Deterrence doesn't work like this. "If at first you don't succeed," you've failed. End of discussion. Deterrence is not a cumulative byproduct of prior ineffective efforts, but a decisive, isolated reprisal of such a magnitude that even the thought of "asking for seconds" becomes unthinkable.
There were 3 Oreshniks - one at Bila Tserkva near Kiev. The other close to front line. Third one on Starokonstantinov military airfield with deep bunkers, that one in West Ukraine, close to Polish border.
In peace times they would be still tested for accuracy at training grounds, but since it's a war, they are fired at real targets. Still, not likely the newest versions, so Americans can't do much reverse engineering.
Macron called Belorusian president Lukashenko to calm down situation. Belorus has several Oreshniks since the last year, and just recently they have also nuclear warheads at disposal.
So Paris and NATO took this warning seriously. One purpose for this attack was to scare them.
Possibly also bets are off for Zelensky's life. He might be popped as soon as Russia has in Kiev an alternative politician who wants peace.
This retribution also sends message to Israel and the USA to think twice about Middle East development.
According to some Russian sites, Russians are happy this attack took place but it is simply not enough. They want Ukie leadership to be targeted, not just buildings at night. Also, more and more demands are rising to target European factories producing drones and missile for Ukraine.
Killing kids in hospitals is a common NAZO practice. When they bombed Serbia, they almost killed Novak Djokovic when he was maybe 6 or so one night as he and his family were running towards a shelter in complete darkness. He fell down and moment later NAZO bombs hit a hospital across the road. He describes the event in his book Serve to Win
Putin is weak and feckless and must go. Hitting factories in EU will not be deterrent, they have to hit decision centers and command buildings in Europe, in the day, when fully staffed. Personally, I would start with EU HQ in Brussels.
Don't know where you reside, but if anywhere in a NATO country, you should be grateful every day for Putin's "weakness". Unless you have a luxury bunker, of course, unlike us peasants
Rybar is trustworthy. Ok, Druzhkivka, thats south of Kramtaorsk and you have a large factory in the middle of the city. It should of course already be destroyed, but who knows?
Starokonstantinov has an active Airbase - so why not.
"NATO's priorities shift, anti-Russia front crumbles after Russia's Oreshnik burns Kyiv"
"Europe’s stance on Russia may be shifting as growing divisions emerge inside NATO over long-term support for Ukraine. Finnish President Alexander Stubb signaled openness to talks with Vladimir Putin, while several NATO states reportedly resisted plans for expanded military aid to Kyiv. The debate comes amid rising uncertainty over U.S. backing and renewed attention on Russia’s military pressure tactics, including the Oreshnik strike."
The talk about war has become a terrible normal thing. One should expect outrage at the killing of so many people that want nothing but living a good life, build by their own hands. They want to love, to be loved and enjoy what life has to offer. Just some of us take their life's because they can - we are no humans, we are barbaric monsters.
Those were the victims not of retaliation strike, but poor targeted Ukrainian air defence.
If they try Patriots on missiles, which can't be taken down by any means, they inevitably will fall and possible damage, maim and kill. That was the case on Saturday night.
With 16 drones Ukrainians killed 21 school kids at dormitory, tens more injured and hospitalised. That was done on purpose, and no apology. They killed in large part Ukrainian speaking kids, with Ukrainian family names, who happen to enjoy their life on the Russian side of border.
And USA/Israel kills many tens per pop when targeting apartment blocks with Iranian scientists, diplomats, political and military leaders at their beds.
This was a planned psyops by MI6 carried out by the Ukraiinians. See Scott Ritter's analysis of what is behind all these drones strikes on Russian civilians:
That the British government is behind this wouldn't surprise me. They did something similar in WWII by bombing the German towns to undermine the morale of the Germans. Few people are aware of the results of these bombings. Pictures are rare - maybe confiscated after the war? I saw a few of them, with rows of dead children.
The people who order this kind of crimes don't care because they don't see the actual results of their orders, and the soldiers who actually commit them don't care either because they were ordered to do so.
Herman, in Britain the folk who order these terrorist atrocities are more than likely to be rewarded with the gift of a Knighthood, become a Sir or Dame and get capital letters after their name.
That evil spirit is $atan and it resides in the Washing town sewer and the halls of the Hairdresser in Chief, the poisoned NAZI dwarf, Uschi van der Lyin' the gimp running the evil EUSSR for her Satanic master. To extinguish the rump Ukrapper dumpster fire the source of contagion will have to be confronted; with or without mushrooms.
It is widely helkd that MI6 is actively participating in Ukrianian military and terrorist activities - planning, targetting, etc. Need to read up more.
MI6 hasn't played a major role in Britain's help with operational and strategic planning assistance and weapons integration. That's mostly been the military.
Sabotage operations inside Russia have been conducted by Russian and Ukranians citizens and Ukranians.
Bud, there are thousands of murdered babies every single day and far more deaths per day by foreigners than in the present wars. War is far from a problem and sometimes you have to go to war just like Russia did... Let us all just do nothing and love each other and there definitely is no epstein islands out there or mexicans sacrificing children on top pyramids!
"mexicans sacrificing children on top pyramids..." what the fuck dude...just got back from Cancun or what after a tad too much tequila and nose candy? JeeeZ.
There was nothing he said that was not true. Western leadership is indeed responsible for this carnage - they are heartless, greedy, barbaric monsters and those who follow and support them are deluded slaves. And Sailor is right - most people just want to live life - what is wrong with that?
War is a racket. It’s about privatizing the financial gains and socializing the cost, both financially and psychically. The rich vs the poor. The rich milk us. They can’t milk the Americans much more and now they will increase the milking of the Europeans. The parasite looking for more targets to satisfy their greed. We have to destroy them before they milk us dry and nothing left to touch them where it hurts
these slaves also only pretend to not understand what is happening in my experience - they need shadefraude to help them feel less pathetic and slavish and also they hope their masters might share some loot with them if only they are slavish enough
Its more terrible people dont understand the US manufactured the war. The US then lies acting as a peace maker while providing ISR, weapons and training.
the first video of the foreigner in Kiev - at the end of the video there is music. But no one will ever top the Lucas Gage video - which he never even claimed his creation rights over - so it went viral at his expense. Although he was awarded by Iran personally - and went there to receive it - https://rumble.com/shorts/v6vapfz
"Granted, that’s not to say the Oreshnik wouldn’t destroy the target it was pointed at—it’s simply that it would likely destroy quite a few things around that target also. And in a major population center like Kiev, that’s not quite tenable."
It absolutely is tenable. What isn't tenable is Zelensky's continued existence and European and American freedom to wage war on Russia without retaliation.
About civilian deaths, the west obviously loves inflicting those and the Ukrainian press is full of talk about the barbaric Russians murdering civilians anyway, so it isn't *politically* untenable. And plenty of civilians are dying in many ways in this war, including from lack of energy no doubt as well as the numerous strikes Ukraine is intentionally directing towards Russian civilians (don't they count??), so actually trying to win the war isn't morally untenable either.
Putin better get on with it. The risk of losing this war is palpable even if unseen by most of the people who will read this comment.
You might have missed yesterday's Scott Ritter posting. At the risk of repeating myself to the boredom of paid readers, here is some of what I posted yesterday:
Scott Ritter has an excellent analysis published in which he describes the "Mental War" London and MI6 are waging against Russia, using the events like the Starobelsk College tragedy to infect the patriotic Russian mind and form the illusion that Russian leadership is weak, thus causing division and turmoil within Russia and among Russian elite. He indicates that the only solution to this is to clearly demonstrate to Ukraine and the West that this will no longer be tolerated. How? By striking at the centres of power in Ukraine every time such an event occurs, starting with Kiev. Also, openly giving the British and Germans a choice - close down the drone factories or we will close them for you. And then actually following through with that warning.
I, personally, would add one more action - a concentrated Oreshnik attack on MI6 HQ completely destroying the building - this is THE centre of evil acting on behalf of British elites in the City of London (which also deserves an Oreshnik visit or two). And if that doesn't work, then NATO HQ in Brussels.
I saw that he had posted and that, for a change, he’s seeing a possibility of strategic defeat of Russia, but didn’t go further. I think he’s making a lot of sense with this one.
If anyone is a highly qualified planner and analyst, it is Scott Ritter. You have no clue as to what it takes to be someone like him. There are many jobs in war. Leading soldiers through the mud and snow with bullets raining down on you is just one. It takes a thousand talents to execute a war - Scott possesses some of the most highly prized skills to that end.
Hahahahaha, well said, but poorly concluded. During my years of service, I lacked the time to read blogs; in fact, I don't think they existed back then. Even years after my service, in my professional activities, I still haven't found the time to read blogs, despite their existence, so as not to poison my analytical abilities at work. I'm quick and decisive when it comes to eliminating toxic causes and effects. My abilities are a firewall; I'm not easily impressed, and since I don't have the time, although I quickly detect the fantastical, I don't pursue my own analysis. It's a choice: read blogs and idolize them, or use your abilities for the job.
I don’t believe there is any real division in the west, unless, as Brian Berletic is constantly pointing out, you’re referring to a division of labor. Russia isn’t doing any psyops. You could credit them with draining the western weapons reserves, but that’s wearing a little thin these days as far as I’m concerned.
He identified one of the key elements of the plan to destabilize Russia from within -- demonstrate to the Russian people how Putin is some combination of weakling and a traitor, leave them no choice but to rise up against him, then take advantage of the chaos.
But Ritter didn't have it in him to draw the obvious conclusion -- that Putin is doing his absolute best to assist that plan.
Putin can escape the trap very easily -- mobilize the country for war, stop with the asslicking towards Trump, defeat Ukraine decisiviely, and start hitting the West too as hard as needed. The Russia people will rally behind him. But he isn't doing that...
They want this war to end soon and dream about status symbols and cheap consumer stuff.
There is no hope for Russia. They are mentally already unable to fight the west. It seems that the fake symbols of American dream are a convergence point of humanity. We cannot be better then that.
"It seems that the fake symbols of American dream are a convergence point of humanity."
So true. That's the whole secret of America's soft power.
"Have fun. No matter what kind of fun. No matter where you get the money for it..." The greatest part of humanity is like this. It's only a small minority that cares about more noble things like love, truth, justice, beauty et cetera.
I would say that even the perception of these things you mentioned is distorted. Most of the humans are not even capable to feel any emotion except the dominance/submission duality. The whole human race is pushed into psychopathy. And by not being able to feel anything else, they like it.
Of course, this anomaly existed before, but it was not the mainstream.
The pure speed of capitalism destroys internal model of reality. And the only desired reality is cappuccino in the shopping moles, in other words, being in the role of the perceived successful consumer.
The AI push will make this much worse, but that is logical, so is the low of historical necessities, there is no way out.
An example: It is not terrible to kill the chicken, what is terrible is putting the chickens in conditions where their basic essence is denied to them (by living in cages, A4 size). So by living in the basic production/consumption duality conditions our biological self is denied form us. We are in the prison we produced. All our actions make the cage even stronger.
So we tolerated that and then everything happened.
Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
You underestimate Russians. They are well aware they are on the menu and are acutely aware that if they do not fight back they will go the way of American Indians. Their grandparents still have vivid memories of another attempt to do so, and the country's most active age layer (middle-aged people) are the children of the 90s, when the country was looted exactly by those who attack it again. No way people are going to overthrow Putin to install a western puppet (a new Yeltsin or Zelensky).
This is circular reasoning from Ritter because the only way creating the "illusion" of weakness in the leadership would work is if Russian leadership was weak enough so as to allow its territory to be struck in ways that would bolster the illusion, which of course means there is no illusion .... because Russia leadership *is* weak.
And that is the answer. Russian leadership is weak. No secret games or psychological manipulation are needed.
His point was a little more subtle than that as I understand it. Russian leadership has been weak, but attacks like this highlight that weakness because people see children in a school as more innocent and worthy of protection than nameless Russians in unknown towns. The US is provoking more extreme outrage by tricks like this.
I agree, of course, but the blatant commission of gross war crimes against children is upping the ante. Russia’s ineffectual response is sending yet another signal.
Russia is a huge, huge country. It is impossible to protect its borders and internal facilities and cities - there is not enough money in the world for that. You have to concentrate on the most critical areas, leaving the rest exposed and to be dealt with as you can. It is easy for Ukrainian drones to hit these areas. And the fact that they are targeting civilians, knowing that these vulnerabilities exist, is clearly indicative of a psyops plan being implemented.
From the General Staff's perspective, these hits are tragic but they can't be avoided and actually do not significantly affect the conduct of the war. So they have to put up with it. They have a plan and they are working that plan out and it is so far quite successful.
Having said all that, however, there is indeed the PR aspect to be considered. If these attacks on civilians continue to be carried out and the response by the military on Ukrainian targets is not sufficiently apparent to the public, then public begins to think that perhaps the leadership is weak. Many now, including the military and Putin himself, are beginning to accept that this point has been arrived at and now Russia must more clearly demonstrate that this must not continue without serious harm to the Ukie leadership.
>Russia is a huge, huge country. It is impossible to protect its borders and internal facilities and cities - there is not enough money in the world for that.
Yes, indeed, which is why defense was always planned with the assumption that the first attack will be the last, because there would be nothing and nobdy to carry out a second attack.
Nobody planned for absorbing non-stop bombardment for years.
Your argument is misleading. The reason the war started was to avoid having a NATO country with missiles bases at Russia’s door.
