The biggest news of the past few days was a revelation that Putin made to the visiting African delegation which was trying to mediate a peace talk between Russia and Ukraine, after some of them had just met Zelensky in Kiev.
I find the documents showed to the peace deal very interesting, because it shows the most important fact of war (or military conflict as a whole) - war is incredibly unprofitable and undesirable. Every artifice should be used to avoid fighting and achieve goals politically. But if you are forced into it, you should leverage every method possible to motivate and equip the fighters to win - legal, technological, and political, such as the "goodwill gesture" of multiple withdrawals to use as a political bargaining chip abroad and keep up the national will at home.
The Ukraine was committed to continued war on expectation of a distant sponsor, while Russia went on its own account. When that sponsor didn't live up to their promises, defeat was inevitable.
I'm in the United States, and nobody but the local elites profit from this war. For the rest of us, the prices are going up and up, inflation is horrible, job cuts, banks crumble, uncertainty, etc.
It costs nothing. It's just talking. It would be stupid not to try it. Even if you have to make concessions, it is still cheaper than going to war.
But if the other side is not agreement-capable, you don't have that option. Or if the treaty would only delay the inevitable, it might be better for the long-term prospect to go for it now.
Nowadays we know that Russia should have committed more troops at the start. But back then, it was perfectly reasonable to do what they did. We all underestimated the lunatics of the West and the suicide wish of the Ukraine.
I see your point, but from the legal aspect, Russia could withdraw the troops from Kyiv so Ukraine won't claim it signed the peace treaty under duress and have it nullified
Twerking Head woman, her grandfather was in Hitler's inner circle. Her mother was given the task of creating a gov't for Ukraine by Soros. The ties run deep in that family.
Yep. “Since her appointment, articles about Freeland’s family history have been spread over the Internet by Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda.”
The E girls of Europe , and Canada since Tru-doh belong on that group also..These aren't leaders these are the most mediocre of corporate middle managers..They work for Black Rock and the city of London, so they don't bat an eye at betraying their people daily. . They attend press shows and recite speeches written for them by someone else. Foreigners write their laws and arrange their foreign policy . Maia Sandu for example is more corrupt than Lucifer, and almost as corrupt as a US senator. The US rules its empire through bribery and extortion.
Withdrawing the Russian troops to the 22 Feb does not mean that LDPR goes back to Ukraine. If in the agreement they were accepted by Ukraine as independent states, Ukraine was neutral, with a limited military, then that would have solved all (including the land bridge).
The only thing unresolved would be the denazification but with a limited military, neutrality, and some time that could have been solved.
Ironically, it’s actually better for Russia that the agreement was scuttled in the long term although with a steeper road to climb.
Obviously that all assumes what I assumed in above (+acceptance of Crimea as part of Russia). Anything less would have been a loss for Russia.
The problem I see with that is "neutrality". The regime would obviously remain completely hostile to Russia, looking to break the "peace deal" in any way that would make Russia look bad (like they did with Minsk 2.0), doing things "decomissioning" their tanks, APCs, jets, etc. by essentially unplugging a few wires, which technically makes them "inoperable", but can be brought back into working order with essentailly a few manhours of work. We already know this, because this is exactly how the US "decomissioned" it's nuclear bombers.
They would be poking, and probing, provoking the Russians by small violations of the treaty (like they did pre-2022), to which Russia has basically one answer: resumption of hostilities. At that point Ukraine would claim "See? You can't negotiate with Russia, they invade you anyways."
In that case, what was the Kremlin really thinking then??? Because it would have been just kicking the can down the road.
It's clear now that they've decided to resolve this once and for all (even though the pressure will be enormous to freeze the conflict on non-permanent less advantageous terms and I hope they don't cave in).
Okay, Imma be honest, I wanna flex some intellectual muscles, so hold on to your panties, LOL.
I think they knew, they aren't fucking stupid. They've been had 2 times before, in Minsk 1 and 2. I have a few theories as to why they did negotiate:
1) The stall: go into a peace deal to stall for your own military ramp-up and preparation. I find this the least likely. A likely actual peace deal between the two would look like this: Ukraine agrees to the arms controls and other things (not joining NATO, ending western military support, recognising Crimea as Russia, etc.), and in return, Russia concedes the territory captured after feb. 2022. Then if they kept up their shenanigans, you'd have to face an initial AFU force that's half the strength. BUT This isn't gonna fly for a few reasons: a) any territory conceded to Ukraine is getting fortified Donbass-style, it's going to be harder, not easier to take back later, even after more prep time. b) The Ukies aren't gonna abide by the treaty probably, so you're conceding land for no reason. c) Putin has been wanting to retire for quite a while now, the reason he launched the SMO now is because he wanted to settle this problem, instead of leaving this festering abomination on the border for an incoming, inexperienced and transient Russian leadership to handle. Stalling for abother 3-5 years would make the problem worse.
2) The queen's gambit: knowing that negotiations are not an option, you still sit down, and negotiate reasonably, knowing that a Ukraine pumped freshly full of NATO weapons, enthusiastic mercenaries and money is probably not going to settle.
3) my personally preferred option, the "poison pill": when you negotiate, you make an offer, but put a demand in there that you KNOW the other side can't swallow (hence the name, poison pill, lawyer talk). In this case, the pill would be probably the very stringent arms limitations. What would Ukraine do? Send home 100k troops? Scrap thousands pieces of armour? Unlikely they would agree to that. Especially with all the fresh hardware they have flooding in. Another poison pill would be recognising the LDRP and Crimea as Russia (well, what Russia controlled of them pre-2022 anyways). This would sting badly for Ukraine.
And why negotiate at all? In lawfare, you use the poison pill to make the other party reject the option of a reasonable settlement, to seem more reasonable yourself. Well, in this case, you are under no "threat" of actually reaching an agreement. The key is putting in a poison pill that they 100% won't swallow, but making it seem reasonable to an outsider. India and China looks at the deal and says: "Russia concedes all land they didn't previously control, and Ukraine just has to follow some basic rules. It's not like Ukraine loses anything they didn't control pre-2022 anyways. Russia offered to stop the invasion, get up and leave? For these few conditions? And you didn't take it?"
And then, when for example a certain African committee comes to Putin, he can just slap this Ukrainian-signed peace offer on the table, to show them: "See? This ain't a bad deal. But they refused anyways. We're not the unreasonable ones here, they are."
Obviously, this is just guesswork, but I think I'm on the money here. This is also why Russia has been going so slow in the SMO. It's not just a harder sell to the Russian people because of the higher casualties, it's also a harder sell to the global South. You could really feel how they turned to the Russian side during the summer / autumn of 2022, and I think that's almost entirely due to Russia's careful way of conducting war. If the gloves came off, I suspect it would have been much harder to get the African leaders on board. Just a reminder that war isn't just about military strategy, but also a lot of other factors we don't even know are considered.
Yes the poison pill is what I thought as well but formulated in such a way that even if they accept it, still works for Russia and gives them an in if certain conditions are broken.
But ... it seems (and I agree with Simplicius here) that they were not prepared for a long war. That, or they had weaknesses they didn’t know militarily and strengths they didn’t know economically.
Something tells me though that since Zelensky was ready to sign on the dotted line that it wasn’t as bad for them or as good for Russia as we might hope. I take what was in my original comment as bare minimum and I’m not sure Ukraine would’ve accepted losing LDPR without a fight.
Either way I think everyone can agree that the slow way was better and that resolving this militarily is good for Russia, both internally for rebuilding and to resolve the Ukrainian/NATO issue once and for all.
Yeah.. well what we really have here is a fait de accomplii.
Crimea is in Russia and so is Lugansk and the Donbas. There is no negotiating that fact. The only thing left to postulate and arm chair speculate about is what Russia will allow the Ukraine to be.. essentially after this campaign ends. If the western leaders continue to arm the Ukraine there will be only a small very small Ukraine left to become part of Poland. If the nut jobs ( neocon zionists ) pretend to reach for the button Europeans will lose it and turn on their governments. I may be Way Back Joe, but I look to the past to get an idea of what may emerge in the future. I would very much like to still be alive to see a closer relationship between the Russian people and the German people. This has been a dream since even before the time of Bismarck when Germany did not exist, all the way back to the 14th century.
What a wonderful future that will be for white people, who have been vilified and persecuted for the past hundred years first from the shadows, now in full view as the source of all the worlds problems.
This is all done while the tormentors enjoy the fruits of plenty created by the industry and genius of the white races.
It's true... all lawyers speak a foreign language that ordinary folks don't understand, and thus have to pay the lawyers so they can argue in a foreign language court.
Kicking the van down the road isn’t necessarily bad in this case. 5 years later with the LDNR getting massive reconstruction investment and Ukrainians might have started asking why not us too? And then perhaps a more Russian friendly government gets elected.
That’s still a reasonable projection for any end to the conflict that doesn’t see Russia take the whole country. As soon as the active hostilities end, Chinese investment/construction is going to stream in on top of whatever Russia does.
I can almost guarantee that Putin’s first choice is the Ukrainian people installing a new government. It’s one of the reasons the pain dial has been turned up slowly. Russia will do that if necessary, but it opens the door to organic resistance. Russia doing that and getting an insurgency was almost certainly the US plan. The only way to actually remove the disease Ukraine is suffering from and the US is for Ukrainians to do it.
In my comment I was projecting. What might have come from the Istanbul negotiations. And that would be parts of “Ukraine” being restored and developed. It might not have worked, but I guarantee Putin was willing to try that route because it wasn’t war. He’s the least excited about this war, especially compared to many in the west that support Russia.
You mean like elect a young, charismatic, ethnic Russian guy as president, who says he will bing peace to the Donbass and stop the violence? Like Mr. Volodimyr Zelensky?
It’s not the same now, and a key point of my statement was the new Russian oblasts being developed by Russia and offering a comparison of what’s possible.
1) You wouldn't be able to offer a comparison. Any information regarding that would be supressed. Like videos showing brand new housing, new factories, happy families etc. would be dismissed as North-Korea style "fake grocery store" propaganda, as we see right now, with Mariupol.
2) It doesn't matter what the Ukrainian people think, say, or how they vote. The only way that would change if they deep scrub the entire government, and replace almost all officials and beurocrats. In 2004 and 2008 coups, just voting out the western-installed puppet was enough. After 2014, specifically in 2019, with the election of the "peace candidate", Zelensky, even though the peace guy won 70% of the vote, he brought no peace.
There is no solution that does not require the complete purging of the entire UA government, down to the bone, and even then, you have the problem of an entire generation of subverted Russia-hating Western-Ukrainian citizens.
No, but with that said, it's also not a "all or nothing" black or white issue. Just because Russia had some foul ups and oversights doesn't mean their space assets are nonexistent or weak. It's still one of the most powerful in the world, it's just not as good/prepared as it could have been if traitorous/corrupt 'parquet people' weren't embezzling the money and not planning with foresight for the events to come in the 2000-2020 period.
Just need to be a little careful with this. There may have been some large, very specific, non-military-related initiatives that artificially boosted 1 or more of the top 4 e.g a company requiring a rapid deployment of satellites for a new global service. Russia may still be on its planned growth trajectory, but that was overshadowed by an event such as described above. If this is the case, then concerns about them stagnating are not justified.
I don't understand why you're so down about Russia being 5th largest in space assets (i.e., satellites). Unlike the West, they don't need to cover the globe because they're not trying to stir shit up everywhere. Russia's assets need to provide coverage over Europe primarily to help it protect its own back yard. Secondly, by "largest" did Putin mean military assets specifically, or both commercial and military? If it's the latter, the delta is being inflated by commercial (non ISR) assets. Lastly, "larger" doesn't necessarily mean "superior". Going forward, Russia will invest vast sums to develop a leading edge in drones, AI, ISR, and other critical technologies. And if recent history is any guide, they'll deliver objectively superior tech, in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the bloated cost of their Western counterparts.
I don't think that this is how satellite surveillance technology works.
From what I know, Optical surveillance satellites are not geostationary, and they circle the globe. Hence, the more you have them, the smaller the pauses are between taking the photos.
I could be wrong though. If someone else knows more than me, please share.
Geostationary satellites, practical for sitting over one spot of the globe , or more clearly "see" one fixed hemisphere of the globe, are about 36000 km up while "moving" satellites are in the 400-700km range. The lower the better resolution for optical satellites, but also more drag from the residual atmosphere, which can be adjusted by small on board thrusters, usually using He as inert propellant. The supply of He is finite, and in the end the satellite cannot be moved around and will be crashed in the Pacific
Russia are huge fans of molniya orbits, you loft a satellite into an inclined orbit where its apogee is extremely high whilst its perigee is extremely low. This means at its perigee, it ZOOMS around the earth incredibly quickly, then spends most of its time slowly making its way to its apogee. The reason for this is that it spends most of its time 'above' looking 'down' and has a high degree of uptime. This was how, for example, the soviet union used to keep tabs on America so well, it was damn near constantly looking down on it aside from the brief window when it passed behind the earth at its perigee, which we already established is extremely quick. The inclined orbit means that the satellite gets to see damn near everything, because as the earth rotates, the satellite covers ground it initially wasn't. This differs from a geostationary orbit, which is equatorial, in which it can only ever see the equator and tracks the ground beneath it (hence stationary). The only orbit which would allow you to see more is a polar orbit, which will cover absolutely every single inch of the earth given enough rotations. This is what mapping satellites use.
