It matters not anymore what the little green gremlin thinks as Russia commands the entire field of battle. Mission accomplished.
The sinister NEOs got Mike Tysoned. (one shot knock-out)
The NEOs and nutsy NATOs dug themselves so deep into the mineshaft there's no evacuation plan and no way out. Not only has NUTSO NATO and friends lost militarily but also they are a whole lot poorer because of it. Capturing the 4 Oblasts alone Russia will add many trillions in cash to its books over time, and the valuable repurposed land will add to its already geo-physical corpulence making it an even bigger biggest country in the world. lol One could say NATO paid the whole bill patriotically billed to us the taxpayers for every nickle spent on this conflict when it would have been so much cheaper and wiser just not to fuck with the Minsk Accord.
Mike, could you explain to the NEO-NUTSOs when you say everyone got a plan till you punch them in the face? Thanks, Big Mike.https://youtu.be/qSuMgOu8QPo?t=41
After War, another 4th Horsemen from the Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaires... Since 1976 with Cloud seeding with Silver iodide, with HAARP microwave heating of the upper atmosphere to create an atmospheric dome to manage the jet stream, to create an area of intolerable heat underneath. Doppler radar to steer hurricane systems. Trillion watt lasers to further steer weather systems from space. Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide to supposedly block off the heating of the sun to stop global warming but instead has the effect of destroying the ozone layer having exactly the opposite effect of increasing the heat of the planet! Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide is having the effect also of increasing the PH of the soil killing the trees, destroying the crowns, destroying their root systems, making trees fall over, destroying trees worldwide - Acid Rain…
Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide is having the effect also of attacking the respiration of people so that deaths from the lungs, asthma, lung cancer, difficulty in breathing is increasing.
Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide is having the effect also of killing the bees, killing insects killing pollination. 80% of all insects have died worldwide!
Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide is having the effect also of killing all vegetation, all flowers, killing the crops, decreasing their yield. Monsatan is creating aluminium resistant Frankenstein seeds which in future will be the only thing which grows.
Pathogens in the Sky: A Controversial Connection - We own an audio of him at geoengineeringwatch.org stating, in his words, what he did for the DoD, designed methods of spraying virus and biological pathogens into clouds to infect the populations below. Think about that. And now we have pathogens showing up in the case of CV-19. We had 85 countries infected in three days. That's indicative of an airborne dispersion. We have Italian scientists that say they have found CV-19 attached to airborne particulates. Do these dots connect? So the bottom line is, again, we can hide from forms of medical procedures that we don't want, the injections. We cannot hide from what they're spraying in our skies. And at any moment of their choosing, Because we have polymer fibers and graphene in our rain. That's in our lab tests.
The world's entire annual production of Aluminum (70 million), Strontium (360K) and Barium (6 million) cannot support "hundreds of thousands of tons" dropped from planes.
For that matter, the entire world's air cargo capacity is only 102 million metric tons. Arguing that 3%? 5%? more? of all air cargo, anywhere, in an entire year is devoted to dropping aerosolized metals is ludicrous.
For that matter, where are the thousands of metal processing plants, storage warehouses and tanker trucks needed to mine, process, transport "hundreds of thousands of tons" of these metals? And to load them onto the planes? Surely you intrepid sleuths can find some actual physical evidence....were it to exist.
Frankly I see the commitment of NATO personnel as a good thing because they will have a more difficult time covering up the losses, and there will be losses. Russia gets to track and eliminate the “officers” and further erode their assets. Of course there will be the usual behind the scenes retaliation as well.
So bring it on, because there is nothing quite like an expensive and vulnerable last ditch effort!
agreed. And they have said it will be immediate and 10 times worse ( my calculation ) than the previous. I guess its the only way to get rid of Israel - which definitely has to happen - but this is a great interview - https://youtu.be/u7J2SA8U7Fk
The time is right to wipe Nazi Talmudland off the map as it is weak, it Iron Dome = Iron Sieve (copied this from Simplicius himself), and the U.S. is weak.
As long as Nazi Talmudland exists, death and destruction will continue in the region and the world will be brought to the brink repeatedly, and will probably fall off the cliff one day, courtesy of the Talmudist Nazis.
The woke madness is rife in my USA but it’s a very loud minority. I find the same everywhere; most people are good and generally tend to their own business. It’s the psychopaths in politics and their busybody acolytes that have f*cked everything and terrorized the world.
Ultimately that’s still the citizens fault due to blissful ignorance but that IS changing.
That’s why the politicos focus on narratives — to keep the people ignorant and distracted — but those are failing spectacularly nowadays.
If/When they strikes Iran, it’s vital that the counter strike happen immediately and without warning. Make it hurt because the big Z and little z are not going to back down.
The US and other countries are trying to convince Israel not to attack nuclear or oil facilities in Iran. Israel has recently said that when it attacks, Iran will not know what happened but will see the result. That little riddle tells me that the zionists will most likely hit Iran’s electric power generating systems. They won’t know what happened because the electricity will be off. But they will see the results because the lights are out.
Hopefully, Iran’s defence network runs off its own independent power generating sources not tied to the civilian grid. And hopefully, they then immediately wipe out the zionists’ infrastructure, giving them a taste of Gaza.
Yeah that what I reckon too. Maybe some kinda 'non kinetic' attack on the power grid like what happend in Venuezala a few year back-Russia helped get it back up but it took a bit. Maybe communications too. Very clear that Iran is riddled with Mossad agents-look at all those scientists assassinated. Plus clear that Hezb is fucked now, totally riddled with spies. If Israel can ge the commanders they can get the arms bunkers and the HQ strike showed what they can do to Hezb's best bunker. Why is Hammas NOT tell Hezb in advance of thier pans for Oct 7? Cause they KNOW Hezb are riddled with spies and also that they are NOT a serious fighting force despite all the rah rah rah. In 12 month or so what did Hezb achieve? Didn't take out the fuel temrinals or storages despite 'all the sophisticated weapons' they are sia dot have...full of shit. Iran is using Hezb as a bargaining chip to get sanctions releif -Irans back off on Hezb support and Iran get relief. Only they fucked up on the calcuations-the Israel and US saw the 'mass attack' reprisal for what it was.Weakness on Irans part. Not serious about Palestine at all just using the 'cause for Irans benefit and Lebanse get bled out. I reckong Israel will fuck up Heb big time and then push the Leb people to rise up against the fuckers.
"the close ties of the Persian Empire with Israel have never ceased. Even today, the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline, built in 1968 with the Shah, is still operated by a company owned half by Israel and half by Iran. Any publication on the owners of this pipeline is punishable by 15 years in prison in Israel (“Israel and Iran collaborate to exploit the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline”, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 9 January 2018.) https://www.voltairenet.org/article221335.html
"The oil concession was coming to an end in 2018 and the Netanyahu government has discreetly authorized renewing it. However a new company called EAPC-B has replaced the former company, EAPC. The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Israeli Parliament has extended the military reporting ban to information on this new company." https://www.voltairenet.org/article199332.html
Always a joy to read your reports. You wrote long ago that West would try to freeze the War on the ground if things got worse for Ukraine. And now we see the signs of such development. Biden is too tired to bother anymore and the biggest headache is Israel doing massacres each day.
But. I would say that IF West&Ukraine manage to freeze the ”conflict” as of now it would indeed be a victory for the them. I cant see any positives for Russia doing such a stupid thing and if they do you can be certain that the situation is also dire on the Russian side.
Ukraines stubbornness and the criminals minds of Zelensky&Yermak has cacthed the ukrainians AND the West in a cul de sac. But one can also say that Russia has fewer alternatives that one may think. If they agree to a ceasefire they would be seen as losers. If they instead continue the War, declining every ”peace offer”, and the advance goes as slow as now they will be seen as coldhearted warmongers. And if the front and Ukraines resistance suddenly collapse, and Russia storms the banks of Dnieper river, the scare will be whipped up in the West for the ”bloodthirsty imperialist Red Army”. I cant see Russia having any alternative other then take whole of Ukraine and then negotiating a West-Ukraine state with Lvov as a center.
I agree with the Swiss general. Perception of winning through losing is the only option for US as of now. But then we better hope for Kamala as president…
I am sure Trump will do something stupid if elected President.
>But. I would say that IF West&Ukraine manage to freeze the ”conflict” as of now it would indeed be a victory for the them. I cant see any positives for Russia doing such a stupid thing and if they do you can be certain that the situation is also dire on the Russian side.
Simple question -- would Hitler have won if WWII was frozen in late 1941? Or even mid-1943? And then allowed to consolidate control with ethnic cleansing, brainwashing of the remaining population over many decades, etc. etc.
Most people would see it as a massive win.
Well, it is the exact same situation right now -- the literal descendants of the Nazis are in control of territory that is not that much different from where the front lines were in mid-1943.
Any Russian leader that does not see it that way has to be removed from office and immediately replaced by someone who does.
Balitsky is 100% correct in what he said.
But will he be listened to?
Remember that Stremousov, who was speaking in those same terms all the time, died on the day Kherson was surrendered and it is not at all clear it was the SBU/GUR's doing rather than an order from the Kremlin in order to keep overtly patriotic loudmouths like him in check...
Given what we know about operation paperclip, I am uncertain the Nazi agenda did not, "consolidate control with ethnic cleansing, brainwashing of the remaining population over many decades, etc. etc." We literally have the entire EU demanding the protection of a sovereign Nazi Ukraine.
From memory Hoover sent his number 2 man to Germany in 37? He came back with high praise of all things Nazi. The fellas from paperclip did not languish on the shop floor.
Hitler may have been defeated but fascism is alive and kicking.
The US invested heavily in Germany in the 1930s, to the point that certain objects were off-limits for bombing during the war, and then ownership quickly resumed after it.
And vice versa - the Germans modeled their racial segregation practices on the US South and borrowed their racial superiority theories from the US and the UK.
People somehow never seem to realize that the US and the UK were really aligned with the Nazis all the way until 1939 for the latter and 1941 for the former (what happened in the late 1930s is presented today as "appeasement", but if you knew nothing about it a priori, you would see it as instigation) and then promptly became allies with them again even before the war was over. Plans for war with the USSR were laid down in the spring of 1945 and the renewal of the alliance with the Nazis began to take shape as early as the end of 1944.
By the late 1940s it wasn't even hidden anymore and "former" Nazis were openly integrated in the new Western political and military structures.
So basically the West has been Nazi and with Nazis against Russia all throughout except for that brief period in the 1940s.
Yet Russian elites have been trying very hard to ignore that objective reality, which doesn't at all speak well about the quality and loyalties of Russian elites...
"Burn it with fire" should be the approach to this problem, instead they want to be buddies with those who are out to destroy them. Which guarantees defeat in the long run.
Yeah the theory that Hitler went off the plantation and started doing his own thing is interesting. So point him at Russia and that was always the goal. Have also read the only time you were totally safe flying around Europe is if you had a Rothschild emblem on you aircraft. Why let them escape at Dunkirk? Hell there are more than a few unanswered questions.
