In the vein of Western institutions finally coming around to realities long-known to most of us, this new Economist piece braves the humiliation of having to admit some harsh truths about Western weapons:
Why would it be a good strategy to appear the same as your opponent?
What is it with that continuous focus on Putin?
The current Russia political system doesn't allow it's president ruling like a king.
That Trump constantly violates his own constitution comes with a price for his administration, sooner or later.
There are also consultations among China and Russia, BRICS and Russia in many organizations. This is not Ukraine/NATO against Russia, IMHO.
This is the new (multi-polar) worlds birth while the old world is dying.
The birth seems as painful as the dying at this moment.
The strategic advantage is with the new but the dying old world has put up an ugly fight, so that's why it's hard to make sense of tactics and operations sometimes.
Sadly that would be the case. The US has been trying to destroy Venezuela for a long time via sanctions. Unenlightened Americans put the economic difficulties down solely to the Venezuelans and don't understand the impact of the sanctions that also cost lives and destroy futures.
This take is completely unrealistic. It's not the US's fault that Venezuela is in dire straits, it's literally because Chavez and Maduro plundered the country. When he died, Chavez had 300 billion stashed away, which may not sound like much, but for a small South American country, that could probably pay off a number of serious debts. Cristina Kirchner, another corrupt communist, has 250 billion, which would basically be enough to get rid of the IMF. Who knows how much Maduro and his cronies have stolen. Also, their economic policies are unbelievably disastrous. Imagine for a minute, you own a small boutique hotel. And someone "from the government" comes along, and says, now this hotel is mine, for nothing. You are a small business owner generating money and paying taxes, funding the country. The business then collapses and the hotel is gutted. This is Chavez/Maduro's economy. It's called ruin and destruction. However, there is another element from the USA (I guess you could call it the deep state) that will also attempt to plunder the country, so hopefully when this crook finally goes away, whoever gets elected will manage to restore order while not letting the parasites in that normally like to plunder third world countries.
If they try to go in and fight through a guerilla war, it will be hell for the US.
The problem is that Chavez and Maduro for a quarter of a century now have been violating the cardinal rule of a socialist revolution, which is that if you want it to succeed stably, you need to get rid of the oligarchic capitalist elites. This they didn't do. They didn't even put the media under full control, much of it is still under oligarch control and against the government.
Which means that there is a substantial force in the country that is willing to work with the US. Is that sufficient for a decapitation strike to succeed? We don't know, but quite possibly it is.
The USSR was broken up by its own elites precisely because it was sitting on countless trillions of real wealth that were waiting there to be looted and sold to the West for pennies on the dollar in exchange for a percentage of the proceeds. By its own elite party cadres. And the USSR was on a much firmer ideological rooting than Venezuela and it had fully cleared the oligarchs many decades prior. Always remember that.
US will not. Trump is smarter than to get involved in a guerilla war. They'll bomb Bases and government buildings trying to kill the socialist leadership and say they are going after drug labs. US kills leaders first and foremost unlike Russia. Then new more US compliant leaders may arise. Maybe not. Worked in Iraq failed in Afghanistan.
Iraq those idiots literally deposit every dollar of oil sales in US banks now US acts as Iraqs treasurer.
Iraq "worked" due to boots on the ground, not decapitation strike. Iraq did not have sympathetic neighbours, and Russia/China prepared to arm the push back. Venezuela is a very different beast.
This. People are duped by Maduro’s Socialist talk but he has not taken control of the economic levers of the country (besides oil), not done any land reform or industrialization policy, nor severed ties with the Western financial system, etc etc. In the end he is just a petty dictator with an old school left wing varnish. And he just needed to invite some Cubans and Chinese advisors to do it. He is a pure fake and the chances are that his regime can collapse pretty fast.
They aren't duped anything anymore, the broad sentiment by most people in Venezuela is hatred. Maduro hasn't actually won an election for a while. Everyone in Latin America knows he cheated to give the appearance of staying in power.
Not true. I'm Colombian and my brother lives in a town outside Caracas. Maduro enjoys broad support among the lower classes, in particular. If he were hated by most, he could not have lasted this long. The West and Right in South America have been engaged in a propaganda war for years, without much effect domestically. The military structure/National Guard has been decentralized into powerful regional districts capable of functioning independently. When the US sent, or formerly Colombia, when the right-wing crook, Duque, ruled the country, multiple interventions into Venezuela to serve as the nucleus for a regime change operation, every infiltration group was quickly discovered and destroyed/captured thanks to the Venezuelan compesinos tipping off the military.
It is true. Many people like to recite the popular meme that "US has lost all of its wars since WWII except Grenada" and such. If that were true, why is the USD$ still the world's reserve currency? Many analysts and commentators have an anachronistic view of the purposes and the methods of war and what really counts as "winning".
Been a number of Russian flights with small numbers Russian military there. Iran may have supplied missiles to Venezuela and China may have supplied C-802A anti-ship missiles with a range of 100 plus miles.
I have lived in South America for 15 years and I can tell you right now Maduro and Chavez before him were and are a complete joke. They are evil criminals and they have plundered Venezuela to enrich themselves, beyond anything within reason. Everyone in Latin America, including most Venezuelans, hate them. They are destabilizing the entire region and Venezuelans are under tremendous suffering. I have a large quantity of Venezuelan friends all over the world and no one has anything good to say about the bus driver. Venezuela has willfully pushed its criminal elements on the USA and is indeed run by the same criminal elements. If anything is done, it should be to take out that scumbag who most certainly did not win elections, and allow Venezuela to vote again on who they want in the government. I don't understand why local governments in South America haven't done more to remove Maduro.
Don't be stupid. Just because I said something you don't like doesn't mean I'm a paid shrill. I lived in the region for 17 years. I know more about it than you do because I actually lived there and have actually talked to people in their own language about what is going on.
Actually, while Trump staves off the neocons by added sanctions that produce no results and giving Russia 6 months to feel the "pressure", he is giving (consciously or unconsciously) Putin 6 free months to finish off Ukraine. And when that 6 months is up, Trump will likely find another set of fake punishments for Russia to kick the can further down the road.
I agree. Although he appears to be allowing Russia to finish off Ukraine, it is certainly not out of some altruism on his part. He is simply trying to devoid himself of any responsibility for the Ukraine catastrophe. His support for genocide is all you need to know about him.
Then he failed badly. Because Ukraine will go down on his watch, while he's holding the can. Despite getting elected promising to shut it down in 24 hours.
Yes...Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He can't persuade the neocons in the US and the NATO crazies to end the war so he is doing it (ending it) in the only remaining way possible. He is letting Putin win it. When Ukraine finally capitulates Trump will re-start 'peace' talks and (attempt to) take credit for the final settlement.
If this were not Trump's strategy, he would actually be doing something actually likely to help Ukraine avoid defeat. Watch what he does, not what he says.
"Trump knows exactly what he is doing" - really? Nobody twisted his arm to surround himself with neocons, employ military cretins, roll like a pig in mud in their praises, play golf with Lindsey Graham, etc. Ancient Romans used to say, "tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are." Trump surrounded himself with crap last term and he learned absolutely NOTHING!
Well, Washington is a pit of vipers and Trump's majorities are paper thin. He can't just ignore Lindsey, et al. And, let's not forget that another 'Roman', Michael Corleone, said "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."
"Nobody twisted his arm to surround himself with neocons, employ military cretins, roll like a pig in mud in their praises, play golf with Lindsey Graham, etc." You don't know much then. Trump's Jew benefactors, Miriam Adelson et al, had hand picked Trump's appointees before he was even elected. That was the cost for them backing him. Not to mention the Epstein list held over his head and most likely threats to his family if he didn't/doesn't follow their orders.
Trump is simply weak, stupid and easily manipulated. The europeans and Zelenskii have the man figured out.
Flatter him, promise a statue, dangle out the promise of plunder or a private girl on girl show with Melania and Brigitte Macron or something, and the moron will do anything you ask.
Dang you are a few years behind.... We already know that the western equipment is just like that of Nazi Germany. Over engineered and very costly. Makes the synagogue of satan's jews more money though. That is all that matters.
So, the MIC is successfully prosecuting the war against the long suffering American taxpayers. This sad fact can be traced all the way back to the Whiskey Rebellion.
To ‘Project Power’, apparently. Successive Labour and Tory Defence (sic) Ministers have been absolutely adamant that the fate of Britain and THE WORLD depends on Britain’s ability to Project Power around the world. Each, we were told, is 50 ACRES of SOVEREIGN TERRITORY that can be mobilised globally - and that if we don’t have them, a SPECTRE-like coalition of Evil Supervillains (Kim Jong Il, V. Putin, Emperor Xi and the ghosts of Colonel Gaddafi and Osama bin Laden) will CACKLE with SATANIC GLEE as they plot to undermine OUR VALUES.
In an unrelated coincidence, said Defence (sic) Ministers have all gone on to lucrative sinecures in the MIC and the think-tank racket they fund.
Weirdly, despite spending £60bn a year (of borrowed money) on ‘Defence', our home island entirely lacks any meaningful anti-missile system and, indeed, its Government ‘cannot’ do anything to prevent a thousand unarmed fighting age Muslim males invading our land in criminal gangs' rubber boats every WEEK.
Actually it may be the case that they would be getting sunk regularly. Except for the fact that the economic limitation they do to the owners, far exceeds the damage done by sinking one.
Without refuelling the air forces of the US are indeed a paper tiger. Oh sure you can launch, create havoc, but in a real war, the carrier will not be around to land on!
Powerful propaganda is the only thing giving those crews any morale. We always said, "there are 2 ships in the navy, submarines and targets."
It’s all rather pathetic. Not just because Britain doesn’t really have enough foreign territories to need a carrier, but also because they don’t have the support ships needed.
The UK has more admirals than ships. If the Argies wanted they could go ahead and invade the Falklands, the British navy couldn’t do a whole lot about it.
Well, of course they are 'Capital' ships aren't they - and can never go anywhere without a flotilla. You'd think the era of capital ships would have ended with battleships/cruisers but the advent of flying machines gave them a new lease. That era was probably ended by the 1960s once missiles came of age - but still the wonky logic of flying the flag persisted for 'certain countries.
'just like" are you talking about the politics of the eventual customers?
Here we are fighting a war that the MIC does not want to invest in. This is literally the only thing we need to know about NATO. If the profit is not there, their hearts just aren't in it.
The only people buying western products get a kickback for their obedient subservience.
As for Europe being called a 'region with limited sovereignty'. Bingo!
Yes, Russian weapons work well in real war, and the Russian soldier is unmatched, hardened by centuries of constant wars (which is why the enemy struck gold by politically captured Ukraine, i.e. southwest Russia, to fight mainland Russia).
But then Russian politicians and elites betray everything without a fight.
On a relatively small scale -- Peter III, Congress of Berlin, etc.
And on the grandest strategic level -- the Russian army fought for six centuries to reach defensible borders, which was largely accomplished by the 1890s, then re-established in 1945, while the Russian MIC finally achieved strategic security for the country in the late 1960s once it reached and even surpassed the US in terms of nuclear delivery capabilities. And then two decades later what happened?
Now we have the Russian army and MIC doing their best under the absurd shackles placed on them by political leadership, meanwhile that political leadership is giving the enemy verbal tongue baths and coming up with one proposal after another for how Russia will accept strategic defeat and will not seek victory.
But the Russian people in large brought this upon themselves for not organizing and removing these traitors from power...
So we have clearly established that you have zero understanding of Russian history since 1985.
I am tired of explaining the same thing over and over -- current Russian "restraint" has absolutely nothing to do with the desire to avoid WWIII in order to protect the motherland, it is doing the exact opposite (it makes WWIII all the more likely).
And the Kremlin knows it very well -- Karaganov said it in Putin's face last year at Valdai, and you can be sure much stronger and more direct language has been used behind the scenes.
It has everything to do with the Russian oligarchy wanting to "go back to how things were" and making some kind of a deal. That's all it boils down to. And it's not even hidden -- what was Abramovich doing in Istanbul? Why is Kiril Dimitriev chief negotiator with the US? It's all right in the open, how can people be so blind?
BTW, the last few days even the Russian Telegram channels that had been practicing rather strict self-censoring since Strelkov was jailed have started to speak out, e.g.:
>После бесчисленного количества угроз ядерной дубиной и «красных линий» теперь вряд ли что-то, кроме ядерного гриба на горизонте заставит Запад (с которым крупному бизнесу очень хочется торговать и вернуть «все как было») уверовать в серьезность предупреждений Москвы.
>After countless nuclear threats and "red lines," it's unlikely anything other than a nuclear mushroom cloud on the horizon will make the West (with which big business desperately wants to trade and return "everything to the way it was") believe Moscow's warnings are serious.)
>4-й год войны почему-то политики ведут Армию России по пути достижения наиболее выгодных переговорных позиций, а не разгрома врага, уничтожения его духа и инфраструктуры. Правительственный квартал стоит. Стоят украинские заставы на р. Тиса. Сухогрузы ходят в Одессу. Каждый массированный удар по нацистам сопровождается позорно-оправдательным "В ответ на". Хотя почему по нацистам нельзя бить на упреждение - непонятно.
>Понятно, что компрадорской буржуазии очень хочется "как раньше" и продавать пендосам ресурсы, даже можно через новый тот самый тоннель до Аляски.
>Вот только враг ведет войну на уничтожение России, пока мы его спецоперируем. Непонятно, к чему эти самоограничения.
>[...]
>Про сегодняшний массированный пуск дронов ВСУ напомним отдельно}: массированное применения средств воздушного нападения, включая крылатые ракеты, беспилотники и другие летательные аппараты является причиной ответных мер, гласят «Основы государственной политики Российской Федерации в области ядерного сдерживания» (Ядерная доктрина). Впрочем, последний документ давно стал очередной стершейся "красной линией", помпезно представленной общественности в прошлом году и никак не влияет на безопасность граждан России, как и сотни других вымученных талмудов
>For some reason, in the fourth year of the war, politicians are leading the Russian Army down a path of achieving the most advantageous negotiating positions , rather than defeating the enemy and destroying its morale and infrastructure. The government quarter stands. Ukrainian outposts are stationed on the Tisza River. Dry cargo ships are sailing to Odessa. Every massive strike against the Nazis is accompanied by a shameful, apologetic "In response to..." Although why they can't strike the Nazis preemptively is unclear.
>It's clear that the comprador bourgeoisie really wants "like before" and sell resources to the Yankees, even through that new tunnel to Alaska.
>But the enemy is waging a war to destroy Russia, while we are conducting special operations against them. It's unclear what these self-imposed restrictions are for.
[...]
>Regarding today's massive drone launch by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, we should specifically note: the massive use of air attack weapons, including cruise missiles, drones, and other aircraft, is grounds for retaliatory measures, as stated in the "Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence" (Nuclear Doctrine) . However, this latter document has long since become another erased "red line," pompously presented to the public last year, and has no bearing on the security of Russian citizens, just like hundreds of other labored tomes.
I've read all of your broken record comments before. TLDR this one.
But YES I do know Russia and the former Soviet Union. Military officer during the cold war, study of the USSR, its people, and capabilities was a must. And have been following since the fall of the Berlin wall which I personally participated in... Chip
You are not wrong. The segment of Russian society who are the most ardent supporters of western policy, and have been the least committed to achieving the objectives of the SMO, as stated in February 2022, have been those who also dream of returning to the glory days of the 1990s - the former oligarchs and comprador bourgeoisie. What many casual observers here in the west do not understand, is that the SMO happened despite the wishes of such people. It was the patriotic workers of Donbass who pushed for Russia to take action, and made their situation impossible for the Kremlin to ignore. As the Russian masses so enthusiastically stood behind them, the influence of the compradors and capitulationists was severely diminished.
In my opinion, the imperialists miscalculated with their sanctions strategy - it effectively neutralized the very element that they’ve relied on in the past to control Russia, and who they would need to empower in order to stand any chance of having the current order overthrown and replaced with some Navalny-type figure as president to front up a neo-Yeltsinite regime in the Kremlin. Which is why a part of me gets a little nervous whenever Kiril Dimitriev shows up here and begins babbling about economic cooperation. What does the US even have to offer a country like Russia which could be worth all the baggage that comes with relations with the US these days?