Also: it’s not about defending against strikes. The last years have proved that the offensive missiles has always the upper hand against AD. The Iranians have proved how to successfully win such a confrontation.
Although I am far far away, it would seem that these types of attacks whether they are on theaters or schools or power plants or do more to strengthen the resolve of Russia in general
"there is not enough money in the world for that. You have to concentrate on the most critical areas, leaving the rest exposed"
Then the entire premise of a multi-year war of attrition was flawed. When you cant defend your heartland, war must be offensive, fast, relentless and decisive.
The reality is, it's a war of attrition because that is all the Russian Army and Russian political culture is capable of fighting.
But, on the other hand, I don't buy the idea that Russia is too big to defend. It's perhaps to big to defend using old techniques, organization and doctrine.
Russias critical incapacity is the same as in the west, the economic losers from change will resist that change and they have greater influence than the pressure of a "special military operation" can overcome.
Ritter is ok. He is a good analyst but if he wrote the solution is: ” By striking at the centres of power in Ukraine every time such an event occurs, starting with Kiev.”, he is out in the blue.
Military speaken, you don wait for such an event to occur, you must always work for the initiative. If MI6 is actively destabilizing Russia then the answer is obvious. Isnt it?
Putin and his entourage is to blame for this long War. Its a crime in itself to make War last.
Bottom line - Russia is reacting. In war you need to seize the initiative and act with ruthless determination to create a decision point beyond your opponents ability to respond effectively.
Committed but ill equipped mentally, militarily and strategically. The IDF are weekend soldiers used to killing civlians: women and children. They lose...
They have rendered Gaza uninhabitable and murdered a million people. That’s commitment (and evil). Russia has mamby-pambied around for four years and is bogged down in a forever war that they could easily win. That’s lack of commitment (and also evil).
So 'commitment' is demonstrated destroying the civilian population of a country? I think not. Russia has been meticulous in not targeting civilians but only military targets, unlike its enemies. If that causes the war to be prolonged, then so be it. The Russians are willing to live with that - to an extent. As I have on numerous occasions stated, this, however, is not just about Ukraine. If it were, then yes, the war would definitely have been shorter. This is, as it always has been from the Russian perspective, about NATO and the West and about establishing a pan-European security architecture. Ukraine is just a part of that effort. It takes time to wear down and deplete an enemy the size of Europe and its organisations the EU and NATO. Russia has been doing just that.
You misunderstand my point. I didn’t say the only way to demonstrate commitment is killing civilians. I said that Israel was committed to making Gaza unlivable and has gone about doing just that.
Russia needs to take the steps necessary to win this war. Putin has obviously not been committed to that.
That's a horribly stupid comparison. There is a huge power disparity between Gaza and Israel. Russia vs. Ukraine backed by NATO is fairly even. Aside from using nukes, Russia has had the gloves off.
It is really tough to follow the strategic path that Putin has chosen, and indeed it puts his government under a lot of stress. However, Russians have stuck to it so far, and didn’t bail out in hysterics. This speaks to the staying power of Russians.
There are also other considerations, such as China’s support. Putin’s strategy has not strayed far from Chinese sensibilities. This is obviously a big priority for Putin.
Russia still has many other cards to play. They haven’t lit the fuse on Euroclear yet (but maybe getting closer). Actually there is much more they could do in the financial realm, too.
As for “losing the war,” Russia simply cannot lose. They must resort to nukes if it goes there, but right now it isn’t anywhere close to that..
I'm not buying it. In my view the more likely scenario is that this campaign to whip up a hysteria over Putin's "ineffectuality" is a psyop coupled to recent Ukrainian acts of provocation. In such a case, those promulgating the "weak Putin" narrative are either victims or agents provocateurs of the campaign...
Your conclusion (about those promulgating...) does not follow from your premise (campaign to whip up...). It ignores the possibility (and the fact, I would argue) that Putin has waged an ineffective war and sent signals to the west, repeatedly, that Russia is weak. In that scenario the critics are simply pointing out the obvious and it is you and others who take your position, who are promoting further Russian ineffectuality.
One problem many people in these comments have is that they can't accept that differing viewpoints can exist. They insist that any other opinion is either disloyal or ignorant.
Fair enough. It is important to remain humble, admit to large degrees of uncertainty, and always keep in mind that nobody listens to us. We are largely ignorant, and not privy to all of the information. Each of us maintains various research methods, narrative streams, which shape our impressions and judgments. And so on.
One of the oldest and crudest forms of war propaganda is to demoralize an opponent and cause them to question their leadership. There is nothing clever going on here. Anyone who understands the situation inside Russia will know that this is a vulnerability of Putin's government, and his enemies will certainly seek opportunities to plant seeds of doubt...including the targeting of civilians in attacks. This isn't anything new, it is the same tactic, same place, that was going on before 22 February 2022...just with drones today rather than artillery.
Those drones are made by Europe. Ukraine may be the ones making a critical error in this case. If Europe begins to make the synaptic connection between the weapons they help manufacture and these kinds of targeted attacks on civilians, then popular support for the war effort could suffer. Of course Ukraine can rely on a compliant western media to shape perceptions in their favor. Russia has been trying to leverage this counter-vulnerability by calling a special session of the UNSC, invitation to western media to visit Starobilsk, and more...but it may still fail to penetrate thickened skulls resulting from years of heavy media brainwashing.
In any case, I would love to know what Putin knows. But I don't. And none of us here knows, either. We are just armchair analysts working with sparse data...and it is good to entertain multiple opinions. Which is why I engage Simplicius and those who follow him. So I apologize, and I take back my implication that you are a victim or agent provocateur of the latest propaganda campaign...
That’s pretty handsome of you, and you’re right about what we know and don’t know. I think Putin is whistling Dixie, as they’d say where I’m from, with his attempts to influence popular opinion in Europe, where they seem to have pretty fixed opinions, and the US, where not many care. The fact that the western press chose to ignore the story about the killing of those girls says a lot, but we’ve seen it with Israel and its various crimes.
It had not been my opinion that Putin was vulnerable in any way, though. Do you think he is?
Yes, the West has the advantage of not needing to restrain its deviousness simply because it looks bad to 'their' allies. It's a whole different mindset. 'Wars' of the past would not have been fought this way by the aggressor one feels but this is a proxy war - and it is used because it (somewhat) works.
The Chinese Foreign Minister once replied a question on Chinese war supplying to Russia. He said if China were really supplying Russia for the war it would be over long ago. that should tells you what the Chinese think of slo-mo.
Old Chinese saying of a quick short pain is better than long drawn out pain.
Russia could have destroyed the Ukrainian power grid and the critical bridges and road infrastructure with a fraction of the missiles it has used until now. It could have made the logistics running across Ukraine and into the front lines a Jesús Holy Fucking nightmare.
Russia could have passed some advanced anti-ship missiles to Iran and the Houthis (or, God forbid, Hezbollah), and watch from a comfortable distance and with plausible deniability US Navy and NATO ships being blown out of the water.
It could have made to “disappear” some NATO (UK, Scandinavian) patrol ships that strayed too far into the Artic (you know, it’s a lonely place and accidents happen).
It could have tested the Oreshnik onto the EU or NATO HQs in Brussels.
It could have set up manufacturing plants of its most critical missile systems in friendly countries, in exchange for a % of the output.
It could, like, have run the economy & national finances in a logical way, instead of self-sabotaging itself with Neoliberal crap.
It could have armed its merchant ships and have knocked a couple of US Marine helicopters out of the air while these where trying to board them.
It could have been serious about supporting African partners or Cuba.
It could have backed up its threats, instead of idiotically talking about nuking Europe while speaking hopefully about how cool Trump is and the “Spirit of Anchorage”.
It could have taken the Iranian playbook and have shot down any NATO plane and cratered any NATO base within striking distance of the Ukrainian theater.
While at the same time Iran has shown how to decisively defeat the US on a regional battlefield.
At this point I fear the worst for the future of Russia and Europe. The US Empire is going to suck us dry, the plunder of India by the British Empire will be a joke compared to what is going to happen.
Yes, sure, because at the time of British conquest (1750s) Mughal India was the Richest Country On Earth (tied in with China), with a textile manufacturing that outcompeted England by far, and then at the time of Independence was like one of the poorest.
You mean that kind of civil infrastructure, right?
Russian GDP per cap has increased 10-fold during Putin, life expectancy has increased by almost a decade, and the country is outproducing all of NATO combined in military materiel with 6% of GDP represented by the military. Accusing Russia of economic self-sabotage, neo-liberal or otherwise, is very odd. It hasn't deindustrialized, unlike most of its opponents.
Ok I'll bite: how could Russia possibly lose other than Putin blundering his way into a bad peace treaty? Ukraine has lost half its pre-war population from the combined effects of war losses and people fleeing the country. As far as the war is concerned, an expat is indistinguishable from a corpse. Either way, these are people who will never fight.
Europe is demoralized and self-demilitarized first with the "peace dividend" of the '90s then by sending far more equipment than they could realistically replace to Ukraine, and their armies are altogether as the full EU still smaller than pre-war Ukraine's military and backed by demoralized populations broken by decades of MKUltra slop "entertainment" and social engineering who won't want to die for their countries with only the small subset of bloodthirsty nihilists who want to kill for its own sake serving as their recruitment pool, a lot of whom are too dysgenic or too mangled by excess goyslop consumption and a lack of exercise to fight.
Personally, I see a Russo-European war as inevitable, regardless of the outcome of the Ukraine War, as this is what Europe's true master, the US/Israel want. They want the war of Gog and Magog by any means so they can fulfill their doomsday prophecy. And this brings me to America, who certainly doesn't want to get dragged into their planned war on Russia personally, as the Epsteinites wish to preserve their American golem's strength for fighting China, and it has been made clear by the ongoing US/European NATO split that Russia will be Europe's responsibility, regardless of their actual capability to fight or even survive.
A Russo-European war isn’t inevitable, it is happening now. It’s just that the Russians aren’t fighting the real enemy, and that is how they could lose. And don’t count Putin blundering into a bad peace treaty out. He’s been trying to do that for the past four years.
Surely you understand the massive difference between a proxy war and an actual, direct war, right? Are you going to try to tell me the Great Patriotic War actually started with the Spanish Civil War? Because if NATO sending equipment and advisors to Ukraine means Russia is directly fighting NATO, then that means that Span was directly fighting Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union at the same time as they fought each other on Spanish soil.
As for Putin, I wouldn't put anything past the wannabe Epsteinite, hence why it's the only way I can see Russia losing the war, but the point of my post is that there is no other way Russia can lose.
Well, people here talking about Russia "losing" are using the term in a wildly unspecific way, where Russia inflicting a smashing strategic defeat is still counted as Russia "losing" if Russia does not inflict that defeat in the way a particular commentator would like to see.
I'll trot out my favorite Suvorov quote again: "A man who loves his neighbors, a man who hates war, must finish off the enemy. So that one war does not start another."
There are many possible "peace" deals which would have the West wringing their hands in anguish, such as forcing them to recognize the reality that Crimea and the four New Territories are forever part of Russia, which all the same could legitimately be called a "loss" for Russia because the deal would only ensure the starting of another war.
It's how the big British/French/US win in WWI simply set the stage for the far more destructive WWII. The deals that ended WWI left far too much unresolved.
I should also note that the EU Nazi-lovers who are fighting Russia today are repeating the Nazi-loving trend in WWII. If you count the number of people in European states that were actual military allies of Nazi Germany (Romania, Slovakia, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia and Finland) they outnumber the population of European states that fought *against* the Nazis. That comparison excludes occupied states, which for the most part were deeply fractured with very large parts of their populations actively and willingly working for Nazi Germany.
France is a good example. After the rapid defeat of France in 1940, the Vichy government was an active and enthusiastic collaborator with Germany. At the height of its power in 1942, the German war economy directly employed approximately 845,000 French workers to produce munitions, fortifications, and airfields in France. These were not slave laborers; they were paid French workers voluntarily contributing to the Nazi war effort. Hundreds of thousands more volunteered to work in factories in Germany. This kind of active, pragmatic collaboration was widespread across the continent. Sure, the modern myth is about a noble French resistance, but the actual reality was that of 42 million French many preferred Hitler to Léon Blum (the French socialist).
Even in the Netherlands, where there was a brutal Nazi occupation, the Dutch were hands down the European leaders in rounding up and killing Jews, a result of the enthusiastic cooperation of Dutch government and police organizations with Nazi Germany. Whether you're talking about the Quislings in Norway, the local nazis in Estonia or the even more violent than the SS local nazis in Croatia and Ukraine, the pro-Nazi heritage of all those people is alive and well and growing in Europe.
That's the cancer that will survive any deal that ends hostilities in what used to be known as "Ukraine." So, by that standard, pretty much anything Russia does short of rounding up 10% of so of the European population and enslaving them for mines above the Arctic Circle is going to be counted as "losing" in some quarters.
To be clear, when I warn that Russia is "losing" I mean that it is at substantial risk of either actual dissolution, perpetual war that neutralizes it on the geopolitical scene, or entering a treaty that so far falls short of the goals of the SMO that it neutralizes it as a friend of China.
I can't agree that rounding up and shooting every previously hostile individual would work, but the current war needs to be won to the point that any further hostilities can be addressed by police action, either by Russia itself or, less likely, by a friendly Ukrainian government.
I don't see a Russian "police action" as being a viable way to deal with further hostilities. A good example is how the war against the Nazis continued well into the 50's in Ukraine after the West thought WWII was done and over with.