There was recent launch of super-duper radar satellite from Russia to LEO, which all SIGINT people I follow drooled over and praised "nobody have such capabilities". Since I have no idea about these matters, all I can do is to nod and acknowledge.
Martyanov write that there AWACs have x-ray capabilities. I never heard of this, although have seen in movies. I would expect the x-ray satellites would be able to pick up tanks in trees easily. Martyanov also said some time ago they are building up their production capabilities then, and are producing a bunch more now. I wonder if they will have advanced sensors.
It's a bs. You can't make something like x-ray radar/satellite/whatever simply because of the nature of x-rays. They are not reflected from any material, so if you want to get an object's x-ray image, you need to place that object between emitter (satellite in our case) and receiver that draws an image based on the fact that different materials have different x-ray absorption factor. So you basically need to place receiver somewhere under a tank, and i think this defeats the purpose somewhat :)
Is an X-ray beam not part of the electromagnetic spectrum and therefore as with sunlight visible & ultraviolet, exponential in distance versus intensity. One unit of distance doubled away from or closer to the source will cause an increase or decrease in the intensity by a factor of 4. It looks like you would need one honking big X-ray machine up there in space. Can someone comment on that... Tis
But hey, there's always kryptonite... I think the guy who came up with this idea probably suffers some kind of malady brought on by too much comic book immersion in his youth, instead of masterbaiting which would have provided far more satisfaction and less hallucination.
Hey nobodies perfect, I know a guy in his late fifties an educated professional "definitely not blood related"but within from without if you get my drift who collects Batman memorabilia. He even wears the BM suit on occasion and has a vehicle stashed away that looks like the real Batmobile.
Hey it's his money and I don't care how he spends it.
I have however made it clear that I am suffering from an incurable highly contagious disease and won't be available for any get togethers at all... sorry. The kids now have competition from the adults, it just isn't fair you know. Like those A- hole transgender guys still packing a full load and pretending to be women. In women's sports I don't understand why these ladies don't just get together and beat the crap out of these losers.
Time for my late afternoon nap now so sayonara to myself and any other fool reading my stuff.
IMO, total number of satellites launched and/or operational is a completely meaningless and highly misleading metric. Take the US Iridium or Starlink systems as examples - these launched (or were intended to launch) literally hundreds and thousands of minimally capable relay satellites, the sum total of which provide less capability than just a very few well-built, sophisticated comm satellites in well-placed orbits.
I really have no idea where Russia stands in overall space assets, but you need to find a more appropriate metric than simply "number of launches/satellites" to make a proper evaluation - otherwise conclusions based on such an evaluation are worse than useless.
I work in space industry so I have a bit of knowledge about this.
We should difference rockets and satellite itself.
The Russia of the 90/2000s was the biggest player in “rockets” but not in satellites payload.
In the 90s Russian satellite fleet became very degraded and their electronic industry was basically demolished. So they started to even buy satellites from France.
In the last decade they started to recover and build their own electronics but it is not such a simple process.
Also I think Russia made the mistake of collaborate in many civil western satellite projects that were not under their control.
So theoretically scientific satellites of the ESA and NASA have been use to make photos of Russian troops.
I worked in some of them and I was shocked since I know that Russia participated in some of them, but they are controlled by Europe or US.
And finally it’s obvious that Russia has budget limitations and they have focused very much in military developments rather than in space.
For me is not a problem of corruption but a combination of the classical Russian issues:
- 90s destruction
- Trust in the west
- Infiltrated liberals in the goverment line Nabiulina.
If the Russian central bank would impose a capital control like China they would have money for everything, infrastructure, satellites, military since their trade balance with the world is amazing.
Sadly, they only reinvest in Russia around 40% of that trade balance because the rest is export to the west by oligarch and some normal people that decide to have banks accounts in dollars.
Also they allow very strange things like Yandex being owned by a Netherlands company and pay taxes there even when all offices and markets are in Russia
Indeed this SMO probably is waking up many people about their stupid collaboration in the western system
Actually as I understand it, Medvedev put Rogozin in charge of defense *and* space industries in 2011, which means Rogozin ruled both in various capacities for over a decade, and at the most critical of decades to boot. With that said, I'm not piling everything on him because as smug and annoying as his online persona has been, he's actually redeemed himself a bit for me insofar as his commitment to frontline service on the SMO
one thing that can definitely be credited to Rogozin is the unprecedented launch reliability in the recent years. as of 2023 Roscosmos stands at over 100 successful launches in a row, which is a historical record.
He (Rogozin) has been used throughout much of his career as the Kremlin's troubleshooter, to clean up messes, and move from one to the other. He wrote a book a few years back ('The Hawks of Peace') about his career, makes for some interesting reading.
First comment: At the SPIEF, Putin said the economic condition in March was far from certain. There was confidence, but no assurances. IMO, the feint to Kiev forced negotiations that would've been favorable for Russia and Ukraine. But they were nixed on orders from Team Biden carried by Bojo. Why? Because Crimea has always been the Empire's goal and that still seemed feasible since the economic war had yet to really take hold in Western eyes, and that was always the major consideration. Plus, the self-induced illusion of Russia's weakness was in full control. And as we well know, Neocons don't give in easily. Russia's quick military technical operation gambit came very close to succeeding but didn't, which forced a repositioning and reappraisal.
Now that I've read the whole piece, first, the slaughter was expected and will continue. Yes, it's horrifying for me as a former soldier, but I anticipated it, so it's not altogether surprising. Second, on your translation issue, I got the right translation from the outset and have several ideas of what might come next to create several additional facts on the ground, which I'll share when I have greater time to comment. Third, there's still a channel to ford to get to the ZNPP; and as I commented before, any attempted assault will have worse results than those you chronicled in this report. Fourth, on all the military equipment movement, it's the time of year for Reserve and National Guard Summer FTXs, so some will be that sort of thing. If Biden were to try and commit US troops, IMO he'll get impeached ASAP. The only aid that makes sense is using other NATO troops to man NATO armor that's in cantonment in Europe; but without air support, that will be another futile attempt that will fail. As I commented a month ago, it's either ALL-IN or surrender as continuing piece-meal additions is "military malpractice" as Larry Johnson said.
I have comments on Russia's space program and a report on the state of the EU/EC/NATO's fate in Europe, but I'll need to add them when I have more time to write. Again, thanks for your efforts; I don't bother seeking out other perspectives because I don't need to!
Fun fact: That particular war was the first in history to be "broadcast live" so to speak, with the general public following along every move in (near) real time. So yeah, it made an indelible impact on Britain. Plus Nightingale, the Charge of the Light Brigade, etc, etc.
No, 'The Brits' don't get kicks - it's only the Westminster swamp dwellers and their Westminster MSM mouthpieces who 'get kicks'. Most of us Brits don't even read that stuff or watch the BBC.
Moreover - 'generation smartphone' in Britain wouldn't even know about the Crimean war, never mind recognising said poem even if it bit their well-upholstered backsides ...
Yeah, but if the parents abdicate their responsibility for educating/raising their own kids to the street or to the "school," they end up with their kids being taught "whatever" by "whomever."
Cor blimey, calm down peeps. Don't take it personally when we say "The Yanks, the Brits, the Poms et al; most are referring to the PTB, not the plebs, in each country.
Agreed. Realistically, any agreement Ukraine signed in the Spring/Summer of 2022 would have been a win for Russia and a loss for the US, especially if it included Ukrainian neutrality. The US couldn't accept a settlement because of what you wrote, including the focus on Crimea. I also agree that the changes in the late spring/summer of 2022 caused Russia to have to reposition. I'd argue that we're only seeing effects of the repositioning now.
The Empire being the Khazar Rothchild world banking cartel located in the inner city of London. Nothing else, no other country, institution or order has an interest or gives a rats hairy butt about Crimea. Soldiers died back in the day for the Rothchilds in the Crimea, and today they are dying in the region for the same beast. Englands behaviour towards Russia going back several hundred years has been abysmally treacherous. Divide and conquer in Europe but not so in Russia, not yet.
Russia is rising while the British Empire is no more and its lands and native stock in minority population are now an asian/african colony in Europe thanks largely to these international Fraudsters. The Khazar Bankers are still lords of all in the west and every politician knows that unless he submits to them and swears an oath of loyalty he will be banished to the bottom of the beehive.
The Khazarian shape shifters fitting themselves to prevail in any setting are very astute thinkers about the future and shaping it for themselves. Parts of Ukraine and especially the Crimea was the former homeland of the old Khazarian Kingdom destroyed by the Kievan Rus and the Byzantines over a thousand years ago, its people sent asunder much like the Hebrew diaspora in Palestine. The Khazars had adopted the Judaic faith prior to the defeat of their Kingdom.
Owning better than 85% of the worlds wealth today and controlling all the worlds industries and indeed most nations and their in bondage to them populations they are moving to recreate old Khazaria and rule the globe from the geographical centre of the greatest land mass of the planet. Eurasia from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean.
Only Ukrainians and Russians are dying right now for this vile cause, in actual combat. The west is totally lacking in real soldiers who can fight like this by design, since gender bending and blending has driven potential soldiers away.
What poison is yet to come from the minds of these master criminals. We the people everywhere on earth but especially in Europe including Russia and America must prevail and stop this insanity in its tracks once and for all. If we don't then our fate is too horrible to contemplate.
I'm posting this separately because I want to keep the context separated:
This the continuation of my MoA reply @116 to bevin at the week in review thread where I wrote, "There are some aspects of the past that must be known by all humanity so they aren't repeated." During Putin's SPIEF address, there was a pause to show those attending a rather well-known documentary film of a few of the Banderite/OUN atrocities committed during WW2 that's associated with overall Holocaust history. Pepe Escobar posted that clip from the SPIEF video at https://vk.com/pepeasia his VK, where IMO it's very important to view Putin's expression and body language during its 4+ minute running time. This is the comment I left in response:
"It's clear Putin took no pleasure in showing that film. But there are times when the truth of the past must be confronted and people reminded, which was clearly Putin's intent. In his interview I translated today and linked in my comment below, https://vk.com/@580896205-sergei-naryshkin-interview Naryshkin calls today's Nazis the "Euro-Atlantic totalitarian-liberal elite." They are both the founders and promoters of the current OUN and IMO are just as despicable. Recall that last year Putin vowed to end the hegemony of that elite, and that's the major reason the Rest of the World (RoW) is with him and Russia."
I'll add here some of the words Putin said after the film concluded: "How can you not fight this? We must fight this." Since 2014, the West and its Propaganda System has worked very hard to deny they are leading Nazis--not just supporting--of the same sort depicted by history: A NeoNazi is still a Nazi.
I hope Naryshkin's interview is setting the table for the Russian public for what will come next--Russia's own counter-offensive. The context of what's transpired over the last four days is what informs my analysis: The clear massive Ukie failure and losses that's as genocidal as the film which was followed by the unveiling of the almost concluded peace documents that showed Russia's willingness to compromise and the unwillingness of the Big Nazis not only to not compromise but forbid any further attempts to compromise until their goal of obtaining Crimea is attained no matter what the human cost as in WW2.
I don't think it's necessary to impute duplicity in Putin's given statement of events. February and March 2022 were obviously chaotic times in the MoD; it could very well be that events and decisions had multiple vectors, and Putin is (quite naturally) remembering the ones he favoured while his memory de-emphasizes the others. If that's the case, his statements can be perfectly true while it's also true to say that a full and objective historical analysis must include other factors.
Separately, I'm utterly gobsmacked by the fact that everyone is talking about Ukrainians using new tactics like smoke. Were they not using smoke before? Did they not wonder what those bulky launchers on the sides of their tanks were for? Smoke is about as new a tactic on the battlefield as fire, and smoke to cover armoured advances about as new as armoured cavalry. Either there's more information there lost in the filter, or the AFU is staffed by the blitheringest idiots to ever blither.
Finally, about space capabilities: yes, SpaceX has hugely inflated the US payload count, but if you measure instead payload weight, the margin is much narrower, with the US neck and neck with China and Russia trailing a moderately distant third that still outstrips the rest of the world combined. Russia and China also have clear advantages in characteristic energy and manned payloads, which admittedly isn't terribly important for military applications as interplanetary probes and astronauts aren't going to feed intel to the Russian war machine. Finally, there's some disagreement in payload capability, as distinct from demonstrated historical payloads. Until SpaceX started cluttering everything up with Starlink in an attempt to turn a profit for their expanded shop, China was by far and away the heavylift tempo champion, with Russia battling for second - prospectively overtaking the role with the death of the Atlas 5 and Delta IV.