Interestingly, they seem to have made a nearly identical mistake regarding their regime-change efforts in Iran. Instead of deploying their tried-and-true method of cultivating a milieu of reliable comprador capitalists, desperate to do business with the G7, they actually seem to have attacked this group by placing Iran under “maximum pressure sanctions”. It was arguably this layer who were particularly the hardest hit among the rest of Iranian society (workers, farmers, and small businessmen had already been effectively sanctioned for decades, and in many ways had grown accustomed to it). It’s typically a certain section of the Iranian bourgeoisie, and those who aspire to be bourgeois, who adopt very liberal, pro-western attitudes (often to the point of being ashamed of their own country), and who tend to be the least loyal to the revolutionary legacy, who always push the line that the West’s hostility towards Iran was some sort of misunderstanding, that they should therefore make concessions to prove they “weren’t a threat”, and all would be fixed. Those are the people imperialism instinctively gravitated towards. It’s therefore odd that the US passed over an opportunity to cultivate potential assets through sanctions relief, which would build up the political and economic power the most pro-US, pro-Europe (even pro-Israel) layer within Iranian society. Instead, it seems they pursued a course of action which had them relying on terrorist groups like MEK, ethnic separatists in places like Kurdistan, Balochistan, Khuzestan, etc, impoverished Afghan migrant workers, drug gangs and organized crime in general, and monarchists living lives of luxury in the diaspora in the west, who tend to epitomize the stereotype of wealthy, arrogant, sleazy, out-of-touch rulers, slavishly beholden to foreign powers, who were chased out of power in 1979. None of these groups have anything close to the political, economic, and social influence within the country, let alone the organizational discipline, required to carry out a pro-Washington coup, especially in a country such as Iran.
Whether in Russia or Iran, the political power of both countries’ traitors comes, in large part, from their ability to loot and send the country’s wealth abroad; with that ability taken away from them, they’re mostly impotent. So I find it interesting, perhaps alarming, that the US were unable or unwilling to use their typical methods, which in both cases led them into kinetic military conflict.
>What many casual observers here in the west do not understand, is that the SMO happened despite the wishes of such people.
Notice how all the podcasters are talking to each other, or if they talk to Russians, they will get someone like Alaudinov, some of the diplomats, on rare occasions Karaganov, and that's it.
But why has nobody invited someone like Gubarev to talk about the SMO? Or ever discussed his book from way before the SMO? Precisely what you are saying is laid bare in all its gory detail in it (the Kremlin working together with the Ukrainian oligarchy and against the L/DNR, trying to suppress the rebellion). It's not clear how openly someone like Gubarev would speak today, because he did spend some time in jail too, and Strelkov is still in jail for a third year now, but back in 2022-23 it would have been natural to reach out and I doubt he would have refused.
Or maybe not even in 2023, because let's recall what happened in Kherson -- his wife was deputy head of the administration of the region before it got officially annexed and shortly after, then right when Kherson city was handed over she "disappeared", was then investigated for "corruption", and hasn't really been seen much since.
Something else happened right on the day Shoigu and Surovikin were ordered by the Tsar to announce the "difficult decision" (of course, in the Tsar's complete absence) -- Kiril Stremousov died in a "car crash". Right after a few days prior he had been talking publicly about how "We will return even Kiev and we will live again like it was in the USSR and it will be fantastic". Unforgivable crime apparently, plus he had to be shut down because it was doubtful he was going to keep silent after the "difficult decision". So he was killed, Gubareva was disappeared and then purged, the matter of the fate of the city was never mentioned again for years, and only now Saldo is posting upbeat but detached from reality updated about how the Russian army is liberating the islands along the right bank within the city limits...
>a part of me gets a little nervous whenever Kiril Dimitriev shows up here and begins babbling about economic cooperation
I get a lot more than a little nervous, because while indeed the sanctions should have been a godsend for the fight against the oligarchy, in practice we have what? Kiril Dimitriev as chief negotiator, which points to anything but that fight being successful.
Plus we have the Central Bank's policies. Read John Helmer's latest if you haven't:
Outright sabotage of the country, yet Putin goes along with it...
>Iran
Iran is in a much better shape because it is still a regime that came to power with a relatively recent revolution, it is ideologically based, and it has the IRGC as a strong ideologically driven power base (and if anything, the youner cadres in it appear to be much more hawkish than the old guard, so the future is bright there).
Russia, in contrast, is a counter-revolutionary regime with few of those factors working for the country.
Which is why Iran has been firing back at the enemy directly, even if not as hard as they should be, but Russia, even though it has immensely greater capabilities, is not...
But even the authors are forced to admit the prospect of any kind of Russian collapse is not exactly realistic... with the exception of the Ukropropagandist star Great Moron
The battles go on, but the war is with European NATO. It looks like the Europeans have a death wish. What they really want is for their people to be depopulated while they hide in bunkers. Here in the middle of the USA I was told 5 years ago by a contractor buddy that his superiors thought there would be a nuclear war, and the state government had bunkers to hide in. Made me feel good that my representatives in the state legislature planned to make trouble and abandon me and every one who voted for them and hid in bunkers. In the planned WWIII the PEOPLE OF EUROPE SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT THEY ARE CANNON FODDER NEXT, while their governments hide underground, then come out to save the day with new currency.
Silent & invisible weapons for silent and invisible wars. Seen a Ukr. drone assembled with napalm what you know? The constructer got inspired at the spot, no rehearsal just do it or did it, what if the next stage is weaponising drones with SARS, Ebola, Borellia, meningococcus or Anthrax?
believe it or not it will never go away, but don’t see it as a pandemic not even an epidemic, it’s a weapon and has the same after effects as a hand grenade or the dropping of a bomb on a place or a spot. For the record France got just hit with another Covid missile, the next in an endless row.
Missiles and who knows drones on nuclear fuel, here in EU they have named Putin’s latest missile on nuclear fuel the Tchernobil weapon, having a reach of 20 thousand km! From mustard gas in long forgotten times to biochemical weapons nowadays, and not to forget Russians have their experiences in psychiatric wards and Gulags, as the west have theirs starting in Nazi camps. Now all are decently named labs of level 4, meaning creating biochemical weapons and not what they intentionally want us to believe fighting viruses. There are at least 1000 of these creep labs all over the world, not to count those experiments level 4 performed in labs level 3 or just ordinary kitchens.
Yes, the T-34 rings a major bell. In case anybody will reproduce the T-34 they better forget about the auxiliary diesel tank that made the destruction of these tanks rather easy. Once the fuel tank was punctured with a rifle round and the fuel was leaking out a single Molotov cocktail finished the job but one had to get pretty close with the cocktail.
When these tanks were caught inside cities during WWII and the anti-Soviet revolts that flared up in East Germany, Poland and Hungary it was an uncomfortable proposition. The crew was simply exterminated by a rifleman from the top of a building and a Molotov cocktail. The crew had to jump very fast when the burning diesel and smoke started to get inside. I actually developed the conspiracy theory that these Soviet tankers were sent to their deaths by hostile design engineers.
Again: This is basically how tanks work and not a particular downside to the T34. Which actually was significantly more survivable than most German tanks.
well i don't think the scenarios were repeated much - in essence the fix is simple - go inside the city only with internal fuel . And anyway regular tanks inside cities were always in a bad place , valable today
Oh wow tanks don't do well in dense cities with endless ambush opportunities? Wow that's definitely not something everyone with a passing knowledge of armored tactics knows. And how are tank design flaws which are a danger to the crew comparable to mass produced single use drones which are built to be essentially modular to cope with the constant changes in EW?
In the 1956 October Revolution in Hungary hundreds of T-34s were burned with these cheap tricks. The auxiliaries were still carried. This made the Soviet tank operators so angry that they were willing to destroy large parts of Budapest and execute a beautiful 15 year old redhead girl, a nurse.
"hundreds of T-34s were burned" Nonsense. Ah, and while you were re-writing history you forgot to give credit to the "Ghost of Kiev" for how the Hungarian revolutionaries won their revolution.
You need to do some serious research to catch up on the issue as far as the number of T-34s going to hell there. Look at the primary sources. No the Hungarians did not win the military confrontation but as Otto von Habsburg expressed it: The 1956 Hungarian revolution was the Stalingrad of Communism. And I had seen a PhD level research study that came to the exact same conclusion.
Just checked. The estimate was about 700 tanks. Like in ANY built-up area, tanks are vulnerable. Tanks are long-range weapons. Built-up areas is close-quarter. No tanker likes cities....
In the Warsaw uprising, it is estimated that Germany lost about 200 tanks.
"primary sources" you say? And then you go on to cite derivative sources, one sloganeering and the other, a "PhD level" study that "came to the exact same conclusion," almost a caricature of what a primary source is. Just for the record, Jill Biden has a PhD. That's not an indication of primary anything.
Primary sources would be the action reports in Soviet archives as well as the memoirs of commanders who participated. Ever since communism was overthrown in Russia in 1991 and the Union ended, people aren't shy about digging up and disclosing all the hateful things that communists did.
Unfortunately, there's very little of that translated into English and available online. There are some good secondary sources, such as histories written about the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian revolution. Those indicate that at most "dozens" of Soviet tanks were disabled (with very few actually destroyed), primarily in the industrial sector and not in the main streets downtown of Budapest. But it wasn't "hundreds" of tanks.
Ah, and as far as slogans go, saying the 1956 Soviet invasion was "the Stalingrad of Communism" is not something anybody remotely acquainted with Stalingrad would say. Once the invasion commenced it rapidly and thoroughly crushed the uprising, with remarkably low loss of life for something that's been so overhyped in the West.
I'm with Kennewick Man here. Just checked. See my note above. One other thing. Because diesel burns slowly, it is better for molotov cocktails. A diesel/petrol mix. Or, better still, petrol/rubber-band mix. That was what the IRA used against us British soldiers in Ulster.
Did they knock out a few tanks? Sure. Despite the T34 being more survivable than most WW2 tanks, tanks are vulnerable without infantry support.
Did some Hungarian exile claim that they “ackshually knocked out 700! For realsies!” Also yup.
Kennewick Man repeats some weirdo urban legend about the T34 ignoring that any tank is vulnerable against infantry up close. And if it gets in that situation, it’s in trouble no matter if it has a barrel of diesel on the back or not.
I do not believe even the Soviets knew or cared how many T34s they lost exactly. On the other hand it was a very large number. Those tanks getting into the narrow ancient streets of Budapest were extremely vulnerable. The size of forces they threw into that battle were serving one single purpose: Driving for a very fast victory before the revolt spreads to other satellite nations. Recall 1953 East Germany and 1956 summer Poland.
We know exactly how many men the Warsaw Pact (it wasn’t just the USSR) lost in Hungary in 1956.
It was 722 and about 1500 wounded.
Were any tanks destroyed? Sure. A few.
But sure buddy. The red army, just a decade after WW2, somehow forget all their lessons on how vulnerable tanks are without infantry support, and somehow lost hundreds of tanks (that apparently were manned by a single man, since total casualties were 700.)
And when the politburo asks what the hell happened, their commander said: “I don’t know how many we lost! It’s not like we keep track of things in the military!”
Grok is reporting 100-200 tanks, and I guess I'll just post the whole answer (thought I was on Tweety/X for a moment):
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (October 23–November 10) saw widespread urban fighting, particularly in Budapest, where Hungarian revolutionaries—armed with small arms, Molotov cocktails, and some captured Hungarian Army equipment—engaged Soviet forces. The Soviets deployed approximately 1,000–1,600 tanks in total, including T-34-85 medium tanks, T-54s, IS-3 heavy tanks, and ISU-152 self-propelled guns. While total Soviet tank losses across all types are estimated at 100–200 (based on historical analyses of Soviet archives and eyewitness accounts), precise figures for T-34-85s specifically are not comprehensively documented in declassified records or major histories. This is due to the chaotic nature of the fighting, where many vehicles were damaged, repaired, or abandoned rather than fully destroyed, and Soviet reports often aggregated losses.
However, photographic and testimonial evidence from key battles (e.g., Corvin Passage, Republic Square) confirms at least a dozen T-34-85s were visibly destroyed or disabled by revolutionaries. Broader estimates suggest 20–30 T-34s were lost, primarily to Molotov cocktails igniting fuel or ammo, anti-tank rifles, and occasional Hungarian Army defections using their own T-34s or artillery. These losses were concentrated in the first phase (October 23–28), before the Soviet withdrawal and re-invasion on November 4, when heavier armor overwhelmed resistance.
So I think for Hungary it was maybe 200 tanks but not all T-34 and this seems to indicate only 20-30 of them were T-34.
Have you tried to get diesel to burn?
I think because a lot of molotov cocktails were used to burn tanks, specifically thrown from windows or rooftops, that you think it had something to do with T-34 external fuel tanks. Which were not used much past 1943.
Hehehe, that was funny. I followed the link you provided expecting to see a child applying bandages to civilians or something g and what I find is a young woman armed to the teeth in a military uniform. She was executed you say? More likely the Russians who shot in her direction were busy trying to stay alive 😂 She is the 1950’s equivalent of today’s Ukrainian ‘army cooks’ and ‘volunteer medics’.
Maybe. But that still is not strictly being “executed” is it? If you poke your head in the middle of a firefight sometimes things happen. And your link says nothing of the sort.
It wasn’t a problem. Kennewick man is just repeating some weird myth he heard somewhere.
Shit, diesel doesn’t even burn the same way gasoline does.
If you actually poked a hole in a T34 external fuel tank and managed to set it on fire somehow, which isn’t that easy to begin with, the tank would be fine and drive away.
Diesel does NOT ignite/burn fast. But, once lit, and a Molotov cocktail, on leaking diesel will do it, then it burns longer. Petrol, in a Molotov cocktail is all flash and quick burn-out. Diesel/petrol mix in Molotov cocktail has the ignite/long-burn effect. The same long-burn that V900 reports earlier in this conversation.
Diesel does not burn if you puncture a diesel tank with small arms. Getting your face splattered with diesel while traveling in your BMP is a very strong nightmare fuel tho.
If you want to criticize the T34 there’s plenty of actual problems you can bring up. Like the transmission that died after 1000 km (at least in the beginning) or the cramped interior. Or the cupola.
But this stuff about diesel drums somehow causing tanks to blow up left and right is just weird.
or the lack of two way radios in the beginning . Indeed they are doing their 3x in academia , times 3x in press total 9x inflation on everything bad with the enemy . Got them multiple times doing that
I have been trying to say that on Andrei Martyanov's blog for years. He is strictly a tank man. And he does no believe in Stalin's Gulag. A late Soviet era mentality.
And you could have said the same about P-40s, Shermans, Ford trucks, Willys jeeps and Liberty ships. (And, indeed, the tinned spam that fed the troops.) But the US no longer has that sort of industrial muscle - and anyway, long-term hi-tech boondoggles are so much more profitable.
They are, functionally at least, mere propagandists. It's been 30 years since a true, reality facing expert was allowed on "western" presstitute media.
Ben Hodges has a much better track record in this war than Scott Ritter, Martyanov, Larry Johnson, The Duran (though recently one of them seems to have had a bit of a Damascene conversion), and everyone else who back in 2022 predicted the imminent collapse of the Ukrainian army right at the moment Russia was hemorrhaging forces to contract expirations while the enemy was fully mobilizing, and then continued to predict imminent collapse any day now for years after that.
Ben Hodges, for example, said Kherson is doomed already in July 2022 or so, and then it happened, he also said the Russian army is exhausted already around May 2022 or so, etc. All very accurate predictions.
Sure, he said a lot of foolish things too, but when you have been right on the money on at least a few issues you are a real prophet compared to people who got every single thing wrong.
Yes, but some say the same exact foolish things over and over and over and over and over again, no matter how many times the foolish thing is refuted with facts.
GM is, like it or not, right. Something is very wrong: Russia is insolently attacked while economic yardbirds sit on its shoulders and try to peck out its eyes….and Putin (representing the nation’s leadership), does nothing.
I don't know Ben Hodges or any of the rest of the talking heads. On the US side, it seems that most - like Hodges, get their info or limit their info to what they get from Ukraines Face Book page and so it's little wonder that their prognostications often seem absurd.
But what do any of us really know about what is actually going on. I tend not to listen to Hodges or the rest because all of them have paychecks dependent on what they say so much of what they say is completely predictable.
The same can be said for Simply, so everything we read, watch or listen to must be taken with a dose of skepticism..
>The drones which reach extremely deeply into the Ural zone, such as the strike on an Orenburg refinery earlier in the month, end up doing very little damage due to their small warhead size. Their main purpose appears to be a ‘psychological effect’, and the ability to merely rouse headlines sporting new “high score” counts of 1500km, 2000km+, and more into the Russian heartland
Most of those drones are not launched from Ukraine.
And now we have proof of it -- a few days ago a drone was found exploded in the middle of the Kazakh steppe, just south of the border from Orenburg. And what kind of drone was it? An FP-1...
But FP-1 drones only have a range of 200 km.
So what was known without a doubt already based on just tracking the drones (there were many, many cases when you would see an alarm going off in Orenburg and the surrounding regions, but there had been nothing between Orenburg and Lugansk for hours prior to that) was directly confirmed.
