After a period of strange rumors that Russian forces may attempt to storm the Dnieper, last night Russian forces began a massive artillery and MLRS bombardment of the Kherson region with claimed attempts of isolated groups to cross to the other side.
Also, we all eagerly await the 3rd reddit copers brigade counteroffensive led by schweinerchenko himself that will break through to kursk itself. Rumors have it that the 815th gryffindor defense grouping will be supporting the advance
But the matter of why Russian DRGs are on the right bank is a serious question.
There is absolutely no way to supply any substantial force on the other side of the river without one of the major bridges. Not with half of NATO's GMLRS assets being situated in Ukraine -- pontoons are doomed because of that. And the Antonov bridge was blown up by Russia while the Nova Khakhovka dam was blown up by Ukraine/NATO.
The only way to support such a group is to take Zaporozhye city and do it with lightning speed before the Ukronazis blow up the bridges. That is impossible given the current correlation of forces in theater.
So what the hell is the plan here?
I want to believe that there is one, and it is for big things. But that will require some some magician's trick to be pulled...
Question: In WWI and WWII a lot of rivers had to be crossed. Bridges were blown up, dams destroyed, and fords mined. To go back in time, the fight for Southeastern Europe, a lot of river crossings had to be done by the Poles, Ottomans, Russians, and Austrians. And the Napoleonic wars! Only at Aspern was a river crossing the problem; even when the troops were in tatters, they could cross the Beresina! The Allied even crossed the Channel and landed on the other side! Do you know of any example where a river crossing in force was a big problem?
Do you know of any example during WWI and WWII of anyone having satellite coverage with resolution in the centimeters, drones flying everywhere, and missiles flying from 120 km with accuracy of 1-2 meters?
It depends on the condition of the river bed in winter with the dam blown up. I think it is a wide, overgrown river bed with a smaller river running through it. I expect a lot of ranger work by Russia to clear the other side and make for a landing site.
What is the deal with reports of DPRK in combat? I've yet to see a telegram video that shows their presence. Is there any substantiation to their active deployment in the SMO?
None of these "successes", such as taking Kurakhovo after three months of bloody battles for it, matters.
The loss ratios don't matter either -- this is Russians killing other Russians (brainwashed as the latter might be), which is a huge success for the West either way.
The very fact this war was allowed to become inevitable is a gigantic strategic failure on the part of the Kremlin.
But it gets much worse after that because now Russian security, both internally and externally is totally destroyed. Terrorist acts on home soil daily, triple digit drones flying everywhere every day, and some hitting things, etc. That is the new reality, with no prospects of it no longer being the daily reality any time soon, if ever.
This is catastrophic.
Even more catastrophic is the Kremlin's refusal to lift a finger to make it stop, even though the Kremlin can indeed make it stop almost literally with just lifting a finger.
There would have been total physical destruction of the enemy's ability to launch such attacks within minutes of them launching the first more significant one in Soviet times. Under Putin? The dear partners are untouchable. Why?
At this point getting the Ukrainian military and political leadership smoked is mandatory even for just internal political reasons. Russian society wants blood. Technically it is a trivial for Russia matter to have those bastards destroyed. But the Kremlin refuses to do it even though now Russian military and political leadership itself is clearly on the menu. Again, why?
Are they so afraid of NATO that they don't dare at all touch Zelensky and his buddies? Or they are so compromised internally by loyalties to oligarch interests that there is a veto by powerful economic faction inside Russia (and you can throw in the whole "special relationship" with Israel into the mix too) on such actions, and the objective here is to make some kind of a shitty deal once again, all in the name of going back to how things were previously, which would be much harder if Zelensky receives his deserved comeuppance?
In any case, Russia has been firmly knocked out of the ranks of the great powers. Because:
>The problem is, recent signals indicate Trump may infact be regressing into the same old warhawk model as reports came today that Trump intends to continue arming Ukraine come late January.
This is one of the most ridiculous aspects of the whole situation. If Russia was a true great power, it would not matter at all what Trump was planning on doing. Russia would be out for victory, because what we have here is a NATO/Nazi invasion and occupation of core historic Russian territory, just as in WWII (most of Ukraine is core historic Russian territory) and it would not be planning its future around what the orange conman would do after January 20th, because it would be irrelevant with respect to what the objectives are here.
But that is exactly what the plan seems to be here -- try to make a deal with Trump. Which will be a strategic defeat. Because anything but going all the way to Western Ukraine would be a gigantic strategic defeat.
And even that might not be enough, because it will come at a great cost, and will not restore deterrence. Only the physical destruction of major NATO assets with the use of extreme force and in such a way that NATO is forced to stand down and not respond will restore deterrence. That is clearly not in the cards at the moment with this Russian leadership. And that is not for lack of military-technical capability. At least based on what we know publicly...
I fear you are correct in that there does not appear to be a peace proposal here that would satidfy Russia's minimum concerns, so either they have to secure a military victory or accept a strategic defeat. Unless the USA can dress up an abandonment of Kiev in terms of some sort of way that satisfies its constituents....
The likelyhood is growing that we all die simultaneously. The other alternative is a huge decline in living standards in many parts of the world. Total chaos.
Keep on wondering what the other countries China, Iran and Nord Korea are doing. They should not that they are next on the table, when there is a next, but they will likely suffer a decline too?
Only really in the 'West", the G7. The rest of the World is already at a catastrophically low level, ANY investment that isn't just a privatisation scam will improve them.
The countries that rely on the cheap primary imports; and the exported profits from said privatised industries, will likely suffer greatly.
Unless they adapt, and learn the treat the global south as equals.
I'm not holding my breath on that either. They don't even regard their own Western populations as equals.
But I agree the Western nuclear nations, primarily US and Israhell, are likely to launch and end the "misery".
Nothing is 100%, but he largely lacks that mythic myopia that leads people into symbolic 'victories' that are in reality catastrophes in the Real World.
He's far too selfish, too transactional.
Who would have thought those could be positives in a Leader, lmao.
He could be bum-rushed into stupidity - as he almost was with war with Iran in term1, and the unbelievable assassination of Soleimani. One could hope that he has learned, sadly so has the deep state in how to manipulate him, what are his levers.
It's not just the Russians who will have a dedicated team working on his personality.
But at the end of all of his days, what matters to Trump is "What's in it for ME!?!". And huddled in a nuclear bunker simply will not appeal to him - fortunately.
Well written and something I have advocated for months. Those small gains in Donbass dont win any War. Those lists with killed is just wishful thinking that statistics spells the Winner.
It was remarkable to hear Putin say that Crimeaa operation and the ”SMO” was spontaneous actions rather than 5D-chess and with hindsight they should have done it earlier and planned more….
Strange, I could have sworn Russia was winning this war, that NATO was exhausting its resources and Russia was using this time to exponentially expand its vast war machine in preparation for the future war with NATO.
By critical reading of different articles and narratives you can trace the ”mood” from the Bachmut victory (where West described it as a Russian graveyard), through the Avdeevka&Vuledar (where pro-russians cheered prematurely for the Victory). One can talk oneself into bubbles of defeat or victory but reality could be something else.
What matters for a Victory is breaking the will to fight or simply erase the enemy. Russia is heading for the first and plan B is the latter.
To break the will you have to create a mood of chaos and defeat.
That has not happened in the West so they will continue.
I suggest the the Will to fight is concentrated around the Zelensky Banderites. Crush them and you spare a lot of ukrainian&russian lives.
What you write is propably true but if that narrative is not settled in the minds of western leaders and cheepish citizens they will follow their own narrative. And War continues. The longer the War the higher the risk of disgruntled Russians.
Yes. The only existential threats are those from US/NATO. Russia is no threat to the others. And if they (we) in the West keep crying wolf over Russia we soon will be facing the Big Bear clawing its way through our cities.
It beats me how Ukraine is managing to instill so much hate and stamina in those 40-50 years old soldiers that they smile with legs blown of instead of shooting their commander in the back.
The Russians--as opposed to the Soviets--are in this bind because they began to believe the West's bullshit. They actually trusted them. They believed all the happy talk about cooperation, freedom, democracy and markets. Hey, let's all listen to cool rock n roll, eat hamburgers and be buddies!--even as NATO expanded and the Balkan intervention blinked bright red. Hard core commies understood the nature of their enemy--which is why the core of resistance to The Empire is still communist. Seems like only the theocrats in Iran and Yemen and the commies in China and DPRK understand how fundamentally criminal the Bankers and Big Business are.
The excuse that they trusted the West does not pass muster at this point. It might have with respect to the 1980s to 2010s period, though in reality not even then -- what are the SVR and GRU for?
But now it is late 2024, almost 2025. Putin, Lavrov, Zaharova, etc. are whining about how the West cannot be trusted, is "agreement incapable", "always deceives us", etc. pretty much on daily basis.
Get on with the business of winning the war then. Starting with the obvious war winning moves you are still refusing to make even though you are one of only two or three countries in the world with the actual military-technical capacity to carry out. The list is well-known -- decapitation strikes on leadership, disabling logistics, shutting down the grid, etc.
You're right. Because of these complaints, Zakharov, Lavrov, Nebenzya are completely unpopular in Russia. Together with them, Putin is losing his popularity.
In addition, Putin does not understand the economy at all, and Russia is gradually entering an economic crisis. The ruble is falling, YouTube is blocked, idiotic propaganda is growing. This is a sure recipe for losing power.
Which leads to the question, how to negotiate? The West will always use every loophole to do bad things. This Western Elite will always pose as the moral superpower, but doing the worst things thinkable. They have broken every promise and contract, and there is no sign that this time they will act differently. The Russians want to be the good ones, to be accepted as partners by the Non-Western countries, but by doing so, they cannot answer terror with terror or war crimes with war crimes. And at the end, not having a peace treaty means going all the way to Galicia, for sure Putin's nightmare.
"If Russia was a true great power, it would not matter at all what Trump was planning on doing."
"But that is exactly what the plan seems to be here -- try to make a deal with Trump."
It doesn't matter to the Russians. They will meet their objectives whatever Trump or any other Western power tries. Naturally, they hope for a quicker end to those objectives, which, they hope, Trump can offer. But if he doesn't, then Russia will continue to maul Ukraine forever if that is what it takes.
"At least based on what we know publicly..."
The only provably factual statement you have made. Well done!
I couldn't put it better myself. Putin and the oligarchs he represents are divorced from the suffering of the ordinary people. The AFU keeps firing western missiles into Russia and the response is underwhelming.
If the West had attacked the USSR in such a way there would have been a massive response.
If you look at the history of Putins tenure as president at every turn he has sought compromise with American imperialism which has been and is still seen as weakness.
Perceived weakness encourages more western aggression. The 1933 to 1939 period when the UK and France appeased Hitler as well as Stalin with the Nazi Soviet pact all have Hitler the message that his aggression was paying off and encouraged his plans to conquer Europe.
Trump believes he win at the negotiating table what the US has failed to achieve on the battlefield.
As I've said before he may copy nixons tactics in 1973 when he tried to win a diplomatic victory to make up for American defeat on the ground. Thankfully, despite a massive escalation of bombing of north Vietnam nixons tactics failed. Hanoi stood its ground despite the huge cost of civilian deaths.
If Putin caputulates to Trumps tactics then it will bring closer the prospect of an all out war between the two.
Only by decisively standing up to American imperialism by totally destroying the AFU and the Kiev regime can Russia secure it's future.
The UK didn't appease Hitler, they instigated him, with the goal of having him and the communists destroy each other.
Stalin was the one appeasing him, trying to first make him see they have common interests (in the mid-1930s) and then, failing to secure an alliance against him in 1939, trying to buy time to fully prepare for war.
The British, and especially the Americans got what they wanted, the real failure of "appeasement" was Stalin's policy. Although he didn't really have much choice - they needed another year to get fully ready. They weren't given that year for reasons beyond their control.
"Are they so afraid of NATO that they don't dare at all touch Zelensky and his buddies?" It has been suggested repeatedly, here and elsewhere, that the Russians have assets in the leading circles of Ukraine. That would explain why they don't bomb them.
Zelensky has been in FPV drone and artillery range many times, Russian soldiers had the red dot on him and were begging for permission to pull the trigger, but were under strict orders not to touch him.
Killing a grossly incompetent (and in this case grossly corrupt) leader is not a good move. As Napoleon remarked, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake". Zelensky is just one continuous mistake. Get rid of him, and you would certainly get someone much more dangerous and troublesome.
"The very fact this war was allowed to become inevitable is a gigantic strategic failure on the part of the Kremlin".
I completely agree. But that failure occurred in the 1990s, before the era of Mr Putin. Indeed, the greatest mistake of all was allowing Ukraine to secede. Would the USA permit New Jersey or Iowa to secede?
But when Putin took power in late 1999 Ukraine was not a hostile country. Yes, the seeds were sown -- the Banderite cockroaches that Stalin did not squash and Khruschev then allowed to return from the GULAG were crawling out of their holes and crevices and returning from Canada, Germany and the US, that is also correct -- but they were still marginal.
It was the Orange revolution, the Maidan, and the failure on the Kremlin part to act decisively in either care that really turned the country, and all of this happened under Putin's watch.
In the first place, the Washington coup in Kiev began in 1991. That was the only time when it could have been prevented. Secondly, until 2020 Russia was simply not strong enough to suppress the Kiev regime and reverse the coup militarily.