To replay so many of the nightmares for Russia is flagrant. Look at their annual memorials and tell me the wounds are not fresh. So lets invade Kursk? And the whole EU screams yeah get em? We used to pray that our leaders would be guided to make wise decisions, now we beg that one of them might be sane.
Even if he is elected, he only will be able to escalate. Call him "Putin puppet!" and he will fold, just as he folded on multiple occasions during his last term.
I do not envy American voters. That country really hit the fan. They have a Devils choice this time. I dont trust Trump - says one thing does another. Harris dont say a thing and does nothing- she only laughs. Then…dont underestimate Clownpeople. Look at the one in Kiev - destroyed millions of peoples future and lives.
Look: USAns have been the recipients of several generations of social engineering a large part of which is massive amounts of sheer ignorance. Most of them are entrapped by the Red vs BLue bipolar model and will believe until the end that their team is the only goos one. No amount of proof that policy changes very little will awaken them. To be fair there is a segment of the population that sees that “they both suck” but they tend to be less vocal.
“If Russia is defeated in Ukraine, European submission to the Americans will be prolonged for a century. If, as I believe, the United States is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free. The psychological shock awaiting Europeans will be to realize that NATO does not exist to protect us but to control us,” so historian Emmanuel Todd told an interviewer w/ Italy’s Corriere di Bologna on 9 October.
Todd shed unique light on Germany’s historic r’ship w/ VVP: “During the Iraq war, Putin, Schröder and Chirac held joint press conferences. This terrified Washington. It seemed that America could be expelled from the European continent. Russia's separation from Germany thus became a priority for American strategists. Making the situation in Ukraine worse served this purpose. Forcing the Russians into war to prevent Ukraine's de facto integration into NATO was, initially, a major diplomatic success for Washington."
Todd described Germany's general paralysis in 2022 as the shock of the SMO set in, a period which "allowed the Americans, amid the general confusion in Europe, to blow up the NordStream pipeline, a symbol of the economic understanding between Germany and Russia."
In Todd's view, the war is in its second phase: that of American defeat.
"U.S. control over Europe will be pulverized," Todd told his interviewer. "Germany and Russia will meet again. This conflict is in a sense artificial. The natural thing, in a low-fertility Europe, with its aging population, is the complementarity between German industry and Russian energy and mineral resources.”
In all of Project Ukraine’s dimensions, Germany has paid the highest price for loser-ship status--from the loss of cheap natural gas to the neutering of its industrial might. It is undoubtedly a generational knee-capping.
Todd’s insights offer a fresh spin amid the increasingly archaic vitriol emanating from Brussels, via Mark Rutte, for instance, OTAN’s new chief, who said on 9 October: “If Putin gets his way in Ukraine, that would have serious security implications for all of us” in the Alliance.
I mean, can you find a more boilerplated & regressive statement than that--?!!?
"Putin" already got his way.
Russia's security matters. The critical importance of Russia's security will now of course involve OTAN massively, just not the way groupthink Rutte believes. Ukraine's capitulation will be OTAN's capitulation.
Moreover, since all wars are bankers' wars--a phrase I just coined--the money-launderers-in-chief, the kleptocrats in Brussels, want to legitimatize their theft & grift operation by going into the banking business.
Rutte et al want to set up an OTAN Bank—security funding specifically earmarked for financing Project Ukraine. OTAN'$ member states will pay money from subscriptions so they can fund the OTAN Bank; this is over & above the 2% already expected from member states to keep OTAN afloat.
Europe will soon be little more than the most touristy military spending place on earth: a Trevi Fountain w/ Tomahawk missiles.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians get used to losing a village every day.
Well in reality Russian energy, commodities and food resources will probably now be coupled with Chinese industrial manufacturing and building Chinese infrastructure, well in reality possibly Asia as a whole. Why would the Russians be dumb enough to revive relations with a Europe that hates them to the point of many attempts to annihilate them as a people? From Napoleon's attempt to liberate Russia to Hitler's attempt to exterminate Russians needing resources and "liebenstraum". Why now would Russia subordinate itself to a hateful west when they can lead a grateful global majority?
If you look at geography the possible BRICS expansion will control every strategic choke point in global movement of goods. Russia controls the North sea route having the largest fleet of nuclear icre breakers; Egypt controls the Suez canal; Iran and Saudi Arabia control the straits of Hormuz; The Chinese pioneering over land routes with the BRI. Then going forward looking for Malaysia Indonesia and a possible invite to Singapore to control the Malacca strait; Thailand for their development of an alternate route bypassing Malacca; Then Yemen for the control of the Bab Al Manbab; Turkiye for control of the Basborous and the Dardanelles and Nicruagua in South America for the new canal being built by a "Chinese businessman". BRICS is basically a major paradigm shift in global geopolitics.
I think China's BRI/CMEC investment in Myanmar is to bypass the Malacca straits. You are right about Malaysia/Indonesia/Thailand and Vietnam entry being a game changer as these are the strongest ASEAN members.
Here is an unpopular opinion -- Russia's resources, contrary to popular belief, are not infinite, and are therefore best kept inside the country, for the benefit of future Russian generations, rather than being sold for pennies on the dollar of their real worth, whether to Westerners or to Chinese.
Let the Westerners and the Chinese try to develop without resources, keep your resources to yourself, and invest in local development.
Makes sense, right?
Except that if you do that, the present arrangement according to which the current Russian oligarchy gets a percentage on the loot and that is the basis of its power falls apart. And that oligarchy largely controls the Kremlin. There are other forces pushing for an alternative path, but the internal conflict has not been resolved in their favor. Thus the SMO not-war format and all the other self-defeating (non)-actions that make absolutely no sense if one naively assumes that the people who rule Russia do so in Russia's interest rather their personal interest.
Well it is your perspective, the only thing that would make it unpopular is what exactly clouds the lens through which you see the world. Yes, totally agree with the thought that Russian resources should belong to Russians and not be sold to Chinese or westerners for pennies. Yet I would think Russians would not want to be a hermit state totally isolated from international trade. I don't know how you discerned how finite Russian resources are to start hoarding their exports.
Well from lots of reading on the state of Russian leadership I conclude it is led by one man Vladimir Putin and a beuracracy of his creation, for the last 24 years. It is fair to consider him a "prisoner of power" with that said what possible self interest would the Russian president have at his age, money? The reality is money creates the illusion of power, so what value would it be to a man that encompass the definition of global power? Possibly his greatest ambition is to rule a great Russia and leave that as his legacy.
"Here is an unpopular opinion ... rather than being sold for pennies on the dollar of their real worth, whether to Westerners or to Chinese."
Respectfully, that's not an "unpopular" opinion, it's just an inaccurate opinion. Your premise is false. Russian resources are *not* being sold for pennies on the dollar of their real worth, not to the Chinese, and not to anyone.
On the contrary, Russia is getting top dollar for its resources, and it's doing so as a matter of very wise investment. It's selling resources it cannot at present use as a means of funding development that will allow Russia to grow even faster. It would be intensely stupid for Russia not to take advantage of resources that help Russia develop.
"that oligarchy largely controls the Kremlin" Ad-hominem labels don't explain reality: they obfuscate reality. In every developed country in the world elites control the government. It's been that way in human societies for thousands of years. The only question is how the interests of such elites align to the interests of the society at large.
Russians today have become fervent believers in capitalism because Russia's abandonment of communism and socialism in favor of a switch to capitalism has led to the creative and entrepreneurial energies of the Russian population being unleashed, with dramatically increased living standards, longer life expectancies, reduced infant mortality and dramatically increased personal freedoms. Today's "oligarchs" (that is, wealthy people and business leaders) have morphed from the opportunistic looters of the 90's into genuine entrepreneurs, like Russia's richest woman, Tanya Kim, the founder of Wildberries, a hugely successful Russian Internet shopping platform, akin to Amazon.
Russians tend to *like* the idea that business leaders and entrepreneurs have influence in government. They much prefer that to bureaucrats and socialist party apparatchiks controlling government. They know that entrepreneurs like Tanya Kim want to see Russia expand and everybody making more money because then their businesses will make more money too.
"if one naively assumes that the people who rule Russia do so in Russia's interest rather their personal interest." On the contrary, what's naive is believing socialist propaganda for morons that being interested in success is a zero sum proposition. It never fails to amuse how Communists have a huge blind spot in their belief that Communism is best because deep down inside people will nobly work for nothing to support others, but when confronted with the reality that people really do want something for themselves they say capitalism can't possibly work because deep down inside people are evil and think only about themselves.
In reality, people are social animals and have the intrinsic social skill to understand that it is in their own best interest to live in successful communities, and that putting their own interests forward is most successfully done by fair trading that benefits others as well. The most successful businesspeople in the long term are those who love their customers and who thrive because they build win-win propositions for their customers.
The people who rule Russia do so in Russia's interest as well as in their own personal interest because their personal interests are aligned with Russia's interests. A strong, successful, prosperous Russia is very much in the interests of the intellectual, political, and business elites that run Russia. It's intensely naive to believe otherwise.
Actually, I live in Russia and I've spent a lot of time in many of the other former communist countries. I've been an eye witness to how Russia has evolved from the pathetic end of communism into an economic powerhouse.
But I see you have nothing intelligent to add, since you're just mouthing off with insults. I suppose you avoid getting into anything specific because the more you do that, the more it's clear that what I wrote was explicitly, literally true.
all the infrastructure, all of the factories, all of the universities are build before `90s.
the post 90 regime is like a mushroom eating a grate fallen tree.
u`re probably a westerner who came here in the 90s-00s with a handfull of dollars who took advantage of a collapsing society. you`re time will come make no mistake :))
you are right and GM is a known 'doom and gloom' character/personality. I have seen years now of sky is falling, things are horrible, RU is about to lose from him/her. Even when Russia is clearly winning and getting better every day, things are always bad to them, 'oligarch control Kremlin', etc. just a personality type I guess.
Chosen language indicates the point of view of the speaker. Russian elites are 'oligarchs'. Putin is represented as a 'despot', 'strongman', etc. China sets up a 'great firewall' but the corresponding efforts by US entities, such as all the Echelon data taps, are nonthreatening. Of course.
It's all in your point of view, of course. But the point of view of most of the West is warped by hegemonic propaganda.
All that is true. But, going beyond a pleasantly funny remark, there's real depth in that as well. Why? Because to get what they like in Italian fashion, German beer, and French cheeses Russians no longer need to do business with Italy, Germany or France.
Let's take French cheeses first. Over the years I've spent a lot of time in France and I really like French cheeses. In fact, one of the annoying things about living in the US for me before I moved overseas was the toxic combination of US bans on French cheese (the best of which are unpasteurized and thus not importable into the US) plus complete incompetence of Americans at duplicating French cheeses. Seriously, except for very rare cases if you bought "blue cheese" in the US you'd get something that tastes like chemical rubber, and forget about getting a decently ripe Camembert.
