Update on Day 74 of Russia's SMO in Ukraine

by Stephen Lendman

On Friday, another 51 civilians, including 11 children, were evacuated from Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant.

Overall, a few hundred civilians were liberated after being held hostage as human shields by US/Western-supported Nazified thugs inside the plant.

It's unclear if any civilians remain trapped.

According to what may be fake news by Ukraine's so-called deputy prime minister Irina Vereschuk, puppet Zelensky's "order was carried out (sic)."

"All women, children and the elderly have been evacuated from Azovstal."

According to a statement by Russia's military on Saturday:

"None of the (Nazified) Ukrainian service members (and likeminded mercenaries) have come out with a white flag from the plant premises."

Russia's National Defense Management Center General Mikhail Mizintsev said the following on Saturday:

"A humanitarian operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal metallurgical plant has been completed today." 

Since May 5, another 22 women, 18 men and 11 children were rescued. 

On Sunday, captured while trying to flee Mariupol, Ukrainian colonel Vladimir Baranyuk, commander of Kiev's 36th infantry brigade explained the following:

"Kiev told us to hold on," saying that help is on the way and will arrive "soon (sic)."

"Naturally, this help didn't arrive."

"Everybody, including myself, understood" that we were abandoned to die. 

"And this pushed us to come out" and surrender.

Russian forces found Baranyuk and others hiding in fields outside Mariupol after rejecting Kiev's order to continue fighting until nonexistent help arrived.

Separately on Saturday, analyst Larry Johnson explained the following:

The CIA, other US agencies and their MSM press agents notoriously spread fake news, including phony claims about killing a dozen Russian generals and sinking Russia's Moskva cruiser.

Johnson believes that "Russian intelligence professionals are scratching their heads trying to figure out what the hell (hegemon USA) is really doing." 

They're "probably wondering if this leaking of sensitive information is a clever plot to get Russia to chase imaginary squirrels?"

"Or are (US officials) incompetent?" 

Johnson sides with the "incompetence explanation," adding:

"There was a time when the CIA…ke(pt) secrets and shied away from advertising its hidden helping hand."

Not today. There's "open talk about training Ukrainian paramilitaries in guerrilla war, supplying weapons and passing on critical intelligence to Ukraine that is then used to attack Russian targets."

CIA Director William Burns' latest public remarks is" the latest example of Langley incompetence.

On Saturday, he dubiously claimed that Vladimir Putin "doubl(ed) down (sic)" on Russia's SMO, making its ongoing operations riskier than what what's gone on over the past two months (sic).

According to Johnson, Burns is "disconnect(ed) from reality."

He ignored Putin's publicly declared SMO goals — notably the demilitarizing and deNazification of Ukraine, along with pursuing Russia's security and liberating Donbass entirely from the scourge of Nazified occupation.

Burns' phony claim about doubled down Russian efforts is based on the delusional belief that efforts by Ukrainian troops forced Moscow to change tactics.

Nothing of the sort is going on.

Russian forces continue their SMO as originally planned because it's working.

Ukrainian forces are very much on their back foot.

It's been this way throughout Russia's SMO.

Johnson also explained the following:

Along with Ukrainian troops being overwhelmed militarily by Russian forces, they're undermined as well by criminality in their ranks.

US/Western weapons, munitions and equipment for Ukraine have been "pilfered by (its) version of the mafia…too mak(e) a buck on the black market."

So hegemon USA and NATO vassal regimes are "enrich(ing) (Ukrainian) criminal gangs who" care only about profiteering.

Johnson believes that what's going on is aided and abetted "by well-connected foreigners and corporations." 

Criminals "need a bank or (other ways of) storing their profits." 

Along with ongoing US proxy war on Russia, "(f)ollow the money."

Hegemon USA is notorious for pouring billions and trillions down a black hole of waste, fraud and abuse to enrich its privileged class and partnered dark forces — at the expense of neglect for vital homeland needs.

Lots of dirty money is apparently ending up in Ukraine.

Most Americans are none the wiser about how the Biden regime is harming their safety and well-being — notably by risking nuclear war with Russia.