and delve into its contents.
Grandfather Waldemar, being a qualified engineer (graduated from the technical Karlsruhe University in 1937), was mobilized by the "military commissariat" of Hanover and from 1938 underwent training in various air defense units as a specialist in the aircraft recognition service and the instrumental (rangefinder) reconnaissance service of anti-aircraft artillery. By the third year of service, he was re-certified from a reserve non-commissioned officer to an officer candidate, in September 1941 he became a lieutenant and in 1944 - a senior lieutenant (Kriegsoffizier*), he ended the war as the head of the special equipment workshop in the mobile instrument battalion of anti-aircraft artillery as part of the 10th Air Defense Brigade (headquartered in East Prussia). In 1945 he was captured by the Americans.
*Kriegsoffizier = "wartime officer" - the result of rapid promotion to command positions - where there was a shortage of command personnel during the war.
In 1944 he received the so-called "Cross of War Merit" 2nd degree with swords" (KVK 2 m.Sch., an analogue of the medal "For Military Merit", most likely a list award). A commemorative medal for the Sudeten Campaign (Sudeten-Erinnerungsmedaille) is also mentioned. He had no other military awards. In the 1944 characterization, it is noted that he has good technical knowledge, but no field or combat experience.
No particular political activity is noted in his personal file. He joined the party and the SA in 1933, and was promoted to flight commander (SA-Scharführer) in 1934. He managed to receive the SA sports badge (analogue of the GTO complex). Then his political career was cut short. He was not a member of the SS.
The file contains a statement that Waldemar did not participate in left-wing parties and does not have Jewish roots (a standard form filled out when promoting to command positions). In the service characteristics, related to his promotion, there are also notes on his worldview (I quote in full, due to its particular piquancy):
1941 - Hat das Buch "Mein Kampf" gelesen unf steht vollkommen auf dem Boden der nationalsozialistischen Weltanschauung.
1942 - Seine Weltanschauung wurzelt im Nationalsozialismus.
1944 - Bedinungsloser Nationalsozialist.
That's it, nothing more can be squeezed out of a personal file, no matter how hard you try. Frankly, I don't understand what all the fuss is about. His granddaughter gives much more reason to get excited"Well, in fact, he became an open Nazi in 1933 after Hitler came to power. He remained a member of the NSDAP until the end of the war. He participated in the aggressive wars unleashed by Hitler.
So, in fact, the daughter did not go too far from her grandfather, also taking part in unleashing an aggressive war in Europe. Of course, you can say that Baerbock's grandfather was a small and insignificant Nazi. But the determining factor here is that the grandfather was, in fact, a Nazi.
[Whatafinger] Dan Bongino now is either corrupted or has his head up his rear. They got to him? Awaken with JP covers it. Alex Jones too in second vid at this link — BAM (Almost all respect is now gone for Bongino, Kash.... Let’s hope they prove us all wrong)
Epstein did not kill himself.
They got threatened by higher powers and people on the inside, there is no way. No way they don’t know by now.
You can see when kash and bongino were lying. Kash gets all cross-eyed, and Bongino blinks like crazy.
Dan and Kash clearly have seen how scary the corruption is.
Unless some brave soul who knows everything risks theor life to spill the beans this is the end of the saga.
That interview TANKED their reputation and credibility.
Anything they do or say can’t EVER be believed nor trusted again
Kash is saying what he was told to say. Two guards asleep and camera tampered with are not coincidence. Three things are NEVER coincidence.
Let’s just be real, were never going to get the truth about 90% of what goes on, no matter who’s in charge.
Bongino better stay the deputy director or just retire. His career as a commentator is OVER. His success hinged on his trustworthiness... and that’s gone with this.
Very weird what Patel and Bongino did. They did look coerced, which I find hard to believe that anyone could do that to them. It’s a bit of a mystery right now what is going on.
#4
They were put in place to restore justice by either putting untouchable people in jail or by making processes transparent. They have done nether in this case. Whatever files they have seen, we need to see. Epstein can no longer be charged. There is no active investigation. Don’t ask us to trust. We no longer trust. Restoring trust requires transparency.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/21/2025 6:47 Comments ||
Top||
#5
It IS transparent.
