Gonzalo Lira’s Contrarian Views: What Yavoriv and Desna Mean / There Is No “Open Corridor” Through West and Central Ukraine

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Gonzalo Lira

Dateline: 5.21.2022

Some Select Comments on What Yavoriv and Desna Mean

Dragan Milivojević A few things to consider: The current situation benefits Russia in the global sphere: the west is going down the drain, new multi polar world is shaping. Going back is not an option and bleeding the west is the way to go. As for arming and training Ukrainians: they can train them outside of Ukraine where Russia will not strike and the west will supply weapons no matter what percentage gets destroyed simply because they don't care: it fills the bags of the military industry. The military problem for Russia is to balance the amount that gets to the front line and prolongs the war, without inflicting serious damage to their forces.

john smith Thanks for highlighting the critical aspect about how Russians see Ukraine. The west is used to colonial suppression wars where the "savages" are "put in their place" (see Iraq, etc.) but for Russia both the Ukrainians and the ethnic Russians living in Ukraine are like family. This is not patronizing chauvinism as the Stepan Bandera worshipers try to paint it. There is vastly more difference between the Scots, Welsh and English than there is between Russians and ethnic Ukrainians. What we are seeing in Ukraine is the legacy of both foreign and Bolshevik (sic) meddling designed to carve up Russia. I am not talking about the Russian Empire. The Poles, Balts, Finns, Kazakhs, and other peoples are clearly not in the same category as Russians and Ukrainians in terms of ethnic closeness.

Mladen Matosevic If there are 30mln people inside Ukraine, then there are perhaps 2mln young men between 20 and 30, probably less. And many probably fled the country to avoid being drafted. So, creating a one-million-man army would mean everyone caught on the street is pressed into service.

BlackPilled Buddha US were so obsessed with training the Afghan military that the process took 20 years and we have all witnessed the outcome, lets see what happens in Ukraine.

Cameltoe Face Interesting position.. it also appears that Russia is bleeding out the west by slow cooking the Ukrainians. It’s like the west is waiting for the Russians to lose, but they just keep pushing, and pushing until the morale is destroyed. Like a boxer with great cardio fighting a tired KO artist..

Charles Lamb I now agree with you about Scott Ritter, he has either been taking the wrong drugs or he has had a change of mind, but honestly it looks like he is now going towards the MSM

Regular normie what i don't understand is how you spoke out against zelensky then were arrested (by the Ukrainian gestapo) yet instead of calming things down you have gone into critical overdrive. have you had assurances that you can continue to speak out against the ukranian government or are simply not bothered about your welfare, I'm confused.

Steve S Hey Gonzalo. I'm your age, a white-collar professional, and have been watching some of your videos for a year or so. I believe we share similar outlooks and perspectives on life, and I generally respect most of your logic.. But since you have been talking about BS, I have to be honest. Something about your recent story doesn't add up. You are in Ukraine, and presumably, you sent your wife and kids out of Ukraine. You got hauled in by the Ukranian authorities for making YouTube videos, read the "Riot Act" by them, let go free, and are now you're back making the same kinds of YouTube videos??? The rational and logical thing for a husband and father to do after that experience is to either leave the country and be with your family, or keep your mouth shut and stay there. Something just doesn't add up. You also shit talk the USA and constantly put Russia on a pedestal. Both countries are wrong and do bad shit, but you never call out the Russians. Makes me think you are getting paid by the Russians. I hope I'm wrong, so prove me wrong. Cheers from the USA.

There Is No “Open Corridor” Through West and Central Ukraine

Dateline 5.19.2022

I No Longer Trust Scott Ritter

Dateline: 5.20.2022 Gonzalo Lira II

Select Comments on There Is No “Open Corridor” Through West and Central Ukraine and I No Longer Trust Scott Ritter