The West literally wants WWIII - Martin Armstrong plus the Wolfowitz Doctrine and the Financial Collapse of the West. We are being held hostage by our own government. Putin does what people want him to do, strike back at the head of the snake, and we are in false flag nuclear war as everyone goes nuclear if Russia and NATO go at it. Martin thinks that is where we are going. You are being held hostage to WWIII by your masters. It isn't Russia's fault. An early nuke by Russia would have caused a nuclear war. They think it is survivable, by them.
Well USA policy has successfully detatched Europe from Russia, both politically (for at least a generation) and economically. Trump says that Europe has to buy US energy or face tariffs, which they will, as they few other realistic options to fill the hole that was provided by Russia and need to keep exporting to the USA.
On the war I wondered if Trump was simply blustering or actually playing a good game here. Bearing in mind he has actually personally said very little - though this is not what you may think. He has said Europe needs to spend 5% of gdp on defence, 3.5% straightaway - ie c double current spend. This won't happen and is a precondition for continuing US support for Ukraine. We understand that Z has said he won't negotiate except on terms based on his ludicrous peace plan. He needs to negotiate on Trump's terms, whatever they may be. So Mr T has set both Europe and Ukraine up to be abandoned. Russia has simply said it is prepared to talk, but only to a legitimate power. I cannot follow whether it has set any preconditions but I think not simply to open a dialogue.
The best plan for Mr T is to walk away from this tar baby as soon as possible. There are worrying signals that he won't, and that he may have formed the view that he can coerce Russia to accept some sort of de facto defeat, pulled from the jaws of its victory. Well, we live in interesting times.
The best thing would be for DJT to turn ownership of Project Ukraine over to Europe entirely and just wash his hands of it. This was Joe’s craziness after all. There’s no point in becoming invested in a war that has already been lost.
In that DJT has had literally no decision-making input @ any point during the past 3 years, or the solid year that stood as a preamble/warm-up to the conflict, there’s little ‘up’ side for his wading in energetically now.
"In that DJT has had literally no decision-making input @ any point during the past 3 years, or the solid year that stood as a preamble/warm-up to the conflict, there’s little ‘up’ side for his wading in energetically now."
Really? His administration has pumped money and weapons into Ukraine all of his time in office from 2016-2020 but that was "Joes craziness" also?
Russia knows that we are here in Europe refuse to go to war with Russia, our economic perspective is more than bad and Russia also knows that the West-leadership wants to give it the Balkan-treatment, break it up and own the parts.
The western way of thinking here in the comments in no surprise for me but the eastern way of thinking is fundamental different.
I can destroy you simply because I can but what future is there for me after that?
How will others look at me and deal with me after seeing what I have done?
The populations in the west won't go away and they can't free themself from their historical heritage, so they will go on produce people like Joe Biden and D. Trump.
This is a fundamental thing, a thing for the long run, not to win the war in Ukraine that will bring not much but costs and suffering even after the war, because the war is not over after a "peaceagreement', like WWII has never stopped really.
This will end only after the security-architecture in Europe has changed profoundly and the USA is out of Europe so Europe can be enabled to see that it is nothing without the cooperation with the rest of the eurasian continent.
The USA has to go home and and become a Nation amongst the Nations and not the self declared Number 1.
I read just a small portion of Sy Hersh's "The Red Line & the Rat Line"--about Obama's ginning things up in Syria--and it was so diabolically intricate in all its nefarious inner workings, what with the deceptions & the complicities, that it will convince you of Newtonian Law: a body in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an external force.
Newton's Law implies that that "external force" does exist.
Xi realises that the whole world will lose if China fights the US.
The US can't keep printing dollars to shore up it's economy. It will collapse because it's built on war, has no reinvestment as is sanctioning itself into oblivion. War is not necessary. Perception will be changed by another depression.
Remember too the Trump took CREDIT for destroying Nordstream… so, massive funding for buildup of troops in Ukraine under Trump, and admitting the U.S. was stealing Syrian oil (bragging about it really), and taking credit for destroying Germany’s chance to remain relevant industrial nation… don’t look to Trump for solid “peace”….
>Well USA policy has successfully detatched Europe from Russia
Which is a good thing for Russia -- this was a one-sided relationship. Russia was sending raw resources to Europe and receiving finished goods in the other direction, which suppressed its internal production capacity and technological development, even though it is unique in the world in having the material and intellectual capacity to be self sufficient in pretty much everything.
If Russia was run by true patriots and not by comprador traitors, all resource exports would have been gradually halted while investing in internal R&D and industrial build up to achieve that self-sufficiency.
Instead, the main objective of the Russian government appears to be to find a way to return things back to where they were, and to sell off Russia's precious non-renewable resources as fast as possible. This is high treason.
And it is also a big factor kneecapping the war effort. Ukraine can be physically isolated basically in half an hour, and then finished off at Russia's leisure, but that means you need to wipe out Poland and Romania (and probably others too), and it also means Europe will be permanently separated from Russia by a lot more than American dictate. Which is a no-brainer once you understand what I outlined above -- Russia loses big time from that relationship, so this would not be a loss in any way. Except that it would be a loss for Russia's ruling oligarchy, who decide what happens, and they don't decide while defending Russia's interests, but their own narrow selfish ones...
350M people living current middle class existence in suburbia cannot be supported from that territory. And it isn't being supported from it -- the US uses 25% of the world's resources with 4% of the population. In reality it is even more -- that is the direct resource consumption, but does not account for what is embodied in the finished goods the US gets from China and the rest of the "Global South" basically for free, in exchange for meaningless IOUs.
Tear up suburbia, move people into apartment blocks, take away most of their cars, build up public transportation and a proper rail network, and you might be able to live within your means for another 50 years. But good luck with that.
If US gets sanctioned the way Russia is, it will collapse. It cannot exist without the outside world to prop it up, not unless significant standard of living adjustments are made.
Trump is a narcissist. The right people will now convince him that it can win Ukraine. But when he loses it, these same people will accuse him of incompetence and impeach him. Everything will be exactly the same as in Trump's first term.
It's really bad news if Trump decides to keep fueling the one sided conflict in Ukraine...Ukraine will become demographically dead...and there is no possibility of success..Is this Black Rock's idea?
Of course it is, who do you think all our tax money to Ukraine is helping? It sure isn't to spread "democracy". If Ukraine loses so does all the investment in it by Black Rock and other big corporations.
BlackRock, Bayer/Monsanto, DuPont and Cargill profit, no matter what. They have bought up over one third of Ukraine's prime farmland in the past decade. As Ukraine further crumbles into ruin, more farmland will become available at bargain prices.
The Ukraine is already demographically dead. The ratio young vs old is so skewed that it will create an unsustainable scenario in the near future. Regardless of the outcome of the fighting.
In fact, I believe the Ukrainians can only keep their identity if they become part of Russia again.
If they 'win' the fighting, they will lose either to the immigration wave, or the economic implosion (or quite likely a combination of the two). This will remove any traces of a Ukrainian people/culture for sure.
We’re entering that ‘speculation-rich’ period, still 29 days before the interregnum ends & DJT replaces Joe in the White House, coinciding with a couple holiday weeks for the U.S., which means that we will see daily FT articles and reporting in The Economist about what Lt. General Keith Kellogg will *say* when he gets to Kiev in early January and how Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of OTAN, will respond to *what* Gen. Kellogg says once Gen. Kellogg visits Kiev in early January—the comments Lady vdL will make, the exhortations Duda will share—and then what paid propagandists @ the nytimes and the WaPo will opine as a result of these utterances.
Which means no one knows much of anything.
In this typically quiet period before the new year, politically-speaking at least, the leading lights of Western orthodoxies in the MSM will keep the pot sufficiently stirred so that no one will be able to forget entirely about Project Ukraine.
What with all the speculations since DJT won the election in a thumpingly historic fashion, we’ve scarcely moved off the basics: Kiev will float maximalist negotiation tactics objectionable to Moscow; Kellogg will take this in and collect data; the EU will say blah-blah, to which Medvedev will tweet blah-blah, ATACMS will hit a primary school in Bryansk and long-range drones will crash into residential buildings in Tula. After that, Orban will weigh in—and then the cycle will restart.
There’s a lot of fat to chew but not much meat.
Media theatrics have kicked into overdrive, anticipating DJT’s team engaging Russia diplomatically. A prevalent fiction is that DJT plans to continue arming Ukraine. The Guardian especially began to salivate at the prospect. These flights of 'creative writing' fantasy occur in a policy void: propagandists & novelists claim to bd responding to leaks, but I think we all know their track record for going to MSU: making stuff up.
At some point Gen. Kellogg plans to sit down w/ Lavrov. The EU is scheming to place coalition peacekeepers in Ukraine *after a ceasefire* but not as a means of keeping the peace. These will be ‘tripwire troops’ stationed there to provoke Russia into an attack, to which the U.S. will have to respond in order to come to the aid of the hapless coalition peacekeepers, brutally attacked by Russia. Rutte has resorted to the tired, empty ruse of pretending that somehow Ukraine will improve its position even as Ukraine is losing more ground, literally and figuratively, every day.
If the rules-based-international-order *had* a flag, we would all stand and salute.
>At some point Gen. Kellogg plans to sit down w/ Lavrov
Is Kellogg going to tell Lavrov "We will cease all support for the Kiev Nazis and we will also dismantle the Aegis Ashore bases as well as remove all forward deployed nukes from Europe"?
What are the chances of that happening? Precisely zero.
Then what is the point of even having such a meeting? Because those are the absolute minimal conditions for Russian SMO success.
Given that there is precisely zero chances of anything coming out of that meeting, why waste time with it instead of getting on with the business of actually winning the war?
Which, in case nobody has noticed, has kind of stalled again.
August to October good things were happening -- towns in the tens of thousands pre-war population were falling every couple weeks, the rate of territorial advance was clearly accelerating.
But in the last month a half there is a clear slowdown. This despite the AFU supposedly collapsing and being on its last legs.
Russia is barely even attacking seriously -- there is some real action only on the South Donetsk front, there rest if not very active at all. One can't help but start getting uneasy July 2022 vibes. What does that tell us? Two possibilities?
1) Russia actually is starting to run out of resources. Material and/or manpower. More likely the latter. But potentially both. Yet the Kremlin firmly refuses to do a mobilization. Which might be because of:
2) The plan is to freeze the conflict, because in the Kremlin they are that stupid and/or such total comprador traitors that their prime objective is indeed yet another shitty deal and not victory. Despite the lessons regarding the wisdom of maintaining frozen conflicts that should have been learned from Ukraine itself over the last decade, what happened in Karabakh in 2022-2023, and most recently the Syrian fiasco.
I don't know which one is more catastrophic. They could all be true too, of course...
'If Trump takes away support for Ukraine, it's game over. If Trump keeps supporting Ukraine, Russia will take the gloves off and finish it'
Do you guys even realize how brainwashed people are with this way of thinking - essentially the US is the grand Master controlling the outcome, where Russia is reacting. The fact that most people have excepted this shows how deranged this entire shit show of an SMO is. I firmly believe Putin needs to be replaced.
That's right. The West itself sculpts an idol from Putin. The situation is repeated with Gorbachev, who was completely unpopular in the USSR, but was wildly popular in the West. Roughly the same thing happens with Putin.
>In the meantime, they are training more troops and making more weapons
1. In the meantime, their cities are being bombed constantly.
2. They don't need more weapons to cut off Ukraine from NATO and to fumigate Kiev from the Banderite cockroaches that have infested it exist already. They already have what they need for those purposes.
The old "General Winter" comes to Russia's aid argument!
The temperature right now (midday Moscow time, 22 December) in Kiev is minus 1 °C, in Donetsk it is now plus 3 ° C, in Kharkov — plus 2 °C, in Kherson — plus 5 °C.
And no snow, no freezing to death in trenches at minus 40 °C, as happened to the Wehrmacht in December 1940 in the proximity of Moscow. And at Kursk, 1943, "General Winter" certainly did not help the USSR towards victory. It often gets quite warm in Kursk province in July.
I bet on point 2. There are really a lot of traitor compradors in Russia. The whole environment of Putin, the government, the media consists of them. The patriotic songs they sing today are just a disguise, a tactical move.
“ We will cease all support for the Kiev Nazis and we will also dismantle the Aegis Ashore bases as well as remove all forward deployed nukes from Europe.” Why would that not be in our true interest? Because Russia Russia Russia?
Russia can make better use of its airforce flattening Kherson defences than in Syria. I don't think the Kremlin expects anything good from Trump's team. They will have to take Odessa, because the US economy only builds weapons as its profit driver.
With tariffs on Chinese imports, and a death spiral on national debt, America could only grow by a MASSIVE swords-plowshares programme in the civilian field, which I suspect the corporates have prevented through various laws enacted over the past few decades to protect their various monopolies.
Therefore only war can spur America's 'growth' (A slower decline).
Trump is simply not the guy to reverse America's decline... tbf, there probably isn't such a person in existence. Perhaps Michael Hudson, as likely to reach Cabinet level as Scott Ritter.
The Anglo Empire designed itself to fall into 1984, to either win or balance; it simply is incapable of changing path.
Russia and China have to be adults, and pull the global South with them, to drain the Empire of resources, until it financially collapses.