We can't see the Jeffrey Epstein files!
Is English your second language?
Promises made, promises kept.
Even if the files are totally fictitious? At this point I don't believe any such information disclosed or not. I do believe that by now a massive coverup, deletion and distortion campaign has rendered "transparency" impossible.
#7
I wanna know what those sleepy prison guards are up to these days. How did things turn out for them? Are they security guards at a strip mall in Buffalo or living large in Florida?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/21/2025 12:25 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Or did they get whacked because they knew too much?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/21/2025 12:26 Comments ||
Top||
#9
If I had to guess, they were directly ordered to say what they did, by the highest authority in the land, because it was clear that the rot that would be revealed was so deep through-out government and industry, so wide-spread and damaging, and the impact on the intelligence connections to Mossad and other allies so great, even government stability would be in doubt.
PDJT is working miracles in turning around so much of the momentum of our national character and truly represents an existential savior for the American experiment. I think it is therefore a sense that this will fester, but it can be treated later if more progress in our national recovery can be accomplished. No other argument makes any sense, as I honestly believe both of them are men of integrity and nothing else would convince them to do this.
#10
Epstein may be one of many, to reveal clients allows someone to link them to other "parties" which would then be exploited or could expose a much larger operation.
The client list has far greater value as leverage than as a legal tool of justice.
Like Cartels, Epstein gives a snapshot into the real deep state. The nebulous world where individual, family, criminal and corporate wealth, power and influence align with accountable federal agencies for a mutual benefit, and a snapshot is all they will allow.
To consider is also that Kash and Bongino were set up to fall, be discredited, by someone. possibly the "deep state" allowed them to pass through congress calculating with high probability they would be thrown under the bus. Epstein was a long play game, chess not checkers, decades not 4 years and now the info is as well.
[ZeroHedge] Biden's Was The First Fully Deep-State Presidency
The “presidency” of Joe Biden is one of the greatest scandals in American history. The legacy media is only now covering the mental incapacity of a president who apparently left the entire ship of state to the unaccountable bureaucracy.
On Friday, Axios released Friday night news dump audio of Biden’s 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur.
If you heard the tape and haven’t been in a coma for the past four years, then nothing here is truly surprising. The former president sounded senile and evasive when answering questions about his handling of top secret documents.
Some of my colleagues went through the full tapes and found that Biden “forgot the names of President Barack Obama’s former secretary of defense and comedian Jay Leno; referred to Africa as a country, not a continent; and was unaware he had in his possession a notebook with war advice in it for Obama during his interview with special counsel Robert Hur and investigators in October 2023.”
Biden certainly did not sound like someone who could be trusted to make large-scale national decisions or even small-scale personal ones.
This is entirely unsurprising unless you are a left-leaning corporate media journalist on the political beat.
If you are, then I’m sure that the reports coming out about Biden in office are jaw-dropping, gob-smacking revelations to you.
The media elite are shocked, shocked to discover that Biden may have been unfit for office.
The release of these tapes was followed by a Sunday afternoon reveal that Biden has been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.
The cancer diagnosis is certainly a terrible thing. But the idea that this should end the story about what happened the last four years is a farce. It couldn’t be clearer now that due to mental and physical ailments, Biden was a diminished man from the moment he assumed the president’s office.
Despite some of the aforementioned elite journalists calling for a lid to be put on conversations about Biden’s presidency due to his health, the reality is the cancer diagnosis only raises more unsettling questions. Is this really a new diagnosis? Did Biden’s doctors really somehow miss the signs of treatable cancer?
And that makes this situation entirely unprecedented.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
05/21/2025 01:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[137 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
They cheated and installed a guy in hospice into the White House. They faked his actions as president. They did this with the willing cooperation of the national press. We aren’t moving on. There needs to be accountability for all the participants in the scam.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/21/2025 6:51 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Media covering his alleged cancer 24x7.
Media coverage of Trump team accomplisments, not so much.
