Jeff Childers has a different take on what’s going on in Ukraine now .

After weeks, if not months, of creeping Russian advances, back-and-forth artillery strikes, and wrangling over a nuclear power plant, the situation in Ukraine shifted rapidly over the weekend, as war zones can do sometimes. You won’t get the whole story from corporate media though, because it puts the narrative on thin ice.

On Saturday morning, my Ukraine/Russian channels were reporting Ukraine had suddenly and unexpectedly pushed Russia out of two large areas of the Donbas. According to local reports, the Ukrainian troops included a lot of American and British “mercenaries,” and the unusually well-coordinated action seemed to take the Russians completely by surprise, who were forced to retreat in disarray.

According to British media, by Saturday night a jubilant Zelensky was already mocking Moscow in an online video, boasting “the Russian army in these days is demonstrating the best that it can do, showing its back.”

By mid-day, corporate media was spinning up the narrative machine, getting it all ready to start spamming the zone with long-form narratives and personal interviews about Ukraine’s glorious defeat of the foul Russian aggressors, and how this momentum was just what was needed to get the war politics back on track, and to get the dollars flowing freely again from Washington into the Deep State’s Eastern European crack house, Ukraine.

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Francis Harris
@fharris2011
“In the end, the Russians fled any way they could on Friday, on stolen bicycles, disguised as locals. Hours after Ukrainian soldiers poured into the area, hundreds of Russian soldiers encamped in this village were gone”
Amid Ukraine’s startling gains, liberated villages describe Russian troops dropping rifles and fleeing
Ukraine’s blitz liberated Izyum and other occupied areas in Kharkiv region, but Russia still holds large swaths of territory and a major advantage in firepower
washingtonpost.com
September 12th 2022

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But by the time I got done with church and Bible study on Sunday, my local sources were reporting that Russia had started bombing Ukraine’s network of antique Soviet-era power stations, marking a massive change in the character of the war.

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Valeria
@Valere_ia
?????? Massive blackout in Ukraine after missile launch from Black Sea. Power down fully or partially in: ?? Kharkiv Oblast; ?? Sumy Oblast; ?? Poltava Oblast; ?? Dniepropetrovsk Oblast; ?? Zaporizha Oblast; ?? Odesa Oblast; ?? ZSU-controlled parts of DPR; #Russia ##Donbas
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September 12th 2022

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According to some reports, up to HALF of Ukraine lacked power yesterday night. Since the start of the war, Russia held off taking this elementary military step; a step that the U.S. promptly took in Iraq when we invaded that country. Of COURSE you take out the enemy’s power, it hampers communications, impedes enemy special forces, and helps thicken the fog of war.

In fact, I even speculated on C&C in early March that it might be a fake war BECAUSE Russia was withholding bombing Ukraine’s power. It seemed to me that Russia wasn’t really TRYING to win. Later, the evidence suggested that Russia was trying to avoid damaging civilian infrastructure and was trying to avoid creating a humanitarian disaster.

When I got up this morning I immediately searched corporate media for reports on the power strikes. It’s a made-for-news story. It writes itself. Civilians in Ukraine — already suffering greatly — have now been plunged into the dark by the outrageous and unprovoked Russian attacks. But I was surprised to find a single story on the power. One Reuters story this morning mentioned the power strikes in the link, but after I clicked it, the headline was only, “Ukraine Troops Sweep Ahead After Russian Collapse In Northeast.”

But the Independent UK ran a story this morning headlined, “Blackouts In Ukraine As Retreating Russian Forces Target Power Stations.”

According to the Independent, as Russian forces were pushed out of large areas in the Kharkiv region, they struck the power plants there, pulling the plug on large parts of Ukraine. The strikes appear to have been missiles launched from Russian ships in the Baltic Sea. Former comedian and Ukrainian president Zelensky then denounced the “deliberate and cynical missile strikes” against the power plants as acts of terrorism.

“The [Russian] occupiers have struck critical infrastructure in the city and region of Kharkiv,” Kharkiv governor Olegh Synehubov wrote on Telegram. “In several population centres, there are no electrical or water supplies. Fires have broken out where these strikes occurred and emergency crews … are containing the blazes.”

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GEROMAN – – Zerbian – -?-
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Closer images.
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September 11th 2022

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According to the Independent UK, the head of the eastern Sumy region, Dmytro Zhvytsky, said electricity and water losses affected at least 135 towns and villages. Perhaps hinting where this may be going, the Independent noted darkly that “deliberate targeting of essential civilian services is a violation of international law.”

Possibly. I suppose invasions violate international laws too.

This move by the Russians positively suggests a new strategy, a strategy that will be difficult for the Ukrainians to counter. Ukraine is completely outmatched in a full-scale conflict. So if Russia is taking the gloves off, things are going to get livelier in Ukraine, NATO will be under pressure to escalate its involvement, and the Deep State will be freaking out.

I’m guessing this is why corporate media is avoiding reporting the story. First, they want to celebrate Ukraine’s success before clouding the narrative with Russia dropping the hammer. Second, they don’t want us to recognize that Russia could having taken out anything they want, at any time, FROM THE SEA. They don’t HAVE to creep across Ukraine inch-by-inch if they don’t want to, or even lose a single tank.

In other words, the Russians could just bomb Ukraine’s infrastructure from the ocean and then go where they like. They could hit Zelensky’s palace in Kyiv. The fact they haven’t done that raises a lot of hard questions and puts unwanted stress on the narrative.

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ADDED

FROM SLAVA Z VIA TELEGRAM