Zhukov, the brutal Marshall who led the Red Army in its defeat of the Nazi coalition (Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, etc., etc.) was tasked with the elimination of Ukrainian nazis (often called "Banderites" but really, nazis) in Ukraine. Those were armed and supported by the United States and, to a lesser degree, the UK, in a war that went significantly beyond mere partisan actions.
It was a very bloody, brutal war that went on for years until Zhukov succeeded in eliminating all resistance, armed or otherwise, to Soviet power. He didn't actually kill all the nazis, as many of them eventually laid down their arms and disappeared into the general population, meeting in cells in the greatest secrecy but not taking any visible action, biding their time for when their day would come.
That day came during the late degeneracy of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and blossomed forth into open displays of Nazi fervor after 1991, when "Ukraine" became a country for the very first time in history. We all know what happened then, as the Nazis, small minority though they were, were the only tight knot of disciplined, ideologically unified killers.
Respectfully, though, this part of what you wrote is wildly delusional: " mean that it is at substantial risk of either actual dissolution." Russia is not going to dissolve. On the contrary, it will grow a bit.
This part is not delusional, but does not really grasp the possibility of what might happen: "perpetual war that neutralizes it on the geopolitical scene". Russia already is in a perpetual war with the US and US stooges, but that has not neutralized it on the geopolitical scene. Instead, it has fragmented the geopolitical scene away from a monolithic US hegemony into a more multipolar world.
If the US and/or its stooges escalates that perpetual war into hotter conflict directly with Russia, then the war will enter a non-perpetual phase of kinetic conflict that cannot last more than a relatively short time, say 20 years, because it will bring such ruin and destruction that people will not be talking about "neutralization" or "geopolitical scenes" but who is left alive to rule and build the world as they like. That will apply to both sides, especially if nuclear arms are used.
This doesn't make sense: "or entering a treaty that so far falls short of the goals of the SMO that it neutralizes it as a friend of China."
China will be happy with an end to the conflict in Ukraine. It doesn't particularly give a shit if Ukraine is denazified or not. It doesn't even care if Russia keeps the New Territories (although the Chinese are not so totally delusional as to think there is any way Russia would give those up, not even if retaining them meant nuclear war).
China can see its main trading partner, the US, has given up on Ukraine. That's more than enough for them and now China can move on to fending off US aggression against China like trying to strangle China's oil supply from countries like Iran, causing trouble with Taiwan, and so on. For that it finds Russian support in the form of energy supplies useful. Although China like all other countries has only interests and not friends, that resource dependency on Russia will ensure that China stays a "friend" to Russia.
"Surely you understand the massive difference between a proxy war and an actual, direct war, right?"
Here you are actually arguing with Putin himself, who has declared this an actual war for good reason. I'll also point out that the US does not recognize the distinction between proxies and direct combatants when it has the power to ignore the supposed distinction, and Iran seems to have ignored any supposed distinction with whatever success it has enjoyed.
We all know that the weapons raining down on Russians were made in the west, use western guidance, often are launched from the west, and even that in many cases the fingers pulling the trigger are western fingers. If that is a "proxy war," contrary to what Putin says, the distinction between it and direct war is razor thin, not "massive."
>Ok I'll bite: how could Russia possibly lose other than Putin blundering his way into a bad peace treaty?
The absolute minimal winning condition for Russia here is the complete disappearance of Ukraine as an independent state and then the disappearance of Ukrainian identity over the subsequent decades.
Anything less of that is a strategic defeat. But that is not even an objective.
So a bad peace treaty that amounts to strategic defeat is exactly what we are headed towards.
But then there are kinetic defeat scenarios too, which is presumably what you are refering too.
Put the following together:
1) Martian and Hornet drones are hunting for Russian logistics all the way to Taganrog now with AI and real-time Starlink guidance, functioning as FPVs 150 km behind the lines
2) Operation Spiderweb using FPVs launched form the ground to take out a good chunk of Russia's strategic aviation
3) Yesterday the Oreshnik launch was known well in advance and the launch maneuvr movements were being reported in real time. The former we can understand -- Russia warned about it, but how were launch maneuvrs observed in real time? Much worse though, there was information hours in advance about Bastion TELs with Zircons being moved to Kursk. Those are tactical missiles, there was absolutely no need to warn the Americans. So the Americans can track in real time TEL movement anywhere in Russia.
You see where this is going? The range of autonomous and real-time guided drones will eventually reach everywhere in Russia and one nice day most of the Russian nukes will be taken out with drones launched from Ukraine, from Kazakhstan, from Finland, and on the ground.
This means that Starlink must be physically removed from the sky now. There is no time to waste.
But what do we have? We have Kushner and Witkoff coming to Moscow soon...
"The absolute minimal winning condition for Russia here is the complete disappearance of Ukraine as an independent state and then the disappearance is Ukrainian identity over the subsequent decades.
Anything less of that is a strategic defeat. But that is not even an objective,"
No, it is not and never has been an objective because it has absolutely no strategic value to Russia and just creates the very existential concerns - Nato missiles and forces on the border - that they are trying to avoid.
The strategic objective since 2014 and the subsequent Minsk agreements has been to maintain Ukraine as an independent (of Nato, at least), sovereign state, hence the extremely favourable (to Ukraine) terms agreed to at Minsk, initialled by Ukraine at Istanbul, and still being offered now.
>No, it is not and never has been an objective because it has absolutely no strategic value to Russia and just creates the very existential concerns - Nato missiles and forces on the border - that they are trying to avoid.
????
1) Stuff will be flying into Russia as long as there is an Ukraine. So yeah, making Ukraine disappear is kind of strategic existential concern
2) NATO missies will be in Sumy if Ukraine is not liquidated. Much better to have them in Lublin.
3) NATO missiles are in Europe in general only because Russia allows it. It can remove them tomorrow, permanently, if the political will is there
???? This is the fundamental "root cause" that Russia is wanting resolved - no Nato forces on the Ukraine/Russia border. If Russia 'disappears' Ukraine, presumably by annexation, they create for themselves that exact problem on the Poland-to-Romania/ Russia border; a purely Pyrrhic victory of no strategic value.
1) So, either you are suggesting that there can never be peaceful co-existence between warring nations or you are just voicing an idle racist opinion. Neither of which I find persuasive arguments.
2) Not if Ukraine were an independent, or non-aligned, neutral state.
3) Nato missiles are in Europe because European nations are entitled, like any country, to have armed forces for their defence.
>If Russia 'disappears' Ukraine, presumably by annexation, they create for themselves that exact problem on the Poland-to-Romania/ Russia border; a purely Pyrrhic victory of no strategic value
Let's run that further -- Russia nukes all of Europe, moves in with ground forces and the new Russian "border" with the US runs along the mid-Atlantic.
Now we have created a new situation where Russia directly borders the US. Bad, right?
Yeah, but now Russia controls the waterways in the Baltic entirely, a corridor from Murmansk along the European coast, and any US missiles are at least 4,000 km away from Moscow.
While if the US missiles are in Sumy, that is less than 500 km.
A rather important difference.
It's the same situation with holding Lvov.
The space in between is a vitally important buffer.
I ll write that again. It is not so much the Putin's betrayal as there is nobody left to be betrayed. This war is not popular in Russia, most of the Russians just live and dream to be part of the western dream and consume. Just like the Ukrainians. Kushner and Witkoff are the effective rulers of Russia.
That's total bullshit. I live in Russia and all of the people I see around me are committed to defeating the Nazis in Ukraine and the Nazi-lovers in the West who back them. I personally know dozens of people who have volunteered to fight in Ukraine, going back to 2014.
Where people part company is on battle strategy. The majority feel that the current path is correct, that of a slow-burn fight which maintains Russia's ability to keep growing its economy and to continue the technical and social development of the country must remain the top priority. They have a point in that strong, thriving economies are essential if you fight a war against the US and its 50 nazi-loving stooges.
But there is a growing minority that wants to take the gloves off and is willing to take the hit to the economy that would entail, in the belief that forty years of lost development (the consequences of annihilating the EU and its nazi-lovers, as well as US goons like Australia and possibly Japan) would be worth the longer term, more stable and safe trajectory such firm action would open for Russia.
I have been in the first camp, the majority, and I can't argue with the fantastic rise in quality of life in Russia that strategy has achieved in the last 15 years. But I think it is time for far harsher responses and a shift to a hybrid strategy.
I agree with GM that the absolute minimum objective must be to erase the fake "nation" of Ukraine as the minimum cost of the West's using it as a platform to poison millions of people and to attack Russia. I'd go even further and annex the Baltics (just a handful of million people, in any case), totally and thoroughly demilitarize Sweden, Finland and Poland, and wipe out any government personnel in Germany that make the slightest move towards acquiring nuclear weapons.
That's not widespread annihilation of the EU, but I wouldn't argue against strikes on the EU bureaucracy, just to teach those assholes that those who mouth off against Russia will get their teeth kicked in. I'd also add targeted killing of civilians in the media / military industrial blob who think they can make money by killing Russians. Teach them what it means to war on Russia.
"The absolute minimal winning condition for Russia here is the complete disappearance of Ukraine as an independent state and then the disappearance of Ukrainian identity over the subsequent decades."
So creating a failed state full of angry, rootless people who can be easily manipulated into committing violence like a European Syria right on Russia's borders is a victory? What the hell kind of insanity did I just read? It's in Russia's interest to create a new Ukraine that's pro-Russia like Belarus, but which is also quintessentially Ukrainian in order to ensure that the Ukrainian people rally behind it instead of dissolving into yet another failed state. The actual danger for post-war Russia is that the destruction and fear caused by the war has already permanently destroyed Ukraine as turbo "patriots" like you want, which makes the failed state on Russia's borders an inevitability now.
As for your bullet points,
1.) If this could win the war for Ukraine, then why hasn't the hundreds of Gerans the Russians launch every other day defeated Ukraine yet? Russia comfortably overmatches Ukraine in these sorts of drones, so if anyone is going to win a war from drone deepstrikes, it will be Russia.
2.) In what world is like 6 bombers a "good chunk" of Russia's bomber fleet? Do you not understand how big Russia's bomber fleet actually is? Either way, that attack is a feat that cannot be repeated not only because it relied upon the Russians' assumption that the SBU wouldn't commit massive war crimes just to destroy a few bombers, but also because the Russians are obsessed with ground-launched alternatives to air launched missiles because these are both cheaper and don't rely on a massive, inherently vulnerable aircraft.
3.) Why do you assume this information that comes from OSINT is accurate? It could be made up for all you know. The only way anyone actually gets a geolocation of these missile launches is after the missiles climb high enough to appear on radar. This is only a good predictor because the Russians haven't had a reason to ever change their launch positions, for better or worse, because nothing has ever threatened their launch vehicles while maneuvering.
Also, why do you assume the Russians don't also have this technology to survey the entire front? It's just that Ukraine has nothing of this sort to mobilize, thus Russian drones see nothing. If it were so easy as to just fly some drones at missile launchers, then why doesn't Ukraine fly its cruise drones at Iskander launchers which do launch from within their ranges? Could it be that Ukraine doesn't actually have this capability?
I said "put those points together to see where things are going".
>In what world is like 6 bombers a "good chunk" of Russia's bomber fleet?
First, it was more than six.
Second, in the world in which there are only less than 20 Tu-160s and there were only 50 Tu-95s, of which an unknown number were not in flyable condition at any given moment. Of those 50 about a dozen have been destroyed now in that operation and several other strikes.
That is significant indeed. Tu-160 production is one a year right now, optimistically.
>Why do you assume this information that comes from OSINT is accurate?
I don't assume, it was accurate in that case, and it wasn't OSINT, OSINT reported it from Ukrainian sources, which are of course not Ukrainian at all. They said that four Zircons will be launched form Kursk, which is exactly what happened.
>Also, why do you assume the Russians don't also have this technology to survey the entire front?
Again, I wasn't talking about the front. I pointed out how what is happening around the front now will soon extended to the deep rear and then the strategic balance will shift dramatically against Russia. "Strategic" and in **strategic nuclear**.
Starlink has to go. Now. There is no time to waste.
>Could it be that Ukraine doesn't actually have this capability?
Indeed. I cannot imagine why Russia is holding back from total war. I had rather hoped to hear about Oreshnik striked on the central decisionmaking centers of the Ukronazi junta. Direct hits on the presidential palace, the rada, the central military command, the sbu... Take the warheads, land them on top of the buildings, send them deep in the earth to penetrate any bubkers, and detonate the explosives. Double tap the structures when ambulances show up with a deeper strike to wipe whatever fortifications may survive. Kill the entire civilian and military leadership. Collateral damage? These buildings are in the heart of the government zone, anyone nearby is part of the nazi enemy and deserve to die anyway. I had rather hoped that massive underground Oreshnik explosions had caised massive near seismic activith. I was hoping to hear that pieces of zelensky and his home were raining down on the outskirts of kiev. A shame.
Valery Gerasimov would like to be Vasily Chuikov, but Putin isn't Stalin and won't give him free rein. This conflict will ultimately destroy Putin's career, just like Taco's. He will end up being hated by the majority of Russians.
Fame is notoriously fickle. Whether he is loved or hated will probably be determined by something impossible to foresee. I agree that the conflict may ultimately destroy his career, though. Wars often do that, and not always fairly.
All sides are enjoying this slow pace pseudo war. And now we have this.