Searle Arnold A word on fuel by rail and truck logistics from someone who has been in that industry in Canada. Russian, Ukrainian and European trains are different rail gauge sizes to each other, so you can't simply drive rail cars from Europe to Ukraine, you have a lot of time-consuming steps to move rail cars and loads between almost every different country. Canada/US trains are all the same gauge across the continent, so there is no stopping a train crossing a border, it just rolls along. Scott Ritter said that 1000 rail cars of fuel had made it into Ukraine and delivered fuel to where it was needed. If that was in Canada's oil patch, with our trucks that haul double trailers, that would require 3000 truckloads to unload and deliver that amount of fuel. Ukraine doesn't have double trailer setups, they use single trailers, meaning they would need 6000 truckloads to haul the same amount. It takes 3 double trailers to fill 1 Canadian rail car, same for unloading. Where I live, In Alberta Canada, I've coordinated logistics for fuel delivery, refinery and pipeline shutdowns and maintenance with these trucks. To load and unload this would take facilities like I have only 1 mile from my house. I live near refinery row in Edmonton and have worked at these facilities. I can assure anyone, based on photos and video I've seen, that these facilities no longer exist in Ukraine in the capacity required to facilitate this kind of fuel fulfillment. It takes 1 hour to load or unload every double trailer truck. It would also require thousands of truck drivers. I can't imagine how Ukraine acquired the rail cars, trucks, trained drivers and rail yard staff required to do this, even if they had all of them to start with. Then, you need tank storage or free railheads, mobile pumps on the delivery end in every major center near the front with more trucks to drive loads to the front. Or re-work the numbers to get that much moved over a week or two. My head hurts when I think about that kind of scale suddenly springing into action to accomplish that. Could it be done? Yes. Is it likely? No, that is so far from reality, I can't imagine it and I've brought together 100's of trucks for big emergency jobs. From my perspective, it's hard to believe it was pulled off in a war zone with blown bridges and under threat of air attack, not to mention a bad highway system with crap pavement nationwide.

forceOfHabit Given a choice between listening to Gonzalo Lira’s enthusiastic amateur cheerleading and Scott Ritter’s sober professional analysis, I’ll take Ritter all day long.

A few simple points of comparison:

Lira says the weapons systems that the west is supplying require training. Ritter doesn’t disagree. He points out that when the training was happening on Ukrainian soil the soldiers and the trainers were in danger of being blown up by the Russians. But now the training is happening in Poland (and potentially other places), and can be completed without the risk of dying.

Lira says the Ukrainians have a fuel shortage, Ritter points out that the Ukrainians received a giant fuel train from the West and they are (temporarily at least) well supplied with fuel and able to drive their tanks and trucks without worrying about running out. He points out that although the refineries in Ukraine are out of commission, that if the West is willing and able to continue supplying the Ukrainians with fuel, that enables them to maintain their resistance.

Lira says the Russians can bomb the Western weapons and materiel resupply at will. Ritter points out the previously mentioned fuel supply train (not bombed), and the state of the art M777 western supplied howitzers that Ukraine has actually been able to deploy at the front. (Yes, the howitzers may lack their advanced targeting systems, yes they might be destroyed after arriving at the front, but they are making it through, and if the training in Poland is successful, future iterations may well arrive with all their advanced systems intact.)

Ritter agrees that the Russians will inevitably crush the Ukrainians in Donbass. Where he says Russia is in danger of losing, is in the larger announced goal of the SMO: demilitarization of Ukraine. He realistically points out that as long as the West keeps pumping resources (weapons, fuel, food, intelligence and reconnaissance) into Ukraine, the western part of Ukraine will be exceedingly difficult to pacify and demilitarize. Lira optimistically prefers to focus myopically only on the Russian prospect for victory in the east, without thinking about the larger goals and longer term prospects.

Ritter may turn out to be wrong (as he will tell you himself), but his analysis is honest, intelligent, and informed. Cheerleaders like Lira thoughtlessly dismissing his concerns are doing themselves a disservice.

Yashuo It’s interesting why the fuel train (where did it terminate its journey?) was not bombed.

Fuel depots are continually being bombed, as are fuel trucks. It could be any number of things, one imagines. Lack of/faulty intelligence, the specific location of the end point of the journey of the train, who knows what else. Getting fuel to troops in the east is another matter. I reckon there are dedicated groups just to “find, fix, and finish” fuel.

Re: the de-militarization of the entire Ukraine – entirely and completely – yes, wonder you could do that if, just for argument’s sake, the US/UK/West had an annual “guns to Ukraine” budget of $X billion, in perpetuity. It just kept on coming. // Then one would have to play the really long game – demographics.

Even before the SMO, or Covid19 for that matter, Ukraine’s total fertility rate at 1.23, was even lower than RF’s of ~1.51 (Germany: 1.54). Replacement rate – what’s needed to keep a population stable/unchanged (without immigration) is ~2.1.

So the population is both declining and aging (even before large emigration – economic and refugee). Which means the number of fighting age men/women becomes an issue. So then you have to import them from other places: “proxy-squared”, if you will: non-Ukranians fighting in Ukraine to weaken Russia. // And so planners have to think about how to counter that – long-term.

I see this SMO/war moving towards low-intensity conflict (LIC), which, admittedly, is not felt as “low” by those impacted by it on a daily basis, if there is no formal negotiated peace/settlement.