Russia used to be that way too, and even worse. At least you could buy good French cheeses imported here, but the local knock-offs were terrible. All that started changing about ten years ago, primarily as a result of increasing wealth in Russia coupled with the fanatic Russian habit of traveling abroad and taking hold as cultural touchstones the best of what they found abroad. People started making really decent artisanal cheeses in Russia that were, astoundingly, as good as the better French cheeses.
That happened, of course, because the French have a big cheese industry and they were perfectly happy selling consulting expertise on setting up cheese production together with everything you could possibly need, such as cultures, machinery, equipment, in-house French experts to teach your staff over the course of years, specific breeds of milk-producing cattle, and so on.
When the Ukraine conflict started Russia sanctioned French cheeses and that opened the market up to local production, including continuing production by French brands like President that continued doing business as Russian companies. So now you can go down to your local superstore and get a wide range of "French" cheeses that are as good as or better as you can get in French supermarkets. I think it is somewhat easier to get the very best artisanal French cheeses in France than in Russia, but if you hunt around you can find them here, and they'll be so good that in a blind taste test (I've arranged them, with friends, just for fun) even if you have a lot of experience with fine French cheeses you'll only have about a 50-50 chance of picking the French originals from Russian production.
Beer is now the most popular alcoholic beverage in Russia. Vodka and other hard liquor consumption is way down. There are tens of thousands of brands of craft beer made in Russia, with thousands of brands of German-style beers. I personally prefer the local Russian beers largely because the mass market German brands like Spaten and such seem too commercial and uninteresting. But if you like that sort of thing there are mass market Russian brands as well, including German producers who have been producing in Russia for 20 years and continue to do so. Anyway, if you like German style beers there's no need to buy them from Germany.
As for Italian fashion, well, you got me there. Wealthy Russians do like Italian suits for men and Italian fashions for women and the local Russian fashion industry doesn't match those. That's good for rich people because Italians continue to sell tons of goods in Russia - they're against sanctions when it comes to selling their fashions into Russia.
But I think that's a niche effect because most people in Russia don't dress in Italian high fashion. They're more influenced by more casual US styles, as much of Europe has been influenced, and there's tons of that going on in Russia. It's more an urban Canada Goose look for most people. But there as well with the decline in quality from vendors like Canada Goose, a reaction I suppose to increased costs of materials and labor in the US, Canada, and the EU, there's been a lot of market share taken by Russian vendors.
For years I used to wear Canada Goose in the wintertime but last year I switched to a parka for winter wear and a slightly lighter jacket for late autumn and early spring from a Russian vendor and the only thing I feel about those is wondering why I didn't switch earlier. They're superior on all fronts compared to my Canada Goose. The zippers and velcro are better quality, the material is better quality, and the cut is a bit longer so it's more comfortable in higher wind. The pockets are much better designed (if you've ever worn a classic Canada Goose expedition parka you know what I mean). The fur trimming the hood is better quality too. Ah, and the price is less than1/5th of what Canada Goose charges.
Just saying, it was nice in past years to get the better parts of what Europe had to offer, but now with their economies under stress and their quality declining it's nice to be able to buy as good as or better locally, and at a fraction of the price. That goes for so many things, like fine wine and other gourmet foods, that I still marvel at that sometimes, like today at lunch where I found myself thinking, "this is a *really* good Camembert...".
Heck, I think after writing this I'll pour a glass of truly super Krasnostop (a local grape often blended with Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc) from a bottle I opened yesterday. Life is good.
I moved to Moscow around 2010 and the beer selection mostly sucked. There were like two pubs that had some good Belgian Trappist ales and then a couple of Irish pubs serving Guinness.
I watched the transformation that happened quite rapidly. Especially after 2014, all of a sudden craft beer pubs sprang up all over the cities and Russian breweries made some good attempts at IPAs. They couldn’t do ales for shit, but even established breweries in the U.S. can’t match the Belgians.
It soon to spread to other locations. My wife comes from a decently large city in the south of Russia and even they had craft beer and better grocery selection by 2015.
Definitely was a renaissance in Russians producing some pretty good domestic food and drink luxuries.
I left Moscow in early 2018 and we still miss the city.
I'm disappointed that Russia hasn't managed to entirely reverse the 'poorly cut suits' trope from the USSR days. But otherwise pleased to hear things are well with other products there. Russians deserve to have the full fruits of the modern age finally.
I found the desire for (frankly not that great) Western mass produced goods to be a disappointing thing to be undermining the SU. Courtesy of the same economic warfare that is currently being tried against Russia again. I see a consistent thread in this behavior running back to 1918.
"I'm disappointed that Russia hasn't managed to entirely reverse the 'poorly cut suits' trope from the USSR days." They have, now. If you're a billionaire you're still going to have your suits made for you in Italy, I suppose, but there's no reason now in Russia to buy Western clothes.
I used to do that out of inertia. I'd visit the US a few times a year and stock up on jeans and such from Nordstroms or whatever. And then one day for a birthday present somebody gave me a gift certificate for a local men's store, some no-name brand (at least to me, it was a name brand to Russians...) so I went there to try stuff on. I would have never otherwise entered the place.
Well, was I surprised. It wasn't the collection of tasteless, poorly made and ill fitting clothes I expected. On the contrary it was all very well made stuff that I liked a lot. In the West, for example, jeans were trending to low rise skinny jeans that may be great for 18 year olds but look ridiculous on men in their late 40's or early 50's. But here in the men's store were all sorts of "classic" jeans that were comfortable, with just a couple percent of elastic fiber in them so they had some give to them. I guess they're called "Dad" jeans in the US.
They had a wide range of suit jackets, suits, shirts, cardigans, vests, and all sorts of other things. I was astonished. And it was all really well made, and well made in Russia too, not just imported from Turkey or China or other places. And it was all about a third of the price I'd pay in the US or EU for lesser quality.
It's true that Russian tastes to this day often run to vulgar, but that's no longer the dominant theme. Now there's plenty of tasteful and classic stuff to pick from. Since my visit to that men's store I've been buying all my clothes in Russia.
"I found the desire for (frankly not that great) Western mass produced goods to be a disappointing thing to be undermining the SU. " Agree. It was embarrassingly demeaning I think to Russians when they slobbered over utter Western junk. Thank God that's pretty much all gone.
That's been another growth experience for me as well, as I've been shifting from listening only to Western rock and pop music (when I don't listen to classical...) to mixing in more and more Russian rock and pop. I couldn't listen to a lot of Russian rock music from the early 1990's because it was all such awful rehashes of Western stuff, just trying to imitate the West. I was reminded of that recently when my AI played a few tracks from "Gorky Park," a 90s group that sang in English. Everything was totally derivative, from the guitar licks to their vocal stylings, like they aspired to be a third rate Aerosmith tribute band.
I compared that to my recent explorations of Би-2's (B-2's) "Luna Park" album, especially the first CD, which is really interesting and original music, or the sound track to the Брат 2 (Brother 2) movie, from 2000, which also is all original, just musicians being themselves without trying to imitate something in the West. It's an outstanding album.
I don't know anyone that wears Canada Goose here in Canada. I think it is an overpriced brand that probably more folks in cities like Toronto wear then in rural Canada.
"Why would the Russians be dumb enough to revive relations with a Europe that hates them to the point of many attempts to annihilate them as a people?"
Because prestige and status. Because they want to be allowed to join The Club.
Same reason Ukrainians embraced the nationalist ideology, turned on their brothers and their own parents. Because that was the price of admission to The Club.
I think by now the Russians have probably gotten the message, they are not welcomed in the club. The Russian oligarchs who had their assets siezed and were treated like fugitives in 2022 surely realize they cannot even buy their way into the club. Who knows Russians seem to have short memories, it seems and eventually they may prove themselves to be as stupid as the club articulate them to be.
I hope you are correct, but the fact that Russia is still ready to do a Minsk-3 (apparently this is why the Kursk incursion took Russia by such surprise) shows otherwise, even though Minsk and Minsk-2 were shams obvious to everyone but the Russian leadership.
For that matter, how many times have the Americans sold the Kurds down the river? Six times, is it, or seven? I lose count. Anyway, it does not matter, as the Kurds keep on coming back for more.
Welll I remember maybe more than a year ago, it was announced that Russia would make a very reasonable offer to Ukraine and it's western backers. The expectations was that the offer would be refused, as it was. The strange thing about the timing of the Russian offer, is that before it was made Vasily Nebenzya Russia's permanent representative to the UN stated "The world should get used to the thought of unconditional surrender in Ukraine". So the offer in my opinion was very disingenuous on the part of the Russian leadership. The Ukrainians were just not sophisticated enough to accept the offer and throw off the Russian strategy. So now they face the consequences of their actions.
The fact that Russia got an opportunity to isolate and destroy Ukraine's strategic reserves, the best Ukraine had, in Kursk appears in my opinion to have been a trap. Now the Russians can advance unimpeded as they no longer need to worry about a surprise counter offensive from Ukraine.
Just possibilities, though I am more a believer in human incompetence as success or defeat are sometimes a matter of chance.
From the perspective of the Ukrainian politics business class, the continuation of the war is an unmitigated blessing. The worst thing that could happen to them is for the war to end.
"even though Minsk and Minsk-2 were shams obvious to everyone but the Russian leadership." Nonsense. Don't pat yourself on the back for seeing what everyone else missed, because you didn't see it either. Absolutely *nobody* thought that Germany, France, and the US had so dramatically lost touch with the responsibilities that kept them from annihilation that they would deliberately lie about such grave matters to a nuclear power.
Everyone thought that people like Merkel were wise enough not to burn their bridges forever by destroying diplomacy as a tool they needed, by lying to Russia. There's no way to fix that short of many decades without having that tool.
" the fact that Russia is still ready to do a Minsk-3 (apparently this is why the Kursk incursion took Russia by such surprise) "
Russia was never willing to do a Minsk-3 nor is any such fake willingness the reason why the Kursk incursion occurred. The Kursk incursion didn't take Russia by surprise: Russia planned for such things. It knew such things were extremely low probability events so it allocated the resources to handle them accordingly.
Russia knew that Kiev doing a Kursk attack would be a one-way ticket for Kiev to oblivion, a suicidal move. Kiev could only mount such an attack by pulling resources desperately needed to prevent collapses elsewhere on the front, and it could only try such an attack at the cost of having elite, reserve forces killed that it also desperately needed to plug holes elsewhere.
Russia knew there was a very low probability of Kiev attempting a nation-state level terrorist act in Kursk as a means of baiting Russia into general war with the US, but Russia also knew that the military outcome of such a terrorist attack would virtually guarantee defeat of Kiev and the West in Ukraine. That's exactly how Kiev's terrorist act in Kursk has played out. Every rational observer, and even some of the delusional ones such as the Pentagon, were wondering from the first day of the Kursk action why Kiev would try such an obviously doomed tactic.
Kiev has now had 22,000 men killed in Kiev, including brutal losses to Kiev's most elite brigades that it cannot afford. It has lost thousands of military assets such as tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, and air defense units it cannot replace. Russia has surged ahead along the entire front, taking advantage of weaknesses caused by Kiev's sending of needed manpower off to die in Kursk.