🇺🇦❌🇷🇺 — Over the past hours, Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a major wave of drones and cruise missiles against Russian territory, aiming specifically on Russian capital city, Moscow, as well as Rostov and Crimea
Ukrainian media claims this is a response to last night's Russian strike on Kyiv/Kiev, which now is ongoing, with hundreds of attack drones trundling into Russian airspace.
Ukrainian Army is reportedly using Jet-powered UAVs and cruise missiles, as well naval drones during the ongoing raid.
Yup. Let the Ukies hang around long enough and they with Western backers will introduce highly destructive new technology. All this ties the Kremlin's hands while new fronts are opened in the Baltics; Finland and Norway; Armenia- Azerbaijan....
Putin has lost the plot without any viable strategy. This is not trending well for Russia. But there's no way to move Putin as Commander in Chief.
What was the operational significance of the Bila Tservka airbase? If it was an important airbase, why was it just now targeted, and not earlier? If insignificant, why was it targeted at all?
Russian strikes are increasingly falling onto a spectrum of being either strategically stale, or strategically pointless.
How have these recent strikes brought Russia closer to its objective? Nobody can say, apparently.
Frankly, nobody these days seems to have any inkling of a response to these kind of straightforward questions. The fact that all discussions of such questions now almost exclusively center around esoteric guesswork and speculation as to what may be next, tells us plenty.
The answer is these strikes achieved nothing other than assuring Russia's enemies that its reprisals will always be more bark than bite - a fatal message to send.
Further, Medvedev's soliloquies are not helping the situation. If Medvedev is speaking out of turn, then his days are surely numbered. If he is, on the other hand, a certified anger translator, so to speak, delivering veiled threats on behalf of his superiors, then his theatrics are impotence embodied.
Medvedev is starting to look ridiculous frankly. A barking dog frightens one for the first minute, afterwards is just a nuisance. He’s starting to appear clownish.
Zelensky and the European clown consortium spend a lot of time in public, together even. Perhaps if the Russians could send a few missiles without warning everybody in advance...
You seem to know a lot Elena. But I guess I am asking anyone who sees this:
Am curious what is it about the Oreshnik that so many people are impressed about in contrast to other hypersonic (IRBMs) or event the Saramat 2 (ICBM)?
When it came out it had a couple of distinctive features that made it important: its range is capable of hitting any European city, and the mirv feature with maneuverable buses. It was also called a conventional missile so in theory could attack without crossing the nuclear threshold. A lot of people are now saying it would be better as a nuclear weapon, though. The other hypersonics don’t have the range, and the Saramat is I think strictly nuclear, though I’m not a weapons expert by any means.
Totally on point Octavia. Same with the Artem plant. Why is that facility still functional into the Fifth Year of the SMO. The Russian military strategy is a random walk at this point. Next year at this time the Dobas still won't be liberated. This is a pending disaster and everyone can see it.
Putin is simply weak and thinks the status quo ante can return
he's always dreamt of being part of the western club....he's a fool. the simple fact that HE IS THE ONE who wanted Minsk1 and Minsk2 and then ANOTHER piece of paper in Istanbul is grounds enough for his replacement by someone who has some balls
Putin only escalates if it serves the agenda of the SMO. So no, he won't just slaughter civilians for the sheer terroristic jubilation of it- unlike the nazi Ukrainians egged on by western europeans.
HOWEVER, he is under a duty to defend the Russian people and if that means striking decision making centres in the heart of Keeev, that is next. This last strike was the clearest warning of that. And after that will come strikes on the Baltic nations hosting the Ukrainian attacks. Will that bring in NATO. Yeah, the US really needs this just now! So No. And if it does, Russia is ready for that and the excuse for obtaining a much bigger victory from an all out war, a short and terrifying experience for all the big western mouth breathers of what war really means and then a settlement that resurrects shades of the old USSR. We missed you!
But everyone in the know in the West knows the West cannot stop Putin with whatever airstrikes on whatever. To actually stop his remorseless advance on the ground with its capture of successive Ukrainian resources and annihilation of western investments- which is what is really worrying western europeans (despite all the nonsense propaganda which no-one should bother repeating here) the West will have to come in en masse on the ground. Which it simply cannot. So where will this SMO actually end (assuming the West does not just decide to commit harakiri, which it will not, but does not stop facilitating its proxy to keep on fighting either) Russia wil advance right up to a resurrection of the old cold war boundaries, having seized Keeev (hello Kiev, welcome home). That's where. Then Russia will stop.
Precisely this. (assuming you are referring to Putin's scrupulosity in terms of rule following in which of course he is alone in the modern world.) If you mean it is better to make up rules in the moment as suits, and forget them as suits, yes, that is the western way.
But that is not what is going on. It is just what the west says is going on. What is going on is that Russia is steadily advancing on the ground and winning where it counts, deflection hits of relatively trivial significance to the outcome of this campaign, not withstanding. It is just no good constructing your own tautologies, GM. What would YOU have Russia do?.... to win, I mean.... where it counts?
Perhaps while it's certainly been a strategically fruitful decision, but Russia's slow rolling of the conflict, treating it as an smo, waiting for years before undertaking a bombing campaign like yesterday, and moreover doing so in reaction to an attack as opposed to as part of an escalation initiative on its own, is a sign of weakness.
Negotiations have led nowhere. A case could be made that the entire 'neutral mediator' farce's benefit has been to give the USA a PR exit ramp, while anyone with any functioning brain cells knows that behind the scenes, logistical and technical support has continued.
Realistically Russia needs to decide whether it wants to bring the results home (victory on the battlefield) or risk any number of black swans emerging and unexpectedly changing the calculus.
At this point, the longer the conflict, in whatever form, goes on, the weaker Russia appears. It's a bit like the Hormuz fiasco, for all the PR bravado, what's happened has happened (imo strategic defeat etc), right now priority should either be to flip the result or cut the losses and pretend nothing happened.
"Realistically Russia needs to decide whether it wants to bring the results home (victory on the battlefield) or risk any number of black swans emerging and unexpectedly changing the calculus."
Exactly on point. Right now, the crucial Highway 14 in Crimea is under fire control of Ukraine. And the AFU are launching counteroffensive that neutralize the minimal ground gains of Russian forces.
Based on the Oreshnik impact footage, it looks like the MIRVs weren't equipped with explosive warheads yet again. Instead, Russia keeps restraining itself from unleashing total destruction by punishing the Ukronazi regime with pure kinetic energy.
Meanwhile, European ZATO vassals continue downplaying the significance and power of the new Russian medium-ranged hypersonic system to their ignorant plebes, because otherwise it might be difficult to recruit future cannon fodder for the Epstein Syndicate.
Take Sweden as a prime example, with their state propaganda channel SVT1 spinning retired lieutenant colonel Jörgen Elfwing's words and claiming that Oreshnik "is more of a propaganda weapon without any real impact power". https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/experten-oresjnik-mer-propagandavapen
As has been explained here before -- I don't know if it is true, but certainly plausible -- that if indeed they are using tungsten rods, at those velocities those would cause MORE damage than if they were replaced with conventional explosives.
It surely sounds like a plausible theory that the “warheads” were of the same inert type which previously were used against YuzhMash in Dnipro, if the Russian’s target indeed were underground enemy command centers as various reports today claim.
In that case one doesn’t really need explosives, as heat-resistant dense metal rods at 4 000 degrees celsius falling from the sky at 3 km per second would do a much better job penetrating deep underground, creating mini-quakes and damaging/destroying underground structures in the process…
So there's at least 5 ignorant people unaware that *any* warhead added to an Oreshnik sub-munition ( other than a nuke) REDUCES the destruction it creates.
As for it being a "propaganda" weapon, the West could simply show overhead photography proving that point.
Instead they hide *everything* about the aftermath.
"So what, not to strike at all to avoid provoking the strengthening of the neo-Nazi regime? "
Why is Russia striking, the Artem plant for example, in retaliation? Why is that plant still producing weaponry five years into this conflict? Why are refineries still operational? Natural Gas hubs? Airports?
Meanwhile, the critical Highway 14 in Crimea is now under Ukrainian fire control hindering troop deployments and munitions. The Russian mainland is struck with impunity and the Russian naval fleet under constant piracy attack.
And Western forces gather to the north, West and South...
Deterrence doesn't work like this. "If at first you don't succeed," you've failed. End of discussion. Deterrence is not a cumulative byproduct of prior ineffective efforts, but a decisive, isolated reprisal of such a magnitude that even the thought of "asking for seconds" becomes unthinkable.
FIRST.AGAIN🫡
Excellent... :)
There were 3 Oreshniks - one at Bila Tserkva near Kiev. The other close to front line. Third one on Starokonstantinov military airfield with deep bunkers, that one in West Ukraine, close to Polish border.
In peace times they would be still tested for accuracy at training grounds, but since it's a war, they are fired at real targets. Still, not likely the newest versions, so Americans can't do much reverse engineering.
Macron called Belorusian president Lukashenko to calm down situation. Belorus has several Oreshniks since the last year, and just recently they have also nuclear warheads at disposal.
So Paris and NATO took this warning seriously. One purpose for this attack was to scare them.
Possibly also bets are off for Zelensky's life. He might be popped as soon as Russia has in Kiev an alternative politician who wants peace.
This retribution also sends message to Israel and the USA to think twice about Middle East development.
According to some Russian sites, Russians are happy this attack took place but it is simply not enough. They want Ukie leadership to be targeted, not just buildings at night. Also, more and more demands are rising to target European factories producing drones and missile for Ukraine.
Killing kids in hospitals is a common NAZO practice. When they bombed Serbia, they almost killed Novak Djokovic when he was maybe 6 or so one night as he and his family were running towards a shelter in complete darkness. He fell down and moment later NAZO bombs hit a hospital across the road. He describes the event in his book Serve to Win
Putin is weak and feckless and must go. Hitting factories in EU will not be deterrent, they have to hit decision centers and command buildings in Europe, in the day, when fully staffed. Personally, I would start with EU HQ in Brussels.
Are you Russian and want to become the president to lead to victory?
Don't know where you reside, but if anywhere in a NATO country, you should be grateful every day for Putin's "weakness". Unless you have a luxury bunker, of course, unlike us peasants
Spectre, personally I would prefer to see him arrested and put on Trial than painlessly deleted.
Only if, however, the death penalty were approved.
Source on a third Oreshnik?
Source on: ” So Paris and NATO took this warning seriously”?
Rybar in English, telegram channel, today entry at 2:49am
"Two launches of the Oreshnik IRBM were recorded: the missiles struck targets in Bila Tserkva and the frontline Druzhkivka".
Earlier on Sunday morning I read 1 oreshnik on Starokonstantinov.
Macron called Lukashenko, probably for the first time ever. He want's to be sure, that Paris is safe.
Rybar is trustworthy. Ok, Druzhkivka, thats south of Kramtaorsk and you have a large factory in the middle of the city. It should of course already be destroyed, but who knows?
Starokonstantinov has an active Airbase - so why not.
Yesterday's article
"NATO's priorities shift, anti-Russia front crumbles after Russia's Oreshnik burns Kyiv"
"Europe’s stance on Russia may be shifting as growing divisions emerge inside NATO over long-term support for Ukraine. Finnish President Alexander Stubb signaled openness to talks with Vladimir Putin, while several NATO states reportedly resisted plans for expanded military aid to Kyiv. The debate comes amid rising uncertainty over U.S. backing and renewed attention on Russia’s military pressure tactics, including the Oreshnik strike."
https://www.hindustantimes.com/videos/natos-priorities-shift-anti-russia-front-crumbles-after-russias-oreshnik-burns-kyiv-putin-101779724254138.html
The talk about war has become a terrible normal thing. One should expect outrage at the killing of so many people that want nothing but living a good life, build by their own hands. They want to love, to be loved and enjoy what life has to offer. Just some of us take their life's because they can - we are no humans, we are barbaric monsters.
There are 2 dead civilians, 98 injured.
Those were the victims not of retaliation strike, but poor targeted Ukrainian air defence.
If they try Patriots on missiles, which can't be taken down by any means, they inevitably will fall and possible damage, maim and kill. That was the case on Saturday night.
With 16 drones Ukrainians killed 21 school kids at dormitory, tens more injured and hospitalised. That was done on purpose, and no apology. They killed in large part Ukrainian speaking kids, with Ukrainian family names, who happen to enjoy their life on the Russian side of border.
And USA/Israel kills many tens per pop when targeting apartment blocks with Iranian scientists, diplomats, political and military leaders at their beds.
The pictures of those young students... How evil you must be to send 16 drones to kill them?
Something must be very wrong with the mental state of the Ukrainians. They seem to be possessed by an evil spirit.
This was a planned psyops by MI6 carried out by the Ukraiinians. See Scott Ritter's analysis of what is behind all these drones strikes on Russian civilians:
https://scottritter.substack.com/p/terror-and-mental-war?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=6892&post_id=198832536&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1pztks&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Thank you for the link. Interesting.
That the British government is behind this wouldn't surprise me. They did something similar in WWII by bombing the German towns to undermine the morale of the Germans. Few people are aware of the results of these bombings. Pictures are rare - maybe confiscated after the war? I saw a few of them, with rows of dead children.
The people who order this kind of crimes don't care because they don't see the actual results of their orders, and the soldiers who actually commit them don't care either because they were ordered to do so.