As I've noted elsewhere, Russia's really busting all bounds with launch tempo. In February and March this year they were averaging a little over a launch a week.
Yeah, as disappointed as I am in some of the past stuff, the future is looking bright as Putin is cleaning up Russia's act so it's really all water under the bridge because Russia will emerge as a true super power in a couple years, there's no denying that now
I agree. Russia tends to start slowly in wars and then wins. Seems to be a tradition going back at least to The Great Northern War. They faltered in the late Tsarist era from the time of the Crimean War through to WW1 but got back to the tradition of winning eventually after that.
Assuming we don't all die in a nuclear holocaust, I'd like to see Russia become more active in space exploration. They launched the first satellite, and put the first man in space. They are the only country to send probes to the surface of Venus. But lately they haven't done much on that front, and the problems with two Progress spacecraft, a Soyuz capsule, and the Nauka ISS module show a lack of quality workmanship. They can be doing so much more, and better. Of course it doesn't help that the US has been attacking them for decades.
Actually, I think you'll find SpaceX has the tonnage lead to orbit as well, but given how much of that is Starlink (which itself cleanly makes SpaceX #1 space fleet operator), China is then clearly #1 military tonnes to orbit.
They also have the premier heavy-lift capability in the world, but they haven't (yet) replaced the Delta IV or the Atlas 5 for military applications. There's a scheduled NROL launch (yes, that's weird, like ATM machine) and some scheduled USSF launches on the Falcon Heavy, but those don't yet count as they haven't yet happened.
SpaceX really is a huge PTO game-changer, like Fisher's Dreadnought, and we shouldn't mitigate that. It's a big challenge to both Russia and China. However, it's still an open question whether SpaceX has a sustainable model or not; Starlink's whole existence is a Hail-Mary attempt to justify all those rockets.
This war has exposed everyone's weaknesses, as wars do. We have focused a lot on how western wonder weapons are not all that, but clearly there are many deficiencies on the Russian side too. A lot of the corruption/incompetence stereotype is well earned. Not like the west is any less so, but as it stands both sides will be racing to plug their deficiencies. Russia probably faster because actual Russian boys are dying.
The British and the US are getting to play a no-cost game at the moment. The British especially. Russia needs to do something about that else I expect SAS to start operating within Russia, if not already
Good way of putting it. It's true, this war has exposed everyone's weaknesses. I just want to be clear for anyone who might think I was ragging on Russia: two important points:
1. if Russia and U.S. had a war right now, Russia would mop the floor with them.
2. if the U.S. was in Russia's place, and had a war against Ukraine, U.S. would not only do worse than Russia, they would lose.
Heaven forbid. I don't see how #1 doesn't go nuclear within a few hours... Such as how do you know cruise missiles headed to Russia are not nuclear tipped and Russia better use it or lose it? What happens when large capital assets like carriers are sunk? What happens when either side starts losing which would be existential? Generals have to know this and probably why nuclear powers don't fight directly
That's all true. But with that said, those limitations would be hypothetically kept in mind so if the U.S. hypothetically would engage in direct hostilities it would probably cautiously keep from doing anything too provocative that would set off nuclear warnings like launching MRBMs into Russia proper which could be mistaken as nuclear-tipped, etc.
It would likely only strike Russian forces in Ukraine but of course that too could theoretically be mistaken as cruise/ballistic missile trajectories are not written in stone and from Russia's perspective they could be headed to the mainland with nuclear warheads.
That's why of course I don't think U.S. would ever strike first in such a way, they'd do more along the lines of Russia's famed 'Pristina Airport' snatch from 1999 and put the ball in Russia's court to 'strike first' so to speak. U.S. just wants to steal Odessa to make sure that Russia doesn't win a huge strategic victory of denying Ukraine a warm water port and thereby completely dominate the Black Sea, so U.S. is eyeing a Pristina-esque mad-dash towards Odessa without any kinetic action towards Russia, which would put the onus on Russia to 'strike first' as U.S. doesn't need to strike anything to capture Odessa which is only a few hours drive from their 101st Airborne hangout in Romania.
This is a dividend going to the hegemon. That's why some big countries strive to become hegemons. Hegemon does cherry picking, vassals do the dirty job. 101st Airborn - what if it is stationed in Romania just to make sure that Romanian government/army don't get cold feet about NATO as they did in 1944 about Third Reich? Why is Macron running around like a headless chicken? Because he knows that the ultimate plan is to push the vassals to go to war with RUS?
Simplicious, do you have a point of view on the rumors earlier this week (covered on The Duran Show) that moderate voices in the State Department are being pushed out and hardliners like Nuland are getting promoted and salivating at the thought of using tactical nukes against Russia? That fucking rabid idiot can't seem to comprehend that there's no such thing as a "tactical" nuclear weapon and that she all of the other neocons (along with a billion innocent people) would be vaporized within minutes of using such weapons to try to salvage a "win" in Ukraine.
You'll know through political observation, sigint, comint and elint. They are weapons that are not deployed nearly enough in this war on both sides to save soldiers from peril.
The main difference is that Russia showed adaptability and learned from its mistakes, removed "parquet generals," promoted people who were in the "shadows," but their critical thinking and heroism pushed them to the top. While the US's elites doubled down on stupid, let Nuland & Co run amok, Brandon & Co steal what's not nailed to the floor.
That's true. That's why I'm not too worried about a lot of this stuff because Russia has showed tremendous resilience and ability to learn from mistakes
Regarding #1 - maybe in the first few months. I think the US would mobilize and level the playing field - they have enough tech, equipment and industrial capacity. Of course, assuming the war not going nuclear and making every team a loser.
And as for #2, Russia clearly has the geographical advantage over the US. And if we were to ignore this, indeed, the american equipment appears not to be suited to this type of terrain nor to this type of attrition war.
They have very little industrial base. It would take a huge amount of time to get that up to a war footing. Plus, how will they get it all over to the Europe? Russia is not going to sit idle and watch a six month build up like it took the US to invade Iraq.
It's not little. Underestimating the enemy is a big mistake, the very mistake the West did regarding Russia. With the proper motivation, the production would go up in a very short time.
Assuming the war would take place in Ukraine, indeed, the US would be at a disadvantage, as I mentioned in my first reply. But the fire exchange can very well take place on the other side of the globe, where Russian and US lands (almost) meet.
In terms of their arms industry, their industrial capacity in really not great. All their gunpowder is manufactured in one single place in the entire country. Russia would take out these places very quickly. They would not have time to scaleup IMO. But yes, I hear you. Where there's a will there's a way.
I stil think the advancement in weapons on the Russian side means the US will never risk a hot war with Russia anywhere on the planet. They'll just use proxies. Which will get destroyed.
"With the proper motivation" better include a rollback of all this Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion nonsense that does not help produce a working product, along with a fast financing, permitting and construction pathway to building the new factories and getting a domestic workforce up to speed on real job skills useful in production of sophisticated products and complex systems. Lots of older skilled workers retired early or the moment they could do so in the recent "Great Resignation". Not to say that the new hires aren't as smart as their fathers and grandfathers were, or that the new ways aren't going to be better than the old ways, but the current workplace environment with emphasis on "diversity" and identity politics over individual abilities and meritocracy is going to hinder honest communication and efficiency in the modern workplace in the U.S.
Given the fact that the United States industrial base was outsourced to Asia a long time ago, I’m really not sure which industrial Waze you are talking about
If there was a nuclear exchange, Russian missiles would come in from over the pole down through Canada. They supposedly have missiles that can do a near-orbital trajectory and attack the US from the south. Short range (~4000 miles) missiles can be launched from submarines hidden far away from both east and west coasts. They would not send them the long way from Russia over the Pacific Ocean to the US west coast. But the US does do military exercises off the coasts of southern California and northern Mexico - where those UAP sightings come from - so this movement being just part of regular summer military exercises makes sense.
Russia retained all it's military factories from cold war era. I am talking about juggernauts size of a city, 10-50k employees. I know that, I worked on one. All unused capacities were mothballed but never dismantled.
While US dismantled it's capabilities almost fully. That's what you get when you have private sector running your MIC. Cost cuts. Col McGregor constantly harps about it. You can't "restore" that. It's decades long task which also involves pipeline to train generation of skilled personnel to staff these factories. I am pretty sure half of knowledge base is retired or dead.
It's not even close in how in much better shape Russian MIC is. No comparison.
Because I realized, on an even deeper level, how fucked the US is.
Edit: And anyone who thinks such lofty ideals like "voting" might help steer that ship off the collision course is, as engineers say, "not even wrong".
It is interesting to see that Ru ATGM's far surpass their Western equivalents for example, and this is likely from lessons drawn during Iraq 2003, Lebanon 2006, and so on, where western armor was present on many battlefields.
I did find Putin's "we are #5 in space" surprising.. if true, that implies that NATO/US is an order of magnitude ahead and the ISR overmatch is quite severe.
Whatever the case, whats happening currently is certainly not part of the NATO battle plan. But I would point out that the reasons the AFU is having such a hard time can (and will) be turned onto the Russians should they decide to advance. "Experts" trying to reduce this to simply a lack of air superiority are mistaken - whoever is the attacker going forward will have contested skies and I don't see an obvious solution to this problem of mines for anyone
Thanks for re-balancing the ledger with these sobering and well researched insights. And good points above. I'd add that Russia has already energised production where it's still talking points elsewhere. Russia has shorter supply lines and internal resources; the western powers found out what happens with outsourcing and just in time. The Russian people now understand the existential nature of the conflict; in the west it's existential for the elites, for the peons it's bread and circuses and the broken promise of UBI.
They'll create a mighty Poland by incorporating within it the rump western Ukraine lands and Lithuania. Then Poland will invade Kaliningrad and Belarus, and this will be the way they'll war against Russia by proxy, not dissimilar to what is happening now in sustaining the Ukraine, but with more resources and preparation.
The recently released documents regarding diplomatic exchanges between Germany including Hitler himself and Poland in the nine months prior to the attack by Germany are an astounding record of how some people view reality.
I'll just describe one in general terms from the Polish foreign ministry to the German foreign office like this: If Germany mobilizes just one soldier against Poland then the Germans living in Berlin will wake up in the morning one week later to see Polish tanks in their streets and our brave soldiers marching along beside them.
If Poland invade Kaliningrad or Belarus will be nuked, as sure as the sun rise in the morning.
And will be done with the support of China and all big global south countries.
One question is to restrain to nuke in a war that it is in a gray zone against what 90% of Russians consider an antient Russian city (Kiev), and other is to restrain to nuke against a historical enemy that is just invading your country.
Probably it won't be an invasion out of the blue with no justification.
Poland will intervene in some kind of colour revolution against Lukashenko, to "protect Polish people" and to sustain "freedom fighters" and "democracy".
If Russia nukes Poland it will look very bad, Nato will intervene and China won't do anything, because they haven't yet built the infrastructure to transfer raw resources needed for heavy war industry (huge quantities of metal ores of many kinds, oil) from Siberia to China. And I doubt Russia will want such ever be built. China still depends on safe sea lanes to import everything it needs from the four corners of the world.
There will again be conventional war where trenches of Heeresgruppe Mitte once stood.
Substack's very own Imetatronink reported massive increase of Apache helicopter and Longbows flying around in Utah which I believe he said were not in normal camouflage colors.
Will has blocked me on twitter, I think because he thought i was a bot. I created my account when Elon took over the platform and his was the first account i tried to follow. I get his posts from Mark Wauck indirectly..
Easy. There are submarines off the coast of CA. In one interview a general said "you won't believe what's going on in the oceans." Martyanov agreed. If you had a phase array of sonar emitters, couldn't you create holograms in the ocean? Signal processing and phased arrays it seems to me would work extremely well under water. Confirmation? But more importantly, I think the Pols are finally figuring out we could be hit. That is good, I think.
About the Poles: there was a fun vid about their parliament almost unequivocally voting for Ukraine to join NATO, and after that some pole journalist has posted a draft act that stipulates that each parliament member must undergo some training in all things military (5 courses 14 days each) or you have no say in military issues :)
Jets have been flying nonstop over Ogden, Utah for over a week. Hill Air Force Base is about 20 miles from Ogden. But they usually fly a few times a week, but it seems like it’s picked up.
Trying to remember, but didn’t Bush pass some type of legislation that limited posse comitatus?
We used to be snowbirds spending the winter months in Nevada, then Arizona, as well as California near Death Valley in the 70s and 80's. I got to disliking the sonic booms and sudden earth tremors from military activity and moved to Baja on the sea of Cortez just 20 miles south of La Paz. Other than the breakers very quiet.
Thank you! This part is positive “the future is bright and the SMO has certainly served as a massive wake up call and cleansing of the Russian administrative system”. What I am really worried is what you said prior to this: “The truth is, the ZNPP may be Zelensky’s final and only card left to play once his army is destroyed to the point of combat ineffectiveness”. This possibility seems plausible, which shows how mad this war is going!
The USA can't afford to lose this fight. If it does then it's curtains for American hegemony. The neocons will arrange a false flag to bring in NATO.