At which point all bets are off.
Shame the UN never invaded the USA and took away its stockpiles of WMDs.
"Michael Hudson caliber of leader"... in my many years of observation, deep analytical thinkers like Hudson rarely have the leadership skills to be able get others to implement their ideas or agendas.
What is always essential is for a decisive, motivational leader to take the ideas of the thinkers and run with them. The Kennedy/Sorensen duo was one such example.
Trump is not that leader, he will continue the status quo of sending military gear and intel to Ukraine, after sitting Zelensky on the bench and watching as Russia runs out the clock. As for Hudson, the banking cartel that runs the USA has no use for him.
"Trump is simply not the guy to reverse America's decline... "
Well said. Trump is an opportunist who has run his life through a series of improvisations, trusting to his quick wit to let him take advantage of unpredictable changes in markets and the taste of his clients. He does have a knack for understanding some long term phenomena, such as the eternal desire in most people to show off to others, to appear to be wealthy, hence the vulgar bling that characterizes what he sells, like those appallingly vulgar Trump sneakers or the barbarian-level lack of taste in the overly-gilded decor of Trump-brand properties. But he exploits his understanding of long term phenomena exclusively through short term actions.
Trump never was and never will be a deep thinker, as one of the characteristics of deep thought is to consider matters over very long time scales. While he has shown the patience to take on projects that can take a few years to accomplish, like some of his real estate plays in New York, he seems to have no patience for projects that take decades to bring to fruition. I suppose he would say that shows his pragmatic side, as in his world projects that take decades to accomplish are losers, that you need to make your money fast and you need to make your money young.
I don't think he is stupid and I don't think he is completely unwise. I just think his entire life experience has convinced him that if he cannot accomplish what has to be done with short term actions it is wiser to move on to something else. That's deeply unlucky for the US because only long term thinking can reverse America's decline.
Trump also shows no respect for long term commitments, especially those which arise from long term influences such as morals. He always seems ready to take advantage with a short term play, no matter how immoral that might be. A good example was his happiness to sell the Saudis $100 billion in weaponry to get that cash flow today, no matter that doing so supported genocide in Yemen or a regime that beheads Christians in public for the crime of converting from Islam. He is amoral to the point that he does not recognize America can never be great, again or for the first time, if it so totally abandons as great a part of America's cultural identity as respect for freedom of religion.
All that conspires, in my view, to make it more likely than not that Trump will continue the US's war against Russia, both in Ukraine and in other parts of the world, if for no other reason than that it is too complicated and too long term a project to wind down that war given the opposition of so many short term reasons for continuing it. He can't just walk away from Ukraine because he'd be hanged by his own party for "abandoning" Ukraine. The junta in Kiev knows that, so they'll play hardball with him. Their eager embracement of the Biden team policy of poisoning the well for Trump demonstrates they have no worries about burning their bridges with Trump.
The closer Trump's team gets to Inauguration Day, the more signals are leaking out of their organization that they realize they will be unable to push Russia into any surrender, and that the only thing they can think of doing is to continue the war. I think that is what will happen and that the war will become harsher with Trump, far from being the peacemaker, will end up escalating the war well beyond what Biden did, primarily by expanding the use of American arms and the direct involvement of American forces, for example, possibly bringing American warships into the Black Sea and provocative acts by American forces in the Baltic and on Russia's Pacific and Arctic coasts and on Russia's borders with Central Asia states. I wouldn't be surprised if he moved rapidly to cement US control over the former Syria's oil territories, including strikes even on Turkish positions and threats or strikes on the remnant Russian bases in Syria.
That's the real danger with Trump. When his short term improvisations don't work out, if he can't walk away, he gets violent. I'd say America deserves better, except that the price of even a quasi-democracy like the US is that the people get the government they deserve.
I suspect one of the first things he will do is sell out the Kurds in Syria - he already wanted to pull out in his first term; and now Israel and Turkey have destroyed Syria, along with Russia and Iran's interests there, he's unlikely to face much pushback.
The rest of your analysis of his personality I generally agree with.
He's STILL a better choice than the DNC/Harris warmongering psychopaths, but that line is getting slimmer the closer we come to the inauguration.
Once again, he'll be just another US President, unremarkable apart from "Mean tweets".
You’ve placed your bet based on your read of the table. A lot of guesses and mind reading here fills in the gap of actual knowledge, but then we all do that. What I see in Trump is a man who does in fact look through the lens of what is good for America. (Seems so quaint and old fashioned these days - I imagine many will find this hard to believe.) I doubt Trump will conclude that a world war to preserve the empire is helpful to that project.
Trump will do exactly what the murderous DC money minders tell him to do. Trump, a bit of an outsider to the MENSA class, will listen to those disgusting war mongers closest to him who will blow smoke up his ass. How can you MAGA unless you act the stern father and discipline the funky Euro-crowd and attempt to spank the Russians? President Polk rolled over the Mexicans on the way to stealing their acreage (May, 1846). I don't think the Russians plan on being Mexico now.
The Americans quietly removed nukes on the Russian border in Turkey to comply with the Russian demands to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Are the DC pirates so stunningly ignorant of that historical fact that they imagine the Russians will be any more willing today to allow those same western weapons on their border? FAFO. The colossal stupidity beggars belief.
For me...Trump will have a "successful" presidency if the nukes stay in their silos. That's it. I have no other hopes/expectations for the man.
War is the number one U$ export. It's just what we do! Mo' money...mo' money...mo' money...
I'm not so sure of that. Russian wages generally increased ~9% this year, boosting civilian purchasing power. Consumer growth - albeit not so great for the environment - is a WAAAAY better way to grow your economy and GDP. Compare China to the US.
Military spending, unless accompanied with severe penalties for fraud, will inevitably become corrupt, due to the built-in secrecy of such spending.
With the examples of both China and the US in front of them, would the Kremlin make that mistake?
The great danger for Russia is that China is now such a civilian economic powerhouse, could they compete with no tariffs between them, or be swallowed up and ONLY military tech can sell and grow?
Complicated. The Russian National Bank is keeping interest rates high. Growth is therefore not by credit expansion but profit spending. As the Oligarchs can not spend the money in the West on yachts, football clubs, and a house in London, there is enough profit to be spent. All kinds of products had to be substituted because of sanctions, and the Russians did! Instead of buying Swiss cheese for $10, the consumer buys a Russian-made "Swiss" cheese for $8; your GDP is shrinking! But the economic fundamentals have dramatically changed. A situation last seen in the 19th century.
Before DJT even steps into the White House a complex & thorny set up is already taking shape. The notion that he can cajole or bully Russia into ending the conflict short of a total capitulation on the part of Ukraine in exchange for certain minor meaningless concessions, at least in Russia’s eyes, is bogus. The best thing would be for DJT to turn ownership of Project Ukraine over to Europe entirely and just wash his hands of it. This was Joe’s craziness after all. There’s no point in becoming invested in a war that has already been lost.
Europe has aggressively been a decision maker in the Ukraine War for 3 years. This debacle, uniquely theirs, has Joe & Europe’s fingerprints all over it. Because of this, Europe naturally has a moral obligation to do all it can to aid Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction, given its role in encouraging Ukraine to fight on to the last man rather than accept the relatively benign peace deal offered by Russia in Istanbul in March 2022. Especially now that Joe has shuffled off to Buffalo, Europe is the sole owner of this debacle.
In that DJT had no decision-making input @ any point during the past 3 years, there’s little ‘up’ side for his wading in energetically now. One almost has the feeling that he should offer modest assistance or support to European leaders—the ‘atta boy’ kind of slap on the back & encouragement—as they navigate their way out of this mess but he should not waste his time presiding over it. At no point could DJT have had any impact whatsoever on deescalating the conflict, shaping its trajectory, limiting the equipment sent or even in trying to ameliorate matters via negotiations. As diplomacy-averse as European leaders proved themselves for three years, they really fouled things up. They—the European leaders—are the ones responsible for this. They broke it. They own it.
Given that Russia is winning, VVP & his team have no incentive to *negotiate down* to an unfavorable peace.
In truth, VVP has already won. The only question is by how much. Having the West be the difficult & recalcitrant party, the pouty one stamping its foot, endlessly attempting to extend the conflict by refusing to meet Russia’s baseline demands—or even to open up dialogue—is only to Russia’s advantage. OTAN cannot end the war in Ukraine’s favor, so OTAN refuses to end the war. It’s not as if the U.S. owes the EU a damn thing. Recall Mrs. Nuland’s scatological remark about the EU if you want to calibrate the U.S.’s baseline regard for Europe. The U.S. is not part of the continent’s ancient quarrels. Meanwhile, the West has very little leverage from which to *start* negotiations, regardless of who sits in the White House.
My view is the EU is merely a collection of vassal states, colonies of our country. They make no meaningful decisions on their own. Germanys' silence when we blew up Nordstream proves this view has merit.
Installing a radical government in Ukraine, the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe, and militarizing this ethnically fragmented, recently constructed concept of a nation, was a long planned project.
With Ukraine and its' resources in the bag, the bigger prize of toppling the sovereign and nationalist Russian government to take control of their vast resources was the ultimate plan.
Our congress is simply a collection of whores we call politicians who serve the globalist corporations and oligarchs who purchase them.
It's likely that our intelligence agencies and military leadership really are so incompetent that they thought they could prevail in an economic and military war against Russia.
The desperation from facing the consequences of the US/NATO losing this war is causing insane acts of provocation.
As much as Russia does not need the headache of administering the western oblasts of Ukraine, I'm thinking they need to take all lands to the Dnepr River, Odessa, and incorporate them into the RF, while occupying Kiev. Smoke out the rats from Kiev for a decade or so.
Make sure what remains of Ukraine stays neutral, then consider allowing Kiev to rejoin them.
It is likely a lot of eastern Europe will beg to join Russia in that time, as the EU and the US are devolving into 3rd world countries. I don't think Trump can turn the tide in 4 years, if he is not assassinated before his term is up.
A possible model to my mind is the post-WWII disposition of German territory and then the slow, very slow, lengthy & incremental return to sovereignty.
But the problem is this: the West would have to agree that a dysfunctional terrorist Russia-hating state in Europe is not in their best interests.
Right now, they are so far from *seeing* this that they are only a fig-leaf's remove from the hate & the terror.
Good points. I just don't see our country and the EU in the driver's seat. Our permanent government is desperate to delay the collapse of the Kiev regime through January 20, 2025. Simply to blame Trump and reinforce the narrative that the disaster was due to a lack of financial and military support, not the reality that our combined militaries had their *ss kicked.
Russia cannot sign a peace deal until Ukraine elects a lawful president and parliament. By that time, they will have taken the entire country. Russia cannot accept a cease fire or "freeze", they have to drive stake in the heart of the beast now.
Europe is disintegrating in any event of its' own accord. It's a tough problem. The war criminals in Kiev must be tried and punished for what they have done to their own people.
I would argue that we also need to try and punish Biden, Blinkin, Nuland and the host of other war criminals for their illegal actions. They have destroyed our national security.
There's a thralldom that either is or is not shattering. Mired in it, one cannot see. The RoW recognizes it. China definitely does.
From 35,000 feet you've got to say, "Man that's really shallow. Defeated Ukrainians can't pull back from Kursk or can't withdraw from enclosing cauldrons near Petrovsk until 20 January so that we can blame DJT for the failure."
From 35,000 feet you've got to say, "Refusing to interact w/ a nuclear superpower against whom you are fighting a hot proxy war is nonsensical."
The motives are whack. The rationale is tinged w/ a non compos mentis filter that has colored so much of our public/social/political life.
Can we send John Bolton to Nuremberg in chains for trial? Perhaps Janet Yellen could be accommodated in a traditional part of Spandau prison for the rest of her life?
>Given that Russia is winning, VVP & his team have no incentive to *negotiate down* to an unfavorable peace. In truth, VVP has already won. The only question is by how much.
This is completely delusional.
1) Does Russia control most of Ukraine? No. Not even the most sensitive to its own security areas, which are Sumy, Chernigov and Kharkov. As demonstrated by the NATO invasion into Kursk. Worse, there appears to be absolutely no intention to carry out any military operations into those regions any time soon. Massive defeat for Russia as things stand currently
2) Has NATO been pushed back to 1997 borders as very publicly demanded in late 2021? No, it moved in closer. Another huge failure to achieve vital strategic objectives.
3) Has the US removed its forward deployed nukes from Europe, as again very publicly demanded in late 2021? No, it is deploying intermediate range nuclear carriers in Europe very soon, including hypersonic ones. Yet another catastrophic blow for Russian security.
4) Were Russian industry, military objects and civilians subjected to daily barrages of dozens and hundreds of drones before the SMO started? No. Are they now? Yes. Missiles too, and it will only get worse. The security of the country has been totally compromised.
5) Has a single round of ammunition been fired at NATO in return for all the ordinance that NATO has fired at Russia? No. What does that tell us about the relative standing of the two parties in this war?
So where is the win here exactly?
And how delusional does one have to be to say such things?
I’m such a delusionist, cuz France 66 thousand (!) firms broke and no government to be formed in months (?), Germany on its knees economically, the whole EU crumbling and crushing, NATO more than ever begging for gifts and leftovers from daddy Uncle Sam, and Trump….Iran a too big gold mine not to blind his eyes. Happy new year, tsching tsching.