Herman, in Britain the folk who order these terrorist atrocities are more than likely to be rewarded with the gift of a Knighthood, become a Sir or Dame and get capital letters after their name.
Or as in the Case of Churchill, deified and statutes raised for a criminally insane drunk.
That evil spirit is $atan and it resides in the Washing town sewer and the halls of the Hairdresser in Chief, the poisoned NAZI dwarf, Uschi van der Lyin' the gimp running the evil EUSSR for her Satanic master. To extinguish the rump Ukrapper dumpster fire the source of contagion will have to be confronted; with or without mushrooms.
The British were in on this for sure. Their evil is unmatched when it comes to Russia. They need to pay dearly soon.
You know this how
It is widely helkd that MI6 is actively participating in Ukrianian military and terrorist activities - planning, targetting, etc. Need to read up more.
MI6 hasn't played a major role in Britain's help with operational and strategic planning assistance and weapons integration. That's mostly been the military.
Sabotage operations inside Russia have been conducted by Russian and Ukranians citizens and Ukranians.
Russian citizens.
How evil must you be to send 16 drones? More evil than sending 12 drones and less evil than sending 19.
One send deliberately on civilians is more than enough to call it war crime.
Over a year ago Ukrainians send one on the morning bakery opening, killing about 20 just in one explosion.
Russia's been warcriming daily for over four years.
Show examples of it, rather that just statements.
This massacre in Starobielsk was intentional, to provoke Russia with retaliation, to escalate war in Europe.
And thus prevent Russia from involvement in the Middle East and elsewhere.
But Russia took a bait and will fight on all fronts.
"Those were the victims not of retaliation strike, but poor targeted Ukrainian air defence."
You couldn't be more preposterous if you tried.
Bud, there are thousands of murdered babies every single day and far more deaths per day by foreigners than in the present wars. War is far from a problem and sometimes you have to go to war just like Russia did... Let us all just do nothing and love each other and there definitely is no epstein islands out there or mexicans sacrificing children on top pyramids!
"mexicans sacrificing children on top pyramids..." what the fuck dude...just got back from Cancun or what after a tad too much tequila and nose candy? JeeeZ.
This is all human. Your idea of humaninity is nothing but delusional, and your whinning wheeping rant helps nobody. Face reality.
There was nothing he said that was not true. Western leadership is indeed responsible for this carnage - they are heartless, greedy, barbaric monsters and those who follow and support them are deluded slaves. And Sailor is right - most people just want to live life - what is wrong with that?
oh, shut up
🙂
War is a racket. It’s about privatizing the financial gains and socializing the cost, both financially and psychically. The rich vs the poor. The rich milk us. They can’t milk the Americans much more and now they will increase the milking of the Europeans. The parasite looking for more targets to satisfy their greed. We have to destroy them before they milk us dry and nothing left to touch them where it hurts
these slaves also only pretend to not understand what is happening in my experience - they need shadefraude to help them feel less pathetic and slavish and also they hope their masters might share some loot with them if only they are slavish enough
(schadenfreude)
gwammar naZi:
It's actually "Schadenfreude". German nouns are capitalized.
There is nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't matter, unless you have the force to back it up.
And willing to use it.
Pretend those children were killed.on the Ukrainian side. They'd get nonstop wall-to-wall.coverage.
Moreover, these kids are actually "Ukrainian" as per 1991 borders who Zelensky is supposedly fighting to liberate from "Russian invaders".
Like the fascists they are, the Kiev regime cares only for tbe nation, but is indifferent to rhe people living in it.
Its more terrible people dont understand the US manufactured the war. The US then lies acting as a peace maker while providing ISR, weapons and training.
The only thing terrible is the US.
Let's never forget that the US designed and keeps feeding this war, together with the UK I guess.
How is now any different than the entirety of human history?
The U.S. (under Bush/Powell) Exit From the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001 Has Fueled a New Arms Race:
carnegieendowment.org/posts/2021/12/the-us-exit-from-the-anti-ballistic-missile-treaty-has-fueled-a-new-arms-race
***
The U.S. (under Trump) unilateral withdrawal from INF and the Open Skies Treaty, 2019-20:
theweek.com/97248/what-is-the-inf-treaty-and-why-has-donald-trump-pulled-out
youtube.com/watch?v=brXq5RBVGzU
youtu.be/KV8rCGchY-k?t=1003
the first video of the foreigner in Kiev - at the end of the video there is music. But no one will ever top the Lucas Gage video - which he never even claimed his creation rights over - so it went viral at his expense. Although he was awarded by Iran personally - and went there to receive it - https://rumble.com/shorts/v6vapfz
That was great, thanks for posting the link!
That song should have won Eurovision.
All the heads exploding would have been hilarious.
😀 Big Thanks! 😃
Thanks for your great work Simplicius!
We've restacked and shared this link on 'The Stacks'
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/the-stacks
Thank you, always a great read and most importantly: truth.
I am curious as to why we've not seen any images from any of the 3 Oreshnik impact sites? It's been long enough, should have been something by now.
"Granted, that’s not to say the Oreshnik wouldn’t destroy the target it was pointed at—it’s simply that it would likely destroy quite a few things around that target also. And in a major population center like Kiev, that’s not quite tenable."
It absolutely is tenable. What isn't tenable is Zelensky's continued existence and European and American freedom to wage war on Russia without retaliation.
About civilian deaths, the west obviously loves inflicting those and the Ukrainian press is full of talk about the barbaric Russians murdering civilians anyway, so it isn't *politically* untenable. And plenty of civilians are dying in many ways in this war, including from lack of energy no doubt as well as the numerous strikes Ukraine is intentionally directing towards Russian civilians (don't they count??), so actually trying to win the war isn't morally untenable either.
Putin better get on with it. The risk of losing this war is palpable even if unseen by most of the people who will read this comment.
So true.
You might have missed yesterday's Scott Ritter posting. At the risk of repeating myself to the boredom of paid readers, here is some of what I posted yesterday:
Scott Ritter has an excellent analysis published in which he describes the "Mental War" London and MI6 are waging against Russia, using the events like the Starobelsk College tragedy to infect the patriotic Russian mind and form the illusion that Russian leadership is weak, thus causing division and turmoil within Russia and among Russian elite. He indicates that the only solution to this is to clearly demonstrate to Ukraine and the West that this will no longer be tolerated. How? By striking at the centres of power in Ukraine every time such an event occurs, starting with Kiev. Also, openly giving the British and Germans a choice - close down the drone factories or we will close them for you. And then actually following through with that warning.
I, personally, would add one more action - a concentrated Oreshnik attack on MI6 HQ completely destroying the building - this is THE centre of evil acting on behalf of British elites in the City of London (which also deserves an Oreshnik visit or two). And if that doesn't work, then NATO HQ in Brussels.
Ritter's analysis:
https://scottritter.substack.com/p/terror-and-mental-war?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=6892&post_id=198832536&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1pztks&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I saw that he had posted and that, for a change, he’s seeing a possibility of strategic defeat of Russia, but didn’t go further. I think he’s making a lot of sense with this one.
Ritter for all his e xpertise, has neveer seen combat, never led men in war. He talks a good fight, no more.
So what?
What difference would his analysis be if he led a Platoon of Marines in Iraq 20 years ago?
If anyone is a highly qualified planner and analyst, it is Scott Ritter. You have no clue as to what it takes to be someone like him. There are many jobs in war. Leading soldiers through the mud and snow with bullets raining down on you is just one. It takes a thousand talents to execute a war - Scott possesses some of the most highly prized skills to that end.
Neither did a single banker of the City of London stock or any of the neocons. Does not prevent them from waging wars
Ritter talks too much and his analyses are somewhat fantastical.
A bit of projection perhaps? Or perhaps I underestimate the depth of your own expertise accumulated by years of experience from reading blogs.
Hahahahaha, well said, but poorly concluded. During my years of service, I lacked the time to read blogs; in fact, I don't think they existed back then. Even years after my service, in my professional activities, I still haven't found the time to read blogs, despite their existence, so as not to poison my analytical abilities at work. I'm quick and decisive when it comes to eliminating toxic causes and effects. My abilities are a firewall; I'm not easily impressed, and since I don't have the time, although I quickly detect the fantastical, I don't pursue my own analysis. It's a choice: read blogs and idolize them, or use your abilities for the job.
OTOH you might want to consider that the psyops might well be carried on the other way around. See Alyosha's comment yesterday:
"If you read this Finn, then it is the other way around, Russians causing divisions in the West. ;) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384413448_Bloodless_but_deadly_Information_warfare_in_Russian_military_science_research Lots of interesting citations in the article. Also Ilnitski's article from 2021. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/mentalnaya-voyna-rossii?ysclid=mpkasuwv9o436122692 "
I don’t believe there is any real division in the west, unless, as Brian Berletic is constantly pointing out, you’re referring to a division of labor. Russia isn’t doing any psyops. You could credit them with draining the western weapons reserves, but that’s wearing a little thin these days as far as I’m concerned.
"the west".
The "west" is causing all the divisions in the "west". Divide and rule
He identified one of the key elements of the plan to destabilize Russia from within -- demonstrate to the Russian people how Putin is some combination of weakling and a traitor, leave them no choice but to rise up against him, then take advantage of the chaos.
But Ritter didn't have it in him to draw the obvious conclusion -- that Putin is doing his absolute best to assist that plan.
Putin can escape the trap very easily -- mobilize the country for war, stop with the asslicking towards Trump, defeat Ukraine decisiviely, and start hitting the West too as hard as needed. The Russia people will rally behind him. But he isn't doing that...
The Russian people are just like Putin.
They want this war to end soon and dream about status symbols and cheap consumer stuff.
There is no hope for Russia. They are mentally already unable to fight the west. It seems that the fake symbols of American dream are a convergence point of humanity. We cannot be better then that.
I do not like it. But that is true. From China to Europe that is the only God.
"It seems that the fake symbols of American dream are a convergence point of humanity."
So true. That's the whole secret of America's soft power.
"Have fun. No matter what kind of fun. No matter where you get the money for it..." The greatest part of humanity is like this. It's only a small minority that cares about more noble things like love, truth, justice, beauty et cetera.
Yes.
I would say that even the perception of these things you mentioned is distorted. Most of the humans are not even capable to feel any emotion except the dominance/submission duality. The whole human race is pushed into psychopathy. And by not being able to feel anything else, they like it.
Of course, this anomaly existed before, but it was not the mainstream.
The pure speed of capitalism destroys internal model of reality. And the only desired reality is cappuccino in the shopping moles, in other words, being in the role of the perceived successful consumer.
The AI push will make this much worse, but that is logical, so is the low of historical necessities, there is no way out.
An example: It is not terrible to kill the chicken, what is terrible is putting the chickens in conditions where their basic essence is denied to them (by living in cages, A4 size). So by living in the basic production/consumption duality conditions our biological self is denied form us. We are in the prison we produced. All our actions make the cage even stronger.
So we tolerated that and then everything happened.
Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX8szNPgrEs
You underestimate Russians. They are well aware they are on the menu and are acutely aware that if they do not fight back they will go the way of American Indians. Their grandparents still have vivid memories of another attempt to do so, and the country's most active age layer (middle-aged people) are the children of the 90s, when the country was looted exactly by those who attack it again. No way people are going to overthrow Putin to install a western puppet (a new Yeltsin or Zelensky).
And I think you overestimate "symbols of American dream". The "west" just does not have a good image any more
The times have changed.
Today's Russians and today's Russia, it is all about money.
In other words the Iranians should be fighting this war in Ukraine rather than Pootin.
"Putin can escape the trap very easily -- mobilize the country for war, "
That is impossible. Only the West can mobilize. Even Ukraine can.
The West and Ukraine share the same fake dream, dream so nice and high that the masses eagerly fight for the dream and happily die.
This is circular reasoning from Ritter because the only way creating the "illusion" of weakness in the leadership would work is if Russian leadership was weak enough so as to allow its territory to be struck in ways that would bolster the illusion, which of course means there is no illusion .... because Russia leadership *is* weak.
And that is the answer. Russian leadership is weak. No secret games or psychological manipulation are needed.
His point was a little more subtle than that as I understand it. Russian leadership has been weak, but attacks like this highlight that weakness because people see children in a school as more innocent and worthy of protection than nameless Russians in unknown towns. The US is provoking more extreme outrage by tricks like this.
Russian leadership is weak, and being treated accordingly. That's not a "trick," just a consequence of weakness.
I agree, of course, but the blatant commission of gross war crimes against children is upping the ante. Russia’s ineffectual response is sending yet another signal.
So you are saying that people should rise up and overthrow them, right?
Russia is a huge, huge country. It is impossible to protect its borders and internal facilities and cities - there is not enough money in the world for that. You have to concentrate on the most critical areas, leaving the rest exposed and to be dealt with as you can. It is easy for Ukrainian drones to hit these areas. And the fact that they are targeting civilians, knowing that these vulnerabilities exist, is clearly indicative of a psyops plan being implemented.
From the General Staff's perspective, these hits are tragic but they can't be avoided and actually do not significantly affect the conduct of the war. So they have to put up with it. They have a plan and they are working that plan out and it is so far quite successful.
Having said all that, however, there is indeed the PR aspect to be considered. If these attacks on civilians continue to be carried out and the response by the military on Ukrainian targets is not sufficiently apparent to the public, then public begins to think that perhaps the leadership is weak. Many now, including the military and Putin himself, are beginning to accept that this point has been arrived at and now Russia must more clearly demonstrate that this must not continue without serious harm to the Ukie leadership.