It doesn't matter that it's a reckless and ill conceived plan that is bound to fail, the neocons aren't constrained by reality. I'm calling it the Nuland Surprise in honor of vile neocon Victoria Nuland.
I agree, the perversity of the plan doesn't matter because MSM will always cover for them and Western audience are too stupid to think for themselves, and even if they did think for themselves it wouldn't matter because the entire Western election system is completely hijacked and compromised by Diebold/Dominion so there's nothing they can do to change their leadership anyway
One of my favorite parts of it is the media holding up Petraeus and Milley et. al. like they're strategic geniuses when they couldn't even win in Afghanistan against dirt farmers and mujahideen living in caves.
I disagree. Western elections are not fundamentally rigged in the way the 2022 elections were stolen, i.e. with mass mail-in ballots and whatnot. Sure, that happens, as a last resort. Otherwise it's by subverting all the candidates, gerrymandering, preventing them from getting on the ballot (by doing very stringent signiture verifications on signitures required to be a candidate, where did that go all of a sudden?), smearing them before they run, limiting their reach through control of big tech and MSM, and when they eventually manage to claw their way into office, resisting them from the inside (like how they lied to Trump about troop numbers in Syria). Also, it's not like these calls are made by elected officials, it's deep state beurocrats all the way. You can't vote out those guys.
Well, you don't exactly rig the elections when all the candidates are all thinking the same way. There was a vid on Duran with Clare Daly from EP and she was telling exactly that. So the vaunted Western democracy isn't working anymore
What does "bring in NATO" even mean? Isn't NATO already there fighting? If it means sending in (more) NATO troops armed with the same weapons Russia is already defeating, is that really such an existential threat? If it means the US directly attacking Russia, then Russia can directly attack the US. Wouldn't the US military finally stand up and say "No" to that?
Just the opposite and on top of that I wouldn't be surprised if they deployed tactical nukes first in order to bring the numbers to bear in their favour. They would commit to first strike and to hell with the consequences because in this case winning is all that matters. People still do not understand just how evil (arguably) the west is.
The sad part is that the American people are very unfavorable to this war (and joining the military in general these days) but you can guarantee they'll immediately fall in line when the draft starts.
They'll talk a big game about resistance and then some celebrity will say "actually joining the military is cool guys" and that's all that'll be needed.
I don't think so, not after the surrender of Afghanistan. People are pissed at what is going on w/in the military, besides due to the toxic poison there won't be enough living and healthy to draft. Although, I imagine they don't care, as long as there is enough fodder, send the sick and dying.
They've been using foreigners to pad the numbers in exchange for citizenship for decades. What, are all those immigrants gonna run away after they took all that government money to get here? Nah. Plus, the whites are all beaten down by 60 years of public schooling and propaganda. They'll fall in line.
It's a country of 400 million, they only need a million able bodies to throw into the meat grinder.
I don't know about enlistment, but the masses will line up to support the war if the neocons pick a good false flag. Show them something scary and the hind brain overrides the higher cognitive abilities.
Pearl Harbor and 9/11 flipped American sentiments like a switch. A Nuland Surprise with the right characteristics would provide all the support the neocons need to launch their crazy.
P.T. Barnum nailed it when he said that you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time... and let's be honest, that's more than enough to get the job done.
"you can guarantee amerikans will immediately fall in line when the draft starts."
Not this time.
There is widespread revulsion at amerika's Woke/Tranny military, (failed) MIC adventurism, and amerikan culture in general in conservative circles....I'd say there's a slight majority in sympathy with Russia
If you review the last few years you can see the DS is destroying the US military and along with it their ability to recruit. I think the resistance the world saw to the Vietnam draft will be a whisper compared to the violent rejection of a draft for a war against Russia.
Besides the end game for the DS is not US boots on the ground, it is nuclear war. They will survive is their reasoning, the world, not so much. They do not care. They will destroy the world and rule over the ashes rather than surrender.
Totally agree… I’ve been thinking the same since day one…At the top (Satanic) level of global power this is more about destroying the United States/West… If they manage to wound Russia/China in the process it’s a “win/win“, as far as the globalists are concerned. And how can this theory be refuted? We have open borders coupled with “weapons of mass migration”, the insane “Decarceration” of criminal elements, the insane demoralization of the West’s children, installation of globalist figureheads, demonization of indigenous white populations/traditions, sabotage of western economies and currencies, and the NWO on deck
US public is generally very combat-averse, specifically "loss-averse". They support the war, while it's Black Hawks and Abrams and Bradleys, F18s smashing through enemy lines like a hot knife through butter. But once the bodies start coming home in those coffins covered with the "stars and stripes", people get tired of it real fast. They only had like 10-15k troops KIA in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, over 20 years, and it destroyed the army recruiting numbers for decades. What will they do when they lose that many in a few months of fighting Russia?
Yes, all of those cases were the US military steamrolling a small third-world country, and even then, public support for the invasion of Iraq dropped from 80% to about 50% all within 2003. By 2004, the support was at 39%, and it never recovered. And that was at a time when almost every single American wanted to go to war. Again, the American public is not "war averse", they quite frankly DGAF about those small nations. But what they don't like seeing is their "mighty" military getting fucked, their maimed and killed soldiers crawling back from overseas. Which they will absolutely see if they intervene in Ukraine. They lost about 58k KIAs in the entire Vietnam conflict, and look at the backlash that produced. If they go full-force in Ukraine, they'll get to that number within a year.
Now, I'm not saying the deep state won't push for war despite what the public generally wants, but that's a separate issue. I'm just saying that Americans are risk-averse when it comes to war. They like the war, they don't like bearing the costs of war.
Russian people understand the cost of war, that's why support for the war temains high, despite the tens of thousands of KIAs.
You're delusional. Right now, Ukraine sending fresh-off-the-street recruits en masse into a minefield to be slaughtered, and they are taking just over 1000 casualties per day, as per the Russian MoD. That would be 30k casualties in a month. Meaning somewhere north of 10k KIAs. Now granted, the US would use larger forces, but still, that's waaay off. You can smirk at "NAFO" training, but US soldiers and marines are 100% a better force than 55 year old guys grabbed off the streets in Kiev or Odessa and thrown on the battlefield after 2 weeks of training, like the we see the AFU doing now, so the US casualty rates would be lower too, presumably. They can fire their weapons and have the endurance to run a few miles, in gear at the very least.
The same American people that watched an election be stolen on live TV and political prosecutions become the law of the land will suddenly grow a backbone and resist
That's irrelevant, in the same way the AFU losses are irrelevant.
The Afghan National Army could have lost 1.4 million KIA, and american support for the war would still not change, except of course if the American forces themselves take larger losses.
Those Afghanis don't have to be brought back in a flags and stripes covered casket into the US, you won't see the interviews with the maimed soldiers on CNN, you won't see them with their crutches on the streets or in the VA office. The number of dead they take is irrelevant to public perception, because they are outside the perview of the public. You can't hide American losses though.
I think it's the same reason why they won't treat AFU wounded in the EU. Just seeing tens of thousands of maimed, amputated, etc. soldiers flooding the European hospitals would make the public sour real fast on the "Slava Ukraini" schpiel.
I think that is right. There has been a relatively conspicuous absence of photos of wounded Ukrainian soldiers and no strongly overt appeals for bandages, medicines and so forth.
Well, if they do, I think they are smart enough to know that after that show there will be no place to hide or hide behind to point the finger at. The USA doesn't have to lose this fight as you put it, it can simply refuse to fight, same goes for Russia whose leader has bent over backwards to be nicey nicey to the west until he had enough.
Nudelman and her ilk are fully exposed now but they believe that they have totally neutered the goy and thus they are incapable of any forceful pushback response even if the danger is clear and present. I think it more likely that if this slaughter in the Ukraine goes on much longer Nudelman & Neocon compatriots and fellow tribal members will find a high speed bus to fall under. As the true power behind this evil script distance themselves from it.
Self sacrifice and narcissism are definitely not compatible attributes, it's strictly one or the other.
I suspect the waffling on the ISR question is because Russia is getting massive help from China on this front. Putin may not be up to speed on how much of the work is being done by Russia and how much by China, doesn't want to put China on the spot or make Russia look weak (which he ended up doing anyway, but oh well). Either way, it certainly looks like Russia has improved a lot in ISR over the past half a year or so and I doubt that's a problem they could fix themselves quickly and easily.
I don't think Putin ever cared to cover due to "look weak". Remember his bitter "it sank" reaction to Kursk sub incident. Or his "we were fools" on Minsk agreement failure. He is like last person on earth to cover fuckups and FUBARs
>Ukrainians are sabotaging their own vehicles and refusing to advance
I lived through mortar and RPG strikes on a defensive position and that was one of the scariest times of my life. I'd rather be actively engaged in a dozen firefights before I ever again live through helplessly waiting for a mortar shell to kill me.
I couldn't even imagine *advancing* into actual 152mm artillery fire and facing it in the open. Not just dinky little cold war RPGs and 60mm mortars from hardened fighting positions.
I vote ban. This guy keeps spamming repetitions.
I find the documents showed to the peace deal very interesting, because it shows the most important fact of war (or military conflict as a whole) - war is incredibly unprofitable and undesirable. Every artifice should be used to avoid fighting and achieve goals politically. But if you are forced into it, you should leverage every method possible to motivate and equip the fighters to win - legal, technological, and political, such as the "goodwill gesture" of multiple withdrawals to use as a political bargaining chip abroad and keep up the national will at home.
The Ukraine was committed to continued war on expectation of a distant sponsor, while Russia went on its own account. When that sponsor didn't live up to their promises, defeat was inevitable.
They got nickel and dimed with promises of present prosperity.
https://open.substack.com/pub/argomend/p/the-eternal-present?r=28g8km&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Correction: war is incredily unprofitable and undesirable for anyone who isn't the United States.
I'm in the United States, and nobody but the local elites profit from this war. For the rest of us, the prices are going up and up, inflation is horrible, job cuts, banks crumble, uncertainty, etc.
The US is a Plutocracy controlled by the Global Predators.
The Congress is in charge of money laundering for their masters - the banksters.
“You Cannot Comply Your Way Out of a Tyranny”. Stop Voting – Rebellion is the only way out! (2 minutes). C Anderson, EU
.
https://www.algora.com/Algora_blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/8961528989620613747.mp4
But... stop voting what accomplishes? Like they cares of our votes... :(
Problem is twofold... lack of suitable candidates... and lack of trust on the voting machines...
Ahh, you see, you're in the United States, you are not the United States.
Become a Raytheon stockholder today!
A diplomatic solution is always preferable.
It costs nothing. It's just talking. It would be stupid not to try it. Even if you have to make concessions, it is still cheaper than going to war.
But if the other side is not agreement-capable, you don't have that option. Or if the treaty would only delay the inevitable, it might be better for the long-term prospect to go for it now.
Nowadays we know that Russia should have committed more troops at the start. But back then, it was perfectly reasonable to do what they did. We all underestimated the lunatics of the West and the suicide wish of the Ukraine.
We all underestimated how much it was needed. I didn't even believe that it was going to happen until it did.
I remember waking up on the day of the beginning of the SMO and thinking "Russia's gone all in".
I see your point, but from the legal aspect, Russia could withdraw the troops from Kyiv so Ukraine won't claim it signed the peace treaty under duress and have it nullified
And how would Ukraine do so, other than by force of arms?
I'm just saying Ukraine could appeal to the UN, etc., that they signed the treaty literally "under the gun."
Most peace treaties are signed under the gun.
Give War a Chance - “Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad”
Enlightened militarism in new “Liberal" Imperial Europe:
telegenic female leaders such as the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin,
German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock,
and Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas
want you to give war a chance.
https://i0.wp.com/russiatruth.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Fuayfo1WIAcexDi.png?w=640&ssl=1
You skipped Kanada's wicked witch of the west, Freeloader, Turdeau's sidekick, who's 2nd generation 2 "not see" peace as a solution.
Twerking Head woman, her grandfather was in Hitler's inner circle. Her mother was given the task of creating a gov't for Ukraine by Soros. The ties run deep in that family.
Yep. “Since her appointment, articles about Freeland’s family history have been spread over the Internet by Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/09/canadas-foreign-minister-says-russia-is-spreading-disinformation-about-her-grandfather/
The E girls of Europe , and Canada since Tru-doh belong on that group also..These aren't leaders these are the most mediocre of corporate middle managers..They work for Black Rock and the city of London, so they don't bat an eye at betraying their people daily. . They attend press shows and recite speeches written for them by someone else. Foreigners write their laws and arrange their foreign policy . Maia Sandu for example is more corrupt than Lucifer, and almost as corrupt as a US senator. The US rules its empire through bribery and extortion.
CastruDoh | Covid Terrorism, Murder, and Racketeering
https://drtrozzi.org/2022/05/28/dr-david-martin-covid-terrorism-murder-and-racketeering/
Withdrawing the Russian troops to the 22 Feb does not mean that LDPR goes back to Ukraine. If in the agreement they were accepted by Ukraine as independent states, Ukraine was neutral, with a limited military, then that would have solved all (including the land bridge).