At the same time, attitudes have hardened in Russia to where it appears Russia will not settle for anything other than unconditional defeat of all of nazi-occupied Ukraine.
I am hardly patting myself on the back for seeing what everyone else saw, including leadership of the LNR and DNR, who had to be pressured into signing.
You would think it has become clear to them….Oh well, Perhaps Russia will again be able to make gobs of money off their cranky and uninclusive European brethren..
"Because prestige and status. Because they want to be allowed to join The Club."
I see you didn't get the memo that the 90's want their stereotypes back. Russians have become far more worldly than in the early 90's. Russians don't give a shit about the EU or EU clubs. They've travelled all over the world and they know Europe decades ago entered a down and out phase.
A good example is the lousy food in Paris. Americans are so badly travelled they don't realize it when they're served food that was made in a food factory in Ireland, shipped refrigerated or frozen to Paris, kept in cold storage in the back of a bistro, and then just reheated to be plated and served to tourists. But something like 70% of the food sold in cafes and bistros in central Paris is like that. The high cost of labor and carrying the burden of the French social welfare state, coupled with extreme financial incompetence by the French government, has made it too expensive for most French restaurants in Paris to prepare food from scratch in real kitchens. It's the same way in many big cities in Italy, too.
Heck, that even extends to French baguettes. Almost all French baguettes now sold are made in food factories, par-baked and then frozen. They're popped into ovens for a few minutes to finish the baking process and then sold in bakeries and supermarkets. Handmade baguettes actually made on premises from flour have become so rare that the French have a name for them, "traditional" baguettes.
Russians aren't cretins so they know all that. They also know lousy service when they see it, and after the tenth visit to Paris or other tourist spots they're ready to move on.
They also know there's no prestige or status in being cretins like EU governments. Russians are repelled by the woke idiocy, the perversion, and the absolute stupidity of EU countries. It's like having a club for low-IQ, impoverished, incompetent perverts. Nobody with an IQ over 40 wants to be "allowed to join" such a club.
Russia, in contrast, has a lot of admiration for China. That's the club Russia wants to join, and in fact that's the club Russia helped create: BRICS. It's a much more interesting club than a bunch of vicious, failed colonialists on their way down.
Ukrainians, by the way, didn't "embrace the nationalist ideology." They were slaughtered by a nazi minority that took power, which arrested and killed 15,000 Ukrainians who opposed the nazi junta in the territories the nazis captured. The nazis knew from their WW2 experience (it was the same parties, with some of the same people who committed atrocities in WW2 still alive to provide "hands on" expertise) that if you kill anybody who opposes you the only narrative that young people hear is the narrative you tell them. Eight long years followed by two more of truly intense killing of opponents enabled the nazis to brainwash a much higher percentage of young people than would have ever gone along with them.
"Ukrainians" didn't go to Maidan. A few thousand people out of 52 million went to Maidan. Thinking that is a movement of "Ukrainians" is a profound failure of common sense.
In any country the application of a few billion US dollars can turn out a few thousand people to do pretty much whatever the paymasters want. In the case of Ukraine the US used the same playbook it has used in poor countries around the world for much of the past century: throw dollars at impoverished locals and buy however many goons the US wants. It's a cheap and very effective tactic.
The Ukrainian people I know who went were not paid. Trying to tell them that membership in The Club was not on offer was like trying to tell a toddler that some toy wasn't all it was promised in the TV show and commercials.
Moreover, since Maidan, those people have only continued to double down
Agree fully with you. Emmanuel Todd is a peculiar guy that I will call genius. He forecasted the fall of USSR as young and his Apres lémpire (After the Empire)he forecasted the demise of US. His latest book Defeat of the West (La Défaite de l’Occident) is a gem. Read it with pleasure. In my country he is non-grata and seen as an extremist but all he says is true and noteworthy.
As for the new rotten head of NATO I only expect evilness. And we 850 million people in Europe is keeping our mouths shut when non-elected Rutte talk about Europes future?
Was not NATO a defense coalition - not a geopolitical movement with its own agenda?
And we let von der Leyen speak for all countries in Europe without having any mandate what so ever of conducting each sovereign Nations foregin policy. The silence in Europe is the most frightening I have experienced. People letting those powergrabbers doing crimes each day by letting EU-money leaving EU to a non-EU state in War!
Thx C for the Todd input. Simplicius readers should get deeper into his books.
Yeah, but what really can we do? I talk of Europeans who are conscientious of the lies and bs our Elites spread? Reality is, if I talk of von Der Lying as the lying, corrupt fraud she is, I would be probably criminally charged, and I would definitely loose my job (I work in some capacity for the state). So many say nothing, many others believe the bs and lies, because they sleep mostly, and many simply don't care.
I think we are in the cycle of downfall, its always the same, the first generation builds up its wealth, the second generation retains it and the third generation wastes it. And we are in the 3rd cycle, the waste cycle.
There is not much we can do, I said it here a couple of times, the Politicians like Von der Leyen, Rutte, Schröder, Starmer, Johnson, etc. etc., are just a small portion of the smear theater we are witnessing, behind them are hundreds of thousands of second and third rate Politicians, Administrator, NGOs, Think Tanks, Technocrats, small/middle/big corporations, state media, private media (they get money all the time from the Pentagon, state funds, etc.) who benefit of all the corruption and lies. Its like a sewage plant, you see the piles of shite at the top at the sewage sea (Elite Politicians), you don't see the countless little pieces of shite below it...
I can't remember the reference, but an interesting interview stated that Europe would try to double down on NATO, in the event of a defeat. The rational being that relying on the US military frees European countries from dealing with each other. If Germany rearms for defensive purposes, then Denmark, Belgium, France, Poland, etc will need to, as defensive weapons can be used offensively.
Russia and China are not natural allies (in the sense that each has what the other wants and can best get through cooperation) so much as Russia and Germany are natural allies. (Russia and China have much to offer one another, but largely they have been forced together as a result of American aggression.)
Russia has resources, skilled workers and markets. Russia wants to sell resources and attractinvestment to keep Russian workers busy and obtain technology transfer.
Germany has capital, products and know-how. Germany wants resources to fuel German factories, markets for German goods, investment opportunities for German capital and workers in German-owned or factories that won't actually move to Germany.
It has been United States policy to prevent this natural alliance from coming to fruitition. Luckily for Washington, europeans like being slaves.
The Politico assessment is actually on a 1 to 5 scale ("evaluations are given on a five-point scale (maximum 5 points)"). So "In the article "Five Questions Zelensky Is Asking in His European Tour (and the Likelihood He'll Get Them)" (there are actually 6 questions there) Politico's assessment is that 4 questions are straight out cloud cuckoo land, deserving a full 1 out of 5 mark... Some people are having trouble with maths today.
In every peace talk the enemy also gets a say - and the Russians are going to say nyet to anything that’s left of Ukraine from joining NATO. That was their chief complaint before this Donnybrook got started.
The only possible terms that Russia is going to accept is the unconditional surrender of Kiev. The only choice Kiev has is if it will be de jore or d facto.
WTH did they get that number? Reached into and pulled it out from their a$$?
BTW, this is not really an "American" defeat, it's not about the US, it's about the UK imperialists -globalist oligarchs and bankers- who took over the polity of the US after WWII.
An "American defeat" is actually a defeat of the UK based colonialists. Something good for us in the US, actually, and the whole World.
I used to wonder why the UK was so involved in Ukraine? It seemed like they were the tail wagging the dog... but nooo, instead they are the loud chihuahua making noises. Time to get rid of them.
The Western Polities are ALL controlled by the money men in London.
They are the colonialists that renamed the British Empire into the American Empire... primarily for their own benefit and using the US Taxpayers to foot their frickin' bill.
Even the English politicos are controlled by them.
If you read carefully what I write -that goes for Alec Green- you will notice that I don't blame "the UK" per se, I blame the globalist oligarchs and bankers, which for 400 years have been based in London.
Nope, you do run it. See Great Game. Moreover, your boys are prepping the next show already by cruising Central Asian republics and establishing routes of migration of their least wanted islamists to Russia. Last time a UK spy was kicked out, FSB reported his ties to Russian Muslim community and immigration lobby. He was planting a bomb that is scheduled to blow in several decades. That's the level UK operates at.
It matters not anymore what the little green gremlin thinks as Russia commands the entire field of battle. Mission accomplished.
The sinister NEOs got Mike Tysoned. (one shot knock-out)
The NEOs and nutsy NATOs dug themselves so deep into the mineshaft there's no evacuation plan and no way out. Not only has NUTSO NATO and friends lost militarily but also they are a whole lot poorer because of it. Capturing the 4 Oblasts alone Russia will add many trillions in cash to its books over time, and the valuable repurposed land will add to its already geo-physical corpulence making it an even bigger biggest country in the world. lol One could say NATO paid the whole bill patriotically billed to us the taxpayers for every nickle spent on this conflict when it would have been so much cheaper and wiser just not to fuck with the Minsk Accord.
Mike, could you explain to the NEO-NUTSOs when you say everyone got a plan till you punch them in the face? Thanks, Big Mike.https://youtu.be/qSuMgOu8QPo?t=41
whoop, whoop
After War, another 4th Horsemen from the Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaires... Since 1976 with Cloud seeding with Silver iodide, with HAARP microwave heating of the upper atmosphere to create an atmospheric dome to manage the jet stream, to create an area of intolerable heat underneath. Doppler radar to steer hurricane systems. Trillion watt lasers to further steer weather systems from space. Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide to supposedly block off the heating of the sun to stop global warming but instead has the effect of destroying the ozone layer having exactly the opposite effect of increasing the heat of the planet! Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide is having the effect also of increasing the PH of the soil killing the trees, destroying the crowns, destroying their root systems, making trees fall over, destroying trees worldwide - Acid Rain…
Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide is having the effect also of attacking the respiration of people so that deaths from the lungs, asthma, lung cancer, difficulty in breathing is increasing.
Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide is having the effect also of killing the bees, killing insects killing pollination. 80% of all insects have died worldwide!
Nano Aluminium, Strontium, Barium sprays of hundreds of thousands of tons yearly from planes Worldwide is having the effect also of killing all vegetation, all flowers, killing the crops, decreasing their yield. Monsatan is creating aluminium resistant Frankenstein seeds which in future will be the only thing which grows.
Pathogens in the Sky: A Controversial Connection - We own an audio of him at geoengineeringwatch.org stating, in his words, what he did for the DoD, designed methods of spraying virus and biological pathogens into clouds to infect the populations below. Think about that. And now we have pathogens showing up in the case of CV-19. We had 85 countries infected in three days. That's indicative of an airborne dispersion. We have Italian scientists that say they have found CV-19 attached to airborne particulates. Do these dots connect? So the bottom line is, again, we can hide from forms of medical procedures that we don't want, the injections. We cannot hide from what they're spraying in our skies. And at any moment of their choosing, Because we have polymer fibers and graphene in our rain. That's in our lab tests.
https://satchidanand.substack.com/p/scientists-confirm-weather-weapons
Meh - clearly an innumerate conspiracy theorist.