Similar to India and Pakistan in the disputed areas of Kashmir (IOK, POK): 75 years of LIC, punctuated by periods of higher intensity – I hesitate to classify some/all of these as “wars”. In the so-called “Kargil War”, for instance, India (official stats) claimed to have suffered 527KIA and ~1,500 wounded. // Next to 20-30 *million* (civ+mil) casualties, this can hardly be termed a war.

The FMs of the BRICS countries met yesterday (May 19th) as part of the 14th BRICS Summit. SCO summit takes place later in the year. Folks will be thinking and talking about these issues.

I reckon it will be a similar ~75 years, so roughly by the year 2100, before we see the full impact of events currently unfolding. By then, the world population will have peaked, or even started to decline, and it will be much clearer as to which countries (esp. those with low TFRs) have been able to stem/reverse population decline.

It will also be much clearer by then what effect climate change has had on the planet – in this regard, Russia stands to be a net gainer if global average temperatures are up by even a few degrees. As secure in food, fuel/energy, and water, Russia will be in an enviable position compared to much of the Global South (poorer, developing countries primarily in Asia, Africa, and Central/South America).

This is a very long game. Demographics is an important component – too few people have been discussing this aspect.

Truth Seeker Poland previously built Ukraine width tracks running into its territory so possible to send trains from Poland to Ukrainie without stopping at the border.

Dirk Manly Not much. Lots of traffic has to go through rail-gauge conversion facilities (Standard Guage trucks removed from beneath the cats and replaced with Russian gauge for east-bound cars and the reverse for west-bound cars. These cats are dropped off by the locomotives, which can’t have their gauges swapped without requiring days or weeks of labor, whereas wheel tricks underneath cargo cars and passenger wagons can be swapped in a few minutes. Anyone who has played a WW2 wargame of the combat on the Eastern Front is well aware of this issue, and it remains to this day.

Dirk Manly You have it backwards. Ukie rail gauge is Russian rail gauge (5 foot = 1520 mm, originally 1524mm), which is the widest national gauge throughout Eurasia. West of Ukraine it’s all Standard Gauge (4 foot 8 1/2 inches = 1435 mm) which is Roman chariot gauge (centuries of roman chariot traffic wearing ruts in wet then heat-hardened clay, and in paved roads with tight clearances) caused wagon makers to adopt the same gauge, which persisted through to the first horse-drawn mine carriage systems, which eventually became the first horse-drawn railroads, and eventually retained for out-of-mine railroads as well. That and the current 360-degrees for a circle and the day being 24 hours consisting of 60 minutes of 60 seconds (3 x 2^3 hours of 5x3x2^2 hours of 5x3x2^2 seconds) are the largest surviving arbitrary standards from the ancient Mesopotamia/Mediterranean civilizations.

Marina Ritter As Scott Ritter’s wife, I listened to this clip with interest. Several points: 1. a modicum of gratitude from you to people like Scott and others who raised an alarm about your disappearance is in order. The whole purpose of Scott’s article was to raise awareness of your disappearance. 2. Scott did not say that you were kidnapped, tortured and murdered. He said “when reports emerged that you were kidnapped, tortured and murdered….”. You conveniently omitted Scott’s reference to these reports. Scott further clarified in the same article “I have no direct evidence that Gonzalo has been killed, I was clear I was referring to reports emerging about his demise. But Gonzo said any disappearance of more than 12 hours should be treated as if something bad had happened to him. It’s been five days”. 3. As someone who once feared for his life at the prospect of being detained by the SBU during war time, you seem awfully jovial and nonchalant about your experience. As a former Soviet citizen, I know that security services do not arrest and release people suspected of treason during war time without some strings attached. After listening to your rant, I have a pretty good idea what those strings are. 4. With all due respect, Scott’s words stand on their own and they don’t need to be dressed up by the likes of you. In the article you quoted, Scott never once mentioned a Russian Vietnam or new Afghanistan. Those are your words, not his. 5. You assessment about Scott courting the mainstream media is fiction. I hope the SBU gives you a pat on your back for your efforts for attacking Scott. Your followers may not comprehend the true objectives behind your rant, but I do.