The only thing unresolved would be the denazification but with a limited military, neutrality, and some time that could have been solved.
Ironically, it’s actually better for Russia that the agreement was scuttled in the long term although with a steeper road to climb.
Obviously that all assumes what I assumed in above (+acceptance of Crimea as part of Russia). Anything less would have been a loss for Russia.
The problem I see with that is "neutrality". The regime would obviously remain completely hostile to Russia, looking to break the "peace deal" in any way that would make Russia look bad (like they did with Minsk 2.0), doing things "decomissioning" their tanks, APCs, jets, etc. by essentially unplugging a few wires, which technically makes them "inoperable", but can be brought back into working order with essentailly a few manhours of work. We already know this, because this is exactly how the US "decomissioned" it's nuclear bombers.
They would be poking, and probing, provoking the Russians by small violations of the treaty (like they did pre-2022), to which Russia has basically one answer: resumption of hostilities. At that point Ukraine would claim "See? You can't negotiate with Russia, they invade you anyways."
Good point. The last sentence clinched it for me.
In that case, what was the Kremlin really thinking then??? Because it would have been just kicking the can down the road.
It's clear now that they've decided to resolve this once and for all (even though the pressure will be enormous to freeze the conflict on non-permanent less advantageous terms and I hope they don't cave in).
Okay, Imma be honest, I wanna flex some intellectual muscles, so hold on to your panties, LOL.
I think they knew, they aren't fucking stupid. They've been had 2 times before, in Minsk 1 and 2. I have a few theories as to why they did negotiate:
1) The stall: go into a peace deal to stall for your own military ramp-up and preparation. I find this the least likely. A likely actual peace deal between the two would look like this: Ukraine agrees to the arms controls and other things (not joining NATO, ending western military support, recognising Crimea as Russia, etc.), and in return, Russia concedes the territory captured after feb. 2022. Then if they kept up their shenanigans, you'd have to face an initial AFU force that's half the strength. BUT This isn't gonna fly for a few reasons: a) any territory conceded to Ukraine is getting fortified Donbass-style, it's going to be harder, not easier to take back later, even after more prep time. b) The Ukies aren't gonna abide by the treaty probably, so you're conceding land for no reason. c) Putin has been wanting to retire for quite a while now, the reason he launched the SMO now is because he wanted to settle this problem, instead of leaving this festering abomination on the border for an incoming, inexperienced and transient Russian leadership to handle. Stalling for abother 3-5 years would make the problem worse.
2) The queen's gambit: knowing that negotiations are not an option, you still sit down, and negotiate reasonably, knowing that a Ukraine pumped freshly full of NATO weapons, enthusiastic mercenaries and money is probably not going to settle.
3) my personally preferred option, the "poison pill": when you negotiate, you make an offer, but put a demand in there that you KNOW the other side can't swallow (hence the name, poison pill, lawyer talk). In this case, the pill would be probably the very stringent arms limitations. What would Ukraine do? Send home 100k troops? Scrap thousands pieces of armour? Unlikely they would agree to that. Especially with all the fresh hardware they have flooding in. Another poison pill would be recognising the LDRP and Crimea as Russia (well, what Russia controlled of them pre-2022 anyways). This would sting badly for Ukraine.
And why negotiate at all? In lawfare, you use the poison pill to make the other party reject the option of a reasonable settlement, to seem more reasonable yourself. Well, in this case, you are under no "threat" of actually reaching an agreement. The key is putting in a poison pill that they 100% won't swallow, but making it seem reasonable to an outsider. India and China looks at the deal and says: "Russia concedes all land they didn't previously control, and Ukraine just has to follow some basic rules. It's not like Ukraine loses anything they didn't control pre-2022 anyways. Russia offered to stop the invasion, get up and leave? For these few conditions? And you didn't take it?"
And then, when for example a certain African committee comes to Putin, he can just slap this Ukrainian-signed peace offer on the table, to show them: "See? This ain't a bad deal. But they refused anyways. We're not the unreasonable ones here, they are."
Obviously, this is just guesswork, but I think I'm on the money here. This is also why Russia has been going so slow in the SMO. It's not just a harder sell to the Russian people because of the higher casualties, it's also a harder sell to the global South. You could really feel how they turned to the Russian side during the summer / autumn of 2022, and I think that's almost entirely due to Russia's careful way of conducting war. If the gloves came off, I suspect it would have been much harder to get the African leaders on board. Just a reminder that war isn't just about military strategy, but also a lot of other factors we don't even know are considered.
Yes the poison pill is what I thought as well but formulated in such a way that even if they accept it, still works for Russia and gives them an in if certain conditions are broken.
But ... it seems (and I agree with Simplicius here) that they were not prepared for a long war. That, or they had weaknesses they didn’t know militarily and strengths they didn’t know economically.
Something tells me though that since Zelensky was ready to sign on the dotted line that it wasn’t as bad for them or as good for Russia as we might hope. I take what was in my original comment as bare minimum and I’m not sure Ukraine would’ve accepted losing LDPR without a fight.
Either way I think everyone can agree that the slow way was better and that resolving this militarily is good for Russia, both internally for rebuilding and to resolve the Ukrainian/NATO issue once and for all.
Sure, and I think they gave s reasonable peace offer. Well, reasonable to anyone except the Kiev regime.
Yeah.. well what we really have here is a fait de accomplii.
Crimea is in Russia and so is Lugansk and the Donbas. There is no negotiating that fact. The only thing left to postulate and arm chair speculate about is what Russia will allow the Ukraine to be.. essentially after this campaign ends. If the western leaders continue to arm the Ukraine there will be only a small very small Ukraine left to become part of Poland. If the nut jobs ( neocon zionists ) pretend to reach for the button Europeans will lose it and turn on their governments. I may be Way Back Joe, but I look to the past to get an idea of what may emerge in the future. I would very much like to still be alive to see a closer relationship between the Russian people and the German people. This has been a dream since even before the time of Bismarck when Germany did not exist, all the way back to the 14th century.
What a wonderful future that will be for white people, who have been vilified and persecuted for the past hundred years first from the shadows, now in full view as the source of all the worlds problems.
This is all done while the tormentors enjoy the fruits of plenty created by the industry and genius of the white races.
Go Putin Go
Go Russia Go
WBJ
It's true... all lawyers speak a foreign language that ordinary folks don't understand, and thus have to pay the lawyers so they can argue in a foreign language court.
Kicking the van down the road isn’t necessarily bad in this case. 5 years later with the LDNR getting massive reconstruction investment and Ukrainians might have started asking why not us too? And then perhaps a more Russian friendly government gets elected.
That’s still a reasonable projection for any end to the conflict that doesn’t see Russia take the whole country. As soon as the active hostilities end, Chinese investment/construction is going to stream in on top of whatever Russia does.
"And then perhaps a more Russian friendly government gets elected. "
Won't happen as the puppet "dicktata" has banned opposition parties.
A Russian friendly, or at least neutral, govt. can only be installed by Russia.
I can almost guarantee that Putin’s first choice is the Ukrainian people installing a new government. It’s one of the reasons the pain dial has been turned up slowly. Russia will do that if necessary, but it opens the door to organic resistance. Russia doing that and getting an insurgency was almost certainly the US plan. The only way to actually remove the disease Ukraine is suffering from and the US is for Ukrainians to do it.
In my comment I was projecting. What might have come from the Istanbul negotiations. And that would be parts of “Ukraine” being restored and developed. It might not have worked, but I guarantee Putin was willing to try that route because it wasn’t war. He’s the least excited about this war, especially compared to many in the west that support Russia.
You mean like elect a young, charismatic, ethnic Russian guy as president, who says he will bing peace to the Donbass and stop the violence? Like Mr. Volodimyr Zelensky?
It’s not the same now, and a key point of my statement was the new Russian oblasts being developed by Russia and offering a comparison of what’s possible.
Yes, and that's a stupid concept IMO.
1) You wouldn't be able to offer a comparison. Any information regarding that would be supressed. Like videos showing brand new housing, new factories, happy families etc. would be dismissed as North-Korea style "fake grocery store" propaganda, as we see right now, with Mariupol.
2) It doesn't matter what the Ukrainian people think, say, or how they vote. The only way that would change if they deep scrub the entire government, and replace almost all officials and beurocrats. In 2004 and 2008 coups, just voting out the western-installed puppet was enough. After 2014, specifically in 2019, with the election of the "peace candidate", Zelensky, even though the peace guy won 70% of the vote, he brought no peace.
There is no solution that does not require the complete purging of the entire UA government, down to the bone, and even then, you have the problem of an entire generation of subverted Russia-hating Western-Ukrainian citizens.
Could it be Putin was intentionally playing down Russia's space based capabilities to mislead DC/NATO? I have no idea, just a thought.
No, but with that said, it's also not a "all or nothing" black or white issue. Just because Russia had some foul ups and oversights doesn't mean their space assets are nonexistent or weak. It's still one of the most powerful in the world, it's just not as good/prepared as it could have been if traitorous/corrupt 'parquet people' weren't embezzling the money and not planning with foresight for the events to come in the 2000-2020 period.
Well judging by operational results Russia seems to be working with solid intel despite the shortcoming.
What Russia lacks in satellite intel it more than makes up for it with human intel. Something the US/NATO etc sorely lack.
Just need to be a little careful with this. There may have been some large, very specific, non-military-related initiatives that artificially boosted 1 or more of the top 4 e.g a company requiring a rapid deployment of satellites for a new global service. Russia may still be on its planned growth trajectory, but that was overshadowed by an event such as described above. If this is the case, then concerns about them stagnating are not justified.
I don't understand why you're so down about Russia being 5th largest in space assets (i.e., satellites). Unlike the West, they don't need to cover the globe because they're not trying to stir shit up everywhere. Russia's assets need to provide coverage over Europe primarily to help it protect its own back yard. Secondly, by "largest" did Putin mean military assets specifically, or both commercial and military? If it's the latter, the delta is being inflated by commercial (non ISR) assets. Lastly, "larger" doesn't necessarily mean "superior". Going forward, Russia will invest vast sums to develop a leading edge in drones, AI, ISR, and other critical technologies. And if recent history is any guide, they'll deliver objectively superior tech, in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the bloated cost of their Western counterparts.
I don't think that this is how satellite surveillance technology works.
From what I know, Optical surveillance satellites are not geostationary, and they circle the globe. Hence, the more you have them, the smaller the pauses are between taking the photos.
I could be wrong though. If someone else knows more than me, please share.
Geostationary satellites, practical for sitting over one spot of the globe , or more clearly "see" one fixed hemisphere of the globe, are about 36000 km up while "moving" satellites are in the 400-700km range. The lower the better resolution for optical satellites, but also more drag from the residual atmosphere, which can be adjusted by small on board thrusters, usually using He as inert propellant. The supply of He is finite, and in the end the satellite cannot be moved around and will be crashed in the Pacific
Russia are huge fans of molniya orbits, you loft a satellite into an inclined orbit where its apogee is extremely high whilst its perigee is extremely low. This means at its perigee, it ZOOMS around the earth incredibly quickly, then spends most of its time slowly making its way to its apogee. The reason for this is that it spends most of its time 'above' looking 'down' and has a high degree of uptime. This was how, for example, the soviet union used to keep tabs on America so well, it was damn near constantly looking down on it aside from the brief window when it passed behind the earth at its perigee, which we already established is extremely quick. The inclined orbit means that the satellite gets to see damn near everything, because as the earth rotates, the satellite covers ground it initially wasn't. This differs from a geostationary orbit, which is equatorial, in which it can only ever see the equator and tracks the ground beneath it (hence stationary). The only orbit which would allow you to see more is a polar orbit, which will cover absolutely every single inch of the earth given enough rotations. This is what mapping satellites use.
There was recent launch of super-duper radar satellite from Russia to LEO, which all SIGINT people I follow drooled over and praised "nobody have such capabilities". Since I have no idea about these matters, all I can do is to nod and acknowledge.
Would be great if somebody reading your comment knew more about this topic and could explain 👍
Those that know are not going to say and, if they do, they won't tell the truth.
Martyanov write that there AWACs have x-ray capabilities. I never heard of this, although have seen in movies. I would expect the x-ray satellites would be able to pick up tanks in trees easily. Martyanov also said some time ago they are building up their production capabilities then, and are producing a bunch more now. I wonder if they will have advanced sensors.
It's a bs. You can't make something like x-ray radar/satellite/whatever simply because of the nature of x-rays. They are not reflected from any material, so if you want to get an object's x-ray image, you need to place that object between emitter (satellite in our case) and receiver that draws an image based on the fact that different materials have different x-ray absorption factor. So you basically need to place receiver somewhere under a tank, and i think this defeats the purpose somewhat :)
Is an X-ray beam not part of the electromagnetic spectrum and therefore as with sunlight visible & ultraviolet, exponential in distance versus intensity. One unit of distance doubled away from or closer to the source will cause an increase or decrease in the intensity by a factor of 4. It looks like you would need one honking big X-ray machine up there in space. Can someone comment on that... Tis
WBJ
It is, but x-rays are readily absorbed by the atmosphere and don't travel far. Radio waves don't get absorbed.