The world's entire annual production of Aluminum (70 million), Strontium (360K) and Barium (6 million) cannot support "hundreds of thousands of tons" dropped from planes.
For that matter, the entire world's air cargo capacity is only 102 million metric tons. Arguing that 3%? 5%? more? of all air cargo, anywhere, in an entire year is devoted to dropping aerosolized metals is ludicrous.
For that matter, where are the thousands of metal processing plants, storage warehouses and tanker trucks needed to mine, process, transport "hundreds of thousands of tons" of these metals? And to load them onto the planes? Surely you intrepid sleuths can find some actual physical evidence....were it to exist.
She clearly ate way too many lead paint chips as a child.
"gripped tight by his ‘piano hand’." Coffee through the nose. I should know better.
Heeheehee
Then a second time –
"compelling Zelensky .. like a fly prancing from one turd to another."
In our language, this is much more colorfully expressed "Like when a fly flies from one piece of shit to another piece of shit!" :)
Oh I just got it, haha! indeed .
reference to Zelenskyyy's past career as a comedian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbmZrzN3WFE
I don't get it and it seems google can't help me
Send the mutt meat. The Russians can grind it and give it to the Chinese after it's properly tenderized.
Then send the US the bill in flag-draped coffins.
Frankly I see the commitment of NATO personnel as a good thing because they will have a more difficult time covering up the losses, and there will be losses. Russia gets to track and eliminate the “officers” and further erode their assets. Of course there will be the usual behind the scenes retaliation as well.
So bring it on, because there is nothing quite like an expensive and vulnerable last ditch effort!
Last sentence ( about Iran missing the retaliatory stike timing ) hopefully that's not the case... I agree.
IMHO it’s laughable to think Israel could eliminate Iran’s ability to retaliate in one strike.
It would be the absolute best timing for Iran to strike as well though.
agreed. And they have said it will be immediate and 10 times worse ( my calculation ) than the previous. I guess its the only way to get rid of Israel - which definitely has to happen - but this is a great interview - https://youtu.be/u7J2SA8U7Fk
The time is right to wipe Nazi Talmudland off the map as it is weak, it Iron Dome = Iron Sieve (copied this from Simplicius himself), and the U.S. is weak.
As long as Nazi Talmudland exists, death and destruction will continue in the region and the world will be brought to the brink repeatedly, and will probably fall off the cliff one day, courtesy of the Talmudist Nazis.
Painting with a rather broad brush.
There is evil amongst leaders of the western world but the people themselves are basically good if a bit too subservient.
Regardless… Bibi is hastening the end of his country.
I wouldn't call them good. Their general world view is "So what if my neighbor is sacrificing his children to Moloch? How's that my business?"
Transgender lunacy took root in their societies in less than 10 years. That doesn't happen in grounded cultures.
The woke madness is rife in my USA but it’s a very loud minority. I find the same everywhere; most people are good and generally tend to their own business. It’s the psychopaths in politics and their busybody acolytes that have f*cked everything and terrorized the world.
Ultimately that’s still the citizens fault due to blissful ignorance but that IS changing.
That’s why the politicos focus on narratives — to keep the people ignorant and distracted — but those are failing spectacularly nowadays.
If/When they strikes Iran, it’s vital that the counter strike happen immediately and without warning. Make it hurt because the big Z and little z are not going to back down.
The US and other countries are trying to convince Israel not to attack nuclear or oil facilities in Iran. Israel has recently said that when it attacks, Iran will not know what happened but will see the result. That little riddle tells me that the zionists will most likely hit Iran’s electric power generating systems. They won’t know what happened because the electricity will be off. But they will see the results because the lights are out.
Hopefully, Iran’s defence network runs off its own independent power generating sources not tied to the civilian grid. And hopefully, they then immediately wipe out the zionists’ infrastructure, giving them a taste of Gaza.
Yeah that what I reckon too. Maybe some kinda 'non kinetic' attack on the power grid like what happend in Venuezala a few year back-Russia helped get it back up but it took a bit. Maybe communications too. Very clear that Iran is riddled with Mossad agents-look at all those scientists assassinated. Plus clear that Hezb is fucked now, totally riddled with spies. If Israel can ge the commanders they can get the arms bunkers and the HQ strike showed what they can do to Hezb's best bunker. Why is Hammas NOT tell Hezb in advance of thier pans for Oct 7? Cause they KNOW Hezb are riddled with spies and also that they are NOT a serious fighting force despite all the rah rah rah. In 12 month or so what did Hezb achieve? Didn't take out the fuel temrinals or storages despite 'all the sophisticated weapons' they are sia dot have...full of shit. Iran is using Hezb as a bargaining chip to get sanctions releif -Irans back off on Hezb support and Iran get relief. Only they fucked up on the calcuations-the Israel and US saw the 'mass attack' reprisal for what it was.Weakness on Irans part. Not serious about Palestine at all just using the 'cause for Irans benefit and Lebanse get bled out. I reckong Israel will fuck up Heb big time and then push the Leb people to rise up against the fuckers.
I cannot imagine that Iran would be so foolish not to have backup power supplies to key defense infrastructure.
That said, one way or another, Israel will get the war it is seeking.
"the close ties of the Persian Empire with Israel have never ceased. Even today, the Eilat-Ashkelon oil pipeline, built in 1968 with the Shah, is still operated by a company owned half by Israel and half by Iran. Any publication on the owners of this pipeline is punishable by 15 years in prison in Israel (“Israel and Iran collaborate to exploit the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline”, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 9 January 2018.) https://www.voltairenet.org/article221335.html
"The oil concession was coming to an end in 2018 and the Netanyahu government has discreetly authorized renewing it. However a new company called EAPC-B has replaced the former company, EAPC. The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Israeli Parliament has extended the military reporting ban to information on this new company." https://www.voltairenet.org/article199332.html
War; when hate wins
What does hate have to do with it…? Military necessity and survival are the factors at play.
US sponsored psy-ops. Result Ukraine hates. Russia is indifferent, but forced to step up, again. Slav fighting Slav, all the Neocons clap and cheer.
Splendid Simplicius!
Always a joy to read your reports. You wrote long ago that West would try to freeze the War on the ground if things got worse for Ukraine. And now we see the signs of such development. Biden is too tired to bother anymore and the biggest headache is Israel doing massacres each day.
But. I would say that IF West&Ukraine manage to freeze the ”conflict” as of now it would indeed be a victory for the them. I cant see any positives for Russia doing such a stupid thing and if they do you can be certain that the situation is also dire on the Russian side.
Ukraines stubbornness and the criminals minds of Zelensky&Yermak has cacthed the ukrainians AND the West in a cul de sac. But one can also say that Russia has fewer alternatives that one may think. If they agree to a ceasefire they would be seen as losers. If they instead continue the War, declining every ”peace offer”, and the advance goes as slow as now they will be seen as coldhearted warmongers. And if the front and Ukraines resistance suddenly collapse, and Russia storms the banks of Dnieper river, the scare will be whipped up in the West for the ”bloodthirsty imperialist Red Army”. I cant see Russia having any alternative other then take whole of Ukraine and then negotiating a West-Ukraine state with Lvov as a center.
I agree with the Swiss general. Perception of winning through losing is the only option for US as of now. But then we better hope for Kamala as president…
I am sure Trump will do something stupid if elected President.
>But. I would say that IF West&Ukraine manage to freeze the ”conflict” as of now it would indeed be a victory for the them. I cant see any positives for Russia doing such a stupid thing and if they do you can be certain that the situation is also dire on the Russian side.
Simple question -- would Hitler have won if WWII was frozen in late 1941? Or even mid-1943? And then allowed to consolidate control with ethnic cleansing, brainwashing of the remaining population over many decades, etc. etc.
Most people would see it as a massive win.
Well, it is the exact same situation right now -- the literal descendants of the Nazis are in control of territory that is not that much different from where the front lines were in mid-1943.
Any Russian leader that does not see it that way has to be removed from office and immediately replaced by someone who does.
Balitsky is 100% correct in what he said.
But will he be listened to?
Remember that Stremousov, who was speaking in those same terms all the time, died on the day Kherson was surrendered and it is not at all clear it was the SBU/GUR's doing rather than an order from the Kremlin in order to keep overtly patriotic loudmouths like him in check...
Could not have said it better.
Given what we know about operation paperclip, I am uncertain the Nazi agenda did not, "consolidate control with ethnic cleansing, brainwashing of the remaining population over many decades, etc. etc." We literally have the entire EU demanding the protection of a sovereign Nazi Ukraine.
From memory Hoover sent his number 2 man to Germany in 37? He came back with high praise of all things Nazi. The fellas from paperclip did not languish on the shop floor.
Hitler may have been defeated but fascism is alive and kicking.
The US invested heavily in Germany in the 1930s, to the point that certain objects were off-limits for bombing during the war, and then ownership quickly resumed after it.
And vice versa - the Germans modeled their racial segregation practices on the US South and borrowed their racial superiority theories from the US and the UK.
People somehow never seem to realize that the US and the UK were really aligned with the Nazis all the way until 1939 for the latter and 1941 for the former (what happened in the late 1930s is presented today as "appeasement", but if you knew nothing about it a priori, you would see it as instigation) and then promptly became allies with them again even before the war was over. Plans for war with the USSR were laid down in the spring of 1945 and the renewal of the alliance with the Nazis began to take shape as early as the end of 1944.
By the late 1940s it wasn't even hidden anymore and "former" Nazis were openly integrated in the new Western political and military structures.
So basically the West has been Nazi and with Nazis against Russia all throughout except for that brief period in the 1940s.
Yet Russian elites have been trying very hard to ignore that objective reality, which doesn't at all speak well about the quality and loyalties of Russian elites...
"Burn it with fire" should be the approach to this problem, instead they want to be buddies with those who are out to destroy them. Which guarantees defeat in the long run.
Yeah the theory that Hitler went off the plantation and started doing his own thing is interesting. So point him at Russia and that was always the goal. Have also read the only time you were totally safe flying around Europe is if you had a Rothschild emblem on you aircraft. Why let them escape at Dunkirk? Hell there are more than a few unanswered questions.
To replay so many of the nightmares for Russia is flagrant. Look at their annual memorials and tell me the wounds are not fresh. So lets invade Kursk? And the whole EU screams yeah get em? We used to pray that our leaders would be guided to make wise decisions, now we beg that one of them might be sane.
Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.
Even if he is elected, he only will be able to escalate. Call him "Putin puppet!" and he will fold, just as he folded on multiple occasions during his last term.
No, I am not voting for Harris, either.
I do not envy American voters. That country really hit the fan. They have a Devils choice this time. I dont trust Trump - says one thing does another. Harris dont say a thing and does nothing- she only laughs. Then…dont underestimate Clownpeople. Look at the one in Kiev - destroyed millions of peoples future and lives.
As long as you can still go to the mall or on Amazon and buy stuff and put it on your credit card, nobody cares.