>Russia is a huge, huge country. It is impossible to protect its borders and internal facilities and cities - there is not enough money in the world for that.
Yes, indeed, which is why defense was always planned with the assumption that the first attack will be the last, because there would be nothing and nobdy to carry out a second attack.
Nobody planned for absorbing non-stop bombardment for years.
Your argument is misleading. The reason the war started was to avoid having a NATO country with missiles bases at Russia’s door.
Also: it’s not about defending against strikes. The last years have proved that the offensive missiles has always the upper hand against AD. The Iranians have proved how to successfully win such a confrontation.
Although I am far far away, it would seem that these types of attacks whether they are on theaters or schools or power plants or do more to strengthen the resolve of Russia in general
Resolve without effective response soon turns to fatalism and resignation as one realizes that "there is nothing I can do about it"
It doesn't matter why Russia is vulnerable. Her enemies will take advantage of it.
"there is not enough money in the world for that. You have to concentrate on the most critical areas, leaving the rest exposed"
Then the entire premise of a multi-year war of attrition was flawed. When you cant defend your heartland, war must be offensive, fast, relentless and decisive.
The reality is, it's a war of attrition because that is all the Russian Army and Russian political culture is capable of fighting.
But, on the other hand, I don't buy the idea that Russia is too big to defend. It's perhaps to big to defend using old techniques, organization and doctrine.
Russias critical incapacity is the same as in the west, the economic losers from change will resist that change and they have greater influence than the pressure of a "special military operation" can overcome.
Ritter is ok. He is a good analyst but if he wrote the solution is: ” By striking at the centres of power in Ukraine every time such an event occurs, starting with Kiev.”, he is out in the blue.
Military speaken, you don wait for such an event to occur, you must always work for the initiative. If MI6 is actively destabilizing Russia then the answer is obvious. Isnt it?
Putin and his entourage is to blame for this long War. Its a crime in itself to make War last.
Bottom line - Russia is reacting. In war you need to seize the initiative and act with ruthless determination to create a decision point beyond your opponents ability to respond effectively.
Irrefutable.
Russia will not lose this war because Russians are committed to it completly.
They are not. For a striking counterexample, Israel is completely committed to the destruction of Gaza.
Committed but ill equipped mentally, militarily and strategically. The IDF are weekend soldiers used to killing civlians: women and children. They lose...
They have rendered Gaza uninhabitable and murdered a million people. That’s commitment (and evil). Russia has mamby-pambied around for four years and is bogged down in a forever war that they could easily win. That’s lack of commitment (and also evil).
So 'commitment' is demonstrated destroying the civilian population of a country? I think not. Russia has been meticulous in not targeting civilians but only military targets, unlike its enemies. If that causes the war to be prolonged, then so be it. The Russians are willing to live with that - to an extent. As I have on numerous occasions stated, this, however, is not just about Ukraine. If it were, then yes, the war would definitely have been shorter. This is, as it always has been from the Russian perspective, about NATO and the West and about establishing a pan-European security architecture. Ukraine is just a part of that effort. It takes time to wear down and deplete an enemy the size of Europe and its organisations the EU and NATO. Russia has been doing just that.
You misunderstand my point. I didn’t say the only way to demonstrate commitment is killing civilians. I said that Israel was committed to making Gaza unlivable and has gone about doing just that.
Russia needs to take the steps necessary to win this war. Putin has obviously not been committed to that.
It doesn't matter. It works.
That's a horribly stupid comparison. There is a huge power disparity between Gaza and Israel. Russia vs. Ukraine backed by NATO is fairly even. Aside from using nukes, Russia has had the gloves off.
How do you know this exactly?
Are you privy to a survey about the general population?
Everyone loses in a war. Except the non-combatants that supply material to keep it going.
That Ukraine loses more is of no consequence to London, Washington or Brussels.
Nobody said being proxy meat hammer would be easy
It is really tough to follow the strategic path that Putin has chosen, and indeed it puts his government under a lot of stress. However, Russians have stuck to it so far, and didn’t bail out in hysterics. This speaks to the staying power of Russians.
There are also other considerations, such as China’s support. Putin’s strategy has not strayed far from Chinese sensibilities. This is obviously a big priority for Putin.
Russia still has many other cards to play. They haven’t lit the fuse on Euroclear yet (but maybe getting closer). Actually there is much more they could do in the financial realm, too.
As for “losing the war,” Russia simply cannot lose. They must resort to nukes if it goes there, but right now it isn’t anywhere close to that..
The Chinese will adjust. What the war so far is attesting to is the ineffectuality of Putin. Or worse.
I think "Or worse" is the case. No other way to explain it.
I'm leaning that way, too.
I'm not buying it. In my view the more likely scenario is that this campaign to whip up a hysteria over Putin's "ineffectuality" is a psyop coupled to recent Ukrainian acts of provocation. In such a case, those promulgating the "weak Putin" narrative are either victims or agents provocateurs of the campaign...
That is true. Getting rid of Putin is a NATO priority. The majority of the "Putin bad" narrative is western driven for the sake of destabilization.
It’s basically a brainless automatic strategy that they do by painting leaders as Hollywood villains
In this case, there is a special hatred for the Russian leader because he thought there are attempts to carve up the carcass of Russia
Other than that, it’s just a game for them I doubt they even care that his replacement would be way worse for them
Once you see the pattern, it’s hard to unsee
Your conclusion (about those promulgating...) does not follow from your premise (campaign to whip up...). It ignores the possibility (and the fact, I would argue) that Putin has waged an ineffective war and sent signals to the west, repeatedly, that Russia is weak. In that scenario the critics are simply pointing out the obvious and it is you and others who take your position, who are promoting further Russian ineffectuality.
One problem many people in these comments have is that they can't accept that differing viewpoints can exist. They insist that any other opinion is either disloyal or ignorant.
Fair enough. It is important to remain humble, admit to large degrees of uncertainty, and always keep in mind that nobody listens to us. We are largely ignorant, and not privy to all of the information. Each of us maintains various research methods, narrative streams, which shape our impressions and judgments. And so on.
One of the oldest and crudest forms of war propaganda is to demoralize an opponent and cause them to question their leadership. There is nothing clever going on here. Anyone who understands the situation inside Russia will know that this is a vulnerability of Putin's government, and his enemies will certainly seek opportunities to plant seeds of doubt...including the targeting of civilians in attacks. This isn't anything new, it is the same tactic, same place, that was going on before 22 February 2022...just with drones today rather than artillery.
Those drones are made by Europe. Ukraine may be the ones making a critical error in this case. If Europe begins to make the synaptic connection between the weapons they help manufacture and these kinds of targeted attacks on civilians, then popular support for the war effort could suffer. Of course Ukraine can rely on a compliant western media to shape perceptions in their favor. Russia has been trying to leverage this counter-vulnerability by calling a special session of the UNSC, invitation to western media to visit Starobilsk, and more...but it may still fail to penetrate thickened skulls resulting from years of heavy media brainwashing.
In any case, I would love to know what Putin knows. But I don't. And none of us here knows, either. We are just armchair analysts working with sparse data...and it is good to entertain multiple opinions. Which is why I engage Simplicius and those who follow him. So I apologize, and I take back my implication that you are a victim or agent provocateur of the latest propaganda campaign...
That’s pretty handsome of you, and you’re right about what we know and don’t know. I think Putin is whistling Dixie, as they’d say where I’m from, with his attempts to influence popular opinion in Europe, where they seem to have pretty fixed opinions, and the US, where not many care. The fact that the western press chose to ignore the story about the killing of those girls says a lot, but we’ve seen it with Israel and its various crimes.
It had not been my opinion that Putin was vulnerable in any way, though. Do you think he is?
Yes, the West has the advantage of not needing to restrain its deviousness simply because it looks bad to 'their' allies. It's a whole different mindset. 'Wars' of the past would not have been fought this way by the aggressor one feels but this is a proxy war - and it is used because it (somewhat) works.
The Chinese Foreign Minister once replied a question on Chinese war supplying to Russia. He said if China were really supplying Russia for the war it would be over long ago. that should tells you what the Chinese think of slo-mo.
Old Chinese saying of a quick short pain is better than long drawn out pain.
I felt the same way about that remark ..” untenable “ ..I think we are long past that .
You know ,I thought this was a war …not a dance
Russia could have destroyed the Ukrainian power grid and the critical bridges and road infrastructure with a fraction of the missiles it has used until now. It could have made the logistics running across Ukraine and into the front lines a Jesús Holy Fucking nightmare.
Russia could have passed some advanced anti-ship missiles to Iran and the Houthis (or, God forbid, Hezbollah), and watch from a comfortable distance and with plausible deniability US Navy and NATO ships being blown out of the water.
It could have made to “disappear” some NATO (UK, Scandinavian) patrol ships that strayed too far into the Artic (you know, it’s a lonely place and accidents happen).
It could have tested the Oreshnik onto the EU or NATO HQs in Brussels.
It could have set up manufacturing plants of its most critical missile systems in friendly countries, in exchange for a % of the output.
It could, like, have run the economy & national finances in a logical way, instead of self-sabotaging itself with Neoliberal crap.
It could have armed its merchant ships and have knocked a couple of US Marine helicopters out of the air while these where trying to board them.
It could have been serious about supporting African partners or Cuba.
It could have backed up its threats, instead of idiotically talking about nuking Europe while speaking hopefully about how cool Trump is and the “Spirit of Anchorage”.
It could have taken the Iranian playbook and have shot down any NATO plane and cratered any NATO base within striking distance of the Ukrainian theater.
While at the same time Iran has shown how to decisively defeat the US on a regional battlefield.
At this point I fear the worst for the future of Russia and Europe. The US Empire is going to suck us dry, the plunder of India by the British Empire will be a joke compared to what is going to happen.
All good points. Several of us may have mentioned them from time to time…
i can't disagree here
Russia does not seem to really understand that this is an existential struggle.
the west aims to DESTROY THEM TOTALLY using Ukranus to do it
Wrong! Putin openly stated at the onset that this was existential for Russia but, as usual, nobody listens to what he says.
He talks the talk, but does not walk the walk.
he said it but has not acted in a manner consistent with that realization
The truth is that, a century later, India is 1000x better off than if the British had not arrived and built their physical and civic infrastructure.
Likely there would be no country of India, just the old system of regional tribes in perpetual conflict.
Someone should make an equivalent version of Monty Python's "What did the Romans ever do for us" for India.
Yes, sure, because at the time of British conquest (1750s) Mughal India was the Richest Country On Earth (tied in with China), with a textile manufacturing that outcompeted England by far, and then at the time of Independence was like one of the poorest.
You mean that kind of civil infrastructure, right?
Railways and shyte?
You sure, mate?
Textile, steel and sailing vessels
Making a claim that extractive colonialism is good for you is really a last ditch effort in the face of history
oh right the mythology of the vast riches of everywhere that vanished without a trace.
if this shithole were really the richest nation on earth, they'd have defeated the british....easily.
Russian GDP per cap has increased 10-fold during Putin, life expectancy has increased by almost a decade, and the country is outproducing all of NATO combined in military materiel with 6% of GDP represented by the military. Accusing Russia of economic self-sabotage, neo-liberal or otherwise, is very odd. It hasn't deindustrialized, unlike most of its opponents.
Dude, now compare Russia’s numbers against the USSR’s excluding the now independent republics. Russia HAS de-industrialized big time.
Ok I'll bite: how could Russia possibly lose other than Putin blundering his way into a bad peace treaty? Ukraine has lost half its pre-war population from the combined effects of war losses and people fleeing the country. As far as the war is concerned, an expat is indistinguishable from a corpse. Either way, these are people who will never fight.
Europe is demoralized and self-demilitarized first with the "peace dividend" of the '90s then by sending far more equipment than they could realistically replace to Ukraine, and their armies are altogether as the full EU still smaller than pre-war Ukraine's military and backed by demoralized populations broken by decades of MKUltra slop "entertainment" and social engineering who won't want to die for their countries with only the small subset of bloodthirsty nihilists who want to kill for its own sake serving as their recruitment pool, a lot of whom are too dysgenic or too mangled by excess goyslop consumption and a lack of exercise to fight.
Personally, I see a Russo-European war as inevitable, regardless of the outcome of the Ukraine War, as this is what Europe's true master, the US/Israel want. They want the war of Gog and Magog by any means so they can fulfill their doomsday prophecy. And this brings me to America, who certainly doesn't want to get dragged into their planned war on Russia personally, as the Epsteinites wish to preserve their American golem's strength for fighting China, and it has been made clear by the ongoing US/European NATO split that Russia will be Europe's responsibility, regardless of their actual capability to fight or even survive.
A Russo-European war isn’t inevitable, it is happening now. It’s just that the Russians aren’t fighting the real enemy, and that is how they could lose. And don’t count Putin blundering into a bad peace treaty out. He’s been trying to do that for the past four years.
Surely you understand the massive difference between a proxy war and an actual, direct war, right? Are you going to try to tell me the Great Patriotic War actually started with the Spanish Civil War? Because if NATO sending equipment and advisors to Ukraine means Russia is directly fighting NATO, then that means that Span was directly fighting Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union at the same time as they fought each other on Spanish soil.
As for Putin, I wouldn't put anything past the wannabe Epsteinite, hence why it's the only way I can see Russia losing the war, but the point of my post is that there is no other way Russia can lose.