Not possible. X-rays do not travel far in air. The amount of power it takes to operate a x-ray style radar would be ridiculous.
IDLS
Thanks... thats what I thought.
But hey, there's always kryptonite... I think the guy who came up with this idea probably suffers some kind of malady brought on by too much comic book immersion in his youth, instead of masterbaiting which would have provided far more satisfaction and less hallucination.
Hey nobodies perfect, I know a guy in his late fifties an educated professional "definitely not blood related"but within from without if you get my drift who collects Batman memorabilia. He even wears the BM suit on occasion and has a vehicle stashed away that looks like the real Batmobile.
Hey it's his money and I don't care how he spends it.
I have however made it clear that I am suffering from an incurable highly contagious disease and won't be available for any get togethers at all... sorry. The kids now have competition from the adults, it just isn't fair you know. Like those A- hole transgender guys still packing a full load and pretending to be women. In women's sports I don't understand why these ladies don't just get together and beat the crap out of these losers.
Time for my late afternoon nap now so sayonara to myself and any other fool reading my stuff.
WBJ
IMO, total number of satellites launched and/or operational is a completely meaningless and highly misleading metric. Take the US Iridium or Starlink systems as examples - these launched (or were intended to launch) literally hundreds and thousands of minimally capable relay satellites, the sum total of which provide less capability than just a very few well-built, sophisticated comm satellites in well-placed orbits.
I really have no idea where Russia stands in overall space assets, but you need to find a more appropriate metric than simply "number of launches/satellites" to make a proper evaluation - otherwise conclusions based on such an evaluation are worse than useless.
I work in space industry so I have a bit of knowledge about this.
We should difference rockets and satellite itself.
The Russia of the 90/2000s was the biggest player in “rockets” but not in satellites payload.
In the 90s Russian satellite fleet became very degraded and their electronic industry was basically demolished. So they started to even buy satellites from France.
In the last decade they started to recover and build their own electronics but it is not such a simple process.
Also I think Russia made the mistake of collaborate in many civil western satellite projects that were not under their control.
So theoretically scientific satellites of the ESA and NASA have been use to make photos of Russian troops.
I worked in some of them and I was shocked since I know that Russia participated in some of them, but they are controlled by Europe or US.
And finally it’s obvious that Russia has budget limitations and they have focused very much in military developments rather than in space.
For me is not a problem of corruption but a combination of the classical Russian issues:
- 90s destruction
- Trust in the west
- Infiltrated liberals in the goverment line Nabiulina.
If the Russian central bank would impose a capital control like China they would have money for everything, infrastructure, satellites, military since their trade balance with the world is amazing.
Sadly, they only reinvest in Russia around 40% of that trade balance because the rest is export to the west by oligarch and some normal people that decide to have banks accounts in dollars.
Also they allow very strange things like Yandex being owned by a Netherlands company and pay taxes there even when all offices and markets are in Russia
Indeed this SMO probably is waking up many people about their stupid collaboration in the western system
BTW, Rogozin was only head of Roscosmos for 4 years, so he's not solely responsible for its failures/successes.
Actually as I understand it, Medvedev put Rogozin in charge of defense *and* space industries in 2011, which means Rogozin ruled both in various capacities for over a decade, and at the most critical of decades to boot. With that said, I'm not piling everything on him because as smug and annoying as his online persona has been, he's actually redeemed himself a bit for me insofar as his commitment to frontline service on the SMO
one thing that can definitely be credited to Rogozin is the unprecedented launch reliability in the recent years. as of 2023 Roscosmos stands at over 100 successful launches in a row, which is a historical record.
In my opinion the critics to Rozogin are probably unfounded.
That people troll in Twitter does not make them incompetent. Just look at Musk.
Many critics of Rozogin are basically fake and come from the West.
And they say obvious lies like that a engineer from Roscosmos earn 10k€ when they earn around 40/50k€
However, I think that Borisov will be a far better director for roscosmos
I could be wrong, but wasn't Rogozin's main job to clean up the widespread corruption in Russia's space-related institutions and industries?
It is what he says :D
I think that he probably did a good managerial job, organising everything and reducing some duplicities that cost money.
I think he did a good job there, as well as increasing the internal checks.
However we should remember that he is not a engineer, he is a economist.
I would attribute to that fact his “lack of vision for the future”.
He managed what was there, but he didn’t care so much about future.
I think Borisov will make a better job in such regard.
My general view is that Rozogin was a competent director for a while, not a disaster how they try to portrait him in the West.
Now that Roscosmos is estable a engineer like Borisov has more sense.
He (Rogozin) has been used throughout much of his career as the Kremlin's troubleshooter, to clean up messes, and move from one to the other. He wrote a book a few years back ('The Hawks of Peace') about his career, makes for some interesting reading.
I was wondering the same thing.
Why make such an admission?
First comment: At the SPIEF, Putin said the economic condition in March was far from certain. There was confidence, but no assurances. IMO, the feint to Kiev forced negotiations that would've been favorable for Russia and Ukraine. But they were nixed on orders from Team Biden carried by Bojo. Why? Because Crimea has always been the Empire's goal and that still seemed feasible since the economic war had yet to really take hold in Western eyes, and that was always the major consideration. Plus, the self-induced illusion of Russia's weakness was in full control. And as we well know, Neocons don't give in easily. Russia's quick military technical operation gambit came very close to succeeding but didn't, which forced a repositioning and reappraisal.
Now that I've read the whole piece, first, the slaughter was expected and will continue. Yes, it's horrifying for me as a former soldier, but I anticipated it, so it's not altogether surprising. Second, on your translation issue, I got the right translation from the outset and have several ideas of what might come next to create several additional facts on the ground, which I'll share when I have greater time to comment. Third, there's still a channel to ford to get to the ZNPP; and as I commented before, any attempted assault will have worse results than those you chronicled in this report. Fourth, on all the military equipment movement, it's the time of year for Reserve and National Guard Summer FTXs, so some will be that sort of thing. If Biden were to try and commit US troops, IMO he'll get impeached ASAP. The only aid that makes sense is using other NATO troops to man NATO armor that's in cantonment in Europe; but without air support, that will be another futile attempt that will fail. As I commented a month ago, it's either ALL-IN or surrender as continuing piece-meal additions is "military malpractice" as Larry Johnson said.
I have comments on Russia's space program and a report on the state of the EU/EC/NATO's fate in Europe, but I'll need to add them when I have more time to write. Again, thanks for your efforts; I don't bother seeking out other perspectives because I don't need to!
Brits were drooling over Crimea since the 1800s...
Fun fact: That particular war was the first in history to be "broadcast live" so to speak, with the general public following along every move in (near) real time. So yeah, it made an indelible impact on Britain. Plus Nightingale, the Charge of the Light Brigade, etc, etc.
So now the Brits get their kicks by reenacting the Light Brigade suicide by using Ukrainians like tin soldiers?
No, 'The Brits' don't get kicks - it's only the Westminster swamp dwellers and their Westminster MSM mouthpieces who 'get kicks'. Most of us Brits don't even read that stuff or watch the BBC.
Moreover - 'generation smartphone' in Britain wouldn't even know about the Crimean war, never mind recognising said poem even if it bit their well-upholstered backsides ...
Yeah, but if the parents abdicate their responsibility for educating/raising their own kids to the street or to the "school," they end up with their kids being taught "whatever" by "whomever."
Some elites and Colonel Blimp style chinless wonders in the army might do but the bulk of our population does not.
Cor blimey, calm down peeps. Don't take it personally when we say "The Yanks, the Brits, the Poms et al; most are referring to the PTB, not the plebs, in each country.
I take personally when they say The Peeps LOL
PTB?
Agreed. Realistically, any agreement Ukraine signed in the Spring/Summer of 2022 would have been a win for Russia and a loss for the US, especially if it included Ukrainian neutrality. The US couldn't accept a settlement because of what you wrote, including the focus on Crimea. I also agree that the changes in the late spring/summer of 2022 caused Russia to have to reposition. I'd argue that we're only seeing effects of the repositioning now.
Crimea has always been the Empires Goal.
The Empire being the Khazar Rothchild world banking cartel located in the inner city of London. Nothing else, no other country, institution or order has an interest or gives a rats hairy butt about Crimea. Soldiers died back in the day for the Rothchilds in the Crimea, and today they are dying in the region for the same beast. Englands behaviour towards Russia going back several hundred years has been abysmally treacherous. Divide and conquer in Europe but not so in Russia, not yet.
Russia is rising while the British Empire is no more and its lands and native stock in minority population are now an asian/african colony in Europe thanks largely to these international Fraudsters. The Khazar Bankers are still lords of all in the west and every politician knows that unless he submits to them and swears an oath of loyalty he will be banished to the bottom of the beehive.
The Khazarian shape shifters fitting themselves to prevail in any setting are very astute thinkers about the future and shaping it for themselves. Parts of Ukraine and especially the Crimea was the former homeland of the old Khazarian Kingdom destroyed by the Kievan Rus and the Byzantines over a thousand years ago, its people sent asunder much like the Hebrew diaspora in Palestine. The Khazars had adopted the Judaic faith prior to the defeat of their Kingdom.
Owning better than 85% of the worlds wealth today and controlling all the worlds industries and indeed most nations and their in bondage to them populations they are moving to recreate old Khazaria and rule the globe from the geographical centre of the greatest land mass of the planet. Eurasia from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean.
Only Ukrainians and Russians are dying right now for this vile cause, in actual combat. The west is totally lacking in real soldiers who can fight like this by design, since gender bending and blending has driven potential soldiers away.
What poison is yet to come from the minds of these master criminals. We the people everywhere on earth but especially in Europe including Russia and America must prevail and stop this insanity in its tracks once and for all. If we don't then our fate is too horrible to contemplate.
WBJ
I'm posting this separately because I want to keep the context separated:
This the continuation of my MoA reply @116 to bevin at the week in review thread where I wrote, "There are some aspects of the past that must be known by all humanity so they aren't repeated." During Putin's SPIEF address, there was a pause to show those attending a rather well-known documentary film of a few of the Banderite/OUN atrocities committed during WW2 that's associated with overall Holocaust history. Pepe Escobar posted that clip from the SPIEF video at https://vk.com/pepeasia his VK, where IMO it's very important to view Putin's expression and body language during its 4+ minute running time. This is the comment I left in response:
"It's clear Putin took no pleasure in showing that film. But there are times when the truth of the past must be confronted and people reminded, which was clearly Putin's intent. In his interview I translated today and linked in my comment below, https://vk.com/@580896205-sergei-naryshkin-interview Naryshkin calls today's Nazis the "Euro-Atlantic totalitarian-liberal elite." They are both the founders and promoters of the current OUN and IMO are just as despicable. Recall that last year Putin vowed to end the hegemony of that elite, and that's the major reason the Rest of the World (RoW) is with him and Russia."
I'll add here some of the words Putin said after the film concluded: "How can you not fight this? We must fight this." Since 2014, the West and its Propaganda System has worked very hard to deny they are leading Nazis--not just supporting--of the same sort depicted by history: A NeoNazi is still a Nazi.
I hope Naryshkin's interview is setting the table for the Russian public for what will come next--Russia's own counter-offensive. The context of what's transpired over the last four days is what informs my analysis: The clear massive Ukie failure and losses that's as genocidal as the film which was followed by the unveiling of the almost concluded peace documents that showed Russia's willingness to compromise and the unwillingness of the Big Nazis not only to not compromise but forbid any further attempts to compromise until their goal of obtaining Crimea is attained no matter what the human cost as in WW2.
As Putin said: "How can you not fight this?"
I don't think it's necessary to impute duplicity in Putin's given statement of events. February and March 2022 were obviously chaotic times in the MoD; it could very well be that events and decisions had multiple vectors, and Putin is (quite naturally) remembering the ones he favoured while his memory de-emphasizes the others. If that's the case, his statements can be perfectly true while it's also true to say that a full and objective historical analysis must include other factors.
Separately, I'm utterly gobsmacked by the fact that everyone is talking about Ukrainians using new tactics like smoke. Were they not using smoke before? Did they not wonder what those bulky launchers on the sides of their tanks were for? Smoke is about as new a tactic on the battlefield as fire, and smoke to cover armoured advances about as new as armoured cavalry. Either there's more information there lost in the filter, or the AFU is staffed by the blitheringest idiots to ever blither.
Finally, about space capabilities: yes, SpaceX has hugely inflated the US payload count, but if you measure instead payload weight, the margin is much narrower, with the US neck and neck with China and Russia trailing a moderately distant third that still outstrips the rest of the world combined. Russia and China also have clear advantages in characteristic energy and manned payloads, which admittedly isn't terribly important for military applications as interplanetary probes and astronauts aren't going to feed intel to the Russian war machine. Finally, there's some disagreement in payload capability, as distinct from demonstrated historical payloads. Until SpaceX started cluttering everything up with Starlink in an attempt to turn a profit for their expanded shop, China was by far and away the heavylift tempo champion, with Russia battling for second - prospectively overtaking the role with the death of the Atlas 5 and Delta IV.
