UKRAINE UPDATE: Russians Capture Minuscule Mining Town in Major Victory
Russia seizes control of vital salt resources
Yesterday, Russia, after months of its most intense fighting in eastern Ukraine, boasted it has completely captured one of Ukraine's tiniest towns. Soledar, a salt mining town that is the salt capital of nowhere, is the gateway to Bakhmut, which Russia also wants to take. A Russian diplomat spelled out both names for those who had never heard of either town, translating them into Ukrainian for Ukrainians who had also never heard of either town.
Yesterday’s announcement marked the first victory since the infamous Kherson retreat by Russian General Sergey “Armageddon” Surovikin. It came as a welcome reprieve in Russian state media where critics had been upset about the slaughtering of hundreds of Russian soldiers stationed to sleep inside of an ammo dump under the oversight of General Armageddon.
Russian criticism has been building even on state television after months of stalemate under Surovikin, who was just replaced by Putin with his Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov. Gerasimov is the infamous architect of Putin’s conquest of Kyiv that never happened and is the general who signed off on the brilliant 70-mile tank target strip that left Russian soldiers unprovisioned with food and fuel lined up as sitting ducks early in the war.
While no one in Russian media dares to criticize Putin directly, they do engage regularly in proxy criticism by regaling Putin’s generals for “failing” the supreme leader, which they cover with praise for Putin because he never runs out of staircases to push his failed generals down or high windows for them to stroll out of.
Putin has gone through generals like a meat grinder goes through pork. If he isn't grinding them up into sausage, then the Ukrainians are slaughtering them on the battlefield.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner Group, a mercenary fighting force, stole the limelight in yesterday’s announcement and also seized the opportunity to criticize his competition:
“Those who speak on behalf of Putin’s generals are just paid Putinprop writers. They swill vodka to keep their heads in a state of delirium all day so they can withstand to write these good things about these failing generals. They say those generals are ‘winning’ to keep all Russian people calm about the special operation in Ukraine, but real winning, this is what you saw today when my own forces conquered Soledar.”
Prigozhin regularly boasts his troops are superior to Russia’s regular fighting forces so he is often seen by Russians as being in competition with the generals of the regular military as he attempts to persuade Putin to rely more on his hired mercenary troops, which he recruits from Russian gulags.
“Recruting from prisons is sensible policy for all Russia,” said Prigozhin when asked about the quality of his troops. “Many of these men are murderers and violent by nature. They make good soldiers, and they will be paid only with free release into Russian society if they live, so they require no salary. The generals who do not like me competing in their battlefield, they claim eventual release is not safe for Russia, but it is good. We know none of these men will survive the special operation anyway, and execution in the cause of duty is better than imprisonment for Russia.”
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin commented on his way into the White House to give a briefing on the war to the president this afternoon that Prigozhin’s boast, after months of fighting, was tantamount to the US military bragging that it achieved major victory in the conquest Lichtenstein.
“Except that Lichtenstein is a whole lot bigger and worth a whole lot more money. But, hey,” said Austin, “at least the Russians will now have salt for their borscht this winter. Keep winning like that, and Ukraine will be free by the time of the anniversary of Putin's War as the Russians grind themselves into dust, pounding salt.”
Asked to reply to the US secretary’s comment, Prigozhin said from his office in Moscow, “Da, sure, Russians were excited when General Armageddon was put in charge three months ago, but today we gave them something real to be excited about.
“Because of great victory, Russia has now acquired formerly defunct salt mine in location so secret due to value of this resource that Europeans have never heard of this place. Now our army will have plenty of preservative to salt-down the bodies of our dead soldiers under those other generals as we trainsport them back home. Mine, when they die, do not even have to be trainsported. They are but prisoners.”
Asked how the conquest of such a small town after so many months of engagement strategically assists Russia’s goal of moving forward in the Donetsk region, the mercenary manager said, “Now we can to capture all outhouses along the road from Soledar to Bakhmut so soldiers of Russia will have shelter to sleep that is not so much major targets like huge, very big ammo dump General Armageddon placed 500 Russian soldiers in prior to his demotion. Ha! That shows you what the other generals get you!”
As one reporter pointed out to Prigozhin that the taking of tiny Soledar cost the lives of hundreds of Russian soldiers and cost tens of millions of rubles, Prigozhin said, “This is not that much. The ruble is cheap these days, and besides Russia will soon no longer have the expense of feeding these former prisoners, whom it must to feed now if they are not in war anyway, and all Russia will have more space for more important work in our prisons later of punishing people who say ‘war.’ This is contraband word, you know? You cannot just say it.
“We will have much salt for melt of ice on streets back home. Soledar's long-kaput salt mines will go back to production to fix shortage in Moscow caused by Western sanctions. Salt will again be allowed for use in making of borscht throughout Russia as wartime salt rations ended today by this conquest. So, ha! We beat America and its West allies. And salt talks have already begun in Russian streets again because of this great victory of ours, so this is good for whole world.”