Well, people here talking about Russia "losing" are using the term in a wildly unspecific way, where Russia inflicting a smashing strategic defeat is still counted as Russia "losing" if Russia does not inflict that defeat in the way a particular commentator would like to see.
I'll trot out my favorite Suvorov quote again: "A man who loves his neighbors, a man who hates war, must finish off the enemy. So that one war does not start another."
There are many possible "peace" deals which would have the West wringing their hands in anguish, such as forcing them to recognize the reality that Crimea and the four New Territories are forever part of Russia, which all the same could legitimately be called a "loss" for Russia because the deal would only ensure the starting of another war.
It's how the big British/French/US win in WWI simply set the stage for the far more destructive WWII. The deals that ended WWI left far too much unresolved.
I should also note that the EU Nazi-lovers who are fighting Russia today are repeating the Nazi-loving trend in WWII. If you count the number of people in European states that were actual military allies of Nazi Germany (Romania, Slovakia, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia and Finland) they outnumber the population of European states that fought *against* the Nazis. That comparison excludes occupied states, which for the most part were deeply fractured with very large parts of their populations actively and willingly working for Nazi Germany.
France is a good example. After the rapid defeat of France in 1940, the Vichy government was an active and enthusiastic collaborator with Germany. At the height of its power in 1942, the German war economy directly employed approximately 845,000 French workers to produce munitions, fortifications, and airfields in France. These were not slave laborers; they were paid French workers voluntarily contributing to the Nazi war effort. Hundreds of thousands more volunteered to work in factories in Germany. This kind of active, pragmatic collaboration was widespread across the continent. Sure, the modern myth is about a noble French resistance, but the actual reality was that of 42 million French many preferred Hitler to Léon Blum (the French socialist).
Even in the Netherlands, where there was a brutal Nazi occupation, the Dutch were hands down the European leaders in rounding up and killing Jews, a result of the enthusiastic cooperation of Dutch government and police organizations with Nazi Germany. Whether you're talking about the Quislings in Norway, the local nazis in Estonia or the even more violent than the SS local nazis in Croatia and Ukraine, the pro-Nazi heritage of all those people is alive and well and growing in Europe.
That's the cancer that will survive any deal that ends hostilities in what used to be known as "Ukraine." So, by that standard, pretty much anything Russia does short of rounding up 10% of so of the European population and enslaving them for mines above the Arctic Circle is going to be counted as "losing" in some quarters.
To be clear, when I warn that Russia is "losing" I mean that it is at substantial risk of either actual dissolution, perpetual war that neutralizes it on the geopolitical scene, or entering a treaty that so far falls short of the goals of the SMO that it neutralizes it as a friend of China.
I can't agree that rounding up and shooting every previously hostile individual would work, but the current war needs to be won to the point that any further hostilities can be addressed by police action, either by Russia itself or, less likely, by a friendly Ukrainian government.
I don't see a Russian "police action" as being a viable way to deal with further hostilities. A good example is how the war against the Nazis continued well into the 50's in Ukraine after the West thought WWII was done and over with.
Zhukov, the brutal Marshall who led the Red Army in its defeat of the Nazi coalition (Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, etc., etc.) was tasked with the elimination of Ukrainian nazis (often called "Banderites" but really, nazis) in Ukraine. Those were armed and supported by the United States and, to a lesser degree, the UK, in a war that went significantly beyond mere partisan actions.
It was a very bloody, brutal war that went on for years until Zhukov succeeded in eliminating all resistance, armed or otherwise, to Soviet power. He didn't actually kill all the nazis, as many of them eventually laid down their arms and disappeared into the general population, meeting in cells in the greatest secrecy but not taking any visible action, biding their time for when their day would come.
That day came during the late degeneracy of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and blossomed forth into open displays of Nazi fervor after 1991, when "Ukraine" became a country for the very first time in history. We all know what happened then, as the Nazis, small minority though they were, were the only tight knot of disciplined, ideologically unified killers.
Respectfully, though, this part of what you wrote is wildly delusional: " mean that it is at substantial risk of either actual dissolution." Russia is not going to dissolve. On the contrary, it will grow a bit.
This part is not delusional, but does not really grasp the possibility of what might happen: "perpetual war that neutralizes it on the geopolitical scene". Russia already is in a perpetual war with the US and US stooges, but that has not neutralized it on the geopolitical scene. Instead, it has fragmented the geopolitical scene away from a monolithic US hegemony into a more multipolar world.
If the US and/or its stooges escalates that perpetual war into hotter conflict directly with Russia, then the war will enter a non-perpetual phase of kinetic conflict that cannot last more than a relatively short time, say 20 years, because it will bring such ruin and destruction that people will not be talking about "neutralization" or "geopolitical scenes" but who is left alive to rule and build the world as they like. That will apply to both sides, especially if nuclear arms are used.
This doesn't make sense: "or entering a treaty that so far falls short of the goals of the SMO that it neutralizes it as a friend of China."
China will be happy with an end to the conflict in Ukraine. It doesn't particularly give a shit if Ukraine is denazified or not. It doesn't even care if Russia keeps the New Territories (although the Chinese are not so totally delusional as to think there is any way Russia would give those up, not even if retaining them meant nuclear war).
China can see its main trading partner, the US, has given up on Ukraine. That's more than enough for them and now China can move on to fending off US aggression against China like trying to strangle China's oil supply from countries like Iran, causing trouble with Taiwan, and so on. For that it finds Russian support in the form of energy supplies useful. Although China like all other countries has only interests and not friends, that resource dependency on Russia will ensure that China stays a "friend" to Russia.
"Surely you understand the massive difference between a proxy war and an actual, direct war, right?"
Here you are actually arguing with Putin himself, who has declared this an actual war for good reason. I'll also point out that the US does not recognize the distinction between proxies and direct combatants when it has the power to ignore the supposed distinction, and Iran seems to have ignored any supposed distinction with whatever success it has enjoyed.
We all know that the weapons raining down on Russians were made in the west, use western guidance, often are launched from the west, and even that in many cases the fingers pulling the trigger are western fingers. If that is a "proxy war," contrary to what Putin says, the distinction between it and direct war is razor thin, not "massive."
>Ok I'll bite: how could Russia possibly lose other than Putin blundering his way into a bad peace treaty?
The absolute minimal winning condition for Russia here is the complete disappearance of Ukraine as an independent state and then the disappearance of Ukrainian identity over the subsequent decades.
Anything less of that is a strategic defeat. But that is not even an objective.
So a bad peace treaty that amounts to strategic defeat is exactly what we are headed towards.
But then there are kinetic defeat scenarios too, which is presumably what you are refering too.
Put the following together:
1) Martian and Hornet drones are hunting for Russian logistics all the way to Taganrog now with AI and real-time Starlink guidance, functioning as FPVs 150 km behind the lines
2) Operation Spiderweb using FPVs launched form the ground to take out a good chunk of Russia's strategic aviation
3) Yesterday the Oreshnik launch was known well in advance and the launch maneuvr movements were being reported in real time. The former we can understand -- Russia warned about it, but how were launch maneuvrs observed in real time? Much worse though, there was information hours in advance about Bastion TELs with Zircons being moved to Kursk. Those are tactical missiles, there was absolutely no need to warn the Americans. So the Americans can track in real time TEL movement anywhere in Russia.
You see where this is going? The range of autonomous and real-time guided drones will eventually reach everywhere in Russia and one nice day most of the Russian nukes will be taken out with drones launched from Ukraine, from Kazakhstan, from Finland, and on the ground.
This means that Starlink must be physically removed from the sky now. There is no time to waste.
But what do we have? We have Kushner and Witkoff coming to Moscow soon...
"The absolute minimal winning condition for Russia here is the complete disappearance of Ukraine as an independent state and then the disappearance is Ukrainian identity over the subsequent decades.
Anything less of that is a strategic defeat. But that is not even an objective,"
No, it is not and never has been an objective because it has absolutely no strategic value to Russia and just creates the very existential concerns - Nato missiles and forces on the border - that they are trying to avoid.
The strategic objective since 2014 and the subsequent Minsk agreements has been to maintain Ukraine as an independent (of Nato, at least), sovereign state, hence the extremely favourable (to Ukraine) terms agreed to at Minsk, initialled by Ukraine at Istanbul, and still being offered now.
>No, it is not and never has been an objective because it has absolutely no strategic value to Russia and just creates the very existential concerns - Nato missiles and forces on the border - that they are trying to avoid.
????
1) Stuff will be flying into Russia as long as there is an Ukraine. So yeah, making Ukraine disappear is kind of strategic existential concern
2) NATO missies will be in Sumy if Ukraine is not liquidated. Much better to have them in Lublin.
3) NATO missiles are in Europe in general only because Russia allows it. It can remove them tomorrow, permanently, if the political will is there
???? This is the fundamental "root cause" that Russia is wanting resolved - no Nato forces on the Ukraine/Russia border. If Russia 'disappears' Ukraine, presumably by annexation, they create for themselves that exact problem on the Poland-to-Romania/ Russia border; a purely Pyrrhic victory of no strategic value.
1) So, either you are suggesting that there can never be peaceful co-existence between warring nations or you are just voicing an idle racist opinion. Neither of which I find persuasive arguments.
2) Not if Ukraine were an independent, or non-aligned, neutral state.
3) Nato missiles are in Europe because European nations are entitled, like any country, to have armed forces for their defence.
>If Russia 'disappears' Ukraine, presumably by annexation, they create for themselves that exact problem on the Poland-to-Romania/ Russia border; a purely Pyrrhic victory of no strategic value
Let's run that further -- Russia nukes all of Europe, moves in with ground forces and the new Russian "border" with the US runs along the mid-Atlantic.
Now we have created a new situation where Russia directly borders the US. Bad, right?
Yeah, but now Russia controls the waterways in the Baltic entirely, a corridor from Murmansk along the European coast, and any US missiles are at least 4,000 km away from Moscow.
While if the US missiles are in Sumy, that is less than 500 km.
A rather important difference.
It's the same situation with holding Lvov.
The space in between is a vitally important buffer.
I ll write that again. It is not so much the Putin's betrayal as there is nobody left to be betrayed. This war is not popular in Russia, most of the Russians just live and dream to be part of the western dream and consume. Just like the Ukrainians. Kushner and Witkoff are the effective rulers of Russia.
That is not true. There is a certain segment of the Russian population for which it is true, but most people want to see Ukraine decisively defeated.
Where are these "most people"? They do not want to sacrifice themselves and I understand them. Why to die for oligarchs?
That's total bullshit. I live in Russia and all of the people I see around me are committed to defeating the Nazis in Ukraine and the Nazi-lovers in the West who back them. I personally know dozens of people who have volunteered to fight in Ukraine, going back to 2014.
Where people part company is on battle strategy. The majority feel that the current path is correct, that of a slow-burn fight which maintains Russia's ability to keep growing its economy and to continue the technical and social development of the country must remain the top priority. They have a point in that strong, thriving economies are essential if you fight a war against the US and its 50 nazi-loving stooges.
But there is a growing minority that wants to take the gloves off and is willing to take the hit to the economy that would entail, in the belief that forty years of lost development (the consequences of annihilating the EU and its nazi-lovers, as well as US goons like Australia and possibly Japan) would be worth the longer term, more stable and safe trajectory such firm action would open for Russia.
I have been in the first camp, the majority, and I can't argue with the fantastic rise in quality of life in Russia that strategy has achieved in the last 15 years. But I think it is time for far harsher responses and a shift to a hybrid strategy.
I agree with GM that the absolute minimum objective must be to erase the fake "nation" of Ukraine as the minimum cost of the West's using it as a platform to poison millions of people and to attack Russia. I'd go even further and annex the Baltics (just a handful of million people, in any case), totally and thoroughly demilitarize Sweden, Finland and Poland, and wipe out any government personnel in Germany that make the slightest move towards acquiring nuclear weapons.
That's not widespread annihilation of the EU, but I wouldn't argue against strikes on the EU bureaucracy, just to teach those assholes that those who mouth off against Russia will get their teeth kicked in. I'd also add targeted killing of civilians in the media / military industrial blob who think they can make money by killing Russians. Teach them what it means to war on Russia.
"The absolute minimal winning condition for Russia here is the complete disappearance of Ukraine as an independent state and then the disappearance of Ukrainian identity over the subsequent decades."
So creating a failed state full of angry, rootless people who can be easily manipulated into committing violence like a European Syria right on Russia's borders is a victory? What the hell kind of insanity did I just read? It's in Russia's interest to create a new Ukraine that's pro-Russia like Belarus, but which is also quintessentially Ukrainian in order to ensure that the Ukrainian people rally behind it instead of dissolving into yet another failed state. The actual danger for post-war Russia is that the destruction and fear caused by the war has already permanently destroyed Ukraine as turbo "patriots" like you want, which makes the failed state on Russia's borders an inevitability now.
As for your bullet points,
1.) If this could win the war for Ukraine, then why hasn't the hundreds of Gerans the Russians launch every other day defeated Ukraine yet? Russia comfortably overmatches Ukraine in these sorts of drones, so if anyone is going to win a war from drone deepstrikes, it will be Russia.
2.) In what world is like 6 bombers a "good chunk" of Russia's bomber fleet? Do you not understand how big Russia's bomber fleet actually is? Either way, that attack is a feat that cannot be repeated not only because it relied upon the Russians' assumption that the SBU wouldn't commit massive war crimes just to destroy a few bombers, but also because the Russians are obsessed with ground-launched alternatives to air launched missiles because these are both cheaper and don't rely on a massive, inherently vulnerable aircraft.