Are NATO drones and missiles hitting Russian civilians, cities, industry and military sites? Yes.
Are Russian drones and missiles hitting NATO civilians, cities, industry and military sites? No. Not a single one.
Then NATO is crushing Russia in the war by definition with the same a lot to zero ratio of fire exchange that it enjoyed in Yugoslavia, Lybia and all the other places it bombed to ruins over the decades.
Another view is that Russia very cleverly built up their military industrial complex and armed forces while bleeding NATO and the Kiev regimes' military in the process.
Russia has had to keep a large portion of their growing military unengaged and deployed in Belarus and to the north to realistically counter the potential of NATO launching additional northern offensives.
With minimal casualties the RF has disarmed the entire west while annihilating the Ukraine proxy.
They enjoy compact interior supply lines and 100% support from the local population. They forced the Ukraine to extend their logistics and fight in areas the locals report troop movements and weapon system placements to target.
The Ukranian military is crumbling and likely will disintegrate entirely, opening the opportunity to rapidly move to the Dnepr, take Kharkov and Kiev without fighting.
I accept I could be wrong, but this view is plausible. We have been obsessed with ordering the Kiev regime in holding every village, as the Wermacht did 80 years ago, resulting in catastrophic losses of their best units.
Arrow offensives are costly and risky. Russian units are now well trained, commanded and seasoned with an industrial base that can keep them well supplied.
Time will tell, my money is that Russia is pulling off a historic victory against all the initial odds against them.
Pure speculation on my part, but what has [Trump's] US regime got to lose by casting the European lambs to the Russian wolf? Europe will still buy US energy and weapons, and more of them. Russia will not invade Western Europe and will be detached from Europe, making rapprochement difficult if not impossible. The USA can pivot to China, whilst continuing to cause trouble for Russia at the margins. Russia will remain sanctioned and thus BRICS under pressure. The USA has no vital interests in Ukraine, no matter what the neo-cons might think. The USA has already gained much from this conflict in reality, and Europe is the big loser. Russia is not yet a winner but looks like it might be. There would be a messaging problem here, and Mr T's myriad enemies would try to make hay. The USA does not have boots on the ground (ho ho) so there would be no Kabul like fiasco. Continuing to support Ukraine risks another endless war and even MAD, and would be hugely unpopular in the USA. All of which sounds logical. However if we get into a dick waving competition with the Russians all bets are off and all sorts of unpleasant scenarios can be imagined.
Well said. But I disagree with the implications of this: "Europe naturally has a moral obligation"
The last thing Europe cares about or has ever cared about is moral obligations. They have based their foul union in Belgium, which has perhaps the most evil record of colonialism in Africa, which is saying something given the brutal records of colonialism for the European "great" powers.
Additionally, as we learn so much more now about the depth & breadth of Joe's cognitive decline, and the hideous dysfunction involved in *concealing* what everybody, including the Euro leaders, knew was happening you almost have to believe that the non compos mentis factor has so pervaded this event that it worked a Gain of Function effect on the war, ginning the entire catastrophe up more kinetically than might, under competent circumstances, have happened.
Zakharova, for instance, has really been a North Star.
In contrast, the collective West and Collective Biden went so far over the top on Project Ukraine that they could see the aurora borealis. Seeing the aurora borealis at the expense of a nuclear superpower is not something one wants to do. But they did.
Agree with your comments in general. IMO Bidens' cognitive decline was always very obvious, but irrelevant. Our permanent government has been impervious to oversight by Congress, the office of President or the courts since Reagan.
We've had a series of neutered presidents starting with Bush Sr. who are only figureheads. Administrations come and go, but foreign policy is permanent.
Trumps' 1st term illustrated that he was simply ignored and then impeached over meddling in the foul, putrid and corrupt swamp we call our military/state department/intelligence agency complex. The IC calls all the shots. If a President attempts to reign them in they are ignored or will be assassinated.
I think this time it's going to be a little different. The people are pretty much fed up with the deep state and the unelected bureaucrats and we are letting them know it. This time Trump has the electoral vote, the popular vote, the House and the Senate, is winning in the courts, and is staffing with people that will do as he asks regardless of their past positions, or they will be gone in a hurry. Even the MSM is starting to come around as they realize they are losing viewership and the sponsors who pay the bills.
Trump has the attention span of a gnat - and he is going senile per his ramblings on his campaign.
Trump will do what your Deep State wants because he will be tied up by his own party. Your presidents are to appease the populace. Nothing changes in US foreign policy - no matter red or blue. Also all the oligarchs in the US will be emboldened by Musk. Your govt by billionaires is on the way.
The only way change will come in the US is if you are bombed into submission, and you have to start afresh.
Bush Sr. WAS the IC. He was no figurehead. He ran circles around Reagan. The IC cemented their power over the government after 1963. It is likely that Bush Sr. was at least read in on that operation. He was CIA back then. And how convenient his son presided over the vast expansion of state power that was 911. Every president since JFK has been contained by the IC. The extreme reaction to an elected outsider tells the story.
"Europe naturally has a moral obligation to do all it can to aid Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction..."
Except there won't be anything left to reconstruct. Russia cannot allow Ukraine to exist or they will be facing terrorist attacks on the homeland forever like those we are seeing now... Chip
"The U.S. is not part of the continent’s ancient quarrels."
If you read Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, You see that Europeans have NOT learned anything over the centuries. The generational drumbeat of cruelty and stupidity boggles the mind.The thin patina of "civilization" is just cosplay. They are barbarians at heart.
It's worth a mention, as follow-up on the Oreshnik strikes, that in fact all damage appears to be old and commercial sources are editing purchased pictures.
Both MAXAR and Airbus are pixel-editing the satellite images. Word is that images snapped from Chinese satellites might be more reliable, but the cost of procuring them is steep.
Although *we* can't readily know the degree of damage, Russia's MoD does.
Yes, so we're back to square 1 in externally evaluating effects. Putin seems quite pleased, however, which is atypical even beyond the pull of politics. He seems to think something special has been achieved, so it probably has.
There is no way Western media is going to accurately portray that damage, let alone how game changing that new Oreshnik is. That would be too embarrassing and make more people against being involved in project Ukraine.
The main stream media watchers that I know have heard nothing about it.
In addition to the F-18 calamity over Yemen which S mentions [above] Ansar Allah fired a missile on Tel Aviv, which Israel's Iron Dome failed to intercept, "causing minor damage," as reported by the nytimes.
The info-spaces staffed by paid propagandists are swiftly swept--just as the MAXAR and Airbus satellite imagery gets doctored
Zakharova addressed the ramped up terrorism in Kazan and in Bryansk: “Kyiv is taking out its impotent anger for tangible military defeats on the civilian population of Russia. The strike on the capital of Tatarstan is also a kind of revenge for the successful BRICS summit held in October this year.”
Consider the outcry over the tragic terrorism in Magdeburg, a normal response to horror rained down upon holiday revelers
Zakharova: “We are outraged by the demonstrative hypocritical silence of the “collective West” and its mass media, which immediately react to any attack by extremists, and especially terrorist attacks in different parts of the world, but in the case They are pretending that nothing is happening with Russia.”
In essence, the war in Ukraine has never exactly been a recognizably conventional war, as meted out from the OTAN/Ukrainian side, so much as it has been a series of extended acts of terrorism since 2014
The biggest problem with terrorism is fear and as a consequence anger. But if you look at it clinically, the number of casualties is limited (not saying that it is not terrible for the victims, cause it is) and statistically the chances are small that any of us becomes a victim of terrorism.
If you would compare for instance the victims of terrorism with the people dying in traffic (around 4 million worldwide in the last 3 years), the upset in society is not justified in my opinion as the emotions fear and anger stop logical and rational thinking, resulting in short term actions, making more victims at the end (for instance 3000 killed in 9/11 and as a consequence 4.5 million killed elsewhere likely because 300 million people supported a small group of people that hat malicious intent anyways)
I have been expecting this move to cross the Dnieper, but i expect the real attack in the Kherson area and across the empty reservoir will be in the combined attack on Zaporizhia from West and East, to establish a strong bridgehead. It is also meant to protect the ZNPP against attacks by the NAZI/Tommy alliance...
As the Russian forces advance, it is only to be expected that more bodies of all combatants will end up on Russian side of combat line. Therefore in a body exchange, it stands to reason that the advancing force will have more bodies of the enemy on its side.
If the numbers are true, then the Russians master the Art of War. For most of the time in WWI the Italians were the attackers, but the Austrians had way more enemy bodies than the Italians. Even thought the Italians made small, but steady progress, but they attacked the same spot for x-times to soften the position up, to finally gain ground.
Thx for finally casting doubts on what Trumps true peace plan is. More War. As one can expect from a hybris-infected bully.
I have said it will be WORSE after his inauguration so Russia should speed up. Now it is too late. What happens next will be more killings and a longer War and of course, more nasty surprises.
The Cherson offensive looks like suicide. Crossing Dniepr in this ISR-infested battlearea spells doom for Russian troops. 1000 artillery shells in 40 minutes is nothing compared to Verdun or similar offensives in WW2.
Keep up the good work of yours and lets hope 2025 brings Victory to Russia.
I agree with your point on a suicide mission. 2,000 men - really??? there has to be more to this than that. And 1,000 shells - the British army fired over a million rounds over a 24 hour period in August 1918. But I do hope Trump's sabre rattling is just bluster.
Victory and loss, loss and victory, victory and ….an ongoing war and no end, no happy end. Peace? Perhaps in the afterlife, but there are also many afterlives.
Soon DPRK troops will hunker down under the Antonovsky Bridge. K-Pop Krynky will commence shortly thereafter.
Also, we all eagerly await the 3rd reddit copers brigade counteroffensive led by schweinerchenko himself that will break through to kursk itself. Rumors have it that the 815th gryffindor defense grouping will be supporting the advance
Our friends in the desert are taking odds on a Krynky Quiddtich
Highly unlikely.
But the matter of why Russian DRGs are on the right bank is a serious question.
There is absolutely no way to supply any substantial force on the other side of the river without one of the major bridges. Not with half of NATO's GMLRS assets being situated in Ukraine -- pontoons are doomed because of that. And the Antonov bridge was blown up by Russia while the Nova Khakhovka dam was blown up by Ukraine/NATO.
The only way to support such a group is to take Zaporozhye city and do it with lightning speed before the Ukronazis blow up the bridges. That is impossible given the current correlation of forces in theater.
So what the hell is the plan here?
I want to believe that there is one, and it is for big things. But that will require some some magician's trick to be pulled...
Agree.
I think they are waiting for you to come up with a plan.
Question: In WWI and WWII a lot of rivers had to be crossed. Bridges were blown up, dams destroyed, and fords mined. To go back in time, the fight for Southeastern Europe, a lot of river crossings had to be done by the Poles, Ottomans, Russians, and Austrians. And the Napoleonic wars! Only at Aspern was a river crossing the problem; even when the troops were in tatters, they could cross the Beresina! The Allied even crossed the Channel and landed on the other side! Do you know of any example where a river crossing in force was a big problem?
Do you know of any example during WWI and WWII of anyone having satellite coverage with resolution in the centimeters, drones flying everywhere, and missiles flying from 120 km with accuracy of 1-2 meters?
It depends on the condition of the river bed in winter with the dam blown up. I think it is a wide, overgrown river bed with a smaller river running through it. I expect a lot of ranger work by Russia to clear the other side and make for a landing site.
GOLD !! RFLMAO .. sad but true.
Thank you interesting article describing 'interesting' times...
What is the deal with reports of DPRK in combat? I've yet to see a telegram video that shows their presence. Is there any substantiation to their active deployment in the SMO?
There's still zero real evidence for Koreans in combat.
I think they are just going to cheer from the sidelines for now... https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bKMgZZc8jDM
None of these "successes", such as taking Kurakhovo after three months of bloody battles for it, matters.
The loss ratios don't matter either -- this is Russians killing other Russians (brainwashed as the latter might be), which is a huge success for the West either way.
The very fact this war was allowed to become inevitable is a gigantic strategic failure on the part of the Kremlin.
But it gets much worse after that because now Russian security, both internally and externally is totally destroyed. Terrorist acts on home soil daily, triple digit drones flying everywhere every day, and some hitting things, etc. That is the new reality, with no prospects of it no longer being the daily reality any time soon, if ever.
This is catastrophic.
Even more catastrophic is the Kremlin's refusal to lift a finger to make it stop, even though the Kremlin can indeed make it stop almost literally with just lifting a finger.
There would have been total physical destruction of the enemy's ability to launch such attacks within minutes of them launching the first more significant one in Soviet times. Under Putin? The dear partners are untouchable. Why?
At this point getting the Ukrainian military and political leadership smoked is mandatory even for just internal political reasons. Russian society wants blood. Technically it is a trivial for Russia matter to have those bastards destroyed. But the Kremlin refuses to do it even though now Russian military and political leadership itself is clearly on the menu. Again, why?
Are they so afraid of NATO that they don't dare at all touch Zelensky and his buddies? Or they are so compromised internally by loyalties to oligarch interests that there is a veto by powerful economic faction inside Russia (and you can throw in the whole "special relationship" with Israel into the mix too) on such actions, and the objective here is to make some kind of a shitty deal once again, all in the name of going back to how things were previously, which would be much harder if Zelensky receives his deserved comeuppance?