What this also means is that the next step is direct attacks on Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Tagil, Omsk, Kurgan, Novosibirsk, etc. even perhaps Krasnoyarsk, plus the Western Siberian oil and gas infrastructure, which will be claimed to be some Ukrainian wonder drones/missiles with many thousands of kilometers of range, but in reality they will be launched directly from across the border. Where Russia has no air defense, because nobody has planned for it.
Coincidentally earlier this year the British signed a military cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan, so what's going on is not even hidden all that well. The Kremlin of course was in its usual mode, i.e. if we ignore the growing crisis sufficiently stubbornly, it will resolve itself on its own. Sure...
BTW, the same thing is happening across the border from Azerbaijan, it's just that there are few strategically important targets to hit there beyond oil and gas infrastructure. But the region along the Kazakh border is THE strategic heart of Russia.
What is the Kremlin going to do about it? The bet is on more of the same, i.e. pretending it is not happening, because the oligarchs have placed a firm veto on another mobilization and a second front against Kazakhstan is an absurdity without total mobilization.
Not in his case , he is doped up to the eyeballs already. And he is braindead from the feet up. Sits on his fat Ukrainian ass in Bali, posting talking points from Fat Freddy Kagan’s ISW comic. That and complete drug induced fantasy nonsense.
Arguing with children, whether it be in a child's or adult's body is pointless. The same with the delusional. If you are interested in my arguments go read my other comments, or even my substack.
GM, I understand your concern. Everything revolves around access to resources. The Russian gov probably agrees with your points, they just dont have the resources and need to manage what they have. Just like every other gov in the world. It is painful to see gaps and holes, but the key point is that resources are spent where they are needed most, its impossible to have full forces everywhere.
Your key argument is that Russian gov should be like the Israilis and US and go scortched earth and end this quickly. I understand your argument but that path is inhumane, soulless, and plain evil. Russians want to be spiritual, even if that is slower and more expensive.
No, it should have been the exact opposite of scorched earth.
We've been here many times, let's do it again. The basic outline of the war is western elites using Ukrainian cannon fodder through Ukrainian elites as the middlemen to fight Russia.
Who do you go after in this situation:
1) Western elites directly to force them to back off?
2) Ukrainian elites to break up the scheme?
3) Ukrainian working class cannon fodder, i.e. what you loudly proclaimed to be your own people in July 2021?
Well, of course you go for #3 according to Putin, how could it be otherwise?
But he could have in fact at least taken out the Ukrainian elites in the first days and weeks of the war, and it would have been all over with very minimal destruction on both sides. He didn't, and he also missed the critical window of opportunity, because he allowed Zelensky's stature to increase so much that whereas in February 2022 a missile visiting Zelensky's hideout would have merely resulted in some Zhidobandera minced meat splattered on the wall of some bunker and nobody thinking about it much, now it is quite likely to have the West going directly after Putin for doing it.
Also, on that very same February 24th 2022 Putin threatened "decision making centers" in the West if they "get involved", and stressed that "this is not a bluff". In other words he knew very well about option #1. But I think we can all agree that they have gotten involved a tad little bit and that Putin's bluff was in fact called.
When I advocate for using nukes, I call for first disabling the border crossings and thus physically cutting Ukraine off, and if even that does not get the message across, for striking Europe. All of which will leave Ukraine, i.e. core historic Russian land intact.
It is the current absurd strategy (absurd unless you are a Russian oligarch, that is) that ensures maximum slaughter and destruction.
This. Sometimes I wonder if Zelensky and Putin are not in cahoots to eliminate their patriotic young men who would pose the most resistance to Davos/WEF world order. Unlimited immigration, hereditary oligarchs, etc.
Not much I think. There must have been attacks from Finland against Murmansk, from Baltic states against StPetersburg and from Kazahkstan against the inner core of Russia. And one should not underestimate the GURs innovative infiltration techniques similar to Israel in Iran. Small cells working inside Russia.
Putin doesnt dare to poke the Vampires nest. He strives to suffocate the Golem in Ukraine. I think we just have to sit out, GM, until the Pokrovsk, Mirnograd, Kupyansk and Konstantinovka is taken. If Ukraine then falls apart - all fine. If not and the commentariat finds NEW objects to be taken for the final all mighty victory, then we now who is thinking and talking bullshit.
I shouldn't answer your BS anymore, being a British citizen as I am. I know for a fact, the only capability the British military top brass & it's political class. Only know 1 way to cause any bother in any conflict. Terrorist attacks upon civilian targets on top of bring masters in propaganda (IE Bullshit). Kazakhstan isn't going to be needing to be attacked by Russians at all. You know it I know it, more likely there's already a helluva lot more Russian operatives there than all the Western terrorists put together. It doesn't matter about pin prick attacks in the grand scheme of things no matter how much, deluded idiots like yourself believe they will. The thing is what's going to happen when the boot is on the other foot? Because it's coming, thanks to the James Bond wannabes in Whitehall. Meanwhile the Russian machine keeps grinding on demilitarising the whole of NATO. Has anyone seen any patriot failures lately? I don't know who's paying you as only a paid shill could be so ridiculous as yourself. But I coukd take a guess, I'd say you're a lot closer to me. Than you are Ukraine, I've proven you so wrong on so many occasions its becoming an embarrassment. I'm starting to believe youre not even an adult.
Oh, yes, what happened in Sterlitamak and Kopeysk last week is absolutely no big deal. Just pin pricks, bro, what's the fuss about.
The attempt in June to do a ground attack on Dombarovsky was absolutely no big deal either. Just pin pricks. Which is why Lavrov took the unprecedented in this war step to actually bring it up publicly.
>Meanwhile the Russian machine keeps grinding on demilitarising the whole of NATO.
How has it done that when not a single military base or a factory in NATO has been destroyed? In fact not single shell, drone or a missile has flown in NATO's direction at all. While NATO is bombing Russia 24/7.
I might be a simpleton, but when the exchange ratio is non-zero to zero, one side is winning and the other is losing and there are no arguments about it.
Russian missile technology is far superior to anything the west possess. They could probably hit our command centres with a few Hazelnuts before our guys have their trousers on.
As Mr Putin said " we haven't really started anything yet "
Look, I am on record here many times that the UK is the easiest nuclear power to take out. There is one SSBN to track and sink, the other three are sitting ducks in Clyde, to be nuked from a ship in the Atlantic with a hypersonic missile that arrives in 2-3 minutes leaving no time to react, and they are done.
But you do have to take out that SSBN that is on patrol, and that is far from trivial.
>Russian missile technology is far superior to anything the west possess
Sure, but effective BMD is something that nobody has.
Nice job being a Brit cuck to the Jew who jails you people for naming them or opposing subhuman invasion of Uk while letting. Rape gangs and machete wielders run wild. Fag.
Are you always this confrontational towards complete strangers. For the single reason of their nationality? There's 70 million people live in Britain. Are you seriously suggesting we are all exactly the same as each other? I pity you, you've a lot to learn & carry to much hate within you. Have a nice day.
Im niether, but that should come as no to surprise to you. As it's pretty obvious you're used to being wrong. I wonder what such a person with no self awareness is. As you obviously believe in your own superior self above a full nation of citizens. Your opinion of a full nation of people. Being the target of your bigotry, seems to be from someone full of prejudice. Are you of an ethnic group or country conquered, enslaved, exploited & mastered by the country you hate so much? If that is so, I can understand your feelings of hatred. It must be hard to have an history, of belonging to a an easily defeated, easily controlled & easily exploited race. In the knowledge a tiny nation dominated & pillaged your ancestors. It must be hard living with an inferior complex towards your ancestors masters. In the knowledge that you & your people are of no concern to that tiny little island nation or it's people. It's OK many were conquered by that nation. Through their own weakness, in fact not many have ever been victorious against them. Don't feel shame for your ancestors servitude, Don't live with so much hate & bitterness. Just be happy to be alive, enjoy yourself, negativity will be the death of you. You do know making personal attacks in someone, you clearly know nothing about. Has mental health implications that probably need medical attention. From a Catholic, Irish father of 5, whose country has suffered under the British more than any other.
well sir - congratulations on the election of Catherine Connolly someone who knows about the Jew Problem. you sir should hate the Brits more than any. if they had followed Mosley and Uncle A the UK would not have become the jew run shite hole it is...
"May the road rise to meet you, and the wind always be at your back. and the rains fall softly on your fields. May God hold you gently in the palm of his hand.
Something that is missing from talk of why manufacturers and "innovators" are not stepping up with unique ideas and increased production of drones and their counters is the asinine situation in the West and the US in particular with the inability to monetize ideas easily or rapidly and protect novel IP.
I know of this firsthand.
The USPTO takes a year or more and tens of thousands of dollars to secure a patent, and it is not enough to have a US patent but in numerous foreign jurisdictions if one wants to monetize their idea. And, export regime gatekeepers like ITARS and EAR ensure that it is all but impossible for some independent inventor with a novel idea in the US to protect their IP, and sell it or license it or even disclose it abroad without being in serious violation of these regulations which are felony violations, even to NATO allies.
All of these regulations can be navigated efficiently by Boeing, Lockheed, and RTX, which have entire departments to handle regulations. The complex laws are a "moat" to protect big business.
There is also a very large and greedy bureaucratic pimpocracy with their hands outstretched to charge any independents foolish enough to try to help the war effort. The only way through is the old venture capital route and losing independence before getting off the ground, another vector for pimpocracy...
>Why are signing bonuses being reduced in many regions? The pro-UA side naturally speculates that “Russia is running out of money”. In reality, the reason is likely because Russia is comfortably hitting its quotas to such an extent that such elevated bonuses are no longer necessary.
There is also the hope that this is because actual mobilization is coming, but with this leadership it is almost certainly a much more negative for Russia explanation.
The stated objectives of the SMO are something that will never be achieved under current Russian leadership because it completely officially backtracked from them already in Istanbul in March 2022, then again in July 2024, then again and again though mostly behind the scenes in subsequent negotiations.
The current official Russian objectives amount to simply a slightly less catastrophic strategic defeat. That is all that Putin is aiming for at the moment.
How are you going to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and keep NATO out of it if you do not physically control it?
What imbecile does one have to be to even think this is possible, let alone actively pursue such a "solution"?
But the current Russian official position is "four oblasts and war is over", with the latest information, that is increasingly looking likely to have been correct, that Putin even agreed on freezing the front in Kherson and Zaporozhye in exchange for the rest of the DNR.
Therefore the current Russian official position amounts to complete abandonment of the goals of no NATO, demilitarization and denazification, i.e. all of the SMO goals.
Lavrov, Ushakov, and the rest of the scumbags in the Kremlin are repeatedly on record that they received an offer that was "acceptable".
But the official Russian position (four oblasts in administrative borders) is absolutely unacceptable for Russia, and they 100% did not receive anything better for Russia than that, it was guaranteed less than that.
That does not explain the humiliating behavior for which there is no need even if you are "negotiating" just to stall for time in order to prepare for big war.
The extremely self-humiliating approach to the West is what makes it quite certain they really are desperate for a deal and not at all looking for victory.
Also, Medvedev would not have sneak dissed Putin in such a way the other day if it was indeed as you say.
War in Ukraine is an appendix to the unresolved WWII. The British dishonores the Yalta and Postdam agreements from the let go, especially not disarming the German armies under their occupation zone. The German generals even kept their head quarters. Their justification was to use the Germans in case of a further Russian advance west. In reality, the foundations of the Cold War were being settled, which they eventually won with other methods. Another thing they did from 1945 is to protect the fascist collaborators of Ukraine, Hungary, Croatia, Estonia and elsewhere to create an undercover fascist international, connected to the world anticommunist leage, the Gladio networks, the muslim brotherhood and other terrorist assets. All that was meant for this. A minority of fascist banderist were able to undermine the majority of the soviet Ukranian antifascist fighters, with almost every Ukranian family having a member fallen for the USSR. The 30 year long brainwashing, history reewritting, democratically manipulated media narrative, using actors, spectacle, targeted politicsl assessinations and hooligan terror squads in Ukraine was the playbook to be applied to Russia itself. They thought Russia was trapped by its dependency to energy exports, that the country has lost its ability to use military power and definetely lost its soverignty. The Russians ate now understanding what they didnt in WW II. Hitler was just an anglosaxon puppet used to destroy Russia, the only potential rival for world hegemony able to ditch the global anglosaxon financial empire. Now they also have China in their way for a world anglosaxon diktat. Stalin diletantism to tackle the anglosaxon enemy proved wrong. Now the Russians have reloaded their historical memory, undusted their WWII Ukranian and Bielorussia fronts rich operational maps, reexamine the multiple times the British betrayed them. This was the critical point. Once acquired this conciousness the spell they were under finally disipated. The consequences of mass murder trauma inflicted by the west dissolved and healed. The country is ready and proudly standing again. For the good of all the free humanity.
As I wrote earlier, this is not just USA/NATO against Russia, it's a new world order in it's birth pain and the Anglosaxons put up an ugly fight. So it's likely more harm to come before it's over, unfortunately.
It is Belarus'. And I am examining the map from 1944 by The National Geographical Society "White Russian S.S.R." no kidding.
Thank you for speaking on behalf of Russians. But let's be honest and direct about one thing - there is one national state with citizens born with trauma, aka in-born stress hormones - a forever victim. Like there is scientific data behind it.
Russians are far more complicated than that. They don't do what was done to them, but they never forget. Some forgive. Unpredictability is a national trait of Icy Moscowites.
Also, after we regained our consciousness and dealt with a spell, please allow a reasonable amount of time for healing. Still think we haven't got our pass to a free and civilized world.
"As long as they can keep their proles misinformed and passive, it's all good."
One would think that. The velvet glove, without an iron fist.
Yet the case is that the leading EU regimes seek to prod and infuriate their general population, almost forcing us to fit into some 'extremist right wing' narrative.
Arresting citizens for tweets on X.
Letting migrants run amok with crime, rule of law be damned.
Being left alone is not on the menu. It never was.
Russian DRG forces are reported in Kherson. Eliminating energy also mean eliminating the major source of warmth for civilians and along with the lack of water and sewage facilities will finally force refugee treks to the West that haven't been produced yet. This depopulating of Ukraine is something going unremarked by many. The more pressure mounted on Western Ukraine the faster the depopulation.
As for the business of war, that was another massive mistake by the Outlaw US Empire thinking it could wage war on the cheap--the tribute paid to NATO didn't deliver anything worthy and won't.
Knocking copy is always dangerous in war conditions. Crowing about soldiers fighting with shovels and cardboard boxes does not look good for the west when it is so obviously losing this war.
“When companies crunch the numbers they know that a given ROI needs to be realistic to justify the huge investment in developing a particular type of weapon—like a drone—and mass-producing it. But where’s the ROI when behind closed doors, most of these companies see the writing on the wall that Ukraine will collapse in the medium term future, and the need for their mass-produced weapon will suddenly dwindle, leading to perhaps billions in losses?”
Money money money money money money money money money money... the simplistic, fallback explanation is always money. Don't you get tired of people offering that explanation? I'm certainly tired of hearing it. Instead, try this on for size...
The rot in the US economy is mostly the result of socioeconomic policies instigated by leftism. The MIC is just another victim of that uniquely western virus called the morality of equality. Don't expect the MIC to produce any more whiz-bang weapons systems, nor even anything new that actually works worth a damn. Why not? Because competitiveness is dead. Innovation is dead. Creativity is dead, all due to equality agendas such as Diversity-Inclusion-Equity.
Over the last 65 years, too much nonproductive overhead has been imposed on companies of all sizes, including mountains of regulations for safety, environment, affirmative action, and now DIE. There can be NO innovation in such an environment. For organizations to enforce equality, everything and everybody must get pushed down to the lowest common denominator. Equality and victimology are ways for parasites to leech off of real producers. More and more societal capital gets drained off, not just monetary assets, but more importantly infrastructure, knowledge, expertise, creativity, innovation, traditions, trust, social bonds, cohesion, etc.
The end result is that everything truly good in society gets fragmented, diminished, harder to build, harder to produce, harder to acquire, harder to maintain, and incidentally more expensive. Does any of that sound familiar? Real value is replaced by the fantasyland of social justice. It's inflation of societal capital caused by parasites. It's all cleverly disguised by promoting a tiny handful of foreign-born examples who actually do manage to contribute something once in a while. But that kind of thinking is just Disproportionate Exceptionalism. It's the Magic Dirt of civic nationalism, and the masses have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. With all the above, certainly the MIC is no exception.
DIE is a distraction, a crumb tossed from the Master's table.
People Of Influence And Authority would much prefer that we dissipate our energy on dreary arguments about cultural appropriation and how many LGTBQXYZPDQ+ can dance on the head of a pin, endless and endlessly performative struggle sessions, rather than raise questions about how the economic pie is sliced.