As I've noted elsewhere, Russia's really busting all bounds with launch tempo. In February and March this year they were averaging a little over a launch a week.
Yeah, as disappointed as I am in some of the past stuff, the future is looking bright as Putin is cleaning up Russia's act so it's really all water under the bridge because Russia will emerge as a true super power in a couple years, there's no denying that now
Even Milley suddenly "promoted" Russia from a gas-station to the superpower?:-)
Or a superpower with lots of gas stations.
I agree. Russia tends to start slowly in wars and then wins. Seems to be a tradition going back at least to The Great Northern War. They faltered in the late Tsarist era from the time of the Crimean War through to WW1 but got back to the tradition of winning eventually after that.
Assuming we don't all die in a nuclear holocaust, I'd like to see Russia become more active in space exploration. They launched the first satellite, and put the first man in space. They are the only country to send probes to the surface of Venus. But lately they haven't done much on that front, and the problems with two Progress spacecraft, a Soyuz capsule, and the Nauka ISS module show a lack of quality workmanship. They can be doing so much more, and better. Of course it doesn't help that the US has been attacking them for decades.
Actually, I think you'll find SpaceX has the tonnage lead to orbit as well, but given how much of that is Starlink (which itself cleanly makes SpaceX #1 space fleet operator), China is then clearly #1 military tonnes to orbit.
They also have the premier heavy-lift capability in the world, but they haven't (yet) replaced the Delta IV or the Atlas 5 for military applications. There's a scheduled NROL launch (yes, that's weird, like ATM machine) and some scheduled USSF launches on the Falcon Heavy, but those don't yet count as they haven't yet happened.
SpaceX really is a huge PTO game-changer, like Fisher's Dreadnought, and we shouldn't mitigate that. It's a big challenge to both Russia and China. However, it's still an open question whether SpaceX has a sustainable model or not; Starlink's whole existence is a Hail-Mary attempt to justify all those rockets.
they're trying to flood all low earth orbits with their satellites so nobody else can get anything up there
Thanks for this, I was going to point out the exact same thing; littering LEO with cubesats is essentially cheating.
Thanks, I wondered if the sheer number of starlink satellites was padding numbers.
This war has exposed everyone's weaknesses, as wars do. We have focused a lot on how western wonder weapons are not all that, but clearly there are many deficiencies on the Russian side too. A lot of the corruption/incompetence stereotype is well earned. Not like the west is any less so, but as it stands both sides will be racing to plug their deficiencies. Russia probably faster because actual Russian boys are dying.
The British and the US are getting to play a no-cost game at the moment. The British especially. Russia needs to do something about that else I expect SAS to start operating within Russia, if not already
Good way of putting it. It's true, this war has exposed everyone's weaknesses. I just want to be clear for anyone who might think I was ragging on Russia: two important points:
1. if Russia and U.S. had a war right now, Russia would mop the floor with them.
2. if the U.S. was in Russia's place, and had a war against Ukraine, U.S. would not only do worse than Russia, they would lose.
This is to put things in perspective.
Heaven forbid. I don't see how #1 doesn't go nuclear within a few hours... Such as how do you know cruise missiles headed to Russia are not nuclear tipped and Russia better use it or lose it? What happens when large capital assets like carriers are sunk? What happens when either side starts losing which would be existential? Generals have to know this and probably why nuclear powers don't fight directly
That's all true. But with that said, those limitations would be hypothetically kept in mind so if the U.S. hypothetically would engage in direct hostilities it would probably cautiously keep from doing anything too provocative that would set off nuclear warnings like launching MRBMs into Russia proper which could be mistaken as nuclear-tipped, etc.
It would likely only strike Russian forces in Ukraine but of course that too could theoretically be mistaken as cruise/ballistic missile trajectories are not written in stone and from Russia's perspective they could be headed to the mainland with nuclear warheads.
That's why of course I don't think U.S. would ever strike first in such a way, they'd do more along the lines of Russia's famed 'Pristina Airport' snatch from 1999 and put the ball in Russia's court to 'strike first' so to speak. U.S. just wants to steal Odessa to make sure that Russia doesn't win a huge strategic victory of denying Ukraine a warm water port and thereby completely dominate the Black Sea, so U.S. is eyeing a Pristina-esque mad-dash towards Odessa without any kinetic action towards Russia, which would put the onus on Russia to 'strike first' as U.S. doesn't need to strike anything to capture Odessa which is only a few hours drive from their 101st Airborne hangout in Romania.
Aleks at Black Mountain Analysis is worried about Odessa too. He thinks that will be the moment of greatest danger.
I think that the USA will push even further, doing a false flag to bring in NATO. The neocons really are that crazy.
This is a dividend going to the hegemon. That's why some big countries strive to become hegemons. Hegemon does cherry picking, vassals do the dirty job. 101st Airborn - what if it is stationed in Romania just to make sure that Romanian government/army don't get cold feet about NATO as they did in 1944 about Third Reich? Why is Macron running around like a headless chicken? Because he knows that the ultimate plan is to push the vassals to go to war with RUS?
Simplicious, do you have a point of view on the rumors earlier this week (covered on The Duran Show) that moderate voices in the State Department are being pushed out and hardliners like Nuland are getting promoted and salivating at the thought of using tactical nukes against Russia? That fucking rabid idiot can't seem to comprehend that there's no such thing as a "tactical" nuclear weapon and that she all of the other neocons (along with a billion innocent people) would be vaporized within minutes of using such weapons to try to salvage a "win" in Ukraine.
You'll know through political observation, sigint, comint and elint. They are weapons that are not deployed nearly enough in this war on both sides to save soldiers from peril.
The main difference is that Russia showed adaptability and learned from its mistakes, removed "parquet generals," promoted people who were in the "shadows," but their critical thinking and heroism pushed them to the top. While the US's elites doubled down on stupid, let Nuland & Co run amok, Brandon & Co steal what's not nailed to the floor.
That's true. That's why I'm not too worried about a lot of this stuff because Russia has showed tremendous resilience and ability to learn from mistakes
Regarding #1 - maybe in the first few months. I think the US would mobilize and level the playing field - they have enough tech, equipment and industrial capacity. Of course, assuming the war not going nuclear and making every team a loser.
And as for #2, Russia clearly has the geographical advantage over the US. And if we were to ignore this, indeed, the american equipment appears not to be suited to this type of terrain nor to this type of attrition war.
They have very little industrial base. It would take a huge amount of time to get that up to a war footing. Plus, how will they get it all over to the Europe? Russia is not going to sit idle and watch a six month build up like it took the US to invade Iraq.
It's not little. Underestimating the enemy is a big mistake, the very mistake the West did regarding Russia. With the proper motivation, the production would go up in a very short time.
Assuming the war would take place in Ukraine, indeed, the US would be at a disadvantage, as I mentioned in my first reply. But the fire exchange can very well take place on the other side of the globe, where Russian and US lands (almost) meet.
" With the proper motivation, the production would go up in a very short time."
No it would not. The factories do not exist and the skilled employees are gone. These are hard facts.
In terms of their arms industry, their industrial capacity in really not great. All their gunpowder is manufactured in one single place in the entire country. Russia would take out these places very quickly. They would not have time to scaleup IMO. But yes, I hear you. Where there's a will there's a way.
I stil think the advancement in weapons on the Russian side means the US will never risk a hot war with Russia anywhere on the planet. They'll just use proxies. Which will get destroyed.
"With the proper motivation" better include a rollback of all this Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion nonsense that does not help produce a working product, along with a fast financing, permitting and construction pathway to building the new factories and getting a domestic workforce up to speed on real job skills useful in production of sophisticated products and complex systems. Lots of older skilled workers retired early or the moment they could do so in the recent "Great Resignation". Not to say that the new hires aren't as smart as their fathers and grandfathers were, or that the new ways aren't going to be better than the old ways, but the current workplace environment with emphasis on "diversity" and identity politics over individual abilities and meritocracy is going to hinder honest communication and efficiency in the modern workplace in the U.S.
Given the fact that the United States industrial base was outsourced to Asia a long time ago, I’m really not sure which industrial Waze you are talking about
If the reports that Simplicus posted about are true then the military are moving increased equipment etc to the West Coast.
Surely Russia is prepared for an attack from the US West Coast?
If there was a nuclear exchange, Russian missiles would come in from over the pole down through Canada. They supposedly have missiles that can do a near-orbital trajectory and attack the US from the south. Short range (~4000 miles) missiles can be launched from submarines hidden far away from both east and west coasts. They would not send them the long way from Russia over the Pacific Ocean to the US west coast. But the US does do military exercises off the coasts of southern California and northern Mexico - where those UAP sightings come from - so this movement being just part of regular summer military exercises makes sense.
Where Russian and US lands meet is no men land.
Only a mad person would attack indefendible artic positions
I think they are using the Air Defender exercise to pre stage equipment in various countries and US bases in Europe.
Perhaps. But with Russian hypersonic weapons, they can stage whatever they want... It will get destroyed.
The West has no stomach for a war. Zero.
The USA has enough industrial capacity? No, they do not.
Russia retained all it's military factories from cold war era. I am talking about juggernauts size of a city, 10-50k employees. I know that, I worked on one. All unused capacities were mothballed but never dismantled.
While US dismantled it's capabilities almost fully. That's what you get when you have private sector running your MIC. Cost cuts. Col McGregor constantly harps about it. You can't "restore" that. It's decades long task which also involves pipeline to train generation of skilled personnel to staff these factories. I am pretty sure half of knowledge base is retired or dead.
It's not even close in how in much better shape Russian MIC is. No comparison.
Where is all this industrial capacity located ??
China.
Ok, this made me burst with laughter.
Because I realized, on an even deeper level, how fucked the US is.
Edit: And anyone who thinks such lofty ideals like "voting" might help steer that ship off the collision course is, as engineers say, "not even wrong".
It is interesting to see that Ru ATGM's far surpass their Western equivalents for example, and this is likely from lessons drawn during Iraq 2003, Lebanon 2006, and so on, where western armor was present on many battlefields.
I did find Putin's "we are #5 in space" surprising.. if true, that implies that NATO/US is an order of magnitude ahead and the ISR overmatch is quite severe.
Whatever the case, whats happening currently is certainly not part of the NATO battle plan. But I would point out that the reasons the AFU is having such a hard time can (and will) be turned onto the Russians should they decide to advance. "Experts" trying to reduce this to simply a lack of air superiority are mistaken - whoever is the attacker going forward will have contested skies and I don't see an obvious solution to this problem of mines for anyone
3. Mexico is waiting…
Thanks for re-balancing the ledger with these sobering and well researched insights. And good points above. I'd add that Russia has already energised production where it's still talking points elsewhere. Russia has shorter supply lines and internal resources; the western powers found out what happens with outsourcing and just in time. The Russian people now understand the existential nature of the conflict; in the west it's existential for the elites, for the peons it's bread and circuses and the broken promise of UBI.
They'll create a mighty Poland by incorporating within it the rump western Ukraine lands and Lithuania. Then Poland will invade Kaliningrad and Belarus, and this will be the way they'll war against Russia by proxy, not dissimilar to what is happening now in sustaining the Ukraine, but with more resources and preparation.
Really... Poland will do all that.
The recently released documents regarding diplomatic exchanges between Germany including Hitler himself and Poland in the nine months prior to the attack by Germany are an astounding record of how some people view reality.
I'll just describe one in general terms from the Polish foreign ministry to the German foreign office like this: If Germany mobilizes just one soldier against Poland then the Germans living in Berlin will wake up in the morning one week later to see Polish tanks in their streets and our brave soldiers marching along beside them.
HoooAaaa.
WBJ.
If Poland invade Kaliningrad or Belarus will be nuked, as sure as the sun rise in the morning.
And will be done with the support of China and all big global south countries.
One question is to restrain to nuke in a war that it is in a gray zone against what 90% of Russians consider an antient Russian city (Kiev), and other is to restrain to nuke against a historical enemy that is just invading your country.
Probably it won't be an invasion out of the blue with no justification.
Poland will intervene in some kind of colour revolution against Lukashenko, to "protect Polish people" and to sustain "freedom fighters" and "democracy".
If Russia nukes Poland it will look very bad, Nato will intervene and China won't do anything, because they haven't yet built the infrastructure to transfer raw resources needed for heavy war industry (huge quantities of metal ores of many kinds, oil) from Siberia to China. And I doubt Russia will want such ever be built. China still depends on safe sea lanes to import everything it needs from the four corners of the world.
There will again be conventional war where trenches of Heeresgruppe Mitte once stood.
Definitely been hearing more jet activity here in New England...
Here in southern California. Very marked increase.
Substack's very own Imetatronink reported massive increase of Apache helicopter and Longbows flying around in Utah which I believe he said were not in normal camouflage colors.