Maria Konsta He (Ritter) sacrificed his chance for an easy life when he spoke out against the lies of the Bush administration about WMDs in Iraq. There's a reason people listen to him and that's because he knows his stuff and isn't afraid to admit it if his predictions were wrong.

quij7ote 22 Wow, I didn't expect this. First, Scott Ritter has said more than once "you shouldn't believe me (nor anyone else); do your own research. Second, one of his most common refrains in interviews is "Of course, I could be wrong." Mr. Ritter is a man of passion who tends to be a bit impulsive. He started out saying Russia's war plan would be written about in military history because of its brilliance. He now just as passionately admits they made mistakes and some of them are consequential. But, his most constant position is that Russia is winning. Also, that they HAD to go into Ukraine. I don't think a single MSM host wants to ask him on to voice these opinions. You folks who have provided us a lifeline really don't need to start cutting each other's throats...

Darlene Namahoe It was Ritter's video that pushed all the right buttons and got people mobilized. Ukraine media immediately came out denying you were harmed and people started flooding embassies on your behalf. I think you're misunderstanding his intentions. Personally, based on 40 years government service, I believe his actions saved your life.

Yine Dear Mr. Lira, I really enjoy listening and learning about the thoughts you share with us. I recall that your Twitter account said, "If you haven’t heard from me in 12 hours or more, put my name on this list.", the list of dead or disappeared people. Everyone thought you were dead and I almost cried too. Fortunately, you were fine, and I'm still so relieved that you are okay. However, it appears that you're reacting emotionally to a potential miscommunication sir. Wishing both of you, Scott Ritter and Gonzalo Lira, peace and unity, together and forever.

Vai Bora G. Lira is being excessive in his critique of Scott Ritter, bordering on the ingrate. Last thing the alt commentariat needs is petty personal fights of this kind. Besides his reasoning does not hold enough water to make a case.

Mr. Golov Scott Ritter is not making a U-turn. He's voicing his concerns based on his expectations on how this special operation will evolve. He has a vision of what Russia should do to be successful. Russians have another vision. As much as I agree with him or disagree with him, Gonzalo is making a far reach here to cancel Ritter. BTW, didn't Gonzalo write a tweet that if he isn't heard of for certain amount of days that everyone should consider him dead? Scott acted based off of that tweet. If anything Mr. Lira should be grateful to Scott Ritter for raising awareness of his arrest by the SBU.

Sorbas39 As someone who was once arrested and "given the treatment" by the Argentinian military during the "dirty war" in the 70s, a cowardly war against largely disarmed people, and assisted by the CIA, etc., I frankly doubt the SBU even arrested Lira. I survived by a miracle, and still have nightmares more than 50 years later. Many of the people arrested with me did not survive. And of those who did, most remained profoundly shaken for a long time. So Mr Lira is either reckless, a fool or one of the bravest men alive. After all, Kharkov is still very much in Kiev's hands.

Gonzalo Lira II

NOTE: Because I've lost access to all my accounts and channels to the SBU (Ukraine's secret police), I don't have any way to promote my content—so please be so kind as to share this video with anyone whom you think might learn something. GL

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Up to You.

^3000US citizens have no real political representation.

We don't live in a democracy. And our freedom is disappearing fast.

I don't want to be ruled by hypocrites, whores, and war criminals.

What about you? Time to push back against the corporate oligarchy.

And its multitude of minions and lackeys.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Read it in your language • Lealo en su idioma • Lisez-le dans votre langue • Lies es in Deiner Sprache • Прочитайте это на вашем языке • 用你的语言阅读

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Gui Rochat

1 month ago

When listening to the Saturday interview with Garland Nixon, it is clear that Ritter does not predict a Ukrainian victory but that he warns against the enhanced war effects of training Ukrainian army units within NATO lands with the new armaments sent by the US. That makes the Ukrainian army a battalion within US armies and legally the US has thus openly entered the war theatre. That Ritter shows concern is a good sign for better discussions, not what is implied that Ritter would be an apostate. Dogma is one of the greatest enemies of the left.

How long will the US influence in continental Western Europe (NATO) stretch ? So far US investment in Europe has been by US corporations, by the US army and the US government, all guaranteeing a certain amount of loyalty and cooperation. But with the enforcement of anti-Russian (and anti-Chinese) policies like the closure of the Russian oil and gas pipeline, it may well be a thing of the past. Driven by financial exigencies caused by the enforcement of relying on US imports, it will in time loosen the NATO bondage.

Gonzalo Lira’s Contrarian Views: What Yavoriv and Desna Mean / There Is No “Open Corridor” Through West and Central Ukraine

Meantime, Lira's strangely acrimonious kerfuffle with Scott Ritter seems ill-advised and badly-received.

There Is No “Open Corridor” Through West and Central Ukraine

I No Longer Trust Scott Ritter

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Read it in your language • Lealo en su idioma • Lisez-le dans votre langue • Lies es in Deiner Sprache • Прочитайте это на вашем языке • 用你的语言阅读

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