Put another way - to paraphrase Chris Hedges - elites will gladly discuss race, they will decry gender inequality most piteously, they will demonstrate a touching sensitivity to the rights of sexual and gender minorities so oppressed that they have not even been discovered yet. Those same elites will not readily discuss economic class.
Or, in the negative formulation - if businesses were to stop opposing unionization of their workers, the result would be a transfer of wealth, of concrete material benefits, to brown and black and tabby and yellow and white working class cats and people greater than all the allyship statements ever penned, all the diversity committees ever instituted, all the preferred pronoun tags ever attached to a corporate email. Which is precisely why they will not do this.
What kind of gay Marxist bs is this Jew finster ? The Jew problem is the main problem - the Jew uses the subhumans as biological weapons against white civilization
It's a nice try to put the blame on an non existing left in the USA. DIE is not left, it's capitalist driven atomization of society = divide and rule.
The real reason is the inner systemic contradiction of capitalism.
The only intrinsic law is 'maximization of profit', at all cost.
That's why production has been replaced by FIRE capitalism, more easy to make profit out of almost nothing. Draining the taxpayer only works for so long when you have abandoned producing real stuff, degrading education, allowing poverty while at the same time concentrating wealth in obscenely proportions at the top.
USA becomes now Charles Dickens England of the 19th century but with AI ;-)
Democrats are not left. They are diehard Right in Europe. Republicans are extreme right in Europe. There is no difference in Tory or Labour, nor german CDU or SPD.
DIE is a killing pill from the Evils. You are right.
Is this a mistranslation? From the quote from a Russian source describing the AFU units inside the Pokrovsk cauldron:
"Continuing the topic, instead of the concept of “line of contact”, it makes sense to introduce the concept of “line of contact”, since there is no ideal LBS at the front."
It is the west's last hope, some major escalation that brings in everyone else to pressure Russia to call a halt or at the very least get the yanks right in here.
Why would Russia go here? it is winning, durrh..... and anyway, it can up the ante within Ukraine without dropping a bomb further afield.
I am not saying Russia won't escalate, but only if it has to.
I think West has more cards than that. They are only using Ukrainian cannon fodder now. All of Europe is gearing for war vs Russia because Putin destroyed deterrence.
As we all know Eastern Europeans Hate Russians for occupation so they will be no problem to sic on Russians. West they'd throw youth in Vans and to front same way they do Ukrainians if the elites must.
450 million vs 155 million who wins that war of attrition?
No even worse American. Most propagandized people on earth so I know how easy it is to make people believe Russia is enemy. We don't even have heathcare so our elites can make wars and most like it that way
They turned ethnic Russians into zombies willing to die in the trenches against their own motherland in just 15-20 years, how hard would it be to brainwash people who have habored a barely suppressed desire to avenge the loss of their Nazi grandfathers for 80 years into going against Russia with genocidal intent once again?
With EU NATO countries announcing all their plans to gear up their militaries and spending 2% on their defence budgets with plans to go to 5% - I'm not sure they are bluffing. They should be as a war against Russia would not benefit anyone. I don't think its possible for them to spend 5% on defence but they might try.
And the EU leaders seem determined to get into a war against Russia. Starmer, Macron, and Metz especially. And the other like Von der lyen, Kallas, and the NATO head dude Rutte are worse. And the last 3 are elected by no one, I believe.
You should see the spending they pushing into this NATO bag. Spain has included just about all its current infrastructure projects on the basis that.... the military needs roads, right!
Here in Canada they switched our Coast Guard into the defense budget. And just like that our defense spending increased. Mind you we're still not at 2% now.
This is what is called hypothetical. First, I just have to say your idea of it being Putin's fault because of this nonsensical "destroying of deterrence" (I wonder where you heard that??) Only the Anti-Putin liberals in Brussels are justifying their fleecing of the population because of Putin. Read the headlines literally everything bad is Putin's fault. You have to be a child to believe this narrative.
Next this idea of the EU "gearing" for war is laughable. Can you "gear" for war with only words? The EU has actually done almost nothing to actually prepare for war except The Nazi creates "funds" which are then taken by Brussels.
If Doctorow, who was himself one of the most disgusting Putin loving cheerleaders for several years, has seen the light, imagine how bad things are in reality?
And yet most people here still haven't seen it themselves...
Any time idiots like Doctorow only have a personal attack on President Putin you can safely ignore anything said just like Gen. Moron here. It is bought and paid for commentary and people launched into this Anti-Putin hatred after Putin stopped the London/NewYork bankers from ravaging Russia and stripping it of all of it's wealth. No large country or Govt. is totally without "sin" the human condition of greed and lust for power guarantees it. The worst of the human population is the part that will always attempt to deceive others and rely on personal attacks because no other argument makes any sense.
Putin admits he was too trusting of Merkel and the EU, and regrets it. Its perfectly possible he will come realise he was too trusting of Trump. Particularly since he's on record (Oliver Stone) saying US presidents are always visited by the men in grey suits regardless of what they say in person.
If you listen to Mercurius show today Americans walked back own offer in anchorage...Couldnt even sign their own agreement to break LOL. Must watch show it's hilarious
I just listened to it. And we are back to the usual -- if Putin truly believed Merkel, then he is an imbecile and unfit for office.
And it's not as if everyone wasn't screaming that this is a trap. How can you be in such a blissful isolation that for several years you never hear it?
But we know that Putin is a highly intelligent and informed man, so we can safely reject that hypothesis.
Which then raises the question of why Putin did what amounts to high treason while being fully conscious he is being played? And he did that while being fully conscious Russia's core interests are being betrayed, then, well, he is again not fit for office, is he?
But this is the topic that everybody is tip-toeing around and does not want to touch...
P.S. Remember what Peter III did and what happened to him. Putin has done much worse at this point.
With all due respect, it was abundantly obvious to everyone that Minsk was a sham. The Ukrainians broke their word at the first opportunity.
So what did Russia do? Minsk-2, of course, then spent eight years trying to get Ukrainian to abide by what was obviously another sham, while the europeans laughed their asses off at Russian naivete.
What you mean with disgusting? Putin had his admirers, and still has, because he has been a good peacetime leader. Doctorow is clear-sighted. Have you even seen the interview?
Putin is no wartime leader. Yet, one could say, because no one knows how this ends. If at all.
But Doctorow is right in that Russia should have eliminated the leadership in february 2022. He is right when he says Russia missed a couple of window of opportunities, he is right that Russia has undermined their perception of deterence.
I was referring as "disgusting" to Doctorow's sycophantic praise of Putin over the previous three-plus years.
In the last month or so he has had a Damascene conversion and has been right on the money. Well, almost -- he dares not go into the reasons for why Putin is doing what he is doing, which is an absolute must if you are to do a serious analysis of the situation. But it is still much better than most of the other talking heads.
Ok. I dont see how Doctorow, now living in St Petersburg, could go out and critizise Putin as you do. He also has windows in his apartment…
But Doctorow where right in supporting Putins measures during the first years of the War. Politcally you could do a Zhirinovsky and gamble of a survival through a nuclear War or as Putin has done, try to be reasonable with West. In hindsight it can appear foolish but who in the West could imagine our leaders go full Monty and suicide their own societys?
Militarly speaking, Russia made bad choices and also was forced to reconsider the whole SMO. And still calling it an SMO is criminal btw.
Russia regained momentum but was too comfortable and missed a couple of opportunities that had led to this stalemate (or steady slow advance).
And if West manage to increase the attacks on mainland Russia, blow the Crimea bridge or wipe out some other strategic target, Putin has to react. Otherwise someone else will do it for him.
>But Doctorow where right in supporting Putins measures during the first years of the War
No, he wasn't. It was precisely Putin's measures in the first year that brought us to where we are. And some of us were screaming about it from the start (OK, almost the start, personally I could not believe they would launch an existential war with no real intention of winning it properly and it was only Istanbul that shook me off that particular delusion). Strelkov was right on the money about everything from the start.
And no:
>you could do a Zhirinovsky and gamble of a survival through a nuclear War
There was no need for that back in 2022. Ukraine could have been fully recovered within a couple weeks, using purely conventional means, had the necessary forces been allocated and had there not been a veto from Putin on striking everything that would have collapsed it. I am sure Gerasimov went to Putin with a very detailed plan that was going to work, then Putin took the red pen and butchered it completely, and that is how we got the shit show that the early SMO was.
>And if West manage to increase the attacks on mainland Russia
Well, that is exactly what Zelensky promised today.
You do a fairly amount of after constructions and make assumptions which even in hindsight is contrary to facts.
Given the resources at hand and in place after Zapad, Russia did what they thought would be best. An all-out blitz to make Ukraine understand the futile in continuing the conflict. They essentially used whatever means they had. Remember that Russia was tricked into attacking Ukraine after the aggressive provocations Stoltenberg and Zelensky delivered and the mocking US state&media relentlessly throwed in the face of Russia.
It is clear that FSB and GRU was compromised and did a botched intelligence work. It is clear that Russia never intended to do an SMO for four years or kill 1 million men in the process.
Putin&Co counted on Ukraine implosion and thereafter a reasonable diplomatic efforts to settle the situation. They miscalculated and was screwed backwards with the disinformation campaign already prepared even before the War. They were screwed in Istanbul.
And neither side controlled the course of the War. The War took it own turns as it always do.
There is strategy, tactics and operations.
Why would it be a good strategy to appear the same as your opponent?
What is it with that continuous focus on Putin?
The current Russia political system doesn't allow it's president ruling like a king.
That Trump constantly violates his own constitution comes with a price for his administration, sooner or later.
There are also consultations among China and Russia, BRICS and Russia in many organizations. This is not Ukraine/NATO against Russia, IMHO.
This is the new (multi-polar) worlds birth while the old world is dying.
The birth seems as painful as the dying at this moment.
The strategic advantage is with the new but the dying old world has put up an ugly fight, so that's why it's hard to make sense of tactics and operations sometimes.
Hopefully Venezuela makes it very difficult for the US.
Sadly that would be the case. The US has been trying to destroy Venezuela for a long time via sanctions. Unenlightened Americans put the economic difficulties down solely to the Venezuelans and don't understand the impact of the sanctions that also cost lives and destroy futures.
This take is completely unrealistic. It's not the US's fault that Venezuela is in dire straits, it's literally because Chavez and Maduro plundered the country. When he died, Chavez had 300 billion stashed away, which may not sound like much, but for a small South American country, that could probably pay off a number of serious debts. Cristina Kirchner, another corrupt communist, has 250 billion, which would basically be enough to get rid of the IMF. Who knows how much Maduro and his cronies have stolen. Also, their economic policies are unbelievably disastrous. Imagine for a minute, you own a small boutique hotel. And someone "from the government" comes along, and says, now this hotel is mine, for nothing. You are a small business owner generating money and paying taxes, funding the country. The business then collapses and the hotel is gutted. This is Chavez/Maduro's economy. It's called ruin and destruction. However, there is another element from the USA (I guess you could call it the deep state) that will also attempt to plunder the country, so hopefully when this crook finally goes away, whoever gets elected will manage to restore order while not letting the parasites in that normally like to plunder third world countries.
When he died, Chavez had 300 billion stashed away,
Says who? Please attribute your source JB.
Nothing to do with US sanctions then? I smell a rat.
Yep.
I think people believe that Venezuela will be a cakewalk. I have this feeling.....
If they try to go in and fight through a guerilla war, it will be hell for the US.
The problem is that Chavez and Maduro for a quarter of a century now have been violating the cardinal rule of a socialist revolution, which is that if you want it to succeed stably, you need to get rid of the oligarchic capitalist elites. This they didn't do. They didn't even put the media under full control, much of it is still under oligarch control and against the government.
Which means that there is a substantial force in the country that is willing to work with the US. Is that sufficient for a decapitation strike to succeed? We don't know, but quite possibly it is.
The USSR was broken up by its own elites precisely because it was sitting on countless trillions of real wealth that were waiting there to be looted and sold to the West for pennies on the dollar in exchange for a percentage of the proceeds. By its own elite party cadres. And the USSR was on a much firmer ideological rooting than Venezuela and it had fully cleared the oligarchs many decades prior. Always remember that.
US will not. Trump is smarter than to get involved in a guerilla war. They'll bomb Bases and government buildings trying to kill the socialist leadership and say they are going after drug labs. US kills leaders first and foremost unlike Russia. Then new more US compliant leaders may arise. Maybe not. Worked in Iraq failed in Afghanistan.
Iraq those idiots literally deposit every dollar of oil sales in US banks now US acts as Iraqs treasurer.
Iraq "worked" due to boots on the ground, not decapitation strike. Iraq did not have sympathetic neighbours, and Russia/China prepared to arm the push back. Venezuela is a very different beast.
I dunno, Libya and Syria worked out just fine for the US.
Russia and China didnt even arm Iran, a far more important ally.
This. People are duped by Maduro’s Socialist talk but he has not taken control of the economic levers of the country (besides oil), not done any land reform or industrialization policy, nor severed ties with the Western financial system, etc etc. In the end he is just a petty dictator with an old school left wing varnish. And he just needed to invite some Cubans and Chinese advisors to do it. He is a pure fake and the chances are that his regime can collapse pretty fast.
They aren't duped anything anymore, the broad sentiment by most people in Venezuela is hatred. Maduro hasn't actually won an election for a while. Everyone in Latin America knows he cheated to give the appearance of staying in power.
Not true. I'm Colombian and my brother lives in a town outside Caracas. Maduro enjoys broad support among the lower classes, in particular. If he were hated by most, he could not have lasted this long. The West and Right in South America have been engaged in a propaganda war for years, without much effect domestically. The military structure/National Guard has been decentralized into powerful regional districts capable of functioning independently. When the US sent, or formerly Colombia, when the right-wing crook, Duque, ruled the country, multiple interventions into Venezuela to serve as the nucleus for a regime change operation, every infiltration group was quickly discovered and destroyed/captured thanks to the Venezuelan compesinos tipping off the military.
The US simply will turn that country into a failed state, much like Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
Smashing stuff up and then leaving is quick, cheap and easy.
It is true. Many people like to recite the popular meme that "US has lost all of its wars since WWII except Grenada" and such. If that were true, why is the USD$ still the world's reserve currency? Many analysts and commentators have an anachronistic view of the purposes and the methods of war and what really counts as "winning".
Most of the commentators here live in fantasy land, scurrying from fantasy to fantasy as they get blown up.
This is probably because The Real World is far less pleasant than the Land Of Make-Believe.
Alex Krainer said recently that Russians arrived there a while back with equipment and personnel to prevent a coup.
Been a number of Russian flights with small numbers Russian military there. Iran may have supplied missiles to Venezuela and China may have supplied C-802A anti-ship missiles with a range of 100 plus miles.
You mean like in Syria?
If so, then shame on Russia for sure. Maduro committed a coup already. He didn't win the last election, and you can bank on that.
I have lived in South America for 15 years and I can tell you right now Maduro and Chavez before him were and are a complete joke. They are evil criminals and they have plundered Venezuela to enrich themselves, beyond anything within reason. Everyone in Latin America, including most Venezuelans, hate them. They are destabilizing the entire region and Venezuelans are under tremendous suffering. I have a large quantity of Venezuelan friends all over the world and no one has anything good to say about the bus driver. Venezuela has willfully pushed its criminal elements on the USA and is indeed run by the same criminal elements. If anything is done, it should be to take out that scumbag who most certainly did not win elections, and allow Venezuela to vote again on who they want in the government. I don't understand why local governments in South America haven't done more to remove Maduro.
Lol, whose payroll are you on? And who paid for your SA trips?
Don't be stupid. Just because I said something you don't like doesn't mean I'm a paid shrill. I lived in the region for 17 years. I know more about it than you do because I actually lived there and have actually talked to people in their own language about what is going on.
Bollocks, that was the oligarchs that were defeated by Chavez et al.
Actually, while Trump staves off the neocons by added sanctions that produce no results and giving Russia 6 months to feel the "pressure", he is giving (consciously or unconsciously) Putin 6 free months to finish off Ukraine. And when that 6 months is up, Trump will likely find another set of fake punishments for Russia to kick the can further down the road.
I agree. Although he appears to be allowing Russia to finish off Ukraine, it is certainly not out of some altruism on his part. He is simply trying to devoid himself of any responsibility for the Ukraine catastrophe. His support for genocide is all you need to know about him.
Then he failed badly. Because Ukraine will go down on his watch, while he's holding the can. Despite getting elected promising to shut it down in 24 hours.
And yes, it's HIS war.
Trump allows Russia nothing, he just is an eunuch pretending still having balls. The USA is tumbling down internally politically and economically.
This 'game' is not Trump's game, he's a useful idiot.
US is a fascist country — it was before Trump and will be long after Trump.
Really? Why do you think that?