3.) Why do you assume this information that comes from OSINT is accurate? It could be made up for all you know. The only way anyone actually gets a geolocation of these missile launches is after the missiles climb high enough to appear on radar. This is only a good predictor because the Russians haven't had a reason to ever change their launch positions, for better or worse, because nothing has ever threatened their launch vehicles while maneuvering.
Also, why do you assume the Russians don't also have this technology to survey the entire front? It's just that Ukraine has nothing of this sort to mobilize, thus Russian drones see nothing. If it were so easy as to just fly some drones at missile launchers, then why doesn't Ukraine fly its cruise drones at Iskander launchers which do launch from within their ranges? Could it be that Ukraine doesn't actually have this capability?
>As for your bullet points,
I said "put those points together to see where things are going".
>In what world is like 6 bombers a "good chunk" of Russia's bomber fleet?
First, it was more than six.
Second, in the world in which there are only less than 20 Tu-160s and there were only 50 Tu-95s, of which an unknown number were not in flyable condition at any given moment. Of those 50 about a dozen have been destroyed now in that operation and several other strikes.
That is significant indeed. Tu-160 production is one a year right now, optimistically.
>Why do you assume this information that comes from OSINT is accurate?
I don't assume, it was accurate in that case, and it wasn't OSINT, OSINT reported it from Ukrainian sources, which are of course not Ukrainian at all. They said that four Zircons will be launched form Kursk, which is exactly what happened.
>Also, why do you assume the Russians don't also have this technology to survey the entire front?
Again, I wasn't talking about the front. I pointed out how what is happening around the front now will soon extended to the deep rear and then the strategic balance will shift dramatically against Russia. "Strategic" and in **strategic nuclear**.
Starlink has to go. Now. There is no time to waste.
>Could it be that Ukraine doesn't actually have this capability?
It's not a war with Ukraine, FFS...
You're claiming that Starlink has been installed over Russia? Those are LEO satellites and would be violating Russian air space, not?
There is less density over Russia, but there is some coverage.
It is just not turned on. Officially...
The capability is there though and that is all that matters
NATO have no such compunctions. If anything, they see collateral damage as a feature, not a bug.
Indeed. I cannot imagine why Russia is holding back from total war. I had rather hoped to hear about Oreshnik striked on the central decisionmaking centers of the Ukronazi junta. Direct hits on the presidential palace, the rada, the central military command, the sbu... Take the warheads, land them on top of the buildings, send them deep in the earth to penetrate any bubkers, and detonate the explosives. Double tap the structures when ambulances show up with a deeper strike to wipe whatever fortifications may survive. Kill the entire civilian and military leadership. Collateral damage? These buildings are in the heart of the government zone, anyone nearby is part of the nazi enemy and deserve to die anyway. I had rather hoped that massive underground Oreshnik explosions had caised massive near seismic activith. I was hoping to hear that pieces of zelensky and his home were raining down on the outskirts of kiev. A shame.
Valery Gerasimov would like to be Vasily Chuikov, but Putin isn't Stalin and won't give him free rein. This conflict will ultimately destroy Putin's career, just like Taco's. He will end up being hated by the majority of Russians.
Fame is notoriously fickle. Whether he is loved or hated will probably be determined by something impossible to foresee. I agree that the conflict may ultimately destroy his career, though. Wars often do that, and not always fairly.
All sides are enjoying this slow pace pseudo war. And now we have this.
🇺🇦❌🇷🇺 — Over the past hours, Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a major wave of drones and cruise missiles against Russian territory, aiming specifically on Russian capital city, Moscow, as well as Rostov and Crimea
Ukrainian media claims this is a response to last night's Russian strike on Kyiv/Kiev, which now is ongoing, with hundreds of attack drones trundling into Russian airspace.
Ukrainian Army is reportedly using Jet-powered UAVs and cruise missiles, as well naval drones during the ongoing raid.
Yup. Let the Ukies hang around long enough and they with Western backers will introduce highly destructive new technology. All this ties the Kremlin's hands while new fronts are opened in the Baltics; Finland and Norway; Armenia- Azerbaijan....
Putin has lost the plot without any viable strategy. This is not trending well for Russia. But there's no way to move Putin as Commander in Chief.
What was the operational significance of the Bila Tservka airbase? If it was an important airbase, why was it just now targeted, and not earlier? If insignificant, why was it targeted at all?
Russian strikes are increasingly falling onto a spectrum of being either strategically stale, or strategically pointless.
How have these recent strikes brought Russia closer to its objective? Nobody can say, apparently.
Frankly, nobody these days seems to have any inkling of a response to these kind of straightforward questions. The fact that all discussions of such questions now almost exclusively center around esoteric guesswork and speculation as to what may be next, tells us plenty.
The answer is these strikes achieved nothing other than assuring Russia's enemies that its reprisals will always be more bark than bite - a fatal message to send.
That about hits the nail on the head. Strikes like this just guarantee that the next attack will be worse.
Indeed.
Further, Medvedev's soliloquies are not helping the situation. If Medvedev is speaking out of turn, then his days are surely numbered. If he is, on the other hand, a certified anger translator, so to speak, delivering veiled threats on behalf of his superiors, then his theatrics are impotence embodied.
Medvedev needs to shut his trap, in short.
@Octavia Moya
"Medvedev needs to shut his trap, in short."
---------
And what do you think Donald Trump's fat frothing nonsensical yap needs to be doing?
Medvedev is starting to look ridiculous frankly. A barking dog frightens one for the first minute, afterwards is just a nuisance. He’s starting to appear clownish.
If Bila Tserkva has deep underground bunkers, no any other missile can do, but Oreshnik and Kindzhal.
Likely the other targets were destroyed earlier by drones and smaller missiles. And finished off now.
All military airports are constantly under fire but runways are repaired fast. And bunkers can withstand nuclear blast.
Zelensky and the European clown consortium spend a lot of time in public, together even. Perhaps if the Russians could send a few missiles without warning everybody in advance...
You seem to know a lot Elena. But I guess I am asking anyone who sees this:
Am curious what is it about the Oreshnik that so many people are impressed about in contrast to other hypersonic (IRBMs) or event the Saramat 2 (ICBM)?
When it came out it had a couple of distinctive features that made it important: its range is capable of hitting any European city, and the mirv feature with maneuverable buses. It was also called a conventional missile so in theory could attack without crossing the nuclear threshold. A lot of people are now saying it would be better as a nuclear weapon, though. The other hypersonics don’t have the range, and the Saramat is I think strictly nuclear, though I’m not a weapons expert by any means.
Totally on point Octavia. Same with the Artem plant. Why is that facility still functional into the Fifth Year of the SMO. The Russian military strategy is a random walk at this point. Next year at this time the Dobas still won't be liberated. This is a pending disaster and everyone can see it.
Putin is simply weak and thinks the status quo ante can return
he's always dreamt of being part of the western club....he's a fool. the simple fact that HE IS THE ONE who wanted Minsk1 and Minsk2 and then ANOTHER piece of paper in Istanbul is grounds enough for his replacement by someone who has some balls
What happened to the electric war? No more strikes on the power grid or power plants…
The Russian responses have become a joke.
Russians still strike, just West is not hyping it.
And the lights are still on
The last oreshnik video is actually an old Palestinian video of a MLRS launching from outside the window/door.
Like a great deal of other video on the net.
He wrote 'reportedly' a video of..
Just confirming his suspicion
Putin only escalates if it serves the agenda of the SMO. So no, he won't just slaughter civilians for the sheer terroristic jubilation of it- unlike the nazi Ukrainians egged on by western europeans.
HOWEVER, he is under a duty to defend the Russian people and if that means striking decision making centres in the heart of Keeev, that is next. This last strike was the clearest warning of that. And after that will come strikes on the Baltic nations hosting the Ukrainian attacks. Will that bring in NATO. Yeah, the US really needs this just now! So No. And if it does, Russia is ready for that and the excuse for obtaining a much bigger victory from an all out war, a short and terrifying experience for all the big western mouth breathers of what war really means and then a settlement that resurrects shades of the old USSR. We missed you!
But everyone in the know in the West knows the West cannot stop Putin with whatever airstrikes on whatever. To actually stop his remorseless advance on the ground with its capture of successive Ukrainian resources and annihilation of western investments- which is what is really worrying western europeans (despite all the nonsense propaganda which no-one should bother repeating here) the West will have to come in en masse on the ground. Which it simply cannot. So where will this SMO actually end (assuming the West does not just decide to commit harakiri, which it will not, but does not stop facilitating its proxy to keep on fighting either) Russia wil advance right up to a resurrection of the old cold war boundaries, having seized Keeev (hello Kiev, welcome home). That's where. Then Russia will stop.
"If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?"
Precisely this. (assuming you are referring to Putin's scrupulosity in terms of rule following in which of course he is alone in the modern world.) If you mean it is better to make up rules in the moment as suits, and forget them as suits, yes, that is the western way.
>Putin only escalates if it serves the agenda of the SMO
So the agenda of the SMO was to have Russia all the way to the Urals under non-stop bombardment in perpetuity?
Good to know.
But that is not what is going on. It is just what the west says is going on. What is going on is that Russia is steadily advancing on the ground and winning where it counts, deflection hits of relatively trivial significance to the outcome of this campaign, not withstanding. It is just no good constructing your own tautologies, GM. What would YOU have Russia do?.... to win, I mean.... where it counts?
>But that is not what is going on.
It is what is going on:
https://t.me/s/lpr1_treugolnik
The last couple days there has been a bit of a lull, but you have the whole archive for you to explore.
You did not answer my question, which after all, is the point of all this.
>What would YOU have Russia do?.
Step 1 is to physically cut Ukraine off all suport.
Blockade Odessa, seal the Romanian, Hungarian. Slovakian and Polish borders.
Hmmm..... OK.
Perhaps while it's certainly been a strategically fruitful decision, but Russia's slow rolling of the conflict, treating it as an smo, waiting for years before undertaking a bombing campaign like yesterday, and moreover doing so in reaction to an attack as opposed to as part of an escalation initiative on its own, is a sign of weakness.
Negotiations have led nowhere. A case could be made that the entire 'neutral mediator' farce's benefit has been to give the USA a PR exit ramp, while anyone with any functioning brain cells knows that behind the scenes, logistical and technical support has continued.
Realistically Russia needs to decide whether it wants to bring the results home (victory on the battlefield) or risk any number of black swans emerging and unexpectedly changing the calculus.
At this point, the longer the conflict, in whatever form, goes on, the weaker Russia appears. It's a bit like the Hormuz fiasco, for all the PR bravado, what's happened has happened (imo strategic defeat etc), right now priority should either be to flip the result or cut the losses and pretend nothing happened.
"Realistically Russia needs to decide whether it wants to bring the results home (victory on the battlefield) or risk any number of black swans emerging and unexpectedly changing the calculus."
Exactly on point. Right now, the crucial Highway 14 in Crimea is under fire control of Ukraine. And the AFU are launching counteroffensive that neutralize the minimal ground gains of Russian forces.
https://eventsinukraine.substack.com/p/rising-ukrainian-losses
Chill, posa.
This delusional mindset and information war will end badly when the most likely inevitable outcome arrives.
Right.
Based on the Oreshnik impact footage, it looks like the MIRVs weren't equipped with explosive warheads yet again. Instead, Russia keeps restraining itself from unleashing total destruction by punishing the Ukronazi regime with pure kinetic energy.
Meanwhile, European ZATO vassals continue downplaying the significance and power of the new Russian medium-ranged hypersonic system to their ignorant plebes, because otherwise it might be difficult to recruit future cannon fodder for the Epstein Syndicate.
Take Sweden as a prime example, with their state propaganda channel SVT1 spinning retired lieutenant colonel Jörgen Elfwing's words and claiming that Oreshnik "is more of a propaganda weapon without any real impact power". https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/experten-oresjnik-mer-propagandavapen
As has been explained here before -- I don't know if it is true, but certainly plausible -- that if indeed they are using tungsten rods, at those velocities those would cause MORE damage than if they were replaced with conventional explosives.
It surely sounds like a plausible theory that the “warheads” were of the same inert type which previously were used against YuzhMash in Dnipro, if the Russian’s target indeed were underground enemy command centers as various reports today claim.
In that case one doesn’t really need explosives, as heat-resistant dense metal rods at 4 000 degrees celsius falling from the sky at 3 km per second would do a much better job penetrating deep underground, creating mini-quakes and damaging/destroying underground structures in the process…
Four likes (so far)?
So there's at least 5 ignorant people unaware that *any* warhead added to an Oreshnik sub-munition ( other than a nuke) REDUCES the destruction it creates.
As for it being a "propaganda" weapon, the West could simply show overhead photography proving that point.
Instead they hide *everything* about the aftermath.
Because they have nothing to hide, obviously.
"So what, not to strike at all to avoid provoking the strengthening of the neo-Nazi regime? "
Why is Russia striking, the Artem plant for example, in retaliation? Why is that plant still producing weaponry five years into this conflict? Why are refineries still operational? Natural Gas hubs? Airports?
Meanwhile, the critical Highway 14 in Crimea is now under Ukrainian fire control hindering troop deployments and munitions. The Russian mainland is struck with impunity and the Russian naval fleet under constant piracy attack.
And Western forces gather to the north, West and South...
yes...these facilities should have been burnt to ashes long ago