Look: USAns have been the recipients of several generations of social engineering a large part of which is massive amounts of sheer ignorance. Most of them are entrapped by the Red vs BLue bipolar model and will believe until the end that their team is the only goos one. No amount of proof that policy changes very little will awaken them. To be fair there is a segment of the population that sees that “they both suck” but they tend to be less vocal.
They like to refer to it as left wing / right wing but I think more accurately would be left cheek / right cheek. Two sides of the same ass.
“Not on the right side, not on the left side, in the groove, in the groove!”
"Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated."
The only other possibility is that he never really quit the party of the potato and this whole maga thing is the greatest grift in history.
“If Russia is defeated in Ukraine, European submission to the Americans will be prolonged for a century. If, as I believe, the United States is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free. The psychological shock awaiting Europeans will be to realize that NATO does not exist to protect us but to control us,” so historian Emmanuel Todd told an interviewer w/ Italy’s Corriere di Bologna on 9 October.
Todd shed unique light on Germany’s historic r’ship w/ VVP: “During the Iraq war, Putin, Schröder and Chirac held joint press conferences. This terrified Washington. It seemed that America could be expelled from the European continent. Russia's separation from Germany thus became a priority for American strategists. Making the situation in Ukraine worse served this purpose. Forcing the Russians into war to prevent Ukraine's de facto integration into NATO was, initially, a major diplomatic success for Washington."
Todd described Germany's general paralysis in 2022 as the shock of the SMO set in, a period which "allowed the Americans, amid the general confusion in Europe, to blow up the NordStream pipeline, a symbol of the economic understanding between Germany and Russia."
In Todd's view, the war is in its second phase: that of American defeat.
"U.S. control over Europe will be pulverized," Todd told his interviewer. "Germany and Russia will meet again. This conflict is in a sense artificial. The natural thing, in a low-fertility Europe, with its aging population, is the complementarity between German industry and Russian energy and mineral resources.”
In all of Project Ukraine’s dimensions, Germany has paid the highest price for loser-ship status--from the loss of cheap natural gas to the neutering of its industrial might. It is undoubtedly a generational knee-capping.
Todd’s insights offer a fresh spin amid the increasingly archaic vitriol emanating from Brussels, via Mark Rutte, for instance, OTAN’s new chief, who said on 9 October: “If Putin gets his way in Ukraine, that would have serious security implications for all of us” in the Alliance.
I mean, can you find a more boilerplated & regressive statement than that--?!!?
"Putin" already got his way.
Russia's security matters. The critical importance of Russia's security will now of course involve OTAN massively, just not the way groupthink Rutte believes. Ukraine's capitulation will be OTAN's capitulation.
Moreover, since all wars are bankers' wars--a phrase I just coined--the money-launderers-in-chief, the kleptocrats in Brussels, want to legitimatize their theft & grift operation by going into the banking business.
Rutte et al want to set up an OTAN Bank—security funding specifically earmarked for financing Project Ukraine. OTAN'$ member states will pay money from subscriptions so they can fund the OTAN Bank; this is over & above the 2% already expected from member states to keep OTAN afloat.
Europe will soon be little more than the most touristy military spending place on earth: a Trevi Fountain w/ Tomahawk missiles.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians get used to losing a village every day.
Well in reality Russian energy, commodities and food resources will probably now be coupled with Chinese industrial manufacturing and building Chinese infrastructure, well in reality possibly Asia as a whole. Why would the Russians be dumb enough to revive relations with a Europe that hates them to the point of many attempts to annihilate them as a people? From Napoleon's attempt to liberate Russia to Hitler's attempt to exterminate Russians needing resources and "liebenstraum". Why now would Russia subordinate itself to a hateful west when they can lead a grateful global majority?
Curiously, the original BRICS nations form the geographic pillars of a multi-nodal order, anchoring the salient global regions:
Brazil keeps it real in the Americas,
India straddles the subcontinent,
South Africa presides over a sub-equatorial blossoming,
Russia & China--back to back--their shoulder blades touching, gaze upon Europe to the west & Asia to the east.
If you look at geography the possible BRICS expansion will control every strategic choke point in global movement of goods. Russia controls the North sea route having the largest fleet of nuclear icre breakers; Egypt controls the Suez canal; Iran and Saudi Arabia control the straits of Hormuz; The Chinese pioneering over land routes with the BRI. Then going forward looking for Malaysia Indonesia and a possible invite to Singapore to control the Malacca strait; Thailand for their development of an alternate route bypassing Malacca; Then Yemen for the control of the Bab Al Manbab; Turkiye for control of the Basborous and the Dardanelles and Nicruagua in South America for the new canal being built by a "Chinese businessman". BRICS is basically a major paradigm shift in global geopolitics.
And Palestine...from the river to the sea
I think China's BRI/CMEC investment in Myanmar is to bypass the Malacca straits. You are right about Malaysia/Indonesia/Thailand and Vietnam entry being a game changer as these are the strongest ASEAN members.
Berletic has piece on theat topic....
They want to bypass the Malacca straits by ship, straight through South-Thailand.
I can only hope they do invite Singapore, and that its government isn't stupid enough to remain shackled to the westoid order.
Here is an unpopular opinion -- Russia's resources, contrary to popular belief, are not infinite, and are therefore best kept inside the country, for the benefit of future Russian generations, rather than being sold for pennies on the dollar of their real worth, whether to Westerners or to Chinese.
Let the Westerners and the Chinese try to develop without resources, keep your resources to yourself, and invest in local development.
Makes sense, right?
Except that if you do that, the present arrangement according to which the current Russian oligarchy gets a percentage on the loot and that is the basis of its power falls apart. And that oligarchy largely controls the Kremlin. There are other forces pushing for an alternative path, but the internal conflict has not been resolved in their favor. Thus the SMO not-war format and all the other self-defeating (non)-actions that make absolutely no sense if one naively assumes that the people who rule Russia do so in Russia's interest rather their personal interest.
Well it is your perspective, the only thing that would make it unpopular is what exactly clouds the lens through which you see the world. Yes, totally agree with the thought that Russian resources should belong to Russians and not be sold to Chinese or westerners for pennies. Yet I would think Russians would not want to be a hermit state totally isolated from international trade. I don't know how you discerned how finite Russian resources are to start hoarding their exports.
Well from lots of reading on the state of Russian leadership I conclude it is led by one man Vladimir Putin and a beuracracy of his creation, for the last 24 years. It is fair to consider him a "prisoner of power" with that said what possible self interest would the Russian president have at his age, money? The reality is money creates the illusion of power, so what value would it be to a man that encompass the definition of global power? Possibly his greatest ambition is to rule a great Russia and leave that as his legacy.
"Here is an unpopular opinion ... rather than being sold for pennies on the dollar of their real worth, whether to Westerners or to Chinese."
Respectfully, that's not an "unpopular" opinion, it's just an inaccurate opinion. Your premise is false. Russian resources are *not* being sold for pennies on the dollar of their real worth, not to the Chinese, and not to anyone.
On the contrary, Russia is getting top dollar for its resources, and it's doing so as a matter of very wise investment. It's selling resources it cannot at present use as a means of funding development that will allow Russia to grow even faster. It would be intensely stupid for Russia not to take advantage of resources that help Russia develop.
"that oligarchy largely controls the Kremlin" Ad-hominem labels don't explain reality: they obfuscate reality. In every developed country in the world elites control the government. It's been that way in human societies for thousands of years. The only question is how the interests of such elites align to the interests of the society at large.
Russians today have become fervent believers in capitalism because Russia's abandonment of communism and socialism in favor of a switch to capitalism has led to the creative and entrepreneurial energies of the Russian population being unleashed, with dramatically increased living standards, longer life expectancies, reduced infant mortality and dramatically increased personal freedoms. Today's "oligarchs" (that is, wealthy people and business leaders) have morphed from the opportunistic looters of the 90's into genuine entrepreneurs, like Russia's richest woman, Tanya Kim, the founder of Wildberries, a hugely successful Russian Internet shopping platform, akin to Amazon.
Russians tend to *like* the idea that business leaders and entrepreneurs have influence in government. They much prefer that to bureaucrats and socialist party apparatchiks controlling government. They know that entrepreneurs like Tanya Kim want to see Russia expand and everybody making more money because then their businesses will make more money too.
"if one naively assumes that the people who rule Russia do so in Russia's interest rather their personal interest." On the contrary, what's naive is believing socialist propaganda for morons that being interested in success is a zero sum proposition. It never fails to amuse how Communists have a huge blind spot in their belief that Communism is best because deep down inside people will nobly work for nothing to support others, but when confronted with the reality that people really do want something for themselves they say capitalism can't possibly work because deep down inside people are evil and think only about themselves.
In reality, people are social animals and have the intrinsic social skill to understand that it is in their own best interest to live in successful communities, and that putting their own interests forward is most successfully done by fair trading that benefits others as well. The most successful businesspeople in the long term are those who love their customers and who thrive because they build win-win propositions for their customers.
The people who rule Russia do so in Russia's interest as well as in their own personal interest because their personal interests are aligned with Russia's interests. A strong, successful, prosperous Russia is very much in the interests of the intellectual, political, and business elites that run Russia. It's intensely naive to believe otherwise.
wow thats a lot of bullshit.
you are drinking your own koolaid my guy, you know nothing of former communist countries, you are just projecting your stupid views.
> wow thats a lot of bullshit.
Saying so doesn't make it so 😉
yeah, for sure someone who lives by ayn rand`s retarded bullshit is right :)))
Actually, I live in Russia and I've spent a lot of time in many of the other former communist countries. I've been an eye witness to how Russia has evolved from the pathetic end of communism into an economic powerhouse.
But I see you have nothing intelligent to add, since you're just mouthing off with insults. I suppose you avoid getting into anything specific because the more you do that, the more it's clear that what I wrote was explicitly, literally true.
gtfo of here :)))
all the infrastructure, all of the factories, all of the universities are build before `90s.
the post 90 regime is like a mushroom eating a grate fallen tree.
u`re probably a westerner who came here in the 90s-00s with a handfull of dollars who took advantage of a collapsing society. you`re time will come make no mistake :))
Excellent retort. At least we in the bleacher seats can see the truth in this!
you are right and GM is a known 'doom and gloom' character/personality. I have seen years now of sky is falling, things are horrible, RU is about to lose from him/her. Even when Russia is clearly winning and getting better every day, things are always bad to them, 'oligarch control Kremlin', etc. just a personality type I guess.
Chosen language indicates the point of view of the speaker. Russian elites are 'oligarchs'. Putin is represented as a 'despot', 'strongman', etc. China sets up a 'great firewall' but the corresponding efforts by US entities, such as all the Echelon data taps, are nonthreatening. Of course.
It's all in your point of view, of course. But the point of view of most of the West is warped by hegemonic propaganda.
No, you don't make any sense.
VVP spent more than a decade taming, jailing, 404ing or exiling Russia's oligarchs.
Russia isn't going to stand for either Ukraine or Georgia to be aligned or friendly with NATO. That is in Russia's best interest.