Texas Law States that consent cannot be given by a person with diminished capacity. Further, consent is not effective, even when its given, by a person with diminished Capacity.
[Breitbart] Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday pointed out the Trump administration was able to undo an egregious instance of government weaponization against the Maude family of ranchers in South Dakota during a policy event hosted by Breitbart News.
Rollins lamented how the “government has weaponized itself against families like the Maudes,” noting that they are fifth generation farmers and ranchers.
During the Biden administration, the United States Forest Service alerted the Maude family that their property allegedly blocked access to the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and in good faith agreed to a survey of the property lines. However, after the survey was completed, the Biden administration transformed a simple civil dispute into a “costly, invasive, and unnecessary criminal prosecution.”
Rollins noted that the “fence that was put up in 1910 by Charles’s great-great grandad that no one ever thought there was a problem.”
She added, “Fast forward one hundred and ten years, and someone from the Forest Service shows up, says your fence might not be in the right place.”
“That’s they hear of it until agents in SWAT gear show up at their front door and say that they are being criminally charged for theft of government property that they need to find guardians for their young children because they are likely going to jail,” the Agriculture Secretary continued.
Rollins charged, “The fact that this happened in America should absolutely stun everyone in this room today, everyone on the livestream, every media representative that’s here.”
She asked rhetorically, “This is America. You’re going to put people in jail over a fence line?”
Contrasting it with the Democrats, she said, “We have members of the other party going to El Salvador going to get a gang member out prison, that’s who they are fighting for.”
Rollins remarked, “So, thankful to the White House, thankful to President Trump. We got all of the criminal charges dropped. We had the Maudes in town a week ago.”
Rollins noted that they had set up a hotline to blow the whistle about other instances of government weaponization to stop more outrages like this.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] The "intelligence war" between Iran and Israel continues. This time, a 16-year-old teenager, who was under investigation by both the Iranians and the Israelis, has come under counterintelligence's scrutiny. The incident has sparked heated debate.
The defense and prosecution versions of the double agent differ dramatically, and it is not entirely clear from them whether the young man acted entirely independently or became a “collateral damage” in an ill-conceived operation by Israeli security forces.
However, while the investigation into the youngest spy was underway, a blow to Israel’s security was dealt by those whom the country’s intelligence services had considered their shadow allies for several years.
THE SPY FROM SHEPHELAH
In mid-May, the Israel Security Service (Shabaq) reported the arrest of a 16-year-old teenager from Shefela, accused of working for Iranian intelligence. According to the investigation, the Iranian handlers assigned the youth simple operations to equip hiding places, photograph city objects and prepare propaganda materials.
Moreover, the Iranians even tried to organize a face-to-face meeting with the new agent on the territory of a third country in order to deepen contact, but these plans were thwarted by counterintelligence.
The plot of the case, at first glance, is not much different from other similar cases. The teenager became the eighteenth person involved in a large-scale campaign to combat Iranian agents in Israel and even carried out the same tasks as other Iranian "pawns". However, there are some specific features.
For example, at some point the teenager himself informed the authorities about contacts with representatives of a hostile state and even allegedly received instructions from operatives on how to safely interrupt communication with the recruiter.
However, as noted by the Shabak, the young man did not heed the advice and continued to interact with his Iranian curator, for which he was soon detained.
The prosecution insists that the arrested man acted “solely out of selfish motives,” flaunting his status as an agent of several countries and counting on rewards from both Iran and Israel.
This is hardly entirely true. The Iranians clearly did not place a serious bet on the teenager (due to his inexperience and difficulty in control), but they could well have tried to use him to briefly divert counterintelligence attention from larger and more important figures in the spy network.
And this bet partly justified itself - the case of the "spy from Shefela" really did push aside other scandals for a short time.
FALSE TRAIl
The Shefela "double agent" is far from the only one to stir up the Israeli public. Much greater damage to the reputation of the Jewish state's intelligence services was caused by a large-scale intelligence failure in the Gaza Strip, which developed according to a similar scenario.