In any case, Russia has been firmly knocked out of the ranks of the great powers. Because:
>The problem is, recent signals indicate Trump may infact be regressing into the same old warhawk model as reports came today that Trump intends to continue arming Ukraine come late January.
This is one of the most ridiculous aspects of the whole situation. If Russia was a true great power, it would not matter at all what Trump was planning on doing. Russia would be out for victory, because what we have here is a NATO/Nazi invasion and occupation of core historic Russian territory, just as in WWII (most of Ukraine is core historic Russian territory) and it would not be planning its future around what the orange conman would do after January 20th, because it would be irrelevant with respect to what the objectives are here.
But that is exactly what the plan seems to be here -- try to make a deal with Trump. Which will be a strategic defeat. Because anything but going all the way to Western Ukraine would be a gigantic strategic defeat.
And even that might not be enough, because it will come at a great cost, and will not restore deterrence. Only the physical destruction of major NATO assets with the use of extreme force and in such a way that NATO is forced to stand down and not respond will restore deterrence. That is clearly not in the cards at the moment with this Russian leadership. And that is not for lack of military-technical capability. At least based on what we know publicly...
I fear you are correct in that there does not appear to be a peace proposal here that would satidfy Russia's minimum concerns, so either they have to secure a military victory or accept a strategic defeat. Unless the USA can dress up an abandonment of Kiev in terms of some sort of way that satisfies its constituents....
There are situations in life where you lose either way.
This is one such.
The Kremlin is being cautious because there are ratios of "losing".
Unlike the Demonhawks, Trump WON'T go to nuclear war as a desired outcome. That gives four more years for things to change.
They probably won't, but we'll all be four years older. Except the victims of America's wars, and its proxies. Like Gazans.
We'll be 4 years older, and the cemeteries will be 4 years larger
We're all going to die at some point anyway. What matters is that we don't ALL die simultaneously.
The likelyhood is growing that we all die simultaneously. The other alternative is a huge decline in living standards in many parts of the world. Total chaos.
Keep on wondering what the other countries China, Iran and Nord Korea are doing. They should not that they are next on the table, when there is a next, but they will likely suffer a decline too?
Only really in the 'West", the G7. The rest of the World is already at a catastrophically low level, ANY investment that isn't just a privatisation scam will improve them.
The countries that rely on the cheap primary imports; and the exported profits from said privatised industries, will likely suffer greatly.
Unless they adapt, and learn the treat the global south as equals.
I'm not holding my breath on that either. They don't even regard their own Western populations as equals.
But I agree the Western nuclear nations, primarily US and Israhell, are likely to launch and end the "misery".
"Trump WON'T go to nuclear war as a desired outcome"
You sure about that? His decision-making "process" is unfathomable.
Nothing is 100%, but he largely lacks that mythic myopia that leads people into symbolic 'victories' that are in reality catastrophes in the Real World.
He's far too selfish, too transactional.
Who would have thought those could be positives in a Leader, lmao.
He could be bum-rushed into stupidity - as he almost was with war with Iran in term1, and the unbelievable assassination of Soleimani. One could hope that he has learned, sadly so has the deep state in how to manipulate him, what are his levers.
It's not just the Russians who will have a dedicated team working on his personality.
But at the end of all of his days, what matters to Trump is "What's in it for ME!?!". And huddled in a nuclear bunker simply will not appeal to him - fortunately.
The Killary positively salivates at the thought.
And Harris was just a cypher for that rotten POS.
Well written and something I have advocated for months. Those small gains in Donbass dont win any War. Those lists with killed is just wishful thinking that statistics spells the Winner.
It was remarkable to hear Putin say that Crimeaa operation and the ”SMO” was spontaneous actions rather than 5D-chess and with hindsight they should have done it earlier and planned more….
"Those small gains in Donbass dont win any War. "
Strange, I could have sworn Russia was winning this war, that NATO was exhausting its resources and Russia was using this time to exponentially expand its vast war machine in preparation for the future war with NATO.
But I could be wrong.
By critical reading of different articles and narratives you can trace the ”mood” from the Bachmut victory (where West described it as a Russian graveyard), through the Avdeevka&Vuledar (where pro-russians cheered prematurely for the Victory). One can talk oneself into bubbles of defeat or victory but reality could be something else.
What matters for a Victory is breaking the will to fight or simply erase the enemy. Russia is heading for the first and plan B is the latter.
To break the will you have to create a mood of chaos and defeat.
That has not happened in the West so they will continue.
I suggest the the Will to fight is concentrated around the Zelensky Banderites. Crush them and you spare a lot of ukrainian&russian lives.
What you write is propably true but if that narrative is not settled in the minds of western leaders and cheepish citizens they will follow their own narrative. And War continues. The longer the War the higher the risk of disgruntled Russians.
Banderites tend to fight to the death - they are fanatics - and have proven so all during this war.
Russians know what is going on. They know the stakes. They know this is existential. They will hang in with their military leaders to the end.
Yes. The only existential threats are those from US/NATO. Russia is no threat to the others. And if they (we) in the West keep crying wolf over Russia we soon will be facing the Big Bear clawing its way through our cities.
It beats me how Ukraine is managing to instill so much hate and stamina in those 40-50 years old soldiers that they smile with legs blown of instead of shooting their commander in the back.
The Russians--as opposed to the Soviets--are in this bind because they began to believe the West's bullshit. They actually trusted them. They believed all the happy talk about cooperation, freedom, democracy and markets. Hey, let's all listen to cool rock n roll, eat hamburgers and be buddies!--even as NATO expanded and the Balkan intervention blinked bright red. Hard core commies understood the nature of their enemy--which is why the core of resistance to The Empire is still communist. Seems like only the theocrats in Iran and Yemen and the commies in China and DPRK understand how fundamentally criminal the Bankers and Big Business are.
The excuse that they trusted the West does not pass muster at this point. It might have with respect to the 1980s to 2010s period, though in reality not even then -- what are the SVR and GRU for?
But now it is late 2024, almost 2025. Putin, Lavrov, Zaharova, etc. are whining about how the West cannot be trusted, is "agreement incapable", "always deceives us", etc. pretty much on daily basis.
Get on with the business of winning the war then. Starting with the obvious war winning moves you are still refusing to make even though you are one of only two or three countries in the world with the actual military-technical capacity to carry out. The list is well-known -- decapitation strikes on leadership, disabling logistics, shutting down the grid, etc.
It's how they got into this mess, not how they get out of it.
You're right. Because of these complaints, Zakharov, Lavrov, Nebenzya are completely unpopular in Russia. Together with them, Putin is losing his popularity.
In addition, Putin does not understand the economy at all, and Russia is gradually entering an economic crisis. The ruble is falling, YouTube is blocked, idiotic propaganda is growing. This is a sure recipe for losing power.
Woe is us! O woe is us!! We are all gonna die! And it's all Putin's fault!
Which leads to the question, how to negotiate? The West will always use every loophole to do bad things. This Western Elite will always pose as the moral superpower, but doing the worst things thinkable. They have broken every promise and contract, and there is no sign that this time they will act differently. The Russians want to be the good ones, to be accepted as partners by the Non-Western countries, but by doing so, they cannot answer terror with terror or war crimes with war crimes. And at the end, not having a peace treaty means going all the way to Galicia, for sure Putin's nightmare.
"If Russia was a true great power, it would not matter at all what Trump was planning on doing."
"But that is exactly what the plan seems to be here -- try to make a deal with Trump."
It doesn't matter to the Russians. They will meet their objectives whatever Trump or any other Western power tries. Naturally, they hope for a quicker end to those objectives, which, they hope, Trump can offer. But if he doesn't, then Russia will continue to maul Ukraine forever if that is what it takes.
"At least based on what we know publicly..."
The only provably factual statement you have made. Well done!
I couldn't put it better myself. Putin and the oligarchs he represents are divorced from the suffering of the ordinary people. The AFU keeps firing western missiles into Russia and the response is underwhelming.
If the West had attacked the USSR in such a way there would have been a massive response.
If you look at the history of Putins tenure as president at every turn he has sought compromise with American imperialism which has been and is still seen as weakness.
Perceived weakness encourages more western aggression. The 1933 to 1939 period when the UK and France appeased Hitler as well as Stalin with the Nazi Soviet pact all have Hitler the message that his aggression was paying off and encouraged his plans to conquer Europe.
Trump believes he win at the negotiating table what the US has failed to achieve on the battlefield.
As I've said before he may copy nixons tactics in 1973 when he tried to win a diplomatic victory to make up for American defeat on the ground. Thankfully, despite a massive escalation of bombing of north Vietnam nixons tactics failed. Hanoi stood its ground despite the huge cost of civilian deaths.
If Putin caputulates to Trumps tactics then it will bring closer the prospect of an all out war between the two.
Only by decisively standing up to American imperialism by totally destroying the AFU and the Kiev regime can Russia secure it's future.
The UK didn't appease Hitler, they instigated him, with the goal of having him and the communists destroy each other.
Stalin was the one appeasing him, trying to first make him see they have common interests (in the mid-1930s) and then, failing to secure an alliance against him in 1939, trying to buy time to fully prepare for war.
The British, and especially the Americans got what they wanted, the real failure of "appeasement" was Stalin's policy. Although he didn't really have much choice - they needed another year to get fully ready. They weren't given that year for reasons beyond their control.
"Are they so afraid of NATO that they don't dare at all touch Zelensky and his buddies?" It has been suggested repeatedly, here and elsewhere, that the Russians have assets in the leading circles of Ukraine. That would explain why they don't bomb them.
???
It doesn't explain it at all.
Zelensky has been in FPV drone and artillery range many times, Russian soldiers had the red dot on him and were begging for permission to pull the trigger, but were under strict orders not to touch him.
Killing a grossly incompetent (and in this case grossly corrupt) leader is not a good move. As Napoleon remarked, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake". Zelensky is just one continuous mistake. Get rid of him, and you would certainly get someone much more dangerous and troublesome.
Indeed, taking out Zelensky wouldn't change anything. After all, he is only the governor of the great (vassal) state of Ukraine.
You mean killing this little grifter won’t help?
"The very fact this war was allowed to become inevitable is a gigantic strategic failure on the part of the Kremlin".
I completely agree. But that failure occurred in the 1990s, before the era of Mr Putin. Indeed, the greatest mistake of all was allowing Ukraine to secede. Would the USA permit New Jersey or Iowa to secede?
The USSR self-dissolved in 1991, that is correct.
But when Putin took power in late 1999 Ukraine was not a hostile country. Yes, the seeds were sown -- the Banderite cockroaches that Stalin did not squash and Khruschev then allowed to return from the GULAG were crawling out of their holes and crevices and returning from Canada, Germany and the US, that is also correct -- but they were still marginal.
It was the Orange revolution, the Maidan, and the failure on the Kremlin part to act decisively in either care that really turned the country, and all of this happened under Putin's watch.
In the first place, the Washington coup in Kiev began in 1991. That was the only time when it could have been prevented. Secondly, until 2020 Russia was simply not strong enough to suppress the Kiev regime and reverse the coup militarily.
The West literally wants WWIII - Martin Armstrong plus the Wolfowitz Doctrine and the Financial Collapse of the West. We are being held hostage by our own government. Putin does what people want him to do, strike back at the head of the snake, and we are in false flag nuclear war as everyone goes nuclear if Russia and NATO go at it. Martin thinks that is where we are going. You are being held hostage to WWIII by your masters. It isn't Russia's fault. An early nuke by Russia would have caused a nuclear war. They think it is survivable, by them.
Well USA policy has successfully detatched Europe from Russia, both politically (for at least a generation) and economically. Trump says that Europe has to buy US energy or face tariffs, which they will, as they few other realistic options to fill the hole that was provided by Russia and need to keep exporting to the USA.
On the war I wondered if Trump was simply blustering or actually playing a good game here. Bearing in mind he has actually personally said very little - though this is not what you may think. He has said Europe needs to spend 5% of gdp on defence, 3.5% straightaway - ie c double current spend. This won't happen and is a precondition for continuing US support for Ukraine. We understand that Z has said he won't negotiate except on terms based on his ludicrous peace plan. He needs to negotiate on Trump's terms, whatever they may be. So Mr T has set both Europe and Ukraine up to be abandoned. Russia has simply said it is prepared to talk, but only to a legitimate power. I cannot follow whether it has set any preconditions but I think not simply to open a dialogue.
The best plan for Mr T is to walk away from this tar baby as soon as possible. There are worrying signals that he won't, and that he may have formed the view that he can coerce Russia to accept some sort of de facto defeat, pulled from the jaws of its victory. Well, we live in interesting times.
The best thing would be for DJT to turn ownership of Project Ukraine over to Europe entirely and just wash his hands of it. This was Joe’s craziness after all. There’s no point in becoming invested in a war that has already been lost.
In that DJT has had literally no decision-making input @ any point during the past 3 years, or the solid year that stood as a preamble/warm-up to the conflict, there’s little ‘up’ side for his wading in energetically now.
"In that DJT has had literally no decision-making input @ any point during the past 3 years, or the solid year that stood as a preamble/warm-up to the conflict, there’s little ‘up’ side for his wading in energetically now."