Hello paid bot
Bot? Me?
Now why would you think that?
Just wondering why you think the US is a fascist country.
Zion don is just a Jew puppet.
Yes...Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He can't persuade the neocons in the US and the NATO crazies to end the war so he is doing it (ending it) in the only remaining way possible. He is letting Putin win it. When Ukraine finally capitulates Trump will re-start 'peace' talks and (attempt to) take credit for the final settlement.
If this were not Trump's strategy, he would actually be doing something actually likely to help Ukraine avoid defeat. Watch what he does, not what he says.
"Trump knows exactly what he is doing" - really? Nobody twisted his arm to surround himself with neocons, employ military cretins, roll like a pig in mud in their praises, play golf with Lindsey Graham, etc. Ancient Romans used to say, "tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are." Trump surrounded himself with crap last term and he learned absolutely NOTHING!
That's the other possibility... :-)
Well, Washington is a pit of vipers and Trump's majorities are paper thin. He can't just ignore Lindsey, et al. And, let's not forget that another 'Roman', Michael Corleone, said "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."
I guess we'll just have to watch and see.
"Nobody twisted his arm to surround himself with neocons, employ military cretins, roll like a pig in mud in their praises, play golf with Lindsey Graham, etc." You don't know much then. Trump's Jew benefactors, Miriam Adelson et al, had hand picked Trump's appointees before he was even elected. That was the cost for them backing him. Not to mention the Epstein list held over his head and most likely threats to his family if he didn't/doesn't follow their orders.
Therefore we see this Scott Bessent smiling like Joker.
He was George Soros's right hand man prior to joining the Trump administration.
Even pretending that were true, so what? Were Edelson and crew going to take away Trump’s birthday if he didn’t deliver?
Killing him and/or members of his family is an incentive to toe the line. Look what the Juuz did to Charlie Kirk.
What he does is start wars and prolong existing ones. Meanwhile he ramps up the police state internally, and encourages dual national infiltration.
What he doesn't do is anything that could be called MAGA.
Who cares what he says?
I think getting rid of criminals is at least making America better.
Trump is encouraging dual national infiltration? How so?
Look at the people around him. Look how genocide protesters have been treated. Tampering with The First Ammendment. MIGA on steroids.
Dual national infiltration?
The excuses you come up with!
So is Trump the president or is it these unnamed neocons?
Trump is a Neocon. ;)
Trump is simply weak, stupid and easily manipulated. The europeans and Zelenskii have the man figured out.
Flatter him, promise a statue, dangle out the promise of plunder or a private girl on girl show with Melania and Brigitte Macron or something, and the moron will do anything you ask.
😘
Why are you guys kissing each other?
I don't like kissing guys 😂
I've never tried it.
It's better to try quantum physics, or at least rob the Louvre.
Grow up.
Here is a grown-up. Brian Berletic has made a new video after an extended absence. Highly informative as always...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W5e7AzlS-OA
“HURR DURR who would have thought that a cheap but sufficiently effective weapon produced in mass numbers could be a war winning weapon?!”
Gee I don’t know… Does the name T34 ring a bell?
“Western experts” truly deserve to be mercilessly mocked.
Dang you are a few years behind.... We already know that the western equipment is just like that of Nazi Germany. Over engineered and very costly. Makes the synagogue of satan's jews more money though. That is all that matters.
Russian military hardware is designed to win wars. NATO military hardware is designed to win taxpayer dollars.
Dividende !
So, the MIC is successfully prosecuting the war against the long suffering American taxpayers. This sad fact can be traced all the way back to the Whiskey Rebellion.
Quite a good aphorism. That is about the size of it. See our own two Royal Navy mega-carriers, HMS Turkey and HMS White Elephant.
WHY DOES THE UK HAVE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS LMAO?!?
To ‘Project Power’, apparently. Successive Labour and Tory Defence (sic) Ministers have been absolutely adamant that the fate of Britain and THE WORLD depends on Britain’s ability to Project Power around the world. Each, we were told, is 50 ACRES of SOVEREIGN TERRITORY that can be mobilised globally - and that if we don’t have them, a SPECTRE-like coalition of Evil Supervillains (Kim Jong Il, V. Putin, Emperor Xi and the ghosts of Colonel Gaddafi and Osama bin Laden) will CACKLE with SATANIC GLEE as they plot to undermine OUR VALUES.
In an unrelated coincidence, said Defence (sic) Ministers have all gone on to lucrative sinecures in the MIC and the think-tank racket they fund.
Weirdly, despite spending £60bn a year (of borrowed money) on ‘Defence', our home island entirely lacks any meaningful anti-missile system and, indeed, its Government ‘cannot’ do anything to prevent a thousand unarmed fighting age Muslim males invading our land in criminal gangs' rubber boats every WEEK.
The uk subs are for porn movies
Don’t forget that the UK has voluntarily disarmed itself and sent all their SP Artillery to get blown up in Ukraine.
Need to fight them over there - were fighting them over there...
The hate & disdain of the british elites for the native born brits
is a shining example and rolemodel for their EU counterparts.
They don’t work and are just helicopter carriers.
Carriers are strictly an offensive weapon.
Actually it may be the case that they would be getting sunk regularly. Except for the fact that the economic limitation they do to the owners, far exceeds the damage done by sinking one.
Without refuelling the air forces of the US are indeed a paper tiger. Oh sure you can launch, create havoc, but in a real war, the carrier will not be around to land on!
Powerful propaganda is the only thing giving those crews any morale. We always said, "there are 2 ships in the navy, submarines and targets."
It’s all rather pathetic. Not just because Britain doesn’t really have enough foreign territories to need a carrier, but also because they don’t have the support ships needed.
The UK has more admirals than ships. If the Argies wanted they could go ahead and invade the Falklands, the British navy couldn’t do a whole lot about it.
I'm offended.
Well, of course they are 'Capital' ships aren't they - and can never go anywhere without a flotilla. You'd think the era of capital ships would have ended with battleships/cruisers but the advent of flying machines gave them a new lease. That era was probably ended by the 1960s once missiles came of age - but still the wonky logic of flying the flag persisted for 'certain countries.
Hypersonic target practice.
'just like" are you talking about the politics of the eventual customers?
Here we are fighting a war that the MIC does not want to invest in. This is literally the only thing we need to know about NATO. If the profit is not there, their hearts just aren't in it.
The only people buying western products get a kickback for their obedient subservience.
As for Europe being called a 'region with limited sovereignty'. Bingo!
The EU is the political arm of NATO.
That is the role and purpose of the EU.
Yes, Russian weapons work well in real war, and the Russian soldier is unmatched, hardened by centuries of constant wars (which is why the enemy struck gold by politically captured Ukraine, i.e. southwest Russia, to fight mainland Russia).
But then Russian politicians and elites betray everything without a fight.
On a relatively small scale -- Peter III, Congress of Berlin, etc.
And on the grandest strategic level -- the Russian army fought for six centuries to reach defensible borders, which was largely accomplished by the 1890s, then re-established in 1945, while the Russian MIC finally achieved strategic security for the country in the late 1960s once it reached and even surpassed the US in terms of nuclear delivery capabilities. And then two decades later what happened?
Now we have the Russian army and MIC doing their best under the absurd shackles placed on them by political leadership, meanwhile that political leadership is giving the enemy verbal tongue baths and coming up with one proposal after another for how Russia will accept strategic defeat and will not seek victory.
But the Russian people in large brought this upon themselves for not organizing and removing these traitors from power...
"But the Russian people in large brought this upon themselves for not organizing and removing these traitors from power...
There is nothing traitorous about walking a tightrope between SMO (and its objectives) and global nuclear war against western madmen... Chip
So we have clearly established that you have zero understanding of Russian history since 1985.
I am tired of explaining the same thing over and over -- current Russian "restraint" has absolutely nothing to do with the desire to avoid WWIII in order to protect the motherland, it is doing the exact opposite (it makes WWIII all the more likely).
And the Kremlin knows it very well -- Karaganov said it in Putin's face last year at Valdai, and you can be sure much stronger and more direct language has been used behind the scenes.
It has everything to do with the Russian oligarchy wanting to "go back to how things were" and making some kind of a deal. That's all it boils down to. And it's not even hidden -- what was Abramovich doing in Istanbul? Why is Kiril Dimitriev chief negotiator with the US? It's all right in the open, how can people be so blind?
BTW, the last few days even the Russian Telegram channels that had been practicing rather strict self-censoring since Strelkov was jailed have started to speak out, e.g.:
https://t.me/dva_majors/82175
>После бесчисленного количества угроз ядерной дубиной и «красных линий» теперь вряд ли что-то, кроме ядерного гриба на горизонте заставит Запад (с которым крупному бизнесу очень хочется торговать и вернуть «все как было») уверовать в серьезность предупреждений Москвы.
>After countless nuclear threats and "red lines," it's unlikely anything other than a nuclear mushroom cloud on the horizon will make the West (with which big business desperately wants to trade and return "everything to the way it was") believe Moscow's warnings are serious.)
https://t.me/dva_majors/82117
>4-й год войны почему-то политики ведут Армию России по пути достижения наиболее выгодных переговорных позиций, а не разгрома врага, уничтожения его духа и инфраструктуры. Правительственный квартал стоит. Стоят украинские заставы на р. Тиса. Сухогрузы ходят в Одессу. Каждый массированный удар по нацистам сопровождается позорно-оправдательным "В ответ на". Хотя почему по нацистам нельзя бить на упреждение - непонятно.
>Понятно, что компрадорской буржуазии очень хочется "как раньше" и продавать пендосам ресурсы, даже можно через новый тот самый тоннель до Аляски.
>Вот только враг ведет войну на уничтожение России, пока мы его спецоперируем. Непонятно, к чему эти самоограничения.
>[...]
>Про сегодняшний массированный пуск дронов ВСУ напомним отдельно}: массированное применения средств воздушного нападения, включая крылатые ракеты, беспилотники и другие летательные аппараты является причиной ответных мер, гласят «Основы государственной политики Российской Федерации в области ядерного сдерживания» (Ядерная доктрина). Впрочем, последний документ давно стал очередной стершейся "красной линией", помпезно представленной общественности в прошлом году и никак не влияет на безопасность граждан России, как и сотни других вымученных талмудов
>For some reason, in the fourth year of the war, politicians are leading the Russian Army down a path of achieving the most advantageous negotiating positions , rather than defeating the enemy and destroying its morale and infrastructure. The government quarter stands. Ukrainian outposts are stationed on the Tisza River. Dry cargo ships are sailing to Odessa. Every massive strike against the Nazis is accompanied by a shameful, apologetic "In response to..." Although why they can't strike the Nazis preemptively is unclear.
>It's clear that the comprador bourgeoisie really wants "like before" and sell resources to the Yankees, even through that new tunnel to Alaska.
>But the enemy is waging a war to destroy Russia, while we are conducting special operations against them. It's unclear what these self-imposed restrictions are for.
[...]
>Regarding today's massive drone launch by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, we should specifically note: the massive use of air attack weapons, including cruise missiles, drones, and other aircraft, is grounds for retaliatory measures, as stated in the "Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence" (Nuclear Doctrine) . However, this latter document has long since become another erased "red line," pompously presented to the public last year, and has no bearing on the security of Russian citizens, just like hundreds of other labored tomes.
I know he has said that, but it is tongue in cheek
Karaganov is speaking for people who have very good information about those things you just said he does not know. Better informed than Putin even.
I've read all of your broken record comments before. TLDR this one.
But YES I do know Russia and the former Soviet Union. Military officer during the cold war, study of the USSR, its people, and capabilities was a must. And have been following since the fall of the Berlin wall which I personally participated in... Chip
You are not wrong. The segment of Russian society who are the most ardent supporters of western policy, and have been the least committed to achieving the objectives of the SMO, as stated in February 2022, have been those who also dream of returning to the glory days of the 1990s - the former oligarchs and comprador bourgeoisie. What many casual observers here in the west do not understand, is that the SMO happened despite the wishes of such people. It was the patriotic workers of Donbass who pushed for Russia to take action, and made their situation impossible for the Kremlin to ignore. As the Russian masses so enthusiastically stood behind them, the influence of the compradors and capitulationists was severely diminished.
In my opinion, the imperialists miscalculated with their sanctions strategy - it effectively neutralized the very element that they’ve relied on in the past to control Russia, and who they would need to empower in order to stand any chance of having the current order overthrown and replaced with some Navalny-type figure as president to front up a neo-Yeltsinite regime in the Kremlin. Which is why a part of me gets a little nervous whenever Kiril Dimitriev shows up here and begins babbling about economic cooperation. What does the US even have to offer a country like Russia which could be worth all the baggage that comes with relations with the US these days?
Interestingly, they seem to have made a nearly identical mistake regarding their regime-change efforts in Iran. Instead of deploying their tried-and-true method of cultivating a milieu of reliable comprador capitalists, desperate to do business with the G7, they actually seem to have attacked this group by placing Iran under “maximum pressure sanctions”. It was arguably this layer who were particularly the hardest hit among the rest of Iranian society (workers, farmers, and small businessmen had already been effectively sanctioned for decades, and in many ways had grown accustomed to it). It’s typically a certain section of the Iranian bourgeoisie, and those who aspire to be bourgeois, who adopt very liberal, pro-western attitudes (often to the point of being ashamed of their own country), and who tend to be the least loyal to the revolutionary legacy, who always push the line that the West’s hostility towards Iran was some sort of misunderstanding, that they should therefore make concessions to prove they “weren’t a threat”, and all would be fixed. Those are the people imperialism instinctively gravitated towards. It’s therefore odd that the US passed over an opportunity to cultivate potential assets through sanctions relief, which would build up the political and economic power the most pro-US, pro-Europe (even pro-Israel) layer within Iranian society. Instead, it seems they pursued a course of action which had them relying on terrorist groups like MEK, ethnic separatists in places like Kurdistan, Balochistan, Khuzestan, etc, impoverished Afghan migrant workers, drug gangs and organized crime in general, and monarchists living lives of luxury in the diaspora in the west, who tend to epitomize the stereotype of wealthy, arrogant, sleazy, out-of-touch rulers, slavishly beholden to foreign powers, who were chased out of power in 1979. None of these groups have anything close to the political, economic, and social influence within the country, let alone the organizational discipline, required to carry out a pro-Washington coup, especially in a country such as Iran.
Whether in Russia or Iran, the political power of both countries’ traitors comes, in large part, from their ability to loot and send the country’s wealth abroad; with that ability taken away from them, they’re mostly impotent. So I find it interesting, perhaps alarming, that the US were unable or unwilling to use their typical methods, which in both cases led them into kinetic military conflict.
>What many casual observers here in the west do not understand, is that the SMO happened despite the wishes of such people.
Notice how all the podcasters are talking to each other, or if they talk to Russians, they will get someone like Alaudinov, some of the diplomats, on rare occasions Karaganov, and that's it.
But why has nobody invited someone like Gubarev to talk about the SMO? Or ever discussed his book from way before the SMO? Precisely what you are saying is laid bare in all its gory detail in it (the Kremlin working together with the Ukrainian oligarchy and against the L/DNR, trying to suppress the rebellion). It's not clear how openly someone like Gubarev would speak today, because he did spend some time in jail too, and Strelkov is still in jail for a third year now, but back in 2022-23 it would have been natural to reach out and I doubt he would have refused.
Or maybe not even in 2023, because let's recall what happened in Kherson -- his wife was deputy head of the administration of the region before it got officially annexed and shortly after, then right when Kherson city was handed over she "disappeared", was then investigated for "corruption", and hasn't really been seen much since.
Something else happened right on the day Shoigu and Surovikin were ordered by the Tsar to announce the "difficult decision" (of course, in the Tsar's complete absence) -- Kiril Stremousov died in a "car crash". Right after a few days prior he had been talking publicly about how "We will return even Kiev and we will live again like it was in the USSR and it will be fantastic". Unforgivable crime apparently, plus he had to be shut down because it was doubtful he was going to keep silent after the "difficult decision". So he was killed, Gubareva was disappeared and then purged, the matter of the fate of the city was never mentioned again for years, and only now Saldo is posting upbeat but detached from reality updated about how the Russian army is liberating the islands along the right bank within the city limits...
>a part of me gets a little nervous whenever Kiril Dimitriev shows up here and begins babbling about economic cooperation
I get a lot more than a little nervous, because while indeed the sanctions should have been a godsend for the fight against the oligarchy, in practice we have what? Kiril Dimitriev as chief negotiator, which points to anything but that fight being successful.
Plus we have the Central Bank's policies. Read John Helmer's latest if you haven't:
https://johnhelmer.net/no-gdp-growth-no-inflation-no-war-by-2028-central-bank-governor-nabiullina-follows-us-nato-imf/
Outright sabotage of the country, yet Putin goes along with it...