Russians like Italian fashion, German beer, and French cheeses.
That’s the main reason.
All that is true. But, going beyond a pleasantly funny remark, there's real depth in that as well. Why? Because to get what they like in Italian fashion, German beer, and French cheeses Russians no longer need to do business with Italy, Germany or France.
Let's take French cheeses first. Over the years I've spent a lot of time in France and I really like French cheeses. In fact, one of the annoying things about living in the US for me before I moved overseas was the toxic combination of US bans on French cheese (the best of which are unpasteurized and thus not importable into the US) plus complete incompetence of Americans at duplicating French cheeses. Seriously, except for very rare cases if you bought "blue cheese" in the US you'd get something that tastes like chemical rubber, and forget about getting a decently ripe Camembert.
Russia used to be that way too, and even worse. At least you could buy good French cheeses imported here, but the local knock-offs were terrible. All that started changing about ten years ago, primarily as a result of increasing wealth in Russia coupled with the fanatic Russian habit of traveling abroad and taking hold as cultural touchstones the best of what they found abroad. People started making really decent artisanal cheeses in Russia that were, astoundingly, as good as the better French cheeses.
That happened, of course, because the French have a big cheese industry and they were perfectly happy selling consulting expertise on setting up cheese production together with everything you could possibly need, such as cultures, machinery, equipment, in-house French experts to teach your staff over the course of years, specific breeds of milk-producing cattle, and so on.
When the Ukraine conflict started Russia sanctioned French cheeses and that opened the market up to local production, including continuing production by French brands like President that continued doing business as Russian companies. So now you can go down to your local superstore and get a wide range of "French" cheeses that are as good as or better as you can get in French supermarkets. I think it is somewhat easier to get the very best artisanal French cheeses in France than in Russia, but if you hunt around you can find them here, and they'll be so good that in a blind taste test (I've arranged them, with friends, just for fun) even if you have a lot of experience with fine French cheeses you'll only have about a 50-50 chance of picking the French originals from Russian production.
Beer is now the most popular alcoholic beverage in Russia. Vodka and other hard liquor consumption is way down. There are tens of thousands of brands of craft beer made in Russia, with thousands of brands of German-style beers. I personally prefer the local Russian beers largely because the mass market German brands like Spaten and such seem too commercial and uninteresting. But if you like that sort of thing there are mass market Russian brands as well, including German producers who have been producing in Russia for 20 years and continue to do so. Anyway, if you like German style beers there's no need to buy them from Germany.
As for Italian fashion, well, you got me there. Wealthy Russians do like Italian suits for men and Italian fashions for women and the local Russian fashion industry doesn't match those. That's good for rich people because Italians continue to sell tons of goods in Russia - they're against sanctions when it comes to selling their fashions into Russia.
But I think that's a niche effect because most people in Russia don't dress in Italian high fashion. They're more influenced by more casual US styles, as much of Europe has been influenced, and there's tons of that going on in Russia. It's more an urban Canada Goose look for most people. But there as well with the decline in quality from vendors like Canada Goose, a reaction I suppose to increased costs of materials and labor in the US, Canada, and the EU, there's been a lot of market share taken by Russian vendors.
For years I used to wear Canada Goose in the wintertime but last year I switched to a parka for winter wear and a slightly lighter jacket for late autumn and early spring from a Russian vendor and the only thing I feel about those is wondering why I didn't switch earlier. They're superior on all fronts compared to my Canada Goose. The zippers and velcro are better quality, the material is better quality, and the cut is a bit longer so it's more comfortable in higher wind. The pockets are much better designed (if you've ever worn a classic Canada Goose expedition parka you know what I mean). The fur trimming the hood is better quality too. Ah, and the price is less than1/5th of what Canada Goose charges.
Just saying, it was nice in past years to get the better parts of what Europe had to offer, but now with their economies under stress and their quality declining it's nice to be able to buy as good as or better locally, and at a fraction of the price. That goes for so many things, like fine wine and other gourmet foods, that I still marvel at that sometimes, like today at lunch where I found myself thinking, "this is a *really* good Camembert...".
Heck, I think after writing this I'll pour a glass of truly super Krasnostop (a local grape often blended with Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc) from a bottle I opened yesterday. Life is good.
When I used to drink, I preferred Bulgarian rakia to any cognac. Still, one is associated with prestige and status, and the other is not.
I moved to Moscow around 2010 and the beer selection mostly sucked. There were like two pubs that had some good Belgian Trappist ales and then a couple of Irish pubs serving Guinness.
I watched the transformation that happened quite rapidly. Especially after 2014, all of a sudden craft beer pubs sprang up all over the cities and Russian breweries made some good attempts at IPAs. They couldn’t do ales for shit, but even established breweries in the U.S. can’t match the Belgians.
It soon to spread to other locations. My wife comes from a decently large city in the south of Russia and even they had craft beer and better grocery selection by 2015.
Definitely was a renaissance in Russians producing some pretty good domestic food and drink luxuries.
I left Moscow in early 2018 and we still miss the city.
I'm disappointed that Russia hasn't managed to entirely reverse the 'poorly cut suits' trope from the USSR days. But otherwise pleased to hear things are well with other products there. Russians deserve to have the full fruits of the modern age finally.
I found the desire for (frankly not that great) Western mass produced goods to be a disappointing thing to be undermining the SU. Courtesy of the same economic warfare that is currently being tried against Russia again. I see a consistent thread in this behavior running back to 1918.
"I'm disappointed that Russia hasn't managed to entirely reverse the 'poorly cut suits' trope from the USSR days." They have, now. If you're a billionaire you're still going to have your suits made for you in Italy, I suppose, but there's no reason now in Russia to buy Western clothes.
I used to do that out of inertia. I'd visit the US a few times a year and stock up on jeans and such from Nordstroms or whatever. And then one day for a birthday present somebody gave me a gift certificate for a local men's store, some no-name brand (at least to me, it was a name brand to Russians...) so I went there to try stuff on. I would have never otherwise entered the place.
Well, was I surprised. It wasn't the collection of tasteless, poorly made and ill fitting clothes I expected. On the contrary it was all very well made stuff that I liked a lot. In the West, for example, jeans were trending to low rise skinny jeans that may be great for 18 year olds but look ridiculous on men in their late 40's or early 50's. But here in the men's store were all sorts of "classic" jeans that were comfortable, with just a couple percent of elastic fiber in them so they had some give to them. I guess they're called "Dad" jeans in the US.
They had a wide range of suit jackets, suits, shirts, cardigans, vests, and all sorts of other things. I was astonished. And it was all really well made, and well made in Russia too, not just imported from Turkey or China or other places. And it was all about a third of the price I'd pay in the US or EU for lesser quality.
It's true that Russian tastes to this day often run to vulgar, but that's no longer the dominant theme. Now there's plenty of tasteful and classic stuff to pick from. Since my visit to that men's store I've been buying all my clothes in Russia.
"I found the desire for (frankly not that great) Western mass produced goods to be a disappointing thing to be undermining the SU. " Agree. It was embarrassingly demeaning I think to Russians when they slobbered over utter Western junk. Thank God that's pretty much all gone.
That's been another growth experience for me as well, as I've been shifting from listening only to Western rock and pop music (when I don't listen to classical...) to mixing in more and more Russian rock and pop. I couldn't listen to a lot of Russian rock music from the early 1990's because it was all such awful rehashes of Western stuff, just trying to imitate the West. I was reminded of that recently when my AI played a few tracks from "Gorky Park," a 90s group that sang in English. Everything was totally derivative, from the guitar licks to their vocal stylings, like they aspired to be a third rate Aerosmith tribute band.
I compared that to my recent explorations of Би-2's (B-2's) "Luna Park" album, especially the first CD, which is really interesting and original music, or the sound track to the Брат 2 (Brother 2) movie, from 2000, which also is all original, just musicians being themselves without trying to imitate something in the West. It's an outstanding album.
I don't know anyone that wears Canada Goose here in Canada. I think it is an overpriced brand that probably more folks in cities like Toronto wear then in rural Canada.
"Why would the Russians be dumb enough to revive relations with a Europe that hates them to the point of many attempts to annihilate them as a people?"
Because prestige and status. Because they want to be allowed to join The Club.
Same reason Ukrainians embraced the nationalist ideology, turned on their brothers and their own parents. Because that was the price of admission to The Club.
I think by now the Russians have probably gotten the message, they are not welcomed in the club. The Russian oligarchs who had their assets siezed and were treated like fugitives in 2022 surely realize they cannot even buy their way into the club. Who knows Russians seem to have short memories, it seems and eventually they may prove themselves to be as stupid as the club articulate them to be.
I hope you are correct, but the fact that Russia is still ready to do a Minsk-3 (apparently this is why the Kursk incursion took Russia by such surprise) shows otherwise, even though Minsk and Minsk-2 were shams obvious to everyone but the Russian leadership.
For that matter, how many times have the Americans sold the Kurds down the river? Six times, is it, or seven? I lose count. Anyway, it does not matter, as the Kurds keep on coming back for more.
Welll I remember maybe more than a year ago, it was announced that Russia would make a very reasonable offer to Ukraine and it's western backers. The expectations was that the offer would be refused, as it was. The strange thing about the timing of the Russian offer, is that before it was made Vasily Nebenzya Russia's permanent representative to the UN stated "The world should get used to the thought of unconditional surrender in Ukraine". So the offer in my opinion was very disingenuous on the part of the Russian leadership. The Ukrainians were just not sophisticated enough to accept the offer and throw off the Russian strategy. So now they face the consequences of their actions.
The fact that Russia got an opportunity to isolate and destroy Ukraine's strategic reserves, the best Ukraine had, in Kursk appears in my opinion to have been a trap. Now the Russians can advance unimpeded as they no longer need to worry about a surprise counter offensive from Ukraine.
Just possibilities, though I am more a believer in human incompetence as success or defeat are sometimes a matter of chance.
From the perspective of the Ukrainian politics business class, the continuation of the war is an unmitigated blessing. The worst thing that could happen to them is for the war to end.
"even though Minsk and Minsk-2 were shams obvious to everyone but the Russian leadership." Nonsense. Don't pat yourself on the back for seeing what everyone else missed, because you didn't see it either. Absolutely *nobody* thought that Germany, France, and the US had so dramatically lost touch with the responsibilities that kept them from annihilation that they would deliberately lie about such grave matters to a nuclear power.
Everyone thought that people like Merkel were wise enough not to burn their bridges forever by destroying diplomacy as a tool they needed, by lying to Russia. There's no way to fix that short of many decades without having that tool.
" the fact that Russia is still ready to do a Minsk-3 (apparently this is why the Kursk incursion took Russia by such surprise) "
Russia was never willing to do a Minsk-3 nor is any such fake willingness the reason why the Kursk incursion occurred. The Kursk incursion didn't take Russia by surprise: Russia planned for such things. It knew such things were extremely low probability events so it allocated the resources to handle them accordingly.