Really? His administration has pumped money and weapons into Ukraine all of his time in office from 2016-2020 but that was "Joes craziness" also?
Russia knows that we are here in Europe refuse to go to war with Russia, our economic perspective is more than bad and Russia also knows that the West-leadership wants to give it the Balkan-treatment, break it up and own the parts.
The western way of thinking here in the comments in no surprise for me but the eastern way of thinking is fundamental different.
I can destroy you simply because I can but what future is there for me after that?
How will others look at me and deal with me after seeing what I have done?
The populations in the west won't go away and they can't free themself from their historical heritage, so they will go on produce people like Joe Biden and D. Trump.
This is a fundamental thing, a thing for the long run, not to win the war in Ukraine that will bring not much but costs and suffering even after the war, because the war is not over after a "peaceagreement', like WWII has never stopped really.
This will end only after the security-architecture in Europe has changed profoundly and the USA is out of Europe so Europe can be enabled to see that it is nothing without the cooperation with the rest of the eurasian continent.
The USA has to go home and and become a Nation amongst the Nations and not the self declared Number 1.
Hear, hear, man--and I'd love to believe.
It's a lot webber than that.
I read just a small portion of Sy Hersh's "The Red Line & the Rat Line"--about Obama's ginning things up in Syria--and it was so diabolically intricate in all its nefarious inner workings, what with the deceptions & the complicities, that it will convince you of Newtonian Law: a body in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an external force.
Newton's Law implies that that "external force" does exist.
Completely correct. Unfortunately for both Europe and the US, this way of thinking will only change when change has been forced on the US.
Waiting for the US to collapse economically is not going to happen - not while the printing press is going strong.
War HAS to come to American soil.
This is the ONLY way to change the perception of Americans.
The country to do so will be Russia. There literally is no one else. For the record - China will never fight the US. It has far too much to lose.
Xi realises that the whole world will lose if China fights the US.
The US can't keep printing dollars to shore up it's economy. It will collapse because it's built on war, has no reinvestment as is sanctioning itself into oblivion. War is not necessary. Perception will be changed by another depression.
Yep, if only the US would do this. I don't think it will.
Remember too the Trump took CREDIT for destroying Nordstream… so, massive funding for buildup of troops in Ukraine under Trump, and admitting the U.S. was stealing Syrian oil (bragging about it really), and taking credit for destroying Germany’s chance to remain relevant industrial nation… don’t look to Trump for solid “peace”….
>Well USA policy has successfully detatched Europe from Russia
Which is a good thing for Russia -- this was a one-sided relationship. Russia was sending raw resources to Europe and receiving finished goods in the other direction, which suppressed its internal production capacity and technological development, even though it is unique in the world in having the material and intellectual capacity to be self sufficient in pretty much everything.
If Russia was run by true patriots and not by comprador traitors, all resource exports would have been gradually halted while investing in internal R&D and industrial build up to achieve that self-sufficiency.
Instead, the main objective of the Russian government appears to be to find a way to return things back to where they were, and to sell off Russia's precious non-renewable resources as fast as possible. This is high treason.
And it is also a big factor kneecapping the war effort. Ukraine can be physically isolated basically in half an hour, and then finished off at Russia's leisure, but that means you need to wipe out Poland and Romania (and probably others too), and it also means Europe will be permanently separated from Russia by a lot more than American dictate. Which is a no-brainer once you understand what I outlined above -- Russia loses big time from that relationship, so this would not be a loss in any way. Except that it would be a loss for Russia's ruling oligarchy, who decide what happens, and they don't decide while defending Russia's interests, but their own narrow selfish ones...
"Russia ... unique in the world"
No, it isn't. The USA also has the material and intellectual capacity to be self-sufficient in pretty much everything.
Bollocks.
Only if it curtails consumption significantly.
350M people living current middle class existence in suburbia cannot be supported from that territory. And it isn't being supported from it -- the US uses 25% of the world's resources with 4% of the population. In reality it is even more -- that is the direct resource consumption, but does not account for what is embodied in the finished goods the US gets from China and the rest of the "Global South" basically for free, in exchange for meaningless IOUs.
Tear up suburbia, move people into apartment blocks, take away most of their cars, build up public transportation and a proper rail network, and you might be able to live within your means for another 50 years. But good luck with that.
The current arrangement? Absolutely no way.
Try to repair shoes in America by an American. Will cost you three times more than buying a new pair of shoes from Walmart.
Did you forget our brilliant CEOs sent all our best ideas overseas? So now the world’s manufacturing floors are no longer in the U.S.
Look at the problems Boeing is having. Is it just DEI workers? Or another form of societal rot?
Soooo much of what we consume cannot be made in America anymore… or if it is; will be at enormous cost.
If every purchase needed to be made in America from American production — you’d have catastrophic inflation…
If US gets sanctioned the way Russia is, it will collapse. It cannot exist without the outside world to prop it up, not unless significant standard of living adjustments are made.
Trump is a narcissist. The right people will now convince him that it can win Ukraine. But when he loses it, these same people will accuse him of incompetence and impeach him. Everything will be exactly the same as in Trump's first term.
Not going to happen. Trump was sand bagged by NeoCons in hisp first Administration won't happen a second ttime.
Dick Minnis removingthecataract.substack.com
🤣😂🤣
Copium 🤣
I’m afraid I agree. One CANNOT be enslaved to narcissism and be the leader of a country because one has to make unpopular decisions in order to lead.
Bad bet. Won’t happen.
It's really bad news if Trump decides to keep fueling the one sided conflict in Ukraine...Ukraine will become demographically dead...and there is no possibility of success..Is this Black Rock's idea?
Of course it is, who do you think all our tax money to Ukraine is helping? It sure isn't to spread "democracy". If Ukraine loses so does all the investment in it by Black Rock and other big corporations.
BlackRock, Bayer/Monsanto, DuPont and Cargill profit, no matter what. They have bought up over one third of Ukraine's prime farmland in the past decade. As Ukraine further crumbles into ruin, more farmland will become available at bargain prices.
I don't think so. That farmland will be under the control of the Russian Federation.
So a "small tactical" nuke would ruin their investments and could be a way to go for Russia if they keep pushing?
"Our tax money", what a quaint concept.
None of the various interested parties make as much money when the conflict ends with a loss to NATO and Ukraine.
Even a korea-style truce provides more graft opportunities for more decades.
ZOG would Ukraine to ethnically die. They could either flood the area with Israeli colonists. Or third world brown hordes
"heavenly jerusalem" (ukraine) project, the stated aims from 2017 in black and white from the horses mouth
https://allll-net.translate.goog/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%98%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BC_%28%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%29?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp#cite_note-1
The Ukraine is already demographically dead. The ratio young vs old is so skewed that it will create an unsustainable scenario in the near future. Regardless of the outcome of the fighting.
In fact, I believe the Ukrainians can only keep their identity if they become part of Russia again.
If they 'win' the fighting, they will lose either to the immigration wave, or the economic implosion (or quite likely a combination of the two). This will remove any traces of a Ukrainian people/culture for sure.
We’re entering that ‘speculation-rich’ period, still 29 days before the interregnum ends & DJT replaces Joe in the White House, coinciding with a couple holiday weeks for the U.S., which means that we will see daily FT articles and reporting in The Economist about what Lt. General Keith Kellogg will *say* when he gets to Kiev in early January and how Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of OTAN, will respond to *what* Gen. Kellogg says once Gen. Kellogg visits Kiev in early January—the comments Lady vdL will make, the exhortations Duda will share—and then what paid propagandists @ the nytimes and the WaPo will opine as a result of these utterances.
Which means no one knows much of anything.
In this typically quiet period before the new year, politically-speaking at least, the leading lights of Western orthodoxies in the MSM will keep the pot sufficiently stirred so that no one will be able to forget entirely about Project Ukraine.
What with all the speculations since DJT won the election in a thumpingly historic fashion, we’ve scarcely moved off the basics: Kiev will float maximalist negotiation tactics objectionable to Moscow; Kellogg will take this in and collect data; the EU will say blah-blah, to which Medvedev will tweet blah-blah, ATACMS will hit a primary school in Bryansk and long-range drones will crash into residential buildings in Tula. After that, Orban will weigh in—and then the cycle will restart.
There’s a lot of fat to chew but not much meat.
Media theatrics have kicked into overdrive, anticipating DJT’s team engaging Russia diplomatically. A prevalent fiction is that DJT plans to continue arming Ukraine. The Guardian especially began to salivate at the prospect. These flights of 'creative writing' fantasy occur in a policy void: propagandists & novelists claim to bd responding to leaks, but I think we all know their track record for going to MSU: making stuff up.
At some point Gen. Kellogg plans to sit down w/ Lavrov. The EU is scheming to place coalition peacekeepers in Ukraine *after a ceasefire* but not as a means of keeping the peace. These will be ‘tripwire troops’ stationed there to provoke Russia into an attack, to which the U.S. will have to respond in order to come to the aid of the hapless coalition peacekeepers, brutally attacked by Russia. Rutte has resorted to the tired, empty ruse of pretending that somehow Ukraine will improve its position even as Ukraine is losing more ground, literally and figuratively, every day.
If the rules-based-international-order *had* a flag, we would all stand and salute.
>At some point Gen. Kellogg plans to sit down w/ Lavrov
Is Kellogg going to tell Lavrov "We will cease all support for the Kiev Nazis and we will also dismantle the Aegis Ashore bases as well as remove all forward deployed nukes from Europe"?
What are the chances of that happening? Precisely zero.
Then what is the point of even having such a meeting? Because those are the absolute minimal conditions for Russian SMO success.
Given that there is precisely zero chances of anything coming out of that meeting, why waste time with it instead of getting on with the business of actually winning the war?
Which, in case nobody has noticed, has kind of stalled again.
August to October good things were happening -- towns in the tens of thousands pre-war population were falling every couple weeks, the rate of territorial advance was clearly accelerating.
But in the last month a half there is a clear slowdown. This despite the AFU supposedly collapsing and being on its last legs.
Russia is barely even attacking seriously -- there is some real action only on the South Donetsk front, there rest if not very active at all. One can't help but start getting uneasy July 2022 vibes. What does that tell us? Two possibilities?
1) Russia actually is starting to run out of resources. Material and/or manpower. More likely the latter. But potentially both. Yet the Kremlin firmly refuses to do a mobilization. Which might be because of:
2) The plan is to freeze the conflict, because in the Kremlin they are that stupid and/or such total comprador traitors that their prime objective is indeed yet another shitty deal and not victory. Despite the lessons regarding the wisdom of maintaining frozen conflicts that should have been learned from Ukraine itself over the last decade, what happened in Karabakh in 2022-2023, and most recently the Syrian fiasco.
I don't know which one is more catastrophic. They could all be true too, of course...
I'm betting the Russians are going easy to wait out the Biden administration. In the meantime, they are training more troops and making more weapons.
I should add that the West is running out of weapons the longer this takes, and the EU is going down the tubes.
If Trump takes away support for Ukraine, it's game over. If Trump keeps supporting Ukraine, Russia will take the gloves off and finish it.
'If Trump takes away support for Ukraine, it's game over. If Trump keeps supporting Ukraine, Russia will take the gloves off and finish it'
Do you guys even realize how brainwashed people are with this way of thinking - essentially the US is the grand Master controlling the outcome, where Russia is reacting. The fact that most people have excepted this shows how deranged this entire shit show of an SMO is. I firmly believe Putin needs to be replaced.
Exactly.
And Russia has been entirely in reactive mode since the beginning of this mess, decades ago. Still haven't learned their lesson apparently...
That's right. The West itself sculpts an idol from Putin. The situation is repeated with Gorbachev, who was completely unpopular in the USSR, but was wildly popular in the West. Roughly the same thing happens with Putin.
What about Putin? Are we talking about Putler, Hitler reincarnate?
>In the meantime, they are training more troops and making more weapons
1. In the meantime, their cities are being bombed constantly.
2. They don't need more weapons to cut off Ukraine from NATO and to fumigate Kiev from the Banderite cockroaches that have infested it exist already. They already have what they need for those purposes.
The weather is also a combatant.
Winter generally favors Russia.
which is why it is still advancing along all lines of contact.
The rate of advance has very noticeably slowed down.
The old "General Winter" comes to Russia's aid argument!
The temperature right now (midday Moscow time, 22 December) in Kiev is minus 1 °C, in Donetsk it is now plus 3 ° C, in Kharkov — plus 2 °C, in Kherson — plus 5 °C.
Not exactly "brass monkeys"!
Indeed, no, mud.
And no snow, no freezing to death in trenches at minus 40 °C, as happened to the Wehrmacht in December 1940 in the proximity of Moscow. And at Kursk, 1943, "General Winter" certainly did not help the USSR towards victory. It often gets quite warm in Kursk province in July.
I bet on point 2. There are really a lot of traitor compradors in Russia. The whole environment of Putin, the government, the media consists of them. The patriotic songs they sing today are just a disguise, a tactical move.
“ We will cease all support for the Kiev Nazis and we will also dismantle the Aegis Ashore bases as well as remove all forward deployed nukes from Europe.” Why would that not be in our true interest? Because Russia Russia Russia?