Shortly before the start of Operation Gideon's Chariots in Gaza (May 2025), the Israeli press, close to the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, made a sensational statement: it turns out that the wide network of Palestinian agents created in Gaza before the conflict, considered the "eyes and ears" of the Israeli intelligence services in the enclave, had in fact been working for Hamas all these years and misinforming official Tel Aviv.
The agents not only concealed Hamas' plans to break out of Gaza on October 7, 2023 (which effectively caught the intelligence services and the army off guard), but also disrupted Israeli operations to eliminate the movement's functionaries several times. Thus, these agents only pretended to work for the enemy, i.e. they were no longer double, but triple agents.
For example, thanks to them, Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza, who is now tipped to become the head of Hamas, escaped the IDF's attack in mid-2024. The Israelis still cannot figure out his new location.
In addition, Hamas actively used the services of “Israeli” agents to provide official Tel Aviv with false information about the mood in the enclave and among the movement’s command staff, about the number and combat readiness of the underground and the condition of the hostages.
The “game” became especially active on the eve of new rounds of negotiations, which partly explains the extraordinary flexibility of the Israeli delegation on a number of issues – for example, their readiness to support the ceasefire regime introduced in the enclave in January 2025.
However, in the case of false agents in the ranks of Hamas, Israeli security officials eventually managed to rectify the situation by involving less senior, but more reliable sources in the case, including representatives of competing Palestinian factions.
As a result, by the start of Operation Gideon's Chariots, the security services and the army had managed to inflict a number of painful defeats on the Palestinians, including the elimination of Hamas leader Mohammad Sinwar and a number of his associates.
DARK PLACES
Although the aforementioned spy scandals fit well into the logic of the current “intelligence war” in the Middle East, they contain many controversial points.
Thus, in the case of the teenager from Shefela, the picture of the situation presented by the Shin Bet is strikingly different from the arguments of the lawyers.
The defense insists that the teenager agreed to cooperate with foreign intelligence under pressure from circumstances—anonymous recruiters knew his home address and information about family members.
The law enforcement officers to whom he complained about the persecution were unable to guarantee him protection and preferred to “pass the buck” to their colleagues from counterintelligence.
At the same time, the Shin Bet also decided not to disrupt the recruitment, preferring to use the potential Iranian agent “in the dark” to reach out to other potential agents of the network, which is at odds with the statements of counterintelligence agents about the “extensive briefing” of the arrested man.
And by doing so, they de facto pushed the teenager to cooperate with the enemy. As a result, the young man found himself drawn into a dangerous game in which he was left on the receiving end.
The situation partly echoes the “Hoffman affair,” which thundered across the country in 2024. At that time, military intelligence colonel Roman Hoffman (now a general and military secretary to the prime minister) and several of his subordinates recruited a 16-year-old Israeli to carry out controlled leaks of classified information through his Telegram channel.
However, after counterintelligence intervened, the military distanced itself from the newly minted agent, and he spent almost a year in prison on charges of disclosing classified information - more than 44 days of which were spent in interrogations by the Shin Bet. It is highly likely that the current spy story was also the result of excessive self-confidence on the part of some operatives.
The hype surrounding the case of the “Hamas triple agents” appears to be man-made and serves a more obvious purpose.
In particular, the repeated refrain that it was the re-recruited Hamas agents who “blinded” counterintelligence damages the reputation of the outgoing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, with whom the Israeli authorities have had a protracted conflict.
It was Baru who is credited with the initiative to massively convert former Hamas supporters in order to have eyes and ears in the most remote parts of the enclave.
It is quite possible that when developing the operation, the Shin Bet chief was guided by the successful experience of recruiting Musab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of the founders of Hamas, especially since he subsequently supplied Tel Aviv with valuable intelligence for more than ten years.
However, due to the lack of sufficient leverage over the newly-minted agents, the attempt failed.
If the matter goes beyond newspaper attacks and escalates into a court case (as Israeli hawks are gradually calling for), it will finally knock not only Bar out of the saddle, but also his closest associates.
And in the future, it will allow the Prime Minister’s office to lobby for a convenient candidate for the high post and thereby finally purge counterintelligence of old opponents.
Posted by: badanov ||
05/21/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[49 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran Proxies
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