>Iran
Iran is in a much better shape because it is still a regime that came to power with a relatively recent revolution, it is ideologically based, and it has the IRGC as a strong ideologically driven power base (and if anything, the youner cadres in it appear to be much more hawkish than the old guard, so the future is bright there).
Russia, in contrast, is a counter-revolutionary regime with few of those factors working for the country.
Which is why Iran has been firing back at the enemy directly, even if not as hard as they should be, but Russia, even though it has immensely greater capabilities, is not...
But even the authors are forced to admit the prospect of any kind of Russian collapse is not exactly realistic... with the exception of the Ukropropagandist star Great Moron
The battles go on, but the war is with European NATO. It looks like the Europeans have a death wish. What they really want is for their people to be depopulated while they hide in bunkers. Here in the middle of the USA I was told 5 years ago by a contractor buddy that his superiors thought there would be a nuclear war, and the state government had bunkers to hide in. Made me feel good that my representatives in the state legislature planned to make trouble and abandon me and every one who voted for them and hid in bunkers. In the planned WWIII the PEOPLE OF EUROPE SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT THEY ARE CANNON FODDER NEXT, while their governments hide underground, then come out to save the day with new currency.
They plan to adopt the leaf as legal tender...
Silent & invisible weapons for silent and invisible wars. Seen a Ukr. drone assembled with napalm what you know? The constructer got inspired at the spot, no rehearsal just do it or did it, what if the next stage is weaponising drones with SARS, Ebola, Borellia, meningococcus or Anthrax?
if the attack is sizable and dangerous the response can be nuclear as per doctrine . tbh i see the biological stuff as beeing much more dangerous .
The biological stuff never works very well. It looks good in the lab but when released into the world fizzles out. See covid.
believe it or not it will never go away, but don’t see it as a pandemic not even an epidemic, it’s a weapon and has the same after effects as a hand grenade or the dropping of a bomb on a place or a spot. For the record France got just hit with another Covid missile, the next in an endless row.
Missiles and who knows drones on nuclear fuel, here in EU they have named Putin’s latest missile on nuclear fuel the Tchernobil weapon, having a reach of 20 thousand km! From mustard gas in long forgotten times to biochemical weapons nowadays, and not to forget Russians have their experiences in psychiatric wards and Gulags, as the west have theirs starting in Nazi camps. Now all are decently named labs of level 4, meaning creating biochemical weapons and not what they intentionally want us to believe fighting viruses. There are at least 1000 of these creep labs all over the world, not to count those experiments level 4 performed in labs level 3 or just ordinary kitchens.
Yes, the T-34 rings a major bell. In case anybody will reproduce the T-34 they better forget about the auxiliary diesel tank that made the destruction of these tanks rather easy. Once the fuel tank was punctured with a rifle round and the fuel was leaking out a single Molotov cocktail finished the job but one had to get pretty close with the cocktail.
http://tank-photographs.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/t34-85-russian-soviet-medium-tank-london.html
That’s less of a weak spot and more just like tanks work lol
When these tanks were caught inside cities during WWII and the anti-Soviet revolts that flared up in East Germany, Poland and Hungary it was an uncomfortable proposition. The crew was simply exterminated by a rifleman from the top of a building and a Molotov cocktail. The crew had to jump very fast when the burning diesel and smoke started to get inside. I actually developed the conspiracy theory that these Soviet tankers were sent to their deaths by hostile design engineers.
Again: This is basically how tanks work and not a particular downside to the T34. Which actually was significantly more survivable than most German tanks.
Not inside a major city. it was not.
well i don't think the scenarios were repeated much - in essence the fix is simple - go inside the city only with internal fuel . And anyway regular tanks inside cities were always in a bad place , valable today
Oh wow tanks don't do well in dense cities with endless ambush opportunities? Wow that's definitely not something everyone with a passing knowledge of armored tactics knows. And how are tank design flaws which are a danger to the crew comparable to mass produced single use drones which are built to be essentially modular to cope with the constant changes in EW?
Didn't they fix the problem around 1943 or so?
By more internal fuel storage tanks?
In the 1956 October Revolution in Hungary hundreds of T-34s were burned with these cheap tricks. The auxiliaries were still carried. This made the Soviet tank operators so angry that they were willing to destroy large parts of Budapest and execute a beautiful 15 year old redhead girl, a nurse.
https://dailynewshungary.com/heroes-1956-girl-already-dead-photo-went-around-world/
https://www.historynet.com/the-beast-of-budapest/
"hundreds of T-34s were burned" Nonsense. Ah, and while you were re-writing history you forgot to give credit to the "Ghost of Kiev" for how the Hungarian revolutionaries won their revolution.
You need to do some serious research to catch up on the issue as far as the number of T-34s going to hell there. Look at the primary sources. No the Hungarians did not win the military confrontation but as Otto von Habsburg expressed it: The 1956 Hungarian revolution was the Stalingrad of Communism. And I had seen a PhD level research study that came to the exact same conclusion.
Just checked. The estimate was about 700 tanks. Like in ANY built-up area, tanks are vulnerable. Tanks are long-range weapons. Built-up areas is close-quarter. No tanker likes cities....
In the Warsaw uprising, it is estimated that Germany lost about 200 tanks.
"primary sources" you say? And then you go on to cite derivative sources, one sloganeering and the other, a "PhD level" study that "came to the exact same conclusion," almost a caricature of what a primary source is. Just for the record, Jill Biden has a PhD. That's not an indication of primary anything.
Primary sources would be the action reports in Soviet archives as well as the memoirs of commanders who participated. Ever since communism was overthrown in Russia in 1991 and the Union ended, people aren't shy about digging up and disclosing all the hateful things that communists did.
Unfortunately, there's very little of that translated into English and available online. There are some good secondary sources, such as histories written about the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian revolution. Those indicate that at most "dozens" of Soviet tanks were disabled (with very few actually destroyed), primarily in the industrial sector and not in the main streets downtown of Budapest. But it wasn't "hundreds" of tanks.
Ah, and as far as slogans go, saying the 1956 Soviet invasion was "the Stalingrad of Communism" is not something anybody remotely acquainted with Stalingrad would say. Once the invasion commenced it rapidly and thoroughly crushed the uprising, with remarkably low loss of life for something that's been so overhyped in the West.
(Sigh)… That’s not how neither tanks nor T34 diesel fuel works.
“When ignited, diesel burns with a slow, smoldering flame and produces significant smoke, rather than an explosive burst like gasoline.”
No, the USSR didn’t lose hundreds of tanks in Hungary, and no: External diesel tanks aren’t some sort of death trap lol!
Keep repeating that for yourself while sitting in large patch of diesel fuel while lighting you cigar. Read less AI study more primary evidence.
I'm with Kennewick Man here. Just checked. See my note above. One other thing. Because diesel burns slowly, it is better for molotov cocktails. A diesel/petrol mix. Or, better still, petrol/rubber-band mix. That was what the IRA used against us British soldiers in Ulster.
Check harder.
Total Warsaw Pact dead were 722.
Did they knock out a few tanks? Sure. Despite the T34 being more survivable than most WW2 tanks, tanks are vulnerable without infantry support.
Did some Hungarian exile claim that they “ackshually knocked out 700! For realsies!” Also yup.
Kennewick Man repeats some weirdo urban legend about the T34 ignoring that any tank is vulnerable against infantry up close. And if it gets in that situation, it’s in trouble no matter if it has a barrel of diesel on the back or not.
I do not believe even the Soviets knew or cared how many T34s they lost exactly. On the other hand it was a very large number. Those tanks getting into the narrow ancient streets of Budapest were extremely vulnerable. The size of forces they threw into that battle were serving one single purpose: Driving for a very fast victory before the revolt spreads to other satellite nations. Recall 1953 East Germany and 1956 summer Poland.
lol! Just stop you’re embarrassing yourself.
We know exactly how many men the Warsaw Pact (it wasn’t just the USSR) lost in Hungary in 1956.
It was 722 and about 1500 wounded.
Were any tanks destroyed? Sure. A few.
But sure buddy. The red army, just a decade after WW2, somehow forget all their lessons on how vulnerable tanks are without infantry support, and somehow lost hundreds of tanks (that apparently were manned by a single man, since total casualties were 700.)
And when the politburo asks what the hell happened, their commander said: “I don’t know how many we lost! It’s not like we keep track of things in the military!”
😂
Grok is reporting 100-200 tanks, and I guess I'll just post the whole answer (thought I was on Tweety/X for a moment):
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (October 23–November 10) saw widespread urban fighting, particularly in Budapest, where Hungarian revolutionaries—armed with small arms, Molotov cocktails, and some captured Hungarian Army equipment—engaged Soviet forces. The Soviets deployed approximately 1,000–1,600 tanks in total, including T-34-85 medium tanks, T-54s, IS-3 heavy tanks, and ISU-152 self-propelled guns. While total Soviet tank losses across all types are estimated at 100–200 (based on historical analyses of Soviet archives and eyewitness accounts), precise figures for T-34-85s specifically are not comprehensively documented in declassified records or major histories. This is due to the chaotic nature of the fighting, where many vehicles were damaged, repaired, or abandoned rather than fully destroyed, and Soviet reports often aggregated losses.
However, photographic and testimonial evidence from key battles (e.g., Corvin Passage, Republic Square) confirms at least a dozen T-34-85s were visibly destroyed or disabled by revolutionaries. Broader estimates suggest 20–30 T-34s were lost, primarily to Molotov cocktails igniting fuel or ammo, anti-tank rifles, and occasional Hungarian Army defections using their own T-34s or artillery. These losses were concentrated in the first phase (October 23–28), before the Soviet withdrawal and re-invasion on November 4, when heavier armor overwhelmed resistance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not that I totally trust Grok.
So I think for Hungary it was maybe 200 tanks but not all T-34 and this seems to indicate only 20-30 of them were T-34.
Have you tried to get diesel to burn?
I think because a lot of molotov cocktails were used to burn tanks, specifically thrown from windows or rooftops, that you think it had something to do with T-34 external fuel tanks. Which were not used much past 1943.
“ a beautiful 15 year old redhead girl, a nurse.”
Hehehe, that was funny. I followed the link you provided expecting to see a child applying bandages to civilians or something g and what I find is a young woman armed to the teeth in a military uniform. She was executed you say? More likely the Russians who shot in her direction were busy trying to stay alive 😂 She is the 1950’s equivalent of today’s Ukrainian ‘army cooks’ and ‘volunteer medics’.
Mentioning Conquest as a reliable source in 2025…
She was in snow-white nurse uniform, unarmed, dragging a wounded friend away from the line of fire when she was killed.
Maybe. But that still is not strictly being “executed” is it? If you poke your head in the middle of a firefight sometimes things happen. And your link says nothing of the sort.
It wasn’t a problem. Kennewick man is just repeating some weird myth he heard somewhere.
Shit, diesel doesn’t even burn the same way gasoline does.
If you actually poked a hole in a T34 external fuel tank and managed to set it on fire somehow, which isn’t that easy to begin with, the tank would be fine and drive away.
Yes diesel isn't very flammable but it still burns I suppose.
Now if it were a Sherman.....
Diesel does NOT ignite/burn fast. But, once lit, and a Molotov cocktail, on leaking diesel will do it, then it burns longer. Petrol, in a Molotov cocktail is all flash and quick burn-out. Diesel/petrol mix in Molotov cocktail has the ignite/long-burn effect. The same long-burn that V900 reports earlier in this conversation.
I agree a mix in a cocktail works better.
This was, by the way, tested by the Red Army.
Diesel does not burn if you puncture a diesel tank with small arms. Getting your face splattered with diesel while traveling in your BMP is a very strong nightmare fuel tho.
Yeah, IDK where he even got this nonsense from.
If you want to criticize the T34 there’s plenty of actual problems you can bring up. Like the transmission that died after 1000 km (at least in the beginning) or the cramped interior. Or the cupola.
But this stuff about diesel drums somehow causing tanks to blow up left and right is just weird.
or the lack of two way radios in the beginning . Indeed they are doing their 3x in academia , times 3x in press total 9x inflation on everything bad with the enemy . Got them multiple times doing that
Getting out of a BMP in a rush is also nightmare fuel lol. Unless you’re like 5 feet tall.
Do you use the moniker "Kennewick Man" for the dinosaur-like attempts of misinformation and gas lighting?
Do you do Hasbara part-time when you get throttled too much here?
Work on your skills?
I remember the "Ronsons" of WW2!!
Gasoline powered tanks.
Fatmerican tanks they were...
Now the German Chancellor wants to become the largest army in the EU...and wants to have 2,000 German tanks built.
He doesn't understand that Putin only needs to reserve 2,000 drones.
.
But what the German Chancellor says is what the US President says...a big show...to hide the realities.
merz comes from (is) blackrock. it's all about investments and saving-face propaganda.
The point is to show the American Master who's the good little dog who gets treat who gets American military intervention who who who!
I have been trying to say that on Andrei Martyanov's blog for years. He is strictly a tank man. And he does no believe in Stalin's Gulag. A late Soviet era mentality.
And you could have said the same about P-40s, Shermans, Ford trucks, Willys jeeps and Liberty ships. (And, indeed, the tinned spam that fed the troops.) But the US no longer has that sort of industrial muscle - and anyway, long-term hi-tech boondoggles are so much more profitable.
They are, functionally at least, mere propagandists. It's been 30 years since a true, reality facing expert was allowed on "western" presstitute media.
So lets mock the worthless panderers! 🤑🤣🤣
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bk3eTlf3DaQ
Russian military offers safe passage for foreign media to visit encircled Ukrainian troops
https://www.rt.com/russia/627156-foreign-journalists-could-receive-access/
I'm sure Gen Ben Hodges has gone mad and is an embarrassment to the US Army every time he appears on social media.....
To the contrary - he is well paid to say those things. People actually believe him - one of the tragedies of Western civilisation.
Idiocracy was a documentary
Ben Hodges has a much better track record in this war than Scott Ritter, Martyanov, Larry Johnson, The Duran (though recently one of them seems to have had a bit of a Damascene conversion), and everyone else who back in 2022 predicted the imminent collapse of the Ukrainian army right at the moment Russia was hemorrhaging forces to contract expirations while the enemy was fully mobilizing, and then continued to predict imminent collapse any day now for years after that.
Ben Hodges, for example, said Kherson is doomed already in July 2022 or so, and then it happened, he also said the Russian army is exhausted already around May 2022 or so, etc. All very accurate predictions.
Sure, he said a lot of foolish things too, but when you have been right on the money on at least a few issues you are a real prophet compared to people who got every single thing wrong.
Hodges is a complete idiot. As for him being right about something, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
And what about the clocks that are not right even twice a day?
Like you?
I suppose we all say some foolish things!
Yes, but some say the same exact foolish things over and over and over and over and over again, no matter how many times the foolish thing is refuted with facts.
Your out of your goddamn mind. Hodges hasn’t been “right” about anything and is either senile at this point or a paid parrot.
I listed very specific examples, didn't I?
None of which are true
GM is, like it or not, right. Something is very wrong: Russia is insolently attacked while economic yardbirds sit on its shoulders and try to peck out its eyes….and Putin (representing the nation’s leadership), does nothing.
I don't know Ben Hodges or any of the rest of the talking heads. On the US side, it seems that most - like Hodges, get their info or limit their info to what they get from Ukraines Face Book page and so it's little wonder that their prognostications often seem absurd.
But what do any of us really know about what is actually going on. I tend not to listen to Hodges or the rest because all of them have paychecks dependent on what they say so much of what they say is completely predictable.
The same can be said for Simply, so everything we read, watch or listen to must be taken with a dose of skepticism..
To be embarrassed, one must have brains, shame or honor. I think brains and honor don't exceed a colonel rank in the US army nowadays.
General Rumblossom. He looks like he's knocked back a lot of bourbon in the senior officers' mess over his career.
>The drones which reach extremely deeply into the Ural zone, such as the strike on an Orenburg refinery earlier in the month, end up doing very little damage due to their small warhead size. Their main purpose appears to be a ‘psychological effect’, and the ability to merely rouse headlines sporting new “high score” counts of 1500km, 2000km+, and more into the Russian heartland
Most of those drones are not launched from Ukraine.
And now we have proof of it -- a few days ago a drone was found exploded in the middle of the Kazakh steppe, just south of the border from Orenburg. And what kind of drone was it? An FP-1...
But FP-1 drones only have a range of 200 km.
So what was known without a doubt already based on just tracking the drones (there were many, many cases when you would see an alarm going off in Orenburg and the surrounding regions, but there had been nothing between Orenburg and Lugansk for hours prior to that) was directly confirmed.