Russia can make better use of its airforce flattening Kherson defences than in Syria. I don't think the Kremlin expects anything good from Trump's team. They will have to take Odessa, because the US economy only builds weapons as its profit driver.
With tariffs on Chinese imports, and a death spiral on national debt, America could only grow by a MASSIVE swords-plowshares programme in the civilian field, which I suspect the corporates have prevented through various laws enacted over the past few decades to protect their various monopolies.
Therefore only war can spur America's 'growth' (A slower decline).
Trump is simply not the guy to reverse America's decline... tbf, there probably isn't such a person in existence. Perhaps Michael Hudson, as likely to reach Cabinet level as Scott Ritter.
The Anglo Empire designed itself to fall into 1984, to either win or balance; it simply is incapable of changing path.
Russia and China have to be adults, and pull the global South with them, to drain the Empire of resources, until it financially collapses.
At which point all bets are off.
Shame the UN never invaded the USA and took away its stockpiles of WMDs.
The U.S. would have to have an Otto von Bismarck/Michael Hudson caliber of leader mashed up into one in order to reverse the decline.
Additionally, it's tough to reverse the decline when you're in denial that it--decline--is even A] happening or is B] possible
"Michael Hudson caliber of leader"... in my many years of observation, deep analytical thinkers like Hudson rarely have the leadership skills to be able get others to implement their ideas or agendas.
What is always essential is for a decisive, motivational leader to take the ideas of the thinkers and run with them. The Kennedy/Sorensen duo was one such example.
Trump is not that leader, he will continue the status quo of sending military gear and intel to Ukraine, after sitting Zelensky on the bench and watching as Russia runs out the clock. As for Hudson, the banking cartel that runs the USA has no use for him.
"Trump is simply not the guy to reverse America's decline... "
Well said. Trump is an opportunist who has run his life through a series of improvisations, trusting to his quick wit to let him take advantage of unpredictable changes in markets and the taste of his clients. He does have a knack for understanding some long term phenomena, such as the eternal desire in most people to show off to others, to appear to be wealthy, hence the vulgar bling that characterizes what he sells, like those appallingly vulgar Trump sneakers or the barbarian-level lack of taste in the overly-gilded decor of Trump-brand properties. But he exploits his understanding of long term phenomena exclusively through short term actions.
Trump never was and never will be a deep thinker, as one of the characteristics of deep thought is to consider matters over very long time scales. While he has shown the patience to take on projects that can take a few years to accomplish, like some of his real estate plays in New York, he seems to have no patience for projects that take decades to bring to fruition. I suppose he would say that shows his pragmatic side, as in his world projects that take decades to accomplish are losers, that you need to make your money fast and you need to make your money young.
I don't think he is stupid and I don't think he is completely unwise. I just think his entire life experience has convinced him that if he cannot accomplish what has to be done with short term actions it is wiser to move on to something else. That's deeply unlucky for the US because only long term thinking can reverse America's decline.
Trump also shows no respect for long term commitments, especially those which arise from long term influences such as morals. He always seems ready to take advantage with a short term play, no matter how immoral that might be. A good example was his happiness to sell the Saudis $100 billion in weaponry to get that cash flow today, no matter that doing so supported genocide in Yemen or a regime that beheads Christians in public for the crime of converting from Islam. He is amoral to the point that he does not recognize America can never be great, again or for the first time, if it so totally abandons as great a part of America's cultural identity as respect for freedom of religion.
All that conspires, in my view, to make it more likely than not that Trump will continue the US's war against Russia, both in Ukraine and in other parts of the world, if for no other reason than that it is too complicated and too long term a project to wind down that war given the opposition of so many short term reasons for continuing it. He can't just walk away from Ukraine because he'd be hanged by his own party for "abandoning" Ukraine. The junta in Kiev knows that, so they'll play hardball with him. Their eager embracement of the Biden team policy of poisoning the well for Trump demonstrates they have no worries about burning their bridges with Trump.
The closer Trump's team gets to Inauguration Day, the more signals are leaking out of their organization that they realize they will be unable to push Russia into any surrender, and that the only thing they can think of doing is to continue the war. I think that is what will happen and that the war will become harsher with Trump, far from being the peacemaker, will end up escalating the war well beyond what Biden did, primarily by expanding the use of American arms and the direct involvement of American forces, for example, possibly bringing American warships into the Black Sea and provocative acts by American forces in the Baltic and on Russia's Pacific and Arctic coasts and on Russia's borders with Central Asia states. I wouldn't be surprised if he moved rapidly to cement US control over the former Syria's oil territories, including strikes even on Turkish positions and threats or strikes on the remnant Russian bases in Syria.
That's the real danger with Trump. When his short term improvisations don't work out, if he can't walk away, he gets violent. I'd say America deserves better, except that the price of even a quasi-democracy like the US is that the people get the government they deserve.
I suspect one of the first things he will do is sell out the Kurds in Syria - he already wanted to pull out in his first term; and now Israel and Turkey have destroyed Syria, along with Russia and Iran's interests there, he's unlikely to face much pushback.
The rest of your analysis of his personality I generally agree with.
He's STILL a better choice than the DNC/Harris warmongering psychopaths, but that line is getting slimmer the closer we come to the inauguration.
Once again, he'll be just another US President, unremarkable apart from "Mean tweets".
You’ve placed your bet based on your read of the table. A lot of guesses and mind reading here fills in the gap of actual knowledge, but then we all do that. What I see in Trump is a man who does in fact look through the lens of what is good for America. (Seems so quaint and old fashioned these days - I imagine many will find this hard to believe.) I doubt Trump will conclude that a world war to preserve the empire is helpful to that project.
Trump will do exactly what the murderous DC money minders tell him to do. Trump, a bit of an outsider to the MENSA class, will listen to those disgusting war mongers closest to him who will blow smoke up his ass. How can you MAGA unless you act the stern father and discipline the funky Euro-crowd and attempt to spank the Russians? President Polk rolled over the Mexicans on the way to stealing their acreage (May, 1846). I don't think the Russians plan on being Mexico now.
The Americans quietly removed nukes on the Russian border in Turkey to comply with the Russian demands to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Are the DC pirates so stunningly ignorant of that historical fact that they imagine the Russians will be any more willing today to allow those same western weapons on their border? FAFO. The colossal stupidity beggars belief.
For me...Trump will have a "successful" presidency if the nukes stay in their silos. That's it. I have no other hopes/expectations for the man.
War is the number one U$ export. It's just what we do! Mo' money...mo' money...mo' money...
But Russia is also following the military path of development and only war can increase the country's GDP. It's very similar to America.
I think both powers will collapse very quickly.
I'm not so sure of that. Russian wages generally increased ~9% this year, boosting civilian purchasing power. Consumer growth - albeit not so great for the environment - is a WAAAAY better way to grow your economy and GDP. Compare China to the US.
Military spending, unless accompanied with severe penalties for fraud, will inevitably become corrupt, due to the built-in secrecy of such spending.
With the examples of both China and the US in front of them, would the Kremlin make that mistake?
The great danger for Russia is that China is now such a civilian economic powerhouse, could they compete with no tariffs between them, or be swallowed up and ONLY military tech can sell and grow?
Only time will tell.
Complicated. The Russian National Bank is keeping interest rates high. Growth is therefore not by credit expansion but profit spending. As the Oligarchs can not spend the money in the West on yachts, football clubs, and a house in London, there is enough profit to be spent. All kinds of products had to be substituted because of sanctions, and the Russians did! Instead of buying Swiss cheese for $10, the consumer buys a Russian-made "Swiss" cheese for $8; your GDP is shrinking! But the economic fundamentals have dramatically changed. A situation last seen in the 19th century.
Before DJT even steps into the White House a complex & thorny set up is already taking shape. The notion that he can cajole or bully Russia into ending the conflict short of a total capitulation on the part of Ukraine in exchange for certain minor meaningless concessions, at least in Russia’s eyes, is bogus. The best thing would be for DJT to turn ownership of Project Ukraine over to Europe entirely and just wash his hands of it. This was Joe’s craziness after all. There’s no point in becoming invested in a war that has already been lost.
Europe has aggressively been a decision maker in the Ukraine War for 3 years. This debacle, uniquely theirs, has Joe & Europe’s fingerprints all over it. Because of this, Europe naturally has a moral obligation to do all it can to aid Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction, given its role in encouraging Ukraine to fight on to the last man rather than accept the relatively benign peace deal offered by Russia in Istanbul in March 2022. Especially now that Joe has shuffled off to Buffalo, Europe is the sole owner of this debacle.
In that DJT had no decision-making input @ any point during the past 3 years, there’s little ‘up’ side for his wading in energetically now. One almost has the feeling that he should offer modest assistance or support to European leaders—the ‘atta boy’ kind of slap on the back & encouragement—as they navigate their way out of this mess but he should not waste his time presiding over it. At no point could DJT have had any impact whatsoever on deescalating the conflict, shaping its trajectory, limiting the equipment sent or even in trying to ameliorate matters via negotiations. As diplomacy-averse as European leaders proved themselves for three years, they really fouled things up. They—the European leaders—are the ones responsible for this. They broke it. They own it.
Given that Russia is winning, VVP & his team have no incentive to *negotiate down* to an unfavorable peace.
In truth, VVP has already won. The only question is by how much. Having the West be the difficult & recalcitrant party, the pouty one stamping its foot, endlessly attempting to extend the conflict by refusing to meet Russia’s baseline demands—or even to open up dialogue—is only to Russia’s advantage. OTAN cannot end the war in Ukraine’s favor, so OTAN refuses to end the war. It’s not as if the U.S. owes the EU a damn thing. Recall Mrs. Nuland’s scatological remark about the EU if you want to calibrate the U.S.’s baseline regard for Europe. The U.S. is not part of the continent’s ancient quarrels. Meanwhile, the West has very little leverage from which to *start* negotiations, regardless of who sits in the White House.
My view is the EU is merely a collection of vassal states, colonies of our country. They make no meaningful decisions on their own. Germanys' silence when we blew up Nordstream proves this view has merit.
Installing a radical government in Ukraine, the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe, and militarizing this ethnically fragmented, recently constructed concept of a nation, was a long planned project.
With Ukraine and its' resources in the bag, the bigger prize of toppling the sovereign and nationalist Russian government to take control of their vast resources was the ultimate plan.
Our congress is simply a collection of whores we call politicians who serve the globalist corporations and oligarchs who purchase them.
It's likely that our intelligence agencies and military leadership really are so incompetent that they thought they could prevail in an economic and military war against Russia.
The desperation from facing the consequences of the US/NATO losing this war is causing insane acts of provocation.
As much as Russia does not need the headache of administering the western oblasts of Ukraine, I'm thinking they need to take all lands to the Dnepr River, Odessa, and incorporate them into the RF, while occupying Kiev. Smoke out the rats from Kiev for a decade or so.
Make sure what remains of Ukraine stays neutral, then consider allowing Kiev to rejoin them.
It is likely a lot of eastern Europe will beg to join Russia in that time, as the EU and the US are devolving into 3rd world countries. I don't think Trump can turn the tide in 4 years, if he is not assassinated before his term is up.
A possible model to my mind is the post-WWII disposition of German territory and then the slow, very slow, lengthy & incremental return to sovereignty.
But the problem is this: the West would have to agree that a dysfunctional terrorist Russia-hating state in Europe is not in their best interests.
Right now, they are so far from *seeing* this that they are only a fig-leaf's remove from the hate & the terror.
Good points. I just don't see our country and the EU in the driver's seat. Our permanent government is desperate to delay the collapse of the Kiev regime through January 20, 2025. Simply to blame Trump and reinforce the narrative that the disaster was due to a lack of financial and military support, not the reality that our combined militaries had their *ss kicked.
Russia cannot sign a peace deal until Ukraine elects a lawful president and parliament. By that time, they will have taken the entire country. Russia cannot accept a cease fire or "freeze", they have to drive stake in the heart of the beast now.
Europe is disintegrating in any event of its' own accord. It's a tough problem. The war criminals in Kiev must be tried and punished for what they have done to their own people.
I would argue that we also need to try and punish Biden, Blinkin, Nuland and the host of other war criminals for their illegal actions. They have destroyed our national security.
100%
There's a thralldom that either is or is not shattering. Mired in it, one cannot see. The RoW recognizes it. China definitely does.
From 35,000 feet you've got to say, "Man that's really shallow. Defeated Ukrainians can't pull back from Kursk or can't withdraw from enclosing cauldrons near Petrovsk until 20 January so that we can blame DJT for the failure."
From 35,000 feet you've got to say, "Refusing to interact w/ a nuclear superpower against whom you are fighting a hot proxy war is nonsensical."
The motives are whack. The rationale is tinged w/ a non compos mentis filter that has colored so much of our public/social/political life.
Someone w/ a grip must grasp this nettle
@Brian Simpson
Can we send John Bolton to Nuremberg in chains for trial? Perhaps Janet Yellen could be accommodated in a traditional part of Spandau prison for the rest of her life?
Just send the cunt to Yemen to have his bollocks sewn in his mouth
>Given that Russia is winning, VVP & his team have no incentive to *negotiate down* to an unfavorable peace. In truth, VVP has already won. The only question is by how much.
This is completely delusional.