Russia knew that Kiev doing a Kursk attack would be a one-way ticket for Kiev to oblivion, a suicidal move. Kiev could only mount such an attack by pulling resources desperately needed to prevent collapses elsewhere on the front, and it could only try such an attack at the cost of having elite, reserve forces killed that it also desperately needed to plug holes elsewhere.
Russia knew there was a very low probability of Kiev attempting a nation-state level terrorist act in Kursk as a means of baiting Russia into general war with the US, but Russia also knew that the military outcome of such a terrorist attack would virtually guarantee defeat of Kiev and the West in Ukraine. That's exactly how Kiev's terrorist act in Kursk has played out. Every rational observer, and even some of the delusional ones such as the Pentagon, were wondering from the first day of the Kursk action why Kiev would try such an obviously doomed tactic.
Kiev has now had 22,000 men killed in Kiev, including brutal losses to Kiev's most elite brigades that it cannot afford. It has lost thousands of military assets such as tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, and air defense units it cannot replace. Russia has surged ahead along the entire front, taking advantage of weaknesses caused by Kiev's sending of needed manpower off to die in Kursk.
At the same time, attitudes have hardened in Russia to where it appears Russia will not settle for anything other than unconditional defeat of all of nazi-occupied Ukraine.
I am hardly patting myself on the back for seeing what everyone else saw, including leadership of the LNR and DNR, who had to be pressured into signing.
You would think it has become clear to them….Oh well, Perhaps Russia will again be able to make gobs of money off their cranky and uninclusive European brethren..
"Because prestige and status. Because they want to be allowed to join The Club."
I see you didn't get the memo that the 90's want their stereotypes back. Russians have become far more worldly than in the early 90's. Russians don't give a shit about the EU or EU clubs. They've travelled all over the world and they know Europe decades ago entered a down and out phase.
A good example is the lousy food in Paris. Americans are so badly travelled they don't realize it when they're served food that was made in a food factory in Ireland, shipped refrigerated or frozen to Paris, kept in cold storage in the back of a bistro, and then just reheated to be plated and served to tourists. But something like 70% of the food sold in cafes and bistros in central Paris is like that. The high cost of labor and carrying the burden of the French social welfare state, coupled with extreme financial incompetence by the French government, has made it too expensive for most French restaurants in Paris to prepare food from scratch in real kitchens. It's the same way in many big cities in Italy, too.
Heck, that even extends to French baguettes. Almost all French baguettes now sold are made in food factories, par-baked and then frozen. They're popped into ovens for a few minutes to finish the baking process and then sold in bakeries and supermarkets. Handmade baguettes actually made on premises from flour have become so rare that the French have a name for them, "traditional" baguettes.
Russians aren't cretins so they know all that. They also know lousy service when they see it, and after the tenth visit to Paris or other tourist spots they're ready to move on.
They also know there's no prestige or status in being cretins like EU governments. Russians are repelled by the woke idiocy, the perversion, and the absolute stupidity of EU countries. It's like having a club for low-IQ, impoverished, incompetent perverts. Nobody with an IQ over 40 wants to be "allowed to join" such a club.
Russia, in contrast, has a lot of admiration for China. That's the club Russia wants to join, and in fact that's the club Russia helped create: BRICS. It's a much more interesting club than a bunch of vicious, failed colonialists on their way down.
Ukrainians, by the way, didn't "embrace the nationalist ideology." They were slaughtered by a nazi minority that took power, which arrested and killed 15,000 Ukrainians who opposed the nazi junta in the territories the nazis captured. The nazis knew from their WW2 experience (it was the same parties, with some of the same people who committed atrocities in WW2 still alive to provide "hands on" expertise) that if you kill anybody who opposes you the only narrative that young people hear is the narrative you tell them. Eight long years followed by two more of truly intense killing of opponents enabled the nazis to brainwash a much higher percentage of young people than would have ever gone along with them.
"Fuck Donetsk. I want my oysters." - some airhead from the Russian bon ton
None of your essay explains why Ukrainians went to Maidan in the first place, what they thought they were getting.
"Ukrainians" didn't go to Maidan. A few thousand people out of 52 million went to Maidan. Thinking that is a movement of "Ukrainians" is a profound failure of common sense.
In any country the application of a few billion US dollars can turn out a few thousand people to do pretty much whatever the paymasters want. In the case of Ukraine the US used the same playbook it has used in poor countries around the world for much of the past century: throw dollars at impoverished locals and buy however many goons the US wants. It's a cheap and very effective tactic.
The Ukrainian people I know who went were not paid. Trying to tell them that membership in The Club was not on offer was like trying to tell a toddler that some toy wasn't all it was promised in the TV show and commercials.
Moreover, since Maidan, those people have only continued to double down
Foolish? Yes, but there they are.
OMG Cheeso! You actual can write great comments!
Agree fully with you. Emmanuel Todd is a peculiar guy that I will call genius. He forecasted the fall of USSR as young and his Apres lémpire (After the Empire)he forecasted the demise of US. His latest book Defeat of the West (La Défaite de l’Occident) is a gem. Read it with pleasure. In my country he is non-grata and seen as an extremist but all he says is true and noteworthy.
As for the new rotten head of NATO I only expect evilness. And we 850 million people in Europe is keeping our mouths shut when non-elected Rutte talk about Europes future?
Was not NATO a defense coalition - not a geopolitical movement with its own agenda?
And we let von der Leyen speak for all countries in Europe without having any mandate what so ever of conducting each sovereign Nations foregin policy. The silence in Europe is the most frightening I have experienced. People letting those powergrabbers doing crimes each day by letting EU-money leaving EU to a non-EU state in War!
Thx C for the Todd input. Simplicius readers should get deeper into his books.
Yeah, but what really can we do? I talk of Europeans who are conscientious of the lies and bs our Elites spread? Reality is, if I talk of von Der Lying as the lying, corrupt fraud she is, I would be probably criminally charged, and I would definitely loose my job (I work in some capacity for the state). So many say nothing, many others believe the bs and lies, because they sleep mostly, and many simply don't care.
I think we are in the cycle of downfall, its always the same, the first generation builds up its wealth, the second generation retains it and the third generation wastes it. And we are in the 3rd cycle, the waste cycle.
There is not much we can do, I said it here a couple of times, the Politicians like Von der Leyen, Rutte, Schröder, Starmer, Johnson, etc. etc., are just a small portion of the smear theater we are witnessing, behind them are hundreds of thousands of second and third rate Politicians, Administrator, NGOs, Think Tanks, Technocrats, small/middle/big corporations, state media, private media (they get money all the time from the Pentagon, state funds, etc.) who benefit of all the corruption and lies. Its like a sewage plant, you see the piles of shite at the top at the sewage sea (Elite Politicians), you don't see the countless little pieces of shite below it...
Not much really. It is a downfall. But crying wolf can perhaps save a few.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."
-Sinclair
Thanks for the recommendation, I definitely will take a read.
I must read a bit of his writings (Todd, not Cheetos).
I can't remember the reference, but an interesting interview stated that Europe would try to double down on NATO, in the event of a defeat. The rational being that relying on the US military frees European countries from dealing with each other. If Germany rearms for defensive purposes, then Denmark, Belgium, France, Poland, etc will need to, as defensive weapons can be used offensively.
Fuck Europe, let them get their soft pink hands dirty without my tax dollars.
Russia and China are not natural allies (in the sense that each has what the other wants and can best get through cooperation) so much as Russia and Germany are natural allies. (Russia and China have much to offer one another, but largely they have been forced together as a result of American aggression.)
Russia has resources, skilled workers and markets. Russia wants to sell resources and attractinvestment to keep Russian workers busy and obtain technology transfer.
Germany has capital, products and know-how. Germany wants resources to fuel German factories, markets for German goods, investment opportunities for German capital and workers in German-owned or factories that won't actually move to Germany.
It has been United States policy to prevent this natural alliance from coming to fruitition. Luckily for Washington, europeans like being slaves.
Keep the US in, Germany down and Russia out?
Up until 5 minutes ago the largest two trading partners of Russia and Germany were Russia and Germany.
Did the last 5 or 6 Czars even speak Russian?
The Czars spoke Russian, but if you wa t to cheeze off a certain type of Russian nationalist, ask who the last ethnically Russian Czar was.
We don't know who Pavel's father was, but we do know that it assuredly wasn't Peter III Feodorovich.
Well stated. And with a bit of sarcastic humor added.
I don't think NATO Europe is going to go along with UVdL and the US Big Plans. Welfare states and militaries are expensive.
"You can have butter or you can have guns"
-Göring
Yes, that one.
The Politico assessment is actually on a 1 to 5 scale ("evaluations are given on a five-point scale (maximum 5 points)"). So "In the article "Five Questions Zelensky Is Asking in His European Tour (and the Likelihood He'll Get Them)" (there are actually 6 questions there) Politico's assessment is that 4 questions are straight out cloud cuckoo land, deserving a full 1 out of 5 mark... Some people are having trouble with maths today.
In every peace talk the enemy also gets a say - and the Russians are going to say nyet to anything that’s left of Ukraine from joining NATO. That was their chief complaint before this Donnybrook got started.
The only possible terms that Russia is going to accept is the unconditional surrender of Kiev. The only choice Kiev has is if it will be de jore or d facto.
1000 Russian casualties a day?
WTH did they get that number? Reached into and pulled it out from their a$$?
BTW, this is not really an "American" defeat, it's not about the US, it's about the UK imperialists -globalist oligarchs and bankers- who took over the polity of the US after WWII.
An "American defeat" is actually a defeat of the UK based colonialists. Something good for us in the US, actually, and the whole World.
I used to wonder why the UK was so involved in Ukraine? It seemed like they were the tail wagging the dog... but nooo, instead they are the loud chihuahua making noises. Time to get rid of them.
Hopefully we can also get rid of AIPAC.
Blame shift into the UK you loony.
The war has caused by the USA and the USA alone.
Wrong. The British military/"security" services/and political are in it equally. And the EU poodles to a lesser extent.
The Western Polities are ALL controlled by the money men in London.
They are the colonialists that renamed the British Empire into the American Empire... primarily for their own benefit and using the US Taxpayers to foot their frickin' bill.
Even the English politicos are controlled by them.
If you read carefully what I write -that goes for Alec Green- you will notice that I don't blame "the UK" per se, I blame the globalist oligarchs and bankers, which for 400 years have been based in London.
TonyE.
We're absolute dicks and our political establishment has an absurd opinion of its own importance, but we aren't running the show.
Our influence on Ukraine has been a disaster, but we're only following orders. And those orders come from the State Dept.
Nope, you do run it. See Great Game. Moreover, your boys are prepping the next show already by cruising Central Asian republics and establishing routes of migration of their least wanted islamists to Russia. Last time a UK spy was kicked out, FSB reported his ties to Russian Muslim community and immigration lobby. He was planting a bomb that is scheduled to blow in several decades. That's the level UK operates at.
One of the motives of conspiracy retards to is to blame shift onto another group.
Really cowardly motivation right there.
"MUH UK CONTROLS MUH COUNTRY< WE DIDN'T DO NUFFTEN!"