What this also means is that the next step is direct attacks on Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Tagil, Omsk, Kurgan, Novosibirsk, etc. even perhaps Krasnoyarsk, plus the Western Siberian oil and gas infrastructure, which will be claimed to be some Ukrainian wonder drones/missiles with many thousands of kilometers of range, but in reality they will be launched directly from across the border. Where Russia has no air defense, because nobody has planned for it.
Coincidentally earlier this year the British signed a military cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan, so what's going on is not even hidden all that well. The Kremlin of course was in its usual mode, i.e. if we ignore the growing crisis sufficiently stubbornly, it will resolve itself on its own. Sure...
BTW, the same thing is happening across the border from Azerbaijan, it's just that there are few strategically important targets to hit there beyond oil and gas infrastructure. But the region along the Kazakh border is THE strategic heart of Russia.
What is the Kremlin going to do about it? The bet is on more of the same, i.e. pretending it is not happening, because the oligarchs have placed a firm veto on another mobilization and a second front against Kazakhstan is an absurdity without total mobilization.
Anti psychotics work, get help..
Not in his case , he is doped up to the eyeballs already. And he is braindead from the feet up. Sits on his fat Ukrainian ass in Bali, posting talking points from Fat Freddy Kagan’s ISW comic. That and complete drug induced fantasy nonsense.
Shut up gay boy Boyd.
What are you 6? Reduced to silly incorrect slirs?
Hit the target eh
Slurs.
That’s all you do. Or did you have an actual argument?
Arguing with children, whether it be in a child's or adult's body is pointless. The same with the delusional. If you are interested in my arguments go read my other comments, or even my substack.
GM, I understand your concern. Everything revolves around access to resources. The Russian gov probably agrees with your points, they just dont have the resources and need to manage what they have. Just like every other gov in the world. It is painful to see gaps and holes, but the key point is that resources are spent where they are needed most, its impossible to have full forces everywhere.
Your key argument is that Russian gov should be like the Israilis and US and go scortched earth and end this quickly. I understand your argument but that path is inhumane, soulless, and plain evil. Russians want to be spiritual, even if that is slower and more expensive.
No, it should have been the exact opposite of scorched earth.
We've been here many times, let's do it again. The basic outline of the war is western elites using Ukrainian cannon fodder through Ukrainian elites as the middlemen to fight Russia.
Who do you go after in this situation:
1) Western elites directly to force them to back off?
2) Ukrainian elites to break up the scheme?
3) Ukrainian working class cannon fodder, i.e. what you loudly proclaimed to be your own people in July 2021?
Well, of course you go for #3 according to Putin, how could it be otherwise?
But he could have in fact at least taken out the Ukrainian elites in the first days and weeks of the war, and it would have been all over with very minimal destruction on both sides. He didn't, and he also missed the critical window of opportunity, because he allowed Zelensky's stature to increase so much that whereas in February 2022 a missile visiting Zelensky's hideout would have merely resulted in some Zhidobandera minced meat splattered on the wall of some bunker and nobody thinking about it much, now it is quite likely to have the West going directly after Putin for doing it.
Also, on that very same February 24th 2022 Putin threatened "decision making centers" in the West if they "get involved", and stressed that "this is not a bluff". In other words he knew very well about option #1. But I think we can all agree that they have gotten involved a tad little bit and that Putin's bluff was in fact called.
When I advocate for using nukes, I call for first disabling the border crossings and thus physically cutting Ukraine off, and if even that does not get the message across, for striking Europe. All of which will leave Ukraine, i.e. core historic Russian land intact.
It is the current absurd strategy (absurd unless you are a Russian oligarch, that is) that ensures maximum slaughter and destruction.
In short Chicken Little says “the sky is falling (again or still). Hopefully hits the idiot on the head and knocks some sense into (not likely)
This. Sometimes I wonder if Zelensky and Putin are not in cahoots to eliminate their patriotic young men who would pose the most resistance to Davos/WEF world order. Unlimited immigration, hereditary oligarchs, etc.
Experimentation and practice with AI controlled drones.
A lever to defraud and disenfranchise the general population of the EU
and the US.
I have considered the following:
Biological Warfare + 5th Gen. Warfare (information warfare)
+ Economical Warfare (sanctions) = ww3
Started end 2019 or thereabouts.
By western elites you need to name the Jew to see the problem and the solution. Hit the illegal Jew state and arm Iran with nukes.
"I understand your argument but that path is inhumane, soulless, and plain evil."
It works.
Of course, war isnt a morality contest.
It is for the dupes. "Make the world safe for Democracy". One example. They still use that crap.
The Brits in Kazakhstan is a serious problem, and will likely get worse.
Yes, it will.
What is Russia going to do about it?
Not much I think. There must have been attacks from Finland against Murmansk, from Baltic states against StPetersburg and from Kazahkstan against the inner core of Russia. And one should not underestimate the GURs innovative infiltration techniques similar to Israel in Iran. Small cells working inside Russia.
Putin doesnt dare to poke the Vampires nest. He strives to suffocate the Golem in Ukraine. I think we just have to sit out, GM, until the Pokrovsk, Mirnograd, Kupyansk and Konstantinovka is taken. If Ukraine then falls apart - all fine. If not and the commentariat finds NEW objects to be taken for the final all mighty victory, then we now who is thinking and talking bullshit.
Not "must have been", **were**
The Finns were caught in the act of launching them from one of their military airfileds last summer.
In Estonia one drone crashed in the middle of the country on its way to Leningrad.
And when the multiple IL-76 planes were taken out in Pskov in August 2023 the drones were clearly observed flying west to east over the lake.
Your english is better than mine!
Why? The Brita are a joke military
I shouldn't answer your BS anymore, being a British citizen as I am. I know for a fact, the only capability the British military top brass & it's political class. Only know 1 way to cause any bother in any conflict. Terrorist attacks upon civilian targets on top of bring masters in propaganda (IE Bullshit). Kazakhstan isn't going to be needing to be attacked by Russians at all. You know it I know it, more likely there's already a helluva lot more Russian operatives there than all the Western terrorists put together. It doesn't matter about pin prick attacks in the grand scheme of things no matter how much, deluded idiots like yourself believe they will. The thing is what's going to happen when the boot is on the other foot? Because it's coming, thanks to the James Bond wannabes in Whitehall. Meanwhile the Russian machine keeps grinding on demilitarising the whole of NATO. Has anyone seen any patriot failures lately? I don't know who's paying you as only a paid shill could be so ridiculous as yourself. But I coukd take a guess, I'd say you're a lot closer to me. Than you are Ukraine, I've proven you so wrong on so many occasions its becoming an embarrassment. I'm starting to believe youre not even an adult.
>pin prick attacks
Oh, yes, what happened in Sterlitamak and Kopeysk last week is absolutely no big deal. Just pin pricks, bro, what's the fuss about.
The attempt in June to do a ground attack on Dombarovsky was absolutely no big deal either. Just pin pricks. Which is why Lavrov took the unprecedented in this war step to actually bring it up publicly.
>Meanwhile the Russian machine keeps grinding on demilitarising the whole of NATO.
How has it done that when not a single military base or a factory in NATO has been destroyed? In fact not single shell, drone or a missile has flown in NATO's direction at all. While NATO is bombing Russia 24/7.
I might be a simpleton, but when the exchange ratio is non-zero to zero, one side is winning and the other is losing and there are no arguments about it.
I agree, the UK military has only the ability to bite Russia round here ankles. Anyone thinking otherwise is deluded.
Well, they have 64 MIRV-ed Trident II D5 missiles. Which does a little bit of damage.
I like the way you slapped it down on the deli counter. Just look at the size!
And the no of functional UK subs is?
Plus who will give the order to fire?
Russian missile technology is far superior to anything the west possess. They could probably hit our command centres with a few Hazelnuts before our guys have their trousers on.
As Mr Putin said " we haven't really started anything yet "
Don't poke the bear unless you want to be bitten.
>And the no of functional UK subs is?
One on patrol.
Look, I am on record here many times that the UK is the easiest nuclear power to take out. There is one SSBN to track and sink, the other three are sitting ducks in Clyde, to be nuked from a ship in the Atlantic with a hypersonic missile that arrives in 2-3 minutes leaving no time to react, and they are done.
But you do have to take out that SSBN that is on patrol, and that is far from trivial.
>Russian missile technology is far superior to anything the west possess
Sure, but effective BMD is something that nobody has.
That are on lease from the USA. Not even sure if they work. Or their porn background subs.
Dude. Try using paragraphs.
Not that it matters on such forums but I have a law degree and an engineering degree. You ?
The point is Russia could take these U.S. and uk fags out anytime if they have the will. But the main problem is the Jew wherever it is.
Nice job being a Brit cuck to the Jew who jails you people for naming them or opposing subhuman invasion of Uk while letting. Rape gangs and machete wielders run wild. Fag.
Are you always this confrontational towards complete strangers. For the single reason of their nationality? There's 70 million people live in Britain. Are you seriously suggesting we are all exactly the same as each other? I pity you, you've a lot to learn & carry to much hate within you. Have a nice day.
LOL - are you a jew? or just a britcuck who saw his empire tossed in the trash by the drunk jew puppet churchill ?
Im niether, but that should come as no to surprise to you. As it's pretty obvious you're used to being wrong. I wonder what such a person with no self awareness is. As you obviously believe in your own superior self above a full nation of citizens. Your opinion of a full nation of people. Being the target of your bigotry, seems to be from someone full of prejudice. Are you of an ethnic group or country conquered, enslaved, exploited & mastered by the country you hate so much? If that is so, I can understand your feelings of hatred. It must be hard to have an history, of belonging to a an easily defeated, easily controlled & easily exploited race. In the knowledge a tiny nation dominated & pillaged your ancestors. It must be hard living with an inferior complex towards your ancestors masters. In the knowledge that you & your people are of no concern to that tiny little island nation or it's people. It's OK many were conquered by that nation. Through their own weakness, in fact not many have ever been victorious against them. Don't feel shame for your ancestors servitude, Don't live with so much hate & bitterness. Just be happy to be alive, enjoy yourself, negativity will be the death of you. You do know making personal attacks in someone, you clearly know nothing about. Has mental health implications that probably need medical attention. From a Catholic, Irish father of 5, whose country has suffered under the British more than any other.
well sir - congratulations on the election of Catherine Connolly someone who knows about the Jew Problem. you sir should hate the Brits more than any. if they had followed Mosley and Uncle A the UK would not have become the jew run shite hole it is...
hatred in defense of what you love is no vice..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBJKG8_CkDU
"May the road rise to meet you, and the wind always be at your back. and the rains fall softly on your fields. May God hold you gently in the palm of his hand.
The "School Of The America's" got nothing on the brits.
The british organised "Special Night Squads" in 1938 Palestine.
They trained the jewish militia's to terrorise and kill the palestinians.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03086534.2015.1083220
GM - What is going on with the balloons from Belarus into the baltics ? Just toying with the west ?
As you keep saying: the beatings will continue.
Alluding to morale or other sentiments is just an excuse.
Something that is missing from talk of why manufacturers and "innovators" are not stepping up with unique ideas and increased production of drones and their counters is the asinine situation in the West and the US in particular with the inability to monetize ideas easily or rapidly and protect novel IP.
I know of this firsthand.
The USPTO takes a year or more and tens of thousands of dollars to secure a patent, and it is not enough to have a US patent but in numerous foreign jurisdictions if one wants to monetize their idea. And, export regime gatekeepers like ITARS and EAR ensure that it is all but impossible for some independent inventor with a novel idea in the US to protect their IP, and sell it or license it or even disclose it abroad without being in serious violation of these regulations which are felony violations, even to NATO allies.
You can't make this crap up.
All of these regulations can be navigated efficiently by Boeing, Lockheed, and RTX, which have entire departments to handle regulations. The complex laws are a "moat" to protect big business.
Precisely
There is also a very large and greedy bureaucratic pimpocracy with their hands outstretched to charge any independents foolish enough to try to help the war effort. The only way through is the old venture capital route and losing independence before getting off the ground, another vector for pimpocracy...
The uspto is not the problem.
White men have no reason to support this Jew system that hates them.
I have drafted over 1000 patents in aerospace ; oil and gas technology and no inventor has been a non white
The west can also no longer exploit and build upon stolen 3d reich technology.
>Why are signing bonuses being reduced in many regions? The pro-UA side naturally speculates that “Russia is running out of money”. In reality, the reason is likely because Russia is comfortably hitting its quotas to such an extent that such elevated bonuses are no longer necessary.
There is also the hope that this is because actual mobilization is coming, but with this leadership it is almost certainly a much more negative for Russia explanation.
I'm sure you are going to eventually mention that a few timely placed nukes will resolve everything.....
Yes, they will.
I have asked this before and will ask again; who will General Moron shill for when this SMO is completed to it's stated objectives?
LOL.
Twat.
Whomever the programmer enters into his data bank/app?
The stated objectives of the SMO are something that will never be achieved under current Russian leadership because it completely officially backtracked from them already in Istanbul in March 2022, then again in July 2024, then again and again though mostly behind the scenes in subsequent negotiations.
The current official Russian objectives amount to simply a slightly less catastrophic strategic defeat. That is all that Putin is aiming for at the moment.
How are you going to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine and keep NATO out of it if you do not physically control it?
What imbecile does one have to be to even think this is possible, let alone actively pursue such a "solution"?
But the current Russian official position is "four oblasts and war is over", with the latest information, that is increasingly looking likely to have been correct, that Putin even agreed on freezing the front in Kherson and Zaporozhye in exchange for the rest of the DNR.
Therefore the current Russian official position amounts to complete abandonment of the goals of no NATO, demilitarization and denazification, i.e. all of the SMO goals.
How hard is that to understand?
Lavrov, Ushakov, and the rest of the scumbags in the Kremlin are repeatedly on record that they received an offer that was "acceptable".
But the official Russian position (four oblasts in administrative borders) is absolutely unacceptable for Russia, and they 100% did not receive anything better for Russia than that, it was guaranteed less than that.
I would think that Putin may have offered that deal knowing full well they would never agree to it.
That does not explain the humiliating behavior for which there is no need even if you are "negotiating" just to stall for time in order to prepare for big war.
The extremely self-humiliating approach to the West is what makes it quite certain they really are desperate for a deal and not at all looking for victory.
Also, Medvedev would not have sneak dissed Putin in such a way the other day if it was indeed as you say.
Maybe they'll replace him with you.
In brief, the Russians are managing a war in the classic manner:
Recruitment, training, and conservation of manpower.
Development, production, and deployment of weapons and reconnaissance systems.
Attending to logistics, food, fuel, ammunition, all the boring stuff not seen in video games.
The RF is winning the body exchange ratio big time and also gaining ground.
So what if it takes years, there is no time limit, no end to history.
Any mature adult lacking a cocaine habit or ADHD can appreciate this.
The owners of the combined west are engaged in profiteering and narrative management:
Not only is it what they know how to do, it is what they need to do.
Their economic system is dying and they need to loot what they can while they can.
As long as they can keep their proles misinformed and passive, it's all good.
War in Ukraine is an appendix to the unresolved WWII. The British dishonores the Yalta and Postdam agreements from the let go, especially not disarming the German armies under their occupation zone. The German generals even kept their head quarters. Their justification was to use the Germans in case of a further Russian advance west. In reality, the foundations of the Cold War were being settled, which they eventually won with other methods. Another thing they did from 1945 is to protect the fascist collaborators of Ukraine, Hungary, Croatia, Estonia and elsewhere to create an undercover fascist international, connected to the world anticommunist leage, the Gladio networks, the muslim brotherhood and other terrorist assets. All that was meant for this. A minority of fascist banderist were able to undermine the majority of the soviet Ukranian antifascist fighters, with almost every Ukranian family having a member fallen for the USSR. The 30 year long brainwashing, history reewritting, democratically manipulated media narrative, using actors, spectacle, targeted politicsl assessinations and hooligan terror squads in Ukraine was the playbook to be applied to Russia itself. They thought Russia was trapped by its dependency to energy exports, that the country has lost its ability to use military power and definetely lost its soverignty. The Russians ate now understanding what they didnt in WW II. Hitler was just an anglosaxon puppet used to destroy Russia, the only potential rival for world hegemony able to ditch the global anglosaxon financial empire. Now they also have China in their way for a world anglosaxon diktat. Stalin diletantism to tackle the anglosaxon enemy proved wrong. Now the Russians have reloaded their historical memory, undusted their WWII Ukranian and Bielorussia fronts rich operational maps, reexamine the multiple times the British betrayed them. This was the critical point. Once acquired this conciousness the spell they were under finally disipated. The consequences of mass murder trauma inflicted by the west dissolved and healed. The country is ready and proudly standing again. For the good of all the free humanity.
It's how I would like to see it as well.