1) Does Russia control most of Ukraine? No. Not even the most sensitive to its own security areas, which are Sumy, Chernigov and Kharkov. As demonstrated by the NATO invasion into Kursk. Worse, there appears to be absolutely no intention to carry out any military operations into those regions any time soon. Massive defeat for Russia as things stand currently
2) Has NATO been pushed back to 1997 borders as very publicly demanded in late 2021? No, it moved in closer. Another huge failure to achieve vital strategic objectives.
3) Has the US removed its forward deployed nukes from Europe, as again very publicly demanded in late 2021? No, it is deploying intermediate range nuclear carriers in Europe very soon, including hypersonic ones. Yet another catastrophic blow for Russian security.
4) Were Russian industry, military objects and civilians subjected to daily barrages of dozens and hundreds of drones before the SMO started? No. Are they now? Yes. Missiles too, and it will only get worse. The security of the country has been totally compromised.
5) Has a single round of ammunition been fired at NATO in return for all the ordinance that NATO has fired at Russia? No. What does that tell us about the relative standing of the two parties in this war?
So where is the win here exactly?
And how delusional does one have to be to say such things?
I’m such a delusionist, cuz France 66 thousand (!) firms broke and no government to be formed in months (?), Germany on its knees economically, the whole EU crumbling and crushing, NATO more than ever begging for gifts and leftovers from daddy Uncle Sam, and Trump….Iran a too big gold mine not to blind his eyes. Happy new year, tsching tsching.
Who cares?
Are NATO drones and missiles hitting Russian civilians, cities, industry and military sites? Yes.
Are Russian drones and missiles hitting NATO civilians, cities, industry and military sites? No. Not a single one.
Then NATO is crushing Russia in the war by definition with the same a lot to zero ratio of fire exchange that it enjoyed in Yugoslavia, Lybia and all the other places it bombed to ruins over the decades.
Another view is that Russia very cleverly built up their military industrial complex and armed forces while bleeding NATO and the Kiev regimes' military in the process.
Russia has had to keep a large portion of their growing military unengaged and deployed in Belarus and to the north to realistically counter the potential of NATO launching additional northern offensives.
With minimal casualties the RF has disarmed the entire west while annihilating the Ukraine proxy.
They enjoy compact interior supply lines and 100% support from the local population. They forced the Ukraine to extend their logistics and fight in areas the locals report troop movements and weapon system placements to target.
The Ukranian military is crumbling and likely will disintegrate entirely, opening the opportunity to rapidly move to the Dnepr, take Kharkov and Kiev without fighting.
I accept I could be wrong, but this view is plausible. We have been obsessed with ordering the Kiev regime in holding every village, as the Wermacht did 80 years ago, resulting in catastrophic losses of their best units.
Arrow offensives are costly and risky. Russian units are now well trained, commanded and seasoned with an industrial base that can keep them well supplied.
Time will tell, my money is that Russia is pulling off a historic victory against all the initial odds against them.
Sorry, but your assessment is completely delusional... Chip
Your point that this war isn’t over is correct, but the real delusion is that the west will win anything if it continues.
Pure speculation on my part, but what has [Trump's] US regime got to lose by casting the European lambs to the Russian wolf? Europe will still buy US energy and weapons, and more of them. Russia will not invade Western Europe and will be detached from Europe, making rapprochement difficult if not impossible. The USA can pivot to China, whilst continuing to cause trouble for Russia at the margins. Russia will remain sanctioned and thus BRICS under pressure. The USA has no vital interests in Ukraine, no matter what the neo-cons might think. The USA has already gained much from this conflict in reality, and Europe is the big loser. Russia is not yet a winner but looks like it might be. There would be a messaging problem here, and Mr T's myriad enemies would try to make hay. The USA does not have boots on the ground (ho ho) so there would be no Kabul like fiasco. Continuing to support Ukraine risks another endless war and even MAD, and would be hugely unpopular in the USA. All of which sounds logical. However if we get into a dick waving competition with the Russians all bets are off and all sorts of unpleasant scenarios can be imagined.
There's nothing to be gained by coming in, sausage swinging. The damage has already been done, and it is irreversible.
1]. The U.S. got Europe to self-delete.
2]. Russia humiliated OTAN, but in DJT's eyes OTAN is an unwieldy & expensive sacred cow he doesn't mind allowing Russia to gore.
Recall, too, that Russia gored the sacred cow OTAN during Joe's term, what I like to call Collective Biden.
DJT's hands are clean.
No vital interest? Not Ukraine’s lithium?
@Bernard Cleyet
Lithium isn't a rare element.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thacker_Pass_lithium_mine#:~:text=The%20Thacker%20Pass%20lithium%20mine,of%20Thacker%20Pass%20since%202007.
Well said. But I disagree with the implications of this: "Europe naturally has a moral obligation"
The last thing Europe cares about or has ever cared about is moral obligations. They have based their foul union in Belgium, which has perhaps the most evil record of colonialism in Africa, which is saying something given the brutal records of colonialism for the European "great" powers.
Bravo
Additionally, as we learn so much more now about the depth & breadth of Joe's cognitive decline, and the hideous dysfunction involved in *concealing* what everybody, including the Euro leaders, knew was happening you almost have to believe that the non compos mentis factor has so pervaded this event that it worked a Gain of Function effect on the war, ginning the entire catastrophe up more kinetically than might, under competent circumstances, have happened.
Zakharova, for instance, has really been a North Star.
In contrast, the collective West and Collective Biden went so far over the top on Project Ukraine that they could see the aurora borealis. Seeing the aurora borealis at the expense of a nuclear superpower is not something one wants to do. But they did.
Agree with your comments in general. IMO Bidens' cognitive decline was always very obvious, but irrelevant. Our permanent government has been impervious to oversight by Congress, the office of President or the courts since Reagan.
We've had a series of neutered presidents starting with Bush Sr. who are only figureheads. Administrations come and go, but foreign policy is permanent.
Trumps' 1st term illustrated that he was simply ignored and then impeached over meddling in the foul, putrid and corrupt swamp we call our military/state department/intelligence agency complex. The IC calls all the shots. If a President attempts to reign them in they are ignored or will be assassinated.
I think this time it's going to be a little different. The people are pretty much fed up with the deep state and the unelected bureaucrats and we are letting them know it. This time Trump has the electoral vote, the popular vote, the House and the Senate, is winning in the courts, and is staffing with people that will do as he asks regardless of their past positions, or they will be gone in a hurry. Even the MSM is starting to come around as they realize they are losing viewership and the sponsors who pay the bills.
You are all pinning so much hope on this old man.
Trump has the attention span of a gnat - and he is going senile per his ramblings on his campaign.
Trump will do what your Deep State wants because he will be tied up by his own party. Your presidents are to appease the populace. Nothing changes in US foreign policy - no matter red or blue. Also all the oligarchs in the US will be emboldened by Musk. Your govt by billionaires is on the way.
The only way change will come in the US is if you are bombed into submission, and you have to start afresh.
Bush Sr. WAS the IC. He was no figurehead. He ran circles around Reagan. The IC cemented their power over the government after 1963. It is likely that Bush Sr. was at least read in on that operation. He was CIA back then. And how convenient his son presided over the vast expansion of state power that was 911. Every president since JFK has been contained by the IC. The extreme reaction to an elected outsider tells the story.
"They have based their foul union in Belgium, which has perhaps the most evil record of colonialism in Africa..."
A thorough, yet depressing account of this barbarity/crime is here (link)
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/king-leopolds-ghost_adam-hochschild/253217/item/5487257/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=high_vol_frontlist_standard_shopping_customer_acquisition&utm_adgroup=&utm_term=&utm_content=689361939032&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAjp-7BhBZEiwAmh9rBTvkSlL7IQYsatV7tHFgSHgVWwTNNBQvZz03fL-9xXXw4sxUBzmL1xoC3H4QAvD_BwE#idiq=5487257&edition=2239036
"Europe naturally has a moral obligation to do all it can to aid Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction..."
Except there won't be anything left to reconstruct. Russia cannot allow Ukraine to exist or they will be facing terrorist attacks on the homeland forever like those we are seeing now... Chip
I agree. Russia will not lose because it cannot lose.
"The U.S. is not part of the continent’s ancient quarrels."
If you read Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, You see that Europeans have NOT learned anything over the centuries. The generational drumbeat of cruelty and stupidity boggles the mind.The thin patina of "civilization" is just cosplay. They are barbarians at heart.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/180834/a-distant-mirror-by-barbara-w-tuchman/
It's worth a mention, as follow-up on the Oreshnik strikes, that in fact all damage appears to be old and commercial sources are editing purchased pictures.
Both MAXAR and Airbus are pixel-editing the satellite images. Word is that images snapped from Chinese satellites might be more reliable, but the cost of procuring them is steep.
Although *we* can't readily know the degree of damage, Russia's MoD does.
Yes, so we're back to square 1 in externally evaluating effects. Putin seems quite pleased, however, which is atypical even beyond the pull of politics. He seems to think something special has been achieved, so it probably has.
There is no way Western media is going to accurately portray that damage, let alone how game changing that new Oreshnik is. That would be too embarrassing and make more people against being involved in project Ukraine.
The main stream media watchers that I know have heard nothing about it.
Meanwhile, unidentified flying submarines are terrorizing Jersey residents, and that's enough to get everyone's knickers in a twist.
On account of that, there's not enough mental real estate for fathoming the Oreshnik.
Flying submarines are described in the book "A Dweller Two Planets" published in1899. You never know!
In addition to the F-18 calamity over Yemen which S mentions [above] Ansar Allah fired a missile on Tel Aviv, which Israel's Iron Dome failed to intercept, "causing minor damage," as reported by the nytimes.
The info-spaces staffed by paid propagandists are swiftly swept--just as the MAXAR and Airbus satellite imagery gets doctored
Unit cost of a basic FA/18 hornet is $50 million, the more updated models run to 80 million, FYI.
The Swiss payed some $125million/pcs F18.
When Trump gets in and starts negations, he will speak to Putin. Even if he is gullible to the neocon's propaganda, Putin will set him straight.
I don't think Trump wants to be responsible for WW3. He will know Putin isn't bluffing, and he surely doesn't think much of Zelensky.
We can hope... Chip
Zakharova addressed the ramped up terrorism in Kazan and in Bryansk: “Kyiv is taking out its impotent anger for tangible military defeats on the civilian population of Russia. The strike on the capital of Tatarstan is also a kind of revenge for the successful BRICS summit held in October this year.”
Consider the outcry over the tragic terrorism in Magdeburg, a normal response to horror rained down upon holiday revelers
Zakharova: “We are outraged by the demonstrative hypocritical silence of the “collective West” and its mass media, which immediately react to any attack by extremists, and especially terrorist attacks in different parts of the world, but in the case They are pretending that nothing is happening with Russia.”
In essence, the war in Ukraine has never exactly been a recognizably conventional war, as meted out from the OTAN/Ukrainian side, so much as it has been a series of extended acts of terrorism since 2014
The biggest problem with terrorism is fear and as a consequence anger. But if you look at it clinically, the number of casualties is limited (not saying that it is not terrible for the victims, cause it is) and statistically the chances are small that any of us becomes a victim of terrorism.
If you would compare for instance the victims of terrorism with the people dying in traffic (around 4 million worldwide in the last 3 years), the upset in society is not justified in my opinion as the emotions fear and anger stop logical and rational thinking, resulting in short term actions, making more victims at the end (for instance 3000 killed in 9/11 and as a consequence 4.5 million killed elsewhere likely because 300 million people supported a small group of people that hat malicious intent anyways)
You give voice to an important perspective: emphasizing the proportionality. Well-said.
Emotions swirl, warping interpretations.
Thank you ! I made a Tweet for it.
I have been expecting this move to cross the Dnieper, but i expect the real attack in the Kherson area and across the empty reservoir will be in the combined attack on Zaporizhia from West and East, to establish a strong bridgehead. It is also meant to protect the ZNPP against attacks by the NAZI/Tommy alliance...
Sander
As the Russian forces advance, it is only to be expected that more bodies of all combatants will end up on Russian side of combat line. Therefore in a body exchange, it stands to reason that the advancing force will have more bodies of the enemy on its side.
If the numbers are true, then the Russians master the Art of War. For most of the time in WWI the Italians were the attackers, but the Austrians had way more enemy bodies than the Italians. Even thought the Italians made small, but steady progress, but they attacked the same spot for x-times to soften the position up, to finally gain ground.
Well, well Simplicius…!
Thx for finally casting doubts on what Trumps true peace plan is. More War. As one can expect from a hybris-infected bully.
I have said it will be WORSE after his inauguration so Russia should speed up. Now it is too late. What happens next will be more killings and a longer War and of course, more nasty surprises.
The Cherson offensive looks like suicide. Crossing Dniepr in this ISR-infested battlearea spells doom for Russian troops. 1000 artillery shells in 40 minutes is nothing compared to Verdun or similar offensives in WW2.
Keep up the good work of yours and lets hope 2025 brings Victory to Russia.
I agree with your point on a suicide mission. 2,000 men - really??? there has to be more to this than that. And 1,000 shells - the British army fired over a million rounds over a 24 hour period in August 1918. But I do hope Trump's sabre rattling is just bluster.
Victory and loss, loss and victory, victory and ….an ongoing war and no end, no happy end. Peace? Perhaps in the afterlife, but there are also many afterlives.