Exercises are one way of applying diplomatic pressure.
Will has blocked me on twitter, I think because he thought i was a bot. I created my account when Elon took over the platform and his was the first account i tried to follow. I get his posts from Mark Wauck indirectly..
Ukies learning to fly being trained by a PMC. Plausible deniability.
Easy. There are submarines off the coast of CA. In one interview a general said "you won't believe what's going on in the oceans." Martyanov agreed. If you had a phase array of sonar emitters, couldn't you create holograms in the ocean? Signal processing and phased arrays it seems to me would work extremely well under water. Confirmation? But more importantly, I think the Pols are finally figuring out we could be hit. That is good, I think.
About the Poles: there was a fun vid about their parliament almost unequivocally voting for Ukraine to join NATO, and after that some pole journalist has posted a draft act that stipulates that each parliament member must undergo some training in all things military (5 courses 14 days each) or you have no say in military issues :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtX2QCT4YOk
Jets have been flying nonstop over Ogden, Utah for over a week. Hill Air Force Base is about 20 miles from Ogden. But they usually fly a few times a week, but it seems like it’s picked up.
Trying to remember, but didn’t Bush pass some type of legislation that limited posse comitatus?
Same in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
We used to be snowbirds spending the winter months in Nevada, then Arizona, as well as California near Death Valley in the 70s and 80's. I got to disliking the sonic booms and sudden earth tremors from military activity and moved to Baja on the sea of Cortez just 20 miles south of La Paz. Other than the breakers very quiet.
WBJ
Thank you! This part is positive “the future is bright and the SMO has certainly served as a massive wake up call and cleansing of the Russian administrative system”. What I am really worried is what you said prior to this: “The truth is, the ZNPP may be Zelensky’s final and only card left to play once his army is destroyed to the point of combat ineffectiveness”. This possibility seems plausible, which shows how mad this war is going!
great reporting and coverage as always simplicius.. thank you..
The USA can't afford to lose this fight. If it does then it's curtains for American hegemony. The neocons will arrange a false flag to bring in NATO.
It doesn't matter that it's a reckless and ill conceived plan that is bound to fail, the neocons aren't constrained by reality. I'm calling it the Nuland Surprise in honor of vile neocon Victoria Nuland.
I agree, the perversity of the plan doesn't matter because MSM will always cover for them and Western audience are too stupid to think for themselves, and even if they did think for themselves it wouldn't matter because the entire Western election system is completely hijacked and compromised by Diebold/Dominion so there's nothing they can do to change their leadership anyway
One of my favorite parts of it is the media holding up Petraeus and Milley et. al. like they're strategic geniuses when they couldn't even win in Afghanistan against dirt farmers and mujahideen living in caves.
Yes, You are right, and this is THE problem... what can we little guys do to subvert their damn plans???
Partisan activities. It's already happening inn the Baltics. Sabotage can be done easily.
I disagree. Western elections are not fundamentally rigged in the way the 2022 elections were stolen, i.e. with mass mail-in ballots and whatnot. Sure, that happens, as a last resort. Otherwise it's by subverting all the candidates, gerrymandering, preventing them from getting on the ballot (by doing very stringent signiture verifications on signitures required to be a candidate, where did that go all of a sudden?), smearing them before they run, limiting their reach through control of big tech and MSM, and when they eventually manage to claw their way into office, resisting them from the inside (like how they lied to Trump about troop numbers in Syria). Also, it's not like these calls are made by elected officials, it's deep state beurocrats all the way. You can't vote out those guys.
Well, you don't exactly rig the elections when all the candidates are all thinking the same way. There was a vid on Duran with Clare Daly from EP and she was telling exactly that. So the vaunted Western democracy isn't working anymore
“The D’s and the R’s are the two wings of the DC vulture”
No need to do anything so crude as hack election systems. Recall the Goering quote of how to get the populace on board with any war, in any country.
What does "bring in NATO" even mean? Isn't NATO already there fighting? If it means sending in (more) NATO troops armed with the same weapons Russia is already defeating, is that really such an existential threat? If it means the US directly attacking Russia, then Russia can directly attack the US. Wouldn't the US military finally stand up and say "No" to that?
Just the opposite and on top of that I wouldn't be surprised if they deployed tactical nukes first in order to bring the numbers to bear in their favour. They would commit to first strike and to hell with the consequences because in this case winning is all that matters. People still do not understand just how evil (arguably) the west is.
The sad part is that the American people are very unfavorable to this war (and joining the military in general these days) but you can guarantee they'll immediately fall in line when the draft starts.
They'll talk a big game about resistance and then some celebrity will say "actually joining the military is cool guys" and that's all that'll be needed.
I don't think so, not after the surrender of Afghanistan. People are pissed at what is going on w/in the military, besides due to the toxic poison there won't be enough living and healthy to draft. Although, I imagine they don't care, as long as there is enough fodder, send the sick and dying.
You'd be surprised
They've been using foreigners to pad the numbers in exchange for citizenship for decades. What, are all those immigrants gonna run away after they took all that government money to get here? Nah. Plus, the whites are all beaten down by 60 years of public schooling and propaganda. They'll fall in line.
It's a country of 400 million, they only need a million able bodies to throw into the meat grinder.
An army of transers and border whores which were not forced to be injected. That makes for a great army.
I find it interesting they have a 10th MTN Div.
Doesn't have to be capable
Just warm bodies fed into the meat grinder
Plenty of military aged men coming into the U.S. via our open Southern border. https://twitter.com/realmuckraker/status/1656433239412834304
I think the powers that be maybe are letting this happen because they have some plans for them?
It's called "electing a new people".
I don't know about enlistment, but the masses will line up to support the war if the neocons pick a good false flag. Show them something scary and the hind brain overrides the higher cognitive abilities.
Pearl Harbor and 9/11 flipped American sentiments like a switch. A Nuland Surprise with the right characteristics would provide all the support the neocons need to launch their crazy.
P.T. Barnum nailed it when he said that you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time... and let's be honest, that's more than enough to get the job done.
"Democracy" in action
"you can guarantee amerikans will immediately fall in line when the draft starts."
Not this time.
There is widespread revulsion at amerika's Woke/Tranny military, (failed) MIC adventurism, and amerikan culture in general in conservative circles....I'd say there's a slight majority in sympathy with Russia
Yeah if mass media and propaganda didn't exist
the spell is breaking
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/oxford-notes-sharp-decline-appetite-msm-news-recent-years
https://www.foxnews.com/media/us-navy-platformed-drag-queen-influencer-attract-youth-military-hiring-crisis
If you review the last few years you can see the DS is destroying the US military and along with it their ability to recruit. I think the resistance the world saw to the Vietnam draft will be a whisper compared to the violent rejection of a draft for a war against Russia.
Besides the end game for the DS is not US boots on the ground, it is nuclear war. They will survive is their reasoning, the world, not so much. They do not care. They will destroy the world and rule over the ashes rather than surrender.
Totally agree… I’ve been thinking the same since day one…At the top (Satanic) level of global power this is more about destroying the United States/West… If they manage to wound Russia/China in the process it’s a “win/win“, as far as the globalists are concerned. And how can this theory be refuted? We have open borders coupled with “weapons of mass migration”, the insane “Decarceration” of criminal elements, the insane demoralization of the West’s children, installation of globalist figureheads, demonization of indigenous white populations/traditions, sabotage of western economies and currencies, and the NWO on deck
US public is generally very combat-averse, specifically "loss-averse". They support the war, while it's Black Hawks and Abrams and Bradleys, F18s smashing through enemy lines like a hot knife through butter. But once the bodies start coming home in those coffins covered with the "stars and stripes", people get tired of it real fast. They only had like 10-15k troops KIA in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, over 20 years, and it destroyed the army recruiting numbers for decades. What will they do when they lose that many in a few months of fighting Russia?
They
Didn't care in Iraq
Didn't care in Afghanistan
Didn't care in Libya
Didn't care in Somalia
Didn't care in Chad
Didn't care in Grenada
Didn't care in Panama
Didn't care in Haiti
Didn't care in Syria
But sure. *This time* they'll care.
Yes, all of those cases were the US military steamrolling a small third-world country, and even then, public support for the invasion of Iraq dropped from 80% to about 50% all within 2003. By 2004, the support was at 39%, and it never recovered. And that was at a time when almost every single American wanted to go to war. Again, the American public is not "war averse", they quite frankly DGAF about those small nations. But what they don't like seeing is their "mighty" military getting fucked, their maimed and killed soldiers crawling back from overseas. Which they will absolutely see if they intervene in Ukraine. They lost about 58k KIAs in the entire Vietnam conflict, and look at the backlash that produced. If they go full-force in Ukraine, they'll get to that number within a year.
Now, I'm not saying the deep state won't push for war despite what the public generally wants, but that's a separate issue. I'm just saying that Americans are risk-averse when it comes to war. They like the war, they don't like bearing the costs of war.
Russian people understand the cost of war, that's why support for the war temains high, despite the tens of thousands of KIAs.
If they go full-force in Ukraine, they'll get to that number (58K) within a month.
You're delusional. Right now, Ukraine sending fresh-off-the-street recruits en masse into a minefield to be slaughtered, and they are taking just over 1000 casualties per day, as per the Russian MoD. That would be 30k casualties in a month. Meaning somewhere north of 10k KIAs. Now granted, the US would use larger forces, but still, that's waaay off. You can smirk at "NAFO" training, but US soldiers and marines are 100% a better force than 55 year old guys grabbed off the streets in Kiev or Odessa and thrown on the battlefield after 2 weeks of training, like the we see the AFU doing now, so the US casualty rates would be lower too, presumably. They can fire their weapons and have the endurance to run a few miles, in gear at the very least.
Right
The same American people that watched an election be stolen on live TV and political prosecutions become the law of the land will suddenly grow a backbone and resist
Yes, and everyone forgets that locals died in far greater numbers. The Afghan National Army lost circa 50k KIA.
That's irrelevant, in the same way the AFU losses are irrelevant.
The Afghan National Army could have lost 1.4 million KIA, and american support for the war would still not change, except of course if the American forces themselves take larger losses.
Those Afghanis don't have to be brought back in a flags and stripes covered casket into the US, you won't see the interviews with the maimed soldiers on CNN, you won't see them with their crutches on the streets or in the VA office. The number of dead they take is irrelevant to public perception, because they are outside the perview of the public. You can't hide American losses though.
We are saying the same thing. The empire really does not care about other people dying if there is no political blowback.
This is why they have dreamed up Ukraine since 2014 as the ultimate kamikaze state to fight a proxy war.
"You can't hide American losses though"
Well, that's why they created Blackwater in the first place.
I think it's the same reason why they won't treat AFU wounded in the EU. Just seeing tens of thousands of maimed, amputated, etc. soldiers flooding the European hospitals would make the public sour real fast on the "Slava Ukraini" schpiel.
I think that is right. There has been a relatively conspicuous absence of photos of wounded Ukrainian soldiers and no strongly overt appeals for bandages, medicines and so forth.
The last time they cared was in 1975.
Based on what I can tell from the social and psychological climate in the Atlantic NorthEast, I would say your comment is far from accurate
I say send Nuland and Graham over there to supervise the surprise, sew some beacons in their clothing.
The Hatter
Well, if they do, I think they are smart enough to know that after that show there will be no place to hide or hide behind to point the finger at. The USA doesn't have to lose this fight as you put it, it can simply refuse to fight, same goes for Russia whose leader has bent over backwards to be nicey nicey to the west until he had enough.
Nudelman and her ilk are fully exposed now but they believe that they have totally neutered the goy and thus they are incapable of any forceful pushback response even if the danger is clear and present. I think it more likely that if this slaughter in the Ukraine goes on much longer Nudelman & Neocon compatriots and fellow tribal members will find a high speed bus to fall under. As the true power behind this evil script distance themselves from it.
Self sacrifice and narcissism are definitely not compatible attributes, it's strictly one or the other.
WBJ
👍🇨🇦
I suspect the waffling on the ISR question is because Russia is getting massive help from China on this front. Putin may not be up to speed on how much of the work is being done by Russia and how much by China, doesn't want to put China on the spot or make Russia look weak (which he ended up doing anyway, but oh well). Either way, it certainly looks like Russia has improved a lot in ISR over the past half a year or so and I doubt that's a problem they could fix themselves quickly and easily.
I don't think Putin ever cared to cover due to "look weak". Remember his bitter "it sank" reaction to Kursk sub incident. Or his "we were fools" on Minsk agreement failure. He is like last person on earth to cover fuckups and FUBARs
>Ukrainians are sabotaging their own vehicles and refusing to advance
I lived through mortar and RPG strikes on a defensive position and that was one of the scariest times of my life. I'd rather be actively engaged in a dozen firefights before I ever again live through helplessly waiting for a mortar shell to kill me.
I couldn't even imagine *advancing* into actual 152mm artillery fire and facing it in the open. Not just dinky little cold war RPGs and 60mm mortars from hardened fighting positions.