As I wrote earlier, this is not just USA/NATO against Russia, it's a new world order in it's birth pain and the Anglosaxons put up an ugly fight. So it's likely more harm to come before it's over, unfortunately.
It is Belarus'. And I am examining the map from 1944 by The National Geographical Society "White Russian S.S.R." no kidding.
Thank you for speaking on behalf of Russians. But let's be honest and direct about one thing - there is one national state with citizens born with trauma, aka in-born stress hormones - a forever victim. Like there is scientific data behind it.
Russians are far more complicated than that. They don't do what was done to them, but they never forget. Some forgive. Unpredictability is a national trait of Icy Moscowites.
Also, after we regained our consciousness and dealt with a spell, please allow a reasonable amount of time for healing. Still think we haven't got our pass to a free and civilized world.
Spot On!
The "western" pimpocracy has been visibly in "aprés moi, le déluge" mode since 2008, probably a lot longer in reality. 🤬
Jewocracy.
"As long as they can keep their proles misinformed and passive, it's all good."
One would think that. The velvet glove, without an iron fist.
Yet the case is that the leading EU regimes seek to prod and infuriate their general population, almost forcing us to fit into some 'extremist right wing' narrative.
Arresting citizens for tweets on X.
Letting migrants run amok with crime, rule of law be damned.
Being left alone is not on the menu. It never was.
Spot On!
Russian DRG forces are reported in Kherson. Eliminating energy also mean eliminating the major source of warmth for civilians and along with the lack of water and sewage facilities will finally force refugee treks to the West that haven't been produced yet. This depopulating of Ukraine is something going unremarked by many. The more pressure mounted on Western Ukraine the faster the depopulation.
As for the business of war, that was another massive mistake by the Outlaw US Empire thinking it could wage war on the cheap--the tribute paid to NATO didn't deliver anything worthy and won't.
Was Hodges actually in charge of anything? A few missiles is not an invading army.
Thanks for your great work!
We've shared this link on 'The Stacks'
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/the-stacks
Knocking copy is always dangerous in war conditions. Crowing about soldiers fighting with shovels and cardboard boxes does not look good for the west when it is so obviously losing this war.
If anyone is interested Palladyne AI Corp. is an American drone company. Symbol is PDYN. NASDAQ.
I'm interested in shorting those fuckers.
“When companies crunch the numbers they know that a given ROI needs to be realistic to justify the huge investment in developing a particular type of weapon—like a drone—and mass-producing it. But where’s the ROI when behind closed doors, most of these companies see the writing on the wall that Ukraine will collapse in the medium term future, and the need for their mass-produced weapon will suddenly dwindle, leading to perhaps billions in losses?”
Money money money money money money money money money money... the simplistic, fallback explanation is always money. Don't you get tired of people offering that explanation? I'm certainly tired of hearing it. Instead, try this on for size...
The rot in the US economy is mostly the result of socioeconomic policies instigated by leftism. The MIC is just another victim of that uniquely western virus called the morality of equality. Don't expect the MIC to produce any more whiz-bang weapons systems, nor even anything new that actually works worth a damn. Why not? Because competitiveness is dead. Innovation is dead. Creativity is dead, all due to equality agendas such as Diversity-Inclusion-Equity.
Over the last 65 years, too much nonproductive overhead has been imposed on companies of all sizes, including mountains of regulations for safety, environment, affirmative action, and now DIE. There can be NO innovation in such an environment. For organizations to enforce equality, everything and everybody must get pushed down to the lowest common denominator. Equality and victimology are ways for parasites to leech off of real producers. More and more societal capital gets drained off, not just monetary assets, but more importantly infrastructure, knowledge, expertise, creativity, innovation, traditions, trust, social bonds, cohesion, etc.
The end result is that everything truly good in society gets fragmented, diminished, harder to build, harder to produce, harder to acquire, harder to maintain, and incidentally more expensive. Does any of that sound familiar? Real value is replaced by the fantasyland of social justice. It's inflation of societal capital caused by parasites. It's all cleverly disguised by promoting a tiny handful of foreign-born examples who actually do manage to contribute something once in a while. But that kind of thinking is just Disproportionate Exceptionalism. It's the Magic Dirt of civic nationalism, and the masses have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. With all the above, certainly the MIC is no exception.
+1
Well written. The society we know as our civilisation is certain to die with DIE.
DIE is a distraction, a crumb tossed from the Master's table.
People Of Influence And Authority would much prefer that we dissipate our energy on dreary arguments about cultural appropriation and how many LGTBQXYZPDQ+ can dance on the head of a pin, endless and endlessly performative struggle sessions, rather than raise questions about how the economic pie is sliced.
Put another way - to paraphrase Chris Hedges - elites will gladly discuss race, they will decry gender inequality most piteously, they will demonstrate a touching sensitivity to the rights of sexual and gender minorities so oppressed that they have not even been discovered yet. Those same elites will not readily discuss economic class.
Or, in the negative formulation - if businesses were to stop opposing unionization of their workers, the result would be a transfer of wealth, of concrete material benefits, to brown and black and tabby and yellow and white working class cats and people greater than all the allyship statements ever penned, all the diversity committees ever instituted, all the preferred pronoun tags ever attached to a corporate email. Which is precisely why they will not do this.
What kind of gay Marxist bs is this Jew finster ? The Jew problem is the main problem - the Jew uses the subhumans as biological weapons against white civilization
Poor old Dhdh: 2 + 2 = JEW!!!!!!!!
Keep defending your disgusting chicken swinging baby d@ck sucking sin merchant tribe. You are seen.
Nah. I wouldnt call it a distraction. It is more of a violet dildo showed up from behind and then you are gagged with some ugly smelling brown ball.
And dont you dare to protest.
It gets people busy and in a way that does nothing to change power structures or change the way the pie is sliced.
A distraction.
Agree sort of. We had Occupy Wall Street that mysteriously disappeared and then came Climate Scam, Globo-homo and African diversity.
They are all distractions and weapons to kill us of.
It's a nice try to put the blame on an non existing left in the USA. DIE is not left, it's capitalist driven atomization of society = divide and rule.
The real reason is the inner systemic contradiction of capitalism.
The only intrinsic law is 'maximization of profit', at all cost.
That's why production has been replaced by FIRE capitalism, more easy to make profit out of almost nothing. Draining the taxpayer only works for so long when you have abandoned producing real stuff, degrading education, allowing poverty while at the same time concentrating wealth in obscenely proportions at the top.
USA becomes now Charles Dickens England of the 19th century but with AI ;-)
"USA becomes now Charles Dickens England of the 19th century but with AI ;-)"
But with stupid arguments over pronouns.
What is ”left” and ”right” anyway?
Democrats are not left. They are diehard Right in Europe. Republicans are extreme right in Europe. There is no difference in Tory or Labour, nor german CDU or SPD.
DIE is a killing pill from the Evils. You are right.
There is nothing leftist about the rot that has set in the western MIC.
It is financial capitalism which prevailed over industrial capitalism.
When accoundents get more power and income than engineers, you get this.
Is this a mistranslation? From the quote from a Russian source describing the AFU units inside the Pokrovsk cauldron:
"Continuing the topic, instead of the concept of “line of contact”, it makes sense to introduce the concept of “line of contact”, since there is no ideal LBS at the front."
The second should be lines of contact.
Gilbert Doctorow on Glenn Diesen re: Russia's Deterrence - sums it up well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttYcjybLWBY
Warning: Not recommended for PUTIN loving cheerleaders.
It is the west's last hope, some major escalation that brings in everyone else to pressure Russia to call a halt or at the very least get the yanks right in here.
Why would Russia go here? it is winning, durrh..... and anyway, it can up the ante within Ukraine without dropping a bomb further afield.
I am not saying Russia won't escalate, but only if it has to.
I think West has more cards than that. They are only using Ukrainian cannon fodder now. All of Europe is gearing for war vs Russia because Putin destroyed deterrence.
As we all know Eastern Europeans Hate Russians for occupation so they will be no problem to sic on Russians. West they'd throw youth in Vans and to front same way they do Ukrainians if the elites must.
450 million vs 155 million who wins that war of attrition?
Euro weenies can be un-weenied by 3 months of boot camp to turn them into stone cold killers.
No even worse American. Most propagandized people on earth so I know how easy it is to make people believe Russia is enemy. We don't even have heathcare so our elites can make wars and most like it that way
You cannot say that you ever have truly *lived* until you have gone shooting with europeans.
These guys had all been through european "military" training, and they thought *I* was practically Rambo - and I'm a cat.
They turned ethnic Russians into zombies willing to die in the trenches against their own motherland in just 15-20 years, how hard would it be to brainwash people who have habored a barely suppressed desire to avenge the loss of their Nazi grandfathers for 80 years into going against Russia with genocidal intent once again?
Europeans are the biggest metrosexual weenies on earth, couldn't find their own genitals with both hands *and* a magnifying glass.
European strategy since 1917 has been simple - get Americans to do their fighting for them. This strategy continues apace.
And it worked. But this time, we'll leave it to you.
It's strange that the Ukrainians also have parades similar to the one in the video. Hmmm, strange indeedy.
Gearing up for a war with no real money or resources, a war it knows it has already lost? Stop drinking the cool-aid!
That is not a manpower war, its a missile, drone, air defence war.
I think we all know who is in the best position to win that one. Particularly since China and North Korea would be heavily involved.
Happily, I don't see that war coming. Its a bluff.
With EU NATO countries announcing all their plans to gear up their militaries and spending 2% on their defence budgets with plans to go to 5% - I'm not sure they are bluffing. They should be as a war against Russia would not benefit anyone. I don't think its possible for them to spend 5% on defence but they might try.
And the EU leaders seem determined to get into a war against Russia. Starmer, Macron, and Metz especially. And the other like Von der lyen, Kallas, and the NATO head dude Rutte are worse. And the last 3 are elected by no one, I believe.
What a mess they've gotten themselves into.
You should see the spending they pushing into this NATO bag. Spain has included just about all its current infrastructure projects on the basis that.... the military needs roads, right!
Here in Canada they switched our Coast Guard into the defense budget. And just like that our defense spending increased. Mind you we're still not at 2% now.
The europeans expect America to do their fighting for them.
Again.
We hear that NATO is bluffing at every escalation.
They are not bluffing. They will be satisfied with nothing less than Russian blood.
" That is not a manpower war, its a missile, drone, air defence war. "
Maybe you should let the waves of Russian troops attacking Ukrainian defenses that.
This is what is called hypothetical. First, I just have to say your idea of it being Putin's fault because of this nonsensical "destroying of deterrence" (I wonder where you heard that??) Only the Anti-Putin liberals in Brussels are justifying their fleecing of the population because of Putin. Read the headlines literally everything bad is Putin's fault. You have to be a child to believe this narrative.
Next this idea of the EU "gearing" for war is laughable. Can you "gear" for war with only words? The EU has actually done almost nothing to actually prepare for war except The Nazi creates "funds" which are then taken by Brussels.
If Doctorow, who was himself one of the most disgusting Putin loving cheerleaders for several years, has seen the light, imagine how bad things are in reality?
And yet most people here still haven't seen it themselves...
Nah, he was always sowing discontent. Just like you.
He had a line about the oligarchs back in the day- just like you.
Any time idiots like Doctorow only have a personal attack on President Putin you can safely ignore anything said just like Gen. Moron here. It is bought and paid for commentary and people launched into this Anti-Putin hatred after Putin stopped the London/NewYork bankers from ravaging Russia and stripping it of all of it's wealth. No large country or Govt. is totally without "sin" the human condition of greed and lust for power guarantees it. The worst of the human population is the part that will always attempt to deceive others and rely on personal attacks because no other argument makes any sense.
Putin admits he was too trusting of Merkel and the EU, and regrets it. Its perfectly possible he will come realise he was too trusting of Trump. Particularly since he's on record (Oliver Stone) saying US presidents are always visited by the men in grey suits regardless of what they say in person.
If you listen to Mercurius show today Americans walked back own offer in anchorage...Couldnt even sign their own agreement to break LOL. Must watch show it's hilarious
I just listened to it. And we are back to the usual -- if Putin truly believed Merkel, then he is an imbecile and unfit for office.
And it's not as if everyone wasn't screaming that this is a trap. How can you be in such a blissful isolation that for several years you never hear it?
But we know that Putin is a highly intelligent and informed man, so we can safely reject that hypothesis.
Which then raises the question of why Putin did what amounts to high treason while being fully conscious he is being played? And he did that while being fully conscious Russia's core interests are being betrayed, then, well, he is again not fit for office, is he?
But this is the topic that everybody is tip-toeing around and does not want to touch...
P.S. Remember what Peter III did and what happened to him. Putin has done much worse at this point.
With all due respect, it was abundantly obvious to everyone that Minsk was a sham. The Ukrainians broke their word at the first opportunity.
So what did Russia do? Minsk-2, of course, then spent eight years trying to get Ukrainian to abide by what was obviously another sham, while the europeans laughed their asses off at Russian naivete.
are things bad for Russia? You never mentioned that before...
What you mean with disgusting? Putin had his admirers, and still has, because he has been a good peacetime leader. Doctorow is clear-sighted. Have you even seen the interview?
Putin is no wartime leader. Yet, one could say, because no one knows how this ends. If at all.
But Doctorow is right in that Russia should have eliminated the leadership in february 2022. He is right when he says Russia missed a couple of window of opportunities, he is right that Russia has undermined their perception of deterence.
You misread my post.
I was referring as "disgusting" to Doctorow's sycophantic praise of Putin over the previous three-plus years.
In the last month or so he has had a Damascene conversion and has been right on the money. Well, almost -- he dares not go into the reasons for why Putin is doing what he is doing, which is an absolute must if you are to do a serious analysis of the situation. But it is still much better than most of the other talking heads.
Ok. I dont see how Doctorow, now living in St Petersburg, could go out and critizise Putin as you do. He also has windows in his apartment…
But Doctorow where right in supporting Putins measures during the first years of the War. Politcally you could do a Zhirinovsky and gamble of a survival through a nuclear War or as Putin has done, try to be reasonable with West. In hindsight it can appear foolish but who in the West could imagine our leaders go full Monty and suicide their own societys?
Militarly speaking, Russia made bad choices and also was forced to reconsider the whole SMO. And still calling it an SMO is criminal btw.
Russia regained momentum but was too comfortable and missed a couple of opportunities that had led to this stalemate (or steady slow advance).
And if West manage to increase the attacks on mainland Russia, blow the Crimea bridge or wipe out some other strategic target, Putin has to react. Otherwise someone else will do it for him.
Missed a couple of opportunities?
Vaporizing Bankova is one.
Mobilizing their own forces is another.
Focusing on heavily defended areas instead of cutting through weak points in the AFU:s defence is a standing problem.
Not hampering or destroying the supply routes or means of supplying (bridges and railway) is well known.
Not turning the lights off early has made Ukraine more resiliant not weaker.
Failing to punish West for attacking mainland Russia is certainly a missed opportunity.
>But Doctorow where right in supporting Putins measures during the first years of the War
No, he wasn't. It was precisely Putin's measures in the first year that brought us to where we are. And some of us were screaming about it from the start (OK, almost the start, personally I could not believe they would launch an existential war with no real intention of winning it properly and it was only Istanbul that shook me off that particular delusion). Strelkov was right on the money about everything from the start.
And no:
>you could do a Zhirinovsky and gamble of a survival through a nuclear War
There was no need for that back in 2022. Ukraine could have been fully recovered within a couple weeks, using purely conventional means, had the necessary forces been allocated and had there not been a veto from Putin on striking everything that would have collapsed it. I am sure Gerasimov went to Putin with a very detailed plan that was going to work, then Putin took the red pen and butchered it completely, and that is how we got the shit show that the early SMO was.
>And if West manage to increase the attacks on mainland Russia
Well, that is exactly what Zelensky promised today.
You do a fairly amount of after constructions and make assumptions which even in hindsight is contrary to facts.
Given the resources at hand and in place after Zapad, Russia did what they thought would be best. An all-out blitz to make Ukraine understand the futile in continuing the conflict. They essentially used whatever means they had. Remember that Russia was tricked into attacking Ukraine after the aggressive provocations Stoltenberg and Zelensky delivered and the mocking US state&media relentlessly throwed in the face of Russia.
It is clear that FSB and GRU was compromised and did a botched intelligence work. It is clear that Russia never intended to do an SMO for four years or kill 1 million men in the process.
Putin&Co counted on Ukraine implosion and thereafter a reasonable diplomatic efforts to settle the situation. They miscalculated and was screwed backwards with the disinformation campaign already prepared even before the War. They were screwed in Istanbul.
And neither side controlled the course of the War. The War took it own turns as it always do.
Very good interview. The naked truth.
Doctorow is a fraud and a moron.